133. How Your Health as a Leader Creates Longevity and Proficiency | Julian Hayes II

Julian Hayes II is an author, hybrid athlete, and the founder of Executive Health. His boutique concierge helps forward-thinking entrepreneurs, investors, and executives maintain their edge and status through high-touch, personalized health and longevity strategies.

He's also the host of Executive Health & Life. Lastly, he's had 300+ articles published in Inc., Entrepreneur, & many more.

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Transcript

Cartwright Morris: 0:02

All right, welcome in to the men are forged Podcast. I'm excited to interview Julian Hayes. Today, Julian coming from just up the road in Nashville, Julian's Great to have you in. Thank you so much for having me, man. You know, I, I don't know, I should have just came down to the Deep South, as we were talking about beforehand. And we can get this in person, because you are literally right down the street from me. Yeah, we couldn't really done that have been fun.

Julian Hayes II: 0:27

You know, there is one day I think I'll love to have a studio, I could just like, really do it? Well, but yeah, that's what I'm thinking here. You know, there's a part of me that I want to do. And so for right now, in terms of bridging the gap between that. I know, there's a lot of different companies now, at least here in Nashville, that offer a studio for you to rent for your end, right. And so that's kind of what I'm looking into doing when I do local interviews, because I want to do more of that. Because I've done a few in person interviews, and there's some there's something so magic about in person interviews. I love zoom. Nothing wrong with Zoom. But in person, you just can't beat that. Even just in business, a zoom call and an in person business meeting. It's two totally different worlds. miles apart. I'm with you. You're I'm thankful for the virtual world. It's allowed things for me to meet people like you. But the end of the day, you're right. There's nothing better than face to face, like the real thing. Absolutely. Yeah. Yeah, I think it's maybe because I'm an older millennial, still a millennial, but an older millennial. So I have, you know, I'm lucky, I look back now, I still remember life a little bit. Before we had the internet as good as it was, I remember I had a computer but if it didn't, you had to those floppy disks that you put in, I still there was a time when I went to the library, I had to I had to go search for the book itself, and everything. So you know, we had to flip phones a little Nokia's. And it took a long time to text. So you really didn't want to text so you either call the person or you waited. So you saw those were the good days, right?

Unknown: 1:59

Yeah, cuz you only you didn't have the actual keyboard to text with. So you had to go through each number, the three letters. Yeah. So. And that taught us about communication, because you didn't send needless words, because it was it was a task in itself to type one word. So you were very precise with those words. And I think it made us a better communicators and people now because sometimes people send text messages. And then it's like sending me a thesis. What are you doing? You shouldn't use the voice? No, there's something I don't want to read a thesis. Exactly. Yes. 100%. If I wanted to read I could open up a book. Yeah, exactly. Or an email sent me if you're gonna talk talk too much. Yeah, exactly. Well, I guess we can go all day on that. But you know, the first world problems, right, exactly. First of all, this is when you know, life is good. When we have time to complain. You know, this is the thing in the world. I'm not gonna go too much on a diatribe about this. But, you know, if you think about a lot of stuff that we complain about it you hear people complaining about, like, if you look at the grand scheme of things, you're like, man, life must be really good for you to go down the laundry list of things and to finally get to this thing, that's a problem. Because for most people, they don't have the time in the day, they have to work way too hard just to get by and survive for this to even come up as a problem. Yes, there's almost there is there's there is value in in a level of naivete, right, or a level of just simplicity. Man, we could probably have a discussion on that, right. I think, you know, one time I interviewed somebody and they said some of their best employees were people that grew up in the country farm boys who just like the work, they see the work in front of them and they do the work versus people who grew up in cities. And and I would say this mind growth has come from being in places where it's more diverse, more different people from different backgrounds and understandings and countries and as exposed me in my thinking, right. But then there is a level of like, at the end the day you got to do the work. Yeah, like so there's a dichotomy and there's value for both and I guess this is a good transition. Julian is like I know you grew up in Nashville got the south like me, but you spent a lot of time in New York. Yeah. What would you say your background of experiencing both what led you to New York and really like what would be kind of your origin story of really what led you into who you are today, a brief origin story is that so I grew up playing basketball had opportunities to junior college, but instead of got a four year write academically for UT Knoxville, and wasn't going to the NBA 511 and which is not bad height, but if you're going to be 511, you're probably gonna need to be a point guard or something and you're gonna need to have either needs to be really quick. That's not me. I needed at least be 6364 So I'm gonna be more of a swing man. So let's push that aside. My brain is going to take me further to the athletic talent. So you got to UT Knoxville and it's pretty similar to Nashville. It's a big party school, but it's, it's still not the same and everything so But up bear, I started to, like we talk about you started to have this exposure, this paradigm changing of meeting people from different walks of life and it really opens your eyes. Like for me, I did not really start eating healthy until maybe college and trying salads and things, I just ate fried food, like my pregame meals for basketball was like the chicken nugget combo, the 20 piece, and then large fry and large sweet tea, you know, oh, to be 616 again, right? To burn that off. And so and so up there, though I probably like most men, you get up there, see a bunch of pretty women that you gotta know, have that confidence. And so you're searching for this, you're searching for this confidence, this magical elixir something. So for me, I thought, let's just start working out or something right? Like, let me start working out. So I started working out and everything and, and so that got me started in health. And over the course of that I really start to light this thing. I'm a business major. And I still finished with that. But toward the end of time thinking I don't really want to do this marketing thing. Because I initially thought marketing was I was going to be in a big office and get the dress up and just give ideas all day. I just want to be idea guy did a little small internship for once. It didn't last long. And they talk talking about account executive and sales and stuff. And I'm like, Nah, Nah, man, I'm good with that. We're, we gotta call audible on that. No, thank you. And so. So you do that. So I started to do the prereqs for medical school. And that's what takes me to