Coach. Podcaster. COACHCASTER.

Men's health coach Brian Pannuzzo joins us on the podcast today. Brian helps career-focused men get the body they want and re-ignite their marriage while making more money at work. He knows how to do all of the above because he was forced to re-evaluate, if not even save, each of those areas of life in a dramatic way. Leaving a lucrative career on Wall Street to pour all of his time and attention into his marriage, family, and himself Brian became not only a more optimized human being but a role model for other men seeking similar areas of fulfillment. In this episode, you will hear why coaching, community, and accountability are essential components for success according to Brian as well as how to know if you are doing what you are truly called to do in this life.

Follow Brian @brianpannuzzo

Follow Chase @chase_chewning

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Episode resources:

• Brian's podcast The Success Lift

Welcome to your November 2020 Instagram Q&A! I answered many of your questions from a recent poll on my IG and dove into topics such as what is the best diet, how to eat healthy during the holidays, which workouts are the best, how to start a podcast, ways to improve your time management, training for longevity and so much more!

Follow me on IG @chase_chewning

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Episode resources:

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• Connect on the Ever Forward Coach app

• Episode 2 with Christian Guzman

• The One Thing book

• The One Thing podcast

• The One Thing free audiobook from Audible

• Learn how to launch, grow, and monetize your podcast - save 60% off of Level 201 from Operation Podcast with code EVERFORWARD60

The year is not quite over but what it has taught me is more than enough to begin to share with you here today! In this episode, I reflect on my top seven books I have read in 2020 and their key takeaways that have added immense value to my life, my business, and my relationships. In no particular order, these books will show you ways to think differently, dial in your fitness and nutrition to burst past plateaus, take a look back in time to leaders of philosophy beyond their time, how to find hope in a sometimes hopeless world, build better and long-lasting habits, and so much more!

Episode resources:

• Join the Ever Forward Book Club

• Get your free 30-day trial of Audible

• IGTV live with Mike Matthews

• Episode 398: The Science Behind Loneliness, Isolation, and the Healing Power of Human Connection

• Loonshots

• Everything is F*cked

• Atomic Habits

• Beyond Bigger Leaner Stronger

• Lives of the Stoics

• Limitless 

• Together

Why does personal development, coaching, self-mastery, etc. seem to be so intense and even extreme sometimes? Can't we have fun along the way to optimizing our life? Jason Goldberg thinks so, and in fact he makes sure you laugh just as much as you reflect on your inner self so as to create your ideal outer world.

After spending over a decade in a successful information technology career, he left the corporate world to launch an award-winning transportation start-up followed by cofounding and serving as CEO for a tech firm in partnership with NASA to commercialize technology from the space shuttle program.

He now focuses all of his humor, experience and enthusiasm on being of deep service to inspiring individuals from pro-surfers to CEOs, and countless organizations.

Follow Jason @thejasongoldberg

Follow Chase @chase_chewning

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Episode resources:

• Get Jason's book Prison Break: Vanquish the Victim, Own Your Obstacles, and Lead Your Life

   

Complete interview transcript:

Jason: 00:06:25 What's up brother? Welcome. Welcome. Welcome. Thanks for having me. Thanks for this. We had an amazing conversation before we ever did this. I know this has,

Chase: 00:06:31 I would love to, and you know, I reference that a lot on the shows like, Oh, before we were talking, you always hear that in podcast, land or conversations and it's true. Um, but yeah, I felt like that whole time, maybe some things maybe shouldn't been recorded, but, um, a lot of that conversation was just like, this is what I love about, uh, where I am in life in this profession and really just this platform. And it's just, it's just connection. And it's just, you know, Hey, what's my story. What's your story? What's your, what are your experiences? And we've like, we've been sharing stories and like helping each other in ways beyond just hitting record, man. So already. Thank you, dude. Thank you.

Jason: 00:07:06 Yeah, it's been amazing. I'm so excited to be here with you. We just, we just met in person for the first time recently and you know, I feel like I've known you forever as well. It's a Testament to how you show up in the world. I'm sure I'm not the only person that says that people probably meet you all the time. And like, there's just something about this. It's the East coast and you just go through, but either way, I'm just super excited to be here with you, man.

Chase: 00:07:24 Um, you beat me to LA by a year and as we're recording, I'm pretty much at my two year anniversary. You've been here for three, three next month. Um, what brought you to LA man while it,

Jason: 00:07:35 So I, I came here a lot for like speaking and everything else a lot, obviously a lot of stuff in personal growth happens in LA. And I do a lot of work with a company called mind Valley and they do a lot of stuff in LA. So I was coming out here every six weeks or so anyways, to do something. And then I actually went through a divorce. So I was on the East coast. I was living in Raleigh, North Carolina. I went through a divorce in 2017 and I realized, because I traveled a lot and stuff like that. And for some other reasons, I never really cultivated a lot of community in North Carolina. Uh, and Raleigh's a great city, but I just never, like, I cultivated a whole lot of community. And so when that happened and I realized I didn't really have a lot of community there, I started thinking to myself, where do I have community?

Jason: 00:08:11 And I had a lot of people here in LA that I felt really connected to. And I'm like, this is the time when I'm in transition and re-invention and transformation. This is the time I want to be around people that I know, like lighten me up and fill my heart up. And so literally, uh, I think it was like two weeks after the breakup. I had to come out to LA to film something. I had a half a day to look for a place. I went to the first place that I looked at. I looked at two places first place I did, that was terrible. It was all, and it was moldy and I'm like, Oh my God, universe, what are you telling me? And then I went to the second place and I loved it. And I signed the lease that day. I flew back to Raleigh, packed up, all my stuff sent all the boxes, overview ups, jumped on a plane to meet the boxes and come over. And within a couple of weeks I had moved and relocated to LA and it's been here ever since. And yeah,

Chase: 00:08:51 Amazing. You know, that kind of surprises me. Um, East coast and South the South, I'm originally from Virginia. I grew up, um, for the first 18 years of my life, pretty much on the Virginia, North Carolina border. Very, very small town, just growing up in the mountains and like the Southern charm, the Southern hospitality, all that stuff. It's wild for me to kind of hear that you didn't have that kind of community, I guess you weren't from there, right?

Jason: 00:09:17 Yeah. I wasn't from there. I was originally from, so I was born in North Miami beach and I moved when I was two, but not by myself. Like my mom moved with me because somebody got a $20 bill to my one's name was like, have at it. Uh, so I went from Miami to Orlando and then I was in Orlando for 30 something years. And so the reason for moving to Raleigh was that for anybody that's been to Orlando, it's has two seasons, right? It's hot and hot as hell. That's our two seasons and it's super flat. There's just like nothing there. So I'm like, I want some seasons. I want some elevation. And in my previous life, before I became an entrepreneur, I was in tech for 15 years. And a lot of that time, I did work in partnership with Cisco and Cisco, not the thong song, Cisco. So I could see definitely some silver hair and everything.

Jason: 00:10:01 Don't talk. You're welcome. So a copyright flat, I just realize it was two seconds. It was okay because a three second limit, it's all BS. So when I, when I was figuring like, I want to get out of Florida, I want to get elevation and seasons. Cisco has their second biggest office in Raleigh. So I had gone there a bunch. I'm like, let's just move to Raleigh. By that time I was an entrepreneur. I could kind of work from wherever. And so we picked up and moved there, but the thing is there, wasn't, there's a little more now there, wasn't a huge, like conscious community in Raleigh. There's there is much more now I give them a lot of credit. One of my buddies is actually here in LA right now for a couple of weeks, started a big part of the conscious movement there, which is great. But I think it was partly that, and it was partly that I just, like, I looked to my partner for everything. Like I made her my whole world. And it was also a great lesson for me in becoming single again, that like community's important, even when you have a dedicated partnership, romantic partnership community outside that relationship is still really important right now. It's ridiculous. That's a stretch, bro.

Chase: 00:10:56 That's a stretch of agreement. That's a stretch. I appreciate the velour approves. Um, yeah, let's go there. Community for me is absolutely huge. And that's something that, um, I have struggled with. Oh, struggle is the right word. It has been very, very important to me. Um, because of every time that I do have an established community, it's very well established. Yeah. My family growing up very tight knit, close, grew up with, you know, my grandparents on a bunch of land, you know, gardening just tribe. After that, I like 17, 18 left for the military. Six years of that. That's another tribe, tight knit tribe. After that moved back home, I'm back to my family again. Um, I go to school and so like every kind of community that I had, there was very little downtime. Even though there was transition, I went from one to another pretty quickly. And honestly, men moving here two years ago was the first time in 32 years at that point that I actually struggled to like plug and connect and community, a lot of abundance, a lot of opportunity, a lot of quote community here in LA, but finding the right one, I hate to say vetting, but kind of just like, you know, above, you know, beyond surface level kind of stuff. Um, did you struggle with that as well? What was your kind of community integration like going from East coast? West coast?

Jason: 00:12:12 Yeah. So for me, and this is something that I think I love that you said that because it makes me think of something that I've never really articulated before is that I know that feeling of like you want to plug in and it's, you know, there's already established communities and it's, it's hard sometimes to like break in, you know, like, you know, it's a very Drake, no new friends kind of thing happening sometimes in certain circles, especially as an adult, every time

Chase: 00:12:33 Like meeting new people and like, ah, are we becoming friends to have time for this? Like, there's a lot of, it's a big shift,

Jason: 00:12:39 Give candy to everybody. It's just like little kids, right. If you give, if you're a kid and you're like giving another kid M and M's, you're like best friends. It's like, why doesn't that work in the belt? So for me, like I said, I had a lot of, a lot of friends or I won't say a lot. I had a handful of people here that I really loved and trusted, but I had one person in particular, one of my best friends in the entire world who I f-ing loved beyond words, a woman called Ashley stall. I don't know if you know, Ashley

Chase: 00:13:01 Personally. Um, I think we're like, you're another degree of separation basically.

Jason: 00:13:05 Yeah. She's, she's amazing. And she was somebody who really quickly like plugged me in. She was like, everybody, you have to meet Jason. And she like brought me into the fold and I'm so grateful for it because I can, I can trace so many of the people that I'm friends with now to like initial connections that she had made. And so the reason I say, it's funny that you brought that up. And then I think about that now is that I, I try to do that now when I meet people who are new and I'm like, Oh, I'm going to pull you in, like, I'm going to introduce you to this community. I'm going to bring you to this gathering when we used to have gatherings and all that kind of stuff. So I think it's, I think it's really important that if you're, if you're not somebody who is already in a community, find somebody who's plugged in and who's willing and warm enough to invite you in. And if you are part of a community, become one of those people who brings people in, into the fold and has them really, like, I love one of my favorite things in the world is when I bring one person into another community and I can sell them to each other, like, Oh, you don't know chase, Oh my God, let me tell you all about this.

Chase: 00:13:56 You remove yourself from the equation. And she's like, yes, it's one of my favorite things in the world to do, man. Do you have kind of a process for, uh, I guess vetting again, you know, community, how do you kind of walk through the steps of, yes, this serves me in ways and I can serve the community because I feel those are kind of the two ways that reciprocity needs to happen to be an honest community, for one that you're actually going to value. What's your kind of your checks and balances with that?

Jason: 00:14:20 It's yeah. It's funny, man. Like for me, it's, um, it's, it's so much, and this is such an LA thing to say. It's such an energetic thing for me. Like I know as soon as I meet somebody, is it going to be hard to have a conversation with this person or easy to have a conversation with this person, content aside, context of conversation, isn't going to be easy? Is it, is it hard for me to carry this conversation? Am I constantly trying to figure out what I'm going to say next? Or does it flow? And I'm somebody who can typically keep conversation up pretty well. And if I meet somebody where it just isn't, I can't have that with them. It doesn't matter how much I could serve them or how much they could serve me. It's not going to work. And so for me, it's like, it's that ease? Like how quickly can I really be the silly, goofy, rap, loving spiritual, but still very pragmatic JG. The sooner I can do that, the more I know we're trying.

Chase: 00:15:08 Yeah. I'm sure you can hear it in my voice. You can hear it. And Jason's, we are loving live right now. We are dialed in and we're, we're a little stemmed out. Thanks to the help of a strong coffee. We're sipping on black today. Black by strong coffee company literally does everything you could want in a cup of coffee, clinically brewed ingredients to increase brain health and reduce cortisol, which is how that's something we call probably use more of this day and age dropping cortisol. We all need a little bit of cortisol throughout the day. It's a very, very important hormone. It serves a purpose. But look, when you get stressed out, when things are just go, go, go, go, go. And also when you add too much caffeine, like a lot of coffees have, then that spikes cortisol, and it's just really taxes your central nervous system.

Chase: 00:15:53 But this have actually is a cup of coffee that will help reduce cortisol. This is balanced bodied. Black coffee is designed for you to instantly rise to the sun and get things done. It is a single origin coffee. It is infused with MCT oil, [inaudible] organic neuro factor in ashwagandha. These are all things that are clinically proven ingredients to help you stay focused, to provide sustained energy without the crash, without the jitters. And look coupled with incredible Arabica coffee. You're getting your tradition, your ritual, that great cup of coffee in the morning afternoon, enjoy this hot or ice. There's no wrong way to enjoy strong coffee company. Well, you're doing your mind. You're doing your body a favor, and I want to take a quick second and just highlight a few of these ingredients. Maybe they're new to you. Maybe you're like chase. I hear you talking about this stuff all the time.

Chase: 00:16:42 You're just throwing big fancy science words at us. Well, let me break it down for you a little bit. Let's talk about a few key ingredients. The single origin and non GMO verified Colombian coffee in black has a medium roast that is freshly brewed and freeze dried for maximum aroma and taste. Sounds great to me, right? Well then let's move on to the MCT oils. These are things that are gonna provide some great brain health gut health, sustained energy and focus, particularly the C eight dash C 10 AKA brain super fuel delivers energy and increases mental sharpness, MCDS naturally antibacterial and antifungal properties also help support gut health. Let's move on to one of my favorite amino acids. Technically Annie, this is what really gives strong coffee company. It's its zest. It's its thing because we're not just crashing or getting the shakes from too much caffeine or hitting our system too hard, but L-theanine is going to couple with caffeine and provide that nice sustained energy and focus.

Chase: 00:17:42 This powerhouse amino acid will help counteract the jittery effects of caffeine and boost concentration memory and increased focus. The result is a laser-focus energy boost that helps you kick in a Zen kind of way. Imagine that imagine being ramped up, amped up, but just completely in control. Still. No, no jitters, no shakes, no nothing. And this coupled with our organic neuro factor, a hundred milligrams of this is scientifically proven ingredient that is extracted from the organic coffee Berry, which is where we all get the coffee from anyway. And this increases BDNF brain derived neuro factor by 143%, 143% people. This helps support neuron growth and repair learning mood and wellbeing and metabolic health. In other words, it's kind of like miracle grow for your brain. Then one of my other favorite ingredients, a, an adapted gin, um, that is infused in shrunk coffee company is black, has primarily been used as a supplement to support healthy stress levels.

Chase: 00:18:44 This is a full spectrum variation of ashwagandha that has been clinically studied for 14 years and has also shown to promote physical performance as well as support memory and cognitive function, as it has nearly a three times higher potency per serving of traditional ashwagandha. So look, all that stuff sounds great, right. Even if you didn't know what it meant before you got some insight. Now, just imagine all of this goodness in a scoop of your favorite cup of coffee. And in fact, you can even get this great cup of coffee for a hell of a discount. You can get 15% off when you go to strong copy company.com Throwdown checkout code chase that's C H a S E, and you can get black, you can get any of their other incredible latte mixes. They're macho. You're going to love this stuff. Good for your mind.

Chase: 00:19:34 Good for your body, man. Give your wallet really Shaun coffee company.com checkout code chase to say 15%. It seems like you know yourself pretty well. Most of the time. I mean, you clearly, I mean, I know just in the short time I got to know you, like, I know you've gone through a lie and you've gone through a lot of the work. I mean, you just, right now rattle off a lot of things that it seems you're pretty aware of what you contribute and also what, you know, you kind of how you can fill others cup other cups and how they can fill yours. How did you get to that point?

Jason: 00:20:07 Yeah. You know, this was actually a big thing for me. It started off as a business related kind of exploration for me, but then I realized that it has much further reaching implications and applications in business. And I remember when I, so, so just a little background professionally. So like I said, 15 years in tech, um, the majority of that in technology consulting when I was in Florida. And then when I left, uh, when I left corporate, I started up a transportation startup that was kind of, um, kind of like pre Uber. It was, uh, we, we created mobile executive offices. So we're going to have basically like a think of like a sprinter van with an office built in the back. And we could take people across the state of this is when I was in Florida. We would take people across the state that would be like a NetJets thing where they would like packages points. They look at $10,000 package and then people in their company could use it and we would deduct points. And that way they could actually bill people. So it was mainly for service professionals like lawyers and stuff. So

Speaker 6: 00:20:56 People were in transportation, they could work be it's making money as opposed to spending money

Jason: 00:21:01 Bill. So we had that and we had like the CEO of priceline.com on our advisory board. And it was something that I started doing when I was in grad school. It was a really cool thing. I did that. And then my second startup was in partnership with NASA and the space shuttle program. And we did some technology commercialization, dude. It was so freaking cool. I do, I know some spaceship on our team.

Speaker 6: 00:21:20 I was just how to get chase on a tangent talking about hard, man. I will tell him

Jason: 00:21:26 The picture of myself with a shuttle orbiter window, like from the shuttle with one of the NASA scientists and we're going over it because the technology that my company commercialized was from the shuttle program there, dude, you're out of this world. I also am a huge pun fan. I have a bad joke book on my counter. Uh, one of my favorite dad jokes in the world that I have to tell you right now is, uh, Hey chase, uh, I'm reading a book on anti-gravity, it's impossible to put down your welcome. I'm going to use that a hundred percent of your welcome I'm co-signing on that. So I did the NASA thing and, and through all of this is when I had started getting into personal growth and I was experienced transformation from, you know, being coached. I was 332 pounds at one point massively

Speaker 6: 00:22:11 Blown away, really

Jason: 00:22:13 Big. And I was big my whole life. Like I was, I was 250 pounds when I was 15, which is, kids are really loving and accepting. Okay.

Speaker 6: 00:22:20 Of course it had no problems whatsoever,

Jason: 00:22:24 Less romantic, but like to girls in high school, I was kind of like a Ken doll down here just like flat plastic. There was nothing really going on. Uh, so that was kind of a tough four years. So, so yeah, so I always, I struggle with all that stuff. And then I had massive stress and depression and anger and anxiety, just my whole life I'd had that stuff. And so in going through being coached and discovering personal growth and all this, I was having a lot of transformation and I really wanted to like turn around and do that for other people. Right? Like when you, when you go to a restaurant that's amazing, you can't help, but tell your friends about

Speaker 6: 00:22:54 It. You just can't can't shut up, shut up. I wish

Jason: 00:22:56 I'm sure it can be annoying sometimes, but so I knew, I knew I wanted to get into personal growth. So that's when I kind of started working in like coaching and speaking. And I started that in 2013 is when I got into this kind of form of the business. So all that to say back to me, knowing myself was that I was really trying to figure out how I was going to differentiate myself. Right. Because like, you know, everybody knows this, the market you've got to differentiate, you've got to stand out from the crowd. How do you do that? And the way I started doing it, when I started doing this business was that I was so intense. So obsessed with figuring out what I was going to be known for. Like, what's the thing I can hang my hat on, that nobody else has ever done.

Jason: 00:23:29 And that is a, a futile exercise in, but puckering stress and anxiety to figure out the thing that you're going to do that nobody's ever done before. Right. To be evolutionary. Yeah, exactly. Just to be like then the biggest thing ever. And so I would be there and I'm speaking and I'm creating different things and I'm coaching and doing these things. And I would get this reflection from people either after I did a keynote or they saw some video I posted or something and they would say, man, I don't know what it is about you. Like when I watch you, I just feel more joyful. I feel more playful. And I'm like, yeah, yeah. But tell me about how smart I am. Like the thing I just shared, tell me why that's like changing. And I kept pushing it away. And it wasn't until 20, uh, 2017.

Jason: 00:24:10 When my book came out, one person where it came out, I was doing a press tour. And my very last interview was a good day Sacramento morning show. And, uh, and it was great. And the anchor there got in Cody stark. Super cool, no relation to Tony stark, no relation whatsoever. I tried, uh, he was so cool. He had prepped, he had read the book and stuff and he interviewed me. And at the end of the interview, when they were like taking the mic off me and everything, and he says, Jason, I don't know what it is about you, man. I just feel so much joy when I'm around you, the guests in the green room set it, our people said it, the co-host said it. Like everybody said it. And for some reason that day, it really keyed into me. I'm like, Oh , that's my thing.

Jason: 00:24:46 And I realized it wasn't about figuring out what I was going to be known for. It was about figuring out what I was going to be known for activating in other people. What could I activate in other people? What feeling or sense could I activate? What could I give them permission to feel? And when I started really getting that like, Oh dude, that's your thing. Then that becomes the butter in the pan. For me, no matter what I create, whether it's in work stuff or in friendships or whatever, if I lead with knowing who I am that naturally when I don't try, I tend to activate that for people and the rest takes care of it.

