The Art of Manliness - #71： Engineering the Alpha With John Romaniello

00:00:00.000 Welcome to another edition of the Art of Manliness podcast.

00:00:20.060 So what does Joseph Campbell's archetype of the hero's journey have to do with getting

00:00:26.720 in better shape, or for that matter, becoming a better man overall?

00:00:31.100 How can skipping a few meals increase your testosterone?

00:00:35.240 What does it mean to be the alpha male?

00:00:38.360 Well, our guest today is here to answer those questions.

00:00:42.020 His name is John Romanello, and he is a health and fitness expert who's written for pretty

00:00:47.220 much every single major fitness publication website out there.

00:00:50.760 He is the head of Arnold Schwarzenegger's Fitness Advisory Board, and he recently published

00:00:56.160 a book, well, last year he published a book called Man 2.0, Engineering the Alpha, and

00:01:00.600 today we're going to talk about all sorts of stuff.

00:01:02.740 It's a great, fascinating conversation.

00:01:04.560 We're going to talk about testosterone, optimizing all your hormones, the hero's journey.

00:01:09.760 We're going to talk about how to reduce stress.

00:01:11.900 We're going to talk about comic book heroes.

00:01:14.560 It's just a fun conversation.

00:01:15.940 I think you're going to get a lot out of it.

00:01:17.800 And just so you know, heads up, there's some big boy language here.

00:01:20.840 So if you usually listen to the podcast with your 10-year-old son, you might not want to

00:01:24.260 do that this time.

00:01:24.940 And if you're at the office or some public place, you'll probably want to put on some

00:01:28.600 headphones.

00:01:29.740 Let's do this.

00:01:31.880 All right, John Romanello, welcome to the show.

00:01:34.700 Thank you so much for having me, man.

00:01:35.860 Really happy to be here.

00:01:36.920 Yeah, I'm glad to have you here.

00:01:38.580 So let's do, for our listeners who aren't aware of you, who know who you are, let's do

00:01:42.980 a little bit of background about yourself.

00:01:44.420 You're a fitness expert, written for a whole bunch of the big fitness magazines,

00:01:49.000 schwarzenegger.com.

00:01:52.060 But you describe yourself as a nerd.

00:01:54.100 And in fact, you wrote a guest post for us about a year ago about the hero's journey.

00:02:00.720 And you really geeked out.

00:02:02.080 It was awesome.

00:02:03.460 And when you're growing up, you describe yourself as the chubby eighth grade kid who'd rather

00:02:07.380 read than exercise or play sports.

00:02:10.200 So how did you get started in health and fitness?

00:02:12.860 How do you make that jump from nerd to health?

00:02:15.260 I guess you're still a nerd.

00:02:16.300 But how did you get started in health and fitness? 0.77

00:02:18.260 Yeah, you don't ever stop being a nerd.

00:02:20.000 You just take on other mantles as well.

00:02:22.880 Like deep under this muscular carapace beats the heart of like Sheldon Cooper.

00:02:27.580 I'm just, you know, like covered in this disguise of muscle.

00:02:31.200 As to how it happened, I mean, it just like many people, I just had a moment where I realized

00:02:38.240 I didn't want to live my life the way I was living, what alcoholics call a moment of clarity.

00:02:42.760 I just sort of looked in the mirror and realized that the person I was seeing wasn't really

00:02:49.340 the outward manifestation of who I thought I was internally.

00:02:53.940 And, you know, there's a lot of interesting research that's been conducted over the past

00:02:58.160 20 years, but more so over the past 10 that shows that in general, we typically perceive

00:03:03.740 heavy people, you know, people who are bordering on obesity.

00:03:07.580 I was just what I would call chubby or thick, but speaking very generally, we generally perceive

00:03:14.020 people who are heavy to be less intelligent, less motivated.

00:03:18.280 And I think a lot of that applies to self, even with no access to that information, even

00:03:23.300 not knowing that.

00:03:24.360 If you just look at yourself in the mirror and you compare yourself to other people or

00:03:28.100 just feel like you're out of shape, you typically don't feel great about it.

00:03:32.220 And a lot of that is just sort of the brainwashing that comes with being in our culture.

00:03:36.220 But I think that there's there's some evolutionary holdovers there as well in terms of not being

00:03:41.320 fit enough or capable enough to provide or to be in a position where you could defend

00:03:47.520 yourself.

00:03:48.400 And for whatever reason, that happened for me when I was toward the end of my freshman

00:03:55.020 year of college and I looked at this picture that had been taken of maybe six or seven

00:04:03.120 months prior.

00:04:04.900 And I was like, Jesus, I was, you know, you don't see it because it happens every day.

00:04:09.000 You don't really realize it.

00:04:10.360 And I realized this picture.

00:04:11.320 I was it was super chubby. 0.99

00:04:12.860 And then I looked in the mirror and I was like, well, shit, it's actually worse now. 0.99

00:04:15.940 So I decided to make a change. 0.98

00:04:20.160 I decided that I wanted the person inside to match the person outside.

00:04:24.280 And, you know, a big part of that, you mentioned my nerdery.

00:04:26.580 I think a big part of that has always who I wanted to look like has always come from nerdy

00:04:32.240 sources.

00:04:32.660 I, you know, always wanted to look like Batman or Superman or or even Spider-Man, who was a

00:04:39.200 bit more gangly, but still, you know, pretty, pretty visibly jacked.

00:04:41.940 And growing up, I played Dungeons and Dragons and I got to pretend to be all of these heroes

00:04:47.380 who could do all of those things.

00:04:48.940 And then one day I thought there's no reason that I can't with some work actually do that

00:04:53.760 myself.

00:04:55.140 And that's how it started for me.

00:04:56.660 I being, again, a nerdy, bookish sort of guy, someone who had always sought I saw great

00:05:02.200 value and sought comfort in books.

00:05:04.020 My first impulse wasn't to go into the gym and just come out swinging.

00:05:07.920 My first impulse instead was to read as much as I could about health and fitness and then

00:05:13.180 come up with a game plan and apply it, which I discover now, having worked with thousands

00:05:17.720 of clients over the years, that is sort of the opposite of what most people, in particular,

00:05:22.720 most men do.

00:05:24.080 Typically speaking, most men like to shoot first and ask questions later when it comes

00:05:28.440 to health and fitness.

00:05:29.320 And I was, I guess, fortunate enough to be to be in the other camp.

00:05:32.900 But what I've learned is that I think that there are two types of people in the gym.

00:05:38.260 There are the people who do a lot of research on the internet and then start.

00:05:40.960 And then there are the people who start and do a lot of research later.

00:05:45.600 And this is, this I guess is a, is a, is a good soundbite or at least actionable tip.

00:05:50.420 What I have found is that the people who just are willing to get started and take action,

00:05:54.780 even if they're doing things that aren't correct in terms of what fitness professionals

00:05:59.180 believe is the right course of action, those people are still more likely to get results

00:06:04.160 because a, an imperfect plan executed with perfect intensity is by far superior to a perfect

00:06:11.160 plan, not executed at all, because you're too busy trying to perfect the plan.

00:06:14.480 So it's all about, it's better to get the action is be action oriented and then go back

00:06:18.880 and correct later on.

00:06:20.420 Exactly.

00:06:21.160 Um, for me, it was the other way it worked out.

00:06:23.180 Well, I went through this crazy body transformation.

00:06:25.380 I was 19 years old.

00:06:26.440 I went from being this chubby kid to this ripped guy in about six or eight weeks.

00:06:30.860 I went from having a 35 inch waist to like a 28 inch waist over the course of, of that

00:06:35.920 time.

00:06:36.380 I lost a lot of weight very, very quickly because it turned out I had pretty good bodybuilding

00:06:41.080 or fitness genetics.

00:06:42.900 And then, you know, my life changed in a lot of ways.

00:06:45.540 I was more successful with women after a fashion, but it just, it was great for my confidence. 0.98

00:06:50.400 Not only did I like the way I looked, I liked the way people reacted to the way I looked.

00:06:53.880 And it was such a positive experience for me, for the most part, that I thought, how can

00:07:00.080 I help other people do this?

00:07:01.300 And at the time I was in school majoring in, uh, in, in psychology and biology, but I just

00:07:06.720 decided, let me train for a while.

00:07:08.800 And then it turned into this business that just kept growing.

00:07:12.520 And I started writing for magazines and now it's, I think 12 or 13 years later.

00:07:17.920 And, um, I guess maybe one day I'll get a real job, but for now I'm very happy to write

00:07:23.180 books about fitness and, and, uh, and general self-improvement.

00:07:27.080 But, you know, fitness is now, it's a very small part of what I do.

00:07:30.140 It's, it's sort of the face of everything on the outside, but now I get to function in

00:07:35.280 the capacity of a business consultant, an angel investor, a social media guy, and an

00:07:39.800 advisor for all of these companies.

00:07:41.260 So it all started with fitness, but you know, I, I sort of look at Arnold as my role model.

00:07:45.440 Here's a guy who started with bodybuilding and has gone into everything else.

00:07:48.280 So I like to have, I have a lot of irons in the fire and I like to be involved in a lot

00:07:51.400 of different aspects.

00:07:51.980 So it's a, it's been fun.

00:07:53.720 Yeah.

00:07:54.080 So, but yeah, fitness laid the foundation for all of that though.

00:07:56.960 Exactly.

00:07:57.520 Yeah.

00:07:58.080 Let's talk about this kind of the nerd brawn thing here a bit.

