The Mikhaila Peterson Podcast - August 06, 2021


102. Homeless to Entrepreneur | Chris Duffin


Episode Stats


Length

1 hour and 8 minutes

Words per minute

179.17

Word count

12,302

Sentence count

458

Harmful content

Misogyny

7

sentences flagged

Hate speech

4

sentences flagged


Transcript

Transcript generated with Whisper (turbo).
Misogyny classifications generated with MilaNLProc/bert-base-uncased-ear-misogyny .
Hate speech classifications generated with facebook/roberta-hate-speech-dynabench-r4-target .
00:00:00.000 I grew up homeless in the wilderness. This is Northern California in the late 70s and through
00:00:05.300 the 80s, where we were living off grid, six years old, we're living out by a stream. There's no
00:00:12.020 roads into where we're at, we've got beams lashed up into the trees. And that's where our bedding
00:00:16.680 is at at night, because there's rattlesnake dens. That's the environment I'm, I'm being taught how
00:00:21.260 to capture live rattlesnakes by hand. That's the environment I live in. Like here's a here's how
00:00:26.740 you carve a fork stick. And this is how you entice it to strike so that you can, you can
00:00:31.400 capture and pin its neck and then pick it up and then hold it and know how to hold and control this
00:00:36.780 snake while it's wrapping around your arm with the only intent in its life at that point is to
00:00:43.120 kill you. And so, you know, learning how to manage your fear, because if you don't, if you let fear
00:00:50.500 overtake you, you're going to die. And if you don't respect it and you're just careless and
00:00:55.780 have no fear whatsoever, you're going to die. Welcome to episode 102 of the Michaela Peterson
00:01:04.780 podcast. Today, I'm happy to introduce Chris Duffin. For those of you who don't know him,
00:01:10.160 Chris is the world record holder for squatting and deadlifting 1,000 pounds for reps, 1,000 pounds.
00:01:17.140 That's incredible. Not only that, he's also a serial entrepreneur in health and fitness
00:01:22.020 and the co-founder of Kabuki Strength
00:01:23.860 and other multiple prominent brands.
00:01:26.060 We had a chat about his absolutely unbelievable life story
00:01:29.900 and entrepreneurial ventures.
00:01:31.920 This guy has been through so much.
00:01:34.740 He lived in the wild.
00:01:36.260 He came from such adversity
00:01:37.760 that hopefully it'll make you so guilty
00:01:39.920 about not improving your own life that you will.
00:01:42.880 I love talking to Chris
00:01:44.140 and I think you'll all enjoy this episode.
00:01:46.320 If you do, don't forget to hit the subscribe button.
00:01:52.020 chris duffin welcome to my podcast yeah thanks for having me on been uh looking forward to it
00:02:03.820 to this for a little while yeah it's it's been a while since i invited you
00:02:08.860 had a had a weird year but i'm glad to be speaking with you now well i've been watching it's a lot of
00:02:15.740 good stuff always ups and downs but uh you know the challenges are they're they're what make us
00:02:20.900 better, right? Oh man, I hope so. And that's kind of what I want to talk to you about because you've
00:02:26.720 had a hell of a life. So before we get into that, can you give a brief background about who you are
00:02:33.180 and what you do? Yeah, that's a, it's a little tough to do as far as brief, because I play in
00:02:40.060 a lot of different areas, but most people kind of know me as this guy that's done feats of
00:02:46.820 strength, right? But I also own a number of companies that I've co-founded. So Kabuki Strength
00:02:54.320 is the primary one, and we make the best biomechanically sound barbell equipment in the
00:03:00.260 world, as well as education and coaching. So we've got probably the leading scientific advisory board
00:03:07.800 within the fitness is definitely exercise equipment realm. Also co-founded Barefoot
00:03:13.980 athletics which is a shoe company based on uh foot mechanics and build fast formula which is
00:03:21.560 kind of my supplementation uh program so so yeah i'm a successful entrepreneur but before this
00:03:29.000 stuff i actually did uh i did lead turnarounds and things like that for about 20 years i ran
00:03:35.540 automotive and aerospace manufacturing companies doing turnarounds prepping companies for sale
00:03:39.720 things of that nature. So, um, only person that's ever squatted and deadlifted a thousand pounds.
00:03:47.680 And I did it for reps. That'll be a documentary that's coming out next year. So I mentioned all
00:03:53.220 these things because I like to show the, the end results. So when people hear like where I came
00:03:58.300 from, they can understand, um, the, you know, just how far that is. Uh, but, uh, you know,
00:04:05.700 it's, it's three things. I've been highly successful and in leadership and business
00:04:10.920 and athletics, as well as entrepreneurship, which is usually if I'm one or the other. And, uh, so
00:04:16.320 my specialty is kind of biomechanics as well as rehab and, uh, this kind of return to play,
00:04:24.140 getting people out of pain and working in those areas. So I, I do a lot of speaking at like
00:04:28.680 physical therapy and chiropractic colleges and other events, uh, things like that.
00:04:33.180 Cool. Okay. We have quite a bit to cover. I think before we get into the successes,
00:04:40.140 I think we should start with a bit of the hardships you went through growing up so
00:04:45.200 people can have an idea of where you came from. Yeah. I'll try to do the elevator pitch version
00:04:52.000 and hit the high points, but I grew up. We're not just talking poor, but because today in this
00:05:01.160 world. You see people that, you know, have challenged for, for, you know, income, but they
00:05:06.220 still have their smartphone. They still have their clothes. They still have their gaming centers.
00:05:10.960 I grew up homeless in the wilderness. So this is Northern California in the late seventies and
00:05:17.460 through the eighties, uh, where we were living off grid. Uh, there was times like six years old
00:05:24.380 where we're living out by a stream. There's no roads into where we're at. We've got beams lashed
00:05:30.020 up into the trees and that's where our bedding is at at night because there's rattlesnake dens i'm
00:05:35.440 six years old my brother's four uh my sister's uh like one year old and my mom's pregnant
00:05:42.680 and uh and that's the environment i'm i'm being taught how to capture live rattlesnakes by hand
00:05:50.720 because that's the environment i live in like here's a here's how you carve a forked stick
00:05:56.780 And this is how you entice it to strike so that you can, you can capture and pin its neck and then pick it up and then hold it and know how to hold and control this snake while it's wrapping around your arm with the only intent in its life at that point is to kill you.
00:06:12.080 And so, you know, learning how to manage your fear, because if you don't, if you let fear overtake you, you're going to die. And if you don't respect it and you're just careless and have no fear whatsoever, you're going to die.
00:06:26.780 Like, so I learned these lessons, uh, around a lot of things in a different manner at a very
00:06:33.420 young age. So it was that bring, it wasn't always necessarily homeless. Like during the school year,
00:06:40.060 we would be closer to society. We might have something, it might just be missing a shack,
00:06:45.320 missing running water or electricity or both. So it's like, you know, during the summer,
00:06:50.480 you're filling up a gallon jug down on the stream and setting it out on a rock
00:06:53.880 and letting it heat up through the day. So you can dump it over your head or,
00:06:58.160 you know, during the winter, uh, it's like in, in Oregon where we had, you know, snow,
00:07:02.880 I'd be out on a couple of feet of snow in the back, out the back door after heating up a pot,
00:07:07.040 you know, this is in junior high on the, on the wood, on the wood stoves. So I could try to try
00:07:12.200 to clean because I'm getting made fun of at school because I, I smell funny. And that's,
00:07:18.360 that's just a different environment. And when you're what people don't realize, so yeah,
00:07:23.300 when i talk about it people will kind of fantasize about it going man that must have been amazing
00:07:29.280 but they missed the piece well as far as that like the living in the wilderness and not having
00:07:34.720 you know the connection with all the things like we didn't have we didn't have tv we didn't have
00:07:39.620 radio we just read books my parents were very intelligent they just chose not to be part of
00:07:45.500 society my my mom was actually going to school to be a chemical engineer top of her class my
00:07:51.240 My father was a member of Mensa, like we, our life, the library was, was our friend.
00:07:57.880 That's where we read books by candlelight, by flashlight, like consumed a mass amount.
00:08:02.680 But what people don't realize when they kind of romanticize this life of, you know, forging
