#80 - Luka Hocevar on Coaching Excellence, Building Culture & Developing Character - Choose Hard with Cody McBroom

Episode Transcript
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(00:00):
Today's guest on the Choose Hardpodcast is the one and only Luca
Hosavar. Where do I begin?
Luca Hosavar is easily the most influential person in my life
when it comes to coaching. He is who took me out of the
college setting, provided me an internship and a mentorship, my
first coaching job. It helped me boom and start my

(00:22):
career. He's the guy that told me you
need to get on Instagram when Instagram first became an app.
So this dude was like a brother to me.
And we have recently connected once again after about 8 years
of life passing by. Really.
So today is one of many future episodes to come with Luca on
the podcast where we're going totalk about so many different

(00:43):
things. We're going to talk about our
history together. We're going to talk about who he
is as a strength and conditioning coach, one of the
most well known and successful gym owners in the entire
country, potentially world. He has coached everybody from
NFL superstars to pro NBA players.
He played pro ball in his lifetime as well, all the way to
different types of models and bodybuilding people and everyday

(01:05):
people at his gym on a regular basis and he still coaches
today. He prides himself on the core
value of coaching 1st and I think you're going to hear that
a lot in this podcast. He's a very passionate person.
He's an extremely intelligent person and he has a wealth of
knowledge through years and years and years of experience.
I believe he's been coaching for20 plus years, owning a gym for
about 20 years as well. I mean, the dude's got a crazy,

(01:27):
crazy resume, long list of stories, and so much value and
insights to provide any coach who decides to listen to this
podcast. So whether you are a coach, a
gym owner, a business owner, or just somebody trying to do more
with your life, I promise you this episode is going to hit you
hard. You're going to want to take
notes and it's going to help youtake leaps and bounds in your
life, in your career, and your personal development journey.

(01:49):
So without any further ado, let's talk to the one and only
Luka Hosovar. The greatest things in life all
start with. A challenge.
You must accept that everything is hard before it gets easy.
Every every, every everything you want in life.
Begins with a hard path. Begins with a hard path.
Begins with a hard path. Begins with a hard path.

(02:10):
This is dope because it's almostlike shocking that you've never
been on the podcast. To me, you know, it's weird and
it's it's cool too that I'm justtalking with you.
It's like nothing. I mean, everything has changed
but nothing has changed. You know, we kind of, we kind of
picked it back up. Yeah, so I want to, I want to
intro you kind of just based on what like where I was at in my

(02:31):
life when you came into my life and what that relationship was
and really pay you homage to everything you've done for me.
And I'm going to start by showing you because about I'm
making this eight-year video of eight-year business.
First of all, how did you let meon the podcast with that beard
bro? I remember that.
That was actually a good podcast.
That was that was a pretty good show, I would say.

(02:54):
The the beard is. How long was that phase?
Dude I too long then I'm lookingat look at this.
Wow. Dude that's at the old gym.
Wow. Crazy.
Dude, blast from the past. And then this.
Oh, the suit one. Yeah, I listen.
I I that's like an album cover. Yep, Yep.
I don't know what that was about.

(03:15):
I remember that one. It was dope.
That was dope. We did a few funny I.
Still have those save save theirgene.
Did those? We were at that warehouse
building. Yeah, so I'm pulling up all this
old stuff because man, it's cool.
And it's funny timing because I didn't plan on reaching out to
you because of this. But as I started mapping out

(03:36):
this like 8 year anniversary video, I can't tell my journey
without talking about you and vigor constantly because it's
such a big piece of it. And I'm just finding all this
old stuff. And then I started going on
YouTube and going back on yours like years.
I mean, I think I was like 8 years ago, nine years ago, maybe
even longer, 'cause I mean, the one of those I was pretty young

(03:57):
dude at the old gym. That's I don't have the date
screenshot of them there, but itI mean it was a long time ago.
So hold up, how many years ago did you leave 7 or 8?
It was October 2017, so it'll be. 8 so it'll be 8 yeah yeah. 8
And you were there for. 6/6 and 1/2 almost 7.
Yeah, 6 + 7, yeah, so. So like that's.

(04:18):
Like almost. I graduated high school at 17
years old, decided that I neededto lose weight, and I changed my
degree and all this stuff. And I was in Tim Vegan's class.
And Tim Vegan was well connected.
So Tim, he was the ogi mean. We had Charlie Weingroff, Greg
Cook, Alan Cosgrove. Yeah.

(04:38):
Mike Boyle, all these people coming in or doing it live.
Dan John was on Skype with us. And.
And then he would have people from Washington come in, too.
And it was like khakis and polo,khakis and polo, khakis and
polo, which for me at the time was disheartening, you know?
And then you come in and I thinkyou were wearing a Jordan sweat
suit and I think you got a matching hat actually too.

(05:00):
Big ass chain saying fuck every other word.
And I was just in shock. I'm 18 years old.
I'm in class and I'm like, what is going on?
But I started coming to charity boot camps just so I could pop
in, bro. I found a picture of me.
I went to interview for the internship at Vigor.
And you were the only person ever to wear a suit.

(05:21):
To wear a suit. Yeah.
It was excessive. Which is which?
Which which is typical, but good, Cody.
Yeah. But I think it was my dad.
I'll tell you what though, it's,it's like if you want to, for
example, if you want to hook on social media, you just did a
hook in real life, right? Like you just, I'm like, yo,
this this guy's rolling up at like, I mean basically like one

(05:42):
of those pictures. Yeah, right.
But very. Pro.
Very pro. I got the I got the internship
and that was the goal. But man, you I remember in the
internship telling you what I wanted to do.
And you're like, where do you want to go, like long term?
And I said, I wanted to run an online business and fitness
space. And you're like, OK, how are you

(06:03):
going to make money? And then I realized that I never
thought about that part yet, which is really immature.
But I said, I don't know, Jason Fruzia and Nate Green do it
somehow. And I know you knew them.
You still do. And you said, all right, work
here for five years straight, coach people in person, then you
have the right to be a coach online.
And obviously I took that to heart.

(06:24):
I worked there for over 6 and finally went online eventually.
But 6 1/2 years of being in thatenvironment at that age, I mean,
for everything in life, bro, there was times where I remember
being frustrated by my results. And then you, Hugh Akeem, you
guys went around how long you been training, how long you been
training? And I was like 3 years, I think

(06:47):
you were at the time going on, you know, 1315 years straight.
And it was just so many humblingmoments that I needed to have as
a kid. And man, I and the fact that I
have an encyclopedia of strengthand conditioning at my disposal
every day. You, you know what I mean?
Like it just, I got a credit card to go to seminars with you.

(07:08):
I remember I went to the, the Long Beach Performed Better
Summit. I had to get a credit card just
to afford to go 'cause I didn't have any money.
And then you were like, yeah, we're going to be going to like
bars and stuff to just network. I paid my brother to give me his
ID before I left so that I couldget into the bar.
Hey man, I I didn't know anything about this.
Luca knew nothing about it. Just so I could be in the

(07:31):
environment, 'cause I was like, I want to, I don't want to miss
anything, you know? But it's dude, it's just, it's
been so crazy. Just look back and just think
about how much you know. And so I'm saying all that to
say, just one, hype you up for the people listening 'cause I
owe so much to you. You changed my life, man.
And it's, it's been wild. And it made me also realize how
much, how many coaches expect tobe great and have big businesses

(07:56):
or, or have a lot of influence, but they don't do the right shit
to get there. And I think there's nobody
better to talk to about that, which is what I really want to
talk about today, especially with you guys doing so much with
built to last, how successful vigor has become.
And I think people desperately need to hear that nowadays,
especially my generation and andcoaches younger than me, you.
Know, I mean, first of all, man,I appreciate it, appreciate

(08:17):
having your show. Like this is definitely a, a
very, very kind of good reconnect and, and talking about
this. And you know, when you, when
you, when you kind of said like the journey in a short man, it's
such an example of, you know, I'm not using an example for
anybody to kind of like, I want to be an online coach, right?
It might be, I will honestly like say the same thing that I

(08:40):
said to you, you know, like fiveyears or to even earn it.
We can dive, dive deep into that.
But I, you know, I also want to talk about challenges.
Like I don't want to, you know what I'm saying?
Like I, I think it's very important to, in any industry,
talk about the transparency of the hard shit, right?
I mean, damn, it's a choose car,choose hard podcast.
But, but no, seriously, you know, I've been in business now.

(09:02):
I mean, Slovenia vigor is going to be 19 1/2.
That's crazy vigor. Seattle is going to be 17 in
October. That's a really long time,
right? It's like very few businesses
make it that long. But I can tell you a whole bunch
of challenging things in that time, you know, and external
economies and COVID and recessions and all that stuff
like, but then internal, you know, where you live and you

(09:24):
learn, you grow and you make mistakes and you choose the
wrong things and all that stuff,right?
Like, I think those are very hard, I mean, very hard, but
very important conversations because I see a lot of this
stuff where today people run into a challenge and it's almost
like they're so shook. It's like, Oh my God, like this,
I guess this is not for me. And it's like, whoa, whoa, hold

(09:45):
up. Everywhere you go, anywhere you
want to achieve anything, you'regoing to run into really hard
things. And I I think that part of
guidance and mentorship. I mean, should we have so many,
you know, tough conversations while you were a figure, right?
I mean, I remember some of them,but it were some of it was like
financials, one O 1, you know, taxes and like I mean you, you

(10:06):
name it, right, like. I remember the tax one.
Oh yeah, it was that was that. But again, like all those, you
know, I would say conversations kind of teach you about the the
real shit in the world, right? Like, but to I I, I don't know
if you've talked about this, butlike, you know, you put in like

(10:27):
a shit 10 hours, right? Like when I look back at all the
coaches over the last 17 years, I mean, you were, you were
putting in, I don't know, man, I, I have like memory of, of, of
numbers quite a bit. But you know, you were doing 60,
you know, plus semi private sessions per week at peak, you
know, even 70, right? Like, so you really were like
training a lot of people. And you know, part of that

(10:49):
process, one of the things you didn't mention like, and we
trained a lot together. You know what I mean?
Like the the you with me, you with the crew, US giving you
shit, like a lot of shit. Oh yeah, but but it.
Was Cody MC Littleback you remember?
That Kobe MC Littleback, you gave me this for at least about
a year. Well, I bought a pull up bar for
my house 'cause I was like, all right, he's already got me on a
back specialization program, butnow I got to do, I think you had

(11:12):
me doing like a certain amount of pull ups every time I walked
in out of my room. Just a stupid amount of back
volume. But I it's, it's crazy, man,
because I think that I was telling one of my lifting
buddies the other day a story from when we trained in the gym,
'cause he's a police officer. And every once in a while I'll
see him looking in the parking lot, 'cause he sees somebody

(11:33):
shady. And you can tell he's just kind
of like watching to see. And I was laughing and I was
like, man, I'll never forget, 'cause I was telling this is
just a couple weeks ago and I was like, I got Luca coming in.
I'll never forget. Yeah, this was early too.
So I didn't like I knew you and like eventually you became like
a Big Brother to me. You had to have a lot of
conversations that I didn't havean older brother telling me

(11:54):
because he wasn't there telling me those things or hasn't
learned those things yet or my dad wasn't teaching me.
And you were like the taxes and the finances and these kind of
things. But there was this night we were
we used to train at like 10:00 PM bro.
And every once when we go to 13 coins 24 hour restaurant like
midnight and this homeless guy walked in the back door at the
old vigor and started like grabbing a kettlebell and was

(12:16):
like kind of swinging around. And I remember you like
respectfully being like, hey, you got to you got to go like
you can't be in here. And it was late.
It was like 11:00 PM. So it was kind of like a weird
kind of eerie feeling. I mean, it was, it was, it was
100%. Also, this person was on
substance. Oh for sure, for sure.
And he said something and I, I knew that's where it was like

(12:37):
going to get back, 'cause he said something to you and you
walked up and head butted this dude.
And he immediately just got the lights like just turned on.
And I remember him just instantly like being polite and
respectful. And you kind of just like walked
him out the door, 'cause you just, dude, you've rocked his
world. And he was just like, holy shit,
OK, I remember I shouldn't be here.
I was for 10 minutes. I was very nice, by the way.

(12:59):
Yeah, we was like, he was you. You.
Hakeem had to have been there. He must have been there.
I like it was a bunch of us and I, I was trying to be respectful
and nice to the guy because, youknow, it's like, hey, listen
man, it's private gym. And it's like he was hanging
around doing crazy stuff. Then he went into my office.
Oh yeah. I was like, hey, man, like you.
I was like, you have to go. And I came up to him and I was

(13:19):
like, you got to leave. And then he's laughed at me and
said no. And like mid sentence no,
between N&O, the head butt had to come.
Now, listen, I, I, I, I think about like myself back then,
right? My my emotional regulation was
not at the level that it is today whatsoever.
But still pretty good honestly. I.
Yeah, I didn't do anything afterthat.
I think he got the message and and he locked himself in the

(13:41):
bathroom for a while and then jetted on the funeral I forgot
about. That.
Too, It was a very, it was a very interesting, well, that
location that we were in, there was a bunch of like incidences
and stories that I have from it because it was situated in an
interesting part of town, let's just say, especially back then.
Street ball across the street would cause fights and.

(14:03):
Then we have Dollar Tree next door.
We have a laundromat. Like we have homeless sleeping
in front of the gym. And it's like, by the way, gym
was cool, but there was just like times where things got like
a little spicy. I had to escort a couple people
out, you know, sometimes nicely,sometimes not so nicely.
But it was the atmosphere, like you said, you know, it was one
of those times where like everybody like wanted to be

(14:25):
there, right? Like you wanted to be there.
It was like a long day. We coached.
But it's like, yes, now we get the train and it's 8 PM, 9:00
PM. And, you know, I think there's a
lot of lessons there. I think that I think the thing
that we're losing today, and I'mnot saying it's not happening.
I'm saying it's happening significantly less.
And this is what I encourage people to do a ton, right?
It's like there's absolutely nothing that can give you the

(14:49):
experience and the learning wisdom from being around people
doing it. And what I'm talking about like
look, I love courses. I love that I can sign up for
something online, learn it in myown time.
I think those are great things. But go spend, you know, I don't
know, like 3 days with fill in the blank like Stu McMillan and
Dan Path at Altus, you know, teaching speed stuff, right?

