Modern Wisdom - #168 - Zack Telander - Stereotypes In Fitness & On The Internet

Episode Date: May 9, 2020

Zack Telander is a weightlifter, coach & YouTuber. I'm joined by Coach ZT himself today for a chilled out discussion where we hit all the big topics, including... Why are people on the internet such dicks? Why do the goths from school become powerlifters? What is the background to Zack's YouTube journey? How is Corona affecting the world of fitness? Why do girls wear shorts for CrossFit which their mum wouldn't let them out of the house in? And much more... Sponsor: Get the world’s best gym equipment delivered to your door from Eleiko. Head to - https://shop.eleiko.com (enter code MW15 for 15% off everything!) Extra Stuff: Subscribe to Zack's YouTube Channel -https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC94_fvLx7abZgs9LIkM7jxw  Get Zack's Program for $1 - https://www.patreon.com/zacktelander Follow Zack on Instagram - https://www.instagram.com/coach_zt Take a break from alcohol and upgrade your life - https://6monthssober.com/podcast Check out everything I recommend from books to products - https://www.amazon.co.uk/shop/modernwisdom - Get in touch. Join the discussion with me and other like minded listeners in the episode comments on the MW YouTube Channel or message me... Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/chriswillx Twitter: https://www.twitter.com/chriswillx YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/ModernWisdomPodcast Email: https://www.chriswillx.com/contact Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Hello my beauties. Welcome back. My guest today is none other than Zach Telander coach ZT as he's known on YouTube. He's got one of the biggest YouTube channels in all of weightlifting And I absolutely love him think his content is fantastic. I was recently on his show and he did me the solid of Returning and coming on modern wisdom. So yeah today's really cool. It's just a chat It's just just sitting down for 90 minutes and talking about his history, how he started his YouTube channel, his history with lifting,

his thoughts on different training methodologies, weight lifting, crossfit, power lifting. We go through some cliches and stereotypes about different types of athletes in the gym and how they behave and what their history would have been. It's just a cool catch up. He's a really good guy and I'm sure that I'll have him back on.out drink is, what's your pre-workout of choice? I love caffeine, so like, you know, there's, do you know who Omar Esoph is?

No. He's a YouTuber. He actually does have a lot of good knowledge around fitness and strength and culture and stuff like that. And his product is called Auroboros. And it's really like clean. There's only like five ingredients. You know, it's like caffeine, creatine, beta-alene, like the five core ingredients to a pre-workout

and it's only 200 milligrams of caffeine. Now you should try to take that half hour before training. And then I like to have a relatively kind of empty stomach before I take my pre-workout. So I sometimes I will wake up and you know I might have like I always drink like a green drink to get my greens in. And then I might just like take my pre workout and go to the gym, like without anything in my stomach. But if I'm gonna train a little bit later, like say like two, three, four PM,

I'll have oats or like some sort of carb and then I'll just chill for like two hours and then go. I will never really, sometimes I guess I'll have like scrambled eggs too because like, for me it's really hard to get all of my protein in per day. So if I'm not eating protein for, you know, four of the hours of the day or five hours a day and then I go to the gym and I come back. Now I'm in this huge kind of hole where I have to gain back all the protein. It's a never-ending treadmill of trying to eat it. Everyone that's listening,

that's got a diet that requires them to have high volumes of protein. In mind at the moment, my cows are like, I think 210, 210 grams of protein per day, which isn't like ridiculous, but I'd say it's like moderate high for someone who's like in 80 kilos range. And um, fuck man, like you're right.

If you get to 2 p.m. and you've not had any protein yet, like that's going to be the remainder of the day is going to suck bad. So yeah, I mean, I do like to train an empty stomach ideal world, you know, like, um, or having a big meal and then chilling, letting it all digest and then going to the gym, I'm not a believer in like eating a pre-workout meal. I don't like, I don't think that that's, I think that's kind of like, bro, science-y type stuff. And then, yeah, I just do caffeine and then after,

you know, I have to, you know, sometimes I want to get 250 to 270 grams protein because of my body weight. And like, I have to have two or three shakes, you know, a day just because I can't, I don't like eating that much, like chicken breast and meat. But I do actually notice the difference on high protein.

Like I really, really do. And now just physique wise. Like, yeah, I don't, and that's something that I don't really care too much about, but it's nice to have, you know, as a weightlifter, your, you know, your primary focus is to be healthy and in shape so that you can perform what you need to perform. It's not about aesthetics. But I know that if your aesthetics are right, there's a chance that your body composition is right and therefore you're maximizing your weight class or if that makes sense. If you have too much

body fat, it's too much weight for your weight class that is not usable. And so something I've noticed on like a very high protein diet is that I can be a little bit more sloppy, if that makes sense, in the way that I eat. But that's a big stipulation, that's a big thing to do to try to get enough protein. Because if you want to get enough protein and eat poorly, it's not gonna happen. If you want to eat enough protein and go to McDonald's or Taco Bell, you're gonna get really fat or whatever.

But eat enough protein, then you don't have to count your macros as hard or be as diligent. Well, there's no there's no cheat meal. That's high in protein. No one's like oh I'm reading it. You know what? One that's really surprising and like This is one of my things about junk food and cheat meals is like I don't really like them This is one of my things about junk food and cheat meals is like, I don't really like them unless they have high protein. And at that point, they end up having super high calories, if that makes sense. So like chicken wings.

Okay. Chicken wings actually, as far as like a cheat meal goes, the macros are fantastic. High end protein, relatively low in calorie compared to pizza. Like, pizza legitimately has nothing in it, but calories and fat. So those two being cheat meals are not the same in the same ballpark, in my opinion. But you still get to relinquish your diet, feel like you're not super restricted, and you get like that, you take that box, you take the eye, let my diet go a little bit box. But in one version of the world, you've just put what, maybe like, 800 grams of carbs and

another 150 grams of fat, probably yourself with a pizza versus like, yeah. I don't know what with chicken wings, but it's something that or a burger, right? A burger compared to a pizza. Those should not be in the same ballpark. Pizza should be closer to ice cream, you know. But anyways, the main point being is that high protein is not easy, but it does help a lot, especially for someone like me where I'm constantly worried about my recovery, constantly worried. So like to go in and do a bodybuilding workout, I don't want that to affect my mobility and my shoulders, my hips, knees, ankles, joints that need to be very, very loose and protected.

I don't want to go into the gym and have to do bodybuilding, even though I love it, you know what I mean? So it's nice to be able to do a high protein diet and minimize body fat like that. Yeah, and also given two versions of the world, given like one version Zach makes weight for the competition and hits all of his lifts, gets nine white lights and all that stuff. And in another version of the world, that happens but with abs. It's like, I'll take the world that has abs. Well, it's yeah, yeah, yes. Although, you know, it's never been about like lifting well and performing well is always going to trump the way that I look

but There's that there's actually a famous track a world famous track coach here at in college station Which is where I live Texas a name track coach and he's like at a certain point, you know We have to look at body composition because if we're maximizing every bit of an athlete's potential, they need to have as much usable muscles as possible. And if you have extra fat, additional fat,

that's space and that's weight, that's added weight to our sport, which is just speed. It's all about who's the fastest, who can maintain the speed, the longest, who's lightest, but also the most powerful. So yeah, it's body composition does matter, but it's a very fine line. I mean, I, again, I've never really used to think about, I need protein, I need protein, but it really, really does make a difference when you start to eat like that. It's kind of like very similar to that bodybuilding type of

lifestyle, that bro lifestyle. You have to, there's no one who accidentally falls into a high protein diet either. No one just ends up going back through a year of macros, which they weren't tracking, which they weren't counting, but were tracking, and goes, oh, would you look at that? That just happened by product of my diet was 200 grams of protein. It's like, no, you have to go out and be a way

to force that down in one form. Yeah, I think the suggested for someone who's 80 kilos is what, 140 protein, that's super easy. But, you know, we're looking for you if you're, you know, you're trying to build muscle or whatever, you might go all the way up to 250. And so yeah, it's just not possible. Yeah. So we've touched on a number of different categories of strength athletes or endurance

athlete, whatever it is. I thought that it might be fun today for me and you to go through some of the stereotypes of different lifters and different athletes that we see in the gym or that we see online and stuff like that. So to hold my hands up for the different teams that I'm on, I probably came into the world as a bro lifter. Actually, originally before that I cricket there, which is a British version of baseball, I guess. Right. And then bro, lift a body builder,

little bit of sort of white eye and boxing and stuff, and then now crossfit. What's your heritage in strength and stuff like that? Yeah, it was for football, for American football. Was the first time I was introduced to the weight room. I was about 13 or 14. And it was just all bro stuff. And then when I was actually on a program, we would do big compound movement squats bench

pull ups. And you know, it was actually interesting. I couldn't, I could probably do like maybe one or two pull ups when I graduated high school. So I was 18 years old. I was just so long and, you know, let me. Yeah, just very limmy. And then I got to college and I was playing lacrosse at the university, University of Vermont.