New York, I get accepted. Go to New York. And man, New York is a very different place than itself. So the first thing I get up, right, I see a guy dance with a boombox. I'm like, this ain't Tennessee. This is not Tennessee. But you know, when I'm up in New York, the cool thing about New York is you can go to Starbucks here in Nashville, and people are just going about their job and everything. But for whatever reason, maybe it's divine intervention or whatnot. I always had the craziest conversations in different cafes, when I ventured out throughout the city, some people are working on different startups. These people have big dreams they're getting on Broadway, they're actors, of singers, all these different things to have these big dreams. And there's a passion with that it's so contagious to be around someone who just is bursting with energy. And that's not me, school is easy. You know, you're just, I'm just relaxing, you know, show up, take a test, get some answers, get a grade, over the course of time, you're going to get a known most likely you're going to get a job making a pretty good salary. And your first generation you feel good about this now that my parents or anybody went to college. So this is the proven path. This is what they told me to do. You go to school, you'd be successful. And at some point, I'll get a white picket fence. And I'm living the American dream. But deep down inside, I always had these voices of like, Man, this ain't it. This is not it. This is not it. And it just gets louder as you keep living life. You can't suppress that voice. I do have a theory that people sometimes use alcohol and other vices to kind of suppress that voice that they know they should be doing something but they're not doing. That's probably a whole nother conversation in itself. But the one pivotal moment in New York, don't I remember I was at this place the Lower East Side, I'm at the Yuka bar. And I shouldn't be in class. But I'm not. I'm having some drinks a Kapadia, and it's a beautiful blonde, pretty pretty blonde should ask her out. But I was really fascinated by her story. And so I even forgot to do that. And so she's talking. And she's traveling and she's doing her work. And I what I hear is that you're combining your passion, with your purpose. You're combining all in one, you're not separating work in life, you're making all these things go to Canada and like Dale, I need that. I need that. So I'm sitting in an anatomy exam, it's like three hours, I look up halfway. And I'm just like, Oh, my goodness, this is really not it. I still finished the year I come back home in Nashville. And I just decide that I'm not going to go, the government can always give me money to go back to school. But I got to take this opportunity and just figure it out. And that's kind of the origin story. It didn't there's of course, a bunch of different turns and twists throughout the journey over those last seven, eight years. Yeah, man. So I do want to plug your website. So executive health.io. So I think there's a there's a where, like, that's interesting, you hit on I imagine, you've become aware and a lot of executives and leaders you help there's a pain point that they have. What was kind of I mean, it sounds like your pain point was just the feeling stuck feeling. And what led you to kind of go in kind of the What's the origin of the idea of Ooh, there's a group of people that need something, my expertise or my passion and purpose in that. So where what was the journey like of discovering your purpose? I think my purpose was always to, you know, for me, the meaning of life is its growth and evolution. You know, just simply its growth in evolution, but also value Freedom and having control. And so leaving medical school, I knew I wanted to be involved in health, didn't know what capacity. So initially I saw, I just did a personal training job at my gym, I got paid peanuts, and I was working in a call center as well, which is kind of the drop off, you know, when you go from being a king. And everybody's, like applauding you, because you're in med school, then you go to working at a call center and getting paid 725 for training sessions. It starts to humble you a little bit. But I've met some really good people got to build my skills as well in terms of talking to people from all different walks of life, and finding ways to connect instantly, even though we come from way different backgrounds. Now. So you start this personal training journey. And it's initially things of just like lose fat for 12 weeks, kind of a lot of stuff you see on Instagram, now just fat loss, typical stuff, you talk about the masses with, you know, I, but I start to want more of myself, I get bored with it, I've kind of done all this stuff, getting being super lean, and all that stuff, it's boring to me, there's another tear, you know, what motivates you at 2627 with your health, it's going to be different as you start to get into your 30s a little bit. And then I also started to see my family, my dad was a big inspiration. And then I started looking at my family tree, and a lot of family members who were on dialysis. Some amputees, you start to see those things and you wonder, are my genes my destiny or not. And so I started seeking out knowledge doing some independent study. Luckily, I find mentors. And I started thinking about health optimization. So this is the natural evolution of me, that's going to be reflected in my work. Executive health is relatively new, my original company, and what I was incorporated as this artifice in life, but then just through talking with different executives, entrepreneurs, leaders, I was at a dinner, actually. And this is where this idea came up. I was just talking. And they were like, Why don't you just change it to executive health that I Oh, it's easier to understand this what you do already? And I was like, Well, I don't know. I guess I will. So, but how did I even come up with that? That's one of the reasons but also, I just started talking to people. And I started to hear different ways that people were struggling different things that they would like. And I saw a need in the market, it's going to take some time, because I'm ahead of the curve on a lot of the things. But I know I'm in the right direction now. Because I feel much more energized these days. And even and even the days where a lot of days, when you're creating something, or even if you're rising up the ranks in the corporate world, there's gonna be a lot of times where you're gonna keep doing things. And there's no results to show for it. You have no idea why you keep doing this, because there's no proof visibly that you can see, even if you feel it. And that's a key distinction. That's a key reason why a lot of people quit. It's almost like you're harvesting out in the ground. You're planting seeds and everything. You don't see anything coming to fruition, because nothing's sprouting up. But underneath that surface, you're building momentum, you're actually building the vegetation. And you just got to have the faith in and that's where that came from. Man. That's interesting. So did you in the midst of that? I mean, one, yeah, one, and this is my curiosity. And my my listeners, you know, I'll probably overuse that word, but I am just naturally because I'm like, Man, this is so fascinating. As someone who wants to serve hurting leaders, you know, executives that I want to help them lead better. A lot of times it can start with just your own personal health. So yeah, how, where, where did you find that niche of like, ooh, executives, these