(15:09):
Like, and I've, I've been aroundlike Stew a bunch and I can give
a million examples of being around people where it's like
you're, you're seeing it, you'reasking question, you're getting
feedback loops. You do it, they watch you do it.
You know, like you can, you can see and feel the intensity.
You can see the coaching queues.You can go like, I didn't see
what you saw. Like can you explain what you
saw? And maybe it's going to take you

(15:30):
100 reps, right? But you cannot get any of that
through reading a book and through going through an online
course, you know what I mean? Like like nowhere near that,
that level, let alone if it's like, all right, Cody, now you
go do it. Right now you're doing it.
And it's like, I'm coaching you up and you're like, man, I and
I'm giving you a different deal.I'm different drills, sort of

(15:51):
feedback loops are so much faster that in like 2 days or
three days of, you know, 18 hours in those three days,
that's equivalent to I don't even know what right?
And, and in that time, I think that, you know, everybody that
was there was like, hey, we got,you know, I mean, we still to
this day seminars and staff certifications from the best in
the world, right? They come in, but it was like we

(16:11):
were doing it as a team. And then you're coaching
together, like training with each other for the rest of the
week, already applying the stuff, right?
Like how you can't beat that, you know, I mean, like you just
can't beat that because you havethis visceral experience of what
it feels like. And you know, even the even the
stuff of like, I, I think a lot of people are like, and let's

(16:33):
call it in coaching or in training.
They believe that they may be like they're 8 or 9 out of 10 in
effort, right? Then you get around people that
like, oh, shit, like I'm A5, youknow what I mean?
Like I got to bring this up or I'm in, I'm a 9.5 in knowledge
in this sector, right? And then you go somewhere and
you're like, shit, like I don't man.
Like these guys are like top notch, you know, So I think
that's a good thing, you know, and I, I remember the times

(16:56):
where that fear or, you know, kind of like, oh man, I'm
embarrassed. I don't know as much or
whatever. Once you get over the hump and
you kind of go like, no, no, no,no, this is, this is what you
want. You want to put yourself in
these places where, where somebody in, you know, if it's
nutrition, like, man, this person's way better than me,
right? Like if it's speed training, oh
man, somebody's way better than me.

(17:16):
And I've been coaching for 21 years.
I feel, I know the most I've ever known.
I feel the dumbest I've ever felt, you know, and it's like
I'm still learning. And I say this to say that it's
a way of life and like that period of time, I think, you
know, what made you great at like the online space is that
like, man, you coach so many sessions that like you
understood it, right? Like, I mean, you knew your

(17:38):
shit, like you, you know, you were always studying and
learning. And obviously we had a great, I
say learning environment and vigor, but but it's like when
you have that much experience, when you're coaching somebody
online, your pool of experience is so different, right?
And to this day, I think that that is so critically important
that it, it, it again, it just has to happen more, by the way,

(18:00):
which is why I push, you know, Iwas telling you like more live
events, more live events, more live events, right?
Like, because not, not only fromthe standpoint of like, hey,
this is good for business. I think it's, this is good for
helping other people be better at what they do connection,
which we talked about a lot, right?
Like that. There's just nothing like, you
know, getting around people and being competitive, you know,

(18:22):
like positively competitive and,and you just can't, I mean,
look, you can recreate things online.
Don't get me wrong, Like I do a lot of stuff online.
I love it. But I, I still think the, the
meat and potatoes, you know, proverbially is, is definitely
in person still to this day. And I, you know, I'll die on
that hill. Yeah, I agree.
I I mean like and this come fromsomebody who runs a solely an
online business. 100% agree. I think that there's the the

(18:47):
tactical side of how am I supposed to write a program if I
don't even know how to write thecues or film myself giving the
right cues? Because there's a million cues.
And sometimes you throw out likeyour three best that you think
you're going to click and it's going to get them to put
themselves in the right positionand it's not clicking.
And you throw something random out and it clicks.
And it's like you have to have experience doing that in order
to know to do that in an online setting like that is.

(19:09):
It's not even recreating. It's trying to figure out the
best way to transfer what you doin person into an online setting
'cause it's just not the same. Absolutely.
You know, and like think about it.
Let's do like, I like, I like scenarios, right 'cause it's
like real world, somebody can envision it.
You get a client and you know, whether you did an assessment,
you didn't do assessment or somebody comes to your group,
right, which now you couldn't have done a thorough assessment

(19:32):
or it's a drop, like it's a referral drop in right?
And you're like, oh, OK, cool. Like I'm just going to have them
do a goblet squat and you know, they do the squat and you're
like, whoa, they're about to fall in their ass.
OK, cool, I'm going to give themthe wedge.
Actually, I can't like let's give them.
Maybe it's ATRX. What if I just put them on a
pendulum, right? Like you can in real time, like

(19:53):
make shifts to like, how does that feel?
Oh, that feels great. Awesome.
Let's go with this one, right. But if I program and I and even
I do an assessment and you writethis stuff out and then you
start doing and you're like, oh,hold on.
I'm seeing something I'm going to coach and I'm going to cue
it. OK, I can't fix it.
Different variation, better fit,right?
And this is all happening, you know, when when you're a great

(20:15):
coach, this is all happening fast, I mean minutes, right?
Like and not making this other person feel like they can't do
shit. That's not the goal.
Where it's like, so the feedbackloops are faster.
You're able to, you know, again,if you have the coach's eye and
you have the knowledge, make these shifts and like make the
person feel comfortable, feel like they're succeeding, right?
So competence is there and they're like, man, like I'm not

(20:35):
hurting, I'm getting better. This person's encouraging.
I'm not feeling like I'm a failure at these drills.
And all of that's happening fast.
Where is a lot of times, first of all, online, like how many
iterations would have to happen for, you know, it's, it's like
they do a drill, something feelsa little off, but then they're
like, OK, I'm going to video myself, send it back to you.
By the way, like I, I want to make sure that this is this is

(20:57):
just reality checks. This is not shit talking.
This is just like anybody that'sdone in person and online will
know the differences, right? Like and if you're, and if
you're, what I think is if you're great online, you and and
you were doing in person coaching, you become better at
going. Like how do I bridge and and
create a faster feedback loop? How do I prepare people for like
to understand, you know, what a better regression or

(21:18):
lateralization is like that's all like real world, but man, I
how much stuff do you like? How many times do you fail but
not even know when you're when you're doing this online if you
haven't been coaching? People in person, right?
Like that's it. It, it's, it's like the person's
doing the stuff, they might be doing it wrong.
You don't know, because you're not watching them the whole
time. You can't make a quick switch.

(21:40):
Hey, what else do you have available in the gym, right?
Like, oh, we got this, we got this.
Oh, just go with the hack, right?
Like, and, and, and you just can't do that same thing.
And that's why to me, like all those reps, you know, of
deliberate practice, I think prepare you to be much better.
On my well and then, you know, Ithink that there's certain

(22:02):
principles and systems you can put in place that eventually
like after putting the reps online, it's like, OK, we're
going to keep running into this thing.
So now there's a onboarding checklist of like what is your
training environment? What is available?
If you can't use this cause somebody's on it, what is the
next like? You have to educate the people.
There's also why we've had people come to us that are brand
new to lifting. We're like, hey, you got to go

(22:22):
see a personal trainer. We can do your nutrition.
That's why a majority of our clients are nutrition clients.
But we know if you're brand new to movement in the like, I'm not
loading you up on anything, right?
So I think that we're, we're cautious of that.
We know better and we're not going to try to like beat around
the Bush. It's like, hey, you need an
expert to help you in person. And that's even even with

(22:42):
nutrition. Like if you're not a people,
like you can't be a good trainer.
If you're not a people person like you, you got to like
people. But the more and more I've done
this on the nutrition front, themore and more I realized it's
psychology, you know? Give me a bodybuilder, bro.
I have. I've had so many competitors win
their shows, even like first time competitors because they're
a robot. Yeah, it's easy.
It's easy, but that's not the vast majority.

(23:05):
Of people, yeah, the vast majority of people don't have
the motivation all the time. They don't understand discipline
and self-control in the right balanced.
Like you have to teach them that.
And that's a psychological skillthat you develop working with
people. You know what I mean?
It's not just macros. Oh my, I, I would say it's more
like, listen, first I want to say two things 'cause I don't
want to forget about this caveat, right?

(23:26):
Let's flip, let's let's flip thecoin here.
Also, most Co in person coaches should do more of what like an
online nutrition coach is doing to help their clients better
succeed, right? Because there's, there's both
sides of the coin, right? Like where it's like, hey, are
you providing a recipe book, a nutrition guide, if this than

(23:48):
that, like educational videos, kitchen makeover video, you
know, go on and on and like feedback loops, accountability,
using softwares. Because hey, do I talk to my
clients about nutrition? Absolutely.
You know, and I think when they see you a lot in the gym, it's
good because you can always kindof, you know, touch in touch.
But The thing is you're here to train.
I'm going to spend vast majorityof time training and then you

(24:09):
got all this time that I don't see you where shit goes wrong
with the nutrition side. So there is like, think about I,
I would go like this, right? If you're going to be an online
coach, a lot of time, a lot of reps in person with nutrition, I
would be like, Hey, what are thebest online nutrition coaches
doing right? Like, and I've spent a lot of

(24:29):
time, you know, all the PMI meanevery level cert that you got
like a Brad Dieter, a good, goodfriend of mine too, like they're
launching macro zinc. They're doing a course, right?
Like they have a big nutrition coaching business.
Like you kill it. Like, man, everybody should be
studying what you're doing, right?
Like by the way, you do you do have some resources for them,
right? Yeah, absolutely.

(24:49):
Yeah. But we'll put a link in there.
But but you know, I'm, I'm like,Hey, you got to kind of live in
both worlds because the reality is if it, it's 2025, you know,
and I was telling this to my team and I think no, also on our
built to last call and I said, guys like, look, it's 2025.
Like, if you're not helping yourpeople with nutrition, like,
what the fuck are we doing? You know what I mean?
Like you, you can't expect to get people, you know, healthier,

(25:12):
leaner, stronger, improve their performance and just kind of go
like, you know, eat better, eat like you, you have to help them
take the next step. So that that's the first thing
that I wanted to to bring up. The second is the longer that
I've gone in this game, I'm sureyou've realized this too.
Is that like you really need to understand behavior change,

(25:32):
change psychology, right? Like in, and I think it was
Berardi probably 10 years ago. You know, it was like we're in
an event together and hanging out and he's speaking and he's
like, hey, like, you know, in five years, if you're not
understanding nutrition as a coach, you're going to be a
relic, which I agree, right? And I was at an event probably
five years ago speaking and I said, if you don't study change,

(25:55):
psychology and behavior change, in five years, you're going to
be a relic. And I think that maybe that was
aggressive. But like, my point being is just
like, if you don't understand how to help people change, and
that's again, that's a whole science, right?
You're not going to be good at this stuff.
Because the truth is, is that like for most of our clients, if
you got them to eat less calories, and there's different

(26:17):
ways you can do that, right? Because it's like, oh, if they
eat more home, home processed food and if they eat more
protein and if they drink more water, they'd probably already
be there, right? How do we get them to do that
right? And how does each individual
with their lifestyle, their preferences, their struggles,
their obstacles, how do we lay out the next step, not all the
steps, the next step to where they have a belief that they can

(26:40):
do it right? And that's very different.
I could tell you something. You'd be like, yeah, no problem.
Macros. Here you go.
You give it to Susie Sue and it's like, Oh my God, like I'm
getting trigger just looking at these numbers and like, oh, my,
right. And it's like it's going to be
different. And I think studying this
learning about this is, is critical.
You know where where I think my first phase, and sure, yours too

(27:02):
was, but like my first phase of kind of learning an industry was
just like everything training. You know what I mean?
It's just like everything training.
And it would continue to be training, but then it was like
nutrition, everything nutrition.Then it was like, oh shit, like
we got to understand people and psychology and neurology and
environments, like, you know, and how all that plays together.
You've probably heard of this term biophysiosocial, right?

(27:25):
Like you can't untether that stuff.
Biological, physiological, social like in sorry,
psychological and social like meaning it's like mindset plays
a factor. Like I could be, you know, one
day I can eat my meal plan to the tea, right?
Another day I'm stressed the hell out.
Like, you know, I got to take my, my dog to, to hospital.

(27:46):
It's going to be very different,right, Because it's like I'm
stressed out of my mind. I'm not good at emotional
regulation. And this is what we're
essentially coaching, right? And, and so I mean, look, I, I
know. What has your experience been
with that on, you know, on the side of like piece of the pie?
How much do you think that's important when it comes to it's?
The biggest part? Honestly, it's why, honestly,

(28:08):
it's why we're great at what we do it because I realized that
and we started emphasizing it more with our coaches.
Because the reality is, is that,you know, training, you're gonna
have this endorphin release. You're gonna have hopefully have
fun during it. Most people do.
You're definitely gonna feel better afterwards.
You don't have fun during meal prep.
You don't feel great afterwards.There's no endorphins released.

