How Changing Your Identity Creates Sustainable Health With Dan Go

Introduction and mindset for lasting change 0:00

You know, we can talk about health, fitness, sleep, everything that's going to basically support you in being harder to kill or living longer. But the reality is, is that if you don't change your mindset, if kind of just continue to see this as extreme living extremities, then you're really never ever going start. My next guest, Dan Goh, really understands the need to just start As a fitness coach and entrepreneur, Dan Goh is dedicated his life to helping high achieving individuals transform their bodies and minds.

With over 20 years of experience in the fitness industry, he's guided thousands of clients towards losing a collective £100,000 and counting. He has an empathetic approach, which resonates with an audience of millions on social media and the 400,000 plus weekly subscribers to the High Performance Journal newsletter. His experience has been featured in media outlets, including GQ, CNN, Fortune and Entrepreneurum, and many others. Welcome back to Everyday Ancestral. I'm your host, James Berry. Please enjoy guest Dan Goh.

Well, Dan, I have to say this is like a perfect timing of an interview because I was just in a conversation with a very old friend of mine and he and I were talking about fitness and we're talking my mindset and. He is looking at what his next venture is going to be. And he was talking like, you know, really want to try to help people with their health. But I realized I'm very disciplined, but I don't know how to teach that to people. And I know you talk about this a lot, but you know, we talk. Well, I talk this lot and I think you do as well, which is most people won't make any changes to their health unless they get sick or someone they love gets sick.

Right. But the goal is we're trying to help people before it gets that bad. So is there a trick? Like, how do you actually motivate someone to make changes before they actually realize something's wrong? I don't think you can lead a horse to water. I do believe that it has to come from their own volition and their personality. There is no tricks. There's no hacks. The only thing that we can do on our side is be the example that you want to be and hopefully that influences the people that are around us.

And for me specifically, when I create content and when i do things that express my opinions on the internet. I'm just hoping that I use the right words and I say things in the ways that can at least like change one person's life and help move them in a direction that is more conducive towards being healthier. But yeah, like it has to come, the motivation has come from within. And I'll use an example of this where I was asked one time, what is the, was the one thing that would signify to you that a client is going to be unsuccessful with your coaching program?

And I shot out right away and I said, when they tell me that they're going be my best client ever. Interesting. Yeah. And the reason I say that is because they are so focused on this external form of, uh, be it approval or an external of motivation. Every time that a client has said that to me. They don't stick the transformation because they're doing it for an external piece of validation. The internal piece has to be the piece that motivates them. They want to. live up to their full potential.

They want to be a better family man for their kids. Uh, they want. Be able to, uh, break a generational curse of just being unhealthy. I mean, like there has to. This internal locus of control that pushes them towards wanting to healthy, not this external. How on the look good in front of other people, I'm going to to your best client. Like anytime that we do and base things on, the external that's me. is always going to signify that maybe you'll hit it, maybe it won't, but even if you hit, it you're not going have enough juice to keep it.

Identity shifts and self-image 4:18

Is this an example of, uh, cause you've talked about identity shifts before. So is this example that cause it's interesting when I think of identity, I, think have two things. I of the way other people perceive us and then the we perceive ourselves. Could you, so you could you kind of dig in and talk about what you mean when you say identity shift? Yes, so our self image and the way in which we perceive ourselves and vocabulary that we use to identify ourselves are going to be the greatest tools to getting in shape or the great tools getting out of shape.

And a lot of times when people are starting this process of just getting in shape, what happens as a result is, is their old vocabulary and their all programming just takes over. I don't know if I can do this. Uh, I dunno if, uh, you know, been out of shape for so long and I've been in the shape from my entire life. Just don' know. If I. Actually get myself into the body that I feel like I desire and deserve in. And we have to be able to change the image that we. Have inside of our minds. And when we change, the.

Image that. We have inside. Of our. Minds through be it. Visualization mental rehearsal or affirmation and actually affirming to ourselves the things that were doing the, things. That are making us feel good and saying, I am that person. The more that, we're going to. Be able. To change for the long term. I say that everyone that has listened to this podcast who has tried to lose weight has probably lost a good chunk of weight before only to gain it back. And for me, I'm not really concerned about losing weight one time.

For me, I want to it's kind of like money. I wanna be able to make money, keep it and grow it as opposed to just like making money and just spending it right away. So the same thing goes with say weight loss or getting in shape. Look at weight. Loss is something that is to be sustained, but you don't sustain it through tactical measures. Those things help. But we have to sustain it through the soft skills through, the ways in which we talk to ourselves through how we actually visualize ourselves.

When we see ourselves in the mirror and we, see yourselves inside of our minds. And one of the best ways to do that is to incrementally change our self image. So we can evolve into the person that we. Yeah, that's really powerful. When you just said something about tactical measures, um, That's interesting. Cause are you referring to like, cause this, this is something you advocate, which is you got to know your numbers. You got it. Yeah. Got it? You need, you need to, know, your stats to be able to where you're going or where.

