Seeker of Truth and Perpetual Student - Mike Bledsoe

What's really cool is that it allows me just to have the conversations I want to be having. I get to live my life the way I want to live my life without any constraints, no barriers. And then what I do is I make whatever business stuff fit my life. And if something's not fitting in business, I don't I don't twist my life to make it fit that. I make business twist to fit my thing. And you know what? I'm willing to lose money over that. I don't care.

Hey Fitness fans, welcome back to the Future Fitness podcast and interview series. This is your host, Mark Melzone, and we are on episode number 69. And I finally tracked down Mike Colet Stoke. So I've been wanting to interview this guy for a long time. Umatic, so it's not always to track uh easy to track people like that down one. And uh anyways, a great conversation. Um we talked about you know his rise um came out way early of uh functional fitness and cross-bit and being one of those podcasts and they're a barbell drug and now it's evolution to Mike WebSock. And just his evolution overall is really fascinating. He's a relatively young guy who's done so much and has accomplished a lot of things, but he's also um had some hard lessons along the way that he shares here. And uh yeah, so before we get into a little bit more about Mike, um our sister company Fitness Professional Online has a gift for you for the month of July. So if you go to FinisProfessionalOnline.com forward slash at the bot, you'll find a service that is for lead generation um that normally would cost well above a thousand, if not $2,000, and we're gonna do it for $350. Actually, scratch that, we're doing it for $250 because if you go to that URL, you will get a hundred dollar discount. And uh it's a sweet deal. It'll start generating leads right away. It's the future of lead generation. Absolutely. If you ask anybody expert in the field, they will tell you that's where leads are coming from and we're giving you an amazing deal. So go to Fitzprofessional Online.com forward slash chatbot or for any type of business if you're on Facebook. So take advantage of it while it lasts. Um, yeah, that's it. So Mike Wedstow, he talks about this massive network they've built over time. We also talked about, you know, it takes time to do that kind of work. We talked about these numbers that he has with his podcast and his email list and how much it costs to produce uh one of their episodes now, I think it's like $4,000, whatever. All the work that goes behind uh a production like that is pretty incredible. It's impressive, you know. And I think also we talked about uh, you know, artificial intelligence and how that hopefully will change the health of our communities and societies in a very, very good way. And uh yeah, overall great interview, really important stuff. There was some internet connections at some point, so I apologize for it. You know, it's not my fault, so I don't apologize for uh what the great things are. So without further ado, this is Mike Bledstow, number 69, Joe Stop. All right, Fitness fans. Welcome back to the Future of Fitness Podcast interview series. Today, I have Mike Bledstow. Welcome to the show, Mike. Thanks for having me. I'm excited to talk today. Yeah, man. I'm uh I'm excited. I've been uh trying to track you down. You've been in Costa Rica, France. Uh now you're where where are you in Oklahoma? Oklahoma. Nice. No stone left unturned. Yeah. Uh so I'll give a nice intro before this about who you are and what you do. Uh, I'm curious, and these, you know, a lot of these questions are completely selfish because I have a lot of admiration for where you are as a podcaster because um you're you're many steps ahead of where I am now. And um so for me to have the opportunity to lock you down for 30 minutes and ask you all the questions I want to ask you is awesome. Um but if maybe you could give us a little uh our listeners a little background into the evolution of Mike Bledsoe from you know Barbell Shrugged um all the way to the Mike Bledsoe show um and how that that growth has gone, and then we'll get into some very specific industry topics too.

