Right About Now with Ryan Alford - Thrive on Life with CJ Finley

Episode Date: September 19, 2023

Welcome back to The Radcast! In today’s episode, we have a special guest - CJ Finley. He is the founder of Thrive on Life Podcast and an established entrepreneur, speaker and health enthusiast - whose varied expertise is sure to help listeners understand and apply key concepts that will guide you towards family life and entrepreneurial success. Get ready for some amazing insights into how you can manage the day-to-day realities of work life most effectively and start building relationships with others which could last a lifetime!Ryan and CJ Findley talk about the mission of Thrive On Life. (00:13)CJ experienced trauma prompting him to start Thrive On Life which connects people and businesses based on shared principles of authenticity, grit, ethics, morality, and caring for others. (04:20)Ryan and CJ put emphasis on the importance of family life and balance to be effective, while also adapting to the world around them to thrive. (15:00)Ryan talks about the difference between “hustling” and being effective -- quality over quantity stands true in both sports and life. (24:05)CJ encourages people to prioritize their health and offers guidance and information on the subject together with his wife through his podcast series, Instagram account, and other projects such as Men in the Arena, Sphere Soccer-Inspired Fitness, Squatch Frontier Fitness, and the Radcast Podcast Series. (30:15)If you want to learn more about CJ Finley, follow him on Instagram @cj.finley and his YouTube channel https://www.youtube.com/cjfinley and podcast https://thriveonlife.com/#1.Learn more by visiting our website at www.theradcast.com.Subscribe to our YouTube channel https://www.youtube.com/c/RadicalHomeofTheRadcast.If you enjoyed this episode of The Radcast, Like, Share, and leave us a review! If you enjoyed this episode and want to learn more, join Ryan’s newsletter https://ryanalford.com/newsletter/ to get Ferrari level advice daily for FREE.  Learn how to build a 7 figure business from your personal brand by signing up for a FREE introduction to personal branding https://ryanalford.com/personalbranding.  Learn more by visiting our website at www.ryanisright.comSubscribe to our YouTube channel  www.youtube.com/@RightAboutNowwithRyanAlford. 

You're listening to The Radcast, a top 25 worldwide business podcast. If it's radical, we cover it. Here's your host, Ryan Alford. Hey guys, what's up? Welcome to the latest edition of The Radcast. I'm Ryan Alford, your host today. We like to say, if it's radical, we cover it. And you know what? Who doesn't want to thrive on life, my friends? I do. I want to thrive on life

every day. And that's why we got CJ Finley, founder of Thrive On Life, entrepreneur, speaker, and health enthusiast when he's not tweaking his back a little bit. What's up, CJ? Yeah, thank you for that. No, just feeling great minus the back. I'm healing a little injury right here, but just happy to be here and excited for this conversation. Yeah, man. I didn't realize we were talking pre-shows. 300 episodes. Congrats on that, on Thrive on Life. That's quite an accomplishment. It's in the world of pod fade and coming and going and people sticking with stuff i know what that commitment looks like having been there myself congrats on that yeah i appreciate it it's

something that i don't necessarily think everybody knows the grind behind the scenes that a podcast can be you have the full team i see behind you so that certainly helps but over the years i've had some couple people help me keep it going and now ai is a big thing to help me continue to put out valuable podcasts. And it's something that I'm very passionate about. So I think when you're passionate about anything, it doesn't feel like work. And it's easy to continue to do it week over week. And I'm excited to not only hit 300, but maybe 3,000 one day. Yeah, man, that's great.

And just as we just started there, we'll talk a little bit more about your background and a little baby at home. I know that fatherhood drive, but, but since we started there on the podcast, what, just for our listeners, what is Thrive Online? What, describe the podcast and your 300 episodes now, like what's been the evolution of that? Yeah. Thrive Online life itself started because my wife, her father died in a spin class of a heart attack. So if you're seeing the video right now, my brand has a little heartbeat in it and that's what it stems from. And my wife and I go back to grade school. I've known her since I was 10 years old. And when her father died,

he actually unfortunately passed away on my mom's birthday. She gave me a call and we reconnected over his death. I just felt really bad and didn't know what to do. Aaron was in Texas. I was in New Jersey and long story short, we reconnected. I realized that this is the woman of my dreams. I want to marry her. And at the time I was working in the corporate world and I just wanted something more. I just felt like there was more that I could give to this world and having someone that she loved so much be taken way too soon. He was in really good shape and it was just a freak accident that made me realize at the time I was 25, holy shit, this could be the end at any time. And I want to make every heartbeat count.

