The Learning Leader Show With Ryan Hawk - 544: Adam Bornstein - The Advisor for LeBron James, Cindy Crawford, & Arnold Schwarzenegger Shares How To Build Your Dream Job

Episode Date: September 10, 2023

Go to www.LearningLeader.com for full show notes Text Hawk to 66866 to become part of "Mindful Monday." Receive a carefully curated email each Monday morning to help you start your week off right... Arnold Schwarzenegger wrote the foreword. "I've known Adam for more than 10 years. In addition to being one of the smartest people in nutrition I've met, he's the perfect person to blaze a better path that provides a more direct, realistic, and effective way to improve your health and mindset and achieve your goals." Take the attitude of an intern. Adam shares how he impressed Arnold Schwarzenegger. Be kind. Show up. Be consistent. Do great work. Don't be greedy. Be generous. And keep going. That great work led to the introduction to LeBron James. Adam has done a great job of making the most of the luck he's received. Self-perception: how changing your thoughts and releasing mental baggage make adopting new behaviors, such as eating healthy, easier. This is a thorough examination of why most diet plans fail, including research and case studies that demonstrate the inefficacy of restriction. Book Dedication: "Dad, You were given a death sentence and turned it into a life sentence. That's the power of a different mindset. Thanks for showing me the way. I love you." Adam's dad was diagnosed with terminal brain cancer and he's been very optimistic in the face of it.  "Most people fail physically because they are broken mentally." Inversion: Start at the end. Anticipate that you didn't achieve your goal, and ask why? And then ask, how do I prevent that from happening? The three tactical things you can do: Self-perception - Believe you can do it Find things you love and don't remove them Add 1 or 2 new behaviors that are easy to win How to manage your diet: Slow down your eating Create a meal boundary (have open and closed kitchen times) Low fat vs Low carbs - Protein and fiber are needed Have no 0% weeks. Make progress.

Jim Collins told me on episode number 216 that the single greatest determining factor in my long-term success or failure would be my who, who I chose to surround myself with. And that conversation has had a huge impact on how I've designed my business. And one of the most important elements or services that I provide is my learning leader circle. and I open up applications one time per year, and that time is now at learning leader circle.com is where you can apply. Now, this is the most inefficient element of my business because I personally read every application and I personally choose who will go on to the next round and then who will ultimately be one of the 12 people to be in my next learning leader circle.

And I only do it one time per year, and that time is now. If you are intentional about surrounding yourself with others who will push you, challenge you, make you think differently, if you're willing to self-reflect and do some work, this could be for you. And you can apply at learningleaders circle.com. We meet once per month on Zoom and then we meet one time per year in person for our leadership retreat for members of my learning leader circle. So if you'd like to apply, go to learning leader circle. Welcome to The Learning Leaders Show, presented by Insight Global. I am your host, Ryan Hawk. Thank you so much for being here.

Text, Hawk to 666866 to become part of Mindful Monday. You, along with tens of thousands of other learning leaders from all over the world, will receive a carefully curated email from me each Monday morning to help you start your week off right. You'll also receive details about how my book The Pursuit of Excellence, will help you become a more effective leader. Text, Hawk to 66866. Now, on to tonight's featured leader. Adam Bornstein is a nutrition advisor for LeBron James,

Cindy Crawford, Lindsey Vaughn and Arnold Schwarzenegger. He's also the founder of Bourne Fitness. He's the founder of Penn Name Consulting, and he's the former chief nutrition officer at Latter. That is the company founded by LeBron James. Adam is a New York Times best-selling author of many books, including engineering the alpha, and his most recent is called You Can't Screw This Up. During this conversation, we discuss the three reasons why most diets fail.

Then he shares five tactical tools to get you back on track immediately. And at the very beginning of this conversation, Adam shares the emotional story about how his dad has taught him to view life and death. Ladies and gentlemen, please enjoy Adam Bornstein. Adam Bornstein, so great to have you here on The Learning Leader Show. Welcome. Ryan, thank you for having me. I want to start personal.

You dedicated your most recent book to your dad, and you said, Dad, you were given a death sentence and turned it into a life sentence. That's the power of a different mindset. Thanks for showing me the way. I love you. Can you go deeper on why you dedicated this book to your dad? There's two pieces to that. So my dad has terminal brain cancer.

And as it is right now, if you ask a doctor, he does not have much time. But my dad was diagnosed and was told that he had probably six to 12 months to live. And next month, it's going to be three years. So I don't put a timetable on him. I just know that the state of. of the illness is much different. And the surface level answer is obviously, it's my dad. I didn't know when I started writing this book if he was going to be around and I wanted

him to know and it's amazing to me that he is. The best thing in the world was giving him this book. Truly. The deeper answer is that I've been trying to write this book for nine years. I first pitched this book to my book age, which I've not talked about a couple times, nine years ago. But I didn't want to do it unless I could do it right because I wrote a lot of books for a long time and I took a nine year break because it started to feel that a lot of diet books, nutrition books were doing more harm than good, right? There's no shortage of what behind me.

