Dining and Rereading - Dan John

You're gonna give yourself a nickname and you're gonna you're gonna come up and you're gonna speak with your accent and you're gonna drop the F bomb or you're gonna you're gonna rip on me and rip on you and you're gonna rip on this guy and that guy and her and her her great work there all didn't one day man you're gonna get exposed. Because if you're not you, the Emperor has no close.

Hey Fitness fans, welcome back to the future of Fitness Podcast and Interview Series. This is your host, Eric Malzone, and this is episode number 101. He's back. Dan John, the legend himself, is back on the show. Uh he was number three uh as far as episodes go, and I came back uh for 101. And what a treat, man. I I get so excited. I'm like a giddy schoolboy when I talk to Dan John because I have so many questions and I'm always learning as he talks. You never know where the conversations are gonna go either. That's the best part. Uh I had zero game plan for this episode, but it turned out great uh because that's just who he is. You know, he always delivers no matter what. So if you don't know who Dan John is, shame on you, right? If you're in the fitness industry, uh author of five plus books. In fact, he was working on his next book. Um as we're going through his interview, I could see him taking notes and scrambling down ideas for his book. I was like, oh wow. What if I was part of that creative process? How cool would that be? Uh so we'll find out in the in the next book. But where do you go with Dan John? I think, you know, I'm one of those people within the industry who's always eyes wide forward, right? Or eyes straightforward. Like, what's next? What's the next big thing? Is it tech, right? Is it some kind of user interface? Is it um you name it what is next? But talking to Dan John, you you're just not so subtly reminded that the fundamentals win the day, right? If you have solid fundamentals of how you coach, how you interact with people, how you treat people, you're gonna be you're gonna be great. And he always reminds us of that. And it's you know, more than coaching, it's more than anything, just being a great human being and how you should focus your learning process on exactly that, the process. Um always be evolving, always be looking at different points of view, always reading and rereading as the topic of this uh this podcast goes on. So it's a full hour and change. Uh, it's well worth it. Uh anytime you get Dan, John on a podcast, it's gonna be good. So uh much love to Coach uh Coach Dan John for coming on. It's always great having him. Uh before we get on to the interview, just want to talk about the fitness accelerator again. So it's growing. You know, I just got off the phone before recording this with a member of our group and asked her how she likes it. And she said, This is amazing. I I've never seen anything like it. Um, but I see how my business is going to grow way faster than it would without the group. Uh, just the connection she's making, the general ethos of the group is giving more than you can get. And uh everyone in there is living it. We're very selective, like I said, with who we let in. Um so if you're interested, you think that's a good fit for you in 2019. If you want to be part of a group that is doing nothing but good for the industry and in turn helping each other grow uh much faster than we would on our own, then you should come check it out. It's fitnessprofessionalonline.com forward slash fit accelerator, and you can find the application there. Once you fill it out, uh unless it's like Saturday afternoon where I'm seeing, I will get back to you within 24 hours and uh probably have some follow-up questions with the application because like I said, we are pretty strict on who we let in. So once again, it's fitnessprofessionalonline.com forward slash fit accelerator. You can get more information fill out the application, and you'll be hearing from me very soon. So without further ado, episode number 101, Coach Dan John. All right, we got the man back, Dan John. Welcome back to the show.

Thank you so much. It was it was nice last time, and let's see if we can do better.

Yeah, and I uh, you know, I have to personally thank you because when I got this whole podcast thing started, um I had no idea what I was doing really. And as anything. And uh you agreed to to come on my show. Um, you know, you're in my third episode, and and now we're about um between my two podcasts, we're about 327 shows later. Uh, you know, I get you back. And uh, you know, hopefully I'm I'm I'm a little bit more polished for you, but uh you know, you tend to make the show. So that's a lot that's impressive. Okay.

It's a lot of questions, you know. Yeah, questions. Well, you probably learned a lot. The problem with this format, maybe for you, is that it's gonna, you know, you'll hear something, but you're not since you're actively in a dialogue, you might not write things down as well. So I can see a a positive side of podcasting, and I can also see that you're trying so hard to make sure that the audio's right, the visuals right, the you know, yeah, you you might just miss the fun of it. Yeah, I'll do my best to make it fun. Okay.

Yeah, you know, it's I I actually I think um I don't during a show, I don't fuss too much about that. I let my editors deal with it. Um, but what I do find is like right now, I have everything closed on my desktop. My cell phone's off. I am about as engaged as I can be with a person, besides being one-on-one uh in the same room as as I could possibly be. And it's it's it's actually a really treat because uh you have to be so fully engaged, you have to listen, you know, when you're talking to people. And I find it to be great, um, you know, because everything's so distracted nowadays, right? With everything you do.

I mean it's how often am I sitting around in a group and you'll see this?

Yeah, yeah, it's wild.

You're out on a date with this beautiful woman and you're staring at your Instagram feed and your friend tweeted that you know, a monkey or something like that, yeah.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. So I I have a question for you to kind of get started because I know you're uh you're probably just recovering from vacation mode. You're out in Ireland, and uh, you know, I'm I'm uh I'm uh um aspiring traveler quite a bit. And you know, a lot of a lot of people um who I talk to are also what I call digital nomads and kind of travel around a lot. You know, what what is it about? Because you said before the show, you spent about two months a year in Ireland. Just Ireland, yeah. Yeah, what is it about Ireland that you love?

Oh well. You know, I go to Galway, I go to the West, and you know, you you would have a hard time finding kinder, more generous people than the West of Ireland. I always tell people the least you know, the least Irish town I know is Dublin. Um it's got a lot of historical stuff, but it's not very Irish. But what you think what you think of Ireland is the West, or and the South too, and even up the Northwest too. I I I I work at uh St. Mary's over there in Twickenham, London, and I always tell people, when you think of England, you think of Richmond and Twickenham. Um you don't think of what you'll find when you get there. And when most Americans actually think of York, York has a motte in Bailey Castle, they've got this old this old wall. As you walk down the streets, as you walk down the streets, the houses kind of come in like this, you know. Yeah. You know, uh you turn a corner, there's this massive cathedral, and then you're back down the street. So we've been lucky because we have a lot of friends in Galway. So we'd go out there and it's it's uh I probably walk six miles a day. I swim in the Galway Bay every day. Um we make one or two meals a day, depending on you know uh how things are going. Um, and then we probably you know, we probably eat out once every two days, but it's often every day. Uh so it's vacation-esque. Uh, I'm able to do all my work there, uh all my students' work and my college work and I write there. And um if you sleep in, you sleep in. If you if you feel like freezing, and it is the coldest water I've ever been in. Uh if you feel like freezing, I got a place for you. Uh, we got a rugby games there. Uh we were at a hurling game last time. We got Gaelic football, we catch soccer. Uh yeah, we just I give a couple of free workshops while I'm there. I really like it. Awesome. Um a lot of friends, got a lot of friends. Best best taco place in uh in uh in Ireland is in Galway. Uh a weightlifter buddy of mine owns it. But enough of that. Let's let's move on to the uh to the rest of the story.

