The Chris Voss Show - The Chris Voss Show Podcast – Greg Birch of Delta Fit on The Power of Progressive Discipline Technique

Episode Date: September 29, 2023

Greg Birch of Delta Fit on The Power of Progressive Discipline Technique Deltafitlife.com Greg Birch is a true warrior at heart, having served our country as an Army officer in both Iraq and Afghanistan. After completing his service, he used his natural leadership abilities to excel in the insurance industry, setting sales records and coaching others to achieve greatness. But it was his personal struggle with anxiety and depression that led him on a journey of self-discovery and the creation of the Progressive Discipline Technique. Today, as the founder of Delta Fit, Greg is dedicated to helping individuals transform their physical, mental, and spiritual health to become their best selves.

You wanted the best. You've got the best podcast, the hottest podcast in the world. The Chris Voss Show, the preeminent podcast with guests so smart you may experience serious brain bleed. The CEOs, authors, thought leaders, visionaries, and motivators. Get ready, get ready, strap yourself in. Keep your hands, arms, and legs inside the vehicle at all times because you're about to go on a monster education roller coaster with your brain. Now, here's your host, Chris Voss. Hi, folks.

This is Voss here from thechrisvossshow.com, thechrisvossshow.com. Welcome to the big show, our family and friends. As always, we're bringing you for 15 years, two to three shows a weekday, 10 to 15 shows a week. We're bringing you the podcast of billionaires, CEOs, entrepreneurs, newsmakers, and the hottest authors that come on to talk shop, including Pulitzer Prize winners, univisors, presidents, and White Houses alike. We have the most amazing minds on the show. And none of them are me. I'm just the host. I got a mic. But remember, the Chris Voss Show is a family that loves you but doesn't judge you.

So that's all the more reason you should refer it to your family and friends this holiday season. Go to Goodreads.com, 4ChessChristmas, LinkedIn.com, 4ChessChristmas, YouTube.com, 4ChessChristmas, and Chris Voss 1 over there on the tickety-tockety. Today we're going to talk about entrepreneurism, fitness, getting healthy. We're going to be talking about leadership and all sorts of good stuff. It's going to be a jam-packed, what does it say? A roller coaster of brain bleed. So there you go.

We may figure out how to patch the brain bleed. So I don't know. But that's half the fun. We have Greg Birch on the show with us today. we're just going to be talking about his company delta fit and uh everything he does to help people with uh not only leadership abilities to get healthy he's a true warrior at heart having served the country as an army officer in both iraq and afghanistan after completing a service he his natural leadership abilities to excel in the insurance industry, sending sales records and coaching others to achieve greatness. But it was his personal struggle with anxiety and depression that led him on a journey of self

discovery and the creation of progressive discipline technique. Today is the founder of Delta Fit. Greg is dedicated to helping individuals transform their mental and physical and spiritual health to become their best selves. Welcome to the show, Greg. How are you? I'm doing well, Chris. How are you, sir? I appreciate you being here. It's an honor to have you as well. Thank you for your service, sir. Give us a dot coms, where we want people to find you on the interwebs, please. Yeah, the best place is my website, which is deltafitlife.com. And you can find me on Instagram, right? And my Instagram is GregoryABurch underscore at GregoryABurch, B-I-R-C-H underscore.

There you go. And I know you have a company called Delta Financial as well. Do you want to get a plug-in for them? Yeah. So my insurance agency is called Delta Financial, and that dotcom is deltafinanciallife.com. There you go. So you're a multifaceted, multiserial entrepreneur, as they like to call us? Yes.

There you go. So give us a 30,000 overview of what you do there at Delta Fit. Yeah, so Delta Fit started almost out of happenstance because coming out of the military, like most veterans, I suffered with a little bit of PTSD. And coming out, losing what I felt was my purpose, my passion, a lot of the disciplines that are forced upon us, and now we have this freedom. I want to go into entrepreneurship. That's how I got into insurance. And through that journey, I found that I was falling more into depression, more into anxiety with PTSD. And it took for me to hit a rock bottom before I started working on myself. And I started going back to the daily disciplines that I learned in the military.

And that is what actually propelled me to start hitting sales success and massive records, started breaking records, which helped me to launch Delta Financial. But people kept reaching out to me. They're like, Greg, what are you doing? You're a different person, man. You just seem happier. You seem healthier. You've got a different energy about you. And I started coaching people from that, just from people reaching out to me and just basically helping them with being a better leader of themselves, right? Because leadership starts with yourself. It starts with feeding yourself the right way. And it was through that process over a couple of years that eventually I got a passion for helping people that I started Delta Fit.

And so in Delta Fit, what I do is the same process I went through where I was struggling with depression, anxiety. I was having challenges in my life and as an entrepreneur and in my business. And when I started to remove vices from my life and i started focusing on daily disciplined actions that helped boost me in terms of my physical side my my uh my fitness my fitness uh over time what i found is it started to boost my mental fitness and my mental health yeah and those two combined when i started working on those and kept pouring into them it started helping my spiritual fitness. And really what I see spiritual fitness is the faith in oneself, right? It's having the unwavering faith and belief that you can do anything, that you have greatness within you.

