Finding Mastery with Dr. Michael Gervais - Andy Petranek, Whole Life Challenge Co-Founder

Episode Date: March 27, 2019

This week’s conversation is with Andy Petranek, the co-founder of the Whole Life Challenge.Andy is also a Marine Gulf War veteran and was the oldest participant, at 43, to qualify for the 2009 CrossFit Games.He’s participated in dozens of adventure races that have varied in length from three hours to seven days, and became known for his ability to navigate in the wilderness, carry heavy loads, get through obstacles quickly, and persevere in even the worst conditions.He created the Whole Life Challenge to help people manage real-life challenges; commitments to work and family, time constraints, sleep issues, and stress.The Challenge is a gamified and community-based initiative to help people stay committed to make better choices each day, outside of the gym, where it really matters.It grew from 150 players in 2011 to over 22,000 worldwide in 2017.Now a small, successful start-up company, it has been responsible for changing the fitness, health, confidence, and lives of hundreds of thousands of people around the world.Andy loves to work on developing and improving himself — physically, mentally, emotionally, and spiritually. I think you’ll find it interesting to learn exactly why that drives him._________________Subscribe to our Youtube Channel for more powerful conversations at the intersection of high performance, leadership, and meaning: https://www.youtube.com/c/FindingMasteryGet exclusive discounts and support our amazing sponsors! Go to: https://findingmastery.com/sponsors/Subscribe to the Finding Mastery newsletter for weekly high performance insights: https://www.findingmastery.com/newsletter Download Dr. Mike's Morning Mindset Routine! https://www.findingmastery.com/morningmindsetFollow us on Instagram, LinkedIn, and X.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

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protein, P-R-O-T-E-I-N.com slash finding mastery. Now, this week's conversation is with Andy Petrenik. He's the co-founder of the Whole Life Challenge. And Andy is also a Marine Gulf War veteran, as well as the oldest participant at age 43 to qualify for the 2009 CrossFit Games. Pretty cool. He's fit. He understands what it takes to put himself

in uncomfortable situations and how to thrive. He understands the mechanisms to train for those uncomfortable situations as well. So he's participated in dozens of adventure races where they varied in length anywhere from three hours to seven days. And he became known for his ability to navigate in the wilderness, carrying heavy loads and getting through obstacles quickly with those heavy loads. And he's able to persevere in some of the worst conditions. We talk about it in the podcast here. And from that, he built a community-based initiative called the Whole Life Challenge to help people with real life challenges to better understand how to create habits that

support those work and family issues that arise for all of us, the time constraints that we deal with, the sleep issues and the stresses that we have in our life. And so Andy has tested himself. He understands what it takes to be tested. He understands how to train for that, whether that be physically, mentally, emotionally charged environments. And in the conversation, he shares those methodologies. But I think you'll find it incredibly interesting to learn why that is for him, exactly why he does it. And to understand what drives you is one of the key takeaways for this conversation. What is it

that's driving you? What are you searching for? What is it that you ache for and crave for in your life? And then to organize your internal world and your external life to line that up. So with that, let's jump right into this conversation with Andy. Andy, how are you? I'm great. I'm great. Thank you for being here. I love, I mean, where you work, just being right here where I can see the freaking ocean. And I mean, I live three miles from the ocean, but I never see the ocean. So this is fantastic.

Anytime you want to have me down, I'm happy to come and work on your balcony. I do feel lucky. Definitely. Yeah. Okay. So tell me, bring up the speed. What's been happening since we last spoke,. I do feel lucky. Definitely. Yeah. Okay. So tell me, bring up to speed. What's been happening since we last spoke, which I don't know, it's been a little bit of time since we last saw each other, but to bring me up to speed, what's been happening in your life and what's been kind of current, exciting. Yeah, that's a, what's been the can of

worms. Yeah. It's a can of worms. Well, you know, the whole life challenge is really my, is really my full focus for my business. But one of the things I've realized, God, I'm going to get personal quickly. It doesn't happen. I'm going to forget there's a microphone here and just pretend like it's just you and me um i've realized that i have built you know in my pursuit of success with the challenge and like i started off as kind of the hustler you know and like the busy beaver who's building building building building and then i moved into entrepreneur growing growing growing growing and then i moved moved into CEO where I'm building the team and, and making it function. And about six months ago, we moved our chief marketing officer into the role

of CEO, which makes, makes a lot of sense. Um, it, it separates, um, Michael and I, my business partner were co-CEOs and there's a lot of things I don't like about that. You know, there's a lot of stagnation and who's in charge and who's making the decision. And even when I know I can make the decision, I'm hedging myself because I'm like, well, is he going to buy that? Is he not going to buy that? Like creativity drops for me. And so we moved him into the role of CEO. And what I've realized recently is I've kind of turned into this. I'm kind of watching I'm kicked back. I got my feet up. I'm, I'm, I'm not really literally doing that, but when I think about what I'm, what I'm producing in the world around this, in this small company, we don't have enough people or enough resources for anyone really

to be kicked back and watching. I'm kicked back and watching. As the founder, as the CEO. Yeah. And how long has Whole Life Challenge been a business? Well, we started in 2012 with the first global. We did it in my gym. I wouldn't really count that as the start because we didn't even know it was a thing when we did the first one. That was in 2011.

And then we did the first global Whole Life challenge in the fall of 2012. So, um, uh, yeah, so yeah. And we, and we made some, you know, very specific business decisions around that. That's that it's event. It's an event based business, uh, which are now, uh, I mean, they've always, it's always been challenging because the conversation is always about when does the next challenge start? Not, are you living according to the seven daily habits. And that creates some marketing challenges. Okay. I want to get into all that, but I want to go first. What was the part that you were saying, oh gosh, I'm going to get personal because I missed it. Well, the personal part about me, like there's a real sense of kind of guilt and shame around I'm watching my business go by and I'm not actually contributing to the – as the builder, as a hustler, as a – I've lost connection with this guy who is the doer.

I mean my whole life I've been the doer. I would never, I would get these fancy cameras thinking that I would go kayaking or I'd go adventure racing or I'd go mountain biking and I'd take these amazing pictures and I'd come home and I'd have like three pictures on my camera roll because I'm doing, I don't want to sit on the sideline and watch. And what I've, what I've, this realization is that I'm kind of sitting on the sideline and watching and not responsible for doing and not setting myself up to be responsible for doing. Okay. So what I'm hearing is that you're in a transition flexion point and it's a totally different role, which is creating a mini crisis, right? Not a full-blown crisis, but a little mini crisis.

Like what, what am I doing? Cause I'm accessing or need to access a new part of me. Yeah. Right. It's not a new part. It's an old part. You know, it's the, the, the hustler in a new role in a new way. Yeah. What does that mean? Well, that guy has always been,'ve always been you know if you've ever read the e-myth revisited it's um it's i think the first story is about the woman who um started uh what's the cookie company that she started anyway she's the she she had a hard time scaling her business because she was the one that was in the kitchen making the cookies miss fields oh it's mr fields yeah yeah where'd that come from that was a long time ago i read the book yeah totally yeah um but i mean how many other late women do you know that have started a cookie company that are global pretty much it pill

the very dough boy no that's not no that's not so you're the active doer you know you're the you're you've been the hustler and and i want to set some context context for this conversation as well, is that I want to learn where you came from and how you've done what you've done. But my understanding of you is that you've really hustled. You've worked just like we're talking about. And you've done really well for your life. You know, and when I say really well, I mean, like, you've had extraordinary experiences. You've got a great little business that's rolling, changing a lot of lives. And I find you really well. I mean, like you've had extraordinary experiences. You've got a great little business that's rolling, changing a lot of lives. And I find you really relatable. And the reason I find you relatable is because it feels like you had a base similar to mine and you've done really

good things with it. So like, how did that happen? And I think there's a lot of people that will relate to just that same idea is like, okay, I've got a good little base in my life. How do I do better? Yeah. Okay. So let's go back. Let's go back to like, what were the formative experiences in your life to help shape who you are today? Yeah, there are two that come to mind. And by the way, if anybody is listening out there and think that these were easy for me to get to, it's taken me about 20 years of consistent focus and training and coaching and conversation to get to, like, I can actually tell you there are two things. Like this is, I was the guy that was constantly frustrated,

