Ep. #775: Brooke Ence on Getting “Superhero Fit” and Winning in Business

Mike: Hello, my favorite fitness friends. I’m Mike Matthews. This is Muscle for Life. Thanks for joining me today to hear an interview I did with Brooke Enz, who is a CrossFit icon at this point. She is an entrepreneur, she is an actress, and she first burst onto the fitness scene in 2015 when she took first place in the California regional at the CrossFit Games, and that was her first year competing.

And so a lot of people were like, Whoa, who is this lady? Now? As you can imagine Brooke looks the part, she is super fit and that has helped her land roles as an Amazon warrior in movies and shows like Wonder Woman Justice League in Black Lightning. And in this interview we talk about her story. We talk about her history in sports and athletics, and how she found her way into CrossFit.

And we talk about what it. Took to reach the level of fitness and performance that put her on top of the CrossFit pile. She talks a bit about the mindset that’s required to perform at your best and to perform at a world class level and why it takes more than just showing up. We get into genetics and natural talent versus nurture and drive.

We bond a little bit over our intense dislike of social media and. Also, if you like what I’m doing here on the podcast and elsewhere, definitely check out my health and fitness books, including the number one best selling weightlifting books for men and women in the world. Bigger, leaner, stronger, and thinner.

Leaner, Stronger, as well as the leading flexible dieting cookbook, the Shredded Chef. Now, these books have sold well over 1 million copies and have helped thousands of people build their best body ever, and you can find them on all major online retailers like Audible, Amazon, iTunes, Cobo, and Google Play, as well as.

In Select Barnes and Noble stores. And I should also mention that you can get any of the audiobooks 100% free when you sign up for an Audible account. And this is a great way to make those pockets of downtime, like commuting, meal prepping, and cleaning more interesting, entertaining, and productive. And so if you want to take Audible up on this offer, and if you want to get one of my audiobooks for free, just go to www.by Legion, that’s b u y legion.com/audible and sign up for your account.

So again, if you appreciate my work and if you wanna see more of it, and if you wanna learn time proven and evidence-based strategies for losing fat, building muscle, and getting healthy, and strategies that work for anyone and everyone, regardless of age or circumstances, please do consider picking up one of my best selling books, Bigger, Leaner, Stronger for Men, Thinner, Leaner, Stronger for Women, and the Shredded Chef for my favorite fitness friendly recipe.

Hey Brooke. Thanks for taking the time to come and talk with me. Yeah, no problem. Thanks for the call. Yeah. So I thought it would be fun to start with how you got into fitness and how you got into CrossFit and the reason why that usually, I was just explaining when I do interviews, I skip people’s stories or backgrounds or bonus fee days and just get to practical information.

We’re usually talking about one topic and Okay, teach us some things, but in your case, I think it would be fun. I’m sure we there, there will be practical information along the way, but I thought it would be fun to start with. Your story and particularly because I’ve worked with virtually and heard from many thousands and thousands of women over the years.

Many of these women are just getting into, or have just gotten into fitness seriously for the first time, particularly resistance training. And that’s what I preach. Cardio is great and of course it has particularly cardiovascular benefits, but for what I have been saying since the beginning is most people they have maybe three to five hours a week to give to their fitness and it makes sense to put most of that time into getting stronger and gaining muscle and many women, of course, that’s not the advice that they have been used to hearing.

And so I know many women have been. Intimidated in the beginning. Like they didn’t know if this is really gonna help them get where they want to be. Many women were concerned that they were gonna look like an NFL linebacker if they lifted weights for just, Oh, for sure.

Six months. And 

Brooke: the amount of times I’ve had a women tell me, even like on the street, cuz it’s not just like in the gym, like I get, people that come into the gym and will talk to me about, wanting me to give ’em some advice or whatever. But majority of those conversations are airports, coffee shops, walking around towns like it is just out and about.

And I’ve had, on many occasions, a woman say to me, I wanna look like you, but not as big as you . 

Mike: That’s interesting. How do you take that? And I say, you won’t. Yeah. I mean that, that reminds me of, the anecdote with Arnold where he had said somebody had, I would never wanna look like you.

And he’s Don’t worry, you 

Brooke: won’t. Yeah you won’t. And I explained to them like, you have to understand one. , you don’t have the time to put in the amount of work that it would take for you unless you were just genetically predisposed to having a really strong physique, which I am . But even then, for me it’s been, it’s years, it’s consistency for years.

And then I also explain to them too, after surgery in the years that I’ve had. But it’s like I get stronger. I’m training constantly. The better you get, the stronger you get, the longer it takes for you to have like jumps. It takes longer for you to apply enough stress to your system to have an adaptation.

And that’s why you have to be so consistent. This doesn’t happen overnight. It’s years of work and no one goes into that type of training thinking about, I don’t wanna overdo it . That’s, there’s a reason behind it. So as long as you know your goal and you’re training hard to reach your goal, that’s the journey you’re on.

You’re not on mine. And what 

Mike: has your journey been? How did you get into this? How did, I’m assuming it was fitness first, then you found CrossFit, and then how did you go from that to deciding you wanted to compete and see how far you could get in the sport? 

Brooke: Yeah. It was dance first. I grew. Always wanting to do everything.

For one, my parents always gave me shit because they’re like, You can’t do it all. And I’m like, Yes, I can Like that. , we laugh about it cuz I still I guess I’m definitely still the same person, whether it’s in different business ventures or, I’m still in fitness. I’m not competing, but I’m also getting into entertainment in the entertainment world.

I wanna try everything. But I danced. I grew up dancing and singing until I went to college. I was a, then I went to University of Utah. I was a modern dance major, but I had played sports growing up. I played obviously where I’m from. Every kid plays soccer. I do wish that I would have soccer wasn’t like a huge sport into their Utah when I was growing up.

It’s a lot more of a, out here it’s, baseball, softball, football, and, but I played softball really competitively and I ran, I swam when I was young. Both my sisters are swimmers. I did gymnastics when I was really young. I broke my arm outside of gymnastics, but, After I, it healed and I got my cast off.

I was so nervous of re breaking it cuz I, I witnessed that happen to a girl and I never went back. So I was always really athletic and I always had a very athletic frame. Both my parents were athletes genetically. Like my mom, I’ve had big arms my whole life. I was teased a lot growing up.

Went to the University of Utah. I was in modern dance major. There was a teacher who came to teach a class. It was a kickboxing class like they brought in, cuz in the dance department, we have all of our core classes and, but they would bring in every once in a while someone who would, they would teach us a different type of like workout class type situation.

And she was amazing. And I’m, I remember being in class and I’m looking at her because in dance, especially in terms of dance companies, ballet, jazz modern, all these things. But mostly in with ballet, I knew the few dance companies that I probably could ever try and aspire to. Be a part of audition for, and there were many that I never really could have.

