[Johan Vesters]: 0:45

What's up guys and welcome back to Talk Nutrition. Today's episode 59, I want to talk about hard work and what it takes to be successful. And I've been talking about this with a lot of people recently, that a lot of stuff online is kind of like, just go hard, you know, you just gotta work hard, you just gotta be disciplined, you know, just, you know, fuck motivation, you just gotta do it. Like, yeah, you gotta work hard. But just a little bit more to that, you know? So I figured, let's try to get this guest on we have today with us. because next time, first of all, welcome.

[nick]: 1:19

Hey man, thanks so much for having me on. Really appreciate it. Happy to be here.

[Johan Vesters]: 1:23

Because you wrote a book on how to be successful. So I figured, let's bring you on, let's talk about this stuff. Because I feel like, yes, again, like we gotta work hard, you know. Yes, we gotta create discipline, but there's a little bit more nuance to that, you know. So first of all, let's actually just start with you. Like who is Nick Shaw, what do you do? How did you get into fitness and stuff?

[nick]: 1:48

Yeah, oh man, that goes way back. So I'm 35 years old now, which seems kinda crazy to say. I'm officially a masters athlete in like the bodybuilding fitness space, which is really funny, because I certainly don't feel like a masters athlete, but man, this goes back to when I was like, I don't know, 13 years old. I had a brother who was four years older than me. and he was training for sports and whatnot. So he was lifting and we had like an old rickety weight set in our parents' basement. You know, one of those ones with the really skinny bench and like the really skinny like weight standards

[Johan Vesters]: 2:22

Oh yeah.

[nick]: 2:22

that you can barely fit your head in between. Like, so that's just kind of what I knew. I think we got it from like my uncle who probably trained like back in the eighties or something like that. But, you know, kind of long story short, I just really liked the idea of... of lifting and working out and pretty early on, and I think when I was like a sophomore in high school, I wasn't like very athletically talented. You know, I was like a short, you know, little white kid, not really like, you know, super fast, super athletic or anything like that. But I ran cross country and I remember being like almost the worst kid my freshman year on the team. There was like nine of us, the top seven ran on varsity. So I didn't even run varsity. And then, but I was like decent at track, I suppose. But our coach that summer after track ended between my freshman and sophomore year said, hey, like the goals are on a hundred miles before practice starts in the fall. And I was like, oh, okay, cool. So like I made a little schedule and I started logging everything and I just did it, right? Cause you know, we were told what to do. So I don't know, like me, I just, if I'm told what to do, I just go and do it. And so I showed up the first day of practice, my sophomore year, and I was running with like the top two kids from the year before. Now again, they were maybe just a little out of shape. They ended up doing a lot better throughout the year, but I had really caught up. And for me, that was like this game changer where I said, holy crap, all I did was just work hard over the summer. I didn't like do anything magical. And I went from being one of the worst to like arguably one of the best in the span of a couple of months. And I thought, that is really interesting. So... It was like this light bulb moment for me of like, okay, even though I'm not the most ethically gifted or anything like that, if I just apply the work ethic and let time do its thing, I've got a chance to do some cool things. And that's always stuck with me. And that's, here we are literally like 20 years later, I still remember that. That actual work I still remember, stands out very vividly in my mind. And

[Johan Vesters]: 4:24

Awesome.

[nick]: 4:24

that, I guess that was like really the awakening of like, I love fitness because it's, you can't really fake it, I suppose, is how I sort of view it. And that ties into the work ethic. Like, yes, there's obviously a lot more nuance to that, but at the end of the day, man, it really does require a lot of hard work. And you know, usually if you see someone in good shape, I don't know about you, but like, if I see someone out, and you know, if I'm just out grocery shopping or doing whatever with my wife and kids, and like I see someone that I can tell like, you know, it's... lifts or bodybuilder power or something like that. I always give them a little nod. A little head nod, like respect. Because there's just that sort of mutual respect, admiration, right, when you see someone else out there. Do you get that at all? Or do you do that when you're out and about?

[Johan Vesters]: 5:09

Yeah, I feel like, I mean, you just, you can kind of tell, you know, like, oh, these people are like into

[nick]: 5:14

Call

[Johan Vesters]: 5:14

weightlifting

[nick]: 5:14

it.

[Johan Vesters]: 5:14

and it's, it's still like pretty rare. I think too. And this may be funny as well, because I'm actually doing the team for Rob. Uh, I've been in a group for a little bit. I

[nick]: 5:24

sweet.

[Johan Vesters]: 5:24

swear like last week, this is two weeks ago, a friend of mine was like, Hey, what do you do with your program? And I just like, you know, RP app. And then this dude like behind me is like, what did you say RP? Yeah, I'm not using the app too. So he's in a group as well. So I was like, okay, cool.

[nick]: 5:40

Dude,

[Johan Vesters]: 5:40

And then

[nick]: 5:41

that's awesome.

[Johan Vesters]: 5:41

you see some people here and there who are more into weightlifting and stuff. But I will say, I don't see that many at the supermarket, for example.

[nick]: 5:52

Yeah,

[Johan Vesters]: 5:52

It's still

[nick]: 5:53

for sure.

[Johan Vesters]: 5:53

a

[nick]: 5:53

I'm right,

[Johan Vesters]: 5:53

work in progress.

[nick]: 5:54

yeah, it's not that common, which is why when I do see someone like that, I kind of make

[Johan Vesters]: 5:58

That

[nick]: 5:59

sure

[Johan Vesters]: 5:59

way you

[nick]: 5:59

to like,

[Johan Vesters]: 5:59

notice, yeah.

[nick]: 6:00

yeah, make some eye contact and give them like a little head nod or something like that just so it's

[Johan Vesters]: 6:03

Yeah.

[nick]: 6:03

like, oh, hey, you know, respect, man, respect.

[Johan Vesters]: 6:08

Yeah, I used to do crossfit as well. And it's like when you see someone wearing the crossfit, I started to share it too, yeah. But

[nick]: 6:14

Yeah.

[Johan Vesters]: 6:14

you see them wearing the nanos and stuff, you're like, okay, I know they do crossfit. You know?

[nick]: 6:20

Oh

[Johan Vesters]: 6:20

Yeah,

[nick]: 6:20

yeah,

[Johan Vesters]: 6:20

for sure.

[nick]: 6:21

totally for sure. Yeah, 100%.

[Johan Vesters]: 6:23

But like, I mean, speaking of hard work, that's definitely hard work. That's next level shit. Have you ever train crossed it as well or?

