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Welcome to the Behind the Shield podcast.
As always, my name's James Gearing and this week I have an extremely important conversation.
As many of us are aware, we have a recruitment crisis when it comes to both military and
first responders.
And there is no better person to bring on as a guest than the honorable Rob Wilkins,
a retired US Air Force master sergeant, fitness expert, and former member of the president's
council on sports, fitness and nutrition under both president Trump and president Biden.
So in this conversation, we discuss a host of topics from his own journey into the military,
entering the world of bodybuilding, meeting Joe and Ben Weider, writing for muscle and
fitness, joining the president's council, physical education, nutrition in our schools,
hormone replacement therapy, the transcend foundation, and so much more.
Now before we get to this incredibly powerful and important conversation, as I say every
week, please just take a moment.
Go to whichever app you listen to this on, subscribe to the show, leave feedback and
leave a rating.
Every single five star rating truly does elevate this podcast, therefore making it easier for
others to find.
And this is a free library of well over 850 episodes now.
So all I ask in return is that you help share these incredible men and women stories so
I can get them to every single person on planet earth who needs to hear them.
So with that being said, I introduce to you the honorable Rob Wilkins.
Enjoy.
Well Rob, I want to start by saying firstly thank you to Brandon Quisenberry for connecting
us.
I was just talking to him prior to this conversation just to pull out any other areas that he thought
I should dig into.
And secondly, I want to welcome you to the Behind the Shield podcast today.
Well, thank you, James.
I appreciate the opportunity.
I look forward to engaging conversation.
Hopefully there'll be many points where we have different points of view so that we can
battle it out, make it interesting for the listeners and viewers.
And thanks again for this opportunity.
Absolutely.
I'm looking forward to it.
So where on planet earth are we finding you this afternoon?
Northern Virginia.
So we live in Northern Virginia about 40 minutes outside of Washington, D.C.
We've been in the D.C. area since December 2001 when I got assigned stationed at the
Pentagon after living 14 years at a beach environment.
So I was stationed in Sardinia, Italy at a place called Duccio Mamano Air Base.
Then I got stationed in Cocoa Beach, Florida at Patrick Air Force Base.
And then after 14 years of the beach, the Air Force says we need to put you somewhere
else.
And they sent me to the Pentagon.
But it's turned out to be my service at the Pentagon and my time at the Pentagon was life
changing, very educational.
And I wouldn't have changed it for the world.
So I'm going to jump ahead for a second.
Then we'll go to the beginning of your story.
But we were talking before we hit record about happiness.
Now, I've traveled quite a lot myself.
And there's a quote, I forget what it is, a Steinberg quote, I think.
And it talks about, you know, the you want to kill prejudice, travel or something like
that.
But you have commonalities and you see, you know, the hierarchy of needs being met.
You and I discussed that, you know, the American dream and I'm an immigrant to this country,
you know, what it used to be and what it's become are two very, very different things.
And I would argue that we're probably one of the wealthiest countries on the planet.
But I don't think that's matched in the nation's happiness, to be honest.
So talk to me about all the places that you've traveled and where, you know, what your perspective
is on happiness and wealth.
Great question.
So being in the Air Force, I was fortunate enough to go to about 43 different countries
from Asia and Europe and Africa.
And I found that sometimes the most simplest people with the least were the happiest.
So for example, when I was stationed in Sardinia, Italy, it was very common for us to spend
the evenings walking to the village piazza or a plaza and just talking and chatting with
people and seeing neighbors.
And sometimes it's not many words exchanged, it's more or less a smile and a, how you're
doing.
And people were really friendly.
And if you might know anything about blue zones, Sardinia is a blue zone where people
live to about a hundred years old.
So you think what are the things that they are doing there that we may not be doing here?
Our lives are more complex here.
We probably have access to a whole lot more things, but they have spiritual social connection.
I think they're in Sardinia.
Wonderful, wonderful people.
Very, very friendly, very open.
And so that might be something that we who are under constant bombardment of media from
the media.
I think there's a stat that we get about four to 5,000 negative inputs to our brain daily.
How do we kind of switch that and change that around to where we're getting more positivity,
more inspiration, more motivation, but on a constant basis because consistency is the
key.
You can be inspired for a day.
You can be motivated for a day, but that will go away.
But if you're constantly trying to strive to do the best you can, to be as happy as
you can, to live in the moment, to have great experiences, I think you will find yourself
better off.
I saw something on the blue zone.
I saw the recent blue zones show that was on.
I actually bought the cookbook from that, but there was obviously more of a focus on
the food.
And I think there's a certain vegan community behind some of that.
And I'm all for any sort of diet philosophy that is going to bring wellness.
And it's funny because carnivore and vegan, some of these argue and the common denominator
is removing shitty processed food.
That's what they all agree on.
They just don't like to talk about it.
But when you look at Okinawa, for example, another blue zone, you look at the community
and they dance and they play music and they laugh like children.
It's so childlike.
And I think that's what we're missing.
We're so serious at the moment, myself included, you know, it's the woes of the world on our
shoulders and we've just become so far now, so disconnected from that kind of tribal community
that I think that we as humans are designed to thrive in that you can have someone feeling
chronically depressed in the middle of New York City surrounded by millions of people.
And they're alone.
Yes.
You know, I often have seen reports and podcasts and videos of superstars.
So like my favorite musicians or artists have been Prince and Michael Jackson.
And I read about both of them often where they were alone.
They had adoring fans all around the world, but they were still feeling isolated and not
able to do real connections because do you like me because I'm Prince or do you like
me because I'm this guy who's living on this planet with you and we're trying to have these
great interactions and we're playing sports and we're going to movies and we're listening
to great music and having food and looking at art.
Those are the kind of things that I think we all crave and we all would like as opposed
to, you know, trying to be careful connecting yourself to someone because they're well known
or famous.
You smashed some of the media rhetoric as well.
I posted a video today and I'll be full transparently.
I was crying on the couch when I was posting it and then I got all the bloody hell James,
you're making me cry again comments.
But it was a beautiful moment that was caught.
You had a police officer who obviously came on scene of a young suicidal and he was a
veteran, army veteran sitting on a bridge.
The officer grabs him now for, you know, again, media lens.
The officer was white.
The family were black.
The young man's dad shows up, was a single dad, I mean, just sobbing, you know, and he
sat, the officer sat with the kid for a while and talked to him and then, you know, he hugs
the father and it was just humanity.
It was who we actually are and it took off.
I mean, loads of people shared it and because that's what we want and that's what we connect
with.
And as you said before, if you curate your feed to be divisive and negative, then, you
know, confirmation bias, that's what you're going to get.
But if you start following beautiful pages on social media, watch how the world changes
in front of you and you're going to see so much kindness and compassion, like young teens
buying their special needs classmate clothes because, you know, he comes from a poor background,
whatever it is, there is so much community and humanity out there.
But I don't know why I'd be interested to get your perspective.
It seems like there's a deliberate attempt to divide and pigeonhole.
So as Voltaire said, we must cultivate our garden and cultivating our garden means, you
know, you're trying to be around people who are like minded.
And I often find from someone holding the door to someone just recently cutting me off
and then they purposely slow down, put their hand out the window to say my fault.
There are a lot more good things happening.
I think there's a lot more pleasantries happening, a lot more positive exchanges, even at the
Starbucks I go to that I call my home office.
I've seen from time to time people are short, a dollar or $2 or some young kid doesn't have
enough money and someone says, I got it, no problem.
But that doesn't sell.
That's the more typical experience, I think.
Now, there are horrific, terrible things happening as well.
But I think for the daily, listen, if things were as bad off as the media sometimes it
makes it seem, how could we even go outside our homes and peaceful, you know, peaceful
exchanges with people or feel like going to the supermarket or to the store because you
would think you're going to become a victim.
So I do think there are a lot of really good things.
And I think more and more people are thinking about how can I be a part of making my city,
my town, my state, my country better?
And maybe just a smile and how are you?
That's to start because everybody doesn't have resources to go donate to, you know,
toys for thoughts or to help out veterans or to help out homeless, but everyone or most
people can at least say, hello, how are you?
Have a good day.
Hold the door open for someone, things of that sort.
And that's the positivity train that we're all going to start to maybe be a part of.
Absolutely.
Yeah, I mean, kindness is free.
So the number of times now, I'm sure, you know, there's people on the side of the road,
most of whom I'm sure are homeless.
And they're, of course, looking for money, but doesn't mean you can't just roll down
the window and talk.
And I actually chatted to a guy who's a Vietnam vet a couple of days ago, meaning to get some
cash out.
And I saw him again at the red light.
And he said, do you have any bags?
And I got the kind of cloth Publix grocery bags here.
And I was like, yeah, I've got a couple.
And I had some a bag of, you know, butt wipes as well.
I'm like, why don't you take these two?
If you are living in the woods, these probably come in handy.
But again, I didn't have any cash, but I still was able to interact with this gentleman and
hopefully do something positive for him.
And I think that's it.
You know, you don't have to be spending money.
Like you said, doesn't have to be a massive donation.
How can you just simply interact with them?
Just see someone, someone, especially if they're on the side of the street, you know, how many
people have smiled and just talk to them in that hour?
You know, so I mean, that kindness and compassion, which ironically, I think is taught in a lot
of religious buildings.
We need to refine that as a community.
I agree.
So starting at the beginning of your journey then.
So tell me where you were born and tell me a little bit about your family dynamic, what
your parents did, how many siblings?
So we have a large family and I'm originally from Lyndon, New Jersey, born in Newark, New
Jersey.
And we grew up with my grandmom living in one part of town, my other grandmom living
in the town next door, aunts all over.
So I would be able to ride my bike throughout our town.
And every time I needed to use the restroom or get a drink, I had someone to stop by their
home and, oh, I'm just dropping by, actually, I have to go to the restroom.
But you know, it was just making it very, very convenient.
Lots of cousins that we were around.
And it was a very, very typical childhood experience for my area, Lyndon, New Jersey
there.
Some of the friends that I had back when I was 11, 12, 13 years old were still connected
through social media.
And I think what was so normal about what we did is we lived peaceful lives.
We didn't really think too much about trouble.
We didn't think about guns and knives.
And we thought there might be a fight.
There might be some kids who disagree, but it's a fight.
It's a fist fight.
And then afterwards it's done.
It's over.
And that person and you may become good friends.
You know, I think more or less our battles were sport battles.
You know, our street against the next street, our school against another school.
And the lessons we learned on the playgrounds, I think about being playing fair and being
compassionate and wanting to win.
But that's nothing wrong with that.
You know, as long as you're not cheating and doing something illegal, of course you want
to win.
You want to be victorious.
You want to brag about our street is the best street in softball or basketball.
But I just think that we also learned about communication skills and you learned that
some kids were faster than others, but you tried to pick teams that were fair and everybody
was able to participate.
Girls, boys, whatever it was, we didn't think about you can't play because you're this.
You can play because you're part of our community and we need another kid on that, on that field
so that we can have enough to play.
So it was just a great experience.
And I think I wish more people had that experience, especially being outside though, being out
there and just being able to ride bikes and run and climb and do whatever and not really
being worried about anything except maybe hitting a ball over in someone's yard who
had a mean dog and thinking we held up the game because we can't get our dog.
We can't get our ball out of Mr. Anderson's yard there because his dog might bite us.
But yeah, those were good memories.
There's a rhetoric about kids these days with eye rolling.
When I look back and this is why I try and set the two sided conversation of ownership,
but also environment.
Yes, of course, to eat well, to exercise that takes the individual to make choices that
are right.
But it's the environment that bolsters the good choices.
So I grew up on a farm.
I literally did farm work.
I'd come in tired from school the next day and the teachers thought I'd been up watching
TV and I haven't been lambing or bailing hay or whatever it was.
So I would never then go, oh, what's wrong with kids today?
Because how many kids got to do that?
I was so fortunate to have food that grew in the ground and we had animals and all kinds
of things.
So it's a very unique environment.
So now you fast forward to 2023, especially suburban and urban kids.
They don't have that kind of environment.
So when you look back at your childhood, what were the elements that set you up to naturally
be able to move and eat well back then?
