How Friendship, Fitness, & Purpose Fuel The Fit Mess Podcast with Jeremy Grater & Zach Tucker

So the only negotiation I have with myself now is the 10 year from now version that says, I don't want to feel like crap, and you're the only one that can help me.

And so that is my why.

That's the thing that makes it worth getting off the couch and drinking coffee when I when I need to and listening to all the things that I need to do for my body because I don't want to look back at now in 10 years and regret the choices I've made.

SPEAKER_01: Welcome to Grit, Great and Inspiration.

I'm your host, Kevin Lowe, and I'm excited to welcome you inside.

Today we are diving into the extraordinary journey of two friends who have both experienced their own individual transformations, but have now joined forces to do their part in helping others to have a transformation in their lives as well.

My name is Kevin Lowe.

I'm the host of a Grit Grayson Inspiration, and welcome to episode 189.

So, who are these two friends that I speak of?

Who are these two guys that are in the studio with me today?

Well, that's none other than Jeremy Grader and Zach Tucker, co-hosts of the FitMess podcast.

Both Jeremy and Zach have their own stories of taking back control of their lives through personal transformation.

Like so many people, Jeremy and Zach both experienced a pivotal moment in their lives, a moment that made them realize that they had to make some changes, that they had to change what they were doing because, well, their future depended on it.

And that they did.

One started running, another started cycling.

And eventually, these two guys would come to know each other.

Partnered together, these two are the hosts of the Fitbest Podcast, a place that is on a mission to help you transform your own life.

Their individual stories are inspiring, their story of friendship is heartwarming, and what they're doing through their podcast is truly empowering.

So with that said, ladies and gentlemen, let me introduce you to none other than Jeremy Crater and Zach.

Zach and Jeremy, welcome to the podcast, guys.

SPEAKER_02: Oh, thank you so much for having us.

We're really happy to be here.

Yeah, thanks for having us.

SPEAKER_01: Yeah, well, fantastic.

Well, well, guys, before we get into the story of the two of you as as friends, as as hosts of your own podcast, I would love it if we could kind of get a little backstory to understand kind of each of your stories individually.

And so if one of y'all would love to start, it doesn't matter to me.

And uh would love to just, you know, have one of you start off the other one, and then we'll kind of go from there.

SPEAKER_00: Sure.

I'm Zach, and I will I'll start off.

It was a cold Tuesday evening 43 years ago when I was born.

No, I'm just kidding.

It might have been.

I don't know.

I have no idea.

Yeah, no, I, you know, before we talk about the show, I think my backstory, I I I grew up in a house full of lots and lots of trauma.

And I think, you know, the way I've described it is the first 20 years of my life was pretty horrible, not the greatest.

A lot of it was circumstantial situations.

A lot of it was, you know, genetic anxiety, things like that.

A lot of it was higher intelligence that, you know, just wasn't being used.

So a lot of trouble with the law, a lot of trouble with anxiety, depression, overeating.

I think I was 300 pounds, almost 300 pounds when I was uh 20 years old, eating McDonald's every day, smoking cigarettes, doing all kinds of stuff that I shouldn't be doing.

And, you know, a couple things happened here and there that set me on a different path.

I got my first job out of college and I went to the interview, and you know, my manager, I didn't want to smell like smoke, so I I showed up for the interview and I didn't, you know, I put on a nicotine patch, so I didn't smell like smoke.

And he hired me, and my very first day of work, he he looked at me and said, you know, if I had known you smoked, I would have never hired you.

So I was like, whoa, maybe I should quit these things.

So I did, and then and then I ended up running a 5K at work, and because I'd quit smoking, which was like the hardest thing I'd ever done, running the 5K.

And then, you know, 20 years later, I just I've made all these little itty bitty changes, incremental changes to my physical health, my mental health.

And, you know, here I am at 43, you know, still struggling, but the happiest and healthiest I've ever been in my entire life.

And I met Jeremy, what, 11, 12 years ago?

Something like that.

SPEAKER_02: 12 years ago, yeah.

Wow.

unknown: Wow.

SPEAKER_02: And that was the point where I had been on a sort of an accidental health journey.

I was was really struggling.

I was doing a different, a completely different podcast back then.

And it was, you know, wrapped up in a lot of beer and a lot of just, you know, sharing ridiculous stories and that sort of thing.

And it was, I did it with my brother.

And along the way, I had a new daughter, and that's how Zach and I met was through our our wives were involved in this sort of FitMom program where they were training for a triathlon.

And one morning, there was the knock at the door, it was the grocery delivery guy very early.

And anyone with a brand new baby knows that you don't want anything to wake that kid up.

And so the knock at the door got my dog barking and made me roll out of bed, you know, in a way that somehow I ended up rolling my knee and couldn't get up.

