Ted Talk 124: The Art Of Getting In Your Own Way To Achieve The Body You Deserve

Podcast Transcription: The Art Of Getting In Your Own Way To Achieve The Body You Deserve with Ted Ryce  

Ted Ryce: How would you like a little more motivation when it comes to achieving your health and fitness goals? Would that be nice for you? Welpartl, today we’re going to talk about why needing motivation is part of how you’re self-sabotaging. So, if you feel like you resonate with that, “Yeah, just needs more motivation,” or “I’m looking for a program that really makes sense to me. I’m looking for an influencer who really speaks to my particular problems.”

I’m going to take you behind the scenes of my business and of my business coaching and tell you some of the things that I’m learning, that I’ve been told to do to people to manipulate them into taking action.

So, if you want to understand the motivation a bit better, and the manipulation that’s going on in the health and fitness industry, well, you’re going to want to hear this episode.

What is up, my friends, I am back with another episode. If you’re just tuning in for the first time, I’m your host, Ted Ryce, leading coach to entrepreneurs, executives and other high-performers.

So, I’m in a business coaching group, and I was talking to the copywriter, the guy who’s the expert at copy. In other words, not just writing, but writing in a way to affect people emotionally to get them to buy stuff. That’s what copywriting is.

And he was saying, “Ted, man, you have this amazing program, you get incredible results. One thing I’d love to see from you, is to come up with cool names to call your methods. And that’s going to get more people paying attention to you.

Then he went on to talk about p90x, and I’m sure you’re familiar with that super famous body transformation program, 90 days, a bunch of different workouts.

And one of the things that p90x did and Tony Horton did, was he took an idea called Progressive Overload, and instead renamed it Muscle Confusion. And Muscle Confusion, that’s the thing that led to p90x becoming the, I don’t know, 100-million-dollar business that it is? People heard it, they said, “You know what that is, that’s what I’m missing. My muscles are being confused by my workouts.”

So, they buy the p90x, they do the upsells, and click on the things and buy the supplements. And certainly, some people got it and did the work and their bodies changed. p90x is a decent program, I write way better. But for a cookie-cutter program, if you don’t have any injuries, it’s a solid program. But probably the majority of people either gave it up or just bought it and never did anything with it. Maybe they tried a little bit.

Now, of course, it is good enough, a lot of people have gotten results. But I guarantee you, just like so many treadmills and Pelotons are in people’s houses, with towels and other clothes hung on them to dry, more people did not follow through than the ones who did.

I was in Playa Del Carmen, recently, just a couple months ago—actually, more than a couple, more like three, and I was hit by this idea again, as I sat down with an entrepreneur who is part of this group that I’m in, and he wanted to get in better shape. In fact, it was his main goal. He had a health scare, got COVID, spent a bunch of days in the hospital.

And he took a backseat in his business had someone to run it all. And he’s just basically collecting a check as he’s convalescing. And also looking at, okay, how do I take my health and myself to the next level?

And so, we sat down on what you might call a breakthrough call, and we did it in-person. It’s the first time I’ve done one of those since my personal training days, and it was kind of cool.

But as I began to speak to him, he’s like, “Yeah, well, I saw this…” and he’s done some coaching before with someone who is good and he got some results, but he was looking for that next level. And the person who helped him the first time around, doesn’t even do coaching anymore. So, he was looking for someone new to work with. And he’s in his early 30s, so I should give him a little bit of a break here.

And as he saw what I did, as he watched our masterclass, he saw some of the testimonials and he’s like, “But Ted, I’m looking for your unique selling proposition, your USP, your unique method.” I’m like, “Well, I have a lot of unique methods, I’ve been in this business for 23 years. I wasn’t in another profession like your other coach, and then got into this one. I’ve got so many methods; I couldn’t even come up with names for all of them. I just have a solution to every problem.”

And I could tell he was looking for me to say something that motivated him, that touched them on an emotional level, something like “muscle confusion”, he was looking for that thing, or waiting to hear that thing that lit him up and got him to sign up.

And as I was sitting there talking to him, I’m like, “I don’t even know if I want to work with someone like that. I don’t think people who need that are in such a good place.”

