New Horizons of Ignorance - Max Shank

The last thing you want to do is put the idea in someone's head that they can't change their brain, that they can't change their body. It's an incredible piece of equipment that we don't really fully understand, but there are two things that seem at odds with each other, but it's uh it doesn't matter what you say, it matters what you do, and one word can make all the difference. Plus or minus.

Hey fitness friends, welcome back to the Future Fitness podcast and interview series. This is your host, Eric Malzone, and this is episode number 125. I talk to Max Shank, he's back, and uh puts a smile on my face like a conversation with Max Shank. And do I have any plans uh when I go into conversations max? Hell no. No way. You just you just buckle up and you go for the ride. And that's that's the fun. That's why uh Max Shank will always be welcome on my show because it's a blast. And some of the things we talked about, you know what? I'm not even gonna try to explain. It was just really good from life philosophy to business philosophy to um his new product that's coming out. Hopefully uh soon he teases us with that. And uh he's just a great guy, and his beard is envious for sure, and I'm excited to uh to unleash this on you. So I'm not gonna talk about it too much more. You just have to enjoy it. So before I get into it though, uh certified course creation, this show is brought to you by them, certifiedcoursecreation.com. So now that I am part of the CCC team, I am so excited to be with them and what's going on there. It's changing the industry, it's disruptive, it's awesome. You know, so here's the deal. Okay, if you are somebody who's put your time in the trenches, you have a very deep area of expertise, and you're wondering, well, what's next? What do I do? Maybe I want to stop training time for money. I'm starting to burn out. What do I do next? Maybe you're thinking about authoring a book. Well, tell you right now books are great, they're awesome, but an online accredited certification will get you there faster and you'll make more money. That's it. You'll have more freedom. You can literally be making money while you sleep and getting your knowledge out there and making a difference. It's like a win-win-win. Win-win-win-win-win. It's amazing. So go to certifycoursecreation.com, check it out. Uh, our new website should be up soon, but you can go there and get more information. And I would suggest booking a call. Uh, I'll take a call with you, right? And we talk about your idea, flush it out a little bit, see where the opportunity is, if it's worth pursuing. Uh, because we only take on projects that we think are going to be big. So um I'm open to having that conversation. I would love to have that conversation with you because we are making dreams come true and helping people realize things that they never thought were possible, and you could be the next one. So go to certifiedcoursecreation.com, check it out. Now, without further ado, episode number 125 with Max Shank. Enjoy the ride. All right, and we're live. Max Shank, welcome back, man.

Thanks for having me, brother. Good to be here. Yeah. Well, be here. You're there, but we're still here.

It's great. The ethereal here. And uh, you know, I don't get too many people on the podcast for a second round, but uh, I just had so much fun the first time. And I was telling you before this, uh, I usually have an agenda as well. Like, hey, let's let's hit these points. Uh, but I I feel like uh maybe we we do the audience a better service by uh just you know talking big topics. Uh and tell me what what's going on in in your life right now. Where are you? For the people who are listening and not watching, what what are you doing right now?

I am sitting in my backyard talking to you. It's beautiful sunny day here in Encinitas in Southern California. I got my my setup here, it's pretty nice. I have uh an outdoor uh jungle gem. I think you've probably seen it before in all the like five-minute flow videos. Yeah. There's uh this custom-made rig in my backyard. And you know, the beauty is I think it was only it's probably only like 1700 bucks or something like that.

Yeah.

And I've had it. Uh no, I had a friend make it custom. Oh, awesome. Yeah, so he welded the together, and there's monkey bars and stall bars and parallel bars. Um, I have all kinds of stuff hanging from it for climbing and uh also like dodging stuff, kind of like a double end bag sort of situation. And I mean, I would strongly uh, I mean, I don't want to like come off too aggressive here, but I mean if you have a backyard, set yourself up some sort of rig back there that you can hang off of. Just having something to hang off of every day that's easily, easily accessible, yeah, uh, it just lets you put so much uh like money in the strength bank, I like to call it. Yeah. You know, those little those little moments. And the more accessibility you have, the easier it is to do that. So if you have within your exercise rollodex all kinds of stuff you can do in different environments. Like, for example, if you're standing in line, you take one leg off the ground, and then whatever foot you still have on the ground, you just lift that heel up and you see how long he can balance on the ball of that one foot. And it's like, as far as I'm concerned, that that's free money. It takes all all it takes is a little tiny bit of uh paying the attention. You know, a guy who um does some coaching uh that I know talks about the concept of play vision. So wherever you are, you just kind of have this intent of seeing what kind of stuff you can play around with. So I mean, even something like uh just like a curb balancing on the curb, or hey, there's a box over there, can I jump up on that box and land without making a sound or something like that? So uh having easy accessibility is something you can hang from is is huge because unfortunately we we don't have a lot of stuff like that readily available in uh human habitats. Like we go to great lengths to make the monkey habitat uh really enjoyable for the monkeys to climb around on stuff, but I think we uh like treat human beings a little bit worse. We don't give them uh the exercise environment for that's actually conducive to health.

So I mean if you have any space at all, having something to hang. We're a little too busy adulting, Max, to be doing that type of thing, right?