But is that, is, what you were referring when you say tactical measure? Yeah. So it's like, there are tactical things that I feel everyone should be doing on a regular basis to get themselves in shape. It's kind of like a business. I do, because I'm an entrepreneur, I look at body transformation through the lens of entrepreneurship. And one of the main things is, is like knowing your numbers. I had this conversation with a client before, or actually he was about to become a Client. And I asked him, okay, and I'll probably ask you, it's like, how often do you check your sales numbers?

And you're probably like I check them every day. I get it. Like actually, he had a person report to him his cashflow, his debt, all that kind of stuff. Every single day, there's a report sent to them that he looks at. So he stays on top of it, And then this guy was a little overweight. Let's just say he had about 40 to 50 pounds to lose. And I asked him, okay, cool. When's the last time that you stepped on a scale? He's like, I don't know, like a month ago. I really want to step on it because I'm afraid of what it's going to say.

And this is the big disconnect that I find is that if you are so, let's just say, obsessed about measuring what you manage, especially when it comes to your business, something that's external, why are you so scared of measuring something? That's internal something. That actually matters, which is, the numbers that pertain to, your own health. So yeah, getting this data, lifting, walking, eating nutrient-dense foods, we can go into the weeds of these tactics. And yeah sure, those things are gonna help, but what you change on the outside is not gonna matter if we're not changing what's on inside right here.

They're gonna keep you tethered to the lifestyle. A hundred percent, because like one thing is going to happen. One thing, one is gonna take you off course. And then you're gonna be like, I, yeah, it wasn't meant for me. Then they're going hit an obstacle no matter what happens. At that point in time, they are going have to ask ourselves like. Is this thing the thing that I actually want to do? Am I willing to go through the that? I'm going to through and through. The obstacles just like in business is like, am I going through all those obstacles to get to where I want?

To be or am. I gonna let one obstacle just stop me and say, oh, that wasn't it. No, I guess this isn't for me, right? So we want. To make sure that we build up this resiliency. And I have a mantra that. For all of my clients. That I. Have for myself. Which is the mantra of as long as it takes. So I remember one of my friends, he came up to me is like, Dan, I've been eating high protein. I been working out three times a week and I haven't drank alcohol for 30 days and. I don't see anything. I. Don't.

See. Any. Changes. And then I went to him and just like, okay, cool. Like now let's like. Let's actually use a business term right now. So if you tried everything that you could do to build a. Business and you. Tried for 30 days and he said, oh, I guess, you know, entrepreneurship is not for me.

Tracking numbers and building resilience 10:21

Like, what would you say to this person? And they're like, oh, great. Like they start to get it. Right. And, and for me, it's like it doesn't like for a lot of people, they are trying to fix in 90 days, What has been downgraded for the past two to five years, if not even longer than that. So I tell them, that's why don't you give yourself a longer time horizon in which to achieve this. And as long as it takes, if it take one year, or if takes two years, whatever. And I actually say that the slower and the longer it's takes to get you to where you need to be.

the more sustainable it's going to be because what happens as a result is you allow yourself to go through multiple failures. You give yourself the permission to fail. Give yourself permission. To say, I did everything. I stepped on a scale and I'm like five pounds up. The more that you align yourself this this freedom to have mistakes and to make mistakes into fail over and over, and also like use those failures to see yourself, to actually make changes to improve yourself. the more that you're going to be able to integrate the things that need to for long-term sustainable change over the course of time.

Yeah, no, it's so true. I've been going through that for the last four months on my journey and coming to those same conclusions. It's very, very powerful to just stay the course and learn what you need to learn by being as regular as you can. And obviously, you're gonna go up and down, but trying to continue to always get back to that homeostasis in a sense. It's been really powerful. Now, something that comes up is I just read today how Reid Hoffman, the founder of LinkedIn and other big startups, I think PayPal as well, he talks about how when you're like a startup, and you are equating a lot of things to business and entrepreneurship, He talks about how if you're not burning the candle at both ends, then you are not a true entrepreneur.

You're a not true startup. And I read that and I was like, man, but that just goes against everything I've found. that works for me is that I have to strive towards balance, not extremities. And I know that you're an amazing model for people about not doing extreme diets, and not punishing workouts, like really finding balance. So how does that play into that mentality, that very American mentality of like, you know, go big or go home, or, if you want to make a lot of money, You got to go hard, That kind of concept.

I actually love putting constraints on myself. So let's just say like I set a goal and let us just the goal is to lose 20 pounds, get to 10% body fat. I will put a constraint on my self to say, well, I wanna be able to have ice cream with my daughter every single Saturday. If I'm building a business, And I'm trying to build it up to $10 million. Then what's going to happen is, is that I am going set a constraint for myself to say, I can only work from eight to four and I take weekends off. And the reason I would set these things is one, there's no point to attaining all of this stuff.

If you lose the things that are most important to you, which are your health and your family, it's just like, no, like if you're giving up on those things, especially everything that we know about, let's say little kids, if we have little. There is this finite amount of time that. We get to enjoy them. And. If you spend the finite amount of time trying to build this thing and spending all your time away from them, what are we doing? You're going to look back at that and be like, I missed probably the most important time in their life.