And it was that injury that then put me in a physical therapist's office who said, you know, really, based on your family history and and what you've done here, if you don't get on a bike, you're gonna end up replacing both of your knees.

And I remember thinking, well, that's completely ridiculous.

I haven't, you know, rode a bike since I was a kid.

There's no way I'm doing that.

So I went and did what I usually did and complained to my brother about what a you know ridiculous idea this doctor had.

And he was the one that said, uh, and I'll never forget it, he said, dummy, you just have to decide that you're that weird guy that rides his bike to work every day.

That's what it's gonna take.

And somehow it sunk in.

I like immediately the minute he said that, I was like, man, I'm weird for a lot of reasons.

Why not that one?

So I jumped online, bought myself a used bike on Craigslist, and started riding the nine miles to work every day.

And it was through that process that I really was discovering how much I was prior to that living in the future, living in the past constantly with anxiety, depression, what did I do wrong?

What what regrets do I have?

What worries do I have about how bad work's gonna be and these awful relationships and and things that were going on?

And it was on the bike that I found that if I didn't stay present in that moment, that bad things would happen.

And so I really fell in love with just being in the moment.

And I wanted to find ways to incorporate that into my life in other ways.

And so it was I ended up in a therapist's office who taught me all about meditation.

And that that one door ended up kicking open three others that kicked open five others.

And some of them were getting to know Zach better.

You know, when we first met, it was we are the dads of these new kids.

And so we're forced into these situations where we're you know, we're now at brunches together and sizing each other up.

And oh, how about the sportball event the other night and all the things that guys do?

But over time, those walls came down and we were able to start talking about like, man, how how are you doing as a new dad?

Are you getting enough sleep?

Are you taking care of yourself?

Like Zach was having some success with weight loss and that sort of thing.

And so I started asking him, you know, what are you doing?

And then all of a sudden we started sharing these tips and sharing and really just being open and vulnerable with each other.

And it was through that that Zach actually had the idea to start a podcast where he's like, you know, guys don't talk like this.

If if we started doing this, it it might make it easier for other guys to not only learn from our experience, but see that it's okay to be open and vulnerable.

And I thought he was completely nuts, said no for months because I was no expert, had no, you know, credentials that said I was the guy to be giving anyone advice.

But eventually he wore me down and uh I found that he was he was right, that there weren't conversations like this happening.

So eventually we we put our heads together and came up with the fit mess.

And uh it's been going strong now for uh like five years, I think we've been doing this.

SPEAKER_00: And um seems like forever.

SPEAKER_02: Seems like forever, yeah, just decade after decade.

But yeah, so that's really sort of the the origin story of of us and and sort of the birth of our show.

SPEAKER_01: Yeah, well, I love that.

And I mean, to be honest, when I when I listen to you guys share your your individual stories, I can't help but think to myself, listen to these guys.

They literally were meant to be together because you guys literally had these kind of own journeys of of kind of living a healthier, better life.

And you use two of the like most like talked about ways of doing that.

You have the one aspect of just the incremental changes every day, and then you have the other, you know, aspect of assuming the identity of the person you want to become.

And I'm like, these guys were a power couple and they didn't even know it.

SPEAKER_02: That is the first time we've been described as a power couple.

SPEAKER_01: Wow.

So, so talk to me about the podcast journey.

So obviously, a little bit of pushing and pulling on do we do it, do we not?

Who am I to do such a thing?

But you did it.

And how has that journey been?

Uh, it's been life-changing.

SPEAKER_02: I mean, uh, there are times when the show is entirely an accountability tool for me where I know that if I show up and try and help other people figure out how to get their their lives together to feel a little bit happier, feel a little bit healthier, and I'm not doing it myself, then I feel like a fraud.

I feel like a hypocrite.

So there are times when it's literally the only thing that makes me, you know, go to bed on time or drink enough water or go to the gym or whatever the thing is, because I I want to be real.

I don't I don't want to show up and be another phony person online saying, here's all you got to do, the the best five things to change your life, whatever.

I just want to share my experience and share my favorite things that work for me because I don't believe there is a best.

I believe that there are favorites and and everyone has to find their own.

You know, for me, I I fell in love with biking.

I never knew that that was going to be an option for me.

For some people, like Zach loves CrossFit.

I will never in my life step into a CrossFit gym.

That's just way too many people for me.

So I just want to be able to share with people what works for me.

And so if it's both an accountability tool for me and helps help someone else feel a little bit less alone, feel a little bit like there's someone helping them on their journey, because this is tough, isolating work.

When you start shedding all of the things in your life that tend to hold you back, you end up kind of alone because people don't want to go on that journey with you.

