Episode Transcript
[00:00:15] Speaker A: What's up, you guys? Michael Strait here from the proper form podcast. I have a good friend, Justin Murphy with. I coach nutrition and lifestyle coaching here. Justin, thanks so much for being with us today on the proper form, dude.
[00:00:27] Speaker B: Absolutely. I'm pumped for it. You got the setup and everything here, so super excited. Catch up and dive into the conversation.
[00:00:35] Speaker A: Of course, dude. I'm super. We got a lot to catch up on and hopefully even outside a while outside of this. I would love to do some catching up like we discussed before we were starting, but yeah, like this, of course, looks really good. There's stuff all over. We've got lights and Michael Child with Ford Film Co. Has been helping a ton on this good friend and just making this look awesome and just excited to use this. I've shared this on some of the other episodes, but like, just wanting to be intentional with people in person. Nothing wrong with doing, you know, podcasts via Zoom, but just, I really enjoy being able to look people in the eye, create authentic relationship and conversation, and also just show them kind of what we're doing and what we're proud of over here, you know. So that's kind of the hope as we continue to just keep doing that and make those relationships. And then even I would love to start to see like cross collaboration and synergy with guys that I'm interviewing and, you know, just connecting other people.
[00:01:28] Speaker B: Yeah, I love it, man. I mean, I think you hit it right there on the head. I mean, even with the podcast and me doing all those episodes like we were talking about before, I mean, it's. It's definitely much different experience doing it in person versus online. I think during COVID that was definitely nice for me to have those online interviews. It was like my 1 hour day to like, hang out with somebody. It's a lonely journey as an entrepreneur sometimes, right?
But no, this is awesome, man. So I'm excited for it.
[00:01:55] Speaker A: Yep. Well, did I ask you before? And I asked all of the guests that come on just to kind of give us a little bit of a lay of the land of themselves. Some things that described you probably in order here. Christ follower, husband, a dad of three boys, nutritionist, nutritionist and personal trainer, and then owner of I coach nutrition and lifestyle coaching. Man, I would love to hear a little bit about your crazy crew, the famous, where you guys reside and how life is with three little boys.
[00:02:25] Speaker B: Yeah, man.
Yeah, life is definitely crazy.
So we moved out to Prosper, I guess that's kind of when the whole family started, and that was five years ago. Almost six years ago now.
And so we kind of moved out there. I feel like we started in Dallas and then moved to like Addison and Carrollton and Frisco and then now to Prosper. Prosper McKinney. I feel like that's where all the families are.
But yeah, right around that time, I had graduated with my nutrition degree. I had just stopped competing in CrossFit and I knew at that point that I wanted to go all in on starting my own business. And so that's when I started. I coach nutrition. So, yeah, it's been about six years this last February since I started that we've worked with and we work with people, a lot of people in DFW for sure, but also just like outside of the state, even outside of the country.
And we essentially help them to kind of filter through all the b's that's out there in the nutrition and fitness space. You know, I was just on a sales call earlier this morning and people are like, it's just information overload. Like, I'm so confused by all the conflicting information and I just want to, you know, kind of filter out the B's and find what actually works best for me and it's actually sustainable for me.
And, you know, that's kind of how I coach was born. And it's based off individualized nutrition and lifestyle coaching with the goal to essentially meet people where they are in this health and fitness journey and help them to progress and just be able to experience what I've been able to experience, what so many clients of ours have been able to experience through making this a priority and seeing that translate out into every other aspect of their life.
So that's kind of how I coach was built. Right around that same time, we had our first son, Josiah. We share that name there with our boys and yeah, that was also the birth of I coach. I mean, my back was up against the wall. I had just quit my safe job and it was like, you better make this work or you're going back to work at a gym or something as a personal trainer.
And who knows, maybe we'll try this later on. But God is good and he moved mountains like he always does and he showed up and he provided and he made a way. Um, and I just went all in over the course of that year, kind of built the foundation as to what is I coach. Um, and then about a year, I guess two years later, then we had our second jet. Um, and the most recently here we had, um, Jagger. So Josiah jet Jagger, five year old, three year old and six month old. Um, and, yeah, they keep us extremely busy. Yes.
My amazing wife, she. She's a. She's a nurse, and she also helps out with. I coach, doing nutrition coaching as well.
And she also wants to homeschool our boys, so pray for us.
[00:05:30] Speaker A: Yeah, for sure. We're looking at doing a similar journey, so we might have to connect more on that. But, dude, gosh, lots to definitely impact there, man. I would love to go back. Obviously, you and I know each other. I think if. Correct me if I'm wrong, we've known each other probably 20, 1520. I mean, you were.
[00:05:52] Speaker B: I got to know you probably even before that, honestly.
[00:05:55] Speaker A: Yeah, I got to know you right when you were in the middle, like, when you were kind of in the thick of you're competing, and I was shortly behind you.
[00:06:02] Speaker B: Yeah, I mean, I competed. 2015 and 16 were, like, the two years that I went to regionals. Yeah, but I had been. I started CrossFit, like, in 2012. Yeah, I actually. I mean, around that time, that was, like, actually when I had stopped, you know, I just stopped competing myself.
