You seem like a fascinating character.
Who is BJ stagnant? I'm just a guy.
I'm just a guy, just an American that moved here, British citizen
now and came over here to plant churches, found what I consider
to be the greatest gym in the world and six months after
moving here, just never left. And that's kind of who I am at
the at the way. I'm a pastor, I'm a father, I'm
a husband, I'm a coach. I'm APT but just want to make a
difference. That's all that is with me.
Just putting it all together and try to make a difference in this
world. Yeah, that's what that's what
fascinated me about you is you are putting it these things
together. You're sort of putting that
pasta side with the fitness and coaching side and you're
bringing it together. Is it called the ministry or
something like that with the fitness?
But what's it called? So the gym ministry is called
Faith RX. It's it's, of course, it's
coming off. It's an old CrossFit ministry
that was connected. Becky Cosmo is the one that
started it, her and another fellow and it kind of connected.
The goal is to reach CrossFit athletes.
And as you know, you go back to CrossFit RX, which is means
prescription. It comes from the Latin as
written. And so when you see the RX on
the workout or you scaled the workout.
So RX is like what the workout, the way it's written, you
completed it you finished it, you ticked the box.
So when they started it faith. So we look at what faith is the
substance of things hoped for the others of things not seen.
Hebrews 11 and one are exed past tense like it's been done and
dusted makes sense. So that's the that's what it's
called that's the ministerial side of the gym, the workout,
the training and this and that. Of course I pastored 2 churches
here, one in Cardiff and one up in the valleys and we live about
midway in between closer. We live in Cardiff, Rader area
and PT in the gym overlook a lot of things.
Just try to, you know, keep the gym up and running the way it is
and way it should be. You know, Rob's done a
tremendous job there and that's up to us and the team to make
sure that thing keeps moving forward.
Yeah, Now a lot of people would think that fitness and sort of
like the church are on opposite ends of the spectrum.
Why are they wrong? Well, they're they're inherently
wrong. And the problem is, is there's
many people over the past years, that's exactly how they felt.
They felt as if all the ministry in the gym can't go go together
and they could not be more wrong.
Matter of fact, Scripture has precluded that to show that like
this body as a Christian, we know the Bible says what?
No, you're not that you, you're not your own.
You know, this body's been bought with the price.
OK, so if I was to give you something that's mine, say if I
was to give you my Yeti cup and here it is, I don't imagine, at
least I hope you wouldn't Chuck it across the garden here and
din it up and scratch it up. You would take good care of it,
wouldn't it? Because it's not yours.
It's the same thing with this body.
We are commanded because we have one body, one life, one time.
That hyphen between our birth year and our death date, death
date, that hyphen, that's our life.
We need to take care of this body that we've been given for
this temporary season as best we can.
And that starts in the gym. It starts with our our four
pillars, our nutrition and our movement, our stress management,
you know, and our connections, all of that.
It comes into the gym and it produces what we can do on the
outside as well. What's the biggest misconception
that churchgoers would have about physical fitness and
staying fit? Some people look at is idolizing
the body, so they look at the aesthetic side of it.
Now I understand that. What are your intentions?
Why are you training? Are you trying to look better to
get more likes, to get more ticks, to get more thumbs up, to
get more people to stare at you? Are you going to take less
clothes off? You're going to be in modest And
the reality is, so let's just be be honest.
The reality is that happens to many people.
Many people do that. They start getting fit, they get
cut, they get ripped, and they get less clothes.
OK, I don't agree with that. You know, personally, I think
you cover something up, you cover a gift up.
That's what we do for Christmas, don't we?
We wrap the gifts up because of something that's precious.
Again, I know that's that may sound slightly judgmental, but
that will be the side of some of the people who aren't
churchgoers. Look at the gym, that it's a
place where it's something that's just carnal, if you will.
Carnal means fleshly and so, and I understand that side of it,
but there's also a scriptural side of it that shows that we
should support and take care of this body.
And we need to make a decision as to how we're going to do
that. We can do that here at our house
and our home gyms. You're losing that part of that
healthy connections, that community.
Or we can do it in a gym and just, you know, be disciplined.
Discipline's a big, it's a big ideology between the Bible calls
it temperance. We can just be disciplined with
our eyes, our minds, our mouth, what we do, what we say, and
just get better in life. And here's the reality of it as
a churchgoer, if we don't get outside of the four walls of the
church, how are we going to help the world?
How are we going to help the community?
I can't make my community better.
I can't assist to assist to make our people or help them to
improve in their life and help them when they're down.
If I'm stuck behind the pulpit, you know, 24/7, got to get out
in real life. So what, what would what would
be the aim then of the training that if if it's it's not about
the ego, it's not about the vanity?
Is it to be the best version of yourself to help yourself but or
to help help others? Or both?
If you don't think about this when you're on an airplane, you
get ready to fly on the airplane and the flight attendant comes
up and then you know where I'm going with this.
You know, they come, they, they start giving the tutorial and
this and that. What's 1 of the things they say
about them? Oxygen masks if the pressure
loosens in, the oxygen mask drops down.
Put yours on 1st and then assist others.
Why? Because if you pass out because
of oxygen deprivation, you can't help those next to you.
So if I don't make sure that I am trying to be as fit as I can
be, as healthy as I can be, you know I understand things happen,
accidents happen, issues happen, disease happens.
All of those things happen that are out of our our control, but
there are some things that are in our control.
And because they are, we should maximize our effort to improve
them every single day. And the main reason I need to do
it for myself, I need to do it for my family and I need to do
it for someone else so that, you know, again, you take the vanity
out of it, You take, you know, those aspects out of it.
The getting better is you're just getting better every single
day, just a small percent every day so that I can reach over
there and help you be a little bit better, help you reach your
goals. What's going to happen?
You're going to do the same thing to another person and
another person and another person.
And that's really how the world should work.
That's how our connection should work in our life.
You coach CrossFit, right? Yeah, yeah.
We're not CrossFit anymore. So we're high rocks now and.
Is it CrossFit? It is CrossFit, yeah.
We're. Still, we still got a taste of
CrossFit in there. We're not an affiliate anymore.
You can't. Say the name.
I don't think so. So we are a high rugs affiliate.
I'm still a CrossFit trainer, but I don't think I can say the
name without us being an affiliate either.
I don't know. I don't know how the rules are
working anymore. But we're a general population
gym. We're trying to hit every single
corner and edge that there is from moms to fathers to children
to youth to rugby clubs to the general population, the
secretary, the home mother, everything.
We're trying to hit and help people's life improve.
So that's, that's their, that's the goal.
Because that's everyday life, isn't it?
Yeah. I suppose so.
But like, I want, I want you to put a big debate to rest now.
Hyrox versus CrossFit. What's the difference on which
one's better? I don't want to get you in
trouble. Oh my.
Soul, you're going to get in trouble.
So which one's better? General population, Hyrox is
better for runners. Hyrox is better for those who
want to improve in what we call virtuosity, which is doing
common things uncommonly well, which CrossFit is built around
around from the Olympic lifting, from getting stronger, from
being fit to be able to do in a great long run.
OK, in your life, Crossfit's going to be more applicable to
those type of people, but it depends on what your goals are
as well. Is your goal to be able to run,
you know, the 8K and do all of the things on in between there
like in high rocks and have that great event, which if you've
seen the events as the events are massive, man, it's a big
community, it's high energy, it's a field day.
It's a wonderful thing to do. There is a lot of runner running
in there. That's it's a runner's paradise,
OK, Whereas CrossFit not so much is it's a movement.
It's a movement area. It's a place where the the
gymnast is going to do the, the better part better, you know,
score, they're going to hit the better goal.
I do think it's a little bit crosses, a little curtail to the
shorter people in the world, I will say that.
But I mean, you can't argue with the fitness that CrossFit
produces. I my personal opinion is this.
I think for someone who wants to be ultra serious in being hyper
competitive, I think CrossFit is better.
I think for someone who wants to do general mobility, general
movement and general exercises along with that extensive
running, because you can't argue the running, this is hard, high
rocks is going to be better. So it really depends on what
your goals as to what is better, if you will.
Yeah. I suppose it comes down to you
as it's funny that you said that CrossFit is sort of better for
the shorter people, but I know exactly what you mean.
Because they're always so stacked.
Why are higher? Why are CrossFit athletes always
so jacked? What is it about the training?
Well, it's high intensity. The training is high intensity.
But here's also the thing. When you're looking at the
CrossFit athletes, they aren't jacked and they're jacked at a
certain degree. They're taking care of what
needs to be taken care of on the back end.
That's what we miss. We missed 75% of their life, 80%
of their life, which is nutrition.
Nutrition is what is helping you.
You cut the fat, build the muscle and things along like
that. The workouts are complementary
of all that and you can't get stronger, better, faster, more
agile, all of that without the training.
But you can also reach the goals that you need to and have that
appearance of the jacked Crossfitter without having the
proper fuel in that body. That's the key.
