Hello, ladies and gents Robert Sykes keto Savage.com.
And today I have special guests. Daniel Hale on the line, Daniel
reached out to me a few weeks back, sent me an email, I read
the email and I immediately had Crystal print it off.
And we share it with the entire crew because emails, like, this
is, literally what gives my life purpose stories?
Like what Daniel is about to share with you on this podcast?
Gives you perspective in life? Life is short, life is finite
the things that we allow ourselves to be consumed with,
oftentimes don't really Matter, his story matters his, his
daughter, Bridget his daughter Grace, his wife, they matter,
and his perspective, towards them, as a result of what
happened to his daughter. Bridget is incredibly profound
and it's motivated and shaped his life to this point going
forward. And I have no doubt that you
will take a lot out of this podcast.
We talked about mindset, we talked a little bit about keto,
but we talked about life's perspective and really doubling
down on what is important in life.
And ensuring that you're living a life.
That's in line with your best self, not only for yourself, but
those around you, the relationships in your life, I
thoroughly thoroughly enjoyed the conversation.
I have no doubt that you will as well.
So without further Ado, sit back relax and do the podcast with
Daniel. Daniel, we are laughs.
How are you, man? I'm good.
How are you? I'm doing wonderfully.
Wonderfully well. So I'm excited to bring you on
here today because you sent me an e-mail, a few weeks back and
like the email. It hit me, man.
Like I printed the email off, I put it on the board.
I shared it with the crew here and like getting emails like
that from you. And others is literally the
reason I do what I do. So thank you for the email
because you give my life purpose.
I appreciate that. But I love to kind of just dive
in and talk about your story man because what you've done is not
I mean I'm sure other people out there.
I have a similar story or know some of this helmet had a
similar story and it's incredibly inspiring and
motivating. And it's worth telling man.
So just kind of I don't want to read the full email, but just
kind of give the listener some context as to what's going on
here. All right, so I guess it kind of
goes back to just a little bit about myself.
I grew up, I was I was in pretty good shape.
I played Sports, you know, soccer basketball but I didn't
eat very well. Hmm, didn't seem to matter
because I was always really skinny and I was playing, you
know, playing sports all the time and I went to college and I
ended up going to Rutgers and I was not good enough to play
sports there. So I basically my playing Career
just ended and I kept eating like like garbage and drinking
and I just kind of gained a lot of weight Through The Years.
So by the time I was in my mid 30s, I was well north of 300
pounds and then in in 2018, my wife and I we both kind of
struggled with our weight and we would go on diets and just yo-yo
back and forth and So, I would lose like, 60 pounds and like,
for five months, and then, you know, gain it all back, because
whatever I was doing was so restrictive.
I could never stick to it long term and then that brought me to
about June of 2018. My wife, we found out, we were
pregnant with our first child and I stepped on the scale and
it wouldn't register. I haven't weighed myself in a
while and I guess I was in a bit of denial.
So I told my wife, I said, I was a kid.
I think there's something wrong with our scale and she's like,
oh well, I've used it recently and I didn't have any trouble
with it, and it turned out that I was just I exceeded the max of
the scale so I looked it up and it was it went up to 350 pounds.
So here are, who was in June of 2018.
I was over 350 pounds. We were about to have a baby and
I just kind of, I was, I was mortified.
Mmm. So So then I decided, all right,
I'm going to have a baby. I really need to take, you know,
I need this, this needs to be the time that I actually get my
health under control. And so, I started just doing
some basic things, like, giving up soda and starting to cook my
meals at home and just some real Basics.
That, when you weigh that much there, you're going to start to
see results right away. So, I did and about a month in
our entire world changed. We went Just a routine checkup,
and we found out that our unborn child had, what was called
Trisomy 18, which is a genetic disorder, and it's very, very
severe to the point where most babies, don't even make it to
term and those that do survive, maybe hours and days at best.
So here we were, I was in the beginning of what this like was,
I thought was going to be this transformation and we Just
totally rocked by that, you know that information.
So we went home and we had to make a decision whether we were
going to continue with the pregnancy or not and we decided
that we were going to go through and just just see what happens
and give this baby a chance that whatever life it would possibly
have. And then one night we were
deciding, what name we were going to use.
We did find out through the genetic testing that we were
going to have a girl. Hmm.
And we had always talked about First girl would be named
Bridget and then we started to talk about well, you know, do we
want to use the name Bridget because this disc child is not
going to be with us very long if at all and then my wife said
something pretty profound that has really kind of changed the
trajectory of my life. She said well if we decide not
to name her Bridget then we're basically telling her like
you're not good enough for this name that we wanted to use.
We're going to save it for a different child.
And I was like you're right, that's it.
So we're just going to name her Bridget and also I was kind of
in my head thinking like well what's the point of this whole
help Journey if this child is never going to get to see it and
I'm not going to get the play with her and that all just kind
of evaporated right when she said that because it was like
yes whatever whatever I would do for any child, I'm going to do
for this child, no matter how long she's with us, or no matter
how long she lives for because that's you, That's our daughter.
So that kind of just set me on this journey for the next eight
months during the pregnancy. I just dove into podcasts, it's
where I found your podcast. I do go into books.
I went into learning about meditation and all kinds of
things. Everything Health Sleep water,
everything resistance training and was pretty successful.