They they like to continue to medicate themselves and and and just continue doing these bad habits to make themselves feel better temporarily.

And so when you start being the weirdo that's like, oh no, you actually want to deal with your stuff, your trauma, you actually want to process that and get it out of your system.

They don't get it.

And so you end up very lonely.

And so that's where that that has really been the main thing that has driven me to keep doing this show is to help people like me 10 years ago, 12 years ago, that didn't know where to turn, wanted something better, and you know, didn't have a resource to turn to to figure out how to do it.

SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I love it.

I love it.

Why do you think that is?

What you just said, why do you think that so many people you know it is hard for people to understand what you're trying to do?

SPEAKER_02: Because it's hard.

Nobody wants to do the hard thing.

Yeah, nobody wants to to face the demons, right?

It's so much easier when you've had a tough day and you know you you don't want to actually face what happened.

So you drink, you use drugs, you stare at Netflix for three hours when you know you should have only done 30 minutes, whatever.

There's all these band-aids we like to put on things instead of actually dealing with our feelings and dealing with the things that cause us, you know, trouble in our lives.

And so who wants to sign up for pain?

Who wants to sign up for doing it the hard way?

It's very difficult.

So I don't I don't blame people that you know saw the road that I went down and said, not for me, I'm out.

But I'm also glad that I've gone this way because it's just made me a stronger and happier, healthier person because I know I I have tools, I have the ability to face a lot of the stuff that previously held me back for more than half of my life.

And so, you know, it's still a learning process.

I still struggle every day.

There's there's plenty of things that Zach and I talk about doing all the time, and then I never actually take the action and do them.

And then we tell people it's all about action, folks.

You got to take the action to do the things.

So we're by no means perfect.

And that's that's part of our message is that we, you know, we want to show that that this is a struggle.

It's not it's not a life full of Instagram moments.

It's a difficult struggle that you have to face the obstacles one at a time and you have to go through them.

There's no going around them.

You have to go through them.

And so we just want to help people do that.

SPEAKER_00: Yeah.

And I and just one thing to add, I think a lot of people, myself included, you know, years ago, we define our lives.

We define who we are by, you know, what we do.

And going down that road of fixing these things and making these changes, it literally means shedding who you are as a person.

And that scares the crap out of people a lot of times, right?

Like this is who I am.

If I don't have this, what do I have?

So I think a lot of people fall in that trap where, you know, they won't do the work, they won't go down that road because that means that they have to redefine themselves.

And that means shedding things about themselves, shedding friends that they may, may or may not need.

It's like Jeremy said, like it's hard, it's a struggle, and it's not easy to do.

But you know, that definition of who we are can keep somebody locked in place for years and years and years.

Yeah, absolutely.

I love that.

SPEAKER_01: Now, through having the podcast, I know that, you know, one of the most kind of impactful things about having a podcast is the people that we get to meet through it.

That I always say that, you know, it's the greatest thing about a podcast.

Because if it wasn't for this podcast, I wouldn't meet you guys.

I wouldn't even know that you guys existed.

And yet here we are sitting down, having a conversation together.

And so I would love to ask you guys from your perspective, what has been the most impactful thing on your lives?

What have you learned about yourself, discovered about yourself based on maybe something that somebody has shared that you've interviewed, or just through the experience of going through this journey of having, you know, this podcast talking about these topics?

SPEAKER_00: Yeah.

Geez, there's there's so many to pick from.

I I agree with you 100%.

Like talking with people as often as we do is absolutely amazing.

And I think one of the cool things about it is, and I harp on this all the time, and Jeremy's gonna has heard this a million times, but I'm a big believer in being wrong about things, about, you know, really questioning your beliefs and whether or not what you believe is actually true or something that's just been embedded in you for years and years and years, and you can't drop it.

I love talking to all these guests because they really make me question all these beliefs.

I will bring one up that specifically worked for me really, really well.

Jeremy tried it and didn't really work really well for him.

And we had a guest on who, you know, and I know this is gonna cause some panic in some people.

I just know it.

But the guest said, in the morning, when you wake up, don't drink your coffee until two hours after you have woken up.

And both Jeremy and I, like I could see him on video, like our eyes lit up and we're like, are you crazy?

No way.

You can't delay cap.

No, that's how I function throughout the day.

And then, you know, they went on and described how if you delay the coffee, it allows your body to naturally wake up, your adrenal glands do their job, and then you don't necessarily crash throughout the rest of the day for most people.

So I was like, okay, I can try this.

And I did it.

And it actually works really great for me.

Like I wait two hours and I have really steady energy throughout the entire day.

Although, but Jeremy tried it and it didn't work so well for him.

So, like, you know, it's really cool to see all these stories.

And Jeremy, I'll turn it over to you in a second.