There's no shortage of diet books out there, but we seem to struggle more and more with our health. And I struggled. I knew what I wanted to write. I knew that I wanted to write a book about why it is so hard for us to do what we know is. good for us and do it sustainably. I didn't know how to write that book. I didn't know how to do it appropriately. And I spun my wheels for a while. And I pitched, I wrote book proposals and my book agent was like, mm-mm, this isn't good enough. This ain't it. You can do better. And my dad gets diagnosed. And I watch him get a death sentence, right? Like, something was wrong. Me and my brother's

asked him to go see a doctor. He goes in one day for a checkup and comes out with like a massive brain tumor and truly a death sentence. It's glioblastoma. It doesn't have much time. Needs brain surgery within the next 10 days. After that, all bets are off. Chemo, radiation, good luck. Enjoy your time. And my dad, not someone that I would typically call an optimist, hardworking guy, lawyer, very high moral fiber, do things right, put everything to his kids, nothing for himself. I'm one of four boys. I've got three brothers. He becomes like this incredible. incredibly optimistic person in the face of the worst news possible. And the doctors are telling him all these things, and he just starts asking different questions,

because they're telling him essentially what he can't do. And he's asking, why not? Or what can I do? Or why are you placing this limitations? And what he saw during the process is that no one ever really approaches this illness differently because they're given a death sentence, and it's just like, bide your time, hug your loved ones, and that's it. my dad's kind of like, excuse my language, fuck that, right?

Like, you can't put a timeline on my life, right? We're all individuals. So he's like, I'm going to attack this thing. And I'm going to ask different questions. I'm going to approach it differently. And I'm going to break all the rules and kind of like start from the end. If the end is like living, what do I have to do to live as long as possible? And I'm watching this.

And this is, my book isn't about living longer, but I'm like, huh, here's this guy. and then I watch him start like for a while kick ass right six to 12 months for almost three years and you know cancer is cancer for a reason right that it takes no prisoners no losers and cancer but cancer usually gets the last word I was like maybe I need to be asking different questions maybe I'm asking the wrong question maybe I'm taking the wrong approach maybe I'm focusing too much on diets and nutrition and exercise where I should be looking for examples in other walks of life where we see sustained success at a much higher rate

because all we're doing is talking about behavior, right? Eating exercise. They're just a behavior. No different than any other behavior. And that was like the aha moment. The aha moment was like all of these books just try to like find the silver bullet, find the one thing, teach more nutrition.

And I don't think we need more nutrition education. Yes, people have varying degrees, but in general, we know like too much fast food bad, vegetable good, right? We need to ask what stands in the way behaviorally, and we probably need to borrow less from nutrition science and more from behavioral science, more from psychology, more from all of this. And this book, for anyone, ends up going through it, is really lessons that we can borrow from other walks of life.

Because what I came to understand is that I believe most people fail physically. or struggle physically because they are broken mentally by the approaches they are given. In the same way that probably getting a cancer diagnosis can break you mentally, I wanted to build people up mentally. I wanted them to ask different questions. I wanted them to take a different approach.

And I don't think I could have ever come to that realization without seeing my dad take a very different approach. Thank you for sharing, man. That's awesome. What are some of the questions? that you started asking, what are the questions we should be asking to think about being healthier, doing what we can to take care of this one body that we have? So there are, you know, you can end up 80, 20 in this to see what applies to most people.

What I, but I started doing was started looking at like different philosophies or different strategies that people do to come to better outcomes. And one of them is the idea of inversion, right? So it's a framework. And inversion means starting at the end. Usually we start at the beginning. When we set goals, we're like, we have these big, ambitious goals, and like, we're dreaming big. And, you know, we want to lose 20 pounds, or we want to, like, quit smoking, or we want to add muscle, whatever the healthy behavior is.

Start with these big visions and the big goals. And then, like, sometimes we break it down to process. Sometimes we don't. But we don't take the time to anticipate where we're going to trip up. And inversion says the opposite. it. I want you to start at the end, and I even go one layer farther. I say, I want you to start in the end, and I want you to anticipate three months from now, six months from now, a year from now. You didn't achieve your goal. Why? And that's a really powerful action. This is a difficult one,

and it requires you to know yourself. But ask yourself why. And I outline ones that are commonalities, but anyone can do this on an individual level, right? Start at the end. Identify, like, what it is that you slip up, and then ask yourself, well, how do you? I prevent this from happening? How do I prevent the known variables so that when it happens? Because that's usually what happens on a diet or on a workout program. You get to a point where something you probably could have anticipated happens. Whether it's a lack of time or too much stress or your kids or your job or whatever it is. You can anticipate a lot of these things. What do you do? And I found like three ones in general that I felt stood out and it was the

complexity. It was the cost and it was the inconvenience. So by that, complexity is a lot of plans are great in theory, but they're very complex. And they require so much knowledge that if you don't have that knowledge and you don't not or navigate, it becomes really difficult for you to succeed. The idea of any behavior is mastery. And mastery is accomplished by being able to do the basic things incredibly well. But most of us want to fast forward and get to the end. And I can talk to that about more of that because health is a trap where they give you the

bright shiny object about the shit that sounds really cool, but they're not foundational. So you try and like do the final step. You try and do the most complicated thing first. And it's like trying to do calculus before you know how to add or subtract. So you have this complexity angle where like we give people very complex plans. It doesn't mean they're bad, but they're not meeting people where they are to give them a chance to succeed. We give people very costly plans. Buy all these supplements, buy these detox, by all this other stuff. If you're going to write a book and you ask people to like pay $20, There shouldn't be like $1,000 of upsells in the back end. It should be like, you give me this.

