Success Formula Podcast

Overtraining Nearly Destroyed His Body and His $10M Business – Phil Daru

Success Formula Podcast Episode 110

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High performance comes down to one truth most people miss, that discipline and smart recovery beat raw hustle every single time. Performance coach Phil Daru joins Shawn Lynch to hand you the playbook elite athletes and successful entrepreneurs actually use, whether you run a business, train hard, or feel stuck in a cycle of burnout.

Phil Daru built Daru Strong by coaching UFC champions, NFL players, and tactical operators, and here he translates that same system into business leadership and everyday life. He and Shawn explore how overtraining and undereating quietly destroy performance, why consistency compounds into real results, and how to build order and virtue around your goals. They unpack decision fatigue, morning routines that set the day up, the danger of letting ego drive your choices, and the power of building a team of operators who are smarter than you. From combat sports recovery science to fail-forward lessons from a brutal 100-mile ruck, this episode is packed with mindset, strength-training wisdom, and entrepreneurial strategy you can apply right now.
If this resonates, subscribe to Official Success Formula so you never miss the insights that help you grow stronger in body, business, and mind. Tune in to the full podcast at the link below and check out Phil Daru's performance work and resources to take your own training further.

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SPEAKER_01

Most people say they want discipline, but they're avoiding the one thing that actually builds it.

SPEAKER_00

If you continuously think about something, your actions are gonna follow the thinking. If you keep going in evasive action, it's gonna end up being a habit.

SPEAKER_01

This one mindset shift could change your performance forever.

SPEAKER_00

You gotta sharpen the score. You can't just keep fighting.

SPEAKER_01

And Phil lays it out step by step in his podcast.

SPEAKER_00

Identify the problems, identify the limits. What are some things that are gonna stop you from getting to where you need to go? Then we can formulate a plan of action.

SPEAKER_01

If you think discipline is optional, that's exactly why you're doing it. Life in general is not a spring. It is innovative. Every day you wait, someone else out there is getting sharper, stronger, and more disciplined.

SPEAKER_00

That's why we're still able to work into it and be able to block out the moment to get the goal accomplished.

SPEAKER_01

If you are the person that's always telling yourself you're going to start tomorrow, then this podcast is gonna finally get you out from being stuck.

SPEAKER_00

And when you create those habits, then it becomes your character. And after character, well, that's your destiny.

SPEAKER_01

All right, so you have so much performance and combat training content that's out there already. So I definitely want to talk about it, but I want to talk about something that I think will be super helpful to the listener. And I've been obsessed with high performance my whole life, just whether it's you know training's a part of it, right? But then also just how you communicate, how you identity, habits, standards, everything. So I want to get into like the high performance side of life in general.

SPEAKER_00

For sure, because it all it all transfers over, it's all connected. Of course.

SPEAKER_01

You know, so first of all, just tell people who you are if they don't know your background, and then we'll we'll dive into it.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah, Phil DeRue, performance coach. I've been a performance coach for the past 20 years, played uh college football, transitioned into combat sports, professional fighter for eight years with American top team. And then from there, I was like, you know what? This wasn't gonna take me to the UFC, right? And concussions and all of that. So I was like, all right, I need to really focus on coaching. And I love coaching, right? Coaching to guide, to provide some type of information, leadership, right, and adjust the training to match the demands of the sport. So when I really started to get involved in coaching, it was around 19, 20 years old. I went to school for exercise exercise science, and I found that my true calling was to help others. And that's our purpose in life, right? It's to one, know and love God and to help others. So when I defined my talents and then I acquired the skills around the talents, it allowed me to help others in that way. Instead of me being selfless, trying to reach a goal. I think that fighting and competing is necessary to identify what you're worth, to identify your strengths, your weaknesses, your limitations, and how well and willing are you able to push past suffering. With that being said, it allowed me to be a better coach because I put myself into that situation. So, like yourself, with as a business owner, multiple businesses, you put yourself in it, right? So you are living what you talk about. And now that you're coaching and you're teaching others, you're coming from a place of know-how. And I think a lot of coaches need to understand that too, as well. But that's been my main goal is to again find ways for my ability to help others grow and evolve and progress in any fashion of the imagination. So whether they're an athlete, a CEO, an executive, soccer mom, doesn't matter, right? We want to get them willing and able to be the best person they can be.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah, I've I actually enjoy it a lot more than I thought I would because I was never just a natural coach or teacher or whatever. And then, you know, the education stuff, again, I I think I told you before we started, it was kind of a lost 18-year-old, you know, made a lot of bad mistakes, made a lot of bad decisions, partying, drinking, fighting. Um, I, you know, I was I was still doing my business, I was still like trying to get everything going, but um just being being lost that like that's what I don't want that to happen to anybody else. And so that's kind of my new that's my passion, I guess, is is coaching that age group, and then of course seeing my son and seeing the the way the education system is and trying to prevent him from being that way when he's 18, and then also not being entitled. Like me and my wife didn't grow up with anything, so scares the shit out of me to have him like grow up with his handout. Number one, like it's not gonna happen. Yep. And so, you know, we don't hand him anything. He's actually in a lot of fighting uh taekwondo uh MMA stuff, and then he also does boxing and a little bit of soccer, but I think if I would have done that when I was younger, I think it would have saved me from making a lot of those mistakes because I think it's just so valuable. You have no team, you have nobody helping you. And as a young man, just number one for confidence, but number two, just for discipline. So I have him in a lot of fighting stuff too, because I just think it's gonna be important. Well, you know, not that I want him to be a professional fighter, that's not really the goal.

SPEAKER_00

It's the discipline, yeah, right, to be a martial artist, right? And to learn how to adapt and evolve. I'll tell you this the moment I started really training consecutively and consistently, I stopped getting into any stupid like street fights, you know, that didn't matter. Because listen, I'm not gonna fight you. I have to fight somebody that's better than you in a in a cage or a ring every day.

SPEAKER_01

I look back and laugh. Like, I'm like, I again, another reason I put my kid in fighting, because if I would have been a trained fighter, I would have never gotten one fight. Not one. I would have laughed, it would have been a joke. But instead, you're just drinking young, uh terrible, terrible fighter, probably really, especially when you're drunk. And then when you think you're good though. Yeah, when you start when you start training, yeah, you're actually like number one, you have a lot more respect, you know, and a lot more discipline. And you don't even want to hit somebody. It's just it's it's so different. And then when you grow up without it, I mean you're a young man, you're trying to prove yourself for whatever reason, especially if you start hanging around the wrong people. Absolutely. And if you know, I think the training thing, you know, a little bit of it's discipline, but a lot of it's just like that grit and knowing how to fight and having confidence. It's just so helpful, just for a man for sure.

SPEAKER_00

Now, as far as, and this is a question for you. So when you decided to fully go all in on business, what were some of the things that you saw in yourself naturally, like your gifts, talent-wise? What were what were those things that allowed you to kind of go forward in the uh in the process?

