Hello and welcome to another episode of the Present Fathers podcast.
This was originally recorded as a Twitter spaces
or X, whichever you prefer.
And our guest in this episode was Dan Go.
Dan is a very large influencer
in the world of health and fitness,
not necessarily for getting as big as you can,
but just general health that you can apply to your life through this spaces.
There was a lot of great conversation and he gives a lot of practical advice
that you can take into your life to improve it.
So enjoy.
Leave us a comment and rate the show.
We appreciate all your support and hope you enjoy.
Take care.
thank you for everyone listening.
Dan, I am so excited to chat with you.
I love your content.
I have probably learned more from you
than I have from anyone else on X.
You dig into interesting esoteric stuff.
When you did that material on taping, I was like, you went there.
That is so cool. I love that.
So I'm actually going to ask you about this during this a little chat here.
Did you see the the tennis
player who they started
or the professional tennis players started to use male tape for her training?
I have not.
What's her name? E, I think it's IGT.
I forgot.
It is just search like tennis player, mouth tape and then fox News
should have like an article on her.
And it's cool because
now she's she's actually training so like I don't know she's eager
SWE attacks with
totally kibosh on the name Switek.
Yeah.
She's the world's number one tennis player,
world's number one women's tennis player and she match is very nice.
So basically our coach got her to start taping.
She's like, I don't know.
I was like, I'm doing this right now, but I'm doing it.
And I
just like,
cool, This is this is good for me, you know,
because it kind of validates the things that I was talking about.
So yeah, you love to see that.
Absolutely.
All right, cool.
Well, let's go get started.
So, hello and welcome to the Present Fathers podcast.
This is the show that focuses on climbing the mountain of fatherhood together.
Our guest tonight is Dan Go,
the architect of the High Performance founder platform.
I recently completed the program, and I have to say the approach to
discipline and time management is unique,
and I found it immensely helpful.
He's a proud father and an innovative fitness expert
dedicated to providing life changing health and wellness content.
So, Dan, welcome.
Thank you so much for joining us.
For those listeners who aren't familiar with your content,
can you tell us a little bit about your fatherhood journey?
It's yeah, Yeah, for sure.
So I have a three and a half year old daughter
and we also have a man,
I think she's like, she's almost like four months now.
So we have two daughters.
And it was actually in April of 2020
when I first decided to get on Twitter.
And that's also when I had my first child as well.
And it's been it's been an incredible ride
because a lot of the things that I've been talking about
when it comes to health have been more like,
I guess you could say,
like more mental and generational than they have been tactical.
Like you don't see me arguing with other people
about like the squats better or like the deadlift better,
The devil does better or you know, which diet is like cool or whatever it is.
Like, my whole thing is to make sure that I make fitness accessible,
especially for people who are parents and
and do so in a way that that
that makes it just easy for them to do,
or at least simple for them to do,
rather than trying to complicate the whole process.
And and I help entrepreneurs do this.
This is like part of what we do in our coaching program.
It's what you did in the Lean Body in 98.
We really want to kind of just like simplify the entire process
of getting in shape because
most people don't need complicated processes.
They actually need simple solutions,
especially with what we're dealing with in the 21st century where,
you know, over half the population is going to be obese or overweight.
And and yet that's
I mean, when it comes to like parenthood
and staying in shape,
if I'm being completely honest, it's like fucking hard.
I mean, like, it's not easy.
It's not easy because like, I always look at I'm
just putting my standing desk down right now.
But I always look at things
as like the layers of complexity in terms of like your life.
So when you're single and you don't have that many responsibilities,
you basically have all the time in the world
to do whatever you want.
And when you add a business on top of that,
that adds a layer of complexity.
And then when you add
children and a family on top of that,
that actually adds about like five times
or five X, the amount of complexity that you had before.
So when it comes to getting in shape, like you don't
necessarily need to do things that are hard or complicated,
what you need to do is you need to find simple
solutions that work for your life.
And then your life is constantly changing your circumstances
are constantly changing.
Your kids are constantly evolving.
They're constantly growing, God willing.
So we want to make sure that we keep things as simple for you
as possible when it comes to the aspect of getting you healthy.
I love that.
Dan Yeah, arguing over whether you should deadlift or squat.
If you're doing either, you're probably ahead of 99%.
So you know, what are we doing talking about these, these, these things.
So congrats on your new daughter.
What a joy.
Only four months old.
Yeah, I bet she's super cute. Yeah.
So I know that you pride yourself on your physical balance.
Can you give us a piece of advice that you would give to new dads
like yourself trying to balance your fitness and your fatherhood?
Well, the very first thing I would say is to
do is to schedule.
I mean, that's the very first thing, at least for me.
I'm a guy that works by my calendar.
If I have a call like I have this on my calendar right now,
I need I'm basically treating this like a flight.
I'm not going to miss it.
And I never had to do this before when I didn't have kids.
Like, I could just basically like, you know, jump off and just get
out of my house at any time that I wanted and hit up a workout any time I want.
And it's not like that anymore.
Like, I need to be very strategic with the way that I use time
and I have to be very scheduled
and also routine, like in the way that I put these things in my calendar.
So in my calendar right now, like
I have workouts
three times a week at least I put these
and actually I put these in orange because I like the color orange.
So it makes it a little bit more enjoyable for me.
But I put these basically
as like flights that I cannot miss.
The next thing I would do,
you know, when it comes to being a dad and staying fit
is to just really understand
that when especially like during the stages of raising your children,
your children are going to go through many stages like the very I actually
consider the first stage of like newborn
or a newborn coming into the world
to be literally the hardest stage
because, number one, it's a newborn.
You, you know, you're adapting to kind of like
bring a new human into the world.
The other thing is, they're lacking sleep.
You don't have as much energy
or have as much kind of drive
to hit the gym as you did before.
So you you have to understand that these circumstances
are always going to change the thing
that you have to hold yourself to is going to be
a standard of what you feel is necessary for you.
And I have different levels when it comes to the people that I work with.
So let's just say like, you know, you're a guy that ah, is working out often
and this is a part of your routine, that's cool.
Then you want to set the standard for at least like going to the gym
at least like three days a week for however much time.
And we'll get into the time later for people who are just starting out
or people are just kind of like getting back into the game,
restarting or whatever it is, I like to kind of set
the standard to be quite low
when it comes to the standard for them.
It could be at least like at the very least, like
two times a week, 30 minutes each time, and just making sure that you're
just knocking that down twice a week,
just getting the bare minimum done.
And I call this the minimum effective dose, right?
You want the minimum effective dose for yourself to make sure
that you keep the ball rolling, to make sure that you don't have to, like
push the rock up the hill in terms of just getting this back into your routine,
you want something as a standard to hold yourself to.
And then the final part, when it comes
to the nutrition aspect of things,
and this is a little bit controversial because, you know,
I've had people kind of like fight back on this one.
But I really like the idea of
just like eating very similar things
every single day to keep the complication out of it.
