Ep 129: Why Passively Consuming My Podcast is Getting You Nowhere with Carl Berryman
Are you an avid podcast listener who binges on shows but struggles to integrate the information actively into your life?
In this episode, we have back on the show—for a record third time— Mr. Carl J. Berryman, the host of the Inspired by Impact podcast and one of my closest brothers from another mother.
Carl had me on, along with Paul Salter, on his show, and we discussed the very important concept of INTENTIONALITY—of being intentional, deliberate, and directive with your actions after you hear something notable, helpful, inspirational, or profound in some way.
How are you using all this content you consume? If you're a podcast listener like me, you've probably binged shows, even Wits & Weights, which I'm happy for, but are you actively applying that information to your life?
Carl listens to this program and is an expert at implementing information, and he will demonstrate the Mental Muscle Up (MMU) approach to show you how to accomplish this yourself. All I ask is that you attempt it in this episode.
Episode Summary:
Content consumption has become an integral part of our daily lives. However, it's not just about passively consuming information; it's about actively integrating valuable takeaways into our life fabric. In this episode, we dive deep into this concept with expert Carl J. Berryman. He shares his unique method, the Mental Muscle Up (MMU), a potent tool for personal growth.
The key to personal growth is intentionality in content consumption. Instead of being a passive observer, we must engage actively with content and use it to improve ourselves. This process involves being intentional about the content we consume and integrating the information actively into our lives.
Transforming thoughts into actions can seem like an elusive concept, but it can be simplified by using potent tools like quotes. These nuggets of wisdom can effectively drive your self-improvement journey. By turning a quote or idea into a question that represents a challenge you are facing, you can harness its power for personal transformation.
It's essential to define your situation and the desired transformation to make the most out of these quotes. A useful technique is to list four things you don't want and four things you do want in your transformation. This process can help clarify your goals and provide a clear direction for your personal growth journey.
An integral aspect of personal growth is physical health, productivity, and relationships. Being organized and productive, coupled with nurturing relationships, can significantly enhance your mental and emotional health. For instance, MMUs can be a transformative tool. By tracking your energy levels in relation to carb intake, you can improve your physical health.
Ultimately, achieving personal growth is about taking action and getting results. It's about knowing what you want and being committed to achieving it, rather than just being aware of it. It's essential to be clear on our values and targets, and establish specific behaviors that will lead us to our goals.
Active content consumption is a powerful tool for personal growth. By being intentional, taking action, and utilizing tools like quotes and MMUs, we can drive our self-improvement journey.
__________
Click here to apply for coaching!
__________
Today you’ll learn all about:
(3:32) Importance of being more than a passive content consumer
(5:50) Role of intentionality in daily life
(8:25) How Carl curates what he listens to
(11:58) Process for active improvement from passive listening
(13:36) Applying and refining the MMU process to Wits & Weights episodes
(34:09) Unexpected actions resulting from podcast listening
(35:51) Advice for those overwhelmed by information without change
(37:34) Managing and prioritizing content takeaways
(40:27) Accountability in the MMU process and involving others
(48:18) Examples of behavior or mindset changes from podcast takeaways
(52:53) Learning from unsuccessful podcast takeaway implementations
(54:54) Aligning actions with core values and avoiding reactionary changes
(1:02:12) Carl's biggest regret with his health and fitness
(1:07:34) Outro
Episode resources:
The Brotherhood Bootcamp Training Manual (free digital copy)
IG: @ignitetheimpact
👉👉 APPLY FOR COACHING
https://www.witsandweights.com/coaching
👩💻👨💻 GET A FREE RESULTS BREAKTHROUGH CALL WITH PHILIP
https://witsandweights.com/free-call
The FREE metabolism assessment is available!
Click here to take the assessment and find out how high your energy flux is with a free report and strategy.
📱 Follow Philip on IG @witsandweights
📧 Get Philip's emails here
📞 Send a Q&A voicemail
🥩 Download Ultimate Macros Guide and 50 High-Protein Recipes here
🫙 Get high-quality 1st Phorm supps here
⭐ Leave a review here
💁♀️ Donate to support us here
👥 Join our free FB community here
Have you followed the podcast?
Get notified of new episodes. Use your favorite podcast platform or one of the buttons below. Then hit “Subscribe” or “Follow” and you’re good to go!
Transcript
Carl Berryman 00:00
Let's say I'm listening to your podcast and it's just notable, quotable, after notable chordal after notable quote a while I'm like, You know what, as I'm listening to this podcast, I'm limiting myself to four. That is it. So then once those four are done, every other piece of content that you say that really triggers something in me and inspires me, I now have to compare it against one of the other four to see which one I'm going to ditch because I've maxed myself I've made my overwhelm limit, four.
Philip Pape 00:29
Welcome to the Wits & Weights podcast. I'm your host, Philip pape, and this twice a week podcast is dedicated to helping you achieve physical self mastery by getting stronger. Optimizing your nutrition and upgrading your body composition will uncover science backed strategies for movement, metabolism, muscle and mindset with a skeptical eye on the fitness industry. So you can look and feel your absolute best. Let's dive right in. Wits & Weights community Welcome to another episode of the Wits & Weights podcast. We have back on the show for record third time. Mr. Carl J Berryman, host of the inspired by impact podcast and one of my closest brothers from another mother. Karl recently released a series of episodes about men's mental health month for November, covering everything from purpose to relationships to fitness, and lots more. So subscribe to his show to check those out. And in one of the shows, it was on November 16, titled, what are the best ways to use physical fitness to strengthen your mental health? Carl had me on along with Paul Salter, and we discussed the very important concept of intentionality, of being intentional, deliberate and directive with your actions after you hear something notable helpful, inspirational or profound in some way. What exactly are you the listener? Yes, you the listener right now dealing with all this content you consume. If you're an avid podcast listener, like I am, I've got dozens if not hundreds of my feed, perhaps that you've you've been shows before even Wits & Weights, which I'm grateful for, but then are you integrating that information actively into your life, not just passively. And then moving on to the next episode, or video or distraction. Today, we are going to help you out. Carl is a master at implementing information, and is also a regular listener of this podcast. And he is going to give you concrete examples of how he used the takeaways from a few of our earlier episodes and took action, Carl is going to demonstrate a very effective method he calls the mental muscle up or MMU to give you the exact steps you can take to do this yourself. And all I ask is that you try it with this very episode, Carl, my brother, I'm always excited to have you back. Welcome. Welcome back.
Carl Berryman 02:47
I'm excited to be here as well. And I wanted to pick apart that intro a little bit, but of course, you've just completely blown it out of the park. So thank you for that. And thank you for putting just a tiny bit of pressure on me for the for the MMU, because I didn't realize I signed up for a workout here, but actually yeah.
Philip Pape 03:07
I mean, coaching this process, man, you're not gonna get away from it. You are you are, I love it. I love it, who also learns from you every day. And I'm really excited because you're you're running a challenge. Now in parallel with our 21 Day Challenge, you're doing a 24 day challenge. And I want to get into the drivers behind that in the process and the steps. But before that, as always, let's go back to principles, right first principles. Why is it why should we care? Why is it important? Why is it necessary to be more than a passive consumer of content? You know, and I ask that seriously, because there are people who listen to content for entertainment, for information for learning, maybe a mix of all three, I mean, I have stuff in my feed that has nothing to do with fitness. It's you know, science fiction, or news or just entertainment stories or true crime? Why is it important to be an active consumer?