[00:06:17] Speaker A: Yes.
[00:06:18] Speaker B: But, yeah, I mean, I got a chance to Turk with you and Matt and Logan. Yeah. And, man, there was quite a bit of crossfit athletes that I had the opportunity to work with, and it was just cool. Cause it was a nice transition for me of, like, you know, I stopped competing, maybe even, like, prematurely in a sense. Cause I kind of have. I gave myself, like, this all or nothing, you know, decision.
[00:06:40] Speaker A: Totally.
[00:06:40] Speaker B: Yep. But then being able to kind of, like, work with athletes, you know, after that, and that was, like, the majority of our. Of our clients, the first, probably, like, at least the first year, were mostly, like, people that did crossfit.
[00:06:50] Speaker A: Yeah. So I would love to. For you to touch a little bit on that. Like, I love what you just said, that you kind of gave yourself the all or nothing on your personal journey, and then that kind of was a cool way that you transitioned to you still working with a lot of great athletes that were similar to yourself. So maybe so kind of scratched that itch for you. But how you started, I coach working with more kind of specific in that realm of athletes. How has that morphed over time? What have you learned as a business owner and just the continued value and service that you offer through what you do?
[00:07:22] Speaker B: Yeah, I mean, I think that. I think when I first started, I mean, it just made a lot of sense. That was kind of my environment already, which was I had been competing in CrossFit. I had been coaching at a crossfit gym for, like, five years at that point.
And so I actually had the opportunity at this gym to create an online nutrition coaching program there, which they didn't have one when I was there. And during that time, we were doing a lot of different things. It started off as just crossFit. Then we added more of, like, a fitness component, which was more like orange theory, those type of classes.
And then we had gymnastics, we had strength training, we had Olympic lifting. We had nutrition. So we added all these programs on to support CrossFit.
But, yeah, ultimately, what happened is I had the opportunity to build an online nutrition coaching company there.
Right before I left, I built that up. We had 96 active clients.
[00:08:18] Speaker A: Wow.
[00:08:19] Speaker B: And so it had become, like, the number two revenue generator for that gym right behind Crossfit.
[00:08:26] Speaker A: People still had their gym memberships, but then were also, like, paying for a nutritional component.
[00:08:31] Speaker B: Yep. Yeah. And before I left, I had realized, and a lot of what gave me the confidence to make that jump was that I had, out of those 96 clients, like, half of them were members of that gym, and the other half of them were not. Right. And so now I was, like, bringing in clients, you know, from online and, you know, like, from the area, but even outside of the state as well.
[00:08:53] Speaker A: Interesting.
[00:08:54] Speaker B: And so that was, I mean, that was a really cool moment for me because I just realized I was like, you know, I want to make as much impact as possible. And if I'm in this kind of, like, local space, only this, like, local bubble, I can only impact so many people. And there's plenty of people here to impact. Don't get me wrong, of course, but it was a cool moment of, like, realizing, like, wow. Like, I could actually help people outside of, you know, this local area, even outside of the state. And I think one of my first clients that I work with outside of the country, she was in Jordan, and I'm sitting here thinking to myself, I'm like, we're literally 12 hours apart. And she just found me on Instagram.
This would never happen unless technology was here.
And there's a lot of bad I could say about technology, obviously, too, but there's good that has come from it in relation to starting an online business and just being able to help and reach more people outside of just our local environment there.
But, yeah, I mean, I think that's mainly why I was working with so many crossfit athletes there is because I was at a crossfit gym.
And I think over the last six years, it's definitely transitioned more into general pop. I mean, most of the clients that come to us want to.
They want to lose weight, they want to lose body fat. And a lot of them that come to us, too, they realize that if I can transform my lifestyle, I can get off of a lot of these medications that I've had, you know, inevitably kind of put myself on through the lifestyle I've been living.
And so cholesterol, you know, diabetes, blood pressure, I mean, these are medications that we help clients get off of all the time.
[00:10:29] Speaker A: Wow.
[00:10:30] Speaker B: But in the very beginning of these conversations, people are honestly looking at me like I'm a liar. You know, they're like. Because they're, you know, in terms of their doctor, that's not what they're being told, you know? And doctors, I can't tell you how many doctors have been just absolutely shocked when you go about it and just transforming your lifestyle and you're able to get off of these things. Um, and. And again, you know, and based off what we do in terms of, you know, nutritionist nutrition coaching and having, you know, kind of this, like, habit based coaching model, it's not like we're over here saying, like, hey, we're going to cure your. Your diabetes or blood pressure, cholesterol or anything like that. It's literally just like, through the basic healthy lifestyle habits of getting you to, to work on and improve and get more consistent with prioritizing your sleep, your nutrition, your exercise, your hydration, and your stress management as a byproduct of that, over time, not in a day, not in a week, not in a month, but over the course of, you know, six months, over the course of a year beyond now, you literally start to transform your lifestyle. And if you can transform your lifestyle, like, that translates out into every other aspect of your life. It helps you to become a better dad, mom, husband, wife, excel in your career. And those are the compliments that it just reminds me of what we do and why we do it. I mean, I love helping you lose weight or whatever, but it's rarely about the nutrition and the fitness. It's so much more about what that foundation does for you and how that translates out into every other aspect of your life.
