The Simple Habits That Can 10x Your Business and Life (with Dan Go) | Ep 48

Speaker A: What's been your transformation?

Speaker B: Talked about the fact that I was a high school dropout partying like my life depended on it. I was smoking cigarettes, I was like headed nowhere fast and I'm just like, how did I let things get this far? I'm going to do this. If I die, undo this or I'm going to die trying.

Speaker A: Today we're speaking with Dan Go, a high performance coach who's dedicated his life to helping entrepreneurs transform their bodies and in doing so transform their lives. He's worked with over 10,000 clients helping them build systems that not only improve their fitness, but also boost their energy, productivity and overall well being.

Speaker B: The thing with sleep that not a lot of people understand is that controls your appetite, gives you more energy, increases focus. If you gave someone a pill that uh, that gave them perfect sleep every single night and got all the benefits from it, they would literally change their lives. Yeah, it's cuz everyone's like, don't do it, you're going to fail. It's going to suck. What most people don't realize is that your mind must change along with your body. When I think about trying to create an incredible business or trying to create an incredible body, there's so many correlations and is such a total disconnect. Yeah, uh, how, if you, if your health is truly a priority, why are you not even doing the most basic thing of like taking how much you weigh?

Speaker A: What's the one exercise that every entrepreneur should do?

Speaker B: Putting me on the spot.

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Speaker B: Thanks for having me.

Speaker A: Yeah, super excited for you to be here. So look, from the outside looking in, I feel like you've built a life around transforming people. Is that how you would describe it?

Speaker B: Yeah, definitely. It's, uh, it's transforming people in the physical sense in order to transform them in a spiritual sense. I. I truly believe that when you transform your body, you can transform your life. I've done it for myself, and, uh, ever since I've started to really just focus in on the behaviors around exercise, nutrition, sleep, uh, and just becoming a better person, it has made every single area of my life better as a result of focusing on it.

Speaker A: Which one? So you said exercise, nutrition, and sleep?

Speaker B: Yeah.

Speaker A: Which one's the least obvious of those three?

Speaker B: I would say the least obvious is probably sleep.

Speaker A: Yeah.

Speaker B: Yeah. Um, most people don't realize how much performance you're leaving on the table as a result of not getting enough quality or quantity of sleep. And you can focus on one of the two, but you want to focus on both. And to me, sleep is like the lead domino that leads to high performance. And also, uh, from a body composition standpoint, it just, like, helps you get lean without you even having to think about it. It controls your appetite, gives you more energy, it increases focus, it increases creativity, it helps your muscles recover, it removes waste from your br. It's literally if you gave someone a pill that gave them perfect sleep every single night and got all the benefits from it, they would literally change their lives. Yeah.

Speaker A: And so how does, like, that doesn't jive with how most entrepreneurs think? Right? I think a lot of people fancy themselves as, like, I can get by on four hours. I'm gonna grind and hustle and do the thing. Like, how do you make people evolve past that?

Speaker B: I think the first things that we do is, uh, focus on the stuff that is not actually attached to sleep whatsoever. For, for us in our practice, we focus on exercise, nutrition, and also identity change. And then along with that, once they start seeing the benefits from that, then we work on the sleep. And the reason why we work on sleep, the last is because it's the. It's actually the most hardest to change from a behavior standpoint. Uh, people are just so attached to the ways in which they, uh, the ways in which they have routines around their sleep, whether it's like, going on their phones, eating before they go to sleep, all this kind of stuff. So we actually focus on the other stuff so they can get the benefits from that, feel better from that, and Then once they feel good, we actually use the momentum from those things to do little things to increase the quality of the sleep.

Speaker A: That's interesting. So you almost have to, like, hack the psychology of getting the quick wins up front and then saying, even though sleep's a thing you really have to fix, we're doing this other stuff first. So you put the effort in on the sleep.

Speaker B: Well, the thing I realize is that getting in shape is like, there's. It's like a virtuous cycle. So the virtuous cycle for us is like, okay, so you get more energy when you exercise. You feel better about yourself. You feel more confident. Uh, your mental health is improved by getting more nutrients in your body. This creates kind of like this, like, series of momentums. Like, you can't really create momentum if you don't take the first step. And for a lot of people, them trying to fix their sleep and the vastness of trying to fix their sleep is just so. It's just so wide. There's so many things that you can do that we actually focus on kind of like the basic things to move up to those things that we can do with their sleep.

Speaker A: Yeah, that makes a lot of sense. And before we move off of the sleep topic, because I know people are watching this, they're probably like, all right, just teach me how to sleep. Like, what's the. I don't know. I don't want to call it a hack, but, like, what's the habit is probably a better word. Well, helps unlock sleep.

Speaker B: Well, I'll liken this back to what I'm really interested in, which is a systems. Right? So there are systems that can be automated so you don't have to think about them. They're evergreen. And then there are systems that are going to require a little bit more action, a little bit more tactics. So the evergreen stuff is stuff that doesn't change. It's like your environment. So you want to be sleeping in a cold environment, uh, anywhere between. I think it's like 66 to 71 degrees Fahrenheit. Uh, you also want to get other things, like an eye mask and blackout shades to make sure your room is completely blacked out. And we call these things evergreen because you don't have to change them. They're automatic, or they should be automatic, so you don't even have to think about them. And then you have, like, tactics. You have things like your sleep routine. Uh, it could. It could be a number of things. So, like, the thing with sleep that not a lot of people Understand is that it's almost like throwing a lot of stuff up at the wall to see what fits. And also I would be remiss not to tie in this other aspect, which is to track the quality of your sleep and the quantity of your sleep. So you can throw all these things up at the wall. But if you're not tracking to see if it actually improves your quality of sleep, then you're kind of guessing. So we want to use things like an oura ring or like a whoop band or there's like many sleep trackers out there. Wear it for at least I uh, would say anywhere between four to six months to get a baseline of like how your sleep really is and then you can try this stuff. So tactics wise, there's so many things that I've tried and then it's going to work for different people. The first thing is probably your sleep routine in the first place. What happens before you go to sleep is probably more important than what happens when you wake up. So uh, I'll use my, my routine as an example. I take a shower, right? Like probably like two hours before I have to go to bed because this brings my body temperature down. Uh, I also tape my mouth before I go to sleep because I have a tendency to breathe through my mouth. This allows me to breathe through my nose. That allows me to get deeper sleep. There's also taking uh, electrolytes with your water first thing in the morning because, uh, especially for people who suffer from this thing called nocturia, which is waking up in the middle of the night going to, to go pee. Uh, the extra sodium inside of your body increases vasopressin, which allows you to kind of just like hydrate yourself and allow yourself to absorb the water. So that's another thing. Uh, there's also another thing that I completely forgot to mention which is back to the environment piece. If you have a partner and if you're actually sleeping with another person beside you, you want to get separate covers for yourself. So because one, like the thing I realized about sleeping with another person, preferably your partner, and it is the idea that you're probably one person probably running hot, another person's probably running cold. And if you're trying to share covers with each other, first of all, sharing covers, covers with each other, probably most uncomfortable thing because one person's grabbing the covers over the other. The other thing is, is that again, like some person needs a little bit more, some person needs a little bit less. So I actually say sleeping in separate covers from your partner Is. Is always a good thing. It's always going to increase the quality of your sleep. Other, uh, things, tactics wise, is like drinking chamomile tea, like, two hours before you go to sleep, uh, taking certain supplements like, uh, magnesium or magnesium L Threonate, uh, specifically, or glycine. But again, we want to throw these different things up. We want to test these variables against what is working already to see if it improves. And then we use our sleep trackers for that. And that's kind of the roundabout way to improve the quality and quantity of your sleep.

Speaker A: I love it. It's picking up on your approach, I think is interesting. I, uh, feel you're very focused on helping entrepreneurs, and I can see that in. Even in the speech patterns that you use to describe the strategies. Right. It's. We're. We're testing variables. We're tracking outcomes numerically. Like, I think a really good job figuring out how people like us think, you know?

Speaker B: Well, it's because that's exactly how I think. Um, well, okay, so probably for yourself, it's maybe the same, but, like, 90% of my friends are entrepreneurs. Uh, I used to, uh, as I've kind of gone up in this, like, entrepreneurial game, I. I kind of just like went into these masterminds, and then I saw everybody in these masterminds, and I was just like. I was almost, like, surprised to a certain extent, because I was like, how are you guys, like, crushing business, doing things that no one can do, and yet you can't keep yourself in shape? That's the one thing that we have control over. Right? We can control all these external factors, but we can't control this. And that's actually the reason why I decided to help entrepreneurs specifically, because I'm just like, I just want to help my friends. I just want to talk to them every single day. And, uh, especially when you're running a business, you can see so many correlations between the way in which you approach your business and the way in which you approach your body. It's mental in a sense that not a lot of people, especially entrepreneurs, make this connection. So I talk that way because I probably talked to thousands of entrepreneurs already, and this is kind of like our lingo in which we communicate with each other.

