Get Over Yourself - Brad Kearns

Yeah, it it should be the starting point for every conversation, especially diet and trying to transform your diet in ditch sugars and you know cheap, quick energy foods. You will drift back in the direction of sugar cravings and carbohydrate dependency if your sleep is deficient. We know this from science that the the prominent appetite hormone, ghrelin, spikes when your sleep is off.

Hey Fitness fans, welcome back to the Future of Fitness podcast and interview series. This is your host, Eric Maltzone, and this is episode number 98. I get to talk to Brad Kearns. What a treat. So, how do you explain or try to summarize a guy like Brad Kearns? I don't know. I'm gonna do my best because his notoriety comes from so many different angles. And I think first and foremost, he was a professional tri athlete. Very, very good uh in that world. I think his top rank was number three. Uh it's very understated about how consistently high he performed. Uh, talked to his colleagues, and Brad's pretty uh didn't talk about a whole lot, but his colleagues will. Uh the guy was an amazing athlete and still is, really. So we'll talk about that more in the podcast as well. He's also worked with Mark System. Uh he had two podcasts with Mark and tons of collaborations, the Primal Blueprint podcast, the Primal Endurance podcast. And you can see from if you just Google him, look at his Wikipedias, BradKearns.com, all kinds of things, you'll find all of the project that he's working on. It's it's quite impressive. And he's committed um to health and wellness and longevity and pushing that movement forward. It's it's awesome. It is just awesome. So, what else can I tell you about Brad? Well, uh, he's a huge fan of Oli G. Uh, you'll see that if you watch the video version of this uh podcast on YouTube. Uh, he's also a world record holder in a sport that we're gonna talk a lot about. I didn't think that we would talk this much about speed golf, but my curiosity was piqued and I'm fascinated and he talks all about it. And uh yeah, he has a world record holder and he does he's done the fastest hole uh in speed golf ever as a day of this recording, at least. So uh yeah, without further ado, let's get into it. And uh a couple of reminders for you. So if you are a fitness professional, fitness entrepreneur, right? And you are looking to grow faster. I'm just gonna say it. We have the fitness accelerator, and that's what it's all about. Uh, it's about shared knowledge bases and leveraging each other's networks uh to grow businesses faster. It's that simple. And that's what we do. We do it on a daily basis. It's amazing. Uh, people are growing businesses at an extremely fast rate, and uh it's really cool to see. So you can find out more about that at fitnessprofessionalonline.com forward slash fit accelerator. So again, that's fitnessprofessional online dot com forward slash fit accelerator. And without further ado, number 98 with Brad Kearns, enjoy this show. It was a ton of fun. All right, Brad Kearns. Welcome to the show, man.

Eric, I'm so excited to do a show with you after all all of our masterminding backstage. Now we're gonna put our skills to use and create an extremely interesting, impactful show.

Yeah, no pressure though, right? No pressure.

Uh well, there's already pressure because you told me, hey, we're filming, we're putting on YouTube, so I had to get dressed and do up my little background. So if you're watching, thank you so much for watching. Yes, that's Alan Iverson against the wall there. Oh, that's me in a race, winning a race. Of course, that's gonna be in the background. Couple gangster hats and uh a wipeout in Lake Tahoe. So if you're not watching, then let's get to the audio, right?

Yeah, yeah, awesome. And your Ally Ali G uh jacket, which is Yes, yellow, yellow sweatsuit today. Yeah, it's epic. It is absolutely epic. Thank you for noticing. Yeah, no problem, man. So, Brad, I uh yeah, even better. Now he's got the sunglasses on. Uh give us a bio on you. I have I have a million topics that, you know, especially because you're a fellow podcaster, right? You have uh the get over yourself podcasts. You've you've done many with primal. And uh, you know, let's let's get into just a brief bio on yourself. I know you've done so much, but give us uh our listeners an uh an update.

Well, for the last decade, I've been working with Mark Sisson to promote the Primal Blueprint movement, and that's been a really fun adventure and become popular over the last 10 years. When we started and uh wrote our first book together, The Primal Blueprint, and we're trying to explain the story and the talking points, you know, it was highly controversial. We're saying that fat's okay to eat and that you shouldn't eat whole grains or sugars. And oh, the exercise part too is you gotta slow down and uh not worry about pushing your body too hard every day, and that the calories you burn during exercise don't really help you lose excess body fat as much as altering your diet and lowering your carb intake. And now, uh, you know, the movement has grown, the science is supporting it, more science is coming every day, and we have this uh explosion of interest in embracing the ancestral health movement on all levels of society, including medical experts and people that were usually naysayers. So that's been fun for me. Mark and I go back uh many years into the uh endurance world. So I come from the uh triathlon background and I was a professional for nine years. I competed all over some great success, a lot of struggles and and difficulties and learning experiences. So I tried to bring that athletic reference into the health advocation that so yeah, the triathlon scene was uh really great. It was a dream come true because I I was always wanted to be an athlete as a little kid, and now I I I worked hard and got a chance to compete on the pro circuit. Uh I was I was national champion and third in the world at my very best uh in 1991. And then I had other times where I performed below expectation. I got my personal frailties and uh flawed beliefs, self-limiting beliefs, uh negativity, uh lack of balance, lack of focus, all these things played out into struggling and suffering and failure on the race course. And I had to sit back as a young person, right? I'm just a young guy and I've I've already gotten a lot of attention when I do well, and I had to do some really serious reflection, figure out what was important to me. And this is a long time ago, I'm referencing, but you know, I came up with the name of my podcast way back when. It's called Get Over Yourself. I just launched the new podcast. Oh, I get to plug it right now. But it dates back to when I was able to get over myself as a competitive athlete. That's when I was able to unlock my greatest potential because I was doing things for the right reasons. I was pursuing my athletic goals because I enjoyed the competition and the process of pushing your body and getting better and improving, and then going and competing and trying as hard as I could to win and wanting to win very badly. But whatever the outcome, I always had a positive experience and a growth experience in life, including getting my butt kicked and having to recalibrate and say, oh gee, uh, I guess I shouldn't have partied so much the last few weeks. Not really, not really a true example. But you know, we all have ways where, oh, I wish I'd gotten in on that uh those stock options and that that startup that my friend worked at, and now he's got a lot of money. But at the time you were too busy partying or you weren't, you know, fully embracing the highest expression of your talents and you were doing a stupid job for some reason that you know dated back to uh childhood traumas and formulation of self-limiting beliefs. So as an athlete man, you get slapped in the face. If you got any of this noise going on in your head, you are going to get your ass kicked on the race course one way or the other. Or if you're a champion because you're naturally talented and you succeed, you're gonna be an unbalanced, messed up human being. And we need not look very far to find out stories of great champions who dominate in the athletic realm, but they're train wrecks in real life. Same with celebrities, right? So the goal here, getting over myself, enjoying the process, being entirely focused on the process, the moment, being mindful, all these terms that we throw out now about living an evolved and passionate and fulfilling life. I feel like the opportunity to be an athlete had all these things happen in the extreme case and the very dramatic examples. And I was able to take that into my role as a parent. Now my kids are adults, so I had a great couple decades of trying to be an involved and supportive parent, but noticing that trend of helicopter parenting in today's society and being so uh offended and nauseated by it, but also being guilty of it in this way or that way, and so having to constantly reflect and get over myself as a parent and not try to over-emphasize or over-orchestrate uh my kids' journey so that hey, maybe they're gonna fail and struggle sometimes too, and I'm not gonna try to bail them out. I'm gonna go, oh, that's a bummer. Great uh uh uh uh parenting advice from Dr. William Hughes, he's an author, and I got to meet him personally one time, and he he said, get used to using the word bummer a lot in your child rearing with your kids. And it's absolutely profound, right? So if you did, you know, the the kid stays up too late, made a mess with the party in the living room. Oh, sorry, um you can't drive for a week. That was the that was the rule that we agreed to. What? No, next week's really busy. I have to do this, I have to do that. Oh, that's such a bummer. I'm sorry, I can't help you there because you broke the rule. I can't bail you out. Oh, bummer. Oh, you're really pissed at me and you think I'm an idiot and you hate me. Uh, it's a bummer. I'm sorry to hear that, you know. And so uh I'll never forget that. And there there's so many applications to just letting it flow and going with the going with the flow instead of trying to force your way into uh the the life and the goals that you have set.

