LET'S GO!
We talk with ordinary people living extraordinary lives. Be inspired, LET'S GO!
LET'S GO!
Cory Gallup & Ross Nelson
Do you ever feel like fitness has become an unattainable Holy Grail? This episode is a testament to the contrary featuring Cory Gallup and Ross Nelson, who share their transformative health and nutrition journeys. They've put in the hard work, discipline and marathons of self-love to lose over 150 pounds collectively, debunking the myth of quick fixes and fad diets. They take us through their initial approaches, Cory’s 'eat less and move more' mantra, and Ross's tailored plan, and the importance of aligning with like-minded wellness warriors along the way.
Stacks of fitness magazines and quick-fix diet plans can often leave us feeling like we're grasping at straws. But Cory and Ross prove that it's about fostering daily habits and a mindset change, not the latest diet trend on Instagram. They candidly discuss their mental battles and the self-criticisms they faced on their path to a healthier lifestyle. Cory shares his experience running a 62-mile race still feeling like the "chubby" kid, injecting a dose of relatability and honesty to the conversation. They emphasize celebrating progress and extending grace to oneself as crucial to sustainable success.
Ever hit rock bottom? Or felt the glaring need for change? Cory’s been there, and he shares his inspiring journey of clawing back from the precipice and emerging stronger. Together, Cory and Ross explore the value of time, discipline, hard work and the importance of prioritizing family. They delve into their online fitness and nutrition coaching program, offering a supportive community and 24/7 access to themselves. This episode is just the right blend of lessons, inspiration and practical advice for anyone embarking on a journey to better health and fitness.
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Corey Gallup and Ross Nielsen. Welcome to the podcast, guys. Corey, this is your second time coming back on, which super stoked about, and Ross, this is your first time, so welcome. We appreciate you guys. Thanks for having us. Yeah, and Jordan, way to make it through traffic back here at my man.
Speaker 2:Well, thank you very much. I was a little nervous. I thought I was going to have to do like the Houdini and just appear during the episode. So it's worked out.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it's all good. Well, hey, the cool part about all this is we're all in the same profession here, which I really love, and knowing that you are back here, we have a lot to talk about. But first, ross, since you're kind of new to this man, let's talk about your first second. All right, how did you and Corey get linked up to even come here?
Speaker 3:So Corey and I have worked together in the same Italian for a while I think at least a year or two and being in the same department for a while, we ran into each other at different events and things and we were neighboring stations and I started kind of going through my journey with the health and nutrition side of things, trying to get my life squared away, and I if you guys have listened to Corey's story in the past from the first podcast, I was the A hole that told him that just eat less and move more is what I was doing.
Speaker 3:So it's that simple. I am that guy, right? Well, again, like he was talking about, it's the fire service, right? So as soon as you do something, someone has an opinion on it.
Speaker 3:So God yeah, so just trying to figure it out, and we'd see each other on calls and I think probably for about two months straight he was asking me what are you doing, what are you changing? And that's when it finally just came out Okay, this is what I'm doing, and it was. You didn't even tell me it was Brian Roberts, right, and that's that's where I was getting that with. Is someone else that I kind of tell Corey was going on that. Once, I think Corey approached me and said, hey, are you, you're doing this? I'm like, yep, that's what I'm doing.
Speaker 3:So, okay, yeah, so that's that's how I kind of came into it with Corey and we quickly in that, in that group that we were working with, there is a first responder side of things, and so we were kind of getting together and as we were both going down this journey together, I got to know Corey a lot better than just the company officer from the neighboring company, right, you know we're now we're becoming buddies and we're texting back and forth and can you believe this is going on, you know? So it really started to grow, this friendship and bond, and as things progressed and things started to change, we kind of started looking at each other differently, of having more trust and faith in each other, with going with our route that we ended up going, which is important, right, right, absolutely so, um, yeah, and that's what led us to where we're at today.
Speaker 1:And this is. Is this also part of the super human fathers?
Speaker 3:No, we, we started.
Speaker 4:It's it started. That way it started.
Speaker 1:Okay, so so both we're both of you on that.
Speaker 4:Yes, yes, ross had his own transformation, and he actually was doing it before I was, and it was by seeing his transformation that it made me realize that this wasn't just some guy that maybe had 20 pounds to lose and then got shredded and jacked and and completely changed his life. He looked more like me. Okay, okay, so it, it was by seeing him that it made me realize, hey, I'm capable of doing this too. So I see, we were both part of super human, super human fathers, which is a fitness coaching, nutrition coaching and accountability group started by a firefighter from our agency, and then we both had, I mean, pretty amazing transformations. There was no magic pill. It was. It was hard to sell. We, we did the work, but then you get to a point where you, you climb to the mountaintop. Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 4:And a program like that, and you know then. Then you start asking yourself what, what next? Am I truly this man? Am I capable of maintaining this on my own? And in the middle of both of our journeys, ross had spoken up about wanting to do something outside of the fire service, and that piqued my interest, because I had never thought about anything like that before I'm. I'm old school where you you signed up, you got your job, you counted your blessings, you did your 33 years and then you retired and rode off into the sunset and tried not to die within two years, right.
Speaker 3:That's very true. Yeah, finger crossed, yeah.
Speaker 4:And so when Ross said that it was the first time that I'd ever thought about doing something different, you know or doing something different in retirement. And so I contact them on the side and said, hey, I'd be interested in in doing that with you. And then, once we both hit that point in within Superhuman Fathers where we were, it's almost like we had graduated high school and we're off to college now. And now it's all. Now the new seniors have come up and now they're in charge of of the school.
Speaker 4:They're the big men on campus, and and so we, we had to ask ourselves and, and I started getting curious about the what goes on behind the scenes why did this work for me? How does the nutrition work, how does the workout programming work? So we started educating ourselves on that, and then I was the first one to kind of take the leap and walk away from Superhuman Fathers.
Speaker 1:Okay.
Speaker 4:And I had zero intention of starting our own program. We had talked about it in the past, maybe someday. You know, someday is always. Just what does Jack Johnson say? Pretty much seems that maybe, or pretty much always means no, or something like that. Right. It seems to me that maybe pretty much always means no Good reference.
Speaker 3:So you're going with banana pancake yeah.
Speaker 4:So I I ended up starting a coaching app. Well, on the same app that we were using in Superhuman Fathers, because I I still like the programming and the workouts. Well, you can't just sign up for it as a client, you have to be a coach and then assign clients to it. So I just did that for myself.
Speaker 3:You can be your own coach in this program.
Speaker 2:Yeah, Okay, so you need like an administrator type to be able to okay.
Speaker 4:So I signed up for basically both ends of the program. I signed up as as a coach and then hired myself as a client.
Speaker 2:I'm a home boss.
Speaker 4:Yeah, and so I was doing that on my own and Ross was still in Superhuman Fathers and then other people started finding out that I was no longer with the program and then I had my own ability to program workouts and they said, hey, can I you know, my membership is also up or I'd like to join you Can, can you put me in your program? So initially I was doing it for free because I'm like, sure, why not, I'm just messing around anyway. And then it got to a point where I had a handful of guys in there where I contacted Ross and I said, hey, remember how we talked about possibly doing our own coaching thing somewhere down the road? And he was like, yeah, and I said, well, I think now's the time, I think it's already happened sooner than later.
Speaker 4:So, and that's how we got started, heck yeah.
Speaker 3:And Kyle. He's pretty straightforward with it. When we started Superhuman Fathers, he he talked about you know, ultimately my goal is to get you guys out and coaching and kind of feedback into the machine, if you will. So it wasn't like we're these renegades, that kind of went off and started our own thing. It definitely was fostered throughout the program the. You kind of grow these multiple facets of your life right, so you get your nutrition and workouts in. And then that kind of exposed me to, okay, well, I got these two things kind of figured out.
Speaker 3:My financial house is a fricking mess and that's what kind of got me into looking to other sources of revenue and going down some other paths. And that's when Corey and I kind of really linked up on the coaching side of things. And so that's one of those things about a program is you start to realize where your deficiencies are, and that's the great thing about it is you can start strengthening, improving that. So that's how this really kind of started. And yeah, it. I mean we had the same goal of hey, look we, our target audiences, first responders primarily. I mean we'll help anyone that we can possibly so, but to pull out as much as you can out of retirement. If we can pull more checks out of retirement than we put into the system, that's a big winning. Yeah, and by helping our guys be healthier and live longer and not die of cardiac related events on incidents, and you know, that's what we're really kind of aiming for. So that was having that common goal and a drive, that that really helped out.
