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Welcome everybody to this edition of the Gladden Ongevity podcast.
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I'm your host, Dr.
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Jeffrey Gladden, and I'm here with good friends of mine, actually, Anthony Empman and his
lovely fiance.
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think at this point in time, if I'm not speaking out of turn, I don't know.
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Maybe I am.
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Maybe I got ahead of myself.
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But if not, maybe inching that direction.
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Maybe you're married by now.
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I don't know.
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could like anything could happen.
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But Aaron Nuhn felt.
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So they live in Puerto Rico and I met them in Puerto Rico m and they've become dear
friends.
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And uh Anthony is on a uh mission here to become an Olympian as a Puerto Rico resident.
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So this is going to be a fascinating conversation about the elements of performance, if
you will, and should be great.
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So Anthony, welcome to the podcast.
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Yeah.
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Yeah.
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Yeah, absolutely.
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So bring the, bring the audience up to speed a little bit on your athletic endeavors.
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think since we introduced the Olympics Reddit to get go, why don't we talk about that for
a little bit.
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And then, you know, you have many other interests.
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He's a very accomplished thinker and he's involved with cryptocurrencies and a lot of
other business related things, building a really interesting app and on and on and on.
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But let's just start with sort of little bit of the athletic elements.
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So yeah.
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Yeah, no, absolutely.
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So I grew up in Washington state on a family farm and it's fifth generation actually.
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So my whole family has been there since the late 1800s and they are still there.
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That's pretty tough to move like.
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this is not a little farm, by the way.
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How many acres is this farm?
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Yeah, so if you'll remember from middle school history class, the Homestead Act.
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So that's what my great great grandfather did.
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160 acres, he lived there for five years and then they give you the land and fast forward
to today, that's grown to I think right around 13,000 is how much it's all dry land,
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wheat, Timothy, Triticale, hay, you all that.
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So yeah, it's a fantastic way to grow up.
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We'll get to it later.
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But the lessons that you learn growing up on a farm.
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and responsibility and discipline and failure and all of that.
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It's just, it's a very unique ecosystem.
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And uh I grew up in a pretty competitive family.
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uh The older brother played sports.
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My mom is one of the most competitive people that I know.
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And yeah, she takes it to the absolute nth degree.
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just loves to win.
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So what does she compete at?
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Is she also athletic or has this come down to card games or what are we talking about?
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Okay.
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Okay.
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Oh, okay.
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Got it.
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are her absolute genius.
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She just gets horses and she's got about 25 or 30 of them.
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She's had them for decades.
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So her dream was to be an Olympian in a of horse event.
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Life kind of took her a different direction, but yeah.
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she's betting on this horse.
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Is that what you're saying?
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Yeah, her son.
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Yeah, my parents have, they know me well enough that whenever I come up with something
that's like world changing or at that level at this point, they're just, I like it, let's
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go for it.
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There's no apprehension.
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They're just, the response is always how can we help?
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So it's nice.
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learned they've learned not to put up a roadblock because you're just plowing over.
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Right.
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So it's like, OK, well, let's just jump on board.
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OK, we'll go.
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better or worse, I tend to see it as a challenge if someone tells me I can't do it.
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So you grew up in a competitive family, had an older brother or mother that was incredibly
competitive.
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And did that rub off on you?
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Did that make you competitive?
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Some people react another way.
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It's like, I just don't want to buy into that.
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Right.
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So how did that how did that impact you?
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Yeah, I went to a relatively small high school.
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There's only 67 people in my graduating class and my brother was two years ahead of me.
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And he was very well respected and looked up to because he just had that grit.
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His mental toughness, you know, he ran the 800 and track, for example, was just a greedy
race.
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Right.
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He crushed it.
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And so yeah, that just, just a fire for, well, I gotta, I gotta live up to the reputation
that my brother has set.
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then, you know, so I played track and cross country and basketball and I was never a, um.
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you know, I was not getting recruited.
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I didn't get a single offer from any university.
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You know, I ended up looking at the Air Force Academy because my grandfather on my
mother's side was a fighter pilot.
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Hmm
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flew F-101s in the Korean War and was a big mentor and inspiration of mine.
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And then if you get into one of the military academies, you get a full ride.
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And so that I had it in my head that I was going to have to pay for university.
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And uh so that was a pretty big attractant for me.
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I was just in the meal line at the academy my freshman year and someone looked at me and
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I you ever played volleyball?
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You own a sport here?
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And I ended up picking up volleyball and it was pretty good at it.
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I played for the Air Force and the All Armed Forces teams for the next eight years, kind
of all around the world, everywhere from the Netherlands and Germany and London, all the
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way to Hawaii and most of the places in between.
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So you have athletic talent and I've seen you play basketball.
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You're pretty good.
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And just so the audience understands, you're not five foot two, right?
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How, how to all work?
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Yeah.
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You're not, you're not a point guard.
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In my head, I'm a very normal height and it's not until I go to the airport that I realize
I'm actually taller than average.
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So I'll probably 6'7".
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there you go.
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So six, seven.
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Yeah.
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So that's a good height for a volleyball player or a basketball player, but yeah.
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Okay.
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So, athletic ability, uh, you kind of stepped into that in the air force, it sounds like,
and, um, even develop that maybe a little bit further there.
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Um, okay.
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And then, and then what, how, how does, how does this all lead to the Olympics?
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So.
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Yeah.
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So I think that most athletes that have competed and, know, Erin can talk about her
experience with this later too, is that when you get out of university or you get out of
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playing professionally something, there's a hole, there's a gap, there's a vacuum that
still needs to be filled.
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The way that you're wired, you still have this really strong desire to have a target
that's difficult to reach and you got to wake up every day and work towards it.
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And that doesn't go away just because you turn 25 or 30, you still need to fill it.
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You'll see, it's pretty common.
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People divert it to their careers and they'll go become a partner at that investment bank
or that law firm or that consulting company and they'll run marathons or Ironmans.
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they were the ones that were varsity athletes and getting 4.0s in school.
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So they need an outlet for that energy.
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And we were watching the 24 Olympics and
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You know, you'll remember that this is just, you know, maybe a handful of months after
Chad GBT like really started to get going.
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We were playing around in the application and we'd also recently watched the movie
Moneyball.
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And it was just like putting in stats basically to Chad GBT.