Dude, ain't ain't that the truth, brother. I mean, I uh I've had some funny experiences uh relinquishing some of those adulting responsibilities because you know, you were talking, you started this uh show talking about uh let's talk about the big stuff, let's talk about the important stuff. And yeah, I find that the more I ask that question, what's the most important, it it kind of leads me to uh perhaps like a better alternative than whatever I'm doing right now. And there's this guy named uh who was named Friedrich Heigel, and he said freedom is understanding the truth of necessity. And as an adult, we're we're made to believe that a lot of shit is necessary. Yeah. But but most of it actually isn't. And I remember my dad taught me uh the 3-3-3 rule of real necessities, which is the average person, um, if they do not breathe for three minutes, they'll die. If they do not drink water for three days, they will die. And if they do not eat for three weeks, they will die. And those are about as tip top of the necessity hierarchy as you can possibly get. Yeah. So once you have that as your framework, it kind of puts things into perspective a little bit. And, you know, something I uh I get a lot of flack for is I'm pretty hard to reach uh via email these days because I hit this. I I know it's uh it's a wonderful thing. I can't tell you how much uh peace and serenity I have in my life because it's so it's funny. I mean, I I signed up for an email when I was a child. I didn't have any legal representation. I had I didn't sign a contract that said I'm gonna answer emails every day until I'm dead. And it's like, you know, you get you get like bombarded by this noise. And it's it's uh it's an effort to to filter through all that stuff. And there's no there's no good and bad really, there's just consequences, right? And a lot of the stuff that we're made to believe is totally necessary, maybe isn't as necessary as we were led to believe. And if you keep asking, well, what's most important, what's most important on a regular basis, A, if you're a rational person, that'll probably change. And B, at least you'll be able to point yourself in the right direction of what you want to do. And I think I was telling you uh just we we had the it was great talking to you just on the phone the other day. I think I told you uh that one of the consequences of not answering emails was that the uh the trash company stopped getting up my trash because they had emailed me that my credit card expired, but of course I didn't get the email because I didn't check it for like three months. And so I called them up. I'm like, hey man, why aren't you guys getting my trash? And they're like, well, we tried to email you. And I was like, oh well, you know, full full of responsibility for that. And it's kind of um the the thing that trips people up, I think, is that we we give so much gravity and weight to these have-to's and need-to's and shoulds and ought-to's. And I think that's what's most disheartening about the fitness industry sometimes is the way to differentiate yourself as a professional is to say that you should do it this way that I'm telling you, because if you do it the other way, it's bad. Or you'll hurt yourself or something like that. So there's all these like scare tactics so that people can find their place in the guru hierarchy. Yeah, right? Yeah. Because what better what better way to say that your shit is good than to say everyone else's shit stinks, right? Right. And and the reality for fitness is um I I wrote an article called uh Are You Healthier Than a Plant? And it's like a it's like a joke, uh, but it's also true to put things into perspective. You know, I've uh this year at Ambition Athletics, which is a gym I started when I was 21, we are uh celebrating our 10th year anniversary in business right now, which is pretty cool. Yeah, it's really cool. Yeah, thanks. And you know, we've paid pretty close attention to the things that actually help people uh move the needle, so to speak, in terms of making life and fitness better. And you know, a lot of it comes down to the simple thing. So anyway, are are you healthier than a plant means are you getting sunshine, are you getting water? And a lot of people aren't even hitting that, you know. So it's like you start out at plant level and you're like, okay, let's get as healthy as a plant. And then we're like, okay, how about we go one step up, which is as healthy as a dog, which means you drink enough water, you get sunshine, and you go for a walk every day. And these these should be like no-brainers, in my opinion. But you would be amazed at how many people don't do these couple basic things. And then if you want to uh upgrade from there, I go on in the article uh talking about getting to like monkey level, where maybe you're climbing and playing a little bit, and then human level where you're uh entering into something which is really cool uh called artistic expression or emotional content. You know, Bruce Lee talked about that a lot, is uh having your movement have emotional content to it. So you're not just thinking your way through executing a kick or executing a punch, you're actually able to manifest some emotional content within the framework of that movement. And I think that's something that we can all strive for from a fitness perspective too, because fitness to me is a daily dialogue that you can have with yourself without words, and it's a very different way of looking at the big picture, you know. We look at um some of the realities that people face as adults, and uh you know, much to my chagrin, it was not my lack of a six-pack that was preventing me from attracting members of the opposite sex, right? It's it's not it's not these things that we think are so important, it's how do you how do you find a way to comfortably live with yourself and express yourself honestly through whatever you're doing without being terrified that people are gonna judge you so harshly.

Yeah.

And I think that's where that daily nonverbal dialogue through movement becomes so valuable. And of course, that's where the that's part of where the five-minute flow concept came from is like let let's let's chill out with the uh fear tactic based fitness and just start by moving our joints in circles every day and breathing and slowing the hell down a little bit. Uh it's like my favorite uh one of my favorite uh little cartoons is like I recommend uh you meditate for at least 20 minutes a day, unless you're too busy, then I recommend you meditate for an hour a day.

Yeah. Yeah, yeah, it's great. Yeah, it's it's an interesting thing. I mean, we talk about adulting, and I I'd be curious too, you know, going back to your how long did you go without email? Are you still doing no email or how's that?