Well I think one of the things I remember my father doing, we would see McDonald's or
Burger King and say, can we go?
Can we go?
And I might have been 10, 11, 12.
He would take the stairwell and he would pretend the car won't turn into the parking lot and
he'd be like, oh, I'm trying to turn and it won't go.
And my father was like, come on, you know what you're doing.
But he's like, well, we can go home and make that.
And we just didn't have a lot of fast food.
I just don't remember.
I think pizza might have been about it for the most part.
Sometimes Kentucky fried chicken, but we cooked at home and because I was a Cub Scout and a
Boy Scout, I knew how to cook myself and my mom would pay me if I cooked dinner while
they were at work.
So when they got home, if things were prepared, meals were prepared, I was paid for it.
So it was a way of helping out, you know, that while she and my dad were at work and
busy when they got home, things were prepared and ready so that they didn't have to stop
and do it.
So I just thought it's normal.
That's what most of my friends did.
That's what most of us did in the seventies and the eighties.
You know, it was just a different experience.
Everyone had a little bit more maybe responsibility and a part of making the home run efficiently.
It wasn't just related or just on all the shoulders of the mom because it's mostly moms
who have to do everything.
In my personal experience, I think though by spreading it out and it also empowered
me like I don't need you to cook.
I can cook myself.
And so when I moved or when I joined the Air Force and moved overseas, I was prepared.
I knew how to do laundry.
I knew how to cook.
I knew how to clean.
I knew how to take care of myself.
Whereas sometimes you find some of your airmen or your fellow vet or fellow military member
didn't know those things.
And so you can teach them and share your experience with them, but you can't help or hurt people
by preparing them like right now for any teenagers who don't know how to do their laundry and
cook and do those types of things.
I think it only would help you and make you more independent by learning those things
and doing them yourselves.
Absolutely.
I had the same thing.
I mean, we were, you know, I think they call it latchkey kids in some way, but on a farm.
But yeah, I mean, don't get me wrong.
You know, a lot of times the parents were cooking food that we were expected to as well.
And if we didn't cook, then we did all the dishes and all that stuff too.
But again, so you're given these skills.
Someone on the show and I can't remember who it was.
It might've even been Dan Bornstein made it a really kind of interesting observation as
well.
When I was little, we had all these playing fields that you just literally walked onto
and you just started playing sports.
And then even the local sports center, you know, to swim was probably, you know, two
pounds or a pound 50 or, you know, it was, it was very low barrier to entry to access
the facilities.
When you look at the kind of elitism that we have in a lot of sports now, we have beautiful
facilities, but you've got to rent out the whole baseball field or the whole football
field.
So what have you seen as far as that?
The access to sports and exercise for the average person.
It's becoming more and more difficult.
Pay to play is very, very difficult.
So I know the president's council of physical fitness, sports and nutrition.
It's one of their initiatives where they're trying to lower the barriers of access because
there's so much research that indicates that kids who play, who are physically active do
well socially.
They do well with their mental health.
They do great in the classroom.
They belong to a community.
So that social connection is there.
But for some of them, depending on where they live, they don't have access to the field.
And, and I think that could be very disheartening in some aspects because you can imagine as
a young kid, you're holding onto the gate, but you can't cross that gate.
You see it.
It's right there.
But because you don't have $10 or $5 to get on the field, you can't play.
And so I also know that, you know, for socially economically challenged families, it's more
and more difficult because they have to make big decisions about do they pay bills and
provide food or do they give money to their kids to play sports?
And some of the times, you know, people are making really, really difficult decisions
because if their kid is able to get noticed by a university or school and get a scholarship,
that can change the life projection or that can change the whole family dynamic to where
this kid, usually boys, are going to be able to help their family.
But I also think what a bunch of pressure that kid is under because if they don't do
well and they don't make it, you know, their family has put all these resources that they
don't have into them having the best ability or the best chance to make it.
So how we can do better, I think, are our elected officials, our elected leaders, our
community officials, our business leaders, and all those who have access or those who
can donate should help because we're going to pay one way or the other.
You know, so many folks share the story of how the Boys and Girls Club or the YMCA helped
them stay out of trouble, helped them stay out of gangs.
So paying now is cheaper.
If we pay later, that means there's probably some kind of incident with the law.
It could be jail, it could be prison, and all the costs associated with that.
And also, you know, most people, I do think, are good people and want to do the right thing.
And so if we can give them access and abilities to do something related to sports or fitness,
and it doesn't mean they have to play.
Maybe they can be a participant.
Maybe they can be the manager of the team.
But that's the community that they belong to.
You know, to belong somewhere is where I think a lot of people are striving right now to
be part of something.
So we just have to keep trying because giving up is not an option.
We just have to figure it out.
And that figuring that out is different depending on where you live.
You know, living here in Northern Virginia, maybe it's a little bit easier, but maybe
living in some parts of Vermont or North Dakota, where it's some more rural areas, it could
be a little bit more difficult.
But there is a way, I'm sure.
Well, I want to get to some observations and solutions when it comes to the schools.
But before we do, because of the incredible journey that you've had as far as observing
the nation's wellness and fitness and obviously within the military, what are you seeing as
far as the trend for our young people school age?
The trend is that less and less are physically active.
Physical inactivity is increasing, and especially among young girls.
Why more and more people don't play?
I'm sure there are many reasons.
Some people, no matter what, they just don't want to participate.
Some it has to do with resources.
Some it has to do with their coaching.
Some with transportation.
If they can't get to the field, then they can't play.
So that's why I never like to think there's just one answer to any of this, because the
issues and the problems are multiple.
So there has to be multiple answers.
It might take, for instance, when I was playing basketball at Lynden High School in New Jersey,
Mr. Aikens, the basketball coach, drove five or six of us home.
In his car, this is our coach who didn't live in the same neighborhood, took the time to
make sure that if we're under his watch and coaching with, you know, he's our coach, he's
going to make sure we get home.
So he drove us home.
So sometimes it takes a community of parents who are able to participate and help other
families and other kids who might not have the same access to make sure that they are
able to get to and from the field, the court, the pitch, the course as safely as possible.
So an observation that I've made many times on the show with people such as yourself,
you know, athletes, coaches, et cetera, is coming from the UK, we certainly in my era
didn't play sports at a super high level unless you were a gifted, I mean, really football
player.
That was the only one that really paid any money.
So the rest of us just played sports.
And then what you saw is that after we graduate high school, senior school, we call it there,
people keep playing sports.
Then I moved to the US and I always say this kind of tongue in cheek.
I kept hearing the same Uncle Rico story, you know, the same I was going to be the next
quarterback, you know, major league, whatever, if it wasn't for my knee, my shoulder.
And these are, you know, mid 20s, early 30s.
And they're deconditioned, you know, they're overweight.
And again, we were talking before we hit record about identifying with your disease, with
your injury.
And what I've realized now, the last, you know, especially the last seven years of really
speaking to some of these great minds is in our schools in the US, high schools and colleges,
especially, we seem to really squeeze out performance from these young men and women,
but more often not at the expense of their wellness.
So with that lens, you know, what are you seeing as far as playing versus winning when
it comes to our school system?
Great question.
So here's a guy, Tom Ferry, he's with an organization, I don't remember the name of the organization,
but they do lots of research on youth sports and fitness and the social and mental aspects
of it.
And some of his research indicated that kids or youth prefer to have fun.
That is their number one reason for participating in sporting activities, where coaches number
one reason for them is to win.
So for kids, I think it's more down like in the 30s or 40th reason why they participate
as winning.
There's all these other things, but fun, social connection, being with their friends, those
are all more, more the reasons why they decide to play or why they want to play.
And when you have a coach, now I understand it once you get to the collegiate level into
the pro level, wins and losses means paychecks, it means job security.
But when you're six and seven years old, so many kids are specialized already, especially
in the US, they have golf coaches and they have swing coaches and they have nutritionists
and they have exercise physiologists working with them at six and seven years old.
I mean, at that time, I think that social connection personally is more important.
Can you play well?
Can you play in this sandbox with other kids, let alone having a perfect swing at seven
years old?
So I think that we have to try to find ways to incorporate more fun, more participation
and having the ability to be on the field because lots of kids are looking for their
opportunity to excel, do well, but we have to call their number.
We have to give them that chance to do well.
Yeah.
I mean, you hear that the term bench warmers, you know, a kid wants to play, let's say football,
for example, and then, you know, they don't.
So what kind of sport is that if you just sit watching the game the whole time?
And we were talking before we hit record, you kind of mirror the same kind of perspective
of me.
I am nauseated by that whole participation trophy conversation because I've never seen
a group of people given a trophy for doing absolutely nothing, no work.
I haven't in my whole life, but that's the way it's presented.
And it's from people that grew up in this system where if you're not winning, you're
losing.
What is your perspective on this conversation as far as discouraging young people for simply
playing games and sport?
So I think, as you just said, if you're there, you're active, you're moving, you're sacrificing
your time to come to this practice, to come to this game, to come to this activity, especially
if you're not going to play.
Sometimes the 12th player is the most important player because that's the guy or girl that
we all know that they're not going to get in the game for the most part unless someone's
sick, someone's injured.
The scores are so lopsided, either you're winning big score or losing by a big score,
but they're there.
And they also are the best cheerleaders too.
So that child also needs to be recognized.
As I mentioned to you, having participation medals for some kids, it's better than having
an A on their report card.
It means so much to them.
So while at one time I wasn't in favor of everyone getting a ribbon or a medal, I see
it differently now.
And so I think the older I get and hopefully the wiser I am, I think you never know what
someone's going through and you never know that them being part of the team is a win,
them having that uniform is a win, but having that ribbon or saying, gosh, I was there,
I got that trophy too.
That might be something I remember when they're 45, 50 years old because it's the time maybe
they weren't rejected.
Often like you're the last guy we pick or you're not good enough to be on the team,
you've been cut.
But could you imagine you're that kid, you happen to be on the team that wins the local,
the state, the regional, the divisional championship, and you were part of that team forever, you're
a champion.
That's pretty cool.
100%.
I've made the observation.
I love mud runs, so, you know, smarts and tough mudders and, you know, you go through
all that grueling and what do you get at the end?
Participation trophy.
You get a medal and a beer.
You know, it's the same thing.
And it means so much to you.
Oh, it does.
Yeah.
And how many people have got, I mean, the London marathon, the Boston marathon, they
don't just give the winner a medal and then, sorry, you didn't win.
There's lots of people that have participation trophies for doing phenomenal things, but
that is it.
You showed up, you put the work in, we're recognizing that.
And so that we really need to let this go.
If there's some people out there that the kids show up and never do a day's training
and get medals, well, of course that's wrong.
But I haven't seen that.
I've seen lots of kids show up and drill for their sport once, twice a week, and then play
a game every Saturday or Sunday.
And only one team can win.
You know, so I mean, the World Cup, we all watch everyone else play.
Only one gets to actually hold the cup, but they all get recognized and, you know, get,
I'm sure some sort of trinket that shows that they participated.
So having this philosophy that if you're not going to win, then why even bother, I think
is so detrimental to the nation's health.
But you win by showing up because that's life.
You know, some days you're not going to feel good and you still go to work because you
show up.
Some days you're going to be in classroom and you don't feel good and you have a headache
or you have, you know, monster hay fever or something, but you showed up and you learned
that on the pitch.
You learned that on the court.
I don't, I have a sprained ankle, but I still went to practice.
I showed up.
So when you get to work and when your boss gives you this tough assignment, when you
feel like quitting, you're like, when I was eight years old, I learned a lesson, you don't
quit.
And so I think that's the lesson sports brings to you.
You know, that those lessons, you'll be able to continue to use way into your 50, 60.
So for the rest of your life, actually.
Yeah.
Don't quit.
You show up.
Never, ever, ever, ever, ever quit.
Now you might fall, but you don't quit.
I bought my, my sister, excuse me, bought my son a poster for his bedroom and it's Banksy,
the street artist from England.
And it says, if you get tired, learn to rest, not quit.
I mean, that's the mic drop moment and says, that's everything.
You know what I mean?
