Transcript of Olivia Mock Shares The Truth About Self-Love, Fitness & Discipline

I'm doing this because I hate myself. Your mind hears that, and it's going to produce a result that ultimately doesn't last.

Here I am having this show about determination and discipline where I look like a fat freaking mess. You cannot start a fitness journey being the best self out of shame. You will always fail. I changed my alarm from, get up, bitch. No, I destroyed it. No, I didn't believe it. I did. I changed it to, I love you, Sean. My wife saw that alarm. She goes, who the hell wrote that? I go, I did.

I wrote that. I think fitness and nutrition are such a big aspect of mental I feel like, honestly, people want to ignore because it's hard.

Did I have treat meals? Absolutely. But I earned them.

You for your mental.

You don't work out. You never work out. You haven't had a healthy meal in 17 freaking years.

I was suffering so bad from anxiety. I was literally treating myself like a sick patient. I'd be like, I can't get out of bed because...

That's so selfish.

I know. Don't cancel me.

No, don't cancel her. Not yet. Not yet. What's up, guys? I'm here with Olivia Mock, the founder and CEO of the Checking Club, an amazing fitness app that is helping people not just get into the gym, but gamifying the experience a little bit to a point where they can have some interaction with people, support them. It's really cool because it's this tamed version of a social media platform, which I love. I want to get into that because you can go on there and see what other people are doing and support people. But most everybody, when they log on there, you don't have the distraction of the negativity, you don't have the distractions of the DMs. You can really just engage with people. So talk to us about the check-in Checking Club.

Well, thank you for having me. First of all, I'm very excited to be here. Absolutely. The Checking Club, everything you said, it's a bunch of things all put in one, but at its core, it's an accountability app that's used to encourage people to show up through through their health and their fitness journey, whatever that looks like for you. We have a huge community of moms that are freshly postpartum, getting back into things, maybe haven't lifted a weight or spent time working on themselves in that realm in a year or so. Then you have your hard core people. But like I said, at its core and its accountability app, it encourages you to show up. Specifically, people who may not have a real community outside of that, it's somewhere that they can feel important to, and showing up daily means something.

It's a good point because... And guys, I'm in the app. I was, I think, maybe one of the first ones, maybe. I've checked in once, but I do go to the gym. I do go to the gym, but I don't check in. I'm going to commit to you right now. I'm going to start checking in. Because I think that this platform, what's so great about it is when you go on other platforms, you see everybody that is potentially... How can I say this? Look It looks perfect. It could be a filter, it could be something, right? But you go on the other platforms and you see everything that you are not. The one thing I really love about the check-in club, because I don't check in, but I do go on it and I look and I scroll a little bit. I like things here and there because I like seeing people that are doing real things and not worrying about what they look like. Their mission is just to get healthier and do it with a community.

Yeah, that's a huge part of it for me. To your point of having no distractions, and it's just a place to show up without the filters, about, Oh, man, what am I going to put as my caption? Who's liking it? You can't see who likes your stuff when you go back, but you'll get a pop-off notification like, Olivia M. Harded your check-in, and that's the encouragement side of it. But you're not getting on there, Who saw me at the gym Today, those types of things. And that's something that I love because a lot of people, they shy away from sharing that side of their health and fitness journey on social media. They don't want to come off as a try hard or be cringy. And so I think it really does give people a place to show show up as they are. And we say that all the time, show up just as you are. But the reality is social media doesn't give us the opportunity to actually do that because of all the opinions surrounding it.

Agreed because, and I've seen videos, right? You have a man or a woman that is extremely overweight, working their ass off to get in shape. You could see somebody that's lost 50 pounds, and someone will pop off in the comments, Still fat. It's wrong. It's wrong. In the world now, in the social climate that we're in, there's so many distractions, like I've mentioned, but there's also so much hate and divisiveness, and I'm better than you. I'm not as good as you. I just love the vibe of the actual app and seeing people get in there, like you said, as they are. It's super important, and to have that little encouragement. Because when you can tie, and here's the other thing that I really love about it, because the app is free to download. Yes. For you guys, Right now, Checking Club on the App Store, Droid and Apple. Download it for free, interact, make your profile. But the cool thing about it is you're not worried about fitness influencers DMing you or trying to take your money. This is a platform, and I'm sure there's monetization efforts in the back-end with merchandise and users and everything like that.

But it is just a pure app. It's pretty damn cool.

That was a huge part for me as well because my mom is a personal trainer. So fitness, from a very young age, has always been in my mind as something that I know I need to prioritize. I didn't always love it because with anything, when it's shoved down your throat and you're like, I hate this. I truly viewed working out as a form of torture. I'm like, She hates me.

Have you seen your father?

Yeah, he's next.

Okay, his time is coming.

