00:00:00.76 nextlevelguypodcast Okay, sorry. 00:00:01.05 Coach Alex VanHouten yeah 00:00:02.65 nextlevelguypodcast IT, wonderful when it works. 00:00:04.31 Coach Alex VanHouten I was gonna say, you jinxed us, bro. no 00:00:08.10 nextlevelguypodcast I have that habit today, honestly. him I mean, i'm I'm working in a government role just now, working with ah a police force, et cetera. What do you think people get wrong about elite performance? you know Because you've you've trained with some amazing people. You train and to an elite standard. but What's the difference between elite performance and just going to the gym, do you think? 00:00:31.22 Coach Alex VanHouten You know, there's there's a number of differences. I would say one of the primary differences is that when we look at elite performance, and this is operators, these ah these are individuals who are working at the state and local level for mission-based work, but you could also say elite performance has to do with high-level athleticism. 00:00:50.49 Coach Alex VanHouten And then i work with elite performers who you wouldn't consider, you know, like Navy SEALs B-sets. 00:00:58.05 Coach Alex VanHouten everyday spies, we we're talking moms and dads or CEOs of companies who understand that their body and their mind need to be in good health in order to operate at their best level. The difference, the major difference between elite performers and the general population working out is that elite performers understand that there's a very specific way they need to feed themselves. 00:01:20.34 Coach Alex VanHouten a very specific way they need to move themselves, and that specificity is different than maybe the person that they're married to, or maybe the person that's working out next to them at the gym, or maybe the person that's their co-worker. 00:01:36.70 Coach Alex VanHouten And so elite performers are not swayed by the the fads of the health and fitness industry. The the latest thing that tells you you should take this supplement or the latest thing that tells you you should do high intensity exercise versus weight training or whatever, they understand how to take care of themselves as individuals. 00:01:55.18 Coach Alex VanHouten And that's what an elite performer knows that's different from the average person. And in the science, we call that bio-individuality. Your DNA and my DNA are different. 00:02:05.59 Coach Alex VanHouten Your microbiome and my microbiome are different. So some of the things that I need to do to get the most out of myself might be different from some of the things that you need to do in order to get the most out of yourself. And scientifically speaking, we understand those things. It's a lot harder in practice, though, to understand how to take care yourself on an individual level, but it's worth doing. 00:02:27.45 nextlevelguypodcast And do you think that's what a lot of people miss? You know, that we pick up like the the Men's Health, the the Maxim, FHM, whichever magazine it is, and it's the cookie cutter approach. And we think, yep, we or we'll do the same as the big guy at the gym, not understanding the different cycles, the different food supplements and etc. He's on. 00:02:46.65 nextlevelguypodcast Is that what we miss? Is that individuality? We kind of fall back on what everybody's doing it. It must be right. 00:02:54.72 Coach Alex VanHouten It's definitely a huge part of it, right? So so there's there's a huge piece of, let's say you did everything perfect, whatever that means. You you ate perfectly, you exercised perfectly for your body, and you got the most out of you, and you looked at what you were doing versus another elite operator getting their perfect program, their perfect amount of sleep, their perfect nutrition, right? 00:03:17.69 Coach Alex VanHouten They would look different because perfect for you looks different from perfect for them. But that's not actually where most people are missing it. Where most people are missing it is many people know what they need to be doing for themselves, but they're just not doing it. 00:03:31.94 Coach Alex VanHouten One of the largest longitudinal studies of weight loss, for example, because there's a lot of people in health and fitness who try to do something healthy or do something fitness-based to lose weight, right? 00:03:43.22 Coach Alex VanHouten The biggest longitudinal study looked at, OK, let's say there's all this stuff in the world. What what exercise works? What nutrition works? What's actually working for people? And what was crazy is the science found, and we're talking a study over 80,000 participants in a span of five plus years losing weight. 00:04:02.90 Coach Alex VanHouten The actual variables that matter had nothing to do with the diet that was espoused and nothing to do with the exercise that was espoused. It was actually whether or not the individuals had access to a professional that they trusted to ask questions. 00:04:18.81 Coach Alex VanHouten that was That was the first most important variable. Do I have access to a professional that I trust to ask questions along this journey? That would that would have something to do with that personalization piece. And then the second is, do I have access to a community who's also working on the same goals I am? 00:04:35.83 Coach Alex VanHouten and And those were the two variables. It wasn't whether you followed the keto diet. It wasn't whether you lifted weights or not. It wasn't whether it did cardio or not. It was, do I have the social cohesive support that both allows me to move forward when I have questions And also keeps me accountable when I really don't feel like doing what I want to do. 00:04:58.42 Coach Alex VanHouten And and that was that was the rub. And so so i think I think we miss it on both of those fronts. We miss it on the bio-individuality of somebody. But we also miss it on the we think we're going to do this all by ourself thing, when when at the end of the day, what actually works, and we know this to be true, what actually works is the human connection, both with a professional and the social aspect. 00:05:21.85 nextlevelguypodcast And is that the sort of the the unsexy part of elite performance, do you think? It's that moment of we see the SEALs and all these sort people going out and doing these heroic things, but we don't see them working side by side, drilling, repping, fixing their unique skill set, and then they fall back on that brotherhood together. But also they are individually focused on their own skills and weaknesses. 00:05:49.14 Coach Alex VanHouten That's exactly right. You you you see the high-level operator doing something amazing. we We just saw the Olympics, right? You see the high-level operator doing something amazing. What you don't see, unless unless somebody points your attention to it, is the whole team they have that is telling them what to eat, how to exercise, how to overcome injuries, right? 00:06:08.88 Coach Alex VanHouten You you have a professional team telling you what to do. You also have other athletes that are regularly training with you that you're connected to, right? You also, for many of those athletes, they will get on the the podium and thank their mom and dad and thank their brother and their sister and thank their their uncle who taught them how to weight lift, you know? 00:06:26.26 Coach Alex VanHouten or whoever it was that that inspired them to to continue doing this thing that they are that they are both dedicated to and committed to moving forward on. 00:06:27.06 nextlevelguypodcast That's a 00:06:36.57 Coach Alex VanHouten And so, and so yes, that's the that's definitely the unsexy part of health and fitness. People have a lone wolf mentality a lot of times, culturally speaking, that if I could just figure out the best program, I'd be fine. 00:06:49.02 Coach Alex VanHouten And the reality is we're not that great individually. There are a lot of people I've met with amazing willpower. But we're not that great individually at guiding ourselves. And we're not that great individually at inspiring ourselves. That requires other people. 00:07:05.54 nextlevelguypodcast Now, one of the big things we've noticed with a certain president and things like that is this whole fake news and the sources and, you know, anything that disagrees with your viewpoint or people doing their own research and they do a dot com search rather than research papers and speak to experts, etc., 00:07:23.96 nextlevelguypodcast What have you noticed in nowadays with the mental side of this, of like finding the correct like research, the the you know the building the correct network of coaches, scientists, supplement ranges, companies? 00:07:24.65 Coach Alex VanHouten Mm-hmm. 00:07:41.78 nextlevelguypodcast For people who are not like working in ah and a role where they have the tools and equipment supplied, how can they find this on their own and know and like gauge the... 00:07:53.37 nextlevelguypodcast you know the suitability of a source and know what works for them and what's sort of more hot air or bro science, think is the term a lot of kids nowadays use. 00:08:04.38 Coach Alex VanHouten Right? Yeah, it's it's not easy. um It's not easy. And it's for this reason that a lot of times when I work with somebody through through Everyday Spy, we have ah we have a whole SpyFit brand where people will do challenges, they'll do individual coaching. And I just got off the phone with a lady this morning who crying said, I'm so glad I found you. I've been looking for you for a decade. 00:08:29.14 Coach Alex VanHouten right So so like it's a very emotional experience when you learn that all the things you've been trying We're not the answer for you. 00:08:40.44 Coach Alex VanHouten And you find somebody who can help you put the pieces together for you. And that's, I'm not going to pretend that that's an easy thing. It's very difficult in our world today. There's a lot of signal noise is what we call it in the intelligence world. 