like, what are these things? What are the things that were formative in my life? I couldn't figure it out. The two things that come to mind, my dad was a very successful musician. He was a classical violist and conductor. And he was the superintendent of music in Montgomery County in Maryland. And he'd started two orchestras and was just kind of the man. And I grew up wearing tuxes before I ever put on a pair of running shoes. I was going to concerts. I was going to music camps. I was, my mom was also a musician, full-time violinist. She became a conductor. She wasn't trained, but she became one because as I found out later, my dad was a raging alcoholic and she would enable him by filling in the gaps when he wasn't able to function. And I don't have a lot of memories of my dad. Uh, I mean, the memories I

have of my dad were, he wasn't available. He wasn't around. He was, he'd be locked in his studio in the house, teaching lessons to his students. He would invite friends over and they'd play string quartets in our living room. Um, he wasn't available for me, even when he was around, like in our, our, uh, you know, in mornings, you know, he'd be doing crossword puzzles. He would be doing, you know, I was going to say Sudoku, but there wasn't really Sudoku back then, but he was, he would always be doing something, engaging his brain, engaging his mind, distracted from anything related to me. And I, I think what, what happened and this is, I've gone back and kind of piece this together is I, I always wanted to, I always felt like I had to be good enough to get his attention, be better to get his attention. I mean, I used to, and this, this is a crazy

thing. You know, we'd go places and you, you know, you, you throw a, Hey mom, can I have a penny to throw in the fountain for, and make a wish or wherever, whatever. I would always wish to be better. I wish I was better. I wish I could do better in school. I wish I got better grades. I wish I was smarter. I wish I was. And I mean, that was a, it was, it happened all the time. I never told anybody because it was a secret wish, you know? And you've built a business on the back of that, helping people be better because it's something you, you studied for 40 years, right. You know, and at one level that is exactly what people call about being, you know, open to learning, being progressive in growth.

Like, you know, like, oh, great. That's, that's like in many respects, a Holy grail, but what you're describing is your thinking pattern. What was the emotional pattern around that with your dad or your family? My pattern, my emotional. Yeah. So the thinking pattern was, I'm not sure that I matter. Dad's unavailable. He's busy with his career. I don't know where I quite fit in. Like kids are trying to figure out where they fit in the world. Right. I don't know where I fit in. And, and then, okay, well, I just want to be better because if I'm better, how do you finish that statement? If I'm better, I'll get the attention that I deserve. I'll get my, my dad will notice me.

I'll be visible. Right. And then what's the emotional component that you did work through or that you felt and that you're still maybe even working through, but what was the emotional piece? Well, I don't know that then there was an emotional piece because it, you know, I always look back at my life and gone, I kind of had a great life. Like there was nothing wrong. There was all these people have all these traumas in their life and childhood. And I got

none of those stories. My life was great. I was supported by my family. I had enough money. I had, and we had, you know, we were middle-class we had, I had everything. I had everything I needed. I mean, it wasn't like I, we had, you know, everything literally, But, um, I think there was a tremendous amount of sadness, tremendous amount of like, you know, tremendous amount of sadness, a tremendous amount of kind of lost, like who, you know, and this is piecing it back again, like what is it to be a man? You know, like I was raised by women. It by women. I had a sister and I had a mom and I had an aunt and I had a grandfather too, but, and he was, he was very influential in my life, but I don't know that I ever related to him as having the answer. I wanted it from my dad.

I think. Is your dad still alive? No, he passed away about 10 years ago. What was the difference for you when he died and the time that you've spent working on yourself from that point? Well, I'll start with the story of the eulogy that I wrote. So me and my sister were his second family. My mom was his second wife and he had three kids with a previous marriage, which back in those days, this is back in the 60s when my mom and dad got together, that was not a normal thing. And I went to write a eulogy and there were five kids. We never really hung out with the other kids. They were all like – they felt like my uncles and aunt. Like they were all 20 years older than us. And yet they're my half-brother and half-brothers and sister. And I had written this nice thing, you know, honoring my dad. And he was a musician and all these things.

And, I mean, it was this cliché thing. The night before, I'm like, I can't read this. Like, I got to tell the truth. And it was a two-page, like, literally, I honored him, but I also told the truth. When you're recanting or reliving this right now, what's happening for you? I'm getting, I'm getting emotional. Yeah. Where do you feel it? Kind of in my stomach.

Yeah. And if you feel this is sadness, I think, right? Yeah. Yeah. And if you feel sadness in your stomach, what, what would that insight mean to you? That that's where you carry sadness. If you look at your life in general and say, yeah, okay, that's where I've kept it. That's where it's manifested in me or whatever fancy word there is. What insight would you gather from there? I don't know. Whenever I say, I don't know too fast, I try to stop myself because that's bullshit yeah right

it's like i don't know what to say is what that means it doesn't mean you don't know it's like i don't know what to say right now yeah okay cool let's keep going let's keep going back to because i'm i'm at the edge of my seat thinking like oh is he going to tell the truth to his family yeah about not not feeling like he mattered, you know? So where did you go on the eulogy? And I'm also thinking like, good for you, dude. I don't know that I knew that then. I know that I didn't know that then. So I didn't say that directly. Okay. Um, but I, I told the truth about what it was like to grow up with a dad who was not there. I told the truth about, you know, everybody else in the world knows him as this guy.

And I know him differently. And I know him as, Hey, he's a great man, but where were you? Holy moly. Yeah. How did that go over? It caused a sudden relatedness to my half brothers and sister. Because they said. They're like, you're the same as us.

Fuck. I thought about that a long time. Yeah. Yeah. and what you're feeling now, you're flooded with emotion that I am connected. I'm just, I, those guys felt the same thing I felt and we have that special bond.

Yeah. I'm not alone. And it, and I didn't even know that that mattered. I didn't write it knowing any of that. I just was like, I got to tell the truth. I can't just go up there and spread bullshit. And there was suddenly this connection. Finding Mastery is brought to you by Momentous. And there was suddenly this connection. Body matters. And that's why I trust Momentus. From the moment I sat down with Jeff Byers, their co-founder and CEO, I could tell this was not your average supplement company.

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I just got to say that I'm watching you right now. How old are you? 51. 52. I just turned 52. That's a 52-year-old man talking about honesty, having the courage to use the words to articulate what you actually felt 10 years ago. The man that you had hoped would one day see you was not able to. The pit that you felt from that and the courage to share that type of sentiment,

then out of that honesty and courage, you actually become bound or connected to your family. And now I'm watching you do the same exact thing, choosing your words, being completely animated with the spirit of the grief that you had and the stuff that you're still working out. So your world, or not world, your life is marked by courage. You're doing it now. I never looked at it like that. Yeah, so we don't ever get to feel courage unless we have the stuff to be vulnerable, to be open, right. To be open, right. To share.

So you could have changed the storyline 15 times in this, but you didn't want to. No. So what is it about honesty? That's important to you and authenticity. Where's that come from? Because people say those words all the time. Yeah. You know, like authenticity, this, that, and it's almost like a word that we throw up on the wall sometimes, but where does it come from for you that you've got the stuff to live it? I remember my mom telling me that, uh, you're always better off telling the truth. Like we have a, we have an honest relationship. And, and I remember whenever I asked the question, why she would always answer it. And she remarried a man when I was in high school who was not used to that. And, uh, he, the, the, the more number of times in a row I asked why

the angrier he'd get until he'd finally say, because I said so. And that was the end. That was disaster. And my mom ended up divorcing him. Um, and then she's been single. She's been alone since, but, um, I think I learned that. I think I learned that originally from her. And mom did two things. Then she modeled the coverup, right? So, so mom was codependent at some point. Oh yeah. Yeah. And then, but at a deeper level, she did not want to pass that onto you. Right. Right. So she passed on what she was searching for, which was an honest, authentic, no BS approach to life. Yeah. Okay. but she did the cover-up thing that's a classic codependent yeah way are you codependent i would say so yeah you're more you're more of a codependent than an addict well i've i think you might be an addict dude okay i can't have both i

can't do that come on give me everything i want it all you're the hard-working cover-up guy yeah i mean i remember one of the first self-help books i ever laid my hands on was codependent Come on, give me everything. I want it all. You want to be the hardworking cover-up guy. Yeah. I mean, I remember one of the first self-help books I ever laid my hands on was Codependent No More. Yeah. And I just related to that like, oh my God, what? What did you think about codependent people when you read it? Well, first of all, I thought this is bullshit. Like, what the fuck am I reading this for?