At the time this was my mindset cuz some people might hear this and be like, you could have been first . But the reality was, is and purely based on my physique. So I saw her come and she, we did this like dance type fitness class, kickboxing, and she had this physique that I was like, You look like me.

You like really B 

Mike: And is the dance point you’re supposed to be very thin. Is that the in 

Brooke: ballet or? I really loved dance companies like Alvin Ailey that’s very, it’s modern, but they all have these very strong bodies. But let’s just speak in terms of ballet. I was very built and we’ll, just in terms of my upper body, we’ll just stick to that.

I remember so many times being in ballet class at the university and it was just like, soften your arms. And I’m like, I’m soft man. I am like, I just look like I’m not , and like trying so hard. You look at ballerinas and they are very strong, but where they’re the most strong and that it shows physically is their legs.

I have muscle, I swear all the way to my achilles, to my heel down my, from being on point shoes for so many years, and I met this girl, this woman, and I thought it was, what she was doing was so cool and she looked incredible. What do you do? I talked to her after class and that’s when I got into the world of training for a, like a typical fitness competition, right?

Like body building figure. They had fitness, she was a fitness girl who they do the one arm pushups and dance around. And that was the first time I got into like training, like in a gym. Cause all growing up and in school, like I never really, I played sports and I danced a lot.

Like Monday through Saturday I was in class all summer long cuz I did dance companies all growing up. We would travel, we tons of performances and tons of training. That’s how I got more into like fitness side. But what happened is I had. How I got into CrossFit is I was asked to audition for a show in Las Vegas.

It’s called Lore, if they still have it. It’s like a Ciol Way show. 

Mike: Yeah, I think I saw that many years 

Brooke: ago. I just was trying to figure out how to prepare for it. I needed to be able to do some gymnastics type stuff, rope climbs and things like that. And so I was in southern Utah where I’m from and I had, someone had told me about a new gym that had opened, there was a CrossFit gym and I went and checked it out and I worked out with the guy who owned it.

It was brand new and it totally kicked my butt. And prior to this, like the year and a half before this, just training in the gym, I was always an athlete, And I wanted muscle. For go and not just muscle for show. And so I really loved it. I loved the athletic side to it. I loved that if you were doing a competition, it had everything to do with the outcome of your performance.

It didn’t matter what you looked like, had nothing to do with what you looked like, had everything to do with like the work 

Mike: you put in objective too. As opposed to being judged subjectively oh, yeah. Your proportions are just not quite there. So you get fifth place. 

Brooke: Yes. And being a girl who had deep insecurities, that all stemmed from my body.

And from growing up and being very insecure about my arms and always was like teased a lot growing up, I’d already just had these deep insecurities. I didn’t even really know that were there. I was still so young, I didn’t even know how to recognize all of that. So then you get into the world of like subjective judging and.

You already judge yourself so much, but now you have people standing there being like telling you all these things that are wrong or could be better, or you just don’t fit you, you don’t fit the mold. And so CrossFit was the perfect, I had never felt more. At home in a way. That’s how I started doing CrossFit.

And then from there I was still a university full-time dance major and I’d roughly, just very quickly, I had moved to la I was living there for a summer. I was dancing and auditioning and I moved. My parents were like, You gotta go back to school . So that was just for a summer. Went back to school and found a CrossFit gym when I got back because I couldn’t afford the CrossFit gyms when I was in la cuz as soon as I got there I was like, Oh, I gotta find one of these gyms.

And I couldn’t afford it. So when I went back to Utah, to Salt Lake, I found Ute CrossFit. I started going there. They were brand new. And then it got into where do you wanna compete? And I was a full-time student. And at the time too, that took precedent. I enjoyed CrossFitting, but it wasn’t until I did compete on their team.

I went team that year. They qualified for the games, went to the games. We did. I just wasn’t on the games team. But I had yet decided like that I wanted to. I was the strong female on the team at our gym. And I moved to California. I remember I was spectating at the CrossFit games in 2013. And that year my coach and my old team, they won the CrossFit games for the affiliate cup.

So the team. And I told him after it was all over, I was like, Tommy, I think I wanna do this . Because I remember just watching down in Carson and I was just like, This is amazing. And I had already been CrossFitting since I founded it in 2009. I started doing it more regularly, 2010. And he just basically told me, he’s You’re not gonna like it.

And I was like, I know I’m not the training that I would have to do because I wasn’t gonna be team anymore. And back then, to have a really solid team, you pick, you wanted someone, you needed someone strong, you needed someone fast, you needed, your team was made up of not specialists, but you could have people that had maybe some holes in their game.

Now, In the last few years too. You can’t, like the teams, you, you want well-rounded athletes. They would do pretty well on their own. As an individual athlete, I was like, Okay, I’m gonna commit for one year, One season I’m gonna train. I was in California, he was in Utah. He set me programming every day.

I trained by myself. I got my work done. I went to comp, I did the open, I qualified for regionals. That was the first time I competed in California. And it wasn’t until the first day of competition that I had even realized how much better I had gotten because I trained by myself all the time. Which some, a lot of people will tell you you can’t train by yourself.

You gotta train with people that are better than you. I don’t necessarily believe in that. For me, this is like a personal opinion. It does depend on the type of person you are and what you need, like what motivates you. But what I learned about me training by myself and especially being an individual athlete is no one can make you go but you and when you are.

Dying. You are suffering, you’re fatigued. Like it doesn’t matter. The, it doesn’t matter. Training with someone or competing next to someone who’s going faster. Like for me, it was like, it doesn’t motivate me to be losing. If I were training with people that were constantly better than me all the time, it would push me.

But one of the biggest key factors in games athletes is their mental game. If you don’t have that, you don’t got a chance. Cuz the second something goes wrong, you will lose it. Like you have to be able to control your mind. You gotta be able to, 

Mike: And that’s so true of any high level sport, really at an individual level.

But you really see it in sports where the team can’t pick up the slack where it is just one person. Like I think of tennis or I think of golf, where you can just see when they start to lose the mental battle, then their performance can just fall off a cliff suddenly. 

Brooke: So that’s how it started. I went to regionals my, in 2014, I won the first event, which blew my mind, and I finished sixth place and they took that, I don’t know, they do it so different now, but at the time it was, if anyone was on the podium that was like a past champ, then they would go, They would take also the next.

Finisher too. So they may take top four versus top three or top five. I took six. And in NorCal that year, they had regionals. Now regionals, they don’t have ’em anymore. , which I totally missed, but they used to have California split in two regions. So they would have a competition for SoCal and a competition for NorCal.

