14 How to Live an Unreal Life: Burn Fat and Have More Sex with John Romaniello

Did you know that burning fat, increasing muscle, and having more sex will help you become a better version of yourself? We've talked about how our mindset and attitude can support this, but today's guests say that changing your physical state might help you get there faster. These world class fitness experts, AKA The Alpha […] Get more from Lewis! Get my New York Times Bestselling book, Make Money Easy! Get The Greatness Mindset audiobook on SpotifyText Lewis AIYouTubeInstagramWebsiteTiktokFacebookX

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:00Lewis Howes?

  This is episode number 14 with John Romanello and Adam Hornstein.

• 0:07Lewis Howes?

  Welcome to the School of Greatness. Each week, we bring you the most inspiring business minds, world-class athletes, and influential celebrities on the planet to find out what makes great people great. My name is Lewis Howes, and I'm an author, lifestyle entrepreneur, and former pro athlete. And I'm on a mission to find out how we can all achieve a higher performance in life. Please leave us your comments on iTunes and join us online at schoolofgreatness.com to be notified of each episode when it comes out. Now let's get after it.

• 0:52Lewis Howes?

  Hey, hey, what's up, greats, and welcome back to the podcast. I hope you're having a fantastic day wherever you are in the world. I'm actually in New York City, a city that I lived in about a year and a half ago for a while. And I actually just moved out to Los Angeles about seven or eight months ago and missed out on all the horrible winter that they had here in New York. So got to enjoy the sunshine in LA for a while. Been coming back and forth, but really enjoying my visit right now in New York City. My brother's actually playing at the Lincoln Center. He's a world-renowned jazz violinist. He's playing here for five nights. So I'm excited to check him out, watch him perform, and root on my big bro who's taught me a lot in this world.

• 1:37Lewis Howes?

  The episode today is going to be very entertaining and educational at the same time. I've got a couple of great friends of mine on who are world-leading experts in the fitness industry. That's right. These guys know all about how to build more muscle, burn more fat, and last but not least, have more sex. Now, I know this is something that a lot of you want to learn about, so I'm excited to be bringing them on and sharing their wisdom with you guys. I've got a couple of great buddies of mine who are extremely talented and smart individuals. The first one is John Romanello. Good friend of mine I met a few years ago, actually at a fitness marketing conference with

• 2:22Lewis Howes?

  a bunch of big fitness marketing guys and had a lot of fun meeting him. We've been friends ever since. And John Romanello, also known as Roman, is one of the most highly regarded fitness experts in the fitness industry. He's written for Men's Health, Fast Company, and been featured on programs like Good Morning America. He is an advisor to nearly a dozen fitness and tech companies. He also lives in New York City, big New York Jets fan. And he's also does a lot of advising on the fitness side of things for Arnold Schwarzenegger and his site, which is pretty cool because Schwarzenegger is a legend in the bodybuilding and fitness world. And then we've got my other good friend who I actually

• 3:04Lewis Howes?

  met through John Romanello, Adam Bornstein. And this guy is a machine. He's an award-winning fitness and nutritionist, writer and editor. He's named one of the most influential people in health. And he was previously with LivStrong.com as the editorial director, and he used to be the fitness editor for Men's Health Magazine. He's also written over five fitness books and appeared on Good Morning America and E! News. Both these guys are extremely talented. They know what they're talking about. They know their stuff. I know John was actually training, you know, celebrities and world-class athletes for the last eight to 10 years. And

• 3:44Lewis Howes?

  Adam's been training people as well. They're both just extremely talented when all things are needed to talk about with fitness. And their new book is called Engineering the Alpha: A Real-World Guide to an Unreal Life. And the foreword is actually by Schwarzenegger himself. But I'm excited to be sharing this interview with you guys because got to have a good little sit-down chat with both of them. And Roman's dog, which you'll be hearing snoring half of the time throughout the interview, but a very cute dog, done the least. These guys have some very interesting... Ideas to share with you about how you can do more of these things, building more muscle,

• 4:26Lewis Howes?

  burning more fat, having more sex, and also just how to become a better version of yourself. Specifically, I'm talking about for entrepreneurs and business professionals who are working all day, maybe slouched over a computer, you know, sitting at a desk chair all day, and how to really optimize your body and your performance so that you can look better, feel better, perform better in your personal life, in your business life, and in your lifestyle in general. So these guys are about to unleash some wisdom upon you, and I'm very excited to introduce them to you. Before we get into the show, I want to give a quick shout out to, we just

• 5:05Lewis Howes?

  hit our 100th rating on iTunes. I guess there's been, or excuse me, 100th review. I guess there's been more than 100 ratings, but I think we've got 100 reviews, people who've left comments over on iTunes. And I appreciate all of your feedback. We've got, you know, 105 star ratings, I guess, but more reviews. A few people left four star, you know, three, two, one stars, and some people left some nasty negative comments, which I appreciate. Any type of comment you leave me, it lets me know you're listening to me. So I appreciate it either way. But I want to give a shout out to the 100th, I guess, review. And it

• 5:44Lewis Howes?

  goes from the name of Run for Fun 2. And it says, "Great podcast. Just discovered this podcast after hearing Lewis on Rich Roll's podcast. Subscribed and love the positive thoughts towards becoming healthier. Great podcast." So thanks for that. And there's a bunch of other reviews. I see one right here that's from Superfly Honey, and it says, "Digging the podcast. Just finished your solo podcast and enjoyed it beyond words to describe." So, thank you very much. And I've been getting a lot of emails from you greats out there requesting more.

• 6:23Lewis Howes?

  Solo podcasts, because the one I did, I guess it was back, uh, episode nine or eight or something like that. You guys have been really interested in more of that. So I'll be sure to bring more of that to you guys here soon. But I've got some amazing guests lined up for you. You are not gonna want to miss out on who is coming up soon. Some very cool people. So stay tuned for that. With that, let's get to the show. And I'm going to introduce you right now to my good friends, John Romanello and Adam Bornstein.

• 7:01Lewis Howes?

  What is up everyone? Thanks so much again for checking out the School of Greatness. I've got a couple of good friends on. I don't know if I, I need to come up with like a nickname for you guys now that you have a book together, like the, the dynamic duo, the ambiguously not gay duo or something. But we gotta come up with a, like a name for you guys. So we got Adam Bornstein and John Romanello. What's up guys?

• 7:27Speaker 02

  Hey, how you doing Louis? What's up, bro?

• 7:29Lewis Howes?

  Going, going well, man. How, what's, what's the name for you guys? Do you guys have like a tag team name? Like if you were WWE wrestlers, what would you guys be?

• 7:37Speaker 02

  Wow, that's hard.

• 7:38Lewis Howes?

  Like the Italian Stallion and the what? The Jewish something? I don't know. What would you guys be?

• 7:48Speaker 02

  Jewish guy who didn't beat me at basketball.

• 7:52Lewis Howes?

  Exactly.

• 7:53Speaker 02

  We'll work on this. Maybe by the end of the show, we will, we will come up with what the name is.

• 7:58Lewis Howes?

  Come up with a tag team name. That would be sweet, I think.

• 8:01Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 8:02Lewis Howes?