00:08:07.080 for food and hunting animals and living in tents and growing up in this off grid is
00:08:11.700 the people that are living there for non-altruistic reasons are ones that are away from society
00:08:19.520 because, you know, they beat somebody for, you know, to death with a tire iron for $20.
00:08:25.840 They, we had, it's still tough to talk about, but I covered in the scope of the book, but I dealt
00:08:32.960 with murderers. I saved my mother from a serial killer that tracked her later in life as well.
00:08:37.900 When he got out of prison, we dealt with human trafficking that directly affected our house as
00:08:41.560 a result of, as a result of police corruption. And so much like you read my book and it's going
00:08:47.380 to be like people be like man that's crazy go watch the documentary murder mountain it's on
00:08:54.300 netflix and that took place 50 miles from where we were at it was about three hours 50 miles because
00:09:00.560 it's so so remote and the roads are windy but you'll see just how much i'm talking about people
00:09:06.120 disappearing murderers serial killers corruption all this stuff so it was it was wild we got taken
00:09:12.980 by the state for a while. And, you know, we were in Northern California. So this would be up front.
00:09:18.160 My parents were growing weed for a living. That's, they're trying to find a way of making a life
00:09:22.660 outside of society. And so we're up in the, you know, the, the golden triangle as they called it,
00:09:27.620 which is kind of what the, the murder mountain documentary is about, but in these remote
00:09:32.100 areas that were highly prized for growing marijuana. But once they got us back, they
00:09:37.720 decided to stay out of the drug trade. So we moved to Oregon, the Eastern side of the state,
00:09:42.760 where there's a lot of deserts and mountains and is more remote and kind of got into mining
00:09:48.060 at that point and just fell back right in the same kind of living, just staying clean of,
00:09:54.700 you know, the drug trade so that they didn't have a chance of losing us again. And things just kind
00:10:01.400 of, I ended up kind of helping, I had three younger sisters and a younger brother, and I was
00:10:08.020 kind of the one that took care of all of them when they were out tending the crops or in later
00:10:12.920 years mining, or I was helping mining and help them with the kids. And then when I left to go
00:10:19.280 to school, which I realized is the only way out, like I'm watching, I'm watching people die around
00:10:25.220 me. I'm watching them go to prison. I'm watching them succumb to drugs. And I'm like, I have to
00:10:31.860 figure a way out of this. So there's no, a lot of people put themselves in this, uh, you know,
00:10:37.540 burning the bridges mentality was kind of forced on me. There's just no place to go back to. And so
00:10:42.320 I, uh, I did really well in school as valedictorian as a state level athlete. And I got a,
00:10:47.860 uh, a really solid scholarship academic to go to school for a dual engineering degree.
00:10:54.140 And I'll just shorten the story here, but I ended up taking custody and raising, uh, my three
00:10:59.380 younger sisters because things got worse at home. Once I left and like that stabilizing force that
00:11:06.340 I was in the home. You know, I was working and providing money when I was there, you know,
00:11:10.640 all through junior high, high school. And when I left things, my stepfather just descended into
00:11:18.040 his mental health just deteriorated to a point, my mom disappeared, and I had to,
00:11:24.280 I had to take a step up. So I raised my three younger sisters, while I pursued my engineering
00:11:30.220 degrees, went on to do my MBA. I was working full time during that, that whole, all of that as well.
00:11:37.480 And then, and then all the other stuff happened after that. So as far as the business success
00:11:43.760 and other stuff, but that's, that's the early years. So, so yeah, I know a little bit about
00:11:48.720 struggle. Like I've had nearly, if you talk about like the nine major, you know, things that
00:11:54.340 traumatize people and affect their, their life. I've had eight of them and probably nine. I just
00:12:00.400 have some, uh, memory failures in some other areas. And I don't really feel I need to, uh,
00:12:06.880 do hypnosis and kind of explore and bring back some of those memories. So, um, yeah,
00:12:11.740 yeah. I know a little bit about it. Okay. Wow. That's a hell of a story. That's
00:12:17.860 sounds like quite a life that you wouldn't necessarily wish on somebody.
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00:13:25.940 Enjoy the rest of the episode. How did you, did you manage to avoid resentment for some of the
00:13:31.740 things you've been through? Yeah. And you'll, you'll see it when you read, like, I, I still
00:13:38.000 hold you know my parents in high regard just I know what they were trying to do and like my mother
00:13:44.880 still lives I mean she showed me some amazing things she showed me about perseverance no matter
00:13:52.540 what the struggle always moving forward and she chose that really hard life but I I got to
00:13:59.360 experience just you know the trials and tribulations that come across from it and trying to keep that
00:14:05.380 together, the, the unity of family, like we did everything together. Um, and people don't realize
00:14:11.640 like it was us against the world. And then the biggest thing that I learned is just this,
00:14:18.920 this authenticity, this it's more than authenticity. It is, it is doing what you're
00:14:26.300 going to do, being yourself and creating this own world for yourself around you, despite what
00:14:32.020 anybody says and living the way that you want to live. And, and, and that's, that's had a huge
00:14:38.620 impact on my life. I mean, that's, that's probably the biggest thing. So those, those, those key
00:14:43.660 attributes are really important. And I've rebuilt my relationship with her. We have a, a good
00:14:49.760 relationship. I let her rebuild it with my sisters first, because that was the, I was, I wasn't
00:14:56.040 resentful so much as disappointed. And she needed because she kind of left them. And so once they
00:15:04.440 had kind of repaired that relationship, I'm like, Okay, you know, it's opened doors for me, because
00:15:10.000 I wanted to be there to support my sisters first. And so once they, they'd rekindled and rebuilt
00:15:16.040 that, I stepped in and we've had, you know, a very great relationship now the last like 20 years or
00:15:22.580 so 15 years that it's been. How do you start rebuilding a relationship with a person who
00:15:32.680 ends up hurting you by leaving? How did you even start that? Yeah. So like I said, for me,
00:15:42.860 it wasn't so much as hurting me directly as much as like I said, it was the impact on
00:15:47.560 that I could have seen that I had on my, on my sisters and that that's where my priority was.
00:15:53.820 But this, I think this might be a, a larger conversation here. And let me diverge a little
00:16:03.900 bit because there's some, I'm going to get back to your question, but I, I, I actually see a pretty
00:16:11.160 significant issue today, like in our media or with entrepreneurs or athletes and so on, that
00:16:18.940 they're always talking about having the right people around you and cutting out the people that
00:16:24.800 are naysayers, negative, the haters and so on. And, and I agree, like people are like,
00:16:33.820 they're the fuel that inspires, like that is life. Life is connections. Life is where you choose
00:16:41.120 to invest your efforts and pour yourself out into and how you're going to affect the people
00:16:45.540 around you. And so you need to have that core people that your resources are going to great
00:16:51.600 effort and affecting, but also that are fueling you, that want to be a, that are challenging you
00:16:58.160 to be a better version of yourself. They're expecting more of you and you're expecting
00:17:03.320 more of them. Like this is, it's so critical to have this. And you'll see this theme in a lot of
00:17:09.400 things in my life that I've done around entrepreneurship, building business, athletics,
00:17:14.360 so on. But the big mess here is understanding that just because somebody is verbally not
00:17:21.400 agreeing with you doesn't mean that they're a naysayer or a hater. And just because there's
00:17:26.220 conflict doesn't mean that. Because that person, you've really got to understand those root
00:17:33.900 of what they are and why they're doing the things that they're doing because you could have somebody
00:17:39.880 around you that's rah rah rah all great no conflict easy life best friend but at the end
00:17:48.100 of the day they actually they're looking forward to and enjoy the times that you fail that they
00:17:54.040 they don't want you to they don't want you to succeed um and you can have somebody else that