[00:11:57] Speaker A: That's awesome, dude. I mean, if you could. If you could kind of guess and you might just know, exactly how many clients have you been able to touch and help? Like, how big is your team? Do you have a team? What. What does that look like?
[00:12:09] Speaker B: Yeah, I mean, I can confidently say we've easily worked with over a thousand clients, like, one on one over the last, over the last 14 years. And that's just me personally. Um, I mean, I started, like, right around 1819 years old and doing personal training while I was going to school to get my nutrition degree. So it's been like 14 years now. So I could easily say over that. Um, but, yeah, now we have, um, we've gone through kind of seasons with, with I coach, um, as with any business, but right now, um, it's, it's myself, and then we have two other coaches on the team, um, and we're just kind of like slowly, slowly building it again. Um, my first year, I had built out a team. Admittedly, my whole world got rocked when we had our first Josiah, and I kind of transitioned my whole business model at that point, and basically kind of just went back to a solo practice for four years. And then now I'm kind of starting the process again. Big part, as we were talking about earlier, no more kids. Three and done.
[00:13:09] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:13:11] Speaker B: But being able to now be like, okay, like, I'm. I'm in. I'm in a. A season where I can start focusing on building a team again because, I mean, I could probably do what I do now forever, I guess. But there's also, like, a part of me, like, a passion of me that wants to build something bigger than myself.
And that's, I think, a big part where, like, coming, you know, building a team comes in, it's being able to build something beyond just you and leave a legacy behind, you know, as an aspect of your life.
[00:13:45] Speaker A: Totally. And acknowledging, like you just said, just the chapters of life. Like, you guys, you had built kind of a team before, and then you went kind of more just to the individual practice and, but also during that time, you guys have had three babies in five years, right? So, like, that, that's a huge, huge life change and just shift of your focus and energy and all of that. So, and that's cool to kind of just be able to acknowledge and see that. And I'm sure people understand and just feel that on some of their personal levels. I know. I feel that, too. Like, trying to build a business and build a family is, is hard to try to juggle all of those, but just continuing to wake up and try to do it to the best of your ability is really what we can do. I would love to touch and ask a little bit deeper just in regards to your model, just as you've grown wiser in your entrepreneurial pursuits. Like, what, what could you maybe share kind of from what you did to what you're kind of doing now that has really worked for you from the business side or maybe didn't work as well as you thought it would.
[00:14:49] Speaker B: Yeah, well, there's. There's a lot of things that have worked well and a lot of things that have gone poorly there. I mean, a lot of lessons. I think entrepreneurship is probably, you know, one of the best life lessons that you could ever have.
You know, because at the end of the day, I mean, there's been so many times over the course of the last six years or even beyond that where, you know, I was like, you know, maybe this just isn't gonna work. Maybe I should transition to something else. Maybe I should change careers. Maybe I should do, you know, whatever. 14 years is a long time. It's half my life, you know?
[00:15:21] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:15:23] Speaker B: But I think a big part of entrepreneurship and being a successful entrepreneur is also consistency, which is, you know, when you look at business and you look at what I, you know, what we do with, I coach and helping clients with, with, you know, prioritizing their health.
[00:15:38] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:15:39] Speaker B: It's the exact same thing. It's. It's being consistent, not being perfect. Right. Because you're not going to be perfect. And that perfection mentality leads to that all or nothing mentality. And that's where so many people are either starting or stopping, you know, but it's. It's the consistency and realizing that, you know, there's a compounding effect day after day, week after week, month after month, year after year.
And I think, you know, probably I didn't, I didn't have this from the very beginning by any means, but I'd say over the last, like, year especially, is when I really started to find peace and that, you know, so much of my life, I would always just put everything on me. It was like, if things were good, it was on me. If things were bad, it was on me. But I've really grown in my faith, especially over the last year, probably a little bit ever since having kids. I mean, I'd say with Josiah, it kind of started the process getting more serious about prioritizing my faith. And then with Jet and then Jagger, it's just heightened with every kid that we've had, especially as being a dad to three little boys, it's like God gave me these three little boys to raise into men of God, and that's a huge responsibility. Sure. And so I think that.
I think I just went on a long tangent there, but, no, that's good. I think it's just bringing it back to being able to prioritize and sometimes do a time audit of what is most important in your life that you say that is most important and then also being able to audit your time and maybe get smacked in the face as to, well, are you really prioritizing these things in that order?
And that was, for me, this idea of this table of health, if you will, and I had three of the tables or three of the legs of the tables being prioritized and then the fourth one wasn't being prioritized, which was you've got your spiritual health, your physical health, your mental health, your emotional health. But if you don't prioritize all four legs of the table at one point, the table will fall for sure.