And so I documented this process and what I did. I started helping people through the same. There you go. And it sounds like an incredible journey. I think people don't realize that we need to balance the two. Like I spent for years, I'm like, I'm going to make my money and build my companies and be success. And yeah, my health is going to go by the side and it didn't help my mental health and everything else. And there's so much aspects, you know, people think of it as like, you're going to go to the gym and lift weights.

You're so right. I like to make fun of that stuff too because it is a little ridiculous. I went to an event just this last week. It was called the Badass Business Summit. And it was in Dallas, Fort Worth, Texas, actually. But I'm part of Dallas. I'm in Dallas area. And I got invited through podcasting to go speak on stage. And I met a lot of people. And obviously, you look at me.

I'm a tall dude. I'm 6'7". I'm like 230 pounds. I'm pretty muscular. And as people started talking to me, they said, oh, of course, you're a fitness coach. But then when they saw me on stage, I started talking about sales, sales excellence, how to be better. I had people come up to me. They're like, dude, you're like fitness coach but then when they saw me on stage i started talking about sales sales excellence how to be better i had people come up to me like dude you're like an onion it's like there's all these layers within you like this is not what we expected right it's like yeah i kind of make fun of those people too because you just assume that someone's going to be like a gym bro

or something like that so you're actually right and And I think people use it as a way to just make it as an excuse, shame others as an excuse not to go to the gym. But it helps you at so many different levels. As a man, it helps your testosterone. I'm sure as a woman, it helps your maybe hormones in your system. It helps your mental state. There's a, one of the things that I learned from it, you used the word earlier, discipline. And one of my problems in life is I've been a little bit lazy and I've been lacking discipline a lot of times. And yeah, we've been through those phases. And, and so going to the gym, having the discipline of just going, you know, Arnold Schwarzenegger said something about how, even if you don't feel like going to the gym, just go

anyway. And there are some times where I don't feel like going to the gym. I feel kind of off or whatever. Maybe I'm hurting a little bit from the gym visit before, but, um, I'll just go. And I'm like, okay, well, I'm just going to go and I'll sit on the bench or I'll sit in the sauna room or I'll sit in the massage bed. So I'm just going to go and I'll, and I'll force myself to just go. And as soon as I get there, like I just kind of click in, I smell the place, the environments there. I'm like, well, I go lift a little weight here or there, but having that discipline. And that's what I realized that weightlifting was really for me, was it wasn't about just lifting weights and being sexy.

You know, I'm already there. I've been there all my life. Yes, you are, sir. I had that Brad Pitt, George Clooney thing. They called me for tips. But it's really about the discipline. It's about working your body, showing and showing up half the battle and and doing the weights and having that mindset of discipline and it as you said it affects you in so many ways it it makes my brain clearer you know 55 you know it's starting to kind of fog

over a little bit well it's been fogged over for a lot of people in the audience are going we've known you for 15 years that shit fogged a long time ago. But it does make a difference. No, dude, you're absolutely right, Chris. There's two things. First is there's a study in the British Sports Journal of Medicine that talks about the power of going to the gym, physical fitness.

So they took three test groups. The first test group, everyone in all three test groups were suffering for mild to moderate depression. Test group number one was given antidepressants. Test group number two was given antidepressants in a workout routine. Test group number three was just given the exact same workout routine as test group number two. And that's's it so what they did is they studied them over a period of time to see how effective each one of those were or over with overcoming the mild to moderate depression now not a big shocker all three of them performed the same in terms of

people being able the percentage of people that were able to overcome their depression it was across the board the same. Wow. So that means that working out is just as effective as taking antidepressants. Now, here's where the study gets interesting. After six months of they took the study is they went back to check up on everybody that was able to overcome their depression. And what they found was there was a relapse rate of people that fell back into depression. So for the first test group that just had antidepressants, it was about 39% of all people fell back in depression. Test group number two that had workouts and antidepressants, it wasn't much different. It was like 37%, 36%.

Test group number three, just working out, 8%. Wow. That's extraordinary. That's extraordinary, right? So that just shows you that this is more effective for overcoming anxiety and depression in your life and having long-term effects mentally, as long as you're consistent, then taking an antidepressant, right? And it's because of the dopamine that does natural release in your body. There's endorphins that are natural release in your body when you work out. It helps with, it's your happy drugs. That's natural. It helps with stress relief. It helps with your mind's ability to overcome stress, to problem solve, et cetera. Now, one of the things that I do in Delta Fizz, I have people read because I read every day.

I think reading is powerful. It's something that's changed my life. It's changed my businesses. And right now, I'm finishing up Marcus Aurelius Meditations. Great book. If you haven't read it, it's free. Like, just go get it. Get a PDF.

