Esports and Cognitive Periodization - Taylor Johnson

A way that I would get people curious and intrigued is like, look, you know, you can take the blue pill or the red pill. It's like in the matrix. Morpheus is offering you a chance, an opportunity to choose, right? Blue pill, you wake up, you do the same thing every day. In this case, you stay in traditional sports. It's the way it's always been done. Red pill, you go down the rabbit hole, you explore, you create. It's literally a blank canvas of opportunity to take what we've known and done in the past and just tweak it ever so slightly. And again, it's not fitting in a square peg in a round hole. It's trying to smooth out the edges and see what really fits and what makes sense. It's a completely different landscape.

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 100. That's right. 100. In a little over a year, we have released 100 episodes to the Future of Fitness podcast. And if you add that with the Fitness Blitz Radio, which was our sister podcast, uh we've done about 400 this year. Yeah. You know, I set out to do 100 and just learn and uh learn my craft and gain experience, but it's been so much more and it's happened so quickly. And uh yeah, I mean, you tell me someone else in the fitness and health space who's done 400 interviews this year and podcasts, and I would like to meet that person and shake their hand and talk about all the cool things that come across, uh come about from doing this type of work because it's been a lot of fun. And, you know, episode number 100 to have someone like Taylor Johnson on the show is is perfect. It's great. Taylor is a thought leader. Oh, first of all, Taylor's a great guy. And second of all, he is a thought leader in esports athlete training. Yep, that's right. I didn't misspeak. It's not the volume, it's not a bad recording. We're talking about esports. Esports, electronic sports, gaming, video games. That's right. It's huge. It's a huge, huge industry. Uh, it is mind-blowingly large. It's not even a word, mind-blowingly. Uh it's big. So what do we talk about in here? Well, let's think about this, right? Anytime you get that much money and prestige into any area that's competitive, you're gonna have coaching, you're gonna have ways, people looking for every advantage to get to the top. And Taylor has been doing this for a while. Uh, he's been doing it for years, which is in such a young industry, it's a very long time. And he's developed systems. It's not just the training, which we all know um, you know, if you are in physically good shape, uh, you perform better mentally uh in every way, right? Uh nutrition is a huge component of uh mental and cognitive um performance, but it's not just that. He actually does cognitive performance. So we're talking about cognitive training periodization. He talks about that crazy stuff. So think about the applications here. What about any type of athlete, right? What about any type of high-performing professional, uh, entrepreneurs, speakers, uh, you name it, you know, politicians. Well, anyway. Um, yeah, it's it's incredible. And Taylor really gets into some of the details, and we get into some topics that may make you uncomfortable because you know, you have a couple options nowadays in our society as technology is coming on so hard, so fast. You can bury your head and say, you know, it's not gonna affect me. It will. Or you can go into it eyes wide open and listen to these conversations, partake in these conversations, be ready, participate in the technology when it comes across and be early adopters thereof and reap the benefits as we go. My goal with this podcast is to modernize the industry, right? I want everyone skating to where the puck is going and not to where it is right now, or even worse, yesterday. And this is the kind of stuff you need to know. This is a huge opportunity. You know, if I'm listening to this and I'm in the online training space, or you know, I'm somebody who is in one of these big hubs where they have a lot of the uh e, you know, sports and esports and gamers, um, I'd be looking to get into this. You know, I I would absolutely be doing it. I would be contacting people like Taylor Johnson, be like, hey, how do you do it? You know, what do I need to learn? Um it's gonna be awesome. So please enjoy this. And as Taylor says, you have two choices. You can take the blue pill or the red pill. And if you decide to uh listen to this, you're gonna have no choice. You can't unhear it. And uh yeah, so I I'd be remiss here if I didn't talk about the fitness accelerator because it's only about 90 days old so far, and it's been such a great experience. And if you're serious in 2019 about uh being a player within the fitness profession, whether you are in tech, um online training, B2B, anything like that, and you know the value of being networked and connected, um, being up to date, you know, a lot of these things, you go to these big conferences and you hear um people present and they're very smart people. But the unfortunate reality is by the time all the material that they prepared to present on is presented, it's probably outdated. And this group works in real time. It's almost like a hive mentality. I can't explain it. You know, we have, as of this recording, we have about 45 of very, very high performing uh entrepreneurs and fitness professionals from all over the globe. And we're all sharing ideas, we're all building networks, we're we're doing affiliate marketing, um, we're incubating tech. It's just a really exciting place to be. And I don't know why you wouldn't want to be here, honestly. So if you um want to be part of it, our application process is getting more stringent because we only want to get to 150 and then we want to cap it. So yeah, you have to go through the application and find that at fitnessprofessional online.com forward slash fit accelerator and fill out the application. We'll get back to you within 24 hours if we have more questions or maybe want to set up a time to talk to you and uh let you know if you're in or out. And uh it you'll want to be in. Okay. Uh you can you have my word on that. So go to fitnessprofessional online.com forward slash fit accelerator. Uh, get more information, fill out the application. Uh, let me know if you have any questions. So without further ado, let's get on Taylor Johnson. This is so cool. Episode number 100. What a great guy to have on. Enjoy the show. And we're live. All right. Taylor Johnson, my friend, welcome to the show. Great to be here. Yeah. I think we're gonna blow some people's minds today. So uh that's always fun, right? So give a little background. I know we're, you know, the overall topic uh here is you know, training for esport athletes. And, you know, like I was telling you before the recording, um, when all the great conversations happen right before recording, um, is that uh, you know, I've been talking about to a lot of people and it's it it just blows people's minds. They're like, wait, there's a market for that? Like, oh yeah, it's a big one. And it's tremendously large. And so let's let's do this. Let's get a quick bio from you and uh you know how you got to where you are, and then we'll um expand on that.

