Transforming Life’s Challenges into Strengths: Alex White’s Journey on the Beyond Hope Project

Join us on the Beyond Hope Project Podcast as we delve into an inspiring conversation with Alex White, co-founder of Peak Human Performance. Discover how Alex transformed his life’s adversities into a source of strength, empowering others to do the same. From childhood struggles to professional triumphs, learn how mindset, nutrition, and exercise habits can lead to higher performance in life. Get ready to be motivated and find your path back to hope and success.

ABOUT ALEX:

Since 2008, Alex White has worked with over a thousand time strapped, stressed out professionals and executives as well as thousands of competitive athletes to create the mindset, nutrition, and exercise habits that lead to higher performance in life.  Alex is the Co-Founder and Owner of Peak Human Performance in Columbus, Ohio. 

A former multi-sport athlete who’s career ended abruptly, Coach White uses experiences from all aspects of his life, to educate, motivate, and inspire those in search of a higher level of physical and mental performance. Alex is married to Amy White who is the love of his life and together they have two incredible young daughters.

CONNECT WITH ALEX: 
✩ Website: https://www.PeakHumanPerformance.us
✩ Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/howstrongisstrong
✩ YouTube: @howstrongisstrong

CONNECT WITH JASON:

✩ Website - https://www.jasontharp.com
✩ BHP - https://www.beyondhopeproject.com
✩ Beyond Hope Project Podcast - https://www.jasontharp.com/podcast
✩ Instagram - https://www.instagram.com/wondervillestudios/
✩ Facebook - https://www.facebook.com/wondervillestudios
✩ TikTok - https://www.tiktok.com/@thepowerupproject?_t=8e4jxMT9QFP&_r=1
✩ LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/beyondhopeproject

OFFICIAL SHOP & BOOKSTORE:

📚 https://www.jasontharp.com/shop

MEET JASON:

Hi, I’m Jason!
Ever since I was six, I knew I was born to tell stories. As a best-selling author, illustrator, and sought-after speaker, I've turned my personal battles with grade four brain cancer, obesity, and negative self-talk into fuel for transformation. My keynotes don't just talk—they spark potential, ignite creativity, and build resilience. If you're ready for an engaging experience that challenges the status quo and propels your organization to new heights, let's turn your 'impossible today' into 'possible tomorrow' together!

For more information or to partner with me - https://www.jasontharp.com/bookjason

Transcript

now think about being able to collapse the timeline of someone's life where you can ask them all sorts of questions like

0:06

they're emotionally broken down physically they're tired they're telling you a lot of things about their life their relationships how they parented

0:13

what happened when they were a kid why they made these business decisions why they how they made this much money and

0:18

doing that for 10 years that's there's way more than 10,000 hours right and that's me learning how to live life from

0:25

people who are 15 16 17 25 35 55 75 885

0:32

who have lived all kinds of lives in places I've never been to so now I'm

0:38

taking my life experiences and I'm triangulating them through their life experiences and then I'm bringing them

0:43

back into this way of trying to frame the best way for me to live

0:49

[Music]

0:57

life what's up Alex thank you so much much for being here uh I cannot wait to

1:03

dive into this with you um we have a uh a crisscrossing journey of many

1:08

crisscrosses and it's going to be really fun to get into um so to kind of like lay the land out first though I want to

1:14

show you like this is called the Beyond hope project uh podcast and so how we Define Hope on there on here is uh as an

1:22

impact point so it's a starting point an initi switch if you will um and to get you started and you go out on your

1:29

journey and then just like everybody else something's going to go sideways you're going to fail and a lot of times most people say I'm a failure or

1:35

whatever but what we also Define hope is is the way back to the path to maybe realize that you weren't failing you were learning so now how do you find the

1:42

way back to that path so knowing that definition if you can go back to any

1:47

point you had a time machine go back to any point in Alex's life and give yourself hope what would that be and

1:54

maybe what would it look like there are lots of points right I

2:01

think um throughout my childhood uh throughout my young adulthood um to give myself hope I would

2:11

say it's probably in that eight nine and 10 a age range you know um I grew up

2:16

with uh pretty much a single mom I had a stepdad my biological father um the

2:21

environment the neighborhood was not you know nice um

2:28

and in the moment like you have this freedom and autonomy uh which you know any nine 10

2:35

year old who doesn't have somebody saying be home by the lights turning on at this point or like people checking in on you there's like this oh I'm free

2:44

kind of feeling however subtly underneath that is like nobody

2:50

cares and you feel like you're not worthy or you're not worth it or maybe you're not loved um and I think there

2:58

was a lot of even from those moments in my early childhood really feeling like I

3:03

needed to prove a lot I needed to prove a lot to um you know teachers I needed

3:09

to prove a lot to coaches I needed to prove a lot to my parents to my grandparents to my mom to everybody I

3:16

just lived probably the first 20 some odd years of my life proving that I was

3:22

worthy of something and it was all because I felt like I wasn't worthy inside yeah yeah yeah so you totally go

3:28

back there and just be like just mind that kid you're worthy you're worthy and and I think it's it's a double-edged sword because if you go back and you

3:34

give yourself the hope that you needed that might take away from the drive that pushes you forward into success yeah

3:41

however um you the cost of that is that you end up making a lot of bad decisions

3:47

you burn yourself out multiple times and you can get really close to the edge and the edge for some people might be

3:54

addiction uh the edge for some people might be death the edge for some people might be you know gang life it might be

4:01

um self-mutilation bad relationships things that could take you really far to

4:08

the deep end where you might not be able to come back from so I think that um the

4:13

hope would be for myself like knowing that it's all going to work out hope that you know you are loved and you will

