No Hype, Just Standards · Client story
Apache commander gained 40 lbs after retiring. How he rebuilt at 50
What this episode says
- Petraitis had no aviation in his family. He was a criminal justice major who wandered into ROTC as an elective, got a helicopter ride on a training exercise, and fell in love with it on day one. Twenty-some years later he still flies on the side.
- As squadron commander he ran an organization of 550 people, 24 Apaches, UAVs, and all the trucks and maintenance behind them, roughly a billion and a half dollars of equipment. His job was two things: pass down twenty years of experience, and empower junior leaders while knowing when to step in. The part he despised most was the dental readiness statistics.
- Korea in the fall of 2017 was, combat aside, the harder deployment. He had just converted the unit from Kiowa Warriors to Apaches, most of the experience in the squadron was from flying in the Middle East, and Korea meant mountains, cold, and 2,000-foot construction wires for aircraft that live below a thousand feet. The standard there was let out slowly: thirty days with no drinking or going out, then curfews, then big-boy rules for the men who could handle them and bumpers for the ones who could not.
- He prided himself on keeping up with the twenty-year-olds at the front of the formation and on being on the flight schedule as often as the meeting schedule. That grinds. Ten days in a row of long hours, and the gym is the first thing cut; the DFAC has the best breakfast in the world and the only thing open late is Burger King. He gained weight in Korea.
- He retired at 21 years, fulfilled, and walked into six months of transition: a new job as a program manager in Ohio in a field he had never worked in, his mother retiring and moving, an MBA he decided to start at the same time, and what he calls the Army's last gift, a cancer diagnosis that was caught early and is monitored. The most stressful period of his life. He is a stress eater; he stopped caring about nutrition and training and put on 20 to 30 pounds, eventually 40.
- The wake-up was a hotel room on a work trip at 48, looking at his phone and realizing he would be 50 next year. His chalkboard wall at home says what are you doing about it. He started on his own with fasting, turning a task into a lifestyle a week at a time, and did that for eight or nine months. It worked until it plateaued, and he admits the gym stayed off the list partly out of laziness. Local trainers could show him an exercise but did not do nutrition or lifestyle, which was what he needed.
- What got him to reach out was humility: in the Army, whenever he wanted to be a better pilot or score better on a test, he sought out someone smarter than him. What he hoped the program was not was a ten-grand retreat lifestyle pitch. What sold him was that the schedule adjusts to his, that travel and eating out are planned for rather than excused, and that the data is tangible. He is glued to the app the way other people are glued to social media, and the trends tell him whether three missed workouts had a root cause or he was being lazy that week.
- By his own account, at about five months: weight and body fat down, joints adjusted, the gym no longer something he dreads, running that hurts less because the weight is off and the muscles are stronger, and, the ultimate test, energy on a Tuesday at 2:30 in the afternoon that is far better than before. The discipline of prepping meals and packing the gym bag has carried into how he executes at work. He has not hit the standard back yet; the goal is one far above the average American fifty-year-old. His advice: it is later than you think, and the first step, picking up the phone, is the hardest one.
I'll go to the gym later. I'll worry about it another day. Well, that day may never come. It is later than you think.
Who Matt Petraitis is
Matt Petraitis is a retired Army lieutenant colonel with no aviation anywhere in his family. He went to college for criminal justice, wandered into ROTC as an elective because he knew a few of the guys, and got his first helicopter ride on a training exercise. He was hooked on day one and still flies on the side. He flew Kiowa Warriors and then Apaches, and his last command was a cavalry squadron: about 550 people, 24 AH-64s, UAVs, and every truck and maintenance shop behind them, roughly a billion and a half dollars of organization. His job, as he describes it, was to pass down twenty years of experience and to empower his junior leaders, knowing when to step in and when not to. The thing he despised most was dental readiness statistics.
Korea
The fall 2017 rotation to Korea was, with combat taken out of the equation, the harder deployment. He had just converted the unit from Kiowas to Apaches, so it was new pilots, new aircraft, and new ways of doing things, and most of the flying experience in the squadron, including his, was from the desert. Korea meant mountains, the coldest weather he has ever been in, and 2,000-foot construction wires for aircraft that live below a thousand feet. It was also a hybrid: garrison life and mission exercises, with the training area to the north being exactly where a fight would happen, and a threat that would occasionally spark up and put everyone on alert. Holding a standard there was different from the Middle East, where you fly, come back, train, eat, and repeat. The rope was let out slowly: thirty days of no drinking and no going out on the town, then curfews, then big-boy rules for the men who could handle them and bumpers for the ones who could not.
He prided himself on being the old man who kept up with the twenty-year-olds at the front of the formation, and on being on the flight schedule as much as he was in brigade meetings. It grinds. After ten days in a row of long hours, the first thing cut is the gym. The DFAC has the best breakfast special in the world, and when you miss it the only thing open is Burger King. He gained weight in Korea, and he says it plainly: he was the one setting the standard, and it slipped.
The tornado
He retired at 21 years, after a final assignment on a training and assessment team that let him see Army aviation from every angle. He felt fulfilled and did not see the job getting better. What came next was six months of transition stacked on top of each other: a move to Ohio, a first job as a program manager at a small defense company in a field he had never worked in, his mother retiring and selling her houses, an MBA he decided to start at the same time, and what he calls the Army’s last gift, a cancer diagnosis that was caught early and is monitored. He learned to compartmentalize it the way the military teaches: get the plan, be the best patient you can be, and worry about it a month before the next check. He admits he was not the best patient. He is a stress eater. He stopped caring about nutrition and training and put on 20 to 30 pounds, eventually 40. Zac’s point: in that kind of storm, you are so focused on everything else that you do not notice what it is doing to your body, or that a diagnosis is the first thing you think about when you wake up and the last thing keeping you from sleep.
The hotel room
He remembers the situation, not the date. A hotel room on a work trip, playing with his phone in the morning, and the thought landed: you are going to be 50 next year. Thirty had not bothered him and neither had forty. This did. He was 48, 40 pounds heavier, not going to the gym, and messing around with eating healthy without being serious about it. His chalkboard wall at home has a few daily quotes, and one of them is what are you doing about it. So he started, on his own, about a year before the program: cleaned up what he ate, cut back on alcohol, and got into fasting for the weight loss and for the science of it. He treated it like an Army fitness goal. One-day fast, then intermittent fasting for a week, then two, then three, turning a task into a lifestyle. It worked for eight or nine months and then it plateaued. He admits the gym stayed off the list partly out of laziness, and that common sense said he needed something more holistic than a fasting program. Local trainers could correct an exercise but did not do nutrition or lifestyle. Most online programs assumed he was home all the time, and he is on the road constantly.