Yeah, for sure. Uh, you know, so my background is in athletic performance. Uh I coached in traditional sports for about nine years. Uh, seven of that was coaching collegiate level. Uh sports would be at some great programs. And then the last two years of my career was in the NFL for the San Francisco 49ers. And uh what I've told people is my passion is performance, but it's my curiosity that navigates me through the world. And that led me down a lot of different avenues in all things performance. I saw some phenomenal mentors and was very, very fortunate to have some influential people in my life along that way. Um, and incredibly grateful for just the opportunity to come up in traditional strength conditioning and seeing the transition of kind of this old way of doing things and then being right on the cusp of when the technology really started to set in and uh started to impact the way we we changed viewing uh training and just all things performance. Um, and so it was uh while I was at the 49ers, those two years, um, you know, it was our two years where we weren't doing so hot, uh, which is actually a good thing because uh you learn a lot from the ultimate lows and what you do at the ultimate highs. Right. So just being able to navigate that space and get guys to buy in and be motivated. Um the other part of that too was I just had a phenomenal opportunity. Uh, my boss at the time, mentor, still mentor, Mark Uyama, uh, allowed me to wear a lot of different hats in that organization. So I oversaw and managed our sports science. I did all of our player wellness and um tracking for all the tech side. Uh, we did all the nutrition, uh, whether it was uh specialized protocols for individual players or position groups, I managed all of our nutrition for home and away. Uh, then also the the bread and butter was the weight room, and then doing rehab stuff as well. Uh and it was during that time when I realized that the NFL was not the end-all be-all for me. I've always wanted to have a much larger impact. Um, I've always been very, very uh passionate about promoting health and wellness to millions of kids worldwide. And so uh I was speaking with one of my colleagues and and mentors in the space about pivoting, and he brought up uh esports, and I was like, huh, that's interesting. Um, and I knew of it, but I just didn't know how big it really was. And so I started to explore that space and unpack it and realize very quickly that there's more similarities and differences, although the differences are quite large. Um, you know, the first apparent thing is that they sit for long periods of time. So the physical output isn't there when you look at traditional sports, but I mean there is an endurance factor that comes into play. I mean, you sit for long periods of time, there's still energy systems involved, there's biomechanics, uh, ergonomics. I mean, all these things factor in. So it's just viewing it through a different lens. Um, so by the time our staff at the 49ers did ultimately get let go uh due to a coaching change, I had already built up a pipeline of consulting and uh in esports. And so I just jumped right in. Uh, and it was a phenomenal road where I kind of had this this uh this deciding point of okay, do I go all in on esports or do I stay on the traditional side? I had opportunities to stay within the NFL and also uh do some CEO and executive coaching. And I've always been an entrepreneurial spirit, and I decided, you know what, it's now or never, you know, and I was so intrigued and so curious about this new wave, this new sport, and how people were training and how they were uh recovering and really look managing all the different loads on a day-to-day basis. And I haven't looked back, and so it's uh it's led me to a lot of interesting conversations. Uh, I got a chance to go overseas and consult for a boot camp for 10 days for a Dota 2, which is a strategy game. And that's where I got my first exposure on what it's like to be in the trenches with these teams. Um, and I came back from that experience and was like, okay, I mean this is a thing, and that's what I'm doing. So, fast forward now, uh, I had a great opportunity to be part of Infinite Esports and Entertainment. So I was a VP of performance for them uh for just just under a year and phenomenal organization, got a great uh great opportunity to work with five professional organizations, like professional teams, or sorry, five professional organizations that house various teams. We had about 15 teams, uh about 120 gamers and an academy, and I built out a performance department for them, and now uh in transition, uh working and consulting with other teams and organizations and other performance institutes. Right on, man.

So how big is the market? Like, give us give us some some numbers or some maybe some relative points compared to other industries or other aspects of fitness and health and performance.

Yeah, I mean the viewership alone, um, I don't know the exact numbers in terms of viewership, but I'll I'll just kind of throw this out there. So the international is a one of the largest esport tournaments in the world. It's for Dota 2, which is a strategy game. It's a five-on-five game. Last year they had that tournament in Vancouver. The year before that, they had in Seattle. And the location in Seattle, I think it was a 17,000-person arena sold out every day. Yeah, uh, viewerships were in hundreds of thousands. Um, they actually cap merchandise sales at 10,000 per person because the brilliant minds of these gaming publishers basically created microtransactions where you can purchase swag and it'll bump your in-game profile. So like people are disincentivized to buy more and more gear.

Wait, wait, wait. Okay, so they cap like if I'm a spectator or someone who's I can only, hey, they're like, you can only spend 10,000.