00:08:01.240 Cause like there's this common misconception, I feel like amongst a lot of men that if you're

00:08:06.420 into fitness, you're going to, you're supposed to be like this kind of adulty bro that just

00:08:09.800 cares about doing bicep curls and the squat rack or whatever.

00:08:13.460 And you break that mold.

00:08:14.640 And I, I've noticed when my, just kind of rubbing shoulders with guys who are in the

00:08:17.960 fitness business, um, they're also extremely smart and capable intellectually has strength

00:08:25.280 training and fitness improved your intellect.

00:08:28.280 You think?

00:08:29.000 Yeah, I think so.

00:08:29.680 I mean, um, well just, just a quick comment on, on the industry writ large.

00:08:33.980 I think that there are just so many, uh, not even just super, you know, just aggressively

00:08:41.300 intelligent, hyper-intelligent people in the industry.

00:08:44.720 And there sort of have to be one of the complaints that we hear a lot in the fitness industry is

00:08:48.420 that anyone can, can, you know, have a decent body and start a blog and call themselves an

00:08:53.940 expert if they're decent at marketing.

00:08:55.820 But the cream really does tend to rise to the top and you see so many of these guys being so

00:09:01.000 successful and building these massive empires simply because they are so good.

00:09:05.000 So you do have to be really knowledgeable.

00:09:07.440 And I think that there's so much of that sort of misconception that's just held over from,

00:09:13.120 from, you know, maybe a decade back.

00:09:15.160 Uh, I, I really think that the industry values intelligence.

00:09:19.400 It's, it's an industry that looks to the smartest people in the world, uh, in, or the smartest

00:09:24.940 people in the field to be the leaders.

00:09:26.380 And it's really only the people on the outside who think that it's the meathead sort of leading

00:09:31.160 the way because those people on the periphery, those meatheads, they, they tend to be pretty

00:09:35.140 loud.

00:09:35.560 But, uh, as to the original question, I think that for me, one of the reasons that I've been

00:09:41.080 so successful is because I straddle a couple of different worlds.

00:09:45.380 And in particular, I play off a lot of misconceptions.

00:09:48.820 You know, you see a guy like me, who's done some fitness modeling, who did some bodybuilding,

00:09:53.720 you know, a good looking jacked dude.

00:09:56.540 You generally are going to think, you know, again, the public perception is you see a guy 1.00

00:10:00.160 that looks like me and you think he's a meathead, he's an idiot, he's vain. 0.99

00:10:03.320 Then I start talking about comic books and, and my, you know, lifelong obsession with, with 1.00

00:10:07.360 dragons.

00:10:08.000 And, and all of a sudden those things are, are sort of, uh, turned on their head a bit.

00:10:12.200 And I think that, you know, I've talked about this in a lot of other interviews.

00:10:15.200 So for people who, who are, uh, are hearing this for, for the umpteenth time, I apologize

00:10:19.680 for the redundancy, but I really do believe that cultivating dichotomy in any business

00:10:24.280 is one of the, the, the great things that, uh, makes things successful.

00:10:28.980 And that's, that's really what's worked for me.

00:10:30.880 And it's what has worked for so many of those other professionals that I mentioned.

00:10:34.320 There's these super smart guys that can bro out and do a bunch of bicep curls, but they 0.62

00:10:38.700 can also teach you about biomechanics.

00:10:40.800 All right.

00:10:40.900 So let's talk about your most recent book came out, uh, I guess last year, right?

00:10:44.740 Yeah.

00:10:45.200 Just a year ago now.

00:10:46.360 Yeah.

00:10:46.520 So it's man 2.0 engineering, the alpha.

00:10:48.880 Um, there's a lot I want to talk about.

00:10:50.260 There's a lot of great stuff in here, but let's start off with this.

00:10:52.820 Uh, it's called engineering, the alpha.

00:10:55.300 What does alpha mean to you?

00:10:57.000 Because I feel like the whole alpha male thing gets thrown around so much by so many different

00:11:00.920 groups of people that it's almost lost its meaning.

00:11:03.600 Cause it means can mean anything you want it to mean.

00:11:06.280 Uh, but what does it mean to you?

00:11:08.300 Yeah.

00:11:08.980 So I think that what we were trying to do, we being my, my coauthor, Adam Bornstein and I,

00:11:13.740 uh, if you guys are interested in Adam, super smart guy, born fitness.com.

00:11:17.220 Uh, so what we were trying to do is sort of stake our claim on that word and sort of rest

00:11:22.580 it from the control of the, um, the, the, the less scrupulous, uh, aspects of manhood.

00:11:29.480 Uh, I think that particularly in, in the seduction community or the pickup artist community, that

00:11:36.180 word gets tossed around in a very positive way and a very negative way, because there

00:11:40.600 are people who are successful in that world and are successful with women who view themselves

00:11:47.060 as alpha.

00:11:47.680 And then there are people who are still sort of climbing up the rungs and trying to be

00:11:51.220 successful with women.

00:11:52.060 And, and because they're unsuccessful, hate people that are just as a matter of course,

00:11:57.200 this is one of the unfortunate little burrs of human nature.

00:12:01.060 So, you know, it can mean a lot of different things, but really what we wanted to do is

00:12:04.480 just give, put our stamp on it.

00:12:06.420 And for, for me, what it is to be an alpha is not to go around talking about yourself as

00:12:12.700 an alpha.

00:12:13.040 It's just someone who's consistently dedicated to self-improvement.

00:12:17.240 Um, it, you know, it just, it's engineering the alpha sounded better than engineering the

00:12:23.060 attitude of consistent self-improvement, but, you know, so that's really what it is.

00:12:27.420 So we get some flack and, and push back on the alpha male thing, but we're not talking

00:12:31.100 about being an AMOG because for us, that's sort of limiting, right?

00:12:34.940 To be the alpha male of a group simply means that you are the best or the highest member of

00:12:40.240 a, of a particular group of guys or people or, or anyone else.

00:12:43.400 So in order to quantify value, you have to compare yourself and rank above other people.

00:12:50.060 So it's a comparative analysis of value.

00:12:52.260 And what we look at is more of a, an intrinsic value.

00:12:55.580 So rather than looking at extrinsic motivators in terms of, of a pecking order, I'm really

00:13:00.100 concerned with how I rank today versus how I was last year.

00:13:03.340 Have I become a better man over the past 12 months?

00:13:07.200 I'd like to think that I'm a better writer today than I was the day that book was published

00:13:11.460 in April of 2013.

00:13:13.680 And I hopefully think that I'm a better business person than I was a year ago and a better

00:13:17.460 man.

00:13:18.880 And, um, and, and that's really the goal for me to constantly get better, to try and create

00:13:23.380 some sort of objective guidelines for self-analysis.

00:13:28.320 And from there have a way to quantify progress.

00:13:33.560 Uh, or you mentioned my article on the hero's journey earlier, and we'll talk about that in

00:13:36.540 a bit, but, but a big part for me, a big part of it is looking at, at each individual change

00:13:41.940 I'm undergoing in my life and, and pushing it through the lens of the hero's journey and

00:13:47.480 using that as a way to sort of assess, uh, development and what, uh, what the next thing

00:13:53.640 I need to do is.

00:13:55.360 Let's talk a little bit more about quantifying progress, because that's something I'm, I'm

00:13:59.760 always interested in doing.

00:14:00.900 And for a lot of things, there's some things that are really easy to quantify your progress

00:14:04.480 on like, you know, if your bench is getting better, if you're making more money, you know,

00:14:08.560 sort of the things you haven't like that naturally have a number to it, but how do you quantify

00:14:12.600 sort of those more fuzzy things like general wellbeing, or am I able to manage stress better

00:14:18.880 or am I, do I feel more common?

00:14:20.880 How do you, how do you quantify that?

00:14:23.300 So, you know, you know that you're progressing.

00:14:25.480 Well, a big part of it for me, um, and you guys have written about this quite a lot.

00:14:29.260 The only way to, uh, be aware of these things is to, is to record them, right?

00:14:34.820 So journaling is, is really, really great for me.

00:14:37.580 It just sort of writing it down and, and going over my day, realizing most of the situations

00:14:44.640 I've been in at this point are just sort of variations of other situations that I've

00:14:51.060 been in.

00:14:51.400 And, uh, you know, so like any, any stressful business situation has its own unique set of

00:14:59.420 problems, but ultimately every single stressful business situation you'll ever be in is going

00:15:05.360 to affect you the same way because that, you know, how, how you as a person, as a man react

00:15:11.040 to business stress is going to be unchanging unless you specifically address that.

00:15:15.540 So I think that, um, a big part of it for me is every single time I'm going to end, let's

00:15:21.720 again, just talk business for a moment.

00:15:23.120 Sure.

00:15:23.300 Every time I'm going to enter into a huge, um, business undertaking, which for me is

00:15:28.220 either I'm releasing a new product or new book, or I'm starting a new company.

00:15:33.260 What I do is I look at my journal for, you know, like the three weeks, the three week period

00:15:39.140 that I might've been doing that during the last one, the last launch.

00:15:43.060 And I just see how I was handling things and try to be better.

00:15:47.060 And I, I got to see that, like the thing that consistently stresses me out is the fact that

00:15:52.320 I'm always scrambling last minute in the, in these launches.

00:15:54.960 Yeah.

00:15:55.360 And the reason for that is because I don't, I don't prepare.

00:15:58.480 I just leave too many things to the last minute.

00:16:00.820 And a lot of that is because it's, I'm a procrastinator.

00:16:03.800 So the way that I handle that, how I get better at being a businessman is I delegate things that

00:16:09.160 other people can do.

