Today my guests are Raph and Lachy from The Mind Muscle Project. They are the go-to health and fitness podcast in Australia. We nerd out on podcasting, journaling, and how to achieve your #1 fitness goal in 100 days.
Show Notes:
- (6:16) – Podcasting
- (27:37) – Gems that spark light bulb moments
- (32:23) – The Training Journal
- (39:44) – 5 Why’s Theory
- (52:52) – Underestimating what we’re capable of in 100 days
Podcast Transcript:
Lachlan 00:00
This is
Lachlan Rowston.
Raph 00:01
And I’m Raph
Freedman.
Lachlan and Raph 00:02
You’re
listening to the airborne mind show.
Misbah Haque 00:36
Hello,
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Today my guests are Raph and Lacky from the Mind Muscle project. It is the
number one health and fitness podcast in Australia. You may remember Lacky from
a previous episode we did, which was my first in person podcast, and one I got
to do at his gym CrossFit creature when I was visiting Australia, so it was
really nice to have Ralph along for the ride this time. The thing I appreciate
about their podcast is the entertainment aspect to it. I just really enjoy the
back and forth Joe Rogan styled stuff that can go in any freakin direction. And
so I always have a great time. Whenever I get to talk with these guys, we touch
on you know things like podcasting, we talk about training, we talk about goal
setting the five whys accountability deadlines, and a ton of stuff that I think
you’re going to be able to walk away with and hopefully apply immediately. They
have something that they created called the trading journal, which is a very,
very beautiful journal that you can actually get like the PDF version for free
for like 18 pages, but it’s like they distill down all 157 of their episodes
into certain nuggets around training, nutrition and mindset. And along with that
they’ve created like pretty much this accountability partner for 100 days. So
there’s a lot of goal setting journals and things like that out there. And I
personally have used like best self journal, which was super effective. But
this one is specifically for training. And yeah, I think it’s pretty cool. They
have a Kickstarter up and you can go ahead and preorder. I think that’s the
only run that they’re going to do for this. The link for that is in the show
notes there’s about 15 days left for it. So I hope you enjoy this episode,
support these guys however you can and yeah, I hope you enjoy this conversation
as much as I did and more importantly hope you do something with it. Ralp and
Lacky Welcome to the show.
Lachlan 04:12
Thanks for
having us dude. Thanks, bro. Second time
Misbah Haque 04:17
Lacky you
have been on before we got to do it in person when I was in Australia, Raph
weren’t there at that time so I’m excited to have you on both at the same time
here. It’s gonna be fun.
Lachlan 04:28
Yeah, man,
we had a good time. First one in person I’ve seen you do a few more in person
since which is fantastic and a bit more of a group. My question for you now is
do you enjoy it more in person or do you enjoy it more face to face? Over
Skype.
Misbah Haque 04:43
Absolutely.
100% in person. You definitely know, there’s parts of it. That’s a little more
nerve wracking. Like I don’t actually even with Skype ones. Now I don’t have as
many notes or questions written down on the side. But when you’re in person, I
definitely don’t have any of that. It’s just kind of Like, yeah, going with
more of what’s in the moment. And it’s just easier to connect with people that
way. ,
Lachlan 05:09
That’s why
we’ve got to come to the US.
Raph 05:10
Yeah, it’s a
lot easier said when you’re in San Rafael. Is (inaudible) everywhere?
Misbah Haque 05:17
When you
guys are making a trip down here.
Raph 05:19
Well, San
Rafael had the biggest wholefoods I’ve ever been to so the whole foods you go
to it was, like, enormous.
Misbah Haque 05:25
Really, I
didn’t notice a big difference but maybe I’m just spoiled by this.
Raph 05:30
Like big for
Americans but I went to Whole foods San Rafael was huge. That’s probably gonna
bring us back. We’re hoping to go back in November at the end of, like, late
November.
Misbah Haque 05:41
You guys
better make, I mean, we’re definitely a little bit farther away from like San
Diego and LA but you should definitely stop by here.
Raph 05:49
We’re gonna
go beat Marcus Filly at the Dubai fitness challenge, and then spend our
winnings in San Rafael wholefoods. I told you it’s a big study, I got plenty of
money to spend it.
Misbah Haque 06:01
Dude, aren’t
the winnings for that competition? Like, ridiculous?
Lachlan 06:05
I think what
the prize money is like, the prize money is similar to the CrossFit Games
across all the online qualifiers in the event. So it’s a lot of money in
it.
Podcasting
Misbah Haque 06:16
That’s
insane. Okay, give us a little bit of context. For those who may not be
listening. You guys are the hosts of the Mind Muscle project number one podcast
health and fitness podcast in Australia. And I’ve listened to a bunch of your
episodes. I’m a fan as well. But just give us a little bit of context as to
what you guys do on mind muscle and like what else you guys have going on? I
mean, you have the training journal, you’ve got peak chocolate, so much stuff
going on. So just give us the lowdown.
Lachlan 06:44
So we still
have three gyms at this stage, which is nice. We spent a lot of time at the
gyms. But now on the podcast as it’s been growing with something recently,
we’ve launched the training journal, which are in the Kickstarter phase. And
then obviously Raph. Also running picks up chocolate, which are not involved
with, I just ate it and helped us to sell it on the podcast as well. But yeah,
we’ve been doing the podcast 157 episodes as of this week. So that’s three
years of podcasting. And starting to look at, what is happening, I feel like
there’s a bit of a momentum shift in our industry right now. And it’s hard to
say exactly how that happens. But it’s more that it comes from the top down. So
you’re listening to the guys like Mark Bell, some of the big bodybuilders in
the industry, like Steve Cook, les Norton, that sort of thing. Even guys like
Brent McCaskey and James Newby CrossFitters that we’ve had on Games athletes, I
feel like there’s this there’s a shift going on right now. And I don’t exactly
know what it is. But I feel like it’s something big and it has to do with the
online space opening up a lot more than it ever has. And so we’ve got some
plans to do more with our YouTube channel. kind of explore the online space a
little bit more than just doing a podcast every week. So yeah, lots of stuff on
the horizon.
Misbah Haque 08:13
So you mean
like in the fitness industry in general, or in podcasting, specifically?
Lachlan 08:19
No, I just
mean, in the fitness industry, I think I think we’re it’s almost like waking up
a little bit. For a while we’re stuck in this phase where CrossFit and
powerlifting, weightlifting, gymnastics, all this stuff was a little bit
unknown. There weren’t a lot of established ways to do certain things, at least
for the average person and where they could get it at a gym. But now the
industry is like really settling in a little bit more with these training
modalities. And a lot of the really high level athletes and high level coaches
are kind of establishing these set ways that people can do really well. So for
example, guys like Brent Fikowski, James Newberry, they’ve had their coach Rob
down for a long time now. And he’s like a real industry leader. And he’s kind
of established a really set way that seems to be how CrossFitters can do really
well, long term and make progress doesn’t seem any more like a really high
volume approach is a smart thing. And that’s sort of a shift as well, because
there’s more exposure, there’s more podcasts, there’s more YouTube channels,
there’s more vloggers out there, there’s more information. And so people have
kind of, I feel like people are just waking up a bit more, they’re becoming a
bit smarter to what else is out there. And you see the shift with what you guys
are doing as well. Functional bodybuilding is getting massive, because people
are just sick of doing the old cost itself. They’re looking for new things.
They’re exploring new ways. Guys, like Mark Bell, are not training as hard
anymore. He’s trying to make himself healthy. He’s talking about how he can use
PEDS, but in a healthy way, if that kind of makes sense. He can. He’s
monitoring his bloodwork. He’s getting proper chiropractic. He’s not trying to
be really fat and overweight. I just think there’s this more shift towards
health even The highest levels of performance, which for a long time, there
really wasn’t. And we want to kind of get on that and kind of help out as much
as we can, as influences. So just looking to figure out ways we can help with
that. That makes sense.
Misbah Haque 10:15
When Dr.
Galpin was on the show, he mentioned how there’s always a thesis. And then
years later, there’s like an antithesis that’s like the complete opposite of
that. And then years after that, you have the was it called synthesis? Yeah,
where things kind of meet in the middle, and things aren’t so extreme anymore,
and one sided, and I feel like that’s kind of what you’re referring to. That’s
where we are right now, where it’s like, we’re able to see all the good things
we can get from CrossFit or powerlifting, or the competitive mindset. But then
we also see health and longevity. And somehow, there’s these unique ways that
people are kind of bridging things together. I think it’s good.
Raph 11:00
Well, it
only took 10 years and like 10 years. It seems like a long time. But I feel
like it’s not very long. I mean, 10 years to sort of get a bit more of a groove
with it. Because I guess what he’s saying is, right, because the first thesis
was like 10 minute workouts every day. And then the second thesis was like, 10
minute workouts every 20 minutes, all day. And then and then I guess, maybe the
synthesis is like, somewhere a bit more in the middle, like, yeah, yeah, 10
minutes is not enough. But all day is also unnecessary.