Cause California’s huge, California was like one of the, if not the highest, had the highest level of competition for females. Just monsters. Okay. And so many of those women that were competing had all a lot of them had been to the games, had been games athletes. And so at this point I had been, I had created a schedule, I had created a routine, I created a training schedule.

I was. Monday through Friday, sometimes Monday through Saturday. 

Mike: Was it one a day? Was it two a day? How much, I’m sure people are wondering like how hard did you have to train to get that 

Brooke: good? I will say this to anyone who’s like starting out or you train regularly, but like you just trying to, you like wanna take it to the next 

Mike: level?

Yeah. Don’t do this disclaimer, , 

Brooke: you can’t just all of a sudden take it to the next level. You don’t go from doing like an hour and a half training a day to two sessions doing two hours in each session. You add volume as your body can handle it. You don’t wanna break yourself down with muscle.

We break it down, it rebuilds, it’s how we get stronger. But you have to allow your CNS to recover. You have to pay attention to that. And that’s why I think it’s so important to have a coach or someone who. Versed in how your body is going to adapt, what is happening that, how they can pay attention to the signs that you might be showing that you are overreached or overtrained and rest is good.

For me, I would do two a days, a couple days a week, but those two days were usually, would have running for one session and then one session was lifting in a met con or some sort of accessory work, and I’d have an active recovery day, which was usually running or rowing. My coach loved, Oh man, anyone listening, you want a hard mental workout.

This is, So my coach, that first year I was training to compete for the first time as individual. He was, we were trying to really in increase my capacity in running, in just endurance because I grew up with activity induced asthma. Through this training, I was able to deal with that because I think, I had an inhaler when I was younger.

I have an inhaler. In the cupboard because if I get really sick, my lungs, usually it gets attacked first. But it’s such a mental thing for me too. You start to, you can’t breathe. Your chest gets tight and then you panic and then it makes it worse. And so I was running and my coach would have me do like hour long runs and it, there was no pace specific.

It was just time on, Let’s just get time on your feet. And we would do 30 minutes and we’d do hour. That changed. I started training for 2015 and my coach, his favorite thing to, and it was everyone who was doing brute, His favorite thing to make us do was like once a week we had to do max calories on the rower for an hour.

Now 

Mike: what does that mean for people wondering? Max calories, . 

Brooke: Oh my gosh. Okay, so max calories, you’re getting as many calories as you can in one hour. It is not a leisure row. You are one. Doing anything for an hour kind of sucks. And the same thing . Some people, do marathons and they run and they really, maybe they really enjoy it.

But sitting on the rower your butt starts to hurt. You’re never going at a pace that’s comfortable. It’s always slightly uncomfortable making yourself do that. And you had to, The goal was every time you did it, you could not get less calories than you got the week before. What 

Mike: was your best score?

Brooke: Oh my gosh, I couldn’t even, 

Mike: if I can remember approximately, if you can remember. I’m just curious. Anybody listening feel like, what can I do? What? What’s my max calories on the 

Brooke: rubber? My best score, I cannot give you an exact number, but probably upwards of . I would be, So I always undershoot these things too, of what I actually can do.

1200 

Mike: calories. Yeah, I was gonna say it’s at least probably a thousand. That’s pretty 

Brooke: intense. 1300 calories. I was to a point where, I felt pretty good about this. I was getting more calories than a lot of The men that were under the same sort of structure, like under the same, They were also doing B.

Yeah, I was. They 

Mike: were the same instructions, sit down on that thing and work your ass off . 

Brooke: Yes. But what that does, along with the way we were training and certain formats of workouts and the way they were structured, you are training your body to recover faster. So in the middle of a workout and also you train and do different.

Workouts and you do different time domains, you do different weight things. And it’s like you want to have experiences where you a push yourself, you red line, like you don’t want to red line. But if you’ve never redlined, then you don’t know what it feels like and then you don’t know what to watch out for because everything to do with that is we always say, you gotta stay awake.

I love workouts where you can like black out, you just move. I love stuff. You don’t have to think super hard. It’s not super technical and that’s just when you just wanna work. You just wanna grind. But you also, you need to be aware, you gotta be self-aware when you’re training. You gotta pay attention to what your breath is like.

You gotta pay attention to what your body feels like. Certain moves you gotta pay attention to. Like at what point, let’s say strict movements, strict handstand pushups. At what point am I gonna be done? Cause you only have so many. It’s about being smart. You gotta know what you are capable of. You gotta know what it feels like to red line and to be done.

You learn your paces. So in terms of like rowing, it’s like you learn your paces. You learn, what can I hold for a long time? Where is that line? What’s the threshold of, if I go a little bit faster, will I be able to hang on to that for this long? Probably not. Threshold training is you push the pedal, you push the gas, you’re the middle of a workout.

Let’s say you’re doing a Metcon and you’d never want to be comfortable. The way we get better is you wanna push your pace. You push your pace to a point where ooh, things might start to feel like they’re falling apart a little bit, or your technique’s getting a little, so not the way it should be.

At that point, you pull back, let off the gas, you regain your technique, regain your breath, and then you do it. And it feels good and it feels good, and you push a little harder, you go a little faster, and then it starts to get a little bit iffy. So you pull back a little bit, find, make sure you’re doing things right, check in with your body, keep moving, and you do it again.

You push the gas again, and this back and forth is you starting to, And if you’re paying attention and you’re aware, self aware, you can recognize these paces, you can recognize your breathing. You recognize it’s just all information that just makes you a better competitor because no one that’s really good.

Like in competition and not even in competition in class. Like maybe you have no desire to compete, you love competition, but you just love to go to class and get better. In compete with yourself in class, this is information that’s, it just makes you better, makes you a better athlete. It makes you a better competitor.

It’s experiencing all the ways that a workout can go. It’s experiencing, failing failure and strict movements. It’s experiencing failure and lifts because you, it’s just information. And it’s not failure, it’s information. It lets you know what you need to change, what you should do different next time where you can win that workout.

And you definitely wanna know and be realistic with where you’ll lose it. When you show up to game day, you’re not gonna be fitter. Like even the week leading up to it, it’s what do I do? What do I do? You’re as fit as you’re gonna be and you have no control over how fit anyone else is.

But what you do have control over is your mind. And you can be smart. And if you’ve done the work, you’ve gotten all the data from your training, then you know you know where you’ll win something and you’ll know where you lose something. And if you can make a plan and stick to. To have the best outcome possible for you, and you have a killer mindset, you’re gonna be an incredible athlete, competitor, someone who will only get better and will be very hard for other people to beat, especially people who are mentally weak.

Mike: If you like what I’m doing here on the podcast and elsewhere, definitely check out my health and fitness books, including the number one best selling weightlifting books for men and women in the world, Bigger, leaner, stronger, and thinner. Leaner, stronger, as well as the leading flexible dieting cookbook, the Shredded Chef.