It's actually been a really rocky path. Uh and uh, you know, we started Barbell Shrugged at the very beginning of 2012. I started playing around with podcasting in 2011. Um, I had opened a CrossFit Gym in 2007, and I had actually open, you know, started a few different business ventures and a couple different inventions from 2007 to 2012. And so the podcast was not necessarily um my first, it wasn't like I was running a gym for five years, and all of a sudden I was like, oh, I have this great idea. It's like I had a dozen great ideas, and this happened to be the one that was the most fun, it was the most engaging for me. I think people forget that too. I think, and I I've definitely done in the past is I look at somebody doing something and I'm like, oh, I want to do what they're doing. And then you get into it and you actually don't even enjoy the thing. And so I think a big part of the the life process is trying on a lot of different things and then seeing what fits. I mean, I I remember spending, you know, uh $50,000 and about a three-month period trying to get an equipment business off the ground. And just a few months in, I I said, you know what, this is stupid. I don't want to do this. Those guys are at rogue, they're always gonna do it better than me because they obviously enjoy what they're doing. I don't actually enjoy this that much. And so I got out of that game and broke even, which in in a three-month period, which I I lucked out. Um, but just as an example of something that I went after that I think people would understand and go, how many people start equipment businesses in the fitness industry for whatever reason, just because they think they can do it better or something like that. But when they get into it, they're actually not enjoying it. So um which means you're not gonna do it better. But um, yeah, so we started in 2012 and started just because we wanted to. It it was uh, you know, I'm a I'm an entrepreneur, so not when we started the podcast, it was because I just wanted to do radio that was put online. Like the idea of having a conversation about strength and conditioning, I didn't see anybody else doing it that way. And I thought to myself, this is a perfect gap in the market, you know, like this is something I really enjoyed doing. I always I wanted to do radio since I was a little kid. I heard talk show radio hosts, or I started doing the show, but immediately also saw that there were uh you know business opportunities that were gonna be presented. I was like, this is this is simply like not only it it's marketing I enjoy doing. And up to that point in my life, I had enjoyed zero marketing I'd ever participated in. You know, anytime I was trying to market my services or products, I hated it. But when I started podcasting, it didn't even feel like I was marketing, it just felt like I was being myself on a microphone hanging out with my buddies. And so that's another reason it worked. And you know, we made you know dozens of dollars for months on end. And you know, it's so funny. People ask me, they go, Oh, you know, how long should I expect to make money running a podcast? I'm like, never. But the but people, it but what's funny is in the and then they'll be like, well, how long did it take you? I I tell them it took me about 18 months before I made enough money at podcasting to shake a stick at. And you know, people are usually asking, you know, does it take two months, three months? I'm like, 18 months is what it took me. And I was focused on it. And I had a business that was funding me personally that allowed me to put my attention into it. And so uh, you know, I I I like to get real with people because I see so many podcasts that you know they they post seven episodes and then never again. Yeah. Um, and so uh it doesn't come in seven episodes, it comes in a hundred um or a hundred and fifty episodes. And so um, you know, about a year I had been studying, I was lucky enough to have been studying internet marketing and digital information products along with my business partner Doug since 2009. So when this when we started the show in 2012, we put together some really um hard-to-market products and then like posters for mobility and stuff like that. And then uh at in the middle of 2013, I went to a conference and it hit me I wanted to have recurring revenue. And so uh we decided to do online training programs for athletes. Um at that point, uh, there was one-on-one coaching um in the fitness space, but nobody was doing online group coaching that I could see. I didn't see it anywhere back in 2013. So we launched uh the first training program that we knew of, which was the six-month muscle gain challenge. Okay, and so this was a training program, it was education, it was mobility, it was not just workouts, it was everything, plus a Facebook group, and if they wanted to buy more, they could get you know uh phone coaching as well. And we were able to, you know, make was we weren't we went from making maybe $3,000 a month online amongst me and my buddies to $30,000 a month in in a matter of 30 days of hatching the idea doing a product launch and getting it online. So in 2013, at the end of 2013, it was it really started making money, and we were able to use that money to travel and do shows. And and uh, you know, the the trouble was there there was actually a little bit of trouble with that in that when we launched that, we knew it was gonna make good money, it was gonna fund our ability to do the show. And for me, you know, it took me years to realize this is every all my business, everything I'd done for business, it was good. We put together like in fact, I think we put too much stuff in our products. We we gave too much stuff to where it was overwhelming for our customers. Most people need just a little bit, they don't need it too much, is too much, and so um we we built, we had over at one point we had over a thousand people paying a hundred on average $125 a month for online coaching. And so uh and in that we were able to travel the world with you know a team of five, six, seven people and knock out really cool shows. Um, and and over time we the way it was being treated is we had a creative team that was treating the show as the business, and then and then myself and Doug had to consider the entire business as the business, and that actually created some dissonance there in it. And um, and so at the time, you couldn't get sponsors to pay enough money to make the amount of money we were making to do the type of shows that we were doing, so it really was on our shoulders, and then um more recently, what we've found that's been really awesome is that, and I I've always I've always known this to a degree, but it's become more obvious to me in the last six months, six, seven, eight months, which is I really just want to be in the business of creating content. And and now we're able to take in sponsors and our attention on putting together training programs and coaching programs. I didn't start a podcast so I could have online coaching programs. I didn't want to run a coaching staff. Um, I honestly just want to make cool videos and interview people and put out cool ideas. And so, you know, nobody can do it the way we did it because there's no reason to, for one. And for two, you know, like we had to go through those things and we had to fund our own way in a lot of ways, or we had to sell our own products to fund our own way because sponsor the the podcast market wasn't mature enough yet. And the um and the the market of for for businesses acknowledging social media as a as a as a better avenue for advertising and marketing just wasn't there yet. But now we have, you know, we work with companies that do $40 million a year or more, and I find that those are the companies that we can really work with um for sponsorships at the level of like how many downloads we're getting.

Yeah.

