The Mindset Forge
In Season Five, The Mindset Forge focuses on helping men between 40 - 60 years old maximized this chapter of life by building strength, discipline, purpose and a proactive mindset.
During Season's one through four, you will fantastic content focused mainly on successful athletes and performing artists who've learned how to show up for the big moments of sports, performance and life.
The Mindset Forge
Overcoming Testicular Cancer with a Fitness Mindset w/ Randy Herring
In an extraordinary conversation with Randy Herring, we peel back the layers of his transformative journey and examine how the synergy of mindset and fitness empowered him to overcome the challenges of three-time testicular cancer. Can the discipline and resilience built in the gym translate into life-altering personal strengths? Randy, an author, athlete, and cancer survivor, shares his compelling story, revealing not just the physical battles fought in the gym, but the inner battles won through mental fortitude.
Randy's fascinating journey started when he was just 15 - a young man finding his way through the world of fitness, building not just muscle but self-worth in a society dominated by social media expectations. He shares enlightening insights about the importance of exercising accurately—the emphasis on feeling each rep, understanding one’s strength, and being wary of the lure of emulating bodybuilders without proper knowledge. Gain invaluable insights about the necessity of having a dynamic approach to exercise, one that flexibly allows you to adjust weights and reps to optimize your training.
The conversation further unravels the clinical challenges Randy faced on his journey. He candidly discusses his testosterone replacement therapy, the struggle with weight gain post-divorce, and his motivating decision to challenge himself with home workouts during the pandemic. We delve into the realm of maintaining muscle mass as we age, building strength, and developing a fitness mindset. Discover how Randy's experiences can inspire you to develop resilience, discipline, and a fitness mindset of your own!
Randy’s website: https://thefitnessmindsetbook.com/
and Link Tree:
https://linktr.ee/thefitnessmindsetbook
YouTube
https://youtube.com/@TheFitnessMindset
Email: Barton@bartonguybryan.com
Website: http://bartonguybryan.com
Use this link to get a 30 minute discovery call scheduled with Barton regarding the Team Bryan Wellness Concierge Fitness Program
https://calendly.com/bartbryan/conciergecoachingcall
My 3 Top Episodes of the first 100:
7 Essentials to Building Muscle after 40
3x Olympic Gold Medalist Brendan Hansen
MMA Strength and Conditioning Coach Phil Daru
How the discipline of your mindset and your work ethic in the gym can help you overcome even the worst possible diagnosis. You are listening to the Mindset Forge Podcast and Barton Bryan, your host. I'm always talking to men 40 to 60 about how to maximize this chapter of life. It's a tough time to not be on your game, to not be disciplined, focused, have daily habits, be thinking about strength training, cardiovascular exercise and staying as healthy and fit, both mentally, physically, as possible. That's my goal always to help you guys get a little bit better and come up with new concepts, new ideas that you can put into your life, both for discipline, for daily habits and to maximize your strength.
Speaker 1:Today I'm interviewing Randy Herring. He's an author and he's gone through some major battles in his life with testicular cancer, not once, not twice, but three times. You know how he got through it. Well, you've got to listen to the episode, but you're going to find out how all the things that we're talking about today reinforced and helped him overcome the challenges that it faced him because of cancer. This is an excellent episode because I would definitely listen to it with the ears of like what can Randy teach me about what I need to do right now to become stronger, healthier, more disciplined? In case something like what he went through happens to me, how do I get through it? How do I use my brain, my body and working out to make sure I'm at my best?
Speaker 1:All right, before we kick this off, if you haven't been to my YouTube channel yet, check it out, because I've got some great videos on strength training, on mobility, flexibility things that you can do to keep your body as healthy as you're doing the weight training, so you don't get injured and you're developing total body movement patterns that are going to maximize your results. Check that out. Finally, if you'd like to hire me as a coach, you can always do that by sending me an email, barton, at bartonguybriancom, and we'll set up a discovery call see if we're a fit for each other. All right, without further ado, my interview with Randy Herring. I'm here with Randy Herring, a 61-year-old athlete and really an author, who's gone through a very specific chapter in his life and has come out the other side to really talk to people men, really in that the adrens that I'm focused on, really helping make an impact with that 40 to 60 group, and how to maintain or build muscle, stay healthy and use fitness to really maximize your health and live your best life.