It's good.
You have to take a knee sometimes mental health, physical health, whatever, as long as you
get back up again.
Right.
And that goes back to what I had mentioned earlier about being consistent because you're
not going to be inspired and motivated every day.
But if you're consistent, you consistently say, I won't quit.
I will take a knee.
I'm not going to be able to push through today, but tomorrow you've, you've, you've released
the Tigris me because you kept thinking that I won't do something or I can't do something.
So sometimes, you know, when telling someone and they won't, they can't, they're not, they're
not able to participate.
You inspire them and motivate them and make them consistent.
You make them say, I'll show you because, you know, we all have lots of stress and lots
of struggles that we're going through right now.
But sometimes if you can just make somebody stay a little bit better and is it going to
the field, to the court, to the golf course for two hours, it allows them to get away
from all the other madness for a while.
Go do something that's enjoyable, something that's fun.
And they have to come back to the reality, but at least they've had that mental break
for two to three hours to get the strength to get to the next, to get through the day
or to the next day.
Absolutely.
Well, I want to hear a couple more topics while we're on school, then we'll go back
to your specific timeline.
But I think this is important because this is where we change the nation's health is
with our children.
I had a great guy, Doug Orchard on the show, who wrote, who made a documentary, The Motivation
Factor and it was a high school in California that had basically kind of taken an idea from
the Russians and implemented a PE program.
And they had almost like a belt system, but it was colored shorts and the whole school
did this and they did it in teams.
So you started whatever it was, I forget now, white shorts, and then you can test.
And each time each tier is more and more taxing.
The top one was crazy.
It was like a three mile partner carry and seven pegboard ascents and all kinds of stuff.
So the top tier guys all could be muscle and fitness covers any day, these 18 year olds.
And you think about it, the band or the mathematician or whatever, the kid that didn't really like
doing it very much was still in great shape.
You had the presidential fitness award.
You had all these incentives back then.
And as a father now, I've got a bonus boy at 22 and then my son is 16.
I've watched the kind of the devolution of PE since I've been here for 22 years.
Talk to me about that whole area of physical education in schools.
Where are we nationally and where do you think we need to go to possibly refine what we had
a few decades ago?
Sure.
So these are my own personal thoughts.
These are no official government thoughts.
But I always think that PE is just like when you went back to ancient Roman times and Greece
times, the Agora was the place where you learned the spiritual, the mental, the physical, and
the educational was all in this one building, but they all were part of an education.
The spiritual was important just as the physical part as the learning about math and English
or math and the language, whatever they were learning.
We've really gotten away from the physical aspect, I think.
And often physical education is the first program that's cut.
So the things that I personally think we need, which is art, music, physical education are
often the programs that are cut.
And I think that there's been some research.
There was a place in Illinois, forgive me, I forgot the name, but where this PE teacher
had these kids do PE prior to going to math or their math classes.
And he found that their scores dramatically improved.
And there's lots of research again that shows that those kids who are physically active,
they do better in classrooms.
But if you're physically active, you probably will be better in band because you have a
better stamina.
You're in better shape.
You can march longer.
If you have that physical education part, you're probably better in math because you
have, again, better stamina.
You have fresher blood going to your brain because you've been physically active.
And so ASICS has done research about those who are gamers who exercise and are physically
active are better gamers.
Again, they're able to last longer.
They have clearer thoughts.
They're just more physically, their physical stamina is better than those who aren't.
So getting back to classrooms and schools, I think that it should be almost, I think
it should be mandatory.
Now, what needs to change?
I'm not sure, but I do know that physical activity is important for the health of the
nation because the associated healthcare costs of not being active, of being obese or overweight,
having diabetes, heart issues at such young ages, we can't sustain these costs.
So maybe when you look from the backwards in, we need to cut our costs.
Exercise, cuts costs, eating better cuts costs, social connection, improves mental health.
So maybe if we can start doing those things, we will find that the solutions are going
to be tough and they won't work every way the same way.
So what you do here in Northern Virginia might not be able to do in LA, but you find what
works in LA.
You find what works in Northern Virginia because kids are kids basically.
Kids are just, they're great teachers to us.
They don't have a lot of the hangups and the issues we have.
So maybe I once was at a meeting and for the president's council, physical fitness, sports
nutrition, and one of the panelists was a young kid and he said, if it's about us, include
us.
So if we're looking for answers and solutions to kids and physical activity and sports,
maybe we should form these commissions and these committees where kids from all different
backgrounds and abilities are part of the reason or part of the solution.
They have a council where they have positions of authority and positions of influence where
they kind of tell us what will work for them because at my age, the things that I would
want to do maybe might not work right now or be something that kids want to do.
But if they tell us what motivates, inspires, and we'll get them to move, then let's do
what works for them, not what works for Rob, what works for that kid is more important
than what my ego might say or what I would want to do.
So including people that we're trying to affect would be very, very impactful and powerful.
Doug was talking about how the grades went up, but also bullying went down.
You're having this shared suffering now and these kids are all working together in teams.
So that was amazing.
I also had a guy from Finland who's an educator and now he tours the world talking about the
Finnish system because if you look at the scores, usually they're right at the top.
And again, it was looking at the holistic child and they have a lot of recess, they
have shorter days and yet their grades are better than here.
And if you look, I think internationally, I don't think us or the UK or even top five.
So looking at some of these less is more programs and more holistically at the child and more
play and more fun in learning rather than standardized testing and eliminating PE, maybe
it's time to have some humility and ask some of these countries what they're doing so well.
Right.
So there is Miss Amy, she's a teacher and she teaches, I think it's kindergarten or
first grade and she has participated in a program called the Daily Mile for a few years.
The Daily Mile is where every day these children walk a mile.
And maybe in the beginning it might be tough for some of them because they have not, but
by a certain point, probably four or five, six weeks in, everybody's able to do it because
they've done it every single day.
And Miss Amy also talked about how these kids see nature now.
They start talking about bugs and insects and weather and other things that they're
learning as they're walking, but they also start developing deeper relationships with
the fellows or the other young boys and girls that are part of their group.
So for example, if a certain kid's not feeling so good today, one kid can say to Miss Amy,
I think something's wrong with so-and-so because they're not acting the right way.
Now these kids, again, are six, seven years old, but they have that social connection
and they feel strong enough and compassionate enough to go tell the teacher that they think
something could be up.
And they write me cards and letters a few times a year and it's just so inspiring just
to see that how being physically active has brought this joy to the teacher.
She said she learns just as much from the kids and the things they say that she's able
to teach them, but they're moving and they're experiencing life besides just sitting in
the classroom.
There's so many different ways to learn, but they're getting their exercise in while learning,
while making social connection.
And part of me is very interested in seeing the research and how these kids move on because
having that foundation of physical activity in sport, does it help you continue that as
you move forward?
Do you continue to do it even if your school doesn't provide it?
And so I think that would be some great research.
What keeps people in the game?
What keeps them on the field?
What keeps them physically active, especially when it's not mandatory?
But I do know that it seems Miss Amy and her kids have a joy that was brought to them by
this connection of physical activity, sports, and this program called The Daily Mile.
This is an N of one, but I can give you a parent's perspective.
My son's elementary school, which I loved, did the morning mile, same exact thing.
And I would volunteer all the time.
So I got to see it firsthand.
And for years I was known as Ty's dad.
I never got to have my own identity.
Right, right.
But that's the priest title you can have.
Exactly.
It is.
It absolutely is.
With all the titles, dad is it.
That's the best.
Exactly.
And so I was very, very proud.
And I do like the work, I forget what they call it, career day, when I bring all my fire
gear and talk to the kids.
And it's kind of cool with that because I talk to them about kindness and compassion.
And they're thinking to me, I was just going to talk about bad-ass fires.
I was like, no, you to be a good firefighter, you've got to be this, this.
And these are actionable things for an elementary school kid.
But I watched kids that were somewhat deconditioned walk and I watched kids get competitive and
a lot of them would run and they got tokens for every hundred laps.
Which I think was a mile for a hundred.
However many it was, every mile they get a token.
But I'll give you, you know, it was an observation of one, obviously I'm an athlete.
So he got to see that as well.
However, we got to middle school and he ended up joining the cross country team and then
went to high school and he was in the cross country and then joined track.
So obviously the running, but also what was really interesting, their PE program was called
Hope in high school.
And about three weeks in, he's like, dad, I just signed up for JROTC.
I was like, oh, okay.
Because we did the parent day and he had no interest in when we walked in on the first
day.
He's like, yeah, I did PE.
It's been three weeks.
We haven't done anything.
Just watched movies.
So, and I was like, all right, beautiful.
So I think that is, you know, a testament to that baseline of course, as a parent, but
also the school.
Like in that they had jump rope for heart, which is the thing that elementary school
would do the morning mile.
And then all the sports that you play when you're a young child and he enjoyed being
outside and playing.
So when it came to, oh, I don't have to do any exercise in PE, he was like, well, this
is bullshit.
He changed to JROTC because they were getting out there.
So like I said, N of one, but I mean, as a parent's perspective, I thought absolutely
it's partly attributed to that.
And before I forget, I want to go back when we talked about schools that there are some
things that are not doing.
What I want to remind your listeners is there are some things that they are doing.
So when COVID happened, what we did not realize, where I don't think a lot of people realize,
there are some hidden heroes in the physical education department.
There are gym teachers and gym coaches and physical education folks who have been preparing
our military recruits or future recruits for basic training.
Many people didn't know they were doing this.
So what these phys ed teachers have been doing is for probably decades, they're meeting military
recruits or potential recruits before school or after school on their own time without
being paid and running them through the courses, running them through the drills, making sure
that these young men and women are prepared and know what to expect, at least from the
physical fitness standpoint, when they get the basic training.
So when COVID happened, we found that how come the numbers decreased of those kids who
were really ready to get into basic?
How come there were more more multiskeletal injuries?
How come they just weren't able to get up that next day or their bodies weren't able
to get them to the third day of consistent physical fitness training?
They weren't in school.
So these PE teachers who have had this amazing, I guess, reach to these kids and making sure
that they were ready, they weren't they weren't able because schools were closed.
And so, you know, out there, there's a whole bunch of PE teachers and coaches and all.
And so just thank you for what you've been doing, because most people don't know about
it.
But now that I know about it, I just want to say thanks.
And we appreciate what you do getting military readiness, national security recruits ready
for this demanding role that they're going to play part of and protecting our freedom.
So continue it, please.
Thank you for what you're doing and salute to you.
Absolutely.
Well, that's a really important point to underline is there are so many great teachers out there.
It's just us fighting for them to work in an environment that allows them to thrive.
So you've got a passionate teacher in history, and then to be able to teach history and get
kids excited rather than, well, this is going to be on the FSA or whatever standardized
test these kids are being groomed for.
So yeah, support and our PE teachers and our music teachers and our painting teachers and
all these other incredible humans that are basically raising our children while we're
at work to give them the tools and support.
More difficult than ever being a teacher right now.
There's just so much on them.
They're dealing with a lot of social anxiety and the mental stress that many folks are
under, not just the kids, also the parents.
When you have the teacher parent conference, some of those interactions are probably pretty
tough.
Not all of them are giving the teacher the apple.
I'm sure there's some tough conversations happening, but again, for those who are doing
what their passion is and what their love is, which is educating and teaching, thank
you for what you're doing because our nation needs it.
They're out front, but they're often hidden heroes.
There are certain people like, I always say, celebrities are cool, sports stars are cool,
but when the nation gets in trouble, we're not calling Tom Cruise, we're calling James,
we're calling military folks, we're calling our teachers and firefighters and doctors
and nurses to help us get through that tough time.
When there's these hurricanes and fires and unfortunately mass shootings, we're looking
to the people who are running to the danger when everybody else is running from the danger.
It's important to thank them and to recognize them for what they do because they want to
run too.
I mean, I saw there were the fires in Hawaii and some of the firefighters, they knew their
homes were burnt up, but they didn't leave.
They were consistently showing up because that's what they had to do.
So it's important to say thank you, that's all they want because they're not looking
for a lot of limelight.
As you know, you're a firefighter, first responder, you've saved people before.
