Mind Pump: Raw Fitness Truth - 1485: Ten Life Lessons from Lifting Weights

Episode Date: February 8, 2021

In this episode Sal, Adam & Justin cover ten lessons they have learned about life from their experience lifting weights. Why it takes a lot of consistency applying discipline towards a goal to see its benefits bleed into other aspects of your life. (1:57) What makes fitness so powerful? (5:02) The Ten Life Lessons from Lifting Weights.  #1 – Change your relationship to pain and struggle. (11:14) #2 – Embrace failure as part of the process. (14:55) #3 – Learn to care for yourself like someone you care about. (18:35) #4 – Learn to focus on what you can change and ignore what you can’t. (22:22) #5 – Perfect doesn’t exist. (25:46) #6 – Be humble. (30:30) #7 – Consistency is the key to success. (34:34) #8 – The journey is far more important than the goal. (39:34) #9 – Healthy self-criticism. (43:11) #10 – Balance. (46:08)  Related Links/Products Mentioned February Promotion: Phase II Bundle Visit MIIR for an exclusive offer for Mind Pump listeners! Mind Pump Store The exercise effect The Key to Fitness Success is Self-Love – Mind Pump Blog Mind Pump Podcast – YouTube Mind Pump Free Resources People Mentioned Layne Norton, PhD (@biolayne)  Instagram

If you want to pump your body and expand your mind, there's only one place to go. Mite, op, mite, op with your hosts. Salda Stefano, Adam Schaefer, and Justin Andrews. You are listening to the world's number one fitness health and entertainment podcast. This is Mind Pup. Now, in today's episode, we talk about life. Life lessons you learn from lifting weights. That's right. You thought you were just building your biceps in your body? No, you're actually learn from lifting weights. That's right, you thought you were just

building your biceps in your body? No, you're actually getting better at life. We actually talk about 10 life lessons, real life lessons that you get from lifting weights. We all agree that working out is a wonderful way or path towards personal growth. In this episode, it was brought to you by one of our sponsors, Mir.

They have some great products. They have insulated cups, camp gear. Lots of cool stuff. Go check them out. And because you listen to Mind Pump, you get 25% off. Go to mirror.com, that's m-i-r.com, forward slash Mind Pump, and then use the code Mind Pump. By the way, the Valentine's Day sale starts today.

This is 25% off all Mind pump shirts for men and women. And 25% off our glute bands, go to mindpumpstore.com. And then finally, this month, we're running a huge promotion on two programs. We're calling it our phase two bundle. This is Maps Performance, which is for athletic training, functional training, and mobility. And then we have Maps aesthetic, which is our body training, functional training, and mobility. Then we have Maps Esthetic, which is our Body Builder

Focus program. Combine the two, you get the best of both worlds. They're both three to four month programs. You got yourself a good, you know, six to eight months of exercise programming. Normally, it would cost you almost $300 for both programs. But right now, you can sign up for the Phase II bundle and pay $79.99. Go check it out. Go to maps

February.com. That's M-A-P-S-F-E-B-R-U-A-R-Y.com What age did you guys start working out lifting weights consistently? But age yeah, I would say probably 16 16. Okay, so that gives you a lot. What is that how many years is that it's 24, 25 years Like that. What about you Adam? So I consistently I would say more like 19 I was training at 17 But 17 and 19 was you know very sporadic in my buddies garage not very consistent You know just doing the arm pump to look cool for the high school

chicks. Real consistent training happened in 19 when I was out of my own, go to junior college, got my first real gym membership from that point till pretty much now, and I turned 40 this year, right? So 21 years. 21 years. Yeah, for me, 28, I started at Fit 14.

So we've been doing it for a long time. And so, so, yeah, I just, my birthday was, is today, right? So I was thinking about, you know, a whole diet or whatever and when I start working out. And I was thinking of all the things that I learned from lifting weights or the value. I should say, the things that I got of most value from lifting life lessons.

Yes, well, that's what it is. The value I got from lifting weights, really the top values had nothing to do with the fitness, the mobility, the strength, the muscle, the health benefits, the physical health benefits. Although those are great, so I'm not saying that I don't appreciate those, I love those,

but the lessons I got from it, the value I got from it, really had almost nothing to do with my physical body. Oh, I would agree with that, but I would also say that it takes a good five plus years before that kicks in. Totally. Right, the life lessons and the connections

that you start to make with other things other than the way you look and feel and how strong you are. That takes a long time. It's very similar to how we talk about nutrition with people, right? Like once you start to connect the dots with the way you feed your body, changes the way your hair feels, your skin feels, your energy, your mood, your sleep, when you start, it takes a lot of consistency of applying discipline towards that for you to start to notice how much it bleeds into other aspects of your life. So I probably when I was 17 to 25, all the lessons we're going to talk about, I'm not sure if I had made the connections yet then. Now, as an almost 40 year old looking back, I can list all kinds of things now that I know, like, wow, that really...

I wasn't as aware of them as I was going through them and say, I'm now, and that's something that, I had a conversation recently in my sister-in-law because she knows what I do for a living or at least what I used to do for a living, which, you know, training people, trying to describe that to somebody, like typically the thought is like, well, you're just manipulating their weight, you're trying to get them to somebody. Like typically the thought is like, well,

you're just manipulating their weight. You're trying to get them to lose weight or lose body fat. It's very surface sort of goals. And to try and explain all these other values and lessons and all these other things attached to it, it took me a while to figure out. Well, you said something interesting. You said, I wasn't really aware of the stuff

that I was learning. I think this is what makes fitness so powerful, because it's like, I used to love training. There were certain demographics I love to train, right? I love training people in advanced age. I love their wisdom. I like to learn from them. It was really fun. But I also love to train kids. Now, the reason why I love to train kids wasn't because I love the actual session. To be quite honest, training a kid is actually a pain in the ass. If you're a trainer and you've ever trained somebody under the age of 15 or 16,

you know how challenging it is. It's challenging because they don't have very good stability, they get bored, it's not fun. You know, it's so, it can be very challenging. But the reason why I enjoyed it so much wasn't because of the watching their body change or see them getting stronger. You know, that's so it can be very challenging, but the reason why I enjoyed it so much wasn't because of the watching their body change or see them getting stronger. You know, that would definitely happen, but rather I would because it was always the parents that was hiring me right they didn't do it themselves. The parents would hire me their parents would come to me.