Yeah, yeah. So I um I got to interview somebody uh within the strong first ranks, um, Artemis Scandalides. Um if you if you know Artemis. And she uh you know, I asked her on the show what books she she recommends. She basically recommended all of your all of your books. Um and uh uh intervention was number one. We both agree that's something that that most trainers, uh all trainers really should should get into their lives. And you know, we the the topic always comes up when you come up, because you come up quite often in podcasts, quite often. You and um James Fitzgerald from from OPAX and a couple other people or um Tony Genticore and Eric Cressy, all these people. Um, but you know, the one thing that I think most people respect about you the most is that you take all this experience, right? And we talked about this last time, you boil it down to like just the simplest possible form that that coaches can be like, okay, I can do that, right? I can do that, right? I can actually put that into play and start practicing it.

So the word coach comes from the word coach. It's a vehicle that takes you from here to here. And the job of the coach is to make it easy. Now uh simple, make it simple, but yeah, uh you know, I I was talking recently and people thought I was joking. I said, you know, if you're working with an overweight, overfat client, but before they start talking, walk outside, walk to their car, look in the backseat. And I said, I guarantee if any of you do that, all your mind will be blown open. And someone said, After why? I go, because you'll notice that they have 52 bags, uh, that the backseat's filthy, it's filled with fast food, it smells like you know that smell of old French fries. And I tell them, honestly, if you just cleaned up the back seat first, you'd be well on your way with this client. Because what happens is, and it that's okay, this is my it's very simple, right? The biggest problem we have right now in 2018 is the in political science we used to call it noise. Um, you know, you used to always hear the thing. Well, FDR knew that the Japanese were gonna bomb Pearl Harbor. Why did he know that? Well, he had advisors telling him, he probably had advisors telling him that every day for five years. But after a while, when you start to hear, you know, you suddenly you don't hear it, like you have a drip in your faucet. When I come in your house, I'll walk over and try to fix it, and you go, Oh yeah, it trips. So for most people, the issues they have in 2018, I think, is that they've allowed their lives to be so cluttered. We were talking about, you know, going out to dinner with somebody and they're like this.

Yeah, yeah. iPhone to their face, yeah.

Clicking on buttons, uh, and then and again, I I don't know if there's anything wrong with it, but there's no chance to declutter. And yeah, and I I have always discovered that you know it's it's the little things that stops you from success. You know, it's not the fact that you didn't bench 400. You know, oh, you only benched 390. That's not the thing holding you back as a disconstruer. The thing that's holding you back is a disconstruer, she had to pull an all-nighter to write that term paper the other day because you put her off for four months. And that clutter, you know, you you you you look at a house, you look at a refrigerator, you look at the pantry or the food cabinet, clutter. I mean, there's everything in there is uh cardboard carbohydrates, you know, bags of chips, boxes of Cheetos. Nothing wrong with Cheetos. It if you ever by the way, there's two foods. If you ever see me eating, you probably don't want me to have the keys to the car. One's corn chips and the other one's Cheetos, man. Those are my crap. Okay, just just warning you straight up. And I only eat Cheetos at Discus Camp, but boy, once I start, man. So for most people, it's the clutter, and that's why I use that term shark habit so much. To to try to set yourself up. For example, I'm more in the black shirt. I got 16 of these shirts. I'm always in the black shirt. There you go. Yeah, I have 16 polo shirts of the exact same. I have six pairs of uh barbell brand jeans, six pairs of Nike freeze. My thoughts is I don't have to use any brain space to dress. I have a little routine I do with uh oral hygiene. I mean, it's not the big deal, but it's just what I do. I do it every morning. Uh I have the flossticks next to me. When I I go to cryotherapy every day, uh I freeze and I shake and I do a few other things. But when I drive there, I always floss because I have flossticks. But I don't have to use any brain pan to do any of this stuff. Uh I sleep, I don't want to use the brand, but this is an off brand. But this is a I sleep with these a full bottle of water next to me. I always try to reuse everything at least once or twice. In this case, probably about six months. There's a kind of a greenish, brownish top to it. I'd be a little careful if you got too close. You can't let pregnant women near that thing. But you know, every night before we go to bed, I fill that thing with water. And so if I get thirsty at night, I just drink out of that. I don't have to get up, get a glass, because it happens to me a lot. And I think one of the things I could really when people say I make things simple, it sort of bothers me in a way because what I try to do most is to is to declutter, to, to, to not not wipe away, but slap away the flies and the gnats and the mosquitoes of life. And so that you can, you know, you can see, you can see clearly. So, you know, when you talked about intervention, the one thing I I I think I missed in there was focusing on the clutter. And that's where the now the book now what stepped up and helped out. And the two words are called shark habits, and uh the other one is pirate maps. Uh, whatever your goal is, you know, write write the you know, if you want to be a great discus thrower, here you go. Uh throw five days a week, lift three days a week, do a lot of Olympic lifts, uh, do some power lifts. But that's it. Okay, so that would be so throw, lift, you know, sleep, throw, lift, eat protein and veggies, uh, drink water. Yeah, that's yeah. That's this that's the road to success to be a discus thrower. Someone's gonna write the end, well, specifically, so is it nice? Shut up. Do you know how to do the snatching manager? Well, no, but I was I I read a very interesting blog on it. No, yeah, go learn the things and then you know get going. So I think the mistake I made with um so that would be a pirate map, a very simple one, two, three, four, five daily thing you do every day. Mine is on the back of this computer, right? Right there. And I can tell you because I know it by heart. And then shark habits is just everything else. Um when a light bulb goes out, I always, if a light bulb goes out and I have to buy one, I always buy like eight. Now, if you're not living in a home my size, you probably can't put eight light bulbs. But the light bulbs are gonna go out in the next 10 years. So the next time they go out, I don't have to go to the store, I've got one. You know, that to me is that to me is a shark out.

So, so here's my question for you, and this is by no means a softball. Maybe it is, maybe it is a softball question, but um, you know, with all the conversations I've had in the last year with the fitness profession, I see I see trends. Um, the world, I mean, I think we can all agree is complexity is is increasing daily, right? I mean, technology is interfacing, it seems like we're inundated with more and more information. There's just a tsunami of content out there, people having issues getting heard. I see great coaches, amazing coaches, right, who are struggling to get clients the time because there's so much clutter and there's so much false promise, right? Maybe social media and I've seen great, I've had conversations with trainers who just gave up, they left, they left the industry overall, right? Um what's your like if you know what what's the golden you advise that you have for people nowadays, you know, young trainers getting started or even coaches who have been in the game for 10, 20 years, maybe you know are having those issues getting people coming through the doors. You know, what what what is that?