(28:28):
Like it's one of those things where time has to pass of
consistently doing it and then you reap the reward and you're
down 10 lbs and you go, ah, it'sworth it now let me keep doing
it. But like, how do we get them to
get to that 10 lbs first? We call it self formation is
like our process. So we talk about developing
self-control, which helps you create self-discipline.
Eventually you start to see results and that creates self

(28:50):
belief, which eventually turns into self respect.
And once you have self respect, you just treat yourself better
according to who you want to become and who you're trying to
continue becoming. And when we lay this out in the
whole like, journey of a fat loss phase, it just, it
resonates with people so much more because it factors in this
exact thing you're talking about.
And yeah, sometimes calories andmacros are the thing.
Sometimes they're not. But like, I, I don't know, never

(29:11):
forget you specifically because I grabbed on this word.
You told me I got to learn how to be a chameleon because I was
in the gym and I'd be training a70 year old diabetic male and
then a 53 year old woman who wants to lose weight.
And then you have these youth basketball players coming in for
me to train. Oh, and then the high school
volleyball team's coming in, I got to train them.
And then I'm back to training this dude who's in his 60s that

(29:32):
wants to lose weight. Like I have to be able to relate
and change and figure out what their problem is.
And that is again, a reason why in person training's so
valuable, you know, 'cause you learn how to really be a people
person, which this kind of actually like relates to one of
the things I wanted to ask you today, 'cause I think when I was
thinking about this podcast, I'mlike, what I want a lot of the

(29:52):
coaches listening to get out of it is just a like a piece of the
mentorship that I got and just learn the big bullets from you
of how they can bring out the most in them.
Because it really is like, I mean, man, it's such a blessing
to like the scenario of situations that happened when I
look back at it, the people I met and then getting in front of

(30:13):
you and then going through that process and some of it as your
point in business especially, it's challenging, it's hard, but
it's funny 'cause now you look back at anything like that and
you're like, I wouldn't change for the world.
You know, it happened that way for a reason.
You never think about that on the front end, which you should
like. Eventually I'll think I'm glad
it happened this way. But anyway, with regards to

(30:35):
mentorship and all that stuff, one of the things I find in
great leaders is they're able tosee something in somebody, but
not just see something in them. They're actually able to help
bring it out of them. And I couldn't help, you know,
I'm part way joking and this is obviously biased to me.
I couldn't help but think like, what the fuck, dude?
What did you see in me 'cause some of these videos I've been
pulling up, bro, I'm just like, dude, this is it's like cringe

(30:55):
worthy, right? But I know you agree with that,
but I, I guess I'm curious of like how you feel you pull that
out of people 'cause you are great with that and you're able
to see something in somebody whois an 18 year old knucklehead
who wants to get in the industry.
Obviously there's something thatyou saw that was like, OK, he's
got potential. But you're, you were able to
foster that in me. And I know you've foster that in

(31:16):
many other people that you've coached.
And that could be people in the gym just trying to get stronger,
play better in, in the NFL or NBA or wherever they're playing.
Or it's a lady that just needs to lose weight and be a better
mom. Or it's the coach, the business
owner, like you've coached so many people.
How do you think you're able to do that?
Like is it just something that'sin you?

(31:37):
Like, do you have like, have youlearned about that over time of
like being able to lead people better in that way?
I mean, I think a little bit foresight 2020, I don't know if
I could answer that question 10 years ago or, you know, or maybe
it'd be a different answer. But I, I look back, I've had a
lot of revelations, I would say,since, I mean, the last couple
years, having a kid, losing parents, like all that stuff.

(31:57):
And I, you know, I was the underdog as a kid growing up.
I mean, first of all, it's like,you know, you look at me, I'm
like, not basketball player high.
So it was like always, I always had to work harder.
And there was, you know, a number of people in my life.
It was always like, man, I love how hard you work, but like,
you're never going to make it. I mean, you know, directly to my
face. And then there was 1 coach that
really believed, right? So I always thought about like,

(32:20):
man, like that person's belief changed the way that I operated,
right? Like you needed that one person.
And then I remember a good friend of mine now, but like a
mentor early on in, in industry with Alan Cosgrove.
And you know, he was, he told the story of one of the
seminars. I mean, it's like got to be 17
years ago, something like that. And he was telling the story of

(32:40):
two teachers in his life, you know, like 1 teacher at school.
And I might be fucking up the story like exactly.
But it, this teacher was like, you know, like that.
Listen, that's why you'll never be good at this stuff, right?
It was basically instilling thislike, Hey, you don't you're not
good at this stuff and you'll never be good at this stuff.
And then his, you know, Taekwondo teacher that was like,
hey, like, like you can be great.

(33:01):
Like you got to put in the work.But I believe like you can be
right if you put in the work. And he said, when I became a
coach is like, who do I want to be?
You know, I mean, because it's like one person is like
uplifting somebody else. And I remember that story.
I remember Boris was a coach, mybasketball coach, you know, same
thing. I was like, who do you want to
be for somebody else? You know, because there was
significantly more people that were just like, not mean, you

(33:25):
know, it's not like consciously they're trying to chop you down.
But it's one of those, I don't know, I, I think people
sometimes project, you know, their own kind of insecurities
and whatnot. Or it's kind of like they try to
protect you. Maybe, you know, like, hey, it's
OK. Like, you know, you're just not
going to make it, you know, don't you know, cynicism, right?
Like they like they failed. So maybe they're cynical and
they're trying to protect you, but I think that was a big

(33:48):
thing. And I always thought about that
and I thought about like another, you know, another
person that's become like like family to me is Martin Rooney,
which you've, you know, been around a lot of.
But but I, I remember and I promise you I'll connect the
dots here. But Martin, when I was studying
like all the Parisi speed schoolstuff and I was like, you know,
all the DV DS going through it and I and I'd always talk to him

(34:10):
like, man, what are you? I watch the DV DS.
But like, what do you guys do? Why you always have the fastest
guys, you know, and he's like, let me tell you the secret.
You know, true Martin Rooney fashion with the story.
And but he was like, I believed in these guys and like every day
I would just keep saying it to where they started believing,
but the believing made them go to sleep earlier, made them eat
better because they're like, well, shit, Martin believes that

(34:31):
can be the fastest. So they do the little things
that would make them then achieve the thing right.
And, and I think part of our jobas coaches is, you know, to
believe in others, like more than they believe in themselves.
I, I personally and you, you've coached clients, most people to
come see us, right? Like it's not like they come in
like, man, I can do anything. Usually they're like, man, I'm

(34:54):
struggling like no matter what Ido and life and this that the
other right. So I think that's part of it.
And, and, you know, specificallyfor you, I saw probably a lot of
you and me meaning like you werehungry, you know, and I, I, to
this day, you know, somebody asked me, I said, how, why are
you still like this? You know, like you're, you're so

(35:15):
far into this game, like you're always reading, you're always
studying. It's like, and I'm like, well,
it's like a couple of things that I think are values.
You never should lose curiosity.You lose curiosity.
I think it's game over. You know, you're just like, Nah,
I'm not interested in things anymore, you know, like, I think
that's game over. But then a hunger, you know, and
I think the hunger can change. Like I, you know, what am I

(35:36):
hungry for? I think I've, I've had a lot of,
I would say mirror sessions withmy ego, not saying I don't have
an ego. I think egos can be healthy, you
know, at least to a certain degree.
But I've also, you know, I've, I've been, I've been taught
things the hard way and through pain and, and my point to that
is, is it like I'm still hungry?But like, what is that hunger

(35:59):
driving my purpose may be a little bit different, right?
Cuz there's family and, you know, as corny as some to some
people legacy, maybe to me it's like family legacy, but what am
I leaving behind? And, you know, and, and I think
the other thing too is like whenyou lose the hunger, same thing,
it becomes difficult, you know what I mean?
And like, but, but you had the hunger.
That's, that's for damn sure to,you know, and it's like, I, I

(36:21):
just think you needed to be guided and molded.
And by the way, like back then, there's a lot of things in, in
blind spots. I had, you know, so it's like I
was coaching and mentoring and guiding the best that I could
with the person that I was right.
But I, I think that, you know, in and of itself, I, I almost
always look at people as underdogs and then go like, how

(36:42):
can I make this underdog the champion, but always keep that
underdog mentality, right? Like in, in, I mean, think about
this, everybody can get better. You know, at this point in time,
I've been fortunate enough to train, you know, signing award
winners before they were signingaward winners and Super Bowl
champions and people that have insane, insane, you know,
contracts and whatnot. Like, and I still take that

(37:04):
approach where my belief is thatthey can be better, right?
Like, not because they're not great, but it's just like,
that's my, I mean, look, I'm going to make you believe you
can be better because hey, nutrition still not on point, by
the way, like you could be doingthis, this and that.
Like, let's turn these things around.
And it's the same thing for coaches.
Like I've never in my life had acoach coming to the gym and I'm
like, man, there's nothing that you can do to be better.

(37:27):
You know, like you're like you've, you've reached your
peak, like the there's nothing for you here at vigor.
It's it's usually the opposite, right?
Like, and, and I would say a lotof times the challenge becomes
is like, if I believe in you more than you believe in
yourself and you, and that continues to happen for a long
period of time, because that's going to be a problem, right?
And what I mean by a problem is just like, I cannot put in the

(37:50):
work for you, right? And and sometimes also, you
know, it's like if you tell me you want XYZ, I mean, you were
very clear from the get go. I would say that was probably
it's it's more unique, right, That you're like, man, I want to
do this. But then like, I was like, well,
to do that, Cody, here's what's required, right?
It's like somebody comes in like, hey, man, like I want to

(38:12):
make, you know, throw out whatever number XYZ money a
year. I want to make.
I want to work 20 hours a week, but make this much.
I'm like, that's possible, but here's the path, right?
Like you're going to have to do this and this and this and this.
And if you're like, well, I don't want to do that, then
there's a problem, right? And sometimes there's an
argument of, of, well, I, you know, I think I can achieve

(38:34):
this. Like there's somebody that's
achieved it. But if you look at people that
have been in the game for a really long time, right?
You're going to get not everything they say is going to
be the same, but man, like 80 percent, 85% of stuff is going
to be that, that that lining that like everybody tells you
what to do, you know, and you goto Don Saldino and the Mark
Magnus of the world or Martins or, you know, and it's going to
be like, Oh shit, they're all saying the same thing, like, Oh,

(38:55):
Lucas, same, the same thing. There's something there.
You know, I'm not trying to bamboozle you.
I'm like, I'm trying to help you, like achieve the thing and
also come to terms with what it takes.
You know what I mean? Like, I mean, because one thing
I'll say is like, you know, you bust your ass, you put in hours,
like that's for damn sure, right.
And even even like again, when you, when you were, I would say

(39:16):
coaching the most hours a figure, you started writing your
own blog, right? Like that was a lot of time,
right? You started doing all these
other things that require a lot of time.
So now all of a sudden you're working a lot of hours, but you
know where you want to go. And it was like, hey, dude,
these are the things you got to do, right?
Like, I mean, like maybe a bad example, but if somebody goes,

(39:39):
listen, I want to create a company that flies ships into,
you know, space and on Mars, andthen I want to do this and do
that. And, you know, Elon Musk or
whatever be like, yeah, the requirement is like, you
probably don't sleep. And most people like, I don't
want to do that. I get it.
But you know, there's a requirement for every single
thing. Like if you how if, for example,

(40:00):
if you've coached, you know, 1000 sessions, right?
Like and and let's let's let's say that both people did.
We're put in focused effort, deliberate practice, right?
But one person did 1000, the other person to 10,000, you
know, and each one of them triedto get better as they were doing
those thousand sessions. Like who would you take?

(40:20):
I mean, you take the person with10,000 sessions, right there
more experience. They've probably had more
feedback loops. They've they've gotten better
and better little by little. They're they're just and it's
compounded. So I wouldn't even say they're
10 times better. Maybe maybe they're 20 times
better, right. The only thing that the other
caveat I would say though, is that I sometimes am afraid in
industry is when somebody goes like, I've been doing this for

(40:43):
seven years, right? And if you have not achieved a
certain level, it makes me go like, well, maybe you've been
repeating a lot of mistakes, right?
Like, because that's the other part, like just because you
know, and I would say that this,this should be encouraging for
anybody getting into the industry.
Is that like, and the reason whyyou want to be around people
that are excellent at what they do is because you can mirror and

(41:06):
copy the shit out of them, right?
Like in, I can't remember who, who told me this story that we
had in for a seminar. I think it was Kyle from
compound, but it, he was, he waslike, man, I went to equinox.
I was like, who's the number one, one and two in the company,
right? Like in that location.
And it's like, I just followed them every day.
What did they do different? Right?

(41:28):
I was like, and then I did that for two years and I became the
number one, right? And it was a lot like, you know,
it's like, Hey, they were coaching at 5-6 and you know,
they, they trained at lunch and they would go to a 7.
And I did that for two years andI learned a lot and they put him
in this position and so on and so forth, right.
So you can be fresh. And I think when you're fresh, I
think it's even more important that you are for years in in a

(41:50):
positioned to learn from like high standard, right, Because
you could go into a shitty standard and you're there for
five years and you've just picked up like a lot of really
bad habits. And well, I've been doing this
for five years. I'm like, well, why don't you
have a full roster? Why don't you have like low
attrition? You know what?
And The thing is, and I'm not being mean, like I, I, I think
the, these are the hard conversations that need to be

(42:12):
had, you know, to where you facereality and then you decide
like, OK, cool. Am I going to change that?
Or is like, am I going to be oblivious and continue trying to
doing the same thing that I have, you know, and, and I think
that that's where the mentorshipside comes into play.
And I, I love, you know, for basketball for me, you know,
I'll put myself around like the best, you know, I mean, I was,
you know, my, my generation was,I mean, Goran Draghi is just

(42:36):
retired. But like, you know, being like
these, like these guys were NBA champions, right?
Like, and I played against them.So you know, like this is an
incredibly high standard and you'd very quickly go like, I
got to do more to even get closeto this, right?
And I think that's good. Like the sooner that you can go
like, well, what's this really high standard that I want to
kind of, you know, get up to thebetter because nothing worse

(42:58):
than like low standard, you achieve it, you think you're the
shit. And it's like, you did that for
five years. You got to undo stuff.
You know what I mean? Like.
That also teaches you too. To your point, if your
expectation is really high, but your commitment is really low,
you're not going to get there. So if you would have told me,
well, you got to do this for at least five years and I would
have been like, I wouldn't have gotten here.