It's free. Just go read it, right? So in the book, he talks about his morning routine. And every single day he does journaling, right? He does workouts and then he does work. But part of the workout in the journaling is it has to do with mindfulness, but also putting yourself in a position that you do something that's challenging. It takes you out of comfort, takes you out of your comfort zone. And that's what it's meant to do. It's meant to kind of challenge your brain that you can do

things uncomfortable. We are all designed to want comfort in life. We're all designed to take the easy route. Our brains are made that way. When we start to do things that challenge that status quo within our own mind, it makes other things possible. It definitely does. And that's, wow, that's an amazing study. I mean, maybe that's what we need to do with people that suffer depression.

I suffered depression for most of my life because I didn't go work out. And that discipline, the goal setting, like I enjoy pushing the new boundaries, just like, you know, you're an entrepreneur. You enjoy pushing those new boundaries. You're like, hey, how much revenue do we make this month or this year? All right, let's double that. Let's just try and get that to go to the next level. Same thing with working out, pushing up to that next level. Hey, let's see if. Let's just try and get that to go to the next level. Same thing with working out,

pushing up to that next level. Hey, let's see if we can go, you know, I always get off on, okay, I went up, I went up one or two things on the rack, you know, and, and, and, and then of course my goal is to be able to lift the whole machine rack and stuff. And, and so, you know, setting goals and goal setting. I mean, that's all part of it. And you feel so good. Like, I don't have time to be depressed after I beat myself up at the gym. I just want to go home and have a protein shake. Relax. Sit in the massage chair or the sauna or the jacuzzi at the gym and just chill out, man. I don't have time to be depressed.

My body's like, yeah, you're not depressed anymore, man. You did it and you're beat up. And you kind of feel good like yeah you're not depressed anymore man you you you did it and you're you're beat up and you kind of feel good even though you're beat up i mean it's kind of weird you get kind of a you're kind of almost addicted to uh knowing that you achieve something it's about the achievement that discipline and achievement hey i did something and when you realize that a lot of people don't go to the gym, a lot of people cop out about exercising, going to the gym, you realize that you are achieving something. You're in the top class. Like I never, if I see somebody in the gym, it doesn't matter if they're really obese, overweight, or they look like they haven't worked out forever.

They've won like the battle of, I don't know, the one percentile or five percentile because they showed up. They showed up to do the thing. So give us an origin story of you. How did you grow up and what led you down this road and starting your own companies with Delta Financial and Delta Fit? Yeah. So I grew up, I'm the youngest of six. Both my parents were in the army during Vietnam. That's how they met. My dad retired out of the army when I got, I was about five. I was raised kind of poor, to be honest. We didn't have a lot of money and I'm the youngest of six. And so, um, you know, I didn't, I wasn't really pushed to, to excel in, in, in school. You know, it was just like, I had to get a C if I got anything below C I was grounded. So that's, that's like in the middle of the road. Right. So the classes I really liked, they got A's and the classes I hated, I barely got a C. Um, but my mom didn't want me to go to

college and I always wanted to serve surf and 9-11 was my senior year of high school so i remember i remember i stayed home from school that day wow and uh at the time my dad was working he um he was working at frigid air by like a second shift so he wouldn't go to work at like two and then he wouldn't get back to like 3am, 2am in the morning. So he was usually asleep by the time I got up and I woke up late that day because I skipped school and, uh, I did skip school and my mom let me too,

because I was like, I don't want to go to school tomorrow. Uh, most random day that I could have skipped school of all times. Wow. So I woke up and my dad was up and that was weird to me. And I'm like, why is dad up? So I go out in the living room and I'm like looking at him.

He's just dumped down and staring at the TV screen. And I'm like, what are you watching? And I'm on the phone with my girlfriend who also happened to skip school at the time because we were going to hang out. And I was looking at the TV screen and I'm watching as the planes hitting the towers. First thing out of my mouth was I'm going to war. This is happening and i knew i wanted to serve and i always wanted to be an officer growing up and so because all my all my family was enlisted but my dad always talked about this captain

that he had in vietnam with a lot of reverence like he a lot of respect and so that always stuck with me as a young boy and i hey if my my dad respects him, that's what I want to be, right? Yeah. So I always wanted to be a captain, which I ended up being. So I applied for my senior year coming out of high school. As I was graduating, I applied for a ROTC scholarship, and I got awarded an ROTC scholarship full ride. Deal was I had to go into the military. So I went into the military happily.

Spent 11 years in. I got married right before I got in the military. We had four kids together. We ended up getting a divorce while I was in the military, which changed everything for me. And that's one of the reasons that I ended up getting out was from the divorce. And that's when I decided like, hey, I want to see what I can do. From all my experience in the military, everything I learned, leadership, I tested really high in sales. I was like, I want to go see if I can do my own thing. And that's how I started as an entrepreneur. I didn't have an entrepreneur family. I didn't have some crazy experience where I was starting businesses as a kid or something like that.