And so, as a result, I never even dropped the price. I didn’t even invite him into the coaching program. And then at the end of it, and I was like, “Yeah, okay, let’s just sort of end the conversation right here, I feel like you’re not really ready for coaching. You’re still trying to figure things out.” But he ended up pushing me and say, “Well, but how much is it?” And then, I was like, “Well…” I told him how much the coaching was, he’s like, “when do I need to give you an answer by?”

I already knew like, the answer’s no, man, you can’t even make a decision. And what you’re going to do is you’re going to leave, you’re going to look for that emotional, you’re going to think about our conversation, you’re going to do a cost-benefit analysis, and here’s the fucking truth, you’ve got to step up and do the work, and you’re looking for someone to tell you something that’s going to touch you emotionally, the muscle confusion, or like Insanity, he’s taking interval training and turn it on its head. There’s nothing new about any of this stuff, folks.

Now, we all have unique ways of doing things. Certainly, working with another coach—there are great coaches out there and working with them is going to be different than working with me, we all have a different way of doing it. But what struck me about this, it’s like, man, people who need that marketing to really take them to the next level, it’s part of the problem.

And what I want to ask you is, are you guilty of that? And the thing is, we see this in so many ways, for example, not to be too triggering, but we’re going to go there anyway. How many people hate Joe Biden or Trump, but don’t really understand…? Can you name the policies now— some of you can, because you’re knowledgeable about politics, and I respect that, but your average person doesn’t.

And I ask people on both sides, like, “Oh, I hate this person.” It’s like, what they know is whether they like someone or not, or more specifically, how someone makes them feel. And what I want to tell you is this: this is part of the problem, folks.

I do my best to come on here. And I’ll be honest with you, I do try to move you emotionally. I’ve taken public speaking courses, I think about my delivery. Certainly, the way we convey information is important. But if you find yourself really needing the pick-me-up, it means it’s because you don’t have it inside you. Maybe you’re looking for an excuse not to do things.

And what’s kind of interesting is so many people, the best people that I know—get this—the best people that I know in the fitness industry, they’re not the best marketers. And as a result, they don’t make the most money and the most popular people—and I want you to understand this—the most popular people are not popular because they’re so amazing. It’s because they’ve worked with a marketing team, a copywriting team, they’ve come up with cool names, they’ve delivered their information in an entertaining way. And I guarantee you, they are not the best.

Now it’s changing because guys like me, I’m more of that boring, nerdy, know my shit but don’t know how to communicate it in a way that is exciting. And that’s why when I met my business partner, Gisele, it was a match made in heaven because she was a marketing professional, she saw how good I was, she saw the client results that I got, she saw the caliber of people I worked with, and she’s like, “Man, this guy sucks at marketing.”

And because of her work and putting things together, we’ve gotten here, but I’ll tell you, there’s been a lot of struggles between Gisele and I, because she comes from a marketing angle where ethics and morality are put to the side because we do what we need to do to make money. That’s the marketing. That’s not me, by the way, just to be clear.

And I’ve had to step in a bunch of times, and this is nothing against Gisele, but we’ve had to balance our approach here and say, “Listen, I know money is important, and certainly we need that because a business can’t survive without money. Money is like oxygen for business. And certainly, we need to make more of it so that we can grow and help more people and employ more people and make bigger changes in a bigger way.”

But man, the dark side that I see a lot of people go down is they just, in the fitness business, and this goes with doctors talking about hormonal cocktails, adrenal cocktails and all the other stuff. It’s like they go that route because they’re sick and tired of trying to educate people, and they just want to put out the marketing, they want to put out what sells, regardless if it’s right or not, regardless if it really helps people or not.

And I want to be honest with you, I’ve struggled with this stuff. In fact, I’ve had Dr. Spencer Nadolski, and we’ve found a way to ride the right – or a better way to put it is to find a balance between putting out quality information and using marketing to get it out there.

Because, man, I can’t sleep at night if I didn’t do that. I feel like lying is part of –I believe that when you lie, to make money, you lack integrity. And when you lack integrity, I feel like that’s going to show up in your relationships, it’s going to show up in other places.

And I feel like we’re in a situation now where the tide is turning, but a lot of the people out there, they lack integrity. And I’m not going to name names; you’re going to have to do the thinking for yourself. And sometimes I don’t know if someone straight up lying or just ignorant, if I’m like really honest with you, but there’s a lot of it out there.

