The Most CRITICAL Meta-Skill for Fitness Consistency (Alan Lazaros) | Ep 397 - Wits & Weights | Fat Loss, Nutrition, & Strength Training for Lifters

Episode Transcript
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Philip Pape (00:01):
If you know exactly what to do for your fitness,
you understand progressiveoverload, you know your macros,
you dialed in your sleep, butyou still can't maintain
consistency for more than a fewmonths.
And when life throws you acurveball, whether that's
travel, work stress, or just themundane chaos of daily
existence, your entire systemcollapses.
Then this episode is for youbecause today I am talking with

(00:23):
Alan Lazarus, CEO and co-host ofNext Level University, about
something that most fitnesscontent tends to ignore.
The meta architectureunderneath your execution.
What do I mean?
Not another habit framework,not for motivation, but the
engineering principles thatdetermine whether your fitness

(00:44):
survives contact with reality.
You'll learn why the gapbetween knowing and sustaining
exists, how to build buffer intoyour system so life's demands
don't derail everything, and thespecific meta skills that
separate people who stayconsistent for decades from
those who restart every newyear.

(01:05):
And today we're going to lookat why most people fail at
fitness consistency despitehaving all the right
information.
My guest is Alan Lazarus.

(01:27):
He is the CEO and co-host ofNext Level University, a top 100
daily podcast with over 2,200episodes now, reaching 175
countries.
And what I genuinely respectabout this man is he also thinks
like an engineer like I do.
He applies that mindset tohuman behavior.
And if you look at his history,at 26, he had a near fatal car

(01:51):
crash.
It forced him to rebuild hisapproach to performance, to
identity, to sustainableachievement.
We love that word here,sustainable, the long-term
results.
And he's since built amulti-six-figure business
helping high performers createwhat he calls meta systems or
meta systems, however you wantto pronounce it.
And that is the architectureunderneath the habits, the

(02:13):
motivation, the willpower thatdetermine long-term consistency.
So today you're going todiscover why such wide gaps
often exist between knowing,doing, and sustaining your
results, the specific componentsof a consistency architecture
that hopefully can survive themessiness of real life and the
meta skills that give you thehighest leverage for long-term,

(02:36):
lifelong results.
Alan, thank you, man, forcoming on the show and doing
this with me.

Alan Lazaros (02:39):
Philip, gratitude first.
Thank you for having me.
I respect you and the work thatyou do in the world deeply.
And you very much take yourplatform very, very seriously,
which I appreciate.

Thank you so much for saying that because I think
professionalism is reallyimportant.
And hopefully we all feed offof each other as we surround
ourselves with the best and tryto be the best.
And today I kind of want totalk about that for the user or
the user.
Here I am thinking like anengineer, you and I talk about
users for the listener andhaving this sort of system of
meta skills.

(03:10):
I think you and your partner,uh Kevin, who's part of the
podcast production team behindme as well, just want to give
him a shout-out, Kevin Palmeri,on next level university.
You guys talk about meta skillsand having a meta system.
And my engineering brainimmediately thinks the higher
order skills that driveconsistency across a domain.
Maybe that's fitness, like wecare about here.

(03:32):
Maybe that's business,relationships.
And I think of systems asopposed to specific methods,
just like I think of principlesas opposed to methods.
What do you mean when you talkabout meta skills?
And then we're going to go fromthere.

Okay.
So there's a challenge skillssweet spot that have you ever
read the book, The Art ofImpossible, by Stephen Cotler?
Yes, I have.
Yes.
Okay.
Awesome.
Yeah.
So it's Stephen Cotler is oneof the top researchers of flow
and getting in the zone, whichobviously is critical for
fitness.
And he talks about thechallenge skills sweet spot, how
you can't get in the zone untilyou're in the challenge skills

(04:07):
sweet spot, which basicallymeans it needs to be outside
your comfort zone andchallenging and exciting enough
to be outside your skills, butalso within your comfort zone
enough to where you're not.
Basically, stretch yourself asmuch as possible without
snapping.
I think of skills as if skillsare in the center, there are
sub-skills underneath.
So, for example, effectivecommunication is a skill, a

(04:29):
sub-skill underneath that wouldbe storytelling.
A meta skill would be thinkingabout how you're telling a story
and the understanding thehero's journey architecture of a
story.
So meta-skills are verycognitive.
Skills are something that youdo in practice, deep practice.
I know you've talked about thaton your show.
And then subskills are thelittle nuance things that you

(04:52):
practice underneath a skill.
So I think of it from bottom totop.
It would be sub-skills, skills,meta skills.
And one of the things that I'vefound is when you see someone's
career and their career is whatyou try to do, or what I try to
do, there's a book calledDecoding Greatness.
What I try to do is reverseengineer sort of their journey.
I think of it like a graph.
Okay, where did they start?

(05:12):
Where are they now?
And where are they headed?
And the sort of overnightsuccess thing of when you see a
physique, it didn't fall out ofthe sky.
There are certain supplementsthey're taking, they're sleeping
a certain way, they'rehydrating a certain way.
Everything that they're doingbehind the scenes, you almost
have to deduce.
And there's meta-skills,skills, and subskills that they
have that you might not haveyet.
Some of them came naturally,and in some cases, they don't

(05:34):
even know that they have them.
Um, and in some cases, they hadto develop them consciously
over time.
So to me, that's a very simpleway to explain something that's
extremely complicated is whatare the subskills, skills, and
meta-skills that you need toachieve a specific outcome in
terms of physique, is what we'retalking about now.
But that works for business,that works for success, that

(05:56):
works for goals, that works forrelationships, all that.

Yeah, and I appreciate frameworks and
hierarchies like that.
I think it's also helpfulbecause sometimes I think people
get stuck if they're focused onbuilding a skill and something
is not working.
It could be that the meta skillneeds more support.
Or I suppose it could be thatthey're not breaking it down to
the proper level ofprocess-related goals that get
them to the skill.
So you mentioned the challengeskills sweet spot, and I think

(06:20):
of, again, a spectrum from um,you know, I think I think I
think of a spectrum when youtalk about flow, where like, is
playing video games on a couchflow because you're, you know,
absorbed in it and time isflying by, but yet it's not
challenging to develop skills.
Now, assume somebody couldargue against that.
Um and conversely, it'ssomething that is so hard that

(06:43):
you cannot even improve becauseit's so beyond your level, you
know, the opposite end of that,right?
Right.
And that's kind of what I thinkabout.
The first place I learned aboutflow, and I think the book you
mentioned was uh a positivepsychology, the idea being that
flow is one of those elements ofthe good life of having, you
know, meaning and purpose, yes,right, that you can find flow in
something.
So now people are listening,like, okay, where are these guys

(07:05):
going with this?
Yeah.
I want to kind of tie that tofitness.
You say you've reverse engineersomebody's journey.
Take something very simple,take strength training, you
know, training consistency,which is a big holdup for a lot
of folks.
Where would someone think aboutthe mental framework with the
skills, the meta skills, and thesubskills for that?