  Well, you guys had a new book come out, or that's coming out right now. Um, it's actually coming out, I think in a week. It'll come out when this episode airs, it'll be out. So you guys can go buy it whenever. But it's, it's called Man 2.0, Engineering the Alpha, A Real World Guide to an Unreal Life. And it's all about how to balance your hormones, build more muscle, burn more fat and have more sex. Pretty much all the things that guys want to have, right?

• 8:31Speaker 03

  I mean, we think so. Certainly, I mean, there's definitely, those are all the big ones anyway.

• 8:36Lewis Howes?

  Yes. Now, I want to get briefly into your guys backgrounds because you both have interesting stories. John was basically a fat kid, if I'm, if I'm getting it right. And

• 8:50Speaker 03

  Sounds about right.

• 8:50Speaker 02

  And it's all good stories begin.

• 8:54Lewis Howes?

  And you're basically, I'm gonna just speak the truth. You're basically a fat kid who was friends with all the girls, but could never get the girls. And you were sick and tired of just being the friend and being this chubby. You weren't that fat, but you were chubby, right?

• 9:09Speaker 03

  Yeah, yeah. I mean, I, I guess a, a good way to put it, uh oh, did we just lose him? No. Okay. There we go. Sorry about that. I guess a good way to put it is that, uh, yeah, I was a chubby kid. I, I was friends with a lot of girls. I had a couple of girlfriends. I was not, uh, I was not a stud or, or a player as, uh, you know, so I, you know, in high school, I was only ever in shape during like wrestling season. But even then I did not have abs, but it was, um, you know, just like one of those things like I was, I was chubby at the exact wrong periods of my adolescence. And so it had like this, you know, I, I think a really profound effect on my emotional development and self-esteem.

• 9:48Lewis Howes?

  Right. I think everyone who feels an extreme pain goes through a cert, seeking period in their life, or maybe it's the, in your, you like, um, the hero's journey, the reference to that. Maybe it's like a call to adventure or whatever. It's like, you've got this pain and you wanna, you wanna overcome that pain. And I think that's part of your journey is you started learning everything there was to know about fitness, about getting the best shape of your life, about, you know, all those different thought, all those different things about sex, about everything, right?

• 10:15Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 10:16Lewis Howes?

  Exactly. And Adam, what was your story like getting into fitness? Cause you both are top, you know, celebrity trainers, top fitness experts featured in, you know, men's health all over the world in, in the media outlets. You are the top of the top. So how did you kind of get into it, Adam?

• 10:35Speaker 02

  Like, like all great stories, I also started out as a fat kid.

• 10:39Lewis Howes?

  Yes.

• 10:40Speaker 02

  So that, I mean, that, that was, that was kind of the, the entrance into health and fitness. I was a fat kid and I was a kid who got injured and hurt all the time and couldn't do all, all the things that I wanted. So I really was able to make my entry point into the world of, of fitness by wanting to better myself. But, but mine came from much different perspectives. So I, I was a, a content creator. So the, I, I guess the short end of the story is that I, I worked as the fitness editor for Men's Health after really beginning on the research side of things, working at a couple of universities and being a research nerd and then realizing that I could combine journalism and writing with what my, my passion and expertise was in, in fitness

• 11:25Speaker 02

  and, and nutrition. So I, I kind of put those two together and, and worked at Men's Health for several years and then, uh, wrote some books while I was there as well. Ended up moving over to livestrong.com and took over as editorial director over there. Continued to play in the health and fitness game in a variety of ways. And, uh, here we are now. We're, uh, writing this book and trying to, I guess, take over the fitness world and make a, a big difference for, for a lot of people by taking a different approach to how people normally discuss health, fitness, sex, and, uh, really becoming the, the best version of yourself.

• 12:01Lewis Howes?

  Nice. Now, you guys were both fat kids and I'll, I'm, I was the reverse. I was a skinny kid that can never build muscle and never, uh, really get ripped. I was always tall and lanky and I was like, how could I, you know, just get a little bicep going or like a two-pack? I could never really do it. I was just super skinny. And you talk a lot about getting lean, getting ripped, getting strong, burning that belly fat, all these different things. Before we get into that, I want to know what's your guys' difference? What's the difference to you guys between?

• 12:33Lewis Howes?

  Or maybe you can give me the definition in your terms of an alpha and a beta.

• 12:40Speaker 03

  Yeah, that's a great question. Okay, so guys, this is Roman. So what I would say is that we like to look at not so much the difference between an alpha and a beta, although I'll get to that. I would say that what Adam and I focus on, particularly in this book, is the difference between our definition of an alpha and the traditional definition of an alpha. You know, if you read any common literature, particularly in the pick-up artist community, the AMOG or alpha male of a group is generally someone who seeks dominance within a social circle. And that term comes to us from the animal kingdom.

• 13:23Speaker 03

  And so within that context, it's really about being better than other people. What we teach is to not focus on that. We think that defining your value in a comparative sense is pretty dangerous, and I think that it's a slippery slope. Anyone who has been involved in competition at a high level, where you're focused on rankings, you're an athlete, so you kind of understand that that can really start to be damaging if that is the only way that you assess your self-worth.

• 13:55Lewis Howes?

  Right.

• 13:56Speaker 03

  You know, and even you, I mean, you held an NCAA record for like nine years. You know you're a great athlete, you know you were a great receiver, a great football player. And I remember, like, I saw you three days after that record was broken, and you were kind of annoyed. So even though you know you're great, you sort of were drawing your value in some capacity from having that record, you know?

• 14:21Lewis Howes?

  Right.

• 14:22Speaker 03

  And so what we teach is to not do that. We really want people to focus on not comparing themselves to others, but only seeking to be better than previous versions of themselves, and focus not so much on change or dominance, but more on evolution, and always trying to get better and be a better version of yourself. And so for us, when we talk about being the alpha, we don't mean to be the alpha of a group. We mean to be the alpha version of you. And so if we were working with you, the goal would be to find out what it means to be the alpha Lewis, and help you bring that out.

• 14:58Lewis Howes?

  Interesting.

• 14:59Speaker 02

  And that's kind of the different approach that we took here, whereas a lot of books might give you information that doesn't necessarily feel catered to you. Uh, we flipped the script by trying to create a blueprint that is replicable on an individual level. And it's not necessarily just giving a templated plan and saying you have to fit your square personality into this circle approach. Uh, we're catering to you in a different way because it is more about, uh, reaching whatever your next level is, whatever higher levels to you on a person, and not pre-establishing what, what success or a good body or your fitness goal might be.

• 15:35Lewis Howes?

  Right. Now, now, we're all friends. I know both you guys really well. I know, I knew John or Roman first for the last few years and he introduced me to Adam. We've all become good friends. I've learned a lot of great secrets and insider tips from you guys. I've gone through a lot of the content in this book already, so. But I want to act like I don't know you guys and I don't know a lot of this information. I want to ask you, for probably a lot of people are going to be wondering a couple of few, a few different things. And one is probably like, you know what? I just don't have a lot of energy throughout the day. I'm just lacking in the energy. Uh, you know, I've, I've got like this little, little belly. I just want to like get rid of like, you know, five, 10 of those pounds on my belly and I just wish I could see a little bit of the abs.

• 16:19Lewis Howes?