It's buy low, sell high. I mean, yeah, everyone's looking for the magic formula.

Yeah.

And uh the truth is, I mean, my wife and I did real well. Uh we bought reasonable homes and we sold them. We bought them at a very low price and sold them when the market was high. Write that down. It's genius. I never everything you do is genius. I mean it starts with a good night's sleep. It starts your day should begin with, you know, a moment, a pause just to make sure you've got everything going. Do you have a to-do list? Um I mean, do you have friends worthy of the name, you know? Um, it's it did you go for a walk? I mean, uh, did you eat protein and veggies at your meal? There's not there's nothing fancy or new, and that's this is what we fight against, you know. These all these articles have come out in the last few months about the obesity rate driving, and the one came out the other day from Huff Post. Well, there's nothing to do about it. It was like, I don't want to read that article. I I don't want to read that article. So, you know, there was a thing that happened in the 1980s, and it was popular for some people, but it was unpopular for a lot. Um, and the weavers, who are a musical group, they were doing one of their last performances before one of the guys, and he just kind of leaned over and said to the audience, this too shall pass. So we're at this strange time in the fitness industry where people got you know, I have to throw in there, you know. I wrote that one funny article one time, and I I think it offended a couple of people where you it was like a uh book generator and it was a the and then I gave you like 20 adjectives, alpha, hardcore, convict, prison, savage, you know, beastly, uh book of complex, simple, outrageous, nightmarish, you know. And it was like the final word was like training. Yeah, the savage book of nightmarish training, you know. And uh the truth isn't the stuff, I mean, I get it. I mean, if you know, you know, there's always that 15 to 18 year old boy who'll buy into all this stuff, but the truth is it's gonna be pretty simple stuff. That's the answer, you know. Uh I don't want to say I'm frustrated because it it happens all the time, you know. Um there are so many books that have said it better. Uh the book uh was it Wolf who wrote uh You Can't Go Home Again, the book about the blind guy and all that. Uh we know that, you know, it's um you know, Sir Parcival, the great story, you know, the the King Arthur's Knight, who spends 10 years searching for what's been right next to him the whole time. You know, so I get a lot of wisdom out of those books. I get a lot of wisdom out of uh legends and stories like that, because you know, a person's writing this book, and in the case of Gilgamesh, you know, 5000 BC, Beowulf earlier than a thousand, Iliad and the Odyssey, uh 1200 BC ish, you know, maybe some of it earlier, some of it maybe later. And yet the same truths come true over and over and over. And so as long as I can kind of keep my mind on that kind of thing, it seems to help me uh a lot. You know, uh, you know, when you reread Ulysses as an adult, you know, some of the stuff just leaps off the table at you. You know, um, I I always capitalize the word mentor, and people will correct it, my editors, not Larry, but the others, um, and I'll write back because mentor is a proper name, it's the name of Telemachus' tutor. So it should always be capitalized. It's like my first name and your first name. And here you have the story about this this teacher who was so important that we we we still use his name today. And so here's a story from years and years ago, and I'm still pulling out information from it. So I would tell okay, my my friend Jim says I always do this when I get a question. Okay. I always tell people when you're confused, look backwards. When you're lost, look backwards. Um here's a quick example. This this is my current training journal, okay? Nice. And I pulled this yeah, all right. I I pulled this one out from uh this one's from 2014. I was looking up. Somebody asked me about um somebody asked me about the what got us into this one workout. And I had to slide back to 2014 to remember why we morphed over into that. Because it's written in there. Whenever I get confused. Confused, I go backwards. You know, I here's okay. This is a friend of mine. Okay. This is a friend of mine. Uh his name is Bob Humphries, okay? All American athlete. From what what 60? This is February, probably 62, 63, maybe. And it's got its workout programs from the 1960s, 62, 63. Right there is a perfect template for uh coaching the disco store. Let me see if um let's see what's got in here. I mean, by the way, this is just me. This I I didn't set this up, but this is just the way I work. Yeah. If we get too too deep into the rabbit hole with disco stores, I'll pull out Bob's workouts, I'll pull out LJ Sylvester's workouts from 59. Uh, I got Al Order's workouts in there, and we'll say, okay. Uh, well, and if that's not good enough, then I'll, you know, then I'll pull out the German training books on drilling. And uh we can we can see what they're doing, you know. 20, these are those workouts are probably from the mid 80s. Yeah. So and so all of a sudden you're I say, well, he's doing this, this, and this. And I guarantee handle go, so um, I don't see any lunges in what they're doing. Yeah, I know.

Yeah.

Aren't lunges a primary movement? Well, I don't see telemarking, telemarking, yeah. They do it. Yeah, wrestlers kind of sort of do it, but really it's more of a it's like you're getting tackled, really. Right. I'm not ripping on lunges, I'm just saying example. If you're gonna, if all of a sudden you're you're stuck as a coach because you have a vertical push, a horizontal push, a vertical pull, a horizontal pull, uh, a one-legged hinge, a two-legged hinge, you know, this kind of squat, that kind of squat, a whole lunge family, you know, a whole this. Uh oh, we got anti-rotation, we got rotation, we got core, and all of a sudden you look at the workouts, the workouts take six hours. Guys worked out for an hour back then, and the numbers were huge bench, huge squat, huge clean, huge snatch. What happens sometimes is to clarify things, I just go back. I just go back. Now I'm lucky. I mean, I have a um, did I show you? Uh okay, I'm I'm down in my downstairs office right now. I have two. I have one I write in, and then I have this is the one I kind of do more of uh, but then I don't want to show you everything because kind of a mess, but can you see that okay? Can you see that okay? Yeah, yeah, I can see that. Okay, so those my journals, these journals of mine go back to 1971. Okay. Wow. Uh those are all the strength and health magazines. These are various uh books that I'm uh these are the books I've kind of just finished. These are great. These are from uh the this is uh flip books from 1936 on how to coach the discus. Um and of course, right here, you know, you see a lot of the dragon door books and and anatomy trains and you know, just the a lot of the taller, thinner books are in here. You still feel okay?

Yep.

Okay, so let me just show you this great book. So this I I know that's a flip book.

It's a flip book. That's amazing. What's that called again?

Uh this particular one, it's so good. Okay, I know what I'm doing the rest of the day. I'm gonna play.

Yeah, yeah, there's your evening right there.

So it when you go one direction, it's got exercises and uh things like that. There's so the when the book flips pages, you can follow how Kenny Carpenter threw the discus and all the little exercises that he did to prepare.

Yeah.