00:18:00.120 is calling you to the table appears to be a hater, but they're doing it because
00:18:05.060 they, they believe in you and they see that maybe where you're going and they're, they're,
00:18:11.440 they're challenging you to, to look and reflect at these things in a manner. Right. And so
00:18:15.820 this is, I'll tie this back to that conversation, but this is a really important piece. I think
00:18:21.380 people really, really miss because they want to find this environment where it's conflict free
00:18:28.540 and easy and you know it's just like the retiring on a beach and drinking my ties but in in my
00:18:34.720 workplace is it like that and and and it shouldn't be i i see this so much people want yes people
00:18:40.720 around them and you're gonna end up not achieving what you're capable of not being true to yourself
00:18:47.200 by having people question you and like my my businesses we have you know some heated staff
00:18:53.880 meetings we have but it's all because we believe we're we have the same values we have the same
00:18:59.700 envision in north star while part of this team to get there and just because i founded it doesn't
00:19:04.600 mean i don't get called to the freaking table uh you know at times and that's that is really
00:19:10.040 positive and in so much that this is one of the core reasons i separated from my my first uh my
00:19:17.780 first wife as well. We were good friends. It was comfortable, but they didn't want to see me
00:19:25.880 succeed in these other ventures who wanted to see some, you know, failure so that I'd stay with just
00:19:32.620 the regular job and be a normal person and not have, you know, the challenge that it brings
00:19:38.100 and the chaos that it brings into life. Right. And so back to your question that I've been, uh,
00:19:44.520 maybe avoiding, I don't know, thinking through it while I'm talking, which is hard. I'm a terrible
00:19:48.640 multitasker. It doesn't look like it. But I actually am. It's good focus on one thing at
00:19:57.460 a time. You can do a lot of good stuff. But, but the, you know, it's understanding that
00:20:05.720 in her own way, my mother wanted the best for us. She wanted this different environment than
00:20:12.580 most would have. And it ended up bringing a lot of challenge and strife and trauma
00:20:17.220 and mixed emotions. Same with my father. I mean, there's so much like mixed emotions there. But at
00:20:24.600 the same time, understanding I am who I am because of this, I wouldn't trade it for anything. Yet at
00:20:31.720 the same time, if I think about my children being in that environment, just the thought of that
00:20:37.180 brings just deep sadness to me. But I wouldn't change what I have for anything. Because those
00:20:44.400 experiences taught me so much. And my mother, you know, she wanted to live that life. And she wanted
00:20:53.140 to have, you know, her children understand that they do the same thing that they can, they can
00:20:58.840 create and build the world in a manner that they want, they can choose to not be stuffed into
00:21:04.540 just this prepackaged, you know, life that is that everything kind of pushes us towards and
00:21:11.460 even more so now in society that we have now to just be a consumer, you know, to have things
00:21:17.700 fill instead of actually being out there and creating and forging things in the way that you
00:21:22.060 want. So, so understanding that helps you build a relationship. And just like, so my mother, I mean,
00:21:31.340 it's, it's just, she is so raw and she is so herself. Like you sit down with her and every
00:21:38.520 story ends with her pulling a gun on someone or some other tragic thing, which is, she's just so
00:21:44.100 so raw and different, but she'll just say things that are, it's on her mind at the time and it
00:21:49.780 means nothing. And it, you have to just learn to know that she loves you, wants to see the best
00:21:57.260 for you, but the words, you just got to kind of, to walk past that. So once you understand some of
00:22:03.760 those deeper things that helps you there, when, when you hear something that is just like, wow,
00:22:09.060 that would be horrific if, you know, somebody, if your mother said something like that to you,
00:22:13.820 I give some examples, but I don't, I don't think this is the right forum or format for that.
00:22:22.320 Okay. So this, this must've been something that you've thought about having kids.
00:22:25.980 how do you create adversity the proper amount of adversity for your child so that they grow
00:22:32.460 but not so that it's like a ridiculous for them right because you want to keep them safe
00:22:38.240 but maybe too much safety means they're going to have a harder time when things actually get hard
00:22:43.320 so have you figured out how to balance that oh god i have not figured that out but i can tell
00:22:49.460 you my approach. So let's start with a little bit of developmental kinesiology first. So this is
00:22:59.900 just straight motor littering patterns, and that'll help frame my conversation. So this first
00:23:06.140 piece doesn't directly tie in, but it will from a philosophy standpoint. So every human being
00:23:11.540 is born with the patterns of how we move and how we stabilize it. And that process happens over a
00:23:18.600 nine month period of time. So every week and every month, the exact same things will start
00:23:23.780 happening from moving to a rolling pattern to reaching and stabilizing with certain parts of
00:23:28.500 your hand. And then you start advancing to, you know, being able to get towards a standing and
00:23:34.900 then walking position. And everybody's in and it's important that we we continually challenge
00:23:41.480 and work just like working out, right? The more you do it, the better we get, the more these
00:23:45.760 patterns are able to develop appropriately. What people like to do when their baby's getting that
00:23:52.880 and it's like, oh, my baby's walking at eight months or something. And they start holding
00:23:56.640 their hands and showing people, look, my cute little daughter's walking, I'm going to help.
00:24:01.680 And here's a walker and you're walking me around. And it actually can create damage because you 1.00
00:24:07.660 teach to stabilize off of this distal end. It starts elevating a rib cage. It'll start
00:24:11.960 changing some breathing patterns and other stuff that happen. And so it's actually bad practice to
00:24:17.540 do that consistently and get your baby walking sooner than it should. In fact,
00:24:22.880 you should stick your foot out and swipe it and knock your baby down.
00:24:29.040 So I'm being a little bit, you know, cheeky with this, but they actually need to practice and
00:24:36.780 continue to get that and have the challenge of it and fail and keep coming back, right?
00:24:41.960 And that's how those patterns are taught is not by just like, Oh, yeah, I'm a success the first time and now I'm walking and I may need the help and support to get there. That actually doesn't teach the, you know, our, our body or nervous system, have the practice to be successful.
00:24:58.540 So in my opinion, one of the best things that you can do as a parent is let your child fail.
00:25:08.020 And that is, it's not a bad thing.
00:25:11.140 Think back on your life and some of your failures end up being the catalyst for one significant amount of confidence.
00:25:19.660 And that may not make sense at first, but like once you fail at something or don't, maybe it's not failure, but don't get what you hope to.
00:25:27.280 No, that's just failure. And you come back around, you study more, you work harder, you train longer, you, you practice more you and then you come back around and you and you pull it off and you do it like that is that is an integral part of life because things are not going to come your way the first time.
00:25:48.200 And so it's learning the ability to do that, the ability to not take the initial failure and knowing that you have the ability to come around and get it no matter what, that is huge.
00:26:02.100 but the confidence that it instills. And I didn't start thinking about this until I was kind of
00:26:07.440 challenged more recently in some recent years about like, I'm a bit cocky. I'm confident. I
00:26:13.380 can believe I can do these crazy over the top things if I just choose to do it. It's just a
00:26:19.320 matter of I haven't chosen to do that yet, but I can do it. It's like, where does that come from?
00:26:24.480 And I'm like, it comes from layering these, these overcoming one on top of the other.
00:26:32.160 So it's just like training, you go into the gym, and you do some curls, and your arm gets
00:26:38.460 a little bit stronger.
00:26:39.360 And the next time around, you know, you've got the confidence, as well as the neurological
00:26:43.420 and physical capabilities to do the last workout, but do a little bit more, maybe, and then
00:26:49.140 you keep going, because you can't just go into the gym, your first session and squat
00:26:53.260 500 pounds.