You don't need to be in front of the television screens in a bunch of medals, you did it because
that's what you want to do.
So I think for all those, and I think this is your core audience, those type of people
who are givers.
Thank you givers.
Thank you.
So I want one more area of the school, then we'll move back to your timeline, nutrition.
So another thing, again, I could look down my nose and be like, what's wrong with these
kids?
Why don't they know what vegetables are and everything?
Well, I grew up on a farm in England.
How dare I talk for someone in a street that only has a bodega and a liquor store in Brooklyn
somewhere.
So the schools are an amazing opportunity for us to teach kids about food and also feed
them healthy food.
What we have seen though, and even Jamie Oliver, the British chef, tried to make a dent when
they did it.
I think he did it in the UK, but he tried to do it here as well and show that even for
the same budget, you can actually make real food.
And we're not asking to reinvent the wheel.
It's what schools used to do before processed foods got shipped in and everything was kind
of microwaved and warmed up.
So talk to me about that side.
At the moment, we've got soda companies putting their vending machines in the schools.
We've got fast food companies forcing them away into schools and colleges.
What's your perspective of education and that captive audience and the nutrition side of
our children?
So for adults, let's exclude adults because they have choice.
They can do whatever they want to do.
So if they want to eat hamburgers and pizza and have all those things, that's up to them.
It's a little bit more difficult when you're a child though.
So for a lot of under-resourced areas, the primary source of nutrition is in school.
So where there might be a snowstorm, certain school districts probably should close, but
they don't close because if they closed, the kids would not eat that day.
They would not have proper meals.
So I'm sure there's a very, very difficult and delicate subject.
I'm sure there are lobbyist groups who are working and I'm sure there's the agriculture
folks, but there's an organization called Mission Readiness that is an organization
of retired military generals and admirals and they are finding ways and looking at solutions
to make sure that we feed our youth better because the military recruits of 2040, they're
about four or five years old right now or a little bit younger, a little bit older,
but if we don't provide them that strong foundation of good nutrition, mental health and physical
activity and social connection and the ability to think big and dream big, we're going to
be in trouble and we being the military, but also if you're not able to probably qualify
for the military, it would be difficult to be a firefighter and a first responder.
And I also think for businesses and companies, you're trying to hire healthy folks.
So if you have an employee who's often out sick, it's very, very difficult on your company
because there's not excess people at companies.
So when someone's not at work, that means someone else might have to pick up their load.
But the more healthy you can have it, like corporate wellness, corporate fitness, I think
is such an important thing nowadays to help our employees, our companies make sure that
their people are, well, I'll say fit to fight.
I would say fit to work, fit to contribute, fit to be productive.
And that again, it will come through like companies like Google or the Department of
Defense, where they hire experts to teach us how to be physically fit, how to eat properly
and use these evidence-based research to get you in the top physical condition.
You'd be like an athlete.
The military is treating our young men and women like division one athletes or pro athletes.
Their human performance is an important component of being a successful military person.
Well, we also need to look at how do we take care of the families and the folks as they
retire.
So nutrition is a huge component to all this, you know, eating right.
You have to be provided rocket fuel to act like a rocket.
You can't give cheap gas to a person you want to act like a division one athlete, but that
comes with education and not to be afraid from time to time to go have a slice of cheesecake
and have pizza and have a hamburger and a hot dog.
You don't have to exclude it all.
You just have to have the majority of your diet based on the proper foods to fuel your
body and to think with the end in mind.
So Dr. Peter Italia talks about if you want to live to a hundred, you have to start preparing
yourself right now to live to a hundred.
Sleeping, eating, exercising, moving, all those things on a consistent basis will help
you reach a hundred.
You can't skip for a few of those steps and think that you're going to live a healthy
mobile life in your fifties and sixties if you haven't put in the work in your twenties,
thirties and forties.
Well, going back to your timeline, I know you've got an interesting journey into the
military, especially when it came to interacting with the wider brothers.
So let's kind of kind of walk me through your decision to enter the air force and then how
you came across strength and conditioning.
Sure.
So great question.
My family has been a part of the military since the American Revolution, every war where
my sixth great grandfather, Pet Milner, joined.
He was in North Carolina, part of the militia there.
My third great grandfather, it was a Confederate soldier.
So he'd probably pretty be shocked to see me.
That's for sure to be his grandson.
Yeah, it's, it is what it is.
But I always thought the military just seemed like such a cool thing to do.
And you know, I have family members in it now currently where I have a cousin, he's
a fighter pilot in the air force and I have another cousin, she's a linguist in the air
force and I have cousins who somehow they join the army.
I don't know why they did that, but they did.
So no problem.
Or my cousin was in the Navy and I felt sorry for him, but you know, not everyone could
be as cool as being part of the air force.
So you know, but jokes aside to anyone who serves our country, what a, what a, I just
think they're special people.
They're like the best of the best of America.
So you know, it's a tough job, very, very, very demanding, but I was up for the adventure.
My first assignment, ironically, I went to Germany and England and my great uncle, his
first two assignments were Germany and England as well.
We, I had no idea knowing, you know, I didn't know this until probably after I retired,
but it's almost like it's part of the genes.
Another uncle who was a mom from Point Marine, you know, one of the first few black, first
black Marines.
So it's just part of the family business.
It's just part of what we do and what, what's cooler than that for me, you know, I think
for those who serve our firefighters or police officers or teach, whatever you do, if you
find that calling, you found where you belong, where you feel comfortable, you found your
community and so that was it for me.
So my first assignment was Puma, Ereste, you're in West Germany.
It was in the area where the battle of the Bulge was fought.
So it was very isolated.
It was, it was on top of a ski resort called the Schwarzemann and there wasn't much to
do but to go outside and be active and play.
And we were in the gym often, but every month at the end of the month, this magazine called
Muscle and Fitness, which I had been reading since I was 12 would come.
And I always thought that's my connection to America in some aspects because from time
to time that cable TV would go down and there was only one station in English, which was
AFN.
But that magazine was a way to connect with these American stars of bodybuilding and fitness
and nutrition.
And so one Christmas, the Christmas of 1983, December, I sent Ben Weider and Joe Weider
Christmas cards.
Just told them, thank you for providing this magazine.
Thanks for what you do.
And surprising, like I heard back from both of them and I did not know, but Ben Weider
had served in the Canadian military and he said, thank you for your card.
Once you get back to the US, why don't you reach out to me?
And if you're interested, maybe we can find a position or something for you to do here
at Weider or within the International Federation of Bodybuilders.
So my relationship to the Weider family started in 1983 and continues to this day.
When I was little, as I kind of transitioned into teens and it was the bodybuilding, strength
and conditioning, what were you doing prior?
I mean, you said you were reading muscle and fitness.
So what was the kind of metamorphosis of strength and conditioning as you entered the military
and then as you became more involved with the bodybuilding community?
So I was playing softball, basketball, baseball.
So once you moved to a place like Germany where the winters are severe and you're not
a skier, you have to find something to do indoors.
And so for me, it was a weight room.
So the weight room at our at our at Prummer station was an important place where it was
again, social connection where a lot of us came together.
But I was able to take all these inspiring photos from the muscle and fitness books and
hang them up on the walls of the gym.
And so people would come in there and be inspired and the equipment was really shoddy equipment.
But it was the best equipment because that's all we had.
But and again, going back to the Weider family, it was thanks to them, Ben and Joe, who promoted
physical fitness and weights at military facilities and at hospitals and at hotels and fire stations
because before them, it wasn't common.
It was actually kind of taboo that you become muscle bound and people who lived at weights
were thought to be narcissists.
However, they changed it through the education and through all the things they were able
to do to connect people of different nationalities and races through the sport of bodybuilding.
And they also made it acceptable and more common for fitness facilities to be located
on bases and in hospitals and hotels.
So when often when I'm in a hotel somewhere, I think part of this is thanks to Ben and
Joe for what they did.
Pretty cool.
So I know you ended up writing for some of the magazines too.
So what was that military lens that you would write about in in the pages?
So I had the good fortune of having a I think I have a PhD in and diplomacy diplomacy from
Ben Weider.
He was the master diplomat and he was a part of changing the apartheid system in South
Africa because there was a movie called Pumping Iron, very, very famous movie in the bodybuilding
community.
And Ben had negotiated with their prime minister and their sports minister to have the world
championships of bodybuilding in South Africa.
However, if they would not treat all athletes the same, especially the black athletes, the
option would be taken off the table.
And he had the buy in and support of Arnold Schwarzenegger, who was the star, the biggest
star in bodybuilding circles, who absolutely said this is what he wants as well.
And if they can't do that, we're not coming.
So often I would ask Ben, you know, he talked to me about having a dream box like big dreams
you think so big and dream so big that your dreams scare you in some aspects and putting
them into this box.
And he talked about that he would dream like this, but he didn't dream about money.
He always dreamed about changing the world and being a positive influence and doing major
things through sport.
And so when he made that happen, later on, he was put in for the Nobel Peace Prize because
that was one of the cracks that break down the world of apartheid.
You think, what made him think he can do that?
Like, well, you've got to be pretty bold to think that you're going to change a system
that doesn't want to be changed.
And the following year, which would have been 1976, the first time the South African athlete
of the year was a black South African.
So it just goes to show that if you think, my new term is called a disruptor.
If everybody agrees and everybody does the same thing, things don't change.
You absolutely need somebody to pull that scab off a little bit.
You need somebody that can be respectful, they can be honorable, but they need to shake
it up a little bit.
And I think that's what Ben was.
He would disarm you when asked back with his manners and that tie and that immaculate look,
he was working behind the scenes and making sure that I'm going to make sure that there's
a good change and you would get through sport.
The thing he knew, you know, I don't know much about cars or medicine or electricity,
but I do know a bit about the military and sports.
So that's the way that I'm trying to make a positive change and kind of following his
model and his template of you could do cool things and amazing things and where your comfort
spot is, where your comfort zone is.
And his model has shown that it's possible.
So how do we make it continue?
How do we make it happen now?
And that's what my goal and my mission is now with the support of a lot of my friends.
Beautiful.
Yeah, that would be de Klerk, wouldn't it?
The prime minister or the president at the time, South Africa, I think.
I'm not sure if he was, yeah, I don't remember all the names because as you get this age,
James things start fading.
I remember what I had for lunch yesterday, but the bottom part of the story is that he
wasn't able to make something change because he wanted to and that he was determined to
and because it was the right thing to do as well.
It's a shame he couldn't have persuaded Mandela to like squat four wheels for the front cover.
That would have been epic.
That would have been something else.
But as you say, Mandela, Mandela says, you know, sport has the power to change the world.
It laughs in the face of racism and prejudice.
And I do think that's something, you know, sports diplomacy right now is so important.
And we're working on some projects that I think will help with sports diplomacy in the
future with some embassies here in D.C. bringing people from different backgrounds together
through sport, through play and making sure that there's laughter and smiles.
And you won because you showed up, not because you're the fastest.
So more to come on that later on.
Beautiful, I can't wait to hear about that.
I know I watched the World Cup last year and the final was actually I was on a cruise with
my wife.
And so, you know, we got to see all the Argentinians just losing their mind at the end of it.
But that's such a beautiful representation of the world.
And there's one thing that unifies everyone, which is a sport that they all love.
It could be Morocco or Cameroon or the UK or wherever.
And this is the power of community, the power of sport.
And again, you know, the other teams aren't ridiculed because they didn't win.
Everyone was proud to support, you know, get behind a tribe in a positive way.
But then when your country got knocked out, you're like, all right, who do I like?
And then you just start supporting Morocco because they it's their first time in a long
time or whatever it is.
Yeah.
So I think sport and UFC is another good example.
I love seeing all these these smaller nations now that are having fires coming out and,
you know, metaphorically and literally kicking ass.
Yeah.
And again, it just it allows you to escape the realism for a while.
But then you get back to it.
And most all athletes have dealt with failure before.
There are very few athletes like, you know, Michael Jordan talks about all the shots he's
taken and missed.
And Wayne Grewitzky says like you miss every shot you don't take.
Or there's others who say half the battle is showing up.