And most of those guys, most people who are in CrossFit, they
are dedicated and they are disciplined at least for a
number of years, OK, very discipline.
Discipline to the sport itself, discipline to the activities.
Even the everyday gym goer who has found CrossFit because it's
just what CrossFit produced. CrossFit produced something for
people like myself who is a former athlete.
It gives you that team mindset because you're sweating in
there. You were going to dark places in
the gym, but you're doing it together, one with another.
And man, it gives you, I mean, the Kool-aid is drinking very,
very quick, The shoes, the shorts, the tops, all of those
things. And so you know when you get it,
when you get involved in it, you're doing the 55 workouts a
week, you're taking the two days off, but you want to make sure
you maintain everything so you're getting the proper
nutrition and the proper fuel because people are really
dedicated part time Crossfitters.
They're going through the motions.
They're doing what they can do. That's why we had the scale
version for it. But they're doing what they can
do. And the biggest, the biggest I
think attribute to that is they're moving, They're moving,
they're moving still part of that healthy lifestyle.
It makes a difference in their life and it does help them.
They may never be in the games. They may never be on the posters
or the telly or anything along that line.
However, they're doing more than they were before.
They're getting up off of the sofa, if you will.
And that's, that's what's important, you know, today.
But that's one of the reasons they're jacked, man.
It's because they're dedicated. It comes down to that, that
other D word discipline, man. And.
Discipline. So what?
What's one thing that the everyday athlete is missing if
they're lacking this strength building, If they're lacking
size building, What you see is the most common thing that
people are lacking that if they just introduced it, they would
see massive gain. Typically I'll choices, that's
usually what we don't do enough on the back end, stress
management. We don't do enough for
recovering. We don't do enough for our fuel
our our our nutritional replacement in the body to build
those muscles back up to when you're torn down on the floor.
But then we don't do enough on the back end.
So in other words, somebody comes into a gym with across
from the higher oxygen, the workouts on the board, the
workout is being written for them.
The coach is telling them what to do.
They're being told every step of the way for one hour in that gym
and they are working hard, they're sweating, everybody's
laying on the floor when it's done and dusted, making the
sweat angels on the floor and all that.
And that's all great and wonderful.
But when they leave, OK, what choices are they making to
support what they've just performed?
Are they getting a 20 minute sauna?
Are they jumping in the cold punch?
Are they taking in the 30 grams of protein in their bodies
immediately, within 30 minutes so they can replenish the
muscles? Are they hydrating enough, which
is another element of our life that we miss constantly.
So that's if I, if I had to narrow it down to one thing, I'm
going to say nutrition. And I'm going to say taking care
of your body on the back end outside of the gym, because what
you do outside of the gym is going to compliment you, what
you do in the gym and vice versa.
And. What does that look like then?
Taking care of the body? What what what are they doing?
You talked about sort of a post post workout shake.
You know how what's what does their nutrition have to look
like? How does their sleep have to
look like? What what does that look like?
Taking the backhand stuff, the. Average person needs is required
6 to 8 hours of sleep a night to have their body rejuvenated what
where it needs to be. Creatine's a big push.
When we talk about supplements, the only the only supplement I
take other than just protein during the shakes and whatnot
and some breakfasts is creatine. I take it in my coffee first
thing in the morning. Even the cognitive benefits that
you have from creatine today are tremendous.
You know, first thing in the morning with my first coffee, I
can, I can sense a different and tell a difference.
So those are the nutritional aspects.
But then when you look at a point with all the metrics we
have today, all the data that is driven is knowing how much you
weigh, getting that in body done or a body analysis somewhere,
knowing what your fat percentage is, knowing what your lean
muscle mass is, knowing what your adipose fat is and your
visceral fat and then taking those measures to lose it.
And how you do that is not cutting all the the calories
down. I was talking to someone the
other day. They said, hey, BG, I'm I'm
taking in 1300 and 1550 calories a day.
I said an infant can't survive on that.
That's why you have more fat on your body than you do muscle.
Your body's in a catabolic state.
Your body is built to survive, so we have to either trick it or
complement it and we can do both at the same time.
So you need that high protein diet, You need that diet that
comes in that is based upon your not only your basal metabolic
rate, but it's based on your calorie intake and your calorie
out at the end of the day. If you get the calories out and
the calories in, you're rebuilding those muscles.
That's the simple definition of it and the simple ease, if you
will. But starving the body is going
to kill the body. I believe in five to six
settings a day. Breakfast, snack, lunch, snack,
breakfast, snack. And then break that.
Break all of your caloric intake down into those 5 to 6 settings.
But make sure you hit your proteins and then you can make
it up on your fats and your carbs, but make sure you hit
your protein because that's the building block of muscles.
And that's what's going to help you recover and reach the goals
that you really need to reach. What?
Does it look like when someone's not getting those calories in
and they're still trying to change, So what?
Happens is the body and the body analysis Purdue you see, you can
see the fat they're in the in the, the, the, the, the bathroom
or whatever. They're looking in the mirror
and they're like, I'm just not looking like, you know, Josie
down at the gym. I'm not looking like gym over
there. I'm what's going on?
What's wrong with me? Well, your body's holding on to
fat because the body's built to survive.
The body is going to burn muscle in that catabolic state unless
you put enough food into it so that it can burn those food and
live off of that. So you building blocks are going
to be a protein, your energy you want to pull from the fats, if
you will. If you don't want to store the
carbohydrates, that's just converted into sugars and
covered, converted into fats as well.
So that's what it looks like. It looks like knowing what you
want and knowing what your goals are.
So typically we want to make sure there's enough protein
based upon how many kilos a person weighs.
You know, you'll look it up and you'll see the like the general
settings are like 1.8g of protein, you know, per kilo.
I'm, I'm, I'm quite protein biased or I'm, you know, I'll
lean toward 2 1/2 to 2.8 if I have to, you know, so I believe
in high protein. So, but I also I'm not a big car
beater. I mean, you know, try not to be.
Yeah, yeah, yeah. But you're a big guy.
Like what? What does your meals look like
for them throughout the day on average?
So. I'm, I, I take in about 42 to
4400 calories a day. How much?
42 to 4400. And but they're, they're broken
down into 6 steps though. And so three of those things are
going to be what I call a snack, which can be a protein shake.
They can be a, a tub of, of yogurt with fruit, but mixed
with protein in it as well. Cottage cheese is another one
for my snacks. But my meals are going to be
pretty well set. My breakfast meal.
I have this little paleo concoction of a porridge, you
know, with, you know, coconut flakes and all this and that
and, and cheese, chia seeds and things with a little bit of a
vanilla whey protein that's mixed into it.
And that's a great little setting.
But that's about 650 calories that they're alone just in the
breakfast. My lunch is usually going to be,
you know, your standard chicken, a little bit of potatoes,
greens, if my wife makes me eat them, I, you know, I got to
force feed me the vegetables. But then usually the same thing
for same thing for dinner. Is that chicken or that steak or
that beef type of meal? I'll tell you what I had for a
snack this morning when I got home from shift.
I think it's about 10:00 because I had AI had a 500 gram rib eye
and five eggs. That was my mid morning snack.
That was lush. Yeah, that that, Yeah.
If you only only we could eat that all the time.
Like Jesus. Yeah.
Yeah, and again, I, I personally think, I mean, you know, again,
this comes down to the affordability, but I mean, you
know, you eat 2 steaks a day and some eggs, you know, there you
go. You gonna get your protein
intake in there. Oh.
You be getting that in. Do you meal prep at all Then how
do you set all this up? Are you doing that night before?
Depends. On the day because we we, we run
a fairly busy schedule. We're seven days a week and
we're flat wide open. So like yesterday, yesterday we
were up training way early in the morning.
I was in the school doing Bible assembly at 9:15.
Then we had eight fitness classes in the in the school.
After that. I had a meeting with the head
teacher in between during lunch, and then I had a meeting with
another guy from the council in the same school right
afterwards. And then I got church in the
night time, so a day off. I know a day like that is
coming. We meal prep everything the
night before. So we get everything together
between snacks, breakfasts, dinners, everything, you name
it. Protein shakes, whatever we
need. It goes in a huge little lunch
box that we take up to the church and that's with us the
whole time. On the average day, we use about
a meal and a snack ahead of ourselves.
So the breakfast will be made whilst lunch and the mid morning
snack is made. And then after we finish eating
lunch, my wife and I will will prep the dinner as well as the
snack as well. Snacks are easy.
I mean, you know, monkey can do that.
We can go in there and throw it together and get it done.
We don't have to measure as much as we used to because we, I
mean, we've been doing this and and frankly, we, we pretty much
eat the same thing. So we know about what we're
eating. That's why I said 42 to 4400,
like today, obviously it's going to be a little bit more because
of the rib eye that I had earlier.