Uh so I'm I'm I'm touching on the emails like roughly once a week because I got some important projects and um I'm not writing letters to people. Um do you know what has been great about it? So I'm like probably three months in to answer your question. Uh I've had a lot more awesome conversations with people in person and on the phone since uh basically abandoning social media and email because to me it was not uh it wasn't really a viable substitute for human connection. You know, so I find myself now um because it's weird when you know, and I was connecting with like roughly 50,000 people on the internet on like a daily weekly basis, right? Wow. It's not it doesn't really satisfy the same, it's a poor substitute for real interaction. And and the problem with it is it sort of satisfies you. So you think that you're getting these human interactions with other people, but really it's just it's just letters on a screen, ultimately, most of the time. And of course, you can do video, and what we're doing is pretty awesome. Um but if you get worn out and you use up all your energy in these like half interactions, you're not gonna have the energy to create those like deep interactions where maybe you and I know they're totally different, but one of the things that I really enjoy doing is inviting a few friends over, sharing some food, doing some slack lining, uh, throwing and catching a medicine ball or some other object like that. And you can you can really uh connect with someone in a deep and meaningful way, and you can start to develop this environment where people feel like they can be 100% open and honest with each other, and that's what's gonna make this adulting bullshit easier because we're all concerned about something. You know, there are all these considerations. Oh, like what if what if uh people don't like when I do this, or what if this happens, or what if this happens? And you know, the last thing you want is to feel like you have to put some sort of false avatar between you and everybody else. And that's kind of the environment that we're in right now. It's like I can't imagine uh being like a high school kid right now, because the value proposition on what is important seems like so back asswards, in my opinion. But once again, like I don't really know what's going on because I don't have any children and I don't um and I'm also not a 16-year-old in high school right now. But I I remember sort of what it was like, and we didn't have social media then either, and we didn't have um, you know, we're we're always comparing with everybody else. There there is a there is a hierarchy. Yes. And I used to believe that if I could uh lift a heavier kettlebell overhead, that people would like me more. And and the weird part is that in in a way, some did and some still do. Yeah, yeah, you know what I mean? Yeah, of course. You know, like uh let's not kid ourselves. We we like we like that. Um and because of the interconnectedness of the internet, uh, you're always gonna find someone uh half as big and twice as strong as you. No, no matter what. I mean, like the the example I always use is the uh 12-year-old uh Chinese gymnast girl who's basically better than me at at everything I could want to do. You know what I'm saying? They're like, oh. So so do I really compare myself to that, or do I just not worry about the comparing thing and just get get in there and do my thing? And that's why, you know, circling back, movement and exercise hopefully is that daily nonverbal dialogue that you have with yourself, where you kind of just ask your question every day of like, well, what can't I do yet?

Right?

And then you and then you sort of expand your circle of competence, you expand your radius of how far you can go. And if you just frequently like touch these little things like balancing or hand balancing or squatting on one leg or any of that stuff, you start to build up enough data to really see where your weak points are. And then what happens is um the shift that I noticed was I went from basically being a strength performer in a sense of I want to see how much weight I can lift so I can compare against everyone else, to now it's more like I'm I'm Sherlock Holmes in every training session. And I'm trying to discover where the root weakness is. So it's not that I'm trying to lift a certain amount of weight, it's not that I'm trying to perform a certain thing generally. It's more like exploring like what can I do today uh and what can I not do yet, and where can I find that like little challenge that I need to keep things interesting enough that I want to continue with it, but not so challenging that you get frustrated and discouraged.

Yeah. You know, it's interesting, man. I I hear you talking, I have a couple questions too. One of which is how do you put structure to your day? But the thought that came up to me is that, you know, I only hit the gym now officially, like once, maybe twice a week. And I used to be very structured, right? It was like A, B1, B2, right? Right, C1, C2, uh finisher, right? Whatever that was like, that was it. There was no questioning. And I didn't realize until recent months that it just felt like work, you know. And sometimes if I go into this gym with no structure whatsoever and I kind of look around and start doing things that I find uh the most enjoyable, that's all I do. Like if all I want to do in one day is like, you know, I love hang cleans. That just makes me happy, you know. So I do it. Yeah. It's very satisfying. And then you know what? Then I leave. And that's it. Maybe a sauna, and then I go on with my day, and I feel energized. And it doesn't feel like um, you know, I I think we had talked about this in a previous interview, how we're always racing with ourselves, especially if we're, you know, been athletic our whole life, right? Oh yeah. I feel like I'm always in competition with something, but I don't know where the fuck that comes from. And uh, and then I just kind of let it go within a few months of my training. I'm like, well, I don't have there's no one watching here seeing like if I'm progressing. I don't care. Don't care. And it was incredibly incredibly freeing. Like today, you know, after this, I'm gonna head to the gym. And I don't know what I'm gonna do. But I think I'm just gonna hang for some shit for a while, you know? And uh and play with that, right? And yeah. It's it's it's an amazing thing. And um I wish more people looked at it like that. But a lot of people need that structure too, right? And they need that that going in, they need to see the linear progression throughout their training. Um, it takes a certain, I guess, you have to put enough time under your belt to realize what you really want with your training.

Intuitive training is hard to sell to a beginner because it sounds too scary and it sounds like they might make a mistake. And of course, the conventional wisdom is that if you don't have some expert guiding you, that you will make a mistake because that's how you sell expert coaching the best. It's like, yeah, don't do this shit on your own. You better listen to me for yeah. It's like, what are the top 10 push-up mistakes? Well, the top one push-up mistake is to not do any push-ups, right? Like, so you know, I I don't wanna the last thing I want to do is fill someone's head with more shit that they have to worry about and be afraid of. It's like, yeah, um, you know, let's put things into perspective once again. All of your ancestors were robust enough to survive and procreate all the way through history right now. Like that that's incredible, actually, when you think about it.