Yeah, yeah, interesting. And uh, you know, the get over yourself term. I feel like I should just get that tattooed on my forearm because it's such a solid reminder of like every day you just you tend to get intertwined with like shit going on your head and things that you think are important and they're not, and we think that we're the center of the universe and we're not. And uh you so you didn't you you missed something in your athletic career, by the way.

Speed Oh, oh my gosh, you you just teed me up to use a golf analogy. Look at this professional host teamed me up for the golf analogy. So uh, right, I retired from triathlon so long ago, and so I went from complete total focus and absorption in athletic performance and competition every day. I lived and breathed triathlon and racing for 10 years, nine years of my life. And then all of a sudden I woke up and I was like, oh crap, I gotta get a job. I don't have $70 million like an MBA guy to go do something, and uh went into real life, had kids, got in, got sidetracked on all kinds of different things, tried to stay fit and do little fun things. And then as I got older and older, I realized now I'm 53 years old, and I realized the incredible importance of having a passion and a competitive intensity throughout life, whatever it is. And no, I don't want to go back on the pro circuit and train and and you know be totally absorbed in something, but I want to have something that I really, really care about that I compete very intently in, and it fits nicely into my lifestyle, so it promotes longevity health, it doesn't compromise my goals at my job and getting work done or being the parent that I need to be. And so I've had these competitive outlets over time, and my favorite one now is speed golf. So this is a tournament, an actual tournament competition where they count your strokes like a golf tournament, and they also time you over the course. So you're running through the golf course as fast as possible while also trying to shoot a good score. So it's not like you're going out there hockey pucking the ball and taking 10 shots and racing to the next hole because they're counting your strokes and your time. Uh each one counts for a point. And so I've been playing in this uh competitive speed golf setting for several years. I go to the world championships every year. It's something that I train for and have so much passion for. And the great thing is like you can go play speed golf and it it doesn't take over your day. So what I do is I go out right before dark, 30 minutes before dark, and I play nine holes, and then I'm home for dinner. It's simple. And I get the uh the fitness aspect, the workout because I'm running, and then also play the great and challenging sport of golf and always trying to get better. So that's my competitive passion now. I also do high jumping where I'm not really going to the meets or bothering with that. I just go to the high school stadium, college stadium, put the bar up. And to me, when I see that bar, that's why you see it in my logo, get over yourself, trying to get over the bar. When I put that bar up, I might as well be in the world championships of triathlon with thousands of people watching in the closed streets of whatever city's hosting the event and a big deal, the competitive arena I experienced before. Now, an empty high school stadium on a Saturday morning means the same to me internally because I have so much intensity and passion, and I really want to clear that bar. And I've had some great jumps over the last few years where I jumped higher than I did when I was a kid. Uh 5'6 is my all-time best. I jumped 5'5 when I was 51 years old, which actually would rank pretty good if I was in a meet. But when I cleared that bar and I screamed in the pit, it was like I'd won the Olympic gold. And I'm telling this silly story because I think it's really super important for everyone to not just be a spectator in life. And today we have the NFL red zone broadcast where you can sit there all day long and be highly entertained by the athletic excellence of these people, or you can go out and uh, you know, play tennis, but your heart's not really into it, and you hit the ball around because you used to be a college player and now it's just not the same. There's always something you can do to light up that switch and do something that really matters to you, and you can really go for it and not saying you're gonna be a world champ or any of that nonsense, but it doesn't matter. It's all it's all relative to the passion that you express inside yourself.

Yeah, awesome, man. So I have to ask, how long does it take you to do nine holes?