And I want to tell you this: the more popular someone is, there’s a good chance that the more fully shit they are. Or again, like I said, it could be ignorance. Someone who changed… So now I want to give you two examples of people here, I want to give you a couple examples of people. Now, do you know Layne Norton?

If not, you should follow him on social media. He rubs people the wrong way sometimes, a lot of people don’t like him. But guess what? Layne is freakin solid as a rock, in terms of integrity, he’s totally trustable.

Now it doesn’t mean he’s not wrong, because he said things about high-intensity interval training is better than steady state cardio. He said things in the past that aren’t true. And then he comes out based on new research and says, “You know what, new research came out, I felt like this was true, but it’s clear because I…” You know, he’s a great at reading studies.

He read the study, he evaluated the quality of this study, the quality of the results and said, “You know what, this is a solid study going against what I believe, and I need to change my stance on it.”

But a lot of people don’t like him because of his attitude. In other words, in one way, he’s not a great marketer, maybe I’m not an expert at marketing, maybe someone would say that’s fantastic for marketing. He’s polarizing his audience.

And another person who I’ve had on the show a few times, and so I guess I am naming names, right, is Dave Asprey. Let me tell you, Dave Asprey, he’s a pleasure to speak to—at least he was when I had him on the show—pleasure to speak to, but I don’t trust that guy at all.

And I’m not saying I know for sure he’s lying. But I don’t trust him, especially now that his business is publicly traded. And especially now when I interviewed him before—those of you who’ve been listening to the show for years, may remember those interviews.

And I said, “Dave, I’m not knowledgeable enough to know if you’re right about this or not, because he’s the one that said, ‘Oh, I ate 10,000 calories in a few days and I didn’t put on any fat and butter’s healthy for you. You know, the bulletproof coffee.”

I used to do that. I fell into it, I wanted to believe in it, to be honest. Intermittent fasting, of course, which isn’t really fasting when you’re eating like 400 calories of butter and coconut oil, but that shit ain’t good. I wouldn’t do that again. I would try to get someone not to do it, especially if they got a blood test and their cholesterol levels were out of whack.

I believe, based on the research I’ve read, and when I mean research, I don’t mean blog posts, I mean actual PubMed looking at the studies and also the people who are much better at interpreting studies, cholesterol, high cholesterol, that ain’t your friend. But there is Dave talking about it. And you can buy bulletproof coffee at Whole Foods, and other coffee shops, and Dave is likable.

Well, some people might argue against that, but he’s more likable than someone who’s quite aggressive like Layne, but Layne is super solid. I would trust that guy. I would trust the products he sells.

And I don’t know Layne that well. I’ve only had him once on the show. I’ve reached out to him again and I haven’t been able to get him back yet. Maybe I should reach out to him again and have him on the show to discuss this. But that’s an example. And that’s part of the problem.

So, what’s the solution here? And the solution is, number one is to become aware. Are you finding yoursel f instead of thinking clearly, getting swept up in your emotions, because something someone said got you excited? versus using your prefrontal cortex, the CEO of your brain to really like, okay, is this guy making, or woman for that matter, making these incredible claims about things? And how true is that? And who else agrees with them and who disagrees with them?

I read a great book recently called The Art of Impossible by Steven Kotler. And he talks about how he has a truth filter. And what he said was this, he would learn an idea and speak to four experts about it, and the experts would all agree but then that fifth expert always had something different to say about it, or some different research that contradicted what the other four said.

And so, as a result, he’s come up with this idea to listen to multiple experts and go out of his way to challenge what he believes because what’s also at work here is confirmation bias. We may already have a belief like I did back in the day, many of you know my story, I was a low carb crazy.

I got into an argument with a dietician, which a dietitian is a formally educated, went through college, went and did their internship after they got their degree in dietetics. And they’re the ones that can practice medical nutrition therapy.

So, if you had diabetes, for example, they can prescribe you a diet that can help with that. And she was overweight, and I was in shape. And I was talking to my client in the hall in the Eden Rock Resort and Spa, hot place at the time, by the way, Miami Beach, and I was telling my client, “Hey, Listen, don’t eat carrots, carrots are high glycemic, they spike your blood sugar, blood sugar spikes insulin, insulin is a fat-storing hormone.”

