Removing Road Blocks to Ownership of Our Health
Hey everybody, how you doing? So, it is … What is today? I think I know the exact … 13th, because the 14th is when the books start getting delivered. Came on a little bit this morning and I talked about who I was going to have on tonight with me live. As soon as I see Tom on here, I’m gonna have him join me on the live stream for a live video here through live stream. I’m not real technically adept, we’ll put it that way. I’m doing pretty good just to get a live Facebook video going.
Anyway, today is the day before the book goes. Actually, I got a couple boxes of the books today. Ordered a bunch that I was going to give … Had some things I was going to give to people and I don’t know why, but they lost my order, so I had to get online tonight and order more. Anyway, even the author has to order his own books, right? So, as soon as I see Tom … Let’s see. Yeah, as soon as I see Tom on here, I’ll invite him up to join me. Tonight with the video I want to talk about removing road blocks. This is obviously the Man Up page, but this could be for men or women and that’s why I wanted to have Tom on here, because he’s got something really cool that I want you guys to hear about.
Andrew Whipper. What’s up Whip? How are you doing brother? Good to see you. Dustin’s on. Paul’s on. Cool. Thanks for joining us guys. Night before, hopefully everybody starts getting their books. Now remember, if you get your book, you start reading it … Hey, Tom is here, let’s bring Tom on camera. The book, if you start reading it I want your feedback, good or bad. If you’ve got … Feedback for me that you think could help me be better, that’s the kind of feedback I’m looking for, so bring it on, I got thick skin. Soft heart and a thick skin, right, that’s what we’re looking for in ourselves. Tom.
[inaudible 00:02:30]. Hey! It worked.
This is pretty good. I’m telling everybody I’m not the most adept at technology and this has actually worked like [inaudible 00:02:45] practicing.
That’s awesome. Super cool to be on with you. I just got home less than five minutes ago and I had to make run down to our front desk just to see if my box of books came in, because I had heard that some of the people that had ordered it had already gotten their books in and I didn’t yet. I was hoping I could hold them up here right when the video started.
Well I’ve got this. I didn’t bring my other book, I’ve got a few of our [inaudible 00:03:23]. Went up to our Barnes and Noble order and the books were not there. Our order was misplaced or misdone or something, so I had to order more books today.
Oh man. That’s exciting.
It is exciting. It’s kind of surreal, actually. It’s that point of all this hype for the last almost a year now, and then the push to get the book in peoples’ hands and to try and get people to see the potential value in the book, which [inaudible 00:03:57] you’ve done for me Tom. With the review that you wrote and the things that you’re doing now for Man Up. [inaudible 00:04:06]. Very much so.
Awesome. I appreciate that.
People are probably wondering why [inaudible 00:04:19]. Here’s the thing that [inaudible 00:04:22]. I’ve had a [inaudible 00:04:30] for years, the last few years trying to really do what I wanted to do. Tom launched something that was really kind of ingenious for me, and the reason I like this is because anytime that I can do anything to remove a road block in all these areas in our life we’re trying to do better in.
Yeah.
Be a better husband, take care of our bodies, our health better, whatever that piece is, anytime I can facilitate removing a road block for everybody [inaudible 00:05:13]
It kind of goes in and out, I’m doing a little combination of hearing and lip reading.
You know what? I guess that’s the benefit of being out in the boonies. Let me try … Let’s see. Maybe if I unplug it, is that better?
Yeah, actually so far that’s better.
Oh, well that’s interesting. ‘Cause it was just my phone being plugged in then.
Oh. There we go. Nice. That was a quick fix.
Yeah. Thanks Jaime. So, what I was saying is there’s … Anytime I can remove a road block or help guys remove a road block, or whatever in our lives that we’re trying to improve on, the less things in our way, the faster we can see results. I’m gonna ask you to … You guys, Tom has developed and is doing this process, this thing that we call vigor. That’s cool how that works.
Yes.
I know that’s what we call it in our group of guys. Do you call it anything else?