4:19

find your tribe at some point um hope that uh you know you're going to be okay

4:24

yeah yeah yeah you mentioned like coaches and things of that nature like I know your background a little bit here because uh we know each other but you

4:31

know how much of that you know what we're talking about ultim is escapism right yeah people find this what how

4:36

much did that play a role with growing up uh was it escaping into like the bad

4:42

environment was it escaping into sports like what was the what was your Escape so to speak so uh I would say from a

4:49

very early age uh escaping was creativity like I would make noises I

4:57

would um I would replicate the uh voices of cartoon characters and I had GI Jo's

5:04

and Legos I'd steal my sister's Barbies like I would I had this little environment that I created that was all

5:10

mine there was this little we had a a porch um in the duplex that we lived in and there was this little hole carved

5:16

out on one side and you could climb through the hole and then underneath the porch and like nobody would would find

5:21

me there and I would spend hours and hours and hours digging in the dirt and making these entire Landscapes before

5:29

there was the Sims and before there was Roblox and before there was any of that sort of stuff that was my world and that

5:34

was where I would literally like hide from everybody and then as I got older and my body got bigger and I started

5:42

feeling like there was this need to compete in something um my natural

5:47

gravitation to get away from the environment and to get away from home was to go play sports so I would do any

5:52

and everything that I could I would play sports in the morning I would play sports in the evening I would have competitions on the weekend I would get

5:58

rides from other kids parents it was anything that I could do to be removed

6:04

from the environment that I would go back to if it was you know time to go home do you think in that process were

6:09

you chasing like feeling accepted is that what it was like you were talk you were kind of like mentioning to um to

6:16

get away from all this other stuff was it did you have any awareness back then you were looking for or was it just more

6:21

just to get the hell away from and find your place I would say that I'm um in

6:27

many ways maybe Blessed because I've always always had this awareness of

6:32

what's going on I remember at a very early age being so attuned to the people

6:37

around me right recognizing when my mom was feeling a certain way or how she might be trying to hide something from

6:44

me like you learn uh when is like this is probably not the best time to talk to my stepdad like he's starting to show

6:50

these signs of X Y and Z right you could see when my real father would be like

6:55

lying to me about something you start picking up on things and even into the neighborhood where where you know kids are coming with ill intent like you

7:02

start reading things and feeling it out really fast and you know Not only was I aware of those things but being aware of

7:09

those things I started to become really aware of myself so the thing that I knew at an early age was like I uh liked

7:18

competing I liked um using my body like I really am in touch with my body

7:25

and the getting away from home part was as much I knew I wanted to get away from home as much as it was I wanted to get

7:32

out into the world and show what I could do I wanted to get out and do something you know yeah yeah I think I think I can

7:38

relate so I mean first off everything you just describe kind of duplicate that yeah

7:45

yeah and we're exactly the same you know was I was a b of in my grandma's backyard in sketchbooks you know that

7:51

was my digging underneath the porch so um I can really really relate to that and it's it's funny because I don't know

7:56

that part of you and hearing that and I know before we start recording we talked about how we crisscross paths and it's

8:02

like my mind is blown a little bit right now because I'm just like damn like it's even weirder like how we cross paths

8:09

because you just describe so much of what because for me it was that like I want to show you what I capable of

8:15

because the same deal I'm sure just like me you were like a kid to Fed out of a place and then all a sudden you hit

8:21

puberty and you got bigger than everybody else yeah and you're like all right well I better use this and I had for me was a coach um and I'm curious

8:28

for you if there was ever anybody I had a coach one time tell me um you I was I want to say it was seventh grade eighth

8:34

grade somewhere around there he said I've seen how these kids treat you he's like you can hit him now and I'm like

8:40

what do you mean he's like you won't get in trouble and I'm like you mean I can actually like do what I do and he's like

8:46

yeah I'm like oh and then it was like that football all of a sudden was like oh this is easy like I just go try to

8:52

you know take yeah take it out on it right and it it is that freeing moment so I'm curious for you was there ever

8:58

like if you look back was there a coach or a thing that kind of made you go like

9:04

[ __ ] I can do this or I will even add a little later to that more is I had the same awareness but I felt like there was

9:10

something wrong with me so I didn't I didn't go into it I would think that I would suppress that part until I got

9:15

older yeah um so I'm just curious actually until I met you um if if that would be something that you can look

9:23

back and go like oh it was this pivotal time that somebody said this or yeah when I trusted my gut so to be honest

9:30

one thing that I reflect on in my athletic career was there's this danger

9:36

of being good enough or being good right

9:41

um it was easy for me to be really good at swimming I grew up that was like the first thing that I did when I was like

9:47

six or seven years old I started competing in swimming um it was easy for me to uh compete in basketball right I

9:53

was the the center I was the biggest kid and then I wasn't the biggest kid but I was one of the most athletic kids and it

9:59

was easy for me to compete and be good in sports because I had a really good understanding of my body and because of

10:05

that and I was naturally competitive coaches never really felt like they had to try to motivate me they

10:12

never they could never see what was going on underneath the exterior

10:17

surface and for me there was a lot of like suppression there was a lot of suppression in in Anger there was a lot

10:23

of suppression and sadness um and it was those things that it wasn't until College when I stopped playing football

10:32

and I started playing music and I started doing theater and it was this

10:37

complete shift away from how I had been showing up in my life because I'd built this

10:43

whole sphere around it that that's how everybody knew me um and I remember the

10:48

first time I ever I ever considered it was um Mr Shirley was our music

10:56

instructor and I sang choir and I did that that but he was holding auditions for a musical that they wanted to do at

