Weird and Strong

Jeremy Gruensteiner [00:00:02]: Welcome, everybody, back to the weird and strong podcast. I'm your host, Jeremy Grunsteiner. Today I've got Josh Gibson and Max Ada on the podcast, so we've got a twofer. Not usually our format. We usually talk one on one, and I love being able to have multiple voices in the room at the same time. So I'm excited about this. Josh, how you doing, man? Joshua Gibson [00:00:22]: I'm doing very well. It's. It's quite different to be on the other side of the mic. Um, literally, it's the same side, but, you know, this time being interviewed instead of doing the interviewing. So, um, I'm looking forward to the conversation. Jeremy Gruensteiner [00:00:35]: Yeah. Very cool and welcoming back. Max, how are you doing today? Max Aita [00:00:38]: Hey, I'm well. I'm doing really well. Um, you know, just, uh, just living the dream. One day closer to death, 1ft in the coffin. You know, that always reminds me kind of stuff. Jeremy Gruensteiner [00:00:51]: It always reminds me of, uh, uh, my favorite birthday song of. Are you guys, if you guys are familiar with Aurelio Voltaire, he's kind of a gothy, rocky alternative guy. He's got a birthday song or his happy birthday, my old friend. It seems this horror show will never end. Something about something. You're closer to your last breath. And here's to one day closer to death. Max Aita [00:01:16]: Wow. Jeremy Gruensteiner [00:01:17]: Sounds dark. Max Aita [00:01:19]: It really just resonates with me. I feel that. I feel that on a regular basis. Jeremy Gruensteiner [00:01:24]: We have to make sure to send that one to max on his birthday whenever that comes up. Max Aita [00:01:28]: Yeah. Jeremy Gruensteiner [00:01:29]: As we start, every guest or two guests on this podcast, I've got a weird question for you guys. Are you ready? Joshua Gibson [00:01:35]: I'm ready. Jeremy Gruensteiner [00:01:36]: Awesome. Josh, I'm going to start with you. Imagine yourself in a universe where pro wrestling and weightlifting have been combined and merged. You're set to compete, and you have to set yourself a walkout song. What walkout song are you picking for your weightlifting competition? Joshua Gibson [00:01:59]: That's a fantastic question. I love that we're developing alternate, you know, universes in which we operate. This one happens to clash or bring together weightlifting and wrestling. And for my walkout song, you know what? I'm going to make it as predictable as possible, and I'm going to say enter the sandman by Metallica. Jeremy Gruensteiner [00:02:24]: Entrez, Sandman. Funny enough. So I just recently retired from my gigging life as a musician, and that was the last song. Last song we played. Joshua Gibson [00:02:36]: Wow. Max Aita [00:02:37]: Yeah. Joshua Gibson [00:02:38]: What a coincidence. Jeremy Gruensteiner [00:02:39]: Yeah. Max, how about you? What is your. I know it's been a while since you've even. Since you've been on the competition platform, what song is going to bring you back out? Max Aita [00:02:50]: You know, what even is music? Let's break that down. Let's get down to the actual, the sound waves hitting our eardrums and really think about this. I have no idea. People ask me, well, someone asked me last night, what's your favorite song? And I just don't, I don't have, like, a favorite song. I mean, there's a lot of songs I'll listen to that I like, but I never thought of, like, oh, this is my favorite, or I know what a walkout song would be. Probably it either be, it always be something humorous to me. So, you know, it would probably be, probably be some kind of, I don't know, you know, some super, super bad poppy song from the eighties or like, maybe like a Cindy Lauper, like, you know, true colors or something. Just to be, just to be weird and confusing. Jeremy Gruensteiner [00:03:45]: Give people, like, a questioning of who's actually about to come out right. Max Aita [00:03:50]: Well, versus, like, the predictable, you know, Metallica song. It's like everyone's, everyone's going to hear that and they're just going to be tuned out by the time, by the time the chorus comes around. You want someone engaged, you want them really fired up. You want people to hate you. You know, I can't control whether people are going to love me when I walk out, but I can definitely get them to hate me. Jeremy Gruensteiner [00:04:10]: Well, it was like I just saw, it was in retrospective of somebody like the macho man who came out to pomp and circumstance where you're like, this is supposed to be like, this is a guy who's wearing a neon cowboy hat and shades and he comes out to this regal tune. It really makes people go, what is actually happening? Max Aita [00:04:30]: Right? And you almost wonder how much of those pro wrestlers, as anything progresses and gets more refined, you get more and more of like the, you know, I'm sure the current batch of pro wrestlers have, like, you know, come up and groom themselves through it and like, they are 100% through and through within the culture. But the old days, it was like, you know, the pro wrestler wasn't a profession. You became something like that. It's like, if you ever listen to, like, a Hulk Hogan's story, it's like he was like a guy who was, you know, doing all his weird shit and, you know, somehow ended up in it. So, like, how much of those guys were just like, it was just a inside joke for them to be everything the way they were, you know? Joshua Gibson [00:05:16]: Well, yeah, yeah. And juxtaposing this to the UFC, you have like, UFC one and it's like a sumo wrestler versus, like, a Brazilian jiu jitsu grappler. And it's like the most nonsensical that, like, what is happening? That's kind of what wrestling was like back in the day with, like, Mick Foley and. Max Aita [00:05:32]: Right. Joshua Gibson [00:05:32]: All these guys where it's just like, pieced together, you know, ragtag rugged. You're, you're throwing people off of like, you know, the top of a cage, onto tacks, on the, on the rink, on the ring, and now it's like, yeah, super groomed, super, like, cosmetic and aesthetic and theatrical. Yeah. Changes a lot. Jeremy Gruensteiner [00:05:53]: Yeah, yeah. Whereas you look back, it's like, how much of that were they just making up on the fly? Oh, yeah, most of it, yeah. Or they're like, we're going to figure something out and we're going to make it happen. Max Aita [00:06:02]: Yeah. You know, just like you, you and your buddy just, you know, stripped down to your skivvies, oiled up, grabbing each other's thick, hard, veiny muscles and, you know, just getting next to each other. A couple of bros rubbing nips. You know, maybe the lips touch, maybe it's, you know, maybe it's only 1020 seconds at most, but they did touch. Jeremy Gruensteiner [00:06:23]: And you gotta make sure some people, you gotta make sure a whole crowd of other guys is, oh, yeah, lots. Max Aita [00:06:29]: Of men watching us struggle with each other's bodies. Joshua Gibson [00:06:35]: I'm glad this is titled the Weird and Strong podcast because I think Max definitely provides the weird. I'm not sure if he any longer provides the strong, but definitely not one of those criteria. Jeremy Gruensteiner [00:06:45]: Yeah, yeah, I think it's. And I appreciate that because it, I mean, it's making me laugh. So, I mean, that's, you know, in my, in my book, that's one of the things that I, I value a lot and value the most. Uh, thinking about into weightlifting, because, you know, ultimately, if you describe weightlifting a bit wrong, you know, we strap on a bunch of spandex, wear some high heels and lift some heavy weights over, over our head with our bros, uh, thinking to, um, the lifters in the world, um, since you both have gone through and had careers as weightlifters and competed, what are some of the things that. Or if you were to start over today or start over from scratch, let's say you're learning as a beginner again, knowing some of the things that you do know, what are the areas that you would focus on now as a beginner versus perhaps where you started from? Joshua Gibson [00:07:41]: Yeah. I mean, my mind instantly jumps to, I would find someone who can help me develop a process for figuring out what works and what doesn't. And I think there are a 1001 ways to make someone better. I mean, we see that through the wide variety of weightlifting coaches and the wide variety of methodologies they use. It's all weightlifting, but the iterations can be pretty stark. And people are still getting better, right? People are still setting. You know, we had Hampton Morris at a world record, and I don't think anyone else trains like him. Like, no one trains equivalent to him. Joshua Gibson [00:08:15]: I would say very few people train equivalent to Olivia Reeves. You go to a local meet and you're going to see a larger diversity of how people train, too. But the thing that really matters to me is, do you have a process by which you can track changes and performance and technique and really how people are taking to the training, and then you can make modifications that make sense. So when I started, I did 1001 different programs and I look back and I think, wow, that one really worked. What worked about it? And it's like, well, did it work because of the program or the time point or, like my stage and my lifting? And that's hard to single in on if you don't have a process that's a bit more strategic, a bit more well thought out, and a bit more, well, um, kind of like understood and documented. So you need good, good record keeping and I think kind of from start to finish, I wish I would have had that laid out so I could look back at trends and pick up on them. And with athletes I coach, that's kind of the big thing is, you know, what, what works, what doesn't, what can we change and then how do we know if the change is happening? Fact. Um, so I would say for people starting out for beginners, intermediates, like, find a process that you can adhere to over a longer period of time, and that's just going to give you good information for future training and then also for understanding what good coaching is. Joshua Gibson [00:09:37]: Also like, totally. Jeremy Gruensteiner [00:09:39]: And so, in looking at that, when you're talking about a process, is that primarily in as far as, like the, like, programming, like methodology, or are you looking more at like a, like a. A lower level or more basic approach to this? Of have some way to, like, use a document through like a training journal or something like that so that you have some sort of, some sort of data to work from. Joshua Gibson [00:10:06]: I'd say it can be top down or it can be bottom up. And I think kind of the idea of, like, something is better than nothing. If you just document your training in a journal, you can look back on it. It might be a little tedious. Jeremy Gruensteiner [00:10:18]: Mm hmm. Joshua Gibson [00:10:19]: But if you get coaching or you write a program in some sort of data management, like, place where you can manage the data or look at the data, I think it just makes it simple. It makes it simple. You can visualize it, and then you can reflect back on it and, like, click between sheets, click between weeks. Click. Click between, like, training blocks and say, like, wow, we got great results. What did training kind of look like? And then we can pick up on patterns and trends and try and map out what could that look like in the future? And I think so many people get into it, and they don't either don't track their training, don't understand their training, or don't have a process by which training evolves over time. And they're just kind of always looking at different things. Comparing apples to russet potatoes, it's not even apples to oranges. Joshua Gibson [00:11:07]: Right. It's like fruits to vegetables to, you know, to legumes to other things. So I think just having something that's comparable and trackable over time is, like, is tremendous. And that's when my coaching took off. So, as an athlete, your results would be even better. I mean, I just had someone who jerked, uh, he jerked 160 for the first time, and that was, like, a massive lift. And we just kind of had a process for getting there, and we're going to use that same process the next time we jerk 170 or when we do jerk 170. Um, so I think that is incredibly helpful. Jeremy Gruensteiner [00:11:38]: Cool. Uh, Max, for you, um, looking back, you know, similar question. What were the things that you, when you got started lifting that you perhaps looking back, say, and maybe that wasn't super helpful, or you got distracted by certain, certain paths. What were those like for you as you started to develop your lifting? Max Aita [00:12:02]: This is a tough question to answer, because, like, when I think back on everything I did, if I did it differently, I might have ended up in a different place today. You know, I may not have become a coach. I may not have done these other things. So, you know, the obvious answer, kind of, to echo what Josh said, is, I would, you know, I didn't. I think I put myself into two camps, or I think people do this, or they have two different types of mentalities. One is which you take a call it a thoughtful approach, a methodical tracking, you know, writing programs, tracking what you're doing, recording, you know, adhering to a principled approach. And then the other is living in the cloud of hopefulness, which is like, I kind of wing it. I go heavy or I go light, and it's easy. Max Aita [00:13:02]: You guys just think it's easy or you think it's too hard or you're, you know. And I think the problem is that there's a belief that those two things can't coexist, that you can't have a training. A training approach that is both intuitive, in which you strike while the iron's hot and you max out a little bit more often, or when you feel good, you go up or you go, quote unquote, off program and having a methodical training process and program where there's sets and reps listed and you have a plan and you execute and, you know, like, those two things can very much coexist. It's just a matter of one, like Josh said, like, being able to actually record and track what you're doing. You know, keeping. Keeping good records of anything you're doing at this complex level is just key. So I would have. I would have done that more and tried to be. Max Aita [00:13:57]: You try to reconcile those two sort of beliefs that those two things are extreme ends of the spectrum, that you can't, you know, you can't do the bulgarian system and, you know, record your training and look at it and see if there's a trend, because God forbid you'd find out that it's stupid, you know, so it's like, I would have. I would have tried to be more in a place that, like, have a plan, but it's okay to. It's definitely okay to, like, push and to push yourself and to drive outside the envelope and, like, try to. Try to move the needle when you can. I think that's just sort of this. Like, it exists in this sphere now of that's how things have to be. It's like you're either one or the other. You're either a nerd or you're, you know, you're just like, it's not hard, dude. Max Aita [00:14:50]: Just do it. Jeremy Gruensteiner [00:14:51]: Just camp. Max Aita [00:14:52]: Yeah. Jeremy Gruensteiner [00:14:53]: Yeah. We talked a bit about that on the last episode. In looking at that, of, like, having some sort of a process, especially for people who are getting started as lifters or who are very new in their. In learning lifts or in learning how to compete, what are the types of things that you've encountered in working with athletes that have prevented them from finding that process in the past? Max Aita [00:15:22]: I mean, the. For me, the biggest thing is that they just are not. They're not organized in normal stuff. Like, you know, it's funny when you think about dieting. I think dieting is the best example, the best analogy here. It's so easy to not be, to not lose weight. It's so easy. You just, you just eat a little bit too much and you won't lose any weight. Max Aita [00:15:48]: In fact, it's one of the miracles of modern society in that we can largely stave off starvation pretty well. So when you think about dieting, it's like you have to do two things. You have to know exactly how much you've eaten because it's just a purely, like, you know, it's a purely energy in versus energy out kind of thing. Do you know how much you ate then? You know how much, you know approximately what you're going to burn every day. And you can look at a scale and there you go. You can see if it goes up or down, make an adjustment. Some people can't do that. Some people just can't even do that basic thing of like write down everything I eat during the day and count the calories, count the macros, look at it, and then make an adjustment and then repeat the same thing the next day in process. Max Aita [00:16:39]: That is so simple. That's like such a very basic thing. That is the minimum amount of, of, of effort. And it's really hard for a lot of people. Now, granted, there's a lot of psychological stuff around it and there's, you know, whole slew of things there for sure. But the point being, like, just to develop a methodical process, most people struggle with the actual implementation of really simple things. Like, do you write down all of your training? You know, do you film all your lips? I don't know if you guys remember a guy named Martin Rooney who used to work, I don't know if he still does or used to work for Parisi. Bill Parisi, the speed school. Max Aita [00:17:19]: This is like early two thousands. Early two thousands. He came out to Montana and did a little seminar at the university when I was there. And you have to imagine this is probably like 2002 maybe. And, you know, at the time, like, he was like a, I mean, that was like the cutting edge of, of, you know, sports performance stuff. And I remember asking him, like, what would you do? I was a weightlifter. He didn't really know anything about it. I was like, well, how, you know, do you have any suggestions for me? Like, what would you do? And he's like, yeah, you should film every lift you do and you should look at them. Max Aita [00:17:53]: You should track everything. And, like, it was, like, a basic thing, but it was kind of funny because, like, that was 22 years ago, and now we have the technology for these things, yet it's like, even it hasn't changed. Like, people don't write down their training. They don't log anything. They don't, like, look at the other. It's just, like, weird. So I say it's hard to start a process. The biggest thing is just people's literal ability to sit down and do it is the biggest hurdle. Max Aita [00:18:23]: You know, Jeff. Joshua Gibson [00:18:25]: Yeah. And I think, too, the idea of, like, a good coach, basically, is being able to meet someone where they're at and understand what people need. And I think it's kind of a straw man to say, like, well, you would either be only kind of theory heavy and scientific and analytical, or you would be intuitive. That's untrue. It's like, I coach all the time, and I coach in both realms, and you get someone who I start working with, someone who's an endurance athlete, and it's like, you go and it's like, what are we doing today? It's like, oh, we'll do a progression for the lift. We'll do some strength work, we'll do some hypertrophy work, and it's like, I'll kind of come up with it on the spot. But then you have someone who's, like, a really high level strength athlete, and it's much more detailed. But even then, you're in the session with them, and it's like we're doing doubles instead of triples. Joshua Gibson [00:19:18]: Let's push a little bit. Let's modify this. And a lot of it's because a plan that was laid out a day ago, a week ago, a month ago is a day old. A week old, a month old. And you've updated your understanding of the process since then. And it could be small and be very minute changes, but you've updated your prior probabilities of what's going to work since. So you make adjustments as a session unfolds, because basically you're constantly getting new information. So, to Max's point, I kind of reiterate that coaching is a process. Joshua Gibson [00:19:50]: It's a process of, like, capturing data, but it's a process of using new data to inform decision making. And then, um, kind of to your point, I remember Glenn, Glenn Pinley would always say, like, you should log your training, track your training, be methodical about changes. And I think, you know, his perspective was slightly different, but it was that same idea. It's like, if we do, if we change things slowly and, uh, on a smaller scale, we can better understand exactly what's having an effective. That kind of ignores the complexity of existence. But I think it makes sense, and it made sense to him as a coach having his own process. So I think, to Max's point, people struggle largely because it's just something new in general. It's like work you have to do. Joshua Gibson [00:20:38]: It's a behavior you have to decide to do and to make. And that's tough. And it's also tough because it's not just like, train, and then you'll get the results you want. It's like, there's a lot more to it than that. There's training in being thoughtful about your training, making good decisions. It's a much more complete and complex process than just showing up and lifting some weights overhead. And if it were that simple, I mean, it was that simple at one time, but there was just a gross amount of drugs being used. I'm thinking back to the fifties and sixties in the USA now. Joshua Gibson [00:21:15]: It's like, okay, how can we train effectively, train hard, manage fatigue, and do that to reach as close to the top of your abilities as we can, and it's got to be more strategic, more thoughtful on both ends, where it's an involved process. And I think that takes growth and learning from the athlete to be responsible for that and then to be able to execute on it. Jeremy Gruensteiner [00:21:41]: Absolutely. And like, when you talked about that, you know, this, this sense of, if I just train and I do the, do the weights that's listed on my program, I should get this result. We, we tend to think very linearly, especially as in the beginner realm, that that's, that's how this works. If I do work, I get result. And especially with the, you know, the extra amounts or, like, the bigger amounts of online programs out there that are really static programs that you buy online, find online for free, whatever that looks like to be able to follow. To your point, Josh, where you talked about, I think I tried a thousand different programs my first year or whatever. It can get very easy to be stuck into that mindset and quit very early, especially if you don't have, if you haven't gone and found yourself a coach to help help you find that ability to make those adjustments or help you discover what that's like. Joshua Gibson [00:22:41]: Um, yeah, could I jump in real quick? Jeremy Gruensteiner [00:22:43]: Yeah, absolutely. Joshua Gibson [00:22:44]: No, that's a great, that's a great point. And I think. I think what's the easiest trap to fall into is you have a proximal, like a proximal effect. And then you use that as, like, an identifying feature. Right. It's like, I didn't get results, therefore I'm not going to get results anymore, or therefore I'm not going to improve, or therefore I'm weak, therefore I'm bad at this. It's like this proximal effect of the program didn't work. Yeah, I've written a lot of programs that fucking suck. Joshua Gibson [00:23:15]: Like, what do you want me to say? It's very true. Like, what do you want me to say? But I've also written programs that have gotten, like, massive prs and, you know, a slew of lifts, and it's taken a lot of time and a lot of work on both ends, but not at one point did I say, you've reached your limit. That's your potential. Like, you're not going to make a PR, but people will tell you that they'll run a program. I didn't make a result. I haven't pr ed in a year. I'm just not going to be able to squat more weight. That's my life now. Joshua Gibson [00:23:43]: Like, I'm confined to this destiny of being a weak sack of, you know, flesh that just roams the earth. It's like, that's not true. That's not true. And then they hit a PR four weeks later, and it's like, you, just, as a coach, you think, this is how I think there's a perfect program. How do I get to that as an athlete? I did the perfect program. I didn't get results. Those are two different, you know, perspectives, and I think a good coach just keeps people on the line or on the hook, so to speak, long enough so they, they can get the results they're working for. And it's realizing that, like, training isn't linear, but it's also additive. Joshua Gibson [00:24:23]: And that, like, if you can do training, that'll build muscle, that'll pay off eventually. I don't know when, but, you know, it's not like we didn't get results, therefore, we're not good or we're not going to be good, and that's it. That's the end of the road. We're done. Jeremy Gruensteiner [00:24:36]: Yeah. You create this identity around your last result. Joshua Gibson [00:24:39]: Yeah, that's right. Jeremy Gruensteiner [00:24:41]: Yeah. I talk about this with some of my lifters, uh, very often. Is that, well, it's your decision if you want to quit right now or not and make that failure your defining feature. Or you could show up again and give it another whack. Like, um, good friend of mine, we talk about very often that the. The point of the sport is failure, because that's how you know, that's how you know where your capacity is, or that's where you know where your abilities are. And so finding that failure point isn't necessarily a defining feature for us, but it is a. A way for us to figure out how to move forward. Joshua Gibson [00:25:12]: It's data. Right. You're. I mean, as coaches, you're agnostic to it. You're saying that didn't work? That did work. I really don't care why. I mean, I. I have no emotional attachment to the outcome. Joshua Gibson [00:25:23]: I want to know why so I can change the outcome. But, like, you miss a snatch. Like, there's a. There's a great quote from Glenn I actually pulled recently, but it's like, what's the worst thing that can happen if you miss a lift? You drop the barbell in, like, a nuanced caveat. Whatever. But, like, you drop the bar, you pick it up, you try again. That's. I mean, that's the worst outcome. Joshua Gibson [00:25:44]: That's the typical outcome. Um, and it's just good information of, like, oh, but you tend to lift like this when it's too heavy, when it's heavier. You tend to do this when you're really, really fatigued. This is how it expresses itself. So we can use those, like, edges of ability to then help the coaching process. Jeremy Gruensteiner [00:26:03]: Absolutely. Max, any thoughts on. Max Aita [00:26:07]: Yeah, I was going to say I disagree with everything Josh said, mostly because Josh said it. No, I would agree 100%. I think it's one of those things that, when you really think about it, it's like in any of these sports, we have certain outcomes, we have desired outcomes. We also have some inputs to that. So we don't necessarily need to watch, we don't need to care about, we don't need to be emotional about the mechanisms and what's happening between input and output. We need to have predictability in that. Hey, when I increase training volume, this lifter builds, you know, gets bigger, or when I increase intensity, this guy gets stronger. And then you have all these. Max Aita [00:27:08]: These kind of objectives you're trying to satisfy. Some of them are, you know, are duality in that they have. There's like, you know, one objective is lifting the most weight possible, and the other side of that coin is not getting hurt. And so you're always just making trade offs in decision making with training. The essence of it just comes down to, how am I best organizing my decision making? And the trade offs I choose to make to satisfy the goal, which is the same for every athlete of, of the person I'm working with, which is lifting more weight. And so you go through and you develop your whole system and methodology just around these trade offs. A great example of this, or the two examples would be like the Russians or the Bulgarians or the, let's say the Americans of the nineties versus the Bulgarians of the nineties. Everyone's presented with the same things in front of them. Max Aita [00:28:12]: Choices, right? Barbells, exercises, sets and reps and all these things. And everybody makes choices that are trade offs one side for the other to try to achieve the biggest result they can. Some of those systems go to extremes, giving eleven year old kids steroids. And some of those systems, don't they compete clean or something? But largely that's all training is as coaches. We're just trying to figure out what the trade offs are first and that's like the most fundamental level. What are the trade offs? Go heavy. More. Go heavy really often. Max Aita [00:28:52]: Okay, well, the risk of getting hurt goes up or fatigue is going to get higher and you might not perform as well. And yeah, it's like just understanding that is the first level. But then after that it's like your quote unquote coaching system and style is just emergent from the trade offs. You make. You just choose different things and like, oh, Josh's style of training and coaching is different than mine. We all have the same choices to make. He just makes, you know, he kind of weights certain things more aggressive or, you know, more aggressively for his own preference. So I, I think that's kind of this like this real fundamental layer of all this that, you know, coaches, new coaches, a lot of coaches just don't think in that they don't see it as, that they see it as like it's a wholly unique and different thing. Max Aita [00:29:39]: Because I think it's different. Right? I do, I do yo yo snatches and this guy does pump snatches. He's a fucking idiot. He has no idea. Those pump snatches, they're just going to, they're going to ruin his QL. And my yo yo snatches, what they do, my yo yo snatches, what they do is they teach the lifter how to be a better person. You know, it's like you're just saying things that you have convinced yourself of your mind that those are true. The reality is that we don't even. Max Aita [00:30:09]: Maybe there's no research on either one of these things. We have no idea what either one of them does, or is. We're just making assumptions. And so you see it as like, this equals that. It's the most common thing. Right. The most common thing in the world is if my squat goes up, my lifts go up. And that's not an untrue statement at face value, but it's like, it's just one of those. Max Aita [00:30:33]: Like, one plus one equals three. See, it's like, that's just. It's just that simple. Guys. Like. And I've just. Jeremy Gruensteiner [00:30:38]: See, I put the numbers. Max Aita [00:30:39]: Yeah, the recipe is there. It makes sense, right? It should work. So, yeah, it's a game of trade offs, and it's a game of understanding that you have. You're balancing a lot of decisions with the desired outcome. And there's other things that, you know, potentially, you just, in doing them, have negative impacts on that outcome. So you're always trying to. The idea of optimization is just trying to make a lot of really good decisions in those trade offs such that you end up with a better result than if you'd have made a lot of bad decisions. Yeah. Joshua Gibson [00:31:16]: And I think. Oh, I was just going to say, I recently recorded a podcast on my podcast, the philosophical weightlifting podcast, which is kind of digging a little more into the philosophy of science. And there are two things to Max's point. There's a fallacy called the post hoc ergo propter hoc, which is, since event y followed event x, Y must have been caused by x. Right? So it's a fallacy that's just illogical. And then a quote on that podcast I recorded was, we were talking a bit about free will, as one does, and he was saying that, like, free will is really determined by the affordances that you have. So, like, the decisions you make are made only in light of the decisions you can make. And as a coach, that's really what you're doing. Joshua Gibson [00:32:02]: It's like, what information do I have available? I mean, it's everything. It's athletes, it's equipment, it's location, it's everything. And you're saying, what decisions can I make that constructs my coaching system? I think the best coaches are generally going to have the access to most of the information, right? Most of the information, most of the affordances. That way you can start to decide and say, like, I think this makes sense in the context of a complex environment, which is this athlete in their career, and you have some waiting on each thing. As Max said, we have different program styles. They're converging a bit because, you know that just makes sense to me, but it's like you wait different things. So if you think putting on muscle is important, you're going to do higher volumes more often. If you think more bodybuilding work is important, you're going to put that in at the expense of something else, at the expense of training time. Joshua Gibson [00:32:57]: If you think technique is more important, you might put in more technical variations and, you know, and not do quite as many classic lifts. Um, so it's realizing, like, we all have our rationales, they're all developed on the back of all of the theory, all of the practice, and the integration of all that. So, and then the program's the expression and even that. I told Max, um, I don't remember when we were talking about this, but in reality, the best coaches can execute even if they have different amounts of information or access to different information. It's like your ability to execute on it. And, uh, Ryan Dorris, he was on the podcast, too. He's like a philosophical guy, and, um, he was talking about bodybuilding, and he's like, I know all this bodybuilding theory, and I, I still don't train like, I know I should train based on what I know. Why is that? And it's like, for some reason, there's just a disconnect between the theory, what you know, and your ability to apply it to practice. Joshua Gibson [00:33:55]: And I think as long as you're, you're moving toward better, I mean, you're doing the best you can. I, you never quite get to where it's like, this is a perfect, perfectly written, based on everything program, but it's like, oh, I'm tapering and peaking better, I'm managing volume better, I'm adhering to these basic principles better. Um, so it's, it's easy to be a bad coach, and it's really, really hard to be a good coach. Um, but I think, like, knowing more, trying harder, and just repeatedly, you know, doing that over and over and over, will get you closer there. Jeremy Gruensteiner [00:34:32]: Yeah, it's really cool. Uh, the, the one thing that both of you like this, uh, gave me the idea or reminded me of is this concept that I've been considering often lately is we, as humans, lifters, coaches, all of the above. Any other permutation in there is that we have this desire to go towards this optimization, especially now in modern lifestyles. And I look back at some early programs recently that I wrote and looking at, well, how can I optimize to get as many qualities at the same time? I was like, you make that mistake where you're trying to have everything, and the reality is exactly what you guys are talking about. There's these trade offs that you have to make to be able to get the specific qualities that you're looking for or get the intended result. It's like, well, we want to be able to have them look like a bodybuilder and snatch a world record and also have a six minute mile or a four minute mile. The reality is that we're trying to confuse too many things and we're trying to create this optimal human that doesn't exist or this optimal idea, this, this idealistic version of what we think we need versus what's actually reality. Joshua Gibson [00:35:44]: And James Hoffman calls that the blender effect, which is when you're trying to train for everything all at once. You take all the ingredients you have, you throw it into a blender, and then you taste it, and you're like, well, but I had caviar and I had, you know, I don't know what else people like Nutella, like those million. Jeremy Gruensteiner [00:36:04]: Million dollar burgers where they, like, wrap it in gold fully and you're like, does it taste like, does it tell it tastes great? Like, not really. It just kind of tastes like a burger, I guess, with a bunch of stuff added to it and. Yeah, whereas, you know, I look back at, you know, my time in software and whatnot and working with people in that regard where they want to have, you know, the priority is this and this and this and this and this. It was like that idea of, well, the priority is all these things. It's really, the priority is nothing because we're so scattered and we're so distracted from where things are. Joshua Gibson [00:36:40]: Yeah, well, I think that takes, that takes being able to have athletes for a long enough period of time to say, I don't have to, like, hit the panic button and do everything all at once. It's like, oh, you're just coming back from a layoff. Let's do some light training. Let's just do high volumes. Let's do like, you know, really technically focused variations. And, yeah, you're not going to be able to go heavy for a while. And, yeah, you're not going to be able to do x, y and z for a while. It's like, we don't need to do it right now. Joshua Gibson [00:37:05]: I don't want you to. I don't. I don't. And, like, I don't know how strongly backed all of the, like, training residual stuff is, where it's like, max strength holds on for this long. You know, muscle size holds on for this long, but, like, if you can at least conceptualize it like that, you can think, we don't need to be as powerful as possible year round. We need to be that at a certain time point. We need to be peaked with that quality at a certain time point. So we can spend some time on the back end doing technique work capacity, hypertrophy, strength, rate of force stuff, and you can see that logical sequence, and it actually makes sense. Joshua Gibson [00:37:39]: Instead of saying like, oh, I'm going to write the perfect program that does everything, as you mentioned. And it's like, by doing everything, you can't allocate enough space and time to any one thing to make a meaningful difference. So, yeah, you're right, you're kind of doing nothing. So it's like, by subtraction you get an improved effect or a better effect. Jeremy Gruensteiner [00:37:57]: Yeah, go ahead. Max Aita [00:37:59]: No, no, no. I was going to say to kind of go back to the original question of, like, what would you do differently, I think, and what Josh just said, which is like, you know, we'll have times of higher volume or lower volume, and maybe you're not going to be at the same place all the time. I think the two things I want to say is, one, I think that largely, people get to a place where they achieve some level of success, and then preservation of that success becomes their objective, which is to say, oh, I got to this numbers where I'm doing 110, 130, and if I back off on pushing, if I don't, if I don't snatch 105 every week, I'm not going to feel okay to do 112, right? And coaches get there, too, which is like, if I don't keep my athlete happy or if I don't do this. So you end up at this place where you're kind of largely just one. There's one note being played the entire training year, and you see this all the time. Athletes achieve a certain level, and then they just kind of stay there. And now at the highest level, that would be expected, right. If you're snatching 165 and Clintrick and 200 as a 73, like, I mean, you're the best in the world. Max Aita [00:39:20]: But, like, just maintaining that is enough to be a very, very good weightlifter with a long career, you know, winning. But, like, you know, on the way up, the disruption of ups and downs and modification of training and trying to push the boundary and moving up weight classes. Like, there has to be a. There not has to. It is obvious when I look for, you know, you look at the progression of a top level lifter. It is. Chaotic is the wrong word, but it is, it's. There's a lot of variations happen. Max Aita [00:39:57]: A lot of stuff going on. You know, athletes moving up a weight class, going up and down, getting way stronger, getting bigger, doing things that are moving them outside of that homeostasis to drive them forward. Right. And so that's kind of like, I think that's kind of a good, or an obvious thing. Like the barometer of like, how, how much is somebody just sort of trapped in this holding on to pattern of like, oh, man, I got to just keep them where they're at because if they go, if we do anything different, their numbers are going to go down. And if your numbers go down, that's the worst thing in the world. Now, granted, just doing a bunch of training that makes your numbers go down isn't the goal here. But, yeah, I think there's a lot to be said for people get to a certain point where they've achieved a certain level and they want it to be like, they want it to be a permanent thing. Max Aita [00:40:52]: And the reality is with performance and with sport, it's just not permanent. It's very transitive. It's transitory. It's like, it's very much, you have it for a minute and then it's gone. You know, you have some strength. You peak, you drive the results up and then they, they dissipate. Anytime you see something that doesn't follow the sort of natural laws of the universe, which is that, like, what goes up must come down. You know, I think that was Professor Bugs Bunny that said that. Max Aita [00:41:21]: But it's like, it's like, you know, you have to understand that. And when you become okay with that and you, when you become okay with that because you have confidence in your tools, you have no fear of that situation. You have no fear of like, oh, we're going to go up and down. We're going to get in shape, be out of shape. We're going to push for things because I know that if we follow these principles in training and do good training, we're going to come back up and we're going to be above those levels. When you don't have a good sense of your abilities as a coach or as an athlete and you don't feel you can go from a state of being in shape to out of shape to in shape or work on different qualities, you're going to be trapped in this place where you just try to hold on. And that's when everything gets stagnant. Because you're just, you're clutching those numbers, those lifetime intermediate numbers as hard as you can so that they don't go away because that perfect 111 snatch 121 clean and jerk. Max Aita [00:42:22]: Like, you can't let go of that. We'll never get to the big numbers, right? Jeremy Gruensteiner [00:42:27]: Mm hmm. Yeah. And it, like, becomes that again, that belief about self when we have those. In looking at this from the development as a coach, in being able to bring some of this forward, you know, in looking at what we have for, like, official coaches education in the weightlifting world, because we don't have the same systems that, you know, other countries have as far as coaches education goes, what are the ways that people can start to learn how to figure out how to apply some of these principles to their athletes? How, like, what is that process, what is that process missing now that could be improved? Joshua Gibson [00:43:10]: Yeah. I mean, I think from the outset, it's realizing it's, it's having. This might be a jocko, you know, quote, but it's like a white belt mentality. I don't know who said that, but it's kind of that idea of, like, I think there were points where I thought, I know as much coaching theory as, like, I need to know. And then he realized, like, well, what's the theory founded on? And then you're like, well, I need to understand science. And then you're like, well, what's the science founded on? It's like, I need to understand the philosophy of science. And then you realize, like, oh, there's a lot of layer. There's, there are a lot of layers to this, and it's not necessary to know all of it or know all of them or understand it at any, like, extreme level to be a good coach. Joshua Gibson [00:43:49]: But it's like that sense of having a good grasp on the complexity of it and then being able to make good decisions off of it. It's like, oh, well, this science says. It's like that. Science doesn't say anything. The research, the results suggest, the available data suggests based on a limited sample, so you can just weight that a little more, effectively alter practices you see sufficient. So I think it takes one, like, this immense curiosity from the people who are trying to know as much as possible and then, um, good communication skills on how to hand that down. You know, Max and I obviously have been in the weightlifting powerlifting, strength sport communication education space for what feels like a long time now. And I think for me, it's always, it's always been not dumbing down anything because I feel like to really sell social, whatever, social media. Joshua Gibson [00:44:45]: It should be simple and it should be like things people want to watch. I'm not saying you don't do that, but I'm saying catering explicitly to that is kind of problematic. And then also feeling like the people who are getting into the space, we don't want to overwhelm them with complex information. We don't want to make them have to work. So those two things paired, I think it just waters down the quality of the information and education that comes out. So for me, it's always been, what am I learning? That's what I'm telling whoever I'm talking to. And it's not simple, it's not straightforward, it's not elementary, it's not a 101 class. It can be mechanistic, it can be complex, it can be thought provoking. Joshua Gibson [00:45:27]: But the idea is that if you hear it enough, you're exposed to it enough, it elevates you, and then you're able to elevate more people off the back of that. Um, so I would say we're attempting to do that through, you know, the, the company coachlogic. Um, we, we specifically have a mentorship group where we have on experts in the field of strength, power and performance science. And then we talk about tapering. As you know, Hayden Pritchard has done almost all of the work on tapering and strength sports, specifically weightlifting and powerlifting and maximal strength. He literally talked about all of it. So it's like, what other access are you going to get to the people who are conducting the work? Chris Tabor talked about a situated, eccentric loading. It's like, oh, power and grace uses weight releasers. Joshua Gibson [00:46:13]: Let me ask one of their staff. It's like, you should probably ask the people who are studying it and understand at that level and then start to implement into practice and say, okay, let's use a process based approach to figure out if it works or not. Um, so I think it's, it's, it's one not watering anything down, providing great information, and then saying, how do we connect you with the people who are developing the information and creating it and then give you the skills to understand it? So that's, that's the approach I think should be taken and that we're, we are taking that currently doesn't exist as well outside of the scope of, like, here are the positions of the lift. Do it like this. Here's a basic, like, you know, you start with a medium amount of volume. You start with, you go to a high amount of volume. You deload. And then you test, you know, beyond that stuff. Jeremy Gruensteiner [00:47:03]: Yeah, yeah. I mean, that's the. The certification processes of. Here's how to teach a lift. Now go do it and fly a little fishy. Good luck. Yeah, yeah, yeah. What's been the most. Jeremy Gruensteiner [00:47:19]: What's been the most as you guys have launched this mentorship process and bringing in the scientific advisors, people teaching what they've learned, what's been the most surprising thing that has come through in including all these people into this mentorship group? Joshua Gibson [00:47:37]: What do you think, Max? Max Aita [00:47:41]: That's a good question, I would say. I mean, for me, what's been, I'll say most surprising, but sort of like, the thing that would stand out most is just that there's one I hadn't spent nearly as much time connected to weightlifting research as I am now, especially Josh has kind of been basically my connection to that. But I had a meeting a couple of weeks back with Chris Tabor and Christoph Kipp, and I was asking questions that were like, hey, so, like, what kind of information do we have on, like, the, you know, the muscular actions that occur at each phase of the lift and what's going on? He's like, we don't have any of that. He's like, he's like, there's like, there's, like, five studies. There's, like, five studies maybe that would have something like that. But what you're asking, like, kind of doesn't really exist in any form that we have. And it kind of made me realize one with a mentorship group, like, we have lots of little pieces of information, little. Like, it's like we have a little tiny flashlight. Max Aita [00:48:57]: We can shine the dark and see a thing, and then we're trying to figure out what the thing we're looking at is, and it's become very much more apparent spending this much time around with, you know, more. Much more academic, you know, grounded people, that there's just a lot of. A lot of, like, the it depends answers, but also, like, just a lot of, like, we don't know. We're not sure. We have some evidence that supports this or there's a lot of evidence that supports this being the case. So we're clear on some things. We're clear enough that we can really develop training and coaching around it and other things we may not be wrong about, but we haven't really corroborated it yet. We haven't really found evidence to say that why it's happening or why it works. Max Aita [00:49:52]: So the mentorship group has given me just from that perspective, like a whole much better handle on, like, yeah, there's, there's really a lot of not definitive answers out there. It doesn't mean we're not right. I mean, we've produced everybody. You know, there's people that win competitions, so something is right, you know, like, we can't deny that. But it's like, definitely like, oh, well, what's, you know, what's, what does the research say about this? Well, there's just not a lot, you know, or there's nothing there. So it's like you have to sort of formulate your own thing and kind of go from there. And I think that's kind of the, for me, the most surprising thing. Or not surprising, but the most, like, you know, interesting part of it. Joshua Gibson [00:50:35]: Yeah, I would say that it's kind of to your point about the flashlight analogy or. Yeah, I would say that there's a book by Carl Sagan called the Demon haunted World, and it's science is a candle in the dark or something along those lines. And that's kind of the point. In all scientific disciplines, it's really a small light in a very, very dark room. And because it's a small light, you don't know how, you don't know the dimensions of the room. So you're kind of just like stumbling around and you find things, but you can't put them into context because you're missing, you're missing more information than you could ever understand. Because we're limited by our senses. Our senses only pick up certain sensory information. Joshua Gibson [00:51:23]: There's a whole conversation that extends off of this about like, the expansiveness of what exists. Um, science gives us a slight insight, and I think this is where our pragmatism comes in. Max and I, we're really performance driven. It's like, are you getting better or you're not? What's the outcome we're looking for? We know certain adaptations can contribute to performance. So changes in muscle size, changes in muscle diameter. Right. Um, that's likely going to increase force production. So its probably a good idea to build some muscle if you want to increase your performance potential. Joshua Gibson [00:51:56]: And its like, okay, well, what are the adaptations for maximal strength? You should probably drive those up. What do they look like in practice? Well, its an increase in a, you know, a high intensity or high load set. Okay, so we got a pr in that were probably stronger, and then its like, okay, whats the technical change, the coordination, adaptation? We use, you know, certain constraints to drive that, and then we sequence that into the full lifts. Oh, we snatched a pr. That program worked more than it didn't, you know, because we made. We made progress, and then it's using that again, that iterative process of getting closer to best. But all these studies, all this information, when you kind of unpack what science is, you realize there are tons of limitations. I mean, I read a. Joshua Gibson [00:52:42]: I read a paper, I think it was a review paper by the lead author was Roberts, Mike Roberts. But it was on sarcoplasmic hypertrophy. And it's like, here are studies that show that it could happen, and this is what it is. Here are studies that show that it didn't happen. Why is that the case? Why don't they all show the same thing? And it's like, oh, because of the methods, the measurements, the subjects. Like, there's so many limitations and so many constraints and so many concessions that it's like, let's get closer to better or best. And to Max's point, people are still making progress and still winning championships and competition. So we're not completely wrong. Joshua Gibson [00:53:24]: So we have to define, you know, coaching expertise differently than if we were just basically on purely, you know, an understanding. And Cote and Gilbert have, they did a paper on coaching effectiveness and expertise, and they have, athlete outcomes is one of those criteria. It's like, how are your athletes performing so you can have all the knowledge in the world and then the application of that, what does it do? And I think what we're trying to do is basically merge those two to where people can get results. People can know how to get results, but can we merge them and get better results? And we're just, hey, we're saying, let's triangulate all the information we have and bring that in. I mean, I'm not against, if you give me a paper, you know, some pain science thing that's on rehab, and it talks about, like, load management and load tolerance and training tolerance. And it's like, we should probably have an intro week or a ramping period into higher volumes. We probably shouldn't just be thrown into it. That makes sense to me. Joshua Gibson [00:54:24]: And then if you can take information from, like, skill acquisition and apply it and from whatever biomechanical space and apply it, and you start to piece together what looks like, you know, performance science, and that's basically what's been done, and that's what we're trying to proliferate and educate people on. Jeremy Gruensteiner [00:54:41]: I really like that in preparing for this and thinking about the questions I wanted to ask and some of the avenues I wanted to go down. That was very much one of the things that was coming forward for me is exactly what you said of being able to take that pragmatic approach and still be able to look at what is it that we currently understand, knowing that that may change over time, our results are still being driven forward, and our ideas or our understanding of why that worked may change. And that's what's really cool about the scientific process. And looking at that from Max, you've got your years of experience and applied sides of this. And, Josh, your side of the academic side of being able to put those two things together in a way that is still coaching athletes and still driving them forward is really neat and really, really cool. Joshua Gibson [00:55:30]: Well, I think we. I think. I think Max and I got. I don't know. We have, like, different backgrounds, but we've kind of converged to where it's, like, highly, you know, analytic. I don't want to say data driven, but it's like. It's. It's informed. Joshua Gibson [00:55:45]: It's very informed. It's as informed as possible. It's like that curiosity piece is almost as important as anything else. It's like, how do we. How do we get people better results? How do we get people stronger, performing better? Like. Like, the entire process, like, enjoying training, doing well, looking good, all of it. And then it's, you know, and then it's coming from the experiential side of having done it and having worked with coaches, and it's not resting on the laurels of. Yeah, but if you do, it's kind of a common, you know, joke now, but it's like, if you do a Texas method, you'll get results. Joshua Gibson [00:56:20]: It's like, maybe you will. Maybe fucking hate training after you do it because it's awful. And, like, I've done, you know, that whole thing and missed a fifth rep and a pr set of five more times than I can count, and I hated it. That's not fun. Um, at the same weight every time. Uh, so I think what we do is you like experience, theory, curiosity, all these things. You put it into a cauldron, you bubble it up, and then you get coach logic, you get kind of the products that come out of it, and you get our coaching. Jeremy Gruensteiner [00:56:52]: That's really cool. Max Aita [00:56:53]: Yeah. I think that, just to reiterate, one point Josh made is curiosity is, like, probably one of the most fundamental cornerstones of being good at anything you do. Because inherently, unless it's something like, something that comes so naturally to you or something that requires no skill, right. You're going to have to try to get better. So as a coach, I can't imagine being a coach and not having a sense of curiosity, how can I get better? How can I do this? How can I do that? And it doesn't necessarily mean that your curiosity is always reading research papers, but if you just believe you figured it out in anything, whatever it is, software development. Right, like you've got to keep pushing yourself outside the box, outside your comfort zone, trying to learn, trying to figure things out more. Like that's just so fundamental to being any kind of successful coach. Joshua Gibson [00:57:58]: Well, if you think about this in the context in which it occurs, which is a pool of coaches, and as that number increases, what you're going to see is that more people are committed to the process and learning more and understanding more, which is what we're seeing. Like, we have people in the mentors, I have a lot of friends in coaching who are like sharp. They're sharp, they want to know more, they're curious, they have like this intense thirst for knowledge, information and applying it and they're, they're crushing it and it's, you realize that like there's a, there's a process of evolution by natural selection and it's like the people who are most fit are going to thrive and the people who aren't, I mean, they're just not going to do well. I mean, and they might, you know, work with a few people and have it as a side hustle, but it's like as the space increases in size, you just have to be better at what you do is you're more well rounded. I mean the people who are in, you know, more popular spaces or bigger spaces, like in medicine, it's like those people have the most freakish cv's and backgrounds and like time just like logging hours in a hospital or wherever and it's like, oh, you have to compete with that because that's the standard now. It's just in coaching, the standards always been floor level. It's like, yeah, do you have a pulse? Well, you're not going to get up off the ground, but maybe you can like, you know, uh, send me a voice note later of like my workout. Um, so I think it's just elevating from that point to, you know, kind of where other professional sports are. Joshua Gibson [00:59:26]: Where we've talked to Aaron Kunanen who works for the Reds, he's the director of applied sports science. They have force plates and pitching mounds. You know, they're looking at every single thing you can look at to say that was a great pitch, it was a home run, it wasn't the pitcher's fault therefore. And they're connecting, you know, they have more data, they're, they're trying to make more sense of it and they're, they're utilizing it differently and I think that's where weightlifting should go if it wants to like become a professional sport, a legitimate sport, but also that's like natural evolution of a sport is to not just kind of be satisfied with like good enough. Jeremy Gruensteiner [01:00:01]: Yeah, wanted to push that next level. A mentor of mine reminds me constantly of ill take curiosity and discipline over inspiration and I forget what the other thing he says. Inspiration and motivation any day. Joshua Gibson [01:00:17]: Yeah, thats great. Jeremy Gruensteiner [01:00:18]: And Im reminded also of something I heard on another podcast in this idea of curiosity and driving yourselves forward, especially as us coaches and being, being curious in that regard is, is to stop thinking like Newton and start thinking more like Darwin. Start thinking about how things became, the way that they became versus what they are, especially for like new coaches. I found myself in that of like, tell me what the answer is so I can learn the answer and I compare it back to my athletes or whatever it is. Tell me how I'm supposed to program instead of like diving into that. How am I supposed to program? How am I supposed to make those decisions? How am I supposed to cultivate what that looks like as a coach. Joshua Gibson [01:01:00]: Yeah, the thing about that is that's hard. That's really hard because the way I've learned and the way Max has learned, I someone's like, I was, you know, showing people how to count cards at a local meet recently and they're like, oh, thanks. Like, I never thought of that. And I'm like, yeah, you know, the first time I had to count, Glenn Pinley was like almost blind and post stroke and I was at the Arnold and he's like, hey, can you come in the back with me? It was like an a session and he just kind of sat in the corner and he was like, here's how you count. And then he just sat there and he was like dead quiet. And I was like, I guess this is like my life now. And I learned, like, I counted and I think I could have made a better decision, but the guy crushed it. And after that, it's like counting it. Joshua Gibson [01:01:43]: A fucking meat is the easiest thing in the world. Like, I don't know why people get super stressed about it. Like, yeah, if you have ten athletes on the same platform, that's hard. But like counting for one person? Are you kidding me? That's the bar. Like, that's real. Max Aita [01:01:56]: The story would have been so much better if they all bombed out. Joshua Gibson [01:02:01]: But that's the thing with this program, is sometimes you get frustrated because it's like there's no stock ready made way of doing anything. It's more so like, hey, here's some force plates, go collect some data. And it's like, what do you mean? It's like, yeah, go figure it out. And thats the process. And thats kind of where you get thrown in with all of this stuff. And I think that doesnt feel great. People want to pay $150 for the solution, but its like you pay $150 for the opportunity to find a solution, not for the solution. And that sucks. Joshua Gibson [01:02:35]: I dont like it either sometimes, but its far more valuable that way than it would be to pay $150 for a pre written program that gets you success. Because then what do you do? You just give that to your athletes and you done. You're done. You retire feet up, you're in Barbados with a, you know, a mai tai on the beach. Like, no, you know, it's a process. And you figure out the fucking process. Max Aita [01:02:56]: Well, you don't want that. Joshua Gibson [01:02:57]: Oh, I mean, that's later, Max. Max Aita [01:03:01]: I was excited. I was like, yeah, that sounds good. No, we don't want. Okay, sign me up. Jeremy Gruensteiner [01:03:06]: Oh, whoops. Yeah. And as you guys. So I'm curious, how did, how did this collaboration of creating this, how did that start? How did that happen? Max Aita [01:03:19]: Josh is. Josh is kind of just a parasite that was hanging on to my ride, my coattails. Jeremy Gruensteiner [01:03:25]: He just started hanging around someday. Max Aita [01:03:27]: Yeah. Josh and I had known each other for a while and we were both, I think, kind of in this space of like, so I see it, like, Josh, Josh's podcast and the number of guests he's had on and everything he's done there is, is second to none. Especially, I mean, in the way of thinking world, by, by orders of magnitude, he has the best podcast out there. From a coaching science perspective, the, the problem with a lot of this, it's not to say there aren't good coaches educating people, but what we saw was more like, there's just not a sort of pipeline of scientific evidence research and like high level academic research being filtered into the wasting world in the way that it is in like the powerlifting world. It's so common to see. I mean, how many powerlifting coaches can you think of that would put the words like evidence based or data driven into their bios? Because it's a prolific concept that is well respected in that community. And you don't see that in weightlifting. You don't see anyone that's not true. Max Aita [01:04:44]: You don't see a lot of people really sitting there talking about research they've seen or pulling data in and saying, we should do this and that. A lot of it is kind of like, it's probably 90% focused on, you know, they know the tips and tricks and cues and this and that and the technical aspects and, you know, they can also just, you know, whatever, stand in a stand in their driveway and tell you about, you know, why, why it's this way or that way, rather than, you know, not so being super nerdy, but being thoughtful and saying, hey, let's turn every stone over looking for solutions to make us more informed, to make us better so that we can do a better job. And I think it probably comes down to, it probably comes down to, I don't know what it is, why it's like that, but it comes down to there not being anything like that. And if it doesnt exist, then we should make it and we should do something that is to say, hey, lets pull these people youve talked to, youve had so many guests on. Lets create a mentorship program that is built around this idea and try to grow it into something where its a very big group that is very much in discussion about these ideas and doing it in a way thats not dogmatic. Were not saying do it our way. Were saying, lets all try and find some common knowledge and, and we can all rely on it and use it. Joshua Gibson [01:06:22]: Yeah. And I think, I think to that point, it just, they're two different perspectives. And I think with, um, the way we're trying to do things is it's forward looking. It's like, if we get more science, if we get more research into the space, we can do more research. If we do more research, we can answer better questions, we can answer better questions, we can create better training. You get more people into the space, you have more funds or resources. So, like, if I get into academia and then I can conduct research, I can answer these questions or better answer them or provide answers. So it's like, how can we create something by which the condition is met to build better coaching? Or you can be in the coaching space and think of like, what do I look back on and rely on? And it's like I read all these russian manuals and whatever and like, I'm up to speed. Joshua Gibson [01:07:11]: I don't need to look at research or science. The reality of it is we're able to talk now because of technology, which is built on the back of curiosity, intellectuals, science, rigorous thinking, testing. So we'll say that, hey, in medicine, I love science, I trust it, I believe in it and all these other pursuits, but in coaching and performance, we don't need that. And that's like a weird thing, right? And I think a lot of it is. It's the intellectual rigor of it. Um, you know, because, you know, science has been there. I think I pulled up something that I found interesting. The first, um, the first kind of like controlled trial, um, like scientific trial was actually in 1747. Joshua Gibson [01:07:59]: It was on a ship where they were trying to cure scurvy. Um, so it's like for hundreds of years we've been using the scientific method to, to say, like, if we do this thing, what's the effect? Is it better than not doing it or something else? Okay, now let's, like, look at that across time with different populations, and then we can get, I don't know, we can get, uh, we can get vaccines, right? That can help render a pandemic kind of like more manageable. And that happened fast because resources were pumped to it and research was done. So science has a place, the scientific method has a place, and it's like, how do we, how do we embed that in coaching, embed that in weightlifting and then take that forward to answering better questions and creating better solutions or finding better solutions for all of the, all the, all the coaching and performance concerns we have, which is how do we get everyone better and how do we get them to be the best they can be? So that's, that's kind of where I think the mindset shift is, has gone to, for us. Jeremy Gruensteiner [01:09:00]: I really like that, especially, you know, being a newer coach myself, of, like, it's oftentimes where you do feel lost in, like, where do I go? And so that you start looking for any solution that anybody's got in the, especially in the social media space of, well, this person's posting a lot of things that make sense on the surface, so I'm going to move this way. You know, many of us as coaches, we're, we're, you know, we're, we're, we're good at the relationship side or we're, we're good at the relating to our athletes because we've either been athletes or we're just, that's a strength of ours. And to your point, Josh, of looking at the, you know, the academic rigor side of it, is, is foreign to many of us who, who may not have studied in that or it's been a while since we have studied something like that. So I do, I do appreciate and I do enjoy like, that this is something that you guys are bringing into the world. So thank you for that. Joshua Gibson [01:09:50]: Thank you. Max Aita [01:09:51]: I think there's, like, to add one more point to the social media thing, too. Like, presenting the illusion of expertise, intelligence, experience. Like, knowledge is easy to do, right? If you speak with a lot of confidence, if you have an Instagram account that puts out lots of tidbits and factoids and, you know, these things, x and the check mark, and, like, this is wrong, and that's right. Jeremy Gruensteiner [01:10:23]: Standing in a grocery aisle and screaming at that, this is going to kill you if you look at it. Max Aita [01:10:29]: What's his name? What's that fucking guy? Doctor Saldino, who's just, like, full of shit. Like that guy. If you just tell people stuff with lots of confidence, it becomes very easy to present a facade. Present day. Hey, this guy must be an expert because he has a lot of followers. They have a lot of followers, and they're just giving all this info out. It's like a squat university thing, right? It's like all of those things are largely just sort of. It's designed to do something. Max Aita [01:11:04]: It is a sales pitch, right? Or it is a lead magnet. It's just trying to pull you in to sell you something later. Not to say that there are not, we don't run businesses that try to sell people something, but the difference is that it's, you know, somebody who is designing the business to sell to make a profit versus having something to offer and then monetizing that by selling it. And so, yeah, it's like a, it's a, like you said, like, young coaches get sucked in. It's like if you're imagining your entire weightlifting knowledge, your entire career knowledge base, the place that you retrieved information from was just a million collections of 32nd Instagram posts. Your whole understanding of this snatch and the clean jerk is, is these and check marks, you know, like, oh, first poll is actually a push. Like, that fucking cares what it is. Like, how do you do it? How do you get someone to do it better? Like, it's just like, a perfect example of, like, that's people's understanding of, like, a foundational. Max Aita [01:12:15]: How do you become a wizarding coach? Oh, you go on YouTube or Instagram and you watch little tidbits, and snatches are this way, jerks are that way. And if you ask someone who had a knowledge base built entirely from the ground up that way question that required them to think fundamentally they couldn't do it because it's just a collection of little pieces, not actually a good understanding of, like, well, what do the muscle, like, what makes, you know, joints move? How do they move? What makes muscles work? What? Yeah. How do you coordinate a bunch of muscles together to create a movement? Like, all these things start to become easy. If you have the fundamentals and the broad base, it's very easy to get to the other place. You can't go the other way, though. Joshua Gibson [01:12:58]: Yeah. It's almost, when I think, too, you have to avoid. This is very tough, and I think my disposition doesn't allow me to do this. You can't say I had success, therefore it was my method. We failed, therefore it was them. And no good coach. I mean, you can do that, and sometimes it makes sense, but, like, realistically, okay, but how could I have curtailed the situation that we would have had success? So I think a lot of that is, like, what's the other jocko thing? Something about responsibility. Unreasonable responsibility. Max Aita [01:13:37]: With great power comes great responsibility. Joshua Gibson [01:13:39]: Exactly. But it's like, it's saying, as a coach. Yeah, as a coach, like, I can do. I can have influence over everything. I can make decisions that impact everything. And when something doesn't work, it's. It's because I didn't make the best decisions. And, like, yeah, there's. Joshua Gibson [01:13:57]: There's a lot of, like, falsity in that, but there's a lot of empowerment and just accepting that lot. Um, and there's. There's another. There's another anecdote, and it was like, someone, when woman was at a cocktail party and she was, like, talking to a psychiatrist or someone and talking about, like, oh, well, you know, um, is this thing. Is this issue I have, like, is this something that I have to deal with, or is this something that I can, like, change? And it's like, well, why do you want to know? It's like, well, if I can change it, then I have some sense of responsibility and some sense of, like, autonomy over it. Um, if it's something I just kind of have to deal with, it removes personal control. And I think, um, people getting into the space, you get all these facts, and then you have success, and it's like, it's all me, and then you have failure and it's all them. And it's like, personal responsibility. Joshua Gibson [01:14:46]: Personal control, like the failures and the successes. And then I think. And that's why when Max and I talk like we had an entire conversation over coach education and kind of the space. We didn't want to say, like, do five sets of three and 70% week one, four sets of 375 percent week two. Test your best triple on week three. Because that just, it's unhelpful. That doesn't really do anything. And I think it creates this false illusion of what coach education is, which isn't prescriptions, you know, it's direction. Jeremy Gruensteiner [01:15:20]: Yeah, you create, if you go down the route of giving people prescriptions or even to the point of the, the series of YouTube and YouTube university clips or Instagram university clips, is that you create this idea of if then else. And so then you're no longer, you're no longer actually asking questions, questions you're looking for. You're grasping for solutions. It reminds me of some of the early ideas of AI that people were putting out, which were just decision trees. And I was like, this isn't an AI. This is a bunch of if then statements that are just looping themselves somewhere and we have no idea which ones are actually effective or not. Max Aita [01:15:58]: Yeah, well, it's like, that's, and that's a great point because it's also understanding the difference between those two things, which is like deterministic and non deterministic because we function in a non deterministic space. Here you give an input to an athlete and you're not sure exactly what the outputs. It's not always the same. And that kind of thinking is so difficult for people to wrap their minds around. To touch on the point Josh made earlier, you know the logic of saying, when it rains, the ground gets wet, and then you walk outside and the ground is wet, you would then be like, oh, it's raining. It must have rained. Well, no, those are not connected. This is not the same. Max Aita [01:16:47]: Like, that logic doesn't work. It's the ground gets wet when it rains. The ground could also just be wet. Like, that's not, you know, it's not always that way. And so it's this thinking, which is the YouTube university. The sort of Instagram stuff is like, how to fix this? And it's like, here's the cue, here's the exercise. And those are good starting points. Sure, it's fine to say, hey, how do I. Max Aita [01:17:14]: My snatch is weak. Overhead. Overhead squats. Like, sure, that's obvious connection. But it's the more broad sense, which is like, how do I get better? How do I become a good lifter? How do I get stronger? And it is not a, it has to be principle based, it has to be rooted in trade offs and a non deterministic system that you would have to understand that doing this is likely to produce that outcome. If it doesn't produce that outcome, maybe something else needs to be addressed. Jeremy Gruensteiner [01:17:48]: Absolutely. Well, gentlemen, we are coming up on the end of our discussion. Final thoughts. Josh, anything that you'd like to share with the audience as a final thought? Joshua Gibson [01:17:59]: Yeah, I would say that a lot of this was built on the back of and kind of to Max's point, it's like, I really found a deep interest in weightlifting specifically, but it was like philosophy and science and, like, having them, having those two worlds merge where it's like hard sciences, foundational information, ways of thinking, because a lot of that stuff actually think back on it. I'm like, oh, it makes more sense now in the context of training than it did then, even though I had access to the same information. And it's also that idea of just because it doesn't matter now doesn't mean it won't matter later. So all the. Put all the work in early on, later on, you can access it, utilize it, inform everything that you do and understand. Um, so I thought it was a great conversation. Jeremy, super appreciative that you had us both on. Um, thank you. Joshua Gibson [01:18:50]: A great time. It was a great time. Jeremy Gruensteiner [01:18:52]: Awesome. Yeah. Thank you very much. Um, in looking at how do, how can people get ahold of either of you? How can they learn more about the coach logic. Coach logic mentorship program? Max Aita [01:19:03]: Yeah, I mean, check it out. You can, you can find us both on Instagram, obviously. Uh, I think Josh will give his, but you can find me Max underscore Ada, Max Ada. You can email me, you can check out the coachlogic mentorship, shoot us a DM, either one of us, on Instagram. And then if you're interested, go ahead and check out anything else we offer as far as coaching and whatnot. And then we'll be relaunching the coach logic coaching platform in June. So beginning of June, right around nationals or at nationals. So, yeah, check that out. Max Aita [01:19:44]: That's going to be an entire coaching platform, basically built off of everything we discussed here as far as giving you the tools to accurately track training, deliver training, and do things that are going to elevate your coaching to the level it should be at. Jeremy Gruensteiner [01:20:01]: Awesome. Very cool. Thank you guys so much. We'll have the details on how you can learn more in the show notes down below. Very appreciative of you both being here, and for those of you listening. Thank you so much for listening and supporting the podcast, as always. Stay strong, folks. And most importantly, stay weird. Joshua Gibson [01:20:19]: Bye.

