Two Peas in a Podcast

Episode 112 - JD Emmons

JD Emmons is a fitness enthusiast and entrepreneur spreading the message of sobriety, health, and fitness through his project Fit Over 40. His journey through alcohol abuse led JD into the mission of showing compassion and understanding to men while working on building a community of high achievers. Fit Over 40 delivers the powerful message of living with intention while embracing the challenges of everyday life.

To connect with JD please reach out directly to:

https://www.fitover40dad.com/

https://www.instagram.com/fitover40dad/

Broadcast on:: 21 Sep 2024
Audio Format:: other

JD, one of the most exciting things about having you in the room and having this conversation is knowing that the message that you're putting out there is a really, really good one about aging the right way, about living your best life, about looking and feeling your best. And I'm just so, so grateful that we have this opportunity to share the content with our audience. So first and foremost, thank you so much for making the time and being here. Yeah, thanks for having me. Of course. JD, tell us who is it that you are and what is it that you do? So the short of it is I'm just a dad trying to be as intentional with my choices and my example as possible with my children and just being the best version of a man and a husband that I can be. I mean, a lot of that probably might sound cliche, but it's, it's really important. Yeah. So that's. Yeah, how does this brand, how did this brand of fit over 40 come into existence? And what was your initial intention behind starting it? So it came into existence really, it started with my, I guess, walk into sobriety, just, you know, I had a, I had a relationship with alcohol that, that just wasn't good. And it was, it was kind of stealing me away from goals that I had in the fitness world. With personal goals, you know, calisthenic type stuff and, and it was also leading me on a path completely opposite of my family and for a lot of years, we were super intentional with what we were doing with our family and then I just kind of got complacent and comfortable and started taking a different direction. I wouldn't say that I was necessarily on the verge of losing my family, but it was probably only a matter of time before that started to become an issue. So in November of 23 is whenever I was finally able to get sober and get rid of the bottle and, and I just made fitness kind of be the replacement for that, you know, specific time of the day when I would, when I would start to drink normally. And, and then in order to keep myself accountable, I started this Instagram page fit over 40 and with really no intentions other than just keeping me accountable to show up. And so I had some pretty specific goals of, you know, posting several times a day and really learning, really learning the craft of Instagram and, and trying to debunk a lot of the algorithm, you know, arguments or concerns that people have because in the, in the reason for that specifically for the Instagram part was that we have Instagram pages for our business that actually was, you know, that we needed to improve. So it, it was a two part thing was accountability for me and then also just practice, you know, putting more reps in with, with the Instagram platform. And I started noticing through a series of events, I started noticing that the intention that I was putting in there in the, in the, the accountability that I would bring to myself specifically was actually resonating with, with other men. I knew that there were other men out there that had similar stories or similar issues, but I didn't realize that there was a lot of men that were actually interested in making a change. Yeah. So that was pretty exciting to find out. Now the thing that I love so much about your story is the specific idea of a man looking to make a change and going, Hey, I have this problem that's taking me away from the things that I care about the most. What I find in society today is for whatever reason, like we think about marijuana, we think about other drugs as like, Hey, these are super terrible, but we as a society have just taking alcohol to be part of the culture. Hey, it's not a drinking problem unless you are, I mean, finishing bottles each and every single night. But between the two of us, what we know is there are small things where you just start going down this road where you don't see the best version of yourself. At what point did it start feeling like a problem for you where you had to take a step back and go see myself turning a man into a man that I don't want to be? And at which point did you recognize that to be a problem? For me, it was probably about eight years into my walk with alcohol. I didn't really start drinking until my late thirties. And then I just kind of went hardcore with it and probably about eight years into it. So the end of 2022, we had moved to the place that we're currently living and there was substantial changes in our life, actually, success wise. So I just kind of started leaning on alcohol and kind of partying a little bit more around here. It was a little party environment type property. And so I was just really leaning hard into that. And I think it was the holiday season, the 2022, 23 year transition. That was a really rough holiday for me, for whatever reason. I just felt super disconnected, super discontent. And I'm not necessarily someone that deals with depression, but that was probably the closest that I'd ever been. And I just remember feeling kind of hopeless and out of control. Really having to rely on alcohol to show up to any events, it was just, it was my number one thought was alcohol. First thing in the morning and at night, that's just how my days were. But so I made some changes, some physical changes in my life. At the beginning of 2023, that's when I started like cold therapy and started to get back into fitness a little bit, but I was telling myself that I could possibly just drink on the weekends or whatever. And that lasted about a day. I was right back to the drinking every night, whether it was wine or bourbon or beer, whatever it was. And then of course, there's always an event that comes up that you have to drink at. And so it just was a real challenge. So I put different things in my life, like the cold therapy, trying to work out every morning, I was doing morning workouts at the time, I even sign up for a marathon hoping that I would, the training would cause me to stop drinking and none of it worked. So that was about an 11 month process of just fighting it. And one thing that I didn't do in that 11 month process was admit to myself that I actually had a problem. I kept still with the justifications of I'm doing this different, I'm different. I'm not the loud mean drunk that