00:08:54.29 Coach Alex VanHouten A lot of signal noise in social media, a lot of signal noise on the internet. we We can do it right now as ah as a fun thought experiment. How many calories should I be eating? Good luck. 00:09:04.76 Coach Alex VanHouten Like ah you're, you're gonna, you're gonna get. 00:09:06.97 nextlevelguypodcast Nine million pages? 00:09:09.46 Coach Alex VanHouten Yeah, yeah. And, and, and like, you're actually more confused than before you asked the question, right? But, but if you have, if you have somebody who you can ask as a professional, how many calories should I be eating? 00:09:24.89 Coach Alex VanHouten And my professional answer to that, if you were to ask, is what I want to do first is understand what you're currently eating and how that's infecting you. So i want I want about a week worth of food journals to work with. 00:09:38.20 Coach Alex VanHouten And then what you and I are going to do is evaluate what your body looks like right now, any health history issues you've had in the past, and we're gonna separate our understanding of food from just calories to calories, which are energy, and nutrients that your body needs. And then we're gonna start incorporating nutrient-dense foods and getting smart about our calorie intake and see how our body responds over this week. 00:10:02.49 Coach Alex VanHouten And so the answer, professionally speaking, 00:10:03.96 nextlevelguypodcast So for somebody who thinks, oh, I just need to eat better. And you knowt a lot of people simplify like diet, nutrition, but they don't look at my bones, the the nutrients, the like fungi, you know their blood and cholesterol levels, all the sort of tests that you would want ah like somebody to be taking at this level. 00:10:27.96 nextlevelguypodcast What are the tests that we should take? And what are the ones that would be nice to know before you start on the such sort of venture? 00:10:37.02 Coach Alex VanHouten Yeah, it's ah it's a very fair question. Well, today we have some some very very amazing testing capability that we didn't have even just a decade ago, right? So so you have tests of the current condition of your body. 00:10:51.74 Coach Alex VanHouten That would be things like blood tests, your blood glucose, your total cholesterol, your high-density lipoproteins, like the the stuff that your your primary care physician probably asks you to do every year, right? And those are a good high-level understanding of how things are operating. 00:11:07.59 Coach Alex VanHouten But it's not the full picture. And there's a lot of other things you can do that are more differentiated, things like hormone testing even your microbiome. There are entire entire companies right now that will take a sample of your feces via mail and tell you what your what your microbiome spectrum looks like. 00:11:22.11 nextlevelguypodcast Yep. 00:11:25.91 Coach Alex VanHouten So that's the environment of your body. This is what's actually occurring right now. And that could be useful and helpful. could also be a lot of data, very overwhelming. right And then there is also, and that this this is something we, like I said, in the last decade have been able to do, there's also your genome. 00:11:44.50 Coach Alex VanHouten This is the unique configuration of your DNA. And some of the things that that are working for you from a health and fitness perspective and some of the things that might be working against you from a health per health and fitness perspective. and And in my work, when somebody starts asking me about testing, there's there's there's two two primary factors. The first is, what's my capacity to change? 00:12:11.93 Coach Alex VanHouten Because If I do all the testing in the world and all the data is very overwhelming to me and I don't make any changes, then all I've done is accumulate fancy fridge art. right And so that's that's very important. So if somebody knows, hey, i'm not I haven't been walking every day, 00:12:30.80 Coach Alex VanHouten And I know I should be walking every day. I don't care what your blood values tell you, and I don't care you what what your genome tells you, and I don't care how many how many different macrophages you have in your microbiome. You should probably start learning to walk every day. That's very important, right? I don't mean mean to make it sound too easy, but that's extremely important. And we often overcomplicate health from a testing perspective because of this reason. So I need to understand my capacity to change. 00:12:57.69 Coach Alex VanHouten Are there things I know I need to be doing that I'm not doing? And we need to dive into that. We need to understand that. We need to get whatever social support systems required on the fronts that I already know I need to change, right? 00:13:10.39 Coach Alex VanHouten And I think this is very important before testing because we can overcomplicate things very rapidly if there's already things we know we need to be doing and we're not. 00:13:20.89 Coach Alex VanHouten But then from a testing perspective, I'd say the most high level and powerful thing that people can do is get a good nutrition genome system. read out for themselves. 00:13:31.45 Coach Alex VanHouten And there's there's a couple companies that do that decently. It's not an exact science. There's nobody in the world that, despite the claims, there's nobody in the world that can take your genome and say, here's what you need to eat for the rest of your life, right? 00:13:44.52 Coach Alex VanHouten But it can tell you important things, like, for instance, I have a variation in my MTHFR gene. which which i'll I'll tell you the complicated part and then simplify it. 00:13:55.90 Coach Alex VanHouten That means that my body does not convert folic acid to methylfolate very well. Methylfolate is the metabolic version of of folic acid, but many food products have been fortified with folic acid. 00:14:13.53 Coach Alex VanHouten And there's a small percentage of population like me who aren't very good at converting folic acid to methylfolate. What that means is if I consume a bunch of fortified foods, that folic acid will build up in my system over time and show up as an immune response. It could give me migraines. 00:14:29.85 Coach Alex VanHouten I could have low energy. i could have muscle pain and spasms. There could be all kinds of things that happen as a result of that. It's not going to kill me, but it's going make me feel terrible, right? And so and so knowing that about myself I get my folate from other sources. 00:14:47.06 Coach Alex VanHouten I'm careful to read labels that for for foods that have been fortified with folic acid. And that has made a significant difference in the way I feel on a regular basis and how I recover from training. And so so I highly recommend that if somebody's interested in kind of a first step forward in taking care of themselves and learning how to feed themselves or move themselves well, genetic testing is a very useful thing. And that's something that we guide people through in our Everyday SPI individual coaching. 00:15:16.76 nextlevelguypodcast a Fantastic point. I mean, because a lot of people do get bogged down in the science. They'll read 90 different sources and then think, I have no idea where to even start. But you made a great point there about like, just get up and walk. 00:15:27.48 Coach Alex VanHouten Yes. 00:15:29.60 nextlevelguypodcast Just get, start eating a bit better. you Just get into that habit of moving and exercising and at least bit. build in that part but i think that's the sort another part of this whole thing that a lot people think i'm gonna go and i'm gonna lose 60 pounds i'm gonna get washboard abs i'm gonna do this gonna do that and the last time they got off the couch was to run for a bus you know it's there's no kind of they haven't really built up the habit to make it something that they can build into part of their life 00:16:01.75 nextlevelguypodcast What habits do you notice with these sort of top performers or the people who do make these everlasting changes? 00:16:02.35 Coach Alex VanHouten Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. 00:16:07.35 nextlevelguypodcast You know the resilience, the consistency, the just getting them into making fitness part of a well-regulated lifestyle for them. 00:16:18.04 Coach Alex VanHouten Yeah, it it's it's such an important question. So imagine you have a high performer. This is somebody who has already made fitness a part of their life. they They see their food differently than the general population, right? 00:16:29.91 Coach Alex VanHouten and And then you have somebody who's in that that place that you, like last time I got off the couch, I was ah trying to catch the bus. That was, right? and And when this person looks at the high performer, they go, oh, I love to be like that. 00:16:45.69 Coach Alex VanHouten But they can't even imagine what a day in the life looks like. And to try to emulate that, that learning curve is is too intense. There's no way. You're not going to make it. you don't have You don't have enough cognitive capacity and willpower to act like a high performer when you're not one. 00:17:03.61 Coach Alex VanHouten And that's the rub, is understanding, OK, growth is exponential. But it starts with tiny, tiny incremental steps. And the closer the more you make those steps, the faster you grow. so I'll give you an example. 00:17:18.86 Coach Alex VanHouten I'm a person who hasn't gotten off the couch, and I'm looking at a high performer and go, man, I'd really like to be like that when I grow up, whatever that looks like for you. right and And so step one, I need to exercise five days a week, let's say. Let's say that's the habit that that I understand is important. 