Um, and so, you know, I uh I look back on my career with Barbell Shrugged and I see where um I was fighting an uphill battle the whole time. It was hard the whole time because I was doing, we were doing things that wasn't really in alignment with what it is I was supposed to be doing. And so um it created a lot of dissonance within the team. It it created uh a lot of issues. There was there was also like a lot of fun we were having. So it was kind of like uh there was a lot of like it's awesome as you know, this is the most awesome thing ever to I hate this whole thing, and you know, bounce of depression and and and then showing up to do a show on, you know, I'm on my 200th, 210th show of Barbell Shrug, and we're gonna talk about not rounding your back when we deadlift. Fuck me, this is terrible. So um, like, you know, and and and because that's a that's something that's clickable, and you know, we need people to see it so we can sell our thing. I'm like, I don't even want to do this show anymore. And so, you know, there were times where you know we took a break and put other guys on the show, and and and then and then over time I'm running the business, and I'm running this business in the background, and we started another podcast a year and a half in as well called Barbell Business, where we're helping gym owners. And then we launched a software program. And then I I thought, well, maybe the software business will be different than the coaching business, and come to find out, no, I fucking hate running software company too, and the people you have to deal with in the in that business are are it's terrible. And so the uh there's just you either got to run a software company or a media company, like trying to combine the two is just not a great idea. Um, and that's something I was doing. And so what I what I find is you either need to be running a business where you're using podcasting as your marketing tool, or you just need to love marketing and get sponsors. There's you know, there's two different types of podcasts out there, and I can hear them when I'm listening. I'm like, oh, this one's marketing something. Yeah, and this has this has the purpose of selling a specific type of product or service. And then I hear podcasts where it's like way more free-flowing and just it's a little bit different. It's a Joe Rogan-ish, uh, even Tim Ferris, he's always selling something for sure, but he's not running the podcast for the purpose of selling a specific product or service. He just always has some type of venture going on in the background. Yeah. And uh I'll always have something going on in the background. I mean, I love business. I'm still, you know, I'm gonna write a book here in the next year or two. I'll be selling the book. You know, I will I put together another training program for people, probably. But it won't be because I need money. It'll be because, you know, I know all this shit. I think you should know all this shit too. And so I'll put something together that's fun and I'll make it to where it's not hard for me, and I'll make you know what I mean. And so, like, uh I I think that this whole path has been that uh has gone that way, which is the struggle between making money and running a show that I just enjoyed doing. And so, you know, I would say that uh I I likely did barbell shrugged, me personally did it for two years too long. Um and I I should have, I should have, uh should have, but I I think that there was there was the voice in the back of my mind going, hey, do the Bledsoe show, do your own thing, expand the topics, your interests are much bigger than this, and uh, and I can help people at a deeper level. Will I attract as many people? Absolutely not. Most people are not interested in the conversations that I'm having because they're just not there yet. Now, uh Barbell Shrugged, what that whole thing was built around was very simple strength and conditioning uh conversations. Um and also taking very advanced scientific principles and and breaking them down into layman's terms. So it's a beautiful show. I love it. Um, I just don't want to run it anymore. And so um, you know, the the opportunity that we were able to create this past, we started planning this past winter and then launched this spring, which is the Shrugged Collective. And what we did is we expanded all, we had we built all this marketing leverage. We, you know, have uh uh over, you know, over 200,000 email uh subscribers and 175,000 YouTube subscribers, and we get a million downloads a month on iTunes, and you know, these are all just amazing things. It's like, you know, how do we how do we leverage what we've built the last six years to create to make something better for the people who've been following us, the people who have been giving us our attention and time and money? How do we give them something more we don't want to take away? And um, and how do we leverage this to for the greater good? And we go, you know what, we're gonna do a network. And you know, I think I'm personally good at drawing attention and having a good time and creating shows, but I actually think that I'm very good at finding talent. And so I'm I'm very good at maintaining relationships with companies and CEOs and stuff like that. I'm really good at identifying people who are also good at being influencers in the space. And so it really made sense that we shift into more of a network where we got to uh shine the spotlight on other podcasters. And one of the next things we're gonna be doing is we're gonna be starting a uh a vlog series. So I'm starting my own fitness vlog series, but then I'm also gonna be I'm gonna be meeting with some of our some of the guys that are on the team for the Shrug Collective, um, like like uh Ryan Fisher and guys like that. I'll be meeting with him at Paleo FX next weekend and talking about the possibility of how do we expand our video presence because we have this really amazing YouTube channel that we can really capitalize on. So yeah, the game we're playing at this time, at this moment is expanding the network and reaching more people, pulling them into our universe, um, and then also working with companies that we believe in that are doing really good things in the world. We work with companies like Thrive Market on it, Organify. These are all companies that are trying to make a positive impact in the world, not just make a buck. And so it's a purpose-driven company. So these are the types of companies that we're really interested in highlighting as well. So it's and what what's really cool is it allows me just to have the conversations I want to be having. I get to live my life the way I want to live my life without any constraints, no barriers. And then what I do is I make whatever business stuff fit my life. And if something's not fitting in business, I don't I don't twist my life to make it fit that. I make business twists to fit my thing. And you know what? I'm willing to lose money over that. I don't care. So like I'd rather make less money and be happy than to chase dollars and then wait to be happy at some later time.

Awesome. Yeah, man, I love all that. And like I said, I it it's it's inspirational for me personally to hear this journey because it really is why I started podcasts or why I you know I sold my facility to to go and travel more and do all these things. I think maybe if if you could clarify a little bit on, you know, when people when you say media, right? When you see a media company and social, I don't know if people really realize how much work goes into being a media company, like the consistent, you know, the not only just cutting the videos, but finding the opportunities. Give us, you know, for for like every piece of content that's produced from from you and your team, how much how much uh minutes of work go into the back end?