And I had to bestow 20 years of knowledge into $20. But that means if I've truly mastered my craft, I can go in and truly change someone's life. And people will be like, oh, well, how good is it for $20? Well, the master can do it in $20, right? In the same way that a master locksmith can look at a problem. It's an analogy online and solve it in five minutes. And how much you paid for that for the person who takes an hour and a half? we usually charge people based on time rather than expertise.

And if I'm thinking that I'm really good at this, and I think I am doing this for 20 years, I should be able to distill that knowledge where for the majority of people, I can give some. And so it can't be so costly that the average person can't benefit from it or from a practical standpoint. It can't be so expensive that you can't sustain it. And that leads into the convenience aspect, right?

Life is stressful, life is hard, life is busy. There's no point of comparing these different levels of difficulty. Right, as my wife is a therapist, you like to say, there's no hierarchy of pain. There's no hierarchy of pain. Like, why are you comparing pain? If it's hard for me, if it's hard for you, who cares who's this harder, right? It's hard for the individual. There has to be a level of convenience, not always meaning comfort, but a level of convenience

that allows you to build these good behaviors that then you can wade into more discomfort. So I talk about a lot of people think change only occurs in discomfort. That is true up to an exception. And the exception is this idea of the Yerkes-Dodson model. So Yerks-Doddson is this inverted U where it talks about like where you can achieve peak performance. And on the X-axis is going to be the amount of stress or anxiety you're in. And the Y-axis is your performance. And on one end, you see right, inverted you, you just see no higher performance.

And that's the people who lay on a couch all day. They're never challenged. They never do anything new. On the other end, though, you see these people who are in high levels of stress. They're put in a very difficult situation, very ingeval. convenient situations where it's so stressful, it's so difficult, they have no chance to succeed. So I say the idea of behavioral change is not rooted in living in discomfort. It is actually rooted in expanding your comfort zone, which means you need to do some of what

is familiar so that you feel stable and comfortable enough and some of what is unfamiliar. So you can step outside your comfort zone, adopt those new behaviors. But if everything is new, if everything is so challenging, Your likelihood of success is actually very low. So you have too much stress, too much anxiety, too much arousal. You might be able to do it for a week or two or three or four, which is the typical period that people follow a diet. And then you follow off.

So how do you go and make it more convenient? How do you make it less costly? And how do you make it less complex so that people can achieve that level of mastery and all those as you can see definitely interact together? So can we get tactical for a second? Of course. Let's think about our avatar as a 43-year-old woman who is a senior vice president at a Fortune 500 company who has a very stressful job. Lots of people reporting to her has to make big decisions each day, has multiple kids, a spouse, and not enough time in the day to do everything she wants to do.

But she realizes she's wise enough to realize that she needs to take care of her body. she needs to move her body, she needs to eat healthy, and you can define that. What is that person who maybe has let themselves go a little bit based on all of those things I just mentioned, but they still understand it's important and they want to get back on track? And they're like, oh, this Adam guy sounds really smart. I'm going to read his book. But what can she do starting now to implement some sort of a plan that is not like the 75 hard thing where you're going to restrict everything and basically dedicate your life to the thing.

And then on day 76, you're going to go wild. What's something that person can do based on everything that you've learned? I'm going to give you three tactical steps. All right. And the first one is going to seem the most high level, but it's actually the most important. I'm glad you mentioned James. I referenced James in the book. And I actually had him read two chapters of the book because I referenced his work and I didn't

want to screw it up since the book is about you can't screw this up. That's thing about writing a book. Give it to other people to read, get their feedback, and make sure that the principles are applied correctly. And the first one, the most important step, the step that everyone glosses over is you need to check in with your self-perception. So people who have fallen off the wagon per se or are struggling, and what happens is they start to believe that they are not healthy individuals

and they can't be healthy. And what this does is creates cognitive dissonance. There is a difference between achieving your goals and believing you can achieve a goal. And that is rooted in this idea of self-perception. So what I talked about in the book is the first place to start is you have to shift your self-perception, which sounds much harder than it is. Shifting your self-perception just goes to that about like, I am a healthy person, but I haven't figured out what works for me, as opposed to I'm not healthy and I'm hoping to find a solution or I'm not healthy. I'm going to try and become healthier.

How we identify ourselves are important. And it just starts, have you ever tried to do something to make a little bit of something to make a healthy? you healthier. Right? Person who is not healthy fundamentally does not care about their health, so they do not put any effort. They do not think about it. They never pick up a book. They never buy a supplement.

They never get a course. They never hire a trainer. They never try a meal one. They never do anything, right? Because they're apathetic. They don't care. But if you've tried some of these things and you have not succeeded, you are a healthy person because you care about your health and you have to start there.

Because if your self-perception is disconnected from your behavior, the poor self-perception is going to undercut behavior the moment that you feel less confident, things get more chaotic. So you have to start by saying, like, listen, if I know I care about this, I'm not sitting here being a healthy person. I just haven't figured out what works for me yet in the same way that if you were in a job and you're just starting out, you probably don't know how to be great at everything you do, but it doesn't mean you're not going to succeed at your job.

The next one is find things that you love and want to keep and do not remove them. This is so important. Usually we start from a place of restriction so that when times get hard, we do not have anything to fall back on. Right. So the idea is like if you know your life is chaotic, you're running a business, you have kids, you're not having time. There's going to be moments that pop up that are what people typically view is like the screw ups. They're not screw ups. They're not screw ups at all.