  And I really want to have more energy because sex life isn't that good and it's kind of all affecting me. I'm assuming a lot, there's, you know, a lot of people are kind of fitting somewhere in there. Now, if that was me and I wanted to like, change that. And yet I know you talk about, a lot about testosterone. Is that one of the things that I want to be focusing on first? Or is it a different approach?

• 16:42Speaker 02

  Yeah, I mean, it's not necessarily, it's definitely one of the things that you want to be focusing on. I think that it really starts with a recognition of if you have all of these symptoms. A lot of people try to, you know, try to attack the symptom. It'd be no different than if you had a headache. Every single day and you kept on taking Advil to go away temporarily, the very next day, you woke up with a headache. Would you just inevitably always just try and take these painkillers to take the headache? Or would you want to see what is causing this headache? And that's really the problem that's going on here. Guys have. Lack of energy, they have trouble losing their gut or building muscle, or they don't have that sex drive. And they search for answers rather than stepping back and really just trying to get to the

• 17:26Speaker 02

  foundational aspect of what would cause this problem in the first place. And it basic human endocrinology is that our hormones control pretty much everything. I mean, literally everything. So if your hormones are out of whack, and one of the big ones is if your testosterone levels are low, you will feel a lack of energy, you will have trouble losing that gut, you will be lacking sex drive. So I think that first step is to recognize if you're having these problems and repeatedly having these problems. And in a lot of times, it's guys who are putting forth effort, they're going towards the gym, or they're trying to de-stress, and they're still having these issues. So maybe they need to step back and realize that the problem isn't necessarily the effort or a lack of wanting, it's that they have this problem, they have low testosterone,

• 18:10Speaker 02

  they have hormonal dysfunction that they need to address. And if you get to the root of the problem, rather than just attacking those symptoms, that's when you really start seeing those changes. And that's what we saw with the, really, the thousands of people who have tested out this program. And many of the success stories that we share in this book is that when people found out that they had a hormonal issue and were able to address those directly, that's when the benefits really started kicking into high gear, and that's when they're seeing changes.

• 18:36Lewis Howes?

  Now, what is the cause of a lot of these hormonal imbalances or deficiencies? Is it, I guess what I'm trying to get at is, is a lot of this stuff stemmed from an emotional level or some type of happiness level? Like, the less happy we are, the worse our hormones are. If we're constantly happy, then it increases the hormone balance. So what, where does it really stem from?

• 18:59Speaker 02

  Well, that's actually a really interesting question. And the answer is that it can come from either place, and in a lot of cases, it does come from both places. So something to consider is that, when I was at school, I studied something called psychobiology, which focuses a lot on how the body and mind affect one another. And a really good example is if you have, let's, let's just talk about you, because you're an athlete. Let's say you had a twin brother, right? And both you had identical careers, and on the same day, in different games, playing at different colleges, you both hurt your knee, and you were both out for the rest of the season.

• 19:34Speaker 03

  This happens a lot, you know, guys get hurt and they can't play anymore. Right. And let's say, I don't know what the exact percentage is, but just to make it easy, let's say fifty percent. Fifty percent of athletes who get hurt fall into, let me rephrase that. Many times athletes get hurt and fall into a depression. Of the athletes that that happens to, fifty percent of them, let's say, fall into a physiological depression. And what I mean by that is that because they're no longer exercising regularly, because they're not active, they create a hormonal shift. The lack of activity creates the hormonal shift. And that begins to manifest itself in, let's say, a depression.

• 20:16Speaker 03

  The other fifty percent wind up falling into a psychological depression. And now, the reason that they're depressed is not so much because of the actual physiological processes that are being altered, but rather because this identity-defining thing that they sort of viewed themselves in, you know, that was removed. Right. And so, it really does happen both ways. On the one hand, you do have people who are affected completely emotionally, and you know, let's say that's you. And then you have, on the other hand, people who are affected via physiological means, so your twin brother. Right. Now, it's hard to sort of decide which one of those camps you fall into. Obviously, you just need to be introspective and self-aware.

• 20:58Speaker 03

  Thankfully, the fixes are generally pretty similar for both cases. So you have a lot of people who are falling into this physiological depression that they're doing things, they're living their life in a way, they have these lifestyle behaviors and these dietary habits and these physical habits or lack of physical habits, which result in a physiological lowering of hormones. So let's say, they eat a lot of shitty foods, and so, let's say their insulin is all out of whack, they're not getting enough sleep, so their cortisol is out of whack, and that affects their growth hormone. Both of those, both insulin and cortisol and growth hormone, will all affect your testosterone production.

• 21:37Speaker 03

  And so, you have those things that are, those are a physiological response to lifestyle behaviors. Right. But on the other hand, the people you asked about, there are a lot of people who, let's say, they wind up losing their job, and now again, some of their identity of self is removed because a lot of us define ourselves by our career. And now they have to, you know, they're stressing about this thing emotionally and depressed and they're starting and their confidence is lowered.

• 22:08Lewis Howes?

  And they don't work out and they get crappy foods and.

• 22:11Speaker 03

  Well, here's the thing. Yeah, that I mean, they do feed into one another, right?

• 22:14Lewis Howes?

  Right.

• 22:14Speaker 03

  Well, even without changing their exercise habits, even if they're not going to stop working out, even if they're not going to start eating crappy foods, um, you are going to have those people who just because of the emotional shift will begin to experience the physiological ramifications of low testosterone and et cetera. But yeah, of course they feed into each other. If you have someone who's like eating shitty foods to begin with and not feeling well and, and you know, they're not working out, then they're probably going to experience some emotional depression because they're not happy with themselves and they're not happy with them with their lives.

• 22:45Lewis Howes?

  Right.

• 22:45Speaker 03

  And then, as you suggested, of course, there's the other hand where people who, you know, lose their jobs or go through this emotional depression, then start feeding into that and you know, they're, they're, they're eating their feelings and coating them in chocolate and not working out and all these other things. So yeah, so again, it really does go both ways.

• 23:03Lewis Howes?

  Dude, I love chocolate.

• 23:04Speaker 03

  Who doesn't?

• 23:05Lewis Howes?

  Especially when you're depressed.

• 23:08Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 23:09Lewis Howes?

  So good. Well, this is interesting. Okay. So they both affect each other is what you're saying basically, right?

• 23:16Speaker 03

  Correct.

• 23:16Lewis Howes?

  Right. Um, now for some reason I keep coming back to testosterone, maybe because I'm reading it on the, the back cover about testosterone, but is testosterone really the, one of the key things people, men should be focusing on to help them increase everything else physiologically and I guess psychologically? Is that one of the key things or am I completely off here?

• 23:43Speaker 03

  No, you're, you're, I mean, testosterone is a big part of what makes you a man. I, I think what's going to be surprising for most people and it's really a call to action and a reason that we dug so deep, uh, both from a physical programming perspective of how to increase testosterone in, in your life through natural methods. And also, you know, looking at the problems that, that men face, how many guys actually suffer from low testosterone who aren't in the age range that you would typically perceive people, uh, who are, you know, you, when you think of low testosterone, you think of guys in their 50s and their 60s. Uh, but what we're seeing is that low testosterone is affecting guys as young as their twenties and thirties.

• 24:25Lewis Howes?

  Now, why is that?

