Speaker 1: Having compassion towards yourself. Whenever you're learning something is a skill. Yes,
Speaker 1: you may be not where you want to be, that's okay.
Speaker 2: The best selling author on the post the number one
Speaker 2: health and wellness.
Speaker 1: Podcast On Purpose with Jay Shetty.
Speaker 3: Hey, everyone, welcome back to On Purpose, the number one
Speaker 3: health podcast in the world. Thanks to each and every
Speaker 3: one of you that come back every week to become happier, healthier,
Speaker 3: and more healed. And that's my goal here. My goal
Speaker 3: is to introduce you to people who can help us
Speaker 3: become happier, help us become healthier, and help us become
Speaker 3: more healed in our lives. That's what I'm committed to,
Speaker 3: and I'm grateful that you're here listening and committed to
Speaker 3: that same mission. Today's guest is going to help us
Speaker 3: do just that. I'm talking about a dear friend of
Speaker 3: mine who I've been getting to know over the last
Speaker 3: few years. We've known each other in different incarnations, which
Speaker 3: I'll explain as the podcast goes through. But for those
Speaker 3: of you who don't know him, Nimai del Gardo was
Speaker 3: raised as a vegetarian by virtue of his spiritual beliefs
Speaker 3: and has actually never eaten me in his life, Nimai
Speaker 3: became the world's first vegan IFBB professional bodybuilder p proving
Speaker 3: that you don't need animal products to be an elite athlete.
Speaker 3: Nimai is a motivational speaker and shares his story all
Speaker 3: over the world to bring awareness to the many benefits
Speaker 3: of a plant based lifestyle and the importance of exercising
Speaker 3: our bodies and our compassion. Nimai has also founded vegg
Speaker 3: Nutrition and All Natural Supplement Company and Veganfitness dot Com,
Speaker 3: where he has coached thousands of clients, along with a
Speaker 3: handful of phenomenal celebrities and athletes doing their best while
Speaker 3: being plant based. Please welcome to the show, Nimai del Gada, Nimai.
Speaker 3: It's great to have you here.
Speaker 1: Mandy, I am so excited to be here. Thank you
Speaker 1: so much for having me.
Speaker 3: Bro No, it's great to finally have you here. We've
Speaker 3: talked about this for a while.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's been a long time coming.
Speaker 3: It's been a long time coming, and I'm glad you're
Speaker 3: coming on now. And I love how we talk about
Speaker 3: people exercising their body and exercising their compassion. I think
Speaker 3: that idea is really beautiful and I can honestly say
Speaker 3: that you're one of the toughest, strongest guys I know.
Speaker 3: But at the same time, you're also one of the sweetest,
Speaker 3: kindest guys I know. And I think that combination is
Speaker 3: really powerful. But I want to talk about your journey today.
Speaker 3: I want to talk about some of your insights today.
Speaker 3: You know, we have a big community here who wants
Speaker 3: to be healthier, who wants to be happier. Let's start
Speaker 3: with right now, Like, what makes you feel happy and
Speaker 3: healthy right now today?
Speaker 2: Such a good question.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I think first of all, it just begins with
Speaker 1: waking up feeling like I have purpose, definitely waking up,
Speaker 1: tending to myself first and foremost, my morning routine, my water,
Speaker 1: my meditation practices, all of these things that have I've
Speaker 1: slowly built the practice of over the course of ten
Speaker 1: fifteen years that have now been so ingrained into the
Speaker 1: fabric of who I am. And that is what really
Speaker 1: keeps me feeling good and showing up for whatever the
Speaker 1: day has to throw at me. So, I mean, once
Speaker 1: you find that, then it really does allow you to
Speaker 1: like live in that healthy space to where you can
Speaker 1: show up and handle anything really.
Speaker 3: Yeah, and I've seen you share some of those on
Speaker 3: Instagram and on social media. Could you walk us through,
Speaker 3: like what have become those key principles of your morning
Speaker 3: routine or evening routine that you turn to and which
Speaker 3: are the ones that you've developed.
Speaker 1: Yeah, So, first of all, it's what time I wake up.
Speaker 1: I'm sure you've had plenty of guests on the show
Speaker 1: that talk about the benefits of waking up early. I
Speaker 1: try to wake up at the same time every morning,
Speaker 1: So for me, that's anywhere like around six o'clock. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I don't have an alarm clock. It just naturally wake
Speaker 1: up at that time. My body's just like all right,
Speaker 1: ready to go, and then I just drink my cup
Speaker 1: of water and I will find a quiet space. I
Speaker 1: have a little meditation station in my house with my
Speaker 1: red light, and I'll just sit and just breathe. And
Speaker 1: it's not perfect every morning. This is what I don't
Speaker 1: want to preach or come on here and talk about,
Speaker 1: is perfection. I really am not a perfect person, and
Speaker 1: I want to really, first and foremost make that clearer
Speaker 1: because it's not perfect. But the days that I do
Speaker 1: show up, I show up to the degree that I can.
Speaker 1: So sometimes that's twenty minutes. Sometimes that's longer, sometimes it's
Speaker 1: even five. And for me, that tone of really setting
Speaker 1: the tone for the rest of my day with intention,
Speaker 1: with that piece of just tapping into whatever my body
Speaker 1: needs that morning and then letting that dictate how I
Speaker 1: operate for the rest of the day.
Speaker 3: That's beautiful. And what are the benefits of red light?
Speaker 3: For those who don't know because you said you meditated
Speaker 3: there with the red light, what's that form?
Speaker 1: Yeah, so there's plenty of benefits behind red light. I'm
Speaker 1: not an expert in it, but I believe it was
Speaker 1: developed by NASO. They have like over five hundred different
Speaker 1: scientific studies that show some of the benefits. I believe
Speaker 1: it's The main benefit is with ATP production, So it's
Speaker 1: the energy produced by your cell. So it helps you
Speaker 1: rejuvenate cells and get rid of old damage cells and
Speaker 1: replace them with new cells. So for somebody who who
Speaker 1: wants to recover from athletic training, it's a great way
Speaker 1: to start your day. It also helps with skin if
Speaker 1: somebody has some skin issues there too, so and it's
Speaker 1: also just nice to it provides a little bit of
Speaker 1: heat too, so it can just like provide that nice
Speaker 1: ambient lighting in the morning when it's still dark outside,
Speaker 1: to just start your day with a little bit less
Speaker 1: of this like bright white light.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 3: Wow, yeah, that's cool. Yeah, I've used it for I
Speaker 3: used it recently after I had surgery and so oh nice. Yeah,
Speaker 3: that's I was recommended to use it. I was intrigued
Speaker 3: why someone would use it when they're not had surgery.
Speaker 3: But that's that's good to know. I love that, and
Speaker 3: I love what you're saying about not being perfect, right.
Speaker 3: I think people often think that when someone comes on
Speaker 3: a podcast or they talk about something, that they've nailed
Speaker 3: it and their life works like clockwork, and they wake
Speaker 3: up at the same time every day and they meditate
Speaker 3: for the same amount of time. And that's amazing if
Speaker 3: that's true for you, and it happens, but it rarely does.
Speaker 3: I wanted to go backwards into your life today. Obviously, you've,
Speaker 3: you know, famously known for being in the documentary Games
Speaker 3: and that was exec produced by James Cameron, Arnold Schwarzenegger,
Speaker 3: Jackie Chan, Lewis Hamilton, and you know people that you
Speaker 3: know well as well, and that's incredible to see how
Speaker 3: far plant based lifestyle Vegan lifestyle athletic ability has come.
Speaker 3: I guess my question is do you feel that you
Speaker 3: at this stage before we go back kind of what
Speaker 3: do you feel you prove to yourself? Like when I
Speaker 3: read things like you've never read to me and that
Speaker 3: you know you don't need animal products to be an
Speaker 3: elite athlete. Is that something you set out to do.
Speaker 3: Is that something that was important to you, or is
Speaker 3: that something that kind of has just happened in society
Speaker 3: as something that interests people.
Speaker 1: So for me personally, it was never something that I
Speaker 1: had set out to do. I had honestly had been
Speaker 1: ashamed of being plant based. So I was, like you
Speaker 1: mentioned earlier in the podcast, I was raised vegetarian by
Speaker 1: virtue of my parents' spiritual beliefs, of which I was
Speaker 1: raised with as well. And one of those beliefs is
Speaker 1: a himsa, which I'm sure you're very familiar with, which
Speaker 1: is just trying to live a life and not contribute
Speaker 1: to any unnecessary harm or suffering and try to lead
Speaker 1: with compassion. So by virtue of trying to follow that,
Speaker 1: it leads me to make the choice to not consume
Speaker 1: animal products. And when I was raised vegetarian, I grew
Speaker 1: up in Mississippi, and there weren't too many vegetarians in Mississippi,
Speaker 1: and I would constantly get questioned and asked about my
Speaker 1: spiritual beliefs whenever I was younger and I didn't have
Speaker 1: the vernacular or the language to really explain myself, so
Speaker 1: I tended to become more withdrawn or just a little
Speaker 1: bit more avoidant whenever people would ask me that question.