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He's like, Hey, I am a male.
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I'm this old.
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I'm this tall.
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These are my natural strengths, my natural weaknesses.
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I live in Puerto Rico.
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you know, just giving it all the data and asking it the question, what event would I have
any shot at potentially getting to the Olympics in given all of that?
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Like what's the highest probability?
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And you know, at the end of the list is obviously going to be gymnastics.
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Right, that's right.
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And right next to that is probably playing second bass for the A's, right?
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So, oh
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And rowing just kind of kept bubbling up towards the top because I asked the question in
different ways.
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And rowing is an interesting sport in the sense that it's so driven by physics.
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It's one of the few sports that's genuinely driven by how much horsepower does your body
have?
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What is the total amount of force?
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that your body can create.
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it is, that's why it tends to be beneficial to be tall is you just have, yeah, leverage.
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You've got a larger frame that can pack more muscle onto it, which can create more force,
more, you know, generally larger lungs, more blood volume.
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And yeah, so it is genuinely about horsepower as opposed to, you know, if I go compete,
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and you know, I try and break the world record in pull ups.
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It's like, well, pull up is relative to your body.
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It's like, you know, someone with shorter arms is gonna, they've got less work to do,
force times distance, right?
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So that's part of why being tall is helpful for rowing.
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So Aaron, let's talk about you for a minute because you have a very athletic background as
well.
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um And why don't you tell the audience a little bit about that.
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Yeah, so ah I played volleyball in college as well.
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ah I played at University of South Carolina.
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I played indoor and beach volleyball my freshman year, and then just beach volleyball my
last three years.
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uh But I was not naturally gifted athlete uh or student really.
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I was kind of that person that had to work really, really, really hard.
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My sister is only 16 months older than me and she is just so talented.
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She was a four time All-American at...
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wow, okay, got it.
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she had just letters coming in every day, like five a day from universities that were
huge.
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They wanted her.
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And I really wanted to play, but no one really wanted me.
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So I was the one sending out the emails with my homies, highlight reels.
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yeah, somehow I got South Carolina.
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uh I worked my way up there.
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I was just the kind of person that worked.
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Harder than everybody else, you know talent.
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What's the quote about a hard work without beats down?
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It doesn't work hard that was kind of my mentality with it So I just had harder than
everybody I showed up before everybody and ended up, know getting a full ride and becoming
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captain and all that Yeah, so and then kind of like what Anthony was talking about with
the void that you feel after college, you know, I'm missing that locker
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I definitely channeled that into grad school and running 5Ks.
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would secretly, this is embarrassing, but I'd look around while I'm running a 5K and see
what girls looked my age to see if I could try to win my age group.
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So I'd see a girl that looked in my age group and I'd run faster.
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I was secretly still trying to win trophies.
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uh So I too felt that pull to do something uh post-cal.
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interesting.
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So neither one of you were like, you know, the, we would call maybe the truly gifted
athlete, right?
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The hand-eye coordination, the, know, whatever it was, uh, that nervous system that
enables people to kind of, you know, pick up a golf club and just hit it.
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Although I've seen you play golf, Anthony, you're pretty good.
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Certainly better than Aaron and myself.
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but, but, um, but there's, but there's a work ethic there that I'm hearing, right?
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And there's a competitive,
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attitude and it's interesting, each of you had older siblings that was also, uh, they were
also competitive, but they were also in, some level, they were maybe more inherently
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gifted or talented or whatever, whatever term you want to get used.
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And yet, you you ended up captain of the volleyball team, right?
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And you ended up playing kind of internationally for, for the armed services, right?
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So what I'm hearing here is that you have a history of, um,
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being able to play bigger than some people might give you credit for if they just looked
at you, know, right in eighth grade and said, I don't think so.
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You know what I mean?
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So, ah so that's very, very cool.
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And it must have had an impact on your psyche, Anthony.
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mean, what else have given in both of you really, it must have given you a sense of ah
maybe whatever I put my mind to, you know, I don't think you can, I don't think you can
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beat me if I really put my mind to it.
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I think there may be some element of that there.
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I don't know, correct me if I'm wrong, but.
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It's oh whether you think you can or can't, you're right.
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That's one of my favorite quotes.
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I'm such a massive, massive believer in the power of the mind, uh not only in terms of
anything athletic, but also emotional and relational and admittedly everything in your
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body is driven by your mind.
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so...
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m
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The story, the stories that go on in between your ears, day in and day out, have a very
direct impact on all the way down to the cellular level.
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And I, yeah, I've just been intentional about choices and practice around exercising the
muscle between our ears.
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Well, it sounds like you've been intentional about the stories that you actually choose to
believe and the ones that you do choose to tell yourself.
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Right.
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And I think a lot of a lot of us or a lot of folks in general, um, inherited stories,
right.
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It was a story that their mom told them to their dad told them their siblings told them
their teacher told them their, their peers told them whatever it was.
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Right.
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And then we kind of live in the shadow of those stories as opposed to, um, realizing that
we can.
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we can create a better story or a different story.
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so, kudos to both of you because I think both of you have really sort of stepped outside
the shadow of those previous stories.
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what's the, no pun intended, but what's the story that you're telling yourself now, right?
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So.
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Yeah, no.
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the story that I'm telling myself now is primarily centered on self-confidence.
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I think all of us have this relationship with why are we uniquely valuable?
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know, humans are such tribal creatures.
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We really, really need to have relationships in a tribe and a role in that tribe.
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lot of what gives us a sense of purpose and passion is a unique contribution to that
tribe.
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It's what are we uniquely good at that I contribute to the tribe and the tribe appreciates
me because of that thing.
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And to your point about the stories that you hear growing up, um you know, the concept of
a parent saying something out loud to a child
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and the child internalizing that and that becoming their story.
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That's what they believe about themselves.
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That's, that is such a, once you understand how powerful that is, it's a transformative.
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You can use it for, for, know, very good things or very bad things.
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power of words.
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And so one of the muscles that I think about constantly mentally is this fear of failure
muscle.
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And
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It is not something that just comes naturally.
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It is something that just as a muscle in your body, you have to push it to failure.
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No pun intended.
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You have to break it to where it can't go any further in order for it to then come back
stronger.
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And if I ask you, Jeff, the question of tell me a story about one of the earliest failures
in your life.