Speaker 2:I think that's a that's really cool, that you guys are able to key in on the you know, and obviously, like you're saying, the goals is first responders initially, and who that extends to the people you can help is amazing either way. But having that, you know, it's like. Look you, sometimes programs that are set up create the foundational, you know, awareness of the people involved. Right, you guys clearly have utilized a program that has worked for you. You've tapped into whatever that catalyst was that went from where you were at before and that was the driving factor into getting to the healthy status that you are, you know, not just okay with but are excited about, right, you know, and then things spin off. I mean that's just that's life, that's business, that's all these, all these other things you know and good for.
Speaker 2:I don't know him personally, but obviously he's created a good thing for himself in that. And as things expand and, you know, maybe ideas of what you think individually they should be will change, you know, and keying in on the first responders may happen to be one, you know, I like to see that within our community because it's, you know, it's inspiring, and we talked a lot about that when you're on here last time, corey, in the backstory of what got you started and everything, and I hope we jump into that with you too, ross, but it's, I think it's inspiring and it's you get to see these individuals have real time success and making that the priority, you know, or at least the foundation of what you're doing. The new foundation, I should say, is it's really cool to hear and you know, hopefully you guys, hopefully everyone takes a piece of that and can apply it to that. You know and like and like you were saying, was that not calories and calories? What was?
Speaker 2:the term Move more, eat less. All these, all these like one liners that we've everyone's heard this, you know and like there's always like working, working on this job, and I'm sure it's like a lot, but we are exposed to the crash diets, what's popular, the, you know, keto, this, that, that, and I'm not knocking any of them, because I'll be 100% honest with you, I've tried them all. Oh, we all have.
Speaker 4:Yeah, I'm offering like 10 sick. You know I can see one ab you know we're doing good, but I had more of a pony keg going.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I always call it a, a, a four pack and an inner tube.
Speaker 4:I was like I'm working, quite, get rid of the hunch is here.
Speaker 2:My parents say it's genetic, so, but anyway, what I'm getting at is that very cool to see you guys take that step and, more specifically, I think it's cool for first responders and you're creating a you know, sometimes, um, I think when you see a company like the, the, the super human fathers you know they had, they have tremendous success in that right.
Speaker 2:And sometimes when you see that movement goes super fast, I mean I'm sure it's good to the individual that owns it. But sometimes when things get like kind of clicky you know, at least in this profession, you create like a distinction, sometimes within the group, where it's like you're like oh, I'm, I'm in good shape because I'm in this club, and that's really not what it's about you, you, how, you're more, you're trying to surround people that are like look, look, you want to live a good life, you want to cash out your retirement checks, and if it so happens to be that you're in the best shape that you've ever been in your life, then it's a win across the board. So instead of it being this like well, if you're out, you're out, or if you're not in it, you're you know what I mean Like there's not this weird distinction. You know, like obviously we all talk shit, because that's what we do.
Speaker 2:And that's his personality types, but it's in love.
Speaker 4:Right, of course. So most of the time, of course. Yeah, I'm just yeah, I was a disclaimer.
Speaker 1:I was like most of the time but, either way, man, I think it's really cool.
Speaker 3:But look at the fitness industry in general. Right, I mean like you're talking about, like keto. I knew the big personalities that you've had. They're all kind of a flash in the pan thing, you know. And the nice thing about what we're doing at intentional, savage fitness is we're fine, we're using and we learned it from super human fathers is it's a tried and true kind of old school method of just watching your nutrition, balance nutrition. We're not emitting any food group. We're not. Carbs aren't the demon or fats aren't the demon, and it's resistance training Right.
Speaker 3:There's no fasting. I mean you can do whatever works for you or whatever you like. It's a, it's a lifestyle thing and as a commuter like that's one weird thing for me too is I'm still able to travel back and forth from home to work while still hitting all my nutritional and workout goals. So that's the great thing about this program is you can still go eat out with your family. You can still go on vacations. It's not, you're not making any big sacrifices. The sustainability of it long term is what was nice about it and I think really works for our profession.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it sounds like a like a it's an increase of accountability to the individual, because you have to stay on track, but that also means you have to do the work Right, right, so it's not a like you said, it's not just like you're not taking a pill, right, I wish, yeah, but you know, but having a fundamental life approach that doesn't get rid of the comfort measures, completely Enjoying, you know, it's like yeah, dude, you can't hammer burgers every night.
Speaker 4:Like you know, even though, I could literally every single day.
Speaker 2:I'm right there with you. But you know I just attainable is really and I think that's the key to this success is that it's like obviously you're going to have to work. There's no, there's nothing easy with that in life, but I don't know. Seeing that firsthand with individuals, personality stuff like that, getting to know it, anyway, I think what you guys are doing are awesome, so appreciate it.
Speaker 1:How much weight did you lose? Oh, thank you, I was about to ask that.
Speaker 3:I'm down. At my lowest I was down 70 pounds, so I started at 235. I got down to 165 and that was kind of over the course of a year, year and a half. Oh wow, I lost my initial probably 60 pounds in six months, six, eight months and then kind of started trying to gain some muscle back on. And then I have this bad habit of starting these things right before the holiday. So I am that idiot that starts something right before a holiday to really deprive myself.
Speaker 4:At least you don't wait till January 1. Yeah, yeah, right, right, right.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I got a running headstart into the holidays.
Speaker 4:You know, there's countless people everywhere that right now are saying well, the holiday, holidays are here, so I'm going to wait till January 1st. So they're already thrown away two months, right?
Speaker 3:No, two months for two days, really, yeah, I mean, if you look to think about it like Thanksgiving and Christmas, right, like that's that's going to be the two days that they're going to want to let loose and they're going to cut off 60 days.
Speaker 4:Yeah, so I'm. I'm down to 82 pounds at my lowest, so we're over 150 pounds between the two of us. Wow and it's. We didn't do it by a fad diet, we didn't do it by whatever. The latest fad workout program is P90X Beachbot. You know any? I'm sorry, I don't mean to speak negatively about any programs or whatever, but, um, we, 90% of what we did, was mindset change and daily habits. That's it. Um, I heard a great quote the other day.
Speaker 4:Uh, john Gordon was on uh, annie for sales podcast and he said you don't do it by doing extraordinary things. You do ordinary things with extraordinary consistency. Very good, and that's all we did. We did normal stuff with extraordinary consistency and that's what we we continue to do. So I do want to clear something up for anybody that might be wondering, that knows us, that knows superhuman fathers, that knows Kyle Carnahan there is no ill will, no bad blood between us. He encouraged us to do this. That's excellent. We're not the only ones to to branch off. Our program is inspired by superhuman fathers. And he even said uh to me in a in one of the last conversations we had was hey, I look at it this way the more people, the more men's lives we can change. It's all good.
Speaker 3:Well, and imitation is one of the greatest forms of flattery.
Speaker 1:Right, I mean absolutely so.
Speaker 3:Yeah, he, we talked to him both independently and yeah, he was both very he was a very encouraging of us starting our own thing. So, yeah, there's there's never been any ill will or malice between any of us, so that's good.
Speaker 1:Yeah, you see his family. Dude, You're like dude, everyone's shredded, I know right.
Speaker 4:Even like his two year old daughter. You're like wait what? What is going on?
Speaker 3:Yeah, in the background, and yeah.
Speaker 2:Cameron push ups. Yeah, I was scrolled through the five more. Johnny, we were at work.
Speaker 1:I was at work over time, whatever it was, and they had brought donuts and I'm, like you know, before conference call, like cool stuff and someone brought down since, like chowing on one, and I just see his picture of his family. I was just like I'm such a piece of crap.
Speaker 1:But Ross dude for you man, actually both. What was that point in your life where you said handy to change? There's something about me, whether it's mentally, spiritually, physically was it all of them or was it the physical that hit you? I need to do better for myself.
Speaker 3:It was so. I was 35 or 36 years old, just finished my annual physical with the department.
Speaker 1:OK.
Speaker 3:And I my youngest was maybe two or three years old at that time so they wanted to start me on hypertension medications. They I mean, I have a family history of hypertension, but I also have a family history of cholesterol and you know, when they start explaining all these things and being a medic, I understand you know the risk of stroke and all these other things. So you start kind of going down that, and so at the same time I was also shopping for life insurance and they do their own screening as well, and the same issues came up in my my life insurance screening. So kind of talked with the wife and said there's no way I want to go on hypertension, as at 36 years old there's got to be something I can do. I reached out to Kyle at the same time we were moving out of state. Um, good move, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 4:When you say you can mute, you know you're not talking 30 minutes no no, so we're.
