Gunnar Peterson: It's Sexy to Try

28:00Ryan Hanley:I don't think most women do disagree with you. And on this show, the one rule we have is we have to live in reality, which is why I guess I currently fall under the heading of maybe a more conservative take on the world, strictly because we just need to operate in how the world actually works. And frankly, I love a strong female, and I actually seek them out in terms of the partners I've had in my life. And it's not about, I think, where we get lost in here is, in this discussion, is like, you know sexism and all and it's not what it's about it's like it's like here's what i know how how god created us god created men to be dispensable he created women to be indispensable they're the only ones that keep the species going our job as men is to take the arrows and the rocks and the gunshots to protect the women not because they're weak not because they're incapable but because they're the ones that make new little humans and we need them.

29:01Ryan Hanley:And like, this is part of reality. And we, hang on, we both make them. They need us to make them. But in my experience, they do so much better at taking care of them in those early years from, you know, if you're going to get to the feeding, the whole thing, my wife gravitates towards our babies way more than I do. I gravitate when they hit like that four year point. And I'm like, babe, take a girl's weekend. I got them. And then we're doing dad stuff from four on. When our daughter, our youngest got leukemia a year and a half ago and went to the hospital, my wife did not leave the hospital. That's where that stopped.

29:46And she said, I'm not leaving. And I said, I get it. And I stayed there with her for a couple of days. And then I said, sweetie, this is a really bad use of our time. I think I need to go back to work and I need to make sure that our son has as normal a life as we could expect him to have while his sister is going through this and his mother is going to be here. We have to think not just of her, but of him. And she agreed. And he and I ended up doing some real bondings, the wrong term. But we did some stuff that you certainly wouldn't have known that his family was going through anything this severe.

30:27We took, you know, travel soccer. That is, as anybody who knows, travel sports is unrelenting. Like, they don't care. He and I were driving, Kentucky, Alabama, Cincinnati, St. Louis. Like, we're driving together, and we're making the best of it. If he were an infant, I would be struggling with that. That would be tough for me. Whereas my wife rocks that. The woman, my wife is great in that way. But at the same time, I'll do the dishes. I'm not saying you're relegated to housework while I go out and kill saber-toothed tigers. I'm fine sharing on both ends of that. If she has an income-producing job, great.

31:08If not, I still maintain that her job as a household person and child caregiver is as important, if not more important than my job. But I'm also fine to share that workload at home. But she is better at certain things when they're little, to your earlier point.

31:26Ryan Hanley:And I think I think to tie it all the way back around, it is our job as men, whether our females need us in this role or not, to be physically prepared to defend as you know, we don't have to be jujitsu stars, you don't have to go do boxing, but just physically fit enough to put up some sort of defense in the event that someone comes to take your shit. like what I say what I say to people in my world what to what you said to your friend I go look I'm not saying you have to be a bodybuilder I'm saying you have to look like you take care of your body you have to look like the same way you brush your teeth you wash your face you comb your hair you get haircuts you have to look like you're taking care of the machine that is taking care of you you don't have to right it doesn't have to be like the car that's always got the fresh coat of wax on it and it's show ready, but you have to look like you care and you're taking care of it.

32:25So I, I, I see what you said to your buddy. And I think it's awesome that you're that honest and direct to them. I have a couple of friends I've called them like, and they get, they are overweight and they, you know, they bitch and moan about certain things. And I go, dude, you're literally on the road to killing yourself. Like you're at the point now where you're about to get the diabetes phone call, where you're about to have the heart attack phone call, weight range, age range, stress level range. Those things are coming unless you make active changes. Oh, come on, dude. How can you say that to me?

32:58Because this is my world. I see this every day.

33:01Ryan Hanley:When's the last time you saw an obese 80 year old? You've never exactly doesn't exist. You don't make it that long. So if you're going to be obese, you're basically saying I'm okay with my life being 10 to 15 years shorter than it would have been normally because you just simply won't survive. You know, I look, I don't, I know some people are built differently. They have bigger bones and wider sets and, and all that's fine, but none of it means that you need to, that just this, this we've been sold this lie that you just kind of like limp into the second half of your life and take some pharmaceuticals and like manage the pain into when you ultimately everything goes black.