00:16:10.180 And I focus only on doing the things that only I can do. 0.99

00:16:13.060 And that just means that by the time the launch rolls around, we have 50 to 70% more shit 0.83

00:16:19.480 done than if I had done it myself and waited to the last minute. 0.78

00:16:23.160 So just like looking at the fact that, you know, going over those three or four launches

00:16:27.380 that I did in 2012, leading up to engineering the alpha, I would say, well, these were the

00:16:32.980 problems there.

00:16:33.780 So now I'll eliminate those by a matter of course, because there were simply fewer things

00:16:39.080 stressing me out.

00:16:39.740 My stress level decreased, but I also try to look at how I handled stress during that

00:16:45.420 time.

00:16:46.940 And for me, it's, it's a matter of like trying to, you know, just let, let more things roll

00:16:52.920 off my shoulders.

00:16:53.680 I I'm the type of person who is, there's a lot of cumulative stress for me as opposed to

00:17:01.060 acute stress.

00:17:01.860 So I just need to keep my overall stress level down.

00:17:04.860 Like if, you know, I'm the kind of person who will very much like there will be one

00:17:09.500 tiny straw that breaks the camel's back as opposed to other people who compartmentalize

00:17:13.980 their stresses very well.

00:17:15.120 And I've gotten a lot better at that.

00:17:17.140 And for me, if like, if there's this one business thing upsetting me, I'll just sort

00:17:21.640 of look at it in the grand scheme of life and like, well, you know what?

00:17:24.880 Okay.

00:17:25.140 The site crashed, but there's literally nothing I can do about that.

00:17:28.800 I can't, I'm not a tech guy.

00:17:30.240 I called my tech guy.

00:17:31.560 I said, Hey, the site crashed, get it back up when you can.

00:17:34.020 And now I'm, I'm kind of capable of just like laughing it off because in the end, what's

00:17:39.460 it really going to affect, you know, maybe we'll make a few thousand less dollars because

00:17:42.680 the site was down for three hours.

00:17:44.640 But if my business hinged on making three or $4,000, then I wouldn't be in a good spot.

00:17:49.800 So I just, you know, I just sort of control the things I can control and, and, uh, just

00:17:54.940 get rid of the rest.

00:17:56.160 Um, but let's talk about, yeah, let's go back to the hero's journey, right?

00:17:58.620 So what I loved about the book is you, um, sort of frame everything within Joseph Campbell's

00:18:03.540 hero's journey.

00:18:05.260 How does understanding that the hero's journey help men become better men, whether it means

00:18:11.660 getting in better shape or improving their romantic life or improving their business

00:18:16.540 life.

00:18:16.880 And what is it about the hero's journey that can help men become better men?

00:18:19.520 Well, I think that if you understand it and apply it to any change or any, any stressful

00:18:26.580 situation in your life, it's very clear what you need to do, right?

00:18:30.660 So if you look at the hero's journey in, you know, whether you use Campbell's original 17th

00:18:35.520 stage model or the more abbreviated Bogler model, that's 12 steps.

00:18:39.340 I, I like to look at it and think, where am I on this circular journey?

00:18:46.260 Where am I on this path?

00:18:47.820 Because most of the time the problems in life are caused because we don't know how to react

00:18:52.640 because there's so much uncertainty.

00:18:54.000 And once you know where you are on that cycle, it's for me really just about focusing on

00:19:01.960 getting to the next step.

00:19:03.000 So the first step is, you know, the call to advent or being in the ordinary world.

00:19:06.980 That's your everyday thing.

00:19:07.880 And then there's the call to adventure, which maybe you've gotten fired from a job.

00:19:13.060 Maybe you've gotten a new job.

00:19:14.420 Maybe you're getting into a relationship or in the case of this book, maybe you want to

00:19:18.580 start a fitness journey for whatever reason you've had, as I described it earlier, that

00:19:22.620 moment of clarity, you've seen a picture, you have this reunion coming up, it's your

00:19:26.420 wedding, whatever it is, there is what Campbell calls an inciting event.

00:19:30.520 There is something that makes you want to do the thing that you want to do.

00:19:36.900 And then most people that's, it stops there.

00:19:40.600 They don't know what to do.

00:19:41.680 But if you look at the hero's journey, stage three, depending on which model you look at,

00:19:46.240 it's very, very clear what you need to do.

00:19:49.400 Stage three is meeting with the mentor.

00:19:51.280 The only thing you should be focusing on is finding a mentor, whether in the fitness,

00:19:58.580 it could be the book that I wrote or any book, because that is written by someone who knows

00:20:03.300 more than you.

00:20:03.800 That's your mentor.

00:20:04.580 Whomever the author of that book is, that's the mentor.

00:20:07.720 Maybe it's finding a coach.

00:20:09.140 Maybe it's joining CrossFit.

00:20:11.020 What maybe it's hiring a nutritionist, whatever it is you do.

00:20:14.060 The only thing you should focus on is, is a mentor.

00:20:18.060 That's stage three.

00:20:19.080 Once you've done that, you're going to go through a period of reluctance.

00:20:23.740 And that's typically a refusal of the call.

00:20:26.800 Many people do that.

00:20:28.040 They, you know, they're like, all right, they hire a trainer.

00:20:30.100 And then I don't know if I can do this.

00:20:31.480 I'm nervous.

00:20:32.300 And you just have to find some way to, to overcome refusal of the call.

00:20:36.600 And in fitness, normally accountability is enough.

00:20:40.120 When people hire a trainer, they have financial accountability.

00:20:43.620 You have to show up for that session because you're paying that guy $150 an hour.

00:20:47.460 And so that usually gets you over the hump of refusal of the call.

00:20:50.880 So just like looking at those two steps alone, that's it.

00:20:55.560 But all you need to do, if you're in one of those earlier stages, is focused on getting

00:20:59.760 to the next stage.

00:21:01.040 Then there's, you know, the path of, you know, going through tests, trials, and allies.

00:21:06.020 As long as you know, you know, it's allies, enemies, tests.

00:21:08.940 As long as you know that those are coming, you can be more prepared.

00:21:11.560 If you look at things through the lens of the hero's journey in terms of fitness, you think,

00:21:15.620 okay, I found this mentor.

00:21:16.820 I've gotten through this refusal of the call.

00:21:18.920 Now I'm crossing the first threshold.

00:21:20.640 It means I'm actually committing to this journey.

00:21:24.080 So they're going to, after that, be tests, allies, and enemies, which means I'm going

00:21:28.220 to get invited to parties.

00:21:29.600 I'm going to have people who are going to say, oh, just have one beer.

00:21:32.500 Oh, just have one bite of whatever.

00:21:35.040 And then I'm also going to have people who are just like, hey, man, you're doing a great

00:21:38.100 job.

00:21:39.000 And for me, I have found that letting my clients know that those things will happen in advance

00:21:44.200 and giving them specific instructions for how to handle each one of those events.

00:21:50.640 They are immediately going to be more successful.

00:21:53.940 And all of that comes from the hero's journey.

00:21:56.760 And so the same thing can apply to going through a relationship.

00:22:02.520 I was a career bachelor before I met my wife.

00:22:07.540 And I loved that lifestyle.

00:22:09.300 I loved being a single guy in New York City and just going out and being with a bunch of

00:22:14.720 women, you know, dating a bunch of women, you know, having the occasional six to 12 month 0.99

00:22:19.940 relationship and then going back to juggling six women. 1.00

00:22:22.440 That was like, that was how I enjoyed living my life.

00:22:25.920 And then I met my wife.

00:22:28.480 So, so again, being a bachelor is my ordinary world.

00:22:31.140 Then I met my wife.

00:22:32.140 That's the inciting event.

00:22:34.940 And then I actually, for initially, I was a little bit afraid of like what it could mean

00:22:40.620 to be in a relationship with someone whom I knew, like I wanted something real with.

00:22:44.840 So that was refusal of the call.

00:22:46.580 And so then I met with a mentor.

00:22:47.980 I had dinner with with John Berardi, who is one of my early fitness mentors.

00:22:52.880 He runs a site called Precision Nutrition.

00:22:55.180 John is one of the greatest coaches in the world.

00:22:57.040 But John had also been a bachelor.

00:22:59.020 He had also been a career bachelor and then eventually got married and has like two, two

00:23:02.860 wonderful kids now.

00:23:04.020 And so John and I had a long conversation over dinner and that conversation sort of gave me

00:23:09.380 some insight and helped me understand that maybe, you know, I was ready and that maybe

00:23:14.120 I could take these steps.

00:23:15.840 And so then the, the, the crossing the first threshold was when we got involved in that

00:23:20.800 relationship.

00:23:21.240 And then there are tests.

00:23:22.980 There are always women from your past coming in, you know, like messaging you what's going 1.00

00:23:27.640 on.

00:23:27.940 Are you in town tonight?

00:23:28.640 There's always going to be Ted.

00:23:30.000 The universe tests you.

00:23:31.080 That's like, you know, I actually, I had, I started writing this blog post that it, that

00:23:36.400 it begins with, let me introduce you to the universe. 0.99

00:23:39.700 He's a dick because the universe will test you. 0.99

00:23:43.380 As soon as you're in a happy relationship, like women are going to start coming at you 1.00

00:23:47.560 because that's the nature of it.

00:23:48.800 Right.

00:23:48.980 And I think that anything worth having is worth being tested for you.

00:23:53.440 You know, I deserved those, those tests.

00:23:56.500 I deserved that hardship of like needing to grow from that type of refusal because that

00:24:01.720 proved to me that I was worthy of this relationship.