And we had a very structured weightlifting program or weight program, and we would go four times a week, and that's where my strength coach was basically like, oh, you can't do a pull-up, you're gonna do them every day, you know, every day, at least when you come in here, when you're fresh, just try to get whatever you can. And by the end of that, I think I got like 15, Every day, at least when you come in here, when you're fresh, just try to get, you know, whatever you can. And by the end of that, I think I got like 15 and that was the biggest difference in like my physique that I've ever noticed. Outside of actually my legs from squatting too.

We would squat two, three times a week and that was noticeable as well. So that was my big exposure to training and then when I graduated college, I felt that I still had a lot of ability remaining. So I didn't know how to... LaCross was done for me. Pretty much all sports, like official sports that I used to partake in, like American football, basketball, LaCross. sports, like official sports that I used to partake in, like American football, basketball across, like, you know, I could have done like house leagues or things like that. But I wanted to get, I wanted to say very intense and train really hard. And I actually, I saw an article, it might have been on like men's journal or something and it was on

rich froning. You know, it might not have even been on rich Froning. You know, it might not have even been on Rich Froning, but it was about Murf, the workout Murf, and which is a staple in CrossFit these days. And I remember being like, wow, that's what a weird way of thinking of training. You know, here's a bunch of reps, do them as fast as you can. And there are things that like, you know, pushups pull up squats.

Those are things that I've only ever done in sets of 10 and, you know, with rest and on a program. And I was like, that sounds really, really cool. So I went into a gym, across the gym. And then I fell in love with it there. And then I got really just more and more sucked into it. I wanted to coach more people. I wanted to help out. So I got my level one. And then I got my USA weightlifting certification, so USAW level one certification. And then I was lucky enough to get a full time coaching job

as a crossfit coach, which in America or anywhere really full time, like getting a wage to be a crossfit coach is a pretty good deal. And I think a lot of my development as a coach to that job, but then after a while I kind of, I didn't want to work with kind of your average Joe's anymore. And that wasn't the main reasoning behind that was, I was tired of teaching people and giving my all, teaching them how to snatch and clean the jerk and do all these movements to have them

just wanna look better. I really wanted performance. And so what I did was I went back to the collegiate strength and conditioning field. I was an intern for free, which is crazy. That's one of the things that you have to do when you want to be a strength coach, at least in America, is that you have to intern, and that means

it's pretty much a volunteer position. I was doing that for seven or eight months. And then I got another job in Texas A&M, which is here in college Station. And since then, since that point, I've fallen back into weightlifting. Throughout all of that, that whole thing where I graduated college to now, I've been weightlifting in and out of being involved in CrossFit. And I'd say the last two and a half three years have been like pure weightlifting

But I have you know I've been coaching weightlifting. I've been coaching the lifts I've been competing in weightlifting since 2013 so that's kind of the broad picture of my training 30,000 foot view of your athletic background. It's so funny about the when you want to go and do something that is focused on finding the best people or getting to the toward the top or the peak of people's performance. I'm reminded of Ryan Holiday. Do you know how he started his writing career out? So he went and assisted Robert Green five times New York Times best selling author mastery 48 laws of power all that stuff and previous modern wisdom guest who

Went and assisted him for free as a research a research assistant and you know you got Robert Green right in these huge books drawing on 3000 years worth of history and Ryan I need to find out about where Julius Caesar's this this thing happened. Can you fuck off to the library and go and sort it for me? And he just did that, but then you get coming out the other side of that, you get this ridiculous experience. And that presumably is the same for you, getting to work at a such an incredible level.

And then you can distill that back down. Yeah, like working at collegiate strengthy conditioning, I know that you, like, I'm sure there's a lot of Americans that listen, but if you're you know European or elsewhere in the world Like it is a big big deal in America Especially the place like Texas A&M, which is a 60,000 student university 60,000 students undergrad like that's the level and the amount of money that comes into this to sporting here is like it's something you would compare to a major football club in the English Premier League like it's it's seriously that intense our stadium right over there

It houses a hundred 110,000 fans. So when you go see one of those games. That is insane. Yeah, so a lot of people want to be strength coaches because they have, they're these, these really prominent programs. And so it's a very saturated market, but the process is, you know, you have to be an intern. You have to build your way up and then hopefully-

Hopefully you try. it's kind of- Yes, and that is for the most part, at least my experience, it was for free. What I did, I felt like, I was competing in weightlifting, you know, in and out, and then I had like what you would call like a fellowship program at Texas A&M where I was actually being paid and it was kind of nice. Once that finished up, I kind of wanted to just take a break and focus on weightlifting and trying to be a better and maybe going into private. I didn't really know what I wanted to do with my life. But I knew that the lineage, that it seemed very bureaucratic to be involved

in something like that. And I feel like I'm maybe more of a creative person than it just might not have been the best fit for me. And so I remember my next job after that, because I needed to make money, was a personal trainer at a Golds gym. And it was actually, I would have loved to have seen that. Yeah, and it was actually not a bad gig, man.

Like it really was, it was pretty cool and there was actually some pretty knowledgeable people there and making good money. And for me, it wasn't a means, it wasn't like, oh, I'm going to be a golds gym personal trainer for the rest of my life. I'm going to figure out the next step, but right now it's pretty good. I'm in a cheaper place, a cheaper cost of living area. A lot of stuff is going good in my life. So someone actually mentioned like, hey, you should check out YouTube for, like, putting your stuff on YouTube. And so I didn't really

know what the purpose of YouTube was. Like, I literally thought it was just a place where you could like send links to other people. Like, you would just send, you know, and watch. I didn't know that people had channels where they would kind of use it as the social outlet. It wasn't like a community type thing. And then when this person showed me, like they showed me Casey Neistat, they showed me some of like the bigger names, like David Dobrik and stuff like that. I was like, wow, this is, this culture is crazy. Like I had no idea, you know, it's like I I I felt like I was blind to it. I just wasn't paying attention or something like that So I would just consume that content all the time then I I made

some videos around my training for CrossFit and I remember like my training for CrossFit. And I remember like, cause when I went to school, I was a film in television studies major and then like a business minor. And I remember like being really, really into editing and like loving film production.

That's why I wanted to do it. So when I made these vlogs of my training for CrossFit, it was like, it would take me a long time. I would make these like really serious edits. And then I would put them on YouTube and no one would watch them. And I remember I posted one to a CrossFit page, or the CrossFit Reddit page. And some guy was like, listen, you're not that good looking.

You're not that good looking. You're not that good at CrossFit, right? And you're not telling us anything about your story and you don't have any expertise. And I was like, well, first off, I'm not that bad looking, okay? No. No. But no, I took that, I was like kind of like, you know,

fuck this guy, he doesn't know anything. But then also I was like, well, that's true. At my videos were all very surface level, just had nothing to them. I think it was because I was trying to cater to what Casey nice that had already established himself as. You know, people were involved in his story before the content that I saw. People were not involved in my story. People don't know who the fuck I am. So one thing the guy said is like, do you have any expertise? And I said, hell yeah, I mean, I have a lot of expertise in weightlifting. So my next video, I completely revamped. I was like, you know what, I see this issue in the snatch.