And so these are life lessons that while they pertain to these athletes, they also pertain
to life.
You miss every opportunity you don't take.
You have to be a risk taker.
Now I'm adverse to most risk.
I think I like the security of knowing what my day is going to be like.
And that's why I was able to do well in the military.
But to see someone like a Musk, Elon Musk or Zuckerberg or Bill Gates to have that kind
of ability to take failure and turn it into success.
Like how many times do you think that Musk was told, no, you're crazy.
It won't happen.
But he did it.
And now look where he's at.
And also with women in sports, you know, so many of them who are on the C-suite have sports
backgrounds because they learned about being told no to they learned how to cope with failure.
They learned how to communicate.
They learned how to work as a team.
And I think the stat is about 94% of the women on C-suites have a sport background, meaning
school or college.
And a friend of mine, Christy Ingram from Ernst & Young did the research on this.
And it's just such a powerful, I'll send you the link so that maybe you can put it in the
show notes for that, the power of being a part of a team and playing and being physically
active what it can do for you as you move forward in the business community as well.
Sports follows you forever.
So you have a unique perspective.
So it's an interesting question to ask you.
When you look at the world across fit, when I look at the world across fit, and I got
in somewhat earlier, I got in like 2006, I've seen an interesting kind of roller coaster
from its purest form that the principles of philosophies were still very front and center,
but we just weren't very good at it because we didn't have Olympic lifters teaching us
in gymnastics unless you were in that core group.
And then it gets into the sporting side.
And sadly, people kind of want to cut corners and then we're getting more injuries.
And then now we're seeing a lot of real experts teaching us and the coaches are getting a
lot better and the athletes are getting more humble when we walk through the door.
But then again, and it's this undulation, but it is purest form.
I think CrossFit is phenomenal.
It's not everything.
Nothing is everything, but it's done so much, especially for the tactical world.
When I look at bodybuilding, the old Arnold movements, a lot of compound barbell movements,
still very functional.
And then as exercise equipment has been developed, the machines get bigger for the muscle group
that's getting smaller.
And then you look at some of the recruitments I wrote in my book about two bodybuilders
I watched test for the fire department.
And I can laugh because they were both so fucking arrogant.
So they really were bright orange, but I mean, couldn't make it up two flights of stairs
before they tapped out.
So you have a great exercise philosophy, some areas of bodybuilding became, or your average
person got very big without the functional strength.
We are in a world of tactical athletes where you need strength and muscular endurance and
endurance and mental toughness.
What have you seen as far as the purity of what the wide has wanted and maybe some of
the offshoots that actually didn't prepare people well for tactical athlete positions?
That's a great question.
But there's a difference between the bodybuilding who's a competitive athlete who's looking
to win stage and win medals and become a professional.
And those who are bodybuilders because they want to increase their mobility, increase
their strength and to make themselves feel better and stronger and more powerful.
Because muscle, you know, having muscle is a life extension is a life extension to me.
You know, those who are stronger, probably live longer.
It allows you to be more mobile.
It gives you a better or increased lifespan and health span.
So the health span is like your lifespan might be 66.
But if you're sick at 50, you have 16 years of being sick.
But if you can kind of match your lifespan and your health span to where you're safe,
if you were to pass at 80, you've had 79 years or 80 years of being mobile and doing what
you wanted to and having the strength to do your laundry, to carry that basket up and
down the stairs, to mow lawn if you want to.
Maybe because of some travel I've been doing, I was noticing how many folks are having a
difficult time walking at airports because the gates are so far apart and not being able
to carry their bags or needing assistance or just stopping.
And sometimes people, I can hear them saying, are you okay?
And they're saying, I'm just catching my breath.
Where you know, I think 100 years ago, everybody was mobile.
Everybody was moving.
You had to walk long distances.
You had to move.
You were chopping wood.
You were gathering wood.
You were hunting for your meal.
So we've probably gone from the average person might have been taking 16, 17,000 steps a
day to now where you can take literally less than 500 or a thousand steps a day.
And for hundreds of thousands of years, we were mobile, moving people.
And now these last, say, maybe even since more like the 1920s or 30s before convenience
of automobiles and when we stopped having to go outside to the outhouse for bathrooms,
when the introduction of more, I guess, mass transit helped.
I remember my grandparents or older folks saying, we had to walk four miles back and
forth to school, eight miles a day or three or six miles a day.
And I don't hear about that anymore.
You know, most kids are biking, getting rides, not biking, taking a bus or getting a ride.
You don't see probably in the majority of the country where lots of kids are walking
over a mile and a half or two miles to school.
Now, there might be some areas and there might be some kids that their form of exercise and
what they want to do.
But statistics show that we are not as physically active as we used to be.
And so some of that just happened to be with walking to school, riding to school, playing
at recess, doing gym, having gym class.
All that physical movement has been reduced greatly and it all adds up.
And every week, month, year that we are less active will add up at the end.
So your lifespan decreases and your health span decreases because what you did in your
earlier years did not prepare you for a longer, more mobile life.
So education, we need influencers to help get the message out.
And we also can't shame people.
Like I often think, I have a friend, Alex Morrow, who shares the same thought that the
bravest person in the gym is probably the person who's the most out of shape because
they're looking at all these amazing fit bodies and folks taking videos of themselves, but
you don't know where they came from.
You know, the person who's there who looks out of shape to you might have already lost
a hundred or 200 pounds.
So for them to be there now, they are just super brave to me because they don't look
like everybody else.
So I'm sorry, my voice is breaking up, but they are the ones actually that inspire you
to motivate you because again, they're back to being consistent.
They're there day after day after day.
And a few months later you look at them and think, wow, they've made more improvement.
And I learned a lesson recently.
We were a friend of mine, we were in the gym and we noticed this lady and her sons working
out every day and she had made tremendous progress.
But we thought, how do we tell her that without being offensive?
Like saying, we're not trying to say anything fresh or anything, but we just want to say
great job.
And we decided just to do that.
Listen, excuse me, ma'am, can we tell you something?
As you know, we're here every day.
We say, hi, wonderful.
You're doing an awesome job.
We just want to say congratulations because you inspire us to keep us going.
And then you just see like big crocodile tears like, boom, here they come.
Like, well, I'm sorry, what did we do?
Nothing.
She just appreciated that we told her because sometimes as she said, you get frustrated.
You're thinking it's not a good day.
I didn't do what I wanted to.
My sons aren't listening today or they don't want to do this, but we kept coming.
And then for us to say something to her meant so much to her.
And so now when we see her in the gym, that's the biggest, brightest smile we see every
single day that she's just like happy that somebody acknowledged them.
So I thought for all the folks who are going to the fitness centers and gyms or if it's
at your school or your community center, when you see somebody being consistent and being
in there, don't have to say much to them, but just say, I see you.
Good job.
Way to go.
Absolutely.
And again, I did some great videos out there.
I mean, I follow a lot of people that are on their journey.
Some of them, you know, are done losing weight.
They're in phenomenal shape now.
And you know, even wearing their skin, the excess skin that they have now and refusing
to get it cut off.
So it reminds me of where I was.
And yeah, absolutely.
And you said the courage to go in.
And I think, again, most gym goers would think that way.
You know, it's only the few that are going to sneer and make fun of people.
You talked about the airport too.
It's funny.
I've actually flown a lot the last few months and I've noticed like the walkway next to
the what they call them, the travelators, the people movers are always completely empty.
The stairs are always completely empty.
And I'm there lugging my 5'11 bags around, but this is the problem.
You know, yes, the travelator when you're an 80 year old person that's trying to get
through Dallas, Fort Worth or some of these massive airports, Atlanta, they're going to
need that assistance.
But we've created a culture where like no one, no one was walking just on the regular
one.
Yeah, you might get there slightly faster, but you've just, you know, taken away a thousand,
two thousand steps by standing there, you know, on a thing that's flat.
It's not even going up.
It's flat.
So I think culturally, we've got a lot of work to do to get people, like you said, just
moving again.
I remember when I first moved to the States, my ex sitting there with a blinker on waiting
for a parking space close to the store.
I'm like, what are you doing?
Just go park over there.
There's loads of spaces back there.
But that was the cultural thing.
And it caused fights early on.
Eventually she did.
But this is how we're programmed.
It's like the path of least resistance.
But our culture is so freaking comfortable now that that path of least resistance is
almost no movement at all.
Right.
Well, you know, this is a topic that I've been sharing with some of the folks related
to the military, the military community, the veterans service organizations that I have
a friend, Dr. Reagan Stegman, and I often say that she will probably be one of the Time
100 most influential people one day because she's a medical doctor.
She practiced lifestyle medicine and it talks about how do you get the most out of yourself
to be a great advocate for promoting wellness and health and all the things that come with
that from your decreasing emotional stress and mental stress to increasing social connection
and spirituality.
But she often says that we in the military, and I think it's probably very similar for
firefighters, police officers, that we hire and recruit the most fit people to join our
forces, but by the time they retire or get out, they're the most unfit.
And so, for instance, there's some research that says the average weight gain for a person
who leaves the military, especially the retirees, is 30 pounds within a 12-month period.
Now some of that has to do with they no longer have that support that they had.
They no longer are wearing that uniform so that you didn't want your uniform to be snug.
So you made sure you did what you had to do, that social connection of your buddies in
the gym, maybe even the access to the gym depending on where they live, where they move
to, maybe they don't have access to such a fitness facility.
But what that takes them from often is from overweight to obesity, which increases by
two to three fold problems with their health.
From their backs to their knees to their hearts to their blood pressure, all suffer greatly.
So how do we continue to train these people or to provide them the ability and the access
to information to keep them healthy?
Because if you join the greatest team on earth, which I call the American military, you should
be a part or should be a player forever.
You never are off the team.
You just have a reduced role on the team.
So the active duty are the stars of the game.
They're the ones who are in the first quarter.
But what we as retirees and veterans are is to be supportive and be mentors and share
wisdom with them.
But we also need to have the support of our healthcare system, in my personal opinion,
to keep us in the game.
We also though will reduce healthcare costs because a healthier fit person needs less
time in the hospital, leads less medication.
And so I'm sure there's a parallel that we reduce costs by keeping people in shape, but
keeping people in shape, there's a cost to that.
The H2F, which is an army fitness program, the trainers and nutritionists, the exercise
physiologist, the data scientists.
But I think by hiring all these people and putting them in place, there's a huge return
on investment later on.
And if I'm a recruiter, just like I would for a major university, like we went to Yale
University and met their football coach.
And he said, if you give us four years of your life, we give you 40 back, meaning that
mentorship and ability and support and resources, they would always be there for you.
I think the same could be true for the military, that once you retire, you're not done.
We still will provide you access to these fitness facilities.
And if you need a nutritionist and if you need an exercise physiologist, and if you
need a spiritual counselor or a mental health expert, they're there for you because you
served and you helped protect our country and enabled us to live the lives we live.
So how do we make that happen?
Part of it is conversations, discussions, probably some bills and some laws that need
to be adjusted and changed.
But it just makes sense to me that you want them when they're young, you want to keep
them as they age so that we can show them that if you join this great team, you're part
of it forever.
That mirrors the fire service a lot as far as the problem.
And I've used the term false economy a lot.
We work our firefighters, which is the community that I know, into the ground.
And you have standing on day one, a drill ground full of arguably some of the most mentally
and physically resilient members of their community.
And then fast forward 10, 15 years and still in uniform, overweight, obese.
It's a deconditioning.
And again, taking ownership and environment into the conversation together, the sleep
deprivation causes so many things in the body, the hormonal disruption and the testosterone
breakdown and all these things that then affects motivation.
Now you add the massive core load and the mandatory overtime.
And before you know it, the cop hasn't left his car and now he's 30 pounds heavier or
the firefighter's pulling a steering wheel off as they get out the rig, which I've heard
has actually happened before.
So like you said, investing in strength and conditioning programs in rest and recovery,
like time off for our first responders, not working them into the ground.
The return on investment will be huge, but it takes courageous leadership to invest in
your people.
And then you talked about Google, you look at how their workweek has evolved to four,
nine hour days now.