Speaker 1:Your book the Fitness Mindset. You've got seven peak performance habits.
Speaker 1:All right, I'm just staying in incredible shape. Let's just dive in with those. The first one is choose proper food, macronutrients, rages and to really help promote your goals, to change your body and change your physique.
Speaker 2:It's a very important element in getting fit. Yes, but in my book I talk more about keep moving your body. In my book I have the ranges that people can use to discover from themselves what the best macronutrient range is good for them, for their goal and not just their goal, but their activity level Right.
Speaker 1:One of the scientific information coming out is that obviously there's two ways to keep and even build muscle tissue. One obviously is working out like lifting weights, strength training. The other one is actually increasing your protein intake, especially for women. I know this is a men's focused podcast, but it works for both of us, men and women. But there's a lot of new information for men and women on how just increasing your macronutrient ratios around protein can help you keep and even gain a little bit of muscle mass, especially if you've been at a protein deficit for so long.
Speaker 2:Correct yeah.
Speaker 1:So his book obviously goes into a lot of how to stay healthy, how to stay optimal, but also why your story is important for men to hear. Take us back at some years, to when your health started to really change and what happened to you and how you were able to deal with that.
Speaker 2:Well, if you want to hear the whole story in a nutshell, basically I was 15 years old. I felt all my confidence was pretty low. I was skinny and I didn't have many friends in school and high school. And so I bought a small weight, set for myself and thinking that I would work out, thinking that exercise will help me build muscle. That was my frame of mind. So what I did without not knowing anything about nutrition but eating correctly protein, carbs, whatnot can even gain weight I started working out in the morning before school. When I got home in the afternoon and in the evening just doing what I could, having fun in my garage on my toy box, what I still had for my bench. So I did that for about six months. I did gain, but only like five or 10 pounds within six months. So then I sent away for this food regimen from a universal bodybuilding and I don't recommend this, but it did work and it does work. But I ate and ate and ate every day for six meals a day. I would eat two breakfasts before going to school. We could put six o'clock in the morning. Again, this is I had the desire to change myself. This is what it's all about the desire. If you don't follow what you should be doing, then you're not going to change.
Speaker 2:Let me go forward here. I used to work at general nutrition center and I asked these guys so they want to gain weight, right. I asked these guys so what are you eating to gain weight? And here they are, they're saying, oh, I'm eating egg whites, I'm eating chicken. It's like no, eat high calorie foods. Right, it's protein and carbs.
Speaker 2:So going back now, when I was 15, so in about one year oh, I'm sorry about in eight months I gained about 50 pounds. Now I was skinny and so I had more fat. I had fat, actually, so I felt good about myself. But then I slept down and sent a program. I sent away for a program Art of Swarsh Nuggets program and in about two or three months I lost about I think about 30 pounds of weight in about I think three months, three or four months. So all in all, I mean I had a before picture and after picture on my website, my story, and that's within the year that I did it in. So if I did that, I felt better and I felt more confident I was and I felt more athletic, which I was and everything again. It changed my life.
