Mind Pump: Raw Fitness Truth - 1625: How to Be an Alpha Male

Episode Date: August 23, 2021

In this episode Sal, Adam & Justin cover eleven traits that a true alpha male possesses. A crisis of masculinity. (1:24) Learning by example. (3:19) Eleven Traits of a True Alpha Male.  #1 – Embrace the fear. (10:02) #2 – Speak your truth. (13:23) #3 – Always strive to be better than you were. (16:34) #4 – Doing what’s right because it’s right. (23:46) #5 – Take personal responsibility for the bad stuff. (30:11) #6 – Be strong and dangerous. (36:49) #7 – Take care of yourself like someone you care about. (42:31) #8 – Define your core values. (44:36) #9 – Have integrity. (48:01) #10 – Be likable and humble. (52:21) #11 – Be a good father, husband, and friend. (58:25) Related Links/Products Mentioned August Promotion: MAPS Strong and MAPS Powerlift 50% off!  **Promo code “AUGUSTSPECIAL” at checkout** Visit Felix Gray for an exclusive offer for Mind Pump listeners! Warren Farrell - Jordan Peterson Mind Pump #872: Dr. Warren Farrell- The Boy Crisis The health benefits of strong relationships Good to Great: Why Some Companies Make the Leap and Others Don't Mind Pump Podcast – YouTube Mind Pump Free Resources People Mentioned Warren Farrell, PhD (@drwarrenfarrell)  Twitter Jordan Peterson (@jordan.b.peterson)  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 just found the world's number one fitness health and entertainment podcast. This is Mind Pop, right? In Tidia's episode, we give you 11 ways to become an alpha male. Healthy masculinity, had to be a good father, a good husband, and a good friend.

It was a fun episode. We know you're going to enjoy it. Now, this episode is brought to you by our sponsor, Felix Gray. Felix Ray glasses are blue light blocking glasses that really help you with your health and your sleep. Now, they're different than other blue light blocking glasses because they don't change the color of everything around you.

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Go check them out, head over to mapsfitinistproducts.com. Just use the code August Special with no space for the discount. Good time to reveal the alpha male. I like to say like that. Ah! I feel like we have to come out with the episode like that. That's how people think. You know what?

All joking aside, there definitely is, and there has been for a while a crisis of masculinity and it's evidenced by all of the children that are raised without fathers. This is a big deal, it's a big problem. Did you see that Jordan Peterson just had Warren Farrell? Yeah, he did. Yeah, it was over two years when we had him on there.

It was not a popular conversation back then. No, but there's a lot of, I mean, obviously a lot of truth in that. What they attribute to toxic masculinity, the traits of being violent and aggressive and treating women terribly, that comes from often, because if you look at the statistics on man that do that kind of stuff, that comes from often, because if you look at the statistics on man that do that kind of stuff, right,

that go to jail that are dysfunctional, that treat people that way, the vast majority of them were raised without a good solid, strong male role model. And so what you're left with, and here's my theory, what you're left with is when you're a young man and you don't have this male role model is you create what you think Masculinity is and where do you get your information from?

Yeah TV media rap music rock music whatever and so you think oh being a guy means being this aggressive asshole and treating women being this aggressive asshole and treating women terribly and not taking responsibility and living my life the way in or whatever. And that's so false, that's so, so long. It's the opposite of what real masculinity is.

Well, let's define what makes an alpha male. I'm gonna be a fun episode to break down all the things that we think that define a true alpha male, not this image so much that you're not just engineered alpha male that you'll see like on Instagram or whatever else. Yeah, you know, for me at least the best example I have of that is my own father. He was a great that is my own father. He was a great role model. Obviously not perfect, nobody's perfect. But he showed, he respected my mom, showed her lots of respect and love.

He respected his father and his mother and the people in our family that were older than him. I mean, to this day, if my dad is sitting in a particular chair and my grandfather walks in or one of my older uncles or one of my cousins walks in, his pregnant, my dad will get up and offer his chair and show lots of respect. My dad was definitely not someone you wanna mess with.

He definitely was very confident and could he could kick your ass. I mean, he was a judo practitioner, very strong guy. But he also showed lots of restraint, calmness. He was very steady and stable. I remember one time there was a situation where he did get physical with somebody and he restrained the person and did, he could have totally really hurt the person, but instead he held the person down and showed lots of restraint and that had a huge impact on me as a kid

because I could see that my dad was, he was controlling himself, he was showing temperance. Well, I think that's a lot of what defines a true alpha male is having these certain capabilities, but then refraining or knowing when to use them and when to not use them, right? Totally. But for me, I really wanted to do this episode because I didn't have that. I didn't have a good example growing up, you know, those that have been listening

to show for a long time know that my father passed on on seven, my mom married into a very unhealthy relationship after that. So I really had to piece this together as I got older into adult. And I think a lot of where I picked up on, you know, what defines or makes it an alpha male where I picked up on what defines or makes an alpha male was in my pursuit of leadership is reading and learning about what makes a good leader because you'll see as we go through it, like yesterday we wrote down all these lists, we all started firing off all these different things

that we thought make an alpha male. And one of the things that I found that the common theme throughout all this, no matter whether it was Justin or you or me making a point, a lot of it aligns with what also makes a great leader. So a lot of the stuff that I picked up over years was from reading things along those lines. You found mentors. You found them in business too, didn't you?

I did a little bit in business. I'd say a lot of the mentors that came in books. A lot of the stuff that I think I aspire to be like, there wasn't a lot of great role models, even in business. I didn't have the best leaders in our companies that we worked. There was some, but I was also stuck in a position where I didn't think that the men that were above me and so they weren't people that I aspire to be like. I found a lot of that stuff through reading

more than I did in examples in real life. Yeah, for me again, it's just watching my dad, watching my grandfather, the respect that they showed, the women in the family, the respect that they showed, their elders, the consistency that they showed. My dad was very consistent, very strong in his position. And it was great. It was great to have somebody like that,

to look at and to watch. You mentioned being a great leader. I think that's important. I think it's also important to know when to follow, which I think is a good characteristic of a good leader, right? It's being able to know and to be humble enough to say, I can learn from this other person and I don't need to assert my dominance constantly.

