#223: Maxime Sigouin - The Keys to Lasting Body and Mind Transformation
Maxime Sigouin, founder of Fit Vegan Coaching
Grief is an interesting thing, isn’t it? Sometimes a loss is overwhelming and debilitating. Other times, grief spurs us into action and advocacy.
That’s the story of Maxime Sigouin.
After Maxime's fiancée passed away from breast cancer seven years ago, he made it his mission to help others "disease-proof" their bodies with a whole foods, plant-based diet, and consistent training.
The transformations of his Fit Vegan clients are nothing short of inspirational. "Taking imperfect action," he says, "is better than no action at all."
Today, he shares his tips and personal anecdotes for daily success in business and life.
Episode Highlights
0:01:24 Overcoming Grief and Turning it into Advocacy
0:02:42 Dreaming Big and Embracing a Fit Vegan Lifestyle
0:06:11 Transformative Hitchhiking Adventures and Lessons from Strangers
0:11:21 Transitioning to veganism for weight loss and health reasons
0:14:40 Meeting ex-partner Jennifer and embarking on a new chapter
0:16:01 Caretaking during a cancer diagnosis and holistic treatment refusal
0:23:02 The Power of Fully Committing to Achieving Success
0:27:13 The Importance of Weekly Group Calls for Success
0:32:20 Trust the Process and Avoid Distractions
0:38:51 Pacing Myself to Reach a Million People
0:42:18 Meditation and Setting a Positive Intention for the Day
0:47:02 Adjusting food composition for body composition changes
0:49:28 Role of Protein in Body Composition
0:52:58 Healing from Overachieving and Taking Time Off
0:56:00 Creating the Perfect Environment for Deep Work
0:58:54 Setting Clear Rules and Expectations for Optimal Performance
1:03:58 The Addiction to Phones and the Inability to Sit Still
1:07:05 Tattoos and Life Lessons
1:11:51 Consistency Compounds: The Power of Showing Up
Maxime went from power lifter to fit vegan!
About Maxime Sigouin
Maxime Sigouin is a highly accomplished fitness coach, entrepreneur, and athlete. He is the founder of Fit Vegan Coaching, a company dedicated to helping individuals adopt a healthier lifestyle through plant-based nutrition and exercise.
Episode Resources
Visit the Fit Vegan Coaching Website
Learn more about our 2024 PLANTSTRONG Retreats
To stock up on the best-tasting, most convenient, 100% PLANTSTRONG foods, including our cornbread, teas, stews, pancakes cereals, granolas, pizza kits, broths and soups, check out all of our PLANTSTRONG products HERE.
Give us a like on the PLANTSTRONG Facebook Page and check out what being PLANSTRONG is all about. We always keep it stocked full of new content and updates, tips for healthy living, delicious recipes, and you can even catch me LIVE on there!
We’ve also got an Instagram! Check us out and share your favorite PLANTSTRONG products and why you love it! Don’t forget to tag us using #goplantstrong 🌱💪
Full Transcription via AI Transcription
[0:00]If you're looking for the ultimate life -changing gift this holiday, consider joining one of our Plant Strong Retreats next year.
We'll be in Black Mountain, North Carolina for six days in April, and the Red Rock Mountains of Sedona, Arizona for an epic week in October.
Both events will provide a full immersion into optimizing your plant -based lifestyle with our program.
Led by a team of physicians and health experts, we cannot wait to spend a week with you.
Visit plantstrong .com to see all the dates and details or email us at events at plantstrong .com and we'll send you everything you want.
There's no better gift than better health.
I'm Rip Esselstyn and welcome to the PlantStrong podcast.
The mission at PlantStrong is to further the advancement of all things within the plant -based movement.
We advocate for the scientifically proven benefits of plant -based living and envision a world that universally understands, promotes, and prescribes plants as a solution to empowering your health, enhancing your performance, restoring the environment, and becoming better guardians to the animals we share this planet with.
We welcome you wherever you are on your Plant Strong journey and I hope that you enjoy the show.
Overcoming Grief and Turning it into Advocacy
[1:24]Grief is an interesting thing. We've all suffered loss in our lives and sometimes the grief can be overwhelming and even debilitating.
Other times though, it can force us into action and advocacy and that's the story that I wanna share with you today with my guest, Maxime Sigouin.
In his mid -20s, Maxime was engaged to be married when his then fiance was diagnosed with breast cancer.
She was vegetarian at the time and doctors gave her about one year to live.
She immediately switched to a fully whole food, plant -based diet and was able to live another five years.
Maxime has had his own journey with body weight, health and nutrition issues, vacillating drastically from bodybuilder to fitness model and everywhere in between, but inspired by his late fiancee, he switched to a whole food, plant -based diet over seven years ago, and has made it his mission in life to help others disease -proof their bodies with proper diet and training.
Please welcome Maxime Sigouin.
Dreaming Big and Embracing a Fit Vegan Lifestyle
[2:42]Welcome to the PlantStrong podcast. It's great to have you. Yeah, thank you very much for having me. Excited to be here.
Yeah, yeah. So you like to dream big, don't you?
Absolutely. I don't know what gave it away.
[2:55]Well, it might be the big neon sign right above your head, dream big.
We got to talk about how you've dreamt big and make your dreams come alive.
But first you are, if I'm not mistaken, you are the fit vegan, right? That's kind of who you are. That's your moniker, right?
It's deeply ingrained in me. It's right here. Yeah, that's a good looking tattoo right there.
Tell me about some of your other tattoos that you have on you.
Yeah, I got a few of them. I got Jesus on this side.
I got no pain, no glory in the back. That was from my bodybuilding days.
Did you say you got Jesus on there? Yeah, I got Jesus carrying the cross on my arm right here. I got is it now is that because you're a religious man?
Yes, I'm Christian. Uh -huh. Uh -huh. Yeah So that was like part of my first few tattoos was the praying hands on top and in Jesus carrying the cross No pain, no glory in the back came from my bodybuilding days.
I have my grandfather on the inside of my arm Passed away several years ago from from cancer And so yeah, they did a really good job.
I'm happy they didn't make crocodiles or anything like that.
They did actually a really good job on the tattoo.
What was your grandfather's name? Rial.
[4:17]Another complex French name. Say it again. Real.
Uh -huh, okay. Okay, I'm not gonna try that, but it sounded like real, but okay. Yeah, that's pretty good.
All right, what else you got?
Well, I obviously got the FitVegan one. I have 11 -11 tattooed in the back of my arm.
[4:39]I don't fear that people, when they see 11 -11, just it's a sign that they're in alignment, that they're in the right spot where they need to be in their life. So I got it tattooed behind me.
So when people walk behind me and whatever, they're stressed or anxious, they look up to like, ah, that's a sign that I like I'm in where I'm supposed to be.
So it's more men for other people that walk behind me.
That's very, it's very magnanimous of you, Maxim.
Yeah. What's representation of how I live my life is for, for it to serve others.
Um, so that's, uh, I got, I got a, a compass with mountains.
That was my friend's first tattoo on someone and it was on his kitchen table in his apartment.
Uh, and so, yeah, that was his first touch on someone. So I trusted him fully to do. He did a really good job.
I got, uh, this under my whoop here, I got a map of the world and in the word fair and fair and V, which is German.
It means being homesick from somewhere you've never been.
[5:35]Um, for three years of my life, I hitchhiked around Canada, United States, Europe, lived in tents and hostels and just traveled the world for the fun of it.
So that was during my my hippie years basically is how I labeled them, This tattoo is a second one of my friend did the same guy that did the compass, They mean explore learn understand create and transform each triangle has a meaning, There's a second meaning to all of them is that you you have the power to give the meaning to whatever you want to in Life they can be something completely different, but that's that was a meaning I gave to them when I got them tattooed.
Transformative Hitchhiking Adventures and Lessons from Strangers
[6:11]When you so when you You went on your three -year odyssey, and you said hitchhiking, hitchhiking around?
Yeah, over 200 rides with strangers, yeah. And were you doing that alone, or were you with somebody? I was alone.