[00:17:51] Speaker A: Yeah. How would you say? I kind of would love to hear more kind of like the pillars of icoach and just how you kind of work through that consult process to get to, of course, acquire clientele and add value to them and your services. But how have you also seen a shift maybe in the ways that you've kind of coached and counseled and consulted your clients on kind of the behavioral and mental side? Like, obviously that's a big piece of our world today and just the overstimulation and screen time and, you know, just how that jacks up our sleep and our energy and our moods. Has that also kind of become a piece, has that become a piece of your coaching services?
[00:18:33] Speaker B: Yeah, I mean, ever since the very beginning, we, I mean, we, we never just focus on nutrition. We definitely took a holistic approach with it where it was like, you know, nutrition and sleep and hydration, stress management, exercise, personal development, really kind of all of those big rocks as we like to reference them.
So we've always kind of focused on those things. But I will say that we've definitely became a lot more intentional with making sure that we realize that we have to meet in the fitness industry, whatever it's like, this stuff has now become relatively easy for us, in a sense. It's been such a consistent part of our life for so long. And by the way, it's what we do. And so for the reality of most people, this is not the only thing in their life that they have to focus on. They have a million other things going on, and it's easy for us as coaches to be like, I just don't realize why they're not being consistent with whatever it is. Right.
But, you know, I was always say, it's not like people don't care how much, you know until they know how much you care. And so much of coaching is caring enough to actually meet the person where they are in this journey and help them to be successful. Yeah, I mean, we're at the point now where most people don't even start because they, you know, because they think they're gonna fail or fear of failure there.
So I think being more intentional and what has helped me with that too, is becoming, getting married and having three kids. Now I can relate with people a lot more than I could at 18 years old as to some of the challenges of prioritizing your health as a husband and a father with three young kids or as an entrepreneur.
I think that this is the evolution of coaching too, and this is why you have to have, I mean, again, going back to consistency. Like, you have to have a long enough timeline to be able to actually experience consistency and experience the growth and the failures that come from that, for sure. But it's a mindset because it's very, like I said, living a healthy lifestyle, running a successful business. They're very much in line.
And, you know, you have to have that abundance mindset, that growth mindset towards all of this because if not, like, you're just not going to have the, you know, the stamina to continue on.
[00:20:54] Speaker A: Yeah. The bandwidth, for sure. Yeah. Burnout kind of. Yeah, burn out naturally. Kind of fall back into what you've been doing, what you've always done, and that can definitely be hard. Now, you mentioned a little bit earlier, kind of like when, when clientele will graduate from kind of one of your programs. You guys have some different programs that you guys offer or kind of do or can, that some clients can kind of see, you know, throw a jar on the wall to kind of pursue, I'm sure maybe. Do you try to graduate all clients? Do you continue to work with them as long as they want to work with you? Like, what's.
[00:21:32] Speaker B: Yeah, so, I mean, the longest client that we've had is since we started, I coach, so they're going on, you know, six, seven years. So, I mean, a client, client could work with us for the rest of their life if they wanted to.
[00:21:42] Speaker A: Awesome.
[00:21:42] Speaker B: Um, but, yeah, I think it's, um, you know, people ultimately come to us with a whole bunch of different goals and we try to always build out that, that game plan, typically in like a year format, um, you know, getting them to really start to understand, like nutritional periodization and training periodization over the course of a year. Um, and then from there we kind of reverse engineer that big goal back. Right. And we set quarterly goals and monthly goals and weekly goals and daily goals. Um, and so it's kind of this idea of like, hey, the big goal that we want to accomplish and it's going to take x amount of time. But how do I reverse engineer the process right and get you now focused on like the next thing that you need to do, right. And be able to take it one decision at a time there. But yeah, the coaching program is just one. There's one coaching program that you run through.
Essentially what we do is we start off with an initial assessment process and that kind of gives us all the data that we need over the course of the first week. And then from there we set up our first call to be able to review every review over everything, set up that game plan and strategy as to what that yearly goal is going to look like. And then from there that's when the coaching gets started. So we have, we've essentially, I think the thing that we've learned is we've just, I mean, we can get as complex with this stuff as we want to, but really what clients need is they need, they need simple, like they need and they asked for it. They're like, I need to be able to simplify this area of my life for sure. And it makes sense, right? Because when somebody struggles with consistency, like they don't need more complex, they need to get it simplified, right?
And so at the end of the day, it's like every single person we coach is going to be coached differently because for some people they can handle using all these different tracking tools and you know, like just making like being a little more complex with it. And maybe this isn't their first rodeo, maybe it's not their 1st, 1st time working with nutritionists. Um, but for other people, again, like, they're so new at all of this, they haven't prioritized it ever in their life consistently, you know, and they're coming to us at 40, 50, 60 years old. So that's going from the majority of our clients kind of funny to think about going from the majority of our clients being like CrossFit athletes to now the majority of our clients being like 40 to 60 year old women. Yeah, that's, that's an interesting kind of transition over the last six years. And that's honestly another component of why we've prioritized learning so much about women's health. Because I started to realize, I was like, wow. I think the statistic right now is 80% of online coaching clients are women.