But it's really cool to see all these stories and be able to question whether or not something actually applies to me or changes my truth or changes what I believe in based on the fact that not every one thing is gonna work for every single person out there, like it didn't work for Jeremy.

SPEAKER_02: Well, and what's funny about that is that it did for a while, right?

I tried it out and and it was going great.

And for whatever reason, you know, I decided that I was gonna connect with this coach and try and get a little bit more just diet and fitness advice from them uh and work with somebody who knew a little more what they're doing than I do.

And along the way, I started reading uh about how caffeine delay doesn't work universally.

As it turns out, some some diet plan doesn't work for everybody.

How about that new?

And so I just was curious because I was like, you know, I don't eat like garbage.

I'm I move pretty well every day.

I wasn't going to the gym every day, but I was going for long walks and rock climbing and doing stuff.

I was like, why do I still just feel like garbage?

Like it is so hard to get out of bed.

I'm I'm cranky.

I'm I it's not fun for my kids to be around me.

Like, what do I do?

And I I was reading about how caffeine delay might actually be detrimental to some people.

And so I asked my coach about it, and he did what any good coach would do and said, give it a try.

Have coffee first thing in the morning.

Only have one or two, but leave it at that.

Because I was drinking it all day.

And so all night my body's trying to process it.

And I basically wake up with a hangover and that explained it.

And that's why once I finally had coffee at 10 or 11 in the morning, all of a sudden I was productive and happy for a couple of hours.

And then, you know, the cycle would continue.

So the ability to question, does this work for me?

First it worked and then it didn't.

And I was able to question it again and go back to a different plan.

And now it's working great for me.

But to answer your question more specifically from my perspective, we've had some incredible people.

Honestly, we probably had no business having on when we had them on.

We've we've talked to, you know, Bulletproof Founder, Dave Asprey, we've talked to Sharon Salzberg, Meditation Guru, uh, Daniel Siegel, Sean T, Tony Horton, Gary John Bishop.

I mean, people that that just blow my mind every time, every time we have them on the show.

And they they've all had nuggets of wisdom.

I remember Tony Horton looking me in the eye and saying, dude, your purpose sucks.

That's why you don't go to the gym.

And just that hard truth I needed to hear.

And I was like, he's right.

I don't have a reason to go that is that is a bigger reason than sitting on the couch and doing nothing.

SPEAKER_00: And I loved it when he did that too.

That was so great.

SPEAKER_02: He just laid the smack down on me.

I was like, he's absolutely right.

But I think I think the most profound lesson came from interviewing my favorite author.

We had Ryan Holiday on the show.

And I don't even remember what he said specifically, but but he really just helped me understand that, and and I still struggle with this, but he helped me understand that I don't need external validation.

I don't need to be led by someone else.

I need to know what what is true for me.

I need to know what my why is, I need to know what my purpose is.

And I need that to be enough to guide me and to not be distracted by shiny objects and the latest, greatest thing and the new trend and what this diet plan says and what that you know health expert says.

I gotta know what's right for me and follow that and block out all the noise.

That is just so powerful when you realize how much of your life is in your control and how you don't have to be a victim to circumstance constantly.

Yes, life is gonna get in the way, it's gonna knock you down, it's gonna be brutal sometimes.

But we have so much more control over our own lives and our own experiences than I think we give ourselves credit for.

And when you get really serious about that and and you really apply that to everything that you're doing in your life, it's incredible how much how rewarding it can be and how much you can start to find the, I think, the peace uh in your life that you're looking for.

SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I love that.

I love that.

And I think I think that ties in just perfectly with with the next uh kind of topic I wanted to ask you guys about was would you agree with the statement that in order for somebody to truly improve their physical health, they also have to focus on the mental as well?

SPEAKER_02: I think there's two sides to that sword.

I think that by working on your mental health, it can free you up to make space to take care of your physical health.

But I I'm actually starting to believe, and maybe this is a belief that I'll question in a few months and find completely wrong, but I'm starting to believe that the that your physical health is the foundation of your mental health.

I have found in the last uh couple of months that that sticking to a dedicated just lifting plan, like I I hate cardio, I hate jumping up and down and running around and all that nonsense.

And so I went to just strict lifting.

And it has been uh it's it's kind of reframed the idea of your body as a temple for me because it's almost become a spiritual experience.

By doing that, by overcoming the numbers every week, lifting heavier things, showing that I can do these challenging things every morning, pushing myself to do a little bit more.

It's helped move a lot of the energy that would normally spin around in my head and turn into all the limiting beliefs and the negative thoughts, and you suck and you can't do this and you can't do that.

When I have a pile of evidence that says, yeah, you can do hard things and you do them first thing in the morning every day.