(43:20):
You know, it. It's the fact that I was like,
OK, does that mean you hired me?Can I, can I start like, 'cause
I want to start moving towards that thing that it doesn't
matter how long it takes, 'causeit it.
That's the other thing too, is experience is different than
time. You spend five years of bad
habits. That doesn't mean you have five
years experience. You know, that means you just
spent five years doing the wrongstuff and the environment to me,

(43:43):
because man, I like this. This kind of drives me nuts in
the industry too, is like I see it with the type of people that
put they'll like put call to actions out and they're like,
I'm looking for five highly committed individuals who are
already self motivated needing to lose 2030 lbs.
I'm like, if they were committedand motivated, they wouldn't
need to lose 2030 lbs. If you're a good coach, you can

(44:03):
teach them how to become more self motivated and committed,
right? It drives me nuts, but I think
the environment you're in allowsyou to see stuff like that and
know that it's not the way to go.
It allows you to be around people.
I mean, you've been here for a couple hours already bought a
book. I'm probably going to buy
another one by the time we get done talking because I picked up
that habit from you. I'd watch you talking to

(44:25):
somebody, somebody named drops abook, you pull up Amazon, you
buy it and then you keep talking.
That's what I mean. So and I already got one, but
like the the fact that I saw youand the people you around just
constantly trying to learn, you know, that made me be like, OK,
white belt mentality stays for the rest of my life.
That's just part of this. You can always grow more.
And it actually wasn't until I probably became a home owner and

(44:49):
like had a daughter and I start talking to just neighbors and
everyday people, you know, And it's, I'm so used to being in
the gym all the time. And then I go to that.
And I would always be fascinatedby people that like haven't read
a book in years or they don't really like, oh, I don't really
listen to podcasts and learn anything.
And I'm just like, which like this, not talking shit against
them. It just blows my mind.
I'm like, how do you go through life not getting better, not

(45:11):
learning more, advancing yourself?
Like that's the whole point. And see, this is OK, You make a
great point here. There's something that needs to
be, needs to be said because youknow, going back to that, like
curiosity and hunger, right? Like the Law at a slight edge.
If you want another book, I think you I think you might have
read this one. But like, I reread.
That sounds definitely. Oh, dude, slight edge.

(45:31):
It's basically like you're neverstaying the same.
You know, you get better, you get worse.
But if you you know, if you lookat like weight gain, I I haven't
read the the, the, you know, thecurrent stats, but it's like
you, you know, most people weight gain weight very slowly,
right? It's like by the, you know, by
the end of the year you're up 6 lbs and it's like year, you
know, year 4, it's like, oh shit, I'm up.

(45:51):
Before you know it. Before you know it, right, like
it's, you know, people say, how did it happen?
You know, slowly then suddenly, right?
But it, it's the same thing. And let's take coaching and your
skill set where maybe you're fired up, you know, you're doing
a thing, life happens. And by the way, again, zero
judgement. Like, look, we've been all all
been through a shit show. So it's like we've all had
recess. We've all had to kind of face

(46:12):
hard, you know, the the hard tune, but it I've seen this
happen a lot, right where it's like somebody is growing, you
know, and excelling and then something happens, you know,
some event or maybe there's justlife stuff, complacency and you
know, the law on the slight edges.
Like an example, you used to come to sessions 15 minutes

(46:32):
early, sharp prepped 4 by 6 cardin a pocket.
You know, now you got apps like you got this, that the other
turn, you know, set your music up, set the class up, do this,
that the other. And then it's like then you go
from 15 minutes to 10 minutes, then to, you know, and then like
four months later it's like 5 minutes because you kind of feel
like you got it down or whatever.
Then all of a sudden you're there right before class, right?
You come in, you're kind of unprepared, stuff's not what you

(46:55):
thought it would be. And class starts 5 minutes late.
You know, you leave a little bitearly, but it's like it was, the
changes were so little that you didn't feel it like a big shock.
But now a year later, you're, you know, 60% of the coach that
you used to be at peak, right? And I can tell you with gym
owners, it happens. Why?
Because it's like you're fired up, you're fired up, you're

(47:15):
fired up, you know, you're in a year, whatever 7.
And it's like, man, like I'm notmaking the money.
I'm still working 80 hours. I'm, you know, but now I'm
building a family and I'm not athome soon.
Shit like this is taking a toll on me, right?
And the law. And by the way, so now you're
like, I don't have, I don't havethe money to invest.
I don't have time to read the books.
I don't have, you know, I know Iwas training with people and
getting better in that environment, but now I don't

(47:36):
have time for that. And that lot of slight edge
takes, you know, place. And it's like now from Year 5 to
year 9, you actually became a worse coach Jim owner.
And like, again, there's no judgement here.
It's just like that's hard to realize.
But also it's great when you go like, but I can turn this
around. I can change.
Like, man, the stories I'm sure that you've experienced with,

(47:57):
you know, coaching people and transformations or in business,
like we've seen turnarounds thatare insane, right, with the
prerequisite that a person is like, I'm committed to doing
this. You know, it's like, and I'm
like, hey, this is not going to be fucking easy.
You know, for example, I mean, I've had shit shows in a
business where it's like, at theend of the day, it's like my
responsibility, you know, what had happened.

(48:18):
And you go like, man, this is, you know, and imagine being in
business for a really long time and it's like you get a dip and
you're like, I got to do this again, right?
And it's hard, But the moment that I'm, I'm like, we're going
to turn this around. I'm committed to this and every
day you just brick by brick, youhave these actions that you, you
know, you take and they compoundand a year later it's like, wow,

(48:38):
like we doubled, we did this, wedid that, right?
Like anybody can do it. So that's the exciting thing.
But I think that it's so important to have people in your
life. And again, that's not just, you
know, coaches, that's where mentorships, environments,
groups of people that you're around become a mirror to like
what's going on. Hey, you know, like, hey, man,
like I noticed that dude, you'renot, you're not you're not

(49:00):
working out as much. Everything cool.
Like it. You know, you want people to to
nudge you because they give a shit, right?
Like, hey, like man, I got I, I noticed that you haven't gone to
a seminar, dude. Like I we used to do this
together and now I don't see you.
Like what's up? It's so key and critical because
otherwise the law of the slide edge is much easier to happen.
Complacency sits in and like nobody calls you out and like

(49:22):
calling you. I think most people think
calling you out is that fucking like fuck you, you know, like
the stuff that you see online, Andy Elliott shit and all that
stuff, right? Like, but but it's like, I think
that, you know, take your shirt off exactly, Cody, take your
shirt off right now. I want to see if you've been
about it. Oh, buddy, but but it's like
it's more about like, hey, man, like fuck I do.

(49:43):
I care about you. Like what's up, man, Like I
what's going on? You know, let's talk.
And again that I think it can be, you know, it's the Ken
Shamrock analogy. I when people are like well,
well Luca, how does that look like?
I said well Ken Shamrock, that'swhy I heard it first.
I'm sure somebody else said it before, but it's like you want
to have like 3 layers in your life, right?
There's a person that is better than you that's coaching you

(50:05):
right? Like they're, you know in
fighting in jiu jitsu, it's likethe master that's teaching you
like you're not on his level right, You're the student.
Then there's somebody kind of right around where you are,
right? They're there, right there.
It's like you can talk to them about exactly what's going on
'cause you're about in the same place.
So if you were doing, you know, jiu Jitsu, well, that's the
person that challenges you like you're both right there.
You compete with them, right, and then there's somebody that

(50:27):
you're better AT and like they're the student, you're the
teacher. That's the three levels of kind
of essentially, you know, mentorship you want to have in
your life. I think if any of them missing,
you're not getting the full spectrum that you could, you
know, and you take anything right, you take you take vigor
and there's going to be like people.
There was like, well, this person's been training for X
wise years. They could probably go coach

(50:49):
somebody, right, like and you'reand you're a member, like man,
you might look up to them, right.
Then there's somebody right, like, oh, on the same journey as
you, Somebody new's coming in like, Hey, I've been here for a
year, like let me show you around and built to last.
Same thing. It's like, man, we got some
savages in that group, right? And it's like it's not just me
and Andy. They're like mentoring.
There's people that are doing amazing things that become
mentors others. There's people that are like,

(51:10):
oh, man, like you're doing, you know, 20K and want a ticket to
40 or 50. Me too.
You know, what are you struggling with?
Boom on connect somebody new comes in arm around him like,
hey, man, when I was there, here's what I did like focus on
that and and I think to make sure in your life you you always
have that. I mean like in in there's

(51:31):
there's periods in my life where, you know, I lost track of
some of those kind of areas. Guess what shouldn't go as well?
You know, where there was like ablind spot where it's somebody
that used to be there that was like, hey, man, like what you're
doing is fucking not good, you know.
And like I'll say, like me and Andy starting this business and
I've been doing business coaching for 14 years now,

(51:52):
right? And used to do with crabs and
crabs still my brother to this day.
And but it's like when we when we went in to build the last, I
think part of what was great is that like we coach each other
and keep each other accountable.We have strengths.
Like I have strengths Andy doesn't have.
Andy has strengths I don't have.Right.
You guys complement each other. And it's like, you know, there's
a lot. And again, it, it, it's like
we'll have level 10 meetings that disagree, like

(52:14):
respectfully, you know what I mean?
But guess what? It just makes us better, you
know, I mean, it makes the businesses better.
It makes everything, it makes vigor better.
I'm sure it makes, you know, BCIbetter.
Like it's, that's the shit that you want in your life.
The thing is that it's, it is uncomfortable, right?
Like it's much easier to just belike, I want to be left alone.
Like I, I noticed things are, you know, I'm doing or not

(52:36):
taking me where I want to go, But you know, I think that's
part of like we, we know environments trigger behaviors
and fastest fucking way that youcan make changes like put
yourself in different environments, gyms, masterminds,
coaching programs, right? Like, and all of a sudden and
it's like the ticker starts ticking differently.
You know what I mean? Like, and I, I think that's such
a big part of it, man, Like, and, and why to this day, like

(53:00):
we both, it's funny, me and Andyare like, all right, man, like
here's what we need help with. Like where, where are we going
to go to, to, to get this right?Like we're, we're constantly
having these conversations. I don't know how many things
I've invested in this past year.It's too many to count, right?
But it's like I look at the gap and I'm like, where do I need
help? Who's going to help me with
this? Who do I respect?

(53:20):
I call it collecting role models, right?
Like so just 222 big things thatI love it like this, this idea
of collecting role models, hunting for skill sets, right in
that area of life. You know, now that I'm a parent,
I'm always like, who's like a, aperson that's like a great
parent in my eyes, right? And whether they're in my
circle, I talked to them, I asked them if it's a, a book, I

(53:41):
read the book. You know, I, I'm collecting role
models, right, Hunting for skillsets.
I think that's a really good analogy.
Definitely for business, but it's like, I don't know if
you're not good at social media,right?
Like, OK, build that skill set, learn who's doing it well, do a
lot of reps, iterate, make it better.
But in your life, I think if youask yourself and go like, hey,

(54:03):
have I been collecting role models and like people that are
aspirational to where I want to be?
And have I been hunting for skill sets which, you know,
today it's like shit's changing.You can't turn a blind eye to AI
and how things are moving and how is the industry moving?
OK, you have to maybe hunt for new skill sets that you didn't
have. You didn't need them, you know?
But now it's like, yo, you can'tnot not have that.

(54:24):
You have to add this on. Like, again, we talked about
nutrition and change psychology and, and it's like, cool, what's
going to be, you know, you're not going to learn 10 things at
once, but like, hey, what's going to be the next thing that
you kind of take on? Great.
Let's go. That that should be.
Man, you, you have me on a podcast in 20 years, you know,
and I'm in my 60s. I'll probably be like, hey, man,
like right now I'm taking these peptides.

(54:45):
Holy shit. You know, I'm 30 years back.
Yeah. But that's to me, that's like,
I, I've heard the, I mean, there's even like biblical stuff
about that, like basically like Jesus and then the Barnabas and
then Timothy. But it's always something like a
wise person that's guiding you. And then there's somebody right
next to that's like, that's the,like the wisdom accountability,
the competitive accountability. And then you have the teaching
accountability. You're accountable to lead

(55:07):
because you're teaching somebodybehind you, you're competitive
with the person next to you. And that gives you
accountability and you're being guided by somebody better than
you and that gives you accountability.
But like, I don't care who you are, how driven you are, you
need some of that because most people, we were talking about
this on a live call with our members yesterday.
It doesn't matter how self motivated you are, you're never

(55:29):
going to really, really reflect and answer questions about where
you're at and all these areas ifsomebody doesn't ask you.
So if if a client is fill out a form or have a conversation with
coach or get on a call or be a part of a group, they're going
to be missing this element of show me the transparent number.
Show me the transparent feelings, results, emotions,
whatever it is. And then line those up with

(55:49):
where you want to be and say you're going.
And if it's not aligned with it,we got to change something.
But people go weeks and weeks and weeks whenever even asking
themselves those deep questions,understandably But. 22 thoughts
on that that that pop out to me #1 is I don't know what maybe PN
had these questions, but they always stuck with me right?
Like 1 is when people are like, I'm doing this, that and the

(56:10):
other, OK, show me, right? Like business, same thing.
We're doing great. Show me, let's, let's look at
the numbers. Let's look at this, let's look
at the scorecard. Let's look at your profit and
loss. Let's right, like, because then
it's like shit right now we got to lay it out and look at the
reality, right? The second one is like, how's
that working for you? You know, it's, it's like, oh,
you know, OK, how's that workingfor you?