00:26:54.480 right? But you can know I could squat 500 pounds. It's just going to take me a lot of this stuff
00:27:00.620 that I've learned of discipline and follow through and stick into a plan. And I've demonstrated that
00:27:05.500 in some other man. So I know I can do that. Right. But to get there is just layering the win on top
00:27:11.780 of the win on top of the win until you get to this point in life where you're able to, to accomplish
00:27:16.220 crazy over the top things, because now you've got the capacity. So, and that is, that's the
00:27:23.180 important thing to understand it's all about building the capacity to handle these sorts of
00:27:29.000 things so thinking about it in a workout space helps people because you continually progress
00:27:33.480 your physical capacity right over time but that's that's resilience that's strength strength is
00:27:40.940 resilience your ability to adapt and overcome the the stress and the challenges coming your way
00:27:45.980 well it is the exact same process for mind and soul so body you know building resilience of
00:27:54.140 body mind and soul are all the same things and i am i am not over speaking on this i'm not being
00:28:00.140 ethereal at all like that if i quit doing the curls let's say i break my arm and it goes in a
00:28:06.420 cast what happens nine months later six months later when they take the cast off atrophied
00:28:11.680 arm is atrophied i'm looking out my window you can't see but there's some wet trees behind me
00:28:17.280 and they're blowing in the wind if those trees were planted in an environment where there was
00:28:22.560 no wind they would grow to a certain height and they would fall over i'm not making this up it
00:28:30.100 took the scientists a while to figure this out when they were putting trees in biodomes
00:28:33.460 because they kept happening didn't matter what kind but there was no resilience telling the tree
00:28:38.660 to build you know grow strong roots deep into the ground and root properly right um the same thing
00:28:46.040 the outer the bark on the outside will be different and so on like it's not i'm not being
00:28:51.800 ethereal like this is this isn't just human physiology this is all living beings if we do
00:28:59.840 not have challenge the process basically death this retiring on the beach drinking my ties that's
00:29:08.140 the end, right? And this is why you could be a war here 20 years ago, and then you did nothing
00:29:13.380 that happened. You get soft, you could get soft. If you just sit and do nothing, if I don't work
00:29:18.920 out, if I don't work out my mind, if I don't, if I don't take on challenge in these areas,
00:29:23.200 you get soft. And next thing you know, something's going to happen and you're going to freeze up
00:29:26.900 and not be able to handle it and shut down. Right. So it's about building and layering the capacity
00:29:33.620 and uh and sorry i'm on i'm off on a tangent i don't remember the original question but
00:29:39.920 this is i mean this is the whole reason i wrote my book because all my businesses are focused on
00:29:44.580 the physical nature and this is some of the stuff that i'm trying to share is is that
00:29:50.040 all these challenges and struggles and strife in life they are the things that are going to allow
00:29:59.760 you to be better to grow. And I don't want to disregard like if someone's had some traumatic
00:30:05.540 experiences, like, yes, that can negatively affect you. So if you're that person, you hear me,
00:30:11.340 I'm not saying that, but I'm saying it's already happened. And it's not that it's not the definition
00:30:16.780 of who you are, you're defined by your actions and responses to that. And more importantly,
00:30:22.160 if it's already happened, why can't you use what you can from it in a positive manner
00:30:27.340 to leap to leap you forward to be that to allow you to be stronger to be more resilient for
00:30:35.380 something else that may be in the future that you're you're not anticipating right and this
00:30:40.000 isn't just like trauma this is like this is everything going on around you every day this is
00:30:45.520 the hard conversation with your aunt uh that you that you have been putting off and don't want or
00:30:51.240 your, your partner or your boss or your coworker, it's the project at work or wherever that
00:30:57.680 you're, I hope I don't get, like, I don't know if I can pull that off or that career
00:31:02.040 change that you're, you really want to do.
00:31:05.700 And you're, you're excited about, but you're anxious.
00:31:07.360 What about like not making some money or can I pull it off or going back to school or starting,
00:31:13.600 starting your own company or any of these sorts of things that could be small and they
00:31:17.820 could be big and they're happening to you all the time.
00:31:20.100 And our inclination, when our gut starts getting in a knot about those things, is to turn away.
00:31:27.340 I don't want to have that conversation.
00:31:28.860 Now, if I don't say it, it'll go away.
00:31:30.780 It'll go away.
00:31:33.340 And more than likely, it's not going to go away.
00:31:39.300 But being the person that practices going, I feel that.
00:31:44.460 I feel myself kind of tensing up.
00:31:46.900 That is your signal right now that that means that's an opportunity for me. That is another moment that I can take advantage of and practice, practice living in that uncomfortable space, practice being afraid, practice overcoming this and knowing because there's going to be something more difficult in the future than than that, you know, that conversation or that that choice.
00:32:12.660 Right. And so that is your chance to, to take that on. And I'm not saying every one of those
00:32:18.540 is going to be successful, but the practice of doing this certainly is because that's going to
00:32:23.620 build up your resilience to take on those things. And guess what? The big things in life that really
00:32:30.040 shake and change you up aren't things that you anticipate some random Thursday afternoon, wham,
00:32:36.240 you've had some of them happen to you this year. Right. And it's just like, you didn't see that
00:32:40.040 that coming and, uh, being able to not freeze it up and lock up and know that, fuck, that's hard.
00:32:47.740 I got this though. I can figure out a way. I don't know how I'm going to do this right now,
00:32:52.020 but I know I can overcome it. Right. Okay. That was, that was fantastic. Uh, I want to
00:33:00.620 talk a little bit about your experience with your body and overcoming things. So, um, I think one
00:33:08.740 of the areas I haven't, and there's reasons for everything, but one of the reasons, one of the
00:33:13.940 things that I need to work more on is my like muscular strength and the stress resiliency that
00:33:20.960 potentially comes with being physically stronger. So could you maybe talk about your experience
00:33:26.700 about like what being strong has potentially done for your stress tolerance? Yeah. Yeah. So
00:33:36.200 So it has a much bigger impact than people think. So I'm going to just start with this question of for you. What do you think is the number one health care cost? I don't have the studies worldwide, but health care costs in America. So it could be heart disease, diabetes, cancer, something else. Just a quick shot.
00:34:00.260 Obesity?
00:34:02.260 Low back pain.
00:34:04.460 Okay.
00:34:05.020 Okay. Yeah, low back pain. And most all of low back pain can be dealt with by having more resilience, people don't realize that the working out doing it appropriately, shouldn't cause pain. In fact, it will make you more resilient to being able to be in different positions and be under load and do these things.
00:34:28.940 though that that one, you know, getting out of your car that one day and twisting or twisting
00:34:34.020 over to reaching down and picking up your child. And all of a sudden, it's like, damn, that threw
00:34:38.040 my back out. Yep. It wasn't that thing. Right? Yeah. Well, most everybody has at some point in
00:34:44.720 their life. And I'll tell you about something. I had it happen. And I had to learn to walk again.
00:34:50.520 Oh, I couldn't move for weeks, not even my head. What happened? I had to I had to walk her. And I
00:34:58.800 had to learn to walk, walk again. Um, well, I was challenging myself on the resilience side
00:35:05.580 too much. So this is like the burning the candle on both ends too much. Right. So we've got to
00:35:09.720 understand that anything, even the past conversations I had, you have to temper with
00:35:14.400 that's pouring your cup out. It's like, you know, you're taking on challenge. You're choosing to,
00:35:21.500 to dive into these things. You've got to refill it. Right. So, um, and sometimes,
00:35:27.140 so if you push it too far and don't have that, like, obviously I was saying, you know, if you
00:35:30.660 rest and recover constantly or too long, the process of atrophy starts. So we don't want to