00:17:38.97 Coach Alex VanHouten right Well, my first workout is not going to be the 90-minute workout this guy is doing. my first And if it is, I'm going to get injured or discouraged or confused. 00:17:49.69 nextlevelguypodcast Never come back. Yeah. 00:17:52.01 Coach Alex VanHouten I'm never going to come back. right I'm never going to come back. right so So I believe it's important to have some humility in this process and say, hey, i first I need to build the habit of exercising. 00:18:03.54 Coach Alex VanHouten It doesn't matter what it is. It doesn't even matter. It just matters that I do it consistently. And that's something we learned in the exercise science. Consistency of exercise matters more than volume, which is how long we do it how many reps, how many sets. 00:18:19.70 Coach Alex VanHouten and matters more than intensity. So like if I had to make a chart, it'd be consistency greater than volume greater than intensity. But in our world, we have that flipped around. 00:18:31.09 Coach Alex VanHouten Most people see exercise as, oh, I got to go in intent. I got to go lift heavy weights. I got to go run as fast as I can until I'm sweating. I got to go, if I'm not breathing hard, I'm not doing anything, right? Well, they'll do that once in a month because it sucks, especially if you're not conditioned, right? 00:18:48.57 Coach Alex VanHouten and And then we sacrifice what matters most, consistency, for intensity. And so what I would say to that that person who's starting there is is understand an elite operator is operating at a place that you probably could get for you, whatever that looks like for you, if you slowly, incrementally, consistently added habits to your life that brought you closer and closer to what the day in the life of a high level operator looks like. 00:19:17.19 Coach Alex VanHouten And yes, biologically you have some limitations, you might have some injury history or health issues that you're wrestling with, and and obviously it's it's incumbent on you to make the most of that. 00:19:28.47 Coach Alex VanHouten but But don't start by trying to do everything that person's doing. Start by breaking down the habits that matter and building them with humility. 00:19:38.39 nextlevelguypodcast fantastic answer i mean because that is something that we do nowadays is we look at social media and we see like the rock henry cavill all these sorts people doing like working out but they have their own private gym their private chef they have a certain amount of time to train etc they have the requirements and the you know the kind of outside pressure that makes them train in certain ways they have to train for a movie they have to be ready etc 00:19:48.40 Coach Alex VanHouten Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. 00:20:05.44 nextlevelguypodcast is how can we then look at these people? you know Maybe if you mentioned some great examples or people ah how to find somebody that inspires you, but how do we then start reverse engineering from the the habits of these people to then start implementing them in our own lives? Is there a way to say, that'll work for me, that's good? that's like How do we start pinching from the elite to start going up our own ladder? 00:20:33.15 Coach Alex VanHouten that's That's a fair question. And and there's there's kind of two, um I'm going to speak about it from two perspectives. I'll speak about it from the, like, if you have somebody that you admire, and you're like, i want to be like that person when I grow up, then great. Learn everything you can about what they do, how they say things, what their what their life looks like. It was actually actually Jesus who said, you will know them by their fruits. 00:20:56.20 Coach Alex VanHouten There's a lot of people who will talk a lot about how how life works and and what to do and and how to make a million dollars in 10 minutes or whatever else, how to how to get six-pack abs in six weeks, ah right? 00:21:08.34 Coach Alex VanHouten and And it's all over the place, but you'll know them by their fruits. 00:21:09.02 nextlevelguypodcast Oh, yes. 00:21:12.75 Coach Alex VanHouten What kind of life do you want? Do you want to be married? Do you want to have kids? Do you want to be... do present for those things? Do you want to build a bunch of wealth for yourself? What are you going to do with that? Do you want a business that requires 70 hours a week from you? 00:21:27.48 Coach Alex VanHouten like get ah Get a full picture of these people that you admire. And then when you when you have found a person like that, you're a very blessed person to have a picture in your mind of of what you want to strive for. 00:21:43.38 Coach Alex VanHouten then learn and understand what their their habits are. It's not an easy thing. You'd have to you'd have to research, I don't know, at least 100 hours to understand somebody's life well enough to start emulating those things. 00:21:54.93 Coach Alex VanHouten But it sure beats the 10,000 hours you're going to have to figure it out for yourself. That's that's ah that's called mastery. 00:22:01.30 nextlevelguypodcast That's a... 00:22:02.13 Coach Alex VanHouten It takes a long time to learn how to how to do all this stuff from scratch, right? So that's that's the big picture perspective. And and like we live in a world of, of we're so content heavy these days, you can you can hear three-hour interview with The Rock if you want to. It exists. You know like you can you can hear a three-hour interview with with The Rock the gal who who won Olympic gold medals. 00:22:26.69 Coach Alex VanHouten you can like Bear Grylls is one of the guys that I admired. I don't know if you know Bear Grylls. He's a survivalist at British Special Forces. 00:22:32.48 nextlevelguypodcast Yeah. 00:22:34.33 Coach Alex VanHouten Thought he was a thought he's a fantastic guy. He's got, I don't know, hundreds of hours of televised interviews with individuals and time spent in the in the wilderness and stuff. 00:22:46.63 Coach Alex VanHouten So so if you care to research people, you can. And you can learn about the things that made a difference for them. On the flip side, when you look at your life, you can actually you can actually spend some time visualizing the things that matter to you. 00:23:04.76 Coach Alex VanHouten and and breaking things down to the places that you understand are worth moving forward for you. i I'll give you an example. Every single client that I ever work with, we walk through this process for the year. 00:23:17.46 Coach Alex VanHouten We say, first, if I did everything right, whatever that means to you, you define it, I don't care what it is. If I did everything right, Where am I next year? What's that look like like? What's the best case scenario for me? What kind of health am I in? What kind of pain am I in? 00:23:34.81 Coach Alex VanHouten How energetic do I feel? What am I capable of doing that I can't do now? right Because a year is far enough that I can make a difference, but but not so far that it's unimaginable. 00:23:47.16 Coach Alex VanHouten What if if I did everything right, what's that look like? And that gives us something to strive for. Helps me as a coach to understand what matters to you. Also helps you as an individual to start picturing, and the more vivid the better, start picturing what it is that you actually are, you care to work for. 00:24:05.59 Coach Alex VanHouten And then we got to do the flip side, and this is really painful. This is psychologically powerful. If I did everything wrong, what's the worst that can happen a year from now? 00:24:16.02 nextlevelguypodcast This. 00:24:16.70 Coach Alex VanHouten Right? yeah He says this. I doubt it. but But if I did everything wrong, if I let all my bad habits get the better of me, if I ate all the garbage I could possibly eat but tastes very good, if if not only did I not exercise, I did injurious things to myself, yeah whatever. I didn't sleep well. I drank too much caffeine and alcohol. i did you know just just keep Just keep piling on all the bad stuff and then picture what a year from now looks like. 00:24:43.48 Coach Alex VanHouten What does that look like for you? And then what you've essentially created is is the most powerful construct for personal motivation, which is, what am I running toward and what am I running from? 00:24:57.53 Coach Alex VanHouten And for many individuals, that's necessary. ah Humans are actually more motivated by avoiding pain than they are from ah seeking reward. 00:25:08.22 Coach Alex VanHouten and And you might not believe that until you have back pain one day. And then you're like, anything I can do to get out of this pain? Or a tooth, you ever had a tooth infection? 00:25:19.16 Coach Alex VanHouten Like, what what can I do to get away from this pain, right? 00:25:19.74 nextlevelguypodcast Oh, yes. 00:25:23.16 Coach Alex VanHouten And pain is very motivating. And so if you if you can understand you can understand what you'll lose if you don't make progress, that's visualizing where you'd like to be a year from now. 00:25:37.08 Coach Alex VanHouten And if you can understand the pain you're headed for, what's worth running from, then then those two things can be extremely powerful. And from there, you you ask yourself, what's my 1%? If I can get 1% better every day, what's my 1%? What's the thing that right now I have control over? 00:25:56.95 Coach Alex VanHouten I can make a difference in. it's It's not too hard for me, it's not too big for me, but i'm I'm willing to do that thing, whatever it is. 00:26:03.45 nextlevelguypodcast Mm-hmm. 00:26:03.78 Coach Alex VanHouten It might be something I need to stop doing, might be something I need to start doing. What's my 1%? And then finally, the question is who's in my corner? Because I know where I want to be, i know where I don't want to be, I know what I need to do, 00:26:17.56 Coach Alex VanHouten And I might need somebody to either help me along that path or call me out when I'm not doing what I said I wanted to. and And that's really the the whole package. There's a few other pieces in there. 