After a couple months and they would remark on things like, you know, John is. He's doing better in school or you know, Suzie's more confident, like she talks more at the dinner table. And I started to realize that they were, this was a result of the growth process that happens when you work out. Fitness is one of the best, easiest ways to enter into personal growth. And the reason why it's one of the best easiest ways to enter into personal growth.

And the reason why it's one of the easiest ways to enter into it is because oftentimes they'll enter it thinking personal growth. Like if someone came to hire me as a trainer and I said to them, oh, you know, and they were like, how much do you charge a web? Like, well, you know, I charge this much and what we're gonna do is we're gonna work on

life growth and personal growth. They're gonna be like, I'm going to the next trainer, I just this much and what we're gonna do is we're gonna work on life growth and personal growth. They're gonna be like, I'm going to the next trainer, I just wanna lose 10 pounds. So because it's so unassuming and people often enter in, not realizing the lessons they're gonna get, they're more open to them. They're not aware and they just start to happen because you're working out.

In fact, we all started working out at it because of vanity. I did not think to myself, I'm lifting weights for personal growth. I think most people, I mean, there's a small percentage maybe out there that are getting into it for health and bettering and mental, but most people, what drives you, it gets you off the couch

to show up to a gym and get a membership is normally you're not feeling good about yourself. Well, it's usually due to a crisis or something where intervention is necessary. I need to like, take control of my health or doctor told you so. Yeah, something that's some circumstance like that

where it draws you back in, but typically, if you're young and this is something that you're driven towards, it's usually like a surface question. Well, I mean, okay, and all of us combined of trained thousands of people and by proxy more because we've had trainers work for us and manage gyms, what percentage of people would you say higher trainers or even just work out in gyms just because they want to change how they look. Yeah, how high majority? Most, right? 90% plus probably. It's like vanity.

Well, I would say a good portion of our careers towards the back half was spent on selling clients on these ideas. Totally. Like once I started to piece this together as a trainer, like how much all these other things about working out affected my life, I knew that that was the secret. Like, oh, I just got to get this client to feel that, see that or notice that because

once they make that connection, it's what's going to keep them going to eventually reach the reason why they showed up here. They showed up here because they want to lose some crazy amount of weight or they want to look like a cover of a magazine or whatever it is, which is a pretty big goal. But if I can get them to connect the dots to all these other aspects that it's going to improve their life and stop focusing so much on the end goal, even though they're hiring me for that, I know I want to get them there. I got to sell them on the idea of all these other things because they can start to see that immediately.

Yes, and it's a process, right? It's not like you tell them that on day one, but as you're training them, this is kind of what you're coaching. You know when you think of like personal growth methods They tend to be polarizing. So for example if you say to you know if somebody you tell them hey Try this religion or the spiritual practice or read this book by this motivational person or whatever very polarizing Sometimes they'll be like yeah, I want to do that and other times like no, I don't want to I don't want to do that personal And other times like, no, I don't wanna, I don't wanna do that. Personal growth is tough. I don't really feel like doing that or I don't believe in that or maybe a political reason.

Fitness spans across everybody. I had everybody working out my gym. I had Republicans, Democrats, I had Christians and Jewish people and people who were atheists. I had people and all of them were there, usually because they wanna change how they look, but not realizing that if they stick to it long enough and they're are atheists, I had people, and all of them were there, usually because I want to change how they look, but not realizing that if they stick to what long enough and they're sincere with it,

that they're embarking on a personal growth journey. And that's what fitness does, that's what lifting weight does. In fact, statistically, you can actually look this up. Statistically speaking, people who work out as part of their life, they have higher life satisfaction, this is a fact. They can handle challenges better. They actually do studies on this, and people who work out regularly,

when they have life challenges that we're all gonna have, whether it's a death in the family or illness, or you lose your job, or whatever, they tend to handle those challenges better. They tend to see challenges is valuable, more often than people who don't work out, and especially don't lift weights, and we'll make the argument why later in the episode,

they're more resilient to change. Again, you can look this all up. They tend to also be more successful in all categories. In fact, in business, when you look at people who make a certain amount, a disproportionate percentage of them exercise on a regular basis, it's part of their routine, and you think, you know, they're so busy, how can they have to, regular basis. It's part of their routine and you think, how they're so busy, how can they have to,

they've made it a part of their team because they've seen so much value in it and actually contribute to them being more successful in business. It creates these disciplines. It's, you learn that how these disciplines can apply in multiple directions. It's a part of the success formula

is to be able to understand how to apply these disciplines in a direction that's gonna make it where you wanna go. Yes, the first lesson I can remember, I'm thinking way back, right, because I was real young, but the first lesson I think I learned from weight, not realizing I'm learning this lesson, right? But the first lesson was that I changed my relationship to pain and struggle.

And now, this is easy for me to remember because I saw this on my clients. When I would get a new client and we would do an exercise, and I did not take new clients to high intensity. It's inappropriate, right? They're deconditioned. So we're training at moderate intensity, right? We're doing 10 reps of something that I know if I push them, they could do 20 reps. But always, right? Rep number seven and eight, the burn would kick in, and you could see

the look in their face, right? The relationship with pain was different. It was like, oh my god, I can't do this. Or they get sore, and they call me and be like, yeah think you're hurt there. Yes, it's just normal. So I'm hurt. Totally. I think I injured myself. I just, this doesn't, right? And it's because the relationship to pain is different. The relationship to pain is bad, all bad. Oh no, I'm doing this, it's burning. I can't handle the burn.