I got down to like the low 300s and then February 18th, 2008.
Our 2019. Bridget was born and she
actually was amazed the doctors. They didn't expect her to be
with us, very long, but she will relatively speaking and she
ended up, you know, driving the first couple days.
So we ended up bringing her home.
We were shocked because we didn't get any baby stuff.
Our family had to scramble to buy, like a crib and everything
and like a bassinet and because we didn't, we didn't expect her
the most of the cases, they only live for Raw hours.
So we brought her home and she was with us.
We had a couple weeks of are was nice where we had her and she we
didn't, we decided not to have any intervention.
So she wouldn't be on any machines or anything and we just
decided to see what would happen.
And you know, it was unfortunately after 31 days on
March 21st, 2019, she passed away, but that was kind of as
devastating as it was. Was and that was kind of a the
the new beginning for me because I've just been on this health
Journey ever since while she was here, those 31 days were kind of
difficult to stick to anything because it was just all about,
you know what she needed every minute of every day.
And I'm really worried about myself as much, but once it was
over that following April, first I started doing these things
called I called them Bridget challenges and I would pick some
habit or something that I Do for 31 days to honor her and I just
started doing them over and over and over again and I still do
them. And that just I learned about
low carb keto, I did that, I did intermittent fasting.
And I picked up all kinds of different habits through that
process and I guess fast forward to now, I've lost over a hundred
and thirty pounds and I've maintain that weight loss for
the last year and a half. And it's It's just me and my
wife have just kind of used this tragedy.
This thing that you know we could look at it as being.
This terrible thing that happened to us and we really
look at it as the best thing that ever happened to us and we
feel like we're the luckiest parents to get to have been
apparent to Bridget and it has completely changed our lives and
you know we can get into all of that but that's kind of the
story that brings us up to you know, today and everything I'm
getting. I'm getting Goosebumps right now
man. Like like when you sent that
email, Kind of breaking that down.
It's like like the whole world right now is upside down on its
head. Like people are people get so
uptight about the the simplest, most superficial surface level
things and when I saw that email and I read that email, I saw
your pictures, you had like a before and after picture there
you went to detail about Bridget and it's like this right here is
what matters in the world. Like this is what's important.
All the other bullshit, Is just that it's just bullshit, doesn't
matter. This matters and I reached out
and I hit man I'd love for you to just jump on the podcast and
tell this story because this is what people need to hear.
I was driving today with Crystal and I was just like frustrated
by all the media and the noise, and just the pollution out there
in people's thoughts and I turned to her and I'm like, you
know, we just need to like, go outside and enjoy the scenery.
Enjoy each other. Enjoy the people in our local
community. In focus on relationships and
the people that matter and here you are, living your life with
your wife, in an attempt to be the best father that you can be
for a daughter that you are most you know certain is not going to
live more than a few hours but you feel compelled to be the
best you can be as if she was going to be there with you for a
lifetime like that is what matters man.
So if nothing else I hope people can appreciate the brevity of
life. And know that this this time our
time on this Earth is short, we shouldn't squander it for things
that don't matter. I know.
That's that's where it all kind of started.
And that's kind of what Bridget came and taught us is that it's
the and I wasn't living that way before.
I was letting all kinds of things bother me and obviously,
I wasn't taking care of my health.
I was working at a job. I was having awful anxiety.
I was a teacher and just having terrible anxiety with all of
that. I just I was nine and I was
using food and alcohol to kind of deal with all that and then
here came this, this little you know being who just completely
changed everything you know it's you talk about trying to be
present, there's nothing more present than those 31 days of
just doing whatever she needed and not there was no what's
happening next week or what's happening in a year from now or
things like that. And since It's very difficult to
let. He do like someone cutting you
off in traffic or things like that.
It's hard to let them bother you when you've been through
something like that. So as hard as it is, it's really
a blessing. And and the reality is you kind
of have that choice when you when you go through things
because we're all going to go through crazy things and that's
what's I learned is it's we have this choice and me and my wife
been very intentional. We talked about it.
We said and from the very beginning we said look, We can
have her and lose her and spend the rest of our life, you know,
devastated, which we are. But we could we could do that.
And then just feel sorry for ourselves and eat and drink and
gain weight. And no one would judge us.
Everybody be like, well that's really terrible.
What they went through and make sense.
But that wouldn't be paying any honor to Brigitte that would be
basically like you had this. Amazing thing or awful thing
happened. However, you want to look at it
and then you did nothing about it and we kind of both knew we
were in this like, point in our lives where we could just do
something about it. And now we can always look back
and be like, well, you know, we changed our lives because of
Bridget and we just try to live that every single day.
So when you, when you realize that she was pregnant you I was
pregnant and you made the commitment to get healthy
because you wanted to be healthier for when He was born
and you can have a more fit and fulfilled life with your kid, be
able to play with your kit. That's a total, you know,
honorable respectful thing to do that.
Most parents that are out of shape prior to having their
first kid can probably relate with.
Now when you got the news of this genetic disorder and it was
looking very you know certain that she wasn't going to last
more than a few hours because this disorder did you like was
there a moment there where you just were on the verge of
throwing all the physical and health?
Aspirations away. Oh absolutely.
Yeah, I'd be lying. If though that that's the point
of all this is not that it's this, you know, story of this
thing happened and I immediately changed.