Uh if I'm just going around like last night, 30 minutes, right? I'm just jogging, I'm not racing. But in the in the competitive setting, uh my best round ever on the speed golf circuit is I shot a 78 in 47 minutes on a championship golf course, and I took third place in the California professional uh championships. And so that's a score of 125, 78 plus 47. So when when we talk in speed golf parlance, what did you shoot? I saw I shot a 125, and um you're you're putting it all together. Uh but my fun thing that you might be referring to that I I think I showed you on YouTube is there's this little offshoot of the tournament competition of speed golf where you play 18 holes, and there's an actual Guinness World Record for the fastest single hole of golf ever played. And I saw this guy on YouTube last year, Steve Jeffs from England, and he's got a beautiful video, it's viral uh Guinness World Record website, 161,000 views. Uh, a thousand of them are mine, so really 160,000 views to the public. But I saw this guy do this incredible performance, and I just became captivated by it, and uh I trained for it for several months, and on June 1st I broke the existing Guinness World Record for the fastest single hole of golf ever played. So basically, it has to be a par five, it has to be 500 yards. You can't just go to some little hole, right? So the the guidelines state that it has to be a long hole. So I found this 500-yard par five and I sprinted full speed, uh, somehow got a birdie using only a single club. So my time for one hole was a minute and 38 seconds. And uh that was, you know, that was some fun stuff. I do a whole podcast about it and a long article on my blog for people that are interested. But I'm trying to inject this theme throughout that it was important to me. I didn't have to practice five hours a day and obsess about it to where I was moody if I had a bad golf round. But in the background, I had that flame burning and it enhances my life in all different ways. So I think that's the big message there for anyone to think, what could I do that would be really fun and challenging?

Yeah. Yeah, well, we're not done with it because I have so many questions about speed golf. Now, if so, do you have do you do you carry a like what bag do you carry when you're doing this? And I gotta I want to ask another question on this. When you're doing your practice rounds, what kind of looks do you get from people when you're sprinting around the golf course?

Oh man, you're so funny because um, you know, I could talk about this all day. Like I find myself in the corner at parties, and my girlfriend comes over, yeah, how's it going? Like I don't know anybody, let's say, and then she comes over and within five feet, she starts hearing the speed golf terms being bantered about. Like, okay, I'm doing okay. I somehow got over to the speed golf topic. But I, you know, I consulted with like a content expert, you know, search engine optimization and trying to build this website and the podcast. And I'm like, you know, I don't know about this. Do people want to hear about the speed golf? And like the experts say that if you have a passion and an interesting story that people will be drawn in, even if they've never played golf and they're not fitness or not running. So I'm laughing because it's like, okay, maybe we'll keep talking about it. And even if you don't play golf and you don't run, it is kind of cool. I mean, like, people sort of light up when I talk about it because it's such a strange concept.

It's so it's bizarre but awesome. I mean, I love golf. I I'm excited if I shoot under 90, right?

That's a good round, man. Yeah.

It's a good round. Yeah. And uh I'm happy, like, I'll go for trail runs if I if I hold you know an eight-minute mile on my trails. So to hear some of the numbers that you have, I'm like I'm I'm flabbergasted. Like, you know, shooting 78s, that's a hard alone. And then to run that distance, uh like what's the average distance of an 18-hole golf?

It's about five miles, five, five and a half miles. Yeah. So um the the guys on top, I mean, it's a very competitive sport. I'm I'm an old guy still trying to compete in the pros. So I'm there's only two guys over 50 in the pros, the rest of them are in the 30s. And the winner of the tournament will usually shoot right around par and playing the course in 45, 43, 47 minutes, depending on the course. So you go out to the Speed Golf World Championships. Um, I've taken 20th, 20th, and 19th in the last three World Championships. So I'm I'm happy to be up there. I feel like I could get a top 10 someday if I put it all together. But man, there's some guys that can run along the course. There's only a few clubs, you know, four or five or six clubs is the usual uh routine that people take. Uh but if you want to go to YouTube and type in Christopher Smith, Bandon Dunes Speed Golf, you will see one of the greatest golf rounds ever in the history of the planet, right up there with Tiger Woods final round of the Masters, whatever. And this is my buddy, my Speed Golf Guru, Christopher Smith. He shot four under par at Bandon Dunes, one of the greatest golf courses in the world in 53 minutes. And they have a high-speed video on drone, like a beautiful high production video showing him going. So you only have to watch the video for three minutes, and you see him run the entire 18 holes and shoot four under. Four birdies, no no bogies. Well, he's running with five or six clubs. So it's it's a great sport. It's very legitimate at the top level. There's big prize money have been in these world championships events, and so it, you know, it drew me in at the perfect time. When um previous to that, okay, so Eric, we've got to fill on the timeline. You know, I was a pro-tray athlete for nine years. I got out, I started working, having kids, and then when my son was uh four years old, I started coaching everything, anything and everything he did. I was the head coach every single time, no exceptions. And as the kids got older, I realized that as I wanted to be a participatory coach. So I was out there hustling with them, showing them the drills, competing in the scrimmage, showing them competitive intensity and how to, you know, how to be a good sport as well as a killer on the competition course. So in soccer, basketball, and track, I dominated these poor little kids for many, many years. I was the MVP of the team. I'd go out there and I'd bring the heat on the basketball court and and muscle up and make it, you know, make a big layup on them and then get on defense and steal the ball from them. And oh, it was a great run. But I had to be in good shape. I mean, you're you're coaching fifth graders in basketball. Hey, it's not, you know, they're not gonna elbow you in the face and and like that, but it's like I was in good shape for those years because that was my main goal was to dominate little kids uh uh in track basketball and soccer. Um then what happened was uh these guys got around eighth or ninth grade, and they go from 5'4, 118 pounds to 5'10, 162, and I'm out there getting blown away on the basketball court and invited not to participate in the scrimmages anymore because I couldn't guard anybody. So I went from MVP, and in a couple years I was like dad in the stands clapping and making them smoothies when they came over. So I had to find something else, and that's exactly when I transitioned over to speed golf. So, as I said at the outset of this conversation, I've always had something going for me, whether it was professional triathlete, uh trying to compete in the world championships, dominate little kids in a small suburban town uh down the hill from you in Auburn, California, and now going out onto the speed golf circuit. So wild times.

Yeah, and you know, I'm I'm thinking right now because I have where I'm staying right now in in Lake Tahoe, is there's a golf course right over there. Like it's right there. It's about 50 yards away. And I'm wondering what would happen if I just go and play around this afternoon and start running. Like, are people gonna what are people gonna do? Like what are the people just gonna look at you funny? Are they gonna like how do you get and and then what happens when you get backed up on the course, right? I mean, that's that's frustrating. Like we're Yeah, yeah.