Humility
What got him to pick up the phone was humility. In the Army, whenever he wanted to be a better pilot or do better on a test, he sought out someone smarter than him, and he learned early that pride has to be set aside to do it. Zac adds that most men treat that as weakness when they are young and only later realize how much there is to learn from someone who actually wants to help rather than get something from you. What Petraitis hoped the program was not was a cheesy pay-ten-grand-and-come-to-the-retreat lifestyle pitch. The first call was from a South African coach who mentioned powerlifting, and for a moment he wondered whether that was what he was looking for. What sold him was that the schedule adjusts to his, that travel and eating out are coached rather than forbidden, and that the whole thing is built for a man who is rarely home. He trains alone in Huntsville, sends his form videos in, and describes the feedback on his form as its own lesson in humility.
Data and leg day
As an aviator he likes a checklist, and the data is tangible. His friends make fun of him for being glued to the app the way other people are glued to social media, but it tells him every day what he is doing and whether he is hitting his targets, and over time it shows the trends, which he considers the important part. Three missed workouts in a week becomes a question with an answer: was there a root cause to fix, or was he lazy that week? The hardest part of the first weeks was leg day, and reading labels. Zac makes the point he makes to every client: nobody makes you turn the can around; two months in you do it yourself, and you find the protein cookie with a one-to-five ratio of protein to carbohydrate. Petraitis started light on purpose, a few months before he turned 50, because he knew that starting heavy would hurt him, and he treats the twenty-year-olds in the gym as a challenge to keep up with rather than a reason not to try.
What changed
The first month was mostly soreness. After four to six weeks, by his own account: weight and body fat coming off on the scale, joints adjusted, the gym no longer hard, and a general feeling of waking up better than before. He does not dread training now; he notices when he misses it. He still runs, less than he used to, and it hurts less because the weight is off and the muscles are stronger. Mental clarity and focus are much better, partly because most of the junk is out of his diet. His test for energy is a Tuesday at 2:30 in the afternoon, and it is far better than it was. The discipline of prepping meals, packing the gym bag, and knowing where he will eat and train on a trip has made him more deliberate about the mundane parts of the day, and he says that carries directly into how he executes tasks at work. Individual results vary.
The standard
Zac’s observation is that men like this never compare themselves to other fifty-year-olds; they compare themselves to the twenty-year-olds they competed against, and they know they let the standard drop. Petraitis agrees, and says he has not hit it back yet. When the Army lowered the PT standard a few years into his career, he kept holding himself to the old one because it was the higher one. In the gym now he watches the younger men and tries to keep up, not with their weight, but with their pace. On a run he picks one person he irrationally hates and tries to beat them. The goal is a standard far above the average American fifty-year-old.
To the man who was in his shoes a year ago and is telling himself later: do it now. The first step is the hardest and it is just picking up the phone. On his chalkboard is a Latin expression that translates as it is later than you think, and every day it gets later. That is exactly how he ended up where he was: I just moved, I just started a job, I will go to the gym later; then school, so I will do it another day. That day may never come. Once you are a month in, you will ask why you did not do it sooner.
Rapid fire: Army produces the best aviators and flies the cooler missions, because when Maverick bailed out, a helicopter pilot picked him up. Pilots complain more than maintainers. Losing your identity after the uniform comes off is tougher than combat stress. The biggest lie men tell themselves after leaving the military is that they can keep living that lifestyle; you have to close the chapter and start again. The first thing that slips when a man stops holding himself accountable is daily discipline, and how he treats other people follows. Worse than being out of shape is pretending you are okay with it. In the mirror now he is closer to the man he expects himself to be.
Zac’s close: Petraitis operated at the highest level the military offers, led over 500 soldiers, and stepped out of that world into the thing that happens to so many men: the body slows, the mind fogs, and the man in the mirror stops matching the operator he knows he is. He did not accept it as a new normal. He decided he was worth the investment, showed up, and did the work, for himself, because he refused to let the standard slip further.
Transcript
Full text, timestamped
Auto-generated from the episode audio and lightly formatted. Each timestamp links to that moment in the video.
0:00 Then my last gift from the army was a cancer diagnosis on top of all that, right? And it was by far the most stressful time I think ever in my life. Um to where I mean that’s really where I stopped caring about nutrition. Here’s something nobody tells you about leaving the military. You spend 20 years being told exactly who you are, your rank, your unit, your mission. Every morning there’s a reason to be sharp. And then one day you turn in your ID card and the structure that held everything together, it just goes away. You tell yourself you’re fine. You’ve got a good job, a good paycheck, a new career. But the guy looking back at you in the mirror doesn’t move like he used to. He doesn’t sleep like he used to. Doesn’t feel like the operator he was trained to be. And there’s nobody there to fix it. No PT formation, no physical, no standard you have to meet anymore. So you let it slide. That’s not aging. That’s rotting and there’s a difference. I’m Zac Armstrong and this is No Hype,
1:01 Just Standards. And for over 20 years, I’ve helped high performing men realign body, mind, and spirit without the burnout. Today, I’m sitting down with Matt Petritus. Matt is a retired Army Lieutenant Colonel who spent his career flying Kyoa warriors in Apache attack helicopters, commanding calvary units in some of the highest pressure environments on the planet. He deployed multiple squadrons to multiple combat zones. He led the transition of entire unit from one aircraft platform to another, building three different aviation cultures into one single fighting force. This is a guy who operated at the edge. And then he retired, moved into the defense industry, kept performing at work, but the body and the mind started paying the bill for all those years of grinding. And unlike the military, nobody was there to hold him accountable for fixing it. He had to make that decision for himself. If this conversation hits home for you, do me a favor. Hit the subscribe button on YouTube. Follow us on Spotify, Apple Podcast, wherever you get your podcast. It helps us reach as
2:01 Many people who need to hear these stories. All right, let’s get into it. Hey, so thanks for joining us, Matt. We really appreciate it. Um, you know, so let’s let’s go back to the beginning. What What made you want to fly helicopters in the army? Well, a great question, right? I mean, when I was coming out of high school, going into college, trying to figure out what I wanted to do with my life, probably like a lot of other people, too, right? didn’t really know. Um, and then I initially went down the road. I was going to go into some type of law enforcement type thing. That’s what I chose, criminal justice. And then, uh, one day I was on campus my freshman year and I saw the ROC guys doing doing their thing. And I knew a couple of them. And so I started doing that, started hanging around with that as as first just as an elective in school. And then uh then one day we did this training exercises where the helicopters came in and they flew us around and I’m like, “Oh, this is all right. This is pretty cool, right? I just kind of go with it.” Um and then uh then you know few years into the program you got to start picking what you do. And so I said okay well hey let’s try this. I really got the aviation bugging me at that point. You know what I mean? I said okay if I have an opportunity to do it let’s try. And you know
