Habits and Hustle - Episode 460: Wesley Hunt: The "Sweat Every Day" Rule That Built a Congressman's Unbreakable Mindset

Episode Date: June 20, 2025

What's the secret to building discipline that actually sticks? In this Fitness Friday episode on the Habits and Hustle podcast, Congressman Wesley Hunt shares his no-nonsense approach to developing mental toughness through daily physical challenges. We discuss why sweating every single day is non-negotiable - even if it means walking five miles on a treadmill after a steak dinner. We also explore his "just do it consistently" philosophy, the power of accomplishment psychology, and why he chooses intermittent fasting and strategic workout timing over perfection. Wesley Hunt represents Congressional District 38 in Houston, Texas. A West Point graduate and former Apache helicopter pilot with three master's degrees from Cornell, Hunt served eight years in the Army before entering politics. He recently interviewed for Secretary of Defense and continues to serve on the House Judiciary and Natural Resources committees. What we discuss: The "sweat every day" rule for building discipline Why consistency beats perfection in fitness routines Using superficial goals (beach body) as legitimate motivation Michael Jordan's self-motivation mind tricks One meal a day strategy for busy travel schedules Working out between noon and 4 PM vs. morning routines Thank you to our sponsor: Momentous: Shop this link and use code Jen for 20% off Therasage: Head over to therasage.com and use code Be Bold for 15% off  TruNiagen: Head over to truniagen.com and use code HUSTLE20 to get $20 off any purchase over $100. Magic Mind: Head over to www.magicmind.com/jen and use code Jen at checkout. Bio.me: Link to daily prebiotic fiber here, code Jennifer20 for 20% off.  David: Buy 4, get the 5th free at davidprotein.com/habitsandhustle. Find more about Wesley Hunt:  Website: https://hunt.house.gov/  Find more from Jen: Website: https://www.jennifercohen.com/ Instagram: @therealjencohen Books: https://www.jennifercohen.com/books Speaking: https://www.jennifercohen.com/speaking-engagements

Hi guys, it's Tony Robbins. You're listening to Habits and Hustle. Crush it! Hey friends, you're listening to Fitness Friday on the Habits and Hustle podcast where myself and my friends share quick and very actionable advice for you becoming your healthiest self. So stay tuned and let me know how you leveled up. Before we dive into today's episode, I want to thank our sponsor, Momentous. When your goal is healthspan, living better and longer, there are very few non-negotiables. One of them, quality. And when it comes to supplements designed for high performers, nobody does it better

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absolute must for both men and women who want peak physical and cognitive performance. So if you're serious about leveling up, go to LiveMomentous.com and use code GEN for 20% off. Just act now. Start today. GEN for 20% off. Just act now. Start today. Jen for 20% off. Live momentous.com. Okay. So let's talk about discipline. I think it's a big one. We said it a few times here, right? How to build discipline, right? I'm a big person. I'm a believer that the number one thing besides doing all these other, you know, ancillary things and this, that and the other, I think the first thing is you need to have a daily like workout regimen.

That's the best way to build discipline, in my opinion, it teaches you so many different skills. How do you feel? How what are the ways, if someone's listening to this podcast, and if they're not that disciplined, how do they start training that muscle? My first word of advice is do something where you sweat every day. When you're starting off, it doesn't matter what that is. Go on a walk. I don't care. Go to the gym, whenever you can even go to the sauna. If you do something where you break a sweat every single day, because that's the challenge that you have to put in your mind that you have to overcome that.

And it lingers in your mind every day. So, you know, if I start getting to the afternoon, even at night, and I've had a very busy day and I get back to my house and he's going to get back to my apartment. You're up here in DC and I haven't a very busy day, and I get back to my house in Houston, I get back to my apartment up here in DC, and I haven't worked out yet, I'm not putting my head in the pillow, unless I go do something where I work out. There have been times where I've been busy all day,

go and went out to dinner, had a steak and dessert, and all this stuff, had worked out, get back to my apartment, and I go walk on the treadmill for five miles. For five miles? Or once I can't sleep. I mean, also, I think working out, people have this idea that like, oh, I'm too tired, I can't work out. But like energy begets energy, right? Like I feel way more energized when I work

out. Not to mention the mood enhancing thing. Like if I don't work out, my productivity throughout the day is so much worse than if I actually did that workout. The human psyche, human condition, human condition, derives on accomplishment. So as difficult as it was to get to the gym, the level of accomplishment that I feel when I am done is always worth it. Yes, I totally agree with you. It's just sometimes getting there is always the hard part. But once you get there and show up, you're surprised at what you can accomplish. I think that level of accomplishment is like, I think that's a really great way of putting it because that level of accomplishment, that it kind of proves to yourself like, a number

one, I did it. So there's like this like feeling feeling of confidence that you get, that you actually followed through and that you finished something. But it does like shift in your brain something where it just, it allows for everything else. I feel like to me, that's why it's the most fundamental habit

before anything else. And I get why you did that. Like even though it was like 10, let's say you go home from dinner, you had this huge steak or whatever else, but you probably felt so like gross that you needed to kind of do that to kind of offset it. Yep. offset it, right?