So here's the thing about speed golf not very social, not very convenient, right? You can't really play together. You and I can't go out there and play like compete. Really, because if I get one shot ahead of you because you went to the bushes, um, then you're gonna be hitting me in the head with your next shot, right? So in the tournament, we start at five minute intervals. Okay. So we pretty much have the course to ourselves, unless you have a really poor day and the guy behind you ends up catching you, and then you have to sit to the side and wait for the guy behind you to pass through, unlike real golf, where you have to wait. That's the best part. It's like if you catch somebody, you yell, incoming, and you fire that shot, and they have to get their ass out of the way. That's the protocol for speed golf, the exact opposite of real golf. Um, but it's kind of tough because you either have to be the first person out in the morning, right? Yeah. Uh or the last, very last sliver of daylight when the course is finally emptying, especially the front nine. I mean, there's always people finishing right at dark on a on a significant course. Uh, but I'll go out there and play the front nine because we know that no one's starting at uh, you know, I start at 7.20 last night. It gets dark at 7.36 or sun sets at 7.36. Um, I know on the last two or three holes I got to hit the ball straight because I can't see the ball flight. And that's my speed golf experience is that if there's anyone on the course, I'm gonna catch them. Because a foursome, if you're not familiar with golf, hang with me here. But you know, a foursome will play each hole in about 15 minutes, making for a four-hour round, four hours and change. So if I see a foursome on the eighth T and I'm on the first T and I'm playing my speed golf pace, I'm gonna catch those guys on the ninth green. They're gonna play two holes. I'm gonna play nine and be waiting to hit my last shot. So it's right before dark. But there's a lot of um support now in different cities. You can look at Speed Golf USA website. Uh, you can go and join them in the morning. And so they have the first seven tea times of the morning. Boom, boom, boom, you guys are off at you know 6 a.m. and uh you're you're done at 7 and you're off to work. So that's the good part about the sport is it happens quickly. And then the bad part is you got to have an open course because uh, you know, the the etiquette, golf is a very formal traditional sport. I really don't want to be bothering people with running up on them and they're looking back and seeing this guy charging the fairway, trying to catch them while they're trying to putt. So I'm I try to be very considerate. All the speed golfers know this, and so we really keep out of other golfers' way by being first off or last off. And then your question about the clubs. So the strategy there is you're running along, you can't carry too many clubs. Otherwise, it's just too much weight and too much logistics pulling him out of the bag and putting back. So most players have a junior bag and they're carrying four or five or six clubs, and then you've got to choose. Like right now, I'm going with my three-wood, seven-iron, fifty-three degree wedge, and a putter. So I'm only using four clubs. And so that seven iron has to be very versatile where I'm choking down and taking a half swing and knowing that's gonna go 130 yards, or with the three-wood, I'm doing the same thing and trying to get all these in-between yardages. But on that note, I'll say, because uh golfers know this logistics and the equipment and the fussiness of the average golfer, and you're allowed 14 clubs in real golf, so you see these giant bags that the poor caddies have to carry, or you have to lug to your trunk. And I'm gonna say right now, if you're not a great golfer, if you're not a low 70s shooter, you only need half of those clubs anyway, because you're not good enough to worry about the seven-iron or the eight-iron distance because you can't hit either one of them with consistency so that's gonna go your desired yardage. But what happens is we've learned about the sport from watching TV and these incredible professionals where they're taking in all the data and they know it's 147 to the pin. He's decided to get his nine-iron. Oh, wait, it's a little windy. He's changing his club with his caddy consulting for five more minutes. And that's great for those guys because they're so precise. But most of us, we need to get up to the ball, take a swing, and try to hit the ball straight. And what uh the great phenomenon of speed golf is that the athletes, almost everyone who plays, will experience this phenomenon where they go out there and even though they're rushing and running and not ruminating or getting analytical, they play as good or better than when they take all day with all their clubs. So, my best tournament result, I told you, was a 78. A 78 is a good round for me, man. I'm not a 68 guy. I'm happy to shoot 78 in five hours with 14 clubs and all the yardages on the little electronic readout on the cart. So, what did I lose from running at full speed and breathing hard every shot? It was not much because it got me into this zen-like state where I'm in the reactive mode and I'm not in that overly analytical, overly tense state where I'm I'm worried about choking or mad at the last shot I hit, and so I'm in a disturbed emotional state for my next shot. You don't have time to get mad. You don't have time to stress because all you're doing is moving forward quickly to the next shot, and then you got a clean canvas to try and hit it again.

Yeah, you're in the flow state. I mean, that's right. You just don't have time to think.

You just unlock the flow state uh uh by default just by rushing up to the ball. And I I've had these conversations with my brother Wally, who's a great player, a tournament level, you know, gambling guy will go out and put his money up on Tuesday mornings in Pasadena with the the top players in LA. I mean, this is real pressure competitive golf. And I'm like, you gotta try it sometime. It's great, it's great. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And then one day he went out there and played like four holes, and he got like par birdie, par birdie or something. And he came off that course, he's like, You're right, it was amazing. Did you see that putt I drained? How long was that? It was about 35 feet. He just ran and he's huffing and puffing, grabs the putter, and knocks in a 35-footer. What are the odds? We know the odds of making that in real golf. It's like 3%. So if he if he made a hundred of those putts, took a hundred of those putts, he'd make three of them as a good player, right? And if you look at um my video on YouTube, you can look at Brad Kern's speed golf world record. Uh, I got a birdie on this hole sprinting at full speed, playing with only my three wood, no other clubs, because I wanted to break the time record. And it's like, if I played that hole uh, you know, 50 times with all my clubs, eh, maybe I'd get, you know, two or three or four or five birdies. If I if I did it over and over, the speed golf style, trying to get a birdie with a three-wood, it might take a hundred tries to capture the magic that I did on my very first attempt. Because your first attempt is always your best because I'm sprinting. I can't go back and try again and run the same speed. So I knew this is like do or die, all or nothing. And I just got into that flow state, knowing all these things, that this was my once in a lifetime chance to try to do it. And that's why I got so excited about it. And we'll we'll talk about it for as long as as long as we want until the host changes direction as as we've been trained by podcast experts. Yes. Yeah. Well, I'm not trained. So that's that's that's why that's why you're so good, man. That's why people connect. You know, this is the real, the real thing. Yeah. No, honestly, I mean, we talk about that offline about how to what kind of show works. And I just started um, you know, part of my podcast, I'm branching out from health and fitness, like I talk about on the primal shows, to talk about happiness, relationships, uh, personal growth, you know, matters of all kinds. Tech addiction, I just did a show on, and I do shows with my my girlfriend, and we talk about healthy relationships. It's great because it's a real couple talking through it. Um and I know Casey Neistat, the YouTube sensation, he just started a podcast called Couples Therapy. And it's really interesting because these guys are they're they're completely raw and real, and they're bickering with each other on the show. And enough of that. Shut up, I don't want to talk about that on the podcast. And it's like the the median that's coming across that we've never experienced in our lives because what we're used to doing is turning on Donahue back in the 90s or Oprah, and they say, Tell me about your latest movie, Tom Cruise. Oh, it's great, it's Mission Impossible. You know, it's all postured and performance aspect, everything's smooth and slick, and we'll be right back after this commercial. And now we have the chance to like really get into it with real people. And, you know, if I want to tell you to shut the F up, I'm allowed to, and it might not even be beeped out, and you'll be like, well, forget you. Let's, you know, let's talk about something else, and we just go to town.