33:41Ryan Hanley:Like that to me is completely fucking bananas and I refuse to accept it. It's what you said. I won't go quietly. Don't go quietly. And I say this to people. I go, don't shoot the messenger. We're all going to die. And there's zero. There are zero guarantees that my dumb ass coming here at 435 in the morning, working out, spending the time, making the right choices at the menu, blah, blah, blah. I could die today. I could die tomorrow. It could be a heart attack. Somebody could break in here and shoot me. And my car spins out. I reckon a million different ways for that to go down. But the things I can control, if they're not that difficult, people go, you work out two hours a day.

34:16That's ridiculous. I go, is it? It's less than 10 % of my week. It's less than 10 % of my week. How about that? And I'm the psycho that enjoys it. I learned a long time ago, if I can convince myself, which now I don't have to do, it's just ingrained, to enjoy the process, all the rest is gravy. How you look, all that stuff. That's just cool. That just happens. My wife says, hey, sweetie, we're going to this. They do say you have to dress for this. I don't go, oh, fuck, what fits? Well, I know it all fits. I know everything. I can put anything, anything I own I can wear. Whether I like how it feels is one thing.

34:54But I know it all fits. I'm not choosing between my fat boy clothes and my thin boy clothes because I've harnessed all that. And that's just another confidence feather, right? That just goes right in the cap. I'm like, I feel good going out. I don't spend 15 minutes going, what am I going to wear? Will this fit? Will this look? We're good. And those are little things that add up over the course of your 40s, 50s, and 60s where there's a lot. You reduce a lot of stress by reducing stress by training, I think, by taking care of yourself.

35:33Ryan Hanley:I couldn't agree more. It's the basis of my whole life. I'm a seven day a week worker outer, um, all different types of working out, everything, hot yoga to boxing, to powerlifting. My goal for 2026 is to finally hit 500 bills on the deadlift. Um, uh, my current PR is four 65. Uh, you know, I, so I have, you know, it, to me, it's like, you know, and then I got buddies go, Oh, you're, you're too old. What do you need to pull 500 pounds for? so I can do it because you can't because how many 45 year olds in the world can deadlift 500 pounds that's why I want to do it by the way why not why not what else am I doing I'm like I can hurt my back bending over to pick a fucking pencil up I can hurt my back jogging I can hurt my back doing just about anything tying the shoes is one that happens all the time it's a very common one Guess why I'm not going to hurt my back?

36:35Ryan Hanley:Because I work out and I stretch and I take care of it. So I can bend over and tie my shoe without falling over. When I was in LA, I had a woman, an actor. I loved her dearly, trained with me for about 10 years, five days a week. And she said, I can't deadlift anymore. I'm not going to do that. It's going to hurt my back. I feel it when we do it. It hurts my back. Okay, so well, remember, some of what you're feeling in your back is muscle soreness. Think this way. If you felt that in your abs, would you say, I've hurt my abs? Or would you say, I trained my abs really hard and they're sore? Because you have erector spinae, right?

37:16The antagonistic muscle group to the rectus abdominis, so your ab wall that gets sore from training it because you are, in effect, working it when you're doing deadlifts and other movements. you're just sore there. She goes, I just, I just, it's too risky for me. I can't. I said, fair enough. But if your back does hurt going forward at any point, what are we going to blame? Because now we're blaming the deadlifts. But if we take the deadlifts out of the equation, what are we going to blame? The weakness? I maintain more people hurt their back because they don't do deadlifts than people hurt their back because they do do deadlifts.

37:57And And I don't need to, we don't need to belabor that. That's just, that's what I would say to you. I'm not saying you have to go one RM all the time on your deadlift, but like push yourself the same way you do on your pull-ups, the same way you do on your presses, the same way you do whatever, whatever movement you're doing, make sure you challenge yourself equally in, in the, on the post, on the posterior chain, just be, I had a friend in college, He goes, I said, you got to train their back. And then he goes, I don't see that shit. I'm just lifting for this. And I get it. And it was a funny comment in the 80s from a teenager.

38:37But now it's just an irresponsible guy. You got to train the muscles you don't see in the mirror, essentially, is what it comes down to. And I know that it's not sexy, but it's sexy for other people. If you look at those studies, women look more at a man's glutes than they do his arms. And that's – those poles are out there and you're like, as a dude, I'm not training that. Okay, up to you. But I think long term, that's not a smart path.