Yeah, that's what blew my mind. Like, yeah. So I wanted to, this is my that was my first like big tournament, you know. And I'm going there, I'm like, okay, I'm scoping out the scene. I was like, this is freaking amazing, you know, and I'm not a gamer. I'm very, I'm very um open at that fact that I'm not a gamer, but I appreciate competition and I appreciate the technical and tactical skills that get you to be at the highest level. Guys and girls are are competing at the highest level, and it is a very cognitively demanding sport in that they are executing, uh, making splits and split time decisions. Um, they have to process very, very quickly when they're under a lot of pressure. I mean, so that tournament, uh, that was a $25 million prize pull, and the winning team took home 10.8 million.

I'm I'm dead quiet right now because I'm just like, okay, just laying that sink in. 10.8 million.

Yeah. So these some of these kids, and some of them are just kids, they're 17 years old, you know, 17, 18. The average age is anywhere from 17 to 25. Some are a little bit older, uh, you know, but they become millionaires um quite quickly. Um, and so throughout those experiences, I took a step back, uh, especially after coming back from that boot camp experience, and said, okay, there's definitely something here, and it's not just all things performance. And so what I sought to do was build out three different verticals. Uh, the first one is player development, both personal and professional. So it's education and uh programs around financial education, understanding relationships, both healthy and toxic, stress management, time management. The second one is esports performance, uh, that's everything around lifestyle, mindset, nutrition, movement, and recovery. And the last one is the bridge program, which is uh the mentorship and guidance to allow them the tools to be successful for life after gaming. Yeah, some of these gamers in their prime, their careers are two to four years in length, and that's really short, you know, and you gotta ask why. Um a lot of them claim it's burnout. Um, so it's in my opinion, it's just not having the the tools to uh be able to or coping mechanisms to be able to deal with all that stress.

Yeah, yeah. Um okay, so if I'm listening to this, right, and I'm I'm a listener at home, I'm thinking, wait a minute, like are these athletes? Right? Yeah, and actually, Taylor, hold on one second, okay.

Yeah, I mean, that's a great question. Um, you know, the old terminology is calling up gamers, but a lot of them now from the conversations, they do view themselves as athletes, and I do as well. I mean, anytime I'll I'll back up and say that, you know, I think that everybody competes in arena in a certain shape or form. Okay. Whether you are a professional athlete, an amateur athlete, a soccer mom, stay-at-home dad, a doctor, lawyer, whatever it may be, it's all about showing up and being the best version of yourself. And anytime you're put in an actual space where you're making money to compete at a high level, both cognitively and physically, and all we're talking about here is just the proportion of the physical and the cognitive side, right? I mean, to me, that's an athlete. Um, and that's being able to show up and perform and the dedication, the time. I mean, these these guys and gals are putting in time and work into honing in on their craft and being able to play at the highest level.

Yeah. Man, so you know, when I I I think about all let's let's dive into because you mentioned cognitive training too. I I think people who are listening to this are gonna understand the benefits of being generally fit, eating well, sleeping well, reducing stress, right? No matter who you are, you could be anybody who is looking, like you said, to perform at a high level in anything they do, right? Just life in general. Um the cognitive training, right, and how that pieces together with all the other components, that seems new to me. You know, I don't know if so let's get into that a little bit because I see, you know, as you always you said, you know, you can take the red pill or the blue pill, right? And uh and make that decision of of where this whole thing's going. Because um, you know, I hear cognitive training and I think like, man, imagine a lot of entrepreneurs, uh, executives, um, people like that would love more cognitive performance. Like, if I could get an extra hour of really solid work in my day, you know, because everyone fatigues after a while, right? You know, after the first three, four hours of their day, you fatigue. You're mentally not as sharp. Um so talk about that. Let's talk about cognitive.

I'll I'll first uh I want to talk about that red pull, blue pill.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Yeah. I think that was from a previous time that we spoke. So I mean, uh I always love using that matrix analogy uh because essentially, you know, when I would recruit my staff to build out that performance institute with Infinite called Innovative Performance Institute, uh, you know, a way that I would get people curious and intrigued is like, look, you know, you can take the blue pill or red pill. It's like in the matrix. Morpheus is offering you a chance, an opportunity to choose, right? Blue pill, you wake up, you do the same thing every day. In this case, you stay in traditional sports, it's the way it's always been done. Red pill, you go down the rabbit hole, you explore, you create. It's just literally a blank canvas of opportunity to take what we've known and done in the past and just tweak it ever so slightly. And again, it's not fitting a square peg in a round hole. It's trying to smooth out the edges and see what really fits and what makes sense in this completely different landscape. Um the futuristic side of that we can come back to, uh, but there's a lot of implications of just challenging yourself to think differently and outside the box. Uh so in terms of the cognitive performance, um, it's obviously very cognitive demanding and taxing. Uh, they're sitting down in front of screens for long periods of time. And so, where my mind immediately goes to is okay, well, you know, going back to Charlie Francis and what he used to call vertical integration, everything is stress, right? It's like you have this glass of water, you keep filling it up, and the water is stressed, eventually it's just gonna overflow. So you got to be very smart about the dosage of each stressor that you're adding to your cup. And so for the cognitive load and periodization, it's can we work backwards from their game day and look at different variables and factors on a day-to-day basis that could help minimize certain stressors and optimize the good stress that they need to actually perform the best. And you can do that a number of different ways. The easiest one is you know, the sleep, get them to sleep better. That's always a great conversation to have. The nutrition is very fundamental. But once you establish a new baseline, then you can start playing around with uh different supplementation, the healthy supplementation, because there's a lot of garbage out there. Um, but it's just really understanding how to fine-tune them and get them to perform at their best once they have the fundamentals down. I mean, and for a lot of these uh individuals, it's it's taking the time to find a minimum effective dosage uh to get them to reset their baseline, and then you can start layering on the other factors.