Yeah, his time is coming. Both of my parents are extremely hard core. I rebelled against something that I ended up being passionate about because I was like, Well, I don't want to follow in their footsteps and be... My mom was like, great. But my whole life, it's like we were very conscious of what we ate and things that we did. Like I said, I had a negative view of that for a very long time. Finding that in my own way. The last few years, I did get into working out for myself. But then, to your point, I was a part of something called Beachbody, which I really enjoyed.

I really Yes, I did some training for an organization, and I took their products for a little while, but I don't know exactly what you're talking about.

Beachbody, actually, that program, I did an 80-day Obsession program right before my wedding that actually did change my life. But what I noticed is so many people around me were like, What are you doing? You're looking different. You seem happier mentally. I want to do it, but it comes at a cost. It comes at the cost of, one, a price, but also it's a little bit exclusive. You I have to be a part of this specific program or this specific thing. I wanted to bring people together in a way that's like, Hey, if you don't have an Apple Watch, it's okay. If you don't have the same program that I'm on, it's okay. But it gives people a place to all come and still produce that environment without having to be exclusively a part of one thing.

Well, let's also tap into it. Beachbody is not cheap. No, not at all. There's not a lot of people that can afford just even the shakeology of what is it, like 150 bucks a month?

Supplements are very expensive.

They're wild. Listen, they taste fine. Beachbody, it's good, right? It's great. I know they've done some restructuring over the last year, so that's really... But most of those types of companies are doing that and taking it to the bank and leaving the people that created the income left out the dark, which is sad. It's sad. But you mentioned something that I really want to tap into because in this show, we talk about determination, discipline, but at the root of it is becoming your best self. Matter of fact, I'm talking to a celebrity, a fitness influencer, it doesn't matter. Everybody is searching to be their best selves. I truly believe you cannot achieve being your best self unless you're disciplined in your nutrition. And before you guys come at me, let me finish my freaking thought. It's not about how you look. It's about how your mind works. If you want to get really mentally strong... Now, again, disclaimer, I'm no psychologist. If you have clinical issues, yes, you do need to go see a psychologist. You may need medication. I'm not touching on that. But what I'm talking about is people really sleep on eating really good, just wholefoods, nothing, no carbs from the pantry.

It's a potato, it's a Jasmine rice. It's vegetables and great protein. What does that do for your mentality? What does that do for your mental health?

I think fitness and nutrition are such a big aspect of mental health that I feel like, honestly, people want to ignore because it's hard. It's not sitting down and just talking out your feelings. It's actually putting in the work day after day after day. In my own life, I mean, around COVID, I was suffering so bad from anxiety. I was literally treating myself like a sick patient. I'd be like, I can't get out of bed because... I don't know. I convinced myself every day I had a new symptom or a heart attack. I made my dad and my husband on NFL Sunday take me to the hospital, and they're like... That's so selfish. I know. They're like, Good news. It's just anxiety. I'm like, What? I couldn't even believe that. So then after that, you have to learn how to manage that. How does one manage that when you're basically being told it's all up here, it's not actually what you're feeling. So to your point, I didn't really find... I did the It was a counseling thing, and I leaned into my faith, and I will say, obviously, those things are so beneficial, but I didn't see a true change physically and mentally until I started to put nutrition in my health and fitness first.

People are sleeping on what a simple walk can do for your mental. I will say I am not a good person unless I do not prioritize myself in that way. It's just a fact.

It's interesting because you talk about the walk. We'll get back to the nutrition later. But the walk, people say, That's not exercise. You have a lot of fitness influencers and big CEOs of big supplement company saying, That's not a workout. Let me tell you something. If you are overweight, so when my heaviest was 238 pounds, if I'm walking for 45 minutes around the block, it takes energy to move that vessel. No matter how much you weigh, no matter whatever, you're still using gas. It's expended energy. It burns calories. It's not rocket science, right? But to your point, it's hard. And one of the things that I think is hard is people don't stick to things long enough. So it's like that quid pro quo. I'm going to eat this way for a week. Now, And I talk to people like this, what did you do? How did you lose so much weight from December to June? I just stayed consistent, and I just stayed in my process and I go, This is the next right move. And I forgot about what I wanted to do. Did I have treat meals? Absolutely. I had treat meals, but I earned them.

And then it was the next meal right back on track. But people overlook it because they go, Well, if this doesn't work for a week, then something One's wrong with me. I just can't lose weight. It drives me crazy because what was ever created good in a week? Even two, even three. Now, if you do it the right way after week one, you can see massive results, but you have to be disciplined. Yeah.