00:26:29.03 Coach Alex VanHouten But whether you're looking at somebody you admire and working to emulate them or looking at your own life and working to make the most out of what you've been given, the the end result, the end answer is taking one small step in the direction of where you know you want to go. 00:26:46.94 Coach Alex VanHouten and then humbly working toward that. 00:26:50.22 nextlevelguypodcast I love the way you break it down. it And you kind of fill in the gaps of where people might, you know, the pitfalls or where people might go wrong. But where do you see people burning out? Because even though, you know, if we have people who are supportive of us, we know where we want to go roughly. We start putting in new hobbies and habits, et cetera. You know, like going to jujitsu or going to the gym for a certain class just to get exercising or whatever it is to build that aspect in your life. 00:27:20.71 nextlevelguypodcast But where do you find people are burning out? you know why How can we remove the ego that thinks I'm getting laughed at because I'm overweight? you know I can't go to the gym anymore. Or i you know they tweak their back because they try to lift heavier than the guy beside them and end up not coming back to the gym for after 30 minutes. 00:27:41.38 nextlevelguypodcast theny Where does men go wrong by our self-esteem, our lack of confidence, our jealousy, all the all the habits that holding us back that you notice the elites have managed to eliminate? 00:27:56.98 Coach Alex VanHouten Yeah, it's it's ah there's really three things. the The first is the learning curve. The learning curve is, well, it sucks. I call it the noob phase. 00:28:08.26 Coach Alex VanHouten Do you like playing video games? Have you ever played any video games? 00:28:11.46 nextlevelguypodcast Yeah. 00:28:12.95 Coach Alex VanHouten Yeah, OK, I like video games. 00:28:13.02 nextlevelguypodcast Sort of football management, et cetera. 00:28:16.04 Coach Alex VanHouten OK, cool, I like video games. um and And in video games, it's it's kind of nice because learning curves are very condensed, unless it's a very complicated game. so But there's something called the noob phase, N-O-O-B, meaning I'm new to this game, so I'm terrible at it. 00:28:27.95 nextlevelguypodcast Hmm. 00:28:33.40 Coach Alex VanHouten Right? and so And so the noob phase is is rough because because when you when you play the game, whatever game it is, you get shot 5,000 times. You're running around pointing your gun at the ceiling, and you don't know how to maneuver. It might be a less violent game. I don't know. Maybe you're playing Mario, and you just keep falling in the hole and dying over and over again, right? The game's not fun in the noob phase. 00:28:57.82 Coach Alex VanHouten And so that's actually something people have to get over in health and fitness. when they first start moving in this direction for themselves. Because you're not going to be great at it. You're going to come up against all sorts of obstacles that make you think you don't know what you're doing and that you're terrible and it's not for you. 00:29:13.72 Coach Alex VanHouten And fine. like Like, acknowledge the pain right now and do not give up. That's the noob phase. Because the only way through the noob phase is grit. 00:29:25.34 Coach Alex VanHouten The only way through the noob phase is to just keep coming back to it. every day until you're not a noob anymore. And that's a big deal because like you said ah about the guy tweaking his back doing a deadlift. that's a That's a noob obstacle. 00:29:45.66 Coach Alex VanHouten you you You knew you shouldn't have gone up with that much in weight, but you did anyway. And three reps in, ow, it hurts. you're like, ah. And you you have a you have a choice. Does this mean no more weight training for you? 00:30:00.57 Coach Alex VanHouten Or does this mean, hey, I'm going to take good care of my back, I'm going to come back to the weights, and I'm going to be a little more humble about how quickly I progress next time. Maybe I'll even ask for some coaching so that my form is good and my mind's not wandering while I'm lifting. right so So all this stuff. 00:30:19.77 Coach Alex VanHouten right But that's the noob phase. So people get burnt out in the noob phase very frequently. 00:30:21.33 nextlevelguypodcast Yeah. 00:30:23.65 Coach Alex VanHouten For the average person, that happens at about week two or three. in their fitness journey is usually when stuff like that happens. It could happen at other times, but the noob phase is a big burnout. 00:30:37.25 Coach Alex VanHouten I can keep talking, but do you have a comment about that? 00:30:41.56 nextlevelguypodcast No, no, I was I was really enjoying it because i was thinking of like the, in a video game, you know, as you progress, the map opens up and yeah and that's the part I really enjoy. 00:30:42.07 Coach Alex VanHouten Awesome. 00:30:53.62 Coach Alex VanHouten Yes. 00:30:53.53 nextlevelguypodcast is that, how how do you make that encouraging it for people? 00:30:58.74 Coach Alex VanHouten is it's ah is exactly what you just said. The new phase is hard because you're not great at it yet. But the new phase is also very exciting because you're constantly opening up new avenues, right? Which is not true of somebody who's been playing a game or in health and fitness for themselves for a long time, right? So as an example, if if I started weight training to gain muscle and you started weight training to gain muscle, 00:31:28.02 Coach Alex VanHouten as long as you didn't do anything to injure yourself. If you haven't been weight training much, you're gonna gain way more muscle in eight weeks than I am. Why? it's It's the noob phase. Your body's like, oh my gosh, he's lifting weights. Put on as much muscle as possible. 00:31:42.68 Coach Alex VanHouten my My body's like, this guy's been doing this for like 20 years. like ah what What more muscle can we put on? you know I'm going to have to work really hard over eight weeks to gain just a couple of pounds of muscle. 00:31:54.22 Coach Alex VanHouten Whereas a noob can start learning new exercises. And a noob can start lifting heavier weights relatively quickly. A noob can start seeing changes in their body. Like, wow, i have there's a muscle I didn't know I had. Look at that. and and so And so it can be very exciting if you're willing to stick with the pitfalls. 00:32:12.09 Coach Alex VanHouten of of those obstacles. And so for for my part as a coach, it's helping people to see their progress. when they When they come up against an obstacle in one avenue, it's helping them see, hey, but look look how much the world's opened up to you in these ways. 00:32:26.30 Coach Alex VanHouten right And and that's ah that's a difficult part of the noob phase for sure, but it's there. On the other end of the spectrum, we've got we've got the other way people can burn out is reaching the top. 00:32:37.91 Coach Alex VanHouten It's completely different problem. i've I've run the fastest mile I can run. i've i've lift the heaviest weight I can run. I've i've been 10% body fat for three years, you know whatever it is. 00:32:49.13 Coach Alex VanHouten What's next? Where do I go from here? And that's something that can burn people out too because because the the joy of of setting a goal and working toward a goal is actually much higher than reaching the goal. 00:33:05.33 Coach Alex VanHouten Like, you don't get a, you actually measure somebody's serotonin, how good you feel about something, it's not very high when you get the medal. 00:33:10.76 nextlevelguypodcast Mm-hmm. 00:33:13.35 Coach Alex VanHouten It's way higher in the training process of visualizing getting the medal. Same thing with the dopamine, right? so So once you reach the top, once you have run the event, once you have done the mission, once you have lost the weight, or whatever it is, once you reach that pinnacle, 00:33:31.03 Coach Alex VanHouten ah That can be really difficult. And that's where that exercise that I just told you about comes in, where it's really important. You have to re-visualize what the coming year looks like and what's worth running from, what's worth running toward, who's in your corner, what's the next step. 00:33:47.37 Coach Alex VanHouten And in the health and fitness world, oftentimes we we focus so much on the achievement of the goal, we don't look at this as a lifelong thing. You're going to have your body your whole life. 00:33:58.78 Coach Alex VanHouten so So this is a lifelong process that you get to go through and get to make the most out of you. 00:34:06.01 nextlevelguypodcast you think that's the thing that i'm a lot men are scared of? It's either being afraid to look like a beginner, ah ah they're but then on the flip side, it's also scared not to have a mission, not to have a focus, or that's why we like we leave jobs because we we don't have anything to new to learn. We don't like being cityed. We don't like not progressing or having a challenge. 00:34:32.63 nextlevelguypodcast we we We can't just sit still, a lot of men. 00:34:37.53 Coach Alex VanHouten men Men are an interesting case. I think it actually has a lot more to do with honesty. So ah that that being said, if I'm honest as a man, let's say I look at my life and I'm not satisfied. 00:34:50.03 Coach Alex VanHouten That's hard. That's a painful realization. Like, what are you not satisfied with? 00:34:54.15 nextlevelguypodcast Yep. 00:34:55.84 Coach Alex VanHouten I'm not satisfied with what I see when I look in the mirror. I'm not satisfied with my job. I'm not satisfied with my my partner. I'm not satisfied with with how I spend my days, whatever. 