Speaker A: Yeah, no, uh, it's wild. And like, I mean, I know we don't know each other super well, but, like, uh, I think we both have had relatively, like, pronounced transformations. Right. From what I understand, um, I was who you just described. Like, I exited my first company. I was 70 pounds heavier than what I am right now. And it was just one of these things where I had this life changing outcome, the finish line of running a tech company. And like, man, I had one foot in the grave, dude. I was a mess, you know, and two kids at that, at that point, um, gosh, three kids at that point, at all. Three at that point. So three sons looking at me and I'm like, man, like I barely run on the block, you know, is, uh,

Speaker B: it's, it's so funny because like everyone and all, well, not all entrepreneurs, but many entrepreneurs think that they have to put their noses to the grindstone. They have to, uh, put their health to the side in order to achieve more in business. When I look at that situation, I'm like, when you do that, you're actually giving the business and your family and the people that you're leading, uh, less of you. As a result, you're not necessarily attacking life at your full potential. And I'm not going to say that you would have like, had a bigger exit or anything like that, but like focusing on your health. But I will say that there is such a meta effect that getting in shape, getting healthy, getting in the right sleep, exercising, uh, eating the right foods. There's such a meta effect on the business success that I've noticed with all my clients that's almost like it is leaving a little bit of gains on the table by not focusing on your health while you are trying to crush business. And something I will say as well with that, we see with a lot of entrepreneurs like, oh, I'm just going to wait till I exit. I'm just going to wait till it's like the perfect time. I'm just going to wait till like my life gets a little bit more chill. And I'm just like, if you're an entrepreneur, that's never going to happen. You're, you're waiting for something that you will never even want to do in the first place. I've never seen an entrepreneur want to like, sit down and do absolutely nothing and wait for their life to be chill. So I do believe that you have to do this stuff while you're busy, while you are super busy. Because that even if your life does get chill, then you're going to have the behaviors that are going to support whatever, whatever life brings at you in the first place. Yeah, yeah.

Speaker A: Do you think entrepreneurs over engineer what it takes to actually be healthy?

Speaker B: Yeah, 100%. Uh, a lot of entrepreneurs that I work with are so they're very surprised at how simplified it is. And then I have this thing which is called like the three levels of body transformation, uh, the three levels of health transformation. So level one is just being metabolically healthy. Like, there's 92% of people in America are not even metabolically healthy. They're metabolically, metabolically unhealthy. So I mean, the first step is just getting your body fat down to a, to a level where it's just going to be avoidant, a preventable disease. And that's something that, um, probably 92% of the population can't even do. So that's like level one, just drop the body fat down, get lean, get healthy. From a body composition standpoint, levels two and three can be interchangeable. So level two, this is what I call optimization for hypertrophy, or muscle, because that's like what's going to keep you functional, especially as you age, especially in like the lower body, especially in your legs. You want to optimize for increasing muscle mass. Because a lot of times when people try to get in shape, get metabolically healthy, what's going to happen is they're always going to want to try to like, burn fat and get lean and stay lean. But they never put enough, uh, emphasis on raising what I call like the metabolic floor, which is like increasing the amount of muscle that they have on their bodies. So that's like the second phase. And the third phase is what I call just optimization. And optimization to me is like optimizing for longevity, optimizing for, uh, for performing at your full potential for as long as humanly possible. And there are many other things that are not necessarily in line with the first two phases that you can do in the third phase. Things like doing your blood work, things like, uh, testing out what your biological ages of every single one of your organs, things like improving your VO2 max. That's like when we get into like this true optimization stage. But for a lot of people, a lot of entrepreneurs who are watching this, they have to pass that first stage first and make that the focus.

Speaker A: And so that's the, that is sequenced, um, in a certain way. It's got to be lean first and then.

Speaker B: Yes. And then you hit the fork in the road. If you have like, if you have a lot of muscle, then cool, you can go to optimization. But most people will not. Most people, when they get lean, they haven't necessarily built enough muscle. And then they're usually step two comes before step three. Yeah.

Speaker A: And so what's been your transformation through all this?

Speaker B: Yeah. So, uh, Talked about the fact that I was a high school dropout and talked about the fact that, uh, for me, I was, like, headed nowhere fast. My, uh, parents would actually come back at me, and they'd be like, we had four kids in the family. And they'd be like, I don't know why they tell me this, because it's not the thing you should tell a kid. But they're like, out of everyone, we're, like, worried about you the most.

Speaker A: How old were you when they're telling you that?

Speaker B: I was, like, 18, like, 19. And I'm just like, oh, thanks, guys. Like, this is like, yeah, exactly. You're giving the motivating guy. Get it for the Gipper talk over here. And then. And then I'm just like, oh, crap. And then at that time, at that moment in time, I was. I was, uh, not. I didn't just drop out of high school. I was, like, partying like my life depended on it. I was binge drinking on a regular basis almost like every other day. Uh, I was smoking cigarettes. And then I remember there was, like, one specific time. This was, like, the time that changed my life forever. So at that time, I was probably at my lowest point, probably at my worst. And then if there's something you know about me, I was like, I love basketball. Like, I love playing it and I love watching it, right? So my friend asked me. He's like, hey, we're starting a team. We're going to do a practice. Would you like to be part of the team? Because I played with them back in high school, I was like, yes, let's do it. I end up going there, and I, uh, end up running up and down the floor, and I'm just like, I'm about to throw up. Because if there's anything you know, about someone who's, like, smoked cigarettes for a very long period of time, it's like their lung seize, and then they literally feel nauseous as a result of doing this level of activity. And then I remember one distinct moment. I remember just like I shot a shot, it missed. And then there's this thing called a fast break. Everybody's, like, running up the floor. So I remember I'm, like, running up the floor to stop the ball. And then as I'm running, I'm like, what is this, like, jiggle inside of my chest? I'm like, uh, you know, it's like the Baywatch, but it's like, not Baywatch, right? It's like. It's like the guy running in Baywatch but in my case it was like, fat bastard running in Bay Wash, you know, and, and then I felt this jiggle. I'm like, oh, shoot. And then I was so stupid at that time. I was just like, I was really scared because I was like, oh, is this breast cancer? Like, oh, no. Like, is that happening? I was like, so ignorant. And then I ended up going home. I excused myself, I end up going home. And then I take off my shirt and I look inside the mirror and then I have, have, I have a pair of like a cup boobs staring back at me. And I'm just like, how did I let things get this far? And it was at that time I was just like, you know what? I'm gonna do this. If I die, I'm, uh, doing this or I'm gonna die trying. I'm gonna get myself in shape or I'm gonna die trying. Either one of these things are gonna happen. I'm most likely gonna get myself in shape. And then that's when I poured everything, I did everything I could into being obsessed about fat loss, being obsessed about getting lean, being obsessed about creating, uh, a lean looking body. And ever since then I've, you know, became a personal trainer, became a top trainer at that gym because I was so obsessed with this stuff. It's funny how like you can be how interested a person is and how well they do at their jobs. And then I ended up starting my own business and I ended up, uh, owning a gym for about 10 years. And then, uh, since 2018, I've been doing what I'm doing right now for entrepreneurs. Yeah, yeah.

Speaker A: Wild. And so it was all born out of personal dissatisfaction. Right.

Speaker B: It was just like a line 100. I do believe that the best entrepreneurs are the ones that scratch their own niches. Yeah, yeah. It's like, uh, they fix their own problems. And, and for me, that's like one of the, that's one of the catalysts of, uh, of wanting to do what I'm doing right now, which is like my, my own personal. My own personal hurt my rock bottom.

Speaker A: Yeah.

Speaker B: Yeah.

Speaker A: And so you went out on your own twice, Right. So you own the gym and then you went out on your own from the gym to work.

Speaker B: Yeah.

Speaker A: In what you're doing right now.

Speaker B: Yeah. So after I left, uh, the personal or the Personal training company, I started a home gym like I started at home. We go to your home and we transform you and we bring the weights to like, oh, physically you go. Physically go. It was the worst, uh, concept. It was horrible.

Speaker A: Concept, all overhead, no scalability.

Speaker B: Exactly. And the overhead was just like, m. Me and my time. And then I would also carry, like, these weights with me because they usually wouldn't have weights with them. So I carried a bucket of weights to their house, work them out. And I'm just like, okay, this is not scalable whatsoever. So I ended up, uh, starting my first group training. Started my group training, uh, I guess you could say group or boot camp or whatever. And then, and then I ended up eventually buying a gym and, and doing all that kind of stuff. And then in 2018, I. I sold that gym, thankfully. And so I can do what I'm doing right now. And then, uh, the reason why was because I was just like, I just want to help these guys. I actually have more fun helping these guys as opposed to, uh, the people at my gym. So, yeah, got it.