Speaker 1:When you're 15, 16, 17,. It's almost like everything in your body is wants to grow right. You're growing taller. You have all these new hormones, things that are like pumping, that want your body to adapt to whatever you put to it, so you can do crazy things like workout three times a day and just I mean, and there's optimal ways to do it, I'm sure, and even the Arnold Schwarzenegger like workout program was probably way too many sets Like no, you know, that was probably what 1980 or 1978, something like that yeah, late 70s.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah. But I mean, and I'm, you know, 48. So I grew up still like I remember buying the encyclopedia bodybuilding, arnold Schwarzenegger's great Bible of bodybuilding and and, just you know, eating up all the different arm exercises and things that I was supposed to do. And you know we're learning quickly. You know, in this kind of world of like fitness and bodybuilding and kind of physique that you know you don't necessarily need that much volume to still you really adapt and get strength. But it's also cool to go through that journey. I think there's a mental and Mindset side of that, like whether or not it was optimal or not what are not. You could have done it with a little bit less food or a little bit less, you know, body fat gained. It still was like a Testimate to who you decided you wanted to be at a time where a lot of people and especially nowadays, like a lot of people Are just giving up on health and fitness, like they're not good at sports.
Speaker 1:They don't get any Validation from being like from their physique, and so they end up like playing video games, you know, like staying inside kind of being a gamer or or getting like kind of. You know, and this is kind of the reality of today, especially with social media, like I said, you can kind of insulate yourself from kind of the scariness of like putting yourself out there and, you know, getting caught with your shirt off.
Speaker 2:I mean, that was always like a very thing for me.
Speaker 1:It was like oh my god, I have to take my shirt off, you know, because I was chubby. I was chubby in junior high in your middle school, seventh, eighth, ninth grade I was chubby, and then the summer between ninth and tenth, I got chicken pox and lost 20 pounds In about 10 days I just like sweated and I woke up. I mean there couldn't have been that quick, but like it, literally in 10 days I woke up and I was like six foot 150 and just like whoa a little bit of muscle but mostly.
Speaker 1:But I was like kind of the chubby, like had you know kind of boy breasts like you know, Just the kind of awkward you know chubby kid in junior high. And I've determined at that moment I'm like I'm never getting overweight again. I am, you know, I was I was already trying to work out. I just didn't know what I was doing and I didn't, I didn't, you know, my body hadn't really kicked in, and yeah yeah, kind of stuff.
Speaker 1:So, anyway, it's a. It's such an important kind of moment that you found you know In that 15 year old, 16 year old self that you're like this is me, and so fast forward, fast forward to you later on in life when that mindset and that kind of discipline that you had when you were 15, 16, came back to help you so Within the year, like you saying to that, I didn't know exactly what I was doing, I just did it and Everything back there was not optimal, it wasn't, but it was a good, quick start for my body and it got me more interested in knowing what I did and could do.
Speaker 2:So moving forward to Well, it was 15, 16, now I'm 61, so I've been working out now for 45 years. So during that time of those 45 years I've also been working out in other countries where I was. So I had to do what I had to do to Maintain my, my health and my fitness and my strength, or to lose fat, gain muscle for my wedding to look good, right. But it wasn't until the couple years ago that that how, how focused I am in training. And actually chapter 2 talks about Focusing on you Exercising in the gym, what you're doing at that moment, not looking around what people do. All the time.
Speaker 2:Other people say what are they doing? Wow, nice, you know. So they tend to lose focus. But but you're there for yourself. It's a selfish thing, which is a good thing. Focus on you. Chapter 2, and actually wrote chapter 2 In my book that was written mostly in the gym with me, with me Knowing what I was going through in my head, my body, I, I take a small short break right down my notes here, what I was feeling and and, with all that in mind and my experience in journaling, pretty much Summed up chapter 2 and and that's keep your focus and and focus on you. So, with that in mind, I use that, I think to my benefit, and with my knowledge, to help others to focus on themselves and not other people in the gym to Do at your task at hand. This, like the movie John Wick. You see that right, john Wick he is so focused laser focused on doing the task.
Speaker 2:I mentioned him in my the last part of my chapter 2 die because of his dog.
Speaker 1:What a great story. And he was my dog. I'm going to kill everybody.