Chase: 00:25:17 You're the plug man. You're, you're the catalyst really

Jason: 00:25:21 Young, really young. A

Chase: 00:25:23 Couple of things came up right there. And um, we're really trying not to forget this stuff. Luckily that that's true. I feel that strong coffee right now. Like, I'm just like, I'm about to dial into a matrix any second now. Um, when you were talking about like, what am I going to be known for? Yeah. Immediately the question came up for me was, is it ego or legacy? Would you say? W how would you define those two? And how would you kind of define them in that particular?

Jason: 00:25:46 Such a good question. So, so here's the thing. I am one of the people who will tell you ego is not a bad thing. I agree. Yeah. Cause to me, ego drives my service because for me to say it doesn't feel really good for me to do a Facebook live where people say, Oh my God, I needed to hear that. That insight is going to change everything for me, I'd be lying. And there are some people like, Nope, I, I deflect that. It's not about me. It's about you fine. And it makes me feel really good when that happens. So if that drives me to do more of that stuff, great legacy is is, is a different, is a different story. I have crap though. Even if you get outside, I think about this though. It still has to come partly from ego. I'm just thinking about, for me, it's tricky.

Chase: 00:26:28 I, I do think I don't. I was just asking that question. That's what popped up. I don't know if there is a strong differentiation. I don't even know if I would say that you can have one without the other. They both probably need a little bit of both, but yeah, just when you said, I was like, I guess really the question was, what was the driving force? Was it because of ego? Was it because of legacy?

Jason: 00:26:50 I think if, if we're, if we can equate, if we can put what I'm about to say under the umbrella of ego, I think it's ego because I think it fits better in that one legacy is the deep seated need to feel enough, right? So, you know, growing up, being raised by a single mother, my dad left my mom when she was pregnant. Never seen him walk by me on the street. Wouldn't even never met. Your father, never met him. Never seen the picture of him, no clue who this man is. He literally could be anywhere around us right now. It could be nuncio. It could be my father, but I'm disinfecting.

Chase: 00:27:22 I brought you here to take, to, to tell you something, actually where's Mori Bumble it, please.

Jason: 00:27:29 But, but I really think that like, because of that, and it's something that, you know, it's, everybody has their own version of feeling, not enough or whatever. We all have it in some part of our lives. So I'm not special. But I think for me, you know, growing up and, and being, uh, having all this, this stress and this anger and depression and being so overweight, there were two things I developed really early on as coping mechanisms. Okay. One was humor because if I can make people laugh, then I can, at least not like I can deflect. I won't get picked on as much. Or if I'm laughing at myself, then obviously it's harder for them to laugh at me. But also it, it feels like there was a sense of validation approval. The second one was empathy because since I didn't get the romantic interest of women, I would listen to their problems, women, girls, right?

Jason: 00:28:12 Cause in high school, I would listen to their problems in a way that none of the other guys would. And so I would still get the connection, at least part of the connection. I was looking for a lot of the connections, a huge amount of the connection. And so I developed those things as coping mechanisms. And funny enough, those are the driving forces of how I serve in the world now. Right. Everything is a shadow and a gift side to it. Right. So, so I think for me, it was ego in that I really want it to feel enough. And I feel like now that shadow of needing to feel enough is what I've channeled into being of service and making it.

Chase: 00:28:40 I love that, man. I love that. Um, the second thing that came to mind when you're talking about your story was, um, I always say, and this is in a past life. I was, I was just health coach chase. Uh, that's what I did. I lived in the health, fitness, wellness world. And for me, I worked for many years in a clinical environment and it was working with obese, morbidly, obese people, um, pre-existing conditions, comorbidities, things like that. And it was always like, it was the weight loss. It was the fitness, it was the nutrition, all of those external things that needed to happen, like literally needed to happen for these people's lives. But then that was just, it was what needed to happen before the thing that really needed to happen. It was fitness was a gateway drug. Uh, the weight loss was a gateway drug. It was just the starting point to true transformation, to true personal development to really learning about the human potential. Uh, would you say, would that, was that true for you? Was it as the weight began to come off and I'm curious, how did you do that? And then what else happened after that, man? Yeah, it was, it was a both.

Jason: 00:29:42 And for me, because what I realized was, um, I was, I was carrying around the physical weight, which was easy to see cause I was 330 pounds, but what I didn't realize was how much emotional weight I was carrying around and how much mental weight I was carrying around. And, and that all those forms of, of weight, w E I G H T weights, uh, were causing me to weight wit to get out in the world and do things right. And then it was this weird cycle. Like the longer I waited, the heavier, I felt right. And it's just like this, this self-propagating cycle of like, you're still not doing the thing. You're still not being who you want to be. You're still not putting yourself out in the world the way you want to. And then that makes it even easier to keep eating the crap that I'm not supposed to eat and not just the self, the cell probably getting loop.

Jason: 00:30:20 So I had tried everything you could think of. Luckily, I had actually had the same family doctor from the time I was 15 until the time I was in my early thirties. So they had documented all the things I had tried had to have been so helpful. It was super helpful. And I mean, I had like sugar busters and weight and South beach and all these different things. And I don't know why it wasn't working, but my, my sense is that there was a, uh, partially there was a pragmatic part that I still wasn't eating or moving the way I needed to. But part of it, I think was a, a mental block. Like I needed to create that space, uh, of having a larger body so that maybe I had protection from, from things outside of me, you know, I'm not going to let anybody leave me again.

Jason: 00:30:58 Like dad did. So I'll create this buffer of protection in the form of a larger physical body. So I think that there's, it'd be, it'd be ridiculous to think there wasn't something linked there, but ultimately what happened was after all of this trying and all of this, it was just gotten so bad. 332 pounds. My, I think my BMI at this point was 41, uh, really, really high. And so I ended up having bariatric surgery in 2011. I had the gastric sleeve and this is something I didn't use to want to talk about because there's still a stigma that, that means like you took the easy way out, right? Like you just, you went in for a surgery and then the weight just pours off and you're good to go. And I had to go through a year of preparation and have the surgery, including psychological evaluations and a lot of other things to even have the surgery.

Jason: 00:31:40 And then the work started. I'm not going to lie having the surgery first 40 pounds or so came off fairly easy. I didn't, I mean, I wasn't really eating at all. I didn't have any solid foods for a month from the surgery. I was pretty much all clear liquids and like baby food kind of stuff for a month. But after that, like the first 30, 40 pounds were good, the other 80, 90 pounds that I lost, I had to work. I had to change my relationship to food, to movement, to all these things. And I'm nine years out. I mean, you can gain all the way back.

Chase: 00:32:06 Yeah, for sure. Do you know any significant weight loss after five years? It's either come back?

Jason: 00:32:11 Not even more. Exactly. And so, so it's been my work to keep this off over the years, the last nine years. And like I said, it was something that I used to not talk about because of the stigma, but I don't really give a what people think about any more, because I know the work I had to put in and I know that the, the mental shifts I had to go through as a part of that are actually much bigger than the physical stuff that I went through.

Chase: 00:32:31 How so? Um, because it all takes work. Right. But it's different kinds of work. How would you kind of, um, quantify the work for the physical self or the physical way? The emotional way, the spiritual weight, all the things that come with

Jason: 00:32:47 Weight loss. Yeah, for me, it's a, I don't know if you've ever experienced this. It's funny. People think if you're like a coach and you're in personal growth, you have your all figured out. You never struggle. And I'm like, I, it puts me even more in the process cause I'm like exposed to it constantly. I'm hyper observant. I'm hyper vigilant about like my mindset and everything else. So I probably see things that I need to change in my mindset that aren't actually there, but I still try to focus on them. And so the reason it's, it's even more challenging sometimes is that it can feel if you have a bad day, right. A bad day, something happens. Something knocks you off your game. It can feel these for me. I won't speak for anybody else ever in my experience, it can feel like, Oh my God, this has all been a fluke. I didn't actually transform. I've been fooling myself all these times. I have one day of anger, right? Like I have an angry outburst, like, Oh my God, you're that guy again. When you were a teen who was punching holes in walls and chasing people in traffic, like that's who you really are, that is debilitating to your soul. If you don't know how to navigate that,

Chase: 00:33:47 You lost your right to be human. You know, like I'm not allowed to have these mess ups because I've learned a, B and C.

Jason: 00:33:53 Exactly. Especially, especially when you're the guy who activates joy and playfulness. Right. So that can be a kind of a double-edged sword. There's a guy. Do you know a guy called Adam ROA? Are you familiar with that umbrella? He has a really popular, uh, he's a post spoken word poet guy. He's like a gold cast video has like 200 million users. Really beautiful. Yeah. It's really beautiful poem that he did. Uh, and, uh, and I remember we met, uh, so I said, I do some work with this company, mind Valley. And if you don't mind Valley. So I host their event called [inaudible] and Adam came and spoke at I one of the AFS in Portugal last year. And afterwards we were just messaging on WhatsApp afterwards. And he's like, Hey, I really want to honor you for how much joy and like play and humor and stuff that you bring to your work and how much of a burden.

Jason: 00:34:36 I bet that as sometimes, Whoa, no way. And he like that hit me right in the heart. Like I felt so seen that I was like, you know, sometimes it can be. And so the reason I say that is that like, I want us to be able to talk about that stuff. I want it to be okay, that I'm the joy in play guy. And I still deal with . I still have my down days because I do right. This is like, if you had an entire history, like I do from a very young age of being like a teenager in extreme depression, the goal for me of personal growth is not immunity to stress, anxiety, depression, and anger. It's navigation of those things. It's closing the window of time from the time you get triggered. And the thing happens to when you get back to a place of peace and equanimity that's success, that's transformation to me. So, but when I have moments where I don't realize that, then it's like, Oh no, you're undoing all your progress. Whereas if you gain a half a pound, you're like, okay, cool. Well then no more processed foods tomorrow and it'll come back off. Right. So to me, that was why it was a bigger deal for the inner work than the outer work.

Chase: 00:35:34 Honestly, man, that, that was very true, very spot on for, um, I, uh, shout out to a special person here in the audience a little bit. Uh, it's kinda just triggering some past memories and the seasons of life really. That's really what I thought. Um, through my physical years, uh, growing up a young man being in the military and then getting out, um, long story short, I, I learned how to walk again twice. I had to go through a lot of injury. I went through a lot of injuries in the military and so, uh, the physical self became my mission. Um, and then when I got out, that's why I got into what I did was because it was so important for me to reestablish that norm that I studied it and then worked in it. Um, but like the physical self was, I thought that was it.

Chase: 00:36:17 I thought I was like, I figured out fitness. I got fit. Like, that's it, I'm done. Um, but no, it's not. It's, it's, it's a realization that you don't get immunity. Like you said, you just, you finally get all the tools that you need in your toolbox to maintain. And then every day it's just like fine tuning, fine tuning. And then same thing with personal development once I'm kind of like life happened and I really stepped into new career, new relationships and, you know, separated military chase. It was like, there's a lot of other emotional stuff. There's a lot of personal development. I began to listen to one podcast and became enlightened kind of thing. Um, and it was like, wow, like you think like, it's you think you read these things, hear these things like, okay, cool. Like I can solve that problem now it's done. No, it's it's, it is kind of that double-edged sword. It's that burden and the gift at the same time, it's the gift of knowing that I'm not alone, that there are ways to work through this stuff. And I don't ha I, I can feel better. I can do better do more, but it's not, uh, like, uh, a solution to everything,

Jason: 00:37:15 Right? Yeah. It's a day by day, moment by moment practice. And that is where people I think get most tripped up totally. And, and, and beating themselves up about it because this is the thing, right? Like personal growth is no different than, uh, Michael Jordan practicing his jump shot. He never got to a point where he was like, you know what? I got this, just call me when the game starts. It's a constant thing. Right. And I remember actually I was talking to somebody about this and I, I know nothing about sports. So when I use sports metaphors, like I want some golf class because I get the big

Chase: 00:37:42 Sports. I don't know, man, I'm pretty sure the Lakers are going to the super bowl this year. That's what I, I,

Jason: 00:37:48 It might be, but it depends if their blades have been sharpened enough to get on there, they got a hat trick last time. See, I didn't even know about that.

Chase: 00:37:55 Johnson got a, um, home run and it was sealed the deal

Jason: 00:37:59 Before or after he won the Kentucky Derby was that,

Chase: 00:38:02 Well, I mean, he was, he was already bogging the whole time. So I love to people who don't do sports.

Jason: 00:38:07 We know a lot about sports, but I was talking to a buddy about this, and this is a buddy who like played college basketball and like he's really into sports. And he was talking about how we were, we were talking about mastery, just like, you know, the process of mastery, which I just, I love mastery as, as, as a process, it's not a destination. Self-mastery self-mastery mastery of anything really. Okay. So you look at, uh, LeBron James, who, it would be fair to say as a master or has mastery level, even sports. And I know he's killing it with his hairline. You still know. Right. So, so the, the thing he was saying was, you know, if you at LeBron, James dribbling, dribbling is when they hit the ball and bounce it, not like out of the mouth. So when you look at LeBron, James dribbling, you can't tell if he's left-handed or right-handed because he's putting so much time, you can't tell.

Jason: 00:38:46 Right. And so that, that was kind of like a lesson in mastery and we're sitting there talking, and then somebody else says something in the conversation about kind of what we're saying. Like, do you guys ever get upset that like, you feel like you've mastered something like emotionally mindset wise, and then you get like hit by it again, and it like knocks you off your game. And I was like, yeah. And then I was thinking about the mastery thing. And I said, you know what, actually, the LeBron thing is, is, is a really, really good thing to think about. And I'm like, what do you mean? I said, well, listen, if LeBron James had practiced his entire life, right. Basketball, his entire life in Ohio, which is at C-level, let's say right. And he and his stamina was up and he could play the full game.

Jason: 00:39:21 And he could just like left and right. Nobody knows like what, you know what his thing is, he just a master. And then for the first time ever, he goes to Denver, Colorado to play. And now the elevation is different. And the way he processes auction is different. He's going to be like, what the hell? I've been practicing this for all these years? Why is it hard for me to run down the court? And it's like, every time you go to a new level of anything, but a new level of mastery in your life, you're going to be presented with things like this. If you're really going to step into your next level of self-leadership, if you're at a different elevation. So it's only to be expected that these things are going to come back up. The difference is like, if you're playing a video game and you come around a corner and you get killed, you remember now

Speaker 7: 00:39:56 What's around that. So you're a little better prepared

Jason: 00:39:58 To face it. And to me, if you're a little better prepared to face it, if you know how the system works, that's the biggest problem, dude, is when we don't understand how the system works, we think a thing happens. And then we have the event happens. And then we have a feeling when we don't know that there's a thought that happens in between the event and the feeling, no matter what we're doing, we're trying to mold and modify and manipulate all the events in our lives. Life never seems to work, but as soon as we know how the system works, now, we're at least a little more equipped to say, Oh, this is what I call having a Brittany Spears moment. I thought pops in my head. I take it seriously. And I go, oops, I did it again. Like I let a thought take over what's going on in my world. So it's so important to learn how the system works. So you have a fighting chance to actually feel

Speaker 7: 00:40:36 Flourish. I actually had a Britney Spears moment over quarantine. I shaved my head, Oh my God, did you beat up a van with that umbrella too? I didn't go that far. Uh, but I, uh, I just like, yeah, it. I just bless my head. Oh yeah. I got to see pictures of that. You could pull it off. It wasn't that bad. I thought it worked out better because actually I shaved my head, but I grew up my beard. So it was like a good contrast. I guess they pulled it through, pulled the hair. Um, all this stuff is this, is this kind of like the meat of the book prison break? Is that, is that the inspiration? Is that the theme? Is that, is that the work? Is that the expectation here it is, man.

Jason: 00:41:11 I just there's. There's just so it's so easy to be a prisoner of circumstance to be at the whim of who's in the wild white house. What's going on in the economy, the song on the radio that reminds you of your ex. It's so easy to live in that circumstance and I've done it my entire life. And there are still a moment that I do it. What I want to show people in the book is that there is, there's a different option moment. By moment. It's not good, bad, right or wrong. So you're not bad or wrong. If you have a prisoner moment, the key is to recognize that we are creating our reality, right? Because at least when we know that we could say, and there are plenty of times where I have prisoner moments, but I say to myself, I'm choosing this. I'm deciding right now, I'm going to be a prisoner.

Jason: 00:41:46 That's okay. That's a win. Like to know that it's not the thing out there that it's just, you, that's still a win. Because once we have that awareness, there's this great quote by a guy called Nathaniel Branden who's since passed away. But he was a psychotherapist. He says, you can't leave a place. You've never been right. You can't leave a place. You've never been. So if I start having the realization like, Oh, I'm really angry and really upset right now. But it's, I'm creating this in this moment. I've now seen the place where I'm at. I now have a baseline to say, cool, does this serve me? Is this the way I want to show up? How would I actually like to feel right. Given, given the conditions of the game that I'm playing with right now, what would I like to create? Like using the language of intention, right?

Jason: 00:42:24 Like what would I love to create? So for me, and that kind of whole premise of the book is when we, when we make, when we don't make our thoughts so significant, right? Well, we don't take everything so seriously, it's much easier to navigate things. And, and that is my, my practice constantly is trying to say to myself, number one, stop beating yourself up. You're having a human experience. It's okay. And to use the tools that allow me to kind of break out of the self-imposed prison that I put myself in, I'm in a, I'm in a prison, uh, where I am both the captive and the cap tour. Right? Like I, I own all of that. So the more I can be playful with my thoughts and not take them too seriously, the less they have any effect on me. So one of, one of my mantras, for example, that I, that I love, and I try to practice as much as possible is present, but irrelevant, present, but irrelevant.

Jason: 00:43:10 What do you mean by that? So what that means is if I'm driving in my car, right, I'm literally driving down the road in my car and let's say, let's say, you're sitting next to me in the car chase. And you were having just a terrible day, you're angry or you're depressed, or you're sad, or you're all three, you got the hat trick, right? You got the hat trick. And so you're sitting in the car next to me. The interesting thing about that is that you being in that state, in the passenger seat next to me does not change the way the car operates. Yeah. Steering wheel still operates the same gas and brake pedal all operate the same you're present, but you're irrelevant to my experience of actually operating the vehicle. Okay. So the more I can notice my thoughts and say, there's a stressful thought present, but irrelevant. I acknowledge you. I'm not trying to get you to go away. I don't want anybody to hear this and say, okay, well, how do I reframe? How do I,

Speaker 7: 00:43:55 It's not stuffing it down. It's not ignoring it.

Jason: 00:43:58 It's none of that stuff. It's understanding that it's okay. You can welcome it in. You literally can welcome it in and say stress. I see you depressive thought, I see you anxiety, ICU. And you don't have to be relevant to my experience. You can come along for the ride. You can sit here as long as you want. I'm not trying to even get rid of you. A lot of times when we think about like sadness or, or kind of heavy emotions, we think about getting rid of them. What if we said, instead, you can stay here as long as you want. Yeah. And happiness. When happiness comes, what if we said you don't have to stay? You guys are all cool to come and be transient as you want to. Yeah.

Speaker 7: 00:44:28 That's so huge. Uh, I feel like I'm in a therapy session. Uh,

Jason: 00:44:32 Well, first you had a psychic session now sleep any game.

Chase: 00:44:36 This is why I'm just so grateful for what I do. Like thank you for this conversation, man. Um, I lost my dad at 19, uh, to a terminal illness. And it was right. Like the show's about you. I promise. I keep telling my story too. I love your story, but it's connection. Um, and so at 19, I was about a year into my military career, becoming a young man, anybody at that age, uh, you're stepping into your own. And during that time, I always use the excuse of like, I don't have the luxury of feeling that right now I had about 30 days of emergency leave, got to go home, very my father be with my family. And then I had to go back to being a soldier. And I always said that I didn't have the luxury. I couldn't, I couldn't afford to be sad.

Chase: 00:45:20 I didn't have the ability to be depressed or to grieve and go through that. Um, I had this high, I had a very, very demanding job and, um, and it messed me up. That was an excuse I absolutely could have and should have. And the number one piece of advice, I would always go back and give myself as like chase. It's okay. To feel. It's okay to feel that. Yes. Um, and you should, I always had this kind of idea that if you're happy, if you're outgoing, if you're doing all these, like these, you know, things that are good in norm, like it's good, those are allowed to happen. But anything other than that can't but no, man only please like, talk to me, talk to 19 year old, chase, talk to people who are stuck there of like, why don't we allow ourselves to feel those things and how important it is. Uh, I had this analogy of ever watched Dexter. I say like your dark passenger, and we all have this dark passenger or dark passengers that we don't need to get rid of them. In fact, they're, they're, they're not driving the ship. They're not driving the car, but like, we need to learn to be present with them because they do have a lesson.