You know, it's interesting because when it
comes to fitness, a lot of thisI haven't teased out.
A lot of this is in mysubconscious and unconscious,
and I'm glad we're talking aboutit.
Let's do it.
The best way.
So you talked about video gamesand video games, you do develop
skills, hand-eye coordination.
There's something called a RTS,a real-time strategy game,
where you have to think in timeand all that kind of stuff.

So I tell my wife that all the time, by the way.
Okay, nice.
Yes, yeah, developing skills.

So here's the thing, right?
So a great film like Avatar,for example, gets you into flow.
Time slips away, you're fullyimmersed, and all of a sudden
you're immersed in a new world,you get all the neurochemistry,
which is what flow basicallypeople who have the most flow in
their life, they've donestudies, they are the most
fulfilled and the most meaningand the most purpose.
You already mentioned that.
The problem is after you watcha great show or a great film,

(08:16):
you're the same.
The hero that you watched inthe film, you were simulating
the emotions and the flow ofbeing immersed in that world.
But when you get off the couchhaving watched Avatar, you're
not any stronger.
Maybe you're a little smarterbecause you can learn from film,
but you're not, you didn'tactually develop any tangible
skills that you can now go use.
And so to go back to youroriginal point, though, when it

(08:38):
comes to fitness, I think thatfitness, whatever your modality,
you can you can talk CrossFit,you can talk bodybuilding, you
can talk strength training,which is what we're gonna get
to.
But any modality of fitnessthat you pick, it should be, in
my opinion, optimized aroundsomething that you, even if it's
painful, you are always gladyou did it.

(08:59):
I don't want to say you wouldlove to do it because a lot of
times that trips people up.
I I always say you don't knowyou love something because you
always want to do it.
You know you love somethingbecause you're always glad you
did.

Yes.

That makes total sense.
Right.
I don't always want to weighttrain, but I'm always glad I
did.
Yep.
And so pick something thatcreates a lot of flow because
that flow has shown two or threehours after that, the runner's
high, the zone, after a greatworkout, you're gonna feel
accomplished.
You're also gonna be strongerandor better cardiovascular

(09:30):
health.
And so back to the skillspiece.
Strength training, the metaskills for strength training is
consistency.
Another meta skill for strengthtraining is tracking.
So you know how much you benchpress, so do I.
You know how much you squat, sodo I.
You know how much when you gointo the gym, you my goal in
that every workout is how do Iget a little bit better this

(09:53):
time than last time?
Sometimes I accomplish it,sometimes I don't.
And Phil, I think that uhyou'll probably geek out with me
a little bit on this.
And I don't know if you'veheard me say this on the
podcast, but I researched this,and this is something that I
think your listeners will befascinated by.
So you've heard of theaggregation of marginal gains,
James Clear, Tiny Habits, BJFogg, all that kind of stuff.

(10:14):
Okay, so for those of you outthere who haven't read Atomic
Habits Yet, I highly recommendthat you do.
It's a very, very great book.
But ultimately, I created myown sort of flavor of this,
which is I I put a dollar in afinancial calculator and I grew
it by 0.1% every day for 50years.
Now, when you do this, itbecomes almost 84 million

(10:38):
dollars.
Now, the kicker, and this isthe meta skill of consistency,
this is the reason why to do it.
I do this with all my clients.
I pull up the financialcalculator, put a dollar in, I
put a 50 years, which is 18,000something days.
I do 365 times 50.
And then it shows 84 milliondollars, almost 83, I round it
up.
And I said, What happens if Itake weekends off?

(11:00):
So there's 52 weeks a year.
If you take weekends off, itcomes to $439,000.
So you let's say that you don'ttake weekends off and you get a
little better each day, everyday, seven days a week, and I
only do it five days a week, youhave 191 times the outcome that

(11:20):
I do.
And that's the that's anexample of a meta skill, like
thinking about your thinking andthinking about because everyone
knows you should work out, butif you don't have enough why,
enough reasons why, if you don'tunderstand the mathematics,
mathematics is a meta skill,cognitive skill underneath
fitness.
That's why we're talking aboutthe engineering thing.

(11:42):
And so I know some people whohave the subskills and the
skills, but not the meta-skills,so they don't leverage the
compound effect.
And then I know some people whoknow the math but don't
execute.
And so that's kind of mylong-winded answer to your
question.
But if you want to go throughthe meta skills, skills, and
subskills of fitness and how tosucceed in fitness, I do think

(12:02):
that would probably be of value.

Yeah, before we do that, I want to poke on this
consistency piece because firstI want to define what we mean at
Egan's Nebulous for a lot offolks, what consistency even
means.
Um, you gave uh an example Ican take away from the financial
example where seven days versusfive days, some might argue
five days is super consistentfor something, right?
Like you're doing it X percentof the time, all the time,

(12:25):
forever, and therefore you'reconsistent, even though the
output's different.
So is one person moreconsistent, right?
That's the first question.
And then I want to play devil'sadvocate and ask why is
consistency a meta-skill versusan outcome of other skills or
meta skills?

Um, I think I consider consistency a
meta-skill, because if you don'thave the cognitive
understanding of why it matters,you kind of just won't do it.

Okay.

And and so here's here's some examples.
So if you understand thescience of habits, if you
understand the science of thecompound effect and the
aggregation of marginal gains,and you understand the science
of how to actually sustainsomething long-term in terms of
longevity, but also not burnout.
Learning how to not burn out isanother in order to it's it's

(13:16):
really easy to say you shouldexercise every day for the rest
of your life.
The truth is, I actuallybelieve that.
It doesn't mean you should runa marathon every day.
I've exercised with mybeautiful girlfriend March 1st
of 2022.
We I I came to her and I said,Sweetheart, I want to beat my
old best.
And she said, Well, what do youmean?
And I said, Well, the the mostI've ever worked out

(13:37):
consistently, exercisedconsistently is three and a half
months.
I was during my master'sprogram, I had nothing going on.
To me, I went from engineerengineering to an MBA, which
compared to engineering, gettingyour master's in business is a
joke.
And then everything, yeah,everything compared to
engineering is a joke.
Um, honestly.
One of the hardest things I'veever done was engineering.

(13:57):
But that said, I basicallyexercised every day for three
and a half months.
And March 1st of 2022, now,which is wild to think about, I
said, I want to beat my oldbest.
I'm going for four months.
I need to go 120 days straight.
And she's like, I'll do it withyou.
We did that, and then wesurpassed the 120 days, and I
said, We did it.
Awesome.
And then she said, Let's go fora year.

(14:17):
And then I I'll never forgetthis pony of the garage.
We hit 365 days because I'm bigon tracking.
I have Google Sheets and Itrack all my metrics.
And I said, We did it.
She said, Did what?
And I said, We did a year.
And she turned to me, nohesitation.
She said, Let's do this for therest of our life.
And I had a mini panic attack.
Uh, because I was like, I can'tmake this promise to you or to

(14:39):
myself unless I actually do it.
This is a side tangent, but ifyou break the promises you make
to yourself, you're basicallygonna have no self-esteem and no
self-respect, and you're notgonna build belief and
self-worth.
And so for me, I do not breakpromises to myself.
I I okay, sometimes I do.
I try really hard not to.

