What is up and welcome back. I wanted to talk to you about growth and what it really takes to grow, to step out of your comfort zone. And you've heard it a million times before, right? You have. You've always heard that saying step out of your comfort zone. Social media is full of it. But what does it really mean? It seems like no one's explaining that part. You know what I mean? At the time of this recording, so yesterday I posted something on my feed. So if you want, go to my Instagram, go to April 24th and you'll see a photo of me with a bunch of books. And I spoke to doing the uncomfortable thing that is the inner work, looking yourself in the mirror and really looking into, hey, one of my flaws, my weaknesses, right? Like what's the stuff I got to work on to be a better person? And social media is kind of full of it now, but it's like getting uncomfortable, doing physically difficult things, whether it's the ice bath or even just, you know, signing up for something challenging like a marathon or really whatever. I fully agree. that people should be doing physically challenging things to build resilience. That's going to help you mentally, right? Become stronger too. However, it might be unpopular, but I think it's fucking like glorified too. And hear me out. I'm not saying that they're bad. I think you should be doing them. Like I said, take the ice bath, do the hard thing. Absolutely. But I'm going to go as far as saying that if we choose, to just do the physically difficult things without actually doing what's important, right? Which is the inner work, looking at our own demons, our weaknesses, our flaws. If we do that, we are choosing the easy way out. I'm going to put that out there. Again, if we think we can just grow with the ice bath, with a hard workout, whether it's high intensity or a marathon or whatever it is, right? Maybe doing certain... you know, like a long fast or something like whatever you're trying to do physically to be more resilient. Again, do those things, but... If you do not do the inner work, if you don't look in the mirror and you address the things that you kind of know you want to, right, kind of push away. We're choosing the easy way out again. I think this is something that's not talked about enough. So let's talk about it. Right. Let's let's do that. As you already know, like we keep it real in this podcast and I don't mind speaking about my personal growth either, you know, and let's start there. We all have our things to work on. I know you do. I know I do. Definitely. And I still do. It's been a very exciting four years of growing this coaching company, as well as growing as a person, learning so much about myself, my weaknesses, which were the exact things I had to overcome to become the person I needed to be to now build the team, right? To grow the company and help more people. Because it's our mission to help more people get healthy. There's a big issue going on worldwide. We've got the obesity rates going up, metabolic disease. So we're going to fight that global health crisis one person at a time. However, for me to be able to do that, right, to create the team, et cetera, I had to grow as a person. I still am. Right. So I want you to know that we're all going to have different stages in life, different levels, if you would like to call it that. But at the end of the day, we're also all at the same level. At least when it comes to growth, because true growth is a lifelong endeavor. You might might have heard me speak to self mastery. You know what? Like you're never going to be done. And I want you to look at it this way. In terms of growth, we actually are on the same page or same level, if you want to call it that, because. doesn't matter where you're at in your journey, at every next level, stage, whatever you want to call it, comes with a new set of setbacks, pros and cons, and lessons to be learned, et cetera. And it's all uncomfortable. So I want you to know that going into this fitness journey, this health odyssey, you're not alone. You're not the only person who feels like this. You're not. You're not the only person who thinks that this is difficult. That it's hard to change your habits. That it sucks when you fall off whatever you want to call it. Whether you under ate, you over ate, you made the wrong food choices, you got super drunk, whatever it is. You told yourself you were going to go to the gym, but yet again you didn't go. Please know that that's normal. Like we all have those kind of things. It might still be different. activities or things or habits that we struggle with or lessons that we learn, etc. But we're all in the same place. We just have different demons. We have different weaknesses. So for this podcast to make sense, I would like you to go to Google and type in comfort zone to growth, because I'm going to use the image that will show up as a framework. Pull it up. I have it right in front of me, too. And I may be turning this into like an infographic, but I want you to know I didn't come up with this, but I love the concept. And I want you, cause if you're not looking this up, I'll kind of like explain. You're going to see comfort zone, a circle, right around that, a bigger circle, the fear zone around that bigger circle, the learning zone, and then around that growth. And we're going to have to go through this process together to see that actual growth to get to growth. But like I just said, we first have to step out of the comfort zone, meaning we enter the fear zone, we enter the learning zone eventually, and then get to growth. You're not just going to sign up with a coach or with us or, you know, with a program meal plan, whatever it is. And that's it. Like, no, like we're going to have to do the work here. Everything we do is action based. It means that you can only learn truly and gain the skills, experience, et