Speaker 3:we live in our trailer for two months prior to, while we were waiting for our house to be finished building. So kind of one of those mornings where you just kind of dread and get out of bed. I was sitting there, doom, scrolling through Instagram and the superhuman fathers ad came up. One of he's now a co-worker at my station, but one of the guys I've known for a while with the department came up and I recognized him and guys shredded like a Julian salad, like he is just not an ounce of fat on him.
Speaker 3:So and he's there with Kyle and I'm just like holy, I gotta get something straightened out, and just feeling like crap sitting in a trailer. So, um, yeah, hit up Kyle and started down that path. And so, long story short, after I got my life insurance policy and we were paying a pretty high rate on the policy, I lost the 60, 60, 70 pounds. I called them back up to get explain to them. Hey look, you know I want to get reevaluated. I think I can lower my premium. And they ended up dropping my my premium by half.
Speaker 3:Oh, wow, and they offered me an extra 10 years on top of it because of the lifestyle changes that had happened. So, and that's without any medications and all this stuff. So I mean, not only there was no even hint of hypertension any longer, my cholesterol was under control. So just in the matter of a year I had gotten all this squared away. And trying to explain that to someone over the phone when they look at your, you know this is a nurse that came out to my home and drew blood and all this stuff and got me on the same scale and they're like, wait, there's no way, this is right, you're 70 pounds lighter now, yeah. And so, you know, just trying to explain them the same thing, like I didn't want to be that guy, I've worked with those guys that pee every 10 minutes because we're on the hypertension bed and they'd rather be on the med than Spit out half a donut. You know, make that sacrifice, make the sacrifice. I mean, I know what the maple bar is going to taste like.
Speaker 3:Oh, dude so good, but right, but you've had to see such.
Speaker 1:Okay, I'll be with you guys. Yeah, I also had a piece of apple man. It's a small bite If you cut it in 10,.
Speaker 2:you know a knife, a knife, and you cut the dough in half, eat the whole donut.
Speaker 3:There's still this kind of thing.
Speaker 1:And you cut the dough in half, eat the whole donut. There's still this. Calories, right? No, but that change that you've made physically, that's also had to take a positive change in your what you think of yourself, right, as far as how you feel like internally and externally, right, yeah, I mean there's.
Speaker 3:It's funny because as you go through this process I never thought I'd be a guy. That was Body dysmorphia is a real thing, right? I mean you start looking at yourself like, oh man, my goal was kind of like Corey talked about in his initial one, like I kind of gave myself this, this low bar for the initial goal with a with the uh, super human fathers. So once I hit that goal of getting down to 200 pounds and I'm looking at myself, I'm like I don't look all that much different than I did at 235. I mean, 35 pounds is a pretty significant amount, but a little bit of abdominal definition. At that point you know your jaws getting a little tighter, but you're starting to look at it like man, I can really go further. And then you're down at 180. And then I'm looking at myself like, oh well, I got four out of six abs, I can probably hit all six.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 3:And then you start looking at it like, oh man, like if I had a beer lesson I can tell my love handle looks a little more bloat. So I mean you start dealing with this stuff and yeah, I mean you're. You have different problems at that time and so getting the balance of and we've talked about this a lot and we were at a real low as far as calorie intake goes and there's a, there's definitely a healthy median in there, but overall energy is way better. My relationship with my wife and my kids is way better than it was before. I'm not as irritable, definitely more patient with them and kind of like what we've gone through with our department, you know, with stress, inoculation and things like that, by taking that time to be discomfort or uncomfortable in certain situations, both eating and lifting, and all this stuff makes it easier to be more present for the family.
Speaker 1:So, yeah, that's good to hear, dude, because I've dealt with that. I grew up very chubby most of my life and you know, once I became you know more an adult, I started with the Forest Service. You know that's just pretty much hiking and running all the time and then getting hired municipal. I started doing trath lawns and then doing ultramarathon, running 50, 60 mile runs, and I remember kind of at the peak I did this 62 mile run over here in Orange County and I did well. I got third place. Are you part Kenyon?
Speaker 3:Yeah, actually.
Speaker 2:There we go. Kenyon's got the tank yeah.
Speaker 1:But I remember finishing that race and that's when I was, you know, running a lot and I was probably like 178 pounds, but I still looked at myself in the mirror and was like you're chubby.
Speaker 4:I need to lose more weight.
Speaker 1:It was such a weird thing to finally have to really grow out of and get through that. That's why I always ask when I talk to people who have lost weight, like, hey, do you still deal with this? Like when you look at yourself, do you still feel like that chubby, fat kid or adult or the fear of it, right yeah, the fear of turning into that guy, yeah. Absolutely.
Speaker 3:And that's because you've put in all this hard work to get to this point, right? It's funny because my last angel physical, the doctor, looked at my stats on the paper. You know the consultation afterwards and he's like it says here you're at 3.5% body fat. This is usually the part where we start talking to our patients about bulimia and anorexia. Yeah, I'm not, I'm the last guy you got to worry about all that, right? But yeah, I mean it's, it's one of those things that you kind of it messes with you mentally and that's just. Another thing is, you know you're worried about the mental side of things in this line of work, but yeah, it's no, I feel you that's not come on.
Speaker 1:I asked that because for me that's I'll go out and run 50 miles, let's go lift, swim, whatever it's have fun, but it's always in a lot. Most of the parts of my life where I've struggled it's been the mental aspect.
Speaker 1:I always had a real hard time with that of accepting things, accepting the change. Like you're doing better. It's like I want to keep going down to this level where like, oh, you're just a piece of crap. It's like, no, you've changed. You put in the work, like let's elevate yourself here and what you think yourself. Have grace. That's the biggest thing I've learned in myself is have grace in yourself, man.
Speaker 3:Right? No, totally.
Speaker 2:I think that's like something that's and I totally agree with you. I think that's the hardest part when it comes to any kind of you know expectations of yourself, whether it's your body, dysmorphia, cause, like a dude. I'm absolutely that person. It doesn't matter if I've been in the best shape of my life. I'm like I feel right, look fat. I mean, someone takes a picture and I'm turned a certain way and there's like my stuff, you know.
Speaker 2:I don't think I'm a fat. I'm, and I'm not dogging on this, I just I'm not in terrible shape, you know, but to me that's the only thing I could focus on. My wife hates it.
Speaker 3:We're all worth critics.
Speaker 2:We'll take pictures and I'll be like you know, I'll like this is a weird angle and I'm like, oh my God.
Speaker 3:I look so fat Cause you're worse than me.
Speaker 2:I'm like, yeah, but you're lucky, you're one of those people. She's like you know pizza and loses weight. It's crazy, but anyway, but I also think that that that expectation of yourself is sometimes can be a bad thing. It also is what perpetuates you pushing yourself forward. Now, the key with that, though, is you allowing those not, I don't want to say negativities, but a little bit is the chip on your shoulder the drives you moving forward. And then, once you get to a point cause I and I thought what you said was very interesting because it's like the overall goal You're like, okay, let's say, if you're you said you're at 230, you're like, cause I was.
Speaker 2:I was at 225 when this was probably a year and a half ago, and it can't yeah and it no that was the heaviest I've ever been and I can give you a million reasons of what I think are acceptable excuses, but they're not. And it was after doing the, the evaluation, the physical evaluation. When I got it back I had the same conversation with the doctor and I was 37 and they're talking about going on cholesterol medication and I didn't have quite have hypertension issues but it was above where it should have been Right. And they're telling me and all I've ever heard with you know, and not knocking people that are on those medications, but it was like, oh, if you take cholesterol meds, you might have like erectile dysfunction issues, you might have this, and I already have like low testosterone for my age anyway. So I kind of am like thinking like, nah, I don't want this happening to me.
Speaker 4:I'm too young for this. What's going on? Just another thing, right?
Speaker 2:But when you, you know so, it's like I immediately basically crash, dieted myself to a healthier weight or what I thought was, you know better for me and you know, it's like once you kind of get where you're going, now you start getting super analytical about the other things you know. It's like, okay, yeah, my, I don't have. You know, I fit like the 34s that I wear are now a little bit loose on me, which before I was like right.
Speaker 4:And then put it on.