SPEAKER_01

I would say for sure, I'm really good at just taking action and not knowing everything. Like I don't have to have a really perfect plan to do anything and really think things through. Like I'll just go and then I can always figure it out along the way. So I think that for sure. Like I would never get stuck of like, well, I need to figure this out and I need to read a little bit more, I need to do this. I'm like, I just need to do something and I'll figure it out. And I'm still that way to this day.

SPEAKER_00

It it goes a lot with your personality, right? Because you're willing to put yourself at risk for a high reward. And a lot of high achievers are in that same state. The problem is that they get after it, they keep going, and they they neglect to understand or fine-tune the details or identify their limiters. And so the biggest thing that I do when I start with any athlete or any any person I'm working with is we have to go through this framework that I've kind of adjusted over time, but assessing the situation, right? Assessing what is the main goal, what's the vision, what's the end result that you want to have. Then from there, we need to identify the problems, identify the limiters. What are some things that are gonna stop you from getting to where you want to go? Then we can formulate a plan of action, have a structured system. Now, obviously, you need to do the thing first because you won't identify what it is until you do it. Then from there, we need to fortify our mind and our body to get the goal accomplished because it's gonna take some hard work. And then you have to be consistent and you have to develop a solid routine to keep it disciplined and orientated to get you to that end goal.

SPEAKER_01

I would think that that's my second best skill is probably consistency. So, you know, when I do start something, I can be super consistent with it. Yeah, that's a access to my mind.

SPEAKER_00

That's a hundred percent an attribute that you've acquired because you know that if you stay consistent, you're gonna get the goals accomplished.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00

And it's one of those things where like the problem that a lot of people have is because once they start gaining some success, new opportunities come up. And so they get they get pulled in these different directions.

SPEAKER_01

That's hard for me too, though. 100%.

SPEAKER_00

Everybody, everybody, especially when you reach that level of success and you know that you can achieve it, and you're like, oh, this is this is a good idea, this is a good opportunity.

SPEAKER_01

I remember when I was in my 20s and I really when one of our first companies, I scaled it to 10 million, and I was buying all this real estate and flipping these houses and doing everything all at the same time, and everything was like successful. And I'm like, I'm a genius. And then I quickly found out like I started doing too much and lost a lot of money, and I was like, maybe I'm not smart.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah, well, you need you need to push yourself to a limit to where you have a 50-50 chance of this succeeding or not, right? Because if not, then you're kind of aiming too low, right? And if you're always successful, it's like fighters, they become better when they lose because they've learned, right? Some of the best fighters in the world, even John Jones, he's lost at certain points, not in the UFC, but he's lost in ways that now he needs to identify where where his limiters are. Maybe it's a character flaw. And if he can construct a new way of living, then he can be a better martial artist. So it's the same thing in life, right? So I look at, you know, I'm I'm a man of virtue. At the end of the day, I need to create order around my life. So having the proper arrangements of responsibilities, actions, and priorities. And if I can create order with virtue, it allows me to adjust, but it still keeps me focused on the main goal and I maintain my character. So when I think about things, one, if I you continuously think about something, your actions are gonna follow the thinking, the thought. If you keep going in an action set or in a base of action, it's gonna end up being a habit. And when you create those habits, then it becomes your character. And after character, well, that's your destiny, right? So at the end of the day, all these things need to be aligned. Whatever I'm thinking about, I want to make sure that it's positively aligned with my order and my virtues, right? And so you have to kind of fortify and also be prudent enough to withstand the noise. The best fighters that I've been able to work with know how to block out the noise to get the goal accomplished. If you're fighting in the UFC, there's a lot of things going on. And camp may last eight eight weeks, but there's never really an off-season. Just like in business, there's no off-season.

SPEAKER_01

And also the bigger you get, I mean, you're talking about media and having to watch like the social media stuff, the comments, the especially if you lose, man. Holy shit.

SPEAKER_00

To try to know what the everybody thinks they're an expert, right? Yeah. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01

Just for somebody to get past that, you know, you losing in the gym when you're like just starting a fighting is a lot different than you losing on like a sold-out UFC show, like nationwide TV, worldwide, and then every single station talking about you the next day. Like, I couldn't imagine. Like that would be a rough go of trying to like come out of that. And yeah, most people like, uh, you know, I'm gonna be better, I'm gonna come back. But like watching all that stuff has got to be super tough to come back from.

SPEAKER_00

It's tough.

SPEAKER_01

At first, like that first like month, I'm sure. And then you know, you start getting over it in your head. But I would imagine like just like the defeat of like trying to get through that, watching yourself on ESPN, all these people talking shit. You can't watch it. I can't.

SPEAKER_00

You gotta block it out. Even like, you know, doing these YouTube and watching these comments, stop looking at the comments. Like, yeah, you need to look at some of them so that you can identify where you're and some of it is constructive criticism, and that's okay. Because that allows you to, okay, maybe we need to fix certain, maybe the sound, maybe the audio, whatever it is, you know. Maybe it's my delivery. I don't know. And then from there, okay, that's good. But when it's just for the sake of them just bashing you, then you already know they're not coming from a place of understanding or trying to help you, right? So that's how you got to push it aside. I got, you know, some of my best fighters, you go on Twitter or X or whatever it's called, and they're like, ah, beat your ass. I'm like, bro, are you serious? Like, what are we talking about? This guy's a trained fighter. And even those guys get the, you know, get the commentary of, oh, you should have done this, you should have done that. You've never been in there, brother. Like, relax. You know, so like I would always look to one, when you lose, it's the best opportunity to grow. So immediately start to get back into the gym. And you notice people are more motivated to get back on their feet when they've gone through a difficult situation or a loss.

SPEAKER_01

Same in life. Exactly. Yeah, you like you have to start doing something again to dig yourself out of that like rut, you know, if you for a setback or a loss or a challenge or whatever it is.

SPEAKER_00

That's why we stay active, right? And that's why when you wake up, you have a routine, you physically move the body because it sets the day up, right? The other thing that I like to do is like prioritize the most important things in the beginning of the day because it sets that day up, right? So for you, I know that you wake up and you and you hit the you hit the weights or you're doing some type of conditioning, right? And that allows you to go through a little bit of suffering to know that you can handle the rest of the day because there is gonna be stresses and decisions that you have to make. But if you can one, extract all those decisions that you have to make, put it on paper, and then take out maybe three or four priorities that are gonna move the needle for you, now it becomes real and it's not just something in your head. And the problem with a lot of guys like yourself that I've worked with is that decision fatigue is real. And so if you can extract those, those thoughts, those ideas, and put them on paper and then figure out what is the best course of action. And then at the end of the day, if you can hit those goals, now you're achieving things each and every day, and it compounds over time. So when it comes down to a routine, move, right? First, get the blink, get get the body flowing, but get the brain working. Then write something down and then also read. Improve your knowledge on something that you want to get better on. It doesn't even need to be anything that's directly correlated to what you do, but it allows you open to open up the doors of you know, just being able to find new ideas, right? And then you could connect the dots because it allows you to be open, and that's how an artist flows. Because if you're rigid, you can't flow. It's like water, right? Like Bruce Lee said. But if I was rigid in my approach, then I'll never open up the doors to new opportunities and new ideas so that I can connect those dots. The best people know how to connect those dots.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah, that was always tough for me. Um I have to do something in the morning to just like get my day going, or I feel off already. I don't know. I'll just always have to like get the body moving. Even if I like walk or do something, like I can think a lot better. I feel like my best ideas are always like before 11 a.m. every single day. And then by the end of the day, I'm not that I'm like wore out and tired, but like you said, maybe decision fatigue, like where so much has happened, not really thinking creatively. I'm not really thinking in the morning is like my best time.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01

You know, during the workout, after the workout.

