If you want to pump your body and expand your mind, there's only one place to go. Mind pump, mind pump, with your hosts, Sal DeStefano, Adam Schaefer, and Justin Andrews. In this episode of- In this episode. This one. Pump Mind. Oh. Oh, sorry, Mind Pump. We get some- Dyslexia. We get into some pretty deep stuff. Now, the first 25, 29 minutes. Hang in there. We actually have a little fun time, bullshitting a little bit. I talk about Cordyceps. It's an interesting mushroom that you can take for performance. We also are sponsored by FourSigmatic. Not the psychedelic kind. Yeah, not those kind. So if you want to get- We're still looking for that sponsor.  Then we talk about sucralose. A lot of people don't know that one serving of pre-workout may actually exceed what the FDA says is acceptable double or triple the amount. It's ridiculous. For daily intake of sucralose. We talk about movies. Adam talks about the movie Atomic Blonde. Yeah, go see it. Which is apparently better than it sounds. The female James Bond. And Adam does what's called speed listening. Very interesting. Then we get into the questions. The first question was, what do we think about people who go vegan who say that's just how they feel better that way? Do we still think it's better to eat things in moderation for those people? Then we talk about what the hardest subjects are for us to talk about. These are the sensitive subjects that we all find are difficult to even bring up. Justin has so many that we actually had to cut out a question because there was so many things he said. Are we on and on and on? It gets legit deep in that particular question. Finally, we answer the question about how we've grown as personal trainers. Like, can we pinpoint when we got on that path of really becoming the trainers we are to get today? Finally, this month, again, it's one of our favorite promotions. We are giving away access to our private forum for free. All you gotta do is enroll in any of our maps programs or bundles. In other words, get yourself started on a maps program. Pick whichever one works best for you, whether you wanna do our foundational base program, which is maps, anabolic, or whether you're athletic focused and you do maps, performance, or you're more of a stage presentation type person. You wanna focus on aesthetics with maps, aesthetic. Enroll in any of those programs or a bundle and get on the forum. And the reason why it's a good idea to get on the forum is because then the people on the forum, there's about 2,000 people on there, made up of trainers, doctors, fitness professionals, they can kinda help you along the way. It's a great place to be. And also that price goes up after this month anyway. So again, private forum for free. Enroll in any maps program or any bundle. And you can find it all at mindpumpmedia.com.   I'm definitely a stacker of things inside. Inside your body. My body, inside the coffee. I like that. That then goes inside my body. Because, here's the thing with caffeine. Camara does a good job of putting the Nutropics and stuff in there, which kinda balances out. But then I add other stuff that gives me the more calm, clean, focused, high. Because I have a tendency, unlike you Justin, who is completely immune to stimulants. I am just wired. You are completely immune to stimulants now. I am. Completely. Well, I'd love to, you know, I have to have them. You drink minimum a gallon of coffee. Come on man, you're exaggerating. Yeah, it's more like three quarters of a gallon. Yeah, exactly. I mean, it's, if I- It's all calmed down. If I had as much- It's like a double gulp. You know what I'm saying, 7-Eleven? If I had as much coffee as you, I'd be able to see into the future. That's how powerful- Well, I do.  That's your secret. That is. No, for reals though, I like to take things to augment and balance what I do with my caffeine intake. So one of the things I add, one of the things I add is ashwagandha. Ashwagandha's excellent with caffeine. My wife's taking that now thanks to recommendations from Jessica. Ashwagandha's a very good balancing herb. I don't have any brands or anything to mention. I'm just talking about- That's just a good- It is. It's a really good one. It's used quite heavily in Ayurvedic medicine. But I actually raise testosterone too if you have low testosterone. And man, I'm not taking it for that particular reason. I like to take it because it balances me out when I'm having a lot of caffeine. Yeah. I've also- Well, it helps you deal with stress too, right? Oh, it's a balancing herb, right? It just helps balance it out. I've also, in the past, I've cycled in and out of using cordyceps, which I've talked to you guys about. Do you guys know the history of cordyceps in terms of the popularity of cordyceps in this country? I don't. School me on your fungus. You know it's a fungus. There's a fungus. You know it's a fungus. And his name is Sal. Every day you surprise me. Every day, huh? That was that impressive, huh? Well, just every day, I know something new that I learned about me. Yeah. But so cordyceps got- I pretend to be dumb. So I forgot which Olympics it was. Me too. It's a lot of work. I don't remember which Olympics it was, but the Chinese swim team, women's swim team, was crushing everybody and their performance. And they were attributing their, their progress or at least their performance to the use of cordyceps, not because they were taking steroids, but it was to the cordyceps. So then all this, like all this attention went to what cordyceps do for the body and why they're good. And here's the funny thing about cordyceps. It's a fungus that grows in caterpillars. No joke. It takes over- Like inside their body?  I think it's caterpillars. If I'm maybe Doug, you can look this up. I think you're right. I think I've never seen it. You know, I- It's a parasitic fungus, which all fungi are parasitic in some way. And it takes over- Utilizes the host.  Is this how they, is this how they figured out? Is there like some tribe somewhere that like eats caterpillars on a regular basis and they found out like, man, I got this. Wow, I feel great. Right. I feel so mentally sharp today. You know, like, one of those caterpillars I ate. Dude, you gotta think to yourself. Is that how we figured this out?   Yeah. Right. Like, ooh, this caterpillar looks a little funky. Let's put that in my mouth.  So what does it grow out of there, Doug? Is it out of a caterpillar? Am I right on this? Arthropods. Out of arthropods. So it's not just caterpillars. It's insects that belong to that category of insects. Not sure what arthropods are. But anyway. Don't worry, our boy Mark Pharrell will definitely school you on that on the forum later today. It's his favorite thing to do. So anyway. Shout out to Markie Marks, smarty pants. I love it when he keeps checking. I love it when he gives us like pretend compliments. Yeah. You know what I'm saying? He's like, yeah, guys, you guys are interviewing people. You guys try really hard.  I know exactly what you're going to say. But it's really good. I'm like, what happened? Thank you. It's like, yeah, you know.  That's what that is.  Yeah, yeah. You wear it well. Yeah. But anyway, so this.  So anyway. Disturbing. This particular fungus has properties. If you read about cordyceps, it's spelled by the way. C-O-R-D-Y-C-E-P-S. It's one of my favorite supplements to play around with. It's been for a long time. It has. No, I remember when we were at Paleo FX, how excited you got when you got a chance to meet the four sigmatic guys. So you were just like, wow. Those guys just own, in my opinion, they own the market on fungi supplements because they do the dual extraction. I was going to ask you, what is it that they're doing that's better than? Because I know there's a lot of companies that are starting to get into this. It's becoming very popular. I see it now, even in your normal supplement shops. My buddy was just talking about, he's a supplement shop owner. He owns two of them. And he's like, this is the hottest thing right now to get a hold of. What is it about that company that you like so much? Because you were the one that introduced it to me.  I am going to talk to these people. And we met one of the like the, I don't think he was a CEO, but he was a decision maker. He was a big shot. So I was able to talk science with him. But anyway, the thing about mushrooms that's interesting is when you use them as, when you use them medicinally or as a supplement, there are things you can extract, you can get from the fungus when you do like a dry extract and things you can get from a water extract. And they're both different. So in like in Ayurvedic medicine, they'll use one for certain things. Like here's the water extract for these particular things. And here's the dry extract for these other particular things. Well, Forcigmatic does dual extract with all of it. So you get everything with their process. And I've always just liked their product. Ever since I started using it, it's the best, those are the best mushroom-based supplements I've ever used. But Cordyceps, when I do it with my coffee in the morning with my workouts, I don't notice a huge effect with my like phase one style training. So if I'm going heavy and doing few reps, I don't notice a ton. When I notice an effect is when I'm doing my super sets. So more stamina. Yes, it's a stamina supplement. So when I was doing jiu-jitsu, Cordyceps got really popular with the jiu-jitsu guys that are trained because you do notice more stamina. Is that where you got to introduce to it first was in jiu-jitsu? Yeah, that's the first time I started taking it. Oh, so that's a long time ago. I've been, I've been- Cause it's fairly new to me. I did not- Cordyceps have been around for thousands of years. But I feel like I've never heard the fitness industry talk about it as much as I have in the last probably two or three years. Yeah, no, it's getting a little more popular. Justin, were you introduced to it before then? No, uh-uh. This is the first time I've really heard it being introduced in the fitness world anyway. Yeah, so some companies will take what they think are the active ingredients at a Cordyceps and then they'll concentrate them and turn them into, and they'll say, okay, this one has the highest amount of this particular thing. The reason why I don't necessarily like that- Leave it to Big Herba or Pharma. Yeah, and the reason why I don't necessarily like that- Extract it, multiply it, sell it for more.   Okay, so all these plants and herbs and stuff that have been used for a long time have been used a particular way for a long time. So what we know of how they work is based off of that. When you start taking individual things out of it and concentrating them, now we no longer know what they necessarily do and there may be more potential side effects or it might even be less effective, you know what I'm saying? Anyhow, yeah, I did this morning, I did like a faster-paced, super set type workout and I just noticed that I don't get...    