00:24:04.460 And then there are the allies, right?

00:24:06.100 The people in your life who were so excited for you to take this step.

00:24:09.500 And then there are the enemies who were saying, are you, you really think you can do this?

00:24:13.460 Can you keep this girl? 1.00

00:24:14.100 Can you be with one woman forever? 0.92

00:24:16.100 You know, all of these different things, these people, and the most insidious thing is that

00:24:21.020 those are people that you love in both cases, your allies and your enemies are people that

00:24:25.520 you love.

00:24:25.980 It could, you know, even be your own mother.

00:24:28.420 Who's just like, I don't really like this girl.

00:24:30.320 You know, you might, you know, that didn't happen with me.

00:24:32.140 Thankfully it happened.

00:24:32.980 That's how I, that's one of the reasons I knew, by the way, it was one of the, one of the

00:24:35.740 few women in my mother life. 1.00

00:24:37.360 Um, but you know, that happens with a lot of my friends.

00:24:40.800 They've, they're dating this woman, they fall in love.

00:24:42.920 And then some member of their family are, they're, they're putting poison in their ear.

00:24:47.360 If I may quote Shakespeare.

00:24:48.820 And, um, and, and that's hard.

00:24:51.460 So all of the, all of the aspects of the hero's journey, every step applies to every major

00:24:58.520 change you'll make in your life.

00:24:59.900 I can camelize anything from getting hired to getting fired, to going to college, to getting

00:25:04.660 to, you know, going through divorce, to finding the one you love or, or to fitness.

00:25:09.220 And for me, whenever I don't know what to do in my life, I just sit down, I draw a circle

00:25:15.300 and I plot out the hero's journey and I figure out where I am.

00:25:18.640 And from there, all I need to do, all I need to do, Brett is get to the next step.

00:25:22.840 And what, and then that just becomes a question of how to do that.

00:25:26.900 How do I get to the next step?

00:25:28.340 Where am I now?

00:25:29.740 That's awesome stuff.

00:25:30.700 And so I guess that you, one of the, when I was thinking as you're, as I was

00:25:34.600 listening to you, this, the hero's journey can happen to you more than once.

00:25:37.620 Yeah.

00:25:38.060 You're, I mean, in, in general, you're going through, you know, your main life cycle of

00:25:42.380 a hero's journey, but I think at any given time, we're all going through, you know, one

00:25:47.240 to three individual cycles and a lot of them, you know, overlap, you know, you could be going

00:25:52.960 through this new cycle of starting a business while at the same time going through the cycle

00:25:57.680 of, of, you know, getting a divorce or, or whatever else.

00:26:01.500 And I think that, um, you know, you go through so many throughout your life.

00:26:06.600 Every major change is a micro cycle on the macro cycle of your lifelong hero's journey

00:26:13.000 to become the best version of yourself and live a life worthy of song and memory.

00:26:18.120 That's awesome.

00:26:18.400 That was some great, like some meta deep psychology, Jungian stuff right there.

00:26:22.720 I love it.

00:26:23.160 Um, so let's, let's get into the nitty gritty about your, your, your health and fitness

00:26:27.160 philosophy, um, because it's unique in the industry.

00:26:30.400 I think, um, you put a lot of emphasis on hormone optimization.

00:26:35.320 Like that's one of the, the keys to getting in the best shape of your life.

00:26:39.100 Are there specific hormones that we should be focusing on to optimize our health?

00:26:44.800 And how do you optimize hormones?

00:26:47.240 I mean, cause that's such, it's like such a weird, it's like alchemy almost, right?

00:26:51.280 I mean, yeah, that's the great way to put it.

00:26:53.560 Hopefully aren't too many Faustian bargains involved, but, um, so a big part of it, right,

00:26:58.500 is what gets measured gets managed.

00:27:00.500 So the first thing is that I really do recommend that people go and get some sort of hormonal

00:27:05.480 profile done.

00:27:06.580 Uh, you can do this at, at most laboratories.

00:27:08.880 Most doctors will run a blood test.

00:27:10.740 Uh, in particular, I, I say that every man who's over the age of like 16 should get a

00:27:20.020 testosterone, uh, to get, get their testosterone levels checked and do it probably every two

00:27:25.080 or three years.

00:27:26.060 Even if you're not experiencing symptoms of low testosterone, it's, it's important to

00:27:30.420 get it tested because it establishes a baseline.

00:27:33.480 And if you, if you do that and then get it tested years later and it's significantly lower,

00:27:38.280 then at least you can identify the problems, uh, or, or maybe one of the sources of those

00:27:43.140 problems.

00:27:43.500 But, uh, a good company that you can look at is wellness FX, uh, wellnessfx.com.

00:27:50.020 And they do all sorts of like really, really in-depth hormonal profile.

00:27:53.820 They do micronutrients in your blood and, and, and everything.

00:27:57.340 So there's no hormone that isn't important, but on, on the larger scale in terms of the

00:28:03.620 ones that we can manipulate with changes to our behavior, there's testosterone, insulin,

00:28:11.940 uh, growth hormone, estrogen obviously is, is part of the mix.

00:28:16.180 And then there's all these hormones that are related to those other ones like ghrelin

00:28:19.560 and, uh, cortisol is another big one.

00:28:22.300 So those are the ones we want to look at.

00:28:24.640 Let's talk a little bit about what some of the things you can do to modify or optimize your,

00:28:29.660 your hormones.

00:28:30.120 And you talk, one of the big keys, uh, you talk about in the book is intermittent fasting

00:28:34.600 for listeners who aren't aware of what intermittent fasting is.

00:28:37.340 Can you explain what it is and talk about what sort of the effects it has on, on hormones?

00:28:42.700 Sure.

00:28:43.140 So intermittent fasting or IF is a, a system of, of, of structure, alternating structures

00:28:52.160 of, of eating and not eating periods of fasting when you're not eating at all with periods

00:28:57.340 that are called a feeding window when you are quote unquote allowed to eat.

00:29:00.840 So there's a few different ways to do this.

00:29:02.400 The most popular of which is 16, eight intermittent fasting, also known as the lean gains method.

00:29:09.340 It was as far as I know, devised, but certainly popularized by Swedish trainer, nutrition expert,

00:29:15.880 Martin Birkin, uh, who you guys can learn about over at lean gains.com.

00:29:20.320 Martin's a very smart guy and certainly one of the godfathers of the fasting movement, along

00:29:24.260 with Brad Pilon, who wrote a great book called eat, stop, eat.

00:29:27.760 And, uh, so I've learned a lot from, from all of these guys and I, and I love to throw them

00:29:32.280 as much light as I can when, uh, whenever I have the opportunity.

00:29:34.980 So check all those guys out, but fasting is good for various types of, of, of health related

00:29:42.820 things.

00:29:43.160 But in terms of your physique, in terms of your hormones, the fact is that when you are fasting,

00:29:48.940 you're going to be minimizing insulin production because you're not eating.

00:29:54.640 And insulin is produced, not necessarily in direct concert with, but certainly as a consequence

00:30:00.740 of feeding, regardless of what you're eating.

00:30:02.980 So we all know that eating carbohydrates causes an insulin spike, but it's also been shown that

00:30:07.420 eating fat by itself or protein by itself or protein and fat together can also cause insulin

00:30:13.340 production.

00:30:14.360 And so by, by concentrating your food intake into this smaller period, you minimize insulin

00:30:21.240 production instead of, let's say the, the traditional bodybuilding model of eating six

00:30:25.200 meals per day, you're, you know, creating those insulin spike six times, but here you

00:30:29.360 might only be doing it two or three because you're eating all of your meals in that eight

00:30:33.260 hour window.

00:30:34.640 Fasting also tends to increase growth hormone.

00:30:37.400 So right off the bat, you're decreasing insulin and increasing growth hormone, and that is going

00:30:42.020 to have some profound physiological effects just in terms of the ease with which you can

00:30:46.940 make changes to your body in terms of, uh, fat loss and muscle gain.

00:30:51.040 There's, it's not a magic bullet.

00:30:52.440 It's not like flipping a switch and all of a sudden, you know, you can eat the same things

00:30:56.880 you were eating and you'll have radical shifts in body composition.

00:31:00.920 And at the same time, it's not a completely necessary thing.

00:31:03.900 You know, bodybuilders have been getting shredded on six meals a day for as long as there have

00:31:08.240 been bodybuilders.

00:31:09.160 So it's, you know, it's not necessary.

00:31:10.960 It's just, it's something that, that is going to give you a little bit more leverage.

00:31:15.920 It also helps in terms of, of livability.

00:31:18.520 I think we can agree that eating three meals per day is, is easier and more convenient than

00:31:24.580 eating six meals per day.

00:31:26.180 Uh, certainly cheaper if you're eating different meals every time or, uh, just a lot less time

00:31:31.560 consuming if you're preparing them.

00:31:33.400 But there are those hormonal effects.

00:31:35.340 Um, and that's huge, particularly because there's a lot of what we call hormonal interplay,

00:31:42.180 right?

00:31:42.920 And one of the things that we look at is the, the relationship between insulin and testosterone

00:31:49.300 and the better your insulin sensitivity is, the more you're going to see the effects of

00:31:57.080 higher testosterone, even at lower levels by a sex drive, for example.

00:32:01.080 And another thing is that, um, insulin resistance is, it's just a terrible thing in terms of

00:32:07.440 the way that it affects your body.

00:32:08.840 You'll gain fat.