And that's really where we started thinking, what are some brand names? What are some things that we want to represent? And we realized real quickly, like we don't want to just survive every day. I feel like so many people just go through life surviving and then they don't really have this come to Jesus moment where they realize how precious life is and how much gratitude that they should have for every day and really attack every day. And we started the brand Thrive on Life to really just attack the day and surround ourselves with other people like you who are helping other people. So my slogan is with Thrive on Life, we help mission-based people, brands, and businesses

thrive. So if you're somebody that's growing communities or looking to connect with other people that are looking for more from life than just a paycheck. They're looking to create things, build things, serve their community. I love to connect with those people and help them scale. I'm a systems engineer by my degree, and I just mixed my corporate background with how do I help brands that are really making an impact scale. And I realized really quickly when people started getting on the podcast train that the easiest way to help others scale is tell their story and connect people with them through the telling of that story. So that's where the podcast came into the mix, but the brand itself really just represents helping and serving other people that would love to do great things in this world.

I love that, man. A lot to unpack there. It hits home thinking about your wife's father. How old was he? 53. He was still playing soccer with 30 year olds. He was in great shape and just had some genetic defect. And unfortunately that can happen to any of us. And it really shook us. I'm sure. How old was your wife at the time when this happened? 20, I think she was 22 or 23. It was her first year out of college. And how long ago was this? Let's see, 2014.

So it's 10 years. Almost 10 years. Maybe next year. Man, we talk about taking every day seriously and making the most of your life. But when you have something happen to you that dramatic, it just, it's really telling, I think, because I think some people, it happens to them and they move on or whatever, but to really turn it into both a business and your focus and to create the purpose that really creates meaning behind his death that can't be, I don't know, taken too lightly. Yeah. And the other factor to it was I was dealing with my own illness at the

time too. And I think him passing away brought up some trauma I had because my cousins lost my aunt when she was 40 years old, a colon cancer. And I remember being 10 years old and they were, I think nine and 12 at the time, them losing their mother. And I started suffering in my mid twenties of similar issues that she was suffering with earlier on in her life. And I have celiac disease and some other digestive stuff. So it brought trauma within me to see Aaron's father pass away. And then I realized, holy crap, if I don't take care of myself, something bad could happen. And I want to live past 40. So really it was the culmination of all these things in my mid twenties. And

what it looked like externally, I was showing up to this corporate job and everybody else just seemed happy to make their paycheck. They're just like going through life. And I was just miserable. Couldn't like, why are we at this desk? Why am I doing anything that I'm doing? Why does any of this matter? That's what was going through my head. I think a lot earlier than other people. And what's spurred out of that was Thrive On Life and it's just connected me with so many awesome people. And I'm just very grateful for life. I got to say this though. You said, I want to live past 40. Brother, I want to live past a hundred. Let's not set any slow limitations here. You got to get way past 40 and you'd like your role on your way. So talk to

me. So Thrive on Life. I heard you talking some, my business, Mark, marketing brain echoing. I'm hearing you describe the businesses and type people. Are we talking about essentially like foundations? Are we talking about like purpose-led brands maybe? It might be a corporate brand for profit. Are we talking nonprofit? Because I was hearing you talk about it and I'm like, am I going, is this nonprofit? Or is this maybe Tom's brand who gives every sock away? You might help a brand. Obviously

they're big. They have their purpose already set, but maybe working with paid brands versus nonprofit described. It may be the difference there. Yeah. That's an, that's an amazing question. And it's something that I have to, I've had to think through over the years. I'm a people person. One of our slogans is like for the people. So it's even less about the brands and the businesses and like the people behind the brands and the businesses. So for instance, a great company that I work with here in Austin is MSW Nutrition and they have a lounge where they do IVs, blood work. And the founders of that, Nurse Doza and Baldo, were my friend because I was a customer first, getting their IVs to help me. And then I learned that their principles were

education. Can we educate not only our customers on being healthier, but can we help other businesses grow as well? They just had this infinite game. If you've ever read Simon Sinek's Infinite Game and the theory of we can all win. They brought this presence of we're all infinite and we can help each other no matter what. So I really look to surround myself with people that represent different principles that I agree with, which is like authenticity, grit, high ethics and morality, and just like caring about other people. And then when it comes to the businesses, I love the health and wellness space. So I have a mobile sauna that we use to partner with other people hosting retreats that are doing like breathwork, ice, sauna. It could also be business retreats we've done where it's people educating on how to start your own business or build your