To your point, with the walking and how it is discredited. Even when I start a checking club, I would tell people, You should check in, because of course, I'm reaching out to my immediate circle and connections and people I know when I first started. They're like, I I can't do it. And I'm like, Why? And they're like, Well, I only go for walks. I don't work out. And I'm like, There's no only. You go for a walk. And I think we bully people into thinking that your efforts aren't enough. But like you said, everybody has a day one. They start somewhere. Whether you make it to day seven, not everybody can do that. And I saw this quote, and it's like, Everybody knows the pain of starting, but not everybody knows the strength and success you feel when you finish. Come on. Because not everybody can get there because our mental is weak. To your point, you have to get past the first week and the second week and the third week. I don't know. I do think that as a society, we tell people, When it's hard, that means you just got to quit.

Well, our brains are wired to keep us safe and to stay away from risk. That's great for some things like scaling a freaking mountain. But when we're talking about becoming better mentally, physically, we got to understand that we get one body. We get one body. When you get to be 70 years old, it could either be breaking down on you or you could be strong. It all happens early in life, making sure that you're Your joints are good, making sure that your muscles are strong. That way, when you deteriorate, naturally, you're not bone on bone. This is a big deal. It's a big deal. Let me ask you a question. Because we're talking on nutrition, and I know I'm not a dietitian, and I don't think you are either, if I am, correct me. Your dad thinks he is. He thinks he's everything.

My dad has every certification under the sun.

He's a certified badass. I do love that. He is awesome. It's something that I haven't seen in the app, and I'm not even talking about a widget or anything like that. I could be wrong, but I would love to see people sharing their food journey. This is what I had for breakfast. Breaking down what good eating really is because there's a lot of fear mongering around carbohydrates, and I'll admit, there's times where I'll just stay away from them. I'm not eating them. But I also realize that that ketosis or carnivore is great if you're really trying to shed. I know there's people out there that are carnivore and are absolutely jacked out of their mind. But for me, you need glycagen to build muscle. Education on what's a good carb, what's a bad carb, what's going to feel your body. I always look at it as, God put it here, I'm going to eat it. If he didn't, I'm going to stay away from it. Now, I know we didn't put pizza here, but sorry, I'm going to eat pizza once in a while. That's my favorite.

Yeah, I had some last night.

What are your thoughts on that? As far as having people share their food journey, is there a way to encourage that in the app?

So transparently, and I think just the culture that we live in, the cancel culture, you take one step wrong or say one wrong thing, and it's like you're out of the equation. I really don't like cancel culture, but that's a topic for another day. But I think it makes you hesitant to share other aspects because it's like, I know I don't want to ruffle any feathers by posting about food, but that is something that I encourage. Like you said, checking in, yeah, you might be doing a workout that day, but it's the full circle of what it means to check in. I I encourage that. If somebody wants to post that they achieve their food goal for the day, it's like anything that ties in to your health and wellness journey. At the beginning, I was scared to maybe encourage posting other things because I didn't want somebody getting on and be like, Finish a chess game today. I want to encourage people to stay motivated and on track with what we're doing here. But no, that is 100% a part of the journey in the process. If you're watching this and you want to join Checking Club, I would love to show up in that way.

Absolutely.

I just think it's important for people to check in where they're at. What I mean by that is as they are. Okay, I'm going to check in three days a week. Whatever, that's great. And put that out there. But the thing that's really special about the check-in club is the community. It's really damn cool. I've already said it, but I just really find a lot of value in people showing up and being there for each other and just posting one small win. Because here's what I think. When you start your journey or if you've fallen off and you're getting back on track, you need encouragement, and you're not going to always get that from yourself. So it's like, if you can see other people that are out there working hard, and you might see somebody that has more ailments than you. Who knows? One day I can check in and say, Hey, I don't want to be here. But then maybe there's another person checking in that is in a wheelchair that's going around the block. What What excuse do I have? I just think that we need to stop judging ourselves for what we're doing if we're not doing enough and just, Hey, your 100% is going to be different every day, but you have to show up.

I've been humbled by that for sure because even myself, when I started this, I put a pressure on myself that nobody else is putting on me but myself. I think for 45 days, I didn't have a rest day. I'm trying to get up. You know what I mean? Because I'm also a huge believer in leading by example. How can I tell people, show up and do these different things when I'm laying in bed? I wanted to start by showing, I'm not asking you to do anything. I'm not willing to do myself. But as the process has gone, I also know that showing up for yourself and checking in means sometimes I need to check in with where I'm at and I need a rest day. But to your other point, seeing some of the stories, I had a friend who, unfortunately, discovered she had a little bit of an illness going on and basically had said, I was told that I was going to be in a wheelchair for a year, and I just walked my first mile. Things like that, it's like you can't put a price tag on those types of stories. Or even maybe on a lesser scale, physically, somebody's like, My dog passed away today, but I'm here checking in, and I'm going to go do that.

It looks different for everybody, and what checking in actually is, carries different weight for everybody in that same aspect.