Carl Berryman 04:01
Great question. I'm going to play both sides of fence. Number one, it's not if your goal is not expansion. If your goal isn't to get better, then it's not important at all. Like listen to like there's some times say for example, when I'm when I go in the sauna, I don't like like after every one of my workouts, I don't like taking notes on the stuff that I'm listening. So to so that's when I'll listen to like a modern wisdom podcast, right, because I can. While there's a lot of good takeaways there. I'm not going to apply anything specifically to the MMU unless something really jumps out at me in that case, like, one thing that I've learned over the years is that the good ship sticks, so I'll remember it anyways. Or I'll just quickly take a timestamp but I I consume that more so for relaxing purposes. Whereas if I'm listening to your show, you're specifically because I don't listen to every single episode. I go through the ones and it seems like more often than not now. They're very applicable to specific goals. And I think that kind of goes hand in hand with how much more intentionality you've given me with regards to my my physique transformation and in nutrition, but, so to put things into context, it's not important. Unless you are consuming content for the sake of getting better in a specific way, then it's important to make sure that we're going from passive to active.
Philip Pape 05:24
I like that you mentioned, you pick the topics out that are relevant to you. And also notice that they are specific, I occasionally will come across a new podcast that looks interesting. And then I start going through the episodes, and I'm like, What is the purpose of the episode? Like they'll they'll even have a big name guests on this Olympic medalist who experienced all the success and this podcast is all about success. And like, what are they getting at? And the questions are just kind of rambling. And, and so you're right, that is an aspect of being efficient with our time and being intentional is the content itself, not even what you do with it has to be worthwhile content. Right.
Carl Berryman 05:59
And so the thing, the analogy that just came up there is like, you and I, I know you, you phrase it in terms of going from exercise to training, and I like to think of it in terms of going from working out to training. And this just to me, I look at podcasting or sorry, consuming content, no differently. Like when I go into the gym, the next time I go in the gym, I just have to look at my journalist See what I did last time. If for whatever reason I forget, which I won't, but just to confirm, Kay, what is today? Okay, today's legs. Okay, so what am I doing for legs? Okay, well, today is leg day one, because I have a two day option now. So I know I'm doing squats, dads, and ham curls. Like, those are the three exercises I'm doing. I'm not guessing I'm going in specifically to do those things to accomplish a specific target. So when I'm consuming content, relative to old Carl, who would just I'd be the guy who essentially mentally went to the gym and just got on as many machines as I possibly could and pounded out as many reps as I possibly could without really thinking about okay, is this actually taken me where I want to go? Like, it doesn't make any sense for me anyways, and the reason why it didn't make any sense, because I noticed finally, when I had a hardcore wake up call, that all the time I was putting into the gym wasn't doing anything. And then when I found when I looked at that I was like, all this time and literally 10s of 1000s of dollars, I'm investing in coaching and programs and communities like, my life hasn't changed. And yet, had asked me throughout the day, oh, yeah, man, I got this great idea. This is so good. I'm gonna do it. And it's like, no, no, what you're doing isn't working. Like when are you going to stop and wait the fuck up? Like, oh, you know,
Philip Pape 07:46
that's like so many workshops and seminars and Guru like speeches you go to and you're all fired up, you might even get some material and then it just goes on the shelf and you're done two days later is back to normal. Okay, so you're talking about intentionality, I want to I want to address again, how, okay, let me give you my personal experience, I've got a lot of podcasts in my feed, and I try to whittle them out, you know, when they're relevant anymore, but I do notice that some shows will build up and others immediately when the episode comes out, I want to watch I want to listen to it. Right. And that's, that's a form of intentionality, in my opinion, right? Where I know that there are things that are serving me, but it's not as rigorous as what I'm hearing from you, which I'd be curious about, how do you curate what you listen to? And when you listen to it without it becoming? You know, some people might say, Well, I'm not gonna have a calendar for like, what pocket pack has listened to win? How do you do that?
Carl Berryman 08:39
Another awesome question. Phillip, thanks for that.
Philip Pape 08:42
That's what we're here for man. Exactly. Awesome questions.
Carl Berryman 08:47
And mediocre answers. Okay. So how do I curate it? There's a couple different ways. So specifically, when I'm doing my mental muscle ups, like in the morning, that journaling experience, I have to make sure for me that I'm not just spending every single morning focused on purpose, because purpose is the one thing that I can't stop ever thinking about. I just can't like the podcast, the training manual, everything like that, right? So because when I was younger, I hated doing legs at the gym. But I don't want to be one of those guys who's got a jacked upper body and just these ridiculous chicken legs, like you have to train every single muscle group you have to. So that's how I develop intentionality in terms of I'll go back in my journal and I'll just look at all man, you haven't done ironically enough physical health and fitness is the one that gets skipped the most for me. And I say that because my physical health and fitness is probably the aspects that I'm least concerned with at this point. time because of your help. And my intentionality, I've gotten myself to a point where I'm content but not satisfied, because I definitely want to achieve more. Yet at the same time, if I have to allocate my time, which is limited to other areas of the prep work, say, for example, relationships, or my mental and emotional health and fitness, those are going to take a priority. So really, it boils down to what haven't I been training? Or where does it hurt the most? Okay,
Philip Pape 10:38
I like that, because you in your training manual, which I'm showing on the video here for YouTube. This is the Brotherhood boot camp training manual, you've got the prep work, as you call it, the P R EP, right purpose relationships, emotional and physical. And you're saying that you can choose on any given day, which one you're going to focus on. And sometimes you just don't focus on something for a while. Yeah. And maybe you need maybe you need or want to. You also mentioned though, sometimes you do that intentionally because it doesn't need that right now. There's all these things to balance, you only have so much time in the day, you kind of go between them, and maybe one can uplift the other when you know when you focus on it, right? So people listening, like Carl's really good with the analogy of taking the gym and applying it to life. Like he said, the chicken legs versus the strong upper body. Which is like the opposite for women. Right? Big legs. Yeah, that's right. That's right. So all of this aspect of intentionality is really important. And you're wondering why the hell do I have Carl on here to talk about this on a fitness show? Besides, you know, he's, he's one of the best dudes in my life, and you learn a lot from him, is when you're listening to this show, I put out two episodes a week and two short episodes a week. And if you're listening to every single one of those, that's a lot of time commitment. And I thank you for that. But I want you to take action with that. Right. And so I want to understand, Carl, you're now let's drill down a little bit more. With your focus on integrating lessons from podcasts in your life, what are the steps that somebody can take without being overwhelmed? Right now?