Yeah. Can we dive into supplementation a little bit? I'm curious. Um, I have a lot of colleagues, I have a lot of people on the show who who delve in supplementation. It's very, you know, and it the term quality supplementation is very vague. Right. Like what does that mean? You know, what's the standards that we look for? Do we even know where you know the ingredients are really coming from? No, no one really knows. The only person who knows is the person who's shipping it, right? Um but supplementation, you know, how does that, you know, what kind of is is there big players yet in supplementation within the esports? Um, are people starting to emerge into it? Like that's it's such a huge industry too. I imagine those those industries coming together and it's just like Boltron, right?

Um, I mean, there are some players in the space. Um, I won't name them because I don't think they're very good. Uh but uh, you know, there will be some good ones coming, you know, and I I I really want to make a push in that and start educating on some better, healthier project um products and really thinking more deeply on the individual itself. I mean, I think just the future of medicine is gonna be changing as well. Um, you know, for myself and also for a handful of individuals that I deal with and consult with, you know, we'll do full blood panels and we'll then dive into understanding the biochemistry and then supplement based off the blood work and do test-retest. I mean, that in my opinion is one of the best ways to get yourself truly dialed in. And especially if you're doing going that route, usually the um the doctors or the clinicians that are doing those blood work, the pharmaceutical grade supplements that they are providing are of high quality. Um, so that's usually the route that I go. Um in terms of just general supplementation, talking about the esports community in large, um, what I have found it's gonna be vitamin D. It's gonna be some fish oils, it's gonna be uh vitamin C. Um, it's gonna be just honestly just the very, very minimum, like the basics of just a strong foundation for just healthier living. Um, what happens too is a lot of that stuff sends a sort itself out when you start to clean up your diet. Um less supplementation. But again, it's all about figuring out your initial baseline and reestablishing a baseline, then you can start tinkering and really fine tuning them.

Yeah. To me, it just sounds like really solid coaching principles.

Yeah, yeah, it is.

And it's yeah, you know, like the best coaches use the same principles, right?

It's just it starts with a conversation. You know, people ask me all the time, they're like, well, you know, how was getting a buy-in? I'm like, well, the buy-in is just like any other athlete. Um, you know, and and what I mean by that is if you try to do too much too soon too often, the results you want aren't going to be the ones you get. And so, like, we literally spent four weeks, like knowing the population and knowing that a majority of them had not spent time physically training. We spent four weeks teaching how to foam roll and how to do mobility. So the point where they were like, all right, enough already. I'm like, good, let's progress. But what happened was that I told them on the front and I said, look, you know, if you guys do this, if you guys buy in, if we can build this consistency in your habits, you're gonna start to feel better. And when you start to feel better, you're gonna be able to game for just a little bit longer, and you're not gonna be as sore in your hips, you're not gonna have these overuse injuries because that's prevalent. And you know, sure enough, after two weeks, the majority of them ended up buying foam rollers for their house, anyways, and they're like sending me, send me pictures of them doing foam rolling. I'm like, perfect. You know, so it kind of goes back to these fundamental principles of you know, find the minimum effective dosage and be wise in in this whole inoculation period of introducing stimulus. And I love the idea of fence posting, you know. So you drop a fence post, you walk a couple feet, drop another one, but you always go back and reinforce. It's the same thing with the knowledge and the education that you drop to them.

Yeah. So you mentioned overuse injuries. What kind of overuse injuries do you see?

Yeah, so typically you find a lot of upper and lower cross syndrome. So upper cross is forehead, forward shoulders. I've seen a lot of shoulder impingement, elbow and wrist. Um, it's some different type, it's interesting too when you start to look at the different games, uh, the ones that are high, high density or that have a lot of actions per minute. So APM is a lot of clicks, a lot of keystrokes. Um, sometimes like they have this really weird setup too. Like it's uh it's all like uh this the technical setup, you know, so they all kind of have their own positioning, you know, and it's just kind of like Wolf's lot, I mean, overuse in terms of certain areas, and you start to build up um, you know, injuries in those areas sometimes too. And so it's addressing a lot of um just classic upper syndrome, upper cross syndrome, but then lower cross, I mean they're sitting for such long periods of time, they tend to get uh low back pain, which really all you got to do is just release the hip flexors, strengthen the glutes, and just balance it out. I mean, it's just classical reciprocal inhibition of trying to balance out the front side, backside. I mean, it's just very easy stuff like that.

Guys are like, oh my gosh, I feel so much better. I'm like, yeah, see? Give it some time, give it some time.