And here's how you fix it. Here's the issue being played out, and I'll show an example. Here's what it should look like, and here are the drills you can do to fix it. Thank you guys for watching. Boom, send it out. I deleted my other YouTube vlogs.

I clicked the link to this, copy-pasted, put it on Reddit, weightlifting, and they loved it. Everyone in the Reddit community was like, this is awesome, man, keep doing it. I basically was like, okay, I'll do another one next week because I have another idea. And that one did well. And I just repeated that for now two and a half, three years.

And I've got 103,000 subscribers. And it was really interesting how that all played out. It was like, it seemed so intuitive and so natural to just put what you know out there. And if someone likes it somewhere, there's a chance that maybe someone else might like it and it might snowball from there. But you can't give yourself the benefit of the doubt if you try to do something that you're not or if you try to do what other people are doing. Man, so I've been talking about this a lot recently, which is your weirdness is your superpower.

So the unique offering that you have to put out, or that I have to put out, or anybody that's listening has, that is your USP, because no one, literally no one else on the planet, even a twin brother or a twin sister, has precisely the same mix of life experiences and interests and talent and proclivities and background story and all the rest of it. No one, nobody else has that.

So when you see people that are prepared to dilute down their unique individual offering or as you say, kind of, perhaps aim for or align themselves with some externalised idea of what they should be doing, oh well, this is what the other guys are doing. Maybe I'll just try and do a carbon copy of that. And maybe that is you. If that's your true, like you speaking your true thought, then great. If you are just like a miniature Casey Neistat, then fucking fun, like great for you. But if you're not, you're losing out on the opportunity to really break it through. And you hit the nail on the head there. If you find it interesting, you have

to presume, like you're not an alien, I don't think you are, an alien from out of space. You know, like if you find it interesting, the interesting, there has to be at least a couple of other people out there that find it interesting. And therefore, that might roll even further forward. And that's part of my- That was my mindset. And that was actually what has provided me with the most amount of success is that the organic growth from when I started to now has been amazing.

At one point, I had 20,000 subscribers and I was getting 20,000 views. It was like, anyone who's on a YouTube channel, that's stupid. Because it was, a lot of people weren't subscribing, so I would get a lot of clicks from elsewhere, but it was like the people who were following me, the people who wanted to listen to me I was putting it directly at them and I was not backing down. I was not changing at all

and it just it kept working and I you know I Would put in so much goddamn time on these videos and I loved every second of it I would sit down and edit for 40 hours. Like straight up I would do, you know, 12 hours one day and then I would do like six hours the next. And it would just be like, till like three in the morning, I just didn't care.

It was so awesome, because then when I got to click upload, and I could see people view and comment and talk about it, it was like, man, you know, I'm actually doing something with my life. And I was not prepared to let that slip at all. And people, when I started it, I was like, yeah, I've got like a thousand subscribers and people are like,

oh, that's cool, but it's like, what does that YouTube subscribers, what does that even mean? You know, like my parents were like, okay, well, you probably should like get a career going. That's nice. That's nice sack. Yeah, and and you know now it's like okay when you look at what marketing agencies want I actually when I Graduated I got a job in advertising right away and the value of

3,000 subscriptions and the value of 103,000 subscriptions and the value of all of these things of this consumption of your media is so huge. It's so, it cannot be understated how valuable that is in today's society. And yet when people are starting to try and build something of value like that,

they're like, hey, you're being an idiot, go do a real job. Like, how are we still in that realm of people discouraging people from doing creative shit when it's the creative shit that actually provides the most value, right? I mean, like, I have a video with 3 million views on Lujaujun. Okay. My favorite video, if yours, man.

Right. And that 3 million views, like, what cable television show can knock out 3 million views on just a regular show? They fucking can't. And how much money do they spend to do that? Man, have you seen it's very recent. Eric Weinstein on Joe Rogan, the most recent one. Yeah, yeah, yeah, most, most recent one. So he's, I only like, what I do is I look at the clips, but I like some of the stuff that he was saying. So you may have watched the clip of the bit that I'm about to talk about now, but it's where he talks about traditional media versus mainstream media. No, I haven't seen that. No, dude, you've got to go find it because you would absolutely love it.

So basically, Eric Weinstein, people who don't know who he is, this absolute, free genius polymath guy who is on Rogan all the time, super clever, mathematician, managing director at Teal Capital, like Peter Teal Paypal, Matthew Guy. Anyway, huge penis, massive, massive, massive dick guy. And he is talking to Joe Rogan about the problem of when two different worlds collide, and he's talking about kind of this new world, which is the Joe Rogan's, the Zach T. Landers, the modern wisdom of the world, kind of the subculture of internet stuff when it clashes with the older world, the ABC, the NBC,

the BBC, the ITV stuff in the UK. And what he says is, Rogan brings up this brilliant point where he says, people talk about mainstream media. And they use that as a signal that this is the media that has the most credibility. It's the one that has the best experts. It's the one. And everything else is like a guy in his bedroom doing a thing, which, you know, I don't have a massive amount of ability to complain about, but, and the argument that gets made by Eric is perfect. And he says, what, hang in a second?

Like, if you put this podcast out and this podcast gets five million views, I mean, a simple math. And five million views, not only five million views, but five million views multiplied by probably, I wouldn't like to guess what the average watch time on Rogan's channel is, but it'll be like, probably 30 minutes, maybe more, maybe like 40, 45 minutes probably are something, some reddit.

So the watch time, the total watch time, yeah, that's the real value. You will be free, like the time and attention that people are spending watching. So he's like, well, hang on a second. If I get more watch time on this channel, ABC, NBC, ITV, BBC. Who's mainstream media? Who is mainstream media? There's traditional media. Traditional media is that.

Mainstream media, I don't think so. And I agree. Right. And when Joe had the epidemiologist on his show, it was about four weeks ago when the coronavirus scare was beginning. That's where I got all my information. That's where I got everything. Was the professional epidemiologist who was as clear cut and as dry as it could possibly be. There was zero entertainment value. None of it. There was no editing. It was a guy in a room talking to you another guy about what the fuck is happening. That, to me, was like, oh, finally, thank you. Thank you. After this disease or this virus has been out in in China and it was dude.

It was going on in January and I remember people being like, there were some memes being made and then, then it was like, yeah, fuck it, you know, it's in Wuhan, no one really cares, you know, like, I remember that. We, I had practice, I mean, weightlifting practice, and all of my, my lifters are students at Texas A&M. They're college kids.

They weren't even giving a shit. No one gave a shit about this thing. And it was mainly because no one knew anything. Like, we could have figured this out. Like, we could have just been more informed earlier on. And what was amazing was I still wasn't informed at all. I had a seminar, I had two seminars. One of them was gonna be last week in Maine.

So I would have to take out a flight. There's no way. But when I saw this epidemiologist, or I think it was like a... Verolify, I think. Yeah. Yeah, I saw him. It, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very,

very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very,, you know, everything is the best where, you know, it's not a big deal. Like, just tell us, just tell us what the fuck is going on. And I'll be on my way. Well, here's the thing, here's the thing is well about the main, mainstream media. I'm going to reprogram myself to say like the traditional media, the thing about traditional media when they have these panel shows.

Um, first off, it's, it's a cliche now to talk about, you know, you get your 30 seconds spot and you're trying to get a zinger in. So it's a cliche now to talk about, you know, you get your 30 seconds spot and you're trying to get a zinger in, so it's a good YouTube video. Like that old, what I think is more interesting is people presume that a large lineup of guests equals a high amount of value. It's like, oh, well, look at this. They've got Ben Affleck and Sam Harris on the same show and it's Bill Mayer's show. They've got this guy, he's a virologist and this woman, she's public health official in this

guy. And you're like, right, I know that sounds great. That sounds fantastic. But it's the girl who has played hard to get for ages with big titties that doesn't care about having sex with you. It's like all of the stuff, all of the headlines sound fantastic, but the actual performance and what you get out of it is completely terrible. Yeah, yes, it's always been when we've privatized something that shouldn't be privatized. So we have privatized media or we've privatized news.