Carl Berryman 12:06
Okay, so really, really quickly. Inside the gym, again, I really like to as I'm teaching classes, or working with clients, I really like to use the scale of level 123. and So level one is taken nice and easy. Level two is dial up and you can dial back when you need. And level three is give it everything you got. So as it relates to, sorry, remind me the question so I can make sure I dial this in. Right. The question
Philip Pape 12:35
is, when you are listening to podcasts, how do you take the next step from that to action? Okay, excellent. So
Carl Berryman 12:42
when I first started, like the the training manual that you're holding in your hands, that is the level three, as far as I'm concerned, like, those five questions are level three. So it might be a little bit intense for everybody, because or not everybody for some people because it requires a lot of introspection. And if you're not used to introspection, it's gonna be a bit much. It's like putting too much weight on the bar. So the first level is just kind of contemplation. So you hear something and man, like, just kind of sit there with it for a minute. Like you don't have to do anything, just let it sink in. Because eventually, what I found, and I'm sure a lot of people can relate to this, is it's going to come back in some way, shape or form. And there'll be something that happens in your life where you can apply what you were contemplating on. But I don't really want to leave it to chance like that. So level two,
Philip Pape 13:32
let's address that though the contemplation when he says it, when you say it comes back, do you mean because you're continuing to consume content that the theme reemerge is because it's relevant to you or something else? You
Carl Berryman 13:43
know, something else? I'm glad you asked for clarification on that. So for example, I can't think of a specific No, I can't think of a specific example. So day one of our challenge like the 24 before 2024 challenge was all about values. Right? So this morning when I'm going for a walk, I actually it was something that happened later in the day. I was in Instagram and I saw Chris Williamson from the modern wisdom podcast post a post that he got 1.5 million subscribers Okay, so instantly that triggered a little bit of an like just insecurity in me like man this guy's so far ahead of me right? So but now since values is top of mind for me, I immediately asked myself the question Question Carl, what do you truly value like what do you really value do you value the number of subscribers or downloads you have? It's like no, what I truly value is the connection I have with the people that I love the most and the video you sent me today and then Alan sense and then Dennis text me as well like, that's what I value. So am I going to feel horrible about something that means nothing to me, in this case, subscribers, or I'm going to feel amazing about what means the most to me. And that's connection with For the guys in my life. So that's what I mean by if if you're just contemplating something, now you're kind of putting it into into your RAS so that you can start keeping an eye open for it more. So that's it. That's level one. And then level two, which is what we're doing in the challenge right now for part of it is just answering a question that's relevant to what you're consuming. So for example, if I hear from your podcast, like the one with Mike Milner, what was that? 126? Oh, geez, no, no, was 123 123. So there were a lot of gems in there. But the one that I that hit me the hardest that I did an MMU on, was this idea of depositing trust money into your bank account, like self trust, right? So now I'm asking myself the question, How can I continuously make deposits into my self trust bank account? And then I'm literally writing down and finding an action step that represents me putting those words that inspired me into action? So That's level two. So that's inspiration? Yes. Okay, level three, the difference between level three or level two, and level three is the difference between exercise and training. So it's all good to hear really, really good stuff and implement it right away. But that's like going to the gym without a plan. It's better than sitting on the couch, but it still might not get you anywhere. And even if it does, you're going to hit a plateau, and you'll probably stay there. So what really helped me go from level two to level three, in other words, exercise to training was making sure that those steps I was taking, were linked to a very specific outcome that I was wanting. So for example, with you. The goal is to gain muscle, right? Like I want to add some muscle. So if I'm listening to your podcast, and I'm like, oh, man, that's a really good idea. I should start tracking my calories. Okay. Yeah, that's good. And everything like that. And this is a really good example, because you know, better than anybody I, I hated tracking calories. And now I love it. The reason why I hated it before is because it wasn't linked up to a specific target. I knew I should do it. I knew there was benefits to it. But it wasn't linked up to something specific that I was measuring. And this is where I used to go wrong big time. I would have goals like I want to get bigger, I want to get stronger, I want to be in better shape. Those aren't goals. Like those are just words. Like what is what does that even mean? Like? What does that look like? So what do I want to look feel and perform? Like if I can define those to the point where I can measure them? Now I'm going from exercising to train? Does that make sense? Makes
Philip Pape 17:53
perfect sense. So you can either contemplate That's level one, right? And one of the things you talk about in your manual and on your show all the time is no level zeros. So at least doing something here is but way better than nothing. It's kind of like going from from zero to 80% Then you go from 80 to 90 and then 90 to 100 level to answering the relevant question getting inspired putting it what you've heard into an answer a question to yourself that you then answer and then level three linking that to specific outcomes that you are measuring. And in your challenge you're doing kind of an escalating approach to get there for the brothers in that because people might feel overwhelmed doing it all on day one just like I told you you need to train need to sleep needy do this this all on day one. Forget that. I'm gonna go back to keto again keto. That's the boogeyman for
Carl Berryman 18:46
the boogey man, I like that I like that the Keto boogeyman
Philip Pape 18:51
it's the trigger. So alright, so you gave a little example there from the episode 123 with Mike Miller, I don't know if you want to dive into more of that. Or another example that's specific to this show. So people listening to me like okay, that's how I can do it. Yeah,
Carl Berryman 19:04
we'll do another we'll do another one. And actually, I'm not going to do so I sent you the three this morning. But I'm going to I'm going to skip the one or I'm going to call an audible on the one from your episode. 100 Do you happen to have that handy what the quote was that I got from you there? I don't remember off hand if you don't take it
Philip Pape 19:23
away. You sent me there this morning with Okay, I
Carl Berryman 19:25
got it Okay, which means I can pull it up right away. Give me two seconds. Yeah, go for is the one with all the photos. Yes, it is so Okay, so I got it right here. Okay, so, this is what Philip said in Episode 100. He said quote, skepticism is not just questioning everything that comes at you. It's questioning everything that comes from you. And quote, I remember specifically when I was in the gym listening to that I had to stop what I was doing, like, Ah, that was gut wrenching. It was a gut wrenching aha moment. So I'll I'll just you know what Yeah, I'm going to call an audible on this one and pull it through the MMU. So the situation that's so the first question in the in the MMU is what is your situation? And essentially, think of that, like you're determining what you're going to be training inside of the gym, like what is, what is the outcome that you're kind of going towards? So you define what the situation is. So if you're going to the gym, oh, I want to increase my bench by 20 pounds. Okay, well, that's the situation. In this case, I'm realizing that I have some stories and some beliefs when it comes to my physique that probably aren't serving me. So what are those beliefs? And how do I change them to ones that are serving me? So that's what I would put as the situation. So
Philip Pape 20:47
let's, let's break that down real quick. So you took a quote that I said, and by the way, this is really cool that you can talk to the person who said the quote, right, because is sometimes the things I will say at a podcast, and I'm sure you've seen this the same, they just come out. It's not like some profound thing. Yep. And it hits somebody else. And I'm not going to, I'm not going to diminish that at all. I'm not going to say, oh, you know, that's I didn't mean anything by it. When you took something from that. That's, that's awesome. So the skeptic skepticism, not at you, but from you. You heard that that's your notable, quotable that the phrase you use. And you turn that into an interpretation for you of limiting beliefs. Yes. Which is extremely profound concept in everything we do to approve. And then you said, Okay, that's the beginning of my inspiration. Right? Yeah.
Carl Berryman 21:35
Right. So that's like, that's where you then link it back to the situation. And side note here, when I do, you can look at it a couple different ways. It's like if you go to the gym, and it's leg day, and you normally like say, for me, it'd be squats, deads. And then like curl, right? Well, let's say all the squat racks are taken. And for whatever reason, there's no Olympic bars, well, I don't want to do leg curls first, for sure. Because like, that's definitely going to limit my squats and my dad's. But at the same time, I don't want to wait half an hour to start my workout. So unfortunately, I'm gonna have to go there. So there's flexibility in the way that you do the exercises. Same thing with this in the mornings, I always start off with the situation, because I want to, I'm lucky that I have access to hundreds of quotes that I've gotten in my podcast that I have readily available on my phone. So I know who the author is. And it's like, Okay, so today, if I'm working on physical health and fitness, I'll just go to all the Philip Pape quotes that I have, and I'm going to pick one that is relevant to whatever I've defined the situation and be. And so then, but if you get your notable, quotable first, chances are it hit you for a reason. And that reason is something that you can probably put in the form of a question. That is a challenge that you were facing. So applying the notable, quotable, and then defining your situation in the form of a question that represents a challenge you're facing. makes it so much easier that you're going to are much more likely that whatever you took from the podcast is going to serve you well.