So okay, there's your 1936 discus champion. And I would tell my athletes, guys, he threw 174. And then they'd be like, I'll be throwing that. I go, oh, but one other thing. He threw on grass in spikes, and his weight workout was pull-ups and then and walking on his toes. And we also played football for USC in the fall. He was the Olympic champion. He also played football in the fall. The biggest tree on USC's campuses, the one he donated to the school, he got an oak, a small oak tree as part of being a gold medal winner. It's now the largest tree on the campus. My my point, and I I know, I know I talked to my talk. I'm sorry. No, it's great. This is why you're a great interview, Dan. This is my point. You want to see my face?

Yeah.

Is when I get lost, I just go back to the roots. Yeah. You know, uh in American football, we had that phrase, dance with a girl who brung you. Yeah. What got us here? Because this is what always happens. You know, you'll you'll win us, you win a state championship in football, and then you add all this stuff, and you go, oh, a nine next year. He goes, What happened? And the kids will say, I haven't known who to block all season. You know, you went to that conference and had all this new stuff. You know, it the joke is we used to use him blocking. Him blocking, yeah. I block him, you block him. And uh, him blocking works really good. So there's no way you're gonna keep up as a fitness trainer. Yeah, no way you're gonna keep up as a coach. Because as as soon as we finish this today, some knucklehead is gonna come out with something new and different.

Yeah.

And it's it's difficult. It's difficult. Yeah, if you don't mind me quoting Gilgamesh, you know, a 7,000-year-old epic, you know, when he he he the the ale wife tells Gilgamesh, look at the child that is holding your hand. These things alone are the concern of men. Uh on Sunday, we my grandchildren came over and uh we gave Josie um a Batgirl outfit, you know. So she put it on and didn't take it off for 48 hours, okay? And my dog seriously just left to discuss a few months ago. He became super dog, and the two of them played for two or three hours doing their my dog and my grandchild played super. So I went into my old closet, pulled out my Batman outfit, and ran around with you didn't because these things alone are the concern of men.

Yeah, yeah. That's interesting. You know, I'm I'm curious what if let's say uh someone sits down to you next next to you on a flight, right? And they they look over and they say, Hey, what do you do? What what's your answer?

I always go, okay, it's a little hard to explain. And uh, you know, like when people ask me, you know, I one thing I say is I'm an author, but I really actually am. Right. I make a living as an author. I'm not that guy. Well, I'm a musician, you know, I sit in my house in my mom's basement, and I, you know, uh write songs. Uh I'm a poet. I I actually do make money. So I'm an author, and then I'm a professor at St. Mary's and I in uh in strength and conditioning, and then over at uh Columbia College, I teach religious studies, and then I do workshops now on um strength and conditioning, and then I donate all I donate a lot of free time coaching, weightlifting, track and field, anything else people need me to help with. Yeah. I do a lot, I do a lot of volunteer work. Uh the other day I was working with a guy and he goes, Well, how much I pay? And I go, nothing. Well, he owns his own gym. It's like, yeah, trust me, downstream it'll all it'll all be better. Oh, you know, I will I will do fine because of this little time with you. So I start usually with author, then go to the professors, and then go to mendicant strength coach, you know, wandering strength coach, yeah.

Yeah, yeah. And your uh your emails to wandering weights is is one of my favorite things. I still I have them all saved since like uh since I subscribed, I think in 2013. I have them all in a folder. Uh I haven't read them all. That would be a lie, but I have them all saved for a rainy day.

You know, it wouldn't be a terrible, you know. So what I'm doing to get with the sword and the stone section, do you go down and read that part? I read your most recent. Yeah. See, I I think it's some of the best work of my career. Um it's really cool. I'll show you my first published article.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Please. Can you read that? Uh a new look at Beowulf Poet.

At the Beowulf Poet. Yeah, Beowulf Poet. And the and the uh comp uh the Rocky Mountain Conference on British Studies uh printed this up and gave it to me. This is my first printed article. My next one was on King Arthur, and then I wrote uh another one on the history of Utah 4-H clubs because that's what I did my master's, because they gave me a lot of money at the time. But I've always loved, you know, I love that kind of thing. I love uh one of my old mentors, uh Archbishop George Niederauer, used to always tell me, rereading is the key. Yeah. And I found that to be absolutely true in my life. So the thing about the sword and the stone is that I put together all of them from the beginning. I cut and pasted, rewrote a few things, and uh was telling La Ree the other day, I go, Well, the weird thing is it's 190 pages. And so next time anyone says, How do you write a book? I would say, Well, once a root week, come up with a page. Yeah. Yeah. That's not much. Well, it's more than you're doing now. So Right, right, right. I can knock out I can knock out a book in two or three months easily. Oh, it's crazy. Because um, because for me, all the work work is what well actually I'm I'm preparing right now for my new book. So there's always folders underneath the computer. Sorry about moving the computer folks so much. I know. Underneath the computer is all this notes and stuff like that. And you'll notice that uh well, my journals that I'm uh the questions that are coming up come from these journals, and then so what happens when I write a book is I start to you know squirrel things, you know, you know, start to gather nuts, and and all of a sudden I notice, oh my god, that connects to that. So yeah, that's how I would go author first, because that's you know, and I I I have an honest conversation, my daughters, every so often. If my wife and I die, they get 49% each of uh the uh of the intellectual property. And then I have one of my godsons, he has the other two percent. The reason I did that, and I was told to do this, is that that way um they can't they can't kind of screw each other over. You know, if one of them does the the prodigal son thing and just blows it, you know, the other one still has the major, you know, has the majority. Yeah. Yeah, I don't think they will. They're pretty bright young ladies and pretty loyal, but um, yeah. Because I, you know, I don't, I honestly I could honestly probably live the rest of my life on the royalty.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, that's awesome. I mean, that's uh, you know, I talk to so many people and I always keep saying, uh, you know, maybe I want to write a book and start writing, and then I have no idea what I'm gonna write about. And then and then I'm like, well, maybe I'm just not there yet. You know, maybe like when I when I feel a book, how old is it inside of me? I'm 41.

Yeah, well, I didn't my first book was 2009, I was 52. Okay. I had written those contrarian approaches and those little free ones that are on the internet. Yeah, but it's cool book that you can, you know, squeeze and hold in your hands. Yeah.

Yeah. You know, it's interesting. I um yeah I I got to interview John Goodman from uh Online Trainers Academy. And uh now whenever I see someone wearing a black shirt, I'm like, oh, maybe they talk to Dan John because he Yeah, we both we both we were talking because we both wear uh merino wool black t-shirts. Yeah, because great company, yeah. You know, they they just uh they don't um they don't smell really. So you can you know you can wear them you know over and over and they feel great. And it just takes that, you know, and I I look at you know, someone like yourself, right? Um multi-published author, um well known within the industry. John is is similar, um, but he's in the online community. But at the basis of it, and I think this is a really important lesson, is that we all try to eliminate too many decisions in our day, right? We just try to make some things automatic so that the creative work gets the the majority of the energy and the time and the input.