39:11Ryan Hanley:Yeah. Yeah, I'm with you there. And metabolically. Metabolically. the glutes biggest muscle group of the body like that's from a from a just from a body comp standpoint right just from a lean mass to fat mass ratio you're doing yourself a service by training the big muscle group why are we not doing i don't understand it no funny yeah it's funny that you see it and you get it in your mid 40s and your buddies are riding you about i think that's hysterical yeah you're on the you're on the right side of history on this one trust yeah it's it's interesting. Well, so, okay. So I would like, I kind of, I would love to chat a little bit about, if you don't mind, almost like rapid fire in a sense, some general fitness, health, recovery type activities or ideas, and just get your feeling on them.

40:06Ryan Hanley:And these are not in any particular the order, but you brought up one that before that I have mentally just have not been able to pull my head all the way around. And that's EMF grounding. I have a grounding sheet on my bed. Seemingly sleep score, that kind of stuff would say it has had a positive impact over time. I do feel refreshed. I feel better. I don't know. I've been using it for so long. I don't know that I can tell, but I can't like put my finger on, you know, this, this idea of our electrical charge and its impact on how we feel, you know, there's no meter I can put on my grounding sheet to say it's working.

40:51Ryan Hanley:You know what I mean? Like, like, you know, where does all this lie? Cause, um, this is one of the things that I get a lot of questions about from my friends. Like, well, you're walking around in bare feet again. Like, what's wrong? I'm like, no, but you know, What should we think about this grounding EMF and its impact? Well, the EMF, when our daughter, you know, she's still she's still coming out of that leukemia, which is no joke. And anybody out there who's going through that or has gone through that, my heart. I'll make myself cry on this damn podcast. I just feel for you, especially anybody with anything in that cancer realm, but especially especially kids.

41:29since then our house has changed completely in terms of plastics are out we have the grounding sheet on the bed underneath behind the thing the phone's wi-fi is off at night it can't be by your head everything my wife has those little chips I have one right here on my laptop I have one on the back of my phone I have the little things wrapped around the air pod like she goes she goes crazy I still wear the air pods I'm like babe I just do it on the podcast relax um there is a lot of science behind that. You can think it's woo-woo, but I look at it like these are kind of easy fixes. Why wouldn't I, right?

42:08My wife goes out with the, and you know, your wife's become a nut. Actually, she hasn't. She's a woman who's watched her child go through cancer, and she's chasing this down, and she's become that protector to the nth degree on that level. She has that reader that holds him out our son plays soccer at a place where there are those giant transformer things and she holds it out and she looks at me she goes oh my god look at the readout we can't play here anymore and she has a guy coming out to talk to the soccer people why are we on this field what are we doing the the the reading is so high it's dangerous for the kids i i i understand the argument of the devil's in the dose and if they're only out there once a week is it that bad so so maybe, maybe not.

42:56I don't, I don't know enough to speak to that, but if it's easy to eliminate, why wouldn't we, if it's a little thing like putting that sheet on your bed, I will say I sleep through the night more, like less waking up. You could say, well, that's your fluid level. Maybe, maybe, maybe, but if putting that sheet on the bed gave my wife peace of mind, how about this from a health standpoint, that is a stress reducer in and of itself. If I can reduce stress, which is an indicator of health, that's an easy one to do. So I'm all over that. We have a little bench outside and a little sign that says feet down and ground, like a play on that TV show.

43:37And I go, look in the spring, obviously not now, not a bad place to just sit and just take in five minutes, 10 minutes, just breathe. You know, if you can do it off your phone, great. Or if you're just sitting there and you're catching up on the emails or texts you missed during your workout, fine. It's a little bit counterintuitive, but still the grounding. I'm a fan. I have the little thing under my desk here my wife put called grounding well, and she has one under her desk. She put it in here. I said, babe, I have one right outside the gym. She goes, yeah, but you'll sit at your desk with that.

44:10So the grounding is a real thing. the emf if you can reduce those frequencies anyway we have those little cards in front of the tvs at the house i just think that's an easy like why are we pick your battles right i'm not going to argue

44:23Ryan Hanley:that with my wife have you felt a reduction in noise on the little cards or the pins on your phone like have you seen or even anecdotally felt uh a reduction in your stress because they're and guys just so if you're wondering um there's a bunch of companies if you're on instagram you probably see like aries tech there's a there's a body well yeah that's what that's where you use body well okay that's another big one and um the idea here is and correct me where i'm wrong there's some uh some components and some geometry in there which basically breaks up some of the negative electromagnetic force it doesn't stop your phone from working what it's doing is taking the full and again correct me it's taking the full frontal of this electromagnetism that we are exposed to all day and it's dispersing it and minimizing it so it doesn't have as big an impact on us.