What kind of head space do you go into when things are not going your way and when it matters? When there’s something at stake? Not that it doesn’t matter if you’re just in the gym doing a workout, but it’s different if you’re, now, here it is, here’s the day you have to perform. Things are not going the way that you’d like.

It’s not over yet though. But you’re in that, now you’re in that fog of war and where you go is gonna determine the 

Brooke: outcome. There’s been plenty of times where a workout didn’t go the way that we had planned. You beat yourself up. You’re bummed. Wish I would’ve done this. I wish I would’ve done better.

I should have gone faster. And it’s you can’t change any of that. And my coach, this is what he would say to me, and this is what we would do. And what I would do, he would say, You can be upset for like the next 10 minutes. And then you’re moving on. We’re looking at the next one.

We’re moving forward. Okay, put time limit on it like you’re entitled to feel the way, feel your feelings, feel those, But then you gotta move on from it because if you’re just gonna sit and dwell on that performance, there’s no chance you’re gonna perform better on the next one. Cause in the back of your mind is I’m not good enough, or I’m not cut out, or I need to be better or I need to be this.

It’s like all of those thoughts will only bring you down, will only have a negative outcome or you’re not gonna perform you, you won’t continue to perform better if that’s the head space that you’re in. You have to realize, and it’s if this is all practice too, like people who are trying to figure out like, how do I get a mentally stronger?

Or how do I change my mental game? How do I fix it? It’s you one, that doesn’t happen overnight cuz everyone’s different and everyone deals with different insecurities or self-talk or whatever, but it’s practice. And it’s finding things, whether they’re messages or words or people that help you get out of that, that fog or that bad head space.

And for me was my coaches. I would do anything. It’s knowing that you can’t change how something went. What we can do is learn from it. And just because you’ve trained all year for this show for the big show, it doesn’t mean that it’s always gonna be work. We always are trying to get better.

Just because you’ve put in the work doesn’t mean you’re gonna get the reward in terms of podium or money or a trophy. You have to change your mindset where everything is data. There isn’t an end point. On this journey. It’s like I just, I’m just trying to be better and everyone’s different.

Everyone gets better at different paces. A lot of people come in, let’s say just in, in CrossFit or any sport, but like everyone comes from a different background. So if you have someone who’s, it’s a workout and it’s all gymnastics and you’re competing against some girls or guys that were gymnasts, then you just gotta accept that they’re probably gonna kill it.

You gotta accept that. Alright, I’m not the best at these, but I am really good at that part of this workout and my lungs are, I have strong lungs and I can go for a long time, but, so how can I handle this situation where, the muscle up? So the handstand pushups, I’m not gonna beat them on that, but where can I beat them?

I can beat ’em in transitions. I can, once I get to that final weight, I’m gonna move that barbell way faster than they will. And easier because I’m strong. I’m taller. Like we’re gonna row, we’re doing wall balls. These athletes that are in contention to win, they’re short. You pay attention to, like where, what do I have that is going to benefit me and how can I use it?

And in this workout, where can I win it? Where can I lose it? And it’s it’s okay to fail. I think you just put in so much work and in, in this sport of CrossFit, and not even as a sport, as a training method, when you’re really into it, you can get in this place where it’s, you’re not just, your body is fatigued and exhausted, but it is mentally, emotionally exhausting.

So in any sport or competition, when you’ve put all these hours and days and focus and you’ve made so many sacrifices for something, when you don’t have the outcome that you want, it can be very brutal and it makes complete sense why it. You’ve put so much into it and put in this work, like you think Oh, I do this work, and then I get that.

In reality, there’s just so many things that come into play, and there’s so many things that are completely outta your control. Programming, your natural ability based on your genetics or your physique or your body. But if you go into it thinking more along the lines of, Okay, what did I learn? We should want to fail, we should want to reach those points where something’s not working anymore, because that’s when you get better at that thing.

We can’t, It’s like you can’t know something if you haven’t learned it. I’ve never been snowboarding, but I just get on a board and I’m like, Oh yeah, this will be easy. I’m good at everything, and I get on it and I just fall and tumble and fall and it doesn’t work. It’s then I get. My little niece is like this.

It’s so funny. I get mad and so I just never do it again. You can’t be someone who just doesn’t wanna try stuff just cuz you’re not good at it the first time you try 

Mike: it. It’s funny, my son is like that. He’s gotten better. He’s young, he’s eight, but he’ll quickly dislike something if he’s not innately good at it.

I’ve tried like Lennox, trust me. That’s not how it works dude. like you weren’t even good at walking. You had to learn 

Brooke: that man. Yeah, it’s funny but it’s practice and I always tell people, you gotta be realistic about where you are, like what level you’re at. And I would have that conversation when I was coaching full time.

If people in class, it’s I’ve been here, I’ve been doing T for so many years and I still can’t do a muscle up. And I’m like, do you ever add anything into your training that’s to work on that specifically. Are you ever doing, after class like doing so getting stronger with your pull ups, doing dips like training for that.

And it’s no, but the way the mindset they have is I come here six days, five days a week and I show up. And I train and it’s yes, and that’s amazing. And you are getting so much fitter just because you’ve been putting in work for so long, it doesn’t mean that you’re just gonna be rewarded with all these glamorous skills.

If you want that skill, we you have to train for that. 

Mike: Yeah. That’s a strategic failure. Like it’s great. You have the habit of showing up and putting in the work. That’s part of it. But to this point of specificity is really what you’re getting at, right? Okay, what is the muscle up? We have the pull up and then we have the dip.

So you’re gonna have to train specifically for this thing. Just because you have a good deadlift or because you can bench press a lot of weight, doesn’t mean that you’re gonna be able to muscle up easily. 

Brooke: , like just because you’re putting in work, like not specific work, but you’re putting in work regularly doesn’t mean you’ll be rewarded with the things that you think should just like, Oh.

It’s like you don’t just level up and it’s ta-da. Okay. And now you’ve been here long enough, you’ve put in enough hours in your training in general, I bet you right now cuz you’ve leveled up, go over there and dribble on those. You’re gonna get a muscle up. You don’t do very specific training for that to increase your capacity in those, in the pull and the push.

But I bet because of years of just showing up to class, you can do one now. It’s it just doesn’t work that way. It’d be nice if it did, 

Mike: something I’ve thought about that it relates to something you were talking about and you put in all this work. This could apply to training or business or literally the pursuit of any goal.

So you’ve been smart, let’s say about your strategy. You’ve given thought as to the system you’re going to use to get to your goal. You haven’t just applied a bunch of kind of random effort hoping for results, and you’ve worked hard at it, blah, blah, blah, and you didn’t get the outcome you wanted. And sure, that can be disappointing.