Well, I've been kind of blessed in a way being a both a football coach and a track and field coach, American football. Yeah. Because you know, when you're getting ready for a game, everybody looks and they you know, they see the Stanford guys and they got 5,000 plays and stuff. But in truth, I used to try to have myself nine. We would go into a game with nine plays, you know. And I if if you're you're I'm trying to follow up with your point because I like yeah, and when I would go in with 90 plays, we didn't know what we were doing. You know, my best teams only did certain plays in one direction. Now you could say, well, why don't you do it the other way? And then I'd say, Well, I don't want to say anything nice, but little Bobby over there, yeah, he couldn't hold back a kitten. So we got to run away from Bobby. But you you you know, you have a pass, you have a pass that looks like a run, you have a run, a run that looks like a pass. There's four plays. You have an inside, you have an outside, quarterback sneak. I mean, you almost have it right there. And everyone goes, Yeah, but what about okay, have that magic special play, good. Now you're up to eight. And you got okay, now what are you gonna do? Because you're you're just trying to move, and what really helped me is when I became a good football coach when we just got fundamental and basic, repeated things. We had built-in rules. Here's a simple one for you. Every time we completed a pass, we would sprint up to the line of scrimmage, and as soon as we could, yeah, now it it was easier than now the referee has to get fat butt out of the way. But as soon as we we were ready to play, whistle went, we'd run a quarterback sneak and you'd gain eight yards every time. Yeah, people say, Well, don't they know it's coming? Well, I hope by now we've done it like seven times in a row, but they don't because that defensive line is as nice as I can say about this fine, I mean wallowing down the field. Doesn't even get into a stance, and we're already eight yards past him. And so we had those were rules for us. It was very much the uh algorithms in my head. So there's certain plays, you'd run a certain play, and everybody knew it was coming. At least my team knew it because it's what we do in this situation, it's who we are, and that helped me. So, I mean, we all know, okay, let's do the fitness thing. We all know you need to walk every day, we all know you need to work your butt. You probably should do some presses, doing some polls, probably a good idea, right? Probably eat protein vegetables at every meal and drink water. And it wouldn't it be great if people got about eight to ten hours of sleep every night? Yeah, but that doesn't sell, coach. You know, that's that's the that's the trouble. Right. That's why I have to write books that people don't buy. But no, I know. But it's but see, that's the problem with truth, right? You know, that's the problem with truth, you know. You know, sometimes you'll sit down with somebody and they'll say, you know, how did you do it? And you'll say, Well, and I'll have a cliche for it, like little and often over the long haul. I love that. Yeah, it's one of my favorites. I use it all the time. I'll look at you like, but I want it tomorrow. Yeah. Well, good. Now it is true, some people have built-in advantages. I don't know if you you read The New Yorker, but there's a uh by the time this airs, I'm guessing though, but you know, there's this man of man of privilege who went to an elite this and an elite that, and he's been bolstered up throughout his whole life by a different system that I didn't have. Now, in full candor, the moment I was born, I was luckier with a lot of people. This is gonna come off, someone will probably get mad. Hi, I'm Dan. I'm a white male. I have had advantages because of those two things my entire career. I can stand up in front of a group of people and say, shut up. And because of my size and the way I do it, people will shut up and listen.

Yeah.

I get that. Now, if I was from a really wealthy family, there'd be a whole other set of edges. Edges. And that's what you're always looking for is edges. You're just trying to get an edge on your opponent and everybody else. And if you start with a lot of edges, you know, there's a guy who's called the president of the United States, and his dad gave him a million-dollar loan. And he keeps making these little comments like it wasn't that big of a deal. Well, my mom and dad, my dad, we're not sure graduated from high school or not. It's because he joined the joined the army. My mom, they had nothing because of the depression. So my brother Rich is the first person in our family history ever to graduate from college. And I know other families that Bob is the first person to ever graduate from high school. So there's these edges, there's these edges, there's these edges. Me, I build my whole philosophy as a coach on getting more edges. 1976 Olympic high jump, De White Stone says, I guarantee I'll win unless it rains. Guess what happened? It rained. So he complained, he got the squeegee out, made a big show of it. But the funny thing is, the guy who took first, his coach said, Well, let's practice. And he would take buckets of water, he'd take a hose, and he would spray down the apron, the run-up apron, and he got used to high jumping with slick surface. You don't always get, you don't always win because of the rain. If if something comes, if you're one of my athletes, we're gonna work on every scenario. I've told you, I think I might have told you this last time, but I think I've had my athletes win state championships because of bowel movements. And in the state of Utah, you get the state track schedule just a few months ahead of time. Yeah. And then you look at it, and so I coached a 3A school and I saw 3A shot put, 3A hurdles, 8 a.m. So I would start working with those kids to warm up at 8 a.m. Just warm up. One of the funny things they'd say is like, oh, hey, hey, I gotta go at the state meet, you can't run off the field and go take care of business. Yeah. You have to stay there. So I would train my athletes with, well, basically sugar-free metamucil, but uh, I would train my athletes to get up just a little bit earlier, take care of business. They were used to warming up a little bit at 8 a.m. They were used to throwing or hurling at 8 a.m. Maybe not super, but the edge they had. I had a streak at the 8 a.m. flights that was just ridiculous. We would constantly have those out-of-nowhere performances because we train. See the little edge?

Yeah, yeah, totally.

It makes total sense. Yeah. It wasn't much, was it? Right. It really wasn't. Now you're taller and better and stronger than I am. But at 8 a.m., if I've been up for a few hours, I'm used to warming up at that time. I'm used to telling my body to snap at 8 a.m. versus, ooh, I have a chance to beat you. And on your first throw, you don't throw well, and I do, I just crush crushed you emotionally.

Edges. Edges. Yeah, that's so that's so great. I mean, essentially, there's a word for that's used all the time now. I'm not niches, niches, right? I don't know which one you say. But it's it's it's I see the parallel there, you know, for for a lot of you know, trainers getting started, and when I especially when I have the opportunity to to coach them into getting into business and get their thing, I'm like, I'm like, get minute, right? Find out where you can own it, right? Just own it.

Mark Fisher is.

Oh, yeah, yeah. He's been on the show. I talked to him often. He's awesome.

He was at my house Friday and Saturday night. Okay. All right. So we did a workshop together here in Utah.

Yeah.