So you don't have to deal with it all day of when am I going to do this?

Should I do it after lunch?

Should I do it after dinner?

Is there gonna be time later?

Like just knocking that out first thing in the morning shows me every day you did probably the hardest thing you're gonna do all day by just getting to the gym.

And then after that, every obstacle that you overcame, at every point you were tired and couldn't do one more and did it anyway.

Ways that that just it may it just strengthen your resilience, right?

And so all of a sudden mentally you become a little bit tougher because you overcame these hard things.

And so while your body gets stronger, your mind gets stronger, and you start noticing the connection between the two.

And that's when it becomes something more.

It becomes more than just I don't have these negative thoughts and I'm out of shape.

It becomes like all of this together is kind of what I'm supposed to be doing.

I don't know the right words to describe it, but that has been a big shift for me this year is noticing how for me, my mental health is massively influenced by my physical health.

And so that's why I'm trying to make it a much bigger priority for me to start every single day.

SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I totally agree with that.

My physical health, Jeremy gets on me because I get up at 4 30 in the morning every day.

Except for this morning, I wasn't feeling good, so I slept in.

But I get up at 4 30 every morning and go straight to the gym and I do a good workout, like something that really gets my heart thumping, lifting weights, cardio, all the stuff Jeremy doesn't like to do.

And that is how I start every single day.

And to Jeremy's point, like I have, you know, by seven o'clock in the morning when I'm drinking my coffee, two hours after I woke up, I've already accomplished probably the hardest thing I'm going to accomplish for the entire day.

And my brain is full of chemicals that I wouldn't have gotten, you know, just waking up and drinking coffee that help my mental health.

Now, on the flip side of that, though, there is, you know, mental health and mindset are two different things, in my opinion.

Your mindset, your decision to go be healthy physically and mentally, your drive, your decision to talk to yourself positively, that mindset piece, I think, needs to be there before any of it.

So you do need to go build the foundation of a physical health routine, but you've got to be able to decide to go.

You've got to be able to know that your future will be better if you do the right things, that you are in control of your life.

And it's up to you to make those choices.

So, you know, your mindset isn't exactly mental health in my book, but I think that's the first step for any of this stuff.

You have to have a positive mindset.

You have to be able to tell yourself a different story that's not, I'm lazy, I'm garbage, I'm not good enough for this stuff.

So once you get that mindset in place, then you can go do the physical stuff, which powers the mental health stuff.

SPEAKER_01: Yeah.

Now that is why you guys are the power couple.

Because those two answers both of you just gave totally just blew my mind.

Because it was not at all what I was expecting when I asked the question.

And I loved it.

You guys answered it in a way that I'm like, this is why they're on the podcast, because they don't say the stuff that we can find on Google.

So I applaud you.

Yeah.

Thank you.

Thank you.

But but yeah, no, I mean, that's just absolutely I agree a hundred percent.

As you guys both talked that out, I thought, yeah, they are so, so right.

So I love that.

Now, what about the discipline aspect?

Because you guys talk about this and you guys both are taking fitness to another level.

You're both you're talking about getting up at 4:30 in the morning and not making coffee, but going to the gym.

You guys are both doing that.

It takes discipline.

What would you say to somebody who isn't there yet?

They want to do it, but and maybe they've done it, but then they've quit and they've kind of slid back into old routines.

How were you guys able to make it work?

SPEAKER_00: Well, I think uh, you know, this this kind of draws upon some of the conversations we've had around motivation.

And I guess for a long time, I would always look at things and go, you know what?

I want to do that thing.

And uh, and and when the motivation strikes me, when the moon is in proper alignment and the stars are right and I've eaten the right meal and all these things come into play, I'm gonna go do that thing.

And we have both learned that motivation is fleeting.

It comes for a quick second and then it's gone.

And if you're depending on motivation to get you to any of the goals that you have, any of the things that you want to accomplish, you're gonna fail.

You're you're just not gonna make it.

You've got to be able to build your own motivation.

You've got to just be able to decide that you are that person.

Like Jeremy decided he was the weird guy who rode his bike, be the person and go do the thing and hold yourself accountable.

It's a little bit hard-edged, but it really is just decide you're that person and go do it.

There's all these tools and things that you can put in place, like uh, you know, motivational tools.

Like, you know, the I saw one, it was crazy a long time ago where, you know, you could put money in a bank, and if you don't accomplish your goal, it'll make a donation to a cause that you disagree with.

Like, you know, there's all those kinds of things, but you really need to understand what kind of a person you are.

Are you externally motivated, internally motivated, and really tailor your decision to go do whatever it is you're after based on that?

And just like Tony Horton said to Jeremy, you need to figure out your why.

You need to figure out why you are doing this.