Oh man. Um, let's see. We're producing five shows a week right now. And we have one, two, three, four. We have four people working over 40 hours a week right now to produce five shows. That does not include the people actually creating the content for those, the podcasters. So I don't even know how much time they're spending because the way that our system works, they're not employees. So I actually am not tracking their time. Um, so we have four people doing at least 40 plus hours a week. Um, yeah, for every show, there has to be graphics created, there has to be emails written, there has to be a blog post made, there has to be social media posts made, somebody's running Instagram, somebody's running Facebook, somebody's um uh running the website, somebody's making sure that our stuff is named properly so that it's searchable. We our video editing, you know, video editing takes about three times as long as it took to film the the video. You could you could figure that the our average video cost, not including the content providers. I don't know. I mean if we I I we could say that the average video to create average video that you see an hour long video you see on on Shrug costs us about $3,000 to create. All that's extra. So every video you see is is costing about that much to make um and that's that's like a low figure. And you know we just put out a video the traincation video um on Tuesday.

No, I saw the previews for it.

Yeah I don't um I mean we to repeat that yeah I mean that's that's still another three four thousand dollar video to make you know these are these are not cheap and we don't have sponsors paying us that much for everything we do. A lot of this is we are creating things on good faith to build our name in order to then work with companies in the future. So uh not everything you see is paid for all the time. So there's a lot of give and take uh but yeah I mean give people an idea of what that looks like. Um and we just launched the network and all of our attention went into podcasting. We're not even we haven't even put our attention into video yet. Uh that's that's uh you know first quarter is podcast second quarter is is uh is YouTube and so um those are our our two big avenues and of course you know we have Instagram and stuff like that but um Instagram hasn't it's not like YouTube or podcasting as far as like um it's really cool getting attention for people short attention spans but for for actual value being delivered and there actually being some engagement it's just it's just not quite there. And so I'm curious you know I think it's definitely a platform to to take advantage of and we're putting a lot of attention into it but it's not I would not put all your eggs in that basket. If anyone's listening and thinking Instagram is the way that shit could die. Facebook too the thing about Facebook and Instagram is those platforms are known for just wiping out accounts or if you lose a password I know I have I I lost my Bartle business account on Instagram um you know like 15 I think it was maybe 1500 followers and there's no customer service to contact yeah um and so uh they're just like yeah fuck you um so the uh the uh it it it's all really interesting uh think about one thing to think about is you know is it your own platform is it on somebody else's platform right and YouTube is technically somebody else's platform they don't have they don't have a history of completely wiping out people's accounts though Google is way more open and way more lenient and you know way more just kind of like whatever whereas with Facebook and Instagram they have a lot of rules you break a rule one or two times and you're done. So uh just side note don't put your eggs all great basket to put some eggs in don't put them all in there.

Yeah and I agree it's interesting I had uh had just written an article email about um because I I get asked a lot too you know is where where should I should I be on should I be on Facebook? Should I be Instagram Michael no the first thing you should do is you should take care of your website because that's the only thing you can 100% control you know and then you drive traffic everything else is just a satellite and if one satellite ends up getting debunked like your Instagram account you'll be okay because you can still drive you know traffic to your site in different ways and YouTube is oh man that's uh I think we've just even though it's been around for a while we're just scratching the surface on on what's going to happen with YouTube.

Um it's really yeah YouTube is YouTube is gonna start winning. I mean it already is winning um it's already um but I think YouTube is about to smash Facebook and the reason is is as a content creator I get paid to create YouTube videos whereas on Facebook if I want someone to see my video I have to pay for someone to see my shit. And you know what I did it for a long time I paid Facebook a lot of money for a long time. You know what I'm fucking tired of it. So like YouTube is like we we definitely post things on Facebook we don't give a shit about it. It could go away and it wouldn't matter um I do realize that's where people are at and that's fine but I think the guys have been in the game for a long time like myself were it's just gotten way harder. And so uh again I can get way more eyes on on YouTube. YouTube's way friendlier to to people who are actually creating good content.

Mike so if I mark um so if I'm already taking hits and now I'm attacking Facebook too yeah that guy's taking a beating this quarter huh um oh yeah so if I I'm listening to this and I hear some of your numbers right for your podcast and your audience and things like that and I'm you know I'm Joe Frit Pro and I'm like you know I'm never going to get to those numbers. What what do you suggest to this person? Like just get started or what do you mean to to do a podcast? I'm sure you get asked asked this question a lot but it's an important one you know because it's it's it's what either inspires somebody who could have a great podcast someday to start or completely deflates them and says it's not worth that journey.

Yeah you know it's funny people people go they want to find out they want to know what I did to get what I got and I'm like you can't do that anymore. Like I was like the first guy there. That's why it worked. And like all the strategies we used they don't work anymore. And so you know just like I was talking about I was like Facebook worked for a long time until it stopped. And so um you know podcasting man it's it's saturated there's a lot of people in there and I I think that I think the being content with what you have so if if podcasting is your strategy then I would count on you know I would work on getting a thousand downloads a show and and see if you can create money from the thousand downloads a show that you're getting and figure that out. Because for you to get to the 5000 1000 downloads per show to get to that point it's gonna take a long time and you're gonna have to get attention some other way. Yeah like you're gonna have to get attention via I don't know getting on TV or running for president or I don't know. Like you gotta like you're gonna have to do something else to get attention to the podcast. You could get really clever at naming everything you should definitely be using a lot of SEO strategies of the website all that kind of stuff definitely be solving people's problems you know all the all the very typical marketing advice I could give this all applies um I I got away with a lot in the beginning that you can't get away with now um like like I could name shit whatever I wanted to and people would follow because I was like the only guy. Yeah now you're gonna get there's just there's so many podcasts that have great audio um you know I have good audio um have good conversations name things well but if you want to have you know if you want to be Joe Rogan you had better uh do something else you have to remember that guy was stand up comedian he's on Fear Factor he's an announcer for UFC he's getting a lot of attention from a lot of different avenues that help build the podcast it wasn't because the podcast was just good it's super enjoyable I really enjoy it but he drew in a lot of different segments of the population I mean those are all very uh different and you know don't forget news radio but like that's right but uh yeah um but like you know I I think a lot of times people think that he probably younger people think that Joe Rogan was a podcaster yeah you know first and it's like no man that dude was like he was in show business for 20 years before he took it before he started posting or maybe you know 10-15 years and so I think I think being a big podcaster looks way more like show business now than it ever has been before so you know it's it's it's not something that again if you want if you want to be a big podcaster that's what you have to do but if you're somebody who's like man I just want to be able to fund my life and podcast and have good conversations and be happy with my thousand downloads or 10,000 downloads per show then it's very very doable very very doable. But if you want to go beyond that you're gonna have to get really aggressive across the board.