Oh no, I can't handle the pain of this shoulder press or the squat. I need to stop. I actually, at some times I would have clients actually throw dumbbells on the floor. Like they'd be, I'd tell them two more reps and they'd drop them, like I can't do any more. And it wasn't because it hurt them more than it hurt me.

When I do an exercise at high intensity, I feel the same pain somebody else does. The difference is I have a different relationship with pain. And I remember learning that when I was a kid, because I'd work out, and I had that feeling, like doing squats and being like, I have to rack, I can't do it anymore. But because I wanted to change my body and early on it was all about how I looked, I kind

of changed my relationship to that pain and I was able to go through it and be okay with it and get to the point where now the pain of exercise is something I enjoy. Right. You created an entirely different association with it. You know that what you're doing is beneficial towards your growth and towards you gaining more muscle. So therefore, now I look at it different because this pain is, you know, and I can get through this pain.

It's just temporary. I think this is worthy of sound bites like no pain, no gain come from. Right. Right. Because of the truth that's behind that. And that what it is is that you're you're stretching your capacity, right? If you always work within your capacity all the time, the body's not going to be forced to adapt and grow and change. So sure, maybe you're exercising, but you're not necessarily training the body. And I think that's where the lesson lies is knowing

that is stretching your capacity and the carryover I see that that's where in life. If you're always in your comfort zone, right? I mean, I remember being stuck in this in a job. I stuck in a job four years longer than I should have been because I was comfortable because it was easy. I made good money. I had 401K. I had benefits. I liked what I did. Why should I leave? You know, even though everything inside of me was telling me, like, you need to move on and you move on from this, but moving on from it meant struggle, meant possible pain, meant difficulty, meant challenge, meant maybe failure. All those things are going through my brain, but the truth is that was one of the best decisions

I ever made in my life was to take that chance and brace the pain. That's where the adaptation and growth came from. It does. And life is about struggle. I don't care who you are, how much money you have or whatever. You're going to encounter struggle and pain. And really it's about your relationship with it rather than not having it all, right? Not having any pain.

Like, I mean, you can numb your body, you can numb yourself in life, you can live in a hole and never do anything. And that would suck, right? You have to experience pain, you have to experience struggle. Now how is it going to affect you? Are you going to crumble? Are you going to cry? Are you going to run? Or are you going to crumble? Are you going to cry? Are you going to run?

Or are you going to stand tall and weather the storm? And lifting weights is hard. If you do it right, it's hard. And so you learn to change that relationship. The next one, this one, again, this is an early lesson that I learned, which is to embrace failure as part of the process. Because here's a deal, when you start off,

especially when you're new and you're lifting weights, you suck all the time. It's not good. It's not good for a long time. Yeah, it's so much easier to avoid that feeling. And I think that's one of the things that detours a lot of people from it is they know that this is going to be hard. This is something that I might not be that great at initially, just like any other pursuit,

any other skill that you're trying to learn, you're not gonna be great at it right off the gates. And you're lucky maybe if you're somewhat a decent at it. Well, this is also why I think people get stuck with modalities, right? Or exercises that they love, right? Because they don't wanna fail. They don't go do an exercise. They've never, yeah, they suck at it.

They've never done before. So I'm gonna keep sticking with these movements that I've been doing forever and I'm good at, but not realizing that the most change, the most benefits will come from going after something that they probably will fail at. Totally. I mean, I remember doing, you know, early exercises, compound lifts, and I'd get that, remember the shaky feeling that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that,

that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that unfamiliar. Yeah, it feels unstable or it just doesn't feel right or I'm trying to squat. I'm not getting it. I'm not getting it. Or I got to drop the way because it's not working. And there's a couple ways you could, you know, you could tackle that. One is to be like,

I'm never doing that again. I'm done. I'm gone. And the other one is like, I'm going to keep trying. And then you start to learn like, oh, this is, this is just part of the process. I'm always going to experience this because if I stop, then, you know, at this point, you're thinking, my body's not going to change, right? So I have to embrace failure. Is failure part of any growth process? 100%. Yeah.

There is, there is the, in fact, we were talking about this yesterday on the drive from trucky, you know, Justin and I were talking about the business. And we were talking about how oftentimes, we're working hard on one thing and we think it's gonna look like this and then something else happens that we didn't realize. And the only way that would have happened is had we push through and focus on this other thing.

Otherwise, if we never took a chance, if we never attempted and failed, we would have never learned what the real answer was. This is why people in business who go out and try, tend to outperform people who plan and plan and plan all the time. Well, that's the old paralysis by analysis, right? I think that's what you learned from this is that instead of, you know, sitting there and analyzing your ideas, one of the best things you can do is get moving towards that because the worst thing that could absolutely happen is failure from it and who cares? do is get moving towards that, because the worst thing that could absolutely happen

is failure from it and who cares? Because now you know that that's not the answer anymore. And the quicker you can get to that, the quicker you can get to the right answer. And so I think that's what that lesson taught me is I quickly learned that, oh wow, instead of me sitting around and arguing or debating why that's a good idea or a bad idea,

I'm gonna put that shit in a play and accept that, hey, I may fail at it, but so what? Now I know. Now I know for sure. It's no longer a debate, it's no longer an argument. And we've applied that in this business. How many times have we thought to your point,

like, hey, this is a great idea. Let's go this direction. And then we fail at it. But now we know that that's not the right way. It's an iterative approach. I mean, it's, whoever gets it right the very first time. I would love to see statistics on that with the business, with an idea you have, a pursuit, but I mean, how often does that happen?