you see or that you hear about. And yeah, so once I finally admitted to myself that I did have a problem, that I couldn't do this on my own, that I needed help, that's when kind of the true decision was made. In my case, I did not have the desire to drink anymore. I didn't know what that was going to look like, I didn't know how long it was going to last. So I didn't really talk about it too much publicly, but I did admit it to myself and I did discuss it with my family. And I am so, so proud of you for just making that change for seeing that the direction that your life was headed was not exactly where you wanted it to go. Because I know that there are so many things that are just in the way of actually doing it. And one of the big things that people don't often discuss is this kind of idea of community. When you are drinking and you're having a good time and you're partying, the friends that you make and the people you surround yourself with tend to do the exact same thing. What was it like giving up that part of the community, knowing that a lot of the people who were watching you make these really, really positive changes for yourself either did not fully approve or were not on the same page as you about the timing of the change or how you want about it? Well, I was actually pretty naive about it at first. I just thought that everyone would be super happy for me or supportive. So that was one part of it. The other part of it was a little embarrassing because I had started to realize all the choices that I had made that weren't so great leading up to this point of not drinking anymore. But as far as the friend groups, I still tried to pursue the same sort of friends in the same environments just because I really truly didn't have a desire. So it wasn't like something I was necessarily tempted with drinking again. I really had to discuss for alcohol all of a sudden, which is, I don't know that that's everyone's situation or story. But it really does have to come to that because willpower and motivation only lasts so long. Some groups, I started noticing that the apparent friends that I had, great people I suppose, but it turned out that they were just drinking buddies and so it just kind of, it sort of went away. I basically don't interact with any of those people that were my core weekly getting together. This wasn't like month, this was like weekly and in some cases daily and that just went away. We tried to pursue it all the way probably for two or three months and reluctantly some of them would show up to like a dinner or something like that, but it just, I don't know, I don't know exactly what it was if they just felt convicted or, or I'm not sure, but it was hard for me to understand at first how someone couldn't be supportive and happy, especially when I wasn't trying to portray this on them, like I wasn't trying to start sharing with the world that, at least not at that time, that alcohol in and of itself is like this big terrible thing or that anyone else had a problem, like I had a problem and I couldn't control my, I couldn't have a good relationship with alcohol if there even is such a thing, I don't really think so now, but I was still trying to figure all that out at the time. Yeah. And I feel like this is one of those weird topics that not a lot of people touch because for whatever reason, it just doesn't get discussed as often and the friends who I have who live a fully sober life always talk about this like weird separation from a community that you didn't even necessarily think about or weren't aware of and when you start seeing the world in a certain way where you're becoming a better man, where you're trying to put out a positive message, it just feels like some people aren't ready and it feels like some people might just have different goals on you and don't follow you in the same route. What was the feeling on the human level, knowing that some of these drinking bodies and knowing that some of these long standing relationships weren't exactly what you thought them to be? You mean like as far as questioning the value of the friendship, like wasn't really, yeah, I don't know that I didn't really take it personally. I guess I was more sad, especially knowing now like how much better, like I had experienced a sober life prior to drinking in my 20s and 30s. Life was so different than financially, it was terrible and we were scraping by, we had a lot of kids, a lot of responsibility and so life was just rough and so I think part of my drinking was to kind of avoid some of that, just the realities of what was going on, but then when I got sober again or whatever, when I stopped drinking, just realizing how much I was truly missing out on and so that's my desire for other people. I know all the conflict, a lot of men don't like to talk about our mood swings and stuff. We like to just kind of push through and just be these tough people and I think there's an element of that that is real, that is valuable, but unfortunately with alcohol so much of the conflict, which we didn't have a lot of conflict in our marriage, but the conflict that we did have was stemmed around inability to stay consistent in my mood and attitude and I'm not a real hyped up person as, it's very obvious, I'm not the most energetic person, but I would definitely have these mood swings, right? So I see that in a lot of other people that continue on with alcohol, whether it's just on, even if they go all week and they have these great weeks and then they think they need to reward themselves with alcohol right on the weekends and then they go through these ups and downs on the weekends and it's so easy to see that pattern from my point of view now and so I guess I was, I'm more sad that I know their life could be, because these are, they really have amazing talents, these specific people, but there's also limitations on their life and I feel like the one limitation that's on their life that they could easily get rid of is alcohol and so that's more of what I see rather than feeling like wondering if the relationship was real, I think the relationship was real, I just think it was centered around alcohol in some sort of weird way. Yeah. And I have so much appreciation for the specific way that you talk about this, because when I think about fights in my own marriage, when I think about a lot of the fights that I see people have, it's genuinely just a miscommunication, right? And one of the big things that I find about alcohol is it like intensifies the scale of these miscommunications and at the same time just makes them more frequent. For whatever reason, women are just so much better at being in tune with their emotions and having some of these conversations. And I feel like we as men are just taught not to talk about it and to deal with it in silence. Why do you think