It's fun. Yeah. I love, I mean, I'm I'm my first Joe Rogan podcast that I listened to. Something clicked. I was like, I want to do, I want to be part of that. That's amazing. He doesn't, he goes average three hours, right? Three hours, he doesn't edit anything. Yeah, you know, he like they'll be like the the person, the guests will have to go to the bathroom. So we'll go to the bathroom and then they'll talk about the guy when he's gone, right? And then he comes back like, okay, you know, and then they just continue talking like they just don't edit. And I think it's um it's just so it feels so natural. And I I've listened to a couple of your episodes. One of the things I really um enjoyed was your segment on uh, I want to get this right, um, things that make you want to puke.

Oh, the personal tips and advice that make me want to puke.

Yeah, yeah. I love it. I mean, there are so many good ones. And I was like, I have one. I have one. I don't know if it's like a personal tip or whatever it is, but it's something and social media is I'm I have an interesting relationship with social media, like like most people, is I hate it. I feel like I need it because it's what part of what I do. Um but then I hate it. And uh one of the things that really bothers me and makes me want to puke is that the photos that people take of themselves meditating and put them on social media, right? It's like they're sitting on a rock and they're like, they have their, you know, they're doing their lotus pose, whatever the pose is, and they're meditating. I'm like, well, who the fuck took the picture, man? Yeah, the pick of the picture. And how are you meditating if you know someone's taking a photo of you? And it's uh, yeah, man.

That's that's that's a good call out right there. In your face, meditators. I mean, really? How about how about a picture of your finger going down your throat? Like, yeah, yeah. Yeah, it's yeah, that's a good um, well said. You hate it, you need it, you hate it. And I feel like um I'm a uh susceptible victim to the d distraction of technology in general. Yeah. And so having this stuff at our fingertips, and I I did a show with this Dr. Elisha Goldstein in LA, he's an expert on mindfulness and tech addiction. And now this is like my latest obsession is to manage this problem any way I possibly can. Um, I just talked to Kelly Starrett, the fitness mobility expert, and he was talking about the same stuff, the the flaws and the impure influences of modern life that are taking us away from our genetically optable way of living. And because the technology is so prevalent and so smart and so useful, we have to build in our own safeguards. We have to plug our phone in and charge it outside of the bedroom. That's one of Kelly's tips. Simple as that. He goes, I charge my phone outside the bedroom. The plug charger cord is in the wall outside the bedroom. So he's forced to leave the phone behind. And it's a it's a profound insight that you know we build in these things. The other one that I love is the dog example. So if you have a dog, you are automatically becoming a healthier person because the dog is obligated to get outside into nature a couple times a day. If you're a responsible dog owner, that means it doesn't matter if you feel like taking an evening stroll or not, or if you're too busy catching up on email or watching a Netflix show, the dog needs to get outside. So the the decision fatigue and the necessary motivation for you to motivate yourself to get up and do what you should do, which is take a walk in the evening, you don't even, it doesn't, it's not even part of the equation. You just have to take the dog out because the dog needs to get out. And now I'm realizing like I'm not as smart and disciplined as I think. And so I need to start building in these safeguards rather than paying lip service saying or saying on a podcast to other listeners, yeah, you shouldn't do email in the last two hours of the evening. You should not have that bright light going into your eyeballs. It's like I need to figure out a strategy where I never do that. And maybe it's like um, you know, pulling out the router from the wall so that you don't have internet connection. Dr. Mercola says we should do that every single night, do the EMFs. And so that's I think the next breakthrough in health, uh uh uh human performance, all these things is like uh taking control of the out-of-control aspects of technology today.

Yeah, it's so interesting. I mean, I I did something that seems so small, but I just deleted the Facebook app from my phone. So I didn't even realize like how much I just do it, right? It's like, oh, you know, you're waiting for some, you know, I go to get some takeout and I'm just waiting in line, so I just check my Facebook Healthy Takeout. What's that? Healthy takeout. Healthy takeout, of course, yeah. It wouldn't be Chinese food or anything like that. Um but just doing that, now I I treat my social like email, like I check it at certain times of the day, right? Oh nice. And that's I mean, that's it's still really freaking difficult because I still have Instagram on my phone because Instagram desktop you know application sucks. It has to be on your phone, right? So then I find myself just filling that time with freaking Instagram. So but it's so addicting. Like what like like it we it wasn't here 10 years ago, dude. Right?