Mark and I met oh uh in Clayton, Missouri, probably seven years ago. I just I just had surgery. And Tom Plummer had just warned me about never selling out because I'm the crazy uncle in the attic. And I sat down with Mark Fisher in a hallway, and it was a weird little hallway. And he started talking about this idea he had for a gym. And he told me that I was the very first person to go, yes, exactly. But you can't be me. And but I can't be you. Right. You when I when I coach, I have a style of coaching that's not good. When I was a shitty coach, sorry, when I was a poor coach, I would try to be somebody else. When I finally figured out that this is me, my coaching, I got. My athletes were better. So about a not this Friday because the mark was here, but the Friday before I went to a reunion. I bumped into a whole bunch of my old athletes. And they were telling stories about how, you know, I started with one of my favorite stories. It's this team we had that we went undefeated. And I I won't go through all of it. We were, we shouldn't have. And I'd walk, we'd take it, there'd be a timeout, usually then, and I'd walk out on the field. My athletes would do this to me.

What does that mean? Push you away? Yeah, we got it. Go home, coach.

No, no, go home, but we got it. It's like we got this. We got this. Yeah, yeah, yeah. If a problem in blocking would come up, I would say, uh, say to the offensive lineman, guys, they don't they're not allowing allowing me to play today. So you guys have to come up with an answer. Uh game two, they're like, we got it. Right. It's we have to do him blocking, you know. That's it. I got him, you got him, you know. And we just would roll on people because that they they so two things. One, they were a unit, they were, they were a one, they were an entity. And then number two, they loved and trusted each other enough and trusted me enough that we would always do the right thing. And if they did something, that they and I don't think they ever made a call I didn't agree with on offense. I I can't think of anything. They'd be like, that's yeah, that's pretty good. Better than what I was gonna do. So so uh yeah, I I like this conversation. And so when you're talking about niche or niche, depending where you live, yeah, you know, but okay, but let me add one more thing. It has to be authentic. Yes, you can't invent it, and you'll know it's funny because I'm thinking of a couple of people here. Usually it's when you give yourself a nickname, that's always a big sign you're in trouble. You talk about yourself in the third person, that'd be number two. But you know, all of a sudden you um I call it the Emperor's uh New Clothes. Do you know the Hans Christian Anderson story? No, I do not. Does anyone read anymore? Uh Hans Christian Anderson has a wonderful, I'll sum it really fast. Um, it's a great little story. Um, this uh faker, this this uh this uh you know con man, so to speak, shows up at the king's court and he says, uh, I've just come back from China and I have bought the most expensive fabric in the world, but only people with exacting taste and a high level of you know sense of beauty and understanding can see it. So he reaches into a basket and there's and he reaches up like this, and just like you guys see there, there was nothing there. And the king goes, Oh my god, it's beautiful. I love it. And the whole court goes, Yes, I love it. So he starts measuring the king and he starts doing the whole thing, and and the whole kingdom hears that the king, only people with absolute taste and you know, vision can see it. So the king is walking down the street, and little boy says, The emperor has no clothes. It is, and of course, suddenly everyone realizes that the king's you know cod piece is hanging out and he's walking naked down the street. But everybody thought, you know, and I I use that all the time in this industry because you're gonna give yourself a nickname and you're gonna you're gonna come up and you're gonna speak with your accent and you're gonna drop the F-bomb, or you're gonna you're gonna rip on me, you're gonna rip on you, and you're gonna rip on this guy and that guy and her and her her great work there. Oh, it didn't you're gonna give yourself a nickname, you're gonna call your people the whatever's. But one day, man, you're gonna get exposed.

Yeah.

Because if you're not you, the emperor has no claws.

Yeah.

Oh, I love it. I love it. And authenticity is is uh it's a big topic now. You know, there's there's a lot, like we talked about earlier, there's just a lot of noise. There's a lot of people, there's a lot of mimicry. Um, there's a lot of emulation, there's a lot of things where people see someone succeeding in an area, so they just do what they do and think that's gonna be it. But people are people are smart. People know, right? They really do. And and uh, you know, I think it's you know, in my in my career, oftentimes I've I've mimicked until I knew what I wanted what to do, right? There's certain points where you're just like, okay, I'll go, I'll go take a three-day seminar with Dan John. You know what? I'm gonna come back and when I'm coaching, I'm just gonna mimic what he taught me until I fully understand it and now I can apply it, and now I can make it my own in my way, right? So I think there's a place for mimicry, but authenticity rules out.

The phrase used to be fake it until you make it.

Oh, it's still fair for sure.

And I tell young teachers that all the time. You know, you're gonna be nervous, you know. I first started teaching, I was barely well when I first started to keep teaching college, I was younger than many of my students. But when I taught high school at first, I was barely older than them. And you know, you have to come in with this air of authority, and that's okay. But you can fake it for about three days, but then it's and I'm okay, actually, and I'm okay if you fake it for three days. You know, I'll go to I'll go to these different shirts and things like this. People will be trying to imitate this person and that person, and the people the people and and if I ever come off as inauthentic? Disauthentic. Okay, I I think it would be very obvious. Yeah, yeah, you know, but you know, I because you know, I have the goofy what they call the old man jokes. I mean, I've done it my whole career. I've always had old man jokes. I love puns, I've loved puns since my youth. You know, I love poetry, I love epics. You know, I don't know how many other people when they're lecturing toss Gilgamesh or Beowulf or you know, and if you try, and if you and but here's the funny thing, you might find an epic or a story of you know some Hawaiian legend that just resonates with you, and all of a sudden you're a better coach. You've been up in the northwest, you know, the northwest has got those wonderful traditions with the the Native Americans up there. Um, and one of my favorite is they were so they they had the opposite up there, they had overabundance, and so up in the Northwest, when it was, you know, when one's one tribe was or one group was trying to honor the other, they would give them so much stuff, and then the other tribe would try to outdo it at the next celebration, overabundance. Yeah, okay. So maybe that's something you can toss in. I remember my uh I had a professor one time explain to us that no in nomadic cultures on your birthday, you get to give away things. Your birthday present is to give away things. And the big one, of course, was always the big 300-pound cast iron pot. So your birthday came around. Happy birthday to you. There you go. Oh, look at this. Here it's happy birthday to you, happy birthday. And it's funny because you know, you you hear stuff like that, and it's kind of you know, it's opposite thinking, right? Isn't that opposite thinking?

Yeah, yeah.

And if you tell that to a bunch of 10-year-olds, they don't necessarily understand it. Then you say, Well, you have to carry everything you own on your back. Yeah, and what does that mean? Well, everything. You know, you all of a sudden you start to say, hmm, how can I make that lighter? You know, hmm, yeah, how can you get rid of this or that or this?

Yeah, yeah.

It's an interesting thing too, because you know, like I told you, I think before, maybe during this interview, is you know, my wife and I have been nomadic for thir 13 months, right? And uh, you know, when we first decided to move and and sell a house, like you or or rent the house, we had to get rid of almost everything, you know, and it's it's so difficult, yet one of the most rewarding things I've done because I boiled it down to one bag of clothes, yeah, right. My skis, my bike, my toys, essentially, right? And that's about it. That's it. My computer, you know, I have a camera and a microphone, and uh that's it. And it's it's life uh is a lot simpler, but it can get a lot more simple still.