I'm not fucked up and it's not me. Yeah. I'm the nice guy. Yeah, right. So codependence, like it's this beautiful veil of Christian value. Right. You know, and then the good guy here, I'm the savior. That's right. And you know, underneath the surface though, there's a lot of angst and angst and anger, you know, and that's where it gets really contorted in relationships. So I, I, I understand that as well. So why did you read a book on cod before I tell you the thing. It was in like the early nineties, right after I got out of the Marine Corps, I was, I got a job with a

specialty chemical company, like an engineering company. It's cool that you just slipped that I served the military. Okay. Hold on. You're not going too far past that. Like, tell me about, how did you get there before we get to the thing? In the Marines? Yeah. I mean, it's a direct connection to what we've been talking about is I was looking for who are you as a man? And the Marines were like, wow, this is it. This is the answer. For you, you're like, I fit here. Yeah. Because they value pride and esprit de corps. I mean, the esprit de corps part of it almost for me was the overriding why and and and you had a motor to work hard right where'd that come from

i don't know like the physical motor or the mental motor well yeah you have both and we'll get into that part of the story but so some people don't feel seen and they drink or they drug or they at the clown or they whatever, whatever. Like there's a lot, there's like six classic strategies. Right. And you chose high achievement as your strategy. Yep. And so.

I think it goes back to that wish that I always had. Be better. But from that, from that want, from that emptiness, people, people use lots of different ways to get attention, bad grades, great grades, right? Right. The Joker, the, the devil, the angel, whatever. There's lots of things that people do. There's actually the six that I mentioned, the Joker and all that you chose high achievement. Right. And then do you know why that was the, the thing that you chose? It probably feels so organic that you didn't even know you had a choice.

You know, my, my aunt was also pretty influential in my life because my mom leaned on my aunt to help her. She'd go drop us off at my aunt's house. She, and my aunt was single. She didn't have a, no kids. Your mom's sister. My mom's sister. Yeah. And, uh, what was my grandma on that side?

Grandma and grandpa. She passed away when i was like four she had breast cancer and she passed away so was your dad and your mom deeply in love not that i ever saw i saw in pictures before we were born they looked like they were they're still alive my mom's still alive. My mom's still alive. Yeah. What is she searching for? I don't know. My mom. What is my mom searching for? I think it's probably a similar thing to me. And your dad, what do you think he was searching for?

Oh shit. Here it comes. I mean, his actions would indicate he was searching for fame and for fortune. And, but I think that was to fill a hole. Oh boy. Here it comes. You know, um, probably the same thing as me also. There it is. What are we all searching for the same goddamn thing?

Holy shit. None of us are alone. Oh God. I really thought about that either. Jesus. Yeah, man. Yeah. I mean, it makes sense.

We have strategies that we're trying to start. Like my wife has this beautiful insight that she shares with me all the time, which is it first, she first said it about our son, 10 years old, said it when he was two, like, he's just trying to figure it out. You know, like we're all just trying to figure it out. Right. A basic human need is the need to belong, to be connected to basic kind of wiring that we have. And it gets really tricky because we forget in many respects that other people are actually sorting for that same thing. They're straining and striving, aching for that same thing. And we have different strategies that we employ to be seen, to be connected, to be felt. Some people go over and above trying to help others. And that's their strategy. Some people strain for high achievement. Look at me. And, you know, all of them can find, come up hollow until you get to that place, which is like, wait a minute, my job is to be me, to find me and be me, and then be as open as I possibly can around people that I trust that are trustworthy so that they can see me too. Right. And so are you in an intimate relationship? Yeah. Yeah. I've been married for 15 years, 16 years. Um, yeah, we have a son, 11 years old. And how would you characterize like that?

What you guys are trying to sort out together? It's funny as you were saying those things, I, I can see us in that conversation. We just had a, um, well, one of the things that I've so many, which, which, which route, which path do I take? Yes. Um, my wife and I are very similar in that we're very aggressive. We're very type a, we're very driven. We're very success oriented. Like we don't have one of those relationships where one person takes the backseat to the other one and they support each other that way.

We support each other through, I did this. Well, yeah, well, I did this. Well, really? Well, I did this. And I, you know, so there's tension in our relationship. Um, and I think we're, you know, now we're sitting here talking about it. I think we're both trying to figure that out. You know, like this morning, my son, my son never gets sick. I mean, he's just one of those kids. He doesn't get, if he gets sick, he's going to get diarrhea. He doesn't throw up. But this morning he woke up, we had, it was my birthday yesterday. And so we went out for birthday dinner and my wife's like, he ate too much food and ate too much sugar and ate too much. And he woke up at four in the morning and was wanting to throw up. So my wife was down with him and I usually get up at five and I went downstairs and he had, he was just starting to like, let it out. And she'd been up with him for 45 minutes. And I walked in the bathroom and I put my hand on his back and she's like, I got it. Like, what are you doing?

Like you're, you're disrupt. I've been doing this for 45 minutes and now you, you're going to be here and take the, take the credit, I guess, or something. You know, she didn't say that. She didn't say that. Too, she's like, get, get out of here. Go do your, like, I go for a walk. I go do a workout. So I did. And I was pissed. I was like, I can't put my, I can't put my hand on the back of my son, you know? Like the stories we say to ourselves about things and like, I don't know if you're laughing about it now with me, but you didn't laugh about it with your wife yet, but the stories that we say to ourselves can be really

confusing, you know? And I don't know. I just really think that we're all, we are all just trying to figure it out. Right. You know, the handbook is not clear. No, it's not. I mean, thank God. And also fuck you, God. Where is the handbook? It's in a riddle. Get good at riddles. It's a koan. Yeah. Oh, goodness.

Okay. So five o'clock, that's a normal kind of get up time for you? Yeah, 445, five o'clock. How come? I like to have an hour or two of quiet before anything else is going on in the world. And before my phone gets going or before I get distracted and I do, where you hit your body, your being, which is kind of meditation and your spiritual and journaling. And then your body and then your balance, like something you're doing for your wife and your kid and your posterity, and then your business and something you learn and something you declare. And when I first started doing that sequence, it, it was very, it was very balanced. A lot of the morning routines that I had done

prior to that were very, you know, spirit, all inner, inner world based. I would do some sort of workout I'd mobilize, but it was all focused on me. And this was the first one that really expanded that out into these other areas of my life that were really important. I would finish my morning routine and feel like there was still an absence of me from these other really important areas of my life, from my wife, from my son, from, you know, from my business. This is a great segue to go into your business, you know, whole life challenge.

Yeah. And, but I want to, I want to just hit one thread. Cause I know, you know, the value of sleep. So what time do you go to sleep? Like if you're up at four, nine, nine, nine 30, like it's, it's actually a rub with me and my wife. My wife reminds me all the time. She's like, well, the reason when we're never intimate in bed together, like we have to

actually schedule it because you're sleeping, I'm sleeping and she's up, she stays up to like 11 or 1130. Yeah. And then she gets up at like seven. How does scheduling work? Hey, Tuesday at two? Well, if I'm really honest. It doesn't.

It doesn't. Oh God. You gotta get better. We're working on it. We're working on it. No, it's, um, you know, I think given. You guys are both like, I don't know your wife, but you guys sound like you're two bulls. We are.

Like really strong minded. We are. Like I'm going to design with you, but I'm going to design my best way of living. And I know you're going to do the same. I want you to do the same. And there's obviously there's compromises, but you guys sound like you're both really strong willed humans. We are.

Yeah, we are. I think that the traditional model is easier, but not as in the traditional model is like one works, one supports, you know, you know, easier in some respects, but there's costs there too. Right. You know? And so you've got, you've got a more unique and challenging model, but there's costs there too. Yeah. And so what's the common thread? There's costs. We're trying to figure it out. Yeah.