own brand. Because in my mind, mindset is like the number one thing. So how do we get more people creating their own wealth? And then they create their own wealth. They're going to pass that down onto their kids and future generations, and they're going to have more time freedom to spend with each other. So it's really just this holistic view of what is most meaningful in life and the people that represent that, that's how I get attached to their brands. But over the years, I've worked with people in real estate. I've worked with people in tech. I've worked with people in the gym space, in like Powerlift, which is a drink brand, but they go to these different events and help people get healthier. So it's really just people by people based. And then the brands that I actually attach to are built by people that I

believe in. Yeah. It's interesting in today, like the marketing business space, a lot of brands have this purpose campaign. There's the brands that start fundamentally, like I mentioned, Tom's, they started every pair of socks, they give a pair of socks that was the foundation of the brand and there's brands that like you just described the nutrition company like that sounds like it was like baked in to their purpose and be versus i'm not going to name names but i'll just name a name since pepsi stare at me on the counter but and i like pepsi by the way and i have no problem with them. If Pepsi came out with a, we're trying to do this one campaign that's Heal America and it's a one-off. It sounds like, it's not that you wouldn't be involved with something like that, but generally speaking, it sounds like it's more, I don't know, baked in foundational in the company's organizations and the alignment between you and them and you getting involved that way. 100%. organizations and the alignment between you and them and you getting involved that way? A hundred percent. And I forget who says this, but if you wouldn't work for somebody with a lifetime, why work for them for a day or work with them for a day? I think it's involved Ravikant,

but I try to live by that where I realize my time is of the essence. And if I'm going to work on something, products are products. Like I don't give a shit about the product. Like really at the end of the day, all I need is my family and food and water and I'm good to go. So if you're going to be spending a lot of time with the people behind the products, I want to enjoy those people. And that's really where I dived a little bit deeper when I decided to go into the business world and marketing world of who do I want to work with on a daily basis? What are the principles they represent? Are they family oriented? Do they care more on the weekend to be with their family than they do me emailing and selling and doing these things that some businesses, that's what they do. And that's okay.

It's not going to be for everybody the way that I do something and what everybody else does isn't necessarily going to be for me. But I've loved every minute of saying no to brands or things that have reached out to me through social media that I can tell it's a one-off thing and it's nothing against them, but it's just an easy way for me to only spend time doing the things that I actually enjoy. And typically when it's with other people, we enjoy being around, like life just solves itself. It's just fun every single day, no matter what you're doing. It's really important. And I want to do it. It's due credit because I've built an agency and we're not niche based. And I often say we're based in a foundation of who we feel like we work

best with and who we like. And I've fired more clients than have fired us because of that misalignment. I'm blessed to have been in a position to that. But I can tell you life is too short and your whole brand is based on that to work with people that you don't get along with just to collect the money. There's enough business out there. And I think we get in this scarcity mindset where, you know, I got to have this, we got to, but it's funny how it takes care of itself when you start to have, and you respect the people that are your clients that you work with. And it's just super important. I think some people either just don't instinctively get that, or they haven't had the ability because maybe they don't run their own company. They're working for other

people where they haven't gotten to experience that. And once you get to experience it, you will not go back the other way. Yeah. It's night and day working with somebody that you enjoy and then going to a client that there's friction. I think in the past, I have let that bleed for too long and then it turns into a blowout. Like you get in an argument or you get in something that really ends it. Now, I think for anybody listening out there, if you have any friction with your client, just have a conversation.

Because if you bring to the table like, hey, I want you to succeed and I don't think you're going to be as successful with me as you would with maybe somebody else that aligns and you start the conversation like that, then everybody wins. And that's really where I sit today, where if someone approaches me, even if I don't necessarily agree with their product or the brand, most of the time I still connect them with somebody I think that might work well with them compared to me. So if I feel misalignment, I still ask myself, okay, this brand or this product, usually this person's reaching out to me isn't the bad guy,

which is what I used to think in the past. They're just doing their job. So how can I help this person? Because I do care about this person and want to serve them, but maybe I just don't align with their product or their brand or them as a client of mine but I can still help the person behind that and maybe it's connecting them with somebody else maybe it's giving them a tool or technology that might be helpful for them so on and so forth so you can live that infinite game like I was saying and even the people that you disagree with or don't necessarily align with you can still be of service because if you bring to the table, like you're in misalignment and maybe they would be aligned somewhere else better. That's only going to help them in the long run. And so you're only going to show up better if you do that.