That’s an interesting place to start. So we had, obviously you were there, we had this Diamond Dudes event where I did this talk on men’s health and I titled that talk Vigor and the name just has kind of stuck. So now the whole program is called Vigor, and Justin Anderson put together a pretty sweet little logo to go along with it. I didn’t intend at the beginning to have the whole thing be called that, but when you think about the word and the meaning behind it, vigor is kind of pure health and fitness. At the same time, it’s got kind of a traditional word that doesn’t get used much anymore. When I think of manhood, I don’t think of what manhood means in 2017, but I often go back to looking at what it’s meant throughout history. Back in the day words like vigor were used much more often than they are today as well. So yes, it’s called the Vigor online training program. I’m not a marketing expert or anything like that, but we’ll go with it.
It’s like it’s directly from the king’s [inaudible 00:07:44] or something. Really, I like hearing something that isn’t slang, that isn’t just … Vernacular, if you will. I like that piece of looking back a little bit. So it’s not that we’re trying to … And this is what I think, even with the book, that what you’re describing there with Vigor, is it’s not that we’re trying to go back to what being a man used to be.
Right.
We’re correcting and learning from the past but looking towards the future and moving forward.
Yes. Absolutely. I lost you there, just that last bit.
I think that’s the piece that we’re after. Respecting the past, looking at and learning from the past, but moving into the future.
Yep. Absolutely. And I mean, even from a health and fitness standpoint, today we’re not as physically active as we were in the past with the jobs that we have. There was definitely some benefit in terms of manual labor based jobs and we don’t have to get into the … Obviously people didn’t live as long in the past either, and there were diseases and stuff that we don’t want to mess with. But certainly, the sedentary lifestyle that we have today in 2017 is without a doubt detrimental to our health. So looking back at again, historically, we’ve just been far more physically active and that’s what our bodies are made to do is to move and lift. Guys are genetically designed to be able to move more mass or lift heavier things, and if we don’t use that, we lose it and there’s a lot of health ramifications that come along with not using our bodies the way that they ought to be used.
Isn’t that the truth? I think one of my favorite sayings is, what was it … Not utilizing your health, or not watching or taking care of or paying attention to your health is the best way to lose it.
Yes. Yep. Without a doubt.
The thing that really … I mean, I’ve lifted weights since high school in some form or another. Oh, my battery is on low. I’m gonna try plugging this in again, hold on.
Okay.
I have to make my phone charge, but who would’ve thought that plugging it in would … Is it cutting out again?
A little bit, yeah.
You’re kidding me.
Nope, well, I mean it comes and goes.
That’s maddening. Anyway, so Tom, just what does it mean when … ’cause we’ve had this discussion ourselves … Piece of manning up [inaudible 00:10:41] our health do and why does this program remove the road blocks?
First of all, manning up in our health … I guess when I think of manning up in general, that’s taking responsibility or taking ownership of whatever we can as men. And when it comes to our health, it’s so easy to nowadays come up with excuses to not be physically active. I think, unfortunately, a lot of times when people go from mediocre health to poor health, the perception is that you have to spend enormous amount of time exercising, you have to be in the gym every day. Even the idea that health for guys means they’ve gotta have a six pack and be super lean. That’s not the case at all. In my opinion, what’s necessary is to be consistent with at least four days a week of exercise. A lot of it is strength training, because again, that’s what builds mobility and strength and mental fortitude. There’s all kinds of benefits we could get into.
One of the things that is helpful oftentimes for guys is to participate in something where there’s either competition or at least camaraderie. If we’re just kind of left alone, unless we’re competing for something or we have some goal, like I’m gonna go into the gym because I’m gonna lose 50 pounds because I’ve got this event or something like that. It’s a lot harder to stick with it consistently. I can’t even take credit for putting the bigger program together. That was Les Wright that kept saying “Hey Tom, if you can put something together I know there’s a lot of guys that would do it.” He kept nudging me, nudging me and finally I figured out how we could put something together.
In terms of the road blocks, again, one of the big ones is feeling like you’re either doing this all alone, or maybe you don’t know what you’re doing. Maybe it’s been 20 years since you were in the gym. If that’s the case, the cool thing is there’s our Facebook group which people get access to where we can do some education. Even the workouts themselves have workout videos, so if you don’t know what an Anderson squat is or something like that and that’s on the workout for the day, there’s a video to go along with it. Even though you might be training alone, you aren’t totally clueless as to what the exercises are, and so on.