00:35:06.90 Coach Alex VanHouten Like, if men get really honest with themselves about what's bothering them, I mean, Get ready. ah Get ready for some real pain. Get ready for some some real emotional turmoil. 00:35:21.75 Coach Alex VanHouten Because if men are honest about about where they're at, there it's it's going to be a difficult process. It's going to be a difficult mental, emotional process. I think that's the primary thing that keeps men from moving forward is to be honest with themselves. And then step two, honest with somebody else. 00:35:41.11 Coach Alex VanHouten so that you're not the only person who's thinking through all this stuff that you're not satisfied with, because that can be overwhelming. It's extremely overwhelming when when you realize you're in a place that you want to change, but you don't know how to do it. 00:35:57.94 Coach Alex VanHouten And it's also extremely overwhelming to notice that maybe I do know how to do it, but I don't know how I'm going to start. And and those are those are very difficult things. um so So I think honesty with with self and honesty with somebody who's worth trusting with that, I think that that's what primarily keeps men from moving forward. 00:36:19.57 Coach Alex VanHouten i've I've found that very few men I know are actually scared Once they're honest about being scared, it's not that hard to be not scared anymore, or at least to act in the face of what was it, courage? 00:36:31.55 Coach Alex VanHouten Courage is not not being scared. Courage is acting in the face of fear anyway, right? 00:36:37.27 nextlevelguypodcast yeah I don't know what you're reading. 00:36:38.35 Coach Alex VanHouten Yeah. 00:36:41.02 nextlevelguypodcast i mean is that Is that something that you notice with a lot of guys? 00:36:41.55 Coach Alex VanHouten Yeah. 00:36:44.94 nextlevelguypodcast It's that kind of... We're we're actually afraid to admit we need help. that A lot of guys... you know There's all this acres of information out there. 00:36:57.75 nextlevelguypodcast There's amazing podcasts. There's ah great coaches like yourself. But... they just go to the gym and try a workout to look like the guy you sit next to them. They don't understand about sports specific workouts, physical preparedness, you know, im like just a general like breakdown of the different styles of workout of, 00:37:19.73 nextlevelguypodcast building your ligaments, your joints, you know and making yourself physically your body physically prepared to work out. How complicated do we need to get into this as we go through the various stages towards mastery, towards elite status? 00:37:36.38 Coach Alex VanHouten and it It gets more complicated the further up the ladder you go. for For somebody who's just beginning on that journey, it's not that complicated. 00:37:49.09 Coach Alex VanHouten You've got to get conditioned. you know Getting conditioned is stuff stop eating too much energy, eat more nutrients, move more. like It really is that simple. Like those things are, and you might have some injuries that have accumulated, you might have to rehabilitate, or you might have some some obstacles in the way your body functions, maybe you shoulder pain or knee pain or something like that, that that might complicate that process, right? 00:38:14.62 Coach Alex VanHouten But that the end necessity goal for you to go from beginner, it's about the same answer for everybody. The further you go through fitness, the more complicated it gets. 00:38:29.14 Coach Alex VanHouten the the further you go up the ladder, the adaptations of exercise, the adaptations of nutrition, the adaptations of rest and recovery, those adaptations can get more and more specific based on the stimulus or stressor. So as an example, if I said, ah if i said hey, you're a beginner and and I've been training for a long time, your back workout today can be two exercises. 00:38:59.65 Coach Alex VanHouten We're gonna do a lat pull-down for three sets of 10, and we're gonna do a cable row for three sets of 10. 00:39:05.62 nextlevelguypodcast I remember those days. 00:39:05.91 Coach Alex VanHouten How much weight, Alex? Right, yeah, how much weight, Alex? I don't care. If it feels kinda difficult, you're you're great. like Don't even worry about it. like just Just do it, right? 00:39:14.99 nextlevelguypodcast Right. 00:39:16.25 Coach Alex VanHouten And and that's the back workout. But if you're an elite, Like, and and you're you're taxing the muscles of the back so that your posture stays firm, you're maybe you're you're trying to keep muscles healthy and and highly operating for for whatever specific thing you're training for. you might have eight different exercises you need to do, and two of them have to be together, and you only have 30 seconds of rest between these two, and this this set is about being heavy, and this set is about being explosive, right? And at the end of the workout, you're you're doing things to tax the muscle in the eccentric phase, and everything I just said to a beginner sounds too much, because it is. 00:39:56.10 Coach Alex VanHouten There's no reason that that that has to be that differentiated for somebody who's just starting to lift weights. right um So the further you go up the ladder, the more complicated things get. 00:40:08.66 Coach Alex VanHouten And I wouldn't say that men are afraid to ask for help in that sense because they don't want to look like they don't know what they're doing. I think that that men in general feel as though they should already have it figured out. 00:40:23.96 Coach Alex VanHouten and And so asking for help is somehow weak rather than ah independent. and And nothing could be further from the truth. like Human beings are not very independent. 00:40:36.84 Coach Alex VanHouten We're actually very, we're actually very, we're built on the inside, neurologically speaking. We're built on the inside to be cohesive um with each other. 00:40:48.69 Coach Alex VanHouten and And there's an element of me needing you know having a responsibility to carry my own burdens well, but I'm not going to be able to do that without somebody else's help. And so that that said, when when a man comes to me and says, 00:41:06.65 Coach Alex VanHouten They usually say, I've tried everything, and I heard what you had to say, it made a lot of sense. So so i'm I'm asking for help. I don't like doing that, but I'm doing that. Like, where can we go from here? it's it's It's almost like they've taken this big, giant load off their shoulders and and handed it to me. 00:41:25.11 Coach Alex VanHouten um And they're they're very happy to do so, because holy crap, this was heavier than I thought. and ah Well, I have a lot of compassion for that because I'm a man. i'm ah I'm a husband. I'm a business owner. i I've wrestled with my own obstacles and disease and all sorts of things. 00:41:43.10 Coach Alex VanHouten And I understand that that it's been individuals in my life who've helped me to overcome those things that that allows me to help other people. 00:41:52.92 nextlevelguypodcast Great answer. I mean, because I'm a big fan, like out of the Kaizen approach, the, you know, the 1% better every day. And I think that's something that we think if we don't go and do a perfect workout, it's a day wasted, you know, even... 00:42:08.22 nextlevelguypodcast And sometimes it can be just difficult enough to get in the gym. It can be difficult enough to go for a walk with if people were with depression, etc. 00:42:13.01 Coach Alex VanHouten Mm-hmm. 00:42:15.64 nextlevelguypodcast And I think that sometimes is what a lot guys struggle with is they'll write to me and say, I can't change. I've tried, I've tried, or tried. And you think, well, have you done X? No. Have you tried jujitsu? No. Have you tried? and you know, they've just gone in once, failed. That's it. They think that means that's their story. They can't change. 00:42:32.15 nextlevelguypodcast So what is 1% better? 00:42:32.86 Coach Alex VanHouten who 00:42:33.95 nextlevelguypodcast Because, I mean, you talked earlier about the 1% getting better. If we are been working out or we've had the history and got through the newbie gains, et cetera, What is the effort or what's the thing we need to do to eke out those 1% changes? And what is 1% better look like on a day where everything's going wrong? You know, your daughter's sick, you haven't eaten correctly, work's been a nightmare, et cetera, et cetera. 00:43:02.87 nextlevelguypodcast How can we find that in the in the dark places when we need to? 00:43:09.37 Coach Alex VanHouten Yeah, that's ah that's a great question. so So first, if you're past the new stuff, the 1% better usually looks like the things you're scared of. 00:43:23.13 Coach Alex VanHouten so So for instance, i I recently wrote and published a book. Before I wrote and published a book, I would tell you I was not a writer. I had started many books, but I'd never finished one. 00:43:35.99 Coach Alex VanHouten And I have all kinds of reasons. you know I'm a dad with two kids. I run my own business. I i manage a chronic illness. I like being married. 00:43:45.24 nextlevelguypodcast Do you ever sleep? 00:43:46.14 Coach Alex VanHouten so Right, yeah, I gotta sleep sometime, right? yeah ah and so And so there's a lot of these things in my life that say a book is a bad idea. i don't have time for that, right? 