Philip Pape 23:13
Okay, okay. I like that. So you take a quote that you hear, turn it into a question, I would expand on that. And I know you have as well that it doesn't have to be a verbatim quote, if you hear a general idea concept, some of your paraphrase. Maybe it was half an hour ago on the podcast, and it's been sticking with you. And now you just want to get it out. You don't necessarily have to find the timestamp. We want to make this easy for people to get what you want out of it. And and there you go, okay. Yes. No,
Carl Berryman 23:39
no, that's perfect. Because then in this situation, if I didn't have the timestamp, I'd have been like, Oh, what did Philip say? It would have been something along along the lines of Don't believe everything you think, okay. And then I just write down Don't believe everything you think. And that would be my, quote, unquote, notable, quotable. And so then, the next question inside the MMU is what is your transformation? And this one really, really helped me i? Where did I hear it first? I think I can't remember. I think I read it somewhere, actually, where you hear about this couple, and they're looking to go on vacation. So they go to the airport, and they're talking to a travel agent, and they're like, Oh, well, where do you want to go? They're like, we're not quite sure. It's like, Well, what was the last vacation? You went on? Oh, we went, we went to this place. We went to that place. Well, what did you like about it? Well, you know what? I'm not really sure. But then so he's had enough of this, like just going around and around. So he says, What didn't you like about the vacation? Oh, man, the food wasn't really that good. Oh, the hotel was not that clean, and people can just rattle off what they didn't like about it, right? So he's like, Okay, so now he makes a list. He has a list of all the things that they don't want. So it's like, okay, so then a vacation that you wouldn't be looking for would be one that has great food, one that has pulsar, one that has whatever it is they listed, right, so we just list off like five things. So I found that for me, what really helps to get me clear about what I do want is to first list out what I don't want, which is why What is your transformation, you look for things that you don't want versus for things that you do want. So in this case, this case, if I'm looking to be a skeptic for myself, and keep in mind, I'm just doing this impromptu. If I'm looking to be a skeptic of my own beliefs, what I want to make sure is that I'm not letting my limiting beliefs guide my behavior. So what I would want on the opposite that is I want empowering beliefs to guide my behavior. And then I would keep going down list just saying the opposite of what I don't want to get very clear about what I do want, because now it's going to be dialed in to what I want at the end of the day, right? Yeah, it
Philip Pape 25:36
makes a lot of sense the way you explained it, where, because of psychology, we love to criticize, we love to say we don't like, you know, if everything goes well, we tend to be it's like going to Amazon looking at a product you're gonna see the one star reviews and the five star reviews and five star reviews are probably all bought for one star reviews are the all the honest reviews, and nobody reviews in between, right? So and that just for listeners, right? Again, in your training manual, that is the next section, what is your transformation, and it is just four lines that say don't versus do. And what Carlos said is, if you can't think of what you want to do, think of what you don't like, and then turn it into the opposite of what can serve you.
Carl Berryman 26:17
And so as it relates to our physical body, right, like, for me, if I say, You know what, I don't want my arms to be small, I don't want to have a flat chest, I don't want to not be able to see my six pack. Okay, well, what do I want, I want jacked arms, I want a full chest, I want to rip six pack like it's just, it comes so much quicker. If you're stumbling upon the things that you do want if you first list things that you don't want. So anyways, not to be no
Philip Pape 26:46
and and Carl probably notices me looking down a lot. But again, I'm just admiring his training manual, as we go through today, like cover fields, I like the way they come. That's nice. It's but it's structured. You know, it's like you've got it all listed in here and the whole first like 30 pages, explain this whole process and give you a bunch of examples. So alright, so that's the transformation. You've got your situation, your notable quotable, your transformation. And then what's next?
Carl Berryman 27:13
The next one is what is your inspiration? And what I found with this one, and this actually ties back to what you said. Because what you said is that sometimes you say things on your podcast that become aha moments for somebody else that weren't necessarily what you meant. So what I found for me, is that the the fourth question, what is your inspiration that allows you to make this really personal and customized to you? So it's where you're essentially, what I do is, right before I'm about to write out, what is my inspiration? I go back, and I just really quickly review. Okay, what was the situation? What's the notable, quotable, and what's the things that I don't do want? And then I'm trying really to come up with an answer for what is the situation, and I'm just kind of word vomiting on the page to let my own inner wisdom come through. Like what does this mean, to me, it might be a place where I let out some more frustrations about the way that in this case, the way that my limiting beliefs have been holding me back. Why I need to let them go, how it's not serving me. So this is kind of a free for all. But it's where you you kind of bring everything together and put it into context before the final and what I would say is the most important step so
Philip Pape 28:22
that makes sense. So you've taken this these pieces, you're now putting them together in freeform, it kind of reminds me of the classic classic like journal I know I know. You don't necessarily want to use the word but that's like to me is kind of putting it together which is nice because then you get you get the brain dump away from the all the initial information you wrote down. You're synthesizing it right? It's kind of like when you have all your notes and you need to write a paper or do a podcast now you synthesizing it together and then what comes after that?
Carl Berryman 28:50
So before what comes after that, though, I just to give an example. I want to demo whatever is down for this one specifically in today's MMU. So what is your inspiration? I put what if I'm completely wrong? I love and hate this question, because at first glance who wants to be wrong, yet isn't being wrong? Typically the first step to being right. So what do I want to be right about as it relates to my body? And what does right look and feel like both tangibly and intangibly? So now I'm just I'm really just asking myself more questions to help me get clear on the next step, which is, what is your integration? And this one? Oh, man, if I were to show you the different pieces and versions of the training manual, that's this is this is the one that's given me the most headaches because like I've been doing this since 2017. And it for such a long time. I was doing the I was doing it used to be called implementation. I was doing the implementation, implementation implementation, but nothing was really changing. And there would be times where I didn't do what I was supposed to do. You won't, I wouldn't realize it until the next morning, I opened up the training mountains. Um, and yeah, that's right. I was supposed to do this. And I just, I just forgot. So there's five extremely critical steps there. Because the question, what is your integration, the whole, the whole idea behind that is to get you to take one small, specific and simple action the next 24 hours, whatever that is. So the first three of those five little check, like literally checkboxes in the training manual that you want to check off to make sure you're doing the right thing. There you go. Thank you, Philip. That's awesome. So are small, specific and simple. But then I added to, that made a huge difference number one was scheduled. So I had to, like literally set an alarm in my phone to remind me when I was going to take the action that I come up with, and then shared. So I shared I might change in the next version of the manual to either say spot so that I can ask somebody for a spot with that, or shout out because if you were the one who inspired me with your notable quotable, I want to give you a shout out for helped me take this action.
Philip Pape 31:11
So that's the that's the community slash accountability slash brotherhood aspect of that.
Carl Berryman 31:17
Yeah, you know what you're gonna count. I'm not a huge fan of that word. Accountability
Philip Pape 31:21
beyond Okay. Support Community says, you know, whatever you want to call it friends. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. And I liked the scheduled, right, because I think I don't know if any of this was inspired by the SMART acronym. Which specific, measurable action or whatever it is. There's a million versions of measurable actual, realistically bound. Bound.
Carl Berryman 31:40
Yeah. time bound, even realistic. Like,
Philip Pape 31:44
I know, that's realistic.
Carl Berryman 31:46
That's why yeah, anyways,
Philip Pape 31:48
the schedule part is important, though, because sometimes that comes up a lot with I know, with my clients where it's just add a reminder to your phone like that, if you do nothing else, just put this reminder in your phone. And like you said, it might be a reminder to remind yourself or something like it may not even be a thing itself. Because you don't know when you're gonna do that thing necessarily, right? Yeah.