Lachlan 11:30
When you
have the best athletes in the world, saying, Hey, I’m not like training that
much anymore. And I play sports, and I have balance, and I go on holidays and
stuff like that. Like it’s pretty, it’s different. I mean, they’re not gonna,
they’re the best athletes in the world. You expect they spend their entire
lives training, and when they tell you they don’t, it’s probably not a good
thing. It definitely causes a shift. 100%
Misbah Haque 11:54
So you guys,
he said, you’ve done 157 episodes now. So that’s, that’s a lot of dialogue, a
lot of conversations. Like it always baffles me when I think about and I’m only
at 50 some when you go back to Episode One it’s like, it’s like a long movie.
That’s an audio only version people can hear you from the very beginning. And
like how you developed your process, what you kind of learned along the way.
And it’s, it’s a little weird, like, sometimes people know you more than you
would imagine them to, because they’ve heard you and kind of been with you so
long. Do you guys get that at all? Like, I don’t know, people in Australia,
like running into like, Oh, you guys are from my muscle project. I listened to
your episode. And like, they’re like true fans.
Lachlan 12:43
We get lost,
we actually get lost because we have a gym. They come and visit the gym. So
they might stop you.
Misbah Haque 12:49
That’s even
better.
Lachlan 12:51
And there’s
always a sneaking suspicion. I’m like, okay, so you came from the UK or you
came from, you know, America or something. Why did you choose this gym, there’s
lots of gyms you could have chosen from, and then nine times out of 10. They’re
big fans of the podcast. And they’re just visiting Australia and they couldn’t
help it, say the gym and I kind of feel guilty because now I want to coach
their class, I want to hang out with them. Because I’ve traveled all this way
to hang out. And I’ve got so much work to do. I’m like, okay, so have fun in
class and get upset. But it is. It is really cool. The unfortunate thing is we
used to say a lot of shit without thinking twice. And so people would come up
to us and tell us these things that we’ve said. And well, we don’t remember.
Larry, one thing in particular, actually, we we are okay, we’ll just talk about
this but so on our CrossFit Games wrap up this year, what we like to do every
we actually, so there was a Brazilian teenager who snatched five pounds more or
five pounds less than Matt Fraser less, less. Okay. And then I made the
allegation that this guy may be on some performance enhancing drugs, maybe.
Allegedly. I got contacted by multiple people from Brazil, including his coach
that were outraged. Outraged is like an understatement. At the responses they
had..
Raph 14:18
They were
big fans of the podcast until.
Lachlan 14:25
If we go to
Brazil it looks like we’ll have to be working out of the Globo gym. We know
CrossFit will accept us. Somehow, I think somehow insulted all of Brazil as
well.
Misbah Haque 14:34
Do but I
mean, that’s how it happens. You know, you can’t please everybody. And I can
only imagine if you’re getting that, think about somebody like Joe Rogan who
talks about anything and everything that’s controversial and like these
conspiracy theories, strong opinions, like the type of backlash somebody like
him must get.
Lachlan 14:53
He spoke out
about the haka, the New Zealand haka, which is like their war chat. They like
it. He made some joke about it. That was, it was a joke. And it was in a
different context. It was maybe the basketball team doing the haka or something..
Raph 15:08
Like
whenever not the rugby team is doing it. It looks pathetic.
Lachlan 15:11
That’s what
it was like. And they’re laughing at it. And then apparently he got so much
backlash from New Zealand. He made a post about I think you can find it on
Instagram. And he’s like, right. And I was like, I wonder how many people lash
out 1000s of people 1000s. So anything he says is right. And he’s live. So when
he says it, it’s out there.
Misbah Haque 15:39
You guys are
huge fans of Bryan Callen and Brendan Schaub, right.
Lachlan 15:46
I’m a
massive fan.
Misbah Haque 15:51
Did you go
to his show when he was in Australia? Cuz I saw a picture of you guys together.
Lachlan 15:57
I did go to
a show? He? He’s basically like a stand up comedian now. Yeah, disguised as
it’s more just like storytelling, but he’s really funny. And yeah, he’s just
doing a lot of cool stuff. I know. He’s in this stand up comedy scene with Joe
and all those guys. And he’s just kind of got his own following from his
podcast. So yeah, he was doing an international tour. He’s been to Ireland.
He’s been to England. He basically wherever he goes, he sells out. So it’s
pretty crazy. Let’s go nuts.
Misbah Haque 16:28
We’re gonna
bookmark that for a second, because I asked you last time why you got into
podcasting? What drew you into it? But Raph wasn’t there. So I want to get
Raph’s thoughts on what got you into this. And what kind of sparked it for you
like why were you drawn to podcasting?
Raph 16:45
I think I
like podcasts, because when I was playing rugby before, I got into CrossFit,
and if you wanted to find out what the athletes were doing for training, it was
pretty much impossible. Like there was nothing out there and what they would do
for training, and I would like to troll through things like interviews and
shit. And then they’d have like, 1 30 second clip of them in the gym. And I’d
be like, watching it nine times over, trying to work out what exercise they
were doing, but he pretty much had no idea. And like, super occasionally,
they’d be like, Oh, this is my bench press. And I’d be like, fuck, like, I
wonder how they train. But like, there’s nothing out there. So then, when you
get into CrossFit, obviously, it’s different because there is a lot more out
there. But I think it just sparked curiosity and enjoyment and finding out how
the other best athletes train, because there was so little of it when I played
my first sport, so I always listened to podcasts basically for that reason.
Lachlan 17:33
And then
that was when you listened to Joe’s podcast.
Raph 17:37
Here’s the
blog. I mean, the one that had many podcasts back then was all the big ones. It
was like a Paleo Solution. Weightlifting talk, Joe Rogan’s podcasts, I think
even maybe like weed rolls podcast was out. There was like, not that many, but
I would, I was obsessed with him. Because I mean, going from somewhere where
you could basically never find out how any of the athletes trained, and then
people would talk about it for hours was like, way different level. And I
absolutely loved it. So I guess that’s why we got into it. And why? Lacky, I’ve
enjoyed talking about it so much.
Misbah Haque 18:06
I can relate
to that. Because, for me, even beyond training, and when you think about like
business, or programming, or really any area that you’re interested in,
nowadays, like you can go and listen to the best of the best having like this
intelligent conversation back and forth, and you’re kind of like a fly on the
wall, just able to absorb everything it’s just it’s sometimes I don’t know if
you guys get this, but when sometimes people on the show and they’re like, giving
this advice and their time is valuable. And whatever their services are
expensive. You’re like, how the fuck are they giving this away for free? You
know, I have some of that. I’ve had some of those reactions at times when
talking to people like, damn, I wish people could hear this, right. It’s like a
golden nugget of some sort. I’m sure you guys over 157 episodes have come
across that at some point.
Raph 19:00
Yes, the way
it is. These days, I think people don’t really expect to pay for inflammation that
much anymore. Because this is so much of a phrase, almost like, oh, you can pay
so much money to hear the smartest guy talk on investing. I blacked out. It’s
probably like 100 podcasts with that already. So I don’t really know why.
Lachlan 19:19
Well, it’s
kind of okay. So give you an example. That was just when I was getting into the
property investing stuff. And I like this one podcast with so many episodes and
like the number one property podcast in Australia. And I didn’t want to go
through it all because I was so far behind already, that I just bought that
book instead. So that’s basically I think the only way that they kind of sell
that information is like that. It’s at a point now where there’s so many
podcasts. There’s so much information that it’s almost too much now. And if
you’re not up to date, yeah, like where do you start? And that’s kind of the
issue we were having as part of the reason we made like the top 20 podcasts for
us so people could have like a starting point and also why we created like our
training journal, so people can would have 150 episodes in a book, and they can
just like have it there, then they can just pick up on the podcast and where
they’re at now.
Misbah Haque 20:09
I think
you’re right to like how much information there is. But I think what that also
does is it paralyzes a lot of people, right? Like you can just consume and
consume and consume, and not really know, like, what to execute on. And I think
that’s where, I guess when we think about coaching in whatever setting,
but let’s say in the fitness industry, like coaching is going to continue to be
valuable because it still has that like one to one connection, where somebody
can kind of listen to you, they can confirm what you’re thinking, like, oh, how
many times have you heard people give you like, or you’ve read books or read,
listen to podcasts, where you get a certain piece of advice, like this is how
you need to do X. But you don’t do it until you know a mentor that you really
admire says the exact same thing. And then you’re like, all lit up, and you go
ahead and do that. Right. I think that’s gonna be the thing as technology gets
more and more like interfaces, is that coaching or one to one connection going
to become more valuable?