Speaker 2:About point I mentioned him. My book is that he had a task and he wanted to do and he did it. He was focused on the taxes. That's what we should do in the gym focus on us. Why were there every, every rep? Not wait for the last, not wait for the Last rep, but every single rep should count. So that's what makes a difference with with training, the quality right. When you focus on the quantity of the training, like I did, my three set to ten, for example Tell me that doesn't make sense because they probably hold out on their lap on the first set. There's no way, if you're going all out with the the quality of your training, you can perform the same number of repetitions your last set as you did on your first set should be less.
Speaker 1:Right so that if you're doing, if you're doing, 135 times ten resting two minutes doing another 135 times ten and then the third set, you get 135 times ten again. It means the first set was Nowhere close.
Speaker 2:Exactly taking your muscle. So, yeah, that's what's holding a lot people back. I believe, too, is that it's that mindset, it's a three by ten mindset.
Speaker 1:Yeah Well, two things I love about you what you said. First thing is and I talked about this in a recent podcast kind of the honorable selfishness of Working out, like you have to honor the time that you have right there in the gym or whatever you're doing, like it's not about anybody else, it's not about who's texting you, it's not about what everyone else is doing, it's about your workout, your time, your like the work, your work right, and I think it's easy. It's easy to do that when you have a program. But the problem with the program is exactly what you say. We start getting an addicted to the number and it's like well, the program says three sets of ten, that's what I'm gonna do, check the box, I did well.
Speaker 1:But the other side of that is exactly what you're saying like you've got to feel every rep. You got to be getting at least close to failure. You know, talk about ready to perceived exertion. You know ten being like failure, nine being like one rep before failure, like we need to be getting eight, nine, you know, in that range at least you know, per sep, so that we're really getting Stimulation of the muscle, you know. And? And then the other piece of that is. It's like people also just often go too heavy, and I think specifically for this, 40 to 60 I mean you're 61, so you've kind of been through this chapter. That that I'm on right now and that my lot of my listeners are on is like you know, you don't want to come out the other side so injured that you, you just can't, you can't, you can't do it anymore. So you have to, you have to be smart about you know this the reps and the sets and the weight and and what you know, making sure you're stimulating the muscle effectively and not just overloading the joint.
Speaker 2:Talk about exactly. Yeah, so, yeah. So when looking at the social media Instagram, little Facebook and looking at these videos of of these bodybuilders or pyrolyphters squatting with the tremendous amounts of weights, deadlifting, so these people become iconic to a lot of people and they want to do the same thing, right? So I cringe and seeing young people do that just for like a one rep max. Five reps, okay, good, but one rep max max, not your weight, because you want to do what this person did in the gym who has a lot more experience, who is, you know, awfully bigger and more knowledgeable. Straight training is a very good thing to do. It's the optimal thing to do, but on the other end of the spectrum, it can be very dangerous if people aren't educated and knowing what works best for them too, and just following the other person.
Speaker 1:Yeah, no, and that's the. You know the I'm not enough problem.
Speaker 1:You know if I'm, if I feel not enough, and I go to Instagram and I start let's go on through and I see this 30 year old power lifter doing you know dead lists with 495 for reps, and I'm like man, I wish I could do that. And then I'm like. And then the next time I'm at the gym I'm like. All of a sudden I'm like maybe I could wonder what I could do, maybe I could put four plates on and all you know. And when you're young, like, there's a little bit more flexibility in the terms of like your body's more adaptable and less likely to just get injured from one dumb idea, like like just trying to max out and having no idea, like what your body can and can do. But when you get into your 40s and 50s, like you're, you're playing with fire if you're going in there without a plan and without an awareness of like what, what your body's capable of and what it's not capable of.
Speaker 1:I always attribute to like music. Right, If you tell someone to play loud, it's going to be one volume bang, bang, bang, bang bang on the piano. Play soft, Like there is no, there's no dynamic, there's too dynamic. Loud and soft.