And in the, I’m speaking really just personally here, this is a way that has helped me kind of process failures of various. I think there’s something to be said for the nature of a game. And if any game were that simple where you just do the work, you do these routine actions and you’re guaranteed the prize, that might sound cool at first.

And if we are in certain areas of our life, we may desire that immediately. Let’s say financial. If somebody is having financial problems, like yes, okay, I understand it would be nice if you just do these actions and you’re gonna get the money, but that game would become boring if you were guaranteed the outcome.

You’d go looking for a game that has some random element to it that has some chance worked into it, because that’s exciting. That makes it fun. So that’s something that I’ve just has stuck in my head as a way to process not getting the outcomes I want. And I don’t look at that as even necessarily a negative outcome in the kind of a meta sense where I would be maybe not concerned, but I would wanna look more into what I’m doing in my circumstances if I felt like I was getting.

Unlucky, consistently. Like a good game has both, sometimes you get lucky, sometimes you get unlucky. But anyways, random kind of comment on when you’ve worked very hard and you’ve done everything you can and you still don’t get what you want. 

Brooke: At that point, lets, we said it’s like that’s the extreme, Like at that point, this is a hard reality that some people don’t wanna hear, but it’s the truth.

You may never have what it takes to be good at the thing that you’re trying to be. Not because you won’t put in the work, you’re not putting in the time, but because you genuinely aren’t physically made for it. Yeah. 

Mike: True in athletics. Dan John, the well known coach, an author in one of his books’, attempts, he had relayed a little anecdote from, I forget, he mentioned a strength coach, or it was an athletics coach who had said that if somebody is not at the top of their sport within a few years, so I think I’m remembering this correctly, within a few years, like two, three, probably no more than four years of getting into it, they are never going to be world class, and I’ve never been world class at.

Anything. So I can’t speak personally to that, but it rings true. I grew up playing sports. I didn’t take things very far. I was really into, I played a lot of ice hockey. I grew up around kids who played sports and this is, and then I’ve subsequently read about this that you used, you have these kids who, they get into something and they’re basically just better than everybody right away.

And then they get more attention, more coaching, of course that helps ’em. But then they move up to the next level and they’re still just better than everybody and move up to the next level. They’re still just better than everybody. And that’s their experience throughout their entire time in the activity.

And in college they are better than everybody and then eventually they go pro. And a lot of them are actually not that great cause that’s how good people are at that high level. Just to that point, I think that it’s worth saying because it is very realistic. I think. When you say good, you probably mean a little bit more.

Good. Am I guessing ? Yes. . Cause your standard of good. Yeah. Which I understand. You have a different standard of good than somebody who’s, just wants to be quote unquote good at CrossFit an everyday normal person, 

Brooke: Yeah. Have you ever read the book The Sport Gene by 

Mike: Epstein? No. No, but I know about it and I’ve come across snippets of it in other books and stuff.

Brooke: It’s a great book for anyone who has any interest in physiology. . Yeah. 

Mike: Genetic advantages and so forth. 

Brooke: Yes. It’s just very true. 

Mike: An obvious example is okay, if you’re not a certain height, you’re not gonna make it in basketball. Most people would be like, Yeah, sure. That makes sense.

And so what you’re saying is just a variation of that principle, basically. 

Brooke: And then you think about this too. I think about this a lot. You might have kids who they have every genetically, like their length of arms, their length of femurs, their hip width, their shoulder width, whatever their.

Predisposition for getting strong really easily, whatever it is from their genetics, right? Just because someone has great genetics for what they’re doing and that’s where they’re, that really does helps a shitload for them to get to the top of their game. If they never had the interest to develop, you still have to develop, you still have to do all the work.

No one has an easy ride just because they’re genetically gifted. 

Mike: Yeah, because you’re gonna be competing with a bunch of other genetic freaks too. , 

Brooke: this is what you could be, and none of us know this, right? We’re growing up, it’s what are you interested in? I coloring, but maybe this kid who’s really good at coloring actually could be the next, Olympic long jump champion or something.

But because there’s no interest, So there was no time put into training for it to developing the muscles that he can have genetically, but no time or, time under tension or effort was put in to develop those, to allow those genetics to really come into play. Will never know. 

Mike: I knew a kid who, so as a teenager he was like an Allstate baseball player and then he was like, Eh, I don’t know, got that good at baseball.

And he was like, Yeah, I wanna try golf. So starts playing golf quickly becomes within a couple of years, by the time he’s 17 or 18, he is a scratch golfer. He’s setting course records. He’s part starting to play on at 18, 19, these mini tours against, I guess a few of his buddies eventually made it to the PGA tour who he was just as good as at that time they were neck and neck like sometimes, they would beat him, sometimes he would beat them.

Then he just didn’t like the pressure of competition. It was now turning into a job and it was no longer something he just did for fun as a kid. And he liked to play video games and just hang out and have a good time and so he never pursued it. Just interesting to I played golf with him a couple of times and he was so good.

It’s, many people would think, Oh I would kill to be as good as he is at this sport, and I would take it all the way. Eh, maybe not. And you’ve experienced this a lot more than I have, but when it is, quote unquote for blood, it’s a bit different than just something again, you did for fun with your friends and you found out that for whatever reason, you’re just really good at this

Brooke: You know what I mean? Yeah. Just the day and age that we’re in too. I think there’s, there’s a whole nother level of just the whole aspect of of social media and it’s a whole nother added stress. 

Mike: I really don’t understand why so many people use it just personally, if it wasn’t relevant to my work and if I didn’t feel like I could use it in a way that is positive where I just really use it to share educational stuff and try to be inspirational.

I don’t have things to show off cause I’m just not that kind of person. That’s just not my personality. It’s more just Hey look, I write these things. I’m already doing this work so I’ll repurpose it onto social media. And for people who appreciate that kind of thing, they’re gonna wanna follow me for people who are just wanting to vicariously.

Try to experience living a certain way or who are just looking to, I don’t even know what the allure is, honestly. 

Brooke: No. The thing about what you just said is so funny because I just had this conversation with my business partner for my training program yesterday. We were filming, we’re launching a new challenge and we were, so we were doing like the launch video, like announcing it, and we have a mutual friend who is a pretty popular fitness influencer.

, I told my partner, I was like, Hey, I legitimately cannot, I’m like, I’ve stopped watching certain people’s Instagrams or stories or like just social media in general because I’m so over. And I thought about it. I was like, how people that vlog right? YouTube, how do so many people really enjoy?

Watching someone’s life that is so overly glamorous and sometimes it’s just made to be perceived. Of course, it’s fake, it’s scripted, 

Mike: it’s reality tv. If it’s done well, if it’s unscripted, it’s completely boring. Come on, . 