We're all trying to figure it out and there's costs to what we're doing. So yours is sex. Well, and there's no right way. I think back to girlfriends that I've had before. I've had the girlfriends that are just the supporter. I don't like that either. No, that's not true. I mean, that didn't work for me either. In fact, it didn't work for me at all.

What is, so go, go past physical. What is the thing that you're really attracted to? I'm attracted to passion. I'm attracted to purpose. I'm attracted to, um, confidence and, um, and having a, having something that you believe that you're willing to put something at stake for. I think that was what drew me to my wife. I mean, she was a very successful, she was working at Capitol records when I first met her. And, um, uh, she just had her shit together. I mean, she really had her shit together. And it's funny. She says the same thing about me.

I was the first guy that she dated in a long time that actually called or showed up when I said I would. There was no like, oh, man, was it tonight? You know, none of that crap. She dated a lot of musicians before me and it was very not so great. Okay. All right. And then, okay is this is brilliant because i think what you're hitting on this is what i hope for this conversation is that you have

the pulse of what it's like to be normal you know and do it no thanks in an in do and capture that in extraordinary way of living and the reason i say that is because it is hard to relate to the five-time gold medalist it is hard to relate to the person who was the first ever to everest or whatever it's it is hard you know so they almost seem like i don't't know, a different species really. And so that's really why. And I know that you're so committed to the wellness of others because you've studied it for so long.

Okay, so let's get into the business side of what you're doing. Well, it makes me think as we're talking about this, am I really doing this out of my desire to make other people better or am I really doing it for me? I mean, it's interesting. Like now that I'm looking at it. But your business is built on helping others. Yes. out of my desire to make other people better or am I really doing it for me? I mean, it's an interesting, it's interesting. Like now that I'm looking at it, like your business is built on helping others. Yes.

And you, but this is the thing that you've needed help with your whole life. Yes. And you've studied it. You've, you know, approach mastery on it. And like, yes, you need it. Yes. Guess what? What? So this was like almost question one in one in graduate students or graduate studies is we had to do lots of didactic work where we'd sit across a seat from either another student and a master psychologist was like watching and coaching the pretend psychologist, like the budding psychologists. And one of the early questions are what makes

you think that you can help anyone? It's like, well, seriously, I mean, how do you answer that question? What makes you, what have you experienced or done or unlocked because you've read, because you've studied? What makes you think i mean i can answer that question yeah i'd love to hear it i just do what works for me and i show other people yeah well that in that in essence that's your business model right right and then so when you're as a budding psychologist like oh yeah and it's a reminder you don't have the freaking answers dude right you know your job is not to quote unquote, help somebody, you know, it's like, listen, learn, understand theory and all that good stuff, but just really be there. 60% of all change happens from rapport, maybe up to 70,

just the connection with another person in a room. Wow. That crazy. So your insight, like, dad just wanted to be seen. You just want to be seen. Mom just wanted to be seen you just want to be seen mom just want to be seen right you know wife probably wants to be seen all of your clients just want to really know that they matter too and if somebody put it the other day um i understand what it means to feel needed but i want to feel wanted oh that's interesting it's like beautiful yeah that's interesting that's right yeah i don't want to just be needed. I want to be wanted. Yeah. That's interesting. It was a cool distinction. Okay. Uh, so you get your sleep in. Yeah. You've, you prioritize it. Yep. Okay. I, I mean, I kind of collapse. I mean, like I, I can't even help it. I just start,

I'll fall asleep at the dinner table and not, not literally at the dinner table, but we have a nook, we have a, we have a kitchen nook and it's got, it's their benches. And the classic thing that happens after dinner is we're, you know, sitting there and, you know, maybe in the Monday night football games on or something. And I'm like, Oh, I'm really comfortable. I'm feeling really good. And I'll just kind of kick back and lay back on the green cushion on this bench. And then my wife and son go, there goes daddy. And I just fricking fall asleep and I'll fall asleep there for an hour, you know, hour and a half. And Julia will kick me finally and say, Hey, go up to bed. Um, so yeah, no, so I, I just give up. And I've always been able to do that. That's weird.

Like I don't know if I learned that as a Marine or whatever, like the skill of being able to go to sleep whenever you want. I could sleep on a bar stool. I could sleep on a conveyor belt. I slept, you know, you sleep with an M16 and you're, you know, you're just kind of, you got to sleep when you got to sleep. You know, you sleep on the back of a C-130, you sleep, you sleep when you can sleep. Okay.

I don't have that skill set down. Like I'm not a, I don't need it to be like pristine, but it's sometimes it's hard for me to shut it down. So, okay. Good for you. I'm thinking like, God, that must be nice. I don't know what it's like any other way. So I, there have been nights when I couldn't go to sleep and so, and I, that's miserable. So I have compassion for that, but I don't know why I can't. Yeah. Let's talk about like the, the way that you think is that you found to be an ideal structure for life. So let's walk through that. Cause that is kind of the essence of your business.

So walk through the practices or the structure that you found to be valuable. Well, you know, I mean, I think the big thing that I've taken over the course of my life is the smaller the steps and the longer I can make them last in my daily practice, the more impact they'll have on my life. I don't have to take big, bold, audacious jumps and leaps into oblivion and think. in fact, most of the time when I do that, those don't work at all. Like then I just, it's massive rebound into something else. So give me an example of a big, audacious, hairy goal. I mean, the one that comes to mind, because I'm sitting here looking at the pictures in your office or some of the adventure races I've done you know like or joining the Marine Corps and

that was a huge big hairy audacious um you know so wait I'm confused You don't set those as targets. I've learned later. I didn't know then. And the interesting thing is, those are great targets. There's nothing wrong with those targets. But what I have... See, I don't know. It's weird. Those are easy for me in a weird way, though. Like, no, there's nothing easy about doing a 400 mile adventure race. But for me, one of the recent ones you've done, I haven't done one. And I mean, I stopped adventure racing really in like 2003 before I started CrossFit and my CrossFit gym. Uh, and you were tier zero at CrossFit, weren't you? Yeah. We were the ninth in the world. Yeah. I mean, there was no one doing, they, I was out of my mind. I mean, that was, that's one of the things that drives me. The more people think I'm a lunatic, the more excited I am about what I'm doing. Uh, and it's to a limit. Like I'm not like Felix Baumgartner or, um, you know, I definitely mitigate the risk. I'm. I'm not just a daredevil who's going to jump off a cliff. But I could have been. I can see where that wouldn't be an easy step for me because physically my body tends to be, if I can follow the example that I can set with my body and pull my spiritual practice and pull my marriage and pull my business led by my, what I'm able to do with my body,

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that elevate your routine without complicating it, I'd love for you to check them out. Head to calderalab.com slash finding mastery and use the code finding mastery at checkout for 20% off your first order. That's calderalab, C-A-L-D-E-R-L-A-B.com slash finding mastery. Okay. Early days, we understand kind of what that was about. I'm going to join the Marine Corps to be part of something, to be, you know, a value. And then what's the next phase? Well, the next phase was discovering that I wanted to continue that, but I had to go away

from it first. I got this job with this engineering company and then I discovered the Eco Challenge. Like three years into the work there, I was very successful. I mean I was sales rep of the year. I was in the president's club. One of my big accounts I sold was to Northrop Grumman in Norwalk and it was like the biggest account of the year of the company in the country. What were you selling? Water treatment chemicals. Okay.

So they're chemicals. And I would design the engineering systems that would deliver the chemicals to keep their cooling towers and boilers clean and compliant and efficient. But I was training to go to do this thing called the Eco Challenge, which was brand new. And I'd show up for work. I'd have a company car. I had the Yakima rack on top of the company car. I had, I'd have a mountain bike and a canoe up on the roof. And I'd show up to these accounts and these

guys would like be laughing at me, dude, what are you doing? I'm like, well, I'm leaving here and then heading out to Joshua Tree because we're rock climbing. And then we're going to, we're going to mountain bike from there to Lake Havasu. And then we're going to canoe, you know, and we've got a, and, and, and they're like, and then I'll be back here Monday morning for, you know, more work. And they're like, dude, what are you doing? You're like in the wrong, you're in the wrong place. And, um, I started to listen.