And what ages were you when you did this?
I was maybe 18 to 22, that was pretty much during those years.
[6:38]How old are you now? I'm 30. You're 30.
18 to 22, so that must have been pretty transformative for you, you know, going on that excursion for three plus years.
Yeah, I met a lot of amazing, interesting people. I used to document the whole thing online before, and I would always end by asking them words of wisdom.
And it was really cool to hear their words and wisdom because I just got their whole life story within the time that we were in the car together, so it just had that much more impact once I got the lesson at the end and typically people that are going to pick up a hitchhiker are pretty free spirited.
They've either done it themselves, they've traveled a lot and so met some really cool and interesting people.
Never one bad experience, surprisingly out of all those rides.
[7:24]That's really spectacular. I've hitchhiked before but never for three years.
I actually did it for a summer in Alaska and I was with my brother and we probably had, I don't know, I would say probably 40 rides over the course of three plus months.
And it was phenomenal meeting all these strangers, getting to hear their stories, knowing that there was a very finite period that you'd be with these people.
And so there was this very, these very open lines of communication, right? As you discovered.
And I'll remember it was late one night, it was cold. we were desperate to get a ride in Alaska.
There's not, I mean, some of these roads are very rural and there's not many cars that go by.
And this one guy in a pickup truck, he stopped.
He said, jump on in. I mean, we were packed to the gills with other people.
And then on the way out, I said, can we give you any money or do anything?
He said, no, the only thing I want you to do is help the next guy. Help them.
Yeah. That's the people that will pick you up normally. Yeah.
[8:34]So, let's talk for a sec about kinda, you know, your journey to be in the fit vegan.
Cause I'm sure it was a bit of a journey. So, tell me in the audience, when did it start?
What caused you to kinda go to become vegan and really embrace this lifestyle?
Yeah, of course. Well, I'll back up a few months before I actually transition to give some context, But I used to be 240 pounds.
I used to be a bodybuilder and a powerlifter a heavy meat eater I was a farmer right we had our chickens our cows and our geese is and we just we were The typical redneck family living in Quebec Canada basically it's the best way to put it We do hey every single year like I was a farmer farmer, so you know in the bodybuilding world I was consuming a dozen eggs every single morning for breakfast I was eating three chicken breasts every two hours for five meals a day.
I did that for three plus years so that I can get big enough to be able to compete and kind of do all of these things.
[9:39]Then got into power lifting, so it became even bigger and stronger.
And then one day I was exercising with one of my friends who was a fitness model.
And I was considering preparing for a show and stepping on stage with him.
And so after we were done our training session, he was like, I just need to make a quick stop at my friend's house.
Do you wanna come with me? I was like, you gave me a ride here.
I don't really have a choice.
So I went to his friend's house, I opened the door and there's a long runway inside the apartment. So like a high fashion runway.
I'm like, what kind of friend do you have here? It's like, well, it's my modeling agent. I'm here to get some of my comp cards, which are like your business cards in a modeling world.
[10:15]And so she looked at me and again, I'm 240, extra large size shirt, big chubby cheeks.
She's like, I see something under those chubby cheeks.
You wanna try losing some weight and see if we can do a photo shoot and get you some jobs? I was like, you know what, I'm preparing for a fitness show.
So might as well, I'm going to get leaner. Might as well do a photo shoot out of it and try this thing out.
And I believe at the time I was working at Subway, right? Very important for the store. I was working at Subway. So working long hours, very minimal pay.
So I leaned out for my bodybuilding for my fitness competition, did a photo shoot, loved it, booked a job, made some money.
I made more money in one day that I made in two weeks at Subway.
And I was like, I can get paid by people taking photos of me.
And all I got to do is be fit. This is awesome.
I need to do more of this and so ultimately I asked the agent I was like, I would like to book more jobs She's like well because of your height you fall in the high fashion category.
I'm six foot four It's like you fall in the high fashion category You don't do any like commercial or print work because you're too tall compared to the other models that you'd be working with And so when you're in the high fashion world, you need to be skinny.
Transitioning to veganism for weight loss and health reasons
[11:21]Stick thin. And so I was like, you know what? I've done bodybuilding, I've done power lifting, let me just try this thing.
So I went on Google, I was like, what diets can allow me to get the skinniest the fastest?
And vegan showed up, like vegans are skinny and weak. I was like, cool, I don't care if I'm weak, I just need to be skinny.
And so the next day, I switched all the food that I mentioned earlier to going vegan overnight.
I think my first breakfast was a bowl of frozen blueberries, dates and bananas.
And then just didn't know how to fuel myself, also fruits and veggies was all that I ate.
And then I think within a few weeks, I just like started doing some research, found Forks over Knife, watched a documentary, and then it just blew my mind.
Because my grandfather had just passed away from cancer, or around that time.
And then I was like, oh my God, I need to like save my parents, I need to save myself, I need to tell people about this.
So I became the evangelical vegan and started spreading the word everywhere.
But yeah, ultimately that's how I transitioned into eating vegan was to basically get skinny so I can fit in the darn clothes they wanted me to fit in.
Okay, and how many years ago was this? I've been vegan for nine years.
So about nine years ago that I kind of like made that transition. Right.
[12:35]So you went from 240 as a bodybuilder eating 10 chicken breasts and 12 eggs a day to like how lean did you get? I got down to 160, 160 pounds.
Yeah. Yeah. So was that your runway fashion weight or what kind of weight was that?
It was not a weight, it was a size.
The shirt size was like a medium, like a small, medium shirt that you had to wear.
And so to me, like for one year, I went vegan.
I stopped consuming protein in the sense of, I didn't have tofu or tempeh, it was just like fruits and veggies. I was trying to lose as much muscle mass as possible. I stopped strength training.
I just did cardio and stretching and I lost 80 pounds within that first year.
So it just happened that when I lost 80 pounds, I was small enough to be able to fit in a sample size that they needed me to fit in. And even there, I had a hard time.
So are you hungry during the day? Are you starving yourself?
Are you miserable or how do you think? Yeah, I was hungry.
As I was 240 pounds, my hunger was pretty big and I had to go the opposite direction.
So yeah, I had my I had my moments of hunger at first because I didn't know how to fuel myself properly being a vegan right, Okay, so what happens next?
[13:56]What happens next is I work in the modeling industry for a few years.
I managed to work in New York and Milan, kind of traveled around.
Then I realized it's a very unhealthy industry, especially when you get to the international stage.
The whole drug thing and starving yourself and puking is a real thing.
So it's not as glamorous as people think it is.
And so I decided to step out of the industry, go back to Canada, because I was in Milan and Italy at that point.
So I went back to Canada, I was like, I just want to be fit and healthy.
And so I went back to be, I went to fit and healthy, and then I continued to travel. That's when I did a little bit more of the hitchhiking during that time.
Traveled around, ended up in Vancouver. That's when I met my ex -partner, and that started basically the next chapter of my life.
Meeting ex-partner Jennifer and embarking on a new chapter
[14:40]So I stayed healthy during that time, but I wasn't and training for anything specifically.
Right, and so when you say your ex -partner, that's your ex -fiancee, is that correct? Yeah, Jennifer.
[14:52]Jennifer, and yeah, and that sounds like that was a very, very, you had some, well, some intense years with Jennifer.
She's no longer with us. What exactly happened to Jennifer?
Yeah, so she got diagnosed with breast cancer within three months of us dating and meeting and, Again, the doctor gave her one year to live when she got diagnosed and She decided to get him go plant -based go whole food plant -based with me because that's how I was eating at the time And we were able to extend her her life and her quality of her life by an additional four years So she lived an extra like basically five years since her diagnosis, And it was the hardest things I've ever had to go through.
[15:40]The feeling of powerlessness that comes from wanting to help someone that you love, but you can't really do anything about it besides like, hey, let's eat this food. Let's rest. Let's do these treatments.
So it was very, very rough experience and she passed away over over 2 years ago now, almost 2 years and a half ago now. Yeah.