cetera, by doing the thing. So even now with this podcast, right? I want you to keep picturing this anytime you struggle with discomfort, setbacks, friction. And I want you to know that it's normal. And I want you to know that this is your reason to keep going. You're going to feel a bit of resistance. You're going to feel that comfort zone almost like pulling you back. It will. But when you feel that resistance, you know you got to keep pushing. You're going to keep going. And then you get again, like I said, fear, learning into growth. You cannot get to that point with any shortcuts whatsoever. Now I'm going to say this too. What we do coaching, right? Offering mentorship, guidance. That is one of the very few hacks in life. Just how you can read books and take someone else's experience and knowledge, learn from their mistakes, get a bit of a shortcut. But even then, if you do not apply these things, they're never going to work. They're never going to lead to true growth. So now let's get into it. Let me explain what is the comfort zone? What is it? Well, you feel in control. We feel safe. You kind of relax. It's kind of low risk. If you think about it, this is where like, let's call it nine out of 10 people live. If you think about it, right? We like that. We're human. We feel good in that comfort zone. And we're wired that way too. I mentioned this in a recent Q &A, but I was like, hey, like, look, your brain doesn't even want change. Your brain, right? And your body, but... for survival just wants to kind of keep things familiar. It doesn't really want to see any differences in the things that you do. That's why a habit is a habit. There's very low kind of like energy needed maybe to make a decision to do the thing, right? Because we already, we've done it so much, we're used to it. Guess what? If you want to get healthy, if you want to get physically strong, resilient, We're going to have to do things differently. Guess what's going to happen now? Your brain is going to go like, oh shit, this is uncomfortable. I'm going to try to create some friction and make you feel like, oh shit, this is not good. I'm going to try to pull you back into that comfort zone anytime you try to step out of it. But the only thing you could do is to actually take that big step. the analogy is maybe stepping into the gym for the first time. What's the scariest part about going to the gym if you've never been there yet? Or maybe you haven't in a long time, you feel uncomfortable about yourself. I was there by the way, right? So I feel you, I feel you. I was overweight, I was very uncomfortable. But I was so uncomfortable that I knew I had to do something about it. And being uncomfortable in that state, right? Where I was in that comfort zone with my shitty fucking habits. right? That was still going to be more uncomfortable than stepping foot into the gym. But okay, let's imagine that the actual physical first step into the gym. It's a cheesy thing to say, but that is the most difficult part, right? Going to nutrition and health coaching, it's like, what's more difficult than telling someone, hey, look, I'm overweight, I'm unhealthy. I don't know how to eat healthy. I need help changing my habits. Can you help me? Of course that's scary. Of course. I have these conversations with so many people. It's like, I feel you, right? I feel you. It's very common to feel like that. But I can promise you every single time in my life that I reached out for help, for mentorship, for coaching, that's when I got the shortcut. That's when I got the guidance and the knowledge from someone else who had been there, done that, right? Whose job is helping people, right? Get to that next level. holding your hand almost or being the Sherpa, the guide, the mentor, right? Leading you from comfort to fear zone to learning zone to growth. Right. Again, every single time I got help, that's where true growth happened. True grew anyway. Okay. So picture this. Yeah. You're stepping out of the comfort zone to where it was safe. Right. You're kind of used to doing things the way. right? You've always been doing or maybe have for a long time. Now we're getting into the fear zone. This is where your confidence is still super, super low and you're going to look for excuses. You're going to be problem focused and any little setback can really get to you. You're easily influenced by others too. So not only in here do you already have a hard time because you just took that big scary step. You're in the fear zone. You're still again, low confidence, you haven't shown yourself yet that you can do this. You're kind of coming up with excuses and your problem focused. You're just seeing, oh, I can't do this or right. I have to sacrifice this. You just focus on a problem instead of the outcome or sorry, the solution, right? So you're already feeling like that and now you're also influenced by others very easily. So what happens now, the second you get to comment, oh, you're Mr. Healthy now, right? Oh, you're tracking your food? I could have never done that, right? Oh, are you taking this gym thing a little too far, right? It's funny too, if you think about it, if all of your colleagues or family members, whatever, friends are so used to unhealthy behaviors that... You are now the odd one out when you eat a salad for once or you get a glass of water, etc. Or maybe you go with the diet soda, the small changes, right? It's kind of crazy if you think about it. But OK, even just those little comments can really get to you. And again, your brain is trying to pull you back to the comfort zone. But you got to keep going. You got to keep going. And this is where coaching can help you because you can be held accountable. Someone can keep you from falling back. Someone can push you, but also help you. and offer you that helping hand. Because now we get to learning, the