How's it been with Aaron and a baby at home? Congrats on that. Thank you. I think we always start with these monikers, entrepreneur, founder. We'll say husband and daddy are officially at the forefront. Been married for a bit, but you now got the baby. How's that going? Amazing.

I found my true passion in life. I knew that it was going to be big for me. I always wanted kids and I love spending time with young minds and really just, I think it's because they show up in the world with so much curiosity. And I think adults lose that curiosity and almost have a pessimistic view. And I love living in the world of optimism, of curiosity, of this world we can create into something beautiful and enjoy every day. And kids just naturally do it. And seeing my son every morning when I go to wake him up and he just smiles right back at me, that is the most fulfilling feeling in the world. And it's something

that I will never take for granted. So when it comes to entrepreneurship and podcasting and everything, I think what I didn't really anticipate was how hard it would be because I do love my podcast and I love entrepreneurship. I didn't realize how hard it was going to be to continue to show up consistently in those areas, even though I'm obsessed with them because I have this new thing that I'm obsessed with that you just naturally have this new thing that I'm obsessed with that, like, you just naturally have a pull towards. It's, I don't know how to describe it. Like, even just being in the same room as him and he has a smell. There was something I was talking to other people about when I first became a dad that I didn't realize, like, pheromones were a thing. Like, you can, your children have a certain pheromone. You're like, wow, this is a powerful thing and I want to be the best for him. And then you get up on your head of what is the best for him. Spending hours and hours editing my podcast and all these things, I don't think is necessarily the best for him. So how do I adjust my time? And that's really where I'm at right now is how do I continue to thrive through my own obsessions because he's going to see that and he's going to attach with,

oh, how do I continue to be curious and solve problems and do things that I love, but not overdo it. I think I've overdone it in the past. And now it's a really big shocker to the system of, I have this little guy in front of me. I really want to do well by him and my wife. And that's going to take some sacrifice in other areas. And I think just to be practical for anybody listening, one of the areas is I made from day one, I'm going to be home for dinner. Like unless there's an extenuating circumstance where I'm traveling or like I have a one-off gig, but not taking calls around dinner, not doing any dinner meetings with anybody else. I'm going to be here as a dad that is home at dinnertime and I'm present and I'm not on my

phone or laptop or anything like that. And here's your time. Here's my, I'm giving and serving and being there with my family during a special time every single day and not letting that go. Yeah. Balance is key, man. It's, and I've said of these non-negotiables as well, especially when starting your own company that I'm at every practice, I'm at every game. And I think your clients and the people that start to gravitate towards you understand that. And I think the world has gotten better about that in general for the most part. But then I think it's also back to that alignment with working with the people that you want to work with and just setting that standard because I set that standard early with my company even early on before having that many employees

and it stuck but I think you got to have that and then whether it's work-life balance or just the reality is it can be anything that you want it to be when you're running your own show so you know you'll find the natural how much should I work or how much should I be in family? And one of those feeds the other, unfortunately or fortunately on some level, right? Those bills don't start coming. Stop coming. Yeah. But that's the tough thing is just once you get good at what you do, the obsession, it's like, what is enough? That is the question that comes up is just, I'm obsessed with what I do. I could literally work all day, every day on it. And that's not going to get me what I want from life either. So it's just,

it's going to make me a lot of money. But if my wife leaves me and my kid hates me, what's the point? I haven't, I've thought about that in the past because it's all been theory, but now it's right in front of me. And he has certain moments of the day where he's like, you have four sons, so you know this, there's seasons to it as well. So like right now is a different season than when he can run around is a different season than when he's in school. So I'm trying to map my life out where it's okay, when he's in school, like he's going to be gone eight hours a day. If I can't be super successful with eight hours working on my thing, then I'm not worth my salt anyway. But I'm never going to get these moments back where he's at home with me. So maybe I go a little

bit slower now on the front end and spend a lot of time with him. And then as soon as he's growing into his own human being, and we have other kids that do the same, then maybe it's time I'll push the gas a little bit harder because that schedule is almost built in because he's doing it too. So it's just some things that I've been thinking about. I'm really obsessed with time and time management and how to optimize. Clearly that's where the Thrive On Life comes from. I'm going to open all years advice and tips and tricks and hearing that you're at the games and practices it. I played sports all my life. It does matter. And kudos to you for making it a priority. Yeah. I got a swim team match tonight

that's a hell yeah that's a that's special love right there swimming swim is a not the best spectator sport let's just say that the 30 seconds they're racing and it's an hour in between but no it's you just got to do it and i you'll never regret it and. And you have these moments one time. And so I think my parents probably pushed that in me a little bit. And I pushed it, like instilled it. And then it's become natural to just prioritize. I can't, I really have a hard, I don't pretend to be the best. With people that are just so different than me, I don't, I have a hard time relating.