Use the foam roller. Oh you know, I I you know, I've uh I love Ready Player One, right? Yeah, I listened to that book on a long road drive and I I didn't want to stop driving. I almost went past my destination because I wasn't done yet. And uh the interface that that's I mean, I think about the postural issues that go with, you know, traditional gaming with the controllers or computer, you know, things like that. But the the interface is gonna, it must there must be a ton of money game pumped into changing the interface to some kind of like whatever is neuralink or something like that, where it's much, I guess, uh more sustainable for these people to sit in these positions for long periods of time. Is is there anything that you see coming down the pipe for that?

Yeah, well, I'm glad you bring up Red Player One because that's I'm not really into sci-fi, but uh, you know, part of my whole blue pill, red pill analogy links into that, and I kind of alluded to that earlier, so I'm glad you brought it back up. Yeah. Um, you know, I'm I'm not into sci-fi, but I will say this. Um, it is not unlikely, uh, it's really hard to say it's not a possibility, that when VR hits, and when I mean that, I mean it's in a way in which, you know, it's mainstream and it's uh way more accessible, it's more affordable, and the quality is to a level in which it's like you can, I mean, it's already at that point now. But when it gets far enough along where it really truly hits, um, and then you start to involve the haptic suits and haptic feedback, which is already out there. Um, you know, there's gonna be a world in which everything we've done on the physical side and traditional sports is gonna blend with the cognitive side of what we're doing from this point forward, and it's gonna dovetail. And we're talking about creating a whole new badass breed of athletes that are gonna be running, jumping, moving in space, but in a virtual reality. Um, and that is what I'm fired up about. I mean, that's literally everything I've done the past of my career, everything we're doing right now, it's gonna come together. I'm gonna be like, hey, I told you guys. You know, so you know, part of the haptic feedback is you know, have you heard of subpack?

No. No. So this is uh sub pack.

Okay. You showed me a backpack.

Yeah, so it's a backpack, right? So sub pack, um, and the guys behind subpack are absolutely amazing. I've I've got a great relationship with them now. It's um it's a backpack with a subwoofer. So it was originally designed for uh audio technicians to feel the feedback of the bass because a lot of times it's really harsh on your ears. Yeah. So it's a way for them to feel the music, and you can actually drop into different levels and different octaves of the music. Uh, but what we've done is we actually plug it into our games. So we actually get feedback from the game while you're playing, and that takes it to a completely new level. So just from looking at, you know, a fight or flight, when you're playing a first-person shooter, you can actually feel the vibrations, you can feel the gunshots. You know, again, it's you gotta be careful with all that stuff too, because that starts a whole different conversation. But just in general, I mean, just the feedback from the game itself, or like for instance, the fighting game, like we hooked up to a Street Fighter game, and you know, we're like guys are throwing punches, you can like feel the punches, which is kind of cool, right? Yeah, um, it changes the whole experience of the game. And so, again, I think as that continues to evolve, uh, you know, it's just gonna change the way we experience not only our current environment, but also this virtual environment and the games we play.

Taylor, what is for people who don't know, what is haptic? What does that mean?

Yeah, so haptic is essentially the this feedback loop of being able to feel a difference in your environment, right? So through like this haptic suit, um, it's you're able to feel the environment outside this environment. You know, to be honest, I don't know the exact definition. I could look it up for you, but that's that's my interpretation of it.

Yeah, yeah. I mean, all I know is you know, from Ready Player One, and essentially it's a full body suit that completely immerses you with all of your senses into a game. And that, yeah, I don't know, like it's I could go down this hole because I think about this all the time. You know, I'm that guy at dinner parties that you know brings this stuff up and you know, my poor wife rolls her eyes, and you know, and then I'm like, well, off we go. You know, if I find one person who's interested at the table, it's on, right?

Well, that was me the last two years. Yeah. Because you know, it's interesting too, because everybody, when I when I left traditional sports, and they're like, people, what are you doing? All my friends and family are like, what the hell are you thinking? And I was like, oh no, just wait. Like it's a little thing. And you know, to be honest, the the bigger goal on all of this uh is to promote health and wellness to millions of kids worldwide. And why not do it through esports? You know, it's a phenomenal medium. We have you know these rock star guys who have crazy followings, and why not get them to change some habits that turn into lifestyle changes that can then promote a healthy message? Yeah, you know, it's like when we look to traditional sports and say, okay, what's been done before? What have they done well? But more importantly, where have they fallen short? Let's not make the same mistakes. I mean, how many times in your in your lifetime, if ever, do you get a chance to have an impact, positive impact on emerging sport as it's continuing to evolve every day? Yeah. I mean, it's it's a it's a great opportunity to really share a good message.

Well, it's it's you're right. It's it's an incredible opportunity. And in my mind, meet meet kids where they are. You know, we're so stuck in this traditional thought of how to teach, right? How to do health, right? But everything's changing so fast. What if we meet children where they are? You know, what if education became a completely immersive experience, right? Joe Rogan talks about this on one of his podcasts. Like, what if learning was super fun? What if you could, you know, it happens with some of the games, like what's the uh Assassin's Creed? Turn off the action mode and you can go into uh, you know, you can actually walk through ancient Egypt and learn through ancient Egypt. I want to do that, you know. I I didn't like school, but I did it because I knew, and what did I do? I just memorized a bunch of stuff two days before the test, and then I forgot it all. But imagine if we can meet kids where they are and see the opportunity that's here instead of trying to fight technology. Like it's not, you guys, you can try to get your kids off gaming and it's good, you know, get them out, get some sunshine. But you have to, we have to really embrace the reality of it. It's like this is their life. You know, I'm 42, I was raised without all this tech, so I look back nostalgically on the times when it wasn't there. But this is all they know. So let's see them where they are. And I think it's it's a huge point of like, well, let's stop fighting it and let's start embracing it and see where we can go with it. Exactly.