That's a big one that you see in false masculinity or fake alphanus. This is a guy that asserts his dominance all the time. You know when they do studies on primates, the primates that like chimpanzees and gorillas, by the way, they're way more violent than humans are, right? But still, the leaders are not the ones that fight everybody. They're the ones that could, if they wanted to,

but do the most for other people in their group and tribe, and so the ones that could, if they wanted to, but do the most for other people in their group and tribe, and so they have that respect. Because the ones that are hated and feared, as soon as they turn their back, a group of monkeys gets together and then we'll jump them and attack them and kill them. You've seen this in history, right, with tyrants where they, before you know it, they get poisoned or killed and because they lead through fear and intimidation. Well, let's go down this list, the ones,

and we can briefly talk about maybe what we mean by this, because some of them are obvious and some of them are not so obvious. Actually, I wanted to ask Justin, you've mentioned the past, you've had great coaches in the past that showed you this. So when you first have a coach where you had that example? One of the first examples was my football coach. A lot of times it was just about doing the right thing. That was in all of your actions, whether or not you were on the field or you on campus and just the realization

that everybody's watching you and you are what makes up who you are as your character is what you always do. So if you would bring up examples of like when we would you know some guys would hawk Louies and spit in the halls or talk down to somebody else and intimidate them, and he would jump all over those guys and correct that. And it was just one of those things where every little detail was something that we tried to aspire every time to get better at. So it was very much of a growth mindset

that he was implementing with us. But it was very impactful on me because just the integrity that he showed us was something that between him and my father as well, you know, I got really good examples of integrity and always staying true to doing the right thing. Yeah, that's great. The first, you know, the first one that came up for us when we were writing this list, which by the way is in no particular order. No, but this one, this first one that came up for us when we were writing this list, which by the way is in no particular order. No, but this one's popped up for us,

which kind of says a little bit about it, which is to, because I think young men, at least especially kids, I know I did, I thought that being a man meant never being afraid, like, oh, you're fearless, But that is not true at all. I remember I had a client once that I trained. That was a, he was in the SWAT team in San Jose. And we actually talked about this. And I said, aren't you, like, when you go and you do these raids or you're in the situation, like, don't, do you still get afraid? He's like, yeah, of course.

He's like, I could lose my life at any moment. And he says, but you know, you just go, you do it anyway. And I remember that being such a powerful thing to hear. And then there was a conversation about how my son, when he was little, where he said, oh, you know, he was scared of the dark and he said, you know, but I wish I was not afraid like you, because then I could be brave.

And I said, you can't be brave unless you're afraid. That's right. You know, like Superman running into a burning building, he's not brave, he's no, he's nothing going to happen to him. A firefighter who could die from the flames, that's bravery right there. So I think it's important to know that you're you know be an alpha male. You're gonna feel fear But you do what you need to do anyway you embrace it, you know, I'm scared, but I'm not true true courage is is going into fear

That's right an acknowledging that you're afraid But you do it anyway. Yeah, totally. Well, I think that's one of the things that I learned in leading some of the reading some of the leadership books was that when you have these situations where you, you feel fear, which is instead of running from it or trying to avoid it or looking for another way around is to go through that. And I think that's just a definition of, of what makes an alpha male or a leader is the ability to accept and brace that this is scary, this is going to be difficult. There's a good chance I might fail,

I won't make it through whatever, but yet you still move forward and towards it. Yeah, there's a couple examples I can think of just with you guys that I watch this. And by the way, I think it's important to surround yourself with other men who exemplify some of these things because you do learn and pick up on them, but you know, like Justin, for example, a lot of people that know us when we started the podcast, he was probably the least comfortable person, you know, being on a podcast, being on camera, you know, doing that kind of stuff. It's kind of against this nature. He never once faltered. Always did it. Never said anything, never complain, never tried to make it so that it was different. Always put himself out there. I thought that was a great example

of kind of what we're talking about. And then with you Adam, you know, because of how you grew up, you know, I have to imagine you probably had some fear of even having your own kids because of what you experienced, and yet you had your own kid, and you're a great father. So two great examples that I can think of, you know, being afraid, but doing it anyway, and moving forward.

And I think that's really awesome. The other thing that comes to mind is speaking your truth, speaking the truth, I should say, not your truth, but the truth. And I think that sometimes the truth hurts, sometimes it's scary to tell somebody exactly how you feel or what you're thinking. And I remember the first time that I learned

about radical honesty and that always stuck with me. In fact, it's one of our core values in this business. And I learned like years ago that the more honest, the more radical honesty that I could put forth or the way I could speak the truth to people, even if it hurt, even if it was difficult, it always ended up working out for the better, even if it was difficult to go through it originally and say it.

And, you know, it's a practice that I think that you're always evolving or trying to be better at. I don't know if anyone is ever perfect at never telling themselves a white lie or being 100% truthful, but to be pursuing that truth all the time, I think, is what defines an alphabet. Speaking the truth is especially important when it's unpopular to speak the truth, or when it's scary to speak the truth. You know, a lot of people don't, this is throughout all of history, you know, it's most important.

Most important, do you know how many travesties could have been stopped if people were just continued to always speak the truth, even when being intimidated or even when violence was put against them? I mean, you think of like, you know, pre-World War II Germany and, you know, the Nazis, right? And everybody's like, oh my gosh, how could so many of them go along with what was happening? A lot of them were afraid. The same thing with the Soviet Union or when Mao took over with China, people were, they would be thrown in gulags or prisons or killed for speaking the truth.