(56:30):
It's not OK, cool. So we got to change something,
right? But all of that comes back to
like you talk about the greats and we could go into sports, you
know, the Kobe's, the Jordans, Brady's, you know what?
Every one of them was, was coachable, right, Like, and this
idea that when you're like the best in the world, that like you
need less coaching. Those guys want the most, you
know what I mean? Like, and if they don't, those

(56:52):
are the people that fade, right,that don't have a long history.
And I, I think that's such a critical part.
And but you know, I I go back tojust because of this example,
but like a a Stew and Dan path, right, like who've been coaching
for, you know, Dan's been coaching for I don't know how
long. Those guys say, I don't know a
lot and are always trying to getbetter, right.
So it's like, man, if this person that's been coaching for
fucking, you know, or even Mike Bowles become a close friend and

(57:14):
you know, like so much time where he's like, whether you
agree with some stuff or not, I don't care.
It's more the fact that like still looking into what, you
know, we don't do this anymore. We're starting, we started doing
this. He's always learning, right.
So if these folks that been doing it for forever say I don't
know a lot and are, you know, continuing to try to get better,
like what makes you think that, you know, you're in year 4 or 5,

(57:36):
whatever, right? And it's just like, got it.
I got it down. Like I, you know, I'm, I'm just
doing my thing now because I figured it out and like we're
good. That that's crazy to me, right?
Like, and that's why I think it starts with, you know, you talk
about mindset a lot, but it's like, it does start with that.
I think about like my belief system about a thing, right?
It's going to drive my behavior.So if I'm like, well, I can't

(58:00):
get better, you know, I'm Dumber.
These guys are talented in this field or whatever, right?
Boom, automatically you're not sitting down and and reading
stuff, right? Where to me, it's still I was
just talking to my let's just call my sick, my better halfway
to you, you know, because it's like always this conversation of
man, why do you still study so much?
Right? Like, and it's like, you know,

(58:20):
and I have a kid and I've reallyobviously value time with my
family. But I said to her, I was like,
like, this is part of who I am. Like I have to do this, you
know? And if it's like, hey, after you
go to sleep or I get up earlier,like I probably study still.
I mean, easily, I would say 88 to 10 hours per week, right?
Like because weekends, like I tend to do like 2 hours of

(58:43):
courses, you know, maybe a little bit more reading, but
every day I'm probably reading for about an hour easily, right?
And it's almost like, well, you've read through so much
stuff. It's like, but this is the
point. It's a way of life.
It's not a period of life, right?
Like there are things that are seasonal, but there's things
that are a way of life, like exercise, you know, you can turn
the dial up or down, right? Like life gets busier.

(59:05):
Job, kids. OK, I'm, I'm, I'm not, you know,
playing in a bang in five days aweek.
Maybe it's three now, right? Maybe the sessions, you know,
how long they were when we were doing like hours, right?
Like hours, you know, multiple hour sessions.
But but now it's like, hey, you know, some are, are sub hours,
some are hour 15, right? If I can push it, but but guess
what, it's a way of life. I'm just dialing it up and down,

(59:26):
right? Same thing reading, Hey, maybe,
you know, at the beginning I was, I was doing shit three
hours per day, like learning, right?
OK, it's not 3 hours per day anymore, but it's definitely an
hour per day still. You turn it up and down.
Hey, you want to, you know, you're going into a new
industry, you're going to have to turn that shit up because
maybe it's very, very new to youor there's a change in the
industry, right? It's like, hey, a lot of things
are changing. OK, Well, you're going to have

(59:48):
to, you know, dig deeper and do a little bit more of this,
right? Like that's how this stuff
works. You're turning the dials up and
down. But I, I think it's, you know,
our, our, if you'd look at values and we talked about what
are your values, right? To me, it's like, it's like a
compass, right? And in the compass, if you've
ever had a compass and you're inthe woods, you know, it doesn't
just stay still. It kind of goes like this,

(01:00:09):
right? Like it shakes.
Well, that's what like values end up being like, yeah, you get
thrown off. You know shit happens in life.
Sickness. I would say, you know, financial
struggles, you get divorced, youget this, you get kids, you get
that. And it's like, and, and it's
like taking you off, but true North just is pointing back
like, oh man, I got to be back on track, back on track.

(01:00:29):
And I, I think that's why it's so important where, you know, at
the beginning, like people go like figure out your values and
everybody's like, oh, here we fucking go.
But the, but The thing is, is like when challenging things
happen in life and you ask yourself, who am I?
Who do I want to become? Right.
Like I got the compass. It's like, man, I'm not, I'm not
studying anything, but I want tobecome this person that keeps

(01:00:49):
getting better. But we teach a lot of our
nutrition clients how to set their own values because of
this, and it helps their adherence so much.
What I wanted to also talk abouttoday.
And I think this will set us up for built to last, which I think
you should totally pitch. And 'cause there's one of the
things I'm excited about, what you and 80 are doing, which I

(01:01:11):
didn't even really know about, to be honest with you, until I
reconnect with you. And then I talk with Andy here
and there. So I see what he posted.
But you know how he is with social media compared to you.
Yeah, about. Hey, good.
Yeah, I'm glad you said it out loud.
Yeah. Oh yeah.
He we I give shit about. It we we've had a couple
conversations. I was like, hey, we're going to
post some of this stuff for the podcast.
Do you want me to collab with you?
And he's like, please do bro. Like I was like usually we do

(01:01:33):
like 1 collab and then we'll just like post the other ones A
tag and he's like clab all of them.
I need the content. I was like, alright, cool, but
coaching first, like the way youguys are going about it, because
I feel like man, like I'll just be transparent about it too.
Actually, I've when we're looking at the, the mentor, the

(01:01:53):
person right next to you, then the person behind you, you know,
there's been many chunks of timeover the last seven years that
I've had the person right next to me and always people below me
because I'm a coach. So I'm always teaching and I
have a team, but there's been countless times where the mentor
ahead of me has been removed because I'll just say it like

(01:02:15):
it's people change or I'm searching for that person.
I think I find it. And then I'm like, ah, you're
full of shit. Like on to the next one or every
business out coach out there is let me help you get your first
10K month. And I'm like, OK, like, and I
actually ran in this issue whereI couldn't find a single
business coach that actually knew what they were talking
about. And that was helpful with
building a brand in a company the understood coaching that

(01:02:37):
help people go from 100 to 200 KA month.
It was just everybody was helping people go from zero to
10 or 10 to 50. And I'm like, oh, wait, so you
guys just stopped coaching when it got hard and then told people
we would teach them how to get started.
And it's like this insane and out like now you guys are mainly
working with gym owners. But everything Andy's told me
about it and the little bit I'veheard from you, I'm like, man,

(01:03:00):
this is this is needed. It's so good because it's
coaching 1st and you guys have this great collaborative, like
the way you complement each other, you know?
So, So what coaching first is and like, like, you know, I've
been again, I want to rephrase it like I've been in a business
coaching space for quite a long time.
Let's bring that mic up a little.
Bit and I'll say not only that, like I think for 19 years now,

(01:03:24):
I, I think there's been a year and a half or two years maybe
that, that I haven't been in something right, like mastermind
mentorship a lot of times multiple things at once.
And you know what me and Andy really connected on that.
A lot of the time that we would hang out before we even started
built to last was like you talk about training shit like
coaching experience, like communication, like all this

(01:03:45):
stuff that helps what we were talking about earlier, right,
that helps the client move from A to B, right?
Like, and I, I feel like what started happening in industry,
you know, and like really kind of snowballing is we'll get you
more clients, we'll get you moreclients, we'll get you more
clients, we'll get you more clients.
We'll help you with sales. We'll, you know, scale adds this

(01:04:06):
that, like, I mean, and other components of it, right.
But, and I was like in, but by the way, like, you know, I, I in
the last 10 years, I do a ton ofspeaking, you know, I've flown
to gyms to bring me in. I do like I've done stuff for
for a lifetime, for Equinox, forPro Club, for I mean, all the
big box gyms, right? Like where I'd come in and train

(01:04:28):
the teams and stuff like that. And the reason I say that I go
to a lot of places and then you start seeing where it's like,
where is this development of like continuing to improve the
coaching, you know, and maybe again, like I said, continuing
to improve the coaching. Sometimes it's not even there
and it's like going to a restaurant.
And you know, my God, the Instagram is so fucking good.

(01:04:48):
You know, one of their posts went viral.
You come there. Wow, you know, you've got the
little green background, everybody's taking photos, sit
down food, shit, you know, like and and and even the servers
like, you know, being not like you're never coming back, right,
Like, but it's like, but you could have a hole in the wall.
You know, I remember being, you know, going to Japan, which some
of the best food I've ever ate, and we go to this like hole in

(01:05:11):
the wall dumpling place, Fuckinglike the I mean like mind blown,
right, Like, and it's like the spot and it does well, right.
It in in my point being is just like, because that's the
product, right, The product, theservice is on point and you can
you can fuck up a lot of things when your product and service is
right. And it's actually one of the
things that allows people that do a great job with that to stay

(01:05:32):
in business, even though they doother stuff.
Not that well. You know, I do think that
there's a point in time where that's if you want to grow not
enough, right, but it, but at the end of the day, you always
have to come back. That's the foundation.
Like for I, I know like vigor grew because we got great
results and experience was awesome, right?
Like and you know, I think a community is a big part of it,

(01:05:54):
but you would see in all the if you look at reviews and success
stories and stuff like that, I would say like usually when
people in the short term will say stuff like I got great
results in the longer term, they'll say like, it's a great
community, right? And but that means that like
that's something it's got the same thing law, the slight edge
just because you used to be good.
If you don't focus on it, it becomes, you know, can you're

(01:06:16):
off and it by the way, I'm like,I'm more than I would say
transparent to say that there's been periods of time when that's
happened at vigor, right, like that it it dropped below the
standards where I would want it to be and you know, for a number
of reasons, But at the end of the day, my responsibility,
right, like, Hey, you got it. Coaching first has to be the
foundation of all of this. And when you get around like we

(01:06:37):
we wanted to attract people to this like, yo, we love this
shit. Like we are very focused on like
the client, which means that thetraining, the experience, the
service towards the client has to be great, right?
And like, how do we continue to improve on that?
And then, you know, as things change, technology change, you
know, you, you do have to think about how you're going to

(01:06:58):
deliver stuff, right? And that's what coaching first
means. And it, it doesn't mean that
like, that's the only thing. Let's be real, like you're a
business owner. How many hats do you wear?
You know, I mean, shit like, youknow, I don't know how many hats
I wear, I wear a lot, but like, I've, you know, I've been
sponsored by some pretty big companies in the last years.
And it's, and it's like they flyme out to do the media stuff and
it's like a room of 22 people. You know, I won't name the

(01:07:21):
company, but it, but it's like, I, I show up there and it's
like, Hey, Luca, you know, talk to the copywriter, you know, for
your copy, for your VSL, OK, youknow, here's this person, talk
to them. And I'm like, I'm just like, no,
I'm going to say this. I'm like, I'm like, I do the job
of all these people. And you know, like my company
essentially, right? Like, I mean, I, I have, I have
a great team and I've outsourcedmore, but but it's like there's

(01:07:42):
more than that. But that is the juice, you know
what I mean? Like, and, and it's so easy to
go like we got this new marketing campaign six week
challenge and we're getting leads in and you know, but if
that's broken or not good enough, man, I'm, I'm you're not
going to make it. So that's what coaching first
means. And I actually think it's a a
great segue that we came to herebecause all the stuff we talked

(01:08:03):
about continues to help you improve the coaching first part,
right? Like, and there's listen, man,
there's there's been a lot of things that, you know, we're
doing things a certain way and Ilearned something new, right.
And I'm like, damn. Like we've been doing it the
best that we can to now. But now knowing this, I want to
implement this into like our small groups and like, this is

(01:08:25):
going to make it better, I think, right.
Like, but you can't just go, yeah, I've been doing this for
12 years, the same fucking thing, you know, and like, you
change nothing. Yeah.
OK. And even, and that's, I think
that's what's frustrating to me is that there is so much being
pushed about like lead Gen. and all that stuff.
And you always like, what about the results?
Like the fulfilment of like, cool, you generate leads and you

(01:08:48):
sell a bunch of people into coaching, but then they don't
get results. Like, you know, and this is
where I, I will even tell people, if you're vetting a
coach, especially online, look for long form content.
Because if a coach can talk for an hour straight on a single
topic by themselves, like they actually probably know what
they're talking about and they're probably pretty
passionate about it, but a 92nd clip doesn't do it.
It's even why, like some of the videos I watched from us way,

(01:09:10):
way back and just some of the old YouTube videos of you, like
they're shot with terrible cameras, terrible lighting, we
said, and we're trying to figureshit out because there's no
script. But it's like they did well and
continue to do well. And it's why, I mean, your
channel is huge now on YouTube. What is it at like?
6:30 That's crazy. 630,000 that's almost a million, dude.

(01:09:30):
Like there's a reason for that. Like now it's obviously you're
way better at creating videos than you were, but you probably
sucked back then and you just did really good coaching and
turn the camera on and the coaching is what helped you
shine. And then you watch it and you
go, OK, I can explain that better.
I can do better and get. Improve that's it.
Listen, that's exactly that. And like I actually, there's I
think there's a couple lessons to extract here.

(01:09:51):
Number 1 is like I was really good at training, but I wasn't
good at speaking, you know, or camera or whatever, right, Like,
but if we talked about training content, we pretty good because
it's like I would always just think about a lot of the
podcasting. I mean, it's just me and you
sitting could be having a coffee, cameras could be off.
We'd be talking about the same shit, right?

(01:10:11):
Like, and so you know, if you know your stuff, people will,
will find out that you know yourstuff, right?
Just like if you're a nice person, people spend enough time
with, you don't know that you'rea nice person, right?
Like so my my my point behind that is like, hey, I had to if
you go back, I started YouTube in 2008 I think so 6.

(01:10:32):
I remember watching videos or like and what I mean watching
videos. I remember watching you film
videos of like 66 lunge variations and you're just bro
like filming them all straight and I'm like, this dude's legs
are just thrashed by the end of it.
But you guys would shoot so manycrazy videos like that back then
just to show like that compounding interest of you

(01:10:55):
growing that Channel. Like I'm not shocked that it's
as big as it is, but like you'vejust been putting in the reps
for so long. It actually pissed.
Like it didn't piss me off, but it frustrated me because there's
been a couple times where I needed a video for true Coach
and I'm like, fuck, I don't haveit filmed and I I hate using
other people's videos, you know,but I'm very selective with who

(01:11:15):
and I'm actually positive. I remember one of them was a
dumbbell snatch and I was like, God damn it, Lucas is the only
video on YouTube that's good. And it was at the old, old gym.
Bro. I think you actually did a
snatch. Then you went into a box, like a
kneeling box jump was one of them.
I know. Exactly which one it?
Is. But I'm like everybody's doing
like CrossFit style, like AMRAP,snatch it.
I'm like, I'm looking for something with a good hinge,

(01:11:37):
explosive rap, heavyweight, low Rep count, dumbbell.
And it was like, you were the only one.
I was like God damn it. You know what, man, what's
what's crazy about that too is that like you'd be blown away
by, you know, to me, YouTube is still a, a very side hustle
thing, right? It's just like with time, I just
started putting a little more effort into it, more time
spending some, you know, money on editing and stuff like that.
But I, I just thought about it like I want to put out great,

(01:12:00):
valuable content that's useful. Like I, I haven't, I mean, I can
straight up tell you that like Ihave not gone that route and go
like, how can I monetize the shit out of it?
You know, which look at some point in time, like probably I
was going to talk to high def about, you know, getting a full
time video guy and giving percentages of YouTube to them,
you know, on top of salary, whatever, whatever.