45:17Yeah, so I'll tell you where the stress is reduced. I don't know if the stress is reduced directly by having the body well chip on the phone or the AirPods or the laptop, but I know the stress is reduced in that my wife is not writing me about it. So that's a huge win. She's like, hey, babe, I put this on your computer. I I put this on your phone. Please know I'm doing it for the right reasons. And it doesn't change anything for me. I go, no problem. And now we're in harmony there. And that in and of itself is a stress reducer. And I'll take that every day. So that's already a win. I don't walk around thinking about the EMF.

45:55I'm not wired that way. She does because while I visit, while I went to the hospital every day for a daughter, my wife lived it and she documented everything. And if she sees that as if she saw that up close and personal in a way that I didn't see it, I was more just staring at our daughter for two to six hours every day. And my wife was there for 24 hours every day and she's seeing different things. I'm going to defer to her on that. So so, yeah, I would say get the sheet for your bed. Why wouldn't you?

46:29Ryan Hanley:The sheet is a no brainer. It's 79 bucks for the one that goes under your sheets. And then if you want to get the actual sheets, you sleep between. They're like, it's not even, this stuff isn't even expensive. I mean, that's the thing. And I will say what I know for sure, just from the amount of research that I've done is that our bodies are too acidic. And that has to do with the plastics and the preservatives in the food and the electromagnetic radiation that we face every day. And I know the detractors and the skeptics on this kind of stuff. This has been such a short period. This is the part that where I see the pessimists, where I just cannot even wrap my head around the pessimist viewpoint here because to your point, there's no harm.

47:15Ryan Hanley:There's only upside, right? The harm, the most harm is if you go full hog the couple hundred dollars for all these – and a couple hundred dollars as much as it is for all these devices. And then the argument of, yeah, but look at the people in the blue zones and look at the people who live to 80, 90, 100 years old. You're like, yeah, yeah, yeah, but time out. The electromagnetic fields that we're being exposed to now, those people didn't have that. They were born before there were things like cell phones for sure, but like credit cards. Like they didn't travel the way we travel. They haven't been exposed to microwaves the way we have.

47:52Like even if it's not on, that microwave is, you know, I still use it. my wife absolutely not she's air frying okay but the air fryer is electric like how far are we going to go if those people haven't been around this and exposed my kids screen time by age five is more than mine by age 50 period like they're exposed to different things and with that there are been there are there are benefits and and detractors as we said so we just don't know

48:22Ryan Hanley:gunner that's the part that drives me nuts is like how can you have an opinion on people be like but there's no studies and i'm like we've only been exposed to daily cell phone in our face radiation 24 7 for a decade because before that the the phones didn't have the same level of radiation coming off them and even if they were near you or and and but and even culturally we didn't keep them on us all the time because they only did basically send text messages and phone calls That's all they did. So like this has been such a short period of time. There's no way for us to – there's no way for us to adequately understand the impact.

49:01Ryan Hanley:What we do know downstream, and this is the part where I just do not see being a pessimist on this stuff. What we do know is our bodies are too acidic and we have more mental noise in terms – like if you look at actual brain scans than ever before in history. So we don't know why necessarily, but we do know we have more mental noise and a reduced ability to focus and more general state cortisol than ever before. And our bodies have too much acidity versus what they should be. So we know those two things are true, but we can't directly tie them to some of this stuff. Why would you not want to take any step possible to put yourself back into harmony?

49:42Ryan Hanley:I don't understand why. That's the part that breaks me on this stuff. I agree. I heard something not long ago. It might have been Oprah's thing on The View where she said the GOP once turned down the food noise. And I've heard that term a few times in the last few months. And I was talking to my dad about it. And Mike said, what are you talking about, food noise? And I thought, yeah, he's not – my dad sleeps – like his phone is downstairs. It's in the charger. And I'm like, it's just a different thing. he didn't have food noise, right? My grandparents didn't have food noise because there wasn't the TV on all the time or things coming on your phone or Instagram or constant reminders or ads during podcasts.

50:30Like food noise was, that's gotta be, I'd love to know when that term was coined or when it became such a part of our vernacular. It's just that those are new things to us. Food noise is new. EMF is new. But as are a lot of the devices that we take for granted and we adopted, like you said, a decade ago or less, like it wasn't that long ago that it was like a landline. Like everybody was landlines. When I was in college, I know what seems like a million years ago, we had a landline at our house. And after that, I remember having a phone in my car. Like it was hard locked in my car, like jacket out of the thing, right?