What's your goal?

Is it to look better?

Is it to attract the opposite sex?

Is it to be healthy?

Is it to live longer?

What are you really trying to do?

And figure out the why, and then just go decide to do it.

So again, it Jeremy's got a little more on this, but it's it's hard-edged.

But unfortunately, the answer is if you want to do it, just go do it.

SPEAKER_02: It is largely a decision that you have to make.

There's some self-parenting involved.

You you have to sort of think of yourself as a child and just go, you know, would would I let my kid just go, no, I don't want to, if it's something important?

Probably not.

If it's something important, I'm gonna push them to do more.

The the Tony Orton conversation is so interesting because when I knew we were gonna be interviewing him, I'd never done the P90X workout.

I'd you know, I'd done some beach body stuff, but I'd never done his.

And so in in the weeks leading up to the interview, I decided, well, I I better do this.

When am I gonna do it?

So I looked at my calendar and I blocked out a time every day.

And I did not go for a week.

And at the end of the week, I looked back at that calendar and I went, look at all those missed opportunities.

You can't sit here and say you don't have time.

Look, it's on your calendar.

You just didn't go.

And so the next week, I started by putting on my shoes and walking to the gym.

And that's as far as I got.

Like, look, I I got I got closer today, one step at a time.

The week after that, okay, I'll I'll go in and lift some stuff, I'll, I'll, I'll do the video, whatever.

And it was in that process, it was just, it was just building, literally building the muscle, building the mental muscle of can I do this?

Getting out the door is usually the hardest part because you sit there negotiating with yourself for an hour all morning, go, oh, I don't really feel like it.

I'm kind of tired.

I got this thing on my back, and uh the coffee sure smells good and all the reasons to not do it.

You got to have a better one to do it.

And so that's where, you know, what what what Tony Horton told me was your your purpose sucks.

He was right.

I still don't know that I have a great one, but I know that I have enough moments in my life that I look back on now and go, man, I wish I had done this then.

I don't want to be looking back in 10 years at now and going, why didn't you just go to the gym?

Now you got to have your knees replaced.

Now, now this health issue, that health issue, all these things.

If you'd done this 10 years ago, we wouldn't be dealing with this.

So the only negotiation I have with myself now is the 10 year from now version that says, I don't want to feel like crap, and you're the only one that can help me.

And so that is my why.

That's the thing that makes it worth getting off the couch and drinking coffee when I when I need to and listening to all the things that I need to do for my body because I don't want to look back at now in 10 years and regret the the choices I've made.

SPEAKER_01: Yeah, it's powerful.

That's powerful.

I love it.

Now, both of you guys, you're both married, correct?

Correct.

SPEAKER_00: Well, no, that's not correct.

I am not married.

SPEAKER_02: For so long we both were.

SPEAKER_00: I'm uh I I am not married anymore.

SPEAKER_01: Okay, okay.

So we got one married and one not married.

Both have kids?

Yes.

Yes.

You both have jobs?

Yes.

Yes.

Both have lives?

I think so.

Most of the time.

Okay.

So you're pretty much just like everybody else out there.

You got stuff going on.

Because I wanted to ask you, the person listening in, they're going to say, okay, yeah, well, that's great.

They probably don't have lives.

They probably don't have spouses or kids or jobs.

And so they can focus on their fitness and their health, but you guys do.

So what do you say to them?

SPEAKER_00: Maybe I can go first on this one.

SPEAKER_02: Go for it.

SPEAKER_00: So I mean, my full-time job, I'm a vice president at a company in the IT space.

So I have a very large, very demanding job that spans multiple countries.

I've got, you know, people in Macedonia and Ireland and the United States, Romania, Lithuania, like just all over the world.

So my job, just my job alone, is extremely demanding.

Jeremy has seen, I've sent him screenshots of my day occasionally.

And, you know, there are I don't think there is ever a day where I go the entire day where I don't have to choose which meeting I'm going to go to because I'm like triple booked.

And my days are just packed all day long from, I don't know, 7.30 in the morning until 6 o'clock at night, fully, fully packed.

And that's just my job, right?

But I do push myself to take care of myself.

That's why I get up at 4:30 every morning.

I go to the gym.

I drink my coffee.

I've got my meditation time in the morning.

I have my daughter half of the week.

So half of the week I'm with her taking care of her, doing all that stuff.

I have a house that used to be my wife and I, it was our house, and it's a larger house than I need, but I got to take care of the whole house by myself, right?

So I do all of those things.

And then, you know, and then I've, of course, got little side projects and I'm a tech guy.

I'm a nerd at heart.

So I'm constantly playing with things.

And Jeremy picked on me one day because, you know, you can buy like an Alexa for like 30 bucks, something like that.