[nick]: 6:34

Yeah, a little bit. So I guess, so I've recently got back into more like competitive bodybuilding, physique, sports, but

[Johan Vesters]: 6:44

Yeah.

[nick]: 6:44

there was like almost a 10 year gap where I didn't compete. And now a lot of that, like I've always been lifting, of course, I've gone. There was like a couple year period in there where our piece are working with a lot more CrossFitters. And so I dabbled a little bit more and I got to the point where usually I would lift like four times a week. I would do one day of CrossFit. And my goal was to essentially be in good enough shape that I could run close to like a six minute mile. And I could be, I guess someone randomly were like, hey, we're doing Murph today. I could at least do it like body weight. Maybe not with the full vest, but that was my goal. Any day of the week, if I had to, I could do Murph, and it wouldn't just kill me, because the first time I ever did Murph, it almost killed me. Yeah, it was a rude awakening, and I thought that I had trained a decent amount for it, but not maybe enough, and I was like, nah, nah. It damaged my ego. I was like, no, no. I'm gonna make sure that I'm in good enough shape, and I think that even the second year I did it. I think I had to walk a little bit in that last mile. I had to, and again, that's just another ego hit. And I'm like, okay, F this. I'm not letting that happen again. So yeah, I got to the point where I could do bodyweight Murph, and then I would add stuff to it. And when I got to that point, I was like, okay, I'm probably in pretty decent shape. So I'm definitely familiar with CrossFit. We work with a lot of CrossFitters. And this is maybe an interesting story, but I also dabbled in Jiu-Jitsu a little bit. I got my blue belt. And you know, the same with CrossFit, same with Jiu-Jitsu, I liked doing them. I guess I never really just like fell in love with them, but sort of this reinvigoration or reintroduction of getting back into like competing and bodybuilding has absolutely lit this fire in me that had gone away for a little bit. And I just, I love it. I love lifting. I still wake up. And I'm just like, oh, I get to lift today. You're like, oh, like what workout do I have? Or like I pull up my RP Hyperspia app and I'm like looking at it the night before, I'm like, oh, this is what I'm doing tomorrow. And I just get excited for it. And so like that to me is, that's a good sign because it just is like, I'm where I should be, where I need to be.

[Johan Vesters]: 9:03

For sure. Did you, because obviously you've been into at least sports and fitness and stuff for a long time. Did that take time to kind of like turn into that fire? You know what I mean? Because I mean, you did say like you kind of lost that for a little while. Like what is like the thing that kind of brought you back to that? Like what lit that fire again?

[nick]: 9:24

Oh yeah, getting back into bodybuilding. Yeah, so Jared and Mike were always, they stuck with it. And sort of seeing those guys doing a lot of the YouTube filming and really like creating Team Foram was actually sort of that spark that got me back into it. Because I was like, oh man, like, I was like a little jealous, like a tiny bit of jealous. I was like, oh man, like, I kind of miss that a little bit. And I'm like, I had voluntarily gotten out of that because You know, competing in physics sports is really, really hard, especially when you're trying to run a business and you've got kids and stuff. Like it's very, very hard. But now my kids are a little bit older, so they're a little bit more self-sufficient. You know, RP is at a point where we've got enough people working for RP that like not all the work falls on my shoulder. So I've got people to help with that. So it was like really good timing, I suppose, in the grand scheme of things. But, um, yeah, no, it's just, it's just fun to be back into it. And. It was cool credit to Mike and Jared for kind of leading that charge. And they kind of lit that spark back for me, maybe like almost two years ago or so, I would say.

[Johan Vesters]: 11:01

Cool. I mean, first of all, congrats, because that's turning pro. I can only imagine that as really fucking hard work. And I feel like, because we see a lot on Instagram and stuff. We see the photos, the reels, and all that shit. I don't really feel like people really realize what it takes to get jacked, actually. And the trade-offs that comes with that, I'm not super familiar with the whole process. Cause I know you guys do a lot with like hydration and sodium and stuff too. But like it's, it's hard work. I mean, did you, did

[nick]: 11:38

Yeah.

[Johan Vesters]: 11:38

you have that as a goal for a long time already? Or was that.

[nick]: 11:42

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Oh, yeah. So I'll maybe give like the, you know, too long didn't read version TLDR of

[Johan Vesters]: 11:48

Yeah,

[nick]: 11:48

like

[Johan Vesters]: 11:49

that's

[nick]: 11:49

some

[Johan Vesters]: 11:49

what I

[nick]: 11:49

of

[Johan Vesters]: 11:49

mean.

[nick]: 11:49

what, what goes into that, that final prep. But if we go way back to when I was like a teenager, I remember seeing in, do you remember like the animal pack ads from like way back in the day? Did you ever see those? You know what I'm talking about by chance? No. Okay. But they were like these really, really hardcore bodybuilding. Animal Pack is a supplement company. They're still around actually, but they definitely, man, they really nailed their target market and niche because it was like this black and white series of ads. And not only that, but they were ads, but it was like this 16 week sort of journey and they called it the journey. And they documented like how hardcore it is to be a bodybuilder. And like I saw that stuff when I was a teenager and I was like, man, that's sick. just that's so cool. And I thought like, man, this guy's a pro bodybuilder. I'm like, man, I'd probably like to be a pro bodybuilder one day, like that would really be something. And again, like I kind of got away from that for a little bit, almost a decade, where I went from like not even competing. And, but it was always kind of a goal in the back of my mind. And then when I got back into it, I was like, yeah, like that's, let's give this a shot. And so I qualified for a national show. And then I was like, you know, telling my wife, I'm like, I gotta give this a shot. I gotta give this a shot. I really gotta put my all, put my effort into it. And it goes back to part of my thought process of I stopped doing high intensity cardio. I stopped doing crossfit. I stopped doing jujitsu. I stopped all of that. Because I was like, if I'm gonna give this a serious shot, that's some of the trade-offs involved. Laser focus, I was only training hypertrophy style. Only using the RP hypertrophy app. Like for basically a full year plus, really getting back into it. So that's a little bit of the trade-offs. But yeah, it was definitely a goal. And then it is a lot of hard work for sure. Once I made the decision, because actually the show that I ended up turning pro in was my first ever national show, and I was originally gonna do one that was a couple weeks later. So I jumped into one a couple weeks earlier. Maybe there's a little bit of luck involved. I'm sure I'm never gonna discount that, like who knows. But as soon as Jared and I made the decision to do that, Jared was my coach, Jared Feather, our P coach, he was coaching me through it. Man, I really turned up the intensity. And I made a post, like I want to say I did about 125,000 steps. Like, not peak week. Because peak week going into a show, you kind of want to ease back a little bit, and you want to kind of reduce stress and all that. But the week before that was like the number of steps that I did. So I got 18,000 steps a day. Food intake was

[Johan Vesters]: 14:26

Jesus.