Speaker 2:I can still fit them. Look, that's a finger length and just all these stupid things. You know that you're constantly using, whether they're where they're influential, to help you make that change. Or, once you get the change that you initially set out, for it's still not good enough. And I feel like there's that happy medium of where you're like, look, you have to be able to be graceful in your success. You know, because that is a successful thing, whether you're doing it for aesthetics, you're doing it because you're worried about your health or your family, longevity, whatever. But you do need to be like, hey, good for you. Now, that doesn't mean go back to what you were doing before, because I would smash two apple fritters and a cup of coffee and an energy drink and then three hours later go have.
Speaker 4:You know the habit or something else, right 100%.
Speaker 2:And you know, but I did good this week. Well, right, and you're like okay, and not saying the one offs right, because the reference earlier I thought was great. You're like two months for two days because 100%.
Speaker 4:Right.
Speaker 2:So you can't do it every other day and you ate like shit on Christmas day or Thanksgiving or whatever, it's a win.
Speaker 4:It's a win, because who cares? In one day? It's a net positive for sure. Right.
Speaker 2:And I just you know sorry, circling back to where this even started was having I think that's a lot of people struggle with that of having the ownership of being like, yeah, you can also be successful as well as continue to push, and those two things don't have to be separate.
Speaker 3:No, they're not mutually exclusive and, like I've talked with Corey about it's, we were really bad at moderation in the beginning, right, like that's why we got to being overweight and not working out or our diet was a mess, and it can get to the B the other side of the spectrum of being really bad at moderation where you're not enjoying those things in life either.
Speaker 1:Like you're not you know.
Speaker 3:so you got to find that happy medium somewhere in the middle where you are still doing the things you need to do, you're taking care of yourself and that allows you to take care of the family, right? I mean, we always preach in the fire service that you know you got to take care of the response. The responders have to get there in order to take care of the emergency, right? So you got to take care of yourself in order to be present for your family, and that's the end goal of this is to be there for our families in retirement, to pull, to be there and present and healthy. I don't want to be the granddad or the dad that's in a wheelchair, you know, at 55. So right so, or injured all the time. So that's one of the things is just they kind of that was the driving factor was seeing where it was the markers and try to improve them and just keep pushing them.
Speaker 1:Yeah, corey. So people kind of understand who maybe not have heard your episode. You had a turning point in your life as well I did. What was that turning point? For you to finally hey say I need to get better internally, physically, emotionally, everything. What was that turning point?
Speaker 4:Well, I'm a little bit older than you guys are and I was actually when I first started. My daughter wasn't pregnant yet, so I didn't know I was going to be a grandfather, but during my journey I knew that I was going to be a grandfather. Just a brief recap of last time I was extremely overweight, I was extremely unhappy, I was depressed, I was unhealthy, my labs were coming back pores well, cholesterol, fatty liver, I reflux you know all of that and I got to a point where I was becoming more and more unhappy. And you talk about not liking pictures. My kids are older now, so I realized I had a decade of pictures without me in them, you know, because I was so unhappy with how I felt and how I looked and you could see it all over my face. Or my wife. You know my wife and I have been together we're just about to hit our eight year wedding anniversary, but nine years so I was very happy. So most of that time I was extremely unhappy with myself and we didn't have a lot of pictures either. It's not like we have a long history together. Yeah, so there was a a lot less documented history of my life, especially with my wife and my kids than I would have liked. And I, because I was so depressed you know I was I was sedating with alcohol and I was detaching from my family. And when I was home we did have a staffing crisis going on. I was not home a lot and when I was home I was doing everything I could to shut my brain off. And so I hit that point where, sadly, I'd actually given up on trying to change it because I'd had so many failed attempts that I just told myself that while this is it, you're almost 50. You know it. Just it is what it is. And I started thinking about retirement and what is that going to look like?
Speaker 4:And for those of you that don't know, I've been in the pipes and drums for the last 20 years and I've been to countless funerals more than I care to even recall. And every year we call it Memorial season. We do the Memorial for our agency, we do our state Memorial, we do the IFF Memorial in Colorado, and then there's also the National Memorial out in Amatsburg. So I've put hundreds, if not thousands. I've been present there when their names get put up on Memorial walls, and the majority of them were way too young. But a good mix of them aren't. When you think line of duty death, you think building collapse or you know a flash over or something like that, a lot of it's just from heart. You know from how we treat our bodies. We're not in the greatest of shape. So the cardiac arrest is the major killer of firefighters, leading cause of death, line of duty deaths and so many of these stories. Tragically they're just a couple of years after they retire. What was that statistic? You were saying?
Speaker 3:I don't know the exact number, but I think I heard something like the average retiree from fire pulls 21 paychecks, and that's monthly paychecks, so that's a little less than two years. Dude 21? That's terrible. It's horrible, yeah, so wow.
Speaker 4:So I got to a point where I just I felt like crap, man, and I was like I'm not even 50 yet. What is 70 going to feel like? And am I even going to make it there? Do you want to make?
Speaker 3:it yeah.
Speaker 4:What's that quality of life going to be? And I was fortunate in that I didn't seek out the accountability program that I came across. It found me and dragged me along, kicking and screaming, like it was just. It was one of those just I don't know. I guess it was just meant to be, it was just fate. I came across superhuman fathers. I found it. Something really resonated with me, and then it was like a switch was flipped and I just became an insane just intentional savage and never look back. And hence the name for for our program is both the same thing, or it happened in both of us, where you flip the switch and you're able to turn it on and get after it. And yeah, for me it was just.
Speaker 4:I was in an extremely unhappy place in my life and I had kind of kind of given up on trying to improve it. I thought that it was impossible. I knew how much weight I needed to lose. I had told myself that I will never be able to be happy with myself unless I do lose that weight, but I also had convinced myself that it was impossible to lose that amount of weight. So therefore I was stuck right. I'd back myself into a corner that I couldn't get out of and it I quickly learned. It's not just about the weight. It's not what the scale says, you know. It's the mindset, the discipline, the daily habits, the showing up in other areas of your life Versus just the. It's not just about the gym. This isn't about becoming a gym, bro, right.
Speaker 4:You know, this is about doing hard shit day after day, improving to yourself that you're capable of doing it, and after having given up on yourself, and then to have that epiphany that I'm not done, I'm not fucking done. My best days are not in my rear view mirror, they're in my windshield. And then becoming a grandfather. Right at the same time, I got in the best shape of my life. I got posted and became I'm sorry, I became a grandfather and got posted on social media as hey, look at this Like 5% body fat within two days of each other. Yeah, and it wasn't, like I said last time, it's not about the six pack abs, it's about the rest of the stuff. I learned along the way that I was able to be present, in a way, at the hospital for my daughter and my son in law and my grandson. I was able to be present in a way that I would not have been able to do prior, and now I see every day with my grandson Sorry, no man, it's awesome.
Speaker 4:This is the place for it, man. I just see it as such a gift every time I get to hold that little guy.
Speaker 3:you know and you're going to get more days doing it now because of the shit that you're in and you're not sedated. You're going to be conscious and present. That's huge.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and that's well one. Thank you for sharing that. And I do remember when we were talking about that last time. Just, you know kind of things like things happen in life. You know, maybe for you know, I don't, I mean I believe things happen for a reason. But whatever your spiritual perspective is, it's different for everybody. But you know, it's kind of like it's. It's great to hear like that. You know it's like I don't know. I'm jumbling this up, I'm so sorry, I'm doing good man.
Speaker 2:When you're yeah, I got it I got it who spit it out, no, but at the end of the day it's like look, you know, you, you, whatever that catalyst I use that term all the time right, because whatever that changes, or the epiphany that you had, you know, I think there's a lot of people that have extraordinarily similar circumstances that they do that to themselves. I am, I'm, I'm a hundred percent victim of that. You know, and what, when, whatever, if it's, if it's substance abuse, or you know, alcoholism or gambling or anything that you do, that you've convinced yourself that I can't get out of this because X, y and Z, you've already lost that side mentally, yeah Right. So if it's perpetuating unhealthy habits, if it's extra weight gain, if it's just how you feel, a depression, and most of the time all those things work simultaneously and you know it's.
Speaker 2:It's unfortunate because not everyone has that epiphany, not everyone has that catalyst that happens in their life that maybe they get the opportunity to change it from that point moving forward. And I think it's very specific to in our workspace, because it's predominantly what I've done in my entire adult life. But I've been around a lot of people in that way, you know, and to certain extents I feel like I've been one of them and you know you constantly create the bullshit, you create the excuse, and you see people around you sometimes that have that success and you kind of think, oh man, that's cool, but maybe it's just not going to be me. And you might tell yourself that, but at the end of the day, when no one's looking, you still make the same stupid decisions, right? So it's like what is it that you find that? Like you're done, I'm done, I'm done. Line in the sand. This is it moving forward, and I think that all of us have a responsibility to that extent and not just, obviously, with the business side of it moving forward.