I don't judge them, but I can't relate to the guy or girl that doesn't do that. You're like your kids, like you want to be there. Like, why would you want to be there? Like, you know, what's more important than that? And don't get me wrong if shit hit the fan and like I needed to be on the road selling. I had no other option to feed the family. Of course I would do it, but I control not letting it get to that point.

So thus I can do that. Like it all comes together, but I don't know what would make anyone think something was more important than that. I'll admit to a blind spot of relatability for those people. Yeah, same. I can only, I try to come with empathy. Usually it's out of a fear of something or a scarcity. So it was probably stemming from their own childhood of not having enough or wanting to over-provide or it stems from something. I think to your point earlier of the world getting better at understanding people that want to

of the world getting better at understanding people that want to balance their life more, I think people are waking up to, especially men. I see a lot of men understanding that, what's the point of the paycheck if you're not there? What's the point of any of this if you're not going to be present? And this is why I think I'm really big into men's mental health and mental health awareness, where the more time you spend with your family, you're never going to regret that. I already feel that in the beginning and he can't even talk to me. It's like just being with him, sitting there eating dinner. I'm like, why did I care about all these other bullshit things prior to this? So I think a lot of people are waking up to it. And I hope over the next decade, two decades, we see even more of that.

I think through conversations like this, it also does help and empowers people to say, you know what, like, I do want to be that guy or that girl that is at my kids' games and is always there. And maybe I sacrifice career growth, but I can still crush it and still win in a lot of ways. I could tell you it has impacted my bottom line one bit. So it usually gives you more purpose.

Yeah. And then you drive even more. Yeah. Like you just, and look, you can only get so much done in a day. You talked about the eight hour thing. It's like in a certain time, there's diminishing returns. thing. It's like in a certain time, there's diminishing returns. Like whether I was 20 or 46, your brain can only handle so much in a day. And at a certain time, you're like a hamster on a wheel. Okay, I've just did something for an hour and I got nothing done because I'm at that point.

And some days it's eight hours, some days it's six hours, just depending on what it is. If I have four interviews in a day, done. Don't even, other than being able to string a few sentences together when I'm at home in the presence of my kids, like I'm mentally shot. So in a good way, but I think, you know, it's this badge or this, like you said, like the old school way. And look, I fall a little bit on the whole hustle

culture thing. I don't like that it's gotten a black eye purely from the standpoint that I think that we need people that are driven and have grit. And so when I think of hustling, I think there's some of that, but it doesn't mean necessarily overworking and getting diminishing returns and just sitting at the office at 10 PM to say, I was at the office at 10 PM. But so there's like, there's the balance of all that. I love this conversation because a great example, because I've thought through this is the difference between hustling in sports and hustling like in life. You're a great player if you hustle,

like coaches love players that hustle. But the difference is in a game, it's like constraints, 60 minutes in the game. And then even in the game, if you're just running for no reason, the coach is going to be like, what are you doing? Like they want you to hustle in certain moments. That's the key.

And in life, people, I think, because of social media, they take hustle as, I need to wake up at 5 a.m., hit the cold shower, then work for five hours straight, then do something else, then work 14-hour days. But the reality is, the way that you utilize hustle is actually what matters more. Like you said, if you've got to put food on your table and you have this season of, I need to be out selling, that's a time to hustle, right? You're being intentional with that. But most people take it out of context and are thinking like hustling is just going to get me there. But the reality is that just leads to burnout. And most of the time,

if you've ever seen this before, like if you're a ship and you have it pointed, you have two ships and one is one degree off the destination that it needs to be, it ends up like a thousand miles away from where it's supposed to be. all they were doing is relying on hustle rather than realizing like if I have 60 minutes constrained like I would in sports, what moments do I need to be hustling and what moments do I need to be catching my breath? And that's, I've had to learn that the hard way so many times. I like, I'll say this is a Ryan Offord quote. I don't know. It's not even a quote. There's a big difference between being busy and being effective. quote, there's a big difference between being busy and being effective. Effectiveness versus busyness. One's greater than the other. And it starts with a knee. And so you can be busy all you want. And even my people, I don't want you working nine hours today. I'd rather you be effective as shit for four hours than to work nine. Like big ideas, big work, get it done.