Well I think one of the things that you touched on really … Here, what I’ll do is unplug it when I talk and then when you talk I’ll plug it back in. That I really love about this program, ’cause we’ve talked about how in the past where comparing yourself to others steals joy, right? If we’re comparing ourselves [inaudible 00:14:01] the perfect version that people post online [inaudible 00:14:04] so it’s really an unrealistic comparison, number one. But what I do think, I talk about in the book where as men, this piece of competition that’s looked at, for whatever reason, these days as oh, competition is bad.
Right.
But that competition, the way I think myself and Gary Miller were talking about it just today or yesterday. Where, for you guys that don’t know [inaudible 00:14:32] in this program, every six weeks or so we go through and we test ourselves and see how we’ve done based on where we were at the month before. There’s this piece of where there’s someone that’s close to me, I’m trying to at least stay with them, to stay even with them. Giving me a benchmark, other than just myself, it’s giving me that piece of, a little bit of … Most of my competition is me. Right in here, that’s my biggest competition, all in all. But to have those other guys that are encouraging you, number one, pushing you to do better than you would just if you were on your own in the gym. ‘Cause we all know in the gym you get in there by yourself and it’s like okay, I’m done, I quit.
Yep, yep, yep. Absolutely.
That’s one of the biggest things for me. It’s not … That’s the thing that struck me, I thought this was just gonna be more of an exercise thing, but there’s so much more to what you’re doing with these guys. We’re seeing guys that are engaging just incredibly, just massively. Doing things that weeks ago might have been outside their comfort zone.
Right.
What do you see in that with that piece and what’s your [inaudible 00:16:02] Explain a little bit more to everybody how this all works together. It encompasses, I think personally, all of health.
Yeah. Exactly. It’s easy to focus more on … Some people focus more on exercise, some focus just on nutrition, but obviously, those of us that are involved with Young Living Essential Oils, it’s really easy to just focus on the use of Young Living Essential Oils as well, but it has to be all aspects. What I like about the way the exercise programs are designed is that someone who has not trained in, like I said, in 20 years, they can still go through the training program. In a lot of ways, they’re probably gonna see more benefit than the person who’s been consistent for the past 20 years, ’cause they’re gonna see more marked improvements in strength and performance and so on.
What’s also cool, in my opinion, is that as they’re making those improvements, they’re also gaining confidence in other ways. That’s one of the things that time and time again I’ve seen with strength training is that when people are consistent with a strength program and they can see measured results, which is why we do the testing about every six weeks, it gives them a level of confidence that they can accomplish other things outside of the gym as well. Every day that you go to the gym you’re even faced with adversity. It’s a whole point of lifting weights, is that there’s something that’s pushing down on you. Gravity is helping with that, but you have to push harder than you did the previous week or you don’t really make results.
Even for myself, I’ll tell you a quick little story. We were in Michigan this past weekend for an event Vanessa and I were both speaking at, and we got in really late on Thursday night. I think it was about 11:30 by the time we got to our hotel. I wanted to make sure I got my workout in because I’ve been trained to stay one week ahead of all of you in the bigger group to make sure that the workouts are right, the app is right and all of that. So I had to do my full body strength workout Friday morning. An alarm went off at 5:30 and I sat up on my elbow and I just, I was back and forth talking myself into going to the gym and not going to the gym. It was cold, it was a gym, obviously we weren’t from there so I was gonna go to a Power House and work out. I didn’t wanna wake up Vanessa was another excuse that I had gone through my head.
It took four minutes, but after four minutes I finally put my feet on the floor and I got up. The one thing that, even for me, that stood out the most was I’m committed to this group and if I don’t do this workout then I haven’t tested it out before you guys go through it next week. I know for you guys there’s been some … Matt had told me he went and worked out at like midnight one night just to make sure he got his workout in along with everyone else. So that aspect of it has been super cool to see. We’re including lifestyle challenges each month. Last month was to eat a low-carb, high-protein breakfast each day for 30 days. This month Verek wanted to do the no sugar challenge. What’s that?