Jeremy Gruensteiner [00:00:02]: Welcome, everybody, to another episode of the Weird and strong podcast. I'm your host, Jeremy Gruensteiner. With me today, I've got Max Ada. Max, how you doing today, man? Max Aita [00:00:10]: I'm doing pretty well. Yeah. I'm a little early in the morning, but just getting some work done and having a good time. Yeah. Jeremy Gruensteiner [00:00:17]: Sunshiny, California in an early morning. Sounds great. Sounds great. Overall, as we do with everybody on the show, I've got a weird question for you. Are you ready? Max Aita [00:00:28]: Cool. I'm ready. Jeremy Gruensteiner [00:00:30]: Okay. Describe the most awkward photo you've ever taken. Max Aita [00:00:36]: Oh, well, okay. Probably not the most awkward, but one of the greatest photos of me ever taken. That would fall into awkward. But it's one of those photos where it's like, when you see it, it totally is. It's hilarious. But there's a meet. We did a power lifting meet. I did. Max Aita [00:00:59]: I didn't compete, but I had a couple lifters compete, and it was at Mark Bell's gym. This is like, God, it's probably, like 13 years ago, and my lifter won the cash prize, right? And so we took a photo of it, like, us kind of hanging out and standing there just kind of joking around, holding the money or something. And, like, a couple days later or whatever, I'm looking at the photo and I'm wearing these pants, these shorts that just happened to, like, drape in in just the right way that, like, my crotch, like, right from my crotch down to where the pocket must have been something in my pocket. It's like this perfectly shaped, like, you know, member that looks like it's, like, it's, like, over a foot long. It's, like, hilarious. Like, it's this, like, you know, ridiculous. Like, and you look at it and it's like, I actually have the photo on my phone. I always joke around my wife, and I always, like, pull it up. Max Aita [00:02:05]: But, yeah, it's like this hilarious looking. Like, when you see it, you're like, oh, my God. Jeremy Gruensteiner [00:02:09]: What the hell? Max Aita [00:02:11]: That's got to be the most weird photo of me, for sure. Jeremy Gruensteiner [00:02:13]: And you still keep it around? Max Aita [00:02:17]: Oh, yeah, no, I pull it out regularly. I show people on the street, on the subway. I was, you know, hey. Hey, Jason, you might think. Jeremy Gruensteiner [00:02:23]: What do you think? Max Aita [00:02:23]: Yeah, you might think I'm a loser, but look at this. So, yeah, that's gotta be it, for sure. Jeremy Gruensteiner [00:02:30]: That's. That's a great kickoff to the weird and strong podcast having. I mean, it's not the first time we've gone down that route with, especially with other coaches, because let's be honest. We're all basically 13. Um, yeah. Especially. Especially when it comes to the humor aspect of it. Max Aita [00:02:48]: Oh, sure. Jeremy Gruensteiner [00:02:49]: You know, we. We talked a little bit off air of, you know, you growing up in, in Montana, and, like, people who are listening to this are familiar with, uh, the weightlifting community and, uh, familiar with you, you know, have that. That, uh, background of your work with Abhijeev, your work that you've done over. Gosh, what is it? Almost three decades of coaching in the sports, of weightlifting and powerlifting. Max Aita [00:03:11]: Oh, wow. Yeah. Over 20 years, for sure. Jeremy Gruensteiner [00:03:14]: Yeah, yeah, yeah. And so with that, and, you know, you're. You're affiliated with many known brands and your own gym and your own companies. What's one thing that's unconventional about you that people may not know about? Max Aita [00:03:31]: I don't know if. I don't know if there's anything unconventional. That's hard to. It's hard to answer. I think the. The. Probably the one thing. And it's like, also, I don't know what people. Max Aita [00:03:44]: I don't know what people don't know. Yeah. So it's hard to answer that. But I would say, like, you know, probably the thing that I get, the thing that I probably got most a few years back was, like, this, the bulgarian thing that, like, that's, like, the thing I do, and that's the, like, you know, the essence of everything that's driven my. My coaching or whatever. And I would say it's not, you know, it's certainly not the case. Like, I don't. I've never been, like, this huge proponent of it or done this bulgarian style training with lots of people, but I've always been kind of, like, I would say, known for that or for the squatting stuff. Max Aita [00:04:23]: But I would say the thing that's unconventional is that I feel like my approach to trying to solve these problems is, is a bit different where I see, you know, the problem of trying to get somebody better at lifting or try to improve their performance or try to, you know, trying to produce a champion. Like, is, you know, the approach should be really methodical, and the approach should have some kind of, you know, basically objectivity to it that I think doesn't exist a ton in weightlifting now. I think people, like, like to latch on to. They like to latch on to, like, you know, what's the simplest answer for this? Like, what's the quick factoid? If you look at, like, the general nature of the way people do things now, weightlifting, even at the highest level, the, you know, at the world, you see a lot of just, like, I guess they call it, like, sort of shooting from the hip. Like the, like, methodical approach doesn't. Is not pervasive in my mind. Jeremy Gruensteiner [00:05:34]: Okay. Max Aita [00:05:34]: Like, program writing, programming, doing programming, do all that stuff is not pervasive. So I'd say that's sort of my. Where I would say, you know, I fall. And I'm sure a lot of people are like that, too. But that would be the thing is that, you know, it's a little more weird in that way that, like, I would say being more methodical is the sort of element of what I do now. Jeremy Gruensteiner [00:05:53]: Sure. And then in that, you know, for the listeners, uh, do you have an example of that, that of what that looks like from being much more methodical versus perhaps some of the things that you've witnessed at maybe a world's level that do have that shooting from the hip feel sense? Max Aita [00:06:09]: I mean. Yeah. So I'd say a good example is, like, a lot of coaches, a lot of people get into this and they, they start with, like, very beginner coaches start with the most obvious stuff they can touch, which is exercises. So you get in the gym and your whole perception, a lot of coaches that have coached for a long time will understand this sort of evolution. But day one, you know, you're a coach. You're just telling people to like, you're. You're throwing cues out and you're like, hey, do this, do that. Like, stay on your. Max Aita [00:06:43]: Stay on your heels or, you know, push with your arms or whatever, and you sort of feel like queuing is like the key to everything. I just find the right cue or I, you know, what's the cue for this? Like, whatever. Then you kind of move to exercises like, oh, I discovered a new movement and we're going to do this exercise. And that's the thing that fixes everything. And then, you know, you kind of graduate to like, oh, you know, it's all about this kind, kind of program, the sets and reps and these things, and that becomes this sort of evolution of like, you know, as you progress as a coach, you sort of latch onto these things whereas, you know, methodical approach would be, you know, taking a first principles approach to the way you do things. So looking at, like, what are the principles that govern the training process? What are the principles that govern coaching, that govern any of these elements and starting from there and building a system that emerges out of those principles. So an example would be like coaching and queuing some of the principles behind that would be like, make sure that your queuing is informative in a way that it actually improves the athletes performance. Or in training programming, make sure that you prioritize the principles of training in order that they're of their importance. Max Aita [00:08:13]: So specificity, overload, fatigue management, so you don't make decisions based on the little thing you found. So a cue sounds great, and it works for a minute. And so you will see coaches build systems around that. Oh, this is the cue that works, or this is how it should feel. And they build it around that. They build their system around that. Like. Like, a good example is like, the leg strength thing, the squat strength thing. Max Aita [00:08:41]: Oh, well, I squatted a lot and my. My lifts went up. So therefore, the program should be built around making your squat bigger. But that violates some principles of training in that, like, it's not necessarily maximizing specificity. Right. So I say all this kind of roundabout in that, like, the methodological approach is one in which you take the principles of training and you build a system that emerges from those principles versus what most people do, or I see a lot is people formulate systems or formulate programs based around sort of, like, you know, gut feelings or intuition that are not necessarily corroborated by principles or evidence or anything. It's just kind of a throw it in the air and let's do it right. And you see this a lot. Max Aita [00:09:34]: You see this at worlds. You see it all the time. Like, a good example would be like, Carlos Nassar before the. Before the Europeans this year, who watched him warm up in a training hall. And, like, a day or two out, he's doing like a 160 hang snatch triple. And he missed one of the reps. And, like, he won. He did great. Max Aita [00:09:59]: He lifted super huge. Like, I would have a hard time sitting there and being like, why did you do that? Like, what was the reason for doing that? And the reason might be it felt good. It felt like I should do it. But it's not really grounded in any kind of, like, principled approach. It's just kind of like, he did it that way. You see the Chinese as well. You know, Chinese will go in and do these super heavy poles, like, a few days before the meet or super heavy squads. Yeah. Max Aita [00:10:27]: And it's not to say it doesn't work. I'm not saying that, like, they don't know what they're doing. I'm just saying they could do stuff that's pointless. Like, they're not immune to that. Jeremy Gruensteiner [00:10:36]: Yeah. Max Aita [00:10:37]: And you look at you like, well, one, like, you're not getting any stronger from doing a few singles. And the poll two days before we know that's not happening. Like, that's. That's obvious. Two. Like, does this really make you any better two days later? Is there some potentiating effect? We don't know. Like, is, like, is there really anything to this, or is it just, like, tradition or someone did it or you kind of just do it because you're all so strong that, like, you can get away with it? And so it's like, those kind of things can exist at that level, but they can also exist at many other levels along the way. Lower level coaches, people that are more, you know, whatever, you know, it's just like taking an approach that's not grounded in, like, what are the first principles that we need to evaluate before we do things or that we assess things through versus saying, hey, you know, my coach used to do this with me, and that's why I do them, you know? And, yeah, so, I mean, I would say that's probably the most. Max Aita [00:11:36]: The most obvious explanation of it is that, like, you take some kind of a first principles approach to the way you do things. Jeremy Gruensteiner [00:11:41]: And one of the things that came up as you were talking about that is in looking at that sense of when people are looking for that next thing to glom onto, whether they're a coach or an athlete, it's like they're looking for a new type of hammer to hit the same kind of a nail over and over again. But it's like, okay, well, this hammer is just slightly more shiny, or, hey, this one's got different kind of grip, but ultimately it's still a hammer. Um, and the reality is, is that it's actually a screw that you need to turn versus a. Yeah, a nail. Max Aita [00:12:14]: Totally. Jeremy Gruensteiner [00:12:15]: Um, and being able to look at that from a. From a perspective. So, in looking at, like, how you developed as a coach, like, what was that path, like for you to learn how to find, you know, to avoid some of that maybe shiny object syndrome as a. As an early coach, um, what was that path, like for you to come to this much more principled approach or meth methodical approach to being a coach? Max Aita [00:12:40]: I mean, I would say it all came from necessity. Like, when I first started coaching, I had a few athletes, and, like, back then, you could kind of do anything and, you know, and, like, with beginners, you can do anything and have success, but back then, there was just so many people just wanting to try crossfitters and everybody. So you would run through a lot of people and learn stuff. As you start doing it professionally or you start doing it on the scale that people are entrusting their future to you, you kind of quickly realize, oh, I have to do a better job. I have to learn more about how to do this well. And so that just kind of, for me, fueled a lot of desire to try to learn and understand what's a better way to do it. What's the, the what? What should I do? What should I not do? How do I be smart about this? And, you know, you tune your coaching style and your, your training to the athletes abilities and goals, right. If somebody shows up to your gym and they work a nine to five and they love weightlifting and they just want to train, but they don't really care about competing or whatever, like, you know, you're not going to necessarily try to maximize everything because you know how hard it is to do with that and recover. Max Aita [00:13:53]: You don't want to burn them out. After a year, someone comes to you and they're like, hey, I've got three years left in the quad. I want to try to qualify for the Olympics. I'm this, this and this capable, and they look like they could do it. Then it's a different approach. Right. You're going to ramp things up, put more priority on that, put more effort into it. But as a coach, when you're learning, you know, it's like, you can't apply that same logic to the brand new person and think that you're gonna do well. Max Aita [00:14:20]: You can't expect that someone who's paying you to train in your gym and get coached by you is gonna be happy maxing out every day or going crazy or pushing super hard, doing tons and tons of volume. Even though it may technically be the right choice, it's, you know, it's just not, it's not the, it's not sustainable. Right. So, you know, largely, experience is the first thing that drives that. Like, you just have to learn, you know, what, what works. And then as you start stripping away the programming or changing things from what I did as an athlete, you know, you started to, I started to realize, like, okay, there's a lot more to, you know, there's a lot more to this that needs to sort of involve discipline and learning and practice versus just kind of, hey, here's the programs, let's all do it. And treat it as like a, you know, a sort of, like, fun time where you're just, everyone's going crazy in the gym, you know, and then also, like, just getting around other people. I wish that I early on, had spent way more time with mentors. Max Aita [00:15:29]: That was a huge problem, a huge short sightedness on my part in that I had a coach and he was a mentor to me. I trained with Abhijeev, I trained with Shaco, I trained with. I was in the gym when Penley was there. I went and worked for juggernaut for a long time. Those guys were all instrumental in learning and being mentors, but I wish I had done more of it and had, I wish I had a mentorship kind of group that was five or six coaches that I knew that I could talk to a lot and learn a lot about and I didn't have that. And I think that kind of, you know, stifled a little bit of progress because a lot of it was something I had to learn on my own. And so I think that, you know, it's information wasn't as available as it is now. So I think that would have been way better for me. Max Aita [00:16:18]: But ultimately it was just that it's, you know, getting around coaches being mentored by people learning and then having to apply it and learning really quickly, like, oh, shit, that program just doesn't work and these people are quitting or these people are getting hurt. You got to find something that works better. And so, yeah, it's like, very quickly you start evolving your training and looking into that. Jeremy Gruensteiner [00:16:42]: So you mentioned wishing that you had found a mentorship or, like, more camaraderie with more coaches earlier on. Was there? I've noticed that for myself and I've noticed that with other coaches who are just getting started or who are younger or, um, early on in that path. What do you, like? Do you have any ideas of where that resistance of wanting to even pursue that comes from? Or is there to speak from your experience of why you didn't seek that out earlier? Max Aita [00:17:15]: Uh, I mean, honestly, it was just, it didn't, it didn't exist. I mean, I don't even, I don't even think. I wouldn't even say it exists today in the sense that there's like a. There's no national dialogue. Like, there's no, like, I will say years ago there was a place called go heavy. Jeremy Gruensteiner [00:17:32]: This boy, I recall the name, yeah. Max Aita [00:17:36]: Go heavy was like, yeah, this is like, we're talking like 25 years ago now, but, like, there was a sort of a national dialogue there because everybody was getting on there to communicate and it doesn't really happen anymore. And everyone's information is siloed and it's all, it's all information. Now, about training and coaching is, I would say, largely intended as marketing for products, right. As much as people disguise it otherwise or think it's not, it's purely to develop. Either you're putting stuff on the Internet to build a following to then sell something else, or you're putting something on there as a way to bring somebody's attention to your page to. To drive sales. You know, you look at, like, the most popular Instagram accounts with weightlifting, all the Instagram weightlifting people, and it's like, none of it is really, like, educational information. It's just factoids and tidbits. Max Aita [00:18:37]: Try this cue. Don't do this. A 62nd video on why you're a pussy. Because you do, you know, you don't use a hook grip or whatever it is, right? Like, or the. The red, the red x and the green check mark videos, the very black. Jeremy Gruensteiner [00:18:52]: And white lack of nuance, especially as a coach. Max Aita [00:18:56]: And it's not really educational. It's informal, it's informative, but it isn't, like, driving further knowledge. It's just stating a fact or stating something. And so, like, there's. I just. There. There was no mentorship group. There was no, like, group of coaches that talked to each other. Max Aita [00:19:13]: Maybe there was and I was unaware of it and I wasn't cool enough to be in it. But, like, I feel like. I feel like that's something that I wish was more, you know, more just obvious that, like, oh, there's like, there's a group of coaches that kind of have, like, a big forum where there's a place where people can share information and it's. It's communicated to everybody and people can ask ideas and it's like, sort of a place for everyone to grow. Granted, it's a sport. Everyone's going to want to hide some of their stuff and kind of, you know, they believe that the way that they do different sets and reps is some magic that no one else does, but, yeah, so, I mean, like, that, if it had been there, I would have totally been on it. Yeah. Jeremy Gruensteiner [00:19:55]: And it's interesting to me because, you know, I've been part of other coaching, like, groups, not necessarily officially as mentorship, but like that, hey, let's meet monthly and let's. Yeah, let's talk about what's going on. Allow somebody that space to be able to, like, lay it out when they need some support or be able to ask questions about what everybody else is doing. Max Aita [00:20:20]: Right. Jeremy Gruensteiner [00:20:21]: In other areas. But I have. I haven't yet seen that necessarily come up organically in the weightlifting world, as much. Max Aita [00:20:29]: Yeah. And I. You know, it's like. I don't. It's probably because smaller world. It's smaller in. In that sense, but, you know, it's. It's largely, like. Max Aita [00:20:42]: It's largely a. It's a problem, I think, because you end up with, like, you just end up with so much varied information. Like, if you. If you were to sit down. This is one of the things that drives me crazy. If you were to sit down with Greg Everett, Dane Miller, Spencer Arnold, and Will Fleming and Travis Mash, Dave Spitz, and you ask them, what is the name? The different phases of a training cycle in weightlifting, you get fucking different answers across the board, and it's like they're all describing the same thing. They all know how to. They're all great coaches. Max Aita [00:21:26]: It's like Dane's gonna have some dumb terminology he invented. You know, Greg might have, you know, traditional terminology. Dave's got something he took out of bonder Chuck's books. Like. Like, Travis might have invented some words. It's like. It's just, like, you know, and I would probably be in there, too. Like, it's just, like, the reality is, like, there's no common glossary, and, like, this is, like, insane to me that, like, because a lot of it has become proprietary or you're trying to. Max Aita [00:21:54]: You write your book so you want to, like, put your own spin on it when the reality is, like. Like, we need to, like, get on the same page so everybody can understand what the hell they're. They're talking about, you know? You see with exercise names, too, you know, like, what's. What is a pump snatch? What's a yoyo snatch? Are they different? Are the same? You know, what are they? And then you have the other side of that. The other side of that spectrum, which is, like, you know, just naming things exactly as they are. Like the Russians did. Right. You know, it's a snatch, pull, plus hang snatch, pull below the knee, plus hang snatch, pull below the knee, plus hang snatch above. Max Aita [00:22:32]: Like, it's. Yeah, it's like, okay, well, that's just retarded, too. So. Yeah, there's just a lot of. There's a lot of this, like, disconnect between lots of things. There's no common glossary. There's very little, you know, there's very little sort of, like, communication in the sense that, like, everyone's like, hey, let's get on the same page with our terminology, because then we could all benefit from everyone else's knowledge. Absolutely. Max Aita [00:22:57]: Yeah. Why? Because, yeah, there's not a. Jeremy Gruensteiner [00:23:00]: There's not an immediate benefit for everybody to necessarily band together to put that level of effort in. And also, you know, it removes the ability for somebody to try to brand a particular exercise even if it had existed beforehand. Max Aita [00:23:14]: Yeah. Jeremy Gruensteiner [00:23:14]: You know, I've. Max Aita [00:23:15]: I've. Jeremy Gruensteiner [00:23:15]: I've had this conversation back and forth with either coaching mentors of my own, fellow coaches that I've worked with, and even my own lifters, because they do get annoyed sometimes where they're like, do you have to be so literal with the name? I was like, yes, because I may not always be in the room to explain what I mean, and I would rather you understand exactly what I'm looking for versus, uh, trying to figure it out, even though there's a video attached to your program so you know what it's supposed to be, oftentimes you'll look at it and go, yeah, I know what that is, and just do it. And especially when we look at things like being able to get some sort of even longer term data over training effectiveness or try to find some way that we can actually utilize much more than just our coach's brain to understand what's going on, to look at larger data sets and whatnot, we don't have any sort of standardization that makes it really tough. Max Aita [00:24:09]: Totally. So that's kind of like my, that's been a frustration of mine forever. Is this, like, total, like, lack of cohesiveness between things? Right. Exactly what you described. Like, just naming it exactly what it is makes the most sense in that regard. But trying to just establish this idea of a common glossary where everybody understands what the terms are, everyone understands what something is. This has been a thing that has kind of emerged as a big question mark for me in the sense that, where do you go with this? Does it matter in the grand scheme of things, if all you care about is producing your own thing and selling your own products? I guess it not. But if you want to do something that's meaningful for a larger group of people, people like, you'd want to do something to define these things. Max Aita [00:25:12]: Right. To do something, to sort of bring everyone into the same umbrella. It's challenge, you know, that's. You're not going to change anybody, especially if they're making money selling what they're selling. Right. Jeremy Gruensteiner [00:25:23]: Yeah. Putting whatever they're putting their name in front of every exercise or whatever. Yeah. Naming a complex after themselves or whatever that looks like, you know, and it was the. We look at periodization as a whole, like, that was what the Soviets did, was standardize things so that everybody had a central point to work from. And not having that maybe authoritarian specificity to force that to happen, it makes it a lot more difficult. Do you think that the decentralization for USA weightlifting has pushed us into more of these corners of nonspecificity? Or has that just always been there? Max Aita [00:26:09]: I think it's. I think it's been around forever. I think people have always kind of named things, different things or created different, you know, different proprietary systems. I think less so in. More so in the US, more so just in the western world, but I think probably even in Europe and whatnot, there was probably some little bit of that sort of individualization, making up names for exercises. I think the decentralization in the US has definitely augmented it. And it's obvious, right? It's like, good example. Like, you write a book and you're going to call things the things you think they should be called because it sounds cool to you or makes sense to you. Max Aita [00:26:55]: It's like there's no, there's no incentive not to. Like, what do you get from not doing that? So that decentralization just kind of, again, like, silos people, where it's like people build out, you know, everything basically around the ideas they have and then try to just create, like, a community around it. And, you know, it's like, it's like, it's almost like different countries, right? Like, oh, you're going to train with this guy. He does this, this and this, and, okay, quit him. Go trans is girl. And she does things totally different and has totally different names and everything. Even though fundamentally you're all doing snatch cleaning, jerk squats and pulls. Like, you know, there's a million different little nuances that make their thing better. Max Aita [00:27:37]: So. Jeremy Gruensteiner [00:27:37]: Yeah, yeah, ultimately, yeah, that was, that's been a conversation I've had with others, other coaches, athletes and things. Is that, you know, ultimately it's like, well, what's on the menu today? Well, I bet there's a snatch variation, a clean and jerk variation. Like, it's like, there's. There's only so many things that we honestly can do when the sport is so specific. Max Aita [00:27:56]: Yeah. Jeremy Gruensteiner [00:27:56]: You know, if it's something like a crossfit where you have so much variability, that's where things can get really in, like, necessary, more interesting. But, like, that's where things get to be a lot more. You. You play with way more variables than we do in weightlifting or powerlifting or any other real, like, strength sport like that. Max Aita [00:28:13]: Uh, huh? Yeah. And, and, you know, the other reality with all this, too, is that, you know what? What I think it does is it prevents the ability for prevents it becomes. It's not a, it's not a normal thing or it's a typical thing for people to compare programs, right? Like, like, honestly, I have not even seen a piece of software that exists by which you could take two or three waveing programs, plug them in and actually break them down and look at them and say, oh, here's, you know, here's how much volume, intensity, blah, blah, blah. All these things, they just, we don't even, we don't even do that. We just assume that a program is run, it's good or bad based on the results, and then you move on and you rewrite the next thing. There's no learning that takes place. I would be willing to bet that there are very few coaches out there, if any, that actually do true, like a b testing or refinement of their own process and programming from the perspective that they don't just take a program and run it again and again and customize it to a person. Like, let's say I write you your program and you do it, and then once done, I'm like, oh, you made a pr snatch. Max Aita [00:29:35]: Let's run that program again. Or you do it and you're like, you don't make any progress. I'm like, oh, that program's not right. We need to do something totally different now. Let's rewrite and start from scratch, rather than saying, hey, we did this program with you. Let's break it down and look, oh, you know what you did? Only 10% of your total volume was dedicated to snatch. That's probably why you didn't get any better than snatching. Let's rewrite the program and bump that number up or, you know, any number of different things like that. Max Aita [00:30:05]: I don't think that's happening very often. I don't think it happens a lot. I think coaches evolve a program towards something that's successful. And the, the most obvious thing is going to be cranking up the intensity and doing more singles and doing more classic lifts. And so it's like everything kind of ultimately just, like, deviates to that. Like, train harder, go heavier, be more specific, and, you know, you're going to kind of eke out better performances simply because people are, you know, are pushing harder and they're, you know, they're doing more of the things that we know are going to make them better. But there's no refinement there. It's just. Max Aita [00:30:46]: It's just, you know, hey, if the program's not working so well, just make it bigger and harder. Like, just do more of it. Yeah. Versus saying, like, yeah. Have we discovered, like, any kind of, like, more effective methods for teaching or for, you know, for improving different technical errors? Like, yeah, I mean, that's. That's sort of what I think is the reason why there's no need to have common glossary, because it doesn't matter. Every program might as well just be a one off thing that's getting run and then thrown out or running redone or, you know, I'm not saying nobody does this, but it's probably pretty rare, a lot of coaches sitting down and, like, thoughtfully reconstructing the same program and refining the process a lot over and over and over. Jeremy Gruensteiner [00:31:32]: But, yeah, well, even looking, you know, you talked about, like, a software component to this or even, like, having a way to retrospectively look at a program outside of what it was, the. The specific result for a specific individual. Um, right. If you are running the same program across multiple individuals. Like, this was something that I. So, me coming from a software background, uh, before I got into weightlifting, um. Cause I did it later in life, uh, is, uh, coming at that from more systematic, like, learning, wanting to have a much more systematic approach and not wanting to be on this shoot from the hip look and feel. Uh, yes, there's some of that that comes through in the teaching aspects, in the. Jeremy Gruensteiner [00:32:17]: In person coaching that I do. But as far as, like, the program goes, I was like, I should know, like, where we are in a particular phase and if our. If our focus is on building a better snatch. And, like, to your point, if only 10% of our given volume is snatch reps. Yeah. I don't have a way to actually count that for myself. How do I actually know? I may see the word snatch a lot in my program, but that doesn't necessarily equate to percentage of volume, percentage of reps, relative intensities, absolute, like, any of those measures that, you know, the programming nerds in the room want to know. Max Aita [00:32:53]: So that. That was a big eye opening thing for me. I had two experiences that I would say really crafted my thinking a lot. And these were after I was very strong, was I was already kind of done with powerlifting at the time. Well, the first. The first was I trained with Boris Shako, who was a powerlifting coach who basically co opted the Medvedevs weightlifting training methodology into powerlifting. And that methodology, I would say largely that methodology is built around a few fundamental things. It's built on a principle based, it's principle based system, but it's built around management of training stressors in a way that is, is kind of capitalizing on a lot of principles in a clever way. Max Aita [00:33:45]: But they look at things like, you know, Boris was big on the idea of like you have like this. You're basically like you're constructing your training in a way that you are trying to reach certain targets with say like average intensity and maintain those targets and maintain this consistent application of a training stimulus on an organism or a person and then manipulation of that. Once you're consistent, once that training stimulus is being applied, manipulating that, either increasing in intensity and magnitude or decreasing or, sorry, increasing in volume or just overall training load. When you do this, you can then achieve greater results. And so Medvedev system was kind of built on these ideas of this k value and this sort of like, where's the optimal range for how hard training should be or how heavy it should be? What are the ranges for volume based on different demographic data. And then you take that and you individualize it to a person. But largely your system is based on pretty basic ideas, right? You know, have a consistent average intensity. Slowly drive up the average intensity that the athletes using while maintaining a consistent load and you'll see adaptations. Max Aita [00:35:13]: And what was interesting to me is that's not that method. Nowhere within that method lies this idea that like Medvedev, you know, was like, oh, by the way, squat your face off and, and make your squat go up 50 kilo every, by the way, every six weeks or every, every cycle we got to do a squat program, you know, and like try to put 50 kilos on your squat. Or, you know, by the way, guys, we need to max a max out Friday every few weeks, right? It doesn't mean those things can't exist in that system. But the, the thing that was eye opening to me was like, oh, there's a methodology here that makes sense that is one very sustainable. You could apply this kind of training to people and not be in a place where you're, it's not like the bulgarian system where it's like sustainability and just surviving is one of the hardest parts. You know, it's like, it's a sustainable system and you can replicate it because you know exactly what you're trying to achieve. Yeah, we want to increase the average intensity by four kilos this month. And we know if we do that, we're going to have some positive results. Max Aita [00:36:21]: If we track all these KPI's, we track all this information. We can then make even better choices in the future. That was the first thing was learning from Shaco and seeing that system actually applied. It worked very well in powerlifting because there's so little technical component in powerlifting. You don't have to worry about any noise in the signal. It's just, just, if you do this, you're going to get stronger. Jeremy Gruensteiner [00:36:47]: Yeah. Max Aita [00:36:47]: I was the strongest I ever was when I trained with, with Jekyll, when I was doing that, and it was just like, it was awesome. I love that kind of training. The second was, you know, when I, when I basically took that learning and applied it to weightlifters. And that was years later. Then I was coaching a girl, Alyssa Richie, who was, you know, we were going to translate the, the American Open. I think we had just come off of a world championship, and she had a pretty sort of mediocre performance. And, you know, I was rooming with Spencer Arnold in that, on that trip, and we talked a lot, and it was like he was kind of the first coach that I'd saw in way of thing that was really well organized with a lot of data. And this is before he had some, like, velocity tracking stuff he was doing. Max Aita [00:37:36]: But I remember thinking to myself, like, you know, I'm not taking this as seriously as I could from a data standpoint. Like, I need to really track stuff. You know, I looked at what he was doing. I was like, oh, he's like, doing quite a bit of this. Why am I not applying that? You know, this is my profession. Like, I should be. I shouldn't just be writing programs based on principles and sort of like, real broad stroke calculations. I should be, like, tracking everything to a table. Max Aita [00:38:05]: And when I started doing that, it was like, it's like the difference between dieting by feel and dieting with, like, an actual plan. Like, if you don't actually measure out your, you know, your chicken and your rice and your veggies and all this and, like, calculate it. Yeah, you're. You're probably not close to where you think you are. Jeremy Gruensteiner [00:38:24]: Yeah. Max Aita [00:38:24]: You know, well, I think the data. Jeremy Gruensteiner [00:38:26]: Is even, like, dietitians will get it wrong 50% of the time. So it's a coin flip, even for the people whose job it is to know at a glance what it's like. Max Aita [00:38:36]: Yeah, yeah. And so that was like, this eye opening moment for me was like, okay, when I actually sit down and do this one, the program works way better. Like, my athletes got way, way stronger. Everything improved dramatically. And it was like, like night and day. And it was kind of counterintuitive because I was like, we were training based on the way I wrote the program. I realized, man, we were training too hard, too heavy, too much. And it's not to say you don't train heavy. Max Aita [00:39:05]: That's not what the point was. Like, we were in this weird space where it was, like, too much volume allocated to these, like, 85% range, where it's like this, 80% to 90%, where it's like, it's really heavy and hard, but it's just, it's not well balanced. Like, you're not doing enough volume at the lighter intensities, and you're not reaching these high intensities often enough. So you're training heavily, but you're not really developing the right qualities. Right. So it wasn't. It wasn't, you know, well thought out, but also it allowed me to capitalize on getting a lot more out of my athletes because I knew exactly what we were doing. And, you know, Alyssa's clean and jerk went from, like, 100 kilos, 102, to, like, 107. Max Aita [00:39:54]: And her front squat increased one kilo during that time. Jeremy Gruensteiner [00:39:59]: And so. And that wasn't the thing that needed to increase anyways. Max Aita [00:40:02]: And that, to me, was the thing where it was like, oh, like one you don't necessarily like. Squatting is not as. As intensely correlated as we want to believe. It's just not. I've never seen the example of the guy or girl adding a huge amount to their squat. Then suddenly their lifts jump up. Doesn't mean they don't get stronger, and they make prs after the fact, but they definitely have to snatch a clean and jerk in there to reap rewards. But it was just, like, a very eye opening experience for me. Max Aita [00:40:32]: They're like, oh, shit. Okay, data is king here. Like, tracking information, keeping track of data, building a system based around manipulating variables in a subtle way, and maintaining this sort of, like, training process is more important than, you know, like, getting a PR set of five in the squat or maxing your snatch and hitting some pr double or something. Like those things were just not adding up. So that was, like, for me, the moment in my career that I realized there needed to be something very different. I need to approach this from a different way. Jeremy Gruensteiner [00:41:10]: Yeah, totally cool. And I think it's interesting that we get onto this topic because this is this topic and this idea of tracking of where you're going and, like, what are you doing with your athletes is ultimately actually, like, how we got to this conversation in the first place because my introduction to Josh was talking about a big spreadsheet data tracking system that I had built way back in 2020. We had jumped on a Zoom call with a bunch of other coaches and talked about things of like, what we were looking at. And so it's, it's fun to come full circle that the actual connection that led us to this podcast is a topic that we ended up talking about anyways. Max Aita [00:41:52]: Yeah, well, so that, that's kind of driven my entire, the last few years of my, my life now is this is, we've been building a, a coaching platform. So we've been developing this software for coaches where, you know, things like, you've seen like true coach and these kind of programs. So we're going to basically, we've built something very similar to this, but it's, it's designed for weightlifting, powerlifting, like Barbell sports, where, you know, we need, we need the ability to track enormous amounts of small data points and take that data and develop meaningful insights from it that a coach can actually use to do things. Cause I was like, you know, something like truecoach when I started remote coaching. Like, I was sending emails and doing whatever, spreadsheet things. And that was insane that you're just an insane person if you do that. You know, it's like, that's not, you know, you're doing twice as much time to get the same result. Foo coach was awesome when I first used it. Max Aita [00:43:00]: It was called Fitbot when I first started using it almost ten years ago. And it was like, this is cool. It's like messaging and all this in one spot, and then you kind of realize like, oh, but there's no data. You can't track any data. It doesn't know anything about what's going on. Sure, there's some crappy workarounds that suck, but like, you know, who are you ultimately? Jeremy Gruensteiner [00:43:19]: You're having to do all that data, data entry yourself or hire a va or whatever that looks like. Max Aita [00:43:24]: Right? Yeah, it's just not worth it. So, so what we're designing, we've built is, I've lucked out in that I found some people. I found a guy who was a machine learning guy for meta and cybersecurity guy, and I explained to him what the vision is here is what we're trying to build. And he was super on board. I lucked out with that. We've hired a bunch of the whole team, the whole development team. We've been building this thing, but it's basically built around the idea that, look, I want to be able to make programming in an easy way, like a true coach, where I can just write down what I want, or I can add sets and build the workouts that, you know, like, maybe you build a workout, you build some training. I want to know what that looks like in the big picture. Max Aita [00:44:14]: I want to know the data about this. How many sets and reps do we have? How much volume? Where is it allocated? What's the intensities? What are the k values? I go, I want to know all this information so that when I go to program for a mom and she's trained three days a week, I still know what we're doing. And it's easy to say, oh, well, the last few weeks, our volume has dropped off a lot. You're not able to make this. That's probably what you do. So let's try and ramp it up or look at somebody who's not making progress and struggling and actually pull insights out of that and say, oh, well, you know, shit, we should probably make some adjustments or should do this or that. And that's, that's, like, largely where I feel like there's just because there's nothing that's easy to use like that. People don't do it. Max Aita [00:45:03]: Yeah, right. You can do the spreadsheet thing, but unless you're a spreadsheet person, you know, where it's like, you, you like spreadsheets or you're comfortable doing it, or you feel confident, like, you know you're gonna do it, you're just not gonna, it's not gonna be a worthwhile thing. Jeremy Gruensteiner [00:45:20]: Well, there's gonna be always an inherent limitation there as well, or there's gonna be like, you know, we talked about earlier, is like, I, like, I've had to do many times and was one of the main reasons why I coach very few athletes is that if I want to know what I'm doing or if I want to know what we're like, track those things. I've got to work in two, maybe three systems and figure out how to move that data around and hope that they documented something in the coaching app or, hey, what did we actually do there? Oh, no, we adjusted this on the fly during the day because of whatever was going on. Yeah. And so there's just so many opportunities for human data error of entry, of just manipulation of it, that it's like, okay, it's cool at first, and then you get worn down by it, and it's something that gets by the wayside and you just go back to whatever the old habit was. Max Aita [00:46:15]: Yeah. Well, it's like, spreadsheets, too, are such a, are such a poor system for this because. Yeah, spreadsheets are great for sort of, you know, data entry and, like, simple math. Yeah. Storing data in a way that you can analyze it, you know, rudimentary. Right. They're great for, you know, timetables and, you know, accounts and, and budgets and that kind of thing. When you have, like, a spreadsheet on a phone, like, any coach that's giving their athlete a spreadsheet on a phone should just be drug out to the street and shot. Max Aita [00:46:51]: Like, like, that's the worst fucking experience you can have on a phone is like, your hands are covered in chalk and you thumb through a Google sheet and you're, like, looking and, like, some of these. Some people, some coaches give out sheets that are insane. Like, like, I talked to some people who had a power listing coach who sent them, sent them the Google sheets for their program, and he must have had so many, like, scripts in it and macros and whatever. They just said it would just crash. It was crash. They couldn't even get it. The other thing, the other problem with this is that if you write a program like that and you try to automate things in the sense that you're like, oh, well, now I have the ability to like, well, if they did this weight, we can calculate it down to this. Or you do a top set, it'll take the calculation. Max Aita [00:47:44]: All these things. You just end up kind of making these, like, these pseudo adaptive programs, but they're just deterministic. It's just like, if, else than this. Yeah. And so, yeah, like, ultimately, it's just not a good, it's not a good experience. It doesn't work well. And it's, I think it's stopped people from, it stops coaches from growing. Coaches are now in a place where the technology holds them back from actually, like, really looking at their training systems and looking at their programs and all these things and analyzing and being able to draw conclusions from it. Max Aita [00:48:16]: We're just stuck in a place where it's like, you write a program and you do it and then you kind of make up the difference in coaching. You get in the gym and you push them and change it and yell at them and move it forward, do whatever. Does that actually end up, do those changes you've made throughout that process end up in the program? Like, probably not for most coaches. Jeremy Gruensteiner [00:48:35]: Yeah. Or documented in any way that's meaningful for the future? Yeah. Max Aita [00:48:39]: Yeah. Jeremy Gruensteiner [00:48:39]: How many things do, how many things have happened in a training session for you as a coach that you don't ever remember. Like, yeah, there are many of them. Or even as an athlete, too. Like, there. There are so many of those things that, or even as a coach looking at. Ultimately, it's hard for us to remember the beginning of last week, much less six weeks ago or six months ago or last year without having some sort of hard data to actually reflect back on. And that's what makes it hard, too, especially from a spreadsheet perspective, where we want to treat a spreadsheet like a database. You need a database to be able to relate that data across in meaningful ways that we're never going to be able to get out of a spreadsheet. Max Aita [00:49:22]: Yeah, we're not. Jeremy Gruensteiner [00:49:23]: In a way that most people can actually build. Max Aita [00:49:26]: Yeah, for sure. And I think it's also, like, the other downside that I've seen, like, with Josh in particular, I talked to him about it is like, yeah, he'll write it. He'll build this great spreadsheet or have someone build a forum and it's beautiful and it's like four day a week template and blah, blah. And then what do you do when you get somebody who needs something very different than that? Do you just rebuild the whole spreadsheet? Got to start from scratch. You start from scratch. You do this. So there's just, like, a lot of, like, I highlight these things as they are massive limiters that we don't realize because I had this experience. I had this experience where I was writing programming a certain way that I believe was good and it was not ineffective. Max Aita [00:50:04]: I had national champions doing that, but it was like, oh, shit. When you really sit down and you have all this at your fingertips, you can just do so much better. The resolution you have to look at problems and to diagnose things is so much greater that it makes that process a lot, a lot easier. So, yeah, I mean, like, yeah, that's, like, the biggest area that I feel like in weightlifting is just such a. It just falls so short there. We just don't take it. We don't take it to that level. And so because of that, it feels like we're just not as serious. Max Aita [00:50:37]: You know, we're not doing as well. You look at the good coaches in the US, like, I'd say Spencer is probably the most successful right now, and he has, I mean, he is a very methodical coach. He tracks a lot of stuff. All his coaches do things, you know, I mean, these last spreadsheets, but, like, they very much have a. A methodology that is built around data, right. And using data to inform their decisions. And then, you know, you just kind of go down the ranking list and it's like you start seeing, you know, just more winging it more whatever. Hampton. Max Aita [00:51:08]: Hampton. Right. I mean, they, they have every single, you know, grain of rice is tracked. He's doing well, right. So it's like, I don't think those are. Obviously, correlation doesn't equal causation, but, like, I don't think those are isolated. Jeremy Gruensteiner [00:51:24]: They're not accidents, you know, by any way. Max Aita [00:51:26]: Yeah. Jeremy Gruensteiner [00:51:26]: By any, any way, you know. Yeah. In looking at that, too. So, thinking about the things that you're working on with this coaching platform, the proliferation of AI systems for programming that do allow for some of that tracking or crafting of a program based off of a very methodical approach, because a machine is much more methodical in that approach than our human coach brains. Where do you see looking into the future of when tools like that become available are much more normal? Where do you see the, where do you see coaches fulfilling? Or where do you see their ability to change and adapt, to drive better results coming from? Max Aita [00:52:11]: I think it's going to come from even further refinement of that. I think that it's like, what we're trying to do is build a system that uses, that leverages technology to. To make coaches more effective. So we have a coaching platform that has excellent data tracking, that uses an LLM to do to sort of give you a natural language explanation as to what's going on. And then we have computer vision components that we've built that will basically be able to help you extract both the kinematics of a lift. So what's going wrong? What is somebody doing during an exercise? And then some kinetic information as well, like, what are velocities and these kind of things. And so with that said, what we're trying to do is extract information from the training process and then hand that to coaches. And they can learn from that and just make, determine, you know, make determinations about what they should change or how they should evolve to make people better. Max Aita [00:53:20]: At the same time, they can do the opposite, which is they can just store the training data of an athlete in the system and then evaluate it later and say, why was this effective? So I think that the next layer of improvement is gonna come from having much more data, much more information for coaches so that they can, they'll learn things from that. The next generation of coaches, hopefully, is much more informed, much more data driven and takes that information and learns new things that we didn't know before. Right. I think that's where it's going to come from. More so than it coming from, like, progress, coming from someone discovering some revolutionary new exercise or doing something just kind of like, oh, I found this super talented kid and we're just going to train him and he gets really strong and there it is, like, just luck. Jeremy Gruensteiner [00:54:18]: The same refinement on basically the same cues that we all use. Max Aita [00:54:23]: Yes. Yeah, I said the perfect words. Jeremy Gruensteiner [00:54:26]: Yeah. One time. And then I'm going to build a system around that or whatever that is. Max Aita [00:54:31]: The biggest limiter to us making athletes better is that no human being can scream the words reach at a high enough decibel. Like, if we could just get to 126 decibels, it would. Everybody would get 10% stronger. So if we could just have that happen, that's the whole thing. That's what's holding us back. Jeremy Gruensteiner [00:54:52]: It's my favorite cue to lift that or to laugh at, rather. I feel like there needs to be, at some national level meet. There needs to be a coach reach off where we actually have the decibel meter to actually see who's got the loudest reach. Max Aita [00:55:10]: Yeah, yeah, I I will. Like, I'll. I'll make a comment now about all that, though, too. Like, I feel like there's a. There's a. It's fun to make fun of it. Yeah, it's fun to, like, like, laugh at it. I do feel like there's this weird. Max Aita [00:55:25]: There's these weird offshoots in the fitness industry where people will. Will see someone do something and then they. They sort of make fun of it, and then they turns into this thing where it's like. Like. Like, the reach thing's a good example. Like, coaches will, like, criticize other coaches for using it or saying something, and it's like. I mean, like, it's not inherently that bad. Like, it's a cue. Max Aita [00:55:49]: Like, it's. No, every cue is dumb, right? Everything we're doing is stupid. We all just think we're not doing something stupid. But it's like this funny thing, because the world is this thing where it's like a person can come up and they can do something, and then as soon as they do something maybe a little weird, or they do. They use a cue like that. They say weird stuff. It's like, now there's, like, this subgroup of people that will mock people for doing that. Like, oh, you're using cues, or, oh, you're using internal cues. Max Aita [00:56:18]: Not external cues, you're, oh, my God, what an idiot. And it's just like, there's always another layer of it where there's, like, mocking of the thing. Yeah. When the reality is, like, you know. Jeremy Gruensteiner [00:56:29]: If it works for a person, it works. Max Aita [00:56:31]: Yeah. If Ilya Ilhan's coach was screaming, reach in Kazakh. Jeremy Gruensteiner [00:56:35]: Yeah. Max Aita [00:56:35]: And that we found out that, like, would all of the fanboys be like, well, it's actually, like, you know, I mean, that makes sense. Like, it's actually a good cue. Jeremy Gruensteiner [00:56:42]: If we translate it more literally, it would actually make more sense. Yeah, yeah, I get that. Whereas, like, well, I think there was, like, even a comment of, like, the translation of Russian of the third phase of the poll of, like, being translated as jump. And it's like, yeah, it makes sense in Russian. And then, like, the argument of, well, is it really a jump? Is it not really a jump? Max Aita [00:57:04]: Yeah, yeah. There's, like, so much of that. Like, there's so much this insane nuance to, like, the, like, I've talked to these coaches, I've talked to these international coaches, and, like, they're not, there's no one sitting there like, abhijeev. If you were to talk to Abhijeev and be like, is it a jump? Is the first pull a push or a pull? You. What the fuck? What the fuck are you talking about? Jeremy Gruensteiner [00:57:28]: Why does that matter? Max Aita [00:57:29]: I don't know what you're saying. You sound. You seem like an idiot. You seem like somebody who's not very strong. Like, it's just, like, hilarious. Like, it's like, it'd be like if you were to, like, if you were to, like, you know, talk to, you know, some, you know, ridiculous. Like, just natural talent, right? You go to what, whatever, you know, who knows? Like, a Dennis Rodman, right? Where it's just, like, this totally raw talent. You're like, you know, when you think about dribbling the ball, you thinking about this? Like, no, man, I'm just doing it. Max Aita [00:58:00]: Like, I think that there was some. Jeremy Gruensteiner [00:58:02]: Of that in, like, the nineties as some of the ex soviet bloc athletes started to come around and go around to all the places in the US, and you've got these, you know, weightlifting. The US in particular has a bit of, like, uh, overly intellectualized and, like, what I like to call, like, pinky raised, uh, elitism. Max Aita [00:58:21]: Yeah. Jeremy Gruensteiner [00:58:22]: Um, yeah, that comes with it. And it's like, you know, ultimately, it's exactly what we talked about is, like, we're all going to snatch. We're all going to clean and jerk we're going to pull and we're going to squat. There's not that much deviation. And when we can, when we convince ourselves that our, we're so much more clever than that, that's where we start to, like, get in trouble. Max Aita [00:58:40]: Yeah, it's. I think it's like people, people like to fall. They, people want to either make it really simple or really hard. It's like, no, no, it's extremely challenging. Like, every single detail is important and if you don't do this and that's not going to work, and then the other side is like, bro, just train. Just go in the gym and go to buddies. You'll get there. Yeah, just lift heavy, you'll get there. Max Aita [00:59:02]: And it's like neither one of those is entirely true. Like, like all of the, the sort of, like, over analytical people that are, that are fixated on the wrong things, they're not fixated on saying, let me take data, let me learn what's going on. Let me check if that's right. If that's all good, then there's something going on in the gym, in the athlete's head. I got to address that or I can make an adjustment. You know, it's not, data is not magic. It's not going to do anything for you. And then the other side of that coin, which is like, you know, the sort of like telling people how to do things in a way where it's like, you know, stop. Max Aita [00:59:42]: Stop overanalyzing, stop looking at things like you don't need to, you don't need to think about your list. You just gotta train and just do that for five years and you'll figure it out. It's like, it's like that's, that mentality still exists in weightlifting a lot, where it's just kind of the, just get in the gym and do it and you'll get better. I'll relay a little bit of anecdote because a lot of people in weightlifting don't follow powerlifting, but powerlifting used to be like that. Yeah, it was very much these old school guys that would just be like, oh, you know, just, just train. Just. Jeremy Gruensteiner [01:00:18]: Just come in and do five by five. Who cares? Max Aita [01:00:21]: Not even that. Just like it takes ten years to figure it out. You need ten years of training under your belt and then you'll get it and you fast forward. Yeah, and you fast forward to today. And people in powerlifting definitely went this route of much more thoughtful approaches, much more information. People got serious about using data and training and you'll take people. You'll see kids go from nothing to 600 pound squats in such a short time and you see it, you're like, oh, shit. Like, they're doing it really well. Max Aita [01:00:52]: Like, everybody in powerlifting and, you know, everybody, the broad majority of people, the vast majority of people in powerlifting that are coaching at a decent level are very good at it. Better than, I would say, most weightlifting coaches. Jeremy Gruensteiner [01:01:05]: Yeah. Max Aita [01:01:05]: Because they, they just, they evolved a very much more, like, it's a younger crowd. They got in and they applied, you know, intellectual, an intellectual approach to it and they. It's like, it's, I mean, looking at powerlifting now, it's insane. Like, as a, like, you know, squatting and pulling 600, benching 350 at like, you know, like a local meet is like shit. It doesn't mean anything. Yeah, those aren't, those aren't bad numbers, but it's like that, that's not out of this world. Jeremy Gruensteiner [01:01:37]: And like, Ryan back 30 years and people would like jaws on floor. Max Aita [01:01:41]: Oh, yeah, yeah. 600 pound raw squat for somebody under 200 pounds was insane. Jeremy Gruensteiner [01:01:46]: Yeah. Max Aita [01:01:46]: And now it's like, yeah, high school kids do that because everybody got good at training and coaching and so that's where I think we're just not there. No one does that anymore. No one says in USAPL or PA or like the sort of premier drug testing federations, those coaches are not throwing information out there. Like, just train for ten years and you'll figure it out because they know that'd be a waste of time and you'd go nowhere in ten years because you could easily do the wrong things for ten years. Jeremy Gruensteiner [01:02:12]: Well, that's also a hard sell as you, as a coach as well. Like, oh, it's going to take you ten years to figure it out and I'm not actually going to help you figure it out, so. Max Aita [01:02:20]: Well, competition has driven that, too. I mean, there's a market for it. You can make money as a coach now. Like, there's, there's a lot of money in weightlifting and powerlifting compared to the size they are. There's many coaches making a living as a coach, you know, in both sports, and that's. That drives competition. People are going to try to get better and because of that, everybody benefits because suddenly, you know, just getting someone a pr every few training cycles is not enough. People want to exceed, sell and they're going to find coaches that can do it. Max Aita [01:02:50]: And weightlifting, it's still not quite there. The technical element makes a big, a big hurdle for people. But, you know, the fact that you'd still have somebody saying things like, you know, you just got to train. It's just, like, not. It's just not true. Like, you. You should train very smart, use every tool to your advantage to make somebody better understand what you're doing and. And apply, you know, sound training principles to it. Max Aita [01:03:16]: You look at. You look at, like, the training, the progressions for teaching have improved so much in the last 20 years. It used to be that people would just show up to the gym and you'd tell them how to snatch. Here's a picture. Here's pictures on the wall. Like, that's. Jeremy Gruensteiner [01:03:31]: Follow that along. Max Aita [01:03:33]: Yeah, well, that's how, like, their coach. Jeremy Gruensteiner [01:03:35]: Maybe learned from a magazine in the seventies. The same way. Max Aita [01:03:38]: Yeah. I mean, I learned from pictures in a book, you know, and my lifting was terrible because of it. Like, but now it's like, you have, you know, a 62nd Instagram tutorial on how to snatch, and it's pretty good. And, like, they're good. They aren't, you know, they're not bad. They're not. Like, it's not shit. It's like, so we got better at that. Max Aita [01:03:55]: Like, we should get everything else to that same level. Jeremy Gruensteiner [01:03:58]: Yeah. Yeah. So there's something that I was reminded of is so a coaching mentor of mine, you know, in talking about what weightlifters, he wasn't addressing this, but based on our conversation, is what weightlifting coaches particularly can take from everything that we're talking about is being able to ask more questions about, what am I doing? Why am I doing this? Having a much more curious approach versus a smarty pants, know it all type of coach. Does that ring true to something that, like, the essence of what you're talking about? Max Aita [01:04:36]: What was the first type of coach? Jeremy Gruensteiner [01:04:39]: So being able to ask questions and look at your data, ask questions of your own data, ask questions of your own methods versus. Well, my method's the thing. And this is it. And we're going to do this. Max Aita [01:04:50]: Oh, yeah. I mean, I think coaching, there's, like. There's definitely, like, two. Two personalities a coach has to have. One is, like, the actual element of communication because the interface from you have all this data and also information, you should be able to understand all of that and convey to an athlete that needs the information, what's valuable to them. Like, I don't think every athlete needs to know everything. I think they need to know what's going to make them feel confident and believe in you and buy into the system them. And beyond that, unless they're curious, you don't need to shower athletes with data and information if it's helpful to raise somebody's spirits or to drive them forward, or be like, hey, look, you're tired, but look, we've done 400 reps this week. Max Aita [01:05:42]: Like, that makes sense. Yeah. From the other side of that coin, though, like the sort of authoritarian coach who's like, this is my way. I do think coaches in person, in the gym when coaching, do need to be, you know, the head person in charge to the level that, like, if they say something, the athlete needs to do it. You know, there needs to be a, like, a different kind of, like, you know, a hat worn by the coach. It's kind of the, like, silly as it is, like the warrior poet kind of person. But the coach needs that. Your coach needs to be a badass. Max Aita [01:06:16]: The coach needs to be somebody who you believe is. Is a savage who's going to do everything they can to drive you forward and to make you better at the same time. You want them to not be an idiot. Like, you want them to also be like a thoughtful kind of, you know, leader where they're. They're taking information. They're smart, they're intelligent, they're. They're cunning. But when, you know, they're not, like, they're not like a pushover where it's like, if you. Max Aita [01:06:44]: Hey, what should I do here? I don't know. I don't feel good. Like, you want somebody who can is a rock that is going to, you know, be. Be kind of dogmatic in, like, hey, do exactly what I say. This is what we're doing not only. Jeremy Gruensteiner [01:06:57]: On training, but also on the competition platform as well. Max Aita [01:06:59]: Oh, for sure. Yeah. Jeremy Gruensteiner [01:07:00]: That level of trust is necessary for those. Those great performances as well. Max Aita [01:07:05]: Yeah, good example. People might hate me for this one, but you watch the World cup, you watch the 73s, right? Yeah, Rotmont. His dad. His dad was like, I don't know. Like, when I look at that, it's not a criticism of them, but it's like, I don't know who was steering that ship, the whole quad, because he's doing. He's doing b and C sessions, which is like, that's what you do if you're 13 and you think it's cool to, like, max out and do a pr, you know, make a world record in the b or c session. It's like. It's like, so who knows what's going on there? He's about to take that third clean and jerk, and his dad tells him no, and he just doesn't he blows him off and goes and misses it, and it's like. Max Aita [01:07:51]: It's like whatever lack of authority his dad had and that. Right. That's so hard to, you know, too many hats. I I can tell you that would probably not have happened with the Georgia sanitize and the georgian team. Jeremy Gruensteiner [01:08:07]: Yeah. Max Aita [01:08:07]: It's extremely unlikely somebody's gonna say no to him and just jump out there after 30 seconds and miss. He's gonna tell him to go in the back and do it. You know, there's just a lot of coaches like that that are just like, you're a little bit scared of them. Right. But, like, yeah, it's a good example where it's like, is he a pushover? Is it just the relationship is too soft? It's too. It's family. Yeah, but it's like, yeah, you've got to be. You've got to be absolutely in charge as a coach when time comes. Jeremy Gruensteiner [01:08:37]: Yeah. I mean, like, speaking as, you know, from having lifted myself and whatnot at whatever levels, like, if I'm there to actually compete on the day, like, I only want my job to be lift the thing. Max Aita [01:08:52]: Yeah, totally. Jeremy Gruensteiner [01:08:53]: I want to know that I'm, like, I can trust my support system around me to handle everything else. Like, yeah, I know. Like, early on, I wanted to know all the details because I was curious and I wanted to know. But as. Especially as you mature as an athlete, it's like I need the singular focus. I need all the energy and all the mental focus that I have to be driven towards. The one thing I'm here to do, which is lift a heavy weight over my head. Max Aita [01:09:19]: Exactly, exactly. You know, like, again, it's like it kind of comes back that same thing. Right? Like, plans. Having plans, having data, having information is what makes all these choices easier. Right. You going into any meet, we always sit down with athletes and ask them, what are the goals? Like, what is the priority? You know? Like, you need to know, like, you need to know before the event happens, like, missing your second attempt or whatever. Before that happens, you need to know exactly what your next choice is and what you're gonna do. So it's like you don't get to a situation where you're coaching and somebody misses their second. Max Aita [01:09:55]: Okay. I go to my little matrix that I made for attempts they need to do. They missed their second. That means we should repeat it and make this whatever, or go up a kilo and try to get that, like, whatever it is. Like, you got to have all that planned so you don't have to sit there and make choices. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Jeremy Gruensteiner [01:10:14]: Exactly. With that, you know, to be respectful of our time and our listeners. Um, time for us to start to wrap up our conversation today. Um, any final thoughts or anything that you would like to leave the listeners with, um, before we close out? Max Aita [01:10:30]: Uh, no, not much. We're. We're gonna, um. Yeah, yeah, I guess I would plug the. Plug the coaching platform. It's. Jeremy Gruensteiner [01:10:37]: That was gonna be my next question. Max Aita [01:10:39]: Yeah, we're gonna be. I'll get a. We have a booth at nationals, and we're gonna do a wide release then. It might be an early access. We're not sure exactly where we are with testing, with everybody. We got some people using it now, but we're always implementing new stuff and putting things and continue to build on it. So, yeah, look for it basically at nationals, and right around there, we'll have a big release, and then, yeah, anyone who's using spreadsheets or if you use, like, coach now plus true coach plus the spreadsheet, this is the platform for you. We have all these things integrated, so it'll be. Max Aita [01:11:15]: It'll be pretty, pretty special when it comes out. Jeremy Gruensteiner [01:11:17]: Yeah. I'm excited to see that, having been, like I said, somebody who's been in the software world and deep into the nerdery of building spreadsheets and coaching and programming. Like, I'm. I'm. I'm pumped to see this, because it was. That was definitely a. An inkling of a. Of an idea at one point, something. Jeremy Gruensteiner [01:11:34]: Something that was like, we need this with. It's absolutely necessary for the progression of. Of weightlifting as a sport, period. Max Aita [01:11:43]: Yeah. Jeremy Gruensteiner [01:11:44]: Yeah. So, yeah. Thank you so much for your time, Max. I appreciate being able to have this conversation and having you on the podcast. Where can people find more about you and what you're bringing out? Max Aita [01:11:55]: Yeah, I mean, you can find me on Instagram, Max Ada, you can. You can reach us at team ada.com for remote coaching or in person coaching at our gym in Oakland. And then, yeah, you can. You can probably hear my. My irritating, scratchy voice on the listing house tv commentary of Europeans and world championships and whatnot. And then I would say, also check out, look for something around the Olympics. Seb and I are going to put together some kind of a, like, lift companion style, you know, kind of more casual podcast type deal for each session. So I'm excited for that. Jeremy Gruensteiner [01:12:34]: Very cool. Yeah, definitely excited. Lots to look forward to coming up this summer with nationals and the Olympics, so. Max Aita [01:12:42]: Yep. Jeremy Gruensteiner [01:12:43]: With that, folks, very appreciative you the audience for listening to this episode as well. As always, folks, stay strong and most importantly, stay weird.

For this episode we’re joined by a truly inspiring guest, Tristan Gibson, also known as Captain Orangutan. From being a promising college soccer athlete to enduring a series of life-altering medical issues including a brain cyst, hydrocephalus, and a shunt implantation that led him through intense pain, multiple surgeries, and even a brain stem stroke, Tristan’s journey is nothing short of remarkable. Today, he’ll share how these challenges forced him off the soccer field but set him on a path of mental health coaching and holistic living. We’ll dive into how Tristan coped with his health setbacks by changing his beliefs about depression and anxiety, adjusting his diet, and avoiding medications. He'll also discuss his aspirations to travel the country in an adventure van, live sustainably, and continue spreading his knowledge through his coaching program. So, gear up for an episode filled with stories of resilience, transformation, and the pursuit of freedom and well-being. Join us as Tristan discusses how he turned his darkest moments into opportunities for growth and healing. Connect with Tristan! Instagram: @captain_orangutan Website: The Orangutan Way

This episode we're joined by an extraordinary guest, Dave Robinson. In this episode, we delve into Dave's unconventional life journey—from witnessing a surreal extraterrestrial encounter to abandoning a traditional career path in finance for a life fueled by authenticity and passion. We'll explore how pivotal experiences, including a profound supernatural message and the camaraderie in the gym, shaped his path from being a finance professional to a revered story coach. Dave will share his insights on embracing our true selves, the importance of intuitive moments, and the power of self-reflection. From silent helicopters to spaceships, fitness triumphs to health and wellness coaching down in Mexico, Dave's story is a testament to living a life that's not only weird but also exceptionally strong. Buckle up as we embark on this mind-bending journey that challenges our perceptions and encourages us all to live more authentically. Stay tuned, and remember to embrace your own version of being strong, and most importantly... being weird! Connect with Dave! Instagram: @daverobinson.coach Get Coaching: Website

Jeremy Gruensteiner [00:00:01]: Welcome back to the Weird and strong podcast, folks. I am your host, Jeremy Grunsteiner, and we've got an amazing musician that I have had the pleasure to get to know over the past year. We've got John Ryder on the show, the mastermind behind ghost made cellophane and empires of delirium. We talk about his path as a musician, where that has taken him both geographically, musically, and artistically, and also what's coming up for him in the future. So stay tuned, and let's get weird. Welcoming John Ryder to the weird and strong podcast. How you doing, man? John Ryder [00:00:37]: You know, I'm doing great. How you doing? Jeremy Gruensteiner [00:00:39]: I'm doing. I'm doing real well. It's great to see you again. It's been about a month and a half since we've seen each other, and, yeah, I'm glad that you're here. And I have a weird question for you. Are you ready? John Ryder [00:00:53]: Yeah. Shoot. Jeremy Gruensteiner [00:00:56]: Is a quesadilla a grilled cheese sandwich? John Ryder [00:01:03]: I would say no. Jeremy Gruensteiner [00:01:05]: Okay, fine. John Ryder [00:01:06]: I would say no. I think a grilled cheese sandwich is like brother and sister with, like, a melt. Okay. It's a type of, like, grain breaded material that's different. Jeremy Gruensteiner [00:01:20]: Okay. John Ryder [00:01:21]: I feel like. I feel like if you did, like, um, you know, tortilla, it's. It's just a different type of family of grain. Yeah. I think that that's how I would differentiate the two. Jeremy Gruensteiner [00:01:34]: Okay. John Ryder [00:01:35]: Yeah. Yeah. Jeremy Gruensteiner [00:01:36]: So if you made a grilled cheese sandwich with potato bread, would it still count as a grilled cheese sandwich? John Ryder [00:01:44]: I would say so, yeah. I think it's the. It's the overall, like, end texture of, like, how it's. The bread is, like, risen from, like, bread versus, like, a tortilla. Jeremy Gruensteiner [00:01:55]: Sure. So, like, if you made it with a pita, it wouldn't count. It would be. John Ryder [00:02:01]: It'd be closer to the tortilla. Yeah, I feel, yeah. Yeah. I actually, like, low key. Worked in the bakery for, like, three years, so maybe I have a slight bias to that. Jeremy Gruensteiner [00:02:14]: But, like, so leavened versus unleavened. And that's the determination for the grilled cheese sandwich for you. John Ryder [00:02:22]: For me? Yeah. What about you? Jeremy Gruensteiner [00:02:27]: Well, this is a complicated question for me, it's like, I would say, yeah, it's a grilled cheese sandwich, but ultimately it's also a salad. John Ryder [00:02:37]: A salad? Jeremy Gruensteiner [00:02:38]: Yeah. John Ryder [00:02:38]: How's it a salad? Jeremy Gruensteiner [00:02:40]: So the definition of a salad, one of the definitions of a salad is any incongruous mixture. John Ryder [00:02:48]: Oh. Jeremy Gruensteiner [00:02:49]: So, like, any mixture of ingredients is technically a salad. And so because it's not suspended in liquid, which would be a soup. It means that a quesadilla is a salad. So any of you wanting, wanting to get in your extra salads, just know a KCD is also a salad. Yeah. There's a very fun GitHub repository that talks about this, which is a salad theory. So proposing that all things in the universe are either a super salad based on their suspension in a liquid. So human beings could be postulated as walking soups or walking salads, depending on how you argue the point, based off of their criteria, which is just fun. Jeremy Gruensteiner [00:03:39]: Fun thought experiments that people can run and play around with. Like, the definition of words gets real. John Ryder [00:03:46]: Weird in the way it does. Yeah, I'm definitely a soup. Jeremy Gruensteiner [00:03:52]: You're definitely a soup. John Ryder [00:03:53]: Yeah. Probably something spicy. Jeremy Gruensteiner [00:03:55]: Feeling like a spicy soup today. John Ryder [00:03:57]: Yeah. Yeah. Some spicy ramen. Yeah, for the butthole. I'm just saying. Jeremy Gruensteiner [00:04:04]: That's great. Awesome, man. Let's talk more about you. For those that haven't been formally introduced to you, this is your ability to be able to share what makes John weird. What are the ways that you've shown up unconventionally in the world? What does that path look like for you? John Ryder [00:04:28]: Obviously, I'm very much into the music aspect of life, and I feel like, you know, I've kind of came in as an outcast into, like, what? You know, I'm from Minneapolis, but, like, the Minnesota music scene because I spent so much time in Los Angeles and some time up in Fargo, and I kind of came in out of left field with, like, I can video edit, I can, you know, use Photoshop, you know, record most of my own stuff, mix master most of my own stuff, you know, from, like, a omni perspective of, like, what it means to, like, make content as a music creator. And I feel like, you know, it's not a knock on the music scene currently. I do think it's a really good music scene, dare I say, better than the La music scene. But a lot of people are still kind of stuck, you know, in the prehistoric era of music, which is I want to, like, play guitar, and that's it. You know, I want to play drums. That's it. And I feel like if you want to have any kind of success and the music scapegoat nowadays, you have to be able to do a lot of different things, and not just the tech stuff on the back end, but also the social media on the front end and then just to think outside the box. So many metal bands have someone dying in their music video or blood or whatever. John Ryder [00:06:12]: And just thinking outside the box, being willing to take risks. And I think that's kind of where I feel unconventional, because, I mean, if you've heard, you know, like, empires of delirium, it's very much unconventional. It's a bass, vocals, and drums, and then the same thing musically for ghost made cellophane, which is, like, you know, right now, like, hip hop songwriters and, like, any kind of really heavy metals doing well in Minnesota. And it's a more melodic, ambient soundscape, but heavy vibe. And I think just coming in with that different perspective has set me apart in either band that I decide to make a focal point. Jeremy Gruensteiner [00:07:01]: That's really cool in looking at that. So you talked about having these different skills, like, just the video editing the Photoshop and then getting used to and being really present on social media, because I noticed that, like, damn, John John's got this figured out, like, sitting there, like, for my own business, sitting and taking notes, even though it's not necessarily promoting music, but, like. Like, taking note of how somebody like you is able to bring that forward. What was that path like for you to learn how to balance all of these different roles or how to start to even just learn how to. How to effectively edit a video or make a social media post? What was that process like for you? John Ryder [00:07:50]: Honestly, it was really interesting. I've always been a huge fan of film, so that was kind of my. That was kind of my path as far as, like, okay, well, you know, I did, like, maybe like, a year and a half of film in college and then, like, a semester of web design and, like, a year of photography and Photoshop. And, like, it was interesting because I. When I took the classes, I wasn't really good at it. And then as I wanted to focus on music and, you know, you probably. I don't know if you've experienced this, but people want to, like, charge you so much money for content. And it's, you know, especially, like, when I lived down in LA, it was just like everybody was just taking advantage of. John Ryder [00:08:41]: There's, like, a stereotype for musicians on LA. It's the person who does. Who knows, like, three guitar chords and has a lot of money. And so that person, you know, it's like, oh, yeah, I'll pay $1,000 for this person to do this photo shoot for me and five, $6,000 for that person to do that video for me. And, you know, for me as a blue collar person, it's not really realistic. So I kind of went through and sucked at it for probably a good two or three years. I went back and looked at photos recently, and I was like, in videos, and I was like, man, using Final cut Pro X and those videos, someone can make a better video now on their phone than, you know, the numerous hours I spent on that one very poorly edited video. So, you know, it's weird for me because I started from a place of, well, it's. John Ryder [00:09:44]: I don't have any other path because I can't afford to pay people to do stuff for me. And then you kind of. When you. When I have done that, you. It's out of your hands. And I could speak about that here in a sec. But, yeah, to be on the flip side of sucking and then having people come up to me and, like, I've had bands locally ask me to, like, film videos for them and. Or do content for them. John Ryder [00:10:11]: And that is encouraging because it tells me that I'm doing something right as far as that aspect, creating something that looks professional, which I think is really important and I think really separates, you know, a band that's going to be a local band with no endpoint versus a band that, you know, could go on tour, you know, and there's exceptions, obviously, but. So that's been really interesting for me. Yeah. And I always ask people. I lean on people, like, you know, I ask Jay a lot of questions, you know? Yeah. But, yeah. Do you want me to expand on that at all or if you'd like. Jeremy Gruensteiner [00:10:55]: To, you know, I think that's really great. And, like, the. The lesson that I'm hearing from you on that is something I talk about with people that I work with, and I hear this reinforced for me by, like, the coaches and mentors that I have in my life, as well. Like, yeah, the first time you do something, it's. It's. It's not going to be great or you're going to look back at it and go, ooh, that was woof. But that's the. That's the point of growth, and that's the point of. Jeremy Gruensteiner [00:11:26]: Of being able to get better. It's like we have this weird, this, like, strange notion in our head that, like, oh, I can't let anybody see this because I want my first time to be perfect, or I want my first. The first thing I put out to be the most perfect thing ever. It's like, look at. Look at some of, like, your favorite bands or, like, your favorite artists and whatnot, and how many of them really love their, like, first albums. John Ryder [00:11:54]: Like, still, like, a lot of them. Jeremy Gruensteiner [00:11:56]: Truly actually love them. And it'd be like, you look at, you know, you look at big, big bands like Metallica and, like, they wrote a lot of their first stuff before they were even 18. Like, it's like, yeah, they still play it and, like, it still hits, but, like, they're so far removed from who they were when they wrote those things. Or, like, the quality of the songwriting or the even looking to somebody like Glenn Danzig, who just wanted to completely have nothing to ever do with the misfits ever again because that was his high school band, of course, he moved on and beyond that. And so I think it's really cool for you to reiterate that it's a process of getting more reps and it's a process of continual improvement that, yes, your first product and your first post or your first video is going to be not as great. And if you keep going, you're going to get to a point like John just talked about where people are going to be asking you, like, hey, how do I do this? Hey, could you help me with this? Would you do bill? Like, would you film a video for me or do my social posts for me? You never know where those things may take you. John Ryder [00:13:02]: Yeah. And it's not just like, at the beginning, you know, of, like, adulthood or life, when people have that struggle. I think, you know, I feel that way anytime you start a new project, you know, especially if it's like something that you never, like, expanded on previously. Like, for me, I kind of grew up listening to, like, pop and punk and hip hop, this weird combination stuff, and never, like, when I first got into music, it was pop punk, and then it became, like, screamo. Everybody says deftones, even though I didn't know who the Deftones were when you recorded the album, like, five years ago. But anyways, but, you know, with the empires of delirium stuff, I never ever wrote music in that genre in my life or saying in that style. And it was really infuriating for me to, like, go up on stage and, like, people who paid hard, their hard earned money to come out and then just not put a performance on that I was happy with. And I feel that way, too. John Ryder [00:14:16]: About ghost made. I feel like it's been really interesting for me because every show we get better and I'm realizing it at a faster pace than I did with empires. But I think that's part of the process of, like, you know, I hadn't touched that band in four years, whatever, basically since I came back from LA. So to pick it back up regardless of what project or adventure you do, you're going to fall flat in your face. If I wanted to go do web design or start a tech company tomorrow, I would probably have a good couple of years of struggling until I could figure out, oh, this is, you know, these are the pieces that I need to know, you know. Jeremy Gruensteiner [00:15:03]: Yeah, yeah. That's speaking to something that's really important for, you know, it's a, it's a good reinforcement for me of starting a new business. And we want that, like, overnight success. It's like, keep showing up, keep putting the reps in, you know, the days, the days where you feel like, am I even. Do I even know what I'm doing anymore? Like that self doubt. Those are the days that are golden, especially when you continue going and you're like, there's not that. The path forward is, I have that choice. I can stop. Jeremy Gruensteiner [00:15:43]: I could take a break, but I can still keep going. And it's that continual push forward that gets us to that point where, like, you're talking about being able to look back and see the successes or being able to realize that, oh, you know, I've done this with another band already, so I know some of the pitfalls or I know some of the places where I can keep myself focused and keep it moving. And so things move at a much more accelerated pace because you've already done it before. John Ryder [00:16:14]: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. It just makes life more exciting, you know what I'm saying? Like, going and starting adventures or, like, watching and being a part of something and helping it grow is exciting because, like you said, you could stop, you could take a break, or you could keep going. And if you stop, you don't ever know where it's going to end up at and what experiences you might have, good, bad, or in between. And I've learned definitely in the past where when I've chosen to stop, I've pretty much always regretted, minus college. Yeah. But, yeah. Jeremy Gruensteiner [00:17:00]: Cool in looking at this, because you have quite a few creative skills behind what you've been bringing to the world. Were you always a creative kid? Was this something that you were drawn to early on, or is this something that has evolved, like, evolved for you over a longer period of time? John Ryder [00:17:24]: Well, it's kind of twofold. I've always been interested in creative stuff, but I never really did it, and there's multiple factors to it. We were really poor growing up at times. I remember, like, having to ask the teacher to borrow, like, a piece of paper and a pencil and writing and, like, using every corner of that piece of paper because I didn't want to ask for another piece of paper because it was too embarrassing, you know. And so we didn't really get the opportunity when I was younger. And, you know, neither did we have a lot of people in my life that were, you know, creatively adventurous. You know, my brother is. He sings not in bands, but he sing in choir. John Ryder [00:18:20]: And then, you know, whenever there's, like, an event, he's always singing for, like, a wedding or something. And then, you know, my grandma played piano, but I never really got to see her play piano. She just had it in her house. My great grandma, I should say, had it in her house and, like, stopped playing it by the time I was old enough to understand why it was there. You know, that's literally it. I. My mom wasn't a really creative person. She was a single parent with five kids, so didn't really have time for that. John Ryder [00:18:57]: But I was always jealous of the musicians that were around me, you know, like, I wish I could afford to have a guitar or, like, you know, we grew up in Minneapolis, but we moved to Lake Park, Minnesota, which is over by Detroit Lakes. Jeremy Gruensteiner [00:19:13]: Oh, yeah. My family, part of my family is from Lake park, so. John Ryder [00:19:16]: Oh, wow. That's crazy. Yeah, yeah. What, what part? Like, are you. Oh, yeah. Jeremy Gruensteiner [00:19:22]: So it'd be my mom's. My mom's mom's side. John Ryder [00:19:26]: Okay. Jeremy Gruensteiner [00:19:27]: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Great. Great grandparents are buried out there, so. Yeah. Been out there times. John Ryder [00:19:35]: Is it the cemetery right outside of, uh, right side town on the left hand side? Jeremy Gruensteiner [00:19:39]: Yep, yep. John Ryder [00:19:40]: Yeah. Jeremy Gruensteiner [00:19:41]: The northwest side of town. Yep, yep. John Ryder [00:19:43]: Yeah, yeah, we lived on second street for quite a bit. Jeremy Gruensteiner [00:19:46]: Okay. John Ryder [00:19:47]: Yeah. So the main street. Yeah, but. And then we lived out. I think it's county road five. Okay, maybe I'm wrong. The. It's been so long since I've been out there, but, um. John Ryder [00:20:02]: Yeah, there's no music shops over there, you know. Jeremy Gruensteiner [00:20:04]: No, you got to travel quite a ways for. To be able to. To get into some of that stuff. Yeah, yeah. John Ryder [00:20:12]: And, like, I mean, Detroit Lakes used to have a music shop and a bookstore. And I remember being probably about 1617, working at Godfather's Pizza and walking across the street and spending my 50, $60 I made on that paycheck for some comic books, you know, and some, like, CDs. Like, that was. That was, like, my step into, like, the creative world. And, you know, I'm old enough and I'm not old, and Jay and I are, you know, the same age. I'm a few months older but, you know, the Internet wasn't always a big thing when I was a kid, and when we did have it was dial up, you know, especially living in a. Jeremy Gruensteiner [00:21:01]: In a rural, rural midwestern. It just wasn't small towns. Like, it just wasn't as important versus if you were in a larger city. It's like, oh, that was much earlier adoption of using those tools for business or creativity or whatever. Yeah, yeah, yeah. John Ryder [00:21:20]: And I would say it wasn't until about 20 to 21 that I actually really started to, like, you know, try, like, doing music. I remember, like, I bought my first guitar. It was a blue upper phone Les Paul studio for, like, $329 from Best Buy when we used to sell music here. Jeremy Gruensteiner [00:21:43]: Yep. John Ryder [00:21:43]: And, you know, and I. There's a song called one last breath by Creed, and I remember my friend showed me how to play it, and I spent probably five or 6 hours trying to play that intro, and I couldn't figure it out, so that's how terrible I was. But, you know, you start and then you, you know, expand yourself. I think the biggest thing is for me, and I encourage people who are creative to do this, but to go out and travel and, like, see how other places in the country or the world are doing stuff and, like, you're going to grow a lot, you know, because, you know, like, people might think of, like, Minneapolis St. Paul's being a really big area, but, like, you know, there's limitations. And, you know, I feel like we're behind other parts of the country as far as technology goes. And even, like, I remember, like, going to college here and then going out to do a year of college in Los Angeles. And, like, I was like, holy shit. John Ryder [00:22:57]: Like, the textbooks that we're learning from are, like, 15 to 20 years behind, like, what's actually going on right now. Jeremy Gruensteiner [00:23:05]: Yeah. John Ryder [00:23:07]: And so. And on top of that, like, most of my classes out there didn't use textbooks. Everything was on your computer. You logged into, like, a server, and it was a lot easier for people to be able to study on, like, an iPad, you know, versus, like, an actual hard copy textbook, you know? And so, you know, I would have never had that growth had it not went out and ventured to some place new, you know? Jeremy Gruensteiner [00:23:33]: Yeah. What was the. What was the driver? Or what was the inspiration to go from the Minneapolis area to study in LA? What drove you there? John Ryder [00:23:47]: It's actually kind of a funny story. So I was going to Minnesota State University, Moorhead, and, you know, I was kind of. I knew I didn't want to be up there you know, Fargo Moorhead for me is just not the place for me. Never really has been my cat loves, but. So I remember going into a professor's office. Doctor Carter was his name, and I sat in the front row for two years in his classes and aced every single class and every single test and in the hallways, he pretended like he didn't know who I was and. But he was just this ego thing and he picked his favorites. And no offense to Doctor Carter, he's a very successful musician in his own right, and a better musician than I could probably ever hope to be, but at least from a traditional standpoint. John Ryder [00:24:50]: But I went to his office one day, and I was considering Texas, actually, because I had relatives in Texas, and I got accepted to the University of Texas in Austin. And I went to his office and I just said, hey, can I borrow, like five minutes of your time? And he's like, sure, you know, and I was like. And I sat down and said, you know, I know you and I have never really seen eye to eye and we've never really had conversations, you know, aside from answering questions in class. And. But I respect you cause you're a brutally honest person. And so I just asked him. I was like, you know, I got accepted to the University of Texas, was considering doing an exchange program and then finishing my college there. What do you think? And then he just kind of sat there, leaned back in his chair, you know, put pen to his, you know, his mouth, and just kind of thinking. John Ryder [00:25:49]: He leans forward and he's like, I think that's the dumbest idea I've ever heard. It's like, I was like, oh. And then he let it pause there for a little bit because he's a big storyteller. And he goes, you know, from what I gather, you don't really care to do traditional music. It's like, no, not really. You know, I mean, I've done film scoring and written for podcasts, but I don't want to be in an orchestra or teacher, so. And he's like, you know, if you go to Texas, I promise you this. Like, you are going to find yourself in the same position that you are here, which from what I gather, is unhappy if you really want to test yourself. John Ryder [00:26:38]: It's like, I taught at, you know, California State University before. You know, it's like, go out to LA, find out if you consume the sharks. You know, you're going to find out really quickly whether or not you have what it takes to have any kind of, you know, career in music and I took that advice. I was just like, all right. And the story goes, is about a one way plane ticket to Los Angeles. I had enough money for three days of staying in a hotel, and if I went beyond the three days, I wouldn't have enough money to put money towards an apartment or room for rent. Like, my budget was literally three days. I didn't work in three days. John Ryder [00:27:30]: I'd be. I'd be taking what money I had left to buy a plane ticket back. Jeremy Gruensteiner [00:27:35]: Yep. John Ryder [00:27:35]: Had, like, a. My, not even $800. And so, yeah, plane ticket within three days. Got registered for classes and got a job and found a place to be. And mind you, at that point in time, I didn't even have a car. So to be able to go from, like, lax, you know, and, you know, California State University, North Ridge is deep in the valley, so you're talking 30 something miles from La. Extra. Yeah, deep in the valley. John Ryder [00:28:10]: And to be able to figure out in a city that I never been in, you know, and so it takes a lot of resolve, and most people would probably break. You know, I have siblings who I've tried to encourage to, like, come to the cities and, like, there's just no way, you know, to them, Minneapolis St. Paul is just too big, scary. Way too scary. And I'm just. I mean, it is a scary place. I don't, don't get me wrong, I've never. The only place, and I've been, you know, to New York just twice this year for, you know, good, almost two and a half weeks. John Ryder [00:28:51]: And obviously, like, five and a half years in LA. And Minneapolis is probably one place that I've been where I'm like, I need to watch when I get into my car, I need to make sure I lock stuff, watch around me, like, because I know, and having grown up here, there's a lot of violence here, you know, um, you know, and I've never felt more unsafe than, you know, being here just because I think a lot of people are angry here. Jeremy Gruensteiner [00:29:23]: Yeah. John Ryder [00:29:24]: You know? Jeremy Gruensteiner [00:29:25]: Yeah. John Ryder [00:29:26]: So it's a. It's a beautiful, you know, it's a beautiful, ugly thing, you know? And I remember, like, when I went to LA, people were like, why are you so angry all the time? I'm like, I'm trying not to be. Jeremy Gruensteiner [00:29:36]: Yeah. You know, we become the reflection of what we surround ourselves with in a lot of ways. And so if you have, you're surrounded by a bunch of angry people, you tend to be a bit of an angry person. John Ryder [00:29:48]: Yeah. Jeremy Gruensteiner [00:29:49]: Yeah. There's, like, a. Some interesting, like, I'm going to butcher these things because I don't have them right at my fingertips. But there's research that shows, like, if your best friend's friend is a smoker, you're much more likely to be a smoker, even though you may not even know who that person is. You may have never even talked to them before, but because of that associative effect, because your best friend is subtly influenced by their friend who smokes, and that starts to bring that behavior into you as well. John Ryder [00:30:20]: It's funny that you say that because, like, the older I've gotten, the more, the smaller my circle gets. And, like, I mean, you know, these people, but, you know, like, I'd probably say on a daily or weekly basis, you know, I'll talk to Corey. I'll talk to Chris. Corey, not so much because I know he's traveling right now, but Jay probably almost every other day, you know, my girlfriend Trinity, my mom, like, I'll talk to people who, like, like, will be honest with me slash build me up and, like, inspire me. And, I mean, and I think that's so important because, like, you know, I couldn't imagine being the same person that hung out with, you know, decade later or whatever after high school, hung out with the same people in the same small town, you know, if you want to be creative, if you want to be strong, if you want to be your weirdest self, using some words there, you know, like, find the people who, like, you know, will allow you to do that and kind of, you know, stick. Stick to them, you know what I mean? So it's. Yeah, I think, you know, that's a big part of success, too, is just, you know, knowing we can go to for an honest but, like, slightly cushioned perspective. You know what I mean? Jeremy Gruensteiner [00:31:58]: Yeah. Well, you know, the people, you know, the people that'll give it to you real, you know. And for me, I've been deep in the self development world and consuming a lot of that type of content and just learning a lot of the things, like we, we just talked about. But it's. It's finding the people that will call you forward, the people who will, who will challenge you. Like, one of the coolest parts is, for me, I was meeting with the former owner of the gym that I worked at with last week and was working through some ideas for my own business and some different directions that I want to go with it. And we started talking through one, and she was helping guide me through of asking questions about where I was going with this. And I said, I had two paths, and we were feeling really good about that one. Jeremy Gruensteiner [00:32:53]: She said, well, it's the second one. And I tell her the idea. She's like, no, just, no, that's the same thing you've been struggling with right now that hasn't been working for you. This other option is something that's completely different from what you've been struggling with. So, like, why would you believe that doing the exact same thing with just a different, you know, different lipstick on the pig is going to make it less of a pig? Like, maybe, maybe, maybe, maybe select the one that isn't a pig speaking in some abstracts here. But, like, being able to have those people in our lives is drastically underrated. People get really, really comfortable in their comfort zones of the people who are going to just tell them, it's just all right, or you'll figure it out. No big deal. Jeremy Gruensteiner [00:33:41]: Yeah. And meanwhile, you're still stuck in that space of, well, how you feel stuck in that. It's great to have that cheerleader for you, but having those people that can call you forward or call you on your own bullshit, where you're like, do you really think that's a great idea? Or, hey, I see you actually succeeding in this. Going this direction more versus this direction and being able to, like, point out those things that we don't see for ourselves. Super underrated, super important. John Ryder [00:34:13]: Yeah, I've noticed that a lot with. With my girlfriend. She. I'll be doing a song or, like, working on something, and she'll just be like, oh, I really like that. Or, like. Like, we had rehearsal, and I was just trying something different, and she just, like, was just. I don't like that. That. John Ryder [00:34:35]: No, like. And then she was. I. She had recorded it, and I disagreed with her at the time. Cause, like, nah, like, I was feeling it. And then she went back. I went back and watched the video, and I was like, oh, shit, like, she's right. Like, I was. John Ryder [00:34:49]: So it just didn't make sense at all, you know? So, you know, that's been really nice, especially because, like, we live together, and I get that on, like, a daily basis of encouragement, but, like, perspective, you know? And, yeah, that's. That's been really nice. Jeremy Gruensteiner [00:35:08]: Yeah, that's really cool. And also, I would like bringing up something that you had talked about earlier of, like, you know, things perhaps in certain music scenes or certain. Certain groups, really struggling to, like, step outside of that box where, like, everything starts to sound the same, or they're. They're. They're running. It's almost like they're running a play out of a playbook of, like, how to be a band. Like they're following a step by step guide. Everybody starts to sound the same. Jeremy Gruensteiner [00:35:39]: Like, I was just watching a video last week with, with Glenn Fricker from Supernatural studios that, you know, everybody uses as far as guitar players go. Everybody uses the same speaker. Everybody wants to use a celestial vintage 30, and then everybody starts sounding exactly the same because that's what's predictable. That's what they know from the records that they like so that they can emulate those. But we end up in the space of everything feeling homogenized and not creative. And to what we've been speaking on, of, like, how much. How much impact has it been for you to surround yourself with musicians and creative people who have very different tastes or very different perspectives? How has that influenced your ability to create or your ability to create something different that isn't quite as mainstream or quite as easily defined? John Ryder [00:36:38]: Honestly, it's been interesting. Like I said, I feel like I grew up listening. If I talk to other hard rock middle musicians or bands in the, in the tri state area, they. A lot of them would probably say certain similar bands that they like or they listen to growing up. And then I'm over here, like, oh, you know, I listen to, like, Michael Jackson and, like, David Bowie, which I think some people might list smashing pumpkins. Like, had such a different. I had to, like, learn how to, like, live within the spectrum of, like, what music is popular now, if that makes sense. And it's been really interesting to ask people, like, does this make sense? Because, like, you know, I feel like I'm writing it from, you know, perspective of someone who, like, you know, loves that type of music and, you know, grew up listening and just adoring soundtrack music, you know. John Ryder [00:37:44]: You know, I love. I love, like, film scores and stuff. So it's been different because, like, for some people, it's like, they look for other people to, like, give them different perspective. For me, I've had that, but I've also had people, like, where I'm like, does this make sense? Because I don't. You know, it's like, I'll use, like, I'll use, like, 30 seconds to Mars, for example. So, like, they came out in early two thousands. And I don't know if you're familiar with, like, the catalog, like, the first album. And I was okay. Jeremy Gruensteiner [00:38:18]: I was actually regional director of their street team for the upper, upper midwest. John Ryder [00:38:22]: Oh, wow. That's crazy. Jeremy Gruensteiner [00:38:24]: I'm familiar. I'm very familiar with the 30 seconds to Mars. John Ryder [00:38:26]: Okay. Jeremy Gruensteiner [00:38:27]: That's the same. Yeah. John Ryder [00:38:29]: So the music that they came out with at the time, there's aspects of stuff that's, you know, similar to other genres. You know, you got a little bit of deftones in there. You got a little bit of, like, butt rock in there. And then obviously, aesthetically, in the early two thousands, they were kind of fitting in with that black eyeliner look. But even from the first album to, like, their most recent album, it's like, they're somewhat similar to, like, what's going on in the music scene right now, but they're so dramatically different. You know, like, if. What is that song? It's like a seven minute song on their first album, Buddha's for Mary. Jeremy Gruensteiner [00:39:17]: Oh, yeah. Yep. John Ryder [00:39:18]: Yeah, yeah. Like, that doesn't really, like when that came out. Like, there are not a lot of other bands that sounded like that. You know what I mean? Jeremy Gruensteiner [00:39:28]: Yeah, well, had that, like, it had a bit of what you're talking about of, like, some ambient, soundscape y type stuff, and then just, like, different twists and turns that went along with it well, but it still maintained, like, one melodic through line during the whole thing. But it wasn't your typical, like, four chords, then we get a breakdown and then, like, a sweeping chorus. It was. It was a little bit. It was much more different than what was being brought forward as, like, pop radio or, like. Yeah, popular rock or modern rock, however you want to classify that. John Ryder [00:40:07]: Yeah, so, yeah, I feel like that's been my. Because, like, you know, like, in the earlier stuff, like, a lot of their stuff was, like, chop detuning and, you know, just open five, three more, you know, whatever. And. But that was, like, the similarity that would, like, connect them to what was going on musically, but everything else was different. And, you know, they didn't really grow up listening to, like, they grew up as artists and, like, enjoying all different types of music, not just rock, you know, and so, yeah, there's definitely, like, even, like, you know, for ghost mits elephant, like, in 2024, I want to do, like, a lot more, like, metal core stuff. And, like, just because this is my first, like, official year of playing music, like, in Minnesota ever, which is crazy. And I've noticed, like, what seems to go over a lot more than others and, like, the ambient stuff that we're doing with ghost made with the screaming and stuff, like, some of it went over well, some of it not so much. And I still love to do it, but I was like, I'm going to write two EPs. John Ryder [00:41:17]: One and continuing the journey that I'm on right now, but another that's, like, just straight up, like, hard rock and metal core. And, like, because when we played, like, the one song that would be in that genre, like, mankato, like, was, like, the first time people ever moshed, you know, that was really cool. And then we played the rest of the set, and they just kind of stood there. Jeremy Gruensteiner [00:41:40]: Yeah. John Ryder [00:41:41]: So, you know, it's knowing how to, like, cater to your audience, and it's okay to, you know. You know, to sound similar at times because, like, that's what people know. And then sprinkle in some difference, you know, or do something similar that they know but in a different way. Yeah, it's. It's, you know. Yeah, I'm the annoying person that I have a few people that I, like, continuously send shit to, and they're like, this sounds very similar to what you just did, but, like, don't you hear the difference? And they're like, oh, my God, like. Jeremy Gruensteiner [00:42:20]: Yeah, all the things that, when we're so close to it that we hear. We hear all the nuance, but the. The person who's on the outside, they don't know quite that difference. It's like, you know, to put it in guitar gear turns terms, it's like, well, I swapped out this. I swapped out my tube screamer for a big muffin and, like, expecting everybody to notice the big difference in my tone. And meanwhile, nobody actually, aside from maybe the couple guitar dorks in the audience, nobody like, oh, it sounds like a distorted guitar either way. Yeah, just, they don't. They don't hear that. Jeremy Gruensteiner [00:42:54]: That subtle sonic difference the same way that we do as creators. Like, they don't see the sonic coloration quite the same way, but I think that that's. And I don't think that's what's really cool about having gotten to know you over this past almost a year or so is that I think that that's really cool that you have that ability to notice and pick up what's going on with the audience and be able to be open enough to say, all right, how can I still express myself? How can I still be creative within what I want to do, but, you know, be accessible to the people that I want to have experience what I'm doing? I think it's very easy for artists to say, no, no, no, I'm going to do it exactly only my way. And if they don't like it, then that's something. Well, screw all of them, or that's something that's wrong with them that they don't quite get it or whatever that story that we can tell ourselves is. Hearing you say that of being, being continually in the crafting of the music, like, that's something so cool that I don't hear from very many artists very often. John Ryder [00:44:11]: Thanks, man. It's a, if you want to get there, you got to keep climbing up the mountain, man. You can't like, go up, you know, a thousand feet and be like, oh, yeah, well, you know, I'm just going to wait until the next time I decide to make another, you know, incline. And so, you know, you always, and, you know, like, the people who like to do, like, free soloing or climbing mountains, like, they might go up that same mountain a couple of different ways, find different paths. And, I mean, that was, you know, I think that's the beauty of art is it's ever changing. And that's like, like, for me, like, like, I obviously have empires of delirium, but that's why that's been so quiet so lately. Because, like, it's like, I busted my ass for that band for three years. Film, music videos, threw money at it, developed a sound with a bass guitar that sounds like a guitar, basically. John Ryder [00:45:07]: Royal blood or actually, the first person who showed me the octave thing was Jay with anomic. I was like, how the fuck does she. Jeremy Gruensteiner [00:45:16]: Right, which I introduced him how to do that with, with that. Yeah, yeah, there's a whole story in that one because I didn't, I didn't like the drummer he. So I was playing bass for inomic at the time and I didn't really get on with the drummer that we had. And so I was like, you would be better off doing this as a, as a two piece. And so here's how you can do that. John Ryder [00:45:37]: That's funny. Yeah, yeah. So thank you for that inspiration. Years later. Yes. You didn't even know. Jeremy Gruensteiner [00:45:44]: Once again, I say what we talked about, that that ripple effect is like, had I not shown him how to do that, you know, you wouldn't have maybe had that, that sonic color, like that sonic paintbrush or crayon box, whichever metaphor you want for it, you wouldn't even had the access to it necessarily. Or maybe you would have stumbled upon it later. But, yeah, it's always fun to see what those ripple effects have and, like, what you are doing and the way that you show up in, in the various music scenes of like, what sorts of ripples and what sorts of people, your performances may influence how they show up. John Ryder [00:46:28]: Yeah. That's. It's really interesting. And, you know, it's. You know, we had, you know, I think when we first officially met you, because I had heard about you, like, a lot in the past, was the July show that we played in St. Paul. Jeremy Gruensteiner [00:46:44]: Yep. John Ryder [00:46:45]: And, like, you know, I hadn't played ghost made stuff, and, like I said, four years. Right. Like, we had a month and a half to prep, and I didn't even remember most of the songs. Like, yeah, you know, so we were, like, figuring out as you go, and it wasn't, you know, it wasn't the most polished performance, but it had a beginning and an end that was very, you know, there was an arc to it that's, you know, made a lot of sense for the musical style, and then it was just very, like, cathartic and honest and, like, from that, like, we've gotten. I've been offered probably somewhere between 60 to 80 shows since July. Wow. Which is a lot. And we have. John Ryder [00:47:29]: I can't announce it, but we do have a tour coming up, and I have to figure that part out with the drummer, but I can't officially announce it, but you'll see. Okay, but we. Yeah, we. I've had, you know, I've had to turn down more shows than I've accepted by at least five fold, which is crazy. And only. Only because if it were up to me, I'd be playing every single one of them. But when you're in a band, you got to go with what works for people's schedules, you know, and, you know, but, yeah, we've. Yeah, somewhere between 60 to 80 shows over the course of July, August, and, like, five months, six months. Jeremy Gruensteiner [00:48:11]: That's impressive for. For any band. Like, that's. John Ryder [00:48:16]: It's a lot. It was a lot. Yeah, I've had to. It sucks, man. I've had to say, like, just in December alone, probably twelve shows I had to say no to. And I'm very blessed that, like, people think of us and want to have us on a show regardless of how good or bad the performance might be on the last show, you know, because we run a lot of backing tracks and we don't have any monitor system, so we are at. For a while, we were at the mercy of whatever sound engineer was working that bar. And, you know, it's always shown up to bars and venues with no monitors on stage, and I'm like, how the fuck do I hear my backing track? You know? And so I actually went and bought, like, I guess it's, like, 415 inch speakers with tweeters and 312 inch speakers. John Ryder [00:49:14]: And then we use the 15 as monitors. So, like, I just kind of got to the point where I'm like, I can't afford to throw a couple thousand dollars at an in ear rack. But, you know, I've got these really nice, professional, quality pa speakers I could bring with me and use those as monitors. Jeremy Gruensteiner [00:49:33]: Yeah. You know, fill in the mix, at least so you know where you are. Yep, yep. John Ryder [00:49:37]: And so, yeah, it's. Yeah, anywhere from no monitors to. We had one venue give us one monitor, and I was like, you know, it just. Performances can vary a lot and. Oh, yeah, you know, I hate it. I hate it because I want to go out there and I want people to be like, wow. Like, they're really polished and they sound amazing, but I'm not willing to wait. Like, you know, like, you see, like you said earlier in the conversation, some people want to wait for the very first experience of when you hear that one song that it's perfect. John Ryder [00:50:11]: And then you didn't have that opportunity to grow because you waited all that time. So I don't want to wait till I have money to buy anything rack. I'd rather go make monitors work and grow, continue to grow as much as I can, you know? Jeremy Gruensteiner [00:50:26]: Yeah. So there's also no guarantee that playing within years is a whole different skill and things, too, of, like, there's no guarantee that it's just going to fix everything for you either. I get to, like, I think it's so cool that you're doing stuff like that because it, you know, it reminds me of, while I'm not. Not an ancient old geezer by any stretch of the imagination, but, like, the. Just the reminders. I'm laughing and smiling because I'm remembering all of those same struggles that you're talking about. In the first band that I really played in, we were doing something very different than everybody else because we had. This is 2004, we had backing tracks. Jeremy Gruensteiner [00:51:09]: We had no amps. We were running everything direct through line six pods. So as a bass, we had no drummer because everything was programmed. So as a singer, a guitar player and a bass player, it was cool because we could load everything up and we could tour in a Buick and we didn't have to have a big van. We didn't have to, like, we could do things like have a hotel room because we weren't paying out so much in gas, but showing up to shows and they're like, well, this one speaker, this is the entire PA. You're like, what? Like, those frustrations I remember those very, very, very vividly of what you're talking about and how creative you get with a solution. Like you talked about of bringing along your own monitors to be able to hear these things. And I think that's so cool that you're continually building this way to start and keep going rather than wait for the perfect moment, because that's ultimately where all the magic happens anyways. John Ryder [00:52:14]: Yeah. Yeah. A lot of growth in those imperfect moments. It's like, I don't know, like I. So I got really heavy. We'll talk about, like, strong and stuff, but, you know, I've been like 170, like most of my life up until I would say two and a half years ago. Like, I've gained like 50, 60 pounds and. But the struggle is like going and running 30 minutes on a treadmill. John Ryder [00:52:47]: And, I mean, you're not where you want to be. You're not at the performance that you want to be at or that you're accustomed to, but that 30 minutes of, honestly, for me, it's like the first twelve minutes are like, hell, I fucking hate it. And then the rest of it's smooth sailing, you know? You know, that's, that's a big part of the process of anything, really, which is if you want to, you want to get there, you put in the work, you know? Jeremy Gruensteiner [00:53:18]: Well, it's the. We've talked about this on the podcast many times of, like, it's very easy for us to distill, like, our lives down to, like, checkboxes and, like, accomplishments and things. And reality is that all of the magic and all of the memories come from the time that you're spending doing the work, being on the journey versus all of the big achievements. Because how long does that big achievement, let's say you're on it, you headline a big show. It's like the good feels from that are very small. It's like you get the time doing it and a little bit of the time afterwards, but then it's on to the next one. Onto the next one, because if you just stop there, you're not going to get that next show. And so it's in that continual process of improvement, that continual tweaking, that continual growth that we find all the magic which is in the journey itself. John Ryder [00:54:20]: Yeah, 100%. I did want to say this, though, is again, the weird and strong, having lived other places and I've spent time in Texas and New York and then lived in LA for a long time. And, man, the midwest is a really weird place. Jeremy Gruensteiner [00:54:39]: Yeah. John Ryder [00:54:39]: It is not in a negative way, but it's full of a lot of people underground. Like, there's a lot of talented people here. There just need, like, just need to be shown, you know, how to, like, bring that talent out, you know? And I think that's one thing I've appreciated, especially in the last couple of years, which is, like, holy shit. Like, there's a lot of. There's a lot I didn't see here before. And so that's been really, really beautiful. And, you know, every place is kind of weird, but I think the midwest, I mean, when we put that grand fork show, there was a. It was a tater tot dish. Jeremy Gruensteiner [00:55:25]: It was a wild rice soup. John Ryder [00:55:27]: Yeah. Wild rice soup. Yeah. That's just. Dude, I've never played a show where they had food like that. Jeremy Gruensteiner [00:55:33]: Yeah. Yeah. John Ryder [00:55:34]: I mean. I mean, we did put the 4 July where they had the steak, but, like. Jeremy Gruensteiner [00:55:39]: But just to, like, show up and be like, oh, hey there, by the way, there's this nice home cooked meal just waiting in the kitchen for you. John Ryder [00:55:45]: Yeah, that's a beautiful thing. Jeremy Gruensteiner [00:55:46]: Yeah. I think I've talked about this on another episode. I've talked about this for years of, like, there's definitely something about northern climates of, like, you know, feeling like you're locked up for six months out of the year to avoid the outside and avoid the weather. That, like, that's where, like, people become so talented. I mean, is it any wonder that, like, Bob Dylan and Prince come from Minnesota? Like, right. You know, they just had time to spend just working on the music? Because if you went outside in February, it's, like, could be a death sentence if you're not prepared. Just like, I'll just stay. I'll just stay inside and play guitar. Jeremy Gruensteiner [00:56:29]: Just stay inside and write some songs. Just make that happen. John Ryder [00:56:33]: Yeah, I. Have you seen the shining? Jeremy Gruensteiner [00:56:38]: Yes. John Ryder [00:56:39]: Okay. So my goal in life is to have enough money for music that I can sustain from it. But in the winter months, I mean, granted, unless I have a lot of money and it goes someplace warm in the winter months to. To kind of lock myself up, like, in the shining. Like, yeah, I was there. Kind of secluded from everybody in his own thoughts and going mad. I used to. I used to be an RA at Minnesota State University, and they would pay, you know, resident assistants to stay over Christmas break, and there's, like, nobody on campus. John Ryder [00:57:21]: Yeah, maybe. Maybe a dozen kids, and. But you still had to work the desk and, like, and then you still had to patrol all of the residential buildings and walk and, you know, every once in a while you'll see someone, but like, typically all the lights are out and there's something exciting and like tingling about that feeling of just like almost like post apocalyptic nothingness that you can kind of really be in your own thoughts in a different kind of way. You know what I mean? Jeremy Gruensteiner [00:57:57]: Because you're in your same environment. Yeah, yeah. But it's kind of spooky that way. I loved that. It used to be. It's not like this anymore for sure. Like during big holidays, especially during the summer, downtown Fargo, Moorhead, it would be a ghost town. So like 4 July, like there'd be like two bars open and like nobody there. Jeremy Gruensteiner [00:58:20]: Like, those were my favorite. Those were my favorite because it's like even if it was a Saturday night, it would be just a ghost town. And it was interesting to just be able to see that from that lens versus, oh, it's just another Saturday and it's packed full of college kids and they're doing their thing. It's just fun to have that pattern interrupt like you're talking about. John Ryder [00:58:42]: Yeah. Jeremy Gruensteiner [00:58:44]: Awesome, man. As we're coming up on our time together, anything, any final thoughts or any pieces of wisdom that you'd like to share with the weird and strong audience? John Ryder [00:58:56]: I'm thinking about that for a sec. Jeremy Gruensteiner [00:58:58]: Yeah. John Ryder [00:59:01]: I would say, honestly, just keep grinding and be willing to step outside your box. You know what I mean? I think that that's really important. You know, the more tools you have, the less, you know, like if you want to go hiking, which is, you know, one, you know, like in the mountains in the winter with just like one tool, you bring several. You bring a shovel, you bring, you know, snowshoes, you bring a tent, you bring stuff to light a fire, stuff in case there was emergency flares, like, you know, if you really want to succeed, you know, I'm using this reference because I'm thinking about, it's December and like every December I think about we did 10,000ft in Yosemite. So we like slept on the side of the mountain, which is beautiful in the winter. And I've been thinking about that every, we did it over Christmas, like, I don't know, seven years ago, eight years ago. But, you know, you wouldn't do that journey with just one tool. You would learn multiple tools and, you know, and know how to use them and, you know, I think that, you know, that's, I think in today's climate, that's kind of what you got to do. John Ryder [01:00:24]: And, you know, there's technology that's there and, you know, that's a guide for how to use those tools. Aside from that, check out ghost mid cellophane. Everything except for Spotify at the moment is that we don't have Spotify, which is ironic with everything going on. And then feel free to check out empires of delirium. And I do have a production company called Skeleton Structure Productions that I do do photography and video and stuff like that. Through stuff. Jeremy Gruensteiner [01:00:58]: Awesome. Yeah, we'll have a link to all of that in the show notes for anybody who wants to check those things out, which I would highly recommend. So as we wrap up, thanks, John, so much for jumping on the podcast with me. It's always a pleasure getting to talk to you and I'm so grateful for you willing to jump on and have this conversation. And I'm just grateful for you being you because you are a super rad dude. John Ryder [01:01:24]: Honestly, man, I appreciate you a lot. Cause, like, I feel like you're a very inspiring person to be around. Jeremy Gruensteiner [01:01:30]: Thank you. John Ryder [01:01:31]: And you're doing what's very authentic to who you are. And, you know, I think that we need more people like that. So. Yeah, thank you so much for having me. Jeremy Gruensteiner [01:01:43]: Yeah, awesome. And thank you all for listening to this episode. We appreciate you coming all the way to the end. And as always, folks, stay strong and most importantly, stay weird.