People are just as productive in four days.
So we're going to do that and give them three days off.
But yet the first responder professions, it's always do more with less, more with less,
more with less.
And we are absolutely at a critical mass now.
So with the military lens, are there any programs where you're actually able to see the financial
gains of certain wellness or selection initiatives in the time that you work there?
Yes, James, great question.
So the military has something called the Armed Forces Wellness Centers.
I'm not sure how many there are there.
I think there's 30 or so, but it's something that there'll be more of them on the way that
they are your one stop shop for evidence based information related to your mental, spiritual,
physical health, wellness.
And so I have a friend, Nicole Leith, who works there.
She's one of the directors and she's a dynamo of promoting the services that this place
provides for free for those who serve or veterans, retirees.
As long as you have access to a military base, you can use these services.
And what an important, like this is so, so important, especially for families, because
I don't know how the traditions for military or for police officers and firefighters are,
but currently about 80% of those who serve in the military have a military connection,
meaning their father, their mother, their brother, their uncle, their cousin served.
Another 30%, either their mom or dad, both served.
So going back to again, the class of 2040, the recruits of 2040 are military kids.
Majority of them are military kids now on military installations who hopefully are getting
access to space to play, place to run, place to throw a ball, to catch a ball, to swim,
to climb, because our country is going to need them to become the next level or the
next greatest generation.
And so fortunately, I have the ear of some pretty influential folks who are willing to
listen because sometimes James, I would say it's a little bit difficult without having
a PhD or a scientist and all this, but my goal is not to embarrass and to say, you should
have done this or you should have, you should have, you should have.
My goal is to be a disruptor in a kind and forceful way though that here is the evidence.
I have friends again like Reagan Stegman and Dr. Marianne Heal and Dr. Sharon Bannister,
Major General Sharon Bannister, who are the experts, who are the PhDs and physicians who
can provide the backup that I need with the evidence where I'm the mouthpiece and they're
the bridge to help educate our forces and our decision makers with information so that
we can make smart, intelligent choices.
And I know the Air Force is doing better with this.
Thanks a lot to Reagan and Dr. Keele, their leadership in this, the H2F program, Major
General John Klein, they're doing amazing work.
They're changing lives each and every day.
Another friend, Spencer Posey, he's with the H2F at the Tomb of the Unknown Guard.
Now, these are the most elite of our elite military men and women because of their appearance
and because of the mission that they have.
Their badge, the Tomb Guard badge is the second hardest badge to get in the Army and the only
hardest badge, or harder badge to get is the astronaut badge.
And so their physical fitness, the way they look, their stamina is so, so important to
the performance of their mission.
So before I forget, let me invite you to come to DC and come and see them so we can introduce
you to these folks because they have a great story to tell.
And when you see them, you think they're amazing.
They look, they all look like posters.
But I also think as speaking to them, when you see them, you think I want to be a part
of something like that, you know, it'd be awesome for recruiting purposes to take young
men and women who are considering the military for an option, a career option to go see them
because they are just, their precision in their, like these are people from all different
parts of the country who have different accents and different nationalities and they come
together through the training that the military provides for them and that their fellow soldiers
provide to them to become a well-oiled machine.
There's not a spoken word.
Their commands are timing, flicks of the heels and their personal pride of excellence.
So I think that, you know, when you want to be a part of something so elite like that,
seeing that, seeing that example is pretty important.
I often hear the saying, it's hard to be, but you can't see.
And when, when people don't get a chance to see people doing well and being excellent
and being physically fit, it's hard to imagine it depending on where they're from.
But the military can provide those examples.
And so, yes, getting back to your question, there are, there are programs, there are things
being done in the military to make sure there's a program, CHAMPUS, that provides all this
amazing information, all evidence-based.
There's a guy, J. Russell Lederman, AKA Crazy Juice.
He's just an awesome guy in the Navy that provides amazing data and facts to get you
in the best shape possible, because we're all not meant to be competitive athletes,
but we can get you in the best shape for the military and the services they provide can
get you in the best shape that you possibly can be in.
And it brings them joy to do it too.
You know, you're not paying outrageous prices for trainers and all.
They're doing this because they want to make sure that our community, military community
is healthy and fit as best as possible.
See, and I think that's the thing about this conversation.
There's no downside.
I'm talking about firefighter fitness and wellness.
Not only are we able to perform on a fire, on an extrication, on a rope rescue, whatever
it is, or a wildland fire, but you're also fostering that resilience for that man or
woman to then have a healthy retirement.
So there's literally no downside.
But what I've found is when you present this false economy argument and showing them, look,
you're bleeding money on medical retirements and workman's comp and overtimes and lawsuits
and all the things that are attached to poor performance, we just need courage.
We need someone just like you said, and a disruptor has been used on this show many
times because I agree with it.
Like, you know, the gloves are off and trying to have that middle of road conversation,
but you've got to have a little aggression as well to slap someone out of the way you've
always done it.
But investing in our people, you know, getting those young fit recruits and keeping them
fit through the whole way.
And like you said, it's not about six packs.
It's not about, you know, deadlifting a thousand pounds.
It's fostering the best version of yourself.
And one might be, you know, a super tiny person ends up being a phenomenal pilot.
Another one might be a breacher on a SEAL team.
Who knows?
But we're still trying to get the best version of ourselves.
So we spend four or 20 years in uniform and then you end up transitioning to another important
role in your community and being there as a father and a grandfather or whatever role
you play.
And as you said, having a beautiful lifespan and a wellness span, not just simply getting
to a numerical point with no real quality of life.
You said it all, James.
But you know, there are also lots of folks out there who aren't able to say, like, we
can't depend on the government.
We can't depend on schools.
Sometimes you got to take it amongst yourself and say, I'm going to do something.
So when you mentioned about the parking, so I'm president of something called Rolling
Thunder Washington, D.C. and Rolling Thunder was the world's biggest one day event.
It's still the biggest military gathering where military men and women and supporters
and participants come to D.C. on Memorial Day weekend and they ride their bikes to remember
our prisoners of war missing in action in their families.
And we have up to a million people who come to this.
And so I have the opportunity to talk to literally thousands of veterans about various topics.
And the one that I've been focused on recently has been about their health, because I've
seen how within three to five years, a person who is upright on their bike can no longer
have the strength to hold that bike.
So now they go from a two wheeler to a trike, but they're still there.
What my thoughts are is how do we help our veteran community improve their physical health?
Because these were these men and women were human weapons systems in their early teen
or later teens and early twenties and thirties.
They were the ones who were the defenders of freedom going out there and giving all
to our nation, breaking down their body, really having horrific injuries.
But they kept coming back because this is what they wanted to do.
This is what they were born to do in many cases.
But now we need to help them understand that the next mission in life is possibly being
that grandma or grandpa who walks your grandson or granddaughter down the aisle.
Or there's a commercial here in Northern Virginia.
I've seen a few times where a grandpa is too tired to throw the ball, you know, like there's
a little grandpa, he can't get up, he's tired.
Well, how about if you become that grandpa or grandma where you could go kick the soccer
ball.
Now we're not asking you to play in a match, just a few kicks, just a few catches.
But also, if you're able to do that, you probably have the stamina and the strength now to go
to that concert where your grandson, granddaughter or niece or nephew is playing because you
feel confident and strong to walk to that stair to that to that arena.
Because a lot of times people are like, oh, I'm so tired.
Well, how about if we increase your ability to walk a few more steps every day?
And then at the end of the month, you can walk further and then six months later, you're
better off.
You've dropped your weight, you dropped your medication, you've increased your confidence.
You know, like I often hear so many older folks talk about their fear of falling.
You know, if they fall and there's a Dr. Huberman, I don't remember his first name, talks about
like the percentage.
If you're 65 and older and if you fall and break your hip, there's a greater percentage
of you dying within a year.
If you're 70 and break your hip, there's greater percentages.
But if your bones are stronger and you have muscle, while you may not be what you were
previously, your chances of survival are also greater because exercise being strong, being
physically fit is like the world's best medicine.
Like if there's a pill that we can take to give us the benefits of medicine, if you and
I own that company, we'd be trillionaires, you know.
But there are things we can do and being active and lifting and moving and eating well and
staying hydrated and sleeping are ways to increase our lifespan and health span.
There was a video going around social media I shared, I think a couple of times now, and
it was really, it was a beautiful, beautifully done.
It was an older gentleman, he looked like he was almost like Italian or Greek or something.
And he would go every day and there was this old dusty kettlebell and he would kind of
take it from the floor, I think he put it over his head or something.
And every day, and there was interaction, you know, like his daughter was trying to
figure out what he was doing.
And then at the end of the video, he picks up his granddaughter and holds her up so she
can put the star on the Christmas tree.
And that to me was everything.
Like you know, what we do in the gym is for real life.
Right.
That was award-winning commercial.
That was from Canada.
I've seen that before.
But what you just said, it's still like now I'm in the gym and at one time maybe I wanted
to be a certain look because of ego, but now it's more or less to make sure that my balance
is still there, that I can lift things from the floor to the shelf, that I can carry bags
or suitcases.
So you program your exercise routine to do real life, like things that mimic life.
So pressing, you know, pressing movements.
That's what I'm going to do is I'm going to put something in the shelf.
If I'm carrying my bags, maybe there's like, I think it's called a fireman something where
you have weights in two hands and you do a walk.
The farmer's walk.
Farmer's walk.
See, I'm giving credit to firemen, but it's...
But those type of things and just trying to maintain the strength and the balance.
But with all that also comes, I think you just have confidence too.
As Joe Weider used to say that he lifted weights because he also wanted to feel strong, you
know, feeling strong gives you the confidence to feel like you can overcome obstacles and
not be afraid that somebody is going to do something to you because you're weak.
And I think there's so much research that shows the importance of being strong and fit.
We just have to get it out.
We need different sources and people who look different to share that with their communities.
We can't all have people who are looking like pro athletes or one kind of, you know, blonde,
blue eyed or African-American age.
All of them make sense in all different sizes, all different ages, because the message will
be taken by those communities.
So we just have to make sure that we diversify our thoughts and diversify the appearance
of those who are promoting physical activity so that they can reach more people and more
masses.
And we have to get kids involved.
Again, if it's about us, include us, and we need to find ways to make sure that kids can
become youth physical fitness and sports ambassadors because they have part of the solution that
we're all looking for.
Absolutely.
Well, I want to get to transcend and transcend foundation, but just before we do, I heard
you on the American Legion podcast.
Dan Bornstein was on here a while ago and he really, you know, unpacked the national
security issue of, you know, obesity and deconditioning, especially in our young men and women that
are the eligible age to go into military, into the first responders.
So talk to me about the statistics of how many people are in the age group that we'd
normally recruit from and how many actually qualify physically for service.
Sure.
Great question.
So we are at the worst, I guess, the worst positioning for recruiting since 1973.
The end of the Vietnam War.
So we have between the ages of 17 to 24, 23% of the population are qualified to serve.
Out of that 23%, 12% go to university, are employed, have no interest in the military.
For 11%, they would be good candidates, but out of that 11%, only 9% actually really want
to go into the military.
Now some of this has to do with those of us who are veterans.
After with withdrawal of Afghanistan due to some of the benefits, you know, the struggles
that we have to get military benefits, some of the things that they've seen their family
members go through, like missing birthdays and holidays and important anniversaries that
they suggest to their family members or the younger family members, maybe the military
life is not for you.
So we're fighting that as well.
But the other part is, you know, when you see war, like we were able to see war at like
almost unfiltered because of our social media.
You know, when you see what's going on in Israel and Palestine and that you hear that
our troops have been sent over and that some of them have experienced, you know, where
missiles have hit certain things and some of them have been injured or there's potential
to be injured.
Do you want to put your life on the line for that?
And for many parents, some of them say, especially if it's not fighting for America, they don't
want their child to be, I guess, a statistic or die.
And I understand that as a parent myself, I understand that, but somebody, we always
need people to serve our country to defend what we have.
So how do we help that?
And I guess education is the key.