Brooke: Even talking about this was specifically talking about like travel, 

Mike: right?

I just cringe at that word. It’s just, hashtag wander lust. It’s so basic and it’s so cringe, . You go and you look at the rocks, you eat the food. I understand. I’ve done traveling. I’ve tried. My wife’s from Germany. I’ve done it. It is not a transformative experience. Or if it is, maybe you should try reading a couple of books first.

It’s amusing for five to seven days 

Brooke: and that’s it. But I’m like watching these videos and I told him, I was like, All right, so I wanna make a video. I was like, I wanna do a video. And we were filming, so I had, we had our video guy there. It was like, Listen up cuz you’re the one that has to make this come to fruition.

Okay. I want to do a video. I want it to be so cinematic and sexy and the best lighting and all these slow motion shots and just epic cinematography. Okay. But I want it to be a, me doing regular ass shit. I wanna be taking the trash cans out. I wanna be pulling 

Mike: weeds, go into the grocery store, picking 

Brooke: up dog shit.

Going to the grocery store, like maybe to make it you get some of those shots for like regular people doing, you know like the majority of people, what do we do? Maybe I’m playing beer pong or corn hole with friends cuz like that is exciting. That’d be fun. That’d be a fun part of the video.

Anyone can. It’s showcasing like a real life. I’m like, I wanna do a video. That’s exactly like all these travel videos that these influencers and like YouTubers do that. All I do when I see them is think Fuck you . That’s what I think. I’m not watching this shit. 

Mike: I’ve made this joke many times.

Who actually watches vlogs? We’re really talking about the drags here. Who takes their time to, to watch these long, again, 100% scripted if they’re doing it right, quote unquote. Maybe it’s similar to watching reality tv, yeah, but it’s like even quote unquote realer because it’s some random internet.

Brooke: I, so I have a YouTube channel and I have blogs. I’ve vlog, I do videos. Started doing it for fun. Years ago, I never wanted it to be a job. I would travel. I would travel and take my GoPro and I would film. It was more along the lines of Hey, here’s where I’m going. And now if you guys are interested, Seeing what I’m doing or who I’m with or what I’m, where I’m at.

You can watch this video and and now I want you to go to my YouTube channel and just watch a couple of ’em. Yeah. Now I’m 

Mike: intrigued because we’re talking all this shit about V blogging. You’re like, actually I’ve been vlogging for two years . 

Brooke: But like I do talk shit about it where you’re almost like, I don’t 

Mike: know exactly why I’m doing this, but I’m already doing these things so I might as well just document it and put it online.

Yeah, and 

Brooke: you know what it is. Here’s what I think about it. People that really, they love to follow you, they love. , whether you’re an educator or whatever, they just, they love to listen to you. I have been told this, like I think a lot of the way that I’ve done social media, and I’ve gotten this feedback years ago, and like YouTube, it’s like this one way friendship.

I can’t remember exactly what that’s actually called, but people that are watching and everyone that when I meet them in person at events or whatever, it’s like, they’re like, you’re, they tell me you are the exact same person that I thought you would. And I’m like, that is the best compliment ever. 

Mike: Yeah.

They do get to feel like they get to know you and there’s, 

Brooke: And they feel like they just, they know me. Yeah. Yeah. Every, a lot of people will be like, Is it weird? Is it weird that I know all this? And I was like, No. I’m like, It makes my job way easier. . 

Mike: Yeah. That’s cool actually. I understand that from that perspective.

Brooke: But I would say like the majority of I don’t watch vs. Like people, like I said, I don’t keep up on YouTube. I don’t know who the, the big influencers are. I understand it’s a pretty damn good or can be source of income for a lot of people, not for me. Yeah. To 

Mike: make any real money from it, you probably need to be racking up, who knows, tens of millions of views a month, a week, I don’t know.

Brooke: And to get there, it’s just, overly, 

Mike: You have to be into it, that’s for 

Brooke: sure. Oh yeah. So I enjoy vlog stuff. Not all of it. We’ve started. And we’re gonna start doing a lot more. It’s been a little bit difficult cause I’m splitting my time here in California, but instructional stuff, so a lot of people really want me to coach and instruct, so now I’m breaking down movements or showing, different little flow sessions, rehab or prehab accessory work.

And, but sometimes when we’re filming and I’m just with friends or family and we’re just, hanging out or doing paint night or it’s fun not only for me in the way that we do it, it’s fun for a lot of friends. It’s almost like a home video, so a lot of people that are in it.

And that’s one thing too, it’s never just me. There’s a lot of characters in my life and I think that’s also something that people love about watching my channel is they really get to know and love a lot of my friends. It’s really funny cuz then when I’m with my friends somewhere and people know them, it always catches ’em off guard.

But you’re EFA too. Yeah, but yeah, social media, I absolutely hate it. I really do. 

Mike: I think we would be better off if it were banned. Honestly, as a society, , 

Brooke: I feel like social media is an invisible race that you never can win. And the rules are always changing and you’re always like last to find out what the new rule is 

Mike: and it’s like a race to contort yourself in the weirdest pretzel position possible.

And people are always finding new ones. And yeah, 

Brooke: it’s a pain the way that I like to do what I think about social media actually, I’ll just say this, I really do hate doing it. I know for one, a sponsor will wanna work with you and they’re like can you send me all of your views for your story?

And I’m like, Ooh. Sometimes they’re really good and sometimes they’re not. And the reason they’re not is because I don’t regularly story because it really does depend on who I’m around. What I’m doing, if I wanna be on my phone and I gotta show this to people, this is funny shit, I gotta show this.

Or we’re being really goofy. Me and Gina, we gotta, yeah, let’s go on our story and talk to people. But so many times, more often than not, I don’t want to be on my phone. I won. I’m so hyper aware of the people that are around me. I never wanna be a person. When I’m together, when I’m with my family or together with my friends, like I’m always on my phone.

I’m always Instagramming, I’m always doing this. I always have to get this shot. I always have to take this picture. I always have to do this. It’s like now I’m not living. 

Mike: Yeah, I’m the same way. Exactly the same. And 

Brooke: what, because of that. If I wasn’t like that, maybe I would be doing way better in terms of what social media can bring you financially or opportunities.

But I’m not, to 

Mike: be fair though, I think you, you have a couple million followers on Instagram, so you must be doing something right. , 

Brooke: I got 1.5, and here’s the thing. I really value every single one of them because how do people get a bunch of followers? , they go viral or someone with a lot of followers posts them or they win a competition.