That was Verek’s fault?
Yes. You can blame it on him. With the caveat that on Thanksgiving day it was a free day. You can still have some sugar or pie or whatever it might be on that day.
Well I think that’s … I love the fact that you talk about something measured goals, measured results.
Yep.
After this last test, evidently I was a little more [inaudible 00:20:15] than normal and I was talking to [inaudible 00:20:20] I was talking to her and I was telling her my goal now is the thousand pound club. And okay, [inaudible 00:20:23] here’s [inaudible 00:20:25] beat me by five pounds and I was so upset. [inaudible 00:20:29] and she says “You notice what you’re doing here?” And I said “What do you mean?” She said “I’ve never seen you this excited about lifting in the last two years.”
Wow.
[inaudible 00:20:40] and she says, “I think I know why it is, do you know why it is?” And I said “I don’t know, I have no idea why.” “Cause you’re measuring your results, you’re recording those results.” And I can [inaudible 00:20:52] with my instructor in person, I didn’t [inaudible 00:20:57] everything was just, he was telling me “Here’s what [inaudible 00:21:00] do today.”
Yep, yep.
It was good, it kept me accountable. It was a different type of accountability, but now that I have the ability to see where I’m at and to say … That’s no higher than I was last time. I need [inaudible 00:21:16]
Yep.
[inaudible 00:21:24] … you know how important that is, and [inaudible 00:21:28] moving forward in any aspect to write is that recording piece of [inaudible 00:21:29] … said “In order to get a great picture of where you’re going to be tomorrow, you need an accurate picture of where you are today.”
Yes, yes.
And so that’s really one of the things I really love about this, and just the camaraderie that the guys have. If I know everybody else is posting what they’re doing, [inaudible 00:21:51] explain to. ‘Cause the beautiful thing about it is there isn’t a guy in there that’s not gonna hold one of the other guys accountable and say “Hey dude, why didn’t you go, are you slacking off, or what?”
Yep. Yeah, the recording aspect of it is super important and I’ve actually, since I was in college, for a while I had all of my training notebooks, for years and years and years. And then prior to launching Vigor I was using an online app for the past few years for recording my workouts. But that’s so important, because even if you go in and you’re tired, you’re kinda worn out, you’re not in the best mood in the workout, the exercises are the same in this week as they were last week and you have a record of what you did, you know that you can beat it. And even if you’re not feeling it, you’ve gotta push yourself that last little bit.
So that’s a big deal, and then you’d also mentioned the competition part of it too. What I love about our group is that there’s a variety of people who are at different stages, so some are kind of novices and some are more advanced in terms of their experience with lifting. And sometimes if someone who’s totally brand new compares themselves with someone who’s been doing this their entire life, the gap can be too much to feel inspired, but there’s enough of a spread amongst all of us that there’s that one person that you can compare yourself against or compete against. And they’re out there just enough to have you push yourself, but not so much that you’re like “Ah, I could never do that,” Or something like that. So it’s been fun.
It’s almost the exact opposite of the meathead mentality.
Yes.
Everybody there understands that each one of us started in the same … None of us started out as an Arnold. None of us started [inaudible 00:23:53] … Every one of us started out with the bar and throwing a 35 on each side and going “Holy [inaudible 00:23:56] I hope I can do this.”
Yes, absolutely.
… The piece where you have all these different guys that are willing to [inaudible 00:24:04] to each other. And that’s this whole piece of manning up, not only in health, but with friendships. With friendships with guys … Okay, so, the Vigor program isn’t for just guys, is it?
No.
It’s for people who’d like to take control of their health better.
Right, right.
Gals, if you’re on this, I know there’s plenty of gals that get on this, and we’ve got [inaudible 00:24:26]
Yeah, yep.