Yeah, I get more of that with cordyceps. I like to cycle it, so I'll take cordyceps with my endurance-based workouts. Yeah, I was gonna say that's probably the only endurance version I see in your guys' training for the most part, right? The more the super set or muscle endurance training. Yeah, so it's like phase three style training, like phase three that you'll find in. Or even more. I'll have to try that in phase four of performance. So I'm gonna try that. It's huge for that, it's huge for that. So now on the supplements, since we're on the topic of supplements, I just read something very fascinating that I'm gonna post about a little later today on Instagram, it's gonna piss everybody off. You know, my favorite kind of stuff. Yay! So, sucralose, our favorite artificial sweetener to hate on, only because it's the one that's most common in shitty supplements. I did not know this. This is interesting now. This is based on a site that I'm reading and I did a little cross-reference and I found that they were actually pretty accurate with this information. So there are some potential negative side effects to sucralose and there is an acceptable daily intake that is recommended by the FDA. So the FDA actually says, here's the acceptable daily intake of sucralose. Now, two things. One, I don't trust the FDA as far as I can throw them. So, and they're a massive organization so I can't throw them very far. Don't trust them that much. So whatever they're saying is acceptable, I will always venture to say, way less is acceptable or none. Nonetheless, they've identified an acceptable daily intake where they actually find, if you eat more than this, that they have identified, the FDA has actually identified negative effects, negative side effects, including long-term side effects. And that acceptable amount based on the FDA is five milligrams per kilogram of body weight. So. So let's do something simple like a. So a 150 pound man, it would be 340 milligrams of sucralose a day is what they're saying is acceptable daily intake. And remember, their studies are a grand total of six weeks, 12 weeks long. I still don't trust it, but still, right? 340 milligrams. A can of soda will contain approximately 40 milligrams in one can of soda, a typical can of soda. And one, by the way- Checking the sodas down. By the way, one splendid packet is about five milligrams. So that's whatever, right? So based on the FDA, you're probably safe. Based on our opinion, I'd say probably not a good idea, but nonetheless, you guys get the drift of what I'm trying to say here. Now this particular company took one of the more popular pre-workout supplements and got information from them- Did they list the name or no? No, I'm not gonna list the name either. I know what it is, but I'm not gonna say it. And this popular pre-workout supplement, which I would assume- Most are probably just like- Are around here. Yeah, right, because most of them have all the blueberry razz and bubblegum, whatever.   But anyway- You pee brightness. It's not even a color, it's just brightness.  When you pee in the dark. So this popular pre-workout supplement, per serving, contains 334 milligrams of sucralose. Damn. That's approximately 30 packets. 30 packets of Splenda. Wait a second, I'm confused. Yeah, how does it have so much? Well, they put it in there. I know, but what- They just don't put it in. Is it really necessary to get it that sweet to- They don't know, right? What sells pre-workout supplements? There's only two things that sell a pre-workout. Or does it taste that bad otherwise? Is it horrible? Have you ever had- Well, we've made our natural one before. And it tastes like- Remember when we did that? Yeah. When I had you guys taste it, let's just add the ingredients. I drank that for a very long time, actually. And I still recommend to people that, I'll be the first to admit, here's the deal. Back to, I've been training hard again. And we've had some days where I've been up here back to back with interviews, and so at that 5 a.m. And I've been trying to be consistent about the gym. And I'm like, I need something to give me up. I need a pre-workout type of drink. And so I make our- Our own ingredient. Yeah, our individual ingredients. I was trying to think of a comparison.  Yeah. For what? Oh, yeah. The one that we made. It tastes like, to me, it tasted like ground up bones. Almost. What? Ground up bones?  Oh, that's because of the citrulline. Oh, yeah. To me, it tasted like lemon water. But anyway, 334 milligrams of Splenda, or sucralose, in a serving of pre-workout. And remember, I just said that the FDA, which we don't trust anyway, says that that's already, you've already hit your max limit. Now, if you consider the average person who is super into fitness, they're probably having what every day? Pre-workout, protein shake. Gotta have it before your workout.  They're probably well above with the FDA. Yeah, they've doubled down on the FDA. If that's what the pre-workout is, what are these protein shakes?  Look up a brand. Here's the problem. None of them, none of them will list on their label how many milligrams of sucralose are in there. None of them. If you go ahead and buy a protein powder, look on the back, and it'll say sucralose as an ingredient, but it won't tell you how much. They're not, they don't have to. It's not law. Oh wow. Yeah, yeah, so you don't know. We don't know what's in there. I wonder if like the law, I wonder, we have to look into this. I wonder if like, because the FDA regulates it somewhat. So I wonder if the law is, as long as it's under what the FDA regulates is the daily- Nope. No? No, it's so loosely regulated. It's not, there is no- Well, I know the FDA doesn't regulate supplements period, so I know that. How do they get away with that then?  Because they do. So here's- Because they do, that's a crazy one. Here's how the supplement- Here, take it when your mom used to ground you. You're grounded, why? Because I said so. I'm there for I am. Because I said so. Well, I mean, you know how it works. They do what they wanna do until someone tells them that they can't. And then they stop. Mind pump tells them to stop. Yeah. So- Knock it off. Which is, I mean, that's why we've always advocated the natural route- Wag of my finger. They're gonna flavor it with things like, you know, what is that, monk fruit extract and Stevia and that kind of stuff, which is, I mean, so far as we know, a lot better. But yeah, trip off that. So if you're taking all these supplements, like your artificially sweetened supplements and maybe throwing a diet soda or a diet monster on top of it, you're above what the FDA says is safe.  So holy cow, right? No wonder you're getting all these- Access, man, it's way too much. Yeah, and we've talked about this on previous podcasts, but artificial sweeteners like Aspartame, Sucralose. What did you say that, does the FDA go into, when you're beyond that, what are some of the side effects that did they say with the negative? That's a good question. I don't know. I don't know. I think- That'd be interesting to see that. So the side effects that the FDA is looking for are things like that are reported side effects. Like dizziness or headache or that kind of stuff. Naja, diarrhea, whatever. They don't examine the one thing that, because they never knew to look for it, that we know Sucralose really has a bad impact on, which is gut flora. Because Sucralose, although it may not interact with human cells, it does interact and affect bacteria. What did Dr. Rusio say? I know you guys talked a little bit about this. What was his intake or take on all this? Did you talk to him at all about it? Yeah, he's like, don't. At all? Yeah, he's like, it's not a good idea. He said it's probably not a good idea. So an alternative, a better alternative would be something that's sweetened with Stevia, obviously, right? Stevia is your better alternative. Your best alternative is nothing. That's not any sweetener at all. But let's be real. I mean, it's impossible to find something even like your best organic products and stuff like that are gonna be sweetened with Stevia.  Right. And at least that's coming from a Stevia plant, right?  A lesser evil of them. And even that, we say, take that in moderation. You still should go for whole foods. But like I say all the time, it's impossible for me to get my protein to stay in and day out without supplementing something. Yeah, rule of thumb, just go organic and natural. Those two things alone will make a big impact in terms of the healthier gut and long-term, potential long-term effects. Again, remember, there's no really long-term studies because how would you fund one?  I don't even, it hasn't even been on market that long, you know what I mean? You know what? Not to take a detour, but I'm going to. Did you guys see the preview for the movie Atomic Blonde? I have seen the preview for it, yeah. Okay, so I totally did not want to watch it because it looks like a stupid- It's a female version of James Bond. Okay. I went and saw it. It was good. You liked it? I didn't think it'd be good. It was really good. I like her though. Now it was done. Of course you do. It was done, I got to look and see who the director was because I could tell that the film was, it was shot, it was unique, right? It reminded me of like watching a, like a Quentin Tarantino film, although it wasn't like that. Like there's a flavor to it. Yes, exactly. Thank you. There's a special flavor to it that's not traditional. I love films like that. I love films that are shot different. I watched so many movies to get something. So you like Sin City? Yeah, exactly. Stuff like that that's just kind of off the wall. Graphically cool. Graphically cool. I'll watch it then. Story told from different angle. You know what I'm saying? Nice, yeah. Not your typical film that's super predictable. So, and I know that that's why it doesn't get like, it didn't get like a 90% review because I think the simpler movie is- You call it like pulp comic or there's some kind of genre for that. Is there? Oh my God. It wasn't Sin City-ish, but where it was like Sin City is that it's shot differently, right? So that's what I mean by it's like- Oh, then I'll go watch it because I don't want to watch it because it looked to me like you're typical.  But if it's like what you're saying. No, it's cool. I'm in. Enough was going on with it that it makes me want to watch it again because I know I was actually kind of trying to figure it out for the first bit. Like, okay, what's going on here? What was that one movie with, it was English special agents. It was rather recent. Part two just came out. What's it called? It's Kingsman. Kingsman.  Great movie. Great movie. That was a movie that surprised me. That was hilarious too, at the end. Oh yeah. That was such a funny- That was a really good surprising movie. Part two just is either coming out or just came out. Part of the second one. I liked that. Yeah, I want to watch it. Yeah, the first one was great. You know, there's one movie, I think I've brought it up on the show before, that the one movie that I can think of right now that surprised me the most.   Machina or whatever? No, no, no. I knew, I felt like that movie would be awesome. It was even better than I thought. Pacific Rim. Yeah, I saw that. Did you, were you surprised by that as well? I saw it on TV, I think, yeah. It had, I don't know if I saw that. Yeah, yeah, that one actor, I like him a lot. Egress. Is it Egress? The Black Dude? Yeah. Yeah, I've been told I look like that guy by several people. Did you just say he's a Black Dude? Yeah. And he looks like you. Hey man, I'm Sicilian. I know, you get the... What are you gonna do? I got the... I think he's way more handsome than you, bro. Well, of course he is, he's who he is, but... I heard rumors like he was thinking of doing James Bond a while back. What's his name? That would have been cool. Egress something. We gotta find out what... Egress Alba, I think, something like that. Is it? Yeah, something like that. A lot of people that were good actors, dude. You notice we have a... Oh, Egress. Egress. My bad. This guy, so do I look like this guy right here? Let me see. Let's see, yeah. There's a little... You know what? I don't think I do... You know what? I do a mind pump IG post of like a comparison. Oh, I do like that guy. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I've been told... It's literally gotten DMs. So I'm gonna do like a split screen and we'll vote. I've gotten DMs from people who said I look like him. If you were a Black guy, you would kind of look like that. He is... Even though you guys are built different, too, though. No, we're kind of... He's got a little bit of that narrow muscularity. He's got some good forearms. You know what I mean? Kind of looks like me a little bit. Yeah, I don't know. I don't know. He's got the white hairs and some beer. Yeah, yeah, yeah. He is... He was the main guy in one of my favorite, all-time favorite TV series, A Must The Wire. The only... Oh, The Wire. The only series... I haven't seen that yet. That I have watched three times. Wow. I've never in my life... Three times you watched a series? Three times I've watched a series over it.  You're like a... Whoa. I've watched a lot of TV. I do. I watched a lot of TV. I do. I tried to do those games. I do a lot of things, man. I do a lot of things, man. But I couldn't do it. Uh-huh. Yeah. Are you a multi-tasker? Ever since I started listening to these books on three-speed, I got all kinds of extra time to watch movies now. The three-speed doesn't exist. Yeah, it does. Does it? Yeah, it does. Yeah, it does. Yeah, it does. You gotta train up to that. I think you are a Neo from The Matrix. You can't go... That's a page in a Tom Billions book. And when he said that, like this... I just went, boom! And then the first time I did it, I remember going like, this is not going to work. It's going to be... I already have a hard time paying attention. And if I speed it up, it's going to be worse. It's going to go right over your head. But the opposite is true. Because it's so fast, it forces... Pay close attention. Exactly. It forces... It's like the whole concept. We talk about flow state. How when people do a back flip off of a thing, how everything slows down for them, the same thing works in your mind when you're reading a book at super high speeds. You have to really focus to retain it all.  So I started at 1.25, then 1.5, then 1.75, then 2, then 2.5. I actually don't listen to 3. I listen to about 2.5. And it depends on who's reading the book because if it's somebody... That's fast. How do you get all the storage on your phone? Because I keep wanting to add all these books. Hold on, dude. I'm going to have to do that. I'm going to play our podcast. I'm going to play our podcast at 2.5. Because I want to see what it sounds like. No, it only goes up to 2 for podcasts. Let's see. You want to go here? Oh, my God. Wow, you listen to faster than that? Wow. That's annoying.  You don't get annoyed that fast. You know what? At first it was... You remember, I didn't go from, like I just said, I didn't go from...  Yeah, I worked my way up. So when I first went to... When you go from 1 to 1.25, there's just a little bit of difference. It just cuts out the dead air. Then from 1.25 to 1.5, then it sounds sped up. Actually, when someone puts on, like so everyone's while Katrina and I, when we're listening, we'll slow the book down because we're like, we're not speed reading. We're just enjoying this time together. So we'll listen to it slower. It kind of annoys me because it's slow. You sound like the Micro Machines guy. Yeah. You know, when you go that fast. No. I'm just dated us. I'm telling you guys right now that, that was, you know, you talk about all the cool things that we've picked up from our guests that have been like great knowledge bombs and things that we've... Tom, Bill, you giving me that piece, I feel like it's... I mean, I've been able to rip through books at a faster speed and retain as much, if not more than what I have. So here's the thing with that. So you've said this many times on the podcast how when you read, like not listen, but read how you have trouble assimilating information by reading visually. But listening, you know, audibly, you do much better, right? Much better. I'm the opposite. So I can definitely listen, but for me to really... To retain it. To retain it, I need to have someone there with me to talk about it while we're doing it. I need pictures. Yeah. Okay. Coloring book. Yeah, coloring book. I'm visual. Justin's like, I'm not reading. This has no pictures.   How do I understand this? Real. I'm visual. If you give me a book, I can blow through it very quickly. I can read very fast and I absorb it well. So I do better visually than I do audio. I do though, every book that I do audio, I also purchase, because a lot of times what I'll do is let's say I'm reading through and I went through a couple of chapters that night or that day that I really liked. I'll go back through the book and actually highlight certain things that I want to remember so I can reference it later on. And between reading like that, highlighting the book, I mean, I retain the information. Still, unfortunately though, with all that, I'm still not at the level where the way you can... It blows my mind how you can regurgitate something like that we all have read.  And then you'll get on the pocket. It's immediately gone out of my head. Yeah, right.  Then I feel like I can share it where you have the ability to turn around right after you've heard information. It's a superpower, Sal. It is definitely a superpower you have and I've tried to teach myself, but it just doesn't happen. It can't have everything. It's not a superpower. I'll be honest with you. It's totally self-selective. I don't know how or what to control.  I should not forget. Like, the other day, I was ordering something online. Okay, this is true story now. And I asked for my address. Forgot.   You don't have enough space for that. I had to go on my phone and go and do the map and be like, home, what is that? Oh, yeah, there it is. I'm lost. I will forget. I'll have a client that I'll train for 10 years. I'll run into him at the grocery store and I'll be like... What's your name? I don't remember your name. I remember your workouts. I remember your imbalances. I remember our conversation. You bench 165. Do you know how embarrassing that is to go to the grocery store with a family member or something, right? And then run into someone who I'm... Hey, guys. Bro, it's been like, you know, it's only been like six months since I've seen this person and I'll be with someone and then it's time to do the introduction. So I end up introducing the person I know and hope to God they say... So I struggle with that, yeah. Oh, it's horrible. That's the worst. But then I'll remember like, oh, there were only 14 people in that study. It was only 12 weeks long and the controls were like...  It's a complete waste. It's purely applicable for what we do. So it's all good. It's a complete waste. This quiz brought to you by Organifi. For those days you fall short on getting your organic veggies or whole food nutrition, Organifi fills the gap with laboratory-tested, certified organic superfoods to help give your health and performance the added edge. Try Organifi totally risk-free for 60 days by going to Organifi.com. That's O-R-G-A-N-I-F-I.com and use a coupon code for 20% off at checkout. Our first question is from Eat, Sleep and Run. That's my cousin, Stephanie! Yay! We enjoyed having you in the studio. I'm gonna say this. Last time that she was... Last time she had a question like six months ago, my uncle inboxed me to let me know that that was her and I said, yes, I know that was her. I said, did you... Did you know? Did you realize? I'm gonna say this.  After meeting her cousin, I can say now with good, strong confirmation, like, you've got attractive genetics in your family.  Attractive genes. Just feeding into it.  No, she doesn't. Did she say that? Sal's the favorite. Yeah, that's right. I remember that. Oh, that's weird. The Italian side. Oh, my God. Yeah, because he speaks in certain teas.  Oh, God. Tell me more of a great one. He says it so confidently. It must be true. Yeah. Everything. Just pour it on me. All right. All right. Sorry, Doug. Yeah. All right, here we go. What do you say to a person who said they are going vegan made them feel way better? Is it still everything in moderation or would you say some people would benefit from cutting out meat completely? Yes and no. Yeah, so this is a great question because we talk about moderation. We talk about balance. We talk about the benefits of different ways of eating, but there's one rule. There's one ring to rule them all. Now there's one rule that is above. Great reference. That is above everything when it comes to nutrition, exercise, you know, whatever you're doing. The one rule is this. Listen to your body. Okay. So I don't care what I say on the podcast or what Adam says or what Justin says or what your doctor says or what I say. Anybody says to you in terms of this is the best thing to do and this is what's healthy and whatever, at the end of the day and of course you have to be in a healthy state of mind.  You got to identify that you're crazy. Identify the good connections. But listen to your body because I've had clients like this.  Love the guy. Super intelligent human being. One of the smartest people I've ever met. And we would have these conversations about nutrition and his expertise wasn't nutrition, but he was just an intelligent human being and he was vegan and his goal was to build muscle with me. So I would try and see if I can talk him into considering eating meat because there's certain things that you find in meat that are beneficial that you may not be able to find or at least it's hard to find in plant. And there's obvious benefits to building muscle from eating meat for many people. And I told him about creatine and how you may need to supplement creatine because studies show that vegans actually get a boost in IQ.  And so we're going back and forth and I'm like, well, what made you go vegan in the first place? And he goes, well, he had traveled with, I don't know if you guys are familiar with Doctors Without Borders. So it's this amazing organization, wonderful organization. And by the way, I know I talk about Western medicine and sometimes I have a bad, I say bad things about it, but I have a lot of friends who are doctors and every single one of them does it for the right reasons. I actually have yet to meet one personally where I'm like, oh, this is a crappy person. Every single one of them truly wants to help people and all the ones that I work with, let's say, I've probably trained maybe 14 or 15 doctors and surgeons and I think all but two of them actually would volunteer time every single year and would travel out of their own pocket to some of these places and live in these horrible conditions just to provide anesthesia for children for cleft palate surgery or for whatever. So anyway, he traveled with Doctors Without Borders and he traveled, I forgot where it was, but it was a high altitude. There was lots of hiking and lots of physical activity in order to get to some of these areas to donate his services and he was anesthesiologist. And he told me how he was just exhausted. He would just get, he was a collegiate level, highly competitive swimmer.  