And I think the hamster on the wheel mentality of just, okay, I'm doing shit. I'm pushing paper across or the pen across the page. I think that's perception versus reality of what it takes to make something happen that really matters. Where do you think it stems from? I've thought about this. I think it's in the culture. It's like, I host another show now. I'm really trying to get the podcast

like all out there called The Vacay Podcast. It's a wellness show. And we talked about this, like the whole, the culture of medicine and everything because of this old school mentality of all that. And when prescription drugs came out, then alternative wellness and natural things got pushed to the back as being bad. And we got this moniker. And I think it's the same thing with the nine to five

and men work hard and men work long. And there's, I think at least for men, it's that, that perception for one another that you have to, I don't know, if you're really getting after it, you're really grinding. And in New York, I'll say this. I'll use this example. Like, I've been in the ad agency business for 22 years. I worked on Madison Avenue. And let me tell you, nothing was more of a badge of honor than, oh, pulled an honor nighter last night, man. Working on the campaign till 3 a.m.

And the best ideas came out at 7 p.m. Like, it didn't get any better. It was like, I've heard, can you hear me now getting written on the board? And I'm like, that's the idea. We pitched that. That became Verizon's biggest campaign, one of the largest, most recognizable ad campaigns in history that we came up with. And literally, it was like a 9 a.m. thing.

We didn't get any better. None of the ideas got any better at midnight. But that was the badge of honor. Pulled a weekender, man. It was that thing in the ad agency business, like how long you worked, how many hours. And that was 10, 15 years ago and definitely 20, 30 years ago. I think that was the culture of the ad agency business, especially. And don't get me wrong, sometimes it takes some weekend hours and night hours and now, but I think we figured out that

work doesn't have to be linear. I'll be honest, my days are weird. I get up, I'm definitely like 6 a.m. to 8 a.m. i do a lot of work and then i go to the gym i don't go to the gym at six i actually do work my mind's like really the sharpest then i go to the gym sometimes i go to gym eight nine ten just depends then work more shows that i kind of think and then i might with kids and everything else shut it down i go pick them up we're gonna run errands 3 30 to 6 30 i might be doing kids and family stuff or shut it down. Can I go pick them up? We've got to run errands from 3.30 to 6.30. I might be doing kids and family stuff or even later. And then I get another two hours in of just not really my best thinking work,

but just task stuff, probably from 9 to 10.30 instead of seven shows on Netflix. And sometimes we do the Netflix thing. So it's a very nonlinear approach now where I think that's changed a lot and helps a lot. Yeah, I think the opportunity, I think, comes from the internet and the difference in life now than 10 years ago or 20 years ago or 30 years ago. And I think as human beings, we resist change. But the reality is the more that you can adapt to how the world is right now, the more you're going to thrive. So a great instance is we're here on a podcast. I'm using three AI tools that literally compile probably two or three people's work for my podcast. I'm putting three shows out a week now in less time than I was doing one like two years ago. And I don't even know what the future looks like, but most people think that I'm

hustling more. They'll see it on the outside that it's more, but the reality is it's less because I figured out how to use leverage. And that's where you're just leveraging your time at your peak hours where if you feel in flow six to 8 a.m., I'm much the same. I wake up and sit in front of my red light and then I start working and I'll go till 10 or 10.30, go for a run, go in the gym and then eat lunch and reset. But that's my, the way that I do things. And I think really what people need to be doing

is taking an N equals one approach. You mentioned health really what people need to be doing is taking a, an N equals one approach. You mentioned health and wellness, like health and wellness is N equals one, meaning we're each different. We're all different. We have some commonalities, but if Ryan, you eat something, it's going to be absorbed differently than if I eat it. And that's going to be differently than somebody else. So at the end of the day, it's the same way in business and in marketing and in careers in general. You're going to work at peak times differently for different people. And that's where the nine to five, I'm just like, this is stupid in general, because if you're a programmer, a lot of programmers like to work at night. They're like night owls. They're like gamers and stuff like that. So I'm not going to make you wake up at 6 a.m., 7 a.m., 8 a.m., come to the office or do whatever.