[nick]: 14:27

not very much. like under 2000 calories a day. I weigh over 200 pounds and

[Johan Vesters]: 14:32

Okay,

[nick]: 14:32

I'm

[Johan Vesters]: 14:32

yeah.

[nick]: 14:32

working out six days a week, training and doing all those steps and all that. So like that's just a little glimpse into it. Yeah, it's very, it's not for everyone. And sometimes people ask me like, oh, hey, like maybe I'd like to get into it. I'm like, oh boy, okay, you wanna get into bodybuilding. Like,

[Johan Vesters]: 14:51

Maybe

[nick]: 14:51

all right.

[Johan Vesters]: 14:51

not.

[nick]: 14:51

Yeah, I'm like, do you really want to? It takes a... different mindset, I suppose. And again, sometimes you just fall in love with it. And I think most people that do compete do fall in love with it. And they just love that whole idea and process. Yeah, no, it's tough. And what's really funny is bodybuilding is sort of the epitome of this lonely sport. And the funny ironic part is because I wasn't originally planning to do this show. So I flew up to New York by myself. And no friends, no family, Jared wasn't there either. Because I was like, dude, you'll be at that show in a couple weeks. Chances are I'll be there, and Mike will be there. Like, just go to that one. Don't waste your time coming to this. I had one guy from the Team 4 on for him that was there to help me out a little bit, Tony. And he was awesome. So I win. And I didn't go on stage till like 10 o'clock at night. So I didn't know until super late. Families texted me throughout the day, like, hey, how's it going? What's up? And I'm like, I don't know. And so I get done, I get off stage, I got that little sign or whatever, it says, you know, pro card, my medal. And I'm like, huh, I don't have any friends, no family here, it's 10 o'clock at night, I gotta be up at like 5 a.m. the next day to catch a flight back home. And I'm like, what do I do? I just went back to my hotel room, showered, and like ate some, like literally whatever food I had left in my room. And I was like, huh, well gee, that's a... That's an interesting way to celebrate. Because it had kind of been like a goal 20 years in the making, so to speak. But it's just the funny part.

[Johan Vesters]: 16:29

Yeah. He's like, well, guess I'll go to bed.

[nick]: 16:33

To totally yeah, you're

[Johan Vesters]: 16:34

What?

[nick]: 16:34

like, well, like it's a little bit of a letdown I suppose but you know right on it is

[Johan Vesters]: 16:39

I'm

[nick]: 16:39

it was

[Johan Vesters]: 16:39

out.

[nick]: 16:39

all good But yeah, you know call Jared called Mike called my wife Yeah, like that was it cuz I was like well no one's here to celebrate so I guess I'll call you let you know What's going on and then try to go to bed?

[Johan Vesters]: 16:55

Yeah, I thought you brought up a really cool point because we talked about this before I hit record, but like you, you obviously do, you know, pro bodybuilding and mostly work with like Gen Pop. A lot of stuff still translates. I like that you mentioned your steps and that you're just lifting. Like were you not doing any cardio, just weights and steps.

[nick]: 17:15

Oh yeah, so I live in Charlotte, North Carolina. Just recently the weather's gotten really, really warm. But up into my show, because I competed on July 1st. June was weirdly not that hot here in Charlotte, which is a little weird. But yeah, I was just doing lots of steps outside. I would usually go for a little walk in the morning, like walk my dog. Just I'm always moving throughout the day when I need to get that many steps. like just in between calls, I just get up and like move around even if I'm just walking around my house doing something. And then usually based on how many steps that I would have left at night, you know, I would go for like a 30 minute walk, sometimes it would need to be 45 minutes, sometimes it would need to be 60 minutes, you know, just in my neighborhood. Now what's really interesting is I started doing a lot of it with my wife. So we would go for walks together, which I think is a really, really awesome thing. And I would highly recommend, you know, if anyone's married or in a relationship. with your significant other, see if you can do that. Again, that's not always practical, right? You got a baby or whatever. Actually, you can go push the baby in a stroller, man. That's even better cardio. And it's probably good for everyone involved. Get some stress out, you know, you can just chat. You're out there, usually it's nice weather, like good, win, win. So that was really great and all that stuff. But yeah, then I would just lift. Usually I would lift in the morning and just walking around. And I really never got on the treadmill. interestingly enough, because that's just so boring at times. And you totally can do that. And some people love to flick on a TV show or something like that. But for me, it was just like, I'm just going to go walk outside. And usually I'm walking the dog or walking with my wife or whatever, so I can just accomplish a little bit more rather than just walking away on the treadmill, not really getting anything done.

[Johan Vesters]: 19:07

Yeah, yeah, I can't stand it either. I do feel like one day I want to get one of those like the office little treadmills, you know, for like a busy day. But when I can, I'll try to go outside. It's so much better. But so during that whole process, you were not doing any cardio then, like running, like those kinds of things.

[nick]: 19:25

No, uh-uh, yep, no, I've given all that up.

[Johan Vesters]: 19:28

Yeah.

[nick]: 19:28

I tried doing a fairly hard cut like the year before. I wasn't competing or anything like that, but just to try to get pretty lean. And I was trying to do some cardio,

[Johan Vesters]: 19:36

Hmm.

[nick]: 19:37

and man, towards the very end, when your calories get low, and you're trying to run and do high intensity stuff, it just sapped my energy to train legs. And so I just, it's all about trade-offs, right? And so for me, I just had to make those trade-offs of I'm trying to do everything I can. to do well in bodybuilding slash physique sports. So I'm okay making that trade off. You know, eventually when I kind of get done competing or whatever, or don't want to take it as serious, you know, I'll probably dabble a little bit more into like some endurance sports or something. But like for now, yeah, I'm like, I'm okay giving that up.

[Johan Vesters]: 20:14

Yeah, fair enough. Last thing about your fitness that I would like to switch to the book, but what I also think is interesting is to hear about your nutrition. We don't have to get into like specifics, but like how many weeks is it after your show now? And where are you currently at? Are you kind of moving away? Cause I feel like people think you like you hit the show and then next day is like, you know, no limits. Like there's no rules to just eat whatever, you know? But it's probably not like that.