Jason: 00:46:21 Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. And, and I love the show. I thank you for sharing that story. And uh, it's I think it's, I think it's well-meaning and I think actually that the reason I think it's hard for us to feel these things sometimes or think that we're not supposed to feel them. Yeah. Even more so that's the thing is like, that's why permission is such a big deal. Like I actually say, and a lot of, a lot of coaches and, and personal growth people, don't like, when I say this, but I say that as, as coaches or people in this field, we're in the PR business, but PR stands for permission and reminders. Okay. There's nothing super brand new that any of us are saying, people out there need permit and you hear people say, Oh, I really needed to hear this today. Or thanks for the reminder. Like, you know, you have innate wisdom that tells you it's okay to feel where I think a lot of this comes from, and I don't think this is talked about enough. I think we're a lot of this comes from is that the people in our lives growing up could not hold space for those emotions a hundred percent. Right. You're a kid and you're crying. Oh honey. No, it's okay. Don't cry. Nope. Why, why shouldn't I cry? That's because your parent was just like, just please just shut off.

Jason: 00:47:21 Well, intentioned. They're not, they're not bad. They're not trying to, you know, emotionally stunned us, but everywhere you go, you know, people, they they'd even done like kind of studies this as well. Like when somebody is crying, don't hand them a tissue because you're essentially saying you need to get rid of your tears. Right? Wow. So it's like, we're, we're judging these emotions. And, and if people are not comfortable holding space for your emotions and we have this tribe mentality of wanting to be accepted and approved of, then we better stuff that down because we don't want to chase people away or make them uncomfortable. Right. So that's why I think it's so important, especially, especially for men. And this is not just men, but especially for men, is to be able to hold space for that. Not just for our, our female, the females in our lives, but the males in our lives as well.

Jason: 00:48:01 Because I think there is so much mental health that could be a mental health challenges that could be dealt with. If we just knew there were people in our lives that we could fall apart in front of. Yes, yes, yes, absolutely. Look at people like I remember when it was like one week where Anthony Bourdain and Kate spade, both committed suicide. And I, I'm not a suicide expert and I obviously don't know anything about their lives, but something inside me intuitively said, if they had somebody, they could completely fall to pieces in front of, without any worry that it was gonna get leaked to the press or anything else that they had someone they could totally fall apart in front of. They'd still be here today and whether or not I'm right. I believe that for myself, that if I don't have somebody to, to completely let myself go in front of and know that I'll be loved and not judged, then I would go nuts. You can't hurt.

Chase: 00:48:45 It really wouldn't have hurt for them. Absolutely

Jason: 00:48:47 Wouldn't have hurt. So I think that's probably why we get this, these, these messages that we're not supposed to feel these things, or it's not okay to think about feeling these things just because people can't hold that space. So I really want people to understand, like, you know, if you walk up to somebody on the street right now and you say like, Hey, can I touch your hand? Which right now they'd probably run away from you. But if you like, just play, if you say like, Hey, can I touch your hand? And they say, yeah. And you say, okay, put your hand up. And then you take your hand and you put it against their hand and you press they'll press back without you saying anything right. Immediately. It's try it with anybody without telling them nobody lets their hand, just go back. As soon as you press like what's what's going on there.

Jason: 00:49:19 The same thing happens with our emotions. As soon as we try to push them away, they go, I'm not going anywhere. I deserve to be here and they push back. So as long as we keep resisting these things and thinking they're bad emotions and don't realize they are part of the total experience of being a human, that we can't feel moments of being godlike. And like we're the greatest things ever, unless we can also know feeling like worthless pieces of . And that's just the dichotomy of being a human until we can integrate that. We're always going to say that's bad and happy is good. And we don't, I don't want to judge my life that way. Yeah.

Chase: 00:49:49 So true man. Um, amazing explanation. Thank you. Uh, I'll only add to that, that a lesson that I've kind of picked up on over the years is that the more that I can get away from defining things as good or bad, I've had revelations, um, good and bad feelings, good and bad days, good in bed, uh, business, good and bad. You know, dog walks the more that I can get away from good and bad. And I attribute a lot of this to, um, every day I start my day off with a stoic philosophy. Uh, it's been amazing. Uh, and so the more I can kind of separate that. And again, it's a practice. It's not like I read a stoic book and like we're earlier, you know, it fitness and done. Um, no, it it's a realization that the more that I can separate good and bad and just things, things happen, things are we then get the option.

Chase: 00:50:40 We get the ability to attach reason and meaning to them. And so, and I think that's transformational. I really do hope that that continues to be a part of my practice. Um, so that not only from my development, but especially like children, like I don't want to pass off those expectations. I, I do. I credit my upbringing, uh, raise a lot by my grandparents, my family, very again, tribe. And I feel like I've been set up for success in a lot of ways for parenting, but at the same time, like, yeah, they don't show your emotions like suppress it down. Like, uh, so I, I really hope that I can carry on that skillset. And you will your work for sure. I mean, it is a big part of that and it's definitely going to help a lot of people. So thank you for that.

Jason: 00:51:21 I'm trying, man. I'm, I'm in the same boat, man. I'm trying to live my message. And this is, you know, this is my, my whole thing is I want to wake up every day. And I was just talking to one of my clients about this, that last week as a coach and, and was having like a down day or a down week. And he's like, well then who the hell might it be coaching him? I can't figure this stuff out for myself. And, and I told him what I'll tell you. And I think it applies whether you're a coach or not, is that your only responsibility is to wake up every day and live in the direction of that thing. Right? So if you know that living a happy life, it means you go West. Then some days I'm going to take one step in the direction of West.

Jason: 00:51:54 Sometimes I'm going to get two miles in the direction of West. Sometimes I'm going to go a half a mile and then go back a quarter mile. But I still know that I'm living in the direction of West. If I can wake up everyday and live in the direction of what I know to be true, what brings me peace and ease, because that is really the thing I'm trying to make the center of my universe. When I get anxious, I know a thousand percent it's because I'm making something external the center of my universe. Any days that I make my business's center of my universe, I'm anxious. Anytime I make finding a romantic partner, the center of my universe, I'm anxious. Anytime I make anything, the center of my universe, I'm anxious. Why? Because if something's a center of your universe, then all you're trying to do is protect it from failing and falling apart. And that's not a way to

Chase: 00:52:33 Live, make everything revolve around it. And

Jason: 00:52:35 Then how can you possibly live life when you're so deep in the thing? So my practice has been really starting to shift that the only thing I will make the center of my universe is my own experience of peace and ease. Okay. Right. So when I start getting really stressed out, I want to ask myself the question whenever I can, this is not something I do a hundred percent of the time. It's the thing I do all the time. Except the times I don't is to ask myself, okay, in this moment, am I making my peace and ease a priority, really slowing down for a minute. It's okay. I'm mad. I'm mad about this. The team member did this, the client didn't sign up. This person's complaining fine in this moment. Am I making my own peace and ease my priority? And if I'm not, that's for me to slow down, get really, really present and ask myself what would make that a priority again in this moment.

Chase: 00:53:19 That's a great recentering question. Great anchoring on, I would challenge the person listening to create your own of that. Um, I had a client last year and one of my coaching programs who, um, like were struggling to kind of, it wasn't so much like, what am I working on? What am I moving towards? What am I moving forward with? It was, I just feel like in order for me to really do that, I have to kind of like, I need to be attached to something. I need to have it. I need to attach a meaning. Like I need a tether. Uh, so we literally, I guess you'd call it like a little totem we got on this slide was like, uh, I think he put it on a necklace or bracelet. It was just this small little thing. I believe it was a, uh, like a fly fishing lure from his grandfather.

Chase: 00:53:58 That's why his most formative memories were with his grandfather on these trips. And what he was doing was trying to build this new community for, for brotherhood, for familyhood, for fatherhood. And he's like, I just like, I'm having, I'm struggling kind of like convey this as like, um, I feel like it's about me, you know, how do I kind of bring up this, this lesson that was so important to me that has helped my life so much and kind of bring that into the path for what I'm creating. And it was just a small little tether, so it can literally be a tangible thing. It can be a question like you just posed. Uh, for me, it's remembering just to like, literally pause, take a breath. And like breath has been so transformational because it separates, everything kind of reminds you of what's important and what's not. Do you do like

Speaker 7: 00:54:38 Breath work stuff like actual, I

Chase: 00:54:41 Went through to 2019. I did two guided, uh, breath work sessions. Um, first one was really wild. Uh,

Speaker 7: 00:54:50 Oh, the Tropic breathing. Did you have like fall hands and stuff? Yeah. Samantha Skelly. I do. Yeah. She, it was, she led the session. No way. That's actually stalls best friend. Yeah, yeah,

Chase: 00:54:59 Yeah, of course. Yeah. Samantha, um, and quick tangent with that one. Does she did the great explanation of a here's physiologically, probably what you're going to feel. You may feel something may, you may not. Um, you know, I kind of had like, you know, the tingling that was getting the lofts of Claus, you know, you get hypoxia a little bit super oxygenated blood, and then all of a sudden, dude, I , you not, I was in my father, his last dying breaths in the hospital bed. I was an exact replica because I was there, my stepmom, my sister, uh, our family friend, one of my best friend's sisters. And then me, I was in my father in his eyes staring at me in the window. And I always struggle with like his, he had ALS so for a long time, he couldn't talk and walk in. So I never got closure. You know, he's never like, you know, chase goodbye. I couldn't say goodbye. And in his voice, like I was in him looking through his eyes at me in his voice, he was like, chase is okay out of nowhere, man. I was just

Speaker 7: 00:55:58 Like, freaking out do my lots of clothes on the floor. And then all of a sudden I was

Chase: 00:56:02 Transplanted back in there. Like, what the hell is that about? Um, that was amazing. The human body continues to blow my mind. And that was just through hyper breathing man.

Speaker 7: 00:56:12 Incredible. I feel like that message is trying to get to you all along. And that was the moment you were receptive to hear it. And I finally paused when I finally took a breath. A lot of breasts actually. Yeah. It was pretty wild. That's God, the power, that's the

Jason: 00:56:24 Power of breathing and that's America. What did it? I can't even like, I'm just feeling that experience.

Chase: 00:56:28 It was insane. Wow. The second one, um, immediately I got an answer to a business decision that I was mulling over. It was like clear as day. It was like, yes. And, uh, so it wasn't like as emotionally intense, I guess, but um, yeah. Breath work. No, that's man. That's insane. Yeah. Like what's going on with his two nostrils.

Jason: 00:56:45 Oh man. Wow. Yeah, I haven't done any holotropic breathing in a while, man. I should have,

Chase: 00:56:49 It was good. Really good. Yeah. To

Jason: 00:56:51 Experience her work. And she's amazing at that stuff.

Chase: 00:56:54 Um, kind of shifting gears a little bit, man. I know this is a big part of the work that you do, like for your own self and your content, but this is also what you help facilitate for other coaches, right? Yeah. So, I mean, that's gotta be a whole other level. I mean I've coached clients and I've coached coaches. Uh, you have to really kind of shift your, your approach. You have to wear a different teacher hat, um, because you're no longer just starting giving, helping someone build fundamentals, you know, usually they're already, you know, Hey, I've already kind of gone a few steps. You know, I got this kind of strong foundation. What's your experience like working, coaching other coaches, honestly, man, like this day and age, every, every gram, every gram, everybody on Instagram as a coach, like, you know, how are you different? Why are you different? And like, you know, what w what end result are you hoping to kind of pass off to these other people that you're working with?

Jason: 00:57:41 Yeah, dude, it's so funny. So, uh, so I, I have a one-line business plan. Uh it's it's and, and I'm going to tell you upfront, this is something I want everybody listening to steal like an artist and make their own, uh, because I think everybody can have this one line business plan for themselves in their own way. And my one-line business plan is to leave everybody I meet with at least 5% more joy than I found them. Okay, that's my business plan. Now that's the front-facing one. If I was being truthful, really truthful, my actual one-line business plan would be to leave everybody I meet with at least 5% less suffering than when I found that. Right. I don't want to skew negative by putting it out there, but that's really what it is. So for me, kind of back to the known for versus known for activating, I know that my role on this planet is to help reduce or eliminate suffering from people's lives, or at least facilitate that happening.

Jason: 00:58:28 I'm not going to be egoic enough to think that I can remove it for them, but help the people on the path to that. Exactly. Right. Exactly. And so the current iteration of that is helping coaches build their businesses. But the funny thing about it is that there's a lot of coaches out there that help people build their businesses. And, and a lot of them do really great work and it's very strategic and practical and all that stuff is great. And then we do a lot of that as well. And I know that the deep transformational work is actually what holds people back, because as much as people would love to say like, but my system for coaching will get you all the most clients and dah, dah, dah, dah. The fact of the matter is this, they did, there was a Netflix documentary about diets and they went through all the different diets, South beach, Mediterranean, all these different things.

Jason: 00:59:05 And you know, which one was the most effective diet that they found at the end. It's the one you'll stick with. Right? And so the same thing happens here. All the different systems for building your business. If you stick with any one of them, they're probably going to work. The Quito is to find the one that's in alignment with you. And in order for you to find them, what's in alignment for you, you know, how you right? And so what we do that I think is different is we focus so much on the human. We don't want you to just go be mini JGs. We don't want you to do any of that stuff. I want you to do my thing and your way, and I think is intimacy and connection and really providing value. But I want you to find the way to do that in your own way. And I want you to bring out your humanity, your quirks, your personality, what really makes you you, because I really believe that in most businesses, nowadays, probably all businesses, but especially in coaching, it's 90% who you are and 10% what you teach

Chase: 00:59:50 A hundred percent, a hundred percent of that 90

Speaker 7: 00:59:54 It's a good math equate, 60% of the time. It works every time, every time.

Jason: 00:59:58 Amazing. So, so that that's really, the thing is like, is, is, and it goes back to the known for versus non for activating. And the thing is, is like, if you look at churches, I'm sure in Virginia, there's a lot of churches. I grew up Southern Baptist. Yeah, there you go. Right. So there would be, at least in Florida and also North Carolina, there would be street corners where on opposite corners, they would be two churches that are both the same exact denomination. And there are certain people that will only go to church one and certain people that will only go to church too, but they literally have the same content. They have the same book,

Speaker 7: 01:00:29 The same, the same curriculum yet the same textbooks.

Jason: 01:00:31 People go, all the people go to one or go to the other. It's because of the person delivering it, they're bringing their story. It's the way they're showing up in the world. And it's like, there's something about that person, our empathy receptors and our mirror neurons go crazy and say, there's something about that person. I want more of them in my life. That's what I believe helps you build your coaching business is really having people see like, Oh, this human, this humans like me, because that happens as soon as we meet somebody. And this goes back to the community thing from before, right. As soon as I meet somebody, our empathy receptors say, are you like me? Or not like me? If you're like me, I want to get closer. If you're not like me, I'm going to run away as quickly as possible because it can be a threat. You could be a threat. Same thing happens in business. Business is an empathy game first and

Chase: 01:01:10 A hundred percent agree and I'll give away kinda some secret sauce. Um, this podcast has been it for me. It has been the greatest form of other business, generating revenue of other opportunities of meeting new people, of clients, of other opportunities. And it all has come down to, um, Hey, I've been listening to you for one episode or a year. Um, it's you? Yep. And before I can, even honestly, before I can ever even be like, okay, here's what I have to offer here is the program I'm running or here's my availability, you know, how can I help? It's like, I just, I, I resonate with what you, what you do and how you say it. And, uh, you're, you know, one step ahead of me or a hundred steps ahead of me. But then again, there's that mirroring of, it's not, I I'm trying to be you.

Chase: 01:01:58 And this is honestly how I've always chosen my mentors and coaches. It's just like, yo, I don't know. I mean, you're really not saying anything wild and crazy. We're not rewriting the book here. It's just how you deliver it. It's how you carry yourself. It's how I can relate to you. It's the vibe that I can get. And that's always been the determining factor in someone be like, chase. Like, what else do you have to offer? How can I work with you? Um, how can I just be involved? Like, what else do you do? Uh, and it's always just been you. Yep. You know, that's my, that's my experience with you. Absolutely. I mean, the way that you deliver content, the joy that you bring, the humor, uh, I mean, how much more humor could we all probably use in the world right now?

Jason: 01:02:37 A lot, man, it's, it's so true. You, you nailed it, man. This is something that we teach. We call it your Hoff and Hoff style, your hangout factor, the hangout factor is huge. So somebody looks at you and go, I don't know what it is about you, that I feel this way about you. And like, I watch you on, this is about this guy, man. I just really want to hang out with him. Like, he's just really cool. He's just a real dude. And it's like, it doesn't, it doesn't necessarily mean you're also sharing great content. But the thing is, that's why we say it's the 90 10. When I say it's 90%, you 10% of your content. Some people will think, Oh, it's a hundred percent mean, well, no, it's not a hundred percent. You it's 90 10. And the reason that the, the metaphor I give for this is if you're doing a heart transplant, right. The time that it takes to stitch somebody up after you've had put in a new heart, guaranteed, it's not more than 10% of the total amount of time of the surgery. Okay. Still a very important part of the surgery to stitch somebody up after that. Yeah.

Chase: 01:03:24 I got a new heart, but uh, it's wide open.

Jason: 01:03:27 Yeah. Yeah. It doesn't work. So, so you still have to be really good at what you do. You still want to master your craft. You want to hone in on how you can really serve people in a deep way, but know that that's not your differentiator because everybody else can go to the same certification school or they could go to the same college or they could have similar background and in work or in school or military or whatever else. But when you layer yourself into that, that's the real differentiator, man. When you show up as chase with your irreverence and the jokes with Nella and having may not respond to you when you're saying all these funny things, like that's what makes you, you, and then somebody that the key here is that, especially with the internet and especially with service providers on the internet, there are so many people who immediately, and I had this experience as a white rapper. [inaudible] you should freestyle. I'll be in the car. So it's a no for me, dog. It's a hard, no hard pass

Chase: 01:04:22 Chappelle run the whole, the whole time

Jason: 01:04:24 Or this one over here. Uh, so anyways, so, um,

Chase: 01:04:29 Spaghetti, I totally, I totally lost it.

Jason: 01:04:32 So, so, so hip hop audiences are one of the most judgmental audiences in the world. And I don't know if it would just cause I was a white kid, but I was a white kid in the nineties up on stage. Like I was a proper rapper, like doing shows all across. I opened for Bhutan in the past, like, like all up and down the Southwest Southeast, especially we were doing stuff. Uh, I'll be down the coast there. I did it for years

Chase: 01:04:53 And cleaning nothing to with they there and

Jason: 01:04:55 Cash rules, everything around me. Couldn't get the money. [inaudible] somebody should write that down. Somebody should write that down. Shimmy, shimmy y'all. So, uh, so the thing I remember from being on stage was I would be the white rapper doing my thing. And I was, I was pretty dope if I do say so myself, but whatever. And there would, you would see majority of the men in the audience, but the majority of, of dudes in the audience would have their arms crossed. And it's this guy I could, I could do better than that. And so me being up there, I felt all this resistance and it didn't matter how good of a rapper I was. Didn't matter how good my content was. It wasn't getting through those crossed arms. And so I said, okay, I remember thinking to myself consciously, like, how do I, how do I get them to like me man?

Jason: 01:05:31 Like, how do I get, how do I break through that? And I'm like, I'll make them laugh. And so in between songs, when I was on stage, I would do like some self-deprecating humor, jokes about stuff. And all of a sudden you slowly see the arms start to kind of go, ah, cool. Yeah. I mean, I'm still better than that, but like, and the same thing happens when you bring your hangout factor in the world is there's so many people who are resistant, Oh, another guru, another 30 something telling me how to live my life. And they're going to wag my finger at another 20 year old life coach or their 20 year old life coach. Right. And, and when, and when instead you should have seen them. Of course I get it. And instead, when you show up from this place of like, I'm not wagging my finger at you, in fact, I'm confessing about how this has shown up in my life and how I've totally Fs up and how I'm still working on it, then the arms get uncrossed.

Jason: 01:06:17 And they're like, okay, well let me just, I mean, they're probably BS, but let me just see what they have to say. And that's a beautiful thing about the internet is when you really show up authentically, not as a strategy, right? Because my, I have a definition of authenticity for me, authenticity is what's leftover. When I stopped trying to manage your impression of me, authenticity is what's left over. When I stopped trying to manage your impression of me, great definition. And that's what's left behind. Right? So the more I can be authentic, which is not something I try to do, but it's just what comes out when I stop trying, uh, then the more people's resistance is lowered. And then if I have a message to share with them, they're much more likely to actually hear the message.

Chase: 01:06:52 I think everybody has a really good meter. Uh, no matter the filter video, audio, Instagram, YouTube, no matter what, um, maybe I'm speaking out of place. I don't know, but I just feel like you can just tell, like, I want to follow this person. I want to read their book. I want to work with them. I want to work for them. Uh, I want to just allow them more in my life in one way, shape or another, uh, pay attention to that. People like it's, that's intuition, that's instinct. That's whatever. That's the mirror neurons like it's worth looking into it's worth making space for like, we can talking about this whole time. I agree. Nella, Mel, Nell's making a lot of space for, uh, for sleep. Um, she's been killing the space game. Um,

Jason: 01:07:35 You have an aura ring, Sheila, is she measuring your sleep? How's your sleep? She's giving me side-eye right now. Just so you know, this is like a very like Kardashian and you throw in shade at me right now. What did I quote you? And not like, give me credit what it was going on right now. Her resting heart rate is two negative four. It's pretty amazing. Yeah. I'm actually

Chase: 01:07:52 Right. She stayed up here the whole time. She not usually do that. No, she'll come and go. Yeah. In a lot of ways, she's kind of like a cat. She's like, I'm ready for attention. I'm done. Now I'm done. Then she'll just go back to bed. So sweet man. I'm so happy. She's with her mid shot. Talk about bringing joy to your life, to dogs, pets past it.