learning zone, which is a very exciting part, because this is where you're going to start to connect the dots. This is where you're now starting to look for opportunities, and you're not as problem focused anymore. Now you're trying to solve the problems, you see? So as we go through this, I want you to know that pay attention to these feelings and, you know, characteristics of those different phases, because it will allow you to understand for the future. Okay, hey, I'm problem focused. Okay, that just means that I'm in the fear zone. Right? So that will allow you to also understand, hey, if I now keep going, I will get to that point where I get to learning and I'm solving the problems. You see, you go from reactive to proactive. You extend your comfort zone as well, because here's the thing too. Here's the cool part about growth. The things that you struggle with in the beginning, they become easy over time. I want you to notice too with tracking your food. making healthy meals, hitting your proteins, the list goes on. All of that, there's a learning curve in the beginning and that's fine. I want you to know that it is okay. But know that over time, those things become easier. So in a way, that comfort zone almost like takes over that area, the fear zone we're first in, you see? So you're growing. Your actual comfort zone is expanding. But okay, going back to learning, because that's where we were, right? We were not a growth yet, but you are extending your comfort zone. You're learning new skills. Like I said, it's all starting to make sense and you're connecting the dots and you're kind of taking on new challenges too. So to where before you were almost like looking for excuses not to do it or whatever it is. Now you're like, hey, you know, let me see how far I can push this or let me do, I don't know, like two workouts a week instead of one or maybe three instead of two, et cetera. Now you're kind of really growing. And then we get to growth. Like I said, there's still going to be a little bit of friction. Also in the learning zone, you're still going to have to do the work and it's going to take some time, but then you get to growth. And this is where you're going to feel most fired up. This is where motivation shows up as well. Notice that it didn't talk about motivation all this time until now. I want you to picture this once again. And if you've pulled up the image on Google, like, you know what I'm talking about. All this time from comfort zone to fear zone to learning zone, we haven't touched on motivation. Why is that? Because it's not going to be there. You might have a momentary, you know, bit of motivation, but it's not going to be the thing that's going to keep pushing you because it only shows up when you're already doing well. Motivation and growth will show up once you've gone through the fear and learning stages and you now get to growth. This is also where you start achieving your goals. There's high self -esteem. Remember that in the beginning you were problem focused and you're kind of solving solutions, but you weren't fully right. Like this is where you're like, Hey, you know what? I've shown myself that I can do the thing. So now we have proof. Now you're showing yourself that you can take action for your own health, for your fitness and make shit happen. So you're finding your purpose. You have a vision. and you're really starting to kind of see, okay, what's next? Because also here, right? This will ultimately, once you achieve that next level, turn into your comfort zone. Guess what? Same thing again for the next level. You see, we're never going to be done. You're not going to be done. You don't win the game of life. You don't win the game of health, fitness. Like, no, we got to get to a certain level. And then the work becomes the maintaining of my results. And then maybe I'm going to move into different goals. Hey, OK, I got lean now. Now I want to build some muscle because I know how important it is to put on muscle for longevity, for health. And of course for physique goals as well, but still, guess what? You're going to have a new set of challenges and setbacks. You're going to have a new set of problems to overcome. And you're going to have a new kind of experience going through fear, learning and growth. If I reflect on this now, I've gone through these moments so often. I can't tell you how often I've gone through these steps without realizing, but now that you know, I think you already kind of see depending on what you're trying to improve. Okay. Now I understand. I am actually, yes, I'm having a hard time, but I'm in the fear zone. Okay. So it's okay. Please know that this stuff is not easy. Please know that. I mean, that's why I have my job. That's why our clients need the accountability. That's why we do the weekly check -in because we can hold them accountable and we can help them. Because again, if you have that person with you, that's where you can see the true growth every single time. I got the help. It was really like that. You know what I mean? To give you a quick example, I mean, when I started this podcast, I mean, even before that, I couldn't even think of pulling up my iPhone and recording a video and putting it on Instagram. It was a nightmare for me. This was 2021. It's not that long ago, if you think about it. And... I was always the quiet, kind of like introvert, you know, like shy kind of kid. I couldn't hold a conversation, you know what I mean? And I'm used to being on stage and stuff, but even then, like I wasn't speaking to the crowd, you know what I mean? I still have my guitar almost to hide behind, but it's like, you know, I was never the person who would be like the, you know, the conversation starter, the entertainer, the educator, whatever it is. No, I wasn't, you know. So back in 2021, I had to step out of my comfort zone and hit