I guess I started to listen. Like there was part of me, I remember I had a massage once from someone and I started cause I had to do a lot of physical therapy to keep myself in tune in alignment for the race. Another stupid thing I did, one of my first endurance events was a 50 mile ultra run. And the longest run I did in training was about eight miles. I mean, do you physically suffer when you're out there? Or do you have a different kind of genetic coding? The longer the event, the less I suffer.

The longer, the short ones, I suffer more. I found when I would do short mountain bike races, short, meaning like an hour and a half, uh, I couldn't keep up. I couldn't, I couldn't ratchet my breathing and my heart rate to like stay in the lead pack. So you're more type one fiber. I think so. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. So, you know, I I've never done anything of distance other than this challenge. I just put myself through, which is the paddle from Catalina to Redondo 30 mile ocean stand up. That sounds fun to me. That doesn't sound, I mean, look, it's hard. I don't want to take anything away from what you're doing. I think I almost died. Yeah. That sounds great.

I'm glad that my great achievement was just marginalized by a world-class doer. You know, perfect. Thank you very much for that. I'm not saying I could do it. No, I'm joking. Listen, what I'm saying is like afterwards, I reached all of the limits that I needed to reach. Right. You know, like I really pushed into physical, emotional, mental capacities.

And afterwards, people were like, are you sore? I wasn't. Yeah. Yeah. So that was new to me. There was no soreness. There was systemic fatigue. Yeah, absolutely.

Like it took me about a week to kind of feel like me again, but no muscles were sore. Isn't that bizarre? Like you get intense workout and the next day or two you can feel soreness. I didn't have soreness. That was my experience. Pretty much all my racing. The more intense I got and the shorter it got, the more soreness I would get. CrossFit, I was sore all the time.

Yeah. All the time. Right. The only exception for me was when I ran a marathon, my calves would be sore. My calves, my Achilles would be sore. My adventure racing was so broad. You'd be kayaking and mountain biking. You'd be on and off the bike and then you'd be running and then you'd be orienteering and then you'd be in a kayak and that I wasn't sore from. Is that team-based or are you an individual? It was the precursor to the, you know,

modern day obstacle racing. Michael, um, Epstein started something called the muddy buddy back in like 2000. I remember. I want to guess. And, um,

I think it was San Diego. Was that a San Diego? There's a bunch of guys. It might've been a Castaic. Okay. Um, and that turned into maybe Tough Mudder, Spartan. Well, it turned into the High Tech Adventure Race Series.

That was the big one. We were sponsored from Red Bull to go do the High Tech Adventure Race Series because my buddy and I, Jim – I mean Jim already had a relationship with Red Bull. But we went out with three guys and we won the race they dubbed the national championship. Well, there were only four races that year and anybody can enter the national championship and we won. And there were four other men's teams. So we went to Redmond and said, hey, we're national champions. And they're like, hey, we'll sponsor you. Oh, that is great.

We lost our third guy, which we had to because we needed a co-ed team. And we brought on a female and we became Team Red Bull. We were probably the second most winning team of that series for like five years. Team Balance Bar was always slightly ahead of us. And those were the short races. Those were the three and a half, two and a half to four hour races. You know, they were short back then. God, I think now that's a long freaking time, but that was bread and butter. And okay. So national champs, Red Bull sponsored, keep going. What are some of the other? And that was about the time that I transitioned from this job. Actually, those races came after

I had done four big ones, the Eco Challenge, Red Guaas, like that was from like 95 to like 98. And then I started doing the short ones and I realized I was actually better at the short ones than I was the long ones. I never really finished with a full team. I couldn't keep my whole team in. I couldn't, you know, like, and there were a lot of variables that I couldn't really control and, uh, started doing the short ones and much more success, uh, right out of the gate doing those. And,. And what's the hardest part is having to, to push hard and fast. Like I can just keep going forever, but if you like, kind of like what I experienced in the mountain bike racing, if I have to, you know, be up at 90 RPM heart rate, 90%, 95%, i don't do i don't do great there so um so what do you do when you're

physically exhausted what is your strategy or you're physically highly agitated because all of us can relate to agitation on a run you know it's like oh i'm bored or oh i just i don't need this or like what do you do well one of the things i do is i start to play mind games i started playing i on a run, you know, it's like, Oh, I'm bored or, Oh, I just, I don't need this. Or like, what do you do? Well, one of the things I do is I start to play mind games. I started playing, I started to do mental math and I start to take averages and I start to do calculations. One of the things I really loved about adventure racing was the need to do orienteering. So it wasn't just, I was on a course. I never really wanted to do Ironman because it was bound by the, by these linear rules. Stay in the lane. Stay in the lane. Here's where you go. Here's the path. I love the,

the freedom of, we're not going to tell you where to go. You have to find your own way. And I love, and I needed to have to think, and I needed to have to use the stars. I mean, I remember in, in Australia doing a race where we started at night and it was flat as a pancake. There were no topographical features. And I thought, okay, well, not knowing what I'd encounter, I thought, and I was a team navigator, I thought, okay, I'm just going to shoot bearings and use my compass. And I did. But I ended up, which I'd never done before, I ended up shooting bearings to stars and making sure that every five minutes or so I would recheck the bearing and make sure I was on the right star. Um, because the sky moves or while the earth moves and, uh, the star changes bearing, but, um, that system worked unbelievably well. We didn't miss a checkpoint for the first three days. We were like we're in third or fourth place like it was amazing how long are these races that one was uh i don't remember how long

it took the teams that won to finish like seven days and what kind of sleep are you talking about very little sleep you know like some of the the teams that i mean that's a really big part of the race is the strategy the sleep strategy and when you, that's a really big part of the race is the strategy, the sleep strategy. And when you rest and when you don't, because you end up making mistakes when you don't. And if you do, they take you out. So, uh, knowing how to do that and knowing how to manage the rest, well, it becomes a really big factor when you're, when you're out there multiple days.

Would you guys do a minimum of four hours? No. Oh, hell no. That would be out of the race if you did a minimum of four hours yeah um so i did some work on ocean rowing like at distance and like real distance you mean like the guys across the pacific yeah and it's like two hours right you know 45 minutes here and there and that's not how our brain is designed to work. And physiologically you, you, you think you couldn't do that. You're burning way too many calories. Like you'd run out of, you can't carry enough food. You can't replenish. So how does it work? Where'd you come to learn? Well, I can always go further than I thought I could. I would be exhausted and still able to function. You know,

like we would come into a, an area that we had at like a transition area and we'd lay down and immediately go to sleep. All of us. I mean, it wasn't just me cause I can sleep well. It was, we'd be out. And then somebody, somebody would wake us up an hour and a half later and we'd hop on our mountain bikes and we'd start going. And you know, one of the interesting things that happens when you know, you have more like your brain. What I found is my brain starts to organize itself completely differently than like 26.2 miles is a long way, right? If you know that's the end, your brain at 18 miles thinks I'm almost there. Okay. I can, I can, even if I have to walk, I'm going to make it at 18 miles. But if your context is it starts with a marathon

and then continues with 250 more miles or 300 more miles. Somehow, when you get to the end of the marathon, it seemed like, okay, here we go. We just warmed up. Now, what's next? And it's a very strange contextual shift that occurs. I mean, there was a race we did in Malibu that was a... Because you can't train for 18 hours of intense movement. No.

Right? Like you have to, there's a gap, an unknown that you have to entertain. Right? So there is a high chance because it's unscheduled and untrained. And so you show up and it's like, okay, well, you've never run, I don't know, eight hours in a day. I don't know. Is that true? Like that's not part of your training program. No, it's not part of the training. We've hiked for eight hours in a day for sure. Yeah. Okay. And then why do you think you have found success in this where others have not?