Speaker 1:Right, you tell you get a newcomer in the gym, they're either going to you know, they've got very few variables to work from there, because they don't have the coordination, they don't have the awareness of what their body can and can't do, they don't have any muscle maturity. And that's what you learn as you do the reps and you do the day in, the day out, the weekend, week out, the year in and year out. We're talking about 40 plus years, you know of, of working out myself, you know I mean I had some moments where I was traveling, I didn't work out consistently, but, but for the most part, since I was 13, 14 years old, I've been trying to get in the gym and working out, and I'm 48 now. So I understand the nuances of, like you know, overloading the, the fatiguing the body, but not so much that I regret it the next day and and how many low back loading exercises I should be doing.
Speaker 1:You know, if I'm doing a back day and I have a T bar row where I'm wearing a belt and I'm loading a lot of weight onto my you know, into my low back so I can row it, I'm probably thinking about like a chest supported row or a cable movement. That's less. That's not going to get a quick continue to add more and more load into my low back, because at some point the little back fatigues and then it just becomes an issue of like, hey, I'm, you know, the next day my low back sore or potentially injured, like, so there's all those little nuances we have to consider, especially as we get older, right, but there's. But there's also medical stuff that you went through. That, I think, is really important to hear and I really want you to go into that, not just you as a, as a lifetime lifter, but when you had some medical stuff come up and how fitness and working out really helped. You see that through.
Speaker 2:Okay, so I am a free time to take your cancer survivor and the first occurrence of cancer occurred in 2009. I suspected because I looked down there and it's like, wow, it's not normal. But you know what? I went to the doctor and to take myself out and lo and behold, the doctor didn't say anything different about me. So I kind of found it myself right. So part of what I've learned through right now everyone, everyone everyone listening right now is going like what did he see? Like what Don't visualize that right?
Speaker 1:Yeah, let's like imagine.
Speaker 2:but here we go back to your story, but I want to go back to that. Just what strength training, weight training, whatever it has made me more aware of my body, and that's a big plus, I think, that people have when they actually exercise and work out. So I was aware of this growth, and I that was 2009. So I was actually in the airport going to Florida to see my brother and his wife for vacation a lot of the two boys who were then, I think, 2009. Wow, they're pretty young and so I got a phone call from the doctor at the airport saying that he wants to see me. Well, I said sorry, you can't because I'm on vacation now, so I'm just going to. I just went with it, had fun, came back, took care of, took care of the surgery business and took care of that, and so everything was good. I didn't take any.
Speaker 1:To be clear, did you have both testicles or one testicle removed?
Speaker 2:They removed my left testicle, just one, my left one. So now visualize everybody, I got one testicle left, okay? So then, so I still had testosterone, right? Okay, that's good, okay. So I did my thing here. Lo and behold, 10 years to the almost to the exact same well, month and date, I had a second recurrence of cancer testicular. My right testicular, my right testicle, had cancer. So I went in and they removed it and I had one round of chemo, that's all. I was kind of maybe a little sick my first time having it, and so therefore, at that time I had no testosterone, you know, because I had no balls, seriously, right.
Speaker 1:So male hormone. So in the place you're going to get testosterone from.
Speaker 2:Right so, but I continued to work out. Of course, the doctor had me on TRT testosterone replacement therapy that I was taking, so this is after my second.
Speaker 1:Do you remember the dosage?
Speaker 2:Yeah, the first dosage was, I think, a hundred milligrams, 0.5 cc. Yeah, I think it was 0.5 cc per week.
Speaker 2:Yes, because then I had to get a check and see where my numbers were at, and of course, they have a range where you should be at that's optimal for health, and so I had everything adjusted based on that range. So that was 2000, okay, 2019, when I had my going back sorry, my left my right testicle removed and so no testosterone on testosterone replacement therapy. That's actually when, a few months ago, that I decided to make a transfer transformation of myself because I got fat. I went through divorce and I remember this to my. I was in Las Vegas, my mom lives there and she's sent across from me from the table at a restaurant and she says to me this is mom right. She says to me honey, are you okay? I said no, mom, I'm not. My genes are tight. I don't feel good about myself and that was just a, for me, a magical moment. Like you know what, I'm tired of it. So I went back home to Spokane, washington, put myself on a training regimen here and eating well and and changed my good change, my, my eating habits, eating cleaner. Unfortunately, I got cancer the again.