Speaker 2:And that's the appealing part of it is that you're laying out a foundational plan, even though if you say it's old school, right, you know doing the work, accountability for yourself, calories, you know making sure you're in a certain thing, how much you work out, all that's great, but you have to sell the. You know the, you can do it, and it's like then that takes you to the next step of like well, what is it? What is that thing? Are you the David Goggins? Are you like? Uh see, stay for?
Speaker 4:yeah, we're the boats.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I was like one more mother fucking set. You know what I mean and that I like that. That's me personally, right, but maybe Tim doesn't like that or maybe someone else that you're around doesn't like that, and so the in your face don't be a you know what is maybe doesn't work, but you have the opportunity now, being around these, you know other individuals that may be seeking that kind of lifestyle, but they're, you know, not there yet.
Speaker 2:I think having that kind of broader perspective of like, look, you know, it doesn't have to be like you have to hate your life, you have to hate yourself to get to a spot of taking the next step. Maybe it's just like, hey, look, you have very good we're sitting across from very good examples of maybe different spectrums where you were at and for the reasons why would you be able to adhere to something, and it's just really rad to hear like out loud and then, like you know, do the perspective stuff of now you've gotten to a spot where you can appreciate what you've done for yourself and now you're in a spot where your presence is now appreciating the things that you have. You know, being a grandfather, I can't, you know, I'm still early in the dad game, but I can only imagine one day and the goal is I want to be there for that day that I can have grandkids and have that same experience of, yeah, dude, life is awesome and look at all the things that I should. You know I'm so appreciative of having around me.
Speaker 3:Well, not to mention he's a grandfather with a six pack. I mean that's pretty rad too.
Speaker 2:It is cool. I didn't want to seem like too much of a fanboy Corey, but I'm very proud of you.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it's, it's, it's. I really appreciate you both of you being so open. It's really cool because people need to see that we're not just this. You know, we feel like there's always that persona of people who are in public service like we've. We've got it figured out, you know we're. Yes, maybe we do it all ourselves because we're first responders and we help people, but we still have our own issues. We still have things that we have to deal with.
Speaker 1:And yeah, well, one thing that I've noticed over time, just being this career for 16 years and even with crazy injuries that I've had skydiving, seeing people pass away well, we're all fighting for his time you know, and that's the one thing that we can't get back Exactly.
Speaker 1:It's priceless. You know we can always go make more money, you can have more things, but at the end of the day, when your life is over, you're not taking your career, you're not taking your money, you're not taking your possessions and no, that's going to be there for you besides your family when it's when it's your time, your cards punched, your loved ones, hopefully, are going to be there. Hopefully you've cultivated something at your home that's loving and caring. But by being in shape, by the example that you're setting, both of you and even being a grandfather, is you giving yourself time and that's priceless time to see your grandkids grow, to spend the later years of your life with your wife and enjoying those years and seeing your daughter grow with her family.
Speaker 1:Those are things that you cannot put a price tag on and I've tried to explain that to so many people is dude. I've seen people die. We've all been there in their last moments. I've never, ever heard one person say I wish I had more money, I wish I had another promotion. Right, it's time. It's not funny, but yeah, but true.
Speaker 4:No it's totally true, it's accurate yeah.
Speaker 1:No one's ever asking for all this stuff and what's staying healthy and taking care of yourself mentally, physically, maybe spiritually, for anybody else, whatever you believe in? But the importance of that goes so much farther than people ever realize. You know my parents. They're getting older. My dad's 82. He looks like he's freaking 58. He's a very in shape man and that's because in his life he was a green brain for 20 plus years. So he has a discipline, he has that regimen. He's 82. He still gets up. He does 50 pushups, 50 sit ups, 50 air squats, walks a mile.
Speaker 4:Hell yeah, let's go Right. Exactly, dude.
Speaker 1:And he's fit and he's around. I see his eight grandkids and some are now in college, some are in the military, you know.
Speaker 4:So he's not just being able to see him, but I can only imagine that there has to be one or two of his grandkids that say I want to be like him. Yes.
Speaker 1:Yes, absolutely yeah, my brother's little boys.
Speaker 1:Yeah, they're just like papa all day, papa, papa, papa. You know they want to join the military and they're always running around and camouflage and doing stuff. But you know, the point is what you've done for yourself, of putting in the work, having that discipline, understanding, hey, I need to change, because if I don't, I'm not going to be here. I want to be here. I mean, I tell everybody I've had ups and downs in life and I had some hard lows, and hope is a hell of a thing. Hope will keep you going and any day above the dirt is a damn good day. So make it count, make it worth it.
Speaker 1:We got one shot at this life. It is as we all know. It's here and gone. I mean, it's like that, dude, it's quick. Your kids are grown, you have grandkids. I've known Jordan since we got hired together years ago. We're surfing, having fun and I'm watching him be a dad and I love it. I'm just like, well, this is crazy, you know, but it goes so fast, you know, and the way to keep yourself around and healthy is to have the discipline to do what you guys both of you have done.
Speaker 4:Hope is not a strategy. You have to do the work. Yes, You've got to put the work in. You talk about time. So much of my career has been spent chasing dollars, prestige, accolades, rank stature, all of that.
Speaker 4:I need to do more. I'm not doing enough, I'm not, I'm not important enough. Well, you worry about that at work, but not at home. And I I'm. I'm having these mindset changes now, especially as I approach retirement. I plugged in my my numbers. Once you see it, you can't unsee it. I'm leaving in three years. Good, very good. I'm not going to chase anything anymore. If anything, I have an even greater opportunity opportunity to help those around us in our department, just in a different way. Instead of being the, the company officer that's going to teach you how to do a certain skill or whatever, now it's like hey, when we're talking about time, I'm leaving in three years.
Speaker 4:If you were going to take a cross country trip with your family, what's the vehicle you want to do it in? Do you want to do it in a 64 Volkswagen bug that's been on blocks in somebody's yard for the last 30 years? Or do you want a nice, brand new Duramax, three quarter ton diesel with a nice trailer behind it that you know is going to get you to the finish line and get your family there? Versus when I say vehicle, it's just an analogy for, for your body, what body was I prepared to take into retirement just two years ago, yeah, and that was not going to give me the best chance of getting to the finish line. So we just want to impact those that were stuck, just like we were. Yeah, hey, look what we did. We can help you do the same, because I know what that feels like. I can look into that guy's eyes and I know what he says to himself when he looks in the mirror.
Speaker 3:Well, we actually have a retiree in our group that we're working with, that we're coaching, and just the differences and changes that he's made in the past four or six months have been huge. And he's he's talking about how he was kind of going down some, some paths with some substances and, you know, getting away from that and having a purpose again. Not I mean he wasn't lacking purpose, but he's up earlier than we were. He told us from the beginning that you know I don't need to get up. My kids are older, grown out of the house, I can work out any time of the day and not impact anyone. And he's the guy that's posted in our group of he's awake before me sometimes Right.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, I swear to God, he's older yeah. It goes to bed at four, but it's also a four?
Speaker 3:Yeah, no for sure.
Speaker 3:Murder she wrote yeah, I mean he's realizing that he's lost what? 20 pounds or so, yeah, 40 pounds, somewhere in that neighborhood and he's that's awesome. But he's realizing the pros of it, the benefit. You know he's extending that clock, you know he can't take the time back, but you can keep that clock running. We can keep that clock going as long as we possibly can, so, and the quality of life that we're getting in that clock is is a lot better.
Speaker 3:So, no, and and that's the nice thing about this too is there's with doing what we're doing, we have this group of men. So, during those hard times where it's hard to find that mental strength, the consistency like you were talking about Jordan that there's, there's guys have either been through that or going through it or will have gone through it in this group and they can offer that expertise or experiences or, you know, help each other out through these hard times. And it's it's a, it's an app still at the end of the day, but it's it's that connection that you have with other guys in this group that are primarily first responders. They're trying to get their life or their health, it together and you can message back and forth and you know, kind of show and demonstrate what you're doing to help out in these times, like on the strike team we were on together back in August.
Speaker 3:I mean, I was talking to the guy that's going out on one of these recent ones and my hey, dude, I was every gas station stop. I was grabbing two to three protein shakes a day just to help meet those. Those clerk cause. A ham sandwich and some cheeses Ain't going to cut it out there. So four uncrustables eight pounds of trail mix.