And it's been a very uh I mean, there's been challenges too in trying to reach and really it's just finding new lines of communication. And again, to your point, meeting them where they're at, you know, it's a completely new age. I am not into social media, but I'm making my best efforts to learn that space because that's how a lot of them communicate. It's how a lot of kids these days just communicate in general. Um, and so finding ways to to really stretch my abilities in building culture and building buy-in. So when I was at Infinite, we had two teams, two of our franchises were located in LA, but I was stationed in Dallas. So I'd fly out once a month for about a week at a time, but then eventually I traveled out there less and less. And so to be able to maintain that connection and still get the information across and have them buy in, um, it's challenging. You know, it's like, how do you build, how do you build that culture and how do you build that following uh when you're not having that face-to-face interaction and then understanding the mediums in which they communicate? I mean, it's been it's actually been a really interesting journey, you know, and a lot of lessons learned.

Yeah, it sounds fascinating. Yeah, I wrote down a note because I want to ask you this this question, because you know, anytime mass amounts of money, right, and prestige come into play, right? PEDs, performance-enhancing drugs come right with it, right? You know, even you know, I just remember the arguments of like back in the early CrossFit days and the games, CrossFit games started, and people like, you think they're on PEDs? I'm like, of course they are, you know, like somebody is in there, and maybe not all of them, but some of them are dead. Yes, of course. That's what happens, you know. And I'd imagine, you know, with that much money, that much prestige um in this, like, how does it look for PEDs? Do they test, you know, people? Because there's a lot of really powerful cognitive enhancers. I mean, you know, just uh whatever the modern form of Ritalin is now, right? Like that's you know, I'd imagine you you have to deal with a lot of you know sorting that out. Like, is is this, you know, is this athlete on something constantly? Or you know, how how does that play out in your role?

Yeah, it's um, you know, it's not talked about enough in esports. And one of my big initiatives while I was at Infinite uh was to really get a program, a protocol in place where we could start the education. Because again, it's you can't go out swinging and say, okay, we're gonna start testing right out the gate. Sure. Um that doesn't usually work best. Uh what you have to do is build the education and say, hey, here's why it's important to understand the pros and cons and say, okay, well, you know, what's out there, what's being done, how does testing look, how does it affect you, both short term and long term? Um, you know, Drug Free Sport was uh was a company that I was talking to and and creating uh a protocol around that. It's still something I feel very passionate about. It needs to be talked about, it needs to be addressed. Same thing with um, you know, mental illness and uh addressing the psychological demands that are placed upon the players and just people in general. I mean, I think the conversation around mental illness needs to be had in a much broader sense, uh, just to continue the conversation and have change eventually happen.

Yeah. Interesting. So you know, let's tie this back into to general health and maybe the fight against obesity. How do you how do you see that playing in? Like what's you know, I see the link, right? It's obvious, you know, because you have access to that group, you know, um, you have access to what they they actually like and what they want, and so you have their attention. How do you start turning it into a health benefit?

Yeah. Um, you know, just get them to eat, move, and be healthy, really. Uh it's it's finding um some common ground to uh really get over that first hurdle to get them interested in wanting to change their lifestyle and starting with small habits. Um, I think for a lot of people, they they see it as a massive brick wall, but really it's just could just be some small road bumps. And uh in the conversations I had with a lot of the athletes I interacted with, um you know, it came down to three things. I'd ask them first off, you know, what's really kept you from um getting into health and wellness or pursuing a more active, healthier lifestyle? And it came down to three things. It was a lack of knowledge, a lack of resources, or a lack of confidence. I said, okay, well, what I did is I built the first two. So I created an education platform where we would slow drip information around, you know, our big pillars of lifestyle, mindset, nutrition, movement, recovery. And we did that methodically over the each week and then build it out over time almost like an education campaign. Uh then we built a facility for our players where they could go train so they had you know access to the resources on site. Um, and then what happened was their confidence just followed. Um, because you're basically giving them the tools and guiding them in the direction for them to make those uh make those like healthy lifestyle changes. Um it was fun, man. We had one of our academy teams was just you know a bunch of young bucks and they're just so ambitious and wanted to make to the next level, which are always great to be around, you know, they bought in from day one. And we had some phenomenal changes in body composition, you know, in very short periods of time. I think in five weeks, we had on average two or three percent uh drop in body fat and gained like three pounds of muscle, granted they're knob as trainers. You know, for them, I mean they would walk around their chest out. I'm like, there we go. You know, it's classic feel good, play good, you know, and it was just very fun to be a part of that. And I love the mentorship, you know, to be a part of that and to have that stick. And you know, the academy team is no longer there, but they still hit me up and be like, hey man, appreciate everything you did. I'm like, hey, don't stop. I mean, now's not the time to stop. Now's the time to keep on going. So to your point, it's I think finding unique ways to think outside the box to promote the message of health and wellness. And I think right now, you know, through this vehicle of esports, and especially with more and more attention that's being brought in, and to your point, a lot more money has been brought into the space as well. Um it's gonna be very interesting to see, you know, who who's in the space for the right reasons trying to make uh the largest impact.