Speaker 1: And it really wasn't until my later years, when I
Speaker 1: was mid twenties, when I leaned into that part of
Speaker 1: myself and started to really embrace and own my belief
Speaker 1: in being proud of that belief And that's what ultimately
Speaker 1: led me to finding my purpose because people started to
Speaker 1: ask me once I I started winning bodybuilding competitions, they
Speaker 1: started to ask me, how are you doing this? And
Speaker 1: the question that I once avoided so much about why
Speaker 1: I was vegetarian now became this really interesting topic for
Speaker 1: people that wanted to learn more from it. So I
Speaker 1: started sharing more online and then just naturally fell into
Speaker 1: this place where I was teaching people, which was really
Speaker 1: exciting for me.
Speaker 3: Yeah. I think so many of us as kids have
Speaker 3: beliefs or values that we follow because of our parents
Speaker 3: and then we feel embarrassed about them when we're questioned
Speaker 3: because they're not our beliefs and values at the time.
Speaker 3: Like you said, we don't know how to explain why
Speaker 3: we do this or why we don't do this. Often
Speaker 3: on those occasions, sometimes as we grow older, we leave
Speaker 3: those values. We go the other way. I know so
Speaker 3: many people that grew up with certain values, especially when
Speaker 3: they're spiritual based, that kids end up going the other
Speaker 3: way where they're like, well, I don't want anything to
Speaker 3: do with that because it doesn't even make any sense
Speaker 3: because parents never explained to them why you do that
Speaker 3: or it's important, so they don't know why what do
Speaker 3: you think stopped you from like going the other way,
Speaker 3: and just like being like, well, no one in Mississippi
Speaker 3: gets it, so why am I bothering to do this?
Speaker 1: As a child, it's really easy to understand the concept
Speaker 1: of not wanting to harm an animal. This is why
Speaker 1: you know, most people will take their children to petting
Speaker 1: zoos and not slaughterhouses, because kids naturally have an affinity
Speaker 1: to animals and want to learn from them and care
Speaker 1: for them or be around them. And I think that
Speaker 1: just really stuck with me because I grew up on
Speaker 1: a cow farm, and I had such close proximity to
Speaker 1: animals that I had such a deep connection with them,
Speaker 1: and I think fundamentally I understood that in order for
Speaker 1: meat to end up on my plate, an animal would
Speaker 1: have to suffer or be killed, and I just didn't
Speaker 1: want to contribute with that. I just never felt aligned
Speaker 1: in my body and I was doing just fine without it.
Speaker 1: So I continuously heard people tell me that, if you know,
Speaker 1: I need meat to be big and strong, I need
Speaker 1: meat to grow up for protein, for all the other nutrients.
Speaker 1: And here I was, you know, fairly athletic even as
Speaker 1: a kid, just living this experience, and I just knew
Speaker 1: in my heart that I didn't need it. So I
Speaker 1: just continue to go by feeling and really just stop
Speaker 1: hearing what other people told me I needed, and just
Speaker 1: like really started tuning into what I felt like was
Speaker 1: right for me.
Speaker 3: I feel like there's a lot of people who want
Speaker 3: to be plant based or vegan, but then they go
Speaker 3: back to eating meat because they're told they're lacking something
Speaker 3: or they need something. And often people feel it themselves,
Speaker 3: like they feel better when they're eating meat in terms
Speaker 3: of their body, even if they don't agree with it morally.
Speaker 3: I've met a lot of people like that, and I
Speaker 3: guess my point is, and that's what I'm hearing from you,
Speaker 3: is everyone's so unique and so different. What nutrients did
Speaker 3: you have to be more proactive to find as someone
Speaker 3: who's vegan and be more thoughtful about Let's start there first.
Speaker 1: Yeah, So, I mean the first topic that most people
Speaker 1: tend to bring up is protein. Protein is an important
Speaker 1: neutral that has many purposes in the body, including recovery,
Speaker 1: including many just for overall health and vitality. You need protein.
Speaker 1: I'm not denying that, but I think that there's a
Speaker 1: lack of education when it comes to the amount of
Speaker 1: protein that plants provide. So I growing up never really
Speaker 1: concerned myself with an amount of protein. I just ate
Speaker 1: what my parents would provide me with, and that was
Speaker 1: like lentils, you know, pastas things that naturally contain protein,
Speaker 1: but it doesn't have animal protein. So that is the
Speaker 1: biggest kind of conversation that I normally have on a
Speaker 1: daily basis is where.
Speaker 2: Do you get your protein from?
Speaker 1: And I think it's important to realize for people understanding
Speaker 1: how much protein you actually need. And everybody's different, like
Speaker 1: you said, I'm not here to tell anybody how to
Speaker 1: live their life. That's not it's not my intention whatsoever.
Speaker 1: I'm here to just talk about my experience and have
Speaker 1: the conversation with people who are genuinely interested in learning
Speaker 1: about this lifestyle and possibly feeling even more vitality, which
Speaker 1: is what I experienced whenever I went fully plant based.
Speaker 1: So protein. The other big one is B twelve. So
Speaker 1: B twelve is a micronutrient that you know, we don't
Speaker 1: naturally get in our diet based off the sterile nature
Speaker 1: of the way that we grow our crops. We used
Speaker 1: to get it from soil and streams of water. So
Speaker 1: now most B twelve is supplemented and even given to animals,
Speaker 1: So people that consume animal products are getting supplement in
Speaker 1: B twelve that are fed to the animal, so you're
Speaker 1: getting it secondhand. So it's not just a vegan issue
Speaker 1: at this point in time. It's a general population issue
Speaker 1: that people I believe up to forty percent of the
Speaker 1: population has suboptimal levels of B twelve, so supplementing with
Speaker 1: that is a wise choice just to kind of ensure that.
Speaker 1: And then the other one's iron I mean, that's another
Speaker 1: big one for anybody that has potentially anemia or anything
Speaker 1: like that. But there are plenty of vegetables that provide
Speaker 1: more than enough iron. It's just about really understanding how
Speaker 1: to eat and consume a diverse amount of vegetables in
Speaker 1: your diet that will cover these nutritional gaps. And it
Speaker 1: all boils down to education first and foremost.
Speaker 3: Yeah no, And I agree with you that you know
Speaker 3: for me as well, I don't definitely not a proponent
Speaker 3: or an evangelist of a certain type of lifestyle. And
Speaker 3: you know, I think everyone has to make their own decisions.
Speaker 3: I know that I went from being vegetarian to being
Speaker 3: plant based overnight, which I think I would have done
Speaker 3: differently had I known what I know now. I think
Speaker 3: I would have done things more gradually and been more
Speaker 3: aware of things like B twelve and Omega threes and
Speaker 3: these kind of things that an iron and so many
Speaker 3: other things. I still would have made the decision to
Speaker 3: become plant based. I feel far more energetic today, I
Speaker 3: feel far more my immunity is far stronger today, Like
Speaker 3: I feel much better being plant based, without a doubt.
Speaker 3: I just wish I made my journey towards it a
Speaker 3: lot easier, and so I'm very mindful now where it was,
Speaker 3: like I went from the literally being vegetarian to plant based,
Speaker 3: like literally overnight.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, yeah, exactly.
Speaker 3: And I think there were a few things that I
Speaker 3: could have avoided if I didn't do that. But with
Speaker 3: your journey, So you grew up in Mississippi in the
Speaker 3: spiritual home, You're you're already vegetarian, and I guess when
Speaker 3: you brought up in a spiritual environment. And I don't
Speaker 3: meet many people. I don't think we've interviewed many people
Speaker 3: who grew up directly in a spiritual environment. A what
Speaker 3: does that mean? And B like how did that affect
Speaker 3: your values and goals and ambitions in life? Like how
Speaker 3: did that?
Speaker 2: Yeah?
Speaker 1: So it definitely gave me perspective because the environment that
Speaker 1: I grew up and it was a faith based community.
Speaker 1: The difference was that the spiritual belief was very different
Speaker 1: than the surrounding spiritual beliefs because we were a Hiri
Speaker 1: Krishna community, which division of Hinduism. So my parents actually
Speaker 1: converted from from Catholicism to Hinduism in Argentina and they.
Speaker 2: Are deeply spiritual people.
Speaker 1: They decided that they wanted to devout devote them their
Speaker 1: lives to their spiritual practice. So they renounced all their
Speaker 1: possessions and they decided to go live in the temple.
Speaker 2: I mean, you have had to say, you know that experience.
Speaker 1: And they had my brother, they had my sister, and
Speaker 1: they bounced around South America and then eventually was told
Speaker 1: about an opportunity to come live in a spiritual community
Speaker 1: in South Mississippi, and so they immigrated to the United
Speaker 1: States with basically two hundred dollars in their pockets and
Speaker 1: two and a half kids pregnant with me, and that's
Speaker 1: where I was born and raised. And it was really
Speaker 1: quite unique because it was a community, like I remember
Speaker 1: calling all of the mothers in the community mother because
Speaker 1: we would go to the temple, we would go around
Speaker 1: the farm, we had cows, we had our own garden.
Speaker 1: Everybody had a role in the community and it was
Speaker 1: really beautiful now that I look back at it. Before
Speaker 1: when I was younger and I started to integrate into
Speaker 1: the more traditional Southern culture because I went to public school,
Speaker 1: that brought about a lot of challenges for me because
Speaker 1: it was like I was living in this bubble and
Speaker 1: then venturing out into the other world.
Speaker 3: Was that for high school.