Jason: 01:08:10 I need to get another dog before I had an excuse that I was traveling too much. Yeah. And I said, this year, I didn't to travel as much. So it was your fault. Everybody said, they said you manifest the COVID. I'm like, this is my first. So in the three years I've lived in LA. This is my first summer here. Usually I'm in Europe for basically the entire summer different work stuff. And so this is my first time being here in summer and I was getting kind of stir crazy. And I've thought about like, maybe I need to get an animal. Maybe I need to have an animal that gets me like I it's of like, can I foster Nella for like a week and just see if it would, may like kill you. I would totally run a Bella. Oh my God. Now what can I rent you? And take you home with me? She's pretty dope. I've going to last. You went to sleep.

Chase: 01:08:46 Um, well, Jason, it's been so good having a show, man. We'll, we'll kind of wrap up here. The, you know, the book, prison break, vanquish, the victim, own your obstacles and lead your life. Um, I brought my pen. You brought the book, I got the signed copy. We're going to add this to the library. Can't wait to dive into it, man. Um, all the, all the things I've been talking about, everything I'm doing here today, it's just a culmination of my experiences. And we've been talking a lot about my story and my father, those two words came from him, ever Ford, ever Ford radio, my tattoo. Um, it's just, it's my whole way of being. And it started because it was a way like we're talking earlier. It was my tether to him. Uh, it was this thing that he just said his entire life.

Chase: 01:09:26 And then we got w we had to witness him finally live it, you know, he was like, no matter what, like happens for a reason, the obstacles, the way you have to keep moving forward. And literally until his dying breath, that was what it was. And so then when I embodied that instead of running from it, for, to me, like 10, 12 years to finally to have my body, to have my physiology, to have my emotions, my spirit, everything finally like rein me in and be like, you know, chase me to work on this stuff. Um, it became my entire essence for being, and so a lot of different things go into that fitness, nutrition, mindset, just self optimization, finding things and people like you, men who, who we can mirror from mirror with, and then get put on our path to live a life ever forward. And what does that mean to you? How do you live a life ever forward?

Jason: 01:10:14 Yeah, man, I love everything you said, by the way you're such, you're such a model for what you speak. Like you're your true self leader and you walk your talk. And I think everybody who listens to this and listens to your show and watches, you knows that that's the truth, the BS meter, a thousand percent, they know you're taking a about this. I love that. Yeah. And I love, I love this, this whole notion of ever forward to this whole concept that I've ever forward. And, uh, and to me it really does mean that I'm, I'm showing up every day and I'm, I'm, I'm really, I'm playing the JFT game. The Jesper today game tomorrow is none of my business, but today I can be super intentional about what I do and I'm going to have backslides. And I'm going to have times where I beat myself up and I'm going to have times where I fall off track and I lose sense of my purpose.

Jason: 01:10:59 And I start worrying if I'm on the right track anymore. And the more I know that that's a part of the journey, right? If I was born and they gave me a piece of paper and said, here are the dates where you going to question your purpose. And that date happened that I questioned my purpose. I'd say, okay, well, a part of my journey, it was already there beforehand. So if I can start treating my life that way, that all the, everything is temporary from broken bones to ice cream cones, everything is temporary, right? So the more I can practice that on a daily basis, then I feel like I'm living the life.

Chase: 01:11:27 You hadn't made ice cream cones, man, me too. I'm so hungry. My biggest takeaway is living a life ever for it means more ice cream,

Jason: 01:11:32 Definitely a thousand percent does I hope salt and straw will we'll sponsor the show going forward.

Chase: 01:11:38 Oh, it's been a good thing or a bad thing. But at the fact that I can walk to salt and straw, you can walk through here from here. Oh yeah, they're right down the corner. Oh, you should have told me that. I, in my mind, I justified, but like, Oh, the walking calories negate the ice cream, Kelly's absolutely right

Jason: 01:11:52 For the forecasts. Absolutely. A thousand percent, thousand percent.

Chase: 01:11:56 Well, Jason I'm of course have all of your stuff listed down there showing us where people, but where can they go right now to connect with you the most?

Jason: 01:12:01 I give you a link to give people a free copy of the book. So they get a free digital three 99 free 99, digital copy, audio copy. And if you're in the States, you pay a couple bucks shipping handling and to ship. So we'll do that. And then you can find me on Instagram and Facebook, I'm at Jason Goldberg because Jason Goldberg was taken. So I had to get the pretentious, Val, Jason Goldberg, you know, what are you going to do? Uh, and I post a lot of terrible cat memes and I posted a lot of content there. That's directly in line with the conversation here. So yeah, we can continue the,

Chase: 01:12:29 Yeah. If you guys have found value in today's message and conversation, the conversation with Jason, uh, like just go to his page and Instagram, it's just video, video, infographic. It's all of these things for yourself for, you know, all my coaches out there. Um, you know, I always hold a soft spot and you know, the coaching world because I do different versions of it nowadays. Um, but I just know how transformational it is for people, how transformational it was and still is for my life in terms of coaching being coached. Um, it's just having that person who is just at least one step ahead of you in any way, um, that you can, that you can jive with and you can mirror with, uh, it's transformational it's necessary too. So check out Jason Goldberg, the book is prison break and, uh, we're going to have a hookup in the show notes. You can get your own copy and don't sleep on this one. All right.

Episode 400! What a journey it has been thus far and what a journey we still have before us. This episode is a special sharing of a conversation I had with my friend and fellow podcaster Zach Mobius on his show, Scaling to Success, where we discussed my journey from small town Virginia kid to entrepreneur in Los Angeles.

Always on a mission to help others optimize mind, body, and spirit through the sharing of lessons and learnings from my guests, I find great pride in having Zach pull his own lessons from my story for you all today.

3 Key Things You Will Take Away from Today:

• What to expect in your first 3 years of entrepreneurship and how to navigate the challenges each year brings

• How to find and pursue your zone of genius

• The power of connection and what happens when you talk less and listen more

Follow Zach @zachmobius

Follow Chase @chase_chewning

Episode resources:

• Listen to Zach on episode 265: Life Span vs Health Span and How Living to 100 is More Possible Than You Think

• Learn how to launch, grow, and monetize your podcast and save 60% with checkout code EVERFORWARD60 on Level 201 at www.OperationPodcast.com

• Listen to Zach's podcast Scaling to Success

As we go through life we will undoubtedly face challenges; physical, mental, and emotional. How we rise to those occasions and the attitude we have towards them are perhaps the two most determining factors in whether they build us up or tear us down. Juan Guadarrama has been through his share of crucibles; the military, powerlifting, entrepreneurship, fatherhood and so much more but in each endeavor he chooses to lean into the challenge - EMBRACE THE SUCK - to maximize his life experience but also to be a role model for those around him and the next generation of young men that will lead after him.

Follow Juan @jlguadarrama

Follow Chase @chase_chewning

Ever Forward Radio is brought to you by our partners at Bare Performance Nutrition - save 10% off all your performance and recovery needs when you use code EVERFORWARD at www.BPNSUPPS.com

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Episode resources:

• Save 10% on Bare Performance Nutrition supplements with code EVERFORWARD at www.BPNSUPPS.com

• Juan's gym and brand Sorta 

Interview transcript:

Juan: 00:05:54 What's up, man. How are you? I'm great. Thank you for having me.

Chase: 00:05:58 Thank you for coming. Um, you're here, but your mind has gotta be somewhere else right now, man. You're about to

Juan: 00:06:05 A little bit. Yeah, yeah. A little bit. How excited are you? I am super excited. Uh, the first time around, you kinda don't know what's going on. So I had my first child at 23. Yeah. Just turned 30 on the first days ago, heavy bleeding. It literally just a few days ago, a few days ago. Uh, but the evolution of growing up and being through what we've developed with our first child in the love, also the relationship between us growing together, this second child, every time we think about it, I'm I do. I cry inside every single time. The concept of my child holding my other child blows my mind, blows my mind, whose sons you too.

Chase: 00:06:46 You're gonna have your second son coming into the world. Yes. And we're going to definitely get into the full story here, man. But someone like yourself that has, you know, at 30 years old, been through so much, you know, put yourself through so many different crucibles of mental testing, physical testing. Um, you've got to have some kind of idea of what you want to pass on already to your sons, right? Like the lessons that you've learned and just 30 really short years on earth.

Juan: 00:07:14 Yeah. It's kind of what has based everything that I do professionally. Yeah. Like my son in being a family man. So the thing, when everyone asks me, what do you do? Well, first I'm a, I'm a husband, a father and a coach. Like those are the hats that I wear. Uh, and my actions, uh, are based off how I can help in those hats or better improving those hats. Uh, and I've kind of made, made. I for sure have made my brand and the brand of the gym based on core principles. And if it doesn't fit that and we're not doing it, what are those principles? Uh, like growth, personal growth. And we have the gym, which I can teach you how to squat. That's a given that's, that's already, I've seen you. And I actually know, I think when I was there training, uh, it was you're dead lifting.

Juan: 00:08:09 I think so. I can't, I can't attest to the squad. No doubt. The deadlift is on appointment. Vice squad was way more important than my dad, but I'm like, Oh, that's an easy one. I can teach you that. The next one is like, okay, what what's going on inside your brain? Why are, why do you not have the things that you want already? Why are you not happy? Uh, and do you even know why you're doing the behaviors that you're doing? So those are like the secondary things. Uh, those are the things that are gonna slow down progress at the gym as well. Uh, and I've been able to like, uh, find happiness in and success because my actions line up with my core values. So growth is one of them, uh, contribution another one contributing to the community. Uh it's like if,

Chase: 00:08:56 If, if it's, let's say for example,

Juan: 00:08:58 Something that maybe I'm not getting paid for, but is this actually going to help? I'm for sure. Down for it. Uh, and then the last one is like autonomy, autonomy, freedom, freedom, to be able to do this freedom, to do things that I want to do freedom to in you'll know this, once you have your child, at some point, it's like, I want to go hang out with my child and it's a 9:00 AM on a Wednesday. I want to have the freedom and the right to like, I'm going to my child's classroom right now. Cause I want to go see him

Chase: 00:09:24 Sing happy birthday to someone I want that. I want that.

Juan: 00:09:27 Yeah. That's the only thing that matters. Screw everything else truly. Uh, so I I've tricked people to coming to the gym to do some bad-ass workout or whatever, but then the, with the trust that I gained from them, from me, coaching them on the physical side, I try to figure out how to mentally get into their brain. And let's, I know the happiness I've been able to achieve for myself. I want that for others, especially in 2020. Yeah. Dude, come on.

Chase: 00:09:58 How have you been doing that? I mean, I know from, from my days in kind of the coach client relationship, the physical aspect is there, like you said, I can teach you how to squat. I can teach you how to do all these things, but when you need to get into here, that's the tricky part. Have you found 2020 to be easier to connect with people mentally? Has it been more of a barrier? Like what's really been your secret sauce to like finally make that connection for people this year? Yeah.

Juan: 00:10:23 So like the first thing that comes to mind is I first needed to take care of myself and those again, go back to my core values. Right? So the first thing is if I'm continuing to grow and learn. So like one of the first things I did as I dove into cognitive behavioral therapy, deep, deep thought patterns and behavior, why are you thinking this way? Uh, all those things. I'm like, okay, if I can do that for myself, I am happy. I also like to teach, uh, so I can kind of pass that along. Okay. Um, the other ones are, I have a family at home having a family at home. It just makes everything easier because everyone that I, the most important people that are, I love are right here. That support system is the support system. And me and my wife enjoy being around each other.

Juan: 00:11:14 Uh, we've worked hard to have that relationship and the same thing with my child. I love messing around with him and, and play fighting and playing monopoly, playing UNO and playing video games. And in that comradery, because I know it's building that trust. So when we hit those middle school years in those high school years, hopefully we have that channel to like, Hey dude, let's talk. Yeah. So, uh, maybe some of us, or in, uh, older times that, that dad, son relationship wasn't as open. Um, and I, or just like the lack of education education as well. Good point. Yeah. You know, um, a recent thing that has come to mind just becoming a dad and being more interested in, in like where I'm coming from. Like I was talking to my dad on father's day, I think father's day and just realizing I dude, I had my parents migrated here.

Juan: 00:12:15 And so I'm first gen here from where Mexico and realizing that my grandparents didn't know how to read and write well, and we're just two generations away. And we were like, dude, how am I here right now? What is going on? Like, I shouldn't be right. It's super dope. And you like have to like, look at that timeline to appreciate it. And then it's like looking back at your, your family evolution truly. And I'm like excited for my son to like, dude, you, you are having such a far headstart start and I'm excited for what you can bring into the world. Damn. You know? Uh, so it special moments of that.

Chase: 00:12:55 Yeah. I mean, looking at your past, I mean, you literally can look at your past your present and your future. I think that's one of the coolest things that I'm really looking forward to when it comes time for me to be a father is like that. That's the future. That's your future. Would you say that having children has made you more aware and more conscious, more planning for the future or has it kind of on the opposite? Has it made you be more mindful of your past and how far you have come in your family? Does that question make sense?

Juan: 00:13:26 Because of my past is kind of how it's set up my, my behavior and how I treat my, my child's are like, um, a silly example. And this is common in the Latino community too, where you get in trouble, you get smacked like belt smacked. And when you're younger, you're like, yo, that's how I'm going to discipline my child. But then you grow up and you're like, yo, that's fucked up. That she was not cool. That doesn't make sense. That means I'm messing up. Right. Because everything's a reflection of you. Like why are you not understanding that I need to be pissed at myself? Or how are you not understanding that? Yeah. Uh, realizations like that, what do I want your outcome to be a kind of have to trick you with my behavior to get the outcome that I want from you. Right. It really is a trick. Yeah. You're just manipulating him to get the response that you want.

Chase: 00:14:22 I have a positive outcome. Positive. Absolutely. Yeah.

Juan: 00:14:25 I call it like for behavior or a positive outcome. And I was like really interested because yours is ever forward and mine similar forward behavior. And like, what is keeping you from forward behavior? There we go back. There we go. If it's not there, if it's stopping you, what can we fix or help give you the two and not necessarily give you the tools so you can make forward progress. But anyways, tricking my child and just knowing how boys are in very competitive, uh, kind of don't back down from challenges. And if you hear, if it's a challenge, like you probably are going to step up to the plate, like we'll do simple stuff to homework where I kind of treat it like a workout, like a wad, a dude, we crushed this homework right here. We question this workbook right here. We are free to go play.

Juan: 00:15:09 Okay. So we need to tap in. We need to focus. Uh, and if you were watching, you were like, ah, outsiders were watching you like, Oh, that was a little aggressive. So I remember, um, little stuff like we're practicing letters and like, okay, you need to focus. You need to make these letters look good, look good. Meaning you gotta trace the lines. And if you don't make them look the same size, that is not good work. Right. You need to put effort for it. It's not, it's not the potential it could be. Right. So, so giving immediate feedback to her, Hey, yo, your letter B look sharp. Good. Next one. Yo, your letter and this, this comes from, uh, having that baseline relationship. You're a looks like trash dude. You need to erase it. That's terrible. Come on. A form is terrible. It's bigger than the lowercase a is bigger than the uppercase B how's that possible?

Juan: 00:16:02 Uh, you need to fix it. Yeah. But just being on top of him and making it a competition, you're like, all right, I need you to focus. Maybe it's a little aggro, but you get, you get the job done and tricking him into getting the outcome that you want. Uh, so the little, little stuff like that that you like to be talking about, you know, your kid, you'd be talking about your clients here that truly, you know, when you're trying to, I would say influence you in behavior or help. I should say, use your words here. Chase. Let's think about this. When you want to help someone get to an outcome that you know that they want and you're there to help facilitate. You kind got to get, uh, agro, I guess sometimes, or, you know, the whole role of a coach as a mentor.

Juan: 00:16:45 A dad, I think is to help people realize, correct me if I'm wrong and help people realize, Hey, this is why we're here. This is the work that we're here to do. Um, this is the goal that we're working towards and it's going to be some wavy lines, get to a dizzy, but we're going to get there. Yeah. Yeah. So it's, it's doing little tricks like that. Another funny one you can, if you have a boy, you'll enjoy this. I don't know if it will work with girls, but, uh, we were potty training and since boys could stand up and he, he was peeing himself too often. Okay. All right. We've got to figure out something else. This is not working. Uh, and then I was a little high and I was like, do I have, I have the best idea, Lucas P challenge. Meaning we both go to the restroom at the same time. You whip it out. Oh, first one to hit water wins. Gamification based. So yes. So then every time he needed to pee, he goes, dad, pee challenge immediately go run. So he stopped paying his pants. Yeah. And that was like, go, this is genius idea. There was no blood for that. You just got to kind of come up on the fly for the outcome that you want. For sure. Yeah.

Chase: 00:17:56 I mean, so much of this stuff with parenting, you know, and I know another big part of your world is coaching is, you know, you have kind of your foundation, but it is very on the fly. Um, you know, each client, each moment, you know, each, each kind of session with the client, with your kid, uh, you know, have sessions with your kid it's called

Juan: 00:18:13 Parenting. Um,

Chase: 00:18:14 But, uh, you know, it is very on the fly and something we were talking about earlier was, um, something that helps you be more capable when you're on the fly, um, to pull from those foundations to pull from those, um, principles is, uh, you've gone through stuff. And yeah, we were talking specifically, um, as men, typically in a lot of cultural scenarios and just history, we tend to go through crucibles, uh, were pushed off to war, were pushed into the military, pushed into, uh, farming the soil, you know, the second we can stand up kind of things. Um, and you went through your own OCS and Quantico in the Marine Corps and myself in the army. Um, what was that crucible like? What was that test of Manliness of mental fortitude, a physical fortitude, like for you?

Juan: 00:19:06 I think in the beginning, like when you first get to bootcamp, uh it's it's culture shock for a bit and you're like, well, what am I getting myself into? But luckily, uh, I've been playing high level soccer. So then you get those coaches that are like, are on your butt. Okay. Right. And you you're used to getting yelled at, uh, and then after like a week or two of bootcamp, you figure out, all right, this is just a game. I got to figure out the system, not really after me. And you gotta figure, I want you to succeed. They want you to succeed. But also like they're just assholes about it. Well, actually, I don't want you to make it, if you're going to get me killed true. Get out, dude. Um, and that's kinda my personality in my coaching style of like, I'm in that old school grimy discipline type of coach.

Juan: 00:19:56 Okay. I know I'm not for everyone and that's fine. We all kind of have different tastes, but I was kind of you getting used to that. You need to like realize it's not personal. Uh, I'm not gonna die. Elsa. The worst thing that happens, I'm going to die. All right. Chill. I can, if I, if I can't get over that concept, I know it sounds weird. I'm going to die. Chill. If I can get over that concept, I can operate. Okay. I can let it go. So I can just be in the moment. So you learn to be in the moment you learn to be, start to get how to manage pain and suffering. It's like, you're not sleeping. You're not eating, you're tired, you're sleep deprived. Uh, you haven't seen a women in months, all these things, your friends do, you haven't talked to your friends, you have no phone, you got these stinky guys, you plug that in.

Juan: 00:20:46 You're normally doing pull ups in front of this guy. That's pooping right behind you. Cause that's the only place to do pull ups in the, in the Bay. Uh, so at some point you get comfortable. And I don't know because of that or because of sports. I like being in the trenches in the sock and the sun. That's where I love to do. I'm a weirdo like that. But I think that also is what makes me a good coach. Okay. So in that, I'm just comfortable in that and that can help guide other people, uh, when they're in that. Uh, and I kind of really don't care for the end result. So have you seen kind of my history of stuff I get to the end point and then I look around and I kind of just walk away the, because it's like crossing a finish line and it's like playing a sport.

Juan: 00:21:32 So if I was training for soccer or a race, you either did the work or you didn't, you're either already going to be successful or you were not going to be successful. Right. So I like, I like the, the, the grimy day-to-day the today's training day is what matters that end day. It's already too late. It's already kind of determined for you. Yeah. Um, so I kinda, I did that for the military. So going back, um, I went to OCS during the summers of college. Then after college, I studied entrepreneurship. Didn't accept. My commission started personal training. My son was about to be born freaked out and got my EMT license in a month, was working on an ambulance, got to that quit. That became a strength coach. Uh, uh, I forgot quitting soccer. I was playing D one LMU soccer quit my freshman year here.

Juan: 00:22:25 Cause I was like over it. Uh, so this cycle of, I get to the, the thing that I wanted and I just kinda dip then realize I kind of have the skills to do hard things. I think I can help other people do hard things as well and then send them off. Okay. I realize that at some point. Okay. Um, and that's kind of why I continue to do that. It fulfills me like we, we train at 4:00 AM five times a week. Uh, we haven't missed in, I don't know, three, four years. Like today we, today we squatted and we did a little bit of strict press, um, who woken up that early to work out, uh, since I didn't think it was Sergeant made me think I was going to wake up at that time anymore. Uh, that's just part of my soul. Okay.