Speaker 2:Now fast forward to the second occurrence in July 2019. And and so I didn't start writing my book until, I believe, I think a year after that, because then COVID-19 hit Right, so I wrote part of it and so I thought you know what I'm going to use COVID-19. I'm going to challenge myself Because, with the government closing down the gyms, chris made me angry. It wasn't very even any kind of fitness and theory. The ass would be upset. So I worked out at home, did my wall sets, did my bands, did my cardio with my bands to as well. And you know what, within 50 days in my book 50 days I was stronger, I was fitter and I had more definition, all because of my training regimen. I put myself through every single day. That's the mindset. So so then, now fast forward to 2021, a post, my book and then, about five months after that, I got a third recurrence of disticular cancer. Okay. So I asked the doctor doctor, how's that possible?
Speaker 1:How does that work? It's a miracle.
Speaker 2:Right. So he told me. He told me well, before baby boys are born, their testicles sit right here, yeah, and when they're born they actually drop down, so the drainage of my, whatever it is, sits right here. They found the cancer right here Behind my, yeah, just below my chest cavity, and so so they did a biopsy. For sure it was.
Speaker 2:I went through 40 bags of chemotherapy in 10 weeks, okay. During that time, the worst thing that I experienced was constipation. I could not eat, I could not drink because I was so constipated because the medication they give you because the chemotherapy caused this too, and I'm a person who eats six times a day I need to poop, but I couldn't. I didn't want to eat because I was basically walking poop, but I still worked out what I could. In the gym I actually was doing 315 pound deadlifts to set to 10. My hair was I lost my hair by then and you know in on social media proud of that myself because look, look what I could do even go through chemotherapy. And so, after all that was said and done the chemo and the cancer I got blood clots from those two things, so they had to.
Speaker 2:The doctor took me off of testosterone, and this was another challenge, very upsetting, right? Guys what needs testosterone? That's what makes them guys the drive right. But you know what? I was really angry with him. I talked to you, you know so. But a challenge here's a challenge I'm going to work out, I'm going to go all out, and you know what I don't? I really believe that it's not testosterone that helps you build muscle, but protein. Eating well, right, break down tissue in the gym. Eating well protein builds the tissue back up. So that's why I say on social media at one point can a man live without testosterone? Can a man work out without testosterone? Can he make improvements? And all those answers are yes, yes, yes.
Speaker 1:So you had a point in which you had zero testosterone. Exactly, and you were still working out and still getting stronger.
Speaker 2:I wouldn't say stronger, but I would say I was holding my own.
Speaker 1:You were maintaining your muscle, but I believe I was With stronger.
Speaker 2:I would say, whenever you say strong, I'm always comparing myself to what I did in my journal last time With a certain weight. So if it means like another rep or two of the same weight, yeah, I was getting stronger, yeah, so so that was a challenge. And you know and that's when I actually revised my preface in my book because I wanted to add that in there that you know, yeah, you can, and I had a lot of hormonal imbalances and changes and I still do. And this sling has been bothering me for six weeks because they had rotator cuff surgery six weeks ago because of all the heavy lifting for 45 years. No regrets, man, no regrets. But when it gets repaired I'll be back in the gym full bore. But that doesn't mean I wasn't working out. I still have this one arm. I'll sell this my right side of my body, but it still worked out. I still work out. You can still do it, I'm still good.
Speaker 1:Well, one of the biggest things that I mean all people but men specifically, do not want to do as they get into their 50s and 60s and beyond is lose muscle, Lose that muscle mass.