And I'm planning on making chicken and potatoes tonight,
you know, and they'll make me, they'll probably make me have
asparagus, but we'll, I like asparagus.
I don't like many other greens, but yeah.
Asparagus is all right, Yeah. Makes sure we smell, though,
doesn't it? Is that what it says?
Like, yeah, there's a lot of meat there, so you better be a
carnivore, like, if you're getting into this, though, I
guess, yeah. And the thing about it is,
again, I talked about choices just a moment ago.
You you asked about what are some I'll choices that people
make that they're just they've hit that plateau.
And we've seen people in the gym for six and seven and eight
years. They look the same they did the
day they walked in. And it's not because of their
program and not because of the coaching.
It's just because the choice is what you're doing on the back
end, you know, And so, you know, discipline is not about just
doing what you need to do to reach the goals that you desire.
It's about doing what you is refusing not to do what you want
to do so that you can reach those goals as well.
And that's what discipline is by definition, you know?
So you, I think you're going to watch those night outs, night
outs with the boys, you know, And yeah, I mean, it's that's
one of the biggest detriments right there, just in all
fairness, so. I know that for sure because a
pint is like 200 calories. You sink eight of those in a
night, that's 1600 calories. Then you're having the kebab,
but then in the morning you're having the Big Breakfast.
You're skipping your gym session and I don't know about you, but
my hangovers last about 5 days now, so I try to well.
I. Don't drink at all so.
Not at all. You're lucky.
Yeah, I try not to. Well, I've hit 4, you know, So
I'm just too old. It just takes too much out of
me. There's a big cost.
If I want a night, I would drink it.
And I've got to have a week to recover afterwards.
Do you know what a hangover is? No, with like so a.
Hangover is dehydrated brain. So when any drop of any alcohol
that goes into the system, it doesn't matter if it's cough
medicine, the the ADH, the anti diuretic hormone which regulates
your fluid in your body, it shuts down, it turns off.
That's why you're weaning all night long when you're drinking.
But if you take a you couldn't drink a 12 pack of soda in an
hour if your life depended on it, but you could eat 8-8 pints
of, you know, lager or something.
It's because the body you're just weaning off.
Well, you're draining the body of hydration.
So when you wake up in the morning, your brain is literally
dehydrated. That's where the pain and the
suffering comes from. And that's why when you take the
water in, you get that quick little buzz in the head because
that the brain is the first thing that is hydrated.
Last thing is your voice, your vocal cords is hydrated in your
body so. You've got the croaky voice, so
you get the croaky voice. So what's the best hangover cure
then? Don't drink.
But if I had to, if I really, really my life was on the line,
I had to go to the pub, I had to have 10 pints and watch the
football. What's the best hangover cure?
How am I curing that? Yeah, you're, you're walking me.
How am? I How am I hydrating myself?
Well, the best thing to do, and I do this in the morning without
drinking is is your electrolytes.
First thing in is 500 milliliters of water with
electrolytes and then my after that's 500 milliliters of water
with my vitamins. I have my vitamins in a little,
little sachet, you know, group that I take in.
So the best thing is to do is to hydrate yourself as best as
possible. Get as much sodium into the body
as you can. No, that's just good for general
health as well. Every single day.
But if somebody put a gun to your head and you are forced to
do they. Forced me BJ, they forced me
and. That's what you do is you
hydrate yourself. But I'm not saying that's a
remedy for it all. The best thing is don't do it,
Yeah. I'm certainly learning that now.
I tend to drink probably once a quarter now, and that's
especially if I had to it's it's not sustainable.
Now I'm 40 and also a parent. You just can't do it with the
kids like they, they, they deserve better.
They deserve the better. They deserve a present parent.
You know, and when you're hungover, it's not there.
That's a. Great.
That's actually a great point to put it on like that, yeah.
That's the big that's been the biggest eye opener for me is
they're not getting the best out of me and then that's not fair
on them. That's awesome, I like to hear
that. You've mentioned a few things
about discipline and stuff, and I will get on to that, but I've
got two more questions. If you had to design you, you
could only do one workout for the rest of your life every like
whenever you're doing it, that's you could only do one What's how
would you design that session? What would that sort of 45
minute hour session look like? Right?
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Now let's get back to the episode if.
I had one choice of 1 benchmark workout that I could do for the
rest of my life. For me, it's Linda.
That's what it is. 10 down to one bench, dead left and cleans.
I'm going to do that every single day, so.
What is that? Yeah, So what's that 10?
10 down to 1, so it's 55 reps each.
It's body weight bench press. It's one point.
It's 1 1/2 body weight deadlift and it's .75 body weight cleans.
10 down to 1. So that's Linda, Linda, Linda
all day long. Secondly will be DT and I love
DT. If I'm going to put a workout
together for the general population and what would that
look like, What would a great general population workout going
to be? I'm going to have our strength.
Our strength is going to be is going to be squats.
Squats is the test of life. The bar on the shoulders is what
you know, it's going to hold you down and you got to drive it up
and you got to work through it. So it's going to be squats in
the strength session. And from that point forward it's
going to be an upper, a mid and an upper and a gymnastics and a
lower work throughout the session itself.
The studies have shown that a 12 minute AMRAP is the the greatest
time level for workout the most, the greatest benefit level for
the particular AMRAP. And So what I would probably
what I would do personally is I would work on an upward scale
between gymnastics of muscle UPS, bar muscle ups.
And this is just me because I just, I just love them, you know
what I'm saying? And then I would definitely have
bench in there. And I, I mean, sorry, I have
cleaning jerk in there for your, your movement.
And then I would have the Co work of Toto bars.
So trying to stay off of a lot of a lot of other work that you
would do, say in a strength session, you got your squats
over here. And then we're going to hit our,
our cleaning jerk, hit your, your gymnastics with your bars
and either bar muscle up. So that's something that I would
work around there. And then for the cardio section
of it, just do 12 calls of ski, so 12 reps of each 12121212
minutes. That's what I would do if I had
to program that for someone and that's what they got to do for
the rest of their life. That's a full body workout,
everything that they would need and somebody, somebody might ask
you, well, how are you going to use a muscle up?
Have you got to run from someone?
You can jump on a roof and you can keep moving and go so.
Yeah, but yeah, if you've done a bit of shoplifting on the side,
like yeah, you can, you can get away from them.
You mentioned muscle ups and and was it toast a bar?
Are they the hardest moves to master?
Muscle ups are considered the snatch of the gymnastic moves.
You know just your standard muscle UPS as a rule textbook
that you. We're told that ring muscle UPS
are easier. That didn't work with me.
Bar muscle ups came easier to me.
So and but Toto bars are should not be a hard move to master.
What is hard to master is the preliminary move for a Toto bar
as well as a, a kipping or a butterfly pull up.
And that's the kipping move in itself.
So people can do toe to bars, they can bring their their toes
from the floor to the bar or at least toe to target.
The problem is recycling them and getting the Kip in action
the way it should because most people lose the shoulders.
You know, 10-12 years ago when they went through the went
through the courses and taught the coaches, you know, they said
initiate with the shoulders. The problem with that is you
made a pendulum effect with the feet and that was changed later
on in the gymnastics class to where you want to move with the
course. You want to try to take your rib
cage and your pelvis and shorten that distance to create that
hollow hold position, and then you go into that back arch
position. But you want active shoulders
the whole time. So I want you want to strengthen
the scapulas, be able to detract the scapulas down, hold that
position of active shoulders, initiate everything from the
core and move that Kippy movement.
And that's going to get you the toe to bars.
Again, anybody can bring their toe to the bar, but it's
recycling them. So I don't think it's the
hardest to master. It's the Kippy movement in
there. That's the that's the issue that
most people struggle with. What's?
The biggest mistake you see people making?
Then lose. The shoulders, they go soft in
the shoulders go soft so. You just hang in essentially
then. Yeah, so when you're dead hang,
you turn the chains off, the anterior posterior chains off,
you can't control the movement and you basically turn into
opinion like on a like on a clock, a grandfather clock.
And so I tell people, the minute you lose your shoulders, drop
down, shake it out, get back down, get back up there again.
You know, you just got to restart, reset the the mindset
and the momentum for it. That's the big thing.
What do people get wrong about discipline?
They assume they're disciplined. If you were to ask the average
Joe on the street today, are you disciplined, they would quickly
say yes. And one of the reasons they
would quickly say yes because they've never been asked that
question, number one. Number two, our default in our
life when someone asks a question typically is to say
yes. You know, when it's a question
such as that, especially in a positive mindset.
So people assume they are disciplined, but the issue is
when you begin to look at their life and what I use the word
defaults, I spoke about this the other day in the, in the, the
videos, our defaults is what we do when no one looks.
So we default to who and what we truly are behind closed doors.
OK. And that's where discipline is
really, really, really and truly tested.
The simple definition of discipline is doing the things
that you don't want to do to reach the goals that you set and
not doing the things you want to do in order to reach those goals
you desire. That's what the simple
definition, if you can do that, if you can master that, all the
talent in the world will not replace discipline in our life.