Lachlan 21:09
I agree with
that. For sure. It’s hard to execute. Yeah. And you said so much information,
like exactly what you want to implement. So at the end of the day, it seems
like I need something like this. Now, let me go find someone like a one on one
coach, that’s going to give me that exact thing, nutrition, coaching,
supplement, supplement regime, payday regime, whatever it is, you just realize
you need it, and you go and hire someone to give it to you. They can put it all
together.
Misbah Haque 21:41
Absolutely. So
coming back to you Lacky when I asked you about Brendon trab and Bryan Callen.
What is it about? Maybe it’s their podcast, specifically, but what is it about
maybe their style that you like? And are there other people out there in terms
of podcasting that you kind of maybe look to for inspiration? Or you did maybe
when you first started,
Lachlan 22:07
So what I
like about them, in particular, is that they don’t really need a guest to come
on the show for it to be entertaining. So almost in itself, just the two of
them is like tuning into your weekly TV show, like it’s entertaining and has
segments, you kind of know what to expect. The jokes are funny, always. The
chats are entertaining, there’s always the catch up on current events there,
they catch up on each other, they’ll just talk about some random stuff and you
just kind of follow their lives. And I think that’s what most influences need
to, once they become fairly established, is just try and take more and more of
them and put more of themselves out there. So rather than make it about the
interviews and stuff, which they do, they need to make more about themselves,
because that’s what people really enjoy. And that’s kind of something that
we’re trying to do a little bit more of. Because at the end of the day, like
everyone has their own story, and that’s kind of what you want to be around to
follow. So that’s what I really liked about them is that they’ve managed to set
it up in a way and this is because you know, they’re a little bit older, but I
think Brendan’s 34, and talons 50 they’ve had a long, they’ve had long lives
and a lot of experience in our brand has been professional athlete, Brian’s
been stand up comedian actor for a long time. So they have really interesting
lives and stories. And that’s just kind of what you’re they’re around to
follow. And when they bring someone in to interview them. It’s good and it’s
entertaining. But you’re really there for them. So for them, they’re like
amazing entertainers. And that’s what I admire about them. Because to be
entertaining, twice a week, like just every single week back to back to back is
hard. And they’re naturally very good at it. So that’s what we try to bring to
our podcast with a certain level of entertainment that people want to hang
around and, and watch and enjoy. So yeah, that’s kind of how they’ve been an
inspiration in terms of people that inspired me. That is slightly different. I
watched a lot of YouTube videos from early 2009 to 2008. Again, they just like
entertainers. That was this Asian guy called Timothy DeLaGhetto. I don’t know
if anyone knows him, but he has millions of followers now. And same thing just
not really entertaining dude, just giving his thoughts on relationships. And in
the fitness industry, there were two guys, Elliott Hulse. And who are those two
brothers? today? Yes, they were. The Hodgetwins two gods like that. 18 Yeah,
they just, they’re just obsessed with just being funny and entertaining. But
also at the same time. There’s life advice in there. There’s training advice in
there, that sort of stuff nutrition that, to me, like moving into that sort of
space, I think is really fun, really entertaining and it gives you a lot more
options than just, interviewing people for the rest of our lives, which you
still want to do but they want to do other stuff along with that as well. So
yeah, people like that. inspirations. For me.
Misbah Haque 25:05
I’m all for
that. I think anything like any type of education wrapped in entertainment is
like 10 times more effective and 10 times more well received. Like, you think
about somebody like Dave Chappelle when he does a stand up special and you hear
like, He’s a phenomenal storyteller first of all, but like you hear him kind of
doing his thing. And it’s there’s always like a, like a big picture idea, or
like a controversial message or something wrapped inside of his joke that he
won’t always say straight up, it just kind of you get it and I always admired
that entertainment aspect. I think that’s why I would say Joe Rogan’s podcast is
probably my favorite because it’s so laxed. And so like, he’s able to be
entertaining. So often, like, I don’t know how often it is per week, but I feel
like he’s always got a new episode coming out. And it’s not one hour. It’s not
just one hour, it’s like three hours of dialogue back and forth.
Lachlan 26:03
It goes very
fast.
Raph 26:04
Good Joe
Rogan is a pleasure.
Lachlan 26:07
Three hours
just in a heartbeat. He’s so good at it.
Misbah Haque 26:11
Ralph, how
about you? Do you have anybody who you’re like, I don’t know anybody’s style
that you like, or you draw inspiration from or maybe have in the past?
Raph 26:19
I’m trying
to think I mean, look, we used to listen to weightlifting talk, which was John
North, Glen Pele, and Donnie Shankle. Just myself. And I always really liked
having him on, because we had him on our second episode. And he was the guy
that sort of got us to take charge and do the podcast every week. So I would
say it was inspiration and getting started. And also, I just love the energy
that they bring to the podcast and also Yeah, like education. Like I thought at
that time, I didn’t know anything about the Olympic lifts. I actually think I
learned a lot from listening to the podcast, because they just talk for hours
about weightlifting techniques. And that could be pretty, that could be really,
really boring. If you actually think about someone actually talking about some
technique for two hours, it was unbelievably entertaining. John North is. So I
would say like, yeah, that would. And even that would have life lessons in
there as well. I would have liked Tony chenko to give serious life lessons on
the podcast that I thought could be applied to anything. After that was like a
pretty incredible podcast, because they did basically this guy’s lift weights,
and they just finished training. Pretty sure they would drink a lot of the time
as well. And they would just chat with that coach, but I could learn about
weightlifting, learn about life and laugh a lot as well. So I think they were
pretty inspirational.
Gems that spark light
bulb moments
Misbah Haque 27:37
Do you? Do
you ever have when you’re talking to somebody or interviewing them? Or maybe
it’s just between you two? When somebody says something like, maybe it’s a line
or two? Where you’re like, Yes, like this is a line that would go into the
training journal, right? Like, this is a nugget that you wish everybody would
tune in for that you want them to hear? Because I find that I have those
moments. And it’s like, you know, if a conversation is over an hour long,you
have people who are going to listen to the entire thing. But who knows, maybe
some people aren’t going to listen to it. And then they can’t, you know, they
can’t benefit from whatever that nugget was, or, or utilize it in any way. I
don’t know. Are you able to pick apart those moments at all?
Lachlan 28:21
I think we
know after we finish the podcast, we’ll always look at each other and have a
discussion about it in terms of what we thought and like how entertaining it
was, and what we think people would get out of it. And over 157 episodes, you
get a really good sort of gut feeling as to what was a really great episode,
and you know, maybe what’s not going to have such a big impact every now and
then when proven wrong, we might put something out and we’re like, Oh, we
didn’t think it was that good. And then it gets really good reviews. And that
kind of what that tells us is there’s always something in there for everyone.
But at the same time, like we said, there’s tons of information out there, it’s
pretty easy for people to just kind of skip an episode with us one week that
might be busy or they’re just sick of listening to us or something, but they
might miss something that could be the most impactful one line that they could
be needing in their training or their life or whatever it might be. And so when
we were finding the content for the journal, we knew it was going to be firstly
a big undertaking of listening to ourselves over and over again, which is a
painful process, but also a good process to learn how to get better at
speaking. But we dropped a big list. I think we listened initially maybe like
60 episodes and then from the 60 episodes we kind of made a shortlist of that
and then from there we assigned different listening to ah like Rafa, listen to
this, another podcast or listen to this group. And then it was number four we
even got to that. It was like, Okay, what are we listening for? Like what?
Specifically, you know, because we could write any, we could write anything
down. Everything’s useful, but it had to be training, nutrition or mindset to help
people with one of those three things. So every time I listen to something
cool. Okay, so is this going to help someone with their training, their
nutrition or their mindset? And if it didn’t fit that question, it wouldn’t
include it in the book. And that meant we did miss a lot of good stuff. So if
we had Julian Pinyon, and it was a great episode, there would still be lots of
stuff in there that most people would really, really enjoy. But it just didn’t
fit the training nutrition mindset. And therefore it wouldn’t make sense for
one into the book, it would just, it would just seem a bit off, people would
read it and be like, Why is he talking about the education system and how it’s
broken? It just doesn’t really fit. So that in itself was 100 hours combined.
Just listening through it, writing it down, rewriting it, paraphrasing it? Yes.
So big a process, but a valuable one?
Misbah Haque 30:49
That’s why I
think, like Tools of Titans was such a genius idea and has done so well is
because it’s taken all those interviews that he’s done, which some people may
have never even listened to his podcast, like a lot of people may have just
gotten the, you know, book version where they can get these distilled notes
from over I don’t even know how many people are in that book, but it’s just
like, pure, distilled nuggets that you can take and actually apply to in your
life immediately.
Lachlan 31:22
He’s got a
new one tribe of mentors as well, I think he’s done a similar sort of thing,
taking advice from people on and off the podcast. And just put it into the same
style of encyclopedia format, sort of pick something out of the unique
category, and then go find it in the book.