So like in the CrossFit games, like it was, you go to the games and you win, you’re almost like, you’re like gift. I always said you’re gifted followers, here you go. What are you gonna do with them? So I always was very protective or 

Mike: acting right, which you’ve had success with so that you know a lot of 

Brooke: people.

Yeah. But I would even say, I feel pretty confident in saying like majority of my followers, a very small percentage. I had a very small increase from doing the movie. Cuz in acting you’ve gotta, you gotta be the least. Yeah, sure. Think about how many people are actors who are regularly working that we don’t really know.

Totally. , I organically grew my following over a period of time. I look at how do I reach more people? How do I broaden my audience? Like how do I get cooler? And it’s I don’t have an answer cuz all I can do is, I’m gonna keep doing what I’ve been doing. And trying to be 

Mike: cool is so lame anyway.

Oh 

Brooke: yeah. I prefer to be more funny. That’s what me and Gina say to ourselves when we’re like , when we kinda have a dark sense of humor, but when we’re feeling shitty about ourselves, like whether it’s like, Oh man, my pants are too tight. Aw. I guess it’s cuz I, I haven’t really been on my training schedule or Oh, my hair looks so crappy today.

Or we, just things aren’t quite, you’re not feeling yourself. We are always saying, Hey, better be more funny. And for her, I’m 31. I think there’s 

Mike: therapeutic value to that really actually. Humor not being 

Brooke: serious. Yeah. It works for us. We say it all the time and we laugh and it’s Hey , this, We always say it’s like hey, this is what I look like.

This is me, better be more funny. And , it works for us, but it’s for her, she just turned 51, my best friend. And so with her, same thing, but it’s going aging. We talk about like different changes that you know happen and that I’ve either started to experience or I will experience that Gina’s already experienced.

And it’s the reality of just of aging, and a lot of those realities could have you thinking feeling really bad about yourself, . And so we have a lot of like comic relief, like just, it makes you feel better, it’s like not taking things too seriously and allowing yourself to just be who you are and like, that doesn’t mean that you aren’t entitled to look different or grow your hair out or lose 15 pounds or get stronger.

It’s no, that’s awesome. It’s work. You get to you have a goal, you’re gonna work towards that, but know that. Who you are right now, like on the inside, like who you are, not just what you look. Is great and you working towards something that you want really bad and you’re gonna be dedicated, You’re gonna put in work that’s amazing and that’s just gonna make make you feel even better.

And 

Mike: it’s nice to have things like that to go to, like we were saying, when you’re having a bad day or Yeah, if you’re entire identity and sense of self worth is wrapped up, or if most of it is wrapped up in your body, that’s a problem because bodies get old, like you were saying, and they become less beautiful.

And that’s just reality. And we see many people who try to negate that reality with surgery and things that it can get outta hand. Of course we can do a lot of things to mitigate the effects of aging and still be in good shape and look good and look healthy and look fit. But when I’m 50, am I going to be as physically attractive?

It doesn’t matter how fit. I am at 50, am I going to be as physically attractive as when I was 25? So obviously different standards are applied to men and than women here, but the answer is no. If we’re gonna get specific it, my skin at 50 is gonna look worse than it did at 25, and my hair is gonna, I’m gonna have less of a hairline and I’m gonna have gray hair probably by then, and that’s not necessarily as attractive as 25.

So something I’ve thought about too is I’ve consciously tried to work on things other than just my body because, And I think that’s unhealthy even when you’re young, speaking of social media, right? You see the narcissism is, I didn’t realize that there are so many people who are so narcissistic until I started spending time on social media, especially in the fitness scene.

Holy shit. 

Brooke: Oh yeah. Yeah. And I have a lot of nieces and nephews and watching like them grow up and just in this growing up with social media and with phones and with freak people like going viral and being famous. Now you have kids that it’s like they, that’s what they 

Mike: aspire to. Yeah. Being famous.

I saw a survey a couple of years ago with 16 year olds, a couple thousand, What do you want to do or be when you grow up? And the number one thing was be famous. That’s disturbing. Actually, that’s so bad. Let’s hope that changes as they get older. 

Brooke: It’s like kids in school like, don’t really care to go to college or work that hard in school because they’re just, they just wanna go viral.

Mike: I’m just, what’s your life plan? Go viral, . 

Brooke: I just try to go viral, man. I, That is, that’s 

Mike: it. It’s basically go viral. A step two question mark, Step three profit, that’s it. 

Brooke: Yeah. From when I very first started competing, like a lot of questions I would get are, how do you get sponsors and, and the first thing I would tell them is, I would, I’d be like can tell you my experience.

I don’t know. It’s different for different people, but I can tell you that I never trained or did anything. With me wanting that as the outcome. That was a byproduct of hard work and focus on something that wasn’t money. 

Mike: Motivation just sucks. Yeah. 

Brooke: Period. And that’s, people, they do, How do you get sponsored?

How do you get it? And I was be 

Mike: so good that you can’t be ignored. That’s how you do it. 

Brooke: Yes. I would also explain this. I’m like, okay, I’m like the nfl, how many players playing on the bench? Whatever. Every team. How many are there? Like a lot, Like so many. How many of them do we know?

Unless you are obsessed with that team and you know all those players and their names and what they do, where they came from. Like the majority of people, like how many of them do we actually know and care about? Not very many. And that’s because certain people, I would explain this cuz like in CrossFit, I’m like, you have.

How many athletes make up the whole field of play? A lot. How many are sponsored? Not all of them. How many of them are doing well enough with sponsorships that they don’t have to work another job? Very small percentage. How many of them have opportunity outside of what they can do as a competitor for career compared to how many people com compete?

Very small percentage. It’s like a shitty reality cuz you might really want sponsorship. You might really want to be like, I wanna be famous, I wanna have more followers on Instagram. I wanna have this, I wanna have that. And it’s it’s out of your control and the best thing you can do to work towards that is continue to work on, if it’s in competition for sport, get better, train harder.

I always thought this year you’ll either be. Sponsored because you’re the best, right? Or you’re like an up and comer or you are just killing it and it really is dependent on your performance. Or you’ll be sponsored because you are extremely marketable. And sometimes you have people that give you both and it’s just like that shitty re it’s like just a tough reality cuz you might really want it really bad, but no one’s coming your way.

No one’s coming your way For those people’s I don’t know what to tell you. I know for myself, when I first had opportunities to work with companies, I made sure, especially from the very beginning, I made sure I was like, I will never sign a contract or work with a company. I don’t care how good the money is, If it’s ever dependent on my performance, absolutely not.

Not doing it, I wouldn’t do it. The stress of that was too much. Now that made what I did. For fun or cuz it was my extracurricular, it made it a job. And as soon as like in terms of CrossFit, like the second it starts to feel stressful and like it’s a job and you’re like your friend who was a golfer and it’s not fun anymore.