Caretaking during a cancer diagnosis and holistic treatment refusal
[16:01]So you were with her for three months, she was diagnosed with breast cancer, and then so you were with her for another almost, what, four or five years after that? Yeah. Wow.
So you were her caretaker?
[16:16]I was the caregiver, I was the bank, I was everything. It was just her and I during that whole five years.
We never had really had a lot of people kind of step in. So it was more on my shoulders to try and make that work for those five years.
And where were you living during this time? In Vancouver, BC, in Canada.
And so don't you guys, cause in reading up and looking at a lot of your Instagram posts, It looks like, you know, you basically, um, went in debt to the tune of almost 60 K.
Uh, don't you guys have free, free medical care in Canada?
[16:55]Yes, but she refused conventional treatments. So she wanted to heal holistically.
And so she didn't want to do any chemo or radiation or anything like that.
And at the end of the day, it's not my place to say anything.
It's not my life. It's just for me to support her.
And so we did everything holistically. throughout all of these years, and that is not covered by insurance or by the government.
That is covered by my wallet.
So I got in debt. I just trying to spend as much as I could, as much as I could make, as much as I could borrow, I spent to try to do as many treatments as possible throughout those five years. Right.
And then your grandfather had bone cancer.
Yeah. And so when did your ex -fiance pass away and when did your grandfather pass away?
[17:47]My grandfather was almost, I think, 10, 11 years ago.
And then my ex -fiance is like two, two and a half years ago. Okay.
Yeah. And you've made it your mission now to really help people find their healthiest, fittest selves.
What are some of your goals here in the next couple years?
Yeah, so the big mission is to help 10 ,000 people get lean, thrive, and disease -proof their bodies on plants by 2033, and a million by 2050.
The 2033 is because my ex -fiance was 12 years older than me.
When she passed away when she was 39.
She was 12 years older than me. So by the time we hit 2033, I will be her age when she passed away.
And so in her honor, I want to help impact the lives of 10 ,000 people.
And then as a milestone, then aim for the million by 2050, because I'm pretty confident we'll have good systems to do that at that point. Yeah, well, so how far are you on your way to 10 ,000 people by 2033?
[18:55]Yeah. So with one of the companies, we're at 700 plus, uh, with all the companies I have now, I would say we're maybe nearing like a thousand so far.
[19:06]Now, when you say companies that you're with, what exactly does that mean?
Are you, are you like looking for partnerships or what does that mean?
Yeah. So I have fit vegan coaching, which is the main business that I started when she passed away to kind of help support people And then I realized I had a choice to make at a certain point What's it all about me or is it about the mission?
So I realized like if I try to impact 10 ,000 people and a million people by 2050 by just me it would be very challenging, So what I realized is I need other people to help me on the same mission And so I really realized that I'm really good at building systems and scaling businesses And so what I did is I found other plantbased coaches that had small businesses that I want to start businesses And I built the business for them and partnered with them in the business So currently we have six companies that are transforming people's live So if six each company impacts a thousand people, that's six thousand people right there Right and the big part is some people will look at me.
Maybe I speak funny Maybe I'm too skinny for them but they'll look at one of our business partner, Brian Turner is a vegan YouTuber, really buff, been vegan for a long time.
They're like, I wanna be buff and be vegan. I'm like, great, look at Brian, go work with Brian.
All right, so to me, that helps me fulfill my mission by having multiple people that are basically reaching towards the same goal.
So are these like franchises underneath the FitVegan?
[20:30]Yes, it's their own company. So they hire me to build all their systems And put the employees and train everyone and kind of build everything as their own business, but I helped them scale it basically to have more impact. Nice.
So I was looking through some of the transformations that you have, and you've got lots and lots and lots of people that have gone through your system, gone through your protocol, incredible results.
You know, I think one of the most amazing is just your mother, right?
Who is such a great spokesperson for your program.
Tell me a little bit about your mother's success over, I think it was eight months.
[21:12]Yeah, for all of my life, she's always struggled with her weight, and she was always around like that 180, 184 pound mark.
And in my goal when I was younger is to weigh as much as her.
I was trying to get big enough to weigh as much as her.
And then when I started, did vegan ultimately, I was like, you know what, Molly, let me help you, right?
Like I've mastered it myself, I've helped a lot of people.
I'm like, let me just help you do this. The only thing though is you gotta go vegan, right? Like I'm not gonna include any fish or anything in your plan.
Like I need you to eat full food plant -based basically, because everything we do is whole food plant -based.
And so she's like, you know what? I trust you. Obviously you're my son.
I'm gonna do everything you tell me to do. I was like, great.
We built her plan. She lost 54 pounds in eight months.
And that was over three years ago. And so now she's still 54 pounds lighter, consuming, sorry, 2 ,200 -ish calories now to maintain her weight.
[22:06]Because we sped up her metabolism post -transformation.
But yeah, she kept the weight off for three plus years.
She has a six pack now. She's in the best shape she's ever been.
And it was really rewarding to be able to help her accomplish that.
Yeah, well, I saw her, you know, doing all these pushups and I think pull -ups and squats.
I mean, she's getting after it, for sure.
Oh yeah, she's training harder than my dad and she's older than my dad.
I was your is your dad also doing this or not?
I'm working on it. He's still like we grew up farmers.
So there's still like that meat kind of stereotype for him of like the manliness aspect.
So but I would say he's probably eating. I think 80 70 80 percent plant based now because my mom cooks the food. So he has no choice.
So it's basically when he wants to add something to it.
The Power of Fully Committing to Achieving Success
[23:02]So, in working with all these people, since you started this program, you, in one of your Instagram posts, you talk about, like, different patterns of success.
[23:14]So I'd love to throw 5 of them out there to you, and then you can just talk about each one a little bit.
So the first one that you taught, you say is, Fully commit, don't try, but don't say, all try and do this, but fully commit.
So what does fully commit mean to you?
Yeah, well, I'll illustrate that with a story. So I'm, uh, I'm a big fan of like Tony Robbins and his world.
So I got that from one of his, his video. I think it illustrates it perfectly, which I'm going to meet him in like a week. So I'm very excited.
I'm going to go to the studio.
Say he had a lady and that he was working with and she says, I'm trying to make my relationship work.
Right. And then he was like, okay, well, I was like, I would love for you to turn around and try to pick up the chair that you're sitting on.
And then she picks it up. He's like, no, no, no. I didn't tell you to pick it up. I told you to try to pick it up.
And then she puts it back down and she leaves it there. He's like, I didn't tell you to not pick it up.
I told you to try to pick it up. And then she like half trying to pick it up.
It's like, well, I didn't tell you to pick it up. I told you to try to pick it up.
And he did that repeatedly and she got really frustrated at the end.
It was like, there's no, there's no trying. You're either lifting a chair or you're not.
Right. And so trying is still not being fully committed to doing the action.
And so we do for our members, we just require full commitment from you.
Like this journey is not going to be perfect. It's going to be challenging.
There's going to be bumps in the road.
All that I ask is that you show up in the times that it matters the most.
And so that's what fully commitment is, is you will actually lift the chair because you want to lift the chair.
[24:42]Yeah, I know. I saw something else on, I think it was your website and it was somebody saying, how do you spell try?
[24:50]And it's W I L L. It's not T -R -Y, it's W -I -L -L.
But you're right, we wanna remove try from our vocabulary. Kind of the whole Yoda thing, right? Exactly, yeah.
Okay, you also say that one of your patterns of success is that the busy you are, typically the more successful you are.
Why is that? I would think it'd be just the opposite.
I thought it was the opposite as well, but we were like 650 plus people deep now, And the people that have a busier schedule are more regimented with their time. They're better at time management.
And so if you have a lot of free time and you tell yourself you're going to work out in the morning and you don't really have a lot of things to do for the day, you wake up and you're like, I don't feel like doing it right now.
Let me just do it this afternoon.
And you get to this afternoon. You're like, I'll do it this evening.