That just, that just is like a bolt of lightning hitting you. So, you know, it's way better to just get yourself out there, work on your ideas, and it will reveal itself if you keep working on it. Right, and you're working out with an easy way to learn that, and again, it's unassuming. You don't realize you're learning that just because you want to change your body, you want to get in shape, but you end up learning that through the process. This next one took me a long time. This is probably of all the ones that we listed, and we have 10.

This is probably the one that took me the longest to really figure out, which is to learn to care for myself like someone I care about. Now the reason why this took so long was because for a long time, I worked out because I didn't like myself. And as a result, I treated myself like someone I didn't like and care about, right? So I over trained, take too many supplements, do crazy things with diet. And now, here's the irony of all that. Is my physique and my body didn't progress as fast as well as it could because I wasn't treating myself appropriately. Eventually, it's took me a long time to figure out

that I need to treat myself like someone I care about. And then my training became more appropriate. My diet became more appropriate. I was able to in more intelligent way scale back my training when I needed to or increase it when I needed to and then the progress started happening. But through the pursuit of trying to change my body, I started to figure this out.

I gotta take care of myself like someone actually cares. Do you remember when in your life that happened? Was there a pivotal moment in your training where that really, because I can't remember, I'm trying to remember when I made that switch. Obviously, I've admitted that I was driven by insecurities originally into the gym, but at some point, I made that switch

to taking care of my body first versus worried about what other people think how I look. I just can't pinpoint when that switch happened, can you? Yeah, I have a specific moment I've talked about before. This is when my health took a turn for the negative. This is when, you know, this was in my, I wanna say I was 30 and I thought I had an autoimmune issue. My gut health went terrible.

I lost lots of weight and the only way to fix myself was to start to focus on my health and through that I started to, and so no more aesthetics. I didn't focus on anything other than my health. And then I started to, through that, take care of myself, listen to my body, that kind of stuff. And then the side effect of that was, I looked amazing. I remember at the end of a year of that focus, I looked at myself in the mirror and I was

like, oh my gosh, I look better than I ever have. This is crazy. The side effect of me actually taking care of myself like someone I care about is the thing that I was always chasing in the first place. This actually took me a while to get to that point. I sort of carried that mentality. Like a lot of athletes I know that they just are never good enough.

Like I just was always punishing myself that I could do better. And that wasn't the performance I wanted out there. I'm not putting in enough work. And so it was just always this high demand. And I was just criticizing myself constantly. And it wasn't until later on where I started pursuing workouts with a completely different mindset where it was enjoyable.

I started to show up, I had more energy, and then all of a sudden I just got even better muscular gains and I got previous to that. Yeah, totally, because if you train yourself in a way that's not like someone you care about, you tend to overdo it. Like if you're tired, then you see yourself screw it. I'm gonna beat myself up.

I hate that I have this belly fat, or I hate that I don't have this muscle that I want, or whatever. You tend to overdo it. Like if you're tired, then you see yourself screw it. I'm gonna beat myself up. I hate that I have this belly fat or I hate that I don't have this muscle that I want or whatever. But when you treat yourself like someone you care about, then you start to listen. Like, oh, I'm a little beat up and tired. I think I'm gonna go to the gym and work on mobility today instead of beating myself up.

Or I'm not feeling so good, my gut health not so good. Rather than like force feeding myself more protein, because no, I need the gains. I'll say, oh, you know what, maybe I need to back off a little bit and increase my, maybe my vegetable intake or maybe I need to fast for a second to let things heal. And of course, the side effect of that is you end up looking better as a result. But yeah, that one took me a long time, I'd say the longest out of all of these. The next one, this one's a great life lesson, great life lesson.

And you learn this again through years of working out, which is to learn to focus on what you can change and ignore what you can't, right? So if you think of your body and think of the things you're working on, eventually, especially if you're, you're visually focused vanity or aesthetic focused, at some point you start to realize like, I'm not going to get 21 inch arms or I'm not going gonna get shoulders that are this wide, or I'm not gonna get this waist that is this small. My genetics won't allow it. I don't have the structure, I don't have the frame.

And you either are gonna quit and say, screw it, I'm not gonna do this anymore because I can't do these things I can't do, or you accept it and say, well, okay, but I'm still going. I'm still moving forward. And so it's gonna focus on the things that I can focus on and keep moving forward. Keep having enough abs for a 12 pack.

Well, what comes to mind when I think of that too is for, because what stands out the most is the two real dominant types of clients, right? You either have the really overweight person who wants to lose weight or you have the really skinny person that wants to put on muscle. And they both struggle with different things.

And part of this lesson I feel like is not only accepting who you are and your body type and your genetics, but then also learning to look at the strengths of that one. So if I have a client who struggles with putting muscle like myself, an ectomorph, have a hard time putting muscle on, but one of the benefits of that body type is leaning out is really easy.

So when I get to a place, if I actually add a little bit of muscle, it's really easy me to shred body fat and have this look. The reverse is true for the person who has a hard time losing weight. Well that person typically builds muscle really well. So it's also, I think, part of this process is learning to look at your strength. It's not accepting what you can't change and looking at the things that you're good at and try to be great with that or use that to your advantage.

So often we look at ourselves and we, oh, I'm too tall, I'm too short, I'm too fat, I'm too wide, I'm not this, I'm not that. We're focused on all the things that we're not versus, hey, there's also the other side of the coin to that. There's reasons that make, for every reason that you have that gives you a disadvantage, there's something that it gives you an advantage to or it just kind of reframes that. Yeah, I look at it as wasted energy.

I mean, it's, what can I control versus what's out of my control? And why not just focus on the things that it can control? And therefore, that's going to then take over, you know, and apply in positive directions. And, you know, I'm not going to then take over and apply in positive directions. And I'm not going to be burning, I'm not going to be spinning my tires in the dirt, so to speak. Yeah, I remember there's one client in particular that stands out to me. He worked out in my facility with another trainer.