Like our bodies are very resilient. They're very strong. There's leeway. There's margin for error for us to have ways when we don't exercise. to have takeout meals, to have dessert. So I say find a couple of those things for you that you want to have in your life. Because like everyone talks about a diet being a lifestyle, but no one ever asked what you want your life to look like.

And find those things and keep them. And you're probably going to minimize it. So if you love dessert, you're not going to have dessert seven times a week. You might have two to three. But that means you're starting from a place of abundance rather than from a restriction so that you know that when times get hard, there is a fallback. there is some of that comfort. And rather than that being viewed as a screw-up,

rather than that being viewed as falling off the wagon, you are viewing this is actually part of the trail. Establish that comfort because that is what's going to allow you to expand your comfort. And then start with one or two new behaviors that you think is easiest for you to win. So I identify many different things that people can, ways that they can win and identify five tools specifically. And I say, you don't have to do all five tools all the time. The idea is to find the tools, at least start with the tools that you think are easiest

for you to master and try to apply one or two of them with great consistency to the point that it almost becomes automatic, no different than what James taught. And it becomes an atomic habit, right? And then from that becomes a stable foundation where you can then add new habits. What are some of the other tools? Another one that helps people a lot and people mistake it for intermittent fasting. It is not an fasting, but I say that you want to create a meal. boundary. And what I mean by this is like intermittent fasting is the idea of like you have to not

eat for a certain number of hours in a day because you're going to have all these benefits. I used to be a big advocate of intermittent fasting. I don't have a problem with it. And many of the alleged claims were just greatly overstated. Over the last five, 10 years, the amount of research, it's funny, intermittent fasting has become more popular as the research that supports its benefits has become less strong. But the one thing that intermittent fasting does really well, is it allows us to not be our own worst enemy. So I don't care about the number of hours you feast or fast. It doesn't matter.

But what I do care about is having an open kitchen and a closed kitchen time. And in the same way that more people are overstressed and overworked because there's no boundaries on work anymore, right? Email is open at all time. Slack channels are running. Whatever it is, people are connected at all times. So part of the reason why people are overworked is just because there are no boundaries on work anymore. Part of the reason we eat now is that there are no boundaries on food. We have food

abundance everywhere, right? But a big issue is that we'll eat at any hour of the day and we'll eat as many times as we want during the course of the day. And what I say is that there should be an open kitchen and a closed kitchen time and you get to determine the open kitchen and closed kitchen. I give a recommendation based on what research has shown. So there's this great study where people just moved their breakfast back like an hour and a half and they moved their dinner back an hour and a half and they didn't change anything else and those people ate last for more satisfied lost weight and kept it off that's it all they did was just create this boundary now as I pointed out in the book I got kids in school we eat I got young kids we eat pretty early if I

had to move my dinner time up an hour and a half they would still be in school and it's not applicable so I recommend in general take when you would be going to sleep and have your last meal about two to three hours before that so that's the end boundary and try and move your breakfast up two to three hours. We don't kill bad habits as James' Clear talks about. We replace them. And the habit is like, oh, when the TV is out, I just like munch on things mindlessly. And I just told you when you're not paying attention to what you eat, you're much more likely to eat much more of it. Right. So I'm trying to block out those mornings where people are less mindful of what they're eating are more likely to be their own worst enemy. And that type of boundary is super helpful. Another tool

that helps people is people argue about low fat, low carb. There are all these battles. And I include tons of studies to try and just prove to people. Stop with the debate. It's not a debate. Both of them work, right? One of my favorite studies is one that compared a year-long study of people on a low-fat diet versus a low-carb diet when they broke it down at the end to see who lost more weight. The difference on a weekly basis was that the low-carb people lost 0.21 pounds per week,

and the low-fat people lost 0.25 pounds per week for a grand total of 400ths of a pound of a week, a rounding error. It doesn't matter. What does matter is like with any given meal, you want to have a foundation of your meal, and I say the foundation is protein and fiber, because these are the things that keep you sat aside for longer. The thing is, if you're trying to lose weight, your body isn't always so kindly. The more weight that you lose, the more your hunger increases. This is natural. The more weight you lose, the more your metabolism actually slows down. It doesn't speed up. People think the smaller you get, you got a faster metabolism. No, your metabolism is based on your body weight. So the less you weigh,

the slower your metabolism is. Eat protein, eat fiber. It keeps you more satisfied. It satisfies your brain to tell your stomach you don't need any more food and vice versa. Let's talk about body movement exercise. I am a seven day week guy and it's more mental than physical for me. I don't feel, I feel maybe it's from a background in sports, but I feel like I need to start the day with a win and that win is almost always some

sort of movement. Sometimes it's just a long walk, rucking, weightlifting, running. but usually I go to the gym every weekday and then weekends it's different types of workouts. But that just kind of like mentally sets the tone for me. There may be something wrong with me. I don't know. I mean, it's not the worst habit to have. There are definitely much worse habits.

Yeah. Yeah. But let's say, let's say though that's not necessarily the norm. Again, we're sticking with our typical avatar who is overly worked, overly stressed, the whole deal, multiple things going on. And they haven't like, they still can like go out and play tennis or they can swim or whatever. but they're not doing it enough. What are some general ways for somebody like that to get back on track from an exercising perspective? I've shifted so much on this from what I used to believe.