Speaker A: It's funny because I think about most entrepreneurs, I feel like there's two stages of starting something new. There's like, that I'm gonna try this out and see if it's a thing. And then there's like the oh, hell yeah stage. Like, this is my calling. Like, what was that moment for you?

Speaker B: Uh, the old hell yeah moment for me, in terms of like, it was my calling was actually before I. I had even started in the first place. So I ended up. I ended up in. When I was like 24 years old, I went to Japan. And I was like, I want to teach in Japan. And then I ended up going through, uh, the various organizations. I tried like twice to get into Japan. They're like, nope, sorry, you're a high school dropout. Like, you don't even have your high school diploma. Can't go on. So I was very dejected at that point. And I ended up going to the gym as kind of like my respite, as kind of like my sanctuary a little bit. And I remember talking to my friend, I was just like, what am I going to do? Like, this was the thing that I was planning to do for at least like, the next, like, four or six years of my life. And then, and then I just thought, what is, like, the one thing that I want to do? Um, I just want to help people. Like, to give context. Before that time, I was actually working a corporate job.

Speaker C: Okay.

Speaker B: And I was just like, this sucks. Not just because of the corporate job, but because of the thing that I was doing. It was like selling high interest loans to people that, that needed them or didn't need them. It didn't matter. But it's like super predatory. And I couldn't tell anybody about it, uh, because I was just like, so embarrassed about what I was doing. So I was like, in this place where I was like, you're making okay amounts of money, more than you've ever made before in your life, which is not a lot, but still. And then you're like, I'm going to do this thing. Which 20 years ago at that time was not even a thing. Yeah, uh, it was, it was actually seen as like this side hustle, as a side job, being a personal trainer. And even when I told my friends and family I was going to, like, do this and I'm making the decision, they're like, don't do that. Like, please, please. And then that in and of itself was the fire that lit my ass because everyone's like, don't do it. You're gonna fail. It's gonna suck. And I was like, okay, please tell me more. And I always say that spite is always good, like activation energy. It's always, is always fantastic. So I use that spite. And then, uh, I ended up becoming the top trainer at the gym, making this a career for myself and never looked back.

Speaker A: It's so funny societally. Right? It's like, don't go out on your own helping people get healthy. Just stay doing the high interest predatory loan sales instead.

Speaker B: Make money. It's a very. Well, you know, it'. Very. I don't know if it's just like confined to Asians, but like, that's, that's what we, that's what, like, the family focus on most, which is like, make sure you are fully financially supportive first before going off and doing the things that you want to do.

Speaker A: Yeah. So like more of a risk averse approach when it comes to entrepreneurship. Yeah.

Speaker C: This episode of the SaaS Academy podcast is sponsored by SaaS Academy. And rather than me sitting here and telling you how great we are, which I'll tell you, I do believe we are, I used to be a client of SAS Academy and it changed my life forever. But I want to share with you a few of the testimonials of founders just like you who have been through our programs and seen some incredible results.

Speaker A: What I know about both of us is that we're both systems nerds. We're both, you know, just big, um, emphasis on having things a certain way and repeatable and scalable and all of that. And I feel like there's content for years on the Internet about why your business needs systems. You know, work on your business, not in your business, all that kind of stuff, there's very little, uh, comparatively around how to do that with fitness. Fitness. So maybe we just start super high level. How do you apply the concept of business systems to fitness?

Speaker B: So the thing for me is, is you want something to be repeatable. And what we're seeing in fitness right now is very fringe types of things that are being recommended, uh, whether it be like keto carnivore or just like completely just uh, overhauling your entire life. For me, I, I like to work from a principles based standpoint first. So what works in the long term and when I think about trying to create an incredible business or trying to create an incredible body, uh, there's so many correlations. So the first part of, let's just say the system. So I have like this, I have a four part system that I use for entrepreneurs and I call it the AB system. So it's a bbs. And the very first part of that system is just to assess. So we know exactly what that goal is. We know the revenue number that we're trying to hit, we know the amount of users that we're trying to hit. Cool. Where are we right now? And that's the part that a lot of people miss, especially when they're trying to do something in terms of like, you know, change their body composition. And the reason I say that is because they are so scared to see what they, they're so emotional about what they are going to see. Yeah. And that's the reason why they avoid it the most. So for me, the assess stage is know your numbers. Create what's called, what I call like a body dashboard. So we all have dashboards for our business. Right. We look at these dashboards every day. You look at your dashboards every day. And how many dashboards do we have for our bodies? Right. How many? I'm gonna, I'm actually gonna ask, um, this question and maybe it's gonna work, maybe it's gonna. Not for everybody that we're gonna be talking to, but I mean, okay, guys, how many of you are tracking your sales every single day? Yeah, everyone's probably gonna put up their hand. 99% of people are probably gonna put up their hand. All right, cool. Now how many people have stepped on a scale in the last week? You're probably gonna see 40% to 35% of the same people just put up their hand and the rest are not gonna do it. And the thing about it is, it's such a total disconnect. Uh, how if you if your health is truly a priority, why are you not even doing the most basic thing of like, taking how much you weigh? Even though it's not necessarily the most perfect number, but it is a good representation. So we want to create this thing that's called the body dashboard, that allows us, that allows us to see the progress that we're making or where the trend is going with our bodies. And the very basic one is going to be your weight. Taking that like every single day, getting a seven day average and understanding like, exactly like what happens with the fluctuations every single day. If you eat this, if you don't eat this, yada, yada, yada, you want to see these fluctuations and you want to get exposed enough to your weight so you don't get emotional about it. The other one is going to be your waistline inches around your navel. And the reason I make this such an important, uh, measurement is because that is going to give you the best indication of visceral fat. So for guys who are over 40, 40 inches on their waistline, around their navel, that is a significant, uh, sign that you are probably, you probably have a good amount of visceral fat. And visceral fat is the active fat. It's actually that fat that's around your organs is the fat that leads to these preventable diseases. It's actually the worst kind of fat on the world for women. It's like 35 inches. So, like, we want to track this waistline every single week and then we want to take pictures like maybe once every four weeks. Especially if you're trying to change your body composition, you need a visual representation of what your body looks like. And then you have your deeper number. Numbers, right. It's like you have your blood work that you're going to do every six months to a year. You have your DEXA scans. And then this gives you a look that's underneath the surface of what's happening. It gives you a deeper look at what's happening with your body when it comes to your cholesterol, lipids, all this kind of stuff. So first of all, it's like, know your numbers, assess. You want to create this body dashboard for yourself and start with like, maybe like the first thing that matters to you most. For a lot of people, that's going to be weight. The next one is going to be burn. Yeah, go ahead.

Speaker A: So you said something that I thought was profound that I want to make sure we don't skip it. You said, I want to expose you to your weight more often. So you're not as emotional about it. What's the principle there?

Speaker B: So the thing I find with a lot of people, especially when they're trying to lose weight, is that they live and die by the scale. And they do that because of a number of reasons. So maybe they just weigh themselves infrequently. So they're like, they weigh themselves every single week. They're seeing like the same number and they're like, oh my God, I'm not making any progress. But if you weigh yourself every day, you would actually give, you actually give yourself more data to play with and you would see what the true representation of the weight loss is. And also exposure therapy. It's like the more that you go through something, the more that you see the data for what it is as opposed to how you feel. So imagine if we just ran our businesses purely based off of our feelings. So we see sales go down. Okay, we got to ramp up marketing now. It's like that is not the way that we work. We work through objective analysis. And if we're not objective about our bodies, there's. And we're being so reactive and so emotional about them, especially when it comes to our weight. What do you think is going to happen? You're gonna, you're gonna do some pretty extreme stuff to like just make that number go down. That's not going to be sustainable. And then lo and behold, six months later you drop 20 pounds. But six months later you've put it back on because everything you did wasn't sustainable. You were reactionary towards every single aspect of your body. As opposed to getting enough data to say like, oh yeah, after I eat carbs or after I eat pasta, usually my weight goes up like three pounds. And then after two or three days that goes down back to where it was before. But you need data and you need exposure to be able to see that.

Speaker A: Yeah, I love that. It's funny, um, the timing. I was reading a book on the plane coming here, um, about nerd, about statistical, ah, process control. Right. In business, basically understanding variation. Um, and we're like, any system is going to have natural variation built in.

Speaker B: Yes.