That makes zero sense. News is public. That's the definition of it. It's delivering events, things that have happened, ways to protect yourself, all of these different things. And we've privatized that. So people make money. So you, there was a, I just saw this goddamn clip, man. And this woman

was like, we're working on a vaccine. We're working on a vaccine. So we go to this company and it's like, this is like ABC, right? We're going to vaccine. And then they talk to the, the lead scientists of this vaccine. And they're like, we talked to the lead scientist, so he was making this vaccine on the floor. And then the person's like, yeah, we're ready to like make the vaccine. And they're like, and back to you, it was like, I'm not gonna keep you 10 seconds.

I was like, are you kidding me? I would have sat there and listened to this person talk for 30 minutes. I'm not allowed to leave my fucking house. And you guys are still making four minute long clips where the lead scientist making a vaccination that could save millions of lives is now being fucking pigeon-hold into a 10 second bit. So you can try and get more views like that. Why are we in that world?

It's there's no wonder why people give more of a shit about Joe Rogan where he sits down with guys for three hours and he's like, huh, interesting, you know, like I just remember being absolutely flawed after that. You know, and it's the same old song and dance. It happens every time. As bad as it is, the advantage for as long as that game continues to be played by traditional media, there is a gap in the market for people like me, people like you, people like Rogan, people like Eric Weinstein, you know, because it's not being serviced. And the fact it's like this stat, again, it's cliché to say, but I think podcasts that's essentially double. It's like the Moore's Law, like every two years they're doubling the total number of global listens.

Yeah. And some unbelieve, it's like more than 50% of Americans are now subscribed to a podcast. Now, that doesn't mean they necessarily listen every week, but that's like, fuck it. Like there's not more than 50% of Americans that do pretty much anything. Anything, yeah. No, there's nothing that unites you. You can't even get 50% of the country to vote together. Like, well, it's, it's, when,

when social media becomes media, you know, it's like having a YouTube channel is becoming more, more social media, like having a YouTube channel and getting people to watch is very different than having an Instagram and getting people to follow. But those sort of things are more blending more and more together. If you have a podcast, there's a chance that you'll have a YouTube channel and there's a chance that you'll be able to clip up some of those YouTube channel podcast clips and throw them on your Instagram so the more and more connected it is and the more and more people are going to consume that style of media rather than your typical ABC. But if to bring it

back to to powerlifting, weightlifting, bodybuilding, you know, all different forms of fitness, there, I imagine that the viewership for those things is doubling. The viewership and the listening to all of those things is doubling as well. There is definitely, definitely a lot more room for legitimate sources of information around fitness. And I think there always will be. People think it's getting too saturated, it's not. It's when a certain trend kicks off

and then other people just latch onto that trend. Right, I think Jeff Nippard pulling in scientific examples of why things work and trying to lay them out in simplistic ways. Like, that is becoming a more saturated style of delivering content, even though it's not wrong. And if you do it, you're not really, it all depends on the person who's delivering. If I say, hey, you know, Jeff Nipper is doing this. I want to do it. Well, then that's probably the wrong approach But if I say here's something that I'm really passionate about and here's someone who does it pretty well

I think I'm gonna try to do a little bit what they do use a little bit of influence. I think that's okay But there's always room for more information around fitness. I mean look at where we are room for more information around fitness. I mean, look at where we are from when you started and when I started weightlifting and just going to the gym, look at the knowledge that the average gym goer has compared to then. Well, you don't have to, you're not trawling through bodybuilding.com forums. That's what I used to do, man. That is literally what I used to do. I mean, I was around when dial-up internet was a thing. You know what I mean? I was...

And for me, these days I'll never know, Zach. Yeah, these days I'll never know. Yeah, and Craig Richie and Sonny Webster giving you free fucking workouts all the time. Yeah. Get some of the best information on the planet available free streaming and full HD VR 3D bullshit. It's it's actually crazy man. Like I can. You know, if someone wants to learn to snatch and clean the jerk, like they can go online and fucking do it.

And that is crazy. If I want to go and learn how to surf, if I want to do anything, and fucking do it. And that is crazy. If I wanna go and learn how to surf, if I wanna do anything, I can do it. It's amazing. It also, people are still too lazy sometimes to do that. You'll go to a global gym and you'll see someone squatting with shit form. And it'll be amazing to you

that someone will be squatting with such shit form or shit technique. And they'll be amazing to you that someone will be swatting with such shit form or shit technique. And they'll be adding more and more weight and they'll be just lifting like a general jackass when we do have all of these awesome, you know, sources of information. So a lot of times it's more of like a human condition. Like yes, the information is getting better, it's better and better better, but a lot of times you see humans are lazy sacks of shit. Path of the least resistance, man, it always is. So look, let's get into it, right?

Let's start because I've got a power lifter who's one of the guys that comes on in co-hosts now and then Johnny. Definitely there is a disproportionate number of power lifters who are also accountants. 1.28%. That is weird. Try and tell me otherwise.

That's super weird. Yeah, I don't know. I've never met a powerlifter that's an accountant as well. Oh, man, they love spreadsheets. Everything's got it coded. That's actually true. Now that I think about the powerlifting coach that I know who owns my gym, when we had a gym, the good old days, his program is insanely, it's like so deep, you know, it's got beautiful pages of spreadsheets, color

coated, all that, all that jazz. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, so power lifters, power lifters are a lot of them are accountants. I think weight lifters, in my experience, weight lifters are kind of like, they're a little bit like the RT kid in school. Like they probably did music, probably did music, a reckon going through school, perhaps did, maybe even like a little bit of, you know, like dance or something.

I mean, look, you're, you want to see how right you are. Look at this. There's my guitar down there. And there's my drum set right here. Man, I got it. I got it. I'm telling you. Yeah, no, okay. So, so the power lifters are definitely the kids who got are definitely the kids who got A's and math and are very hard working. I think there's another wing of the power lifters and they are the kids that listen to slipknot Metallica, like a lot of heavy metal, as what's yourselves, the guy that does the bro science YouTube channel, I can't remember his name, but he says they were the kids at the back of the class that were playing bloody knuckles and pacing themselves with savings.

Yeah, that's him. And he said, playing bloody knuckles at the back of the class pacing themselves with safety pins. Like there are those two, those are the two main camps, I think. Yeah, so there would be meat heads and nerds. Yeah, that's right. Yeah, that's right. Yeah, that's right. and you serve playing bloody knuckles at the back of the class piece and themselves as safety pins. Like there are those two, those are the two main camps, I think. Yeah, so there would be meat heads and nerds.

Yeah, yeah, but both of whom have realized that if they lift tons of weights, it's kind of impressive. Yeah, like, yeah, I know what you're saying. And then I'd say weight lifters are more inclined to be kind of artsy, I guess, too. If we're going to group them into like clicky type things or groups in high school, I would say it's hard because you would say that Crossfitters, there's a group of them that are kind of nerdy hard workers, but they also some crossfitters,

like I feel like some of the CrossFit girls could be the like attractive girl who has also had a 4.0 and was a part of a bunch of different clubs. Oh yeah, they're the high sheep CrossFit number of domains, yeah. But there's also, there is also a huge, huge subculture of CrossFit girls who have realized

that they can wear hot pants year round if they do CrossFit. Yes. They're like, look, I usually get shouted out of my mum when I walk out wearing those shorts, but you're telling me that I can do that an hour a day, five days a week in this gym. Even serious?

Yeah, that's absolutely for Anda Bra. Wow, that's, and you know who you are. Okay, you know who you are, Kills. Yeah, I think, you know, something I'm always thinking about is like the things, the recovery, I think that Crossfitters are, it's much more a part of their culture to focus on recovery at all levels and focus on nutrition at all levels if you're like really really into it.

Because there are so many different movements, I feel like the training is like when you go to the gym, there's so many different movements, so you can't necessarily train or control the way that you move and everything. And so it's almost a release, it's like a relief of pressure, if that makes sense. Like if for a weight lifter, if they don't snatch and clean and jerk well,

well, their identity is now missing. So they are going to snatch and clean and jerk well. well, their identity is now missing. So they're going to snatch and clean and jerk well and they're going to do whatever it takes to do that. Crossfitters can get theirs in the gym. They can get theirs in the gym in so many different ways. So in all places to hide is across the day. Yeah, but when you're taking your shirt off and you're wearing your hot pants, you can't hide, right?