I'm a huge advocate of walking. I used to just think walking was such a waste of time because, you know, I didn't think it did anything for you. And I was wrong, right? Walking, if you're having trouble, if the issue is a failure to move, any movement is a win. And it was, Walking is one of those things where, you know, it elevates your heart rate just enough that it has so many benefits. And the funny thing is that we have to think more about like what is the first domino that gets people consistent with movement as opposed to what is the best movement for them. I have my beliefs on what is most effective or most bang for your buck for your time. Weight training is incredibly effective. Rucking.

So, you know, wearing a weighted backpack is incredibly effective. But to the same point as what I discussed. before of having people do calculus or geometry before they can add or subtract, finding time for movement is difficult and you're not comfortable in the gym. The first step should be, can you set aside 15 or 20 minutes, one to two times per day, just go and walk, just go and move, just go and ride a bike, do anything, do anything, do bodyweight squats and pushups for 15 to 20 minutes. The goal is to build a behavior of movement and block off that time where you prioritize it and make sure the things, don't get in the way. Then you can worry later about what the best type of exercise is.

And the thing that I tell people is the minimum effect of dose for exercise is much less than people believe. Much, much, much, much less. I mean, you see dramatic now research coming out in terms of people who will do high intensity exercise for just one or two minutes per day, like running upstairs intensely for a minute. And that's it and repeating it two to three times. And then having a big impact on longevity, on body fat, on muscle. muscle tone on joint health, you do lose it if you don't use it. And what happens is like when people build these habits and can work up to a minimum effective dose.

And I learned this when I became a father. I used to be the guy who I love exercise. I always have. But like when I became a dad, man, I would try and get that hour and a half in a gym. It just was not happening. It wasn't a lack of priority. I didn't have a schedule that allowed for it. And I fought against it.

And what it happened was like it just wouldn't work out. It's the same failure to launch. It's just like when the situation is perfect, I'll do it. The situation is never perfect. So I started doing these like 15 to 20 minute workouts, and I've kept it for almost the last decade. And I'm in as good as shape in my 40s, arguably better shape than I was in my 30s. Because I'm able to train consistently with these shorter workouts.

I can actually keep more intensity or the entire workout. I get hurt less often, and I miss fewer workouts overall because it doesn't need to be perfect, and I can always find that 15 to 20 minutes. and then I have one long workout per week. But I've built up to that. And that one long workout, we see that like for longevity, we're not beating up your body for your recovery. You can actually do pretty well with these shorter consistent workouts.

My recommendation for most people is can you at first block off one to two times a day for 15 to 20 minutes of any type of movement and do that because it works? if you do it consistently. Everything is about the consistency. So how do we, like, I say in the book, the behavior change is based on a very simple principle that is so hard for people to grasp. And it's like, make it so easy that it's hard to fail.

Yep. Make it so easy that it's hard to fail. And what happens is when it becomes easy, the next challenge that you take on is obviously more difficult, but it feels more doable. Too often we take on these big challenges that we are not prepared for as opposed to taking the challenge that's right in front of our face.

I give the example. Someone walks into the gym for the first time. You have two options. You can have them do a bodyweight squat, you know, a couple sets, 10 reps, and they're probably going to be pretty sore because they've never done the movement before. Or you could put them under our barbell, load up 300 pounds, and absolutely crush them. And what we mistake is the body weight squat is just as crushing for them as the 300 pound squat. The difference is the 300 pound squat will literally kill them and never make them

want to come back. The body weight squat will help them build confidence that they can come back and get better and get better to the point that one day they go under the bar with no weight. And that's enough of a challenge. And then they add some more weight, add some more weight. We need to teach you how to incrementally improve because again, when you get to that stable position, when you get to that confident position, when you go slow so you can go fast, success is inevitability. but there is a huge downside to breaking people repeatedly by having them go to these extremes, by telling them that the only way to become healthy is if you do these things that are so difficult, right?

And it's not true. It's definitely not where anyone starts, right? A lot of people, I don't think they do it on purpose. It's the curse of knowledge. They forgot where they began. I know what I do now after 23, 24 years of being in fitness. and if you're not doing things that are sustainable and it's your health and it's your life and it's your body and you've got one of these what the hell are we doing yeah i i spoke with

andrew brant god maybe five years ago on this podcast and he had this mantra of never peak it's like hashtag never peak what he meant by that is and he runs like does like triathlons and all these crazy races but he's like i never want to be peaking it's it's always about just getting incrementally just a little bit better and i'm with you because sometimes in the middle of those restrictive diets or crazy plans, you kind of peak and then you get to then you go back down. And I don't know about you, man. I don't, I can't imagine that being a healthier option where you're going to have tons of peaks and valleys as opposed to just trying to get, it's like you're going to treadmill and it probably works you out a little bit better when you

raise the incline. But sometimes, let's say you want to get to 10 or 11 incline and you want to be at like 3.8 speed or even 4, which is pretty fast. I noticed if I started at, 11 and I go straight to four, it seems almost too fast and I can't do it. But when I start at five or six incline and two speed, it's not that hard and just gradually increase both of them, even within the exact same 25 minute walking workout, sometimes a weight backpack, while reading a book, by the way, on a Kindle, you can get up to 3.7, 3.8 and 11 or 12 incline after you gradually made your way and it's fine. I mean, it's hard, but it's fine because you kind of gradually, I think that's a great metaphor for what you're talking about. You got to get going in

order to get good. But that first part has to happen. You know what I mean? Right. In order to do that, similar to that, I say you don't want to, the goal is not a hundred percent weak, right? Many of these plans, like you have to be 100 percent because this is where the shame and the guilt and the stress of screwing up comes in, right? It's like, you can have no sugar. In the moment you have sugar, you're like, damn it. Screwed up. I messed up. I'm off the plan.