Speaker 2:I just took everyone's. No one eats the pickle, Like that's one thing.
Speaker 1:I don't know, that was something like I learned. Oh hot Okay.
Speaker 2:First of all, no, like I would say, 90% of people with the brown bag lunches. No one eats the pickle. I happen to be a fan of pickles, so I like pickle. I throw them in the cooler.
Speaker 1:I fight you for it.
Speaker 4:Oh, so we're on one.
Speaker 2:together We'll share the pickle and we'll be, we'll be money, but it's funny because, like those are the lunches you get as far as availability, which is understandable depending on what your operations are, it is and stuff. But you know, even in that, like for me, like I'm surprised we really didn't talk about this while we're out there because, like I'm absolutely the person that goes, I was eating good until, like, we got here.
Speaker 3:But here I am.
Speaker 1:So it's like cheez-its, cheez-its cheez-its because they're my favorite snack food and crustables and all this stuff.
Speaker 2:And then I felt better because I'd be like, well, I had like six pickles today.
Speaker 1:I had the fruit cup. Hey, they're cucumbers, right they are, they're vegetables, and there's, you get the salt.
Speaker 3:Right.
Speaker 2:Yeah, there's, there's a complete way I could bullshit the fact that I'm making that seem positive, but you know it's just it's coming up with a game plan, right and like. So you're saying like anytime we and you know, when you're running in there getting protein powder, I'm buying like rolls of zins, so I'm like I need it, right, which is the whole other problem that I would like to get rid of. But anyway, we're. Yeah, this guy cut it. He did. I know I'm proud of you, man.
Speaker 4:And I actually, I have fears cold turkey.
Speaker 2:I was utilizing this transition of the new station I'll be at to be a starting point. Going for it, yeah.
Speaker 4:Good for you. That's horrible station to do. That it is. He's gonna be bored out of your mind.
Speaker 2:But that's part of the that's part of the challenge. I think in that, and then I'm just going to chew a lot of gum.
Speaker 3:Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2:Count squirrels and yeah.
Speaker 3:Yeah.
Speaker 2:I like to carve things, I guess. But you know one thing I do want to ask you guys so if no one knows name of your company, where to find you, how to get interested and obviously not just word of mouth between the fire department and extending out to other first responders what's the best way to do that?
Speaker 4:The company is called intentional savage fitness and the reason for the name is you know, you do, you do savage things. You do change your life in a savage way, but it's with the savage intent. Not everyone says, oh, look at him. Or oh, my God, that guy's a savage, I could never do that. He's lucky, we're not lucky. Nobody looked at us two years ago when we were at our absolute heaviest and most miserable and said he's lucky.
Speaker 4:No we put in the work. It was the intent. We were intentional about everything that we did and, yes, we were not perfect, we blew it, but we had the intention and the ability and now the discipline to, when we did fall off, to get ourselves back on track. So, intentional savage fitness. You can find us on Instagram at intentional savage fitness. Like I was explaining earlier, we didn't actually intend I guess we weren't intentional savages about it wasn't our plan to get this company going so soon, this group going so soon. So we're flying the, we're building the plane as we fly it right now.
Speaker 1:So with that, yeah, the wrong with that.
Speaker 4:So we're, we're grassroots, we're getting it off the ground, but Instagram is going to be the best way for doing so.
Speaker 1:Okay, nice.
Speaker 2:That's awesome. I was like I feel like my brain works as like a slideshow. Yeah, no, it's like I got a question queue pop up and I'm like, okay, that'd be yeah.
Speaker 4:So if I could just tag on to that, please. So the next natural question is okay, that's your company, but what is it exactly? And I realized last time I was here I never really explained what superhuman fathers was. So what our company is?
Speaker 4:It's an online fitness and nutrition coaching and accountability with a community aspect to it, an accountability group. So, like I said, I got super curious about what. Why were these things being effective for me? So I started educating myself on them. I got certified in the macro nutrition, where I've also gotten certified in the workout programming. Ross is also educating himself on all that. So we're now we know the reasons why it worked for us.
Speaker 4:So we will program your macros for you, teach you how to track them. We will hold you accountable to tracking them. Ross will program your workouts. It'll be customized based on what your, what your capabilities are, what your fitness goals are, what you're comfortable with doing, your injuries, your age, all of that and that will be app based to where you can log in you it takes a guess workout. You don't have to go to the gym and say I'm going to do the same workouts I've done for the last 10 years. What should I do today. Yeah, it just you show up, you click on it and you go awesome, I'm going to do this workout and with there's even custom, custom customization that you can do on the fly if you want to swap out a workout or whatever.
Speaker 2:I was just going to ask you guys to have like flexibility as far as what you're you know, because, like even for myself, like at home, I have a Peloton bike.
Speaker 3:Right, I don't have I don't know anything like that. When I first started I lost the majority of my 60 pounds. But just by doing in garage workouts with bands and some basic dumbbells.
Speaker 4:I mean.
Speaker 3:I wasn't doing excellent, wasn't doing a whole lot of stuff in a gym.
Speaker 4:Damn it. You know how many people's excuses you just stole right.
Speaker 2:Yeah, totally, what an asshole.
Speaker 3:Yeah, that's the hard part and I mean a lot of it 90 nutrition is 90% of it, that just getting that dialed in. But the workouts are great. That's what's going to build the muscle tone and that's what's going to help keep the metabolism going throughout the day. But I mean we even have vacation workouts with bands that you can do. So you can throw a pack of bands from Amazon, you know, in your bag for 35 bucks and you have something to do.
Speaker 3:I was working out at the gym near my station this morning and they don't have all the equipment so you can go in through the app and actually substitute for what they don't have. You know, working a similar muscle group. It even tracks. I mean the app's great. It tracks what you did last week or the previous week so you can see how you're progressing. So there's that kind of reinforcement through it there too.
Speaker 3:And then there's the community whole side of the thing. So if you're going on a trip down to Costa Rica for a surf trip or something like that but still want it, you know you're still going to be tracking and kind of keeping on it and maybe not as tight as you are at home. There's guys you can reach out to the community there and it's it's kind of like the comment section of any Instagram or Facebook or something like that. Like, hey, going down to on a surf trip, what do you guys recommend? And that's the great thing about this is versus like the Keto's and the Paleo's of the past, where you really didn't have much guidance besides maybe a book that was printed a year or two prior.
Speaker 3:There's, there's people are working with us in our line of work. So guys that have been on strike teams, the guys that are commuting, guys that are in the station at busy houses, guys that are in the station at slow houses, they have all these pointers of hey, this is what I've done to be successful, to help out. So that's that's kind of the nice part of this, too, is this community that is built into the, the intentional, savage fitness, and this app is there's. There's that reach, reaching out and the accountability of holding each other accountable for what we're doing.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so we are downloaded. Like I said, globally is. Can somebody who is listening to this, that is outside the country, be involved with us? Absolutely.
Speaker 4:Okay, absolutely, as long as they speak English or have the ability to translate the videos that we put up or our instructions. But yeah, you, you can do it from anywhere. I've done it myself in other countries, oh yeah. So yeah, the the community based portion of this you can leverage not only just the other members in the program, but you also have 24 seven access to Ross and myself. So if you have, when you have those questions on your macros, when you need something customized for your workout, when you have, when you just sometimes a lot of its mindset related, when you're having those down moments, the community is great.
Speaker 4:I got so much from the zoom calls Because you almost don't want to speak out, because if you're, if you're new to the journey and you're still having you, you haven't had any wins yet or any large wins.
Speaker 4:And then you have somebody that's towards the end of their not the end, but has had a lot of success and say you're catching Ross or myself towards, you know, after we had already been in for a year. Well, you see that guy, and if you're new, you hadn't seen their struggle, you don't know what they went through and you think, oh, that guy's lucky, that guy just gets it. Well, then that guy shows up on a zoom and says, man, I completely shit the bed I've. I had this happen with my family and a lot of times it's not just about food, like oh, I ate a burger today, it's like no, I came home from work. This is me three days ago, came home from work, I was up all night. I literally got no sleep. We got pummel and I was driving home or I was going to my station to put my gear away. And I'm sorry I'm going off on a tangent, but I do that a lot.