32:08
My name is Tony from a strength lifter in my 40s Thank you to Phil and his Wits, & Weights community for helping me learn more about nutrition and how to implement better ideas into my strength training. Phil has a very, very good understanding of macros, and chemical compounds and hormones and all that and he's continuously learning. And that's what I like about Phil, he's got a great sense of humor. He's very relaxed, very easy to talk to. One of the greatest things about Phil, in my view is that he practices what he preaches. He also works out with barbells, he trains heavy, you notice that he has made but he trains heavy. So if you talk with him about getting in better shape, eating better, he's probably going to give you some good advice. And I would strongly recommend you talk with him, and they'll help you out. Thanks.
Carl Berryman 32:53
Yeah, another piece of that though, the that I got from James clears book atomic habits. And that's why the first part of the integration is your I Am statement. So I found for me that linking behaviors to the type of person I know myself or that I want to be, and he talks about this and atomic habits is extremely powerful for getting us to follow through on the things that we have difficulty following through on. So linking it up to an identity statement. So in this case, my identity, my identity statement for physical health and fitness because I have one or two for each area of prep work that are just standards that when I say them, and I think them they generated a very, very empowering feeling in me. And one of my I am statements for physical health and fitness fitness is I am one jacked, motherfucker. And as soon as I as soon as I read that, it's like, yeah, whatever this action is, it's getting done.
Philip Pape 33:56
That's like a vision board, man. You know, it's like, hey, Arnold, and like Ronnie, and all these guys on the vision board, like that's cool, man. Oh, yeah. Yeah. self identity. Yes. Yeah,
Carl Berryman 34:09
the integration is easily the the most important part in terms of making sure that Listen, you're listening to brilliant guys. Like, Philip, let's, let's put their words to some actual action. And the reason why I switched it from implementation to integration is because I wanted to get myself to start thinking about rather than just like, one hit wonder steps, because that's what I was doing all the time. I like to think about little, like the atomic habits thing where little tiny habits that I can start developing into practices,
Philip Pape 34:39
right. Rather than are part of your new routine. Yeah. Right. So say for extended comfort zone. Yeah, yeah. Yeah.
Carl Berryman 34:45
Like the other day when Derek had that whole thing on gratitude, right. So one of the things that I this was just a conversation with a friend of mine that when I had him on my podcast, and he mentioned how gratitude for him is the first step to self awareness. Somebody Okay, I'm going to start practicing gratitude a bit more about how am I going to do it. So now, since I'm going for walks everyday things to fill up, I have two different types of walks, I have a walk with the block, which is, the block is my inner enemy. Let's call him that. So I give him some airtime and let him come out and tell me why he's doing, what he's doing, and what he needs from me. And then I do the same thing with gratitude. So I'll go for a gratitude walk where it's like, Hey, what is the one thing I'm really going to be grateful for during this walk and just giving that some emotionality? So what what are the practices that I can potentially make into an integration that way it is actually integrated into my life, and therefore has a much more likely chance of sticking?
Philip Pape 35:44
Okay, so then I have a follow up on that. And it's actually two parts. One is, how do you avoid getting overwhelmed because you're doing this every day, and now you're coming up with a new action every day, where those would stack up? If they were all new habits every single day, five days, seven days a week, you're starting something new? And you could you could just imagine these layering on top of each other. There's this overwhelming set of things you're doing. If they're not one hit wonders. That's, that's one. And then the other piece is how do you close the loop? You know, you've written it down. How do you hold yourself? I guess I will use the word accountable, but it's self accountability to that.
Carl Berryman 36:19
Okay, are you gonna remember both those questions? Because yes,
Philip Pape 36:22
I will. Outside. That's what media does, right to the politicians. Questions and once Yeah, okay.
Carl Berryman 36:30
So the first question is, how do you prevent overwhelm? Yeah, how do you prevent Okay, so let's say in the gym, right now, there are so many different principles that I could be using during my workouts, right? Like, I could be super setting, I could be doing five by fives, I could be doing German volume training, I could be doing long range partials, which I am right now. What I'm going to do is I'm going to pick one, and then I really have to decide, okay, how long am I going to test this for? Because I don't know if it's going to work, but I want to test it. If I'm coming upon new stuff all the time, I then have to compare it to say K. Number one, have I given my previous thing enough time to actually see if this works? If these answer's no, then I just discard it. And if the answer is yes, it's like, Okay, we're gonna move on to this something new or do I really, really like long range partials? I'm getting great results. So there's no need to change it. So how long have I been doing it? Have I given enough time to test and then another really, really simple way thing that helped me? Oh, man, you should have seen my notes before, whenever I was doing. Let's say, I'm listening to your podcast. And it's just notable, quotable, after notable cordial, after notable quote a while I'm like, You know what, as I'm listening to this podcast, I'm limiting myself to four. That is it. So then once those four are done, every other piece of content that you say that really triggers something in me and inspires me, I now have to compare it against one of the other four to see which one I'm going to ditch because I've maxed myself, I've made my overwhelm limit, four, which means if anything else comes after the four, it's either replacing one of the four, or it's not making it to the list, just like exercises, like how many exercises do I have time for in the gym today? Well, I'm going to be there for 45 minutes. I know, given how I'm doing it. Three exercises good for me. But what if I want to do five? Too bad? You've got time for three? Yeah.
Philip Pape 38:23
Let's get more specific, though. If if you're doing your prep work every day in the journal, yeah. And you're writing down a integration action, because you have the statement here. I am committed to doing something by some time. Yep. Right. And and generally, I'm guessing like, it's what you said it's within 24 hours. Yep. Is that action? Something you can do once? Or is it sometimes an action that then becomes a repeated action? It's both. Okay. And the ones that repeat, repeated actions couldn't get overwhelmed every day by adding a new one? Or do you sometimes repeat the one you did yesterday? And if I'm overthinking this, let me know.
Carl Berryman 39:00
You are not overthinking us. This is a brilliant question. And it takes us into IBI principle number one, right quality versus quantity. So a lot of the times when I'm doing it's like it, so when I'm doing the MMU Now I've done it so many times, it's like, if you're doing a squat, for example, I found one of the things that really helps me add weight to my squat is if I focus on at the bottom of the squat, forcing my knees out, like really thinking about forcing my knees out in order to get up faster. Like that's just a, that's just a cue that works for me, doesn't have to work for everybody. But what I found with the MMU is, is at some point in time, those cues, you're not gonna have to think about them, they're going to become unconscious, because you've done them so many times. So now when I'm going into that fifth question, what is your integration? I'm automatically thinking of quality over quantity. So I'm probably going to ask myself a question that will represent me doing something that I'm already doing with a higher level of quality. Okay, so that way you're not really piling on more and more things to do. You're going for depth instead of with like
Philip Pape 40:11
it. Okay. Yeah, that's actually a really good answer. And, you know, I might, I might throw that in our group later as like inspiration, right as like, okay, that's my action.
Carl Berryman 40:25
And then the second question, what was it again?
Philip Pape 40:26
The self accountability. So now you have that the next day comes along. What if you didn't do it? Like, there's a chance you didn't do it? So yeah, what does that? Yeah, yep. Oh, okay.