Yeah.

You know, it's it's impossible that 10 generations ago your ancestors didn't survive long enough to procreate and then raise those children long enough to survive, also. Like the human body is extremely resilient and robust if you just give it a little stimulus. So teaching people to be afraid that they'll hurt themselves is like um it's like a nocebo effect. So instead of placebo, it's nocebo coming from like the word noxious. So you have this um like pain stimulus that is created by by fear, essentially. And you know, there's so much research on things like placebo. But one of the most interesting ones I read within the last year was that um irritable bowel syndrome had a 20% uh rate of resolution, so 20% of irritable bowel cases were resolved with a known placebo. So get this. So it wasn't like a double-blind study, it was like they told these people who with irritated bowels, we're gonna give you a sugar pill and that's going to cure your bowels. And 20% of them, sure enough, it did. Now, what the hell is going on there? Yeah. Uh, I believe the brain is very powerful and way more than any of us realize. I think that the last thing you want to do is put the idea in someone's head that they can't change their brain, that they can't change their body. Um it's it's an incredible piece of equipment that we don't really fully understand. No. But uh there are two two things that seem at odds with each other, but it's uh it doesn't matter what you say, it matters what you do. And one word can make all the difference, plus or minus. So so they seem like totally opposites, right? Um but what's got me thinking about this so much is my brother's about to have a kid. Um, my other friend just had a kid. So everyone's having babies basically around me. Yeah. And, you know, I'm I'm doing my best coming from being like a type A control freak, uh ridiculously ambitious, success-driven individual, to more of like a I guess I don't even know what to call it. Um I'm just kind of doing my thing day by day. You know what I mean? Yeah. And and everybody wants to give this advice on how to be a good parent. And how to be a good parent is probably the same advice as how to be a good coach to yourself. You know what I mean? There are there are a lot of similarities there. Sure. And what I told my brother is like, A, I don't know shit about parenting because I'm not a parent, I don't have any kids, so take this with a grain of salt. But the other thing is, it doesn't matter what you say, it matters what they see. So monkey see, monkey do. And one word, plus or minus, really can make all the difference. So when you think about how to put together a strategy and then individual tactics for the sake of health and fitness, it's really important that you frame these things in your mind with specific language that you actually understand. You know, if your only goal with exercise is to burn fat, for example, and you go, okay, well, why do you want to burn fat? And then we can figure out, like, oh, well, it's because I want to attract a mate and have babies and shit like that, maybe. I don't know.

Yep. That's majority.

Yeah, I think so. I think that's pretty reasonable. Like I said, I I was convinced that if I got six-pack abs that girls would want to sleep with me, but that was so far from the truth that it made my head spin. And I had to re-evaluate my entire strategy. Yeah, it's the beard.

You figured it out, right?

It's the beard.

Uh I I wish it I wish I could say it was anything that I actually did, but I think it's just uh I'm just the epitome of getting lucky. You know, I think that's where they got that term. It's good timing, yeah. Uh so you have to really consider what the what the root cause of of your desires are with exercise. And if it's to take something away from you, well, you gotta consider, well, okay, what happens after you lose as much fat as you want to lose? What then? And I'll tell you what, the people who lose a bunch of fat really quick because they were trying to lose a bunch of fat really quick will put it back on because they don't have a plan for afterward that involves developing their character in some way. There are a lot of ways to do that. You know, I don't want to come off as saying that people need to do this, but being able to hang from a bar or a tree for an extended period of time gives you a level of confidence that you can get no other way. Being able to carry an object for 10 consecutive minutes and maybe do some squats throughout, uh, like a sandbag you carry, that will teach you more about yourself than almost any words I could possibly teach you. Yeah. Because you're gonna hit a point where every single step is you going, I think I'd like to put this sandbag down now. Yeah. You know, like, and then you go, yeah, I think I want to put this sandbag down now. Ooh, I really, really want to put this sandbag down now. I can't possibly hold on to this sandbag anymore. And so you go through this evolution where you can start to develop your mind and body concurrently, which is, I think, another uh potential trap that people fall into is they create this very distinct separation between the body and the mind. And I think that's a real mistake because you have to consider the whole self. You know, I remember going through some certifications, and I've been through so many exercise certifications where, and I've taught so many myself, where they and I would say, if this, then this, if this, then this. And also watch out for this, because if you do this, you'll hurt yourself. And it's like, it's not really constructive, actually. Um but I I realized over the last, let's see, how long have I been doing this? 13 years or so, that it's really never that simple. Like, you know, there's a shoulder impingement test where you put your palm on your opposite shoulder and you lift your elbow up as high as you can. You know? If if that hurts or if you can't lift your shoulder up, it meant that you have impingement. But the last thing you want to do is tell some like 18-year-old trainer that that's how it works. Because it gives you this like Frankenstein body philosophy that you're just this collection of parts, and it's like, oh, well, just grease up that joint and that'll solve the problem. Or you just gotta loosen this guy up. And sometimes that's what it is. Like sometimes a person has back problems because their hips are stiff and weak. Sometimes a person has back problems because their core is weak. Sometimes they have low back problems because their thoracic spine is totally stiff, their lumbar spine compensates for it. Sometimes you'll get someone with a really tight soleus muscle down by their ankle that creates a shortening across the entire posterior chain, and you just happen to feel it in your low back. Or maybe you just uh sit with really horrible posture for eight hours a day. Or maybe your posture while you sit is great, but you hate your job. You know, the number one worker's compensation injury is low back problems in um non-manual labor. So why is everybody hurting their back? And or why does everybody have a sore back? And you know, you can link it back to like depression or uh all the all of these other things. So I think my point in a very roundabout way is to say, dude, we don't know. It's just like how big is the observable universe? Yeah, we don't know. What's the best thing you can do for exercise? I don't know either. But the one thing that does make sense to do is give yourself a little big picture perspective and figure out what you're trying to achieve and why. Why, why is it important to you? How does this integrate with who you want to be as a person and what your care what you would like your actual character to be? And that will lead you to a much more constructive and repeatable set of behaviors. And you'll you'll discover more who you are every day through exercise instead of uh trying to race uh or trying to win a race that you can't possibly ever win.