Jeremy Gruensteiner [00:00:01]: Welcome back to the Weird and strong podcast. I'm your host, Jeremy Gernsteiner. And today we have a special guest, Kyle Smith, otherwise known as Dapper dude Kyle. We get to talk about where his path has brought him into the coaching space and all of the weird and interesting things that he has discovered and found for himself. So without further delay, let's get weird. Welcome Kyle Smith to the Weird and strong podcast. How you doing today, man? Kyle Smith [00:00:29]: Dude, I'm doing pretty, pretty good. The weather's a little chilly, the sun's barely around, but overall I'm doing well. Jeremy Gruensteiner [00:00:37]: That's fantastic. The listener is listening to this because this will be coming out in mid December. They'll be definitely feeling that, unless they live somewhere tropical. Yeah, we're getting into that season, that time of the year. Before we dive in, I've got a weird question for you. Are you ready? Kyle Smith [00:00:56]: Yes. Jeremy Gruensteiner [00:00:57]: Awesome. If you woke up tomorrow and found that every single man on the planet could only communicate through interpretive dance, how would you adapt your communication style and your coaching methods? Kyle Smith [00:01:15]: Hmm. Hmm. I would. That's a great question. That's a fun one. That's a strange one. Yeah, I would. I would probably. Kyle Smith [00:01:35]: Well, for myself if I was communicating well, I probably learned a couple different languages because, you know, salsa is like the language of love. But then again, Kapoya is a dance martial art, so I guess it would depend on what I'm going with. But if I were to coach Macarena, obviously. Jeremy Gruensteiner [00:01:55]: You just Macarena everything. Kyle Smith [00:01:57]: Yeah. But you know what? Breakdancing would definitely be up there on my list of at least dance moves that I would want to learn. I'm not sure how the utility, actually, the utility would be pretty sweet. And I think coaching people dancing would be really tough. Jeremy Gruensteiner [00:02:12]: Yeah. Might be something to try at some point or like, just like a fun, fun exercise. We'll get a. We'll get a room of coaches together and we'll coach each other only using interpretive dance. Kyle Smith [00:02:24]: What's the worst that can happen? Has anyone asked you what your answer is to that? Jeremy Gruensteiner [00:02:29]: No. You're the first person I've asked this question to. Kyle Smith [00:02:31]: I would love to know what yours is. Jeremy Gruensteiner [00:02:33]: Yeah, I just. I would dive in. I did study a bit of dance in my day, so I do have a little bit of background to be to not just wiggle and try to figure it out. Not that the structure or anything matters all that much, but a bit of physical awareness and people who come out of the fitness space, which you are from that world as well. We tend to have some body awareness that helps with a lot of that, too. Having some dance background helps with that, too. And looking back, you know, we have previous guests like Ben Walker, who was in musical theater, and so be interesting to hear him answer that question as well. Kyle Smith [00:03:21]: Nice. Do you switch up the questions for the guests? Jeremy Gruensteiner [00:03:23]: I do, yes. Kyle Smith [00:03:25]: Oh, nice. Cool. Jeremy Gruensteiner [00:03:26]: Sometimes they're a repeat, but most of the time, there's something a bit new and. Yeah. So something else that we talk about quite a bit on this podcast is in the ways that people show up unconventionally. What are their strengths? What are the ways that make. What are the ways and the things that make them weird? So, Kyle, how do you show up in the world unconventionally, and what makes you weird? Kyle Smith [00:03:53]: Well, you know, one thing that's been a repeat, one. One thing that's been a repeat has been people find the way that I think to be interesting, and that's. And I don't know, maybe just because of what I'm interested in when it comes to the mind and the combination of. Combination of things. Well, it all started with a question that's, like, where it really started. But the way I think seems to be interesting to folks because, honestly, I have no idea. But the main. The main reason. Kyle Smith [00:04:35]: The main way I got my thinking, I'll talk about my thinking a bit, and then maybe you can. Yeah, but the way that I think is very. It's very. It has. I try to create or try to find myself in the way I think is also a reflection of my state of being as well. So I try to think and be in a state where it's energy neutrality. So it's. I really like. Kyle Smith [00:05:13]: I really like thinking. Thinking in expansiveness. Like, the mind does not have any limitations to the thoughts that we can have or the possibilities that we can conjure up. It's interesting because we understand the rules of the world around us, like our reality that we experience. And I think until, and I believe that people are taught what to think rather than how to think. And that puts a glass ceiling on the potential when the mind can have an unlimited capacity. So it's like we may be a physical body, like, we could be a planet, but our brain is the universe, the universe as a bigger whole. And the way they. Kyle Smith [00:06:04]: The way that I think is, I don't know. It just breaks down. It breaks things down to the simplest component, because I think overcomplicating things is simple, and people are really good at overcomplicating things. But when we actually reverse it and pull back. We can simplify things down to the smallest part. And in my opinion, the main reason we don't try to simplify things that could be seemingly difficult is because we do not want to address the truth of that simplicity. Because then it makes it easier for us to feel shame and guilt for not living and being. And interacting in alignment with that. Kyle Smith [00:06:48]: So there's like. So there's like that resistance to trying to simplify things because we don't want to simplify things so much so that we actually have to do the thing that we talked about doing. Jeremy Gruensteiner [00:06:59]: Yeah. Yeah. So to, like, summarize and maybe paraphrase some of the things that you're talking about, you know, looking at, let's say perhaps a person is having a very tough time and either making a decision or trying to find a way forward, feeling really stuck in their life, feeling like they're really lost, and they have these. These thoughts that they feel stuck on, and they. It's swirling around, swirling around, swirling around. And you're saying that because we're trying to. We're trying to constrain and control of what we can control of that simplicity. Looks like that when we take that step back, we can actually see it for whatever the easy or simple step forward would be to get us out of that is that totally. Kyle Smith [00:07:48]: We go from a place of perception to a place of perspective. So we go from being in it to being over it. Jeremy Gruensteiner [00:07:54]: Yeah, absolutely. Kyle Smith [00:07:57]: That's a great paraphrase. Jeremy Gruensteiner [00:07:58]: Thank you. Thank you. You know, on a personal experience, like seeing this happen for myself many times over my life, but even recently, I was struggling with this idea. Struggling. Trying to. Trying to make the. Trying to figure out a solution to a problem. And there's a phrase that I've used over and over again, is this idea of the tyranny of the urgent, like, it has to be done right now, and I have to get it done. Jeremy Gruensteiner [00:08:29]: I have to solve this puzzle by Friday because there's timelines and there's things on the line, there's skin in the game, whatever you want to call it, and creating that external pressure for ourselves. And then the moment that I was able to step to the side and let that go, oh, then the solution came and presented itself in a new way. So for you, as you've discovered this, is this something that was really natural to you that you just did on your own, or was there some sort of a path that you came to, to start to find and see this way of thinking for yourself that others find so interesting? Kyle Smith [00:09:14]: I think there is a series of things for sure. I really dig a lot of philosophy. I like researching all sorts of cultures, all sorts of different religions, all sorts of different forms of spirituality, all different sorts of psychedelics. So there's a collection of things that have certainly contributed to my thinking process overall. But if I were to put two points in time where they're the most significant, one would be the world's toughest mudder in 2016. And that one was because I really pushed the body. So after that point, I came up with a philosophy that in order to. In order to build up the mind, we got to break down the body in a sense, because when we are not working in alignment with our thoughts, with our brain and our body, then they're out of alignment. Kyle Smith [00:10:17]: So the way I look at it is that it's the head, the heart, and the intuition, the human consciousness, the animal consciousness, and the higher consciousness. So I break it down to that kind of a thought process. And then if you have your mind wave far one direction and your body the other direction, then things are not going to be able to alignment or align. And so when things are out of alignment, then that's the time that's appropriate to recalibrate. So when I was able to give myself that opportunity to recalibrate those two points, where I was able to say to myself, wow, in my. To my standards, in my opinion, I was just being a pansy ass motherfucker, when realistically, for me at that point, it's actually for that lesson from there is any sort of misery that I'm experiencing is most likely due to myself first and less to do with the surrounding environments, circumstances, news, people, beliefs, whatever. So that was the first part where I was actually able to recalibrate the brain and the body. And now I found, like, much simpler ways to do it. Kyle Smith [00:11:26]: That was just a lesson that I took away from there. Yeah. Now it's just breath, work, cold exposure, a bunch of other stuff like that, you know, that everyone likes to try out nowadays. Yeah. But then the thing where I really started deep in deep diving, I was out for a walk, and then the thought that popped in my mind is the question of. Or it wasn't a thought, it was a question. And the question was, what is the truest truth? And I was pretty intrigued by that. And then I created a framework in order to figure out what that would be. Kyle Smith [00:11:57]: So my framework would be, it has to be unbiased, so I have to have it so that it's not just subjectively my existence and my reality, where this truest truth would be the truest truth, it had to be the closest thing to a truest truth I can come up with or that I can learn about and then integrate. So I had to think of it from that unbiased standpoint. I have to separate myself from it. And then I had to also realize that. And over time, things I've been learning, it just made things. It's simpler now. But what I've been figuring out is that there's just. All of us can embody dualities at each point. Kyle Smith [00:12:42]: So we can have happiness and we can have anger, or we can have happiness and we can have sorrow, we can have rage and we can have love. And one thing that I learned through this point is that the truest truth would be energy neutral. It wouldn't be one or the other. It's kind of like, yeah, it wouldn't be one or the other. There would have to be a neutrality into it because a true truth has to fit all sorts of categories. So it's. So it takes up a couple of little spots. I have a very. Kyle Smith [00:13:13]: For the most part, I am very unbiased for a lot of things on, other than, like, two things where I have a hard line on, maybe two. Maybe two things where I have a hard line on. And from there, it's just organizing the brain, creating mental frameworks, and then teaching myself how to organize the brain so that it could be more effective and efficient and have more utility. And the thing that's kind of neat with it is folks that have neurodivergent thinking can resonate with it. And I think that many folks that have, now, I've not been tested for it or anything like that, but I think that many folks, I definitely hit the qualifications, though, for the certification of ADHD, but I think that most folks that have the most struggles with ADHD are trying to learn how to handle their mind by people that don't process as quickly. So if people can learn how to utilize what I view as a gift, as like a superpower, like processing speed is a very, very useful tool to have. So if we can actually harness that processing speed and then be able to keep everything constructive, then we can go with it, because focus the muscle. And we have just, especially in like 1990 and up, most folks that struggle with focus have allowed their focus to atrophy rather than train it and strengthen it. Kyle Smith [00:14:45]: So then, yeah, it's just kind of breaking things down from there. But it was a question of the truest truth that really got things going, okay. Jeremy Gruensteiner [00:14:52]: And that was. You said that was. That came through in 2016 or close. Kyle Smith [00:14:57]: Around a little bit later on. So 2016 was the body one that was the toughest mudder, and then this one was about two years ago. Jeremy Gruensteiner [00:15:05]: Okay. Kyle Smith [00:15:06]: Yeah. Jeremy Gruensteiner [00:15:07]: And was there a specific event that. That, uh, led to that just, uh, walking? Kyle Smith [00:15:13]: Yeah, yeah. I was walking out, and it just kind of popped in my mind, and I'm like, oh, that's an interesting question. So I kind of dove into it. Yeah. Jeremy Gruensteiner [00:15:20]: Little wisdom comes through. Kyle Smith [00:15:22]: Totally. And that's what it feels like, too, because me trying to figure out what the answer to that question is, which I got, like, a couple pretty decent ones, but trying to figure out what this was, has created a state of serenity and a lot of peace, internal peace. And it's recognizable in the people I spend time with as well. So that kind of thought process and that vibe and that energy, that creativity, that perception of possibility has been really beneficial. So it was kind of cool. Yeah. Yeah. Jeremy Gruensteiner [00:16:01]: And so in looking at, you know, for, you say, 2016, you have the physical version of this, and a couple years later, you have this. This mental realization of looking for the truest truth. You know, what were you. Were you always a unique thinker growing up, or was this something that had evolved from these events? Kyle Smith [00:16:28]: I think the putty wasn't there, but I'm just learning how to shape it. Jeremy Gruensteiner [00:16:32]: Sure. Kyle Smith [00:16:33]: Yeah. Like, the. The marble block was there. It's kind of like when Michelangelo did the statue of David. Someone was like, how did you see it? How did you see the statue of David? And he said something along the lines of the statue, or David was already in there. I just had to remove the rest. Jeremy Gruensteiner [00:16:52]: Remove. Kyle Smith [00:16:53]: And so it's kind of like. That is a process of elimination and refinement. Yeah, yeah. Jeremy Gruensteiner [00:16:59]: And what's that? But what's that adventure been like for you? Like, what have been the notable stops on that adventure for you towards this. Kyle Smith [00:17:09]: One notable one that just popped up? So I'll go with this one. I was walking with my girlfriend, Kendra, and we're having a date night, and I experienced a moment where it was just complete silence in my mind, and it was just. It was like the most peaceful and joyful moment. Like, it was just a moment where it was just serenity, and there was no. There's no thoughts, no nothing. And that's one point that really stuck out, where it was like, whoa. So that one pointed that. That was kind of cool. Kyle Smith [00:17:48]: That was a really neat experience. And then, let's see. I would, you know, I would think. I would think more so from, like, a kind of a spiritual sense on this one, since I got the head, the heart. The head, the heart, and the intuition. But I had a really solid, like, three. Three arc, what feels like a three arc story journey with some pretty solid psychedelic trips that I've had. And that's also really opened up a lot of thought process as well, because what it does is it removes those perceptions or the conscious or unconscious beliefs that we have adopted or decided to adopt from whoever else. Kyle Smith [00:18:29]: Fill in the blank. Even our own shenanigans, our own. Our own b's, our own belief systems. Yeah. Oh, did I answer the question? I forgot what? Jeremy Gruensteiner [00:18:39]: The question. No. Yes, we'll come back. One of the things you're talking about in this. In your journey with psychedelics and looking for the truth or looking for the truth? Truth. Like, trying to find understanding in an inherently unintelligible world. Kyle Smith [00:18:58]: Yeah, that's a great paraphrase there. Jeremy Gruensteiner [00:19:01]: Thank you. And then in looking at that of, do you have moments now where you look back and you thought you had it figured out, you thought you knew what the truth was, and then that changes and you realize that perhaps you understood only a facet, or maybe you completely misunderstood? What, like, how. How has that process been for you? Kyle Smith [00:19:27]: Pretty interesting. Yeah. Actually, you know what? There's been. There's certainly been a lot more times where. Not a lot more, but there's pretty solid chunks. Actually, there's. There have been some thoughts where I found myself in a state of being where I didn't really think or I was not, like. Like, aware of it beforehand, so. Kyle Smith [00:19:55]: Ooh. Okay. So some things. Some things I. One couple things I had to switch up was the. Was the idea of our addiction to suffering. I think that we have an addiction to suffering, yes. I think that when it comes to kind of, like, the opposite of the tyranny of urgency that you said, I think that when we are able to resist the temptation or the desire for us to struggle, then we remove resistance, and then we are left with discomfort. Kyle Smith [00:20:36]: Yeah. So that was one thing that I definitely had to go with is like, oh, you mean I'm the one that's resisting the things that I got to do in order to get to where I want to go, which everyone does it, and still to this day, I do, too. And it's just having. The thing that's different is having the awareness and then acting in alignment with that awareness rather than trying to fight that awareness, because that. That just leads to a whole host of troubles. So that was one thing where it's like, oh, it's actually like, it's actually a part of the human condition to understand suffering and to struggle. And we are in a cognitive, and we're in an evolutionary misalignment between what are, what we are capable of or what we are programmed for, which is survival and everything. And then our environment in the North Americas at least, is very abundant. Kyle Smith [00:21:30]: And so I had to learn that, or I had to relearn how to behave in a place that I am not programmed for. And so by being able to do that, I actually work now with the sweet spot where it's not overzealous, desiring gluttony, and it's not scarcity. Like monk style. I have a monk mentality, but in this kind of surrounding world, where there is peace, there is alignment, there is participation, there's practice, and there's persistence, but it's towards a bigger goal, a bigger desire, and there is more purpose than there is pleasure. That's where I need to switch. I needed to shift my focus from a pleasure focused civilization to a purpose driven decision. Jeremy Gruensteiner [00:22:39]: Yeah. So cutting. Cutting out the hedonistic tendencies of our western culture, to your point, of the monk mentality, without the deprivation of needing to feel like you need to run off to a cave somewhere and wear the scratchiest robes possible that are flea infested or whatever image people have of that vow of poverty that all kinds of monks of different cultures take? Kyle Smith [00:23:11]: Totally, yeah. Jeremy Gruensteiner [00:23:12]: There is something to be said about adopting the practices and mindset of people who do go to that level of an extreme. Kyle Smith [00:23:22]: Totally. Jeremy Gruensteiner [00:23:23]: It's very interesting. And looking at that, like, looking at from you when you, like when you were a teenager, did you ever imagine that this is the path that you would be on, or this is where you would be? Not necessarily today exactly, but like, is this a path that you would ever had ever envisioned for yourself of being somebody who's hopping on a podcast and talking about the power of the mind and where we are from, a species point and culture, evolutionary and needing to find a way to react to what does our biology say versus where we think we should be as a species? Kyle Smith [00:24:03]: Nice. Good question. I like it. 16, not sure. I know. I've thought back on 22, but I'll go back, I'll go. I'll keep this one fresh. We'll go to 16. Kyle Smith [00:24:19]: You know what? My 16 and my 22 are pretty close. Actually, when I was 22, that was more so when I got into like a drinking, my drinking phase. Jeremy Gruensteiner [00:24:29]: Yeah. Kyle Smith [00:24:30]: And then there was that. You know what I think if I went. If I went back in time, right? And let's say, for example, like, it was only, like, a time bubble. Like, I could go back in time and I can chat with my younger self, and it wouldn't affect anything. Jeremy Gruensteiner [00:24:48]: Yeah. Kyle Smith [00:24:49]: It would just be, you just have. Jeremy Gruensteiner [00:24:50]: A conversation in its own sterile environment. Kyle Smith [00:24:54]: Yes, yes. Because I don't want to change anything that's going on. I don't want no butterfly effect shit going on. But, you know, one of us, it's actually pretty funny. So one thing for sure, because I stopped drinking for 100 days, and then that 100 days turned into a year because I was on my bucket list. And now that one year is almost two years, so that's one part. So not drinking. And I. Kyle Smith [00:25:22]: My family likes to party, man. Like, yeah, we can party hard. Jeremy Gruensteiner [00:25:27]: I get it. That's. I think it's a byproduct of cold cultures when there's not a whole lot else to do, then sit around and drink when it's totally freezing for, you know, nine months out of the year. Kyle Smith [00:25:40]: Yeah, I think you're totally right, dude. Jeremy Gruensteiner [00:25:42]: I get it. And, you know, here in the states where I live, in the Dakotas, and then Minnesota, Wisconsin, it's all pretty much the same. Kyle Smith [00:25:52]: That's hilarious. Yeah. That's cold color. Yeah, that's right. And then what was another thing that my younger self would be pretty surprised by? He'd be pretty surprised that I'm not in a restaurant industry, and I don't think he would be surprised by what I'm doing, because I was really. I was. I got a pretty young start when it came to fitness overall. Like, my dad was. Kyle Smith [00:26:16]: I remember, like, being, like, six, seven years old, doing push ups with him in the living room, my grandparents place. So that part, I don't think I'd be very surprised. Actually. This is a pretty funny one. It just popped up when my cousin and my cousin, that was when the masco Zorro came out with Antonio Banderas. Oh, yeah. And, you know, when Anthony Hopkins, the original Zorro, he's training Antonio Banderas, and he's doing, like, planks or push ups over top of the fire or the candles and stuff. Jeremy Gruensteiner [00:26:42]: Yep. Kyle Smith [00:26:42]: I legit did that with all my cousins. Jeremy Gruensteiner [00:26:46]: That's funny. Kyle Smith [00:26:46]: So apparently there is some sort of thing that makes sense in there, and I think one thing that'd be really funny. Cause my buddy calvin actually pointed out, too, is. Cause I was, like, pretty straight edge back in the day, like, the original. I had just the usual negative kind of biases towards, like, smoking weed, for example. That's different. That's significantly different. Jeremy Gruensteiner [00:27:13]: Yeah. Kyle Smith [00:27:14]: I'm much more of a partaker of the can of weeds than the drinking, than the cannabis. Yeah. Yeah, dude. They're actually pretty fucking good, too. Jeremy Gruensteiner [00:27:23]: Yeah. Kyle Smith [00:27:24]: And that one would probably be one where it would be like, he'd probably be like, oh, you fucking stoner. And I'd be like, bro, I'm more useful than you've ever been. Which kind of is a weird thing to say, but yeah, yeah. Just how you will be. Jeremy Gruensteiner [00:27:41]: Yeah. Kyle Smith [00:27:42]: Yeah. Jeremy Gruensteiner [00:27:43]: It's interesting, you know, in, you know, in looking at that, the help, the more straight edge self, the getting into fitness. Is it in looking back, are you surprised that you ended up where you are? Kyle Smith [00:28:01]: For the fitness part, not so much. For. Yeah. For the fitness part, not so much. That's one thing I think I was. Where luck comes in is I was lucky enough to just happen to have a parent that was into it. Same with my mom, too. She likes to keep herself active as well. Kyle Smith [00:28:22]: Walks all the time. And you know what? We were chatting the other day because I was asking her a question about things that I do or things I've done in my childhood that took me no effort to do, because what we do in our childhood is an indicator of what are, like, the things that we're pulled towards where we can find ourselves in a flow state, the easiest. And so I asked her the question. I was just pondering this and I asked her and she said that even at two and a half years old, I would walk an hour to 90 minutes from one side with my parents. Of course. Jeremy Gruensteiner [00:28:58]: Yeah. Kyle Smith [00:28:59]: I wasn't by myself, but one side of it was like West St. John to Milford. And if anyone's familiar with that, then they would know. But it was. It's about. Basically about an hour walk. So even walking, I've always been, and I still, like, I walk a stupid amount. That's been really consistent. Kyle Smith [00:29:15]: So fitness for, I don't think would be too much of a surprise. It's been pretty embedded early on, so now it's just a natural part of my personality. Jeremy Gruensteiner [00:29:25]: Yeah. But the rest, the rest of the journey, from mindset and psychedelics and adventures to group meetups with crazy people in Richmond, Virginia, like those were surprising to you or would have been surprising to you as you look back? Kyle Smith [00:29:44]: I think so, yeah. Because it would have been interesting trying to explain how I help people because at that point in time as well, there is. It sounds funny, because it's kind of like talking about all the old days where there was less accessibility to the Internet and stuff like that. So it'd be interesting going back and actually saying to my younger self what the opportunities are for how you can have conversations over the Internet. Yeah, stuff like that. I think that part would be interesting. Jeremy Gruensteiner [00:30:21]: I mean, even rewind back ten years and doing something like this wasn't necessarily even all that possible. I mean, there were versions of it, but it wasn't the norm. Like, you know, I'm trying to remember back exactly when the podcast even came out, but it's less than 20 years old. The idea of a podcast, just the idea that you can have a conversation downloaded to a device somewhere and listen to. Listen to this conversation just like you would tune into a radio show. Kyle Smith [00:30:54]: That's so crazy. Hey, yeah, yeah, it's pretty mindful because back then you would have to have like a whole studio setup or something along those lines, but now it's just so easy, so convenient. But I think it would be all. Jeremy Gruensteiner [00:31:06]: The navigation of how you get everything to itunes and, you know, people who, only people who have pod iPods can get it. And so if you didn't have an ipod, you didn't get into podcasts. And like, yeah, it's, now it's so, so widespread. I mean, even. Even YouTube isn't. Is less than 30 or less than 20 years old at this point, too. Kyle Smith [00:31:28]: Yeah, I believe so. Because it was like, yeah, I don't know when the dates were going to go with that. Jeremy Gruensteiner [00:31:32]: I think it was like 2000, if I'm remembering this right, because I was. I was in my second year of college. It was dating myself. It was about 2005. Kyle Smith [00:31:42]: I think that's accurate. Jeremy Gruensteiner [00:31:43]: Yeah, fall of 2005. Because I remember being in the dorms and we're like, there's this thing, this new thing called YouTube that you can watch videos on the Internet and it's like, okay, and you can. Kyle Smith [00:31:59]: Who's gonna do that? Jeremy Gruensteiner [00:32:00]: Well, I was like, of course. Let's see. Let's check this out. You know, and those were the heady days of MySpace. And there was no, I mean, I think Facebook was just like just around, only for college students at that point. Like, these were. It was a very different everything. Very different world, period. Jeremy Gruensteiner [00:32:19]: And talking just. And touching on something that you had started to discuss in talking with people who are of the neurodivergent flavors of being that are, there are many of. Kyle Smith [00:32:33]: I've been told, spectrum everything. Everything has a continuum from point a to point b and back. Jeremy Gruensteiner [00:32:40]: Yeah, we're all plots on a graph somewhere. Kyle Smith [00:32:44]: Exactly. Jeremy Gruensteiner [00:32:45]: In looking at that of like discovery for yourself as somebody unofficially ADHD or neurodivergent, and looking at what you've learned and studied of human patterns and all of these things, what are the ways that you have been noticing for yourself of how some of those things do come up you can use as a superpower? Kyle Smith [00:33:10]: Oh, okay. Yeah. So first thing, actually, you know what I would say, going through and understanding the cycle of flow, the flow cycle, where it goes struggle, then it goes release, then it goes flow, then it goes recovery, when we actually know how the brain can function, can function, right? It's not does function or could function, then we can actually prime ourselves and our environment to work in conjunction with that. So if there's a lot of noise, then that, to me, it's a process of elimination and becoming more aware of the things that are priority and things that are not priority. One thing that I think is the most important thing for every human being to learn, and I believe every human being does, I think that this is one of my universal truths or my truest truth things, is that a consistent thing that everyone learns at some point in their time, and it could be at the age of ten and it could be on someone's deathbed, but it is the, the idea that everyone has to like you, or everyone has to get along with you, or that an individual has to change who they are in order to be around a group of other people. And the thing is, is that I think that we are pulled towards groups of individuals, even if they're unsavory, because we have not talked about the relationships within the self. So I know that I can go out into the woods and be all good by myself, but that's also something I trained. So it's going from dependent to autonomous. Kyle Smith [00:35:05]: I think from a neurodivergence standpoint, this is a cool way of putting it. So to understand the continuum. Here we go. Okay, this is going to probably be a sweet tangent, but if we think of a continuum, a lot of folks find that, or that I chat with that have adhd or have a neurodivergence, they find themselves seeing that as a limiter. And so then they're muffling their minds with medications, so they're trying to be normal, when in all reality, people should be thinking faster. Because in my opinion, the way that we think is in alignment with the speed of our environment that is evolving. We physically may not be able to evolve very much but like I was talking about before, we don't have, we don't have an ethereal, uh, boundary of space in our mind. We do have space. Kyle Smith [00:36:01]: Like, if we have a whole bunch of thoughts and we have. If we have 60,000 thoughts per day and we're only, and 40,000 of them are on repeat, then we got to clean up what those repeats are. So I think, I think cleaning up the clutter is always very important, but I think when we have the ability to have neurodivergent thinking, that creates an environment with more effective and efficient problem solving. So why? Why is it more effective and efficient? Well, let's look at the opposite. There's convergent thinking. Convergent thinking is one problem to one solution, while divergent thinking is one problem. Multiple routes to the same solution, or. Jeremy Gruensteiner [00:36:47]: Even a many to many relationships. Kyle Smith [00:36:50]: Exactly. Exactly. Jeremy Gruensteiner [00:36:51]: So it's a much more networked and interwoven perspective versus if then. Then this. Kyle Smith [00:36:57]: Yes, yes. So that thinking process, and just not putting my perceptions onto it, like not putting my. My own subjective opinions of how I think the world should be, I'm aiming to make sure I don't put that, or I aim to make sure that not too much of that noise seeps into what I believe to be my truest thoughts. Because it's our conscious, it's our human being that's going to get in the way of what we can actually do. So if those little lingers, little things like, you can't do that. It's like, why the fuck not? Jeremy Gruensteiner [00:37:44]: Yeah. Kyle Smith [00:37:45]: And so it's being able to basically counter and debate with your own internal thoughts, your own internal dialogue. And the way I like to put it is if a thought or a part of dialogue comes up, I ask myself if this is a non functioning or a functioning opinion, and then from there, I can actually break it down even further. Jeremy Gruensteiner [00:38:07]: Yeah, there was, I was just reminded of this. I believe even just this morning I was doing a little, little trip down memory lane of some digital communities that I was a part of. And I've thought about this often. This is a tangent before I get to the thing. Go for it is at some point I feel like we're going to have digital archaeologists that are like, uncovering the layers of all the things of the culture and looking. We don't have all of MySpace anymore. We lost a big portion of those servers, but things that are still online. There are some websites that are still from the early nineties that are still online as they were and were not changed. Jeremy Gruensteiner [00:38:54]: We have things like the Wayback Machine archive, the Internet archive of being able to take a look at what did a website look like? What was the content like back in 2000? And like, I feel like we're going to have, just like we have archaeologists in the dirt, scraping through and digging through, I feel like we're going to have that in our digital footprint, especially as we get more and more connected. Tangent over. As I was doing that for myself, playing a little bit of personal digital archaeologist, I was reminded of a thought of one of my coaches from probably about six years ago now, maybe seven. And one of the things that she had brought up was, how many questions do you ask yourself a day, internally, in your mind? How many of those do you actually answer? Kyle Smith [00:39:48]: That's it. That's a good one. I don't know exactly how many questions I would go through in a day, but I know that I don't answer a majority of them. Jeremy Gruensteiner [00:39:55]: Yeah. And so it's like, what if you took a day and wrote down every time a question popped into your head? This could be an exercise. I've thought about this and I've been like, okay, I get the lesson. I feel like there's a challenge here for yourself. Myself and the listeners of take a day and dedicate. Have a pad, a notebook, whatever you need to your notes app on your phone. And every time you start to come up with a question in your head, write that question down and see how many of those you can actually answer. Be interesting to see. Kyle Smith [00:40:35]: That's a neat. That's a neat thought experiment. I think that's a good one. I think that's also a good one that could work in, like, a developmental space as well, because then you can think. So if you're able to. I don't know, you can really. You can really go to the. You can. Kyle Smith [00:40:52]: I think. I think we're just one, as I'm just blubbering over myself. Jeremy Gruensteiner [00:40:58]: It's all good. Kyle Smith [00:40:59]: I think that with that thought, write down every question and actually answer them. Jeremy Gruensteiner [00:41:09]: Or see if you can. Because. So we talked about this on another episode with Justine. Arsenal. That's episode 31, if people are looking back at it. We had a conversation we brought up. There's a phrase that popped out of me in the new Amazon series Rings of Power. I love all things Junior Tolkien. Jeremy Gruensteiner [00:41:31]: I'm a big old nerd, as most people can figure that out pretty quickly. There was a quote that popped out at me. So it was about a year ago that this came out now, and I was sitting in my office writing some exercise programming, and I had this on in the background, and the phrase was something to the effect of talking about unanswerable questions like this. I forget the exact quote. What cannot be answered hollows out the mind, because you don't know where it starts, you don't know where it ends, you don't know where the middle is. If you can't answer it, it continues to take up more and more and more space. So if you have a brain full of unanswered questions, how clearly can you make decisions? And how clearly can you experience or perceive your own reality? Kyle Smith [00:42:20]: My answer to that would be, not very well. Jeremy Gruensteiner [00:42:22]: Yeah, I like using up, using up a lot of processing power. If we talk about in the technical, you're using a lot of cpu cycles for junk processing. It's just they're running processes that don't actually contribute to the actual whole. Kyle Smith [00:42:38]: Totally. And it's like if it's those repeat. If it's a repeat question, and if the question has not had the time to be answered, then it's just a question that's going to be taken up space the whole time until it's either answered or rejected. Jeremy Gruensteiner [00:42:59]: Absolutely. Yeah. There's any. There's so many ways that you can look at that out. Like as a point of vulnerability for myself, of sharing an idea of lately, looking at the. We talked about this a little bit before in starting the podcast, of struggling to launch a new business and launching a new coaching program and working to get those first clients, especially when, especially if you don't necessarily have a backup plan. And in taking a look at that, of all the questions that start to come up with the fear that surrounds that, what if I fail? What if I don't make it? What if I don't get those first clients? What if I give up? What if I have to go and ask my parents for money, or I have to ask others for help? Like, again, those are all questions that until you actually ask them, they have no answer. Kyle Smith [00:43:52]: Very cool. Jeremy Gruensteiner [00:43:53]: And so then it creates this. It creates. I'm using that as my personal example of that. And I'm coming to this, as we're talking about this, of a bit of enlightenment or wisdom, whatever you want to call it. Kyle Smith [00:44:09]: The intuitive universe is just pumping knowledge into your brain. Yes. Jeremy Gruensteiner [00:44:13]: I mean, that's, that happens so often at this podcast at this point of where I go, well, you know, even if nobody else listens to this episode, I got what I needed out of it in a bit of a self serving or selfish way of oh, I saw something that I actually needed here. And who knows? Again, this is going to go into the archive of the Internet somewhere. And who knows? Somebody a thousand years from now may uncover this conversation and go, what the hell were they on about? Kyle Smith [00:44:44]: Yeah, totally. Yeah, I think that's cool, man. Jeremy Gruensteiner [00:44:51]: And so for you, in thinking through this, of this idea of questioning and having all of this extra space, do you have any personal practices or things that you use in your coaching practice to help people who maybe stuck in this torrent of overwhelm or stuck in this tornado of questions that they can't seem to answer? Kyle Smith [00:45:17]: That's a good one. Journaling, for sure. And I switched up journaling to be known as spellbinding. It's a little bit cooler. Yeah, so it's. The binder is full of spells. I'm sure you're familiar with where that inspired. I think my process for it is pretty simple, where it's just gaining awareness of the thoughts, period. Kyle Smith [00:45:43]: So I like to do, or I like to have it where it's an energy awareness of what goes throughout the day. So when we can look at our energy and if it's going up or if it's going down, usually there's something that started or a thought that got that process going. So let's say it's the simplest parts where when we're thinking in a place of abundance, even just thinking in a place of abundance, we're going to behave more abundantly. We're thinking in a place of scarcity, we're going to behave more scarce. And in that, it's just the thoughts that we have on repeat that we just need to become more aware of. And then not only, you know, what it's coming up with, the thoughts, or being aware of the thoughts, being aware of the repeat thoughts, understanding where that thought came from, whether we came up to it ourselves or we adopted it from someone else, which is more so the case, there's very few times where it's like an original thought. And I don't know what that saying is, but it's, um. I forget what it was. Kyle Smith [00:46:58]: It had to do with the stoic philosopher, but everyone. Now I'm going to Butra, I'm going to switch it up, but after the self awareness, then it's going through and figuring out where it came from. So it's like, I can't do this. Well, who told you that? Well, it was my grade two teacher that said I was in the dumb class. Okay, so does that mean that you're incapable of writing? No. What evidence is there? Proof that you've written? Well, I've written a couple cool things. Okay, so that is a non functioning opinion. It is incorrect and you have the evidence to back it up. Kyle Smith [00:47:39]: So then that way people get to relieve themselves of the burden of carrying that conversation. They just relieve it. It's just gone. It's just gone. And then that way, when we can clear those things out, you can actually recognize it in people's demeanor. You can see them, like, lighten up where they're thinking in a much more constructive way. And I don't even think it like, people don't have to think in a positive or negative way. It's thinking of in a constructive way that I think is the approach that I prefer the most. Kyle Smith [00:48:16]: And then after figuring out where those things came from, make peace with those things or make peace with those adopted opinions, and then from there, figuring out, okay, so these are the rest of the opinions. Are they functioning? Non functioning. And then separating those. And then another thing as well is being able to switch the non functioning opinion to a functioning opinion. So I like to call it like, not transforming, transmuting it. You transmute from non functioning to functioning. And that creates more space as well because it's kind of like, it's kind of like music. So if we all have frequencies, and if one thought produces one frequency and we have another thought that produces another frequency and another thought that produces another frequency, then that's going to be a mishmash, but not in a good way. Kyle Smith [00:49:10]: Not in a good way. Like a really erratic kind of thing. Jeremy Gruensteiner [00:49:15]: Yeah, you get something that's really dissonant versus. Kyle Smith [00:49:18]: Exactly. If we get all of our thoughts going, we get harmonious. Yes. We get harmonious. And when we have that harmony, then that's good. But before all of that, we have to make the decision to do so. So if we don't make a decision to do so, then we're still creatures of whim rather than beings of will. Jeremy Gruensteiner [00:49:40]: I like that. Kyle Smith [00:49:42]: So it's not deciding if we don't decide to. If we don't decide to commit to the coaching program. I'll actually speak on this one myself, too. Yeah, because might as well. You share some stuff. I'll share some stuff. Jeremy Gruensteiner [00:49:53]: Yeah. Kyle Smith [00:49:53]: But for the program that I want, that I'm working on, that I want to do eight weeks evolution, I find myself just having non functioning opinions and dialogue. And thankfully, Kendra's here to help me out. Like, just say, like, well, she asked me a lot of questions. She helps me with questions quite a bit. Yeah. But most of it, most of the things that's preventing it is an indecision to really freaking buckle down the hatches and become the captain of the ship and just give her. I'm playing, I'm playing a sailor when I should be, or could be, not should, when I could be playing the captain. And I think when there's that moment when we have decided, and it's interesting because we can decide it and the brain just like flips it and that looks for everything in accordance to the decision that we have made. Kyle Smith [00:50:41]: If we decided, right, if we decided that neurodivergence was bad for us, then we're going to behave in a way that's going to be bad for us. If we decide that neurodivergence is good for us, we're going to behave in a way that's good for us, and then it's just figuring out the rest of little pieces around there. I think when the decision, then the awareness of what those thoughts are, that's preventing the decision going into fruition. Once we have awareness of the thoughts, we figure out whether it's functioning and non functioning and figure out where it came from, make peace with it. And that's very important, too, is making peace, because if we have resentment, or at least if we make peace, then we get to balance out the continuum and then we find ourselves in that energy neutrality. So for myself, the goal is always energy neutrality. It's not happy, it's not sad, it's joyful, it's not angry, it's not love, it's compassionate. And then within those, you have like the other components as well. Kyle Smith [00:51:45]: So you have like some things that I think of or that are reminders for myself is you cannot be compassionate and judgmental at the same time. So when we develop that self awareness of when we're being compassionate, when we're being judgmental and in which circumstances are we those things, then we can actually deconstruct our own life experience and show up in a way that's a little bit more in alignment with the person that we wish to be rather than the person circumstances inspire us to be. Jeremy Gruensteiner [00:52:18]: And I mean, there's, there's so much there, too, of even looking at what you're talking. Energy neutrality. I've had discussions with other coaches and friends in looking that too of different aspects of ourself. If we're only ever giving credit or indulging the negative thoughts or focusing on our negative qualities or negative aspects, we tend to get a certain result that's fairly negative. We only focus on the positive. That may serve us well for a while and work really well. What I can imagine is that when we're blindly get this idea of toxic positivity, we're blindly focusing on just that. We stunt ourselves because we can only grow to a certain point. Jeremy Gruensteiner [00:53:13]: Because if every day is a sunshiny perfect weather day, you don't have that contrast to measure against. And it's hard to grow from that. Kyle Smith [00:53:22]: Exactly. Jeremy Gruensteiner [00:53:23]: Whereas we can look at both sides, we can look at the whole version of ourself and become really integrated into that, of using and embracing the negative components of ourselves. We talked earlier in the, before we hit record of this idea of fear and excitement, of starting a business and being an entrepreneur and getting on that path. Some days it balances 51% to 49% and it swings back and forth, and those 2% change can make it feel like it's the biggest swells in the ocean. We're still on the nautical theme and where if we can still keep all of that going, we can still keep that and hold that as a whole, as a whole being or a whole person, and learn to even love that in its wholeness. That's where I believe that you get to this, this sense of energy neutrality that you're talking about. Kyle Smith [00:54:19]: I completely agree with you. Yeah, I completely agree with you to latch onto that, too. You're absolutely right. Because when we're down, we're down. When we're up, we're up. But the thing that's always important to recognize is that that's always a pendulum swing. Yeah, it's just a wave, right. And there's going to be energy neutrality. Kyle Smith [00:54:41]: And I think instead of having the high highs and the low lows, getting that wave a little bit tighter. So it's not like, wow, wow. It's more like, I think that that's a good place to be on that one. And dude, if we didn't experience the shitty shit, we would never understand how good the good shit is. Jeremy Gruensteiner [00:55:04]: Exactly. Yeah, but I mean, and to bring this back to something that you were talking about early in the podcast of our attachment to suffering or struggle and things like that, something I always, I come back to so often, and it pops up so often in my conversations with people. You know, there's this guy that lived a long time ago, I think it was called the Buddha. So the root of all human suffering is attachment. Kyle Smith [00:55:34]: I agree. Jeremy Gruensteiner [00:55:35]: So, like, our attachment to feeling, our attachment to feeling bad, or our attachment to feeling comfortable in the moment, because really, that's what we're talking about, is I'm comfortable where I am, even though I hate it. And that means I'm secretly in love with it. Yes. I'm secretly in love with feeling the way that I feel right now, even though I don't like it. Kyle Smith [00:55:57]: I don't like it. Jeremy Gruensteiner [00:55:58]: And so my attachment to that concept or my attachment to being in this state is what helps keep me stuck here. And it's when I can, you know, there's all kinds of interesting ways that you can explore that for yourselves, like give yourself permission to indulge in that, you know, as the. The book existential kink would call it. Like that kinky, weird version of yourself that really loves to really feel bad. Kyle Smith [00:56:32]: And you know what I think? I think understanding that it's there, understanding that is there is cool. And it goes into integrating the shadow as well. It's understanding that that is a part of you, but it is not you. And there may be parts that we look at ourselves and we're, like, not the most fond of, but we also have the opportunity to look at those things with more love and more compassionate in order to achieve that sense of wholeness. I think wholeness is probably the. The main thing that I really like is wholeness and quality, well being and. Yeah, man, dude, attachment can, like, really fuck you. Like, you can mess you up real good, because that's what it is. Kyle Smith [00:57:35]: We're attached. Whatever. Like, whatever. We're eventually, you know, what if we looked at the things that create the most suffering in our existence is probably the stuff that we're most attached to, or at least. Yeah, something like that. Jeremy Gruensteiner [00:57:55]: I have an interesting thought in branching that into it. So much of it is we think of attachment as maybe a relationship, some things, a job, a situation, a reality is. So much of this is we are attached to the thought or the story of what we considered or what we've held onto. And so in reality is. So if we have something you talked about of viewing yourself as somebody neurodivergent or with ADHD, viewing it as negative or a positive, either way, you're right, because whatever you perceive your reality to be and then you become attached to that story that you've told yourself have being a conjugate of is. So I am this negative aspect of ADHD, so created identity. I'm attached to it now. I cling to it because that's what gives me meaning, and it gives me validation of who, what I feel. Jeremy Gruensteiner [00:59:01]: And there are many deep things there that I believe that people can explore that. It is definitely strange. It is definitely not. When we are so consumed with the day to day with what can be possibly popping up on news media, social media, or our email inboxes, our messaging services, we're so connected and we are so easily distracted through all of this that it pulls us away from that ability for that introspection to actually explore those things. And even to your point, of the shadow of, like, this is a version, this is still, it's not you. And it is you. It's a part of you. And it's, why is it here? Why is it showing up? What does it actually need? What is it actually providing me? And how do I find that answer for myself of what do I actually need in this moment? What's the direction forward? Rather than trying to get all cerebral and try to think your way out of a problem, that, again, maybe you're just asking the wrong questions. Jeremy Gruensteiner [01:00:10]: You've got questions swirling your mind. You're asking the wrong ones, or you're not directing them at the right person or version of yourself. Kyle Smith [01:00:21]: Yeah, I like that. I think that's the perfect opportunity to be able to write down all the questions and actually answer them. Jeremy Gruensteiner [01:00:29]: Exactly. Come back to our hypothetical challenge for everybody to write down all the questions in one day. I'll tell you this. I'm going to pick a day this week or before this episode comes out for sure. And when it happens, you'll know because I'll send you a big old list of questions. Kyle Smith [01:00:50]: I'm cool with that. You know what? I might actually do the same thing as well, where if a question pops up, no matter what it is, I'm probably just going to put it down so that way I can just have a little bit more awareness. Because this is another thing, too, is that with the questions that are popping up, we can actually put them pen to paper so that they're out of our mind. And then I think that I believe something that's cool that comes along with that is because if we're looking at the words right, I like to think of words, or the way I explain the words we speak are like the ethereal macronutrients of our minds. So just like our body carbs, fats, and protein, our brain uses the words that we feed it. And the reality we experience is a reflection of the foods that we eaten. Eaten. Jeremy Gruensteiner [01:01:45]: Interesting. Kyle Smith [01:01:47]: Yeah. Jeremy Gruensteiner [01:01:47]: Yeah. I'm gonna. I'm gonna. I'm gonna keep that one to knock around in the old brain for a while, because that one is an interesting like of, like, uh, again, it's your thoughts are your, are the diet for your brain versus, that's the food you, it's the food your brain eats. Kyle Smith [01:02:00]: Yeah, man. Jeremy Gruensteiner [01:02:01]: Yeah. And in, in your thinking centers and in that regard, yeah. Super cool. You talked about this a few times, and other guests have talked about this. I've likely talked about it as well. This idea of awareness, like, in looking at awareness as a tool for self development, what's the, we talk about it very often in our communities and whatnot. But what do you, for you, in your practice as a coach or for yourself, what has the increasing amount of awareness, how has that actually served you going forward into continuing to develop yourself? Kyle Smith [01:02:50]: How has developing awareness served me? Yeah, how has awareness served me? Jeremy Gruensteiner [01:03:00]: Or that aspect of maybe not having that type of awareness before and then starting to develop these higher, or flexing that focus muscle, as you put it nice, into this sense of awareness of what are my tendencies, what are the types of things that I do? How has that driven you forward? Or how has that affected the way that you've continued to develop. Kyle Smith [01:03:28]: Hugely. But going into more detail. Jeremy Gruensteiner [01:03:32]: Yeah. Kyle Smith [01:03:40]: We cannot change the trajectory without some degree of awareness. And I say change the trajectory because I think some folks will say, I want to fix this. Well, you're not exactly broken. You just went down a trajectory that is not exactly in alignment with the person that you want to be. Awareness comes in and it's like, oh, I can actually pivot this trajectory. So there's not like a fixing of anything. It's just a readjusting of priorities. So awareness helped with that priorities. Kyle Smith [01:04:15]: It actually created a place where, or an internal dialogue of where is it that I have awareness? And in that awareness, what are my intentions? So I'll go, awareness, then I'll go attentions. Because if we have good intentions or ill intentions, that to me, is the differentiator between speaking to someone and saying words and how they receive it. So if there's good intentions behind the words that I or you say, people are going to receive it better than if there is ill intentions behind the words that you and I say. So awareness, in that capacity, awareness has been able to. Dude. Yeah. Awareness is a crazy tool. So awareness is capable of helping someone readjust in their nutrition, in their headspace, in their sense of self, in the, in what. Kyle Smith [01:05:24]: What they actually care about. Because if we don't have awareness, then we're just, here we go. Awareness is a prerequisite for us to live a life on our own terms. If we do not have awareness, then we are living a life on the everything else terms. Jeremy Gruensteiner [01:05:43]: Yep. Life is happening. Kyle Smith [01:05:45]: We don't have. Jeremy Gruensteiner [01:05:47]: Life is happening to you. Kyle Smith [01:05:49]: Yes. Yeah, exactly. Exactly. So for me, awareness is like. I think that that's what people think of when they think awakening. Or there's another one that I find that. Yeah, you know what? I'm gonna go with this one. I think there's a solid degree of, like, pretty chill awareness, but then there's monumental awareness. Kyle Smith [01:06:16]: And I think that from the base to the highest point, awareness is all freaking awesome, because we're able to transcend ourselves the more aware we become of ourselves. And I think that, yeah, awareness is a prerequisite to us transcending who we believe ourselves to be into becoming another version and then another version and then another version. Because one thing I know for sure, at least for myself, is the more awareness I become of myself and of what is the truest truth or of other individuals or other things, the less I actually know. But I'm also not scared of that because I know what not knowing is like, and that's scarier. Jeremy Gruensteiner [01:07:08]: Yeah. Kyle Smith [01:07:10]: Now that I know. Jeremy Gruensteiner [01:07:14]: These are fun, fun puzzles that you can. I love to. It sounds silly on the surface, but people who get it get it for sure. Of the. Some days just sitting on the couch and thinking myself into something, I get it. We talk about this idea. You can think yourself into a good mood. Most of the time, we're thinking ourselves into a bad mood. Jeremy Gruensteiner [01:07:42]: And so it's like, if I can think myself into a good mood, where else can I think myself? And you look at what humanity is capable from a creativity standpoint, that we sell ourselves short more often than not, in my opinion, myself included in this. Like, I will raise my hand first right after saying that I've definitely been there. Kyle Smith [01:08:05]: I'll go, too. Jeremy Gruensteiner [01:08:06]: Yeah. Of limiting myself of what I think is possible because of boundaries or constraints that I put in my own head. We can't do this because of this. And so being able to flex all of that thought processing, especially if you do, are a little bit on the run, a little hotter on the brain resources side as a neurodivergent, that it truly can be something that's. That's a superpower beyond what you could ever imagine. Kyle Smith [01:08:39]: Just learning to train it. Jeremy Gruensteiner [01:08:42]: Exactly. Kyle Smith [01:08:43]: Yeah, yeah, yeah. As we ask some good questions. Sorry, go ahead. Jeremy Gruensteiner [01:08:49]: Thank you. I've had a little bit of practice, and it's always a constant practice of learning how to ask better questions. And as we start to respect our time and the listeners as well. As we come up to the end of our time together today, any final thoughts or any. Any words of wisdom that you would like to impart on the listeners? Kyle Smith [01:09:13]: Yes. Be sure to keep up the kindness. And even when times don't seem the most kind, you can still keep up that kindness, and at least you're going to feel good at the end of the day. Jeremy Gruensteiner [01:09:35]: Yeah, I love that. I know you mentioned you were building a program. What would you like to promote? Make the listeners aware of how can they get. If they're interested in learning more, how can they get in contact with you? Kyle Smith [01:09:48]: Sweet. The program. Well, to get in contact with me, Instagram is the easiest dapper dude Kyle. Jeremy Gruensteiner [01:09:55]: One of the best Instagram handles I've heard in a long time. Kyle Smith [01:10:00]: I put it there as, like, now. Yeah. I put it there as, like, a characterization of an individual that I wish to become. Like, it's a manifestation kind of thing, but it's slowly becoming a little bit of a nickname. I think more people call me dapper dude Kyle than not. Yeah, well, not too many, but it's pretty sweet. But yeah, that would be where to find me. That's the easiest place to find me. Kyle Smith [01:10:23]: And then my program is eight weeks to evolution. It is a physical and mental fitness program. And the reason why I say fitness and not health is because it only, health only encompasses one half of the duality of health and illness. And if we're only paying attention to health and we're not paying attention to fitness as a whole, then we have a biased approach. I would like to have a mindful, soulful, physical balance of energy neutrality where they're still working hard, of course. Yeah. It's eight weeks. Nutrition journaling, narrative architecture, and nutrition. Kyle Smith [01:11:12]: Oh, wait. Nori said nutrition, working out in the gym. And it's actually for folks that would want to do, like, if they like, 90 minutes in the gym per week. The idea is small input with higher intensity, but mostly resting and recovery as a priority. So that's pretty cool, man. Jeremy Gruensteiner [01:11:29]: Yeah. And so as this comes out, if you're interested in learning more about that, get in contact with Kyle will have information about that on how you can learn more and get in contact with them in the show notes. Thank you so much, Kyle. Thank you so much for being here. Thank you so much for the rad conversation, and thank you so much for just being you. I appreciate it so much. Kyle Smith [01:11:50]: Thanks, man. I appreciate it. Jeremy Gruensteiner [01:11:52]: Yeah, and I appreciate you. Well, thank you. Thank you. And a much appreciation to you, the listeners, for listening to this awesome conversation just like many others. And until next time, stay strong, folks. And most importantly, stay weird.

Jeremy Gruensteiner [00:00:01]: Welcome back to the Weird and strong podcast. I am your host, Jeremy Grinsteiner. And this episode, we have Joel Cochrane on the show, just a simply badass human being who is a lifelong coach, an entrepreneur, and public speaker. We get to dive into his background. What are the lessons that he learned along the way? So, without further delay, let's get weird. All right. Welcoming Joel Cochrane to the podcast. How are you doing? Joel Cochran [00:00:29]: What's happening, dude? I'm living my best day ever. Every day, man. Jeremy Gruensteiner [00:00:35]: That's great. Yeah, you were telling me a little bit about it, of just having an awesome Friday. You were talking about it, and I was like, oh, man, I think I need to get out and get a couple of lifts in today, even though I did a little bit earlier this morning. I've got a weird question for you. Joel Cochran [00:00:51]: Are you ready? I love weird questions. The weirder the better. Jeremy Gruensteiner [00:00:56]: I love. Would you rather questions because especially when they are a bit weird. Joel Cochran [00:01:01]: Yeah. Jeremy Gruensteiner [00:01:02]: Would you rather have legs as long as your fingers or fingers as long as your legs? Joel Cochran [00:01:11]: I would go with fingers as long as my legs. Why? The way I feel about it is, okay. I get to stay at my height. Fingers can kind of curl in, right? Jeremy Gruensteiner [00:01:28]: Yeah. Joel Cochran [00:01:29]: So I can make a fist. It's going to be a really big fist, but I can make a fist. And then I'm thinking about, like, what I initially went to was, man, how easy would it be to be able to get fruit from the tree? Jeremy Gruensteiner [00:01:43]: Yeah. Joel Cochran [00:01:44]: I'm like, if my fingers as long as my legs, I'd just, like, reach up and I would be another 3ft longer. I'd be able to pull off the perfect apple from the tree. I'd go with that. Jeremy Gruensteiner [00:01:58]: Could always pick up things off of high shelves, change the tv channel from across the room without a remote. Joel Cochran [00:02:04]: That's what I'm thinking. I believe that's much more of a win than all of a sudden. I go from my height now to really short and looking up, I just feel like that would be so much more of a detriment. I wouldn't be able to run either. Jeremy Gruensteiner [00:02:20]: Or you'd run very slowly? Joel Cochran [00:02:22]: I'd run very slowly, and I would much rather have the capacity to walk and run. Jeremy Gruensteiner [00:02:30]: It makes me wonder, would you be able to then use those leg length fingers to help pull yourself along, like, extra legs? Joel Cochran [00:02:38]: Yeah, that would be so creepy. Jeremy Gruensteiner [00:02:40]: Yeah. Joel Cochran [00:02:41]: Running down the road and you're just. Jeremy Gruensteiner [00:02:42]: Like, somebody's having nightmares from that visual. For real, probably. Joel Cochran [00:02:49]: Yeah. Yeah, I like that. Some Freddy cougar kind of. Jeremy Gruensteiner [00:02:58]: You know, looking, know we've gotten connected through the enlifted crowd and lifted experience, as many of the guests currently have come from. I'm curious of what are the things about you that are unconventional or weird that people may not know about? Joel Cochran [00:03:17]: You know, as a. As a coach, I've been a coach my entire life, from the very young age, coaching others, being the captain on my teams and this leadership different position. And I was a recreational coordinator for after school program. So I was in charge of 300 kids and 30 staff and so on and so forth. And one of the things that people are surprised about in terms of one, how long I've been coaching, I've been a coach, like I said, 15 plus years. And to become a master at anything, you need those 10,000 hours and quality 10,000 hours. Yet one of the things that I get on shows a lot and talk about and very open and vulnerable about is my experience with my childhood, with my mom and my dad. And I am a big supporter of healing generational trauma. Joel Cochran [00:04:39]: It's so vital, particularly if you want to have children, because if you are not going to heal your trauma from your parents, you will. Listen up, folks. You will already have passed it down to your kids, knowing or unknowingly. And I have been very blessed and lucky to have had the experience I've had with my parents. Alibit being very hard and difficult and a struggle. Yet what has taught me about myself, what has taught me about my coaching, how at any point, the realities of our past can change, our perceptions of our realities can always change. Doesn't mean that the abuse that I had physically and verbally growing up as a child changes, but my perception of it absolutely does. And my perception of my mother and my father absolutely does. Joel Cochran [00:05:52]: And when you're able to heal that space, you create a very opening, healthy space for yourself, then your parents, then your significant other, and then your kids. Yet, if we don't have self acceptance, go ahead and keep trying to self develop. You're going to get nowhere fast. Because I spent $50,000 on self development, and it wasn't until I had self acceptance that my life truly changed. Jeremy Gruensteiner [00:06:27]: Yeah, that's very well said. And amazing revelations in that, of what that path, in a very short and abbreviated version of that, is like for myself. It's a different flavor of that. We said the $50,000 to get to the. Oh, it's actually about self acceptance. Notice that I went from 300 pounds, never touched a barbell, into my life, to competing at a national stage at weightlifting because I went from one extreme to the other and got to it and went, I'm still unhappy and I'm fulfilled. And it wasn't until the last couple of years of getting exposed to our common contacts in the lifted community of what I was actually looking for when I first stepped into a gym was that self connection and that self acceptance. And something you said was about reality. Jeremy Gruensteiner [00:07:32]: Your perception of the reality changes ultimately. Isn't that what we only. That's the only thing we actually have is our perception. Reality is our perception. Joel Cochran [00:07:45]: That's right. And a lot of people have an external to internal perception of their realities. What is being told to me? What am I seeing? How is the external world affecting me? Instead of how is my internal world affecting this external universe that I'm living in? We too often get caught up in that realm. I need to get this, achieve this, go to this. The entire time, we're trying to move that finish line just a little bit farther, but we never get past the finish line. And if we do get past the finish line, what are finish lines all about? Stopping. So when you finally get to the national stage and you finally get the gold medal, then what exactly? Oh, that's right. You stop. Joel Cochran [00:08:36]: You stop. Yet, self acceptance, self love is eternal till the day you die. And so if we can create an internal view of ourselves first, then we aren't as affected of the external. Jeremy Gruensteiner [00:08:55]: Well, and also to your point of that finish line, the stoppage, it's almost like I was just having a conversation with a friend over coffee about this, this morning and have had this conversation coming up in various ways of, we have this draw towards achievement, towards checking the box, crossing that finish line. It's like we're trying to continually hurry up to rush to the finish line. Yeah, it's like, well, what is the finish line for all of us, right? It's like, would I rather being able to take that step back and look at, am I actually trying to rush towards done and truly done? Or am I distracted from loving the actual process and journey? Am I too distracted with the destination? That I can't see how cool it is to be on the way to. Joel Cochran [00:09:51]: The destination too often to that point. Like, we want to celebrate, we will wait to celebrate until we get to the destination instead of celebrating the actions that get us to the destination. Because if we're celebrating the actions, the destination starts becoming less and less relevant. Because when I celebrate that I made it to the gym today, when I celebrate that I lifted today, I celebrate that I grabbed that bar today, when I go like, do damn good job, 85 pound three position snatch today, that was big high fives for me. Far from my one rep max, but I celebrate those movements, man. Great movements. Good intention. I loved what you did today, Joel. Joel Cochran [00:10:43]: That's amazing. You're healing your back. That's amazing. Jeremy Gruensteiner [00:10:48]: Yeah, that's really cool. And reminds me of a practice from a dear friend and former podcast guest as well, of giving yourself permission to do exactly what you said, of give yourself credit for what you did do instead of beating yourself up for what you didn't do, especially towards the end of the day when you're ready to go to bed, of really opening that up and celebrating all of the ways that you did show up. It is so easy for us to get into that space of you didn't do it. It wasn't perfect. So and so is doing it better. I used to be able to do so much more. All of the stories that come up with that for you, what was that major. So you talked about being able to find this self acceptance on this journey. Joel Cochran [00:11:35]: Sure. Yeah. Jeremy Gruensteiner [00:11:37]: Was there a particular moment that clicked through finally for you? And what was that moment like? Joel Cochran [00:11:47]: Yeah, the moment for me. I was 36 years old at the time. 36. 35. I was 35 at the time. And I had just gone through a really tough breakup. This is with a girl that I had a house with. We bought this beautiful house, had this engagement ring and it all fell through. Joel Cochran [00:12:13]: Engagement ring, the house, all of it in the shortest amount of time as God just literally came down, was like, no, that ain't going to happen. That ain't going to happen. And that ain't going to happen. Whoa. So this really left me shook and I truly thought like, hey, we can still make this work. Well, very short amount of time later, she was already dating somebody else. So can imagine the heartbreak and the sorrow. And I was seeking answers. Joel Cochran [00:12:45]: I'm like, this is not what life is about. There was something here with myself that I needed to recognize and I have done again, lots of different coaching in the past, lots of different therapy, talk therapy, breath work, so many different things. But it wasn't until I started recognizing and this first started with my therapist and then moved on to with my coach at that time where we started looking back at my relationship with my mom and her emotions and her extreme emotions due to the fact that she was never shown how to regulate emotions and was in a threatening state through most of her life. Dad left her at four, had then an abusive alcoholic father or stepfather, grew up with three boys who also didn't have a father figure, so of course they were abusive and verbally and physically. And so there was a lot of emotion with my mom that was passed down to my brother and I. One, because we're men, right? Men are threatening. Two, she had her trauma. And so starting to understand those extreme emotions, I got to a point where I was like. Joel Cochran [00:14:15]: I was finger point. Jeremy Gruensteiner [00:14:17]: Yeah. Joel Cochran [00:14:18]: And I was like, there's something going on here, and I need to change this. And at that time. This is right when I started with enlifted a little over three years ago. Around three years ago, and I'm on an Instagram Live. This is when Mark first started doing lives. Yeah, right. And I'm just sitting there watching, right? Because I found out about Mark through one of my current mentors. And I'm sitting there watching, and Mark calls me out, jump on, man. Joel Cochran [00:14:49]: There's 40 other people on this. He calls me out. So I get on, and I'm like, sure, man. I've done therapy. I've done coaching. Let's go. Jeremy Gruensteiner [00:14:58]: Yeah. Joel Cochran [00:14:58]: So he starts talking to me. What's going on? I said, man, I have this breakup, and I'm figuring these things out with my mom, and she has such extreme emotions. And I was connecting that with lisa and this and that. He said, hold on. Write that down. Which part? My mom has such extreme emotions. Oh, dude, yes, please. Yeah, absolutely, I will. Joel Cochran [00:15:28]: Cool. Tell me how that feels. Angry and pissed like her extreme emotions is what has created me seeking out extreme emotions and other women, and this is what's caused this trauma. And he's like, I get it. I get it. He said, all right, do me a favor. Take out my mom. Put. Joel Cochran [00:15:48]: I have. I have such extreme emotions. Brick to the face moment all clicked. At that moment, I'm like, wait a second. I'm the one being an emotional or showing my emotions or being very emotional right now in front of 40 people live. Who's the one with extreme emotions? Oh, shit. Welcome to the show, Joel. It's yours. Joel Cochran [00:16:17]: And at that point, I recognized. Oh, wait a second. I own everything. All of it. And it wasn't like before. I was playing victim all the time. There was a lot of self growth. But this was the moment where I'm like, no, not just some of it. Joel Cochran [00:16:38]: All of it. All of my ancestors emotions and extreme emotions, from my mom to my grandmother to my great grandmother and the lineage behind that. Wait a second. I got it. I own this. So if I can own it, then I can change it. But before I thought I didn't have the power to change that because it wasn't mine. No, all of it is mine. Joel Cochran [00:17:05]: And from that moment, I recognize I know exactly where I need to go. I need to go straight back to my parents. So I sat down and I wrote out a letter to my parents. And I always tell people, like, this is a love letter to my parents. This wasn't pointing the finger and blaming them for anything. This is a love letter. I was inviting them into a whole new relationship that I wanted with them. And it did start off with being able to acknowledge this is where I was hurt as a child. Joel Cochran [00:17:34]: And I went through that, and I set up the date with my parents, and I went through the whole process, and I did it just like I do public speaking. I wrote it out. I reread it, I edited it. I read it out loud. I recorded myself reading it out loud. I rewatched myself reading it out loud. I adjusted. I changed it. Joel Cochran [00:17:56]: I prepared myself for this. So by the time it came to sitting down with my parents, a lot of people were like, oh, my gosh, you must have been terrified. Why would I be terrified? No, see, I was prepared, and I already had started healing my inner child. And I was able to show him that little Joel that was scared, that didn't have any control when he was younger, he couldn't get away from the extreme emotions. He couldn't just be like, hey, I'm going to go to the apartment. This is a little too crazy. I'm just going to get out of here. At six years old. Joel Cochran [00:18:31]: No, he wasn't able to do that. And his mom wasn't able to heal that because she hadn't healed her inner child, because she never had a safe space with her parents. And so, no, no, this is mine. My grandmother's, my great grandmother's, my grandfather's. No, this is mine. And it stops here. Little Joel, hold my hand as we walk through this door, because I got you. You don't need mom, you don't need dad. Joel Cochran [00:18:58]: You don't need anybody else. I have you. And I sat down, cool as a cucumber. And the biggest traumas of my entire life, I spilled out in front of my parents. I set boundaries of how we're going to move forward, how I was inviting them into this relationship. If you want to come into this relationship, here are the boundaries that I'm going to stay in. And I would love for you to come into these boundaries with me, but I just want you to know I'm not going outside of them. And it took some time, and it still continues to this day. Joel Cochran [00:19:28]: But every time there's that invitation to come outside of my boundaries, I go, no, you just come on inside mine. This is a loving, healing place right here inside my boundaries. And since that time, it's been a complete 180 degrees the opposite way with my parents. Our relationship is better now than it ever has been, and it just continues to get better. And that all starts with being able to go, oh, yeah, I own it all. All of it. Jeremy Gruensteiner [00:20:01]: Yeah. Thank you for sharing. First of all, that's such a powerful, moving story for everybody because I know we all carry that with us as well, to different degrees. The difference is just in situation and degree. And what you said about the relationship continuing to evolve again, it was to play back to our previous little bit of conversation, was we think of it as, okay, I read the letter and it's done and it's perfect and it's good. And we're going to go on forever being happy. La da da. And it's continuing to reinforce for ourselves and remind ourselves that these are always processes how much in our lives really is a checkbox that we never come back to. Joel Cochran [00:20:52]: Yeah. Jeremy Gruensteiner [00:20:53]: Like, you change the oil on the car, you're still going to change the oil in the car again in the future. You washed one dish, you're going to wash it again and again and again. Joel Cochran [00:21:04]: I love that. Yeah. I have a saying, right? Trust the reps. Trust the reps. You are what you repeat. That's it. And when we can take that hers or that we're supposed to be some certain way or have some certain skill, I go, no. I have rolled with some really high performers, some really big names, and what I've recognized with all of them is their resilience to trust the reps and just go, yes, I'm going to do it again. Joel Cochran [00:21:37]: I'm going to do it again. I'll refine a little bit more. I'm going to do it again. I'm going to do it again. We are so quick to give up on trusting the reps. I compare it to finances, right? If you're going to put your money in the stock market, you want to play the 30 year game. When I buy a building, a commercial building or a multifamily building, it's a long game. I'm not looking to flip it. Joel Cochran [00:22:07]: No, I want to have this for 30 years because the market will shift and I'll buy it for a million. And in 25 years, I will sell it for 05:00 a.m.. I willing to be patient? Am I willing to trust the reps? This is where the resilience comes in. Jeremy Gruensteiner [00:22:25]: Trusting the reps said a different way is trusting ourself. Truth comes back right to where we started with, of self acceptance. If we can't accept ourselves, how difficult is it to trust the reps and trust yourself? Joel Cochran [00:22:40]: That's right. Jeremy Gruensteiner [00:22:41]: Yeah. I say so many of these things on these podcasts of having realizations like this. Oh, it comes through. I'm actually in the moment seeing of where in my life that's showing up as a new mirror, new opportunity for me to take a look deeper into what's going on, which is always so cool in these interactions and in these conversations. And I know that if I'm having that, likely the person on the other side is also having it. So I'm always so appreciative of everybody who comes onto these podcasts to have these conversations, especially around, for sure, even though it seems like we talk about the same thing, at least from my perspective, we're talking in this self development. We're talking about these stories and ways that people made the changes. Joel Cochran [00:23:28]: Sure. Jeremy Gruensteiner [00:23:29]: From you taking a shift to. Joel Cochran [00:23:33]: You. Jeremy Gruensteiner [00:23:34]: Talked about being a lifelong coach. Where did that really start for you, and where has that taken you? As far as you mentioned, after school programs, what has been that path like for you, as far as the details and what you've learned along the way? Joel Cochran [00:23:53]: Yeah, that's such a good question. Talk about trusting the reps. My first job was 18 years old. I played sports. My parents were like, hey, as long as you're playing sports, we got you. And even in those sports, again, I was a team captain, so on and so forth, and getting into leading within the after school program, coaching kids, whether that's coaching them how to do a particular game that we're playing or to coach them through how to color in inside the lines. It started there, and I went from there, which I'm so glad I did this, to being a valet attendant and customer service. It's very important, you guys, if you are a coach or you have a small business, to understand people, you need to understand people, what they want, what they value. Joel Cochran [00:24:52]: And so what ballet did for me, it helped me understand what people valued. And some people valued that you got the car fast, and some people valued that you opened the door for them. And some people valued that you smiled at them. And some people valued that you just gave them their keys. But it gave me the ability to go, oh, okay, value is what matters, not money. Money doesn't matter yet. We get so caught up on it. It's, what do I value? And then am I willing to invest in that? So I want to look at the value instead of the investment. Joel Cochran [00:25:32]: And so from there, I went from valet into running an events company for CrossFit. CrossFit competitions. I say we're not particularly for CrossFit. Bought a 60 foot rig, mobile rig, competition plates, competition bars, everything. And we did mobile competitions all over the northern Nevada, northern California. Put on one of the largest payouts in the country at the time at $35,000. Next to the Granite games at that time was the only other higher payout. Wadapalooza wasn't even a thing at that time. Joel Cochran [00:26:12]: And then from there, I moved into running an affiliate across for an affiliate. So I got lucky to be invited to be the general manager of an affiliate here called Double edged CrossFit. And they had a millionaire who was their backer, who. This was a passion project. Money wasn't an issue. Jeremy Gruensteiner [00:26:36]: Yeah. Joel Cochran [00:26:37]: So there was nothing too large when it came to this. So we had the most beautiful facility. We placed $120,000 rogue order. We had an entire semi truck alone just to us on rogue orders. Right. And did that from 2014 to 2020. And that taught me an incredible amount. I did over 4501 on one introductions or clarity calls or onboardings, whichever you want to call them. Joel Cochran [00:27:13]: That is 4500 hours of getting to know people. Stack that upon doing events, competitions, valet, and working with kids, parents and employees. My hours of getting to know people started getting into that master realm. 2020, the pandemic hit, and it was the pivotal point for me to go, got it. I know what I'm doing from here and pivoted from there. Started my own business doing virtual coaching, and I have continued to flourish in that of doing executive coaching, public speaking, nutrition coaching, fitness coaching, life coaching. There really isn't a realm that I haven't gotten the reps in. And that's why I say, hey, I'm a lifelong coach. Joel Cochran [00:28:05]: I'm a coach. That's what I am. And I'm damn proud to say it. Jeremy Gruensteiner [00:28:09]: That's super cool. Was there a big moment of transformation in that decision to go from being so tightly wound into the affiliate, of helping achieve that vision to then going to your own vision? Joel Cochran [00:28:27]: Yeah, every time I've gone into a business, I've taken it on as my own vision. Right. So I knew that the affiliate wasn't going to be my forever, because when it came down to negotiations to become an owner, they fell through. And I knew, like, cool, I'm done here. I always have an exit strategy. Out of all of my businesses that I've ever ran, from real estate to the events companies to my personal coaching to public speaking, there's always a way out. And it's not because I'm searching for the way out. It's because I'm preparing for myself, for what's next. Joel Cochran [00:29:07]: I truly believe I go, cool. There's something bigger from here. And every single time there's been something bigger and bigger and it's a bigger stage and it's bigger payouts and it's bigger exposure. It just continues to get bigger and bigger. And so when it came to letting go of double edge, there was zero hesitation. It was cool and goodbye. And I've never looked back. And every time I've left a business or left a partnership, it's been as simple as. Joel Cochran [00:29:45]: Because I know there's something bigger. Jeremy Gruensteiner [00:29:48]: Yeah. In talking to various people in both the coaching industry and also clients and people who are prospective clients of getting stuck into a sense of scarcity around transitions like that? Joel Cochran [00:30:04]: Sure. Jeremy Gruensteiner [00:30:06]: Do you have any advice for people who may be looking at that and wanting to make a transition, but they are scared to take that step because they believe that what's open for them is going to be smaller than where they want to be? Joel Cochran [00:30:22]: Yeah. First is being able to recognize what are the fears. Write down your fears. Cool. Just take three minutes. Start a clock at the very top. What's my fear of stepping into coaching, stepping into my own business. Write all the fears down. Joel Cochran [00:30:45]: We got to get them out. Right. Then looking back at that, this is where we want to start reflecting. Where in my life do I feel 1000% confident? Take it out. If maybe it's not business, maybe it's somewhere else, maybe it's in your relationship, maybe it's with your family, maybe it's in sports, maybe it's in knitting. I don't know. But where do you feel like I'm a gangster here. Why are you a gangster there? Write down all the things that you're really freaking good at. Joel Cochran [00:31:19]: Why you're so good at that. Oh, it's because I've knitted at 200 sweaters, right? Oh, it's because I can knit at a certain time or a certain space, whatever it is. At what point did you accept yourself being that good at that thing? Where are you not accepting yourself in the business that you want to go run? Where is the ability? Because if you don't accept yourself, if you don't value yourself. Because I do this all the time with my business development. What they struggle with the most. I work with affiliates all across the world. What they struggle with the most, sales. How come, oh, if you don't value yourself, you're going to get stuck on the number. Joel Cochran [00:32:14]: When I value myself, my packages are anywhere from $2500 to $8,000 and I don't blink an eye because I am so damn confident I'm going to get you to where you need to be that I can easily show you. Is this what you want? Okay. This is what I do, and I'm the best at it. And if you don't believe that you're the best at it for you, in your world, in your realm, with no comparisons to anyone else, I could care less. What other executive coaches are out there? Life coaches out there, nutrition coach. I could care less. Because when you step into my world, I'm your best answer and I'm your best option because you're talking to me right now and there's plenty of people who haven't talked to me. That's because they found somebody else. Joel Cochran [00:33:02]: Great. I hope that coach has the same confidence as I do because when you have that confidence and you value yourself, it is not a question if I'm going to make it, it's just how am I going to make it? Which area do I want to absolutely annihilate in? Okay, this area. Great. Go be the best. Go become a master. Jeremy Gruensteiner [00:33:25]: Absolutely. I love that in the sales aspect of it. I've delved deep into that world as training because working in a small fitness facility, a former CrossFit affiliate, all of those things, of recognizing our own stories. There was a time period where I worked at Best Buy and I was the number one seller, and I didn't even bat an eye at it because I didn't feel like I was selling. I was presenting solutions for people. They came to me asking for a thing and I said, this is actually better than this. So this. Okay, thank you. Jeremy Gruensteiner [00:34:02]: Yeah, that was absolutely. That was amazing. And I was like, just being helpful. And then when it came to the process of selling something like myself, then an initial story comes up in that of the resistance or the looking at your own price and going, if you're in a space where you believe that you can't afford yourself, that that creates another internal conflict of lack of self belief and lack of all of these crushing scarcities that we put ourselves into, which is. Joel Cochran [00:34:40]: That's right. Jeremy Gruensteiner [00:34:42]: I'm always fascinated just to hear people talk about when they're afraid of sales, it's like, well, do you like telling stories? Do you like listening to people? Do you like coaching people? It's another relationship. Was that something that was very natural to you or was that something that you had to learn? Joel Cochran [00:35:03]: I had to get the reps in, baby. As a public speaker, as somebody who has always been in front of people, people will look at me and be like, yeah, of course, it's super easy for you. I'm like, how do you think I got on that stage? Yeah, please tell me that. Somebody just looked at me and they said, you just look like a public speaker. I choose you. I'm going to pay you thousands of dollars to get on a stage that just seems opened up a phone book. Jeremy Gruensteiner [00:35:34]: And just hit the first name. Because that's what many times, especially when we start, that's what we think happens. Yeah, I'm just going to get the call one day. Somebody will finally notice me. Joel Cochran [00:35:47]: Yeah, no, it takes the reps, you guys. And so where I went from an okay salesman to a good salesman was the 4500 hours I put in. Okay. Where I went from a good salesman to a great salesman was when it became my only job. When all I did was sales for best hour where I went and my own business where I went. Now I'm starting to refine the craft. Now it's my job. Now I'm like, wait a second, not that. Joel Cochran [00:36:23]: Then this. Wait, no, I'm going to study sales. I'm going to start getting into this right where I did now another 2000 hours of honing that craft in. And then where I went from great to world class is when I accepted myself. When I got to that point of like, no, I'm the doctor here. I have the answer. I am the answer. And so you can go and you don't have to go. Joel Cochran [00:36:56]: I'm not attached to the outcome, just like you weren't attached to the outcome of them buying this product compared to that product. You were detached from the outcome. You could buy it, you don't have to buy it. And by doing that, you created a confidence in speaking to the person and being without a doubt that's the right answer. And they went, that's all I wanted to know. That sucks because they have self doubt. They've already tried to make the change and they couldn't do it. So when somebody who has the ability, who has the reps says, this is the answer, and you can say it right to their eyes and you can go if you don't want it. Joel Cochran [00:37:36]: Don't take it. I'm not attached. That's when I became world class salesman. Jeremy Gruensteiner [00:37:44]: Powerful baller moves. Yeah, I dig it a lot. Change gears. Just slight. We talk a lot about personal development. Joel Cochran [00:37:55]: We talk. Yeah, let's change some big gears, dude. Let's go. Jeremy Gruensteiner [00:37:58]: Yeah. Getting into something we haven't really talked a lot about on this podcast because we've been talking to such cool people who have amazing stories. You mentioned you were doing some olympic lifts and you've been involved with CrossFit, getting into strength and physicality, being in sports. What was that path like for you? What was the initial interest that started to lead you into getting into eventually crossfit and continuing that path for. Joel Cochran [00:38:31]: Yeah, yeah. Football is the main driver. Okay. And this is why I'm such a believer in working out with your kids from the very beginning. You should invest into an at home gym. Take out your cars out of your garage. I do not care what you need to do. Jeremy Gruensteiner [00:38:53]: Build a shed in the back. Joel Cochran [00:38:55]: Build a shed, figure it out. Jeremy Gruensteiner [00:38:57]: Clean out the extra bedroom that gathers all the extra junk. Joel Cochran [00:39:00]: Exactly. Because I didn't see my dad work out, I knew he did and that definitely helped. But it's when I got into football and strength was a priority. It was a necessity for me to be better is what helped me to start going like, cool. I got weights in the morning and I got weights in the evening. I'm going to go back to the gym and get stronger because I want the edge. And so that really helped me get into that at starting at a young age. 8th grade is when I started lifting weights. Joel Cochran [00:39:35]: And being in sports helped me because I had a goal. I had that finish line. I want to be the starting running back or whatever the case is. And then after it moving into college, it was now ingrained in me. I'd done so long that I was like, I want to continue to stay strong and I continued to play intermiller sports, ski, snowboard, do active things, do five k's, ten k's, and all that other kind of jazz. And so I just always stayed such enthralled in fitness itself. And I feel so lucky for that because this is the only body we get and the way we treat it now is essential to how we're going to live our end years. I'm thinking about myself at 80 years old right now, in my thirty s, I am thinking about, man, how active am I going to be? How strong am I going to feel? And I'm going to be strong and people are going to look and be like, no way, you're 80 years old. Joel Cochran [00:40:41]: And when I'm 90, people are going to be like, no way, you're 90. And when I'm 100, they're going to be like, no way, you're 100. That is my lifelong goal. And when that's the goal, it's not just, like, cool. Today I'm going to do my three position snatch, and I have to hit 135. No, I'm thinking, hey, you're going to do three position snatch. One, because you love it. You love doing Olympic lifts, so that fills your cup. Joel Cochran [00:41:08]: Two, you're going to do it 85 pounds because you're doing it for your 80 year old self right now. And you're being kind to your 80 year old self right now while continuing to work, strength training, while continuing to explore different dimensions of fitness, of health. That is a big driver for me, is getting to the older ages. And how long can I do a three position snatch for? We'll find out. Jeremy Gruensteiner [00:41:38]: As long as you want to. Joel Cochran [00:41:40]: Right. Jeremy Gruensteiner [00:41:40]: Yeah. As you were talking about that, of this path and the continuation thinking in decades, as I've commonly heard it said, of thinking beyond this training cycle, beyond this thing, I'm working this arbitrary goal that I've set myself that, yes, I want to do. And am I sacrificing the longevity for the performance for this goal? Joel Cochran [00:42:08]: Yes. Jeremy Gruensteiner [00:42:09]: For some arbitrary thing that I've decided for myself is the longer term, the bigger vision that I want to see. And one thing that I've been considering and thinking about, of even looking back, I just recently started coaching youth weightlifters at a local high school. Joel Cochran [00:42:27]: Oh, dope. Jeremy Gruensteiner [00:42:28]: And getting to take all the things that I've learned, coming to the sport later in life and through all the tools that I've learned. And looking at this, I grew up as a nerdy kid who wasn't athletic. And I looked from the outside in at what was going on in the sports and very confused a lot of the time. And then looking at it still as an adult, I see some confusion for myself there, too. We instill this sense of, you have to win. We're training for the game. We're creating that sense of immediate achievement. At the cost of what? Because we're young and it's okay and we'll be fine. Jeremy Gruensteiner [00:43:11]: And so I'm talking to kids who have blown out acls, and that didn't need to necessarily happen because they're rushing to the end of I need to get the football trophy. Taking a look at these kids. Joel Cochran [00:43:27]: How. Jeremy Gruensteiner [00:43:28]: Different would have your life or collectively people's lives been if we started from a perspective like that or started to instill that perspective of actually looking beyond what is it to be to start senior year on the football squad. Joel Cochran [00:43:48]: I love that dude. Essentially, I worked with the youth, too. I was a strength and conditioning coach for one of the high schools here and still have a passion to coach football. Right. I coached football, varsity football and working with a team that was not good. It really came down to belief I would look like a three headed monster. If I would have came in and said, we're going to be state champs next year, I would look like a three headed monster. And what I would have done is I would have created false hope. Joel Cochran [00:44:36]: Same thing we were talking about earlier. I instilled in those athletes, we're going to win in our actions. We're going to win in the way we tie our shoes. We're going to win on the way that we come out onto the field. We're going to win the way we go through those sprints. We're going to win in the way our detail is to every movement on this field. And there was buy in on that and we did well. We didn't get a state championship, but those kids bought in because it wasn't about the end. Joel Cochran [00:45:12]: It was about being able to win now, win right now, win this second, win this minute, win this hour, win this day, win this week. Let's win here right now. Let's see what happens when we're just focusing on that action right there. It will compound see what happens. Jeremy Gruensteiner [00:45:34]: What can you imagine the effect on that lesson and being able to learn that if they take it with them, what can you imagine that looks like for them at age 30, age 40, versus somebody who doesn't learn that lesson? Joel Cochran [00:45:50]: Oh, yeah, I know it. One of the athletes, it's his senior year, is one of my best friends. He's 28 years old. Yeah, right. And I've been able to watch him from how I coached him. And here's the thing, this is to all leaders out there when you come in. When I first came in to do weights, not a single one of those kids liked me. Not a single one of those kids liked me because I grabbed the wheel of that ship and I turned it 180 degrees and they hated me. Joel Cochran [00:46:27]: But what they learned to respect was my consistency. That I came in every single day with the same attitude, with the same respect. I knew to win every second, every minute, every hour, every day. I knew. And by the end of the year, those kids loved me. They loved me because they respected me, because they knew that I was going to show up the same way every single freaking time. And so as they see him now at 28 years old with his own son going through hardships like a divorce, and how he's responding to it and his openness, I'm like, this is, if I only had somebody who was in my corner, who knows where I'd be? And I also say this, life is your greatest teacher. You guys go live it. Joel Cochran [00:47:28]: No guru, no coach, no one out there is going to teach you as well as life teaches you because I can tell you all the things to do in life, but you need to feel what life gives you for you to learn it. Jeremy Gruensteiner [00:47:45]: Absolutely. And connect it to something physical, like an olympic lift. I can sit and I can describe it to you over and over and over and over again until you feel what a good snatch feels like, what that execution of that movement is like. You go, oh, that's it. Because all the words you can use to describe it don't do it justice of what the experience is like. I see it in the looks of terror on these young kids faces, do these million things all at once within a split second. And another thing that you said in that story, which is, again, I'm loving everything that we're talking about today. This is a fun jam session. Jeremy Gruensteiner [00:48:34]: You talked about when you showed up consistently winning every day that those kids loved you. It's one of these things. Even looking at in public speaking, it's easy to have fun. And it's an audience member when the person on stage is having fun. Joel Cochran [00:48:50]: That's right. Jeremy Gruensteiner [00:48:51]: In these relationships, especially as coaches, especially towards younger adults, is it's easy to love somebody when they already have started to love themselves. Really hard to buy in and start to like somebody who doesn't like themselves because we've all been around those people. We've likely been those people at some point in our life, and it's tough on the external people around us as well. Joel Cochran [00:49:16]: Oh, big time. Well, I mean, guys, if you're not accepting yourself, then you're not going to be secure with yourself. When you're not secure with yourself, you're going to show up, particularly us as men. We're going to show up with bravado, right? We're going to puff our chest. We're going to hear what we hear on social media. Be a lion, be a savage. Right. Be all these things. Joel Cochran [00:49:42]: Right. But if you don't know how to control being a savage, you're reckless you're dangerous. It's like giving a gun to somebody who doesn't know how to operate it. Is the gun powerful? Yes, but it's also extremely dangerous in the wrong hands. And so when men are walking around telling themselves they're savages, but they're unable to express to me how they're feeling and be able to get vulnerable, then you're dangerous to this society. You are dangerous to these kids. You are dangerous to your wife, to your kids, because you don't know how to control it. And until we can get to that point of being able to go, I accept myself and I can be a savage, right? And I can show up, but I can turn it on and I can turn it off because I would rather be a samurai in a garden than a gardener out in war, right? Jeremy Gruensteiner [00:50:41]: Yeah. Joel Cochran [00:50:42]: And that's what we want. We want to be a samurai just plucking leaves. Nobody even knows that. I could rip your freaking throat out. Jeremy Gruensteiner [00:50:50]: Yeah, you took the analogy right out of my mouth on that one. We were thinking the same thing. It's like that warrior energy that's part of the masculine of being able to use that gear and choosing not to unless it's necessary, that's a truly dangerous person. Not in a reckless way. Joel Cochran [00:51:18]: That's right. I carry a gun with me every single day, and I refuse to use that thing unless I absolutely have to. I will do everything in my power. I will run away. I will cower. I will give you my money in a dangerous situation. No. Here's my money, here's my keys. Joel Cochran [00:51:42]: No. Here. No. But if the time came, I practice with my gun, my everyday carry, every single month. I practice my draws. I know my trigger pressure. I practice for that moment in hopes that it never comes. And this is how we should practice as well as men. Joel Cochran [00:52:06]: I should practice and practice and practice, and practice. Vulnerability, openness, all of these things in hopes that I never have to use it. But when I do, when the time does come, I will be a force. People will listen because they're so used to me just sitting there, right? And being able to be patient and questioning that. When I finally do make a statement, everybody stops. When you're roaring like a lion and making statements all the time. This is how it's going to be. This is the way it should be. Joel Cochran [00:52:42]: The world should be this way. Draw the fucking line. Always going to listen to you. They're going to turn you off. They're going to wonder about the guy sitting in the corner being quiet, shaking his head. That's what they're going to be like. What's that guy doing over there? Well, what do you think? Jeremy Gruensteiner [00:53:02]: Yeah. Wise words. It rings true so much. I love it. Joel Cochran [00:53:11]: Yeah. It's tough. Jeremy Gruensteiner [00:53:17]: We have this innate urge to want to explain, to stay in the cerebral, be recognized. And many of the things that we talk about, seeing it for myself and seeing it in others as over explaining or showing up insecure in that way is a way of lack of self acceptance like we've been talking about. It all comes back to that connection to self. Joel Cochran [00:53:44]: That's right. Jeremy Gruensteiner [00:53:45]: The more that we can find that, the better everything gets. Joel Cochran [00:53:49]: Yeah. That self acceptance, you guys, the greatest gift that you can give yourself is being able to accept. There was one of my breath work coaches who explained it to me, and he showed me, he said, put your hands together. Right. I put my hands together and he goes, cool. Take your right hand and move it away from your left hand. Keep your left hand still, but move it away. And so I slid my hand away, and he said, this is the part that we tend to accept. Joel Cochran [00:54:19]: These are all the celebrations that we have. Right. All the things that I'm trying to achieve. The 225 pound snatch, the awesome relationship, the thriving business, the degree. We'll celebrate. All those things. Right. Bring your hand back now take the left hand and move it away. Joel Cochran [00:54:41]: And move the left hand away. And keep the right hand where it's at. So these are the things we don't want to accept. Where we faltered, where we fell, where we didn't hit the snatch, where we did something we felt embarrassed or shameful of. This is the part we don't want to accept. And when we're battling ourselves, we'll fluctuate. We'll seek to adhere to the right side and go, I need to get another degree to make myself feel better because I'm actually not accepting the shame over here. When I didn't do well in school, that I didn't get that job. Joel Cochran [00:55:16]: And what he says that we can tend to flex and the self acceptance is doing this. Both hands pull away. Both hands pull away. And we go. Great. With open hands, I receive myself with open hands, I can give myself a hug. With open hands, I can help someone else. But when my hands are together, I have no place to be able to extend a helping hand. Joel Cochran [00:55:47]: I'm grasping on to something instead of accepting. An acceptance is open, acceptance is vulnerable, and acceptance is strength. Fantastic. Jeremy Gruensteiner [00:56:01]: Yeah. I'm going to leave it at that. I'm not going to let it sit for what it is. Joel Cochran [00:56:06]: Yeah. Jeremy Gruensteiner [00:56:07]: For sure, as we start to come up on our time together. That was a mic drop moment if there ever was one. But do you have any final thoughts you'd like to share with the viewers or the listeners? Joel Cochran [00:56:22]: What I would say, this recently has come up and has been so powerful and I've reminded so many people of this. I want to extrapolate. This story is I've been in commercial real estate, and my brother has a property out in Ohio, and it's a multifamily, multiple doors. It's a section eight. If you guys don't know what section eight is, right? It's low income. So to be a section eight property, you have to be approved by the section eight committee. And the thing with that is, yeah, you get tax breaks and so on and so forth, but if this section eight committee deems your property to be unlivable, they can kick out all of your tenants, basically say, like, no, you guys all got to go, this is unlivable. And it could be because they don't like the way the tree branches are hanging. Joel Cochran [00:57:16]: And this is what ended up happening. He got the call and they said, we're kicking everybody out. And he went, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. Hold on. And he already made the commitment. Like, I'm not coming at this with this big, roaring, masculine energy of, like, the f, you will. I'm getting my lawyers. I'm this and that. Joel Cochran [00:57:41]: He said, no, this is a perfect opportunity to go from zero to hero. I want to go from the bottom. If I'm at the bottom of your list, thank you for letting me know. But I want you to know I'm going to come to the top. And whatever I need to do to do that, I will. So he went, great. I'm going to get on a plane and I'm going to come all the way over there and without a guarantee that he can meet with a section eight CEO and so on and so forth. And so he's putting together all his stuff. Joel Cochran [00:58:12]: He's putting together his numbers, and he's getting really nervous and he's getting really worked up because he really wants to show, like, I'm a good owner, and he is. He really does care. And so there's some insecurities that are coming up. There's some worries if they all get kicked out, then now I have to pay my mortgage, which is really dang expensive, right? And he's talking about this and he's worried he's about to get on a plane and he's doing a red eye there to ohio. And then he's supposed to meet people in the morning, and he has some different numbers. He's calling, and he's going to go to the property, and he's going to do this, and he's like, maybe I should have gifts for the tenants, and so on and so forth. And I said, pause. I said, ben, your presence is enough. Joel Cochran [00:59:04]: Your presence is enough. And that stopped him dead in his tracks. You don't need gifts. You don't need numbers. You don't need all these other things. Your presence is enough. And, you guys, so often we get caught in that. I have to have the degree. Joel Cochran [00:59:26]: I have to have the thing. I got to have all these pieces. No, you don't. Your presence is enough. Because I can tell you that each time I'm about to step out onto the stage to give a presentation an hour before, I'm just like, ben, I have to get all my points right. And if I don't land this and if I don't make sure that I hit this point just right, always before I step out on that stage and how big the stage is, right before they call my name, it all washes away. Because I remember to myself, my presence is enough. Whether they receive it or they don't receive it doesn't matter. Joel Cochran [01:00:13]: Who I am is enough. And everything washes away, and I go out on that stage and I allow my presence to be enough. So whatever you guys are going through, whatever your doubts that you may be having, remember, you are uniquely made. There's billions of people in this world, not a single one like you. Your presence is enough. In work, in relationships, friendships, in your education, as a coach, as a business owner, you are valuable. Be that value. Jeremy Gruensteiner [01:00:50]: An even bigger mic drop moment. Thank you so much, Joel. Anything that you would like to promote, anything you would like to let the listeners aware of how they can learn more from you, get in contact with you, what have you got going on in the world? Joel Cochran [01:01:05]: Yeah, man. My business is. There's three different businesses. Two that I run, one that I work for. Proclivity is my life coaching and nutrition company. We help people to create healthier bodies and happier lives, and we do that by restructuring your identity around food, fitness, and the way that you see yourself. The other business is called Cochrane concepts. That's my public speaking and my executive coaching. Joel Cochran [01:01:36]: So if you are listening now and you're like, man, I love a public speaker. Or, man, I'm an executive. I need help with being able to manage all these pressures of running a business. Feel free to reach out me there and lastly is I work for best hour of their day as a business development coach best hour of their day is an affiliate development company. We are partnered with CrossFit and so if you are an affiliate owner and you are curious about man I am struggling to make a living as an affiliate owner. Head over to besthourothertherday.com. Check us out. We can help and we have helped hundreds and hundreds of affiliates. Joel Cochran [01:02:20]: We're working with 250 affiliates around the world right now. We'd love to be able to help you. Jeremy Gruensteiner [01:02:26]: Very rad. Thank you so much for being here. Thank you so much for being you. I appreciate it greatly. Joel Cochran [01:02:32]: Receive that man thank you very much for having me on the show man. It's pure honor. Jeremy Gruensteiner [01:02:36]: Thank you and to you listening thank you for listening to us and sticking with us through this amazing journey of conversation that we've just had. And until next time, as always, stay strong folks. And most importantly, stay weird.