00:35:36.600 be, but you have to be there, you know, intermittently as we're, as we're progressing,
00:35:41.220 as we're taking things off. So a little vacation, a little meditation, a little yoga or whatever it
00:35:46.680 is that, that, you know, reinvigorates you as good living that for life is that. So, um, anyway,
00:35:53.900 i was pushing my limits trying to do something uh over the top that's a long time ago uh chasing
00:36:00.740 some records so i didn't mention in my life story yet i'd done a lot of lifting uh so i this was
00:36:07.440 ranked number one in the world for like eight years straight uh casual i uh set all-time uh
00:36:13.820 records and then later i did uh some like feats of street strunk feats of strength things i mentioned
00:36:19.400 a couple of those, but, um, uh, somewhere in there, uh, I pushed it too far and that's what
00:36:25.540 happened, but I came back around. I had the confidence to come back around and demonstrate
00:36:29.700 that I could do something that actually was the two most demanding things on being able to
00:36:37.420 stabilize and maintain spinal position under load to at a, at a level that no one's ever done before
00:36:45.340 with no back pain. So when we talk about defining yourself, a lot of people will come to this thing
00:36:50.760 going, I'm the person with a bad back or that's going to be like this forever. So let's get back
00:36:54.860 to developing. Let's get back to the conversation about what is it to develop resilience, but
00:36:59.340 understanding fundamentally, it is going to allow you to withstand stuff, to be able to live a
00:37:06.020 better quality of life, to have, you know, all the little things in life, not cause an injury,
00:37:11.960 right to be able to do something and improving that physical capacity as a whole it's also going
00:37:18.040 to have an impact you you need to be chasing these things body mind and soul if you're not
00:37:24.640 the they're all related right so like the strength athlete or you know meathead guru that's only on
00:37:31.200 this strength aspect they're going to have big gaps right because they're not attacking you know
00:37:37.360 the other two components. And same thing, if you're focused on self-improvement on those other
00:37:42.200 two, but not addressing this, you're going to, I mean, just the physical nature of it is proven
00:37:46.400 over and over again to have a huge impact on mental health. So, so there it's a matter of
00:37:54.620 being rounded and being and pushing that. And we, we could look at it back from a philosophical or
00:38:00.340 yeah well uh great thinkers of the past but uh um this was a really common uh theme that you know
00:38:07.840 there's a great uh quote from socrates although there's a question about how much of a an athlete
00:38:11.780 he was uh hippocrates the you know founder of modern medicine uh has an incredible quote about
00:38:18.480 like basically like uh lifting and moving is going to fundamentally take care of nearly all of your
00:38:25.760 physical ailments right so it's a matter of balancing that with rest god i wish i had that
00:38:30.720 quote in front of me um i uh dang it i'm not gonna look it up because that'll interfere
00:38:36.440 it's important to have that strong mind and strong back it's important for not just being able to not
00:38:45.760 have back pain right but to improve your your immune resistance your ability to adapt it all
00:38:53.600 of it actually your body when it senses stressed it is it's all coming from the same bucket so this
00:39:00.280 is something like if you're lifting you have to also understand this the other stresses in life
00:39:04.920 are going to put the same kind of drain on you so if you have major stresses if you're a type
00:39:10.600 a personality you know pushing hard and business world you you can't just walk into the gym and
00:39:15.240 hammer everything that you got all the time as well so it's understanding that but as we're
00:39:19.560 developing the capacity over time, it's going to have an effect on all those areas of your life as
00:39:24.480 well. So important, important aspect. And so as we're thinking about this thing, we want to think
00:39:31.320 about how do we build that? Because a big, a big problem is people jump into, well, that's great.
00:39:40.780 And then they go all in. Oh, running's great. I'm going to go run five miles a day. Oh,
00:39:44.940 I'm going to start training five, six days a week and, and dieting and, and, and, and adding all this
00:39:52.700 stuff on. And what we want to do is actually, there's a reason for this. So I'm not just going
00:39:56.540 to say it, but we want to do it with the, what's called the minimal effective dose. We want to do
00:40:02.380 the minimal amount of work that's going to allow change because it's all about layering those
00:40:07.700 capacities. But that means also over time to achieve more results, you have to add more.
00:40:12.740 So if you throw everything at once at front, then you've got nowhere else to go.
00:40:18.880 We see this like in the dieting world, people want to exercise, take their diet way down,
00:40:24.000 do, you know, maybe even add some drugs in or, you know, some stimulants or whatever
00:40:28.260 it is, and they put everything in there.
00:40:29.740 And then it's like, they made great progress for like eight weeks, and then it stalls.
00:40:33.720 And where else do you have to go?
00:40:35.600 You can't pull more calories out, you can't exercise more, like you've already, you've
00:40:39.400 already put all that.
00:40:40.160 But the other side is also the injury prevention side. And this is well studied. So what we have is basically what is your average workload over a period of time? So let's say three to six months time. The word for that is actually chronic, but it sounds terrible. But we'll just use average for this discussion.
00:41:05.820 Okay. So your average workload, and then you have your short period, like in a week, and that's called the cute. And so over time, you want to increase that that's actually what's going to provide the gains, but not too much. Because again, you have nowhere else to reach. But also for the reason that if you take the way you do it is you obviously spike a short term, and that's going to start bringing your average up.
00:41:25.500 But if you bring more than a 10% to 15% increase in volume over your average, that's going to instigate about 80% of the injuries that we see.
00:41:37.400 So in athletic populations, 80% is a result of that.
00:41:41.880 Not right then at the moment, but like five or six weeks later, you'll see, oh, man, I've got this nagging elbow, this nagging wrist.
00:41:47.960 And then that starts affecting your long-term adherence and discipline because now you're off plan, you're reducing, you're coming around.
00:41:54.620 uh and you're not able to to step that up and then the other so so so you want to that that's
00:42:01.680 why we can't just go all in because it's going to we don't have the capacity to handle that
00:42:06.980 we have to build that um and so that's the the important lesson there is you've got to stare that
00:42:13.520 up you've got to stare that up but slowly within that those tolerance and then understand like
00:42:18.340 because here's a big problem people have it's like oh i was doing it great and then i went on
00:42:22.800 vacation. And then you come back and you're like, well, I missed a week or two. What are you going
00:42:27.920 to do? Going to make up for lost time and hit it harder. Well, that's the exact opposite because
00:42:33.640 you've actually just moved your average down and your ability to tolerate that load coming back
00:42:39.960 again, even your normal is actually reduced. So it's, it may not be the message that people want
00:42:46.580 to hear but we've got to ease into this stuff because but the beautiful thing is it just builds
00:42:53.720 over time if you do that that is you're going to build that capacity over time to handle this stuff
00:43:00.500 and that's so these are some fundamental exercise science stuff this kind of fits into something
00:43:05.800 called periodization but those are really important concepts to understand because it
00:43:12.180 comes with everything. Let's say, um, minimalist footwear. There was, uh, there was a big company
00:43:17.780 about 10, a little over 10 years ago that came out with a finger shoes. And, uh, there was a
00:43:23.860 documentary born, born to run and all the runners great mental, their mentality is always more is
00:43:29.100 better. Right. And it's like, Oh, that's better. Let's go do it. Start running 20, 20, uh, 20 miles
00:43:34.580 a day with those shoes, but they don't have strength in their foot yet because they haven't
00:43:40.520 built that capacity. Their foot's been all mummified. Just like if you walked in every
00:43:44.800 morning, if you woke up in the day and wrapped your, put your weightlifting belt on and wrapped
00:43:49.380 your elbows and wrapped your knees, that would actually decrease your strength. Right. And it