So yeah and I oh yeah and then the other thing is is um the you gotta be posting uh uh three or four times a week nowadays because if you're not doing that people they hear you but then they listen to five other people before they hear you again so when you say posting you mean posting on social posting new episodes what are you uh new episodes really four yeah oh okay yeah three or four well the top podcast they're all doing that now like no top podcast is posting once a week if you can find one please let me know I'm curious okay but oh well the ones I I started looking around I was like it was about a year ago I started looking around and I go it's like our our growth you know we didn't shrink but we weren't growing like we used to and I started looking around at the ones the big dogs and the ones that were really doing well and I talked to a couple podcasts that that took off and I go oh they're posting three four five times a week got it okay yeah and so yeah it was yeah so there was a big topic that we started touching on before we got on this recording and I want to get onto it now um because the title of the show is the future of fitness right so um where do you see the fitness industry um the role of the personal trainer the gym owner um the client those you know the trifect of of of fitness where do you see that going how do you see it shifting and changing in like the next I don't know let's give it like 10 years where do you think it's gonna go who well I I think the first thing we could talk about is technology and so um I think that a lot of the advice that's being given by by trainers right now is just stuff that worked for them and it's not actually specifically designed for their clients.

And even the even if you are doing data collection more you know a more sophisticated approach to to addressing your clients needs it's still it's still very narrow. You're still not collecting a ton of data and and now we're seeing a lot of these genetic tests you can get gut biome tests you can get you can actually figure out what's going on with your clients physiologically when we look at movement uh we can definitely the average trainer understands movement way better today than they did 10 years ago so in 10 years from now you will have to know movement um actually I don't think you're gonna have to know much about movement I I think um well what I'm gonna say is you got to know more about movement now than you used to 10 years ago. But in the future in 10 years what we have is much more sophisticated technology where we'll have wearables and we'll have AI uh enabled apps that are going to be tracking your movement 247. So not just how your knee bends but also how you the mechanics of your breath um and so um what I see happening in the future is is you're with wearables and being able you'll be able to you'll be tracking your blood all the time you'll be tracking urine fecal matter all that stuff all the time because it's gonna be really cheap to be tracking this stuff all the time and you're gonna have an AI giving you advice from moment to moment. So anytime you're like oh what should I eat well you actually perform better when you eat this kind of food at this hour by the way you've been sitting in this position for for uh 90 minutes you know what uh you need to crawl around and do this type of crawling for the next five minutes now do some breathing cool uh now what's gonna end up happening is people are gonna end up moving and not only that we're gonna get away from dusk we're gonna get away from computers there's gonna be a lot less um necessity for being sedentary to do your job um and so what I think we're gonna do is we're gonna have human beings moving throughout the day much more than they could have ever fit in that one hour they're getting at the gym. Now why do people go to the gym? To look good naked. Now here's the thing you know how much I go to the gym now maybe once a week yeah maybe once a week and the reason I don't go very much is because I've cracked the code on some things. When I do go to the gym I'm highly effective and when I'm not at the gym I'm doing a lot of stuff at uh even when I'm traveling I don't have equipment I don't have a home where I have equipment really I do a lot of body weight stuff and I'm really taking care of my body and what I've learned is I can hit the gym really hard that one time a week and then spend the rest of my time taking care of my body moving constantly guess what I look good naked I feel good and I perform well and so and when I do hit the gym and I go lift weights people are really impressed and so these are all things about me looking good right and so that's why people do almost anything and so is they want to look good. And so if I don't have if I as a fitness professional who've been addicted to going to the gym since I was 15 years old am now going one day a week because I can achieve all the results I've ever dreamed of by doing that do you think the average person is going to be going to the gym? Fuck no so like we're gonna be a healthier population in a decade if we opt into using these technologies. Now not everyone's gonna adopt them because a lot of people they're gonna get stuck in that sedentary behavior but I think that might be a generational thing as well. So I think what we're gonna see is the gyms are going away. The gyms that will will remain are the ones that are training professional athletes or uh people who are attempting to be professional athletes. And so uh you know there's definitely sports performance facilities and all that kind of stuff uh in the future and so when you have