Jeremy Gruensteiner [00:00:01]: Welcome back to the Weird and strong podcast. I'm your host, Jeremy Gernsteiner, and we have a special episode with Beth Anne, a self love coach and Reiki master who is doing amazing things out in the world. And this was simply such a fun and amazing conversation. We get deep into some of her background and her path of what's brought her into the space of coaching and where she's going. So without further delay, let's get weird, folks. Bethan, welcome to the Weird and strong podcast. It's great to see you. Beth Ann [00:00:34]: It's great to see you, too. Thank you for having me. Jeremy Gruensteiner [00:00:37]: Yeah, it's been rad to get to know everybody in the community, especially those of us who were at the enlifted event, which, if you've been listening to all the episodes, might be noticing a theme that this is something that's been coming up with all the guests. So I have a weird question for you. Are you ready? Beth Ann [00:00:57]: Yes. Hit me. Jeremy Gruensteiner [00:00:59]: If you were a type of jeans, what type would you be. Beth Ann [00:01:08]: Like? J-E-A-N-S? Jeremy Gruensteiner [00:01:10]: Yes. The pants. Beth Ann [00:01:13]: Oh, I love this question. I would be. Damn it. Corduroy. Corduroy for sure. Yeah. Jeremy Gruensteiner [00:01:22]: All right. Any particular style? Boot cut. Bell bottom. Low rise. High rise. Beth Ann [00:01:29]: High rise bell bottoms for sure. Jeremy Gruensteiner [00:01:32]: High rise, bell bottom. Corduroy jeans. Beth Ann [00:01:36]: I'm picturing, like, this, like, mustard yellow or brown color as well. Jeremy Gruensteiner [00:01:41]: That's just, like early 70s in a nutshell. Beth Ann [00:01:48]: I was born in the wrong generation. Just kidding. Jeremy Gruensteiner [00:01:52]: Just missed out on all of that. I suppose you also missed the resurgence of the bell bottoms in the 90s as well. Beth Ann [00:01:59]: Well, I was a baby, but I'm actually wearing bell bottoms right now. They're snake print. Jeremy Gruensteiner [00:02:06]: Nice. That's super rad. Beth Ann [00:02:09]: Yeah. So I'm grateful that they're coming back around. Jeremy Gruensteiner [00:02:12]: Yeah, super cool. As we talk with everybody, we talk about our guests and their stories and what makes them weird and unconventional. So for you, what are the ways that people might not be aware of that make you unconventional? Beth Ann [00:02:32]: There's so many. I was looking up the definition of weird before hopping on here, and it said there was like, the immediate response was strange and blah, blah, blah. But when I scrolled a little bit, it said weird means of strange or extraordinary character, odd and fantastic. And then underneath that it said of relating to or caused by witchcraft or the supernatural, magical. And I resonate a lot with that. Yeah. I think that when I was reflecting on this and realizing that I was most likely going to be asked what makes me weird or unconventional, I was just washed up by all of these things. And one of the things that stuck out to me was that I enjoy talking to strangers. Beth Ann [00:03:28]: And I mean, like, on the bus, because I don't have a car. I'm on the bus a lot. I like talking to strangers on the bus, in the grocery store, wherever I am. And I feel that seems a little silly to say out loud, but I recognize, especially in the city where I'm at, people tend to avoid even making eye contact with each other. So I like to get through that initial layer of stickiness with strangers and see what's really going on, because I find that most people do want to connect, and they want to be seen and heard, and it's just like a defense mechanism against the threats that could be out there. Jeremy Gruensteiner [00:04:11]: Yeah, absolutely. I was just having a conversation with Casey Pepper, which previous episode to this one of something very similar, of this idea of many of us feeling isolated in a world of ever increasing connectiveness. How much more isolated and alone people feel, or at least we're noticing that people feel or that we're seeing take place in the world. Aside from the defense mechanism component of that, do you have any thoughts on why we're finding that more and more? Beth Ann [00:04:47]: Well, that's a whole rabbit hole. Social media and the Internet, I feel, is a super powerful tool. And it also is like. I mean, I find myself doing it where I'm feeling a lack of something or a need to distract myself, and I'll go on Instagram or Facebook or something and see what's on there. And then on there, I am comparing myself subconsciously to all the other people doing all of the cool things to the point of creating this self doubt and separation of me and them as being elsewhere on their journey. So I feel the disconnect in a world that's. I mean, it's literally full of people and opportunities. And like you said, ever expanding connection. Beth Ann [00:05:41]: It can be all too easy to fall into our beliefs of smallness or not enoughness or fear of being seen. And that can come from. I can give you a personal example. I was home schooled until fifth grade. And before I started public school, I had no concept of what was weird or normal. That really wasn't in my understanding. And then when I entered school, I realized that there was ways in which people functioned that were similar ways, that people spoke to each other already existing groups. And it became increasingly scary to try to find my way into those already existing groups. Beth Ann [00:06:29]: And I find that a lot of adults, as well as kids, are walking around with that same feeling of insecurity and not belonging. And we talk a lot in the enlisted community about our Billy voice and the beliefs and thoughts and stories and feelings we all hold. And I think that a lot of people, like the mass majority of people, are walking around secretly feeling like they don't belong. Jeremy Gruensteiner [00:07:04]: And is that actually true? Beth Ann [00:07:07]: Are you asking me? Jeremy Gruensteiner [00:07:09]: Yeah. Beth Ann [00:07:10]: Is it true that they don't belong, or is it true that they think they don't belong? Jeremy Gruensteiner [00:07:15]: Yes. Beth Ann [00:07:18]: Well, I can say that that's my perception of what's going on. And I also know that not belonging is right. Like, I remember I heard, I believe it was Halle Meadows, and she had said that one of her affirmations is, I belong everywhere I am. And I plucked that out, and I've been using it ever since as like a mechanism of. Because when I am saying this about general society feeling, this not belongingness, part of it is like a projection of something that I've experienced myself, of feeling like I don't belong where I am. And that is just like, ultimately separating. I'm not even giving people the opportunity to see me or me them as a result. Jeremy Gruensteiner [00:08:13]: Yeah, that's interesting. You mentioned of having this sense of otherness or not quite being sure of what social norms are after the home school experience, and I was like, I wasn't homeschooled. I feel that deeply. And I'm assuming that there's also many of us out there that have a very similar experience that we, for whatever reason, don't share of. Like, man, being a kid was real awkward. I didn't really understand what I was supposed to do or who I was supposed to be. And yet somehow we all experience this in this silent pact that we won't talk about it. Beth Ann [00:08:58]: That is interesting because it is universal, even. I'm sure that kids that seem to have large groups of friends were probably experiencing that same thing, of wanting to mesh into the collective mind rather than having their own voice, thoughts, and experience. What's that all about? Jeremy Gruensteiner [00:09:20]: It's like, just the human experience, period, is just a big old ball of weird. Beth Ann [00:09:27]: Yeah, awkward is a good way to put it. Jeremy Gruensteiner [00:09:29]: Awkward? Yeah. Beth Ann [00:09:31]: Just like finding your footing. Jeremy Gruensteiner [00:09:33]: Yeah. And since you brought it up, and we haven't talked about this on the show in a bit, are you aware of the origin of the word weird? Beth Ann [00:09:45]: I'm not. Will you remind me? Jeremy Gruensteiner [00:09:47]: Yeah, it's okay. So it's cool that you brought up this supernatural aspect of it, because the old english version of weird W-Y-R-D has to do with destiny and the fates. So if you remember, if you're familiar with Macbeth, there were the weird sisters standing for the fates, the three fates, the maiden, mother and Crone. And so it's this idea of this weaving, of this tapestry of reality or of your destiny. And so it's one of the things that we talk about the most on the show is being able to talk about people's experiences and talk about them being themselves, because that's truly weird. In the world of a world of people attempting to be other people, people who are truly themselves are the weird ones because they are marching towards their destiny. Beth Ann [00:10:45]: So it's not like a signifier of not fitting in or of being out of place by any means. It is a representation of moving towards what you came here to do. Jeremy Gruensteiner [00:10:59]: Again, it's the story that we tell ourselves, and so we can assign the meaning of not fitting in, of not being enoughness, or we can assign that meaning of being who we are and being in the right place at the right time, being exactly where we need to be at this moment. And knowing that I'm moving forward towards whatever I'm moving towards. Beth Ann [00:11:24]: I really like that reframe. Jeremy Gruensteiner [00:11:28]: It's an interesting one, and we haven't talked about it in a while, so feared. It's bears bringing up in different ways. As that continues to percolate in my own mind, and then in the mind of this co created experience of a podcast. In looking at your path into becoming a coach, what was that like for you? Is this something that you had already always had in your mind as a draw towards helping people? Or is this something that's been new for you that you're just now starting to explore? Beth Ann [00:12:03]: It's both. In a way, when I first had recognized the desire to help people in this way, it was coming from a place of almost lack in my own life. I was just coming out of a very intense couple of years of drug addiction. And on the other side of that, I was realizing that I really enjoyed holding space for people, and I recognized that I was a really good listener. I received that feedback a lot, but it became a problem. It was an opportunity, and at the time, perceivably a problem. I was attracting into my life friends and people who were not wanting to take responsibility over their own lives. And I would put myself in a very codependent position to just make myself available for them and their problems a lot. Beth Ann [00:13:05]: And I didn't like it. I didn't like always feeling that because I was opening myself to the intensity while ignoring and trying to bypass what was going on for me internally. So it actually sprung from this codependent place of wanting to bypass what I needed to work on by focusing my attention and energy on helping other people. So that didn't work out. It didn't pan out. But I kind of left the desire alone for a while, and I kept working, manufacturing jobs and customer service jobs and hiding in a way. And then I became attuned to Reiki, and I was looking for something, and I went into that initiation for the purpose of self healing. I uprooted my entire life, gave myself the most major pattern interruption by leaving my relationship, moving out by myself, and just starting completely fresh, quitting my job. Beth Ann [00:14:07]: And, yeah, being able to work with people on that front in just, like, an intentional, curated space to exchange energy and work with the subtle energy fields. Like, there was no coaching. It was just like holding the space of love that really helped me to step into the pathway of being and embodying love. When I became attuned to Reiki, I wasn't quite sure exactly what it meant. And then my Reiki master said to me one day, he's like, all you have to do is be love. He helped me to switch my perspective, to be that lens, and that really helped me to experience that for myself as well. Like, if I'm looking at all of these other people with this unconditional loving kindness, I want to be able to do that for myself. And then I met the enlisted crew at Mark England's Lake house last year in October, and I got to meet all these badass coaches. Beth Ann [00:15:20]: And people were not correcting me but inquiring into my language and my use of language. And I remember sitting at the table, Eric and Jenny were there talking about was like. I was like, what are you guys talking about? And I really got hooked at that event. And Mark England gifted me vocabulary. This is like a nutshell version of the story, but he gifted me vocabulary. And when I went home, I was just like, holy shit. I have been thinking and speaking in ways to be able to experience it for the first time myself in my own life and recognizing the ways that I was fully limiting myself and honestly being very mean to myself in my thoughts and language. It just. Beth Ann [00:16:15]: Light switch went off, and I took level one, and I just got really excited about being able to share this with other people. And it was no longer coming from a place of lack or wanting to bypass my own experience. It was coming from like, this is fucking magic, and I want to share it. So I believe that answers your question. Jeremy Gruensteiner [00:16:36]: Yeah, absolutely. Coming back to your. So you talked about this lesson that you experienced in your education, in Reiki of this embodiment or being love. Am I understanding this correct? Was that a shift for you rather than trying to do and shifting into being? Was I understanding and hearing that correctly? Beth Ann [00:17:05]: Yeah, 100%. You're great at asking questions. Jeremy Gruensteiner [00:17:10]: Thank you. Beth Ann [00:17:10]: You're a great listener. Okay. Yeah, I remember I was having this just like, I couldn't hack it. I was like, how do I do this? Right? How do I do this? Well. And when he said be, I was like, oh, shit, it's that simple. And it's also like, I found it to be more challenging than knowing what actions to take and how to do the thing right. It was like, I have to be this. Instead of my mind wanting to know specifically the workings of all the things, how everything's going to work out, all the mind stuff. Beth Ann [00:17:54]: It was instead, like, I have to create this as a space to exist within and a lens to see through. Jeremy Gruensteiner [00:18:03]: Yeah, that's an interesting thing, because even in the space of coaching words and stories and things like that, sometimes it can be easy to get stuck in this intellectual, especially for new coaches, for people who are starting down their self development practice and journeys. I will raise my hand as a high pot. I'm kettle of getting stuck in the thought gymnastics, of trying to think my way through a problem. How has that changed from the doing and staying in this mental exercise into being? How has that carried forward beyond your Reiki practice into your life? Beth Ann [00:18:52]: Yeah, it's so broad. Cultivating a lens of love is a practice that is an everyday practice, an every moment practice. It's like a practice in removing judgment of situations and other people and myself. Judgments of situations, as in, like, it makes me think of enlisted. Again, I love enlisted because it gives me the words to use to describe things I previously didn't have words for, but, like, opportunity thinking, or like, something happens at work or while I'm walking. I lost my keys the other day. I left them at my friend's house, and there was an opportunity to be like, oh, this fucking. Like, I'm screwed. Beth Ann [00:19:53]: But I chose to be relaxed about it. And then I found out that my partner, Bill, he had in his possession my keys for my other door. There's two doors to get into my apartment. And it was like, okay, so now I have keys to get in. And then it also became like, this is kind of fun and exciting because I've been using the back door to get in with the keys that I had because Bill had my front door keys for months, and I had been using only that door. And now I can only use the front door. And it's like I could frame it as I can only use this door. It's like I get to now switch up my routine. Beth Ann [00:20:38]: And pattern interruption is something I enjoy a lot. I like to keep things interesting and fresh, and it turned into something that brought me joy. Losing my keys. Jeremy Gruensteiner [00:20:48]: Yeah, absolutely. Beth Ann [00:20:51]: Yeah. That feels like. I don't know why that came up, but that felt like a lens of love moment. Jeremy Gruensteiner [00:20:58]: Yeah. Being able to cast that out for yourself, that's definitely a skill. Like you said, it's a practice and not a topic that we've talked enough about on this podcast, or at least not in a good long while of ensuring that we give ourselves the grace and the attention that we can practice. And yes, folks listening out there, I'm talking directly to you. Practice. It's always practice, practice, practice. And when we get caught up again in this mental gymnastics, this, this tendency towards thought based or solution based types of thinking of when I get the certification, that means I'm going to be good enough to make a million dollars or whatever story we create, we create this boundary for ourselves, of doneness. We reduce our lives to these series of checkboxes. Jeremy Gruensteiner [00:22:00]: And reality is that we are continually creating a practice around the things that we do. And when we come at it from a Practice mindset, we start to remove a lot of those pressures. So lean into your practices, folks. Beth Ann [00:22:15]: That made me think of. I was just thinking about, how do we really want a final destination? Jeremy Gruensteiner [00:22:22]: Like, when we are ultimately, people will say, yes, I want to be done. I want to be finished with this thing. I was like, well, what does that actually mean? When are you truly done? Beth Ann [00:22:39]: When I die. Jeremy Gruensteiner [00:22:40]: Yeah. So it's, oh, you want to hurry that up? You want to rush that process. Okay. People accuse me of being morbid when I talk like that. I was like, I'm not having that thought. You are. Beth Ann [00:22:56]: That's all you, my friend. Jeremy Gruensteiner [00:22:58]: Yeah, that sounds like a projection on its own, right? Beth Ann [00:23:05]: Oh, it's so true. And it's easy to get caught up in that as well. Caught up in the never ending quest to get, quote it done. But, yeah, the process is the fun part. Going through the discomfort is fun. What even is done, exactly. I love going after a new thing, especially right now. I consider myself to be a baby in the realm of having my own business and navigating all of the things that come with that. Beth Ann [00:23:40]: It's like there is so much to it. The technicalities aside, it's like right now I'm just getting to the point where I've established a routine that works for me, like a routine of getting up and sitting down at my computer and structuring my time to get things done at the rate I want to so I can then create more space for flow elsewhere. And I'm not a person who's always valued structure and then into building your brand and doing marketing and scheduling all the stuff and going to networking events and every single piece of that also has these new little pieces of resistance and ledges to step over and fear to embrace. Jeremy Gruensteiner [00:24:35]: Absolutely. I just was on a call with a client of mine and very similar situation. Not necessarily the specifics, but that sentiment and also right there with you in that of this creating the structure for ourselves. And we think again, we think, well, I made the schedule, I'll never have to make the schedule again. That's another hilarious thought that I'm having for myself. This is what it is at this moment and it's going to change and that's okay. And also knowing the growth that comes through building your own business. A mentoring coach of a friend of mine, she had made this post of entrepreneurship is the deepest shadow work that we can possibly ever do. Jeremy Gruensteiner [00:25:32]: It exposes everything for us, especially when we're doing getting started all by ourselves. All by ourselves. When it's up to us to execute and create the vision and execute it, it's easy to start to feel. And I will be completely honest, folks, this has been the struggle for my week of feeling like an absolute beginner and novice, and I'm taking every step in the wrong direction. At the same time. That's a real gut punch. As you've been building through this, have you found some ways or some, some strategies or some practices that have helped you step away from this need to feel done or this need to be like the master overnight of all the things you need to do for your business? Beth Ann [00:26:30]: Yeah. Thank you for sharing your experience. That's also been a theme in my own mind and life. But lately I've been discovering that the more tightly I cling to the desired outcome and the result, the more I suffer. And what I found works for me. And I'm sure that this will change because this is just the ledge I'm at right now. But taking the messiest action possible and just doing it, like posting the thing, sending the voice note without listening back to it, just like putting myself out there without needing it to be perfect, has helped me a lot to overcome this sense of, like, I need to be done or I need to be at the end of this, because I've actually been reflecting on how do I even want that? Because right now I'm very excited about the process. I'm building out a new program, a group container. Beth Ann [00:27:43]: And I have tried and failed three other times to do this, and I shouldn't say failed. I had the intention. I got really excited about it, launched it, and then I got so scared and I stopped starting conversations about it. I would make a little post here and there and I didn't get anybody to sign up. And I recognized the ways in which I was sabotaging my own drive to create this. And this time feels different. The fear is there, but I know now that when the fear comes up, I will go back into the process, I'll get back into the mix of what it is that I'm creating and why I'm creating it and who it's for and why. I'm excited to offer this. Beth Ann [00:28:31]: And my main goal is just to create a space where women can come together and lift each other up. Like basic baseline. That's it. And I know that that's needed, and I know that that's exciting to me and I also need it. So it's like coming back to my why really helps me to reignite the fuel when I'm feeling a sense of urgency or fear. Do you have any reflections? Jeremy Gruensteiner [00:29:02]: Yeah. When you talked about the attempting to launch a program three times and it's quote unquote failing, the vision that I had in my, or the picture I had in my mind was, have you ever seen old time, like the space race era? Like when they're doing the rocket tests, they're building these rockets that are supposed to take people in outer space or satellites, and how many times they fail, they fall over, they blow up, corks grew out of control. It's like in looking through, in my own experience of that, of trying to build a business or working in a business that closed, of continually looking to launch myself forward in various ways, what I saw was because I've done the exact thing that you talked about of getting scared or feeling too small or feeling something, that I realized that I'm not doing it justice to actually allow people to know or be invited or feel welcomed to whatever I'm building. It's almost like I built the rocket and then I decided to fill it a quarter way up with fuel. And it said it's going to get to the moon on a quarter of fuel. I had that happen personally of a workshop I hosted. I was so excited for it. I felt like I had done all the promotion that I needed to. Jeremy Gruensteiner [00:30:32]: I printed all the posters, I put them all around town. I posted on it on social media, and I got to the day. Guess who showed up? Beth Ann [00:30:43]: You. Jeremy Gruensteiner [00:30:44]: Yes. And that was it. So there was definitely a moment of feeling like I failed. Nobody wants this. And you get that heavy feeling of this pressure of what am I even doing? That imposter syndrome. The Billy voice comes ripping through in the biggest, baddest way that it maybe hasn't before or in a long time. And so it's taking the breath and taking the moment. I still delivered the workshop, one, two, the next day. Jeremy Gruensteiner [00:31:22]: What did I do? I started inviting everybody I possibly could. I took all the steps that I avoided the first time. And so it's the continual lessons in these things of where do we go? Are the actions that we're taking? Are we actually taking action that's aligned to what we're going for? Or are we just telling ourselves that it felt good because I posted the thing one time, I got five likes on it. It means five people are going to show up. Right? Beth Ann [00:31:56]: Right. Jeremy Gruensteiner [00:31:57]: Yeah. So in that, in this exploration, anything that you've noticed for yourself as you've been building this, of additional pieces of wisdom or things that you've noticed for yourself that have been starting to shift as you build this new program? Beth Ann [00:32:19]: Yeah, there's been a lot of really exciting new layers of stepping out of my own way that I've been noticing. And it feels different than before, the getting out of my own way component, because before it was like you were saying, just posting about it felt like enough, like I had done the work, putting an eventbrite up, like putting 3 hours into a canva design. And now I recognize the ways in which I am procrastinating on taking the actual action. This is really funny. I wanted to host a free call to bring people in to experience a little sample of what I am wanting to offer in the program. And for some reason I called it a master class. And I keep going in my head about it because I'm like, okay, well, now it's out there. I've called it a master class. Beth Ann [00:33:18]: I guess it's a master class of this. I never would have said I'm a master of this. But now here I am about to facilitate a master class that actually has been, in a really fun way, fueling me in really putting this. It feels like an art piece at this point, together to facilitate and foster the experience I want to bring to these women. If I'm going to be calling it a master class, I better be showing up. Jeremy Gruensteiner [00:33:56]: But. Beth Ann [00:34:00]: I sent out three voice notes yesterday, and I've made the goal to send out three per day, and I got three sign ups. Whereas I had been posting on my story pretty relentlessly, I made, like, three separate posts on Instagram that didn't generate any clicks, that didn't generate any tickets out the door. Sending voice notes and connecting one on one with people is what did. And it's as simple as starting a conversation. And that actually took a lot of pressure off me to be super perfect about my marketing tactics. While I know that that will evolve over time, and I do find a lot of joy in creating, I don't want to be on my screen all the time. What I do want is to connect with people. That's it. Beth Ann [00:34:49]: And I find that that is perfect because that's all anybody else wants, too. So when I'm sending out a message saying, hey, what's up in your sphere right now? What's happening in your vortex? And saying that, I want you here, I'm reaching out because I think you would be a perfect addition to this container. I want your specific magic and your specific light here. Are you in? It feels so much more personal. It's not about ticket sales, or selling out my program, or going viral on social media. It's like doing this for the sake of experiencing what's possible when we all come together with an intention to evolve. Jeremy Gruensteiner [00:35:33]: Yeah. That plays into even something that we talked about before, of this feeling of isolation, of like, often most of us are just waiting for that call. This is something that I've come back to, is a lesson for myself of looking back at childhood, adolescence, and even early twenty s and things. Of feeling like, I've been waiting by the phone for the cool kids to call and invite me to the party. And it's like, well, what if I just start calling people instead? What if I'm the cool kid that invites everybody else to the party? It's a reminder of that. Especially when we feel like we're in the stuckness, in the like, well, nobody wants to come to my thing. It's like, well, is that actually. Is that actually true? Or are you actually making a connection with somebody to where they trust you? Or they even saw it because the tech and the algorithms, it's tough. Jeremy Gruensteiner [00:36:38]: There's no guarantee that everybody did see it. I look back at my days of being a musician in original band. The three or four shows a week at the local dive bars, and you send the invite button to everybody on Facebook and nobody ever shows up. It's like, well, why? Because it was such an impersonal invitation. Or again, it's like this lazy thought of, well, I posted my little poster up. If you build it, they'll come, right? People need a little more coaxing than that, and you will have people who notice it and want to be there. And many of us need a little prodding, myself included, to say, hey, I got a thing going on. I would love to have you there. Jeremy Gruensteiner [00:37:31]: So, Yan. Yeah. Beth Ann [00:37:35]: And then it just expands from there. People come to the event, they have a really great time and get to experience themselves in a whole new way and be experienced by other people. It's like addicting almost. That's what happened to me, is I went to a breath work circle one time, and that was like my initiation into intentionally held spaces. And to be able to share that with others, especially, it was like an hour and a half long, hyperventilatory. We're all in there. Breath work experience. I'd never done that before, and some crazy stuff came up. Beth Ann [00:38:13]: I was crying, and everybody was there for me as I was for them. And yeah, I was hooked after that when it came to exploring the internal world. Jeremy Gruensteiner [00:38:26]: Yeah, so hooked on that exploration and that idea of space being held or also hooked on breath work. Beth Ann [00:38:37]: Yes, to both. And to community gatherings in general. I spent a lot of time, I was hoping we would talk about this. I spent a lot of time, like I said, I was rampantly addicted to drugs. I was doing opiate, Spencers, anything I could get my hands on for like four or five years. I was in that right after high school. It started in high school with alcohol. And that was the first experience I had feeling, and I want to say, quote, seen, accepted. Beth Ann [00:39:12]: Like I could express myself and be myself, which also intertwines with my embracing. My weirdness was like, I felt like when I was high or drunk or in a group of people doing either of those things, it felt in a roundabout way, like that part of myself was able to be expressed and seen, and that felt like community. That felt like freedom, that felt safe. And then on the other side of that, there was just like this hole that I still was feeling where it was like, okay, what is it? Why do I feel so empty? I'm off the drugs. What's missing? And then I started going to breathwork circles, yoga. I started to meet people who were also doing those things. And that was like, my slow boil into recognizing what true connection really looked like and truly being seen was. Jeremy Gruensteiner [00:40:13]: Yeah, there's a book that I come back to very often, and it's something that has, again, it's a topic I come back to so often that what we miss a lot in our lives is connection. And ultimately, we miss connection with the most important person in our lives, ourselves. Yeah, there's a book. I stumbled upon this book on my first ever vacation that I took as an adult, which was last September. So it took me almost 20 years of adult life to take an actual vacation where I went somewhere and wasn't working. Found this book called on connection, short read. Kai Tempest is the author. And there's a point in the middle of all of the things that I had done, of trying to lose weight, to find some sort of self acceptance, trying getting involved in a sport later in life, because that allowed me this achievement that I wasn't getting somewhere else, that allowed me some semblance of that riding the waves of that, of up and down, of realizing that that connection to self was the thing that was missing so much more deeply than anything else. Jeremy Gruensteiner [00:41:35]: And that I for years fueled it with booze, food binging, tv shows, like doing everything I could to disassociate from the actual thing I needed, which is myself then being feeling that connection for you on your journey. Was there a moment where you had that breakthrough realization of like, oh, this is what I've been missing the whole time? Beth Ann [00:42:09]: Yeah. Thank you for sharing that. It really is like an incredible journey back home to the south. I feel that's all any of us really want and are looking been, and it continues to be a journey lifted. Really helped me to stepping out of my role as a victim in my own life and learning to affirm my existence rather than negate it or focus on all the ways that I had perceivably failed in my life. There was a lot of shame and guilt I was holding around my experience as an addict and the way I showed up in romantic relationships and all the things I had done in my life that seemed wrong or bad. And to be able to do this story work and to work these stories. Some stories I worked with some other coaches around my shame and around I remember working. Beth Ann [00:43:20]: One about how I had cheated on a prior partner and I worked a story about how I used to shoplift and these were things that I wanted to hide and never tell anybody. And I was like, I don't have to. These behaviors aren't hurting anybody else anymore. But it was like they were hurting me. And to be able to work those stories and then find on the other side these powerful statements affirming who I am present day while being able to breathe and feel through the experience for the first time and be seen by another person, for example, the coach or the person I was working with through that, it was just like a pure magic. And, I mean, it's still a process of unwinding the layers of self judgment and shame. But uncovering and reframing those stories have really brought me back to just that core place of self love. I don't talk about myself the way that I used to, and I don't think about myself the way that I used to. Beth Ann [00:44:32]: I don't, in conversation, minimize myself the way that I used to. And that has been the foundation for transformation in my own life. And being able to then find my community that really aligns with that level of self awareness and self compassion. The people I attract into my life now are also riding the same wave. And I'm finding the groups and circles of people who are also moving towards that unified vision of love for the self and others. And that's what my program is focusing on. And this is true for all people. But I really have the desire to work with women specifically in the realm of uncovering and reframing these ways, we have allowed ourselves to become the victim of our circumstances and of the ways we perceive society, to repress and limit us, and to really take these stories of smallness and not enoughness and examine them, and to stop seeking the external validation that we're good and that we're lovable and that we're safe because it's a never ending pursuit. Beth Ann [00:45:50]: I went on that pursuit of looking in every corner of everywhere, trying to find something that only I can give myself. Jeremy Gruensteiner [00:46:02]: Brad, so cool to hear other people's journeys, that there's always a kernel of something that I know that reflects back for my own journey for others as well as they're listening to this. Being somebody who's worked some stories, have you ever come back to a story that you've worked and taken a different look at it and seeing if that's changed over the time since you've worked it, if that perspective has changed at all? Beth Ann [00:46:40]: Are you talking about my own stories? Jeremy Gruensteiner [00:46:42]: Yeah. Beth Ann [00:46:44]: So coming back to my document. Yeah, it's interesting. I've gone back to my level one document that I worked with Mark. Mark and went. Went in there and rereading those stories now, that felt gut wrenching to express or even write then. Now when I read them, at first, there's like this tightening, and it's all about, how's my body feeling right now. It's just such a good indicator of how much hold something still has of you. And at first I'll tense up because my body remembers how hard it was to read. Beth Ann [00:47:27]: But then as I'm looking over it again, it hardly even feels like. I don't want to say it doesn't feel like my story. It does. It just doesn't feel like identification. It doesn't feel like identification. Before, it felt like, this is me, this story is me. Now it just feels like this is something I experienced. And moving into that observer role, I don't know if that's what you mean. Jeremy Gruensteiner [00:48:02]: Yeah, no, that's exactly what I was talking about. Just out of curiosity of how often people do revisit some of these things, especially ones that did have a high amount of emotional pull and charge. It's something that I've been curious about and looking at revisiting more for myself as well. How often do we feel like we broke out of those grooves, those well worn grooves in our mind, and then find ourselves? I thought I took care of this. I feel like I'm in the same thing. And you go back and reread it and you go, oh, yeah, all right, okay. I maybe slid back into that for a moment, or maybe I slid back into that and it uncovered something even deeper. Beth Ann [00:48:55]: Okay. Yeah. I mean, there's layers to it, right? And there's layers to how certain. Okay, let's just say the story was a trauma, like a traumatizing event. There's layers to that. I remember my first and lifted live session when it was like, okay, let's talk about a story that hurts, harms, or haunts you. And then the next question is, can you remember the first time in your life where you experienced that feeling? And it can be easy or hard to go back in time and try to find that, but then it's like, okay, what about present day? Where else is this pattern manifesting in my life that actually happened to me last night? I was, like, meditating on a specific thing, a specific instance in my life that was happening, that was causing me a little bit of pain. And all of a sudden, I caught myself in this train of thinking about a completely different event in my life that had happened in the past that could easily not be. Beth Ann [00:50:02]: It's not the same context, it's not the same story, but it has the same energetics to it, like how I felt in the moment. And it's funny because the story of the past was something I felt I had worked through. But then this scenario of present day, I was still feeling the same sense of abandonment and hurt that I had experienced in this much more intense past experience. And then it made me wonder. I don't know. I would love to hear your thoughts on this. On how we recreate scenarios subconsciously in our life and attract them in based off of. It's a belief, right? That this is how relationship has to be or this is how conflict has to be. Beth Ann [00:50:51]: And catching yourself recreating the drama again. Present day. Jeremy Gruensteiner [00:50:58]: Yeah, there's many layers, like you said, of taking a look back into that and an area that I've done some exploration with through some guidance of many other folks in not only the enlifted community, but my extended coaching and friendship family out there, of taking different lenses of like, okay, just like you said, it can be really hard to drop yourself immediately into that first memory of when did I first experience this? Or when did I first learn this pattern? Having some experience around folks from the training camp or the soul side of things, of talking through, of like, okay, if I don't remember the exact moment, can I drop myself into that time period of my life and look at what did I actually need then? I learned this lesson because there wasn't a need that was met somewhere. What was that need? What did I not receive then? Can I give that to myself now to help break that pattern fully? Beth Ann [00:52:17]: Wow, I'm going to yoink that right from this conversation. Jeremy Gruensteiner [00:52:24]: Yeah. Beth Ann [00:52:24]: I've never thought of it in that framework of not getting too attached to the specifics of the memory. Jeremy Gruensteiner [00:52:32]: Yeah. Beth Ann [00:52:33]: And just tuning into the felt experience. Is there a word for that practice? Jeremy Gruensteiner [00:52:41]: I've always just known it as inner child work. Like an exploration of that even because I know you're familiar with some of the parts work as well. It can play into some of those components too. Of like, what part of me is feeling something that's really unfulfilled? Is it reacting to a protection of self? Or is it an unfulfilled need? What is it that I'm actually believing here? What did I actually learn from a previous experience that have created a belief? And I'm acting and running that program of that belief through my reticular activating system, even though it may not be conscious. Oh, I seem to always be hanging around the same types of people or the same sorts of situations. What part of me learned that that was what I was actually looking for, or what part of me was unfulfilled that I'm looking for. People who need are going to ask endlessly of me, people pleasing as a defense mechanism. When did I learn that? When did I need that defense? What was unfulfilled from my past that I can now gift to myself? Beth Ann [00:54:04]: Yeah, I mean, that's so powerful. We get to go there and make present day changes to these behaviors and modes of being that aren't serving us, that maybe even stemmed from before our lifetime, depending on. We learned this from our parents, and our parents learned from their parents, and now we get to make the call to step into power over fear. That's the good stuff. Jeremy Gruensteiner [00:54:36]: And being able to look at that, too, just like you said of like, is this even mine? Is this a lesson that I inherited? Is this a belief that I inherited somewhere? And as our good friend Mark England says, if you can write it down, you can force step it. And so, having gone through the ancestral course and also been an experience of some family constellation therapy sessions as well, looking at that, of what have I pulled forward that I'm not even aware of? The programs that were part of the way that my great grandfather, one of them, they started doing a thing, they had to fulfill a need somewhere. They had to survive. Somehow that got passed down to his son, so on and so on and so on. And then here I am running the same program, and I don't even know where it came from. And so it's being able to trace those things back. Another can't remember if this was on a podcast episode or this was just in a conversation I had with somebody. But we look at much of our difficulties in our modern lives. Jeremy Gruensteiner [00:55:51]: We rewind back 100 years. There was a major issue with scarcity, because it's not like you could just go to the store and buy avocados. Many times. It would be a multiple day journey to get to a store for some people in the United States, especially in the rural parts, like where I live. So we carried forward a lot of patterns of scarcity and stories of scarcity. And now we live in a world that is so enormously abundant. And because we don't know how to handle that, especially conjoined with this sense of scarcity, no wonder we see this conflict, inner conflict, especially of, well, I can eat as many calories as I could ever want, and yet I don't want to, because I don't want the effect that that has, but I really want the effect that it has. So we're in this push, pull back and forth and back and forth, and it's like, okay, where can we start to challenge some of those stories that we learn for ourselves? Anything that I'm on a rant, on a tangent, on a soapbox, of the fun stuff that I like to explore and learn about. Jeremy Gruensteiner [00:57:09]: Is there anything in your world that's been similar that you've noticed or that you've started to explore for yourself? Beth Ann [00:57:16]: Yeah. Thank you for sharing all of that. Yeah. It feels forgiving to remember that. It hasn't been that long since life was like that scarcity was a part of everyday life. And thinking back to, I'm like, how were people interacting with nature? Were people growing their own food? But then it's like, okay, they were working to maintain families. There was a lot more factors. I can't place any judgment on what people were doing back then. Beth Ann [00:57:54]: It was survival, right? I've experienced that and still experience it sometimes as a new entrepreneur, sometimes things financially are looking pretty sketchy. And that's been something that I've gotten to sit with and be with and also continue to surrender to the journey and take action in the direction of what it is that I want to create from my heart. And that's something my family doesn't really do. That's not something I learned in my family, was to follow what is heart led. And so it's been a back and forth journey of sometimes entering that place of survival and then doing what I need to to get back to safety that's so huge for me, is finding my safety again in a world full of unknowns and in a rocky place of launching my rocket and taking the time to fill it completely full with gas this time. And, yeah, scarcity and lack is a perspective. And whatever my bank account looks like, I've made it my personal mission, especially since working with Scarlett to create a beingness of abundance. I see abundance in everything. Beth Ann [00:59:23]: First, it starts with gratitude. If I'm feeling lack in someplace, I'll just start with gratitude. And then all of a sudden, everything I'm looking at feels abundant. I don't need new things constantly to feel abundant. I don't need the fattest ever bank account to feel abundant. Like, just cleaning my room, I'll find something that's been missing for a long time. Or, like, I just started a new job, and I've had this huge stack of Manila folders that I got for free that I've never had a use for, but I got them for free. So it was like, a win then. Beth Ann [00:59:56]: And now I get to use them, and it just feels like a full bodied, rejuvenated, pleasurable experience to be like, fuck, yes, I get to use these Manila folders. One thing that's really helped me is to be able to create the sensation of love and abundance and fullness from perceivably nothing. Every day. I make it my mission to see in every moment the way that things are always working out for me. And as a result, things just work out for me. And even when things look sketchy or I'm not sure how I'm going to pay all my bills this month, it just seems to work out. And obviously there is structure needed. I'm not saying surrender all. Beth Ann [01:00:46]: Don't just give it all away. Don't stop in your tracks and just wait for things to come to you. But there is something to say about utilizing your perspective and your compass of pleasure to find your abundance. And, yeah, that's my main compass, is pleasure. And I don't mean pleasure seeking in the form of drugs and substances anymore. I mean pleasure in the sense of, like, everything is delicious, everything is nourishing. Like, the conversations I have, the quality of conversations I have, the way that I'm perceiving my morning coffee when I take the extra five minutes to set my bed exactly the way I like it, with everything cute and cozy. How can I create that delight, that sense of pure delight in my life in every instance, so that I can maintain that frequency of enoughness? Jeremy Gruensteiner [01:01:52]: It's an amazing journey, for sure, and an amazing practice and an amazing perspective to come to. Just like you talked about the pleasure aspect of rather than consuming for consumption's sake, getting to enjoy what you have and enjoy, enjoy the experience versus I bought the thing, now I have to buy the next thing and the next thing and the next thing, or I drank the gallon of coffee, and now I want a gallon of coffee more. Beth Ann [01:02:22]: Let's go. Jeremy Gruensteiner [01:02:23]: Yeah. Exactly. As we start to wrap up our time today, is there anything in particular? Any last thoughts? Any final nuggets of wisdom that you'd like to share with the audience? Beth Ann [01:02:38]: Yeah. Okay. The journey to self love is the most worthwhile journey any and all of us can go on. And it creates, like, a ripple effect out into the lives of others. I have this little phrase I've been saying to myself in the mirror, and anybody can adopt it if they'd like. And I say to myself, making eye contact, I will be a good friend to you today, Beth. I love you. And that's it. Beth Ann [01:03:12]: And it used to be so uncomfortable and weird to me, and now it just seems natural and I can look at myself in the eyes and it's interesting to think that saying I love you to yourself can be like one of the most cringey things at first, the most uncomfortable and yeah, repetition, repetition. Jeremy Gruensteiner [01:03:37]: As many people have experienced, even saying it to a partner can be very stressful as well. And so of course, that's the first time you do it, it's going to be uncomfortable. Excuse me. As we wrap up again, anything that you mentioned, your program, anything else that you would like to promote, anything you'd like to let the listeners know of what you've got going on in the world or how they can get in touch with you? Beth Ann [01:04:06]: Yeah, thank you. Absolutely. You can follow me on Instagram. My Instagram handle is ebb and flow integrations and there is a period between each word and I have a free master class coming up on the 29 November. It is a sorry, dudes, but this is for women this time around. It is a master class and goddess circle centered around creating strength through softening. So we're going to dive into a lot of somatic techniques. We're going to do some language and story work, and we're going to meditate and dance. Beth Ann [01:04:46]: And I'm going to go into tuning into subtle energy and how to create and foster safety from within your body so that your external reality reflects that and that class is free. And it's a little sample taste of my three month program that's beginning in December 13 where we are going to meet every Wednesday and dive into the same topics. We're going to have some guest speakers coming in to share their magic in the realm of creating confidence, safety and yummy deliciousness in our lives. And yeah, come find me. I'd love to chat any and always. Jeremy Gruensteiner [01:05:27]: Fantastic. Yeah, we'll make sure that we have links for all of those things in the show notes. So yeah, keep an eye out for that and more coming from Beth as we wrap up. Thank you so much for being here. Thank you so much for sharing all of your experiences and allowing me to ramble a little bit more than usual. And also, thank you for being you. You. Beth Ann [01:05:51]: Yeah, awesome. I love you. Jeremy Gruensteiner [01:05:53]: Yeah, love you too. As always, thank you folks for listening. Stay strong and stay weird.

Jeremy Gruensteiner [00:00:01]: Welcome back to the Weird and Strong podcast. I am your host, Jeremy Grinsteiner. And this episode, we have Casey Pepper on the show, a former rugby player who is now working to join the ranks of many coaches. I had the pleasure of meeting Casey back in October and getting to see him share openly with a big group of coaches about his experience. And from there, that led us into this podcast episode where we jam on all things from rugby all the way through to popular culture and the ways that people show up. So, without any further delay, let's get weird. Casey Pepper, welcome to the Weird and Strong podcast. How are you doing today, man? Casey Pepper [00:00:42]: Dude, thank you, Jeremy. I'm doing great. Doing great. Loving life. We got a little bit of sunshine, some great clouds. So it's a great day. It's a great November day in Western New York, I'll tell you. Jeremy Gruensteiner [00:00:54]: Yeah, it's very similar here. Today I was out with the dog and got to enjoy some sunshine and soaking up every last little bit of not. Casey Pepper [00:01:04]: Yes. Oh, absolutely. Jeremy Gruensteiner [00:01:08]: Cool. I have a weird question for you. Are you ready? Casey Pepper [00:01:13]: Oh, I'm ready. Jeremy Gruensteiner [00:01:14]: Okay. If you could be haunted by a ghost and you get to pick who that ghost is, who would you. Casey Pepper [00:01:27]: Wow. Wow, that's amazing. Immediately, I go to, like, okay, what super cool historical figure out there. I'm like Abe Lincoln, like Custer. Somebody that can tell me something. Right? You know what? Nikolai Tesla, I gotta go with. I just. I want to have. Casey Pepper [00:01:50]: Over the last few years, I've become an absolute truth Seeker. And if there's anybody that knows what the full truth is, in my opinion, it's him. He knows there's too much of his stuff covered. I also like conspiracy, so I think too much of his stuff is covered up. And I think just having some awesome. Assuming I get to have the conversations with him. Jeremy Gruensteiner [00:02:14]: Not just him, just, like, knocking things over. Casey Pepper [00:02:18]: Yeah. Randomly using his ability to funnel electricity into random spots, or for some reason. Jeremy Gruensteiner [00:02:26]: Pigeons start following you. I personally, I love that so much because I also am a Tesla fan. I have Wardencliffe Tower tattooed on the inside of my arm. So, yeah, I dig that a lot. That's super cool. Casey Pepper [00:02:45]: I would really want to tap into his knowledge on the theory of three, six and. Jeremy Gruensteiner [00:02:52]: Mean, just, like, throw a rock at whatever topic. I would just like to have an iota of what he understood and. Casey Pepper [00:03:01]: Sure. For sure. Jeremy Gruensteiner [00:03:03]: So you talked a little bit about this interest in Tesla and interest in conspiracy. What are the ways that you show up unconventionally in the world? What makes Casey Pepper weird? Casey Pepper [00:03:19]: There's quite a few ways and then there's also a lot of ways where I'm like, oh, man, I really am kind of basic sometimes. Jeremy Gruensteiner [00:03:27]: You know what? One of the most common things when we get started with a lot of people are like, I don't feel like I'm weird enough. I was like, it's okay. Everybody's weird in their own way. Casey Pepper [00:03:38]: Absolutely. Jeremy Gruensteiner [00:03:39]: Yeah. Casey Pepper [00:03:43]: For me, I've always been a huge fan of the snowfall, the winter, the cold. I'm getting a little less tolerant of that as I get older. I don't think. I know. I caught hypothermia in a rugby game. And ever since then, my bones just haven't handled the cold quite as well. Okay. A little extra layer here, a couple of socks and whatnot. Casey Pepper [00:04:09]: But as I'm getting older, I've noticed a lot of my friends and a lot of people that around me in the general population are like, we're moving south, we're getting out of this cold. And I'm like, I actually think that this is going to be the place to be. I don't like cities. I live in a moderate sized city. So, I mean, the conveniences and whatnot. But I love the idea of just getting out, having a couple of acres, having my own spot, and just being that independent. I'd love to start like a little compound with some friends, some like minded people that where I think that is weird. I don't know if that's weird or not because in my circles, that's starting to become more and more prevalent of a thing. Casey Pepper [00:04:54]: People are like, you know, I think I just want to break away from the Matrix and just be a little more self sufficient. I was talking with a guy at work today about these people that were like, he's got a homE, we've got a home. So we're similar there. It's just like all these other extras and things that these simplicities that we financially pay for that they don't. And they're out there just like just as happy or happier growing their own food with a little bit, with far less. I guess that's where another spot weird. Like, I'm constantly trying to reduce my footprint. And I'm not talking carbon. Casey Pepper [00:05:39]: I'm just talking about the things that I own, the impact that I have on my little area. At the same time what we're doing. I signed up for the enlifted level one. We're also at the same time trying to expand our footprint and our impact. Right. And do that positively. I tell people that I'm going to be a life coach and they're like, so you're just going to tell me how to live my life, right? No, I'm not. Jeremy Gruensteiner [00:06:17]: Yeah, that's a really interesting thing. Just from a concept of this, wanting to gather with the like minded individuals and create a little settlement or something like that. It's like if we rewind back 150 years, I was like, that's just what everybody was doing anyways, of settling the countryside, creating little towns. That's like the story of the Wild west as it sits. Or like the story of the founding of the US, or even just like, human civilization period is like, oh, hey, we found this cool little spot. We're going to gather together with my family and a couple other families, and then all of a sudden it turns into London or like Paris. We forget that that's how all of these things start. And it's interesting how we convince ourselves that that's like a modern novel thing now in hindsight. Casey Pepper [00:07:22]: Yeah. Right. So, yeah, essentially what we just talked about is we'd like to start over. We'd like to start everything over. You know, maybe that's exactly what the world needs. Like, yeah, it's okay to have cities and this and that. Listening to some of Chase Tolison's old podcast, they talked about just like, carpet bombing DMT to make everybody. Yeah, man, I totally see it. Casey Pepper [00:07:51]: And it's like, you can't do that because they don't Agree to it. And this and that. However, that might be our version of the great reset, right? Building cities on this positive mentality and keeping currency as we know it, like the fiat, the fake currency out of it, and literally keeping barter and trade alive and skill. Jeremy Gruensteiner [00:08:21]: It's been an interesting thing. Yeah, interesting thing of how we tend to many of the things that we start to see as social ills or we see as problems for ourselves. Think about health, wellness, just like, even just social issues, social unrest, things like that. Of how much of this comes from groups of people just being too big. Casey Pepper [00:08:50]: Yeah. Jeremy Gruensteiner [00:08:50]: And yet, while we. This has been a topic of thought for me and let you dive into this as well, even though we're more connected than we've ever been, I feel in talking to so many people that we're the loneliest we've ever been. We're the most isolated that we've ever been. And where do you think that comes aside from just our situations? Where do you think that has been coming from? Casey Pepper [00:09:23]: That's a great question. And it's universal synchronicities, right? I've been thinking about that a lot as well and even noticing it a little bit in myself that I've been feeling not alone but lonely again. Going back to another chasing he talked about, he mentioned just quickly about the six foot distance. I think it's like within 6ft your body will pick up the vibration of somebody else's heartbeat and vice versa. Right? So if you're 6ft apart from everybody, you're not picking those up. So even though you're seeing somebody and you can touch on social media, like you can see everybody on social media, but there's no physical contact, there's no vibration and actual feel. So even though you're seeing people, there's an emptiness, a loneliness from, I think, potentially a lack of vibration that's of something that's not your own. Even sitting next to a tree, you can start to feel a little bit if you're really diving into that and thinking about it and being intentional with that. Casey Pepper [00:10:44]: Right? Yeah, I mean, that's a heavy one that you've really touched on. So talking about the loneliness, I actually find it interesting, though. Here's also one of my little dilemmas. I hate the corporate world, but I live in it. So I got an email the other day and I do love that the corporations are really starting to dive into the mental health and all that and promoting just overall health. So I got an email from them talking about what's starting to become an epidemic of loneliness and what researchers and everybody are seeing across the board and what they're hearing. And I thought it was really interesting because again, it just hit me right at a time where I was like, you know, I feel kind of lonely lately. And then boom, like, there it is. Casey Pepper [00:11:43]: I'm like, oh man, I got to pin this one for later and think about it. So it's clearly becoming a very prevalent thing. So that's where, again, torn, I've recently started coming back to work three days a week and the companies are forcing it and a lot of people are resisting it. However, I think in my experience so far, people that are coming, that are actually coming back and getting those close interactions are starting to notice that they feel less lonely and whatnot. Sure, for me, I used to be able to pick my computer up and go down and visit my buddy and essentially my two nephews down in Florida and take my computer work from home for a week down there. And that's been limited. And so I get selfishly a little bit upset by that. But at the same time, I have plenty of time off that I can take. Casey Pepper [00:12:43]: And I get to be around other people and just have those interactions, those close interactions, problem solving, right? Whether it be a problem at work, a problem in my social life, I've got somebody else that I can just bend their ear rather than be stuck in my own thoughts, telling me my own stories and trying to solve it on myself, right? I think that's a huge piece of it. It's just being physically present. Social media. I deleted my Facebook years ago, although I still have a Facebook app because I use. That's. And that's cool. You get to see everybody's highlights. And then there's a lot there, too, right? It starts to make you look like, oh, am I not doing enough with my life? Like, I go home, I make my dinner, I've got my stuff, and all these people are out doing, and then all of a sudden you're like, oh, they're out with this person and that person, and they're doing this stuff. Casey Pepper [00:13:50]: Like, you're seeing their highlights. So there's got to be some introspective there. Introspection, that word reflection. What am I doing? Celebrating your wins. Actually acknowledging what you're doing for yourself and see where you're getting it out. And maybe there are opportunities, and then if you're seeing that somebody's out all the time doing those things, you know that that person's willing to go out. Like, ping. I'll be like, hey, can I join you? Just for the night? Let's connect. Jeremy Gruensteiner [00:14:22]: Yeah. There's a moment and a lesson that I've come back to for myself of being a bit of a nerdy kid growing up, there was always this sense of waiting for the cool kids to invite you to the party. Casey Pepper [00:14:38]: Yeah. Jeremy Gruensteiner [00:14:40]: Even people who I've grown up with who work the quote unquote cool kids. This is like a basic. Universal. Basic or universal? But as far as American culture goes, what I've heard is this is very common for a lot of people of this waiting to be called to action, waiting to be called to adventure, waiting for the cool kids to invite you to the party, waiting for whatever is going to happen. And the reality is that if we continue to sit and wait and wait and wait, what are we actually saying no to? Casey Pepper [00:15:19]: Yeah. Yes. What are we saying? Jeremy Gruensteiner [00:15:27]: Yeah. Casey Pepper [00:15:28]: Right. You're. You're. You know, I. I heard something recently similar to, like, what are we saying no to in relation to dating and people talking about their body count or how many people they've hooked up with or whatnot. The comment was and this, I think it was kind of more in regards to masculinity, but it goes both ways. Are you judging somebody by the number of times they said yes or the number of times they said no? Right. If your body counts two and you've said yes 100% of the time and. Jeremy Gruensteiner [00:16:07]: Only had the two chances to say yes versus the person who said yes to two but had 100 chances. Casey Pepper [00:16:17]: Right. Or even yes to your body count is 15, but you turn down 100, what do you think that. Jeremy Gruensteiner [00:16:33]: Having that ability to self select in those situations, what does that. What does that say over the person that says yes 100% of the time? Casey Pepper [00:16:42]: Right? Yeah. Right? Yeah. Is there a deeper understanding of self if you say yes to everything? And I've been guilty of this at work, like, hey, do you want to join this committee? Yes. Sure. Why? Because it's going to make me look good. Right. But what's my conviction? Is it actually something that I want to join? Is this somebody that I actually want to hook up with or hang out with? Do I want this person in my circle? Where are we looking and where are we looking for that validation? Right. The beautiful thing is, I think we're really starting to see it, that we're starting to get a turn in society across the board, where people are starting to look at that and mean, like, there's a lot more no's coming on and that touches on boundaries. Casey Pepper [00:17:44]: Right. There's a lot of this one, a huge lack of understanding of boundaries and what they actually are, and there's the perception that they're cruel, when in reality they're kind. It's an act of kindness in saying, no, you're protecting yourself, you're protecting somebody else because there's not a true interest there. Right. So if I say yes to somebody that we're out at a bar and whatever, and we want to go back and hook up, and I say yes, but I don't have any true interest in it. I've led you on, I've misled you, and now you're going to think that there's something there that really isn't there. And I just used you to raise my body count to look good when in reality, to somebody that is in tune, that doesn't look good. Jeremy Gruensteiner [00:18:43]: Yeah, absolutely. Taking our focus back a little bit more onto you, we've talked to great about a bunch of higher level topics and things that are interesting for both of us. ArE these types of things that you've thought about most of your life, or is this slowly things that you've been coming to over time. Casey Pepper [00:19:11]: I would say over the last. How old am I? 39. Three ish years. It's been coming at me like a tidal wave. Jeremy Gruensteiner [00:19:25]: Has there been a specific event or a specific reason that has triggered that tidal wave to come at you? Casey Pepper [00:19:35]: Yeah, pretty much. There's been a couple of things. I played rugby. I just recently retired and played for 20 years. A huge part of the rugby culture is the drinking culture, right? Jeremy Gruensteiner [00:19:49]: Yeah. Casey Pepper [00:19:51]: And even during that, when I first got out of college, I was managing a bar, and so drinking was just. That became my identity six nights a week. The reason I didn't drink on Tuesdays was because, one, everybody needs a night off, and my buddy didn't bartender at the other bar on Tuesday. So I would just go of that kind of carried on all the way through. I went over at backpack Europe for. Well, I played rugby in Wales and then backpacked Europe. And while I was in Wales, they started calling me hollow legs because I could just hammer down beers and you'd never know that I was drunk. And I'm like, yeah, that's a great skill. Casey Pepper [00:20:26]: That's not a skill, by the way. That's a problem. So fast forward essentially that. Doing that for even another ten years, until I was about 35. Between 35, 36. A buddy of mine had said, he's like, I think everybody needs a coach of some sort. And I was like, yeah, I think you're right. So I linked up with Chase. Casey Pepper [00:20:54]: I heard him on a podcast with. I don't know if you met Chad Curtis at all while you were down there, Chad and Melissa, or a couple other podcasts with him. And then he did one with Chase, and I was listening to that, and that's when I heard Chase talking about his idea of what it means to be a man and all that. And I was like, that's the guy I want to be. And so that hit me. So I started working with him, and even while I was working with him, I knew I started to slowly make the changes. And then I met this girl, and she was absolutely amazing. The second I met heR, I'm like, holy smokes, this is a game changer here. Casey Pepper [00:21:39]: And then it ultimately ended up not working out because I was still living that lifestyle, right? I was still going out, getting hammered, and that was a trigger for her. And then all of a sudden, once I heard that, I was like, okay, time out. We're going to cut back on all this. The drinking, the nonstop going out and doing that, I can still be an effective rugby player without doing all this drinking, and then all of a sudden, unconsciously, I started to feel. Right. That's what really hit home for me. I was like. I started to feel all the feelings. Casey Pepper [00:22:16]: And essentially what I was doing while I was drinking was numbing. Right. And then in allowing myself to feel, I started to get really curious. And some of know I had a roommate at the time that he was really deep into a lot of the conspiracy, and I would take those in, try to break them down and whatnot. But a lot of that led into, again, going back to hearing about what Tesla actually is and then discovering, figuring out what it is to be a man, and it's not the guy that's going out and getting hammered all the time. And again, talking about the body count and all that, those two points that were within a year of each other were the catalyst for me to just be just shed and drop this perception of what I thought a man was and completely reformulate it and learn learning boundaries, both with family, with friends, with myself, with food. That was a big one. Still is. Casey Pepper [00:23:21]: Yeah. And then just being true to that and learning to say no. So those are the catalysts. And that was about two and a half, three years ago. And from there on out, I've just been drinking through a fire hose trying to take it. Know. I linked up, know, just the enlifted podcasts and listening to Mark England and then going down to the unlifted event, and I was like, okay, this is a whole new world. It felt very similar to rugby, right. Casey Pepper [00:23:56]: Because it's just like a large group of humans all going towards a common goal and know, very similarly know. BuT nobody was numbing themselves, and there wasn't any drinking. It was just sharing, and it was all like, just huge positive vibes. And, like, I think I found my new culture here. Right? Jeremy Gruensteiner [00:24:17]: Yeah. In that experience of getting exposed to the enlifted crowd, you got pulled up on stage. Casey Pepper [00:24:26]: I did. Jeremy Gruensteiner [00:24:27]: Tell me more about know. Tell me in the audience about, like, what was that experience like for? Casey Pepper [00:24:37]: Yeah, so this is the last day of the Enlifted podcast, and I had the enlifted live event, which, if anybody's listening to, whether you're an enlisted coaching or not, if they're going to do another one next year, is, my understanding, should absolutely go. It's a world class event. It's wild. And I was not paid for that. Like, I just had this life changing experience while I was down there with the breath, work and everything. And so I was know the last day Mark said he was going to call me up on stage, and I'm sitting here, and I'm just basically very raw. I felt just so raw, like a fresh wound ripped open. I'm like, okay, all right. Casey Pepper [00:25:24]: I was excited to go up. It's amazing because I'm up there in front of these guys that are world class coaches, and they don't need to hear me talk like they know what they experienced. So there was an imposter syndrome a little bit. So I get up there, and Mark asked. His first question was, what did this weekend mean to you? And I just. Just started crying right away. I couldn't hold it. Know, it carried on from the Saturday night, the breath work, and this letter that Mark had everybody write, where we write ourselves a thank you letter. Casey Pepper [00:26:02]: And I ended my thank you letter just naturally writing out, I love you. And I'd never told myself I love myself before. I didn't understand what that even meant to see or hear from myself. And I was like, holy smokes, I do love myself. And this is like. So I was just, thank God for Jenny, because she was able to reel me in and be like, okay, we're going to work through this, and let's read that. And then I had a very similar. And then that went into breath work at that point. Casey Pepper [00:26:39]: I'd been waiting for this for three years. Like, this huge cry of release of everything, and it just came on. I was just, like, pouring rain and tears. So I'm up on stage doing it again now, right in front of everybody. Like, I told Mark, I'm like. I cried like a damn man. He elaborated on that. Right. Casey Pepper [00:27:06]: It's not that, like, sniffling, like whimpering. You're just, like, crying. It was big, heavy tears, and it's like, there's a smile on your face because you know what's coming out, and it's an emotional release, and it felt amazing. So once we got into it, honestly, I felt natural up on stage. I felt like I was almost at the point where I was feeling like Oprah. I'm like, and you get a car and you get a podcast, and you get a super cool. Jeremy Gruensteiner [00:27:47]: In looking at that. Is that a moment that you get? We're a little over a month away from that. People listening to this. It'll be about two months after that, after the event in Richmond back in October. What can you imagine that experience? Where's that experience going to carry you towards? What's that going to do for future Casey? Casey Pepper [00:28:14]: Oh, man. Yeah. Well, one, I've created a whole nother network, and it's a network that I'm in, but I'm not quite in yet. It's that network that I've been reaching for as a result of it. I signed up for enlisted level one I'm already thinking about before I even start level one. Adding on level two that weekend is what solidified me in knowing what truly fulfills me and where I want to go and what I want the rest of my life to look like. And that's coaching and getting into and just helping people. I think I told Mark in our call after, I don't care if I make a dollar off of it, what I get out of it, seeing, helping somebody through something or helping them get themselves through it, rather, is where I find that true fulfillment, right? I'm helping small businesses right now save pennies and do that, and there's some fulfillment in that, but there's not that kind of touching back on that loneliness piece, right? There's not that intimate touch that there's somebody right there, and I can see them, I can hear them, I can feel their vibration, right. Casey Pepper [00:29:46]: For that, that's the easy, obvious one, right? I'm going to be a coach. I'm going to have a network. We had nine people staying in the house that I was at, and we still all keep in touch. Like you said, it's a month and two months by the time this drops after, but it's just great people. And I know at any point I can reach out to them, know, work through stuff with them and chat with know. I keep in touch with Chad still pretty regularly. I mean, I was a member at their gym for a long time, so that helps. And honestly, it's like in my personal relationships, so being able to open up like that in front of 80 people has made it so much easier to open up like that in front of one. Casey Pepper [00:30:44]: And so when it comes into specifically talking about a relationship where getting into a dating type where you have to be open and sharing and vulnerable, right. That's allowed me to really feel it. It took me to another level, another depth of being able to offer that to somebody. My connections from here out are that much deeper. Right. We're going from quantity down to quality, and that's hard. Holy smokes, is that hard? Jeremy Gruensteiner [00:31:34]: This is perhaps a bit of a leading question, especially since I know you've listened to a couple of episodes at least. Out of all those connections, what's the most important connection that you've now found? Casey Pepper [00:31:49]: Yeah. Well, that whole community, that enlisted community has been that huge connection, and I've really tapped into the know again. Chase. I worked with Chase directly. I went through his primal man pathway. I've really, really been tapping in with Chad and Melissa ever since then. We've grown a lot closer. I got Kyle Stubbs out in James Moore, so now I'm picking out individuals. Casey Pepper [00:32:29]: It's not just the enlisted podcast. It's like these individuals and seeing all that, there's this whole new community that's really rad. Yeah. Jeremy Gruensteiner [00:32:42]: I'm going to ask it a slightly different way. How has this improved your connection to yourself? Casey Pepper [00:32:51]: Yeah, I did not follow that one. Jeremy Gruensteiner [00:32:55]: Let's see if he picks it up. It's all right, man. Casey Pepper [00:33:00]: Oh, man. Yeah. Laying in Dogwood Dell in just a puddle of my own tears was amazing. And I have really tapped into my relationship with myself and become acutely aware of my feelings and how things interact with me again, like alcohol and food and exercise and. And honestly, just being around other people, I've learned to trust myself a lot more. You know? You know, you know, just feeling. Right. You get a feeling, and a lot of times you're like, I don't know that that doesn't match up. Casey Pepper [00:33:50]: And then it's like, you know, you know, you know, oftentimes it. It's like, oh, that was right. And it's like, trust in your gut. And good or bad, another chase being is. And actually, I think it might be Joseph Campbell, if I remember correctly, right, any feeling felt all the way through is know whether. Whether that be a good feeling or a bad feeling to fully feel it. And I have embraced fully feeling everything and just leaning into it, I've been able to lean into, you know, Eric and Jenny were talking about in the relationship breakout session. In order for there to be us, it has to be you first. Casey Pepper [00:34:35]: Right. You have to take care of yourself. You have to understand yourself. And then there's the concept that you can only offer somebody as much love as you are willing to offer yourself. Right. I'm sure it's more eloquently put by somebody, but essentially, right. I can't give you more than I'm willing to give myself, and I can't feel more for you than I feel for myself. So if I don't love myself, there's no way I can possibly love you. Jeremy Gruensteiner [00:35:03]: Yeah, that's a very important distinction, and it plays in very nicely. Looking at some of the topics that we've talked about, this idea of loneliness, we hinted upon it a little bit of being at work and saying yes to everything like this. People pleaser type of defense mechanism that we learn for ourselves of. Well, if I don't say yes to everything, that means they'll never come back. And because I am being disconnected from self, could you imagine that those are very easy things for us to come to? Or do you feel any correlation or connection there for yourself of your past experiences, your current experiences of ways that you've behaved because you've been disconnected from yourself? Casey Pepper [00:35:59]: Oh, yeah, absolutely. That's the hard part, is the integration of the connection to yourself. And it's also the really cool part, because you get to actually see. You come back to see all of the things that your disconnected self had done and is looking at again right now. I am a part of every group that has come my way at paychecks because I'm like, that's how I get ahead, and that's how I make sure that I'm seen. And it's like, well, I joined that to say yes. And now I'm sitting here going, this is not a group that resonates with me, and I am ineffective. I'm essentially sitting here just going, glad you guys got up this go. Casey Pepper [00:36:46]: This ball going, like, if you need a cheerleader, hey. So now I'm at a point where, how do I politely exit that and realign myself and say, it was great. I appreciate the opportunity, though. There are going to be better places for me to serve and be served. That's a cool integration piece. When you come back and you start to see all that, and there's a lot of awareness and a wake up there, right? So you start to see it small, like, oh, that's at work. And then it's like, oh, well, that's everywhere. Friends call. Casey Pepper [00:37:34]: And I've never said no, so I'm always there. You talk about relationships. If you never say no, then you're always just available. And then it's just like you become that doormat, essentially, right? Like, oh, Casey will take care of it. Jeremy will do it. They always say yes. And it's like you start setting your own stuff aside, going back to that lonely know. Is it possible that we're so lonely because we don't know ourselves? We're so disconnected from ourself that how does anybody truly get to know us? And how do we get to know anybody else if we don't know ourselves? And how do we offer the best version of ourselves? And so then not only are we disconnected from everybody else, but we're disconnected from us. Casey Pepper [00:38:30]: And now we're just a meat suit without a soul. Jeremy Gruensteiner [00:38:33]: Yeah, exactly. There's a lot that you've touched on there that I resonate with as well, of that lack of personal connection and how it spreads out across so many other aspects of our lives. As you started to make those changes for yourself, finding this new connection for yourself, what's been the biggest takeaway so far of finding that and being able to set some of those boundaries or start to unwind all of the commitments that you've created for yourself, what have you noticed? What's been the best part? Casey Pepper [00:39:12]: So one of the immediate notices is the amount of time that I now have to reconnect with myself even deeper. Right. Going for walks and listening to or meditating or working out or just getting my work done. So I'm not working overtime because I'm not in all these meetings. Right. That one true currency. I'm taking some of it back. I'm putting more value into my time. Casey Pepper [00:39:48]: That's been a big thing. And honestly, I've noticed that the connections that I do have and have kept and that I will say, coincidentally, were true with right and whatnot, have become that much stronger and deeper. And those friends that were good friends are now family. Everything's more meaningful. Jeremy Gruensteiner [00:40:15]: Super cool. Take a bit of a right hand corner away, because I'm interested in this, because rugby is not a sport that we see a lot of in the US. Or at least it's not the most visible. Much like my chosen sport, it's not the most visible. Most people don't know what it is. And what drew you to rugby? Is that something you started off young? Did you start off a little bit older? How did you get into it and what drew you to it? Casey Pepper [00:40:45]: Yeah, great question. So I started when I was a freshman in college. I think I was 19. I played football. I wrestled, lacrosse. I feel like there was another one in there. Track. I tried out at least a little bit of every sport. Casey Pepper [00:41:04]: I was pretty athletic. So I got to cOllege. I took the first semester and said, I need to make sure I get my grades before I commit to any sport. I got my grades for every point on my GPA. I also put on ten pounds. So I had a three, five, and I put 35 pounds on. I was like, okay, I need to figure something out. So there was a rugby team. Casey Pepper [00:41:33]: So I was like, okay, soccer, basketball, rugby, it was a small school. It was like 800 students. So I'm like, terrible, terrible soccer, terrible at basketball. Rugby is super intriguing. So, yeah, I just showed up and somebody decided one of the guys was like, dude, you're huge. You should come play. We'll see. And I just fell in love with it immediately. Casey Pepper [00:42:00]: It became my favorites of all time, of all the ones that I played or did. So I played for essentially four years in college. Ironically enough, my stepdad is. Well, my coach ended up becoming my stepdad, so that just kind of drove everything home and seeing what he did with it. So he was an amazing athlete. He was on an Olympic bobsled, on the Olympic reserves team for the 1980 Olympics from four man bobsled. Just randomly happened to show up. Somebody got hurt and they're like, hey, we need somebody for the day. Casey Pepper [00:42:43]: Can you do it? And then all of a sudden it took right off. But he also ended up playing international rugby. So I was like, okay, cool. Not only have I found a sport that I can do for four years in college, but I can do it afterward, after college. And it's not like you have to be drafted. There's men's teams all over the place and it's just show up and be willing to play was really all it took. And I started to get pretty good at it and so I just carried it know, I got the opportunity through one of the teams to go over kind of an exchange program with another team over in Wales. And so I went over there and played and I came back a completely different player with a completely different level of commitment. Casey Pepper [00:43:30]: And. Jeremy Gruensteiner [00:43:33]: That was that. Something like, did playing in Wales, in the UK feel drastically different than playing here in the. Casey Pepper [00:43:43]: Yeah, yeah. The pace at which the game moved was a lot faster. And what was really nice that I learned it changed my game completely was it wasn't as much about the physicality as much as the avoidance of the physicality. Yeah, it's like, great, you can bulldoze somebody over, but that stops the play. So it's a continuity of play. So if I can go in and just get an arm tackle that I can shoot through and then offload to somebody versus just bulldozing them and being a wrecking ball, which I was also really good at. And that's actually what helped preserve my game. So I've ended up playing for 20 years and I fully credit it to the fact that I learned how to avoid those big giant hits and play a cleaner game. Casey Pepper [00:44:47]: It's taught me. Jeremy Gruensteiner [00:44:50]: A lot more tactical than the sledgehammer approach. Those big hits, they have a cost for everybody involved. Casey Pepper [00:44:59]: They do. Yeah. I heard a study that the average rugby player, through all the contact in an average game, endures the equivalent of three car accidents. Jeremy Gruensteiner [00:45:12]: Yeah, I believe that. Casey Pepper [00:45:14]: Yeah, I can tell you every Sunday. And then it grew into, like, Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday. I can confirm I felt that. Jeremy Gruensteiner [00:45:23]: Yeah, exactly. And you may not have been the person even on the receiving end, like, even just on the giving end, you're going to feel it. Casey Pepper [00:45:29]: Yeah, absolutely. That's exactly it. Because there's definitely times I was on a full steam ahead, and I'm like, I'm really sorry, bud. You're in front of me and I am going too fast to move without falling. And so it's through you and, yeah, that hurts both parties. Absolutely. Jeremy Gruensteiner [00:45:51]: Yeah, totally. What was that moment? Like you said, 20 years. That's a hell of a career in anything, really, from a time period standpoint. Casey Pepper [00:46:01]: Yeah. Jeremy Gruensteiner [00:46:03]: What was that like to make that decision to retire? Casey Pepper [00:46:08]: It occurred over four years and five different retirements. But that was really hard because you get concerned, right? Because it became my whole circle, so to step away, and I'll admit I had a couple of years left in the tank easily. So the reason I retired is I started to notice a diminish in the return on investment that I was putting into the game. He's showing up for Tuesday Thursday Saturday practices, or Tuesday Thursday practices, Saturday games, and then I'm in pain until Wednesday. And honestly, the work that we talked about that I started four years ago or so, that's what helped me be able to take that step away and also see where I was coming up short in my goals of what I wanted to be as a human. I wanted to be more than just the guy that threw the parties and ran people over and was a great rugby player. There had to be more than that. There had to be a bigger depth to my character than that. Casey Pepper [00:47:33]: And I certainly struggled with that. Even after I had retired, I went back and I was like, oh, I'll just play one more game against the team that I initially started with. And then that led into, well, I'll just play one more game. And then they're like, well, we have these regional playoffs that we could really use you for. And I was like, all right, cool. And then after that, yeah, that one was my last game. I was like, okay, I made it to a championship. We didn't win, and that's okay. Casey Pepper [00:48:11]: I just started to notice a lot of things about myself and how. Where things were going and what I wanted, and I was like, you know what? This is a great walk off point championship game regardless, right? There was just some things that the team was turning over. I was definitely one of the oldest guys on the team, which never really was an issue, but I just started to notice I was going in a different direction. And before I had said, no, that's not a direction I want to go in right now. I want to finish this out. I decided to actually follow that path this time and say, you know what? Let's see where this goes. There's two teams that I'm linked with that are travel teams, so I can pick up a game here and there. And that's the beauty of it. Casey Pepper [00:49:06]: There's a tournament up in Saranac Lake where they have a game that's like 60 and over. You can always kind of grab a game. Jeremy Gruensteiner [00:49:16]: Yeah. But you're coming at it from the aspect of playing it for the game's Sake versus the grind and the achievement. Casey Pepper [00:49:25]: Yeah, absolutely. And that's where I looking at that and lifted event with the nine people in the house, I'm like, holy smokes. This feels like an away game. This is really cool. So I've started to see some synchronicities there, and I can still have that same feeling now. It just might be on a higher plane. The conversation is a lot different. There's a lot more depth there and more feeling. Casey Pepper [00:50:02]: Right. And it's funny, the whole time I'm down there, I'm like, we should be getting beers. Like, there's nine of us in the house, and we're having a great time. Who wears the beers? And somebody did. We ended up grabbing a four pack of the Guinness Zeros, like, the know, just because we were curious. So that was the closest we this whole weekend. I was. I. Casey Pepper [00:50:27]: I completely attribute to that experience that I had up on stage with Mark and the breathing to the fact that I was completely allowed to feel because there was no numbing. Jeremy Gruensteiner [00:50:43]: Was that. Was that the first time that you can remember actually allowing yourself to feel fully. Casey Pepper [00:50:50]: Yeah. To just be like, you're in church, like, here I am, Lord. Jeremy Gruensteiner [00:50:56]: Let's feel this full surrender. Casey Pepper [00:50:59]: Yeah, dude. Surrender. Oh, man, what a topic that I've been battling with just so many things in life, just trying to surrender to what will be, will be. And that that's also what's meant to be. And you may want exactly what it's going to be, and it might come to you at a time that you are not wanting. Like, I want it now. And it's like, well, this might be four years out, so just letting that be. Jeremy Gruensteiner [00:51:33]: Yeah, it's a tough one. We talk about that topic quite a bit on the podcast of this impatience that we tend to have or where we tend to dig ourselves in and make ourselves even more stuck just simply by this hubris that we can fully control our reality. Casey Pepper [00:51:57]: Yeah. Jeremy Gruensteiner [00:51:58]: In noticing that for yourself, what can you imagine that's going to do for you as you get into your level one and possibly level two certification and build this new career for yourself as a coach? Casey Pepper [00:52:15]: Yeah. So I'm still battling with that one. Right. Because ideally, for me, what I'd love to do is to have that become the full time. And I'm sitting here on this podcast with you and I'm like, am I going to be able to host a podcast? What does coaching actually look like? I have a lot of people that come to me and ask me for advice and things like that, so I'm doing some of that and have been able to do a lot of that through management. But I think the success that I'm looking to get out of enlifted level one and enlifted level two are dependent on the fact that I am going to allow myself to surrender to what is there and feel and keep myself unstuck right now. It's like I pull my feet out of the mud, I take two steps and I sink right back in. How do you keep that momentum? Right. Casey Pepper [00:53:30]: I'm anticipating a lot of deeper work and I feel prepared for level one through going through the primal man pathway with chase, I've forced. Stepped a lot of stuff out of my life or forced up my way through it rather than past it. And as you do that, it's like, okay, well, now there's this next layer. And this next layer. Jeremy Gruensteiner [00:53:59]: Even the pro coaches out there will agree, is that that doesn't really ever stop. That's an ongoing process, always. Because you got the big obvious stories out of the way, which ones are lurking in the corners that you haven't even realized or looked at or what new interaction that you have in your life? What new role are you fulfilling that's all of a sudden plucking you on the nose in a way that you didn't even know was going to cause you some feels. Yeah, having the tool set and having exactly like you said, having a network behind you of people who are willing to listen, people who are willing to tell and share their stories as well. It's such an underrated portion of life that many people are missing. And yeah, it's red to hear you going through this because circumstances different. There's a lot of similarity there. As with many folks on this podcast, I talk to and hear so much of my own story in theirs, which is beyond cool to hEar. Casey Pepper [00:55:12]: Yeah. Oh, man, this has been awesome. This has been a great conversation. I'll be honest, I was pretty nervous coming on. Like, I don't know what I'm going to talk about. All right. Imposter syndrome. Like, who am I? Jeremy Gruensteiner [00:55:27]: All right. The other part of this is there are many people on this podcast that aren't coaches, because this isn't necessarily always the podcast for coaches, for you and for those listening. Is that what we're looking to achieve with the Weird and strong podcast is to continually showcase people doing unconventional things and living unconventionally. Even being somebody like you who's living a conventional life in corporate America, you're still dipping your toes, you're still being yourself, which in of its own right, is the most unconventional thing you can be. Casey Pepper [00:56:07]: Yeah. Which is wild, isn't it? Being your most conventional is the unconventional piece. Jeremy Gruensteiner [00:56:16]: Yeah. In a world full of people trying to be other people, being yourself is truly weird. Casey Pepper [00:56:27]: Yes. Dude, I love that. So, a question for you. Well, I have two questions for you. You said that your sport is also relatively unknown. What sport was that? Jeremy Gruensteiner [00:56:41]: Weightlifting. Olympic weightlifting. Casey Pepper [00:56:42]: Weightlifting, okay. Yeah. Jeremy Gruensteiner [00:56:46]: Not exactly mainstream. A little bit more mainstream these days. But when I would show up in a corporate job or something like that, or in a social setting, they'll be like, oh, so that's like powerlifting. No, powerlifting is powerlifting. Weightlifting is. Casey Pepper [00:57:05]: Absolutely. Jeremy Gruensteiner [00:57:08]: I'm sure many times of rugby gets confused, especially in the US, with cricket or something completely not even related. Or that's like football, right? Casey Pepper [00:57:20]: Yeah. So that's like football without pads, right? Yeah. For the most part, yes. For the sake of a 45 minutes conversation that you don't want to be a part of. Yes. Jeremy Gruensteiner [00:57:31]: Just to let you have that one, you had a second question for me? Casey Pepper [00:57:37]: Yeah. So when for you, did you start to identify with or notice that you would call yourself weird? And I got a follow up to that, too. Jeremy Gruensteiner [00:57:55]: Yeah, totally. For me, it was quite fairly early. I noticed I was just different from other kids and was. There's obviously, there's times where we feel like that's where that's a negative for us. And I found for myself that the more often that I leaned into that and just spent more time being me, that the happier I was and the cooler things I started to. We're talking young, like grade school age from first grade onwards. And then once you start getting into the larger. Got into the larger schools of middle school and high school and things like that. Jeremy Gruensteiner [00:58:45]: Yeah. There were some, like I was swoopy haired emo kid and theater. But there were, there were many, many attempts from that point onwards into really into my 30s where making the attempt to fit the mold of, especially my late 20s, going into my thirty s of, well, I have to have the job, I have to have the career, I need to fit the specific mold that everybody's told me I should be doing. And every time I did that, yes, there have been successes, yes, I've seen, I've achieved things in my life that I'm proud of that those were always the points of my life that had the biggest burnouts flash out. Things just would melt down. It would go great for a while and then it would melt down. Burnouts, just not feeling fulfilled, not feeling like it's a right fit. And so that's where I've continually come back to being myself and continually exploring what that is and what that needs to be to be true for me. Jeremy Gruensteiner [00:59:59]: And having a platform like this of a podcast and everything else that I get to do in the world of the internet and putting content out there is my ability to allow others that opportunity as well, to experience what it's like to be themselves. Casey Pepper [01:00:19]: Yeah, dude, I love that. I love that you discovered that so young, too. So my follow up question was going to be like, when did you learn to embrace that as a positive? And sounds like you did that fairly young, which is amazing. Jeremy Gruensteiner [01:00:33]: Yeah, it's embraced it fairly young. But then there are the moments where you get told that that's not right, or that's not the way you're supposed to be, or that's not the way you should be doing something else, or you see somebody else doing something over there and it becomes that new shiny toy. We're like, well, I want to go that direction. I don't like where I am right now, so I'm going to go and try to fit into their idea of what they should be. And, yeah, it's a constant practice, and seeing it and being aware of it is one step, and then being able to embrace it and live it in whatever form that takes, those are the next steps, and that's the steps that carry you through forever until the end. Casey Pepper [01:01:18]: Yeah. Oh, man, I love that. You just triggered a core memory that I used to say I was the captain of the weird team and I was like, oh, man, I did embrace that and it would just be like, it was more geared towards my sense of humor. And people are like, you're so weird. I'd be like, yeah, that's me kept into the weird team. People are like, oh, my God. I'd be like, yes, you rang. Just like, dumb little things. Casey Pepper [01:01:49]: But then that carried on to being the guy on the rugby field in a Speedo. Jeremy Gruensteiner [01:01:57]: Even through all of that. What did that give permission? How did that affect the people around you? Casey Pepper [01:02:08]: I felt like it allowed them to be their most authentic self. Right? Like, if he can be this goofball and everybody loves the guy, then I can just be me as well. Right. It allows me to essentially give them permission to be themselves. Jeremy Gruensteiner [01:02:28]: Yeah, exactly. This is my observation of when you were up on stage at the event, because it was. It was an authentic version of you, of speaking from the heart and experiencing it, being vulnerable. Even some of us who've been in coaching for a while, that hits us, too, and it allows us the courage to step up as ourselves even more. And so thank you for your courage and your vulnerability in that moment, because it was incredibly cool to see and experience. Casey Pepper [01:03:06]: Dude, thank you. That's amazing. I think there's a couple of the people that were in the house were just like, dude, you were amazing. To hear you say that brings me right back to the moment makes me want to just Continue on. Right? Start and keep going. Right? Jeremy Gruensteiner [01:03:29]: Exactly. Casey Pepper [01:03:31]: Yeah. Jeremy Gruensteiner [01:03:32]: As we come up to the end of our time today, keeping ourselves on the clock, any final thoughts, any final nuggets of wisdom that you want to share with the audience? Casey Pepper [01:03:46]: Oh, man. We've touched on a lot and a lot. That means a lot to me, honestly. I hope even if one person hears this and gets something out, it gets one thing out of it. To me, that's amazing. I guess my final thought would just be, and this is, again, something that we just talked about and continued to work on this. If you don't know yet, discover who your most authentic self is and then start aligning the rest of your life with that, and that no matter what, there will be days of ups and downs, you will find that you're happy. Jeremy Gruensteiner [01:04:27]: Absolutely. And if you're struggling with that, we know a couple of guys you can at least have a conversation with to pointy in the right direction, right? Casey Pepper [01:04:36]: Absolutely. Yeah. Awesome. Definitely. Jeremy Gruensteiner [01:04:40]: I know you're just getting started in the coaching world. Anything that you'd like to promote, anything. If people want to get in touch with you, how can they do that? Casey Pepper [01:04:48]: Yeah. So I don't have anything professionally set up yet, though. I have an Instagram. It's my personal Instagram. It's Sultanpepper, just like the king. S-U-L-T-A-N Sultan Pepper three six nine. So you can certainly find me there. That's pretty much the only social media I have. Jeremy Gruensteiner [01:05:07]: All right, so yeah, you can connect with Casey there and we'll keep an eye out there for what's to come. I'm excited to see how that path takes you as you become and embrace being a good coach. Casey Pepper [01:05:22]: Cheers. Thank you. Yes, and I'm excited to share. I appreciate you having me on. Jeremy Gruensteiner [01:05:29]: Likewise, man. It's been an absolute pleasure. Thank you for being here. And most important of all, thank you for being you. Casey Pepper [01:05:37]: Yeah, cheers. Thank you and same. I love this podcast, man. I love it. Jeremy Gruensteiner [01:05:43]: I appreciate that a lot. And for all of you listening, much appreciation for you listening all the way through, especially. So thank you for being you as well. And until next time, most importantly, stay strong, folks, and stay weird.