And the evening comes like, I'm too tired now. I'll just do it tomorrow.
[25:43]But the people that have a really regimented schedule, they're like, I can't miss this because there's no other time available. Then I'm at work, and I'm spending time with my kids, and I'm spending time with my husband, and I'm going to bed.
And so they have to be regimented with their time. And we've seen a higher rate of success with the people that are actually the busiest versus the people that have a ton of free time.
RICK WELTSMAN -WILKINSON No, the reality is that doesn't surprise me one bit.
It makes complete sense.
What I have found is that people that, if you're not out and about and moving that inertia it sets in and it is so hard to get out of that inertia phase and I've seen it with people in my life and you just gotta you know it's that you gotta get busy living or get busy dying man and you want to like absolutely no and and we'll talk about this but there's also I mean you also want to rest and recover and you don't want to be you know, kill yourself with busyness but yeah there's a healthy amount of busyness Yeah, and there's, there's planned recovery, right?
And so you can schedule an hour of downtime.
That's how I do it. It's like, Hey, I need to stretch for an hour and just relax and do nothing. And I'll schedule it into my calendar.
Yeah. Well, we'll talk about that here in a sec. Let's finish going through these five patterns.
So the next one you found, and we have found that as well, in our coaching program is people that attend the weekly calls do much better and are more successful.
Why do you think that is?
The Importance of Weekly Group Calls for Success
[27:13]Yes. So again, I'm a man of analogies and stories. So I'll kind of throw you another one. I love it. I love it.
I'm a fan of full immersion experiences.
Right? So I think best case scenario is a rip, I grab you and I throw you in the middle of London, UK for 10 years.
Do you think you're gonna come back with an accent a little bit of slang? Sure.
Probably, right? Because you got to immerse you've been in that world.
And so the the people that have the most amount of exposure are more immersed into this experience, into this environment that is leading them to live a different life.
And so you have two choices when you're working with a coaching program is you can continue to stay in your environment, which brought you to the place of where you were before you came into the program, which again, beautiful place, you're ready to change, but it obviously hasn't created the outcome that you wanted.
So now what we want to do is put you in a different environment where you can have access to different type of information, different level of conversation, right, more accountability, a different perspective on how to handle different situations.
And so the people that attend the weekly group call have more exposure and are fully immersed into this environment that is leading them to become the person that they ultimately want to become, which is why they're there in the first place.
Support is absolutely everything. I love that. Accountability, yes.
[28:27]You talk about applying principles like consistency compounds.
And also, if you blow it with a bad meal, make sure the next meal, you're gonna win at it.
So you wanna talk about either one of those or both of them?
Yeah, for sure. I'd love to address both because those are two really important principles. So consistency compound.
So a lot of people think that it's just about showing up perfectly.
Right. So if you look at investing, for example, uh, in the stock market, if you put $0 every single day, how much are you going to have at the end of 10 years?
Nothing. Right. If you put a penny every single day, how much are you gonna have at the end of 10 years?
More money than nothing. Right. So even if you put a penny, that stuff will compound.
And so how that translates into everyday life, people feel they think that they need to feel 100 % in order to show up. I feel a little bit tired.
I won't do my workout today. Ah, kind of like, I just won't do it because I don't feel 100%. I won't be able to give it my all.
What I tell our members is give 100 % of what you've got.
So you got 10%, give 100 % of 10%. Even if that means just you going to the gym and walking on a treadmill. Don't have to touch any weights, right?
But the act of showing up will allow you to compound your results over time, but also it's strengthening that internal muscle that a lot of people have lost, which is the act of showing up when it's uncomfortable, when it's inconvenient.
[29:51]All right. So that's why I like to talk about consistency compounding.
Yeah. Yeah. And what about, cause there's a lot of people that, you know, along the way they want to be perfect.
And let's say they go over to a friend's house and they have a cheeseburger, right?
Yeah. And they're like, God, I've just blown it all. You know, I might as well throw in the towel.
You're not a fan of that mentality, right? Uh, no, absolutely not.
Because then you fall into the cycle of under eating, over exercising.
So what most people do with doing that scenario is like, well, I'm going to cut a bit more food tomorrow, or I'm going to use exercise as a means to compensate for the extra nutrition that I ate, or they'll simply throw in a towel and then wait for the next new year's to start.
Right. Um, so what we tell them is when the next meal, right?
Like whatever you ate 5 ,000 extra calories, you had a binge eat on Saturday night, doesn't matter.
Eat your breakfast on Sunday. eat your lunch on Sunday, eat your dinner.
Because if you try to play that game of punishing yourself, then you're just delaying the process of you getting back on track.
You make yourself feel bad, you start developing an unhealthy relationship with food, you develop an unhealthy relationship with exercise.
It's the same like, I'm trying to make a reel out of this. You've seen the movie Tallagata Night with Will Ferrell? Yeah.
Right, so you know this scene where he was in the accident and he thought he was on fire and then he's in the hospital and he's like these legs don't work and he stabs himself with a fork in the leg.
[31:16]The other guys come in with knives to try to pull out the fork and they throw in two, three knives.
I think that's what people do when they over on their calorie and they throw in the towel. They're like, let me just make it worse. Let me just throw in more lives in there.
It doesn't make sense. Like, great. It's done. It's in the past. Just move forward.
Yeah. You know, you just reminded me of something with the consistency compounds.
I heard something the other day and I'm, I could be off a little by a little bit, but if you take a penny and you double it every day for a month, guess how much you'll have at the end of that month.
Is it like a million or something like that? I think it's like 3 .2 million.
It's absolutely ludicrous, right? So, you know, Einstein's whole thing was, you know, compounding interest is like the eighth wonder of the world, but it really is.
So the last, the last, um, kind of important, uh, pattern of success that I think that you've seen is trust the process.
Talk to me about that. Yes.
Trust the Process and Avoid Distractions
[32:20]I'll use the red shiny object syndrome analogy.
Right? So a lot of people when they come into a coaching program, like but I read this study, but then I saw this thing on Tick -Tock, but like I watch a YouTube video when they said this thing.
So people get distracted by different methodologies.
At the end of the day, there's different ways of having success.
Some ways are debatable as to whether they're healthy, like if you're doing keto or something like that.
Whole Food Plant-Based obviously is, aligned with our values, very well documented. There's a lot of great results in that.
But when someone comes in and they don't trust the process in a way that they'll tell you like, hey, but this thing, but what if I do this methodology?
What if I eat this food every single day? What if I cut my calories by this much or I worry about this aspect?
Then they start to distract themselves from the plan that's actually working.
So obviously your program works because you've been in business for a really long time. You got amazing results with your members.
People know if they go to URIP, they'll get amazing results.
You don't come in and try to change how the vehicle is built and functions when it's been proven over and over and again that it works.
It's like going to bungee jumping and being like, well, I don't like that you guys attach the rope there. Could you attach it there instead?
That's not proven. There's no guarantee you're coming back up from this one.
You want to keep with the system that works. Yeah.
[33:41]Let's talk about, there's some things, little things, that you like to do during the day.
And for starters, and then we can go through these together, like you like to start the day with a cold shower.
Yes. Why is that? Is that like Wim Hof -ish or what's the rationale there?
Yeah, of course. So Wim Hof is obviously the originator or kind of like that whole movement.
On a personal level, why I do it, it's for the mental component versus the physical component. it.
Obviously, I know that I'm getting physical benefits from it.
But to me, what it does, it allows me to train my mind every single morning.
So I have to willingly step into something uncomfortable, and then I have to willingly stay within something uncomfortable.
And so that just primes my mind for the day. So if you do a few push ups, your physiology changes, and you're like, Oh, yes, like, I'm ready to work out, I'm ready to go.
That cold shower just primes my mind to be like, okay, I can do uncomfortable things, and I can handle them. And then if you're in business, there's a lot of that throughout the day.
So to me, it helps kind of like support my mind for the rest of the day.
[34:46]Yeah, and I read something where you...