Speaker A: And so when people, you know, see, oh, uh, and number goes up, we clap, number goes down, we panic. But really, unless you change the system, you're always bouncing around within a certain threshold. It's the same thing I would imagine with this. Right. It's just data points in a system.

Speaker B: It is. And the more that you are living and dying with the day to day data points, you're not giving yourself enough time to zoom out to see what the trends are. What we're looking for are trends. And then if you, uh, if we pull up like, say the weight trend from like one of our clients, it's sort of like a stock that is declining in value, but in this case, they're actually increasing in value as their weight goes down technically. And what you're going to see is like all these like, tiny little fluctuations, like, all the way down. What most people see is like a straight line down. But like, weight loss doesn't happen linearly like that. And also business success doesn't happen linearly as well. So. So we have to like, zoom out. But if you're living and dying by a scale, like every single time that you step on, you're like, oh, I'm m down £2. Oh, I'm up to whatever it is, then what's going to happen is that you are going to allow yourself to be reactionary towards these numbers, which you shouldn't be. You should be reactionary towards the trends that are happening, not the day to day numbers. Yeah, that's interesting.

Speaker A: I love it.

Speaker B: All right.

Speaker A: So that's the assess phase.

Speaker B: Yes, so that's the assess phase. Basic. Just like, know your numbers. The next one is going to be the berm phase. And this is like split up into two parts. So number one is going to be how much movement are we gaining throughout the, the day? So it's like, I, I liken this strictly to like, how many steps are we getting? Okay. And I've found that anywhere between 8,000 to 10,000 steps a day is perfect. From a. An aspect of like, number one decreases all cause mortality by like 40%. But also it's like, screw that. We're not even going to worry about that. It just makes our brains work better. It just makes our cognitive function way more powerful. We're more creative, we're more energetic. That's what I see with a lot of our clients. When we increase that step count to about 8 to 10,000 steps, we actually say 10,000 steps is like the mandatory for a lot of our clients. That's the move. And then it's not just necessarily to burn calories, but what happens as a result of, like, say, getting lean and also losing weight is that subconsciously our, uh, bodies start to slow down. So as someone starts to lose weight, they're going to notice that they're going to get lazier. So we use like, step count as a way to mitigate the laziness that might Happen. So your body has a subconscious function where it's like, okay, well, I need you to survive. Anytime that you lose weight, your body's like, dude, this is not cool. Like, from a. From an evolutionary standpoint, it's like, no, no, no, no, no, no. Like, dude, we're gonna die now. Like, this sucks. So it's gonna do all things to, like, your hormones to your body. And specifically, it's gonna slow you down. It's gonna make you lazy. So we use step count as a function of just, like, saying, hey, this is our mandatory. This is what we're gonna do regardless of, not regardless of whether we're feeling or not. And obviously, the second one is going to be your diet. And, um, regardless of, like, how much or regardless of, like, obviously the quality of foods matters. Uh, but what most people don't understand is that. And yes, you have to be in the caloric deficit if you're trying to get lean or if you're trying to, like, uh, if you're trying to, like, gain weight or like, you know, gain muscle, then you want to be in a slight surplus. That's like basics. But what most people don't realize is that they don't really set up the template to work for themselves in the first place. They don't set up what I call, like, the skeleton or the. The how of eating. And this goes into two ways. So number one is, like, how many meals is it going to take for me to not only, like, you know, feel full, feel satisfied, feel energetic, feel focused, feel like I don't need to eat more? What's the frequency? Usually for our clients, that's like, anywhere between, like, two to four, usually three. Usually three is the sweet spot. And then we have to think about the timing. So when we think about timing, a lot of people try to borrow timing from other places. So, uh, actually, one guy just messaged me. He's like, hey, I'm doing 16, eight right now. And all this kind of stuff, I'm like, oh, okay, cool. Like, you know, but when it comes to timing, especially for entrepreneurs, especially for entrepreneurs, something that I know this is that when they borrow, let's just say an intermittent fasting, like, timing schedule for themselves, they don't realize that it exasperates things at the end of the day. So here's what I mean. When. Let's just say, like, uh, inde is not to talk smack on people who do intermittent fasting. If you do intermittent fasting, it's getting the results. You're not trying to Lose weight or anything like that. Cool. It works for, it works for you. But I actually find for the vast majority of the people, usually it doesn't work, especially for entrepreneurs, because not eating is a stress. And also the, the cognitive focus and the function that you feel as a result of not eating, that is all adrenaline. Right. And guess what's going to happen when you start eating again, when you choose to eat. Usually some people don't even eat until like 12 or two or whatever they're gonna find at the end of the night. Once they have their final meal, they're gonna want to eat again.

Speaker A: Yeah.

Speaker B: Because their hunger is not, is not regulated. Usually we regulate it in the beginning of the day. So we employ this thing that's called, uh, eating to your natural rhythm or eating to your circadian rhythms. And it's very simple. We start at the end of the day. So we say like, okay, cool. M. At the end of the day, you want to have your last meal about three to five hours before you go to sleep.

Speaker A: Sleep.

Speaker B: And the reason why we do this is because it enhances quality of sleep. It improves digestion, and sleep is the lead domino, like we said before. So it was like, you know, like we want to improve the quality. So by the time you improve the quality, you actually feel like your appetite is regulated. You feel your hunger is regulated. You have energy, focus, all that kind of stuff. And then we go three to five hours before that meal, that first meal or the final meal, we eat our second meal. Three to five hours before that we eat our uh, our first meal. So it'll look like something like this. So I'll have my final meal. Usually I'm actually going to sleep around 10. I'll have my final meal around like five or six. My second meal before that is going to happen around like 12 o'. Clock. And then my first meal is going to happen around like 7 to 8am and then this gives me a semblance of a schedule that I can follow. And what's going to happen, especially if you find the right rhythm for yourself, is that that your hunger regulates. You actually find that you're getting hungry during the times that you feed it as opposed to this randomized, as opposed to like eating at random times. Because guess like, do you have a dog by any chance? Like, okay, okay. So does your dog expect to get fed at the same time every single day? Sure does. Guess what? We're very similar to dogs in that sense, but only if we allow ourselves to train that. Yeah, so, so that's the burn phase. And then, yes, you have to. Along with the burn phase, like, there's obviously nuances. We talked about making, uh, sure that you're getting quality of foods. We actually say that you want to 8020 your diet a little bit. So you want to. We, we actually treat diets as a ratio. It could be like 80, 20, 90, 10. So like 80 or 90% of your foods that you're putting into your body or 8% or 90% of your meals are going to come from whole single ingredient, nutrient dense sources. 10 to 20% can be whatever the you want. Okay. Yeah, it's like, it's like, because we need to have some form of flexibility in there for us to feel like we're not necessarily dieting for us to actually enjoy what we're doing. So it could, it could look like this is like maybe 10 of my meals is like having pizza with my kids every single weekend on Fridays and Saturdays. Maybe, uh, 10 or 20 of my calories is like every single day. I may give myself a little bit of a treat. Right. It looks in many different ways, but we have to add in that flexibility and then we have protein, which is like you want to eat 0.8 to 1 gram of protein per pound of body weight in order to maintain muscle. Because that sets up the thing that we want to do next in the sec, in the third part of the system. So third part of system is called build. And it's called what I. It's called build because we want to raise your metabolic floor. And the way to raise your metabolic floor is through building muscle. So I had this client and he came to me, uh, before he came to me, he actually dropped 20 pounds and then gained it all back and then did this about like two or three times. And the way that he chose to do it was using cardio and being in the caloric deficit or being in a diet. And I was like a Van. His name is Van. I was just like van. Um, okay, cool. Like, I wouldn't necessarily recommend you to do that. Let's see exactly what happens. He took his DEXA scan before and after. He actually found that even though he was the same weight, he was actually down 5 pounds of lean mass M. And that significantly brought down his resting metabolic rate. Because there is a right way to lose weight and a wrong way to lose weight. So you're gonna. Okay, so let me just get into this and then thinking through it. Okay? So technically everybody wants to lose weight, but they are, they are theoretically wrong in terms of what they want to lose in the first place. Because what you want to lose is fat. Who cares about the weight? You want to lose fat, uh, you want to lose adipose tissue. You want to keep muscle, if not build muscle. And the way, the reason why you want to do that is because you want to be able to at least eat the same amount when you're down 20 to 30 pounds as opposed to feeling like you need to eat less. So for my client Van, what happened was, is that his resting metabolic rate was I believe it was at like 1400 or something. Like it was super low because he was low muscle and also high body fat. And then, um, and then what we did was we employed uh, raising his metabolic floor, really focusing in, on using weights, using progressive overload for that. Really emphasized the protein portion, making sure that he's getting 0.8 to 1 gram of protein per body weight. And in the 12 week time period, he actually dropped 20 pounds, but he also gained 4 pounds of lean mass as a result. When you do things the right way, especially for beginners, for people who have like been working out a lot like yourself or whatever, it's like, it's gonna be hard to like make these, these types of gains. Uh, that is if you're doing everything correctly. So, but, but we want to make sure that your metabolism is, is running at a high rate while you were losing weight. So, so that's what the metabolic floor is. That is, that is what we want to do. We want to build muscle and then this is actually going to lead into the final, the final part of the system, which is what I call sustain. So sustaining is like, yes, you need to have the, the right amount and the same amount of muscle, if not more than what you built, especially in the beginning. But also we want to work on what I call like the soft skills of body transformation. So I was like, it's so funny because we were talking about like how we're using the acronyms that or the terms that we would use in like business. Right? Uh, so hard skill. Hard skills are like diet, exercise, sleep, blah blah, blah. But soft skills are the, are the amplification of your identity, the behavior. And what most people don't realize is that your mind must change along with your body because if you feel like you don't like, let's just say this, like some people, when they get to a low body fat percentage and they're like there, they'll look at themselves and be like, sometimes they can't even see what they have created in the mirror because their self image and their mindset is not even able to let them see like the, the, the, the kind of progress that they made. Uh, so we want to do, we want to actually change our identity in two ways. So number one is going to be reflection. Uh, as you are doing these behaviors, as you're employing these things into your body, let's reflect back, let's create a performance journal and let's reflect on how these things make you feel and how these things actually enhance what you do. And we want to tie the thing that you're doing to the benefit that you're getting. And most times with a lot of people when they get in shape, they're like, oh yeah, uh, I feel better. Uh, but, but the thing is, is that they don't realize how much better they feel until they lose it.