• 24:26Speaker 02

  Uh, there's a, it's lifestyle factors and that's really what we tap into. I mean, you're looking at one in four guys have low levels of testosterone, but I think even worse than that is that on average, the average man, his testosterone levels are 22% lower now than they were 20 years ago. So, men are becoming less manly and men at any age. And what was really interesting is, you know, something that we tapped into in the book is there was a study uh, done by Australian researchers that looked at testosterone levels of men at different ages. And then they looked at different lifestyle factors and they were finding active men up in their 60s had testosterone levels that were similar to active guys in their 30s. Which was kind of a, and there was a lot to the methodology of the study, but giving some credence to the idea that, you know,

• 25:12Speaker 02

  you lose it if you don't use it. So, these guys were sleeping well, they're eating a certain way, they're training in a certain way and their testosterone levels were still high. And then you had guys in their twenties and thirties who were doing none of this and they had testosterone levels that were plummeting and much lower. And I, I think that's this idea that, you know, you're gonna have to high testosterone just because you're a man, just because you're young, isn't true anymore. Uh, cultural society has shifted so much as to how we live, how we eat, even how we exercise, how we have sex or the amount of sex that we have, to the point that our bodies are now evolving in a, in a bad way to produce and have less testosterone, which is then in fact

• 25:56Speaker 02

  is changing the model of man. It's changing how, how strong we are, changing how manly we are, how aggressive we are, how successful we are. You know, you, you look at the, the business place, even if it's a testosterone fueled business place, Tom Wolfe wrote a great piece about the loss of testosterone in, in the male entrepreneur and how in business and in success, a drop in testosterone is affecting, you know, this recession type economy where if guys had more testosterone, you might see a lot more successful guys making a lot more money.

• 26:25Lewis Howes?

  Right. Interesting. Um, now, one of the things, this is interesting, I'm trying to wrap my head around this. I just did a previous interview with Dr. Alyssa Rankin, who, she's got a book out called, Mind Over Medicine: Scientific Proof You Can Heal Yourself. And in this interview, she talked a lot about, a lot of the causes for illness and disease is because of lifestyle and stress resistors that were building up. You know, 100, 200, you know, 500 years ago, we didn't deal with as much stress. And I think it's what you're talking about right now is the lifestyle factor. Um, and it's causing us to decrease our testosterone, make us less manly is what you said.

• 27:08Lewis Howes?

  Hence, Man 2.0, uh, for the title of your book. Now, what are some natural things that guys can do every day or every week to increase testosterone? I've heard lift, or doing heavy squats helps increase testosterone and sprinting, but what are some other things that really keep us on track to becoming the better man that we should be becoming?

• 27:34Speaker 03

  Sure. Uh, so you touched on two of them, two of the big important ones. Uh, it has been shown that doing heavy squat, anything that is, uh, is very challenging physiologically is generally going to what we call force adaptation, right? So if you're training in a way that is intended to get you stronger, your body has to react to that by producing more testosterone.

• 27:55Lewis Howes?

  Right.

• 27:56Speaker 03

  Heavy squats, particularly high rep squats, 20 rep squats, have been shown to increase testosterone, as has sprinting. But that, those are just two of the physical things that you can do. Um, and then, of course, there are the, uh, the dietary components to this. The first thing, the easiest thing that guys can do is eat more fat.

• 28:18Lewis Howes?

  Really?

• 28:19Speaker 03

  Oh yeah, so.

• 28:21Lewis Howes?

  So this is contradictory for a lot of guys. They think, you know, if I want to burn this belly fat, should, why should I eat more fat?

• 28:27Speaker 03

  Right. Well, you know, fat is really, really important. And when I, when I say fat, I mean, all of the types of fat that you have been told your entire life are the ones that you should be eating. In particular saturated fats. As long as they're coming from, uh, let's say grass fed and organic sources. Saturated fats are the healthiest fats that you can consume. So we're talking butter, eggs, steak, particularly fatty steaks. These are the things that you should be consuming and, and that thankfully that men like to consume because they are delicious and not that difficult to cook.

• 29:00Lewis Howes?

  Right.

• 29:03Speaker 03

  And so the reason for that is that these things, it has been shown, of course, like the big reason that people tell you to stay away from fat is because it increases cholesterol, right?

• 29:13Lewis Howes?

  Right.

• 29:13Speaker 03

  If you're, if you're keeping your carbohydrates down and you're managing insulin effectively, instead of increasing the bad cholesterol, the quote unquote bad cholesterol, eating these saturated fats seems to improve the good cholesterol. And here's what, and, and actually it can slightly improve cholesterol levels overall and, and reduce triglycerides and all of these other things. Uh, Scott, if you haven't, um, if your people don't know much about the paleo diet, Rob Wolf, um, R O B B Wolf is one of the, the big guys in the paleo community. And he has tons of studies and has a lot of, of anecdotal evidence to show all of, of his people who are going on paleo type diets, very high fat, very low carb, and are showing massive reductions in triglycerides and, and better balancing of cholesterol.

• 29:59Speaker 03

  Here's why that's important. A lot of people don't know that cholesterol is actually very good. In fact, it is the precursor hormone to literally all sex hormones. Which means the higher cholesterol is, the more readily your body can produce testosterone. It, it is derived from it.

• 30:16Speaker 02

  And this is total cholesterol that we're talking about. So you've got your HDL, your good stuff and your LDL. So if you look at your total cholesterol number and it is higher, you can produce more testosterone.

• 30:27Speaker 03

  Right. And so eating more fat is a really simple way to do that. Now, again, that in, that is really, uh, something that should be done in combination with lower carbohydrates. And there's a few reasons for this. When you eat carbohydrates, you obviously produce insulin. Everyone knows that, right?

• 30:44Lewis Howes?

  So just so everyone knows, what are carbohydrates?

• 30:48Speaker 03

  Uh, so anything that has starch in it, so sugars, breads, potatoes, rice, cereals, uh, but of course fruit has carbohydrates in it as well. So, um, you know, we, we, we, we could, wow, we could talk about this all day. Pasta, bagels. Yeah, all the pizza, all the delicious stuff in the world. More bagels. Any cookie, brownies, anything that you like to eat.

• 31:12Lewis Howes?

  Any sweets, pretty much.

• 31:14Speaker 03

  Yeah, any, any sweets or sugars or cereals or breads.

• 31:16Lewis Howes?

  So you should be getting rid of that.

• 31:18Speaker 03

  Right.

• 31:19Lewis Howes?

  Or having it on a minimal level.

• 31:22Speaker 03

  And then occasionally on a maximal level.

• 31:24Lewis Howes?

  Okay.

• 31:25Speaker 03

  So here's the thing, when you regularly take in high amounts of carbohydrates, like every day, you have chronically elevated insulin levels and chronically elevated insulin has been shown not only to have a, a, a global effect on testosterone, which mean, you know, like, like negative, uh, effect on testosterone where you're lowering your testosterone overall.

• 31:47Lewis Howes?

  Hold on a second. I've been hearing one of your dogs snore. That is hilarious.

• 31:51Speaker 03

  That's, yeah, yeah.

• 31:52Lewis Howes?

  Oh, you can keep it going. It's just funny because I know your dogs, you just took them and got them, uh, fixed, right?

• 31:59Speaker 03

  Yeah. So, for people listening, um, we could post some pictures of these dogs. I have a French Bulldog and a Boston Terrier. So they are very, they're, they mostly resemble pigs with like, like cross with a little bit of dog DNA.