I think as long as you're getting the nutrients and as long as you're
getting the right amounts of calories and proteins in there,
you know, you want to keep your palate quite simple
and you want to make sure that eating is also a routine.
I call this like the Steve Jobs turtleneck of like eating, which is like to eat
similar meals every single day so you don't have to worry or wonder
about like what you're going to be eating or what's in it or anything like that.
And you can just like, just go with this.
You can eat your meal, keep things simple, and then understand
that this is actually going to help in keeping you somewhat lean.
So, I mean, those are probably like the first things
I would say when it comes to staying fit as a parent.
And I'm going to say this from a context of a guy who's let's just say
I'm saying from a context of a guy who's actually done this for himself.
Now my context is that I've been working out
since I was like 20 years old or in my early twenties.
Now, for a guy who's just like becoming a first time
parent who hasn't necessarily been working out of that,
like 35 years old or 38 years
old, it's going to be completely different.
So you have to understand that my standards for myself
should not be the standards that you hold for yourself.
You have to do things that are going to give you the wins
that you need and give you the minimum effective dose that you need.
And in yeah man, like I'm
all for kind of like just doing enough, especially as a parent.
And then if you do enough that you can always
ramp up later on, that makes so much sense.
I hate to hear that because I love eating all kinds of different foods,
but I think that is a big reason that I struggle with dietary
discipline is that I do like all those different kinds of foods.
And I know that if I
followed a more simple diet like you do, it would make things a lot easier.
Yeah, for sure.
For sure.
It's, you know, it's
you have to you have to understand.
It's like, okay, so how much do we value Variety, right?
And where do we get these types of variety from?
And that's cool.
If you want to eat
like a whole bunch of different foods and all that kind of stuff.
But, you know, with, with variety also comes complexity,
especially when it comes to like the foods that you read.
And I also like to say that there is like
a certain attunement towards like mouth pleasure
that a lot of people have, and that's okay.
You know, we derive like joy
from the foods that we eat and that's okay.
But also we have to understand that,
you know, hey, there are certain limits to that as well.
Like a lot of people, just they got to eat something different every single day.
Well, guess what?
Like, you know, maybe that's something to kind of like
peer into and look into, you know, if
if you always need variety in terms of like what you're doing,
there is a certain type
of discipline and also simplicity that comes with kind
of doing the same things over and over and over makes a lot of sense.
The more complex your diet and your life is, the harder it is to follow.
That does. Yeah, absolutely.
So now I want to also,
like throw in their like if you do have resources and you do have
if you do have more resources than the average person,
I would say doing something
as simple as like getting meal prep delivery to your house
is probably one of the easiest ways
to have variety and also
to to take the cooking out of your
your hands and simplify your life.
That's something that myself and my family do.
We don't like.
I cook my dinners, but my lunches are all taken care of
because we get like meal prep delivery.
So that's also something that you guys
that you could look into that makes a lot of sense.
Definitely, chopping vegetables is not my favorite thing to do in the world.
So if I can outsource that and let someone else do it, that's
definitely a win.
So speaking of standards and some challenging conversations,
we've all heard the old joke Don't talk to your wife about fitness.
Don't talk to your kids about it.
It just offend them.
They're going to think you're calling them fat.
I think.
What are some of the best secrets that you have for fathers
to play an active role in promoting fitness for the family?
Is it possible or do you just have to stay away from that, that landmine?
The very first thing is
the being the dad himself and being the example, right?
So I've had so many clients
where their families don't workout,
their kids don't workout or they don't exercise.
They're all eating, you know, a specific way that
that maybe is not healthy for them.
And most of the times,
like the dads, they don't say anything.
They don't tell their kids to eat this, eat that,
to do this exercise, or tell their wives to do this or that.
I mean, what they do is they become the example.
And when the like
I'll use an example, this guy that I used to work with
when we started to work with
each other, he wasn't exercising, wasn't doing anything.
You want to get in a routine.
He didn't even he didn't even think about anything
about his family, like getting in shape or anything like that.
He just wanted to do it for himself.
After like 12 weeks
of working together and after 12 weeks of getting into the gym,
like three times a week after him losing 33lbs.
off of his body, after him changing the way he's eating,
what happened as a result is that
his life started to get a trainer.
His kids started to join him inside of the weight room.
He actually has like three kids, three boys.
And that's the thing.
It's like you can't tell people what to do.
And the more that you kind of like, push people towards,
say, working out
or even eating a certain way, you're probably going
to push them further away from it, depending on who that person is.
I know if someone's telling me to do something,
I'm going
to do the complete opposite of them.
And this also reminds me of the story I had with my dad
when I was when I was like
probably in my teens or twenties.
I used to go over like raving on a regular basis.
Like I would I would like, do drugs.
I would like come home at like 6 a.m.
in the morning and I would be completely,
like blitzed out of my mind every single time that I that I would
so one day or one night
I came home at like 6 a.m.
in the morning.
And then as I open that door,
I see my dad, like right in the foyer
right there, staring him straight in the face.
And my, my pupils are probably dilated at that very moment.
So I try to play it off and they try to be like,
okay, well, you know, hey, how's it going?
Where are you going right now?
And then basically it's always just like, I'm going to the gym.
And he didn't say nothing after that.
He just left.
He went to the gym, did this thing, and they did that
for the next six months.
Now, after me
seeing that over and over and over, him not being like,
you should work out or anything, he never said that to me.
I was like, Hey, maybe I should hit the gym.
Maybe I should do that.
So I'm not going to say that
a dad should actually be the one
to tell the parent or to be the one to tell their family.
You should do this and you should do that.
That's probably the wrong way to go about it.
I would actually say do it yourself
and be so immersed in the process of actually doing it.
Change your own body, transform your own body,
get your ass in shape.
And then when you do that, what happens as a result is
your family is going to choose whether or not they want to follow that.
And more often than not, I've actually seen
the families start to follow suit as well. So.
So yeah,
I would say that the most important thing is like literally be the example.
Do not shout from the rooftops anything that you're doing
and just like set the standard for how you treat your body
and then that's going to eventually seep into the people that you're influencing,
which is going to be your family is showing with you every single day.
Wow, I love that. That makes so much sense.
Then lead by example.
And I think that's the issue is if I'm kind of out of shape or not
exercising and I'm trying to tell my kids, Oh, you need to eat
better and exercise, they see I'm not doing that.
So what reason do they have to follow my empty example?
Yeah, exactly.
And and that's the thing. It's like
kids don't really do what you tell them to.
They do what they see.
They don't do what you say.
They do what they see.
And if you're the one
that is just staying quiet
and they see you drop and 20, 30, whatever amount of pounds
off of your body, they see you hitting the gym.
They see you choosing the right foods to eat.
And then they also see the energy that comes along with it.
The increased focus, the way in which you're more present.
What's going to happen as a result is
they're going to be like, I kind of want that.
That looks cool to me, but
it only happens through you setting.
The example only happens through your actions, not through
not through sitting on the soapbox
and telling people what to do, especially if you're not doing them.
Be the example. That's a role as a dad.
I love that.