we have such a hard time opening this door, having these sorts of interactions and just spreading the word of, hey, here is what I found to be the reality for me, even though it might not necessarily be the right thing for you today? I think because, you know, especially, well, in the way that I was raised, you know, like men are the providers and the leaders and the fighters and the protectors. And I'm pretty, I don't know, chivalrous in my mindset, I guess, for one of the reason I'm sort of old school on that, not that I think my wife is, you know, necessarily weaker as a whole. I mean, physically, I think it's just a fact, you know, at least in my specific situation. I'm sure there's women that are tougher than some men. But I think in general, you know, just the way that we were created, you know, there's different giftings that men have and different, you know, giftings or roles that women play. And of course, there's a lot of controversy around that now. But the way that our house is, is, you know, I put a lot of value in my wife's ability to think through things and, you know, she is sort of a has been an anchor in my house as far as like the tone of our house and all that, especially during the periods of time when I was drinking, but I think whenever men consider the idea of our emotions, we tend to feel like we're, you know, weak if we, you know, do or act a certain way. I kind of view it as, you know, I don't want to be an emotional wreck by any means. I don't think there's any strength in that. Men or women, you know, I think women need to hold it together and men need to hold it together and there's, there's things that we can get out of our lives that tend to accelerate, you know, the ups and downs of emotions, like, you know, specifically alcohol. There's other things too. It's not just alcohol. That just happens to be my, my experience, but yeah, yeah, it's, it's an interesting. I don't know what the exact line is, you know, I know where the line is drawn as far as too much emotion or too little emotion, but I do know that we're emotional beings. And sometimes that's frustrating, but sometimes it's frustrating to be sad about a dog that you lost or to be sad about a family member that like it would be so much easier if you just didn't have emotion, right? Like you would have to go through those feelings of loss. I mean, that's not a fun feeling ever when you're going through it, but there's something valuable about it. I don't have it quite pinpointed. You know, I can't quite articulate it yet, but there's something, there is something very valuable about it. I do feel like a big part of what I do now is I talk a lot about, you know, especially with men getting like your blood work done because our hormones are very, very much a big part of our emotions as well. And so, you know, if, if for whatever reason are different levels of hormones are off, then, you know, that can create an environment that's not that great. And then you, you're back on this emotional roller coaster, right? So that's different than being an emotional being, you know, in the proper sense. Yeah. Yeah. Now, I know some of these topics are so, so hard to talk about because they're so personal and a lot of time they are hidden behind closed doors. At what point you as a strong man that you are today, at what point did you realize that, hey, this is an important conversation and I think I'm ready to share my story with other men to make sure that their lives are easier. Yeah. It, I don't remember the exact point in time. It was, it was probably a couple months into it before I was willing to really talk about sobriety specifically because, you know, like I said earlier, it was, it was sort of embarrassing once I realized, you know, the, the choices I had made for the previous, you know, nine or 10 years and, and, and also when I coupled that with knowing how much, how amazing my life really is, you know, I've got healthy kids, healthy wife, great marriage, we've been married for a long time. And I feel like, I feel like I was kind of just throwing that away. So to admit that publicly was a little challenging, but I think I had a friend that reached out to me specifically sharing the impact that I had made on him. And that was kind of a, kind of a light bulb moment for me to, to, to continue to be authentic and transparent and vulnerable. You know, as I started doing that a little bit more, more men started reaching out just, you know, kind of like in the DMS or whatever messaging me, you know, kind of privately, and just sharing the impact, sharing their stories. And that was pretty amazing, you know, and, and so it just, it just kind of gave me the green light that this is, this is a good, it may be difficult to talk about, but it's really important and a really good thing to talk about. And it's so relatable, you know, really to, to so many men, to so many families. And if you want to see other men and other families start winning relationships and stuff like that, then you, you've got to expose the things that are hindering that. And that can be tough to talk about sometimes for sure. Yeah. And this is exactly where I find value in your story. There's just so much honesty, so much transparency, so much, both good and bad in the story that you tell. And I think this is exactly why it resonates with so many men. Now, one of the big things that we as human beings do is share our stories. And this is the power of why people are reaching out to you and why people are so excited to share their recovery stories and their stories of being better with you. What is it like sitting on the other side of some of these direct messages, knowing that each one of them behind each kind note is life of a man that has been impacted in a positive way by the message that you're putting out, as well as the story that you've been through. It's pretty incredible. As a parent, my kids aren't always coming to me and saying, Hey, dad, you did this and this helping with, they're just kind of doing their thing and kind of trying to create their own lives. But I know deep down, it's based on the impact that my wife and I have made on them. And so with these men that reach out to me, I get to see accounts of these impacts. And I know it's the same impact that I'm making on my children. As some of my kids have gotten older, they share things with me, which is really cool. But that's, I mean, times is kind of overwhelming because everyone's stories a bit different. There's some pretty heavy stories, some pretty big reasons, I guess, or excuses why people have specifically turned to drinking situations that I haven't even gone, I haven't gone through and just real hard times in life. And so it's hard to navigate some of those sometimes, but to see the changes in their life that they share with