Optimizing Health, Wealth, Relationships, and Happiness with AJ Mihrzad

In this Episode

• [01:34]Daily rituals that AJ incorporates in his life and what he did today.
• [01:54] When AJ wakes up he does a 100 count meditation where he breaths in through his nose and out through his mouth. This allows him to take control of the day and prime himself to be present.
• [02:17]He also journals about his previous day each morning. He also shares one thing he is grateful for and a win from the previous day.
• [02:41]Then he showers and gets ready for the day while listening to a podcast or audiobook. He tries to maximize every moment in the day, and he even uses Copytalk for transcriptions as he drives to the gym.
• [03:45]While driving and dictating, AJ also creates his top 5 gratitude list with the top 5 things he is grateful for and he creates his morning pages which he learned from the book Bird by Bird.
• [04:25]How it is therapeutic to talk things out and have another human on the other end of the dictations service.
• [04:31]Then AJ works out at the gym before doing weights and cardio before he opens his laptop and starts his workday.
• [05:12]AJ walks us through his breathing exercise. He breathes in through his nose and out through his mouth and mentally counts each breath until he gets to 100.
• [07:27]The Muse meditation device and how it can help you get into a flow state. AJ just received this as a birthday gift last week.
• [08:37]Tony Robbins and the power of peer groups. Change your peer group, change your life.
• [09:12]How hanging out in packs makes the group similar. How we download the same wavelength of those that we are around.
• [10:06]AJ looks at his life in four areas: Health, Wealth, Relationships, and Happiness.
• [10:23]AJ has a business mentor who is 10 years ahead of him. He also belongs to a mastermind of high achieving coaches. How it is inspiring to be around these people, and how it changes AJ’s perspective and how it allows him to grow.
• [11:34]AJ has a professional bodybuilder as a workout partner. This forces him to be disciplined and hold himself to a high standard.
• [12:05]For happiness spend time around positive people such as the people at a Tony Robbins seminar or connect with like minded people on social media.
• [12:38]AJ is in the process of dating and hoping to find a great long term relationship. Being in the presence of those who have already achieved this helps him have the right role models.
• [13:26]Stephan shares how he found Orion by creating a relationship vision before going to a Date with Destiny Tony Robbins event.
• [14:38]Stephan was creating his vision board for the event. He connected to a higher power when he created his relationship vision. He also previously had a oneness experience in India which helped him to connect with his higher power.
• [18:10]How your brain makes a permanent awakening shift at the oneness event.
• [23:36]Praying for a person while giving them the Deeksha oneness blessing. The stronger you pray for them the stronger the blessing, you are like a conduit. Stephan gave Orion a Deeksha and 9 days later he proposed.
• [25:45]Staying disciplined when traveling and not around AJ’s mentors. Staying motivated by having a cheat day and getting everything out of his system.
• [28:34]AJ has a background in nutrition and has tried tons of different diets. He mostly sticks with a paleo type diet and keeps the carbs and sugar low.
• [29:24]AJ’s feelings about the Bulletproof diet. How Dave rebrands things in a unique way.
• [31:09]How cycling the bulletproof coffee off and on helps a lot.
• [31:35]How AJ struggled with his weight and finally decided to get in shape and studied everything he could. He lost 60 pounds and wanted to help others do the same.
• [32:58]How AJ started putting everything together and started creating his mind, body fitness philosophy. That is why he wrote the Mind Body Solution>. Then he started his online business and coaching personal trainers. When he started business coaching he income doubled. Now he has his Online Super Coach business and his Life Fuel Fitness business.
• [38:52]AJ shares info about his seminars for building a dream online coaching business and a more intimate seminar for becoming a celebrity coach. Here is where to register for either seminar.
• [41:52]AJ is coming up on episode 100 of his podcast. He is planning a huge celebration and an awesome guest. Stephan also shares great ideas for the 100th episode.

Jump to Links and Resources

Transcript

‏‏AJ, it’s great to have you on the show. Thanks for joining us.

‏‏My pleasure Stephan, great to be here.

‏‏Let’s talk about daily rituals. I know you have some great daily rituals that you incorporate into your life and that have been transformational for you. What would be some of the most powerful ones that our listeners should maybe consider taking on themselves?