I had this entrepreneurial spirit. I really just wanted to test myself coming out of the military. And I also wanted to prove that I was better, right? Because coming out of the military after my divorce i still had a lot of anxiety and depression i was coming up ptsd which affected how i saw myself you know and and i wanted to i wanted to i felt like the success was going to make me have more confidence in myself and make myself in a different way yeah so you think when you finally reach that pinnacle like it'll solve all your problems especially if you make a large amount of money and success it you know you'll

be fixed yeah and it's not the case i always warn people about this because everyone's like yeah it must be nice to be rich and all your problems are fixed and people assume that they think like movie stars and billionaires elon musk and stuff it's not it actually amplifies the worst parts of you it does and and it can feed them actually if you kind of have narcissistic sort of traits or you have issues of denial and lack of self-accountability it can make it worse way worse here's the thing is that it what people don't realize is now you have the money and sometimes the freedom that you can really double down on those vices and get real the way and you can insulate yourself too from reality and and uh

self-accountability you can really insulate yourself and and uh you know like i don't need to see a psychiatrist i have money and uh it really creates a delusion so uh you know this is this is really interesting. You know, the military, we talked about this in the green room. We talked about this a lot on the show. We've had some people from West Point who teach confidence and leadership at West Point and some great authors from the military on the show. The military does such a great job of teaching leadership. I mean, I'm, I'm just baffled as to why we have so many military people, uh, you know, living in the streets and, and high suicide rate and joblessness.

I mean, the, these folks are taught leadership and, and skill-based, uh, things with multi billion dollar equipment. I mean, and, and you don't want them running your business like they were taking care of you know 35 billion dollar fucking airplanes like you know uh uh you know uh you you want someone like running your company and a lot of people leave the military and you go into leadership positions and stuff like yourself uh how hard was it to start your first company what was it like going through the gauntlet of, you know, you maybe didn't have any entrepreneurs around you to counsel you, you just went for it? So that's a great question.

I was a solopreneur to start. So I started as an individual insurance agent. And coming out of the military, I had a bit of an ego because I was like, you know what? I freaking led soldiers in Iraq. And I got two bronze star medals. I've been to Afghanistan. I've done some crazy stuff. I can sell an insurance policy. So I would forego or ignore the advice I was given because you got to control your schedule. You got to go to these trainings every single week.

You got to get on the training calls. You got to do these amount of dials. And I'm like, I'm good. I got it. You peons of monkeys could go to that. I'm going to do my own thing. And I sucked. Oh, wow.

I sucked real bad. And it took for someone to look at me and basically put me in my place for me to realize that I was my own worst enemy. And I thought I was special and I wasn't. And I had to humble myself. And I started to do things by the book when it came to sales, which helped me to grow. Now, once I got to the point where I got so big, where I was starting to create an agency, I was within a structure of another company. And just like you were just talking about leadership, this company did not have leadership qualities and they didn't have really good leaders that were at the top and like all

the people at the top, they were very much like, like hey this is the status quo it's well like in every sales organization this is just the way it is and i disagreed with it because i was just like man i've seen i've seen bad leaders and this is bad leadership and so i tried to insulate my team that i was building the hc i was building within the entire hierarchy of the agency uh which is my first real kind of my company, my first LLC. And it was near impossible to do that. And I realized it took about a year and a half of me trying to grow this while getting opposition from the top, the way I was doing things, before I finally said, you know what? Enough's enough. And it took for me to start working on myself.

And I had, in 2021, that was when I hit rock bottom. And at the end of 2020, I started in 2021, like, I'm going to work on myself, right? And I started this internal self-accountability program and discipline program that helped for me to change myself to the point that I made such drastic changes that I had a record breaking sales month where I blew everyone out of the world, like out of the water. And it got a lot of agents across the industry reaching out to me, asking me like, dude, how in the hell did you do

that, bro? And I just, hey man, I'm taking care of myself daily. I'm reading daily. I'm working out daily. I got alcohol out of my life. Ah, there you go. I'm doing all these things to take care of me, which is helping me be a better person. And it was through that process that I started podcasting. And that's how I started my own podcast, which was for insurance agents that teach them sales, entrepreneurship, all that kind of stuff. And I made it such a name for myself that eventually I had someone kind of be

like, dude, why don't you just make your own IMO? Let's just do that. And I was like, at first I was like, nah, man,

I just want to help agents. That's all I want. I just want to help agents to succeed. And eventually that, that C kind of flourished in my mind. And I was like, okay, now's the time I got to do it.

And, and I started Delta financial and, um Financial in 2022, the beginning of 2022. And so I've been going almost, it's been almost two years now that I've been running Delta Financial. And still throughout that entire timeframe, I was still having agents reach out to me about coaching and how to help them get better at sales. And what they didn't realize was, I'm not going to give you some magical script that's going to be like, oh, you say this and you'll make every sale kind of thing. It doesn't work that way. What I'm going to do is I'm going

to harden your mind and I'm going to improve you physically, mentally, and spiritually so that you are more efficient in everything that you do. And so I started coaching in that way. And eventually, I started DeltaFit the beginning of this year. There you go. Congratulations. Now you mentioned a term IMO, starting an IMO. Yes. An IMO is a terminology that is in the insurance world.

It means independent marketing organization. Basically, it's a brokerage. It's an insurance brokerage. So we're like the middle guy between the insurance companies that don't want to handle agents. And we handle all the agents for them. Oh, wow. There you go. That's probably a big deal.