Now, a lot of people have started to adapt to that. And a lot of businesses have started to adapt to that. And I think we're just on the front end of it. I'm interested to see 10, 20, 30 years out where we've allowed people to work at their peak times and then do what you're saying, which is, okay, once I'm, once I do my effective things for the day, like I'm going to go on with my day and actually live, I would love to get back to the living part because we're talking internet and we're talking today. What if we went back 50 years? Like once it got dark at 5 PM, like nobody had cell phones, nobody had email. Like You were done work. You were at home

with your family doing the things that you enjoy doing. Why don't we just go back to that? And now you have the capability to utilize tools that could be working for you while you're doing that and scaling even more. So it's like you have so much opportunity and I want people to understand that there is so much opportunity out there for you to maximize your time like Ryan is talking about. Yeah, the tools are there. And I think there's a couple of things I want to hit on that you talked about. The N equals one is really interesting because it's happened. We've realized in marketing and business that there's not an audience group,

media reaching frequency to audiences, and it was mass media and one ad to millions of people. And now we've realized that, okay, we need personalization and marketing and media because, but it's the same thing in life. There's not a one size fits all and everyone has to make a decision. And I think that's where, and we've tried to do it here at our agency with being more flexible with hybrid hours and things like that. There are some things that you just can't be flexible on. The reality is we record three shows. They happen during the day.

So somebody has to be here to manage that. They're never different than a restaurant that serves certain times and everything like that. But there's a lot of what we do that doesn't really matter where people are. And so we aren't sticklers about it for the most part. And then there's some level of collaboration that happens. So we want people together. But I think the businesses that will succeed will recognize that level and need for personalization for people to thrive and get the best out of the team. And so I think that's really interesting. And then I think the second part that you mentioned with health and fitness, I tell you what, I don't know how the people that, and you don't see many

of them. I've talked about this. I've done some content on it. Like the fact that the most successful CEOs seem to be the most in shape now. There's this one-to-one correlation. You just don't see the heavyset woman or man that are just crushing it. And look, everyone, somebody can have a health issue or something like that i'm not judging like a single like look i'm just like generally speaking there's some healthy fitness component to some of the most successful people and i don't know how people that don't have some amount of health fitness wellness baked into your life get it done yeah i can't we were talking right when we got on here,

my back is a little tweaked from overdoing it. Oh, you old man. And I don't know how people deal with this every day of their life. Like I have to take one day off from not really being in my routine or being able to run or go to the gym or things like that. And I'm just going crazy. And I think that's what it stems from. It's the mindset is fitness and focusing on your health and wellness creates such a mindset that parlays over into everything else in life. And the people that aren't doing that frequently, their mindset is just off. And I think your mindset then leads to, I think there's just something to be said about vibe. Like one of my buddies, his handle is called Vibe Police. Shout out to Kent. But he literally considers himself the Vibe Police

when he goes into any room. And I think if you are fit, you're giving a great vibe. Usually you're smiling and you're happy and you're just like confident and courageous and you make people feel better about themselves. If you're a great leader, like obviously there's, going back, there's so many people in the world. Like there's people that are narcissistic and the opposite of this, but generally people that take care of their own health and wellness usually start to overflow and want to help other people with their health

and wellness versus the people that don't take care of their health usually are operating from depleted mindset and can't really help anybody else around them. So when it comes to business, I'm not surprised to see that we have this trend of people taking care of themselves because at the end of the day, businesses rely on numbers and metrics and are we succeeding? And the people at the top are going to start questioning if the business needs to succeed, who do I need to become for this business to succeed? And we have, it's like money ball, like how baseball has changed into a sport where they're looking at analytics.

Every sport has, right? But business is the same way. We realize that the operator at the top of the business, the CEO or the COO and the executive team, if they're healthier, then the business is probably going to be healthier. I think that's what we're starting to see, which is exciting because I don't know what the data on that, the correlations like super high. I just, yeah, I'm sorry. It has to be, I couldn't be convinced otherwise, like until someone showed a data point that

there's 100% correlation. Yeah. And then it's, how do you invest in that so that your company is healthier? What, I guess everything, the other key trigger word that people have used is not just like purpose campaigns, but like culture campaigns. So how do you instill a culture of health and wellness and taking care of yourself and your companies. I think those that do invest in that, like today over the next, they want to be a hundred year company. They are going to be the ones at the top. A hundred percent. And I think as a small business, it's hard to know because you don't want to push any force it down. I think the way we do it is flexibility. Probably we just don't, we give two flex days where people can work wherever they want. And then we just are not, if there's not something that we have certain meetings, certain things going on, but we just, I think we give it a