So I'm going to go to my co-host, Brandon here.
He had a question about mental health.
Hey, Dan.
So I wanted to discuss the role of mental health
in your approach to fitness and fatherhood.
You mentioned self-care.
So how do you prioritize that, especially as a dad
in terms of mental health?
Number one is
for me at least,
and I can't speak for everyone else,
it comes with a great deal of introspection.
That's the very first thing
I, I don't I have gone through therapy.
I've done sessions and guides.
I've had a therapist before, but
I really have this.
I have this little process that I do with myself,
and it goes in one or two ways.
So number one
is me
talking to myself as if I was like my own best friend.
And I either write in journal or I type in the journal, or
I use an Evernote for this and
basically just have a conversation with myself.
How are you feeling?
You know, what's going on with you?
This is what I'm feeling.
This is what's going on.
I'm going to be completely honest.
Like right now, we're going through
somewhat of a hard time.
One of our family members
is in the hospital
and we're going back and forth and we're just
and it's a fucking serious thing right now.
And one of the things that I'm doing
is trying to be as strong as possible for my family.
But also I'm asking myself
like, Dude, how do you feel?
I feel fuckin’ sad, I feel angry.
I feel like I'm helpless.
I feel so uncertain about everything that's happening around me.
And the thing is, is that
we don't really have an outlet for that.
And this is like another person that we're talking to.
But for like the first person
that we should be talking to is ourselves.
So journaling goes a long way and getting introspective
and also taking all those thoughts that you have
in your mind, putting them down on paper
and just getting real with what's happening up there.
Like you need some sort of mental outlet for that. Now
there is something to be said
about the fact of these routines that you have for yourself
that help mitigate or actually help
promote better health.
One of them is exercise.
So for me, one of those
like one of the actually a daily domino
for me, becoming mentally and physically healthier
has been going to the gym
and just exercising on a regular basis.
That was like I remember the first time actually like
before I kind of like did all this Twitter stuff.
And when I was like 20 years old, I was a fucking loser.
I like maybe I am still a loser or not, who knows?
Like maybe some people the couple is, I don't know, but
I was like a fucking high school dropout.
I couldn't.
I wasn't reading anything.
I couldn't even, like, focus on one thing
for greater than, like, 2 minutes at a time.
I was overweight.
I was doing I was basically working this like dead
end job that I fucking hated.
And then once my dad set the example,
he was like, Hey, you know what they are Actually,
he gave us this month long pass to my brother.
And then my brother's like, Nah, I don't want this.
So just like, it's closer, you like, pass it down to me.
And then once he gave it to me, I was just like, you know, I ain't doing nothing.
I'm not doing nothing with my life right now.
It's like, if anything, like maybe I'm going to see some hot girls at the gym,
you know, And, and then they started to go to the gym
and I was like, it's like if I just go to the gym,
it gives me something to do for the next, like 1 to 2 hours.
So I walked, went to the gym.
And after about like two weeks, I remember putting on my
my belt and I was like, What the fuck?
Like, it's down a notch.
And I haven't even, like, dieted.
I haven't even done anything.
I've just been lifting weights like rather horribly.
So one of the other things
that I noticed was how my brain was working.
I was starting to think a little bit more positively.
I was starting to take control of things that I could take control of.
And exercise has been shown
to be one and a half times more effective
than therapy or medication,
and they have actually done
the study at the University of Australia just came out with it.
They said exercise is is
one and a half times more effective
than talk therapy or
any SSRI that you can ever put into your body.
I never realized that at the time, but just me moving
my body allowed my brain to work a lot better.
It also brought a lot more,
I guess you could say, just like positive mental thoughts,
I guess because think about it this way.
It's like when you were like working out and when were like adding weight to the
to the bar or in Dustin's case, like his kettlebell is 50lb.
kettlebell.
You know, what happens as a result of a result of that
is like you get these little progressive, like we do things called
progressive overload, which is like you make these little tiny gains
after you do a weight that you haven't done before and you see
kind of like these gains adding up slowly but surely.
That is like a tiny little win
that you can take home for you with yourself.
So I would say like the routine of exercise,
whatever it is, like if it's like walking or if it's like
lifting weights or even this, it's a combination of both.
I highly recommend like those are two types of things
that is going to make you mentally healthy.
You Now the last part is the part
that was the last part for me to kind of get an order actually.
So not the last part, but second.
Last part is the nutrition aspect of things.
So what were what we're learning right now is like the foods that you put into
your body are going to have a direct effect on your brain.
And any time actually that a study I just posted this,
I think I just posted this on Instagram on my stories
where they did this, I think it was the Fremington study
where they showed that people who drink
sugary drinks on a regular basis,
they find that they are a little bit
inhibited in terms of their decision making, in terms of the mood control.
They see slightly less activity inside of their brains.
And and that's the thing.
It's like when you're
putting ultra processed foods and sugary drinks into your body.
And especially in my case, I was like drinking a supersize Coke
multiple times every day, every single day.
If not, basically it was like a staple and like in
in our in our diet because our parents were like latchkey.
We're actually we were latchkey kids and our parents were working all the time.
So all they did was like, get us like, you know, McDonald's,
those value meals or whatever,
which comes with the fries and the coke and whatnot.
And and that's the thing.
It's like we have to understand that the nutrients that we put
into our bodies, whether they be positive or negative,
they're going to have an effect on our brain.
So being able to change up,
you know, my diet from eating ultra
processed foods, from going from
like McDonald's to eating things like me
and veggies, things of that nature,
even something like taking a multivitamin
that went a long way
in changing or actually changing my brain chemistry
and allowing myself to just feel better mentally.
Now, the last part is going to be sleep.
And sleep is probably going to be what I'm going to say
is like the lead domino, because like think about this way.
When you I'm going to I'm going to do two situations.
So one of them is called the Vicious Cycle.
So when you don't get enough sleep,
you don't have enough energy,
the next day your appetite is increased
and that's going to make you do two things.
One, it's going to make you not really want to go work out or get the gym.
Two, It's also going to make you want to eat pretty shift foods
and do it and limit them.
And when you do that, what's going to happen
is, is that when you try to go back to sleep,
your your energy is not necessarily going to be or actually
you're not going to have the best sleep because you have an exercise and because
the foods Now, on the other hand, if you actually prioritize sleep,
if you do things like we were talking about this earlier,
which is like the mouth saving thing, I mean, it's
I know it's like a very counterintuitive thing, but
it actually helped my sleep insult a lot of my clients.
Sleep immensely.
If you do things to fix your sleeping habits
and also do things to increase the quality of your sleep,
what happens as a result is you have more energy and then next day
this makes you want to use it to go workout.
You also have your appetite to be super
regulated and also for a lot of people when they work out, they want to make
better decisions inside of their nutrition or inside of their meals
and then once you get a workout in and you're eating well,
what happens as a result is like when you get down to the end of the day
and you've already worked out, you depleted your energy,
you're ready to go to sleep at a at a nominal time.
And that kind of creates this virtuous cycle of health.