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You know, one of those kind of emotional stories as a child to where you let your parents
down or you let one of your siblings down.
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And there's probably a handful of stories that immediately come to mind.
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And maybe they have something to do with, you know, breaking a vase or a lamp or crashing
a car that it's just kind of like, it's just part of, you know, being alive.
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And then if I ask you, okay.
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Now fast forward a handful of decades and what's your most recent, like real big genuine
failure.
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And the gap between the severity of those two is massive as it relates to the potential
impact on the direction and quality of your life.
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If you go get in a fender bender as a 15 year old with your driver's permit, that's
entirely different than uh a marriage falling apart or a business falling apart and
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yeah.
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got to move or you've got to, you know, those are like genuinely life direction changing
things.
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And the ability to move through that, put one foot in front of the other is entirely
related to how strong is your fear of failure muscle.
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And that this is what they do in military training.
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And we learned this at the academy is they just break you down.
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You get there as a freshman and you are worthless.
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They tear down all of your ego because no matter how strong you are,
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you reach a limit and that's all they're there to do is help you find that limit and push
you past it.
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That way you understand failure and you're going to get to the other side of failure and
realize, hey, I'm okay.
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And so just about two and a half years ago, there were two big failures that happened in
my life.
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The business that I had been building for a half decade and the relationship that was
about that
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as well, both of them took an about face and headed in the wrong direction.
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And it looked like I wasn't going to have either of them all within about a six week
period.
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And so the entire direction of my life was up in the air.
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But 48 hours after both of them happened was actually the most confident that I had ever
been in my life.
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because I had arrived at this conclusion that the title on LinkedIn, that the number and
the bank account, that any of that kind of quantitative or materialistic stuff was not
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actually why I valued myself or why others valued me.
259
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The sense of confidence was coming from something entirely different.
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And it just manifested itself in this
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pervasive feeling of whatever I put my mind to, I believe I will be able to do it.
262
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And so now you arrive at where the Olympics comes from, it's like, oh, well yeah, if I put
my mind to this, yeah, absolutely, I believe I can do it.
263
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And there's no reservations.
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There's not a little voice in my head that says, nah, you're not good enough, Anthony.
265
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Right.
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It's an interesting concept, the concept of failure.
267
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Certainly I've had failures in my life, numerous ones, right?
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Some of them at the time were fairly devastating to me, you know, losing a family, you
know, a marriage going sideways or upside down or whatever.
269
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And yet I will say that in my own, let's call it psycho spiritual journey, I've gotten to
a point where there is no failure for me.
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Right.
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And so I think when we think about failure, when I think about failure, you have to give
me your input on this.
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But when I think about failure, I think a lot of it boils down to whether or not we still
feel like we're lovable on some level, right?
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Whether we're still valuable, whether we're still lovable, right?
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Whether, you know, we're still good enough or whatever it is.
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And I think when you when you go through enough
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hard times and you start to realize that your worth is not related to things external to
you.
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Right.
278
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In other words, you move from external validation into internal validation where it's
like, no, I'm, I'm, completely worthy.
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I'm completely lovable.
280
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All of it, you know, sort of in that psycho spiritual interpersonal space.
281
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Then it really kind of gives you an amazing resilience because what could look like
failure on the outside is only part of the journey of learning.
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you know, what you need to be learning to move on to the next things that you're going to
take on.
283
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Right.
284
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So in essence, when I look at your, if I was going to interpret what happened to you, I
would say, yes, those were, those were ruptures of one sort or another, but they were also
285
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deeply, profoundly educational to you and also helped consolidate a sense of self that
transcended.
286
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external validation, if that makes sense, right?
287
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Which then gives you the internal strength and power to say, no, I'm aligned around who I
am and now I'm choosing a different story and now I'm able to go forward and find the love
288
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of my life and I'm able to, you know, rebuild the business.
289
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I'm willing to, you know, take on the challenge of becoming an Olympian and you know, all
these other things, right?
290
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So I think, I think that's kind of how I would frame it.
291
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Yeah, no, I agree.
292
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think that Aaron has experienced that uh pretty viscerally over the last kind two and a
half years of dating me to where, you know, you were a...
293
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that as a failure for her.
294
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I'm not sure how she feels about it.
295
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m I hope you recover from this quite honestly.
296
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No, just easy.
297
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leaving the job and your identity there and then moving to Puerto Rico and identity with
your family and talk a little bit about that.
298
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Yeah, kind of the perception of failure or sense of self and confidence and you know.
299
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Yeah, yeah.
300
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So I lived in New York before moving to Puerto Rico to join Anthony.
301
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That's where we met and
302
00:22:48,251 --> 00:22:58,196
You know, I was, like I said, I was that overachiever 4.0, you know, 5Ks and then to
marathons and just, just trying to do it all and trying to be really, really good in my
303
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career as a medical speech language pathologist.
304
00:23:01,678 --> 00:23:06,821
And, I think I put a lot of my self-worth and identity in those things.
305
00:23:06,841 --> 00:23:14,955
And so, um, when Anthony was saying like, you know, you're going to be moving to Puerto
Rico, you know, and, and I was getting on board with that.
306
00:23:14,955 --> 00:23:17,947
was getting all sorts of nervous of.
307
00:23:17,991 --> 00:23:20,892
Well, what am I going to do when I'm not a speech pathologist anymore?
308
00:23:20,892 --> 00:23:30,986
When I'm going out on a limb, joining you with on-air type things and like this, I hold my
identity here and this is what I'm good at and what people like about me.
309
00:23:30,986 --> 00:23:42,791
And so it's really scary to leave that behind and start a whole new thing and hope that,
you know, my friends and family are along for the ride and like Aaron, that they like
310
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Aaron 2.0 just as much as they liked, you know, the other Aaron.
311
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And so that was...
312
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That was a lot of soul searching there.
313
00:23:50,444 --> 00:23:58,606
You know, I think, I think you're bringing up a good point though, which is, uh, if you're
listening to this, think one of the keys, no matter where you are in your life,
314
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chronologically or developmentally, it's, it takes tremendous, I think tremendous courage
actually, to actually step into the next thing and to find that sense of resilience inside
315
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yourself to bounce back or to take on the next challenge, if you will.
316
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And I think you can really measure your own development.