Juan: 00:23:15 I just, this warrior being in the, in the, in the mix, um, it's, it's just part of my being in that kind of like, I need that. Um, and that's also what I feel is like my gift to those around me of like, I'm going to be a staple for you, you know, I'm getting to be there and I'm not going to miss. I will be there for you, a pillar in your life to where maybe you're trying to find some sort of balance or base. Um, and that's kind of what I see my role is, uh, in, in as a coach and as a person. Yeah. You know? Um, so I, I enjoy and I love the suck of it.

Chase: 00:24:00 Racist dog, baby. That's something we're probably both used to hearing a lot. Yeah. Um, you said a key word warrior

Juan: 00:24:06 And I,

Chase: 00:24:07 You know, as we were talking before we were recording, I kept just getting this concept of, um,

Juan: 00:24:12 Like that word and you just said it and

Chase: 00:24:16 We are, it is a very, uh, I think kind of a clear term when we're talking about, like I said earlier, sending the men off to the war to go to the military and just leaving the coop kind of thing. Like we, that's really the ultimate Testament of a warrior. And so many cultures and history is go off,

Juan: 00:24:34 You get tested

Chase: 00:24:35 And you come back and it's not just that you completed that thing, but it's what you learned from that thing. Like, you're just saying it wasn't the finish line didn't really matter. Right. I crossed the finish line. I did the thing and I realized that that that's not what I'm after. That's not my being, that's not my identity. Yeah. How would you kind of say that this warrior mentality is your identity? It's what you kind of bring to the table and how do you kind of interpret that term warrior and this modern?

Juan: 00:25:01 A lot of it, uh, comes from what we were talking earlier. I, I ha I'm fortunate to be around a lot of people. So I get to observe a lot of people. Yeah. Because I'm a father to a dad and I'm, uh, I still coach soccer and it's mostly boys. And I knew how I was, uh, as a, as a guy just had a lot of energy, but had some direction, but I think could have used more direction. And, uh, I view, and I sometimes get sad. And in worried you can imagine is, uh, like what, what world am I sending my child into? And I can see the struggles that teenagers go through nowadays that I don't remember. Maybe us having, like what, uh, like the way I grew up, like people would get in fights. You had a conflict with someone you are going to fist fight after that fight.

Juan: 00:25:55 There's a mutual respect that doesn't happen anymore. Yeah. Or the, um, how do I say this carefully? The there's a lot of sadness and depression. Some of it, yes. I agree that it's mental and it's, there's a chemical imbalance. Some of it from my observation is just like, we don't have that direction and fire anymore times have just changed. And that's why we don't go through crucibles anymore. So if I, if I can win over some trust in, and this is kind of where it said betterment and what we were talking about, uh, with, with Ben, then we've done podcasts in the past with of, uh, I, I think I'm fortunate to be around boys, that I can kind of influence them to also be warriors responsibility, meaning that you can show up as a professional human being in sport as a friend, as a student, as a boyfriend, as a husband, uh, and kind of also breaking stereotypes as a young Latino male of all the things that I was not supposed to accomplish.

Juan: 00:27:01 Being a young dad, staying with your spouse, going to school, reaching high, pretty high Heights on different career paths, talking about feelings and emotion, talking about feelings and emotions. Yeah. Uh, and not thinking less of someone and, and normalizing, Hey, let's talk to each other and chase that needs some help. Right. And maybe there might be a day. Hey dude, what do you think about this? Yeah. I'm not thinking less of you or you have me. It's more, actually more respect because I know this guy's in my tribe. When we can go out into the world and change other people's lives. So I'm very pro let's make better men because if women are encountered by better men, they will also be treated better. She could still be about us. You can still ride motorcycles. You could still be a bro and lift weights. You can still smoke, eat, but you can still be an upright citizen.

Juan: 00:27:50 You can still stand for something. Mic drop right there. For sure. I know your friends being a fucking asshole. Tell him don't be a shitty friend. Why are you being assertive? Our friend, like, that's not a real friend. Like if you want to be friends with me, don't come with some fake ass rapper shit. If you're going to be a father, be a father in like, yo, your child needs some stern disciplining and letting him know he messed up or she messed up, but it's coming out of love and letting them understand why you messed up. So sometimes Lucas messes up and I need to let him feel like, yes, he's going to cry a little bit. But the beautiful thing that comes back, like 30 seconds later, he comes back and he's like, yeah, y'all, I'm sorry. I messed up. Can we continue playing?

Juan: 00:28:28 Yes, we can continue playing. Don't take it. Don't take it personal. Let it go in the world. In the workplace. What I see right now? Soft. Yeah. Yeah. We're soft. Yeah. I think if we can stand for things and have core values, we can be happier and know what we're fighting for. Like, um, a really good example is like, like what are you guys doing? Are you kidding me? Like some of these actions that are supposed to be positive, these side actions taking advantage and crossing a line, this is not helpful. And I'm a Latino male. Like, trust me, I'm, I'm up for whatever fight. But you, you start with you and the people around you. Um, one of the most proud things I have right now is the diversity I have in my gym. Yeah. You look around how are you guys all hanging out? It is beautiful. It, I, it makes me happy every day. Yeah, man, you're lighten up. It makes me happy every day. And especially what we talked about earlier, I was like, Oh, these are like really new people to fitness. This makes me so excited. All right. So this is protein carbs. And these are fats here. The basics that's transformed

Chase: 00:29:40 Your life, super sick.

Juan: 00:29:42 And just having those basic conversations again is, is, uh, you forget. Right. And it means something.

Chase: 00:29:49 It does. It does. It means a lot. Um, but finding that meaning, um, is so important. And like we were talking earlier, you know, you gotta, you gotta go through stuff to really find meaning in things that you're going through to find meaning of your own self. Um, you said earlier

Juan: 00:30:04 That you don't really know where

Chase: 00:30:06 You questioned the level to which, you know, people are going through our crucibles this day and age, do you think it's because do you think it's just because there are more ways to not go through stuff? Um, like there, you know, the modern age technology, you know, there are more easy ways out, more options tend to not have to go through struggle, to not have to go through sacrifice and the pain and the discomfort to kind of get to an end result. Or do you think people are just, just kind of consciously choosing to not go through?

Juan: 00:30:40 That's a hard one, I think for sure. There's, uh, a bypass. Okay. Right. Yeah. I guess that's really kinda my question. Right? There's like a bypass. I look at it like my child's life and he goes to a privileged school, like where, where are you going to go through something tough, dude. I'm trying to, so I kind of have to very carefully now to love artificially sometimes create that.

Chase: 00:31:02 Yeah. Because you probably don't, I mean, you want the world for your kid and you want the world for your family and friends, but

Juan: 00:31:07 It doesn't have the tool. It's not going to have a doodle on

Chase: 00:31:09 To put them into the danger and the struggle. But, but like, you want them to go through it because you know what that means and what that's going to translate to. Yeah. How do you, how do you dance that, that line? That's

Juan: 00:31:21 Something that I think about often. Um, and there's like, uh, goals of like, okay, uh, can, there's a goal of mine that I really want to do at some point, and maybe you can help me and we can brainstorm about it too, where we get a house somewhere and we fill it up with 10 guys and girls teenage 17, 18 years old. Okay. And there goes, coach wan waking them up at 3:30 AM. We're going to go train. We're going to do something that is difficult, physically uncomfortable and mentally uncomfortable. We train whatever we come back. Maybe you give them a talk on some mindset or we storytell based on someone else's experience like where this is going on. Right. And also at the same time use all the things that we know about training. So we teach them about breath and the physiological things that happen.

Juan: 00:32:10 Well. Yeah. Why do you feel like dark shit? Your breathing is way off. Why do you feel foggy in the afternoon? Look at the stuff that you've eaten. Maybe we bring Amanda and we teach them about how to, how to cook your own food. Just fundamental, fundamental stuff in general. Okay. You get to take a nap. You guys can play video games for the next two hours, or you can sleep. I would suggest sleeping because in two hours from now, coach wants coming back or someone else. And we're going to go train again. And the evening, maybe we start shutting down. Maybe we start to journal. Maybe we do a round table. Maybe we talk about stuff when we do this for like a month. Wow. We artificially create this or a dream of mine. Like I go in and OCS and declining. Your commission is a perfect example of like, make it nothing bad.

Juan: 00:32:54 Nothing bad happens. Right? Yeah. You can, you can opt out, but test yourself, find, find ways that you're going to touch test yourself. Um, and I try to use my story as an example of like, I continue to do that. I opened a gym in during COVID walked away from a salary while having a second kid and my wife quit working. So clearly you're crazy. Let's go. And I did this the first time as well, but, um, I, I feel very comfortable. I'm not stressed about it at all because I've done all those things multiple times. And now I trust my skillset to be able to do it,

Chase: 00:33:34 Sit right there. All right. So that's something that anybody who hasn't gone through, any struggle, their own crucible, that's usually the blockade is that they have no reference point. And you know, we, you, uh, we, we had to start from somewhere. So how do you effectively communicate to somebody that you need to go through this? You need to do this, and then you're going to have your reference point. Then you're going to know the value out of this. Um, I mean, nobody comes out just knowing all the things, right. So how do you, I mean, what you just talked about that model, that household model literally was incredible. Um, like someone walks into your gym and like, they're that new client and, you know, they're there for the physical change, but you also know that you're going to need to tap into the mental and emotional and the spiritual as well. Um, how do you get them to realize without ever going through that before?

Juan: 00:34:22 Right now, I'm kind of doing it with the younger athletes that come come. Uh, I kinda, I, we created this thing study hall, so, cause they're all doing virtual stuff, right. We're gonna meet, we're gonna either, I'm going to tell you a story about some, I'm going to teach you something, whether it's a mindset thing or not, or we're just going to study together. Right. So a lot of the studying that I'm doing is breathwork and making, like, studying, being continuing to learn, like be cool, like normalize that, like you guys, aren't getting them to understand, like all these, I put a library in the gym for that purpose. I've read all these books I continue to read. Read is cool. I got here because I've been reading and just like getting them to understand, because they're like, I don't want to read this in between squats. You know, your sets. You're just like, instead of

Chase: 00:35:11 Aimlessly, you're like reading, uh, you know, the four hour work week or

Juan: 00:35:16 Highly effective people. We have that we have the Jocko books we have, uh, uh, Jordan, like all the starting strength we got, we got, Logan's going write book. Um, the mindset book, how Carl Dweck, uh, all these books in there, um, kind of asking in them and building, and this is kind where emotional intelligence kicks in just being around people and where they're at and sensing their energy and kind of looking at pockets to where, Hey, chase is starting to trust me. Let me, let me grab him. Yeah, yeah. Right. For the kids right now is, uh, I understand that you don't like the subject and you don't like school. Those two things are irrelevant. It's mostly a test. Can you do that simple thing, because if I'm trying to hire you right now and I'm going to base your work ethic on your grades, are you hireable right now?

Juan: 00:36:09 Uh, be honest, the first task dude, you need to pass that test or hijab. The syllabus is your cheat sheet, learn. What's on the syllabus and you're done. That is the cheat sheet. Uh, but the other side is, uh, so they have me. So I think if we're, if we're like launching this in flu world, then maybe there's someone that listening look for mentors. I look, I look for mentors, whether it's direct or non-direct whether I listen to a podcast, like when I'm driving, all I do is listen to podcasts, audio books, audio books. I love audible. Right? Cause you can drive. You don't have to sit down the physical thing. So it sped up. My, my role is incredible. You can literally do like, you know, one and a half X, two X. Yes. You get good at listening. Yeah. You get a good at listening.

Juan: 00:36:53 Absolutely. Yeah. Um, and, or, uh, I, I created this mindset, mental performance model. And one of the thing is, is emulate people that you look up to. So, so you look up to LeBron, actually. I don't like that example, anybody looks up to him today, tall as hell, but uh, but copy the things that they do do it, make it difficult. Try, try to, if school is the hardest thing that you're doing, uh, make a difficult bar, trying really hard, just try really hard and see what you get out of it. Okay. That's easy. Fine. Let's let's add training to it. And uh, I don't, I tell them I'm not ever going to ask you anything that I don't do. So if you look at my day, I post that, I wake up at three 30, true Testament of a great leader. By the way I say, uh, every day you see my videos that I worked out.

Juan: 00:37:42 Um, I train a class before you show up, you see me study at the gym or doing gym stuff, graphics or marketing, whatever that you see it firsthand. Uh, and then I go home not to chill, but now I got a parent and be a dad and you see my child and you see my, where you see all the things that I'm doing. Hmm. What is the hardest thing you've done today? And just put them on the spot. And they're like, dude, you're not doing anything to get better. If you don't want to try hard, I don't need your money to get out. Damn man. Yeah. All right. And the beautiful thing that happens, no one backs down. Yeah. I'm not trying to crush you on purpose. I'm, I'm crushing you because I know that I have your trust and I have this responsibility to push you because you're not getting this anywhere else. I know this. And I kind of use myself as like, you know, I'm stronger than you, you know, and this is kind of the police thing is as well. I don't know when you get into that, but like I have more power over you, so I have a responsibility to help you.

Chase: 00:38:43 Gotcha. Okay. Right. Yeah. Like if, if, if we,

Juan: 00:38:48 If us too, we're police officers and we're going to go arrest someone for dude we're at this is we should be able to use our skills. Exactly. Yeah. We have these massive skills

Chase: 00:39:00 Always be able to like assess and deescalate. It shouldn't be a flex of the power and the authority in the, in the knowledge. Yes, no, it's the opposite. Yeah. It's a deescalation. So that, again, like the military, but you know, it should break people down in a way that is constructive so that you can teach them and they can rise to the occasion. And again, you be able to hold your own. Exactly.

Juan: 00:39:19 Yeah. Um, long long-winded come back to what I love it, man. I do.

Chase: 00:39:26 I want to go back to something you were talking about another great kind of training modality. Um, and this is, I think just comes with the years and the reps, literally of being a coach and putting yourself through the sock, you know, that as much as putting yourself through stress, the sympathetic taxing your system, how much of a result that can yield, um, you know, along the way, because you're further along now that we should be kind of integrating parasympathetic as well. We should be running high. We should also be due the end of the yang. And you're saying that you integrate breathwork into some of your training sessions, is that right?

Juan: 00:40:03 Yes. I'm starting to, uh, what's the reasoning behind that? Well, we had that program, we have that program at shim, uh, with Kimmy Moss, uh, and she spent time living, uh, with, uh, Laird Hamilton, Gabby. So

Chase: 00:40:18 She brought that to deuce with XLT

Juan: 00:40:20 XP XPT. Right. And so we brought a sauna and ice to the gym as well as breath work. Right. Um, so my interests kind of peak there. And now that I've got my own facility, uh, I truly believe like this is going to be normalized in five years. It was like, why were we not doing this before? I believe it. Yeah. And you got like the, you heard it here first, uh, where I studied it where I've been studying it from a, is Brian McKenzie, power, speed endurance. I don't know if you know him, but I recognize

Chase: 00:40:48 The name, not super familiar with the content, but I know the name.

Juan: 00:40:50 Yeah. So he's a strength coach. It's like relatable. And you do the thing that I do as well. And one of the greatest examples that he put on there is what is the, uh, the thing that we can go without the least oxygen and breathing. Number one, if we're messing that up, how are we supposed to like process water and food? So the next thing we can go without lease is water and then food. So if our were parasympathetic or whatever state that we're in for too long of time, either way is bad, right. We should be able to go either way. And I think of that as training, you can, you should be good at high intensity and low intensity, right. They benefit both. Yeah. How are we going? Be able to break down food and transport all that into our muscles or wherever we need them to go, if we're already off and we can, we can easily see this with people walking around. Well, not right now, but with their mouth open from people not being able to sleep. Yeah. Sleep apnea. Um, how people condition the mouse, the master of hiding

Speaker 3: 00:41:53 They're hiding all or imbalances right

Juan: 00:41:55 Now. Uh, so what I've been starting to do is the thing that I, the way I view it, right. Is let's do parasympathetic regulate that cool. Warm up. Yeah. Let's go sympathetic. Also run the engine and let's do breath holds to kind of normalize it as well. Interesting. Just long story short. Right? It's like, we should, we should do strength training and we should do conditioning. Yeah. We need to have all the gears. Right. So it's like, let's get good at all of them is my, my stance. Right. Um, and I I've been putting it into practice when I drive to the gym as I'm getting there and we kind of already do this when we go, uh, especially in the morning at the gym, when we'd like power lift, you go for a big lift. Right? What do you do? What do you hear bros do? When they lift heavy, they brace their breathing, all these things. They're breathing because there's a physiological thing that's happening in your body and in your brain because you're fighting for this rep. Yup. Now we're putting science into it and

Speaker 4: 00:42:57 I love what you just said right there. It just, just hit me. You're fighting for that rep. Yeah.

Speaker 3: 00:43:02 Because the warrior mentality, man. Yeah. You're fighting for that rep.

Juan: 00:43:05 And that's why I love power lifting because it's, you don't go to the meat. You either did the work or you did it. And there's no chance to it. It's not like sport, it's sport there's chance. And there's tech, there's all these other things you either did the volume of work and your CNS is adapted or did not. It's it's a boring, brutal sport. Yeah. That is exactly why I love it. There's this there's nothing that's going to happen. No magic thing that's going to happen

Speaker 4: 00:43:30 Is, or it isn't. Yes, it was. Or wasn't

Juan: 00:43:34 So super cool. Uh, and learning how to bring your engine down. So I run high all day. I'm up. I'm probably too much. Caffeine is the thing that I struggled with. Uh, I, and I've been diving more into this because in order for me to be of help to others and be a father and a husband, I need to come down. I need to rest. Otherwise I'm just passed out more. I agree. Right. It's a need, it's a need is a need. And I know that if I don't get it, I get irritable. My, my workflow is lower. Creativity goes down. I noticed that. Uh, and I, you start feeling like you're in the rat race. You're just spinning your wheels. No. So the thing that I probably learned the last couple of years is I need to come down. I need to hide. I need to go away. Uh, I've become a very big fan of walks. Just leave your phone at home child. And my wife is here. I don't need anyone else. Yeah. I will check my phone when I come back. And so I can come back into the gym before one. Yeah. Right. Because otherwise I'm doing a disservice to tech.

Chase: 00:44:43 You're showing up you're half passing. Yeah. Yeah. When you, when you can show up into a situation to your clients, to your family, to you, to the day, and you know, that hundred percent of you is there. I mean, nothing beats that you're Superman, you're Superman.

Juan: 00:44:56 Uh, so because, uh, so breathing has been helping with that. And also I suck at meditating. I don't know how good you are at it, but like, it's difficult for

Chase: 00:45:05 Me to walk walking is my meditation and

Juan: 00:45:07 Like practicing in my breathing. And so like there's little stuff that, um, I started to notice like, uh, when I'm doing my slower breathing to slow myself down, like my heart rate is up. Oh, I seen SS fried. Okay. I need to go steady. Today's a long day. Uh, or like, yes, starting yesterday. Do I need to slow down? Cause I'm going to go to this podcast and I need to, I want to be alert. It's my chance to talk about, you know, what, I'm totally prepping days out. That's awesome. But that's the difference. That's a huge sense of awareness and the difference where to, where it might make someone follow me. So I can continue to help them in that way versus not being prepared mentally and just being foggy and not being present right now. Absolutely. You know? Uh, and I've also learned that those are the differences that make, uh, your days worth and your life worth it. Yeah. Right. Like I started my podcast so I can selfishly get to know people a hundred percent right now, forever from this point on. And we're going to be friends. Absolutely.

Chase: 00:46:08 The most incredible way to what the age old, Hey, let me, let's get coffee and pick your brains. It's a, you know, it's a coming together of minds. And I mean, don't even get me started, do it on the power of this platform. But yeah, it's just, it's a connection component.

Juan: 00:46:22 Yeah. And I was laughing and I'm like, dude, we're we're I guess all of us in health are kind of like this one, you and Amanda are like, y'all not really trying to go out and drink, want to go home and I'm trying to sleep. And I'm only really trying to have conversations like this and it's not,

Chase: 00:46:37 I mean, anything now I'm like, I don't know, like that's really going to cause my bedtime. Are you crazy? Do you not know?

Juan: 00:46:44 I trained the plus of having kids is, uh, kids, kids, you know, kids, you can kind of just dip that's the alpha everything. I'm album learning everything. Dude. You just go kids. And everyone's like, uh, okay. I should just start saying that and see if people pay attention. Like, wait, you don't have this yet. The goal thing is, if you go hang out with other parents, it's a consensus like, yo, we're shutting this down at five. Let's have dinner at three and call it a day. We're going home. We're chilling on the couch. Just trying to rest. Uh, the czar was dying when you guys were talking about dude, I'm that person as well. I'm not really trying to, I drink like three times a year. My birthday is one of them. So

Chase: 00:47:25 I'm sure, you know, a couple of weeks ago maybe partaking. So we got one out of freedom for the year. I like to wake up and do stuff. Exactly.

Juan: 00:47:33 I think you mentioned like, I don't like to wake up, hung over. It's a waste of a day. Yes.