My grandfather was speaking to me there for a second. But it’s … Also, if there are women out there that would like it, we’ll get you [inaudible 00:24:41] Tom will get it to me, I’ll get the image from Tom, he’ll play it on here, but we’ll also have it below so you can sign up for it. It’s important [inaudible 00:24:52] that just blew me out of the water when he took mention that’s what he was gonna do. But since we’re on that topic right now I guess, [inaudible 00:25:07] check this out a little bit more and maybe try it out, and then what is the thing you’re doing for November?
Okay. For November, number one … If you register in November, I will give you a copy of the Man Up book, so nice little bonus there for you. Hopefully everyone who’s listening has already ordered a copy, but you can have another copy that you can give away as a gift then, or keep one in your truck or car or whatever so you always have an extra. Register for Vigor this month for the first time and I’ll give you a Man Up book, a copy of that from Scott. And then to register, you just go to Tom Nikkola dot come, T-O-M N-I-K-K-O-L-A dot com and click on the online training, and you’ll find the Vigor program right there. It’s 49 a month to join, and again, that includes the training program, which is delivered through an app.
The app then has the recommended exercises, the videos if you’re not familiar with what some of those movements are. It will track your previous workouts so that you can compare against those from one workout to the next, but then you also get access to the Facebook group. And of course, the Facebook’s group’s an opportunity to ask other questions outside of exercise pertaining to your lifestyle, nutrition, supplementation, of course we talk about Young Living Essential Oils in there as well, which are an important part of your program. So that’s what’s necessary to get started. I will say that right now it’s all guys, but as Scott mentioned, women are certainly welcome to join in.
The block of training that we’re doing right now is three days of … And women, of course, if you’re interested in this, it doesn’t mean you get big and bulky. Women need to build lean mass just as much as men do. And then one day of strength, so there’ll be a full body strength workout. There’s actually an option for a five day training as well, but most of the guys are doing four days per week. The reason I believe four days is important is it’s more days exercising than days that you don’t, and if you want this to be a lifelong habit I think that that’s super important. But it definitely doesn’t require six or seven days in the gym unless you really wanted to do that.
I kind of alluded to this, and I’ll just make mention of it again, that what I see as the big benefit in this training program is that it will be a year-round thing. It doesn’t mean you’re committed to be in it year-round, but my hope is that you get started and you want to stick with it. And even a greater benefit than the physical benefit is the mental benefit of resistance training and making progress. And another word that doesn’t get used too much nowadays is fortitude, mental fortitude, and that’s just this ability to overcome adversity. And I see, and I know Scott’s talked a little bit about this in the book as well, is that today I just feel like in a lot of ways we’re getting too soft. Life is way … I don’t want to say it’s too easy, I like life how it is, certainly.
But compared to what we are capable of handling in terms of challenges, if the phone doesn’t work one day it’s like we lose our stuff because it’s the end of the world. Or if the computer is running a little bit too slow to bring up a webpage, we get frustrated. There’s just these little, you could call them third world problems if you wanted to or whatever, but I believe that one of the things that we can do as a daily or weekly discipline is participate in resistance training and handle adversity in the gym, which will translate to a greater ability to handle adversity in life, relationships, business, finances, so that we don’t just crumble when a little bit of stress comes our way.
It’s funny you mentioned that, because one of the things that [inaudible 00:30:02] do talk about and I feel very strongly about, in the book, is that when we work out in the gym, one of the reasons you change our program for us on a regular basis is ’cause our body adapts, right? We get used to that, and if we keep doing the same thing, we’re never gonna grow.
Correct.
So just by doing this gym thing, I’ll call it the gym thing, ’cause for some people it’s not their thing. But just by doing that and pushing through, whether it’s lifestyle changes for what you eat along with it, or how much you’re exercising, or whether or not you’re pushing your family to do it alongside of you and changing the lifestyle, the health choices of you family. Those things over time, like lifting, the ability to push through the harder things gets easier with each success that you have the longer you do it.
It’s been almost two and a half, three years of working out consistently again for me, and I’m to the point now where I do not want to miss it. I do not want to miss the gym. If I do miss it I’m upset, because I know how good I feel when I hit it. So for me to say, and I know you feel the same way, but by doing this it translates into increased fortitude in every other aspect of your life. People are like “What?” It’s just by doing something that challenges you here, it makes you less afraid, less trepidacious to attack or try something that may challenge you in another area of your life.