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BioMe.com code Jennifer20 for 20% off. Grab it today. What are other things like tell me how other ways that people couldn't start training that discipline muscle? In your opinion? My best friend from Westboro was a parl- was a parl lifting champion. While we were there, his name was Adam Smoot and he was a physical freak of nature, just a complete animal. And everybody would always ask him for advice.

Like Adam, like, what do we do? Like what program? What supplement? Like how much protein do you do create to deal with all this stuff? He had the best answer that stuck with me now for over 20 years. So it doesn't matter what you do. He goes, go find a workout program, go find a workout regimen that's conducive for your schedule and your life and your needs,

what your goals are, and just do it consistently. And you will ultimately get better. And then as you get better and you see improvement, well then you wanna see more improvement, wanna get better. And then that's how you start to build that drive with things, you start losing some weight, you start getting stronger here and there. You're like, well, I'm going to

get stronger. I'm looking pretty good. How can I get better? That's one way of doing it. The other thing you talked about was setting a goal for yourself. So like summer is coming. Summer is always coming. Brain Break is always coming. This is back, this is back in the day, we're going to Cancun and Acapulco. All that fun stuff. It's like you don't want to go into Acapulco looking like a slo. It's like, you don't want to go and go to Acapulco, looking like a slob.

So you start realizing that, like, I want to work out because I want to look good when I'm on the beach. That might seem like something that's so mundane and so subtle that, like, who cares about that kind of thing? Or so just like, so superficial, but that sometimes is all you need. Exactly. Exactly.

Like how do you, how do you motivate yourself to give yourself that drive? Yeah. I'm a huge Michael Jordan fan. And I'm now that you're seeing all these stories come out about Michael Jordan and things that he did to motivate himself, he would lie to himself about one of his opponents talking trash about him just to get himself going in the game and then he would obviously go out and score 40 points. He'd be like, what happened?

Well, I told myself that this dude said that I wasn't the best player in the world. And another player would be like, I never said that. Well, I told myself that to get myself going. That's just one example. I know whatever you can do to motivate yourself. It's it might be as it might be literally a superficialized, I want to look good when I go to the beach. Totally.

I think like, and there's nothing wrong with having these mental mind tricks. Like all the, I used to think, you should hear some of the crazy ideas or the crazy things that go through my head when I'm running, just to kind of keep me from, from stopping, right? Because I think that's funny thing is everyone thinks for me and there was like, oh, how would you stay so motivated? Believe me, it's not motivation, it's actually discipline. I don't love working out. I hate it sometimes.

I hated it today, I hated it yesterday, I dread it. But it's that feeling of accomplishment and feeling of I did something that helps me go through the rest of my day in a different mindset. So it's not about liking it, God knows. I do a lot of things I hate, right? And, but I was also gonna say about the Michael Jordan thing, like to me, it's like, whatever gets you to do what you need to do, who cares?

But what I was also gonna say, and I can't really remember what I was gonna say now, but I don't remember now. One good thing for me too is like I have little kids. I have six, four and two year old and yeah, and I would be healthy for them Yeah, I mean by the time they're graduating high school and college and all this stuff I still want to be I still want to be a tip-top shape for them, you know So it's not just about it's not just about you. It's about your family. It's about your overall health

It's important to be a healthy person have a leaner phenotype All these things are really important, not just for the superficial side of it, for the look side of it, but for the functional health side of it too. Absolutely. So what is your routine? Give me your day.

What's the day in the life now? For my workout splits? Or just in general, like give me your, what's your habits? Like what are your, what's your morning routine? What's your habits? Like how do you stay? That's the crazy thing about being in Congress from every day.

I actually don't have a set day. So a set like time like at the same time every day, it depends on when I can squeeze it. And so usually I carve out time at some point, a couple of hours between noon or o'clock is when I go to the gym. I also eat one meal a day. That's my thing. I eat one meal a day. That's my thing. I eat one meal a day. And that meal usually comes at about

between four and six o'clock because you get up to DC, running around, you're traveling all over the country. I was on 138 flights last year. And so by the time you're done with breakfast and then lunch and then cocktail hour, then happy hour, and then dinner, you look up and you've gained like 20 pounds.

So I have made this a very simple proposition for myself. One meal a day, work out between noon and four o'clock at some point, accomplish those two things, I'm good to go. That works for me. Doesn't work for everybody else. Some people don't have time to leave work in the middle of the day, so you gotta get up in the morning, you gotta do it at night.

Where I discourage people from working out at night, because by the time you get home And you've had a full day is it can be quite difficult to motivate yourself Therefore getting up in the morning and knocking it out is also not a terrible Why don't you do that then why are you waiting until noon to four? Why don't you just like knock it out the first thing in the morning because I got old Now you I know and I got old and getting up in the the morning, I'm not, I would have a very good workout. I want to walk around for a little while, get, get, get the joints going, get moving

around, feel awake and then do it. If I have to get up in the morning, I will though. So there are times where I look at my schedule and the only time I can do this is at five o'clock in the morning and I'm in the gym at 5 o'clock in the morning.