Chase: 00:47:37 Because you know what you're capable of. Yes. You, you know what good feels like and you know what you're capable of? You know, when you want more out of life, it no longer just has to be a want because you can go get it. You can make it, you can create it and

Juan: 00:47:52 Not to be super negative. We're dying every day. Yeah. I'm not going to waste a day being hung over. I want to go do something tomorrow. I always have. I always have shit to do. I have shit to do. I don't know. Yeah. I don't ever get bored. Luckily

Chase: 00:48:08 You don't get two days off this weekend for the first. I didn't open my laptop. I didn't post on social. I think I checked Instagram maybe twice. Um, and you know, to kind of keep the whole concept of the coming down. Um, dude, such a reset. Yes. I mean, and I kind of realized that I was even lying to myself. I was half asking stuff that I always talk about for my own health and wellness, but always promote on my platforms. And you know, you gotta calm down, you gotta detach, you gotta detox. You gotta, you know, parasympathetic to the sympathetic, into the yang. But every time that I was before that nine times out of 10, I was still working on my laptop. I was still posting shit. I wasn't able to fully detach and come down and don't do anything just don't. I didn't do shit for two days. Also hot as balls, uh, this past weekend. But yeah, I was just on the beach. I was spending time with my wife. I was with my brother-in-law like with family, um, my dog and I, I just did the least. Yeah. And by doing the least, I came back Monday. I felt like I could do the most.

Juan: 00:49:10 Yeah. Uh, there's a, there's a thing that I, that you said in there, like you took the two days. Uh, and I think it's helpful. Cause I used to be in the mindset of like planning it, planning the rest, like a Sunday or whatever you can also, so anyone that's listening to, you can also like micro come down. It doesn't have to be like, uh, there might be a couple hours maybe today or tomorrow. Uh, it doesn't have to be a planned everyday thing and not like a weekly thing. It can be scattered auto-regulate auto-regulate. So when you're like, you need to be, is it, it takes time to be aware of where you're at. Right? Cause uh, I might do it on a, on a micro basis. Like, Hey, I got three sessions today. Uh, I need to take these next 30 minutes to do nothing. Literally take a walk sometimes though I can't take a break for three days. But knowing that like, Hey, I'm in the fight, but that fourth day, like yours, I need to come down. Yeah. So if it helps anyone it's whenever the opportunity arises, take it. It doesn't have to be this. I don't like structured thing as well. I agree. I like that. Sometimes it's structured or sometimes it's not structured. That's just how goes as well.

Chase: 00:50:27 Auto regulating life man. So, so

Juan: 00:50:29 Important. It's difficult. Cause it's, it takes a lot of awareness on yourself and knowing yourself. Yeah. Which is very difficult. It's taken me 30 years.

Chase: 00:50:38 Yeah. I'm still getting put on myself. I'll be 35 next month. And yeah, like every day I'm like, shit, what's going on with chase? You know,

Juan: 00:50:46 Just knowing like, yo I gotta push today. Yeah. Or not push when, when the, when those opportunities are there not there, like when you were training, well, we got clients this month. I'm taking all of them because I don't know what next month is or if like, Hey, I'm chilling. Okay. I maybe I've been working too much. Let's enjoy the money that I made. Uh, gonna do no good sitting in the bank. Let me go do something. Let me go have an experience or something. Oh, absolutely man. Right. Yeah. Instead of getting in this rat race,

Chase: 00:51:16 You hit on something there too. Uh, I want to bring up another point of, uh, you did something that not a lot of people probably did during this time. You kind of chips all in, right?

Juan: 00:51:26 I mean, you opened up a facility, you left

Chase: 00:51:29 A job. I mean, that's stressful. I remember doing that three, three, four years ago. Um, and like I was building my new venture. I was exiting with a plan, not during a global pandemic, not during a lot of, you know, I hate the most cliche time where, you know, these days uncertainty. Um, how did you know? I mean, again, clearly you kind of have this warrior mentality, but like how did you know that now's the time that I need to do this? So

Juan: 00:51:58 I've, uh, I've tried a couple of times and there's been opportunities to where I've always wanted my own community. And that comes from what we've been talking about. Start from scratch, start from zero. I was fortunate enough to be part of a beautiful professional leadership adapt. That's challenging your adaptive qualities to become the best you at deuce gym. And that's what that place is. Um, I spent from 2015, so five, five, six years there. Oh wow. Uh, I was the performance director when I left. Um, I just felt that I needed to put myself through that to be fulfilled on my next job. And so like, this is what I'm going to be doing for the next 10 years or I can keep cruising and I started to feel comfortable at where I'm at. I do not like that at all. And I know that's kind of a dangerous trait of mine, but it's also my strength. Um, I just have always wanted that challenge of building from zero and last night I had a class of 24 people. I didn't know any of those people three weeks ago. It's insane. Uh, so it's just the opportunity that the, the correct opportunity, uh, was, and this is where preparation meets the, the time. So it luck,

Chase: 00:53:28 Right? Yeah. Right. It, you know, luck, isn't just blind. It happens when, uh, hard work meets opportunity or preparation meets timing, something like that. Yeah.

Juan: 00:53:37 So I have been prepping myself. Okay. Even the business side of it. So what do you do on like opening a business? You got to file. You've got to deal with the city, uh, liability insurance equipment right now is insane. Um, knowing how to find it, if you can find it building a culture and community and that all stems from your behavior in your words and how you carry yourself in your actions, how to like basics, how do you program, how do you program multiple, um, programs that are out in the world? The marketing part of it, all the things I finally felt ready. All right. I got these on luck. It's my turn to kind of prove to myself, um, and to a different community. So Hawthorne is mostly Latinos and African-Americans okay. Um, to where I think about my, my mom and since I'm bilingual and be can speak Spanish, I would go a lot. I need to use these skills, uh, to, to help kind of what kind of, where I came from you. You're

Chase: 00:54:39 Not just taking it for granted. No, it's, it's a gift.

Juan: 00:54:42 Yeah. Uh, so there's like, there's that side of it. I'm like, what, how can I, uh, how can I be in an area that's a little bit more of a fitness desert, Santa Monica, Venice. Yo, we got gym every half block where I'm at. There's not a lot of gyms. It's like, we got Inglewood, we got Linwood, we got competence down the street. Uh, Hawthorne. Obviously this is a little pocket where it's starting to bubble because we got the form down the street and then the, uh, Rams stadium down the street. Okay. Okay. Got you. Yeah. Uh, so that was, uh, also another thing that was pushing me forward and I'm very proud to where we own the building and we own the business. So Mike aggress, um, so it's a very special for me, especially with, and uh, my mom and I have a meal prep company as well.

Juan: 00:55:28 Oh shit. So we're running these two things. Moms meal, prep, meal, prep, mom. I see Ben posts all the time. So me and my it's literally a mom is my mom in the kitchen. It's my mom, my sister and the high school friends. So they're learning about business, um, the learning, how to make their own money. Uh, and they're, they're helping my mom and I get to interact with my mom even more on a daily basis because we're talking about all these things and the gift of giving your mom stacks of cash. He's so dope. She's had to put up with so much on my shit, man. Uh, so like as beautiful. I, I can't be happier. Like I'm, I'm chilling.

Chase: 00:56:09 The second I met you like coming in, like, I mean, we met before, but like specifically today, like I can just tell where you are in life in so many ways is just like, you can't hide it. It's coming through, um, like the next, the next season, I think you're stepping into, like, it seems you're very aware of it, but like it's, it's meant to be it's there on every level. Um, not only for everything that you have earned and gone through, but you're, again, you're not taking that for granted. You are now passing that off to other people. Uh, your team, your employees, your mom, like everybody walking through that hires you, um, like it's a learning experience. They're not just getting that thing. They're here for today, but they're getting the years before they're getting your crucible along with going through their own.

Juan: 00:56:54 Yeah. It's fun. It's super fun. I can't be in contact with everyone. Like if we need a bunch of us. Right. And I think sometimes trainers or coaches or gym, people are like trying to like, Oh, these are all my people. You can't train everyone. There's way too many people over that. Yeah. I don't want to fight that fight. I want to try to build more people that think like we do and are open for challenges and are always kind of testing ourselves and passing that along and, and in a loving, compassionate way, pushing your homie. Yeah. You know, and not, not allowing your friends did to not live life at the fullest. Um, because I know what that feels like. I know how happy I am and I want others to feel like that, especially in contrast that and see what other people are going through with only dude, I got nothing to complain about. Nothing to complain about. I needed that, except that, uh, weights are $3 a pound. That's the only thing I'm going to complain about supply and demand right now. It's a bad dude. There's some underground shit having, I don't know if you're on the internet, but some underground, she had been wild just driving all over the city like this. Guy's got this guy, this thing, and it's nuts.

Chase: 00:58:15 I can only imagine. Um, do what's been so good having you on here, man? Like that last point you just said, I think it's a great transition to my final question for everybody is, you know, ever Ford ever horde radio, um, you'll probably appreciate this more actually has a really strong military background, um, ever forward was his mantra that my dad said and instilled in us our whole lives growing up. Uh, it's something that he lived through and set the example during an 18 month terminal illness, he passed away in 2005. Um, but he actually picked it up from his time in the military. He picked it up from his crucible, his first unit there, creed was ever forward. It's on their distinguished unit and Signia, it's been there since like the 17 hundreds and coming from a time when we were not even a country, yet of men picking up rifles and pitchforks and like defending, going through their crucibles hundreds of years later now passing it on to a man that came home one day after bootcamp and instilled it in me and it's become my entire purpose now. Um, so my whole platform, my whole purpose being comes from that crucible and that loss and the pain and the suffering, but recognizing there's a gift in there. Yeah. So what does that mean to you? I'm always curious those two words, every guest that I have on. And what does it, what does that mean to you? How do you live a life ever forward?

Juan: 00:59:32 Uh, I think it goes, it means to me what we've been talking about and to, to stay in the fight and keep, keep doing the thing that you feel is moving the needle forward in your life. Cause you can't afford not to. Right. What, what tie in a life? Wha how are you going to look yourself at the end of the day in the mirror or in all your actions in, especially maybe looking back on all your own personal content? Like what have I done with my life or how have I tested myself? And I think without that test, or without that contrast, you're not going to have that happiness and that fulfillment of striving. I think striving the, the better thing, not necessarily a con missing the accomplishment that you were aiming for, but striving because you're going to learn so much in that. So to me it means stay in the fight, keep moving forward so that you can look at yourself and tell yourself that you are a worthy human being. You deserve this life. You deserve to be happy. You you've earned

Chase: 01:00:46 Hell. Yeah, absolutely. Man, dude, uh, obviously going to have all of the information down the show notes and video notes for everybody, but like where can they go right here right now to learn more about you and what you got going on,

Juan: 01:00:56 Active on, uh, social media, Instagram on JL Guatama the spelling out would probably make it easier to just click there and hopefully I can provide a little bit of a motivation and help for everyone to talk. Let me know in the new gym is sorta HQ in Hawthorne, come visit. We got, we got a quarter pipe, we got a mini ramp. We got a bunch of toys. It's like fantasy factory. So fantasy

Chase: 01:01:24 The factory meets fitness. Yes. Yes. Fitness factory fitness factory, something like that. Yeah. Yeah. Well, thanks again for coming on, man. Pleasure. Appreciate you.

"Humans need others to survive. Regardless of one’s sex, country or culture of origin, age or economic background, social connection is crucial to human development, health, and survival." This quote could not be more true than now as the entire world continues to endure a new norm of social distancing, separation from loved ones, and adopting to the aftermath of the COVID-19 global pandemic. But what are the effects perhaps that have gone unnoticed? What effects have there already been on our quality of life, our mental health, etc.? In this episode I discuss recent clinical evidence, studies, and personal experiences about the healing power of human connection. 

Follow Chase @chase_chewning

Episode resources:

• Save 15% at PaleoValley.com/everforward and enjoy their delicious and nutritious 100% grass-fed beef sticks

• Get your first month of audio books free at AudibleTrial.com/everforward

• Mental health, substance use, and suicidal ideation during the COVID-19 pandemic

• Advancing social connection as a public health priority in the United States

• Together: The healing power of human connection in a sometimes lonely world

You are not the same person as anyone else. So why should your diet or even your approach to healthcare be the same as otehrs? Guest John O'Connor, co-founder of Gene Food, is a successful entrepreneur but even more successful human being because he has tapped into the ability to more completely understand how his unique body operates and how to optimize it to his custom needs, wants, and goals. In this epsiode, John shares the science behind why biological data collection can be both extremely useful but also somewhat dangerous when digging too deep into biohacking, how to truly understand this human experience so as to optimize it, and how science can save us from the vanity culture of health and wellness when it comes to a life vitality and longevity. Also, tune in to the second half for John's insight into the current state of affairs for the wellness industry, brick-and-mortar as well as e-commerce and the challenges both are facing in 2020.

“The more a law lays claim to universal validity, the less it does justice to the individual facts.” --CARL JUNG

Follow John and Gene Food @genefood

Follow Chase @chase_chewning

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Episode resources:

• Loonshots by Safi Bahcall

• Limitless by Jim Kwik 

• Learn more about Gene Food

• GeneFood Podcast

• Launch, grow, and monetize your podcast through the help of Chase's podcasting courses at www.OperationPodcast.com and save 60% on Level 201 with checkout code EVERFORWARD60

More about John:

John O’Connor is the founder of Gene Food and an Integrative Health Coach trained at Duke Integrative Medicine.

After his career in the NYC startup world left him stressed, burned out, physically sick, and unsatisfied with what he saw as the cookie cutter approach of traditional medicine, John became a “citizen scientist” and turned to deep medical research as well as alternative forms of medicine to restore his health. A passionate “bio-individualist,”who believes there is no one size fits all approach to nutrition, his current journey is one of self discovery aimed at gaining as much insight as possible as to how his unique physiology works. In conjunction with Dr. Aaron Gardner, Gene Food’s head of research and resident geneticist, John’s role at Gene Food is to help condense and distill the latest studies and commentary on nutrition science and nutrigenomics and communicate the core message to the Gene Food audience.

While living in Southern California, John’s approach to health and wellness was shaped by three key mentors.

First, by Mia Barbrick, a healer and acupuncturist based out of Laguna Beach. It was under Mia’s care that John first saw how powerful ancient healing modalities can be when applied to the right patient by the right practitioner at the right time.

Next, Dr. Stephen Brody, a Stanford trained endocrinologist and anti-aging doctor in San Diego. Dr. Brody introduced John to the world of advanced lab testing that is sadly off-limits for most Americans. Through years of detailed lab tests, John learned just how powerful personalized medicine can be. For the first time, John was exposed to lipid markers like Lp(a), a particularly atherogenic form of LDL-P that can become dangerous in those with a genetic predisposition, but that sadly is rarely, if ever, tested for in the United States.

Last, John completed a 200 hour Yoga Teacher Training under Gerhard Gessner, a member of the faculty of the University of San Diego as well as the proprietor of Prana Yoga in La Jolla, CA. Through Gerhard, John learned that Yoga is far more than just the asana practice. The science of Yoga can be applied to all facets of life.

"A modern life requires a modern approach" says Forme Life founder and CEO Trent Ward. After spending years in the finance world growing and managing wealth for others, Trent realized he wanted more out of his career - and more out of his life. Shifting his focus to the growing fitness industry and realizing the growing demand for safe, effective workouts without needing to go to the gym he created the most modern approach to at-home fitness we have seen in years! Forme is the new standard when it comes to workouts that actually get you results, are cost-effective for the whole household to use, and still provides that sense of connection and community we have come to love from the traditional gym experience.

Follow Trent and Forme Life @thisisformelife

Follow Chase @chase_chewning

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Episode resources:

• Learn more about Forme Life at https://formelife.com

• Launch, grow, and monetize your own podcast through Chase's courses at www.OperationPodcast.com

More about Trent:

"Trent had a successful career in finance, I was an investment banker doing mergers and acquisitions for consumer companies for a while, and then spent several years at a big hedge fund managing a portfolio, as an equity investor. It was exciting and fun, and I learned a lot.

Then when I was switching funds and I had to sit out my non-compete clause, I started getting involved in some entrepreneurial stuff and one thing led to another. One of the ideas I had was Forme, and I started to get really excited about it, and it got to the point where it became the only thing I was doing.

I moved back to California, which is where I was raised. I spent time in San Francisco, which is where a lot of our engineers are, and in LA, which is where all of our business and content and marketing is based.

It’s a super exciting time to now be public with it after four years and I’m excited for consumers to be able to experience what we’ve created."

Relationships are work; friendships, intimate relationships, professional relationships... they all take work in order for them to be successful. Many relationships have been tried even more during 2020 due to the global pandemic and now again as the United States prepares for its presidential elections. In this episode, Chase and May discuss how major events such as these that happen outside of their home as well as major life events inside their home have tested their relationship and how you can learn to weather any storm life throws at you by improving the quality and types of relationships in your life. 

Follow May @mayyazdi

Follow Chase @chase_chewning

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Episode resources:

• Together: The Healing Power of Human Connection in a Sometimes Lonely World

• Follow the May's Anatomy Podcast

• Learn how to launch, grow, and monetize your podcast through Chase's courses atand save 60% off Level 201 with code EVERFORWARD60

Vanessa Rissetto RD is the dietetic internship director at NYU and Cofounder of Culina Health, a health and nutrition counseling company. In this episode, Vanessa’s passion shines through  for elevating nutrition by addressing the lack of attention on social trends and how they apply to health and nutrition. Vanessa explains the importance of emotional intelligence and its role in dietetics, and not just the science behind it. Vanessa applies basic human experience and social aspects to choosing the best nutrition plans for her clients. She believes each human knows their body best and can give insight on choosing the right nutrition plan, rather than hopping on another fad diet. Chase and Vanessa touch on the importance of social trends and nutrition, the importance of water, and balancing life and nutrition. Enjoy this refreshing episode and the outlook Vanessa has that can truly change the way the nutrition world is going!

Follow Vanessa @vanessarissettord Follow Chase @chase_chewning

5 Important takeaways from the episode

1. Social trends vs. science

2. Fad diets don’t work

3. Drink your water!

4. There isn’t just one way to lose weight

5. One thing at a time

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Key timestamps:

• 7:00 Vanessa’s intro

• 20:26 Back to episode, diving into social trends and nutrition

• 27:00 Textbook Vs. bullshit discussion of experienced dieticians not being open minded to new ideas in nutrition and focus on just being a human

• 43:00 Vanessa’s strategy for future of nutrition

• 49:00 How she uses social media for profession and sharing information

• 52:00 Balancing life and nutrition, seeking nutrition mentors

Powerful quotes from the episode:

1. “If no one challenges you, you’re never going to get better.”

2. “If you never work for anything, you will never become anything!"

3. “Don’t be afraid to ask the questions.”

 More about Vanessa:

Vanessa Rissetto is a registered dietitian with over nine years of experience in clinical and private practice, uniquely combined with a wealth of experience in sales, marketing, and media. Vanessa's professional skills developed at New York University and Mount Sinai Hospital, specializing in bariatric surgery, parenteral and enteral nutrition, infectious diseases, and adult weight management levels I and II.

Vanessa also built the strategy to grow a start-up nutrition consulting app (Rise) that was then sold to a major medical tech company (One Medical). Recognized by Essence Magazine as one of the "5 Black Female Nutritionists Who Will Change The Way You Think About Food," Vanessa graduated from Fordham University with a BA in History and New York University with a master's in Marketing.

Do you struggle with imposter syndrome? Do you feel like becoming an expert in something is next to impossible? What if you already were the expert and you just didn't know it, or rather were too afraid to even think such a thing? E-commerce expert and entrepreneur Dustin Lien is here to tell you exactly why you most likely already are an expert in a field and key productivity hacks to help you get even better at what you do. In this episode, expect to learn tactics to help your passion in life rise to the top, time management skills, how to ask the right questions of yourself and your schedule and so much more!

Follow Dustin @dustinrlien

Follow Chase @chase_chewning

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Episode resources:

• AudibleTrial.com/everforward for your free 30-day trial

• High-Performance Habits by Brendan Burchard

• The One Thing by Gary Keller and Jay Pappasan

• Get Dustin's 4 Pillars of a Successful Client Business 

• Listen to Chase's interview in episode 35 on Dustin's podcast   

• Learn how to launch, grow, and monetize your podcast through Chase's courses at www.OperationPodcast.com

Complete episode transcipt (timestamps do not reflect episode intro, allot 9:13 for intro time):

Chase: [00:00] Dustin what’s up, man? 

Dustin: [00:01] what’s up, Chase? 

Chase: [00:03] I scared you with that intro. Just jumping right in, man. Good to see you again, man. Welcome back to LA. 

Dustin: [00:10] thank you. It's fun to be here. Um, last time. I think we did like anything official. You were actually a speaker at EF summit last year. Honestly, it was it was like this, like this time last year almost exactly I think it was like, mid-September. Damn and now you're like ATX living.

Dustin: [00:30] Yeah, that went fast. Things got weird.

Chase: [00:33] very weird, very weird. You moved and then the world went to, you know, hell in a handbasket kind of thing, man.

Dustin: [00:37] don't put this on me.

Chase: [00:39] what has Austin been like, kind of just life compared to living in Los Angeles?