51:15And then there was a portable one that had like no kind of battery, a couple hours maybe. So these are all new things and you have to assume with them and with those conveniences, there are potential downsides. So if somebody's identifying the downside and then there's a counter to that, I look at it like maybe we're saying the same thing. Why not? Why not do the preventative?

51:41Ryan Hanley:Have you taken a GLP-1? I'm not. I take nothing. Honestly, that's funny. I work with gym supplements, JYM. I literally take their Alpha Gym. I take their greens. I take their protein powder. And I take creatine. that's literally all I take and I don't but it's not a it's not a uh it's not a political position on my part I have nothing against any of those things and I think I I think you know I don't I will drink alcohol but I don't do drugs I just that's not me and I've had people say but you know if weed is so much better for you than alcohol I'm like I I'm from a different era I could I just grew up differently to me.

52:24I, you know, I don't gamble. I don't drink coffee, but I will have an energy drink. Like I'll drink a ZOA. That's just me because somewhere in my brain, if I get on the other thing, I'll go, I'll go ham on it. I just know myself. If I got into coffee, I know myself. If I got into it, same reason I don't do, same reason I don't do steroids. The peptide thing, very, very tempting. But I look at it and I used to joke with this with the client of mine, an action hero in the movies. And I used to say to him, he used to say, you got to get on stuff. And I'd say, I know myself. If I get on it and I go down to 6 % body fat, I'm going to want to go down to 5%.

53:09I'm going to want to 4%. I just know, you know, and I can always, I do this scan in the mirror every day. and I go, what am I not doing right? Is my training on point? Is my food on point? Is my hydration on point? Is my stress management on point? Am I taking my supplements? Have I been diligent with my rest and recovery, my sleep, my red light, my sauna? Am I doing everything right? If I don't like what I see, there are always at least two things that I've done wrong, pilot error. If I correct that, the situation reverses. And until I lose the power to reverse the situation with what I'm doing, I'm not going to take on something new.

53:48Like the people who go to the supplement store and you buy five or eight things. I think that's a silly approach because how do you know what's doing what?

53:55Ryan Hanley:Yeah. So this is, um, so I'm, uh, uh, I don't know what it is about me, but like when I, when I'm into something, I go all the way down. So I have to be very careful around what things I start to let rent space in my head because, And I'll tell you, this happened around COVID with politics. I always kind of tangentially followed what was going on, but kind of arm's length. And then COVID things weren't adding up with a lot of people, whatever. And I started diving it. And then I went all the way down into like, I'm reading books on this history. And I'm like, this is nothing productive. I got to come all the way out.

54:37Ryan Hanley:And now I try to stay out hard, whatever. But like with the optimization part, again, I was the CEO of a seven-location fitness franchise for about a year. That's a different story. I'm not a fitness trained in any way though. It's all just self-taught. But with the supplements and stuff, what got me – so I do take – I microdose with a doctor, not self-whatever, with a doctor. GLP-1 terzepatide, well, technically GLP-2. um or generation two and then um tessamoralin the peptide um and then um i have some uh inflammation issues and i use uh uh the only those are the three things now now trexine naltrexone something like that lightweight anti-inflammatory but um no bpc 157 not yet no not yet if i i the more i read the more i listen there who's that guy there's a guy on I'm Dr.

55:35Trevor Bachmeier. He's very compelling. He breaks it down. And it's almost like he's talking to you like you're an idiot. But I think it's I think he's not. I think he's just so passionate and so knowledgeable. And the way he says that, I mean, if a company were ever to do a pitch for it, like if it became something that they were advertising, they should use some of his analogies. Because when I the minute I come off his page, I think I got to get on it. Here I go. And then I talk myself off because I just know once I start, it's going to be a little taking that i should take tb500 i should say that i just know myself so i pull back and i don't and i and i haven't but i'm not saying i won't i'm not that guy and i don't begrudge anybody who does do whatever you need go i think it's smart i think you're doing the right thing until you're

56:20Ryan Hanley:mentally ready so what pushed me was i had a testosterone scare two years ago um it was this month uh january of 2024 i guess it was um i'm used to new york winters i'm used to the desolation and you don't see the sun and, you know, the whole thing, you know, vitamin D deficiency and all that kind of stuff. And, you know, I've done it for 45 years, except this was different. This was like every moment of my day I was walking through molasses. It just, there was nothing, no libido, no energy, no drive, nothing. I was just operating. I was like a shell. So this goes on for a couple of weeks. I got to figure what's out, go to the doctors, get a test.