Wow. And specifically right in that 40 to 60 year old timeframe. So, like, girls gone strong has been Molly. And what they're doing there with their certification has been phenomenal with helping me. Obviously, I'm not a female.
My wife is and my sister are, who both are nutrition coaches as well. But me being able to go through their certifications, I mean, it was first just like women's health, and then it was pre and postnatal, and then it was menopause. So all three of those have been super useful. And then just, again, like, my wife being pregnant and us having kids and kind of seeing that process and then just the experience and the trial era of working with so many clients, 100%, that's a big part of what we do now, is we help women to, you know, especially in these stages of having young kids, like to not feel guilty about prioritizing themselves and prioritizing their health and helping dads to help support that and show up for that as well.
[00:25:16] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:25:17] Speaker B: And, yeah, again, I think, you know, whether it's male or female that we're working with, it's just all coming back to. I'm a big, big believer that if you prioritize your health, you prioritize these healthy lifestyle habits, it translates over into improving every other aspect of your life that you have to realize that, and you've got to believe that, truly, for you to. For you to do it.
[00:25:37] Speaker A: Yeah, so. Totally, man. And I think that's it also shows just the evolution and growth that you guys have chosen to do and continue to do. Like, yeah, you could have probably continued to kind of scratch your ego side of, like, you maybe living vicariously through athletes and still coaching athletes and kind of scratching that itch and, like, satisfying yourself from that end and maybe still adding value there. But also, you've continued to adapt and grown as an entrepreneur, a husband and a father, and you've also realized that people grow as well. And that's just been cool to see and witness and just for you to continue to care. I mean, like, if we're being honest, too, probably, if you would agree, like, most of. Most of the clientele base that pride needs, a lot of the help is that general population, you know, is between the 40 and 60 and, you know, the day to day people that are just in the hustle of life, in the. Of life with kids and work and a massive to do list to do, for sure.
[00:26:34] Speaker B: 100%. Well, I mean, I think the last time I looked at the stats, I think we're like 70, 80% of America is overweight and 50% is obese, something like that.
So it absolutely is gen pop, right? I mean, and honestly, this has been something really crazy to realize lately. I mean, I had somebody comment just a few days ago, one of my Facebook posts, and I, it was something about, like, tracking your food. And she said that I had an eating disorder. Because the reality of it is, if you prioritize your health these days, you're an outlier. The majority of people do not prioritize their health, so get ready.
And that's a big battle that we run up against with friends and family and coworkers and all of that with clients as we're trying to help them.
So it's a very interesting world we're living in, not just in the health.
[00:27:25] Speaker A: And fitness space, but it's definitely hard.
And, I mean, I think I, like, I've to have good friends, close friends, you know, that you can kind of banter back and forth with, and you're going out, and then next thing you know, they're like, oh, no, I'm not gonna get a beer. And you're like, what? Come on, man. Like, we're having a good time. And it's. As friends, sometimes it's hard to step back and be like, wait, wait, I need to support him or support her in this.
But it's just become such a norm to do those things, to go out, to have the processed foods. I mean, of course, like, I've done it, I do it, but it's also, it's been hard for me, too, to make that shift from athlete and being able to maybe eat whatever I want. Like, how many times have you heard a crossfitter or worker outer say, like, oh, I work out so I can eat the way I want to eat. Like, that's such a common, you know, nonchalant phrase that's thrown around, but for majority of people, they can't do that. And if you are doing that, you're probably not going to be able to do that forever.
But then how have, like, you are still obviously in great shape. You look the part. You are the part of what you do, and you practice what you preach, transitioning out of your competitive role as an athlete, and then also even more so, into a dad and a husband and all these other hats that you're wearing. How have you been able to satisfy and prioritize your fitness? Because I know, I see your workouts. They're not as insane and crazy as they used to be during our crossfit days, but you're still getting it in. You're still adding that value to your lifestyle to continue to show up with the energy that you need to have as a father and a husband and a business owner. How have you juggled that?
[00:29:04] Speaker B: Yeah, I mean, it's definitely hard. I mean, I'd be lying if I said it wasn't hard. I mean, luckily, it's a bit of a double edged sword in that I have doing what I do. I have this level of accountability that a lot of people don't have. Right. And I recognize that, which is like, at the end of the day, like, nobody is going to hire, you know, just like what you said, look the part, right? If I don't look the part, somebody's not like, people aren't gonna hire me.
[00:29:29] Speaker A: You're talking about, like, the internal accountability. Is that what you're.
[00:29:32] Speaker B: Well, I mean, internal kinda. No, I mean. I mean external accountability in that and maybe internal as well. And that, I mean, I'm a nutritionist, I'm a personal trainer. As a byproduct of me being that, right. There's a stigma or whatever you want to call it around. Like, he should look. Fitzhen. Yeah, right? Not only should he look fit, he should. He should be fit. He should live fit. Like, that should be his lifestyle.