And so for them, it's like, I'm gonna get my nutrition locked in, I'm not gonna go party on the weekends. I am going to get enough sleep, you know? There's the recovery aspect that I think across, I really do feel like crossfitters work on really, really, really hard, compared to power lififters and maybe, maybe weightlifters.

It does, and there's another one actually as well. I don't know so much about weightlifters because I'm not watched the sessions quite so closely, but I know for an absolute fact that powerlifting has to be the least time-efficient sport to train in. Yeah. Ever know. Well, that is true, but it's mainly, again, that's a path of police resistance. If you watch power lifters, they...

So, weight lifters, we sit down a lot when we're training. But at the same time, the relative loads that we're lifting are nowhere near as high as power lifters. So, we can get up and go lift again. Like we, you know, sometimes you start having conversations and not losing focus, but power lifters, it's like they just killed themselves in their last set. So they're going to rest and then that rest turns into something that's like 10 minutes long. A lot of phone use. Yes. Choose in the next track. Yes. Yes. So I think though weightlifters do that quite a bit and every once in a while when I'm coaching, I have to get

on my weightlifters' asses to be like, hey, we're training now. Like, let's go. That's one of the things especially to fly the flag at least in part for CrossFit, because we're just kind of bachying everyone at the moment. To fly the flag at least in part for CrossFit, because we're just kind of b-b-b-b-ters and powerlifters, especially those that are getting remote coaching to video every one of their lifts. And then they go over, they take the phone off the little joby grip that's attached to the rig on the far side, they watch the video back, then they choose the next track, then they get sucked into Instagram, how I'll put on Instagram story, story or anything like that. You know, yeah, vicious, vicious cycle. It's, yeah, that when I coach my guys, it's kind of a thing where they're not allowed to have their cell phones out. So, and that just, everyone's focused on each other,

focus on themselves, focus on the barbell, and then, you know, you can, when we go to do accessories, you can bring your phone and chat and stuff. I don't care too much but for the most part I try to limit the phone usage completely during practice times because it's not helping anyone you know it's not even helping you. If they want video of something like yeah that's that's fine you know if someone wants a video but for the most part people wouldn't even abuse it anyways because it's like kind of want video of something like, yeah, that's fine. You know, if someone wants a video. But for the most part, people wouldn't even abuse it anyways because it's like kind of like, it's

a social event. Like you want to be there with your team, you want to watch other people lift, you want to kind of cheer them on and stuff like that. But, you know, I actually was just talking about this yesterday. I don't know if you know who Michelle Latondra is. No. So she was a games athlete. I think she's been to six games, and now she's a coach. And she's coached. She coaches Patrick Velner. She coached Laura Horvath.

She's a really, really smart person and generally awesome. And we were talking about the differences when she was a cross-fitter and then when she went to compete in weightlifting. And she remembers feeling a lot better when she was lifting heavy while she was a cross-fitter, which is interesting. And I think I know why,

and that's because cross-fitters have that, they can alleviate the pressure from a certain lift. They're fear of snatching heavy or cleaning drinking heavy and fear of failure or any of that is just not there. Even when they switch, because it's embedded in their sport, why would you care about a maximum snatch when you have 13 other things that you have to do? Like yeah, you want to do the best you can,

but this is not your identity. This is not who you are. And when they switch to competitive weightlifting, that still stays with them. They're like, oh, it's my first meet. I'm just going to have fun. Oh, that's my second meet. You know, this, I've only done weightlifting for officially for a year now, and I just keep PRing all that stuff.

And that's a great, great mentality because they're basically, they're forgetting the things that aren't, that are outside of their control. They're completely taking them out of, out of the situation. And a lot of weight lifters lose sight of that when they start training.

And so there's this line. And we talk about this a lot. Me and my coach, Max, is having this line of expectations and standards. So if you expect a lot, right? And you have decently high standards. It's not always the best. Having low expectations, but incredibly high standards is usually going to bid you the best result for the most of the for most of the time, especially when you're training. It's challenging. But when you're passionate

about something, right? You know, like you want to do well. You want to do well. Yes. Everyone that's listening that's that's that's that's that's expectations. The word itself expect. Why do we go about life expecting anything? Expect? Like that's a stupid word. That's silly. You're not you nothing is deserved. Nothing is expected. You just have to do the best you can and do better than you did before and at least try to do better. I think that is the only expectation is that you will give your best effort. When you expect a certain result, you either get that result and there you go, your life is over or you get below that result and everything sucks. Either way, everything sucks. It's being processed oriented versus goal oriented. Okay, but what we were talking about a very interesting aspect

is that the best, the elite elite, like the Matt Frazers or the Michael Phelps, those are the ones that have high expectations and high standards and they don't always have the best mental health because of it. Couldn't agree more, man. There's a bunch of people who I think aren't happy. I actually think Matt Fraser is. I think he has, he's just built to be a high performer.

But a lot of the time there's a price that you need to pay. I did a video on this recently talking about, you can't just take part of someone's life, you have to take the whole. So people look at Elon Musk or fucking, Matt Fraser for instance, or Tiger Woods, amazing example actually, Tiger Woods. Like you look at Tiger Woods 20 years ago

and you go, oh my God, this guy's worth millions of dollars sponsored by Nike, best golfer on the planet, child prodigy, this and the other. But if you find out about Tiger, especially if you read, stillness is the key by Ryan Holidays, he's got some amazing research in that about Tiger. And that is dad, is dad abused him as a child in golf? Like it was golf abuse, but it was absolutely 100%

especially in today's society would be considered abuse. He even had a safe word. They had a safe word, tiger words and his dad had a safe word, and the safe word was enough. And he never once said it. They called it, they referred to it as the e-word. That makes me, makes the hair stand up on the back of my neck. I know, yeah.

The e-word, he had a safe word for when Tiger was like, that you're getting push, you're pushing me too hard here. And like you used to say, that used to call him, used to call his own suddenly n-word. It was like, this is why you're a useless n, this is why this, this is why that. Like, and you think, okay, you see Tiger Woods, you see the product at the end of this.

You don't realize what he's had to sacrifice, all of the things that the baggage that he carries with him that go along with that. I remember in chasing excellence by Ben Burge on this story about Matt Fraser, used to be I think an engineer, mechanic engineer. We went to the same college.

Nobody. Yeah. At a similar time, university. University, that's how, yeah, that's what people in the UK call it, university, right? Yes, correct. As opposed, I mean, it is a university, but in America, we can say anything is a college,

but yes, go on. And there was a story he was revising at night, but for his engineering exam thing, and he wasn't letting himself leave the library until he could recite this entire chapter verbatim. And then he would get toward the end and would mess up and then he'd go, right, just start again. It was like 5am and he finally did it and let himself leave. And you think like the byproduct of that is you have someone who is so particular about the performance.

So incredibly precise with what it is that they want. But what's the price that you have to pay for that? Like can Matt Fraser ever go to bed without the room being made or without putting his shorts away or can he ever go on holiday without having a minute-by-minute plan? I don't know if these are particular examples, and they're obviously not existential threats, but you can imagine if you start to create more

of a psychological profile of that, there can be some fairly painful side effects that come with this. Yeah, it's the whole wanting to, like, I think if you want to do better and you want to improve, low expectations, high standards. If you want to be the absolute best, you have to almost tease yourself. You also have to make fun of yourself.

You have to make yourself depressed. You have to make yourself sad. You have to make yourself fearful. You have to make yourself scared. Those are not good health qualities. You should never do that if you want to live a healthy, safe, happy life, right? But that's not what these people want. They want to fucking win. That's like, I would never ever say to Matt Fraser, you know, low expectations, high standards. But I would say to 99.9% of everyone in the world who wants to improve at what they're doing low expectations high standards. They're wanting to win is like a

curse. It's like a horrible, horrible thing. And sometimes you'll see an athlete who's actually so naturally gifted that they won't even need to have that toxic of a mindset. And that's about the rarest of rare. You know who I think might have that Patrick Valner upon looking from the outside in, I think he may do. Well, you know, again, you could never ever know because you're not in Patrick Valner's brain.