It's saying no more than it is saying yes, and it is bringing
your body into subjection. That's another Bible verse
there, it bringing the body into subjection so that the mind
can't adapt to where you need to be.
Most people think old dogs can't be taught new tricks and that's
not true. Neuroplasticity has proven that
not only can we increase the Gray matter, but we can relearn
and re adapt in our life. So it's making those those
needed decisions and choices in our life in order to reach that
goal. And that's where discipline is.
That one mistake is people assuming they have it, but when
they're tested in the mist behind closed doors, they'll go
to the bag of crisp before they'll go to the pack of
chicken to prep it because it's quick and it's easy.
That's not discipline. Discipline is throwing the crisp
in the rubbish bin, getting the chicken out, prep it, cook it,
20 minutes later have your meal. That's discipline does.
That come down to accountability then, because if you had someone
there watching you, you'd go like, if you had BJ in your
kitchen and I went for the crisps and I saw you, I'd be
like, all right, yeah, no, BJI was just putting them away.
I'll go and get the chicken. But once you walk out those
doors and it's down to me. So is accountability a big part
of discipline, Billy? 'S a big part if you have
somebody that can be accountable for you.
OK, that goes back again to that default.
We default to who and what we are behind closed doors.
There's a guy called DL Moody who said that character is what
a man does in the dark. And that's what our our
character is truly, truly tested.
Little things in life, I think improves our discipline.
I'm a big advocate. Maybe you've seen this on the
videos. I think the trolley, the trolley
at the grocery store, that's a test of a person's character.
Are you going to walk it back in the middle of the rain and put
it back where it needs to go? Or are you going to leave it in
the car park for someone else to do?
For someone else to give discipline says, you know what?
This is my trolley. I've taken this, I've used this.
I'm going to go put it back where it needs to go.
I'm not going to leave it for someone else.
It's no different than re racking the weights of the gym
and putting things back where they go.
That's the true test of a person's character.
Anyone who leaves the trolley in the in the car park and who who
doesn't re rack their weights and leaves things out.
They have an entitled mindset. Scumbags BJ.
The Scumbags BJ. You're Hey, Yeah.
There you go. You're saying what's in my mind?
I didn't. I didn't want to drop.
I'll. Say it for you drives.
Me, absolutely. You know, bonkers.
It does. Because I believe, you know, if
you take it, put it back, if you open it, close it, everything
has a place. There's a place for everything.
But that's that test for discipline right there.
It's what you do when no one's watching.
OK. And so accountability is a great
deal. We, we actually, you mentioned
challenge earlier. My first book is called Renewed
and it's a transformational challenge.
It's based on a 66 day challenge of four areas in your life and
that's mental discipline, emotional stability, physical
well-being and spiritual strength.
And you choose one area in those four categories and you work on
it for 66 days. In the early days when we
started doing these, we have accountability partners, OK.
And so every single day I had to chat.
If you and I were partners at the end of the day, I will send
you a list of what my 4 categories are.
And I'd have a tick mark or an X mark on there whether I hit it.
And when you're going through the day, I know I got to take, I
got to text Harry tonight. I got to let him know, man, and
I don't want that red X there. I want that green tick box, you
know? And so those things help, but
the reality is on day 6768 and 69, if you're truly transformed,
you're going to do that without having to check in with Terry.
So yes, accountability is a big, big key.
There's going to be a time when you're eventually going to have
to put your big boy trousers on and you got to do it yourself.
You got to be disciplined, you got to make that difference
because you want to be better today than you were yesterday.
And that's the simple, simple answer to the whole thing is
work the problem, what's the problem?
We're the problem. I'm the problem.
So I need to make myself better without Denise or Terry or
whoever looking after me. I want to make it better here
today. And that's where discipline
falls into line. That's.
True, because I would say I'm not a discipline person.
I'm not. I am absolutely terrible, but
what, how I counteract that because I, I know I'm not, is I
set my environment up so I don't have those weaknesses or, or I
make it easy to keep to my schedule or what I've planned
doing, or I make it hard to not do the bad things.
Does that make sense? So for example, chocolate crisps
in the house, we just don't buy it.
We just don't buy it. So how, how much would be sort
of setting up your environment? If, if, if we're not
disciplined, is that the first place to go?
Just take temptation away. I'll tell you what, my dad asked
me this when I was in uni. He said, B, how do you stay out
of a bar fight? You know what my answer was?
My answer was, ah, just be nice, I'd be kind.
I do this, I do that. He goes, no, son, you stay out
of a bar. So you cut the head off where it
is, you cut the head off where the problem is, and it's that
simple. So it's like, you know, if I, if
I struggle with with the snack times, you know, that's the, and
we all do. I mean, here's The thing is none
of us, you know, we look at these athletes today and we look
at people who have, you know, they got they're what we want to
be say, you know, we look at these people and you know, I
can't, you know, I want to be like that when I'm that old.
I mean, I want to, you know, I want to, I want to be strong.
I want to do this well. They struggle with the same
things that everybody else does. So the perfect thing that you
said is you set the environment in order.
I don't want to eat the crisp. Therefore I don't buy the crisp.
I don't want to eat the biscuits that we don't buy the biscuits.
I don't, I'm not a soda drinker anyway.
So it's really, that's not a temptation for me.
I, I literally drink water and coffee and electrolytes.
That's, that's it. So, and that's, that's a
blessing. I take that on.
I don't have a temptation to drink alcohol.
I don't have a temptation to drink soda, none of those
things. So that's a huge help for me.
Some people do they have that temptation, they like it, they
want it. Just don't buy it.
You know, that's the simple, you know, and you say, well, but I'm
walking down the aisle, don't walk down the aisle.
You know, so everything that you can do is exactly what you said
as you control the environment because you're at the end of the
day, you're the human. You control where you are.
And most of our life and our much of our life is a result of
reactions that we have cost and consequences.
All the all come from a choice that we make.
And we can choose that aisle over there, the crisp and the
snacks and this and that, or we can choose the aisle over there
with a steak and the chicken in there and the fruit and the veg.
That comes down to choices. Second thing on that is taken
the proper channels to maintain those choices.
I work every day off the tick box.
So I'm I'm, I'm very disciplined.
My life is ordered by my day timer.
You know, it's like when you and I talked about booking this in,
I put you in the book there, you aren't, you're locked in.
Here we go. You know, my appointment before
that was here, my morning was here.
Everything has a tick box and I prioritize my week based upon
urgency, emergency, and importance.
So what has to be done on Monday?
There it is on Monday. What has to be done on Tuesday?
So if I have 60 things to do, which is typical in a given
week, just because I finish at 3 and not 5 on a Monday with the
list I have, it doesn't mean I borrow from Tuesday.
See, discipline also is not doing things as well as doing
them, you see, I'm saying, and I break it upon there.
That way you stay mentally aware, you stay, you know,
physically aware, you're emotionally aware, and you're
keeping that mental discipline where it belongs.
And that's driving the bus. Yeah, you also, you've earned
that rest. Then you're not filling up that
rest time with tasks from Tuesday.
You've earned that rest and you can actually enjoy that rest and
a little pat on the back for you.
Absolutely. It's, I just want to mention
actually, because So what did your father say to you said,
what's the best way to stay out of the bar fight?
Stay out the bar. Do you know what my father said
to me when I started going to the pubs?
He said I think I started going up when I was about 16.
It's been naughty in the UK, you know, you've got to be 18.
And he said if you think you're old enough to go up the pub then
you're old enough to get punched in the face.
Wise words, very. Wise words, yeah.
What's? Wise words at least.
You knew what to expect, right? It's the risks I like.
I knew the risks. I just thought it was quite
funny because they are both on the opposite the ends of the
spectrum. There's 22 areas of advice
there. It's funny.
What does being tough but when? When does being tough become a
cover for avoiding deeper issues?
That's great. That's a great question.
That's a deep question. This is actually something that
I'm dealing with with a couple of people right now and some
counseling sessions that the ego, that bravado is on the
outside. Now I want to throw a disclaimer
out there. We are bombarded today with
pseudo masculinity. The louder I can be, the more
women I can do that I can tag. The more, you know, there's a
group of guys, I'm not going to name names.
There's a group of guys today that are that have all the media
in the world, they have all the attention in the world and
they're teaching these young blokes.
They're teaching these guys this is the way to be.
This is this is manhood, this is masculine and this is not OK,
not at all. This is the masculinity, the
toughness behind deeper issues. So often times what you find was
someone who has that swollen ego, they're hiding behind some
hurt and some trauma in their life.
And what they're doing is they're not just
compartmentalizing it, but they're pressing it down.
They're being taught push it down, push it down, push it
down. There is a time in a place when
we push those things down. But there is also a time in a
place to where we come together with another man.
As the Bible tells us, OK, iron sharpeneth iron.