About how you thought that you were really good at kind of getting stuff done and doing stuff but then at some point you realize that you were just kind of bullshitting yourself because at the end of the day you were only doing stuff that was comfortable and not uncomfortable.
So this sounds like this is helping you maintain that mindset of I can do hard shit.
Yes, yeah, and the more you do, the better the quality of your life is, because if we just wake up whenever we want to, the house is AC'd, everything is cushioned, everything's taken care of, and as soon as one little thing comes up, it seems like it's the end of the world.
But if you constantly put yourself in these positions, which are, again, are controlled, but are uncomfortable, then you're just building that resiliency, which a lot of people are lacking nowadays. And so that's why I do cold showers, but also for all my members.
I got, I got people like 80s taking cold showers now and loving it and taking an ice bath. So yeah, it's powerful for everyone. Yeah, no, it really is.
[35:54]You're not a fan of missing more than one day of working out a week.
Explain, explain that mentality to me.
Yeah, well, it's that inertia thing that you were talking about earlier, right?
Like after one day, once you get to like two days of not working out, momentum starts to slow down. then it becomes harder for most people to go back and exercise.
I've been working out for 18 years, and I still after after two days, two or three days, I'll be like, yeah, I should delay the workout another day. Right.
And so I don't like to miss more than one day in a row for the most part, just because I want to continue that momentum, because I know that a lot of success in life is built off consistency. And if you have momentum, it's a lot more easier to be consistent.
Exactly. Do you find yourself taking a intentional rest day?
[36:44]Yeah. Yeah. On Sundays, I rest day, relax with my fiance and just do something else that is then a workout or a bike or swim.
I hear you. Well, speaking of your fiance, congrats on that.
I think it's fantastic that you were able to obviously move on after your ex -fiancee passed away and you're living and you're loving and you're making big important relationships happen. That's fantastic.
Yeah, it took a lot of healing. I bet. But it's important for you, you try and do a date night once a week.
[37:27]Yeah, because I feel like your calendar is like the junk drawer in your kitchen and you move in there's nothing in there and you move out after five years and there's just so much crap in there. You don't know what it is.
Same thing with your calendar.
If there's empty spots, they're going to get filled with work.
They're going to get filled with something else.
And so what I do before I start my week is I'm going to go and schedule in my non negotiables in my calendar.
So my workout, my date night, my time to eat, my time to rest, and then whatever else is empty.
That's when podcasts like this gets booked. That's when calls of members get booked.
But I have my non -negotiable scheduled in so that I can prioritize those areas of my life that I care about.
Yeah. You also are a big believer in taking a week of vacation once a quarter.
I think that's absolutely fabulous.
And you, you and I think you and I both know you do that and it increases your productivity when you're getting after it.
[38:23]When did you decide it was important for you to schedule in a week of vacation or at least per quarter?
Yeah, so I started at the beginning of this year because for five years I was a caregiver and there's no pauses on that, right?
It's three in the morning, she's in pain, like you have to kind of get up and be ready to go.
So I was constantly in that fight or flight mode. Then I started my business after she passed away, so it was very stressful.
Pacing Myself to Reach a Million People
[38:51]January, I just crashed really hard. I was like, I have this big mission.
It's in my heart to serve. It's in my heart to do this.
But I can't continue going at this pace, because I won't make it another few years.
And so I'm like, how can I pace myself to be able to be able to run this marathon to reach a million people by 2050?
Well, I need I need to feel good. I need to have some energy.
And so I take a week off every quarter.
I do no phones, no screens, no social media, nothing, I completely disconnect for one week and I just do whatever.
I just went to Joshua Tree for a week and I napped three times a day.
I was napping, fireplace at night time, do a little bit of in the hot tub, just kind of hanging out.
So yeah, just recharging the battery so that I can come back stronger, push it for another quarter and then just go back to a break.
Next year I'm trying to amp it up to two weeks every quarter.
That's great. That's great. So two weeks out of every three months.
Yes, that sounds real. It's a nice balance. No, I saw I saw some video of you at Joshua Tree and it looked like you also hit some golf balls, played some pickleball.
[39:58]Yeah, made some nice food. Yeah, and it looks like you had a great Airbnb as well.
It was beautiful. It's what inspired me to do this little background.
I went there. I was like, oh my God, so aesthetic and beautiful.
Like my office looks so plain.
Let me just put up my medals, buy a sign. Got to set up everything.
What are those medals of? Are those like bodybuilding competitions or triathlons? What are they?
A mix of everything. So I got a few Spartan races in there, a few half Ironmans.
I did like over 20 plus different triathlons. I got some basketball in there because I used to play college basketball as well.
I got some martial arts because it was a second degree black belt as well when I was younger.
Run races, yeah, a few different events in there.
[40:41]Good, a lot of nice accomplishments there. You also try not to eat any food three hours before bed.
Is that typically like seven o 'clock, eight o 'clock? How does that work for you?
Yeah, around seven o 'clock, trying to go to bed around 10 p .m.
Every night, just so I can improve my sleep recovery.
I'm a nerd when it comes to tracking my sleep and trying to optimize it, and so I realize that if I eat too close to bedtime, I wake up feeling groggy and puffy the next day and then my HRV is lower.
My resting heart rate is higher So just allow my body time to digest before I go to bed has allowed me to get a lot better deep sleep and wake Up really energized.
Hmm. What's you said HRV? What's that stand for?
Since your heart rate variability, so it's the average of the pauses between your heartbeats So they found that there's a direct correlation between that number and how ready your body is to take on stress But the lower the number, the less your body is ready to take on stress.
The higher the number, the more your body can take on stress.
And that can be psychological, emotional, or physical.
[41:44]There's a race for one and a half Ironmans, I think there's a strain score that they calculate per day.
I was at the highest level that I capped out after the race.
I really pushed it for that one.
And then two months after, I had a fight with my ex -partner, and my strain, my stress score or was as high as when I did that race, because it was so emotionally draining, like the body could feel it.
And so, yeah, it's a recovery metric to be able to identify how much stress you can take on for a day, and whether you should take the day off from the gym, go a little bit for a lighter workout, or something like that.
Meditation and Setting a Positive Intention for the Day
[42:18]So speaking of stress and anxiety and all that, you are also a fan of meditation.
Is that something you try and do on a daily basis, and what does that look like? Yeah, every single day.
So I do Tony Robbins as a little priming routine, it's like his power breath that he does like three rounds of 30 breath and he has like a gratefulness exercise to do a visualization exercise.
So to me it just grounds me in the morning and then I'll just sit there and meditate until like I feel ready to come into my office and work ultimately.
So it just allows me to put kind of like an armor for the day so that I am responsive versus being reactive to emails or messages or whatever would come my way.
You are meditating, what are you focusing on, if anything?
[43:08]Nothing. Whatever shows up, I look at it and then I just let it go.
I try to let it go. And then the next thing it shows up, it's still a work in progress.
Sometimes, you know, it'll be five minutes later, I'm like, oh my God, I just mapped out all the content for the next month in my head.
Now let me just go back to doing nothing.
So it's a work in progress to be able to be at that state all the time. Yeah.
Explain to me again, And how is it that you're gonna see Tony Robbins in a week?
Yeah, so Tony Robbins has like a few ways to work with him.
So if you wanna work with him, it's like a million dollars per year.
And there's like a 15 year waiting list. Like it's crazy to be able to work with them.
So below that, there's a Platinum Partnership, which is pretty hefty fee, but you get to have access to all of his events, all his resources.
And there's three private trips per year where it's just Platinum members and Tony and his wife.
We're going to Hawaii in October for the relationship trip with him and his wife and my fiancee, Um, but he has a business mastery event in his studio And so i'm going to be going to his studio and then at the end the last day we have a day with him Uh to be able to talk about business and life and whatever so wow, that's that's fantastic way to go way to go Thank you. He came on the podcast.
Uh, probably a year ago with his uh, you know It was his book that I saw you were reading it when you were in Joshua Tree.
[44:35]Yeah, yeah. Yeah, remarkable guy. Tell me, you use this term reverse dieting.