Because my father used to sell insurance back in the day, and they were always being bought out and turned over by different companies. And it was insane, all the different stuff. And of course, some of the contracts would negate their residuals. It was kind of interesting. Yes, it happens a lot. the the mental game the ability to sell well uh you know sales skills um having all those in in one thread it gives you the ultimate package in being able to sell yourself because people buy they don't buy the product they don't buy the service they buy the person selling yes yeah and that's so important and you're so right When you have that full circumference of all the aspects of a well-balanced human being,

it's going to make all the difference in the world. Because if you don't have confidence, people aren't going to buy from you. I mean, you've got to have the confidence. And if you seem like a person that people, you know, they like, they enjoy, you seem very happy in your thing. You know, working out has given me a thing where I just, I just feel a little confidence. I imagine some of it's a little bit of extra boost of testosterone, but you just feel, you stand, you stand up taller, like your body, you know, I slump a lot,

but you stand up taller. You could feel some muscles there and you're like, yeah, I kind of feel like a man and uh you know and and your your body responds you know like you said the endorphins the dopamine all that sort of stuff that we don't really think about but that makes all the difference you know and it affects how you look too because people bias from people who look good that's just a fact that is a fact yeah yeah it's it's hard hard to accept for some people but it is it's also it's it's also to accept for some people, but it is. It's also, on top of confidence, it's authenticity. There you go. It's just being yourself and being okay with that.

And what I found was when I was more authentic with my clients on phone calls and just talked to them like I would talk to anyone else, and I asked questions, and I dig into like trying to actually serve and help them. And I was an active listener, man, my conversations went so much farther instead of just trying to get in the, just like,

I'm going to sell, I'm going to sell, I'm going to sell. Well, it's all about me. It has nothing to do with the client. Yeah. One of the most important lines that I've ever used.

And I wrote about this in my book and I can't remember where I came across. It came from somebody else. But they said the most important, you know, stop saying, how can I help you? How can I help you? And this is being taught to us in the 90s. We started getting yelled at by, don't say, how can I help you? How can I help you? And started asking people, what are you trying to accomplish? And so I drilled that into my salespeople and taught them the first question I want you to ask somebody when you first greet them, you know, other than, you know, Hey, how you doing? Um, ask them, what are you trying to accomplish? And then shut the F up and listen, listen to what they want to accomplish. They will give you the roadmap that they want to achieve and that they want success. And if you listen to them,

you can help them resolve their problems and make it not about, like you said, you know, not about yourself, about them. And people love that because they, they don't hear it from anybody. You know,

what are you trying to accomplish? Oh, what? And then shutting up and listening, but you're right. You know, if you feel good, you come across well, you can gain rapport. You know, if you feel good, you come across well.

You can gain rapport. You just feel good. And people are like, hey, this guy is motivated. He's exciting. He's interesting. He seems well put together. He seems like his life is balanced. I want to do business with this guy, you know?

And that just makes all the difference in the sales process, I think, and how you come across. And once again, people buy you. I mean, one of my trick ponies has always been comedy and having a great personality, even though I'm ugly and fat. So I have that working for me. Works for women too. If you can do comedy and pull off confidence, everything else.

Yeah, that's right. Absolutely right. If you've got comedy, you can be dangerous. everything else. So let's talk about what you do for your clients and potential clients that might be out there listening with your fitness coaching. What sort of programs do you use? What sort of coaching do you use and everything else um, surprise, surprise. I start everything off with the physical aspect as you could probably tell. Um, so I have an app in the app store and go find Delta fit life. And, um, and in that app, I, I do custom workouts based on where you're at, um, with has videos on every single exercise. I, it breaks down everything and the workouts scale with you as

you get stronger as you gain stamina and if you're like hey i don't want to go to the gym or i don't have a gym nearby well i can do home workouts i have home workouts that are built out too with no equipment needed and what i'm doing on top of that is a nutrition as i start to break down i do there's a mathematical calculation on how you have to determine what your macros are based on your height, your weight, your BMI. So I do your macros based on if you want to gain weight or lose weight because I've been able to bulk. I used to be really skinny. I was 170 and 67. And now I got all the way to 260, 270.

So I've been to both sides of the spectrum. I even got kind of what I felt was fat for me. I got to like 280 when I was not working out, drinking a lot of alcohol or losing weight. And so I do macros because nutrition is important. And so if I can control what you're eating, if I can control how much water you're drinking, and I can control how much you're moving, then I'm willing to get changed. I'm going to get progress. That feeling that you talked about in the gym, when you feel good, you're like, dude, after I get done with the gym, I feel like, man, I'm really happy I went. Even though going into it, you might be like,