(15:00):
I try really hard not to,because it's just a little a
dollar in the bank account ofyour self-worth.
Dollar in the bank account.
Say you go to the gym, go tothe gym, keep the promise.
That's just how you invest inyourself.
So I said, I can't do thisunless you're serious.
Like for the rest of our life,that's that's a big commitment.
Now, I want to make this veryclear jogging counts, swimming
counts, walking my dog counts.

(15:21):
The minimum is a half an hour,30 minutes a day, every day,
steady state cardio, hittraining, weight training, it
all counts.
And we've been doing that nowsince March 1st of 2022, which I
did yesterday, I crunched mynumbers, is 3.6 years ago.
Now we've bumped it from 30 to35, 35 to 40, went back to 30,

(15:45):
then we got it to 45, then wegot it to an hour.
So now we're doing an hour.
That is kind of crazy.
It's been very hard to sustain,honestly.
That said, I believe inconsistency very, very deeply.
But what I've come to realize,and I have 20 clients, so I'm
not just talking.
I did fitness coaching for along time.
I said, anyone can teach youhow to lose weight, but almost

(16:06):
no one can get you to actuallydo it.
Getting you to actually do itmeans you have to understand
yourself, self-awareness, youhave to understand the human
condition, intrinsic andextrinsic motivation, and you
have to understand how to pokeyour own buttons.
I am infinitely more likely toexercise consistently, and uh
this is the humble pie piece.
There's no way I would haveexercised every day for 3.6

(16:28):
years without Emilia.
No way.
The accountability that youhave from not wanting to let her
down, and then once you get astreak, the psychology
underneath that.
I mean, what are the chancesI'm not going to exercise
tonight?
Oh, I went for 3.6 years andthen I canned it.
It gets once you have a streakgoing, you ha you hang on so
deeply to that streak and itholds you accountable.

(16:51):
A lot of people think I'm outof my mind.
I understand that.
You don't have to do what I'mdoing.
But what I will say is that Iconsider consistency a meta
skill because there's so muchthinking.
Not to mention, you also haveto design and optimize your
entire life around that.
Yeah.
Which is lifestyle design.
So if you think you're justgonna exercise every day for the
rest of your life and then justkind of wing it, you there's no

(17:13):
way.
We just traveled last week.
We were on a road trip fromMassachusetts to South Carolina
and back in one week, andexercise was infinitely more
difficult.
I mean, we were walking aroundthe Tesla chargers, right?
And and so you the meta, I callit meta because you have to
think about your thinkingconstantly.
You have to be thinking aboutyourself and what motivates you

(17:35):
because you have to be able topoke your own buttons,
basically.
You have to be able to coachyourself in real time.

Yeah, I was thinking about a conversation I
recently had with Adam Schaeferof Mind Pump before he's I think
his episode's coming out rightbefore yours.
So no pressure, you know,follow him, right?
Oh shit.
And he's talking about how umhe, you know, at his current
phase of life where hissix-year-old kid is one of the
most important things right now,scaling his business.

(17:59):
He's already built plenty ofmuscle, he's been shredded
multiple times in his life.
All he cares about ismaintaining his fitness right
now, and it doesn't take much todo that.
Yeah, you know, for him, hissystem of consistency is always
there and it might ebb and flowwith like the priorities and it
might get applied to a differentoutcome and he might require
less effort, right?
Because we know the compoundingeffect of habits often uh feeds

(18:20):
into itself and does make thesethings almost, I'll say,
inevitable.
Even with your car trip, it'slike even if you went the whole
trip and didn't do that everyday, you'd get right back to it.
And that's kind of like thatrubber band kind of hardly been
stretched, is the is my thoughtuh for that.
I don't know if that makessense, but you did mention not
burning out, and I think thensustainability and not burning

(18:41):
out and having a system whereit's the minimum effective dose
is the minimum, and then nothaving such a high standard for
yourself on a daily basis that'simpossible to, you know, keep.
And it's like somewhere inthere, right?
Like I imagine it it can shift.
Like, does your minimum halfhour or hour a day ever change

(19:02):
during a specific phase, or isit always that?

It it did change.
So we started out with 30minutes, and I'll tell you right
now, if we had started out withan hour and a half or
something, there's no way.
There's just no way.
We run three businesses betweenthe two of us.
So the minimum viable productin business is is we call it a
minimum viable habit, which isMVH.
So for us, it was 30 minutes aday because I knew we could

(19:27):
sustain that to start.
And you know what's really kindof wild about this?
I used to do fitnesscompetitions, I've got these
sort of trophies behind me,blah, blah, blah.
But Kevin and I let it go for awhile.
We and I I don't want to say welet it go.
We weren't out of shape, but weweren't competitor level freaks
of nature like we once were.
When I first met Kev, this dudewas an animal fill.

(19:47):
I mean, this, I mean, it'sunbelievable.
And I playfully joked with him.
I said, Kevin, this is nextlevel university, not dad bod
university.

Yeah.

Because him and I lost it after COVID.
He didn't work out for likethree or four months.
And I was I went from basicallyin a gym that was bodybuilder
gym.
It's called Impact Fitness inMassachusetts.
And this is like, I mean, yougo there and you're gonna get
eaten.
It's it's great, it's awesome.
And I was overhead pressing225.
Like for bodybuilders, it itwas like I was on it.

(20:18):
And then I was out of the gymfor three and a half months
during COVID.
I could not go to the gym.
I'm working out in my closetdoing chin-ups.
I'm trying to I'm I only have35-pound dumbbells, so I can't
when you build a physique oncertain equipment and then that
equipment gets taken.
I'm not one for excuses, butit's very hard to you can't
squat 250 pounds when you don'thave the equipment.

(20:40):
And I couldn't go to the gym.
So the gym's opened.
I cry on my way to the gym,happy tears, happy tears.
And I I blew my groin.
I tried to get right back towhere I was, I got injured, I
was outside the challenge skillsuite spot to your point.
But back to the minimum viablehabit.
One of the things that's beenreally fascinating is I am just
now, and I know this soundscrazy, three and a half years

(21:02):
into consistent daily exercise.
I'm just now feeling thebenefits of it.
Like there have been a fewvideos I've posted on my
Instagram recently where it'slike, wow, I actually feel like
an athlete again.
Because one of the thingspeople don't tell you when you
compete in fitness is you peakearly.
I was 27, 28 years old, inoptimal conditioning.

(21:23):
My whole world was fitness, nohousehold, no three businesses.
You know, my whole I was afitness model, fitness
competitor, fitness coach, 43photo shoots, like my whole
world was fitness back then.
And then you grow thesecompanies and you have a
19-person team, and all of asudden fitness takes a back
seat.
And so, back to your originalquestion though, you have to

(21:45):
have a minimum that you hit nomatter what, and then you can
slowly ramp that up.
We tried to go from 30 to 45,we had to go back to 30.
And now we've been able tosustain the hour for probably
the last like four months, whichhas been really good.
It's not been easy.
So, yesterday I'll give anexample.
We we went to the gym, we bothwoke up a little bit late.