Speaker 1: It was from all the way from kindergarten to high school.
Speaker 3: So you were saying going from home to then going
Speaker 3: to yes, kindergarten and high school, so you went to
Speaker 3: a public.
Speaker 2: Public school, public school.
Speaker 1: But yeah, yeah, yeah, So that brought about its own
Speaker 1: challenges because, like I said, I was just very different
Speaker 1: from my peers, and it made me appreciate other people
Speaker 1: and their differences because I would get questioned so much
Speaker 1: about my spiritual beliefs, my practices, my family, my home life,
Speaker 1: and also here much of the judgments that came along
Speaker 1: with being so different, and you know, I appear the
Speaker 1: way I do, so I don't look like like a
Speaker 1: Hindu person, you know, like most people associate Hinduism with
Speaker 1: being from India, and much of the culture that I
Speaker 1: grew up with in that community were Indian, so I
Speaker 1: kind of felt like an outcast within the community and
Speaker 1: then felt like an outcast outside of that community as well.
Speaker 1: So it was very difficult for me to find my
Speaker 1: own identity. So I got very good at observing other
Speaker 1: people and really just having compassion for different forms of
Speaker 1: life without judging, because I knew what it was like
Speaker 1: to be judged growing up.
Speaker 3: Yeah wow, yeah, and that's hard, right, Like when you
Speaker 3: grow up without feeling like home's not home, and then
Speaker 3: away from home doesn't feel like home. And but it
Speaker 3: sounds like you were able to process it in a
Speaker 3: healthy way, right, Like the ability to learn not to judge,
Speaker 3: the ability to be okay with people having differences, the
Speaker 3: ability to understand that everyone was unique and everyone was
Speaker 3: you know, on their own path or whatever it may be. Like,
Speaker 3: that sounds like a really healthy mindset. The second part
Speaker 3: of my question was that how did that impact your
Speaker 3: ambitions and goals and what you wanted to do will
Speaker 3: be because you're getting exposed to these two very different worlds.
Speaker 3: You have the public school academic world and then you
Speaker 3: have this private life of spirituality. Like, how did that
Speaker 3: impact what you wanted to do with your life? Yeah?
Speaker 1: Yeah, So we moved out of that community when I
Speaker 1: was about nine years old, and you know, we were immigrants.
Speaker 1: My parents didn't speak any English when every day arrived
Speaker 1: to the United States, so they had to find their
Speaker 1: way in this world and pay for their kids. And
Speaker 1: we were very spiritually rich but materialistically very poor. So
Speaker 1: money was always a topic of conversation and always a
Speaker 1: source of anxiety for my family. So for me, that
Speaker 1: really gave birth to the desire to be financially stable.
Speaker 1: So I was always good at math, I was always
Speaker 1: good at sciences. I preferred math and science over English
Speaker 1: and literature because there was a definitive answer, and I
Speaker 1: really appreciated that, and so I pursued engineering. My grandpa
Speaker 1: I was a pilot for many years, and he used
Speaker 1: to bring me to the airports, and I was always
Speaker 1: fascinated with aeronautics, with planes, and so my original intention
Speaker 1: was to become an aeronautical engineer. And when I went
Speaker 1: to college, there was no degree for that, so I
Speaker 1: switched to the next best thing, which was mechanical engineering.
Speaker 1: So I got my degree in mechanical engineering. But what's interesting, though,
Speaker 1: is that I never really felt a strong connection to it.
Speaker 1: It was purely coming from the place of what position
Speaker 1: or what career can I have that's going to provide
Speaker 1: that security, that financial stability, because I didn't want to
Speaker 1: be in the position that I witnessed growing up so much.
Speaker 3: Yeah, And I think that's so interesting because I feel
Speaker 3: like if most of us look to what we pursue,
Speaker 3: it comes from a pain we had in our childhood
Speaker 3: or our past where it's like you're pursuing something because
Speaker 3: you didn't have it growing up, or you're pursuing something
Speaker 3: because you did have it growing up. And I don't
Speaker 3: know if we all ever stopped to think, why am
Speaker 3: I pursuing this? When was it where you started to
Speaker 3: realize why am I pursuing this? That maybe that was
Speaker 3: only because you didn't have money growing up, and then
Speaker 3: you're pursued shifting. But when was that moment where you
Speaker 3: were like, I don't think this is what I really
Speaker 3: want to do.
Speaker 1: First day on the job, really, yeah, that quick, Yeah,
Speaker 1: what was the reason? So originally when I was engineering,
Speaker 1: I wanted to get into renewable and sustainable energy and
Speaker 1: that was my goal. And then I had all these
Speaker 1: job offers after I was graduating and ended up going
Speaker 1: with the highest offer, which was oil and gas.
Speaker 2: So it was.
Speaker 1: Completely contradictory to what I originally intended on doing. So
Speaker 1: I sold out, not a shame to say it. And
Speaker 1: what I found was that, you know, I started, They
Speaker 1: started me off at a six figure salary, So my
Speaker 1: first year at twenty two to twenty three was making
Speaker 1: like one hundred and fifty grand a year, and I
Speaker 1: thought to myself, Wow, I made it. Like I remember
Speaker 1: crying the first when I got the offer because I
Speaker 1: was like, Wow, I finally made it. I can take
Speaker 1: care of my family now. And the first day in
Speaker 1: the job, I realized that I was like, this is
Speaker 1: not what I want to do, Like I'm going to
Speaker 1: have to do this for the next forty years and
Speaker 1: then retire, Like I quickly saw the timeline of what
Speaker 1: my life was going to be like. And that feeling
Speaker 1: is not a great feeling, because I had just dedicated
Speaker 1: five years to getting my degree and had an incredible
Speaker 1: amount of debt and I just stuck through it. You know,
Speaker 1: I lived with that for five years before I finally
Speaker 1: built up enough courage to leave that career and pursue
Speaker 1: something that was more meaningful for me. But it took
Speaker 1: me five years of really suffering with that and living
Speaker 1: with that to finally create enough discomfort for me to
Speaker 1: be like, you know what, this money is not everything,
Speaker 1: and I really feel like I have a deeper purpose
Speaker 1: and I feel like I can make a greater impact
Speaker 1: in the world and be of better service to people
Speaker 1: by leaning into this thing that I had been doing
Speaker 1: on the side, which was basically teaching people how to
Speaker 1: be vegan and in shape.
Speaker 3: That's yeah, I want to dive into that with you
Speaker 3: because I remember setting out too. I really wanted to
Speaker 3: do aught and design university, like at college. That was
Speaker 3: what I wanted to do. That was my favorite subject
Speaker 3: in high school, and I traded it to do a
Speaker 3: business degree, even though I did focus on and discovered
Speaker 3: behavioral science, which I fell in love with, which was
Speaker 3: actually my passion with art and design, which I later discovered.
Speaker 3: But I sold out too because I was just told
Speaker 3: so many times that art and design wouldn't make money. Yeah,
Speaker 3: and so I was like, oh, yeah, you've got to
Speaker 3: make a smart decision. And then I became a monk
Speaker 3: anyway on top of all of it, so so it
Speaker 3: all went out of the window. But a lot of
Speaker 3: people feel that way where they have something that's calling them,
Speaker 3: something that's pulling them towards it, but then they push
Speaker 3: it away because something feels more realistic or something else
Speaker 3: feels like the right thing to do. And it's amazing
Speaker 3: that you noticed it on day one. And I've created
Speaker 3: now a new methodology. And I'm repeating this because I
Speaker 3: hope I remember to use it again and again and again,
Speaker 3: and there are times when I remember it. There are
Speaker 3: times when I wish I remembered it. But I came
Speaker 3: up with a methodology of how I make decisions because
Speaker 3: I found that money was always such a tempting, tantalizing
Speaker 3: thing or whatever. That's one of those. But I think
Speaker 3: there are so many things in the world that are
Speaker 3: just so attractive and lucrative that they distract us from
Speaker 3: what we truly want. And so I cram up with
Speaker 3: something that I call ESM and the E stands for energy.
Speaker 3: So the first thing I ask is does this give
Speaker 3: me energy? Does this person give me energy? Does this
Speaker 3: project give me energy? Does the work energize me? Do
Speaker 3: I want to bring my energy to this?
Speaker 2: Like?
Speaker 3: Is this an energy fit? And that's a question I
Speaker 3: always ask myself. If the answer is yes, then I
Speaker 3: move forward to the S. And the S is strategy. Okay,
Speaker 3: my energy feels good, it's that my heart feels good.
Speaker 3: But is this strategic? Like does this strategically make sense?
Speaker 3: Does it make sense on the basis of do we
Speaker 3: also have the right idea? Sometimes something makes sense energetically,
Speaker 3: but if there isn't a strategy behind it. It won't lost,
Speaker 3: it's not sustainable. So is there strategy behind this? Is
Speaker 3: there an effective method behind this, a system, a process
Speaker 3: that I can get behind and that my energy will
Speaker 3: be directed? Clearly, I think a lot of the time
Speaker 3: you feel like, oh, the energy is amazing and very
Speaker 3: la thing as well, and it's like like the energy
Speaker 3: is really good, but then it just kind of goes
Speaker 3: splat right, like it's just everywhere. So like, is my
Speaker 3: energy directed? If the answer is yes, then I go
Speaker 3: to the M, which stands for money, and it's does
Speaker 3: this make commercial sense? Does this make sense financially? Does
Speaker 3: it make And so money is an important part of
Speaker 3: my methodology. It's just the third most important metric. And
Speaker 3: I only get to ask that question if I go
Speaker 3: through the first two. And that stops you from doing
Speaker 3: things just for something. At the end, I love that,
Speaker 3: and at least it's helped me.