Dustin: [00:43] Austin is great. It's, it's got so much culture to it. Similarly to how LA does in a lot of the creative aspects and entrepreneurial spirit is in Austin as well. So the transition has been fairly simple for me. And I mean, I used to live I grew up in Texas. I didn't live in Austin specifically but I went to college in St. Marcus, which is like 20 minutes. So I worked in Austin. So I've been around Austin, but I've never lived there and then I was in LA for seven years. And so back in LA, in Austin, but then the thing that's annoying is just well, annoying is not the right word. But the thing that is frustrating is that, you know, we can't go see like music and there's festivals and all these things like there's all these things we want to do when we're there, you know, but you know, we're, we're living and getting through it and finding new ways to thrive. So it's been good.

Chase: [01:40] environment is such a huge contributing factor for me for just honestly, daily overall happiness, but damn sure when it comes to my productivity and creativity, and I know with everything that you do in your business, that's creativity and productivity are essentials. Right? Have you found that environment really does play a big role or are you not as sensitive as I am? 

Dustin: [02:04] that's a great question. I recently discovered how much environment affects me because I don't think it did that much before.

Chase: [02:12] How so? 

Dustin: [02:13] So one major change was obviously, you know, I'm, I'm used to working out of an office or a co-working space or something other than where I live, because, you know, in LA, or at least, you know, when we were living in LA, most of our, all of our apartments were either studio apartments or one bedrooms, and you know, live with my wife. So, and she is typically and she's an actor, and she's a screenwriter. So she spends a lot of time at home as well and so usually it was like, Okay, I'll leave, I'm going to go work out of an office or co working space, you have the house, and then we're good but then when the virus hit, it was like, we're both there. And we moved to Austin, like right after that happened. So we do we have a two bedroom now, which has been great but the, we are, you know, still working from both of us working from home. And I thought I could pull it off really well and I had every I have a game plan I my office all set up nice. All the, all the little like, things to not distract me but I mean, probably not dramatic to say my productivity was about 60% to what it usually was just the just the little things you don't think about like, like, when you're like, I have two dogs and so I'm not used to them running in and running up to me every 10 minutes, because they want to say hi. Which is lovely, and I love but when I'm trying to focus every 10 minutes of that is tough. Or, or me

Chase: [03:39] the micro distractions. 

Dustin: [03:40] Yes, yeah, those are the ones that get you because they're not the ones you even are conscious of and all of a sudden, your two minute distraction turned into a 20 minute break and you didn't even know what happened. 

Chase: [03:47] Somehow you find yourself laying on the bed, scrolling or like texting. Yeah, I know that. 

Dustin: [03:53] so that was it was it was an adjustment. I recently just signed a lease on an office downtown Austin. 

Chase: [03:58] awesome, man congrats. 

Dustin: [03:59] thank you. Yeah, it's been it's been great. Productivity right back up. So it's, it's, it was a really good learning experience for me to see that I actually don't work that well at home and now I know that now the rest of my life, I can be self-aware about that. Which is, which is nice. 

Chase: [04:15] you threw a number out 60% you felt like your productivity was about 60%. So that tells me you're pretty aware of where you are, you kind of have like a way to measure quantitative qualitative of your productivity. What are some things that you do to make sure that you're staying productive throughout the day for just daily living, but you know, being a business owner, you got to kind of have some kind of checks and balance system, right? What is that? 

Dustin: [04:39] so two things I'll say one is I care a lot about my productivity while I'm trying to be productive but if it's if I need to take, if I need to take a day off I am not hard on myself about that. I'm just, that's just my ebb and flow. But when I'm working, I want it to be productive work because that allows me to be able to rest later when I need to. So that being said, while I'm working, one thing that I do is I don't do this all the time, but probably every three to four months, I will track my time through the day. And I'll track it for an entire week. And I'll track it down to like what, you know, what's the activity that I'm doing? Start/Stop with a timer. 

Chase: [05:22] so task and then time? Okay, cool. 

Dustin: [05:23] and there's a there's an app I use, it's called toggle. It's like a web app.

Chase: [05:29] I've heard of that. Yeah. 

Dustin: [05:30] It's really, it's nice to have a good free version too, which I'm a sucker for a good free version. So it's cool and it helps you categorize. So you just type in what you're working on or for me, I'll put I'll put the stuff, I'm doing it for longer than a week. Usually, I'll do it for a week. But if I do it for a month, for example, I'll put a project name and then the month, and then you just hit start, and you select that project, and then I'll work on it when I'm done, uncheck it, it logs it for me. And then I look at the end of the week, and I can see very clearly where my time went. And I get really because I don't do that often. I get really granular. So if I go pee, I stop it so it is not a running clock so it's active work that way I know. Was I at the office for 10 hours or did I work for 10 hours? Because they're very different things.

Chase: [06:17] busy versus productivity.

Dustin: [06:18] Yes, and we I mean, we know from I don't remember the where I read this, but I read one time that the average American worker works about two hours and 51 minutes a day. 

Chase: [06:28] Wow. Out of like a normal eight hour workday kind of thing?

Dustin: [06:32] yeah, that's like active work and being someone who used to work an average corporate job, I know that that was probably mine, too because when you, you know, if you don't care that much about what you're doing sometimes you fall into a pattern of like, if I don't have to work or if no one's checking me I'm gonna, 

Chase: [06:48] if there's no accountability, then yeah, I can kind of like play fast and loose a little bit. 

Dustin: [06:51] Yeah. And so for me, what I tried to do when I when I timed myself is self-accountability, like, and now I'm accountable also to this timer and it's so simple, even though it's not a person that can even check me, it's me knowing the statistic so I can look at it and judge it accurately. So I can look back. So the 60% honest that was flippantly thrown out there, but it's probably pretty close to accurate because I can look at from, I put a blog on my, on my website, probably a year ago, maybe even more, where I did this, and I showed the experiment and my average work hours was a little over seven hours a day of active work, which is great. I'm happy with that. And then so now when I did it, I did it after like through this process, and it was dropping more into the fours. And it was I mean, it's me trying to work and just getting distracted with all these things. So it's very different. 

Chase: [07:46] would you agree or disagree that going from seven hours to four could be a good thing? If you can get seven hours of work out of four? Is that kind of a goal of yours? Or is it just instituting or introducing something to hold you accountable to kind of like, make sure that you are working the same? I guess what I'm trying to ask, is do you know, you need a devoted timeframe of work to get things done or are you looking to like kind of compress time and optimize your time? 

Dustin: [08:15] that’s a good question. I think for me, I gauged my, I used to gauge my success based on how many people required my attention per day. Now I feel like I gauge it by how few people need my attention.

Chase: [08:33] I like that. Yeah. 

Dustin: [08:34] So for me, if I'm working, if I'm working seven hours a day actively, and it's serving clients or serving employees, I mean, one, I'm happy about that, because I that's I'm in the business of serving people. But also I, I know for my energy levels and my creativity and how I think I need downtime, like I need, I need downtime, as in this two hour block has nothing that is required of me. So if I want to work during it, I can work on a new project or coming up with a new service or thinking of new ways to creatively help clients or things like that.

Chase: [09:06] choice versus obligation. Option versus obligation. 

Dustin: [09:08] that’s something that's very important to me.

Chase: [09:12] how like relieving is that sometimes to know that I mean, being self-employed as well, or even just everyday life, just knowing that you've got a window of time that you're not obligated to anyone else do anything else and that just frees up so many opportunities to do nothing, which is so important to kind of have that rest and digest that parasympathetic that calm down that chill time. Or you get the ability to start a new project. Or to lay on the floor and scroll on Instagram, or call your mom or whatever it is. Do you find that that you kind of go more in one of the two buckets? Do you go more into it now this is when I get the opportunity to create something new to dive into something new, or do you opt more for kind of the recovery, the downtime? 

Dustin: [09:56] I think it varies based on how I'm feeling I don't I always like to cage, I don't like to always gauge what things I'm going to do based on how I feel, because that's a trap sometimes and that's just sometimes just lacking discipline, if all you do is go off your emotion but I'm pretty aware now at this stage in my career of when I just need a break. And so if it's one of those weeks where I need a break, and I have a couple hours, and I just need to chill, I'll do it. But if not, if I'm feeling like my energy level is high, if I've been eating well, sleeping well, I'll take it as I'll take any chance I can to work on something new because that's, to me, that's what brings life into me and my career is new things like trying something new, is so energizing to me.

Chase: [10:41] have you always been this kind of in tune with I'd even say biofeedback, you know, this in tune with your workflow and productivity has always been kind of like a strong skill set of yours, or has it developed over time? How did you get it to where it is now? Or is it just innate? 

Dustin: [10:57] I've developed it, and I'm nowhere near a perfect specimen of this but there's definitely, as I've gotten more solid in what my what my passion path is, and I can see a longer term, you know, where, where am I now? Where am I headed? That helps me a lot to decide like, based on how I'm feeling right now, if I rest is that, is that a good thing or a bad thing? Because sometimes if you're, if you're not clear on your goal, or goal might not even be the right word, if you're not clear on where you the direction you're headed. So if you're trying to serve more people, or you're trying to grow your business to a certain level, or you're trying to work a certain amount of hours less per day, whatever your goal is, if you're aware of that, then you can make decisions based on how quickly would I like to get there, or can I take a break today. So I think it's just developed over time, as I've discovered where I'm headed. 

Chase: [11:55] that is such a powerful statement. I know that's kind of what we want to really drive home today is recognizing and how to recognize your skill sets, how to recognize what's working for me what's not, and where I can go deeper, where I can get more optimized. To not only make my life and my work more fulfilling, but to then offer that to somebody else, because you've got great skill sets that I may also have, I may be better at them, you may be better at them or flat out like you're clearly an expert in one area that I have no ability or even no interest. And I'm not saying this right or wrong. It is what it is. And I was telling you earlier that one of the one of the questions that I get a lot, you know, I think through this path of personal development, self-optimization is like, what am I good at? What's my passion? What's my purpose? How can I contribute anything to the world that hasn't already been done? And, I mean, I got a whole slew of ideas and concepts and stuff but you know, how does that sit with you, man? When you hear or even when you went through it yourself of what's my passion? What am I good at? What's my skill set? How can I even maybe live off my skill set? What was that journey like for you? 

Dustin: [13:14] Yeah, that's a great question, too. You're full of good questions. 

Chase: [13:18] *laughs* Good thing I am a podcaster. Thank you. 

Dustin: [13:23] for me, my I think my journey was probably really similar to most people's. And I say that to encourage anyone listening who is trying to figure this out. 

Chase: [13:41] you started at a base level somewhere and like grew; you didn't just start off as an expert somewhere? That's weird. 

Dustin: [13:48] other than all the head starts I had, yeah. So for me, it was very organic but I also had a big drive to use my personal interests to make an income. And I want to preface this with, I don't think it's better or truly I used to, I used to think it was better or worse to like, work for yourself, or use your passions for your income. I don't think that anymore. I think each person needs to decide what stage they're at now, if that's the right place for them to be, because in some cases, it's horribly irresponsible to try to like quit your job and go follow your passion today. I know this because I tried to do that twice and ran out of money and burned through all of my savings. Right before my wedding. Bad idea. Luckily, I recovered. But I mean, a lot of people that it's the story goes differently. So that's just my that's my preface. Anyway, moving on.

Chase: [14:49] I think that's a very important part of your journey. Thanks for kind of including that that piece

Dustin: [14:53] yeah. So for me, I decided around the entrepreneurial bug hit me pretty quickly and it was a natural first question for me is what like, what do I already know how to do that I can get started. I think a lot of people try to jump to like they'll look at, they'll look at someone who's at, you know, a point F and they'll compare their point A, it's, it's really dangerous to do that because then you start trying to mimic and model what someone who is four years ahead of you is doing and it doesn't work the same. You can't build a business the same way that someone who already has existing assets is building the business. It does not work. 

Chase: [15:32] you may get a little bit of traction, something technically may work, but you won't know why and won't know how. And those are two fundamental properties that if you're going to scale, if you're going to actually keep that momentum going. Without it, you're going to crumble. 

Dustin: [15:49] you need repeatable, scalable systems. So a really great place to start is what you said a little bit earlier is just what are you already good at. So if you're looking to start a passion project, whether it's a side project or you want to go all in on, it doesn't really matter. The formula starts out the same, what is something you're already good at? And a good way to gauge that I've found is just asking, if you can't figure it out yourself, which sometimes you can't, and that's fine. Sometimes we're blind to our own greatness. And you know, or we're playing the comparison game, and we're missing out on pieces of us that are so unique. So if you can't figure it out yourself, that's totally cool. Ask a friend, ask a close friend, like, hey, what when you think of me, like, what do you see that I'm really great at? Because usually, and we do this with all of our friends, too. It's a quick, you know, you meet someone for the first time, usually pretty quickly, you figure out like, oh, they're like, they're, they're an asset to me in this way. It's almost, it's almost like an evolutionary thing where we like to survive this person is bigger than me and I want to be their friend because they helped me survive, or this person is smarter at this than I am. 

Chase: [16:57] their contribution to the tribe. 

Dustin: [16:59] yeah and so usually people can spot that in you a lot quicker than you can spot it in yourself. So that's a great place to start when you're looking for a skill or something is what do people already ask you for help with? And what things that people see in you. And then from there, it's usually getting past the, you brought this up earlier to which I love is imposter syndrome. I don't love imposter syndrome but I love the concept of breaking. But I mean that, that whole for anyone who doesn't know what imposter syndrome, that's a tongue twister imposter syndrome is, it's the essence of it is that you aren't sure that you have the capabilities to do the thing you're trying to do or the thing you're already in the position to do, you're feeling like you don't have the self-confidence or you're unaware of your ability to actually do it. There is an equally scary counter side, which is delusion, or arrogance or overconfidence, where you're actually not qualified to do what you're trying to do and you need to work on your skill set. But there is everyone can start somewhere where they're in an expert position. We were talking about this a little bit earlier to a line that I really like to remind people of if they're feeling like they're not an expert enough at something or they're not, they can't think of anything they're better at than anyone. Just remember that everyone is an expert at something compared to someone and if you remember that, and you can start from your square one, which is exactly where you need to start, instead of trying to start at someone else's square one or someone else's square four where you can't get any traction. 

Chase: [18:38] yeah, absolutely. Um, do you think really, this concept of imposter syndrome has it always been here? Or is it just because we have access via internet social media? We have so much more access to, to see things and to see what people are doing what they're not doing. Do you think this has always been a part of kind of the human evolution when it comes to personal development or even professional? Or is it just like, society has kind of cultivated this new environment that we're just bombarded and it's like, we can't help but feel like an imposter?

Dustin: [19:20] that is such a good insight. I don't know if I've ever thought about that. My knee jerk reaction is that it has always been around but it's different.

Chase: [19:32] how so?

 Dustin: [19:33] I think if you if we go back to tribal living, or like there's a new book I'm working on right now it's called the village expert and we go back to like tribal or village living and people like there are clear cut people who are the best in their area, or you grew up you know, your dad is a blacksmith and now you are too or, you know, like there's this there's this flow of like being trained as an as a what's the word?

Chase: [20:00] an apprentice or an understudy

Dustin: [20:01] Yeah. And so it's almost like, like, you probably feel like an imposter because you are while you're being trained, but you have someone holding your hand there. And then in your tribe or your village, that's everyone already knows that's what you're in. So there are a lot of advantages to that, actually. Now, we have so much access to seeing so many different people and different ways of doing things, it gets so overwhelming and then on top of it, just the highlight reel living where we're seeing, even though we know now and we that the highlight reel thing has been preached 1000 times, but we know it, we still watch it and we're still feel bad about ourselves when we see someone. I did it today, I was looking at someone like one of one of my friends, that's even worse, people who actually want to succeed. I was looking at it and I was like, I was feeling like those little feelings of like inadequacy or jealousy. But that's why am I feeling this, like, really, this should just be inspiring me and it does. But my point is, we can be aware of it, and we can still have those issues. So I think it's gotten worse, or it's different but I think it's always been there to some extent. But one thing I always like to keep in mind is that God doesn't call the prepared, he prepares the called. So if you are feeling like there's something on your heart that you want to do, and you feel like it's a mission for you in life, there's a reason you're feeling that and a good compass is like, is it calling you to serve people? If it's calling you to serve people in some way it's on your heart for a reason. So latch on to that, and move forward. 

Chase: [21:34] I'll play devil's advocate there. I think that moment, right, there is where most people were a lot of people that don't move forward and that's I think the beginning stages are that's when the doorway to imposter syndrome to fear to comparison, a lot of things that's when that doors opened, and we peek in and we see all the potential, it's like all the good everything that we want that we think is possible that that feeling that's pulling us, but at the same time, we also see everyone that's already doing it. We see all the other coaches, podcasters, ecommerce people, apparel people, and doctors, whatever. It's like we see it all together. So when you see that, like, how do you decipher like that example, you're just talking about earlier what's that kind of self-talk that you have that you think someone could also apply to, like, catch themselves and then like, really talk themselves through it?

Dustin: [22:30] so what I like to do is, well, one, I want to call back the concept of a village expert, a village expert isn't concerned with what's happening in the other villages, they have a duty where they're at. And that's the same for all of us, we have circles that we're involved in, and we have duties within those. So if we can keep that as a perspective, it helps to know that it doesn't matter if someone else is doing it. Of course, someone else and honestly, in the business sense, that's great that someone else is doing it that proves there's a need and humanity for that. 

Chase: [22:59] there is a model.

Dustin: [23:00] Yeah. You don't have to start so confused. 

Chase: [23:03] there is a market. 

Dustin: [23:04] I mean, if you're feeling imposter syndrome, but you because you can see someone else doing it, that's actually a good sign. And then the way that I like to get through it personally, if I'm not sure about maybe it's a new service I'm launching at my company, and I'm not sure like it's going to work out is do it for free for someone. It's a great way to remember that you can help someone and provide value and, and taking away the monetary part of it, it helps to take away some of that fear, because you're no longer an imposter when you're just helping someone and that's all you're thinking about is helping. So that's a great place to start is find someone you can serve for free with that thing and see how it goes. 

Chase: [23:46] Is that how I know it's kind of like, um, I've been familiar with, you know, your business and how you will help tremendously with you know, marketing, email marketing, and kind of just brand awareness. Like, I've seen how the sausage is made, and it's damn good sausage, like, you guys are good at what you do and now I understand you're kind of taking that skill set, and going a little bit deeper. And we were talking earlier about how I think that's another great way to think to work through not only imposter syndrome, but just to really honor your skill set even more and to see how you can optimize it, you know? Ever Forward we are all about, you know, self-optimization, human optimization in that damn shirt comes into play when you're talking about your business and your livelihood. So how are you doing that now for people? How are you helping others establish this is your skill set, this is what you're good at working through things for free, helping them realize these like niche below the niche below the niche, like subcategories so that we can tap in and truly serve?

Dustin: [24:45] Yeah. So what I want to tell a story to answer the question.

Chase: [24:47] story time. I will get comfortable. Not that I'm not comfortable already. We're chilling on a couch. Can’t beat this. Do you need a blankie? I'm pretty sure any second now my dog might run up and you know, sit on your lap 

Dustin: [25:05] your dog is so, so cute. What's your dog's name? 

Chase: [25:06] Nella, she's asleep somewhere. She's either asleep or running a million miles an hour. 

Dustin: [25:12] because she's so comfortable. *both laugh* So when was five years old, I started doing martial arts and my dad did it. Like, my dad did it and both my older brothers. And then so I was next in line, and I was like, I was ready. And so I started when I was five. And I ended up doing it till I was 25. And it was a huge part of my life. But one lesson that I learned so quickly, and so well, and I'm really grateful for is the beauty of learning from someone who's just one or two steps ahead of you. So someone who has been where you're at right now really recently and that's something I think people forget when they're thinking about, like, how can I go deeper into a niche or deeper into you know, how can I kind of put myself in a box to start off with to make this simpler, because they think they have to be so far ahead of everybody else to be able to teach something or help someone with something. But so in martial arts, it was like, you know, you start off as a white belt, or at least in you know, the karate school I was at. And then you learn all those techniques, and you're taught by someone else, right. And so oftentimes, it would be a yellow belt, or an orange belt. So a step or two up that would teach us our movements. And, you know, what, it wasn't always a black belt coming to help teach a white belt, it was it was this natural, like progression. And so then it was so fresh to them, they just, they just got their next belt, so they knew it all so well. And then when I became a yellow belt, then I had the chance to do that for white belts as well, and so on and it was a process throughout this 20 year journey of teaching people who were right, right on your heels. And, and so I think about that a lot in business is how, how can I apply what I know, to a, to a target audience or a target market that is, like, if I'm if I'm teaching, it's who is just a couple steps behind me that it's really fresh in my mind, and I can really help them and that helps take away some of that imposter syndrome to of not feeling like you have to be the best expert, but you can be an expert to them. And then you know, for niching down so if for my company jump x marketing, we as you know, we work a lot with health and fitness brands in the e commerce space and so it's not it's not this direct comparison of like, oh, I know, marketing better than you. It's like, it's it doesn't translate the same way. They're not trying to learn the marketing I know; they need help with it. But one thing that really helps when you're trying to choose a niche, like how can you? So for me, it started off as email marketing, I was really good at email marketing. I did that for my job in the corporate world and I was thinking about how can I use this skill? 