00:43:56.780 wouldn't make you healthier and stronger. And it would cause other things to happen in your body,
00:44:01.340 which I'm getting into a whole minimalist footwear discussion, but they don't, their foot's not 0.72
00:44:05.180 strong. They haven't been using it. And so they go out and do that. And in fact, they actually
00:44:09.700 need to wear those type of shoes or do that type of work about 10% of the time to start with for
00:44:14.080 the first month and then increase it and then increase it because they're actually having to
00:44:18.520 increase the strength of the foot that the shoes aren't the answer having a stronger functional
00:44:25.940 foot is and their shoes were working against them in that fashion and this is this is a really cool
00:44:32.320 story so uh related to it so I'm on a side topic but it is very related so um and this is a
00:44:39.400 documented story by one of the the original people involved with with nike uh which has
00:44:44.660 why all running shoes today are built with an elevated uh heel and arch supports uh built into
00:44:52.160 them because they started pushing this as in the 70s getting running was not that commonplace within
00:44:59.960 you know the normal everyday population and there was wrote a book and stuff was coming in that was
00:45:04.580 starting to change that was starting to come about and they're making their running shoes
00:45:08.420 and heel shoes even you know men's shoes was was common that's and it still is today uh and it's
00:45:16.500 actually a result of far back because the only reason we have heels is for stirrups for riding
00:45:21.380 horses so that's where the whole elevated heel came from but then it rolled into fashion right
00:45:26.900 and then they're starting to promote running and they're starting to see injuries well the reason
00:45:32.320 they're seeing injuries is people didn't have the capacity within their calf muscles they've been
00:45:37.600 sitting in a shortened uh in a shortened position from all the healed shoes not the strength from
00:45:43.600 using the foot and all this sort of stuff and so the question is what do we do and uh i think he
00:45:50.100 was a podiatrist uh and he now says it's the the worst uh the worst decision he uh he definitely
00:45:57.020 worst decision he made and he regrets doing it but they suggested let's just go ahead and put
00:46:03.420 an elevated heel in the running shoes so that people don't have those injuries because they're
00:46:09.960 going to instead of providing the education right and now that's what we have around the world and
00:46:16.500 then now with the elevated heel it puts the pressure on the toe we've got the inward toe
00:46:20.200 and we basically lose control and stability of the knee and hip complex and so then you have
00:46:25.240 to passively support it by building in an arch support because the system to stabilize that
00:46:29.760 is shut off you can test this anyone listening to this get down in a squat position barefoot okay
00:46:36.220 and pick your big toe up and raise and pull it in just like it was in a shoe and you're healed
00:46:41.900 and then move your knee around a little bit and you'll see that it just falls inward and you lack
00:46:45.880 control now grab your big toe pull it wider than it normally would be because by the way it's
00:46:50.840 deformed from your shoes so pull it out and press it down and then push that into the ground and now
00:46:55.480 do the same test and you'll see a huge difference so that's interesting isn't it crazy yeah um and
00:47:04.780 so because of you know one thing then you start having to build all these other band-aids on i
00:47:09.560 mean it's just straight i mean meta analysis of all the research uh done on orthotics which is an
00:47:17.140 entire industry right and also a big piece of like shoe design as well right our athletic science
00:47:22.560 issue um shows that there is no long-term benefit whatsoever there's relief in pain for a six to
00:47:30.860 eight week period of time just like if my elbow hurt and i wrapped it right in the example i was
00:47:34.860 talking about earlier it's going to provide some relief but if i wake up every day and do that all
00:47:38.500 day long till night long term it's actually going to cause more problems and cause problems in other
00:47:44.440 areas of my body as i start to compensate so there's no scientific evidence well actually
00:47:49.880 the scientific evidence is that it doesn't do anything beneficial and you know i can i can work
00:47:54.980 with people and help you start strengthening your foot and just using it you'll see that
00:47:58.660 back and hip pain uh and knee pain those sorts of things just start dissipating but it's it's
00:48:04.980 not the shoe it's the the ability to strengthen manage the the foot complex well i got on a big
00:48:10.680 tangent but it's it's strength i like so it this is and this is the impact of strength this is what
00:48:16.720 it has. And this is another feeder right into like the number one healthcare cost America back
00:48:23.100 pain. So so anyway, from a from a while we're on the subject, I would just want to cover a couple
00:48:30.200 things. So the ability to control and manage spinal mechanics is the number one global impact
00:48:38.000 on the whole body. Okay. And that is accomplished through the use of the diaphragm in relation to
00:48:47.080 the pelvic floor. This sounds like a lot of, you know, complexity, but it's, it's basically getting
00:48:52.180 your, your rib cage in alignment with the pelvis. And then we use the diaphragm and it descends
00:48:58.540 downward, but basically imagine inflating your stomach all 360 degrees around just a little bit
00:49:04.760 the pressure. It depends on the movement, but that will create the stabilization. It actually
00:49:09.600 creates pressure against all the organs and the organs around the spine, and then causes a
00:49:14.280 co-contraction. You don't need to know all this stuff because it'll happen automatically
00:49:18.220 of all the outer sheath of muscles. So obviously the abdominals, the rectus, the obliques,
00:49:25.200 the thoracolumbar musculature, as well as the pelvic floor all come in, but the two have to be
00:49:30.180 like this now a lot of us walk around with elevated you know men just kind of show off 0.79
00:49:35.540 their chest women maybe show off their chest uh whatever the reason shoes actually uh kick the
00:49:41.100 pelvis forward which causes the same so um and uh so the elevated shoe even in running or walking 1.00
00:49:46.980 causes an overstride which kicks the pelvis forward as well it all feeds in as well as stress
00:49:53.320 and technology. So just like being on technology devices, uh, and high stress situations all cause
00:50:00.760 a change in breathing patterns. And so the breathing patterns shift into the chest instead
00:50:05.840 of, um, uh, what's called diaphragmatic breathing, but you would feel it in your belly air still
00:50:11.320 coming in your chest. Cause this is where your lungs are, but that sensation, um, will is what
00:50:18.200 the diaphragm, but it starts shifting those, those patterns into an upward motion. So your,
00:50:21.920 your shoulders and traps will kind of elevate if you put your hands up here your collarbone when
00:50:25.980 you're breathing if it'll move up and down if that's the case that's not they shouldn't have
00:50:31.080 an elevation as it's going it should actually be outward kind of like a wave from the bottom
00:50:36.560 up even into the low rib cage will expand but not push forward so we don't want to elevate our
00:50:43.240 our chest anyway um that's important to understand because if the breathing patterns break down
00:50:48.080 That's one function of the diaphragm. So the diaphragm covers, um, uh, respiration stabilization
00:50:54.280 in the sphincter, but the, it'll start messing with the stabilization function. And so then now
00:51:00.160 we start getting a lot of stuff going on. And so, um, if we don't have stability, um, our body
00:51:06.940 starts compensating, uh, by tightening. If, if, if, if it senses that there's instability or
00:51:13.920 weakness so again this could be the foot with our packaged up shoe it'll start tightening the
00:51:19.160 muscles around a joint to protect it and so the best way a great way to explain this is a car
00:51:25.380 analogy so um most modern cars they have a traction control little button in there right
00:51:34.020 and a lot of people think that when the traction control is on if i'm going around a corner and
00:51:38.200 it's wet or icy it's going to take the power from the wheels that are slipping and put it to the
00:51:42.860 wheels that are gripping, but it doesn't do that. It wants to do the same thing your neurological
00:51:47.580 system and your body does, which is if it senses that you're in danger because we lack stability
00:51:53.900 or strength, it wants to save you so that you don't go sliding off the road and burn a fiery