So does a man sharpen the counteness of his friend.
OK, we all need that one guy. All right?
We need that one guy. I was told by a wise man that if
you die and you, you can fill one hand with true friends, that
you die a wealthy man. But we need that one man in our
life that we can sit down and say, listen, here's my issue,
this is where I am. And if you shed tears, you shed
tears. There's nothing anti masculine
about shedding a tear. You see what I'm saying?
So when we look at that toughness that people are, that
loudness and that toughness and this and that, and they're
hiding behind it, that's the issue.
They're trying to cover something up.
Now you got to dig sometimes, you know, that comes back to
what you mentioned just a moment ago about your children.
It's being present. OK.
So do I believe men should be tough?
Yeah, we should. Do I think we should be
protective of our homes and our family?
Most certainly. Should we provide for them?
Absolutely. That's our role in our job.
As a matter of fact, Ephesians 5 tells us as the man that we are
to be the sacrificial position in the home, give himself just
as Jesus gave himself for the church, we are to give ourselves
for our wife, OK, my role in the home is sacrifice, all right.
And I'll do whatever needs to be done in our house to make sure
it's protected, to make sure it grows and make sure it develops
and and it is what it needs to be.
The foundation is strong. The Bible calls it the
strongman. So that toughness sometimes
being hidden behind or hiding what is behind the issues over
here has to be peeled away, but it can only be peeled away by
being present and understanding where people are today.
And that's going to that's just going to come by building a
relationship. And that's where that is.
And that's, I don't know, I'm hoping I'm answering your
question because you the question was, you know, when
does toughness become a facade for deeper issues?
I think it quite often does. But there's some telltale signs
that you find, you know, when you ask a question.
So I really quickly deflects that.
So those who their go to is deflection.
There's a deeper problem that's there.
There's a deeper issue that is that is that's going on when
they direct your statement or your question or just a
conversation toward other people.
If you keep an eye out of people who's always kind of a critical
eye, always finding faults and problems in the surrounding
areas or other people's lives, there's a deeper issue that is
going on there and they're bringing that toughness or that
hypocritical, that hypocritical ideology.
They're bringing that out into people's mind to try to hide
what they're dealing with. I like that.
So is is this deflecting that you're seeing this?
Don't look at me, look at that guy over there.
So is it something that you can't see when you're in it,
they do have to rely on other people to see it, or is it
something you can see and recognize within yourself?
And if so, how would you do that so?
Denial. Denial is where you are.
What you're talking about, denials is a massive, massive
area in the neurological side of our world.
So what denial tells you I'm good, man, You know, and that's
a lot of our answers. Say how things are going.
How are you doing? I'm good.
And I say that all the time, you
know, and nine times out of 10, I'm good.
You know, I just keep moving on. It's not hiding anything.
But yeah, I'm good. I'm going.
I got the next thing to do, but denial will completely cause
your you to have a delusional view of where you really are and
who you really are. We don't see it because that's
what denial's job is. Denial's job is to cover up what
you basically need and you're covering it up by that pseudo
masculinity. And a lot of times you can't see
it until it's brought out. Now here's a caveat of that.
Denial is always covering up something that is an action base
or action first, behavioral action addiction if you will.
So whatever problem, whatever issue that's going on, whatever,
whether it's a marital problem, a family problem, a work
problem, a personal problem, it is hidden down inside and denial
saying, no, I'm good, I'm fine, I don't need to deal with this.
Let's just cover that up. Well, what's going on here is
the brain is literally changing to remove the lens of what is
truly going on and your focus on everything else and you can't
see it. Somebody has to bring it up to
you. Somebody has to mention it to
you or at a given time, it has to break you.
And that's the problem it. Becomes your reality.
You actually change your your reality.
Perception is reality, and you, you're changing your brain so it
becomes your reality, so it becomes your truth, so you
cannot see it when you're in it. Yeah.
You really are. And and that's not an excuse.
That's not an excuse. Again, that's why you go back,
man. When you talk about connections
with healthy habits, healthy lifestyles, at least one guy,
you got to have that one guy that you can go to.
And I say this with myself. I say it in the gym as a Chapel.
I say the church as a pastor. I say to my family as as a
leader in the home, as a husband, as a father, and I say
it to a friend, to whomever I'm around.
I'm like a good dog. I come when I'm called and I
mean that, you know, because, because here's the deal, Terry.
We have men that are hurting out there today.
We've had an entire generation that was lost and they have this
misconception of what manhood should be.
And it's because we're getting, we're inundated today by so many
different perspectives of what it should or shouldn't be and
this and that. And, you know, and that's just
simply not true. It's just not true at all.
And we need somebody to have that perspective and go, hang
on, let's take a step back here. Let's peel some layers off.
It's OK to be vulnerable. And then after we're finished
with this, we're going to be stronger, You're going to be
better. And we're going to take the
first, first step forward to improvement today.
Yeah. How?
Has being a coach helped you become a best, better pastor?
If I said that right, If I said pastor.
That's exactly right. So how has being a coach help
you become a better pastor? That's.
A great question. You know, 'cause in, in all
fairness, it should be reversed. But I think it in all, I believe
it has helped me. I pastored 12 years in the
States. In that period of time I
coached, I coached sports. I coached softball, baseball,
American football. It was Youngers, you know, I was
involved in, in, in high school coaching a high school team at
one time. I was helping players here and
there, but being on the gym floor is a different perspective
than coaching those teams. Still a leader in the community,
still this and that. And I never really saw, I
thought then, to be honest with you, because I was the pastor,
because I, I was that man. And I, you know, I might, you
know, with compassion and you got to, you have to exercise
these things that it was helping me to be a, a, a coach in the
field, come in here and coaching here in, in this, in this
country and especially in Ion, which again, like I said, it's
just it's the greatest ship in the world.
It's home when you when you look at it, I believe in all fairness
that coaching on the floor has improved my ability to pastor
people. You have to be able to direct
people and guide people and, and see what their needs are, see
what the shortcomings are, see where they need to improve, but
at the same time see how they have improved and how well
they're doing and what their their go to signs are.
Coaching has improved that from looking at certain cues that we
need to give to make this correction, that correction, you
know, a small little change here, intricate little changes,
massive changes. But being involved with the
people, not being afraid to go up to somebody who's brand new,
say, hey, my name's BJ, what's your name?
Hope you have a great day today. If you need anything at all, you
just let me know. But then coming back around to
following up with them, How does the moose feel?
How does this do? You're personally involved with
the people and you're involved in a very intense manner as
well. You know, somebody who know,
when I'm on the gym floor, I'm a fairly intense guy.
Then I get into the pulpit, I get into the church, you know,
and I am, I'm not that same guy. But until I start preaching,
then it gets a little bit exciting.
You know, I'm, I'm not the, I'm not the moaning grown guy that,
that by God's grace, I'll never be that guy on the gym or the
pulpit, you know, but I'm not the happy clappy guy running
around. I mean, it's, it's for me,
everything's square and true. But I believe coaching has
helped me interact with our people in the church and help
them in ways that before I just assumed that I was helping.
I think it opened up a door of vulnerability both on my part
and their part coming from the gym floor into the pulpit.
It's been great. Be honest with you.
Yeah. Yeah, well, well, on the flip
side, how's been a pastor helped you become a better coach?
Well, it's. Helped me though, because I'm
not afraid to speak. Obviously you're learning that
now, you know, so I'm not afraid to walk up to somebody who I
don't know, introduce myself, who I am.
That comes from pastoring. You know, your normal pastor
will walk around the church, walk around the church, shake
hands, welcome everybody there. You always have to be hospitable
and that's actually a requirement.
We ought to be hospitable apartment to teach, you know,
servant Lord must be a litany of different things.
But I have, I have no quorums whatsoever walking up to whoever
it is, no matter what they look like, no matter what they've
said or how they act. Shaking their hand, give them a
fist bump, give them a hug. Introduce myself to them.
Obviously afterwards give them a hug after I introduce myself.
But you know what I'm saying? I have no problems with that.
That's how the ministerial side of it I think has helped me in
coaching is there's just no reservation for me to go up to
anybody and talk to them, which I think helps, you know, because
people have to be included. But also, like I said, I was a
practitioner in the States, all right?
So I was, you know, I was in prosthetics, orthotics for 20
plus years with my practices. When I was a resident, I was,
we, it was 100 miles an hour. I had 32 patients a lot of times
a day. Even as a, you know, years later
on, every time I went into that patient room, OK, they had to
feel like they're the only one in the office.
OK, When you're on the gym floor and you're conversing with
people and you're talking to them, that one person that I'm
talking to, they need to feel like they're the only one in the
gym. And then the next one needs to
feel the same way and the same way and the same way.