Yeah, yes, absolutely. And I know for you, you’re usually training at 4:30 in the morning, 4:30 or five o’clock, so something as simple as when somebody comes at you and says “Oh, well I don’t have time for this other thing that I know would benefit me.” Well you just gotta make time, and I’m sure there’s not a day that goes by where it wouldn’t feel great to not get up, you know? It would feel good to sleep in. And if we do what’s comfortable, and I don’t want to get cliché about this, but if we’re always doing what’s comfortable or we’re falling back on excuses, we’re going to develop those patterns for everything that we do.
And that’s why I love resistance training, and that’s not to say cardio doesn’t have its place and stuff, but what I love about the type of programming that we’re doing, is that you do have to work harder every week than you did the week before. And if you can apply that idea or those principles in one area of your life for an hour four times per week, it’s likely they’re going to translate to everything else that you’re doing.
Definitely. So I’m going to ask you a question, and I know the answer, but I’ll put you on the spot anyway. Does Vanessa set out any of your supplements or things that you take every day?
Absolutely not. No way.
So why is it, do you think, that as men, there’s a good portion … I used to be guilty of it when I was younger, and I’ll let you speak first ’cause I’ve got an idea of where it comes from. Why do you think it is that as men we’ll take ownership of things we have, but yet, that piece of “I’m gonna take ownership of what I’m putting in my body myself.” Why is that lacking, or how can this help it?
Why is it lacking, I think sometimes we, one, it could be denial. Like “Things really aren’t as bad as my wife is making them out to be or I’m just fine,” And that’s really easy, especially because people are so unhealthy and out of shape nowadays, if we compare ourselves to our friends, it’s easy to say “I’m not as bad as so and so and they seem like they’re not dying,” Which is a pretty low standard to set, like they’re not dead. But it’s easy to have some of that comparison take place. I was thinking about this today, just the reality that guys … And again this is generalizing, so if some guy isn’t like this no big deal, but guys like their toys, guys like their stuff, and oftentimes, part of the reason they see so much value in it is that they worked hard to be able to buy it.
And we’re given this body, until we actually have to go and pay a bunch of money for healthcare problems because we’re sick, we’re not technically paying for this. We’re born and we grow up and we’ve got this thing, in a lot of ways, for free, and it’s not until there’s a crisis in our health that costs a bunch that now we’re like “Oh, okay, I better take care of myself.” If somebody has to have their hips replaced or something and they’re having to pay out of pocket a bunch of money for those hips, there’s probably a better chance they’re gonna take care of those hips after the fact than when that hip was free before and they could have taken care of it all along. That’s just my opinion, but …
See, that’s why I love talking to you, because I learn something every time we sit down and talk. ’cause it strikes true so very deeply to me, because when I had my clinic, I’d pick a patient to do benevolence care for, meaning they couldn’t afford it and I’d just give my care away. Every time I did that, 99.9 percent of them never followed through on their care. It was free. It was the value associated with that care. If I charged a buck or two bucks per visit, there was a value associated with it and they became 80 percent more compliant with their care. So what you just said is it’s the value piece of what we value, where we place that value on our health, on our bodies, on the health of our mind, and like you said, we were given it for free. Until we have to pay a price …
We’ve put a bunch of work into working out for the last two years, so now we’ve paid the price to get something, now I’m gonna maintain it. I want this, I want to keep this. I think that was absolutely worth every bit of this call tonight just for that one piece right there, so thank you Tom.
Oh, thank you.
Again, educating me once again. Let me say something here, guys. I talk about this Man Up piece and friendship, ’cause tonight we’re talking about manning up in your health. But having men like this in your life that are going to cause you to think a little bit different, that are willing to education, pour into you their thoughts, that are willing to just be there alongside of you like Tom is, that is one of the most immeasurable parts of value to friendship and to helping people move forward in life. So if I can give you one piece of advice guys, surround yourself with people better than you.