317
00:24:19,618 --> 00:24:30,526
based on how much resilience do I embody and how much robustness have I developed around
my sense of identity to be able to withstand external changes, if you will.
318
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um But I think that's for me, that's this really key things because as we go through life,
it's not just about going to the Olympics and winning the gold medal or having a
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successful business or a marriage.
320
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It's really how do we continue as individuals to grow and develop into
321
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a fully expressed human, right?
322
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The full expression of Anthony and Erin or myself for that matter to where we can bring
all our gifts forward, right?
323
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And I think in order to do that, you have to keep yourself married to the questions of how
do I keep going forward?
324
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How do I keep growing?
325
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And that fundamentally takes courage.
326
00:25:05,736 --> 00:25:08,227
And I think a lot of uh us can settle.
327
00:25:08,227 --> 00:25:09,648
It's like, well, things are pretty good.
328
00:25:09,648 --> 00:25:11,559
Let's just kind of keep it going, right?
329
00:25:11,559 --> 00:25:16,382
Even in a relationship, let's just kind of keep it going instead of asking the courageous
questions of,
330
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Can we do this better?
331
00:25:17,728 --> 00:25:18,589
Is there something different?
332
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Is there something missing or whatever it is?
333
00:25:20,120 --> 00:25:20,381
Right.
334
00:25:20,381 --> 00:25:31,048
So I really commend both of you because I see you at a point in life where you're, you're
really demonstrating a tremendous amount of courage, quite honestly.
335
00:25:31,048 --> 00:25:33,108
um And that's, that's really inspiring.
336
00:25:33,108 --> 00:25:35,101
So I hope the audience feels inspired by that.
337
00:25:35,101 --> 00:25:35,401
Yeah.
338
00:25:35,401 --> 00:25:36,112
Very cool.
339
00:25:36,112 --> 00:25:37,012
Yeah.
340
00:25:37,292 --> 00:25:38,213
Yeah.
341
00:25:38,413 --> 00:25:40,014
So tell us about the Olympics now.
342
00:25:40,014 --> 00:25:45,662
So you've got your eye on rowing um and you basically, I think went
343
00:25:45,662 --> 00:25:50,691
and met with the Puerto Rican Olympic committee or team or something.
344
00:25:50,691 --> 00:25:51,823
Tell us a little bit about that.
345
00:25:51,823 --> 00:25:52,975
What happened?
346
00:25:52,975 --> 00:25:53,395
Yeah.
347
00:25:53,395 --> 00:26:07,843
So if you're listening to this, just an FYI, I did end up going through Jeff's program
back in January, went out to Dallas and we did two or three days together of a bunch of
348
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different testing.
349
00:26:08,864 --> 00:26:15,888
that was kind of the kickoff of, okay, if we're going to start taking this seriously,
let's figure out where am I weak?
350
00:26:15,888 --> 00:26:17,409
Where am I strong?
351
00:26:17,589 --> 00:26:21,203
What do we need to really be focusing on to get the
352
00:26:21,203 --> 00:26:31,323
whatever is currently the ceiling pushed up, that way it's more in alignment with the
other systems and learned a lot there that I'll talk about just in a second.
353
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And then came back to Puerto Rico and was able to get in contact with the rowing
association down here, which is a club that gets together Tuesday, Thursday, Saturday.
354
00:26:43,383 --> 00:26:50,515
And I've been going to that on and off to again, continue exploring this and
355
00:26:50,515 --> 00:27:00,255
I actually ended up being able to row with the only Puerto Rican representative and rowing
just about a month ago.
356
00:27:00,915 --> 00:27:10,975
is currently a, um, yeah, she's a resident in LA, but, um, anyway, that was a, that was a
great experience to be able to get in a boat with her for hour.
357
00:27:11,435 --> 00:27:13,155
Uh, yeah, 2020.
358
00:27:13,155 --> 00:27:13,475
Yeah.
359
00:27:13,475 --> 00:27:20,427
So anyway, just came back to Puerto Rico on the other side of all the testing with you
came to.
360
00:27:20,595 --> 00:27:28,700
The obvious realization that my aerobic engine is uh like, yup, we need to strengthen
that.
361
00:27:28,700 --> 00:27:40,406
And so we've just been, you know, five or six days a week trying to optimize the training
and the nutrition and the sleep and obviously the mind to, you know, start making
362
00:27:40,406 --> 00:27:41,766
progress.
363
00:27:41,807 --> 00:27:49,691
And to this money ball, red balloon kind of aspect to the story,
364
00:27:50,207 --> 00:27:59,171
Moneyball, the Oakland A's, like you said, just took a fundamentally different approach to
figuring out how to win baseball games.
365
00:27:59,471 --> 00:28:10,116
And if I'm someone that has a relationship that I'm serious about and we want to start a
family and we've got a couple of businesses going and would like to train for the
366
00:28:10,116 --> 00:28:15,898
Olympics, it's very important that the training is smarter and not harder.
367
00:28:16,002 --> 00:28:16,721
That's great.
368
00:28:16,721 --> 00:28:26,769
So just a massive amount of research around, for every hour that you're able to spend in
the gym, how can you maximize the output from that?
369
00:28:26,769 --> 00:28:28,841
It's a five or six minute race.
370
00:28:28,841 --> 00:28:40,471
Do I need to be doing slow steady state stuff, you know, six days a week, that's two hours
for each session, or is there a smarter way to potentially increase the aerobic capacity,
371
00:28:40,471 --> 00:28:46,245
get the lactate threshold up and be competitive at a global level?
372
00:28:46,583 --> 00:28:48,134
And so that's the moneyball side.
373
00:28:48,134 --> 00:28:56,706
then the red balloon side is the, was a study sponsored by DARPA.
374
00:28:57,126 --> 00:29:07,389
And what they did is they put red balloons all around the United States and they had a
bounty for the teams of people that found the balloons.
375
00:29:07,769 --> 00:29:13,271
And what ended up happening is interesting in the sense that MIT
376
00:29:13,459 --> 00:29:24,179
created a effectively multi-level structure of if you refer to person that ended up
finding that you got X percent of the bounty and then the further removed the less you
377
00:29:24,179 --> 00:29:24,979
got.
378
00:29:25,059 --> 00:29:34,219
And it created this network effect that they ended up finding the balloons, all of them,
all around the continental United States in nine hours.