It's like, we don't even know, we don't know the first thing about Matt Fraser, we don't live with him. We don't, you know, it's like, we don't know anyone. No one knows anyone's story or the encounters that they have. You can only judge them based off of what?

Well, nothing. That's used to tell you. Yeah, and even then, it's like, it's not even a fraction, it's a blink of what even a fraction. It's a blank of what they actually are as a human and what they, you know, they can tell you these things and interviews and I'm not saying that these people are hiding bad things. I'm saying this because I would hope that no one would judge

me for who I am or the type of person I am, or say that, you know, Zach isn't struggling or he is struggling, they wouldn't be able to tell those things based off of the tiny little blip of information they're given. I, on the outside, yeah, you know, it does look like Patrick Feltner looks like the type of guy who is just excels and has a good mentality, but you don't know the torment that he gives himself before he goes to sleep. And it's things like that. That's what, that's what, the ultimate leveler,

I think for everyone, and I use this example with Elon Musk a lot, it's like everyone thinks the Elon Musk unbelievable, PayPal, Mafia, Tesla, sending fucking people to Mars, we're gonna colonize the planet, we're gonna do all this sort of stuff. I'd love to be him. He's just this super genius polymath with billions of dollars and a coolest fuck company.

And if he wants to create ventilators in a day, he'll do it because he's got the productivity and all this stuff. But you don't know what the inside of Elon Musk's head is like when he goes to sleep on an island. Exactly. You don't know the torment. You're the one, you know, that's my buddy just always would say to me, you'd be like, you're the one inside your head.

You know, it's it's as simple as a voice in your head, taunting you or, you know, like that is not healthy. Like most people you would try to eliminate that voice of negativity or whatever it is that's not making you feel good. We want to feel good, right? But to some of these people, that voice is what fires them up and that is not a good thing. And that doesn't make them a good person. We have a lot, we have this way of trying to fixate patterns on people. And we will make assumptions to make ourselves feel better at any cost. Assumptions that have absolutely zero basis in science or basis in the real world. What like this person can't cheat. He's a good person.

Well, those are two different things. Those are two different things. Do you understand? This person can't take drugs. I've seen him. He's a good guy. Those are not those, you know, you can't say that the grass is green because the sky is blue or whatever. That's not how that works, but we always want to make patterns like that, because it's like, that's a struggle of human consciousness. We're always trying to find how we can make sense of this world. His, his why I think this is touched on something I talk about a lot, that we think in archetypes.

So we have these cultural memes that were fed, especially when we're young. And then we try and slot people into these archetypes, the hero, the maiden, the villain, the redeemed, the hopeless case, the nerd, the strong alpha, the silent guy, all of these different things. We try and slot people into this. Part of it is because we're lazy and it's because we don't want to have to do the work to work out, well hang on, Zach's got a bit of this, but he's also got a bit of that in him and a little bit of this.

And these two things don't really fit So I'm kind of gonna forget about that and I'll just have him as the alpinum as the that guy, you know It's like whatever the majority of your personality makeup is we'll just use that the best stories the best Films are the ones that question that That the best ones by far who do we root for who's good who's bad What is good in what is bad? What is morality? What is immoral? Those are the best stories and it's really funny because in in Hollywood like people still They're like what's his thing like what what's his thing? Like what, what's his archetype? They see the hero of this story.

It's like, why are we still, why is that everyone's go to, even though we know the best stories are the ones that question those things. Think about like something as simple as like the Joker that just came out. Are we on Arthur Flex side or are we not? Are you know, who's good, who's bad?

Is Murray bad, is Murray good? We don't, people, like, that sort of stuff, it causes pain in people. I left that movie theater and I shit you not, I looked around, I remember hearing conversations of girls and guys, everyone being like, that fucking suck, that movie sucked. That movie was depressing.

I'm so pissed I went and saw that movie. I walked out of that movie theater being like, that was one of the best movies I've ever sat down and watched ever. Because when I go to something like that, it helps. It's an exercise to question my surroundings, to question my world. When we want to go to the movie theater and hold up a big phone finger and get our popcorn

and cheer on Vin Diesel and the Fast and the Furious guys, like, that's fine. But what happens is that sort of mindset carries over into all things culture. We want to deliver an ideology. We want to deliver a subset of things where we can fit people all the goddamn time. And it runs amuck.

It doesn't allow for nuance. That is, my channel is based off of nuance, even though it's a simple thing where all I talk about is the snatch in the clean and jerk. If that's it, then I should have ended my channel two years ago. If it's just about those two things, there's no nuance there, but that is the goal of my

style of coaching, my style of everything is to play with what is what is the answer? nuance, nuance, nuance, always in between the lines, always examining what has prior what what people have done, what people have thought and examine what I have done and what I have thought, and examine what I have done, and what I have thought, and experiences I've had. If we're not doing things like that, then we're just going to keep in this cyclical bullshit narrative, this structure that's always going to repeat itself over and over and over again. That, and in all honesty, that was all I did. I, here

is my structure. If anyone is listening to how I made my YouTube channel what it is. Instead of saying, here's how you do the snatch. You do the snatch like this. You do this. You do this. You do that. Thank you for watching. I was saying, when you learn this thing, it's likely that this will happen, and it's likely that you'll be told to do this. What I have found through my own experimentation is that either of those could work if done like this or this or this. Do you see the variants in that? That right there, it has like, off shoots of different routes, you can go different things. I want to empower the viewer, not tell them what to do.

So I continually will try to do that. When someone wants me to do a video on programming, I think what is the issue actually? I don't want to do a video on programming, I think, what is the issue actually? I don't want to write a program and say, do this. I want to know what it is that most people do wrong, and I want to fix it, or offer suggestions on how you can fix it. And that's it. And honest to God, I just went on like a huge rant, but that is the biggest without question part of my success.

And I'm sure as far as your podcast goes, that's what you want to do too. You want to live in the nuance. So I mean, if I'm here, that's literally, that's what interests me. That's the reason that I have these conversations, you know, and I say, I've said it a million times, I'm going to say it again, if you are not having a conversation

with a friend about a concept that you are interested in for at least half an hour a week where your funds are outside of the room, then you are missing out on the opportunity to develop yourself. I think it's like, oh well, I need to do my yoga this week or I need to do my mobility today or I need to go for a walk, I need to get my 10,000 steps.

Once a week, you need to have a conversation with a friend that's not distracted by other things. Because it sharpens your skills, it improves the precision of your thoughts, improves your ability to articulate things. I, it could be with your self, man. Like, what you could record him on the log, you could, everyone's got a phone.

I mean, I definitely talk to myself, for sure. Like, there's no question, and I know that might sound weird or whatever, but sometimes I'll be walking the dogs, and I'll just think out loud. Sometimes I'll just start talking, and it looks like I have skits of frenia, but realistically, I couldn't agree more with, did you ever see the documentary on a Vici?

Yes. The one on Netflix? with, you know, did you ever see the documentary on a Vici? Yes. The one on Netflix? Yeah. Okay, so there's the part where he says he's really interested in this article or maybe this study that talks about the type of introverts there are. And he's like, I'm kind of what you would call an

extroverted introvert or something like that. And he's like, I am not interested in going out and partying, but I am very interested in being social and sharing ideas with people. And very deep, meaningful discussion. So in that sense, being very sociable does not mean being an extrovert. Wanting to share ideas and wanting to talk about philosophy, talk about deeper things, that is an inherently, you know, it could be called an introverted thing, even though it involves other people. I believe that I kind of fit into something like that.

And ultimately, you could see during this documentary, he wants that the whole time. You know, when you have, when you're that famous and making that much money for other people, those other people are going to treat you like a product because they make money off of you. So, at no point in any time, did anyone stop to talk politics with the men? And that's all he wanted to do.