I don't know. I don't really want to go to jail. But coming out of it, you always feel great. And so what I'm trying to do is get enough progress and change within a very short time frame that it creates belief like, oh, wow, this is working. Because there's a lot of people limiting beliefs like, I can't lose weight. I've tried. I've tried on every diet. It's not my genetics are bad, this, that, the other. There's all kinds of limiting beliefs that just aren't true. So I'm going to challenge those limiting beliefs by creating enough change so that I can get that belief built within you. And that's when I start to work on your mental side. We're going to do specific readings. We do one-on-one weekly coachings. And then over time,

when you're building both of those, what naturally kind of happens and then what happened what's happened for me and it's happened with many of my clients that follow the process is the spiritual alignment and that's when you start to realize like you are the master of your destiny that everything in your life is due to the decisions that you have made has nothing to do with external circumstances has everything to do with your either inaction or action and knowing that that and you stop trying to control you know the uncontrollables and you only control what you control which is what you think what you say what you do and how you feel those four things are only thing you control and when you start controlling those with faith that things are going to work out because you have greatness within you,

powerful things happen in your life. It's like becoming superhuman. There you go. You guys have helped 250 plus people coach with the app, 10,000 pounds lost. That's amazing. You were at 280? I was at 280. Holy shit, dude. Yeah. One day, I'll be honest. It was the out of the uh it was end of 2020 i was kind of depressed i was drinking a lot partying and like we were saying like when you're an entrepreneur and you're making money like i was more apt to going out and drinking and partying because it made me feel good in that one brief little moment but then as soon as i left i felt

depressed again i woke up the next day i'm hungover feel like crap. So I get out of the shower and I'm standing there naked looking in the mirror and I was like, man, I look disgusting. I was like, this is not me. And it was that moment I was trying to suck in and I couldn't suck in enough that I couldn't look like I was getting a gut. And I was like,

okay, enough's enough. I'm done with this. I want to look in the mirror and feel proud. You know, and that's how I felt. And so I was like, you know what? I'm getting back on my discipline because I'd lost it out of coming out of the military. And, you know, it's funny how quickly we can lose it. You know, I was in really great shape in the military and being in that environment where it's very disciplined, PT all the time, reading, trying to expand my mind with new capabilities because I'm always taking new positions.

It's quickly how fast we can lose that and fall into the daily monotonous routine, especially as entrepreneurs. And what I found was that while I was going through the process, that a lot of the actions I was doing that I thought was helping me was actually hurting me. Because I would be stressed. I'm like, well, I'm stressed, so I need to decompress. So what am I going to do? I'm going to go watch some TV for today. I'm going to start my day, I'm going to watch TV to decompress a little bit. Next thing you know, the whole day has gone by. I'm way more anxious because I haven't got anything done that I know I need to get done. But you know what? I feel less stressed.

So I guess it worked. Or coming home and just having a couple sips. What I wanted to do was a couple sips of bourbon. Next thing you know, I've drank six shots of bourbon between two glasses because of these massive pores. And I'm just guzzling them down and i'm constantly in this state of like being hung over and then getting drunk being hung over getting drunk yeah and it was just it was ruining my life man and i didn't even realize how much it

was putting me into a hole until i got to a point where i literally was i I became suicidal. And I was, yeah, I got some, dude, I couldn't go a day without thinking a suicidal thought. And it was really difficult. I was trying, I tried to not think about it. I was like, this is no, this isn't me, but they kept popping up and I felt worthless. I felt like no one loved me. I felt like, you know, from my past divorce,

my kids being away, you know, and not having my kids all the time. I call them. They wouldn't answer because they're busy. My kids don't want to talk to me. I'm a piece of crap. It became so troubling that I did get to

a point where I put a gun to my head. Really? That was my rock bottom. Luckily, I did not have the courage to pull the trigger yeah that's a massive depression too when you reach that point where you're using your adhd and your anxiety and stuff um and imagine some ptsd uh you know when you reach a point where trying to shut your mind off by and get it to quit whipping you uh is is is a hell of a place to be and i'm glad you didn't and now you're in a much better place um definitely and i mean you've

you've you've lost a ton of weight you you know your body looks good you're you're in shape now um you you talk about something on your website about progressive discipline technique, which is a military-backed training methodology. Tell us how that works for clients that you're working with. So what I've noticed is that a lot of times people will start programs, whether it's through a coach or it's like, I'm going to go to this new gym or I'm going to start this new diet or whatever. And they try to pile on too much too quick. Overwhelmed, trying to maintain it. They end up quitting. And they don't stay.

They're not consistent with it. And so they end up staying exactly where they're at. And then they tell themselves in their mind, like, well, I've already tried all this other stuff. Nothing works. I'm destined to be this way. And they stay in that rut in life right and i always tell people i was to my clients the difference the only difference between a rut and a grave is the depth of the hole that's true and so uh what that what i what i do

with my coaching with my progressive discipline technique is i add small things at a time. I'm going to add one thing, and we're going to get used to doing that. We're going to start to get some benefit, and then we're going to add another thing. Then we're going to add another thing. Then we're going to add another thing. I'm not adding everything all at once. I want to add things over time to progressively build you so that you can handle the load. If I were to handle, and this is normal for entrepreneurship, right? If you're a brand new entrepreneur and you want to get,

you're like, oh, I want to be the CEO of a big company, right? If you haven't even been able to start and build your way up there, you're not going to be able to handle the stress at that level, right? It will crush you. And you have to be, it's what's called progressive overload as well. And you have to be, it's a progressive,