Well, anyway, he started eating like the locals ate and where he was, they ate vegan. And he said he couldn't believe how good he felt. Like he had all this energy, his digestion felt better and he just, just in general, he just felt so much better. When he came back to the States, he started eating meat again and immediately noticed the difference and he went back to eating largely vegan diet and every once in a while I think he throws in like dairy, but he says he just feels amazing doing it on all levels and I'm not gonna argue with that. I'm not gonna debate that, you know, sure meat has got things in it. I'm not gonna debate that, but I feel like I have to chime in because what I have found with clients where this is true, like exactly, I have stories just like this where a client has gone vegan and they've been like, oh my God, this is it for me, right? And the common denominator in all of them is this, they before that, they weren't on any diet. So one, already being conscious of what you're eating, you'd be surprised on just what tracking does, right? Just because you start paying attention to what you're consuming, how much better people start to feel aware of the things that they're consuming. Well, that's a good point. So to eat vegan, you have to plan. Absolutely. This is just one of the points I'm making. It's hard to get, yeah. The other big one when it comes to vegan is you end up eating a shitload of veggies that, and I'll tell you right now, personally, I don't even come close to eating enough veggies. It's the reason why I've been drinking, and I've been drinking the green juice lately and I noticed a huge difference already. And it's like, I don't think it's because the green juice is so special. It's because I'm lacking there. I'm not getting enough of that. And when I introduce it into my diet, I feel so much better. And this is what's really common with clients is now that they have this diet where all of a sudden they can't eat all this meat and they have to eat really within these strict borders, all of a sudden they end up eating all these great colors and different veggies that they weren't consuming and eating an abundance of it. And I'm talking two, three, four times more than what they were. And there's a lot of great benefits that we get from eating all these vegetables. And that is what they're really noticing. It's not the, I'm not eating meat anymore. It's that, oh, now I'm starting to get a lot of these, these foods I was missing before that are so high in nutrients.  I think, you know, exactly what you said, like I've always kind of like thought, you know, maybe this is just because they haven't had enough vegetables in their diet. And, you know, for a blanket like across the board, that's primarily the majority of people. That's why they gravitate to that particular diet the most. I was just talking to like a Iran actually when we were doing the podcast with Josh Trent on Wellness Force. And he actually is vegan. But what was interesting about him is like, he is an insanely dialed in tracker, right? So he actually went through, I think it was like 24 different types of diets and then led him to, you know, even pursue going far, you know, learning more and more about nutrition and getting to the level where he is today. And he just like in having like monitoring this process and having this continuous glucose monitor and, you know, tracking. But like what he found with, you know, his body actually responds better.  So like a blueprint that works best for them.    A lot of cases are you're robbing Peter to pay Paul.   Like I'm pro you eating better. Like if it makes you feel better, it's easy for your lifestyle. What I don't like is when people attach that with, oh, it's because I'm vegan. Like, well, do you really, are you somebody who pays it to, and this is like, I mean, Sal and I, I remember back in the days when we used to go back and forth with this stuff, like when people start speculating on how they feel. And we're talking about someone like Sal who I think is on a whole another level of awareness with nutrition. And I still challenge him when he talks about how he feels when he's not tracking. So you can't tell and if a client came to me and said like, oh, I've been eating this way and I feel really good because of this. Is like, well, you know, what were you tracking before? And do you know your water? Do you know your sleep?  Do you know how much sun you've been getting lately? Do you know if your carbon take is increased? Do you know if you're eating less processed? I mean, there's so many variables that can make you feel good or bad that you could be doing more or less of now and to attach it to a diet I don't like. Well, a vegan diet, a well-planned vegan diet is a massive upgrade to the standard American diet. Right, any diet isn't that many. Any level of tracking. If you go on the paleo, the vegan. Understanding what's going in your mouth is a step in the right direction. The carnivore diet. I mean, every diet, anything that is put together for whatever spin they put on it for health reasons is better than what the American diet is.  Now that being said, there definitely are people who simply do not tolerate animal sources of food very well. Right, that's fair. And they range everything from allergies to just regular food intolerances. And here's what you want to consider too when it comes to vegetables. We're talking about eat lots of vegetables, right? I don't care what you eat, generally speaking, and I say general because there's always exceptions, but generally speaking, the bulk of your food should be plant, should be well-planned, well-sourced plants. I mean, if you consider, again, if we go back to evolution, if we're hunter-gatherers, you've got to consider the cost and risk and time it takes to hunt and kill animals. I mean, if we're in a tribe... The downtime. And we're trying to survive. And on the one hand, we've got all this available vegetables and roots and tubers and whatever that we found naturally growing.  It's very dangerous. You cannot even kill it. It can take a long time. It takes a lot of energy to chase that thing down and kill it and carry it back. I mean, vegetables are easy to hunt. If they're there, you get them and you eat them. And it's not a problem. This is why the agricultural revolution exploded the human population because we no longer had to do this very expensive, dangerous thing called hunting. So throughout all the human evolution, most tribes probably went vegan when they could.  So there's definite benefits for a lot of people, for some people I should say, to avoiding meat products. And then there's also this side of it. Most vegans who are long-term vegans don't do it for health. Most vegans who are long-term vegans do it for moral reasons. And that's just the fact.  When people do things for moral reasons, when it becomes a fabric of who they are and it's their belief system, and they believe killing animals is immoral for any reason, their motivation to not eat animal products is very, very strong. Which I understand more of that for sure. Now that being said... Just don't throw blood on me.  That being said, if it makes you feel better emotionally or spiritually or whatever you want to call it to not eat animal products, is that going to make you healthier? Yeah, that too is going to make you healthier. So at the end of the day, I always circle back to listening to your body and learn how to listen to your body first and then listen to your body. I'm actually right now in the midst of really working on the new nutrition guide. And that's a big part of it, is listening to your body but also teaching you how to listen to your body because for so long we've learned to ignore. I want to make another point too though that I think is important that we didn't talk about with vegans is almost every vegan that I've trained that has came to me and has wanted to build muscle, they tend to have the hardest time because not getting things like meat in your diet, it becomes challenging to get enough protein. Can it be done? Absolutely. There's vegan bodybuilders. So there's definitely people that can be vegan and that can build muscle. I'm not saying that's not possible, but they tend to have a really hard time hitting their protein targets when you're vegan. So that adds a new challenge. So if you're somebody who's already really skinny and you're trying to build muscle and then you're also trying to be on this vegan diet because you think that's a better way of living and a healthier way for you to live, that's something to take into consideration also that, well, how important is it for you to build muscle because if you're really trying to build muscle, meanwhile all you're doing is eating all these leafy greens, you're having a hard time hitting those proteins. Bottom line is just simply, the bottom line is most vegans at some point have to supplement. It's a fact. There are certain nutrients you simply do not find in plants that you have to get from animal sources. And I mean, again, I talk about creatine. They've done several studies. You give creatine to the average person who eats meat and there's no boost in cognitive function. There's a boost in cognitive function with vegans when they take creatine. That alone will tell you that there's something lacking in their diet that they're not getting. Next question is from Rocky Metolo. What is the hardest or most sensitive topic for each of you to discuss? Tell you like that question. Wow, I didn't see that coming. Who picked this one? Uncle Sal. Uncle Sal. I almost feel like we should pick it for each other because I don't know. Really? You want to see what? You just start poking at each other? Well... I'll poke at myself. Poke your own. If you guys don't know what yours is, I know right away I had an issue with this a couple days, past couple days. Oh, well then share then for sure. So right now, and this is different for me depending on whatever, you know, throughout my life, right? What's sensitive for me now hopefully will not be a sensitive topic in five or ten years and what was sensitive for me ten years ago is no longer sensitive. So in the past, if you asked me about body image issues about being skinny, about, you know, all that stuff, it would have been very difficult for me to talk about. Now I talk about it, it's not a problem. It doesn't trigger me. It doesn't cause any changes in emotion anymore. It's very easy to talk about. Today as a grown man, you know, I'm 38 years old now and I'm better at talking about the sensitive subjects. In fact, I will purposely talk about them knowing that it's better to do it but I've identified that they're very difficult to talk about. And right now the biggest challenge for me by far has to do with my children and it has to do with my relatively recent divorce. It's been over a year and a half now that I've been divorced. It's very difficult to talk about because I'm noticing that, and right now I'm listening to A New Earth by Eckhart Tolle which, by the way, very, very few books that I can, I love reading. Every book I read has some kind of impact on me but very few of them I'll