00:32:09.720 It's you're, you're more at risk for heart disease and cancer and prolonged insulin resistance

00:32:14.820 can even be shown to, uh, create some physiological erectile dysfunction. 0.90

00:32:20.160 So, uh, you know, just because it's, it's a matter of blood not getting to the penis. 1.00

00:32:23.980 So it's, you know, it's, it's serious shit. 0.99

00:32:25.840 We talk a lot about stuff in the book that people, you know, think is funny. 0.99

00:32:29.260 And we're just being bros talking about sex drive. 0.99

00:32:31.520 But, uh, you know, if one day you woke up and your dick didn't work because you'd been 1.00

00:32:34.980 eating donuts every day for the past six years, you'd be pretty upset about it. 0.98

00:32:38.680 So, you know, it's, uh, it's, it's really not something that happens overnight.

00:32:43.240 None of these things are, but they can happen in, in a fairly minute period of time, uh, relative

00:32:49.040 to the span of your life.

00:32:50.040 And that's why we find that we can have some pretty afound, pretty profound effects over

00:32:54.800 the course of the 16 weeks in the program.

00:32:56.520 And, uh, we've had guys who have doubled their testosterone levels in as little as

00:33:00.640 six weeks.

00:33:01.140 So it's pretty, pretty alarming how quickly it can happen.

00:33:03.840 That's awesome.

00:33:04.380 So I guess like a kind of a, for a sort of a general, uh, intermittent fasting schedule.

00:33:09.500 I mean, one could be like you eat your last meal at seven o'clock and then you'd wait 16

00:33:14.180 hours.

00:33:14.860 Yeah.

00:33:15.200 And then wait 16 hours and then eat again in the morning.

00:33:16.980 So we, you know, a lot of people eat their first meal at 2 PM and their last meal at 10 PM

00:33:21.060 or, you know, if that's too late for you, if you like to go to bed early, you can, you know,

00:33:24.800 you can do 12 and eight, whatever, whatever's good for you.

00:33:27.340 Awesome.

00:33:27.660 Let's talk about, um, kind of, it's related to this, but like cheat days and cheat meals.

00:33:30.700 Cause I, there's that post you, you have on your site about the Vermonster, which is,

00:33:35.780 which is a goal of mine.

00:33:36.800 Cause we, my family and I, we go to Vermont a lot.

00:33:38.900 Oh yeah.

00:33:39.480 And I want, I want to, I want to pound the Vermonster one of these days.

00:33:43.340 Um, I've actually only ever been to Vermont once and it was specifically to go to Ben and

00:33:50.060 Jerry's so the Vermonster for anyone who does not know is a Ben and Jerry's confection that

00:33:56.240 is made up of something like 20 scoops of ice cream, three brownies, three cookies, like

00:34:01.220 two bananas, a bunch of toppings.

00:34:03.140 It's pretty crazy.

00:34:04.120 Uh, I have eaten it three times now.

00:34:07.980 Um, once was with my buddy, Tim Ferriss for his book, the four hour chef.

00:34:13.100 We actually have a chapter where, so the Vermonster is meant to be shared obviously between six

00:34:17.360 and eight sane human beings, but Tim and I each decided to eat one by ourselves and Tim

00:34:23.840 vomited.

00:34:24.340 I did not.

00:34:24.880 I like to say.

00:34:26.060 So what role does that have in like hormone optimum?

00:34:28.360 What does that do?

00:34:29.360 Well, for the eating of a monster is crazy.

00:34:31.400 It's got 14,000 calories.

00:34:33.920 So I'm a big believer in cheat meals and cheat days.

00:34:37.040 The reason to have cheat meals is for the upregulation of a hormone called leptin.

00:34:41.900 So very, very brief hormonal talk right here.

00:34:44.080 Leptin is known as the anti-starvation hormone.

00:34:48.020 It comes from the Greek leptos meaning thin and leptin is a master hormone that controls

00:34:53.460 production of other hormones in particular thyroid hormones, T3 and T4, and thereby it

00:35:00.460 more or less regulates your metabolism, particularly with regard to how quickly you can burn fat.

00:35:06.020 Leptin is produced in your fat cells and it is also, and the, uh, the production of leptin

00:35:10.520 is also related to your overall caloric intake, which means this, when you are on a diet, hopefully

00:35:18.240 you will lose fat.

00:35:19.400 So leptin levels drop.

00:35:20.940 You're also going to be eating less calories.

00:35:23.860 That's how you're losing the fat in the first place.

00:35:26.020 So leptin levels drop even further.

00:35:28.540 And after a couple of weeks, your leptin levels have dropped to the point where it's downregulated

00:35:35.260 your T3 and T4 production, which is why it's hard to lose weight.

00:35:39.180 This is the reason that many people, when they start a diet, lose 20 pounds in the first

00:35:42.940 month.

00:35:43.200 And then the second month they lose two.

00:35:45.000 One of the reasons is that leptin levels have dropped to the point where now they're,

00:35:49.800 they've sent off some evolutionary distress signals.

00:35:52.340 And it seems to the, to the, the, you know, physiological machinery that we're in a famine

00:35:59.000 state and that metabolism has to slow to preserve the fat stores and the muscle enter the cheat

00:36:06.240 day, also known by a science types as a strategic overfeed, having a cheat day bumps leptin levels

00:36:13.920 up because you're getting this huge caloric excess all at once.

00:36:17.600 So instead of eating give 2000 calories a day, or maybe even less when you're dieting, you 0.99

00:36:22.160 go to eating 6,000, 8,000, or if you're stupid, 14,000 calories of ice cream in one day. 0.90

00:36:28.700 And that sort of brings you down from, from being at DEFCON four down to DEFCON one. 0.98

00:36:34.460 And you're still in, your body knows that you're still dieting.

00:36:37.180 There's, you know, a lot of, um, a lot of evidence to say that cheat days are not necessarily

00:36:41.360 as effective as we'd like them to be, but they do, they do seem to work at the very least.

00:36:46.100 They don't slow fat loss down. 0.77

00:36:47.860 They almost always seem to increase fat loss provided that people are, are dieting hard

00:36:54.300 enough during the week to make the cheat day worth it.

00:36:58.000 And then, um, it's also a nice, you know, like reprieve from, from the, the stress of,

00:37:04.920 of being under dietary lock and keep.

00:37:07.200 So again, I did mention that they only work under certain conditions.

00:37:10.500 You have to be fairly lean, you know, and, and the leaner you are, the more often you

00:37:16.320 could cheat.

00:37:16.980 Um, back when I was dieting for a bodybuilding show, when I was 22, I had a cheat day once

00:37:22.020 every five days up until I was about eight weeks out or, or yeah, eight weeks out from,

00:37:27.280 from the show.

00:37:27.740 And then I stopped cheating altogether.

00:37:28.780 You also need to be eating in a pretty restrictive caloric deficit during the week.

00:37:35.520 If you're going to cheat on like Sunday, you can't be, you know, if you're, if your basal

00:37:38.840 metabolic rate requires you to eat 20, 200 calories per day to maintain eating 2000 calories

00:37:47.000 per day, and then having a cheat day on Sunday, isn't going to work.

00:37:49.820 Your diet needs to be more restrictive than that.

00:37:52.360 Does that make sense?

00:37:53.200 That, that makes perfect.

00:37:53.920 So if you're just starting out, like if you're still like 40 or 50 pounds overweight, wait

00:37:59.200 on the cheat days.

00:38:00.540 Yeah.

00:38:00.760 Wait until you've lost.

00:38:02.060 I mean, really the, the, the main thing that I would say is wait until the rate of fat loss

00:38:06.600 slows consistently and, and, uh, considerably, and then have a cheat meal and see if that

00:38:12.420 affects things and then wait again.

00:38:13.820 And then once you're, you know, 20 pounds, 25 pounds away from your goal, a weekly cheat

00:38:18.180 day might be something you want to look into.

00:38:20.340 In terms of cheat meals versus cheat days, it all depends how restrictive you are during

00:38:26.460 the week.

00:38:27.040 Some people like to be very, very, very restrictive during the week and then blow it out on a Sunday

00:38:32.760 like I do.

00:38:33.980 Um, you know, I don't mind, you know, eating 800 calories below maintenance, uh, six days

00:38:39.180 a week.

00:38:39.500 If I get to destroy it on Sunday, that, that works for me.

00:38:42.060 I'm a pretty extreme guy, but other people, you know, they'll eat three or 400 calories below

00:38:47.200 and, uh, they'll have a cheat meal once every two weeks and that's fine for them.

00:38:51.000 So it really depends on the type of lifestyle you live and how miserable you want to be.

00:38:55.700 Gotcha.

00:38:56.100 Well, here's a question that just came to mind.

00:38:57.540 Is there a difference on how intermittent fasting affects men and women?

00:39:02.360 Yeah, actually.

00:39:03.000 So there was a couple of articles last year that, uh, basically people came out and said,

00:39:09.360 um, intermittent fasting is bad for women. 1.00

00:39:11.780 I think intermittent fasting is bad for some people.

00:39:16.400 I think anyone who has, who has, has unfortunately struggled with an eating disorder is going to

00:39:22.780 be someone who, who is more prone to having some sort of psychological, a negative psychological

00:39:29.420 response to not eating, particularly if you've struggled with anorexia, like that's not a good

00:39:34.120 idea in terms of the actual, you know, apples to apples comparison of, of how it affects men

00:39:39.460 to women.

00:39:40.060 I mean, I just, I think that a lot of it has to do with the, uh, the sizing thing, right?