00:43:59.19 Coach Alex VanHouten But in my heart, I knew I wanted to. I knew there was something I needed to say, something I wanted to work through, something I hoped to help other people ah when they read it. 00:44:10.36 Coach Alex VanHouten And so and so i like this thing bounced around in me for probably three years. and And frankly, i wasn't being honest with myself. I wasn't being honest that this really mattered to me. And I remember having a conversation with my wife where i was angry about something. And I was like, I don't understand why I can spend my time and energy doing this, but I won't write my damn book. 00:44:31.26 Coach Alex VanHouten Right? and And she was like, well, how can I help? so ah Can you watch the kids on Thursday? Like, can can you do that for me? And and she did. 00:44:43.03 Coach Alex VanHouten And I went and I started writing my book. Well, the thing about a book is you don't write it in a day. It takes time, takes energy, it takes focus, takes consistency. Kind of like the exercise thing. 00:44:52.60 nextlevelguypodcast If only you could do it in a day. Yeah. 00:44:55.35 Coach Alex VanHouten If only, right? And so what I did is after after I sat and and I spent time writing and a lot of the things that needed to come out of me so that I could see what the book looked like came out, took about eight hours. 00:44:56.70 nextlevelguypodcast Man. 00:45:10.87 Coach Alex VanHouten I came home and I showed my wife and I said, ah this is gonna take like every Thursday until it's done. Can we do that? Is it possible? 00:45:21.22 Coach Alex VanHouten feel i really feel like I really feel like I need your help with this. right Remember that support aspect. This is a big time investment, lots of energy, right? Something I'm i'm asking for help with. 00:45:32.25 Coach Alex VanHouten but But she's like, OK. And so for me, i I guarded that time like a junkyard dog. I missed out on some time with my family. i have two boys. my My boys ran my wife ragged on Thursdays. you know But we did our best, and we blocked that off. 00:45:47.93 Coach Alex VanHouten and And because of all that investment of energy and time, You better believe at 7 in the morning when I sat down to write, I wrote. 00:45:58.87 Coach Alex VanHouten It didn't matter if I had a headache. It didn't matter who wanted my attention. My phone was off. It didn't matter didn't matter what was else was going on. Because I had committed to that thing, that was scary to me. 00:46:13.43 Coach Alex VanHouten But I had... I had everything in my life orchestrated to make sure that that happened and it was something I knew I needed to do for my 1%. Then week over week, I did it. 00:46:25.39 Coach Alex VanHouten And I think I only missed two Thursdays a period of six months. And one was Christmas, if I remember right. so like it was It was justified. 00:46:33.45 nextlevelguypodcast We'll let you off there. 00:46:35.51 Coach Alex VanHouten Yeah, it let me off on on Christmas, right? and and And the other one, I had a family member in the hospital. And so I went and visited them because that was a priority. And and that's how the 1% works, right? there' when When I understand that the things in my life that I want to make progress on are aligned with my ultimate purposes, right? 00:46:55.61 Coach Alex VanHouten being a father, being a husband, my my business that I'm running that that helps people, like these these things really matter to me. They're part of my part of my mission, part of my journey. Then your 1% is the stuff that makes you better at all those things at once. 00:47:13.27 Coach Alex VanHouten And it's not easy, and it's kind of scary, and it's gonna take some sacrifices. But it's 100% worthwhile. And so what I would say, kind of to your original question is, once you're past the noob phase, your 1% will scare you a bit. 00:47:27.18 Coach Alex VanHouten it's the It's the thing that you you want you want to say you've done, or want to say you've moved toward, or or you see as as valuable and useful. But man, you have no idea how it's going to go. 00:47:40.33 Coach Alex VanHouten And and you're you're probably not going to be any good at it all the All those things come together. 00:47:44.63 nextlevelguypodcast Mm-hmm. 00:47:47.32 Coach Alex VanHouten And and the way that you you keep yourself accountable to that is don't do it alone. and And put your money where your mouth is. Put an investment in that thing. You might need to spend some money. You might need to spend some time. You might need to sacrifice some energy in other places in your life to pursue that thing. 00:48:05.98 Coach Alex VanHouten But it's it's worthwhile and good to do so. And you won't you won't find yourself lacking motivation. it's It's just more like feeling like there's not quite enough of you. and And that requires you to be humble week over week for sure. 00:48:20.74 nextlevelguypodcast I love this because it's not just how you can break things down, it's how inspirational you are about changing the passion, the warmth that comes from you as well. Unfortunately, you have Ehlers-Danlos disease. 00:48:40.80 Coach Alex VanHouten Ehlers-Danlos, yep. 00:48:41.61 nextlevelguypodcast now and you despite that you do everything that you want you achieve so much you help so many people transform but what did that help you because you were talking there just now about you know embracing pain and using it to kind of change and finding you know finding that thing that scares you because they always say the priority should be the thing that scares you most on your list to make the biggest impact in your day. 00:49:07.29 nextlevelguypodcast What did having condition like that, that you have to a bit also work around, you know set up your life in a certain way to deal with your own health, but to write you you know to get your missions accomplished. 00:49:20.76 nextlevelguypodcast What has that taught you about strength, about elite performance, about how we can get the most from life no matter whatever's affecting us at that point? 00:49:33.14 Coach Alex VanHouten Yeah, thanks for the question. It it would be impossible to talk about this without, for me, without looping in faith and the journey that I've been on. 00:49:45.73 Coach Alex VanHouten And, you know, whatever you believe or whatever your listeners believe, these questions become very spiritual questions very quickly. Because at at the root of it, if I had to rephrase your question, is... 00:50:01.21 Coach Alex VanHouten what do you do with the things that are painful? 00:50:05.69 nextlevelguypodcast Yeah. 00:50:06.07 Coach Alex VanHouten and And that's acknowledging that life is painful, right? That's acknowledging that life is painful. And so from a spiritual perspective, there's this belief in Christianity that you have to face suffering. 00:50:20.10 Coach Alex VanHouten There's no way around it, right? So Jesus, he dies on a cross for the sins of the world. That's how the story goes, right? And not only does he die on the cross, he doesn't stay dead. But that's not that's not the end of the story. In fact, what he actually tells his followers is if any man wishes to be my disciple, he will deny himself, pick up his own cross, and follow me. 00:50:46.26 Coach Alex VanHouten which is a very amazing statement. what he What he's saying is, if you want to follow me, if you want to walk in my way, if you want to do what I've taught, if you want to be one of my guys, so to speak, then you're going to deny yourself. 00:51:02.16 Coach Alex VanHouten That's to say, all the things that I want, all the things that keep me comfortable, all the things that I i think I need, deny yourself. You're saying, nope, i don't I don't need those things, I don't want those things, I don't want to stay comfortable. 00:51:15.03 Coach Alex VanHouten I push those aside for the moment. Pick up my cross. That's a very powerful image, because what's the cross? The cross is, like in the Roman times, that's the place of suffering. 00:51:27.64 Coach Alex VanHouten That's where you go to die. That's where you go to hang until you lose your breath, right? 00:51:29.45 nextlevelguypodcast Yeah. 00:51:33.67 Coach Alex VanHouten Pick up your cross and follow me. Well, where is Christ going when he says this? He's literally going to go die. That's what he's going to do. And so so if I had to interpret that in more of a secular fashion, I would say something like, 00:51:47.70 Coach Alex VanHouten the the suffering that is a part of your life is the answer to going where is most meaningful. 00:51:59.74 Coach Alex VanHouten Facing the suffering forthrightly, carrying the cross in a forthright way, it's not an easy thing, and it will require that you deny the things that sound nice, pleasant, comfortable, fun even sometimes. 00:52:15.61 Coach Alex VanHouten But that is the thing that's most meaningful and is the way, as as Jesus said, that leads to life. Now, there's no way in my brain to separate that from from the spiritual language that I had to use to describe it. 00:52:31.06 Coach Alex VanHouten But if I had to tell my own story, what I would say is, I have Ehlers-Danlos. My body is in pain regularly. My tendons and ligaments don't function like they they're supposed to, like like the average person's tendons and ligaments do. My digestive tract doesn't always function the way it's supposed to. 00:52:49.50 Coach Alex VanHouten And when I went for a run today, when I started to run, it hurt. I didn't want to run. It wasn't like, oh, yay, what a beautiful day. Let's go for a run, you know? um My ankles were in pain. 00:53:01.46 nextlevelguypodcast Does anybody ever want to run? 00:53:02.42 Coach Alex VanHouten not i know i know, right? Yeah, to dude, there's something about that first five minutes, right? It doesn't matter if you have a disease or not. If you can get past that first five minutes, you're already in. 00:53:12.47 Coach Alex VanHouten You can't escape. So I go to run. This is important to me. It's important for my cardiovascular system. It's important for my mental health. It's important for my body's ability to burn fat as a fuel source. It's very important that I go for my run. 00:53:27.20 Coach Alex VanHouten But it doesn't feel good. And it feels doubly bad in my body. Not injurious, it's not I'm not tearing ligaments to run, but it hurts to strengthen them. 00:53:40.62 Coach Alex VanHouten It hurts to do that. And so what do I do? I say I'm gonna run, and then I go do it. And in the run, the tendons and ligaments start to loosen up a little bit. 00:53:55.29 Coach Alex VanHouten My muscles get the activity they need to stabilize my joints. My cardiovascular system gets gets put through its paces. I have a lower risk of of heart disease at the end of my run than I did at the beginning of my run. I burned fat well as a fuel source. And hey, when I finish, if I stuck with it, when I finish, I'm in actually way better mood, mental space. 