Speaker 1:And because it's not really a factor when you're 40 and 50, but when you're getting into your late 60s, early 70s, that's when you start falling and busting your hip or shattering your femur or doing something that basically, is the determining factor for how quickly you're going to die. The numbers for people in their 70s who fall and bust their hip, the amount of people that die in the next year after that hip injury, is exponential. It's 60%. It's ridiculous because when our leg strength, our ability to decelerate our knee or the ability to stabilize our hip, we step off a curb, we fall to the ground and obviously the bone density is going down to all those things play into it. And so the work you do now right, the work you do now 61, like you are, but me 48, everyone wants to go to the gym and build a bunch of muscle, and the older you get, the less likely that's going to happen, unless you go on a high dose of TRT.
Speaker 2:It's been realistic. Right, you've got to have realistic goals. You have to.
Speaker 1:But remember that everybody else is dropping body muscle consistently, year after year, and if you are gaining a little bit or even maintaining what you have, you are going the opposite direction.
Speaker 2:For most men that are not, Exactly, that's the point Stay ahead of the game before, in all due respect, before you lose some of when you get older. So, staying ahead of the game, like you mentioned here, people do. They're not aware of their posture, where their leg, where they're walking or whatnot, and, yes, they get hurt when they get older.
Speaker 2:So, part of again going back to bodybuilding or weight training, strength training- it makes you aware of your body and your posture and your movement, your biomechanical movements. That's a great benefit when you get older. So I've got to add to that. I'll tell you too that the only medication I take is kumudan right now for my blood clots. Before that I was taking a second gavel pin and an antidepressant, but the antidepressant was to curve my hot and cold flashes I've had without taking testosterone, when you hadn't been off of that before, but I decided just to keep myself on that. But when I read about kumudan slowing down your brain and I decided to basically stop taking it. Cold turkey and this antidepressant, and so during my past few days since Friday actually I don't consider myself a super person, but having the draws from those is a big thing. But you know what? It doesn't last forever. I always say to some people we have our cycle, life goes up and down, but it doesn't last forever. So when I start feeling better without the medications and how I'm feeling now, then I'm going to be picking them more up the speed, of course, not going full bore, but being smart in my training and being smart in what I eat and being smart in how I interact with people, what I say and what I do. So I think the most important thing I want to tell people out there is keeping your mind active, because the body does follow the brain, the mind, and by saying that I mean read and digest books that are beneficial for you in self-improvement.
Speaker 2:My degree is in philosophy. I've taught philosophy in college and that's my second passion, next to fitness, and so that's a real big thing for me and, I think, for a lot of people out there, because we have a lot of things out there. Keep your mind active, not focused on what you did before, and relishing those moments of like look what I did, look at me, look what I did back then here, but fast forward to the future, not living the past. That to me, is a big deal, because I think a lot of people in my age, in my school days, they, they, they relish on the past too much, but not the future, for what still lies ahead for them.
Speaker 2:I'm 61 and I I read and study philosophy books. I'm actually working on my next book coming up Hopefully get published this this month a Philosophy of life for personal growth, for personal and spiritual growth. Right, so it's just not fitness, it's the way you Live your life and and that your own, your mindset. And people can have a mindset you know and they don't want to change, right, I mean, I know a lot of people like that. That, to me, is unfortunate, because you have to remain open to change.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that's the only way you can improve yourself.
Speaker 1:It's that fixed mindset versus a growth mindset and Exactly what I love that you said you know you're just talk about kind of the Fitness is. You know some people like, assume, oh, like, oh, he just likes to be in the gym, he just sees a gym rat, but, like. But. Working out is a first of all, it's a Mental exercise done physically. That is my first trainer, gary Mann, back in high school, would always say to me it's like the mental exercise you are teaching your brain to be stronger and adapt to more and more discomfort. Like that is what we're doing through the fitness, but cool.
Speaker 2:But also the other.