SPEAKER_00

Well, you're well rested, right? You're in a heightened well, your testosterone is it where it needs to be, right? You're right about peak testosterone about 10, 11 o'clock. Okay. So that's that makes sense. The other thing is that again, if you do get good sleep, now you your brain is functioning on a high level, right? So now you can think clearly, you can have better decisions. That's why I would say don't look at your emails, don't check your phone, don't do anything, anything like that until you have gotten the biggest things done that are going to help you scale and move faster. Then from there you can plug away at all the other things that you need to do.

SPEAKER_01

I've been trying to do that more and more where, you know, a lot of things happen during the day now because there's so much stuff going on. Yeah. And I try to say, okay, what are the things I need to do to get to my goal? And I only need to try to focus on these and knock these out the majority of the day, right? Like it's not always gonna happen like the full day, but like only focus on this stuff every single day and then get rid of all this other stuff. Yep. And that's been helping a lot. And it took me 20 years to kind of really learn that.

SPEAKER_00

But when you started to focus more on, I mean, you've you said you've always trained and lifted weights and things like that. When you started to really hone in, because we were talking about this off air, you started to hone in on just training for the sake of getting better. What opened up the doors? How did that open up the doors for you to be a better business owner, entrepreneur? Do you think that that had anything to do with it?

SPEAKER_01

Training's always been a big part of my life though. No matter since I was 18 years old, it probably kept me from when I said like drinking, partying, like fighting, doing that many that much stupid stuff, it probably kept me from like really going off the deep end. Yeah. Like because I would still like if I got too far off, I'd be like, I have to go work out, I have to do this. Not that I was working out like that consistently, but it's still in my mind, I would never just not do it. And so it really like has been a major part of my life. And I mean, since I started my business, I started when I was 19. So not that I was training the way I am now, you know. I think once I started really adding in the recovery is where it made the most difference in the rest of my day, in the rest of my business decisions. Before I didn't know anything about it, you're young bodybuilder magazines, you just want to gain muscle and probably drinking too much caffeine, and you know, of course, just not, yeah, just getting fatigued that way. And then now, you know, because I ran myself into the ground when I was 36 and like I didn't know what was wrong with me. I thought something was seriously wrong. I didn't know what recovery was. I didn't know I was doing too much. I thought I was just like being a pussy really. Like I would just try to make myself wake up and go work out. No matter how I felt, no matter how hard like my muscles were sore, no matter how tired I was, no matter how much brain fog I had, I was like, I would make myself go. And I didn't know that you were like as I was getting older, um, the recovery mattered that much. I just didn't know anything about it. I had never met a trainer that had helped me through that. And so I was just doing heavy Olympic movements, a lot of weightlifting and boxing same day, seven days a week.

SPEAKER_00

Did you feel like you were regressing? Yes, big time.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah. And of course, performance started going down. But then again, I'm just like, you know, not thinking I'm training too much. I don't know why. Like I was like addicted to it or something. And thinking if I like, if you would have just taken a day off, you would get better. But I didn't think that way. I'm like, I thought I was like losing ground. And then couple that with under-eating, you know, I didn't know it at the time. I was eating enough for a normal person, maybe a little bit more than a normal person, but not somebody training twice a day, heavy movements, boxing hour in a concrete gym with no AC. Like, I I probably my sodium was probably zero. I don't know. It was really bad looking back. And so when I fixed the recovery part, I think that's what helped me in my business career and just the decisions in my family and everything. Yeah. Like making that part of my life made me have way more energy, made me think better. And I wish I would have known when I was in my 20s.

SPEAKER_00

But well, the reason why I say that is because you answered the question that I wanted to really get out was the fact that you trained, right? That's that's inevitable. You're gonna do something physically active and you're gonna push your body. The thing that you didn't have, you you had that limiter of I'm doing too much and I need to pivot and I need to auto-regulate and I need to adjust and be dynamic with my training, with my recoverability, because it allows me to keep growing. You gotta sharpen the sword, right? You can't just keep fighting. And so when you can take a step back and understand where are those gaps in the system, now you become better off from it. And now you can even bring that to what you're doing with your businesses and with the education because now you can teach that to others. So the biggest thing, especially with me, man, even in your 20s, you're in a this warrior state, right? You're just go, go, go, yeah. And you and that has to be done at some point, right? Even with fighting, I'll take back, I'll I'll I'll come back to this. When you're 19, 20, 21, like you're training three times a day and you're doing that consistently for six, seven days a week, literally, right? And you don't know what you don't know, right? And so you're constantly digging yourself deep into a hole. And so that's fine, and you need to know where your limit is. But once you find that limit, you need to taper off and then start to develop a new strategy so that you can consistently grow. Now, life in general is not a straight linear path. You know that it's undulations, it goes up and down. But if we can stay consistent with our approach, those dips and those highs won't be as drastic. And so again, you'll have undulations, but it's not this up and down ebbs and flows type of momentum.

SPEAKER_01

What I feel like I've finally made it to. Like the with what I was telling you, my schedule, like just the amount of uh enough recovery and then just the amount of like heavy, heavy training with the intensity. If I go, try to go more than what I'm doing now, I'll hit one of those. Like, not that up, it'll I'll just be starting getting tired toward the end of the week, won't be able to think as good. And so if I do too much now, and I don't know if it was because I ran myself in the ground that hard and like I was really messed up for a couple of years, and it like makes it easier to get back to that now. It feels like that, or I don't know if it's just because I'm older. But if I do too much now, I can definitely feel it like immediately, like later that day.

SPEAKER_00

And that comes back to formulating a plan, right? So you want to get to a point where you're creating some type of adaptation, right? You need to create some suffering in order to create that evolution, right? Of your being. The problem is that people tend to push a little bit too far and then go over the edge. So we want to get to a point where we can be adaptable, but you need to manage fatigue across the board because stress is systemic. So from psychological stress, physical stress, mental stress, all that will be accumulated over time. So when you need to take a break, even from your daily work, take a few days off, go out there on in your great area that you have out there, and just be focused on now. Don't worry about tomorrow. Don't worry about yesterday. Just focus on being present. That's one thing that I've realized. And because I have a family, I need to be present in real time. Otherwise, I'm doing them a disservice. So as a leader, in order for me to sharpen my sword, I need to step away from the battlefield and be a general and oversee all of the land when I can get out of the war zone. And so with any entrepreneur, with any executive, with any leader, take yourself out of the battle for a few days so that you can oversee the lay of the land and then create a better opportunity for the people that you're leading.