11:02

school and in my gut I wanted to like audition for this so

11:08

bad and I also knew the other side of the ridicule that would come from that

11:14

and I scheduled a meeting with him one day during lunch and I just said Mr Shirley I would love to come and audition for you you know for this thing

11:21

and he's like okay that's great like what do you want to do and I said uh I want to do singing in the rain and he's like well what do you mean I said well

11:26

Jim or uh Jean Kelly I want to sing singing in the rain and he was like okay let's do it and probably 16 bars into

11:35

that song I looked at him and his mouth was open and his eyes were wide and he's just

11:41

like where did you come from yeah and I remember that was the first time I ever let that out and then immediately it was

11:48

almost like my friends found out it was like what what what and it was like nope close that back up and then it was like

11:54

jock mode not mean jock mode but it was just like I'm an athlete and that's how people know me and that's how I'm going

12:00

to live and I'm just going to do that as best I can because the other side of that too is I didn't know any other way

12:06

to get out of my circumstance other than sports right um so I think really

12:13

thinking through that there was never a coach or a moment in my life from a sports perspective that was ever like

12:21

this is the big jump and because of that I always feel like I I could have maybe

12:27

given another 15 or 20 % in my athletic career because I was always

12:32

nervous of maybe doing too much or not being enough or you have all of this

12:39

success up to this point and you think well yeah I'm just good enough or I'm I'm really good as it is and then you

12:44

find out there's another level and then you get to that next level and then you start questioning yourself which was an

12:50

extension of a lot of the things that I'd felt as a kid I'm not worthy I'm not good enough you know what I mean and

12:56

when that really started playing in the background of my mind it was like yeah maybe this isn't the

13:01

environment for me yeah yeah yeah and I know that you went on after and you played professional sports yeah and then

13:08

you had you had a good knock on the door that I'm I'm wondering did it bring back

13:15

that unworthy must be something wrong with me all of those stories how much did that feel when you got when you got

13:21

injured right yeah like how much did that little kid in you emerge back yeah

13:26

so the interesting thing about getting injured um I lived I was living in Australia I was um I had gone to

13:32

University there for a little bit I had played basketball for the University I'd also started playing lacrosse I'd picked

13:38

up lacrosse while I was here in the United States still working and going to school playing college football but then

13:44

doing strength and conditioning with the lacrosse teams and I became friends with those guys and you know as I was

13:49

training I would get on the you know in this one room and I would just learn how to play with the stick and I started

13:55

figuring out and again being athletic you pick things up pretty quick so when I was overseas um I started playing and

14:02

I got good at it and um got to a point where I got injured which uh was like a

14:09

you know a huge shot to me and who I was

14:14

because you know I said I'd made this commitment like not I'm going to be the athlete and that's what I'm going to do and I'd built more than just my life

14:21

around it to that point I'd build everything around it and then the universe was like no this isn't what

14:26

you're supposed to do I'm going to take this away from you you and at

14:32

24 23 24 years old having your entire identity shattered and lose you know

14:39

like how you look at yourself how you see yourself how you feel what it's like to be yourself I lost my body I lost

14:46

everything that I did my support system my friends like that was all gone and

14:52

then it was like all right miserable spiral into despair uh which was about

14:57

two years it was about two years of just bottom of the barrel alcohol drugs

15:03

negative thoughts aggression anger I was always angry I was always frustrated and

15:09

that was really kind of like the beginning for me of diving into things that I had been reading or i' been

15:14

paying attention to but really looking at myself yeah yeah what was the what was the you know I always say Like a

15:20

Rock Bottom moment what was that what was that spot that was the bounce up where you just realized like I could

15:26

keep doing this [ __ ] and I'm just going to dig a huge hole Yeah or and just this

15:31

will be my life or I could bounce like what was that moment for you like honestly I remember very distinctly it

15:38

was like a uh you know um a bender and you kind of wake up and you're just you

15:45

feel annihilated and I remember getting up and I was kind of like you know where

15:51

am I what's going on and I walked into the bathroom and I looked at myself in the

15:57

mirror and and I remember it's almost like I wasn't even talking to me but it

16:02

was like my higher self looking me right in the eye and it was just like what are

16:07

you doing what are you doing and it was like a bunch of swear words and you know

16:13

get it together and you know you will either die from this or

16:19

you will Thrive from this but the only person that gets to decide is you and I remember that was like a moment that

16:25

really shook me up in my life and it was like it was was like who was that right

16:30

that wasn't me like who was that and then it's like okay I need to I need to re-evaluate and and then from that

16:36

moment on it was literally like all right this isn't right let me start making a couple decisions and Martha

16:42

Beck talks about these One deegree turns you know and that was really kind of how it started I didn't know you know this

16:48

is early 2000s men aren't talking about you know psychology positive psychology

16:54

there aren't quote unquote men's groups out there there's no you know you know there's no real help quote unquote other

17:01

than going to therapy which has got all the stigmas associated to it you know and going in that path I was really on

17:07

my own you know and uh you just I kept making these One deegree turns and these One deegree turns and I'd find a book

17:13

and I'd have a conversation and you just keep moving and keep moving and keep moving and you you just follow the path

17:18

and that's kind of how I ended up getting to a point where it was like oh now all the puzzle pieces of Life were

17:25

like starting to click together in a way that made sense from all of my earlier

17:30

interactions in life through everything that I'd seen felt and experienced and then up to that moment

17:36

you know in my early 20s now or my mid 20s was like I was looking at life in a

17:42

very different way than I had ever looked at it before um and that was kind of like the rebuild yeah yeah how much

17:49

would you say of that um was built out of your fears of facing that stuff like

17:55

what I mean is that in the dark [ __ ] was the gold yeah like how much of digging