consider life changing and this one is turning out to be one of those life changing books and it might be just because of the time in my life that I'm reading it. What you need right now. Yeah, so I don't know if it would have been life changing if I read it, you know, 15 years ago but right now it's very life changing and I'm identifying a few things and one of them is the tremendous and very painful guilt that I feel for my divorce and it wasn't just my fault. It was definitely a mutual thing. Both me and my ex-wife agreed on the divorce and we were very amicable during the period of breakup. It was something we both agreed needed to happen so it wasn't like one particular thing so it's not like I specifically did one thing that I feel guilty about. It's just in general, I feel very, there's a lot of pain and guilt behind the divorce because of the challenges that it poses to children, especially coming from my perspective and my culture that values family and defines value in very specific ways. In my culture and the way I was raised, family was mom, dad, and children and the priority of the family were the children and mom and dad worked together, worked out together, worked things out together and stayed together for the children and divorce was one of the worst things you could do to your kids. We would talk about it when I was a kid. When we find out someone got divorced, it was this unbelievable horrible thing and the discussion was always those poor children. That's a very common thing you hear in my family when we talk about divorces. I feel so bad for those kids to have to go through that. In my entire family, I have a massive family. I only have one divorce in my whole family. Well, now there's a few but when I was growing up there was none and so it's probably what kept me married for so long. Objectively speaking, we should have gotten divorced five years into our marriage but the guilt that I have and the pain that I have behind it affects how I am with my kids because everything that happens now, anytime my daughter is not herself or my son is upset about something or I'll tell you what happened the other day.  We do a really good job. We both co-parent still even though we're both divorced but how it feels is very different and she gets them for a week and I'll get them for a week. Sometimes it's different but right now it's a week on, week off and I went to grabbing my kids to stay with my mom during the day while we're working and at the end of the day my daughter's asking me when she's going to see mom and I said, oh, she might stop by today and you'll see her later or whatever and so sure enough, my ex-wife stopped by to see the kids because we're at my mom's house and it was time for us to leave to go home and my daughter didn't want to go with me she wanted to go with her mom and that was, you know, that's totally a normal thing for kids to do especially at that age and I'm sure there's going to be times when they do that to me as well and part of the reason that she may have wanted to go with her mom was because she has this old iPhone that she uses to play video games on and I didn't let her bring it to my house so maybe she thinks she's going to, whatever the reason maybe she wants to spend time with her mom doesn't matter, right? but it hurts a lot because I feel like maybe I'm doing something wrong or she doesn't feel like she's seeing enough of either one of us and so she's coming there's this kind of challenge that's happening with her and I don't like to see that and it's a very normal because this happens and the part that sucks is the logical side of me sees no problem with this issue. My kids did this when we were together the kids do this with parents all the time I want to go with dad, I want to go with mom but because of the divorce I've attached all this guilt and pain behind it and it fucking ruined me and I had to it took me some time to really process that it took me a whole evening and the next day to really process through what I was feeling behind that and it's like anytime something happens anytime my kids ask for something I want to buy me this I want to buy it for them right away because I feel guilty I want to give them everything that they want I want to make everything perfect or I want to do all these things or spend all this money on them it's all driven behind this pain this guilt it's a very difficult sensitive topic to discuss and it's also sensitive and difficult for people around me because when this was happening when she was saying no I want to go with mom I could see my parents and my son I could sense them thinking like oh shit you know what I mean what do we say now, what do we do now and immediately after my mom's like it's normal for kids to do that I can feel her wanting to console me over this type of thing that's normal and I know logically it's normal so I identify this as a very, very good opportunity for growth as a person for myself and also as a parent for my kids I'm already a way better father than I was when we were married already I can already say that objectively I'm a far better, more connected father but I mean talk about being challenged I've never felt a challenge quite like this before because it's dealing with my children and I hope to continue to grow about it and I'm glad we had this opportunity actually to talk about it on the podcast it makes it easier Justin you have one? That was deep man I don't know like just talking about serious issues like that I think is enough for me to have difficult Justin's like I got a whole butt load I feel like I crapped you guys out I'm sorry I should have gone last I couldn't go first still that's why I deflected over to Justin because well no I don't go because I don't have one for you right now there's no topic that you I mean it's the thing is like I would talk about whatever like that's the thing like it just depends it depends on like how it's all framed and I think what's difficult for me is if I get cornered and I'm trying to sort of defend my stance or like I don't know I guess I guess like verbally like if we're sitting here and we're like like something that like you've identified that's wrong with me or something I'm gonna get super defensive on it you know and that's like still that's like within me like I get really like I can't like I can't just like oh hmm you know like you know me evaluate that it's like fuck you like I have this like immediate like like my hands right here and like I'm gonna push back at you first my first instincts to push Courtney calls me out on that all the time because she's like I'm not like I'm not trying to like create conflict with you I'm trying to identify things and like just admit you know that you're failing or something like within this is something needs to be addressed and yeah that's like that's a constant thing for me I don't like talking about like if something you know I have going on or something like that is like not doing well you know like I still want to talk about it and you know that's probably something that you should talk about right because you know how you're gonna work through it like you're like I don't like getting help you know that's one thing so I think you know along those lines like yeah it's a tough thing for me because I just I want to like take it all on and internalize it and like I can fucking do this and like because like that's just been drilled in my head that's like you know maybe I'm weaker I don't have enough of the mental fortitude to overcome this and really like I should be seeking more help with a lot of things so do you know what's interesting about that is it requires more strength for you to ask for help than it does for you to do shit on your own absolutely so you know that might actually help you I was like that for a while and someone told me, I don't remember who told me they said something like it's harder to it takes more strength to cry than it does to not cry and it kind of struck me like oh fuck like I consider myself a strong person then I should seek out the things that require me to be strong and at that time in my life it was to admit that I need help whereas before I was like no I can do this song like wait a minute it's easier for me to not ask for help than it is to ask for help you know what I'm saying so I don't know you know yesterday Taylor and I were talking and he gave me a nice compliment although I don't know if he was meaning to about you know he's like man out of everybody I really feel like you're just you're really open mind willing to meet with people that you would totally disagree with hang out with people of different circles and try things out that are against what you believe or think and I really believe that when it comes to like sensitive topics I could think of stuff when I was younger that like I had a hard time sharing like talking about my dad's suicide for example like as a kid like just not understanding that and you know I remember when we had the girls gone wad podcast here and she's like you know I wish you would dive more into your childhood story and what you've been through thinking that that was like something that I avoid because I don't like I have no problem talking about that stuff it's not sensitive to me at all I'm pretty much an open book and I I don't know what point in my life did I start doing this but I seek out things that make me comfortable like this because if I if it gives me a emotional reaction like if you one of you guys were talking and then you did something right and I caught myself getting like agitated or firing back or getting me what for sure and I talked about this on the podcast all the time that night I'm fucking thinking about that like I'm evaluating how I responded to you guys because you obviously poked a button with me and I'm not going like fuck Justin fuck Sal I'm going whoa what did why did that bother me or why did that get me all riled up I must got some shit I need to work on in that area and I don't stray I'm not a I'm not afraid of any of that shit like if you got something you want to say to me that that you think is a sensitive to fucking bring it like tell me like poke poke at me tell me that you don't like this about me or you want to know more about this because you think I'm afraid I'm not afraid to talk about anything I've been an open book for a very long time I've shared any sort of insecurities I think I've shared on this podcast before I don't know I don't know if there's a topic that I'm really sensitive to talk about I mean do you guys feel like there's something that you guys bring up with me that I avoid or I get all pissed off or I have all you that you read on me well I mean this now is a time to share with me right well this would be a good time to let's see why don't you say something see if I get around some darks at me yeah right well I think you know the three of us are pretty we pretty much do that right we put I mean we all share that sentiment I mean that's not like and even when I'm sharing that's not like like I said I'm not I'm definitely open for you guys to jab at me and like point things out like yeah but I don't I don't want to like I don't want to be a dick right here but out of the three of us I could have definitely said that about Sal and I know that about Justin I know that like and I've done it to you you would you embrace it like you don't you don't hide from it right but and