(01:12:20):
But my point I like because there's a point behind this.
There is 19150 videos on YouTube, right?
19150 videos. So I and that's the ones that
made it right? Like I'm sure there's a bunch of
shot and never posted, but it's like, and then I have like 1000
on Vimeo that are all just exercise videos like like form
and stuff. Like that's a lot of reps, you

(01:12:41):
know, and if you go back to 2007or 8, whenever I started, which
was it was just like flip Cam filming our crazy workouts, you
know, and it's like rap by rap and you and you look and you're
just like, man, this guy's kind of hilarious, you know, because
it's like, I look, I lift weight, I do crazy workout, you
know, it's and it's like over time, it's like talking about
stuff. And then I'm doing ask Luca
whiteboard videos. And then I'm starting to make it

(01:13:01):
a little bit more this, that andthe other, right?
All it was is deliberate practice over a really long
period of time. You know what, it didn't hit
100,000 until like year 10 or something like that, right?
Maybe 11 or something like that.And my point is is like, think
about the things that you want to achieve and, you know, could
I have done it faster if all I did was YouTube?
Yeah, I'm sure. But but to me it was like, hey,

(01:13:23):
this is an expression of of myself.
And like I I I think I did, you know, think about brand probably
a lot earlier than people do. It's like, hey, this is all part
of the vigor and Luca brand, right?
Like, but it goes back to practice improve, you know, it's
like more for, you know, it's like, I think our Mosey said
it's more better new, right, Like, but you know, somebody
just said, Hey, I'm thinking about what type of content to

(01:13:44):
post. I said, well, how much you doing
right now? Like, ah, man, very infrequent,
once a week. I was like, dude, post once a
day for the next, you know, 60 days, then make it better.
Like, don't you know, it's like,don't worry about like you're
trying to dive into how to make it so good, but like you're
you're prolonging actually doingthe fucking thing.
Same thing with coaching sessions.
Same thing with, you know, shooting yourself on video.
Same thing with writing articles.

(01:14:05):
Same thing. You know, you started writing
articles, you know, early, right, like, and it and it was
like it made you a good writer because you wrote a lot.
Like you can't escape that shit,you know, and and and if you
kind of attach that back to coaching first, it's like, how
are you going to compete with somebody that is, you know, in
the gym 10 hours a day training themselves, training others,
like loving it, you know, engagewith it, like, you know, reading

(01:14:28):
stuff in between when they got abreak and you're dibble
dabbling, you know, like a couple hours here and then, you
know, do some entertainment on social.
And like again, I I kind of separate entertainer versus
educator, right, those two different things.
And I think as an educator, you can also entertain, but
entertainers are not usually noteducating a lot, right, Like so

(01:14:50):
and again, pick what you want tobe.
But I'm saying like in a coaching space, you know, build
a brand of education, be useful,be valuable, because it's going
to help you. But it's like at the end of the
day, when people come see you, like you have to be able to be,
you know, great at what you do in a coaching space.
And then The thing is, if you have a gym, I mean, what do you
want to do? Like if you have other coaches,
like you want to bring them up to be great coaches.

(01:15:13):
I don't want to like, I'm not saying that I'm not going to
teach you how to do social media, but number one, I want
you to be a great coach so you serve the clients.
I mean, that's, and by the way, today if you do that very, very,
very, very well, you'll have a great career.
You know what I'm saying? Like even if you, if, if you, I
don't know, like you lease out aspace for 1000 bucks a month
somewhere and you got 30 clientsand those 30 clients pay 500

(01:15:35):
bucks a month, you're making 180grand a year and you're paying
12 for rent. Obviously there's other
expenses. But like, you know, by the way,
if you're doing those 30 clientsin a semi private setting, you
know, you're coaching like 20 hours a week.
I'm not saying that that shit's easy, by the way.
I'm, but I'm saying that like become really fucking good at
what you do and you can do that.What I mean like and and so to

(01:15:56):
to me, it's always been like I this is AII want to say this
because I think this is a great mindset to have Steve Martin,
right comedian, which has a saying so good, they can't
ignore you, which is a a a a book by Cal Newport, which
everybody should read. Great book.
And but there's another story about Steve Martin.

(01:16:16):
You know, Steve Martin was like,I want to be great at playing a
banjo. You know, he, he, he plays the
banjo. And it's like the, you know, the
coach is like, man, not that great.
But then Steve Martin was like, well, I'm going to commit to
playing a banjo for 40 years, right.
So he was he was like, I suck right now, but I'm going to play

(01:16:38):
it for 40 years. So that's the deal.
Well, he run. He won, by the way, he won Emmys
for his music with the banjo right at year like 8-9.
What whatever it was, right? I'm I'm blanking.
You could correct me on this, but the the premise was is like
he decided like, well, I'm goingto do this shit for a long time
and become really good at it because I'm going to give myself
40 years. What I the problem I see today,

(01:16:59):
like in the coaching space, I'llspeak for the coaching space,
right? It's like, well, shit, like if I
don't crush it, make 100 grand in year 1 or year 2, like, man,
I'm out. I'm like, you're not going to be
great. Like think about like, why don't
you say I'm going to be in this for 40 years?
It it completely shifts the way that you operate.
Just like if somebody wants to lose weight, it's like, I got to
do this in the next 90 days, Then what?

(01:17:21):
Like, but if you, but if you come in and say, hey, Luca, in
the next two years, I want to really change my health.
I'm very confident that person that said two years is going to
do way better than the person like I could do it in 90 days.
What if, what if, what if you don't do it in 90 days?
You know, I got to lose 50 lbs. I'm not saying you can't, but
like what then, right? And, and that mentality, again,
it goes back to this, you know, this, this, this mastery and how

(01:17:47):
the apprenticeship model used togo.
Like that's my, my, the whole last year I went and did a lot
of events talking about these six buckets.
They actually, we haven't talkedabout this.
I don't know if you have that like as, as a note, but like my
whole presentation is like 6 buckets to succeed in the
fitness industry, right? And the buckets are knowledge,
skill people, then it's resources, reputation and

(01:18:13):
options, right? And The thing is you fill the
buckets in that order, right? So first bucket knowledge, what
do I know? What do you know, right?
Second knowledge is like, what can I do at skill?
I think we'll come back to what's the most important bucket
#3 is people who knows you, but you know, who do you know?
But I think more importantly, who knows you, man, Cody's

(01:18:35):
incredible at help helping people transform, like with
their nutrition, right, right. I've seen it everywhere.
I heard it everywhere, right? So they want to know you, so
they know you, right? So that one's really important.
From there, you go to resources,meaning money in your bank
account, real estate, but also resources like, hey, your
podcast, your blog, a book that you wrote, right?
These are all assets that you know are valuable, right, like

(01:18:57):
if you have I don't know how much traffic to a website or so
many downloads like those are valuable assets, right that
you've built, then you have inadvertently.
If you do all those things, you can have a reputation, right?
It's like, what do people think of you right, and the six bucket
to me is like, if you've done those things, well, you got
options options. Hey, you got a brand deal.
I got a coaching, I got a onlinementorship thing.

(01:19:19):
I'd have a you know, I own this building.
I do this that the other right, like now The thing is, is if you
so first of all, life can take all the buckets away, right?
Think about economy happens. Boom, you lose your your assets
and your resources. You know, somebody can't listen.
I've I've had this happen plentyof times.
People try to shit on your reputation, right?

(01:19:40):
It's kind of goes back to the the tree in the shadow from that
that Eric Thomas talks about. I don't know if you ever heard
of that, right? You shine, you shine the light
on the tree, the shadow changes,right?
That's your reputation, but the tree stands the way that it is.
That's your character, right, Sojust make sure your character
don't change. But man, your reputation can be
fucking. You know you can lose in a
couple seconds because somebody,you know, lies about it or

(01:20:02):
something like that. People, I think the right people
state, but hey, let's you can lose your people, right.
What's the two things no one canever take away from?
You knowledge and skills. Knowledge and skills, right?
So those buckets you got to fillall the time, like over and
like, you know, there's no such thing as like filling the bucket
completely and never needing those two, right?
You just keep getting better at it, right?

(01:20:23):
And so I think that that understanding for a coach is
like, hey, do you think you can really fill this bucket in a
couple of years? Now?
This is a lifetime process, right?
And so if you look at it that way, I, I believe you're going
to be a lot more successful. And I get it, like if you're
somebody that's young, you know,you the people ask like, what's

(01:20:43):
your recommendation for somebodyyoung that doesn't know, you
know, what, what they want to do?
And you could maybe like fill inhow it was for you.
But I guess somebody that's 22 and it's like, hey, you know, I
think I want to be in a coachingindustry.
My first recommendation is that like, don't dabble, you know,
give it like 2 years and like work your face off because

(01:21:04):
you'll get the answer. But if you dabble, you won't get
the answer. You know what I mean?
Like I did a little bit of this.I did, you know, I didn't really
study that much. You'll actually never know.
So I, I think for you to find your purpose, like you have to
squeeze the juice out of orange,give it your all, give it your
best effort and then give it some time right beyond like 6
months or a year, like give it some time.
And then through that, by the way, you'll, you'll learn a

(01:21:25):
bunch of skills. So if you if, if it's not for
you, you can still take those skills to another sector, right?
I don't know I would imagine youagree with this but something I
tell people a lot too is to understand the difference
between advice and opinions because it's actually funny.
Like this sounds really brutal and I don't mean for it to be.
But if I ask my mom what she thinks I should do with my

(01:21:46):
business and she gives me her opinion but I take it as advice
and I don't push myself to reachmy goal based on somebody who's
never owned a business before. Love my mom she has no shit
about owning a business comparedto me.
I can get her opinion, but as long as I in my head, I'm like,
OK, that's just an opinion. But I say that because both of
us like we won't get into this. Your, your background story.

(01:22:08):
We have to add no time. So I'll just say check out the
coaching podcast that you did. I'll link that because it's
phenomenal. And you really dove into your
back story, but perfect example of, bro, what are you trying to
do here? You know, you're too short to
play basketball. You're in Sylvania.
There's all this crazy stuff going on and you have
opportunities and then you leaveand then you start over in the

(01:22:29):
United States and it's like, dude, it's like thing after
thing after thing. And you were just like, Nope,
this is this is what I'm doing for me.
I didn't live in Sylvania, so and I'd never played basketball,
totally different story. But plenty of people told me no,
didn't do good in school, got into a lot of trouble.
Asked to switch my degree, parents said no forged my dad's
signature, made it happen. I was still chubby, but I was

(01:22:50):
like, I'm going to make this work.
And I just kept doing the thingseven though everybody was like,
you need to have a Plan B. This isn't going to work out.
I'm like, Nope, no Plan B. This is the only route.
Part of that for me at least being young was being like
almost, almost like so ignorant that I was, it's good, it's
good. It's ignorance is bliss, right?
And I understand as you mature it, it's hard to be that

(01:23:12):
ignorant to certain things. But I agree with what you said
and I wanted to share that just to echo it, because I think that
at the end of the day, like you have to really ask yourself
like, what is your future that you want?
What is the path you want to go down?
What do you want to achieve? And then just make a deal with
yourself. No matter what anybody says,
this is what I'm going to do. And what you're going to find is

(01:23:35):
you're going to see opportunities to take and you're
going to take advice when it's necessary and you're going to
ignore opinions when it's not necessary, you know, and you'll
keep moving forward because anybody could do anything.
But I mean, how long you've beenin the game, how long it took
me, you know, I'm going to what,15 years in the industry?
It'll be 8 years next month as we're recording this for Taylor
Coaching method. That seems like a long time, but

(01:23:56):
that's like half of the time you've been in it.
You know, you've been building your YouTube channel as like an
extension of your passion. You know, it's not like, and
this is the other thing, you can't get these two mixed up.
It wasn't I'm going to build my social media so I can be good at
social media, make money. It was I'm going to build my
social media so I can display mycoaching and help more people
know how to do this shit right 'cause there's so many bad
examples online. And then eventually being a

(01:24:18):
businessman, you go, OK, now it's somewhere, let me put my
business mind into it. But that was never the goal, you
know? What I mean, I, I truly do think
like think about this and you know, you know, you my first ten
years in business, I mean, all I'm doing is training people and
running the gym. I mean, that's that's it, right.
Even before I came to the Statesand we started the gym in
Slovenia and I was I was coaching people when I was

(01:24:40):
playing pro basketball still, you know, so so was and by the
way, making, you know, nothing, right?
Like it was side hustle. I was barely making anything.
And then my last pro team that Iplayed for, you know, the
coaches like, Hey, who does yourtraining?
I'm like, man, I do my own training, you know, like you're
jacked and you can jump in your condition.
And I started writing a program for the team, you know, for a
couple hundred extra EUR. I mean, you know, not that much,

(01:25:02):
right? But it but it was like I was
like, yeah, man, fucking this isawesome.
Making money and writing programs.
Getting paid for it. So it was it, but but the the
the premise is like, you know, Ibecame really good at a thing
before I did another thing right.
And by the way, that other thing, you know, was business
coaching, which what happened islocally, and you know, some of
the guys like Isaac Cole, Jeff Jowers, Trav Motley, you know,

(01:25:27):
and, and, and Drew and like, I, I essentially was like, hey, you
know, I can help 5 people locally, like with their
business, you know, and, and, but only because that people
were asking me, right? And it took me about a year
before I actually put it out there.
Like, man, like you're crushing it with the gym.
And I was like, OK, like, hey, for 500 bucks a month, like, you
know, we're going to call, we'llmeet up.
You can come to figure because it's all like local basically,

(01:25:47):
right? And I really helped those guys
like, I mean, it's they, you know, they did well.
And and so it was like that gaveme proof that like, Oh, I can
also help others with this, right?
So first of all, it was like, you know, I think our Moses said
this one too. It was like, you know, do so
much good shit that people ask you to do stuff right versus you
asking them. And then that was, you know,

(01:26:09):
that's when me and Steve went, you know, he was running a very
successful business upstate New York.
And we became friends from beingin a mastermind.
And it was like, man, like I, I love this.
Like it was like, I enjoy this. I'm good at this and I want to
continue doing it. Right.
And then the next level of, you know, when, when things would
start happening is like, I mean,I had written a lot of articles
before. I was like, I probably wrote

(01:26:30):
like 100 articles before I was asked to write an article
somewhere else, right? Like legitimate and same thing
with YouTube. It was like, I don't know how
many years it went before somebody was just like, yo,
YouTube channel is great, let's do a collab or like, hey, we
want to pay you something for something, right?
Like, I mean, it was a long time.
So the the the premise now is I think that you see a lot of the

(01:26:51):
people that start off and want to do a lot of things now.
Yes, we do live in a world wherelike you got to do social, you
know, I mean, like you got to dothese things, but it's like,
what is your main craft? And I, I think it actually is
not. By the way, I don't think it's
that difficult. I, I think people, the thought
of how difficult it is stops people from doing shit right.