Yeah. Yeah, it's it's cool. I I get excited for you, uh, Taylor, because I just see this huge world of opportunity. I mean, it's this big blue ocean, you know, out on the front. And I'm sure, you know, there's there's so much opportunity. If if I'm listening and I'm, you know, especially like uh I talk to a lot of online coaches, you know, people developing their online training, um, portfolios and clientele, you know, if if people are interested in maybe like taking a foot and and testing these waters, you know, um, see if they can help esport athletes or if they're just you know people who work with youth athletes or youth in general and they want a better way, right? Um what are some of the first things you would tell people to get started, you know, if they want to start coaching in this realm?

Um, you know, I one of my favorite uh I've had some phenomenal mentors, and one of them used to always tell me, and he still does, you know, see what everybody else is doing and do the opposite.

Yeah.

Yeah. And so for me, it was, I mean, that's one of the reasons why I got into e-sports. Like, what's everyone else doing? Still traditional sports? Okay, what's not that? Um, I would say, you know, having having a firm understanding of the demographic and the population. Uh granted, I didn't coming right out the gate, you know, but ask questions, you know, seek knowledge, ask questions. And the number one rule I'd say is it never hurts to ask. Um, I would just reach out to anybody and everybody on LinkedIn and just try to connect and have a conversation around what's being done. And then more importantly, what's not being done. Um, and a question I always ask uh CEOs and different people within the organization and the players is you know, obviously you're very successful, um, and I appreciate that. But the question you need to ask is, are you successful because of or in spite of everything you've done? And that's a very hard question to answer. What that does is it should, and in most cases, it's kind of pique some curiosity and it opens up a further conversation of are you willing to try something different? What then what does that look like? And it's again, it's not trying to fit a square peg and a round hole, it's understanding the what's absolutely essential, what are the components and what is needed at that point in time to get that person to level up. Yeah. Um, and that just all starts with a conversation.

Yeah. Yeah. That's fantastic, man. And it's it's so true. You know, it's you see these huge trends in fitness, and everybody follows quickly, you know. Um, when online training kind of started about seven, eight years ago, I think, you know, maybe earlier, but really started to become popularized. Um, I think a lot of it was due to CrossFit. You know, people wanted individual programming and that need started. So now everyone just flooded in there, right? And now there's a bunch of people who are, you know, online coaches, but they don't know how to get clients. They don't know how to differentiate. It was an amazing way to go. When everyone goes right, you go left. You know, it's uh it's such a cool thing. And I've I'm similar to you, I've always looked for ways to to find my, you know, as Russell Brunson would say, Blue Ocean, where there's nobody in front of you. So just go, you know, create, be uh, you know, be a leader. And it's really cool. So, you know, you're a leader here. What what's well you have all these options, man. Like what do you what are you gonna do? What's where do you see yourself in two years?

What's what's that gonna look like? Yeah, two years. Uh, you know, for me, I'm incredibly grounded in my values and my purpose. Uh, I know my purpose is to create, lead, and serve. Um, and so I'm actively uh having some phenomenal conversations around with different teams and organizations and um some private training facilities on how to create and optimize this esports platform for performance. Um and grateful for having been in the trenches and understood the ins and outs of the esport organizations now. So um in two years, I'm not sure. You know, it's uh and that's exciting for me. I think it kind of goes back on just being, you know, come coming up to the ranks of a traditional strength coach of just not knowing how long I'm gonna be at a program. And you know, I've moved every two years just because that's how it's gone. I'm just kind of going with the flow and continue to um seize any all and opportunities because it is a blank canvas. And that's what really fires me up is the fact that I'm able to create and uh tinker, you know, and I'm a mechanic kind of mindset. So I can do I love looking at existing systems and frameworks and then trying to tweak them within and create new frameworks uh from that. Um so to answer your question, I'm not really sure. I just know it wants to be continue to promote that message of health and wellness and uh continue to help people reach their true potential.

Yeah, awesome, man. Awesome. How big do you think this is gonna get, e-gaming? Like, is this gonna be something where like in five years and this is the this is really the the conversation I want to get into. This is where I get the dirty looks at dinner tables. Um how tapped into into this are we gonna be? You know, when VR hits, right? Like how is it gonna be a kids only? Is it gonna be adults? I mean, ultimately, and we have to bring it up, right? Like, if you ever want to see where technology is going, you look at pornography in that industry. Yeah, right. And they're they're always investing way more and innovating and and doing all that. And maybe that makes you uncomfortable talking about, but it's the truth, you know. And um, you know, you start seeing adults getting sucked in, and for various reasons, maybe reality is too too tough, you know. And we start getting into these games, and um, you know, why not? Why not if if the matrix is awesome, right? And there's less suffering, you know, why wouldn't people go into it? I mean, would you I it's it's that it's that classic tale we all talk about. Like this could go awesome, right? Or this could go really uh bad for humanity, you know, like our whole sense of self could get warped. Like, am I the person in in this other reality, or am I the person who is sitting in front of who thinks he's actually sitting physically in front of a computer talking to Taylor? Right. Like, what what's your vision?