‏‏Absolutely, happy to share that. I’ll actually walk through what I did today, which I do most days, that really helps keep me on track and keeps me focused and full of energy. The first thing I do as soon as I wake up is I do a little mini 100 count breath meditation. I simply just breathe into my nose and out through my mouth from 0 to 100. It takes about two to three minutes. It allows me to take control of the day, to prime myself to become present and know that I don’t have to rush to do anything. The second thing I do is I have a journal up at my bedside. I write the previous day, typically what I did when I woke up and what I did throughout the day, the people I spoke to, great conversations like this, books I’ve read, quotes, any insights I’ve had and I share one thing I’m grateful for and a major win from the previous day. After I’m done journaling, I typically get up to start the day, get ready, groom, shave, take a shower, so on and so forth. I typically listen to a podcast or an audiobook and really just making sure that I maximize every moment of that morning. On a day like this, I went to the gym. When I’m driving to the gym, I use this software called Copytalk, it’s a mobile transcription service and I will talk to my Bluetooth. Number one, transcribe a piece of content whether that’s an email, a blog post, or a chapter of my book. I love to talk to text. I’m a great talker and I’m a slow typer, I type like a turtle.

When I speak, this software is very accurate, it’s a team of typists that transcribe every word. About 10 minutes of transcription is about 1,000 words of text. I get a lot of content done in that way and it’s fairly accurate where I could just copy and paste it in my email, on my Facebook, or for my book. Then, I’ll have another gratitude list, this will be my top 5 gratitude list in that moment when I’m most grateful for. Just kind of do a process, it’s called morning pages. I learned this by a great author named Anne Lamott, she wrote a book called Bird by Bird. It’s a process of doing a brain dump. As opposed to writing out my morning pages, I talk out my morning pages. Whatever I’m going through in that moment, whether it’s a positive feeling, negative feeling, anxiety, fear, I just let it out. It’s very therapeutic just to talk it out. The cool thing is I know there’s another human on the other end of this Copytalk service, it allows me to have this self-therapy and it really clears my mind for the day. I work out usually for two hours, an hour of weights, and maybe 45 minutes to an hour of cardio. From that point on, I’ll start my workday, hopping on my laptop, and checking emails and whatnot.

‏‏What a great daily morning ritual. I love that. I love that you mentioned Bird by Bird, that’s a fantastic book. I love that you are doing gratitude exercise every morning, what a powerful way to start your day. You have some great, great things here. Could you walk us through the breathing exercise that you do? We’ll breathe together and just teach me what you do. I think that will really help our listeners wrap their heads around how powerful this can be.

‏‏Absolutely, Stephan. It’s very simple, throughout the years I have studied a multitude of different meditations and mindfulness practices. I’m the type of person who needs a logical goal. I don’t do well just randomly jogging onto the streets. I like being on a treadmill. Alright, for 10 minutes or 20 minutes, I do it at 5 miles an hour. When I’m done, I reach my goal then I progressively overload that. When it came to meditation, I always had a very hard time to just sit there and do nothing and breathe. Of course, I’ll get distracted or I would lose track of time. I found this works really well because it gives me a specific target and a goal, it’s two to three minutes long. Just breathe in through my nose, breathe out, that’s one. Into my nose, two. I mentally count until I get to 100. For most people they’ll think this is very easy, just breathe into the nose, breathe out to the mouth, count to 100, takes about 2 to 3 minutes. But you will see that it is very difficult. When I was first doing it, I would get stuck at 20 then my mind would drift away, then I’ll get to 30 then I’ll lose track. Over time, it took me a while to get to 100. Now that I do it every morning, it’s 2 to 3 minutes, get to 100 very easy. I used to train myself to breathe to 1,000. I found out breathing to 1,000 is about 20 minutes of meditation, but the one thing I found is counting to 100 makes it more consistent. I realize if I’m traveling or if I’m away for a few weeks and I miss it, I have to start back from the beginning. It’s one of these things where you must do it every single day to stay consistent. If you fall off track, you have to start back from scratch.

‏‏Are you holding your breath when you’re counting to 100 or are you just breathing rhythmically the whole time you’re going to 100?

‏‏Yes. Breathing rhythmically. A deep inhale, a deep exhale, one count. In through the nose, out through the mouth, two, so on and so forth.

‏‏In through the nose, out through the mouth, two. In through the nose, out through the mouth, two. Okay, got it.

‏‏Yes.

‏‏Are you familiar with Muse? The meditation tracking device, you put a headband on and then it has a matching app that will have birds chirping if you’re getting into a Zen-like state, getting into a flow state and then waves will be crashing and the sound of the waves if you’re going off into a non-Zen state. Have you ever used that?