So people were so intimidated that they would just say what they were supposed to say, which allowed terrible things to happen. So especially when you're afraid, and I know that's easy to say, right, easier said than done, but especially when you're afraid to speak the truth, this is why one of the most valuable, without going off on a tangent, one of the most valuable freedoms we have

is the freedom of speech. It explicitly exists to protect unpopular speech because popular speech does not require any protection. So very important, and this is definitely part of number one which is to be brave, right? Is to say, okay, well, I know I'm in a room full of people who are going to chastise me, but one plus one is two. That's the truth, and so I'm going to speak it off. Yes, stepping out in a crowd and standing your ground is a very, very hard thing to do. That's just something that, especially if you know what's right and what's true, that's your opportunity.

It's getting tested, but very difficult to do that, but that's, in my opinion, that is a definition of an alpha male. Totally. The next one, I think, is really important just to be a good person, which is to always strive to be better than you were, to improve upon how you were yesterday, which I think is the only fair comparison, by the way.

I think it's not fair to compare yourself to other people. Everybody's different, but I do think it's fair to compare yourself to yourself, you know, and you know, like with fitness, for example, I'll have people who will be like, oh man, I, you know what, I would train clients to work with people and they'd say things like, oh, I, I, you oh, I'm so inactive.

And I'll say, well, how many days did you work out last week? Oh, I only worked out twice. Well, how many days a week did you work out three weeks ago? Zero. You're doing a great job. Like you're improving. And that's really, I mean, if you improve a little bit every day, man, that makes tremendous differences

in the long haul. I feel this is kind of like the embracing the fear too. It's kind of like embracing your flaws and recognizing your weaknesses and recognizing that you have places to grow and being okay with that. Embracing that I know there's a better version of me out there tomorrow if I continue to pursue that and to be accept and be okay with your weaknesses, your flaws, your setbacks in the pursuit of always trying to be a better version of yourself. And I think accepting that, owning that and pursuing that is so important. I'm going to keep tying back the leadership because

to me that's my connection that I've made with this in my life is being able to see that, okay, this is what makes a good leader, is not necessarily having all the answers or being so great, but the pursuit of consistent growth. Yeah, do you guys have any strategies for yourself to help yourself with this? Because this requires a little bit of self-reflection and self-awareness, right?

Because like you don't know what you don't know type of deal. You know, one thing that I do is I, I try to surround myself with people who are better than I am at something that I want to approve upon, right? So if I want to get better at public speaking, I'll find people either follow them on social media or watch them learn learn from them,

or if someone's better than me at whatever, like to have myself around people like that. I can't help but improve myself because I have that context, right? That person next to me who, as opposed to always surrounding yourself with people that you feel like you're better than or that you don't learn from,

which might make your ego feel good, like, oh, I'm the best. How the hell you learn from something like that. Yeah, I definitely surrounding yourself with people that you aspire to be like in certain areas you recognize that you could improve. Also just immersing yourself in an environment that is completely uncomfortable

and sort of working your way through that and starting at the bottom all over again provides a great opportunity for growth. It is very challenging to do that and it's something I have had over the years to get better at challenging myself to do because being comfortable, over the years to get better at challenging myself to do because being comfortable, it's way easier, it's something that more naturally, you wanna gravitate towards making your life a bit easier, but every time I decide to really immerse myself in a direction where I know I'm gonna be struggling

the whole time, the other side of that is just so much more fulfilling. Well, I think a lot of that is challenging your own beliefs, right? Not smelling your own farts all the time. Yeah. At the, I used to do this. And this practice is something I did for years. I used to do at the end of every night. I'd lay in bed and I think about like all the different state changes that I had throughout the day, positive and negative. But I was most interested in the things that negatively impacted me.

Things that made me angry or upset or frustrated if I got in an argument with somebody. And then I would, I'd dive into that situation. And instantly the first thing that I would do is to remove the other person from this, meaning that no matter if it was Sal who said something that was, let's say insulting to me, and right away I would go, we'll forget, Sal,

and exactly what he said. So take that person out of the focus. Yeah, that person is not what I'm looking, I'm here, I'm pursuing self-awareness and growth with myself right now and he affected me somehow emotionally I gave up some of that power so what is it about what he said that made me feel this way and many times which you'll find it it is a reflection of some deeper rooted insecurity that you have like it had nothing really to do with the that you have. Like it had nothing really to do with the insult that South said. It's that I identify with that insult somewhat because I allowed it to emotionally affect me negative. Otherwise it wouldn't bother you. That's right. Yeah, like if I'm like Adam,

you're short. That's like a bother because you know you're tall. That's right. So what is it about that that that made me feel this way and and that's where the real work is done and self improvement and growth and the first real work is done and self-improvement and growth. And the first step to that is becoming self-aware of those moments. And it started as an evening practice that I would do all the time. And just like anything else, if you practice that a lot and you get really good at it, you can start to do it in real time. So instead of the next time...

So the next time... Because you're practicing it. Yeah. Because I practiced that so much at night time, like reflecting on my day, now in real time, when say another person I meet, he says the same insult that Sal said, I immediately, I can feel the the change in emotion, the feelings that are going on internally right away. And instead of reacting to what he's saying, I have the ability to internally go, like, oh wow, that stings, that's that thing that I'm still dealing with that goes all the way back

to childhood that I'm still working through and trying to get better. And the more you practice that, the more you can get real time with it and not allow those situations to affect you. Yeah, I like that. I remember you saying that a while ago, and I started doing that. I thought it was really valuable. Another thing that I. Yeah, I like that. I remember you saying that a while ago, and I started doing that.