So I look at like mental health as as starting
with kind of like your own ability to be introspective,
but it's also helped with the physical things that you do for yourself.
The pillars that we talk about, which are going to be
exercise, sleep and nutrition.
I completely agree.
And I think it's amazing that you tied food as one.
And sleep is one of the primary things because
it's a form of regeneratrive uh regenerative medicine.
Right.
And there's a book Dr.
Mark Hyman wrote. It's called Forever Young.
It's an incredible book.
And it talks about this.
And one of the two distinct things he talks about is that we have
two different types of ages, both chronic, chronological aging
and our biological age and our biological age
is is really important because it controls the quality.
Right?
And so part of the mental health is one you have to realize, okay,
I have some things I need to improve on and I've got to fix them.
And when you're consistent with yourself
and your self-care, you keep promises to yourself.
I just feel like it's going to be such
a better journey and root for you
when you're when you're pursuing fitness and health.
So I love that is it was one of the now quotable.
Dan had a question for you and we're going to open it up to him real quick.
Awesome. Hey, guys.
Hey, thanks, Dustin and Brandon for hosting this.
This is awesome.
And Dan, really a big fan of yours, so I'm glad to be up here.
So apologies.
I'm a little out of breath because I'm getting my minimal
minimum viable dose and kind of out in the backyard
multitasking while we do the space.
But yeah,
like I agreed, I think was like 100% of what you said.
Dan and even with Dustin and Brandon were saying,
I'm in my forties, I have five kids.
So I especially agree with,
you know, the minimum viable dosage
and keeping food simple so you know what you're going to get.
Like that's I mean,
those both are advice that I have taken to heart.
I guess my question is it's kind of building on the one
about being a good example to your family.
If you take that outer layer and you have,
you know, your in-laws, your friends, maybe
especially like old friends that used to be
drinking buddies with,
what is your general approach?
I mean, I've taken a pretty rigid stance
in my life about no drinking.
You know, I've weeded out sugar.
It does make certain times challenging.
Like you know, it's Thanksgiving and your buddies are going out for a drink.
You want to hang out with them.
But but they, like literally will say
you're being lame to not drink with them.
You get, you know, the holidays.
You know, you're baking cookies for your kids, but you're not eating them.
So it's kind of a mixed signal you're sending
and that I'm always in war with my in-laws over
like not eating bundt cake once a week for every special occasion.
I'm just not going to do it.
So I love to hear your approach, Like,
how do you find a balance there or do you not find a balance?
And you just kind of go full tilt
and embrace it and try to be that example?
Great question.
And one of the things that's
one thing
that comes to mind is, is actually
it's actually two things that come to mind.
So let's talk about kind of like the sugar aspect of things.
First.
I have a totally different philosophy when it comes to sugar.
I don't necessarily see it being something
where
it is a incredible detriment
to your self or your health.
It is only in the excessive amounts
or that happens now
when it comes to kind of like eating sugar, it's like
I like to literally
keep things as flexible as humanly possible.
I find that the best diets that are out
there are going to be flexible
and they're going to be incorporating some form of flexibility.
It's like if my daughter wants to go for an ice cream
at this place that we have downtown, you know,
and maybe we haven't done it for like a week or so
and we're going to fucking go, you know,
and I'm going to have that ice cream with my daughter.
Now, when it comes to like, social situations,
I mean, I'm
a little bit I'm a little bit different in this, whereas like,
I do not give a fuck
and I've developed this over the course of
probably like 15, 20 years.
Like I literally do not care what people tell me
when it comes to the things that I put into my body,
because I have gone through the gauntlet
of being shamed for actually, we call this
instead of fat shaming, we call this fit shaming.
And I've been through it.
You know, no one talks about fit shaming,
but they do is like, Oh, yeah, you're on the diet.
Maybe you going to it.
You're so thin And like all it's kind of like, fuck that, who cares?
I don't care.
And for me, I've gone through it so many times where people just know,
like, you know, if you do it enough times, people just know not to say it to you.
People just know
like that is what your standard is
and that is what you're holding yourself to.
And that's the thing.
It's like you expose yourself enough, you do this enough,
you stick to your guns enough, especially on the times that you know
that you don't want to do it and you stick to those guns.
People will stop bothering you.
I know that for a fact.
Now, when it comes to alcohol,
like I've stopped drinking alcohol probably
for almost a full on year.
Here's the thing about alcohol.
It's given me such a perspective on
who I was hanging around
because I was drinking alcohol and who I was hanging around
because I actually liked being around them in the first place.
So something I noticed with a lot of my friends, like, well,
the ones that you know, I've kept around
is the fact that
when I hang with them and they're drinking and I'm not drinking,
they're not shaming me, they're just not, well,
number one, because they know that I'm not drinking alcohol
and they know that this is the standard that I've set for myself.
And number two, I've probably exposed them enough
to expose them enough times.
To me, being able to stick to my guns and not allowing
shame or anything like that to draw me towards
whatever behaviors that they're trying to draw me to.
And the other thing is, is like
sort of people I used to like hang around
because I was drinking
or because I would only hang around because I was drinking.
I stopped hanging around them,
You know, like a big part of like growing up for me
is just like getting rid of the people that were there
because they enable certain behaviors inside of you.
So one of them for me was like drinking.
The other one was like, you know, smoking marijuana or whatever it is.
There are just some people out there that you just hang around
and the only hang around them because they're doing the substance.
And then once you stop doing the substance and you hang around them, you're like,
I don't even fucking like this person.
This person is boring.
This person's only fun when I'm like, Hi.
So, so that's that's kind of the thing I would say about alcohol.
It's like, I guess once, like your friends will know and yes,
maybe in the beginning they'll shame you or whatever it is.
But over time, like beginning with them, you're sober around them.
You actually get to know like who the fuck you actually like
hang around in the first place and who you don't like hanging around.
And then there's the person who keeps on trying to like,
shame you into like, doing something that you don't want to do.
Like to me, that's like a signal, like someone that doesn't
really feel comfortable with the fact that you're not doing
the behavior that they were trying to enable you to do.
That's something to consider when you're hanging around these people.
Like for me, I'll be honest.
Like, I keep things as simple as humanly possible when it comes to my life.
Like family is like number one to me.
And the people I hang around are number two, right?
It doesn't mean that they're like, you know, that Let's just say, like,
they're actually they are kind of like
they are definitely less important than my family, but it's still important.
But but again, that's the that's
the hierarchal nature of like the way that I run my life.
So for me, my family, if there is or they still love me and I'm doing
everything I can to be with them, they're cool, you know?
I mean, that's that's good with me.
Now, if it comes to like, my friends, I get to pick and choose.
So I allowed them to plant life and and again, if I don't like the behavior
that they're, you know, using with me, then,
you know, like, I don't have this like some cost fallacy
when it comes to the people that I keep around my life.
You know, like people are either there for a season
or they're there for a reason.
And and that's the thing.
It's like we just have to realize that, you know,
that's that's what it is when it comes to like when it comes down to friends.