(22:06):
We had our first calls at 11a.m.
And we got to the gym and wewere sitting there in the car
going, There's no way.
We're not gonna make our firstmeeting.
I said, We gotta do 35.
So we did 35 weights and thenwe did 25 walking in the
evening.
So we still got the hour in,but we broke it into two.
So you don't have to beperfect, you just have to have a

(22:27):
minimum that you always hit.
Our new minimum is an hour.
And I told Amelia, I said,listen, we are not going more
than that.
If I'm exercising every day forthe rest of my life, I'm not
doing more than an hour.
And if you want to start out,and this is what people do in
New Year's resolutions, they sayI want to do, you know, five
days a week, three hours.
No, start small and ramp up.
Start small, actually hit andramp up.

(22:48):
Not everybody can be KobeBryant level four a days.
And he didn't start thereeither.
He was he was doing, you know,one a days, then it was two a
days, then it was three a days,then it was four a days, from 13
years old all the way to, youknow, when he was 38 or whatever
it was.
So at the end of the day, yougot to start small and build.
And I would much rather this iswhy humility is so important.
Yeah.
I think self-belief is I know Ican do this.

(23:10):
I think humility is I know I'mnot gonna do this unless I stay
humble enough to make itfeasible.
And I think self-belief andhumility rare rarely go hand in
hand.
Usually someone has a lot ofhumility and low self-belief and
they're kind ofself-deprecating, or they have a
ton of self-belief that they'resort of delusional and they can
never stay consistent becausethey they are you know overly

(23:33):
optimistic.

Yeah, and these are the kind of concepts you guys
talk about on your show all thetime.
That's why I encourage thelistener to check it out.
Um, you specifically are anumbers guy, uh, and and that
goes through my mind.
Just real quick, uh, Kevin saidhe didn't know another
engineer.
You need to correct that.
I went to RPI, I know you wentto WPI.
Nice.
Somehow he doesn't know this,so I need to educate him.
Yeah, you do.
He does.
He says, I've I don't even knowany other engineers.

I'm like, oh my god, how many engineers do you
know?
Just real quick.
50 of them at least.
Yeah, well, I know hundreds,right?
Because I'm in the space.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Yeah.
So when he said that, that blewmy mind.
I was like, wait, what?
My whole world has beenengineers, you know.
It's funny, it's funny.

Engineers are definitely a specific breed.
My wife and I joke all the timeabout it because she was a
teacher and comparing our twoworlds when she was, but now
she's a stay-at-home mom, but itwas pretty funny.
Um, nice.
I love engineers, though.
But so, and the listener reallyunderstands when we get into
this stuff that I am a big fanof tracking in numbers and
everything, but there's there'sa reason for it.
I think it's very efficient,and math is like a beautiful

(24:31):
universal language ofabstraction to something that is
atomic almost, right?
It's like simple to representsomething with math.
You don't have to knowcalculus, you don't have to know
differential equations, justvery simple, you know, numbers.
And so when you say somethinglike the five versus seven day
example, you know, I think uh ofsome of the counterintuitive

(24:51):
findings in nutrition science,like there was a study that
compared five to seven days ofweighing yourself, not zero
versus five or seven, but fiveversus seven.
Exactly.
And found that seven days ledto better long-term outcomes.
And you're like, well, that'sinteresting.
That two-day difference ofconsistency made a huge
difference.
So, my question then for you isyou have this daily practice,

(25:14):
this daily minimum.
I think of fitness as differentpillars that we kind of have to
all put together, right?
You've got training, you'vegot, I put movement in a
separate bucket, but could arguethat nutrition, right?
Sleep, stress.
There's like these big buckets.
But when we talk about thefitness side of it, the
different modalities and burnoutand stimulus versus fatigue,

(25:36):
you know, we we pretty wellunderstand that you can't push
it too hard on, say, the liftingweights piece before you go
into that uh unrecovered regime,which gets even worse when
you're in a fat loss phase andyou don't have the energy for
it.
So if you're running like athree-day-a-week program, would
you say to someone, the otherfour days have have a substitute

(25:59):
activity that's likeequivalent?
Is that how we do it for thatto kind of keep it linear?

Yeah, people don't like me for this, but I'm not
here to be liked, I'm here toI'm here to add value.
Uh fitness is a full-time job.

Yeah.

And and there should be something that you're
doing every day for yourphysique.
I I do build the self, buildthe family, build the business
every day.
Every day.
You move the needle every day.
So so I have a pyramid, andyou're a systems guy, and I
agree with you on themathematics.
I say without mathematics, takeaway this TV, take away
Restream, take away thismicrophone, take away iPhone,
yeah, take away everything.

(26:33):
Listen, math is the epicenterof all great creations.
And if you don't knowmathematics, you don't need,
like you said, you don't need toknow calculus, but you do,
there is benefits to calculus,rate of change over time.
If you don't like math, I wouldsay you're leaving a lot of
opportunity on the table.
You don't have to be anengineer, but you have to learn
some math.
And and one of the things Iwanted to be a math teacher when

(26:54):
I was a kid, and now I joke, Isay, now I teach math to
business owners.
And when I was a kid, I said umI wanted to be a math teacher
so desperately, and I said,well, they don't make enough
money, unfortunately.
Unfortunately.
And now I teach math tobusiness owners.
It's fascinating.
But back to the framework here,I agree with you on the
buckets.
So I have a pyramid of fitnessthat I created back in my

(27:16):
fitness coaching days.
Now, the cool thing about apyramid in geometry is that in
order for it to climb higher, ithas to have a stronger
foundation.
And you mentioned we talk aboutburnout.
One of the things that I think,you know, if I were to just
come on here and and and justarrogantly say, hey, I haven't,
I haven't missed a day ofexercise in 3.6 years, that
doesn't do it justice becausethe only reason I can do that is

(27:38):
because of the other thingsyou're not seeing me do.
That's one component of theladder, the pyramid.
Training is one seventh of theequation, uh, in my opinion,
from my perspective.
So the bottom is sleep.
I track my sleep every singleday.
I'm sure that you do.
Aura is unbelievable.
Do whatever you gotta do, trackyour sleep, even if you do it

(28:00):
manually.
So sleep is the foundation.
When I get bad sleep, I feellike the sky is falling.
So I got an 83 sleep score lastnight, so I'm in a good place.
I feel good.
When I don't get good sleep, Iwas on the road last week.
It was very hard to perform.
It was very hard to come hereand add value.
It was very hard to get all mywork done and to have the

(28:20):
willpower necessary to do what Igotta do.
So sleep is the bottom of thepyramid.
And the better you get sleep,the better all the rest go.
And if you're arrogant enoughto think you're gonna exercise
every day and get crappy sleep,I I just you need some humble
pie.
So sleep is the bottom.
So I do I'll give them all andthen I'll go through them.
So sleep, hydration, nutrition,training, mobility, breath

(28:43):
work, and supplementation.
Those are my seven.
And supplementation is the topof it, meaning the importance of
it is the least.
The fitness industry, whichwhat what do they sell?
Supplements.
So obviously, everyone is gonnaoveremphasize the importance of
supplements until you'resleeping well, hydrating, until
you're doing the other pillars,supplementation is exactly that.