are the people that really kind of needs what I have to give. Yeah, I thought about, you know, I thought about some of the things I offer and some of the things I do like when you're looking into different bio hallmarks of aging, when you're looking into genetic testing, and different wearables and biometrics like that. The masses are not really interested in it, they're usually going to be late adopters. Me, for instance, I mean, intermittent fasting is big to a lot of people now. Intermittent fasting, I, we've known about that, and message boards to try that stuff out in like 2005 or six. Right. So there was cultures for centuries have been doing it. Yeah, of course, everybody had to do it, right. Yeah, could eat right. Yeah. So you think about those things. And I just thought about the personality type. Usually, it's gonna be someone who's early adopter. And then I thought about what type of person do I actually enjoy working with? Being honest, a lot of times, I think we, I think a lot of times we pick clientele even I just did this at first, we put we pick whoever wants to pay us. So we're almost like a mercenary. Whoever has the highest bid or whoever is just going to pay me I'm going to do it. You're just a mercenary. Nothing wrong with that because you do get to put food on the table. But at some point, you start to feel it when you're not working with the right people. It's a lot of friction. And so I thought about who are my dream clients, even if I don't have any right now? What absolute love to work with had a Genie in a Bottle always came back to like leaders, executives, entrepreneurs, people who are forward thinking people who are really trying to push the needle really trying to create a better world. I never saw myself as a person who's going to be like, the person who has sold out stadiums that I don't really want to deal with that. But I can't be the person almost like a hockey assist. Who helps who directly leads to the goalscoring so I can help the leader who's going to impact the masses. And I'm still getting a hockey assist in terms of impacting a lot of people. So that's one one way. But then I also thought about when I think about concierge service, because I got this from restaurants and hotels, who would have who really appreciate that people who are time constrain what type of people those once again, it's going to be executives and entrepreneurs. And so if I and, and so it just logically added up. And then I combined it with what I feel. And then kind of myself, who do I see myself as even if I'm not that person right now? Who do I see myself as years down the road, I see myself hanging with these type of people talking with these kinds of people. Because we want to create solutions. We want to create jobs for the world. We want to do all these great things. So that's what I saw myself. So I might as well start to create something like that. Yeah. Oh, that's cool. And so what Yeah, I mean, I would love to just just to share with my audience, what is that process? Yeah. Because I think there is some audience out there. Like, I mean, it really is interesting, as much information we have. There's almost gotten, we've gotten too much information when it comes to our health, right? Where there's 700 different diets you could do, there's different types of workouts and you know, you know, there's CrossFit, there's orange therapy, there's all this stuff. So how, yeah, what Where have you seen? Yeah, where it's kind of the entry point that you've taken? Or, if you would, I mean, take us liberal in the journey of what you take us through, but really, what's what's level? What's level one? What's the entry level point? Yeah. And see, that's the secret. That's another reason I forgot to mention is that I saw the way the world is going in terms of health. I can go to chat, GBT, I can use a lot of different services. Now to find a quote unquote, custom nutrition plan. It's not really custom. But you can go, I can go on Google, find a nutrition plan, I can go on Google and find a 12 week 16 week workout plan, it'll be pretty serviceable. So if that's my main thing, I'm still a commodity, right. And so I don't want to be a commodity, I have to work way too hard for a client that I'm probably not getting enough paid for, for my services, and then you got taxes and all that stuff, and didn't investing back end to everything. So I had to back out of that. That's a lesson I learned during my initial iteration. Now, the whole process, so when people say custom, and truly unique, I really wanted that. I really wanted that. And so what does that look like when I asked myself that we start unique from a cellular level. So the first thing is I need our blueprint. And so that's starting with a genetic report. So every person I look at is a blank canvas. I'm coming in with no assumptions, nothing. And we're just going to collect a bunch of data. And then one of my superpowers, things I enjoyed the most is to look at all this. And to make a story out of it, connect all these different things. Because we're all just one giant system, this all together and thinking, Okay, well, what this person said, from how this person's worldview is, this and what their data says, This is how we're going to start. And then this is this is where we're going to go maybe halfway. And this is where we're going even long term. So I think near far and beyond, in terms of in terms of progress, because you got to have something near or pretty close, because you want to start building momentum for the person. So you can't say, Hey, this is a 12 month process, I enjoy that kind of thing and say, Hey, this is a 12 to 18 month project. Most people don't need it quick when they need that dopamine. So that's why I have my near, but the actual tools and everything. So some of the basic things is a genetic testing, to get their DNA report to kind of know, give us a rough idea with nutrition and training, hormones sleep, all that's going to look like in terms of the genetic meaning because there's not a one size fits all correct. Yeah. Because yeah, we're 99.9 So percent the same, but definitely 1% is a huge difference. Right? Yeah. And then you didn't, you know, but sometimes when you have your genetic report, you have your genes. Like for my for my example, I have a super high propensity for blood sugar issues. Some people call it diabetes, and just general blood sugar cardiovascular problems, but just because you have the gene does not mean it's actually expressing. So that's a key thing that you cannot take these things as absolute. And so therefore, and how do I know that? Well, that's when you also include bloodwork as well so you order a comprehensive lab report to get bloodwork so I can check my fasting glucose, my fasting insulin and my a one seat to see is this actually expressing or not? So that's a way to count And that shows too, then I like to do just a general health assessment, kind of learn the background, learn a little bit about the family, learn a bit where they're seeing health, in terms of what are they looking at in terms of the lens, some people think they have a sleep problem, some people is a food problem. Some people said, motivation problem, whatever it is, that gives me an idea. And next is we're going to also add a omega three report. Right? Yeah. And then I have a tool here called Firstbeat. It's a company, it's a device you wear for three days, it's going to keep up with every heartbeat for those three days. And what that does is, is we're looking at kind of the division between sympathetic and parasympathetic, fight