3:02 Fortunately I did get picked up and from a guy who had my family has zero aviation background in it. Like I’m the first person that’s ever done any of this. And uh from day one just absolutely fell in love with it. And so you know here I am 20 something years later after starting that and you know it’s still a passion. Yeah. still flying on the side, right? Even though you’re out of the industry, so to speak. Um, and so you flew multiple two aircrafts um in the army as well as in charge of multiple squadrons at troop level. Um, for those of who aren’t familiar with that, how does that look on a like a day-to-day basis for you? Sure. Yeah. Uh, so if you take, you know, one of the last, you know, higher level jobs that I had as a squadron commander, uh, that’s you’re in charge of an organization that’s got 550 people in it. Uh at that point you had about 24 aircraft. Uh at that point there were H64 Apaches. Uh we had some UAVs and that’s also that everybody focuses on the aircraft but that’s all your ground support equipment, your trucks, your maintenance. I mean I mean everything. It’s a it’s a probably billion and a
4:03 Half dollar organization if you put it all together. Um and so every day, you know, as the commander, my ultimate job is preparing the unit to go do its mission, right? You have your tasks that you have to go. Um but really the the bulk of my job is really two things. One was uh you know at this point I’m in the army 20 21 years. So I should be taking my experience and passing that down, right, for folks to learn. Uh but then also empowering my junior leaders, right? Because it’s just not me in charge of everything, right? I’ve got, you know, lower level commanders. I’ve got teams. Exactly. Right. So I’ve got to enable them and teach them and mentor them to go do the mission and then, you know, kind of know when to step in and know when to not step in. Right. kind of thing. Little dance. Exactly. Right. So, uh, but yeah, I mean, your daily work is everything dealing from, uh, what’s the maintenance status of the aircraft to who’s next on promotion list to, you know, we’re deploying in 3 months. Are we ready for that? I mean, it’s it’s anything and everything. All right. Um, out of that, what was the one you uh despised the most or you can
5:04 Look forward to? I would say 100% dental stats. What are the dental stats? The check marks. Absolutely. Right. Yeah. Um, All right, how about this? Uh, you deployed, you know, your squadron to Korea when it was honestly, you know, tense situations with Korea at that point. Um, what was kind of the mental, you know, weight that you carried, not just for you, but your your squadron, your troops, everybody when you went into that kind of environment? Sure. Yeah. Um, so that was back in the fall of 2017. Uh, and so it was a normally scheduled rotation. Uh, there effectively was a was a mission gap in Korea for an Apache squadron. So the army rotated units through and we happen to be one of them at that time and at that time yeah that was in a period of increased kind of tensions between North South Korea US and the allies in that area. Um but you know it it really kind of pald in comparison to any Iraq and Afghanistan deployment in terms of you know kind of threat worry of you know you know kind of hostile activities
6:04 Combat things like that. Um I would say that sure that’s always in the back of your mind. Uh but I would say the biggest the biggest thing that I you know nothing really kept me up at night but the thing that I worried about and really had to focus on is I had you know just transition the unit used to be a Kyro warrior unit a year ago and now it’s an Apache unit u new pilots new aircraft new ways of doing things and the bulk of experience in the unit to include mine was all konis in the US or flying in the Middle East right I had very few people that are used to flying in an environment like Korea with the mountains, the hills, cold, coldest place I’ve ever been, ever. Um, you know, construction wires that are 2,000 ft tall for aviation. I know you jet guys like whatever. You don’t care about that. But for us that live a thousand feet and below, that’s some of the most hazardous territory you could fly in, right? Um, and then on top of that, I mean, let’s face it, right, it’s a it’s a Apache cavalry squadron. These these guys want to be duking it out in the Middle East, right? They want to be
7:04 Going where the action is. And so, um, so keeping everybody focused, keeping them trained, um, and trying to keep them safe, you know, while they’re out there flying. And then, oh, you know, by the way, yeah, there is this threat to the north that, you know, occasionally would kind of spark up and you, you know, you get your alerts and you get your folks together, you know, kind of thing. So, you always had that looming. Do you find that more challenging or the Middle East more challenging? And I I not from the aspect of actual the combat, but like you said, what I heard there was mishap prevention. mishaps are obviously a big problem in the aviation world and prevention of it and with what you said complacency can be right can be. Yeah. So I mean yeah if you if you kind of remove the combat from the from the equation I would say Korea was definitely more challenging because you know anybody who’s done deployments uh you know to the Middle East it’s you know you go there for your you know six month year or whatever it is and it’s you know you’ve got your mission window you wake up you do your mission you come home you do you know what I mean? like your life is is, you know, living that schedule, right? Um whereas we were kind of it was
8:05 Kind of a hybrid. We were doing normal garrison type things in Korea, but also doing mission exercises and and oh, by the way, when you go up north, that’s where you train, that’s where if anything broke out, that’s where the fighting would be. So, it’s like you’re you could literally train where you know potentially every anything happened. So, um, and then you had the challenges too of like home life back home, you know, because soldiers are away from their families and all the things that come with that, right? So, and I would say, you know, for the people who don’t understand too is when you’re deployed into the Middle East, like you go to work and then you come back and you’re just there. But in Korea, that’s probably not the case, right? You also had people being able to go out in town, do things on the side where that’s not and so then it adds to it. Which I would lead me to my next question is the reason I bring up Korea more so in the Middle East is when you start talking about being able to hold yourself to standards when you’re in that environment in the Middle East pretty easy like you go fly you come back you work out you eat the same it’s rinse and repeat but when you’re in a dynamic like that how was it that you were able what kind of physical standards did you hold yourself to as well as the people that
9:06 Work for you and how hard was that no great question because uh you you know you you have the opportunity to you know to go off the rails right kind of thing right you do oh 100% % right 100%. Um the uh no it’s a great question. So, you know, what we did is we went in with a mentality of like, okay, here’s here’s a standard of what you should be doing, right, for the army, right? Your PT test, your height, weight, you know, all those type of things. But then what we had to do was was kind of uh slowly let the rope out a little bit terms like, you know, so like first 30 days we were there, uh, no drinking, no going out on the town, no anything, you know, you should be linked up with, you know, kind of a sponsor from the unit that we were replacing. They can kind of show you around, right? And then, okay, the next month. Okay. All right. Now, go out, have fun, do the thing. But, you know, there’s curfews that were kind of not even they’re higher than us, right? Yeah. Curfew. Yeah. There. Yeah. There’s they they were I think it was I think it was 1:00 in the morning. A little better than midnight then. Yeah. Um but uh but but bottom line is you had some you had a group of folks