me, seeing them on the other side of that, I mean, it's like nothing else. Like, I mean, seeing people go from, I remember the feelings of just feeling alone. And, you know, I got to a point in my drinking when I was just kind of, I didn't realize this was a stage of drinking, but you just kind of a little more isolated. And so being in public wasn't, wasn't enjoyable much anymore, even if it was just family or just going out to dinner with friends, like there was an element that wasn't enjoyable. So to see, come from these really dark spots and start experiencing life, you know, whether it's one day, I mean, I have men that reach out that are one day into it and they're already crazy excited. And so you, you know, you want to just keep them going, like, look, one day at a time, like it's, it even gets better, like it gets so much better. I'm still learning almost a year into this, how much better it gets, you know, there's things that come up that I hadn't experienced without alcohol in a long time. And as I go through those experiences, it's incredible. And so to watch other men do this, it's hard to put it into words, you know, it's pretty incredible. Yeah. I am so, so grateful that this is the exact route that you chose to go down the route of talking about isolation, the route of talking about losing some of these connections because I feel like based on this technological age, a lot of the disconnect that happened with specifically men, where when I think about the older times, it feels like a lot more men were able to have some of these conversations and be surrounded with other guys. What is it about society that you find today? And again, you're a hell of a lot wiser than me. You're a few years older than me, and like you figured out this value of community and talking shit with guys and having open dialogue. Like what is it about guys today that specifically moved us away from hanging out together and having vulnerable conversations into these silos of going by yourself and doing a certain thing? Well, there's a lot of levels to that question or to the answer to that. One thing is I think we, you know, I mean, I guess I'll just be blunt, like media and what's pushed at us as men, and this has been going on for a lot of years, because you're right men don't have these deep conversations anymore. They don't have real conversations, I guess I like to call them. That was always a struggle whenever I was, when I had a normal job, it wasn't, and I'm not here to bash like sports and hobbies and things like that. I just have never been into that. And so conversations about real life things were, they never really happened in that work environment or like when the guys were hanging out, you know, people, people knew every detail about every sports team and, you know, whatever, all the stats from the, you know, people's whole careers, people they don't even know, but yet they don't even know, you know, specific things about their family, and they're not willing to have conversation. I mean, the conversations that I always found myself leaning more towards were conversations, you know, about, you know, for a period of time, about birth or about growing a business or about, you know, having a most amazing marriage or just real stuff. And, you know, thinking about, I don't know, just having real conversations about politics even about, about religion, about the stuff, and so many people don't want to go there, and we're even told not to go there, you know, it's, those are like taboo subjects. And I don't have all the answers. I don't have, I'm not even super intellectual at all. As I have conversations with people, that's whenever I learn, and that's whenever they learn. But if we just, if I walk away from a conversation and all I've learned about is the stats of some college player, like, how does that value mean? It doesn't bring any value to any part of my life to know that. It's just, it's just, it's a space, it's a space taker is what it is in my brain. You know, I kind of jokingly say, like, I have very limited space in my brain. I don't need to be filling it up with things like that. And what I found when I was drinking is that I would tend to gravitate more towards nonsense conversation, because it was, it was hard to think deeper, you know, and have deeper conversations. And so if people are, if men specifically, well, my wife finds this with, to be true with women as well, if they're, if they're constantly, you know, drugged up or whether it's on pharmaceutical medications or, you know, buzz all the time with alcohol and whatever happens with other different drugs, like you, you're not at a place of, of having real deep conversations. You don't really want to. You just want to kind of exist until the next morning when you go to work and then you get home and then you just exist and, and really people even just exist at work as well. Yeah. And I find it so interesting that you bring sports into this because the way that I've always talked about specifically football, like, I don't know why I find this big problem with football, but I just go, I don't understand why people care so much. I'm like, there is a game every single Sunday. You can spend your entire Sunday on the couch. But the way that I always talk about this is you are trading valuable connections on a specific day for talking about a game that at the end of the day doesn't even make a difference in your life. And I feel like this idea has been sold to us. It's been marketed. There are a lot of advertisements about it and it feels like there are just so many executives and brands that build their life based on having commercials, having some type of advertisements where they go, Oh, if you don't know about this game, you are just missing out because all the men do it. At what point have you found in your life this switch between, you know, having valuable and positive conversations about growing as human beings where we kind of just lost it. Because to me, it feels like specifically doing my college years, I felt like I was always getting pushed into this weird thing of like, if you are a man, here is what you do, you just drink, you just watch these games. And if you're not doing that, like you are by yourself and you're a weirdo. Yeah. So specifically for me, I never really was around a lot of that in those, I guess in those formative years, like as an adult, my formative years, my early twenties, I was already married and, you know, I got married at 19. We had our first child at 21. I was in the military, two things about my military career. First of all, I was in the air force. So it was pretty easy. Second off, I never lived in the dorms. I was never in a dorm situation. I only had one semester of college prior to that and that's where I met my wife. And so pretty much straight