No, it was, it was probably about a week that I would just
kind of screw it. And I did think, well, what is
the point? What are, you know, and and it
was that conversation with my wife that we decided that we
were going to name her Bridget, that kind of snapped me back.
And was just like, wait a minute, you know?
If because we didn't have it, Very tough decision to make.
If we were going to terminate the pregnancy or not and US
deciding not to and then me not continuing with my health
journey and not naming her. Bridget would have been kind of
doing it like hey f Way. Hmm.
So it's just like in our mind it was like you either terminate
which that's an option that a lot of parents do in this
situation. And there's absolutely nothing
wrong with that. It's something that we strongly
considered. But we decided if we're going to
go Oh, this other route we have to go all in.
I mean I know you say that all the time and that's just we
decided. Yeah we got to go all-in but
there was definitely I don't know how long it was but there
was definitely a lot of thoughts of like yeah screw this, what's
the point of being healthy but I somehow just was able to take a
step back and see the big picture which now looking back
is even a bigger picture because we have we have another baby
girl named Grace. That we had last July, she's 9
months old and she's perfectly healthy and I can get on the
floor and play with her. So all of the stuff that I did
for Bridget even though knowing she wasn't going to live I'm now
is paying dividends with my new baby girl so it's you know it
just it ended up just just kind of having that mindset was like
I knew I Was preparing myself for something I just didn't know
what it was for and then now I'm seeing what that was four and I
would I would venture to say that you were relationship and
appreciation for Grace is Amplified, you know,
exponentially as a result of having gone through the entire
process with Bridge like there'd be like, there's no comparison.
Oh, yeah, definitely. I've even, it's not the say, I
mean, we did think. I mean, it was very challenging
going. Like, we knew we wanted to have
multiple children. So when we lost Bridget, we had
talked about, you know, we're going to keep going, we're going
to have more children and we're You know keep moving forward.
Again that's a lot of this is just honoring Bridget with
living our best life. And so that was difficult to
when you when Katie got pregnant again to wonder was this going
to happen again but it didn't and it's it wasn't a the genetic
type of disorder that like something that runs in your
jeans, it was a genetic freak thing that happens at conception
mmm. So it wasn't anything that
either one of us carries that were, you know, it's such Such a
rare thing that you know the odds of it happening again would
be crazy. So yeah, you know, we do.
Yeah. We had Grace and then, you know,
we you think I got we're going to enjoy every moment because we
know what it's like to lose a child.
So we're not gonna and we trust we use that kind of like we
think of Bridget as our North Star but we still get into the
saying there are times when just jump being a parent is difficult
and it's not all I wish. Every moment I could say oh you
know she's crying and it's 3:00 in the morning and this is
difficult. I'm glad that she's with us.
I mean I do overall have that Outlook but still sometimes it
is just any parent, it's difficult.
But I think the overall Outlook is, yes.
I think we let a lot less things bother us because of kind of
what we've been through. Yeah, I mean it's totally human.
Like, if you never get frustrated as a parent then I
would say something wrong with you.
I mean like it's human to have those moments but I think I've
all things what you've gained from everything.
With bridged is the perspective that came with it.
And like like your analogy to being, you know, cut off in
traffic like rather than just going you know, crazy on the
person that cut you off, you can just breathe and automatically
go to that part in your mind and Remembrance and perspective to
gained composure of yourself, and the same is true with with
anything left for like it's all about perspective and once you
have that perspective, it puts everything in your environment
into context and that bigger picture, overshadows everything.
Yeah. Yeah, it is.
And it's, it is something that just it needs to be practiced
day in day out. And it's not this magical thing
that where you have, you know, something that's so tragic
happens that it's easier. You know, the whole traffic
example. I mean it's still it took me a
while for it to still not let things like that.
Bother me. You know this what I've been
through now. I can tell myself when something
happens, I just take a deep breath and I can look out here.
This this this is really not a big deal when you compare it to
I know what a real big deal is. But again it's no, it's no magic
pill, it's still a skill that you have to practice like not
allowing things to bother you and or not even that you don't
want to like fight it. You just you almost allow it but
this is taught me kind of taught me to search out the kind of the
skills and the things that you can use to not allow things like
that to you know, wreck your day.
Yeah totally. And I feel like, you know, like
you said most people People in a similar situation earlier on
about most people, but a lot of people maybe most people in a
similar situation would have allowed that to be there, you
know, quote unquote out for life.
Like it's easy to point to that and justify not being are not
Reaching Your Potential because you have something that's so
drastic that a lot of people can't even comprehend it and
they just like are okay with the fact that you're not aspiring
for more than you are, but the way you've approached it is in
order for me to honor Honor Bridget and and make right on my
word to be the best I can be for her.
I can't get away with that. So I've got it, I've got to go
all-in. Like when you emailed me, you
had said something to the effect of, you know, you do that 31 day
in remembrance of her 31 days alive, you do something
challenging. And I think one of them was like
a 31 mile walk, and then you'd like 31 miles of rowing before
you before you allowed yourself to send an email to me or
something like that. Yeah yeah.
So so it all Started. It was that April person after
she passed away on March 21st, and on April 1st, I started like
a Bridget challenge. That's the bridge account is it
just 31 days of something to either start a habit or to
whatever. And then that summer, I came up
with the idea of, on the anniversary of her passing which
would have been March 21st of 2020.