00:54:17.34 Coach Alex VanHouten I might still be in a little bit of pain. But the pain that I faced was the way that I improve. 00:54:28.70 Coach Alex VanHouten Does that make sense? 00:54:30.12 nextlevelguypodcast Definitely. Because I think that's the thing is we all want to do things, but when we actually face the the burden from it, it's you realize what your true wants, your true desires are at that point. 00:54:43.75 nextlevelguypodcast So when you are struggling or you're shaking, you're in pain, or you know you see somebody, like a client kind of, don't know about that, you know you can see the eyes going down or the motivation drops or whatever they are kind of 00:54:57.17 Coach Alex VanHouten Mm-hmm. 00:54:58.74 nextlevelguypodcast outlet of panic or unmotivation or whatever it is, a how do you get them to find that inner, their faith, they are their pain point that they can focus on to to come through? how How do you inspire somebody like that? 00:55:19.66 Coach Alex VanHouten it's It's a great question. It has a lot to do, this is actually something I talk about in my book, it has a lot to do with what you're fighting for and who you're fighting for. And these this is something that elite operators know. 00:55:33.50 Coach Alex VanHouten right So so if i'm if I'm a Navy SEAL and my my comrade is injured in combat, my personal instinct is get the hell out of here so I don't die. 00:55:47.13 Coach Alex VanHouten But that's not correct. That's not what my training has taught me. That's not why I'm on this mission. It's not the kind of shape I'm in. What I do is I pick up my brother, I put him on my shoulder, and either we're getting out together or we're dying together. That's how this is going to go. 00:56:03.99 Coach Alex VanHouten right And and that that is, I know what I'm fighting for, and I know who I'm fighting for. 00:56:04.09 nextlevelguypodcast All right. 00:56:10.65 Coach Alex VanHouten If I know those two things, I will endure just about anything. And that that's true of of humans. If I know what I'm fighting for and if I know who I'm fighting for, 00:56:21.94 Coach Alex VanHouten bring on the pain, man, because you're not going to keep me from fighting those two things. so So I was working with a lady just yesterday. She and I have worked together for a year. She's in her late 60s. When she and I first started, she was in a very, very terrible place, cardiovascularly speaking. Her doctor told her she was on the edge of a heart attack. 00:56:42.71 Coach Alex VanHouten and so And so when we first started working together, she was 312 hurt walk 40 yards. it hurt her to walk forty yards down the average driveway here in the US. 00:56:53.65 Coach Alex VanHouten It hurt her to walk 40 yards. 00:56:54.78 nextlevelguypodcast Cheers. 00:56:57.02 Coach Alex VanHouten so So when when we started working together, she had to understand what she was fighting for. Why do this at all? Because you could just sit in a recliner and be comfortable till you die. 00:57:08.79 Coach Alex VanHouten You could. like That's ah that's an option. What's worth fighting for? And then who are you fighting for? who Who is, who when you think, okay, why would i endure any of this? 00:57:20.76 Coach Alex VanHouten Why would I improve? Why would I try to make more of myself? Why would I get healthy? Like who in my life does that matter to? And when you identify those two things, then like, hey, this hurts. I'm out of breath. I don't want to continue. 00:57:35.51 Coach Alex VanHouten And I can say, well, your grandkid keeps getting bigger. And we're not done yet. Just a little further. Keep breathing. We're almost there. 00:57:45.88 Coach Alex VanHouten right the The knowledge of understanding, this is what I'm fighting for, this is who I'm fighting for. When you bring your mind to those things, when things are difficult, you'll do what you need to do. 00:57:57.91 Coach Alex VanHouten And it won't feel that painful, regardless of how painful it actually is. 00:58:03.29 nextlevelguypodcast Is that like a key part of an elite performer, do you think, that we should all utilise as having, you know, like, say, the Navy SEALs be doing it to protect to their country, whereas somebody, like, you're saying, like, an overweight person might be doing it just to be able to pick up their grandkid or to be able to walk without sticks or whatever it is. Is it... 00:58:25.21 nextlevelguypodcast Is that how we can ensure that we focus on working out for 10 years rather than 10 minutes? We we'd keep going day in, day out. we we have We find something that we can hold on to in that dark times. 00:58:40.38 Coach Alex VanHouten Yeah, absolutely. I think i think that's i think at at the end of the day when we were talking about being honest, how it's difficult for men to be honest, if you ask a man, what is your fitness goal? He might be like, oh, I got to work on this. you know i got to lose 10 pounds. 00:58:54.18 Coach Alex VanHouten I got to get off my heart medication, whatever. That's not honest. like that's That's the smallest grain of truth in the thing he's wanting to accomplish. 00:59:05.66 Coach Alex VanHouten But if a man says, I don't feel attractive to my wife anymore, Or I don't feel equipped to manage my business and and like my mind's all fuzzy and I'm tired all the time. 00:59:20.31 Coach Alex VanHouten ah I don't feel like my children want to hang out with me. I don't like getting off the couch. you're like These are the things that are honest. When a man's honest like that, then he understands, coming back to the pain question, the pain he's already in. 00:59:39.32 Coach Alex VanHouten And when the the pain of staying the same hurts worse than the pain of change, then you'll change. 00:59:49.34 nextlevelguypodcast Yeah. 00:59:49.82 Coach Alex VanHouten But but if if you don't if you're not honest, you don't feel that pain of staying the same, then you won't you won't budge. And so that's that's why this this understanding of what's worth fighting for, who's worth fighting for, 01:00:04.60 Coach Alex VanHouten we feel the pain of understanding what happens when we don't fight those battles. And so and so that that's extremely important when a man can be honest about what pain he's in right now. 01:00:17.66 Coach Alex VanHouten Not try to cover it up, no no sunshine rainbows, no flowers and daisies, just the real the real stuff, when he can be honest and and feel that the pain of staying the same is worse than the pain it's gonna take to change, then when a man understands that, 01:00:34.33 Coach Alex VanHouten then he will actually move forward. 01:00:37.43 nextlevelguypodcast I can see why you're so successful. I knew you were going to be good, but it's, you just motivate regardless. ah You know, it's, there's something about how you present it that you just, 01:00:50.29 nextlevelguypodcast don' we we get wrapped up and we embraces it and it feels it honestly feels like 10 minutes and we've been talking for an over an hour and I haven't got into like half of the stuff I want to cover so we've we've got to do a round two at some point um but what do you think then like if you have somebody listening than just now how would you want them to come to you as a kind of 01:00:58.87 Coach Alex VanHouten yeah 01:01:04.01 Coach Alex VanHouten Yeah. 01:01:14.39 nextlevelguypodcast to become an elite performer? If they came back to you in a month, what would you say to them? I want to have done X, Y, Z. I want you to have focused on this or have that as your target. How how can they start this journey? 01:01:28.86 Coach Alex VanHouten I will bring you back to the exercise that I just revealed that I do with all my clients. and And I would ask your listener to do this. If this is you and you want to make some progress forward, you got to do it. You got to say, where am I right now? 01:01:42.14 Coach Alex VanHouten And if I did everything right, where would I be a year from now? Question two, like pause the podcast, write it down. The more detailed, the better. Question two, if I do everything wrong, where will I be a year from now? 01:01:53.69 Coach Alex VanHouten And if you don't cry, you're not doing it right. I know that sounds dumb, but it's true. Like if you if you can't paint a picture enough in your mind that's painful enough to bring tears, you're gonna you're gonna need to work at that. You might need to go fast in the woods for like a day or two or three before you get down to the core of who you are and what matters to you. But those two things, 01:02:15.45 Coach Alex VanHouten And then you say, okay, who's in my corner? Be honest. If you got nobody in your corner, be honest. You got to fix it. You can't do this without somebody in your corner. You're not going to do this without without a coach. What a coach actually is is somebody who can correct you without causing resentment. 01:02:31.11 Coach Alex VanHouten That's what a coach is. if If you have people in your life who are like, hey, you're doing it wrong, do this, and you hate them, they're not coaching you. You're like, that's a jerk. You don't like jerks. You need a coach. but But similarly, somebody who's celebrating you. 01:02:45.30 Coach Alex VanHouten Far too many men don't have somebody in their corner celebrating their their wins and accomplishments and encouraging their way forward, wanting to see the best in them, right? So so that's that. 01:02:56.15 Coach Alex VanHouten And then finally, is that 1%? So we know where we're going. We know what we're running from. We know who's got our back. And we know what we actually need to do tomorrow. 