out of high school, I was with my wife and it's been, you know, 28 years now. Prior to that, like in high school, I was so much of a nobody that, you know, I wasn't really exposed to those crowds of people that, but I do remember not really fully understanding. Like what's, what's the big deal about this sports team or that sports team? And I, I tried to follow a little bit. I mean, growing up in, in Dallas, in Texas, you know, cowboys are a big thing. Yeah, you kind of have to, right? You feel like you're, you know, you're required to, and then the Rangers baseball and I thought there was a few sports, you know, like Nolan Ryan or whatever that people that I followed for a period of time during those years, but I never really got super deep into it. And then as soon as I met my wife, like all that just went out the door, I've never been a gamer, I've never been in the sports, I've never really had many hobbies other than like old cars or maybe mountain biking, you know, those are, and, and then it became whatever, whatever my kids were interested in, you know, for the, I don't know how many years of my kids being young, my job allowed me to work very minimal hours and I would come home, you know, three or four in the afternoon and the whole rest of the evening was devoted to just hanging out with my kids. I never, I never really got into hunting much. I've done it. You know, I've done it with my kids and I've taught them some of these things, but it's not a focal point in our, in our, in our conversations. So, so for me, I never really had that, uh, real big pool or draw away. Because it, it really was probably always in my situation since I was, since I got married so young and had kids so young, probably subconsciously, maybe consciously at times, I realized that it was, it was a choice. Like I either went this direction of what all the guys are talking about and, and noticing that they never want to be around their families and that can't be good. Or I can go in this direction where I'm just around my family all the time and this is what's important within, and knowing that I always chose my family, no matter what situation I was in, that's what made the reality of what I did during my years of drinking so much more hard to swallow, so much more embarrassing. But there's a lot of understanding that in coming out, there's, there's a, there's a lot of impact that I could make on other men. So I'm trying to find the best version, the best way to, to process that still. Yeah. I never really had a big pool to, to do the normal guy thing and the normal, you know, getting into sports and all that. I've never understood it. It doesn't make sense to me. I still don't, I don't know that I ever will. Yeah. That was like some of the big game, you know, maybe, maybe a Super Bowl, but there's so much garbage intertwined with even watching a game now, especially from a parent's point of view and then they're in, in knowing what I know now about like the, the programming of media, like I'm, I just, I don't want any part of it. Like. Yeah. And I have so much appreciation for you as a man because it just feels like you and Nate Lee knew this difference of, hey, here are the things that are the most important to me. Here are the things that I need to prioritize. And for whatever reason, it is so common in our society today to do exactly what you talked about. It's this feeling of so many people talking about, I don't want to go home. I like Dorett going to see my family and that never made sense to me because I go, hey, that should be the best part of your day, like the work is what you do just to be able to go home and enjoy the time with your family. So I just always had this distaste for people falling into the trap of going like I have to rather than I get to. And I think you just have a really, really healthy perspective on it. Now, I want to switch gears and talk about one of the big things about your brand that is so, so phenomenal. And it's having a positive attitude on aging because for whatever reason in today's society, people like have really negative outlooks on what it means to be a certain age and specifically fit over 40 because I feel like when we were growing up, when you looked at people who were 40, they were not, you know, super jacked JDs out there in the woods doing workouts, rather they were kind of on their downhill decline, like what is the power behind having some of these conversations on aging and going, ages just the number here are the things that I'm doing that even the young people can people with. Well, there's, I mean, the main power to having those conversations and actually carrying it out is that your longevity of life, you know, outside of some crazy accident, like you, you do have, you do have control over your health, you know, we, we have, we can still make choices in our lives to, to, to live healthier and to, and one of the biggest things is as you, you feel better, like, I didn't, I didn't realize how, I didn't remember how great I could feel, you know, and, and now I, anytime, any days that I might have it like an off day, like if I'm, you know what, we just got back from the beach for a week and I, I didn't do intermittent fasting the whole time and so you, you know, your body is like, what the heck's going on and I would go back into not feeling so great, but that was a choice that I was making. I have the choice to come back and get back on my normal routine because I feel better that way. Yeah, maybe I want to eat breakfast. I want to do certain things, but it doesn't benefit me and it brings longevity to my life. And then also in my situation, like being a grandparent now, like, I'm 47 years old. I remember when my mom turned 30, I remember when my grandmother turned 50 and I remember thinking these are like ancient people. It's so whole. And, you know, so even I hear my kids, some of my older kids, they'll have conversations about people they meet. I've got a few boys that are electricians and they'll be like, yeah, we were at this, this older person's house. So they were probably, you know, 50 and, and it's just, you know, these are the, it sounds so weird to me now. But from their point of view, I mean, these people are 30, 40 years older than them. So of course they seem, you know, a lot older, but they never, at least to us, they never really view us as being super old, which is interesting. I think we can carry, you know, 40 and 50 at 16, 70, whatever, years old, much different. But a lot of it's our choice. And I've seen so many people that, you know, you, you, you look at them and you're like, oh, they're, they're probably in their 30s. And it turns out they're in their 50s or something. And it's like, that's been fascinating to me. And the transformation, I guess, just this year specifically was there was