I decided I was going to walk 31 miles because I was really
getting into walking and longer walks.
And so I my challenges, my ended, my little 31-day
challenges were kind of geared towards to get me ready for that
and then, that was, yeah, single day where I walked 31 miles, so
I did that and then I got back to doing, you know, I'll do it.
My challenges here and there and then and then when it got to be
closer to this year or actually probably like fall of 2020.
I just thought I would thought about what am I going to do
next? For the anniversary of her
passing. And I was really getting into
rowing on my home run our. So I was like, oh, how about I
row 31 miles? And I try to give myself rewards
but unlike what I used to do, which was I used to, once I lose
a certain amount of weight, I would reward myself with like
junk food which now looking back is completely ridiculous and
very silly, but I now reward myself with things Is that are
either going to further my health or you know, whatever and
you know, gratitude is something that I really focus on a lot
too. And this year, I decided that
once I completed this, my reward was to email you and just let
you know how appreciative I am of your podcast and everything
that you and Crystal do and your bricks.
And it really just everything. So, yeah, I didn't allow myself
to send that email until I finished.
So this year, I rode, 31 miles and when it gets to be the For
this year, I'll start to think about something kind of
challenging that I'll do next March 21st and I just played on
doing it at every year. Just as a way to keep me, hold
me accountable and to pay honor to her and they're really
difficult things that forced me to just, you know, keep myself
in shape. Do you ever get, like, anxiety
in the day? Like the day before you commit
to that challenge, you like really anxious, like almost
dreading it. But the same time knowing that
if you don't Don't do it. You'll just not be able to look
yourself in the eyes in the mirror again.
Yeah, I definitely have an anxiety.
I don't think it's, I don't think it's really dread.
It's more of kind of. It's interesting, though.
Because I battled anxiety and the past.
I mean, it's one of the reasons that I left teaching.
I had just awful anxiety. And now, I actually have my own
math learning center where I just work for me and my wife,
you know, we just have our own business.
So I know what? Like, so, it wasn't that type of
anxiety of like Dread but it's more of just like being anxious
and looking forward to it. And then there is a part of me
that's a little worried. Like, what if I can't do it?
Mmm, but the things that I've committed to at least so far,
there's no time limit on them. So, in my head, I know that
like, I will eventually get it done.
So I and I just know that I will eventually because I know the
kind of motivation Ation that I can kind of derive from myself,
just thinking about Bridget. Yeah.
There's definitely some some
butterflies that the night before I attempt them.
Well, 31 miles of walking and 31 miles of rowing.
I mean, either, those are, those are no joke, man.
That's intense. No, I know.
I'm not trying to, you know? Yeah, I know they were very
difficult in in different ways. The walk took me almost eight
hours, so that's a long time of walking but it's not Like I had
to get it done in a certain amount of time or I was done
like I could have taken 12 hours if I needed to, you know.
So I knew I was going to finish. I just didn't know, you know how
long it was going to take me. I mean, I guess there's always
the option of where I could just like bunk out and just like when
I was rowing I did worry about that a little bit but it didn't
his night. I really trained for them
leaving. I don't just like do it.
I really like I wrote a lot leading up to it and the two
weeks before I always do like 66 Six to like, seventy seventy
percent of it to make sure that I know that I can do it.
So, I really systematically trained for these things to,
which is more of the, you know, one of the benefits of doing
this. Every year, is that it forces me
to not, just wait until that day.
I have to kind of all year round.
Keep myself in shape and help. Hold myself, accountable.
Have you kind of like tease your mind a little bit and thought
about what next is going to hold?
Like, even a little bit and I said, you're gonna wait till the
fall, but Ideas at all. No, I really.
I don't. My wife keeps telling me I
should do a thirty one minute plank.
That would be brutal, it would. Yeah, I would have to, you know,
and see that would be something that would make me more nervous
because I could easily at 20 minutes, just like be done and
then I wouldn't do it. So I kind of you know, I don't
know if I want to put that much pressure on it.
So I don't know if that's just something that she thinks would
be a good idea. So maybe one of these years but
now I really I really Only don't.
I mean I've talked about buying a bike and getting into riding
so maybe it'll have something to do with that.
But no, I really I really haven't thought about it much.
I put so much effort, I just did it very recently.
So now I'm kind of just I'm actually really taking it easy
because last week I actually had an emergency appendectomy.
So right now I'm just I'm not doing any exercising.
Well, just happen to do that and train for throughout the year,
man. I mean like the before, and
after pictures, you sent were Ugly.
I mean you went from like said 350 plus pounds to, you know,
you're super fit right now. I mean you look like you can get
up and wrote 31 miles and that's, that's impressive.
Yeah. Yeah.
It's been it's been crazy. It's hard to believe that this
it's been kind of a whirlwind. It's hard to believe that it
actually happened. It's very hard to believe.
Oh my, my habits now are just so ingrained, but sometimes when I
stop to think about it, what I do in a day is so Different than
what it was years ago. It's just it's hard to believe
that you can just slowly by little by little make these new
habits that they just become your normal.
Then is at, I thought I could on this person.
Yeah, that is a topic that I have up most interesting and I
think that's honestly probably my biggest strong suit in life
is that I like to figure out the things that will yield the
positive outcome that I'm looking for that.