It's a good point because, again, I keep going back to the check-in club and saying it over and over again because I want you guys to pay attention, first and foremost. Secondly, it's not a check-in on an app. It is. But at the root of it is, are you showing up for yourself? Are you pushing through the moments where you emotionally don't want to? Because that's the key. If you can just go for a walk that day and post it, that's going to show somebody else. Yeah, you don't have to worry about the caption. But if you write like, Hey, my dog passed away today. I'm emotionally wrecked. I just want to stay in bed depressed. I had that dog for 15 years. It was their family, first and foremost, right? If I can just show up for myself, post this and say, All these things of why I shouldn't be doing this today, but I'm still not taking a zero date. That can inspire somebody else to move in spite of what they're going through that day.

You have no idea. And I actually saw this picture online the other day, and it hit me so hard. It was all these cars stuck in traffic. One car is just lost her mom. One car is struggling with the eating disorder. Another car is struggling with self-harming. All these people, you have no idea what everybody's carrying. When I go through and I'm seeing, I genuinely mean this from the bottom of my heart, I'm overflowing. I'm just so proud. I'm proud of everybody for showing up because some people I know their struggles, other people I don't even know their name, and I'm seeing them on there. I'm like, it It is beautiful how everybody is making it a priority to show up for themselves. I encourage people to start small. You know how you were saying, back to eating goals and different things. Some people are like, I'm going to eat clean for a week. For some people, that might be too big of a goal to start. I think we set ourselves up for failure if I'm like, I'm not going to have a single gram of sugar for the next 75 days. Realistically, that's not a goal that's super attainable for somebody who's never done something like So start small.

There's a feature in the app where you can set your weekly goal, how many times you want to check in, and that resets every Sunday. And I tell people, if you're new to moving your body... Sorry. If you're new to moving your body...

Don't be beating my shit up, man.

Just so passionate. But if you're new to moving your body and moving five days a week, maybe that's something that's going to automatically set you up for failure. Start with two days. Tell yourself two days, regardless of what the week presents, I am showing up for myself those two days, regardless, no matter what.

That's the danger in a lot of things when you start something. It's like when I started my show or if I'm getting back in shape, am I going to say I'm going to record every day? When I started this, I was recording once every three, four weeks out of my car after the gym. I thought, Download in the gym, I'd go out there and I'd vent on it. It sucked. It was terrible. But it built... It built character. It built up that muscle. I look at all the other shows that I went through, I go back and look, I'm like, Oh, my God, I'm mortified. By how bad it was. Yeah.

It's like, why did I have a Facebook 14 years ago? I'm still trying to figure that answer out.

Yeah, but you just do a little at a time. My whole point is for the people listening is, don't base your goals on what you think society expects of you. Absolutely. I think that's a big thing, right? It's like, Oh, if I'm going to be shredded, I got to wake up at 4: 00 AM like Sean does or like PJ does or whatever. It's like, No, I just do it because I Because it works for me. If I could sleep till 6: 00 and work out at 7: 00 or 8: 00 every day, I would. But the bottom line is too much stuff happens, and then it's going to go by the wayside. So I'm going to take care of that most important thing right there. People don't realize giving back to yourself the very first thing. When I get up, I get up at 4: 00. Gym opens at 5: 00. I'm up at 4: 00. I'm in the parking lot by 4: 30. What am I feeling today? It's 4: 30. What do I need from the word today? Okay, I'm feeling a little anxious. Go on my Bible app, I'm on a clip on anxiety and I read.

Love it. Then I get in the gym and pour into myself. By the time my kids wake up and I'm making their breakfast, I've had my time with God, and I pour it into myself. That's when I'm allowed to be selfish in those hours. I'm very selfish in the morning until 6: 00 AM. Then it's all about them until I get them out the door at 7: 15. Then I can go with my workday. But long rant, and I've probably lost the audience here because I can do that because I'm ADHD.

No, that's a good message.

But start working. But literally, don't try to do too much. Don't succumb to what you think society wants of you. You don't work out. You never work out. You haven't had a healthy meal in 17 freaking years. Go for two walks that week. It's two more than you did the last 17 years. Eat one good meal that week. And you've already bettered yourself from the week before or the 17 years before. I just think that we need to understand this small win, right? It becomes cliché so much. But small wins are the actual big wins. What do they call those micro movements? The macro is when you see somebody in the World Series hitting a walk-off home run. That's a macro result. But all the micro things, all the work, what are we doing? Start small.

I love that. I also think I'm a huge morning person, too. Sometimes Other people, their time for themselves is at night. Maybe that's your work schedule. Maybe that's what works best for your family, your kids. But I'm the same way. If I don't win the morning, I don't win the day. For me, personally, I know around nine o'clock, I'm going to have to start work. I've seen firsthand when I don't spend that time on myself in the morning, it's not good. It's not good for anybody. I think it's important. Whatever time of day that is, you don't miss out on that.

It's not good for your relationship either. You're married. It's like, I'm married, three kids.

It's horrible for my relationship.