[nick]: 20:43

Well, so it has been like that before. I've competed a few times. It's one of those things, I think when you're younger, you just like, you can't wait for it to be over and you're like, I can't wait to eat junk food. And I did that before and you just feel miserable and you can just blow up really, really fast. I don't recommend that. Like for example, when I got done with the show and I won my pro card, I... went back to my hotel room and I mostly had clean food in there and I was like eating rice cakes with some casein pudding and I think I had some like fruit and some Gatorade because at that point like you don't drink a whole lot that day so you're just really thirsty so it's like just drinking Gatorade is like a treat in itself so like nothing crazy and yeah I'm about three weeks after now I've just started to kind of get back into because I knew we actually had a photo shoot scheduled and this is because I was originally supposed to compete at the same show that Mike was doing. So I kind of had a good reason to not go super, super crazy to stay like in decent shape for a couple of weeks, which is really hard too, because like, once you hit that, like that goal, yeah, it's like really tough to, it's very easy to talk yourself into all of these different treats and all that. And then, you know, I definitely went out to eat with my wife a number of times and like, wasn't super, you know, like. strict with anything. Obviously that's just fun. You get to relax a little bit. But even with that, just with water, salt, carbs, I'm up 15 pounds, which is probably pretty normal after a bodybuilding competition or something like that. Because you reintroduce carbs and you can just... And then you start eating more salt and more carbs or whatever afterwards. You just kind of just... It all gets sucked up, so to speak. That's fun. It makes for really fun training and whatnot in the week or two after. That's always fun to get back into the gym. But yeah, I would encourage people not to go too crazy. And that has lots of applications into general population, folks. When you end a diet,

[Johan Vesters]: 22:41

Alright.

[nick]: 22:42

don't just go crazy with the cheap foods and the junk foods. Chances are, if you just eat more normal foods of what you're eating, one, you're going to be pretty happy because you get to eat more. and you won't sort of blow back up as quick. You won't have that rebound effect. And hopefully it'll mean you don't have those cravings because I will say that I was good for like a week and then my wife and I went out to eat and went to like an Asian place and then we got some crumble cookies afterwards. And that was tough because I feel like once you introduce some of that stuff, it is so like the floodgates almost once it just opened. and it's very hard to stay on track because now you've tasted that really good stuff and it's almost like, oh man, I want more of that. This other stuff is a little boring, a little bland. So that part was really tough. Had I not done that and would have just waited a little bit longer, probably would have been a little bit easier. So that's the part where I would encourage folks to just be real careful about how fast you just start eating all that stuff when you end the diet phase because it can get out of hand pretty quick.

[Johan Vesters]: 23:52

Oh yeah. It's like, it's like the riskiest like time for your, for your food, you know, and

[nick]: 23:58

guess.

[Johan Vesters]: 23:59

still I remind people like, even like, even if we're just halfway into the cut, I'm like, once we get back to, you know, once you hit that end point, you're not done yet. Like we're not just gonna, you know, stop tracking and just, you know, it's, it's still a bit of a process to get back. And it's so important because I still feel like that's that riskiest time. for people and that's exactly where it goes wrong usually, for a lot of people at least.

[nick]: 24:25

Have you noticed that when people end a diet, they actually struggle more with that kind of maintenance period, more so than the diet itself?

[Johan Vesters]: 24:34

Oh yeah, and it's funny, because the last episode we did, I actually talked about that, and I have a bunch of people now going back. It's kind of hard, you know?

[nick]: 24:45

Uh-huh.

[Johan Vesters]: 24:46

Or at least, even though it's so important, people kind of think, like, oh, I'm not really working towards my goal, or it's like boring, you know? It's so important, but it's also probably even the hardest to kind of stick to long-term, especially if it's like two, three months or something, or longer even.

[nick]: 25:03

Totally. I don't know what the best analogy is, but it's like you're so dead set laser focused on a goal. And then you hit that goal or that like date ends. And then it's almost like you're standing in a grocery store the next day. And just like everything is a possibility now. And that can be a really dangerous place because you're like, oh, well, I could have that and I could have that. Oh, I could have everything. So it is a really tough mental thing to get over and it's almost like, yeah, you have that end date, but just add back in like a little bit or even if you add in a good amount of just clean foods, it's like take like that week or two extra and kind of treat it as just a continuation of what you were doing. And then they keep. Hopefully that diet fatigue won't hit you as much when you do start to introduce some of those fun foods. Cause ultimately I think people wanna get to a place where they can have some of those fun foods, go out with friends and family on a Friday night or whatever weekend, celebrate kids birthday or whatever. Then they totally, I think everyone should try to get to that point. But man, you just gotta be real careful if you do it too, too close to when you end a diet. Cause it's just slippery slope.

[Johan Vesters]: 26:19

Yeah, there's a lot of stuff on reverse dieting and we talk about it a lot. And, and, you know, some people say it's, you know, it's the best way to do it. And I really do like it. Other people say, you know, you don't need it at all. You just jump back to maintenance. I, I just think it is at least nice to have like a transition, you know, instead of being like, okay, we're done. Let's go back, you know, very next day. It's just risky, you know? So it's, I like that transition. It's so much more effective.

[nick]: 26:48

Yeah, yeah, I think some people it works really well for. Some people that, I think there's pros and cons. I'm with you 100%, I think that makes a lot of sense or you just kind of just ease back into it a little bit. I think some folks, I think maybe it's the case if you push the diet a little bit too hard, the idea of sort of continuing on without getting right back to maintenance is almost like, oh, I can't do this because it's just like adding two weeks to my diet or whatever and you're already kind of burnt out a little bit. But I think if, especially for general population folks, if you can go in with a mindset of like, oh, maybe you just end like a week or two early so you don't get to that point, it's easier to do that gradual transition because sometimes, you know, you try doing that and people are like, I, no, I need some more. And then you're like, okay. So yeah, it's, I don't know if there's like a right or wrong answer there, a little bit, you know, as you know, like in nutrition coaching and working with people like. He's going to be able to modify the plan a little bit to what the person needs. And some people might like that gradual transition because the weight spike probably won't come up as fast either. And then some people are like, no, like just get me to where I need to be. Hey, for the love of God, I just need to

[Johan Vesters]: 27:57

You

[nick]: 27:57

be done.

[Johan Vesters]: 27:57

give me

[nick]: 27:58

And

[Johan Vesters]: 27:58

food.