18:01

into that did you have to do before you started to feel as if you were on the right direction well what's funny is uh

18:10

for myself when I had that Awakening quote unquote in the bathroom right I what I realized instantly in

18:17

that moment was that the reason I was there was because I was afraid to address everything and that's what led me to

18:24

that moment and then once you have that level of aw awareness you can't unlearn

18:30

that and then from that moment on I had this connection from all of my life experiences playing sports was that the

18:38

only person I needed to be competitive with was myself right and if I was competitive with myself the competition

18:45

was how fast can I move through this fear how aggressively can I run towards

18:51

it and accept it it wasn't about fighting it and pushing it away which is what I had been doing all of my life up

18:58

to to that point it was how can I absorb it and bring it in the moment I become aware of it how can I um metabolize it

19:05

how can I make it part of who I am and how can I get over it and and that started this process of like you know uh

19:13

oh well there's this thing and I'm I'm wait let me address that and it's like getting into it you start asking questions you're like oh boom boom boom

19:18

you start taking it apart and the faster I started doing that the E easier it was for me to take something that previously

19:25

in my life I never would have addressed to Peri where it might have taken me two months down to two weeks down to two

19:31

days down to two hours down to two minutes how can I move through this thing as fast as possible and that was

19:38

the that became the inner competition yeah and then what brought you into doing taking what you applied to doing

19:44

getting back to kind of the athletic part right where you know um for people

19:50

not knowing right now just kind of giving a little head heads up like you you own a company called Peak Human Performance and I know you started as a

19:57

a trainer yep I'm guessing it that sparked out of this is what I know yeah like how like and I

20:05

I don't want to dive yet into how you approach that but what part of that

20:11

pulled you back there and do you think that any of the stuff that you had to dig through was the Catalyst to bring you back to that Rock Bottom Moment Like

20:18

This is what you're supposed to be doing yeah 100% so

20:23

um I think the place to start was or is uh in

20:30

2012 um my father passed away and we never really had a good

20:36

relationship and prior to that there was still this like not an unknowing like

20:42

I've always been infatuated with the human body and how people move like that's what I think Athletics was for me

20:50

when I really get down to it I cared less about the sport that I was playing and more about the physical challenge I

20:56

was more into to the community and the learning part of it and when I really

21:03

started to understand that it didn't matter what I was doing it mattered the

21:08

the what it was doing with my body and how it was helping me kind of rebuild the mind and the body at the same time because that was a big part of my own

21:14

recovery was understanding that there's a physiological and a psychological component where these two things

21:19

intertwine together was was starting that process and then it was like okay cool I like this I'm not exactly sure

21:27

what the next is going to be but I really like this piece so let me dive into that for a little bit and I've done

21:33

internships I worked for other companies I I've had you know lots of jobs but none of them really resonated with me

21:41

the problem was is that it was kind of like uh this fear again of like not

21:46

being worthy of being like I'm really good at this like I'm not like kind of good like I'm really good at this uh and

21:54

and acknowledging that and the reason why I brought up 2012 was because um

21:59

when my father passed away I had this whole series of events where like he passed away and then uh my wife's

22:07

grandfather passed away and seeing how those two men lived their lives through

22:13

their death really had a massive impact on me and it really got me asking the

22:20

question like how do I really want to live this life not from how am I living right now but what does it look like at

22:26

the end of life when I reflect back as a spirit watching all these people come back and you know show up for me in my

22:34

going away ceremony and so what I ended up doing was I was working for a company at that

22:40

time and I was like this isn't this isn't it I was making a lot of money I was doing really well but I was not

22:46

fulfilled so I left that job and Amy and I were still dating at that time and I

22:52

just told her like I'm going to go away and I did this pilgrimage and it was like a two-month hike all across from

22:58

France all the way to Spain and I literally would just wake up every morning and I would walk miles and miles

23:04

and miles 10 miles 15 miles 20 miles one time I walked like 27 and a half miles in one day and that process culminated

23:15

with me getting to this end point and I learned so many things from that but one impactful thing that led me back to

23:21

starting this company was I met this guy and we had been passing um each other

23:28

all along the journey and again athletic competitive like you want to try and get from A to Z as fast as possible right

23:35

and then you start to realize like maybe that's not the point and then you see somebody else and then like the competitive nature kicks in and you're

23:40

like ah no you know you start pushing and right and finally we got to the end of the road which is like two months

23:46

later and we see each other and then this guy's like hey you know come come come over here sit down let's have a talk let's have a talk and we started

23:53

talking and what I thought was going to end up being maybe like a 45 minute Cafe or coffee uh ended up being like a

24:00

4-Hour conversation wow and what I learned from this guy and the reason what led him to his pilgrimage was you

24:07

know he had started this multi-million dollar company and he basically blew it

24:14

all like it took him like 10 years of his life to build this huge thing up and then he got to the highest of the highs

24:21

and then he blew it all up and lost it all in like two or three years and it

24:26

was a it was him telling me and teaching me you know how to basically do what you

24:32

do innately really really well and he learned that and then he burned that and

24:38

then he was in the process of figuring out what was going to come next and that's what he was really asking me he was like what do you do really well what

24:44

do you love what makes what is it that's so easy but is so intrinsically valuable

24:50

to you because other people will pay you for that because they it's not natural

24:57

to them and like going through that process with him was like I I can see that now I see

25:05

that now and that's what when I came home you know in 2013 led to the

25:10

creation of that company in 2014 um and then has kind of led us to where we are right now in 2024 where