01:03:07.99 Coach Alex VanHouten today and to do consistently. And if you do those four things, if you can if you can hash those out and actually move forward, and then in a month, you've gotten somewhere, it'd be really cool to do that. And if in a month you haven't gotten somewhere, then you didn't address point three. You still have nobody in your corner because a good coach won't let you do that. A good coach will kick you in the butt and say, hey, what the heck, man? This is not this is not what we said we're going to do. 01:03:36.25 Coach Alex VanHouten we need to change this 1% because you're being too ambitious and you didn't get it done. And so that's what I would say. 01:03:45.59 nextlevelguypodcast love that. think, what was it they say that a man only gets the first flowers they'll ever get is at their funeral. The only kind words they'll ever hear is at the eulogy at their funeral. 01:03:56.73 nextlevelguypodcast And it's scary that a lot of guys do not have somebody. And that's why I'm so glad that there is coaches like you. There's programs, there's things we can find and listen to podcasts like this where we can listen to your know your explanations and kind of start making that change in their lives that they maybe have been in... 01:04:16.58 nextlevelguypodcast abusive situations they've had no and maybe not supportive parents and i think this is why i love speaking to people like yourselves because people can't help but change listening to your great advice so what is but what point do we look and go that's just changing this is the time to pivot this is the time to change Is it down to the coach or what kind of data are we measuring? Are we looking for feedback emotionally? Are we looking physically? 01:04:46.33 nextlevelguypodcast How do we know we're doing well on this journey? 01:04:50.65 Coach Alex VanHouten ah it's it's really It comes back to those first two questions. Am I closer to where I said I wanted to be? And closer might be different for you. Like if you said, hey, if I did everything right a year from now, I look in the mirror and I think, hey, that guy's in great shape. 01:05:05.40 Coach Alex VanHouten Then you might want to be measuring body composition. That would be a good understanding. I'm losing fat mass. I'm gaining muscle mass. My midsection is getting smaller. My clothes are fitting better. right That would give me feedback. 01:05:18.04 Coach Alex VanHouten or Or I want to be able to play more often with my kids. How do I know that I'm actually moving forward in that process or journey? Well, i've I've got a scheduled date with my son on Thursday to play soccer. Right? that's That's how I know I'm moving forward. And I can play soccer, and I'm not out of breath while we do it. you know like that that means That means I'm moving forward. And similarly, am I further away from that thing I'm running from? 01:05:44.31 Coach Alex VanHouten For me, hell at one point in time looked like I'm on 12 different medications, I'm hooked on pain pills, and I can't get off the couch. to ah to play with my child. like that was That was the hell I was running from. 01:05:58.68 Coach Alex VanHouten Between mental illness in my family, between the genetic disorder I wrestle with, between the pain I was in, I saw where I was headed I didn't want to be there. And so am I further from that? Am I in less pain? am i Am I out and about? I don't even care if I'm happy about it. At least I'm not on the stupid couch, right? Am I off the medications? like Am I moving in that direction? And so and so that that really is understanding where you want to go and what you're leaving. 01:06:28.66 Coach Alex VanHouten You can have some measures that help you understand if you're moving forward. And again, good coach can help you do that. A good coach can say, These are the measures we're gonna be looking at to see if we're making progress. 01:06:40.04 Coach Alex VanHouten And if we're not, something needs to change. Something needs to change about our approach. 01:06:45.37 nextlevelguypodcast So is that the definition of elite performance for each of us? Is finding that point that we've gone to, where we've gone through our own hell to the point of where we want to be? 01:06:57.56 Coach Alex VanHouten You got it, that's exactly right. And that's that's why I'm an exercise scientist and a faith-based health coach. Extra science teaches us how to get the most out of ourselves. 01:07:10.65 Coach Alex VanHouten But faith teaches us why we care. Faith is the thing that tells us why we're even doing any of this stuff. So yes, that's exactly right. 01:07:21.99 nextlevelguypodcast beautifully put. I mean, know we're tied for time, but we've got to a round two at some point soon. But for those listening, what would you want people to remember about change, transformation, pain points, just, you know, that they're not stuck of where they are now, how would you want people to use this conversation going forward to start changing their lives? 01:07:49.78 Coach Alex VanHouten First, I want to say you're a great interviewer and I'm totally down for a round two. This was a lot of fun. I appreciate you. 01:07:54.42 nextlevelguypodcast Like 01:07:54.94 Coach Alex VanHouten and And also you you mentioned the whole guys don't get flowers things. You have been very encouraging this entire episode. So thank you for that. That said to the listener, who's made it to this point in the podcast, because our society has very short attention spans. 01:08:09.62 Coach Alex VanHouten But if you're, if you've been listening for this whole podcast and you just stop everything you're doing for just a second, because something happened in your brain and something happened in your heart while you were listening. 01:08:21.93 Coach Alex VanHouten It might've been something I said, might've been something my brother said, but you pictured better version of you. You did. And so if that picture came out for you and you can stop what you're doing for a second, I need you to write it down. 01:08:37.52 Coach Alex VanHouten I need you to write what you saw. Actually, you need to make it concrete, make it something you can see, make it something you can read, something you can feel. Write it down what you saw. You saw yourself being more active. You saw yourself eating less donuts. You saw yourself going to bed a little earlier. You saw yourself ah playing less crappy video games. I don't know. Whatever you saw. you you so You saw yourself having an argument with your spouse that just needs to happen, even though you haven't been honest in the past, but it needs to happen now. 01:09:07.25 Coach Alex VanHouten Whatever it is, write it down. Because once you write it down, once you make it concrete, once you take it from here and put it out there, you're way more likely to start making a shift. 01:09:19.50 Coach Alex VanHouten And that would be what I would encourage. If you could take that away. If you can take something that was inside of you from this podcast and put it outside of you, it's kind of like drawing a line in the sand. 01:09:31.30 nextlevelguypodcast Damn, that is hard-hitting. Because like I could actually find myself doing that in a few of your answers. i was stopping and actually applying it in my head, going, oh, I meant to ask another question. And i was like, oh. 01:09:43.22 nextlevelguypodcast I think that's you've got this way of just opening up, removing the obstacle, and actually sort of going, as a friend, you know not as a coach, but just to kind of pulling it out of us and getting us to start that transformation, to to so to sow the seeds of change. 01:09:58.02 Coach Alex VanHouten Hmm. 01:09:59.96 nextlevelguypodcast How can we follow you? 01:10:00.90 Coach Alex VanHouten Hmm. 01:10:01.24 nextlevelguypodcast you know Until we can do a round two, and how because there's so many rabbit holes was trying avoid going down. but 01:10:07.64 Coach Alex VanHouten Sure. 01:10:08.24 nextlevelguypodcast For the things, for we want to buy the book, for we want to find out more, or we want to contact you and ask to train with you and all these sorts of things. How can we get in touch and follow this journey, this amazing life that you're on? 01:10:22.58 Coach Alex VanHouten Yeah, so there's there's three ways. If you're more of a, hey, i just want to check out what Alex is up to, you can check out our YouTube channel, youtube.com slash faithful fitness org, O-R-G. 01:10:34.57 Coach Alex VanHouten And you'll find interviews, you'll find conversations I've had, you'll find a library of exercises and whatnot. And that's a great place to connect. The second is, hey, I'm just interested in working with you from a coaching perspective. 01:10:50.74 Coach Alex VanHouten Us at Everyday Spy, we have a portal for that. And I believe my team has sent that link to you. So we'll have that in the show notes to get connected to personal coaching. And I mean, it's fast and furious. We'll we'll get you started. 01:11:03.74 Coach Alex VanHouten We'll get you on a call. We'll do a complete health history. And then we're moving forward. We've got places to go. And so that's that's a very one-on-one thing. And then finally, there is an app community where individuals who are moving in this journey are are congregating. And you can find that at faithfulfitness.co and my book's there as well. So faithfulfitness.org for YouTube, faithfulfitness.co for our our app and devotional, and then our Everyday Spy link for exploring personal one-on-one coaching with me. 01:11:37.47 nextlevelguypodcast term. Well,