Yeah, which is where I've been for so many years. And you know, I I want to unpack something that you you've said a couple times in uh about one word, right? The power of one word can can change everything. Uh unpack that a little bit, man. Explain that. What do you what do you mean by that thought? Maybe give us like an example or something that that we can wrap our heads around. Because I think that's a that's a really sure I see where we're going with it. It's powerful. Yeah.

Uh there are a couple ways you can interpret that. And uh I won't say should, but there are a couple ways you can interpret it. Number one is most of us really lack understanding of basic definitions of words. So you have some, there's a term called semantic precision, which basically is just a fancy way of saying you you know the definition of the words you're using. And what I discovered as an adult, quote, is that I I basically had no clue what the definitions of many basic words were. And so that that's the starting point is if you're reading something, uh, you should always have a dictionary readily available. And you know, with smartphones and stuff like that now, anytime you read and you hit a word that you don't understand, you gotta highlight it right away. Because if you don't, you'll you'll basically have a huge gap in your ability to digest that information. And then the other part is uh we talked about uh freedom as being the understanding the truth of necessity. Even understanding what the word necessary means to you in a deep and significant way is going to change the way you look at your health and fitness journey. So if you um create uh false obligations, it's gonna be an unnecessary weight on your psyche and on your body.

Yeah.

So it's really important to be very selective with what kind of language you use to describe what it is you're trying to achieve. And I I don't know if I can think of a more succinct way to say it. Um, you know, like for example, if if you came to me and said, hey Max, uh you know, what what should I do to increase the strength in my legs? And I would say, well, um, number one, uh, there's nothing you should do, is what I would say to that, right? Like, because there's just stuff that you can do if you want to. There's not a should, there's not a right, there's not a wrong. So that's that's kind of the starting point. But then I would say, what you might try is X, Y, and Z. Or the other way to look at it is let's talk a little bit first and let's see what the rest of your life looks like. And let's understand a little bit better. Well, why do you want to have stronger legs? What do you want them to be stronger for? Because, you know, there are a lot of people who have strong legs who can't really uh jump and land softly for even one minute. And so it really depends a lot on what the aim is for utility with that target.

Yes.

So does that does that kind of answer uh the question?

Yeah, it does. I mean, there's you answered in in many different ways. And you know, I think there's a the point is people actually have to think, right, with that answer. Right. And that's you know, you can't always like serve things up on a silver platter. It's like, hey, you know, sometimes we just ask a question for the sake of asking a question so that it'll provoke the thought um within someone's head. And I think that's you know, you mentioned the utility of training and you know, how if you could tie it into, you know, like you said, the why, which is always important when you and I talk, we always have that conversation about the why. But how how is it how is it serving you, right? How is every minute of the day actually serving you? And that's you know, when we talk about where you've gone on your journey from type A, super driven, right? I'm guessing you probably went through one of those journeys where maybe you had, you know, an epiphany or a crash or something like maybe you didn't, but that's kind of the usual story, right? Um that that was my story, right? At a big one point, um, and just shifted every fucking thing, right? Like business hit the road, right? Started doing things that I want to do, refocus my training from you know, getting some rating random ranking in a CrossFit open to um, well, how is it actually serving my life? And uh, you know, like today, even as we're speaking, I'm like, you know, maybe I won't go to the gym, maybe I'll just go skiing. It's a beautiful day, right? What's gonna serve me better? There you go. Um what do I need to do? And I'm also thinking about every damn thing that stacks up on my calendar that I don't really need to be doing. Like, well, look at the word need, man.