I've I've intentionally came after both of you on the podcast because I know it makes good radio because I know that they're sensitive topics I know that talking about the divorce and the kids stuff that I know that is tough for you and I challenge it all the time well life is life's funny because when you when you're at that point where you feel like it's all like oh fuck I got it all under control it tends to throw shit at you and I had a I had a string of things that that I mean I felt like fuck I'll handle I talk about it I'm talking about on the podcast like right now this is a difficult subject to talk about and I'm talking about it on a podcast that I know you know tens of thousands of people are gonna listen to so you know it's my gauge of sensitive and difficult to talk about is maybe different than someone else's where they can't even get the words out right right I'll get the words out I'll talk about it's not a problem but you know it affects you emotionally well I'm just trying to I'm trying to talk about and be aware of what it you know what I'm probably sensitive about if there's something if there's something I'm currently working on and I know I'm working hard at it and somebody's like fucking trying to remind me of it all the time like let's say I'm trying to give a good one that like recently where there's something that I'm trying to get better at whether it be business whether it be personal relations and I'm actively putting in the work I'm working at it I'm putting practices in place I'm doing something and we'll use an analogy that isn't me but let's just say like you know currently if I was out of shape and I'm working towards getting in shape and somebody's just like hey bro and they're like poking at me in that arena and it's like you motherfucker like I'm tracking my food right now I'm training every day like I'm working towards that and if you were really paying attention you would see that I'm making progress in that arena fuck you for pointing out something that I know is an issue of mine and I'm working on so I guess if someone gets me on something that I'm currently working at and you and you dig at me and it's an area I already know I need work on and I'm working on it that could probably get me sensitive and I could probably I'll fire back at you but I would just do I'd handle it just like that so like let's say there was an area like that and you guys like called me out on it and I got sensitive about it I'd be like well fuck you bro I'm doing the work you know what I'm saying I'm putting the I'm trying yeah I'm trying I'm putting the I'm putting into practice well you don't like if someone says that you're lazy or not hard working or not working hard enough okay yeah that's good so that's a very sensitive topic and and that's actually okay good one that's a good one you want to get me riled up come after my work ethic because I pride myself on on my work ethic and there's a lot of things that I do that I don't talk about that doesn't exactly translate into money all the time or that other people see that I'm constantly doing and I'll give an example that's a really good one so because that's probably something that I am sensitive about if you if you want to if you want to rile me up make me feel like I'm not putting work in because I don't know very many people that could outwork me and sometimes the work that I do does go unseen for example part of this job that we are currently in right now requires a lot of relationship massaging we are constantly in contact with all kinds of people and very important people and you can't just expect in business and I think this is for people that are entrepreneurs this is important to recognize this you can't expect that you're just going to build this network of people without putting work in without giving to others and part of giving to others requires giving time and sometimes that's tech text messages and phone calls and emails taking people out to lunch going to dinner doing things that you know may seem like it's not a big deal may not seem like it's work to the average person but it is fucking work and there's a lot of energy it does it requires a ton of fucking energy to do that so if someone were to call which you guys don't though you guys have never you guys have never like called me lazy or made me feel that way why would we I wouldn't call remember we got cornered on that like when we're doing that silly game show and we completely all avoided that question because it's like no none of us is the laziest in the group it just doesn't work that way I guess the question would be to ask yourself why besides the fact I know why I saw get there I know where you're I know you're going so why that is is because even as much work as I do I always believe I can do more and so if you say that it stings me because I'm like fuck I could be doing more I could be doing more and that's feel like there's some truth in it exactly it's it which is true right anytime we get sensitive about something somebody who really truly reflects there's some truth to that right it's so on any end of that right if somebody is like you know Elon Musk and somebody says oh you're failing here like any like and it's true he has to recognize that it's like but really is that like right so something you got to focus on and that's the perspective this is learning to have detachment perspective and say okay what can I take from this obviously that bothers me obviously that bothers me because I could potentially be doing more but then also being mindful and going like you know hey I am doing all this I am working hard I am doing those things and recognizing yourself for those things just like and that relates a lot to what Sal's sensitive thing is it's like bro you are a really good dad bro you are doing you're probably one of the best dads that I've ever met so for you to beat yourself up over one scenario like that that you're totally overthinking is crazy and for you not to recognize all the good things that you're doing and you know that's your talk you got to have with yourself right so which is very similar to the one I would have to have myself if I let somebody really which you know what like I don't think I don't think the average person could get me that rather I think I would take it to heart maybe if one of you guys said that to me which I don't think any of you would because I think we all know how hard everybody works in here but yeah if someone if someone got me there that would be a little sensitive you probably would you probably even Superman has kryptonite that's it man quick commercial break you guys we keep getting asked all the time how can I support the mine pump family here's one of the best ways you guys can you guys love that chimera coffee that we have chimera coffee with a K you go to chimeracoffee.com put in the discount code mine pump for 10% at the checkout also if you guys want to know how I have this luxurious beard and you want one too go to bigtopbeardcompany.com put in the discount mine pump again but this time 33% off also you guys if you guys have not tried Ben Greenfield's new bars out there fantastic if you want some go to bengreenfieldfitness.com forward slash nature bite put in the code mine pump and get 10% off go check it out next up from prime and glory you openly say how much each of you have grown as trainers since your early years can you pinpoint how you got on the path to becoming the trainers you are today so this is actually pretty clear for me I can too this is very very clear in terms of what made me the kind of trainer that I am today and what's going to make me the trainer that I'm going to be tomorrow because I think I'm going to be an even better trainer and you know five years from now that I am even today there's two things one is reminding myself the purpose behind what I do so being a trainer was never a job for me it was never a paycheck for me although sometimes it would do that every once in a while where I focus on the fact that I'm making money focus on the fact that it's a job when I would bring myself back to my purpose which was that I really really do I truly do love people nothing is more fascinating nothing draws me in more and nothing will nothing attracts me more than just the human condition than people children old people people in special populations you know one of the reasons why I love training if you look at the kind of people that I like to train the most I love training advanced age and then second place is kids and then third place is special populations people with you know physical ailments or mental ailments and the reason why I love training them so much is because it makes me feel more purposeful to what I'm doing because it definitely is awesome to get an athlete to perform better and it's also great to get someone just in better shape that's all amazing I love that too but there's something about helping an old person walk up the stairs or you know working with a kid and seeing that kids outlook on themselves change completely and so it was really about my purpose that forced me to examine my methods as a trainer and the second thing was being open-minded to training myself that pushed me in many different directions as well because I was always driven in my own training in my own nutrition to you know in my motivation and drive was was different in the early years it was about building muscle getting strong building muscle but because I was so driven to gain those things I was constantly examining my training questioning training and reading other people's opinions and reading scientific articles and questioning what I thought was common knowledge it's the reason why I switched from a body part split which by the way when I switched from a body part split to more frequent type of training which eventually resulted in more of a full body approach it was totally at a style it was totally nobody was doing it you wouldn't find a single body builder or muscle building expert that would recommend that you train at least if you advanced with a full body approach nobody in fact they would laugh and scoff at it and the only reason why I went down that path was my constant self-examination and I went and started reading these old articles and these old strongmen and these old advice and I started saying what's the worst that could happen if I try this approach let's see what happens and then that opened my eyes and then I kept doing that I kept pushing myself in different ways and identifying things that blew my mind in terms of what was working for me and then that made me a better trainer because then I was able to apply that those things to my clients and I started looking into questioning eating small meals every day then it turned into looking at fasting and how that affects the body then I started questioning protein intake then I started looking at veganism which was like you never went you didn't even talk about it or even you laugh at it if you're trying to build muscle well I started looking at maybe there's some benefits to eating like that and then I started examining this and I started noticing side effects of wellness in terms of muscle building and all those two things really drove me to become a better and better trainer because I was always self-examining and I was also driven by my love of people and that it always made me seek out what worked the best not what I