57:01Ryan Hanley:my testosterone is in the seventh percentile. I have like 30 free testosterone or whatever, right? I can't remember the milliliters or milligrams, whatever it is. You know, all I know is you're supposed to have 500 to 700, and I had 30, and it was bad. And I did not want to go on synthetic testosterone or TRT. I didn't want to do that. So that's what got me, that's what pushed me down this peptide path was, you know, and my doctor, I found this hormone optimization specialist and, and okay. So all that's fine. That was my situation. That's how I get in, but I can tell you, and, and it's so, I think you're doing the right thing personally, knowing yourself, because what I've found is now I, now I'm constantly searching for, cause cause I feel amazing.

57:48Ryan Hanley:This, this low dose, very low dose, micro dose of, of, of tesamorin and terzepatide. I feel. Where did your test levels net out? I'm at 770 now, but between 770 and, you know, 900, depending on, you know, whatever, and bounce back within three or four months. And now I feel like I feel amazing. But the problem is to your point, now I'm constantly looking for that next week. I've been looking at BBC 157. I've been looking at NAD plus injections. And I'm going like in my brain, I'm like, just stop just but I know now I'm in this like tinkerer phase and I'm tinkering tinkering tinkering but to your point when you start stacking up all this stuff I feel like and maybe this is kind of the thing that I just want to share with the audience is that if you haven't done the primary work that we were discussing at the beginning of the show right like having a workout routine hydrating properly getting decent sleep right like eating right like if you don't have those things in place you will never know if any of this exotic shit actually works you just because it becomes fairy dust right like if you're if you're sprinkling it it's like i tell my son with the with the one of your spices or sea salt or whatever i go if the food's good just eat very little bit yeah if the food's garbage put a little more on it's palatable and you'll be fine i know myself and I know how it would be.

59:19And I look at some people and I go, you haven't prepared the food properly. Like you haven't done the base stuff. Like you think you're just going to throw peptides at this nightmare of a lifestyle you have and it's going to spin it all around because it's magic juice. It's not. And then you're going to be, you're throwing good money after bad. That's one and you're taking, you're dashing your own hopes, right? Like you're setting it up to be this success that it's just not going to be. I'm sorry. You got to do, yeah, we're saying, yeah, we're saying the same thing. So I keep doing the work. Like I told you at the beginning of this, I have no problem doing the work.

1:00:01I somehow, somewhere along the way, convinced myself that the work was fun and cool and I love it and it's fun and I stay engaged in that. I never tire of it. I don't know if that makes me a simpleton or like a meathead card carrying member. I don't know. But I do like that. I do like in my head tallying macros quickly. And I'm probably way off, not 10%. I'm probably 30 % off, you know, ahead or behind, who knows. But it's a little game I play. And if that's what keeps me engaged, why wouldn't I want to stay engaged in my own development and my own improvement versus allowing myself to just slide down that hill that, you know, you said earlier, we're all sliding down.

1:00:48We're all going to die. I get it. But I'm not going quietly. I am not just going to go, well, it's inevitable that I become fat and weak. So fuck it. I'm out today. I'll skip today. Because I would be the fattest and the weakest within two weeks. I just... I know how I could let it go. If I let it go the same way, when I go all in, when I let it go, I'm letting it all go. Right. I'm, I'm not cutting my hair. I'm not doing it. I'm not doing anything good for me. I'm just going hard the other way. And that's ridiculous. That's a ridiculous baby, but I know myself.

1:01:25Ryan Hanley:Well, you know, and, and, and, uh, I want to be respectful of your time. I'll let you go, but I just think this is funny. So, um, I got divorced about three years ago and, um, you know, It was the right thing to do. We're actually still good friends. We're great at co-parenting. We just weren't meant to be together romantically. But when I got divorced, you know, I looked around and, you know, I went and got coffee or beers with a couple of my buddies who had already been divorced and, you know, just kind of getting the lay of the land, right? We'd been together for 16 years. We'd been married for more than 13 years.

1:01:58Ryan Hanley:So like, you know, and I, you know, never, never strayed, never cheated, you know, so I, I'm walking out into the world as an individual human making my own decisions for the first time in a very long time. And, um, you know, I'm looking at my friends and I'm looking at the way they live their life and, you know, and I saw two kind of bifurcations and it was very clear. There were the guys that kept their shit together and actually in some cases improve their lives. They became more fit, more thoughtful, better at work. You know what I mean? Like they used the space that they got to improve themselves.