SPEAKER_01

Whenever people used to tell me that, it's like I'd never felt stressed out because it was always felt normal to me. So like just in general during the day, business stress, things going wrong, um, pressure. Like that didn't feel stressful, but I I mean, now looking back, I know it was. And then on top of the training and everything else, but it never felt like stress to me. But I'm sure I was like high stress state 24-7 all the time between work and training.

SPEAKER_00

Well, that's where those objective and subjective indicators, like we talked about, come into play, right? So identifying your readiness, right? Utilizing now we can use tech to be an objective indicator, right?

SPEAKER_01

What are the best things aware? So I that's the only thing I don't like. I do everything as far as the recovery and the hyperbaric chamber and all this stuff, but I don't I don't track anything.

SPEAKER_00

There's three common things that you can use from an objective standpoint, right? I use Whoop, but you can use any type of HRB monitor, right? Heart rate variability. And you want variance in your heart rate. That's going to showcase if you are in a stress state or in a restful state. You have your parasympathetic and your sympathetic, right? When you're highly cortisol driven, and like let's just say your cortisol is high and you have to do high amounts of decision making and you're physically active, your stress is going to accumulate. Now, stress is good for an adaptation, but let's just say chronic stress over time will degrade you. It will decrease your ability to do the work. So we want to have that in line, right? So now when you look at an HRV monitor, you want to be as high as you need to be to go through the daily task. Another thing that you can look at is morning heart rate, right? If your morning heart rate at baseline jumps up about eight to 10 beats, well, now you need to figure out a way to adjust. Maybe bring down some volume, maybe take a day off, something of that nature, or just take the morning off. Another thing that you use is grip strength. A lot of people don't know that, right? Getting a dynamometer and actually utilizing your grip strength because the stronger you are, the more force production you can have that shows readiness in life, right? So simple test, you know, you you let's say your baseline is like 120 pound of force. Let's say you're down 10% or even 5%, that's going to give you a good indication that maybe you need to taper off that day. Another thing that you can do is actually you have a cold plunge, right? Dip your hand in a cold plunge to the wrist, right? If your heartbeat spikes within a minute, 10 beats, that's another indication that you're highly stressed out.

SPEAKER_01

Okay.

SPEAKER_00

So those three, those four things really will be the best thing that you could do to allow yourself to adjust. And then we talked about like, yes, sometimes you need to push through, but sometimes you need to pivot around, right? So the goal is the goal. The end vision is where it is. There's gonna be roadblocks. And those roadblocks are gonna be stressed, they're gonna be some, you know, maybe it's uh that's an issue or a pain point that you have to get over. In times, yes, you're gonna have to create some type of fortitude to go past it, right? If you're willing and physically and physiologically prepare to do so, right? But if you're not physically or physiologically prepared, then you have to pivot and make sure that you're still maintaining progress with the state that you're in. Another thing from a subjective standpoint is waking up, are you sore? Are your muscles sore? Are you fatigued? Do you feel like full body fatigue, right? Do you feel brain fog? Do you feel like your digestion is off? Right? That's another one. And then let's just say, for instance, if you go into the gym, right? Maybe now you're lifting and the weight that you lifted was from a rate of perceived exertion standpoint, from a scale to one to ten, it was a seven last week or the day before. That same exercise or that same movement with that same weight is now a 10. Well, now you know that because that effort is higher, there's something going on with the physiology that you need to taper off. And then the biggest thing is going to get your lap, get your labs done, like really identify what's going on physiologically in a deeper level.

SPEAKER_01

I do that once a quarter. Yeah, that's good. So ever since I ran myself in the ground, like that all that stuff is perfect. I guess the only thing I just don't do outside of all that is just the tracking.

SPEAKER_00

Daily tracking is is paramount, right?

SPEAKER_01

I didn't want the sleep thing because I'd probably get obsessed about it. And then I would wake up and be like, man, I didn't get good sleep. And I would I feel like thinking about it. I've never done it. It's like that messed up my day. Yeah, but then I'm like, then I'm like always thinking about it. So yeah, that's why I never pulled the trigger. I was like, do I need one more thing to like just get obsessed about?

SPEAKER_00

That's true. And I've had that happen too as well. What I would say is use it for a month or two just to identify where you can remember when I talked about being able to draw parallels between your objective indicators and your subjective indicators. So like knowing how you feel in like a low HRV, like obviously you need to be in tune with your body, right? So at that point, now you don't need the tech, and now you can just focus on how you feel. And so that's really it's a really good way to not fight against the the tech, right? Now, if you're somebody like myself, I don't I'm confident and I'm at ease when let's say I'm in the red. Like so you have three levels, right? If especially if you're doing a whoop, uh whoop has red, yellow, and green, just like stoplight. If I'm in the red, well, I'm not gonna be egocentric and go, I'm just gonna push past it because I know that if I keep doing that, then I won't be able to do the things necessary for the days to come. So I have to be, I guess I have to be a little bit more conscientious and consistent with my thought process and stop letting the ego drive me past a certain level, right? Um that's a part of growing up, right? Right. So when you get to a point like you have, even though yes, you should push yourself when the time comes, when you're 100%, if if it's green, right, then push the pedal down. If it's in the yellow, taper off 15%. If it's in the red, still do something. Just don't go as hard as you would if you were fully ready to go. And so maybe that's going for a walk, going for a rug, going for a hike, moving your body. Maybe it's a rehabilitation day, maybe it's a rehab day, right? You're still training even when you're recovering. You're just setting yourself up for success down the line.

SPEAKER_01

Hey everyone, real quick, I just want to let you know this podcast is 100% independent. No ads, no sponsors, just real. If you're finding value in whatever we're doing here, the biggest help that you can give us is hitting subscribe and sharing this with someone who you think needs to hear it or someone that it will provide value to. That's how we continue to grow. And if you did that, I would really appreciate it. It took me 20 years to realize, you know, to mix in the recovery, because I did what you did is like I, you know, when you're young, you're I would tell myself that, oh, you're just being, you know, a pussy. Just get up, like keep going, you're just sore. But I mean like a whole but my whole body's sore, like like you said, like fatigued and brain fog. And I'd feel good for the first hour, you know, like right when I push myself, but then the rest of the day was just like I'm falling apart.

SPEAKER_00

Well, at that point, you go, all right, what can I do now that is going to help me prepare for the next day to come or the days to come? And you're not gonna sit in bed, you're just not that type of person. All right, go for a walk, get a massage, go do some mobility work, right? Stretch. You're still doing something physically active. So you're still progressing towards the end goal, right? The problem is that we feel like we have to get after it and we have to feel like we're gonna die in order for us to gain progress, right? So you have your adaptability, but then you also have what we call a law of accommodation, right? You keep doing things over and over again, you're actually gonna get worse, right? And if you keep stressing the body out in a particular fashion, yeah, then you take steps back. And now at this point, you're losing progress.