Speaker 1: Yeah, No, I love that because you know, I never
Speaker 1: I never had that process for me. It was always
Speaker 1: the lucrative, like what can provide the most money, and
Speaker 1: I will endure whatever I need to to provide. And
Speaker 1: I'm not saying that money's not important. Everybody has to
Speaker 1: provide for themselves and everybody's in different situations. And for
Speaker 1: me personally, engineering just really clearly, it was clear to
Speaker 1: me that it wasn't energizing me, it was very much
Speaker 1: training me. So going to work every day was not
Speaker 1: something I looked forward to. I looked for reasons to leave.
Speaker 1: I was constantly distracted about the other life that I
Speaker 1: had wanted for myself.
Speaker 2: And you know, I.
Speaker 1: Used to think that doing something that you love and
Speaker 1: making money were mutually exclusive. Yea, I didn't know that
Speaker 1: you could marry the two. And now I believe that
Speaker 1: a career is I define career as a profitable source
Speaker 1: of pleasure. So doing something that I love first and foremost,
Speaker 1: you will every time get really good at it. And
Speaker 1: when you're good at anything, you can master it and
Speaker 1: you can teach it to others. And I never once
Speaker 1: in a million years thought that I would be doing
Speaker 1: what I'm doing. But I did it just on the side,
Speaker 1: for free, because it brought me that much joy and fulfillment,
Speaker 1: just for myself. And once I started to see the
Speaker 1: ripple and the curiosity from other people and thoughts to myself, wow,
Speaker 1: I can really make a difference in somebody's life just
Speaker 1: by sharing how I'm living. And that's when I really
Speaker 1: found the conviction to say, you know what, this is
Speaker 1: something that I want to pursue, even if it doesn't
Speaker 1: make sense logically. I'm going to listen to my heart
Speaker 1: for once, because I've been listening to my brain this
Speaker 1: entire time. I'm going to drop in and listen to
Speaker 1: my heart and what my gut is telling me. My
Speaker 1: gut is telling me to pursue this, to follow this.
Speaker 3: Yeah, no, I think that's I love that your definition
Speaker 3: of what a career is. That's really cool and I
Speaker 3: can agree with you more. I remember, literally, and this
Speaker 3: is crazy for me to think about it. I didn't know.
Speaker 3: And when I say I didn't know, I mean like
Speaker 3: my mind didn't process that there was any other career
Speaker 3: out of being a doctor, a lawyer, or business like.
Speaker 3: I literally thought those were the only three careers that existed.
Speaker 3: Not because I didn't I didn't know anyone who didn't
Speaker 3: do any of those things, apart from obviously if people
Speaker 3: were teachers, or if people you know, my my my
Speaker 3: uncle owned a grocery store and things like that, like
Speaker 3: a local grocer, small local grocery store and so things
Speaker 3: like that, but I didn't have context over you could
Speaker 3: be something else, and therefore was those three things. And
Speaker 3: I never liked medicine, I never liked law, and so
Speaker 3: I had to do business and because art and design
Speaker 3: wasn't a career. So I get that, and I think
Speaker 3: a lot of people lived that way and feel that way.
Speaker 3: And I also think today we've created a culture where
Speaker 3: it's like you have to be an entrepreneur, and that
Speaker 3: I disagree with two Like, I don't think doing what
Speaker 3: you love means doing it as an entrepreneur. I think
Speaker 3: there are phenomenally talented people who work inside organizations. And
Speaker 3: when you think about some of the CEOs of the
Speaker 3: biggest companies today, they didn't found them, like sind the
Speaker 3: Peach I see of Google, or Tim Cook, who CEO
Speaker 3: of Apple, Like they didn't build those companies, and they
Speaker 3: became so successful within an organization that they run. And
Speaker 3: so I do think that we're also living at that
Speaker 3: other extreme now where it's like you have to quit
Speaker 3: your job and do something you love. And I'm like, well,
Speaker 3: that doesn't make sense either, Like maybe some people are
Speaker 3: going to find what they love inside a career and
Speaker 3: inside a workplace, and I think both need to be bandaged.
Speaker 3: So we went from like you have to work an
Speaker 3: amazing job as an engineer and do something you hate
Speaker 3: and get paid, and now it's like you have to
Speaker 3: quit everything and do what you love. And it's like, well,
Speaker 3: there's a spectrum there. Definitely, I want to know how
Speaker 3: you survived the five years because I love that answer
Speaker 3: that you knew it on the first day, but you
Speaker 3: had to survive and suffer for five years. I think
Speaker 3: that's very, very real because you're in your head trying
Speaker 3: to figure that out, Like how did you deal and
Speaker 3: cope with those five years? Did you adopt bad habits?
Speaker 3: What did you do? Because I think oftentimes that's when
Speaker 3: people turn to like different things. I don't know if
Speaker 3: you did, but yeah, what did you do? And then
Speaker 3: how did you finally get out? Yeah?
Speaker 2: Yeah, definitely.
Speaker 1: I mean there's when you don't when you live that way, obviously,
Speaker 1: I'm you you find escape, right, There's there's ways to escape,
Speaker 1: And thankfully my escape was the gym, and anytime I
Speaker 1: would get off work, it was a great escape for
Speaker 1: me and I would go to the gym and I
Speaker 1: would really just find peace and it was. It was
Speaker 1: like my therapy. I would go to the gym, and
Speaker 1: I really do love training. I love the art of
Speaker 1: learning how this this vessel works and how I can
Speaker 1: really optimize the movements and how it feels, and and
Speaker 1: just really sink into the process of developing my physical self.
Speaker 1: And what I learned in that process was how many
Speaker 1: benefits mentally there are as well, because it requires discipline,
Speaker 1: it requires sacrifice, it requires intention and attention to detail.
Speaker 1: So that's where I really found enjoyment was really in
Speaker 1: the process of learning how to develop my physical self.
Speaker 1: And as far as dealing with you know, the five
Speaker 1: years I had thought about quitting, I mean I also
Speaker 1: am a realist and knew that I had to provide
Speaker 1: for myself and I would also be giving up a
Speaker 1: very good opportunity and didn't have the clarity of what
Speaker 1: that next thing would be. And all the while I
Speaker 1: was doing this other thing. It was right in front
Speaker 1: of me the whole time. But I needed to really
Speaker 1: find that path, like I needed the contrast of doing
Speaker 1: something that I didn't like doing, because that gave me
Speaker 1: the clarity to find something that I really did. So
Speaker 1: I don't regret anything in my life that was painful
Speaker 1: or challenging, because it's really shaped who I am today
Speaker 1: and given me the opportunity to have the clarity to
Speaker 1: pursue the things that really resonate with me.
Speaker 3: Yeah. Yeah, and I guess you can deal with You
Speaker 3: know what your clients are dealing with too, in terms
Speaker 3: of the stress of the workplace, the stress of what
Speaker 3: they're going through, and you've been in their shoes, you
Speaker 3: know what it looks like. And I think that the
Speaker 3: thing that came to my mind when you were saying
Speaker 3: that was you knew that you were falling in love
Speaker 3: with working out and you were falling in love with
Speaker 3: this other thing on the side. I have a friend
Speaker 3: that well, she used to be working at a company
Speaker 3: and she was stressed and hated it in the same
Speaker 3: sense as you do did, but she loved presenting. And
Speaker 3: so then she joined a company where she's a public
Speaker 3: speaking coach and she goes back to the company she's
Speaker 3: work out and teach public speaking, like teaches communication, not
Speaker 3: just public speaking, but teachers communication, teachers negotiation, teaches people's skills,
Speaker 3: and she's so much happier doing it. And I love
Speaker 3: seeing those stories where people have the courage to figure
Speaker 3: out the switch. But it sounds like you were doing
Speaker 3: a lot in your evenings and weekends to build this
Speaker 3: other route and build this other path. When you made
Speaker 3: the switch over, did it feel like, because I'm guessing
Speaker 3: when you first did it, were you able to replace
Speaker 3: your salary completely? No? Right, that's yeah, that's my friend.
Speaker 3: She's it's taken a three years to replace her salary
Speaker 3: that she made before, but she's doing good now.
Speaker 1: And so yeah, I think that working as an engineer
Speaker 1: and going through that getting my degree really helped me
Speaker 1: think like an engineer obviously, So I approached it with
Speaker 1: that engineering approach of like, how can I take this
Speaker 1: thing that I really want to do and create systems
Speaker 1: and processes for me to make it financially so I
Speaker 1: could pay for my bills. Essentially, that was my goal
Speaker 1: was like can I just cover my bills at that
Speaker 1: point in time? And what I wanted to do was
Speaker 1: reach as many people as possible. So I partnered up
Speaker 1: with a software engineer and we decided to build a
Speaker 1: whole platform of how can I really systemize delivering the content,
Speaker 1: teaching people how to lift providing educational content, and then
Speaker 1: also the meal planning, which is the most important part
Speaker 1: whenever people are trying to get is figuring out what
Speaker 1: to eat. So we developed a whole algorithm and a
Speaker 1: whole platform to be able to serve thousands of clients
Speaker 1: at a time, and it took months of planning. I
Speaker 1: wasn't making any money. I was just kind of siphoning
Speaker 1: away all my savings. And what's what's really interesting is
Speaker 1: that first week, whenever we launched our very first program
Speaker 1: and very first offer, I made more in a week
Speaker 1: than I made in a year as an engineer. And
Speaker 1: that that was the moment for me that I was like, Wow,
Speaker 1: this is very possible for me to continue to pursue.