Same thing in the church. When I sit there and I talk to
our organist and she has a question to ask me or a prayer
request, I need to focus on her and not be distracted by what's
going on around me. All of those three things have
complemented one another that I have found that even though
there's a load of people around where there's 40 people in the
class, 32 people on a patient list that day, or 30 some odd
people in the church is you need to focus on each individual one
as if they are the only one there so you can help them and
meet their needs at the present moment.
What's? The importance of that.
The importance of us make a difference in that day.
We all need that every here, whether people like to admit
this or not. People want two things.
They want to feel important, OK or needed and they want to be
heard. People want to be heard. 4
characteristics that we see in people far as love goes, and I
always characterize them as as animals.
All right, you got the fish. The fish don't care to be
touched. They don't want to be stroked.
They don't want to be talked to. They just want you to clean that
tank. That's all they want services,
right? You got the cat, right?
Cat wants to be fed when they want to be fed.
All right? They don't care about you.
They want to be stroked when it's on their dime.
OK, so if they have needs, you got the you got the dog.
The dog wants to be talked to. You know, you go home to your
dog. You say, hey, boy, you're so, so
good to see you. And he's wagging his tail.
He's excited. But then there's the Canary.
And the Canary doesn't care who cleans their cage.
Canary doesn't care who feeds them.
The Canary doesn't want to listen to you.
The Canary wants to sing. Canary wants to be heard.
And I believe there's a quality in every single one of us in our
life today. We want to be needed and we want
to be heard, and that's the two things that people need to know
that when they come to the gym floor, when they come to the
patient room or they come to the church, you're needed.
You have worth. We love you and I want to hear
what you have to say. I love that and I think it's so
true. And with men and women, and I've
always said this about men is men always want to feel strong,
capable and useful. And it just sort of aligns with
what you're saying there. It's sort of being heard and
sort of feeling important. And I think there's a there's a
severe lack currently in it or people are lacking that feeling
of importance and being valuable and having that purpose.
What do you feel that the modern sort of self improvement world
gets wrong nowadays? And what and what does it get
right? What gets wrong?
Now let me tell you what it gets right.
It has a great formula. The formula is tremendous.
It really is. It's the formulas that it has
about cutting things out in the daytime, cut in your day,
improving your day, managing your time, creating good habits,
and all this. Even though some of things are
built on facade, you know, you know, we've heard the, the gurus
get up 21 days to change your habit.
That's neurologically impossible.
It takes 66 days for the hormones to be produced to, to
to actually increase a true habit and break another one.
And and that's, that's a conversation probably for
another time, but that it's, it's scientifically impossible
for that. So the formula they have take
action first, do this, make the changes in your life.
That's great. What they get wrong is
superficial, OK. And you know, it's, it's kind of
like some take out food, man. It takes really, really good
going down. But then about 5 minutes later
you're hungry again. You see what I'm saying?
And so that's what happens with it.
What they get wrong is that this is going to work for you.
This is how you do it. And they lay it out, but there's
no substance to it and it doesn't stick.
So what happens? Well, book #2 comes out all
right. Speech #2 comes out.
Speech #3 you know, self help books are the leading selling
books every single year. There's thousands of them
reproduced every single year. Now I'm saying that being an
author of a so-called self help book, it's not, it's a
transformational book. But nonetheless, my second book
is Be Where Your Feet Are, which gives 10 principles of of living
in an unstable world based on statements that men have made to
me in my life over the course of my formerly years.
But I'm saying all that to make this point.
What most people get wrong is it's all based on something of
weak substance. And so it gets lost in the
shuffle. So it works real well today and
it works well tomorrow and it works well the next day, but
there's no follow up principles. The follow up principles is
where most people within the self help world, that's where
they fall short. Yes, they can say the right
things here. It's what to do, but how to do
it is where it gets lost. And that's the primary to sum
the simple answer up, they give. They do a great job in what they
do, a very polar job in how. And by the way, that wasn't a
plug for my books. I'm sorry about that.
No, I'll plug away, man. At the end I'll ask you about
stuff. So absolutely plug away.
Like you know, if you can get a couple of sales out of it,
that's fantastic like. We have two more books coming
out and it's here that's. Just I might pick one up.
Actually, I'll pick one up definitely.
That's 66 because it made sense when you said the 66 days change
of habit. I was that.
That's why it's the 66 day challenge.
See. My number, my college number is
66. And yeah, so my college number
was 66 and 66 books in the Bible.
So somebody was like, yeah, I think you did this, you know.
So technically, scientifically, it's 60 to 61 days.
However, what I include is that first five days, that first
week, when the, when it starts getting past the bumpy roads,
that's why I say 66 days to make that transformational change.
And it works. See, when I was in uni, I was in
uni 3536 years ago, right? So, well, I was 19, I was 35
years ago. I was still in uni then, but the
neuroplasticity studies were just beginning at that time.
And man, look and they, they just come to completion the past
12 to 1418 months and it's phenomenal.
Very same thing that we hypothesized back then has been
proven that Gray matter can redevelop, brain structures can
be reconstructed, you can relearn.
You know the whole old, old dogs new trick thing.
Man, that ain't true at all. So.
You said you were. Your background was in
neuroscience. Was it neuroscience?
Yeah. Neurological sciences with my
bachelors degrees in So what? Did you?
Yeah. You in You went to college,
university and you studied the brain.
Yeah, the brain and the body. Yeah, really.
Actually, so you're fully qualified to actually talk about
this like in that like you know what you're on about like this.
This isn't just you haven't, you haven't heard this on a podcast.
No, no. No, no.
But like I said, the beautiful part of it is the the beautiful
part of us. We were on the front end.
I mean, because one of my one of my professors, a guy called
Robert Sherlock, he was world renowned.
I had no idea. I mean, this guy was the, he was
the smartest person ever met in my life.
He could tell you every synapse, every receptor site, every,
every neurological code for what you know, what drug, what I
mean? It was he was so far above and
beyond, you know, where we were. It was unbelievable.
And he couldn't sit down and have this conversation to save
his life. I mean, the common sense wives
was out the table, but he was brilliant.
He was a brilliant guy. And he began that research back
then. He's dead now.
He's long gone, but he began that research and now you're
starting to find all the neuroplasticity studies over the
last early 24 months. And to make Long story short,
man, really science caught up with the Bible, to be honest
with you, because the whole renewed 66, the whole renewed
book is based on Romans 12/2. And be not conformed to this
world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind.
It's there. So that's the beautiful part of
that. Now, when you come from a
Christian perspective and a pastoral perspective, yeah, it
was over here the whole time, but let's put this in a
practical application today, so. What I find is, especially with
sort of religious scripture, stuff like that, it's all based
around stories. And I find the stories stick
with you in your memory much longer.
And you can learn the the lessons from the stories much
easier than if that guy slapped down a textbook and said here's
the science of the brain. No one's going to remember that.
But you can put it into a story. And that's sort of what I think
it hits. It's got a bigger appeal anyway.
It doesn't matter if you're a neuroscience or you haven't got
a brain, You can. You can.
You can understand the story. You get 1.
Majority. You know there's 27 books in the
New Testament, right? You know, 141617181920 some of
those books are letters. They're letters all right.
And then when you look at the preservation part of it with the
King James, the way it's written, you're going to learn
more. It's going to stick with you in
the King James rather than because grammatically it has,
it's just posed to do that, whereas the modern versions
aren't. I mean, some of them, there's an
actual computer score called the Flesh Kincaid readability score
and all the modern works that they've done which are based on
ill transcripts, Every one of those works that are that are
when the the computer, it's a non biased computer.
It comes out as just grammatically 12th and 13th and
14th grade reading level. Whereas you'll need a 7th grade
reading level to understand the King James 7th grade's like a 12
year old, 1213 year old. So yeah.
But I, I think I heard a stat before, something like 50% of
the population have a reading level of say like a 14 year old
and below. Like you need to be hitting
those. So if you, you're missing out on
50% of the population just by writing.
A modern version. Yeah, absolutely.
You are. It's phenomenal.
It's just, you know, and again, it's been around for 400
something years, man. Our country here, you know, our
country, your country. What's my country now?
I'm a citizen now and it's your. Country too.
It's your country too, yeah? We produced it and put it around
the world. So, you know, hey, here it is.
And it's still the best selling book of all time.
Yeah. Bro, what's the biggest lesson
that you learned? You studied neurology.
What's the biggest lesson that you learned in studying
neurology about the brain and how did you take that into your
life as sort of actions that you take to see the benefit or
progress? Adaptability.
Adaptability is the biggest and biggest key that probably the
biggest thing that I learned about the brain.
The brain, we use such a small part of it, but the power that
we have of our brain, neurologically speaking,
biologically speaking, every central aspect of it is the
about adaptability of the brain because it's built to survive.
OK, so you know, our fight or flights produced by cortisol, so
upper our levels of cortisol and here's what happens.
So you take take things, take choices we make every day.
If we start becoming that critical person and we complain
and complain and we're complaining about, you know, the
government here and the speed limit here.