1:02:30Ryan Hanley:And then there was another group that can became complete degenerate messes that, that could barely survive, could barely function. Like as if essentially their spouse had done it where the, it was the only thing keeping them attached to the world. And I think all of us, to your point, we have this decision, right? You can either be the, be the guy or gal who, who says, fuck this entropy. I'm fighting this. Like I'm, I'm, I'm going to fight this. I'm going to stay in shape. I'm going to keep my shit together. I'm gonna not eat like a I'm gonna be a be the best version of myself or you can spin off the planet and and just let life happen to you and it's a choice and I think yeah so oh look I'm getting antsy I can feel it uh I think I see those groups and I I think it's our responsibility as a species, and I've talked to my kids about this, I go, I'm not smarter than you.

1:03:32I'm just older. I just have more experience. I said, if I watch a movie when I'm 30 and I see that the guy in the red hat is going to shoot the guy in the yellow hat, and I say to you before it happens, the guy in the red hat is going to shoot that guy. And then it happens. And you look at me like, oh my gosh, I'm so smart. I'm not smart. I've seen the movie. So I say that to my kid all time. A lot of things in life, you know, put your seatbelt on, don't do this. The little things I go, I've just seen the movie, right? So I've seen this movie. When you come out of a relationship, everybody plays a part in the breakup, right?

1:04:13Whether it's cheating, why did so-and-so cheat? That doesn't mean you offload the blame, but it means what did you do, right? What part did I play? How can I be better in my next go-round? Whether your next go-round is a fling, whether your next go-round is a shorter-term version of the first go-round, hopefully as a species we evolve and get better, right? And hopefully you as a spouse, as a partner, whether you spouse up again or not, or you just become a partner, hopefully you get better. So you go, what can I do to improve? So the guys who, like you say, just let it all go, they're not helping themselves.

1:05:01They're not evolving. They're devolving, actually. I think we should all evolve, whether that means you do a complete 180 flip, you know, and you decide to drop all the weight and and and get your shit together and you quit drinking, you quit smoking, you take on a second job, you become a you earn double whatever it is. I don't think you have to do that. I don't think you have to reinvent.

1:05:25Ryan Hanley:Although that would be the best way to get back at if you're feeling those those negative feelings towards your former spouse, the best way to get back at them is not to send nasty text messages and emails and be an asshole. The best way to get back at them is to become a high producing, high performing, fit individual who takes care of the children and handles their fucking business. That's the best way. But it's what you should have done before. Yes. And I can't blame them. for not having been that. Maybe it took whatever awakening, whether that was her dumping you, her cheating on you, you're getting fired, whatever it was, that's what you should have done.

1:06:05So you go, okay, but like fitness, and I bring it back to that, it's never too late, right? They've shown actually two studies in 80-year-olds and octogenarians as well as centenarians, like new muscle cell growth, but muscle cell hypertrophy, the growth in size, in 80-year-olds and people at 100. So it's never too late to start. I just saw a study this morning that said, if you're not in shape by the time you're 35, there's an X percent chance that you will never be in shape. And I was like, wow, that's super defeating. That's also mental.

1:06:44Ryan Hanley:I would love that. To me, that's all mental. Agree. That's psychological. Physiologically, we know you can. So to me, it's not, well, this is how I am. I can't change. That's just me. That's what I'm bringing to the table next time I have a partner. You're like, no, then you're going to have a partner that's less than your original partner. You have to try to be better. You have to elevate the species. Like I tell the kids, you got to be better. You're going to be better than I am. I remember my now 26-year-old, I said that to him once when he was about six in the bed. I said, Jack, you're going to be so much better than I am.

1:07:17And he goes, I could never be better than you, daddy. I said, sweet boy, I'm figuring my way through life. I'm just a dude. I'm just a trainer. I'm just a guy trying to contribute to the fitness landscape and help people find their way the way I found my way from a fat kid to this. You are going to be better than I am. And I will maintain that all my kids, my older kids and my young kids are all on the path to eclipse me, which is as in my opinion, as it should be. They should be better than I am. They should be smarter. They should have more deductive reasoning. They should have more the ability to be critical thinkers.