Speaker 1: And obviously that's that's my experience, but it takes that
Speaker 1: level of planning and really having an approach that is,
Speaker 1: you know, risk averse. You know, I'm not suggesting for
Speaker 1: anybody to go quit their job. I think that having
Speaker 1: a plan of action and having a timeline makes the
Speaker 1: most sense for you to not put yourself in a
Speaker 1: compromising position. So that's the way that I did it,
Speaker 1: and it's it's panned out very, very well because it's
Speaker 1: given me the space to still work with so many
Speaker 1: people and still get to do what I love and
Speaker 1: be so focused on in the business, just working in
Speaker 1: the business, if that makes sense.
Speaker 3: This episode is brought to you by eight Sleep. I
Speaker 3: have to admit I used to have this old mattress
Speaker 3: that wasn't the best. It was low quality and so uncomfortable,
Speaker 3: and it made me really hot at night, which was
Speaker 3: not really helpful when trying to get good sleep. Did
Speaker 3: you know that temperature is one of the most important
Speaker 3: factors in improving your sleep quality? When you wake up
Speaker 3: in the middle of the night or feel extra groggy
Speaker 3: in the morning, temperature is almost always to blame. Why
Speaker 3: while traditional mattresses trap heat throughout the night, science has
Speaker 3: shown that your body temperature actually needs to drop in
Speaker 3: the early and middle part of your sleep and rise
Speaker 3: in the morning so that you can fall asleep fast
Speaker 3: and get more deep sleep. The pod cover by eight
Speaker 3: Sleep fits on any bed like a fitted sheet. The
Speaker 3: pod cover will improve your sleep by automatically adjusting the
Speaker 3: temperature on each side of the bed based on you
Speaker 3: and your partner's individual needs. It can cool down and
Speaker 3: warm up, and adjust based on the phases of your
Speaker 3: sleep and the environment that you're in. My eight Sleep
Speaker 3: mattress has been a total game changer for me. Not
Speaker 3: only is it super comfortable, but the temperature control technology
Speaker 3: has improved my quality of life in so many ways.
Speaker 3: I'm sleeping better, i feel more refreshed in the morning,
Speaker 3: and my mental health has even got in a boost.
Speaker 3: They really go above and beyond to create innovative products
Speaker 3: that actually make a difference in people's lives. The temperature
Speaker 3: control system is just the tip of the iceberg. The
Speaker 3: mattress also tracks my sleep patterns and I can even
Speaker 3: integrate it with my smart home system. I've never experienced
Speaker 3: sleep like this. Invest in the rest you deserve with
Speaker 3: the eight sleep pod. Go to eightsleep dot com forward
Speaker 3: slash Purpose and save one hundred and fifty dollars on
Speaker 3: the pod cover by eight Sleep. That's the best offer
Speaker 3: you'll find, but you must visit eightsleep dot com forward
Speaker 3: slash Purpose for one hundred and fifty dollars off eight
Speaker 3: Sleep current ships within the USA, Canada, the UK, select
Speaker 3: countries in the EU and Australia, and it also shows
Speaker 3: that a lot of our experiences are not wasted like now.
Speaker 3: First of all, growing up in a spiritual community made
Speaker 3: you vegetarian, made you have a hymns, made you appreciate
Speaker 3: life forms, Like that's a useful experience, even if at
Speaker 3: that time you felt alone and disconnected from the people
Speaker 3: you're around. Then you go off and you study engineering,
Speaker 3: which again you're like, I don't want to be an engineer,
Speaker 3: but you're engineering skills are the ones that you use
Speaker 3: to launch your passion. Yeah, and then it's like you
Speaker 3: discover what you love doing, which is working out, and
Speaker 3: now what you do is mixing compassion, working out and engineering,
Speaker 3: And I love that idea that encouraging people to collect
Speaker 3: passions and curate their passion, and that's how you create
Speaker 3: your passion, is that you're constantly collecting experiences and then
Speaker 3: you're bringing them together rather than like I found this
Speaker 3: one thing and everything before this was a waste of time.
Speaker 3: And even in my journey I feel the same way.
Speaker 3: It's like I loved art and design growing up, which
Speaker 3: has massively impacted my career today because I look at
Speaker 3: everything through the lens of art and design. And then
Speaker 3: I was fortunately great at economics and good at understanding business,
Speaker 3: and then behavioral science and that was that's obviously been
Speaker 3: very useful in my life today. And then obviously I
Speaker 3: fell in love with philosophy, and I fell in love
Speaker 3: with teaching, and I fell in love with mentorship, and
Speaker 3: I fell in love with the wisdom that I learned
Speaker 3: from the monks. And now my life is all three
Speaker 3: of those things put together. And I wouldn't trade any
Speaker 3: of those experiences. So if anyone's in a bad place
Speaker 3: right now, or and anyone's in a hard place right
Speaker 3: now where they don't enjoy what they do, or they
Speaker 3: feel they studied the wrong thing at university or college
Speaker 3: or whatever it is, none of that's wasted because you're
Speaker 3: just collecting experiences that will be useful if you look
Speaker 3: at it that way in what you're building. And that
Speaker 3: isn't a mindset, that's just true that any skill you
Speaker 3: learn right now is going to be useful. Yeah.
Speaker 1: I believe in this like inclusion based universe where everything
Speaker 1: is happening for your benefit. Every experience that you go
Speaker 1: through is happening for you, and you can be the
Speaker 1: beneficiary even if some very challenging times. And I believe
Speaker 1: that from the soul's perspective, we call in these experiences
Speaker 1: so that we can develop the strength of the resilience
Speaker 1: or the perspective to transcend them. So when I look
Speaker 1: back at my childhood, although it was had its moments
Speaker 1: of beauty and so much beauty in my life, there
Speaker 1: was also so much challenge and strife as well, And
Speaker 1: I see those moments now as what really shaped me
Speaker 1: and primed me for what I'm doing today, because once,
Speaker 1: at one point the thing that I was most ashamed
Speaker 1: of is the thing that I really lead with now.
Speaker 1: So just remembering that in any time of challenge, that
Speaker 1: this is teaching you something and in some time maybe
Speaker 1: you can't see it right there, but you are the
Speaker 1: beneficiary of this challenging moment and it will allow you
Speaker 1: to keep growing. It's like, you know, there's so many
Speaker 1: parallels between the gym and life. You know. It's like
Speaker 1: you're under the bar at doing squats and it's very,
Speaker 1: very uncomfortable. You want it to stop, you want to
Speaker 1: drop the weight. You're like, no more, I can't handle
Speaker 1: any more. And then you push through and on the
Speaker 1: other side of that you develop the strength and the
Speaker 1: resilience and your body adapts and you grow so that
Speaker 1: you can handle that plus some the next time. So
Speaker 1: that's that's the way that I really tried to approach
Speaker 1: any challenge these days is like, Okay, bring it on.
Speaker 1: I accept the challenge because I called this experience into
Speaker 1: my life so I could transcend it.
Speaker 3: What's the mindset and where did buddybuilding come into? Like
Speaker 3: where what's the mindset behind wanting to do that? Where
Speaker 3: does that come from? And what was that journey like?
Speaker 3: Because I think we hear about it a lot, I
Speaker 3: think from celebrities in the media who have to look
Speaker 3: a certain way for movies or things like that, and
Speaker 3: then they come out years later and they tell you
Speaker 3: how unhealthy it was. But during when the movies, I
Speaker 3: think it was zac Efron recently it was like, you know,
Speaker 3: he talked about the Baywatch movie and it's obviously when
Speaker 3: you watch that movie, liked that looks incredible. Yeah, and
Speaker 3: he did, and then you know, he was on TV
Speaker 3: shows at the time. But then I think he came
Speaker 3: out recently he was talking about how unhealthy it was,
Speaker 3: how he didn't feel great about it. And I think
Speaker 3: a lot of men talk about that afterwards as one.
Speaker 3: Women of course talk about it, but I feel like
Speaker 3: it's great when a couple of men start opening up
Speaker 3: about how even though they look great and every guy
Speaker 3: wanted to look like them, it wasn't healthy. But for you,
Speaker 3: how how has that journey been for you? And I'm
Speaker 3: intrigued to I've never asked you this before.
Speaker 2: So yeah, no, it's a bit of a narc for me.