Yeah, that's the bad part. So I mean look at my kids, and they've had their whole life in immersed in tech. And so, you know, I have this comparative example that they don't. I know what life was like when we were kids, and we had to, you know, we had the Slurpees too. I hate that. I fight that battle with my kids, but it's part of life. But it's like I rode my freaking bike to the Slurpee and it was a hundred degrees out and rode back home up a steep hill. So yeah, I banged the same Slurpee you did, but I wasn't driven there by carpool, you know. And so, and then, you know, so on and so forth with like the downtime and the boredom time, there is no such thing now because you can play Fortnite for seven hours a day and not get bored. So, you know, I have I have strong concerns about them. I'm glad we're getting this out on the show. I'm glad we're we're airing the dirty laundry because in other examples, like, oh, uh I I proudly turned off all my notifications and screen imagery, right? So if I get a text message or anything, it doesn't even buzz. I my phone's completely turned off. Oh, guess what? I reach for the freaking thing all the time because there are no dings or notifications. So I don't know if someone's been trying to call me. So I completely defeated the purpose because I was trying, you know, with with good intentions to get rid of that annoying uh interruptive interruptive stuff. But what's what else is an interruption is me reaching for the phone.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, it's it's it's tough. You know, and it it's just like I said, you know, the first cell phone that the iPhone came out in 07, right? So 11 years ago. I mean you think about how the speed of how it's gotten integrated into our lives is is just shocking to me. And uh I feel bad for the generations that didn't have, you know, didn't didn't have the opportunity. Like I would just leave the house, leave a note from my mom. I'll be back at dinner, you know. Maybe I'll be at my friend Mike's place. That was it. You know, I know like my brother's maybe there'll be chicks there. Yeah, maybe we'll be getting into trouble. No, man. I was a chubby kid. I was at the comic book store, I wasn't meeting girls, late high school.

But you know, I was on the nerd patrol too, man. That's props, you know, whatever.

Yeah, I was chubby until I started uh until I started playing water polo.

Oh yeah.

Right, and that that shaped me up pretty fast. For the first formative years of my life, I was a swimmer since the age of five, competitive at Santa Clara Swim Club. You probably know those guys.

Oh my gosh, that's big time, Mark Spitz and the rest. Yeah.

Yeah, yeah. And uh I had a s you know, squeeze into a speedo as a chubby kid twice a day. You know, that that'll make you get a sense of humor because uh you gotta get some character uh because you're not gonna do it by looks. Um anyway, I digress. So there's a lot of things I've I've been wanting to cover with you too. I mean, the hyperconnectivity that we have now today as well, right? I mean, this is a similar topic. Um what are you doing in your life that that breaks it down? I mean, you mentioned Kelly Staretz um, you know, charging the phone outside of the room, Kelly.

Which I which I don't. Um I I charge it right by my bedside, but um I do turn off the uh you turn off the wireless and the Bluetooth for sure and uh every night. And if you can put it on airplane mode, that's fine. And if you can't, um we know that. But um, speaking of that, like my my my sister is uh a physician and she's delivered uh a thousand babies or more in her career, and she's on call every few weekends, and so she has her phone by her bed, and if it rings, it's gonna wake her up and she's gonna go deliver a baby. Uh, what's your excuse, listener? You really need your phone. You're that important that you need to be uh interrupted from a nap or or evening sleep by uh something going on in life. I don't think it's up at baby level, so then we can reflect and go, gee, if I get over myself and realize I'm not super important and if I miss a day of email, uh even my my work group and my company is still going to survive and everybody can wait. Um, those are kind of things where you know you can prioritize the highest expression of your talents and ask yourself if you're doing it. Um one thing I do is like I'll notice if I'm if my productivity is falling off. So I'm trying to be aware of how well I'm working and what how I'm how I'm hitting my priorities well. So I have a written to-do list. I'm trying to uh refer to it constantly and keep it constantly valued and updated because I know we can have all these technological, you know, uh uh the the Franklin Covey seven steps notebook that we carry around and it has all our things, but if you don't keep it constantly updated and refreshed and refer to it, then it's just a uh a dinosaur just sitting there gathering dust. So I'm trying to prioritize my work output at all times, notice it, ask myself if it's going well or not, and then I'll notice on uh frequently in the afternoon a lull in my uh focus, cognitive performance. And so at that point I'll either take a nap if it's a big lull, which a lot of times it is, or I'll take a break. And those breaks are so, you know, that we devalue them because we're working so hard and we're so important and we're so busy. But smart people must realize that if you are at your work desk and you have not taken a break for hours and hours, your cognitive performance is declining. It's a known scientific observable observation that you are dwindling down. And because you're dwindling down, you don't notice that you're dwindling down. And so all that happens is you have to stay late at work again until 7.30 to get all your emails done. Uh, but what happened between 2.30 and 3.15 was that you carried on a little idle chit-chat at the water cooler for too long. Oh, you watched that YouTube video that was seven minutes, but it led to another four-minute clip and another three-minute clip. That's me, especially if it relates to speed golf. And we we kind of we we lose that discipline and that resiliency because we have not taken that five-minute stroll around the courtyard every two hours and kept that kept that thing sharp. And this reference, uh, you know, obviously I'm not a uh a tech expert or a psychologist, but when I was an athlete and I was highly tuned to how my physical performance was every single day, every single workout, every hour of every workout, every stroke up and down the pool, I knew whether I was on or whether I was a little bit off. And so I'd always have these reference points like, gee, I'm really dragging ass today. My legs feel heavy. Uh it took me an hour and 27 minutes to get to this checkpoint rather than an hour 20, which is usual. And so you're always getting that direct, measurable feedback that you're sucking ass. But when you're at the workplace and you're sucking ass and you're being distracted and writing sloppy stuff and forgetting where you put the file because you're too overwhelmed to organize your workplace for five minutes in the morning, then we start going down this slippery slope. And I'm gonna venture to guess that a lot of people are in that on that scoreboard, our scores aren't looking too good. And I'm the first guy to raise my hand and say, dang man, if you check your email at certain times of day, you're kicking my butt because my email is open too often, and I'm popping back over to it for some reason. It's like uh addictive, habitual behavior when I should be focusing on creating original, thoughtful content and then worrying about the email later. So the more I talk about it with you, Eric, and with anyone else who listen, now I'm gonna get more focused. Today's gonna be better because I'm I'm I'm you know coughing up my my inadequacy here and desire to improve it is very strong. But you gotta take action and make it happen.