• 32:12Lewis Howes?

  Oh my god.

• 32:13Speaker 03

  And, uh, and they're very snorty. So what you're hearing right now is the pig dog, it's French Bulldog Samwise, snoring into the computer. He's, he's, uh, he's a little bit medicated right now. He does apologize.

• 32:24Lewis Howes?

  It's all good. I just had to, had to announce that.

• 32:27Speaker 03

  I appreciate it. Um, so when your testosterone levels are chronically elevated, uh, I'm sorry, when your, when your insulin levels are chronically elevated, not only does it globally reduce testosterone, but it also seems to have a very specific effect, not only on testosterone, but also on sex drive itself, which, and you know, sex drive and testosterone are obviously related, but it, it seems that even when testosterone is not negatively affected that much, sex drive still goes down. So sometimes the more carbohydrates you eat. The lower your sex drive is. Now, I will mention that can go the other way and sometimes people on extremely low carb diets, like zero carbs, do find out they lose sex drive

• 33:10Speaker 03

  as well. So there's sort of this sweet spot of anywhere between thirty and a hundred grams of carbs per day that seems to be really good in terms of sex drive. And, uh, and something else is that chronically elevated insulin levels have been shown to have a very specific negative effect that guys want to avoid, and it is erectile dysfunction. Chronically elevated insulin levels have been shown to increase incidence of erectile dysfunction. And, uh, part of that is probably due to the fact that it, um, it, uh, chronically elevated insulin affects circulation negatively. And that's why people with diabetes who are going through all these problems, you know, they wind up with, uh, you know, really bad

• 33:54Speaker 03

  circulation, particularly at the far end of their extremities in their fingers and toes. So, you know, that obviously your, your, your penis is, I think, probably your favorite extremity and you want to get as much blood to it as possible whenever you need it.

• 34:06Lewis Howes?

  True.

• 34:07Speaker 03

  So, uh,

• 34:08Lewis Howes?

  No, this is interesting stuff. Now, let's just say this all makes sense to me, but let's say my, my wife is, or my girlfriend or whoever is out of town for a couple of weeks and we haven't had sex in a couple of months. It's just whatever reason I'm exhausted, I'm tired at work, I'm working eight hours a week. Uh, I'm not working out, I'm eating fast food all day long. And she's coming back in two weeks and I want to have some amazing sex. I want to have sex all night long, one of those crazy nights, but I haven't done this in years and I'm just not feeling good. I'm feeling like a beta male, right? What can I do in two weeks' time to give myself the best chance of having like this

• 34:52Lewis Howes?

  superhuman power that radiates from my body and she just cannot resist me and it just goes all night long?

• 34:59Speaker 03

  Well, first thing, I'm gonna let Adam tackle all of this stuff that you can do, but I do want to mention if you have not had a lot of sex in a while, this is something that happened to me, so I'm gonna share this with you guys. If you haven't had sex in a while and then you go on an all-night rampage, please make sure you stretch first because I pulled one of my hip flexors pretty badly doing that.

• 35:20Speaker 02

  So, uh, yeah, it, it, any, anytime you take more than like three or four weeks off and then you, you have a, you know, a three hour marathon session, you can wind up with strained hip flexors. So I'll just put that out there for everybody and I'll let out, uh, I'll let Adam take care of all the, the actual therapeutic solutions here. So I guess now for all people who have questioned whether static stretching has a benefit, uh, John, John has now answered that question for you that, uh, at least from a sexual standpoint, static stretching will benefit you and prevent strained hip flexors.

• 35:53Lewis Howes?

  Well, also, this is another point that I want to mention a second. I've hearing from a lot of different sports like, or sports, uh, therapists that static stretching is actually more harmful than dynamic stretching. Let's talk about that afterwards, but let's go into the two week treatment first.

• 36:06Speaker 02

  Yeah, two week treatment. Um, I, it's gonna be pretty simple. Cause I mean, you, you have to go into this realizing that, all right, you, you got two weeks here, you, you're, you know, you're not gonna reinvent the wheel, but what you can do is you can start making this shift from a hormonal standpoint. And something that we really point out is actually the first four weeks of the program that we put in the book. And what we do is we put you through an insulin reset. And what we're trying to do is that most men have these chronically elevated insulin levels. So what we're gonna do is we're gonna take a lower carb approach for those first two weeks. And that means, you know, with, with the exception of, uh, vegetables really, and maybe some fruits as well. You're gonna be going with higher protein, higher fat. I promise you, you will not end up getting hungry because you're gonna be

• 36:49Speaker 02

  eating so much steak or bacon or eggs or all of them together. Almond butter. Oh, almond butter. It's, it's my weakness that you're, you're gonna be, uh, you're gonna be satiated. You're gonna be feeling full. You're gonna be feeling satisfied. Uh, and you're, you're just gonna start feeling, it's, it's almost like, you know, people go through a detox and they feel better. When you start putting clean fuel into your body, it's amazing what a big difference it feels. You're also, you, you wanna start, you know, hitting the weights. You, you wanna start, and you go into the gym a little bit. And again, uh, resistance training is one of those things where you go and you have a good weight training session and I will get done with the gym sometimes and there is nothing that I wanna do more than go and have some sex.

• 37:32Speaker 02

  It is legitimate. It it charges you up because there are so many different elements that go in into resistance training, both on a physiological level, but also on a psychological level and competitiveness. And that is a drive that actually boosts testosterone as well and boosts uh uh boosts growth hormone. So when it comes to just starting off uh without needing to worry about anything else, go to the gym three to four times a week. Try and cut out uh the majority of your carbohydrates that aren't coming from fruits or vegetables. Focus on a lot more of the uh fat sources so you can get that fat in your diet. And then there's even uh some simple things you can do from like a supplementation standpoint, such as vitamin D.

• 38:16Speaker 02

  Taking your vitamin D, whether you're getting out in the sun or not. Another testosterone precursor, very, very important as well for for helping out with fat metabolism. And what you're gonna ha- find that happens is that even within a short period of time, when you start shifting your carbohydrates lower, you start supplementing wisely and you start resistance training, multiple things that are gonna happen at the same time. They're gonna prepare you without having to feel overwhelmed because the worst thing you can do is try and give someone too many tasks. If I were to list off nine different things, the reality is those nine different things would overwhelm someone to the point that they would. You wanna focus on what's gonna be the most bang for the buck and what's gonna, you know, change you from a hormonal level. So that lower carbohydrate intake is gonna help decreasing those insulin levels.

• 39:02Speaker 02

  Those decreasing insulin levels are not only gonna help you better in the gym, it's also gonna allow testosterone and growth hormone to increase as your diet improves, as you're taking in the correct supplementation. And as you then train better because and getting more benefits of your training because your insulin is re- is re- uh reduced. Everything you put in your body then is going to be supercharged as well. Because you have to understand that when insulin levels are high, if cortisol is high, if testosterone is low, the food that you're eating isn't even digested and processed the way you want so that you get the benefits. The things that you were doing when you were sleeping well, sleep is such an easy, easy thing to do. But when you get less than six hours of sleep per night. It affects your hormone levels as well. So from the most basic standpoint, if you have

• 39:45Speaker 02

  two weeks to get ready, uh, the simple, the simple, simple way to go about it is, is cut out those carbohydrates and focus on more protein and fat.