SPEAKER_01

I felt so bad that I thought like I had a terminal illness or something like that. Like that's how that's how bad I felt. So I was going to all these regular doctors, just being like, man, something's wrong with me. Like, I I, you know, I can't even really think right. I feel like I'm dreaming during the day. Like I felt so cloudy that I felt like I was dreaming. Yeah. And so they sent me to all these neurologists, did all my blood worker, like, well, you're pretty like healthy young man. I'm like, no, something's wrong with me. Like, I wouldn't be here if it wasn't. Which is crazy. But I felt that that's how bad I felt that I think I had been doing it for so long, just finally got to a point where like it was just my really messed up my hormones, number one for sure. And then probably cortisol and all this other stuff, adrenal glands.

SPEAKER_00

Well, you said it too. It's like your nutrition was off, right? You probably weren't eating enough. Right. You probably at that point you probably weren't drinking enough water, staying with the electrolytes too as well. And you weren't getting quality labs done, right? So you weren't seeing everything. They probably ran a basic C blush.

SPEAKER_01

No, when I was feeling my worst, I I was going to traditional doctors, so they would just run the traditional panel, right? And then be like, hey, yeah, you're okay. I'm like, oh, something's up.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah. And you found out low T and that finally, yeah, that was part of it, right?

SPEAKER_01

Just one little small piece. So it did help a little bit, but then super low vitamin D and like all these other things. I did a genetic test, um, you know, and then whenever we fixed a lot of the methylation stuff, that actually helped a little bit. Like all but all of it together, like each piece like made me feel better and better. And then I'm like, what can I add on? Oh, no, what can I add on? Cold plunge, what can I add on peptide? What can I add on hyperbaric chamber? And then it's like, so like I I've I continued to add and I've got to the point where I feel really good most of the time. Like my my schedule's good, uh, all my recovery is good. But now, like we were talking before, it's like, what cognitive thing could I add to increase performance just for the day? Again, more just to like make my day better. Number one, for work, but also my family when I come home. I mean, we're old parents now. So, you know, I got to keep up. So I'm trying to like, I want to have better mental performance along with physical, of course, but it not that I'm like going to try to train to do you know, a marathon or or a high rocks or something. I'm like, I just want to be in shape and I want to feel good all the time.

SPEAKER_00

Do you feel like you would be in a good position to compete in something? Would it, would it, would it change your perspective on your daily activity? No. Good. That's fine. Some people need that though.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah, see, I don't need a goal to go like I I know some people like that too. It's like, oh, I'm gonna compete in this thing. Yeah, and then they go real hard all the way up to that thing. Like, I I'm trying to go like that all the time, um, to a point, to a limit.

SPEAKER_00

No, I don't think it's omnipresent throughout your life.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah, yeah. I don't wanna I I don't have to go and compete anything anymore. And I was sparring for a while and not that I wanted to go like be a fighter at all, but just for the challenge. But I kind of also backed off that too. Again, I'm like, I don't need to be like sparring all the time either. It's probably not the greatest thing for the rest of my life. Although I was sparring with older guys, so it's not like they were trying to kill each other. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00

Well, the sparring is good. I mean, you the biggest thing that you're gonna get, as long as you're not getting hit in the head hard or anything like that, even body sparring, right? Because the biggest thing that we lose a lot of the time, well, we lose a lot of things when we get older, but you we lose coordination, we lose power production, we lose speed, we lose accuracy, we lose precision, right? All those things are gonna be helpful when you're doing something with an opponent that is making it chaotic, right? So you have to adjust in real time, which again, you have to do that in life. So when things come at you, when a punch comes at you, let's say a difficult situation or a problem that you have to solve, you're you're able to shift your weight and then attack, right? So when you look at um when it let's just say, for instance, like in business, right? You need to set your KPIs, right? So what are those key performance indicators that you're gonna set for yourself physically and just from a performance standpoint? Doing this for 20 years, bro, like honestly, performance is never just physical, right? It's physiological, it's psychological, it's it's environmental, and it's spiritual. So if you don't have those things in line, again, we go back to order and virtue. If those things aren't aligned, then you're not gonna have dominion over your life. Now, you gotta be strong mentally, physically, whatever. Now, strength from a science perspective is or from a definition, you would say is create force and absorb force. But it's also how you manage pain and how you can go through suffering. That's how you're going to indicate how strong you actually are. Now, with strength and order, again, you will be in direct dominion for your life. If those two are off, let's say you have order without strength, it collapses. Strength without order is chaotic. So when you have those two in alignment, then you will have better understanding of how you can pursue your purpose. What you're doing now is now you're identifying those limiters that are going to take you to the next level. And I see that not only with guys like yourself, but even down to young kids, because they don't know what they don't know. And so we have to now we can adjust and teach them the right way, as you're doing through your education, right? We're getting them to a point where they have an upper hand on where we were when we were younger because we didn't have this information. We didn't have people that could guide us and mentor us. So that's our goal as leaders, as mentors, is we have to be able to create that type of environment and information that is easily digestible for the younger individual so that they can be better off. And then we can create, I hate the word legacy, but we can create some level of yeah. I mean, I would say that like you can be a better educator, you can be a better human entirely. As men, we are set as protectors. So how do we protect? We need to give them the tools necessary to to survive. Whether that be through business, whether that be through wealth, whether that be through physical you know, altercations that they can either adjust or have to go through, defend themselves at the right times. A lot of times young kids don't have that, especially young boys growing up now. So that's the big problem.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah, the the the discipline things probably one of the hardest things when you're a young man. That's why troubled kids when they go to the military, it's like kind of straightens out their life. It's almost like you have to have discipline when you're a man for sure. Uh and you're you're you know, you're trying to figure out the world. Like that's that's like the main thing. If you have that, you'll most likely be successful, you know, in life in general.

SPEAKER_00

And what do they do in in especially in the military? I work with a lot of tier one guys, I work with a lot of military operators and even law enforcement, and they have a briefing every day of what their goal is, but they also want to make sure that they're mitigating risk. So you have to fine-tune the details in order for you to adjust and and and do your thing. Another thing, you know, when you're looking at it is like if I'm gonna go ahead and uh attempt a certain task, I have to check the boxes on these tasks. Like, for instance, so I did a hundred-mile ruck uh last year, right? And before that, the year before, I attempted it and I failed. And then I failed because my body just broke down, right? I wasn't prepared accordingly. Like I only ran, and this is tough to say, but I only really did like 12 miles preparing for this first attempt because I was confident, but my confidence led to arrogance and I didn't prepare accordingly. So then I learned from that loss. I ended up getting rabbed though, and my feet were torn apart.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah, that I feel like that's why I don't want to try to do something like that. Because I'll try to finish, but I'll I'll really mess myself up.