Talk politics, talk religion, talk philosophy. You know, my wife, her parents and their friends would get together and they would talk about politics, religion, and philosophy. The three things that at the dinner table with friends, you are not supposed to talk about, right? They would have all of their friends come over and those are the three things that they would talk about because it's like, what are we then if we're just a system of What are we then if we're just a system of bullshit that we just regurgitate to each other?

Right? I totally agree. At least a half hour a week. That's nothing, man. It's not the way to program it in. So here's another one for you. This is something you may not have heard of before. George McGill, who is the highest ever played episode. He's just a mate. Just an essentially nobody. Highest ever played episode, more than Robick Green, more than Aubrey Marcus, more than Dave Castro or Dan Bailey. And it's just a conversation between him. And he brings up this idea, which is called high agency. He says it's the single most useful skill, the most powerful skill in the 21st century. It's a conversation about mental models and high agencies, one of them. High agency is a ability for a person to enact change as they see fit within the world. And the way to work out who your friend with high agency or the highest agency friend that you have is to do this mental exercise.

I'm going to get you to do it now and I want to hear your answer. So imagine that you are put into a foreign jail, let's say South America. You're put in South America, jail somewhere in Panama, somewhere in that, you're going to get fucked up. And you have to get out in 24 hours. Who do you call? You can call one friend. Who's the person that you call? It's definitely going to be the person that is the most communicative, right?

The most dependable person. Well, think about what they're going to be able to do. They're not going to need anyone else. They're going to have incredible solidarity. They're going to be able to think, literally or thogunally, they're going to be able to, as you say, they're going to manipulate things in terms of a social aspect. They're going to be likable. They're going to be able to think outside of the box. You know, all of these different, all these different things and the crucial, the crucial thing is they do all of that in

motion. So it's not that they can abstractly think about what they would do. It's the ability of someone because there's tons of people that have great ideas. There's how many people have you heard that I'd love to start a YouTube channel. Yeah, I really like doing video. People that are in the other conversations. I love listening to podcasts. It's like put it into motion. Yeah, the actionable person too is what matters.

Who do you think gets shit done? Who would you ring? Probably my buddy, Auggie. He's one of my longest and best friends. He would answer and you know, he would get a plan together in action like almost immediately for sure. You know, for sure, no question. And I think, you know, it's interesting you say that my coach Max, he always says ideas are meaningless.

You know, ideas are absolutely meaningless. It's the, it's the, what am I thinking? What kind of phrase am I thinking about? It's the actionable, oh god, capitalization, God. Capitalization, no. It's, he always uses this as an example. Uber, as an idea, is a great idea. But supposedly, and I don't know if this is completely true still, it's losing money as a company, is that true? Yeah, I think so. Right, so it's not a good company. It's not, I mean, I'll be the first person to say that.

If you're losing money, you're not a good company, right? It's a great idea, bad company. Yes, okay. So his thing that Max says is, if you could, you would, that's it. If you could do it, wouldn't you do it? If you can sit there and criticize someone on the way that they're doing something,

that would mean that you could do it. And if you could do it, wouldn't you fucking do it? That's a really good way to put it, you know, I'm sure that it's as simple as it gets. A lot of people, I did an episode with Dr. David Sinclair, Harvard Medical School, one of the 50 most influential health professionals on the planet, immediately after Rogan had him and then I had him. I'm just, I'm still just some guy, but I was even less of some guy a year, a year and a half ago. Anyway, and I started getting all of these things. Like, why didn't you ask him questions about this?

Why didn't you chase him up on the fact that he's doing? I'm like, why don't you ask him on your podcast? Yeah. Oh, right. You don't have one. Yeah. So here's, okay, here's another one. And again, I max, max Aida, I don't know if you know who he is. He's a pretty famous American weightlifting coach. Everyone should check him out, but he's definitely a big influence on me. And there's three criteria for what makes you a good weightlifting coach is what have you done

yourself? What have you done with others and what sort of education have you taken on to make yourself better? These are things that are always moving. You will never be a good coach in the sense that you can't get better. So people can think of you being good as relative to other people or relative to other things, but you'll never be a good solidified coach. You always have to be evolving. But what have you done can mean? What have you lifted and from what point have you lifted this and lifted that. So your

improvement over this amount of time, can you can you can you show it to me skin in the game. Yes. With others now this is a broader one, but again, you could always think you have taken Now this is a broader one, but again, you could always think you have taken Athlete A and you have brought them where show me exactly where the fuck you did that where did that athlete get better and I need to see it Okay, or What coach have you taken under your wing what sort who can vouch for you? Who could I talk to and say you know, that's a fucking good coach. Who can do that? That's, it's your relationship with others. And the final one is education. What

are you currently doing to be a better coach through things that aren't maybe lifting related? To be a better person, to be a better, you know, father, husband, you husband, boyfriend, whatever it is, what are you doing? How are you educating yourself? It could be, you go and you find a mentor, you go and you visit someone and you have a podcast with them. Like those are educational moments.

Those are things for growth. And if you can't provide me with those three things in any light, you are not, you are not doing a good job of proving yourself in whatever field that is. What have you done? What have you done with others and what the fuck is your education or how are you educating yourself? And some people I'll say, what have you and that'll be like I don't have anything. Okay, so why are we having this discussion? It random internet commenter who thinks they know fucking better. You know, this is another thing too is the people that are the quickest to talk shit to me or talk about me or about anyone are the last people to be doing it themselves. I, about anyone are the last people to be doing it themselves. I, when I go to these weightlifting meets, I see the same coaches, the same

lifters at every single one of them. And I'm so happy to see them. They're always there. And the people that, that comment that talk shit that create the most noise are never there, ever. It's as simple as that. Show up. Just show up, just show up. Be a part of it if you wanna fix it. That, you know, it's like, it's like in any Americans, and I'm sure people from the UK love complaining

about politics on their Facebook or whatever. They put, they'll never, ever do anything about it. Ever, ever, ever, ever. You know, it's just, it's shit like that is mind-boggling to me. I think it becomes particularly irritating to somebody like yourself. You know, anyone that's listening, it doesn't, you know, us fucking children of the 21st century with our new fangled YouTube and Instagram

podcast profiles and all this shit. Like it doesn't matter about that, but there's people that are listening who have high agency that are just great moms, great brothers, great, you know, employees, great managers, great directors of companies, whatever it might be. Like there's still people that have that high agency

that still are in motion, right? They're doing stuff, but you're right,. It's the same people who always tend to comment, but don't ever put it into action. And there's something particularly triggering about that in a way. It's weakness, but it makes you feel, um, it's gobsmacked. You're like, that guy, that guy said that thing. That guy said it. What, how did, how did he say it? You know, like, even still, like, even still,

I try to avoid even, like the simplicity of getting upset with a commenter. What I like to know is, you look at the huge picture around that. Why are they commenting and what are they not doing? What is the process that we are in as a society that allows this type of shit? Because like you said, there's a lot of people out there listening who are fucking awesome people. And when I see someone who kicks ass as a father, or kicks ass as a mother, a brother, just kicks ass as a fucking person and doesn't have any followers or anything like that, like crazy going on, they're just good people. Like I have more respect for them than anyone,

that there's no separation. I don't give a shit who you are. If you can prove to me those things, like I love you as a person, and I will always and forever. The person though that like, the first thing they think about is complaining with no action.

That is like you said, gobsmacked, I don't know, that's kind of a non-American term. By the way, where your jaw hits the floor. Yeah, yeah, I mean, that is the shit that is insane to me and it's way way too common. Like, okay, you post something. The first thing I wanna think about is what's a negative comment I can put to that?