Jeremy Gruensteiner [00:00:01]: Welcome back to the Weird and Strong podcast. I am your host, Jeremy Grunsteiner, and we have the story master himself, Kyle Gray, on the episode today. And we talk about his path into content marketing and where that started, where that's taken him, and how he uses all the lessons that he's found for himself in telling really powerful stories. So without further ado, let's get weird. Kyle Gray, welcome to the Weird and Strong podcast. Kyle Gray [00:00:29]: Man, I am so excited to be here, Jeremy. Thank you for having me. Jeremy Gruensteiner [00:00:34]: Yeah, it's been, as many people have heard or have noticed that we've had a long string of coaches coming through on the podcast, many of whom, Kyle included, that I got to meet in person just about a little over a month ago now. It's crazy to think that's only been a month. Kyle Gray [00:00:51]: Absolutely. It was one of my highlights of my year, getting to hang out probably with a lot of the people on the show that you've already interviewed, getting to meet you, getting to see the mobile podcast studio on Wheels, and just 1000 moments of inspiration in between. Jeremy Gruensteiner [00:01:11]: Yeah, it's been super cool. I have a very weird question for you. Are you ready? Kyle Gray [00:01:18]: I'm ready. Jeremy Gruensteiner [00:01:19]: Awesome. If you could pick one artist or composer to create the soundtrack for your life so every moment becomes underscored by music, who would you pick? Kyle Gray [00:01:38]: The answer that came to me before you even finished. I think it would be Dave Grohl. Jeremy Gruensteiner [00:01:45]: Dave Grohl? Kyle Gray [00:01:46]: Yeah. Jeremy Gruensteiner [00:01:50]: Any particular reason why you picked Dave Grohl? Kyle Gray [00:01:55]: Well, maybe I was thinking the question was going to go in a different direction, but just landed on this anyway. But if there is a certain artist or somebody that has created something really cool and yeah, I just admire who he is, how he shows up and what he's created, and he's done just amazing work. While I feel being in a lot of great integrity and yeah, I love his music, I think there's a lot of variety in what he can write. And yeah, the way he strings his lyrics together has always really resonated with me. Jeremy Gruensteiner [00:02:34]: Very cool. I know you are a man who appreciates great stories and great storytelling. Does that connection into Dave Grohl as a musician come through for you in your practice or what you do working with stories? Kyle Gray [00:02:52]: Yes. I would say it kind of points back to where some of the original seeds were planted. I've certainly been and felt weird for my whole life. I've had a hard time really expressing or articulating all of my feelings. And when I started playing guitar, it was a fun way to move through emotions and express things. And in my late teens and early twenty s I was certain that the only way I was going to live a happy and fulfilled life was by being a musician. I played in a rock band for a while and we were well known for our antics and strange things that happened and we were okay musicians or we were okay. Our music was kind of good, but yeah, just the weird stuff that would happen at our shows was some of the things that would attract our crowds. Kyle Gray [00:03:50]: And then I was also, for a long time in my early 20s, singer songwriter. I was traveling the world a lot, or a lot of South America, and I would carry my acoustic guitar around with me everywhere and was writing different songs about how I felt. And somewhere around my early twenty s I really wanted to make it work. I applied for a performing arts school in England. I was like, this is the only way. I got an audition but didn't get in. And I can remember just putting a lot of pressure on myself to write great songs instead of just having fun expressing myself, and ended up burning myself out on the craft and put the guitar down for many years and stopped playing music and just expressing that. A couple of years later, through a string of many events, I was graduating college and just got offered a job working as an apprentice for a content marketer or somebody, a startup founder who was growing a startup with content marketing and now wanted to hand off that task to somebody. Kyle Gray [00:05:03]: I was a good writer, I was just finishing a master's degree, so I'd written my way to there. But writing great content for startup founders, for the Internet to attract attention, to inspire people, is much different than just writing words for a professor. But I found something similar in the writing that spoke to me in the same way that music did. And I was really enjoying this. It felt like this, it was a cool outlet and began to grow in that skill and in that talent of writing good articles, capturing somebody's voice, really distilling what the quality of what they want to create is, and making it so that I could create or other people could create in that voice and quality, and started to use this skill. I worked for the startup for a year, helped it grow and ultimately get exit into or get acquired by GoDaddy, a much larger company, and began to insert myself into many different companies and building a freelance copywriting and storytelling consulting business. I worked for a self publishing company and helped them build a content marketing strategy and learned how to write books. And that was really fun too, and a great outlet. Kyle Gray [00:06:33]: And then I also started to see how people were telling stories from the stage and using that as a reliable, predictable way to grow their business. And there was something, again, that reminded me of the performances that I would make when I was younger and being on stage, and I wanted that. It spoke to me so deeply. And so I went to this company who was teaching people how to do this, and I said, I'm going to write for you guys. I want to learn how to do this, and used the value that I could do well and inserted myself into this company and started writing for them. They started growing quickly and started needing people to help facilitate these $10,000 workshops where people would come for a weekend and build a signature talk or prepare themselves to be a great speaker. And since I was doing a lot of the writing and I knew a lot of the process and the teaching, I was one of the first persons they called first people's, whatever that word is. And over the course of a lot of the 20 teens, I was facilitating many of these workshops. Kyle Gray [00:07:49]: AnD it was a transformational experience to see how many people would pay $10,000 for something, how many people could get incredible results for that, how many people might not get great results, but how to do that and how to make that happen. And, yeah, it was so great to see that from somebody who wanted to really start a business, run events like that. And over the course of a few years, built up an agency as well. I had a team of stay at home moms, building sales funnels and emails, and all of these kinds of things. While I was helping this person with their story, I had a really big team built up coming on to right before the pandemic. And then the pandemic hit, and a lot of things changed. A lot of things got uncertain. But one of the things that happened right away is I realized that the team I had built, I was using it to kind of shield myself and not really fully own what I was doing because I was working for other companies. Kyle Gray [00:09:00]: And all of a sudden, a lot of the work I was doing for other people dried up my team. I decided to let them go. I didn't think we were going to be able to sustain the work that we were doing before. And there was problems before the pandemic started. And that left me, once again with just me. And I decided the things that my client loved the best were how I listened and how we crafted stories together. And that was where the best results were coming from. And I decided to just fully own the work that I did and make it the main thing and the only thing that I sell and combined the last ten years of learning about content marketing, copywriting and storytelling for working with hundreds and hundreds of different experts. Kyle Gray [00:09:46]: And yeah, I think it all started from trying to express myself playing guitar. Jeremy Gruensteiner [00:09:55]: That's such an amazing, wild Journey, and we'll dive more into some of those pieces of that. I love it so much because the details are a little different, obviously, but it's so similar to my path also of feeling that call of expression through music. And a question that I had that came up at one point during a different podcast as well, of a little more esoteric and philosophical of why do we feel this drive to create art? Do you have an idea around that? Kyle Gray [00:10:41]: I think there's a couple of reasons why we create art. I think there's a different kind of motivation or a skill set for art versus craftsmen. And it's really the practice of seeing your own value or deciphering your own value. The only person that really can make art valuable in the beginning. Other people have to come in later, but you have to see the value in it and stand for it and believe in it. And I think that practice of finding the things that you're excited about and discovering that and uncovering that, I think a lot of it's natural within us. Like, a lot of these creative ideas are wanting to come out. And it's our purpose and role to learn how to refine and craft those and share those gifts in our lives. Kyle Gray [00:11:39]: And through that process of kind of like an oyster making a pearl. Making art allows us to find our own purpose and sense in this world and express ourselves and create something that is a little bit bigger than ourselves, too. Jeremy Gruensteiner [00:12:03]: Very cool. I love that distinction that you made between artistry versus craftsmanship, because there's definitely. I know I've confused those in the past as far as what is a true expression, or what is something of expression for expression's sake, versus something that I'm crafting and providing as a value for the world. Yeah, I've known many times of being in bands or groups or things like that, where it becomes all about the business of being in an artistic or creative endeavor, and then everybody starts to feel a lot less fulfilled by the entire experience because we're in that craft stage, or we're too focused on the craft stage and we're missing that experiential stage of expressing ourselves for the sake of simply doing that. Kyle Gray [00:13:01]: Yeah, this is actually something a lot more common than you'd think. And with the band, for example, that's one way that it plays out. And this plays out in the way a lot of founders and business owners conduct their work, that it was like in the beginning, they started a band because they really enjoyed playing and hanging out together, and they created some good stuff. And there was some point where they were like, well, we got to start taking this seriously. And the success that they had created ends up taking so much time and energy to manage that they no longer have the time or space to be what created that success in the first place. And so for a lot of business owners, founders, coaches, this starts to happen somewhere in the six early seven figures when your talent alone can no longer just sustain everything. And so you start to run into these different blocks and problems, and it's this energy that got you here of trying to prove them wrong or this thing that worked so well unless you can learn to let go and build a team and create support. And I'm saying this as much for myself as what I'm learning and how growing and scaling. Kyle Gray [00:14:37]: But you've got to reconnect with that same story or that same vision or that same purpose. You got to see the value in it again. And a lot of times, that's counterintuitive when you're like, hey, this band, this has got to work. We've got to write a really good song. We got to write a banger right now. It never works in the same way that just trying to run a business with that expectation never works. And so doing the counterintuitive work of making room for play, making room for your vision, making room for your creativity, and seeing how that plays out as your role as a visionary or leader is a really beautiful process. Jeremy Gruensteiner [00:15:20]: What do you think drives that pull towards that pressure? Because it's such a common theme that comes through of this. We have to achieve this right now. We have to grow, we have to scale. We have to get the next song out. We have to get this, because that seems to be such an easy gear for many of us to find. Kyle Gray [00:15:45]: Yeah, most of us. The people who are listening to this podcast are a special kind of people and who are trying to pursue this. And what's happened is no matter how it happened, doesn't matter how it happened, but to get to where you are listening to this podcast right now, something has had to have happened in your life that's gotten wires crossed in your brain. Good news and bad news. The good news is this is a really powerful energy. A lot of the times that drives us and fires us to get us through those early grind hard stages of just getting established, making the different choices, and we work really hard. And that's the kind of attitude, I think, that you're alluding to. And so for a lot of us, it comes from a story. Kyle Gray [00:16:41]: Believe me, when I've heard hundreds of them, and most of them all boil down to I'm not that good, or I'm afraid that they're going to see that I'm not that good. If I mess this thing up or if I slow down for a second and if this fails, then everybody's going to know and all the people that I love will abandon me. And so we overcompensate, we over grip. We try so hard to avoid that thing, and that's what drives us and it allows us to stay up late and do the things. But there comes a certain point where that's no longer the productive thing and we've got to actually integrate and understand that. And since a lot of the people here have either listened to enlisted coaches are enlisted coaches, we have one of the greatest tool sets to actually hold up a mirror for that kind of work. And it's the story work that we do for the inside, for people's hearts, finding those stories can be golden and powerful. The ones that they're ashamed to tell right now, that you have to draw out of them, might be the ones that inspire them and give them something really important to share from the stage if we know how to translate them even a little bit further than our level one work. Kyle Gray [00:18:07]: But, yeah, I think that's what drives a lot of people and it's also our destiny to learn how to integrate and move past it. Jeremy Gruensteiner [00:18:17]: Very cool. Yeah, I appreciate the speaking direct to the audience with that and knowing that there's many people who are in on the game with that. And also for those who aren't in your time, working for that first startup that you got into content marketing with, what was the biggest takeaway from working in that sort of environment? Kyle Gray [00:18:46]: It was incredibly difficult. It was 2014, and joining this startup, I was learning how to work remote. I was learning how to work in a startup. I was living in a different country. I was living in Chiang Mai, Thailand at the time. My boss lived in Australia, and I had never really worked remote before. It was still a fairly new thing. And so working remote was a skill set. Kyle Gray [00:19:17]: Learning how to be in a different job or just learn the skill set of a content marketer was a new adventure. And then being in a place and learning where the restaurants are and how to take care of myself and all the simple things. In Thailand, it took a couple of months to really get things started and I wasn't sure I was going to make it through. In the beginning, I was super thrown into the deep end. It was like I met my boss for one day at this conference in Thailand. Then we went back and there was this email that was just like the list of all these things right up the top. Kyle takes over all the content marketing and I had to figure it out and perform. And luckily, with a few trial and errors and a lot of good feedback, I think one of the biggest things that helped me in that time was I was able to get feedback on my work and my boss was really critical. Kyle Gray [00:20:23]: He didn't have a lot of time and wasn't trying to sugarcoat everything. And so he would look through something, be really critical, and at first it would really hurt a lot of the times, all the things he said about my work. But then over time, I got used to that and got used to being able to be criticized and kind of explore and open that up. And I think that was one of the best things, was being able to receive that and critically look from a different perspective. It's one of the most essential things that I think people who are successful with me can see things from a different perspective in a new way and let go. I find that I don't have any answers for people. I just help you find the right answers that you already have. And most people's problems is they're trying to hold on to ten different answers at the same time and want to express them all, instead of really taking the time to listen and be present and share the one that's going to create the result they want. Jeremy Gruensteiner [00:21:27]: Yeah. Kyle Gray [00:21:30]: But those are some of the highlights. To put a bookend on that thought. Jeremy Gruensteiner [00:21:35]: Yeah, that's really cool. That ability to receive feedback without it turning into a flashpoint, that's such an important, especially for anybody who does work in something that you're working with clients in a creative avenue. I've worked in tech as well, from engineering, app creation, component and things like that. And the amount of times that it can be very easy to look at the effort that you put into as not being appreciated when somebody doesn't like what's in front of them. And many times it's not necessarily that. Again, it's another story that we tell ourselves. It wasn't depreciated. I was like, is that actually true that they didn't depreciate what was done? It didn't meet what they were looking for. Jeremy Gruensteiner [00:22:26]: So if we can move past that, it can change things drastically for us. Kyle Gray [00:22:30]: It brings us back to art and just, it's really about, can you separate your value and the value that you know is within you in this project from the feedback of the work that you've just done? Jeremy Gruensteiner [00:22:45]: Yeah. Because very often it's easy to turn that into the criticism being about you versus the criticism being about whatever was produced. Yeah. So being able to learn that from the startup world, how did you take that into, as you started to work with other companies, did that remain a steadfast skill, a steadfast cornerstone for you, or did that change in some way as you started to grow with other companies and start your own agency and beyond? Kyle Gray [00:23:25]: Both. And I found that. So I used content marketing, what I learned in that startup as my skill set and currency, and then used that to trade up for other skill sets, worked for a self publishing company and learned how to write books while I helped them put a content marketing strategy into play and hire somebody that could do the same thing I did. And then I wrote a few books and kind of grew from that. I used the content marketing skill set at first to insert myself into the company that had people speaking from the stages and created enough value to get invited to learn how to master and facilitate that process myself. And I also used it myself. I've had a blog and a podcast. I've had a podcast for about four years. Kyle Gray [00:24:25]: Before that, I had a blog for a couple of years. And while I like the blogs and I think it's still really good for SEO, and there's part of me that wishes I would have kept up with it more. I wanted to focus more on speaking or getting on other people's podcasts or storytelling. I'm very drawn to relationship development, which was also a skill I learned in there. How do I get somebody's attention, add value and create through the creation of good content together. And so each built on the last. And while they all remained valuable, I wasn't doing as much writing. I started doing more podcast interviews, or I started writing books instead, or writing solo podcasts. Kyle Gray [00:25:11]: And I'm reaching an upper limit problem where it would be really nice to have somebody who could take a long form podcast or one of the things that I've written and splice it into different things. And it just takes a lot of effort to get all of those things created, which is a different skill set than just being able to record the thing. But yeah, some of the things have fallen back, but I've just always been building up and trading up, and it seems like I'm just increasing the value per word ratio. I wanted fewer words at higher value, higher stakes moments. And working with people in those moments is where the trend has been going. Jeremy Gruensteiner [00:26:01]: Yeah, that's super cool. I had a moment last week where I started doing a little bit of coaching at a local high school just for a little extra exposure out in the world. Again, they're working remotely can sometimes get to be a lonely world when you're absolutely, you're just by yourself or within your small little enclave. And one of the things I was talking to the head coach about is one of our big challenges is to continually say more with less, especially as we coach, because it allows us to have the bigger impact. Kyle Gray [00:26:38]: What really is happening in there that I think I found very few people can articulate. When you say more with less, it means you're not in your own head. Being the coach with all of your 10,000 solutions that you have to the problem and you want to fix this person and help them, but instead you're really listening to them and understanding their context and being present with them and providing something really valuable to them. There's listening and empathy within there that a great coach can acquire that's different than just a problem solving skill set. And I think that's one of the biggest differences between a coach that can be really successful and somebody that just has a tool set and no clients. Jeremy Gruensteiner [00:27:25]: Yeah, it's definitely an area I've personally reflected on in that as well. Of the times where I've felt the need with a client to continually explain, it's like, well, who's actually getting the most out of this right now? Is it me stroking my own ego to show, hey, look at all these things that I've learned. Look at all this stuff I have versus actually working and having the relationship with the person in front of you. Kyle Gray [00:27:55]: Yeah. And the problem is, the weird thing is it feels good to explain word vomit knowledge. Yeah, exactly. It feels good to us and sometimes it even feels good to the other person in the moment. But in the end, it's at best going to be like, inspire applause. Oh, that's impressive. Thank you. Okay, I'm going to go to the bathroom now. Kyle Gray [00:28:18]: Bye. Jeremy Gruensteiner [00:28:20]: Or that was really cool. I didn't remember a single lick of anything you just said. Yeah, because look at what people pursue as far as changes to health and wellness is an easy One because that's where I've worked for the last few years. Is that many of us know what foods are better for us and which foods are less nutritious for us, and yet people still consistently choose less nutritious substance. Is it really an information problem at that point? Because we generally know what's better for us and we choose otherwise. And so being able to have the questions and work with the person in front of you, in your work, in helping people with stories and in content marketing, is there a similar correlation to what we would see in health and wellness? Of that they know the information, and yet they're somehow not enacting it or not turning it into action? Kyle Gray [00:29:30]: In some ways, the root cause is the same, or the root problem is the same, which is over focus on yourself and under listening to your audience. Yeah. As far as, like, health and wellness coaches knowing if information was enough, this is really important that you point this out, then we would all have perfect diets and it would be great, but it's clearly not enough. But somehow we still show up and teach and talk with that paradigm a lot of the time, and that's what creates all the effects that we just said. So what do we teach instead? What do we talk about? Let's talk about storytelling in a health and wellness context. What a lot of people don't understand about storytelling is that there are very simple frameworks and structures to stories. And the first place we need to start to really clarify and define those is, what effect do I want to have? There's a couple of effects that we commonly want to have when somebody's listening to us. The first one is we want them to trust us and actually want to internalize the things that we have to teach. Kyle Gray [00:30:49]: Very underrated effect for a lot of people. Like I said, we just want to teach, and so we would tell a certain story that allows that, and we can ask questions and kind of define. And if you know what a story like that needs in a natural way, in a well practiced way, then you can start to listen for those ingredients in the conversations with your clients or with your prospects and start to tell better stories. And instead of having 10,000 ideas, you might get that clue for that one perfect story to tell. Because now you understand what frameworks are at play here or with teaching, because we have so many things we want to teach. Oh, my God. But what do we do? What's the purpose of teaching, especially in the phase before they make a purchase? Because a lot of people just teach the same stuff that we teach our clients, and they're successful. Right? So that's good. Kyle Gray [00:31:52]: I'm going to teach the same stuff, but just teaching how to solving the problem just goes in one ear and out the other. If they have limiting beliefs or paradigms or they see the problem, health and wellness, we'll take it back here. We want to help people with weight loss. If anybody's coming to anybody listening to this podcast for fitness or weight loss, I bet you all the money you've ever made as a coach that they have tried at least ten things before even showing up. You even showed up on their radar. And in the process of trying and failing with those ten things, they have some well established it's my genetics. It's never going to work. I don't have the willpower. Kyle Gray [00:32:37]: It's just not like, yeah, I don't have the time, I don't have the money to eat whatever it is. And whatever it is, if we don't actually address that, then whatever we have to say about, well, the keto diet is so good because you eat sweet potatoes and bacon, nobody cares. And so this is what, when we, when we can start to focus on like, well, what are the limiting beliefs? Which is really interesting because this is what we'd want to talk about on our coaching calls anyway. And how do we transform them? How do we talk about those to open up possibilities instead of just overwhelm people with ideas? It's like, what if instead of just trying to eat better all of the time, you just changed when you eat? What if we practiced intermittent fasting? You wouldn't even have to change your diet. Or what if you just practice chewing your food better? You can actually improve your blood sugar, improve your hormones, improve your digestion by chewing the food you're already making a little bit longer. And all of a sudden now we're addressing the you don't have to change your diet, you don't have to have willpower, you just have to chew your food a little bit longer. And all of a sudden I'm feeling a little bit healthier and I believe just a little bit more. And I want to have a call with Jeremy. Kyle Gray [00:33:57]: Now. That's what we want to do, not just fire hose things. And when we can start to understand that again, it creates a new level of depth to how we interact and communicate with that's. Jeremy Gruensteiner [00:34:13]: There have been so many moments in this podcast already where I'm like, Kyle's in my head. He's reading my thoughts on this because these are exactly the things that I've been considering over the past couple of weeks of translating a lot of the things that I've experienced for myself in health and wellness, things I've coached and things that I've experienced personally into helping people who may not be currently serviced or people who are struggling somewhere and haven't been able to come through to that. So I really appreciate your ability, whether it's conscious or not, to be on the same page. Kyle Gray [00:34:56]: That's the core. Like, that's what I promise other people is what you just said, where I feel like this person's in my head. That's the difference between a talk that I create and a TED talk. Somebody who wants to do a TED talk wants to inspire a bunch of people. And that's awesome and perfect. Good for you. But the kind of talk that I create, I want just a very specific kind of person that I've thought through. I know who this is going to happen to, to start to feel that kind of feeling. Kyle Gray [00:35:25]: They're speaking right to me. They're in my head. They've snuck into my room and read my journal at night. That's the kind of effect I want to create that inspires the right kind of movement. TED talks have their place, too, and we'll talk about those, maybe on another podcast. Jeremy Gruensteiner [00:35:41]: Sure. Kyle Gray [00:35:41]: But I love that you said that, and thank you for that acknowledgment. Jeremy Gruensteiner [00:35:45]: Yeah, absolutely. In learning that, what was the first step for you to learn that skill or to start to cultivate that ability to be able to do this. Kyle Gray [00:36:01]: Thousands of failed sales calls, of bad speeches, of bad podcasts, of figuring it out. I have committed all of the sins that I speak so fervently against, and that's why I can talk about them the way I do, because I know the impacts of them. I have been guilty of using all the expert language of fire, hosing my own prospects with information, of trying to prove myself to be the right person instead of understanding my own value and really being present with my clients in the conversation. And so it's taken just the same thing. There's actually a really great. I'll teach you a specific phrase. So when we're telling an origin story, a story in the beginning, we first tell about a painful moment when we can't take it anymore, and we set out to solve the problem. In the end, we talk about when that problem is resolved in a moment that we can really enjoy. Kyle Gray [00:37:12]: And in between, we say, I had to go through a long process of costly and painful mistakes. And it's true, I had to do a lot of that. And the purpose of that within this story, in this moment. The subtext of it is to say, I've had to do a lot of work to figure this out. And now I've figured out the shortcut. You don't want to do all of this hard work. And so, in the same way that all of us have had to master our skills, we've had to go through a long process of costly and painful mistakes. And it's more important to just illustrate that the process was hard rather than to teach me every single facet about it right now. Kyle Gray [00:37:55]: I know you want to, but it's okay. Not right now. So, yeah, I've had to make these mistakes. I've had to come back to this work time and time again. I've had to pour over my stories and reflect on myself and come back to, who am I really trying to serve here? And it's still something I believe. A lot of these things, understanding who your ideal client is, who your story is, what your messages are, all things very much like yoga. There's never a time where you've done enough yoga to be done with it. Or you can finally do a forward fold and so you can leave, or your back bends are back bendy enough, whatever. Kyle Gray [00:38:37]: It's something you come back to and reflect and learn on. And you're always growing, which is somewhat dissatisfying for a lot of rookies to hear early on because they're like, man, I want to just have the answer, but we got to just keep coming back to it. And that's how we grow and level up. Every time we look back on ourselves, we've been evolving, and that's really what we should be doing as coaches, as leaders, as founders, as visionaries. Jeremy Gruensteiner [00:39:05]: Yeah, we've talked about this, various episodes of the podcast of this idea that we gravitate towards this doneness or this achievement. And do we really want to distill business is one thing, but do we really want to distill our lives and the things that bring us fulfillment into simple checkboxes? Or is it being able to continually string those experiences together in a way that is meaningful for us? Because the thing that you've defined as the answer today may not be the answer five years from now. You may look back at that and go, wow, I had that really wrong. But I was so confident in the moment that that was it. That was the answer. Yeah, this is really fun to hear that coming from another person having been a coach, but from a very different skill set than my own, which is super cool in the ways that you are continually showing up in the world. A little side quest here. How does music still play a factor in your creative process? Kyle Gray [00:40:23]: Great question. In some ways, it is a measure of how well I'm taking care of myself and giving myself my own medicine. As everything I've said, as inspiring as it all is, I still have quite a hard time giving myself permission to live the lifestyle part of my lifestyle business and be in my creativity and give my voice and ideas the same respect and reverence that I give my clients. And so the more music that I'm making, I have actually just a bunch of Ableton controllers right here. And I was doing some music production this morning just before. I'm just spending time being creative without necessarily a purpose, but just getting better at music production or getting better at guitar again and getting lost in the process of creativity is a big thing. And then I also have been putting together a really fun and unique creative project that supports my business in kind of a tangential way. But in addition to speaking from the stage, one of the things I've created is a breath, work and dance experience that's been fun to perform in many different venues and formats where for the first 20 minutes, I have people doing Wim Hof breathing. Kyle Gray [00:41:50]: I have these nice Alan Watts quotes. If you could dream any dream you wanted to dream, you would live a lifetime of pleasure at first, but over time, you would want to add more mystery and make it more interesting. And over time, you would add more complexity into where you got until you got to where you are right now. And so they're breathing while this, and I kind of create this illusion of a dream. And then slowly, after the breath work, start prompting them with little bits of movement. We're going to get from the floor to our feet in a whole song. Go as slow as you can. Okay, now just move your hips a little bit. Kyle Gray [00:42:28]: And that's the whole song. Next song. Okay, well, we're definitely awake now. We're definitely not dreaming anymore. And you're waking up to the best day of your life. And on this incredible day, you have got such an appetite. So I want you to go down into the kitchen, and I want you to start making breakfast. But not just any breakfast. Kyle Gray [00:42:49]: I want this to be the sexiest breakfast you've ever made. And then you drop the beat and see how people dance. And so, yeah, it's a mix of kind of these guided visualizations and dance and fun that all becomes something really unique. Jeremy Gruensteiner [00:43:05]: That's killer. Also, I want to commend you on your Alan Watson personations. Because. Pretty spot on. That's super cool. How often have you been performing that? Is that something that comes up as it comes up, or is it something that you're working to weave into more regularity? Kyle Gray [00:43:25]: It hasn't happened so much. I've been just moving in a lot of different places, and so I haven't been cultivating that, but I am excited. There's now in Bend, Oregon, there's an ecstatic dance community that I'd like to share that with and a couple of other people. That is fun. Sometimes when I'm speaking at events, I'll offer that as, like, an extra side thing. That's fun. But, yeah, I'd like to make more of a work of it. And right now it's very highly choreographed and figured out, and so I can't add a lot of variety into it yet. Kyle Gray [00:44:04]: So really expanding the depth of what it could look like. To be able to take it in a lot of different directions takes a little bit more work and preparation than just making a playlist. Jeremy Gruensteiner [00:44:16]: Yeah, totally. Yeah, I can understand that. Being able to have some things that you could call on more spontaneity in the moment of what is the room saying? What is the vibe? Yeah, I get that. I've performed with backing tracks in various bands and things before, and it's like, if we could just change, just pull something out, it would be great, but, well, we're locked into it, and that's how it is. Yeah, totally. In looking at that, of how you've been cultivating that creative nature and being able to take your own medicine, what's been the biggest lesson in finding that for yourself again? Kyle Gray [00:45:06]: Um, you know, it's been an artist's life for me, and I feel I've actually done relatively well. I've been able to hire teams, invest in myself, invest in events. I've had some really good successes. I've had a lot of failures. And coming back to this, this is just like the core practice and the core measure, especially more and more. The more I learn and grow and progress, the increasingly annoying lesson continues to resurface. Of surrender, of allowing things instead of just trying to make the things happen all of the time. And I'm so good at it, damn it. Kyle Gray [00:46:01]: But allowing and accepting where I am and accepting where that is and loving where I am and loving where this is and making the most of these moments and being creative is what's important right now. And what will attract is what attracts the results, and that's me embodying what I want to lead the people that I work with in taking my own medicine is my degree of my ability to lead. And there's certainly been some times, particularly in this last year, but I think for most people, particularly in the coaching industry, it's been a very challenging year. And yeah, it's been the same for me. And I've had to reflect on the value that I deliver, the programs that I deliver, the boundaries that I hold and how I stand for myself on these calls. And it all adds up. What happens? The playing the guitar, the writing in the journal, the working on my stories and my identity so I can show up with alignment. It all matters and it all adds up. Kyle Gray [00:47:15]: But it's not the same thing as those flashing red light, urgent messages that seem to take up most of our days. Jeremy Gruensteiner [00:47:26]: Yeah, I love that, man. Thank you so much for that. As we start to come around the hour mark for our time together of this podcast, anything additional that you would like to share with the audience or any other wisdom that you would like to impart on them? Kyle Gray [00:47:46]: Yeah, give me a sec. There's a couple of ideas percolating. Jeremy Gruensteiner [00:47:51]: So I'm good, man. Kyle Gray [00:47:56]: So one of the things that I think is really important for this particular audience is knowing how to utilize the tool set that you have equipped yourself with in lifted. I'm assuming most of the people have listened to this, are at least aware of the program, and if not, check it out. But if you're not aware, a lot of the work that enlisted coaches do is we immerse ourselves or we guide our clients through a process of immersing themselves in their stories, in their feelings, and actually starting to understand how the words that they're saying or thinking are impacting their physiology and to create a state of playfulness with that. And this is such a useful tool when you can have people opening up and sharing their deepest, darkest thoughts with you. They're sharing such treasure for how you can speak and tell stories, the darkest stories that you hear from your clients. You want to ask yourself, when did I feel like this? And you want to tell stories that you have integrated asterisk that resonate with that same emotional feeling so you can attract those same kind of clients and have that texture. They're such a beautiful gift. And the best part about learning the enlifted tool set has been integrating that into how I build speeches and create leaders through the process of building a speech with them. Kyle Gray [00:49:41]: And so that's one nugget and then the second nugget. I think that the best thing for anybody that has an enlisted skill set is. I haven't really just positioned myself as I'm an enlisted coach, and I do story work. I've found creative ways to apply the tools to the work that I already do. And I think that the best and most interesting businesses and programs and success stories have come from those who take something that they know and is unique about them and then melding that skill set in a different way. Jeremy Gruensteiner [00:50:17]: Yeah, that's great to hear. And again, like I said before, I feel like Kyle's been speaking directly to me, been reading my journal, been reading all the things that I've been contemplating over and over again over these past couple of months. And so I appreciate for myself the reflection there and also for everybody who's listening. Kyle Gray [00:50:43]: Yeah. Jeremy Gruensteiner [00:50:46]: As we're coming to a close on our time together, anything that you want to promote, anything that you want to make the audience aware of that you have going on that they can either take part in or that they can join you with. Kyle Gray [00:51:02]: Yeah. Depending on when this episode is airing, if it happens before the new year, I am opening up the doors to my mastermind. I haven't done a group program in about two years, and I am really excited to open this up at a price point that I feel is very accessible, with a guarantee where anybody that I accept into the program will be guaranteed that they can make back twice what they invest within 90 days of finishing the program. And we're going to work together to build a signature talk to understand those core stories and frameworks, and then the mastermind effect will be, I believe that a lot of magic happens when you can start to get really clear on your story and you're excited about it, and all of a sudden speaking opportunities start to appear. And if we can get a bunch of people together with that magic happening and then point them at each other and sharing these opportunities, a lot of progress and acceleration starts to happen. These stories are learned and mastered both by writing scripts and practicing, which will create a room for that, but by having low and medium and high stakes opportunities that forge you, that give you opportunities to practice, that you can bring back. And that's why I want this group to support each other and help each other in this process. Jeremy Gruensteiner [00:52:25]: That's super cool. How can people find out more about this mastermind? If they're interested? Kyle Gray [00:52:31]: Yeah, you can go to thestoryengine co mastermind, and depending on when this airs, there may be some additional bonuses. But also, I would just love to hear from you. My email is Kyle at the Storyengine Co. Or you can find me on Instagram at Hey. As in, like, hey, Kyle Gray. And yeah, would love to connect with anybody that's listened to this. Anyway, whatever your biggest insights are, whatever your biggest takeaways are, whatever stories you feel you have to tell, even if the mastermind is not a great fit. But I'm personally very excited and honored to be able to open this space up and not only be able to facilitate the work that I am so proud of that I've worked for a long time to do, but to allow this group to support and grow together. Jeremy Gruensteiner [00:53:27]: Fantastic. Thank you so much for sharing that. I know that there's going to be likely some folks interested in hearing more about that mastermind and also being able to connect through with many of the things that you discussed on this podcast into either themselves as coaches or things that they want to do for themselves. So I appreciate you being here. I appreciate you for being you showing up in the purple fuzzy outfit that you're in robe, I'm not quite sure what that is. Made me want to dash off and put on my walrus pajamas and then join in again. Appreciate you being you and you being here today having this conversation with me. Kyle Gray [00:54:10]: Hey, thank you so much for the courage it takes to create things like this, for going through this artistic process, for holding a space for this group of listeners and creating great content. It's a process I have a lot of respect and admiration for, and you've asked some great questions, and it's really fun to be able to share in this format. So thank you so much for allowing me to share this space with you today. It's been an honor. Jeremy Gruensteiner [00:54:36]: Awesome, man. And with that, folks, as always, stay strong and most importantly, stay weird.

Jeremy Gruensteiner [00:00:01]: Welcome back to the Weird and Strong podcast. I'm so glad that you are all here, especially because this episode was so much fun to record and such a fun conversation to have. We have Megan Henry on the episode today. She is a former skeleton bob athlete, and I loved hearing all of her perspectives of what it was like training for an Olympic sport and how that has affected her life going forward. And I know that you're going to love it, too. So without any further delay, let's get weird, folks. Welcome, Megan Henry to the weird and strong podcast. How are you doing today? Megan Henry [00:00:38]: I'm fabulous, thank you. Jeremy Gruensteiner [00:00:39]: I'm so excited to be it's been about a month since we've seen each other, and it's been a wild ride for me. I don't know if it's been a wild ride for you as well. Since the enlisted event, it has been. Megan Henry [00:00:55]: That was so cool. To put Faces, 3D faces, to Zoom, call Faces was very cool. The Enlifted community is just unbelievable. The people that are attracted to that, I'm just absolutely blown away with how fabulous these humans are. So it was such a positive, high vibe, really fun weekend. Jeremy Gruensteiner [00:01:18]: Yeah. And since then, listeners might notice we talk a lot about unlifted on this podcast now because we've had a lot of Enlifted coaches. At one point, I even jokingly had a conversation with myself and said, well, should I just rename my podcast Unofficially Enlisted? Megan Henry [00:01:38]: We're just so cool, that's why. Jeremy Gruensteiner [00:01:39]: Yeah, exactly. I love talking to all the other coaches, and they all have great, cool stories. You think it would be the same thing over and over again. And it's not. Megan Henry [00:01:49]: It's definitely not. That, I think is what's so cool, the just diverse backgrounds of all of us. Jeremy Gruensteiner [00:01:57]: Yeah. And we'll talk a little bit about yours coming up. Megan Henry [00:02:00]: Definitely. Jeremy Gruensteiner [00:02:01]: Before we do that, I have a weird question for you. Are you ready? Megan Henry [00:02:04]: Yes. Jeremy Gruensteiner [00:02:05]: Right. The one I had planned, we're going to stick with it because originally we had a scheduling issue we were going to record on Halloween day. So it's still going to get a bit of a Halloween theme to this question. Do vampires prefer arterial or venial blood? Megan Henry [00:02:29]: Oh, my gosh. I don't know. Well, I guess arterial because they usually bite in the neck, so I guess arterial. Jeremy Gruensteiner [00:02:45]: Okay. Megan Henry [00:02:47]: There's some things that's why I do, but yeah, true. Jeremy Gruensteiner [00:02:52]: Any other reasons why you'd pick arterial? Megan Henry [00:03:00]: I feel not that I have any basis for this. I just feel like it would have more nutrients. I don't know. That's my impression. I feel like they would prefer that. Jeremy Gruensteiner [00:03:13]: All right. Something I saw posed online, and I was like, that would be a great Halloween question. And also but I love it. It's something you don't necessarily think about of something from popular culture, of like, we just think that they just drink blood, but what kind of blood? Where do they get it from. Megan Henry [00:03:31]: Oh, my gosh, I love Halloween. I love Halloween. So I competed in the winter sport of skeleton, and it takes place from October to March. And so I, for over a decade, missed Halloween. I was either training on it, I raced on Halloween, and so every now and then I would dress up, like, maybe the day before, or wear a weird outfit. So if you don't know what skeleton is, skeleton is a winter sport. It takes place on the same track as Bob Sled. If you ever saw the movie Cool Runnings, and it's like Louge, but headfirst. Megan Henry [00:04:08]: So you're laying on your stomach on essentially a lunch tray looking thing of a sled, and you run as fast as you can jump on it, and you're steering with just your body weight, and you experience up to five G's of force, and you're going 85 plus miles per hour. So in training, I would wear some crazy outfit if I wasn't racing on the day of Halloween, wear a crazy outfit. Or one time I was a Green Lantern, but it is my favorite holiday. And so this year, I got to go trick or treating with my nieces, and I haven't been trick or treating in 15 years, 20 years. So that was also a really fun. Jeremy Gruensteiner [00:04:57]: Experience that's super cool and segues perfectly into talking about you and unconventional ways that you show up in the world. Skeleton is a pretty unique sport. Some could say it's a bit weird. Is that something? You five years old, you're like, I'm going to do that. How did you come to this sport? How did you discover it and get to that space where you were competing internationally with it? Megan Henry [00:05:31]: So I played sports my whole life. I was blessed with athleticism from mostly my father. And that was just one of the gifts I was given and one of the desires I was given when I took this human form. And I really enjoyed competition and training for something, which is funny because I actually grew up as being really shy, very shy, not a confident person. I say that I'm an extroverted introvert because I was just very much to myself, very empathic. And as I got older, I'm much more talkative and things like that now. But if I enter a room, I'm not going to be taking over the room when I walk in. I guess my outlet really was competing in sports. Megan Henry [00:06:22]: And so I played field hockey in college. I ran truck as well. And then I joined the army after I graduated from college. And during that time, I was recruited to try bobsled. And all of the bobsled girls are to give people perspective. I'm like 125 pounds, five foot two. Bobsled girls are five. Eight ish 170 pounds. Megan Henry [00:06:48]: They're way bigger than I am. They're super muscular, really athletic. I am also very athletic, but it's different. It's different. And so I was recruited to do that. And they were like, you're going to have to put on 50 pounds. I was like, I can't even put on ten pounds of good weight sitting around eating donuts all day. Cheryl so they told me to switch over to skeleton. Megan Henry [00:07:10]: So that's how I got into it. And it's funny that you say that. It's a weird sport because you would not believe the weird people that are attracted to skeleton. Again, it's such a very eclectic, very unique group of people that get drawn to a sport like that. And some of them again, it's all sorts of backgrounds. Like, some of them are PhD students, some are engineers, some are just like, really nerdy, nerdy people that want to have an athletic outlet. They just are from all sorts of backgrounds. And I think it's necessary. Megan Henry [00:07:49]: It's like a prerequisite. You got to be a bit weird to be doing skeleton. And so when I was training for, I went and tried skeleton for the first time. I progressed pretty quickly. I started in 2010 or 2011, and then I was a national champion by 2012, which was very cool. And then I had to sit out for a year because I had blood clots in my lungs caused by a birth control. And I'm very much like how I walk differently. If you're talking about being weird, at the time, my intuition was telling me, don't go on this birth control. Megan Henry [00:08:35]: And I felt like that. I felt like birth control. And I'm not condoning it, but for me, I felt like it was a very strange thing to do. It didn't seem like very natural. It was just not really a good idea. I was pressured to do so because of the relationship that I was in. And then within ten days of starting this birth control, I started to have difficulty breathing. We had to take a combine test, which is like an NFL combine. Megan Henry [00:09:04]: You're being evaluated on your athleticism, your explosives, how strong you are, and the conversation. It was a very scary experience. And I ultimately was hospitalized for that and out for a whole year. And what that taught me was to listen to my intuition. Jeremy Gruensteiner [00:09:28]: Absolutely. Megan Henry [00:09:32]: That's a long answer as to how I got into skeleton and what it's all about, but it was a great chapter of my life that had just ended last year. It just retired from competing last year. Jeremy Gruensteiner [00:09:45]: That's super cool. And also, I suspect that there's something common about Olympic sports, especially ones that have been around for a while with, like, what you said about the eclectic nature of who gets drawn into these things, because the sport that I've competed in, weightlifting also an Olympic sport. Lots of strange folks, especially once you get into the geezer league like I'm in, you see a lot of people where you're like, it's not the people you would expect it to be. Megan Henry [00:10:18]: Right? Jeremy Gruensteiner [00:10:19]: It is the nerds the geeks, not the people who were on necessarily the football team growing up. Megan Henry [00:10:26]: Right. So the gym that I trained at for I did Olympic weightlifting as well. So in March, I competed in Masters nationals and I dropped a ton of weight. I dropped two weight classes. Wow. Initially, it was not intentional. I was in between weight classes and needed to drop to mine. And then I was below and in between again, and I was like, oh, you know what? I'm just going to drop again and stay here title, because I think that I can win. Megan Henry [00:10:53]: And I did. I won. And that was cool. I don't recommend doing what I did, but I learned a lot from that process. But the gym that I train at shout out to New York Weightlifting Academy. There are, again, such a diverse background of people that end up coming to train there. And one of the guys is a priest, and they call him Padre. Everybody just calls him Padre, and his instagram handle. Megan Henry [00:11:23]: So if everybody goes and checks him out sorry, is Padre lifts. It's so funny. Jeremy Gruensteiner [00:11:30]: I've seen this. It's it's one of those things that the sport isn't I'm assuming skeleton is the same way. They're fairly niche, and so once you start poking your head outside of your gym walls, and you start to realize, oh, there's actually not that many people in this sport. Megan Henry [00:11:49]: Yeah. Jeremy Gruensteiner [00:11:50]: You're like, oh, I know this person, and they know this person, and they know this person. And then before you know it, you're hanging out with Olympians and you go, Wait, how did I get here? Yeah. Megan Henry [00:12:01]: It'S interesting because Olympic sports have such a reputation for, oh, my gosh, it's so amazing that you did this great thing, and when you're in it, you're kind of like, it's not really a big deal, and there's not a lot of money. And that's, I think, what draws the weird people there, because it requires such a drive and dedication to compete at a high level for very little in return. Like, it's very ego driven. Right. The reward is not financial at all, and I guess it's the fame and the notoriety. But in skeleton. So you only get to do skeleton for six months out of the year. And when you go into a race, you get three training days, two runs each. Megan Henry [00:12:53]: Mind you, it takes a minute or less on most tracks to get down. So you have six minutes of training to be an expert before you race. And if you're new and you've never been, your experience compounds the more you go. But you usually go to a track once a year. Right. So it takes a long time to reach that supposed 10,000 hours rule. You'll never get that in skeleton. And so, one, we use a lot of visualization, and at the same time, because you get such few runs and you're chasing this experience of having a really good run or fixing something, it becomes a very addictive thing. Megan Henry [00:13:38]: And same thing in weightlifting, right? Like, perfecting technique and having a really good snatch, no pun intended. Having a really good snatch or something that's very technical. When you do it right, it becomes very addictive in a way that you're like, pursuing that same high. And so I think that's what keeps people around. It's like, well, I'm so close to just nailing this. Jeremy Gruensteiner [00:14:05]: Yeah. Even when people are new at it, they know when it feels right. Megan Henry [00:14:11]: Right. Jeremy Gruensteiner [00:14:12]: They know what it was like, oh, that's how that's supposed to feel. Oh, okay. Coming back to this idea of visualization, how has the practice of visualization from your skeleton days, how have you carried that into your life? Megan Henry [00:14:28]: Oh, this is a solid question. So I loved visualization as an athlete. I used it all of the time. I went back to school for sports psychology, and now most of my clients are athletes, or at least in a high performance space. However, I believe we're all high performers. It's just whether you believe that or not and have unlocked that for yourself. So we all are all high performers. And so no matter what it is that you're doing, you can visualize that outcome. Megan Henry [00:15:02]: And what's so cool about visualization is your brain and body. They don't know the difference between something real and imagined. So what's a goal that you have, for example, for the remainder of this. Jeremy Gruensteiner [00:15:15]: Year, let's say, put me on the spot, everything I have is further out than a year. Megan Henry [00:15:23]: Okay, well, no, that is fine. Whatever your big well, for me right. Jeremy Gruensteiner [00:15:27]: Now, I guess one is for the end of the year, is to get my first seven coaching clients for my new business. Megan Henry [00:15:35]: Yay. So if you were my client, for example, I would have you visualize that. What does that look like? What does that feel like? When you have your seven clients, how does that make you feel? Like tapping into the feeling? Visualizing is awesome. Right. And having that intention. However, the feeling is really what makes it more effective, because you're involving the somatic process, the whole part of your body as well, and emotion. And that's a huge driver. And what's really cool that we used and enlisted is the story work piece. Megan Henry [00:16:13]: So I've been helping out with my former field hockey team, which is very rewarding, and they're going into their state championships today. And so the coach was actually a bit nervous going into today. And so I said, if you're ruminating and worrying before you go to bed, I want you to write the story of how the game went and write it in past tense as if it's already happened. Full sentences, the whole shebang and he did. And that sort of thing can be really powerful. Yes, the written part is very effective, and even sometimes I'll have people record themselves telling this story and listening to themselves because your voice is so powerful, like, the hearing the sound of your own voice and the vibration of your own voice is very powerful as well. And so I use it for me in terms of things that I want to accomplish now. And one of the things that I'm drawing into me is abundance and what that feels like when I have that and trying to carry that experience now, because your subconscious mind won't let you experience anything that you don't believe is possible. Megan Henry [00:17:32]: So a lot of it is repetition and you're brainwashing yourself in a way. And when I was an athlete, so I went into Olympic Trials because I'm in the Army, I wasn't allowed to compete or travel or go anywhere during COVID And it was very frustrating at the time. And I do believe everything happens for a reason, but it's tough when you only have six months out of the year to do a sport and then you can't even do it. You're losing out on a lot of experience. So I spent a lot of time visualizing and I went into so everybody's training and competing the whole year except for me. And so I had to go into Olympic Trials that we were having at the end of that season, prior to the Olympic season with very few training runs. And so I had visualized myself setting the track records. We compete in Park City, Utah, and Lake Placid, New York. Megan Henry [00:18:32]: And so I had visualized over and over, what does that look like? What does it feel like? I visualized exact even times, and I did both of those things. Jeremy Gruensteiner [00:18:43]: Is it something like you're taking specific turns on the track at certain times, you're hitting it at these specific times, knowing exactly where you're going to be, what angle you're going to hit? Megan Henry [00:18:54]: Yeah, the thing that I tapped into the most was like, yes, how do I want to feel when I'm doing this, when I'm actually on the sled? And also, what is it like when it's done? What's the end product? Because I think sometimes and I've done this too, I did this during my Olympic year. So I didn't make an Olympic team because I was trying to control every single outcome, like every race result leading up to the Olympics rather than so when I competed in the weightlifting, the Masters Nationals, initially, I visualized a ton for that too, and visualizing myself making all of the attempts and PR and everything else. And then I went into the day and my intuition was like, it doesn't matter if you make all of your attempts. It doesn't matter if you PR. What matters is you want to win the title. That's the goal of today. And so what ended up happening is I actually failed one of my snatch attempts. And had I been so attached to making that because this is what happened to me during my olympic year, I was so attached to these results and getting them or not getting them or attached to old results I had. Megan Henry [00:20:07]: And in this weightlifting contest, if I had been so attached to, oh, my gosh, I'm not going to go six for six, then it would have been just off a cliff. The whole performance would have but I was like, that's okay, I can still win. I can still win. And so that, I think, is so important about visualization and visualizing that end product of whatever it is that you want, any goal. It could be you want to be in a happy relationship. It could be that you want a car, it could be a job. What does the end product look like? Because all of the little details aren't up to us, right? That's the universe. That's like the beauty of having that surprise of how that happens. Megan Henry [00:20:50]: That's how I incorporate visualization. Now it's just even with other goals that I want visualizing the end result. What does that look like? What does it feel like when I have that thing? Jeremy Gruensteiner [00:21:02]: Yeah, so you talked about the how of this. Why would you suppose that people get really attached to the how when they're talking about goals and wanting to achieve big things? Megan Henry [00:21:17]: Because our mind likes predictability for safety, right? So it feels nice if we can predict. And we want to control every aspect because it makes us feel safe. It makes us feel like we're doing something. And in reality, it could be hindering you. So it's like rather than focusing on controlling, I say that with a caveat because I do think and this is something I do say is like, we control what we can control. So, for example, if you're an athlete, let's say you're doing weightlifting, for example, we can control what our diet looks like, what our training looks like, our sleep, our recovery, our attitude, our self talk, our body language. These are all things that are within our control, whereas who wins and the actual outcome is not. We can set an intention that we want to win, but what makes sports so exciting is that that's not always predictable. Megan Henry [00:22:18]: And that's why we compete in sports, because it's fun. You could have a total underdog come in and absolutely destroy everybody else. And the person who is the best isn't guaranteed to win. That's what makes sports fun. That's what makes it exciting. So we can have that intention of, like, okay, yes, we want to win. However we can't control if you're in a sport where there's umpires or there's weather conditions or you can't control all these other aspects or, like, the crowd. And so the way that we can best, quote, unquote, control that outcome that we're looking for is by focusing and honing in on the things we can control. Megan Henry [00:22:59]: And a lot of that has to do with our preparation, our effort, our attitude, our self talk and the detachment from the outcome and just being fully present and in it when we're actually competing and doing the thing yeah, exactly. Jeremy Gruensteiner [00:23:17]: To something you mentioned earlier, of the amount of times that I've seen people completely collapse on a missed first attempt. They miss their snatch opener and they've thrown in the towel already. Megan Henry [00:23:30]: Yeah, it happens a lot. And an easy thing that I would recommend in that and that what I used as well, is to be like, So what next that's not like me, or just, So what? Okay. And it takes a lot of awareness and a lot of self discipline to do that. That's certainly not easy if that's your first time ever thinking like, oh, I'm going into this competition, and now I got to tell myself, so what? It takes practice and a lot of self awareness, which is why I think things such as meditation and breath work are really good because it allows you to, one, be the observer of your own thoughts, but have practice being present and just trying to detach from those thoughts, too. Jeremy Gruensteiner [00:24:22]: Yeah, there is on my own journey with that, of learning to have fun bombing out. Yeah, that was one of the most eye opening experiences for me as far as what that looks like. Getting ready to set a Pan Am qualifying total and bombing out and still having everybody's, like, walking around on eggshells around you. You can tell that's a big deal. And you're, like, slapping backs and giving high fives, cracking jokes, and everybody's very confused of what's going on that is so powerful. Megan Henry [00:25:03]: Because that is weird, right? Jeremy Gruensteiner [00:25:05]: Yes, exactly. Megan Henry [00:25:08]: But that's where your power lies in being able to do something like that or to reframe. I remember training in the off season, and if I was doing something that was absolutely in the suck, right? I don't like this activity, I would audibly say out loud, this is my favorite thing. I love doing this. And people know I hate this thing, right? People around me. So they'd be like, look it out, and be like, what? But I'm telling myself, like, this is good. This is what's making me better. I just saw a video yesterday on social media, of course, of a video that had it was like a ramp with two marbles on it. I posted it on my story. Megan Henry [00:25:54]: And so one of the ramps is totally flat, and the other one has little hills on it, up and down, and they let go of both of the marbles. And you would think that the one that's flat is going to win, but it's actually the one that has these ups and downs because it gains the momentum, ends up beating the other one. And the whole metaphor for that is that your failures, the ups and downs, are actually what make you grow. They make you propel you forward and help you. And people are really afraid to push themselves to failure. And that is where all of the growth comes from. And that experience of it's unrealistic to think that you're never going to fail a lift. It's unrealistic. Megan Henry [00:26:45]: Go ahead. Jeremy Gruensteiner [00:26:46]: Looking at a competition, it's like, well, okay, you failed the lift. Have you failed the lift before? Have you missed in training? Okay. Did that actually mean anything about you? Megan Henry [00:26:57]: Right. Jeremy Gruensteiner [00:26:59]: Somehow, when it's on the competition platform or even in training, we start to assign that this means something about us, and it doesn't. Right? You're in the wrong place, wrong time. Mistimed didn't sleep well enough. There's so many variables there. But then we take it personally. Megan Henry [00:27:16]: Definitely. I know. It's like putting it on a pedestal in a way. And that's why people end up also choking, because they end up going and doing something, and they start overthinking and trying too hard. When you start trying hard, you actually create resistance. You create a gap and separation between this thing that you want, and it's like you've done this a million times. It's just that you're in a different. Jeremy Gruensteiner [00:27:39]: Room, we're in a different outfit, in a different bunch of people staring at you. Maybe it's silent. There's a lot of things that can happen totally to your point of this changing perspective of things that you don't want to do. I'm sure you've heard this statement that fun is an opinion. Megan Henry [00:28:01]: Yeah. Jeremy Gruensteiner [00:28:02]: Difficult and hard are also opinions. Megan Henry [00:28:04]: Yeah, this is very true. Jeremy Gruensteiner [00:28:07]: So this is one of the things that something that I've been playing around internally in my brain, contemplating of, like, when people say it takes hard work and it has to be hard. I was like, does it? Megan Henry [00:28:23]: Yeah. Jeremy Gruensteiner [00:28:25]: What if you change your perspective on it? Megan Henry [00:28:28]: Oh, my gosh, I really hope the listeners take that, because how different would you show up if you were able to adopt that belief and be like, well, does it need to be hard? Does making money need to be that's a common belief, right? That money making money. It has to be hard. You got to work hard. Yeah, okay. There's things that certainly have to be done, but does it have to be hard? Do we have to take that perspective that makes it way less fun? Jeremy Gruensteiner [00:28:58]: Well, it creates this expectation that it's not going to be enjoyable, right? Megan Henry [00:29:05]: Exactly. Jeremy Gruensteiner [00:29:06]: And so a quote that keeps coming up for me, I actually have it written down on my monitor over here is that the magic you're looking for is in the work that you're avoiding? Megan Henry [00:29:15]: Oh, I like that. Jeremy Gruensteiner [00:29:17]: And so if something is difficult, something's hard, you view it as like, I don't want to do this because I don't like it. Things like that. Okay, so now you're going to avoid it, right. And you're going to sit and go, oh, if only the magic would just happen and I could just manifest it, the universe would just provide it for me. Well, it's right there. It has provided it to you and you're willfully ignoring it because you say that's too hard. Megan Henry [00:29:48]: Wow. Jeremy Gruensteiner [00:29:50]: Is it actually too hard? Or you just don't want it enough? Megan Henry [00:29:53]: Yeah. If you change that perspective, though, then you would likely want it more. Right. If you end up enjoying the which is, I think, what athletes are good at. They're good at enjoying the off season. Right. And enjoying the monotonous. There's stuff about offseason preparation that is very redundant. Megan Henry [00:30:18]: Especially if you're in weight class sports or something. Even like bodybuilding, like you're eating the same meals over and over. That's very redundant. So that could be seen as boring. Right. Or hard. Jeremy Gruensteiner [00:30:33]: However, in the bodybuilding sorry to interrupt, but in the bodybuilding world of, like, watching, I have no desire to compete in bodybuilding, and yet I'm fascinated by with what some of them can do mentally as well. I know the types of training that they do. All the different opinions on how you achieve hypertrophy. I'm watching somebody like Dr. Mike isratel puke in a garbage can after every leg day that he has and somehow he loves this. And I go, that's a whole different switch to flip where people can say, that's crazy and psychotic. Is it, though? He's found something that he's truly passionate about and wants to do, and yet he's found a way to enjoy all the things that you would normally be uncomfortable with. Megan Henry [00:31:23]: Oh, my gosh. Definitely one of my friends that is a Navy Seal. And he was just weird. He was weird and he did he just loved that stuff, the stuff that they go through in steel training is not my ideal day. Right. But he just found how to generate the enjoyment from it because he knew it was contributing to his overall growth as a human and just he was so into it. Can you adopt that mentality? How different? I'm loving this conversation because I'm like, how different would I be if I was adopting? That about doing the dishes, right. Or the laundry. Megan Henry [00:32:16]: Just every little thing that you're like, I don't feel like doing that. Jeremy Gruensteiner [00:32:19]: Yeah, exactly. Or then it creates a situation where it starts to pile up and then you start to feel even worse about it and it creates that snowball effect of all of these. So it becomes even more negative. And then what? Megan Henry [00:32:33]: Yeah, that goes back to I need to do this, I should do this. That type of pressure language. And then it just builds into this thing. Yeah. Jeremy Gruensteiner [00:32:45]: And then by that point, it's so overwhelming that you don't know where to start. And it's hard and difficult to take action. It'll be posted before this comes out by a long shot because I was just finishing it up. I was talking about you saw my other wait, no, sorry. It's a different person. But you can't see it right now. So I've got this little timer, this. Is becoming my new best friend, because anytime I have that resistance of something like the dishes, I don't want to do the dishes. Jeremy Gruensteiner [00:33:18]: Well, do you have to complete the dishes right now? No, I don't have to complete the dishes right now. Can you do five minutes of dishes? Okay. Megan Henry [00:33:26]: Yeah. Jeremy Gruensteiner [00:33:27]: Set five minutes. All right, so five minutes is done. I can either keep going, or I can say, that's enough, and then I have this choice. And I also did five minutes. Megan Henry [00:33:37]: That's amazing. I just did an instagram live talking about, like, I don't want to do whatever, and how you can be if you notice yourself saying that, then you can be like, okay, what is it that I want to do? Or do I need to do the dishes? Or do I need to do laundry? Do I have absolutely no clothes? Because then, okay, I can do five minutes. I can do one load of laundry. So you're, like, giving yourself that choice, which I think relieves again that pressure and that guilt, and making it into this big thing in reality, is doing dishes this monstrous task? No. And it's not always something that we're jumping for joy to do. I like that, though. I like giving yourself the timer and the choice of being like, okay, I can do this for five like, I can do anything for five minutes. Right? So that's cool. Megan Henry [00:34:37]: I like that a lot. Jeremy Gruensteiner [00:34:38]: There's one thing. So we were talking about this. This is something that just popped into my head. New thought, perhaps, new perspective for myself, at least. We were talking about with goals of getting hung up on the attachment of the steps of how I'm going to do this. It's supposed to be this specific path and these things something that I wonder is, do we get really attached to this idea of, I have this goal, it has to go exactly this way, because that also gives us an out when it doesn't go the way we expect it to. It's like committing to a diet. Well, Monday I failed and I ate the donut. Megan Henry [00:35:21]: Well, I'm done. Jeremy Gruensteiner [00:35:22]: Might as well throw it away, start again next week. Megan Henry [00:35:25]: Yeah, that's a good question. I think, in a way, it is also when people give themselves an out when they make negative expectations or when they're like, something good happened. Like, let's say, okay, I won. I won the Masters Nationals weightlifting competition. And if I was just that was that was just luck. It was just giving, like, an out so that just in case I compete again, I can be like, well, last time I was lucky, right? And I don't know why we do that, but it's like, yo, give yourself credit. Like, be your own hype man there and be like, I worked really hard for this, and I'm really proud of it. And even if I didn't do that, I am so proud of how I showed up today and being able to give yourself that pat on the back because we've been brainwashed for whatever reason to think that being proud of yourself as a negative, I think just from narcissistic people like, yes, there's narcissistic people that exist. Megan Henry [00:36:39]: However, being proud of yourself and being narcissistic are very different things. Jeremy Gruensteiner [00:36:45]: Yes. Megan Henry [00:36:46]: So it's a shame that that's the perspective that greater society has. So a lot of people will be like, they don't know how to accept those compliments. Like I know Mark England is like, okay, if somebody compliments you, say thank, right. You don't have to give some explanation like, oh thanks, well I'm just lucky or you're going to get it next know, you push the compliment back onto the other person. Super interesting. Why we do that? Jeremy Gruensteiner [00:37:20]: Add something. I just forgot it. Megan Henry [00:37:23]: That's okay. Jeremy Gruensteiner [00:37:28]: 1 second. Megan Henry [00:37:29]: I'll give it to you. I'll give you a second to think before I start talking and go ahead. Jeremy Gruensteiner [00:37:37]: It'll come back. It'll come back. I flung the boomerang too far and I can't see it anymore. But it'll come back. Megan Henry [00:37:46]: It will come back. It will come back. I was just going to say about taking that the perspective shift can be illustrated that we were talking about before. The perspective shift is like if you were sitting in your room watching TV and it's raining outside and you had no intentions of going outside, would you care that it's raining? No. If it was your wedding day and it was raining on your wedding day and you had an outdoor wedding, would you care that it's raining? Most likely, yeah. If you were a farmer and there was a drought and it's finally raining, you'd be ecstatic. So it's just like you have three people experiencing something totally different and just being able to be like, I can take that perspective. No matter what person I am, if I'm the person sitting in my room, if I have the wedding, or if I'm the farmer, I have the ability to shift my perspective to that. Megan Henry [00:38:43]: And I think that the quicker we're able to do something like that, especially when something isn't going, quote, unquote, our way that is so powerful to be able to it allows you to come back to neutral quicker and be grateful for everything that we're experiencing. So something I was going to touch on before when you were talking about trying to control every aspect of things and does that give us an out then, if it doesn't go our way? So when I was training for Skeleton, I was an Olympic alternate. I missed the Olympic team by twelve points. And I learned so much from not making an Olympic team, truly. And there's obviously emotion that go with that, right? I dedicated a decade of my life exclusively to one thing. So there was certainly disappointment. I'm not saying that there's no emotion involved. I was very heartbroken, I was very sad. Megan Henry [00:39:47]: At the same time I was able to be like, this is good, this is a good thing for me for having to have this experience, to be able to deal with it emotionally, to recognize it's not representative of me or saying something negative of me because I did everything that I could have given the circumstances. And the quicker that we can be our own sort of therapist or coach, really coach in that moment and being like, this sucks right now, I'm allowed to feel this way. It's good though, it's good. And I think people get stuck when they don't allow themselves to feel that emotion of being like I am fucking frustrated, I am pissed off. Right, give yourself permission to feel that way and then be like, okay, what's the quickest way I can come back to neutral? Jeremy Gruensteiner [00:40:44]: Yeah. And many times it's expressing the actual emotion that is happening versus again, trying to wrestle it, control it, stuff it, do whatever, medicate it, who knows? Yeah, they're going to come back at some point. The boomerang came back, by the way. Megan Henry [00:41:00]: Oh good. Jeremy Gruensteiner [00:41:02]: And it comes right into what you're talking about here of ten years in skeleton. Does that mean that because you didn't make an Olympic team, does that mean that you have no skills, nothing that you learned this entire process? Megan Henry [00:41:18]: Right? I have a lot of skills from skeleton and I think even more so from not making an Olympic team. I think it makes me such a better coach in terms of being able to learn from the mistakes that I made and impart the lessons that I learned on other people. So I think it makes me a better coach. And then just the whole process of having the ups and downs and being able to be resilient and overcome obstacles. There were so many things that I was able to do and I would not be who I am today without those experiences. I just became such a different person through skeleton. Jeremy Gruensteiner [00:42:04]: Truly, that's really rad. And something that what led to this thought or this point is in talking about performing well on a platform or performing well in a competition and making it easy to explain away a compliment or say it was all luck and things like that of well, maybe perhaps my training wasn't perfect this twelve week cycle. Or something happened. Things were less than ideal. Is it ever just those twelve weeks of preparation or was it everything else that you had in front of that too? So taking a look at that, of even those of us who recreationally lift or recreationally compete, it's an interesting thought because I've fallen into this before too, of like oh, it's a local meet and I need to have it's the biggest local meet and I need to have the world's best training. I need to be so prepared for it. Can I just show up and just be yeah, exactly, that was a major shift for me, and I work to impart that with my lifters that I work with is show up. Let's actually enjoy ourselves again. Jeremy Gruensteiner [00:43:25]: It's that perspective shift and know that there's always going to be another one, or as long as you want. There will always be more. And even if this training wasn't optimal, you're still going to get something out of competing. You're still definitely carrying all the lessons that you learned along the way. And so it's either you can focus on all the ways that you failed, all the ways that you lost, or you can focus on all the things that you already have. Megan Henry [00:43:57]: I love that. And it's like, can you just perform to the best of your ability on that day, whatever that is, you could wake up and feel like, sick or whatever, like, well, can I perform to the best of my ability? And I think giving yourself permission again to be like, I feel like I'm at 70%, so I'm going to let myself give 70% rather than putting the pressure on myself to give 110%. If you do that, your performance is likely going to be 50%, whereas if you say, okay, I can give 70%, you're probably going to be 90 plus percent because you just gave yourself the permission to be like, I don't have the expectation to shatter the earth here. Today. Jeremy Gruensteiner [00:44:46]: Reality being is that 70% is 100% for that day, right? Megan Henry [00:44:50]: Yeah. Jeremy Gruensteiner [00:44:50]: You are giving it 100%. Megan Henry [00:44:54]: Of the time. It works every time. Jeremy Gruensteiner [00:44:56]: Exactly. And also, can you do that in your day to day life and not just in performance situations of competition and whatnot, being able to truly be honest with yourself and those around you of where you are? Yeah, that's something that I know I have ignored a lot and some days also ignore because the to do list seems far too important. If I don't achieve this thing today, that means I'll never achieve my goal again. These big, crazy, big picture stories that we tell ourselves. And the reality is, well, if I just took the five minute break, if I just took the 15 minutes walk, would I actually do better? That's only one way to find out. Megan Henry [00:45:50]: So in flow science, in sports, okay, if you're in the zone, and that's usually when you're the most present, you're having the most fun, and that's when your truest self is able to appear, your truest self. All of the potential from all of your training, that's where people have really amazing, amazing moments in sport. And what's really interesting about the corporate world, business world, recreational sport world, where you're balancing your one focus isn't just sports, right? I've got a life, I've got a work life. And all that is that people in the workplace are expected to be on all the time and they haven't adopted the recovery process that like an athlete has. And when you do adopt that as a person who's in the workplace, you are able to give so much more because you only have so much bandwidth mentally that you're able to use in a day. And so if you're just constantly going through depleting, depleting, depleting all day without having any of these recovery moments within a flow cycle, for example, like taking that walk, doing some breath work, doing a sauna, whatever it is, then it's difficult. Your battery is a little lower the next day and a little lower, and you eventually get to burnout. And so in order for to take some lessons from the athlete world and bring it over to the corporate side, adopting that recovery process to allow you to use your brain better the next day versus wake up feeling depleted, that's so important. Megan Henry [00:47:36]: And so I agree with you. It's so easy to get lost in a list of items, actionable items, that we're supposed to check off if we can just take a few minutes to allow ourselves to recover, especially because we're so screen heavy, right? We're always on zoom calls and on the phone and on this and that, and being able to just step outside and give ourselves a breather is so powerful, even just a few minutes. So I really like that you touched on that. Jeremy Gruensteiner [00:48:07]: Yeah, that endless to do list. One of the things that I remind myself of, has anybody ever gotten to a point where they say, well, I did everything. There's no more work in the world to do. Everything's done, and yet we like, well, I have to finish my to do list. I have to get everything done. It's like there's always more work. Megan Henry [00:48:30]: Yeah, there's always to do list doesn't come to zero. Jeremy Gruensteiner [00:48:36]: So if that's true, then why do I have all this pressure to cross everything off? Megan Henry [00:48:42]: Yeah. Jeremy Gruensteiner [00:48:43]: Who could I be without that? Megan Henry [00:48:46]: Exactly. Who could I be without that thought? Who would you be without your story. Jeremy Gruensteiner [00:48:51]: Exactly in your path as an athlete and now into a coach? What's the number one lesson that you've taken from your time as an athlete into your time as a coach, either for yourself or the people that you work with? Megan Henry [00:49:14]: Oh, this is such a good question. I really like that. I think it's easy as an athlete to compare yourself to other people. And I mean, this is true in life in general, to be comparing, especially with social media and everything, and how we show up and compare ourselves to ourselves. That, I think, is the biggest thing that I learned in skeleton, and one of the things when I was competing in skeleton was that so they announce your times, right? When you're going and training and stuff, you can hear everybody's times in a race, they're announcing times. They put a timesheet up in between heats. There's two heats. Usually in a race, in the first heat, it's just there's a random start order. Megan Henry [00:50:05]: It's a random draw. And then the second heat goes from slowest to fastest. And what I used to do is I'd put headphones on or if I didn't have headphones, like I had just finished my run, I would tune out. I wouldn't listen to any times. I had no idea. This is when I was doing my best. I didn't do this Olympic year, which is funny, but when I was performing my best, I had no idea what other people were doing. I wasn't listening, I wasn't paying attention. Megan Henry [00:50:34]: I was focusing on me and how I was feeling. And so it's easy to feel like when you get out into the world like, oh, well, I should have all these clients and I should be making this much money and this person's got this house, my friend's married. They have know it's easy to fall into that trap of comparison. And something that I've heard before from Derek Grant is his name. He's another mindset coach. He's like, you are the goat of your reality because you're the only one who's had the same experiences and obstacles and overcoming stuff. Like your situation is so different from someone else's. And how do you know that your day one isn't their day 5000? You don't know. Megan Henry [00:51:25]: Truly, it's not a fair comparison to make. I don't really like using the word fair, but it's not it's not a fair comparison to be like, well, this person's doing that, so I should be doing this. The journey that you're on is perfect for you. The highs and the lows for me, for me, not making an Olympic team, that was perfect for me because I was meant to learn something from that. I was meant to grow from that. And so that's the biggest lesson that I've taken from skeleton and into the sports world. And even coaching and imparting on other people is like, what you're doing is awesome no matter what the outcome. Because let's say you don't accomplish this goal that you have, then we could learn from that. Megan Henry [00:52:16]: There was a reason why. So we can adjust and make new plans and move forward. There's always something to get out of it. And so I would say that's the biggest thing that I've taken from skeleton over into the real world. Jeremy Gruensteiner [00:52:31]: Very cool. Yeah, that's a very astute and sage like advice for folks. Megan Henry [00:52:40]: It's funny you say that because so my instagram handle is the savage Meglet. And I say that there is I'm also a Gemini. I was born in June, so I may or may not have two sides to so but what I say is there's two sides to either being an athlete or being a high performer of any kind again, which we all are. Is there's the savage side, the one that works hard, that's diligent is driven and resilient and all these things? And then there's the sage that has this wisdom. It's the more enlifted side of you and it does. It takes this balance of these two personalities, these two characteristics to have that success. There's certainly work that needs to be done in the gym, for example. However, you also have to recover. Megan Henry [00:53:33]: You also have to you get to you get to recover, you get to do mindset work, you get to visualize, you get to work on your self talk and self loving and all of these other things. Because if you were just constantly working out in the gym and let's say you worked out 24 hours a day and you never went to sleep, you wouldn't be getting better. There's only so much that you could take. Same thing, like you've got calluses on your hands. If you keep ripping open a callus over and over and over, your hands are going to be destroyed. You can't even lift after that. Right there comes a point on the bell curve, the tipping point that it requires this balance between those two things of the savage and the sage. Jeremy Gruensteiner [00:54:18]: That's really rad. Megan Henry [00:54:20]: Thank you. Jeremy Gruensteiner [00:54:21]: Yeah, it's that concept of being whole. Megan Henry [00:54:28]: Yeah. Jeremy Gruensteiner [00:54:30]: If you only ever focus on the dark parts of yourself, how often can you actually bring forward the light and vice versa? If you're only ever focused on loving the light versions of yourself and shunning away all of that darkness that you may have or the negativity that you have, it's like learning to love yourself in a much more holistic manner. Megan Henry [00:54:52]: I would say that that is what I learned from my athletic career because I was very different when I first started skeleton. I was very negative, very perfectionistic, and had this journey going into meditation and mindfulness and all these things because I recognized that I was being insane. I was expecting different results, I was doing the same thing, expecting different results. And so I was like, I know my mindset and the things I'm telling myself are not helping me accomplish what I want to accomplish. And I luckily was able to recognize that and I was able to go through all of that learning to love these parts of me and examine them. I had to ask myself and do that inner work of being like, why do I do what I do? Or why do I believe these things? And that's not necessarily easy and it can be really scary for people, but it's so powerful to know thyself and to be able to be like, I love me anyway, even though I am a perfectionist person or whatever the case may be. A lot of power comes from that. Jeremy Gruensteiner [00:56:17]: Very cool. As we start to wrap up our conversation today, any final thoughts that you would like to leave the listeners with? Any last nuggets of wisdom? Words of wisdom? Megan Henry [00:56:28]: It's hard to pick one. One of the things that I love saying and I love telling people is that, one, we are given our desires for a reason. So again, like mine was to be an athlete. And so if you have a desire, you have everything that you need inside of you to accomplish that thing. And that is the joy and the journey of being able to uncover how you are able to accomplish this thing, whatever that may be. And it could be that you don't accomplish that thing in this lifetime. However, your journey is still learning to like, I want to be an absolute multimillionaire and my intention is to create that in this lifetime. If I don't, I still learned and progressed and did all these cool things to try and get there. Megan Henry [00:57:20]: Right? And so I would say that you are given those desires for a reason. And again, you have everything you need inside of you and you're not lacking it, you're blocking it. And so if you can do that inner work and discover why you think the way that you think and what are the stories that I'm telling myself, and maybe get with a coach, get with Jeremy and sort some of that stuff out, you can make so much progress when you invest in yourself and invest in that journey because it's so rewarding. So, again, you have your desires for a reason and you have everything you need inside of you to accomplish those things. Jeremy Gruensteiner [00:58:01]: Powerful words. Love it. Anything that you would like to let the listeners know? Anything that you have going on that you'd like to promote, how they can get in touch with you? Anything else that you would like to share? Megan Henry [00:58:15]: So I am at the Savage Meglet on all social media platforms. I'm most active on Instagram, so you can shoot me a DM or any questions. I'm always open to answering them. I love connecting with people and I'm creating a 90 day journal. It's going to be like a morning journal and to help you establish better routines and habits of excellence. I'm just starting that process, so I don't have a release date at the moment, but my goal is the end of the year. Jeremy Gruensteiner [00:58:48]: This episode will be as you're listening to it, it'll be somewhere in December. Megan Henry [00:58:53]: Perfect. Jeremy Gruensteiner [00:58:53]: It'll be close. Yes. Megan Henry [00:58:56]: Amazing. Jeremy Gruensteiner [00:58:56]: And we will have links to get in contact with Meg in the show notes, so feel free to take a peek at those. Thank you so much for being here. This was a treat of a conversation. I know that my day is going to be a lot better and brighter and more fun because of it. So thank you so much for being here and thank you so much for being you. Megan Henry [00:59:19]: Thank you. Thank you for being weird and strong. I feel like that's a description for myself, so this was so fitting. Thanks so much, Jerry. Jeremy Gruensteiner [00:59:26]: Yeah, awesome. And thank you all for listening. Until next time, stay strong, folks. And most importantly, stay weird.