SPEAKER_00

100%. So, like at that point, I had a decision to make. I'm laying in the hospital bed and I'm going, listen, I can let this drag me down, let this be an issue, just like losing a fight. No, I went back to the drawing board and I said, okay, we're gonna take a year, we're gonna readjust, we're gonna reassess, we're gonna plan and prepare accordingly. I'm gonna get a better team, I'm gonna have a better structured understanding of how I need to protect myself, I need to protect my feet, I need to get some sleep, and I need to fuel up appropriately, right? And then again, stop trying to finish fast. It's an ultra marathon, really, at the end of the day. So let's take our time.

SPEAKER_01

How long does that take to finish?

SPEAKER_00

So I did 20 miles a day for five days, and I did it with a 50-pound pack. So before though, I did 70 pounds and I try to get it done. I try to get 150 miles done in three days. So I was trying to do 50 miles a day. Yeah. By 51 miles, I had I was 60 hours no sleep, 31 plus hours on my feet. My feet were torn apart because I didn't have the proper shoes. We didn't have the proper, you know, we just nothing was going right. I I I sprinted for the first five miles, right? Typically, you don't want to sprint with 70 pounds on your back. Yeah. Especially with shoes that aren't fit for the job, right? And um I said, I need to slow down, I need to steady my pace. Life in general is not a sprint, it is a marathon. But you'd be consistent, and there's gonna be parts where you do need to speed up and slow down. There's gonna be parts where you need to adjust, sharpen the sword. And we did that. And so I had a great team around me. Americ Health helped me out a lot too as well by that. I was able to adjust my medical. So we had nurses, we had medical staff, they were able to take care of my feet. And I didn't want to worry about the hundred mile. I didn't want to worry about the end goal. I wanted to just go through the process and just focus on that process. One foot in front of the other, 10 miles at a time, take a one hour break, and then do another 10 miles. And each day I did that.

SPEAKER_01

What is the like the the food and the hydration side look like to finish it each day? Like what do you Yeah. So we how many calories are you shooting for? Is there a certain amount of like carbs? Like, for sure. What are you trying to do to finish it?

SPEAKER_00

Well, you're definitely eating throughout the process, right? So for me, I have a rough time eating in general, right? Because I'm always on the go. But typically with that, I'm losing at least 6,000 to 8,000 calories a day. Yeah. Right. So you need to eat while you're while you're moving. And so it's not gonna be the most, maybe not the cleanest food in the world, but you need the calories.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00

So a lot of carbohydrates, some some proteins too as well, right? To maintain that muscle mass for energy too, and then also some fats to just maintain just hormonal balance, you know, but mostly it's gonna be carbohydrates, right? And so it's gonna be faster absorbing carbohydrates so that your body doesn't feel like a rock is in your stomach. So that could be anything like, you know, we did we actually did uh incrustibles, believe it or not, right? Because they were the the easiest thing for me to get down while I was walking and I digested it quickly. We used some brand cyclic dextrin or some cluster dextrin too as well. I was fine. Amino acids, right? Essential amino acids. From a supplementation standpoint, creatine monohydrate was previo uh prevalent. Um, and I got IV treatment too as well. So I had two bags of IVs, yeah, right, and a complete amino mix. So we had all the aminos in there, and I would do two bags uh in uh it would say mid mid uh mid-10 years, so is it 10 miles and edited two bags of IVs every day. And that's how I got through it.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah, that's insane.

SPEAKER_00

Obviously, I I ate, you know, had a full dinner after that, you know, protein and carb heavy and made it through.

SPEAKER_01

What does a high performer look like outside of training?

SPEAKER_00

There's no real outside of training. And I mean that by like I said, even your recovery is training. Right? So mentally they're still locked in, but even when they're disconnected from the actual event, they're still training. Whether that be mindfulness practices, breath work protocols, right? You could do some meditation, you know, again, mobility, flexibility, and creating a team around you that can guide you in the right direction like you're doing now.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah, it took me a long time to but because I didn't I just didn't have access to the information or I just wasn't around the right people at the time. And then a lot, I think a lot of new there's so much stuff out and data that there wasn't 20 years ago too that is available. But yeah, I wish I would have known this earlier in life. It's amazing.

SPEAKER_00

Well, that's why we look at like high performing athletes nowadays and they're just so uh they're they're so further along than champions in the past, right? You look at even they say, well, Muhammad Ali never did any of this stuff. Well, how good would he be if we did have all this stuff? It would be crazy, right? Because all he did was run. All he did was road work. You know, and they're like, Well, if he did it, he was great. And I was like, Yeah, but this isn't then. Like, put him in a in a in a proper environment and watch him, watch his skill and his natural talent exceed beyond belief.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah, there's so much data and stuff now that you can track and just perform and get better and better and better.

SPEAKER_00

From a combat sport perspective, it's it has gotten better. Right. When I started this thing, when I was fighting, you know, 20 or 2009, we didn't have any of this. So it was just me trying to figure it out. You know, now that we have like things like the UFC Performance Institute and other smart, very intelligent people way smarter than me, are getting into the sport, they're able to really adjust the training process and do it from a more strategic and scientific approach. But I still believe that, yes, there there is some merit to experience, right? And coaches that have that experience, they know how to push an athlete from a communitative standpoint because that's a big factor, right? When I'm bringing on a new team member or I'm talking to an athlete, I need to figure out their why. I need to figure out who they are as a person, right? And so when you, let's just say you're bringing on a new employee, right? You need to know who they are, right? And this takes time. And then from that conversation that you have, you create a relationship. And so that allows them to trust you because they're not gonna care how much you know until they know how much you care. And so the biggest thing is like that's where we have to basically peel back the layers like an onion and get to the root cause or the root ideal situation for them. What's their true why? What's their purpose that they feel that they will be fulfilled in life? And no matter what, our goal is to be happy in life, right? And what I look at is when I'm in pursuit of that happiness, I need to have fulfilling work. I need to be confident in my abilities and be motivated through that confidence and be capable of doing the thing. But I also need to be at the end of it, I need to be satisfied throughout the days. What is satisfaction? Well, again, it's similar to being proud of yourself. I just like the word satisfaction better because it's not about me, it's about everyone around me, and I can be selfless in my approach because my ultimate goal is to know God, love God, and help others. So when I'm satisfied with the work that I've done, and it accumulates and it just compounds over time. So our biggest fear is to leave this earth that we're living unfulfilled. And if you leave it soon or like you have other things that you want to accomplish, let's just face it, the fear of death basically stifles everyone, right? And because of the fact that maybe it's not because you know you just are a coward, right? You won't go through an action that may cause some significant damage. It's because you don't want to leave the people behind that you are leading because you have unfinished business. So what I would do is I would say make sure that you're taking care of that, so that every day that you lay your head on that pillow, you know that you gave everything you possibly could that day. And then you do that every freaking day.

SPEAKER_01

That's what I try to do.

SPEAKER_00

That's it, man.