And this dietician walked by, and she’s like, “That’s wrong information. What you’re saying is incorrect and it’s ridiculous, telling people not to eat carrots.” And she said a couple other things and I just stood there and took it because she was a guest in the hotel, and I ain’t about to get fired from my job.

And after she left, my client said, “Oh, she’s so out of shape. I would always listen to you over her.” And she was wrong to do that. Of course, at the time, I had a relationship with her. And hey, you know, it is what it is.

But the  point here is, are we looking to confirm our beliefs? Are we looking to challenge our beliefs? And this, my friend is work, challenging what we believe to be true about nutrition, having a bigger truth filter, like Steven Kotler says, instead of just getting swept up, in the strong claims, the exaggerated claims in the marketing. Oh, gosh, the marketing.

Another example that’s coming up for me is the packaging on a product, a food product versus the ingredients label and the nutrition facts label.

So, the marketing can say something like, “super-healthy fats, gluten-free,” so on and so forth. But the reality is, that product that you have in your hands, really is just the ingredients label and the nutrition facts, you should never read, the marketing. It’s designed to sway you to buy it, not to educate you on what’s inside, to let you make your own decision about whether it’s right or not for you.

And once we start to become more cognizant of our biases and of the ways that were manipulated, we can make better decisions moving forward.

And by the way, I’m not saying that marketing is evil. I’m just saying like, is it just some flashy talk in terminology? Or is there something behind it? Is there a foundation of either real world results, or a principle?

By the way, I’m going to come up with names of my approaches, but I’m also going to back them up with the scientific principles because I do have some unique methods. But man, it’s a struggle out there a little bit. I don’t mind it, because I sleep well at night. Well, not always. But when I don’t sleep well, it’s not because I lack integrity, it’s because I wake up to pee, or something else is going on, but it’s not because I lack integrity.

And what I want to tell you is be more aware of what’s going on, be a bit more skeptical.

And here’s the thing about skepticism because people are skeptical of me. Sometimes I’m like, ‘What don’t you trust here? I tell you everything. I’ll tell you whatever you want to know. If you don’t like my fancy marketing term, I’ll tell you what the underlying physiological mechanism is, if you want, if you want to get bored, I don’t mind.”

So, what don’t you trust here? And why do you trust the other folks so much? So be more aware of that.

And it’s a personal journey that I’ve been through as well, I’m not calling you out and saying that you’re stupid and I’m not. I’ve made more mistakes than you, and this is my business. So even if you’re running a successful business, or crushing it in your career, it’s just, it’s at that point where it’s hard, even if you’re in this business, to differentiate fact from fiction.

So, if you’re not in this business, it’s even harder, because all you’ve got to go on are what people say, the people that you listen to, and so forth. And some people, I’ll give one more example and then I’ll wrap this up, like Joe Rogan.

I like Joe’s interview style, I don’t really listen to the show. And honestly, I don’t listen to that many podcasts. I do a podcast, I have my own thing. I’m going through Business Mastermind, where I have to watch a lot of different trainings on multiple, multiple things, for lack of a better word.

But Joe’s, someone who I believe has integrity. Now he’s wrong about a lot of shit. And I’m talking nutrition here. I’m not the guy to talk about politics or any of that stuff. But I’m talking specifically about nutrition.

The guy’s wrong, and what I mean by wrong is not like, “Oh, me, listen to me. I’m the expert.” No, the best evidence, the best research, the best real-world results, all of them combined, show he’s wrong, because he’s got a bias towards low carb diets, which low carb diets work. That’s not what we’re saying.

But saying there’s a unique mechanism that makes low carb diets work is false— calories, baby calories.

So, there’s not only people who are manipulating you out there, but there’s people who are, like I said earlier, who are ignorant, and they’re so lost in their confirmation bias, that you don’t want to wait around for them to pull their heads out of their ass so that they can think straight. It’s going to be several years.

One other example and then I’ll shut up here, but I’m just having these things pop up in my head, and I’ve got to share them because if I can shift you just a tad bit in the right direction, I feel like it’s my moral obligation to do so. Thomas DeLauer. Now you may or may not know that name. He recently had Layne Norton on his show.