or flight, rest and relaxation. A lot of us hard charging leaders and people people get after it. We're pretty dominant on the sympathetic and hard charging. And so we want to try to see how far off we are with that balancing. Let's see what we can do to kind of bring this to into a little more harmony. You're also getting a sleep report with that looking at how you're sleeping, the quality of sleep, that you're getting the breakdown that they were looking at exercising your VO to. And heartbreak HRV. So you're getting a whole initial comprehensive report, kind of like you said, where you stand. And what that does is also like, most importantly, it lets me see how you're living. And it also gives you a reflection of how you're living. It gives you a baseline of where you stand, and then things that we can start to tackle one by one, there's a couple of little other pieces that's added, like a age report to say, What's your age chronologically compared to biologically, that also gives you an idea of how you're living currently right now and how you've been living. And none of these things, the good thing is absolute and set in stone. But what it does is most importantly, it gives us a baseline for where you are. And now we can always compare to where you're to where you're going afterwards. And to see is the supplement regimen, the exercise regimen, the lifestyle regimen, and other protocols. Are these having some type of positive benefit in terms of all these other initial data entry points. And there's a whole host of other different things like like a neurocognitive exam on the computer that you can do to see how quick your brain is processing and and homos it and a couple other things. But that's it for the majority. Wow. That's that's pretty awesome. Just and you come into? I mean, like you said it's say the Acconci errs. So are you coming in their office, you're coming in, you're fitting into their schedule when you go do some of these evaluations? Yeah, so a lot of those are a lot of those can be done, a lot of those can be done virtually. So I ship everything to them. Go I can order I can order the last and have them show up long as they're not in New York, New York is as much as I love New York. New York's bureaucratic processes, and everything is absolutely asinine. I'm sorry, she lives in New York, I think it's terrible. But it because I can't really order anything in New York. And so that's, that's why it's problematic. So but yeah, for most places, I can just order some labs free to show up, you go there or in some place, they can even come to you. There's an option where I have partnerships with doctors and everything to do in person evaluations on certain tests that I can't do. Yeah, yeah. So like, I like things like CAC scans, and a couple other different things. Can't do that, obviously, since we're not a doctor. And so. But there is a in person component, depending on the amount of detail and stuff that you want to do. Oh, yeah. But a lot of this can be done just virtually in everything. Yeah. Oh, man. So So you got to, if we could just back up a little bit. We got an athletic basketball background, business degree, medical school, personal trainer, and like all of this is just kind of seemed set in New York. Yeah, man. That's it. A host of things. And so, and establishing partnerships. So that's, that's been a key thing is to be able to, because you hear people say, at least I heard people have my personal trainer here. I gotta do my nutrition here. I got to do this other thing here. And so I thought, why not just bring this all in house, and do the best I can. And so that's why like, I don't really do the fitness programming anymore. I have a I have a friend who's an expert at fitness programming. And I'm glad to share the pie to bring experts at it. Because I think we can we can go faster. When we when you have people surrounding you. That's a lesson I had to learn. I'm only child. So my natural inclination is not to network. It's not to talk to people. It's not even to do podcasts interviews. I used to be a huge introvert and unmute, which you probably can tell now. You know, thank you for Toastmasters and other different events that really kind of helped me break out of my shell. Yeah. So you have people who kind of are specialists in certain areas I know about but I'm not the foremost expert. Get. And I really want to focus on the essentially being a CEO of their health. And yeah, Operation aspects and coaching them. I enjoy looking at all the data coming up with a story coming up with a game plan and then deploying from there. Yeah. Man, Julian, you just hit on two things. So I think for the 20 year old guy right now, just from from your story, one is like, sometimes you got to just keep swinging, keep trying new things from your store, like, like you just pivoted, you kept pivoting to find stuff and, and nothing's wasted. You've been you've used every little thing for what you're doing now. Absolutely. Ban and then a second, go. Everything, everything this is especially the 20 year old. Yeah, oh, man, if they're in school, I might get in trouble for saying this. I might get in trouble for just like to say it, I just really feel it, I would focus a little less on really striving what your grades unless you're you have to do something like medical school, or something like that, where grades are important. But even then I kind of I wrote a very good essay, that helped me get into medical school wasn't my GPA wasn't the highest compared to other people. But I have a very good life story, because I had hobbies I had other interest is a well rounded individual. So where am I getting with this? That is one of the best times to form relationships with those people. And to network and to build friends. I wish I did that, because the thing is 1015 years later, because I'm 36 right now, some of these people are going to have some great positions and companies are doing, doing great things, and, and keeping them in your network. It's a great time to collab, and to really all succeed together. So I have a few friends in my life who are who are doing very good in the corporate world, and things I can learn from talking to them use it as a resource. So you just never know where people are going. But it's also a great way to just start building relationships. Because what, you know, I thought, talent, and the smartest, knowing everything is all you needed. And it's really not because I promise you this, a lot of the people that you see prominently, like, in health or business on TV, they're not the smartest people, trust me, trust me, especially with the health people because I know a lot of health people, smart as hell, people I know are just terrible at marketing and stuff. And they're not really concerned with it. So you're not going to hear about them. But you're gonna hear about the other people because they keep taking swings, but they're taking swings in marketing and everything and just consistently putting themselves out there. So separate those things, focus on relationships, and like you said, everything that you do is an opportunity to learn from, you know, so even from working in a warehouse, even for working in a call center, I took different influences. From there, I know how to relate to people, ranging from a super wealthy person, to a very blue collar working class person, I can relate to him and share our story, even if we don't live the same life, I can relate to him. And that helps you with communicating. So wherever you go, you can communicate and relate to people build