When I'm not on track, because I'm human, it happens. I went through a time we went to Ecuador in July. For three months or so, I wasn't as consistent, and I started noticing the change in my speech pattern. I was slower. I'm like, What the hell? I believe it. Okay, I'm slower. I'm feeling more anxiety. I'm I'm feeling more. I'm pressing more. Instead of pushing, there's a difference between pressing and pushing. I was pressing. I'm like, Okay, what's the difference? What changed? I'm like, You dumb ass. You are not following through. You are not doing the one thing that makes you great because I believe everybody has the one thing. I want to share this with the audience. I've shared it with them a thousand different times, but we get new listeners all the time. You probably haven't heard this story, so I'm going to tell you.

Let's see.

The one thing that I always struggled with in my life was feeling good enough and having genuine confidence. That all came from being overweight as a child and being overweight as an adolescence and into my adulthood. I would always yo-yo. I would always yo-yo. I couldn't figure out why I wasn't having the growth that I needed in the show. Here I am having this show about determination and discipline where I looked like a fat freaking mess. I looked the other day, and again, I'm not judging anybody. This is me. This is how I felt about me. I love all types of people. No, that's the word.

You can always speak to your journey.

I think people misconstrued things like, Oh, he doesn't like fat. No, no. I didn't like me fat. Because I had no confidence. I didn't like going to a vacation and taking my shirt off. Like, literally, it was one of those things where it was a prison for me. Here I am having this show about determination Discipline, but I didn't look... I wasn't the guy. I wasn't the part. So I dove into that. It was just more about me wanting to be healthy for my family. I don't ever want my son that's back there, his two sisters or my wife, to wake up one day and I'm not awake because I didn't take care of myself. I had a heart attack or I was sick. I want to combat that. So it started off as self-love because all my other fitness is this something I want the audience to really pay attention to right now? You cannot start a fitness journey being the best self out of shame. You will always fail. You will always fail all day and twice on Sunday. You cannot be the best version of yourself leading out of shame. It has to be out of self love.

I love myself so much, so I'm going to do this. I changed my alarm from get up, bitch, to I love you. No, I did. No, I didn't leave this. I did. And then I changed it to I love you, Sean. It's still named I love you, Sean. When my wife saw that alarm, she goes, Who the hell wrote that? I go, I did. I wrote that. She goes, Why did you write that? I said, Because if I'm going to change, I need to love me. I need to love me right now so I can continue nurturing myself. And as soon as that was taken care of, everything exploded. Everything got big. Everything got clear. All these different opportunities started to come to me. The show got better. I got better. My guests got better. I had more support. I had investors. I had PR. I had an amazing team. All to say, everybody listening right now and watching, when you sit When you sit there and you say, I don't know why I'm struggling. I don't know why I don't have the things I want. I don't know why I don't have the money I want.

I don't know why I don't have the body I want. Yes, you do. Because it's the one thought you have in your mind that you do not like your sofa.

I had a very similar story, honestly. Like I mentioned, my mom- Am I fired up now? No, that was great. You got me fired up.

Like a cross between Fergie and Jesus. It's a stepbrother's reference for any of you people that- I love it.

No, I love it. But I had a similar story. Like I said, my mom was in the fitness industry, and I felt like people would always... This sounds dramatic, but they would look at me and be like, There's no way. That's her daughter because I was a little bowling ball. But it affected me so much because all my friends were, they were tall and thin. As a young girl going through school, that takes a toll on you. I felt like none of the boys liked me and different things like that. I don't know. It truly does weigh on you and your confidence over time. But I feel the same way now that I take care of myself. I feel like when I stopped working out to produce a result that was based on the outside, I felt like that's when I truly got going. That's how Checking Club came about and all these different things that I'm passionate about. Because like you said, when you start from a place of like, I'm doing this because I hate myself, your mind hears that and feels that, and it's going to produce a result that ultimately doesn't last.

I don't know. I tell I talk to people all the time, if my friends are like, I'm feeling sad, I'm like, You've been working out lately? And not in a way that's like, you're out of shape, get up. But it's like, I truly believe that that aspect of our lives pours into everything else. I don't know. I always tell people, I'm like, whether it's 45 minutes in the morning or whatever, like 45 minutes for a better 8, 12 hours, that is a really good trade.

I mean, think about that. You stack that up over the week, the month, the year. It's important, right? Yes. It's funny because I think everybody starts from a place of shame in something, right? No matter if they grew up poor, right? They become big business moguls because they have that insecurity of, I don't want my family going through what I went through. It's a place of shame. But when they finally get over the shame part, that's when they really take off. It's super important to talk about because... I love the fact that it's your origin story, too, because I can relate to that. I think it's powerful for the audience, powerful for people listening because even if you just did a stretch, I don't know a lot of people that just sit there and like, Okay, I feel tight. I'm going to go stretch. No, they sit down. They sit down. Here's something important, too, because there's a lot of people listening and a lot of moms out there that are so busy. I think about my wife, who is gorgeous and blessed in genetics. But moms don't always have time to pour into themselves because mom's psychology is so much different.