I thought I was really valuable. You know, another thing that I did, and I do that, I do it sometimes still, but I used to do it real often, was if I had a very strong opinion about a subject, I would find people who had an opposing opinion, who were smart and intelligent and can present their case well,

and then I would debate them. But the goal for me wasn't to beat them in a debate. The goal was to see if I could understand their point. And I would do a good job of presenting my case. And most usually I would come out and I would say, okay, well, I still stand by my position. But every once in a while, I would have my mind changed, which was a great feeling.

You know, my ego at first, I don't like that, right? You don't want to lose the debate. But afterwards, I would kind of like it and be like, wow, I'm not wrong anymore. I have a better position because this person, you know, engaged with me, you could do this actually quite well on social media, just got to be respectful because otherwise it turns into a you know a shouting match. It becomes really annoying. But this next one I think is really important because we live in kind of this time where if we do something good or do something right, I guess it doesn't count if nobody sees you do it. So really it's doing what's right because it's right.

Bottom line, that's it. That's there's nothing else. There's this old marketing saying that says something like, donate $10,000 to the needy, and then spend $100,000 in marketing, letting everybody know that you did that. Right. Which is, that's the opposite of what I'm talking about.

It's like, do the right thing, just cause that's the right thing to do. It's not because it's expedient, not because you fear the consequences. Here's another one, right? Like the man who doesn't rob a bank because they're afraid of going to jail, that's not a good person. That's just a coward. They're just scared of going to jail. that's not a good person, that's just a coward.

They're just scared of going to jail. The man who does a rob a bank because, oh, that's the wrong thing to do. Like, you ever played that game like, what would you do if you could never get caught? Right. It's like, you know, do you do the right thing because it's the right thing

or because you're afraid of, you know, getting caught or the negative consequences? Big difference. Well, this, actually, this one reminds me actually a story about you, Sal, in this business. There was a time, it was probably three or four years ago, and we were talking about the business and just how things have unfolded,

and many times we say it's been so serendipitous, how that unfolded in the business. And there's been many times where there's an opportunity for us to make more money in this direction or that direction. And I remember you saying, Sal, that, you know, one of the things I know for sure is every time we do the right thing, we've been rewarded in the business. Even if it's not the most financially beneficial or the one that we would like to do the most,

when it's the right thing to do, we're always rewarded within the business. And sometimes that can be deceiving because you think, okay, well, part of the goal of a business is to scale and to make more money. And so this option over here seems like this would be more money. But if our integrity says that I don't feel right selling this

or I don't feel right charging people for this, then even if there is a lot of money there, maybe this isn't the right thing for us to do. And I feel like we've had that conversation many times in this business and I believe that we've been rewarded and it's served us by doing the right thing and not always the most expedient or the most financially beneficial for us because we didn't feel that it aligned with our values and our integrity.

And I believe that that's how this works for people in life is there's times in life where you'll be, you'll have these options and sometimes the ones that look the most tempting or you would think might give you instant pleasure or gratification, isn't necessarily the right thing for you to do. And so making sure that those things align with your core values and having integrity around it and doing the right thing for the sake of the right thing. Yeah, I like that.

Go ahead, Justin. Oh, just doing the right thing. It builds that pathway to a fruitful life. Eventually, it sort of evails itself to you. It's not always easy. It doesn't seem like things are always working out smoothly, but it's something that has more purpose, has more. You start to see what that all can become later on.

And we've definitely been tried and tempted along the way. And to Adam's point, there's been many opportunities thrown and we've had discussions and hard discussions. Even when we're tired and we don't want to travel places, I remember, Sal, challenging us. Like maybe we should go to that appointment because we said we would. And that's integrity.

And that's not easy because there's, it's not easy because, you know, there's plenty of other things that we could easily do to make money and keep going. But it's a, it's a character thing. It's who we are. And so the closer we stay true to that, you know, the more of these things will present themselves later on. Yeah, you know, I've heard it presented like this. I think this is a brilliant way too, is that if you look at every decision you make and every potential consequence of that decision and then all the downstream consequences, right?

It's like that, what's that saying? Like a butterfly flaps its wings and then across the world, you know, there's a car crash or something like this. This chain of events that can happen from single decisions, right? And there's like this infinite possibility of consequences and actions from one decision or one action. So you have to imagine that being honest and making the right decision, doing the right thing,

leads to a greater potential of better consequences. It's not going to guarantee everything. a greater potential of better consequences. It's not gonna guarantee everything, but it's gonna probably lead to a better potential of effects and consequences, and they're not always obvious. Sometimes in fact, it seems the opposite of obvious where you're presented an opportunity and you're like, man, that's easy money,

or no one will ever find out, or what's the big deal, you know? And, but you gotta just do the right thing. My mom, my mom, when I was a kid, my mom was so honest that you still are knowing me because she would refuse to like call the school and say, if I was sick in order for me to get a day off. She would, you know, she was so on, I'll never forget one time we left the grocery store,

and the cashier gave her too much change. I think it was like, it was like less than a dollar, and we were in the car, my mom's looking, we gotta go back inside. Why? They gave me too much change. I'm like, my who cares, what's the big deal? No, we gotta go back inside.