Carl Berryman 40:35
So there's a couple things that happened there. Number one, is I scheduled it. So in my phone, I have a standard alarm that just says MMU. And then I change it to whatever time I've designated during my morning routine that that is gonna be the time that I do my MMU. But sometimes stuff comes up, and I can't get to it. So there's a couple different options that I do. Number three, if you think about it, number one, well, if I didn't do it, maybe it wasn't important enough to be done. So then I'm really gonna evaluate if I needed to do it. Maybe I just got lazy, maybe, maybe I got busy. So now it's like, okay, well, do I need to put this on top of the thing that I that I'm planning on doing today. So again, now it's like going back to that thing of where I have four notes, but now it's really two. So but what I usually do is most of the things that I come up with in terms of integration steps don't take very long at all. And there are things that I can do in really a few minutes. So what I do is, every morning, I go to my previous pages, and I don't have this in your current training manual, but at the top where it says PRP, I'm rating myself out of three in every area of prep work to give myself a daily score. Okay, so then I do that before I start a new MMU. So then if I'm going back and was like, Ah, I didn't do that thing for physical health. Now, it's like, did it need to be done? No. Okay, we'll move on. Yes, it needed to be done. So say, for example, your latest not your latest episode, but Episode 126, where he talked about the importance of carbs and making sure that I'm not going to like, I'm not ripping down my muscle and using it as fuel, essentially, that's an important one for me. So if I didn't do yesterday's MMU, and today's MMU was based on that from your podcast, guess what? Yesterday's, it's gone. I'm forgetting about it. Because focusing on my carbs, which is essentially what I did this morning, really long story short with that MMU, I realized I'm not thinking macro factor, I'm hitting my calories, I'm hitting my protein by hitting my fat, but I'm not hitting carbs. And I've noticed that it's really affecting my energy throughout the day. So what I came up with long story short for the integration, is going into macro factor today in advance making sure that my day hits my my carb targets. And then, at the end of the day, and I set alarm for this, is I'm going to give myself a rating for my energy as it relates to my carbs. So I'm going to write down what was your energy out of three? What was level three in the evening? Okay, well, what was your carb count? Well, your carb was 367. And that's what it's supposed to be. Okay. Awesome. So now, over a couple of weeks time, I'm going to be able to see, does the does the amount of carbs that I have actually affect my energy in the evening? Because that's what I want to know. So I'm going to do that for a couple of weeks.
Philip Pape 43:28
Everyone listening should do that. Really good. This integration
Carl Berryman 43:33
step, how much? How much time does it take me to write down my energy level and compare it to my carbs? Like, that's 30 seconds. So a lot of these steps? Sure, there can be a lot of them. But they'll take like 1530 seconds, and some of them are dynamic.
Philip Pape 43:46
And that's, that's actually part of the answer right? There is just keep them short and simple, because you aren't gonna get overwhelmed if it's like, make a list of 100 Blah, blah, blah, and then do this and do this and do that. It's funny, because I, I am a little bit well, I'm organized in a different way. But like, I will keep emails unread. In my inbox, I have a very small inbox, I'm a zero inbox type of person. I like to just take care of things, or file them away if it's just information or leave them unread if I'm going to get them done. But those lower they get on the list that I realized that they must not be that important. And eventually it's like, they go. Yeah, so same kind of thing. You just never know. Because in the moment, you're all excited, you're like, Yeah, I got to do this thing. And then you realize, you know, time is an interesting moderator.
Carl Berryman 44:28
I do that with a lot of your text messages. Actually. I'll read them and I'm like, this isn't important. I'll make it unread. And then I just completely delete it all together. So
Philip Pape 44:37
that explains it explains a few things. All right. So if I haven't lost the audience with getting too much technical about this, hopefully not. I think it's pretty cool approach no matter what like, what do you have Karl's journal The principles are, you know, time tested and you've referenced things that you've borrowed from right like atomic habits and behavioral psychology and all this stuff. You know, Carl's The man reached out if you have questions about this, I want to get into some follow ups on this outside of the specific application, for example, doing this process, is there something that has really surprised you, you know, over the years after listening and then going through this process?
Carl Berryman 45:15
Great question. And it already makes me think that I can't believe I haven't thought of an answer in advance to what your last question is going to be. But yeah, the thing that surprised me, and this may sound like it's not gonna sound like a broken record to your audience, but it sounds like a broken record to me. One of the reasons I first started doing this journaling process, if you will, was because when I hit rock bottom back at the end of 2020, beginning 2021, I really wanted to evaluate and figure what the lead domino in my life was, as it related to the prep work. So is it my physical health or fitness? Isn't my emotional health and fitness, my sense of purpose? Like, what is it that if I take care of it, it's going to take care of everything else. And it made sense to me that it was my emotional health and fitness, because I'm like, Man, if I can, if I can become the master of rather than the slave of my emotions. And despite how I feel, I can take the actions that I know I need to take. That, to me is like the lead Domino. So I followed that for a long time. And nothing changed. In fact, it got worse, because I was putting so much pressure on myself. So then I just asked myself that, again, at that point in time, I was being skeptical of my own beliefs. So saying, okay, Carl, what is the thing? I kind of pulled a George Costanza, in that I did the opposite. So if you don't know who George Costanza is and what the opposite is, then just stop listening if you're not in the Seinfeld, because I don't want to talk to you. Anyways, so relationships was the bottom of the prep work for me, like the bottom, hence why Jenny Lee and I had our three months separation, and just Yeah, I had you asked me if our relationships were important. Mavenlink Yeah, they are. But if you look at my actions, they're not because I'm canceling on friends. I'm not returning messages. I'm not returning calls. I'm not spending time with Jenny Lee. So I said, Okay, well, what would happen if I did the opposite? What if I made relationships like the lead Domino? And wouldn't you know, that changed? Everything? Absolutely. Everything. So what surprised me. And this has become a fundamental belief of mine is that if I wanted to improve any area of my life, whether it was my body, my sense of purpose, and especially my mental, emotional health, It all depended on the quality of the relationships I have with the people I cared the most about. I was not expecting that. And
Philip Pape 47:47
that has carried forward into your mission today. I mean, it shines in everything you do is connecting, connecting people to each other and connecting with them. So if someone listening feels like they are struggling, and they're like, why, like your idea, but I'm overwhelmed, and I'm not sure where to start, and maybe it's a mental health, maybe it's something else, like you said, emotion sounded like the obvious root cause because it was tied into mental health, but something else was holding it back. Even if you had, quote, unquote, leveled up your emotion as best you could. How can someone figure that out? Well,
Carl Berryman 48:19
to me, it's like, I didn't figure out what the squat, that's my knee that if I focus on doing my knees out and tell, I'm gonna say this was within the last 18 months, and I've been a personal trainer for 12 years. So it's going to be a matter of taking in testing, taking and testing, taking and testing. So consuming something that works or that you think is going to work and testing it out. The hard part is, you got to figure out okay, how long do I need to give this but it's like a diet, right? So if people are going to try, say, for example, shred tilbyr. Okay, well, if people are going to do that, you got to stick with it for the two weeks to see if it actually works. You can't you can't do shred Tober for a week, and you can't do it for six weeks, you got to do it for the specified amount of time. So you got to figure out okay, well, if I think this is really going to help me, what's a realistic amount of time that's, I need to give this to see if it actually works. And more importantly, this is one of the this is one of the questions. It's called the Miracle questions from the book switch, which is a phenomenal book on habits. miracle question that therapists would use with their clients. Say, for example, if they're an addict, and or an alcoholic, say, Hey, you work you wake up tomorrow, and your problem is 100% gone and you're like, you're just a new person. What would be the first sign that you know it's gone? So when it comes to our goals, and changing them from goals to targets, if we can get clear about what the first sign is that what we're doing is working, then we'll be able to really tell if we know what we're doing is working. So for example, like I've got a client who had to come decision with him the other day about macro factor he went in, and he changed his goals to weight loss because the scale wasn't going down. And we had a very interesting conversation. So he changed it back. But I said, dude, like, what are you measuring? Like, what specifically are you measuring? He's like, Well, I'm measuring my waist circumference and a measuring how my clothes fit. Like, I want to lose weight, because and then I asked them why? Because I want my clothes to fit better. I want to feel stronger. Like, do your clothes fit better right now? Yeah, they're looser. Do you feel stronger right now? And do we have the numbers and the evidence to support that? Yes. So then why are you changing your fucking targets? Because he lost sight of what his targets actually work? Well,
Philip Pape 50:40
that's okay. I'm processing this, because I'm trying to think of what the people who are listening, you just gave them a few different ways to approach this one one way sounds like first of all, the prep work has has different areas, right. And if you can identify the different areas of your life, at least spending time on all of them, to some extent, would help versus neglecting one completely. Right that that comes to mind. And then the second thing is testing, measuring, and then going by the things that are improving, that would have improved if you knew the problem was gone. Yeah. So I had a client recently who long term client. And it's similar situation, you said, like she knew what to do, and wasn't doing it. And it was showing the results, right. And as soon as she, for example, started eating more, whatever it was, in the next day, hey, feeling great. I was scared about regaining weight, for example, but I'm not anymore. Because I realized that what's more important is this other thing, and I was, you know, way worse off with that. And I'm not going into details here, but it's good, Carl. Okay, so
Carl Berryman 51:49
one thing I want to add there, that shirt really, really important. Yeah, we don't give ourselves enough credit when it comes to looking at our past experience. So for me in terms of training, for example, I, I knew what I like to do for training before I was as consistent as I am now. And I deviated from that. So when I had my wake up call, I'm like, Carl, just what do you what do you like to do for training that, you know, gets you results? And so that's why I'm doing the style that I do now. So if we can get quiet and reflect on once upon a time, when we were experiencing the opposite of that, which we don't want to be experiencing right now and put the pieces of the puzzle together of what was different than its compared to now hence, the second or the third question, don't want versus do want it, it becomes pretty clear that you already know the answers.