(01:27:11):
I'm like some of the videos thatare the most highly edited don't
do shit compared to me going like, oh, shit, like, Hey, do
that exercise again, you know, and then I'll voice over it.
Like here we're doing the singlelegs, you know, and it's like
that gets 70,000 views on, on a reel.
And it took me, you know, 20 seconds to shoot and then like 2
minutes to, to the voice over itbecause I'm just teach, I'm just
educated, right? Like, so I'm like, hey, and I do

(01:27:34):
like, but I'll give a shout out to John Goodman on this one.
You know that there's these 4 phases and I, I think this will
help coaches. There's four phases of social
media, right? Like phase one, you do it for
you, right, Doing it for you, Meaning like as you create, you
learn, right? When we were writing and I, I
still write, but it's like I wrote articles.
What did I have to do? I had to distill my knowledge,

(01:27:55):
organize my thoughts, like, hey,you know, step 12345 or like,
what's the big idea? Like, you know, when I shot a
video about an exercise like I had, I became a better coach by
creating content. Same thing you get on a podcast,
right? Like you have, you have show
notes, you think about what you're going to talk about, you
know, so on and so forth. And so to me, Phase 1 is like
you do it so that you get betterat communication.

(01:28:18):
Like what if I said, Hey, do a video on a deadlift, but you
need to do it a 92nd reel. Give me the best, most important
points that you coach a client through.
You'd be like, shit, OK, you'd, you'd distill it and then you'd
coach it like you coach a client.
So you'd get better at the craft, right?
So boom. So that's level 1, level 2.
And I don't think most coaches should ever leave level 2.
Level 2 is like you do it for your audience.

(01:28:40):
So I don't know if you're coaching 40 plus year old guys
that want to be more athletic, right?
OK, create content for that audience.
Useful, valuable. Don't worry about virality.
You know, I think every once in a while if you do good shit, you
might go viral. We that's a whole another story.
But it's like, man, you do that,you attract those people because
you're helping right Level 3 as you do it for the industry.

(01:29:02):
To me, like, you know, the spaceI live in because I have, you
know, a gym consulting program, I have educational courses for
coaches, right? Like it's like it went into that
by the way, that happened because people kept asking me
like, hey, I love how you're doing this, do more of it.
And then #4 is the thought leader, right?
Like, and to me is like the transcending the industry part,

(01:29:24):
you know, whether you want to gothere, how it happens.
You know, the good example thereis that like Elon Musk puts up a
tweet, you know, it gets 40 million views, you put up the
same tweet, crickets, right? The leadership, right?
But, but to me it's like one or two, right?
And if you're in the first, I don't know, like 3-5 years of
the industry, man, spend, you know, at least a couple years,

(01:29:46):
like focusing on one and being like, this is helping me be a
better coach. Like when you write, when you
talk to the camera, I always relate this like this is me
communicating with our clients, right?
And, and if I see somebody once a week, twice a week, but they
read my e-mail newsletter twice a week, they see my videos 4
times a week, they, you know, listen to podcasts.

(01:30:07):
These are all things that are helping them, right, with that
behavior change. I'm, I'm planting those seeds in
their mind. Like they're, you know, I'm
shifting their identity, like all that stuff.
And I think that's where the value and, and understanding of
the Coach is that like you are not just, you know, when we are
brands, it's like, yeah, like you're trying to affect these
folks all the time. And that's where technology
helps because everybody can now do a podcast.

(01:30:29):
Everybody can now shoot videos with their phone.
Everybody can, you know, it's just a time and energy
requirement, right? Like, and if you have money and
you, you pay somebody to help you out with it, cool.
But it, you know, at the end of the day, the craft is still
coaching. It's the master skill.
It's the skill that like, you know, I think as we move forward
is the skill that's going to continue to to be very, very
valuable. I think it's going to continue

(01:30:50):
to be more valuable because as we move forward, like Chad GP,
you'll be like, Hey, make me a work out like Luca host who
makes workouts, Fucking he'll give you the thing, right.
But those nuances, the helping somebody move from A to B
because of those, you know, I always say it's like the spokes
on the wheel. There's 4, right?
Training, nutrition, mindset, recovery, right?
Like we pull the levers and we're almost like lifestyle

(01:31:12):
managers more than anything else, right?
And that if you keep getting better at that, like man, you'll
be very in demand and very, veryhigh value.
And, and I think it was Jordan Shallow that said this, and I
love this analogy. It's like man, like if you the
bigger problems that you can solve, the better you get paid.
And then if you can solve those problems faster, then you get,

(01:31:34):
you get paid even more, right? Like, but guess what?
Have you ever seen a coach that's not exceptionally good at
what they do solve a bigger problem, make it and solve it
faster? No, you don't, you don't.
So so it's like that's the master skill and you know, in a
that's coaching first, but what it is, is then taking it to a
gym and then creating the culture of that with your team,

(01:31:58):
right? Like, and obviously part of it
is that like, who are the right people on the bus that have that
curiosity and hunger to to be, you know, a great coach?
And the other side of it is likeit's on you, which is
development, right? Like providing the environment,
the resources, the guidance, thesupport for them to do that,
right? And, and it's not easy, you

(01:32:19):
know, and it's like, I think that's what I, I believe is
unique about what me and Andy dois because we're, we're still
both guys that like are in the gym and we choose to be because
we love the gym, because we lovethat shit, right?
And it's like we develop teams and like we're coaching first.
Like we spend, you know, most ofthe people that meet, we meet up
with, it's like, I don't know, Iwould say like being frugal meet

(01:32:43):
up and we're talking about a hamstrings about for three
fucking hours. You know, who does?
Because we love this stuff, right?
Like, and, and and me and Andy are like, Hey, what are you guys
doing for this? What are you guys doing for
that? Like, Oh, I I went through this
and we're going to change, you know, how we deliver this youth
development model. It's like it's always how do we
improve that coaching first, youknow, and then that's kind of
like one of the aspects of the compass.

(01:33:05):
And I mean, I think he talked toyou about what the other four
are. But like, again, we created our
own compass for for what we believe, You know, how to build
a gym that lasts. To me, like the gym that lasts
is like, hey, you love what you're doing because I don't
care if you're making money, butyou hate what you're doing.
So it's like you love what you're building.
It's making really good money tosupport your life, right?

(01:33:26):
Like you want to build that perfect business, perfect life.
And then it's making an impact, man.
Like, you know, and then you don't get to a place where it's
like, yeah, this is all working,but I'm going to burn out.
That's not working. So.
So those are the things that we kind of, you know, try to do
with our compass. And the first thing in a compass
is coaching first. The second is unreasonable
service, which I'm a big fan of the restaurant industry, you

(01:33:46):
know, unreasonable hospitality from, you know, and, and
obviously setting the table, because I believe that that is
an important thing. Very, very important thing is
like how you serve people. I think that coaches in general
are servants, right? Like it is a service industry
above anything else. And I, I even think, even though
I hate to say it because I'm such a big fan of the, the

(01:34:08):
training aspect, but you know, you could have a person that's a
good trainer but incredible at service and somebody's an
exceptional trainer, but not good at service.
The, the first one's going to dobetter in industry.
Like you have to be a servant, right?
That's also something I took that I would just add to that
that I took away from you and I even I taught my coaches this in
a different way. But you used to always say,

(01:34:29):
like, imagine you're putting on a show, like these people are
coming to this class or this session for a show.
Like they have a stressful day. I don't care how stressful your
day is. And that's not because I don't
care about you, but they're you're not paying them to listen
like you. They're paying you to put on
this show, which is going to relieve stress.
It's going to be there to listen.
It's going to be there to train them.

(01:34:50):
And even in the online space, I see the same thing with like
loom videos and recordings and stuff.
It's like they click play. It's a show that is you serving
them. So here you're going to do.
You know, it drives me nuts, hey.
But the thing you let me know this when you let's say you have
a dev coaching, you come in and you know, I didn't know you
didn't have a lot of sleep and it's been a rough time.
But then you're like, all right,I got six hours of coaching and

(01:35:13):
like every session, like you putin your best, like by by the end
of it, you're like, fuck, man, like what do you feel like at
the end of the day? Like you're going to, you're
going to feel good. You might be tired, but you're
going to feel really good about what you do.
I think it honestly, like for me, it fills me up in quite a
few ways. If I come in and I'm like, you
know, lackadaisical, I'm a little bit late.

(01:35:34):
I'm I'm not on point, I'm not onfire.
And and look, you're going to have those days.
It's but but it's like, if you start going like, well, when you
do an exceptional job, I feel better.
And you know, is that selfish? No, like I, I produced the best
thing for the client, but I feelmore fulfilled.
And, and listen, I do think we, we talked when we had coffee, we

(01:35:55):
talked about this. I think this is a very, very
important thing. I, I didn't think I'd bring it
up, but the perma thing that we talked about, right?
Like, so for anybody, if you look at perma, it's a model of
well-being. So each one of these is an
acronym. And it means like this is what
makes people not happy. But like well-being is a, is a
culmination of these things. P is positive emotion, right?

(01:36:15):
Which is happiness that that's, that's quite a bit genetic, you
know, percentage wise. If you, anybody wants to read
stuff, go to Sonia Lyubomirsky'sbook.
And I mean, you'll, you'll, you'll kind of read the science
of happiness. And there are a lot of things
that can influence happiness. You know, gratitude and exercise
is huge, but it is, you know, some of it is set in stone, but
most people just think, you know, hey, Cody, are you happy?

(01:36:37):
You know, and you're like, I wasearlier, but I can, you know,
then I just got this bill and like, right, it's like, it's
very fleeting, right? Like it's, it's up and down, but
the other parts actually really,really matter.
Which E is engagement right now?Engagement perfect example.
We said you come in, you got a lot on your mind.
You're thinking about everythingelse, but not coaching your
clients, not engaged, not in flow, which is another great

(01:36:59):
book, right? But but if you are in flow, like
you're, if, if somebody asks you, how would you know?
How did that go? I was like, man, great, like I,
I'm, I'm enjoying what I'm doing.
I'm engaged with what I'm doing.So meaning focus engagement on,
you know, be where your feet are, right, is going to improve
your well-being, right? So that means at work, like the
more engaged that you are, what you do, you're going to be, you

(01:37:20):
know, again, you're going to be more fulfilled.
Then you have R, which is relationships.
This is like, are you around people?
A lot of the stuff that we talked about, right, that make
you better that like, you know, there's another great book
called the Business of relationships that talks about
the stats of, you know, people love going to work when they
have a a friend at work, right? Like, so, hey, like make your
community like great, like for clients so that they're, you

(01:37:43):
know, go with each other. You don't have negative clicks.
This that the other amongst again, the team, right, like
team building and making sure that people are like, man, I
enjoy coming to work with the people that I work with.
And by the way, this goes for other areas of life too.
I'm just speaking for, for for the work part right now.
M is meaning, like, does this give you meaning?
Like I, I can, I mean this, thiscould sound corny, but I don't

(01:38:04):
give a shit because 21 years in a client tells me like, yo, like
I'm my blood work's the best it's ever been.
I feel great. Like, you know, I get just as
excited as day one, right? Like it's never like, oh, well,
I've heard this 1000 times. Like it's like, man, it's
fucking awesome, right? Like it gives me meaning what
we're doing with our work in allthe businesses that I have.
And then a is accomplishment, which is one that most people

(01:38:24):
focus on. That's your status, the money,
you know, like, am I growing in my career?
So if you look at that and you're like, oh, are you only
focusing on a right, which is I've done that and ran into the
wall and been like, why am I miserable?
Because I've burnt out a lot of things around my life, right?
And now going and if you have a team, it's like not just for

(01:38:47):
yourself, like, hey, are, are they engaged with their work or,
you know, are we making sure that we're creating great
relationships? You know, are, is there meaning
behind it? Like, constantly reminding
people what you do, by the way, like this is a great strategy
for work. But it's like when people work,
sometimes they forget about who they're doing it for.
You know, every once a month in a team meeting, like, hey, guys,

(01:39:08):
like I want to share, you know, 3-4 things Like this is what
Danielle said, you know, and like, hey, this person they did
just overcame cancer, lost 40 lbs and said, does gym save
their life? You know, great job.
Like Myron, right? Like, yeah.
And so so the people are reminded what they do, right?
So it's like, fuck, man. Like I don't just come to work

(01:39:29):
and just do the thing. Like this is I'm changing
people's lives. And so, you know, there has to
be a culture of that. And like, by the way, like
majority of the time and vigor we've had that, you know, the
times that like that fell, guesswhat things didn't go as well,
right. And in an accomplishment like I
think the scorecard is so important.
I'm I'm sure, I hope that you and Andy, you know, talked about

(01:39:49):
this, but the scorecard for business, right?
And then the scorecard for the coach, if, if you work there,
how many leads, how many conversions are you?
You know, one of the most important ones, What's your
retention like is your attrition?
You know, bigger than 5% shit like we gotta bring that down to
like 5 or three, you know, whichis great.
Also, like what are the actions that like how many people are

(01:40:10):
you reaching out to cold, you know, cold calling.
If if I'm if I got pat, what arethe leads coming in through ads?
Like you have to have a scorecard that drives you to the
accomplishment, right? Like if you're for your
business, you're like, well, shit.
Like if we want to hit these revenue numbers, we got to sign
up this many more people. We got to have this many more
phone calls. We got it right.
Like so you, you got to have that because otherwise
everything's in the ether. Yeah, it's like, how you doing?