And then they're probably not going even want to chill with you like when they get older anyways. Yeah, that's the excuse people use all the time. Like I'm doing this for you. I am working this hard for the family or I, am always working out because I want a live longer, spend time with. The thing is that they use that as rationalizations. They're really doing it for themselves because they love the game and they actually find more comfort playing that game than they find comfort in being the family man.

So for me, I like to set constraints because I do believe that you can attain very cool, amazing, life-changing things, even building a billion-dollar company. By having constraints and then what's going to happen is, is that when you set these constraints on yourself. You're going to set boundaries and then it's going make you think, okay, so if I were to build an eight-figure business by only working eight to four and taking weekends off, what exactly are the resources I would need in which to attain that, in inwhich to succeed at that?

You would actually look at things a lot differently. Instead of being like the bottleneck for all the decisions, maybe you hire a COO or CEO. If you don't have an EA, I mean, like, start at ground zero, but you will actually look at things in a lot more of a different lens when you set constraints. And then you say I am going to achieve this based on these constraints that I set for myself. You're not just setting constraints for the sake of setting. You're setting constraints because you want to prioritize the things that matter most in life, which are going to be your health and your family.

So anytime that I'm setting a goal for myself, I have to do this within the context of these constraints, because these are actually the thing that matters most to me. This building business thing, this actually is kind of fun for me, This is like me doing my hobby a little bit, and I love doing it, And I can do it 12 hours a day. You know, like 24 seven, I can act. I love doing it, but you can't play basketball 24, seven. You can do, you, can be good at anything by going 24. Seven. And you. Can't be.

Good at the things that you actually want to be, good that, which is being a good family man and being healthy by 24 7 and over indexing on something like a business. So, so that's what I would do. Would set these constraints and they will make sure that these. Constraints are related to the priorities that I have in my life. Yeah. Bring up an interesting point that. when we, the person that is the workaholic that doesn't choose to, is using the family as the excuse, you bring up the point of what they really want versus

Constraints, balance, and priorities 16:48

what their presenting to their family, right? In a way that's kind of saying like, well, how honest are you gonna be about your own motivations? Like kind in a sense, like looking inward. Like how honestly are we gonna with ourselves? But then we're also talking about mindset. Which sometimes there is a fake it till you make it kind of mentality of like you to change your mindset, which is what most people are doing to get out of that. You do have to kind. Fake it until you. Make it right. Got to.

Change that mindset and find, you know, the glass is half full versus half empty. So how, how do you recommend people do that? The first thing is, is like, listen to the right people. I mean, that's like number one, get advice from people that you would actually love to trade places with. And like because we're living in this world where we are inundated with information and in the data with people giving advice and, you know, ironically, here we. On the podcast giving. But one of the biggest things that has helped me is asking myself what I want to treat places.

With this person. So let's just say it's. Some entrepreneur or maybe it's even Reid Hoffman. I'd be like, okay, so cool. Do his kids actually like him? Is he a good father? Um, if it. Someone telling me to, uh, work 12 hours a day and just forgo everything just so I can succeed in business. Do they have kids? And it's just like choosing the right role models. Those are probably like the first thing because we're all going to be, we all have this kind of like, I forgot what it is. I think it' like a parasocial relationship that we have with the people that are influencing us.

So it was like number one, choose the role model. Um, i'm not choosing Elon Musk as a role-model. Do I am quite inspired by the things that he is achieving, but i am not using him as rolemodels. I'm choosing the guy who is probably quietly a great dad who was building a fantastic business and I listen to his advice and making sure that I am going to be following what he does in his life. The other mindset is to understand, it's like to know yourself. It's to have this self-awareness. So why do we want to achieve the things that we wanted?

We want to achieve the things that we want. Let's just say primarily for the form of, let's say 99% of things we wanna achieve are gonna be for status to elevate ourselves. Like there is only so much money that is gonna make us happier past the point of taking care of all of the thing that help us survive. So knowing why you want what you've want is one of biggest ways to avoid climbing the wrong ladder. So if you want to get on stage and let's just say like I had a client before he's like, I want do a bodybuilding competition and I wanna take it all the way there.

And I was just like why? If you don't understand the amount of eating disorders these bodybuilders have. To get to the levels of body fat and also what's going to happen when you get up on stage? You're going. Maybe you win, maybe you don't. Who cares, right? But you're gonna get the ego boost of saying that I did it. But what is that actually going do for you? Why do you want what you. And I feel like people just want things the way people want, things because other people, want them, not because they actually want.

Them. If that makes any sense. So we have to have this level of self-awareness and keep on asking ourselves, okay, so why don't want to want this? Why do I want that? What is this going to do for me? Well, is it going do from my family? Was this gonna do? For my health? And it takes us from going through life in this like unconscious manner to really just like having a discerning eye for inviting the things that you feel are going to supposedly make your life better. Yeah, I mean, in a sense though, that dissoning eye can be also another word for that could be discipline, right?