and this you see this happening right now is people see um one of the the fastest well the fastest boot uh coaching segment in the industry is life coaching um and I think that's where everything is going and I I know people probably laugh and scoff at that or whatever but here's the deal is uh just because you're a meathead just because I'm a meathead doesn't mean everyone wants to be a meathead. Now people come to meatheads for advice because they think we know what we're talking about. But the truth is is once they have what they want which is look good naked the only coaching they're gonna need they they want that more that deeper interpersonal thing and you know what the best fitness coaches now they know how to connect with their clients on a really deep level they have a really great relationship with them. And when fitness trainers and coaches now when they think about making more money or becoming a better coach they do one of three things. They learn more about nutrition they learn more about movement or they learn more about program design. None of them are learning how to connect with their clients better or to communicate or any of these interpersonal skills leadership they think they're doing it but they're really not and I say that because I used to be that person and then I I uncovered some things that most people are making fun of online that I see or to my face and I'm going wow you are really going to miss this next wave which is um your job is going away if you're teaching movement nutrition or you're writing workouts your those jobs are vanishing in the next decade maybe less and so what we really need to be developing is uh helping people um understand themselves better and so the it's the interpersonal thing it's the communication it's the it's the more psychological aspects the spiritual aspects of why somebody trains in the first place that they're gonna get at because you know the truth is people do go to gym to look good but they go to the gym look good because they don't feel like they're good enough the way they are and pretty soon is the here's the thing is when you got the body when you got the money when you got the car when you got the house when you got the wife you got the husband you got everything you ever wanted and you're still not happy well guess what that's called an apocalypse and people are they it's commonly referred to as midlife crisis and and it was called midlife crisis for a long time because most men didn't achieve that level of success until they were in midlife but guess what I achieved that level of success when I was 30 and then I went through hell. And now the millennials the millennials are going through it in their teens because they have everything they ever needed you know they get all the they get all the stuff and then they go well I don't want to work a job that has no purpose and then you have you know the baby boomers and the Gen Xers saying the millennials are are just worthless and this and that. And it's like they actually I think they actually have a better idea of what's going on they got there faster because we built a world in which they could get there faster. You're welcome now the the the thing is is you know people are upset about things because you know they value hard work but hard work's not necessary to to achieve the results you want um and that's okay so um I I I think man I don't even know what question you asked now but this is no you're going deep I love it this is I have it this is the future is like I mean but with with AI and wearables and track being able to track everything most it's not just fitness most jobs are going away most you know truck drivers jobs are going away taxi cab drivers going like Ubers are going to be driving themselves in five years. I know there's a lot of people who don't think that's the case because of what's happening currently but you know uh you know what's happening now is usually not indicative of what's happening in the future we we know that like there's leaps and all that kind of stuff but with the way things are going with technology I I know a lot of people who are technologists and futurists and the people who are accurately predicting for the last few decades are you know I trust their predictions for the next decade. And yeah jobs are just going away so it's probably time just get being okay with being yourself um being okay with being you and not tying your identity or value to what you do.

Yeah. You know and it's it's interesting reflecting on my own journey too Mike is I um part of my coaching education is I went through uh OPEX right I did all their certifications and in order to get the the the level one you have to go through life coaching and I poo-pooed on it. I'm like oh God man I want to spend two days talking about life coaching. And by far it was the most valuable part of the education through through James and his team was life coaching. I was blown away like understanding people's values and how they're different than yours. Like what I people have different values than me. You know people think differently than I do no way. So yeah like I think uh I read that course yeah it's fun right life coaching course yeah it was good it was good uh so you said you crack the code and I think I I'd be remiss if I didn't ask you know for my listeners like give us some insight into what what that what that looks like I gotta know right I gotta know what uh hang on I I did say that I remember saying that but I don't remember exactly what I was doing cracked a lot of code back yeah going to the gym once a week um taking care of your body yeah but