I mean, anytime you say need, should, have to, must, that should be like a huge red flag because as far as I'm concerned, that needs to be somewhere close to as important as air, water, and food in order to be in order to be really taken seriously. And, you know, uh the the rest of it, like you can probably suffer the consequences of some alleged lapses. You know, we we put so much uh obligations, so many obligations on ourselves. Like you have to do this for your exercise session, or you're a pussy, or you have to do this, or you have to do that. It's like, ah, come on, man, like really? Like you can, like, okay, so if your goal is just to survive a long time, don't eat too much food, walk every day, and have good relationships with your community. Like, you you don't have to, you don't even have to have much. Like, if you study all the I think they're called blue zones of where people live the longest, yeah, there are a lot of factors there. There's some genetics and hereditary that has a big impact, but by and large, the pace of life is a lot slower. Yes. You know? So whenever whenever you start putting uh needs and obligations, that that one word should be a huge red flag that just says, hey, pay attention. Because just like uh what you were talking about with that like professional crash, the pain is just an action signal that says do something different. It's not very specific. And Ida Rolfe had a great uh quote about pain, which is where you think it is, it ain't. And that one has always spoken to me really well. I mean, this is someone who's like at the top of their field, but you don't need to use any flowery language. And, you know, in my own coaching, I've experienced people with back problems due to hip restrictions, and I've experienced people with back problems uh simply due to the fact that they thought they were depressed, but actually they were just sad. And as soon as they reframed the word depressed into sad, and it's a long story, long time ago, now, like probably close to eight or seven years ago. And I remember talking with her, and we did all kinds of exercises. And I was doing like eye exercises and breathing exercising, and all this stuff I learned from like pain management specialists. And ultimately, what made a difference? Our our exercise stuff that we did for a few sessions did like close to zero. She was in so much pain, she's a 40-year-old woman, walking with a cocaine. And I mean, our exercise was like marginally effective. It basically did nothing. But talking to her uh for a session for about 45 minutes and understanding like, you know, what happened before the pain started, what happened before that, and what happened before that, and what do you feel about it now? And she's like, Oh, I'm just so depressed. And I was like, well, actually, you know, based on listening to what you're saying, it it sounds like you're you're sad, because you you have a lot of reason to be sad. And in fact, you you have a lot of reason to be angry too. So rather than putting this label of depression on yourself, maybe just allow yourself to be angry and sad, because quite frankly, if I were in your shoes, I would be too. So she starts like bawling tears. And uh, she touched her toes for the first time right after that, for the first time in like two years. And it's like, once again, I feel like I just reached new horizons of ignorance. You know, we feel like we're learning more and more, but really, it's like as soon as you learn 10% more about a subject, you learn that there's a hundred percent more about that subject. Like every time I learn something new in the field of neuroscience, I also simultaneously become aware of 10 times more stuff that I now know exists, but know nothing about. Yeah. Right?

Yeah, yeah. So the more you know, the more you the more you know, the more you realize you don't know shit. And that's that's it. Yeah. I see I've been saying that for years. Yeah.

That's true. And yeah, and everything, and everything that we're talking about is with the goal of living better or living longer, really. You know, you know, we want to either have our lives be better right now, and who cares how long? Some people are like that, and I don't think there's anything wrong with that either. And then other people are on the other end of the spectrum, and they say, well, the number one goal of exercise should be to live as long as possible. Hey, maybe, maybe also. Who knows? Yeah. But uh in any case, you have to look at the big picture of what's going on, and you can't get too um blinded by a small perspective, because then you're not going to be able to see all the other stuff going on around you.

Yeah. Yeah, it's perspective is a funny thing, right? And uh I listen to a lot of Joe Rogan, and there's he's this quote he always has, right? And it's like, you know, whenever you start to think that maybe your problems are pretty serious, or uh you start taking things in a little bit too harsh of con consideration on what I should or shouldn't do, uh, and there's those words again, right? Should remember that, you know, at the end of the day, you know, we're walking talking monkeys. on a you know flying rock, right? Going around an endless universe. Like how big, you know, spaceship Earth. Yeah. Like what if you decide to uh go on that trip to Hawaii or, you know, go get your latte, you know, the universe doesn't really care which one you do. And so just be free. Like just understand that should be free. And some people be like, oh my God, I feel so small that it feels so yeah, exactly. So do whatever you want. Because you're only here for a flash of a you know a microsecond compared to the the bigger picture of things. I mean maybe that's a little out there for people, but you should reflect on that. I think people should reflect on a their own mortality every day and look up in the sky and realize that holy cow there's there's a lot going on up there. Things that we can't even possibly imagine yet.

And uh maybe your your problems won't seem that big anymore, you know one of my um favorite teachers who I never met was uh Richard Feynman, who was a physicist and uh he has a a great book or it's a pretty funny book called Surely You're Joking, Mr. Feynman. And then he also does this great little YouTube video about the nature of a question based on why and about why it's so so difficult to answer a question like that. And I'll I'll paraphrase it briefly to uh illustrate the point. So this guy was asking him about magnetism and like how magnets repel each other and he said well they just do because I I can't really explain why and the guy goes well I think that's a good question. Why and he's like well let me give you an example if uh Aunt Gertrude falls down and breaks her hip and goes to the hospital you would say well why and I could say well she slipped on the ice and she fell and that might be enough to satisfy you but it wouldn't be enough to satisfy an alien because they would have to have an understanding of what a hospital is and why a hospital exists. They would have to be have ice explained to them and then you could follow up with an endless supply of why questions that eventually become unanswerable. And the example he uses of the ice is quite an interesting one because then you ask well why is ice slippery? And that's a really interesting question because unlike most things ice expands when it freezes so when you apply pressure to ice it actually heats up and it creates a little film of water. And it turns out that ice is like one of the most slippery things that there is and then you go okay well why does water do that but nothing else and then you go into these this like series of why questions where you're like man I can't really explain why she went to the hospital because she slipped on the ice because it just gets more and more uh confusing to explain. Yeah and this the same thing is really true with with any way that you'd like to uh understand how life works if there was ever such a possibility that you could understand how life works. Yeah and the reality is that you know we have a couple advantages as uh talking monkeys in that we have um well my my phrase that I like to say is uh chimps don't take notes and so we get to we get to read books and we get to watch videos and we get to learn from teachers and you know if you read books you can live a thousand lifetimes within one in terms of all the lessons that you can absorb and you know rather than rather than worry you can just keep learning because that's what makes life interesting ultimately is the learning. You know I I hope that uh people never get a pill that will make them um look perfect but not get all of the benefits of exercise that there are for your for your mind because I think it would well I mean shoot um I I guess there's no point uh like wishing this would happen or that wouldn't happen either way but I think if the focus is mostly on the result, then you're ultimately going to arrive at a very unsatisfying end. And I think that's probably parallel to what you were talking about with the professional crash. And that was certainly what I experienced too is I got to this point where I mean I had I had taught close to 200 workshops all over the world. I'd written three books I bought my house and I was like basically live in large and it it was not nearly as satisfying as I thought it would be in terms of like I thought I would like hit the peak of this mountaintop and and really what happens is you go like oh man it was uh it was a lot more interesting when I was climbing this mountain than when I was sitting at the top of it.