a few people that really focus on, you know, kind of determining how it's going to be when you're 80 and 90 by doing some, some tests now in your 40s and 50s. And so if you can, if you can do this, this and this, in your, you know, fourth and fifth decade, then you should be able to do this by your seventh and eighth decade, right? And that was just kind of fascinating to me to kind of, because I don't want to, I don't want to have problems walking up the stairs or, you know, going out and playing volleyball with my kids or, or going swimming or going on a bike ride or taking the lawnboard out and, you know, you know, going down the street with, with my kids. Like, I don't want to have a problem with that just because of I'm getting older. There's some natural things I think that, you know, we're going to happen as I get older, but the more education, the more, the more I'm educated on it, the more I realize that even more control I have, you know, different supplements, vitamins, my sleeping habits, my, my diet. And, and so it's, it really is true that age is just the number, you know, there may be elements of your environment that are harder, harder to control, you know, depending on where you live. But we, and genetics play a little bit a part of this, I suppose, but I don't want to just leave it there. I don't want to just camp on the excuses of genetics and environment. And just let, you know, let it just play its course out how it wants, because it's not going to be my benefit or my family's benefit if I just sit around and let it happen to me. So yeah, it feels like there's a lot more people specifically talking about this, right, what the aging process is, this process of decay, but also ways to prevent it. And we know one of them is weight training and making sure that you are under some type of resistance that for the longest time we just sort of overlook and didn't specifically talk about what are some other big tools that you're using today to make sure that you stay forever young and you have the ability to do a lot of the things that you're doing today. Being very specific about my sleep, anytime I get off of my, for me, about a seven hour sleep window is like my ideal, starting at 10 to five. That's like ideal for me, intermittent fasting so that my body is not just spending all day long trying to process food. And so that's a big part of what I do. Weight training, resistance training, some cardio, just being very specific about having a lot of outdoor sun exposure. We had a natural skincare business for a lot of years and so we've always been very in tune with what we put on our bodies, so we're real as natural as possible, but also smart whenever we're in the sun. And really big on a whole food diet and not a, like, if any package foods, you know, we don't, that's not something our kids have never, we've never done cereals, we've never done all the mainstream normal stuff we've never done. And so I've got, you know, my little boys wake up, I've got a 10 and 11 year old, I think they are in maybe 12, I lose track sometimes, but they wake up and they make either grids or oatmeal in the morning, like, I love that. Not instant stuff they throw in a microwave, like they make it from scratch. And, and that's just how they've always been raised. And they may have moments as they get older, where they're like, you know, a little more packaged stuff for a period of time for convenience or price or whatever I get it. But the base of how they've been taught and how they know that they feel the best and they know that's what's going to benefit them the most is by eating the best diet possible. And that doesn't mean eating like you don't have to eat a lot. Like it, we're so far removed from, you know, how things used to be. And, you know, having to work for your food and having to, you know, you know, life, I think life just naturally had its its natural resistance training just by the nature of how you spent your day, right? And you know, foraging and hunting and all this stuff used to be a lot bigger part of what we do. So much, there's so much more convenience. So, so as, as quick as I am to find easier ways to do things or to want convenience, we've realized for a lot of years that convenience is kind of an enemy. And, and it's, it's, it's a hard one to fight sometimes, you know, I'll definitely admit, but there's so much more value in just doing things a more holistic way, you know. Yeah. And I find a big part of this entire conversation is just how difficult it is to find information today, right? Because it feels like part of the technological evolution of everything we're doing has moved us in this direction of believing just because we can, we should like specifically GMOs, a lot of big pharma, just because we can doesn't always mean that the product that's on the other side of it is a better one and better for us as human beings, given that, like, we see the diseases that are on the rise, we see the food systems that are just not ideal for who we are as human beings. And I find it so interesting that even the way that you talk about cereal, right? So many people have this misunderstanding of why their kids are acting up. If you feed your kid a ridiculous amount of sugar, first thing in the morning, of course, they're going to be hyper, of course, they're not going to be great listeners. And of course, there's going to be a sugar crush at sugar crash that happens after you've ingested more than, you know, a day's worth of sugar just in breakfast. Why is this disconnect between the food supply and how we think about food so prevalent, given that when we were growing up, it was, or at least it seemed to not be, it seemed a lot more common sensical to go, Hey, everything you should be putting into your body shouldn't be processed. Well, I mean, just, it's so much more in our face now for one thing, you know, like, I remember as a kid, in my wife and I've talked about this quite a bit, like you'd go out to eat as a family, maybe, maybe once a week or once a month, like it wasn't like now people do it two or three times a day. And, you know, and most of that, if not all of it, I'd say all of it is processed food in some manner. It all comes on the same truck, right? And of course, ingredients are so much more different now than like cereal is when I was a kid, we're probably bad, you know, just with the sugar. But now there's so much more artificial stuff in it so that you can have longer shelf life. I mean, a lot of it comes down to profit, right? You know, it's a lot, it's a lot cheaper for a company that even for a farmer to have stuff that lasts longer rather than stuff that has a short shelf life. We farmed for a lot of years, that was something we did for about a seven or eight year period. And that's a really hard life. Like, it's the