Thomas DeLauer, you probably remember this, if you’ve been on YouTube, and you were searching for some health and fitness or nutrition thing. He’s the guy that said bananas are like poison because they have sugar in them. There was an ad that ran for a while. And this was years ago.

And he recently said on with Layne Norton, oh, man, I wish I could get that ad to go away. He’s like, “Bananas have sugar, they’re poisonous and they make you fat,” is basically what it was. I don’t remember the details. And now he changed his mind.

But if you were one of those people who watched that video—which was great marketing, I appreciate it from a marketing perspective—you listen to that and you got rid of bananas, and started eating keto ice cream or keto snacks instead, which are less satiating, and have way more calories than a banana. It’s totally ridiculous.

But you would have to wait years for him to pull his head out of his ass. And now he doesn’t say that shit anymore. And he’s more on board now. He’s a low carb diet proponent, which is cool, low carb diets are for some people. I have people who work with me, or I don’t call it a low carb diet, I’m like, “Hey, do you prefer to eat more carbs or you do prefer to eat more fat?” And they say, “I prefer to eat more fat. I like avocado. I like cheese.”

Boom, great. Let’s do it. As long as you keep your calories and your protein in check, you’re good to go. Now if they want to eat hamburgers wrapped in bacon and fried in butter, now we’ll have more of a conversation about the quality. But if they just want to eat nuts and avocado and that type of thing, coconut, that’s fine.

So anyway, don’t be the person that has to wait years to get the right answer just because you were swayed by marketing. Or if you are, it’s okay, but it means you’re a little bit gullible, right, like I was, you fell into the trap, the marketing trap, and that’s what I’m trying to save you from here. And I want to say one more thing, I know it’s one more thing after one more thing.

But I want to tell you this: the bad marketing out there, I’ve learned that it’s great for my business. I don’t get the clients right away. I get them after they watch the “bananas are poison because they got sugar” video, they tried to give up bananas, but they still ate 16-ounce ribeyes and cooked it in butter and bacon and still didn’t lose fat. I get the clients. It’s been great for business. It took me a long time. I used to get triggered by seeing that stuff. And like, “Oh, God, they’re lying. Wow.”

But now I realize it’s fantastic. All the misinformation has created an opportunity for me and guys like Spencer Nadolski and Layne Norton, for that matter, to fill in the gap. Because all sorts of people that’s the truth about the low carb and the carnivore community and the Paleo it’s like, there’s a lot of people who don’t get great results at all. In fact, they get fatter, or they don’t lose any fat or they lose some fat and they hit a plateau. In fact, maybe you’re one of them.

And then you’ve come here because the other stuff didn’t work, and you’re looking for the solution. And guess what, I’ve got it. Thankfully, I was able to pull my head out of my ass and stopped telling people, “You’ve got to stay away from those carrots. That’s the cause of the obesity, that high glycemic index in the carrots.” Yeah. So don’t fall into that trap. But if you have, well, welcome, you’re in the right place now.

And we are still working on our marketing. We’re just working on it in a careful way, so that we don’t violate any ethics because man, I just believe that that makes the world worse. I feel like I would make the world worse if I would succumb to that. Even if I helped a lot of people get in better shape and I don’t want to do it.

So, I’m going to wrap up here. But I would love to ask you, what is your big takeaway from today’s conversation, from our Real Talk conversation? How are you? Are you self-sabotaging because you’re finding, like you really need the marketing, you need that emotional trigger from whoever you’re listening to. Even me, evaluate what I say, don’t listen, “Oh, I really like Ted.” Great. I want to be liked, to be honest, I’d rather people like me than hate me. Not afraid to admit that.

But I want you to think for yourself here. I want you to be skeptical. I want you to evaluate claims. But I want you to do it with everyone. And especially the more flashy the graphics and the, you know, this is how the banana poisons you and makes you fat. So, what are you taking away? What awareness did you gain? What actionable step can you take from listening? That’s what I want you to go do.

Have an incredible weekend. I care about you so much. I want you to know that. I want you to win. I want you to win with your health. So, what can you do to make this actionable today? Go do that. See you on Monday. Have an amazing weekend. Speak to you then.