10:06 That were good with, hey, big boy rules. I can do this and take care of it. And then uh some others that you had to you had to put a little bit more, you know, had a a little bit more bumpers around them to keep them, you know, in track. But um but physical fitness and staying, you know, it’s very, you know, the deal. It’s very easy to hey, I’m I’m I’m working on my 10th day in a row. You know what I mean? I’m working long hours, so the first thing that got that gets cut is going to the gym or, you know, always, you know, um if you’re eating at the DeFac all the time, well, defac, you know what I mean? You don’t say. Yeah. I know, right? Yeah. Exactly. Right. For those that don’t know, defac is basically the military uh chow hall, right? Yeah. Um and although they had the best breakfast special in the world, you know, and then okay, well, hey, you get there, the defaced. Well, then, you know, well, the Burger King is the only thing open, you know what I mean? And so, uh so trying to keep nutrition and really a good workout regime up was was a huge challenge for myself, too. I gained weight while I was over there. That was my next question. So, were you one of the guys who kept performing at a high level, not just professionally, but physically as well, or do you find that that kind of slipped as well? So for me
11:06 I think it kind of slipped because um number one you know so I’m I always prided myself as that even though you know I was a lieutenant colonel at that point in charge of the squadron so I had to number one keep up with everybody number one I had to be the old man that kept up with the 20-year-olds right yeah understand there’s a lot majority of the military is 18 to 24 years old right the youngans’s right so you got to be out there right in front of the formation doing all the things right and then as an aviator well I’ve got to be I’m I’m the senior aviator in the squadron So, I’ve got to be as good as the most experienced warrant officer that I have, right? Good luck, you know, good luck with that, right? Um, and so, you know, I prided myself on being on the flight schedule as much as I was in the meeting schedule at the brigade, you know, because I wanted to be down on the flight line doing the things. And so, um, that that starts grinding on you after a while. You know what I mean? Because it does capacity level, right? You only have so many hours in a day. And um you know without saying it exactly you were you were wanting to set the standard for the unit right and that’s
12:07 The way it was. Um you know kind of walk me through your decision to retire you know after two decades at that kind of level you know how do you step away or you know how how hard was it? What was that transition like for you? Yeah sure. Uh so it was um I mean it was difficult in terms of stepping away from you know the mission and the people. It was huge. Uh I just had kind of made, you know, I went out as squadron commander. My next job after that, I went to uh what we call forces command, which has changed names now, but uh and effectively was in the office that really looked over all of Army aviation, right? Not so much the special operations guys, but most of the conventional stuff. And uh and I was basically on a training and assessment team. Not a sexy job. It’s not what a lot of people want, but going into it was able to enact some change and really I got a chance to really see the army aviation from like every angle, which was super rewarding in a sense and maybe enact just a little bit of change for the better, I think. You know, uh to help units. But anyway, it was kind of
13:07 Like, okay, where am I going from here, right? You know, I could continue being, you know, the staff officer for the next two years, three years, four years, whatever. But, you know, now I’m mid-40s, you know, and I’m like, does is that really what I want to do? And I just I had reached a point of fulfillment. You know, what I did was like, hey, you know, I I I really felt professionally fulfilled. I worked with great people with great equipment, doing great missions, and I just didn’t, you know, I didn’t see it getting any better. You know what I mean? So, and and for me at the time, it was, okay, let’s move on to something else. Right. And speaking of that, you moved into the defense industry for General Atomics, uh, with the Gray Eagle program. Um, on paper, that sounds like a great landing. How was that for you? Mhm. Uh cuz and I mean that also for the aspect is a lot of people probably that aren’t military won’t understand that transition is sometimes a little more difficult. Walking away from being called a lieutenant colonel or a commander into Matt. Yeah. Yeah. Absolutely. Uh so the transition was actually one of the toughest points and I had actually before General Atomics for a year worked
14:07 For uh for a company up in Ohio. Um great company. They’re small business. I think they had 80 90 people uh at that point and they had a ton of brilliant PhDs but they didn’t have a lot of PMs to manage them on their and they were a defense company too and so you know one of my best friends worked for the company okay I’ll come up I’ll give it a shot and and like I said great company great everything but um I was in a six-month window of retiring I you know I retired uh I moved to Ohio I started moved out yeah exactly I was there for a year uh nothing against it but uh a little cold little chilly up Uh, and uh, so in that, you know, I I retired, I moved, I I started a job that I I’d never been a PM before in a company that I’d never worked with before. Uh, on projects that I never worked with before because it was very Air Force related. Um, your subject matter expert off the bat. Yeah. Exactly. Right. Yeah. Uh, yeah. New guy all over again. FNG like all over. Right. So, um, and and at the exact same time, my mom was retiring. We’re trying to sell off her houses. were trying to, you know, move her into
15:08 Her new, you know, glorious retirement thing. Um, so I got all that going on. Then at the same time, I had the bright idea of starting a p a uh MBA program, right? So now I’m doing all that. And then my last gift from the army was a cancer diagnosis on top of all that, right? So So now I’m juggling all of that in this massive state of transition. And it was by far the most stressful time I think ever in my life. Um, to where I mean that’s really where I stopped caring about nutrition, working out. I gained probably 20 30 pounds, you know what I mean? Um, it just all the stress just got to me, you know? Yeah. I don’t think people people can understand fully or grasp. Um, when you’re in that like tornado or in that that that storm, you get so focused on other things that you forget what it’s doing to your body. Takes the sleep like waking up like especially with something as heavy as cancer, right? Waking up, what’s the first thing you’re thinking about? Yeah. And how hard does it go back to sleep? Right. What does that do in toll after day after day after day? Um, and speaking of that, like when when you went through that, like how hard was it
16:09 To deal with that diagnosis and then trying to overcome that? So, it was tricky. Um, you know, luckily through the military, you’ve seen a lot of adversity, right? And you kind of learn kind of learn how to deal with it. Uh, over the years, you kind of refine it. And so, you know, don’t get me wrong, not easy. Um, it’s still something I kind of deal with today. But, um, it was basically a I’m going to worry about it when I have to worry about it type thing, right? So um you go to the doctor, you get your plan of what you’re going to do and you know for me for example it was hey we’re going to monitor this for a little while right so in one sense you can kind of put it out of your mind but it’s always there you know what I mean and so but I just really try to come up I try to give as much positive thought to it you know for example like okay hey in that instance we caught an illness early okay that’s good it’s not great being on the scoreboard but okay you know we we caught it early right and so okay well my next checkup’s in six months well I can’t really do anything between now and 6 months except try to be healthy, right? They tell you to be the best patient you can be, which at that point I wasn’t, right? Because I was, you