best we ever ate, because we were producing all of our own food and we produced food for like 30 other families at the time. But you realize on the hard days, why farmers went to pesticides and insecticides are, you know, and on all these things, right? It's because it's so difficult to maintain a healthy crop. And you can just lose it in one night to a whatever, you know, you can you can lose it pretty fast. And so I understand, you know, wanting to do things like like like GMOs and all that. We we've always been super in tune with this before it was like, cool, to be anti-GMO and all this, you know, we I remember watching documentaries 15, 20 years ago, King Corn and whatever, all these different, all these different documentaries that came out. And just and also living it, you know, firsthand with the work that we did at the time. But it's it's definitely, it's definitely much more on our face. And media has a really good way of of spinning it and putting making everything just a disease that we don't have control over. And we have a lot of control over what goes into our body. And there's direct correlations with things that we call diseases and problems now with certain things that have happened, certain things that we're putting in our body, whether it's through our mouth or the reneal or whatever, right? I mean, those are it's there's very specific, you know, turning points, I guess, or stamps on the timeline where you can start seeing correlations. And then all of a sudden, you know, we've got, I don't know what the exact numbers are, but it's pretty bad. Like one in 12 kids have this and one in seven kids have that like it's, and it used to be like either zero or one in 10,000. And this should be eye opening for parents, especially, I've seen, you know, something else I've seen with parents is I've seen parents like, they'll, they'll kind of sort of eat healthy, healthier themselves. But yet they just, they're kids like live off of, you know, these really well-known fast food places, right? Just because it's easy and convenient. And it's fairly cheap. And they think that, and I think to a degree kids are a little more possibly, they have a little more of an ability to fight off some of that crap for maybe a period of time. But if it's their only diet, you know, everything is packaged because it's convenient. That's going to take a toll on, on their, their health. And it's going to, it's setting them up for failure. And it's, to me, it's child abuse. It really is, you know, to see, to see children that are, you know, extremely overweight or extremely inactive. And I feel like we have a little bit of place to say, I have 11 children. We didn't just by chance have 11 healthy children that have never been to the doctor. That didn't just happen by chance. It definitely wasn't a genetic thing. It was the intention that we made as the intentional choices that we made specifically my wife as parents to be in control of, of what goes into our children's bodies. And I'm so happy that you brought this up because this has actually been one of the most frustrating things to me as a non parent watching parents. Again, say that they care so much. And then at the same time, kind of let their children down and put them on this trajectory of developing really bad food habits in general, because we both know that the trajectory of where that goes over a lifetime, I mean, is just so, so significant based on the environment that we are in. Now, just to make sure that we're having the right conversation, you are not a doctor, right? Correct. I'm not a doctor either. But we are two common sense guys. And here is what we are able to say, for whatever reason, based on the food that people eat today, more kids are sick than ever. For whatever reason, based on the food that we eat, obesity is an incredible problem. And it doesn't feel like the systems that we have in place today are there to take care of it. But instead, the marketing and the big pharma and the big brands amplify how big of the problem it is and continue down this direction of letting kids spiral out of control. It feels like every single year, we have new statistics that say our kids are less and less healthy as a whole. And we just go, that's just how it is. How come more parents are not standing up speaking up to their for their children and making sure that we're moving in the right direction, knowing that the outcome of where this is headed is not a good one. I've always kind of, we've always kind of thought that the reason is, I'm pretty sure this is what the reason is, we look at, we look to experts for help, right? And I say experts and quotes, you know, just because someone is just because they have letters at the end of their name doesn't necessarily mean that they have my best interest. Or, and it also doesn't mean that they have the best education on that subject. You know, it's unfortunate, but a lot of, a lot of, a lot of expert positions are, you know, kind of incentivized in the wrong ways. And then that just trickles down to your family. So, so I think it's really important for parents to take initiative with their child's education, with their child's health. And, and instead what we see is just kind of, we kind of push them into a system and just hope for the best. And that's not giving good results at all. And, and I think, I think just people just not knowing what to do or not feeling like they have authority in their own families. You're, you're the child's parent, like you have the most authority in that child's life. And the most impact if you, if you're willing to take it. And, and just, just hoping that you're, your child figures it out is not, it's not a good strategy. But yet that's more commonly what we see happen is parents just, they hoped that the system raises them properly. And then they kind of push them off into the world and then, and then wonder why they can't figure out. And I've been talking about this quite a bit lately, just with, with family and just different things that I've posted about is, is the next generation should not have to start all over from scratch, right? They, they should have this foundation that they can build off of. And if the foundation is all kind of muddled up with, with, with bad habits, like it can't last very long. You know, the obesity is one thing with, with the children, but what about the mental state that, that different, these different foods create? Not to mention the potential lifelong injuries that, that can happen. And it's, yeah, it's, it's sad. I think, I think that parents really should take more in intentional interest in what their children are learning, what they're watching, what they're being exposed to. And I know some parents are concerned about brainwashing their kids or having too much influence or whatever. But