Raph 31:39
Arcanist
it’ll be the next level of podcasts and podcasts and get a lot more popular
when you’re able to much more easily share segments of podcasts. Like I think
it’s crazy that you can’t be like to share, like all this 22nd segment from
this podcast with like, all your friends on Instagram, whatever, you can easily
just do that. I think let me think about it. Like, it’s like two hours, people
like to check out this three hour podcast that was one bit in the middle that
was really funny. It’s like, okay, I’m never gonna just listen to three hours
for this one in the middle. But the day that you can just be like
bookmarking tiny little bits of audio, like downloading them into folders on
your phone, and it’s just harder, just not very accessible right now and
sharing them. I don’t know if someone can build up. And that’s what we have to go
through the journal because basically, you can’t do that.
The Training Journal
Misbah Haque 32:23
Now that’s
a, there’s two sides to that. I think it’s like, okay, the people that you do
get, who end up listening for the three hours or whatever it’s like, they’re
dedicated listeners, you know, they’re like true fans, they, they really care
about what you have to say, if they’re willing to listen to you for over 60
minutes. The other thing I wanted to point out is, have you ever heard of
anchor No, anchor is like, pretty much like they’re, they made it so you can
essentially if you really wanted to, like really record yourself and release it
as a podcast. But what it is, is meant to be like Snapchat, but for audio. So
like you’re recording little bits of yourself, you can share songs that you
like on Spotify. So it’s like your own radio station, in a sense, right. And
it’s one of those things like, I love the idea, I absolutely like the way that
it works. I’m like, Oh, this would be a super fun version to kind of do what
I’m doing now, but like maybe more shareable. But it’s a matter of like, okay,
it’s still in a growth phase where there’s, people have no idea what it is. And
like, they’re still kind of getting in tune with that. But they just came, they
just created this like software, where, let’s say that I put in a clip of me
and you guys talking right? You can have that, like, pretty much transcribed
into a video that just shows like the text and over I think you can have the
sound there as well. And you can export that in like Instagram story format. Or
you can have it in just like a regular Instagram shareable video format. And
that was one of the things that they acknowledged to just like, you are like,
yeah, there’s no shareable way yet to actually, you know, put out these bite
sized pieces of content of audio specifically. And so that’s kind of been like
their solution so far. I thought it was pretty cool. We are going to look into
that. 100% Yeah, it’s really cool. I liked it. Yeah, I think it’s like
anchor.fm or something like that. But yeah, so tell me a little more about
like, when you guys thought of the journal itself, like, did this stem from
something that you guys have used as well, like, I know, for me, I’ve used like
the best self journal and I’m a fan of like, any type of journaling that just
gets you to kind of think a different way like even morning, Five Minute
Journal, whatever. That you know, it’s super simple. There’s like a couple
questions and just gets your brain thinking in a bit of a different way like
sets the focus for the day. or whatever it might be? What experience have you
kind of had with yourselves? Like, how have you kind of maybe used journaling
in the past? In regards to training?
Raph 35:10
I mean,
something that we heard so many times on our own podcast and other podcasts is
that the high level people, and particularly in athletics, they would review
that training in some way, or they set intentions in some way. It’s the same in
business. But obviously, as a fitness podcast, Budapesti hear it over and over
again, we journal quite a lot. And then we got people like 75 minute journals
for our members. So we do really believe in it, and we’ve got our members
journaling. And we’ve always really believed in the power of it. Because I
mean, if you stop and think about for a second, if you wake up every day, and
you start writing down, you know how you’re going to make a trading
exceptionally good that day, how are you going to reflect upon your biggest
goal before you get into training, and you finish every day for five minutes
reflecting on like, the two biggest problems you hadn’t training that day, how
you can overcome those problems the next day. Over time, that is just going to
compound it such better results compared to just drifting along, which is
basically what we say some of our members do. And two years down the track,
they’re exactly the same as where they were before. And the members that like
intentionally moving forward, the ones that bought the Five Minute Journal and
bought all the way in 20 times more progress, and the one that paid the same
amount of money in about the same amount of times two years earlier. So I think
coaching 100 athletes, you just say it over and over again. And everyone will
be like, hey, there’s no one for training. And it was true that there wasn’t
one for training, I didn’t even have a go on for training. I would like to try
to write in the Five Minute Journal about training. And he’s asking about my
gratitude, which is good. But it just wasn’t it wasn’t exactly what I needed.
You know, and and after hearing it from too many podcast guests like Brent
McCaskey, and like well, we maximize like what I do every day. And our members
are blogging about it. That’s essentially what inspired us to create it.
Lachlan 36:50
There’s a
good book called 59 seconds by Richard Wiseman. And it’s basically a book where
a team of researchers went through all the personal development literature and
everything that’s out there. And they, they looked into all the studies, and
all the rumors and all the methods and techniques that people use to use for
motivation they use for inspiration, basically, anything that people will go
and seek, that are popular methods to improve their life. And one thing that
they found over and over again, was that writing, answering some simple
questions had the biggest impact for the smallest investment of time, on their
happiness. So I think the study was one, they would journal one day in the
month, for six months, where they had to reflect on just a bunch of questions
that I gave them. And they reported higher happiness scores than people who
didn’t. And it was only generally once every 30 days. So it’s not even that
often. So obviously, he was saying, you know, if you’re journaling on a daily
basis, or a weekly basis, your level of happiness, that mindfulness that you
bring, that conscious thought that you bring to whatever actions you have
during the day is going to result in a lot more happiness. And that’s what we
thought we could do with people’s training. So we obviously know it works.
Science says it works. So why not do it for your training? Because a lot of
people don’t enjoy their training yet. They do it anyway. So I thought it’d be
a great tool.
Misbah Haque 38:16
I can
totally do that. What was the book called? You said? 59 seconds?
Lachlan 38:22
Yeah. By
Richard Wiseman.
Misbah Haque 38:25
I mean, I
think I told you this last time we chatted was like, the morning pages, which
is three pages longhand, writing every morning is like the one thing that has
remained consistent and constant. And I can only think of maybe like a handful
of times that I may have missed it in the last like, I don’t know, 14 months or
something like that. And I can tell you the days that I do miss it. It’s like,
I don’t know, you just feel kind of scatterbrained. And I get a lot of
fulfillment out of actually sitting down and writing and I keep it pretty
loose, like I’ll write about whatever. But it’s just the act of running your
hand through the pages. Especially when you are using technology all day long.
When you’re on your phone like 500 times a day or checking it. It’s some absurd
amount like that. You’re on your laptop, you’re always looking at a screen,
being able to physically write things down. For sure. There has to be some
science behind that.
Raph 39:24
Yama is
common. It’s one of the top coaches in CrossFit, the training plan guy. He was
a big morning pages guy. Yeah, he would do the pages every single morning and
he had pretty much every athlete that he worked with closely on the training
plan, if I remember well, had him journaling in some form. Some form work well
for them.
5 Why’s Theory
Misbah Haque 39:44
So I looked
at the preview that you guys have. I don’t know if the preview is available for
everybody. But I took a look at the PDF version. And I like how you guys start
with the why and I think it’s called the what is it the five whys theory Could
you tell me a little bit about that? And like, what was the decision behind
putting that in there?
Lachlan 40:05
I can’t
remember his name. It’s like a Toyota or something.
Raph 40:08
Is it a
Japanese guy?
Lachlan 40:09
Yeah,
Japanese guy.
Misbah Haque 40:13
Start Saki
Saki cheetah
Lachlan 40:14
Has
something like that. So it’s crazy Japanese people, it’s just like a really
well studied process that was something one guy created, essentially, that
helps people get down to really distill the answers behind their actions, I
would say all the reasons behind their actions. Because people do a lot of
things, they probably couldn’t tell you, or they want a lot of things, they set
a lot of goals, but they don’t exactly know the reason behind it. And think
it’s a useful process to apply to when you are going to chase a goal for 100
days, for example, or any sort of goal, because probably what you’ll find is
maybe it’s not a great reason, maybe it’s some maybe it’s trying to please a
parent that will never get placed. Or maybe it’s that you’re constantly
comparing yourself to that guy who beat you in sixth grade, who now lives on
the other side of the world and doesn’t care about you at all. And it was
traumatic for you as a child. And it just seems that it’s a bit silly now. So I
think when people can really bring a better understanding as to the reasons
they’re doing certain things, it will drive them a lot harder, I think it would
give them a lot more satisfaction at the end. Because if you do something for
the wrong reason, when you achieve the goal, it’s not fulfilling, it doesn’t
give you the happiness that you thought you would get from it. And that’s the
biggest issue with it. You people invest all this time into these things, they
feel like they want, they tell you they want, they never did the five whys or
they never really looked into it, they get to it, they get the house, they get
the car, the job on the salary that they wanted, nothing’s changed, and they’re
actually miserable. And they will tell me that all the time. And I think that’s
just, it’s sad, I need to look into the reasons behind their actions a lot
more.