Yeah. And it's um, you know, I'm I'm I say, everyone says they do these things, right? And I I realize I try, and maybe on Mondays I do them, right? Because Mondays is like everything, you've got all your shit together on Mondays, right? Everything's perfect. Um, but then as the week goes on, uh, yeah, you just it it's like you can't help it. It's just addiction. Email's my by far. Social media is is sucks my time, but email is just the worst. And I don't know what it is. Maybe it's just I feel like this compulsion to always be responsive. I feel like I'm I add more value if I'm responsive within an hour, right? Makes no sense. Yeah. That's just what I get. And most likely that other person's like shocked, like, what are you doing all day that you can respond within 10 minutes? Like, what is, you know, get away from computer loser. Um but the the break thing, this is fascinating to me because it's so I've found it to be so when I own my gym in Santa Barbara, California, I didn't get I didn't have a place I could take many naps, right? But now that I work from from home or remotely, um I've almost I I feel like I'm really good at 20 minute naps. Like I can I can sit down, like as soon as I feel my brain fog kicking in, you know, I'll take that 20 minute nap and productivity shoots through the roof after that. It's wild. I mean it shouldn't be wild. We we have All the research says it's it's accurate, but I would wouldn't it be cool if like everyone in workspaces there was actually a nap space that people could go to? I know I'm sure Google has it, right? All the Silicon Valley people have it. But wouldn't that be cool? Wouldn't that be great?

Well, to also make it culturally acceptable, because if you go to Spain or uh Greece, everything's closed from 2.30 to 4 30 because the the entire country is napping. And that that would be a beautiful breakthrough. Um Ariana Huffington, you know, championing the cause for sleep in recent years after her physical breakdown from exhaustion, and then then she's writing books called Thrive and the Sleep Revolution, where you know, sleep is everything because your productivity emanates from good sleep. So if you're not getting good sleep, why even talk about athletics or even diet or uh workplace productivity or becoming a good student and in graduating uh school? You know, if you're not sleeping enough, what's it all worth? You're you're you're a deficient human. I mean, again, I can come on strong with these points because I'm from the athletic world. And when I was a professional, I was asleep for half of my career, literally. So I raced for nine years on the circuit. I took 10 hours every night, for sure, was my sleeping time, and a two-hour nap every afternoon. And if I compromise that nap because there was too long of a line at the at the post office or something set me off, man, I was cranky and I would feel that swim workout that night. I was just a little bit off because I didn't have the full rest that I needed. And man, some of those naps I'd wake up and I I thought it was morning, and then I realized it was night and I still had to go do another workout. But I got plenty of sleep. I overdid it and exhausted myself physically, so I was just hanging on by a thread, even with all that sleep. So it wasn't optimal. But today, wow, I mean, yeah, it should be the starting point for every conversation, especially diet and trying to transform your diet in ditch sugars and you know, cheap, quick energy foods. You will drift back in the direction of sugar cravings and carbohydrate dependency if your sleep is deficient. We know this from science that the the prominent appetite hormone ghrelin spikes when your sleep is off. And the uh satiety and fat storage hormone leptin, uh, the signaling gets disrupted between the brain and the digestive system such that you have a propensity to overeat, not realize you're full, and then have a greater likelihood that you store those calories of fat rather than burn them because you didn't get enough sleep. It's directly tied to the the sleep habits and the restoration and the balance of appetite hormones and stress hormones and things like that. So there's a pretty good plug for sleep right there.

Yeah, it is. You know, it's interesting to me too. There seems to be this uh movement in entrepreneurship too that you know people always ask what's your morning routine? Well, I get up at 4 a.m., right? And I do my hour. I'm like, well, what time do you go to bed? Right? That's always the question I asked because everyone, it's like this, it's like this, this, this grandiose thing, like, well, how early do you get up? Oh, I get up 15 minutes earlier. So eat that, right? But then again, like, well, how effective are you during your day? And I have a I am always when people say that they wake up at four or even before four a.m. to do things, I'm just wondering how effective are they in there during their day? They say you must be incredibly um just unefficient or inefficient with your day if you have to get up that early. You know, this morning I usually wake up at six, right? This morning I slept in until seven, it was amazing. Um, but I feel today I feel like a superstar, right? I feel unbeatable just through that extra hour of sleep. So it makes me wonder like, is that six a.m. really worth it? It's it's good if you need that peace and quiet, right? You want to get your routine in and that sets you up for your day. But you know, I don't even think say six a.m. is is that early compared to a lot of people. And I I just yeah, I I question that all the time. Like, what is is it this ego thing that we feel we need to wake up earlier? Like, what is it?

Uh it's nonsense, is what it is. Awesome. And we also have um we have the ability as humans to drive ourselves really, really hard and overstimulate the fight or flight response to the extent that you can be a banger for 10, 15, 20 years of grinding and waking up before it gets light and going and doing that intense morning workout at spin class or boot camp or Zumba or with your personal trainer, the 515 appointment. You're booked that three days a week. And I know a great many people that live under these high-energy, high-performing type triple A circumstances. Um, I talked about this briefly with Kelly Starrett on my show with him, and he said, Yeah, let's talk to those guys when they have their first heart attack. And that's a quip, but it's it's it's completely true is that you will come back and pay the price somehow, some way, later on, even if you can go through uh however long your binge period is. And um that that's the part that be nice for people to reflect on. Same with uh a partying uh 20-year-old that's you know staying up super late and and doing whatever they're doing and getting up and going to work and they're rallying, and then they they have a uh a slurpee in the afternoon, they have more energy and all the things that you can't do when you're 37 or 42 or 58, right? It's not gonna work. But you can get away with all kinds of things, but you're you're operating on borrowed time and you're gonna have pain and suffering and consequences later. That's just that's just all there is to it.

Yeah. Yeah, I remember that. My late 20s was just a smorgasbord. I was living in San Francisco, and you know, there's just so much to do. You had FOMO everywhere, right? Yeah, you didn't want to miss anything.

So how about Foc U, Eric? What's that? Ever heard that one? No. Fear of keeping up. Foc you. Foc you too. Yeah. I've heard of FOMO. If you haven't heard of that, it's fear of missing out. We it's a common term. And then um, Dr. Goldstein said, yeah, there's also Focou. And I'm like, Foc you.

Yeah, folk you. Fuck you in San Francisco. Yeah, I had explained FOMO to my my 80-year-old parents last night, and it was they're like, I'm like, yeah, it's actually a word now, it's used in our language, people use it all the time. Yeah, very interesting. But yeah, it was it was everything. And you know, I'm like, well, I'll just hit my my Starbucks in the afternoon and I'll make it through. And it was fine. If I try to do that nowadays, if I try to live that life again, man, could you, I would I'd be dead. I'd die. I just died. I would fall over and die.

Yeah.