Philip Pape 52:36
So that's interesting. That brings up the also the idea of if you are testing and measuring and taking action, and things are not going as planned, right, what what how you learn from that experience. I mean, that's that's what comes to mind to me as well, because I'm sure you've done your prep work, and you did some integration. And it's not. It's not giving you what you want. Right, right. Yeah. And, yeah, yeah, no, no, go ahead. No, no, no, you go ahead. Just
Carl Berryman 53:05
that, to me. This is where the 8020 rule really applies. Like, I know, my results are going to come from 20% of the work. But typically speaking, if I'm not getting results, from the integration steps that I've been dedicating my time and energy to doing, there's really about 20% of my excuses, or reasons that are going to be why. And one of them is going to be you haven't been doing it long enough. Plain and simple. So say, for example, my podcast, right, like, I don't have the quote unquote, amount of followers and downloads that I want right now. And why is that? Oh, well, there's 1,000,001 reasons. But the main reason that I am choosing to entertain, I just haven't been doing it. I haven't gotten in the reps yet. I need to get more reps. I am convinced because this is what so many successful people in front of me have told me is that you just need to get in more reps. So I am committed to getting in the reps. So if if ever anything's not working, it typically boils down to have I really given it a chance. Sure. I mean,
Philip Pape 54:18
we talked about consistency, and it's become a buzzword. But really, it should be replaced with commitment. Yeah. Commitment. Yeah, right. Getting doing something for repeated basis over time. Not perfectly and not necessarily every day, continuously over time. You can miss a podcast episode, but you do the next 10 years. You're still golden. As soon as you drop off that's that's where the challenge comes in. All right, one or two more things you got time. A couple couple minutes. Yeah, okay. You and I had a I think was a conversation over text not long ago about not being reactionary or conversely being reacting too quickly when you hear something on a podcast and be like, Oh, that blows my mind and you know, it just opened my mind and changed my mind. Whatever, you probably know what I'm talking about. Right? Almost like, sometimes the what might be a notable, quotable is really just a soundbite that just sounds great in the moment. Yeah. And then you and you're like, you want to take action on it, but maybe you shouldn't maybe step back and like, just wait and sit with it. So what are your thoughts on that?
Carl Berryman 55:23
It because, okay, so I'm trying to think of who quoted this on my podcast? Oh,
Philip Pape 55:32
it was actually I think we're not saying yeah, weird, or, or was it the awareness and either last step is not awareness or whatever. You know, I'll
Carl Berryman 55:41
summarize it right now. But di talked about when you know, your values, it gets really, it's very easy to say yes or no to things. So if you know specifically, what your targets are in a specific area, say for example, your physique, okay, well, I know what I'm eating today and macro factor already, because it's programmed in there. And I've left some room because it's Friday, so I'm probably going to have a cocktail. So there's room in there for that. But if something comes up, and I want to Jenny Lee wants to go somewhere, something's like, Ah, it's not part of the plan right now. Like, it's not macro factor, we're going to do this. So when I'm crystal clear on what my macros are, it's easy for me to say no, I can't have that. So what if instead of macros, whatever area that prep work you're talking about, you are so crystal clear on the behaviors that are taking you to where you want to go, that you do only those behaviors. So say, for example, with my podcast, right, like the podcast, I'm not gonna say it's my life. But in a way it kind of is, like it kind of is. So I know, actually, let me put it this way. In my phone, I have an app called done. It's a free app, it's a habit tracker. And inside of there, I've established what my big lifts are, for each area, the prep work. So what is my squat, my bench, my dead? For my purpose? What's my squat, my bench, my dead for my relationships? I forgot, I have one thing for each area that prep work. But I know what those three lifts are for me. So those are the things I'm focused on on a daily basis, I have to hit those things. If I get other things in Sure, that's fine. But I don't need to because I am crystal clear on what is most important. And the less clarity you have on what's most important to like, the more likely you are to do that, which is not important. Okay, I get that.
Philip Pape 57:36
So what about the situation where you haven't been able to crystallize that yet? Because there's so there's so many angles, and potential, quote, unquote, facts and evidence and things and I'll give you I'll be very concrete, somebody, one of my followers, reached out by email and said, You know, I really trust your opinion. But um, here are 10 things that are all different and conflicting, that I'm hearing from influencers, and this doctor and this person, this person about all sorts of things, whatever carbs and keto listen, and they all conflict. And it's like, she, you know, she felt that a lot of them were trustworthy sources. And she's not sure which one to go with. And that's just an example. Like, I gave her clarity. Give me my strong opinion, on which way to go. She's like, Alright, cool, I'm good. But when people are just not sure, from the from day one, they haven't gotten to that point, like I was for 20 years, and the health and fitness space, just didn't know what to do. How do you get that clarity? Right? That's like the premise. Yeah. Okay. So
Carl Berryman 58:40
I'll address two things. The first one, this is what I would say to Carl. Okay, so I'm not necessarily going to say this to your listeners. But I would be sharp. And for me, I would really appreciate it if somebody if I came to you. And I was listing all these things, I would really appreciate because I know myself well enough that this is what I'm doing. I'd appreciate if you said Carl, why do you keep using this as a as an excuse to not take action? Like why are you so afraid to fail? Because I know if I'm const if I'm skipping from one thing to the other? It's because I'm afraid of failure. If I'm if I'm making excuses and finding all these things is too. Now I know which one I don't want to do. It's because I'm just uncomfortable with uncertainty. So I would ask myself, Carl, when are you going to allow yourself to be okay with uncertainty, because we don't know which one of these is going to work like Philips, a brilliant guy, we can take his advice. It might not work for you. But at some point in time, and that time is right fucking now. You're gonna have to make a decision to take action. So ask yourself which one of these feels the best and then be okay. If it doesn't work out, like cool.