Speaker 1: You know, I remember always being the small kid growing up,
Speaker 1: so there was a bit of insecurity there. And so
Speaker 1: definitely ego played a big part in for me to
Speaker 1: want to develop myself because it, you know, it quite
Speaker 1: literally built layers between you and everybody else, and if
Speaker 1: you're trying to protect your fragile nature or your little
Speaker 1: wound itself, then this is a great way to do that,
Speaker 1: even if it's masked through other things. So that was
Speaker 1: that was a big journey for me because originally when
Speaker 1: I got into it, I had that reason, and then
Speaker 1: the more I did it, the more I really started
Speaker 1: to do it because I loved it and didn't train
Speaker 1: because I didn't like myself or the thought of if
Speaker 1: I'm out of shape, nobody will like me or I
Speaker 1: won't like myself, and started shifting and reframing that too.
Speaker 1: I really love taking care of myself because I feel
Speaker 1: good when I do, and That's what really led me
Speaker 1: to lean into it and to continue to discover ways
Speaker 1: in which I could just develop myself further. And then
Speaker 1: somebody actually suggested it to me in the gym one time.
Speaker 1: They said, hey, there's a show coming up locally and
Speaker 1: you should do it. You look great, and I was like, yeah, right,
Speaker 1: you could not pay me to do that, And then
Speaker 1: I thought about it. I was like, you know, I
Speaker 1: don't have anything else going on. This could be some
Speaker 1: new challenge, something exciting. I did it and ended up
Speaker 1: winning the first show that I competed in. So obviously
Speaker 1: when you excel at something, it motivates you even further.
Speaker 2: So yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1: So then the marriage of like teaching people how to
Speaker 1: do what I did with that eating any animal products
Speaker 1: felt really aligned with me because I had heard up
Speaker 1: until that point that you couldn't win a bodybuilding show
Speaker 1: or bodybuilders need animal protein. So here I was showing
Speaker 1: other people that you could do it. And that's what
Speaker 1: I really felt the call beyond myself to say, hey,
Speaker 1: if I can inspire other people to live more compassionately,
Speaker 1: then this is worth me pursuing because it brings me
Speaker 1: that much more fulfillment. And I see the difference that
Speaker 1: it's making, and maybe they might be complete strangers to me,
Speaker 1: but it's nice to know that people are out there listening.
Speaker 1: And that's when I continued and eventually became pro. Eventually
Speaker 1: did that for a few years, but then afterwards I
Speaker 1: got wrapped up in the identity of like being a bodybuilder,
Speaker 1: and that's when I started to recognize that, hey, maybe
Speaker 1: this isn't for me anymore because I'm attaching so much
Speaker 1: of who I am to what I look like, and
Speaker 1: that doesn't feel good anymore. So that's when I decided
Speaker 1: to step away from the sport altogether and just retire
Speaker 1: in twenty eighteen.
Speaker 3: I mean, that's real journy, because, like you said, it
Speaker 3: often starts with like ego or validation from ourselves from others.
Speaker 3: Then you kind of get to a point, if you're lucky,
Speaker 3: where you're like, Okay, now I'm doing it for myself
Speaker 3: and I enjoy it. Talk to me a bit about
Speaker 3: that journey, because I think that's the hardest part of
Speaker 3: that journey, is like going from like I do this
Speaker 3: because I want the validation for myself and others, and
Speaker 3: I want to protect you know, the younger me too,
Speaker 3: I'm actually going to do this because I like feeling better,
Speaker 3: Like walk me through some of the steps there, because
Speaker 3: I feel like, yeah, that feels like a long, long journey.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it was for sure. And you know, the ego
Speaker 1: is a funny thing because once you shine the light
Speaker 1: of awareness on a part of your ego, it just
Speaker 1: kind of dances into the shadow and it becomes a
Speaker 1: little bit more insidious and tricky and shows up in
Speaker 1: new ways. So for me, it kept showing up in
Speaker 1: different ways to where I was realizing that it wasn't
Speaker 1: bringing me happiness anymore. Like I felt this obligation, this
Speaker 1: pressure to be this person. And at the time, my
Speaker 1: following was continuously rising as my popularity grew and the
Speaker 1: really just the exposure to people's comments and things that
Speaker 1: they had to say about me. I started to notice
Speaker 1: how much it was affecting me and specifically focusing on negativity,
Speaker 1: and I was like, why am I really focusing on
Speaker 1: this and allowing it to really disrupt my internal state?
Speaker 1: And that's when I started to get real with myself
Speaker 1: and saying, oh, because I am seeking this validation and
Speaker 1: it means so much to me, and when people think
Speaker 1: highly of me, and when they don't, it really affects
Speaker 1: me mentally. So that's when I started to take a
Speaker 1: step back to more self reflection and say, maybe I'm
Speaker 1: not doing this for the right reasons anymore, and I
Speaker 1: should explore that.
Speaker 3: Yeah, And I like that reflection because I always try
Speaker 3: and walk into things with the right intention, and then
Speaker 3: I try and reflect on my intention while i'm doing it,
Speaker 3: and I can often find that it's easy for your
Speaker 3: intention to get distorted. And then I asked myself, can
Speaker 3: I bring my attention back to doing it for the
Speaker 3: right thing? And then if I can't, that's when I
Speaker 3: leave it. So my goal is always I try and
Speaker 3: start with the right motivation, the right approach, and then
Speaker 3: it's natural for it to get distorted. That's always going
Speaker 3: to happen to any of us because we're not perfect.
Speaker 3: Because we're not we haven't got everything figured out. And
Speaker 3: so I'll realize that, oh, maybe I did kind of
Speaker 3: go too far this way, and then I'll see if
Speaker 3: I have the ability to come back, and sometimes I
Speaker 3: do and sometimes I don't. And so it sounds like
Speaker 3: you went through that same process of you know, can
Speaker 3: I do this again for the right reasons when you
Speaker 3: were doing it at its peak and you had people
Speaker 3: coming up to you talking to you about compassion and
Speaker 3: plant based life and veganism, Like did people notice that?
Speaker 3: Were they aware of that? And then what would they
Speaker 3: say to you? Like what was people's reactions? I'm just intrigue.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean there's always a lot of curiosity, a
Speaker 1: lot of interest whenever you hear somebody doing something that's unorthodox.
Speaker 1: So vegan bodybuilder is an oxymoron for a lot of people.
Speaker 1: They don't believe it's possible. So to see somebody doing
Speaker 1: it and competing at the highest level, it brought its
Speaker 1: own pressures to me because people, especially the vegan movement,
Speaker 1: tended to pedestalize me and use me as this poster boy,
Speaker 1: this example for somebody who could do this, which I
Speaker 1: enjoyed and then also equally didn't enjoy because I would
Speaker 1: be thrown into arguments online and people would just use
Speaker 1: me as this example where I just opened up my
Speaker 1: phone and just see all these comments of people arguing
Speaker 1: back and forth. And again, my goal was to never
Speaker 1: be polarizing online or it was to inspire the people
Speaker 1: that really wanted to live this way, so that also
Speaker 1: played a huge impact into reassessing what kind of message
Speaker 1: I'm putting out there, and to really again just lead,
Speaker 1: lead with compassion and show that you can coexist with
Speaker 1: people who have different views on life, different perspectives than you,
Speaker 1: where were often more times more common than we are different.
Speaker 1: So that's that's another reason why I felt like bodybuilding
Speaker 1: is a sport of comparison. It's me literally lined up
Speaker 1: to another person and comparing the two, and I always
Speaker 1: approached that sport with it's always just me versus me.
Speaker 1: I could never control what anybody else was doing outside
Speaker 1: of you know that experience. It is like you step
Speaker 1: on stage, It's not me versus these other guys. It's
Speaker 1: just me versus who I was yesterday. But that's really
Speaker 1: when I wanted to step away from the sport so
Speaker 1: I could continue to focus on the thing that I
Speaker 1: originally wanted to do, which was to help serve people
Speaker 1: in my highest capacity, which is when I started coaching
Speaker 1: after I left bodybuilding.
Speaker 3: Yeah, and that's what I finds interesting too. It's a
Speaker 3: knowing when to quit something, and quitting stuff is such
Speaker 3: a good skill that I think is underrated, like we
Speaker 3: rate people in society. For how long they can do
Speaker 3: something as opposed to how quickly they can let go
Speaker 3: of something that doesn't serve them or serve others anymore.
Speaker 3: And I'm more interested in that sometimes where I think about,
Speaker 3: like I let go of being a monk at a
Speaker 3: time when I didn't feel like it served me or
Speaker 3: served others anymore. I let go of my corporate career
Speaker 3: because it didn't serve me or serve others anymore. I
Speaker 3: let go of the first content I created. We don't
Speaker 3: make content like that anymore because it didn't serve me
Speaker 3: or serve others anymore. And it's like we've evolved in
Speaker 3: so many ways, and I often think that we keep
Speaker 3: putting time you've done something on a pedestal as opposed
Speaker 3: to time you stopped doing things that didn't make sense
Speaker 3: to you anymore. And so even hearing that from your perspective,
Speaker 3: and it's like, we did this bodybuilding, achieved so much,
Speaker 3: and then I had to leave it behind in order
Speaker 3: to move into coaching. And you know, in the coaching space,
Speaker 3: you've worked with some incredible people and you don't have
Speaker 3: to name anyone or whatever you feel comfortable with. But
Speaker 3: in the idea of like, when you're coaching someone or
Speaker 3: anyone who's thinking about becoming a coach or thinking about
Speaker 3: becoming a trainer or a guide, a teacher in any capacity,
Speaker 3: what are the things that have been really important that
Speaker 3: you've learned through coaching other people who are high performers.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's realizing that it's not about me. It's not
Speaker 1: about me coaching them, It's about me helping my client
Speaker 1: discover the power that they contain within themselves. So oftentimes
Speaker 1: people think that they're not one who could possibly get
Speaker 1: into shape or do the things that they commit because
Speaker 1: they just get in their own way. So what I've
Speaker 1: found is that those are symptoms of underlying beliefs. Maybe
Speaker 1: they're subconscious beliefs that are preventing them from doing the
Speaker 1: things that they really want to do. So when I coach,
Speaker 1: and you know this from working with me, is that
Speaker 1: I like to talk a lot during our sessions and
Speaker 1: hear what your experience is like, because oftentimes language reveals
Speaker 1: so much about how we think, and ironically, the way
Speaker 1: that we view ourselves has a huge impact in the
Speaker 1: way that we show up for or are our physical health.