‏‏Yeah, actually Stephan, it was my birthday last week and my friend Cory got me a Muse as a gift and I’ve actually used it twice. However, I tend to lie down when I meditate and one thing I’ve realized is that the headband is made for sitting up meditation. The alignment comes off and it stops working, I have to figure out how to use it while I’m lying down and make sure the sensors are touching my temples.

‏‏Such a cool device, just curious. Let’s move onto another topic. I know you’re a fan of Tony Robbins, I’m a fan of Tony Robbins. Tony talks about the power of peer groups. If you change your peer group, you change your life. If you want to up-level in a certain area, get a high-performing peer group in that area. “You’re the average of the five people you hang around with the most,” is another quote that is attributable to Tony. What have you done to up-level in terms of your peer groups?

Every living organism is like an open-source software.

‏‏Great question. I totally believe in that and I’ve actually done a lot of research on that entire concept. There is this book I read, I forgot the name of it but it was a book on evolutionary psychology. It was actually mentioned that even in the animal kingdom, the supplies, they looked at groups of chimpanzees and they found that chimpanzees that hang around in packs tend to be very similar in their longevity, their wellbeing, their strength, their appetites, it is so fascinating. Essentially, it’s kind of like every living organism is like an open-source software where you tend to be and download the same wavelength of the person that you are around, whether you like it or not. That’s why they say when you watch the news all the time, you’re getting this media bias. When you’re around people that are very negative and toxic, you cannot help but to be like that even if you’re the most positive, well-read, inspired person in the world. Understanding how powerful this is, this is one of my biggest priorities and I look at my life in four areas; I look at my health, wealth, relationships, and happiness. My main objective is to optimize these four areas and I found one of the fastest ways to optimize them is to have strong peer groups who are amazing in those four places. To give you an example, in my business I have a mentor who is probably 10 years ahead of where I am in terms of the growth of his business and in terms of his finances, his wisdom, very wise individual and I look to him for advice. I’m also a part of a mastermind of high earning coaches, people that are earning 5 to 10 times more than I’m earning. When I’m around these people, I’m the lowest guy on the totem pole. They are doing extremely well and I like that. I like to be the dumbest person in the room because there’s a lot of room for growth. When I hear about their numbers and their business and all the amazing things they’re doing in this world, it really inspires me. Wow, they are no different than me when I hang out with them. When we’re in a candid situation, they’re no different. But why are they doing so much better, and that’s the question I ask myself. It changes my perspective and it allows me to grow. It allows me to realize that I can do what they’re doing they are not that far along from me.

Business, networking, a mastermind is ideal for any type of financial growth. For my health, actually, one of my workout partners is a professional bodybuilder. He’s one of the top bodybuilders in the world, he was second at Mr. Olympia and his whole life revolved around this. I tend sometimes to cheat on my diet or miss a workout but when I’m having conversations with him, we work out together, he forces me to be at a really high standard because this is his livelihood. He is the most disciplined human being that I’ve ever met and he pushes me during our workouts, during our conversations and his whole outlook on health and well-being. That has helped me tremendously. In terms of my happiness, I just love being around positive people like going to Tony Robbins seminars, you tend to meet a lot of great people and connect with them on social media and form friendships. Being around these happy positive people has a big impact on my mood because the people that I speak to have this amazing outwork toward life. The one area I’m working on actually to be quite honest is my relationships. Right now, I’m in the process of dating and looking into getting into a long term relationship. How am I doing that? I’m actually hanging out with my friends who have amazing relationships and they’re married, they have families. For me to just be in their presence, it allows me to understand what it takes to be in a loving long term relationship, to have a family, to have this amazing connection with someone. You know this is an area like I said I’m working in but I’m also making sure that I’m around the right role models in that department.

‏‏Yeah, that’s great. Also part of the success in the area of relationships or anything else for that matter is having a powerful, inspiring vision for yourself. Part of how I ended up with the love of my life, Orion, who actually you have been on her show.

‏‏She’s amazing, she’s an amazing powerful woman.

‏‏Yes, she is. I’m a very fortunate man. One thing I did that helped me find her was to create a relationship vision and I did this at a Tony Robbins event. It was Date With Destiny, so the irony is not lost in the naming of that event and me finding my soulmate. It was about 12 hours before the end of the event and I was creating, at the last minute, my poster board with my relationship vision. Have you been to Date With Destiny, by the way?

‏‏I’m actually going for the first time this upcoming December.