He had lost his leg in a car accident, years prior, and went through a period of depression and gained a lot of weight. And eventually he came in and hired a trainer in my facility, and this was his motto. He's like, man, I went down that path, that dark path. I couldn't, I could, you know, obviously I lost my leg. I can't, have it come back.

I'm not gonna be able to walk like I could before, but eventually accepted it. And now I'm gonna focus on the stuff I can, well this guy ended up losing 80 pounds in a wheelchair and modified all kinds of exercises and did all kinds of stuff. He became one of the more motivated, inspiring people in my gym. In fact, when he would come in, I used to love him coming in

when there were other clients in the gym. So, so the energy in the room would improve because he had this kind of energy. He had this focus with himself. So, great example of what we're talking about. The next one, this one's a big one, which is that perfect doesn't exist. It's very connected to the previous one, right? There is no perfect. In fact, if you're focused on perfect, it's like trying to quench your thirst with seawater. You're going to just

make yourself thirstier and thirstier. This right here, if you don't learn this through fitness, because fitness can go two different directions, it can go in a very positive direction, which is what we're talking about, or it can start to turn negative. If you don't learn this lesson, that perfect doesn't exist, you start to move in the direction of extreme dieting, plastic surgery, anabolic steroids, things that are very unhealthy for your body in this pursuit of something that is unachievable. You can never get. It's a very dark place.

I've seen lots of fitness, especially fitness professionals stuck in this place and it can be very destructive. Well, there's two people that come to mind right away from me. One is the fitness professional, like you said, who's deeply insecure about their body, is driven by it, looking perfect. Even though they look amazing to 99% of the population, they're more insecure about their body is driven by it looking, you know, perfect. And even though they look amazing to 99% of the population, they're more insecure about their body than the, you know, 600 pound obese person. Like literally the more the more fit they get, the more obsessed they become with looking more perfect. And it's like this endless, bottomless pit. That's one. The

other one is the person who's really overweight who thinks that they need to lose all this weight so they'll be happy, right? So they think that it's because they're so overweight is why they're so unhappy with themselves and they think that losing the weight is going to do that. You have to have the self-acceptance, the forgiveness, the love for yourself first before that happens.

Otherwise, what ends up happening to this client and I've had this where they lose their 50, they're 100 pounds and they don't, and sure they lose their 50, their 100 pounds, and they don't, and sure they have an initial like, I did it, they're excited, we're with that. But a real quick hard crash after that because they didn't really deal with any of the other issues. They still are unhappy with themselves.

They have the formula backwards. So what happens is they think losing weight or getting fit makes me happy, and they don't realize that they actually have the formula flip, that's this way it's Happy if I get happy then I'll lose weight and then I'll get fit and it'll work Otherwise you it may lose the weight, but that'll come right back because it didn't solve all of their deep problems That chasing perfect is a trap. It is a complete trap

It doesn't exist everything's changing all the time and if you get into fitness Because you want to look perfect and you get into fitness, because you wanna look perfect and you stay in that phase and you stay trying to chase perfect, very, very dark, very dark. And again, I've seen it, all of us have in our space many, many times, it's not a place you wanna get stuck. This is also what it's taught me to go

and look at other aspects of the health fear more, right? So like again, I was driven by aesthetics originally and changing my body, the vanity thing you talked about. But later on, did I start to piece together the importance of mobility and mental health and relationship health and spiritual health? And so a lot of times, like this lesson here, a loan has taught me to let go of the look sometimes

and put a lot of energy and effort into other parts of this health sphere, right? And it actually doubled down on that. And knowing that, hey, I could let go of my body fat percentage being at nine or 10%, let it go up four or five and technically be a healthier person because I went so hard in the relationship, the mental and spiritual health or nutritional health.

So I like to challenge myself in those different areas and really push and focus on different parts of my overall health. Well, this is an interesting one because you're gonna get a lot of gurus and you're gonna get a lot of self-improvement people out there that are really gonna drive home that message of trying to achieve perfection.

And you know, you're gonna get that in athletics, you're gonna get that in all kinds of directions where this becomes an obsession to become great. And it's the only way you can become great and get anywhere with your life. And the sad part is if you look at all these documentaries and you see these ESPNs, three for 30s and some of the greatest athletes in the world and look at all these documentaries and you see these ESPN's, 30 for 30s and some of the greatest athletes in the world

and look at the dysfunction, look at all of the relationships they have, look at the other aspects of life that you have to consider when you laser in and you chase that dragon. Yeah, in fact, I learn a lot of these lessons through training myself and also training clients because teaching is a part of learning. When you're teaching other people, this kind of stuff, sometimes it's easier to do it to

see it in someone else than it is in yourself. That's really what helped me a lot with this one because you'd see your client get trapped in that body obsession phase and you're their trainer and you're not in their body. You're not suffering from the same insecurities about them or whatever. You tell them, you talk to them about them, you reflect them, maybe I should listen to my own words, you know. The next one, this one, I remember distinctly learning

this one. And that is to be humble. And here's why you learn how to be humble when you're lifting weight. There's always someone stronger than you. And there's always someone more knowledgeable. And this is not a bad thing. This is a great thing.

I remember learning this because I started working out at the YMCA and in the Y, this was tiny gym. It was really, it was like the size of this room, right? And I remember besides the power, there was this older group of power lifters that worked out, besides them, there were a lot of kids that worked out there, a lot of teenagers.