And you've talked about like previously, like discipline is love. I've heard you say that. And can you unpack that? particularly in how someone who's struggling with self-care or self worth can reframe discipline. Cause a lot of people as, you know, in the parenting world individually, that word discipline has a bad rap, like don't discipline your kids. You're too restrictive around diet. There's all these kind of associations with that words. So how can we refrane that work to turn it back into that discipline is love.

Well, remember when we were kids and I know that you, I don't know what your family life was like back then, but generations change. So the, our perception of the word discipline is for me, it's like getting a belt. Totally. Absolutely. Yes. Yeah. Or getting, you know, your, You got to stay in your room and can't come out, whatever. Cause he's, I mean, like the, the caveman version of punishment for kids kind of thing. So we understand and we saw discipline or people like in our, in, our age saw a discipline as this negative thing, we are getting disciplined.

And what that meant was physical harm or getting something taken away. Nowadays, obviously we have gentle parenting and like all this kind of stuff that's becoming popular. But what discipline means today is the concept of actually caring for yourself. So as we grow older, we have to do this thing that the Gen X or the gen Z people call adulting, right? And it's just maturing. And what we. Have to care for ourselves. What does that mean? It doesn't mean you're sitting on your couch watching Netflix.

It. Doesn't. Mean that you. You're kind of like eating whatever you want. And just like leaning into emotional eating, stress eating and being like, I can just have ice cream whenever I want. It doesn't mean massages. That doesn' mean any of this s**t that is just based on recreation. What it means is to actually care for yourself as if you were an organism you're taking care of, like a plant maybe. And maybe some people are like I cant take care plants. My plants always die on me. But anyways, i digress.

Caring for ourselves means to feed ourselves, to nourish ourselves in a way that is going to help us perform in the best way we can possibly perform. Taking care of ourselves through exercise. Making sure that regardless of how we feel, we're going create a routine where we are going hit the gym three times a week. You're gonna hit it. It means going to bed on time and not like, you know, scrolling through social media or doom scrolling and using and kind of like frying your dopamine receptors. Listening to people give you loads of information, usually wrong information.

So the concept of discipline is actually self care. The concept of discipline is self-love. You are taking care of yourself. That is what discipline now in modern day. And for me, it's really just like moving back to where we are supposed to be as human beings, where it is like making sure that we're doing things that make us feel the best. Those things are obviously sleep, nutrition, hydration, and exercise. So discipline is love. That's what it is. Well, I love too that you're delving into ancestral concepts.

You're saying, you know, like what we did in the past, and that's precisely what this podcast is about, is taking the best from the pass and bringing it

Choosing role models and defining discipline 24:57

to our present. So what do you think it that our ancestors understood about uh, identity, since that is like the root of transformation from based on our conversation today. So what did they understand about identity and self-worth that we're losing or that? We've lost today? I think the first thing that were losing rapidly is community. Uh, so back then we used to live in these tribes that, uh didn't get any bigger than that. Well, for some there was like 20 for others, it was, like a hundred, but it didn' get bigger.

We didn't have access to the loads of information that we have to right now. We did not have what was happening 5,000 miles away from us and being so in tune with all of the troubles of this world. So we had a village, we have a community and this community was shared with everyone else. We all helped each other within this. And I think like modern life is taking us away from that. I mean, where we're able to communicate and connect with people thousands of miles away, but are we really connected in a deep personal way?

So that's like number one. Number two is going to be, okay, well, what kind of foods did we have available to us back in, you know, let's just say the Paleolithic days. And it's also, it was not just like chicken strip loins and let's just say fish. Right. They ate the whole animal. Speaking my language, Dan. Yes. Yeah. Hey, they ate, the fish eyes, They eat the beef liver. they, ate all of it, made use of all it. Then they turn, when they killed an animal, turn their fur into pelts so they can cover themselves.

and they were in tune with the setting and the rising of the sun. So when they are waking up, the Sun was waking them up. When they're about to go to sleep and there are tuning down, The sun was setting, and They were trying to tune in for going to Sleep. I really do feel that our bodies have this fine tune machinery that we have gotten away from. Whether it's like the foods that we put in our bodies, the way in which we move, and also our circadian rhythms, The way we sleep, I think we are the most advanced biological pieces of technology on the planet.

But when we do things that go against that biology, we start to feel like ****. This is the reason why this reason, why depression is at an all time high, while your BC is an All Time High. And also these things are directly correlated with each other. It's like when you have like more fat on your body, that's a sign that your brain is probably not going to work as well as you think it's going. So we have to go back to what made us feel human and that is. That is going back to how we treat ourselves back then.

And the cool thing is, is that when we pair that up with modern technology, whoa, we will actually be advanced cybernetic human beings as a result of that. Yeah, that's really interesting. So two things, I'll go here first, then I got to follow up. But so first thing is, is we talked earlier about, you know, measuring, getting a hold of your data, and there's obviously lots of tech out there. Do you have, what's your kind of, if someone who is not measuring their stats right now, where would you recommend they start?

I would, and let me get this out right here. So number one is I'd recommend something like this. I don't know if we can see that. Oh, yeah. Not really. What is that? It looks almost like a, a a Pager. Yeah. We remember Pagers back. They're showing our age. This is a pedometer. Okay. And I just keep it on myself. Oh, that's cool. Yeah. I'm trying to get away from the whole smartwatch phenomena right now, but I do think that they are good up until a certain point. Once you actually know your data, That's great.