17:10 Know, I’m a stress eater, right? I mean, that’s that’s my thing, right? So, um, but okay, hey, look, it’s there, but I got to compartmentalize it because I got to I got to keep moving on. So, then, okay, about a month out, let’s start worrying about it again. Yeah. Okay. Did you find that once you kind of started to get past that that it did bring up once you got through it and go, “Hey, you know, I faced some serious adversity healthwise there and I know this from our first conversation.” So, how much more of a focus did you go, hey, the best way to approach longevity or to overcome those things is like you said, not the best patient, but to be the healthiest version of myself. How how was that switch to transitioning to go, I need to focus on my health here? Okay. I I remember Not the exact day, but I remember the situation. So, I I travel a lot through work and just personally because I like to travel. And I remember I was in my hotel room, I think, on a work trip. Um, you know, I woke up, I’m kind of doing, you know, you’re just kind of messing around, playing with your phone, whatever. And you’re going to be 50 next year. Holy
18:10 When did that happen, right? You know, um, yeah, I didn’t mind 30. 30 was fine, 40 was fine, but I was like, damn, I’m going to be 50 next year. And it just, it literally was like, okay. And you know, this was uh I think I was I think I was, you know, late 48 at that time. And um at that point, I was 40 lbs heavier, you know what I mean? I wasn’t going to the gym. I would yeah, I’d mess around with trying to eat healthy, but not serious, you know, kind of thing, right? And I just remember being like, I’m going to be 50. I got like I got to do something, right? And so, I mean, pretty much at that point, that’s when I started making, you know, lifestyle changes, you know what I mean? And that’s about a year before you and I linked up, you know what I mean? Right. Um, and the big thing was there was like, okay, start cleaning up what you eat, you know what I mean? You know, cut back on alcohol, getting more, you know, all the things, right? But that was that was the wakeup moment. Yeah. And you would say, you know, cuz like in the army, you have a reason to stay in shape. Um, and then when you transition out, you don’t obviously you had multiple things on top of it, right? Then um, and so your turning point was like, oh I’m about to be 50. I
19:10 Need to hold myself to standards again. This is what’s hard for to understand and you know not just me and I think but when we when we’re in that you know that funnel or whatever it is it’s hard for us to notice but when we come out of it and look at it from a you know macro view and what was I doing? Why why was I not helping myself by working or because you’re talking about a man of yourself that’s hold yourself to standards. We talked about each way through your career and you’ve held others to standards. Yep. But now you’ve let your standards drop and it’s hard to say why. Right. Um, and then when you want to pull yourself out of it, you know, that first step is usually the hardest. Oh, yeah. Yeah. Um, because can you kind of walk me through a typical day of like, you know, when you started that and then you maybe started with me, how that kind of started shaping how you kind of viewed it and how you wanted to approach it? Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. So, step one was, okay, I got to do something, right? So, let’s I mean like let’s do and it’s on me at the end of the day. I don’t blame anybody. It’s not like, oh, I was too bit. I mean, yeah, I was busy and I
20:11 Was stressed and all that, but at the end of the day, it’s on you, right? Like, what are you doing about it? Right. Um, and I So, I have actually one of those chalkboard walls at home and I have some quotes on on it that just daily quotes and one of them is, “What are you doing about it?” Right? What are you doing about it? Right? So, um, and so it’s okay, what am I going to do? So, I just started researching and and a couple of friends of mine are are kind of real health consscious folks. They’re not like workout folks, but they’re health conscious. And so, I said, “Okay.” And I started getting into fasting, right? um part of it for weight loss but then part of it for um the body reset the autophagy for you know things you know the scientific portion of it. So, I just started I said, “Okay, I could start with that. Let me just do that.” And then I could start focusing, you know, for example, you know, in the army, hey, I want my two-m run time to be X. So, I got to train for X, right? Or I want to lose 5 pounds. I got to do this. Um, so I said, “Okay, hey, I want to do a one-day fast. I want to do or I want to do intermittent fasting for a week or then two weeks, then three weeks.” And my goal was to take a task and turn it into a lifestyle.
21:12 Okay. You know what I mean? Yep. And when you know you noticed that hey I’m getting there and you at some point had to go all right I’m getting there but I’m not getting to where I want to like what was that what was that realization for you like or I need like I’m hitting a plateau. What what made you hit there? What what did you find? No. Perfect. Right. So so I did kind of my own thing for a while you know partially probably out of laziness like you know okay hey I’m I’m taking care of what I eat but I see the gym like maybe I don’t want to do that. Right. Um, but then I I was doing this for probably about eight, nine months. I saw some good results, but then it was like number one, I kind of plateaued and then number two, I mean, just common sense, like, well, I’m not going to the gym and I’m not really paying attention to specific nutrition. I’m getting older. It’s harder to do this. So, um, kind of started plateauing and also just kind of common sense of I need to be more holistic about this. It just can’t be about, you know, doing a fasting program. And so, I started looking around at different programs online for effectively like a health coach, right? Um, I went to a bunch of my local gyms,
22:13 But the they’re all great, but they’re trainers, right? They’re they’re going to show me the right way to do, you know, an exercise or something, but they don’t do nutrition. They don’t do lifestyle. They don’t, you know what I mean? They don’t do that. And that’s really what I was looking for. And so, um, I did a bunch of research, a bunch of local stuff, a bunch of stuff online, you know, throughout the country. And then when I saw your website, hey, let let me give this a shot, man. Let me get it. You know, I liked kind of what what you were talking about in terms of like, you know, holistic lifestyle, making a change, you know, setting yourself to standards and holding on to them, right? And so, um, I knew I had the drive to do it. I just didn’t know exactly what what things I should be hitting, right? So, that’s that’s why you lever to pull. Yeah. Um, and then for us aviators, like the checklist, right? Yeah. Exactly. Right. Um, speaking of that, you know, speaking of military guys and and I would equate it just not military guys, but anybody who’s a high level professional executive, especially on the males, we have a hard time admitting we we need help or we might need more. Um, what helped bring you to that realization or, you know, what made
23:13 You say, “Hey, I’m I’m actually going to do this.” Yeah, absolutely. Uh, it was probably just a bit of humility. You know what I mean? like you’ve been okay you’ve been trying to do this for a while and like yeah you’ve seen some results but you’re not going the exact direction you want to go and you know going all the way back to military years right whether I was trying to do better on a test be a better pilot be whatever you sought out someone who was smarter than you right you know what I mean and did that and you know I’ve I did that many times on the flip side as kind of the senior guy helping develop and mentor but I learned early on that like you sometimes you got to put pride aside and it’s funny right that humility thing we don’t realize Sometimes we look at it as it a weakness, especially when we’re younger. Yeah, absolutely. But when we get older, we realize that there’s so much more you can learn and not just this aspect, but anything in life. When we sit there and listen to somebody who maybe knows a little bit more than us or is looking to actually help, not get something from us. And for me, it took a long time in life to reach humility of that level.