what's called progressive overload as well. And as an entrepreneur, that's why you have to start at the bottom of being a solopreneur and working your way up to build your business up because as their business gets larger, the problems also get larger, right? If I had started an agency when I first came in

with the problems that I have now with the agency, I would have quit insurance a long time ago because it would have crumbled me. And so same with working out. If someone's brand new working out, they try to go do 405 pounds on the bench press. Like what I wanted to get to when I first started, I could barely do 135 for a set. But I saw it. I was like, I want to do it. It seemed so unreal and out of reach but i just knew

i'm gonna keep doing this i eventually got it and i eventually was able to do it and for for a set right but it took years of lifting yeah if i would have tried to do it ahead of time it would have crushed me and it's the same thing mentally we quit when things are too difficult but if we handle something it gets normalized then we add something else because normalized over time it's the same thing. Mentally, we quit when things are too difficult. But if we handle something, it gets normalized. Then we add something else because normalized over time, it's the same as progressive overload. So that's basically what that technique is and how I can help people to reclaim discipline within their life and really start making drastic changes physically, mentally, and spiritually. There you go. I really agree with what you say. Having a balanced lifestyle like you talk about in your website,

the mind-body-soul-spirit experience makes all the difference. And what's funny is most of it really didn't connect for me until I started going to the gym and working out. And it solved so many different issues that I was having. And now I just love going to the gym. Even though I don't feel like lifting weights. I mean, sometimes I'll just go walk on the treadmill, take the incline really high, like I did last night. Go sit in the sauna.

The sauna is an incredible, like, just an incredible vehicle. I always discounted the sauna. But you're like, oh, I go in there and sweat. But that thing really opens up your pores and opens up your blood flow. And, and, uh, I don't know, there's kind of a piece of meditation to it as well. Yeah. You get, you're more mindful in there. Yeah.

You know, it clears your thoughts. I don't know how. Yeah. And, and, and being relaxed and, and, you know, the other thing that people, I think make a big mistake with going to the gym is they don't prepare their body well like taking proteins and different things that you can do to to build muscle but also help you with recovery and they don't mind the recovery aspect too like i'm i'm big on on recovery too as well like i go to the my gym's got these great massage, those oyster rollback, uh, what do they call them? Zero gravity.

And they help me recover. Like sometimes I'll, I'll be like the next day. I'm like, oh man, I don't want to go do leg day, arm day killed me. And I'm like, okay, just, just go sit in the massage chair and the massage chair will break all those tight muscles up that are wound up and everything. Get the blood flowing. Um, maybe do some treadmill. And then I'm like, okay, I think we got all the blood moving and all the muscles unlocked. Let's go do leg day.

That's also a process known as habit stacking. Oh, really? Yeah. So if you don't want to do something, right? You're like, man, I want to go run a marathon, but I never run. Or you don't want to go run, right? Like, man, I want to go run a marathon, but I never run. Or you don't want to go run, right? Just the action of getting up and putting your shoes on and being like, well, I'm just going to step outside and see how it feels, right? Next thing you know, you're outside. You're like, well, I'm already outside. I might as well start walking. And then you start walking

10 paces down the road. You're like, ah, I'm going to jog a little bit. Then you start jogging. Next thing you know, you did your run. That habit or that practice is known as habit stacking. And so what you're doing is you're basically trying to stack new habits into other habits that make it towards the natural progression. Almost like you're getting off onto an interstate, like you're getting on an exit ramp or an entrance ramp on an interstate, right? Like once you're on the ramp, it kind of forces you into traffic, right? So that's why you are like, and this is actually, it's brilliant that

you're doing this. A lot of people don't realize this and they kind of naturally do it, which is, you know, I don't want to go to the gym. I'm just going to go and I'm going to sit in the sauna a little bit, see if I can warm myself up. Next thing you know, once you're there, you're like, I'm already here. I might as well just go ahead and work out. And I'm feeling a little bit better about it. And you end up doing it because you've already gotten onto that entrance ramp and you're on the highway and there's only one way to go. When you really think about it, you're using the same hack that your body does when it goes, I'll just have one more beer. I'll just have a burger and fries. You have a snack in a much different way that's destructive

To your health And this way you're using it to Do stuff that improves your Improves your life And I like that the habit stacking You know I just Showing up is just half the battle And you kind of feel good

You see other people working out And you know when you're sitting around the house You know no one's working out and you're just like i'm just sitting here eating you know we're eating cheetos naked in a beanbag chair watching i don't know uh bachelorette or whatever uh this is comedian dust in my belly button yeah i love it but uh we've all been there yeah uh but uh you know you go to the gym, you see people working out, and you're like, hey, I should work out too. And, you know, sometimes I get inspired. I see somebody who's starting to work out.