Speaker A: Yeah.

Speaker B: So funny. It's like I used to feel like I didn't need to take a nap back then. I used to. So everyone's kind of like avoidant of all those things when the reality is we want to tie those things in as the body transformation is happening. That's interesting. It is, it is.

Speaker A: It's like locking in the identity changes. Real time.

Speaker B: Absolutely. Uh, because like when you're going through it, you don't realize what's happening unless you sit down and actually think about it. Right. Especially when it comes to your health. So I remember one time I was having a conversation with a client. I had ah, dropped like uh, I think £25 at that time from his body. And I. And then he was just like. I was like, how do you feel? I was like, yeah, it's okay, whatever. And I'm just like. And then my mind, I'm like, dude, you just like dropped like 25 pounds. You, you just dropped like a quarter of a hundred pounds off of your body like you should. So I started asking questions. Uh, I was like, okay, cool. Like, you know what's happening with your energy, with your energy levels. Oh, you know what? Like I'm not, I'm not taking naps at 2pm anymore. You know, like, uh, okay, cool. Like, uh, how has this affected your family life? He's like, oh, shoot, my kids are starting to work out with me. Um, I'm starting to become like more present.

Speaker A: Cool.

Speaker B: Yeah, it is. Uh, okay, cool. What's happening with your business life? Uh, dude, I just had like, ah, like my record, a record breaking revenue month. But it didn't really attribute that to like how I felt. Right. And I'm like, cool, you don't need to. But I don't believe in coincidences either. Yeah, yeah. When you're feeling all. When you're feeling like, more energetic, more confident, better about yourself, guess what's going to happen that's going to bleed into every area of your life. Right? So. So we had to ask him these questions for him to jog his memory. And he's like, hey, wait, you know what? Like, I actually do feel like 10x better than I felt before. Not just because he just dropped away, but because he's doing the behaviors that allowed him to do that. And then the last part that, uh, or the second part in the last part is the self image. So we all have this perception of ourselves. We have a perception that stays locked in our minds. And you probably know this working with Dan a lot is, uh, is the fact that everyone gets what they feel they deserve. Yeah, right. And everyone will always fall back to that temperature gate. So I always feel like weight and body composition is a reflection of the temperature that's set inside your brain. So if you lose like 30 pounds, but your brain is still set to being 30 pounds over and you're still there, guess what? Slowly but surely, like, the temperature is going to bring you back to where you were before. So we need to employ a new way of looking at ourselves. And that's like through, for me, that's through reflection and it's also through visualization. It's not just visualizing the outcomes, but also visualizing the steps, the reps in which to get there. And for most entrepreneurs, I would actually say that they use visualization before their businesses. Right? They use it to like, okay, I'm going to make like $10 million or whatever it is. I see it in my mind.

Speaker C: I got it.

Speaker B: And then. But they never do that with their bodies. They hardly do that with their bodies. And we want to employ this kind of like, visual, uh, representation of like their new image enough times so their body actually feels comfortable when they reach the new image. And it's so funny when people start to step on the scale and then they see a number they've never seen before, and then they're just like, I saw this in my mind before it happened. In reality, it's gotta be a lot more powerful, right? It is so much more powerful, especially when we start kind of like just asking reflective questions, tying these things back together. And then that's how you change behavior. So a changed outcome is not a changed outcome unless you change behavior. Because if you do, if you actually just Change the outcome. But you don't change behavior. You're only doing it to get that outcome. What's going to happen? It's like, here's an example. So I posted this thing on uh, on uh, X, which was like, uh, Duke, don't uh, focus on doing cardio to burn fat. Use your diet for that stuff. Right. And then I had like runners come on to my uh, onto my X feed and be like, dude, like you could do both. Like, and I'm just. And, and I, I don't have no time to argue.

Speaker C: Sure.

Speaker B: On online. But my perception or my conception of this is like the thing that you do for your body is the thing that you should be doing for your body for the rest of your life. So if you use like cardio to burn off 20 pounds, like you best make that a behavior and have you best like doing that. Yeah, like, you should like doing that because you should be doing that for the rest of your life or else that £20 is going to come right back on. Right. Like it should be something that you feel like you can do so. Or you can do consistently. So. So we make sure that the outcomes are supported by behaviors they can do, but also further supported by the foundation of creating the sustainability, which is through identity and through reflection.

Speaker A: Yeah, that makes a lot of sense, I think. Do you use um, do you use like standard benchmarking, like workouts and stuff like that to try to show people rate of change?

Speaker B: Uh, we, we track their progress and with the progress that we do, it's like we track like how much weights they're using, how much volume into doing. Um, and we also track kind of like things that they would not necessarily have thought about, which is like their ten repetition maxes, their one repetition maxes. And, and uh, in our software that we have, it outlays like, oh, cool. You just hit like a personal best in this. So, so yes, uh, we get them to track especially like with their weights and everything like that. We uh, get them to track like most things. Yeah, yeah.

Speaker A: The reason I ask it, I was thinking back to it when I was um, When I was working hard, like trying to lose a bunch of weight. Um, and you'd said something and you said like, you don't realize how far you've come. Right. And one of the things that I did, I just did it out of like, curiosity and then I kept doing it was I would. However much weight I'd lost since my heaviest, I'd put that uh, like in plates, in a backpack and that's like, go for a walk.

Speaker B: Nice.

Speaker A: So like, you go for a walk with 20, and then you go for a walk with 45 and 50, and then it's just like, I can't believe. It's just this moment of reckoning. It's like, I can't believe I was carrying that around 24 hours a day.

Speaker B: Yeah.

Speaker C: Before.

Speaker A: And then you set it down, you're like, all right, like, that's real. That's a. That's a real change.

Speaker B: I love that. Like, I actually, that's a. That's an example I use with a lot of my clients with just like. Like right now, like, how much better would your life be if you weren't carrying around a 45 pound weight vest.

Speaker A: Yeah.

Speaker B: On you every day. Every day for 24 hours straight for everything that you do.

Speaker A: Yeah.

Speaker C: Yeah.

Speaker B: And then that's good as a representation to be like, you're carrying around this weight and you're just like, never again.

Speaker A: Yeah.

Speaker B: This is heavy.

Speaker A: Heavy. 45 pound flight is heavy.

Speaker B: It is crazy. A 45 pound play on your back. Like, I don't understand. Like, uh, dude, that'd be hard, man.

Speaker C: Hard.

Speaker B: Yeah. Yeah.

Speaker A: That's funny. So, like, I just want to, like, get into the mindset of an entrepreneur for a minute because, I mean, you probably heard every reason in the book, right? About, like, why I can't prioritize this or why. Why this won't work for me. You know, like, how do you balance systems and routines versus people who think their lives are just inherently unpredictable because of their business?