25:17

we've been around for 10 years almost now in August and the whole premise

25:23

behind all of that was like teaching people not only how to improve their body body but how to improve their mind

25:30

and one of my biggest qualms with quote unquote the fitness industry in general

25:35

is that it's a lot of like smok and mirrors and show Intel and ego and

25:41

six-pack abs and kind of like all of these um surface level ways to get to

25:47

the end result but people wonder why they yo-yo they wonder why they get the

25:53

goal and then they lose the goal and people wonder why it's not long-term sustainable and it's because they're

25:58

following all of these patterns that are being outlined for them with people who have finite thinking MH and it's that

26:04

finite thinking in the finite processes that will help you lose like 20 or 30 pounds or 100 pounds right but if you

26:12

don't fix what's going on inside which was one of the major lessons for my own life if you don't fix what's going on

26:18

inside the moment that you get derailed the moment you fall back the moment you're triggered the moment of weakness

26:24

is the moment that you start that bad cycle again because of how you view yourself because of how you talk to yourself because of how you think about

26:29

yourself because of how you think you're supposed to be around everyone else and you never stand up for yourself and you

26:36

never love yourself and you never take care of yourself so then you just regress back and then the weight comes back on or the depression comes back on

26:43

or the alcoholism comes back on so that was a a really big thing for me was how

26:48

can I use the body and training as a medium to get into someone's mind yeah

26:56

well you do a good job of it than we you know um I think this is a

27:01

good way to Chris start that Criss crossover so what's interesting is that um while you were building Peak um I was

27:11

trying to unbuild myself right and I got into the spot where you know I did

27:17

therapies and did all these things like this and it just it just wasn't working the same as you like the one degrees one degrees one degrees and then it was like

27:23

uh Duke a friend Duke um yeah I for whatever reason I don't even remember what it was I remember I remember I was

27:29

at Giant Eagle and I text him and I just met him and I didn't he I didn't really

27:35

know him that well and I was just like if anybody knows somebody that I'm looking for it's got to be this guy yeah

27:41

and I was like hey I'm looking for a trainer that doesn't want to just make you strong but wants to help me

27:47

eradicate can't from my vocabulary and he immediately replied back Alex yeah

27:52

and I'm like okay and we got on a phone and I think I don't know if you remember the first time I talked to you was like hey man I'm never going to lose weight

27:58

like I'm already strong like you know but like I just I need to overcome myself and we went in there and this was

28:04

during I it was during Co yeah it might have been like right before Co or yeah it was starting to lift but we still had

28:10

to wear masks and all that crap like that and um you were just like jump on

28:16

that bar no no and it was just like and I'm like damn he's really and then all of a sudden you said some stuff that

28:22

started making me go like this is my guy I remember one thing I did you said

28:28

and I don't think you have this Su same approach of anybody someone to caveat that I knew you knew going into it I wanted you to of course to break me

28:35

essentially right or some sort of way yeah and so this isn't your approach with everybody I you're very good at

28:41

tailoring I just want to Cave that whole thing everybody understand yes but you said to me that dumb face you're making

28:48

is you're telling your body exactly what you want yeah and for whatever reason that just clicked in my mind I'm like Oh

28:54

and it was like and then I remember at that moment and I know I'm pretty sure I told you I'm like you can keep pushing

29:00

me while you want you're never going to break me and it was just like all of a sudden it was like that little

29:05

opportunity that you allowed me to believe in myself and then I remember we had a conversation where you said

29:11

something about ask me you asked me to write out part of my story yep and I and he and then you said why would you ever

29:18

want to erase that he's like because that's part of who you are and so you know what what what was weird about it

29:23

was that we talked about it earlier is that it was like you gave

29:29

me the opportunity to start to feel the stuff that ever since I was a kid I

29:34

pushed down because I would walk into a room and pick up on people I walked into the gym the first time and picked up on

29:40

your energy like I didn't trust it because I didn't know you yet so I pushed it down but what you did was you

29:47

kept pushing me in that direction and as a guy and somebody that you know you look up to I mean now you and I are

29:54

close but when I was then I was like I was a bigger dude I was not in good shape it was like look this big guy is

30:01

telling me it's okay to feel this stuff and you know I think it's like a lot of times we look for permission in that

30:08

sort of things but then now that I'm where I'm at and we crisscrossed I Wonder I can't help myself but Wonder

30:14

because I do the same thing with people now yeah how much of what you were telling me was what you wanted to tell

30:20

yourself but you didn't necessarily believe in fully yet what's it's actually it's an interesting thing

30:31

um when you've gone through something it makes it easier for you to

30:37

see the signs of it in someone else right right yep and um I say about

30:45

myself that I've lived so many lives uh because I've been in so many experiences right and then being

30:52

biracial having gone to college having lived overseas right having all of these

30:57

different life experiences um and allowing myself to have those different life experiences

31:03

they all give me these nuggets to always kind of reflect back

31:08

on and it's being able to reflect back on every single one of those it's being able to have lived life through someone

31:15

else's eyes right uh I was saying this the other day at the Brotherhood um

31:21

imagine what it would be like being able to meet with um

31:27

50 60 people three hours a week uh for an entire year for 10

31:36

years and you're seeing them at their weakest points that's one of the most amazing things about training is that

31:42

you can not only break yourself down so much physically that negatively impacts

31:48

you mentally but you immediately start to get this like oh [ __ ] I can do that

31:54

like I can look at how I'm getting getting stronger look at how I'm getting better like and it's that part that

32:02

starts to give you the foundation now think about being able to collapse the timeline of someone's life

32:07

where you can ask them all sorts of questions like they're emotionally broken down physically they're tired