Chase: [28:06] sorry to interrupt you but teachable moment, like, yeah, how did you know you were so good? Like, was it just super natural for you? Did you have a way to quantify it? Everyone was like, yo, Dustin like I keep coming to you like you're the email marketing guy. Like how did you know?

Dustin: [28:17] I think I remember, it's been a handful of years now but I do remember feeling like I did it as a function of my job. So that helped. So in my head, I was like, well, someone already pays me to do this, like, I have a full time job. Like I basically have one giant client, and they provide all my income, but they trust me enough to do this thing. So I must be okay at it. And then as I started doing it for free, was a big way that I did it was like who else do I what other friends or companies do I like maybe know of, or someone who's even, like, you know, if you want to go lower stakes, I helped a lot of friends that didn't even have businesses and they were trying to start their business and I was like, well, let me set up your email marketing for you. So it was a very like good testing ground when the stakes aren't super high. And that's another thing that taking the money out of it helps with is you don't feel the responsibility as much to like, get them a huge ROI return on investment. So that helped. So for me, it was it was a combination of understanding someone already paid me to do it. So that's a great compass and then looking around who else I could try to help for free and doing that a couple of times until I was confirmed in my head of looking at you know, there is their email list growing, are they getting more revenue this month than they did last month? And so those were the quantifiable things that I was doing okay to look.

Chase: [29:38] so you're doing that and then you know, what was the next step in the journey there? 

Dustin: [29:39] so next step there was trying to figure out the kind of awkward halfway point of how do I how do I stop working at my job so I can do this but I don't have the money to do that right now. So I like playing in that middle space of like a, like an incognito nighttime superhero entrepreneur. So that's a lot of it and just, and I think the fear most people have when they're doing any kind of service it can be, it can be fitness coaching, it can be business, it doesn't matter what it is any kind of service that you're offering the first like fear that comes in places is how do I find the right people for me to do this to with without alienating another market that might pay me money because when you're first starting your interest, you're trying to figure out how do I make revenue? And it becomes easier, the more you do it, but in the beginning, I mean, you might, maybe, I mean, still, I don't really I don't, it's not like I'm super Mr. Famous with all these business contacts. A lot of the clients we get now are me reaching out to people who don't know who I am. And that's a lot of what you're doing in the very beginning. So giving yourself advantages, like a market you're already interested in, because it's a long game. You don't you don't want to you don't want to start a business in an area that is that could be profitable, but you hate it every day. 

Chase: [31:08] it will work for a short period of time, you know, six months, a year, maybe even five years, but I promise you absolutely. It's resentment. A lot of times is a very, it's a slow burn. And you think you can tolerate it but next thing you know just engulfs your life. And you're like, yeah, and you wake up like, not good.

Dustin: [31:26] the worst thing for an entrepreneur is to wake up and realize you have a job you hate. It's like, I don't want that happening to people and it happened to me in the beginning, because my goal was to get out of my job. So and that's a mindset thing, too, that I try to work on with people who are starting businesses is, are you starting a business to try to escape something? Or are you trying to go after something you're passionate about? It's very different and it impacts how you work. 

Chase: [31:58] say that again, please. That was powerful. 

Dustin: [31:59] so are you are you trying to start a business because you want to escape something that you're currently doing? Or are you trying to start a business because you want to go after something you're passionate about?

Chase: [32:11] and I'll say to that, like, I'm just getting this physical imagery of think about when we're afraid of something, the more we run away from something, you know, I'm gonna try to get away from this job. I'm trying to get away from this relationship. I'm trying to get away from this town. When we're running away from someone, something, somewhere we will run to anyone, anything, any place. When we're running towards we had like, yo, like, I'm not I'm just trying to get out of this town but I love Denver, I love LA, I love Richmond Virginia, whatever it is, like you will run towards something towards someone something in a much more direct way in a way that you know why and like everything on everything on the way to that place, to that person, to that thing is a part of the journey. They are also price that is also teaching you. Adds purpose to the journey. That was pretty good. Thanks for the muse. 

Dustin: [33:17] I think that's a big and you know, it's a big thing when you're so for me, I was trying to escape my nine to five job. And there are various reasons for that, but it caused the cycle in my life, where for a while, I kept going, like job the job thinking the next one would save me. And like, because like you said, me people do that in relationships. People do that in the city, they live in anything. Diet methods, like the next one's going to save me, it's because you're trying to run away from something instead of make a permanent fix towards something that you want. And so in, in, like, the client service business, when you're trying to start a service, what people do is they feel like, well, I just want to get out of this so I'll take any work I can. You end up with clients, you don't like, you end up doing work, you don't even like, and then you don't and then you also have this, like, you know, for me, it was like I was I was good at building websites, I was good at email marketing, like I had kind of this marketing toolkit. And so anyone who came to me with any of those, I was like, Yes, I'll do it. Yes, I'll do it. Yes, I'll do it. And it's not that there's anything wrong with that but you have to have a vision beyond being scrappy, and taking anything that comes to you because if you don't you end up in, in a situation where you're not able to scale and you also just don't like any of the work you're doing. So a good compass for other people and what helped me was thinking, okay, what what's something I am good at, so from use email marketing, and then who has a specific audience and market that I can serve that I like that industry? So for me was a no brainer, health and fitness has been a huge part of my life. I used to be a trainer for six years, very part of my life and so I was like, boom, I'm just gonna go I'm gonna find clients in the health and fitness space, and it made it so much fun. It made it so much more fun to be like, because that's I was helping people. It wasn't just me doing email marketing, and it was like, I'm gonna help you reach more people for this thing that I also love. And it made it just so much better. And then, you know, and then what happens is a natural chain reaction of doing a great job for people because you love the workings of the industry. And then when you ask them for referrals, they can refer you confidently and specifically, no one wants to work with a generalist. It's just true. So then you help someone and then this is how my career got started. I would help someone and I would say, who might you be able to connect me with I really appreciate it and then they would say, yes, you did a great job and then email intro to so and so who was also a health and fitness brand, looking for email marketing. So it was no longer this, like, I can do kind of everything. It's like, if you pass along, this.

Chase: [35:47] it's like you got your, if you do it, right or even just a little bit of strategy, like those referrals that you got your own kind of marketing team because the person that you show up for that you love working for the most odds are they know people just like that. They know other business owners just like that. So you were really you are, were really great at this skill set, and really loved working for this specific type or types of person persons. Then I'm sure they referred and you found other people in the same kind of world. So it was like, you know, that cuts out so much of that struggle in the beginning and that's definitely a lesson that I would go back until day one entrepreneur Chase. My I say that my transition from nine to five, to self-employed, to business owner wasn't as much of a struggle as I know, some people have because I went from doing my profession for somebody else to doing my profession for me. I went from being you know, a health coach and a wellness and, you know, fitness expert, and all this stuff, you know, for another company to just doing it for me. So I didn't really have a whole lot of learning curve time, a transition time, but it was saying yes to everybody, any client, anyone, like no matter what the goal was, because in the beginning, I just got married, I was living in DC, like cost of living super high. Like at the beginning, you're saying yes, because you need the money, you need the revenue, you need to kind of build the confidence you need to prove to yourself and your significant other that you can make money and survive. And yeah, I said yes to a lot of people, a lot of projects, a lot of clients that look like I'm actually like, I can help you, but I shouldn't because there is somebody better out there for you or I'm gonna have the resentment you know. Did you have moments like that? What was kind of like a, like a bottom moment for you maybe?

Dustin: [37:37] I had a couple of good bottom moments. 

Chase: [37:35] A couple good bottom moments. I love that. I love that mentality. Man. Here's my favorite worst moment. 

Dustin: [37:38] I just repeated the same mistake over and over. So one of them for me was, and this is why now I recommend people, if they're trying to start a side hustle or start their own, you know, become self-employed don't quit your job until you can and you're gonna hear so many people say the opposite and say that you have to like burn the boats. Don't burn the boats, you might need the boats.

Chase: [38:01] I struggle I see I see benefits and I see pros and cons of both sides, honestly, but please continue. 

Dustin: [38:06] I mean, and I think you can, you can generally tell so what I'll tell you my two experiences. So the first one I was working, I was working a marketing job. I got a big bonus and quit. Because like we had a great year and like it was the bonus payout. So it wasn't sketchy. Everyone calm down. And so I got my bonus. And then I put in my notice, I was like, okay, I have like a decent savings chunk like this will get me through a while. Like this will get me through like six months, and I mean, and honestly, that wasn't a terrible strategy because it's like, if you want to do that go but just know that you have a doomsday. Like know your date, know, you're gonna run out of money because that's gonna motivate you on because for me, what I did is I didn't even know what I wanted to do yet. I just knew I didn't want to be at that job.

Chase: [38:51] again, you were running from something.

Dustin: [38:55] Exactly. So I ended up working, kind of dabbling in some freelance stuff. It was good. It was fine but I didn't know what I was doing at all yet. And so I didn't know what to replicate or what to do more of. I always thought if I had more time, I would be able to grow a business but when you don't know what to do with the time, the time is useless. The seven versus four so I mean, that basically led to me running out of money, and then went back and got another job which was a hard ego blow, honestly. Just because I thought, you know, I was telling all my friends like how you started a business. And, and then I had to go, you know, back and be like, oh, no, I work for this company now. But I mean, if you allow yourself to not tie your ego into it, it makes it easier because and I did that story. The same story happened twice where I quit my job. And then one of them was I was like, I'm just going to drive for Uber and that's how I'll make the extra like cash I need make up the difference. And then I realized I used to try for Uber for 12 hours a day to make the difference. So I was like, well, that didn't make and there goes my other job that I left for now I have the same income but a lot less time. So, but the way that I did it the third time worked a lot better, still wasn't super smart, but to your point, it for me putting my back against the wall helped me. So I had about half of what I needed in monthly revenue coming from clients and then I quit my job knowing that okay, I have some kind of model here that I can if I have 40 hours a week I can make this work and then there are still up and down moments, of course is there just always is but you learn to you know this as an entrepreneur, you learn to like go with the peaks and valleys and not be so emotionally heated every time something happens.

Chase: [40:40] true, man, if I could pass back another piece of advice there to the young, hungry entrepreneur, the side hustler is and it takes a while it's not easy if you can get as comfortable, if you can learn to get as comfortable when you have no money coming in, when you have no leads, no clients, when you know, on paper, air quote here are not successful. If you can get as comfortable with that as when you're killing it, the money's coming in, the clients are coming in like life is good because if we can detach, and this is where the ego work is that we're talking about but also if you can detach from the outcome, yeah, then your level of productivity, your level of your mindset for damn sure, but just everything else will begin to stay congruent; will stay the same. So if I have the same mindset, and the same work ethic and the same habits and the same level of productivity and the same, you know, hey, I need to reach out to Dustin or you know, ask for support or you know, whatever, when things are at their worst and their best, then that really does help smooth out the peaks and valleys. Doesn't eliminate them for damn sure but that's honestly, I think the past year, actually, I would love to get input on this as well. Money mindset has been has been a tough one for me to overcome. I had a lot of scarcity mindset, and through a lot of my personal work and let it bled into in a good way, my professional work. I really realized, you know, kind of going back to my childhood and my upbringing and just my lifelong association to money and I had to work through that I had to fully just sit down and understand. What do I believe about money? What is my relationship with money? Why do I always feel like if I have it like it's going to be gone again, you know? I'm good at making money I'm really good at spending money. And so I had to really work through that and understand that. And again, really, especially when you become self-employed me not having client, me not having money, is not I'm an imposter is not I'm worthless, is not I'm horrible at what I'm doing. It's just how I'm going about it needs improvement and that's been a big area for me. I'm curious, as the money mindset kind of played a role into all these peaks and valleys familiar with?

Dustin: [42:57] I am still working through it to be honest and it's like, it's always been a weird thing for me, because I think I'm sometimes I get overly sensitive to my fear of being greedy. And it's like, it's like, in turn, what I do is I self-sabotage. But then, like, the realization of like, well, me, making less money probably just makes me more greedy because then all I think about is how I need more money. So that's something I've been working through is like, just as long as I know, my heart's in the right spot and that like money's not my main driver. If I know that I'm keeping people above money, then I'm in an OK, spot. And I think like, understanding that I'm gonna have different, it's gonna keep changing over life. And I'm just gonna keep working on it. It doesn't need to be this aha moment where like, oh, I figured all of it out now. So that's been, I'm still working through like, don't, don't be afraid to scale because you think you're gonna become greedy? Because then when something like a virus hits the globe, then you have to, you know, a lot of work to do instead of being okay.

Chase: [44:03] that is so powerful. Just got all my wheels spinning in my head of, I mean, it sounds really weird and sounds like BS, sometimes you say this out loud. But I would say that, like a hesitation, where I'm, I have and probably still am a bottleneck to my own success and a lot of things I do is like, oh, like, because I don't define success by how much money I make, or have. I define success by my level of fulfillment in my work that I do every day, the quality of life that I had, have the quality of life of my relationships, and like the work that me and my team are doing and so, again, that all ties into the money mindset, well, I need to generate money. My business needs to be profitable so that me and everyone else around me can contribute to the overall can keep the things going, and can really move towards that definition of success of fulfillment happiness, doing good things and just like showing up and loving what I'm doing every day. That's been it sounds really weird to say that I'm not making as much money as, as I want or could because I just like, I don't want to become greedy. I don't want to have all that money, money problems, but. It's weird. It's weird. 

Dustin: [45:20] it's so weird. Yeah, no, it's true. That's true for me, too. It's like, I, and I think it's, it’s like, because I'm the same with you where I don't I don't judge my success by the amount of dollars in the bank account, I just don't. And I hope that I don't. But personal finances and business finances need to be looked at differently. And that's something I am working on and it's like when you're when you're working for. And it's weird, because when you're working at it, just you know, when you're working for someone else, you get paid what you're given. And it's you don't even have to you don't have to overthink. Like someone else validates that I'm worth this much money and that's great, then like you're not getting judged for how much money you make or whatever, because someone else told you, you can make it so true. But then when you work for yourself, you're determining your paycheck in a lot of ways. But then also you stop or for me, I didn't understand the separation for a long time of my personal finances, and my business finances, it's different. And I liked what you said about, you know, a business obviously needs to generate money to keep the good things going. It's like and you mentioned, you mentioned like the employees, and that's such an important thing that I've been working on for me is just remembering that that the work will one innately, the work we're doing is good work for good people for good reasons. So I don't want to stop another person from being able to be involved in that because I can't get over my weird money issues. Then I had a mentor tell me this one time, and it just stuck with me. I think about it all the time. He said, he said, the point of the point of an employee is not to get a job done. The point of, of a job is to get an employee done, as in working. You hire someone. Yes, there's a thing to be done. But really, the main goal is to develop them. So you're using the job to develop the person instead of the person to do the tasks you don't want to do. Very different and for me, that works into the money mindset of I'm not like I want to I want the business to generate money so I can keep developing these people. And so that's a really a helpful thing in my head. 

Chase: [47:27] developing a business, developing a purpose is very important and is necessary work. But I would make the statement, the argument that if you focus even a little bit more it damn sure at least equal on developing people, then, in a lot of ways the rest will take care of itself. It's been so great having you on here, man, I'm kind of getting towards the end. I'm curious, you know, what's your baby right now? What are you working on? How are you, we talked a lot about productivity and money, mindset, productivity mindset, a lot of ways to like, get through this stuff but like, how, how are you really doing that now? And what's your big project you've been working on now?

Dustin: [48:04] so the main project I'm working on now like obviously, I run a marketing agency called Jump X marketing we work with, we do ecommerce marketing for brands in the health and fitness space. So that's my main, that's what I do but on the side, I'm working on helping more people who

Chase: [48:20] I love By the way, like you own your own business, run your business and you have a side hustle to yourself. 

Dustin: [48:27] Always, I get bored. You do this too. It's like an entrepreneur’s problem. It's just like boredom. You're just like what else can I do? Like I can do this than I can do this.

Chase: [48:40] the problem is because like we realize there's a whole tangent like we realized what is possible. Anything. It's just like, oh, if I have an idea and once you realize that you're the only person like that is going to start or stop that like it's just like, I can do it. Let's see what happens. Dude, it is mind blowing. 

Dustin: [49:00] so like that's I mean, that's what I'm working on helping people do is figure out what they're what they're good at and start a service business just try like fitness coaching. It can be marketing it can be I've helped people become financial advisors. People help be a health coach for women that were recently pregnant and gave birth and they're trying to get back into it. Just really specific things like if you have a thing you're good at or life experience you can share through a service that's what I'm trying to help people discover and grow so there's a website skillsetsandhandshakes.com and there's resources on there to help people from ground zero or someone who may be has kind of gotten their feet wet but they're just spinning their wheels a little bit need to figure out where to go. So I put together for your audience actually just a specific page, they can go to an extra downloads that aren't typically free. Just because you know, so skillsetsandhandshakes.com/Chase. That's what we're going with. 

Chase: [50:07] Awesome, man. I will have to check that out. Cool. I mean another great lesson is going back to day one entrepreneur Chase is learn how to say no, like, don't say yes to every client every opportunity but also like, get help. If I, I did, actually, before I left my job, I officially hired a mentor, kind of like a life coach, business coach. She had done basically everything that I could ever hope to want to do in this kind of like health, wellness, entrepreneur space and but then when I transitioned, because I was again just focused on revenue and money, like I stopped that relationship because I need to just make money. I can't have anything going out but it's a catch 22 I mean, if I had done if I kept that going, or hired, somebody went through a course or just did anything to like, feed that process. It's all learning curves, right? 

Dustin: [51:04] I'm really glad you brought it up said forgot to mention it when I was just kind of telling some of my story. I one of the catalysts when I started making kind of enough to quit my job was a mentor and like it was literally night and day of someone giving me a concept not even like a full strategist, like concept, a paradigm shift and within 30 days, I was set it was that and like, so now. I mean, I still right now I'm working with the growth marketing coach, I'm always working with some kind of coach, because even when it seems like the money is going out instead of back in, there's always an inflection point. I mean, yeah, you don't like go to college expecting to make your money back right away? But it's the same concept just get a get someone who's been where you are to help you and it's just if like, if you if you can afford to do it, because it's so useful. 

Chase: [51:56] I'll even say, make a way to afford it. Find a way like, go like, alright, if the cost for this course or the cost for this, this coach is 200 bucks a month, 1000 bucks a month, right now your job is to go find a new client find a way to pay for that. I absolutely that I would make damn sure that I did that for sure. I've had two pay like, full on costs, like full investment, everything coaches mentors, over the years, and the first one, she helped me like, I wouldn't have launched anywhere close to how I did when I left my job if it wasn't for her. She's still in my life, and in a way and the second was when I made a big business shift in like, spring ish, Summer 2019 investing in another coach and literally, within the first phone call of that second investment everything became clear. It was just like, why are you doing that? You love this instead? You're right. And so again, I just stopped chasing stuff and it was the best investments, the best decisions I've ever made. I'm overdue for another one. I'm overdue to go back. Thanks for the reminder, man. Well, Dustin, again, thanks for coming on, man. It's been a great conversation. I love these kind of talks and I know that the audience member listening right now who's been on the fence about jumping ship to go to their full blown full blown thing or just I mean, daily productivity hacks alone, and there's so many great things in here. So that in mind, man kind of with the mindset productivity, spinning the wheels, just like all these things all contribute to how I say, you know, live a life Ever Forward. What does that mean to you, man? How did you how do you live a life Ever Forward?

Dustin: [53:43] I think just trying to be I don't want to use this word in a corny way, but like being authentic in my pursuit as well as like person to person but also in the pursuit that I'm going after. Because like we were talking about earlier, when you're when you're when you have some form of alignment, it doesn't always have to feel 100% but when you can tell like you're on the right path, it makes you want to try do things like optimize your health, optimize your productivity, it, it puts you in the state where you want to be getting better. So to me, that's what ever for it is, is being in that state where I want to keep getting better, and then finding new ways to do that. And like particularly with chasing not chasing but pursuing a passionate project. I don't think everyone has just one passion. I think we get to choose on that. But I will say you know show me one person who regrets starting their passion project and I'll show you a million who regret not starting. 

Chase: [54:50] So true man. I love that little nuance there of not getting better not like finding ways to get better but wanting to get better and that is the difference right there. That is that is the difference that will keep you adherent. Like the same thing I'm sure you know you had when you're working with clients you know in like the health coaching fitness spaces. We can help you we can give you the workout give you the nutrition plan all you want, but you have to want it. And the second you stop wanting what you're in the pursuit of is the moment that we're talking about earlier is when imposter syndrome starts it steps in, doubt creeps in and you become less productive when you begin to detach a little bit more. And that's, I believe, that's also kind of a process like it comes with the territory. And I wouldn't even say it's a bad thing, but it's just a thing we need to be mindful of. And that's when we get the opportunity to catch. Do I still feel the same kind of way about this? You know, why do I not want it? And you know, think on that. Why do I want it? Why do I not want it? It's neither good neither bad but just being aware of that concept will make or break your success and just happiness and everything you do for sure. 

Dustin: [55:59] yeah, I agree. 

Chase: [56:01] Dustin, it's been great having you on man. Thank you so much. 

Dustin: [56:03] thanks, this was great.