• 39:54Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 39:55Speaker 02

  Go ahead to the gym three to four times a week, focus on, focus on weight training, supplement on a very, on the, on the basic level, without anything else, with some vitamin D, and get some sleep.

• 40:04Speaker 03

  Yeah. If you want, if you want to go a little bit more hardcore with your supplementation, you could, uh, you could check out some things that are specifically designed to elicit a hormonal response. So for testosterone, you might want to look at Vitex or Tribulus supplements, which have been shown to increase luteinizing hormone, although some studies show that they don't. So that's sort of, if you have thirty bucks and you want to make an investment and take a gamble, that's, that's a pretty good thing to do. Um, you know, obviously things that get insulin in check are really good. Uh, there's a supplement called IC5 by our friends over at BioTrust, which, uh, is, is really helpful for insulin management. So there's, there's a few things that I will mention. Adam talked about all the physiological

• 40:45Speaker 03

  stuff. So eat more fat, reduce carbohydrates, you know, do more weight training. All of those things will affect you physiologically, right? And you will be, you'll have higher testosterone and you'll want to have more sex. But they also affect you in other physiological ways, which affect you emotionally. If you follow that plan for two weeks, you're going to drop fat, you're going to build muscle, you're going to look in the mirror, and not only are you going to feel more confident, which will make you more excited to have sex. When your girlfriend comes back from this trip, she hasn't seen you in two weeks and now you're down, you know, five or six pounds and you've gained some muscle and now you're looking all hard, like, she's going to be a lot more, you know, eager to have

• 41:27Speaker 03

  sex with you as well. So there's a lot of things that'll go into that. But, uh, you know?

• 41:33Lewis Howes?

  Yeah. What I, uh, what's?

• 41:36Lewis Howes?

  Now, I've heard, and I use this just as every day I put it in my smoothies. Uh, maca actually helps. Is that with testosterone? Is that with something else that helps?

• 41:45Speaker 03

  Uh, yeah, I'm not specifically sure why maca has been shown to increase. Um, I, I don't necessarily.

• 41:51Lewis Howes?

  Sex drive or something, or what is it?

• 41:52Speaker 03

  It doesn't, it doesn't necessarily increase sex drive, but it does seem to increase incidence of erection. So I would imagine that it has some circulatory properties would be, would be my guess there.

• 42:05Lewis Howes?

  Gotcha. And also I know that on it, our sponsor has a new product called T plus out, which is supposed to be an amazing testosterone. All natural product. So that's another thing you guys should check out. Now let's go into stretching. Now for years I did static stretching.

• 42:23Speaker 03

  Right.

• 42:23Lewis Howes?

  And for whatever reason, I don't know if the research came out then or now, but it's, it's actually some research is saying that. Static stretching actually helps cause more injury than actually than dynamic stretching. Now, I'm not sure what's true, what's not true. That's just what I've heard. What is the difference? And if say we're going to go to the gym, should we sit there for 20 minutes and do static stretching? Or should we do 10 to 20 minutes of dynamic stretching before we get into a heavy workout?

• 42:53Speaker 02

  I'm going to give you a very simple and easy answer, and it's both work. And because both work, you're going, it's best to combine both. I mean, I believe it, it always depends on the activity that you're going to do. Okay. And research is going to show both things. Research is going to show that dynamic stretching is great. It's going to show that static stretching is great. And that's going to show that, you know, dynamic does nothing and static stretching. And there's been studies that have come out that have literally shown that static stretching is beneficial from, you know, injury prevention to improving weightlifting performance. And then another one will come out a couple of months later telling you that if you stretch statically before a workout, your power output is going to be decreased significantly.

• 43:33Lewis Howes?

  Right.

• 43:34Speaker 02

  And, um, you know, the reality is, is that a lot of time it's, you know, the poison sometimes is in the dose and the poison is in the application. So there are benefits to stretching a muscle and, you know, really focusing on.

• 43:50Speaker 02

  Uh, if you will, lengthening, I hate using that term, but focusing on stretching out that muscle so that you can move it through a greater range of motion. And the reason why dynamic stretching is so great is that you are working on taking those muscles through an active range of motion. Because when you're doing static stretching, you're holding that muscle in, in a static position and not doing anything, but when you're actually doing exercise, you wanna go ahead and you wanna move it through an active range of motion because that's how you move in real life. And what's important to take away from stretching, or any type of warm up in general, is just to do one. Because when you work out, your muscles are like cold rubber bands. And when you warm them up, when you do stretching, dynamic movements, static movements that get your heart rate up, that gets the blood flowing, it makes the muscles more pliable.

• 44:32Speaker 02

  And when a muscle's more pliable, one, it's not gonna get injured as, as often, and two, maybe just as more important, it's going to be able to generate a lot more energy. So you're gonna be able to lift more weights, you're gonna be able to, you know, go longer for endurance, but you're gonna be able to build more muscle. So the bottom line answer is people are gonna be, you know, splitting hairs about whether one is better than the other, when you're gonna find research on both sides of them, there are benefits to both, combine both, and just make sure you do a warm up before you work out.

• 44:58Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 44:59Speaker 02

  And don't be the idiot who goes in there and be like, ah, forget the warm up, I'm just gonna go lift some weights, because you know what? You, you, you leaving things unassailable, and that's when you will get hurt.

• 45:07Speaker 03

  Yeah, um, so just, just, uh, I will say, um, that

• 45:13Speaker 02

  You gotta wake the dog up. I think it might be worth, I, I put the dog to sleep.

• 45:17Speaker 03

  I, I think it might be worth defining the difference between static stretching and, and, uh,

• 45:23Speaker 02

  Yeah, so, so, so static stretch would be your, let's say, traditional hamstring stretch, where you were laying on your back and you're, you're holding your leg up and you're, you're feeling that stretch in the back of your leg. And dynamic movements are, are literally, uh, taking you through a, a series of movements where you are moving your body and, and holding certain poses. So, I mean, you could be doing a Walking lunge or something. You'd be doing a walking lunge, you're gonna be doing a one-legged, straight-legged Romanian legged deadlift, where you are getting that same hamstring stretch, but you're actually moving and you're engaging your hips, you're engaging your core, you're engaging your glutes.

• 46:00Speaker 03

  Well, what I'll say is that I like both static stretching and dynamic stretching. The way that I I handle this is that once the studies started to come out more regularly that showed static stretching decreased power output, I sort of moved away from it on training days. So I generally do dynamic session, dynamic stretching on days where I train with weights in addition to foam rolling and all that. And then I do static stretching on days I don't train with weights. More as sort of a recovery, an active recovery process. And also because like I do want to be more flexible. My fiance is like this crazy yogi and I can't even like I'm not even close to being able to keep up.

• 46:43Speaker 03

  So, you know, like it really depends on what you want to be able to do. If you don't care about flexibility, then you never have to worry about it unless you're just worried about injury prevention.

• 46:52Lewis Howes?

  Right.

• 46:52Speaker 03

  If you care about mobility, then you know, these are things that you need to worry about.

• 46:58Lewis Howes?

  Right. Now, now here's what I'm been trying to wrap my head around for a while. We're basically all animals.

• 47:08Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 47:08Lewis Howes?