She goes all the way to, but it was such a great example of like doing the right thing, you know, even though it's not expedient. And of course, I learned a lot from that. This next one is super important. It's very empowering, but it feels like it's not. It actually feels like it takes away from you or it'll damage you. And that's to take responsibility, take

personal responsibility. Now, I'm not talking about taking personal responsibility for good things. That's a piece of cake, right? So, you know, oh, wow, look, you deadlifted 500 pounds. You know, yeah, it's because that worked out hard. Now, I'm not talking about that responsibility. I'm talking about taking personal responsibility for all the shit that goes wrong, all the bad stuff. You know, everything in your life that isn't the way it is, find a way to take some responsibility of it. You know, whether it's because you decided to be in the room when the thing happened or you decided to not leave the partner who was shitty to you or you decided to turn your face the other way why somebody did something wrong or it was more obvious and you actually did something Take the responsibility because that's the first step to becoming a better person if you don't take responsibility Then you have no control how the hell can you change or improve upon anything and this I think is sorely lacking

in story I love this one too. This also reminds me of the first rule of leadership. And the first rule is everything is your fault. And it's such a, it is a very challenging thing to, I mean, it's easy to say, but to really, to look at everything that goes wrong within your business or your household or your life, even though you're being affected by outside forces and other human

beings, to have the ability to separate from all of those outside forces and take full ownership of what role. This is one of my favorite attributes about my wife. One of the most attractive qualities about Katrina is not that we never disagree or argue or get into it is that the minute that we do, we have this ability to kind of separate and instantly remove the other person and to think what part of that, I don't care if it was something I totally fucked up and did wrong and was way out of line or whatever, she will still pull her remove herself from that and look at what part of that situation does she own? What part did I allow that to even happen to me? Even if Adam did this to me or said this or I was the one with the mistake in the situation, she'll still look at what she'll,

and because of that, the communication when we get back together to have a conversation around whatever the situation may be, it always starts off with owning what that person had to do with it and apologizing for. So even if I did something bad, we separate where we go to different directions, we get back together,

the way she starts the conversation is always apologizing for her role in it, where she could have been a better partner or been better to have allowed this to happen. And so such a valuable trait to be pursuing in is that extreme ownership and everything that happens to you in your life that you have ownership of it. Yeah, and it's interesting because there's just so many uncontrollable factors that come your way in life.

And the one thing that you really can control is how you decide to deal with it. The decisions you make, which then can affect the direction that you're going to be able to steer it. And most of the stress and anxiety and all these things that people are experiencing, they're taking on too many of those uncontrollable factors. And that's overwhelming. And it seems as though you know so many things are coming you know at them and against them when in fact if

if you can really kind of rain that in and just start focusing on those tangible things that you can control it's it's amazing what starts to kind of unfold and and this this sort of answer presents itself to you, but it really takes that self-reflection and time to assess how you personally are facing this and what you're doing as a result of that. No, it's such a good point. There's definitely things that will happen in your life that you have no control over, right? Somebody cuts you off or you lose your job

because something happens with the company, but you can definitely take responsibility for how you react and where you go from there, you know, like, oh man, this terrible thing happened to me. Okay, now what? Now it's my choice and it might not feel like it because it might feel so overwhelming But you still have that choice and it it's it's hard because

Now you're responsible for your decisions and a lot of times people don't want to be if they live in a shitty situation They've had bad stuff nobody wants to sit back and say yeah a lot of that is my I could have definitely acted different It's easier to be like oh, I had no control This is you know Totally not my fault But there's a role that you played even if it's just how you reacted or even if it's just you not getting out of the way or How prepared you were or not for that situation right many times that's what that conversation looks like for myself say that an Uncontrollable situation happens and it fucks me puts me in a shitty predicament the

and controlable situation happens and it fucks me, puts me in a shitty predicament. The conversation I'm having with myself is, I was not prepared for the worst outcome. I should have been, I avoided, or do you better? This is a shitty situation in this hurts, this is hard, this is difficult, this is gonna be a hell of a time,

the next six months for me. And part of why it's gonna be such a hell of a time was because I wasn't prepared. I wasn't either mentally prepared, I wasn't physically prepared, I wasn't ready for something like this to potentially hit me. And that's my own fault. I can't control that person doing it to me, I can't control the company dissolving like you said. But I most certainly could have been prepared for if that is to happen. I have already have a plan B in place because I was prepared

for it. So that when it did happen, it didn't scare me, it didn't hurt me that bad. And that is something that you can always take ownership of. Of even if it's something that you can't control, you can always control you being prepared for those worse outcomes. And that's the learning lesson in something like that is, okay, I can't control it. But the next time I'm going to make sure that I'm in a situation where I'm prepared for that. Totally. This next one I think is real important. I think some time and people get this confused.

This next one's very important and it is very important for a man in particular because you are often The one in your family. You're the one that your wife or girlfriend. The protector. Yeah, it looks to be a protector, and that is to be strong and dangerous. Now, it doesn't mean, I don't mean be dangerous in the sense that you're like, you fly off the chain, you're gonna kill people. That's not what I mean. I mean, don't be weak, okay?

I mean be solid in who you are. So, and you don't have to necessarily be Superphysically tough or be a black belt and martial arts. Although that helps because it gives you more of that confidence But rather don't just don't be a weak person because weak people Bend and with the wind and with the whims of people around them. They have no, they're not stable, they're not strong in their position. And they get taken advantage of because they're easy targets. I have a personal experience with this as a kid. You know, I went to a junior high,

it was a rough junior high, it wasn't great. And it was lots of gangs. There were lots of gangs in my schools. The first time I ever got exposed to anything like this. And these gangs would, you know, and real gangs like they, a lot of them went to juvenile hall and jail later on and these guys would walk around and they would terrorize kids.

Are you gotten there their way? They pushed you and there was a lot of them so they would intimidate people or they would knock the shit out of your hands or they'd take your food or whatever, and nobody ever said anything. And I remember I was in, you know, this happened to me. I was in line to get water at the water fountain.

And one of the dudes just cuts right in front of me. And I sat there for like four seconds. I'm like, okay, do I let this happen? I mean, he's got all his buddies over there. Or do I not let this happen? And I thought to myself, I never want, I don't want to walk around with that this guy or these people are going to think that they could do that to me. And so I said

something. Now I ended up getting jumped twice, ended up getting in a fight with this guy twice, and then they left me alone. They totally left me alone. Why? Because I was too big of a pain in the ass to bother because I was the guy that was gonna bite back. And that means you have to deal with that every single time. And so they avoided me and nobody ever bothered me as a result of this. And that's what this means is to be that.