‏‏Oh, you’re going to love it. It’s going to be amazing. Have you seen the documentary about Tony?

‏‏Yeah, I’ve watched that like five times. After watching that, I booked my ticket.

‏‏Yup, it’s so much better than that, in real life, to go.

‏‏I can imagine.

‏‏But in the video, it does give you a taste. It’s a great movie there on Netflix. Back to this process, I’m creating at the last minute my poster board for Date With Destiny. Everybody else pretty much had finished theirs, but the relationship vision is part of it. When I was creating my relationship vision, I connected to my higher power and I’ll have to admit that I was agnostic my whole life up until two months prior to this Tony Robbins event, it was in India at a platinum partner trip with Tony Robbins and a bunch of platinum partners, and I was one of them. We had this Oneness experience, he brought in these Oneness monks from Oneness University which is near Chennai. He brought them and they were giving us Deekshas, which were Oneness blessings. They put their hands on our heads and pray for us. You would feel it, it was incredible. I had one experience in particular where one of these monks had placed his hands on my head and afterward, 20 to 30 seconds, I couldn’t even tell you how much time passed, it was like I was in another dimension. When I opened my eyes, everything was in technicolor, it was the strangest thing.

‏‏Can you explain this? I’m just really fascinated, I’m a man of science. Very curious. What do you think happened there? Because if that had much of an effect on you, I would love to get a logical explanation.

‏‏Well, I’ve never done drugs. I can’t tell you if this was like an LSD trip. But if I could imagine what an LSD trip would be like, I would say that it was like I was on an LSD trip.

‏‏Wow.

I felt so connected to the fabric of creation, to the creator, to something bigger than myself.

‏‏It was otherworldly, I felt so connected to the fabric of creation, to the creator, to something bigger than myself and like I said everything was in technicolor. I went outside and I was looking at the grass, I’ve never seen grass that green. It was like one of those cartoons, technicolor cartoons. It was the strangest thing but I felt so connected, so blessed, so looked after, and so loved. At that same event, one of the monks had said in their teachings that the divine is an experience, not a belief. I got it. If you would explain that to me that God is an experience, not a belief, that sounds good, great for a bumper sticker, whatever, logically I would get that. To experience what that meant, it was otherworldly. I went from being agnostic my whole life because I was raised by a Jehovah’s Witness and a Catholic and that will really mess you up. Anyway, in those two dichotomies in one household. Then going to this event in India and having that experience, it opened me.

‏‏Wow.

‏‏Then they describe the process of awakening there, the Oneness monks explained it as a permanent shift in your brain’s biology and chemistry, your brain is making a permanent shift, it’s not reversible.

‏‏Did everyone else had the same experience as you?

‏‏Not the exact same experience, but many of the people on this trip were “awakened.” They had some sort of epiphany, some sort of spiritual awakened state happened to them. Some people stayed awakened or somehow in this more spiritual, conscious, higher vibration state and some people dropped back down.

‏‏That is so fascinating, this is quite a testimonial.

‏‏You are in for quite a ride because you will get a Oneness blessing at Date With Destiny. On one of the evenings they, turn the lights down and they have all these blessing givers get up and then walk around the room and you close your eyes and they play nice music and then you get touched. If you don’t get touched, you can still receive the energy, but if you do get touched that means you definitely got a Deeksha. They can’t get everybody because there will be thousands and thousands of people in the room and there aren’t that many blessing givers to go around.

‏‏I want to get touched.

‏‏It’s pretty incredible. There are Oneness groups in different cities. Here in Santa Monica, there’s a group of a Oneness meetup every Thursday night at [8:00]PM. There are other ways to get Deekshas besides going to a Tony Robbins event, and it’s only at Date With Destiny that he does the Deekshas and on some of the platinum trips. You won’t get Deeksha at Unleash the power within for example.

‏‏Yes. Looking at your point of view. I’ve been studying Tony’s work for many decades and I’m curious why do you think now he incorporates this in his events, in his masterminds, so on and so forth.

‏‏The story he tells is that he was out of options, out of solutions for his wife’s motion sickness. She would get violently ill every time they take off on an airplane, every time they would land, every time that she would get in the car whether she was driving or she was a passenger, she would get sick, she’d be vomiting, it was really bad. He tried everything, he tried so many different things and then somebody said you gotta try this Oneness thing and somebody came over. I forgot who it was, I think it might’ve been a drummer from a famous rock band. I forget the details of the story. Somebody pretty famous came over to give a Deeksha to his wife’s sage to see if this would help with her motion sickness and it cured it, permanently.