00:39:45.260 Like hummingbirds need to eat more often because they're tiny and their heart beats more because

00:39:49.300 they're tiny.

00:39:50.100 So I think that, uh, women probably can, can fast for 14 hours instead of 16 hours and 1.00

00:39:55.800 not be in such a crazy caloric deficit.

00:39:58.900 And then they'll be, they'll be perfectly fine.

00:40:01.120 And again, it depends on the woman. 1.00

00:40:02.240 You know, my wife fasts every day. 0.65

00:40:04.380 I fast every day.

00:40:05.260 Neither one of us see any sort of, uh, anything negative.

00:40:08.480 But I've known guys who have had pretty shitty reactions to fasting and I've known women. 0.97

00:40:14.360 So I think that those arguments are, are founded in flawed logic.

00:40:17.960 I actually wrote a Facebook post addressing one of them.

00:40:21.640 And, and this article was written by someone on T nation.

00:40:25.380 And it was, I think, I mean, I think it might've been 1200 words long and there were at least

00:40:30.580 nine logical fallacies in the way that the argument was presented.

00:40:33.460 And, you know, that's a problem for me, uh, you know, that's, that's the issue I take.

00:40:39.340 I don't care.

00:40:39.720 You know, if you don't like intermittent fasting, if you don't think it's good for women, just

00:40:42.300 say, I don't recommend it to my clients. 0.99

00:40:43.760 Don't make some sort of ridiculously structured and passionate argument because it's bullshit 1.00

00:40:48.880 is the problem. 0.92

00:40:50.000 You know, just like if you're going to argue, know the rules upon which argument functions.

00:40:55.420 Yeah.

00:40:56.320 Well, so besides the nutrition, the intermittent fasting, what are some other like important

00:41:00.540 aspects of hormone optimization?

00:41:03.560 Huge one is sleep.

00:41:05.000 I really, I can't stress this enough.

00:41:07.220 And it's, it's such a, I, I, it's such like a double-edged sword because I feel like this

00:41:12.060 is super important.

00:41:12.780 I need to tell people about it, but then I'm like, no one's going to listen to me anyway.

00:41:16.080 So sleep.

00:41:16.880 All right.

00:41:17.060 So, so there's a couple of studies.

00:41:18.700 Uh, the first of which, um, was a study that found we're sleeping about, uh, set on average

00:41:24.520 75 to 90 minutes less or fewer than, um, than we were 10 years ago, which I think is pretty

00:41:33.120 interesting.

00:41:33.480 On average, we're sleeping up to an hour and a half less than we were 10 years ago.

00:41:39.160 Why?

00:41:39.460 I mean, as to why that is, Brett, your guess would be as good as mine.

00:41:43.240 Yeah.

00:41:44.020 But I think that we're all just, you know, there's more to do.

00:41:46.320 We're all on our phones all the time.

00:41:47.640 Um, so here's, here's the, the really terrible downside of that.

00:41:54.540 There was another study and this one, maybe, maybe Harvard.

00:41:58.920 I I'd have to, I'd have to check our notes, but, uh, it showed that sleeping six hours per

00:42:04.980 night or less for as little as two weeks can lower testosterone levels by as much as 15%.

00:42:13.660 Whoa.

00:42:14.940 So here's something to consider.

00:42:16.500 One of the, the like arbitrary numbers that we spout off, cause this seems to be true

00:42:20.900 is that for men after the age of 30, your testosterone levels will drop about 1% per

00:42:27.240 year going forward.

00:42:28.520 Right?

00:42:29.360 So that means that by sleeping six hours a night or less for two weeks, you're aging your

00:42:33.940 body 15 years in terms of testosterone production.

00:42:36.180 That's a bad idea.

00:42:37.960 Yeah.

00:42:38.880 So right off the bat, you can see just how just fantastically and fundamentally it is important

00:42:44.380 it is to get good sleep.

00:42:46.580 Get enough sleep is, is huge, you know, and it's, and it's hard because you need it the

00:42:52.300 most, you know, when you're in your mid twenties, because you're, you're functioning like a, like

00:42:56.580 a beast and you're going through life and at this like breakneck pace.

00:42:59.680 But at the same time, that's when you want to feel like you're invincible and, and that's

00:43:03.540 the tendency, right?

00:43:04.420 We don't take care of ourselves during that time.

00:43:06.360 And then we screw ourselves, you know, for, for the future.

00:43:09.580 So, um, it's something that I, that I say with a lot of hope, but, um, you know, the, the

00:43:15.480 foresight, unfortunately guys aren't going to listen to the extent that they should.

00:43:18.800 What about a stress optimization or managing stress?

00:43:22.840 Yeah.

00:43:23.120 So that's huge.

00:43:23.960 So there's a hormone called cortisol.

00:43:25.640 It affects you in all sorts of interesting ways.

00:43:28.300 It is a stress hormone and it's cyclical.

00:43:30.840 The more stressed out you are, the more cortisol you will have.

00:43:34.060 And the more cortisol you'll have, the more prone to feeling stressed you are, um, sort

00:43:40.080 of like, you know, being drunk, you know, like the, the, the more alcohol in your system,

00:43:44.500 the drunker you are, but the drunker you are, the, the, the, like more bad decisions

00:43:48.260 you'll make.

00:43:49.040 Um, this is, uh, is deleterious for a number of reasons.

00:43:55.380 It's been shown that it can, uh, lead to the accumulation of the type of belly fat that

00:44:00.620 is linked to many types of, of cancers in men.

00:44:03.680 So that sounds terrible.

00:44:05.460 And then also it's just, you know, all sorts of other, uh, negative effects of stress,

00:44:10.720 hair loss and thoughts of suicide and all these other things.

00:44:13.540 It also lowers testosterone, right?

00:44:15.220 Yes.

00:44:15.540 Cortisol can lower testosterone, but in particular it'll, it'll, it's, it's,

00:44:18.260 it seems to be negatively, uh, really there's sort of an inverse relationship between,

00:44:21.840 um, test or, uh, cortisol and growth hormone, but growth hormone does act as sort of a potentiator

00:44:27.520 to testosterone.

00:44:28.180 So it seems that even if your testosterone levels are unaffected, you might, you might

00:44:32.300 feel like you have low test.

00:44:34.260 Okay.

00:44:34.660 Gotcha.

00:44:35.300 So like, I guess meditation or just kind of being stoic towards life is an important, uh,

00:44:41.860 strategy for hormone optimization.

00:44:43.240 Well, the first thing again is sleep.

00:44:45.220 That's our first line of defense.

00:44:46.500 The more you sleep, the better your growth hormone will be the few, the less cortisol

00:44:49.660 you'll have.

00:44:50.800 But yeah, I mean, I think that, um, some guys are super into meditation.

00:44:56.100 I think that it works for a lot of people, but there are people who are just a little

00:45:01.820 bit too, too pragmatic to, to like really buy into meditation.

00:45:06.640 And I happen to be one of them.

00:45:08.000 Let me qualify that by saying, I do believe it works, but I also just, I, it's too, it's

00:45:13.840 for me, it's still a little bit too woo woo.

00:45:16.340 You know, I, I can do it and it's very, very hard for me to meditate for even 10 to 15 minutes,

00:45:21.700 but it doesn't have, it doesn't seem to have the same effect for me as it does for other

00:45:27.520 people where, you know, when I come out of this meditation, even if I managed to get

00:45:31.140 it 90% right, which I'm probably capable of doing one out of every 10 times I try.

00:45:37.020 Um, I, I don't come out of it with this feeling of dispassionate calm that I have in general.

00:45:42.520 Instead, I'm just like, I don't know, maybe I just, there's too many negative associations

00:45:46.920 with it.

00:45:47.380 So what do you do for me?

00:45:49.460 I mean, a big part of it is just writing, you know, I know what, what works for me in

00:45:54.980 terms of like, whatever's bothering me, I just write about it in the most ridiculous

00:46:00.360 way that I can, because I really think that life is, is sort of one big joke. 0.94

00:46:05.640 You know, I just, it's such a, it's so ridiculous.

00:46:08.160 Like when I, yeah, I was, um, and this is, this is, we're getting into dark territory here,

00:46:13.640 but, um, uh, the, the, the shooting in, uh, Isla Vista, um, affected all of us, I think.

00:46:20.560 Right.

00:46:20.740 And, um, I don't even, you know, uh, Roger, Elliot Roger, I don't even like to say his

00:46:25.980 name and throw him props, but you know, it just affected me pretty negatively because

00:46:30.020 he was this depressed kid who just, you know, like, imagine that, imagine that your whole 0.99

00:46:35.820 life is so terrible because you're just not getting any pussy that you're like, well, the 1.00

00:46:40.540 only reaction is to kill people. 1.00

00:46:41.960 And to me, it's, it's so dark and awful that the only thing I can do is laugh about 1.00

00:46:49.020 it and just write about it and talk about it in the most ridiculous way. 0.90

00:46:52.120 And that seems to help me get through it. 0.84

00:46:54.000 Because when I think about it, things like that, like misogyny, it's, it, people say

00:46:58.500 like, there's nothing funny about it, but it's not funny, but it's laughable to me.

00:47:02.880 It is so incredibly laughable that anyone could really think that there's a fundamental difference

00:47:08.460 in the quality of a human being based on their genitals, like that's, or their race.