I In sustained doing every single day of my life and just
commit to it, no matter what, and just chip away at it year
after year, after year. And that's, I mean, at the end
of day, that's just habit. It's all just habits, and it's
like, brushing your teeth every day, but if you do it long
enough, that it just becomes the norm and you, I mean, it's like
investing in, you know, like a the market like if you have that
compounding interest over time like where your, where your end
result is just so far. Above the peers, your peers who
are not investing in themselves in some form or fashion like
that, it's just drastic. So like for you personally, what
are some daily habits that you just are non-negotiables?
I meditate now, it's twice a day.
It's first thing in the morning and last thing before I go to
bed, it's not at the actual moment now.
Because like I said, I just last week randomly, my stomach was
bothering me and I went to the ER, and by the next morning,
they took my appendix out. So I'm recovering from that.
But normally its resistance training walking Prioritizing my
sleep. and the probably the biggest non-negotiable is
cooking and making all my meals at home and Not hardly ever
eating anything that's processed or, you know, outside of whole
ingredients made in my kitchen. Yeah.
So important, how has doing that impacted, like, your
relationship? Like as your wife because she
probably didn't expect you to have like this 180 degree shift
at the onset of all this. It just kind of happened.
Yeah, I mean she we she also has struggled with her weight.
So from the moment when she was nine months pregnant with
Bridget to where she is now, she's lost over 80 pounds.
She has done, she hasn't been fortunate enough to do all the
physical challenges as me because she's for basically this
two and a half year Journey for me, you know, 18 of those months
she's been pregnant. So you know she hasn't been able
to do all those with the as far as nutrition goes, she has
really been doing much of the same.
Just much of the we kind of are attacking this together.
Just making all of our meals at home.
So yeah I've been really fortunate that it hasn't been
you know sometimes it can be difficult if you are doing
different things but we are. We're both pretty much all on
board with the way that we eat and the type of meals that we
prepare and We're doing that now for our daughter Grace.
We're just kind of giving her whole food and real food and so
yeah, we're definitely on the same page with that.
So it's been her progress, like I said, has been slower because
two pregnancies during that time I've been fortunate where I've
just been able to just see a steady, you know, increase in
all of all of the things I've been doing but but you know,
she'll be right back on it, you know, we're, she's we're
probably going to have more children.
So it's just even more on her. But that's, I guess, the kind,
Way, that's kind of the way it goes.
Totally. Totally and and y'all both
branched out and built your own business before everything with
Bridget or after it was a little bit of both.
So I told you I'd really battled anxiety.
I love I love math. I've been at Sea, I was a
teacher for seven years and I loved it but it was just
something about all the students and having.
So I would I would be the type of person that would have 25
students and 23 of them would be paid attention.
Tension doing a great job and two of them would be misbehaving
and not learning and that would just bother me and I couldn't, I
couldn't get past that. I feel like now I actually have
the tools to deal with that, but interestingly enough.
But at the time I didn't and it was just, I can't wait till
Friday and I can't wait to go out and buy some beer and eat
some pizza and eat crappy food. And I was just on this hamster
wheel of that. And I, finally, and this was all
before. For Brigitte I finally just
decided like I don't want to do this, I'm going to just start.
I started tutoring on the side and that started to pick up.
So I ended up quitting teaching and just was tutoring on the
side and I was just driving to people's homes and doing in-home
tutoring and I kind of started my own business so that had
started right before everything with Bridget.
And then right after Bridget passed away, my wife had worked
at a job for about 10 years that that maybe even longer that she
really didn't like and wasn't really going anywhere.
So she decided that after Bridget it, I'm not going to go
back to a dead-end job that I don't enjoy.
So we did she did she does not teach math or anything.
So we decided that we would just open up a learning center and
she would run it and I would tutor and we would just do that
because that would be something that we could do together.
That would be more, you know, in line with us trying You know, be
happy and yeah so that's kind of where we're at now.
We have a it's where I'm at right now.
We have a Learning Center, I do online tutoring and my wife run
for business. We want to expand to make it
bigger. But during covid, it's just been
me. But at least by having our
Center, I can I can tutor people back to back all day.
I don't have to drive in between and lose all that time.
Hmm. So yeah, so that's that's it.
We're just, we're just committed to kind of building this
business together. That's awesome.
And what is the name of the business?
So you're friendly math tutor. What what, what genre of math,
like, what level of mathematics everything from?
I have Elementary actually this morning, I had some Elementary
School students that they are home-schooled.
And I am their math, teacher all the way up.
To I have students that are in, I've online students at like, I
have a student at Wake Forest University, whose in calculus 3.
So I can do. Yeah.
Anything from basic. Math all the way up to the high
level cow man. That math was like my subject
that I did not agree with I mean not that I didn't agree that I
just was not naturally gifted towards mathematics when it came
to trigonometry and statistics those clicked for whatever
reason. Like I could do those like night
and day and I enjoyed trig and statistics but everything else
that calculus I don't like guys. Yeah.
Well the statistics makes sense. It sounds like with all the all
the tracking you do and all this.
Stuff that you're into the steps.
Definitely, I'm totally into that.
That's why I love tracking. And anything like that, I love
because I just I've always loved math totally till I mean.