And this is not to say that, you know, I don't have friends that I haven't known
since high school like I do like they're back in Toronto and I love them
and they hang around them and and yeah, they don't shame me or anything like that
for not drinking or not eating like cake or anything like that.
But, but again it's a pretty hard stance.
But again that's, that's the standard that at home in my life.
Yeah they are really good answers I tend to agree with them 100 percent.
I think we've done a generational damage on
guys our age thinking that, you know,
it's like the marketing behind alcohol.
You're not actually going to have fun unless you have alcohol when you go out.
And I think people fear that.
So like I love hearing you and other people say that,
you know, it can be done and actually the other way around that
it's probably more fun and enjoyable to have intellectual conversations
with people who aren't out drinking or high.
So, yeah, keep sending that message.
I'm going to do.
Thanks, man.
I appreciate it. Yeah, absolutely.
It's it's harder to to kind of get rid of those people.
But once you do, you really get your eyes open to things.
And as far as sugar
goes, speaking to eye opening we had Calley Means do a space with us.
And let me tell you, man, I have definitely cut
back my sugar intake.
Yeah, that man will wake you up
to the things that are going on in our world. But
I wanted to kind of change gears here for a second.
So as far as like technology
and its rise, how do you approach screen time and tech in your household?
Do you plan to use any kind of apps or tools or anything with your kids
or family?
Yeah, one of the things I use is something called a kitchen safe.
So like, I'm I'm in a very interesting position
right now where my livelihood depends on technology
and it also depends on social media at the moment.
So, you know, when you go on
to these platforms like you realize,
you may not realize it or it may, but, you know,
what happens is, is that you're walking into a into a frickin casino
every single time that you open up your phone and go on social media.
That's something I have to remind myself every single day.
So one of the things that I do for myself
is like when the workday is done
and when I have to get deep work done
and kind of like not be distracted,
I basically put my phone into something called the kitchen safe.
It's like the small little box that comes with a timer,
and then you set the time for like, whatever it is, and then it locks it
and then after that, can't touch your phone whatsoever,
you know, And something about the phone as well.
And technology is the fact that every single time that you look at it,
it reminds me of the time that I used to smoke cigarettes.
So like the idea of smoking being addictive.
Yes, it is addictive, but also it is the way
is the Pavlovian response of like the mechanism of like
always putting that cigarette to your mouth that you have to get rid of.
So one of the things that we are addicted to is like
just like the slumped cross
looking posture of like looking into our phones and,
and just like peering at it and putting it up to our faces.
We have to kind of like get rid of that Pavlovian response.
And my best way of doing that is to literally remove it
out of my environment and to lock it up and to get rid of it.
So, I mean, that's like
and I also use things like Freedom App and like all this kind of stuff
to like block these websites.
Now something that I am looking to try, which I'm not going to be doing
until the new iPhone comes out, which is probably going to be like
September is there's this thing called George Mac
and I talked about it, which is called the cocaine phone
and the cell phone,
which is the idea that, you know, on one phone you keep
all your social media stuff and like everything like your email
and like all that kind of stuff up there.
And these these things are going to be the things
that you're usually going to be addicted to.
And you have another phone, which is just going to be for making calls
and doing and basically being reached out to like
calls, text messages and things of that nature.
And it's not necessarily something I'm doing right now,
but it's actually something I'm going to be trying out later. Now.
Yeah, that's that's probably the way I'm doing it.
It's a little bit more like hardcore in a sense,
but for me it's like avoidance is the best form
of getting rid of an addiction inside of my life.
So the kitchen safe is like one of those things
that I use to help me make that happen.
I love I couldn't agree more, man, because we live in a society
where it's distracted from distraction by distraction, you know what I mean?
And so it's it's sort of something in there as well.
One more thing you said.
So something I realized about myself
is the fact that
every single time that I reach for my phone,
it is trying to numb myself
of something that I'm trying to avoid.
So that could be boredom,
that could be an emotional feeling.
That could be something that I'm trying
it could be like a conversation I'm trying to avoid as well.
But every single time that I bring my phone up and use that
as a distraction, every single addiction that we have inside of our lives,
these are numbing agents
that we're not necessarily addicted to them for
for like any kind of like, you know, odd reason.
It's because we're trying to numb ourselves of something.
This is something that I realized about myself.
So when I'm feeling uncomfortable,
my go to is to pick up my phone and to look at it.
So like I said before,
with kind of like introspection,
like I put that shit down on paper
and I'm like, What am I uncomfortable with?
Like,
what is it inside of me that I'm comfortable with?
And I am comfortable with being by myself or being bored
or being within my own thoughts.
Am I uncomfortable with my own thoughts?
What is it?
And these are the types of things that we should ask ourselves,
especially when it comes to like something like being addicted to the phone.
We're not necessarily addicted to the consumption of information.
We're addicted to the avoidance of something that is going on in our lives.
So that is where the introspection comes from.
And I had to add that in because because again,
it always comes back to us
taking ownership over our actions
and in doing things
because it gives us some sort of benefit.
Now what is that benefit for us?
And usually it's going to be the avoidance of something that's incredible.
Yeah. So you have setbacks like this, right?
You have challenges where you're unhappy,
you have this discomfort or anxiety and you reach for your phone.
Do you plan for these kinds of setbacks?
And if you do, how do you handle them?
When it comes to setbacks?
I'm just like, take it really easy on myself.
And again, going along the lines of what I said
before is like going through,
you know, this thing that we're going through with our
with our family member.
Things are starting to look good right now, right?
Things are starting to look like there's
a light at the end of the tunnel.
But then I always remind myself, like, hey, guess what?
Like growth and solutions are never linear.
They're never a straight line process.
What's going to happen as a result is, is that I understand
and I remind myself that there are going to be setbacks.
I mean, I think like, you know,
one of the science based ways of of actually making a goal
a reality is to prewrite or to predetermine
what are all the obstacles that are going to be there, that are going
to take you away from achieving the goal that you set for yourself.
So so one of the things that you do to make yourself to make it
a really is to understand that there are going to be setbacks,
to predetermine what those setbacks are going to be,
or try to do it to the best of your ability.
And then at the same time,
when these setbacks, setbacks happen, what's going to happen
is, is that, number one, like you're going to take it easy on yourself.
You're going to talk to yourself like you would your best friend.
You're not going to be like, oh, you fucking stupid,
Why would you fucking do that?
What you will not like, you know,
treat yourself as you would someone that you completely hate.
You would give yourself compassion and be like, Yeah, okay, cool.
You made a mistake.
We all make mistakes.
Sometimes you're going to make multiple mistakes.
That's okay.
So I'm going to make the same multiple mistake over and over and over.
And that's okay.
You're going to you're going to keep on doing that until you actually learn.
And that's the thing.
It's like you want to understand that these things are going to happen.
Take it easy on yourself
and then all you got to do is just like, focus on one.
I want to stay focused on one.
It's like, what is the next one?
Action that I can take
that is going to push me in the direction
of the momentum that I want to create inside of my life.