And within a certain period of time, I became the strong dude in the gym. Like I was dead left in and bench bench press in and you know, I was, oh, I was coming in. You know, I'm a young kid, but I feel like I'm the king of the castle. I'm the super strong dude. And then I got my membership at 24-off fitness, which was a, a bigger, more mainstream gym. And I remember going in there and seeing people warming up with my heaviest weights. And I immediately was humbled. That same thing happened when I stepped into my first gold gym or powerhouse gym, where you think you're so awesome,

and then you go in there and you realize that, and I remember seeing a female strength athlete squatting more than I could. And I remember, it was humbling, right, because you think you're supposed to be the strongest, stronger on my guy or whatever. And it's humbling, but this is a good thing, because when you're humbled, it keeps you learning and growing.'m a guy or whatever. And it's humbling, but this is a good thing because when you're a humble,

it keeps you learning and growing. I think one of the worst things that could ever happen is you actually are the best ever anywhere, in which case you kind of lose that drive. So when I think of a humbling experience for the gym and what it taught me, I think of like going to the gym some days and getting buried under a weight,

I think I should be able to move. That's definitely right. Like there's nothing more frustrating sometimes than, you know, knowing that I could squat 400 pounds and then, hey, it's been a while, maybe I've been inconsistent, so I throw 315 on there and I get buried by 315. And that is just so humbling. And what it speaks to or tells me is like, hey, I wasn't in the cards. Either I didn't put the work in and the discipline to be at that level right now. And that just to me translates into real life.

Like I think about that with sometimes you show up to work and a job you could normally crush, you fail at and you don't do well at. And instead of like whining about it or pointing and making excuses that, oh, it's his fault or their fault or the world hates me or everybody's out against me, it's like, well, how did I get here? Why am I so much weaker than what I was before?

And I know, and when I deep down and I think about it, it's like, well, you know, when I was hitting 400, I was also dialed in, I was consistent, I was doing all these things, and I thought and are expected that I should be able to at least get close to that, and I get buried under it and I get humbled. And that, to me, that was the lesson for that.

And I think about all the stuff in my life that, you know, I thought I'd crush it and I didn't. And it always made me go, fuck, you know, I didn't do this, I didn't do that, I should have done these things. This is a constant lesson from weights, especially like when I started identifying that I'm strong in a certain lift. And that's something that, you know, I've had great numbers

that I've put up and certain lift. And that's something that I've had great numbers that I've put up. And then I focus on something else. And I sort of throw that in the mix a little bit later. And all of a sudden, I can only do like 100 pounds less than I did before. And like how did that happen? And it's just one of those things

that you're just constantly getting humbled and checked based off of like how much attention you're putting in certain areas of your body, certain movements that you thought you crush all the time, but why am I not? You haven't been putting the work in. Totally, or how about this one? Like, you know, if you stay with it long enough,

you're gonna get older, right? It's a great thing. There's nothing wrong with getting older. It's a blessing. But as you get older, you get humbled because I didn't warm up before, and then I go do it today, and oh, I hurt my shoulder, you know, or I haven't been focusing on mobility.

I got away with that in my 20s and a little bit in my 30s. Now I'm not getting away with that anymore. So you get humbled because you're getting older, meaning you're not gonna be able to get away with the stuff you did before. So you gotta keep learning this lesson. You will, by the way, if you stay with fitness

or weight training or resistance training your entire life, this is a lesson that keeps giving. You will always learn to be humbled. It's never gonna stop with this particular one. Now this next one, this is a really good one. And I'm thinking of one story in particular for me where this really hit home. So this one is about consistency.

And how consistency is the key to success. I remember years ago as a young trainer, I had this gentleman that I trained and he was a self-made millionaire. He was a high school dropout as a kid, grew up single mom, and I obviously knew his story because he was my client. And he was extremely successful

by the time I was training him. And I remember talking to him and saying, can you give me advice like tell me like what's the key or whatever. And so he kind of, there's a few things he said that were really impactful. But then he finished and he said this, he goes, look, here's a deal.

He goes, if you tell me what I need to do to develop a nice body, you're gonna give me a set of exercises. They're only gonna be effective if I do them all the time. I have to be consistent. He said the real key to financial success style is to just be consistent. Just work hard, save your money, don't go into debt, and build multiple streams of revenue he told me. And just be consistent. It's no different than working out. You just got to do it every single day. He says in fact, somebody who's consistent is going to be more successful over time than somebody who's

got better strategies who's inconsistent. Now, from a fitness standpoint, this is also true. A consistent person exercising with a okay workout is going to get better shape over time than somebody follows the best workout inconsistently. Consistency is everything. This speaks back to the mentality. When I would go to workout before that, I would always have to crush that workout. I would have to apply as much intensity and I have to max out on these lifts. And you get to a point where you just,

it just seems like something it's not gonna happen today. So therefore, it's better for me not to go to the gym and this I can really just put that sort of effort and muster that in my workout. But, you know, it took a while to transition over to find out that even if I just, if I'm there and I'm going through these movements and I'm just taking my time and I'm doing way less weight,

you know, this is still building something that I'm progressing towards. Nothing speaks to this, to me, more than my experience with competing, because when I first got into this, I mean, if you 16-year-old me would be like high five and the 32-year-old me who got into competing, like, oh, this was my dream, like, to look like that, right? It was a young kid getting in, like, I wanted to look like the physique that I built in my 30s for competing. And the real biggest difference of all the things, there's lots of different variables

that changed from, you know, 20 year old Adam to 32 year old Adam, but the biggest one that made the difference in that physique was just purely consistency. Never in my life had I been that consistent with my diet and my training. I mean, just we're talking about years, years of not missing a meal, not missing a workout, just pure, and the result of that was this physique

that I never thought I could achieve because I had been kind of trying it for the 10, 12 years before that. And yeah, I ran, you know, some times of training really, really well. I mean, there's times for sure I trained very consistently for a year, but then the diet was kind of up and down, you know, or maybe I had the diet really, really good, but then the training never once had I ever put that consistency in the training and dieting and just kept going and kept going and kept going and

That's what built that physique for me and that to me Obviously translates into work and every other part of my life like most people What is the lane says at all time what the definition of success in business is the battle of attrition? Right, that's really what it is Can you keep going while it's hard and you're losing and you're not seeing results and where most people give up and quit? Can you persevere beyond that?