record for the first time and it was terrible. And I have to shout out my friend, Christine Andali, as well as Sam Miller for pushing me because those two people were the two people who told me like, hey, you know, the only way you can start doing this is by actually doing the thing. So I did that. And guess what? Right. Same type of deal. low confidence, etc. I had to keep going, keep going. Okay, now we get a little better. Now we can start to tell better stories. We can educate better. Right. Two years later, we start the podcast. Right. And also there, it's like, I needed that push. And at that time, it was my mentor, Cody McBroom. He was like, same type of deal. You just got to start. It just got to start. Right. So I did with Christine together. public speaking, stepping into gyms being like, Hey, you know what, like, I'd love to do a nutrition talk for your people. I've done that multiple times now. And same type of deal there. Like right now it feels a little bit more comfortable. I've done a bunch of live trainings, I've done the podcast, et cetera. And by the way, also, right, I'm not, I'm not saying this to kind of like, you know, get credits, whatever, but it's like, I want you to understand that any aspect in life, right, whatever it is, that you're trying to get better at, like it's going to be this process. So for me, when it comes to public speaking, to doing this podcast, et cetera, like it was, it was all exactly like that. Same type of deal with fat loss phases, with muscle gain phases, with whatever it may be mindset stuff, the inner work that I was talking about, you're going to go through these stages and there's no way around it. Mentorship and coaching can help you. go through these phases, comfort, fear, learning, growth, right? But that's the only thing that can kind of help you get a better experience, I should say. But the doubt is gonna be there, the self-doubt, the obstacles, the setbacks, the failures, they're gonna be there every single time. And then once you get to that new comfort zone, the next level, same type of deal, just different demons, different setbacks, different... temptations, right? So I hope this kind of helps you understand why changing your habits is so difficult. Remember to change your habits actually take time, you know, this is maybe a good one to include as well for today, because it's, it's something that gives you a good idea of how long it might take also to create a new habit. And to also understand, hey, even if I'm not consistent yet, two weeks into my program, it's okay. Because guess what? You might have seen 21 days, 30 days, 60 days on social media. It can take much longer depending on how consistent you are, but it can take much longer for you to create a new habit. The research shows that it's like 66 days on average, but that's an average based off of just about 18. I think it was in the low up to 250 plus. I think it was, I would have to look up the study again, but top of my head, I mean, multiple, right over 200 at least. all the way down to 18 days. How long is going to take for you? I don't know that. And I don't think that should be the focus. You know what I mean? Because now you understand the process. Now you understand, okay, so there's going to be those stages. How long is it going to have to take for you to actually establish a new habit knowing how that's going to be? And then even thinking, okay, let's use drinking enough water as an example, a silly, easy one. But How long is that going to take? Well I don't know. How much of a point are you making to do the thing? Are you actually having more water or do you tell yourself I'm going to drink some more water and that never happens? That's not how you create a new habit. However, if you have a coach or you have a checklist or however you like to keep track of you actually doing the thing, like I said, action based, you got to do the actual action, the practice so that eventually it can become an habit. But it's like, how often are we actually doing the thing? OK, first week I set out to Increase my hydration. Okay, two days. Not bad. But it's also five days where we didn't hit it. Okay, next week. Okay, three days out of seven. Oh, that's pretty good. But still then, right? It's a big difference between two to three days a week and maybe like hitting your hydration targets like five, six times a week consistently. Which one do you think is really going to ingrain that new habit into your way of doing it? It's probably the second, right? five or six days. Notice I also didn't say every single day. I don't want you to be perfect. That's unrealistic. But I want you to think, OK, so now I know how this works. I understand that it's less about how long it's going to take, but how much I'm doing to think consistently. OK, now let me focus on taking action. So I hope this gave you a little bit of confidence in your ability to grow. I hope this kind of showed you that, hey, I now understand where I'm at and I will just keep focusing on putting in the action, taking action, being consistent. And most importantly, if you haven't started yet, take that first step outside of your comfort zone. I hope this helps. It was a bit of a shorter episode. I like doing the shorter one. So let me talk to you very soon. Have a great rest of your week. And of course, if you haven't yet, do me a massive favor. Go to Instagram, give me a follow. Feel free to share this episode on your stories. Maybe even go into Spotify or Apple. Drop me a quick rating. Again, we do this for free and it's a true passion. And I love sharing stuff with you. I love personal growth. And I've just seen how much it's done for me. So I want you to feel that same growth and happiness and excitement, you know. And I'm also going to be pushing you to grow and to do the thing. So I'll talk to you soon. Have a great week.