SPEAKER_01

It's I mean, it's it's still hard, you know. So, you know, sometimes I think that you know, you get you second guess yourself sometimes and and but it every single day, especially now that I have a family, I think it changed a little bit more where, like you said, you're trying to be the best leader, you know, um, and be the best role model, like pretty much every single day, not only in your business, but now you know, for your kids for sure, because man, they it takes about six to eight months, but they do everything that you end up doing. Yeah, but it takes so long that people don't realize like when you tell your kid to do something, they don't really respond right. But my kid sees every single thing that I do, and then he started eating good, and then he started like just recently, he's like, I came home and he had a bowl and he put ice in it and he put his face in it. I'm like, where did he? He's like, I'm just trying to be strong like you, dad. Yeah, that's cool. But he's been seeing me do that for three years, and he just now started doing it. So, you know, definitely I I already live like how I wanted them to live, but I know how important it is too of like taking action and and them seeing me do that.

SPEAKER_00

You lead by example, yeah.

SPEAKER_01

It's it it's extremely important. And now that I see them, again, it's like you don't notice it every day because you're doing these things every day, and it takes them a long time to change, and then just one day you're like, Man, I don't know. He's doing exactly the stuff that like I've been doing for the last six months.

SPEAKER_00

I stopped, I stopped trying to talk about what you need to do, yeah, and I just do it. Yeah. And like if you keep them around, which I see that you have, yeah, naturally they're gonna pick it up because you're their hero, right?

SPEAKER_01

Trying to be for sure.

SPEAKER_00

You you are as long as you maintain that character that you have for yourself and you you live in that order and virtue, there's no choice but to do that, you know. And again, we're all gonna mess up. We're not perfect, nobody is. You know, there's gonna be temptations and there's gonna be things that you want to deviate from from the actual character, but again, don't let that be a constant thing. So you have to check yourself. And I do it all the time. Again, I'm not perfect, right? And there's certain ways like that's a that's the mental wrestling that you go through on a daily basis. Is this the right thing to do at the right time?

SPEAKER_01

I think it goes back to discipline. There's that one video that's I I still watch it all the time and I post it every once in a while where Kabib is talking about discipline. Yeah, it's like so great. But it's like he he I forget every part of it, but he said, you know, if you want respect in life, it's like it's it's discipline that that earns it, right? And then if you want confidence and if you want, you know, uh to be better for your family, and he's like naming all these things, and it's like always goes back to discipline. It always does.

SPEAKER_00

It makes life it honestly makes life a lot simpler, not easier, but simpler. Yeah, right. When you have a clear goal and you have those, those un like those steps to towards the process, and you just maintain that process. Like I said, you're not gonna not brush your teeth, bro. If you make it a routine, it becomes discipline.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00

And then those habits just compound over time. So you naturally become disciplined because you don't know any other way. You've been training all your life. So you getting into the gym is it's discipline for sure, because some days you don't want to do it, but you do it anyways, as long as like we talked about making sure that you deviate if you need to. But again, it becomes a part of your lifestyle. My lifestyle is uh predicated towards being the best version of myself. And so how do I do that? Well, I gotta I gotta make sure that I'm I'm praying up, I'm maintaining a level of understanding of what I need to do, meaning, do I need to gain new information, right? Do I need to read certain things? Do I need to connect the dots on those? Do I need to move my body? It's because I want to look and feel physically fit, right? This is my life, this is what I do. Some people don't have that and they have to adopt it. And it takes time, right? Because for me and you, we know how to be physical, right? For most people, they don't know. It's easier for them to sit on the couch, get on the computer, make a few thousand dollars and be like, oh, I did my job. No, you didn't. You didn't finish the task because you still have other things that are going to help you be a better person. You may be a better businessman, you may be a better leader, maybe your business is booming, but your physical work, your physiology isn't up to par.

SPEAKER_01

That always catches up with people, though. That works for a little while and then over time. That's when they call me. Hey everyone, real quick, I just want to let you know this podcast is 100% independent. No ads, no sponsors, just real. If you're finding value in whatever we're doing here, the biggest help that you can give us is hitting subscribe and sharing this with someone who you think needs to hear it or someone that it will provide value to. That's how we continue to grow. And if you did that, I would really appreciate it. Look, look at the what what's the guy, the don't die guy? Um, Brian Johnson. Well, is it Brian Johnson? But he he was kind of he's like far extreme from what he was, right? He's like, I didn't even really want to live, I had all this money, and I was like, but he got to a point where he didn't have any discipline and he was just feeling like shit all the time, and then started doing stuff that made him feel better, and then got into like living longer, and then of course took it to the extreme, right? More than anybody else did. But he was at the other end of the extreme, like his whole life, up until you know what, 10 years ago or 15 years ago, or whenever I guess he sold Venmo.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah, yeah. He gets a lot of slack. I would say this, he a lot of people would say this is no way to live because you know. But here's the thing.

SPEAKER_01

I mean, if he if if if he if he was where he was before, that was way worse than what he's doing now. Like if people were saying, Well, that's no way to live, it's also because they wouldn't want to do it.

SPEAKER_00

Sure. But I would say this. I would say if he's in pursuit of happiness and he feels fulfilled, that's what I'm saying. No more power to win it, brother. And everybody's different, right? Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_01

Like everybody has things that they like really enjoy or want to do. And just that's the difference with like there's so many different people and so many different, like what you talked about earlier, being fulfilled in life. Like that's everybody's goal, right? To be happy and be fulfilled. And then whatever creates that is different for everybody.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah, yeah. And you know, weight training or something like that may not be that peop that person's thing. It's okay. Go do a martial art, go do yoga. I don't care what you do. Just do something that is gonna plug those gaps. And if you can do that, then you are winning. You know, success can be many things, right? And you can tie it back to money and fame or whatever the case. But I I truly believe that if you're living through your purpose, you're successful, and you have love, not only for yourself, but and people have love for you, then you've done everything or you were in the pursuit of everything that you need to do once you leave this earth, right? I look at it like, all right, what am I willing to live for? What am I willing to die for? What am I willing to kill for? And if that is circulating around what my actions are each and every day, well then that's exactly what I need to be doing, right? Because you have a higher level of motivation and inspiration when it's not just about you. And the thing with you talk about with the the marathon, the the hundred miles, it wasn't just about me. Because if it was the first sign of pain, I'd be like, uh, maybe I'll take it, you know. Now, I'm not a pussy by any means. But at the end of the day, I'm if I'm looking out for myself, then I'm gonna go, all right, well, this hurts. It's uncomfortable. Why am I doing this? Then I have to go back to, oh, I need to do this for two, well, three reasons, really. One is because at the end of this thing, I can glorify God because he got me through this situation. So it's a higher, higher purpose, higher reason. Second thing, we were trying to raise funds, with which we did raise funds for the military veterans, right? And we did a good job with that. And then the the last thing was to showcase that you can fail forward. Because I failed a year ago because I didn't have all those things in line. But when you can organize a proper plan of action, then you can exceed your expectations because you put the work in. So there were three major factors there, which allows you to do anything in life. This is just one thing, but like that's how I attack everything.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah, most people's most people's problem is their actions don't match like the goals that they're setting for themselves, right? They settle, they say they want to do all this stuff, but they don't perform any of the actions needed to do all that stuff. It's easy to say it. I know. And I think that that's the majority of people. Yeah, because they're not performing the right actions. You know, it's like, hey, I want to achieve this. It's like, well, okay, well, how are you gonna do it? Or how how how are you gonna get there? And then, well, you know, today I only did 30 minutes of it. And it's like that's the majority of people's problems that aren't high performers, is like they just their actions don't match what they're trying to do in life or their goal to they set for themselves, uh, even short-term and long term.