But I also have, like, I actually have stopped. And then I stopped wearing a ring because of like how it was affecting kind of my everyday and just like perceiving the data that I was getting. And I started to wear it again because I have made some changes to my sleep and I want to track exactly if those changes are correlating with the way that they feel. So I would say like getting a sleep tracker and, uh, wearing it for about six months to get your data and to find out what informs good sleep and what actually takes away from good.

That's fantastic. And also with pedometer, I think like one of the most underrated exercises on the planet is walking. Right. Uh, back then our paleoithic ancestors got 16 to 17,000 steps a day right now that they live in Manhattan. Oh yeah, the average American gets 4,000 steps a day. So they're literally getting four times less steps. And they're living the sedentary lifestyle. And one of the things that we employ with our clients is just like we have them walk, but we don't do it because we're like, hey, you got to burn fat.

You got burn calories. We do because it is such a net positive for their stress and mental well-being. Also, it boosts cognition and it boots brain power. So there's this really cool study that came out in Japan where number one, actually Japan, when someone is depressed, the thing that they prescribe them

Ancestral habits, community, and walking 31:00

is to go into the forest and take a walk. When it comes to America, first thing they prescribed them was an SSRI. And the things like walking has such incredible mood benefits, especially when you do it outside. Yeah, I was just gonna say, and being outside, right, is key. Because a lot of people might go, well, just go walk on my treadmill. It's like, no, it's not what you're talking about. Yeah, like there is something about seeing fractals and seeing leaves and saying water that have an effect on your eye system.

And it just calms you down. I think they call it forest bathing down in Japan where they use this as one of the main modes of getting them out of depression, which is to walk in a forest and without your phone. One of the really cool things that I love to do, especially if I'm coming up against a problem inside of my life, or kind of like I am trying to fix something complex, I will remove my phone, take a walk outside, bring a notebook with me, and it's almost like you're getting in touch with your subconscious mind.

You're just walking out there. You are letting your subconscious mind take care of it. All of these neurotransmitters are getting stoked because of the fact that you're moving and then miraculously, you are like, that's so simple. I shouldn't do this. And you start writing it down. I find that walking, especially from a human standpoint, specially from just like feeling more human, that's probably the thing that is going to be the most underrated thing anyone can bring into their lives. Now, we said walk outside, do that, and I understand that some people especially living busy lives and having work and all this kind of stuff, They might not be able to get the requisite amount of steps that they need so a couple of things that you could do is actually work with modern technology i know we said.

Screw treadmills but i mean like we can actually do like an under the desk treadmill while we do walking while you do meetings and we concern like every single meeting or watching netflix or. Uh, looking at videos as like opportunities to walk and opportunities, to get more steps. We actually employed this with one of our clients and we just turned all of his meetings into walking meetings. And then lo and behold, number one, he's like dropped like 20 pounds. But the other thing was after he was done a full day of calls.

Usually he would be drained by the time the day was over if he was sitting now, he's feeling energized He's actually has more than enough energy to go play with his kids. He like hey, let's go to the park Let's do this. Let' do that because the movement of walking and just being in movement constant movement all the Time that is what creates energy So these bodies in motion is stay in emotion as they say. So, so having just a simple habit of walking is literally one of the easiest and most accessible things that most of us can do like 99% of.

And I do believe that it can be life-changing when we integrate this as a part of our daily routine. What I love, I loved what you just said, though, about how I mean, right there, that's a different mindset, like, oh, the output of walking more actually creates more energy. So the Output of Energy builds energy, which is the exact opposite of what a lot of people think. and what i love about that too is that you know in many ways people could be say right now like well weren't you guys talking about not being extreme and putting like a treadmill under my desk and walking all time that's extreme but and i think this is what I hear you saying and I believe this as well which is You can't sit there in judgment of the thing before you've done it because when you start to do it, it actually will build off of it.

Like I always tell people like, like for example, who are struggling with health. I'm like well, just start with drinking more water for. Because you're currently drinking juices and sodas and all that stuff. So just cut that out and just drink water. That's all you going to. And that one thing. kind of like, you know, ripples out into new things because now they start to feel different and then that builds upon itself. Do you find that as well? Yeah. When I, I mean, like I wasn't this fit guy my entire life.

Damn it. From like the time I was in grade five, all the way to like grad 90, what? I didn't even graduate high school. That's how bad it was. Right. Oh wow. And, uh, way into my twenties. I remember I was coming home from a rave, high off of my mind, off ecstasy. And then I get home at like 6 a.m. I open the door and then, I see my dad and he gives me like the most disappointed Asian father face that you can ever imagine. And I'm trying to play it off and I try to be normal. Like, hey, where are you going?