Misbah Haque 41:58
I think
especially with something like training, because, you know, people are
investing so much time into it on a daily basis. And when you add that up over
the course of a week, I mean, that’s something at revival strength, like every
single client. And a lot of these people forget, like somebody who wants to
compete, you know, at a regional level, or whatever I’m saying like everyday
people. That’s a dialogue that happens between a coach and client, like, why,
you know, what gets you out of the bed in the morning? Why are you actually
doing this? And for a lot of people, it’s hard to answer, it doesn’t happen
right away. It’s like, you know, we do monthly consults, and every month,
that’s something that you may circle back to, and over a couple months, like
you might finally, you know, that answer might evolve. And you might get deeper
and deeper into what that is. And I mean, the truth of the matter is, like,
when you take a look at somebody who’s a high level CrossFit Games competitor,
like if they didn’t have a strong touch with what theory was, they wouldn’t be
where they are. And I think that goes for any person who is achieving high
level success in anything is like there’s a lot of adversity and obstacles and
shit that’s going to be thrown your way. And you’re right, it’s like you’re
either going to stop before you get there, if you don’t have a strong why or
when you get there, you’re not going to be happy. And then it’s kind of on to
the next thing. And you’re constantly in that unfulfilled state, which I mean,
for me at least, that’s kind of a shitty place to be.
Lachlan 43:27
It’s hard
because we’re constantly comparing ourselves to others. So we’re comparing
ourselves to what we think other people get from their happiness, or what
things they associate with their happiness. Like we just watched. Did you watch
the film Breaking Tanzania? Fuck. Anyway, so watch this documentary called
breaking too. It’s about the guys that tried to break the two hour mark on the
marathon. Really? Yeah. And so the guy who got close, who got two hours, 25
seconds or something? Spoiler alert, he does make. He’s like a multimillionaire
and is essentially the most successful math THON runner of all time. And they
go and they visit him in his village, or where he’s from in Kenya, I think, or
Ethiopia. And you would not know this guy is like, he’s going to the wells and
he’s like pumping water out of the well and checking it back. And, you know,
sweeping dirt out of his house and stuff. And he just looks like an average
dude. And it’s basically saying like this, the simple life is what brings you
happiness. And he’s like, marathons are like running are simple. And it brings
me happiness and everything else in my life. I just try to make math on just
simple and, and easy. And he’s like, that’s how you bring the most happiness to
your life as quite profound. This guy’s like a philosopher doesn’t even know.
Yeah. And I was just thinking the same thing. I’m like, Man, this guy knows
exactly what makes him happy. And he just does it every day. And probably
because he understands you know why he’s doing it. Probably knows that. Yeah,
like you said he has a good sense to have his wife, you know, to go through the
marathon over and over and over again and get happiness out of it. I think it’s
a powerful thing.
Misbah Haque 45:10
And then I
think the next thing that’s huge is like, accountability of some form. I mean,
that’s something that, you know, when I did the best, best self journal, which
is like, three, I think it’s three months long, you know, you set these goals
in the beginning, you you go through this process of like, maybe why,
essentially, and a something that, you know, somebody else pointed out to me
was like, Okay, if, if you don’t go in and fill out your journal, and like you
stop at some point, chances are that you’re not doing what you were supposed to
be doing. Right? And so it almost keeps you accountable in a sense that like,
you know, why am I avoiding it? If I am avoiding filling out my journal? Like,
what’s the reason behind that, and it comes back to I think, accountability,
which is so huge for people.
Lachlan 45:57
Accountability
is, is tough, because so like you can, I mean, we’ve tried so many different
methods of accountability, like paying coaches and having different mentors and
stuff for the business and that, and at the end of the day, it does really come
down to like yourself and doing it on a daily, daily basis, the best way to be
accountable is to make something a habit, that’s really what I’ve found is the
best way to do it. So the most books I’ll read are when I’m reading all the
time, not when I decided to pick up a book or someone told me about it is when
I take the momentum going when I make a habit, when I make 25 minutes in the
evening, a habit. And so people just need to realize there’s always going to be
some certain amount of resistance and suffering towards the accountability that
you want to do. It’s not just it’s not super easy. But if you make whatever you
want to do a habit, then you’ll be more accountable to the habit of doing it, then
the actual thing itself, if that makes sense. So pick that thing. And then
suffer through Wilhelms it take to create a habit, 21 days or something, suffer
through the first three weeks, like really, really make the effort, it’s
obviously going to be a lot harder, but then after that, you’ll be so used to
doing it that the accountability aspect of it is a lot easier than it was in
the first three weeks.
Misbah Haque 47:14
What do you
do because surely you guys see this, like a bigger picture connection between
like, okay, with training, if you can perform a certain way. And if you can be
accountable a certain way, it’s like a healthy discipline, you develop this
type of practice, like, you can take that and you can apply it to something
else, right, we see it with like, maybe high level athletes all the time, they
took their discipline of, you know, being super dedicated to their sport, and
maybe they applied it to business. And they saw a bunch of success in that, or
maybe it’s in another facet of life or whatever. But was, is that I mean, does
that kind of ring a bell? Or was that part of the bigger picture ideas? Like,
we want people to have concrete goals with their training and somehow kind of,
I don’t know, see, like a trickle down effect into other things.
Raph 48:05
I think that
with training, it’s something that you just get so much happiness from when you
do progress in it. Because I mean, I can’t guarantee that everything else in
your life is gonna go perfect during your 100 days of the training journal. But
if you’re progressing in your training, it’s like something awesome, that’s
happening every single day. And in the chaos of the rest of your life, you can
just fully control it. If you’re filling out the journal on a daily basis,
almost impossible, you’re not going to be improving. Because you’re setting the
intention, you’re doing the work, you’re reflecting on it, essentially twice a
day. So I feel like it’s something that can just bring you happiness and
certainty in your life, for that time period. And every time in my life, when
I’ve achieved some sort of like, big training goal of some sort, or a sports
goal. It just gives you so much confidence in the next thing you do. You’re
like, I know, I can dream something up. And 100 days later have it in reality.
Lachlan 48:58
I was just
gonna say the big, big issue that I find with goals, with training, and then
other aspects of your life is that they’re very, they’re not equal whatsoever.
I training is unique in its goal setting, and that nothing can influence the
outcome except yourself. And maybe you could argue one or two things, but it’s
very unlikely. And so if you’re talking about relationships, friendships,
business, your job, your career, all those things are impacted by other people.
And so if you set a goal for them, there’s always going to be an element of
stuff you can’t control. You can’t control if the other person will love you
back. That’s just you really can’t. If the customer is going to buy a product.
Yeah, you can have the best marketing plan out there. You can speak to them.
You have the best sales process, but ultimately it does come down to them. And
their decision. That’s something you can’t control. In training, you control
everything you control when you work out how you eat, how you sleep. How much
intention you bring to training the program you Follow what coach you choose,
you control every single aspect of your training. So there’s almost no excuse
for not hitting your training goal, the only thing you don’t really control is
your genetics, which is like your rate of adaptation, but by this point, you
know, so you’re gonna set a goal that’s realistic for your genetics or you’re
not. And if you set the right goal, which we have, like a process that helps
you do that, then you’ll only there is no excuse almost if you don’t achieve
it, because it’s all on you at that point. And it’s unique in that way.
Misbah Haque 50:31
What goes
into it? You just said, like setting the right goal, I feel like that’s
important to write is like, how do you? How do you dissect that down to what
the right goal is for that person?
Lachlan 50:43
That’s like
the magic question, setting the right goal. That’s something we had to put a
lot of thought into. Obviously, we use the SMART Goal Setting system. So most
people know what it is specific, measurable, attainable, realistic, and then
time bound. And so that basically just brings into, it just brings into more of
a system approach to setting a goal. And I think before we did that, we wanted
to set up the premise of the context that you need to look at what goals you’ve
set in the past, and how long has taken you to achieve them. And then how long
it’ll take you to achieve this sort of goal. So is this 100 day timeframe
realistic if it took you and you’ve got to remember as well that it changes
over time. So getting from 60 to 120 kilos on the back squat is very different
from going to 120 to 150. Because, yes, it’s half the amount of weight, but it
could be three or four times the amount of time. So there are certain aspects
of that you may not know, unless you’re very experienced. So setting up the
context of just understanding what you’ve been able to do in the past, and
probably what you’ll be able to do in the future. Thinking about if it’s
meaningful to you as well, if you’re going to achieve this goal, you’re going
to actually feel fulfilled at the end, you know, doing the WISe process and
then being smart. So specific has to be measurable, you know, to achieve a
subjective thing like happiness, you have to have an objective measure. So,
said squat 200 kilos, that is measurable, as well as specific and it’s
measurable, attainable, same thing you need to look at, it’s something within
your class, if you’re squatting 100 kilos, you want to squat 200 and 100 days,
and a lot of steroids, yeah. And powerlifting suit, and some knee wraps, and
probably need to go to Mark Bell’s gym and have him slap you on the face before
you lift it. So yeah, realistic, same sort of thing. And then time bound, so
making sure that it is set in 100 days, or whatever your time might be six
months, 12 months, that sort of thing.