And maybe that's like, you know, if if I have a setback with my phone
and I'm like going on it, I'll be like, Oh,
okay, get the frickin kitchen safe.
I'll put it in there, set the time,
be done with it, turn it on.
Just whatever the one action is that's going to set you off
in the next direction that you want to go into, that's what you focus on.
And then you do it and then, you know, hopefully it works
and hopefully it doesn't.
But then you have to understand that just be patient with yourself
because these like changing something significant in your life
is going to take time, whether it's losing weight,
whether it's getting away from your phone, whether it's doing anything
significant in your life that's going to make it better.
It's going to take some time.
Everyone treats all these things like a six week fucking challenge
when it's not, you know, these are things that you work on
for a year, if not more than that.
And that's the thing.
It's like if you're giving yourself like a time horizon of a year,
if not more than that, to achieve the thing that you want to achieve
or to get rid of whatever habit that you want, get rid of,
then you would be a lot more easy on yourself
as a result because of thinking that there's like this
like imaginary deadline and that you're behind at something.
So I would actually say that's just like compassion.
Be easy, understand it's going to happen, try to learn from it
and then give yourself like a longer time horizon to understand
that you can just be patient with yourself in trying to eradicate this thing.
Being kind to ourselves is so hard.
That's such a great message.
And speaking about long term challenges,
Shane had a question for you about alcohol.
Yeah, it was more of a comment.
But you know, Dan mentioned something earlier
that really kind of struck a chord with me.
I'm 43.
For seven years I was vegetarian, no sugar, no nothing.
And we'd go to parties and be the only guy not eating cake.
I haven't drank alcohol since I was 23,
and it was more so because I've got addictive tendencies
and if I don't set I like a hard perimeter,
then I fall right back into it.
But I recognize not everybody has
the same addictive tendencies.
And over the years, you know, in the last 20 years
when I've had friends fall into addiction,
those same friends that used to troll me
at parties for not drinking and try to shove a drink in my face,
you know how they come to the person they know that you know,
has successfully given it up.
You know, I don't want to make it sound like I have a problem
with other people drinking because I don't.
There's some people that they can handle moderation,
but then there's the rest of us
that if we don't set that head of thorns around whatever it is,
we tend to fall into, we'll walk right back into it.
So yeah, I'm
just 100% and I'm glad that you know yourself.
I mean, that's that's the thing about it's like,
you know who you are and you know what your tendencies are.
And, and I'm kind of like yourself in the sense
where it's like, okay, so I'm using the extreme
example, but,
you know, like,
I've never I've never touched, like, cocaine in my life.
And I used to go to parties, like every single
like from Thursday to Sunday, I would party from like my twenties
and thirties, but I would never touch cocaine.
And the reason I didn't do that is because
I knew that if I liked it,
it would be fucking over for me.
Because if I like something,
I am going to do it and
I'm not going
to have like any breaks when it comes to that thing.
So like tissue.
So. So that's like, that's for me.
It's like I knew myself and I was like, Hey, if I like the substance, man,
I don't like where that road is heading.
So I'm just going to stop it completely and never even touch it whatsoever.
It's a bit of an extreme example.
Yeah.
When I gave up vegetarianism, I went to steak for breakfast.
Lunch. Yeah. Yeah.
So that tells you my personality.
Yeah, I do. I fucking.
So that said, like I was eating steak, like,
almost every single day
and, and there's nothing,
I don't think there's anything completely wrong with that.
Although sometimes like your blood work may, may differ for me.
Disagree, but.
But yeah, I was like, eating safe like, every single day.
And I was like, Oh, shit.
Like, okay, okay, okay, okay.
What do I have to learn here?
Oh, let's let's put some fish in here.
Let's, let's, let's add some fish to my diet.
Let's, let's not eat steak every single day
because if I like something I could do, like, every single day, No problem.
Well, the psychology behind it
here is when you have an addictive behavior personality,
you're going to have a tendency to be extreme in one way or the other.
Right?
I myself have an addictive behavior personality.
And one of the things I've learned is that you have to channel your negative
or your bad addictive behaviors into something good.
So when I used to do something
stupid, I would channel it into going to the gym instead.
And so that would be the advice I would give for that.
But I wanted to shift it here for a quick question.
So part of leading our house holds in our families
is to to lead our kids by example and model for them. But
my question to you, Dan, is
when you when you go outside and you do specific
activities, like what is it that you specifically do
with your family to get them physically active?
Like what are your favorite activities to take them?
Yeah, when we do things with our family, like we're not
we're not doing things specifically to,
you know, be like physically active.
I think like especially because we have like
I have a toddler at home, we have a newborn
that came in like keep her neck up right now
so she can she do anything at this very moment.
But what we do is like we we try to kind of
like pieces around experience and play.
So like play for my child, she loves going to the frickin playground.
So I play with her at the playground.
Both me and my wife, we play with her at the playground.
You know, we
would take her to kind of like the park to go see Freak.
And she loves to collect acorns right now.
So we just go there and we collect acorns,
but we don't necessarily do things to necessarily
to kind of like promote exercise as we do things to just kind of like
get out there and for for kids especially like the way that they learn about things
and the way that they interact with the world is through play.
So the more that we can kind of keep
the nature of play
into her life as much as possible, and the more that she's going to learn,
the more she's going to have fun,
the more that she's going to have a positive disposition.
And that's kind of like what we do.
And then, yeah, sometimes like I'll be like, Hey,
you know, our daughter's name is cause I'll be like, Hey,
do you want to go for a walk with Daddy?
And then and it should be like,
I don't know or you know, either. Yes.
Usually it turns into like a rocking session
because halfway there, you know, walking up the hills is like, Can you carry me?
I'm just like, got there.
We got this you got here.
It turns into a little bit of a heavier cardio session.
So that's that's okay with me.
But all I do is just like, ask her and I just, like,
try to include her into like the things that I'm particularly doing.
And, and one of the things that we we also do is
like we just work out in of them, you know, like my wife does,
you know, these bridges she does for like pelvic floor exercises
because she just kind of like rehabilitating from the pregnancy.
Know, I work out in the gym and
and they just see us kind of exercising
and doing what it is for our kids to keep us healthy.
And then that's the same
thing is like setting the example that you want to set for your children.
Like, you know, you do that and then they start to kind of
like be like monkey see, monkey do like, like my child.
Sometimes she wants to pick up the car bomb like it's like, chill out,
because if you drop it on your fucking foot,
then you're probably going to crush your little toes.
But but again, you know, we let her kind of like
do her thing and just like, you know, monitor over her butt.
But again, it's just like we try to keep things to play.
We try to keep things to being an example.
And those are the top two are actually and experiences
and those are the things that we do to kind of like incorporate
kind of like a little bit of like this physically active
lifestyle with our family. That's beautiful.
And in fact, your
the hardest thing to plan
for, especially with a fresh child.
Yeah, I completely get it.
I've got a little girl on the way.
She'll be here October 27th.
We're prepping for that. Congratulations.
Congratulations. Thank you.
Thanks. I'm really excited.