[nick]: 27:59

yeah, exactly. Yeah. Okay. Cool. Works.

[Johan Vesters]: 28:04

for sure. So we just talked about hard work and what it takes in your own fitness. But I really like, just from a business time point, I really like how much that translates into that. But pretty much anything else, success in life. You know what I mean? So let's actually tie this into your book. So first of all, why did you write the book? What inspired you to write Fit for Success?

[nick]: 28:29

Yeah, so we go back in time a little over three years ago. So my wife was diagnosed with breast cancer in January of 2020, like right before my son's eighth birthday. So he's like 11 and 1 half now. And that was a real wake up call. My wife is a super healthy individual, arguably more healthy than myself. So it was just a huge shock. And then, of course, not too long after that, so she had surgery. She started chemo. and very early of March 2020. And of course, not long after that, COVID pandemic hit. Our kids were being homeschooled. It was this really, we could have very easily fallen into a very negative space. It would have been a very easy downward spiral with everything going on. And I had spent the last couple of years just reading a bunch of books. I'm just a little bit of a nerd and loved it. And whether it was like a fitness book or business or psychology or personal finances, you know, economics. I just started to notice a lot of, I guess, commonalities of like what made people successful. And at first I was just like, oh, that's really interesting. Now I just make some notes in my phone. And then over time I started to like get this list of like, I think it started out as about 10 different things. And I was like, wow, like I keep seeing these same topics or trends or... And it doesn't matter the topic, right? Like different, completely different genres. And I just thought, wow, that's really fascinating. And I was like, well, this person was successful in fitness because they did X, Y, and Z. But oh my gosh, like this person in like personal finance essentially said these same exact things, obviously in different words. And so I started tying it all together. And then, you know, COVID hit and we had everything going on around us. And I was like, wow. This is really like the ultimate test of all these things that I've learned, like can I apply them to myself and our own family because holy shit, like we need this right now. You know, because it's one thing to sort of talk about all this stuff and think about it, but then like when you really have to put it into practice in your own life, like with some pretty serious consequences, there's by the way, my wife is 99% back to normal. Like she's been free and clear for almost three years now. I sometimes forget to mention that and people are always like, you know, how's your wife? So just want to

[Johan Vesters]: 30:42

Hmm.

[nick]: 30:43

mention that. And so again, just having to put it into practice, I was like, wow, I think this is gonna be something that would be really helpful and applicable to people that are going through this like literally crazy worldwide catastrophe that is impacting every single person on the planet. So I was like, I think this is a really good time because we were locked down. Because this was very early on, my wife was going through chemo, like man, we were taking all that stuff seriously. We weren't really leaving the house much, groceries couldn't get delivered, whatever. So I was like, man, I've got several months ahead of me here. I wonder if I can turn this into a book. So I kind of had the rough draft and everything going. And I was like, I really wanna get this out before the end of the year, before 2020 ends, just because it was a shit show. Let's just call 2020 a shit show. That's

[Johan Vesters]: 31:35

Oh yeah.

[nick]: 31:35

what it was, right? Yeah, I don't think anyone's gonna argue with that. And so that was really the motivation behind it. And Because I was using all these things myself and I thought, I think a lot of other people are struggling right now too, so if they can come out and help other people, like let's turn a bad time into a good time and let's get some good to come out of this.

[Johan Vesters]: 31:57

Awesome. So what are those trends that you saw in those books, those different habits?

[nick]: 32:04

Yeah, so there's seven of them, kind of distilled everything down into seven. One is work ethic. We've already talked about that. So you can't be successful without putting in the hard work. There's no way around it. It's the whole thing of you have ideas, but you never do anything with them. Well, you're just never going to become successful if all you have is ideas. You actually have to put things into work, into practice. You actually have to do something to create an outcome. That kind of forms the foundation of the pyramid. You can't get around that. You have to do that. Number two, and man, I just, the more and more I think about it, you could have easily convinced me that this is the most important one. Like, I get it, you have to work hard, which because the work ethic is the shortest chapter in the entire book. Because like, how much can you really say about work ethic? People kind of know you need to work hard. But number two is internal locus of control, which is just the, here I am, you know, three plus years later, and I see tons of posts online, and maybe I'm just biased because like the people I follow and whatnot. But it's just like this universal phenomenon where people are always talking about things you can control and things you can't. And I actually have a very relevant story because my son is this week, he's 11, 11 and a half, for the first time ever, again, he's went to my, I guess my parents' house and stayed before and whatnot. So he's been away from home before. But he's at a Boy Scout camp and he's kind of on his own, so to speak. And he was having a really hard time with it to the point where he like called home, like crying the first night. And I was like, Oh man, like, and normally, you know, my wife would say, I'm a little too like hard on my kids. And she thought I was going to be like, just deal with that. Roar. You know, but I got on the phone with him and I'm like, Hey man. I'm like, I'm like, what, what day is it? He's like Sunday. I'm going to be here for a full week. I said, okay, but you, you can't worry about any other day, right? Cause that's like. That's way ahead, that's way in the future. I said, what's right here, right now in front of you? Tonight, and I was like, you just focus on tonight. That's all you have to do. And it's like that goes back to the whole idea of internal focus of control. So you can only control what's sort of right here in front of you right now. You can't get too caught up in the past, you can't get too caught up in the future, right? Like you just have to focus on the present. And if I talk to them again, I'm gonna be exact. Put one foot in front of the other. What's the very next thing that you can do? Now put your other foot in front of the other. That's what you have control over. No matter what happens to us, we always have control over how we respond to things. That's really, I guess, the biggest takeaway from internal locus of control. Because you can get really caught up in all sorts of negative thinking, comparing yourself to other people, all this. But it's like you don't have any control over other people. You only have control over yourself. And so if we can remind ourselves of that, and if we can always come back to that, it just creates so much better stuff. So because we're also talking about bodybuilding, I can give a perfect example. So I'm at my show and I'm backstage. Every single person backstage is jacked. They look like freaks, like superheroes. And I think it's very easy to get caught up in a negative space when you're back there, right? Because I think most people, we're always comparing ourselves to other people. And like the easy thought would be like, oh my gosh, like I don't deserve to be here. Why am I here? And of course I had some of those thoughts. But then I just had to put my headphone in, not both of them, because I needed to be able to hear what people were saying. And I just listened to some music, and I just basically had some things that I tell myself. I usually say these things every day. I'm like, I can't worry about other people, I just have to focus on what I can control. And it was relaxing for me. And I'm like, okay, I'm good, I'm good. They deserve to be here, I probably deserve to be here too. So that's a good example. And it just helped me, I didn't get like. too crazy worried about what other people are doing. I'm just like, it doesn't really matter what other people are doing. It matters what I can do. So, does that kind of make sense?