Speaker B: Well, I say that you need systems and routines because your life is unpredictable. These are the things that you need. Because your life is wildly unpredictable, because you're traveling for three quarters of the year. Because, uh, your life will never be calm until maybe, like, you choose to retire or choose to do something that's like, a little bit less busy. Yeah, but this is actually the reason why you need these things and you preferably need these things to be automated. So especially for entrepreneurs who have high levels of resources, which I love, there are ways to automate. Let's just say getting healthy food in your possession. Um, there are so many solutions to that. Whether it's getting meal prep when you're in town or whether it's, uh, you know, having actually whether it's like getting your assistant to tell you what's on the menu for wherever you're going to be eating with, like, your cohorts or whatever it is. Especially if you're putting your, your health as a Priority. You want these things in your life to make these things easier. So use your resources to your advantage. And also with, like, systems, you want to make sure they're automated. So, I mean, like, this is why I call. Like, this is the reason why I want the body dashboard, which is like. Yeah, this dashboard just shows you everything, like, automatically without you even having to, like, think about it. But systems makes life easier. How is a entrepreneur who's running a successful business that has other people doing it not. Not perceive, like, these two things to be the same? Yeah, the same. So it's like, if you have systems for your businesses and allows you to, like, work on the business instead, uh, of in the business, you want to have systems for your body to allow yourself to work, let's just say, on the body, so to speak, instead of, like, kind of like being reactionary to, like, every single. Oh, yeah, I think I have to lose weight now. No, no, no. These things are behaviors. These things are a lifestyle.

Speaker A: Yeah, that's interesting. It's so like, we keep coming back to this. This through line of. If you treat your body like a business, you're. You'll probably be all right.

Speaker B: Yes. And most times, like, entrepreneurs, like, what do I do when I travel? And all this kind of stuff. I'm like, I'll. I'll tell you what to do. And actually, I'll throw this on top, like, in the beginning, you probably want, especially if you don't have the bandwidth to really, like, focus in and, like, do this. Do this stuff for yourself. You want accountability. You want to have help. You want to have a coach or a personal trainer, whatever it is, you want to have, like, some form of accountability that, like, like, pushes you. Right. But when it comes to kind of, like, doing all this kind of stuff is like, you are so resourceful for your business. Why are you not resourceful for your body? Like, entrepreneurs, to me, are like, the most resourceful people on the planet. If you need a solution, they're gonna find a solution. They put more power towards the solution, uh, as opposed to the problems in their businesses, as opposed to their bodies. It's so. It's so nuts to me, dude.

Speaker A: It's interesting when you think about it logically. Like, I can't speak for everyone, but I can't can tell you, I think the dissonance for me, because, like, I've struggled with this for a long time. It's like, you've got a track record of winning in business.

Speaker B: Yes.

Speaker A: Right. Like, I know I've solved problems. I Know, I can solve the next problem. But you know, for me, like, I've struggled with, you know, body image and stuff like that since I was a, you know, before I was a teenager. And it's like, you know, until more recently, like I didn't have a history of wins. It was just all in the, all in the L's column. It's like some, you know, you struggle with something for 30 years and you're like, damn, I guess this is just who I am. And it's like I feel like it took him, it took a minute to be like, okay, I'm resourceful enough to go solve complex problems in business with, you know, 50 person team or this or that or whatever and be like, I could probably figure out lunch.

Speaker B: Yeah.

Speaker A: You know. Yeah, maybe dinner too.

Speaker B: Or. I love that I went through the same thing because my entire life I'm just like, am I destined to just be insecure about it?

Speaker A: Like it's external locus of control. Right? It's like, is this just going to be who I am?

Speaker B: Yeah, exactly. And one thing that really just resonated with me as I was kind of like moving up the, the cycle was just like, if someone else could do it, I can definitely do this.

Speaker A: Yeah.

Speaker B: There's nothing that puts someone's like intelligence or, or know how above mine. I can figure this out if someone's, if someone else is. And has someone else figured this out? Absolutely. And when a lot of entrepreneurs are like watching this, okay, cool, like I gotta know my numbers, I gotta burn, I gotta build. And like all this kind of stuff, I'm just like, start with one, start with the first thing. Mhm. Whatever that is. For me it was exercise. So I didn't think about nutrition, I didn't think about like sleep. I just like told myself I'm gonna go to the gym every single day for the next like three months, see what happens. And if you just like, if you, yeah. If you actually isolate the variable and just do one thing and just focus on it, then that leads into positive momentum into the next thing. So like after I started gaining this, this gym, kind uh, of like going to the gym, habit, I was like, okay, cool. Like I, that's there. I think I can start to kind of like fix up my diet a little bit right now. I think I could start to do that. And um, what, what people don't understand is that they're trying to change the body in six weeks. What took probably in your case was like 30 years to, to get to that point for a Lot of people, it's like maybe five or six years. They're trying to undo five or six years in six weeks. When the reality is, is that if you gave yourself like even just like a little bit of a longer time horizon, gave yourself time to do this, you were going to be wildly surprised at what you accomplished. As opposed to like giving yourself a six week time frame to lose 20 pounds, to lose it, then you put it back on. Yeah, right. If, uh, you give yourself even a long time, a long time timeframe of uh, let's just say like a year, that gives you a lot, that gives you actually a lot of leeway to make a lot of mistakes and to really figure things out. Imagine if you had to start a successful business in six weeks. If you've done it before, cool. But if you've never done it before in your life, like it's a task

Speaker A: you've been trying for 30 years and then you had six weeks to go do it.

Speaker B: Exactly. And then, and here's also the other thing. It's like you will probably lean into the get rich quick schemes, the get rich quick marketing schemes and all this kind of stuff. You know, search for like the fastest, most unsustainable methods possible. And then if you were going to be running your business on those methods, I mean, you're always going to be searching for the next thing. So, so that's what the long time horizon is there for. Like give yourself enough time to do this, especially if you've been dealing with it for a long time and then that takes the pressure off of you.

Speaker A: Yeah. One of the things I love about the way you're articulating this with the systems, it's something I talk about a lot with my coach too is he says it's like everyone, like when he's, when I started working with him, he's like, you were very goal oriented and now you've shifted to be more process oriented.

Speaker B: Yes.

Speaker A: You know, it's like same thing with the system, right. If you just work the system, the goals will show up. Just focus on the system.

Speaker B: Yeah, I have this concept where I'm like, you want to build a set of behaviors and lifestyle that make the weight loss inevitable. And the more that you focus on the outcome, the more that you actually push it away. Uh, and the reason I say that is because, yes, if you focus on the outcome, yeah, maybe you're going to achieve it. But with such a focus on that outcome, you will do whatever it takes to get there, especially for entrepreneurs. And that also Means doing things that are not necessarily things that you're gonna be doing for the long term. Whether it be cutting out carbs, whether it be fasting for seven days or like whatever it is. So when it comes to, when it comes to like transforming body, it's like, yo, chill out. And then focus on, let's just say the four keystone habits that you need to do on a regular basis. Four non negotiables. And if you just focus on that, track your results, that pretty much makes weight loss inevitable. And also if you're tracking your results, specifically if you're, if you're actually analyzing and knowing your numbers, everyone, especially entrepreneurs, we have this like auto correction mechanism inside of our brains. So if we see sales go down for like a full on week or a full on month, we're like, okay, batten down the hatches. Look at lead generation, look at uh, look at sales, look at fulfillment. What's happening here? When it comes to our bodies, it's like we, we need to actually have the same mindset when it comes to that. We need to know like what's informing. And this auto correction feature is like if I uh, if I am like £2 up from where I was last week and I see the average staring back at me or I call it percentages. Actually I love percentages. More so than your coach probably works in that too. So it's like we want, so we want to lose like half a percent to like 1% of our body weight if we're like trying to lean out. Right. So let's just say I went up 1%, then autocorrect, like my auto correction feature is going to be like, oh crap. Okay, okay, okay. Let's get back to what we were doing before. You know, and the thing that we know about like weight loss and also like kind of like the day to day is that one day is not going to screw you up, but it is going to kind of like give you a visual representation of like what happens if you keep on continuing on with that behavior. So we want to make sure that uh, just zoom out, allow yourself to see like what the big picture is and allow the process to kind of like, am I doing the process right? If I am cool, it will come.

Speaker A: Yeah, yeah. It's like just focus on the behaviors more than the outcomes. That's cool. I love it. Um, sick. Well, I'll switch gears for a sec because you know, I think there's two things I find massively interesting about you. Obviously the approach to fitness is one, but Then like, your content game here is super strong. I'm assuming probably the foundation of those marketing arm of your business.

Speaker B: Yeah.

Speaker A: Um, like, how did you start, like, what was the inception moment?

Speaker B: The, the real inception moment, M was when I sold my gym.

Speaker A: Okay.