00:47:14.800 So it's, it's, I can't even put myself in the mindset of someone who believe that, like

00:47:19.860 the fact that, that people are still racist, it, it, it, to me, when I hear stories about

00:47:25.020 real racism, it almost feels like it's made up because there's no possible way anyone could

00:47:30.220 be crazy enough to believe that. 0.96

00:47:31.940 Like, and so I just like, I'll write in my journal about how ridiculous it is that people 0.96

00:47:37.360 could still live in this world about, you know, where, where color matters, for example. 0.63

00:47:43.760 And, and for me, just like taking, you know, 30 or 40 minutes to write a ridiculous story

00:47:50.600 about that, or, or just, you know, write out my thoughts and that really, really helps me.

00:47:54.240 And I think, you know, that's a form of moving meditation for me.

00:47:57.300 Oh, so you, you kind of take sort of like a, a catch 22, like that character Yossarian

00:48:03.160 in the novel, like he just sort of blasts up the absurdity of war, right?

00:48:09.100 Yes, exactly right.

00:48:10.400 And, and, you know, cause there's nothing else you can do, you know, unfortunately, like

00:48:14.220 we can't, there's no cure for just people going off the deep end, it seems.

00:48:20.300 And, and that sucks, you know, but yeah, the absurdity of it all.

00:48:24.720 Yeah.

00:48:25.000 So that for me helps, but I also, you know, I throw myself into my work and I throw myself

00:48:29.180 into, into exercise and, and that's really helpful for me.

00:48:35.080 And honestly, a big one for me, anytime I'm super stressed out with work, I stop working

00:48:39.900 and I go to the poker table.

00:48:41.480 So I'm a lot, I've, I've been playing poker since I'm 20 years old.

00:48:44.700 I really like it.

00:48:45.840 I I've made a lot of money doing it.

00:48:47.900 And it was something that I did at least semi-professionally in my, in my mid twenties,

00:48:52.880 where I was supplementing my income by three or four or 5,000 per month playing poker.

00:48:57.500 And there's something for me, which is so incredibly freeing to just be at a table and just focus

00:49:03.740 on the cards and living in this world where the only nine people that exist are you and

00:49:09.640 the eight other guys at the table.

00:49:11.740 And the only thing you're going to do now is focus on, on playing these cards to the best

00:49:17.060 of your ability.

00:49:17.700 And to me, that is infinitely more relaxing and satisfying than meditation.

00:49:23.580 It's an interestingly, I know a lot of professional poker players and they say the thing that helps

00:49:27.080 them is working out.

00:49:28.860 And then I know a lot of people, another, a lot of poker players who say that meditating

00:49:31.960 is what keeps them balanced so they can play.

00:49:33.960 So I think it's really the, the, the takeaway is find whatever it is that allows you to feel

00:49:41.120 completely isolated and untethered.

00:49:44.020 And just like, you know, for some people it's, it's meditation for other people, it's poker

00:49:50.500 for some people, it's training, you know, I don't know.

00:49:54.080 And it's been different things for me at different times in my life.

00:49:57.140 Yeah.

00:49:57.780 So yeah.

00:49:58.400 Experiment.

00:49:59.200 Right.

00:49:59.880 Absolutely.

00:50:00.420 I mean, that's the key, right?

00:50:01.260 That's why we're here to figure out what works.

00:50:02.820 All right.

00:50:03.320 So, uh, let's talk a little bit about, uh, strength training because that's an important

00:50:06.780 part of, uh, hormone optimization is a lot of people don't realize that whenever you exercise,

00:50:10.640 your body releases a whole bunch of hormones.

00:50:13.200 What's your philosophy towards strength training?

00:50:15.040 Is it just like what works for you or what gets you moving?

00:50:17.480 Or is there something that you recommend?

00:50:19.860 I mean, what, what's your approach to fitness and strength training?

00:50:22.720 Yeah.

00:50:23.080 I mean, how do you, how do you distill, you know, 12, 12 years of training and experimenting

00:50:28.020 and writing into, into an answer for that?

00:50:30.840 It all depends where people are, right?

00:50:33.500 Like my philosophy for me is not the same as my philosophy for my clients.

00:50:37.760 If I have someone who's never trained before, they, they have historically had a hard time

00:50:43.120 building the habit of exercise.

00:50:45.460 Then my philosophy is let's just pick the thing you hate the least and that you, or enjoy the

00:50:49.960 most.

00:50:50.280 And let's just do that because that is for whatever reason, what feels okay to you.

00:50:55.980 And that is going to keep you coming back and building that habit is going to be most

00:50:59.840 important for, you know, a guy who comes to me and he wants to compete in bodybuilding.

00:51:06.640 My philosophy is going to be in, you know, have my training philosophy is going to be entirely

00:51:10.540 different than a woman who wants to get in shape for her wedding. 0.98

00:51:15.440 So for me, my philosophy isn't necessarily what works for you because I think you can

00:51:20.400 make just about anything work for you.

00:51:22.700 Although there will be some things that are just, you know, that maybe you respond better

00:51:26.260 to genetically.

00:51:27.220 It's all about like, what's your goal and how can we get you there?

00:51:30.840 You know, there's a lot of people who would come on this, this show and they're just like,

00:51:34.580 oh, it's CrossFit.

00:51:35.280 I just, yeah, CrossFit's my philosophy.

00:51:37.300 And then there's other people who would come on and say, well, I hate CrossFit.

00:51:40.240 It's terrible.

00:51:40.640 The crux of what you enjoy the most or hate the least and what's going to be most effective

00:51:46.820 for getting you toward your goal, wherever those two lines meet on the graph is what you

00:51:51.540 should be focusing on.

00:51:52.840 And if you're someone like me, that's going to change all the time because I'm always

00:51:58.180 chasing different goals.

00:51:59.340 You know, historically, most of my goals have been aesthetic or strength related.

00:52:03.000 You know, I wanted to deadlift 600 pounds.

00:52:05.300 So I did it.

00:52:05.820 I trained specifically for that, or I wanted to compete in bodybuilding.

00:52:08.820 So I trained specifically for that.

00:52:10.640 But if I got it into my head that I wanted to compete in the CrossFit games, I would

00:52:14.800 obviously train very, very differently than, than I would for bodybuilding.

00:52:18.820 So, yeah, I mean, so you're not dogmatic.

00:52:21.980 That's that.

00:52:22.680 Yeah.

00:52:22.900 So, yeah, I mean, I'm, I'm like Bruce Lee.

00:52:25.280 I'm all about being water.

00:52:26.860 So, yeah, I don't, I don't have a, a strong tie to any one training methodology because I,

00:52:34.800 I just don't care enough.

00:52:36.200 I just think when people get so upset about it, like that's nuts.

00:52:39.660 Yeah.

00:52:40.560 You had that post about like kettlebells, right?

00:52:42.780 Where everyone's like, you have to do kettlebells.

00:52:45.060 It is, it is superior to any type of exercise ever.

00:52:48.780 And it's like, I've done kettlebells.

00:52:51.080 I like kettlebells.

00:52:52.200 Yeah.

00:52:52.600 Um, but you know, they can only do so much, right?

00:52:56.560 Like if I wanted to deadlift 600 pounds, I wouldn't be training with kettlebells.

00:53:00.860 Yeah.

00:53:01.360 It's not, you know, maybe I would do kettlebell swings as a supplementary exercise, but I'm

00:53:05.440 not, you know, I'm not going to be like, well, I need to find two, 300 pound kettlebells.

00:53:09.240 That's not what I would do.

00:53:10.980 Um, yeah, so I, yeah, I, my, I, I really fight pretty hard against dogmatism because

00:53:17.120 I think it really hurts the industry and that's, that's any industry by the way.

00:53:21.960 Um, yeah, it's just, it's just not good.

00:53:24.720 It, you know, it, it really, it, it creates camps, which people like because they like

00:53:29.740 to feel part of, of a tribe, but it also like it fractures and segments the distribution

00:53:37.180 of information and, uh, and I think progress.

00:53:39.740 And I think that's something to be, to be a board.

00:53:42.760 Yeah. 1.00

00:53:43.240 I mean, it kind of, it makes you stupid too. 0.99

00:53:45.540 Um, cause I remember like for a while, like several years ago, I was like really big on just 0.99

00:53:50.040 like the five by five, you know, strong lifts and I, that's all I did.

00:53:54.000 And I was like, yeah, this is where it's at.

00:53:55.360 It's all about compound lifts and they're great.

00:53:57.640 But like, there came a point, like I wasn't making any progress.

00:54:00.500 Right.

00:54:01.080 And so I had to like reevaluate, like, well, maybe I should do something else.

00:54:04.780 And like, I started doing, um, like just basic, you know, supplemental lifts.

00:54:10.000 Like I brought back the bicep curl.

00:54:11.680 I started using machines.

00:54:12.980 And what's crazy is like, I started making progress again.

00:54:16.160 And so now I'm in this place where I'm just like, I'm always changing depending,

00:54:19.860 like you said, depending on your goal, what my goals are.

00:54:21.740 And there's always changing.

00:54:23.340 Right.

00:54:23.780 I mean, nothing, nothing annoys me more than when some, you know, some kid goes on the

00:54:29.580 internet and he asks a forum or his, or Facebook page.

00:54:32.980 And they're like, all right, I want big arms because he's a kid and he wants to look good

00:54:36.660 at the beach.

00:54:37.220 Yeah.

00:54:37.620 What should I do?

00:54:38.720 And, you know, a bunch of people come back with him and it's like, well, you need to do

00:54:42.060 five, three, one.

00:54:42.760 Don't worry about biceps curls.

00:54:43.980 You just need to do, you know, your arms are going to grow from, from benching and do pull-ups.

00:54:49.640 Okay.