Speaker 1: So as I'm training people, it's almost like I don't
Speaker 1: want to call it therapy, but it's just a really
Speaker 1: deep conversation where I learn about my clients on a
Speaker 1: level that allows them to see what kind of capable,
Speaker 1: powerful person they are, and then once they recognize it themselves,
Speaker 1: then they start to show up and believe it themselves.
Speaker 3: Yeah. So yeah, for everyone who's listening, Nima I trained
Speaker 3: me during the pandemic. I think he was for a
Speaker 3: few months. We work together, and I guarantee Nima has
Speaker 3: never had anyone that he's trained that has been blested me. Literally,
Speaker 3: I would like and Nima is a great tread to add.
Speaker 3: He's everything he just said. He is, like you know,
Speaker 3: it was very like therapeutic working with him, you know,
Speaker 3: super supportive, constantly make me look for the power within myself.
Speaker 3: And I'd be like, nine times out of ten after
Speaker 3: a session, I'd be lying on my bed just trying
Speaker 3: to recover because I'd love the coolness of my bed. Yeah,
Speaker 3: and I just sit there and just like take it
Speaker 3: in because it was so high intensity in a good way.
Speaker 3: But at the same time, I also broke through a
Speaker 3: lot of mental blocks I had around what I believed,
Speaker 3: around what my body could do or you know what
Speaker 3: I believed my body was capable of, Like we were
Speaker 3: able to dial back and start slower and build up again.
Speaker 3: And I think you were so great at doing that.
Speaker 3: Like I think it's so beautiful. As I'm a coach too,
Speaker 3: and I think when I'm being coached, I really appreciate
Speaker 3: it when someone makes me feel like I can get
Speaker 3: there and that it's okay that I'm slower or that
Speaker 3: it's taking time. I'm already going through all the self
Speaker 3: judgment and self criticism. The last thing I need is
Speaker 3: for someone else to criticize me too, and to have
Speaker 3: someone who's supporting you along that journey. I really felt
Speaker 3: love with you. I've always felt that with you through
Speaker 3: our friendship, but I also felt it very much in
Speaker 3: that time. And I think those are such great skills
Speaker 3: for all relationships, actually, not just for coaching, but if
Speaker 3: you're teaching your partner something, if you're teaching a child something,
Speaker 3: if you're teaching a parent something. If we could be
Speaker 3: more supportive and notice the goodness in them, and notice
Speaker 3: the attempt and notice the positive attitude that person have
Speaker 3: and the fact that they showed up, that person is
Speaker 3: going to feel inspired. But if we criticize them the
Speaker 3: first time they fumble, or judge them the second time
Speaker 3: they make a mistake, or point out to them how
Speaker 3: much better everyone else that we train is. That doesn't
Speaker 3: help anyone. And I at one point I had one
Speaker 3: of my clients took me to play golf with him,
Speaker 3: and I don't play golf, and I've never played golf
Speaker 3: before that day, and I had a coach at the
Speaker 3: center we went to, and the coach was incredible, very patient,
Speaker 3: very professional, you know, very there for me. I was
Speaker 3: only there for a day, so only got a day
Speaker 3: of coaching. But by the end of the day, I
Speaker 3: was half decent. I was okay, and I could do something.
Speaker 3: And when I came back to LA because we were
Speaker 3: traveling together. But when I came back to LA, I
Speaker 3: tried to look for a golf coach here because I
Speaker 3: really got it. I was like, oh, this could be
Speaker 3: a cool thing to do, and maybe it'd be fun
Speaker 3: to get into it with Radi. And I took Radi
Speaker 3: with me, and I got a coach who'd supposedly worked
Speaker 3: with like some of the best, the best and all
Speaker 3: the rest of it. And I couldn't take a shot
Speaker 3: without him. Correcting me every second, and it almost became
Speaker 3: really draining and tiring because I was like, I need
Speaker 3: to hit like ten shots to then be corrected. But
Speaker 3: if I'm corrected in every half a swing, it's really
Speaker 3: hard for me to like find my flow. And I
Speaker 3: felt so criticized and judged and everything that I kind
Speaker 3: of never saw him again after like see him a
Speaker 3: couple of times, and it just showed me that being
Speaker 3: a coach is really tough. Being a student is really tough.
Speaker 3: But often I think we wrongly coach our friends and family,
Speaker 3: and that's where I find the coaching conversation will be
Speaker 3: most interesting. Even if you're not a coach in your career,
Speaker 3: how you try and teach things to your family, your friends,
Speaker 3: your kids, your parents goes a long way. I wanted
Speaker 3: to hear your thoughts on that.
Speaker 1: Yeah, No, it's meeting people where they are right and
Speaker 1: understanding that everybody is where they're at and that is
Speaker 1: the only place they could be with the awareness that
Speaker 1: they have in that moment. So really having compassion because really,
Speaker 1: I mean, coaches just help you get one step ahead
Speaker 1: at a time. If you try to share something with
Speaker 1: someone who's not ready to receive that message, it's just
Speaker 1: going to go over their head. So I really love
Speaker 1: starting with the fundamentals of helping people make those small
Speaker 1: incremental changes that compound to be big, big difference in
Speaker 1: their physical health. But not just their physical health, but
Speaker 1: like the way that they believe they have the confidence
Speaker 1: in themselves that they can achieve the things that they
Speaker 1: want to. So, like you said, sometimes people are their
Speaker 1: own worst critics. And having compassion towards yourself whenever you're
Speaker 1: learning something is a skill and it's not something that
Speaker 1: we exercise very much. So I really try to help
Speaker 1: my clients also exercise that muscle of can you be
Speaker 1: compassionate with yourself? Yes, you may be not where you
Speaker 1: want to be. Maybe you're a bit out of shape,
Speaker 1: that's okay. The difference that you have now is you
Speaker 1: have the awareness that you want to do something about it.
Speaker 1: You don't have to judge yourself for the mistakes that
Speaker 1: you made. All of that process was or all of
Speaker 1: those decisions were coming from a place that maybe you
Speaker 1: didn't have the awareness to you, maybe you didn't have
Speaker 1: the skill set too, maybe to have the resources too.
Speaker 1: But now moving forward, you have the support too, and
Speaker 1: you first, have to be kind with yourself. Yeah, first
Speaker 1: and foremost. So if you feel guilty or if you
Speaker 1: feel ashamed of allowing yourself to get to this point,
Speaker 1: just know that, yes, you were always accountable for what
Speaker 1: we do, but there's no need to belittle yourself or
Speaker 1: beat yourself up about it. It's like I'd like to
Speaker 1: use this example with my clients. If you were to
Speaker 1: hand a child a calculus problem and tell them to
Speaker 1: solve it, and they weren't able to solve it, would
Speaker 1: you yell at them or scream at them, or tell
Speaker 1: them how stupid they are or how incapable they are. No,
Speaker 1: they just don't have the awareness to solve that problem.
Speaker 1: And that is the same kind of thinking that you
Speaker 1: could apply towards yourself. Like, you would be gentle with them,
Speaker 1: you would be kind with them, you would be supportive,
Speaker 1: you would ask them what they need to help get
Speaker 1: them to that place. So that's the way that I
Speaker 1: like to teach my clients to think about themselves, so
Speaker 1: that the next time they show up and they say, hey,
Speaker 1: you know what, I slipped up. But slipping up and
Speaker 1: giving up are two totally different things. So it's okay
Speaker 1: to slip up failure is part of the formula for success.
Speaker 1: So you learn, you make mistakes, you get better, you
Speaker 1: make more advanced mistakes, and then you get better. So
Speaker 1: that's the formula I like to teach my clients as well.
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, yeah, I love that. And what I love
Speaker 3: about that approach is just fitness and working out and
Speaker 3: anything we do externally is so much more of an
Speaker 3: internal journey. Like it's like overcoming the inner critic, overcoming
Speaker 3: the inner judgment, being able to be kind to ourselves,
Speaker 3: being able to be compassionate to ourselves, being able to
Speaker 3: let things go and know when to work harder and
Speaker 3: when to pull back. It's such an internal dialogue. It's
Speaker 3: completely inner mastery that you're actually working on. And I
Speaker 3: often think about me as someone who I love playing sports.