379
00:29:34,219 --> 00:29:35,859
Just an absolute.
380
00:29:35,859 --> 00:29:37,239
I think it thought it was going to take like a month.
381
00:29:37,239 --> 00:29:38,719
Yeah, they thought of it.
382
00:29:38,959 --> 00:29:40,697
And it was just.
383
00:29:40,697 --> 00:29:41,037
instant.
384
00:29:41,037 --> 00:29:42,117
That's the power of the internet.
385
00:29:42,117 --> 00:29:47,189
That's the power of instantaneous information dissemination around the world.
386
00:29:47,189 --> 00:29:53,551
so what we're doing with this journey is same thing.
387
00:29:53,551 --> 00:29:54,951
It's totally public.
388
00:29:54,951 --> 00:30:08,061
Every uh supplement I take, every bowl of ice cream I eat, every hour of sleep I get will
be public as a equation, as a science experiment.
389
00:30:08,061 --> 00:30:14,259
for the world to help contribute to optimizing the engine.
390
00:30:14,259 --> 00:30:18,905
It's a pit crew of how do you get more horsepower out of the engine of Anthony?
391
00:30:18,905 --> 00:30:19,678
can't contribute.
392
00:30:19,678 --> 00:30:20,958
He's doing it in his body size.
393
00:30:20,958 --> 00:30:22,570
Yeah, exactly.
394
00:30:22,570 --> 00:30:23,398
That's right.
395
00:30:23,398 --> 00:30:26,038
you're an F1 car essentially.
396
00:30:27,118 --> 00:30:28,258
Right.
397
00:30:28,498 --> 00:30:29,298
Yeah.
398
00:30:29,398 --> 00:30:30,101
That's it.
399
00:30:30,101 --> 00:30:31,643
right now I'm still a go-kart.
400
00:30:31,643 --> 00:30:34,458
uh
401
00:30:34,458 --> 00:30:35,961
No, it's very, very cool.
402
00:30:35,961 --> 00:30:37,793
I love that about the DARPA piece.
403
00:30:37,793 --> 00:30:42,377
That's, um, that's really inspiring to think about the networking effect, right?
404
00:30:42,377 --> 00:30:45,229
The ability to actually crack the code on things with a network.
405
00:30:45,229 --> 00:30:48,181
Um, yeah, that's really, really inspiring.
406
00:30:48,181 --> 00:30:53,896
So, um, and just so the audience realizes Anthony does have some real gifts when it comes
to rowing.
407
00:30:53,896 --> 00:30:57,398
This is not a Don Chiodi kind of, uh, endeavor, right?
408
00:30:57,398 --> 00:31:01,122
I mean, he's very, very strong and I think he generates lots of power.
409
00:31:01,484 --> 00:31:06,507
It's a question of really being able to do that over the five, six minutes that it's
required, right?
410
00:31:06,507 --> 00:31:09,709
Which is pretty anaerobic kind of scenario, right?
411
00:31:09,709 --> 00:31:12,431
And so building lactate threshold and things like that.
412
00:31:12,431 --> 00:31:18,055
So, you know, we like blood flow restriction to do that, you know, it's a good way to
build lactate threshold.
413
00:31:18,055 --> 00:31:19,095
There's many other things.
414
00:31:19,095 --> 00:31:24,228
And then, you know, you've gotten into an interesting space because you've had some
injuries in the past.
415
00:31:24,228 --> 00:31:26,722
um And we talked about.
416
00:31:26,722 --> 00:31:28,423
you know, how to heal those injuries, right?
417
00:31:28,423 --> 00:31:30,014
And so there's different things out there.
418
00:31:30,014 --> 00:31:35,036
There's our stem cells and peptides and, and other regenerative factors and things like
that.
419
00:31:35,036 --> 00:31:39,288
And you, you kind of took a hard look at that and kind of backed away from it.
420
00:31:39,288 --> 00:31:43,882
Maybe, maybe you can explain that a little bit to the audience, your, your take on all
that.
421
00:31:43,882 --> 00:31:44,322
Yeah.
422
00:31:44,322 --> 00:31:52,863
Yeah, yeah, kind of a somewhat serendipitous and secuitous type of way that this came
about.
423
00:31:52,863 --> 00:32:02,303
just having gone through your program, end up receiving, you know, dozens of supplements,
some of which were peptides.
424
00:32:02,303 --> 00:32:09,623
And, you know, we got back to Puerto Rico and these shipments are kind of coming in every
other day.
425
00:32:09,623 --> 00:32:10,419
I
426
00:32:10,419 --> 00:32:16,683
I am someone that when I decide to do something, it's a very much a zero or a hundred.
427
00:32:16,683 --> 00:32:19,135
It's not a kind of in between type of deal.
428
00:32:19,135 --> 00:32:26,230
And generally what really helps me commit to doing something is the story of the why
behind it.
429
00:32:26,230 --> 00:32:28,972
It's like, okay, what is this doing for me?
430
00:32:28,972 --> 00:32:33,145
If I go eat a bunch of ice cream or I go eat a bunch of chicken breasts, what's the
difference?
431
00:32:33,145 --> 00:32:35,576
How does that translate to five years from now?
432
00:32:35,576 --> 00:32:37,978
What's gonna happen in my body?
433
00:32:37,978 --> 00:32:39,719
And so...
434
00:32:40,221 --> 00:32:43,392
kind of fast forwarded about a month, hadn't touched any of the supplements.
435
00:32:43,392 --> 00:32:45,973
They're all sitting on the table and opened.
436
00:32:46,354 --> 00:33:00,140
And I had actually received a, I think it was you that sent me a YouTube uh about kind of
the 2000 Olympics and some of the, that kind of new testing and whatnot that had been
437
00:33:00,140 --> 00:33:01,480
going on there.
438
00:33:02,061 --> 00:33:07,955
In volleyball, you know, in college and in the Air Force, there was never any, like we're
not underwater.
439
00:33:07,955 --> 00:33:17,875
This is the first time that I had heard of WADA, which is the anti-doping association that
all of the Olympics and professionals, there are a lot of sports around the world,
440
00:33:17,895 --> 00:33:19,415
subscribe to.
441
00:33:20,195 --> 00:33:27,935
And so there was this really loose connection that just kind of started me thinking, well,
I should probably look into this.