Yeah yeah yeah you know my my wife and I had this uh discussion because we had people visiting in this past weekend and uh I was like God do you like we looked back you know we're trying to look back and like when when was thing when was life just cruising right like when was it easy? When was it fun? When was you know and it is right now I don't want to go back I don't want to think like I'm I'm not I'm very satisfied with everything that's going on right now it's pretty awesome. Yeah that's a good question to keep asking though right it is and it turned out to be this time when like my gym was about five years old we just moved in together we were living in this small condo uh you know cash flow was great I was golfing on Wednesdays and Fridays she was climbing on the weekends and then you know that type A like I got to get more right okay I got to expand more gym right more let's get a bigger house let's get another car yeah more more and uh sure she hungry yeah and totally man yeah invested in another gym started corporate wellness right all these things happen and then uh just became you know uh insidiously tired and you know out of touch with what was really important and I think that's a big you know big message for people and um you know I want to bring up another one because I think this is probably lost a couple people on on this podcast already but that's okay. Like I think when uh maybe you know we look at this is the number I always bring up too is like remember okay so we we are on a planet in one galaxy right around one sun oh yeah now there are uh in our universe or in our um sol no sorry we're in one solar system in one galaxy right there's a hundred billion stars in one galaxy there's a hundred billion galaxies in the universe that we know of so it's like God like why doesn't do people think about that ever?