No, the goal is not 100% weeks. The goal is no 0% weeks. Because true health is accomplished when you never get to the point where you care so little that you decide to do all the things that are bad for you. And no one does that in purpose, but they do it again because of the byproduct of York Dodson again. High stress, high anxiety, so much pressure. I have to eat every meal perfectly.

hit every single workout. No, there is an iterative process to what you're saying where sometimes you've got to gradually build up and sometimes you don't even have to hit that peak. But if you just show up and you just walk on that treadmill, right? And the next day, maybe you push it a little bit harder. The next day you hit that 11 and maybe you're able to go farther. It was 12. Why were you able to do that? Well, because you never threw in the towel. And also those two previous days that you thought were steps back, were actually still steps forward because you were still showing up. And the goal is no 0% week. So if you have a bad, day with whatever it is. Maybe you just like eat terribly for a day. You don't punish yourself.

You don't detox. You don't starve. You just right get right back to the normal behavior and your body will self-regulate on its own. The problem is we take our bodies from one extreme to another, right? We go out and we have dessert. We do all these things and we're like, oh no, and then we try and exercise twice as hard. We try to not eat at all. And it goes from one extreme to another. And our body does not like this. Our body likes being in homeostasis. And then we have to gradually move it away from that comfort so that adapts, so it changes. So it gets used to a new weight, so it gets used to new strengths, so it gets used to new habits. And eventually it becomes our sticking point, but that new sticking point is a new comfort zone that is actually

where you wanted to be. We all have that body weight that we feel like we can't move from. It's when it was like the set point theory. It's just like no matter what I'm doing here. It's like, yeah, because your body's found it's like homeostatic position. And it's going to take a little friction to get you out of that. But then the goal is actually almost maintenance. So that If you want to reset your set point to be like 10 pounds less than you are, you might lose that 10 pounds and you might not lose any weight at all. And that's actually a normal process because you want to learn to maintain that with the behaviors that you have. And then that becomes a set point. Suddenly it's like, oh, my goodness, the weight that I used to always want to get out, I feel like I can't move anymore up or down.

And that's actually a good thing because you've now lowered that set point, but that doesn't happen by accident. It takes a lot more patience in the same way that we don't get to the position where we're unhealthy by accident. accident or overnight. But we want these rapid results that are in no way symmetrical to the amount of time it took for us to get there. The average person gains, again, on average, one to three pounds per year. So it is a slow burn where the person who was like at a weight they like when they're 20 wakes up when they're 40 and they could be 20 to 60 pounds heavier. And you're like, man, when did that happen? I'm like, well, it happened over 20 pounds and they start a diet and they want to lose all of that in 20 days when they gained it over 20 years. And these asymmetries are

part of the problem of the behaviors and the programs that we go on. And it does not take 20 years to lose it. Not at all. But it also doesn't take 20 days. One of the other impressive things of the many about you, man, is you worked with people who could literally choose any person in the world to work with. A couple of them, Arnold Schwarzenegger, who wrote the forward to your book, and LeBron James, those are two people who literally could choose any single human on the planet to work with them for any and all of their businesses. And they both chose you. The natural question is, why? How did you build those relationships? What did you do to impress them so much that they said, Adam, I want to go into business with you. I want to work with you. I want you to advise

me when I could choose literally anybody. When I'm reading all that about you, I thought, I got to understand how this happened. You got to prove that you're so good that they want to work with you and it takes time with Arnold that took years, me showing up and doing work to earn greater opportunities. With LeBron, it was no different. It was showing up. It was being smart. It was collaborating with this team and proving your value. And I wish that there was some hack or trick or something simpler than that, right? I worked with LeBron for years on something before we ended up. building a business together. You had to earn your keep. And obviously, kind of got to keep that attitude of an intern, no matter what you're done. By the time I'd met Arnold, by the time I'd

met LeBron, I'd had many successes, but I didn't walk in there thinking like, you know, they should be happy that they work with me. I was confident in my work, but I had no problem proving that, you know, I know what I'm doing. I can help you. I can be effective. And I think with both of them, the big thing is like, do you want to help others? I think both of those people and they're larger than life figures are designed to or dedicated to serving others. And that was something that I found really spoke to me. So I wanted to show that was something that was important to me to serve others. So whether it's with Arnold's after school All Star Charities and putting effort in there

or whether it was LeBron and his I Promise school and going out to Akron and spending time there, it's like, I think the way you make an impression on people is that you find things that are genuinely aligned. you can't fake what's genuine. And if you try to, it's going to blow up in your face. That means the type of people you should partner with fundamentally, the type of people that you would want to partner with for the right reasons. You see the greater mission, not like you see the name on the back of the jersey, preferably. Or you see the name on the trophy, right?

You find the people that you truly think you're aligned with is genuine. And you find the people that, like, where your skill set you believe can help them. And then you just put in the work. And it doesn't always pan out. I worked out, worked with other big name people. where it didn't work out. And sometimes it's just a bad fit. Or maybe you just didn't rise up to the occasion and do well enough.