‏‏Wow, that’s amazing.

‏‏She doesn’t get it anymore. This was debilitating her whole life, now it was cured. That is what sold it for Tony. He became a blessing giver, he started bringing people to India, one of the big trips that you’ll go on is a Oneness trip to India. He does a relationship trip every year or 18 months as well, it’s amazing. Really, the Oneness trip is incredible. You’re in for something cool and I hope you do get touched. If you don’t, just go and after the event’s finished for that night, ask somebody, ‘Hey, anybody here a blessing giver? Can I get a Deeksha from somebody?’ There will be somebody who’s been on that India who’s a plat who can give you a Deeksha so then you’ll get to experience it.

‏‏Great, I look forward. Thank you for the heads up, that’s a great tip.

‏‏Back to this idea, the relationship vision, this I think would be fun for you to try even before you go to Date With Destiny. Really get grounded and connected and write not just what you want from your significant other or the woman of your dreams but also what you’re going to bring to the relationship. What’s the relationship going to be like and what are you going to bring to the relationship as well as what are her characteristics, her attributes that are going to be so amazing. 12 hours after I wrote that up, I connected to the divine, to my creator before I started writing. This was fresh right after India, two months later. I felt so connected and all these miracles were happening, it was just otherworldly. I knew that I could basically order up whatever I wanted out of my destiny to come and you get what you ask for so if you say ‘Someday I would really like to have my soulmate,’ or whatever, why not right away? I specifically said right away. ‘Please can you bring her to me right away?’ 12 hours later we were introduced by a mutual friend who was a platinum partner and he called me over, he was talking to her, he’d just given her a Deeksha because she had not been touched that night during the blessing giving and so he had done that Deeksha to her. I offered to give her a Deeksha too after we were chatting for a little while and one thing I learned in India about giving Deeksha, giving the Oneness blessing is that you pray for the person and the more that you pray for them while you’re giving them the blessing, you’re like a conduit, like a vessel that’s just transferring this divine grace. The more that you pray for them, the more you want it for them, the more divine grace that passes. When I was giving her a Deeksha, it was 10 minutes after we met. It was really soon. I’m praying for her like she’s my soulmate, and I knew. Nine days later, I had proposed to her. 18 hours after we met, I told her I love her and she said she loved me back. Talk about ramping up the timeline.

‏‏This is probably one of the best podcasts I’ve been interviewed on. Typically, I’m the one inserting but I’m getting so many insights. I’m getting the chills listening to this.

‏‏Cool. Try the exercise of doing the relationship vision. For listeners who are already in a relationship, do it anyways with the relationship that you’re in. Who could you be? How can you show up? Not what can be different about your partner but how can you be different because you affect the field around you. Everybody that can’t help but to be changed by you when you show up differently, when you show up more powerfully. This relationship vision exercise is super, super powerful. I took a picture of the poster board, I show it to all sorts of people. Here’s the relationship vision I wrote 12 hours before I met Orion.

‏‏Wow.

‏‏Really really cool.

‏‏I can’t wait. I’m literally going to google Deeksha as soon as we end this podcast.

‏‏Let’s talk more about discipline. You talked about this mentor who is super disciplined and he never cheats with his meals and everything and that rubs off on you when you’re around him. How do you get that to stick when you’re traveling? When he’s nowhere near you, when you haven’t seen him for weeks and it’s so easy to eat the junk in the airports. How do you stay strict with your diet? With your exercise, with all your different rituals and routines, when that inspiring disciplined person is not nearby.

‏‏That is a great question. One thing I realized about my buddy, his name is actually Erosh, is that he’s a professional bodybuilder. He placed second in the biggest contest, this is his entire life. This is his livelihood, all of his time and effort goes into this super discipline. I truly admire what he does. However, I won’t be stepping on stage in a thong anytime soon. There’s no need for me to be that disciplined, I’m more balanced. I found that having one day of enjoyment really helps to keep me balanced. If I’m traveling or if I’m at home. I’ll take Saturday as being my cheat day. That’s the day I’ll have unlimited food, snacks, ice cream, beer, pizza, you name it. I just don’t exercise, I eat whatever, and I stuff my face in. Then I get it out of the system. Sunday comes back, I’m back on track. I found that over the years that have helped me. Personally, I’ve tried the whole seven days a week, 24/7 crazy discipline but I get burnt out. Mentally I lose it, if I’m at a wedding you’ll see me stuffing my face with cake all over me and I can’t control myself because I’m not robotic, I’m a human being.