Because there's a place in business, there's a place in exercises, a place in all these things that we're trying to achieve in life where the majority fail. And when you learn that what will separate you from everybody else is being able to push beyond that point That's where all the success resides. Totally in fact you were talking about diet You know working with clients and their diet like one of the biggest keys

Was just getting them to be consistent on the weekend like everybody was okay Monday through Friday as soon as they were consistent Seven days a week then all the results started happening and And, you know, again, life lesson, right? What about relationships? Study, you know, studies show that people who are consistently say, good morning, consistently spend a little bit of time at night talking to each other, consistently show a little bit of appreciation are far more successful than the people who do the occasional grand gestures, right? The occasional vacation or the occasional bouquet of flowers, but they're not as consistent

on a day-to-day basis. That makes the biggest difference in everything and everything that you do. Speaking of everything, the next one is very important. And that is learning that the journey is far more important than the result. The journey is far more important than the goal. It's all about the journey. Now you learn this lesson through lifting weights because eventually you fail enough times.

What ends up happening is you typically will have a goal and you say, okay, I want to, you know, I'll make one up. I want to bench press 200 pounds, that's my goal. I want to bench press 200 and you work hard and you think about it and you're driving towards it and you're driving towards it. And then you achieve it. Then you finally accomplish your 200 pound bench press.

You meet literally the day after, you're left feeling like, now what? Okay, I did that. I lost every, all my motivation. I lost all my drive. What do I do now? Athletes will feel this after competing. They'll work themselves up to this championship

or this particular achievement. They'll get to it. And then they'll be more inconsistent, they'll be more just worse with their training and practice than they ever have before, because they accomplished this massive goal. So what you end up learning over time is, goals are great, they help direct you,

but it's really about the journey. If I enjoy, if you enjoy the journey, you're not just gonna get to your destination, you'll get to beyond. You'll always keep moving forward. Well, it's also the only way you're not just going to get to your destination, you'll get to beyond. You'll always keep moving forward. Well, it's also the only way that you'll be able to see all the other things that it does for you.

If all you, if you show up to your gym and you sign up with your trainer and you say, here's my goal and all you do is focus on the goal, you'll miss out on all the things that it's doing for your life everywhere else. You won't make the connection. So you first have to recognize that the journey is everything, that that's where the real goal is at. That then allows you to start to make those connections. If you don't first accept that and realize that,

you'll miss out, that, oh wow, it improves my skin. Oh, it improves my hair. Oh, it improves my relationship. Oh, I'm better at work. Oh, I sleep better. Oh, my libido's better. You won't see all those things if all you're focused on is the goal.

If that's all you see, and that's all you want, and that's all you talk about, that's all you care about, then you will miss all that. And it starts with understanding that the journey is where all the great stuff is at. That will allow you to see those things. Totally, look, think of it this way.

You know, you have two different people. One guy wants to walk 10,000 miles. That's his goal. I wants to walk 10,000 miles. That's his goal. I'm gonna walk 10,000 miles. The other guy says, I love walking every single day. I just love it. Over time, who's gonna walk farther? Yeah.

They're both at 10,000 miles. The guy's driven to do it. But once he hits it, he's done. The other guy just loves walking every single day. You love the journey. Oh man, the distances you'll go with your progress. It's everything. Now the journey and everything, all right, there's to do with work, with your marriage, with your kids, with life, with your

friendships. It's about the journey. The journey is where you learn and gain all what you get in that mentality, the consistency has no friction. There's no, there's nothing that really prevents you from being drawn back to it. And I think that when you place it in a different mindset, that becomes most of the issue is, how can I keep doing this in order to get to my goal? Well, why not just love doing it? This reminds me of the lesson that I've learned of this too, is that looking for money, right? Like in a business, like trying to chase money versus looking for a passion or something that you would do. Totally. Totally. Like, that's the lesson that I learned from this, is like, when you, your whole life, if you're chasing after a dollar amount or reaching a certain

financial pinnacle, you miss out on the journey process and what you find out, even when you get the money, you're unhappy, right? So the same thing goes for this. I feel like those two are the something that taught me. Totally. Now the next one, this one you You have to learn if you're gonna be consistent and this is gonna be healthy for you, which is healthy Self-criticism. So there's a couple things I want to touch on with this. Now one is that a lot of people think self-criticism is all negative, right? So you get this kind of backlash. You're never criticize yourself, you're perfect, never, you know, say that anything needs to change. And I think that's the reaction to people who are on the other end of the spectrum, which is, I'm never good

enough, I'm terrible, I'm ugly, I'm fat, and whatever. Somewhere in the middle is where you want to be, which is healthy self-criticism. So to use this from a fitness perspective, I can look in the mirror and I learned this eventually over time. I can look in the mirror and objectively say, you know what? I can tell I haven't been treating my body very well.

I can tell that I need to work on my posture a little bit. So I think I'm gonna focus on that, okay? Now I'm not identifying with it, right? I'm not looking at the mirror saying, oh my God, you're a gross person. Oh my God, that's so ugly. Oh my God, I hate myself. And I'm also not saying nothing to see here,

everything's perfect, everything's great. It's a healthy self-criticism. And you need that in order to continue to grow. This is what self-awareness is. You have to be able to look at yourself and from a healthy standpoint, say, these are some things that can work on. Doesn't make me a bad person. Doesn't mean I'm not deserving of affection, love, and care, and respect. But these are definitely things that can improve upon you.

It can be as easy as starting with what you do the most. Just going through an inventory and really observing yourself, looking at your days, looking at your weeks, looking at your months, what have you been spending the most of your time towards? And, you know, what can you just shift a little bit that will steer you in, you know, a more healthy goal? Yeah, this reminds me too of, I think I was lucky that when I got into competing that I had a good relationship with exercise and nutrition going into it because I had the ability to look at myself in the mirror and say things like, oh, my shoulders are underdeveloped compared to my chest.