And you have you’re being put on a pedestal or it’s it’s a means to an end, or it’s a means to pay your bills or, and that’s the only thing you have. And then on top of that, they’re saying if, if you’re not performing, if you’re not super marketable. So if you’re not like performing really well, then there’s no point in us paying you.

It’s it’s just work towards something because you really want that thing. Whether it’s a sport, it’s CrossFit, it’s, I don’t know. There’s probably a lot of different things you could be doing to get sponsorships now. Like you travel a lot, , there are people that are bloggers, but focus on that, and when you’re doing what you’re supposed to and you’re focused on that and you’re being yourself and you’re super motivated, hopefully you’ll be noticed if you’re only doing. The work because you want that outcome, like the outcome of money or the outcome. Attention. Then what I would say is you might get that might be an outcome that you have, but there’s no longevity in it.

Yeah. 

Mike: It’s gonna be very hard to sustain the level of work it takes if that’s your only 

Brooke: motivator. Thank you so much for having me on your podcast. 

Mike: Yeah, this was a lot of fun. I really appreciate it. Why don’t we just wrap up quickly with where people can find you and your work. You had mentioned that you have a new challenge coming.

It sounds like you probably have other stuff and you have businesses, so I’m sure there are some things that maybe are new and exciting or just that people may want to know 

Brooke: about. Yeah, so you can find me on Instagram at brook nz YouTube. You can watch vlogs. You can under my name as well, B R O K E N C E.

I don’t really do Twitter. I don’t really do Facebook. N swear.com is my clothing company that. Have been working on and we’ve got a lot of great stuff in the works and we’re getting ready to launch some men’s stuff, so that’s really exciting. Also, Naked training.app. You can also download the Naked Training app on Google Play or on Apple.

We are about to launch the newest, updated version of our app, and it is incredible and we’re gonna be launching a challenge and we do transformation challenges. And this one, it’s an eight week transformation challenge. We are doing it to celebrate the launch of our new app that also has our new daily programming in addition to our program.

So the Naked Trading Program, it’s a killer program, man. You wanna get strong, you wanna be. It is a really good program, but it is not for anyone who doesn’t want to work that hard. Cause it is. It 

Mike: takes. It’s not for people who feel the need to wear two masks when they’re outside by themselves.

Brooke: No it’s not. But if you wanna get strong it’s for a few. We have at home programs at Home Dumbbell at Home Body Weight, our Peaches program. It’s well rounded, but it’s really focuses on our legs and our booty. Yeah, check it out. That’s probably, you know what I’m the most excited about? Oh, you can listen to my podcast if you want.

It might, It’s not for everybody, but enough people listen to it that they . It’s between the reps and it’s hosted by me and my best friend, Gina Chano. We do have male listeners, but a lot of female listeners. And it’s very candid, it’s very shameless. And we just talk about, we have guests on and talk about very specific topics, but we also just talk about.

Life and what we’re going through or questions that come up. And we started the podcast I had been asked to if I would do one because a company, they were wanting to get more female voices on podcasts. And at the time I was like, Ooh, I don’t know. I had friends that did podcasts. I know the effort that goes into it.

I know, and they have a lot of focus and time to put it into it. And I’m like, I don’t have that. I don’t want to say yes, but I don’t have the time to I was really stressed about it. And for me, basically I went at it from the idea and angle of here’s another format or another. It just, it’s more time that people that really wanna, get to know me or hear my thoughts or listen to me or whatever, like connect with me.

It’s another way they can do that. We said we would do it for one year. We had a contract for one year. We’d do it for a year, and if we weren’t good at it, we wouldn’t be doing it anymore if people didn’t really listen to it. So I, we wouldn’t do it anymore. But we are still doing it. We’ve been doing it for about a year and a half.

And we are surprised every time we record, we’re like, Dude, we’re still doing this. Like people still wanna listen to us , 

Mike: or you wonder is this gonna be it? Are they finally gonna get sick of it? And then eventually you’re like, I guess not. Oh 

Brooke: no. In fact, I’m going to, We had a listener email in and Gina was reading me the email and it’s basically, she explained her just some of her personal life and she’s getting married and she asked if I would be a bridesmaid and bring Gina as my date.

And I’m sitting on the couch and Gina’s reading it to me and I’m, I like, think for a minute. And I was like, Yeah, let’s go. And Gina’s seriously, really? And I’m like, Yeah. I’m like, if I can be her just in Bieber moment, if I can be her like Disney moment, I’m like, I want to do that The way we interact.

Communicate and the emails we get, and that’s why we still do it. Is it for me do we love really finding time to make sure we get our episodes done and recording ads and things like that? No, but every time we re we read our emails and the feedback we get from so many people, men and women, and I really, in a way, like a kind of a role that we’ve we’re playing in their life.

A very positive thing. That is what I find so much value in. At the end of the day, that’s all I really wanna do is help people realize their potential, help them feel better. Be healthier and truly just be happier. Yeah. Make a difference, right? Yeah. Make a difference for a lot of people. So it’s, That’s what I strive 

Mike: for.

Yeah. You’re speaking my words. I feel the exact same way. Especially with monologue, podcasts, half of them. Really none of that. I don’t enjoy it per se. I already learned about something, wrote about it, now I’m just gonna talk about it and go, Yeah, it’s inherently boring. But I know that a lot of people find it helpful.

And so that’s enough for me to sit down and just talk into my computer screen every other day, about something I already, read about and wrote about. And, it’d be more fun, quote unquote, to spend that time learning something new, for example. But it’s valuable. Exactly. Exactly. Again, thanks again for taking the time to do this.

This was a lot of fun. Yeah, 

Brooke: you’re welcome. Thanks for having, 

Mike: All right. That’s it for this episode. I hope you enjoyed it and found it interesting and helpful. And if you did and you don’t mind doing me a favor, please do leave a quick review on iTunes or wherever you’re listening to me from in whichever app you’re listening to me in.

Because that not only convinces people that they should check out the show, it also increases search visibility, and thus, it helps more people find their way to me and learn how to get fitter, leaner, stronger, healthier, and happier as well. And of course, if you want to be notified when the next episode goes live, then simply subscribe to the podcast and you won’t miss out on any new stuff.

And if you didn’t like something about the show, please do shoot me an email at mike muscle for life.com. Just muscle f o r life.com and share your thoughts on how I can do this better. I read everything myself and I’m always looking for constructive feedback. Even if it is criticism, I’m open to it. And of course you can email me if you have positive feedback as well, or if you have questions really relating to anything that you think I could help you with, definitely send me an email.

That is the best way to get ahold of me, [email protected]. And that’s it. Thanks again for listening to this episode, and I hope to hear from you soon.