32:12

they're telling you a lot of things about their life their relationships how they parented what happened when they were a kid why they made these business

32:19

decisions why they how they made this much money and doing that for 10 years that's there's way more than 10,000

32:25

hours right and that's me learning in how to live life from people who are 15

32:31

16 17 25 35 55 75 85 who have lived all

32:37

kinds of lives in places I've never been to so now I'm taking my life experiences

32:43

and I'm triangulating them through their life experiences and then I'm bringing them back into this way of trying to

32:49

frame the best way for me to live life so when you say like the things

32:56

that I would say to you I was saying them because one I knew you were

33:01

curious and the one thing that I've learned about my particular way of working with people is that I some

33:09

people want to be pushed yeah and other people need to have uh

33:16

breadcrumbs and as a guy as a bigger guy

33:21

pushing against another bigger guy will instantly flare up ego and it will

33:26

Instant L create uh this need to like prove and what that does is that brings

33:33

up the barriers for communication and Trust so for you what I knew was

33:39

important was to plant seeds that you would find the crumbs and you would

33:44

naturally navigate your way to whatever the next chapter was right and for you in that environment it was me dropping

33:52

knowledge of me recognizing like where I was at because I'm always in that space that's the truth you're always in that

33:58

space and you can see it because you've been there right and one of the things

34:03

that you were I think were getting ready to say is that once you've gone through that you felt like before you needed

34:11

permission right yep and then when you get on the other side of that then you

34:16

recognize I never needed permission from anybody other than yeah myself yeah and

34:22

that becomes the shift yeah because when you don't need external validation to say or do or be who you

34:30

are then you go and do and be and say who you are and then the world is

34:35

like whoa like where did you come from right right and that's the shift yeah

34:40

and if you could gift anything to anybody it would be that yeah and and there's been many times like that it's

34:47

like you know um I think what what is has been amazing about our interactions was I mean I I've

34:55

sworn at you I've called you every you know but every bit of it was 100% love

35:02

because I think a lot of what that was is it was releasing yeah that energy and

35:07

it comes out in different ways and I think that what is amazing about your gym and and you and it trickles and I

35:14

want people to know that like at Alex's gym everybody is at this level all the coaches you interact with not only just

35:20

the coaches but the people that go there too is that you've created this environment where I always call like

35:25

energy relasing it's like this little thing of when you're in there it nobody pays attention to what everybody else is

35:32

doing it's the exact opposite of what you go to any other sort of gym for yeah

35:38

nobody's looking at what freaking stacks of weight you got on stuff like that if it is it's just coaches and I were just

35:43

like especially with like Kyle and Rob like just we're just bust boss each other it's just being whatever but you

35:49

know it is that thing and you've just created that ability to do that and you know from from my standpoint you know we

35:56

trained in person and we did we did virtual virtual yeah and I know when I

36:01

had my seizure we were training for like trying to get me below like a six minute mile I think or something crazy like

36:07

that and I I mean guys he used to make me do 15 minutes of solid walking lunges

36:12

after running three miles you know and so it was real we were doing real stuff yeah and at the same time though we were

36:19

doing lots of mental stuff mental stuff and you were pushing me and I knew that you were pushing me and in a weird way

36:26

it was like like I there came a point and and I'd love you to add to this after I get done on this rant but like

36:33

where it stopped me trying to not let you down and knowing that I was actually the

36:41

one doing the work correct and I think that it was very crafty how you did it

36:48

um because I think it was a little bit of like while you would have liked me to come in I felt like in reflection that I

36:56

you knew I need needed to do it by myself yeah and I will never forget dude and I I I'm going to try not to get

37:07

um after I came out of surgery um you your text was like one of the

37:14

first ones I got and it was simple all it said was all of the work was for this

37:20

and uh it's good stuff and you know I

37:29

just I I just want to like I had you last out of all the peak people because you know it I just want you to know that

37:36

like uh how much I appreciate that and um for people that are hearing this that

37:42

are curious about Peak you know it's this is the type of place it is and you know I think that um I would just love

37:49

to hear your thoughts on like for somebody that is looking for

37:55

that kind of thing in life it's not a savior what are the signs to find the

38:02

right people or knowing when it is time to to build those things or to let

38:07

things go or like where did you learn that part of

38:13

leadership which is self I think it's a combo of self- leadership because one I think that if you would have held me in

38:21

you would have also got sucked into stuff yeah but like what how did you learn how to develop that much

38:27

s [Music] um I would I think it's cool to go back

38:33

to this point um because you talked a little bit about it when we first started

38:41

connecting there was like uh no belief in self not really like it was it was

38:48

you right as a as a man trying to like prove and I think the first thing that

38:53

you were trying to prove to me is like no matter what I had you do you weren't going to lose weight and I was like okay

39:01

great right um and along the path you

39:07

start to see this confidence in s right

39:12

and it would start with like five minutes of lunges and it would start with 10 minutes of lunges and it would start with running and it would start

39:18

with all these little things where it was like well I can't do that or and then it's like okay well guess what we've been doing it for four weeks

39:24

already like you know and and it's like well okay yeah I mean that's crazy like all right I I'll give it a shot you know

39:30

what I mean and then it gets to a point where you're like yeah like all right let's go bring it on you know and just

39:35

in that language you start to see it's like I'm starting to have confidence in myself you know the other thing that I

39:42

think of is that um I used to you know from from a

39:49

religious perspective used to Buck religion and in some ways I still do

39:57

but what I've grown more to is a very strong understanding of like

40:03

spirituality in the universe and what people would call Serendipity and things

40:09

like that and when I started shifting my way of viewing to that I started really

40:17

accepting that like all right whatever it is I can only play my part in it and

40:25

which means means I have to be responsible for just myself mhm which means I can't force anything on