(29:06):
It's supposed to be asupplement, but most people
overly focus on that.
Hey, what's your stack?
And are you taking creatine andall this stuff?
To me, it's it's about sleepfirst, hydration second.
I've got my Vita Coca waterright here.
Boom.
Not a plug.
I do not get paid by Vita Coca,I just love them.
Okay, sleep, hydration,nutrition, which is calories,
micros, macros.

(29:27):
Sleep, hydration, nutrition,training.
Training is any form ofmovement.
You mentioned movement.
I I call it training, which Ithink is intentional movement.
Sleep, hydration, nutrition,training, mobility.
That's the one I struggle withmost.
I can I cannot be consistentlimiting belief.
I struggle to be consistentwith mobility.

(29:48):
That's been the hardest for me.
Everyone I've ever coached, infitness or otherwise, struggles
with one of these seven reallybad.

Let me guess.
You've a waste of time or Not abig fan of it or whatever.
Or does it work done nothelping or whatever.
Not a fan.
It definitely helps.
I'm not deluding myself.

There's a reason somebody tends to be less
consistent.
You know what it what it is?
I won't do it unless I'mlearning.

Okay.

I need to do it while learning.
But foam rolling, stretching,bands, that whole nine.
So sleep, hydration, nutrition,training, mobility, breath
work.
This is one that I didn't haveuntil way later.
And I don't know how familiaryou are with breath work.

I mean box breathing and all the different
techniques.
Yeah, sure.

Yeah, exactly.
So breathing properly.
And then supplementation islast.
So I don't, I don't, I docreatine, I do magnesium and
melatonin before bed.
I I do of multivitamin.
That's pretty much mysupplementation.
Yeah, exactly.
So but to me, those are theseven that matter.
And in order to do all sevenconsistently, it is a full-time

(30:52):
job.
Don't get it twisted.
Most people are not healthy.
And I wasn't either in thepast.
So I'm I get it.
You know, back in myengineering days in corporate, I
was I was drinking too much andtoo often, and I was 160
pounds, skinny fat, not healthy.
And I'll never go back.
But if you sit there and say, Iwant to be healthy, I want to

(31:13):
be fit, I want to build myphysique, you basically have to
make it think of it like afull-time job.
You know, every single day youshould be moving the needle on
something for sure.

Unfortunately, sleep should slot in for a third
of that day no matter what,right?
And the right and then the restof the waking hours have the
rest.
At least a third, yeah.
But it's an interesting list.
I've heard you talk about itbefore, and we don't have to
like argue over what should bein the list because everybody
might have their own littledifferent things.
What I find interesting, andyou can help me understand this,
is let's put this in thecontext of skills, of subskills,

(31:43):
skills, and meta skills.
When I think um nutrition, tome, that's like a massive
bucket, a massive pillar thatencompasses so many things.
Um I mean, it's everything youeat, right?
But it's all the things tied tothat, corollary to that.
When I think of breath work, tome, that's a very specific
application of, let's say,mindfulness or relaxation or
stress management.

(32:04):
And I would almost say, like,oh, which of these do not
belong, right?
Like on the IQ test where youlook at how they all compare,
and I'd say, well, I mightactually want stress management
as a higher level than breathwork, kind of like sleep.
You don't talk about the sleephacks and such.
Nice.
Where does your mind go withthat?
And then we can talk about themeta skills and skills.

Well, the breath work, I think, is also while
you're training, how you'rebreathing while you're training,
the certain way you breathewhile you run, the certain way
you breathe while you do uhstrength training.
But I do like the stressmanagement piece.
And the other piece of thistoo, and I had, you know, I've
had a lot of really smart peoplein my life, so they've they've
always came with different it'slike minerals, no.

(32:43):
Uh I like your stress, alsohormones.
So some one person came to me,Amy.
I don't know if you know AmyLenny, she's on our team, uh,
but she said, Alan, you forgothormones.
And I said, Well, yes and no.
And again, there's a lot ofnuances to this, but if you do
sleep, hydration, nutrition,training, mobility, breath work,
and supplementation well,obviously hormones are a

(33:04):
byproduct.
So, and then obviously, youknow, a lot of athletes
unfortunately do steroids.
And we're not gonna have thatconversation, I don't think.
I'm I'm a natural athlete, I'venever personally done steroids,
I never intend on it.
I used to compete with peoplewho did, which was very unfair,
um, which is one of the reasonsI lost two of my three shows.
But it's like, well, there's athere's a drug test.

(33:26):
Yeah, well, they I didn't saythey were running a cycle right
now, but they definitely werethree months ago, that I promise
you.
But anyways, so at the end ofthe day, I like the stress
management.
I think that if I were toreplace breath work, I would
probably go with that.
Oh, because I think that's avery that's very important
because as an athlete, you kindof have to not let anxiety take

(33:49):
you.
Because you're you know as wellas I do, like when anxiety
spikes and cortisol spikes, yourtest levels plummet.
So you gotta be very mindful ofhow stress stressed out you
get.
One of the problems with metaskills being an engineer is
engineers are thinking all thetime.
Always 24-7-365, right?

(34:11):
It's always going.
So it's very hard for therearen't a lot of like really in
shape engineers.
I'm not trying to be mean,there just aren't.
And one of the reasons why isbecause we're so we think about
the past and the future sooften.
And uh high IQ is very rarelycorrelated with low stress
levels.

Yeah, it's true.
Um, you know, which I guessthis whole discussion about this
pyramid, honestly, it could beits own podcast when we talk
about these different levels,right?
Because now you got me thinkingabout mindfulness in general
permeating all of this, thesympathetic versus
parasympathetic nervous systembeing so crucial to your health.
And then you mentionedhormones, and my mind goes to

(34:49):
blood work and how yourbiomarkers are a reflection of
your hydration and nutrition,and how supplementation is
potentially a subset ofnutrition, right?
So anyway, we don't want to go.
This is the thinking.
I love this.
This is the overthink RPIversus WPI.

By the way, I'm totally curious.
And you don't mind if I callyou Phil?
Is it Philip?
It's Philip.
Philip.
Okay, Philip.
Sorry about that.
It's not going to be Philip.
I'm sure I'm not the only onewho made that mistake, right?
Uh, did you end up applying tobecause I applied to RPI, WPI,
and MIT.
I didn't I didn't apply to MIT.
I wish that I did.
Did you end up applying to WPI?

No, I didn't.
I was from Florida, so I wasn'tactually even familiar with a
lot of the schools up here.
So it was like RPI, Cornell,MIT.
Where are you?

Where are you hailing now?
Sorry, I'm not sure.

Yeah.
Okay, so I stayed up here.
I mean from Florida.
I stayed in New York.

I stayed in New England.
So we near each other.
I'm a huge fan of New England,man.
I just drove from Mass to SouthCarolina, as I mentioned, and uh
I I missed home.
I missed New England's great.
New England's great.
Yeah, three months out of theyear suck, but the rest are
awesome.
Yeah, you know, the contrast isnice.