‏‏You’ve deprived yourself for so long. Eventually, your will power gives out and you’re just like screw it I’m just going to pig out on all these unhealthy food.

‏‏Yeah, absolutely. I find that having one day to not stick to my strict eating, nutrition cardio, really helps me. Also, I tend to break my daily routine as well like anything, it can get pretty stale and mundane. Sometimes when I’m traveling, I’m not going to have the time to do every single one of those steps but when I return back home I’m back on track. I think there’s an importance in breaking the pattern as well.

‏‏Yeah. Are you pretty disciplined about your sugar intake or is it fats or all of the above carbs? Your background is in health and personal training, right?

When I give people advice, it’s really testing out different plans, seeing which one works, and doing your best to stick to that 80% of the time.

‏‏I have a degree in nutrition. It’s extremely important for me to watch what I eat and I really just go with how I feel. I’ve tried just about every single diet known to mankind. One of the weirdest diets I did was an all egg diet. I ate nothing but eggs for one month, by the end of it I had this really weird rash. I’ve realized that no one should eat one food group for that long. I think from every diet that I tried, I tend to do much better with a paleo type of diet where I don’t eat a lot of carbohydrates to keep my sugars low. I do well with protein and fats. I find that even if I eliminate carbohydrates completely I’m just fine. I could go years eating without carbs if I had to. Some people are different, some people need to have carbs but they could have a lower-fat diet. I found that when I give people advice, it’s really testing out different plans, seeing which one works, and doing your best to stick to that 80% of the time.

‏‏What do you think about the Bulletproof Diet? I’ve had Dave Asprey on the show and he shared some really amazing stuff. I personally am not following the bulletproof diet but I do a lot of what he was talking about.

‏‏Yeah, Dave Asprey. I was in a mastermind with him before, he’s one of the best marketers on the planet. Very wise guy and definitely knows what he is talking about. The great thing about him, he essentially takes different things at work and rebrands it to pitch it in a new way. The bulletproof diet is essentially paleo, the ketogenic diet, the Atkins diet, they’re pretty much all the same thing. High fat, low carbohydrate, and moderate protein. But, as a brilliant marketer, he says this is a diet that works, I’m going to rebrand it, modify it slightly and use it as a Bulletproof Diet. Of course, it works, it’s a ketogenic, paleo, Atkins diet. Works really well and the one thing that he adds to it is having bulletproof coffee. Having that in the morning is definitely going to help. It’s essentially caffeine and grass-fed butter, the fats keep you nice and full. You kind of do a mini fast even though you’re having a little bit of butter for calories.

‏‏Do you take that every day or every once in awhile? How do you work bulletproof coffee into your diet?

‏‏I do it occasionally. I just found that bulletproof coffee and even caffeine, the body gets used to it. The MCT oil, the caffeine, even everything that’s made up. I have it sparingly, maybe two to three times a week. I noticed when I had bulletproof coffee, even having caffeine seven days a week, it was burning on my adrenal glands a slight bit. I was having to take more and more caffeine to get the same effect. I kind of felt cycling the bulletproof coffee often helps a lot more.

‏‏Yeah, good point. You have a nutrition degree then you went into personal training, you became a fitness coach. Then you decided that was a lot of hard slug and that you could scale your business, do one-to-many coaching, and now you’re the online supercoach. Can you tell us a little more about that journey?

‏‏Yeah, absolutely. I really started my journey being as an overweight kid. I had it all, I was 60 pounds overweight and my heaviest, chipmunk cheeks, man boobs, big old belly. For the longest time, I struggled with my body weight and how I looked. In my early 20s is when I really decided, you know what, enough is enough. I need to get myself in shape, I was very insecure. I was actually suffering from lower back pain from the excess weight. That’s when I decided to just lose weight myself initially and I studied everything I could about fitness and nutrition. Within about 18 months, I lost the 60 pounds and I got myself into shape and I was just so happy that I was able to make this transformation that I decided I want to help other people. That’s when I became a personal trainer and started training clients one on one. That’s when I really wanted to get deeper into fitness and nutrition. I changed my major to nutrition. As I was training my clients, I realized you know what, I was giving my clients very similar plans. Some of them were thriving, the other ones were having a hard time with it. I realized the missing link was the human mind. Then, I decided to go back to school and get my master’s degree in psychology. That really put everything together, because once I understood the nutrition, the exercise, and the psychology, I was able to get amazing results from my in-person clients. Then I started to develop my mind-body philosophy. I started to put all the theories together. Around 2010, I launched my first online program, I found that I was able to help people from a distance using this mind-body fitness philosophy and that developed the program that turned into an online coaching plan.