And I spent an entire weekend just programming one because we could just because it was fun and I wanted to.

So, and that's just really scratching the surface, but like my days are busy.

My life is busy.

It's crazy.

We just released an episode on stress because in the last, I don't know, two months, I've had just incredible stress across all aspects of my life.

And it's been amazing to see all the work that I've been doing, that I've been practicing over you know, all these years really come into play in these two months because I've been able to handle it and I've been able to get by.

Now, there were moments where I screamed and I called Jeremy and I was like, dude, I don't know what to do.

I can't handle this.

But yeah, no, I'm busy and I still make time for myself in the morning because that is the most critical thing.

And Jeremy's got an analogy that I'm pretty sure he's going to talk about with uh champagne.

SPEAKER_02: You read my mind.

Before I get to the analogy, I'll just say that, you know, if if you're waiting for the perfect time, this gets back to the motivation piece.

The perfect time ain't coming.

You're you're busy, you're a parent, whatever.

Like you keep thinking, oh, when they're a little older, oh, when this hat when they're doing this and when life gets this way.

Then it doesn't get easier.

It gets busier and busier and busier.

Your responsibilities pile up more and more and more.

So you have to find the time.

You have to make the time, you have to turn off Netflix, you have to get up a little earlier, stay up a little later, whatever your body tells you you need to do.

I found for me, I have to get up at five o'clock in the morning so that I can have an hour to read, to meditate, to journal, to have my cup of coffee, have a little bit of quiet and peace in my day before I dive into getting the kids up, getting them fed, getting their lunches made, getting them out the door to school, getting on the bus on time, coming back, serving my clients all day long, creating a podcast, getting my kids from school, coming back, getting them taken care of, making sure

they've got snacks into their after-school activities.

My life is busy too, but I found an hour that works for me to fill my cup, to fill my glass of champagne to get to the analogy Zach was alluding to.

Everyone always likes to talk about the uh the oxygen mask on the plane.

You got to put the mask on yourself first so you can help others.

So it's a very scary, terrifying, horrible vision to build your life around.

I don't like that one.

So I like the champagne fountain, even though I don't drink alcohol anymore.

But you go to a wedding, you see that champagne fountain, all those glasses stacked up.

Nobody starts by filling the ones at the bottom to make sure everybody else has enough.

They always start at the top and it flows over and fills all the other cups below.

You have to be the glass on top and you have to fill it first because when your cup is full, you're able to help others more.

If you are constantly in a deficit and feeling like there's no time for me, there's nothing for me, it's it's all about everyone else, I've got to please everyone else.

That is a miserable place to operate from.

And it creates the need to veg out in front of the TV for a couple of hours, to eat like crap, to not take care of yourself because you you're just drained because there's nothing left for you.

But if you take care of yourself first, you're just in such a better position to take care of others.

And so you you really like it again, it it can be harsh, but you got to do a time audit.

Where is your time going?

Where is a half hour for yourself?

Where's 10 minutes for yourself?

Where is something you can do to make sure you're taking care of you and then build on that, make it a bigger priority?

It's just gonna make you a better person to be around for everyone else, and it's gonna make your life more rewarding too.

SPEAKER_01: Again, so powerful, so incredibly awesome.

You guys are insane.

I got one last question for you, and you're gonna have to think on it because I'm sure you guys got a lot of stuff you'd love to start spouting off, but I'm gonna hold you to it.

I would love for each of you to share one tip, one piece of advice, one life lesson learned that has made the greatest impact on your life and that you feel as though everybody should know.

SPEAKER_02: I think I'm going first.

I will say, again, reading again, Ryan Holliday, my favorite author, his his recent book, Discipline is Destiny.

He said this in a way that it was just better articulated than what we've been saying in terms of you know, small steps, consistency, it builds over time, et cetera, et cetera.

So many of us, when we start this journey or or or uh go after any goal, we imagine the transformation that's gonna happen.

Once I get there, I'll be happy.

Once I get that job, I'll I'll be happy.

Once I'm making X amount of money, I'll be happy.

Once I have a wife, kids, the house, the thing, then then it will be good.

But it isn't.

It's always great for a moment, and then you're wondering what next.

And so the way that Ryan Holiday writes about it is he he explains that it's not about transformation, it's about evolution.

It's about constantly evolving to the next thing and never being satisfied with where you are.

The analogy he uses in his book is Tom Brady, greatest quarterback, you know, arguably, the NFL's ever seen.

This is a guy who at the top of his game never went, ah, good enough and just phoned it in.

Every day he showed up going, What else can I do?

How else can I get better?

What else can I improve?

Can I throw a little harder, throw a little faster, be a little faster, whatever.

Like he was constantly trying to evolve.