442
00:33:28,535 --> 00:33:35,255
And I went into, know, chat, GVT, and this was right after deep research had come out.
443
00:33:35,355 --> 00:33:37,139
And I was.
444
00:33:37,139 --> 00:33:41,759
asking it about, all right, what's allowed, what's not allowed.
445
00:33:42,139 --> 00:33:52,339
And lo and behold, to your point, I've had ruptured Achilles, bad knees, bad back, just
come from playing sports, know, all the soft tissue and tendon stuff that, yeah, the
446
00:33:52,339 --> 00:33:55,359
peptides would be super helpful to heal.
447
00:33:55,959 --> 00:34:03,659
But if we're doing this red balloon strategy, we can't go say, hey,
448
00:34:04,551 --> 00:34:14,685
This is everything we're doing and then leave something out because part of what that
water research showed was, well, if you haven't declared for a sport, if you're not on a
449
00:34:14,685 --> 00:34:20,057
team, sometimes if you're not in competition, it doesn't matter.
450
00:34:20,057 --> 00:34:28,960
You, when you sign up at that point forward, you sign a document that says, Hey, I agree
that I'm going to be clean from here forward.
451
00:34:29,240 --> 00:34:33,575
And, uh, for that, what that ends up meaning.
452
00:34:33,575 --> 00:34:37,698
for most everyone is they just don't talk about it.
453
00:34:38,058 --> 00:34:48,125
They do indeed go use the peptides and a lot of the performance enhancing substances.
454
00:34:48,506 --> 00:34:53,229
the reality is you could absolutely get away with it.
455
00:34:53,250 --> 00:35:01,073
You could absolutely go over the course of rest of this year, I could be using the
peptides and then when I decide to go into competition next year.
456
00:35:01,073 --> 00:35:04,845
just say, yep, I'm clean from here forward and just never talk about it.
457
00:35:04,845 --> 00:35:10,819
And that's kind of where, you know, this voice enters on your left shoulder and this voice
enters on your right shoulder.
458
00:35:10,819 --> 00:35:19,004
And thankfully it was a very quick conversation, but you do have two voices there saying,
well, you can get away with it and it's going to make you better.
459
00:35:19,004 --> 00:35:26,789
And then on the other one is like, yeah, but it's too important that when you tell people
that you're sharing everything.
460
00:35:27,111 --> 00:35:28,251
that you're sharing everything.
461
00:35:28,251 --> 00:35:32,383
That's the whole point of transparency is that you don't get to hide the bad stuff.
462
00:35:32,383 --> 00:35:34,114
You have to share everything.
463
00:35:34,214 --> 00:35:37,436
And so I talked to Aaron, I talked to Travis.
464
00:35:37,436 --> 00:35:37,826
Yeah.
465
00:35:37,826 --> 00:35:45,415
And once he kind of arrived at the understanding of the regulations, you know, it was
probably a five or 10 minute conversation that is quick.
466
00:35:45,415 --> 00:35:46,279
And I was like, okay.
467
00:35:46,279 --> 00:35:52,842
And then I sent you and the team, the email that said, Hey, we got to do this, you know,
in alignment, totally understand that.
468
00:35:52,842 --> 00:35:53,282
Yeah.
469
00:35:53,282 --> 00:35:55,071
We don't necessarily have to.
470
00:35:55,071 --> 00:36:02,175
We could just not talk about it and get away with it, but that's not the way that we'd
like to press forward.
471
00:36:02,175 --> 00:36:02,445
Yeah.
472
00:36:02,445 --> 00:36:04,436
And I think that's, I think that's a choice, right?
473
00:36:04,436 --> 00:36:05,347
I think that's a choice.
474
00:36:05,347 --> 00:36:08,039
People could play that six different ways, right?
475
00:36:08,039 --> 00:36:11,441
They could say, well, I'm going to heal and then I'm going to commit or whatever it's
going to be.
476
00:36:11,441 --> 00:36:19,130
But, but I think, you know, what you're, what you're outlining is, um, a sense of
integrity around the process, right?
477
00:36:19,130 --> 00:36:20,187
And the transparency.
478
00:36:20,187 --> 00:36:27,112
And I think there's also an underlying question there for yourself, which is, um, how good
can I do this?
479
00:36:27,112 --> 00:36:30,252
You know, if I don't do any of the
480
00:36:30,252 --> 00:36:32,363
you know, any of the real enhancing things.
481
00:36:32,363 --> 00:36:36,154
Now, I will tell you that you will end up doing enhancing things, right?
482
00:36:36,154 --> 00:36:36,924
You're going to sleep.
483
00:36:36,924 --> 00:36:39,815
You're going to, you know, you may take molecular hydrogen.
484
00:36:39,815 --> 00:36:41,355
You may do blood flow restriction.
485
00:36:41,355 --> 00:36:42,695
You may use bicarbonate.
486
00:36:42,695 --> 00:36:46,746
You may be, you know, there may be many things that you end up doing that are not illegal
to do.
487
00:36:46,746 --> 00:36:50,487
Um, and yet they're still going to be enhancing, right?
488
00:36:50,487 --> 00:36:56,669
I mean, there's no downside to being nutritionally replete or, you know, whatever else.
489
00:36:56,669 --> 00:36:56,919
Right.
490
00:36:56,919 --> 00:37:00,000
So, so there is kind of a line in there somewhere.
491
00:37:00,000 --> 00:37:06,655
It's just a question of whether you step over into where you feel uncomfortable about
being transparent about it.
492
00:37:06,655 --> 00:37:10,978
But I have a lot of respect for, the transparency and what you're doing.
493
00:37:10,978 --> 00:37:15,761
And it'll be really fascinating to see, um, you know, how far you can take this.
494
00:37:15,761 --> 00:37:24,767
You know, that being said, um, when you were here, we showed you some things on how to
actually make your ankles bulletproof again, and do some things like that without peptides
495
00:37:24,767 --> 00:37:25,848
and some other things.
496
00:37:25,848 --> 00:37:29,410
And I don't know if you've been had the opportunity to use some of those.
497
00:37:29,762 --> 00:37:31,824
techniques or not or whatever.
498
00:37:31,824 --> 00:37:34,169
Maybe you can comment on that.