relationships better. And it's also good from a business, even from a leadership standpoint, because leadership a lot of times in, which is different than what I thought it was. But from a leadership standpoint, it's getting the buy in getting people to believe in you. And one of the ways to people to believe in you is for them to know that you are similar to them, and that you kind of have some kind of viewpoints and commonalities with them. That's going to build that connection together. And so that's kind of a few things that I would tell that a 20 year old and just stay curious, stay curious the world. The world really wants you in a box, they will do everything they can to place you in a box to place you in this identity. I still got family members now they're like, Well, when you were 25, you didn't think like this. And you did this like Dude, I'm 36. Now, if I'm thinking the same at 25 at 36, and nothing's changed, or something, something went wrong. Something went wrong. Yes, yeah. Yeah. I mean, which is like I think is what I love about this podcast, I interview men like you, it's what ends up is the common theme of all of them is like they've learned how to fall forward. Everybody falls, everybody gets humbled. It's like they just fail forward. Yeah, everything's not linear, like the trajectory of success is not linear. Like, you'll have a good winning streak, and then you might end up losing it all. Yeah. And then you gotta start over. But I like to think of things for a reason. So for me, that was something I actually struggled with, was that, you know, at I wrote a book I wrote a book years ago, and I had a pretty decent fitness business. But it was almost like a, let's use talk a little sports. So I'm a big fan of teams like the six I'm a Philly sports fan, but I'll use the Sixers 260s were known for taking a few years ago, they were awful. But before then they were very mediocre team and they were always an eight seat and so that's great. You played number one seat, you might win a game three or game four, but then you're gonna lose it. You're losing in five definitely Yeah, this is post Barkley is that this? Oh, this is post. This is post Iverson post the. Yeah, so this was really good. Yeah, this is before they got Joel Embiid. And the whole, you know, process and so I liked that mentality, even though you're losing, because I'm I'm a believer in championship or bust. That's just my mentality, you know, championship or bust. And I think sometimes when we're really having that purpose, and I think about the book with that book, The Alchemist. Yeah. And you know, we're Santiago, we're having that Santiago moment. And so if you're uncertain, and you don't know, if you're getting up on the street, you don't know if you're just gonna have to go back to work or whatnot. But you never feel more alive in that moment. I could tell you, I never feel more alive. It is stressful sometimes to think. I don't know, man, I don't know how this is gonna work. You have no idea about the hell but I just believe that, you know, the what? And you know, your why. And you're just gonna figure it out. Yeah. And I, and I think that's yes, we're having belief in faith in yourself and belief in another power can come into play with you there. Yeah, absolutely. So, I mean, I feel like I'm about to pivot here. There's something Yeah, there was a second thing I want to just recognize, and you just hit on it just now was for 20 year olds is, is the self awareness, especially when you're not naturally bent this way. As an introvert of like, I need others. And I need to surround myself with high quality people. I mean, it's like, generally like you show me your level of success. Show me the people around you. Like, that's, that really matters. And so you really hit on that that was the two things. Okay. Yeah, you really, like, I appreciate you saying that. So but then something off of us said now, and I'm like, Man, hit Yeah. How did you? I mean, you've kind of already hit on this, but like you said, we'll learn, you know, your why, you know, your what? You know, how would you encourage that guy 25, you're who you are 25 to go figure that out? Man. You know, for me, I you know, for me, it was a lot was my father was a lot of inspiration for that, because my father was really sick for the last 10 years of his life, especially the last four years. That's why I was home being a caretaker. And, you know, when he says things like, you know, I'll give everything to just be able to walk again, you know, because you have to learn how to walk with a amputated leg with a prosthetic, and just drive. He think about basic things like that. And then think about my grandfather, who passed before that he didn't have a father, his father got killed. get shot, it was when he's a little boy. And so you get the thinking like, Man, I'm pretty lucky. If, if my biggest worry if my biggest problems was, maybe this funnel is not working hypothetically. Or maybe, maybe I don't got all the clientele I want. Or maybe my investments are not going like they want right now. Maybe I'm not being recognized enough in my job right now. And I want to rise up the ranks. In the grand scheme of things, it's not that bad. And then I think about the alternative. What else do I have to do? Like, I literally have nothing, I don't really have a plan B. I'll go do side jobs and something but I'm not stopping with this. You know, I'm just gonna keep going and just figure something out. Because I don't like the alternative. You know, I personally for myself, I couldn't live with myself. And because there's a very nasty virus. It's the worst virus at all. You won't see that on TV. And this is called regret. Yeah, that is a sickening feeling. I heard that way too much. You hear too many old hits talking. Man, I wish I did this something years ago, or I wish I wish, I wish, I wish. I'm like that. And you can just feel it. You can just feel it sometimes when you talk to someone and they're full of regrets fill up full of what ifs. And they're getting closer to the end of the road. And they're just like, thinking about the person they could have been that they're not all because they either didn't take a chance all because they listened to people outside in outside of them say things naysayers, down, they're down their vision down their, their dreams, or they just didn't stick with it, for whatever reason. And I just can do that. I just could do that. Not after seeing what my the people before me came through. And so it just didn't make sense. It just didn't make sense for me. And I think not everyone's going to have that story. So I think you have to find what resonates with you and just really explore your story. Look at kind of look at this like adventure and like like your domain, your character. Kind of detach yourself a little bit from yourself, your ego and look at yourself as a character. So whatever has happened in the past look at it that as this is just part of your story arc. This is the Joseph Campbell. Call to Adventure. You know the story arc right like Luke Skywalker He's a he's a nobody blah, blah, blah, didn't he becomes a Jedi. This is just your story arc. So whatever happens, whatever you are right now, this is just part of your story, to celebrate later on and to share with other people and inspire them. But every person is going to be different. We're all going to have different things. What I'm motivated and inspired by is different than what's some of your listeners are going to be motivated and inspired by. And so you do have to do some self reflection, some