1:07:53They have to. And with that, they should be able to find their path in health and fitness, whether it's lifting weights and cardio, you know, meathead style the way I do, or whether it's through different classes or different protocols or through different, the way I take my alpha gym and my protein shakes and I use my solvasion red light therapy and I I use my caffeine and all this, the way I do all my little things, they're going to find their way. And I would bet on all of them, they will find an efficient, a more efficient way than I found. And they will find a more productive way than I found because they've grown up differently than I am.

1:08:35And they're processing and assessing information at a different rate. And I think that's my job. So I'm not going to pull my shoulder out, patting myself on my back. But I think they're good kids. And that's my job as a dad is to raise them to be those kids. So your buddies who come out of that relationship and don't use their abilities to improve themselves for the next go-round on the dating marriage cycle, they're doing themselves and their current offspring or future offspring a massive disservice by not trying harder. Fuck, dude, try. It's only you out there. Try. I don't care if you fail because if you fail, you're going to fail upwards.

1:09:18Ryan Hanley:I want to wrap, be respectful of your time, and I'll leave you with this. I put on this conference in 2018. I had about 830 people in the room, and I did the kickoff note, and the message was simply, it's cool to fucking care. Like I hate this idea in our society. I would have been like this in your crowd. That somehow like that really caring, like diving in even to like nerdy shit that somehow that's not cool. I'm like that day of like not going balls to the wall deep. It doesn't matter. It could be Legos. It could be Star Wars. It could be accounting. It could be investing. It could be startups.

1:10:00Ryan Hanley:It could be fitness. It could be relationship. It doesn't fucking matter what you're into. But it is really cool and sexy to give a shit. to go. I was just going to say to you, the word I say to my little kids, because they're just flirting with that word. I go, dude, it's sexy to try and go, dad, you can't say that. I go, no, no, no. It's sexy, which means it's like people see that and they go, oh, I like that. It is. I go, people are drawn to people who try. I would rather watch you attempt to pull that 500 and fail, then sit over a nice dinner and a couple of cocktails and listen to you talk about how you decided to step away from that attempt.

1:10:42And I'd be like, Oh my God, this bozo. But to watch you do it and fail. I'm high fiving you all day long for that. Yeah, bro.

1:10:51Ryan Hanley:I could talk to you all day, man. I don't even know where we're aligned. Well, dude, I know there's gonna be a lot of people from the audience that want to go deeper into your world. What are the best ways for them to do that? I'm on Instagram at Gunner Fitness. That's probably it. I try to put up people like, you know, you got to get your, what do they call it? You got to get your, what's the word? What's the Instagram thing? Your engagement has to be higher. I go, listen, man, I post stuff that the people in my world like and the people who don't, that's okay. Sorry. Maybe, you know, you're not for everybody.

1:11:25You're polarizing and you're not polarizing because you try to be polarizing. If you do that, that's as fake as the next guy. You just do what you like. And to me, that's what social is about. I sat with a good friend of mine, Jen Wiederstrom, who's a trainer, and we have a podcast together. And we sat at a Sorenx Summer Strong conference years ago. And the first three presenters at some point in their presentation bashed social media. And I looked at her. I said, the next time I do a presentation, I'm going to gas it up. I'm going to talk about why social is cool. And if you don't like it, here's the great thing.

1:12:02It's voluntary. You don't have to be on it. You don't have to have the app and you don't have to go on the app and you don't have to like, and you don't have to scroll and you don't have to post. So I think, not that I think, I don't think you use it as your one and only source of education and opinions. I joke about that guy has a degree from Instagram university, but, but I do think there are great things that come off of it. Even if you just get to know somebody's sense of humor and you're like, I never knew that. I never knew that he was funny like that. Or I never knew that she goofed on herself that way.

1:12:38Like those are, it's like, it's like we're all connecting on a different level. And I think if you look at the positive on that, it can be extremely positive. I don't think you have to always go to the negative. So I'm on Instagram at Gunner Fitness And, uh, and you're Ryan, you're awesome for having me on and for, for talking about it. And I, and I liked the way you're coming at this and dude, I am rooting for you when you pull that 500 all day long.

1:13:00Ryan Hanley:I appreciate the hell out of you, man. I, uh, this has been tremendous, uh, guys, I'll have, um, Gunner's, uh, LinkedIn or Instagram linked in the description, whether you're watching on YouTube or wherever you're listening, scroll down. Uh, I appreciate you guys for listening. I love you for listening. We're out of here. Peace. And that...