Philip Pape 59:50
That's good. Yeah, I agree. But
Carl Berryman 59:54
then the clerical piece of it right? Well, wait, wait
Philip Pape 59:57
so and like you said, if it doesn't work Get out. So all it really comes down to is take action on something, do it test, see if it goes if it doesn't off the list go to the next thing. Yeah. Right. I mean, I mean, granted, you know, you can get complicated and say like certain things are going to be more out there than others and blah, blah, blah. But I can tell when I when I got to 2020. And I started and I found like starting strength and muscle strength pyramids and all of that. And I'm like, Oh, this this new way to lift for me. I also didn't know if it would work. But I'm like, it seems like it should based on what all these people are saying like, these are smart folks. I'm just going to do it. And it worked. And so I stuck with it. Anyway, continue.
Carl Berryman 1:00:35
Know that and that's that's exactly how it goes to. It's like, it's interesting. I was having a conversation with a brother of ours yesterday. And it it had to do with relationships. And what do you do when there's a recurring conflict in your relationship? Like, when do you sweep things under the rug? And when you say, Kay, I know, we don't want to have this conversation, but we need to have it. And the bottom line is, how much does it hurt? Like, how much does the pain of continuing down the path you're going on supersede the pain of taking action to potentially change your trajectory? And the answer to that question will give you the answer that you need. But you don't want to hear. Because we all know we like if you're contemplating taking action on something, you're already at the point where you should have taken action a long time ago. And that's like, that's the way that I look at it's like, Oh, should I have done this? Yeah, of course, you should have done it sooner. So like, they like we always hear better late than never. But let's, let's not even make never an option. Like Jake action.
Philip Pape 1:01:41
Coleman. Good. No, I just wanted to put it out there for people this this is this whole episode, this whole discussion is about that. It's about taking that action. And the only way you do it is identify do it. Identify, do it and then test it. Alright, cool. So you know, you know, you could ask yourself the next question, which is, is Is there anything else you wanted me to ask? That you did cover? Ask?
Carl Berryman 1:02:02
Yeah, I you know, it's funny, as we were talking, I had a good one in my mind. And I should have written it down because I forgot it. Here's a question that, yeah, this is this is coming to me right now. So I'm not sure where this is gonna go. But I'm curious what I would have said, if you asked me, What is the biggest regret you have right now as it relates to your health and fitness? The biggest regret right now in year half of this? Okay. Yeah. And the answer was in my head, before I was even done the sentence, I would have gotten a coach a lot sooner, I would have gotten a coach a lot sooner. Because the transformations that you and again, I'm not Philip didn't sponsor me or anything. This is just what came up the transformations I've been able to make on a multitude of levels as a result of our our friendship, the bond that we have, but then your coaching and your willingness to press me compassionately, have changed, not just my physique. But my relationship with food, my relationship with fitness, like food I, I do food prep almost every single day now, like every day, like it's all I'll do food prep before I go to the gym. And not like schedule wise. But if I have to pick one or the other, I'll do my food prep. And that was like pulling teeth before. But now as a result of tracking my calories, I realized just how important that is. But sure, I can see that my relationship with food and my relationship with fitness is so much better. And I'm enjoying those. And that is not a small feat at all. Because even being a trainer, I would have to drag my ass to the gym a lot of the time now I can't wait to go. But like all that has translated into my relationship with you and my relationship with Jenny Lee specifically, like, I've got Jenny Liam macro factor, she's a lot more conscious about what we're eating. And as a result of me feeling and looking a lot better. That's translated into me being a better podcaster and a better partner for Jenny Lee. So it's stuff that I would tell myself I could have done on my own before, but if I could have done it on my own, I would have done it on my own. So it wasn't until I got a coach.
Philip Pape 1:04:20
It means a lot to me, man. And, and for folks listening. I think they hear this message a lot. And don't take action on it. Do you agree?
Carl Berryman 1:04:30
There's a lot of people like yeah, because I'm the same way like how long did it start me to take me to start doing the shit that you told me to do forever and a day ago and that I already knew I needed to do but then also from from other areas of life as well like I know and there's still places like I could I could be investing way more in a in a business coach. I could be investing way more. Yeah, it would never hurt to have a relationship. Coach like Jalen I really good so I don't know if that sucks. cost benefit ratio would be there. But yeah, if you're constantly on a treadmill to nowhere, and you don't have a coach, the coach is going to tell you to get your ass off the treadmill. And let me show you the real way to walk. So, yeah, yeah,
Philip Pape 1:05:15
it's true. And I think we can't deny that having other people of some kind in our life that are supportive, is kind of where it starts. Right and you have to the coach is that's what a brother is. That's what a friend a really good friend who, who isn't sabotaging you, right, who's positive and with you on that is, that's what a online community could be too. So, you know, because sometimes people hear all their that they are selling a coach and I can't afford a coach. First of all, I would say like, you'll find a way when it comes to money to do things that are the most important in life, and that are going to change your life compared to all the other junk we spending things money on. But besides the money is just don't do it on your own is really the key message. Exactly. Don't do it on your own. Yeah. Cool, man. Well, this has been a pleasure it was every time we meet on this show. It's like it's a very different kind of feel and topic that I think is super valuable to the listener. And I hope everyone listening will take Karl's words and, and actions and thoughts to heart. I want you to reach out to him. I'm definitely going to include Carl's IG, which is at Ignite the impact because remember that the podcast is, hold on. Oh, man, no, because your IG is different than your podcast. So
1:06:28
tell it tell the audience the difference. And so we can be clear, inspired by impact as the podcast is the podcast. I tried to get inspired by impact from my IG and it was taken so it's ignite the impact because when
Philip Pape 1:06:40
I went to IG, you I started typing inspired. I'm like, just type Carl and I
Carl Berryman 1:06:45
should I should have come up with this idea like 10 years ago.
Philip Pape 1:06:47
No worries.
Carl Berryman 1:06:48
Is that where you want people to reach you from this? Yeah, definitely reach out on there. Or you know, what would be kind of cool to see too. I know, at least on Spotify, they have that area where you can like it pops up and you can leave some feedback right there. Right. Like when you're listening to the q&a. Yeah, yeah, q&a. Thanks. So yeah, just ask a question. And if you want, like, I've got the MMU blueprints, if anybody's interested in that, like it's a digital download, just shoot me a message and I'll send it to you. It doesn't cost anything. So we really we have to we have a link for that. Yeah. I'll send you the link for that. Yep. All right. Because people want to know where do I get this this incredible format that they can guide guide them to this exact process? The physical training manual?
Philip Pape 1:07:27
are that the five physical you said you have a digital one? Yeah, yeah, that way I just give it away for free. I don't care so yeah, for sure. So we'll include that we include Reggie will include the link to the podcast as always, you guys know where to find me where to find Carl and man. Thanks again for coming on.
Carl Berryman 1:07:42
Thank you, my man. This was beautiful. As always.
Philip Pape 1:07:46
Thank you for tuning in to another episode of Wits & Weights. If you found value in today's episode, and know someone else who's looking to level up their Wits & Weights. Please take a moment to share this episode with them. And make sure to hit the Follow button in your podcast platform right now to catch the next episode. Until then, stay strong.