soul searching, you can start by maybe praying, start by just meditating in really getting in tune. And just having silence, and I promise you, it will come. You won't be instantaneous, but it will hit you at some point of what what's your rhyme and reasoning. All this is for? Yeah. And so it's not like it's not a black and white answer. It's a lot of ambiguity with it. But finding that is good. And maybe one way to help is create an anti vision. I know we talk a lot of times about vision, but I think about an anti vision. And I think about the person I despise the most the person I don't want to be, you know, I have a lot of enemies. So for me, one of those is a victim mentality. And so I write that character out how he acts. And so I think about that person, a lot of times of who this person is, and I don't want to be associated with this person. Not at all. It's like Michael Jordan. What he did some nights when the bulls were playing a very crappy team, their 10 Win team, and there's no reason really give it your all. But he did. He came in and crushed him still. Because he created these stories in his head, he created his own stakes. Maybe it was a reporter, a local newspaper reporter that said the slightest thing about him, maybe it was he heard something or he just created something that got him got himself ready to perform. And that's kind of what I think about. Yeah, that's so good, Julian because I something I talk to my clients a lot is like, to we want to be the character we all know a great story is when the character is driving the story. We want to be the characters driving story, but too many of us we want to be the passive character, we want it just to happen. We want to wait around for it, you know, take the victim mentality. And instead of being the driver of our story, and therefore the drivers story is like like you said, Luke Skywalker, he went out and took risk he left the familiar, you know, and a good opportunity right now is with the way the world is right now and potentially is what some things that are upcoming in terms of the market and everything. This is an opportunity for you to really set yourself apart. If you think about the world now it's never in our hurt Dana White say this. And I don't remember the whole quote, I wonder if I could find no, I probably can't find it real quick. But he um, he talked about how in today's time, it's never been easier to really succeed in place yourself and separate yourself from people. Because most people just don't have that mentality anymore to get after. Right? Life's very comfortable. It's it's almost like, you hear people embrace being mediocre and average, nothing wrong with that. There's really nothing wrong with it. As long as you're okay with it internally and spiritually in everything. If you're okay, with just a comfortable, easy life, you're fine. But a lot of people are not, they might say they are. But a lot of people do want more, they just lie to themselves. So don't want to lie to yourself anymore. And you really want to go after, it's never been an easier time because most people are really not going to put themselves out there. to really go after it. A lot of people are going to be starting to contract. Instead of expanding right now. If you look at some of the worst times throughout the history of the world, you can see the some of the greatest thinkers, inventors, businessmen, companies, and everything. All had their birth, during the worst times, look at some of the look at some of the companies that started during the Oh 70809 recession, and then 10 And then look where they are now. Yeah. And just have it be able to get in that mindset is even harder, because I think most of us weren't trained that where most of us lean towards comfort versus like, oh, this hard position is actually the place to be where I need to actually build and grow something and create something good. Yeah. And, you know, for me, you know, some of my friends who grew up in very tough, harsh conditions, they naturally have this. But for me, I didn't necessarily have that I grew up pretty much lower middle class, not rich by any means. But you're just not you're not struggling for food. You're just you're just blah. So for me, I got a lot of this through physical exercise. So yeah, not even doing things just to Yes, it's going to enhance your appearance here. Again, muscles, everything. We're really doing hard things through physical exertion, because that's going to build character that has been transferable to your professional life to your personal life. And so that's kind of how I found my kind of how I've found my footing was through physical exercise. Yeah. Which has a good transition because I want to dive back into what you're doing, but I'm a little side note just even myself. Doing hard physical things makes me realize I am more capable than I think I am. Right, even beyond just the physical. But I'm curious what you know. So with some of the excuses that you've heard from executives about their health, yeah. So the first one is, I'm too busy. Yeah, a lot of times, I'm just too busy. And a lot of times with those people, even people who are just generally ambitious, it's not an issue of neglect. Very rarely is it no neglect. Very rarely is it laziness, because you wouldn't be successful business wise, you wouldn't be, you wouldn't have a lot of things you did for these people in the world if you're lazy, right? It's unintentional neglect is more properly think about it. And it's more like a paradox of success. If you think about people. Generally, the more successful you become, quote, unquote, the more your company's generating revenue, the more that your income is increasing, generally, you have more responsibility, you have more pressure on yourself, you still have a personal life, you also in the back of your head had this thing, a fear of never want to go back to day one, because nobody wants to go from a very nice steak dinner into eating ramen noodles. Again, nobody wants to go back there. So you have all these things add up. This is kind of the success paradox. And the thing that unintentionally gets left out, is our attention to our well being. Because withheld is not something that instantaneously is going to show itself. It's something that can manifest 510 15 years down the road. So just like investing, you know, I put $5 in now what what big deal does it make if it's only going to be like, two cents? Hypothetically, it's not that but two cents next week, you know, you're not thinking okay, in 10 years, this $5 Could be hypothetically, $80. Right? You're not thinking about that kind of game. Because a lot of times people don't think long term. And that's the thing. A lot of times with our health we can do, we can do a lot of times, what are the key things if you can remember this, this is all you need to know. If you can do the things that are hard that you don't want to do. Now, life's going to be much easier for you later down the road. But if you do two things that are easy and comfortable and convenient for you right now, life can potentially get harder for you down the road. Yeah, that you can skip, you can skip out on your health. And we're not talking about marathons here, we're talking about a good level maintenance here. Right? You can skip out on those things. You might not feel any the 20s might not feel any 30s. But like credit card interest that's rolled over each month. I know that too. And yeah, yeah, as a Yeah, owning your business, I get that. That's going to add up, it can quickly. It's like a snowball, it