My wife and I had something not as drastic, but we went from a six-bedroom, three-bathhouse here, and then we moved to San Francisco, we had a two-two. So we basically just gave away couch after couch after couch after bed after bed. We had an upstairs microwave and a downstairs microwave. Now here's the funny thing. Now we're back here and we've replenished all of it.

Yeah, it's a wild, it's a wild thing we do, right? It's a really it's a really crazy thing.

The other night we had seven people in the house, seven adults, and they all slept comfortably. So yeah, you know, win for us. Yeah.

Yeah, yeah. So um I know uh you know it's it's evening there, and I I do have one, I have one question that I've been dying to ask you for a while. Um and it's it's simple probably for you, but you know, in in today's climate, right, today's world, um, you know, politics are crazy, global climate, climate change, um, all these things that are happening, and you know, the media is just way out there. Um is there any books that you recommend that as a society or people listening should go back, read, reflect, and apply to what's going on today? Like some I was reading an article about the I think it's a book 1984. Is that right?

Oh, George Harwell's book, yeah.

Yeah, yeah. A lot of people are like, you know, more people should go back and read this book right now. Um what do you what do you reckon from him? I'm sure you've you probably mentioned four or five books right now.

Is there anything that you think for current just philosophy and and wisdom and getting through today's you know, you're asking me a tough question because I know we are the opposite of in many places that I look at, we are the absolute opposite of everything I believe in. Uh, it's been difficult for us. Um uh the kind of family I grew up in, it's been you know, I don't know if it'd work, but if you could read the gospel of Luke, I don't want to go all Christian or anything on anybody, but just follow my point here. Most people don't, so let's just try this for luck. I'm with you, coach. In the gospel of Luke, there are 10 different dining experiences. Huh? They eat ten different meals, and the more I understood the gospel of Luke, the more I looked at it, the more I realized that that was by far the key to the whole book. It starts off in Acts 1, uh verse 4. And the word is sin halesios, but it's always translated as sat with them, but it means ate salt with them. Uh, eating salt is is a is a phrase that takes a while to unpack, but I think it was Aristotle said they knew each other so well they ate a bushel of salt together. Imagine eating, how many meals would you have to eat to have eat 80 pounds of salt? You know somebody pretty well, and that starts it off. It starts, and so it's a meal here, it's a meal there. And and here's the funny thing is they never tell you the menu with these meals, they only tell you who the people are. And for me, it's the people, it's the people. So if you don't mind, and maybe this will be boring for some of your audience, but it's well worth the time because Luke is trying to point out something very important. It's about the dining. It's we're dining together. Um, that would be a start. Of course, I can't help myself. I would have to always recommend you know, the sword and the stone. This is the German version of it.

Right, right.

So it's like the Schwedenstein Roman. Yes, uh it's great. One small thing is the German word for talent is fang. What an elegant word. Yes. When you get grabbed by an eagle, it gets fangs on you, little things like that. Boy, and there's so uh uh give me just a moment, because this is important. You know, take something this isn't bad. Either if you want to uh Aesop or Aesop's fables, Hans Christian Anderson, uh maybe find a children's book, uh you know, the ones uh Little Red Riding Hood, the Grimms, Grimms Fairy Tales, and go back and just not don't go crazy. Uh maybe the there's a book called Heroes, Monsters, and Myths of Greek mythology. It's a scholastic book club book. And they're all they're they're children's books. Uh, Perse uh Perry Percy Jackson does a good job with these two. Well, you read these books, and they're they're they're not children's books. They are, but they're not. And you read them and you start to realize that the same concerns have always been there for people. You know, uh, the fox and the grapes. You know that story, right? Sour grapes. You know, you you do know that story.

Oh, geez.

Sorry. I read a lot, dude. I read a book a week. I just it's all so this fox, he's a beautiful bunch of grapes. Beautiful bunch of grapes. And he jumps up and he can't get him, jumps up and he can't get him, he jumps up and he can't get him. He turns and walks in the way, and he says, they were probably sour anyway. You ever heard sour grapes? Yeah, yeah, where this comes from. Um there's uh there's some great stories of the Lakota, the Lakota Sioux, that are wonderful to read. Uh, you know what? Maybe here. Here's the I was just thinking, uh, now that tied this over, you know, because I was gonna say that Star Wars, Harry Potter would be good, but there's a book by Joseph Campbell. Well, it's not a book, but it's an interview series of Joseph Campbell, Bill Moyers, called The Power of Myth. And you can watch the shows on Netflix and I think on YouTube. But it's about an eight, maybe ten part, I think eight, where he walks us through the myths of time. And as you study the myths, uh the traditions, you start to realize that the little Polynesian girl stories with the coconut and the eel, and the Lakota Sioux story, and the Algonquin story, and the story of Sir Parceval, and the story of Gilgamesh, they all dance around the same things. Uh to make it as crystal clear as I can. Okay, this is a sword and stone about a young boy who's orphaned. Harry Potter, orphaned, Superman, orphaned, Batman, orphaned, Moses, orphaned. Who's Jesus' father? Well, it depends on who you're talking to. We can go through and probably come with a massive list. Carl Jung said the reason that was important because the orphan is we can adopt them completely as community. I argued in one of my things when I was years ago that actually it's the question of fatherhood that is the engine, Theseus, Hercules, Persius. It was the question of fatherhood in the Greek myths. Here's a funny thing, the counter it. Ulysses was such a good Ulysses, by the way, was the only Greek who did not want to go to the Trojan War. When they find him, he pretends he's mad and can't hear. And they famously put his son in the way of the plow, and he stops and saves his son's life. So, because Ulysses is a different kind of hero, probably one of the most unique heroes in Western civilization. And if you follow that up and read James Joyce's Ulysses, if you can, I know stuff, you get the same parallels, the same insights about fatherhood and things. So, so let's to review. Maybe go get yourself an and I would, and maybe even the children's section, get yourself a book on Greek myths, Viking myths, uh, Native American myths, Polynesian myths. Um, I was at the doctor's office, I have a thing coming up, and he left me there, and I was in the little kids' room, and he came in and I had three books open doing this, because they all had it were all about uh uh the Vikings and uh uh the Celts. And I was like, oh and he and he kind of got a giggle. He's a former student of mine. So if if that's possible, again, it would be looking back. It's looking back. And the thing is, if you don't know your own stories, if you don't know your if you don't know your own legends, you you've just said goodbye to the past. You know, there's all those wonderful books back by Elliot Asanoff, uh Isaac Asimov. Elliot Azanoff wrote Seven Days of Sunday, Isaac Asimov, it's the iRobot and stuff like that. Where he's not warning us about anything. He's just saying, here's an interesting thing that's gonna happen as we make robots and artificial intelligence. And very quickly we're gonna be living in the real time in that world. Now, is it I mean, are they gonna take over and slaughter us all? I don't think so. They could. I mean, I don't know, who knows? I mean, a lot that have shocked me in my life. Think about it every day. Yeah. But you know, if if you don't have a handle on who you are, and can I just add one more little book? So here's what we can. So basically, I think uh Luke, uh either the power of myth or just going in and reading it for yourself. And the third book I really strongly is Tom Cahill's book, How the Irish Save Civilization. And he it's it's from a series called The Hinges of History. Uh, I thought the the early books, The Gift of Time, Desire of the Everlasting Hills, were very good. I didn't like the later ones as much. I think he lost. But the Irish Save Civilization. It gets you right there to a tipping point. And he talks about Augustine and Patrick and how these two were from different worlds and how narrow what we would call civilization. We we hung on, we hung on the edge of civilization. Okay and what saved it was a bunch of people who decided to rewrite all the books. What saves us always is dining and rereading. Awesome. Awesome. I don't know if I can do any better than that. And that's better. That's awesome.