So it's so, you know, useful, like people in mathematics is
everywhere. Like, people don't realize how
much math is a part of their life.
What's your? This is totally off on a tangent
here. But I'm curious, you know, like
with when I was in school, everything was manual.
Like you had to know how to do long division.
You had to do all of this with a pencil.
Paper and nowadays is that the case so much in the scores are
pretty much just use a calculator.
There's, I mean, they definitely use calculators for things but
there's still now, it's much more of like, we know that you
can eventually use a calculator and a computer to look all this
up. But it's more of kind of using
the math to get kids to understand how to think.
And that's at least my Approach. I don't, I don't ever like have
kids memorize formulas because they'll always be able to look
Them up. I want them to kind of
understand like and it's really just applicable to life like
when when would I use which formula in which situation and
being able to make those decisions?
Just like you know, when we're talking about health like when
am I going to use? What, when am I going too fast?
When am I going to use? He do, when am I going to use
this? It's just about knowing when to
use which tool in the toolbox. And that's at least how I kind
of go about it. I still think there might be
some old school teachers. Out there.
But I think for the most part everybody's going towards the,
you know, let's get the kids to learn how to think and just use
math as a vehicle as opposed to you know remembering just a
bunch of rules that they're going to forget any way that
they could just look up whenever they want.
Yeah. Are you a spreadsheet junkie
like a million different spreadsheets kind of.
Yeah, everything we do not Excel is, I probably should with a
high level of understanding of mass, just because, but I can
definitely, I have a lot of different spreadsheets and I do
all my workouts. I always track and I do these, I
do these things called micro work out because I don't have
really the time with a newborn and as much as I work.
So I only work out in like 10 15 minute increments in between all
my students during the day. But I write down all of my sets
and Reps and like, I calculate my volume and I just try to beat
that the next week depending on which day it is.
So I am always writing things down and track.
In all that kind of stuff. Yeah.
I think you mentioned that in
the email, which was what was interesting because like most
people, you know, they're lifting and they have like a set
time. I'd run our lunch hour or
something, to go lift for 45 minutes, or an hour and a half
and you're doing it all. You don't like a full day's work
out in, you know, 10-minute increments throughout the course
of a day. I would imagine it's probably
harder to get a really good pump and blood flow when you're doing
that. But your recovery between sets
is is significantly better. So do you feel like you've You
know, been able to lift more weight and gain more strength
with that style protocol. Yes, but it's taken much longer.
So yeah, I thought about that a lot.
I actually heard the idea. I don't know if, you know who
Brad Kearns is. He's from yeah blueprint
podcast. Yeah I first heard the idea from
him a couple years ago and I again my old mentality in life
would have been like it was more of just an excuse but it was
like I don't have an hour and a half two hours to go to the gym
and do all this. So I'm just, you know, I'm just
not going to Resistance training, which is, you know, an
obviously a terrible way to look at it.
So now I looked at it as well. I got this business that I got
to spend a lot of time, you know, getting going.
And we at the time, we had another baby coming and I didn't
have the time to do that, and but I follow people like you and
I learn a lot about how about Progressive overload.
And I learned a lot about how to build muscle.
And I combine and I thought about the micro workouts and I
was like, whoa, All right, if I can't do that, maybe I can do
this. And it'll just take longer.
And that's kind of been what's happening.
I'm sure where I'm at. Now, the muscle that I have, I
could have built in 5 for 5 months, I don't know.
I really have no idea, but I just know after two years, I
definitely have more muscle than I did two years ago and I can
definitely lift more. Like I said, I usually do like a
push-pull legs day and I just repeat them and then take a day
off. So I like my push day of just do
push-ups and some kind of like power bombs or something for my
triceps and I continuously I try to each week, do more than the
week before and if the week before I was able to do five ten
minutes sessions, I kind of do I just calculate my volume and
sometimes that takes an extra session or it takes me just
increasing the weight but I'm always trying to beat it and
then I usually do again, learning from you and other
people I do take like deload weeks so I I do all that stuff,
but just over a way longer period of time, but it's totally
fine. Because I'm, I'm a 38 year old
dad who's I'm in way better shape than I was two years ago,
and I'm not trying to compete or do anything.
So, for my goals, it fits my life perfectly.
Yeah. If you stop and think about it,
I mean, like getting up and moving and exerting, some energy
and effort every hour for 10 minutes is probably more in line
with our, you know, evolutionary upbringing than just having like
You know, most of the day being sedentary in front of a computer
and then it can find window of an hour hour and a half to lift
really hard. Like it makes more sense that
you're just constantly moving. And I mean, I feel like that is
probably it bodes better form, like a longevity standpoint, I
would think possibly. And it really the biggest thing
is that it just, it fits my life.
So my wife makes my schedule. She runs all the business and
everything for the Learning Center and I, you know, I said,
you know, give me these little 10, 15 minute breaks in between
students. So from her perspective, she's
at home with the baby and from and I'm at The Learning Center,
which is only like about ten minute drive away.
So we've kind of again, I got a lot of this from viewers, like,
you know, think about what you want your life to be in a couple
years and then you just like make that happen.
So we now we just got a townhouse that's really close to
our Learning Center. So I have a really short
commute, which again, I planned out.
Used to have a 45-minute commute.
Now it's like 7 minutes and we plan the schedule.