00:52:00.240 death, for example, in the car example. So how it does this, it goes, ah, we don't have stability.
00:52:06.340 we're going to reduce the we're going to reduce the uh the the um sorry too much talking for me 0.78
00:52:15.420 today so um uh it's going to uh retard the timing on the on the engine it's going to reduce the 0.90
00:52:22.900 power out of the vehicle it's going to reduce the shift patterns and d it's going to detune the 0.86
00:52:27.880 system so that as we do that now the tires don't slip and we don't burn that fiery death by flying
00:52:34.700 off the road. Well, our body does the same thing. So you think about that, even from a training
00:52:39.580 perspective, like that means like, it's not just a conversation of, of health and, you know you
00:52:46.220 know, and far as injury prevention, but actually just being able to realize your potential. So if
00:52:52.120 we've got our stabilization mechanisms on, we can do just like a performance race car that doesn't
00:52:57.540 have attraction control. It's like put on a good, good pair of tires that are connected to the
00:53:02.380 ground, our feet, put the foot, you know, you know, put our foot to the, uh, to the, to the
00:53:07.640 floor on the gas pedal and, you know, take it. So that is, uh, our body does the same thing.
00:53:13.760 So like people that, you know, have tight hips from squatting, well, they don't have tight hips
00:53:18.660 from squatting. They have tight hips from squatting like shit. So if you're not moving well
00:53:24.700 and you're, you are going to have this stuff happen. And so, so it's just an important
00:53:31.100 piece to understand like how important these mechanisms are so if i don't control so the
00:53:37.160 spine and the spinal mechanics is number one largest global impact the foot is number two
00:53:41.560 as the secondary largest so so these have a huge impact for our whole body and being able to we
00:53:49.160 need to be able to strengthen and use those resources and learn how to manage and control
00:53:53.140 them it's that simple that was okay that long dissertation that we may not need to go into but
00:53:59.180 I'm sorry. No, no, no. I, I actually, I actually have a few questions. So I have two, um, I I've
00:54:05.320 done some research. I mean, I have like an ankle replacement, which is really screwed up one of my
00:54:10.000 legs. So I know about foot problems, but also since having a kid, I've seen these, you know,
00:54:16.440 seen these shoes where it's like, this is what a human foot is supposed to look like. And it looks
00:54:20.240 kind of like a hand. And then you see what a human foot from wearing shoes looks like. And I was like,
00:54:25.020 oh my God, I don't want to do that to Scarlett. Like my little kids, like make her shoot feet 0.99
00:54:29.860 are all screwed up. So, but she doesn't like, she's a super girly girl. She's only wears pink.
00:54:35.720 She doesn't like the shoes that aren't going to destroy her feet. So she's been wearing flip
00:54:41.040 flops. So how do you feel about flip flops versus the ones that constrict your foot?
00:54:49.080 So there's a lot of people that will tell you that flip flops are bad. They are far superior
00:54:54.400 to putting the foot in a shoe because the shoe is physically going to deform it the only negative
00:55:00.300 is a slight like having to pick it up so if you can get something that maybe has a strap or
00:55:04.680 something or just like uh catches on the front of the foot too in a fact that they don't have to
00:55:09.440 really hold it on with any toe work is oh okay okay and then also the great thing about flip
00:55:13.720 flops is they kick off really easy uh because that's your time like being able to feel and
00:55:18.660 move the ground uh you know run around in the backyard on the grass and have some you know be
00:55:22.880 able to move the foot um play i mean that is and so you don't have to i'm not this hardcore like
00:55:29.940 oh you've got to live a barefoot lifestyle like you know if i go out to dinner my wife may dress
00:55:34.980 up and put on a pair of heels like yeah so um but you still need it's just like spend some time
00:55:41.280 using them and strengthening them and then in the in the shoe they'll they'll work better but yeah
00:55:46.260 it's a big problem with the minimalist uh movement this is going to sound really bad uh the way i
00:55:52.340 frame it and hopefully nobody takes this personally but like it they're all designed for hippies and
00:55:57.520 runners and i'll tell you if i start wearing those like those finger shoes that i i mentioned
00:56:03.340 if i go home and my wife sees me in those like her sex drive her interest in me is like this
00:56:10.060 and we're i'm like i it's i i just stayed in reality uh and i you know that's uh if you want
00:56:18.260 to have if you want to enjoy some bedroom time with your partner a lot of those are just not
00:56:23.780 good choices right so so this is a reality like fashion is important and and it's gonna it's a
00:56:29.860 reality maybe it's not important but it is a reality that we live in and and so um that has
00:56:36.080 been an important piece that i'm trying to address again you know i live in portland yeah i've got a
00:56:41.720 lot of hippies and runners as friends i'm just like joking about it not joking about the sex
00:56:45.860 thing though that's real but with the toe shoes it's definitely real it's definitely real yeah
00:56:51.180 um but all the minimalist companies are focused on the same target market and so they're not
00:56:56.700 providing any alternatives for the rest of the world yeah right and so that's uh that's all i'm
00:57:02.820 trying to do with my company barefoot that's b-e-a-r um like a kid running around in the
00:57:09.040 mountains uh running from bears barefoot like i was you know anyway um so uh but it's to to create
00:57:17.240 something that it that looks better that you could wear like i'll wear mine with a with a suit you
00:57:22.760 know maybe it wouldn't work for a lot of people in some suit environments but you get my friend
00:57:26.960 like it works great in a lot of environments and we're coming out with a boot next and the boot is
00:57:31.660 designed for people that go hunting that have a blue collar job where they've got to wear a work
00:57:37.880 boot because these people boots are absolutely horrible for feet the stiffness and the like the
00:57:45.020 ability of how they control the foot and once you start like doing and your foot starts working
00:57:50.700 right boots will just make you ache and hurt nearly immediately and i get comments like what
00:57:57.260 do i do when i go to work because there's no great alternatives so this fall we're coming out with
00:58:02.100 one. It's actually being tested by an elite, uh, a green beret team, uh, right now. So, uh, getting
00:58:09.680 it put thoroughly through its paces, but it's, you know, it's, um, God, I hate the word alpha,
00:58:14.240 but it's like, you know, it's that for that type of care person, uh, that is living in this
00:58:19.520 environment that is, will never put on a, on a shoe that is targeted towards the other environment.
00:58:25.200 Right. So anyway, it's just helping, you know, helping a different group that doesn't have an
00:58:33.160 alternative right now. And I don't have a, I don't have any kids shoes yet. So, um, and yeah,
00:58:38.940 a lot of them are the, the girly girls, like my daughter, same thing. She, you know, she's only
00:58:45.480 three years old, but she's gotta have, you know, uh, but the alternative is just making sure that 1.00
00:58:51.340 they have time to play without shoes. It doesn't have to be all the time. And that's the issue 0.94
00:58:59.540 because it's just like over time, people think it's like, oh, you're just not buying the shoes
00:59:04.700 that fit. But over your life, you'll see that your foot will change. So I spent about six years
00:59:11.480 barefoot and the shape of my foot and its functionality changed dramatically. And my
00:59:17.820 thousand pound squat for reps my thousand pound deadlift for reps those were done shoeless even
00:59:23.780 though i have the company because like i'm not trying to sell you a shoe like this is like this
00:59:28.440 is something i believe in if you can go train that way just go train that way right uh but i did that
00:59:36.080 because it's a performance enhancer like i'm able to perform better i have a greater connection
00:59:40.900 and proprioception to the ground right and so uh all the stuff that i design is kind of built around
00:59:46.600 these concepts like kabuki strength um our products were used by 29 of the 30 major league
00:59:54.000 baseball teams were used by 90 of all professional sports in north america were used by any major
01:00:01.880 college that you could think of 600 plus more were used by if you yeah so if you have a sports
01:00:09.240 star they're using our stuff lebron's got our stuff at his house at his trainer's gym at the
01:00:13.820 lakers as well as the rest of the starting line if you watch movies and you watch any action movies