Speaker B: Uh, when I sold my gym. And when you sell anything, it kind of like gives you this blank slate where it's like, what now? Uh, and at that point I knew I wanted to reach, uh, a broader audience. I just, I didn't want to be confined to a local city. And, uh, also I felt like I had a lot more to give. I had a lot more, uh, to teach. Uh, so when I sold my gym, started, uh, training with entrepreneurs, I was just like, okay, well, I'm kind of like, let's just say being an amateur on social media, like, I'm posting here, I'm posting there, and like, all this kind of stuff. But again, it's like going back to like, okay, so what made me successful when I was trying to transform my body? It was being consistent and choosing the one thing. Yeah, right. And actually, and actually I did, I did the thing I should have done, which is like, I got a coach. So I was like, I, uh, remember my first, before my first kid came out, uh, around 2020, I was like, uh, I found a coach. His name is Ed Ladmore. He was going to coach me on, uh, how to grow on X. And I also hired, uh, this guy Zubi, um, who's crushing out on every platform right now. And then I, uh, spent the money I invested. And then that, that was exponential in terms of like, just knowing what to miss, knowing how to write, knowing what to put out there, knowing the frequency, knowing the timing. And then the only thing in my mind was just like, being consistent. Uh, I couldn't control anything other than being consistent. Like, you, you won't be able to guarantee that you will be successful if you are consistent, but you will definitely guarantee that you will be unsuccessful if you are not consistent.

Speaker A: That's a good way to look at it.

Speaker B: It is, it is. So I remember I was getting traction on X and figuring out how to write for that platform. And then as I was doing that, I grew to like 5,000. I'm like, oh, this is crazy. 10,000, 20,000, 30,000. And then when I started to hit kind of like the, you know, let's just say like the six figures in terms of followers, I was just like, just put your head down and keep working. Uh, just show up, put your head down, keep working. Look for ways to Improve. And then I've taken that with every single, every single one of like my platforms I've grown on social media which is like if you actually just like show up, if you actually do the work and then you look for ways to improve either through coaches or either through looking at other people's content, whatever it is, you are going to figure things out. And then also the systems are going to be just like whenever we look at content I'm looking at it through a system and my system is, it's like okay, number one is always going to be the creation first, second is going to be distribution. How am I getting this distributed out to as many people as possible. And the third thing is going to be how am I going to be monetizing out of this or what M am I? Monetization doesn't mean like making money for sometimes like when I'm focusing on a platform it's just like in the beginning stages it's like focusing on audience growth first. That's it, focusing on engaging audience growth, community. And then afterwards you focus on monetization. But, but it goes off in one of two ways. But anytime I'm looking at a social media platform, I'm looking at it through these three lenses. So it's always like going back to systems based thinking. And for me it's like getting or having the following that I have like right now is almost surreal. But I saw this way, I saw this like even when I was owning a gym, it was in my mind, it was a seed planted and then all I needed was like the right timing, the right situation sometimes. And sometimes timing means a lot. But yeah, it's like after you just start, you kind of like run with the momentum. Like it's, it's a virtuous cycle much like anything else. So it's like if you uh, if you're growing, if you have like a predictable amount of growth on like X, you're cool then. Okay, cool. Let's like try to figure out for this platform and then you have momentum there. Then okay, let's figure out for that platform and then for each and every platform you have your systems. Yeah. So yeah, so the early days, growing

Speaker A: on X, like when you hired that coach, what was his name?

Speaker B: Uh, his name was Ed, uh, Lattimore and it was Zubi.

Speaker A: Cool. Like what was the like first non obvious insight you got from them, something you were doing wrong?

Speaker B: Uh, it was to, it was actually with my writing. Okay, so with my writing a lot of times I would put uh, words like Actually, or I would. I would be very kind of like, not direct. And they were like, cut these words out. Get straight to the point. And almost. You have to, you have to leave your writing almost like for every single platform. Actually, not for every single platform, but for X specifically. It's. Especially if you do short form tweets. It's like you almost like, I get straight to the point and leave. Leave, uh, everyone else's room for ambiguity.

Speaker A: Right.

Speaker B: It's like they will perceive whatever tweet that you put out there. So it's like, like hard hit. Right? That's. That's what they told me. They didn't have to teach me consistency. I feel like that's one of my superpowers. And then, and then for me it's like, I think the best way to coach with someone is to. Yes. Is to ask for the feedback and, uh, get them to look at your stuff and all this kind of stuff. But also as you're doing that and as you're getting like this momentum, it's like, look for, like, other ways to grow. Look at, at how other people are doing content. Look how other people are growing and then have that inform, you know, you. In terms of, like, improving what you're trying to do.

Speaker A: Yeah.

Speaker B: Uh, and it's gonna sound like, weird, but I've, I've always had the mentality. It's like, surpass your masters, m. Surpass your mentors. I've always had that in my mind. Right. It's like I just want to grow to the point where I'm like, I would supersede like, what my mentor has taught me. And that sort of happened with like, like, actually it happened a little bit with Ed, but, you know, Zubi's on a rocket ship right now. But anyways, it's like. But that was always like, my intention, um, is to. Is to grow enough so you actually surpass what your mentor has taught you.

Speaker A: And so you go one platform at a time as you were coming up.

Speaker B: Yeah. 100. I feel like, uh, every platform is a different game and, uh, you have to learn how to play that video game in terms of, like, how you create content, uh, in terms of, uh, how you convey your message in terms of who you're even talking to in the first place. And also the distribution model, like every single, uh, every single content game has a different distribution model towards it.

Speaker A: Yeah.

Speaker B: Yeah.

Speaker A: That's interesting. And so you were doing. And maybe still are. I don't know. I'd love to know. Kind of the team stack but like, so how much of the writing. I'm sure all the ideation comes from you. Is it still 100%? Do you have copywriters on the team

Speaker B: helping, like, what's it look like with the content? Myself, the content is all me right now. Um, I batch process, like, all the content. It's all me. It's all written by my hand. Uh, not necessarily the most scalable way to do things, but right now it's like, this is my marketing arm and it's the thing I'm. I'm best at.

Speaker A: Yeah.

Speaker B: And, uh, this is the thing I'm going to be just like, focusing on. Um, and then I have, uh, also other members of my team. I have a coach, I have a sales, I have a closer. I have a couple of like, chat specialists as well. I have admin, like, administrators. Eventually. Actually, I'm in the process of hiring an operator right now or an integrator. Um, and. And yeah, it's, uh, I think like, now we're kind of like reaching the. The idea of like, scaling what we're doing right now, so.

Speaker A: Got it.

Speaker B: Cool.

Speaker A: And then how about video content? How's that work for you?

Speaker B: Yeah, yeah. So this year we put the focus on YouTube. Um, so. So, yeah, it's like, focus on one thing at a time. It's like YouTube was my focus. YouTube and newsletter is like, they're. They're not mutually exclusive. But, uh, with YouTube, we started at like 14K. We, uh, we really like, learned the game. I got coaches. Uh, we grew that. Uh, right now we're like 150, 1000 or something like that. It is. And also I got Dan Martel. Like, you know, I'm seeing what he's doing.

Speaker A: He does all right.

Speaker B: He does all right. Uh, and yeah, like, I bounce things off of Sam and uh, his. His guy as well, and all that kind of stuff. So. Yeah, that's cool.

Speaker A: What do you. Man, I feel like your market is just incredibly saturated. Like, how did you carve out this niche? Is it by the entrepreneurship focus or, like, how do you do that?

Speaker B: Uh, okay, so I have a theory that everyone, most people would consider themselves to be an entrepreneur in one way shape or another, at least in the 21st century, especially, uh, with ways. The way things got a gig.

Speaker A: Right?

Speaker B: Everyone's got a gig. Everyone's got a kind of like a side hustle. And. And for me, it came from personal interest because I was just like, I just want to talk to entrepreneurs and I just want to work with entrepreneurs because they are My favorite people on the planet, like, they're literally like my favorite people. So it wasn't really, like. I kind of look at it like this, actually. So from. From a philosophy, or not from a philosophy, but from, say, like, a motivation standpoint, like, my first business, or, uh, my first gym business was. Was, uh, focused on, uh, getting women in shape. So my mom had passed away when I was, like, 24 years old, and I had dedicated my life, uh, after that point when I started to own that gym, to doing whatever I can to get women healthy, because I want. I want moms to just be there as long as possible for their kids.

Speaker A: Sure.

Speaker B: Um, so my first. My first business was, like, dedicated towards my mom. I feel like this business is, like, dedicated towards my dad, uh, because he's the one that inspired me to go off, do my own thing, become an entrepreneur. Um, he's the one that kind of, like, set the example, and he's the one that brought us to a level where we could focus on this stuff where we didn't have to pay for rent and do all this kind of stuff. Like, we could make all the mistakes under his home kind of thing. And, uh, yeah, I feel like, because he was an entrepreneur, like, I'm dedicated. It's almost like a roundabout way of, like, dedicating my business towards, like, my dad. That's cool.