40:34

anyone so if you want knowledge or you want something that I have you you'll we'll come together we'll talk it'll

40:41

click and you'll be like yes let's go or we'll come together we'll talk you'll be like this dude's nuts and then we won't

40:48

right and that's okay and what I realized at some point in my life was

40:53

like there was this story about um you know it's like Picasso or whatever you

40:59

know and he's like sitting at the park and uh this lady comes up and she's like oh you're Picasso he's like oh yeah

41:05

she's like will you draw a picture of my dog and like you know that whole thing yeah and it's

41:10

like I can only build myself up and rely on everything that I've done that's

41:16

gotten me to this point and somebody else may or may not value it right and

41:21

that's okay because the only person that it matters if it's valuable or not is is

41:26

me mhm so if we get to a point where it's like uh I want to do inperson

41:32

training well I can only say is this going to benefit you but will it also benefit me in my schedule right right

41:37

and then it's like okay it works so we do that I've been in training environments where the trainer's like

41:42

nah like no you're not going to work out at home you're and it's like yo the point of this isn't to keep this person

41:50

um reliant on you the job is to empower them so that they've got what it takes to do it on their own so it's forever

41:56

right so by you going and working out at home it was like this is a great new challenge right okay how could we do

42:01

this it's cold in in the garage how do we do that how do we program this like how okay how do we do extra things you

42:08

get out of the garage and go around the neighborhood and in the block and it's like starting to build that confidence yeah and as you keep progressing through

42:15

that it just gets to a point where it's like you don't need me anymore right right yeah and that is the mark that I

42:25

did the the right job I did the best job because now you don't need me to have

42:30

that inner fire right you don't need me to know how to work out wherever you're at in the world right right you don't

42:37

need me to figure out what it takes to like build your own self-confidence like you do that right so when

42:44

the um when you got out of the hospital and I we had talked a couple times about

42:50

it and I knew what was going on you know for myself in reflection the only thing

42:56

that I could see in our in when you look back over the dots of that timeline was

43:01

like yeah this is God it's Buddha it's Nirvana it's whatever you like whatever

43:07

deity or the universe was saying you and Jason need to connect because something

43:13

big is coming for him and he's going to need whatever you've got that you paid the price to learn he's going to need

43:19

some of that so that he can continue to light his own candles right and when I

43:24

sent you that message it was clear as day right MH everything

43:30

that we had done everything that we had talked about everything that you'd let go of everything that you grown through

43:35

everything that you processed was so that when this happened

43:41

it wasn't still inside of you feeding the cancer yeah feeding the tumor adding

43:48

to your own internal demise and when I read through these stories of like people recovering miraculously right

43:56

right you have people who have accepted their circumstances and they're like look this thing's not going to beat me

44:01

here's what I'm going to do I'm going to start purging these things from my life I'm going to change my diet I'm G to change right and all of the sudden they

44:06

start getting better yeah and then you have other people that be go oh well was me and I'm never going to escape this

44:12

and I can't get out of it and this is why is this happening to me and it keeps getting worse and it keeps getting worse and it keeps getting worse right so that

44:20

message was 100% intentional and the only way that I could ever view it was that we came together so that you could

44:27

have that fire for yourself so that you could get all the way through this not

44:32

only to just get through it but to blast off from it right yeah yeah well hey man

44:39

it was good it was really good yeah and I and I appreciate you building the environment that you have there because

44:45

it's it's it has become a thing now where um like I don't need the

44:51

motivation to go there to work yeah it's fun now and it's just like it becomes and yeah of course I've lost weight you

44:58

know yeah all stuff I told you I wouldn't be able to do after all of that

45:03

right here you are now is like a completely different person completely different yeah completely different

45:08

person in a space where even based off of the goals that we set out right you're Way Beyond those goals now like

45:15

be be Way Beyond anything that we ever outlined in body composition overall gross Mass like squat Speed Run

45:23

cardiovascular endurance like you're 10 times better than any of those things that we outlined and that's that was you

45:29

taking over and saying like all right cool this is fun now let me figure out how to keep going yeah yeah it's it's

45:35

really it's really mind-blowing when you look back it because what you're really what you're really seeing is that in

45:41

once you get that ball rolling it's the same as it works the opposite if fear is your thing it's like the Looney Tunes

45:46

thing hit the snowball and it'll plow you over but people don't realize the exact opposite thing could happen too y

45:52

it everybody's looking for some big Monumental Secret and it's usually just in a tiny little

45:58

step and it's showing up and going like well this is going to suck but then you go oh wait I got through it yeah and

46:04

then oh the next day it's gonna suck oh wait I got through it you I was there was somebody at Jimmy I was telling him

46:09

I was like well right now what's happening is your body is hating you right now because you haven't moved for a while yeah but it'll go away it'll go

46:15

away just you just keep showing up yeah you know and I found that that's what has been my my thing and and out of that

46:22

being born like these little mantras that kind of come up and I you know that's what I always try and encourage

46:27

people to to do and I think that's what you were kind of setting a pace out of like you're always always hear you saying stuff about like what you're what

46:34

your face is saying your body's doing you have all these little tiny mantras that you're telling people to remind them I think down to your way you snap

46:41

people even talk about that right but it is funny because out of you what a lot

46:46

of the stuff you said as I started getting better when I was working out I get hard I'd be like this is how healing

46:51

is done yes once I knew I was healed and I was on the right my path then I

46:56

switched over to I never get tired correct and it's like to the point now

47:02

where it's like people will say that at the gym like oh wait he doesn't get tired never get he's been over like no