No they don't right well it's it's impossible to really understand. Like we can we can have all these numbers I mean one of the things that I've taken to recently is the game of Go, which is this uh ancient uh Asian strategy game and one of the more fascinating figures is that there are more possibilities for what a game can look like than there are atoms in the universe. It's like uh 1.4 times 10 to the 147 or something weird like that. It's like an abs it's like an absurd number. And it's just like how you were saying that it was minus 48 in Montana it's like I don't have I don't have any way to understand that just the same way the average person has no way of understanding the concept of infinity or the concept of the universe or even even galaxies really like um you know we're so cavalier with the term like light years and it's like dude you know we we could uh we could try to understand that but we never will and you know my friend's dad when we were young said uh never try to figure people out and that has actually stuck with me quite a lot because if there are for for the sake of argument an infinite number of possibilities for how to arrange white and black stones on a 19 by 19 grid there has to be even more possibilities for how a human being can go from being zero into being like a 25 year old person. It's not going to be really possible for you to understand or figure out what makes that person tick short of the basic true necessities which we talked about before it's like air water and food. And if you think about everybody needing those things above everything else and then after that it's basically well where are you in the social hierarchy for most of us you know it it's it's fun. I mean I have a um I have a pretty awesome truck at least so I thought from my time when I was very very uh financially success driven and my 16 year old cousin came over with his friend and they're like hey Max can we see your truck and I was like yeah thinking in my head like oh they're gonna think I'm cool because my awesome truck and um so I open up the truck and he goes pop the hood and I'm like shit I don't know where the hood releases so if I don't pull I don't if I don't figure this out quickly they're gonna know I really know nothing about cars which is true by the way uh I know that if the needle goes to E, then I need to add more gas in the thing. Yeah. So I open up the hood and in true form of what it means to be like a 16 year old male, they very kindly and I think uh inadvertently heckled me at how small my engine was but how I had but how I had room for a bigger one. Right? So they were it was like it was like the good baseball players trying to help the other kid hit a baseball off the tee. You know what I mean? They were like oh man you only got a V6 in here we could fix this for you and we could put like a V8 in here maybe even like a V10 and so they're just talking to me about how I can get a bigger engine. Meanwhile 10 minutes ago I was like perfectly content with my truck and in fact sometimes I think it's too big for what I need. Yeah. But then just like that uh instantly almost I'm now getting heckled by these 16 year olds because my truck engine is too small and they want to help me solve this problem that I allegedly have. And I'm just laughing. So then we go to the street where his friend has just put a V8 in an old Jeep. And so these 16 year old kids are like revving the hell out of this engine in my front yard. I'm like oh that that does sound like a bigger engine for sure. And then they they speed away and I'm just thinking like what the hell just happened right there because they they are in the thick of it trying to separate themselves from the peck. You know so you you go through this cycle I think where you're basically your parents and then you try to separate from them when you become like a teenager into adulthood and everything you do is try to separate from them and separate from the peck so you can get a better place in the social hierarchy. So for me it was like a perfect metaphor for where I'm at right now relative to where I was in terms of where I had my priorities. You know what I mean? And I think that a lot of us get stuck in that loop forever where we're constantly comparing to everybody else. And another uh wise teacher I've never met, Charlie Munger uh has a a great little thing on um envy and he goes envy is the worst of the possible sins because it's the only one you can't possibly have any fun at I mean I I think I mean I think we can all agree that uh lust and gluttony are a pretty damn good time at least yeah but but but but envy's no fun at all. Yeah that's pretty so if you're if you're concerned about comparing your performance with exercise to somebody else well I promise that just ain't gonna be fun. You might as well just uh go skiing and try to get good at uh being a caring lover right yeah yeah yeah you know what I mean like it's great messaging go ski be a better lover yeah yeah that's great man so you're um I know you and I talked over the phone a few weeks back and you're you're working on some projects right is there anything you can tell us about give us a little sneak preview what's what's going on I mean this will probably air about a month from now anyway oh man well uh I do have uh an invention coming out soon but I can't I can't reveal any more than that unfortunately but you can you can stay up to date on the developments of that at macshank.com and I'll keep everybody posted there. But the only thing I'll say is that there's absolutely nothing like it which has made it uh uh doubly difficult to get the design correct in a way that is both durable and usable for the designated tasks um outside of that um you know that that's that's that's kind of the main the main thing like I said we're celebrating our 10 year anniversary at Ambition Athletics which I'm very excited about and um you know I haven't taught any seminars for quite a while just as we talked about I got totally burnt out yeah you know traveling uh 33 weeks a year was like not actually what I wanted it it did satisfy the success monster because I could like go out and do the thing over and over. And but basically right now it's uh I have uh the online coaching group the M3 Academy which uh we do uh movement muscle and meditation and every month we have like a slightly different focus and try to get people uh thinking about exercise in a bit of a different way and then kind of going back through um you know ultimate ultimate athleticism was a program I put together at the end of 2015 and it's been really just remarkably successful and it has endorsements from uh a kind of astonishing amount of coaches I respect that range from like uh Ross Enamate Charlie Weingroff Dan John um Eric Cobb from Z Health um Rob Wolf who did the paleo diet solution and it's um right now what I'm doing is I'm going back through and I am basically using the same philosophy which is maximum efficiency for developing overall athleticism but I'm approaching it with a more minimalistic perspective that is maybe a little bit more user friendly perhaps yeah because one of the things yeah a little bit more adaptable to the masses because even though if you follow the progressions in ultimate athleticism you can basically get anyone to doing uh to the point where they're doing handstands and deadlifts and airborne lunges and things like that. I think about uh athleticism a little bit differently and what I realize is that a lot of it has to do with the environment that you're in. So for example you might have someone who's exceptionally strong when they're laying down on a bench but as soon as you have them do like a standing chest press from a lunge position uh it kind of goes all to pieces. So that uh total body integration uh based on the environment that you're in like can you can you create torque and tension when you're hanging can you create torque and tension when you're crawling can you roll around on the ground and maneuver yourself easily you know I I kind of like to say that a Persian a person a Persian's a Persian it would work for Persians too a person's relationship yeah I I agree completely uh a person's relationship with the ground is a really strong indicator of how soon they'll be buried underneath it. You know as as I work with um more and more people I find myself uh mostly being called upon to work with people who are between 60 and 80 and sometimes a little bit older than 80. And and part of the reason for that is that um I'm really good at what I do but I'm also expensive. So it's not like a ton of uh like 20 year olds can afford training sessions with me. But what I find is that people develop a fear of the ground and it's it's really quite interesting. They're there and it starts with just being ah like I'm not afraid of the ground necessarily but if I get down there it's a lot of effort to get back up. So they shy away from getting down there in the first place. Yeah and the ability to just roll yourself over um on the ground without using your hands is like one of those things that now seems like an obvious no-brainer yeah but but we don't really practice you know and it's it's kind of um it's it's really unfortunate how we kind of leave people high and dry when it comes to actual functionality that will help them survive and thrive longer and we spend so much effort and energy saying that you need to do three sets of eight instead of three sets of seven or four sets of ten or whatever the hell it is. But in actuality you got to look at well what are you going to encounter in your life? Like what is actually going to be something that you are faced with and I'll tell you what if you learn how to fall and you practice falling down every day it's gonna be really easy for you to get back up.

Yeah.

Yeah well said man Max dude it's always so cool to get you on uh you know yeah man I think we go I like to go places uh in conversation with you that most people don't and it's it's it's fascinating I mean it's just grounded you know it's the stuff that uh hopefully we just like wake one person up a little bit be like hey what are you really focusing on what where's the quality of your life how are you really changing people making an impact and all those you know kind of buzzwords I I think it's it's worth it. So yeah man.

Dude I I love it. Oh uh same goes for you I think that we always hit a really nice flow yeah and that's it's it's a beautiful thing when you can find that so I mean I'm I'm happy to do it anytime. You just let me know. I'm here for it buddy.

Right on man ladies and gentlemen Max Shank one and only thanks again brother appreciate you and all you do. 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 it 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 we're 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 fitnessmarketingalliance com