thought was supposed to work or what I was told was the best Do you remember how old you were? I would say when you started for you so my career is different than your guys is because you both started as trainers and really stayed in the fitness side your whole career so I started as a personal trainer became a fitness manager then it became a general manager and so then I was managing production of the gym so although I was very connected to the trainers into fitness I was no longer training people until I started until I bought my own personal training studio slash wellness facility when I opened that up years later is when I really got better because now I'm really deep in being a trainer Do you remember how old you were? I started ABS at I think I was 22 or 23 so 22, 23 is when then I really started taking off and then from there probably the first five years was this fucking tornado of growth just learning all these different things and growing and then I started training Doug when did I start training? Do you remember what year you and I started? It was years ago like so about seven years ago, six years ago something like that that's when I started solidifying a lot of the concepts and stuff that I understand today because right around the time I started training Doug is when I started putting together the concepts of maps and a lot of other stuff so those are my two drivers those are the two things that made me a better trainer and that will continue to make me a better trainer I think for me definitely there was periods there's periods that I went through where I went most of my life trying to improve my performance and my athleticism and just totally focused on my own my own success and within my own body and my own capabilities and that was really the driver for a long period of time and getting into the industry it just made sense for me it was like I'm really enjoying working out and I really enjoy what I can do to my body physically to enhance what I'm currently doing and then getting into training I was completely humbled and I think that this has happened to me it's almost the cyclical experience for me where I feel like I've mastered something and then I'll step into just a little bit different like scene environment and I just I feel like I don't know anything and I'm just like humbled all over again so that being the first part of that was seeing how people move and seeing that their body didn't respond the way I wanted it to they weren't athletes I couldn't understand it it was this foreign concept to me like why can't you move your arm like that why can't you get off the ground like this like what the fuck what am I supposed to do with this I had to really research I'm like okay so now I'm starting I had to really peer into somebody that's conditioned that most of their life and they've never taught their body to do these very simple things and it's like people don't have experiences like you and like for me I don't know it sounds like so ridiculous but I was so mind blowing to me because it was just like I knew how I could do things I knew how my body worked like I could tell my body to do something and I could do it like you know even when I would go like try to or I would do like wake boarding or something like that I would get it right away I just had that sort of body awareness and so just kind of peering into that and like seeing okay there's a way to actually train your body to step by step kind of build up to that same kind of response for just anybody but man some people you have to really draw that out for a long period of time anyway that's just one example but I went through that and then figured out a better way to approach somebody from where they are and so you know building on top of that led me to you know okay so somebody's coming in with more experience what does that look like you know what does a professional athlete look like you know how do I improve them how do I benefit them and for the most part in that scenario it's about longevity it's about like supporting their joints it's about maintaining the explosive response and movement that they can produce and keep them healthy and help them have a long career and I just feel like me as a trainer to improve on being a trainer is to immerse myself in an entirely different arena different experience like shadow myself around somebody who's a master of that domain and humble myself and realize that you know like I know I know a lot about movement and I know a lot about the human body but somebody always knows more than me and I fucking seek those people out whether they you know it's from their book or like thankfully with this podcast we can interview them we can take them out on the floor and they can demonstrate things you know for our YouTube and so I just feel like as long as I can stay here and do what we're doing like we're just going to keep getting better and better and our message is going to resonate even more to more groups of people How old do you think you were when that mindset set in for you? Do you remember how old you were when you started like really diving and digging into to grow like that?  Do you remember? When I was first started training I mean sure it was like I was around like 22 or something like that but I would think for me like to identify that mindset was more when I stepped out of high school and like you know I was getting into college and I was getting away from my family and you know the safety net that I had established I had a girlfriend you know for like 3 or 4 years everything was about safety you know and then I just decided that for some wild reason I just felt like I was totally settled you know with my life and like everything was just doing things like on autopilot and then just this wild idea I was like why don't I go somewhere I've never been before and the opportunity kind of came to me because I was trying out well okay here it is actually this is interesting I was trying out for the football team for San Jose State and like my identity was a football player and you know I killed it in high school and I tried out for a D1 school you know and this is something that like I got into the school okay cool you can come in to the walk out tryouts and you can go through this process and I did really well and I was like you know had great numbers you know squat numbers bench numbers like my you know my shuttle run but my 40 time was dog shit you know like they really care about speed and so the first moment with that was like I failed like I failed hard like the first time I went to sprint I had such a bad start that the coach was like I don't know like let's have you try this again we have lineman faster than you it was like 5-2 or something like god awful right the water boy ran that faster could we have you do that again seriously dude it was so bad and like I remember just like had this shock of like what this is what I'm really good at what the fuck is going on and then like I did it again and it was like a little bit better but they just were not impressed even though I was killing all these other numbers and I was bigger than most of the guys that wanted to play my position and they're like I'm sorry man we don't have a spot for you and I had to tell my parents and it was just like fuck dude what am I gonna do you know and then after that it was like I just keep being a student and I'm like that's lame like I'm an athlete I'm an athlete damn it you know and I just struggled with that and so I was like well screw it I'm just gonna be a really good student and I'm just gonna do the shit out of this and I really cracked down and then this opportunity came to me this guy basically was on a plane flight with my dad and my dad was just like you know talking to him whatever he was the coach for really small school in Chicago and I was like yeah you know he's a really good player I don't know he just you know he didn't get a good 40 time and they didn't want you know to put him on the squad and you know he's just kind of you know doing school right now and it's like my dad was trying to like hype me up and all the stuff about how good I was in high school and all the stuff and so he ended up the coach got all excited because like it was a position that they needed really bad and so he reached out and everything and then they gave me like a scholarship opportunity so they paid for like you know most of my room and board and stuff like that and took a chance on me yeah so it's kind of like how life's really worked for me dude and then I just took a chance and I was like ah forget it I'm going you know and I'm gonna grow and I'm gonna improve but like a lot of times that's happened like I just get fucking I just get hit in the face like so hard like no like I had to take that one like I just sucked in that moment I was 25 I was 25 I remember the moment like yesterday for sure um it was a conversation that I had with our VP and I know that you guys know who the VP was we'll talk names after MP so he came down and the reason why he was coming down to visit me was they had gave me an offer they wanted me to be a general manager I'd been a fitness manager already for four years I had crushed it in all three of their clubs and by now word had got out that I was helping the sales team and teaching the sales side of the business even though I was a fitness guy and so of course this guy was a talented sales person in the company and had been around for a long time and he wanted me to go to the general manager side so I could teach sales more and I was really excited to talk to him the first time they came down the offer they gave me was shit I was like I'm not going to move positions I love fitness I love training I love people and I love money too and I definitely entertained the idea of heading to the general manager side like Sal did because technically you could make more money technically but there were people like me that were the exception the rule if you were really good at the fitness manager position you could make as much if not more than a lot of GM's and I was in that position I was outperforming most GM's in my area and so I didn't really have a desire to go to that side I love what I was doing and at that time I wanted to just keep moving at the company in that side of the house so back then it would be fitness manager then they wanted you to go over the sales side and then you go over to like district level before that there used to be a whole fitness side so you could go from fitness manager to district fitness manager all the way up to regional fitness manager type of position and so you could stay on the fitness side of the house and at that point in my career I was very bought into the company I had dreams of being like a VP or a main guy in the company and when they came down they gave me the shit off for the first time and I denied it then he actually came to visit me and I thought oh this is cool he's going to come down visit me or he's going to talk to me and he's going to give me a different offer and we sat in this office and he gave me this whole speech about I don't remember a lot of what was said but I do remember the stupid statement of Adam sometimes we have to take a step back to take a step forward in life you also have to tell the audience this is after years of carrot dangling which that company was very fucking good at and that's actually what I'm getting to in this