00:54:49.960 They will, but also do some bicep curls. 1.00

00:54:52.540 Like there's nothing there's, you know, like they're awesome.

00:54:55.020 They're fun.

00:54:55.540 It's easy.

00:54:56.220 It's convenient.

00:54:57.140 And you're going to get a good pump and feel good.

00:54:58.960 And you're going to go back to the gym because you got a good pump and it felt good.

00:55:01.520 Like discouraging people from doing things they want to do because you don't agree

00:55:05.320 with it. 1.00

00:55:05.620 I think is, is, is pretty stupid. 1.00

00:55:07.960 All right. 1.00

00:55:08.100 So let's talk about that, that kid who's just starting out.

00:55:10.740 Right.

00:55:10.960 I know there's probably a lot of people who are listening who are sort of a seasoned veterans in

00:55:14.420 the fitness world, but there's a lot of people who they want to get started on that hero's

00:55:18.300 journey to becoming more fit.

00:55:21.000 I mean, what's one or two or three, whatever you want to do, like, what are some things

00:55:24.540 they can do today?

00:55:25.600 Like start off with today that can get them going on that.

00:55:29.360 Master a few body weight exercises would be great.

00:55:31.800 You know, like really do a pushup correctly and, you know, don't let your hips sag. 0.78

00:55:38.340 Don't have your ass in the air.

00:55:40.200 Make sure you're protracting the shoulder at the top of the movement. 0.98

00:55:43.080 Like there's, you know, it seems like a pretty simple movement, but there's a lot of little

00:55:46.660 hitches that a lot of people get wrong because they're never taught how to do it.

00:55:50.320 So I think if you mastered the lunge, the body weight squat, the pull up, the pushup and

00:55:56.980 the plank, if you really just mastered those, and there are so many ways to figure that out.

00:56:02.900 I mean, you could hire a coach or you could just read a lot of really, really quality information

00:56:07.380 from the right people on the internet.

00:56:08.580 If you mastered those and did, you know, six sets of six reps for each of them every day

00:56:15.500 for a week, and then, you know, maybe started messing with the volume after that, you would

00:56:21.420 start to see pretty good results.

00:56:22.920 And another thing is like sprint.

00:56:24.960 Sprint, that's, you know, like stretch, make sure you're, you're hydrated and foam roll

00:56:30.300 and take care of your soft tissue.

00:56:31.340 Don't just like go out and, and just like go zero to 60, like Rocky on the beach, you

00:56:36.160 know, do, do some warmup sets and sprint.

00:56:38.020 I think that, you know, people are always asking me, like, if you could only do one exercise,

00:56:43.220 I hate these questions.

00:56:44.580 What would it be?

00:56:45.560 If you were on a desert Island, what would you do?

00:56:48.360 Squats or deadlifts?

00:56:49.320 I'd like, if I, if I could only do one exercise and I was on a dead and a desert Island, it would

00:56:53.500 probably be swimming.

00:56:56.080 I hate swimming, but I recognize when it's useful.

00:56:58.840 But, uh, yeah, I mean, like if it really came down to it, like if I could only do one thing,

00:57:04.540 it would be sprinting, build a great physique, sprinting and, and having good form doing it.

00:57:09.480 And you're also going to stay lean, you know, versus my, my favorite weight training exercise

00:57:14.520 is certainly the deadlift.

00:57:15.520 And if I could only do one weight training exercise, it would be that, but I think that

00:57:19.520 there are like, that there would be complications there from only deadlifting, you know, after

00:57:23.980 you master some body weight movements, master some compound movements and a few isolation

00:57:28.420 movements of your choice.

00:57:29.460 If you want big shoulders, throw in some lateral raises.

00:57:32.280 If you want big arms, throw in some biceps curls. 0.98

00:57:34.740 If you want a big chest, throw in some flies or something, you know, just like whatever it

00:57:38.840 is, but those should be in addition to not in lieu of the overhead press or push press,

00:57:45.580 the squat, the deadlift, the bench press, the, the bent over row or, or, or cable row

00:57:49.580 or something, you know, I think that like, that's, that's a huge part of it.

00:57:54.680 Awesome.

00:57:55.320 All right.

00:57:55.740 So let's, uh, we've been going at it for a long time.

00:57:58.540 This has been a great, great conversation, but let's end with this.

00:58:01.540 I mean, what are you working on right now?

00:58:02.660 And, uh, where can people find out more about your work?

00:58:05.300 Sure.

00:58:05.700 Uh, I'm, I'm working on a bunch of different things at the moment, which I think is really

00:58:10.460 a terrible idea and that's something I'll get better at hopefully and just work on one

00:58:14.420 thing.

00:58:14.880 I'm trying to figure out the next, the next phase of what I'm going to be doing.

00:58:20.500 You know, I, I sort of want to transition Roman fitness systems into, um, more of a, 1.00

00:58:27.460 a magazine style site than a single person blog.

00:58:32.160 As much as I like, uh, writing about fitness, I, I sort of am at the point where I don't

00:58:38.220 write often because I've sort of said what I had to say.

00:58:40.980 Like there's every now and again, I get a good idea and I write about it, but the blog

00:58:44.240 mostly sits fairly dormant.

00:58:45.520 So I would like to use it, um, as a launching pad and, and turn it into something like T nation 1.00

00:58:52.080 was for me back in the day where I can, you know, now that I have all this attention and

00:58:56.100 so much traffic, I'd like to be able to publish other authors and, um, and start doing

00:59:00.420 guest posts.

00:59:02.880 So, um, toward the end of the summer or, or, uh, late in 2014, I'm going to be transitioning

00:59:06.480 there and function more as a sometime writer and an editor, which will free me up to do

00:59:13.860 some other things.

00:59:14.520 I really, um, I want to tell stories, Brett.

00:59:17.320 And so I, I'm, I've started kicking around, uh, the idea.

00:59:21.240 I have three ideas for individual novels.

00:59:23.440 So I'd really like to, um, start working on those at some point, but, uh, before I do

00:59:29.460 anything else, the big thing for me is I want to, I want to write a book, uh, that really

00:59:35.860 touches on what we talked about, which is the hero's journey as applied to life.

00:59:41.100 I, I, I think it's a great model for self-development, but it's also a really effective thesis for problem

00:59:46.900 solving.

00:59:47.240 And I think that although, uh, there was a book released fairly recently called mythology

00:59:51.880 and, uh, personal development, I think it's called, yeah, pathways to bliss, mythology and

00:59:59.520 personal development.

01:00:00.200 It was actually put together from a number of Joseph Campbell's lectures.

01:00:04.080 But other than that, I, I don't think that anyone has written a, um, a book that applies

01:00:10.820 the hero's journey to personal development.

01:00:12.920 And, um, and I really think I could do that fairly well.

01:00:16.320 And I think, I think that book needs to be written.

01:00:18.280 So, you know, it's basically like a philosophy and self-help book, um, which means that it'll

01:00:23.340 either sell a million copies or six.

01:00:25.780 And, uh, I'm happy to roll the dice on that one.

01:00:28.060 Cause I really just want to write it.

01:00:29.240 So I've started outlining that.

01:00:31.320 And then I want to write stories and I want to write screenplays, man.

01:00:34.540 That's the main thing, books and movies.

01:00:35.940 I just want to tell stories for the rest of my life.

01:00:38.400 That's cool, man.

01:00:39.260 So where can people find you at?

01:00:41.120 Sure.

01:00:41.480 Uh, it's Roman fitness systems.com for any of the fitness stuff.

01:00:47.000 Or, uh, at John Romanello on just about any social media outlet.

01:00:51.780 Um, so there's a lot of fun stuff on Twitter and Facebook.

01:00:54.240 If you follow me on Instagram, I want to let you know, you will only see pictures of my

01:00:58.420 dogs.

01:00:58.720 That's all that's there.

01:00:59.600 So don't, if you want fitness stuff, that's not the place.

01:01:01.960 Don't go there.

01:01:02.660 Yeah.

01:01:03.080 Yeah.

01:01:03.360 Just, just dog, but they're cute dogs.

01:01:05.060 So you should, you should follow me on Instagram.

01:01:06.440 If you like bulldogs.

01:01:07.740 Okay.

01:01:08.400 If you're feeling down, you want to see a cute dog, make you feel better.

01:01:11.500 Yeah.

01:01:11.940 That's the exact place to go.

01:01:13.320 Awesome.

01:01:13.640 Well, John Romanello, thank you so much for your time.

01:01:15.940 It's been a pleasure.

01:01:17.400 Thank you so much for having me, Brett.

01:01:18.820 And thank you to everyone for listening.

01:01:21.900 Our guest day was John Romanello.

01:01:23.780 John is the author of the book, man 2.0 engineering, the alpha.

01:01:27.760 You can find that on amazon.com and bookstores everywhere.

01:01:30.320 And also check out more of John's work at roman fitness systems.com.

01:01:34.860 Well, that wraps up another edition of the art of manliness podcast for more manly tips and

01:01:43.300 advice.

01:01:43.740 Make sure to check out the art of manliness website at art of manliness.com.

01:01:46.800 And if you enjoy the podcast and you've gotten something out of it, I'd really appreciate

01:01:50.160 it.

01:01:50.400 If you can go to iTunes or stitcher or whatever you use to listen to the podcast and give

01:01:55.800 us a rating or review, uh, that would help us out a lot and get the word out, get the

01:02:00.480 word out about the podcast.

01:02:02.220 So until next time, stay manly.

The Art of Manliness - June 06, 2014

#71： Engineering the Alpha With John Romaniello

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