And I'll be honest with you, I complain about the speed limit.
I hate it. But you know, we could once we
start focusing on everything that is negative, the complaint,
our cortisol level rises. And what happens is it converts
our brain, it physiologically changes our brain and it weakens
the adaptability. All right, so we lose
inflection. We we lose compartmentalization,
we lose adjustability and adaptability throughout the day.
And here's the reality. If you're going to survive in
this world today, your brain has to adapt.
We have to come down to the idea of work.
The problem, the problem is presented.
I have a choice to make. I can either complain about the
problem, rise cortisol levels, change the Physiology of my
brain and make it weaken, or we make it weaker than it was and
decrease the ability to adapt. Or I can be where my feet are
right here. I'm in the moment, right here.
Now I can look at the problem, I can address the issue, and step
by step by step, I can begin to work that problem, work that
issue to where now we have lower corzo level and our brain
becomes more adaptable in our life.
So adaptability is the greatest lesson that I've ever learned
about the brain, especially through school and experience.
And can you tie that to a Bible verse or a Bible proverb or
something like that? Oh.
Absolutely. So you know #1 Romish 12/2 that
we mentioned just a moment ago. And be not conformed to this
world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind.
So your brain can adapt and you can renew that mind.
You can, you can, you can put that into places that you need
to. Now how do you do that?
Here's where we come. There's the what we can do.
You can renew the mind. You can change the mind.
You can alter the way it works and you can improve it.
How do we do that? Philippians 48.
Paul says think on these things and he lists a series of things,
things that are just things that are true, things that are are
lovely, things that are of good report, you know, things that
are honest. OK, so here's the deal about the
brain. Here's the trick.
You can't have two thoughts at the same time.
So if I was to describe to you a Gray submarine, I want you to
think about a Gray, Gray nuclear submarine.
It's going through the water. It's travelling at about 20
knots right now, and that's what it's doing.
It's continuing to move. The lights are on red and it's
just moving along doing it's work.
You got that picture in your mind, right?
OK. So we see that thing.
It's moving, right? OK, now I want you to think
about a pink Pansy. OK, alright.
How fast is that submarine moving?
Almost stationary I think, I can't remember it.
Was 20 knots you? Did say, did you?
You did. Say 29th, you can't think of we,
we cannot think of two things at the same time.
We, I know we say, well, we're multitaskers.
No, you're not. You're we're either doing one
thing at 100%, two things at 5053 things that you see what
I'm saying? We can't think on one thing 100%
of the time. We can't, I mean, I'm sorry, we
can't think on two things 100% of the time and get focused to
it. So what is Paul saying in
Philippians 48 when something negative comes in?
All right. 29 hour speed limit, Sorry, you know, shake it off.
What is lovely, I start thinking about something that's lovely.
What is true? Think about something that's
true. What is a good report?
What is honest, what is just what is pure.
You see what I'm saying? And that's how you bring those
thoughts, those critical negative thoughts that are
rising the cortisol level. That's how you bring them back
into something that is positive and keeps your life thinking in
the way that it should be, changing the way you think, as
opposed to going to that default and negativity.
Maintains that adaptability then, and maintains that
adaptability. What's 1 truth about CrossFit
High Rocks Fitness that everyone repeats that you found is
completely wrong in the real world?
Thinking they can skip a workout and be just as good tomorrow as
they were yesterday. OK.
Yeah. So would you call that rest day?
No. Beyond a rest day, I think you
should have rest days. We should train five days a
week, should have two days rest. We should do it.
Or four days, three days rest, whatever it may be.
But what I mean by saying that is, you know, I'll just skip
this leg day today, or I'll skip bench today, or I'll skip, you
know, whatever today, I'll just pick it back up next week, you
know, for no other reason than a rest day.
OK? People think that they'll be
able to pick up where they left off and have no cost with it.
You're going to have a cost. It may be a good cost, could be
at times. I personally believe that you
should have your rest days. You should have two rest days a
week. I think you should have two rest
days a week that you don't even go on to the gym.
You know, we have this whole ideology of active rest day and
somebody comes in and they row 5000 meters.
That's not an active rest day. It's called a workout, you know.
And so, you know, yeah, we should have our rest days.
But beyond that, people think that they can come off and skip
a particular day and then still be where they want to be in six
weeks, 8 weeks on a 12 week block.
That's simply not going to happen.
Training and working out in the gym, whether it be from the
connections, whether it be from stress management, whether it be
from nutrition, whether it be from movement, all four of those
things are really tied in with consistency.
The more consistent we are, the more disciplined and dedicated
we are, the greater the benefits that we're going to see.
And so the, the, you know, I think the, the hidden part of
that is, is I can skip today and still be where I need to be.
You won't be, it may be an acceptable cost.
Maybe you need to skip that day, but if you're just doing it
because you hit the the snooze button.
Just have that extra 20 minutes in bed.
Yeah, you can. If you hit this I my philosophy
is this. You hit the snooze button,
you're weak. Really.
How did you wake up you? Get up out of bed, man straight.
Away the. Alarm goes off at 4, you get up,
push through them. All you have to do is 30
seconds. 30 seconds. Yeah, you get through 30
seconds. You're done, man.
Get up and go. You're good to go.
See. I do.
I have 3 snoozes. You're going to hate this.
So if I need to get up at half six, my alarm goes off at six
and then 9 past 6 because there's always the snooze is
always 9 minutes. I don't know why I like it's
like standard, standard set then 18 and then 27 and then I'm up.
So like I need that to wake up. But I think because I heard
somewhere someone told me before countdown, if you countdown in
your head, so the lamb wakes you up and then you countdown from
10 and you go. When I hit one, I'm getting up
and I tried it once and it bloody worked.
I fed, I went ten, I never accepted one, got up and I was
like, that worked. I'm up.
You're a wake up. It's a wake up process.
Yeah, yeah. You're hitting snooze though.
I wasn't hitting snooze that time.
That'll work. I just get up.
I just, I get up because I'm just going to pull the panty and
do it. I can.
Imagine like like some sort of like like Frankenstein, just sit
up like I'm ready to go. Just.
Get up and go, man, the thing, the thing about the snooze
button here, here's the here's the the trick about the snooze
button. You hit the snooze button and we
think we're getting extra sleep, but you're not because the sleep
cycle is 90 minutes. So you have to restart that and
then all of a sudden at night and it's it goes off again.
And so the brain is it's the snooze button is detrimental.
So I have. Heard that because you can sort
of be in a deeper sleep 9 minutes time because you've
restarted that sleep cycle, you restart.
That sleep cycle and you never hit what you need to hit.
There's a great book by a guy called Doctor Nick Harris's I
Know What to Do, so why don't I do it?
And he was a, let me make sure. He was a professor of the
University of Bath. He was a neurological
immunologist. That's tremendous if you like
that kind of reading. I do.
It's a tremendous book to read. Tremendous book to read.
He's actually moved over to the States.
It's a British guy, moved over the States, and he trains the
FBI. He trains all these guys for
stress management and things like that.
They have all the metrics and the data on there, but it's a
phenomenal book to read on how the brain works.
He even says if you're going to take a nap in the day, which he
actually suggests people should take that.
He says it should be 90 minutes and when you get up, you do
everything that you normally do in the morning time.
So like if you shower after, you know, when you get up out of
bed, he says get up, take a shower, brush your teeth, do
this, do this. And he said that's the way to do
it. You know that's the way to do.
It Yeah. If you have the time of the day
to do that, I don't but. Get back in the shower.
You're cereal as well, whatever you're doing.
Yeah. What's something that people
completely. What are people overlooking that
could completely change their progress in fitness time?
Management is probably going to be one of the things and I'm, I
mean, that's just one of them. That's going to be a part of a
few. But I think people overlook time
management because they, what they look at is they look at
when can I squeeze the gym in gym in as opposed to let me work
my day out to where I can be at the gym and I can be at the
school and I can be at work and I can be at the bank and I can
be, you know, be what I need to do every single day and to move
things around. That's the one thing I think
that people miss is the time management aspect.
And we do live in a world today that has a weaker time manager
than anything. We seem like we're a busy
society. Much of that is produced by
social media and then constant contact and, you know, always
needed to be in touch with one another.
I think that's something it's, it's, it's not real, but I think
it's, there's a pressure on the outside.
So people feel conflicted about their time management.
If you can do what you normally do every single day.
So let's say you're going to the gym Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday,
and then Friday, Saturday, and then you're in that same class
at 9:30 or the 8:00 or the 7:00, you're in that same class.
Your life and your body gets into a schedule and a routine.
So routines are a blessing. They are a benefit to us.
They help us. They're not only that to give us
security. So I think one of the elements
that people are missing is time management.
Now that ties into the secondary reason people are filling their
days with a lot of busy work today, more than probably they
ever have been from after school activities, from parental
activities, from this and that and the other.