Jeremy Gruensteiner [00:00:01]: Welcome back, everybody, to the Weird and Strong podcast. This episode was a long time coming, and very special to me, we've got my brother Brian Osuna on the show. We talk all about his background, from collegiate wrestler to becoming an inventor to now working in the sound healing space, and all of the exciting things that come with that and all of the side stories that we get into this whole podcast. I'm excited for you to listen. So without further delay, let's get weird, folks. Welcome, Brian Osuna to the weird and strong podcast. How are you doing today, brother? Bryan Osuna [00:00:39]: Feeling great, man. Feeling alive, as you got to witness a little bit thriving in the midst of the chaos, which is being a dad to two young boys and feeling good about it, man. Feeling resourced. And I'm feeling energized about talking to you today. Jeremy Gruensteiner [00:00:56]: Oh, yeah, I'm excited for this. It's been a moment since we've been able to reconnect, and so it's great to see you, great to hear your voice. And I have a weird question for you. Are you ready? Bryan Osuna [00:01:07]: I'm ready. Jeremy Gruensteiner [00:01:10]: Yeah. I was considering this for so long, of which question do I ask Brian? And we're going to go back to an oldie but a goodie, which I love, is a quesadilla, a grilled cheese sandwich? No. Okay. Why? Bryan Osuna [00:01:32]: Well, for me, it comes down to the essence and the experience of a grilled cheese sandwich versus a quesadilla. Okay. And also, I guess part of it is a personal answer because to me, a grilled cheese sandwich is more of like a wholesome kind of like, rainy day food that your mom would make you. But the big differentiating factor for me is the bread. Right? Jeremy Gruensteiner [00:02:09]: Okay. Bryan Osuna [00:02:10]: Like, the experience of the bread really makes the grilled cheese sandwich a grilled cheese sandwich. Jeremy Gruensteiner [00:02:16]: So, like, the thickness of it, the fluffy yeah, got it. Bryan Osuna [00:02:19]: The butter slathered on it, and there's some crunchiness to it. There can be crunchiness to a quesadilla, of course, but there's something about the experience of the bread that my brain just goes in, my spirit goes no. Quesadilla is very different. Jeremy Gruensteiner [00:02:36]: Okay. Bryan Osuna [00:02:36]: And for me, quesadilla is like in college, it was like my go to after party food. Just put anything you can put in a tortilla with melted cheese. Call it a quesadilla. Sometimes it turns into a burrito. But yeah, what it boils down to is the experience of the bread. Totally different. Totally different foods. Jeremy Gruensteiner [00:03:00]: All right. Yeah. So you're saying the experience is what drives it more so than the structure for me, but yeah, that's cool. It's always an interesting exploration of what people think. Bryan Osuna [00:03:16]: I'm curious, what's the tally in terms of what people have said about this question? Jeremy Gruensteiner [00:03:25]: It's been primarily no. Bryan Osuna [00:03:28]: Okay. Jeremy Gruensteiner [00:03:29]: The no's are in the majority of that, and also some people have walked themselves through it. Well, structurally, it's got some similarities where a tortilla can be wheat based. It's breadish or it's a type of bread. It's done on a flat top grill. It's got cheese in it. I could see where there could be a confusion of if we had to break it down to its structural elements, that they are very similar in a lot of ways. Bryan Osuna [00:04:06]: I say we stage a debate. Jeremy Gruensteiner [00:04:08]: Stage a debate? Yeah. We'll take over this hot dog sandwich question, and we're going to go into quesadillas. Bryan Osuna [00:04:18]: We got to bring in a chef that specializes in quesadillas and a chef that specializes in grilled cheese sandwiches, and we got to eat them live. And then we got to have a heated debate. Jeremy Gruensteiner [00:04:33]: Yeah. And then you'll have a weirdo like me that will come into it and say, well, it could be a sandwich or it could be a grilled cheese sandwich, but it doesn't matter because they're both salads. Bryan Osuna [00:04:44]: Perfect. What is a salad? A salad. Can we define a salad depending on. Jeremy Gruensteiner [00:04:50]: Which definition that you go based off of? One of the definitions in Miriam Webster particularly is that it is an incongruous. Yeah, we well, so there's an entire GitHub project out there called critical salad theory or just salad theory of looking at how salady something is. Is it a true salad? Is it a hyper Saladoid, or is it a little more soupy? Right. They've created an equation to tell how much of a salad something is based off of the number of ingredients and the number of those ingredients. So if you have a lot of leaves of lettuce and a couple of croutons, it comes out to being fairly high on the salad quotient. Bryan Osuna [00:05:44]: Got it. So you're saying most atheists would say that the universe is a salad. Jeremy Gruensteiner [00:05:52]: I don't know if most probably the stark minority that would say that the. Bryan Osuna [00:05:57]: Universe is valid by definition. Jeremy Gruensteiner [00:06:00]: Yeah. If we would take that light of thought, then yes. Bryan Osuna [00:06:07]: Who made the salad? You got to ask the hard questions, Jeremy. Jeremy Gruensteiner [00:06:17]: A self aware salad. Bryan Osuna [00:06:21]: Self organizing. Jeremy Gruensteiner [00:06:22]: Yeah, exactly. Well, we've talked a little bit about food, which is one of my favorite topics, but we're going to talk more about you, Brian, and we talk about all the things that are unconventional and weird about individuals. You have a very interesting, like, I'm very interested in your path as a person of all of the different types of roles that you have fulfilled, and that, as you described, that you're very much multidimensional of being able to shift in between these roles very well. So tell us a little bit about where did you get your start coming out of high school? Bryan Osuna [00:07:03]: My start? Jeremy Gruensteiner [00:07:05]: Yeah. Bryan Osuna [00:07:05]: Well, what specifically about my start? Do you just want to hear? Jeremy Gruensteiner [00:07:12]: Yeah. What was your driver right out of high school? Where were you going towards? What was the start of adult Brian's life like? Bryan Osuna [00:07:23]: Yeah. Well, on the know, I was still all in on wrestling. I got a scholarship to wrestle at UC Davis which is a school in Sacramento County in California. But I would say underneath the hood, I was really starting to realize that there was a lot more to life to explore. And though I didn't have a lot of healthy guidance and example in that moment to guide me in terms of how to explore that healthfully, it was the way that my path took me. And so going into college, I kind of went full party mode and started to explore those aspects and parts of me that didn't really get a lot of attention and nurturing in high school or before. I guess the curious parts of me that wanted to explore relationships, women, intimacy, having fun in different various ways and just kind of following what was alive in the moment versus just being head down, grinding it out on just one sole focus, which was athletics. Specifically wrestling. Bryan Osuna [00:08:57]: And so college was a messy, beautiful, wild time for me. I did end up wrestling five years in college, so I red shirted, and I had a blast, man. My body was breaking down from a combination of 15 years of wrestling and then not resting enough. We talked a little bit about you're from North Dakota. North Dakota is a very well recognized landmark in the wrestling world because that's where the freestyle and Greco Roman Nationals happen. But I remember one specific moment where I had just returned back from Nationals, and I think it was like three or four days later, I was in the wrestling room training already, and we had no I was back in high school. Calvary Chapel alumni, he just saw me in the room. He's like, dude, go home and rest or live your life or something. Bryan Osuna [00:10:09]: And I was like, yeah, whatever, man. I got to do this wrestling thing. But that stuck with me remembering that years later about the importance of rest and balance. Even if you are laser focused, dialed in on something that is so important in your life, in the long run, if you want to keep doing that thing, if you want to feel alive and imbalanced in your life, you got to take those breaks and you got to tend to those other parts. And I learned that the hard and slow way bursting into flames and kind of hitting rock bottom after college and then slowly, over time, over the span of 14 or so years, really starting to learn what it's like. To be committed to being devoted, to being laser focused, but having balance and taking care of and nurturing all parts of you along the way. And so I'll pause there for questions or anything you want to double click on because, of course, my journey continues and gets even more interesting after college. But I'll pause there for you to yeah. Jeremy Gruensteiner [00:11:28]: So in remarking this moment from this alumni of go live your life, how long did it take for that lesson to finally because you remember it all these years later? How long did it take for that lesson to become present for you or for you to really notice it and say, I might as well give that a try? Bryan Osuna [00:11:53]: Well, I think I explored it in a way in college, right. Because I did put time, energy, and attention into other things. It just wasn't necessarily healthy from a physical standpoint. I think I really unleashed the floodgates of interests and curiosity and allowing parts of me to explore and express. Like I said, I didn't have a real healthy example or guide in that time. But I think, in a way, it was healthy exploring what I explored. I just think to the extent and I guess the intensity in which I explored partying relationships, having other hobbies and things in my life, I think I just went way too hard into all of it at once. And so I think, in a way, what it did is it gave me permission to be like, all right, there's more to life here than wrestling, but I had to kind of figure it out in the hard way. Bryan Osuna [00:13:08]: And then I don't think it really landed as to what did he actually mean of take care of yourself after going super hard. An analogy that I love now is living your life like a lion, right? Of, like, go 110% and then rest, like, full rest mode, right? Go all in. I don't think we're designed to live life like lions all the time, but to have that lion mode, I think is a superpower, and it does give you the ability to accomplish and to live in balance in life. Right. I've recently started reading an older book that kind of illuminated this whole idea of why we're kind of slowly killing ourself and why chronic disease is on the rise is because we have the ability to stress ourselves out psychologically. Right. This book called? I think it's called Why Zebras Don't Get Ulcers. It was written in, I think, the 80s. Jeremy Gruensteiner [00:14:16]: Yeah, that's a familiar title, and I've heard it referenced many times. Yeah. Bryan Osuna [00:14:21]: And it was a real seminal, pivotal piece in the world of psychology because it really illuminated that. Oh, wow. We have this double edged sword, our ability to really focus in and have a heightened sense of urgency and effort towards something. But we have a very poor ability to turn off the stress response. Right. And this fight or flight response automatically kicks on for us. And if we haven't practiced turning it off, if we can't register, like, oh, we don't actually need to fight or run away from something, then we get fixated in this state of stress. And so I don't remember where I was going with all of this, but something I really started to learn after college is, like, learning to be intense and then to really shift down and to rest and just be present with other things in life that aren't so intense. Bryan Osuna [00:15:36]: The visual of the cats just laying under the tree like lounging and stretching and yawning and acting like they don't give a fuck about anything for long periods of the day, and then it's time to go hunt. All right, let's go. Let's flip the switch. Right? Jeremy Gruensteiner [00:15:55]: Yeah. Bryan Osuna [00:15:56]: And so that's just one aspect of myself I've really valued and developed, is to have that on and off switch, but really being able to turn it off and to come into a state of relaxation and rest, what's that looked. Jeremy Gruensteiner [00:16:13]: Like of learning to do that. And how does that look, not only from a modern lifestyle perspective, but how does that look for you now as a dad, to be able to find those switches when you may not necessarily be able to turn them on and off fully at your decision or fully on your timeline? Bryan Osuna [00:16:36]: Yeah, well, when it comes down to it, the switch has to be an internal one. It has to be, at least for me and for someone who still has a lot going on in their life, a lot of responsibilities that they're committed to, that they're devoted to, that still require action and attention, such as kids. For me, the process we're taught the world has taught us, and this is changing, but historically, in the past, the world has taught us that rest and relaxation has to be like going somewhere on vacation and your environment being the full dictator of what that means and what that looks like. And I argue it's the exact opposite. It's what your internal landscape and what's going on under the hood. Right? So being able to regulate your nervous system, being able to understand what's going on in your mind, this is no secret to you being able to understand what stories, what beliefs, what patterns are kind of running here and what's coming up. Am I being triggered here by something? Is something externally stimulating a trigger for me? Am I running a habit pattern or story or belief that's causing me to get stressed out? But more importantly, what's my nervous system doing, right? I can be running around, cleaning up, making sure my kids aren't killing themselves and destroying the house, but I can actually be in a state of internal harmony, in a way. Right. Bryan Osuna [00:18:27]: My body's in action, but I don't feel this sense of fight or flight, right? Jeremy Gruensteiner [00:18:32]: Yeah. Bryan Osuna [00:18:33]: And I can be the opposite. I can be laying on the couch. The house can be as still as possible. The kids can be sleeping. But underneath, I'm stressing myself being like, oh, man, this is terrible. Why am I here? I'm not getting anything done. And so to just have that internal awareness and those internal switches, to be able to switch, to be able to regulate my nervous system, obviously, using breath. Initially, breath was big for me. Bryan Osuna [00:19:04]: It's become a little less now for me, just the way I hold my body and then feeling tension patterns in my body are probably the biggest thing. Right. Notice how a contracted shape or state of my body, as well as muscular contraction and tension and then just noticing where my heart rate is at. I've developed the ability to just kind of take a moment to just down regulate and kind of shift gears internally, but a lot of it's mental as well just quieting the mind. In a way, it's the same as parenting a toddler. But internally, when the chaos like those really old patterns and parts of me that have learned that have kind of staged stressed out or kind of like getting triggered and riled up, it's the same process as parenting an emotional toddler, but just parenting those internal parts, like, hey, it's okay. We're good. We got this. Bryan Osuna [00:20:17]: And just kind of like giving them a little internal hug and noticing how things can shift and regulate internally. Jeremy Gruensteiner [00:20:25]: Yeah, we get those parts that jump on the hamster wheel in our head and start running us, seeing how fast they can run and for how long. Something that was interesting as you're talking about all of this, of like I'd come across this I'd seen this little factoid or this little observation before, but it's come up again and been really interesting that we rest for about 42% of our lives and many people will see that and go, well, that's a lot. 42% of my entire life. So if I live to 100 years old, 42 years of it is rest. What about that could be freeing in that regard of like, I'm supposed to be resting, I'm not supposed to be trying to running the hamster wheel physically. We like to imagine that we can outsmart our own biology, right? No, not at all. Not even close. Of being able to say, well, I can because if people could take a pill to not sleep, they have these. Jeremy Gruensteiner [00:21:39]: But if they could take a pill to not sleep and still get the effect of it, it would be the most widely available. Like everybody would take it because it allows them to live. Everything from either an observation for people or for yourself of like, what is that? What what is a primary driver of this lack of wanting to rest? In your experience or in your opinion? Bryan Osuna [00:22:07]: That's a really great question. Yeah, I would say that it's the deepest seated or rooted beliefs as well as wounds. Right. When I say wounds, these are emotional wounds. Spiritual, maybe most of them. I wouldn't say all, but most happen at a young age. Right. Based on what we were taught, what we were given or not given in terms of our needs and wants, things that were directly said or indirectly said to us. Bryan Osuna [00:22:50]: These things largely shape our beliefs, what we believe about ourselves and what we believe about the world and how we relate to it. The biggest limiting belief, and I would say core wound for me that constantly pushed me to always be in action is that I am not loved and lovable unless I'm performing and performing well. Right. And so I had this constant drive and kind of sometimes smoldering, sometimes bright burning fire, but that was always there pushing me to perform, to succeed. And it didn't register probably until around 30, late 30s, late 20s, maybe 30, that it's all coming from this faulty belief that unless I'm performing at a world class level at something, whether that's athletics, education, business, whatever, or whatever the task I'm doing, that I'm not loved. Yeah. And after true basic physical needs, air, water, food right. For a young child, love and emotional care and attention, nurturing is what they need the most. Bryan Osuna [00:24:34]: Right. Almost to the point that children food almost starts to become less and less important if a child doesn't really get nurtured at that emotional level. Right. We could explore this topic in depth. And there's been research and studies showing that children who do not receive love and nurturing in that way physically don't actually develop and grow. Right? Jeremy Gruensteiner [00:25:07]: Yeah. Bryan Osuna [00:25:08]: And we can look at that impacts all of their lives. But for me, the main thing that it did was it just made me so myopically focused on performing that I couldn't slow down because subconsciously that would mean that I would not get as much love and attention. Jeremy Gruensteiner [00:25:31]: If there's no achievement, there's no love, there's no reward, there's no reason to live. If we put it the starkest way. Bryan Osuna [00:25:40]: Possible, there's no place for me in the world. Right. And that's a branch or articulation. Right. I struggled with loneliness and feeling like I didn't belong in this world. I think it was a branch or articulation of the same core wound. But yeah, for me there was this belief that if I wasn't performing at a high level, there's no place for me. Like the world didn't need me, it didn't value me. Bryan Osuna [00:26:10]: So it's the only place I really felt where I let myself feel valued. Jeremy Gruensteiner [00:26:15]: So a podcast that I was listening to on some recent travels highlighted something that you're talking about in a different way of looking at where that took you into this drive towards achievement and a continual drive to keep doing and to keep going. Whereas I can imagine for a lot of people who have that similar core wound or this component of themselves can actually fall to the other side of it. So we get this very extreme all or nothing. And what I'm going towards with this is I believe it was Peter Tia had mentioned this on a podcast of things like addiction to drugs, alcohol, food, pornography, whatever substance or activity you want to put into that, and to a point that it takes you into decrepitude, especially if that results in deaths, that these are diseases and deaths of despair. And as you were talking about this, on the other side of the achievement, I was like that was bringing up this idea of what can do for any of us who have this component to ourselves, of driving towards one way or another, of this idea of feeling alone in despair and driving. So for you, of looking at this for yourself, was there a major turning point that allowed you to identify this and make a change? What did that look like for you? Bryan Osuna [00:28:04]: Great question. First of all, props to you for using a word I've never heard. Decrepitude. Maybe I've heard it, but now I've really heard it. Jeremy Gruensteiner [00:28:14]: Yeah, now you're going to hear it everywhere because you're a you're keyed up towards it. Bryan Osuna [00:28:24]: That's a great question. And I don't know for this specific, I guess, path of healing in my life, there wasn't so much a pivotal moment. I do know, going to my first men's retreat in I don't want to screw this up. It was probably 2018 or 19. I think it might have been late 2018. And first of all, just getting the chance to really connect with people and understand that this is actually a very common feeling that you're feeling. This is common. You're not alone in feeling this. Bryan Osuna [00:29:16]: Right. Which is paradoxical, because it's like, well, I feel so alone, and surely I'm the outcast or outlier here, but it's like, actually, no, the majority of men are feeling something similar to what you're feeling. Right. When we're really honest about what we're going through. Jeremy Gruensteiner [00:29:36]: And the irony of all of these men, if you get them all in a room all feeling alone together. Bryan Osuna [00:29:42]: Yeah, right. Here we are alone together. And the process largely was catalyzed by learning to to just feel the depths of all of the feelings and emotions that were there and never fully felt and acknowledged over the decades. Right. I truly believe that all of our parents did the best they could, given the circumstances, and they were on the path that their soul chose to live. And I fully embraced that. But I wasn't given a lot of examples or what I felt was safety to express my emotions and feel my feelings completely. And so decades of not feeling my emotions fully and in fact, feeling, I guess, ashamed for having these deep, intense emotions. Bryan Osuna [00:30:58]: So really the first and most important step was reconnecting with my emotional body and my emotional self and starting to learn that it's safe to feel my emotions and feel right. I believe that stories, beliefs and emotions, there's kind of like a two way street, meaning stuck emotions or unfelled emotions can keep limiting beliefs and stories anchored. Right. And stories and limiting beliefs can perpetuate emotions right. Jeremy Gruensteiner [00:31:42]: Keeping them stuck. Bryan Osuna [00:31:43]: Yeah. Right. So we've kind of got this two way street, and I really think you can go about unpacking and healing and rewriting this stuff from either way. Right. You can approach it from the route of exploring more of what would be the mental component of it. Right. Making sense of, like, well, I can see and I can understand that I have this limiting belief or this core wound, and this is the meaning of it. Or you can start by having no idea about the meaning and be able to articulate it. Bryan Osuna [00:32:20]: Not be able to articulate it, but just know, like, I need to feel the magnitude of all of this first. And I think that's the route that I chose. I really had a deep you can call it an exorcism if you want, but a profound unpacking of emotions and feelings and energy that had been built up at that Men's retreat. We did a Psilocybin ceremony, wasn't the most organized, or it was pretty improvisational, and it was exactly what I needed at that time. And it was beautiful. I was able to be witnessed and held in my grief and in my expression, which was pretty wild and intense. But that was probably the pivotal moment because I was unable to move stuck energy and unpack some deep grief and sadness and other emotions that had kept me stuck energetically, emotionally, and in turn, mentally as well as physically. Jeremy Gruensteiner [00:33:44]: Yeah, that's really great. Thank you for sharing that journey. So you're talking this experience at this Men's retreat in 2018, being able to recognize some of these patterns and opening yourself up to the full experience of human emotion from that moment on. What changed for you? How did that impact regular life going forward? Was it, well, that was a cool experience back to where I was, or were there radical changes that started to come through? Bryan Osuna [00:34:27]: Yeah, that's a great question. There was, as many of us experience in certain aspects of our growth or our journey, or at least I imagine most experienced at some time, is this feeling of, like, two steps forward, one step back, or even at times, like 50 steps forward, 49 and a half steps back. Jeremy Gruensteiner [00:34:50]: The messiness that is just being a human in the world. Bryan Osuna [00:34:56]: Yes. It did, in a way, create a lot of instability. And when I say that it's not a negative thing, what a lot of people don't realize or they maybe don't embrace because it's super uncomfortable is instability is an essential component to transformation. You cannot transform anything without instability. Right. What do I mean by that? You could simply say you take a lump of clay, a static, stable it's in a single formation, and you want to shape it into something new and beautiful. You have to destabilize it completely and then shape it and then restabilize it into that pot or the statue or whatever it is that you want to transform it into. Right. Bryan Osuna [00:35:49]: Same thing. Another analogy I like is a log. A log is a very stable form in one shape or state, and then if you want to turn it into a piece of furniture or anything else. There's a lot of instability that needs to happen before you stabilize it into something new. And so I went through a multiple year period of wasn't exclusively instability, but there was a lot of instability as things kind of broke apart. Right. And then I experienced myself as somewhat fragmented in a way, but I was really starting to make sense of all these different parts of me and learning to, I guess, tend to and hold in my awareness more of myself, right. New parts that hadn't been tended to and that was messy. Bryan Osuna [00:36:55]: Right. In the same way that when the jump from one to two or even more kids can be quite destabilizing and messy because like, whoa, I've got a whole nother needy, messy life form to take care of, is very similar in this process. Internally, as you open up and expand yourself through this transformation process, it's like taking you're now, caring for, intending to more parts of yourself. And it's incredibly beautiful. And I use the word expansive. It did start to lend me feeling more spacious and expansive in my experience of myself and my life, because I wasn't so myopic enclosed off in this tunnel vision, right. But the big thing, like I said it did, catalyze, is like now I had started to feel I started to feel safe, to feel my emotions as they come through and to tend to those parts of me in real time as experiences happen. So I started to come more online, somatically and emotionally, which anyone who's gone through that process, that's really coming back to life, right. Bryan Osuna [00:38:13]: We experience our life in this human form through our senses somatically largely, right. So when we're shut down and parts of us are shut down. Jeremy Gruensteiner [00:38:29]: The way. Bryan Osuna [00:38:29]: I see us, each part of us is like an octave of the same song, right? We can go down this. If you want to take the turn into the sound healing journey, this would be a fun segue. But the way that I experience and believe us, if you play Mary Had a Little Lamb, those of you that understand music theory, and you go up an octave and you play it, or down an octave, either lower or higher pitch, right. You're still going to recognize mary had a lilly. It's the same song. And so I believe that the different layers of us as beings is just octaves. We are infinite because you can octavize a song out infinitely. And so our song, the densest part of us, the physical, is our song at the physical plane. Bryan Osuna [00:39:30]: And then we have octaves of us at different levels, right. And so we're largely here to experience this one octave, which is the physical realm, but there's many more parts to us as a being or as a song. And I don't even remember why I started saying this, but I think I was talking about coming. Back online at a physical sensation level. So much of my somatic experience was shut down from this emotional wounding and trauma. And I definitely had a ton of physical trauma from wrestling and sports, not to discount that, but I do think the most impactful, most impactful to my life was more so at the emotional level. But when we shut down emotionally, we do start to shut down in many ways physically and somatically right? Jeremy Gruensteiner [00:40:32]: Yeah. Bryan Osuna [00:40:33]: And so coming back online, I think, in those ways is what really blossomed and allowed me to continue on on this growth path. Feeling like, wow, this is what it feels like to feel more and experience more and these different parts of me and these different emotions which I haven't really let myself or been able to feel like, okay, now I can continue on knowing that this growth path is leading me somewhere important and beautiful. Jeremy Gruensteiner [00:41:10]: Yeah, I've got many thoughts going in many directions and I love where this is going because it's got my nerd brain going, especially when we're talking about music. But I love this visualization of we can talk, or this level of experience of being in octaves or many times I've heard of people talk about self development. Like this idea of one day the ceiling that you break through is going to be the floor that you stand upon. But even in that experience in an octave situation too, you're ascending through the scale into the next octave. Ascending through the scale into the next octave. That was a visualization that was coming up for me as well in people's journeys and paths. One of the things that we talked about before we hit record was in this sense of intuition and developing that we were talking about your journey of getting into this fragmented version of self, into this unstable or unstable part of your life. How much did learning to find that intuitive voice for yourself, how much did that play a role for you? Bryan Osuna [00:42:28]: Yeah, it's been huge. Intuition, did you have more? Jeremy Gruensteiner [00:42:33]: And then we'll dive into some nerdery of all the sound things because I'm really interested to hear more about that. Bryan Osuna [00:42:42]: Perfect. Yes, intuition. Interestingly though, I didn't even initially register it as intuition at first. Looking back, it started to play a huge role and I think it did parallel this phase of healing. 2018 19 2020 because a lot of intuition does come through via subtle sensations in the body. One way I explain intuition and I'd imagine intuition comes through different for everyone and the same for some people and might have a cough coming. I need a cough button like Joe Rogan has. They actually make for me, intuition feels like I don't know if do you ever play trivia? Jeremy Gruensteiner [00:43:47]: Sometimes. It's been a while, but yes. I used to like trivia quite a bit. Bryan Osuna [00:43:50]: Or any kind of game where there's a question asked or there is an answer that needs to be given and you remember or you know the answer, that moment where you're like, oh, I know. And there's a feeling in your body, right? Jeremy Gruensteiner [00:44:10]: You may not even know why you know it, right? Where did that even come from? Bryan Osuna [00:44:14]: Right? And so it feels a lot like remembering the answer to a question, but for the first time, right? And what do I mean? It's like the same sensation in the body where someone asks a trivia question or you're playing a game and you're like, oh, I know the answer. Pick me. Hand up, professor. Pick me. I know it's that same excitement and knowing in the body aliveness, but you're doing something for the first time. Jeremy Gruensteiner [00:44:50]: But. Bryan Osuna [00:44:50]: You just know that you've got the right answer, right? And so that's the way that I experience it. It would be interesting if I could unpack at a nuanced level what that feels like, but I know what that feeling is. And so one of the first times so I'm assuming you know Mike Salemi. Jeremy Gruensteiner [00:45:14]: Yes. Bryan Osuna [00:45:15]: Okay. Jeremy Gruensteiner [00:45:17]: He and I have had a chat, and we met in person in Austin after the retreat where we met in Mike Bledsoe's living room, ran into each other. Bryan Osuna [00:45:30]: Amazing. So Mike has become a dear, close friend of mine. I think, as I mentioned, I'm going to be co facilitating a retreat with him next. You know, I do remember clearly one of the strongest hits of intuition I felt was the first time I was in a room with Mike Salemi. There was just an excitement in knowing that I had to meet and get to know this guy. And at the Was, I considered myself highly introverted. So I wasn't the kind of person to go out of my way and expend energy to talk to someone new. I would say rarely did I do that, but I just felt a strong call to do that with this guy. Bryan Osuna [00:46:20]: And believe it or not, though I was deeply immersed in the fitness and strength world, I didn't actually really know who Mike Slimy was. I just stumbled upon this guy, and lo and behold, he's become not only a dear friend, but he's been catalytic in my growth as a man around my physical health. And he's been right there next to me in terms of unfolding and opening into this new version of myself and showing up in the world in this way. And we've kind of been what I perceived as like our paths have been paralleled in a lot of ways, but simply said, he turned out to be a very important person to me, as my intuition told me. Another part of my intuition was going forward with this invention, this foam roller that I invented back in 20, 13, 14 Ish. Though the roller was arguably not the most successful product, it was extremely pivotal. Me following my intuition into making and starting a business around this product was so pivotal, in me going in a certain direction in my life that now, looking back, I'm like, holy crap. Had I not done this, there's so many things in my life that probably would not have happened and I would not have been in the right place at the right time to experience these things that was so important for me. Bryan Osuna [00:48:06]: Listen to this intuition, this pull, this excitement, to take this turn and to start making this product and starting this business. And so those were two examples. But unlocking or reconnecting with my body and my sensations and feelings was pivotal for this because now my antenna is much more attuned and that when I get the signal. I know, like oh, I can feel that. Right. I'm much more alive and connected to my body and sensations now and I know what intuition feels like. Jeremy Gruensteiner [00:48:48]: Yeah. And I can imagine that makes decisions for a little more simple. Then you don't have to live up in this thinking side and try to come up with the most clever version of whatever solution you need to come up with. You can trust that you'll find it. Bryan Osuna [00:49:07]: Yeah. I still get stuck in my head. I still do. I'll still spend a few weeks at a time being all in my stories and in my head and that's part of the learning and growing journey. But I am little by little over time getting I have built up the trust, like you said. I'm now able to almost always have at least some level, if not high level of trust that even when I'm observing myself stuck in my head that I'm still connected, I'm still on the path and I still have everything I need right here. It's just like right now and I'm stuck in my head. I'm running these patterns in these stories and I'm acutely aware of it, right? Which does make it a lot easier. Bryan Osuna [00:50:01]: And because I've accumulated enough reps of knowing that I make the best decisions and follow my intuition at the end of the day for the big things, it's not as stressful and I don't get so hard on myself and I don't feel like existentially lost when I get kind of stuck in those heady patterns. Right. But I still do. I still get stuck in there. Jeremy Gruensteiner [00:50:28]: Yeah. Which I think that's a component that many times when we talk about when I listen to things on self development, podcasts, programs, books, is that's an area that often gets glazed over of like even the people who are the best at this. We still have one of my favorite stories that gets told, or that I heard this year from Rondas of being despondent, sitting in his car on the beach after his swim and I forget who it was that walked up to him taking a look at the person and saying we're all fakes. You're fake too. Of like having these darker moments of ourselves. But then the response coming back and saying, yeah, but we're real fakes of like, okay, yeah, all right. Even the people who are at whatever pinnacles we like to put others people on, they're still on their own journey. And that there are going to be times where we don't have it all perfect. Bryan Osuna [00:51:42]: It's been so interesting and nourishing for me to meet a lot of high profile, profile people over the years and be like, whoa, they are as human as anyone else I've ever met, right? Jeremy Gruensteiner [00:52:00]: Yeah. Bryan Osuna [00:52:00]: Yes. They've developed some amazing skill sets to show up in certain ways. And they wear different hats, and they have certain abilities that they've learned that any of us can learn if we so desire. But they're as human as all of us, right? Every single one of them. And even so, I've had the pleasure and the opportunity to be in some deep dive, intimate containers with some really high profile people and been able to see what's going on underneath their hood and get to relate to them in these deeper, more intimate ways. And it's really allowed me to, I guess, relate to a larger variety of people in more compassionate and connective ways. But yeah, at the end of the day, everyone more or less has the same wants and needs when you distill it down to their essence. And we all struggle with more or less the same things. Jeremy Gruensteiner [00:53:20]: Yeah, very well said. Switching the focus a little bit. So going from inventing a product, running a company post wrestling career, getting into this development journey for yourself, what led you or how did you find this journey into sound healing? Bryan Osuna [00:53:43]: Yeah, well, this is fun because we're already talking about intuition. And in 2021 let's see, my years are correct here. No, it's probably 2020. In 2020, I had that same intuitive hit, but it was probably one of the strongest intuitive hits. Meaning I felt the classic signatures of what intuition telling me something feels like. But for the first time that I could remember, there was no information in terms of, like, the signs not telling me to go this way. There's nothing actually for me to put my finger on what it is. But what I was able to extrapolate and precipitate was, oh, something big and new is coming for me. Bryan Osuna [00:54:44]: Like a new calling. I don't know what it is, but right now I'm just being asked to stay open and to embrace that. But it was as clear as anything that something new is coming and embrace it when it comes. Right. So it was actually pretty fun because I was like, what is it? I got to spend a few months in this kind of almost like pre birthday or Christmas, excited, like little kids, like, oh, all the gifts under the tree, what's in the box? And two things happened where they were AHA, moments. One was the first one was a guided psychedelic experience that I had where I did some psychedelic medicine and received body work. And the body worker was like a really safe person for me to go deep. And for those of you that have done medicine work with psychedelics, I imagine most of you have had those moments where you're faced with the opportunity to let go into expansiveness, into new, maybe scary or just different experience or kind of contracts and hold on and try to hold on to the known. Bryan Osuna [00:56:19]: And so I had that pivotal moment where something totally new was unfolding and I could have contracted and tried to hold on, but I let go. And I basically had about 45 to 60 minutes where I only experienced myself as light and sound. And for those of you that have also done deep medicine work, you may have had the experience where the medicine space is just as, if not more real than everyday reality. Where it's so vibrant and alive and convincing that there's no way, at least when you're experiencing it in that moment, that it can be like a hallucination or made up. Maybe it can be, but that's what it feels like. And so the way I explain it is I was like a cross between the aurora borealis and like a keyboard, where every part of my body was a different note, a different frequency, and I was able to clearly experience it as sound. And as I was receiving the body work, I was making sound, right? So I was expressing, I was emoting, and I was able to notice how every time a different part of my tissue was worked on, I was making a different sound. I could experience it at whatever level I was at with the medicine and I could see it as different colors, right? So I was able to just straight up experience myself as light and sound, which most of the longest lasting, well established traditions, whether it's Vedic or whatever, there's this belief that we're basically just light and sound, right? And one could argue that physics might say the same thing, definitely just vibrating particles, but I was able to experience that if I tried. Bryan Osuna [00:58:46]: There was the ability to come back to the knowing that I was a physical body on the table. But when I really just let go, my experience itself was of light and sound. And coming out of that I was like, holy crap, if we're just light and sound, it's clear to me that we should be. I'm shooting on us, I'm going to shoot all over us for a second. I should say that it made clear sense to me that addressing disease, health, well being and growth, you could call it enlightenment, whatever you want to call it, all happens at a vibrational level. Sound and light is all vibration. That was kind of an AHA moment. I didn't have a clear understanding that the way that I would be integrating and moving forward with this new information and experience. Bryan Osuna [00:59:58]: And then a few months later I heard a podcast. The guest was a sound healer and it was just immediate. As soon as I started listening to that podcast I just knew that that was the thing. Right? That intuitive hit of something new and so unlike almost I would say the vast majority of people that I talk to and know who got into some alternative form of medicine, healing or growth work. Most people had a profound healing experience or exposure to a modality or a tool in which case they're like I need to do this now, this is my calling. That wasn't it for me. I had not experienced anything regarding close to nothing I should say around sound therapy, sound healing, energy work, very little sound based shamanic work. But all of a sudden I just knew that that's something I needed to explore. Bryan Osuna [01:01:09]: And so I kind of just dove in headfirst and I started exploring Tibetan bowls which I kind of say are my sole instrument. I just kind of knew that those instruments and I started working with them and haven't turned back. I've made that one of my key offerings to the world and now I am doing what I call transformational sound therapy. I primarily use tuning forks, Tibetan bowls and gongs to help people move stuck energy and create energetic or vibrational coherence in their whole being. Jeremy Gruensteiner [01:01:51]: That's really cool and it's really interesting like you were saying of not having this big moment, this big experience of it just trusting yourself and when the right path opened up well I'm going to walk this path because I know it's right. That's such a cool thing. That's something that I'm assuming for many people is quite rare but regardless, it's still powerful on its own. Bryan Osuna [01:02:26]: Yeah, it's been a lot of fun too because I would say everyone that I can remember off the top of my head got into sound therapy or sound healing in one of two ways. They were a musician, right? So they had an affinity for music and sound and then they transitioned into sound healing or they had an experience of healing or growing through that modality and that led them to getting into it. I was neither, I was not a musician. I loved music, I had a strong affinity for music but I was not a musician or at least actively creating music nor did I have a big experience with sound that led me to it. And so that made it a lot more fun and exciting. And it was really great to hear from one of my teachers that in many ways people that don't have a musical background can have there's advantages to going into sound therapy specifically because he has found that musicians oftentimes have a hard time letting go of it sounding perfect. And it's rare that the structure of the sound in terms of music theory is what's catalyzing the healing in a sound therapy or sound healing context. And so to get out of your head and to be able to just tune into what sounds and what energies are going to serve this person or this group best without it needing to sound any specific way in a music context is really helpful. Bryan Osuna [01:04:11]: And musicians oftentimes have a hard time getting past that barrier. Jeremy Gruensteiner [01:04:14]: Yeah, I can imagine that as somebody who studied music and musicology and music theory primarily as my area. So I've had another sound healer on the podcast and remarked this of the number of times and I believe your experience that you delivered at the retreat that we were at was my first sound healing experience. And I remembered and remarked particular times of picking out intervals of like oh hey, there's a minor third there's diminished 7th. And then slowly over time, as I've experienced it more and more of letting go of that, letting go of the label that we put on it. Bryan Osuna [01:05:04]: Right. Jeremy Gruensteiner [01:05:04]: Especially because it's one music system anyways, it's the Western European music system of these semitones anyways, it's all made up. It's just our structured way of understanding what we're experiencing. So I can definitely resonate with your teacher's observation there because I know if I would try to find it to make the structure work for me and not the other way around. Yeah. Getting on this path of sound healing, where has that been taking you? Bryan Osuna [01:05:45]: Well, the room I'm in right now is the room that I do most of my sound work in. And so I've fairly recently woven in this system or framework called Biofield tuning, which has completely transformed how I relate to sound work, energy work, healing, and pretty much everything in reality. And I've been able to, I would say, cross the threshold from primarily focusing on things from a conceptual philosophical standpoint, and now experiencing everything as energy. Right. And I'm able to in almost real time, either primarily or at least be able to keep it with me all the time of understanding and experiencing everything as energy. And when I say that, it's not like all of a sudden that moment where Neo in the Matrix is like, I wish it was like that. Yeah, well, there's the moment where right before I think it's near the very end of the first one, where all of a sudden everything's in the green streaming zeros and ones, and there's this pulse coming out of him. That moment super duper becomes fully self. Jeremy Gruensteiner [01:07:26]: Aware of what he can possibly do. Bryan Osuna [01:07:28]: Exactly. And that's kind of the switch that I'm talking about, fortunately. And unfortunately, it's not to that extreme where I'm not literally seeing everything vibrating, but there's this heightened awareness that I keep with me all the time and I'm I'm just processing everything through that. Right. I'm I'm processing interactions with people, I'm understanding my thoughts from a vibrational standpoint, my feelings, my physical body, my health, everything that's happening in my life. I'm understanding that everything is influenced and dictated by fields of energy and information not too far off from the matrix, although I don't think it's quite exactly the same. It's much different. But in the same way, we are immersed in swimming in these fields of vibration and energy which hold information and which are largely influencing how we think, how we feel, how we show up, our health, what information we have access to, right? And we can go down that rabbit hole of like I believe that just like a cell phone, right? You could put a cell phone onto airplane mode and you can turn off the cell service and the WiFi, and there's still information there that's just like the information stored on our brain. Bryan Osuna [01:09:05]: And then we have access to these vibrational fields which are our individual field, which might be more like WiFi. There's not a perfect analogy there, but we have information directly off our body existing as standing wave, electromagnetic, magnetic standing waves, which is information which is always informing our body and vice versa. And then we contribute to and are part of these larger fields which goes to the collective, right? And this is why many people have realized over time that there are shifts in the way that they're thinking more in the macro. And how they're feeling oftentimes doesn't make sense from the standpoint of what's happening in their life. And that's largely because we're being influenced by these fields of information, that they're global, they're at the human level. And then we can get into each species has its own vibrational field. There's what's called morphic fields. And this is why a single animal can make kind of an evolutionary shift in terms of learning. Bryan Osuna [01:10:24]: And immediately on the other side of the world, another animal on the same species can make the same leap is because they're sharing information through a field. And so I'll leave it there because I could probably rant for like 4 hours about this. Jeremy Gruensteiner [01:10:38]: Yeah, we will definitely, if you were open to it, open up a much more deep dive into this topic since we are running a bit on our time limit, unfortunately, because otherwise I would just be like, all right, keep talking, professor. Asuna I want to absorb this because I love absorbing information and I love being able to share it in ways for others to absorb it as well. So as we come up towards the end of our time, any final thoughts that you want to leave the audience with or any items that you've learned, nuggets of wisdom that you want to share with others from your path and from your story? Bryan Osuna [01:11:22]: Well, one of the most valuable, I guess, tools or I guess superpowers that I've carried with me is just curiosity. So say, like staying infinitely curious, right? I still get skeptical. I would say I was highly skeptical about everything I just told you for the first two years of it being in my awareness. So still holding space and understanding that the skeptical parts of you are valuable, but just staying infinitely curious at every level that you can be curious is a superpower. But one thing I'll say is like, if anything I said like really sparks true curiosity in any of the listeners what I'm trying to work on. And I imagine next year or the year after, I hope to have a very simple framework which I think I'm calling the Resource Coaching Framework, where my hope is to help people understand in a very simple level how to start looking at everything as energy and working with your energy anywhere, anytime. Right? So I think one of the most valuable things for me in the last few years is just starting to understand at a very basic level how everything is energy and everything is connected. And a simple step for people to start doing this is noticing how specific thoughts in your head directly affects your emotions, which directly affects your physical state, which directly affects how you interact with and shape your environment. Bryan Osuna [01:13:26]: And you could do it in the opposite, noticing how a shift in your environment makes a shift in your physical body, which makes a shift in your emotional body, which makes a shift in this thoughts and stories and language in your head and start to trace. Jeremy Gruensteiner [01:13:43]: These. Bryan Osuna [01:13:44]: Energy pathways in your experience. And once you are able to start making these connections and tracing these shifts in energy, you can have a lot more autonomy and empowerment over how you navigate life and show up and the tools and resources that you have along the way. Jeremy Gruensteiner [01:14:06]: Very cool. Yeah, this is rad stuff, man. If people are interested in learning more about what you're doing with this and your sound healing, how can they learn more? Bryan Osuna [01:14:21]: Well, how can they get in touch with you? Yeah, so my website, which is still a work in progress, but there's enough there for me to send people there. It's thebridgevibe.com so thebridgevibe.com I feel comfortable throwing out my email. So my email would be [email protected], and it's Brian with A-Y-B-R-Y-A-N. I'm not super active on social media, but I am planning to post more on Instagram and then I have started my own podcast which is called the Resourced Podcast. So that's mainly on Spotify now and that's less about the sound healing stuff, but it's more of that practical energetics which I started to share at the end, which is practical growth and kind of self coaching tools or just general tools and resources that help you optimize your energy for the same reasons that I just described. Jeremy Gruensteiner [01:15:30]: Awesome. Thank you so much for being here, Brian. This has been such a pleasure to be able to not only have a quick reconnection with you, but to listen to more of your story, more of your path and the things that you have going on. So thank you so much for being here. Thank you so much for showing up, and thank you for being you. Bryan Osuna [01:15:50]: You're very welcome. Jeremy, I've been excited to chat with you since the retreat. I really felt some resonance with you and really just enjoyed dropping in with you at that experience. So I'm really excited we got to do this. Jeremy Gruensteiner [01:16:03]: Yeah. Awesome. And like I said, stay tuned. We'll get a part two where we get to dive into some deeper, weird stuff. Bryan Osuna [01:16:12]: Round two, baby. We'll put on our nerd glass is for that one. Jeremy Gruensteiner [01:16:16]: Yeah, I've got some sitting around here somewhere. Bryan Osuna [01:16:19]: Yeah, perfect. Jeremy Gruensteiner [01:16:21]: Anyways, thank you all for listening, and until next time, stay strong. And most importantly, stay weird.

Jeremy Gruensteiner [00:00:01]: Welcome back, weirdos, to the Weird and Strong podcast. I'm so glad you're here, because this episode features Kyle Stubbs, a first responder and a coach for first responders. He talks about how his path took him from where he was in his role, his relationship to where he is today, helping others in the first responder space become the best versions of themselves. So without any other delays, let's get weird, folks. All right, Kyle Stubbs, thank you so much for being here with me on the Weird and Strong podcast. Kyle Stubbs [00:00:40]: Thank you, brother. I'm excited to be here. This is going to be fun. Jeremy Gruensteiner [00:00:43]: Yeah. Hell, yeah. We met in the level two of Enlisted, and it was just like many of the episodes and many of the guests that you're hearing as of late, many of these folks I got to meet in person for the first time just about well, for you, it's about a month ago now. So it's great to see you on the other side on the camera yet again. So I'm appreciative of you being here. So I have a weird question for you. Are you ready? Kyle Stubbs [00:01:10]: One. Jeremy Gruensteiner [00:01:10]: Just one? We likely will have many, but we're going to start with just one. Kyle Stubbs [00:01:14]: Let's go. Jeremy Gruensteiner [00:01:15]: Cool. So since we are recording this around Halloween, I have a spooky weird question, and this is playing into some of your background, which we'll talk about in a little bit with vampires. Do you think they prefer arterial blood or Venus blood? Kyle Stubbs [00:01:39]: It has to be arterial. Jeremy Gruensteiner [00:01:41]: Why is that? Kyle Stubbs [00:01:42]: It's packed full. Everything good right now. It's fresh out of the pump. Jeremy Gruensteiner [00:01:47]: Yeah. Kyle Stubbs [00:01:48]: They're not going for dirty, old circulated venous blood. And just think of the lack of effort that it's going to take. When you pop an artery, the floodgates are open. You're going to have to actually have to put some work in to fill up on a vein. Jeremy Gruensteiner [00:02:05]: Yeah. It's like if we go to a water fountain that just has no water pressure. Kyle Stubbs [00:02:10]: Yes, exactly. Yes. But we could look at this another way. We could get extra weird with this. If they want to keep coming back to this person. This person. Jeremy Gruensteiner [00:02:21]: Yeah. Kyle Stubbs [00:02:22]: They might want to play that game a little differently. Jeremy Gruensteiner [00:02:24]: Yeah. Kyle Stubbs [00:02:25]: They want to titrate that blood supply and not just empty it out on the first go. Jeremy Gruensteiner [00:02:30]: Yeah. Because he hit that artery a lot harder to clot. Kyle Stubbs [00:02:34]: Oh, yeah. You got to be prepared. He's not coming back from that one. Jeremy Gruensteiner [00:02:41]: Yeah. Is that anywhere close to where you thought this question was going to go? Kyle Stubbs [00:02:46]: Yeah, it was. Jeremy Gruensteiner [00:02:48]: All right. Kyle's been listening and studying, so he kind of knew what was coming up. Awesome. So let's talk a little bit more about you. What are the ways that Kyle Stubbs shows up unconventionally in life that others may not be aware of or know of? Kyle Stubbs [00:03:10]: I got to let some secrets out. Jeremy Gruensteiner [00:03:12]: Yeah. Kyle Stubbs [00:03:15]: A weird quirk, you could say. I start my day in some matter in that first hour with about ten minutes of playing Hacky sack. Jeremy Gruensteiner [00:03:23]: Nice. Kyle Stubbs [00:03:24]: Yeah. In some way I'm not great at it by any means, it usually involves me hitting a wall if I'm inside at some point with my foot, if I'm outside, it's great, but yeah, that's how I start my day. I really put an effort to get just that ten minutes of just goofing off and being silly to start the day. Jeremy Gruensteiner [00:03:46]: Yeah, that's something that we connected on over in our level two course. What was the thing that brought that about? Because I'm assuming that that's something fairly recent for you in consideration of your whole life. What brought that about of this early morning ten minutes of hackysack? Kyle Stubbs [00:04:07]: Just a desire to feel more free in my body and want to move without that hesitation or just that starts to pick we pick up as we get older, I'm in my mid 30s. We start to start to groan when you get out of bed or whatever it might be. And to be able to just freely move and not be so constrained to one direct movement pattern is really how that happened. And then I started seeing some guys that were really good at it and being like, holy shit, I want to be like that. Look at those guys go. Yeah, so that's how it started and I just felt like it was fun. My kids would be really interested in it when I did it too so they'd want to jump in and they'd want to see what I was doing and seeing that engagement in them was like, oh, whatever this is, this is good. And then there's also the edge of allowing yourself to not be very good at something yeah, well and just do. Jeremy Gruensteiner [00:05:11]: It also there's likely a component of play for place sake. Kyle Stubbs [00:05:15]: Yeah, exactly. Jeremy Gruensteiner [00:05:17]: Totally. We can get caught up in the sense of especially morning movement being like, well, I got to hit the gym and get my highly prescriptive program. I have to hit all of these sets and reps and I got to move, I got to go go versus I'm just going to move and kick this bag around and see what happens. Kyle Stubbs [00:05:39]: And it's a great indication for me on just where I'm at that day. Some days it's a rough go, some days it's not there, and then some days it's just like I throw it on my foot and it's like I've been at it all day kind of thing. Jeremy Gruensteiner [00:05:56]: Yeah. Kyle Stubbs [00:05:56]: So it's a cool way to see where you're at. Jeremy Gruensteiner [00:05:58]: Totally. Do you use that at all of an indication, like you're saying, of where you're at? Not only from a skill development perspective, do you use that as a check in for yourself of how am I actually feeling? Am I feeling really run down? Did I not sleep as well? Are you using it as a check in on your biometrics. Kyle Stubbs [00:06:22]: And not just from a physical perspective, but from a mental perspective, too. Right. Like, if I get in there and if I get angry because whatever, I can't stall it on my foot or something, then it's like, okay, that's interesting. That only took five minutes, and I'm mad at something totally insignificant as a ball filled with some little plastic beads. That's pissing me off already. That's okay, where am I at here? What's going on? Jeremy Gruensteiner [00:06:48]: Yeah, exactly. That's super cool. And it's like the low tech version of an aura ring. Exactly, yes. You never have to recharge it. You don't have to check an app on your phone. You can just play some hackysack. Kyle Stubbs [00:07:03]: Yeah. I've taken this to the extreme where because once I start something, I like to keep it going. And there's that little bit of kind of inner competition factor to it to try to keep a streak alive. And I was on a hunting trip about a year and a half ago, and I forgot it. I didn't bring it with me. Full backpack. Like, we had backpacked in for a day to get in there in the middle of nowhere, it turns out a balled up sock, wet balled up sock. Perfect replacement for hackisack. Jeremy Gruensteiner [00:07:39]: Totally. Kyle Stubbs [00:07:40]: So every morning, get out there, throw a couple of balls around, see what you can do in the middle of nowhere. There's all kinds of probably scared every animal off in the entire valley, but it was worth it. I felt great after it didn't find anything that trip. So that might be an indication of what happened. For sure. Jeremy Gruensteiner [00:08:01]: I'd be interested to see that as, like, maybe throughout this podcast, this becomes the next trend of skip your device, skip your whoop or your aura metrics or whatever thing you're using and just play some hackysack in the morning and. Kyle Stubbs [00:08:18]: See what that why not? Why do we have to make it so complicated? Jeremy Gruensteiner [00:08:21]: Well, that's a good question. What's your hypothesis on that topic of why do we tend to gravitate towards overcomplication? Why do we tend towards this sense of perfection or chasing the most optimal result? Kyle Stubbs [00:08:40]: Because it takes us out of it. In my experience. We're growing more and more disconnected from ourselves, and the ability to be able to see some sort of factual, science based feedback of some kind really gives people an idea of being like, oh, okay, yeah, I'm here. They have no idea how they feel. A lot of those people checking that whoop or that aura ring or whatever, it would be interesting to see where they're at if they could tell what the results will be before they actually look at the results. And a lot of people, I would be confident to bet, wouldn't know what they would be would be surprised. That it's. Oh, I did sleep good last night. Jeremy Gruensteiner [00:09:25]: Yeah. Kyle Stubbs [00:09:26]: And that's a problem. Jeremy Gruensteiner [00:09:29]: Yeah, absolutely. I've actually had it. So I wear an oring from time to time to look for trends like, oh, is my sleep trending in the right direction? I only check it maybe once a month, but early on, I had the loop strap, and it was frustrating to me, and I'm sure that they've changed some things. And this was 2019 that I was doing this. I found that as I was wearing it, there were days where I would check it in the morning, and it would basically say, you're about to die. You slept so poorly. You're about to die. I'm over exaggerating. Jeremy Gruensteiner [00:10:08]: And I was like, But I feel great. I feel recharged. I feel amazing. And it's like, oh, you slept amazing. You should be ready to hit a world record today. And I was like, I feel like I'm going to die. It was always polar opposite, whatever it was telling me. Kyle Stubbs [00:10:25]: Interesting. Jeremy Gruensteiner [00:10:26]: Yeah. And so that was a point or like, an education point for myself of exactly what you're talking about, of being able to check in with myself much more effectively. And rather than wait for the device or wait for the app to tell me how I'm supposed to feel, what do I actually feel? Kyle Stubbs [00:10:44]: What does that actually yeah, and then the stories that come up behind that too, right. Of being, like, seeing that feedback and then being like, oh, but I feel good right now. I shouldn't do this, or, oh, man, I never feel good in the morning, or whatever it might be. You start to get dependent on being cold. How you're feeling? And I find that in my circles in the first responder world a ton. We've become fully dependent on having our emotional states diagnosed to us, as opposed to just tracking how we're doing. Jeremy Gruensteiner [00:11:18]: Yeah. Is that something that you've had to learn in your experience as a first responder? Is that something that you figured out really early on or what's that path been? How does that look like for you on your path as a first responder? Kyle Stubbs [00:11:37]: Yeah, I thought that I was doing really good for a really long time. I was a firefighter and a paramedic and then transitioned into policing eight, nine years ago. And I thought that I was awesome at the job. I was great. I was killing it at work, but unbeknownst to me, I was totally not there at home, not showing up. Had one little girl at the time with my wife, and yeah, it took her to be able to just straight up call me out and say, like, hey, what's wrong with you? And she asked me the question if I even knew how to feel, which was, at that point in my life, the biggest gut punch that I had received. And it's a good representation of where I was at then, because I thought that I was doing great, but I was not in any way whatsoever. And that's what started me down that path of trying to figure that out. Kyle Stubbs [00:12:41]: Trying to be like, okay, keep track of where I'm at. If I'm getting frustrated over little tiny things at home, okay, that must mean that something else is what's underneath that. What's the root cause of that? And going down that path, which inevitably led to where we're at. Jeremy Gruensteiner [00:12:56]: Yes. In looking at that, from that question of do you even know how to feel? Or even whatever the specific phrasing was that she asked you, that was it, that was it. What was the path from there? Like, was it immediately got to figure it out the next day? Kyle Stubbs [00:13:14]: Yeah, of course. I'm a guy, I figured it out right away. I fixed it. Oh, man. No, it was not in any way whatsoever. I did the typical thing where I got defensive and was like, what are you talking about? Of course I know how to feel. And then really started to think about it and no, I certainly did not. I lived my life right in the middle of peaks and valleys and never experienced either side of it. Kyle Stubbs [00:13:40]: How I got out of that spot was interesting for me. It was quite a path where I tried all the things you're supposed to try, like got into yoga. That was just me telling myself how horribly inflexible I was and how my mobility was awful or whatever it might be. And I tried running and I would run on occasion, but I wanted to do like the full blown I'm going full David, goggins on this. And signed up for a 50 miles Mountain Ultra and crushed that thing. I did great at it. My first running race ever. I'd never even signed up for a five K before did that thing. Kyle Stubbs [00:14:17]: And it was awesome. It was great. But it was just straight up me running away from my own problems. Yeah, it had nothing to do with getting over anything. Jeremy Gruensteiner [00:14:29]: Yeah, I understand that. I've been there in a different way, but there was something that I've always found funny and entertaining is growing up. That was something I used to actually heckle runners with before. They would have maybe their Walkman with the cassette tape, maybe a CD player with a lot of anti skip if they were really lucky. But many times they were jogging on the sides of the road and I would yell out, what are you running from? Kyle Stubbs [00:14:59]: Problems. Jeremy Gruensteiner [00:15:01]: And many people in the running community, that is a typical thing and there's. Kyle Stubbs [00:15:08]: Definitely a healthy way to do that. But how I was doing it was. Jeremy Gruensteiner [00:15:12]: Definitely not that escape disconnection, replace it with any other activity, totally would have given you the same effect. Kyle Stubbs [00:15:23]: And just being able just to put that resistance in front of you and yeah, I can get over that part, but I can't tell my wife how I'm feeling. Right. That's a pretty obvious reflection of where the weak spot in the game is. And what worked for me, actually, was finding a group of guys that did just that. That did talk about their shit, that did talk about how they are disconnected at home or how they have a hard time goofing off with their kids or whatever it might be. And that really opened my eyes to being like, okay, yeah, my situation is unique. I'm a police officer, I'm in a busy place, I have a hard job, but that doesn't excuse how I show up in the rest of my life. And seeing all these other guys that they weren't first responders. Kyle Stubbs [00:16:16]: They were everything from yoga instructors to one guy had created a language that he spoke with, the stars with and all kinds of crazy, weird awesomeness. And just putting myself in that situation was certainly something was weird for me, but it was incredibly beneficial. And that's something that I think as a culture, like, even just touching back to what we started on with goofing off, playing some hacky sack in the morning, that we're hesitant to put ourselves that far out of the comfort zone when it comes to a lot of those things. And when we do, the result can be amazing. Jeremy Gruensteiner [00:16:55]: Yeah, that's a common theme that has been coming up on this podcast recently is this idea of staying in our comfort zone for you, this path of getting into running and the physicality and then getting into a group of men that pushed you beyond that comfort zone. What was the timeline like from that first conversation to where you started to really notice that things were very much different in your relationship, not only at home, but in your professional life as well? Kyle Stubbs [00:17:33]: I'd say it was a solid year of really to the point where I was like, okay, yeah, this is working. Yeah, this is working. And that was after I had beat myself down with running the Ultra and doing all that kind of stuff. But, yeah, I would say a solid calendar year, enough time to have it actually set in and be able to make an impact and see that because we can do whatever. We can go to the gym twice in a row and be like, oh yeah, I'm killing it. But it's a different story when we've been showing up consistently for six months, seven months, whatever it might be, right? Jeremy Gruensteiner [00:18:13]: Yeah, that's really cool to hear. And what direction did that start to take you in? What did that start to affect not only at home, but where did that start to take you on this journey of life? Kyle Stubbs [00:18:33]: I got a life situation occurred where we'll talk about it and was a really good indication of, like, okay, it was a test. It was like, if we want to talk about the hero's journey and everything, I love about that whole mentality. Our youngest daughter was born at 32 weeks, so she was tiny, she was little, premature baby. She could fit in your hand. She was under three pounds, and she got kept in the NICU for a little while after that and she was okay. She got out of there, but it was a really hard situation. Obviously, it was as disconnected of a birth as you could possibly have for my wife, like, instantly taken her away. And baby and mom are separated for extended periods of time and the opposite of natural on how it should be. Kyle Stubbs [00:19:27]: So I was able to witness that and be able to see that this is not normal, this is tough. How can I support her through this? And then we got out of the hospital and about two weeks, three weeks of being out of there, they found a really big lump on Maddie's back. And it turned out to be they didn't know what it was. They flew her back to the children's hospital that she was at, and they told us that she wasn't going to make it. They didn't know what it was, but it was significant enough that they gave us the talk of, are you guys prepared? Because she might not come out of this, because they had to do a surgery to find out what it was. And that was one of those moments where one of those once in a lifetime conversations that's going to stick with you forever. But I'll never forget the feeling I had in that moment, was like, I got this. This is going to be fine. Kyle Stubbs [00:20:22]: My job here is support the family, support myself, support the family. And I wouldn't have had that had I not had that background, had that experience with this group of guys beforehand and built that legitimate resiliency up. I would have been a total victim to that situation. So we spent two and a half, three months in the hospital with her. They did multiple neurosurgeries on her, cleaned it all up, but they put her on an IV antibiotic for a month, just over a month, and she's still tiny. Like, she's like six pounds, seven pounds at this point. So we had to work that and shift work with my wife. And one of us could be at the hospital while the other one wasn't. Kyle Stubbs [00:21:11]: And obviously as stressful of a situation as it can be. So for lack of a better way to look at that, I breezed through that. Looking back on it, yeah, there's ways that I wish I could have changed, how I maybe offered support or how we lined things up. But I was in my best spot there, and it was because I had put in the work prior to this, and I had a network of guys that I could talk to and be like, hey, man. Yeah, this sucks. I'm not doing very good here. This is tough. And it was the perfect representation of being like, okay, yeah, this works. Kyle Stubbs [00:21:50]: Whatever I did here works. And then it was an indication of what's it like for other guys in my circle, in the first responder circle that go through something like this? What do they have at their disposal to get them through it? And the answer was nothing. Like, you go off work and then you're alienated and you're alone there, and yeah, the paycheck is going to come in still, but you're just on your own. And then you're thinking about, okay, do the guys think I'm just skipping out? Do the guys think that I'm just milking this or whatever it might be very alienated, very alone. Right. Jeremy Gruensteiner [00:22:31]: Yeah. As opposed to whatever that internal dialogue or whatever that imposed story is, whether. Kyle Stubbs [00:22:37]: It'S because we all like that lone wolf story. Jeremy Gruensteiner [00:22:42]: Yeah. I mean, you look at popular culture of how much it gets glorified of that, even if you look at some of the extrapolations of the hero's journey, is that it does glorify that individual hero so much, and yet there would be no frodo in the ring without Sam. Kyle Stubbs [00:23:03]: Yes. Without whole the whole lone wolf thing is something we got to kick to the curb because there's a couple of reasons why there's going to be a lone wolf out there in the first place. You don't want to be that lone wolf. You either lost a fight and you got kicked out or you did something shady that got you kicked out or you're sick and you're barely hanging on. Jeremy Gruensteiner [00:23:25]: Yeah. Kyle Stubbs [00:23:27]: Occasionally there might be one majestic wolf out there that's on his own little journey to start a new fantastic tribe, but that's very rare. The lone wolf is usually the sick, twisted one, even that majestic one. Jeremy Gruensteiner [00:23:42]: He's on his way to the next. Kyle Stubbs [00:23:46]: Make his own path. Jeremy Gruensteiner [00:23:47]: Yeah, exactly. Or join another one or whatever that is. So that's an in between phase, not the entirety of the journey. Kyle Stubbs [00:23:55]: Exactly. Jeremy Gruensteiner [00:23:57]: It's a wild idea that we've held onto it beyond just the exposure to it. Do you have any hypotheses of why that becomes so attractive for us, especially for men to gravitate towards? Kyle Stubbs [00:24:15]: It's the resistance that we get to fight against. We want to be fighting something, challenged by something. Yeah. Like something there. And we can make that as silly of a needless thing that we want it to be. Right. Like everyone that's in that stuck in that victim mentality has created some kind of a situation that they have resistance towards or resistance against, and it's their identity to fight against it. And it gets addicting. Kyle Stubbs [00:24:54]: I get it. I've been there. But we don't have to be there. Yeah. Jeremy Gruensteiner [00:24:59]: The freeing moment of realizing that you're the only one holding yourself back. Kyle Stubbs [00:25:05]: Holy yeah. Jeremy Gruensteiner [00:25:07]: I had with a common cohort from our community and past podcast guest Mr. Hefe Jeff Lester, through one of his yoga and arrows of light ceremonies that I took part of, wrote this story of a funny, comical version of that for myself, of finding a box that you put yourself in, turning it, manufacturing that box into a prison, realizing that you're the one that put yourself there. You're the one that built the prison around you. And there's likely not even a prison there anyways. Kyle Stubbs [00:25:52]: No, it's not even locked. You can just open the door. Jeremy Gruensteiner [00:25:56]: Yeah. Or the door is not even there. Whatever metaphor you want to put there. Kyle Stubbs [00:25:59]: Exactly. Jeremy Gruensteiner [00:26:00]: And there's two to this point of what you were talking about, of the things that are ways that we can distract ourselves, disconnect ourselves, we can chase different achievements as a way to hold ourself back. There's a concept I've heard on other podcasts that I like to listen to of creating a shiny room in hell for yourself. Kyle Stubbs [00:26:24]: Yeah. Jeremy Gruensteiner [00:26:24]: You've got all the things and I can imagine that this plays into exactly what you're talking about with the first responders say they're struggling with something. They've got the leave, they're on their own. They've achieved the things. They've got the partner, they've got the family. They've got the boat or the camper or the cabin. They have all the trappings and the toys. They have their man cave, whatever it is. And yet when they're there by themselves for an extended period of time, it does start to feel like a shiny room in hell. Kyle Stubbs [00:27:00]: Totally. Yeah. The indication of that would be like can you comfortably go for a distraction free walk? Jeremy Gruensteiner [00:27:07]: Yeah. Kyle Stubbs [00:27:08]: You've got the wakeboard boat and the truck and whatever, but can you go for a walk without something on? Jeremy Gruensteiner [00:27:17]: How long can you go without it? Kyle Stubbs [00:27:20]: Yeah. 15 minutes. Jeremy Gruensteiner [00:27:21]: Is it 45 minutes? Are you gone for 2 hours? Kyle Stubbs [00:27:25]: And are you, like, staring at are you speedwalking home to get back to whatever it is? Jeremy Gruensteiner [00:27:31]: Yeah. Kyle Stubbs [00:27:32]: And I find that a ton. And that's a really good indication of where somebody's at just the comfort that you have with yourself. Jeremy Gruensteiner [00:27:42]: So in looking at that, since this is an area of I'm assuming an area of a focus that you use with folks, what are the types of tools or tricks, things that you can suggest for folks who may be struggling with this idea that I might go for a walk without my phone or without earbuds in, without something to listen to, or that finding that speed walking home. What could you suggest for somebody who's perhaps in that space and struggling there? Kyle Stubbs [00:28:14]: Yeah. As much as our temptation is especially as men to dive into the deep end to like, okay, well, I guess I got to do that hour and a half long yoga class or I got to do that hour long meditation, whatever it is. Start small. Go walk around the block just breathing through your nose. Do it till it feels good. Now move it a little longer. And maybe it's not even a walk to start. Maybe it's okay. Kyle Stubbs [00:28:51]: Before you go and start scrolling through your phone every morning, just look up at the ceiling and count ten breaths, count 20 breaths. Something super small doesn't have to be this massive, giant leap that we want to take, because it puts us back into that situation of having some resistance. Right. Something that we can fight against. Jeremy Gruensteiner [00:29:12]: Yeah. Kyle Stubbs [00:29:13]: We want to make it so that it feels good and that we want to keep doing it. And then clearly, as you know, as everybody that listens to your show knows from having this all star lineup of enlisted coaches on here, once you start to really pay attention to that, and once you start to think about your thinking starts to open up and all that stuff gets easier. That voice is a lot easier to tame than we give it. Credit. Jeremy Gruensteiner [00:29:44]: 100% for you in that entanging of that voice. Is it something that's still ongoing for you? What does it look like now versus, say, when you first got started? Kyle Stubbs [00:30:02]: Man, my Billy, that inner voice, the guy holding me back, sitting on my shoulder, his name is Todd, and he was savage. Todd was tod still is savage. He's still there. But the thing that shifted for me is being totally comfortable and accepting the fact that he's there. That voice is there. We all have this voice, this part of us that is present and gets really, for lack of a better word, savage at times. But the understanding that it's there to protect me, to help me, to keep me safe from something, and the transition of being just fully jumping on the team with that voice to now just having compassion for it and being like, hey, man, I'm good. I'm all right here. Jeremy Gruensteiner [00:30:59]: Yeah. Kyle Stubbs [00:30:59]: Thanks for showing up. Thanks for trying to help me out through this. Thanks for trying to keep me safe from whatever this situation is that can potentially cause me discomfort or vulnerability, but I'm good. I got this. And that's the switch. When that switch happens, when you can have compassion for that voice in your head, that's where the money's at. That's where things start to open up. Jeremy Gruensteiner [00:31:22]: Yeah. I really love that. And that's an area of conversation that many other I don't know, you want to say programs, individuals, whatever. Yeah. We can take care of the impostor syndrome. We can take care of this voice in our head, and we can also, to your point of identify it as it's part of us and it's there for a purpose. If we can love what that purpose is and give it that care and compassion, that's so different than what popular culture would tell us. Kyle Stubbs [00:31:57]: Is it ever? Jeremy Gruensteiner [00:31:59]: Yeah. Kyle Stubbs [00:32:00]: And you can accept if you got to do that, if you got to climb to the top of that mountain. Yeah. Jump on for the ride, man. Let's go and let's talk some shit and get to the top of that thing, right? But once you're up there yeah. Thanks, man. Thanks for helping me out. Thanks for getting me to the. Top of that thing. Kyle Stubbs [00:32:18]: Yeah, I'm good now. Jeremy Gruensteiner [00:32:19]: You can take a break now. Kyle Stubbs [00:32:20]: Yeah, we're good here. And it starts to really paint when you start to think about that. And one of the groups I have on the go right now is these guys are just about over the hump of working through that story and the realizations that come once you start to see the situations where that voice is showing up to attempt to keep you safe, to protect you from something. We can start to really look at those and be like, okay, well, what's the discomfort there? Is it because I have to actually open up and say how I'm feeling about something? Is that what it is? Is that where the edge is? Or is it that I might be seen, that I might make a mistake yeah. And start to really analyze where we're at and what does affect us and what doesn't. Jeremy Gruensteiner [00:33:08]: Exactly. Well, and I can imagine, too, of, like, in the first responder line of work or in this realizing that voice and being able to take a look at, well, when this shows up, I usually do X, Y, and Z. Can I do something different? Kyle Stubbs [00:33:29]: Yeah. Jeremy Gruensteiner [00:33:31]: And how does that make an effect, or how does that change the people that you work with in this first responder role? Kyle Stubbs [00:33:44]: A big part of it is the realization that we all have it and not just assuming that you're the only one that goes through that. Right. Especially I've done the full gamut of being a first responder. I've put out the fires legitimately, and I've put out the fires theoretically, and as police, specifically, when we go to a disturbance of some kind, an argument or whatever, and you can start to see, like, okay, this is imagine what this guy's self talk is right now. Let's start to look at this from this perspective where we can start to actually analyze the words that are legitimately coming out of this person's mouth to help them calm down, to help them get some space and clarity from that situation that they're in right now. And we can de escalate things by realizing where somebody's at just by listening. Jeremy Gruensteiner [00:34:46]: Yeah. Kyle Stubbs [00:34:46]: And that's a huge part of policing, especially that right now, my mission, aside from the programs that I run currently, is to change this and think of language as a legitimate as a use of force option to de escalate something. Jeremy Gruensteiner [00:35:02]: Yeah, absolutely. Kyle Stubbs [00:35:04]: As opposed to as much as we want to talk about how important it is and I love Jiu Jitsu, and I love my firearms and everything as important it is to train in these different aspects, 90%, probably more than 90. I don't actually know. The statistic of our involvement in the public is just having conversations with people and just de escalating things. And our training on it is poor. Jeremy Gruensteiner [00:35:31]: Yeah. Well, I mean, everybody's training on it is poor. Kyle Stubbs [00:35:34]: Exactly. Yeah. And we're supposed to be the ones that can help do it. Jeremy Gruensteiner [00:35:38]: Right. Set up. It's one of those components of looking at it from the perspective of you're not even given the real tools to do your job. Kyle Stubbs [00:35:49]: Yeah, 100%. Jeremy Gruensteiner [00:35:50]: Like, all right, dig this ditch with a hand shovel. Kyle Stubbs [00:35:53]: Yeah. So that you'll go there and you'd be like, oh, you can't keep doing this. Yeah. That's going to help. That's going to calm that person down right away. Jeremy Gruensteiner [00:36:01]: It's going to change something right away. Right? Kyle Stubbs [00:36:03]: Yeah. And then that language comes into the office where you start, oh, they always do this when we go there. Or, I'm so busy. It's been such a busy day. Yeah. It's been a really productive day. Jeremy Gruensteiner [00:36:14]: Yeah. Those are major shifts. In what ways? That perhaps those of us who are in the public, not in the first responder realm or in the policing realm, what are ways that what you've been doing with language training for yourself and others has been helpful in ways that people may not have recognized or may have thought of in this role? Kyle Stubbs [00:36:44]: It's an interesting question. Our unknowing should I phrase this how often, without intentionally doing it, we start conflict without any inclination to do so? But just because of the words that we use, it puts that other person on the defensive. And once you start to see that and start to pay attention to it, quite often we're not giving the other person we're communicating with a chance. Right. If you think about it like a back and forth, like a tennis match, like you've hammered your first serve at them, their only reaction is to just get a racket on and get it back to you. When you say something like, let's give the example of you never empty the. Jeremy Gruensteiner [00:37:37]: Dishwasher, is that actually true? Kyle Stubbs [00:37:41]: Bullshit. I don't I did it, like, two weeks ago. I remember the moment I did it. And it could be something as simple as that, or it could be like, you got to do this this week, as opposed to, hey, are you able to create the time to do this this week? That coming from like, a supervisory perspective. When you say something like, you got to do this this week, that person is instantly, okay, man, I don't know how I'm going to find the time to do this. How am I going to do it? And they're in that stuck and suck spot, as opposed to be like, hey, Jeremy, do you think you can find the time this week to get that project done? Jeremy Gruensteiner [00:38:24]: What do you need? Kyle Stubbs [00:38:25]: Or can you create the time? Yeah, what do you need to create the time to get that project done? Yeah, totally. 100% different perspective on that. Jeremy Gruensteiner [00:38:35]: The pressure versus being supported. Kyle Stubbs [00:38:37]: Yeah. And we just don't realize it because it's so ingrained in us to communicate this way really quick back and forth. Jeremy Gruensteiner [00:38:47]: Well, especially when you talk about things like policing and whatnot, too, because we look at that as the public, as they're an authority figure and an authority figure making a demand on us. And so exactly to what you're saying of you have to do this or you need to do this, I was like, well, that puts the other person on the conflict side of whether they're going to comply or not. They're already in this state of fight, flight or flee. And that can change everything so quickly. Kyle Stubbs [00:39:28]: Yeah. As a police officer, our uniform presence alone just puts that barrier there in some way. Right. So as opposed to that first intro of introducing yourself to somebody or talking to somebody, hey, what can we do today? Or what's going on? How can I help you? Jeremy Gruensteiner [00:39:52]: Yeah. Kyle Stubbs [00:39:53]: As opposed to something that's more in your face, more abrupt, more we got all the time in the world. There's no time clock on us for going to have these conversations with people. I think we can slow down and we can talk. Yeah. There's going to be some things where language takes a backseat and you got to handle something. Yeah. That's a different situation. But when you go to the argument or the disturbance or the neighbor whose music is too loud or whatever call that we inevitably get called to that we can take the time to have a conversation. Kyle Stubbs [00:40:27]: Yeah. Think about how we do it and go from there. Jeremy Gruensteiner [00:40:30]: Yeah. I was going to say to your point of just the presence of the uniform, that just becomes just a butthole puckering experience for a lot of people. Kyle Stubbs [00:40:41]: Anyways, I'm a cop and if I see siren behind me or lights behind me, I'm like, oh, shit, what did I do? Yeah. And I'm used to it. I get the same response. We all get the same response. Jeremy Gruensteiner [00:40:53]: Yeah. And that's a weird thing to hear about coming from somebody who wears uniform of something that could be. Those are the types of conversations and the perspectives that I know could be very helpful for many of us in the world of like, hey, they're still just people. They're doing the best they can with the tools that they have. Yeah. There are better tools out there. And people like you are helping to get them into the hands of first responders, which is incredible and amazing. And also, we can also give people a little more credit to be humans. Kyle Stubbs [00:41:35]: We're all on the same team here. We're all trying to keep this thing spinning. Jeremy Gruensteiner [00:41:41]: Yeah. In looking at from the other perspective, too, of what you were talking about is you have enough time, where do you think that comes from as far as an attitude from the policing side or first responders type of the urgency even when it's not there, where do you think that comes from? Or what's that component? Kyle Stubbs [00:42:11]: I can speak personally to what it's like when because there's different police in different areas is going to be very different. I've policed in the city where every time you sign into your computer in your car, there's 15 calls to go to or whatever it might be, and it's go go all the time. And then I've also policed in the small town where you might get one call a day or two calls a day. So entirely different perspectives. So a lot of that will come that scarcity mindset when it comes to time is going to be when it is in that go go state. And you'll see, that just the same as the difference when you're in a city and you can feel that rushed energy. It's the same as if you're working in that city and it's go go. But when you're actually at we call them files. Kyle Stubbs [00:43:09]: When you're at the file at the call, there's no time frame on it. Then it can slow down. And quite often a lot of times where that comes from is just being stuck in that hyper vigilant, excited, nervous system about to fry state where our breath is super high and we're not keeping track of it by any means. Our inhales are longer than our exhales, and we're all over the map and not making any sense of anything, and we have a hard time calming down. So what I like to tell guys is when they get on the way to the call, before they show up to the house, if it's a regular routine response and you don't need to be extra tactical about things, slow that breathing down, make those exhales longer than the inhales. Jeremy Gruensteiner [00:43:54]: Yeah. Kyle Stubbs [00:43:55]: Because I've seen it. And anybody that's worn the uniform, no matter if it's fire, paramedic or police or bylaw whatever it might be, has seen it where you can calm people down just by your presence, just by having slow and controlled breathing. Jeremy Gruensteiner [00:44:11]: Yeah. Kyle Stubbs [00:44:12]: As opposed to you come there and you're in that heightened state, you come in like the Koolaid man through the door. And that's what the other people are going to be like too. Jeremy Gruensteiner [00:44:20]: Yeah. For those of us who haven't served in that capacity of, like, if you've worked in an office or something like that, looking at are you constantly checking your email inbox and feeling up regulated, like, feeling that nervousness and like, oh, shit, how am I ever going to get this done? And this and this and jumping and feeling really frantic or can imagine going into a meeting and feeling great, and then your supervisor, the CEO, somebody of authority, or even a team member comes in and they've got that attitude or it's the worst day possible, and they're on the offensive and on the attack. What does that do to the rest of your day? How does that change the meeting? Yeah. Kyle Stubbs [00:45:06]: Are you even listening to anything that's going on there? Or are you just whatever story you've cultivated about how this guy's nuts and about to explode. Jeremy Gruensteiner [00:45:15]: Yeah, I've done a little bit of experimentation with this in the past of that co regulation of breath, of, like, somebody comes in like that, and I just sit back and breathe and see what happens. I bet you know what happens. They start to slow down, and they're like, oh, I didn't realize I needed whatever just happened. They're like, oh, I feel so much better than I did when I came in. Kyle Stubbs [00:45:41]: Totally. And you will see this a lot, especially in the relationship side of things. As first responders. You'll come home sometimes and just as anybody, if they had a stressful day at work and you come in the door and you're still 1ft at the job, whatever it might be or at whatever situation you had and you have a hard time connecting or listening to, whether it's your wife or your partner or friend or whatever it is your beagle, and being able to really have a conversation or to be able to listen and input. Quite often, it's because we're still in that upregulated state, and I like to practice a thing called looping. When I'm listening, when I'm in a conversation, I know that I'm getting distracted. I know that I'm stuck out of that spot. I'm still up. Kyle Stubbs [00:46:33]: When I inhale, I'll think about what's going on with me, where am I right now? What's going on? And on my exhale, I'll really take in what's happening, what my wife might be saying, or I'm on the phone with my mom or something, what she might be saying on the phone, and then on my inhale, it's back to me again. And then on my exhale, it's back to them and just keep that loop going for as long as I can. Generally, that will get me back into that spot. Jeremy Gruensteiner [00:47:02]: That's a great practice that I haven't actually heard that one before. Kyle Stubbs [00:47:07]: And I'll find that on calls where you have somebody that's really up here, and they want to tell you everything that's ever been wrong to them, ever. As much as I want to get out of this situation and go on to the next file or go and have my lunch break or whatever it might be, let's just let this person unload do the thing, and we'll go from there in that situation. Yeah, I'll practice that looping. Let them go. Let them go. Let them go. Okay. And now I can say what I have to say and actually have the point come across as opposed to just trying to throw random sentences at them when they're not in the space to listen. Jeremy Gruensteiner [00:47:50]: Yeah. They're just waiting for their next turn to unload the yeah. But whatever it is that's coming out. Yeah, that's interesting. A previous guest, and he was also a co facilitator at the Men's retreat that I held, james of Furion. Kyle Stubbs [00:48:06]: He. Jeremy Gruensteiner [00:48:06]: Had an exercise that he used which was quite similar in a lot of ways but they use chest timers in the conversation between each other. You've got the chest timer, and so your job is only to focus on the other person. So it's a very similar idea, just with a little bit of external and external practice from person to person, man to man, whatever that is. Kyle Stubbs [00:48:34]: I love that. I also have the mental image of that really heated speed chess match without slamming down on the timer, going back and forth on that person off and. Jeremy Gruensteiner [00:48:47]: Slapping, but still being able to be present while you're doing yeah, no, I love that. Kyle Stubbs [00:48:52]: Anything that really gives us the opportunity to take stock of what we're feeling and what we're experiencing incredibly valuable. And that's another thing I find with guys, especially. We have a really difficult time just describing how we actually feel from a physiological standpoint. Like, from not just, oh, I'm angry because this happened, and then they didn't let me do this, and then I wasn't given the opportunity to go and do this, as opposed to being like, hey, my chest feels real tight and my jaw is, like, clenched, or I'm sitting here at the desk and my fist is clenched. Keep noticing it perfect. Okay, awesome. That's great. You saw where you were at and you acknowledged it. Kyle Stubbs [00:49:43]: Perfect. If we could all just get to that point. Huge win. But we want to put all these words, all these stories on why we're feeling a certain way as opposed to actually how we're feeling. Jeremy Gruensteiner [00:49:57]: Yeah. We want to explain it away. Kyle Stubbs [00:50:00]: Yeah. And you can't argue that's the other thing. You can't argue with how you're actually feeling. If you feel like, yeah, man, having a hard time taking a deep breath and feel that kind of uneasy feeling in my stomach, you have that conversation with your spouse as opposed to being like, that really pissed me off when you said that. Totally different situation. You can't argue with the fact that how you actually feel in your body, and you can go from there, like. Jeremy Gruensteiner [00:50:34]: Trying to argue with the wind. Kyle Stubbs [00:50:36]: Yeah, exactly. Stop being so windy. And I'll spend a lot of time with a lot of guys just talking about that, just getting that I feel stressed. Okay. What does stress feel like? Oh, man, it makes me angry. What does it feel like when you're angry? I don't know. It's frustrating. What does it feel like when you're frustrated? Jeremy Gruensteiner [00:50:59]: Yeah. Kyle Stubbs [00:51:01]: What are you actually feeling? What's going on in the body? Let's connect to the body for a second. Jeremy Gruensteiner [00:51:07]: Keep asking those questions and finding that. So one of the things that I was hearing, as you're describing this, is that is continually with that connection to self finding this connection that we likely haven't had before. And in that journey that either you went on or that you've helped with others, has that been one of the most important components in the journey of changing the self and changing your life to being what it really want, what you really want it to be? Kyle Stubbs [00:51:49]: Yeah, absolutely. And the big takeaway from that is that it takes so much less to feel satisfied when we really connect with ourselves. I know you have. I can distinctly recall even seeing you have a moment like this in Virginia when we were there, where you can be by yourself, and then all of a sudden you can see that kind of nice, big breath come, and just a little smile comes up on your face. Jeremy Gruensteiner [00:52:17]: Yeah, totally. Kyle Stubbs [00:52:18]: Unlike, you didn't have to go and buy a new toy of something or a new whatever to make that happen. Just happened from self fulfillment, whatever that moment was. And when you start to get to that point where you're connected with yourself and you're noticing what's making you feel good and what's making you feel like crap, you'll start to notice those moments that come where you're by yourself somewhere and you'll take a big, deep breath and feels good. And that's a really sad thing that not a lot of us experience that on a regular basis. Jeremy Gruensteiner [00:52:52]: Yeah. There's a sense of, like, I understand that we all have pressures in our lives, whether they're real, imagined, or otherwise. There tends to be this want to rush towards achievement, fulfillment. I need to check the boxes. I need to buy the thing. I need to get the thing. And the reality is that we miss the point of life. Many times talk about finding the meaning of life, and it's like, well, what if the meaning is that? It just is. Jeremy Gruensteiner [00:53:31]: We miss that point. This whole experience is crazy and wild and amazing, can be heartbreaking and sad. It can be all of those things. And being able to see all of those things as just the experience, that's the thing. That's the whole point, is to experience it. Kyle Stubbs [00:53:56]: Yeah. That's the beauty of it. Exactly. And I've been there. I've been in that spot like we talked about at the beginning, where everything's muted, where everything's gray tones. Jeremy Gruensteiner [00:54:10]: I'm just doing the thing to get the retirement so that I could possibly one day live the way that I want to live when I'm 67 or 80 or whatever it is, or whatever number it ends up being. It's like, well, that was a moment for me of realization, of, like, well, do I have to wait until I'm in my sixty s or seventy s to do what I want to do? Who made up that rule? Because that's not a rule I want to follow. Kyle Stubbs [00:54:40]: No, it's not a law. Jeremy Gruensteiner [00:54:44]: Why not be happy now? Why not fulfill the things that you want to fulfill right now? Kyle Stubbs [00:54:52]: We get so soft with ourselves from this. I love where this is going, because especially when we start to think about the cultural norms of whatever it might be and say, there's that dinner party that you're supposed to go to, but you really don't want to go there, don't go. Just don't go if you don't want to go. Yeah. Sometimes you're like my Billy's acting up here and telling me I don't want to go, or whatever it might be. But we constantly put ourselves in these situations where we know we're not going to feel invigorated or alive from them, and we'll just keep going to do them because we're supposed to do them. Jeremy Gruensteiner [00:55:33]: Yeah. Or we're chasing the next thing to make us feel alive. It's the next thing to buy. It's the next thing in my shopping cart that's going to show up or whatever, the next achievement. And it's like, oh, can I get more comfortable just being me? Or to throw this back to what we were talking about even before we started recording, of when you are in this place of realizing that you can do what you want to do, why not start and just keep going and see what happens? This is the funniest side of when I was in a more traditional thought pattern of get into a retirement and find some thing in retirement to fulfill you or whatever. The idea that I had the thing that I wanted to do was become a cheesemonger. I love it. Just selling cheese, I love it. Jeremy Gruensteiner [00:56:34]: That was a moment, too, of like, I don't even know if I would like it. I'm going to wait until I'm nearly 70 to figure that out if I'm going to like it or not and take on a whole new career path when I'm 70. Kyle Stubbs [00:56:50]: The only upside to that is that you could monger something else. You could become a fishmonger or just. Jeremy Gruensteiner [00:56:58]: Work a deli case somewhere. But the idea was, it became so hilarious to me of like, what am I waiting for? If that's something I actually want to do, what can I do to get me towards that? What can I do to explore it? Could I shadow somebody who's doing that and just see what the day to day is like? And I don't know if this is something that speaks to you as well of, like, when we're making those determinations for ourselves or we want to try on that next identity, or we want to make a big shift or big move where it's like, well, I have to get the certification. I have to enroll in the school. I have to get myself so far down the path to even know if I want to do it. Kyle Stubbs [00:57:46]: Absolutely. There's so much gold in just the putting yourself in the arena, so to speak. Whether that's diving first into the world of cheese or if it's climbing Mount Everest or whatever it might be, it doesn't matter. And it's like what you said, the ability just to start and keep going and being okay with the struggle and the not knowing exactly where it's going to pan out or what's exactly going to happen is the whole point in my mind. Right. And that takes us right back full circle to where we started the conversation with on. You don't always need the answer. You don't need to know the answer right away. Jeremy Gruensteiner [00:58:41]: Yeah. Kyle Stubbs [00:58:42]: The journey is part of it. And if we can figure that out on our own, perfect. If we need some help from somebody even better, great. It's out there. There's no lack of support for people out there. And that's something that we'll get stuck on, is just the thought that we're alone. Right. We're on that island by ourselves. Kyle Stubbs [00:59:05]: Or so far from it. So far from it. And anybody that went to that experience in Virginia saw that pretty darn quick when they walked in the doors of anywhere and all of a sudden there's a hundred people that would dive in front of a bus for you. Jeremy Gruensteiner [00:59:21]: Yeah. Or you could have a conversation that goes anywhere from being really silly talking about things like geez or goes as deep as you possibly can and can be vulnerable and whatnot and having that as a way to be. Able to have a common source of language or a common way of speaking that is very different than any other community that I've ever been a part of, which is so cool. And to also realize that even though we're all coaches in a very we use a lot of similar technology, we use a lot of things that are very much the same, and yet none of us are competitors. We're not competing against each other. We're peers in this. And there's more than enough pie to go around. You don't even have to reinvent. Jeremy Gruensteiner [01:00:12]: You can do the same thing as somebody else and there's still enough people to help. Kyle Stubbs [01:00:17]: There will never be a shortage. Jeremy Gruensteiner [01:00:21]: That's a wild thing to think about of, like, within especially a coaching community or in a place where you become very self sufficient or it's your own business, your own practice, where it can be very easy to feel like you are competing against everybody else in the room. To be able to have that conversation and say, yeah, this is how I'm using it isn't like, that's really cool. This is how I use it in a different way. And we're all here doing our best to make a better world. Kyle Stubbs [01:00:51]: Yeah. And that experience in itself. And I know we've talked a lot about and lifted already, but was really eye opening for me to see that many people from that many different walks of life and doing totally different things from the hippiest of the hippies to the most straight and narrow CrossFit guy out there or whatever it might be strict materialist. Yeah. And everybody just didn't yeah. Didn't matter in any way whatsoever. And just the amount of, like, you walk by any group and you're like, oh, I want part of that conversation. Those guys are talking about how the pyramids are made. Kyle Stubbs [01:01:33]: Let's go talk to those guys, or whatever it might be. Jeremy Gruensteiner [01:01:36]: Yeah. Or these guys are talking about building a garden, or these guys are talking about high stressful situations that they've been in. Kyle Stubbs [01:01:44]: And it doesn't matter if, like, me a cop there in the conversation with five guys talking about the last time they used heroin as a ceremony and just totally being involved in this awesome, fantastic conversation of seeing people's experiences and without judgment or without that voice getting in the way to hold you back from it. It's eye opening that we can create that in our own spaces anywhere. Jeremy Gruensteiner [01:02:18]: Yeah. What's that been like, to take that idea into your community? Kyle Stubbs [01:02:27]: Yeah. That's the big goal with the programs that I do run. So I run, like, ten week long programs for first responders, and the idea of it is to create that community. One. Realistically, and I tell people this often that the whole point when I started this was to be like a back doorway for just guys to connect with each other. Yeah. I've got you in here to talk about helping you communicate better at home, feel better, be healthier, all these things. But realistically, what I want is for you guys to have a community where you can talk, you can have conversations. Jeremy Gruensteiner [01:03:04]: That isn't just the company around the water cooler. Kyle Stubbs [01:03:07]: Exactly. Jeremy Gruensteiner [01:03:08]: Yeah. Kyle Stubbs [01:03:08]: No, it's not just a bunch of victims telling victim stories. So that's evolved, obviously, into what it is now, which is fantastic. But that's my end goal, is to have that, like, what you experience there, to be every detachment across North America. Yeah. You want to come in here and talk? Yeah. Okay, let's talk. See what it is and be that approachable and not just be this a there's a part to being a police officer where you have to be vigilant and you have to be aware all the time of what's going on, because there's real shit out there. There's no doubt about that. Kyle Stubbs [01:03:49]: But it doesn't mean we have to be stonewalled to everyone out there all the time and each other. Jeremy Gruensteiner [01:03:55]: Well, if you treat everything like if the only solution you have is a hammer, everything starts to look like a nail. Kyle Stubbs [01:04:01]: Yeah, sure does. And then you don't get very good at hitting the nail. Jeremy Gruensteiner [01:04:08]: Start hitting whatever. Hoping that the nail is there. Kyle Stubbs [01:04:13]: Exactly. Awesome. Jeremy Gruensteiner [01:04:15]: Man, this has been so fun. As we approach the end of the podcast, any final thoughts? Any final words of wisdom that you'd like to share with the audience? We've been on a wild journey so far, so would you like to leave. Kyle Stubbs [01:04:27]: The folks with just pay attention to your perspective. Right. The reticular activating system is a thing. It starts to can pick up on things and start to shadow what's actually good out there. Pay attention to how you're thinking about things, and if you're stuck on something, write it down and look at. It. It's that simple. And then magically, you can listen to the Weird and strong podcast and be like, oh, look at these 100 people that have been on here. Kyle Stubbs [01:05:02]: I could send this sentence to anybody, and they can help me. You're not alone in this stuff. Jeremy Gruensteiner [01:05:07]: Exactly. Kyle Stubbs [01:05:07]: You're not alone in this stuff. Once we start to really pay attention to that, that perspective can shift really quick. Jeremy Gruensteiner [01:05:16]: Awesome, man. What would you like to share with the audience as far as programs you have going on, people you would like to help, how they can get in contact with you? Kyle Stubbs [01:05:25]: Yeah, I'm on Instagram and Facebook. I don't use them a ton, but I'm on there. I'd love it. If anybody listening, jump on there, find me. It's just my name, Kyle M. Stubbs. I'd love to connect on there. I run everything off my website, Kylesubs CA, and currently I'm getting as many speaking engagements as I can. Kyle Stubbs [01:05:46]: I run workshops aside from my ten week long program, but currently I'm getting a few speaking engagements in the books to talk about perspective and talk about police interaction with the public and all that kind of stuff. So anybody listening? If you're looking for a speaker, let's go. I'd love to talk about it. Jeremy Gruensteiner [01:06:05]: Fantastic. That's great to hear. And I'm sure we'll spread this podcast all throughout the Internet, and who knows. Kyle Stubbs [01:06:13]: Where it'll take you, the wild interwebs. Yes, I'll be here just playing Hacky sack. Jeremy Gruensteiner [01:06:17]: Don't worry about me playing hackysack until the call comes, right? Kyle Stubbs [01:06:21]: Yeah, it's hard, man. That's a big hurdle for me right now, is trying to figure out how I can make my uniform as mobile as possible because it's tough to play hackysack in a full blown police uniform with your vest and your belt, and we got big ass boots. There's not many people making minimalist, safe boots out there. Jeremy Gruensteiner [01:06:44]: Yeah, I can imagine. I was just, like, even looking at the fabric and stuff. I was like, I could never do it because I don't think I would fit into it. Kyle Stubbs [01:06:52]: It's tough. Awesome. Jeremy Gruensteiner [01:06:56]: Well, thank you so much, Kyle. It has been an absolute pleasure getting to connect with you again and having you on the podcast. So very appreciative for your time and your message and your stories, and most importantly, for you being you. Kyle Stubbs [01:07:11]: Thanks, brother. Much appreciated, man. Keep it up. Jeremy Gruensteiner [01:07:14]: Thank you. And thank you all for listening. This has been a fun, exciting podcast for me to do with Kyle. And until next time, as always, stay strong, folks, and most importantly, stay weird.