And it not being an insecurity of that, it me going, this is what I'm going to be judged. And then me going back to the drawing board and saying, this is how I build those to look this certain way, not driven by an insecurity because I could objectively look at it and say, okay, they're not as proportionate as my arms or my chest or my back is. So let me develop it. I think there is definitely a healthy place. The other thing I can think of is when I got in that competitive shape, realizing and recognizing I had shit mobility. I looked the most amazing I've ever looked at my life. People are complimenting me. I feel awesome, but then I can't even squat past 90 degrees because I had terrible hip and ankle mobility. So being able to look at that and go like, okay, but then I can't even squat past 90 degrees because I had terrible hip and ankle mobility.

So being able to look at that and go like, okay, sure, I can present my physique and it looks cool, but then I'm really lacking in these other parts of the health sphere, right? And so being able to switch my focus now, okay, well, let me address those other parts of my life. And I think there's nothing wrong with that. I think if it comes from the right place,

it's a very healthy thing for you to do. Exactly. And then finally, the last lesson I learned from, one of the last lessons I learned from lifting weights was balance. Now, I learned this because I pushed too hard and I don't get what I want, right? So I want to develop my body, I want to build my physique,

I'm going to keep pushing, keep pushing. And I started to slide backwards, I started over-trained, I started to get injured physique, I'm going to keep pushing, keep pushing. And I started to slide backwards, I started to over train, I started to get injured. And eventually I was faced with the reality that, maybe I'm overdoing it, let me see what happens, if I balance myself out. Let me see what happens if I focus on my sleep a little bit, is that going to make my body change?

Is this going to give me more of what I want? And the answer was yes, balance actually led to better results. I remember one time in particular I learned this, I was like, you know, when I was younger, I don't want to burn any extra calories, right? I'm an ectomorph. So, you know, naturally skinny. So I remember thinking, I'm going to lift weights and then sit as much as possible because I understood very basically calories and versus calories out. Don't move, don't want to burn any extra calories because I burn too many as it is, so I'm not going to do anything.

And I remember I had this train of that work for me who, you know, he's very developed and he said he was an ectomorph, but he liked to do some cardio here and there. And he had an incredible physique and he said, well, you know, when I do some cardio with me, I said, now man, I can't burn any extra calories.

He goes, if it makes you healthier, then maybe you'll build a little bit more muscles like a light bulb went off. But maybe he's right. And so I didn't, I didn't overdo it. I just did a little bit. And I could remember my cardiovascular shape was so terrible. But I started doing it. And then my body got healthier and it started to improve. I started to balance out my health a little bit. Now, is this a lesson for life? You better believe it. People who lack balance in life are terribly unhappy. You know, whether it's only focusing on work or only focusing on leisure

or being hyper focused on building your physique and not having any friends or friendships or anything like that. Like balance is very important for health. And again, if you don't have balance when you lift weights, you're not gonna develop your body the way you want. This is one of the hardest ones, right? Because it to be successful at anything in life or in the gym takes what we've listed before, consistency, discipline, pushing through failure. And that a lot of times seems like just like my optically focus on this and nothing else

and just drive this home. And that's it. That's it. That's it. But then when it ends up happening a lot of times when you do that, you lose sight of all kinds of other things in your life. And so there is this, I think this is like a constant dance that you're playing. These things, in order to achieve great things, it takes a lot of sacrifice, a lot of discipline, a lot of consistency, but in order to maintain it for a long period of time, it takes balance. So knowing how to weave in and out of that, that is something that it's taking me a very long time

to figure that out. I feel like barely am I getting that now in almost 40 years old of learning how to, hey, say it's okay for me to be very, very focused on this goal and maybe making some other sacrifices and other parts of my life because I have something I'm focusing on. But then recognizing, hey, when I achieve that goal,

I'm not married to this idea or this thing, be able to move out of it and then focus on other parts of my life. It's a constant dance that I feel like I'm always doing. I mean, getting yourself towards a rigid plan and program is definitely some place to start and that's something that's going to provide sort of the framework and sort of the bone structure of where you need to go.

But at the same time, there's just so many variables that come your way because of life. And especially if you look at something like nutrition where you're really dialed in and you're really pursuing all these healthy foods and the consistency is there and this is at the utmost importance to you, but then birthdays happen and then you're going out with your friends. This becomes a compromise of, do I really need to not partake because this is going to be something that's going to deter me. You just realize that you need to be flexibility and there needs to be that in all these different directions. Totally. And again, these are all, again, if you stick with it long enough and you

and you're consistent long enough, these are the lessons you learn through lifting weights and their valuable life lessons. Look, thank you for watching and listening to Mind Pump. If you want more information on how to develop your body, your train, particular areas of your body, your burn body fat or nutrition, or even for personal trainers, go to Mind Pump Free.com, download our library of guides, we have a lot of free guides on there

that you can learn from. You can also find all of us on Instagram. You can find Justin at Mind Pump, Justin, me at Mind Pump Salon, Adam at Mind Pump Adder. Thank you for listening to Mind Pump. If your goal is to build and shape your body, dramatically improve your health and energy, and maximize your overall performance, check out our discounted RGB Superbundle at Mind Pump Media dot com.

The RGB Superbundle includes maps and a ballad, maps performance and maps aesthetic. Nine months of phased, expert exercise programming designed by Sal Adam and Justin to systematically transform the way your body looks, feels and performs. With detailed workout blueprints in over 200 videos, the RGB Superbundle is like having Sal Adam and Justin as your own personal trainers, but at a fraction of the price. The RGB Superbundle has a full 30-day money bag guarantee and you can get it now plus other valuable free resources

at MindPumpMedia.com. If you enjoy this show, please share the love by leaving us a five-star rating and review on iTunes and by introducing Mind Pump to your friends and family. We thank you for your support and until next time, this is Mind Pump!