[Johan Vesters]: 35:59

Yeah, totally. I feel like that's that one and hard work like, because obviously then the hard work is also within your control. I feel like we forget that sometimes all of a sudden it's like, we have shit that goes on, you know, at work or with friends or stuff other people do or, you know, social media, there's all this stuff. Or even sometimes in check ins, it's like, oh, yeah, but you know, week was okay. But I went here and then the food and you know, There's always like these kind of factors like outside of your control. Sometimes I tell people too, like, no, let's, there's actually talk about like the stuff that you didn't and are you showing up? You know what I mean? Um,

[nick]: 36:37

Totally,

[Johan Vesters]: 36:38

because

[nick]: 36:38

because

[Johan Vesters]: 36:38

I feel like

[nick]: 36:38

we-

[Johan Vesters]: 36:38

we're, we're very.

[nick]: 36:42

Oh no, you go ahead. Yeah, I got a couple of thoughts. So please continue.

[Johan Vesters]: 36:47

Because I feel like these days people are very quick to kind of like start blaming shit Also a point where it's kind of like kind of going back into the hard work too is like, you know Everything needs to be easy and this needs to be convenient and Like there's all these other factors that you know make too much of an impact for us to actually be able to do something about it, you know

[nick]: 37:13

Yeah, it's funny that he mentioned the blaming other people because one of the books that really kind of, was like, oh, this is really eye-opener, was Jocko Willink's Extreme Ownership. And he's like, everything's your fault. And like, that's actually a good thing. Because when it is your fault, you have power to change it. Like, you can do something about it. And so that was a really big one for me. I was like, oh, wow, this is a really interesting concept. Okay, everything is my fault, whether it's good or bad. Okay, if it is bad. that's good because then I can do things to change it, which is awesome because the first three principles all really kind of tie together. So real quick, I'll mention number three, positive mindset. And I think of that as like optimistic people, but here's the interesting thing about optimism. You just kind of generally think that things will get better, but what's really interesting, there's a book called Learned Hopefulness. And the idea of hope ties back into, so if we work at the pyramid level, right? So you got work ethic. internal locus of control, positive mindset. So these, I think all really tie together. So you can be hopeful because you know that your thoughts, your actions, something that you can do, they matter, right? And that ties into internal locus of control because you have control over that. And if you feel that you have like the agency or the ownership over something, you are more likely to put in the work to get a specific outcome or to improve your situation, whatever it is. And so it's like, man, when I started to kind of put these things together, as to how it worked, I was like, holy shit. Like this is really kind of the quote unquote secret sauce. And now again, it's very hard when you talk about mindset and all that, because like, when I gave the example of my son, right, like, you know, he's 11. So no one's going to expect an 11 year old to kind of grasp me saying it's because like, holy crap, like I didn't grasp him until I was in my thirties. Right. Like, so it was a little unrealistic to expect an 11 year old to know this, but like,

[Johan Vesters]: 39:04

Hehehe

[nick]: 39:05

usually if you can just help kind of remind people this, usually it gives them some comfort. Oh, okay. Like, okay. Yeah, things are kind of going bad around me But like I can still control like what I think about it or how I respond and it just gives people like that little pause And then they're like, okay Yes, bad shits happening, but there's at least something that I can do about it. Even if it's a simple it's just like taking a deep breath Okay now what usually that helps people

[Johan Vesters]: 39:33

Yep.

[nick]: 39:33

so those

[Johan Vesters]: 39:34

Yeah.

[nick]: 39:34

are the first three kind of all tied together Number four, you actually mentioned it earlier, it's all about discipline. And for me, a lot of that is like, discipline really comes down to delayed gratification. If you can make the slightly harder choice now, you're gonna have a little bit easier future, versus if you make the easy choice now. And man, this is so fresh on my mind, I'm gonna say this, because it goes back to my son. And listen, my wife was very beaten up over this. Her baby is away. and is struggling and is crying and oh my god it's hard. It is absolutely hard. But like she even called like her mom and my mom she's like I don't know what to do like am I doing the right thing. And like to you know my what would be my two well my mom and my mother-in-law they both said the same thing that you gotta let him stay. He has to stay. And

[Johan Vesters]: 40:31

Yeah,

[nick]: 40:31

I

[Johan Vesters]: 40:31

I don't

[nick]: 40:31

told

[Johan Vesters]: 40:31

figure

[nick]: 40:31

my wife

[Johan Vesters]: 40:32

it out.

[nick]: 40:32

I'm like exactly. It sucks. It's going to be very hard for you. It's going to be hard for him. But the hard choice now leads to easier things later on in life. Because if we're there to be his comfort, right? And just like he can always fall back on that. It's like this, I can't do it. I can't do hard things. Oh, you know, mommy had to come rescue me, something like that. But like if he can do it. And he can do it because he had already went on like a two day camping trip, you know, like a couple months ago and that's how he was like, Oh, this is going to be fun. I really want to do this. But like, it's that hard choice now that leads to slightly easier outcomes later on. It's the same idea. You can apply it to parenting, to personal finances, to fitness, obviously. Right? Like, of course you want to go eat the cookies and all that, but if you don't do that and, you know, maybe there's something better, like, well, the long-term outcome again, if you can. you keep doing this and you're stacking all that together, you're gonna have better health outcomes later on. So that's how I view discipline. And you can do things about it. You can make your environment easier so you don't have to exert as much willpower. Like, you know, I'm sure you know all that stuff too. I'm sure you've probably talked about it. Like you can make things a little bit easier on yourself. So that's number four. Number five, you start to get up into like your purpose and meaning. And again, usually if you have like a greater purpose or you really love what you're doing, it's just gonna make things a little bit easier because you're inevitably going to have number six, which is failure. You're going to fail, you're going to mess up, you're going to slip up. I've never met anyone that's perfect before. Minus my wife, of course, but never met anyone that's perfect. Slightly joking there. And again, like when you have this greater purpose and meaning, when you do hit these stumbling blocks, when you do fail, it's much easier to pick yourself back up and just keep going. because you're like, okay, this is just part of it. Like, I'm just, I'm not going to quit because you know, I love this so much or whatever. Makes things a lot easier. And you know, gee whiz, all this stuff that we mentioned here is super hard, right? It's just, man, I really want to be successful. But like there's a, the very tip, the very top of the pyramid. You've got this idea of recharge. And so this comes down to probably a few different things. You know, in Cubby's, Seven Habits of Highly Effective People, he refers to it as sharpen the saw, same kind of idea. So to me that means like are you doing the things that will lead to better self-improvement self-development reading books Learning are you taking time for yourself again? That's very applicable to fitness You're practicing something like mindfulness Because usually if you can become a little bit more mindful you can control your emotions better You won't react as much you become a little bit more proactive versus reactive It's like all these things really tie together and like again usually if you're more have better control of your emotions, you're probably going to be a more disciplined person too, because something happens to you, you don't necessarily have to react as emotionally. So like, I just see all this as really stuff that ties together and, you know, it's just something I'm always thinking about, I'm just fascinated by it, like I love reading about successful people and seeing like, well, are what they doing, is that really like the rule, or is that a little bit of an outlier thing, or like what's going on here? But even when you read enough about enough different, successful people in different areas, you do start to see some cool, common trends. And I just love that idea of trying to figure it out and see what it takes.