Um, but it was fun. It was fun. I had a good time. Um so we had an interesting conversation in one of our mastermind groups, too. So we talked about the future of podcasting. You got in fairly early with podcasting, right? I mean, when did you start your first podcast?

We started the primal blueprint podcast, I think in 2013. So there's a couple, few hundred shows or something on the counter. I haven't done them all, but I I started the Primal Endurance Podcast in 20 uh 16, I guess. So um done done a lot of shows. I haven't really taken it as a uh a main focus because we were too busy uh publishing books and doing events and things like that. But now with my my new one, get over yourself, I'm I really, really believe in the medium, and I think it's the very best way to communicate in our in our busy lives today because we're not demanding your full attention to listen to the show like we would if it was a video. Hey, if you're watching the video, that's great, but you can consume the audio broadcast podcast while you're raking the leaves, commuting to work, doing something else. And then on the other side, when you have uh you know the commentary, it's a real easy and efficient way to dispense your opinion, information, expertise. So if you wanted to get me on and we could talk about uh my my best-selling book, The Keto Reset Diet, written with Mark Sisson. Uh it's gone you know great, and uh people are embracing it in the Keto community. And if you turn the watch on and gave me an hour and a half, let's say, I could talk about probably everything that you need to know in that book that took us a year to write. Yeah. Right? So it's like, hey, you want to write a book for a year of your life or talk for an hour and a half and get the same uh, you know, the expert has a much better, uh, much easier chance to just uh talk in this manner and then get more color and flavor and maybe even a more impactful message from having the conversation rather than the written word.

Yeah, I agree. And it's it's interesting because I'm I'm really well I'm following technology quite a bit. You know, obviously the name of this podcast is The Future of Fitness. So, you know, after this, I actually I'm gonna record something with a guy we were talking about who does uh artificial intelligence in your ears for coaching endurance athletes, right? So it's a headset that that coaches you while you're doing endurance. And as the technology increases in voice specifically, you know, we all so many people, I can't remember what the percentage is, but I think we talked about it once, you know, 40% of households have an Alexa or something like that. 40%? Yeah, I I may I may be making that number up, but it doesn't matter. It's it's impressive where it's at now and then how it's gonna go in the in the United States households. But it's gonna just be like, hey, I'm cooking dinner, hey, find me a podcast on keto. Oh wow you know, and that's the way it's just gonna go. And then I'm gonna be cooking dinner and we listen to you and Mark talk about keto, right? And it's gonna be that easy. Um but you can't, like you said, the big thing is that you can't sit down and watch a YouTube channel on keto while you're cooking dinner, while you're driving, while you're walking the dog. Um so it's gonna be interesting to see. I know, you know, the early adopters have kind of gone through in podcasting, you know, the Rogans and the ledsos and things like that. But I think as more people are adopting it now, it's just gonna become more and more popular.

Hope so, man. Yeah, me too. I love it too. I'm I consume a lot of them and I I get great value out of them. And uh, if it's something super important and meaningful to my life, I'll I'll stop what I'm doing and take notes. Uh if I'm if I'm jogging along, I'll use the the note app on my phone and and you know, really want to remember this stuff and and realize the you know the privilege of hearing from so many great people from all over the world, wherever you are, and you can you can engage directly. I think it's gonna advance culture and advance society more quickly than ever. When you think about the old days where you had to go look something up in the encyclopedia, like the the the world record for the fastest hole of speed golf, uh, I would have never known unless I was browsing YouTube and randomly caught my eye. Yeah.

So where do uh if people so you have your podcast, you also have a website now, and you also have a training program for endurance athletes. Tell us a little bit about that.

Yeah, so with uh the the primal publishing efforts of the last decade and the books we put out, one of them was Primal Endurance, The Keto Reset Diet, another book, um, the Primal Blueprint itself and the Primal Blueprint 21-day transformation. Uh, we've taken those books essentially and brought them to life with uh online multimedia video educational experience. So you can go to bradkerns.com and you can see the links to these uh video courses, mastery courses we call them, especially if you're an endurance athlete. It's everything compiled in one place where you log in, you can see interviews with dozens of leading experts and top athletes, and I take you through all the concepts in the book. And so I do that for the keto reset diet, I do that for the primal blueprint, and I I feel like the the video education there where you're trying to learn something like a student in college, um, that's a that's a great use of multimedia. So a lot of fun stuff, but everything's at bradcerns.com, so we can we can check in there. And uh yeah, I guess you better follow me at social media, so I'll I'll have to engage if people are gonna follow me. I better I better put something meaningful up.

Yeah, yeah. That's things you can ask a lot of people, but you actually have to show up.

That doesn't that sound enthusiastic? Yeah, I guess you better follow me. Yeah. Hey, if you follow me, I'll give you. Well, I I said this on my podcast recording. If you write a review for my podcast on iTunes, we know how important that is to the algorithms and getting the show more attention. If you see me in real life, I'll give you a dollar if you write a review for me. And I promise I I'll keep to my word. So come say hi to me if you see me in Sacramento Airport or something, and you got a buck just for leaving a review on iTunes. That's a deal. I don't know if that's legal, it's probably against the rules. I know you can't solicit reviews on Amazon for books. You're not allowed to, you know, uh give give uh uh even a free book. They don't like that. But I don't know if there's any such rule on podcasts, so I'm putting it out there, man. Go go review my show, give it a listen.

Yeah, yeah, it's awesome. When I uh when I own my gym in Santa Barbara, if I saw somebody with a sticker of my gym, I would have put a dollar on their window. Oh, it became this thing. So people were like, oh yeah, you know, people put the sticker on. I thought it was genius. Not sure if it's legal.

It's pure genius, man. Guerrilla marketing right there.

That's it, man. Yeah. Awesome. Well, Brad, it's it's uh it's very thank you for coming on educating me about speed golf. I think you may have just inspired at least one person.

Oh, dude, you you're shooting you're shooting decent scores and you're a fit runner. You got to come try a tournament. It'll change your life. Yeah, yeah. You play more golf, too.

Yeah, I know. That's the biggest thing. So anyway, thank you for the inspiration. Thank you for coming on the show. You're a riot, man. You're really fun to have on.

Right on, Eric. Thank you so much.

Yeah, ladies and gentlemen, Brad Kern. 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, our 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 create 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 MarketingAlliance.com.