Are you better at embracing the unknown? Is your training better? Is your genetic coding better? Are your mental skills really dialed in? I think my mental skills are pretty on point. I always used to say that I'm not the fastest guy and I'm not, certainly not the fastest runner. And, um, I'm pretty good in a kayak. Like that's one of my, one of my good skills. Um, the upper body, the rotation, I have a really strong core,

but where I really excelled is what, what they used to call special tests in the high-tech races, which were completely unknown. You didn't even know when they were going to come up. And you had to solve a problem. They were like, okay, here's a wall with a hole in it that you've got to get all your teammates through and your bikes through. And your bike doesn't fit. And you have to take various components off of your bike and you have to figure it out and figure out how to do it. Or you have to change a tire in the middle of the course. Or you've got to solve some riddles.

Or you've got to blindfold two out of your three partners and talk them through a simulated minefield. Like you've got to direct them from across. You're 30 yards away and you've got to yell, turn left, turn right. And you've got to keep them both doing the same thing all the way through the minefield. I mean, these weird things. Some were physical, you know, get over a 12-foot wall. And some were not physical. And I was always really, really, really, really good at those.

What are the skills, the mental skills underneath that you are good at? Self-talk, breathing regulation? I think just imagery clear goals clarity under duress like i was always able to take a breath not get so stressed out that my brain couldn't think not take everything really fully literally necessarily because they'd give you a bunch of instructions and sometimes they'd be they'd be bullshit instructions to see if you would bite and, and, and, and think, and then calm in the face of, of adversity. But I was also very physically able to just do it. Like I had really good balance. Physical motor. Yeah. Yeah. Did, did you at the time have a mindfulness practice or some sort of meditation practice? No. Yeah.

I didn't think so. So what, what allowed you to be so calm under fire? Well, I think some of the experience, I was always really good in the Marine Corps at the obstacle courses. And, um, I was always very able to, to, you know, like low crawling, all the things that people really struggled with were some weird in some weird way in my wheelhouse. How do you think about those? Would you say I would approach them with, this is fun. This is great. Like I get to do this. Is that because you were good at them or you wanted to get good at them? It's a little bit of a cheat. If you're like, these are good because I'm good at them. Right. Which is what happens. This is why confidence

gets tricky for people that are highly skilled early on because they feel really good because they're better than everyone. And so they say great things to themselves. And then all of a sudden when they level up on competition, then it's like, Ooh, everyone else is really good too. Right. So they don't know how to authentically speak to themselves. Yeah. Right. Yeah. So was it, were you, did you like getting good at it or were you just good at it? No, I liked getting good at it. I really enjoyed the challenge of putting something in front of me that I wasn't good at and then practicing until I got good at it. And how does that snap back to your early family stuff? Well, I think really that's really about, you know, proving, constantly proving that I can do it. Did you ever find an experience where you're like, okay, I don't need to prove anymore?

Or is that why you gave it up? Is that why you gave up the adventure stuff? I think a lot of that went, I started to realize that that was kind of just a fool's like a chasing your tail winning, like winning. What does it matter? What is winning? And I remember when I, when I, um, went down and competed in the, um, the first CrossFit games qualifier, which was in 2009, prior to that, they just invited anybody that wanted to come to Aromas, which is this little farm in Northern California and compete, you know, they pull workouts out of the hopper and, but it was getting too big. And so they decided to have

these qualifiers. And, um, this was the regional too big. And so they decided to have these qualifiers and, um, this was the regional qualifier. And I'm like, that sounds like fun. Let's, I want to, I want to kind of see where I'm at, you know? And I always been the top person at my gym. And, uh, I didn't do any, I literally didn't do any training, but it was cool to be in that nervous. There's a nervous energy that is not replicatable really on your own. And, uh, I went down and I took third place and I earned a spot to the CrossFit games, which is like, I always tell people it was a complete accident. I mean, this was not like some big plan. And I think some of it was that I was very good, again, at being calm under fire,

and I didn't get too caught up in the, oh my God, this could, you know. And if you were to translate what you do relatively naturally about being calm and thinking clearly, how do you imagine to help people? What are some of the ways that you do training or cultivate strategies for people to be calm and focused? Well, I think the calmness and the focusness comes from inner confidence. So the, it comes from certainty, like being certain, being sure, sure footed. So not, not sure footed in that, you know, the outcome, but sure-footed in that you know that you believe in yourself. It comes from this high sense of self-worth and self-capacity, and I can figure it out. I'll be able to, it doesn't matter what they throw at me, I'll figure it out. I'll get there.

Yeah, you're hitting on exactly the essence of it, which is the knowing that you have what it takes to figure it out. And no matter what happens, you'll figure that out too. Right. And then how did you learn that? I mean, I'm still learning it.

So the answer is I don't have it figured out. How did that play against? I want to be seen. I want to be understood and valued. Well, I mean, I can just, I think, I think I was always, because I was willing to try on so many new things, I always had to figure it out. And I just became experienced at figuring it out, even though I didn't know what the hell I was doing.

I love it. I think that for me, that's like a light bulb moment is that you've spent your whole life trying to figure it out. Right. Okay. So earlier we hit that on the earlier part of the conversation but you were it was born out of this neurotic want to be valued and seen and by the way i think most people that go the distance to do extraordinary things i think most of us are born out of this neurotic space and we don't want to talk about it because

that's the thing that we're afraid of most, you know, early days. But then at some point we go, okay, well, it's a little tiring to try to cover it all up, you know? So yeah. And so you got good almost by default of figuring new things out. Yeah. And then here you are saying, well, okay, there's a difficult situation. I know how to figure things out. Let me take a stab at it guys. What do you think? Right. And they're like, yeah, well, okay, there's a difficult situation. I know how to figure things out. Let me take a stab at it guys. What do you think? Right. And they're like, yeah, go ahead, Andy. Right. And then, so you just had more reps, more reps, more reps, more reps.

Cool. And I, it's funny because when I think back to my teammates, my buddy, my buddy, Jim Garfield, um, uh, he's very similar. He's not the strongest athlete he doesn't he never used to train actually i mean it was driving driving me nuts like dude come on we're getting paid to do this get on your bike sometimes and um but he's also very very good at just calm level head figuring so he was your partner in eco challenge he was my partner after Eco Challenge in these shorter races. Okay. And then you guys built a gym together as well? No.

That was just you? That was just me. And what's the name of your gym? CrossFit LA. Oh, yeah. That's the one. Yeah. That's the one.

That was in 2004. I mean, it was called Patronic Fitness at the time. But I had the affiliate name of CrossFit LA. How is CrossFit doing? I don't really know. I can tell you my experience of how CrossFit is doing. You're like a grandfather in CrossFit. Yeah, but I – the interesting thing about the way CrossFit is built is there is no insider unless you work for CrossFit.

You don't have any stroke or pull or you just run an affiliate. You just own an affiliate. Um, I felt like when they took the games mainstream, when they, when they got the ESPN to sign on and they moved it to Carson and, um, they made it a big event. Their focus became the sport of fitness. And as an affiliate owner, I felt that I don't change lives by the sport of fitness. I changed lives with mom and dad and business owner and normal people who are coming in and they don't really give a shit about the CrossFit Games. I mean, I have direct experience with that. We had a team that was in the CrossFit games. It was in Carson. It was 20 minutes away with no traffic, um, down the four Oh five and our team representing the gym made, we, we qualified through two sets of qualifications

and we, we qualified to go to the games. And we told our students, our clients at the gym, Hey, we're shutting down for the weekend. We're going to, we're going down where we start on Friday morning or Thursday morning. And the gym is going to be closed all weekend. Your job, your mission is to take your training and come to the games and support the team and, and learn, watch and learn. We thought, perfect. That's great commission, right? I got more complaints from the fact that the gym wasn't open because people want their, their ability to, to do their training and they didn't really care that much. And, um, you know, I thought it was, it would have been a great opportunity for CrossFit at that point to, to segment their, their message to little, to like streams. One is the sport of fitness and

one is fitness for everybody else. Sport of fitness is going to take off and going to be this big thing. You're going to pull in professional athletes from all over the world and you're going to make it a great thing. And then you're going to have, what does it mean to be fit in real life for everybody else? Cause it's not that that that's not health that's not you know you can't be in my my opinion has always been that you can't be at the top of your game in an in an athletic sport and be healthy it's inherently not healthy yeah there's an old insight that high performance and high performance begins where health ends. Yeah. You know, I mean, and it's a tricky little dance to try to figure out the two of those things for sure. You know,

balance is one of them. Like I don't know anyone, I'm the wrong person to talk to about balance. Like I don't know anyone that has great balance in their life. You know, the, the allocation of time is spread in really abstract ways. You know, when you think about the grand scheme often. Okay. So, so, so, well, you, I was telling you about CrossFit, so I thought that would have been a great opportunity. And I think now they're feeling the effects of that. Like now it's, you know, that was 2011. So now it's what, eight, seven years later. And it's not such a necessarily a great thing to have your name be called. Like my, my gym that, that I started and, you know, was CrossFit LA now is called Oak Park.