Speaker 1:Thing is because we don't toil in the fields all day and we don't go off to war or, you know, have to fight our neighbors for resources, right, like we don't have these kind of Fight or flight things happening all the time, like the gym is almost like an opportunity for us to can daily test our you know strength, our ability, our mindset, our discipline, all these things, and it's it's, it's really a proving ground for who you think you are right, like we are, what we do Every day. And if you're somebody who goes to the gym every day, puts in the work, challenges yourself, pushes yourself, like that is who you are and that is a very that's something to like rest your confidence on, like that's somebody you know, that's that's a place to say you know what. I worked hard today. I can go take care of other people. I can go do my thing.
Speaker 2:I feel good about who I am perfect, yeah, and I don't think that ever goes away.
Speaker 1:I mean obviously modifies based on, like your, you know how, your age, and injuries and and, and you know, medical situation. Obviously, you've gone through so much and here you are like kind of telling us you know, never stop, never. You know, because I think it is, it's when we quit on ourselves, it's when we say, oh, now I have cancer, I can't do any of that stuff anymore. You know it's, you're almost quitting on your, on that kind of Survival instinct to always be improving.
Speaker 2:Fight back, I mean. I mean I mean what else is there? I mean Sit in the corner and cry. You know that. You know even the way I'm thinking. This last few days here I was feeling kind of down but you know it's like I last forever and it's knowing. It's knowing what you should be doing, but are not but. But it's just stepping into the gym for the first time or a second time or third time. It's hard to get back. Understand that for a lot of people. But just just making that move Can set you off and the whole new, different kind of person you know just go in the gym for 20 minutes.
Speaker 1:Go in there. Yeah, exactly three exercises, three sets, yep, I mean, and just and just until does that be intense? You feel a burn you know, do machines if you're nervous about hurting yourself, to do something. Might might the same trainer, gary Mann. He would say, barton, yeah, do something even if it's wrong.
Speaker 1:And they were, you know it's a funny joke but it was like like I mean we get so caught up and like, well, I don't know what to do and it's what's like like, do something. Like move weight, yeah, do something. That you know is that that is, you know, a squat, a lunge, a deadlift, a push, a pull, like it's that set or a plank, or jog on a treadmill, something. Do something right, like it's not that complicated, it really isn't, and it's doing that daily.
Speaker 1:And I think you know, brandy out, you're a testament to somebody who you know found fitness early in your life to kind of overcome anxiety and, and you know, feeling kind of you know not socially kind of who you wanted to be, but then allowing that to kind of propel your entire life. And then, when real Hard challenges like cancer showed up again and again and again, you had that as a benchmark, as a, as a kind of a thing that you kind of sharpened your Sword against every day to keep you in in the right mental and physical space. And so I honor you man.
Speaker 2:Thank you, appreciate you saying that, thank you love that.
Speaker 1:You shared your story in the book and you've got the seven habits of the high performance and in the show notes. You guys can find the link to his to where to get the book. You'll also I'll share his YouTube page.
Speaker 1:You can watch some of his videos, like when he's got no hair and he's deadlifting three hundred fifteen pounds you know, have fun with get to know Randy a little bit more and and Remember that, like especially if you're in your 40s and early 50s, like like this is such an important time and how you get through it We'll determine how the rest of your like the 60, 70s and 80s, because when we're already kind of broken by the time we're 65, it's really hard to kind of pick ourselves back up and and get that physique and strength back and so put in the work. Right, well said, awesome, randy. Hey, thanks so much, man. I appreciate you giving me your time.
Speaker 1:You know what I got from that interview. You never know what life's gonna throw you, but you know what you do know if you're working out every day, if you're developing your mindset, your discipline, your habits, then no matter what challenges come your way, you're gonna have the skill, the knowledge and the discipline to get through it as best you can. Randy is a testament to hard work. I definitely recommend checking out his book Fitness mindset, where he goes much deeper into those categories and you can hear more about his mindset and his personal experience. Thanks again for listening to the mindset forage podcast. You.