Underestimating what
we’re capable of in 100 days
Misbah Haque 52:52
I think it’s
it, I think we underestimate what we can really kind of be capable of when you
set a specific cutoff date or timeline for actually achieving something. Like
our minds will go to great lengths to like, make something happen. If it really
means a lot. And if you know there’s the right intention behind it, just like
we do, you know, the opposite sense to avoid certain things. I can for me
specifically, like even starting up, the podcast itself, like I remember from
the day that I had that thought like, I really kind of want to do this, but
like I don’t know if I should, from like that moment, to it actually being
released. I think it was like four weeks, I had like three, you know, three or
four guests recorded. I talked to you know, people like Mike cashew, and like
others who I could get advice from and like went through all this crazy shit
that I would probably not have. If I hadn’t been like, you know what, I really
want to make this happen. And I want it to happen by the end of August or
beginning of September, whatever. And then it’s just like it’s set my brain
into a different rhythm or pattern to be able to kind of achieve that.
Lachlan 54:02
It’s like
how we got to Kickstarter. It’s like, they give you a time limit for a reason.
If they’re just like good luck raising the funds, like you’ll get there
eventually. You probably never put any effort into it for years until you get
that. Yeah, right. So as soon as I set it in motion like you go nuts, like,
ticking Yeah, as soon as the clock started counting down immediately, I was
just like, Oh, I just feel way more stress than I did an hour ago before the
clock started sir. Yeah, 100% Once you set that time, that timer, it’s intense.
Misbah Haque 54:33
Tell me a
little bit about Kickstarter. And I like how it is cuz I’ve never used it
myself. But how exactly does that kind of work?
Lachlan 54:40
So it’s a
crowdfunding platform. It’s essentially the biggest crowdfunding platform in the
world. There’s Indiegogo as well, but it’s not as big Kickstarter have done
really well in the sense that they’ve created their own community with it as
well as places like GoFundMe, but they’re just links or landing pages for
people to donate money, or it’s Kickstarter is a community of people. Like
entrepreneurs and innovators and stuff, they are creating these amazing
projects. So that has hundreds of 1000s of users just just scrolling through
the different projects as if it was its own social media platform to just see
new things. So you might be really into tech. And so you just go to the tech
section, and you just go to what’s trending, what’s funding that sort of thing.
You might like that, I’ll back that. And, you know, eventually you by backing something,
you essentially preorder it, and it’ll show up in your mailbox once the
campaign is over. So I guess it’s a really cool way for businesses and startups
to have their ideas come to life by people that are interested in it, and
people may not know this, but that is what Tesla did. They created the model
three, which is the newest car coming out the most affordable one they’ve ever
brought out. And they basically did Kickstarter for the Tesla, the model three,
they were like, Okay, so we’re bringing out this amazing car, it’s gonna cost
you like 30 grand when it hits the market, if you want it to $1,000 to lock
yours in and preorder it now. And within a week, I think they had close to a
billion dollars or something.
Misbah Haque 56:06
It was only
$1,000 to lock it in?
Lachlan 56:11
To reserve
your I mean, you’ll pay the rest of it when the cost, right. But to all your I
mean, fundraising, essentially, off pre-orders, like you didn’t pay the full
amount, but like 1000 bucks, you can pre order it now you can guarantee that
you’ll get one when it’s released. And they made hundreds of millions of
dollars, essentially, to find the obvious more, the more the steps, like the
future steps of the car, the stuff that they may not have the cash flow for
right now. So that’s what Kickstarter is, for us. It’s, you know, it’s getting
printed in China, the book we don’t have yet we only have the digital version,
in order to, you know, bring together tons of leather and cardboard and paper,
stitch it all up, cost a lot of money. And they say, Okay, so the minimum
amount of books you can order is like 1000 books, and it’s quite expensive. You
know, it’s a lot, it’s a big investment upfront. And so, Kickstarter is a great
way that we can just raise that investment through pre-orders to place that
order straight away because we don’t want to put $20,000 on the credit card.
It’s not a good idea. And it’s a good way to get, you know, the first batch
shipped off to the people who want it as quickly as possible.
Misbah Haque 57:24
I mean, it’s
got to be it’s also a cool thing to kind of be a part of like you were a part
of Tesla’s first run, right? Or you were a part of the only run of the training
journal, for example. It’s like, I don’t know, it’s a way to kind of filter down
the people who really want it in a sense.
Raph 57:43
And I think
it’s also risk free, people don’t realize, but like you back it, and if you
reach the goal, then you get your journal. If you don’t read the goal, you’d
like you never actually they never take your money. Like you only take the
money if it actually reaches the goal.
Misbah Haque 57:58
That’s a
good point. Yeah, I was wondering how that would work.
Lachlan 58:02
So no one’s
been charged yet. Put it away?
Misbah Haque 58:06
How many
days do we have left?
Raph 58:09
Right now
we’re 30 days left? And we’re like, 60% of the way there?
Misbah Haque 58:17
That’s huge.
I mean, you guys get a couple of gym owners to kind of get it distributed to
their members. I mean, I feel like as well, you know, as a gym owner, or a
coach like you providing that to your clients is definitely kind of a value
add.
Lachlan 58:33
That’s one
thing we wanted people to. We know a lot of gym owners listen to the podcast.
And then we feel like this was when we initially created it, we thought, this
would be a really great tool for members, you know, as gym owners ourselves. We
knew that if you could give this kind of book to a client. I mean, we saw the
demand there for the five minute journal, people still buy it from us today.
Imagine what somebody would be like for someone’s training, like how
accountable they would be, imagine giving your clients at the start of January
training journal, and be like, hey, that goal we set. This is where you’re
going to achieve in 100 days, like that’s going to increase retention
massively, and they’re going to learn stuff along the way. You know, maybe you
have clients that really struggled to understand programming and nutrition,
they always ask you all these annoying questions like about the program
nutrition? Sure, if they started reading through that book, they would have
less questions about it, it would answer a lot of those questions for them. So
it’s educating your clients at the same time. And it’s also keeping them
accountable to a goal. I mean, it is a bit of an investment. You know, Jim’s
going to buy 5025 journals. So I would just encourage them to see the interest
from their members and say hey, look, it’s gonna cost you $40. For this
journal, I can charge a membership fee now, I can add it on to your next bill.
And that way you don’t have to be like a gym owner, you don’t have to front the
money straight away and you can just order your large box of journals and then
just hand them out. People have already paid for them. If you want to take the
price out, they could make some money on it or whatever. I think it’s just a
great retention tool and a great education tool for people’s clients. And I think
gym owners don’t give enough back, don’t give gifts enough to their clients. We
always write letters to our clients, we’re doing a, we’re doing a special
dinner. For our clients that have been with us for three plus years. He has
about 40 of them. So it’s doing stuff like giving back I think is really good
for them as well. pays you back.
Misbah Haque 1:00:24
Absolutely.
And I think at the end of the day to like results, right results is what people
are kind of after. And if you can provide that to people. I mean, by giving
them kind of this deadline, like, okay, there’s only 100 pages in the journal,
you have three months, like, if you set up the structure and systems for people
to get results, like, everything else kind of comes from that, right, like
referrals and retention, all those things like you have to be able to kind of
deliver on what you’re preaching in a sense. And from what I’ve noticed from
being at revival strength is like, you have like the systems and the structure
that are set. It’s amazing to see how, like, how important, how vital that is,
to kind of continue to grow and to kind of feed the system to have happy
clients, happy coaches, like it’s all connected. So I think that what you guys
are doing is a very, like, simple, easy way to kind of do that is provide a
system to provide a structure for people to get from point A to B. I mean, it
doesn’t get any simpler than filling out one entry each day.
Lachlan 1:01:36
We really
appreciate that.
Misbah Haque 1:01:38
So a couple
rapid fires before I let you guys go. I got to ask Lacky a couple of these last
time. But I want to get Raph’s thoughts on this one. So let’s say you had a
couple of billion dollars. Let’s say you had a couple billion dollars, right?
And you had a staff of 40 people. So these 40 people can be top performers in
whatever it is that you recruited them for. So you know, time, energy and money
is not really an issue. You have all the resources you need, and you want to do
something with that. What would you do with it?
Raph 1:02:13
Most my
answer? Do you remember? Misbah?
Misbah Haque 1:02:15
Your answer?
If I’m not before I tell you, I want to get a revised version of your answer.