Speaker A: I love it. What, um, man, like, what do you think the biggest key to success is? Connecting with an audience that large?

Speaker B: I think the biggest thing is to focus on one person when, uh, you're making content. It's like, hey, guys. No, no, no, it's not hey, guys.

Speaker A: Not guys.

Speaker B: No, it's not guys. Uh, it's like, hey, I want to teach you something. And it's like, there is almost like we're intimate. I'm, like, in their space, and I'm talking to them as if I would talk to them in real life.

Speaker A: Yeah.

Speaker B: With a lot of, like. And I remember talking. Who was. I forgot I was talking to, but I remember I was telling, uh, someone that. Oh, yeah, it was, uh. It was, uh, this guy from Element, and. And I remember talking to him, and he's just like, I'm not the Jeff Nippers of the world. I'm not the Mike Israel. I'm not like the Thomas Delawares of the world. I'm actually the guy that takes the things that they say, the things like Peter Ratia says, and brings it down to a level where the average person who's not, like, a fitness freak is going to understand what um, that means. And that's talking to him. Like, it's not, I like to bring things, it's not bringing things down to their level, but explaining things in the way that they would actually see kind of like in a way that they can connect with. That's kind of like I feel like my superpower in a little bit. So like, maybe some guys are following me or whatever. But if you're like looking to get into like the fringe extremes of, of fitness and get to the nth levels of like body fat percentage and like all this kind of stuff, I'm probably not that guy for you. That's not the content I put out. But if you're looking to uh, change your body, create a behavior out of this, create a lifestyle of this and never have to worry about this ever again for the rest of your life because you are a high achieving individual. And also like high achieving individuals, like it's so funny because they have every part of your life that's like crushing.

Speaker A: Yeah.

Speaker B: And then there's a one part that just like isn't. They're like this. So it's just, just so frustrating for them. And I want to close that gap for them. Yeah. Yeah. I love that, man.

Speaker A: That's awesome.

Speaker B: Yeah.

Speaker A: Cool. I'd love to wrap up with a couple of rapid fire questions. Some of my favorite questions, um, and this one's fitness related specifically. Like, what's the one exercise that every entrepreneur should do?

Speaker B: Oh, gosh. Putting me on the spot. I'm gonna say this. Walking.

Speaker A: Yeah.

Speaker B: Mm. It's. Walking is literally like the most underrated exercise on the planet.

Speaker A: I agree. For what it's worth, I'm just curious if you think so.

Speaker B: Yeah, I'm um. It's just so funny because they, so many entrepreneurs just sleep on it because they feel like it's just like, what am I doing? I actually liken it back to like, okay, what, what do the greatest thinkers in the world do? They walk. They walk a lot. And then there, there is something to be said about the, the locomotion, the ability to jog your brain, the ability to gain energy, the ability to increase creativity. Uh, and also you don't have to like go out and actually get a walk. Like, like you can get a standing desk, you can get like a walking treadmill. That's actually a thing I use almost like every single day in my home. Especially as it gets colder in Canada.

Speaker C: Sure.

Speaker B: I uh, like after I'm done my day, I notice a significant difference between the amount of steps that I've had or the amount of steps I didn't do, and my levels of focus and energy for my family afterwards. If I get my 10, 000 steps, I'm like, okay, cool, let's go, we're getting out. Blah, blah, blah. If I got like 4,000, which is. Which is possible. If I get like 4,000 to 6,000, I'm just like, I'm on my phone, um, I'm trying to chase dopamine. It's a significant difference. And also the ability. The thing with entrepreneurs is their ability to create and decide. So it's like, why would you not do the physical activity that allows you to enhance your ability to create and decide which is going to be walking?

Speaker A: Yeah, I'm a firm believer in walking in my routine. I got a, I got a backpack with bricks in it by the door, a little bit of weight, you know, 20 pounds, nothing crazy. And I have, you know, two options. Either a route in the neighborhood or a trail that I'll go to and walk in the woods, which is what I prefer.

Speaker B: Yes.

Speaker A: And it's just, don't do it every day, but whenever I have the opportunity, let's get out there. And the thinking, he's like, you nailed it. It's just, it's such a beautiful way to think. And it's like additive training. It might not be the primary training, but it gets the steps. It gets. Gets a little bit of time outside, a little bit of the weather. And I just. The ideas that come out of the time I spend with my silly little backpack, you know, dropping a voice note about whatever I'm thinking about, it's just. It's the best thing in the world, man.

Speaker B: I will say this. There has never been a walk where I've come back feeling worse.

Speaker A: Yes, exactly right.

Speaker B: And also there's the, uh, added benefit of, like, every time I come back from a walk, I have an idea. Like I have an idea to a problem I'm trying to solve or an idea to enhance something that I'm already doing. I'm always coming back with something and then you do that. That compounds over the course of time. I'm just like, yeah, it's such a. It's such a good.

Speaker A: Yeah, yeah, I love it.

Speaker B: Low lift, too.

Speaker A: Yeah, yeah, totally. 100%. Um, cool. What's the. What's your most often gifted book?

Speaker B: It's a toss up between With Winning in Mind and Psycho Cybernetics.

Speaker A: So cool.

Speaker B: Psycho Cybernetics, uh, was, uh, done by Maxwell Maltz. Uh, he is Actually, a former, um, former, uh, plastic surgeon. And he would find that when he would completely change someone's face, one of two things would happen. They would actually be like, oh, my gosh, this looks amazing. Or they'd be like, I don't know what's changed, even though their nose is like a completely different size. And this is all because of the concept that we have in our minds of, like, how we look. And his whole book is about changing the concept of the mind, changing the self image, how we see ourselves. And then with winning in mind is by this guy named Landing Basham. And for me, this is the quintessential how to. How to change your mind in order to change your body. What is the system for your mind that is going to allow yourself to change any part of your life? So this guy was, uh, was the most unathletic Olympic gold medalist you will ever find in your life. And he was just like, his number one goal is like, I need to win a gold medal.

Speaker C: Okay.

Speaker B: I just don't know how. And then he actually found. He actually found a sport which is like, I think it was like rifle shooting. And then he ended up, uh, he ended up going through this entire mental training process to make himself the literal number one. Gold medal winning. Yeah, rifle shooting. Uh, champion. Olympic champion. Yeah.

Speaker A: That's awesome, man. Those are two good ones. I always love. This is so fun doing podcasts. I talk to interesting people. Like, I love hearing the book recommendations.

Speaker B: Oh, for sure, for sure. It's like, it is very much ensconced in, like, what. What they are like in and what they feel is, like, the biggest driver towards, like, that thing.

Speaker A: Yeah, 100%. That's cool. Um, all right, last one. Like, if you weren't doing this, what would you be doing?

Speaker B: I'd probably be doing something in the SAS. Uh, yeah, probably something in SaaS. Like, for me, it's always going to be about contribution. It's always going to be about help and helping as many human beings as possible. So it would probably be something as vast, ah. As like, SaaS, where I think, like, you come out with, like, one app that can change the course of someone's life. Yeah, it would probably be something like that, most likely.

Speaker A: That's cool. I love it. And there's a software component to what you do now, right?

Speaker B: There's a software component. But right now we're, uh, it's kind of like we're contracting that software.

Speaker C: Got it.

Speaker B: Uh, I am kind of looking. I'm in the beginning stages, wanting just to create something for myself, which is that thought body dashboard that I was talking about. Ah, yeah.

Speaker A: Cool. I love it, man. M. Well, where do we go to find more of you?

Speaker B: Go to Dango. Cool. That's where you find me. Or just like Google me on Google. Uh, Google my name and should be up a couple places.

Speaker A: Should be hard to find.

Speaker B: Shouldn't be hard to find.

Speaker A: Yeah, it's awesome, dude. Thanks for your time, man.

Speaker B: Thanks for having me.

Speaker A: Conversation. Yeah.

Speaker C: This podcast is brought to you by SaaS Academy, the coaching program for B2B SaaS founders who want to scale their businesses while creating more freedom in their lives. You can visit SaaS academy.com if you

Speaker A: want to learn more.

Speaker C: I'm Johnny Page, and your host for this episode was my good friend and buddy, Matt Burlach. A special thank you to our guest, Dan Go for sharing his experience and his story with us. This episode was produced by Nicole Bolu, Cooper Bernath, Devin Hommes and Chandler Jenkins. Hey, if you enjoyed this episode, can you do me a favor? Take a moment to subscribe and review us on your favorite podcast platform. Your feedback means the world to us, and honestly, it helps us reach more founders just like you. With that said, we'll see you next time on the SaaS Academy podcast.