(01:40:32):
Well, I want to grow. What the fuck does that mean?
Like, what do you want? Like what life do you want to
build? And so this, you know, the, the
I would say perma matters, even though it's, it's not like one
of the five in the compass. But you know, when we go to
unreasonable service, like everything kind of plays into
this thing because you got, you got to have people there about

(01:40:53):
it to serve the people that are coming in, right.
And then #3 in that compass is operational excellence.
And that is like, what is that? What is under the hood?
What is the operating system of your gym?
And I'll tell you like Andy is excellent at this, like I would
you know, he's quite better thanme.
I will say it like no problem, right?
Like and he he's been a person that's challenged me and pushed

(01:41:16):
me inside a vigor to become better at that, by the way,
right, But that is your, you know, traction, the OS system
for us, which we've kind of molded towards the gym.
I think what we do is pretty unique, but you know, we have a
level team, 10 meetings and walking talks and Caras and like
all the different things that like make the machine run right?
And like to make sure that like,hey, are we doing the things
that lead us to where we want togo, right?

(01:41:38):
So that's operational excellence.
And then #4 this is to me is very important from the content
side is educate the marketplace and show proof, right?
It like everybody can go like, hey, join this best program, OK?
Like I think that was one of thethings that I did do well is
that started creating content that just educates, right?

(01:41:58):
And then, you know, locally people are like, man, like this
guy's videos are left and right always teaching.
And then proof is, you know, before and after as you kill it
with that shit, like you're always showing like the results,
you know what I mean? So you got to have that.
But then #5 personal leadership.If if you know you, your
business will only grow as much as you grow, you stop growing.

(01:42:21):
And I think we both experienced this.
I think everybody experiences this over time.
Something happens and like you don't take care of you, right in
some way or you had blind spots and you ignore them for whatever
reason, right? Like boom, stuff stops
strategically, everything could be in place, but you're not the
best leader for, you know what Imean?

(01:42:41):
You're not the leader to take itto, to where you know where you
want to go. It's like you have to level up
to be able to lead everybody else to here, right?
And it, and it's like, I have noproblem, man.
I've, I've, I've shared it on my, my own podcast where I'm
like, here's the fucking like, here's the fuck ups that I did,
you know, here's the mistakes that I made.
Here's how, because I, I think we're all human.

(01:43:02):
And if anything, you know, you share these things in the lesson
so that other people can learn from it.
And it's like, Hey, you're goingto make your mistakes, but it'd
be much better if you like learnfrom some of mine, you know, if
I made 50 mistakes, but if you can only make 22, you'll get
there faster than I did, right? Like, and, and I think that's
part of the, the goal of mentorship is to be like, whoa,

(01:43:24):
whoa, whoa, whoa, don't do that.You know, and I had, I had, I
had a buddy of mine, it was justlike, hey, I'm considering
buying a building. I was like, alright, walk me
through it. And, you know, halfway through
I'm like, dude, no, don't do this, you know, and I was like,
I need you to look into this thing, this thing and this
thing. And if they're this, don't do
it, you know, next they text me back.
It's like, dude, you're right. You know, I'm like, man, that
was a big decision. By the way, I'm not the greatest

(01:43:46):
expert in the world at this, butI've done it.
So, you know, it's like, that was my mistake.
Don't make that mistake, You know, in personal relationships,
right? It's like, Hey, I, I was married
young, I got divorced. I fucked up, you know, like,
and, and it's like, here's how Ifucked up.
This is what led to it. Now looking back, I went into
therapy, I went into, you know, wake up worry.
I went into all these different things.
And now let me help you not makeall those fuck ups, you know,

(01:44:07):
like make new mistakes, don't make the same old mistakes,
right? And I think that's part of it.
Like I, I, I think there's a, there's a lot of, you know, the
ego and spaces and positions of consulting and coaching where,
where people are like shit, likeI'm supposed to be the person.
So I can't talk about this because I'll look bad.
And I think that I think that's a mistake, you know, because

(01:44:28):
it's like no one's made it through life unscathed, you know
what I mean? Like, and I think there's so
much value to be able to share things from a standpoint of
like, not a victim, but like actually like, hey, look, here's
what happened. You know, here's what I did,
here's how overcome it came it. Here's what the lesson is for
you so that you don't, you don'tdo it, you know, and, and I

(01:44:49):
honestly like when I study people, I prefer to read things
about how people came out of theshit show, you know, 'cause if
you only read about that, like the whole, like, this is the
four steps to how I succeeded, you know, versus like, man, I
built something and then, then this happened.
And like out of this shit show is like how I rebuilt that stuff

(01:45:09):
to me is like super valuable, right?
Like, because it's like you're, you're learning about the
hardships that people overcame. And, you know, I, I think that
again, back to, I think why me and Andy both like love, you
know, the, I would say the gym consulting space, the mentorship
spaces, because in real time, we're always doing it like on a
weekly. I'm spend time with my team.

(01:45:30):
I have a super coach mentorship.Then I have a couple 100 people
in, you know, I'm, I'm speaking,I mean, like October, I, I go to
Napa next weekend, I speak for Vergara.
Then I got 3 speaking days in Slovenia.
Like it's, you know, I'm always in front of coaches and I hear
the stories, right? And I'm just like, here's your
problem. You're starting off.
Here's this, oh, I've been in the business for this long.
I'm about to just leave. I'm done with it.

(01:45:50):
And it's like, I, I try to, you know, take all of that and help
people move forward, You know what I mean?
Like and it's and it's, it's ongoing and like it never ends,
but I love the fact that it never ends, right?
It's like we're, we're really inthe trenches doing this shit.
And it's like it's very meaningful.
You know, going back to perma tolike, you know, get somebody
that's like, man, three years ago I was about to quit and man,

(01:46:11):
we turned this whole thing around and like I work less than
I ever have and like teams doinggreat and like man, like those
stories, like I, I never get enough of them.
I'm addicted to that shit. You know, well and and man, it's
just that authenticity piece is so huge.
Like I know we got to wrap up here in a SEC, but sharing, like
being vulnerable and sharing thelosses, especially the losses
and how you overcame them or howyou kept pushing it makes you

(01:46:34):
more relatable. I mean, I said it like within
the first couple minutes it was like khaki and polo, khaki and
polo and then you walked in and you were yourself.
And that's what inspired me to actually take action on what my
goals were 'cause I didn't have the self belief, 'cause I was
like, I'm not a khaki and polos guy.
So maybe I'm not meant to run a gym or run a business or
anything like that. Like I got to be this straight
edge, kind of perfect person, but your authenticity allowed me

(01:46:55):
to believe in my own authenticity.
And like without that, I don't have this.
Without that, a lot of people don't have what they have,
right? Every fat loss transformation,
if you didn't know that they used to be fat, you wouldn't be
inspired to lose fat yourself. You know what I mean?
So like I, I respect it a ton and I think it's huge, man.
Two things. One, where can people find the
bill to last? Stuff like we'll put that link

(01:47:17):
in the pocket in the show notes and, and obviously there's like
18 more topics that I want to dive into that we will in the
future 'cause obviously there's,I mean, there's just so many.
Things we got to, we got to do some training shit, man, we got.
To we will, and I like I knowingyou for so long.
I know there's so many things I can pull out of you that like I
want people to hear and so we definitely will.
But where can people find that? And then just, you know, to wrap

(01:47:38):
things up, give me your definition of choose hard.
Where you can find like Bill to lastgym.com very simple to
remember my definition to choosehard, All right, like, so I want
to share this analogy because I think this is important, OK?
Like I don't remember where I heard it.
So whoever I'm not giving homageto, I apologize, but difficult,

(01:48:00):
easy difficult hard or difficult, difficult, OK,
they're two different things. So at this point in time in my
life, OK, me going into the gym and training really hard, that's
difficult, easy. I'm used to it, right?
Like it's hard, but like I've done it so much that it's like
I'm comfortable with it, right? What I'll tell you what was very

(01:48:21):
hard for me to do for a while. I was like saying, no, that's
difficult, difficult, OK, because no boundaries.
I'm, I was, you know, I was a yes person for a long time,
which helped me really build my career.
And then it became a detriment, right?
And it's like building a family really has helped with that.
Still got to work on it, but it's like, hey, I'm sorry, but I

(01:48:42):
I got to go home and spend time with my daughter, Right.
But my point being is if I give you a shovel and I go like,
Cody, let's go out in the parking lot, dig a hole, Is that
hard? Yeah.
It's fucking like, dude, I need you to.
It's going to be 10 hours of manual labor.
Is it getting you anywhere? You know what I mean?
And it's like, I think a lot of people cover up, you know,
because we'll get to like, what choose hard is to me, you know,

(01:49:04):
to me, choose hard is difficult,difficult because that's the
thing that moves you forward. And I think that a lot of times
people choose to do this hard thing that they're actually
comfortable with and it's not moving them forward, having, you
know, difficult difficulties, like having a hard conversation
that you've been avoiding, but then you go do the most savage
work out of all time, like choose hard, you know, and it's

(01:49:26):
like, dude, you that's not moving, That's probably bearing
you. You know, for me, I was the
problem, like I used to just work and train to avoid stuff,
right? Like, and so it's like I could
hide it and be like, man, I'm always fucking working and I'm
working really hard. Like I'm out train you all day
long, but I was actually avoiding a whole bunch of shit
in my life right until like again, when I, you know, really

(01:49:47):
choose hard for me was like, I need therapy.
You know what I mean? Like, and I went into that
right, like or hey, I have a problem with this, right.
So that's what choosing hard is.It's difficult, difficult and,
and, and that takes a level of self-awareness and like honestly
loops right back around to what we started with, which is like
why you need people in your life, you know, to, to be

(01:50:08):
mirrors, like people you respect, that you trust, that
will reflect back to you. You know what I mean?
Like, hold on. You said you wanted to achieve
this, but you're doing this. Help me understand, right,
Because awareness precedes change, but assessment precedes
awareness, right? And it's like, you have to 1st
go, like be aware of like, what is it that you really need?

(01:50:29):
You know, because, because you only have so many choose hards
in your day and your week and your month, right?
Like, and I think sometimes people cover up and go like I'm
choosing hard, but it's like this bullshit, bro.
You know. This is, this is sedation, you
know, versus like, what do you really need?
Hey, you need to rebuild your relationship.
You need to have a hard conversation.
You need to change your shit. You're, you know, hey, you're,

(01:50:50):
I'm, I'm just socially drinking,but man, that's a lot of days
out of the week. You're being social, you know,
like, and it's like, those are difficult, difficult things,
right? And that is what choose hard is
because that is what moves your life forward.
You know what I mean? Not the not.
Just like I'm working really hard and digging a hole in a
pavement that's going nowhere. Yeah.
Oh dude, I love that. That's so good and again,

(01:51:11):
relatable, but bro, this is thishas been cool.
We're going to do it again. It's super cool to have you out
here and it's I'm glad. I mean, this is probably the
longest podcast I've done in a while.
We had to take a break almost two hours, but perfect timing
too 'cause this is literally like October's going to be
you're 8 for us. So we're putting out a really
like a lot about my journey and stuff.

(01:51:31):
This is gonna I'm gonna probablymove it forward on the schedule
'cause it's gonna fit right in. I know you guys got I'll I'll
put the you said Bill to last gym.
Bill to last gym? Yep.
I'll put that in the description, 'cause you guys
have an event coming up in December as well as that's in,
you said, Nashville and then you're in February in Arizona.
February, but in Scottsdale and we'll so I'll send you the links
to that 'cause I think we're gonna have up this week, but

(01:51:53):
Nashville, December 5 and 6 someincredible.
I mean, this is the other cool part about it is that like at
our events, like we always have cool people coming out.
Mike Robertson, we're going to have Dre, every goddamn Dre.
We're probably going to have Verna Griffith.
I mean, and it's just like cool people that are coaching people,
you know, and, and then Gunner Gunner's gunner's probably going
to come out. I'm going to confirm that one is

(01:52:14):
Gunner Peterson. But then and we're in
Scottsdale, Brett's place, BrettBartholomew, so he's going to be
speaking and we're going to we're going to try to bring in
Stu from his Altus's out there. So it's it's.
Actual coaches. Real, like real coaches doing
real business shit. And it's, it's a lot.
I mean, it's a lot of learning, but it's also a lot of fun.
Like we train together, we do experiential stuff.
It it, it's pretty damn cool. Hopefully we'll have you out

(01:52:35):
there in Nashville as well. So I would love to man.
I'm already planning on. I'm, I'm hoping I can.
I told Andy I was like, I'm going to fly to Alabama so I can
see your gym. I'll just drive with you, 'cause
he said. He's like a couple hours.
Not even it's hour 15. It's crazy.
So super close. But dude, thank you so much for
taking time coming out here. I'll link all that stuff in the
description for you guys. Go follow Luca if you're not
already. I'm sure you are.
A lot of people follow both of us.
So this is going to be cool for people to hear.

(01:52:58):
And bro, we'll have to have you out again.
My pleasure brother, and thank you man.

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#80 - Luka Hocevar on Coaching Excellence, Building Culture & Developing Character

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.css-14f5ked{margin:0;word-break:break-word;display:-webkit-box;-webkit-box-orient:vertical;box-orient:vertical;-webkit-line-clamp:2;overflow:hidden;}#80 - Luka Hocevar on Coaching Excellence, Building Culture & Developing Character