He's like, going to the gym, just walks out, completely shuts the doors. It's probably just like I can't deal with this kid right now. And then I saw him over the course of a couple of over, the of six months, just go to the gym over and over. And over he was actually like, he actually gained a lot of weight while he. While he, was tending to his business, while it was growing his. I. Saw him lose like 30 pounds off of his body and become metabolically healthy. So. Just being able to see that was like, okay, well, that's kind of cool.

Then he actually was one of like the members of the month and in his gym and he, he got like a month long pass. He gave it to my brother. My brother didn't want it. So he gave to me. I was okay. Cool. Like I'm going to take this and I not, I am doing nothing. Just playing video games all day and partying at night. Worst case scenario, i'm gonna see some hot girls and best case I get in shape. So I end up going to the gym and I do everything horribly. And I just go like every single day. My whole thing there was like play around with the machines, do things that other people were doing and just show up to.

That's it. Just show. So I ended up showing up to the gym doing that over the course of a month and it completely changes my life completely. We don't realize like how much exercise has this effect on our brains. So back then when I was a degenerate, I thought, oh, i'm not worth anything. Oh, you know, not good enough and like all this kind of stuff. I started to have positive thoughts in my brain. Uh, started it to. Have more energy. I started to be like, ah, you know what? Maybe I won't like go partying.

What am I here for on this earth? What I'm doing? I started to find out what exactly is my purpose, right? And it wasn't until I start exercising that became this like entry level drug into massive self improvement. And then after the 30 days, I ended up like going into the change room and I'm like, okay, cool. Like 30 is over. What the heck is going on here? What do I do next? I end up going to change from putting on my belt. I go into like one more notch, couple more, actually a couple of more notches than I, than they usually would be on my belt.

And I was like, what the heck is going on here? Oh crap. That just like got me hooked and I said, okay, cool. Like what can I do next? Like, Okay, nutrition. Okay. What, What do I have to do for nutrition? Uh, and then after I like kind of fix nutrition, I'm like okay. Well, do what do have do to like fix my sleep? And. I always say that you start with one thing. And then you evolve into other things because that one thing literally changes your brain and it gives you momentum and then just tackle one think at a

How exercise transformed Dan's life 38:30

time and just like it leads you into having enough power and enough energy to like go tackle the next thing. I this is incredible i was gonna ask you about you know how you got into this. But it's incredible to me that it wasn't out of someone shaming you or like, you know, verbally abusing you. Or were you? Oh, look at that face. Yeah, I got shamed for sure. You were getting shammed. Okay. All right. So maybe I should take that part back. But point is, is the way you just told the story at least was that your dad started taking care of himself.

And that model inspired you once that opportunity was there to go to the gym to actually go do it. Is that, can we say that at minimum? 100%. And I started off with this curiosity, which is really cool. But the thing about it is, and I'm pretty honest about this is like, I actually started of my journey with a complete hatred for my body. Is that due to the shaming you think? Yeah, just shame and security. Like, you know, they did the whole, I don't think they do shirts versus skins anymore in basketball anymore, but they used to do that.

I would pray. Please do not give me skin. So, uh, so they will always choose me for skins. And then like my, my friends or, you know, friends, I mean, like they're my friend, but they would, they were just be like, Oh, look at your mantis, it's like a look your man booze. I remember there was one time I was about to get in like fist fight with like one of my. Cause we were at a camping trip and he just like completely just would not stop making fun of. And, and you know what? I started off with a lot of hatred, a law of insecurity, allow shame, but I realized over the course of time that it is like so unsustainable.

Like there has to be like this deep, you have to evolve into like the steep respect that you had for your body. I don't think, I think like energy is energy. You just use it. Right. But, But I had to of all from that to having this steep reverent respect for what I put into my body, how I treat it, what it's doing for me. and actually like move into the love portion of actually loving myself. Yeah, I think, too, what we're kind of coming to, because we are talking about discipline. We're talking finding these bliss markers of feeling better about ourselves.

But the reality is that you could look at anything we were saying that has helped you as extreme. You could. label at that. But maybe what we're trying to say and maybe, what I hear you saying is that it's not necessarily about labeling something extreme that you are doing regularly, but it is more about just the doing and being open to the effect of it. Yeah. And what is extreme, man? What is the extreme is being obese, considered normal and not being extreme. I mean, when we, think about what's extreme and what not.

Yeah, and when, we think, about the way in which we want to live our lives. Well, the average human being is metabolically unhealthy. The average, human, being, is obese. the Average human Being is not really getting that much exercise and, not getting, that, much sleep. Why would I want to be average? And for me, I mean, like, i'm not. I don't know if I'm typing or not, and like I love relaxation. And I also love like pushing, but at the same time, Like I, don' crave to the average. So if like doing all these things and even like i'd do some like really like crazy for my body.

Like, what's the craziest way? What's a crazy, What an example. One thing I tell people is things I do for my sleep. One of the things is I mouth tape, so I don't breathe through my mouth. And people are like, oh my god, you tape your mouth, isn't that crazy, or are you not going to breathe? And I'm just like dude, I will do anything to give myself the compounding effect of better health, and I'll quantify it, track my data around it. If it works, it'll work, if it doesn't, then I just throw it away.