So I'm kind of changing gears
on quite a bit here, but I just wanted to ask something.
Is there anything unique
about your cultural background that you think is influence your approach
to fitness, fatherhood, maybe your discipline?
That is such a great question,
because what not a lot of people know about me
is the fact that I was born in the Philippines.
I was Chinese, born in the Philippines.
Right after I was one years old,
I moved to the United States
and then we stayed there for about like a couple of years.
We couldn't get a green card.
Then we moved to Canada.
So the thing about Asian culture
is the fact that a lot of it is
how do I say conform?
It is So if
if you kind of like look at Asians and I'm not I'm
generalizing at this point, but if you do look at Asians,
what happens as a result is they want to hang around their own culture.
They don't necessarily have too many friends
that are outside of their culture.
And and that's how I was like in high school.
I would always like chill around like the Asian people were always
chill around, kind of like people I felt comfortable around.
And one of the things that I had to do,
especially in my life, was for a time period,
for a period, a time, I had to forget about my culture
and I had to forget about the fact that I was even Asian,
because I actually actually saw that,
you know, my identification with being Asian
was actually holding me back from doing the things that I wanted to do,
because a big part of like this whole like Asian culture is like judging you
for kind of going outside of the box or judging from.
I remember when I was starting to become a personal trainer.
This was like 20 years ago before, like IG shit before,
like social media and all this kind of stuff.
And this is like literally like 20 years ago.
So all of my, all my people, I was hanging around
there were all Asian are like, Dude, that is a side job.
What are you doing?
You have this cushy, you know, corporate job you're working 9 to 5.
It's paying good money.
Why are you doing this fitness thing?
It's like it's a side hustle.
It's not something that you do as a main hustle, right?
They didn't use the word hustle back then, but anyways, I'm using it.
And that's the thing.
It's like at some point and that is like, well,
number one, you know, thanks for telling me that.
I appreciate it.
You're just adding logs to my fucking fire and I'm going to be successful at this
no matter what anyone says is like the whole
I'm going to do the opposite of what people tell me to do.
And at some end, for a time being, I actually had to give up
the fact that I was even the culture in the first place.
I had to just consider myself
to be a human fucking being
and and I had this thing.
It's like I always thought that people who are like Caucasian
or like any other culture than me, that they were like, better than me.
I had this thing when I was younger.
I was like, Oh, they're just like, so much better than me to have more opportunity.
All this kind of shit, all this shit was like just the fucking perception
inside of my mind that I created
So for a time period I had to give up the fact that I was Asian.
I was actually moving my self
towards like trying to have as many, like
I guess you could say inter relational,
relational friendships
with people who are not my color.
And then that expanded my horizon to kind of like seeing like
what happens in different cultures and understanding that the fact
that like everyone is fucking human, we all have like the same wants,
needs, desires, fears and like all this kind of stuff.
So for a time being, like my culture
held me back until I gave up my culture.
And and now where I am right now at this very moment is like I have immense respect
for where from where I came from,
but I will not let where I came from.
Hold me back from doing the things I need to do in this world.
You know, my my horizon for like, what I feel like I can can
accomplish is past, like, whatever my fucking races is past.
Like, whatever, wherever I was born.
Like, it has nothing to do with any of that stuff.
It has everything to do with my mind and how big I can think
and my actions that I take.
So, so, you know, the culture
that I had for myself was just like,
you know, I'm not I'm not necessarily supposed to do all this kind of stuff.
And then I had to kind of give it up in order to get to where I am right now.
And I love that. It's kind of funny.
Growing up, I had a lot of different cultures
I grew up around, but a lot of Asian friends
were breakdancer and they kept trying to get me to do and I'm like, Man,
you got to understand, I'm a six foot, four Nordic,
tall, goofy white guy, man.
You go get me dance.
Yeah, it's kind of funny.
You said I tried to get I try to do breakdancing, too, but I wasn't, man.
I was a flexible enough for athletic enough, and
I didn't want to put in the reps either. So.
So yeah, I get it.
I made one
breakdancing attempt when I was in high school
and I almost didn't recover, so that was my one and
I would never do that again.
So Dan quick time Check.
You need to cut in an hour.
Do you have a few extra minutes?
Maybe like ten more minutes, and then I got to bounce out of here.
I got to do a workout. I got like.
Oh, yeah.
Yep. And I want to respect your time.
Of course.
So I promise.
I really wanted to ask about mouth taping.
It's. It's super weird.
And I tried it, and I wake up feeling like I'm going to choke.
Honestly, what am I doing wrong?
I like I'm
not I'm not trying to put myself out there as, like the
the expert or paragon of like mouth taping.
And I just know that it works.
I don't know exactly what you're doing wrong, actually.
Like, I'll ask like, what type of mouth are you using right now?
So I try.
I found a brand that covers your entire mouth is a big black pipe
and super thick tape,
which is it's a super thick.
You say, Yeah.
Enough that, you know, if I try to open my mouth, I'm not able to.
Maybe that's maybe that's the whole thing.
It's it's, it's the fact that you should be able to sort of
like open your mouth while your mouth is taped.
That's why I like brands, Like I use this brand called Better,
Better Sleep Now Tape.
There's another brand out there that's called hostage tape,
which is more flexible.
So if you needed to open your mouth, you could,
if it if it actually just
clamps your mouth shut and you can't even open
your mouth, like to me, that's a little bit of like a red flag.
Like you don't want to do that.
You want to have like some sort of, like freedom for your mouth
is slightly open so you don't feel like you're going
to, like, choke yourself out.
But yeah, you know, that's probably what I would say.
You know, mouth taping for me is probably one of the best things
I've done for my sleep in the past year.
And I'm going to be talking about my experiences
with mouth taping and also kind of like the
the results that I've gotten.
Like I've actually tracked them using my sleep tracker
and they've been incredible.
I love to hear that. Okay.
So I just went to extreme.
It sounds like initially I'm going to give it another try with something
where I can actually open the mouth if I need to, and that's sure to try.
Well, try has a shape. I know that.
I think you have a beard or like a goatee or something like that.
Try to shape I should be a little bit better.
That gives you a little bit more give and and then see how it goes from there.
All right. Sounds good.
Yeah.
So I kind of wanted to ask you a question
that we like to ask all the fathers that come on our show.
What is your favorite, like, core memory
or event that you've had happened since you've been a father?
It has been, man.
Here's here's the thing about being a father.
That's not a lot of people realize,
you know, like when you were single and
you have these like, little moments
where nothing else mattered and
and you were totally immersed
in that specific moment.
And it felt like time had just
passed and or time was actually irrelevant.
That's the thing about like having kids,
You know, you get these you get those moments.
You don't get those moments.
They're not rare moments, certain moments that actually happen
every single day.
So the last I mean, like for me,
like the last memory that I have was have a couple of them.
Like one of them was just like snuggling
up to my newborn daughter.
And we do this thing where it's like I say that I'm like, smushing her.
And then
and then I kind of just like,
start kind of like kissing her chest
and she goes, like, all girly and like all that kind of stuff.