[Johan Vesters]: 43:58

Yeah, I like that too. I like as well that you mentioned that book, Extreme Ownership, because I haven't read it yet or read it. But I did read, did you read Ego is the Enemy? Mariah and Holiday?

[nick]: 44:09

Mm-hmm. Yep.

[Johan Vesters]: 44:11

So I kind of had like a similar moment there where I read that one and I was like, fuck, yeah, it's actually true. Like, it's all my fault anyway, right? Which is, I feel like in fitness, right, tying this back to, you know, people listening and we all have like failures and those kind of things. And maybe we're just, we're in a state where we're just not happy about it. You know, at the end of the day, like it is up to you, which is very confronting in a way, but it's also really cool. Cause it's, it literally means that you can do something about that. But I also had a similar moment where I said, Oh, fuck. Yeah. So it is like whatever I'm currently like unhappy about in quotes, right. Or, you know, that I want to improve. Like where I'm currently at is my fault. and that is

[nick]: 44:58

Mm-hmm.

[Johan Vesters]: 44:58

hard to kind of like accept at the beginning. But once you do, I feel like that's gonna allow you to really like move forward, you know?

[nick]: 45:05

Oh yeah, and ego is a really interesting one because I think sometimes it's viewed really negatively and for a lot of times it is, right? Because it is, man, it is a very humbling thing when you realize it like, oh, yeah, it is all my fault, good or bad, especially the bad. It is my fault. If you have a big ego, it's really hard to accept that because you're gonna wanna point the fingers at other people. But when you point those fingers back at yourself, you can become more humble. You can drop that ego a little bit. Man, that helps a lot because you can go ask other people for help. You can seek out mentors or just ask for help because no one's an expert in everything. So it work. I don't have all the answers. For the love of God, I don't have all the answers. So that's why we hire other people, to help with marketing or engineering or sales or customer service. And then it's like, let the experts do their thing and try to learn from them and pick up on all this stuff. And again, a lot of that comes down to humility and not having a big ego, but man, it's a really big thing. And I just wonder, when we're younger, I don't think I would have had the capability to grasp out some of this stuff in my early 20s. And I've seen this with other people, especially in the fitness space. Like when you're in your early 20s, you kind of just think that you know everything. And I remember being like that and anyone that didn't think the same way that I did, I was like, they're wrong. They're stupid. And then as I get older, I'm just like, gee whiz, people can do other things and want to train for other reasons. And it doesn't, it's like, so I think that's just a maturity thing that comes with time as you get older, but like, if someone were to present, like, let's say my book, but like it was written by someone else and handed it to me when I was like 21. I don't know if I would have got the same things out of it. I might have just read it and been like, eh, OK, that's cool. But fast forward 10 years or whatever, and I'm in my early 30s, I'm like, huh, OK, now I can kind of put this together. That's a really fascinating part to me. Because I think, and let me know if this ever happened to you, but I can read the same thing. But if I'm in a different sort of stage in my life, or even different mindset. I'm gonna get something totally different out of it from like the same book, same principles, same things, same words.

[Johan Vesters]: 47:38

I feel, because I haven't re-read a bunch of stuff, but I feel like that too, where there's definitely a couple of books that I want to re-read at some point. But I feel you, because I don't think when I read Egoist the Enemy and I had an impact on kind of like just me and kind of like me actually taking action for shit that I wasn't like fully happy about, you know? Same kind of thing. I don't think that would have hit like the same way if I was like... even a few years before that, you know what I mean?

[nick]: 48:11

Yeah. Oh yeah.

[Johan Vesters]: 48:12

It's

[nick]: 48:12

All

[Johan Vesters]: 48:12

nuts,

[nick]: 48:12

right.

[Johan Vesters]: 48:12

and especially my twenties, because I was laughing when you said, like, you were kind of like, yeah, you know, like I have my ways and, you know, everyone else just too, but I had a very similar kind of mindset in many ways, you know? And then, yeah, I guess it's maybe also like getting into your thirties and just learning and just fucking up as well, you know what I mean?

[nick]: 48:29

Yeah, totally. That's,

[Johan Vesters]: 48:30

But it's

[nick]: 48:31

you

[Johan Vesters]: 48:31

fascinating.