And that's the thing. It's like, I am always on the search for just incrementally being a little bit better. And why would I want to compare myself to the average human being and be labeled as like extreme? Like, of course, maybe I'm being labeled labeled, as extreme, but like what are we comparing ourselves to right now? What is extreme at this point? So so for me, it's like, and also just in general, like the more that we just like say things are like labels and I'm identified as this and identified is that it like we automatically like put other people and ourselves into like this little box, this neat little Box that doesn't really fit.

We are vast and we are very complex human beings or very. Complex personalities and the more that we identify with these particular types of things, the. More that were kind of like subsiding, like what makes us human in the first place. All of us are unique and. We have to like, we have. To say that. And almost like respect the fact that that is what makes us human. All of us are different. So the more that a person says, oh, you're so extreme or like, why are you so like this and that? It's just like well, that's the label that you are putting on me.

That's not the level that I am accepting. Yeah, that's such a good point. Now. So how does Dan go the, you know, the fitness guru, entrepreneur, or the person who's on social media? How do you face? When things go bad now like like because you you just said which is obvious, which Is obvious but I think a lot of people sometimes put people like yourself on pedestals like so you're human What's different between the dango of today versus that dingo? In his 20s who is just kind of playing games on his sofa.

Like how do you handle these things now? Oh, it's just like embracing failure. Like the most important thing is the iteration process. So now I've kind of like have a better relationship with failure than I did before. Before I used to look at failure as this thing where it was like, okay, if I fail, then I'm a failure, right? It's almost like you had fear of failing. Yeah, it's like there was this like fear of failing, which actually leads to not trying in the first place. Yeah. And the reality and the thing that I understand now is like, the more you fail and faster you feel, The more that you keep on trying and try different things and kind of iterate differently.

The More you get to the core piece of like the Core achievement of what you want. So, so for me, It's more so about, and then this is actually very much related to getting your body in shape as well. The more that you allow yourself to fail and to try and fail, and try out different things, to see things that work and see thing that don't, the more you are allowing yourself, hey guess what, I'm going to take as long as it takes to get to where I need to be. I am taking the long road, taking a long path because it's the shortest one.

And the other thing is that, you want to rework your relationship to failure itself. Failure is not really failure. It's just an iteration that just didn't work. Imagine if Thomas Edison said, after one time of trying to make a light bulb, I just stopped and said this is now for me. For me, it's more so about the relation to failure, making sure that I am constantly trying do things that push me outside my comfort level. And constantly trying to do things that allow me to quote unquote fail. And then the more that I fail and the More that iterate, the better I'm going to be as a human being in the and I am trying To fail as fast as humanly

Fatherhood, routines, and handling setbacks 46:30

possible right now. Well, I love that. I Love that not, you know, losing the fear of failure and embracing it is so important. How have you, how has your fitness and habits, how have those changed since being coming a father? Cause you're, you are a fairly new father, right? Your oldest is four. How old is here? She's about to turn five and the Angus is about the turn two. Yeah. So that's, that fairly knew. I mean, y- you had a before kid, entrepreneurship or whatever lifestyle, and now you have a post.

so how, has being a Father changed how you treat your body and your mind and how has your lifestyle changed? Oh man, if I did not have my health routines set in place before I was a dad, then I don't really know where I'd be at this very moment. So one of the things that changes is your schedule. Your schedule is pretty tight now. Before I go to the gym three or four times a week, sometimes even seven times. And then now I'm just like, I need to get the most out of my workouts in about three sessions per week.

And also these three. Sessions have to be scheduled in my calendar. If I don't schedule on my calender, they're probably not going to. Yeah. It's, it's a weird thing for me, or it was a. Weird thing. For me because I, before I just have the freedom to go whenever I want. So now things have to be routine and also things that have been scheduled in. The other thing is also just like understanding that you are going to go through more of the, let's just call it the obstacle of like eating things, that she don't necessarily want to allow inside of your body.

So, you know, we have all these like snacks and we all have this kind of stuff and then. The temptation, the temptation. So I need to actually set hard boundaries and constraints on myself now. One of them is, is like, I'm not eating past 6 30 PM. I am not. And that has saved me so much. You cannot believe how much that has saved me because if it were up to me and I had carte blanche on doing whatever I wanted whenever I want it. Guess what? The worst food decisions happen after like seven or eight.

Those are like the worst. Food decisions. So for me, it's making sure that I have a hard stop. I'm not eating past a certain point and obviously there's exceptions like last time I just went to like Austin and you know they had dinners that were started at seven so I guess I am not going to do it like while I was in Austin right now. Cool that's fine I will just get back onto it when I get. when I get to, you know, back into my hometown. The other thing is going to be sleep. And everything that we know about being a new parent and having sleep is that it becomes few and far between.

Like it's very disjointed. I used to have like pure like nineties on my oral ring. When I had that, when the second kid came out, it was just like. How's it went? Yeah, exactly. But now things are starting to get normalized. And yet at the same time, I still prioritize sleep. I so prioritize routine as a parent. We all know. When the kid goes to sleep, we have this window of time that we only have to ourselves. So like when the kids are down, you have like maybe one and a half to two hours. Now those one-and-a-half to 2 hours, what most people do is they allow themselves to veg out and chill.