flexibility that if people want to get health and wellness baked in, they can, but I think that will be an evolution for us. And I think for other businesses is how you can empower that even more. And I think as much as I believe in it, I don't have the solution, but I think it starts with the flexibility on some level and certainly encouraging and rewarding healthy behaviors, whatever that might look like. I agree. I think flexibility gives trust and freedom to people. And if you hire good people, they're going to use that flexibility and freedom in the right way, in productive ways for themselves. They're going to fill their cups so that then they can overflow. I think the key

there is just, it comes down to the CEO and the executive team hiring great people. If you hire great people, it solves itself. So any companies that are being more flexible and are seeing problems with their flexibility, I think it's not necessarily flexibility that's a problem. And you'll see a lot of companies are talking about, bring everybody back to the office and this and that. I come from the world of, it's probably the company that just did it in the wrong way. And they don't have a good hiring process. There's not vetting people that have the ability to be productive on their own time. That's the cause of it. It's not the flexibility or the work from home. That's the

issue. It's the actual company, not knowing how to operate in that way effectively to use your word. Yeah, It is. What's maybe a project or something you got going on now that you're excited about or anything that you can talk about? You're like thinking through the NDA agreements. Let me think about this. Which, who would not get mad if I mentioned this on the show? Yeah. And nobody like going back to the to who I work with I wish I could just talk about everybody

that's the thing, everybody that I interact with I work with some amazing people but I think the thing that I'm most passionate about right now is my wife and I started a series on our podcast and for so long, she's an engineer as well. And she's on the corporate side, corporate path. And she went to the school, she went to MBA, engineering MBA. And then I went to the school of hard knocks. That's what we call it. It's like, she got to go do that. And then I went this opposite path and our ability to come together and work together has always been top of mind to us.

What could we work on? What could we do? And it's failed miserably in the past in certain ideas. It's worked okay in certain ideas, but the one that I felt the most, I would say flexibility is a great word where we're just flowing. Like we're flexible with the podcast. We're flexible when we record it, but it always is like a good conversation. We have fun. We start thinking creatively with other business ideas. That's what I'm really looking forward to now where I used to limit myself. I released one podcast episode a week. That was it. And then it was with a guest and it was one hour long. So having more conversations with her

has opened up my eyes to how do I not focus on being the best, but be the only. And that's something I've been talking to myself a lot about in a different projects that I'm working on in other companies. So the projects that I work on, like I already mentioned MSW, my buddy Mike Chabal started Sphere, which is a soccer inspired fitness company that they connect the world like

one pass at a time is their slogan. And they basically help people get introduced to the sport and they throw away games and these parties and it's a great time. So check out that. I'm affiliated with Squatch Frontier Fitness here in Austin, Texas, leading a men's group called Men in the Arena, where we come together every other Friday to run workouts and talk about mental health. And then we just started our social club to that. So getting guys, not just working out and becoming a man in the arena, they're talking about what's going on behind the scenes and like we're helping each other there. So a little bit of a lot across the board of the different things that I'm working on, but what really fires me up right now. And if

somebody listened to this and what I'd love to support in is the podcast that I've already started with my wife. We're releasing an episode every week now. We've talked about her pregnancy. We're talking about one of the fitness races that we're going to do together. It's called High Rocks, which is mixed doubles. That's another thing that I'm working on that I love and put a lot of effort into my YouTube channel. But at the end of the day, the mission really is to improve myself and help myself get better and then have that bleed over into all the other projects that I'm working on. Hey man, keep feeding. You got to take care of you so you can take care of others. The old airplane going down, you got to put your oxygen mask on. If you don't have air, you can't give it to anybody else, right? Preach. I will

say this, back to the college thing, your wife getting the MBA and you doing your other stuff. I like to say you were in the fraternity Phi Beta Me. That's all you can do is take care of yourself. I love that. I've never heard that. The School of Hard Knocks. Fraternity Phi Beta Me. I love that. This has been great, CJ. I know we could go on and on.

Tell me and everybody else where they could keep up with all the great things we've been talking about. Yeah, easiest way to find me or connect with me me would love to chat in the DMs, cj.finley on Instagram. So that's at cj.finley on Instagram. And then you'll be able to see everything else that I'm doing just directly from there. Awesome, man. I really appreciate you coming on the show. It's been a great discussion. I hope everyone enjoys this and thank you so much. Look forward to staying in touch and seeing how we can help one another.

Likewise, thrive on y'all. Hey guys, you'll find us theradcast.com. Search for CJ Finley. You'll find all the content today or search for Thrive on Life. Hey, if you ain't thriving on life, baby, you ain't living. Or to find me, I'm at Ryan Offred on all the social media platforms,

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or at Ryan Alford. Stay radical.