24:14 And I think a lot of guys struggle with that. It’s the thing, right? Yeah. Yeah. It’s a real thing. It’s a real thing for sure. Um, when you first reached out, what were you expecting? I’ll be honest with you. I was I was I didn’t really know what to expect. I’ll be honest with you. I didn’t uh you know, and then I think the phone call I got was was one of your guys that had like this South African accent, you know what I mean? And he was I think he said he was like a powerlifter or something. And I was like, I I don’t know if that’s what I’m looking for, man. He goes, no, no, no. That’s that’s just what I do kind of thing. So, uh, you know, I’ll tell you what I was hoping it wasn’t. I I was hoping it wasn’t going to be one of these cheesy like, you know, uh you know, you pay me 10 grand a year and you can come out to the retreat and you know, this is going to be a whole lifestyle thing for you. Like that’s not what I was looking for, you know. Jim bro stuff. Uh yeah, right. You know um although if you are in the Huntsville area, I am looking for a gym bro because I just do it by myself. But um and sends me the videos. Yeah. Exactly. Right. Exactly. I send the videos, right? Um talk about humility when he talks how bad my form is. So, um, but yeah, it I was I, you know, I was hoping it was going to be
25:15 What it was and I was and what I was hoping it wasn’t, it wasn’t at all. Man, you guys have a really good program here where it’s like, okay, cuz my thing is is I travel a lot. I’m on the go. You’re like, dude, what are you like, you know, you even see my schedule. And so, it’s very hard to keep nutrition and fitness and a kind of a stable, healthy lifestyle when you’re bouncing around all the time, right? And so, some programs that I looked into, they just they couldn’t do it. You you had to be a homebody. You had to be home all the time. it just doesn’t fit, you know what I mean? So, no, that’s helpful. Um, when you hit that point and you made a decision and you decided, hey, it’s worth the investment. Um, let’s talk about what happens because I think a lot of guys watching right now are standing there at the same kind of crossroads. Um, when we first sat down and we went through like kind of like what it was going to look like and we went through, hey, we’ll cover the, you know, we do travel and things like that. What was your initial impression? I liked it. I did, you know, um I think when I first I I think when I did the first phone call, you know, just that initial phone call back, I guess I was a little hesitant just because you never know what someone’s trying to call and
26:15 Pitch with, right? You just don’t know, right? So, but uh you know, I would say after about like the first, you know, five minutes like, “Okay, this sounds ballpark what I’m looking for. Let’s schedule a call with Zac.” And then when we started talking um yeah, I mean, I like the idea of, you know, hey, the the schedule’s adjustable, right? And I’m going to help you with, you know, everybody knows if you travel for business or you travel a lot, right? Trying to maintain nutrition when you’re trying to eat out all the time is is really, really hard, right? So, hey, we’re going to help you with that, right? We’re going to help you with the workouts. Uh we’re going to adjust things so that it adapts to your lifestyle. That was that was pretty huge for me. Yeah. And I think that’s um I don’t think people think it’s as doable as it is, right? It’s not even like big adjustments. It’s just and you get smarter when you’re doing it, right? We all do as human beings. like, “Oh crap, I just ate like this many calories or I had two two IPAs and then I ate this and I just consumed 1,000 calories.” You don’t realize it until you start entering it or putting it down. Um, you know, and then as someone who is a aviator, I found most of us are kind of data data nerds. Um, how do you think
27:17 Like the data and how we incorporate data into the system, how does that work for you and how what does that mean for you? So, I really like it um because it’s tangible. I can look at it, right? Um, so you know, for example, the, you know, my my friends kind of make fun of me because I’m like glued to it almost like social media, you know what I mean? Because I’m inputting my stuff, my exercises, you know, what I ate and everything. And so, number one, the data helps me see number one, just every day, what am I doing? And what kind of habits and trends I’m doing, right? Do I need to change something? You know, am I meeting my goals, right? Am I hitting am I hitting the points I should, right? But then overall, when you start when you start looking at trends, right? Because the trends the important stuff, you know what I mean? And so it helps, you know, you can start really seeing like, okay, hey, you know, why are, you know, why am I why am I missing three workouts a week, right? What’s the is there a root cause behind that or am I just being lazy that week, right? And then do I need to change something, right? Do I need to prepare differently? Do I need something like that, right? So So the data to me is very helpful because that data really turns into information that I can use to stay on track. It’s ingestable. It’s something you can
28:17 Take. Um, what was Let’s I know some of these answers. What was the hardest part of your first couple weeks? Leg day. I’m just everybody, man. Everybody. Uh, but I love to hate love day. Leg day and I and I and I hate to love leg day. No, I would say just the the biggest first part was uh was number one, it was really two-parter. One is like, okay, I got to read labels on, you know, on I tell people all the time, I was like, oh, it’s gonna be so hard. I was like, no, what’s going to happen is in two months from now, you’re going to pick up a can and this thing’s got like 50 grams of sugar. I’m not eating this. And I was like, I don’t do that to you. You do it to yourself because you start realizing what like our industry is. Oh, totally. Yeah. Like it’s garbage. You walk down an aisle now and is hot words. We always do this with marketing. The hot word right now is protein. You walk down a aisle, everything says protein on it, but you pick that thing up and this protein substance and it’ll be like a 10 grams of protein, but then like 50 grams of carb. Yeah. Like I think was it Larry’s and
29:17 Something cookie? That’s what they are. They say protein cookies, but if you look at them, it’s like Yeah. a 1 to5 ratio of Oh, yeah. Yeah. Or the net protein or whatever they’re calling it now. Yeah. Yeah. You know, so uh so no, that was I mean that but that was just getting into good habit, right? And then um yeah, having to focus your nutrition in your meals and and how do I eat and when do I eat and all that. And then the other part is I mean just be honest, I started this a few months before I turned 50 and you know just going back to the gym was just t you know your body is just like what are you doing? you know, come on. You know, um, so and I think I told you when I started, I was like, “Hey, I’m starting out kind of light just because I know myself. If I start heavy, I’m going to hurt myself.” And I mean, we were talking right before the podcast, you know, this is kind of hurt and that’s kind of hurting. But but it’s uh, you know, it’s but that’s that’s probably been the toughest part. But, I mean, I look at it as a challenge, like, you know, I got to I I got to keep go. I got to keep up with the young kids. You know what I mean? I got to keep going, man. Always. And that’s um and I’ve said it on on here before like I’m not joking when I’m telling people I’m going to