Like you're still a peaceful person, you're calm, you're not this overly aggressive asshole, but people should know that there's that threat, that you're not this overly aggressive asshole, but people should know that there's that threat that you're not going to just sit there and get folded in half that no, no, if you push me, I'm going to push you back. Well, we got that strength. You have to stand for something. Stand for something or you'll fall for anything and for anything.

And that's just it. It's not about puffing your chest up and pushing people around. No, this is just about knowing that this is my value system. And when you test my value system, it's not going to go easy for you. Well, weak people love to bully other weak people. Oh, yeah. I mean, they look for that. They're not looking for someone who's going to, even if they beat you up or they won that fight, it's too much work.

They're not looking for somebody who's going to stand up for themselves. I mean, you alluded to one of the other important parts I think of being strong and dangerous is being strong and dangerous also leads to confidence. And I think confidence is one of the most important attributes to having these physical attributes. When you are strong, you're capable, and you are dangerous, you walk around and you carry yourself with so much more confidence.

And I think being a true alpha that you have to have that confidence, that confidence that you're not afraid to go somewhere with your wife and kid and fear of somebody taking something from you or hurting them was long there here with me. I feel confident that someone's going to have a hell of a time getting to them because they're going to have to go through me. And I think being strong and dangerous only exemplifies that ability to be confident and your capabilities of what you can do.

Yeah, I think a lot of times people, they confuse us too with being like big and tough and strong. No, I know people, I knew guys that were big dudes that just got pushed around, pushed around by friends, pushed around by other people, and I knew guys that were little dudes that people knew, pushed around by friends, pushed around by other people. I knew guys that were little dudes that people knew, like, okay, he's a nice guy, he's cool,

but don't try to take advantage of him or don't try to push him around because he's gonna stand his ground. That's basically what it means, is that you have teeth behind your lips, and that threat is what's important and it's people respect that but it's not being Violet and aggressive. That's the it's not that at all. It's that calm You know, I used to when I used to do Jiu Jitsu. There were there were MMA guys that that I would you know train was sometimes and I remember

Going with one of my buddies to a bar and this guy was I mean he was a top middleweight contender I mean he could easily kick the crap at everybody in a bar, and this guy was, I mean, he was a top middleweight contender. I mean, he could easily kick the crap at everybody in the bar, and this drunk guy was picking on, you know, trying to pick a fight with him, and I remember him being super confident and standing, but didn't do anything, because he knew he could hurt the guy, didn't do anything. We went outside, anyway, the guy took a swing at him,

so a swing at him, and he just put him to sleep, he choked him, put him to sleep, put him down and didn't hurt him or anything, But that's kind of an example of what I'm talking about. This next one is also very important. We talk about this all the time in the context of health and fitness. And that is to take your care of yourself like someone you care about. I think it's important to say it that way because, especially if you're a dad, you might know what I'm talking about. You will often make better decisions for your children because you love them, you take care of them, you wouldn't hand your kid a cigarette, you wouldn't

make your kid eat super terribly or do things to hurt themselves or whatever because you care about them. But yet sometimes with ourselves, we treat ourselves so terribly. Like we don't care about ourselves. Well, if you're going to be a provider and a protector, and that's part of being an alpha male, you've also got to be able to, if you're going to take care of other people, you have to first be able to take care of yourself. So I think that's just, that's a given in this situation. If I'm going to be able to take care of,, and provide for my family, I damn well be able to do it for myself. First, if I'm gonna be able to go prove that I can go do it

for multiple people, or in a situation where you're in leadership and you're leading a team of people, I've better be able to at least take care of myself before I think I'm going to take on the responsibility of others and taking care of them. Yeah, the healthy fit version, and I say healthy in the fullest sense, psychologically, mentally, financially,

like you're just healthy, right? That version of you is going to best take care of the people in your life that will need you, right? So if you're healthy and you're fit and you're taking care of yourself mentally, like how much better of a partner and a father and a friend will you be. So it's very important to take care of yourself. And if you have a challenge with this, inject somebody into this that you actually care about.

So if you're like, I don't know how to do that for myself, think of someone in your life that you care about and then say, what I want that how to do that for myself, think of someone in your life that you care about and then say, what I want that person to do, what I'm about to do right now. And if the answer's no, then treat yourself like you would treat, that person that you care about.

Now the next one, Doug wanted us to start with and seeing how the episode is unfolded and how things that we've talked about, it makes a lot of sense because having core values and defining your purpose, a lot of these other things kind of follow naturally, right? It helps make these decisions on what we talked about doing the right thing. What's the right thing if you don't have core values and principles, right? So having that integrity, defining the things

that are important to you, the things that you value, and then the purpose in your life, will then really help a lot of these other things when you're questioned with, okay, well, what is the right thing? Or what am I supposed to do right now? If you have, if you've defined what those core principles are, it makes a lot of those other decisions easier.

Then it's just about sticking to those things, which is, you know, this is something they teach you in business for scaling a company. It's so important to have these core values because then the rest of your decisions that you make, you can always refer back to that. You know, oh, we're, we have this idea, we might go this way, we might go that way. I'm not sure. One guy says this, one guy says that. Okay, well, let's refer back to our core values of why we started this company and what it means to us. And of those two directions we're deciding, which one of them aligns with our core values the most, and there's our answer on the direction.