But I was lucky enough with both LeBron and Arnold won for them giving me the chance in the first place, right? You got to get your foot in the door. And sometimes you need people who are willing to take a chance on you. And I'm very grateful that both were willing to take a chance on me. But then when you get that chance, you better not miss. And it's not just making it once. You better make it repeatedly. You better prove through consistency, no different than the talk of the book, right?

Consistent behaviors win out. And when you do that, I think you can win people over me, anything. What are some of the specific things you did for both of them? Because I don't know anyone who's even gotten their foot in the door, let alone gone past that stage. So what are some of the ways that they even were aware that you existed so that you had a chance? I mean, it's funny. So like I met LeBron because of Arnold. and I met Arnold because I wasn't an asshole.

So the story of how I met Arnold is that I used to live in Los Angeles and I was trained in a gym called Iron. And I was the guy that like when I was training in the gym, before I had kids or anything, when I was more plugged in, I'd say in the fitness universe, I'd be like the guy training with my hat real low, just like, leave me alone, let me do my thing. But people would ask me questions because as they've learned,

they just saw that I trained differently. And I would never be rude to people. And there was one person in particular, there was always like, I went like coming like mid set and when asked me questions. And I took the time to help and guide and answer questions. I did this for a long time, probably months and months. I knew the guy's name, but that was it. Right? I was just like, I was just kind to him.

And then at some point, like, he asked me like, meet him for lunch and I go to like his office and I'm like walking in there. And they're like murals of Arnold and like movie posters. And it turns out it's Arnold's chief of staff. And I ended up meeting Arnold because. I was really kind to this guy. And then he asked me to give him some insights on a website he was building. Arnold was getting back into fitness. This is like, I want to say about 2011.

And then just for free, I give him insights on the website. I edited some articles. I helped him for some projects. And it's like, I obviously knew at that point that it was Arnold. I didn't ask for money. I didn't ask for payment. I didn't ask for anything. And this probably continued for a few years of me just contributing and helping.

And just happy to do it. And right now and then I get to meet Arnold. and chat with him and he's the single greatest storyteller you will ever meet in your life. And then down the road, Arnold was doing a movie and one of the actors in the movie wanted to write a book. And without asking anything, Arnold's just like, there's only one writer to work with. It's Adam. Adam should go straight your book. Never asked for anything. Never got paid. Showed up, was helpful, wasn't an asshole. I've got rules of my life. Rule number one is don't be an asshole. Well, number two is don't be greedy if you wanted to know what the follow-up was there. And then I did all this

work for Arnold and then at some point, LeBron cramps up in the NBA finals and it's a really bad look. And like the Bron is just a machine, right? And he's like looking to the in the offseason, just adjust training, adjust nutrition. And Arnold and LeBron share the same family office. And he's like wondering what to do. And the supplement industry is really messed up. And Arnold was basically like, you got to have your team talk to Adam. Adam will like, do you right? You can trust Adam. And then I got connected with LeBron's team. And then I just had to prove it to them by like then showing up for his trainer, Mike Manzias, who's great and everyone there, and just being consistent,

giving them great information, giving them stuff that would fundamentally help. And I helped them for a while. And then a product that we created for LeBron ended up becoming the product that was used as like the foundation of a supplement company that was called Ladder. It's a lesson I'm trying to teach my kids. Just like being kind to people. And even if you don't know them, which is such like a basic rule. But if I'm not kind to, you know, to Daniel in the gym,

I never mean Arnold. And it was one of those things that Daniel obviously felt comfortable enough with me that it was over months because he's kind of a gatekeeper for Arnold. If you're going to let someone in, you got to trust him. And I earned it maybe the old-fashioned way, which is just like being a good human. Wow. You never know. It was luck, right?

You walk up there and literally in like where the lobby of this place is just a mural of Arnold. Then I'm like, oh, that's weird. And you go up and you get off on the third floor and there's just movie poster. Then you see the seal, like the governor of, like the governor of. California and I'm like, where am I? What am I doing? And it has done luck, but you know, I could have gone to that meeting and showed up and then been greedy or asked me paid or asked for something. And right, I did that for a while. And out of the blue, when I did that ghostwriting work for an actor and asked for it, I got a call one day. And Arnold just vouched for me.

Huh. Straight up because I showed up for him. I think there's also something to being overlaught. generous with people you collaborate with, doing more than what's expected, way more than what's expected, whether it's the services you're providing or how you pay them. I just feel like if you're a long game player, I know you are, and I found that to be a commonality among leaders who have sustained excellence, is they're always playing the long game, long-term relationships, not high on transactional ones, always transformational long-term relationships, very generous

with the people they're collaborating with, right? Kind in your case. You didn't know who the guy was. You weren't at a networking thing that you thought somebody could lead to Arnold. You're just working out at a gym in your default setting, it feels like, just like you were

before we started recording, is to be a very kind, empathetic, good listener, good guy. And that then led to an introduction that changed your life. I usually ask at the end, like for life slash career advice and I don't think you'd give a better answer

what you just did, right? Do that thing, whether you're at the gym, you're at the library, you're at Starbucks, wherever it may be, just be a decent, kind person. And you're not trying to get any result or try to meet a famous person. It's just the right thing to do. And if you stack enough of those days and being that way enough time, who knows? Who knows?