From my wife's perspective I leave, you know, like today I
left at 9:45 this morning and when I get home at about 6
o'clock tonight, I'll have an again right now.
I'm not working out because of the appendectomy, but normally
on a Friday I'd be working out all day long.
And by the time I get home, I can be totally present.
I can just walk in the door and be ready to play with Grace and
be ready to help my wife with dinner.
I don't have to like squeeze in a workout because I've already
got it. Done.
And for my wife's perspective, she Don't have to like see me
working out instead of helping her it's just an easier thing
to. It's like built into my work
schedule is my working out. It's like part of my work day.
Yeah. And it's that kind of symbiotic
relationship between everything that is so different than my old
kind of compartmentalised. Like, yeah, hundred percent man.
I mean, the moment you can kind of figure out what life you want
to live and then dial everything in so that it benefits that
goal. The outcome is just so much more
fulfilling. Much more sustainable.
I mean like everything that we do in a day to day is something
that yields the outcome that I am Desiring for the
end-all-be-all big picture. And I feel like when you're
doing things like that, you you don't get tired of it.
Because you understand that what you truly desire is being worked
on with every single thing you're doing, like, there's
hardly ever a moment in my life where I'm like, this is just
such a waste of time because it's not contributing to what my
overall goal is like that never happens and because it never
happens, you're able to enjoy Everything you do much more.
Yeah, it's true. I mean, II and I can always just
compare it to how I used to because it's such a stark
difference. And I know I had, you know,
Sunday nights were just filled with anxiety because Monday
meant, I had to be back at work. And then Friday nights where
this Hardy and, you know, and just this cycle of and now I, I
mean, today is Friday and I know it's Friday because I, you know,
I know what day of the week, it is and my students today.
I wish them a good weekend but other Nat it's just like,
intellectual. I know what a weekend is, but
other than that I don't even it doesn't mean anything because
yeah, work all day tomorrow and I look forward to it and I have
I have Tuesday's off and I just have a very rare.
I've Thursday mornings off where we always do something with the
baby and we just have this. It's like every day is just a
good day and you just some days, I don't even really think of it
as a job. But again, that's because we
work for ourselves and we decide what's important?
And what we decided Decide what we do every day.
So yeah it's just it really is incredible to kind of have that
feeling of where weekends don't mean anything and holidays,
don't mean anything and it sounds depressing in some ways.
But it's not when you're actually kind of living it that
way. What sounds even more depressing
is hating five days of the week and living for the two that
aren't even your career path. Like that to me is the epitome
of depression right there. Yes.
Yeah. I mean, Me, it was my career
path. I mean I love math and I love
teaching but I just kind of the anxiety and the school system it
was you know I just wasn't able to.
I was dealing with discipline more than actually teaching math
and I knew that I loved the after school, where kids would
come for one-on-one tutoring and I basically just took that
little aspect and made it my business, but yes, I know and
especially my wife always talked about.
I used to have these awful depressions when I got back from
vacation. Mmm.
Like that one week where we would go away and then I would
come back and it would take a week to recover.
And I mean, now I'm with covid, we don't really go on vacation
but before I did go on a vacation since this kind of
transformation and it was so different.
It was, I enjoyed every minute of a caishen and I enjoyed
relaxing but I also when I got back the next day, I was ready
to get back to work and there was no like hangover or
depression because like you said, it wasn't like, let's hate
my life. Weeks out of the year but just
only enjoy it during the Vacations or the holidays.
Yeah, that's super important. Like that's that, I mean, heaven
like a yin-yang relationship benefits.
The whole that to me is not near the same thing as like this
work-life balance. Like when I think of that, I
feel like something else is is distracting so that you can
improve something up because there's like a one suffers to
gain another. Whereas, with like this
symbiotic relationship, everything is improving the
whole that to me. And it's just, it's just Just
more productive as well. What's it like working with your
wife? Like I was I was talking to
somebody today and we were talking about how you know, most
people have a relationship where they go to, they go to work and
everybody has you know like spouse has a different career
path and you come you meet in the, you know, the end of the
day for dinner and some quality time together and like Crystal
and I mean we do every single thing together.
Like we honestly don't see each other that much throughout the
course of the day. I'm in one building.
She's in the other building but we Go out together and
everything that we do is for the same business.
So with you and your wife working for y'all, you know
combined business there is that has that been a really good
thing for you. It has actually you'll like it
probably would have been even before.
But since Brigitte I mean it just changed our whole
perspective on on everything and just even how we treat and just
how we talk to each other and when you grieve that deeply,
With someone, we just really have learned, you know, kind of,
when to give each other space, when to allow the other.
And when you grieve over a child, it's very different
because you're both in it together.
Obviously, it's one of the few situations where you're both
grieving for the exact same thing in the exact same person
and they're both your child. But at the same time, people
grieve differently and we plan to learn that through each
other. Did we deal with things
differently? And I think going through that
before we attacks kind of having a business together has just
made all the difference. So we both know how different we
are. We play to each other's
strengths so we were kind of doing that in the grieving
process and so I think that's just another kind of like we
call them gifts from Bridget that in this post, Bridget
light. We I think we're much better
off. It's not to say that we don't
ever have disagreements but it's about kind of how we got.