can quickly add up. There's a great book on this. It's called The Slight Edge by Jeff Olson, fantastic book to read on just the importance of the small details, the importance of even something as just making sure you walk 30 minutes, I want people to do more than that. But even something like that, just walking 30 minutes, compared to not walking 30 minutes. And over time, what difference that's going to make in terms of your health in terms of your brain power and so many things. It's so you really have to kind of look at this long term, with your mouth, look at this almost like essentially a business. Yeah, you have you have projections for the next quarter. But you also have potentially five and 10 year projections as well. They're not going to be precise. But you know, there's a rough estimate is at least gets you thinking about five to 10 years. Yeah. And then now that we know, you know, with concerning epigenetics that, you know, if you're thinking about bringing kids into the world, that you're not even just eating for yourself, right now you're eating for the next few generations, at least. Yeah, because we you can look at there's something called the Dutch famine, and you can look up how the next few generations had effects, how it affected your health, your starvation, so you're eating for a couple of generations. So even if you think what I do is insignificant, it's really not, you're affecting a lot of people. It's not just, you know, your wife, your husband right now, or your surrounding circle, status can be 1000s of other people, because you're putting the people that come after you in a better position from an epigenetic cellular level. Hypothetically, it could be healthier, they're gonna get out the gate running better. They can influence a lot more people. So think about the web, wow, that you have with that. So that's how you can expand your thinking and expand that what I do actually matters on a daily basis. A lot of us what we do on a daily basis matters. But it all starts and we always talk about, I want to save the world. I want to help these people. I want to do all these big things. Let's start with ourself. Let's start with personal excellence. You start with making ourselves the most enhanced version that we can and you'll be surprised just by taking care of yourself. People are always watching you. You know there's a kid at the gym, not 2021 Just by just start talking to me just by the way I acted the way I went about the gym I think he called me one day at the coffee shop and got curious, so you never know who's watching you. And you never know who you have an effect on. I shared with the podcast here that you might get people that you never see him comment. They might not even leave a review. And it may be a year later, they'll message you, man. Thank you for the content you're doing. Yeah. Yeah, that makes all the difference in the world. Because you just never know. Yeah, that's so true. That's really good. Sometimes I do get a little frustrated. Sometimes when I got out, you're like, why don't you like it? Give me you realize how this worked algorithm, but you're like, yeah, and you're like, you know what, it made a difference to your life. That's why I do it. Yeah, I, you know, I always say, you know, be a slave to the rhythm. Not the algorithm. Yeah. Do it for the intention and not the attention. Yeah, it you know, I have this problem big time, especially when it came to writing and podcasting, even now, with like the work. It's, you want these external metrics. You want the lights, the comments on your posts to let you know that you're doing a good job. It's almost like being a little kid. I want mommy daddy telling me I did a good job. But because this is parenting advice now, I don't have any kids right now. But I always think about to change that. I want to I want to commend people on the effort and their habits that they're putting in. Not specifically the end result. Yes. Yeah. program them to focus on the process. Yeah, instead of the end goal. Yes. And that's a key thing as well, that a lot of times it gets us to quit, is that we focus on the end goal and the result, and not the process itself when all we can control is the process. Man, that's a great I appreciate you saying that because that's my next question was really around that was thinks sometimes people think health fitness nutrition, they see the mountain. And right, like you said that instead of trying just small and creating the momentum, you know, they see the mountain and like now, and what would be a first step, or what would be something a something to put the near part of Yeah, or someone to just start really on journey of hell make it so easy that it seems stupid. And it just seems it's so easy to edit can't fill, I took that quote, kind of from banks that are too big to fail. That's a whole nother story. But this is just, this is just too easy to fill, too easy to fill. So maybe it's just like, I'm just going to do five minutes. Say if you're completely like, Man, I have exercising like yours, right? I would like to do something things like this. But man, that seems like a, it seems like a huge deal to get on Cloud man to say it. I'm gonna go do five minutes. I'm not gonna walk outside for five minutes. Five minutes. Am I got five minutes, right? Right, I got five minutes I can, I can still scroll social media and everything that I'm doing too much, thanks, I'll do it outside. When walking five minutes, you keep doing that. Maybe the sun's out and feels good. Like, I'll go a little longer. But what you're doing, you're creating a winning streak. Nothing is more of a high to us. So it's good, then when we feel like we got momentum, when we feel like we're moving in the right direction. So I want you to do, I want you to make it as easy as possible to build momentum. And then gradually add from there. You know, when I started, you know, when I started lifting and running and all this stuff, I had very simple, I did very simple things. And then I started to feel good, then I started to add more, because the physical results are not going to show up first. Helm is a internal external thing. A lot of people think it's external, internal, it's really internal first, then external, you have to change inside. First, you have to change in your mind, your feelings the whole way you look at this thing, then your external, your exterior and physical will start to change slowly over time. So this is why make things very simple at the beginning, and gradually shift up. That might be hard to our egos to say, Oh man, I could do for more than five minutes. I want you to be consistent. I don't want you to be the person who goes all out balls to the wall, maybe two days out of the week. And then other than you missed the other five days. You're not being consistent. You're not building a winning streak. It's like me as a basketball player, I had games where I scored like 30. And then I had games where I scored like eight. You know, it's not consistent at all. It's like teams that they show up on week and then they disappear for the next month. Right then they come back again, potential school and all that but no, we want consistency discipline to keep building that because this is like it's like a business. It's like investing time in the market. Right? We hear that all the time. Time in the market. You know, it's better to be just timing the market is always Trump's the opposite of that. And same thing with your health. Consistently time investing in your health is going to compound over time compared to the