I like your odds. That is the way, right? I think one of my favorite stories happened recently. This is a long story that I will make very short. I essentially booked a trip to Disneyland for my son because he wanted it for his birthday, expensive birthday present, but he was like, I don't want presents. I want to go to Disney. Right. And we've taken to Disney before and you can usually walk up and show up and just like buy a ticket, but that was in a pre-COVID universe. I show up like day before to go get tickets and I'm like,

you can't get tickets. I'm like, what do you mean? And like, well, you have to like not only buy the ticket, you have to book the day because we now have a quote on the number of people we allow into the parks. And I'm like, well, I just flew out here. We got a hotel. We're here. Like, and Yeah, it's not here for another, it's not open for another two weeks is the next like available reservation. So I'm talking to this person forever and just I'm offering everything, right? Like can I buy a season pass and get in tomorrow? Because I'm here.

I can't be the dad who blows the birthday gift. And they're like, no, that won't work. And ultimately, like what you can do is like spend all this money. It was more than $1,000. You can buy a hold. And if someone cancels tonight, you can look between 11 and 12 p.m. Try and fill that slot. But if you buy this, it's going to be like a thousand bucks or $1,100, whatever it was.

And it doesn't open up. You have 10 days to use this or defaults and is gone. We were just coming there for like three-day weekend. So I sit there and I like, I just thank the woman. I was like, thank you for giving me a chance, this opportunity. I'm like, this is the dummy tax. This is 100% my fault. I screwed up.

I should have looked into this. Take my $1,100. And if not, it's an expensive lesson. But I'm not going to not try to get my son in. And I just like, I was, my final line was like, I just want to thank you for giving me an opportunity to at least be in the game. All I ever ask is for an opportunity to still be in the game. And then I'd probably been talking to this one for like half an hour. And then from the side comes another woman who's like behind the booth.

And she's like, I sit here all day, you know, watching over my crew over here. And they get yelled out. They get treated terribly. Here you are. We didn't give you anything you wanted. Right. We didn't give you, take you to get in. In fact, we told you need to give us like $1,000 right now for a chance to get in.

and you thank this woman. You thank this woman for the chance because if you're screw up, you took accountability, she's like, I'm getting you in the park tomorrow and for the whole weekend. Nice. And I later there's like, I'm in tears. I'm coming back because I screwed this up, right?

I didn't realize the rules changed. I showed up. I should have booked the reservation. They did nothing wrong. Totally me. But I owned it and I appreciate it, right? Because they didn't do anything wrong and they could have just told me to screw off.

But she took a lot of time with me, talked with me, heard out my place, He's hurt out me trying to do this. And then just being a good human to the person and not taking my stuff out on them, I got in. And it was truly the best lesson to tell someone's turning seven to just be like not in a cheesy way. Because he knew. He's in the hotel room crying thinking we can't get in because I found this out.

Everyone's like freaking out. And I'm like, Bodie, kindness one. It won't always go this way, but kindness one. And, ah, it is just such a, you know, If you ever have doubts or lose faith in people, I do think you fall back on some of those just fundamental principles, they will serve you pretty well. Love it, Adam. I know we've got to run, man.

The book is called You Can't Screw This Up. It's really well done. I appreciate you writing. And there's tactical like recipes and things you could do. We covered like 2% of the book. So there's so much more to get to read. I highly encourage it. I just want to say thank you so much for doing this.

And I'd love to continue our dialogue as we both progress, man. Awesome. Ryan, I appreciate it. Thank you so much for having me. Thanks, man. It is the end of the podcast club. Thank you for being a member of the end of the podcast club. If you are, send me a note, Ryan at learning leader.com.

Let me know what you learned from Adam Bornstein. A few takeaways from my notes. I really appreciate how candid and emotional Adam was at the beginning of the conversation when talking about his dad. And he wrote the dedication so beautifully in his book that his dad was given a death sentence and turned it into a. life sentence and that gives valuable perspective for all of us to think about how we approach each day and regardless of what sentence we have been given let's let's turn it into a life sentence

much like his dad is doing right now then the three tactical things you can do to get better especially when it comes to your diet self-perception you first have to believe you can do it then find things you love and don't remove them and then create one or two new behaviors that are easy to win. Make it attractive, make it easy to do. And that just gets you started, much like the conversation of walking on the treadmill. Just get started. Then gradually you can increase the incline and gradually you can increase the speed. Before you know it, you're moving out a good clip.

And then his approach towards Arnold Schwarzenegger and LeBron J. James, take the attitude of an intern, always trying and working to prove yourself, regardless of previous success. Keep that attitude. I feel like that's what Adam's done. He shows up, he's kind, he's consistent, he does great work, he tries not to be greedy and he's generous, and then he keeps going on and on and on, and one can lead to the next, and you never know. You never know. He didn't realize the person he was speaking to at the gym was Arnold's chief of staff, but here we are. And I think if we create and make our job, default setting to be kind, to be consistent, to do great work, to not be greed, to be generous,

who knows what could happen. And that's how Adam has done a great job of making the most of the luck he's received. Once again, I would say thank you so much for continuing to spread the message and telling a friend or two. Hey, you should listen to this episode of The Learning Leaders Show with Adam Bornstein. I think it will help you become a more effective leader. And because you continue to do that, you continue to tell all your friends, you continue to go to ryanhawk.net, which will launch you into Apple Podcasts.

And once you're there, you write a thoughtful review and you rate the show, hopefully five stars. And by doing that, you are giving me the opportunity to do what I love on a daily basis. And for that, I will forever be grateful. Thank you so, so much. Talk to you too. Can't wait.