And that's a much like leading your life. Yeah, because when you can evaluate it like that, you always are able to come back to true North, to the direction that you wanna go. And I've always looked at it like living by a code. And you've seen this examples of this with religion or like stoicism or other forms of being able to figure out what your sort of core values are or other forms of being able to figure out

what your sort of core values are and your morals and things like that and things that you won't ever compromise. And I think it's important to actually define those things for yourself individually. So you can now go through that decisionmaking process a lot easier because if it conflicts at all, there's your answer. And it's a pretty, it's not easy because a lot of times that's one of those things where you really want to pursue a certain direction, but at least then you know if you're going against your core values. Yeah, if you're, you know, if you don't, if you're not a principled person and you don't have

these values defined for yourself, you are a prime target to be manipulated by marketers. There's predators out there. Yes, you'll get manipulated by people marketing shit to you, by politicians, you'll get manipulated by bad people in your life. You will be a piece of clay that gets molded and shaped into whatever the hell is happening at that moment if you are not a principled valued individual. Now, you are principled valued individual.

The whole world could change around you, but you are the same. And this is important because the world often sometimes changes for the better. Sometimes things happen and they're not necessarily the better. And so you need to have those values to remain true to, you know, who you are, which takes this the next one, which is to have integrity. Like do what you say you're gonna do. There's another part to this, which is to be careful

with what you say you're gonna do. Like, don't say you're gonna do something unless you know you're gonna do something. And this is very important because if you're that person that has that reputation, all you guys, right? I know if you guys say you're that person that has that reputation, like all you guys, right? I know if you guys say you're gonna do something, you've already, with me, you've built that reputation. I know you're gonna do it.

There's no doubt in my mind. In fact, it's so strong that shit could go wrong and the last person that I'll think, did something wrong or made a bad decision would be you guys, because I'm like, well, no, no, that's not who Adam is or that's not who Justin is. I know that person and I know they do what they say. So there must be more to the story. That's who you want to be. You want to be that person. This is actually one of the biggest mistakes I see aspiring entrepreneurs, like if I'm mentoring somebody and they're talking about, oh, you know, I want to build something similar to mine pump and then you know

I want to gain this following on social media and then I have this a business idea and I said the number one mistake that I see people do on social media is to put something out there and then to not follow through an Executile it is the like absolute if you were then to not follow through an execute. It is the like absolute. If you were trying to- That's a business killer, man. It is what you're trying to do. Back to the leadership thing, right? If you are building a following of people,

you and essentially are trying to lead, right? You're leading this following of people, however you draw it up. And if you say something and you don't execute it, and you don't fall through, how many people are going to continue to follow you anywhere? So be very careful of what you commit to or what you say because that your word is your bond.

And if you get known really quickly as the guy who says that he's going to do something and that doesn't follow through, good luck. Good luck building a business, good luck having a bunch of people trust that your product or your thing is going to have value or add value to their life because you're the guy who just says shit, does it for a while, then it gets hard, and then you quit doing it. So be careful of what you put out there, which is say, I'm very cautious that we are just recording another episode, and I was alluding to potentially even moving my training regimen in a certain direction.

I don't even want to say it publicly. Because I know that I'm still not sure that's what I want to do. So I'm not going to just put it out there and then people go, hey, I thought you said you're going to do this or you're going to do that. I'm very careful that if I say I'm going to do something, I'm going to do it. And to that point, there's just something that I've tried to challenge myself with in terms of being able to maintain that. And for me, it's to be slow to decisions and also to be slow to anger.

Those two things have always been a better option for me than to impulsively react. And that's something that has gotten me, and I've gotten better over the years because I used to be a lot more emotionally driven and charged and have made decisions based on what I felt was right but was really emotionally charged and reacted to them and later on finding out that was the wrong decision for me. So to be able to be in a comm state and to be able to rationally think my way through

it has always been a better option. Yeah, that's such a good point because then it's hard to have integrity, right? Because if you react strong emotionally, like, ah, screw you guys, I quit. Ah, I'm pissed off, right? And then I leave and then like five hours later, oh man.

No, you gotta kind of back pedal, oh no. What the hell did I do? You really mean that? Oh yeah, you get mad at your kid. That's it, you're grounded for a month, you know, and then, you know, five hours later, like, shit, now they're gonna be grounded for a month, like that might have been an overreaction.

So it's very important what you said, because it makes having integrity a lot easier, because otherwise you say shit that's hard to back up afterwards. Yeah. This next one is also very important. I actually learned this quite a bit, being a trainer and managing gyms.

And that was to be likable, to be humble, and to learn to follow, but let's start with being likable. This is important, I don't mean this in a fake way, by the way. What's that one saying, in order to, if you want to attract good friends, you have to be a good friend, right? This is what I mean by being likable. It makes life a lot easier, we're social creatures, and people who are unlikeable just have a tougher time with everything. And it's very unhealthy. Bad relationships are as bad for your health as I think the last study I read, it's like smoking a pack of cigarettes a day. So likable

isn't necessarily agreeable by the way. Agreeable just means agreeing with people because you're afraid to rub them the wrong way or disagree with them. No, no, no, you can still be strong in your principles, but you could be polite, respectful. In fact, being true to who you are is the utmost respect. It's showing the other person that you respect them enough to be honest with them, but you wanna be the person that people respect and like. It's not a great thing to be unlikeed by lots of people.