And so, yeah, it's definitely hard because when you sit here and you have three kids, five and under. Yeah, everything becomes harder. Right. We were just talking about the sleep before this. I mean, sleep is something I've just kind of had to, like, laugh and be like, I mean, maybe, maybe someday.
And if you're not getting sleep, that affects your training, it affects your nutrition, it affects all these other areas of your life, right? So I think there's seasons with it, right? I mean, any dad that comes to me and, like, they're about to have a baby and they want to go, like, pursue some crazy fitness goal, I'm like, hey, buddy, you might want to push this back a little bit.
So I think seasons of life is really key to have awareness around and understanding that, hey, not every goal that you're gonna set for yourself is gonna be the appropriate season. Like, you need to make sure that you're setting yourself up to be successful. And some goals don't go with certain seasons. They just don't. I'm sorry.
[00:30:53] Speaker A: Very true.
[00:30:54] Speaker B: And so I think a balance of giving myself grace and a balance of pushing myself. Right? I mean, Alex, my wife, posted this a few days ago. She was like, if I didn't do it now or if I didn't do it today or whatever. I would never do it. Right. And so sometimes you gotta do it when you're tired of when she says, do it. I mean, like, work out, you know, like, if I didn't, if I only worked out when I got to sleep or when I wasn't tired or whatever, I would probably go a whole year, you know, without working out.
[00:31:22] Speaker A: Right.
[00:31:24] Speaker B: So, I mean, I preach about sleep all the time, and it's. I would argue it's one of the most important habits of them all. But sometimes, depending upon the season of life, that might take a bit of a hit and you might need to change your training around it. You know, maybe you're not going as hard or lifting as heavy or whatever. But again, consistency, right? How do you, how do you scale things back to a place to where you're still being consistent with daily movement and working out there?
And then I, you know, so I think. I think I have a lot of accountability in my life that a lot of people don't. I'm trying to, you know, lead a team, I'm trying to lead a family, I'm trying to lead a team, I'm trying to lead clients, all of this, right?
But I would say also the thing that helps me is, is being able to train for something, right? And this is. I had a big break. So, again, going through seasons of life like this, this year will be the first time that I'm competing in, like, a fitness event, athletic event since competing in CrossFit in 2016.
[00:32:20] Speaker A: Wow.
[00:32:20] Speaker B: So I have a. I'm doing judgment Day, which is 100 miles mountain bike race here in July. The end of July.
[00:32:25] Speaker A: Where's it at?
[00:32:26] Speaker B: It's across ten different trails here in DFW. They're all like eight to 12 miles. You ride one, drive to the next one, ride it, drive. So it's a 24 hours race.
[00:32:36] Speaker A: Oh, my gosh.
[00:32:37] Speaker B: And it's end of July in Texas. Right? So it's. It's called judgment day for a reason. Wow. But, yeah, I'm doing. I'm doing like a two mountain bike races and two mountain bike races and one trail run race this year. So not only is it, like, completely out of my comfort zone in terms of. I haven't done an endurance based, like, competition event since I was, like, in middle school, maybe. Yeah, but just competing again. And so what does that, what does that do? It gives me something to train for. It gives me something to be excited about. It gives me something to be more consistent with.
It's just a goal. And I think, again, it's like, you have to have. You've got to set goals in your life because if not, life is just going to fly by and you've got to be intentional with the life that you're living.
We talked about earlier with the car crash thing, at any moment, you could be done, your life could be over.
And I'm not perfect at this. I mean, I think we can all improve in it, but it's reminders like this and reflections like this in a podcast where it's like, am I truly being intentional with the life that I'm living? And now more than ever before? Because it's not just about me. It's I've got a lot of responsibility in my life. And, you know, with that comes, comes pressure. But pressure is a privilege for sure.
[00:33:56] Speaker A: It really is. It definitely is. I mean, I going back to, like, just the goal you pursuing that. I recently, like, just kind of getting out of the comfort zone and the friction.
Man, I've been the most. Being completely honest, I've been the most inconsistent with my training over the past year or so. Just with the season of life, of having our two little boys, a young business, a young family.