They go to work, come home, help the kids I'm doing the homework, I'm doing the dinner. She has work to do, some grading to do. Then all of a sudden, what's left for me? I'm not saying it hurt. She's saying that. I don't say that. But for those, even just getting down on the ground and opening up your phone, checking in. I can't get to the gym because I don't have way too many commitments, but I just did 50 pushups.

Yeah, we had that happen. We have a community called Mom's In Motion, and I love it. You like how I tee that up? Yeah, I love that. No, but it's like- You're going to be people laughing.

That shit was intentional.

He's a mastermind.

He's a mastermind. Well, you know.

But, really, it is crazy because I find myself, I'm like, I'm too tired. I have a dog. I have a dog. These people are chasing... These moms are chasing around real human beings, and they're making time for themselves, regardless of what that looks like. Let's do away with the extra... I'm not saying you have to go to CrossFit, otherwise it doesn't count as a check-in. You're saying sometimes I've actually had moms be like, I did 25 push-ups in 10 minutes of core on YouTube. That's incredible. The fact that you're finding time. I will say, my mom One thing I remember specifically through every age of my life, I watched her show up for herself, and I never understood why that was a priority. But I can confidently say, now that it's my own journey, I'm like, I want to be like that. She always made time to take care of herself. My mom looks amazing. She has spent years and years and years of putting in that time and work for herself.

It's important, and I'm glad we went there with mom's emotion, right? Because, again, it truly was intentional because I saw that. It's a thing where even if, because people judge themselves too quickly, there's moms right now listening. Let's say, Well, I only have time for five pushups. What is that going to It's five more than you've been doing. Five more than you did yesterday. It's commendable, right? Yes. Do your five pushups. But guess what? You do that for three days in a row. Then funny, that fourth day, you managed to do eight. Then you get into this mode where like, Okay, I'm going to do eight for three days. Then I'm going to get to 10. That adds up.

But that's back to that starting with goals that are attainable. To your wife, when she has these days that are crazy busy and she's working and being a mom and being a wife, it's like maybe she starts with five, but that's a doable goal for what she's working through right now.

My friend is giving us a home gym. I know I'm so blessed. Wow. So soon we're going to get- If any of my friends want to give me a home gym, please let me know because I'm very interested in that type of friendship. Yeah, exactly. I'm going to put it in the garage, and then I'm going to be able to go in the garage with her when the kids go down and work with her a little bit. I love that. She's someone to pick it up because I'm not putting a hitch on my truck. I'll probably crash it over the freaking-What is it?

It's like a prebuilt home gym? Yeah, they got to break it down. When you see a house on the highway, I'm like...

Yeah, no, but you know those things with the Smith machine, all that stuff. It's got to be taken apart. Then it's got to be transported. But that's how I'm going to support her. Then, too, if there's days where maybe I didn't have time to finish my workout because I don't I'm a hard stop at 5: 55 because I want to get home and be there for my kids and help them get out the door, make their breakfast.

You are very regmented. I remember when we were trying to set up a phone call and I had just missed you, and I was like, I can call you back, and you're like, I'm in dad mode. I respected that so much because I'm not a girl, dad. I'm the opposite. What's the opposite? My brain isn't firing. I don't know. I'm a daddy's girl.

You're daddy's girl. There you go. Yes.

When I see another dad acting in a way that... Your kids will honor that and remember that. So I wanted to say that about you because sometimes when you watch somebody on a podcast or something and they're saying these things that sound good, you're like, That guy, he might not know. He actually does that.

It's funny Thank you for that. It's one of the things that when I meet people, because it's starting to be like, I'll go to Wawa and I'll run in and someone will come in and they're like, Hey, I know you. And that's pretty cool. And I'm like, Yeah, man. I was like, I recognize you. I followed you back. They're He's like, Dude, you're the same person. I'm like, What do you mean? I get confused. I'm like, Is there a clone? Straight up. I'm like, What do you mean? He goes, No, most people have this on-camera presence or social media presence, and they're not the same person in real life. I'm like, I'm a shitty actor. So there's no way I could pull this off and then go do something else. I think I go crazy. I don't have multiple personalities.

But it's that idea of people say, Never meet your heroes because of reason of disappointment.

I've had conversations with people that I'm like, I really like this dude. He's freaking amazing. And I have a podcast with him. I'm like, this is a while back. This is a while back.

You're not talking about me, right? No, not you.