Like that's I um there's a concept in Finland.
I think it's Finland.
Uh there's a Den Denmark calleduh Higa, H Y G G E.
Familiar with this concept?
It'd be a cool I think that'dbe a cool episode for you guys
to talk about actually.
Higa is the idea of embracingthe weather no matter what it
is, with with positivity andlike embracing it to its
fullest.

(36:07):
So when it's really cold, thatmeans blankets and fire and
dressing up really warmly andsaying, like, yeah, no excuses.
It's kind of a no excusesmentality, but not from a die
hard, you know, mentality.
But hey, this is the world,this is the planet Earth.
Um, so okay, so circling someof this in, because we mentioned
the engineering.
Uh, where was I gonna go withthis?
Engineers being out of shape.

(36:28):
Um, yeah, I see it every day.
It's yeah, it's the thinking,it's also the lifestyle, it's
also, you know, I mean, there'sa lot of sedentary professions
as well that correlate with or Ialso think some of it's
cultural.

Yeah.
Because if you get your valuefrom being smart, which most
engineers do, you don't need tobe, you know, jacked or whatever
it is.
I it always bothered me howpeople are so one-dimensional.
And again, I don't mean peoplein general, not everyone is, but
I I I hated how you had to besmart or athletic.
Yes.
Or you had to be like goodlooking or intelligent.

(37:03):
You can't be both.
And and for me, I I used I wasgonna write a book called The
Best of Both Worlds, and mywhole I didn't want to just be
one-dimensional.
I wanted to be healthy,wealthy, and in love.
I I didn't want to just bebecause I have a bunch of
millionaire friends, as you dofrom college, that it's like,
what are you doing, brother?
Like, why why don't you it'syou obviously have the time and

(37:24):
money.
So, like, what's the what's thedisconnect here, right?
It and and it does, itfrustrates me because I don't
want to see them suffer, andtheir potential is so much
greater than that.
These people are brilliant.
And why aren't you applyingyour brilliance to your health?

Yeah, I I think that applies even I think that
applies to multiple skills thatare outside what your domain is,
and and what I mean by that isI so I've seen engineers who get
in shape, myself among them,right?
Where there is an advantage tothat for sure.
You would think there's not,but there is because people
start treating you differently.
You get a little bit morerespect, you have more energy,

(37:58):
you could you show up more in adifferent way.
Now, maybe if you take it toofar and get too jacked, maybe
people be like you're a meatheadnow.
And and you see plenty of CEOsand vice presidents who are
overweight and it doesn'tobviously hold them back
necessarily uh until they havethat heart attack or you know,
their work life is cut short.
But I think there's even otherdomains like public speaking.
Engineers don't dive into thatbecause they feel like it's not

(38:21):
a skill that they need untilthey need it, you know.
And there's skills like music,you know, creativity, create
creative uh endeavors, whetherit's music or something else.
I I played jazz in in highschool, I was at uh arts high
school, which again is weirdbeing an engineer, but there's a
lot of overlap between musicand math and engineering.
And it just opens up thecreative mind.

(38:42):
So sorry, you get me thinkingabout all of these things.
I love it, man.

And one of the reasons I think engineers don't
typically become public speakersis because math modalities of
thinking have a really hard timecommunicating effectively.
I this will be a very sidequick side tangent, but I I
don't know if you've heard everheard me talk about the four
modalities of thinking.

Probably.
I've heard hundreds of yourepisodes, so okay.

I appreciate you.
You probably heard it, butbasically the the rarest one is
math, statistics, probabilities,equations, formulas.
The most common one is words,conversations, and concepts.
Then there's vision, pictures,and images, and then there's the
second rarest, which is energy,intuition, and vibe.
And women tend to be better atthat one.

(39:24):
So we all have all four, but wewe have a really good one and a
really bad one.
My really good one ismathematics.
My really bad one was energy.
I just wasn't reading the vibe.
I didn't, you know, I grew upin a very low vibe environment
and I didn't understand.
So Amelia fortunately hashelped me with that, and I've
helped her on the math side.
But engineers struggle tocommunicate.
I mean, even in this episode, Iknow I I seem like maybe a

(39:46):
strong communicator, but I wantto be honest with all of you.
It is very hard for me to getwhat my engineering brain thinks
to be said.
It's it's insane.
Like I can relate, man.
I think in the the X, Y, and Zaxis.
Like everything's a graph forme.
So it's very hard to articulateit.
And and then here's the biggestproblem.

(40:07):
And this has been really hardfor me in business because I'm a
business coach.
For people who don't think inmathematics, it's very hard.
I have this remarkable, so I II pull this up and I can draw it
out.
It's been unbelievable theunlocks because these
engineering concepts areunbelievably valuable in
business.
And if you don't understandnumbers and exponential growth,

(40:29):
like think about it just for asecond.
Imagine, Philip, if you didn'tknow what exponential growth
actually meant, you couldn'tpossibly understand the economy.
Everything's exponential, thatnothing grows linearly.
So it's either an exponentialdecay or exponential increase.
And and I've come to realizethrough coaching so many people
that we are so missing that.
We're missing the mathematicunderstanding of a penny that

(40:52):
doubles every day for 31 days,halfway in it's five bucks, and
it's it ends up being 10.3million dollars.
So nobody, even even the 84million, one dollar becomes 84
million in 50 years.
In 10 years, it's only 38 bucksor whatever.
So I don't think anyone taughtus this stuff, and it bothers me
so much because us engineershave it.
We know it, we understand it,yeah, but but we aren't able to

(41:15):
communicate it, and includingmyself.
I mean, it's brutal.

Max (41:18):
Shout out to Philippe.
I know Philly for a long time,and I know how passionate he is
about healthy eating and bodystrength, and that's why I
choose him to be my coach.
I was no stranger to dietingand body training, but I always
struggled to do it sustainably.
Philip helped me prioritize mygoals with evidence-based
recommendations on notoverstressing my body and not

(41:40):
feeling like I'm starving.
In six months, I lost 45 poundswithout drastically changing
the foods I enjoy.
But now I have a more balanceddiet.
I weight train consistently,but most importantly, I do it
suspendingly.
If a scientifically sound,healthy diet and a link, strong
body is what you're looking for,uh Philip Pape is your guide.

Yeah, I totally agree with that.
Um, it's an ongoing skill oftrying to tell that story.
It's effectively a story we'retrying to tell is convert what's
in our brain into something youunderstand over there, you
know, in your brain.
It's like telepathy spoken outloud, and now you're trying to
make it work.
Uh so what is your concept?
Are you familiar with thedichotomy of intuitive eating
versus like tracking yourmacros?

(42:23):
Those kinds of concepts alwayspop in my head because, first of
all, they're camps that don'tnecessarily need to exist here
because there's so much overlap.
But secondly, I can't evergrasp why somebody would want to
flail around and try to figurethings out, quote unquote,
intuitively without havingdeveloped some skill.

(42:45):
And I think intuition is a justa highly tuned sense of skill
that now you need, don't needthe training wheels anymore, or
something to that effect.
Does that resonate with you?
Well said.