01:00:18.600 the the stars and the stuntmen are probably using our stuff uh marvel studios filming right now
01:00:24.660 they're all they've got our stuff out back in a trailer that they're training in black adam same
01:00:29.120 thing the rock's got our bars in every location that he trains at so he's got eight of them in
01:00:36.000 all these different locations because this is what our products do what they do is allow us to get
01:00:42.260 our joints in the right position and they accommodate for variability in a lifter or
01:00:46.800 human. They accommodate for variability in lever links, mobility restrictions, and training needs
01:00:53.440 like based on, you know, your ankle, you're going to move a little different than other people.
01:01:00.300 He's six, five. He's not going to be able to do the things that that's the reason he uses our
01:01:04.900 stuff. He cannot do a squat with any, without pain with any other things than our bars. So
01:01:10.360 So if you watch any of his ads, videos, anything where he's doing squats, lunges, anything like
01:01:15.940 that, that's our bar in his back because it actually accommodates and it moves.
01:01:20.200 It allows us to manipulate the spinal position, which is crazy.
01:01:24.420 It's the only bar in the world that we can actually, that you can actually do that with.
01:01:27.680 So, so our bars that do that, they, they allow for the rapidly accommodating for those needs
01:01:33.320 as well as, as, as they're doing that, we're getting the joints in what we call the right
01:01:39.920 centration so that's a fancy term it just means that we have the right proper length tension
01:01:44.800 relationship of the muscles around the joint so that the stabilizers are working as stabilizers
01:01:50.540 and the prime movers are working as prime movers because when that breakdown starts happening
01:01:54.720 that's when you start getting in that's like breakdown and breathing patterns and all the
01:01:59.140 other stuff right and um so it's you know if your if your arm's fully stretched it's not as strong
01:02:06.480 as when it's in its optimal working range versus when it's all the way in again it's it's it's
01:02:11.060 weaker again so those extents so when you're arched way up or in these weird funky positions
01:02:16.800 we've actually got muscles in a short position with muscles in a long position and so we allow
01:02:23.220 that proper centration and then the stacking of joints and all of a sudden you can you can have
01:02:27.620 somebody that couldn't even do like let's say a bench press without pain this is we got time for
01:02:34.660 a short little story. Uh, yeah, yeah, yeah. So, well, maybe not funny. So it's funny in the fact
01:02:39.900 that, so every major league baseball, uh, coach, nearly every, let's say 80%, probably 60, 80%,
01:02:46.840 a head strength coach has shoulder problems and they can't bench press because they've had a
01:02:52.100 surgery or pain or whatever. So it's just, you know, that shoulder demands in that sport are
01:02:57.480 pretty heavy and it's just, just the way it is. So, um, I went to spring training with one of
01:03:02.060 our bars that's a pressing bar because they're all in Arizona they're all right by each other so I
01:03:06.300 can see about three or four teams a day we're friends with all of them provide you know and I
01:03:11.480 go in with this bar and they're like ah no no I can't you know I you know I haven't been able to
01:03:15.920 bench press for like five years it's I can't even take a bar to my chest it hurts I'm like I'll try
01:03:20.260 this take it down and it's our bars curved is actually three inches greater range of motion
01:03:27.120 than others, but it's built to be able to just have these things happen. And so I did this over
01:03:32.720 the course of two days and I visited five different teams. And this happened on five occasions
01:03:37.660 with five different coaches, same story, same thing happened. And, uh, they ended up working
01:03:45.760 up to two plates. So 225 pounds and doing reps with it for their first time pressing in years
01:03:53.780 and their staff i mean because they all know it they're standing there just jaws hanging down
01:03:58.340 they're like gets up how bad that hurt it didn't hurt at all no pain uh just from these minor
01:04:06.760 because you think about the attraction control analogy there's a reason i went through that
01:04:09.800 whole thing like so much is neurological and if we're not if we're stuffing everybody
01:04:14.680 you know round pegs through square holes and trying to make it happen like it doesn't work
01:04:20.260 But if we, if we can work on getting these things in the right position, the right things happening, the neurological changes happen. And then all of a sudden we're allowed to move and now we can move and now we can adapt and now we can build resilience and now we can get out of this.
01:04:35.860 And that's the, that's the beautiful thing is to be able to provide people the opportunity to get out of pain and live a better quality of life through developing strength. It's not about being like me and squatting a thousand pounds. Like that's not what it's about. It's about this.
01:04:56.480 It's about giving that person that's been in debilitating back pain, you know, at least
01:05:02.220 on life again, and allow them to get in the gym and train and do so pain-free that changes
01:05:08.240 people's lives.
01:05:09.420 It changes people's minds.
01:05:11.160 It does.
01:05:11.980 It does some amazing things.
01:05:13.600 So this is, this is why I'm so passionate about this stuff.
01:05:17.160 Well, it's probably my backstory.
01:05:18.060 You can understand the resilience piece, but this is, uh, this is, this is how I express
01:05:22.460 it in the world.
01:05:24.980 That's very cool.
01:05:26.480 Okay. Well, thank you very much for telling me a bit about yourself and coming on. Uh, can you
01:05:32.800 tell anybody interested in following you where to find you, where to find your products
01:05:37.020 a little bit about your book? Yeah. So I've got actually got a, I just setting it up right now,
01:05:43.580 but if you go to my website, uh, my personal website, Chris Duffin, that's like muffin,
01:05:48.300 but with a D it's pretty easy to remember. Um, I will give you a free copy of the first half of
01:05:55.100 my book. So the book is the Eagle and the Dragon. And, uh, and, and so that'll, you know, sign up
01:06:02.020 for the email list there and you'll get, uh, you'll, uh, you'll get, uh, exclusive educational
01:06:06.700 content from each of my companies, exclusive discounts to them. Uh, and then, like I said,
01:06:12.360 a free copy of my book, 100% free, no strings attached other than your email. And, uh, there's
01:06:19.080 also a link uh it's it's free but not quite free uh i can't help that it's through audible but you
01:06:25.700 can if you don't have an audible account uh you can uh get my book and one other book for free
01:06:30.740 if you sign up uh for an account through my website which is a cool deal which is why i put
01:06:34.800 it on there but you know there's you have to send it for account so uh if you've got an account
01:06:39.340 obviously it's just a credit um same thing with social media so there's links to all my companies
01:06:45.300 there. So Kabuki strength, barefoot athletics and build fast formula. Um, I don't want to know
01:06:51.240 you don't have to remember screen name avatar, just type in on social media. It's like super
01:06:56.520 easy. You, everybody's got these fancy handhold devices. Type me in Google. I pop up. Um, but
01:07:02.320 the places I interact on, uh, the most are Instagram, uh, Facebook and LinkedIn. And so
01:07:08.320 those are, uh, those are great places to find me. Um, on Instagram, I'm doing a whole series on
01:07:13.720 change management. It's actually kind of a feeder into my next book. So right now, I think I have
01:07:20.200 13 chapters on there about 2030 minutes a piece, incredible stuff, the most in depth series that
01:07:26.080 I've done. So we didn't talk about this sort of stuff, but leadership, execution, these sorts of
01:07:35.240 things, like I have significant processes and depth of knowledge there that I'm working on
01:07:39.860 out and getting out there with my next book, which is create shit, do shit, live beyond the
01:07:45.920 extremes. Uh, the unconventional executives guide to business and life. So, uh, but those three
01:07:51.500 things like, I think embody a lot of what I, what I say and preach. So that's for free. So go to the
01:07:56.960 guides on my Instagram and you'll find them all organized right on there. Um, so there's great
01:08:03.140 content on there. They're posted in the other areas, but I can't, they, there's no way to like
01:08:07.640 organize it. So the Instagram is great for that. So, wow. Thank you very much for coming on. That
01:08:13.440 was, that was very interesting. Thank you. I appreciate being on.
01:08:37.640 You