Jeremy Gruensteiner [00:00:01]: Welcome back to the Weird and Strong podcast. I am your host, Jeremy Grunsteiner. This episode is so fantastic. If you've ever wondered what a real life Care Bear is like, then this is the episode for you. We have Jennifer Broxterman from Prosper Nutrition Coaching, and she tells her amazing story of how she came to realize, guys, that her superpower was being a real life Care Bear and how she's used that to defeat cancer and how she uses that with her clients. So buckle up, and let's get weird. Welcome, Jennifer Broxterman to the weird and strong podcast. I'm so glad you're here today. Jennifer Broxterman [00:00:41]: Yeah, thanks for having me, especially after we got to cross paths together in Richmond, Virginia. Jeremy Gruensteiner [00:00:46]: Yes, absolutely. I've heard you on the Enlisted podcast a few times already, and so it was great to see your presentation and then getting to connect the next. Jennifer Broxterman [00:00:57]: Here we are. Jeremy Gruensteiner [00:00:58]: Here we are. Yeah. So to start this off, I've got a weird question for you. Are you ready? Jennifer Broxterman [00:01:03]: Love it. I am ready. Always the weirder, the better. Jeremy Gruensteiner [00:01:07]: Before we get into the weird question, I have a preparatory question. What is your favorite food? Jennifer Broxterman [00:01:13]: Oh, my gosh. Okay. Pizza. Like, no question. Fly me to Italy. And if I could just have, like, Italian pizza for the rest of my life, I could die very happy. Jeremy Gruensteiner [00:01:24]: Is there specific toppings or specific style. Jennifer Broxterman [00:01:27]: That you're really I love classic. Like, the classic margarita, the classic pepperoni pizza. I'll go there. I'll throw on some artichokes, throw on some arugula, throw in prosciutto, like, be creative. But I love a good, classic cheese and meat pizza. Jeremy Gruensteiner [00:01:43]: Okay, so here's the weird part. Something has happened in the environment, and now every time it rains, your favorite pizza, the classic margarita, starts coming falling from the sky. The question is, do you eat it? Jennifer Broxterman [00:02:00]: I mean, if you could catch it, like, out with your hands and catch a pizza, sure. I'd eat a falling sky pizza. I like pizza enough to do that. Jeremy Gruensteiner [00:02:07]: Yeah. Jennifer Broxterman [00:02:08]: Maybe even five second rule if it hits the ground. Jeremy Gruensteiner [00:02:10]: Yeah. Jennifer Broxterman [00:02:12]: Yes, I would. Jeremy Gruensteiner [00:02:14]: Yes. All right. Awesome. It's always a funny visual to imagine something a pizza just falling from the sky. Jennifer Broxterman [00:02:23]: Absolutely. And now I'm picturing it, like, flipping upside down and pizzas on your windshield like a big bird poop. And you're like, what do I do? Oh, my gosh, it rained pizzas again. Jeremy Gruensteiner [00:02:32]: Could you imagine the difference of a rainy day? Jennifer Broxterman [00:02:36]: Right? Jeremy Gruensteiner [00:02:38]: It's gloomy out, but then it would. Jennifer Broxterman [00:02:41]: Make a rainy day. I mean, rainy days are great, but if pizza came from the sky, too, that was extra delicious. That's just a bonus. Rainy day. Jeremy Gruensteiner [00:02:48]: Awesome. That's great. So as we talk about things unconventional, I'm going to ask a slightly different question. What is the most unconventional thing about you that people may not know about? Jennifer Broxterman [00:03:05]: That I think of myself as a real life Care Bear, and you actually saw me dress up as a Care Bear on a stage. And it was something I did secretly for a really long time and didn't really talk about it. And what I mean by the Care Bear is, like, I'm a kid of the 80s, early ninety s. I grew up loving The Care Bear show. I slept with my little pink cheer bear as my stuffed animal as a kid. And what I always took away from the Care Bear was that you could give really good energy to other people and lift them up and make things better. I always pictured that rainbow of hearts and rainbows and goodness and love coming out of my belly. And whenever I interacted really with any human, I thought about a Care Bear energy exchange of just like, what's in me that can come out and add goodness and love and positivity. Jennifer Broxterman [00:03:55]: And my little secret hope was that the person would walk away and not understand why they felt better, but just that they liked interacting with me and they knew that I was a good energy, a good soul to be around. And so I did that for a really long time and then went through a series of tragic events that I'm very proud that I've overcome. And we can get into that if you want, with your audience. And then it was the first time in my life I realized I could also receive Care Bear energy from other humans and just this beautifulness of the exchange of love in this very visual, spiritual way. So that's a really weird thing about me, but I am a super proud adult Care Bear that goes around trying to spread love and rainbows out of my belly everywhere I go. Jeremy Gruensteiner [00:04:42]: So you have that connection through from childhood. What was that path look like as you noticed this? And was it really easy to do to begin with, or is it something that was just a light switch on and off? Jennifer Broxterman [00:05:00]: What did you say? Yeah, there was a group of people where it really started to connect for me. So I'm a registered dietitian. I help people have a happy and healthy relationship with food. I really try to opt out of the diet culture shaming and scolding and finger wagging, like, no, you're bad if you eat this food. And so where I started to fall into was a lot of disordered eating and true, very serious eating disorder recovery. So my practice was starting to really attract a lot of young women. But I mean, eating disorders don't discriminate. They show up in all ages, all genders, all body sizes, and just these people who were so down in the dumps because their inner bully, that ed voice, would just not let them feel worthy and deserving of getting better. Jennifer Broxterman [00:05:45]: And so I started thinking about my nutrition sessions, obviously being a dietitian and giving helpful nutrition advice and guidance on recovery. But I thought about also this energy component to the nutrition appointment of, like, this person right now has the dark, evil spirit of the Care Bear episode where you're fighting the villain. And I felt like I was trying to pull that person out of the Ed headspace and be like, but there's another clear sky, sunshine and white fluffy clouds other side that we can get you to. And I was like, I think it's going to take a Care Bear Stare to help them break free. And so I started to do this mental Care Bear Stare, and then all of a sudden, my eating disorder clients were like, I've never been able to break this. I've never been able to break through. I've done a lot of therapy. I've had hospitalizations. Jennifer Broxterman [00:06:34]: And then they started telling similar friends in that same headspace, and they're like, I don't know what it is, but you have to go see Jen. She has helped me so much more with my eating disorder and my self worth and my self care than any amount of therapy I've ever done. And I was like, I think there's something about this Care Bear Stare that they don't know that I'm doing. That's a part of my treatment plan still, obviously being a dietitian, but bringing in this weird component. I just didn't talk about it because at the time, I was indoctrinated to be a healthcare professional, and you should only do healthcare professional things. And I didn't think admitting that I did this Care Bear Stare seemed very healthcare professionally. And then I was like, it's not on the list of things you get trained in school. But I was like, it works, and it's adding value and benefit, so I'm going to keep doing it. Jeremy Gruensteiner [00:07:24]: Yeah, when you're talking about you don't get taught that in school. It's not in the list of standard practices. It's not in the list of accepted things from an insurance company. No. Was there a point of resistance with that when you were considering it or when you were noticing it? Is what I'm doing right? Or what would people think if they knew what I was doing? Was there any resistance around that, or were you full on like, no, this is working. I'm just going to keep doing it? Jennifer Broxterman [00:07:54]: I think it's more of option B. I just was like, full on, this is working. This makes me feel good. This makes them feel good. And it's not just about feeling good. It was translating to positive action. Like, they were moving forward in their recovery. They were getting better. Jennifer Broxterman [00:08:09]: Every time I would see them, I would get emails and Christmas cards being like, I had Christmas dinner with my family, and I haven't been able to do that in eight years. I had pizza at my child's birthday party, and I didn't go throw it up afterwards. I am able to go out on a date because I can actually accept a date where food is involved. And so I was seeing people get their lives back and it was almost like they came in in the color gray. And again, I think a lot in colors and rainbows and stuff like that. But I saw these humans would come in drained and dark and gray and then the more I Care Bear stared, the more I gave counsel as a dietitian, the more they kind of came back into full scale color. And it was like they got to be their true, authentic, best version of themselves again. And so I was like, this is working. Jennifer Broxterman [00:08:58]: And whether I'm admitting this out loud or not, I think this is a component to their recovery. So I'm going to keep doing it. But it's weird. It's very weird. Jeremy Gruensteiner [00:09:12]: One thing that we've noticed on this show is that people showing up as themselves, you said it best, is that you are a real life adult Care Bear and you showing up as yourself, as your fully version of yourself is pretty weird because that's not the normal thing that we see in the world, right? And what do you think beyond the changes of their nutrition and beyond the changes of what happens for them based off of what they're coming for you for treatment with, what else does you showing up as yourself, as a Care Bear allow them to do or show them to do in their life? Jennifer Broxterman [00:09:56]: I think it gives them permission to lean into their imperfect, real, authentic self. There is quite a strong correlation between perfectionism and pressure and disordered eating in particular. And so it was a lot of people that wanted to have perfect grades, perfect athletic performance, perfect appearance, perfect clothing size, perfect relationships. Perfect is exhausting. Let's say it again. Perfection is just exhausting. And so they had nothing left over to have any fun and connection and meaning and growth because they were just exhausting themselves chasing perfection. And so as an early dietitian, I thought I had to be perfect and take all the courses and learn all the things and read all the books. Jennifer Broxterman [00:10:41]: And then there was just this shift where my confidence started to build and I just started to lean more into my intuition. And what I mean by that is I would go down weird rabbit holes being like I feel really compelled to learn a lot about this topic or I actually feel like I shouldn't take any more training and nutrition coaching. I want to go into mindset and behavior change, psychology or energy healing and just these other facets that I was like I think this is all interconnected and I think it's love is the currency that's like flowing person to person, exchange to exchange. And so I just was like, I feel like I have to chase love. And love is a big component to being a happy, healthy person and feeling your very best and contributing to the world in a really positive way. And so I just went on this love search. Not romantic love search. I was happily married and in love with my partner, but just like, how to increase love in all of my interactions and by bringing more love into my practice, my clients got a lot better a lot faster. Jennifer Broxterman [00:11:44]: It was really cool. Jeremy Gruensteiner [00:11:45]: Yeah, it's really interesting. There's something that I've seen in other areas that I've worked in the technology world particularly. Right. We talk about this idea of role silos. The designer just does the design work. The engineer just does the engineering work. And throughout how things have evolved in the tech world is creating cross functional teams. And do you feel that there's a space for that in the medical and the coaching world as well, where it's no longer just, I am just the nutrition coach and I just do nutrition, or I am just a specialist in my field of medicine, and that's the only thing I look and touch and work with. Jeremy Gruensteiner [00:12:35]: Do you feel like there's a lot more opportunity there that we haven't been exploring? Jennifer Broxterman [00:12:39]: Heck yeah. I mean, one of my favorite phrases I like to say to my clients is, it's about the food, but it's not about the food. You didn't hire me to tell you that broccoli is good for you. I know you are a smart and capable and caring adult that has your own best interests at heart, but real life often gets in the way of our good intentions and our day to day behaviors. So what I'm going to do is I'm going to be that sounding board and help you figure out what's working, where your blocks are, what motivates you, what are your daily challenges. And if I need to be a connector, there's going to be other things we're going to bring into this. Like, if sleep is a real challenge, let's see how we can improve your sleep. If your inner self talk is a big component to you, that perfectionism and that analysis paralysis of starting and failing really fast and not having the courage to get back up and try again. Jennifer Broxterman [00:13:31]: We're going to talk about the inner bully, and that might be weird that we're doing that in a nutrition session, but we have to talk about the voices in our heads. If you need more support in another area, I'm very happy to admit where my limitations or shortcomings are. And what I just want to do is let's build a big community, a big, supportive Care Bear team. Like, this is the Care Bear again. It's like Cheer Bear didn't do it alone. She linked arms and there was a line of Care Bears giving a Care Bear stare to help someone. And so I just was like, I can be that Care Bear that brings other Care Bears in. And I completely agree with your sentiment that we don't want to just be like, I'm the expert. Jennifer Broxterman [00:14:09]: You should get all your answers from me. I love actually learning from really diverse ways of thinking because I might pick up something that I wouldn't even consider from a totally different industry. So I'm very curious and I love to study how other industries and people and silos think because it makes me a better coach. And I also think I have enough of an ego check to not think that I'm going to have all the answers or be the sole person who can help. Can I more be the cheer bearer that links arms and brings the right members onto the team? Jeremy Gruensteiner [00:14:44]: That's really cool, and I really appreciate that perspective of seeing that because whether people identify this with this term or not, it could be a bit loaded for some folks, but it truly takes care to being truly holistic versus prescriptive. Or it's like a decision tree. If this is happening, then this is a solution. You can go to Google for that, right? Like, the information is, like you said about a client of saying you're smart enough to know that broccoli is good for you, or it's better than whatever you're comparing it to, or it's more nutritious than we know these things. And so what's the thing that holding us that are holding us back? Something that we talked about a little bit before we hit record is many times for a lot of folks is this tyranny of the urgent, of I have all of these things on my list that I have to do this pressure of real life that gets in the way. Aside from that inner saboteur, that inner voice, what are the ways that you start to bring forward for folks to help to break some of those patterns around that perfection? Jennifer Broxterman [00:16:03]: Endless question. Yeah, I'll explain it with a metaphor, a coaching game I actually do with my real clients. And I hope you listeners, if there's value to this, please take this idea from today's show. I call it the health piggy bank or the health spending account. So I want you to picture a piggy bank or a jar that's empty and you have a big pile of change as well as some dollar bills, right? So you might have some quarters. Now, I'm Canadian, I'm going to use some funny Canadian money language. But we have like, Loonies, which is like a one dollars coin. And we have Tunis, which is a $2 coin. Jennifer Broxterman [00:16:35]: And of course, we have like, nickels for five cents and dimes for ten and quarters for 25 and five and ten and $20 bills. Every penny is equivalent, whether it is five pennies in a nickel or however many pennies that works out to you in a $20 bill, every single penny counts. And so I want you to think about your health account, like whatever capacity you have to just start throwing positive change into your account. So if I have a glass of water when I get up. Cool. There's like $0.50 if I get to my gym workout that I was intending to do today. Awesome. That's like a nice $20 investment in my long term health if I add a salad to my lunch today or the broccoli right, there's a good investment. Jennifer Broxterman [00:17:16]: So what we're trying to do is look at ways that we can add healthy choices in. But little choices are just as important as the really big grandiose choices. Because if I wait to have $500 every single time I'm going to put money in my bank account, I wouldn't throw money in all that often. But if I'm okay that a nickel still counts and a $5 bill and a $20 bill all add up, that's okay. But here's the piece of the bank analogy, is you have to be okay that you're going to deduct. So we don't want to be like Ebenezer Scrooge. We can't just always put money in and be like hoarding and never take it out. So in my real life, I sometimes don't get enough sleep. Jennifer Broxterman [00:17:55]: Maybe I made the choice to scroll on social media too late and it knocked out an hour of my sleep. Maybe there's days I'm not in the mood to go to the gym and so I do a ten minute walk instead of an hour long workout. Okay, it's not the same, but it's still something. And so being okay, that deductions happen. But what I just think about when I'm making a deduction is how do I make the deduction as small as possible and can I quickly find other ways to put contributions back in so maybe I can't exercise. It's been a rough week of work and illness, but I can stay really well hydrated that week. So I don't ever think in all on or all off very black white. I very much just look for opportunities to contribute positive health choices to my bank account and then I'm very forgiving on the deductions. Jennifer Broxterman [00:18:41]: And then here's kind of a funny money example where it really clicks for people. It's to banish the whole screw it self talk. So I have a ton of nutrition clients, and maybe you listeners can relate to this, who make a nutrition choice that's a little bit off track from their goals. And they're like, well, today is ruined. Well, this weekend is a write off. And then they're like, But Monday, Monday I'll start again and I'll get back on the horse. It would be like on Monday always starts Monday, right? It would be the same as having a minor fender bender and suddenly you have a $479 car repair to replace a part and you're like, well, that sucks. Would you go and take 5000 or 10,000 or $20,000 that you were saving maybe for a trip or a down payment on a house or something really significant and go, well, I had this vendor bender and I had to spend this unnecessary money, what was the point of saving for anything else? Might as well go blow it. Jennifer Broxterman [00:19:38]: When you think about that with cash, you'd be like, yeah, I wouldn't do that. That doesn't make sense. Yet with food, how many times do people have a vendor vendor kind of choice? And then they throw in the towel and they just start to go, well, none of this matters. None of my efforts count. Why bother? And so I just talk about the idea of a long term saving plan where as long as you're accumulating and you're contributing a little bit faster, that's outpacing the deductions. Your wealth is actually going to grow with compound interest. So every day I just start with a piggy bank and it still has money left over from the days and weeks and months prior. And I just look for the little small five minute or faster opportunities to throw in a handful of change. Jennifer Broxterman [00:20:23]: And those little choices absolutely add up. And then I'm very forgiving when a deduction happens. I'm just being mindful that I'm not kind of like living within your means with money. I am earning more than I'm spending and I'm in a healthy financial state. I am contributing health wise, nutrition wise, exercise wise, a little bit faster than I am deducting. And therefore I get to stay as a healthy, happy person. But I'm not stressed about the mistakes and error quotes because they're not mistakes. Jeremy Gruensteiner [00:20:53]: Yeah, exactly. Jennifer Broxterman [00:20:54]: That's a health spending account. Jeremy Gruensteiner [00:20:56]: Yeah, I love that analogy. A previous guest who I've worked with, with coaching education, one of the things that they talk about is in this all or nothing type of black and white thinking that we get we can also get really stuck into the nuances. Well, if I just take this supplement or if I just sign up for this twelve week shred, right? If I can just find the secret sauce, the silver bullet, that could be the thing that's going to change my life. It's going to turn my life around. We as coaches, I'm making an assumption that get the next certification, that's going to change my practice, it's going to change my clients. I'm going to become the best coach ever. It's accumulating all these things. They talked about it as stepping over dollars to pick up pennies. Jennifer Broxterman [00:21:47]: Yeah, for sure. I mean, I'll bring an example and play off what you're hinting at here from a business book that I read. And I was like, oh, this is so applicable to health. And so the business book was about business owners getting stuck in analysis, paralysis, thinking they need more information, they need more resources, more team members, more money, more marketing dollars before they're allowed or able or whatever to succeed. And so what the business book kind of labeled this as is two scenarios. There is the BTO. And that stands for Best Theoretical Option. Or there's the BDO Best Doable option where people, when you find yourself in paralysis and being stuck, you're probably in a BTO scenario. Jennifer Broxterman [00:22:33]: You're looking for the best theoretical solution, the best meal plan, the best workout option, the best certification, the best business coaching, the best microphone to get on a podcast, right? You're stuck in the best theory. Theory keeps people paralyzed. The BDO admits you're not ever going to have all the answers all the time, all the money, all the resources, all the information. So you just make the best doable option of what you have access to today. Or another way I like to remind my nutrition clients is I just say this phrase do the best you can where you are with what you have. You're at the airport catching a flight and you haven't had breakfast yet. What is the best airport breakfast you can get with what you have and the time available before you have to board the plane. So the BDO really gets you out of searching for perfect because you can just be making best doable options all day long as you go. Jennifer Broxterman [00:23:27]: And then I often will have them think about for the day. Be like. I call it win W-I-N what's important now? So maybe you can't get the ten health things checked off your list that you wanted to do. You wanted to meditate and sleep 8 hours and drink enough water and work out and have three whole square meals from scratch. You're probably not going to get all of those checked off in a day. But can you get what's important now? What is your one or two wins that your energy absolutely can go into? And you can check that off as a win before you go to sleep. And so I find that just getting people to understand best doable option and win what's important now, they just start taking imperfect action and then I love the science of motivation. I find motivation so fascinating. Jennifer Broxterman [00:24:12]: So to really simplify motivation down, people think they have to feel motivated and then an arrow that leads to taking action. It's the inverse. You take action and then you feel more motivated to take more action. So I usually just draw that on a piece of paper and I'm like what you've been doing motivation, waiting for that to show up before you take action. Let's flip it. Take a small action, be imperfect, but do something. And then you're going to find you have more motivation to keep going. And they're like, oh my gosh, this is life changing, but so simple. Jennifer Broxterman [00:24:43]: And it is. Jeremy Gruensteiner [00:24:44]: Yeah, we hold ourselves back and we wait to start. Because again, that lack of perfection or that lack of it's the same idea of well, if you're learning to play an instrument, are you going to be perfect the first time you pick it up? No. Why do we expect in our daily lives in habit change and new things that we're doing, changing our behaviors, changing our schedules, being able to as a common person that we know. Mark England says, start and keep going. Jennifer Broxterman [00:25:19]: Right? Jeremy Gruensteiner [00:25:21]: I know I fall into this category very often. I've been thinking about this quite a bit, especially when I'm looking at workflows for myself or how do I optimize my day? There's this chase towards optimization. What's the best version of this? What could it be? It's like, well, is that actually necessary? Or is, again, the best doable option? Jennifer Broxterman [00:25:49]: 100%? Jeremy Gruensteiner [00:25:50]: Yeah, that's a perfect way to frame that up for all of us. Jennifer Broxterman [00:25:56]: And it just gives you permission, I think, to just move forward with a decision. Not the perfect decision, but the best decision that you have access to in that moment. And again, your BDO is allowed to change. That's what's so beautiful about it. Here's a really silly, simple metaphor, how you furnished. Maybe if you were like, just moved out on your own college dorm room, your first rental apartment that probably wasn't your forever furniture, I'm going to take a guess, but it was the best doable option for what you had access to in your finances and the space that you had. And of course, that furniture is allowed to change and get better or upgrade or have a comfier bed or a favorite desk to work at. So you just have to move forward with something, and we were okay with that. Jennifer Broxterman [00:26:42]: With less than perfect furniture. Why can't we be like that with our health habits or work schedules or places that we're pushing ourselves and striving? I find when people add pressure, the pressure is where they get pushed back into the best theoretical option. But when we take off the pressure, the best doable option is so logical to just move forward with the best option at the time. So strip off the pressure and the best doable option becomes much easier. Jeremy Gruensteiner [00:27:08]: Yeah. I love that we're switched gears a little bit, a little bit more about you personally. Okay, you alluded to this a little bit earlier of being able to make that change for yourself, of not only being able to give that Care Bear stare out, but being able to accept that what was that process like? Take us on that journey and tell us that story. Jennifer Broxterman [00:27:35]: Okay, well, buckle up. This was the biggest pivot I've ever been through in my life, and the most powerful and special and growth opportunity I've been very lucky to experience. So I just turned 39 a couple of days ago, and five years ago, almost to the day on October 29, five years ago 2018, I got a phone call from a block number. And I knew instantly, like, my stomach sank. I knew who was going to be calling me, and I knew that bad news was coming on the other side. But I picked up the block number, answered the phone, and it was an oncologist calling me to tell me that. I had stage three ovarian cancer. It was advanced, it was serious. Jennifer Broxterman [00:28:19]: They caught it really late. I had been bringing symptoms forward to my doctor for five years and wasn't ever taken seriously because I was a high level CrossFitter young, healthy dietitian. Why would someone ever think that I have cancer? So I get rushed into surgery a couple of weeks later and it's really bad. So I lose a whole bunch of body parts because the cancer is in my entire abdominal cavity. I wake up and they tell me I've lost my uterus, my ovaries, my appendix, my ileocecal valve, two big fragments of my large intestine and they lobbed off a third of my bladder, sewed me back up and then basically said, get your will and affairs in order. This is really advanced. We tried our best to get out what we could. We didn't get it all out. Jennifer Broxterman [00:29:04]: You have probably six months to a year, so make your peace with that and just get your affairs in order and try and enjoy the last few months of your life. And so I looked that doctor in the eye, I'm so proud of myself. And I was like, well, they're like, you have an 8% chance of living to five years was like the statistical average, I was told. And I was like, But I'm young. I'm healthy. I take good care of myself. And this guy's like, I don't care. It doesn't matter. Jennifer Broxterman [00:29:28]: We don't really talk about Dr. Death. He just was like, it doesn't matter what you do. Pretty much everyone dies. You're not getting it. You need to accept that this is your end. And I just looked him in the eye and I was like, well, someone has to be in that 8%. Why not me? Why couldn't it be me? And so what then? Transpired was just this amazing thing after thing of miracles. Jennifer Broxterman [00:29:54]: So, I mean, I wake up, they've also damaged my nerve in surgery and I have a paralyzed right leg. So I also can't walk. I have to learn how to walk again. I've been freaked out and told I have like an end stage terminal cancer. And I just was like, okay, it's going to take everything in me to beat this. And I weirdly was like, as a dietitian who's done a lot of mental health and resiliency and mindset and self care, all those weird rabbit holes, I didn't know why I needed to explore and go down in the years prior, I was like, oh, my gosh. I have been fully preparing for this moment by supporting other people through really hard stuff. I am now equipped and ready to help myself. Jennifer Broxterman [00:30:36]: So I did something called a teacup exercise, and I drew a teacup on a blank piece of paper and it's basically a story that goes like this, like, life is going to come along and bump you and if coffee comes flying out of your mug it's because you chose to put coffee in your mug. If tea comes spilling out, it's because you put tea in your cup. So life provides the cup. You choose how you're going to fill it. And so I decided to pick some really powerful words for how I wanted to show up. I knew I was going to get bumped and jostled, and so I picked words like love and positivity and hope and optimism and inspiration. And my overarching word picked was the word unstoppable. And I hung onto that word unstoppable every single piece of the journey. Jennifer Broxterman [00:31:20]: So they're like, you're not going to really get your leg back and walk? I'm like. No. Watch me. So I visualized surfing on a surfboard in Tofino, British Columbia. And like six months, seven months to the day of waking up with my leg paralyzed. I'm riding motorcycles and surfing in Tofino. I was like, well, someone's going to be in the 8%. Watch me be unstoppable and be in that 8%. Jennifer Broxterman [00:31:44]: And so the whole idea of the Care Bear piece is at first, I was so ashamed to admit I had cancer. Like, I had a deep sense of shame that how am I someone that's supposed to be this healthy role model who's eating well and portraying that I'm eating well and exercising, even though I really was. I was like, people are going to think I'm some fraud. And then I was like, oh, wait, that's a ridiculous thought, just like I would do with an eating disorder client. You don't need to believe that. That's just a really weird, not productive thought. And so I turned down the volume on that shame thought, and I turned up the volume of the unstoppable thinking. And so I was like, okay, what is this going to take? This is going to take support. Jennifer Broxterman [00:32:27]: This is going to take good nutrition. This is going to take fresh air in nature. And so what I did is I went to a walk in the woods with a notepad, and I sat down by the side of a river and I made myself a list of all the things I was going to take to heal from cancer. Do you want me to actually share that list? I'd have to pull it up quickly on my computer. Jeremy Gruensteiner [00:32:47]: But as you're working to pull that up, there's something that was interesting. So this is a fun story that not many people know is that if they're looking at pictures of myself recently and they might have noticed something changed. And so as you were looking at that thought of being a fraud or what are people going to think of me? So I had a moment just before the event earlier this month. My hair was almost as long as yours was. Jennifer Broxterman [00:33:19]: Oh, really? Jeremy Gruensteiner [00:33:20]: Yes. And as an aging male, you start to notice the thinning of the hairline because it's just what happens. And I've had longer hair most of my adult life, and I started having a crisis about it, and it seems so vain and so silly in the moment of like, yeah, what if I go bald? Who would I be without my hair? Who would I be without identity? And I took the step back and I realized how hilarious that thought is. Jennifer Broxterman [00:33:53]: Yeah. Jeremy Gruensteiner [00:33:54]: And booked an appointment with my budy who's a barber the next day, went in without a plan. He's like, what are we doing? Are we just going to trim things up and make things clean? Jennifer Broxterman [00:34:05]: I was like, take wow. Jeremy Gruensteiner [00:34:07]: So confused. Jennifer Broxterman [00:34:09]: Right? Jeremy Gruensteiner [00:34:09]: Because he's like, well, what do you want it to look like? You figure it out. I trust you. It's learning to try on a different identity. If you're 100% idea of, oh, I'm going to be, that's an identity that you've assigned for yourself and you've chosen it. So could you try something different? Jennifer Broxterman [00:34:31]: Yeah. Or can I be a healthy dietitian who's an athlete with stage three cancer, who's a fighter and an inspiration? Like, can both coexist together? Yes. So, yeah, I go to the river and what my soul was telling me is like, your intuition has the answers of what it's going to take to be in the 8%. And so I just started to write down this list, and the list is called Healing from Cancer. And I have this pin beside my bed, and this is my magical spell. I read this every morning when I wake up. I read it every night before I go to bed. And so that list is three daily words happiness, joy and love. Jennifer Broxterman [00:35:10]: Have living plants everywhere. Be surrounded by them at home and work. Go hiking in the woods. Lean into my CrossFit community and get lots of support from my friends. Do lots of yoga. Participate in quiet retreats that are yoga or spiritual in nature. Go outside for daily walks outdoors. Eat lots of vegetables, especially cruciferous that's our broccoli family. Jennifer Broxterman [00:35:36]: Have low to no sugar intake and lots of fresh herbs and spices. Eat whole foods without being rigid with an emphasis on leaning into plant based but again, flexibility there. Be around warm and sunny vacations. Be in the sun. Work part time and keep making a positive impact in the world. Relax, stress less and lean into slower living. Have dinner parties with my friends. Drink lots of tea. Jennifer Broxterman [00:36:07]: Take probiotics. Have a daily gratitude practice. Do more meditation, inward reflection. Know really lean into a spiritual practice. Have a strong belief that I'll be okay. Nurture and protect my immune system. Have dog cuddles daily with my dog Carly. Reach out for social support from friends, my family and a therapist. Jennifer Broxterman [00:36:30]: Cry and let the tough emotions come out. Have daily hugs, more laughter and play. Look at beautiful art sound therapy and invite more peaceful sounds and music in some aromatherapy. Be around lots of natural light. Allow myself enough sleep, no alarm clocks. Wake up when you're well rested. Release suppressed emotions and practice deep forgiveness. Have less fear in my life and a sense of safety. Jennifer Broxterman [00:37:01]: Live in a clean, uncluttered, minimalistic home. Have travel and adventure limit and shield against negativity. Both people and the news have Sundays be completely electronics free, just dedicated to family time. And the final thing I wrote down was, be at peace with dying. Don't be afraid. And so I just was like, that's my list. That's what it's going to take. And so I turned down chemotherapy. Jennifer Broxterman [00:37:32]: No, I'm not anti chemo for you listeners. It's just I had two cancers. One was more responsive to chemo. One was really not super responsive to chemo. And the one that wasn't responsive to chemo was the majority of what I had. So that felt like the right decision. I had to beg for a Pet scan to get retested. My oncologist was so negative. Jennifer Broxterman [00:37:52]: He's like, no, we're not going to pay for a Pet scan. You still have cancer in you. Everyone has this cancer in them. It always comes back. It doesn't go away. There's not a scenario where you're not going to have cancer. And I was like, well, there's three options, actually. It's really bad and I'm going to die in six months. Jennifer Broxterman [00:38:08]: Like, you're telling me it's more slow growing and I maybe have a little more time than you're hinting at. Maybe my age and my health are going to contribute. Or it's the Care Bear rainbows and unicorns option, which is I'm doing a lot of these things that I think are helping, and cancer is actually dying. And so here's the part he didn't understand, and this is the weird and wonderful, is because I let my world Care Bear stare at me. I would post stuff online, and then I just got flooded with messages, flooded with love, flooded with prayers, flooded with support. And I could feel this tingling popping sensation. I physically could feel cancer dissolving. I don't know how else to describe it. Jennifer Broxterman [00:38:50]: Then something would happen on the inside, and it was almost like bubble wrap, like this light popping Rice Krispy tingling. And I was like, cancer is dying. I can feel cancer dying inside of me. And it's love. Love is the chemotherapy. Like, there is love being sent to me. I can feel Care Bear love beams coming into my body and something's actually happening. So at four and a half months after that surgery, I'm learning how to walk again. Jennifer Broxterman [00:39:19]: I have to beg to get this Pet scan that I have to pay for myself. I'm like, Just give me the signature. I'm the one paying for it. I just need an oncologist signature to allow me to have this. They were like, there's no cancer. We don't see any inside of you. And so touchwood. My five year anniversary is two days from today. Jennifer Broxterman [00:39:40]: So it's October 27. As we're recording this, it's October 29 in two days and I'm in the 8%. I did it. I'm cancer free. I've been in radical remission, and I really, truly think it was opening myself up to receiving the love back from other people. And I think a lot of those things on that list was just a well lived life. But that's my really interesting and wild and miraculous story of my touch with cancer and how I chose to handle it. Jeremy Gruensteiner [00:40:11]: When you're looking thank you, first of all, for sharing that. It's the second time of hearing that story and it's still one of the most rad stories I've heard. Thanks. And I have a question about this list. Jennifer Broxterman [00:40:25]: Yeah. Jeremy Gruensteiner [00:40:26]: How different is this list from prior to cancer for you? How much of that changed? Jennifer Broxterman [00:40:34]: Yeah, so that list had probably 50% to 60% of that being done consistently. But it was always work and pressure and urgency first. That list came second, and now it's that list comes first. And the achievement and the work and the pressure, it's like, I don't need to actually have all those things. I just need to show up, do a good job, add value to the world, be great for my clients, continue to learn and evolve and grow, but make sure that those things are protected. And I notice now I'm not a perfect person, but I notice if I feel stressed or frazzled. What I just do is I spend more time staring at that list and then I'm like, oh, boom, there it is. Like reticular activating system. Jennifer Broxterman [00:41:15]: My eyes can go right to the bullet point on the list and be like, that's why you're not feeling so great. You haven't had friends over for a dinner party in months and you always belly laugh and have the best Friday night talking with your close friends and you know, there's just meals that go on for 4 hours around the dinner table. Or it might be like, hey, you love being in the woods. And I try to go one or two times a week on a nice long hike. But if I start to go two or three weeks without a hike, I'm noticing I am craving that. So if I ever feel off, I just go back to that list and the list guides me back to what needs to come up to the surface and then I just make that the priority. Jeremy Gruensteiner [00:41:55]: Yeah, that's really cool. What would you suggest for people who don't have a list like that? Jennifer Broxterman [00:42:02]: Oh my gosh, sit down and write your own list. I just now teach this to my own clients. I call it my Happy Healthy Human List. What makes you just a happy, healthy human? What are the things that your soul needs to feel like you're living a life well lived, you don't need a brush with cancer, a near death experience to focus in on what you really value and what are the priorities. So I think having a clear list. But I think the other magical piece of it is that I look at it every single day. I really have this list hanging beside my bed, and I look at it at least twice a day. And so it just is like I call them like train tracks. Jennifer Broxterman [00:42:42]: I've just laid down tracks that now that those tracks are laid, the train has a much easier time, leading you to drink tea and take Probiotics and be in the woods and have dinner parties with friends and laugh and have a sense of safety and slow down. So because I look at that list all the time, those reps are way more solidified. Jeremy Gruensteiner [00:43:02]: That makes a lot of sense. And I can imagine that there are times when you're using this practice with clients that there's that initial paralysis because we haven't written that book before, we haven't considered those things, or we're so stuck in that pressure and speed of life and all of those things that it can make it really difficult to even imagine. What are these things that are going to make me a happy, healthy human? Jennifer Broxterman [00:43:31]: Yeah. Can I throw a question at you? Jeremy Gruensteiner [00:43:34]: Sure. Jennifer Broxterman [00:43:34]: What would be on your list? Jeremy Gruensteiner [00:43:37]: I've been actually working on this myself. It's interesting how much this stuff comes up of how similar, even though we've never interacted beyond a few weeks ago, how much practices overlap with things. And so for me, it's connection being able to do things like these podcasts. There's a great amount of sharing there that I get to bring out into the world. But the more connections that I can create with people, it's having this podcast even when life is busy, even when the tasks list are there. Making the time for taking long walks with my dog, I got a bass down named Chester who's full of attitude. And I notice for myself, when there's times that I'm feeling the pressure, he's extraordinarily antsy and sassy, and we haven't been taking the time to go out and just be right. Yeah. Jeremy Gruensteiner [00:44:42]: For me, the connection is such a big component for me, and it's finding the opportunities for that of whatever vehicles those take. And for me, for a long time, that was my coaching practice because it was a lot of in person work. Jennifer Broxterman [00:44:56]: Right. Jeremy Gruensteiner [00:44:57]: I get to have that all the time, all day, every day. And so now that my path has changed and I'm no longer doing that, it's all right. What are the ways that I can continue to foster those things? Jennifer Broxterman [00:45:11]: Powerful. Jeremy Gruensteiner [00:45:12]: Yeah. Jennifer Broxterman [00:45:14]: What would you put in your teacup? That's my follow up question. Yeah. What would be your powerful words that when life jostles you, what's going to come out? Jeremy Gruensteiner [00:45:22]: Kindness and adventure. Jennifer Broxterman [00:45:25]: Love it. Jeremy Gruensteiner [00:45:27]: Those are the two words that have continually been coming up for me in this sense of continually similarly to you, with the not allowing it to come back inwards, of noticing for myself how much I want to care and help others. And then that shielding of, well, no, it can't come back inwards or suspicious when it does, or even for yourself. If I give this to everyone else, why can't I give it to the person that I spend the most time with? Jennifer Broxterman [00:46:11]: Right. Jeremy Gruensteiner [00:46:12]: Ultimately the most important person in my life, which is 100%, that kindness. And then the adventure component of that is beyond even taking trips, beyond getting renting my Budy's van and going out to Richmond or flying back to Germany for the first time in 20 years with no plan, or flying out to San Francisco very recently, aside from the coaching activity that I needed to do with no plan. Jennifer Broxterman [00:46:44]: Right. Jeremy Gruensteiner [00:46:46]: Continually bringing adventure into my life, and that life is the adventure. That's the journey. I talk about this very often with other guests, with people that I work with, is that we spend so much time focused on the achievement and the destination of, yeah, when I lose the 20 pounds, I will finally be that. These are things that I learned for myself, coming from somebody who was nearly 300 pounds at one point and had never touched a barbell in my life and then became an Olympic weightlifter at a national level, is that I was actually looking for that acceptance and love of self or connection to myself. And that the achievements that I put in front of myself, adding ten kilos to my clean and jerk, like, cool, great, I did it. It felt great for a day, a week. And now what? Well, now I'm back on the horse. I'm back into training, and things are back to where I was of not feeling enough. Jeremy Gruensteiner [00:47:51]: So then realizing that the journey is the point, the destination isn't the point. We all have one destination at the end. Jennifer Broxterman [00:48:03]: We're all going to die. Jeremy Gruensteiner [00:48:04]: Why am I trying to rush towards it? Why am I trying to make it come faster? Why am I trying to make this an accelerated timeline of my own engineering and my own attachment? And I can be comfortable and in love with what is. Jennifer Broxterman [00:48:22]: I feel like, in a weird, lovely way in my had to think about death way more than I think the average 30 year old does. And I'm so glad I thought about death a lot because it doesn't scare me anymore. We have a very death phobic society. Death has made me appreciate. Life is so awesome right now. And just like you said, life will be awesome. When I rush to this next thing, I achieve this next thing, I get this thing done off my to do list. It's like life is amazing today, and life needs to be well lived today, day in and day out, as opposed to the big objective outside things. Jennifer Broxterman [00:49:04]: So sounds a bit morbid, but contemplating death and thinking about death even at a younger age is such a cool way to know if you're on track with how you're spending your time, who you're spending your time with, and how you're showing up every day for yourself. Yeah. Jeremy Gruensteiner [00:49:21]: In that shift, have you noticed your perception of time changed? Does it feel like it goes more slowly, more quickly? Jennifer Broxterman [00:49:31]: I don't know. Jeremy Gruensteiner [00:49:32]: Different now? Jennifer Broxterman [00:49:32]: Well, the pandemic has made it hard because it's been on slow mo and fast forward and up topsy turvy. So that's a little bit hard to answer because it's just been a wild past five years. What I would say is I was one of those kids that was always like, delay gratification, delay gratification, eat the vegetables, don't have the cookie for dessert, save as much as you can. I just was always chasing that perfection. And now it's not that I just throw the towel in. Who cares? I can be very present and savor the little moments as they're happening, instead of just only being allowed to celebrate the very big moments. So that's how time has changed. I would say I'm much more present, moment to moment, day by day, and I'm noticing how many more wonderful moments there are throughout the day. Jennifer Broxterman [00:50:26]: And if I get a little nerdy and scientific, I learned this concept from a friend, it's called microbursts of happiness. So she's a happiness researcher, and most people think what they think will make them happy are the big moments of happiness. When I get married, when I have the baby, when we buy the house, when we add ten kilos, when we PR, when we hit a million subs or whatever. Right. The big things. But realistically, what our brains are happiest on is it's called an upward spiral of happiness. And there's a whole bunch of little micro bursts, micro doses of happiness that happen close together in the same day. So it might be a cold winter morning and you are just enjoying that first warm cup of coffee or tea, and then it might be scratching your dog just behind the ear just where he likes it, and connecting with your pet who loves you so deeply for 30 seconds to a minute. Jennifer Broxterman [00:51:19]: It's maybe getting a really nice hug from a significant other when you're having a tough moment. And it's so the ability to see these little micro moments of happiness. And if you can burst a whole bunch of them, like three to five and sort of connect them in the same day or in a row, your brain is so happy. And you learn how to be in love with whatever your simple, beautiful, big, little medium sized life looks like right now. Because it's just good enough as it is. And so that's, I think, my favorite change. And I don't know if that fully connects to your question about perception of time, but I'm more present and I really notice the small moments of happiness where I wouldn't have really given them a whole lot of credit prior to cancer, that's cool. Jeremy Gruensteiner [00:52:06]: I'm okay with how things are, but I'm not really connecting it through into how that's adding more value to my life of the experience. Jennifer Broxterman [00:52:14]: Right, yeah. Jeremy Gruensteiner [00:52:15]: And that's where in talking about adventure, it carries directly into that as well. Well, I can view my life as a drudging set of tasks, that I'm going to do this job for X amount of years. I clock in, I clock out. Or what's the adventure for today? Jennifer Broxterman [00:52:36]: Yeah. Jeremy Gruensteiner [00:52:37]: Even though I know I'm going to the same place, I'm walking from my bedroom to my desk. What's the adventure there? And it opens us up to so much more than what normal life or what normal life has told us we can have. Jennifer Broxterman [00:52:53]: Right. Jeremy Gruensteiner [00:52:56]: So in talking about the doctor that told you that basically you're done. Jennifer Broxterman [00:53:03]: Yes. Jeremy Gruensteiner [00:53:05]: Dr death already. Yeah. Dr. Death. In being able to see someone go against the grain, with what the expectation was, do you imagine that made any sort of a shift for somebody in that role or in that perspective to see that change? Do you imagine that that changed or made them question what they have? Jennifer Broxterman [00:53:34]: I would hope so, but also I had five, six, seven appointments where it was the same loop of him being like, I don't think you get it, you're not going to make it. And so I actually just chose to remove myself from that situation where I was trying to work with this oncologist. And obviously we did not see eye to eye on my scenario, and so he just never followed up. Obviously, I omitted myself from his practice. I was hoping to be a great example. I will show you a similar example in the medical community, so I hope he could learn from this scenario. But also, it's not my job to change someone else's mind. I just like, I'm going to go live this awesome, positive, healthy life and hope for the best. Jennifer Broxterman [00:54:18]: But as I hinted, it had been about five years, me bringing symptoms forward and being sort of brushed under the rug and ignored. And so one of the things that happened is when I was 25 or 29, so I got diagnosed at 34, so 29 was five years earlier. I'll be really vulnerable on this podcast. I did have an abnormal PAP. And so for women, when that happens, you have to go through more intensive testing, so you do more Paps in a row in the same year. And what actually happened is those results did come back positive. So no one read the report and I found it sort of two weeks after my cancer surgery and what that report said was negative for cervical cancer, abnormal cells detected. Further testing is needed to rule out uterine or variant cancer. Jennifer Broxterman [00:55:07]: So I actually had warning signs five years earlier, and that's why I went to my doctor, because things were changing and not being quite normal down there. And so a whole bunch of people were like, aren't you going to sue? Look what they did. That's medical malpractice. And I thought about it, and I was like, no. I actually weirdly didn't have any anger in me. But what I did is I went to my family doctor, the oncologist or not the oncologist, the gynecologist and the endocrinologist, who were all following my case where my blood work and my PAP results were weird. And I just said, I hope I can be that case that you remember for the rest of your practice. I am not angry at you. Jennifer Broxterman [00:55:44]: I am not litigious. Your medical license is not at risk. But here is an example of paperwork that wasn't read and wasn't actually passed on to me, and now I am five years down the road from this test that you guys sent me for. And now I don't have a reproductive system anymore. I don't have the ability to have children because of what's unfolded. So I hope I can be an example for in your career when you're teaching interns about just making sure you do your due diligence to look at all testing that's done. And even if someone is young and healthy and doesn't look like the typical type of cancer patient, this is one of those times I fell through the cracks and there was a really serious negative outcome. And as soon as I sort of brought it to each of them and I was so loving and kind and mature the way I delivered it, I walked away, and I was like, I feel really good about that. Jennifer Broxterman [00:56:41]: I hope I saved another woman's life who has ovarian cancer. Ovarian cancer is really hard to diagnose. It's almost always caught late. You don't get a typical solid tumor that you can feel. And the symptoms are like bloating and increased urination and digestive upset, like, not obvious cancer symptoms. And I had digestive upset. That was my only symptom of cancer, even when it was super advanced, because I had tumors in my GI tract that had grown through the GI walls. And so all of them kind of like, jaw hit the floor. Jennifer Broxterman [00:57:15]: But you could tell how grateful they were that I could use that as a teaching moment with them and just do it with love and grace and kindness and forgiveness. And part of that list was like, practice deep forgiveness. Because hanging on to hate and anger wasn't going to change getting body parts back or not being all the way at stage three. So I was like, how do I make a positive in this scenario and impact these three medical professionals lives so that they can go help other patients going forward? So I felt really proud of myself for how I handled when I found that piece of information in my medical record and was like, oh, my gosh, this has been here for five years. And it all made sense. I'm like, I'm not crazy. Things that I've been talking about and bringing forward and being like, I know my body, something feels off. I was like, it makes sense because five years ago I said that and there was something happening. Jeremy Gruensteiner [00:58:07]: Yeah, that's amazing. First of all, thank you for sharing that. And one of the things that I'm hearing in that is it's very easy for us to put our medical professionals in a silo of like, they're not humans or they're not people, and it's. Jennifer Broxterman [00:58:28]: Like, right, they are. Jeremy Gruensteiner [00:58:30]: They're just like us doing their best, doing the best that they can with the data that they have and the time that they have, the options that are present. And it's unfortunate that mistakes have consequences for people and it's the same thing for an engineer, somebody building bridges. And I can imagine that being able to come forward in that way. I can imagine myself in that situation of, okay, I can approach things in a different way than I have in the past, or this is the turning point that's going to take me from being who I am, which could be a great doctor, to being even better. Jennifer Broxterman [00:59:17]: Yeah. And I think because if we think about fear, because I didn't put them in a fear defensive state, they actually can learn and grow, right? Because I didn't come at them attacking them. And so I'll go back to my teacup is I was like, Life is going to bump me now. Obviously life is going to bump all of us. How do I want to show up? And so finding that piece of medical documentation to be like, that answer was there five years ago. I showed up with love and kindness and inspiration and resiliency and patience. I was my teacup because that's what came out of me. So I think the teacup is such a cool exercise and if you want, I'm super happy to share it with your audience. Jennifer Broxterman [00:59:58]: I have a little downloadable PDF if we want to link it to the show Notes or if you go to Prospernutritioncoaching.com Teacup. It's just one of my favorite gifts to give to the world because it's just been so impactful for me. And I think it can be really impactful when you think about the words of how you want to show up. So adventure and kindness, right? Like, what a great, well lived life if you constantly show up with adventure and kindness in your heart? Jeremy Gruensteiner [01:00:24]: Yeah, that's fantastic. And yes, we will have that in the show Notes as an easy way to click and get that exercise. I think I have my printed version of that from the event in my little book right here next to me. Jennifer Broxterman [01:00:37]: Love it. Jeremy Gruensteiner [01:00:38]: So, yeah, as we come towards the end of our episode here, any final thoughts or anything that you'd like to leave the listeners with as a final nugget of wisdom? Jennifer Broxterman [01:00:52]: Yeah, I think I'm just so honored every time I have an opportunity to talk about my story and just share sort of that mindset of how to do hard things really well. I think I'm incredibly proud of myself how I showed up through that. So if that's something you want to follow along, I still post really regularly online. So I'm over at Prospernc, and my true goal in life is to just help others be the best version and make the best coaches in the nutrition world. So if you ever need help with that, I have a certification for health coaches out there to really bring in mindset and nutrition coaching together. But my final nugget of wisdom is just like, make that list, right? Whether that be the Teacup list of words that healthy, happy, human list. Know your words. The words have magic, and they'll pull you into the version of you you want to be in the good times and in the hard times. Jennifer Broxterman [01:01:48]: So if you've never sat by a river maybe and made a list, it is a well spent five to 15 minutes of your time. Jeremy Gruensteiner [01:01:57]: Or if it takes longer, or if it takes longer, however long, it's okay, too. Yeah. Anything that you would like, aside from following you on social media and getting the Teacup exercise, anything else that you would like to bring forward for the listeners? Anything that you have going on? Jennifer Broxterman [01:02:14]: Anything that you'd like to promote as a dietitian? I have a certification called Prosper Nutrition Coaching. It is for any kind of wellness professional, whether you're a personal trainer, a fitness coach, a nutrition coach. In reality, it's the people that already maybe have a nutrition certification to their name, but they just want to go higher and elevate what they're doing with their clients. And so I teach my whole life's work of analogies and games and metaphors and motivational interviewing, behavior change coaching, and the science and then the art of getting humans to be healthier and more consistent. So if you really resonated with the way I talk and teach and some of the messages that I have, that's what the certification is packed full of. We only offer it a few times a year, so you can jump on the waitlist if you're listening. And it's a part of the year where it's not open, but if you go to Prospernutritioncoaching.com, the certification info is there if that appeals to you. Jeremy Gruensteiner [01:03:12]: Awesome. Thank you so much for that. And also, thank you so much for being here. I appreciate your story, you, your time. Thank you for being you. And podcast. Jennifer Broxterman [01:03:22]: Love it. Care Bear love. Jeremy Gruensteiner [01:03:24]: Yeah. Well received and returned. And also, thank you, listeners, for being here and listening to this episode. I had a blast being here and experiencing this with you. And so until next time, stay strong, folks, and most importantly, stay weird.

This episode we get to speak with such a rad individual that I was grateful to have met on my travels this year. We chat about her path into the healing arts of sound and where that has been leading her into incredible events in San Francisco and online - like the upcoming Winter Solstice event (link below). California Artist, Nicola Buffa is a Hypnotherapist + Sound Healer + Reiki Master. As Source Field Sound she practices Quantum Holographic Healing, using Crystal Singing Bowls + Sacred Sound to channel transmissions for inter-dimentional integrations, geometric light-codes, healing alignments, and activations for our future selves. Her astral enhancing experiences are intended to provide healing space for individuals and the creative spirit of our collective consciousness.   Nicola Buffa believes that with the gentle adjustments and transmutations from sound therapy, we can Return Ourselves to our True State of Being; Creative and Joyful. Connect with Nicola! Instagram: @sourcefieldsound Winter Solstice Sound Bath: https://WinterSolsticeSoundBath2023.eventbrite.com Support the Podcast! Buy Me A Coffee: https://www.buymeacoffee.com/weirdandstrong Weird and Strong Gear: https://weird-and-strong.printify.me/products Learn More About What We Do: https://lnk.bio/weirdandstrong Are you a Millenial that wants to transform from Burned-Out to Bad-Ass, book a free 15-minute call with Coach Jeremy to chat about your goals and struggles: https://api.leadconnectorhq.com/widget/bookings/weird-and-strong-connection-call

Justine Arsenault is the owner of BNA Lifestyle. Certified nutritionist, mental health/mindset coach and personal trainer. She specializes in the prevention and healing of poor mental, emotional and physical health. We had a blast jamming through so many topics, and most of which revolve around being unapologetically yourself in a world where others are willing to dillute themselves. We dive into what makes Justine and her experiences unique and all of the laughs that come along for the ride. Connect with Justine! Instagram: @just.lift.ine Website: https://bnalifestyle.com/ Support the Podcast! Buy Me A Coffee: https://www.buymeacoffee.com/weirdandstrong Weird and Strong Gear: https://weird-and-strong.printify.me/products Learn More About What We Do: https://lnk.bio/weirdandstrong Are you a Millenial that wants to transform from Burned-Out to Bad-Ass, book a free 15-minute call with Coach Jeremy to chat about your goals and struggles: https://api.leadconnectorhq.com/widget/bookings/weird-and-strong-connection-call  