Tell us some insights. Yeah, that's a great question. Um, you know, kind of going back to that ready player one, you know, I think the landscape of sports is going to drastically change. And I think uh with the continued evolution of the technology and what's being done in the space and the innovation, um, you know, innovation is sparked from extreme criticism and like the best ideas survive and it just continues to shift and pivot. Um, and it's hard to say where it could eventually go, but the question's a good one in terms of you know, is it gonna go really well or really bad? And I think that's gonna be dependent upon the thought leaders in the Space who take a stand for the right, the right reasons and get into it for the right reasons. Um, you know, we're what's happening in terms of just the stadiums for these events worldwide. I mean, I know um esports stadium Arlington, uh the city of Arlington, and they built this massive project. They flipped the convention center. It's gonna be the largest esports stadium in North America. It's a hundred thousand people, I'm sorry, a hundred thousand square foot that they can fit inside this space. And uh we're gonna kick that off in two weeks. And so I'm working with them on building out a player lounge in the back area so they all the players flying internationally can have access to, you know, proper nutrition and massage therapists and the whole nine yards. Um but in terms of you know the immersive experience, and it's it's hard to say, but you'd hope for the best, right? Yeah, you know, or it might get to a point where it gets so bad that okay, some drastic change has to happen. And sometimes that's the case as well.

Yeah. Well, you know, I have to have faith. I actually had a guy who um out of Tel Aviv who focuses on artificial intelligence. He was on the show because they do the uh the V trainer. And it's kind of like, you know, I think stage one of where AI training can go. And um, you know, he he made the good point. He's like, you know, you just have to trust in humanity. Like, you know, we've had some big fingers on some big buttons the last few decades, you know, that things could have gone wrong, you know. I think Cuba, how close you were in the Cuban Missile Crisis, but somehow humanity seemed to find a way to not completely screw it up. And you have to hope, like you said, that leaders emerging, like yourself, you know, thought leaders and people who are leading, um, you know, have that that core um belief and positivity about humanity. And, you know, that's that's the big thing. And when anything from you know immersive immersive VR to um artificial intelligence, you know, you just hope it ends up in the hands of the right people because uh it's gonna be, it's coming, folks. It's coming.

Yeah. I mean, the other interesting thing too is just the conversations I have with with my close circle of friends and just others as well, is, you know, how grounded are we in our values and our purpose? And I think a lot of people struggle in really identifying what that means to them, and then having that be their north star and guiding their decisions. Um, you know, and I think that's a tremendous exercise that I encourage everybody to do is like really dial in on what your values are, and it should not be a list of like 15 things. You know, it should be a small, small list that you are very true, that's very near and dear to your heart, and that you can that can guide you, then that feeds into what your purpose is and how you how you navigate through life. Um, you know, I had a business coach, um, Jen Gresham, she was she's awesome, and she had me do that exercise, and I came back with like 15 different values, and she's like, What is that? Like, no, that that doesn't make sense. And so I basically just sort them down to four, and that's you know, for me, it's courage. Courage always choose courage over comfort. It's gonna be uh knowledge acquisition, so always remain curious, it's deep relationships, and it's being very grounded in the body, mind, soul connection. And you know, and then that just ties into everything that I do. Um so I encourage people to do that as well.

Yeah, I I 100% agree. I've I've the conversation of of knowing your values and understanding them um comes up all the time in my world. And you know, once again, I great mentor, James Fitzgerald, who um introduced me to that. And you know, mine mine are very simple. I have three, you know, I I my number one value is my craft, my purpose, you know, what I'm doing. There's a reason I've recorded 400 podcasts and I haven't made a dollar off any of them. It's because I like it, you know, and it's it's just what gives me um, you know, it lifts me up. And then deep relationships like you too, you know, just relationships with not just even people like spending time with my dog. You know, like that's relationship, and finally it's freedom, you know, and that's if I stick to those, um, decision making you'll find in your life becomes a lot easier if you understand your values, and most importantly, if you don't judge your values based upon what society tells you your values should be. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. That's that's the biggest thing. And then once you see that and you accept it and you live it, and then you start to like see how understanding what other people's values are, how that reflects, you start to understand people, you know, and how to interact with them, how to even influence people. And uh yeah, so that's I didn't see this conversation going there, but I love it when it does. So um, well, man, so tell me if if people want to find you now, and uh maybe they they hear this interview, they're like, I need to talk to this guy. Where uh where do they find you, Taylor?

Yeah, so uh I think we put something in the show notes for my LinkedIn, but it's Taylor Johnson Performance um on LinkedIn. Uh and then uh Twitter, trying to do better on the Twitter machine. Uh so that's uh at T or at coach T underscore Johnson. Um and then you could check out our uh inside IPI or at InsideIPI uh on Twitter and Instagram as well for the Innovative Performance Institute. That's where we push out a lot of the content and education stuff.

Yeah, awesome, man. Right on. Well, Taylor, thank you for coming on and uh yeah, hopefully people stuck with us this whole way because Taylor Johnson. Thank you. 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 asked 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 this 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