30:17 Beat my grandkids in a dead ass sprint at 70. I’m going to um because I still sprint to the day now. I can’t outrun my one of my children in the mile run anymore but pretty quick but I could I still out sprint. There you go. Um u walk me through kind of what you know has changed physically. Um and then we’ll touch on how it helped him mentally. So it’s a two-part question. How did how do you think you started changing physically and then from a mental aspect on it? Yeah, so on the physical side of it, I mean it was, you know, probably the first month or so was was you kind of really don’t notice anything except, you know, honestly you’re just sore a lot, you know, doing your stuff. Um, but you know, probably I would say after about a month, you know, give it like four or six weeks kind of thing and noticed that number one, um, physically between the nutrition and exercising, you know, um, dropping the weight. I’ve got one of those health scales, right? So it it I guess as accurate as they can be, you know, okay, so some some weight’s coming off, the body fat’s coming off a little bit, but I kind of noticed that like, okay, you know, the gym’s not so hard anymore, you know what I mean? My joints
31:17 Are adjusted. I’m I’m putting on some weight and and just generally overall felt better. Just general wake up in the morning, you know, and feel feel better than I did before, right? Um so, you know, little physical manifestation, but also just you’re generally feeling better. Um I don’t dread the gym now. Now I’m like, okay, like if I’m missing the gym, I’m like, You know what I mean? You know, um especially since we changed workouts, he crushes the legs. He crushes legs. So, uh but uh so on the physical side, I overall just feel better, you know what I mean? It’s just a just a general overall feel better, feel stronger. Um you know, with the weight drop, I still run. I don’t run as much as I used to, but you know, stuff doesn’t hurt as much anymore because I don’t have the weight or because I am working out more, the muscles are stronger, right? Um, and then you know overall say kind of like the mental clarity, the focus, things like that. Um, is is so much better, right? Because you know I’m number one I’ve cut out, you know, not perfect but a lot of crap foods around. I’m eating healthier foods. And it’s a natural progression. Yeah. Like you said, you start paying attention to labels because when you
32:18 Start inputting food, you’re like, I didn’t realize. And it’s like it’s not that the labels don’t tell you. It’s just that the front of the label tells you a different story that when you turn it around and look at the actual nutritional information. Oh, yeah. It’s obviously marketed that way on a reason. Um, what about from the middle aspect? How how how did that kind of help energy, your focus, competing with the 20-year-olds again? Yep. Yeah. I mean, so so I would say, you know, energy is getting there, right? Um, it’s I kind of pride myself on like, hey, I go to the gym, I work out, I’m tired kind of thing. So, like I I got to pick when I measure my energy, I guess. But but overall, you know, hey, when I’m at work at this is the ultimate test, you know, Tuesday at 2:30 in the afternoon, what’s my energy level, right? You know, um and it’s it’s way better than it was before, you know what I mean? Uh it also now that I’ve got to prepare and kind of it’s it’s not just I wake up and go to work, but you know, I got to make sure I got meals prepped for the day or I got to figure out if I’m not prepping, where am I eating and where’s my gym time and did I pack my bag? Like, so now you’re I’m a lot more focused on what you would probably call
33:19 The mundane portions of life. You know what I mean? I’m more focused through the day of what I got to do, right? Um and then that just that just transcends into work, right? Okay, what tasks do I got to do at work? Understand how it can easily like you know when you make these certain areas changes in your life, you just think, oh, I’m just changing that aspect of my life. But it always changes everything in life. I tell people this all the time and it’s I don’t think they believe me, hey man, you’re going to like when I when I talk to them like I always talk about physical attributes. Don’t worry about physical attributes. Trust me. like in a year from now you’re going to be like who was this person or um but it goes out when you improve on the physical aspect the mental aspect is always the one that you start noticing as a bigger picture thing like it’s not like your aptitude grows but your awareness or your your clarity grows and so like do you find yourself performing better at work now? Yeah, absolutely. I mean I’m more I would definitely say I’m more focused number one. Uh, and number two, it’s um, you know, more more energy, I guess you
34:19 Could say, but it’s also I I don’t know, you know, um, because I’ve got to prepare because I just don’t look at preparing as like what do I got to do at home. Now I’m more focused on what I got to do at work and and and how I have to execute those tasks. So, yeah, 100%. Okay. Um, let’s get back to the one question that I really want to like kind of talk about is the standard thing that we said. um you’ve always held yourself to a standard through your career and then you felt like you kind of let your standard slip and when we say that and I feel like when I talk to a lot of guys I say a lot of men like yourself who are higher achievers who’ve done a lot in their lives who are very impressive men um well you don’t compare yourself to another 50-year-old I I seriously doubt it you still compare yourself to the 20-y olds you were competing against and you still hold yourself to that standard and you feel like you let your standard drop below that. Um, and I feel like most of the guys I talked to, that’s the same way they are. They hold themselves to a standard that they’ve let drop. Do you feel like you’ve now sort of
35:19 Recreating that standard and holding yourself to that standard? Absolutely. I wouldn’t say I’ve hit it back yet. Uh, for sure. Um, but no, the the ultimate goal is is is really two things. one is absolutely there’s you know you’re always looking at okay I’ve you know the younger I I remember for example when I first joined the army the the the PT score was I forget what it was but then like five years later they changed it and the standards got got less like you had to do less push-ups less sit-ups and a slower run but I always held it to that older standard because that was the to me the higher standard same thing younger folks I’ll be when I’m in the gym now and I’m watching you know younger guys going through I’m like I’m watching what they’re doing and okay I’m not going to try and do the weight they’re doing. But like I’m going to try to keep up with them, right? You know, if I’m out running, uh I I don’t know if anybody else does this. If I go out for a run, like let’s say I’m doing a 10K or a 10 mileer or just a whatever, I usually will find one person that I absolutely irrationally hate when I run and try to beat them, right? Like that’s just that’s just what I do, right? Um but yeah, working back to that, absolutely working back to um to a standard that is