That's awesome.

Uh so I I know uh coach, you you don't you don't do a lot of promotion for yourself, but uh, you're you're working on a book. Give us give us a little insights and into what's coming down the pipe.

Sure. Uh we I talked to to Larie Draper, my editor and pro publisher, and uh people have been hitting me up on this for a while. I've been kind of pushing it back, but uh officially this is my 40th year as a coach. Now, my neighbors told me that I actually were coaching earlier than that because I used to I I can't when I think back, in fact I gotta make uh don't make me forget uh intentional community in SSF. Uh I just realized when I was young, I started an intentional community. And I didn't realize that until just this second. Wow, I have another story to tell in the book. So what I'm doing is kind of come up, I'm coming up with these big major themes that keep coming around. Yeah. One of the the one I'm working on right now is I would read something in 1965, 1970, and hear it and grasp it, but not grasp it entirely. And then 10 years later, have a go back and see it again and go, oh, I can do that. Okay, I get it now. 20 years later, come back and go, oh, now I really get it. 30 years later, no, no, I didn't get it, get it that now I get it, get it, yeah. And then now 2018, I go, oh my god, how I wish I could teach every single athlete because I would tell them this. Another one is, for example, uh, it worked so well, I stopped doing it. And I'm probably gonna just just chart out all these great things I did that work so well I stopped. You know, I think that'll be that might not be a very good chapter, but it's funny. Oh, by the way, and Dan uh Dan Cleather just came out with a new book, um, The Little Black Book of Training Wisdom. Okay. Awesome. Love the title. He quotes me on that. Oh, and by the way, the Ford was written by a genius, okay? He quotes me, it works so well I stopped doing it because I constantly tell the young my young students guys, you're not gonna listen to what I'm telling you because somebody printing. And sexier is going to tell you something else. But 20 years from now, if you're still around, you're going to go, oh that's what you told me. And you'll look at your notebook and go, oh one, here's a quick one if you don't mind. Yeah. I call it pull my finger. Okay. Pull my finger. You might have to explain pull my finger to someone really. But here's my finger, okay? So it's called point. Point. So as a strength coach, my number one job is to build up this ability to deal with anti, anti this, anti-that, anti-this, anti-that. You can call it planks, you can call it isometrics, you can call it anything you want. But then the next one is the one we all know. When I type, I push a button. We everyone gets addicted to that. And so I'm going to add more reps, more sets, and then more load. And most people stop their training there. And the third P is snap. But to be elite, you have to have all three. Point, push, and snap. And a good strength coach blends those so effortlessly that it's very easy for the athlete client to follow.

Yeah. You just did it again. You just made something so simple.

Yeah. So some people get all focused on the plank. Some people get all focused on three sets eight. And some people nothing but boing, boing, boing. So every client you get does playos. Well, Edna has, and like you know, me, I've got a lot of metal in it. But I can do plyos. We just have to spend a little bit more time, you know, wrapping me up with planks before I can do it.

Yeah.

So I'm so that's that's one of the chapters.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Awesome. Do you have a title for the book yet?

Um yeah. Um it's like 1979 to 2000. Um uh 40 years with a whistle. Awesome. I love it. It might just be 40 years worth of whistle. Awesome.

Awesome. Well, coach, thanks again. It's always a pleasure. I learned something. I learned 10 things today in the last hour.

Would you mind giving me a little note or putting them in the in the notes? That'd be nice. Yeah.

Yeah, yeah, I will help.

I mean, that helps me, you know, not only as a writer, but as a when I'm talking to young people sometimes, you know.

Yeah.

Uh I read some other people's work sometimes. It's like, this is a one-off. You this is unrepeatable. You know. You know, uh, and I and I many of the people I work with don't have those perfect facilities and those perfect athletes. So I'm part of my task is to show them you don't need a two million dollar facility to make great discosaurus. You know. Awesome. Ball on a wall. Hang on.

Well, coach, I uh I appreciate you coming on again. I know it's uh I know you have a condensed feeding window in your life, so I know it's important that you gotta get your dinner in before a certain hour. And uh yeah, it's always a pleasure.

It really is.

So uh uh we're doing uh tonight we're doing uh uh a rice dish with and then uh green beans and uh uh uh a good chicken. So it'll be nice. Um I'm already up to I think today 13 vegetables. So I'll I'll get over 15 different ones today. Awesome. Every day, folks, eat eight different vegetables.

Yeah, great. Not eight servings, just different. Yeah. Awesome. Ladies and gentlemen, Coach Dan John. My pleasure.

Thank you for doing this. We'll talk soon, okay? I'm gonna go eat. Hey Fitness fans, don't leave yet. It's your host, Eric Malzone, and I have a quick favor to ask. Actually, three favors. So, number one, if you're a fan of our show, I ask you to do something that takes under three minutes. Go to iTunes, please, and subscribe to our show. Please, please, please. It means so much to us. It's so important. And then give us a favorable review. We would really, really appreciate it. And uh, I can't tell you how much it means and helps us out. So I know it takes two minutes of your day, and uh, it means a lot to us. So please do that. Number two, go to our YouTube channel or Fitness Marketing Alliance, and uh please subscribe to our YouTube channel there. Number three, if you like this episode or any of the episodes that we've released, share it on social. That's huge, that's a big deal for us, and when we put a lot of work into these episodes uh trying to give you great actionable content uh for the fitness industry. So that would mean a lot. And that's it. So we have some big plans coming up for the show. I'll be talking about that in the next couple episodes. But thank you so much for listening. It means so much. And uh, if you have any questions, please reach out to me. I'd love to hear from everybody. Eric E R I C at Fitness Marketing Alliance.com