Speaker 4:Two weeks prior we'd been on a fatality on the freeway 19 year old. I have a 19 year old son it. It affected me, you know, and I had had conversations with my wife about it. I'm driving home and I'm passing the area where that fatality was and I see a car pulled over and I see a woman over on the side of the freeway kneeling at the wall where the event happened, and I knew. As soon as I saw her I said that's his mom. Wow, that has to be his mom. Yeah. And instinctively I started pulling over. And then I started fighting with myself what do you do? What are you going to say? Why would you pull over? It's unsafe, you're going to get, you'll get killed. And so I literally pulled back into the shoulder three times. Ultimately, I talked myself into continuing on and then, as soon as I made the, I recommitted back to the freeway. I thought it is dangerous out there. I can't let her get killed as well. I don't know what I'm going to say. I don't. I don't know what I'm going to do, but at least I have a big truck. I can try and protect her while she mourns.
Speaker 4:So I ended up circling back. I came, came back up and around and I parked back there and I got out of my car and got that everything's just whizzing by and you're like, oh, this is not a good place to be. And I'm, I'm walking up to her and I'm like this is a mistake. This is a mistake. This is a mistake, what are you doing? And and I, I got to her and I vapor locked.
Speaker 4:I didn't even know what to say and I just said your mother, aren't you? She said yeah, and both of us just stood there and kind of stared at each other and the vacant, hollow look in her eyes I'll never forget. And I said I know there's nothing I can say. I know you just wanna be here to be with where your son was last. I said, but it's extremely unsafe. I'll stay here for a little bit. I'll stay parked right here, just do your thing, but you can't stay here. I wouldn't be able to live with myself if something happened to you. So I got back in my truck, I gave her her moments piece, she got back in her car and we both left. So that was pretty heavy, right?
Speaker 1:Oh yeah that's a moment.
Speaker 4:And I was sleep deprived Right. And I get home and I have this process I came up with to try and check myself at the door so I don't ruin my only days off at home. I did.
Speaker 1:I just I exploded.
Speaker 4:I exploded as soon as the littlest instigator happened. I completely snapped and, like I have this whole mantra be present, be patient, be present, be ready. And that's the be ready is breathe, reorient, evaluate, anticipate and align with your values, decide how you're gonna act and then yield Yield to everybody else in the house, because it's not about me, cause I haven't been home. I'm the stranger there, so I'm not perfect. Still, you know, I get home and I still, I still blow it. But the goal is is it's not just about calories and the workout, it's about the mindset, it's about being present, it's about just trying to be the best version of ourselves. But we still fall off. We still have to recover.
Speaker 3:But I mean you reached out to the group and kind of explained the basics of what was going on that day. I mean, and there was guys that reached out from within the group of hey, you know everything from guys that are similar, just you know sorry, it happened to guys that have some pretty in depth psychology backgrounds there, you know, are offering some suggestions, reach out, give us, you know. So that's the nice thing is, this group is there for each other and it it's kind of whatever you need. I mean, if, if Corey needed to reach out to any one of us, he knows it's there. It's a group of guys that really do care. Or if it's just getting it off his chest, it's like you know what I messed up. I I know what I need to do and I'm going to re reorient and keep going forward. But I mean, that's the nice thing is you have this group of guys there that aren't going to cast judgment. We've all been in the same boat as Corey. I mean, we've all come home and blown it up.
Speaker 2:It's made things worse. Yeah, so if you say you haven't, you're lying. Right, I don't believe don't believe you, or I think you're a psychopath Right? There's no way. We're all.
Speaker 3:That's the most human response, and and it's understandable, and but our families usually don't get it, and that's the hard part is trying to. You know you have this group, that that they understand where you're coming from, and we've all been in that same boat and I think there's a couple of really good suggestions Something about even writing a letter and even if you don't deliver it, at least you're getting it off your chest and now you can move forward. So I mean it's, there's a lot of good information and these guys have a lot of experience messing things up. We're really good at it.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so really what? What? It's more than just staying. You know fitness and getting healthy. You're kind of cultivating a community. Yeah, so it's coming from this.
Speaker 4:Absolutely.
Speaker 1:Yeah, where it's. It's not just keeping you on track with your physical fitness and eating what you're putting in your mouth, but it's also your daily life.
Speaker 3:Well, it's struggles.
Speaker 1:The struggles that we have as men or as women that are on there too, like we're human, you're human, right? I've had days where I come home, I think the same thing, Cory, I'm gonna be good. Like I just need to go surf, I'm gonna be fine. I get my surfing, I feel like I'm great. I come home and it's like something happens or falls on the ground and you lose it. Right, You're just like whoa, where did that come from? What happened?
Speaker 3:Or you sit in the truck, just not wanting to go in. Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1:So to be able to. You know, what's the good thing about having this with Jordan and other things I'm involved in is I do have a really strong knit, very small, tight group of people. It's probably only four or five. Not a lot of people have that. Not a lot of people have people they can open up to and be completely honest without casting judgment. And let's be real on our line of work. Let's do this, dude's judge bro. As soon as they hear dirt next thing, you know the station.
Speaker 1:the farthest side of the county knows You're getting text messages. Firemen, all the day off now, yeah, and you're like, hey, man, I told you that and confidence for some help here, right, so I'm real careful Confession.
Speaker 2:Those are my paintings, Todd.
Speaker 1:So to have that. I think it's beautiful, it's a good thing. I mean, you gotta be able to these emotions that we have as humans. That's God-given, that's in you. To be able to work through stressful times, hard times, joy, let down. It's okay to cry, it's okay to be frustrated, it's okay to be upset, but you gotta learn how to let that out appropriately and be able to talk to the correct people that you trust.
Speaker 3:You can't tell everybody everything.
Speaker 1:That's just. That's the way of the world. Man, you can't trust everyone.
Speaker 4:Or go on a podcast and tell about how you just messed up one of your only days off.
Speaker 3:I think honestly it's good.
Speaker 2:But, dude, that story, I think, is it's a little bit of a struggle, isn't it? And I know the call you're talking about and having interactions when you're involved with something, let's say, it doesn't go the right way, or someone loses a loved one or whatnot, and then you come across that person and it's always mine, always seems to be the grocery store or something, shopping for food it just recently happened, or whatever, and one. I think that's cool, that what you did. And when you're saying you're pumping back and forth and pulling over, I'm the same way.
Speaker 2:I'm not one to want to get off the freeway, especially because of scenarios that can lead to what had happened, and but you have this empathetic response sometimes for whatever that connection is with these people that you don't even know and how that piggybacked off of the nightless sleep going into the next day. Whether it's an attitude adjustment or it's very easy to not follow suit with a daily regiment. When you are in those positions, which happens to us a lot, it's like, okay, I was gonna come home and work out, and then do this and do that, and do this and do that, and next thing you know it's like you come home, you're three seconds into the house, you're pissed off because something's on the floor, or whatever. The case is mine, my kid, one kid screams a certain way.
Speaker 1:There's a certain pitch that doesn't even have to be about.
Speaker 2:I just immediately am mad and it doesn't make any sense and it's not right and it's and I like the acronym with the yielding right, cause you're yielding and I'm not good at it but I try and I want to be better and you know all that kind of stuff. But I think having your ability to open the networking within that app you're talking about, like that's half the struggle, you know and you know what's cool is too, is like you're gonna be like I don't wanna say like-minded, but essentially like-minded because you have common goals, or at least-.
Speaker 3:Similar circumstances.
Speaker 4:Yeah.
Speaker 2:And that's the thing, right. And like what Tim's saying, like I'm not saying, to run into a station that you don't know anybody and be like here's all my problems, Because more than likely it's not gonna be received very well, and I have been on both ends of that. Do you know what I mean? So where I was the one blur, now stuff. Then all of a sudden, now people I thought I told in confidence, aren't you know no things about me? I didn't want or I've heard people go.
Speaker 4:I don't even know you, I'm like damn dude.
Speaker 3:Like you know, like do you need a hug?
Speaker 2:But, it probably wouldn't have been bad. But you know, at the end of the day, I think that that format and then I didn't know you had the capacity of the video conference style or Zoom or whatever that's rad.
Speaker 4:We do a weekly Zoom.
Speaker 2:See, that's really cool and yeah, anyway, I just I think like what a great deal, cause I know with with a lot of popular, whether it was social media or anything along those lines you know you might as well be posting things on Reddit, cause the world will not. Oh yeah, we'll just basically take you down, cause, inherently, the keyboard warriors out there don't want to empathize with you. They want to make you look stupid because it makes the inferior people feel powerful.
Speaker 2:But I think that's super rad, being able to do that and like kind of bounce things off one another, and so much needed Cause everything that you said about that day. I'd be like dude, someone tell me something good.