You're not a guy. True. I'm just kidding. It's 2025. I was going to say that. It's 2025. We can be open here. We love them all. We're neutral here. Don't cancel me. No, don't cancel her. Not yet. Too early in my career. But no, I really pride myself on that. The thing with the kids, my son and my two daughters, I don't know if they'll ever understand how much. They're like, God damn it, you're going to make me cry on my show? They'll never know how much I love them. I think the only way that they will ever understand is when they are a parent themselves and when they have to send their kids out in the world and go to school. Every day, I'm scared shitless to send them to school, and they go to a very safe school. But I just I just think that those times are important because the dad mode. It'll happen all the time. My partners will call me up for it. Dad mode. I can talk at 8: 00. I'm down to do that, but I spent too much time when I was building this away from them.

I was recording downstairs and they were upstairs. Now it's like, when I leave here, unless I have to hop on a quick call, I'm I'm yours. I'm yours because it's important. I think that the other thing that helped me draw that boundary you're talking about was me being disciplined in the gym. Because there are certain times for certain things. From 4: 00 to 7: 30, 8: 00, it's them.

I will confidently say to a large part in how we view ourselves and how we understand love is the love that we receive from our parents, but also, specifically, dads. Dads have a really big calling on their lives to lead their family. My dad, as you know, he just had his seventh anniversary of sobriety. We've always had this close relationship. But over the last seven years, the ways that I've seen him in this sober-minded reality show up for me and things that I used to know because as a kid, you notice everything. I would be like, All right, I told him my friend's name 10 times, and he still doesn't remember. Now he's like, You have a dentist appointment on Thursday at 8: 15, right? I'm like, Wow. It goes so far. In the way that I view love because of the relationship that I have with my dad is so important. I know a lot of people who have issues viewing love because of broken relationships in the home with dad. Moms are obviously incredible, and they're the heart of the home, but dads are like...

I think having both parents, there's a lot of narrative. I did with Steve Gruber, and he said that we need more dads out there. We need more dads, and people come at me like, Well, half of dads abuse their children. I'm like, Half of them? That's an actual percentage? I don't know. I'm asking. That's a really big percentage. But there's There's a lot of moms out there that abuse children. I think what's important for everybody to understand is having a mom and a dad in a household working together, pouring into their children. It's not to say single moms and single dads can't win. No, of course. I I don't believe in that. When someone says, Oh, I hate to see someone come from a broken home. There's only one parent. That might be a ton better than having...

Oh, I have a broken home. Our home is broken, but it's functional. But to your point, I feel the same exact way. I know so many strong single moms out there and single dads who crush it. But the love that they show also is so detrimental to how somebody views themselves. Just parenting in general is the whole It's so freaking hard. Parents are like, the good, the bad. It shapes you so much. When you start to develop in the whole frontal lobe, whatever, I see things from a different perspective. I'm like, as much as you want to be like, Oh, my parents don't affect me. Like, of course they do. The good, the bad, all of it.

I think the big thing is when you grow is that when you pour into yourself by doing the hard things, you start to see certain things that you are holding against your mom or your dad a little bit differently. They're just trying to help me, right? But the big thing is what also, and I alluded to this, and I really want to go back to it, but I want to say it again so the audience takes it in. I'm not challenging or questioning their aptitude, but I talk fast sometimes. I move on quickly, then I come back. When you go to the gym and check in, and you do all those things, you become a better everything. There's There's not one time. This past week, I've been sick, and I'm trying to battle through stuff, but I've been staying consistent in every workout, every meal. I know that no matter what, I'm going to feel like shit when I go home from here, but We're going to eat, and then I'm going to make dinner later. I'm going to do all these things. But that pours into the cup that says, no matter what's going on in your life, you're going to take care of what's important.

That spills over into my parenting style. This is a hard moment with my daughters. Daughters are hard. God bless you, sir. They're hard. They're hard. I have two. They're two and a half years apart, and they're besties, and they are worst enemies at times. It's those moments. If I'm not taking care of myself and doing the things that I need to do, I'll snap. As we're talking about parenting, we talked about Mom's In Motion and postpartum, different types of communities. What other communities are in the Check-in Club?

We have a ton. We started app with seven core communities, and they touched on a few things that would give people the guidelines of to what this is. But you can also create communities. We have pickleball people, we have Pilates powerhouses, we have Iron Tribe, we have Average Joes, which is just not so hard core, gives people a place to show up. It's like, yeah, I'm not bench pressing 200 pounds, but I'm still getting a good dumbbell workout in. And different things like that. We've had a great group of women start something It's called End Zone Miles, and this is football coaches' Wives who are doing walking competitions. A huge part of Checking Club that a lot of people may not know about is within the communities, you can create announcements. So say you have Naples Run Club, the The administrator of that community could post, Hey, we're meeting up at Vanderbilt Beach this weekend. Comment below if you'll be there to run with us. There's different ways to engage in the communities. As I mentioned, you can create your own.

That's That's one of the things I was playing around with earlier today is I can create my own Determined Society community within the app. Absolutely. How would one promote that? How would you draw people in?