And, you know, she's just kind of, you know,
she just kind of like, reacts in a way that's just like, super cute.
And the other one I had was like, my toddler is just
is is really just like
being in the pool, like every single day with her.
And and and she just
has like an imagination that,
you know, that just kind of like, runs wild.
And, you know, we do this thing where it's like,
you know, we just we basically she holds on to my back
as we're swimming and then I act like I'm a fucking dolphin.
I act like I'm a dolphin. And
and and then I just, like,
carry her around the entire pool.
And then.
And then that's that's like one of the coolest things when you
have these, like, little toddler hands, they're just like, holding on to all your,
like, swimming and just like, having the, like,
the freaking time of your life.
I would say probably also
on top of that is like every single time that I've heard my daughter laugh,
Oh, God, like it's and that's like every single day.
It's like it's one of the best things on the planet.
It is literally one of the best sounds on the planet
that you can ever, ever hear.
So so I would say it's like
those are probably like the best ones right there. And,
and yeah, it's like, like, well,
the reason why we're actually not the reason why,
but the really cool thing about being a dad is like,
you get to experience these things like every single day, man.
You get to be in the moment, every single day and kind of like
have all these like moments and memories that you just, you try to capture.
I kind of like look at it as like
you feel this thing and like your heart.
And when you feel this thing in your heart,
it just it just feels different.
You know?
It doesn't feel like
anything you've ever felt before.
And and yeah, it's
just you get to feel that every day.
And that's like literally the coolest thing about being a parent.
So yeah, I would say that, that yeah.
And it's beautiful because I always tell people on the,
on the podcast that children, your children specifically
are one of the few people in this world that will unconditionally love you
and that that will just follow you to the ends of the earth.
My daughter is going to be five here soon and she just man,
I can't go anywhere without her wanting to go with me.
And that goes with my food like I'm taking a bite, something like that.
If you got there, let's let's get a little bit of this.
Yeah, My daughter would be like, That's mine.
And I'm just like, okay, it's yours.
Fine, Right?
And then here I am.
I'm trying to hit my protein needs and just like you say,
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
But I think one of the beautiful things
too, is that with your children,
you get to raise them
the way that you weren't, you know?
Right? You get to break generational curses.
If you work hard at it and you get to,
you know, experience that firsthand with them
when you didn't get to as a child yourself.
So it's a beautiful thing.
But one quick thing related to that is how has becoming
a father changed your perspective on life and fitness?
And it's such a
such a broad question.
Like, so
the way I can explain it is
it totally got myself away from me.
And when you become a parent
or actually before you become a parent,
everything is so fucking egotistical and narcissistic.
And I'm not saying that in such a bad sense because like,
everyone is like that, you know, like we're all just like,
focused on ourselves.
But when you have a kid, it's
like everything I'm doing now, at least like 80% of everything
I'm doing is like, for the frickin
future generation, you know, the way
in which you're actually, like, keeping myself in shape.
I want to go see my.
I want to make sure that I keep myself in shape
so my daughters have an example of, like, what health looks like.
And also, you know, I want to be
I want to give myself at least like a fighting chance of like being there
as long as humanly possible to to enjoy them.
You know, that's and also to make sure
that they don't have to worry about me as I grow up
and they don't have to, like throw me in the nursing home because,
you know, I'm being too difficult to take care of,
like everything that I do at this very moment
is with an altruistic vision of just doing everything
I can to make their lives as
as great as humanly possible.
And that doesn't mean to make their lives easy either.
Like they have to learn, they have to understand, they have to fall
and they have to learn how to get up.
You know, you can't make things easy for your kids.
Like you actually have to make sure that they
that they make their mistakes and or not make sure they make their mistakes.
But you can't, like, shield them from the mistakes that they make.
And that's one of the other things it's just like you let go of that shit, like,
you know, when they fall, you know, usually be like, I going home.
Hey, I got you. I'll get back up.
But now, like, my toddler falls and I'm
just like, you know, if is really bad, then I'll come over there.
But if it's not, then I'll be like, All right, what do we do after we fall
and be like, We get back up, you know,
and that's just teaching or that. And
the biggest like
the biggest distinction for me is like, it's not me anymore.
It's not me. It's about my family.
And and that's and that makes life
so much more fucking fulfilling for me.
You know, it's like when it's like just for you.
It's just I don't want to say it's like selfish or anything like that.
You know?
There are some people who just choose not to have kids.
Like, I just want to live life and do all that kind of stuff.
And that's really cool.
And that's their decision.
And for me, it's just like,
I don't want to actually like,
do this for myself.
Like I feel much stronger and more powerful.
I'm doing it for my children and yeah, I'm doing that right now.
You know, part of me is actually like doing it because I actually love to do it.
And you know, those are some part of me.
But no, it's like now, like most of the things I do is just like,
you know, to make sure that they're going to be healthy
both mentally and physically
and to have a good life ahead of them.
I love that.
That's I had the same mental shift when I had my son.
It became about not just me, it became about my family.
And that changed everything for me.
So I love to hear that.
Dan, thank you so much for your time.
I want to make sure you get your workout in,
so let us know all of our listeners,
where can they go if they want to learn more about your program and more about.
Yeah, just yeah, I just came out
with the new domain yesterday so it's dango.co That's it.
Just go over there, you can drop in and get on my newsletter.
We're about we're almost going to hit 140,000 subscribers strong.
We have a fucking huge
we actually have a voracious following on that newsletter.
I highly recommend it.
I put, I put probably 4
to 6 hours every single week into making those things.
And and I try to put as much value as possible into them.
So I would say that go dango.co
sign up for the newsletter and that's about it.
You know, just thanks for having me on.
You know it's I'm
very thankful for the fact that I get to talk about this
parenting stuff, to put it in perspective and to do it with guys
who are we're actually doing a service for the families.
Well, thanks so much, Dan. Yeah,
and yours is one of the few newsletters that I always read cover to cover.
So I thought, it's great stuff and exceptionally
well.
Thank you again. This has been such a pleasure.
Thank you all for listening.
I hope you got something out of this and you enjoyed it
and I hope you all got to make fun of me for my poor mouth taping skills.
I'm going to.
I'm going to fix that.
I'm going to get some hot air today.
And you're 15. You're 15lb.
kettle bell too.
You got to you've got to up that.
Okay, I'll go to 20lbs.
That's all I can do.
And listen, the tape, the tapes were not working
because his wife swapped it out with that
for the baby.
She wants to put it on all day.
She's she's got the night so far.
And then anyways, so anyways,
now we're just going to fight with this shit.
That's why I do talk to people.
Well, thank you all again for listening.
This has been another episode of the Present Father's Podcast.
You'll be able to hear it on here and then we'll also record it
and put it on some other platforms as well.
Thank you all.
And if you're dads, let's all go climbing together now.
All right.
I appreciate you guys.
Have a good one.
Thanks for tuning into this episode
of the Present Fathers podcast.
Make sure that you subscribe to our YouTube channel
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We will see you in the next one.