Um let's see. I so like where do I start? The uh so the code I cracked on that is I actually began understanding why I was going to the gym in the first place. So I I I used to think it was because I loved the grind and I love you know it being hard and all this kind of stuff. Um and I also I had this belief that what I was doing was the most effective thing that that you could be doing to achieve optimal fitness. And uh by traveling the world and and sitting with the experts, I started realizing that I was wrong. And so I it took me years and years and years, and I to get to the point where I had a realization that my uh my relationship with fitness was uh revolved around working hard. And so uh, and you see this very widespread in the fitness industry. It attracts a lot of people who had a have a very hard work ethic work ethic. And so um what we have is so what I did was I created a lot of structure around movement, and I was following a lot of stories that were being created by other people and myself around why this is a good idea. Um and then um the the harder the better. Um, you know, if you're you know, if one hour's good, two hours is better. If um, you know, uh working my lactate threshold uh multiple times a week is a good idea because you know I also work my aerobic system and my anaerobic system and all this stuff. And and um and uh there is a lot of variety in movement and crossfit or something like that. Um and then I uh and it was all with a belief that I'm gonna look good, look, perform, and feel better. Um, but then I started doing things that were counter to what I believed. Um well that's that's not exactly how it went. It my my major breakthrough was I happened to be at a retreat and I sit down in front of about 30 people and I sit down with this guy who's able basically uh uh hip hypnosis in a way. And there was something happening in my business I didn't like. Um I had created a culture of people who were working a lot of hours. So barbell shrug used to have people who were putting in over 40 hours a week that were there was a grind mentality in the company. There was this mentality of just work more, work more. Work is life. And so I and I saw that it was hurting my company actually. And so I sit down in front of 20 people and he's like, all right, what's going on that you want to be different? And I go, all right, I w, you know, I actually want to shift. I actually I think there's something wrong with my company, and how do I shift it? I'm obviously responsible for this this culture. Like I'm the CEO, I create, I am the head founder, like I obviously created a culture of, you know, if there's a problem, we work harder. And he goes, okay. And we end up rewinding back to my childhood, and I end up discovering that my dad taught me that uh it's value, it's valuable to work hard. And you do the job right the first time, and it's gotta be perfect. Um, and so you work hard. So the answer is always work hard, finish the job, yada yada yada. So we go in there and we completely dismantle that. I'm crying in front of 20 people, I've got my eyes closed, I'm like like uh I'm in this hypnotic state. He brings me back all of a sudden, I can breathe deeper, I can feel things more. I'm I'm I'm uh I'm just I'm just uh I just I feel like a load had been pulled off my shoulders. And if you would have told me, and I had actually had friends that would come up to me at times and go, and they would say things like, It seems like you're carrying the weight of the world on your shoulders. And I go, Okay, I don't know what that means. Um, and and then in that moment, it there was a load that came off my shoulders, and I go, Oh, that's what that means. And in fact, there's been layers of that over the years. That was that was like one of the first layers where I was like, oh wow, this is actually lighter. And that was actually the beginning of something that took me about a year and a half to completely dismantle that work hard mentality. Um, but um what happened to that retreat is that got pulled out and I replaced it with, you know, it took me some time to replace it with work easy, you know. And and uh and I I I mean I still I work a lot, but I'm enjoying it a lot more and I like to play more now too. But um what ended up happening is that got removed, that work hard thing, and then I went home and I completely changed how I ate. I I all of a sudden I saw my I I stopped going by the way, uh a year and a half before that retreat, or no, six months. When was this? Uh about a year before this retreat, I had had three hernias, and I was competing in weightlifting. I was I was I was competing at a very high level. I was the strongest I'd ever been. Um and I ended with three hernias, and so I really got uh I I thought I was gonna come back. I couldn't recover from I wasn't recovering from the injury like I thought I could. Um and so um I was trying to do use a lot of what I knew to do to fix these problems, but what ended up happening is after this retreat, I get home. This was in the spring. Over the summer, I stopped going to the gym so much. I started finding all this movement culture stuff, like Ido Portal style things, start doing a lot more crawling. I I uh meet John Wolfe from On It and start swinging clubs and mesas. Um I get away from the barbell. Um I start spending some time just outside. I smoke a little bit of weed, put some music on, I play around in my yard with this equipment, trying new things. Um and within two months of that retreat, my wife looks at me one day and goes, How the fuck are you so lean? And I'm like, like, actually, I think this I look pretty good. Like, this is the best. She goes, This is the best you've ever looked since I've known you. Wow, we've been married for years and years and years. I'm like, she goes, and she's getting mad about it because she's not having the same experience. And I go, you know what? I actually feel amazing too. I feel really, really good. My joints have never felt so good. I was like, that's interesting. And then I I went and you know, ran a Spartan race and I just crushed it with ease. And I go, oh, this is interesting. And some of the the when I look back, I go, what changed? Because a lot of this was my behavior changed on an unconscious level because something else had gotten changed at my core at an unconscious level.

Yeah.

And so um I look back and I, you know, what I did is I stopped eating breakfast that summer. I I was doing these like massive smoothies. Uh or no, I was doing uh bacon and eggs and bulletproof coffee and all this stuff. And uh I replaced it with like this super nutritious smoothie, you know, where it wasn't about calories, it wasn't about protein, fat, and carbs, it was about how many micronutrients can I fit into a smoothie that fits in my stomach comfortably, not to where I'm full.

Yeah.