All about those disagreements and how we handle them and how
we have boundaries too, you know, we have our our life and
we have work, we do have some boundaries set up, but there's
it's also a huge gray area. And yeah, we've I think we've
navigated a quite quite well, to this point.
It's awesome in. That's that's that's what's all
about like having having your companion by your side that
Embraces you for your differences, but plays to your
strengths and your both able to Accomplish the combined goal,
much better. I mean, like I look at what
Chris and I've been able to do. And I mean, I was big into
business and bodybuilding before I ever met her.
But I would not have been able to bring it to the point that I
have without her by my side. And even if I could, I wouldn't
have wanted to because what is the point of life, if you do all
this thing, all these things, all this, all these great dreams
aspirations, you have, but you have no one to share it with.
Yeah, it's true. Now it's it's the same exact
thing for us. I mean the two of you obviously
what you do is totally different but it's been it's been a big
inspiration for us as we followed the what you are doing
and we've almost been trying to kind of emulate that that idea
of just working on this business together but we have separate
kind of things that we do or jobs that we do within this.
But just kind of making that again, fit our life and just the
one Like you said, I'm kind of not for the whole work-life
balance because then it becomes kind of two polarizing.
Hmm. And what he said, one thing has
to suffer but but this kind of way of going about it and yeah,
I think you're right. I don't think there's a way it'd
be very difficult to do it by yourself.
It's so much better to have someone else kind of along for
the ride and now that we have a baby like we even think in the
future of like she now fits into that.
It's just this whole we're just on this journey together.
Ooh life and we're all just like figure it out together.
So it's awesome, man. That's awesome.
I'm super excited for him. I'm super excited for what's to
come. What is to come?
What are you excited about? Well, as far as this business
goes, we're now that the vaccines are here, were really
hoping that we can this this Learning Center that I have.
I have several stations set up here so I could have multiple
people tutoring at the same time, so I'm hoping to hire some
other tutors and get more people People get more students that we
can reach in just kind of grow our business.
So, it's not just me tutoring because honestly, I can only I
can only tutor so much. And right now, I'm actually
working more hours than I probably would like, but, you
know, we got to get this business going.
So I'm hoping to hire some tutors.
So I can tutor a little less, but we can still kind of grow
the business and then other than that, just trying to have a, I
have an Instagram that I post on.
Briefly, I'd like to do more with that.
I just haven't had time. So I'd like to I'd like to grow
that more and just kind of share my story and reach more people
that way. But yeah, they're the two big
things. Things for me coming up and what
state are you located in again? I'm in New Jersey.
New Jersey. Got you?
Got you. So, the So currently, the
tutoring is, it all, is it all done, remotely?
Or is it out of it in person? Yes.
No. It's all remotely and it.
Actually, it was in person and I used to drive to people's homes
and then it transitions when we got the Learning Center, people
were coming here, but I was doing online tutoring before
covid, even hit. So I was kind of set up for
that. And as soon as covid hit and
everything went online, we were like ready to go.
So now I'm a hundred percent online and I'm hoping the kind
of stay that way. I mean it just gives us kind of
a far more more of a reach. And like I said, I have students
that are kind of Some students that are in other states that
I'm able to tutor online. So I'm kind of hoping to keep
that going, even when covid kind of passes.
I'm hoping that parents, you know, it's not good to send your
kid to school and zoom all day. There's a lot, you know, they
need to be going to school and interacting with kids and
teachers, but for like one hour a week, I think that I'm hoping
that I can still do the online tutoring for a parent's
perspective, just doing one hour a week while the kids up in
Bedroom. You don't have to drive them and
drop them off. We're hoping that we can heal
grow the online business, even more even after covid kind of
passes, totally man. Totally.
So what is the the website for for that if people are
interested in? What's the Instagram profile for
people? So the website is just your
friendly math. Tutor.com, that's all the
information about the tutoring. And for the Instagram I'm it's a
motivational Dan. 31, motivational, Dan 31.
I like it, and now I'm a lot more but I'm, you know, the
business took over and I just haven't been posting much.
I'm really open to get back to that to kind of interact and
reach, reach more people that way just about the story, not
nothing to do with math. That's all just about my kind of
fitness journey. Nah, man, the story is amazing.
So I highly encourage you to spread that story and get it in,
you know, in front of a lot of people and I feel like what
you're doing is just I mean, nothing short of amazing.
And the reason you're doing everything you're doing and just
the motivation behind it all like the date, the 31?
I mean, all of that stuff. Tell you what my 31st birthday
be turned 30 this year. 31 after that, we have to do something
crazy and I think of a challenge from a 31 birthday and we'll
have to regroup and go run at 31 mile marathon or something.
Wow, that would be awesome. Yeah, I'm all for it, man.
I'm all for it with Daniel, I can't.
Thank you enough. Take the time, I truly, truly
appreciate you sending that email to me and initiating this
conversation to begin with. I admire their story.
I respect to story, I respect the hell out of you for what
you've done. If there's ever anything I can
do to help in any form or fashion just let me know.
Yeah. Thanks I appreciate everything
that you and Crystal do. I mean all you could do is just
keep I listen to all your podcast.
Keep making those bricks their big part of my diet and yeah,
just I thank you so much for having me on here.
I'm truly appreciate it. Absolutely man.
We'll take care and keep in touch brother.
All right. Thank you.