What exactly is reverse dieting?
Yeah, it's a big buzzword.
[44:49]So it's when we speed up - Yeah, I like the sound of it, for sure.
So it's where we speed up someone's metabolism post fat loss, right? Because I feel like in the world, we don't really have like a weight loss problem. We have a keeping the weight off problem.
A lot of people, when you're trying to improve your body composition and lose weight, naturally you're gonna be in a calorie deficit, right?
So whether you're eating high volume food, like whole food, plant -based, you're still gonna be calorie deficit because it's less calories and it's a lot of volume and you feel fuller quicker.
So you're going to calorie deficit, you exercise more than you typically would, or you're being more active than you typically would.
And so your body adjusts. Your metabolism will adjust to being able to perform, more or consistently on less food. And so it'll just slow down naturally.
There's no way around it. So that's why most people in North America, like 95 % of people, put the weight back on within six months to a year after they lost it.
Which is a crazy number. Like within a year, all that effort is gone.
And so I started doing some research, discovered Dr. Lane Norton had this principle reverse dieting, and I was like, oh, that's interesting.
So I discovered that maybe like five years ago. Then I went through it myself.
I'm like, this is pretty incredible. It takes time to do it, but it's pretty incredible.
And so it's basically where you slowly and methodically we re -add calories on a weekly basis to people's nutrition, depending on how their bodies are responding.
[46:06]It takes about four to 12 months. We'll put it this way, right?
It depends if you've been severely under eating for a long time or a chronic yo -yo diet or how low you went into your calories and all that, but it's basically where we speed up the metabolism over the course of four months.
And I can only speak for our stats on our side, because I don't know what it looks like for other people, but we're able to add 800 to 1000 calorie intake in addition to what they were eating before, to maintain a 20, 30, 40, 50, 80 pound fat loss, which is crazy.
Like they lost 80 pounds, but they were able to add 1000 plus calories of food.
Like I have women eating 2500 calories at the end to be able to maintain their weight loss.
And I'd say 80 % of the time, people stay the same weight. 10 % of the time, some people lose weight, but it's probably because they've been like under eating for a long time for the most part before they came in.
And then the other 10 % is worst case scenario, they put on a pound or two, but for a thousand calorie trade off, which is pretty good.
Adjusting food composition for body composition changes
[47:03]Really good, and so you say you change the composition of what they're eating.
Can you give me an example?
Yeah, of course. So it's more in the form of calories that we're adding per week, and it's under the form of carbohydrates.
So when you're in a deeper, lower calorie state, and you're shifting your body composition, I'm not talking low starving, I'm talking just lower than normally people would be at, your body's more prone to store fat.
And so what we found is when we add fat as a form of calories increase, more people are storing fat and putting weight on.
So when you're using carbohydrates, so again, just adding a banana every single day for one week, right? Adding some strawberries, some blueberries, adding some sweet potatoes.
When you add carbohydrates, your body goes like, yes, glycogen, let me use that right away, right? Because it's easily digestible.
If you do fat to take longer to digest, it's more likely to store fat into your body when you're in that more sensitive state, ultimately.
So on a weekly basis, we can add 20 calories, 50 calories, 100 calories, 200 calories to someone's daily food intake, depending on how their body responds.
But ultimately, we're monitoring like, hey, did your weight spike up? Did it stabilize?
Did it go down? How compliant with you with your training? And then we're able to make a decision every single week as to how much food to add.
And we do that slowly over time.
So the analogy that I like to use to kind of explain the whole concept is, you know, I'm sure you started a fire. You've gone camping before. Yeah. Yeah.
[48:25]So you have your small pieces of wood, you have a little flame, you have a little tiny little fire.
That's people's metabolism once they're done doing a fat loss phase.
What most people do to make it faster once they're done, they just go like, yes, I'm done this thing. Let me just go back to eating the way that I was.
So it's like throwing a big log of wood on it. Little flame can't handle it. It's going to be put out.
And by the time it gets used to it and dries up the wood and handles the whole thing, they put all the way back on.
[48:50]Sort everything. So how do you make a small flame bigger effectively?
You throw smaller pieces of wood on it over time.
Eventually it grows, it grows, it grows, it grows, and it grows.
And you can burn a log, you can burn a house if you want to, right? So that's the same thing we do with people.
Just slowly add pieces of wood over time to let the flame become bigger and give it a chance to adjust.
Okay. And so you're doing, you mentioned like, you know, bananas and berries and stuff like that.
So complex, or I should say, unprocessed carbohydrates.
What's your, what's What's your opinion of protein?
For the reverse siting or just in general?
The Role of Protein in Body Composition
[49:28]Well, I'd love to hear it on both. Yeah. So, protein, when you're looking at improving your body composition, we keep it pretty stable all the way through, especially when you go deeper in a calorie deficit, you do need to keep your protein to that amount because the lower you go in your protein, when you're in a calorie deficit, you're more prone to lose lean muscle mass.
Of we need a stimulation from the strength and make sure we get enough protein.
The protein we aim for around 1 .6 gram per kg of body weight for protein consumption, when we're looking to improve body composition, right? It's one thing I always like to mention.
You can eat less protein and be healthy and feel awesome and reduce your risk of chronic illnesses, absolutely.
If the goal is to improve body composition, increasing the protein to that range will make the world of a difference in how your body looks and starts to transform.
So this is simply a metric for transformation.
So for the body transformation, where you're trying to kind of lean up, build muscle, you're an advocate of a, tell me if this is correct, more of a lower fat, high carbohydrate, medium protein diet?
Is that in a nutshell kind of correct? Yeah, and we do everything whole food plantbased.
So the majority of your calories are gonna be coming from carbohydrate because that's where a lot of the vitamins and gene density comes from.
So yeah, I would say it's fair. Lower fat, higher carbohydrate, medium -ish amounts of protein.
[50:50]Got it. You know, I just got an advanced copy of Dr. Greger's new book, How Not to Age.
It's coming out in December, and he's got a whole chapter on protein, obviously, and talking about protein restriction and how for these long, you know, long living cultures like the Okinawans and a lot of these studies that have been done on both humans and animals, it shows that, you know, when it comes to protein and longevity and slowing down the aging, less is more.
And I completely appreciate and understand what you're talking about here, which is, you know, you're basically looking at doubling the RDA, which is 0 .8 grams per kilogram of body weight.
[51:44]So that to me is very, very... Yeah.
And it also makes, yeah. To add to that, it's a means to an end as well, right?
And so the obesity crisis that we have is not a normal problem that we're used to dealing with.
So it took extreme things to be able to cause this obesity problem.
And so there's certain tools that can allow people to kind of like go back to an original state.
And then for the people that lost the weight and got fit the way that they want to, they can go on lower amounts of protein simply because they're consuming more calories, right?
And so when there's not enough, I'm gonna put it this way when there's not enough calories Your body will maximize everything that it has and you when your body's in a lower calorie higher stress state More likely to let go of lean muscle mass So then people start to look like skinny flabby like a different texture to the body basically So it's just a means to an end But once your calories that are higher you don't need as much protein Because you have enough energy coming in to ensure that you don't burn through your lean muscle mass, Got it. Got it. Got it.
You you refer to yourself as a recovering type a personality and that you had to go through some healing.
Healing from Overachieving and Taking Time Off
[52:58]What kind of healing were you referring to? Yeah.
So the overachieving always needing to prove yourself, always needing to have success, be successful, have accomplishments.
The badge of honor of being busy all the time, doing all these big projects, being terrible at taking time off.
This year is my best year so far because I've been taking a week off every quarter.
But yeah, being able to rest, take time off, and understand that doing nothing doesn't mean that I'm doing nothing.
Because I'm recharging. I'm clearing my mind to come up with new ideas.
During those weeks off, my notebook is filled.
And every time I come back, I'm like, we need to do this. This is going to help a lot of people. But I would have never came up with that. And I got stuck in my busyness.