What's wrong about this? And I'm gonna post it immediately, everyone. It's really weird, you're my... I don't think, except for Brian Rose from London Real who looks like a cod out of water and I dislike intensely, except for him, I don't think I've ever said anything bad about anyone on the internet. My vendetta for Brian Rose aside, like that's it, and I don't understand people who go out of their way to say anything bad. Like,

let's say that you put up, let's say your next video, I'm sure. Because you wouldn't, you wouldn't, but let's say that you put up let's say your next video. I'm sure you want it You wouldn't but let's say you had anything in the game if you like I'm saying skin in the game you wouldn't fucking do it But let's say that your next video sucks. I'm sure it won't but let's say that your next video sucks I'm Westfield so sure don't be so sure And I'm like, I'm not gonna cut, even if whether I know you or whether I don't, I'm not gonna comment and say this video shit. I might comment and say, hey man,

I'm like, get what you're trying to do here, but really don't think this is your best work. Perhaps you should, perhaps this would be a real cool way to try and redo this. And you'd read and go, that would hit you a lot harder, weirdly. Like if someone messages and sends me something where they tell me the thing that I know that was true about it.

Yeah, it's yes. I'm like, Do you deliver a nuanced approach? Oh, I don't really know that. For three more. Yeah, so fun. But, you know,

I've never gone out my way. I don't wanna do that. I don't wanna just waste my time having random internet arguments with stranger people, you know? I'm looking at my phone here because I want to point out one of these people. Let's give them a shout out. Yeah, you know, because this is the damage that people do,

especially with the COVID-19 thing. There's a lot of fucking damage that can be done with shitty commenting a lot. And there's no punishment for it. There's no being held accountable. This guy goes, I basically, when shit really started hitting the fan with the virus, I basically was like, hey guys, you know, it sucks, the gym is shut down. And it sucks a lot for us, for the people who the gym is a big part of their identity.

Like I do think it's a big deal that the gyms are shut down. Most people are like, yeah, the gym, you know, it's just a play. It's like for me, that's my life. Like I spent so much time in there, it is a big deal. But we have to do these things for public safety, you know, that's it. That's your social, you know, your accountability as a person in society. This guy goes, in my opinion, the statement that shutting down gyms is necessary for safety is one of the most assent-in-eign absurdities I can recall. In regard to the overall risk, this

is one of the most mild viruses in centuries. Really people wake up, quit mindlessly believing everything you're told, and check the facts. This was three weeks ago, okay? Well, we'll get to how idiotic that is. I just responded. I said, really? One of the most assinine absurdities you can recall. Speaking in hyperbole against something you believe is hyperbolic is oh so funny to me,

right? So using hyperbole to speak against something hyperbolic. And then he goes to your response, you've been alive long enough to remember several outbreak breaks through the years, which one was less dangerous, which one had a lower mortality rate? How many gyms do you remember closed for that outbreak? The answer to all of them is none. I love your content, but that statement is,

but making that, sorry, I'm glad you're gonna continue making it, but that statement to placate to be politically correct or whatever is in my opinion assenine absurdity. Now mind you this was three weeks ago and I already knew this guy was a total dipshit. Yesterday, yesterday, the amount of people that have died in in the US alone from COVID-19 surpassed an entire year of swine flu, which is the next one, right? So directly here is a more violent virus, right?

This is a very violent virus, like, hey, I'm, I'm, and that's not to make people panic, but it is what it fucking is. We're not doing this because of some conspiracy theory, right? And his thing was, he said back back to you guys, is like, you're right. It's officially more dangerous than Swine flu. I stand corrected. Given the overall ineffectiveness of our attempts to flatten the curve, do you still believe in that mandatory shutting down of gyms was necessary for safety? And I just simply said,

yes. And he goes fair enough, right? So maybe he conceited right? That's a rare that is a rare human to be into that. But Three weeks ago is when we needed fucking shit faces like that to not say shit like that Three weeks ago was when it mattered The that's the point of this disease is that it takes time to develop You can be asymptomatic for a long period of time. So three weeks ago, when people are like, this is bullshit, this is an ass and an absurdity. And then now they're like, you know what, I was wrong. It's like, no, you can't do that.

Your words mean things. If someone read that comment, I know that that's just crazy and it probably didn't happen. But if someone read that and was like, you know what? Yeah, fuck it. And they by chance, they were an asymptomatic carrier and they brought the virus somewhere else. That is how the that's how words can affect culture and not being held accountable to anything you say, not being held actionable to the words that you say, is the ultimate plague. It plagues us as a society.

So when someone sees something and they are immediate thought is, I'm going to complain about it, but I'm not gonna do a goddamn thing to change it. They are the problem, not the solution, always. Man, I couldn't agree more. There's a blog post that I keep on referencing. It's got the worst clickbait title by David Wong,

but it's had like 14 million hits, blog post, 14 million hits. And it's called Six Harsh Truths that will make you a better person. And essentially, one of them, the main one is that you are what you produce. Nothing else. So he's talking about, as a good example, he's saying, you're a single guy who complains maybe about not getting girls. And this, this archetype could be used for anything. I am a this that doesn't get this. And you say, well, I don't really

understand because I'm really nice and I'm kind and I'm caring. And I turn up on time and I always hold the door open for her and I do caring and I turn up on time and I always hold the door open for her And I do this and I do that and they're like right so fucking what like there is a guy That's just the entry price that you pay to be a good human to get in the game There is a guy out there who has all of the things that you've just described and he can play the fucking guitar Yep, and you can play the fucking guitar. Yep. And you're like, okay, yeah.

And you can play the guitar. And that stuck with me because it gets us away from this cycle, the recycling of information, the recycling of existing talents and skills, routines, mindsets, all of the things that we do, and trying to break that wheel, as obviously breaking it in the correct direction as opposed to making it worse,

because you can break your habits and replace them with worse ones. But trying to do that, you know, like that's the learning element of your, the learning in the personal element of your weightlifting trio, and then you've got the transcendent element which is the one that's in the middle,

which is to do with making other people better. That's how they transcend. So yeah. So I don't know, I think there's a lot. There's an awful lot there. And I think we... Knowing just knowing the lowest common denominator. So people always talk about hard work.

And I'm someone who questions that idea of hard work because hard work is relative and a lot of times hard work is the lowest common denominator, right? If smart work, talent, those are things that are needed, you know, hard work. So, so here's a good example. I can get to the gym. I'm going to work the, I'm going to fucking work harder than anyone. Well, if I'm not smart about it, that hard work doesn't mean shit. I get, take a maximum back squat and un-rack it and say, I'm going to back squat this. Tell me you're not working hard. It's impossible to not work hard when you're back squatting.

It's impossible. You put all the weight you can on your back and you're like, fuck, this is heavy. That's hard work, but it's not gonna make you better. You know, unless you know what you're doing with it. So it's this culture of hard work wins, hard work wins. It's like, no, that's not ever the case. That's the lowest common denominator.

That's the price, the entry price you have to pay to get through to. Yeah, there's someone that's working hard and is really good at the guitar, you know? No, yeah. And they're recovering and the nutrition's right and they're helping to transcend what they do by bringing other people up which then brings their game up even further and they're doing the continuous professional development and learning it. Man, I get it. Look,

I feel like we could go on for a for all night, man. I'm going to have to get you on again so we can keep this conversation going. But look, tell everyone where they can go, whether it's heads to check you out. So first and foremost, YouTube channel just search Zac ZACK, Telender TEL-A-N-D-E-R, and then if you want to follow me on Instagram, Coach underscore ZT. I also have one dollar program for weightlifting. So I have one dollar programming. Yeah. On my Patreon, patreon.com slash the act calendar. And if you want to start weightlifting,

you can just click one of those programs, download it. And there you go. It also just supports me and my endeavors. I use the money from that Patreon to go fly to meets. It was cool, my last Patreon check paid for my going to the Arnold and paying for all of my expenses there to coach, to literally just for my job. So it was really awesome.

That's it, man. And that's it. Awesome, I love it. Everything will be linked in the show notes below. Of course, if you've enjoyed this episode, you know what to do. Go ahead on Zack's channel. Give him some love. Maybe try and find that comment if someone who doesn't know what they're talking about

to do with coronavirus. Like, share and subscribe. If you've enjoyed this episode, give me a message wherever you follow me. But for now, Zack, man, thank you so much. Yeah, thanks for having me, man. Thank you very much for tuning in. If you enjoyed the episode, please share it with a friend. It would make me very happy indeed.

Don't forget, if you've got any questions or comments or feedback, feel free to message me at Chris Willx on all social media. But for now, goodbye friends.