He never sat on the fact that he had a fist and a handful of Super Bowl rings and called it good.

So I just try to think about that with whatever goals that I'm chasing right now.

Is we already know it's not about the goal, it's about the the journey, it's about the destination, it's about the things you do along the way to that goal that create the life, the opportunity experience you're trying to have.

But thinking of it as an evolution makes going to the gym every day easier because it's not about boy, once I can lift this much, once I lose this much weight, once I'm this strong.

It's just got to be a matter of every day, what can I do better than I did yesterday.

And if that is your mindset, the moments of, oh my God, I've got to do this every day for the rest of my life start to wash away because it sort of gamifies your life.

It it changes everything you're doing into what points can I score better today than I scored yesterday?

And and in doing that, it just takes away a lot of the burden of, man, this is just gonna take forever.

This is this is too hard.

I don't know if I have this in me.

If it's just what can I do today, it just makes it a lot easier.

SPEAKER_00: Well, thanks for going first, Jeremy.

That gave me a lot of time to think about my answer.

SPEAKER_02: Always happy to help.

Always happy to help.

SPEAKER_00: So for me, I I think I talked a little bit about it earlier, you know, in in being wrong and questioning your own beliefs.

But I would say the one thing that has most definitely changed me the most is is shifting my mindset from this is hard, I don't want to do this, why am I doing this to I get to do this?

This is changing me, this is making me better.

Whenever I'm in a situation where I'm uncomfortable or I'm frustrated, or I don't know what I'm doing.

Those are those golden moments when when you are uncomfortable, when you're frustrated, when you're feeling like you're about to get knocked down, those are the moments that are going to have really impactful change on your life.

Assuming you get through it, of course, and not give up and go watch Netflix.

I enjoy those moments now.

I mean, I still get frustrated just like everyone else.

I still want to throw my phone across the room occasionally, earlier today, in fact.

But just hitting that moment of, okay, I'm frustrated.

I'm doing something hard.

I don't know what I'm doing.

I'm human and I'm grateful that I have the opportunity to do whatever it is that I'm doing right now that's gonna make me a better person.

Like that little mindset shift of just being thankful for being in a hard situation, for being in a position where you can get better, for being in a position where you're gonna come out of it on the other end a better person makes such a huge difference for me, for my mental health, for you know, getting to the goals that I want to achieve, for appreciating the journey along the way, for loving the people that I want to love along the way.

It's that whole thing of you can't be grateful and mad at the same time.

So if you're grateful about the journey, if you're grateful about what's going on, yeah, you'll still be frustrated.

Yeah, it's still going to be hard, but be grateful about it.

And that's a choice that you make.

You just have to choose gratitude over being angry.

So I think that's probably the one thing that shifted my life in the biggest way.

SPEAKER_01: Well, to you, my listener, if you didn't already have out your note and pen handy, you might want to hit rewind because these boys just busted out some of the biggest bombs that I think we all need to take note of and remind ourselves of.

You guys are absolutely incredible.

Thank you so much for just sharing your wisdom.

I mean, it's it's one thing to to get to sit down with with somebody who has such like deep insights on on life, but then to have two of you, it's like double trouble all the way.

And I love it.

SPEAKER_02: Thank you very much.

We really appreciate the opportunity.

SPEAKER_01: Absolutely.

Well, guys, you know, truly, you know, from uh me in the most sincere way possible, thank you for being here today.

And for you listening today, I hope that today's episode more than entertained you.

I hope that it more than inspired you.

I hope that it gave you some actionable items to think about and to put into action in your life with the whole goal of making tomorrow a little bit better than today.

My name is Kevin Ole, and this is Grit Grace and Inspiration.

Get out there and take on the day.

Hey, real quick before you go, I have one last thought to leave you with.

I of course hope that you've enjoyed today's episode, but more importantly, I want to remind you that I never want you to listen to an episode of this podcast to hear something that I have to say or that my guest has to share and think, wow, I wish I could be like them.

I wish I could overcome my own challenges and do the great things that they are doing, but I just can't.

Well, friend, that's where you're wrong.

unknown: You're wrong.

SPEAKER_01: You are capable.

You are able.

And you darn sure are deserving of having all that you can imagine in this life.

There's nothing special about me or any guests I have on this podcast.

We are all just normal people trying to make it in this life.

And so I encourage you to take a look at yourself in the mirror and remind yourself that you know what?

I can do it too.

Now, of course, if you would like help along that way, reach out to me, whether that's as a listener of this podcast, a friend, or if you'd like to work with me as a coach.

My contact information is inside of every episode of show notes, just like this one.

So go down, check out my contact information, and reach out to me today.

With that said, I encourage you to take on the day every day with great and then grid.