We have pretty much everything within the app that is postable is shareable. So when you go in the app and you do the Create Community feature and you create the Determined Society Community, which you could label it, anybody who listens to the podcast is dedicated to bettering themselves, whatever, give a little description so people know what it is, and then you could share that community to Facebook, to Instagram. From there, people can click on your link. If they don't already have the app, it'll direct them to the app store to download. Then it's a really quick and easy sign-up process, and you'll just join that community.

I could actually, when I create whatever I want to call the community, right? Termin Society, the Termination Blueprint, I can share that link to Facebook or a link on a story, and they'll click on it. And if they don't have the app, it'll take them to their appropriate app store, whether it's Droid or Apple, they can download the app. So there's a way that I can actually help you and people can help you grow users within your app.

Yeah. With anything these days, social media is a really good pillar to growth in any capacity. So we found so many people on social media. And one of the coolest parts of starting the app was When I, like I mentioned earlier, when I'm starting to scroll and it's like, okay, I don't know this person, which is really cool, which means it's reaching different groups. I credit that to Instagram and TikTok and the power of social media, but 100 % shareable.

I had a really good idea. Obviously, fitness coaches. I have one that is really good. He's one of my best friends, and he works with moms. He works with women, 40 and over. It'd be really good to introduce him to this app, right? So he could create a community within the app and have accountability. And then all these women can have community with other women that are going through the same thing as them. It's a really low friction. That's amazing to me to see. I didn't realize that. Yeah.

There are a lot of features. Even on the homepage, there's a tab that I love, and I feel like you're the same way. I love a good motivational quote, a one-liner. There's a feature in there called Get Motivated.

The songs, too.

Yeah, they put a song with the quotes. By they, I mean me. They. But yeah, that's a cool feature. I love a good one-liner. You can get motivated in there. Then I do want to mention because some people are on this journey and they might not feel comfortable just being looked at by any average person. You can make private communities. Then whoever creates that community will be the admin to approve and reject. So as a nod to my original check-in club members, we started on a group me. There was 200 people within the span of two months, which was amazing. And I started by separating men and women just for comfortability purposes. Like I said, a lot of those moms, I wanted to create a comfortable environment. And so my original check-in club members, we have a private group called the OGs. And so I create that space for them to show up in the way they were able to at first. So that's a that we use a private community or if it's an all women's run club or something.

Is there a way to promote different communities within? Is there a list of them?

You can view every community that exists. There are some that I don't even have access to because they've been made private. There's a walking accountability group and different things that are more specific to the communities created. But when you go in the app, you can view all communities A to Z. If it's public, you can share to anybody. So any community, you can share the link, except if it's private. If you're not a part of that group, you wouldn't be able to share it. But if you're going through and you're like, I'm a part of a ton of them because I do different forms of movement. We have Denver Rock Climbing, like different things like that, which I'm not a rock climber, but I think it's cool that people find these unique ways to move their body and then create a community out of it.

You got my mind working because I think there's a way to drive to give people within the community is just to do more, to continue to show up for themselves. Like I said earlier, low friction. Because what I'm thinking is when people are checking in they're doing a story in a community or whatever, check this out, then it's just a nice way to include people. For more interaction, it doesn't... Here's what I'm getting We live in a world where everybody wants something from somebody. If you're going to join my community, it's $97 a month, or you got to pay $1,000 upfront, and you get a $0. 15 discount for the year. I like this because you're really driving connection.

Yeah.

And a lot of times in this journey of health and wellness, you need community. You need it badly.

There's so many days where I get a notification. And there's a notification panel. So if you're not somebody who wants to get blown up all day, totally get that. I, as the owner, am very passionate about the people that show up day in and day out. And so there will be times where I'm not feeling it. And I see Danny S posted in Pilates powerhouses, and I'm like, I better get going.

Yeah, that's pretty cool. Yeah, that's pretty cool.

I like that.

As we start to close out, and is there anything... Are you thinking about any new widgets coming? Some additional features? Features?

I'm always... My My gears are always going, and oftentimes on social media, I'll do like, Does anybody have any feedback or things that they'd like to see change? Or different things like that. I'm always thinking. We've had some people say, Can you collab with a friend? If you and I go and do a workout, could it say Olivia M and Sean F checked in together? I've thought about that or the ability to post multiple photos if I did a lift and then I went for a walk or different things like that. That's pretty cool. That's pretty cool.

Yeah. I like that. Well, good stuff. Well, thank you for coming on and sharing the origin story and everything that you got going on with the check-in club.

Don't forget, you committed to start checking in. I know.

I will. I will. I promise. I'm going to text you. I know. I know you will. Well, you can. Everybody watching and listening, go check it out, check-in club, in the App Store. Download it. Just download it. It's literally free. A lot of times they say free apps, and then it's free for seven days, guys. It's freaking free. Join the community and just show up for yourselves. Until next time, guys. Stay determined.