the fact is, is like the world is coming at you, whether you, whether you realize it or not, someone is always having an influence and steering your child in those formative years. It's just the facts. And so if you're not the one doing that, someone else is typically that's not good. Because, you know, as a parent, do I have an agenda with my kids? Sure. It's, it's for them to have the best life possible. Yes. And so I have, I should have, and I do, but parents should have the best intentions for their kids and the most intentionality in making those, and those things happen. But instead we put it off on a system and it's not good. Yeah. And it feels like the system is letting us down. And I'm so happy that you brought up this point because this was the final thing that I wanted to discuss with you today. And that is the mental clarity and the ability to make sure that you are able to stay healthy, not only physically, but mentally as well. Tell me about some of the tools that you use to make sure that in the days of doubt, in the times when things aren't going great today. What are the specific things that you choose to do that are keeping you mentally clear in tune with taking care of your family and on this path of being just a great human being? When I hear the words mental clarity, I automatically think of cold therapy. That's what I do. I start my day getting in 44 degree water for two to three minutes. And almost two years of doing it now, it still sucks. But I know that the benefits, it resets my mind. It, it gets me. I don't so much think about, oh, I can, if I can do this hard thing, then I can do other hard things. I mean, that's an element of it. But it just really does reset my mind. One of the things that I've been doing for the last month now is as soon as I get in that water, I put a big smile on my face, which is very out of character for me. I'm embarrassingly to say, but it's, it's just is. I really like that one. And it really has made a difference in my day. And it's made a difference in my conversations with people. It's made a difference in different videos I put together. I, I'm a lot quicker. I have so much to smile about anyway. I don't know why it's so difficult. I get, I think it's, I think it's that, you know, earlier we were talking about men and emotions and stuff like that. I feel like it seems, it's always seemed a week in my mind for a man to smile. And I don't know why I have no idea why. But anyway, that's what I've been doing. Cold therapy. I go straight from that to as silly as it sounds. I hand grind coffee beans still and I do a pour over coffee every morning. That's part of my time to just I'm not on my phone. I'm, I'm just sitting there kind of thinking through what's ahead in my day. More recently, probably the last three or four months, as soon as I am done with my coffee, I go and I'm starting to read through the Bible. When I'm standing there making my coffee, I'm actually thinking about what I read the day before. And, you know, how the stories can continue because I'm just reading it from the beginning to end right now. I've never done that. I've always been around it, but I've never done it. And so those are the, those are the three main things that I do. I typically wake up around five o'clock, you know, within 10 minutes of five a.m. is where my body wakes up. And, and I, that's what I do. I do those, those three things. Then I, you know, jump on to my posting and stuff by the, by the middle of the day or, or, you know, mid afternoon, another reset in my, like, if I'm just having a, like yesterday was one of those days where there were some things that happened to kind of put me like in a, in a kind of a bad state of mind, so to speak. And I did not want to work out, but I went ahead and made my pre-workout and made my protein shake and put my, whatever, I was wearing and just went out and just started working out. And it, and within 10 minutes of the process, I was already thinking of new things to do. I came up with the new challenge that I want to, I've been wanting to know, I've been wanting to put a challenge together. Uh, because that's, it just kind of brings interaction with other guys and it just kind of, it's really neat to see guys push through something that's not so fun or not so easy. And so I came up with, uh, the beginning of a challenge yesterday. And this was on an off day. Like I don't have too many off days anymore, but yesterday I did. And it's funny because I've, I'm really, if they're, if I hear of something that could potentially make me like not like genuinely feel better and be beneficial for my life, then I'll, I'll kind of try it. And I've been hearing a lot about nicotine lately. And I don't know anything about it, but I was listening to Andrew Huberman and Tucker Carlson and, uh, entertained and just different people talk about nicotine, not smoking, but nicotine. And so I've heard about some of these positive side effects as well. Yeah. Yeah. I actually tried something yesterday and it was not good, not good for me at all. It's on a fast and stomach. And so that was what put me on this path about having a bad day. So it was so stupid. But anyway, um, and it's funny because my wife's like, you already feel good. Like why do you want to, I'm like, well, maybe I could feel better. But anyway, I didn't. It was really bad. And by, yeah, about 10, 10 minutes into working out, I was already feeling much better clarity of mine. And it just, it really is a good mental reset for me. Um, there's not really a whole lot I do in the evenings right now, other than, um, I finally have my journal next to my bedside, but I haven't started writing any clues. But I'm getting closer. It's something that I've wanted to do for over 15 years. I've got several children that journal in different manners. And I'm always kind of envious of it. I think it's, uh, I think it's a really great way to just kind of release some thoughts, uh, gain some ideas. And it's a good way. I think it'll be a really good way to end in the day. So yeah, JD, even the story about nicotine, just, I mean, it shows who you are as a person. You are going through this process of trial and error, trying to find something that sticks something that works. I have so much appreciation for you opening the door to having positive conversations because I feel like the real value of everything that you do is in this space of just helping people talk about things the right way. I literally cannot wait to see where it is that you go because the work you're doing is so, so incredible. Thank you so much for sharing this time and space with us rather. Yeah, thanks for having me. This was, this was good. It's good. Yeah. And we are so excited to see you next time. Thank you guys for listening and we'll see you next time. [BLANK_AUDIO]