And there's a problem for that because begin to be pulled in
all sorts of directions and you cannot do five and six and seven
things efficiently. You know, at the same time, Jim
Collins says that if you have more than 33 priorities in
business or, and I and I transfer this into life, you
have more than three priorities. You have none.
And so you have to look at life in a, in a prioritization packet
to where those 3 priorities will fit into your everyday life.
That's where time management comes in.
The one package that people are probably missing, the trickle
down effect of that is going to be the nutrition, it's going to
be the strength, it's going to be the cardiovascular system,
it's going to be the water intake, It's going to be all the
things that take take place in that column, if you will,
priorities, the source of that time management.
Yeah. And what's the simple thing that
people can do to get a hold of that?
Cut out what you don't need. I mentioned earlier about my
prioritization between what is urgent, emergent, and important.
Everybody's important. Every human, every person, every
soul on the planet today are important.
Their needs are important and who they are is important, but
everything and everyone at a given particular time is not
emergent or urgent and you have to break those down.
And so when you begin to break down urgent, emergent and
importance, you know where you can put them through the day.
So yeah, you know what? Shopping on Thursday before
school let's out, that's probably important.
Can I shift that to an 8:00 or can I shift that to after the
school run? You know, can I shift that here
on a Thursday, which is my rest day from the gym?
I'm just being, you know, just saying this.
If I can shift that time from here and move it, that's my rest
day. I'm not in the gym.
I drop the kids off, then I go do the shopping rather than the
afternoon. You see what I'm saying?
And now I got the afternoon where I can pick the kids up.
We're back home, dinner's made, house is cleaned, I'm ready to
go. You got to decide what is
important, urgent, emergent and urgent because the reality is,
if something's truly urgent, it has to be done.
Yeah, that there, there's no, there's no shifting that to
Thursday. You do it today.
If it's emergent, that means it comes before urgent, it comes
before something else. And you have to be able to make
that, that situation. My life is scheduled.
But the moment I get a a church member or something or even a
gym member that goes to the hospital, you know, that now
becomes emergent. I'm going to go visit with them.
I'm going to see how they're doing.
Anything I can do to help out? Is your family anything?
Do we need to take meals? You know, things along that line
and you have to have that time and then you shift the urgent
down and the important moves to the side.
So time management is a key. I think that people miss that.
If they would apply it appropriately, it would benefit
them in the gym. Benefit from everywhere to be
honest with you, but in the gym, especially you.
Want to see I live my life by my calendar like every everything
scheduled, even though like almost down to like run bath,
brush teeth, like you want to see it?
It's all different colours or labeled or categorized.
I love it like it's it's the only way I can function.
But like, you have to, you have to have a handle in your bloody
life. Otherwise, your life has a
handle on you, you know, And it's that's.
Wise words. They're like that I made.
That that'd be a new T-shirt now.
What's your what's your most unpopular training opinion then
that would actually give people an unfair advantage and you
can't say cheating. Unfair advantage and not
cheating. So P DS.
I mean, I guess that's that's probably a pet hate of mine.
I would say. Yeah, you know, of course I know
we're in a world today. I grew up in a world where
people were, you know, were were doing steroids and things like
that. It was like, man, I was, you
know, you kept it quiet. Nobody said anything at all
today. It's just out, it's spoken out
in the open and and which is fine.
I mean, you know, that's what people want to do.
I mean, I don't know. I don't I guess I don't I've
really never thought about it. I don't, I don't look at
anything as an unfair advantage. I look at people were born
differently. We have different qualities, not
better than the other one. We have a particular guy, bloke
in the gym that he's just a genetic specimen, You know, he
really is. He's like, and I, I, I partnered
him up or, or teamed him up with a new guy in the gym today and,
and I was like, I told him, I'm sorry, you know, I'm just going
to go and say I'm sorry right now.
End up having a tremendous time. I.
Hope you're not talking about my brother now.
Yeah, referring to him as a genetic specimen.
We do it and again, but I don't look at that as being unfair.
I look at that as being a blessing.
That's just how it is. You know, I I went to the same
high school as Deion Sanders. Deion Sanders honestly is the
guy who did not have to practice.
He could show up on a Saturday or Sunday, NFL on a Sunday or
college on a Saturday and beat everyone.
He was the fastest. He's the greatest cornerback in
American football that's ever played the game.
OK, so here's a reality. He had the greatest work ethic
on the University of Florida State University's team.
He never quit working. He all in it to this day, he's
still working coaching the University of Colorado, good
mate of minds coaching with him. So I mean, you know, look at
that. He has a God gifted talent.
You know, he has a God gifted, you know, ability about it and
he's putting it to good use. Others have to work a little bit
harder. They have to train a little bit
harder. They may never get to that
level. But I've never really looked at
anything like that as an unfair advantage.
I mean, I look at Rob, Rob as as strong as a house.
I mean, the guy can still get up underneath, you know, 200 and
8300 kilos on the squad. Same with the deadlift.
And you know, he's just got a natural ability to, to deadlift
in a squat and like that. And I, I look at that as just
being a gift. It's a blessing.
So I don't see it as unfair. Yeah, I like it.
So it's not unfair. It's it's a fair advantage.
And it sounds to me that it's, it's almost like that worth work
ethic could be that thing that you're referring to there.
It's like put the work in and that will give you the
advantage. There's no cheat codes.
Put the work in and you can get them.
You know, it's funny, character building.
I, you know, one of the things I've always refused to do is I
refuse to take shortcuts walking somewhere.
So if you notice, if you're at the gym, you know, you're
walking down the pavement, get ready to turn to the car park.
There, you'll see there's a little path on the grass.
I refuse to walk in that. There's a couple of reasons I
don't want muddled my shoes. That's number one, all right,
But it's a shortcut. I think it's a character flaw.
Now, for those listening who do that, I'm not sorry.
I'm just telling you the truth. I mean, I'm not trying to offend
you, but I believe in walking the path.
You walk the path that a step before you be who you are, be
where your feet are so that you can be better tomorrow than you
are today. And there is no shortcut out
there that's going to get you where you need to be in the
weeks to come. You just have to keep putting
one step in front of the other and he.
Said something about you, it's who you are.
I'm not shortcut taker. I will walk the path.
Then you get more steps in, then you're losing more weight, then
you getting fitter. So like there's benefits it all
trickles down and knocks. Yeah.
What? What's the future then for BJ?
What's what you doing in the next year?
Next year, I'm going to continue what I'm doing.
We'll keep digging, keep trying to make lives better, keep
planning churches, keep preaching, teaching, keep
helping in the schools. I'm going to keep coaching.
By God's grace, I'm going to be here next year and, and
hopefully be stronger, you know, and hopefully be better than I
am right now. But you know, I will say this, I
learned a long time ago my plan was to live and die.
We had 55 acres in Tennessee. I was planning on being buried
on that property and divvying it up before I died to my children.
Have a little neighborhood family there.
That's what that was my plan. And as you can see, I'm living
in Wales. I'm in the Cardiff right now.
I think it a compliment because I'm in the center of God's will
where he wants me to be. And right now my plan is to take
care of today and then I'll get up in the morning and take care
of tomorrow. But I'm going to live this day
today where my feet are and focus on where I am right now.
So tomorrow I don't have to worry about tomorrow.
I'm taking care of right now today.
But my plan is to do what God wants me to do every single day
and help out where I can and hopefully make a difference.
I just want to make a difference in the world.
That's about all I want to do. And it starts with me doing it
today, and I'm hope I'm doing it a year from now right here.
Yeah. I love it, man.
I love it. Where, Where can people follow
you? Where can people buy your books?
Where can people go see you in the gym?
Or where can people go and see you in the church?
So the website, my website for the books and it's got devotions
on it has all kinds of litany information on it.
It's just myname.com. It's bjstagner.com.
They can get the books there, the devotions.
Our challenge is there. We actually just started a new
66 day challenge this past Monday in the front end of
February. That's been a blessing that's
going on. So they can get all the books
off of there, all the information there, all the
devotions. Our churches, we have two
churches. We have one up in the the
Cunning Valley in Aberamon. Our church is at 22 Lewis St. in
Aberamon. We meet there on Sunday mornings
and Wednesday nights. Our Cardiff church, we meet at
the My Sequoia Community Center on Sunday night at 1755, which
you know is means 6:00, but 1755 is our start time.
We usually try to say, but that is Sunday evenings.
That's both of our Calvary Baptist churches.
One is called Calvary Baptist Church to kind of valley and the
other is called Calvary Baptist Church of Cardiff.
And I'm in the gym most days, so I coach on Thursday mornings and
Friday nights, love Friday nights.
That's a wonderful time. You get to really spend time
with the people. But I'm typically there in the
morning times almost every day, obviously with, except for
Wednesdays and Sundays, and so I'm always around.
I'm not hard to find. BJ that was fantastic.
Awesome. Thank you very much for coming
on. Thank.
You my pleasure. Appreciate it.
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