  In a sense. So why can't, just like a lion does and the, you know, chasing its prey? Why can't it just, it just gets up when it's done sleeping? It sees an animal it wants to kill and it just sprints or a cheetah or whatever, they're sprinting at full speed, jumping, bounding. They never pull a hamstring. But how come, how come we can't do that?

• 47:32Speaker 03

  Louis, we don't know. No. Actually, it's funny. It's a scene from Zombieland where, uh, where the Zombieland where the, um, the Woody Harrelson character says, you ever seen a lion limber up before taking down a gazelle? The reason that lions don't need to stretch and that they're always limber is simply because they are moving a lot more often. And there, when, you know, the more often that you're in motion, the less often you sit still, the less locked up and bound up you are. So lions are pretty active, especially female lions. Male lions just kind of sit there and let the, let the lionesses do all their hunting and bring them food. But in particular, um, you know, a lot of, most animals are more active than humans.

• 48:16Lewis Howes?

  Because they're not sitting at a desk on the computer all day. They're walking around all day.

• 48:20Speaker 03

  Yeah, there's been enough articles that have come out really in the last, let's say, two, three years that are showing that sitting is literally

• 48:26Speaker 02

  Killing us.

• 48:27Speaker 03

  Sitting is death.

• 48:27Speaker 02

  It is, it is, it is death in every which way from actual death and to what it does to your body. You sit here, it tightens up the, the shoulders and your upper back. It tightens up your hip flexors and suddenly everything just starts to break down. And uh, it's, you know, our lives and it's, it's really what we tap in overall. Our lives have set us up in a way where, I mean, this is like, you have to go to, you know, to a job. You have to work, you have to sit. But if you're gonna sit for eight, 10, 12 hours of a day, you have to realize that your body almost gets stuck and frozen in this position. It is not natural to, we were not meant to sit all day, just like lions aren't meant to sit all day. And you know what? They don't.

• 49:04Speaker 03

  Right.

• 49:05Speaker 02

  They get up and move around and uh, it, it, if we were walking and moving around all day, that's why people have seen, or moved to things like a, a standing desk or just trying to get up and walk around. It, you're mobile, you're moving around more, your, your body is getting the benefit just moving.

• 49:20Speaker 03

  Right, so it, it's just, just one final point. If you look at the, the likelihood of getting hurt, it increases with age. It's because the cumulative number of seated hours have increased dramatically. From the time we're about five years old, kids start sitting about eight hours a day in school, right? And over, so there's a sort of cumulative net effect that sitting has. And the more often you sit and the longer you sit and the older you are and have been sitting, the, the, the larger this effect will be.

• 49:50Lewis Howes?

  Now, let's just say, uh, okay, this is all great guys, but I'm, you know, 35, 40 years old. I'm working at a job that I've been stuck at for 20 years. I've got four kids, I'm not gonna work on my own and be walking around all day. And I'm, I'm gonna be working 40 to 50 hours a week for the next 20 years. What are some things that I can do at my desk in an office where I'm tied down to? That can help me, you know, get rid of these bad habits? Do I get a bouncy ball, you know, like a, a stability ball? A stability ball that I sit on half the day or most of the day? Do I get a stand up desk? Do I get a walking treadmill desk? Do I get up every 15 minutes? What was it that I do?

• 50:32Speaker 02

  I think you go all office space and you just drill off the walls of your cubicle and just start doing whatever you want. That's, I guess, always one option. I think what it really comes down to, I mean, I'm not a big fan of a treadmill desk or a bouncy ball if you want one that might make a difference because it's actually sitting that is causing the problem. You can get a standing desk or you can just make sure that you get up and you stand and you walk around. I don't think anyone's expectation is that, you know, you're gonna start walking around like a lion or an animal. The idea is that you are conscious of what is causing these breakdowns and you are conscious

• 51:15Speaker 02

  that because of the way that you are living, you are taking the steps to counterbalance that. And, you know, it really gets back to what we did with, you know, creating this book. It's not telling you that, hey, if you want to go and fix your hormonal levels, you need to take, you know, these pharmaceutical products or you need to go and spend two to three hours a day in the gym. It's all about practicality and practicality is able to resonate and have the greatest effect when you know what the enemy is. So if you know that you're sitting a lot more often and so you can't even get up and move around, it just makes sure that you have to spend, take that five, 10, 15 minutes to do things to help your mobility. Grab a foam roller and just foam roll for 10 minutes a day and it's going to actually

• 51:58Speaker 02

  improve the tissue in your muscles so when you're undoing the damage that you do by sitting because you know what? You can't just quit your job or sitting all day is gonna affect your hormone levels because it's gonna literally slow you down. Go ahead and make sure you exercise and make sure you eat the right way. So I think a lot of times we look at the barriers that stand in our way and just say, well, shit, I'm screwed.

• 52:21Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 52:22Speaker 02

  And that's not though because, you know, I gotta work, I gotta take care of my kids, I've only got an hour a day. And then it's finding out, okay, what time do you have? How can you use that time the best? And a lot of times, the only way and the only thing you really need to do to counter to counterbalance what you're doing at your desk is get up and walk around for like five minutes every couple hours. It's going to be fine. You can do the standing desk. Uh, it's something that I know I've played around with. Roman has done the same uh himself. And then uh

• 52:47Speaker 03

  I like standing desk.

• 52:48Speaker 02

  Take the time to uh just take care of your body. And it really sometimes some things uh foam rolling, it honestly takes five to 10 minutes a day and it is uh it's a life changer.

• 52:59Speaker 03

  Yeah, I like like to make sweet, sweet love to my foam roller every day.

• 53:03Speaker 02

  Roman was making sweet, sweet love to the corner of his wall tonight.

• 53:06Speaker 03

  Yeah, I was I was I was doing soft tissue work on my back by just leaning into the the corner where two of the walls meet in my apartment and just like leaning into it was a nice sharp pressure in my lat. So I was really getting in there.

• 53:19Lewis Howes?

  That's well, it's interesting because you know, the more that I've been, you know, hanging out with you guys and just learning about nutrition and foods and juice and just what I'm putting in my body. And I think the older I'm getting, I'm realizing that I can't just, you know, show up every day and just be this young guy, you know, it's like we're getting older. And what's the most important thing? I feel like our health is really the most important. I guess asset or thing that we have for the rest of our life. And what I started doing is I think eventually this will become something that might be uh five days a week, uh but I hired a um a sports therapist to work on my body twice a week right now and work on all the

• 54:01Lewis Howes?

  the messed up parts of my injuries from the past and just any places that I'm feeling less flexible. It's really helped me on my hip flexors, my ankles, my shoulders, everything to just make me a better performing human. And I've seen tremendous results from that. Now, it's expensive. But for me, it's it's a worthwhile investment to like be healthy and

• 54:22Speaker 03

  Well, yeah, sure.

• 54:22Lewis Howes?

  feel less pain.

• 54:23Speaker 03

  Yeah, you're a professional athlete for you, you know, if even if it's costing you $200 an hour twice a week.

• 54:29Lewis Howes?

  Right.