Maybe having town halls or open where we can help the recruiters by maybe getting a number
of parents together where we can go to a base and have them on a bus and show them the lifestyle
that's on these bases and maybe having a conference or a forum where we speak about real military
life with folks who have no idea because it's about 0.5% currently serving.
So during World War II, let's just say 14 to 20% of the population served, meaning if
it wasn't someone in your family, it was the postman, the milkman, the banker, somebody
was connected to the military.
And if they weren't connected by serving, they were either part of the industry that
was building the tanks and the ships and the guns.
And so there was just a national call to action.
Well, now for our last conflicts and wars, most people aren't involved and it's the same
families over and over and it's the same men and women, well, multiple deployments, seven,
eight, 10, 12 deployments.
So the cost is, this great cost is not spread amongst the country equally.
It's a small minority of people having the majority of the weight on their backs serving
our country.
So how do we educate those who don't know about the military, about the military and
that while this is a part, because believe the mission of the military is to prevent
war, to not have war.
But when the time comes and the commander chief says you have to go, that is our job
is to protect our country.
And so when folks don't really know much about it, fear of the unknown sometimes probably
prohibits them and gives them thoughts and feelings that are real in their head, but
maybe with a little bit of education, knowledge and I guess having the ability to talk to
real airmen and soldiers and guardians and sailors might be helpful as well.
Now everybody's not meant to serve, but you can serve different ways and serving by maybe
if you have a company and once a soldier or airman gets out, maybe you can provide them
job training.
Maybe you can provide them an opportunity to work in your company because these men
and women come with amazing leadership skills and discipline, hard work, great ability to
communicate, have diversity of thought, diversity of friends, diversity of diversity is just
the key of all this.
But I do think that just because you don't serve one way doesn't mean you can't serve
another.
Just saying thank you for your service is important.
Standing up for parades when the American Legion or the VFW walks by standing up and
clapping for them if you can.
I often think sometimes when you see a veteran, when you say thank you for your service, they
get a bit, I think sometimes they get a bit embarrassed because they're not looking for
a fanfare, but boy does it make a big difference.
It makes them feel good for what they did, you know.
And so I think it's important to have the attitude of gratitude, thanking police officers
and firefighters and teachers and thank you is just a powerful word.
It's really magical.
I was in Panera and I was going to offer the police officer, I said, I got you.
And he goes, thank you, but they already got it for me.
I was just glad to see that other people were thinking it doesn't cost as much to buy a
cup of coffee for someone for putting their life on the line for all of us.
So just if you can, not everybody can, but if you can, just doing those little bitty
things.
It happened to me many times.
I was in Alaska one time and having dinner and I was afraid of the cost because I knew
I went a little bit overboard.
So I'm thinking, oh, there's going to be a lot of money.
So I go to pay and they said it was already taken care of.
They knew you were military.
They didn't want any, nothing from you.
They just wanted to say thank you and I'm thinking, now you pay it forward.
So I tried to do that from time to time.
If I see people or veterans who wear their cap and I'll just say, they're good for whatever
their cost is.
We got them because that's how you pay it forward and show appreciation.
Beautiful.
I couldn't agree more.
Even with that awkwardness, we get thanks and you don't want thanks, but at the same
time it's that way of that person showing that they appreciate what you do.
So it's this kind of awkward dichotomy in a way.
And if I can add to that, James, if you can say thanks in front of their family or their
grandkids or their friends, because often it's the families that miss that person, that
have missed the birthday, that have missed the anniversary.
And so if you're able to say thanks to a woman who served our military and her husband's
right next to her and for her to have that from you, her husband's like, wow, it's powerful.
That would be just such a great way to show sincere thanks and to allow that family to
also appreciate what that family member does for them.
But for that family member or for that service member to say thank you to you too for supporting
me during this difficult and trying job.
And again, firefighters, police officers, same thing.
And particularly in front of kids and family members, it's a great way to show appreciation.
Absolutely.
I was just listening to US Air Force, I forget his exact title, but Morley Stone.
He worked a lot in the human performance side.
I think he was even part of DARPA for a while.
But I asked him the question, it was a curve ball because it wasn't directly aimed at what
we were talking about that day.
But we talk about this hiring crisis at the moment.
And it was interesting because it kind of talked about what you said.
I think 80% of the military are generational.
And I said, what do you think is one of the reasons?
And he said 20 years of war.
And I was like, how can you argue with that?
If dad, uncle, sister, mother, whoever it was, didn't just serve, but they were literally
deploying over and over and over again.
It's like I talk a lot about the fire service at the moment where these guys are working
56 hours a week, 80 hours with mandatory where you know, 730 in the morning, the phone rings,
you're about to go home.
They're like, no, you've got to stay for another day.
That comes at a cost.
And so I think now is the time we really kind of envelop our military, our first responders
and be like, okay, you've been through hell.
How can we start kind of looking at a slightly different lens and giving you more rest and
recovery?
And also, I mean, from a civilian looking at the military, you talked about World War
II.
We had two Iwo Jima veterans last week and it was phenomenal.
Very different conflict than Afghanistan or Iraq.
So how as a nation can we ensure that we only send our boys and girls away when is absolutely
necessary and we make sure that there isn't a pull from industries that make a lot of
money where and where at war, you know, that balance, I think is a very important conversation,
especially now, as you said, with the information age that we're in.
Yeah, I'm not sure that's way above my pay grade.
But my personal feeling is when you have the same folks giving and giving and giving, there's
some who think that if we had a draft, there probably would be a different thought about
sending our men and women to war because then anybody's family member is eligible or a candidate
or could be sent.
So when there isn't a draft, when there's only those who want to serve, who have signed
up to serve, you know, for certain families who have not had military service and that's
not, again, as I said, it's not for everybody.
They're not concerned about it as much.
Now they're concerned because it's American, fellow Americans going, but maybe for their
immediate family, they know that nothing is going to affect their family.
But when you know that your family member is in harm's way, you just feel different
about it.
And if you follow the news a little bit more, you're a lot more concerned about world politics
and that the potential pull of having American military folks get engaged because once that
engagement starts, when does it stop?
And the same folks who have been serving and who have been giving will continue to have
to give.
And when do they hit their mental breaking point and their spiritual and their physical
breaking point?
You can't keep pushing a person out there over and over and over and think you're going
to get the same result.
And that's what I often think about, particularly police or firefighters who have to see horrific
car crashes or fires a few times a week.
When does that psychological damage said, I've hit my fill?
For some, it's two years, for some, it's 20 and for some, I'm out within six months because
this is not, I didn't call for that part of the job.
I wanted to protect and defend.
I didn't want to see such horrific things, especially if you're not trained to deal with
some of those things that you have to see on a daily basis.
And so spreading the wealth and some aspects, if more and more people had to play a part
of protecting and serving our country, I think there would be a different way of how people
think about the call to fight, call to send our troops in because now your family member
might be a part of that.
Your son, your daughter, your father, your mother might be going as well.
And that's my personal thought.
Now there's just lots of research to go through and I just know that people are tired and
those who keep serving.
Can you imagine you've joined the military and you've retired and we're still at war?
Like you've gone, the first group in history of our country to say, I joined at this time,
I ended at this time and we were still at war.
And you don't know anything different, especially if you're a special force member or someone
or you're a pilot, you're a navigator, you're a maintenance worker where you're always going.
In some aspects it might be a bit difficult not to be so fired up all the time because
that adrenaline, that hyper vigilance gets you through it.
And could you imagine after 20 years of that, now you're asked to go sit at a job where
you might be in a cubicle at a desk or you might, you know, the person who is the youngest,
maybe not the most diplomatic or best skilled or with their kindest words is the owner,
the CEO, the president, and they're saying things to you that without respect or they
lack discipline and you almost want to, you got some choice words back, but because this
is your job and your profession, you don't do it.
And I think that is a difficult time.
Even my wife, when I, when I got out, she said, sometimes you might have some tough
times the adjustment because I was in 26 years and I thought it was, it was awesome.
It was just, some days you really think like, look at the cool things I get to do by serving
our country.
And if you haven't had that experience, you might not understand the military the way
that some of us who have served our firefighters have.
But to get back to your question, I think if, if we were to equally distribute the ability
for all of us to have a part of serving our country and those who we all had a role to
help protect our country and defend our freedom, I think there'd just be a different thought
on how we think about sending our men and women to war.
I couldn't agree more.
And I've never heard it put that way specifically, but I don't need the research.
You just sold me on it a hundred percent.
And it kind of mirrors, Sebastian Junger was on recently again.
And he always talks about national service and he said, it doesn't always have to be
military.
Not everyone out there is going to be a good war fighter, but you know, whatever it is,
some sort of volunteerism, some sort of community so that you are investing in your country
and you have the gratitude that seems to be missing in some areas at the moment.
So, and I, but, but the idea that anyone's kids could be sent, I think was, is a great,
great cautionary element.
And I think Sebastian was talking about, I think it was the Iroquois tribe.
They have a leader for peace and a leader for war.
And I love that idea, you know, because if you're kind of a warmonger and you're sending
other people's children, where's the checks and balances.
But if you have someone who's a great diplomat during peacetime and then God forbid it's
time to be the hammer.
Now, now you, you enact that and then all those well-trained young men and women go
do what they got to do.
But in the meantime, you do everything in your power to be, you know, to use diplomacy
and have it, you know, a force that's, that's the right word.
Oh my goodness, I'm blanking now.
You're dissuading other nations from causing any trouble, but you're also not Team America
World Police, that kind of, you know, middle ground there.
But while you were mentioning that, I thought some of the best military folks I've seen
have been immigrants because they come here understanding what America provides for them.
They understand what it has to be on the other side, depending on what their country was
like.
So they come here, but the opportunity to have the only thing that limits them is themselves.
It's their own hard work, their own drive, their own discipline.
Because in America, I was a congressional liaison and I worked off, I would travel with
Trent Lott, former Senator from Mississippi, and he said, in America, everything is possible.
That you really can dream something outrageous and it can happen here.
Where if you're born in certain countries, it just won't happen.
If you're born in the caste system, if you're born in the mountains of a certain country
and you, you're next in line to man that family farm that has been a generational type thing,
you know, your dad did it, his dad did it, now it's your turn.
You just can't leave it.
But I thought, you know, being some young folks who come from different countries, they're
so proud of the uniform.
They're so proud to be a part of it.
And one or two, let's see, about two years ago, I was at the White House and we were,
we were watching the fireworks and there was these three or four girls and they were, they
weren't crying.
There was tears and they're looking up and they're looking up and they're thinking something's
wrong.
I hope someone's not sick.
Well, they were so proud because wherever they were from, they were saying, could you
imagine, you know, we're from country X that we are at the White House.
We're watching fireworks.
We have the ability to do this.
And who would think that's possible?
I'm thinking that is so cool.
I wish more Americans in some aspects would think the same, but you got to be proud of
where you're from.
Absolutely.
Yeah.
And I think these conversations, this is the point is you've also got to have the courage
to say this is a beautiful country and these are the things that are, you know, not going
so well.
Let's challenge this.
You're a patriot when you do take up, you know, some sort of issue and try and be part
of the solution.
That's not being un-American, it's being American.
Oh yeah.
And Chappie James, General Chappie James, he would say, you know, while we have lots
of problems and issues here at America, I'll still take her to the dance.
And so you just figure it out.
You know, you keep pushing and while there are still lots of hardships and sometimes
you think things are going in reverse.
I look at kids again on the sport field and in schools and I'm thinking they got it right.
They're not thinking about how tall you are or what your weight is or what your color
is or what your, can you do X?
Can you kick a ball?
Can you catch a ball?
Are you good in history?
Can you sew?
Can you cook?
If so, come to my tribe, be a part of this.
I think it's sometimes us, the adults who sometimes disrupt that purity and that gentle
and kindness that a lot of kids often have.
And I also think kids have it tough too because social media is a bear that I didn't have
to deal with that I think sometimes for their social connection and for their mental health,
it'd be good to turn it off for a while.
Absolutely.
Well, I want to be mindful of your time, but I want to make sure that we do talk about
Transcend and the Transcend Foundation before I let you go.
So how did you come across Ernie and then how did you ultimately find yourself on the
board?