Raph 1:02:30
I’ll start
with my answer. What I would do with mine would be I would like overhaul
essentially like the food and nutrition. At least in Australia. If I could
afford the world, I’d go ahead but at least in Australia, I would really like
to see synthetic food and synthetic food with like the perfect macros and
micronutrients. So like I find it I think it would be perfect if you didn’t
have to kill animals, you could just have synthetically made steaks. And you
could basically be like, This is how much Omega three I want in it. This is the
fat profile. I want it to be delicious. And I would have that across all types
of foods. So basically this Ebay is like it’s incredible Whole Foods of
synthetic foods that just gave me the perfect nutrition. And it was
delicious.
Lachlan 1:03:16
It’s weird.
I just created an app that would look exactly the same.
Raph 1:03:20
They’ve
already started working on it and they haven’t made steak because they think
one of the hardest things to make but they’ve made like maples and and I think
like sausages synthetically it’s like crazy expensive so far it’s like how much
it was but it was like $900,000 made but but it’s better for you and basically
you couldn’t really tell the difference between that and make like like a
mincemeat you couldn’t tell the difference so well so is coming to cook it like
in a pen and shit. Exactly the same. Oh, well, I can’t tell the difference. And
it turns out like mincemeat it’s a lot easier than somebody like steaks,
texture, right. But yeah, it’s on its way.
Misbah Haque 1:03:57
It is crazy,
dude. Isn’t it insane? Like, we’re living through a time where fucking
synthetic food is going to make its way into the world. Like it’s not far
right. It’s gonna happen in our lifetime. That’s crazy.
Lachlan 1:04:14
I’ll do my
next Kickstarter. Synthetic I’ll send you a spec.
Misbah Haque 1:04:21
So Lacky.
What’s your answer?
Lachlan 1:04:25
I’m gonna go
down a slightly different path now. So I would have to know exactly how we
would facilitate this. And yes, we could have like these centers around the
world. But essentially anyone that was struggling with some kind of
psychological disorder, so whether range from something like maybe depression,
to maybe psychosis or PTSD or something like that, something where people like
really controlled by their own mind A place where they could go to take plant
medicines or psychedelics to alter their consciousness. And these are likely
people that have never done this before. Because I would say if these people
have done it a lot before, it probably hasn’t worked for them. But maybe maybe
they just didn’t try it under the right context. But using altered states of
consciousness to heal psychological disorders, because people that have never
used them don’t understand how powerful they are and how and how much insight
they can bring you about the world and, and how you view yourself and
perspective, right? And essentially, I think it would be like a well, it’s
natural, a lot of it. So I think if people didn’t have the stigma about it, and
we could legalize it across the world, or whatever, or legalize it in the
centers for whatever uses that the government allows, it would, it would help a
lot of people. And they’re doing this kind of research already. They’re using
it, they’re using psilocybin, and they’re using it, which is for people who
don’t know, that’s like magic mushrooms. And they’re using MDMA to treat PTSD.
And I know Mike Bledsoe has looked into this quite a lot. I think he’s starting
a company to do it. I could be wrong on that. But they’ve shown a lot of great
results, better results than just regular treatments with strength. So it’s got
a lot of potential.
Misbah Haque 1:06:30
The other
end of that, I think is like, the stigma that comes with that is, it reminds me
of something Dr. Galpin said to me, our understanding is limited by the
technology that we have to measure it. Right. So like, anything that we can’t
measure through a certain technology is out of our comprehension. Like, it
doesn’t make sense, right. But it’s like, over time, there’s been certain
machines and shit like that that’s been developed that now allows you to
measure different stuff. And so that’s where, like, you know, our understanding
of science and shit is like expanded. And I mean, we’ve seen this kind of thing
happen over the last 20-30, 50 years in strength and conditioning. You know, I
feel especially in that space that you just mentioned, there’s going to be a
lot that’s going to be coming out in our lifetime. Definitely.
Lachlan 1:07:23
All you have
to do is listen to a Dorian Yates podcast that he’s done recently. And how he
talks about himself. All Dorian, that was like the bodybuilder versus Dorian
now. And you can see how powerful they are. Psychedelic plant medicines, so
anyone that hasn’t or sitting on the fence of that sort of stuff should go and
listen to that podcast.
Misbah Haque 1:07:44
It was a
listen to that one. That was good. That was a good one. It was really good.
This is another one. I don’t think I asked you this last time, Lacky. But this
goes to both of you guys who can each give a separate answer. But let’s say
that you guys are business owners, right? So everything you have and you work
for, like has all been kind of taken away from you. And you have to start back
up from scratch to kind of get to wherever it is you want to go. Maybe it’s
back to where you are now. But you only have $500 American dollars and a
laptop. What would you do with it?
Lachlan 1:08:21
I think he
did ask me that. But I think I had less money. He said $100…
Raph 1:08:30
You got 500
American dollars and a laptop and now I’ve got nothing else and I need to stop
making money. Yeah. would just go back. I mean, probably the best money I ever
made was when I was 17. I would just buy gym equipment from China and then
resell it on eBay and Gumtree which is like Craigslist, and I made like $8,000
in a summer was the best money I ever made. And I could easily do that
with….But I was 17 years old.
Misbah Haque 1:08:59
17 year old.
That’s like $80,000
Raph 1:09:03
I’ve had
people telling on my to buy this shit. And then I just have like, a whole
drawer full of 50s. I was crazy. I know I didn’t spend it. I just like, love
the love the passion of it. That’s what I do. I just stopped buying and selling
gym equipment. Yeah, offer something else. Maybe not do equipment. But whatever
I could say on eBay was going for a lot better than on Alibaba
Lachlan 1:09:25
I had the I
think the answer I had last time was I’ll give someone $400 for their best
business idea and just put it out on Facebook. And so you have this post? And
then yeah, 400 bucks, right. And then people have all these amazing ideas, but
they’re too lazy to execute on them. Or they don’t have the knowledge X young
because I mean, assume that we had all the knowledge from our previous
businesses and stuff, right? Which is like totally, I mean, that is the most
value there knowing what to do knowing how business runs and all the stuff
we’ve learned. That’s invaluable. So all we need is an idea and I can just
apply everything I know to that idea, I only have 100 bucks left over. So I
hope, I guess then I’ll be scrolling through the list of ideas that will cost
less than $100 to start. Or maybe I’ll just be like, hey, what’s the best
online ID you’ve ever had online business, scalable ecommerce business you’ve
ever had? I’ll give you 400 bucks for the idea. And to see what comes up?
Misbah Haque 1:10:23
I’m pretty
sure. I think it’s like Daymond Daymond. John from Shark Tank. He does aside
from Shark day, but I think he does something like this on the side where he
pretty much gives money to people to test out their ideas on a very, very small
scale, like, hey, go start an Instagram on your clothing line. And, you know,
let’s see what happens. You have this much money to allocate towards, you know,
making something of it, like, does it work or does it not? And I think he does
that on a smaller scale with like, a shit ton of people who have these ideas,
and just gives them a few ways to validate it in a sense. Morning Routine. I
think I asked you this one. Lucky. But Raph, how about you? Do you have one?
And if so, what does it look like?
Raph 1:11:14
Lacky and I
have both been doing the lemon water as salt. But I’ll basically talk you
through it. So I wake up, I will now actually, I go, and I weigh myself because
I’m getting nutrition coaching. And I have to wear myself every day. So that’s
actually been every day. Yeah, every day. So when I go to the bathroom, I
obviously clear some extra weight when I first get there, and then I jump on
the scale and weigh myself out my way into my fitness pal. And then I went and
my lemon water was salt. So it’s like a tablespoon of salt. A teaspoon of salt,
and I cut up a fresh lemon because my clay told us to do and actually has been
really good. I have a full glass of regular water. And then I have a full glass
of lemon water with salt. And then I drink it quite slowly for over five
minutes. And I have a small ledge off the side of our kitchen. And I basically
squat and drink it and I have a pull up bar right above my head there as well.
And I alternate between hanging from the pull up bar and scrolling down
drinking this over like probably like 810 minutes. And I just like to chill out
and do anything else. And makes me feel way better. Because it sort of opens up
my whole body for the day as well. And my flexibility and it’s like a nice 10
minutes to drink the water. I’ve got a $12 pull up bar. It’s like there’s
12 Little ones that just you know, you can hang over a door. Yeah. And it just
basically hangs over. Over the door into my…
Lachlan 1:12:45
You don’t
actually plop on it.
Raph 1:12:48
It’s a
bit… It’s a very shitty plot. It’s like balancing on the side of a door. But
it does the trick.
Misbah Haque 1:12:55
Would make
me nervous. So I feel like a good way to kind of wrap this up. As you know, we
started talking about the why behind training and how that’s kind of, it’s the
root of everything, right? Whether you’re somebody who has competitive
aspirations, or you’re just in this to like, look, good move. Well, whatever it
might be. What about you guys? And you know, for each of you like, what is kind
of your internal, why that gets you out of bed and continues to help you kind
of train on a daily basis?