499
00:37:34,169 --> 00:37:37,780
Yeah, you've got the jump soles, you've got the...
500
00:37:37,780 --> 00:37:38,496
Mm-hmm.
501
00:37:38,496 --> 00:37:40,206
Yeah, the elevation training mask.
502
00:37:40,206 --> 00:37:40,807
That's right
503
00:37:40,807 --> 00:37:43,948
training mask, obviously sleep.
504
00:37:44,788 --> 00:37:57,413
One of the ways that one of the team members of yours kind of put it is when you are going
through a lot of training, it's a little bit like just having a revved up engine.
505
00:37:57,413 --> 00:38:04,815
The revved up engine is going to go through all of the nutrients that it runs on from oil
to...
506
00:38:05,115 --> 00:38:15,604
transmission fluid to gas to, you know, it's no different in your body that the minerals,
the electrolytes, you know, the things that are outside of what a lot of people think
507
00:38:15,604 --> 00:38:17,785
about, you just use them up.
508
00:38:18,006 --> 00:38:19,284
You're going through them.
509
00:38:19,284 --> 00:38:20,891
They all get consumed more quickly.
510
00:38:20,891 --> 00:38:22,343
Everything gets consumed more quickly.
511
00:38:22,343 --> 00:38:22,874
That's right.
512
00:38:22,874 --> 00:38:23,486
Yeah.
513
00:38:23,486 --> 00:38:24,266
So.
514
00:38:24,716 --> 00:38:34,440
so just trying to ensure that all of that's, don't know, optimized is all relative, right?
515
00:38:34,680 --> 00:38:44,284
When we were talking in your office there, I'm probably on the less emotional side of the
spectrum as it relates to food.
516
00:38:45,844 --> 00:38:52,187
That's not a difficult thing for me to not have uh too much food or...
517
00:38:52,627 --> 00:38:53,758
Uh, you I've been overweight.
518
00:38:53,758 --> 00:38:58,071
I've been basically the same weight for the last 10 years, give or take like two or three
pounds.
519
00:38:58,071 --> 00:39:05,516
So, um, it's actually more difficult for me to add in, okay, I do need to have these
supplements because the engines run more.
520
00:39:05,516 --> 00:39:16,013
I do need to have more food because the engine's running more and, uh, every pound that
you put on needs to be a productive pound because you have to drag that pound through the
521
00:39:16,013 --> 00:39:16,403
water.
522
00:39:16,403 --> 00:39:19,685
If you're going to have it, it's got to do something for you.
523
00:39:20,566 --> 00:39:22,427
And, um,
524
00:39:23,470 --> 00:39:24,000
Well, it's cool.
525
00:39:24,000 --> 00:39:25,852
It's a very cool journey that you're on.
526
00:39:25,852 --> 00:39:31,235
em think, you know, what I'm hearing is that you really have the right mindset about it.
527
00:39:31,235 --> 00:39:39,261
You've really committed to the, to the transparency of the whole journey and the things
that you are doing, you'll, you'll be publicizing, right?
528
00:39:39,261 --> 00:39:47,726
I mean, if you are using a jump souls or the elevation training mask or the blood flow
restriction, or, you know, certain supplements to replenish, you know, what you're burning
529
00:39:47,726 --> 00:39:48,747
through that kind of thing.
530
00:39:48,747 --> 00:39:50,150
I mean, that'll just be available.
531
00:39:50,150 --> 00:39:53,350
I, I will tell you that there's no.
532
00:39:53,378 --> 00:40:03,732
Um, there's no athlete out there that's not fueling and training and using tips and tricks
and, know, recovery techniques and saunas and things like that.
533
00:40:04,563 --> 00:40:09,085
you know, one of the tricks for building aerobic capacity is to do cardio and then jump in
the sauna.
534
00:40:09,085 --> 00:40:10,675
That's a nice combination, right?
535
00:40:10,675 --> 00:40:15,557
So, I mean, there will be things like that, that you'll report on, but they're not
illegal.
536
00:40:15,557 --> 00:40:20,109
They're just ways to kind of, kind of hack the system in a mild way.
537
00:40:20,109 --> 00:40:22,732
mean, the other way to do it would be to just walk on.
538
00:40:22,732 --> 00:40:24,006
and see how you did, right?
539
00:40:24,006 --> 00:40:29,803
That would be the ultimate, I'm not even going to train kind of scenario, but I don't
think that's the approach you're taking either.
540
00:40:29,803 --> 00:40:31,227
So, yeah.
541
00:40:31,227 --> 00:40:38,092
Now, to your point, it's a, you know, part of smarter, not harder is recovery.
542
00:40:38,092 --> 00:40:47,178
You know, you've got kind of, uh, if you're training anywhere from an hour to six hours a
day, the rest of the day is just recovery.
543
00:40:47,178 --> 00:40:54,732
So regardless of what you do, you're always spending more time in recovery than you are
actually working out.
544
00:40:54,732 --> 00:40:55,543
so.
545
00:40:56,411 --> 00:40:59,792
You know something that we're both super deliberate about is our sleep.
546
00:41:00,093 --> 00:41:03,844
I've been tracking my sleep for almost 3,000 nights now.
547
00:41:03,844 --> 00:41:06,375
Consistent.
548
00:41:06,375 --> 00:41:08,396
Yeah, consistent.
549
00:41:08,956 --> 00:41:20,041
And you know we've got the eight sleep bed, you've got temperature control in your room,
you're watching your heart rate recovery, your respiratory rate, all of that.
550
00:41:20,041 --> 00:41:25,483
We've got like a full recovery studio in the living room, we've got a game right week,
myobor.
551
00:41:26,611 --> 00:41:29,511
bands, toss balls, you know.
552
00:41:30,071 --> 00:41:30,971
yep.
553
00:41:31,231 --> 00:41:44,340
The one fun way, fun way that I found to think about it in that sense is windows of
opportunity and
554
00:41:44,340 --> 00:42:00,120
So if you're looking at the Olympics in July of 2028, that means it's probably, I could
check it real quick here, probably 1,250 days, days until 2028 Olympics.
555
00:42:00,380 --> 00:42:02,900
Yeah, just under 1,200 days.
556
00:42:02,900 --> 00:42:11,595
So the way that I like thinking about that is how many eight hour windows do you have?