Speaker 3: I've never really loved working out. But that's the part
Speaker 3: that I can get behind, is that ultimately it's in
Speaker 3: a mastery that I'm working on, even if working out
Speaker 3: is my favorite thing, even though I do do it
Speaker 3: because I've realized it's value and benefit, but that ultimately
Speaker 3: it's in a mastery that I'm trying to get through it.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, and focusing more on the process too, and
Speaker 1: not so much the outcome, because the outcome. Yes, people
Speaker 1: are motivated by results. But if you're only motivated by
Speaker 1: results and they don't come in the timeline that you
Speaker 1: expect them to, then your motivation will tank. So finding
Speaker 1: that intrinsic motivation of not just looking a certain way
Speaker 1: in the mirror or seeing a certain number on the scale,
Speaker 1: or being able to squat a thousand pounds or anything
Speaker 1: like that, but really being intrinsically motivated by the feeling
Speaker 1: that you're looking to achieve by doing this. So showing
Speaker 1: up for yourself, going to the gym and just remembering
Speaker 1: or just thinking about the feeling that you would get
Speaker 1: once you have that internal freedom within your body, the
Speaker 1: comfort of what it would feel like to just wake
Speaker 1: up and feel good, just feel good in your skin,
Speaker 1: and feel capable of handling whatever life throws at you
Speaker 1: because you have been consistently training and showing up in
Speaker 1: this way. So I really try to preach just focus
Speaker 1: on the process and if you can really find a
Speaker 1: way to enjoy the process, to make it fun, to
Speaker 1: make it exciting. Like, fitness is not just about going
Speaker 1: to the gym. There's many different forms of fitness. So
Speaker 1: if you don't like training or you don't like lifting
Speaker 1: weights in the gym, like, you could do tennis, or
Speaker 1: you could play soccer. You could go hiking, you could
Speaker 1: go biking, you could go paddle boarding. There's so many
Speaker 1: different things that once you find the enjoyment of it,
Speaker 1: then you're more likely to keep doing it.
Speaker 3: Yeah. Absolutely, NeiMa, It's been so dope talking to you, man.
Speaker 3: It's just like, I feel like there's so many great
Speaker 3: lessons from just hearing some one's journey. And you know,
Speaker 3: even though we've been friends and we've talked before, it's
Speaker 3: like to actually hear your journey step by step. And
Speaker 3: I noticed this in everyone that I think is living happier,
Speaker 3: healthy and healed lives, is that it's just that they
Speaker 3: took the time to reflect and then shift. That's like
Speaker 3: a common thread I find in people who are happier, healthier,
Speaker 3: and more healed is that they weren't smarter, They weren't better.
Speaker 3: They weren't And this applies to me too. It's like,
Speaker 3: you didn't It's not that you were above anyone, and
Speaker 3: it's not that you were below. It's not that you
Speaker 3: were ahead or behind. It's that The only difference is
Speaker 3: you took the time to reflect and shift your life
Speaker 3: according to your reflection. And I find that today we
Speaker 3: do a lot of thinking and overthinking, and thinking and
Speaker 3: overthinking is where you just let the same thought go
Speaker 3: over and over and over again. But reflecting is asking yourself,
Speaker 3: is this the right thought? Is this thought useful? Is
Speaker 3: this the thought that I want to play again and
Speaker 3: again and again. The answer is no, let me shift
Speaker 3: my behavior so that I can have a different thought,
Speaker 3: or let me plant a new thought so that it
Speaker 3: can shift my behavior. And so I see that through
Speaker 3: your journey, and it's just I hope that this conversation
Speaker 3: encourages you to listen to your friends, listen to people
Speaker 3: around you, to make time and space for reflection, because
Speaker 3: even reflecting with you today, it's amazing to see how
Speaker 3: many similarities there are, even though we do very different
Speaker 3: things or have achieved very different things externally, but there's
Speaker 3: so many similarities in how we had to pivot and shift.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean, I think it really comes down to
Speaker 1: listening to yourself. Like you said, that self reflection, that
Speaker 1: listening to your gut, listening to that inner knowing, and
Speaker 1: it's much more difficult to find that without creating the
Speaker 1: space to listen. So for me, that meditation is also
Speaker 1: whenever I move my body. Some people find it in stillness.
Speaker 1: I find it in movement, and that is when I
Speaker 1: find this connection to this higher self. If you will,
Speaker 1: within myself to where I get all my best ideas,
Speaker 1: I find the most inspiration. So creating the space for
Speaker 1: whatever that looks like for you to really tap into
Speaker 1: the deepest part of yourself that brings you the most
Speaker 1: fulfillment and most join and most clarity about who do
Speaker 1: you want to be, what type of person do you
Speaker 1: want to show up as, what type of life do
Speaker 1: you want to have? And are you living in alignment
Speaker 1: with those those thoughts or are you living incongruently with that?
Speaker 1: And that disparity between the two is signified by how
Speaker 1: you feel about it. So you're always being shown and
Speaker 1: being guided by your feelings. So learn to tap into
Speaker 1: the good feelings and what feels right and what feels
Speaker 1: true for you and then just continue to follow that.
Speaker 3: Absolutely, Nima, I love that I've we end every episode
Speaker 3: with a final five. Okay, these have to be answered
Speaker 3: in a one word to one sentence maximum, So Nima
Speaker 3: Dza your final five. The first question is what is
Speaker 3: the best fitness advice you've ever received or heard?
Speaker 2: Just be consistent? Okay, just be consistent.
Speaker 3: That is good advice, all right. The second question is
Speaker 3: what is the worst fitness advice you've ever heard or received?
Speaker 2: That you have to go to a gym to get fit?
Speaker 3: You know.
Speaker 1: I would say that you have to You don't have
Speaker 1: to sign up to a gym to get in shape,
Speaker 1: you know. Just find what you like to do that's
Speaker 1: active and gets you moving, and that's what's most important
Speaker 1: when it comes to fitness.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I remember when you turn a random room in
Speaker 3: our house into yeah, the pandemic. So yeah, I believe
Speaker 3: that now after having seen you doing that, I do that.
Speaker 3: Question number three, how would you define your current purpose.
Speaker 1: To help inspire people to lead with more compassion?
Speaker 2: Beautiful?
Speaker 3: Question number four? What's something that you used to value
Speaker 3: when it came to physical fitness but that you don't
Speaker 3: value anymore?
Speaker 1: I would say the the This is superficial, but the
Speaker 1: amount of weight that I that I lift in the gym.
Speaker 1: I see so many people lift with their ego and
Speaker 1: they're just being very inefficient with their movement, and they're
Speaker 1: essentially wasting their time in the gym. So leave your
Speaker 1: ego at the door. Whenever you go into the gym
Speaker 1: and lift with intention. Don't just go in there to
Speaker 1: swing weight around and look cool, but really go in
Speaker 1: there with the intention of mastering the repetition. If you
Speaker 1: can master the repetition of any movement, then you will
Speaker 1: see so much faster results than anything else.
Speaker 3: That's great. I love that. That's a good piece of advice.
Speaker 3: Fifth and final question, if you could create one law
Speaker 3: that everyone in the world had to follow, what would it.
Speaker 1: Be to be kind to others, accept people where they
Speaker 1: are and who they are. I think that the world
Speaker 1: would be a much much more pleasant place than what
Speaker 1: it does right now.
Speaker 3: We need a lot of that. Yeah, everyone, that's n
Speaker 3: my del Gato. Make sure you check him out if
Speaker 3: you don't already on social media. We will put his
Speaker 3: handles everywhere and make sure you tag us, both me
Speaker 3: and Nima with anything that stood out in this conversation.
Speaker 3: I think this was one of those conversations where, you know,
Speaker 3: we learned so much about so many things we go
Speaker 3: through all the time, things like pivoting your career, things
Speaker 3: like knowing when to quit things like how to process
Speaker 3: your early experiences and turn them into something else, and
Speaker 3: then ultimately, how do you find what you love and
Speaker 3: live in that way and totally create a life around
Speaker 3: what you love and what you believe in, whether that's
Speaker 3: loving your workout or loving your career. And so I
Speaker 3: hope this episode guides you closer towards that direction. I
Speaker 3: hope this episode moves you in that direction, towards your
Speaker 3: greatest gifts and your greatest potential. And I want to
Speaker 3: say a big thank you to Nima for spending his
Speaker 3: time with us today. Thank you so much. Man. That
Speaker 3: was amazing and it's so good for me to sit
Speaker 3: and learn more about your story. And I hope a
Speaker 3: lot of people are going to come and learn from
Speaker 3: me and grow in so many different ways.
Speaker 1: Nah, thank you so much, Jay, I really appreciate you
Speaker 1: inviting me on. I just want to say that you
Speaker 1: are such an inspiration to me as well, and to
Speaker 1: see you and Roddy show up in the way that
Speaker 1: you do and continue to inspire and uplift everybody.
Speaker 2: So thank you for being an inspiration too.
Speaker 3: Thank you so much, Ron, Thank you If you love
Speaker 3: this episode you'll enjoy my conversation with Megan Trainer on
Speaker 3: breaking generational trauma and how to be confident from the
Speaker 3: inside out.
Speaker 4: My therapist told me stand in the mirror naked for
Speaker 4: five minutes. It was already tough for me to love
Speaker 4: my body, but after the C section scar with all
Speaker 4: the stretch marks, now I'm looking at myself like I've
Speaker 4: been hacked. But day three, when I did it, I
Speaker 4: was like, you know what, her thighs are?
Speaker 1: Cute.