You know, we've had four miscarriages over this past year and a half or so. And just a lot of perspective and shifts and focuses and sleep has been, has been a big lack of. But I'm three weeks in to consistently working out three to four days a week. And two, those, one of those days is running. I hate running. I never even did it during the cross. Like during my Crossfit days, I would try to change it or do rowing or the bike instead, but just getting out of my comfort zone. And two, even though I hate running, I'm honestly really doing it for the mental freedom, if I'm being honest. I just need to get out of my studio. I need to get out of the office. I leave my phone in my truck and only thing I have on is my watch and my whoop. And it's like, I just need that mental freedom because I just need to get out. I need to get out and just run. And so running was like, I think that'll help and that'll do it. But it's also, of course, you know, fitness piece piece as well. And then I'm adding it in another conditioning day more with like the biker skier and rower and so kind of doing a little bit of. Kind of the hype of like the hybrid athlete Nick Baird and some of that stuff, for sure, but just getting out of my comfort zone a little bit and not just feeding my. My fitness ego of, like, yeah, I could go crank out some dumbbell bench press and pull ups and all of that, but that's not really doing much. Or, like, you know, pushing me outside of where I really need to be pushed. And something that someone said years ago, I don't remember who, going back to kind of looking the part and being the part and, like, trying, encouraging others and the listeners and clients to not compare themselves against others is your training a. Like, you could take off or we could maybe take off. And, yes, everyone is their own biggest critic when they look in the mirror 100%. And there's some self sabotaging and self talk there of positivity that we could discuss on deeper. But, like, also realizing, like, for example, I've got one client of ours that has never worked out his whole life. He's in his mid forties, and he's down almost 60 pounds in one year. And he's made a lot of crazy, awesome lifestyle changes. But when he first started, he was so hard on himself. I'm like, dude, how long you been working out? It's like, man, like, literally, this is my start. I said, you are a newborn. Your training age is literally zero. Like, you're. You're. You're not even crawling yet, man. Like, you're. You're trying to understand how to disassociate your hips from your spine and create shoulder pec. And, you know, you're, like, on overload right now, trying to understand movement patterns and all of that and functional fitness, whatever. But to see him grow from, let's say, quote unquote, crawling to walking to now running and really, like, starting to see that mind and muscle connection that's happening within his body is awesome. And I think people can easily maybe look at you as looking the part, which is very encouraging and intriguing to obviously want to work with a professional that is living it and breathing it and practicing it, but also them reminding themselves of, like, man, where's your training itch? Have you worked with a professional before? Do you have an athletic background? And yes, some genes and genetics are going to play into that, but just for people to give themselves some grace on that, because, I mean, you've been an athlete and a fitness guy really kind of your whole life, right?
[00:37:32] Speaker B: Yeah. I mean, so there's. There's two parts that are two points that you bring up that that kind of sparked for me. Number one, don't feel bad, because, yes, I have. This has been part of my life my whole life. But my first year that I started I coach was the worst year of fitness in my whole life. I mean, here I am trying to build this online nutrition coaching company and I literally. Alex says that maybe I'm exaggerating a bit, but I say that the first year of me starting I coach, I didn't work out a single time. And what did that lead to? Well, that led to me eating worse. It led to me sleeping worse. It led to me drinking more alcohol, it led to me not prioritizing hydration and stress management and all of these things.
And I realized just how slippery of a slope it was. And I realized that my health is my greatest asset, especially with what I'm trying to do. I mean, I literally felt like a fraud.
[00:38:22] Speaker A: Right.
[00:38:24] Speaker B: And so, you know, look again, I think there's seasons of life and that's why if you want to make this a priority for the rest of your life, you've got to realize that you're not always going to be perfect. You've got to be consistent. Perfection over consistency.
But I think that, I guess going back to the second point there, see if I can remember the training part. Oh, the training edge. Yes. So that's, so that's, that's something I bring up all the time. And that, you know, it's. I compare it to people's careers though, right? Or compare it to marriage or being a dad or mom or whatever. It's like, it's like, you know, let's just say with the career, it's like, hey, you've been this software developer or whatever for the last ten years. Like, imagine me jumping into your role today and leading a meeting. How do you think that's gonna go? Probably not too well, right? So, yeah, I mean, if this is the start of your journey at 30, 40, 50, 60 years old or whatever, like, I mean, yeah, the first time I ever lifted weights I was in 7th grade and I'm only 33 in August here. And so that means that I've been consistently strength training like nonstop with the exception of that one year for more than half my life, you know, I mean, coming up on probably like, how old are you in 7th grade?
[00:39:39] Speaker A: Like 1111, something like that. Maybe ten or eleven.
[00:39:43] Speaker B: So, yeah, I mean, I've been doing it for 20 plus years.
[00:39:46] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:39:46] Speaker B: So that's a long time, especially compared to a lot of people that have never done any of this.
[00:39:51] Speaker A: Oh, yeah, dude. I mean, I don't know if you remember, I could show you the picture after this, but my first in house competition that I did when I first started crossfit. I was overhead squatting a 65 pound barbell with. I mean, if you could picture all the things you're not supposed to do. My elbows were bent. The bar was in front of me. My knees were dumped in. I was on my toes. I was in, like, foamy shoes, and it was 65 pounds. And I posted that picture the night before. I was competing at regionals in Salt Lake. And at this time, my max was, my overhead max was 325 pound overhead squat. And one of the very first workouts that we did that morning was, it was, like, 25 overhead squats with, like, 100 double unders. And then the handstand walk over the, up the ramp, down the stairs, up the stairs, down the ramp, and I did the heaviest weight for our team, and I did the handstand walk. I'm broken. And, like, that was such a, like, moment of, like, look at where I started and look at where I'm at now. Yeah, but, man, that was a course of five years and tons of sweat and blood and tears and nutrition tracking and all of that to reach that, that goal.
[00:41:01] Speaker B: Yeah. So, well, and when you set, I mean, like, like, when you thought about that goal, I mean, it's probably not even that you set that specific goal, but you fell in love with the process, you fell in love with the journey, and you were consistent, and then look at the transformation that ended up happening. You probably could have never, you probably could have never expected that from the very beginning there.