So Transcend was introduced to me by a friend of mine, Dan Solomon.
We've been friends for about 30 years and he runs Mr. Olympia and he's responsible for
muscle and fitness online.
And he provided me my column, Fit to Serve, which is the top column in the world for physical
fitness and first responders, military and the importance of physical activity.
We have about 18 million followers and we're approaching a hundred stories that we've told
through my with my friend Roger Lockridge, who writes the column for the most part.
He introduced me to Ernie because Ernie was a military person.
He was in the army and lived here in Virginia at one time.
And Ernie was coming up with a company called Transcend, which was providing peptides and
blood tests work and all these other things that would help optimize the health and fitness
of not just military members, but all members.
But he had a specific drive and specific mission to help those who served our country because
since he had gone through hardships, since he had fought for our country, since he also
had had some health issues, he understood the importance of providing the services.
And the key part of this is he provides this through his foundation or him and his wife,
Jen, they pay for it out of their own pocket.
So when we help military members, there is no cost for them.
The cost for them is to take the blood test, to listen to the physicians who prescribe
medications that might be helpful to you.
But out of pocket costs are none.
Now maybe if you continue the treatments, I mean, he can't help every single person,
but he does do as much as he can.
He provides it.
And our mutual friend, Brendan, he's executive director of it.
And I'm the vice president of our foundation where we are trying to do an outreach to military
folks.
We want to help support them and show them that your service was important, but now how
do we give you not a handout, but a hand up?
You might need a little bit of help right now.
You might need help with your hormones.
As you know, the stress in the cortisol levels of our men and women who serve in combat zones
is extremely high.
So they may have difficulties with the hormonal balance.
They might have problems conceiving children.
And again, going through blood tests and having medical expertise, this is not shoddy stuff
that this is not stuff that we're just done by grow science.
This is real science.
This is by real physicians, real doctors helping these folks out.
If we can find something that can help you be a better, more mobile, more active, more
connected person, then that's our goal is to help you do that.
So we do different charities.
We raise funds because again, the folks who need help don't have the money often to do
this.
But you find the magic is once you help somebody and they get back on their feet or they get
to a different level of success or they're able to make it, they're the first person
to turn around and give and donate and help you because they know what it meant to get
that help.
So they want to give back and help support those.
And so our goal in 2024 is not be limited by funds to the amount of help and support
we can give.
Maybe we'll do all we can to make sure that the men and women who serve our country have
friends and allies and transcendent and transcendent foundation to get them the help they need.
Sometimes it might be just an ear too.
We who have gone, who have served those who have fought in combat, they understand.
And sometimes just having somebody who understands and just has using these two things instead
of this one thing.
Sometimes just listening is an important thing of getting somebody to the next level and
getting them to where they need to be.
So it's an awesome organization.
We'll be doing more.
And often that the thing with Ernie, we have to slow him down because he'll keep trying
to say, what else can I do?
What else can you do?
And same with Brandon.
He will keep searching and finding and you can't help everybody, but we can do the most
we can.
And then we hope we can inspire and motivate other companies and other organizations to
do their part because when we all do something, big things can happen.
We can't just depend on the same folks to do everything.
Just like we can't just depend on the VA or our Congress or the president.
If we all chip in a little bit, we'll make a lot more progress.
So salute to those folks at the Transcend Foundation because we got big goals, big hopes,
big dreams ahead of us and we're going to make it happen.
When I came across Transcend, which is initially going around the world with Brandon and 7X,
immediately the penny dropped and every sponsor I got on the show is something that I use
and just would look someone dead in the eye and say, this is what you need.
And what I'd noticed was a pendulum shift from a few years ago, a firefighter would
go into his doctor and say, oh, your testosterone is fine because it was 253 and their scale
for the doctor was 250 to 950.
Oh, you're fine.
Then people start realizing, oh, this scale is from almost dead, 80 year old to high school
footballer of 30 year old firefighter shouldn't be down there.
But then you had the predatorial men's clinics popping up everywhere.
And then like you said, the bro science, the gym locker room, underworld stuff as well.
And so to me, it was like, okay, well, this is the organization that I think people need
to know about, need to go to.
And the people listening in the first responder professions sleep deprivation destroys their
chemistry, their biochemistry.
Now in an ideal world, we change their shifts, we give them more rest from recovery and a
lot of them are going to have huge results.
So but then on the flip side, for some people, it's going to happen very soon.
A local department of the street is about to change to the work schedule.
It's going to be massively beneficial for them, but a lot of people, it's going to be
years.
So in the meantime, okay, who can we send people to?
I transitioned out five years ago and did my blood work.
My testosterone actually has not been bad.
And my apparently my growth hormone is really good.
I don't know if that means anything, but I'm like, yeah, but I'm still not feeling great,
you know, and it's 14 years of getting my ass kicked on shifts.
And so I'm on peptides, I'm not on TRT, but I'm on peptides and a few other supplements.
And it's been amazing.
My joints have stopped aching as much because it wasn't injury.
It was inflammation, my gut biome, the brain fog.
And so this is what's so exciting.
You know, Transcend is a company, whether you go through foundation, whether you do
it out of pocket, it's military run.
You know, you've got this beautiful altruistic arm and I've seen how much Ernie donated just
to 7X.
It's actually veteran run.
It's veteran run because the military does it.
You said military run.
Oh, I'm sorry.
I missed that.
It's not for your listeners, they can understand that this is not the Department of Defense
running this organization.
It's veterans who are running the organization.
Thank you for correcting me.
I wasn't thinking when I was saying that word.
You know, so you've got this trustworthy organization with a hugely altruistic arm.
There is no better one.
So I'm not doing some QVC sales pitch.
I'm using it myself.
It's working amazing and I love the people that work there.
Yes, and I also think that I'm having more and more discussions with those who are active
duty because if there is a way, now let's get back.
Bro science does have some validity because I remember years ago when Creighten first
came out, I think a lot of folks in the military were concerned about kidney issues and muscle
tears and dehydration.
But the bro science in the gym was showing that a dramatic increase in strength.
And for the people that I personally knew, the only distress they were having was a bit
of GI gut.
Like sometimes they would take too much Creighten or the quality of the Creighten was lower
so they might have some issues with diarrhea or something.
But this was in healthy populations, of course.
But I think there might be something for the Department of Defense and firefighters and
law enforcement to look at into peptides in the future to see what they can do because
if I am an active duty person and I am destroying my body, I would like the biggest arsenal
under my belt being supplements and sleep and mental health and exercising and all these
things that I can use.
And if there are some supplements that the physicians and the evidence proves that these
will be beneficial to my success, then it's something I'm going to take.
This is where I go back to the disruptor.
I would think probably a lot of folks in the military might not say we're not ready for
peptides yet.
However, there were some bold doctors and physicians back in the early 90s and said
Creighten is so researched.
It's probably the most researched supplement in the world where I think Olympic athletes
are using it for the most part without any issues that maybe we need to look forward.
Maybe peptides aren't something we're going to use in 2024.
But maybe with more research, data scientists involvement in 2028, 2029, this might be something
that those who require them and who need them, maybe the military might have a role.
Now this is no military affiliation.
They're saying it's my thoughts, my personal thoughts.
But again, trying to make people healthier, more fit, more mobile, more active.
We might have to start looking beyond what we thought what the norm was because the norms
are going to be changing.
And the only thing that is constant is change.
So when we keep thinking that how do we get better, bigger, faster, stronger, maybe some
of the things that are down the pipeline and some things that we're not so sure about now
with more research, more evidence that we might find that they may not are but may be
beneficial.
Absolutely.
Well, you talked about your friend at Muscle and Fitness.
Just very quickly, the reason I'm an American firefighter is because of Muscle and Fitness.
So I was told as a young boy that I was colorblind, I could never be a firefighter.
And I want to be a firefighter, I want to be a doctor, I want to be a stuntman when I was
young.
And very long story, very short, years go by, I become a stuntman, moved to America
after marrying an American.
And then I'm literally in London about a week before I'm going to get on the plane to immigrate
here.
And it's a Muscle and Fitness episode with a Miami-Dade firefighter and they're talking
about an overseas in good shape, but the role of the firefighter paramedic in America.
And it just kind of lit a fire.
And I'm like, I'm not bloody colorblind.
I can see colors.
I'm not perfect, but I can.
And so I ended up challenging the test and had a full career.
So I read that for a long time and I will literally attribute that to my realization
that I need to challenge again to be the disruptor on this medical thing.
I was talking to Brendan, one of the things that he said as well is that in the bodybuilding
community, which obviously Muscle and Fitness and Flex, that's a large group that's reading
that.
And we've seen this obviously in wrestlers and some of the other types of people that
are also bodybuild is the lack of longevity, a lot of disease in large hearts, et cetera,
et cetera.
Now I know Phil Heath is a big part of Transcend now as well from purely the bodybuilding world.
Now talk to me about Transcend and trying to remove the, not even some of the bro science
is the wrong word, the locker room purchases and trying to get the men and women that want
to get into the sport of bodybuilding also on the healthy clinical TRT and peptides and
the things that they're trying to get.
So knowledge and education.
They're not even saying that use our products, but maybe get educated in this.
If you're going to do, the more you know, the stronger, the fitter, the better you'll
be.
So if you haven't had blood work done before, get it done.
If you don't know about certain things, here are resources, here are websites, here are
sites that they're not providing information because the source is paying for it.
You want, again, evidence-based research that tells you why or why you should not be involved
in things.
And it's very tricky now because there's so much information out there.
There's great information and there's horrible information and the horrible information sometimes
is it could be disguised so well that you think it's coming from a reputable source,
but it's not.
So you have to keep digging.
Now I personally go to health.gov.
I go to the CDC.
I go to the American Heart Association.
I find different sources that I think are pretty reputable, but that is at my age being
17, 18, 19, 20.
You're looking for big arms.
You're looking for a chest because you want to be that guy at the beach, at the club,
at the gym.
I get it.
And that's part of maturation.
Lots of us go through that.
But now I think you want to make sure that you're doing it right because what you want
to do now is not make mistakes in your teen and early 20s that will affect you when you're
40, 50, and 60.
And so I would think a lot of the pro-hormone, not pro-hormone, the peptides and the TRT
treatment might be for folks who are a bit older.
I'm not an expert in this.
That's why they have physicians on their staff who are the experts.
And so my questions, I just go ask them.
But I do think that I don't want to eliminate any possibilities because I think, oh, that's
dangerous or that's bad.
Well, let me find out what the science says.
Let me find out what the research says.
And if it's beneficial or helpful to me, my friends, our troops, our firefighters and
all, then here is the opportunity to be educated about it.
Now it's up to you to make the decision.
You and your physician and, you know, I can't do that for you, but just want to provide
clean, easy to research, evidence-based sources to make the best decisions because you only
have one body.
And as I mentioned to you earlier, there's a German phrase I often use that the person
with their health has a thousand wishes.
The person without their health has but one.
And so the goal is to keep you in the game, in the fight as long as possible so that you
can do cool things, laugh, have great memories, smile and enjoy, enjoy your life, enjoy mobility,
enjoy the freedom.
Beautiful.
Well, that was a perfect place to end.
So I'm sure people are intrigued and would love to connect, reach out, et cetera.
Where are the best places online to find you?
My Instagram and so I don't know it off the top of my head, so I'll send you the link
because I haven't actually what it is, but Instagram and LinkedIn.
So I'll send you both those links, which will be in your show notes.
Or they can also look at our fit to serve column on musltonfitness.com.
We were telling the story of those who serve our country and we're going to be working
more with firefighters and police officers and we'll be telling your story in the near
future there, James.
So we look forward to sharing that, but thank you for the opportunity and for all those
who serve our country and those who support them.
Thank you very much for that.
And again, to those PE teachers and those phys ed teachers, thank you for what you're
doing for our country.
And it all makes a difference.
It all helps us live amazing lives and do the best we can.
So thank you.
Thank you for this resource.
It's a very, very powerful source that you have here.
And I'm sure that you're inspiring, motivating and helping people reach their full potential.
So don't shortcut yourself, James.
You're doing cool things.
So thank you.