Speaker 1:Is there any good day out there? You know they don't want to text him. He's like oh, it's skydiving, it's open.
Speaker 2:Today I was like okay, there are things going and what I think is supposed to happen.
Speaker 4:The point that I was trying to make with that before.
Speaker 4:I circled the airport quite a few times I'll land my plane now is there might be somebody in there that you think has it all together, and especially being in our program now us as the coaches you might falsely elevate us to this level of having it all figured out, but the things that always had the greatest impact on me was when I would go to those zooms and there would be somebody that I thought had it all figured out, was struggling with the same thing that I was.
Speaker 4:So when you hear that person that you're putting on a pedestal open up, be vulnerable and say, hey, I completely screwed this up, and you're like, oh, I screwed that up too. Yeah, yeah, I did. Oh, okay. So this guy who I thought has it all together still wrestles with these things and it doesn't give you permission to go say, oh well, he does it, so I can go screw it up too, but you, like you were saying earlier, it helps you have that little bit of give yourself a little grace that oh, I don't have to be perfect, I'm gonna try.
Speaker 4:Yeah, try your best, but I don't have to be perfect. And look, this guy does it too. So it's not permission to screw up. Hey, honey, it's okay if I'm an asshole to you, because Cory was. You know it doesn't ever work it doesn't ever work.
Speaker 2:Not one time have I had that approach. It's been like today was a good day, but I was just I was so.
Speaker 4:I was so upset with myself because for so long I've always worked so much over time and our staffing crisis and the captains have been getting just hammered for years that when we're at work you get FOMO and, especially with social media, you see your family live in their best life while you're at work and you get jealous or envious or whatever and all we wanna do is be home. I just wanna be home. I'm here on a 96. I can't wait to go home. I just wanna be home. And then we get home and we just get in our own way. We just step in it, you know.
Speaker 3:And it's our fault, but not to justify, but imagine how Corrie a year and a half ago would have handled it. I mean Corrie a year and a half ago may have even stopped off at the bar on the way home. Well, yeah, I mean it didn't look much different.
Speaker 4:I wanna tell you that that was a particular one, but there definitely were other instances where I've handled them way different and I've avoided ruining my days off or I was able to go have a great day with my family because I was able to hit the brakes, pause and filter my response in alignment with my values before the monster came out. But there were no brakes the other day.
Speaker 2:The brakes were out. That's the thing is, cause no one's perfect and that's the reality of it. And even in the successful journey of self-realization and success for what you guys are doing and or didn't I even say you guys, just as the individual right the reality is life's crazy. It's crazy, it's relentless, and your expectation of what you think's gonna happen. You probably got a 40% accuracy rate with that In that right. Cause there's only so many things you can control the day. You can't control the calls that you happen. You can't control the fact that you don't sleep. You can't control the fact that you have a staffing crisis. You get forced on a 96.
Speaker 2:Cause everything that you said is 100% true I like work, I like the people I work with, I enjoy the job to a certain extent, but I'm there for more than 24 hours and the only thing I could think about is getting home. And it's ironic that it takes sometimes 30 seconds of walking into the door where, instead of being like yes, I'm home, I'm going damn it, why didn't this happen? Why are we doing this? And it's like all of a sudden, you start spouting things out and you're thinking well, that escalated quickly.
Speaker 2:That was not my intention I mean intentions were not to be this way, but yet you find yourself in that situation now. Is it repetitive? Is it all the time? You guys, my wife, my wife will agree that it is a lot of the time. But you know, and I'm not saying that in a bad way, I just mean that we can only control so many things. But that's how. It's why it is so important to have that strategy of life, the approach, and not just talking about eating good and working out and living a healthy lifestyle.
Speaker 3:Better mindset.
Speaker 2:But having the mental approach and taking that time. Hey, that self reflection period. You run down your chart. I normally like exhale for like 10 seconds and shake.
Speaker 2:I don't know when I was a kid, the whole shake it off thing. I always kind of use that my entire life, you know, even when no one's looking. So that's kind of actually embarrassing. But you know, whatever your reset is right To change up the approach. And by having the stronger value system, by having the accountability, by being able to do the hard things consistently and the savage approach to accomplishing stuff in life, you know is important Because even when you hit all of those things, shit's still his heart, and you know, and it's like, yeah, and honestly, going back to what you guys got, you know, having the forum, having the ability to communicate with other people that have hey, if I would have saw that, did you stand something like, bro, it's gonna be okay. You know, I'm sure we can all laundry list it. You know what I mean.
Speaker 4:Jordan, could one of you guys please apologize to my wife for me.
Speaker 2:I think they have something else to do. They call it chat GPT. You can put you in a framework or possibly getting on.
Speaker 1:But if I did not anyway? Well, guys, thank you so much for coming out. I really love what you guys are doing and it's really cool that you also took the time to get the certifications that you needed, cause there's actually like an Instagram account I think it's Instagram, one of the social media sites. This guy's all about calling out people who aren't like certified and trying to sell stuff for fitness online, it's just total hacks, so it's legit, it's through and through.
Speaker 1:You have your certifications. You put in the work and the time. You're also both living proof of what? Proof, proof of your own success, of what you've been doing, the sacrifice, the hard work. So we're gonna be in full support of you guys. Thank you, we will actually talk to you after about this, about making a commercial and keeping on here as a quote, unquote sponsorship, just to help you guys Heck, yeah, thank you, we'll get that going, let's go. Ding ding.
Speaker 3:Give me the ding Ding.
Speaker 1:There we go, so real quick so people can find you again? Are you on Instagram, facebook or just Instagram, right?
Speaker 4:now. Just Instagram right now. Like I said, we're building it as we fly it, so you can find us at Intentional Savage Fitness. We are an online nutrition, fitness coaching and accountability group. We are geared towards first responders. There you go. You got it right there. Thank you very much.
Speaker 1:So back up a little, back up, back up, back up you Jordan, there you go.
Speaker 4:Boom, see the logo. Check out the logo. My wife was like is that supposed to be you? I'm like we're gonna buy one like that.
Speaker 1:Okay, is there a website for you guys too.
Speaker 4:Yeah, is that being built.
Speaker 4:Not yet. We're working on that. That's the landing gear that hasn't been put on yet. So, again, it's geared towards first responders, although that is not a requirement. What we are trying to do is to help find the guys that were stuck, like us, and give you a different look at what retirement, what your career is going to be like, what your life is like. We will change your lives. We will Love it, just the way ours was changed. So show up and we will help you. Keep showing up and we will get you there.
Speaker 1:Let's go baby, I freaking love it. Well, thank you guys so much for coming on. We will chat after about getting that commercial made for you guys. The last thing for me is keep going.
Speaker 4:Keep doing what you're doing.
Speaker 1:If anybody understands Jordan and I do understand about building something from the ground up it's work, it takes time, it takes dedication, it takes grit. There's gonna be highs, there's gonna be lows, there's gonna be things that you fail at, but you just keep moving forward. It's always able to look even if I mess up, I'm gonna mess up and fail forward. You just learn as you go, because with this podcast, there's a lot of people who want everything perfect right away when you start.
Speaker 4:It's not gonna be dude. You need to just start Just get going and that's what we did.
Speaker 1:Yeah, but what you were?
Speaker 2:saying I was like yes.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's what we did. I mean, like I told you, this podcast started in my kitchen on a plastic table. Now we have this full setup, you know, and we got global downloads. You don't know where it can go, unless you just try. Oh yeah, just go for it. So if I could say that, just go for it.
Speaker 3:You have nothing to lose, man.
Speaker 4:You guys are truly inspiring with that.
Speaker 1:Yeah, no worries. So usually at the end of this podcast we do a let's go on three.
Speaker 2:I'm gonna do it this time.
Speaker 4:I'm gonna get it.
Speaker 1:I'll actually do this. You know what? Why don't you lead us out, dude? You can do the one, two, three. Let's go, We'll get out of here.
Speaker 4:All right, everybody, everybody. Thank you for listening. Tim Jordan, thank you for having us. We really appreciate it. Let's get a. Let's go on three Ready One, two, three, let's go Bye everybody.
Speaker 1:Thank you so much for listening in. If you liked what you just listened to, please leave us a five star review on Apple Podcast and on Spotify. Please follow us on YouTube, on Instagram and on Facebook. And a big shout out to Stephen Clark, our sound editor. He's a huge part of this team that is unseen. It's eight, nine barbers our first sponsor. Look good, feel good, be great. That's two locations Orange California, on Beach, california. Book your appointment online eightninebarberscom. Bye, everybody.