story is that I had been told all these great things at that point in my career I thought I was going to be in there forever and this was the turning point for me this was when I realized fuck this place they don't care about me I realized that I realized that I had the same moment well at this time too you know I'm four plus years into management I had worked with a lot of talented people I had absorbed a ton I had grown a lot and I would say I was kind of at a plateau and I realized that this company was not going to look out for me and I kind of had this like by the way the offer he gave me was a little bit more money still wasn't enough money to get me to leave I wanted a guaranteed salary averaging over the last three years and I didn't think that was a lot to ask for if I was going to take on more responsibility and potentially make you more money and they just thought that was crazy because nobody got offered that kind of money for that position and I said okay well then I'll just continue doing what I love to do which is stay in this position and that's what I did but after that I had a real I was bitter, I was pissed off and I was kind of angry and like I believe that even back then I was the type of person that would reflect I was a little slower back then when I finally looked at myself and said what the fuck is wrong with you Adam how are you letting him control your emotions and let this company and I realized at that moment I cannot allow a company or these outside forces to dictate my personal growth and all of a sudden I just became this is when I started really reading and I remember what I decided to do I was like you know what I'm going to do is I'm going to look up what the CEO is reading and he used to do this thing where he'd email out things, books that he had been reading and I started reading I started with the books that he was reading because I wanted to know where my CEO's mind was and how he was directing the company and it was awesome because it gave me so much insight and at that moment I realized I would never let somebody else I would never let a company, a business, another person influence my personal growth and shame on me for allowing me to for me to allow myself to get caught up in that fear of wanting this company to take me somewhere like they're going to move me up and they're going to provide this for me and I thought to myself, fuck that I'm going to make this for myself and at that moment was the moment that I went on this journey of personal growth and that's in all areas so we're talking about business we're talking about self-help type shit we're talking about fitness and science and that's when I started to dive deep and I just had this thirst for knowledge and learning and I never stopped from 25 on but it took up until that point and that happening to me for me to really wake the fuck up and realize that every moment, every day that goes by it's nobody else's responsibility on how much I grow and how much I progress in this life I have full control of that and if I'm not progressing fast enough in this life it's nobody's fault but myself and when I took that ownership and I began to look at it like that it changed things forever for me as a trainer, as a leader as a businessman, like it forever changed me and it's a bit of advice that I always give to somebody that if you're not pushing yourself to grow it's Abraham Lincoln's right, I have no respect for a man that is no wiser today than he was yesterday and if you don't have that attitude that you're not comparing yourself to anybody else but yourself and are you smarter today than what you were yesterday, it doesn't matter what level that is compared to anybody else but if you're not challenging yourself that way every single day then you're losing the game Excellent Check it out, go to mindpumpmedia.com and get yourself registered for 30 days of coaching it's free, it's available and it's free also YouTube we post a new video every single day on YouTube with different information and content than you get from our podcast so I suggest going over to YouTube looking up Mind Pump TV and subscribing Finally, if you want to ask us a question that we answered in an episode like this one the place to ask it is Instagram and the page to ask it on is Mind Pump Media Finally, we all have our own personal pages on Instagram you can check us out, mine is Mind Pump Sal Adam is Mind Pump Adam and Justin is Mind Pump Justin If you choose to build and shape your body dramatically improve your health and energy and maximize your overall performance check out our discounted RGB Superbundle at mindpumpmedia.com The RGB Superbundle includes Maths Anabolic, Maths Performance and Maths Aesthetic 9 months of phased expert exercise programming designed by Sal Adam and Justin to systematically transform the way your body looks, feels and performs detailed workout blueprints and over 200 videos the RGB Superbundle is like having Sal Adam and Justin as your own personal trainers but at a fraction of the price the RGB Superbundle has a full 30 day money back guarantee and you can get it now plus other valuable free resources at mindpumpmedia.com If you enjoy this show please share the love by leaving us a 5 star rating and review on iTunes and by introducing Mind Pump to your friends and family We thank you for your support and until next time this is Mind Pump


Hi, this is Jeff Watts here, and this is a short video to briefly explain the concept behind team mastery So it's not just another book If you're familiar with scrum mastery and you're familiar with product mastery You'll you'll know that I tend to write stories about actual teams So teams that I've been involved with in the past or seen and there was slightly fictionalized to To remain anonymous and but they are based on real life and they highlight the difference between doing something To a good level and doing something to a great level So picking out the differences between the good scrum masters and the great scrum masters all good stuff But there are some things that great scrum masters great product owners and in the case of this book great agile teams Consistently do that set them apart from the others and so the hope here is that you can learn from those stories There are 10 stories covering the the main characteristics of great teams that I found from my years working with them All great teams have a habit of self-improvement. They build that into what they do. They take quality incredibly seriously They they establish and nurture a sense of unity among themselves They they're very audacious. They push themselves. They're brave. They take risks Then they don't just settle that are not complacent and finally They don't let anything get in the way of delivery because delivery is also important to them So those those squad characteristics are Common amongst all the great teams that I've seen But every team is unique. Okay, and so what great means for one team doesn't necessarily Equal what great means for another team and I've tried to incorporate that in the in the second part of this book Which is which is what makes it a sort of practical tool rather than just a theoretical Learning resource and that is the 50 milestone cards at the back. So what is a milestone card? Well, literally it is a card so it would be a card that That when a team hits that that certain level of maturity, they can then tear out literally so you see He's put these cards Perforated pages so they come out nice So this one says today we facilitated ourselves. We managed to run a session ourselves We didn't need a facilitator. We achieved something and we kept to time. So why is that important? Well self-organizing teams are great teams. They they they are able to work with themselves They're able to facilitate themselves towards results. They can they can take into account people's opinions They can hear each other. They can they don't need someone to to mediate They don't need someone to to hold an agenda to keep people to time to capture actions They can do that themselves and then that gives them a great sense of capacity autonomy Agency and it speeds things up as well So on the back of the cards as well as the the really cool illustration by Willie Stokes and my fantastic illustrator There are three there are four things. So there's risks. There are risks associated with working towards any of these Milestones, so there's going to be hard work involved. You also might upset the apple card So facilitating yourselves the first few sessions that you try this it might not go so well And the people that do that might not feel able to be involved as much it might drag on It might not be as the results might not be as good as if you had a professional facilitator and so on So there are some downsides to these things, but the benefits are also there and I magnify those bring those out quite explicitly on the back of the Cards The third thing about about these milestones is the rituals. So what things can you put in place to help? Working towards something new something different a little bit easier and make it stick more and stick for longer So there are some ideas for rituals that you can put in place to Establish these things quicker and easier and more effectively and the fourth thing is as you see the bottom there a QR code So each of these cards has its own you QR code which links to a unique web page Which contains a number of different resources? These can be videos blog posts articles Training modules anything that anything that I've found have been quite useful books that The teams can use to either understand that milestone more Make it easier to put into practice or amplify what they get from it And my hope is that that will become much more of a community Sourced resource pool because anybody can add what resources they found to be useful to that page And then anybody else who scans that QR can go and see what other people around the world have done to help make that Master in a reality or to get the most out of it. That's my hope My hope is it becomes a very social thing a very very networked thing And we can all learn from each other and help more and more teams go from good To great. Well, I hope that explains the concept behind it I'm really looking forward to seeing how people use this in practice Some of the teams that have used this in its sort of prototype stage. I've really really enjoyed it And there have been two typical ways that teams have used the cards. The first one is Reflection and realization. So they'll take regular time out to think okay So how are we doing as a team and realize? Oh, we've hit that milestone. Let's tear that card out Let's stick that in our team journal. Let's brag about that on social media And and just embed that as the next step along the path to greatness for that particular team The second way that teams have used that card is to pick one that they like the sound of the thing would be valuable to them and then Consciously proactively work towards achieving it Now it's not the ones right or ones wrong or whatever and it could be a mixture It can be a mixture of those two different approaches. Whatever works for your team Anyway, I've waffled for far too long. I'm really keen to hear how teams get on using this I'm really excited about it. I think it could be a game changer for a lot of teams out there But let me know what you think Take care everybody