And so, you know, being able to take time off, sitting at the beach and doing nothing for four hours, which was my fiancee that loves to do, I'm working on being able to do that.
[53:56]Well, I hear you there. We all, we all need to work on that a little bit, or at least many of us. All right, let's talk about some of your top ways that you like to increase your productivity.
And we'll start with the digital kitchen timer.
Ah, yes. So what do you do with that and why?
Yeah, so the night before, when I wrap up my data night before, I'm gonna make a list of tasks that I need to tackle for the next day.
And I'm gonna write an amount of time that I think is needed to complete this task. So, Because if there's a long list that I need to work through, I'm like, oh, I'll do this one first. I'll do this one second. And it just takes the whole day to get everything done.
So I gamified my process.
So if I put 20 minutes, I'm going to scroll it down to I'm doing it right now, I'm going to scroll down to 20 minutes on the timer.
And then I have my headphones in and then I press start and I start working on the task.
So it just allows me to, there's a deadline, basically, it's a little race against time to be able to complete the task.
And it allows me to stay focused because if I'm trying to complete before this, I can't be opening emails, I can't be checking Slack, I can't be checking my phone because I don't have enough time for that. I need to get it done within this timeframe.
So just gamify the process with a little kitchen timer.
So you gamify it with the kitchen timer and then you also, you said something very important that I never do and that is you put on headphones.
[55:24]Yes, I got noise canceling headphones. And that and that also helps you to just kind of like focus in on what you're trying to accomplish, Yeah, well, I've been conditioning myself for the past four years That when I do what I call my deep work sessions in the morning, I put on my noise -canceling headphones I put on a little like a playlist of just sounds no words and then I do deep work And so every day for several years It's conditioned to my brain that when I put these on it's go time.
My brain just focuses basically nice and so.
Creating the Perfect Environment for Deep Work
[56:00]What do you listen to Moby or you got something specifically you like to listen to just meditation music I'll just meditation music. I just can't have words.
I get distracted very easily So I close I close the door. I put my headphones in I can't have words.
I don't have notifications turned on I just focus on the task at hand.
And you also have what's called a remarkable tablet because there's no distractions with that.
Yeah, I sold my iPad not too long ago because I was trying to using it to write notes and then slacks on there and YouTube and all of these things.
And I was like, you know what? Let me just buy something. It's this little device here. And there's no blue light on it, which is great.
You can just write and type. That's the only thing you can do on this.
You can't check emails. There's no notification of any sort.
Basically like an old, like a typewriter, but digital.
So you mentioned, you just said that you do these deep work sessions.
Yeah. How long you've been doing those and how long does it usually last?
Uh, I've been doing them for, let's say like almost four years now, every single morning of the week.
Um, and then they last about 90 minutes to three hours. Like, so an hour and a half to three hours in the morning.
You must feel great after one of those, after they're over.
Yeah. Well, it's, it's literally, I was, I'm doing as much in three hours as I used to in eight hours before.
And so I just did a full day before people even started.
And so I get, that's why I'm able to run all these companies and do all of these things. That feels really good.
[57:29]Talk to me about meal prep, because that's something I think that's really important to you.
Yes, of course. So efficiency of time, right?
Like the time it's gonna take for me to wrap up a meeting, go and grab all the food, cook it and blah, blah, blah.
If there's a last minute meeting that jumps on or there's an emergency that happens, because I can't eat my food basically.
So then I go a longer period of time without eating and then I'm starving.
And then more likely to make bad decisions when you're hungry and you just really want food in your body.
I don't keep any junk food in my house, but still if there's like whatever, a banana, I'm gonna eat four bananas.
Four bananas in a row, because that's the only thing I have time to eat.
So having a meal ready just makes it easier that I get a complete nutritious meal when I'm in a time crunch.
And if I'm not in a time crunch, doesn't matter, the meal is ready and I just saved some time, yeah.
Yeah, you had a nice video on your Instagram channel where it was you meal prepping for the week for you and your fiance, and I think in an hour you made 20 different lunches and dinners.
Yes, yeah, they weren't gourmet meals, but they did the job.
Oh, they looked fantastic, right?
You had, I think, onions, sweet potatoes, It was bell peppers, tempeh. It was good rice, for sure.
Yeah. Nicely done.
Setting Clear Rules and Expectations for Optimal Performance
[58:54]Talk about setting clear rules and expectations.
Yes, expand on that. Yeah, of course. So as humans, there, we operate by certain rules that we either created for herself never created by other people.
Right? We think that we can do certain things, because that's how it's always been.
So to me, instead of living my day of like, well, I can wake up and look at my phone first thing in the morning, or I can go to bed at whatever time, like we have these frequency of rules of like, I'm allowed to go to bed at this time.
So to me, I have alarms. I have two phones.
One phone is my webcam that I'm using right now.
That's my business phone. There's Instagram, Facebook, YouTube, all of platforms are on there. And there's my personal phone, which is just for texting and calling.
There's nothing on there. So when I leave my house, I can't do Instagram story, I can't do anything.
I just have my phone if people want to reach me. So I'm more present, because I don't think of filming things or taking photos of any sort.
[59:51]So having those two phones, I put alarms on them.
So at 6 p .m. or like 7ish p .m., I close this phone when the alarm goes on.
And then I close my personal phone around 9 p .m. When the alarm goes off, I close all the phones.
It's time to go to bed, time to put my blue light blocking glasses on.
So I created little rules for myself that allowed me to feel my best and perform as optimally as I want to.
I like that. Really clear lines. That's that's that's important.
Where are you right now? Are you in your house? Are you in a studio or what? Where are you?
I'm in my house right now. Got it. OK.
And so this is this is is this your studio room or is this the room where you work all the time?
Yeah, this is this is my office. This is a room where where I work all the time, where all the magic happens. Got it. Got it.
You also you have a quote or you've you've referred to kind of So this, we want things and we want it now attitude, it's kind of this Amazon Prime life.
And it's not in our best interests.
[1:01:00]Talk about your definition of Amazon Prime life.
Yeah, so instant gratification, right? It's one of the big things we see when people when they wanna transform, they think that because they did a good job with one workout or one week of workout, out that 20 pounds sort of melted off their body within that one week.
And it's understanding that good things take time to create.
And the body is not a machinery. It's not like you press on this button and you get this outcome every single time, right?
You can eat perfectly every single day, go to bed at the same time, work out at the same time, and have fluctuations in how your body looks and how you feel from a day -to -day basis. It's not this pure machine where it's in and out. It's always gonna be the same thing.
And so it's realizing that if we push for instant gratification, will never be able to accomplish anything great.
[1:01:48]Always going to be looking for the next thing, right? It's kind of like that going back to that, trusting the process conversation, right?
That red shiny object syndrome.
It's the same thing. I was like, well, I tried this thing and it didn't get me what I want to. Let me go buy this thing. Let me go try this thing instead.
But they never stick to it long enough to get the results that they came in for. And so being able to delay gratification is important.
And it also seems that people are always looking for the easy way out.
They're looking for hacks and all these, all these exercise hacks, these life hacks and then these dietary hacks when the reality is you got to sink your teeth in you got to do the hard work and and make it happen and there may be i think you know times here and here and again.
[1:02:30]Where you know you can find something that's maybe a smarter more efficient way of doing something yeah but for the most part you're right it's a mentality that has severely invaded our culture for sure.
Yeah, notification from social media, Amazon, get your, your stuff delivered the day of, food delivery the day of, your groceries delivered the day of.
Um, there's that expectation that we don't know that we're translating to other areas of life that the same principles don't apply to. Yeah.
And, and the fact that we don't know how to sit still anymore, right?
And be with ourselves, like you got your screen and there's no such thing as being bored because you got Instagram, you're going to go through these, you know, you're going to check your emails, you're going to make a phone call.
[1:03:20]It's, and having kids now, you know, two of my three kids that now have phones, it is, it's a, um.
[1:03:31]A it's tough to out beat this phone that has everything imaginable on it and it's so easy to access all these things.