people who were in it for a little bit and then out again. And they're out, he came building the momentum that way. Whereas consistently investing small buckets into your health over time, it's going to snowball, and you're going to be surprised where you are months down the line. People, this is one reason why I do not I don't do 90 day 60 Day transformation programs, I don't do anything called transformation anymore. That's not, it's not my thing. It's not my niche. Right, you know, I do long term things, that's all I do is this long term. And it's because I know human psychology, if you have 365 days out of the year, you're not going to bet 100% Most likely, maybe over time, you will, but most people are not probably going to bet about 7580 85% of time, just a general person. And so to go ahead and know that. And to think of it that way, instead of saying I have to change everything is 60 to 90 days, you're going to free yourself up psychology, psychologically, you're gonna take a lot of stress out of this. And most importantly, you're going to avoid one of the most critical mistakes that people make is creating friction between your business, your personal life in fitness, a lot of times, look at the new year's resolution people. Man, their guns a blazing early on life doesn't care that you're trying to get in shape and lose 20 pounds, life really doesn't care. It's going to keep going on. The work is still there. Yeah. And so now you have this problem, because they're not synergistically together. They're creating all this, they're butting heads. And typically, the business and the personal life is going to win out because it's money. And it's usually people involved as well. And so once again, your health gets pushed to sideline, you'll come back to it later, when you have more time when work is not so busy when you finish this project. And humans, we're not going to do that. So the next thing you know, you put on more weight. Yeah. So all to sum that up. Have something very small and manageable. Don't sit there that long. Because I don't want you to be complacent, that nobody wants to be complacent. But just to get the ball rolling. Just start. I'm learning how to swim. It's a long process for me, I'm scared of the water. It's one of the last things I'm going to tackle. And so I'm learning how to like hold my breath. And like breathe properly. Yeah, my head in and out of water. I'm like, I'm looking over I see a five year old just easily doing this. I'm like this big grown man, right? And I'm two or two counts, right? I'm just like, oh, man, this is embarrassing. You know, but like anything else starts with, you gotta start somewhere. Even like with running, I had to learn how to run that sounds stupid, probably and weird to a lot of people. But I'm used to sprinting. And when you're running 20 plus miles, that's going to be your whole strides are different when you're running distance compared to sprinting. So I had to learn how to run. Learn how to breathe. I practice nasal breathing and a lot of things. Yeah, yeah. You see these things working in motion. But a lot of times we take it for granted. We see the end product, the successful entrepreneur to successful businessman. But we don't see all the small pieces that added up and collected to make him who he is today. Yeah, and I guarantee you he started with maybe like, just one call quality, one cold email day, one outreach, a day one conversation, one, one person to serve no matter what. A day, and he gradually built up, he built momentum. I know, that's what I did. I was like, I'm going to reach out to one person a day, and just talk to him, or just reach out and connect with someone one person a day. I got comfortable with that. He came to it three, and so forth. And that's how I look at fitness. It's all the same way. If you're successful in business right now in your career is going well. I guarantee you a lot of the principles that made you successful in that arena can be successful with your health and fitness as well. Yeah, man, that's good. That's I mean, and so I'm curious, just the the fruit of what you do. Are you seeing more of when when executives take care of their health? Therefore it leads to less anxiety, even less depression, more or less stress in their in their life and on their team? Are they are you seeing a more holistic when you start taking care of yourself in your you're seeing you seeing those things, but the other thing that you're seeing is to increase quality of life. Think about a lot of times why do we work so hard? I want to be successful. And yeah, you can save money. But what does that money actually represent? Just like when I thought about it? What is being in shape and being strong and doing all these running events and boxing and all these things? What does it really represent? And that's the thing with those guys. Why do they work so hard? It's kind of a sport. That's true. It's cool to make money. That's cool. But, you know, some of those guys are it's about freedom. It's about the quality of life. It's about being with their family, being with their kids being able to do things with their kids. And then thinking even long term, walking those kids down the aisle, thinking even more long term. You Seeing those grandkids or even great grandkids if it's up to me, and being able to not just see them, but to be an active participant in their lives. Yeah. All those things. So it's a much bigger picture. So yes, losing weight guess improving lap markers, and various biomarkers, yes, you can see that. But I really encourage them and encourage even listeners when they think about their health journey to really think about what all this means, why am I actually wanting to get in really good shape? Yeah. And what does that represent? That's going to that's inspiration. A lot of times we seek motivation. I don't really care about motivation as much because it comes and goes, but the inspiration, that's something that can sustain you. Yeah, man. By all Julianne, appreciate you coming on, man. It's been a blast talking to you. I'm really fascinated by what you do and appreciate you serving so many executives and changing their life in so many ways. Well, what's the best place for my listeners to find you? Yeah, since you're already listening to this awesome podcast, and hopefully you left a review. If not, go ahead and do that. Go ahead and subscribe to mine, which is executive health and life. And also, if you want to reach out, you can find me at executive health.io and just hit the contact and we can sit down for a call and just to chat and go from there. Awesome. Well, Julian, I appreciate you coming on. Maybe next time, we'll talk about how the 60s get over the hump, but too depressing for you. I got spoiled with the Eagles. I don't want to talk about the second half because there's no way they just there's no way how they blew the Super Bowl, I don't know. And then the Phillies. And so then, so maybe the Sixers will get to the finals, but they'll end up losing the finals because it seemed like every Philly sports team over the last year has gotten to the championship game and loss. Yeah, so even I don't keep up with MLS but I saw that they lost in the championship game. Eagles lost in the championship game. Then the Phillies lost in the championship game. Yeah. Oh, man. I'm sure the flyers lost somewhere in there, too. I don't even think they're good. They're not good. So you don't have to be depressed by that. They're good. Well, thanks for coming on, man. I appreciate it. All right. Take care man. Thank you so much.