Um, my meat, my meat intake got cut in half. I just stopped eating so much. And what I realized is up until that point, I was eating to be bigger and stronger. I was eating for performance in the gym, not out of the gym. And so everything had to do with how could I be better in the gym? And then after that moment, when it shifted for me was actually, I'm not competing in anything. Why am I trying to be better in the gym? It's I'm trying to be better out of the gym. So then I started using fitness to fuel my life versus my life fueling my fitness. And so I look around the fitness industry, I look at people who are addicted to CrossFit and I go, oh wow. They're eating for the gym, they're sleeping for the gym. Everything is revolving around going inside of this box with fluorescent lights and moving as fast and as heavy as possible for the purpose of doing it again tomorrow. Wow. Wow. What kind of existence is this? This is a this is this is what we would call, this is what uh a lot of people in uh spirituality and deep psychology and transpersonal psychology would call a trap. Um, and so um uh I so I was able to actually break out of the trap without, you know, it was like a unintentional breaking out, like I wasn't trying to break out of that trap. I was trying to break out of the trap of the solution to my problem being to work harder, you know. And there's nothing wrong with hard work. I I work hard, but it's not the solution to the problem. And so there's there's a couple other things in my life where um I have a tendency, another trap that I had for a long time that I broke out of in the last uh year was uh I recognize that I tried to solve my problems by making more money too. So, you know, like I would solve problems by making more money, I would solve problems by being in better shape, I would or you know, lifting more weight, I would solve problems by eating more food, taking the right supplements. These are how I solve problems. You solve problems by removing things. And so what I did was um so that was man, again, I forget your question, but uh this is one of those things that yeah, so I I cracked the code on my own health, and I I don't even know what to think about the word fitness anymore because of how other people view what being fit means. Um, and even uh for on New Year's Day, I posted a video on my personal YouTube, which was you know, who's defining your fitness? Because, you know, Greg Glassman came along and he defined fitness for everybody at one point, and everyone jumped, it was a great definition. Yeah, and you know, it's better than what most people were were doing for sure, 100%. That's what got me. Um but it but then it's like people forgot what that initial definition was and then started following the CrossFit games, and it's like which is not in line with the initial philosophy of CrossFit. They do not spend as much time on balance and coordination as they do on power and strength, right? You know, the it is a very lopsided game that's being played, and so uh you have you have I don't know hundreds of thousands, if not millions of people now training for the games in which they'll never compete. Um and then and then really, in my opinion, you know, fucking shit up a lot in the process. But you know, I don't know, maybe it's good people's people will get to their apocalypse sooner. But uh the for me, I'm in the best shape of my life. I crack the code in that I don't always go for working harder to solve the problem of not being in the shape I want to be in. Um and I I'm really happy with my body the way it is, no matter what. And it really has opened the door to me playing more, which is giving me more access and physical freedom.

Awesome. Yeah, you know, just reflecting on some of the words you say too, is you know, my wife and I um, you know, we kind of picked up and pulled the ejector seat, you know, about eight, nine months ago. So we've lowered our monthly expenses by literally 75%, you know, um, as opposed to living in Santa Barbara. And it's allowed us just this incredible amount of freedom, you know, and it's it sounds crazy to a lot of people like, wait, you live in Santa Barbara, you had you know you own a home, you had a gym, you had all these things. I was like, yeah, but at the core, it just wasn't it just didn't feel right. You know, I had to go see more. I go, I had to go essentially on like a you know walkabout um through the Western United States and just kind of figure stuff out. Well, I start a podcast while I start a new business and do all these things. Um so I I think it's the biggest and most obvious thing that people overlook is like you can have a semi-retirement or or work easier or do more of the things that you love, but you just have to be willing right now at this point in time to have less in other areas. You know, it can be done right now. It's not like you have to get to that point in in um a certain amount of income or your business has to hit this stage. You can do it right now, but it's just a matter of choices, and some choices are harder than others, but it really just comes down to to that that simplicity of like, what are you willing to have in order to have this? Or what are you willing to get rid of to have that? And uh yeah.

People want to wait till a later time to be happy. Yeah, it's not it's crazy. That's that's that's all that's all retirement is. We have an entire we have an entire culture that revolves around the idea that one day you get to retire. You know how many people I have so many friends that are in the military or so many friends that are in a corporate gig where they're like, well, I get to retire in X amount of years. I'm like, so what's happening right now? Like, there's no guarantees that you're gonna make it to retirement. And and the retirement usually like sucks. Like now I'm gonna go see the world and do all the stuff I really want to do when I'm old. Um you know, or you know, retirement pay is never as good as they say it's gonna be. Like, I don't know how many people I've heard from that have retired. Go talk to somebody who's retired and ask them about the money that they're actually that they have. Like whatever company is giving them money, or the government, or whoever's giving you money, it's not that much money. Um, and so I think that you know, we're putting things off till later, or you know, when I make this amount of money, when I when I get my business to this place, then I'll do X, Y, and Z. It's like, no, you have to do it now. Yeah, and if you can't do it now, then like someone asked me yesterday, they said, what's your definition of of wealth? And my definit my definition of wealth right now is um not being in a place with myself where I value myself so much that I'll I won't let anything get in the way of my health and happiness.

Nice.

That's it. It's like yeah, it's simple. I can't I I can't be bot. You know, there's no um, I I believe myself to be so valuable that there's not enough money in the world for me to sacrifice my happiness and health.

Yeah.

Yeah, it's interesting. I I've been working on my own definition of success, which is like success in life. Like, what does that mean? Like, what am I striving for? And once I I've got a couple of definitions on paper, but it's obviously something that's gonna just keep evolving over time. Um, but it's amazing if you really like the clarity that provides in your life. You're like, okay, what am I, what am I really, what's what's the goal and how soon do I want to get to it? And and could I be could I have success right now if I defined it correctly? And then I was being honest to myself, and that's what it was. And uh anyway, so that was my own mind trip that I go through every once in a while on my uh on my solo hikes. But um Mike, I'm I'm curious where one thing I want to cover is uh Yeah, please.

Like sometimes I I think I can sound like I'm CrossFit bashing at times. I actually think CrossFit is amazing. Yeah. Um it just I think and and I think op like if someone comes from an OPEX background, they have they're a little more thoughtful on all that kind of stuff than than the average person um or the average trainer. But yeah, I I think that I think most trainers could could focus a little more on the actual principles of CrossFit and a little less on Hey Fitness fans, don't leave yet.

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