As that started growing, I wrote a book called The Mind Body Solution to really chronicle all of my years of study and psychology and all the work that I do with my clients. That book went on to be a best seller and it blew up my online fitness business so much that I decided to really focus on that and I stopped the in-person training. As I was growing my online fitness business, I was asked to speak to a lot of personal trainer events and coaching events. A lot of people were curious, like ‘Hey, I want to grow my online business. How’d you do it?’ Then I started coaching personal trainers one to one, helping them grow their online business pretty much teaching all the same strategies I did to grow my business. Then, that just exponentially grew. When I started doing the whole business coaching, literally every year I just started to double my income because it was a need in my specific market that was very underserved. That developed into what I’m doing today which is that I have two businesses. My online super coach business, helping coaches and personal trainers with their online business goals, and then I still have my Life Fuel Fitness business which is helping people with my mind-body fitness online program.

‏‏Great! Cool. It’s a really great evolution and a great story to go from where you were 60 pounds overweight and just decided I’m going to change my life. To take those massive actions that require to do that. Now you’re an inspiration to so many others, that’s fantastic. I definitely resonate with that story. I have my own story of transformation where listeners have probably heard this before where I was literally unrecognizable from the guy I’m today. 10 years ago, you could go look on Get Yourself Optimized, on the about page, and see my before photo. I looked 20 years older than I do now. That was 2 years ago. It’s crazy to think like what the heck are you doing Stephan, did you somehow get the magic elixir or something? Did you watch Benjamin button and decide you were going to do that, somehow, do a deal with the devil? How the heck did you do that? It all started with my first Tony Robbins event, Unleash The Power Within. I was walking on fire, that was the moment, that was the catalyst for all the changes that I made. I just felt so empowered by being able to walk on fire on 2000 degree hot coals on my bare feet and not get burned, not even get blisters. I can change my life. I will change my life. I’m going to do it. Two weeks later I’m getting LASIK, no more glasses two months later, I’m getting a hair transplant. I’m changing my diet, I’m going to the gym. Massive changes. And then a year later, people weren’t recognizing me. It was so fun. It was the coolest thing. Walking up to people and they didn’t know who I was.

‏‏I love hearing that, that’s so inspiring. Transformation is one of those things where not only do you have this new outlook on life but inspires others. I’m hearing this story and I’m rooting for you like wow, this is so cool. Similar with me, if you just saw my photos 10 years ago, that is not aging. That’s not the guy I’m seeing right now. It’s shocking to people but it is also to let them know in a split second you could turn your entire life around.

‏‏It starts with the catalyst. Whatever that is, if you get rock bottom and it’s enough. That’s your fuel, or it’s just this desire for something better or to put something out there in the universe that’s amazing and to shine your light. Whatever it is, there’s got to be fuel, there’s got to be the power source. For me, it was that walk on coals that did it. It’s like ‘Wow, if I can do that. I can do anything.’

‏‏Love it.

‏‏I know we are getting close to time here. I would love to hear what are some of the events, masterminds, online trainings and things like that that you offer that our listeners could benefit from.

My entire life changed when I started going to seminars, retreats. The whole in-person immersive experience changed my life.