I'm reading the book Good to Great again. I've read that book so good. And this is the actual defining characteristics of what makes a level five leader is that to be likeable and to be humble. And it's actually one of the it's more more rare than you would think there's a lot of great level four leaders out there, but a lot of a lot of leaders still want the accolades and to be praised for everything that they're doing. And humility is so important characteristic of being that level five leader is to be the person who's willing to lead the charge to go out there to face the fire, to face the fears, to be that alpha male, but then when the the praise and the accolades and the success and the celebration from the victory comes, they're the first

people to look out the window instead of the mirror and say, oh, look at me and everything did. It's look at my incredible team and I'm so blessed to be working with these people. It's actually one of the things that I also love about working with you guys is I think it's also a lot of the reason why we've had success is that I believe that you guys have all reached that level of leadership on your own and your own pursuits of building businesses before here and it has allowed this to work that at the end of the day as the business continues to grow and have success, we're quick to give the credit to others or the other guys then to take that. And so part of that, making you this super alpha I think is having that strength to be the leader,

to be the one responsible, but then quick to give up the credit and to be humble, I think, is such an important trait. You're not gonna get a lot of buy-in when you hold yourself up on a pedestal. You need to be relatable and have vulnerability, but also, take into account all the different factors that have, has brought into your success. And that's everybody around you and to be able to acknowledge that is a practice. It also protects you from not being killed. Like Salah alluded to with the yeah exactly the the mutiny talk about all the the uh

apes together in a group and the one who's established himself as the alpha and if he's not liked by all the rest then the minute he turns his back they're looking to overthrow it but i mean that's that is so much of real life like that too i mean you may be this this in this leadership position and think that you're so respected, but if you're not liked, and a lot of that comes from being humble, if you're not liked,

people will be real quick to throw you on the bus when you're not there, whereas if you're this incredible leader, you've taken us to all these places of success, but you're quick to give up all the accolades. They got your back. They got your back, They got your back. And they don't mind following you whatsoever,

and they're not looking to overthrow you, but if you're looking for the praise and the accolades and want all the credit for the success all the time, then be careful because they're going to be looking to overthrow you all the time. Right, and the learn to follow apart is very important because here's what I mean by that, right? You could be in a leadership position. You could have employees that you're teaching, right?

It's that you're a head trainer and you're the best trainer because you're the head trainer and you're teaching them all how to be great trainers. And maybe you have a trainer that works for you that is exceptional at communicating. But you fail to see it because they work for you. So you don't follow, you're not open enough or humble enough to follow them with something that you could learn from. I have learned so much stuff from people that have been worked for me. If I didn't learn to do this, man, I wouldn't be nowhere near where I am today. But this person doesn't have to be, you don't have to follow them and everything, but there's

things you can learn from everybody. And if you're not humble and think you're better than everybody or you're great, you're not going to be open to learning that maybe this person is better at me than I am at financial health or wow, that person is an exceptional father, even though they're my, you know, I hired them to work my front desk. I'm going to follow them in that regard and learn from them. This is a very important attribute, by the way, of really good leaders, is that they will have people under them, and depending on the circumstances,

we'll step back and let that person lead because that's what the smart thing is to do. Now, the last one I think is probably the most important and I think it's what defines a man, which is to be a good father, to be a good husband, and to be a good friend. I think these are probably some of the most important things that you can do in life,

and they're probably also the most challenging. You know, being a good father, for example, sometimes means your kids don't like you. Oftentimes it means you have to say no. Oftentimes it means you have to do the thing that isn't cool. You know, all my friends are doing this. Sorry son, sorry honey, you can't do this

because I know everybody is, but here's the deal. Like being a good father requires the bravery, it requires the consistency, it requires those principles that we were talking about. And it's one of the hardest, and you have to grow up in order to do this. You know, being a dad, what does that mean? It means you can't go out with your buddies whenever you want, sometimes, right? It means you can't be a kid and take your money and spend it on stupid shit because maybe you need to save it for your kids, college education, or, you know, to have a, you know,

a safety net because now you're taking care of other people. Like, being a good dad is a responsibility, very rewarding though, if you're willing to take it on. It's a direct reflection of your actions too. This is not what you say as a father and a husband and a friend, but it's what you do. I think that's so important. You could say all the things that you think

are the right things to say as a father or as a husband, but it's what you do that will impact those people. And when I think, and the father thing resonates the most with me right now because I'm obviously a new father and I think about this all the time that, you know, I could have all these plans of the things that I want to say and introduce my son into, but the thing that's going to impact him on the type of man that he's going to be more than anything else are the things that I do. Totally.

As a father, the things that he sees that he why they're immolate or rebuke because he doesn't want anything to be nothing like it. And so there's huge responsibility that comes with your actions in these positions more so than there is what you say in this position. It's about what you do because that's really what's going to reflect what kind of child that he's going to grow up, man, that he's going to grow up to be later on in his life. Totally. I think, you know, of course, being a good husband

is also extremely important. You want to provide a stable, you want to be a stable, solid partner and you want to allow your partner to be who they are, but you also want to be that solid rock. Now, I know this sounds like traditional or whatever, and of course, there's individual variances and people are different when you go down to the individual, but generally speaking, you want to have a certain level of stoicism where stuff's happening, things are anxious or whatever, but you want to be the solid, calm one in the storm.

You want to provide that solid base for your family when things are happening. That's part of being a good husband. When you look at what wives and women list as their top, you know, important attributes of the man they want to be with, and again, it's different from person to person. I get that. So before you try to flame me with, oh, everybody, I get that. But generally speaking, one of the number one things is security. You know, they, I want a partner that provides me with a sense of security. What does that come from? Consistency.

That means you're consistent. Like, I know you're stable, you're solid, and you're consistent in the stuff that you say, and the stuff that you do, and how you react. And that's a great attribute to have, in my opinion, as a husband. Yeah, and it goes back to all the other characteristics we listed earlier, and those all come into play whether or not you're a good father, you're a good husband,

you're a good friend, all your relationships are based around a lot of the code that you've sort of set and the integrity that you have in implementing all those things. And so it is a direct reflection. And nothing's more direct than seeing your kids behave exactly like how you act. Absolutely. Well, there you go. That's how mind pump defines being an alpha male, huh? There it is.

Look, if you like our information, you gotta head over to mindpumpfree.com and check out all of our free guides, on everything from building muscle to burning body fat, improving your fitness and health, even becoming a better personal trainer. It's mindpumpfree.com. You can also find all of us on Instagram so you can find Justin at Mindpump Justin, me at Mindpump Sal and Adam at Mindpump Atom. Thank you for listening to Mindpump.

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