And that's totally cool. That's what I do too. But I just make sure I have a boundary of constraint around my eating, at least to say that, hey, I'm going to make make I don't eat at a specific time after a time. And I also going make that I am going and doing a routine that prepares me for bed at specific times. And that is not going to get extended past a certain point. So we have to have boundaries, guardrails, what Gen Zers call adulting now. And we just have these. I mean, that's what this modern life is.

Modern life, is this whole thing where it's like, hey, guess what? You can have whatever you want. You're going to have Uber Eats and door dash your house at whatever time that you. Want you can eat as much as you wanted to sleep whenever you won. So now what we have to do is responsible human beings and parents is to create this set of boundaries for ourselves and constraints that allow us to operate the way that we want to. How does the unexpected affect your routine? So I know you mentioned the Austin thing, but that's a little different because you're solo than going back to your family.

So let's just say you have a night where your daughter wakes up in the middle of the night and it's crazy and completely unexpected. Do you still wake up at the same time the next morning, go to the gym, do all the things you were going to do or do you adjust because of unexpected? Well, it depends on what your personality is. I'm a creature of consistency and habit. It is both my gift and my curse of being consistent. And you can be overly consistent at the wrong thing. So for me, it's always about getting back on the horse.

I mean, I think the, the biggest muscle that we have to flex is number one, actually two big muscles. Number one is allowing yourself to, uh, be able to make exceptions, but it also having the muscle to get back. The horse is a big muscle. So when I, let's just use Austin as an example. So Austin, I was eating at like 7 PM and, and I have this thing where I just like habit track and have been habit tracking for a very long time. And those four days, have a big block where nothing was done. Then the rest of the days are just filled up.

And I look at those days and I'm like, I am actually proud of those day. And the reason I say I´m proud those is because after those four days was done, the blocks all filled up right after that. I wanted to make sure I just like got back to the habit that I set for myself that constituted being in good health, at least for me. It was like the good boundary. So we have to allow ourselves to be able to makes mistakes and also to have exceptions. But we also have to have the constitution to get back to the thing that we said that were committed to in the first place.

Yeah, that's really good. Okay. Last question. So what is one belief or behavior you used to swear by in fitness or your personal development that you've completely flipped on and what shifted it for you? Yeah. That's a tough one. It is a rough one, I'm going to use one that I had recently. So I actually created a blog post or newsletter where I said that, I would never take Ozempic and I still won't. I have softened my stance on the idea that everything pharma and everything medication is bad for you.

I do see that a lot of people, I mean, like I'm, you know, we have a pretty big following. I have, see a a of the people who are getting a lo of benefit from these GLP-1 medications.

Changing views on modern medicine and closing 54:00

And yes, to see people have like the crazy side effects. Also there is this idea that it has the potential for thyroid cancers and like all this kind of stuff. But I've softened my stance on being so all or nothing on let's just say modern medicine and understanding that there are benefits to having modern. Maybe like it's not like all modern medicines are nothing, but it is just having a little bit of leeway to say that, hey, guess what? There are people that are working on really important issues right now.

They're doing their best to create these medications and these biotechnologies that may actually help us. So I had this whole like farm. I like the farm and kind of just like, so I was just, like oh, all they want is to mask the symptoms and like all this kind stuff. And yes, that is correct. Our, you know, let's just say the health system. The insurance system, the food system. But I do believe that there are going to be medications and also technologies that are gonna come that already here that aren't gonna have a profound effect on increasing one's ability to live life.

So I guess like the core of it is like, I'm not all or nothing anymore. I am allowing myself to have leeway to say, hey, what's up? There's gray areas here. But at the same time saying hey everything that you need to do is going to be everything That we used to you know as pale Everything that we use to as like normal human beings But there could be certain people that can benefit from these particular types of medications and future medications that may come Yeah, this has been great dance. It's great.

Honestly selfishly to have an hour with you. So thank you for guesting on here so How can people, do you actually see clients at this point or do push people into programs? Like how can someone work with you? Yeah, uh, I have a coaching program. People can join the coaching. Uh, and then that is where I'm able to help a vast amount of people. And in terms of like one-on-one clients, my roster is full. I only take on like five per, five. But what people could do is, is number one, give out free information.

That's, that's what I do. Like everything that was working for us. I put online. So the best way to do that is go to dango.co. You can sign up for the newsletter right there. It's completely free and we have 400,000 plus high performers on that newsletter. I've put a lot of work into it and I think people will benefit out of it by just like signing up. For that, so I probably would point them in that direction. Excellent. Well, thank you, Dan. Wish you and your family just continue to thrive and be together and find that balance because you're a beautiful model of balance.

At least that's my experience of you. I try. Thank you again for fighting the good fight and helping people get more clarity inside themselves and on the outside. I appreciate it. Thank you all. And thank you for joining us on today's episode. Make sure to check out other episodes and please follow and share. And hey, if you know someone who gets something out of this, share it with them too. Stay curious, live well, and keep it ancestral.