And a lot of the gyms are changing their names because it's not as it's, it, it, it, some people might even say it's, it hurts you to be named CrossFit because people have this preconceived notion that it's these crazed, you know, super fit people who are throwing themselves at the wall to see how hard they can go and they don't want that. So why would they, you know, so like there's this, I still train in a CrossFit style. Like I still do constantly varied functional movements. The high intensity has shifted for me. I don't go nearly as hard as I used to go, but, um, so how is CrossFit? I don't, I don't know. And I don't know what we're going to see five years from now in the, in the CrossFit gym movement. What are the seven habits or pillars or like,

what are the seven structures that you help people organize in their life? So when we were, we're building this thing, we just sat down and we're like, what are the things that really make a difference in, in your life outside the gym? Because, you know, when you see somebody for three hours a week, you think you're really helping them make a difference. And you are, you certainly are. But if they're not practicing things in their life outside of the gym, you know, how many hours are there in a week? They're minus three basically is the time that they get to spend on their own. And you know, how many hours are there in a week? They're minus three, basically is the time that they get to spend on their own. And, you know, our biggest,

one of our, one of my biggest things as a trainer was empowering people to take action, not just know and have the knowledge and the information, the world's full of information, but nobody takes action. So it was nutrition, obviously nutrition. I mean, you know, that's, you'd be crazy to think you could lead a health, healthy life, knowing what we know today and not be conscious about what you're putting in your body. So nutrition, exercise, mobility, which was born out of really not just, are you strong enough, but can you move in a way that supports you in what you want to do in your life? Do you want to be able to bend over and touch your entire shoes? Do you want to be able to, you know, my mom is in her eighties. She's the only person, she lives in a retirement

village in Phoenix. She's the only person really that's there that can actually lay down on the ground and get back up like without any problem. Now, hopefully she doesn't fall, but if she fell, no problem getting back up. Nobody there can get back up. She can do a full squat and hold the bottom of a squat for at least 30 seconds. And I've taught her these things. And when I first told her that, she showed me her squat. She was very proud of herself. This is about eight or 10 years ago. Hey, great mom. You're, you're doing great.

Now, how long can you hold the bottom of your squat? And she would go down and like maybe five seconds and come back up. And I said, great. Work on, work your way up to a minute. She looked at me like I lost my mind, you know, and now no problem. So, you know, mobility is really about, can you keep doing what you, what you want to keep doing? That's really what it's all about. Put your groceries out of your car, backpack, pick your kid up, you know, lift something into the house. Right. Without fear of top shelf, grab it, you know? Yeah.

Yeah. And then there's, it's that low, uh, angled picking something up that throws a lot of people off in upper age, right? When you got to squat down, you take your left hand and you got to grab something on by your right foot and you're going to rotate and pick it up. If you don't have that proper mobility and whether it's from a joint or a muscle or whatever, it'll get you. Well, cause you can be strong. That's right. But if you can't access it and use it. Right. I mean, it's really why a yoga practice is so valuable, you know, but I, but I think, you know, yoga, anything can be taken to the extreme. So, you know, yoga is not the answer by itself. Neither is being strong. The answer by itself, in my opinion. Um, so then you've got, um, then you've got sleep, which I mean sleep, if there is a forgotten pillar of health and well-being, sleep is it.

I mean the context in the world about sleep is, God, it's a waste of time. Like I don't have time to sleep. Like it's way too many other things. And the world feeds that. What I think is happening now is people understand they need sleep just like we understand if you put an apple pie and an apple on a table, everybody knows the apple is healthier. I don't know anyone that doesn't really know that sleep is important and necessary for a vibrant way of living, like flat out.

However, we got emails, we got TV, we got social media, we got whatever, whatever whatever whatever right you know so well the world is stacked against us i mean the companies like netflix and look i love netflix i mean i freaking love you know like i love hbo i you know like the shows are fantastic but they are paid to find the triggers that cause us to be addicted to the things that we're biologically wired to be addicted to. And they've done it. They've done a great job. They've done it with food.

They've done it with entertainment. They've done it with social media. And we're experiencing the cost of that. And, you know, Rob Wolf's book called Wired Eat, we are wired to be the way we are. And these companies have found the way to cash in on that. Okay, break it down. So we got four. We got – what was the first one?

Nutrition. Nutrition. Exercise, mobility, sleep. Sleep. And then we got hydration. You know, look, most people – I mean I'm included. I've started the day with almost an entire liter of coffee. As soon as this is gone, I'm going right to water. And I, I put bubbles in my water. I don't flavor

it, but I actually flavor it with a little vinegar sometimes. But, um, I do like apple cider vinegar, just a, just a dash for health, not for taste. I like the taste the taste oh you're weird my wife agrees i'm very weird uh but we as a country as a world are under hydrated yeah and you know brain hydration is a real deal and we're not good at picking it up no our brains are not good at picking up even mild hydration you know if you're late 20 minutes you're behind if you're thirsty you're 20 minutes late yeah you know the whole thing so okay and then and then we got reflect we got well-being practices and then we got reflection so those are the seven so give me a flavor of like when somebody signs up to your program you hold them accountable into not hold them accountable but you create a accountability program for people to do

seven things every day. Yeah, it's a game. And it's a game designed to hold people accountable to the level that they want to be held and to bring whatever aspect of their life, wherever they are in their life, they bring that with them. So we don't create the nutrition plan for you. We don't create the workout plan for you. We don't create the mobility plan for you. Who are we to know what you need? And I mean, that's one of the other big problems I have with

a lot of the programs that are out there. Do our thing. Do our diet. Really? How do you know what's the right thing for everyone? You know, like a personal trainer that takes you to the gym and says, okay, I want you to do three sets of 10. Is 10 the right number? Why isn't it 11? Why isn't it eight? Is that the right weight? Oh, I'm going to put the weight in and then they don't ask their client anything. Like really? What are you teaching here? You're not really teaching anything. So we expect participants in the whole life challenge to be participatory in having to take responsibility for their life and bring what they're doing into the game. How do you help them make good decisions around nutrition?

Well, we give them a lot of resources. And we do have lists of foods that we, you know, they can choose a level. We exception of an extreme anti-inflammatory diet like if you had ms or you you wanted to go on something extreme what are the foods you'd take out you'd take out dairy you'd take out grains you'd take out alcohol and sugars and you take out desserts and artificial ingredients so the performance level all that stuff is not allowed. So then you've got a lot of leftover foods. It's basically meat, fish, nuts, seeds, oils, and fruits and vegetables. And that's really it. And then you've got a lifestyle level that allows a little bit more and that allows a little bit more grain choice, some grain choice. It allows a little bit more of a little bit of alcohol. You can have a glass of wine a week and it just gives you a little bit more flexibility.