I can’t remember who I was talking to the other night … Oh, it was my Emerging Leaders group in church. Was it that? No it wasn’t, it was a group of guys that we were with. Sorry, I’ve got so many groups going. But it was talking about the old you’re the average of the five people you hang around the most, right? And it said if you’re always the one that’s on top, the most knowledgeable, the most education, the most everything, you’re in the wrong group. You want to always try and be down here and towards the bottom, where everybody else is pouring into you. That doesn’t always happen, but that’s the type of thing that guys, if I have one piece of advice, get these types of men in your life. It’ll be absolutely invaluable to you. If you’re reading this book and you’re going through it trying to become better, the best version of yourself that you can be, this type of friendship’s invaluable to me. So thank you again, Tom.
Thank you.
I don’t know, you just … Go ahead.
Well I was gonna say, your comment about surrounding yourself too is again, we’re talking about one area, which is health and fitness. And there’s the spiritual part of it, there’s the relationship part of it, there’s … Even something like with marriage, if guys hang out with a bunch of guys that talk down about their wives and complain about their wives and stuff, it won’t be long before that’s how you end up talking about your wife too. And what I love about my friendship with you and some of the other guys that I’ve gotten to know over the past couple of years is that there’s other areas where I’m down here and there’s people up here, and we sort of balance each other out in that respect as well.
I was listening to a podcast last week, and one of the ideas that came out of that, they didn’t say it this way exactly, but it’s that if everybody you surround yourself believes what you believe, then you’re probably not surrounding yourself with the right people.
Exactly.
And it actually hasn’t been until, again, these past couple years, most of my adult life, I didn’t have guys that I invested time with or hung out with or spent much time with at all. And if I could go back to my younger years I would’ve changed that. And not found drinking buddies, but built relationships with good, strong men with strong values and principles and stuff just like you have, Scott. So, anyway.
Thanks, man. I appreciate it. So where do people go if they want to do the Vigor? If they say “You know what, this sounds like something I want to do.” Where do they go to sign up to find out more about it?
Tom Nikkola dot com, and then just click on the online training link there.
That’s T-O-M N-I-K-K-O-L-A dot com?
Correct, yep, you got it. And then again, anyone who registers in November for the first time, I’ll send you a copy of Scott’s awesome new book, launching tomorrow. Hopefully like I said everybody’s already ordered their copy or copies of it, I think I have … I can’t remember if it was 10 or 20 coming. Like I said, I was hoping that box would show up and I’d be able to show it off here. It’s hard to see in the light right now, but I found the most orange shirt that I could in the closet. It’s a little bit red, but I thought “Oh,” You know, “If I’m gonna be on the Man Up Facebook live, I’d better find something kind of orange.”
So there’s … Can you see that okay?
Yep, yep, yep, yep.
You remember Nick Johnson, don’t ya?
Yes.
So he made that, it’s metal.
That is awesome.
Yeah, and that’s got the red going right and all, so you’re good with red.
Alright, alright, very cool.
Well Tom, man, I can’t thank you enough. Is there anything else you’d like to … Any other last piece of advice that you could think of or would like to give the men in regards to that whole manning up piece in our health? Whatever area of our health that that is for you.
Yeah. The biggest thing I believe is that men ought to be strong in all areas of their life. Doesn’t mean that they’re jerk kind of strong, but strong in their will, strong in their determination, strong in their physical abilities as well. And strong doesn’t mean a guy has to deadlift 600 pounds to be impressive, but strong according to his own abilities. And I feel so bad when I see guys that are getting into their 50’s, 60’s and 70’s and you can just see that it hurts to walk, it hurts to move, their body’s falling apart, and sometimes that’s outside of their control. So certainly there’s reasons why we lose our health that we have no control over, but I also believe that for most people, our health is the one thing that we have the most control over over everything in our life.
We can’t control necessarily the future, we can’t control what happens in our business. We can’t control what happens in our relationship because there’s two people in that, but we do have control over what we put in our mouth and how much we move and when we go to sleep and all of those aspects related to health. So if there’s one thing that you want to feel like you have control of on a daily basis as you get into older years, it is the ability to move and be healthy. And the other thing that I feel so strong about is when men are getting into their 60’s and 70’s and 80’s, those are the years when they can just exude wisdom to all of us. But if they’re not healthy physically they’re not gonna be as healthy mentally, so when we’re in our 20’s and 30’s and 40’s and 50’s, we not only have to grow as individuals mentally but we have to keep ourselves strong.