557
00:42:11,877 --> 00:42:15,629
You know that a third of all of those windows are going to be sleep.
558
00:42:15,829 --> 00:42:20,932
You know that you have the opportunity to maximize the other two thirds.
559
00:42:21,132 --> 00:42:26,555
And you know, when you go out to dinner with friends and someone says, Hey, let's have a
cocktail.
560
00:42:26,695 --> 00:42:36,560
When you think about, okay, I've only got 3,500 windows to take advantage of until race
day.
561
00:42:37,401 --> 00:42:41,643
And if I go have a drink and that.
562
00:42:42,141 --> 00:42:44,592
has an impact on my recovery tonight.
563
00:42:44,592 --> 00:42:55,055
So if I had a really good lift today and then I'm gonna dampen my recovery because my
body's more focused on processing the alcohol instead of contributing to regrowing the
564
00:42:55,055 --> 00:42:56,075
muscles.
565
00:42:56,075 --> 00:43:03,257
So that's one window gone and then I'm gonna have a worst workout the next day and
probably the day after that.
566
00:43:03,257 --> 00:43:04,617
It's like two nights.
567
00:43:04,617 --> 00:43:12,069
And so then you're going through this and you're like, well that just had a not only
neutral but negative impact on.
568
00:43:12,081 --> 00:43:15,492
a handful of my available windows.
569
00:43:15,593 --> 00:43:24,596
And so you're talking about, okay, that's like, you know, a quarter of a percent or half a
percent of the overall amount of time that I have to train.
570
00:43:25,036 --> 00:43:30,039
And so why would you make the decision to forgo that quarter percent or half a percent?
571
00:43:30,039 --> 00:43:31,618
It's just, don't do it.
572
00:43:31,618 --> 00:43:34,939
Yeah, what you're pointing out here is the compounding effect, right?
573
00:43:34,939 --> 00:43:36,399
Of the decisions that we make.
574
00:43:36,399 --> 00:43:46,032
It's, and I don't think it's realized by most of us when we're making a decision that it
has a compounding effect in another direction, right?
575
00:43:46,032 --> 00:43:54,384
I mean, if you're looking at uh quantum mechanics, and I don't know if you've been paying
attention to quantum computing, there's some amazing things going on there.
576
00:43:54,384 --> 00:44:00,026
uh But you know, we come to understand that each decision we make actually creates a new
reality.
577
00:44:00,026 --> 00:44:01,004
And so.
578
00:44:01,004 --> 00:44:06,837
You can basically create this reality that's compounding benefit or one that's actually
neutralizing benefit.
579
00:44:06,837 --> 00:44:09,538
And it does make, it really makes a difference.
580
00:44:09,538 --> 00:44:11,999
yeah, kudos for you to sorting that out.
581
00:44:11,999 --> 00:44:12,279
Yeah.
582
00:44:12,279 --> 00:44:13,850
Makes the decisions easier, right?
583
00:44:13,850 --> 00:44:18,041
When you realize that it has a ripple effect across future time, so to speak.
584
00:44:18,041 --> 00:44:18,482
Yeah.
585
00:44:18,482 --> 00:44:19,562
Very cool.
586
00:44:19,648 --> 00:44:24,981
Yeah, you're either getting paid for what you did over the last 10 years or you're paying
for it.
587
00:44:25,504 --> 00:44:26,735
Yeah.
588
00:44:26,735 --> 00:44:27,535
said.
589
00:44:27,535 --> 00:44:30,156
Well, this has been a really fascinating conversation.
590
00:44:30,156 --> 00:44:33,387
Um, and, I hope the audience has enjoyed it.
591
00:44:33,387 --> 00:44:40,019
So, um, we're wishing you guys all the best here as you go forward with this, uh,
endeavor.
592
00:44:40,019 --> 00:44:47,211
And, um, what we'll probably do is maybe do some follow-up podcasts as we get a little
closer to it, see how things are going.
593
00:44:47,211 --> 00:44:50,348
I'm sure people will be intrigued if people want to.
594
00:44:50,348 --> 00:44:51,900
follow you or see what's going on.
595
00:44:51,900 --> 00:44:52,662
How do they do that?
596
00:44:52,662 --> 00:44:55,966
Where will they find you if this is transparent?
597
00:44:57,363 --> 00:45:04,865
We can follow us on Twitter uh and we have a website for the brand that we're building
right now as well.
598
00:45:04,865 --> 00:45:07,056
So we'll look at that information to you.
599
00:45:07,056 --> 00:45:08,486
The brand's called PathEyes.
600
00:45:08,486 --> 00:45:14,988
uh Yeah, patheyes.com will kind of be putting up everything that's...
601
00:45:16,649 --> 00:45:17,683
Yeah, that's right.
602
00:45:17,683 --> 00:45:22,284
ah That's the brand name, but we're going to be talking about everything that Anthony's
got going.
603
00:45:22,284 --> 00:45:23,428
Okay, so P.
604
00:45:23,428 --> 00:45:27,979
is there too, but just a landing page right now, but more to come.
605
00:45:27,979 --> 00:45:28,469
Okay.
606
00:45:28,469 --> 00:45:32,542
So P-A-T-H-I-Z-E, if you're interested to follow them along as it goes along.
607
00:45:32,542 --> 00:45:35,325
that also the Twitter slash X account as well?
608
00:45:35,325 --> 00:45:36,565
Is that correct?
609
00:45:37,287 --> 00:45:37,787
Okay.
610
00:45:37,787 --> 00:45:38,847
Beautiful.
611
00:45:39,268 --> 00:45:42,741
Well, guys, thanks so much for taking the time to chat with us here.
612
00:45:42,741 --> 00:45:43,532
really a pleasure.
613
00:45:43,532 --> 00:45:47,695
uh I'm going to be in, we're going to be, Mukti and I will be in Puerto Rico in May.
614
00:45:47,695 --> 00:45:49,337
uh Yeah.
615
00:45:49,337 --> 00:45:51,458
So we'll, we can coordinate dates.
616
00:45:51,458 --> 00:45:52,799
So that'd be great.
617
00:45:52,960 --> 00:45:53,700
Awesome.
618
00:45:53,700 --> 00:45:54,231
All right.
619
00:45:54,231 --> 00:45:55,402
Great to see you.
620
00:45:55,402 --> 00:45:56,202
Yeah.