47:07

no I didn't say it wouldn't hurt I just said you I'll never get tired but it is interesting those little mantras so I

47:14

gosh we're like I know we're like getting close to into time but like how important are those roles of those times

47:20

have you have you noticed in your years of training years of going through your stuff those little positive things

47:25

things that you're doing to in my I'll say in my own reflection than I'd love to hear your

47:31

thought they play such a bigger role than me trying to do this huge massive

47:37

thing which ultimately doesn't necessarily work out the way I want yeah but it's through those little mantras

47:42

and little things that that big thing I wanted shows up way quicker yeah than I

47:48

ever thought just love to hear your thoughts on something along those lines I I think um like you said people are

47:54

looking for that magic pill right and and I think the inverse to this is like uh something that I heard if you know

48:01

who Gabor mate is Dr gab mate he's like a um trauma specialist a therapist and

48:07

like that sort of thing and one of the things that he talks about specifically around trauma is he says that there's two types of trauma that you can

48:12

experience in your life you can have one big massive hit that completely just derails everything and those are easier

48:20

to heal than a thousand tiny little Cuts right someone who's consistent L cutting

48:26

at you digging at you for every day for your entire first 18 years of life how

48:31

that impacts you is way more it's deep it's deeply rooted it's embedded in the

48:37

fabric of how you exist and why I think the little mantras are so important is

48:43

because everybody's looking for that big impactful thing to happen so that they can change their life like it's a reason

48:50

but when you're trying to change for the better there's not all always like this

48:56

big impactful thing that does it for you it could be a breakup right which is a negative thing that turns into a

49:02

positive it could be a death in the family it's a negative thing that turns into a positive right all of those big

49:08

things that warrant a massive shift in your life often you have to go through the valley of fear and survive that in

49:14

order to get to the other side and nobody really wants to do that so what's the other way a thousand little Cuts right so how

49:22

can I do that positively I give myself a thousand little kisses right and it's those little mantras that

49:27

you get to say to yourself and you say them over and over and over because then they start to become embedded in the

49:34

experience right and it's like I don't get tired when you start to get tired and you say I don't get tired your body

49:40

goes oh well we don't get tired so let's go ahead and recover real quick because we're going to do another one right if I say like all right I'm going to do one

49:46

more right okay well that that face the face is telling your body what you want right now like relax your face like you

49:52

get into it and you start becoming more aware of not just what you've been doing but you're aware of how you're showing

49:58

up and then it's in those little Nuance things that people will start catching themselves saying because maybe someone

50:06

like me has been saying it to them over and over and then what'll happen is they'll do something and then they'll

50:12

say it instinctively and then they'll be aware that they said it not knowing that it was something that was important to

50:17

them and then all of the sudden it's like wait oh oh wow and then it becomes something

50:24

that they say yeah and then they become aware of their own and then it becomes their own thing yeah and that's that's

50:31

that's the empowerment part right it's like those little things we can just weave them in and when we weave them in

50:37

they're baked into the pie as opposed to just being something on the layer or the top where you can peel it off

50:43

yeah man talking about peeling off layers I mean we just went through there's lot there's a lot of layers

50:50

there's a lot of layers in that whole conversation um and I mean definitely I would love to have you back in against

50:55

we talk about even further because there's so there's so much stuff that I think we left unscratched that we could

51:01

totally talk about um but you know just anybody listening uh they'll there's G

51:06

to be all the links to Alex's stuff here um you guys are heading to Costa Rica yeah we got a a transformation Retreat

51:12

that we're hosting we leave next week we'll be gone for a week in in Costa Rico so yeah get sizzled down doing a

51:17

lot of this of yeah dive in deep yeah and if anybody wants to check out uh the

51:23

website uh there'll be a link in here come check out uh the I mean I'm telling

51:28

you it's unlike other gyms you're going to go to um his wife Amy does the plaes which I still have to sign up for one

51:34

she is holding me hardcore which I will I will they're like you're gonna do fine I'm like I

51:40

know I just don't want I just don't want to get in there and whimper you know I mean it's gonna happen so like just let it happen right let it happen but um no

51:47

but seriously and I just want to I just want to like uh just really um express

51:52

my gratitude for you being in my life uh for you being in uh a lot of people's

51:58

lives um I know that you've had to walk through some serious [ __ ] in your life but um just like I feel like I walked

52:05

through some stuff too um it wasn't for nothing and um you know you have huge

52:12

impact on people that um you've met with a couple times like my son still talks

52:17

about you um you know and I I just I just wanted to like really express my

52:24

gratitude that you're in this world with me uh I I love you man like you always are going to have this special part in

52:30

my heart um because I don't know if there's very many people in this world that were strangers that got to know me

52:38

as quick as I as you did because you know just as like as much as I do when you're digging underneath that porch you

52:44

don't let people know who you are no and uh so thank you for like allowing me that space and and guys like seriously

52:51

go dig up Alex's stuff like check out his websites check out his Instagram constant good stuff um these are the

52:58

type of people that you want to surround yourself with especially if you're trying to achieve something that other people are going to say impossible or whatever um we just uh more than

53:05

anything I think uh just want to make sure that this this provided hope to somebody give them a spark to start and

53:11

um and you know until we see you next time uh spread this thing out I mean like let everybody know about the stuff

53:16

we're doing I mean [ __ ] just magic just happened right now and people need to hear this yes that's right sprinkle that

53:23

magic on somebody else's day just by showing up and spreading this stuff because uh this is how impacts made so

53:29

uh Alex I appreciate you thank you so much for coming in and uh we'll do this again yeah all right right on cool man

53:34

thanks yeah that's

53:46