The one other thing I like to use to paint a picture is that the muscle that you develop in your younger years if quality of life insurance for your later years. So the more muscle you have now, the more that you can lose later on and still be healthy. But there gets to be a point when your muscle loss reaches this threshold where all of a sudden your body just starts falling apart. And sarcopenia and osteopenia and all of these things start to happen. Fortunately, in a lot of ways, we can prevent that from happening with a good program. And I believe not only that will the exercise itself be helpful, but getting connected to the guys in this group will certainly pay off in many ways beyond just the physical benefits.
Huge. What you said there, I’m gonna quit, ’cause I can’t improve on what you said, but I want people to think about … When people have the quote, unquote normal job and they’re working until they retire when they’re 65 and then they’re hoping and praying by the time they retire that they’re gonna have enough physical agility, enough … Not even strength, but just physical agility and the ability and mobility to enjoy retirement, whatever that retirement looks like for them. Whether it’s traveling with their wife and seeing different countries, or whether it’s woodworking in their shop, or whatever that looks like, but yet they don’t take well enough care of themselves up to that point to now when they are able to finally retire and supposedly enjoy life, they’re physically unable to do it.
Right, right. Yeah.
And I think that’s one of the biggest things that this offers us. Like you said, we all have that opportunity. We don’t have much control over anything, but we do have control over whether or not we’re gonna get our skinny, white butts out of the bed and into the gym. That is a decision that we’re gonna make and that we have control over.
Absolutely, absolutely.
Tommy, as always, thank you.
It was my pleasure. Let me just take a minute, I want to acknowledge you, Scott, because what you’ve done with stepping outside of what was your comfort zone and putting that book out and the transparency, the authenticity, just opening your heart and your past up in a book I think is awesome. I think this is just the beginning of something for you, and for those of us who know you, we all look up to you in so many ways as this wise leader and manly man that … The big thing to me is that you’re just you, you know? Vanessa often says this to women, to be the best version of themselves that they can, and I think that’s good advice for guys as well.
Even if I’m writing a blog post or something like that about guys, every time an example comes to mind, the example is you. So thank you for writing the book, thank you for sharing your heart, thank you for everything that you’re doing to help other men to man up. I can’t wait to get that shipment tomorrow, and I really value our relationship, our friendship, and I know thousands of guys are about to be blessed in big ways with what you’ve written.
Well I’ll tell you what, if anybody ever says that men don’t have emotions after hearing that, I have them. So thank you Tom.
You’re welcome.
It means the world to me ’cause it was scary as hell writing this book and putting it out there, I did not want to do it. But we did it. So thank you, appreciate it man.
My pleasure.
You have a good night. Everybody you all have a good night. Tell you what, here’s what’s gonna happen. We’re actually starting the Man Up podcast.
Oh, awesome! That is super cool.
So Justin and I are gonna be doing a little bit of musing from the shop, from the man cave up here a couple times a month and we’re gonna be having guests. So if you guys would love to hear Tom come back on in a future podcast where it’s just men talking about stuff for men and life, comment down below and we’re gonna start next week with getting the first pilot stuff going and running and getting our feet wet.
Right on.
So it doesn’t stop with just the book.
That’s awesome, can’t wait to hear more.
Alright guys, thanks Tom, have a great night. Tell Vanessa hi. Everybody-
Yes, thank you Scott.
… I hope you get your books. Remember, when you get your books, be honest with me. Tell me what you think, tell me where I can improve, and hopefully, even if you take one thing, here’s my goal with this book. Simply this. That it starts a conversation. It starts a conversation between men and their wives, men and their kids, men and other men, and men in a higher power. As long as the conversation starts, change can happen. Without a conversation starting, change can’t happen. I don’t know everything, but I do know we need to start conversations.
Love that, love that.
Thanks guys. Y’all have a good night.
Alright.
See ya.