Yeah.
People say, well, just trustyour gut.
Well, what if your gut isconditioned horribly wrong?
Yeah.
Like, okay, so I'll give you anexample.
I had a stepfather, and he andI didn't get along well.
And I was interviewing uhsomeone, or I was being
interviewed by someone.
His name's Tim Malansen.
He has a podcast called theWork at Home Rock Star.
He was a client of mine.
I coached him for a while, andI had to work through this.

(43:16):
He looks just like my stepdad.
He's got the beard andeverything.
And I remember being like, whatam I?
I'm so triggered by this guy.
Tim is the nicest guy ever.
And it was like, so myintuition was saying, run.
This is not good.
You know, it reminds me of allthe pain from my childhood.
And that's not accurate.
I had to work through that.

(43:38):
So a lot of people say, well,oh, I just intuitively eat, or I
just, I just go with my gut.
I think that that's very, yeah,maybe that works if your gut is
honed and if you've developedthat skill over time.
So for example, I intuitivelyeat now, but I don't really.
I tracked macros and caloriesto the grain of rice for three
years, and I have a mathematicmodality of thinking.

(43:59):
You know, a banana has 120calories, an apple has 90.
Like I'm not just winging it.
And and so you see people withresults who say they're
intuitively eating, and then youapply that and go, oh, well, if
that person doesn't have totrack, then I certainly don't.
When in reality, that personprobably tracked for three or
four years and now canintuitively do it because their
intuition is honed, becausethey've developed a subskill, a

(44:21):
skill, and a meta skill that'sand I think that that's one
thing I'll make very clear too.
You know, there's a lot ofwonderful people out there, but
the success is a byproduct ofskill development.
It's not like I can't even tellyou how many wonderful human
beings I've met that are wildlyunsuccessful, not just in
fitness, but in life.
And it and it hurts me.
It hurts me.

(44:41):
They could be so amazing, butthey don't have the skills, sub
skills, and meta skillsnecessary to actually win.
And that's actually what mywhole coaching practice is built
around now is how do you giveother people skills?
You don't.
Kevin is a great example.
I've been coaching him foreight years.
That dude is a machine now.
I mean, when I first met him,his intuition would have drove
him off a cliff.
And now he just he's a machine.

(45:03):
It's unbelievable what peopleare capable of, but it takes
constant deep practice andtraining and checking in and
measuring and metrics and allthat kind of stuff.
So it's really, I think it'shard when I go on the internet
and I hear like self-disciplinedoesn't work and you just go
with the flow.
It's it's no, that's no.
Imagine if Apple was like,Yeah, we don't really track
anything, we just go with theflow.
It's it Michael Phelps' coach,yeah, just swim around, you

(45:26):
know.

So what's what's above meta?
Uber?
Yeah.
Because what comes to mind hereis we need we need almost talk
about the Uber skill ofdeveloping meta skills as the
principal uh here rather thanthe specific skills.
We'll we'll get to that, butbefore before, um Philip,
Philip, you would, you wouldonly engineers can complicate

(45:50):
this.
Exactly.
Um, I think of two past gueststhat I've had uh recently.
Well, one, he's been on threetimes, Dr.
Eric Helms, uh WNBF Pro.
Love the guy.
Yeah, he and I actually justrecorded an episode on
epistemology, and and I honestlyfelt talk about humility.
Like, I don't even know howit's gonna come out, but I don't
care because I learned a tonfrom him.
But nice he he for I think hissecond appearance on my show

(46:14):
talked about how he's gonethrough how many preps, right?
He's gone through dozens ofpreps in his career.
And only now, and now as inlike a year ago, when he's a
pro, has he finally did hefinally try not to tracking?
And he said, and it's he hesaid it only took year, it took
years of doing it many differentways and honing the skill.
It's exactly that.
And then another guest I had onDr.

(46:35):
Mickey Willadin, she has thepodcast Wikipedia.
Love talking to her because hermindset is always about the
skill and not about the thing orthe result or like even what
the skill is per se.
And it, you know, just the factthat you need to develop skills
and get into that mindset.
Love it.
So, having said all that, let'sdo that here from a fitness
perspective.

(46:56):
You know, not hey, what programdo you do for your training?
But what are the meta skillsand how do we develop those meta
skills?

Challenge accepted.
Yes.
So not an easy feat, too.
And for anyone out therelistening, just bear with us,
take notes if you can, if you'renot driving.
Uh, one of the skills thatneeds to be honed is focus.
If I, and again, I I've beencoaching for 10 years, I have it
tracked 11,478 hours ofcoaching, training, and

(47:24):
podcasting.
I'm not saying that to flex,I'm saying that so you know I'm
not some young kid just talking.
I'm 36 years old, I look 12, Iknow.
What I want you to know is I Ithis is all I do.
Right?
Like helping people achievetheir goals is all I do.
And fitness coaching was thefirst three years of that.
So focus, if I watch you for aday, if I could have a camera on

(47:46):
you for a day without itgetting creepy, I could tell how
success I could predict yoursuccess based on how well you
control your focus.
You want to talk about ameta-skill, scale and subskill,
depending on how you look at it.
Learning to control your focusis probably where I would start.

(48:09):
If you can't stay focused, Ihave a hat on in the gym that's
always black.
I hate the ones with theunderbrim that's not.
I have a focus cap.
Have you ever seen the focuscaps that are like this?
Oh yeah.
Yeah, I have one of those.
I was I was wearing it earliertoday.
Yeah, um my uh I have air podsthat are noise canceling.
I actually used to not wearcontacts on purpose because I

(48:32):
didn't want to see facialexpressions in the gym.
Now I know I'm out of my mindwith all this, but I'm telling
you, when I'm in the gym, I goto war.
I go to war with my lesserself.
Do not talk to me, do not lookat me, do not come near me.
Emilia and I go to the gymevery day, every other day.
We we exercise together everyday, but we gym every other day.
We don't we have sign language.

(48:53):
People probably think we'redeaf.
We never talk.
This means I need a spot, thismeans I hit a PR.
But we have a bunch of others.

And we need headphones or no, music or no?
Music, for sure.

So you do have music.
Okay.
We do have music, noisecanceling, airpods.
But with music, not silence.
With music, not silence, yeah.
Absolutely.
Specific playlists, sometimeswe jam together on Spotify, you
can do a jam, sometimes wedon't.
But specific playlists thatthat for me, everything's fit
for purpose.
So, for example, after the gym,the the song by Green Day 21

(49:27):
Guns came on, and she's like,Hey, can we change this?
This is too sad.
We gotta I gotta be on a callin five minutes.
I was like, Yeah, fair.
So everything's fit for purposefor us.
And so I always pick theworkout, you know, carb up in
the morning, pre-workout,perfectly timed, boom, get into
the gym, awesome flow, hat down,no one talk to me.
Like, let's get in the zone.
I I also do the hoodie thingwith the hoodie up to start, and

(49:49):
then as you get warmer andwarmer and warmer, you basically
you basically strip the wholetime because you're first it's a
hoodie, then it's a shirt, thenit's a it's a it's like a it's
like a sacred practice, butfocus back to the skill.
That's where I would start.
If you can't stay focused, youcan't you can't build a great
physique or a great company, youjust can't.