And then you've got a kickstart level for those people. And it's interesting because the longer I've been in this business, the more I realized that there's another level needed lower than the kickstart level. It's not low enough. But the kickstart level was designed when my business partner and I, Michael, sat down and started talking about how would we design an easy level. We looked at our parents. I looked at my father-in-law and I'm like, what would I tell him to do? Get off the beer and soda. Take out the pasta and the bread. And take out the pasta and the bread um and take out the desserts and so it's it was built

around i think we said there were five no's and so if you are successful you put a check mark yeah so you the nutrition category is interesting it's different than the other six nutrition. You start the day with five points and for each infraction of a rule, you lose a point. So you get to manage your day. You get to manage your points. You can decide for yourself, is it worth a point? If you're having an important, let's say we're, we're having the podcast and I'm on the performance level and I'm not allowed to have dairy, but I decide that having a cup of coffee with you is important and I hate coffee that doesn't have dairy in it. It's probably worth a point, right? I mean, like I want to be on my game and it's important for me to be able to do that. Or I'm having a business dinner and I want a glass of wine and we're going to toast a deal

that we just made. It's worth the point. Don't let your, one of the things we used to always say is don't let your desire for perfect score interfere with your happiness, interfere with your life, interfere with your kids. Like go ahead, have the piece of cake at your son's bar mitzvah. It's okay. What is the dropout, right? It's a tricky thing in online programs. Yeah. Yeah. We, uh, we, we've monitored that since day one and, um, each week we lose, we used to be eight weeks and now we're eight week program. Now it's six weeks. Okay. Why'd you, why'd you drop? Because of the last two weeks were hard for people to stay with it. And they, we wanted more people to feel successful and we wanted to run it more times a year.

So we only run it four times a year right now as an event. Okay. So you sign up with a community. Yep. Like the world. And the cost is? It's 49 bucks at full price. Recurring people come back at $29.

And then there's some early bird registration deals. Not cheaper than – I think the cheapest is 24 and that's for a recurring player that comes at early early bird registration so it's not expensive it's really cheap yeah it's really cheap so but but it's not a free app either you know you have to download the app there's an app but you but the app is free oh but what i'm saying is you know a lot of people are triggered by the price. They're like, I can download a nutrition app. I can get my fitness pal for free, you know, or a dollar a month. But you also get results that are commensurate with a dollar a month investment.

Like, really? Like that's going to make a difference in your life. I don't need a dollar. I just, I'll forget that. Like whatever. So hopefully the price is big enough commitment that it helps you stay in the dollar. I just, I'll forget that. Like whatever. So hopefully the price is big enough commitment that it helps you stay in the game. Yeah. Cool. And then what are you learning about people? Well, first of all, people need support. People need structure. I mean, that's

really been a lot of times back in the beginning of this thing, actually still now they're like, what am I paying for? You're not giving me a new nutrition plan. You're not giving me an exercise program. You're not telling me what I'm, what I, what am I doing? What's the, what's the 49 bucks for? It's for the playing field. Like it's for the, you know, why do you pay? Why do you pay? I don't even know what the LA marathon costs these days. 200 bucks. I don't know. What do you pay for? You can go run it, go run 26.2 miles. Nobody's stopping you. Go ahead. The strand is free every day of the week, but it's different, you know, and it's different to be around the community. It's different to have that level of integrity and desire to support other people in doing this. You get a sense that if you don't do

it, even if you're not really letting anybody else down, you get the sense that you are, you know, there's a momentum that's generated with that. And there's a, there's a, there's a value to that. And, um, you know, if you don't get that, then it's probably not the right place for you. And that's fine too. Is there a philosophy that guides your life or that's been important to you? I mean, I would say it's funny. You got the daily stoic on your, on your thing there. I mean, I would say stoicism is probably the closest thing that, that, that I know. I haven't really studied philosophies. In fact, I always have said that if I were to go back and do it again, philosophy would be probably my major in college, maybe philosophy and writing. That's cool.

I minored in it and I love it. I think it's like, it's a great shaping mechanism. You know, like what are the foundational ways to think about the human experience? You know, it's like, it's hard. It's a really difficult discipline because it's so esoteric and so mind bending in so many ways. But yeah, stoicism is great. Ryan holiday did a great job on,

yeah, on capturing, you know, the essence of stoicism. I studied, um, for years I was a member of Santa Monica Zen center. So I studied Zen Buddhism for quite a long time without even really

knowing I was studying it. I was just doing it. And, um, so I, I get a lot of value out of meditation and, you know, that's where the, these wellbeing practices that I said before kind of fit in. And, um, so I, I get a lot of value out of meditation and, you know, that's where the,

these wellbeing practices that I've said before kind of fit in. They, they, they give us the ability to, to bring in elements to the challenge that many people don't even really consider when they think of their health and fitness, you know, their health and wellbeing. And yet they are. Where are you in your meditation practice? So I struggled for years knowing its importance, knowing it from my Zen practice. I would go at the Zen center, I would go five o'clock in the morning. We'd meditate for, usually it was five to six, two periods of 25 minutes followed by in between was a walking meditation. And I would do that three days a week. Once I stopped doing that, right when my son was born, I just lost it. I couldn't regenerate that on my own. And it really wasn't until this year that I started with Warrior.

Warrior introduced a new concept to me around the purpose of meditation. I had always considered meditation as something you do. Like this is something you do in order to get enlightenment or in order to discover the answers or in order to create a gap. Like I really love the context that you shared in, in the last time we spoke, um, the, the, um, default mode network and, and like quieting the default mode network. So that was a context that really helped me actually. I think after that podcast, I started to become more consistent with my, my, um, my meditation, But Warrior introduced me to this other concept of hearing my voice, creating enough space from my life that I can actually hear my voice and my guide, my internal guidance system. And I love that. Like that's what develops for me that certainty. Like it doesn't come from you. It doesn't come from my wife or my kids or my, or my business or my friends. And for my life, I've been looking out

there for validation and for justification. And like, I don't know the answer. I mean, I don't know how many times I've, I remember, you know, going to soccer things, coaching soccer, you know, as dads do volunteer in NYSO and telling myself over and over, I don't know how to do this. I don't know how to do this. Bullshit. What would it, what would I do if I did know, you know, and, and I wish I, I wish I was back doing that now because I would do it a lot differently than I did then. Because if you go in from the context of not knowing, you act like someone who doesn't know. And all it takes you to do is say, I do know. And then to be separated far enough from the busyness of your life, hopefully through meditation,

that you can actually hear your voice. Oh yeah. What would you do? If you were left alone with these kids and you had to develop a soccer team, you would know, or you'd figure it out and you'd have that certainty of, I don't know, I don't know how to do this, but I know I can figure it out. And is it primarily a breathing meditation to get to this, to the signal? It's a, yeah, I mean, really it's up to you how, how you do it. What I do is I, I take elements from my Zen training. I usually sit, I light some candles, I put a little cushion out and I have an app called Oak that I use that Kevin Rose developed. Kevin was on my podcast and it's free, but it's bare bones. I don't do

any guided meditation. It does have guided meditation in it, but I don't do guided meditation. And I'm trying to actually develop a more functional meditation practice. Like my intention is to be able to be in the middle of my day and to stop in the middle of my day and take a 10 minute time out and meditate. That has been challenging. Have you considered weaving it in, like setting, saying, okay, two o'clock, set a timer, next 10 minutes is active meditation. I've done that. And I'd say seven out of 10 times, there's something that I deem more important happening when that alarm clock goes off. Yeah.

And like meditate or do the more important things. The more important things always went out. And so I'm like, I met this crossroads where I have to actually start to say, okay, meditation wins, you know, and if I, if I want to,

otherwise I'm just beating my head into the wall and it's not going to happen. How do you define mastery? I think mastery is when you get to that place of, of what is it? What is it? It's the fourth quadrant. Um, unconscious, uh, what's the other part of it? I can't remember the other part. There's conscious, um, competence, unconscious competence, where it is literally just flowing out of you and you just go and you don't know. Um, you know, I can relate to it very easily in the physical realm. You know, a couple of the waterfalls I've gone off in a kayak, a couple of, um, like

just, I have no business doing this and just something happens. And, uh, um, it's not, if you're, if you're too conscious, it doesn't work, you know? And yeah, that's for me. That's, that's really what it is. Awesome. Where can people find you? Where's the best place to whole life challenge.com. That's my, that's the website. And then I'm at very, very uncreative in my social media at Andy Patronik everywhere at Facebook, on Twitter, on, you know, very, I would say very boring. I'm not great at coming up with creative names for myself. Andy, thank you for sharing. Thank you for being real and authentic and sharing your laugh, sharing your tears, sharing the depth of your experience, what led you to now to work on creating an environment

and a community where people are becoming their best. And so awesome. I'm stoked to know you and to amplify what you're doing. So thank you. Thank you. It's really good to be here. It was a fun, fun conversation. All right.

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