Yeah, and it's deeply ingrained into the culture, which, you know, as humans, we want to be a part of the tribe. So we want to do like others are doing.
And so it just deeply ingrained that if you have a downtime, your hands are padding your pockets, you're padding something to try to find a phone to grab somewhere. Yeah.
The Addiction to Phones and the Inability to Sit Still
[1:03:58]So, before I let you go, I'd love to hear your philosophy on money because you've been broke, you've got money now, you got a successful business.
At one point, you had $34 .37 in in your bank account, you were $60 ,000 in debt, because.
What's that? Tattooed in my finger. I got $34 .37 tattooed inside my finger as a reminder.
Okay, you didn't share that with us at the very beginning.
No, I got a few more that we didn't cover. I got like eight more.
[1:04:37]Oh, well, we'll have to cover those for sure. But yeah, so I mean, how did you go from 34 to 37 to kind of getting back on your feet and getting out of debt?
Yeah, by honestly, it was just about focusing on serving and following my mission and it kind of just fell into place and obviously being smart with my money and surrounding myself with people that were smart with their money and just not getting flashy with things, right?
Just focusing on the fundamentals, focusing on my race, focusing on my lane and the things that I needed to do and ultimately just continuously focusing on providing as much value as possible And then fit vegan grew from nothing to what it is today, but it was just feedback from people like oh, this would be great I'm like great.
Let's add this now and now we have an amazing team. You know, dr Lori is Laura Marvis.
Absolutely. Just had her on the podcast. Yep. Oh nice So the post is coming out today is probably live now, but she's a fifthly on our team for fit vegan for a coaching team So we got doctors just Dr.
Laura Marbis, physical therapist, all that fun stuff.
But it just kind of built over time on like how can we provide more value? How can we serve more?
And then just finances kind of took care of themselves. I just had to be smart in the back end to not spend it because that hedonic treadmill thing is a real thing.
[1:05:56]And you have to be very careful about that. I think the last piece also is that it won't solve all your problems.
You think that if, oh, when I make this amount of money or I get to this level in my finances, is things are gonna be different.
You don't. I still act and feel like I'm broke, even in the position that I'm in today, because I never, personally, I don't want to live like, well, I got all this things, I can relax now, right?
I'm like, it's not about the money, there's more people to serve, so I don't even pay attention to it.
Yeah, yeah. I think that's a really good philosophy.
[1:06:31]Some of the other tattoos you have on your fingers. Yeah, for sure.
So I'll show I got a few ones in here on my finger. So I got Kaizen, which means constant and never ending improvement.
Got that from Tony Robbins when I was 15, when I read Awaken the Giant Within.
And it just stuck with me. So just this philosophy of constant and never ending improvement that if you just consistently show up and continue improving, things like this happen.
Well, look at that. So you've been a fan of Tony since you were 15 or even before that.
And look at you're going to be with him in a week. It took me 15 years to get there, but yeah, very excited to meet him.
Tattoos and Life Lessons
[1:07:06]I got the infinity sign in here. It's a tattoo I got with my fiance within like, my current fiance, like a month in our relationship. We were just bored one day and we're like, let's just get a tattoo. So that's why it's in my finger.
$34 and 37 cents is how much I had in my bank account when I hired my first mentor.
And 60K in debt, was about to lose my apartment, lost my corporate job, and just had to start Fit Vegan basically.
So it was a do or die at that point, where else I got create no rules because, time I would try to I was like I would like to build this big beautiful business that serves people and then my brain would come in with limitations of like, well, you can't do that because like you didn't go to school to be a doctor, you didn't go to school to do this thing.
And I was like, Okay, well, if I stopped at that, then I would have never built what I built. Now I'm like, well, I have finances.
Let me hire a doctor. Let me hire a doctor physical therapy, let me hire a nutritionist.
So I realized that like I can just create without any boundaries is how I try to live my life.
[1:08:06]And it's obviously It's turned out great. I'm very grateful to be on this podcast because I watched you when I did forks over knife and not to be on this podcast is, is an honor.
So it's for me, it's like meeting Tony Robbins next week. It's a bunch of beautiful things happening.
So as this tattoo, uh, I got this little line here because when my, it's a dash, simply a dash, when my ex partner passed away and we were at church, the pastor said, life happens in a dash, there's a year that you're born and then there's a year that you die.
And it's like it's in that dash that all the magic happens.
And so that just really connected with me. So I got a tattoo of that.
I got an arrow inside of my wrist here because sometime life pulls you backwards, in order to propel you forward.
And that was, you know, those five years of being a caregiver that allowed me to obviously now be on this mission of wanting to serve people to not be in a position that my ex -fiance was because it was purely lifestyle created. It wasn't genetic.
She was an entrepreneur. She didn't sleep a lot. She ate fast food.
She just hustled to build her business.
And ultimately, she got into a position where she got herself sick.
And same thing for my grandfather. It was livestock created as well.
He was an entrepreneur as well.
So it's always something that's in my mind when I'm working hard.
I'm like, I'm gonna work hard, but I'm still gonna pull back so I can take some time off because I don't want to end up in that position.
[1:09:27]But that's what the year before. And then I got, this was the biggest lesson for when my fiance passed away, which was make time count.
You can't see too much, But yeah, time count.
So when she passed away, people always said that life was short.
And I was like, maybe, but I wish that I made time count more.
[1:09:46]So when we were beside each other on our phones in the living room, I wish that we put the phone down and we talked instead of watching Netflix for two hours a night.
I wish that we just went for a walk for more walks.
And so just that that idea of spending being more present and spending more quality time with the people you love.
So every time I look at the time and I'm stressed about something I just I'm like make time count my courage just go back To being present right now Bravo, Maxim that that I appreciate you sharing, At the depth that you did everything today that you, lessons there. Thank you very much. And I can't believe at the age of 30 how precocious you are.
That's pretty remarkable what you've done in just 30 short years.
The fact that you're going to be, your goal, your mission is to help a million people by 2050.
I have no doubt you're going to actually blow that away.
10 ,000 by 2023. I think you actually, after you meet with Tony next week, I bet you those goals are gonna be 10X those.
Yeah, no, I'm not, they're hittable numbers for sure at the rate that we're going.
I've only been at this for three years now and we've already had all of this impact. So this is just a start.
For sure, for sure.
[1:11:12]Well, Maxim, I wish you all the best. I hope to meet you in the not too distant future.
Yeah, I'm talking to Adam Sud. I'm talking with Adam Sud to come up and play pickleball. So I've been training.
Good, good, good, good. Well, you know, I would love to join you guys at some point.
Are you, where are you living? Are you in LA? Where are you?
I'm in LA now. Yeah, I just relocated here. Yeah. Yeah. All right.
Well, hey, hit me with a fist bump on the way out. It was great having you on the PlantStrong podcast.
Yes. Keep it PlantStrong, my friend. Thank you for having me. Yeah.
Consistency Compounds: The Power of Showing Up
[1:11:51]That I want to reiterate from today's conversation. Consistency compounds.
Keep showing up. Even if it's not perfect, imperfect action is better than no action at all.
And just like Maxime, it is possible to use grief, loss, and setbacks as platforms to inspire others.
I'll be sure to I'll put a link to his site in the show notes.
Thank you so much for listening. Keep growing, keep showing up for yourself, and always keep it Plant Strong.
[1:12:30]Thank you for listening to the Plant Strong Podcast. You can support the show by taking a quick minute to follow us wherever you listen to your favorite podcasts.
Leaving us a positive review and sharing the show with your network is another great way to help us reach as many people as possible with the exciting news about plants.
Thank you in advance for your support. It means everything.
The PlantStrong podcast team includes Carrie Barrett, Laurie Kortowich, Amy Mackey, Patrick Gavin, and Wade Clark.
This season is dedicated to all of those courageous truth seekers who weren't afraid to look through the lens with clear vision and hold firm to a higher truth.
Most notably, my parents, Dr.
Caldwell B. Esselstyn, Jr. and Anne Crile Esselstyn.
Thanks for listening.