Raph 1:13:33
I would say.
So this is the training specifically, right? I would say for training,
particularly now, I’ve thought a little about it. But I would say it’s twofold.
So number one, I get so much enjoyment out of my training, particularly when I
feel like I’m improving at it. So I absolutely love training and doing training
where I think I’m getting better and like my favorite workouts ever. But
workouts where he just like really pushed me or was like, I know, there’s no
way I could have done this x time ago. And I really enjoyed those workouts. So
I guess, continuing to improve it is really important to me in my training.
Regardless if I’m competing that season or whatever, I would still do it. And I
think I still train really hard. And then also something I’ve thought about is
basically my whole life is wrapped up in the fitness industry. So I’ve got the
gyms and the podcasts and everything and I want to be like an inspiration to
the clients as well as experimenting with everything I learned in my own
training. Like I still want you know, I want my clients to come in and have
like 30 wobbles and then be like, fuck, that sounds like a lot. I’m like, well
I can do 150 in a row just based off that many like I remember a lot you’d be
fun and that’s how I always wanted to be while I was still in the industry so I
guess those two sides will motivate me to keep training and training hard.
Misbah Haque 1:14:51
Nice man.
How about you Lacky?
Lachlan 1:14:53
So I’d say
obviously the first one to Raph resonates with that a lot. Just always want To
improve, and just know that what the effort you’re putting in is making you
better. But even though I’m still pretty young, I still want to emphasize to
people the aspect of being healthy and having balance in your training and
taking that approach. It’s almost like if you decide to take that approach
consciously people go, okay, like, so you don’t really care if you’re in good
shape, like, you’re just gonna eat pizza, like, you don’t have to be that fit.
Like, you don’t have to look that good or whatever. Well, that’s not true.
Like, I think that people can be exceptionally fit and look really good and
make a lot of progress with the priority, being healthy and balanced in life.
And I don’t mean structural balance, I mean, balanced with spending time with
your friends, eating, eating out, not always training. And then maybe also
training. That’s not just in the gym, something we talked about changes stayed
having balanced with like, Okay, I want to still have a good training volume,
but I don’t want it to be all in the gym, I want to go play some sport, I want
to run, I just want to move, I want to stretch because we get so wrapped up in
the gym, because it’s our business. And you know, it’s the podcast, and it’s
what we, it’s what really got us into fitness. But it’s not always that
enjoyable. And if you lose the enjoyment, sometimes you just kind of lose the
enjoyment of the whole thing. And that affects all the businesses and
everything. So I still want to show people, you can have an exceptionally high
level of fitness and continue to make progress and look extremely good with
your priority being health and balance in your life. And you know, as well
still throw down and compete as well in some local throwdowns. And still do
still do well.
Misbah Haque 1:16:41
That’s
amazing, I think. I think you actually asked me this last time, when we
chatted, like his health and fitness a big part of we were talking about the
values factor. That’s what it was, and like, oh, health and fitness must be
like up there on the list. And then we got into a rabbit hole of like, why do I
continue to train, I feel like since then I’ve had more time to think about it.
And it’s evolved a little bit, but it’s also become a little more grounded. And
for me, I think it’s definitely, health and longevity is something that’s at
the top of my mind, because I had that lower back injury at a pretty young age
that like, kind of gave me a flash into the future, right where like, I had
pain getting out of my car, or like vacuuming and doing these day to day tasks.
And I was like holy shit, you know, I have to go teach spin class in like an
hour or go instruct this class. And like, fitness was my life as a profession,
and not being able to move and do things day to day like that was a scary
thought. So I wanted something definitely sustainable first. But the other part
of it, I think I’d said last time was like, I view movement as like a vehicle
to authentic expression, right. And what I mean by that is being able to take
what you do in the gym, and then being able to be comfortable in any movement
scenario that you’re thrown into. So I think I have this, like, I resonate with
a lot of what Ido portal talks about, and like how he can you know, like Florio
and like rolling and all those little movements that he can do, you can make it
look so pretty and beautiful. Just like snatching or gymnastics. I think
there’s it’s very fascinating to watch like those freestyle calisthenics
athletes to watch like, break dancers. And to watch like jiu jitsu and martial
arts. Like I guess for me, it’s I want to be able to have feel equipped to be
able to do any of those things, you know, and like, be able to, let’s say, like
a hip hop dance class or something, I want to, at some point, start to try,
like I’m looking at classes and want to dig into it. And mostly, it’s because
I’m so shitty at it. But I want to be able to use what I have in the gym in
this completely random scenario. And I just feel like in our industry, like,
there’s not many people that are like poster boys for that, in a sense, right?
It’s like a lot of competitors and like, in one specific specialization, and
for me, it’s like genuinely trying to see like, how do I take this out of this
world out of this fitness space and apply it into something totally random? So
yeah, that’s a good way for me to like, reflect back and loop up.
Lachlan 1:19:21
It’s
important. It’s important that you constantly learn new things and skills. And
then, you know, I think people that do CrossFit more and more as well, I think
they get, they start to move worse, almost in a way they hit this point where
they move really well. They look really good. And then they start to go on this
slow decline where they do so much barbell cycling, so many getting upset, they
start creating these imbalances. They start the shifts and stuff. They repeat
the same movement patterns so much, I guess is why functional bodybuilding is
popular because it’s changing things up, that they actually begin to move worse
or they just get injured from the same movement patterns over and over again.
So changing up I think it’s important for sure
Misbah Haque 1:20:01
I think it’s
because it is constantly varied, it no longer constantly varies, right? It’s
still within a box of like the same movements in a sense. And, you know, you’re
going to have some plateaus or stagnancy when you do that, like, I remember, so
like, I was never a huge outdoors guy, right. But recently, over the last
couple months, I’ve started to like hiking a little bit more. And yesterday, I
went on this, like, this hike that I didn’t expect it to take this long,
because it was like a rough day, and I just wasn’t planning on going that long.
But dude, it turned out to be three and a half hours of like, actual hiking,
like, I mean, like steep hills, up and down, like I kept me like all my toes.
And I’ve never I don’t know is different, like I felt my body worked in a very,
very different way. You know, like my feet. We’re cramping up in different
ways. I felt like I didn’t, like there’s certain muscles in my feet that I’d
never use, like just squatting, dead lifting and stuff like that, that I now
use walking on these uneven surfaces. So it’s definitely I don’t know, I think,
if you can remain to stick with the essence of constantly varied being
constantly varied, and not just be influenced by the sport itself, and what
you’re seeing in the open and the games. You know, you could definitely
continue to make progress. But it’s definitely something to keep in mind as the
constantly varied aspect is like, don’t limit it to just a box of movements.
Well, thanks so much for coming on. Where can we support you? Where can we
learn more about you and point people to give us a lowdown.
Lachlan 1:21:42
So the Mind
Muscle project on all the podcast platforms, wherever you get podcasts, my
muscle project on Instagram and Facebook, and on YouTube. So we’re putting out
more content on YouTube these days. And then if people want to learn about or
pick up a copy of the training journal, it’s The Mind Muscle project.com/the
training journal. They can find out all the information there and that’ll link
them to the Kickstarter as well.
Raph 1:22:06
If you go to
the website, now you can get a 10 page download of what is in the journal for
free so you can just go and basically see what is in the journal? And get a
taste for it. And that’s free to send to the Mombasa Project website.
Misbah Haque 1:22:21
Awesome, as
well. I will get all that linked up in the show notes. Is there anything else
that you’d like to leave listeners with?
Raph 1:22:30
Check it
out. If you’re a gym owner, and you want to find out more about it, you can get
in touch with us. It’s something we seriously believe in. And it’s something we
say with all our guests. It’s something we do with our members. So I wasn’t
like a disciple. We had an idea we had to give it a go. It’s something that
we’ve long held belief for a long period of time.
Misbah Haque 1:22:46
100%
Awesome, man. Well, thanks again guys for coming on. Had a blast chatting.
Lachlan 1:22:52
Thanks! It’s
really good.
Misbah Haque 1:22:54
Thank you so much for listening, guys. I appreciate you taking the time tuning in and lending me your ears. Two things I want to leave you with before you head out. Number one, if you are a coach or gym owner, head over to airbornemind.com and check out some of the free resources we have for you there. Myself and a clinical psychologist are partnering together to create a course called “The Art of Connection Through Questions”. It’s something I’ve loved and studied and has fulfilled me for years. And to be able to finally put this together in a way that’s going to help other coaches and gym owners connect deeply with their clients is super fulfilling for me. So if that sits well with you, head over to the airborne mind calm and check it out. Number two, leave a review on iTunes. It’s the best compliment that you can give and it would mean the absolute world to me. But other than that, I hope you enjoyed this one. Until next time
Resources we may have talked about:
How to connect with Raph and Lachy:
Website: http://themindmuscleproject.com