‏‏Absolutely, Stephan. I’m a big fan of events as well, my entire life changed when I started going to seminars, retreats. The whole in-person immersive experience changed my life. I just want to give that same gift to other people as well. I run two types of events that really help people with everything from their mind, their body, and their business, and really immersing them over a two day period. One of my events is a bigger type of event. It’s a seminar, I run this twice a year in New York, April, and October. I have one coming up October 27th and 28th and this is more of a two-day seminar setting where we are going to really focus deep into all the systems required to really build your dream online coaching business, talking about the marketing systems, the sales process, the backend virtual delivery. But also getting deep into the belief process. What it takes to be a successful online coach, who do you have to be, because I’m very big on identity. We know that identity is the fastest way to change your life. I go deep in those two days, looking at your current identity and then looking at who do you have to be in order to accomplish your goals. The second type of event that I’m having is actually how to become a celebrity online coach. This is more of an intimate event, I’m actually doing this in Las Vegas November 3rd and 4th. If you’re on the west coast, this is ideal for you. This is going to be a small group of people about 8 to 10 people, I have a great penthouse in Vegas that I’m running it at. This is really going for the people that are a bit more advanced that want to develop celebrity branding in their target market. Whatever type of entrepreneur pursuit that you have, how to become the absolute top celebrity in your market. We are going to talk about developing charisma on video, storytelling, developing really strong positioning in your market, how to use humor and personality, and how to stand out from all your competition. Also, utilizing a lot of different tools in your arsenal to really show that you have authority in your market. What I would say that if you’re more of a beginner and want to develop your online coaching business, go to the seminar that I have on October 27th and 28th. If you want to focus on really advancing to a higher level of authority celebrity-based business, go to my Vegas event on November 3rd and 4th. Both events are actually on my website, it is www.onlinesupercoach.com. There’s a tab that says Events and it has all the information for both of those two live events.

‏‏Awesome. You also have a podcast for your online super coach business, do you want to talk a little bit about that for a second?

‏‏Yeah, absolutely. Just like you, I love podcasting and I’ve been running my podcast for two years now, actually had my anniversary a few days ago. This is called The Online Super Coach Podcast and I’m actually two episodes away from my 100th episode. What I do is I just reach out to million-dollar online coaches and interview them. Just really drill them on how they built their business and talk about how do you attract your ideal clients? How do you sell your programs? What do you sell exactly? How do you serve them? What type of systems do you use? Do you use leverage coaching, one on one? I want to just give people the perspective, just like the perspective that I got when I was around my first mastermind that, “To become a million-dollar coach, pretty much anyone can do it. If you look at what they’re doing, they share their story and you realize that they are no different from you. It’s more of a tactical type of podcast. If you go to iTunes and you search for Online Super Coach, you’ll find the podcast. I would love for you to subscribe and check out the episodes.

‏‏Awesome. Congratulations on getting to almost episode 100. Do you have anything special planned for episode 100?

‏‏Not quite, I think I’m going to be searching for a key person to have that 100th episode. It’s truly an honor, I must say, Stephan. As you know, the podcasting world, it’s tough. Not many people stick with it. I know as a longevity point of view to get to 100 episodes is few and far between. I’m going to get a really awesome guest to be on there. I’m going to have a huge celebration. One thing about me is consistency, I always tell people, “It doesn’t matter if you slow down, as long as you don’t stop.” Even if you do a podcast once every three months, keep going. Sometimes it upsets me because there are some podcasts that I just love and the guy just stops putting out episodes.

‏‏That’s called pod fading. It’s a shame when that happens. Let me give you an idea, totally up to you if you implement it or not but for my episode 100 which just happened a few weeks ago in Get Yourself Optimized…

‏‏Congrats!

‏‏Thank you. I had Orion interview me for my own show. I recapped some of the highlights from the past 99 episodes, what were some of the things that were turning points and epiphanies and most powerful gold nuggets that I got out of the episodes so far. That was very well received. Another thing that you might consider doing, if that doesn’t resonate, getting somebody to interview you and you’re the guest. The other option is to get somebody amazing and famous and have them interview you. You’re not recapping past episodes but you’re just being interviewed for your own show. I had on Marketing Speak, my other show, Jay Abraham interviewed me about SEO. That would be a great episode 100, that wasn’t episode 100. I haven’t hit 100 yet on Marketing Speak, almost. That’s another cool idea, I’m excited for whatever you’re going to dream up for episode 100. I’m going to have to tune in for that.

‏‏I’m so glad we had this conversation, definitely going to have someone interview me and that’s brilliant.

‏‏Do you know what Tony Robbins says? There are no coincidences, there’s a reason why we spoke today and not two weeks later after you’ve already hit episode 100.

‏‏Thank you. I really appreciate this. This was truly an honor to be on the show.

‏‏Well, thank you. I want my listeners to take action now and take all this wonderful knowledge and wisdom that you’ve imparted in this episode and put it into action so that they can change their lives, like we have changed ours. Listeners, go check out www.onlinesupercoach.com, check out his events, his podcast, AJ is the real deal, he’s super cool, I know him personally. I didn’t just pick him out of a hat or something for my show. He’s the real deal. Check out www.onlinesupercoach.com and we’ll catch you on the next episode of Get Yourself Optimized, this is Stephan Spencer signing off.

‏‏Thank you!

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