• 54:29Speaker 03

  You know, 400 bucks for your career is not is not you know, really terrible. So with most people, with the average person, we're talking about spending $30 on a foam roller. And then really after that, it's just 10 minutes a day. You know, and then I I I do recommend that people get either massage therapy or or active release therapy, you know, just like once a month, let someone like, you know, dig their thumbs into your various muscles and like get get some grooves going. Uh, but yeah, I mean, for you, that's a worthwhile investment for for people if you can afford it. I think that's great. I see my A R T guy at least once a week right now. Um, so yeah, I I think there's a lot of different things you could do. It is. It's really important because you only get one body and it's a lot of pieces that you could

• 55:14Speaker 03

  replace, but you would rather you'd rather go go to the grave with all your original parts.

• 55:18Lewis Howes?

  Exactly. Yeah, I'm not saying people I'm not saying people should hire sports therapists today and, you know, do it every week. I'm saying that's the importance I'm putting on my body more the older I get because I see the value and what you guys talk about and, you know, all this stuff. So definitely getting a foam roller and doing that every day is is worth and stretching and working out is what people should be doing. Now, I wanna I wanna really quickly pitch you guys book because I got one more, one more question I wanna ask both of you. But make sure you guys go check out this book, uh, Man 2.0, Engineering the Alpha. And where's the best place they should go get this? Just on Amazon? If they search Man 2.0 or where do they find it?

• 55:57Speaker 03

  Yeah, you you'll really be able to get it pretty much anywhere. If you're paying attention to the internet this week, there'll be a couple of thousand links coming at you. But, uh, the, um, if you guys are really interested in how stuff like the New York Times Bestseller List, you might be interested, uh, to know that if you go to a bookstore and pick it up, it's counted like three times more towards a bestseller list than, let's say, picking it up in Amazon or Barnes and Noble or something like that. So if you and I only mention that so like if you're one of my fans or Adam's fans that's been following us for a while and you want to invest a little time and money into us, that would be what we'd prefer. Having said that, anyone who is interested in the book, no matter where you pick it up,

• 56:39Speaker 03

  we're going to be happy. So you can do that at Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Books-A-Million, CEO Reads, and of course, if you go to EngineeringTheAlpha.com, you can pick it up there as well.

• 56:50Lewis Howes?

  EngineeringTheAlpha.com, and that's got more information on the book and on you guys.

• 56:53Speaker 03

  Tons, tons of information, yeah. There are videos and all that.

• 56:57Lewis Howes?

  Nice. And John is at RomanFitnessSystems.com. It's also at John Romanello on Twitter and Facebook. And then Adam is BornFitness.com and at BornFitness on Twitter. But make sure you guys go check out EngineeringTheAlpha.com to learn more about the book and these guys. So that leads me to our final question. And you guys need to come up with a name for your, your tag team if you're in WWE. But it leads me to the final question. That's what I ask all the guests on this show. And I'll start with Adam. And so Adam and John, you'll have a minute to think about it. But what is your definition of greatness?

• 57:38Speaker 02

  Wow. Loaded question, Louis. But I like it.

• 57:43Lewis Howes?

  Could be as short or as long as you want it to be.

• 57:46Speaker 02

  Um, my definition of greatness is, is very, very simple because it kind of ties into what I believe is kind of the mantra that you should take toward life. And greatness is planning out a life where everything you do is geared towards the ideal version of what you want, making you happy. I honestly believe so, so deeply that greatness, whether it's in the self, whether it's in what you achieve, or it's in what you stand for, is all about being happy and kind of being true to yourself. Which means if you're not doing something that is gearing you towards being happy, you're probably not going to be living a great life.

• 58:25Lewis Howes?

  Right.

• 58:26Speaker 02

  And that was, it's become the guiding principle of everything that I do in my personal life and in my work life. And I've found that it's led to some pretty great things and some pretty special opportunities. So if you, you kind of follow that approach, I don't think it will ever really lead you wrong.

• 58:44Speaker 03

  Adam's answer was so good and poetic. So there's, there's a great quote I love that is actually in our book. And it's, it's by Bob Dylan. And the quote is,

• 58:59Speaker 03

  A man is a success if he gets up in the morning and goes to bed at night and in between does what he wants. And I really like that. And I think that for me greatness is about wanting to leave a legacy and wanting to achieve great things. And the desire to do those being sort of the impetus behind a lot of the actions that you take. I try to filter every action through, you know, sort of looking at all of the potential consequences and outcomes of that action. And, you know, I don't mean to sound like sanctimonious and I don't always make decisions

• 59:41Speaker 03

  that are going to lead down the path of righteousness, but I do try to make decisions that are going to lead me down a path towards success and happiness. And that's really important to me because it took me a really long time to learn that lesson and I had to make a lot of the same mistakes over and over, you know, whether in business and in particular with my relationships. So for me greatness really means recognizing who you are and how to make yourself happy and then pursuing that to the utmost of your ability.

• 1:00:11Lewis Howes?

  Nice. Okay. So you guys gotta come up with some name real quick before we wrap up.

• 1:00:16Speaker 03

  Oh, man. Can we just use Bushwhackers? I mean, no one's using it anymore. They were always my favorite tag team.

• 1:00:23Lewis Howes?

  Bushwhackers.

• 1:00:24Speaker 03

  Those guys were great.

• 1:00:26Lewis Howes?

  That's fine with me if that's what you would have.

• 1:00:30Speaker 03

  Uh, got anything else, buddy?

• 1:00:32Speaker 02

  Can we make something alpha out of this?

• 1:00:33Lewis Howes?

  The Alpha Twins or something? I don't know.

• 1:00:36Speaker 03

  Alpha Twins. I like that. Alpha Twins is great.

• 1:00:39Speaker 02

  We will show up wearing matching Alpha t-shirts. We will be the Alpha Twins.

• 1:00:44Lewis Howes?

  Sweet. Awesome.

• 1:00:46Speaker 03

  It's like the Wonder Twins, but Alpha Twins. Great.

• 1:00:48Lewis Howes?

  Well, I appreciate it, guys. Thanks so much for coming on and make sure everyone goes checks out their book, check out the site and say hi to them online. Thanks, guys.

• 1:00:58Speaker 03

  Thanks. Appreciate it. Appreciate it.

• 1:01:06Lewis Howes?

  And there you have it guys, I hope you enjoyed this interview as much as I did and I hope you enjoyed the dog snoring as well, which brought a lot of character to this episode. Make sure to check out EngineeringTheAlpha.com to look at their book website and go pick up a copy today for yourself. This book is amazing. The information you're gonna get out of this is gonna blow you away, just like I hope this interview did. So, check that out. Say hi to them on Twitter and make sure to go check out the show notes over at SchoolOfGreatness.com as I'm gonna have all their stuff linked up there on the post. I'm gonna have videos of them, links to their book, to their Twitter, Facebook, all that other good stuff, and other notes that we took from this show.

• 1:01:49Lewis Howes?

  So, make sure to check out SchoolOfGreatness.com. Feel free to leave us a comment or review over on iTunes and say hi to me. I'm over on Twitter @LuisHowes, over on Facebook, Lewis Howes. Shoot me an email if you have some questions or suggestions on how you would like me to make this show better, or how I can better serve you with different topics, guests, and other suggestions. With that guys, I hope you enjoyed this episode with John Romanello and Adam Bornstein. Make sure to pick up a copy of the book and stay tuned for the next episode on the School of Greatness. Have a great day and I'll talk to you soon.