SPEAKER_00

You know, in business, and you know this very well, you have like your creatives and you have your visionaries, and then you have your operators, right? Now, in the beginning stages of your of your business, you need to be both, right? So, like you, you're like, I have an idea, I'm gonna put it into action, right? And then I'll figure it out. Eventually, you get to a point where you need to have a partner that's going to go, all right, I have all these ideas and I want to put this in action. How can I do this at a high level and allow them to take my ideas and put it in the direct action that is appropriate for scalability, right? Or whatever it is. That's hard to find. And a lot of entrepreneurs struggle with that, right? Because they have all of these ideas that are great and in their mind it's the best thing ever, but it may not be the right moment in time for that particular idea to come to fruition. So always have a team, always have somebody there that you can trust that can understand you, and then you guys can work together cohesively to build a higher level of being, right? And that's why I, again, where a coach comes into play, it's accountability, it's organizing your goals and your aspirations, and then fine-tuning the details. And then, okay, this is how we're gonna get there. And we could work together in tandem to get that and goal accomplished, right? When you started doing this podcast, you can't just do it alone, but you still needed to do something. Maybe you need to get on your phone. I don't know how you started the podcast, but like maybe sometimes it is a selfie video.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah, we started it like this.

SPEAKER_00

Yes, well, you had a lot of people.

SPEAKER_01

Well, no, because I I was like, if I'm gonna do it, like I'm gonna I wanna do it right and I won't ever quit, right? Might take five years, it might take 10 years. Yep. Um, you know, but the goal with education stuff was to, you know, hopefully disrupt that at some point in in in some way, shape, or form. And, you know, I knew it would take a long time, but I was like, you know, we're gonna start it right. Called Brian, he used to do a lot of stuff for my wife, and I was like, hey, let's do it. We're not, I'm they they know I won't quit. Yeah. So um I kind of I didn't start it with a selfie. I just was like, we're going. And I was like, I did it all all in.

SPEAKER_00

Now you knew though that you needed that help. Yeah. Right? Which is good. A lot of people can't do that, they can't admit that they do need that help, right? Especially for people like us when we're like, yeah, it's just driven, we want to do everything.

SPEAKER_01

It took me 20 years to learn that. Like my my biggest mistake in in my business career was trying to do everything myself for sure. Um, you know, not thinking people couldn't do the job as good as me. And so you do end up doing a lot of stuff half-assed, and you actually end up getting kind of burned out because you're not doing the thing that you actually enjoy, anyways, like on the business, you're doing all this accounting, all this bookkeeping and you know, packing orders in the warehouse, just like a lot of things that are just so stupid that I did for so long. And it it took me 20 years. And then when I started hiring the right people, and like I I've never made more money, I've never made more, I've I've never had less stress because I get to do all the things that I want to do during the day, and I'm not like doing a hundred things in the business that I don't want to do. And it allows me to scale a lot bigger, right? Because all these people probably are better operators than me for sure. Um, or or you know, I've never was that great. My wife's an amazing operator, and I'm more on the visionary side, you know, setting a goal, pushing the team to get there. But as far as like the day-to-day operations, it's not something I want to do. And whenever I got out of my own way, everything actually worked out a lot better. And not not that I everyone has to do it to yourself for a little while. I'm not saying you just start and hire all this team. It's just not 20 years of like making mistakes and well, that's how you scale, right?

SPEAKER_00

And that's that's how you create more cushion for yourself to grow as an individual. Because otherwise you're just in, you're in it. Like again, we're fighting in the battle. You allowed yourself to pull yourself out, gain some other generals around you so that they can go ahead and mandate the situation.

SPEAKER_01

I mean, I love business more than anything. And I was burned, I you know, early 30s, I was like kind of burned out where I'm like, man, I'm like, couldn't figure out why I wasn't not necessarily, I wasn't like unhappy, but I didn't enjoy it as much as I used to. I used to love it. And but the time when I started hiring good people and then focusing on the things that I was good at and the things that I wanted to do, I'm back to where I was when I was 20. Like I just excited every single day I wake up. But it took me a long time to figure that out. I mean, a lot of a lot of mistakes, a lot of stress, unneeded stress, uh, could have been a lot further and um, you know, could have had really good people, but it's it's been working out since then, since I've shifted to that. And it's why I have good companies. I mean, we have people that run the companies and uh and why I'm able to run multiple multiple companies now and not just have one. Yep. There's just no way I could do it all myself.

SPEAKER_00

At that point, though, you're gaining some perspective on all those jobs that you need to fulfill, right? So, like, you don't know what you don't know unless you do the thing. And it and you may not be the best at it, right? And you you were talking about it, but I I just wanted to reiterate when you're starting a business or anything, and even with fighting too, as well, it's like in the beginning stages of your career, you may be fighting in your hometown, you may be with your home gym, but then you go, I'm the best person in this gym. So I need to branch out and I need to put myself in a more of a difficult situation. I need to create some stress, right? So now I have to level up. I have to go to a different camp. Maybe I have to find more training partners, I need to find more coaches because I can't just focus on all these things. I need to focus on my fighting, I need to focus on my game plan, but I also need to have people around me that can structure it all together. Same thing with with your business. You still needed to learn everything from the financial side, from you know, everything in that in that sector, along with marketing and branding and all that stuff. Of course, when you bring on people, now you know all the details. So you know if they're good or bad. But if you bring them on without understanding it, they could be shit. And you're like, maybe they're doing a good job. I don't know. You see what I'm saying?

SPEAKER_01

That and then you always want to have people that are just way smarter than you, and it takes a long time to be okay with that too. Oh, it's like I want all the good people now, like I don't want people, I have to go teach them everything and like try to train them. It's like so that's not how I operate anymore.

SPEAKER_00

Listen, you know this, and and I I say a lot of people get brought down, stifled, and just stagnant because they are egotistical or they're led through pride, and pride is the root of all sin. So let go of your pride, your ego, because you don't know it all. It's the biggest thing. When somebody is so driven and so ambitious, that's the biggest problem that I see across the board from executives to elite athletes. When they can identify that they don't know it all, that's when they level up and they're like, Listen, I need to seek advice, I need to seek some level of guidance.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00

And they become better.

SPEAKER_01

All right. Well, thank you, brother. Yeah, no, I appreciate it.