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. 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. 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.