36:22 Much much higher than what your average American 50-year-old should be. Like that’s that’s that’s my goal. Um, so if you know if there’s a guy out there that was kind of sitting in your same shoes um a year ago um and maybe he’s telling himself to do this um later instead of now that this is his part of getting older. What would you tell them? So uh well I would say 100% do it right. The first step is always going to be the hardest one. It’s it’s picking up the phone. It’s it’s hitting the contact me button, you know, to get the phone call or whatever. Um, and you know, there’s a on that quote board, I’d butcher it if I say it in Latin, but there’s this Latin expression that is, it’s later than you think, right? And I’ll tell you right now, it’s later than you think. And it really is every day. Um, it really is, you know, hey, I I’ll have next month I’ll be I mean, that’s how I got myself kind of into this spot anyway. It was, hey, I I just moved. I need to, you know, I just started this new job out of the army. Um, and so I need to focus on that. I’ll go to the gym later, right? And then I started, you know, going back to school. So,
37:22 Like, well, when I got home, then I got, “Well, I’ll worry about it later because I got to do my homework, you know, and I’ll do it another day. I’ll do it another day.” Well, that day may never come, you know? No, it it it just might not, right? And so, uh, tomorrow’s not guaranteed at all. And it’s it’s only getting later. So, um, once you get past that first month, you’re going to you’re going to look and go, “Why didn’t I why didn’t I do this?” Like, “Why didn’t I do this sooner?” Every time. Yeah. Um Okay. All right. So, before we wrap up, I want to do uh some rapid fire. Okay. The rules are simple. Uh, no thinking, no explanations. Okay. First answer that comes to mind. Okay. Um, all right. You ready? Okay. All right. I know you just moved to Alabama not too long ago, so Auburn or Roll Tide. Oh, boy. Um, first answer is whatever I can do to incite either one of them. All right. What is the best military service? Best military service? Army for sure. Yep. Who produces the best military aviators? Army aviation. All right, be honest. Navy or Army. Who
38:23 Flies the cooler missions? Oh, man. I mean, by far the army, man. We got Apaches. We’re down low. I mean, come on, man. All right. Hey, when Maverick bailed, who picked him up? A helicopter pilot, right? There you go. Yeah. All right. Who complains more, pilots or maintainers? Oh, pilots probably. Oh, yeah. Every time, right? We’re drama queen. Yeah. Yeah. If you’re a maintainer, by the way, God bless you. Keeping the aircraft going, man. Yeah. Oh, yeah. We’re Yeah. All right. Heart of lifestyle. Apache squadron command or civilian desk job? Oh, Apache squad commander. What’s tougher, combat stress or losing your identity after the uniform comes off? I would say losing identity, you know. A little tougher, right? Um, what’s the biggest lies girls tell themselves after leaving the military? Oh, biggest lies after leaving the military. Oh man. Um, that’s a really good one. Biggest lie. I would say that they can keep living the lifestyle, right? that they can, you know, they can keep that whe whether it’s lifestyle fulfillment, job satisfaction, whatever it is, you know what I mean? Like you gota you got to
39:23 Close that chapter and start again, man. You can’t if if you’re one of those guys that all you want to do is keep talking about the past and try to live in that past. That’s where you stay at. Yeah. Exactly. Every time, man. Can’t you can’t keep living in the 20s. You got to move on. Um what’s the first thing that slips when a man stops holding holding himself accountable and to his standards? First thing that slips is probably your daily discipline. Like your overall daily discipline, you know what I mean? uh every little things from you know uh showing up on time to remembering the things you should be doing to that translates out into you know are you being the the best uh friend the best father the best husband the best whatever I think you know what I mean so if you if you start letting your standards lax how you start treating other people is going to start lack every time I agree with you wholeheartedly there what’s worse being out of shape or pretending you’re okay with it oh man geez uh I would say probably pretending you’re okay with Because you know, you know, you know what I mean? You know, and you’re like, you know, it’s because when you start lying yourself, that’s
40:23 Absolutely dynamic, man. Um, if a guy is listening, feels stuck, but hasn’t taken action, what is the one word he needs to hear? One word, do it. That’s a two word cuz army is Yeah, I say now. Now. Do it now, man. There you go. Okay. Um, and uh, last one. When you look in the mirror now, are you closer to the man you were or the man or the man you expect yourself to be? Expect spells to be. Yeah. Yep. That’s great. Well, hey, I want to thank you for coming on today. Absolutely, man. It’s a great great appreciate it, man. All right. Absolutely. Here’s what I want you to take away from this conversation. Matt spent over two decades operating at the highest level the military has to offer. He commanded attack helicopter squadrons. He deployed to Iraq, Afghanistan, Korea. He led over 500 soldiers. And he stepped out of that world. The same thing that happened to him happens to so many men. The body started to slow down. The mind started to fog up. And the guy in the mirror didn’t match the operator he knew he was. But here is the thing. He did not
41:23 Accept this as a new normal. He decided he was worth the investment. He made a decision, showed up, and did the work. Not for anyone else, for himself. Because he refused to let the standard slip any further. And the results speak for themselves. Not just on the scale or in the blood panel, but how he performs at work, how he moves through the day, and how he carries himself. He got back to the guy he knew he was supposed to ste. If that story sounds familiar, if you’re just a guy who’s producing results at work, but know you’re running on fumes, if you’ve been telling yourself you got to do this later, this episode was for you. If this conversation meant something to you, subscribe on YouTube, Spotify, Apple Podcast, wherever you listen, and share it with someone who needs to hear it. You know who the guy is, send him this episode. Remember, you cannot lead others if you’re running on empty. But it starts with leading yourself. Empower your body and invest in yourself. I’m Zac Armstrong. I’ll see you next week.