Jeremy Gruensteiner [00:00:01]: Welcome back, everybody, to the Weird and Strong podcast. I am so glad you are here because this episode was an absolute blast to record with the one and only Ryan Sprague. We talk all things from Star wars to energy to how people interact with psychedelics and pretty much anything in between. So I know you're going to have a blast because Ryan and I had a blast recording it. So without further ado, let's get weird folks welcoming Mr. Ryan Sprague to the Weird and Strong podcast. How's it going today, man? Ryan  [00:00:41]: Jeremy, I'm so excited to be here with you, man. I just got off hosting a podcast. I got that flow going. I was so excited to see this on my calendar today, and I was so pumped when Mark brought you on stage and asked for people to go on your podcast. I was like, me, dude, let's go. So happy to be here with you, man. Jeremy Gruensteiner [00:00:55]: That's a. I didn't expect that to happen. And it was really cool because there were a lot of people that raised their hands, and the people who didn't raise their hands, I was like, oh, they've already been on the show. That's why they didn't raise their hands. So I was excited about that one. Yeah. So, as we start every guest on the Weird and strong podcast, I have a weird question. Are you prepared? Ryan  [00:01:17]: I am prepared, dude. I got my weird cap put on. I'm ready to go down weird alley. Let's do it. All right. Jeremy Gruensteiner [00:01:23]: This one is one I was thinking about for a while when you said yes to come onto the show. These are my favorite ones when I get to tailor them to the individual. If you were given the opportunity to spend time in any one scene from Star wars, which scene would you like to experience in person? Ryan  [00:01:47]: Oh, my goodness. This is a really good question. I feel like it'd be cliche to say the bar scene, but that bar scene does seem really cool. You know what I mean? Yeah. I mean, it's the iconic scene where, to me, I'm big into aliens, or I think they prefer to be called interdimensional species these days. Right. You got to be careful what you call things. So it's like, I've been fascinated with the pleiadiaN, the Arcturians, the Andromedans, all those kind of beings. Ryan  [00:02:15]: And so when I first saw that scene, of course, I didn't know about those beings when I saw the scene as a kid. But as I've gotten older, that scene has resonated more and more, because when I've learned about the Galactic Federation and read the Lar one and all these spiritual texts. It seems as though it's very similar to what that scene portrays, right, in certain areas of the universe. So I think that would be the scene for sure. The other scene, just to make it not as cliche, would be where Luke is with Yoda when he crashes his ship and he learns how to use the force. That's the other scene for sure. That all is homie. But that's what I've always thought about that scene, too. Ryan  [00:02:52]: So one of those two scenes, I broke the rule, and I gave you two scenarios. Jeremy Gruensteiner [00:02:56]: I'll allow it. It's even more hilarious because I was watching a video that came across on my YouTube. There's this guy who does. I don't know if you've ever seen Chad the Bird before. Ryan  [00:03:10]: I haven't, but I'm going to write that down because it sounds like a good side quest. Jeremy Gruensteiner [00:03:14]: So it's a puppet, Chad the Bird, and he makes great social commentary. You talked about the most Eisley scene. Do you know what genre of music is being played by the musicians in most Eisley Cantina? Do you know what that genre of music is called? Ryan  [00:03:37]: No, I have no idea, but I've wondered for years. Do you? Jeremy Gruensteiner [00:03:42]: Great. So, with the acquisition of Star wars by Disney, they've made some changes. I don't know if anybody's noticed about Star Wars. So the original name of that music, as created by George Lucas, is called Jizz. Ryan  [00:04:02]: Oh, man. George Lucas, a man up from your own heart. Jeremy Gruensteiner [00:04:05]: And so he had this great commentary. So as Disney took it over, they called it Jats, J-A-T-Z because jizz, for some reason, didn't land with the family friendly nature of Disney. Ryan  [00:04:18]: Can't imagine why. Jeremy Gruensteiner [00:04:19]: Yeah, so he had a great commentary. And the man, the bird, the entity that is Chad the bird, has a great commentary on this, so I couldn't recommend it highly enough, and I know that you will have a great time with this. Ryan  [00:04:33]: Dude. That is hilarious, man. You know what's funny, too, is, as you asked me about that scene and know told you about the alien thing, there's a crazy synchronicity that happened in my life, dude, and I'd love to share it if you're open. Jeremy Gruensteiner [00:04:45]: Absolutely. Yes. Ryan  [00:04:46]: All right. Dope. So when I went on Aubrey Marcus, I remember one day I was connecting with cannabis, and a little bit of that thought of, like, is my address out? Like, I should probably Google my name and kind of figure out if my address is out there. So I Google my name, and what pops up? Another Ryan Sprague, who is the host of mysteries decoded and a regular on ancient fucking aliens, right? So I'm like, what are the odds that same one with the same name as me is into the same stuff? So I hit him up, and we're going to do a podcast on this one time on psychedelics and talk about the psychedelic nature of names. Crazy shit, man. Jeremy Gruensteiner [00:05:20]: That's the funniest. So as I was preparing for this podcast, so the jab, the bird thing came up, and then the second one came up where the second question I was going to ask you was, have you ever been confused? Or like, has anybody come to you and thought you were the other Ryan Sprague? Did you know that there's an alien researcher named Ryan Sprague beat me to the punch on my own question? Ryan  [00:05:41]: Bro, we're on the same. You know, it's so funny, man, because I made my name on Instagram, the real Ryan Sprague. This is like kind of a joke or whatever. And so I hit him up, and the voice note went something like this. It was like, hey, man, first of all, sorry about the name. You definitely seem real as well. But it's funny that we have the same name and that you're into the same stuff. Like, I watch ancient aliens all the time when I was younger. Ryan  [00:06:04]: I have no idea how. I never saw him on there. It's like, so weird. Jeremy Gruensteiner [00:06:07]: I'm sure that we've both seen him and just never connected it through, like, oh, that's weird. Ryan  [00:06:13]: Yeah. Jeremy Gruensteiner [00:06:15]: Hey, that guy's got the same name as I knew. Ryan  [00:06:17]: Yeah, it's like those Easter eggs that if you're not aware when you're looking at them, you don't see them. But maybe it wasn't the right time for me to see it, because back in the day, I would have thought it was cool that he had the same name as me or whatever. But it was funny finding him now because I'm so entrenched in that world. I live my life talking about aliens and spirituality and plant medicines and things like that. So to be able to hit him up and him be like, dude, that is hysterical. Was just really funny, man. I love when the universe throws you weird synchronicities like that that just make you laugh. It's what I live for, man. Jeremy Gruensteiner [00:06:48]: Exactly. And I mean, that was something that I did an Instagram Live with my tattoo artist and good friend of many, many years, multiple decades at this point. And we were talking about that of just how silly just existence is and how great it is to be able to just have those moments, especially when we are getting so serious about things and getting stuck in our own way of being able to take a look and look at the hilarity it is of just being alive. Ryan  [00:07:18]: Oh, my God. I mean, dude, it really is hilarious. And I think that's why I'll tell you a funny story. So I was in 2020, I went to a men's retreat hosted by my man Chris down in Austin, Mr. Marheka. Yeah. Jeremy Gruensteiner [00:07:32]: Chris Marhefka, previous guest on the podcast. And also, I have attended his retreats as well. Ryan  [00:07:37]: Dude, sick, man. Yeah, it's so funny, too, because his retreats are awesome, man. It's where I first started. Like, my first retreat ever was August of 2020. I went to his retreat, and it was only the second thing I had gone to. Mark invited me down to the lake house in August of 2020. I go there, and then Chris is like, hey, man, I'm hosting this men's retreat in a couple of weeks. You should come. Ryan  [00:07:59]: So I go there, and that's when I met my business partner for the first time, Alex Morningstar. I met a bunch of people, and from there, it just kept going. Like, Danny Rios was like, hey, man, I'm going to Mexico for six weeks. You should come. So I call Rachel from the retreaT. I'm like, you want to go to Mexico? When we get home? She's like, sure. So this just continued, and it's still continuing today, but the fourth or fifth trip I went on was to Chris's retreat. And at the end of that retreat, we had a, let's just say, medicine ceremony. Ryan  [00:08:29]: And I was hosting a cannabis ceremony within this other medicine ceremony. And so it was kind of like one of those inception moments. And so I have, like, 25 people. Mike Salemi is there with his partner, a bunch of people, and we're having this beautiful cannabis ceremony. And at the end of it, everyone's crying, hugging. We're just having this beautiful moment. And at the end, I go, hey, guys, let's finish this off with a couple of rounds of breath work. And I had done breath work plenty of my life at that point, but I had never done it while on medicine. Ryan  [00:09:00]: And so my buddy Robbie and I had been practicing this certain style of breath work. I call it DMT breathing. It's not something I don't think I made it of. I'm sure it's not my style, but it's just something I came up. So we've been practicing it all week, but completely sober. And so now I just decide, oh, I'm going to do this close out the circle. It'll be a great kind of like, send off. So we all hold hands and we do this thing. Ryan  [00:09:22]: Paul Check taught me this harmonizing ohm exercise, right? So we all harmonize to each other's energy, and then we send it, and we do a round of breath work. And what I thought was going to be just a normal session of, like, that felt good. Launched us all out of our bodies. I'm talking 25 people gone for a matter of maybe a second or two. We come back on our bodies, and everyone's like, what the hell was that? And we all start laughing at the same time. And so then we're like, we better do that about 20 more times to make sure it still works, right, for science. We start diving back in, and we notice that every time we come back, no one has, like, I mean, we're all out there, right? And then we come back, we haven't at any second to think logically about anything, but everyone starts laughing at the same time every single time. So we started to get curious of what's going on there. Ryan  [00:10:09]: And our best theory is that we were realizing that death is actually the easiest part of life, right? Because if you understand breath work, you're releasing endogenous DMT. When you're on certain medicines that can create more precursor, more melatonin, like cannabis, things like that. It's like we were realizing the cosmic joke of existence that obviously, like, we hear in every spiritual text, there is no beginning and end. It just keeps going. There's just new chapters. And so, yeah, that hilarity of life, man, is a real funny thing. And there's another story of one of my weirdest synchronicities ever, if you want to hear that one, because this one blew my fucking mind. AnD it'S specific medicine. Ryan  [00:10:45]: This happens with. Happens with LSD, right? LSD is like, I think we hear a lot about free will and how God, source, whatever you want to call it, angels, whatever you believe in, they can't really interfere with our life. But I feel like there's some fine print to that. And if you ingest LSD, all of a sudden the gloves come off and they can just mess with you. I think there's some kind of unspoken agreement there. So I was at this music festival one time, and it was like, pretty big festival, 50,000 people there. And we had gotten there, and I had convinced some friends of mine that longtime friends, we grew up next to each other, and my girlfriend at the time that the first day we were there, we should take LSD. And they were all like, I don't know. Ryan  [00:11:27]: We've never been here before. We don't really know the environment. Like, we haven't mapped out the area yet to know where we're going. And I'm like, guys, I had done this at a festival I'd gone to previously, and I had done it after doing MDMA. Now, after you do MDMA, your neurotransmitters are a little lower. And so I had mistakenly believed, oh, I guess set and setting was, if you do LSD in this environment, it just hits you totally differently. So I had made a critical error there, right? So we all decided to do LSD, and we find some there. And what we didn't know was that the person who gave it to us gave us double doses. Ryan  [00:12:03]: So we take them, and as it starts coming on, they're all looking at me like, dude, this is, like, a lot. Are you sure this is, like, what you experienced? And I'm realizing that, too. I'm like, this was way not what I experienced, not the droid I was looking for. But at the same time, I was like, well, I sent everyone down this path, right? Like, I convinced everyone to go on this journey, so I just got to act like I got my shit together. And this is totally what I planned. So I'm like, yeah, 100% totally what I planned. So we end up just going farther and deeper and deeper in. And at a certain point, some of my friends had kind of just evacuated and just gone their own way and never to be seen again. Ryan  [00:12:41]: But about four of us decided, you know what? We're going to go back to camp and regroup. Let's just go back. Reset. Come back. So we go back for a camp? Yeah, exactly. Sit down for a minute. Have a good sit and just come back to this reality. So we go back there, and our cars are parked next to where we're camping, right? They do car camping and stuff. Ryan  [00:13:01]: So you can see license plates, things like that. So we come back, and I'm barely able to start forming words at this point, right? I'm like, okay, we're back in our safe space. Things are going to be okay. It's awesome. Sun's setting. I'm like, okay, this is going to be fine. So this guy walks by and he's like, oh, you guys are from Massachusetts, whereabout? And I'm like, oh. And I tell him my town and he goes, oh, I'm from there, too. Ryan  [00:13:24]: And I'm like, that's weird, right? Because my town is not a big town. Like, I don't live in Boston, for instance, or something like that. It's like, oh, what part of that town? Because there's like three or four parts of my town. He says, my part of town. And I'm like, all right, that's weird. And I'm like, oh, what street? And then he says, my street. And at this point I'm like, whoa, this is in the middle of the country at a music festival full of 50,000 people, and just happened. One guy walks by, lives on the same street as me. Ryan  [00:13:51]: And I was like, okay, this is really weird now. Come to find out, of course, a little bit of paranoia entered my being when that happened. I was like, who followed me here? But come to find out, is this person real even? Yeah, exactly. Are they an NPC? Are they a walk in? Like, what's happening? But come to find know. I used to go to a lot, know, concerts and things like that. So once I had met this guy, I saw him at every show I ever went to after that. So it was like one of those weird things where. That was probably one of the weirdest synchronicities I've ever personally had. Ryan  [00:14:20]: I've heard of some even weirder ones, but, yeah, that was definitely a weird one for sure. Very on brand for the show. Jeremy Gruensteiner [00:14:26]: Yeah, this keys into something. We're on this synchronicities tangent, and this is one that I hadn't quite connected through until just this past early summer when I graduated high school way back in 2003, which seems like ages ago at this point. I actually moved to Germany to go back to high school. Through that, I ended up living with a family. When the father of this family picked me up from the train station, we were having a conversation on the car ride to where they lived. And he's talking about, this is actually in the former East Germany. This is outside of Berlin. This is in that area. Jeremy Gruensteiner [00:15:25]: So he grew up under communism, and he was discussing, oh, yeah, I've been to the US before. I've been to this place called Bismarck, North Dakota. Do you know it? I was like, it's an hour and a half from where I grew up. He starts talking about it and describing it. I was like, yeah, you've definitely been there. If that's the only place in the United States that you ever have been, it's wild. Had a great time. They're fantastic people, amazing people. Jeremy Gruensteiner [00:15:56]: I'm the oldest of five kids. They have four younger kids than me. My dad is a truck driver. He's a Delivery driver. My mom stayed at home most of the time, especially at the ages of their children. My mom did the same thing. I didn't put any of that together until this May, when I sat with a good friend of mine, also former podcast guest in a family constellation therapy session. One on one, one week to the day to the hour of when we sat together, I discovered a comment on one of my Instagram posts saying, hey, we've been trying to get in touch with you. Jeremy Gruensteiner [00:16:39]: Check your spam folder or whatever. I was like, yeah, that happens. It's usually spammy. But as someone who we know says, curiosity killed the cat. Satisfaction brought him back. Check the account. It was a private account. And the image that they had was like a coloring book. Jeremy Gruensteiner [00:17:00]: I was like, well, that's not your typical spam account, at least. So checked it out. Had a picture of a cookbook that said Grinsteiner family recipes with a picture of me and my family. I was like, well, there's only one of these cookbooks in the world, and I know who has it, and it's somewhere outside of Berlin. I hadn't talked to them in about 18 years. I moved. They moved. Phone numbers change. Jeremy Gruensteiner [00:17:29]: Things happen. Life goes on. And it was the youngest daughter. They were doing some remodeling, and they had found this cookbook, and they're like, well, we should really try to figure this out. I had tried to contact them digitally before, and I'm assuming the same thing happened. You have no reason to be connected. So the powers that be instantly send the messages or the request to spam. And for whatever reason, one week to the day to the hour, these messages finally connected through. Jeremy Gruensteiner [00:18:02]: We ended up on a video call, like an hour later, just talking. I hadn't seen her since she was seven years old. Wow, 20 years later. Yeah, it was wild. And then I had the moment after that of like, oh, okay. This family constellation therapy session was actually reconnecting with me, with family I forgot that I had. And their reflection of how similar they were as family to me versus my actual birth family that I see all the time, the reflections back and forth, it was one of the most joyful moments of my life, of reconnecting with them the next day over video calls. Like no time had passed. Jeremy Gruensteiner [00:18:48]: And that was some of the wildest stuff for me. Ryan  [00:18:53]: Dude, that is so wild, man. I love hearing these stories because what they do for me is they allow me to realize and recognize the magic that is all around us at all times. If we have eyes to see and ears to hear know. And one of the other weirdest ones I've heard since we're on a synchronicity kick here is. This is from my friend Danny. And he was also dating a girl named Danny. Danny and Danny. And they went to Guatemala to hang out at this place, Lake Ataclan. Ryan  [00:19:24]: And I may have pronounced it wrong, but general Gist. And they're both performers. They're both fire spinners. Like, they dance. They do all these things. Danny's been the most creative person I've ever met in my life. When we were kids, he was the kind of guy that would make all of his own clothes, and you'd be like, dude, where'd you get that? Looks sick. And he's like, I made it. Ryan  [00:19:40]: And you're like, what? How? And he's like, oh, it's not that hard. He would fix my zippers for me. Like, weird shit like that. So they go there, and once again, they take. They're. They're dancing all day for each other, right? Just like they're at this place called the Crows Nest. It's like a pretty famous Airbnb there and overlooks the lake. So they're dancing there, and they have specific music on that day. Ryan  [00:20:05]: They have this artist named Desert dwellers, which they're not like a big group. They are, but they're not. They're not like Taylor Swift or anything, but they're known in the electronic world for. And so they're dancing all day to this music, right? Just desert dwellers. And at the end of the day, they're coming down, and Danny's just looking around the Airbnb, and he's know, like, there's some really cool pictures here. And he's just kind of surveying the Airbnb, and he sees this one picture, and he feels called to pick it up. And when he does, he puts his hands on the back of it and picks it up. And you can tell that there's a part of the picture that on the back kind of where the flaps go or whatever, that's raised a little bit, just enough for him to go, is there something in there? So he turns it around, takes the clips up, right? Takes the back off, and there's a holographic card in there. Ryan  [00:20:53]: And he's like, what is that? So he picks it up and turns it around, and it says desert dwellers on it. And he's like, what the. And when he told me he was like, dude, it spooked the shit out of. Cause like, here's this place in Guatemala with this random artist that not many people have heard know in terms of the mainstream. And he just happens to find it. Once again, LSD. I don't know what it is about that. I mean, you weren't on LSD when the family constellation thing happened. Ryan  [00:21:19]: So I guess it's not just LSD that you can do it on. But it does happen a strikingly large amount of the time whenever I hear LSD included. There's these really weird things that happen. And so it's fascinating, man. I love sharing these things and hearing other people's. Because like I said, it reminds you of the magic all around you. And it reminds you of childlike, like wonder. And although I'm not a religious person, I know a good line when I hear it. Ryan  [00:21:44]: And the Bible states if you want to end the kingdom of heaven, you must first enter the mind of a child. And if you think about what the mind of a child is, it. Is that right? It's just pure magic. It's pure curiosity, imagination, wonder, awe. It's all those things. And so, yeah, I have no idea what all this means. And I don't care to know. Right. Ryan  [00:22:01]: Because it's the mystery. Exactly. I've found in my life that it is directly related to the degree of mystery that I am embodying in my life. That my joy is able to be accessed to its full potential. And so I learned a long time ago, like, I don't want to know the answers to everything. I don't really want to know any answers. I want everything to be a mystery. And that's why getting into quantum physics was so fun. Ryan  [00:22:22]: Because they're like, oh, there is no objectivity to the world. Everything is subjective. And so in that, what they're saying is there is no knowing. There's only believing and knowing for yourself as an individual. And so that really helped free me from one of the biggest thirst traps I find in society. Which is to know things. Jeremy Gruensteiner [00:22:40]: Because when you think truth. Ryan  [00:22:42]: Exactly. And when you think you know something, oftentimes it boxes you in. At one point I knew that cannabis was perfectly fine for me to use unconsciously. Then at one point I knew that I had to take a break. And I didn't know if I was ever going to go back to it. And now I know at this point in my life that cannabis is something I connect with once or twice a week. That allows me to increase awareness. And then my sober periods are during the week. Ryan  [00:23:06]: But who knows what I'll know next year? I have no idea. So that's really cool. Jeremy Gruensteiner [00:23:11]: Yeah. There's a line that you said of having ears to hear and eyes to see, and on the same tangent or the same topic is that I, at one point in my life, became very hardline materialists. Like, show me all the data. Show me. I want to see clinical studies. I want to see all of the things. Prove it to me. Show it to me. Jeremy Gruensteiner [00:23:39]: All of these things. And my first experience of family constellation therapy broke that one wide open. Like, psychedelics apparently didn't do it enough for me. It had to be that for me to go, there's no verbiage, I have to explain what just happened. I saw it happen. I experienced it happen. I felt things that weren't mine, that didn't feel like, but I still experienced them and I felt them. And so that was the major component or major moment for me to go, well, of course you can't understand everything. Jeremy Gruensteiner [00:24:19]: This physical being that we have, I can't see the entire electromagnetic spectrum. I know that it's there. We can measure it other ways, but I can't see it. Doesn't mean that it's not there. Just because I can't hear 600,000 Hz doesn't mean that frequency doesn't exist. Ryan  [00:24:39]: Exactly. DudE, I'm so glad you brought this up because I have a lot of people considering what I do, right, which is pretty esoteric and qualitative in nature, hard to be measured. I have a lot of people that are like, hey, it's not that deep. Show me the science. Things like that. And I remind them, I go, hey, science is great, right? I think science and spirituality are just two sides of the same coin. And I think science really is the investigation of spirituality, which is the totality of life as I see it anyway. And so I love science. Ryan  [00:25:08]: I think it's great. But also think about, I remind people, like, you remember when lobotomies were the best thing ever and now they would never be given right? Science has been wrong a lot of times, and that's okay, because that is what the process of science truly is. It's let's make a hypothesis, test it until it breaks, right? And we never trust the science. That whole statement from the last three years was very interesting because I'm like, that's kind of the antithesis of what science is. But not to go down that rabbit hole. But it's interesting because what I found is that even science says we only see 4% of our visible reality. And so I think that being able to talk as we are right now is really just humbling ourselves into realizing that, yes, we may think and our ego may trick us into thinking that we know what life is. And at the same time, though, if we do, when I've really thought I had life figured out, it was a lot less fun. Ryan  [00:26:03]: It was way less fun because then you start losing the magic. You start looking at a tree as just wood. You start looking at the ocean as just salt and water, right? And animals in there, right? You forget that there's a consciousness there. There's energy there, and that everything around us is alive at a certain point. I mean, even this computer, this phone, et cetera, it's all energy. It just slowed down enough for us to think it has form. And so why I love psychedelics so much is because they really allowed me to experience that for myself and grounded in my own truth in this lifetime of like, hey, wise is the man who knows. He does not know. Ryan  [00:26:40]: Why would philosophers say things like that if knowing was such an important thing right now? Again, you can know something for yourself. Like, hey, right now I know that coffee isn't right for me. Right? I got to take a break from coffee. I know right now that cannabis is not something I want to do every day, right? I know these things for myself, but I also kind of have, like, I don't know if knowing is the right word because I understand they're subject to change. So are they really a knowing or are they just like a static hold in time right now? It gets really interesting. Jeremy Gruensteiner [00:27:10]: More of an understanding. Ryan  [00:27:12]: Yeah, exactly like an understanding. Yeah, I think that's the perfect word for it. Like an under or understanding of who I am at this moment in time. But I could change a moment from now. Who knows? A meteor could come and smash up everything in front of my house right now. I have no idea. Jeremy Gruensteiner [00:27:27]: Well, and to your point, this is a conclusion that I've come to and had reinforced many times. Even when we put this dogmatic description around science. Science is really just an understanding. It's the body of understanding of what we collectively understand currently or what we can collectively currently observe. To your point about lobotomies, there's going to be so much of what we do currently that fast forward. There could be a time in space 2000 years from now that people look back at us worse than we look back at the Dark ages in Europe of like 100%. Look at how barbaric and backwards they were. How did they ever survive? How did they ever become us? And that's a wild thought to think about, too, of what can be and knowing and freeing yourself from the confines, as you were talking about, of capital T truths. Ryan  [00:28:27]: Yeah, 100%. And what I found in my own life, and I won't project it on anyone else, but I have noticed an interesting correlation between clients I work with that have had a similar issue to me, and it sounds maybe similar to you in the past, too, is when I didn't know who I was as what I call God, embodied in human form, just like we all are, just like everything is. When I didn't understand that for myself or understand that I would try to know things to make up for the fear of there being no point to any of this, right? Nihilism. Like, what even is the point? So by knowing things, there was some sort of point or goal of life, which was to know things. But once I started realizing that I would never know anything, I then entered my second phase of, like, oh, my God, what if everything means nothing? And then I had to go back towards faith, right? Not the religious kind. Like, I mean, maybe similar, but not attached to a dogmatic religion, but more of, like, the completely empty canvas of, hey, what is life for me? And what do I get to make it? And also having many psychedelic experiences where I believe I've experienced what happens after you pass on at least as much as you can when you're still alive. I've realized exactly what every spiritual text talks about, and I think that's one of the challenges, too, is that in the modern day and age, we're inundated with information, and information is great. I love intellect. Ryan  [00:29:49]: I love reading books. I love things like that. But the analogy I always give for this is that imagine you want to understand an apple. You've never heard of one. You've never seen one. You've never tried one, et cetera. So you start diving into books about apples, right? You start learning about all the varieties. You start learning about the tree structure. Ryan  [00:30:04]: You start learning about how they grow, when they grow, what type of environment they need, right? And you really think you know an apple? Well, you don't know anything until you've tried it, right? Like, the best way to understand what an apple is for you and the subjective experience is to try it yourself. And so I think that one of the challenges is that people read spiritual texts. They read about psychedelics and things like that. And that's great, but it's kind of putting the cart before the horse if you don't experience. And that's where religion to me, never really made sense. I always had to have this intermediary that supposedly experienced what God was, but I had to speak to him or her and be able to kind of have. Yeah, exactly. And when I tried psychedelics for the first time and I was like, oh, there you are, whatever that power is, I call it God. Ryan  [00:30:48]: But there you are right there all around me. And then I came back and I was like, oh, my goodness, that's still all there around me. I don't even need the substance to access that. That's when things really shifted for me and I started to loosen my grip on life. And by no means is it perfect. I still have my moments for sure, but those are great learning opportunities to realize where else I'm holding on to tightly and where I'm scared of my finiteness. Because I do think that part of the human condition is feeling that fear, is feeling the fear from the ego of disillusion and also coming to an end at a certain point. But the more that you can turn on your soul within you, the more that you can not bypass that and say, oh, I'm God, I'm fine, right? But realize that and also console that part of you that does believe it's going to die at a certain point, and that is the end. Ryan  [00:31:36]: And there's nothing else that's been really interesting for me. And that's like, I think a little bit of what my mission here on this lifetime is to remind people to have fun, remind them not to take life too seriously, remind them that nothing you do matters, but it's very important you do it right. Again, it's not that you have to do anything, right? But there is potential within you. And where that leads, who knows, right? It's like a seed. A seed can sit in a fridge. I'm a cannabis grower, right? So it can sit in a fridge for years, right, with all that potential inside of it, right? And if no one ever uses it, it's not like anyone is traumatized because a seed didn't get used. It's not that that seed was bad necessarily or anything like that. It's just it didn't have enacted a potential. Ryan  [00:32:15]: But you start putting that in soil with some water and all of a sudden, real quickly, you're going to have a plant, and if you grow it long enough, you're going to have a product that you can consume, right? And so it's interesting looking at my own life as a seedling and where I've watered my plant and what I've grown into and seeing how other people do it and getting inspired by their journeys and whatnot, and it's just so much fun, man. I think life is the coolest experience ever. It definitely has big waves associated with it at times, for sure, and they slap for sure at times. But I wouldn't have it any other way. I think that we all signed up to have this experience, and especially right now in the world. I remind everyone that no matter what you think you're going through, no matter if you haven't done, if you feel like you've done nothing with your life, you still chose to incarnate during one of the wildest times in history. You're still a bad motherfucker. And I think a lot of times, helping people remember that helps them be like, oh, yeah, all right, yeah, I chose this. Ryan  [00:33:09]: And that's pretty cool. Jeremy Gruensteiner [00:33:10]: Yeah, exactly. There was a time period of my life where I was a swoopy haired emo kid. Ryan  [00:33:17]: Yes. Jeremy Gruensteiner [00:33:20]: And this is late teens, early 20s, when that was a reality for me. And it's interesting that I look back now and see that all of these components of choice in the matter, and yet, when you are in the thick of feeling like a victim or feeling sorry for yourself, feeling good and feeling bad, that existential kink that we all have at some point, all of this music and all of these things that I'm experiencing, I'm the only one that feels this Way. As if I'm listening to whichever artist they wrote this song for me, and I'm the only one that ever feels this Way. How arrogant that way of, like, that I'm so special that nobody else could ever have this. It's like, well, you chose to feel this. Yes. The experience is what it is, and you're choosing to keep yourself in this experience as well. And self feeding into this monster that in its own right now especially, is hilarious. Jeremy Gruensteiner [00:34:31]: And being able to say, oh, I chose that. I can choose something else. I can choose whatever I want. Ryan  [00:34:37]: It's amazing, dude. It's funny that you were the superhero emo Kid because I was always the thrash metal kid, right? And when I was in school, I thought I was so different from the emo kids, right? I was like, oh, I wouldn't listen to that kind of music, and blah, blah, blah, right? Which is such a strap, because a lot of the music was really good, right? But also because I was doing the same thing. I was listening to Cradle of filth and him and bands that would put me into this kind of sad state, but I enjoyed it a lot. Jeremy Gruensteiner [00:35:07]: Music. Ryan  [00:35:07]: Yeah, exactly. And I remember when I got out of high school, I was working with my dad for a little while and it was about a 40 minutes drive to his business and then back, and I would just get myself into the saddest mood every day. I would be bummed if it was sunny out. Like, it was really weird, man. I love it when it rains. I didn't live in the right city. I should have moved to Seattle. If I like Brain in Portland. Ryan  [00:35:31]: Exactly. Jeremy Gruensteiner [00:35:33]: I say kid like mine comes from that post punk hardcore days. That post hardcore days. Yeah. Ryan  [00:35:43]: Day to remember. Jeremy Gruensteiner [00:35:45]: Yeah. Big into AFI and just even Earth crisis. And a lot of those hardcore bands, too. But even so, there was a lot of that that came through with that, too. I was also really into new metal, too. So it was like just another fad and another thing. But being able to look back on it and hearing those songs now also really loved cradle Filth, too. Yeah. Jeremy Gruensteiner [00:36:13]: But looking back at those songs and now being entertained by those songs in a very different way than it was when you were first listening to them, is that the same for you, dude? Ryan  [00:36:24]: 100%, actually. It's really interesting, man. As I've been riding the waves of life and getting more in touch with my emotions and just enjoying all of them, even anger, sadness. I'm not going to say I prefer them, but enjoying them for their place in the experience. And now when I go back and listen to those songs, it can bring me back to that feeling. But I also have the wisdom of age to be like, oh, man, it's kind of cool to feel that way. It's kind of cool to feel like that feeling of like, does the girl like me? Am I ever going to have a relationship? I have a beautiful, loving partner now. It's just fun. Ryan  [00:37:01]: It's fun to ride those waves and invoke those emotions because now I know I can easily move myself through them as well. And it's funny too, because every October specifically is when all of a sudden I get so much more into. Back into CKY and him and kill switch, engage and inflames and all the groups that I used to be like, all those groups from that time. And I feel like October is when I really connect to my teenage self. And of course, Rachel's told me all the things about, well, this is what's happening on the planets and whatever, and I'm like, I have no idea. But that sounds awesome. And it's just really cool, man. I remember, last year was the first year I really noticed it was aware enough to be like, oh, wow, this happens every September, October. Ryan  [00:37:43]: I'm not sure if it reminds me of going back to school or whatever, but, yeah, it's really interesting. Jeremy Gruensteiner [00:37:47]: Yeah. And that's wild that you bring it up, because I've been noticing that for a long time about myself. There are certain albums that just start to come back on repeat. Whether. I don't know, maybe it's the type of music because there's maybe some spookier angles to it. Your misfits, AFI, like that horror punk type of stuff, maybe. Ryan  [00:38:10]: I don't know. Jeremy Gruensteiner [00:38:11]: But there is a layer of that, of that nostalgia and. Yeah, again, to go with the theme of we don't really know. And I'm here for the journey, and I'm here to enjoy it whenever it comes up. Ryan  [00:38:25]: Yeah, man, it really is the best part. Last time I was at the Lake house, or two times ago, actually. You know big will, right? You met Will, I imagine. Yep. So, so me and him, dude, that was like a psychedelic experience when I met him, because out of the crew, like, a lot of people enjoy cannabis and things like that. But when we started talking, we realized not only did we both love cannabis to the same degree, but he was like. I mean, we had a very particular friend group growing up, right? Like, my parents house was always the Hangout House had a bunch of kids over. And we were obsessed with CKY, right? We were obsessed with the early jackass stuff. Ryan  [00:39:04]: We were all doing the jackass stunts and failing miserably at them and things like that. Jeremy Gruensteiner [00:39:09]: Same. Ryan  [00:39:10]: And there was a movie that we used to watch all the mean. We burned the disc out, like, multiple times, which was a movie called Haggard, right? Which is like Bam Margera's movie for anyone who hasn't checked it out. Check it out. It's a fucking classic. But it was funny because when I started talking to Will, he was like, oh, yeah, I grew up in Westchester. Like, I used to go to Bam's parties. He's like, you ever seen Haggard? I'm like, dude, what? I'm like, you know, Haggard. So one night we put it on at the lake house, and it was me, Will, Adam, Mark, a couple other people. Ryan  [00:39:39]: And by the end, it was only me and Will watching it because it's like a weird fucking movie. No one's seen it. It's really weird. But, dude, it was just so interesting. I'm like, dude, you were in my friend group. You just weren't there all the same things, man. A lot of the same other movies from that time. It was just so interesting, man. Ryan  [00:39:57]: And so Will and I are like this because I'm like, dude, you're literally like the missing compadre from my friend group. It's so funny, man. Yeah. Jeremy Gruensteiner [00:40:05]: Will and I were partnered up for the ancestors course. Ryan  [00:40:08]: Oh, sick. Jeremy Gruensteiner [00:40:10]: And we hadn't interacted at all before that point. And when we connected at the event, it was just like, oh, yeah, this is like the Big brother I never like. The Big brother I never had. Cool. Yeah. Ryan  [00:40:24]: Will's a man, dude. He's so fucking cool. And he's a kick ass chef, too, man. Jeremy Gruensteiner [00:40:29]: I didn't know that. Ryan  [00:40:30]: Oh, my God. Jeremy Gruensteiner [00:40:31]: I know all of his other exploits as a fighter, as a lifeguard, like, an incredible fizzle investment and just an incredible presence. No idea about the food, dude. Ryan  [00:40:42]: He's built like a brick shithouse, man. Yeah, he's handsome. He's got all the things going, and he cooks the best food at the lake house. I mean, he would cook us just crazy shit. And I remember there's been. Well, maybe I shouldn't share that part, but let's just say he works really well under pressure, put it that way. A lot of different states of mind can be challenging to get, like, normal day things done in. Not for that guy. Ryan  [00:41:02]: I mean, he's just a berserker, and he wears it so well. And not only that, but also all the medicines we like. He got me into methylene Blue, actually, but he loves Kratom just like I do, right. For different things, like podcasting, things like that. He's the only one out of the entire enlifted community that knows what a puffco peak is and knows what live like. It's just so finally, like, I wanted to show people what concentrates were right, because a lot of people just. They weren't in the cannabis industry and grew up around cannabis like, I was. So I go down there one time, and he's like, hey, man, you want to hit the peak? I'm like, dude, you brought a peak down here. Ryan  [00:41:39]: And I'm like, guys, remember the thing I was telling you about? He's got one. Let's do it. And it was just so funny, man, that guy's awesome. Jeremy Gruensteiner [00:41:45]: Yeah, that's super cool. Yeah. We've had a journey already so far. We got to bypass the usual question that I ask everybody to start off. What makes you unconventional? We're already in aliens conversations. What are some of the ways that others may not expect is unconventional about Ryan's brag. Ryan  [00:42:12]: That's a really good question. I don't know if I've ever been asked that question. Know, it's funny, man. Over the last four years, being part of the lifted and Chek's community and Aubrey's community, and people, like, know again, just like you, right? Like, people that ask good questions, I've been able to discover and have a lot of validation, like external validation of myself from people being like, hey, you know that thing you do that's really cool? And I'm like, wait, what? That's just what I think. A couple of the things I really think my entire life is pretty unconventional. Think about it for a second, right? I spent my life growing up being a very mystical person. Of course, we already covered the thrash metal days and things like that, but I found cannabis when I was 16, and that was something that at that age, I'm 32 now, so it wasn't a crazy long time ago, but it was still looked at very stigmatized things like that. So that was a little unconventional, not crazy. Ryan  [00:43:09]: I mean, obviously, I'm not the only one that uses cannabis, but then I ended up working at Staples for a hot minute, and it burned a hole in my soul, dude. I started realizing that, man. I don't know if I'm just lazy. I didn't know what it was, but I knew I could not get myself to do anything that I didn't want to do. And so then when I quit staples, I ended up getting hired at a porn store that I worked at for 18 months because I was like, if I'm going to do something, it's got to be something hilarious, right? Jeremy Gruensteiner [00:43:40]: Yeah. Ryan  [00:43:40]: So I worked at a porn store. That was really weird. And then when I got into college, I realized that I didn't want to wear khakis the rest of my life. So I was in school for psychology, and I ended up finishing up my degree. But two years into it, I ended up finding out about a cannabis school. And then I went there, which at that time, in 2011, like cannabis school, the only one in existence was Oaksterdam out in California. So the fact one opened up in Quincy, Massachusetts, was, like, the weirdest thing ever. Talk about another weird synchronicity. Jeremy Gruensteiner [00:44:06]: Yeah. Ryan  [00:44:06]: So I went there, and that was really weird. And then I got into holistic health, which was very strange for that time. I started drinking a lot of apple cider vinegar, eating a lot of sprouts, getting into organic food, getting into unconventional exercise, animal flow, things like that, and then things really got interesting. When I entered the cannabis industry, because that's when I was getting much more into psychedelics. I mean, I brought my father through the end of his life with cannabis and plant medicines. That's pretty unconventional. I helped other people treat and cure their cancer with plant medicines, cannabis being the main know. And then I got into the industry, and the dispensary I worked at was very unconventional. Ryan  [00:44:44]: We actually got on Conan O'Brien for making medicated bar pizzas. We were making the weirdest shit, dude. We're making corn dogs medicated. Wow. Mac and cheese medicated, like, some of the weirdest shit for 2016. Like, no one was doing that stuff. Personal pies, hot sauce, that was medicated. Mayonnaise, that was medicated. Ryan  [00:45:04]: Peanut butter, like, just weird shit stuff. Jeremy Gruensteiner [00:45:07]: That's a lot more mainstream now of like, hey, what can we put this in? Ryan  [00:45:10]: Exactly. But at that time, it was like, why the hell are we medicating mayonnaise? Are people really that obsessed with medicated mayonnaise? Like, what's happening here? I remember on 421 year, we had medicated peanut butter and fluffs. That was like, our deal that day, like, our special thing we were doing. And it was just interesting, man. So through that process, I've kind of found that I've always gone towards more of the weird things. Like, if people are doing weird shit, I want to be a part of it, because I've just known this kind of, like, cookie cutter wear the pants with a belt and everything. It's just not me. I'm just like, I don't take myself that seriously. Ryan  [00:45:46]: I don't take life that seriously. I do. I'm passionate about it, but I don't take it seriously. Like, I have to be prim and proper, and then, of course, having long hair. Unconventional, for sure. But I think the biggest thing has been the last four years since I started, highly optimized. That shit has been unconventional as hell. I started the business not knowing anything about business, like, having no idea whatsoever. Ryan  [00:46:09]: Just knowing that I wanted to do something. And I knew I wanted to do it with cannabis, but I knew I was also obsessed with personal growth and fitness and health and everything like that. And so I just knew I wanted to mix the two together. But there was no playbook for that. I hadn't seen it done anywhere. I didn't know the people I know now that had already been doing it or something similar, or at least talking about spirituality with cannabis and personal growth and things like that. And so I just started. And what I found out was that during that process, I started giving out my cannabis to people like Paul. Ryan  [00:46:43]: Check when I would go to his house, and the second time I did, he was, dude, like, what the hell is going on with this stuff? What are you doing to grow? I've never had stuff like this, and I had not really thought about it because I had been consuming my own cannabis for years at that point, and I had added in biogeometry and a lot of unconventional ways of cultivating it. Copper pyramids, weird stuff like that. And I knew that I liked it, but I just figured I'm like, oh, it's just me and a lot of my friends at that point that before I met and lifted and everything were know people that would probably be able to tell those types of differences. So when I gave that to Paul, and I just grew that way because I knew that it was in my heart, and that's how I wanted to do it. I've always wanted to leave the Garden of Earth greener than I found it. And so growing organically, using sunlight, things like that have been really big for me. But when I gave it to Paul, all of a sudden it just started to blow my life up. I mean, he was like, come on the podcast. Ryan  [00:47:36]: And I was like, what the hell? Like, I'm coming on living 4D. Like, are you fucking kidding me? And then after, I think you probably heard the speech and lifted it. Were you at the speeches? Yeah. So this will be a foreshadowing because you already know the end of it. But at the end of the podcast, I was just like, thought I was going to say one thing, totally said a different thing, which was, could you connect me to Aubrey Marcus? And then as soon as it came out of my, like, I felt a lot of stuff come up, like a lot of imposter syndrome, things like that. But I knew when I asked it, and I couldn't put this part in the speech because it would have been too long, but when I asked it, it came from a place in me that knew it was going to happen. And that's what kind of frightened me, because I was like, okay, I had had that on my vision board. I knew it was within the realm of what I wanted to do, but I didn't think I was ready yet. Ryan  [00:48:19]: I had a lot of stuff that I still was even. I don't even know what I'm doing yet. And then Aubrey hits me back and is like, dude, I'm so in. Like, oh, my God, this is awesome. And then when he connects to me, he's like, asking me all these questions, like, dude, I'm fascinated by your man. Like, how'd you get into this? And all of a sudden, it started dawning on me. I went back through my whole life, and I'm like, holy shit, dude. It was all preparing me for this. Ryan  [00:48:41]: And that was when I realized, like, oh, my God, my unconventionalness is my power zone. Like, this goofy nature, I have this ability to connect with anyone, this ability to just say no to the things I don't want to do and be a heretic and try everything my own way. That I always thought throughout my life, watching people around me, I thought I had really fucked up. I thought that I just kind of wasn't meant for this world. I wasn't suicidal or anything. It was just kind of like, oh, man, I'm just going to be one of those people that's kind of on the fringes of society. But then it all came back. Jeremy Gruensteiner [00:49:09]: Felt like reality was like an ill fitting shirt. Ryan  [00:49:12]: Yeah, exactly, dude. Perfect. Exactly. I was like, did I get put into the wrong universe or the wrong planet or something? And then over the last four years, I've realized, like, wow, my soul had my back the entire time. And that's when I really was able to be humbled by myself and be like, whoa. There are forces at work within me and within everyone that for whatever reason, maybe it's old soul. I have no idea. In this lifetime, even though I had the voice Saying, hey, man, you got to get your shit together. Ryan  [00:49:41]: Hey, man, you got to get a real job. Hey, man, blah, blah, blah. I just never listened to it. And I thought that I was, like, lazy. I didn't have a good work ethic, even though I was working out three times a day and cleaning my car every day and doing what I wanted to do. But it was really interesting how when I looked at it, I was like, everything I do is pretty unconventional. But I think out of all of that, I think the biggest thing that would be unconventional, I'm trying to think of funny little things that are kind of, like, just weird. I'm trying to think of things like that, dude. Ryan  [00:50:11]: I wake up every day and eat a bunch of methylene blue and sit in front of a red light naked and do Kundalini breathing. Like, any of that is pretty weird until you realize what you're moving around in your cerebral spinal fluid and what Jesus'teachings were all about, supposedly. And things like, I am definitely. I definitely let my freak flag fly high. And I say often that my favorite outfit is just short shorts, and that's it. You know what I mean? I don't like to wear shoes. I don't like to wear a shirt. I think I'm meant for Key west or something where I can be in that outfit all year round, but not. Jeremy Gruensteiner [00:50:42]: Exactly like a Massachusetts friendly weather. Ryan  [00:50:45]: Yeah. I think the most unconventional thing is that I live in, so it's so funny to me, man, because it's such a weird dichotomy. I felt like a fish out of water my whole life here. But I enjoy it. I enjoy being in kind of, like, hot stove situations. That's why I enjoy psychedelics. That's why I enjoy very out there comedy and humor. I like things like, I think you should leave. Ryan  [00:51:11]: I don't know if you've seen that show, but things that kind of make people go, oh, my God, that's really awkward. Yeah, exactly, man. I love that. And that's why when I met Mark, I'm like, oh, man. After my own heart. Right know. And meeting all you guys and everything has just been so. Yeah. Ryan  [00:51:28]: Like, literally everything I think I do is pretty unconventionAl, but being able to teach cannabis for a living and being able to. Like, last night, I had my breathe with cannabis workshop. So think about this Thursday night. Bringing 30 people together to connect with cannabis in a sacred, intentional way. Do some story work, and then get sent on 40 minutes of breath work that people are having, like, straight union with the creator experiences. The fact that that's my work is so unconventional, and I fucking love it, dude. It's so much fun. Jeremy Gruensteiner [00:52:01]: Yeah. I can definitely identify with on a different level of what you just talked about and also many of the things. Ryan  [00:52:09]: That you're going on. Jeremy Gruensteiner [00:52:10]: I was know I live in North Dakota, like, for the thing. Like, I was. Ryan  [00:52:20]: Like, I've never been to North Dakota, but I know, right? Like, you're not the typical, you know, I don't know if that's, like, the plural term, but I just made it a. Like, it's funny, like, seeing these examples of people that just, like, not that they don't make sense. Like, they make sense. They're human being, but they're just so different than the environment they grew up in. It's really interesting. Yeah. Jeremy Gruensteiner [00:52:39]: He talked about the walking barefoot thing many times. If you're anywhere around my neighborhood, many times in the snow, you will see bare footprints. And it's like, is there a Bigfoot around here? It's like, oh, no, that's just my weird neighbor who walks around in shorts barefoot in February when it's negative 40. Ryan  [00:52:58]: Outside the heat wave. Jeremy Gruensteiner [00:53:01]: Yeah, exactly. And so I definitely appreciate you as a person and your experience, because it also reflects mine. The major differences is that I felt that same pull of that ill fitting shirt metaphor. I was like, well, maybe I need to conform to the shirt. I need to change something about myself. And going through waves of trying to adopt a more conventional way of living or a more conventional the. At the event in Richmond, when Mark pulled me up to the stage and I was talking about this, and when I was talking with him on a previous episode of the podcast, of hearing some of his experience and realizing, motherfucker, that's what I've wanted forever. I told myself that I wanted to be able to buy a house one day. Jeremy Gruensteiner [00:54:03]: I wanted to do X, Y, and Z, get the person to put in the house or buy all this stuff. These are the things that are going to truly make you feel happy or complete or whatever that sense is. The reality was, I need adventure and I want more adventure. Life is the adventure. The destination is irrelevant, is that at some point, the adventure is going to end. At some point, this physical experience for me will die. I will shuffle off that old shoe and experience what that's like, to take off that old tight shoe for the first time in death. Until that point, why would I continue to do things that are outside of what I want to experience? Ryan  [00:54:56]: Dude, 100%. I will take nail on the head for 500, please. I think that's why I love running the podcast, right? I imagine why you love running yours, right? I do a podcast called this one Time on Psychedelics, right? Every story I hear on there is someone living their own path. Like, I talked to this guy yesterday. I'll introduce you to this guy because he would be a great guy to have on. His name is Dragon. He doesn't release his real name, which already tells you enough, but he is like the leading expert in the world on Amanita Mascaria mushrooms. And he lives his life as a forager dude. Ryan  [00:55:29]: He just is in the woods all day, every day, sleeping in the truck, using a generator to dehydrate his mushrooms. And we talked a lot about yesterday, which is why I brought it up. He was like, one of my favorite words in the world is adventure. And he's like, I feel like adults lose the ability to tune into what adventure really is. They may travel, they may visit places, but do they go on adventures? And that's one of my favorite words, too, because to me, everything is an adventure, right? This podcast is an adventure. After when I'm hanging out and I'm figuring out what I'm going to do with the rest of my day. That's an adventure, right. And I think that human beings, we're built for adventure. Ryan  [00:56:08]: We're built for experience. And I think that's one of the big challenges in the world right now, is that with a lot of the societal standards and societal pressures of, well, you got to get a job, you got to be a productive member of society, which isn't inherently bad, right. But I think the challenging part of it, know, yeah, maybe you want to be a painter or an artist, but you got to make sure you can pay the bills. Right? And I'm not saying that you should go be homeless and not pay your bills, right. But I'm saying that hopefully hearing how weird my life is, right. And again, Jeremy, I'm sure for all your listeners, they've already completely into this world with your stories and the people you've had on, too. Hopefully, it inspires people to realize you really can have whatever you want. Like, guys, I teach cannabis and spirituality, and I blow people out on breath. Ryan  [00:56:51]: Work on a Thursday night. Like, if I can do that, anything is possible. And I think that's so important for the world right now, because I really do feel the biggest challenge in the world right now. There's kind of two, and they're kind of linked is lack of connection and lack of meaning. And they're two and the same, because in order to have meaning, you have to have connection to self. Because if you're not connected to yourself, how do you even know what matters? Right? How do you know what means a lot to you? And I think that we've been led so far astray, or many people have, just from listening to other people's voices and things like that. Societal standards of oh, so and so is going to college. Where are you going to college? It's like, I don't even know if I want to go. Ryan  [00:57:26]: What? You're not going to college. All these kind of things that go on. It can be really challenging to wake up in your early 30s, which is typically when the dark night of the soul starts happening and you either dive into it or you just start drinking more and numbing yourself out more with whatever insert substance here. But I think one of the most important things you can do is to be that example of, like, hey, you know what? If you want the cushy job and the white picket fence and the typical life, go for it, right? Like, choose your own adventure. Right? But make sure it's your adventure, not just your misery. Because I think when people lack connection, they lack the ability to also connect with anything and everything external to them. Because everything is an internal thing before it's external, right? That's why I love hermetic law, because law of correspondence, I pretty much should have it tattooed to my forehead at this point by how much I talk about it, right? As within, so without, as above, so below. So all that time that I thought that I was messing up, right? There was that voice that thought I was messing up, that voice that thought this, that voice that thought that these people in my life that were telling me, dude, you really got to figure something out. Ryan  [00:58:29]: I'm like, no, I'm fine. All that time I was building connection to my true self, I was experimenting with lots of psychedelics. I was having amazing experiences and also some really hellish experiences, and I was finding that both of those experiences are me, right? I have hell and heaven within me. And no tree's branches can reach to heaven unless its roots don't first reach to hell, right? We have the law of polarity as well. And so a big teaching I have with cannabis is like, hey, you can consume cannabis as much as you want. I'm not here to make rules for anyone. But let me ask you this. Can you really know what cannabis is if you don't know what sobriety is? Right? Can you really know it? Right? Because if you don't really understand sobriety, you can't get the other side. Ryan  [00:59:10]: It's like the opposite poles, right? Would there be a Luke Skywalker without a Darth Vader? Like, there know? And so being able to understand yourself and really have that time by yourself, with yourself to just do exploration, go on the inner adventure, right? That's an adventure too. Has been pivotal in my life. And I'm just so grateful to my soul for maybe having done this many times or something and being like, we're just not going to give into that shit because there were many times where I almost did. It's crazy. Jeremy Gruensteiner [00:59:36]: So out of curiosity, just 1 second. I'm going to grab this book quick to see if you've read this as well. Ryan  [00:59:42]: I'm excited. I too have the bookshelf that I'm constantly grabbing books. That's why I put it right there. Jeremy Gruensteiner [00:59:49]: I was like, I need to move this closer. I usually have a pile of them over here somewhere. Ryan  [00:59:53]: I have a pile right next to me. Jeremy Gruensteiner [00:59:57]: So part of my enlisted experience into level one was where I went on my first vacation as an adult ever last year. And that came out of this, came out of my experience of being introduced to Mark England and people like you and everybody else that we got to meet just a few weeks ago while I was on this vacation. One of the questions that Mark asked after you checked in, longer story around that the next week of, hey, did you do the steps that you said you were going to in taking this vacation? And yes, I did. I gave myself to the end of the week to get it figured out. I had it all figured out by that evening. He's like, well, what are you going to do? My plan is to go there. I know where I'm going to sleep, and everything else is going to be up to whatever happens. He's like, it's called an adventure. Jeremy Gruensteiner [01:01:04]: That's it right there. And while I was there exploring things, reconnecting with a place that is very much home to me, I found a book called On Connection. Ryan  [01:01:18]: Dude, I've never heard of that book. Jeremy Gruensteiner [01:01:21]: You may as well have just wrote the book with everything that you talked about. Ryan  [01:01:25]: Dude, that's hilarious. Jeremy Gruensteiner [01:01:26]: There was a moment in this that Kate Tempest is a comedian and it's a very short book, or a poet, writer, playwright, lyricist, performer, and recording artist. Ryan  [01:01:42]: Poet that did know it. Jeremy Gruensteiner [01:01:43]: Yeah, exactly. And so there was a line in this. So for me, I got to a point where when I was in this journey of trying to fit into the shirt of reality, of doing a lot of things that were outside of to numb myself, food and alcohol and consuming media and binge watching shows and all of these things that come with our regular expected lifestyles. And one of the things that they talk about in this book is that a lot of those ills come from that lack of connection to self. And there was so much like, for me, that was the first time exposed to that thought process of, oh, well, of course I would go out with friends, spend a bunch of time from happy hour till bar close, drinking and eating and drinking and eating and having time and spending time socially with people. And then I would get home, and what would I do? I would order a pizza and eat until I would pass out. And it didn't come from a place of, oh, I'm having so much fun. It came from a sense of emptiness. Jeremy Gruensteiner [01:02:58]: There was a lack of connection somewhere that I didn't have the understanding or awareness to know what it was. And so I reached for the first thing that could make it feel like it would go away for a little bit. And I was like, and this came on the vacation, even though I had learned the lesson. I hadn't actually contemplated the lesson at that point. Ryan  [01:03:23]: And if we don't learn history, we're deemed to repeat it, right? Jeremy Gruensteiner [01:03:26]: Yeah, exactly. Or it'll at least rhyme. Ryan  [01:03:29]: Yeah, exactly. Jeremy Gruensteiner [01:03:31]: So I was curious about that because so much of what you were just talking about is so salient to that. Ryan  [01:03:39]: Experience for me, dude, 100%. I kind of stumbled into that realization for myself and it took a while to understand intellectually what was going on. But I remember when my dad got sick, I didn't really know. I've had this kind of challenge my entire life where I'm so good at laughing, even in really hard situations that sometimes I don't cry. And when I got into a lot of the self development world, I started realizing like, oh my God, am I blocked? And I started inventing this problem that I couldn't cry and that I was blocking my emotions and all these things. And so during this time, when my dad got sick, here he was, I was living with my parents. I was still, I was like 23 and he was in the House, right? And I would have my best friends come over that grew up pretty much with my parents. They were like Secondary Sons to my parents. Ryan  [01:04:32]: And we would just eat eights of Mushrooms and put on Spongle and some weird Shit and we would just see what would happen. We'd Fuck around and find out. And I remember there were times where I would just connect to something that now I recognize as God. And even at that point I wasn't completely Unaware that it was God. It's just I didn't know what to call it yet. God was still kind of a charged term for me. But I would connect to these Golden Lights and my friends would too. And there would be different Experiences. Ryan  [01:05:00]: Some mushrooms we had no idea about strains or psilocybin content. All we would do Is every couple of weeks we would eat an 8th. And I remember there were times where we would just laugh and we'd be totally conscious the whole time. And then another 8th we'd be like out. And we'd all come back in at the same time and kind of look at each other and be like, oh my God. And then out again. And I remember during those times what I was really doing is processing my father's Sickness, Knowing that He was going to pass away and things like that. I was processing a lot of that stuff. Ryan  [01:05:28]: And I remember there was One experience in particular where I connected. I was just in this Golden Light for probably like 2 hours and I was Telepathically Communicating with My Nana, My Grandmother, all my deceased Loved ones. And there was just this knowing in that moment, I didn't even have to ask them, Is dad going to be okay? Is this where he's going to go? It was known. It was like a clear Cognizance knowing. And that. I don't know if it was because I sat there so long, like those 2 hours of just really embodying it, but I came out of that. And once my father passed away, yeah, of course it was sad, but I never really went through any Grieving process or anything. And that's where when I got into Training camp for the Soul and lifted, I was like, oh, my God, Am I blocking stuff? Because I went looking for all this trauma that just didn't exist around my father's passing. Ryan  [01:06:17]: Because I knew right away when he passed, him and I, we had a ritual. We would go to breakfast all the time. It was one of the many things we did. Car shows, breakfast, things like that. I'm an only child, and I have a stepbrother and stepsister I'm close with, too, but we would just do stuff all the time. When he had me, he was, like, at 40, and he was, like, down to be a dad. He was just, like, excited about it. So we would do all these things together. Ryan  [01:06:37]: And I remember when we would go to breakfast, he would always get eggs Benedict. And I was like, ew, that looks gross. Like, I would never like that. And when we got ice cream, he would get a strawberry sundae with chocolate ice cream, whipped cream, and nuts. I always thought that was kind of weird, too. I'd be like, oh, I'm getting with vanilla. Well, almost the second he passed away. I remember maybe within a month after he passed away, I went to breakfast, and all of a sudden, I look at eggs Benedict. Ryan  [01:07:00]: I'm like, that looks really good. And I was like, what the hell is happening? Right then? When I started my ice cream, I'm like, oh, my God, I want what my dad got. And it wasn't like, from, oh, I want to do it in his honor. It was like, no, I was craving that shit. And ever since then, it's been really weird how many things my dad used to tell me, like, you'll see. And now, literally, that's my know. When I was a kid, my dad was working at Boston Gas, which is now national grid, and he was a public speaker. He would speak a lot. Ryan  [01:07:30]: And I remember I'd see pictures of him as a kid. And when I started to be around 1012, getting into school, and I'd have to start doing these things. I'd be like, dad, I hate it. It's so stupid. I don't want to do it. I'm terrified of it. I'm never going to be out there in the public. And he'd be like, you'll see. Ryan  [01:07:43]: You're going to like it a lot. And it was like at the enlisted event, it all came full circle, because I'm likE, holy shit, he's right. He was fucking right. And so this whole time of connecting with psychedelics and being close to My parents and everything and not having the jobs and kind of just, like, pinching pennies to buy ten bags back in the day of cannabis and whatnot, thinking that I was a lazy bum, all of that, in a weird way, was helping me really connect with myself and have some time before I hit into the last four or five years where I've. Well, maybe since I was 26, when I really got into the workforce and I got into the industry, something that was really aligned for me, but then also when it became out of alignment, as you heard in the speech, and unlifted, it didn't take me too long to quit. It took me maybe about six months before I realized I'm keeping myself here. I'm not a victim. I don't have to be here. Ryan  [01:08:32]: And so by the time I started getting into the busyness that is now My life, and I'm sure everyone listening knows so many things going on, I have that rooted foundation in my connection to self. And so I'm not perfect at it, but I'm quick to catch it. Sometimes it takes a little bit longer to get it implemented, but I'm quicker to catch it. And I'm very grateful for those experiences because they've really allowed me to be who I am today. It's just interesting, man. So weird. Jeremy Gruensteiner [01:09:00]: Yeah, that's such a Beautiful. Just capping to all of this, that connection to yourself, the connection to your father, the connection to everything. And so, yeah, there's so much that can be said of Finding the Connection To Self. And if you haven't Experienced that, I know some Guys talk to One of Them right now that can help you out with that interest of time for the listeners and also for Ourselves. Even though I would love to keep this going for another 2 hours, I'm sure we could uncover so many things. And I was already Queuing up five more stories, and I was Looking at the clock and going, oh, boy, we. Ryan  [01:09:45]: Got to get this. Wrapping up Any final time Flies when you're having Fun. Jeremy Gruensteiner [01:09:48]: Exactly. Any Final Thoughts that you want to share with the listeners, any places that you want to direct them to, if they're curious to learn more about you and what you do, anything that you'd like to promote, this is open to you, dude. Ryan  [01:10:00]: Thank you, Jeremy. First of all, thank you for having me on the. You know, I do a lot of podcasts, and I love all of them for different reasons, but when I can have this kind of deep connection and this, like, when I can feel my heart open like this, I take note of that. You're a great host, man. You ask great questions. I can tell you prepared for this, and you're just fun to be. And I really enjoy that because I love spending my time with fun people. That is what I prioritize in my life. Ryan  [01:10:22]: People that when I start taking life too seriously, because I fall into my stuff, too, they can be like, oh, did you stay in your shirt? And then they flick my nose. I'm like, man, dude, that kind of just keeps me going. Yeah, exactly. And so if there's any final thought I could give to any listener, it's that maybe you're like me. Maybe you listen to stories like this and there's a lot of self conscious thoughts that come up, or you have troubles with self esteem like I did, or anxiety or things like that. Just know that I am no more special than anyone. We all have unique magic. Your unique magic is your unique magic. Ryan  [01:10:54]: My unique magic is my unique magic. And at the same time, that is waiting within you, just awaiting to be opened, right? And the best advice I can give anyone way below plant medicines or anything is to follow your heart, right? To have time each day by yourself, with yourself, whether that's meditating, walking, it doesn't need to be anything that you don't enjoy, right? It's got to be something you enjoy. I like meditating. I like breath work. I like walking. But time by yourself, with yourself, to really allow the metaphorical shook enough snow globe that is our life all the time, just so much activity to settle a little bit so we can see the beautiful image within there that is our soul, right. And we can connect to that part. And don't be afraid. Ryan  [01:11:40]: Right? Like, the scary part is not realizing that maybe you're out of alignment. The scary part is waking up at 60 and thinking you need to buy a Corvette just to get yourself away from that feeling, right? So again, at the end of the day, there's nothing to be fearful of. And the other part is surround yourself with people that will call you forward, that won't allow you to play small. That's what I found in the Olympic community. That was the first community I joined, and my biggest community I'm still a part of today, because they're goofballs. They're all hilarious people that are extremely dedicated and passionate to what they do. And if you can find people like that, keep them around in your life, people that will call you forward but also allow you to have a ton of fun. And I promise, if you do that right, give yourself some time every day to tune into your heart, go around. Ryan  [01:12:26]: Like, once you do that, you'll connect more to yourself, and you'll find the people, places, and things that resonate with you. And then if you put yourself in those scenarios, everything that is meant to happen in your life will just start happening, right? Like, yes, there'll be things you have to. You know, it won't just happen if you sit, right? Like, I had to go see Paul to get on the show. I had to go see Aubrey to get on the show. I had to create a program to do what I do, but that was coming from my heart, so it didn't feel like work. And so if it's the best advice I can give is just to give yourself time every day. Follow your heart, and I promise you, you will end up in exactly the right place with the right people around you and the right things you have in your life, and it will be the most crazy, psychedelic journey of your life. And so, for anyone looking to get in contact with me, you can hop on Instagram at the real Ryan Sprague. Ryan  [01:13:10]: No diss on the other Ryan Sprague. That's equally real, but game recognized game to him. You can hit me up there, shoot me a DM. I love chatting and connectiNg. It's my favorite thing in the world. For anyone who knows me personally, you know, I could just talk forever. So I love this stuff. For anyone who's interested in what I do with cannabis and seeing a totally different way to access the true psychedelic powers of cannabis and really access the ability of this plant to be a spiritual aid and ally in your life and start tuning in with the plant rather than tuning out, hit me up about the conscious cannabis collective. Ryan  [01:13:41]: We have the lead magnet live right in the link in my bio called the Conscious Cannabis Guide. You can download that, dive through that, and if you're ready to take the plunge, we have a beautiful, year long mastermind, incredible community of people all around the world that are doing this kind of stuff. Even though the main quest or main source, if you will, or main course is cannabis. We talk about everything in there, because how we talk about cannabis is that cannabis is something that can increase self awareness. And, you know, within self awareness, there could be anything from, hey, I need to quit my job, my partner is not the right person for me. Or, hey, I've been actually really mean to my partner recently. Or, hey, what do you do about existential crisis that we're all in, right? Like, sometimes. And we talk about everything in there. Ryan  [01:14:24]: We have supporting calls and all those kind of things. We also have the breathe with cannabis workshops. If you just want to get a real big taste of what we do, but you're not sure if you want to dive into the full year, those are live every month. The next one will be November 16. You can find info for that in my profile as well. And then you can check out the podcasts. I have two, technically, one's been on hold for just about a year now called highly Optimized. My first podcast, we have 130 episodes out there. Ryan  [01:14:47]: And then this one time on psychedelics. We just released Episode 134 today. So that's where you can plug in, tap in, come hang out. Water is warm, and, yeah, we have the most fun homework on the Internet, bar none. Jeremy Gruensteiner [01:15:00]: That's amazing. Yeah. Thank you so much for being here. This is a blast, to say the least, to understate it. So I appreciate you taking the time to connect and to have this experience with me. So thank you again. Ryan  [01:15:17]: Thank you, Jeremy. Jeremy Gruensteiner [01:15:18]: Yeah. Until next time, folks. As always, I'm your host, Jeremy Grinsteiner, and I would like you to invite you to stay strong. And the most important factor is to stay weird.

Rob Eschbach has been an incredible friend, man, father, and business owner that I am grateful to have been introduced to and have had many opportunities for our paths to cross. In this episode we get to explore what his journey has been like in finding his passion for fitness at an early age and where that has taken him. Connect with Rob! Instagram: @coach_bobbye37 and @f13_performance Website: f13performance.com Support the Podcast! Buy Me A Coffee: https://www.buymeacoffee.com/weirdandstrong Weird and Strong Gear: https://weird-and-strong.printify.me/products Learn More About What We Do: https://lnk.bio/weirdandstrong Are you a Millenial that wants to transform from Burned-Out to Bad-Ass, book a free 15-minute call with Coach Jeremy to chat about your goals and struggles: https://api.leadconnectorhq.com/widget/bookings/weird-and-strong-connection-call

This was an incredibly fun episode to record and catch up further with my brother Zach Barney. We get to explore many of the topics he and I love to talk about when we have the chances to chat, and in this episode we get to talk about his journey, both in how he has developed personally and the actual places that his adventures have taken him to - and continue to do! Connect with Zach! Instagram: @zachbarney.lm Support the Podcast! Buy Me A Coffee: https://www.buymeacoffee.com/weirdandstrong Weird and Strong Gear: https://weird-and-strong.printify.me/products Learn More About What We Do: https://lnk.bio/weirdandstrong Are you a Millenial that wants to transform from Burned-Out to Bad-Ass, book a free 15-minute call with Coach Jeremy to chat about your goals and struggles: https://api.leadconnectorhq.com/widget/bookings/weird-and-strong-connection-call

Ben Walker is both an incredibly creative coach and talented entrepreneur who is passionate about helping people succeed. We get to know him and his background spanning from his days in Musical Theatre to living on the road as a coach and to today! Connect with Ben! Instagram: @benjoywalker Website: https://coachbenwalker.com/ Support the Podcast! Buy Me A Coffee: https://www.buymeacoffee.com/weirdandstrong Weird and Strong Gear: https://weird-and-strong.printify.me/products Learn More About What We Do: https://lnk.bio/weirdandstrong Are you a Millenial that wants to transform from Burned-Out to Bad-Ass, book a free 15-minute call with Coach Jeremy to chat about your goals and struggles: https://api.leadconnectorhq.com/widget/bookings/weird-and-strong-connection-call Timestamped Moments: 03:33 Remove iPhone time zone feature, brain hurts. 07:37 Youth opera sparked lifelong passion for theater. 13:21 Beauty and the Beast tour changed my life. 19:41 Guilt-free decision led to freedom and adventure. 23:54 Fear of mistakes: shame, judgment, homelessness. 29:22 Music background defies expectations in tech jobs. 33:04 Setting goals based on how you feel. 39:10 Passion for theater, fun, and rock climbing. 44:35 Uncomfortable with celebrating birthday, fear of vulnerability. 51:54 Rock climbing brings both fear and joy. 01:04:25 20 conversations a day, no excuses, tough. 01:07:57 Climbing: It could have been that easy. 01:13:34 Helping procrastinators achieve freedom and fun.

Today, we're sitting down with Kimberly Kesting, of the "Get Enlifted" podcast. This conversation with Kimberly spans so many topics and most of all being able to find magic in every moment. Join in as we challenge societal structures, norms, and the status quo, while exploring individual thinking and curiosity. Kimberly will guide us through reevaluating our beliefs and assumptions about societal infrastructure and the concept of money. She will also talk about how shifting our perspectives, optimising our choices, and finding magic in everyday life can create value far beyond what we've percieved in the past. So, tune in, open your minds and embrace being weird on this enlightening journey with us. Enjoy the show! Connect with Kimberly: Instagram: @kimberly.kesting Get Enlifted Podcast: https://enlifted.me/podcast/ Support the Podcast! Buy Me A Coffee: https://www.buymeacoffee.com/weirdandstrong Weird and Strong Gear: https://weird-and-strong.printify.me/products Learn More About What We Do: https://lnk.bio/weirdandstrong Are you a Millenial that wants to transform from Burned-Out to Bad-Ass, book a free 15-minute call with Coach Jeremy to chat about your goals and struggles: https://api.leadconnectorhq.com/widget/bookings/weird-and-strong-connection-call Important Timestamps: 03:49 Convenience in our lives is harmful. 10:11 Using approach to experiment, find truth, change. 14:14 Fear of cancellation leads to conformity. 17:25 Transformation through physical health and philosophy studies. 27:05 Let go of control, understand what's unchangeable. 28:06 Lack of control: negative and positive. 34:09 Exploring language's influence on perspective and possibility. 42:35 Astrology foretells societal change. Be open to new opportunities and choices. 47:51 Money stories fluctuate; seek financial education. Childhood programming affects money mindset. 50:39 Monetary system: paper money vs. precious metals. 59:44 Assigning value and making choices based on it. 01:01:33 Perceive value, beyond money, meaningful aspects. 01:07:51 Delayed gratification: hinderance to enjoying the present 01:12:37 Listen to the episodes for more context.

This episode came out or multiple conversations with two coaches who I always love talking with, Sara Mozingo & Gunnar Regan! Both returning guests on the podcast with each having amazing stories to share on their respective personal journeys. This started when Gunnar and I had been chatting one morning about how easy it is to fall into the "more" trap or the constant drive towards adding intensity into our lives. We started to question why this is such an easy trope to become enamored with, and decided it would be an amazing podcast topic. I knew that Sara would have a lot of wisdom to share as well, I invited them both and this podcast episode took shape because of it. Connect with Gunnar: Animus Coach: https://www.animuscoach.com/ Animus Coach Instagram: @animuscoach Gunnar's Instagram: @gunnarregan Connect with Sara: Instagram: @skmozingo Support the Podcast! Buy Me A Coffee: https://www.buymeacoffee.com/weirdandstrong Weird and Strong Gear: https://weird-and-strong.printify.me/products Learn More About What We Do: https://lnk.bio/weirdandstrong Are you a Millenial that wants to transform from Burned-Out to Bad-Ass, book a free 15-minute call with Coach Jeremy to chat about your goals and struggles: https://api.leadconnectorhq.com/widget/bookings/weird-and-strong-connection-call

My conversations with Jordan Todd are always packed full of new information and amazing insights, and this episode is no different. In this episode we explore Jordan's journey from his early days playing hocked and then into being a fitness coach. We discuss all of the paths that this journey has taken him from different movement modalities to life coaching and now as the CEO of O23 Holistic Systems, and where that journey is continuing to take him. Connect With Jordan: O23 Holistic Systems: https://www.o23coach.com/ O23 on Instagram: @o23_lifestyle_systems Jordan on Instagram: @jrdn.tdd Support the Podcast! Buy Me A Coffee: https://www.buymeacoffee.com/weirdandstrong Weird and Strong Gear: https://weird-and-strong.printify.me/products Learn More About What We Do: https://lnk.bio/weirdandstrong Are you a Millenial that wants to transform from Burned-Out to Bad-Ass, book a free 15-minute call with Coach Jeremy to chat about your goals and struggles: https://api.leadconnectorhq.com/widget/bookings/weird-and-strong-connection-call

Getting to podcast with long-time friends is definitely something special, even more special when those friends are doing incredibly RAD things! Brandi Dorval has a unique path in combining her passions of music, fitness, making amazing food and now eploring the world of breathwork as well. Listen in to see how this unique path was found and what new directions it is taking Brandi as she explores more of her passions in the Fargo-Moorhead area. Also, if you're interested in learning what the heck a Varenyky is, we cover that delicious topic too! Connect with Brandi: For Varenyky: https://brandiskitchen.com/ For Music: https://savemecj.com For Olympic Weightlifting: https://empowermindbodysoul.com Support the Podcast! Buy Me A Coffee: https://www.buymeacoffee.com/weirdandstrong Weird and Strong Gear: https://weird-and-strong.printify.me/products Learn More About What We Do: https://lnk.bio/weirdandstrong Are you a Millenial that wants to transform from Burned-Out to Bad-Ass, book a free 15-minute call with Coach Jeremy to chat about your goals and struggles: https://api.leadconnectorhq.com/widget/bookings/weird-and-strong-connection-call

Having my long-time collaborator and host of the Uptown Tonight podcast Wade Stalboerger on the podcast was an incredible treat! We get deep in talking about the purpose of art, and how that has carried forward into his journey in becoming an educator and now an entrepreneur doing what he loves best, playing music! Connect with Wade: Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/uptowntonightpodcast/ Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/uptowntonightpodcast Uptown Tonight Podcast on Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@uptowntonightpodcast8180 Support the Podcast! Buy Me A Coffee: https://www.buymeacoffee.com/weirdandstrong Weird and Strong Gear: https://weird-and-strong.printify.me/products Learn More About What We Do: https://lnk.bio/weirdandstrong Are you a Millenial that wants to transform from Burned-Out to Bad-Ass, book a free 15-minute call with Coach Jeremy to chat about your goals and struggles: https://api.leadconnectorhq.com/widget/bookings/weird-and-strong-connection-call

This is an episode that I was looking forward to so much after meeting Nate the previous year here in Fargo and immediately remarked that he is someone who has been on an amazing journey as both a coach and person. In this episode we explore his journey from studying in Bulgaria, adventuring working in europe, to transitioning working for FEMA in the US to becoming a coach and delivering his program of working with psychedelics. Nate Baumgardner is a coach who helps entrepreneurs work less and do more with microdosing psychedelics to reigite their passion and realign with their mission. Connect with Nate: IG: @innate.flow Program Waitlist: https://www.microdosingmastery.co/waitlist Free Microdosing Guide: https://www.microdosingmastery.co/ Breathwork Album: https://innateflow.bandcamp.com/album/breathe-mystic-vol-1   Support the Podcast! Buy Me A Coffee: https://www.buymeacoffee.com/weirdandstrong Weird and Strong Gear: https://weird-and-strong.printify.me/products Learn More About What We Do: https://lnk.bio/weirdandstrong Are you a Millenial that wants to transform from Burned-Out to Bad-Ass, book a free 15-minute call with Coach Jeremy to chat about your goals and struggles: https://api.leadconnectorhq.com/widget/bookings/weird-and-strong-connection-call  

Bill Matthews is an incredible example of a man who not only talks the talk, he walks the talk. Bill combines his experience in recovery, as an athlete, and as a husband, father, into his powerful practice as a coach. On this episode Bill shares the stories of what it was like to shift his perspectives in many areas of his life and to continually move forward through curiosity and discipline. I had a great time recording this episode with Bill and in listening to our conversation again; I know that you'll enjoy it as well! Connect with Bill! Instagram: @cornermancoaching Support the Podcast! Buy Me A Coffee: https://www.buymeacoffee.com/weirdandstrong Weird and Strong Gear: https://weird-and-strong.printify.me/products Learn More About What We Do: https://lnk.bio/weirdandstrong Are you a Millenial that wants to transform from Burned-Out to Bad-Ass, book a free 15-minute call with Coach Jeremy to chat about your goals and struggles: https://api.leadconnectorhq.com/widget/bookings/weird-and-strong-connection-call  

On this episode of the Weird and Strong podcast, I'm feeling very grateful to have the incredible Jaymes O'Phereon on the podcast. When I first met with him a couple of years ago we chatted for what seemed like a few minutes not realizing that over an hour had passed. This episode carries forward the fun that we have each time that we are able to talk, and I loved this opportunity to talk more about Jaymes' path to the man he has become and his passions with providing experiences to people in the Fargo-Moorhead area and his coaching program. Jaymes began his journey as a web developer who very quickly found the not-so-glamorous side of the tech industry, burnout. Through his own experiences and what he learned, he made it his mission to help others find true connections Learn More about Jaymes and Connect with him via the links below: Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/jaymes.opheron Website: https://stressredemption.com/ LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jaymesopheron/

In this episode we are joined by Dr. Matt Shiver, a Doctor of Physical Therapy turned online coach. We chat about the path he took in making that shift and how that's help shape who he is today as a coach. This was such a fun conversation to have, and you can tell immediately by how much we were laughing throughout the conversation. When you want to learn more about what Dr. Matt provides, find him on any of the links below! Website: https://mattshiver.com/ Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/drmattshiver/ TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@drmattshiver Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/drmattshiver Support the Podcast! Buy Me A Coffee: https://www.buymeacoffee.com/weirdandstrong Weird and Strong Gear: https://weird-and-strong.printify.me/products Learn More About What We Do: https://lnk.bio/weirdandstrong Are you a Millenial that wants to transform from Burned-Out to Bad-Ass, book a free 15-minute call with Coach Jeremy to chat about your goals and struggles: https://api.leadconnectorhq.com/widget/bookings/weird-and-strong-connection-call

Matt is an incredible man who I was so pleased to have met and record this episode of the podcast. He is a coach that focuses on helping people recover from their addiction to alcohol using incredibly powerful tools to help get to the root of people's addictions. In this episode, Matt shares his journey to recovery and what that's looked like for him along the way! Connect With Matt! Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/recoveryroadmap.me/ Website: https://sites.google.com/view/recoveryroadmap-me/home Beyond Recovery Podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/show/beyond-recovery Support the Podcast! Buy Me A Coffee: https://www.buymeacoffee.com/weirdandstrong Weird and Strong Gear: https://weird-and-strong.printify.me/products Learn More About What We Do: https://lnk.bio/weirdandstrong Are you a Millenial that wants to transform from Burned-Out to Bad-Ass, book a free 15-minute call with Coach Jeremy to chat about your goals and struggles: https://api.leadconnectorhq.com/widget/bookings/weird-and-strong-connection-call

This episode was an incredibly eye-opening experience for me in just how deeply our guest, Nico, has delved into so many topics. It has been an incredible experience getting to know him over the past year knowing that he has an incredible ability to listen and drop deep wisdom when needed. He is also a killer player at Settlers of Catan! Nico is an exhilarating combination of lifelong athlete, entrepreneur, and personal development enthusiast. Hailing from the vibrant city of Chicago, his early love for sports ignited a perpetual passion for fitness that has burned bright throughout his entire life.While Nico ventured into the world of business, honing his skills in import-export operations for a decade, his heart was always devoted to helping others achieve their personal health and wellness goals. With an unwavering commitment, Nico became a certified personal trainer and spent another decade refining his craft, crafting a one-of-a-kind approach that integrates mental, emotional, and spiritual components into the realm of fitness. His profound expertise in personal training propelled him to co-own and successfully manage a CrossFit gym for five years, fostering a thriving community of like-minded individuals who prioritize both their physical and spiritual well-being. But Nico's passion extends far beyond the physical. He has delved into the depths of a diverse range of ancient and modern philosophies, such as tantra, daoism, hermeticism, and shamanism. These extensive studies, combined with his own transformative experiences, have propelled Nico into the realm of mastery when it comes to understanding the language and story of the body, and its profound connection to our mental, emotional, and spiritual states. This very day, Nico continues to offer his invaluable guidance to individuals seeking to conquer their fitness and personal development aspirations. Whether you crave a transformation in physical health or yearn to deepen your spiritual practice, Nico is the consummate guide you've been yearning for. With his unmatched expertise in personal training and personal development, Nico will empower you to wholeheartedly embrace a holistic approach to health and wellness. Embark on an exhilarating journey as Nico paves the path towards your life's greatest achievements. Connect with Nico Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/nicomedicino/ Website: https://www.totality-academy.com/ Support the Podcast! Buy Me A Coffee: https://www.buymeacoffee.com/weirdandstrong Weird and Strong Gear: https://weird-and-strong.printify.me/products Learn More About What We Do: https://lnk.bio/weirdandstrong Are you a Millenial that wants to transform from Burned-Out to Bad-Ass, book a free 15-minute call with Coach Jeremy to chat about your goals and struggles: https://api.leadconnectorhq.com/widget/bookings/weird-and-strong-connection-call  

Mike Schwartz, a jack of many trades from being an athlete, a coach, a musician, and one of the best podcasters around. Today we get to dive into Mike's unique background growing up in rural Canada to travelling the world in his many roles. Mike is passionate about using music to heal and to help others monetize their message. Be on the look for his new album and corresponding world tour “Truth Be Told” and my Podcast Production course, The P.R.O. Podcast Playbook. Connect with Mike: Website: miketheschwartz.com @yobravebear @miketheschwartz Support the Podcast! Buy Me A Coffee: https://www.buymeacoffee.com/weirdandstrong Weird and Strong Gear: https://weird-and-strong.printify.me/products Learn More About What We Do: https://lnk.bio/weirdandstrong Are you a Millenial that wants to transform from Burned-Out to Bad-Ass, book a free 15-minute call with Coach Jeremy to chat about your goals and struggles: https://api.leadconnectorhq.com/widget/bookings/weird-and-strong-connection-call

Welcome to another episode of Weird and Strong! In today's episode, we have the incredible Jeff Lester as our guest. Jeff shares their powerful journey of self-discovery, personal revolution, and the transformative power of yoga and meditation. From overcoming body image struggles to finding a deeper connection with themselves, Jeff's story is filled with inspiration and insights for all of us. We'll dive into topics like the importance of being present, embracing our weirdness, and the healing potential of slowing down in our fast-paced world. So get ready to expand your perspective and embark on a journey of self-growth with us. Let's dive in! Connect with Jeff Jefe Living Collective: https://jefeliving.com/ Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/jefe_af/ Support the Podcast! Buy Me A Coffee: https://www.buymeacoffee.com/weirdandstrong Weird and Strong Gear: https://weird-and-strong.printify.me/products Learn More About What We Do: https://lnk.bio/weirdandstrong Are you a Millenial that wants to transform from Burned-Out to Bad-Ass, book a free 15-minute call with Coach Jeremy to chat about your goals and struggles: https://api.leadconnectorhq.com/widget/bookings/weird-and-strong-connection-call

Joining us today is the incredible Aaron Adams a Strength Coach and Co-Founder of Deep Athletics. In this episode, we dive deep into the realm of experiences and emotions, exploring the intricate relationship between physical sensations and our awareness of the body. Join us as we delve into the parallels between sports and life, unravel the complexities of anxiety, and analyze the various types of pain. Aaron shares his unique perspective on growing up feeling between worlds of being a jock and a nerd and his ability to connect with people from different backgrounds. We also question the traditional approach to fitness and the disconnect from the true purpose of physical movement. Get ready for thought-provoking discussions on personal growth, regrets, and the power of incorporating all aspects of ourselves. Together, we'll explore the origins of anger, unpack generational trauma, and unveil the significance of emotions in our everyday lives. Plus, we'll introduce a transformative exercise called "could you, would you when?" that aims to help us forgive ourselves and rewrite our personal narratives. Connect with Aaron Instagram: @deepathletics Website: Deepathletics.com Deep Athletics App iOS Download: https://apps.apple.com/us/app/deep-athletics/id1597161811 Google Play Download: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.deepathletics Support the Podcast! Buy Me A Coffee: https://www.buymeacoffee.com/weirdandstrong Weird and Strong Gear: https://weird-and-strong.printify.me/products Learn More About What We Do: https://lnk.bio/weirdandstrong Are you a Millenial that wants to transform from Burned-Out to Bad-Ass, book a free 15-minute call with Coach Jeremy to chat about your goals and struggles: https://api.leadconnectorhq.com/widget/bookings/weird-and-strong-connection-call

Today's episode features a special guest, Chris Marhefka. We get to talk about his journey into being the man that he is today. All of the lessons he learned and continues to practice. It was truly a joy to be able to speak with him again and listen to his story as it continues to unfold. Chris is truly a master coach and retreat facilitator. I had the pleasure of taking part in one of his retreats in December of 2022 and I am still finding ways to incorporate lessons from this retreat. Highly recommend checking out the content he posts on Instagram and the events he holds. Connect with Chris! Instagram: @chrismarhefka Website: https://chrismarhefka.com Support the Podcast! Buy Me A Coffee: https://www.buymeacoffee.com/weirdandstrong Weird and Strong Gear: https://weird-and-strong.printify.me/products Learn More About What We Do: https://lnk.bio/weirdandstrong Are you a Millenial that wants to transform from Burned-Out to Bad-Ass, book a free 15-minute call with Coach Jeremy to chat about your goals and struggles: https://api.leadconnectorhq.com/widget/bookings/weird-and-strong-connection-call

Simple question, how weird can a conversation get between Mark England and myself? Pretty weird since we talk a diverse range of topics from Glenn Frye, DB Cooper, Words, Stories, How to approach work, Education, Finding your passions, and Mastery of Craft. If you know Mark England, the Head Coach of the Enlifted Method, this will be an even more interesting episode since we dive into areas he hasn't talked about in the podcast space very often. Connect with Mark! Website: Enlifted Instagram: @enliftedcoaches Support the Podcast! Buy Me A Coffee: https://www.buymeacoffee.com/weirdandstrong Weird and Strong Gear: https://weird-and-strong.printify.me/products Learn More About What We Do: https://lnk.bio/weirdandstrong Are you a Millenial that wants to transform from Burned-Out to Bad-Ass, book a free 15-minute call with Coach Jeremy to chat about your goals and struggles: https://api.leadconnectorhq.com/widget/bookings/weird-and-strong-connection-call

We get to dive deep with the powerful and heart-centered man that is Danny Rios. I had the extreme pleasure of meeting him back in December and he guided me through my first real plant ceremony and it was such a powerful experience. Having this conversation months later to hear his journey towards the role that he fulfills for people now was a fantastic experience while we recorded, and I know that you'll all hear and feel that warmth and laughter through this podcast. Check out all the fantastic offerings that Danny provides and I look forward to seeing some of you at the events and ceremonies that Danny brings into the world! Connect with Danny! Instagram: @myplantmedicinejourney Website: https://myplantmedicinejourney.com Support the Podcast! Buy Me A Coffee: https://www.buymeacoffee.com/weirdandstrong Weird and Strong Gear: https://weird-and-strong.printify.me/products Learn More About What We Do: https://lnk.bio/weirdandstrong Are you a Millenial that wants to transform from Burned-Out to Bad-Ass, book a free 15-minute call with Coach Jeremy to chat about your goals and struggles: https://api.leadconnectorhq.com/widget/bookings/weird-and-strong-connection-call

This was such a special time chatting with my brother Tyler back in January where we explore what makes Tyler such a wonderfully heart-centered man that is out there doing amazing work with his clients, his family and the men he works with. In this episode we chat about strange physical rituals in training, to changes in approaches to training/coaching, and the healing journey that he has embarked on for himself, I'm so glad to bring this episode to the world and introduce another stellar human to you all! Connect with Tyler! Instagram: @tylerlefloch Northern California Men's Workshop: April 29th Men of Movement Retreat: June 8-11th Support the Podcast! Buy Me A Coffee: https://www.buymeacoffee.com/weirdandstrong Weird and Strong Gear: https://weird-and-strong.printify.me/products Learn More About What We Do: https://lnk.bio/weirdandstrong Are you a Millenial that wants to transform from Burned-Out to Bad-Ass, book a free 15-minute call with Coach Jeremy to chat about your goals and struggles: https://api.leadconnectorhq.com/widget/bookings/weird-and-strong-connection-call

What happens when you get two nerds on a podcast to talk about weird things? You get a dose of Star Wars quotes, stories about wacky travel hijinks, and a few life lessons along the way. Erick Roder is an absolute gem of a human being and I'm so glad to bring this long-overdue episode forward to talk about his experiences and the amazing company that he is building, which also means I can't wait to rent out one of his amazing vans for a remote work adventure! Connect with Erick! Website: https://www.rodemerica.com/ Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/rodemerica/ Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/people/Rodemerica/100089061077467/ LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/rodemerica Support the Podcast! Buy Me A Coffee: https://www.buymeacoffee.com/weirdandstrong Weird and Strong Gear: https://weird-and-strong.printify.me/products Learn More About What We Do: https://lnk.bio/weirdandstrong Are you a Millenial that wants to transform from Burned-Out to Bad-Ass, book a free 15-minute call with Coach Jeremy to chat about your goals and struggles: https://api.leadconnectorhq.com/widget/bookings/weird-and-strong-connection-call

This is an episode I nearly didn't publish out of respect for my dear friend David who was amazing enough to jump on and record with me in the earliest days of getting started. Throughout the podcast I stuck in my comfortable pattern of the gender binary and refer to David as he/him even though David is non-binary and goes by they/them. I reached out, apologized and they agreed that this was a great conversation to share with the world and we are bringing this to you to enjoy! Connect with David! Website: https://metaweightlifting.com TikTok: fullmetallifter Instagram: @fullmetallifter @enterthemeta Support the Podcast! Buy Me A Coffee: https://www.buymeacoffee.com/weirdandstrong Weird and Strong Gear: https://weird-and-strong.printify.me/products Learn More About What We Do: https://lnk.bio/weirdandstrong Are you a Millenial that wants to transform from Burned-Out to Bad-Ass, book a free 15-minute call with Coach Jeremy to chat about your goals and struggles: https://api.leadconnectorhq.com/widget/bookings/weird-and-strong-connection-call

Scarlett Stanhope aka The Biz Hippie joins us today in this long-overdue podcast recording! She tells us all about her hippie lifestyle that scales from me making my own natural products (and only washing my hair once a month) to traveling the world to attend retreats and do plant ceremonies in the jungle.   If you would like to learn more about all of the amazing things that Scarlett brings with her Empowered Abundance program and the many other things that she does, you can find her on Instagram: @thebizhippie   and her website: www.Thebizhippie.com Support the Podcast! Buy Me A Coffee: https://www.buymeacoffee.com/weirdandstrong Weird and Strong Gear: https://weird-and-strong.printify.me/products Learn More About What We Do: https://lnk.bio/weirdandstrong Are you a Millenial that wants to transform from Burned-Out to Bad-Ass, book a free 15-minute call with Coach Jeremy to chat about your goals and struggles: https://api.leadconnectorhq.com/widget/bookings/weird-and-strong-connection-call

Connect with Bryan! Instagram: @being_bryan_raymond Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/bryan.raymond.7/ Email: [email protected] Bryan is passionate about supporting others seeking to live beyond their condition, diagnosis, or injury. Diagnosed at 23 yrs old with Rheumatoid arthritis, He spent most of his life living in severe, debilitating physical and emotional pain. For over 20 years he suffered from intense daily pain that made it difficult to walk, sleep and take care of his basic needs. One of his biggest turning points was when he began shifting his attention and energy inward, He learned to lovingly accept his experience, which led to building an entirely new relationship with himself. With that a whole new life of possibilities opened. At the age of 50, Bryan is living his best life and is excited for what’s to come. He enjoys a lot of physical activities such as mountain biking, racing go-karts, hiking, yoga, qi-gong, steel mace, kettlebells, & flying kites. All of which were impossible for years and is doing so with minimal medication. Bryan is passionate about freedom. Freedom to be all of you. The freedom to question and challenge your limitations & restrictions. You are more than your diagnosis, condition, or pain. Free yourself from that small, limiting box and live a life feeling connected, whole, and full. Bryan is currently working with clients: One on One  Intro Group class by donation Group sessions Facilitating at retreats. Support the Podcast! Buy Me A Coffee: https://www.buymeacoffee.com/weirdandstrong Weird and Strong Gear: https://weird-and-strong.printify.me/products Learn More About What We Do: https://lnk.bio/weirdandstrong Are you a Millenial that wants to transform from Burned-Out to Bad-Ass, book a free 15-minute call with Coach Jeremy to chat about your goals and struggles: https://api.leadconnectorhq.com/widget/bookings/weird-and-strong-connection-call

Instagram: @gunnarregan and @animuscoach https://www.animuscoach.com I am beyond excited to have this phenomenal human, Gunnar Regan on the show today. We were able to bond at a recent Gunnar about many things, including that we're both from the frozen tundra of the Northern Midwest. Gunnar is a coach who focuses on mental and physical training for people ready to make changes from their core. Support the Podcast! Buy Me A Coffee: https://www.buymeacoffee.com/weirdandstrong Weird and Strong Gear: https://weird-and-strong.printify.me/products Learn More About What We Do: https://lnk.bio/weirdandstrong Are you a Millenial that wants to transform from Burned-Out to Bad-Ass, book a free 15-minute call with Coach Jeremy to chat about your goals and struggles: https://api.leadconnectorhq.com/widget/bookings/weird-and-strong-connection-call

Instagram: @icehousefit and @skmozingo Website: https://icehousefit.com Sara Mozingo is an extremely special person in my life and I am beyond excited to have her on the podcast this week. We talk about her background and how she's used tools like visioncasting from an early age to get solid with what she wants and to pursue those solid visions. Support the Podcast! Buy Me A Coffee: https://www.buymeacoffee.com/weirdandstrong Weird and Strong Gear: https://weird-and-strong.printify.me/products Learn More About What We Do: https://lnk.bio/weirdandstrong Are you a Millenial that wants to transform from Burned-Out to Bad-Ass, book a free 15-minute call with Coach Jeremy to chat about your goals and struggles: https://api.leadconnectorhq.com/widget/bookings/weird-and-strong-connection-call

April is a fantastic coach that I've had the pleasure of meeting and working with in the Enlifted community as I underwent my certifications. She brings an amazing amount of energy to self-development, coaching, and goal setting. We chat about some of the things that make her Weird and Strong, and how she got to where she is today and some of the amazingly rad ideas that she has for the future! Connect with April! Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/getyourmuscleon/ 5 Minutes of Awesome: https://www.aprilflaten.com/podcast Apple Podcasts - shorturl.at/jnvM6 Spotify - shorturl.at/rFVW9 Buy Me a coffee - https://www.buymeacoffee.com/5min.awesome Support the Podcast! Buy Me A Coffee: https://www.buymeacoffee.com/weirdandstrong Weird and Strong Gear: https://weird-and-strong.printify.me/products Learn More About What We Do: https://lnk.bio/weirdandstrong Are you a Millenial that wants to transform from Burned-Out to Bad-Ass, book a free 15-minute call with Coach Jeremy to chat about your goals and struggles: https://api.leadconnectorhq.com/widget/bookings/weird-and-strong-connection-call

Welcome to our first episode, I am your host Jeremy Gruensteiner and I'm jazzed to bring you the amazing people that I know from around the world to show us the unconventionally strong ways that they live their lives. In this short episode, I introduce myself, a little bit about my story and what you can expect from this show in the very near future. Support the Podcast! Buy Me A Coffee: https://www.buymeacoffee.com/weirdandstrong Weird and Strong Gear: https://weird-and-strong.printify.me/products Learn More About What We Do: https://lnk.bio/weirdandstrong Are you a Millenial that wants to transform from Burned-Out to Bad-Ass, book a free 15-minute call with Coach Jeremy to chat about your goals and struggles: https://api.leadconnectorhq.com/widget/bookings/weird-and-strong-connection-call