Yeah, so it's great that you mentioned focus
because I feel like that tiesback to the mindfulness and the
flow that we were talking aboutearlier as well.
And I know we don't have a lotof time left to get into what
some of the other skills are,but I'm glad that you dropped
like this is the thing to startfrom because now I'm reflecting
on my day.
If you were creepily watchingme with a camera, uh I do pride

(50:31):
myself on being able to reallyfocus, but at the same time with
social media, with the worldtoday, with phones and
notifications.
And I'm often working from homewith my family there, although
they're super respectful and mykids are great.
There's so many distractionsand things like that.
So I think that could be awhole other discussion about
okay, the listener takes thisknowledge and says, you know,
what can I learn about beingfocused, knowing that that meta

(50:55):
skill can translate into all theother things I'm trying to do
with tracking my nutrition, withlifting weights, with having a
plan, with sitting down andthinking about my future and all
of those things, where wouldthey start?

So designing your environment for focus and then
also talking to your peers.
So Emilia and I don't have kidsyet.
We have a dog and two cats, andI know that that's not the
same, but that's not what I'msaying.
Everyone has distractions.
Also, my phone, and and Philip,by the way, if you ever want to
go deeper on this stuff, I'mhappy to come back.
This has been awesome.
Okay.
But for now, you can seethere's no notifications on my

(51:27):
phone.
If you're on YouTube, you cansee.
Not a single badgenotification, nothing.
This phone will only ring fortwo humans.
One is Kevin Palmeri, mybusiness partner, who you know.
The other one is Amelia Smith,my partner.
Intimate partner.
I live with her.
No one right now, there's sixcalls that I've gotten.
Half of them are probablytelemarketers or something crap.

(51:48):
So when I said there's nonotifications, there's a badge
notification for calls downhere.
I just realized that now.
Um, but I'm gonna block most ofthose people.
And first I'm gonna check myvoicemail and see if any of
those are legit.
They're probably trying to lendme money.
Um, because our company's doingvery well, which I'm very
grateful for.
But my point is, and I know Igotta go quick here, you need to
design your digital andphysical environments for flow.

(52:10):
You have to design your digitaland physical environments for
focus.
You'll notice I got calls.
Watch this.
I got 218, 218, 213 yesterday,yesterday.
Apparently, I got those callsyesterday.
But I've had a call at 218,it's 258 now.
I got I got three calls in themiddle of this podcast and
nothing rang.
Now, there's something calledemergency bypass on your iPhone.

(52:34):
I don't have an Android, so youhave to figure this out if you
have an Android.
You can make it so certainpeople can get through and other
people can't.
There is nothing so urgentunless it's Kevin or Amelia,
because if something's burningdown in the business, I need to
know, and if if Amelia needs me,I need to know.
But other than that, no one canget a hold of me.
And now I know I'm extreme withthat.
I know a lot of people don'tlike that.

(52:54):
Also, we have a closed doorpolicy.
So my office right now is thedoor is closed.
Stephen Cotler says, if youcan't put a sign on your door
that says F off, I'm flowing,then you have a problem.
Emily and I basically havehouse rules that say if my door
is closed, it means I'm flowing.
Unless it's an absoluteemergency, please do not disrupt

(53:16):
me.
And then when we have children,we're gonna have to have a
whole new set of house rules,which is which is a whole nother
thing.
But ultimately, if you designyour phone and your physical
environment for flow and forfocus, you're gonna be far
better off.
And also at your gym, and thisis gonna sound cruel, I know,
but this is this is peakperformance.
Don't make friends at your gym.
Don't make friends at your gym.

(53:38):
I don't have any friends at mygym, and that's on purpose.
It's by design because I don'twant I'm there to work out, and
I make it very clear in myenergy I'm there to work out.
I'm not here to talk, I am nothere to socialize, I don't have
a lot of time.
Time is my most valuable asset.
I have three businesses I haveto take care of.
So at the end of the day, andby the way, when I have kids,
it's gonna be even worse.
So at the end of the day, tryyour best to stay focused.

(54:01):
There's only a few things inlife that really, really,
really, really, really matter alot.
And most of the rest is justsuperfluous stuff.
Fitness is one of the thingsthat really matter.
And if you don't focus anddesign your life for focus,
you're in some trouble.
And um, I can't I say thathardcore because I care.
Yeah.
Because you're not gonna be inshape without that.
You just need, yeah, you mightnot be in shape even with that.
It's it's it's verychallenging.

(54:22):
Like I think it takes humilityto say, I need to focus.
I think it's arrogant to thinkyou're gonna wing it and be in
great shape.

Sure.
That's a great meta skill.
And I think we're justscratching the surface on this.
Honestly, I want people toreach out to you.
We're gonna share your contactinfo.
And if you're listening tothis, you're like, I've got to
hear the rest of this potentialconversation that we haven't yet
agreed on having.
And you want to hear the othermeta skills that direct directly
relate to fitness.
And I know there's a list thatwe didn't even get to Alan.
I want you guys to reach out toAlan.

(54:51):
If you're comfortable reachingout to me and just saying, bring
Alan back on for that, do thatas well.
We want to test this out andtalk about following up with the
rest of these because it's animportant conversation.
And a lot of people think toomuch at a low level.
And I think you've brought itup to that crucial level of the
meta skills.
So, with that, Alan, where canfolks reach out to you?

So we have a website called
nextleveluniverse.com.
We've got a book club, I domasterclasses every month for
free.
We got all kinds, we got agroup coaching program, we got
all kinds of cool stuff.
The podcast is Next LevelUniversity.
It's 1% improvement in yourpocket from anywhere on the
planet completely free.
And that's Kevin and I justtalking about success and

(55:30):
personal development everysingle day, 2,200 episodes.
And really what it is is we'rea coach in your pocket to keep
you on point.
Health, wealth, and love.
And uh my Instagram is the bestplace to reach me.
You and I have been talking onthere.
If you DM me on Instagram,that's gonna be me, not an AI
bot, not an EA, like actuallyme.
And uh please reach out.
I check it every single day.

(55:51):
I do Instagram, Facebook, andLinkedIn.
If you DM me on any one ofthose, Instagram's best,
Facebook's next, and LinkedIn isthird.
I will get back to youeventually.
Just LinkedIn expect a littledelay.

We're gonna keep it simple for folks, keep the IG
in there.
Yeah.
Um, NLU Podcast,nextleveluniverse.com.
My brother, it's been apleasure.
Dear listener, reach out toAlan.
He's a great guy.
Check out their podcast, tunein for the potential upcoming
episode where we do another oneof these.
And uh have a great weekend, myfriend.
Thank you, Philip.
Thank you for having me.
It's been awesome.

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The Most CRITICAL Meta-Skill for Fitness Consistency (Alan Lazaros) | Ep 397

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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;}The Most CRITICAL Meta-Skill for Fitness Consistency (Alan Lazaros) | Ep 397