[nick]: 48:31

know, it is, it is fascinating. Cause I just remember you can just, I think that a lot of people kind of fall into that dogmatic thinking too. And you know, they fall into like different camps and then it's like, it becomes like a, basically attack on people's personal identity. They give you challenge app. It's like, ah, you know, cause if someone comes up and they're like, hey, like I do keto and I like intermittent fasting, I'm gonna be like, okay, cool. Can you tell me why? Well, you know, I just like it because it fits my lifestyle. And I'm like, all right, cool. Like there's obviously a series of principles, right. And if you can, if it fits in the parameters or that, like you control for calories and, you know, obviously if that makes you adhere better than like, that's the biggest thing. And so, but like, you know, 10 years ago, I was like, oh, that's stupid. No, no, no. You can't do keto. I'm like, no, you gotta do this. And it's like you said, it took a few times. And I remember this because I wrote some diets for some like really high level crossfit athletes. And I was proud of how much effort I put into them, but they never followed them. Because it's almost like I made things so perfect that no one could have followed it. Even the most hardcore person would have been like, okay, come on, this is just too extreme. They would work out two, three times a week, or I'm sorry, two, three times a day. Two, three times a week is nothing for them. But two, three times a day. And so as I had like the shakes in there, like two or three different workouts, and I'm just like, it took me a couple times of failing and figuring that out as like, well, my God, it's just, it's too intense for people. I need to make it more practical to fit in their lifestyle. And if they can adhere to it better, it's okay even if the trade-offs are slightly not perfect. And so when I realized that, like I remember having a conversation with Rich Froning and he's like, yeah, I wanna do fasting. I'm like, okay, I'm like, are you okay? Like that's not ideal, especially for someone at your level, you know, because you train so much. And he's like, yeah, but like, you know, just kind of fits my schedule and I've got small kids or whatever. And you know, I really love a big meal before I go train. I'm like, that's cool. I'm like, here's what we're gonna do. You know, we won't do that, but like obviously you're gonna eat more after you're trained and you'll eat more at night. I'm like, are you cool with that? And he said, yeah, absolutely. So I'd say it just came down to trade-offs. But like a couple years earlier, I probably would have argued with him more. Like, no, come on, man. Like, he can't do that. And I would have like, hey, let's get on the phone. And I would have like been trying to convince him. And like he probably wouldn't have fully bought into it. And then like, who knows? Like maybe we never even would have ended up working together. We've been working with him for like four or five years now. So it is the case where sometimes you just have to mess up and kind of just get smacked in the face a little bit to figure it out and pick, oh, okay. I need to be a little bit more flexible myself.

[Johan Vesters]: 51:16

Yeah. Yeah, no, 100%. I mean, I feel like this is essential for growth, you know, and we need that slap in the face sometimes because we can keep doing things a certain way. But if you know, if it's for example, like this, right, if people can stick to it, or if things just don't work, like, obviously, something needs to change, you know,

[nick]: 51:38

Mm-hmm.

[Johan Vesters]: 51:38

which might take some figuring out. And that's okay, too. Like, that's maybe good to mention to for the listener, because It's not that you listen to a podcast about hard work and being successful and those kind of things or read a book and then you just know how to do it. No, you're still going to fuck up. There's

[nick]: 51:55

Mm-hmm.

[Johan Vesters]: 51:56

still going to be ups and downs. I like to tie this into weight loss all the time too because it's always that fluctuation with

[nick]: 52:03

Mm-hmm

[Johan Vesters]: 52:03

literally everything.

[nick]: 52:05

Yeah You know, here's the thing that I think listeners have to remember So even when you know you talk about this stuff all the time or like heck I suppose I've literally written a book about it. I still struggle with all this stuff. I still mess up I still get in my head sometimes way too much And I get you know down on myself and again like that's kind of why I have these like things that I always say to Myself and usually if I'm going for a little walk Like I'm kind of going over them in my head and you do it enough for long enough, like, yeah. Then I put myself in a situation where I'm backstage before I'm gonna go on stage where I've like spent months and months and months working towards this one point. And yeah, like had I not maybe practiced some of this stuff, like who knows, maybe I could have gotten more stressed out or like, you know, just not been in the same spot and might not have done as well. But it's like, just kind of second nature. And I was like, no, no. Just going to do my thing, just my thing. That's the only thing that really matters. And I think it helped, because I just was very relaxed at that point. I'm like, let's just go have some fun. So it does matter, but we all do slip up, even the quote, unquote experts or whatever. And it's all a process, and it's OK. Just don't beat yourself up over it too much. And when you do slip up, you're like, all right. Hopefully, did I learn something from it? All right, cool. What can I change next time? And then it's like, hey, just right back on it. Right back at it.

[Johan Vesters]: 53:32

Awesome. Cool. So as we're getting up to the hour, we'll also be respectful for your time because I can imagine that you have a whole lot of stuff to do.

[nick]: 53:41

I

[Johan Vesters]: 53:41

Anything

[nick]: 53:41

love talking about all

[Johan Vesters]: 53:42

you

[nick]: 53:42

this

[Johan Vesters]: 53:42

want

[nick]: 53:42

stuff,

[Johan Vesters]: 53:42

to share?

[nick]: 53:42

man.

[Johan Vesters]: 53:44

Yeah, okay, so in that case no

[nick]: 53:47

Yeah,

[Johan Vesters]: 53:47

like

[nick]: 53:47

you're

[Johan Vesters]: 53:47

do you have

[nick]: 53:48

like,

[Johan Vesters]: 53:48

any?

[nick]: 53:48

that's good. Yeah, anything to share? So, you know, I love talking about all this stuff. Feel free to, you know, reach out on like Instagram or something if you have questions at nick.shaw.rp. The book Fit for Success. I mean, you can get it on, you can get like a paperback version on Amazon. It's like, it's not that expensive, but I want to say on Kindle, it's like a dollar or two. So it's like, you can go get it and check it out. It's also on Audible. The audible version has some kind of like podcasts, some chit chats that we did when we were recording it. Just some Q&A stuff, it's kind of cool. And then, man, the thing that I'm most excited about right now, and again, this ties back into like just being back into that potty building mindset, but the RP Hipertree app. Like I used it for every single workout of my entire prep. I don't have to use my pen and notebook anymore, and I carry that with me, and sometimes I forget it at the gym if I'm training at home versus when I go to the gym. It's just great, man. Everything's on my phone. I don't really have to think. It's just like everything is laid out, and the weights, the sets, the reps. It's awesome. I love it. Like I said, I'm looking at it the night before I go lifts. It's awesome. I love building my next program. I just did that the other day. I was like, oh yeah, this is gonna be fun. Oh, okay, here's what I wanna do, and all that. I lift six days a week, so I used one of the presets in there, basically the modified push-pull legs. Yeah, yeah, push-pull legs. That's something I'm most excited about, man. It's just really awesome. I'm loving it. If people, again, if it's more general population folks listening, I wouldn't necessarily recommend it. But if you kind of want to take your first three, or you basically just want to look a little bit better, it might be something. But yeah, if you're just getting into lifting, like work with a coach, work with a local trainer, something like that, learn all the basics. And then once you've kind of mastered some of the basics, that's where something that we do might come into play, but not something I would recommend for beginners.

[Johan Vesters]: 55:46

Awesome. Dude, I'll make sure to link that in the show notes as well. To the listener, thank you for listening. Make sure to share this episode. I was going to say share this episode in your stories if you enjoyed the episode. And of course, feel free to drop us a rating and or review on Apple or Spotify. And then we will be back next week. Talk to you then.