They're really obese. I love that. I'm like, hey, man, look at this person. They showed up. They have won the 1% battle or however many people don't go to the gym. Um, they they're winning because they showed up and they're trying, God bless them for trying and, and, and hopefully they stick with it. Um, but you know, taking that first step sometimes is the hardest thing, you know,

admitting you have a problem like you did identifying that, you know, you look in the mirror at 280 and you're like, Hey man, I don't want to do this anymore. So this has been really great to have you on the show. Greg, give us your final thoughts and pitch as we go out on the show. Yeah. Yeah. So, you know, I, when I was, when I was having really tough times, you know, I was, I was during a breakup and um during that breakup i was dude i was like really depressed i was crying all the time i was like in the car and i listened to music that reminded me of her and i'd sit there and bawl like a baby and so um i was at the time i was really really bad at insurance this is towards the tail end when I first started really focusing on what I had to do. And I was so bad that I had to get another job.

That was a W-2 sales job where I got a small salary plus commissions. And it was literally for like two months. And I was going through the training with another person. Him and I trained together. And he was a really nice young man. I don't even remember this guy's name. I feel bad but he saw how and i told him the whole story about my depression and how this girl broke up with me and all this stuff you know and how it became suicidal wow

and uh that girl came to see me at work to come get something and it just crushed me like seeing her right and uh i was like i can't go back upstairs like him and i were sitting outside and i was like he was like did you look bad i was like i can't go back upstairs like him and i were sitting outside and i was like he was like did you look bad i was like i can't go back upstairs and he was like well i'll cover for you you know and so i was walking back to my car could go put on some terrible music to cry to to drive home it was like our drive home and as i was walking he sends me a text and he's like hey greg i just wanted you to know that the night's always darkest before the dawn and the dawn's coming and i was like one it's a great quote from a movie but two like oh it's so right and i was made me start tearing up when i when i saw that and i and that was the last

day i cried about that one that was nice nice and that was when i was like i gotta get my like i'm not gonna stay this way together so forever and and so the the lasting um you know thought i want to leave with everybody is that nothing is permanent change is is the only constant and so if you're having if you're in a bad spot in life it will change if you're in a good spot spot don, don't rest on your laurels because it will change, right? And you have to be always diligent in trying to improve yourself so that you can weather the storms and that you can enjoy the good times while still gaining momentum in your life and your business and your relationships and everything.

And I believe in you. Whether you don relationships and everything. And I believe in you, whether you don't believe in you, I believe in you. Cause I know everybody's potential is unlimited and unknown. There you go. We both believe in you. We believe in you. I feel like we're an SNL skit.

You can do it, but no, you're right. The best thing to do in your darkest moments is to find, find your basis for being grateful for what you have and realizing the assets that you have. And then start taking baby steps. And if you're suffering from depression or some sort of darkness, go to the gym, especially if you're a man. Because, you know, doing leg day is so important for your masculinity, your testosterone. You get that testosterone going.

And testosterone does so many great things for you. We talked about this in the pre-show. If you're a man in your, in your older ages, check your, check your testosterone levels. Um, you know, we, we live in an age where I think we're 30% lower testosterone levels than 20 or 30, 60 years ago, 70 years ago. Um, it's a real issue for men right now. And there's so much estrogen and plastics and stuff in our diets and everything, estrogenetics. It's affecting our ability to have good testosterone. And it creates such a great balance for you. You just feel, you know, like we talked about on the show, spiritual, mental, physical, everything.

And when you have that, you're more of a complete person. There you go. There you go. Greg, give us your dot com so people can find you on the interwebs and get to know you better and your podcast, et cetera. Yeah. If you want to learn more about my coaching, go to delta fit life dot com. I've got a bunch of videos. There are client testimonials.

I've got a lot of information on there. If you want just daily content to help you to be a better person, go check out my Instagram at GregoryABurch underscore. It's like GregoryABurch underscore. You'll see my ugly mug. Can't miss it. Yeah. And if you ever have any issues with depression or anxiety, or you're looking for some help, or just someone to talk to, send me a DM.

I want to help. I want to be. I want to be able to understand and see if I can provide you any guidance moving forward to take you out of that rut in life. There you go. Serving leadership. I love it. Thank you very much, Greg, for being on the show and inspiring our audience. Thank you, Chris, for having me on. And for everyone listening, take the time to share this show for Chris. This is a massive undertaking. It really is. Doing podcasts is very, it's challenging. It's an undertaking.

And the amount of content he's putting out on a weekly basis, I can tell you, takes a considerable amount of effort. The best thing you can do is to share this content with somebody else that can also learn and grow from it. It could be any one of his shows, but it helps Chris in so many different ways. And it helps all the people that come on as guests as well. So I highly recommend it. There you go. Thank you much for the plug.

We really appreciate it, Greg, because my back hurts, damn it. I think there's four today, actually. But thank you very much, Greg. Thanks to my audience for tuning in. As always, refer to the show of your family, friends, and relatives. Goodreads.com, Fortuness Christmas, LinkedIn.com, Fortuness Christmas, YouTube.com, Fortuness Christmas, YouTube.com, Fortuness Christmas,

and Christmas One. And thanks to all our wonderful people who've been giving us those five-star ratings on iTunes. We love you people. Thanks for tuning in. Be good to each other. Stay safe, and we'll see you guys next time.