[00:41:20] Speaker A: Yep, 100%.
[00:41:22] Speaker B: But that. Yeah, man, that's, you know, I always tell the story. It's like when I first, I had gotten a football scholarship, and my coach wanted me to put on, like, 1015 pounds, and I legitimately thought that the way that I needed to do this was to eat five chicken burritos from Taco Bell every day that summer before I left.
[00:41:41] Speaker A: My gosh.
[00:41:41] Speaker B: And that's what I did. Not to mention I would go to, like, smoothie king or whatever these supplement shops were called, and I would spend, like, legitimately, like, two to $300 a month in high school on supplements. And I thought that these things were just making me into, like, superman.
But, yeah, I showed up to, I showed up to college football 1015 pounds heavier, and it was all body fat. I was definitely much slower, out of shape. My coach was like, what in the world?
[00:42:10] Speaker A: You said put on weight?
[00:42:12] Speaker B: Yeah, seriously. And, I mean, even after that, I mean, like, I tell the story, I'm like, and this is why it's an evolution like, you can't, you can't expect yourself to be an expert day, 110 thousand reps or whatever. It's. But, like, I, even when I first started personal training, so I'm personal training, I'm in school to get my nutrition degree, and I'm over here eating frozen lean cuisines for, like, like every single meal. And I thought that I was, like, the healthiest guy on the block.
So this is all, you know, it's these things we look back on and we laugh about. I mean, I could come up with all of this stuff with intermittent fasting and keto and paleo and whole 30 and, like, all of these things.
And this is why, like, investing in yourself and trying to collapse time, because, I mean, to all of these people out there, like, yes, of course it's confusing, right? And this is why you have to work with a trusted expert to meet you where you are, right, and not sit here and throw a million things at you and just confuse you even more than you already are. Right. But let's start to stack some little wins. And if we can get some little wins in that first month, the little wins start to add up to the big wins like you shared five years later. But it takes time. And if you're coming to me at 40, 50, 60 years old, we are literally combating a lifetime of habits and beliefs and traits and skill sets.
And it just, it takes time. Like anything worth having in life takes hard work to obtain. And it's a process. It's a journey, for sure.
[00:43:42] Speaker A: So true.
[00:43:43] Speaker B: I wish I had the magic pill.
[00:43:44] Speaker A: But there is not one.
[00:43:46] Speaker B: Unfortunately. There's not one.
[00:43:47] Speaker A: Yeah, dude. Well, man, I appreciate your time. I want to kind of, as we get going here, to conclude, one of the last questions I love to ask, and I know we've chatted about a lot of them, probably, but where you are, where you've been and where you're going, any last kind of key points or encouragements that you could pass on to the audience?
[00:44:05] Speaker B: Yeah, so, I mean, I think kind of wrapping that all up. I mean, my biggest encouragement for myself and for all of us is you've got to make sure that you're prioritizing faith over everything else. It's got to be the number one priority. And that looks different for a lot of different people, which is totally fine. But I think that that leg of the health table gets neglected. I know that it was neglected in my own life. And so I think being able to prioritize your faith, that's huge. And if you can do that. That 100%. Just like living a healthy lifestyle translates out into every other aspect of your life. I think family is another one that's extremely important to me. I think that it's so easy for us as. As dads, as parents, and everyone has different situations. But it's like, I could say that my family is my number one priority, and then I do a time audit and I'm like, oh, well, no, work is your number one priority because you spend way more time on that than you do with your family.
And again, it looks different for everybody. But that's something that I've definitely been convicted of more and more, especially over the last year or two, and I've proactively made changes in my life to make that more of a priority because nobody else is going to do it for me. I can talk about it all day long and then number three would be fitness or health.
It's so easy to take this for granted, and I get it. If this wasn't what I did, I would be right there struggling, not taking it for granted, just like so many people do. I've just been blessed in that since 18 years old and working with as many clients as I've had that I've got to see what happens if you don't prioritize your health. And the repercussions from that are terrible. But those things don't come to fruition until later in life, unfortunately. And so those would be the three faith, family, fitness, and really prioritizing those three things, because if you can prioritize those three things, it's going to set you up to be successful in every other aspect of your life.
[00:46:06] Speaker A: I love it, man. That's awesome. Well, dude, to conclude, where can people find you? Social media websites, all of that.
[00:46:13] Speaker B: Yeah, so if you just search icoach nutrition. Icoach nutrition.com. but yeah, if you just search icoach nutrition, you'll find us, whether it be on the website or social media, podcast, local, my personal Instagram's oachjustinmurphy. But to be honest, I spend a whole lot less time on social media these days than I did when I first started with I coach. And so, yeah, I'd say probably the website and just getting in contact with us directly would be the best way to go about it.
[00:46:42] Speaker A: Well, awesome, man. You guys heard it. Justin Murphy with I coach nutrition and lifestyle coaching. Thanks so much for joining us on the proper form podcast, episode number eight. Thank you guys for listening. We'll see you on the next one.
