When Training Masks Deeper Stress

Philip Pape 0:00

Some of you are using the gym the way other people use alcohol. I don't mean that as an insult. I mean that as a pattern. You walk in stressed, you grind through your session, you feel better for an hour, and nothing at home changes. The stress is still there when you get back, and it's eating at your recovery. My guest today is going to make the case that for some of you, the most productive thing you could do for your health and physique has nothing to do with your training. Welcome to Wits and Weights, where in every episode we put a popular piece of fitness advice under the microscope, find the hidden reason it doesn't work, and give you the deceptively simple fix that does. I'm your host, Philip Pape, and today we're discussing what happens when your training is solid, but your recovery environment is compromised by the stress that you're knocking not taking care of at home. This is not the stress from work or from a lack of sleep, but more the chronic relationship and emotional stress that sits in the background and it quietly also affects things like your hormones, your sleep quality, your ability to build muscle and lose fat. My guest today is Mitchell Osman, a leadership consultant, executive coach, and host of the Dad Nation podcast. Go check that out. Follow it right now. Men and women are going to get a lot out of that show. The Dad Nation podcast, Mitchell coaches career-driven men who might be performing well at work, but are struggling at home. And he's observed a consistent pattern where training, your workouts, become one of these domains where men feel in control of it, but the stress that's actually limiting their results goes unexamined. So in this episode, you'll learn when the gym becomes a form of avoidance instead of a tool for growth, for recovery, how chronic emotional stress creates the hormonal environment that blunts your training adaptations and what it actually takes to fix this stress at home so it no longer holds you back from your untapped physical potential. Let's get to it. Mitchell, welcome to the show.

How Home Stress Blocks Recovery

Mitchell Osmond 2:00

Philip, thanks for having me, man. And that was a great intro. Like yes, I'm I'm a podcaster myself. And man, I want to go back and listen to the episode. I'm uh everything you just said, I'm like, man, I can't wait to get into it. So thank you for having me on the show, man. I'm I'm really excited to be here today. Yeah, man. That's what it's all about.

Philip Pape 2:16

We gotta we gotta lay it out for the listener, what they're gonna learn.

Mitchell Osmond 2:18

And I love it.

Philip Pape 2:19

You know, people listening to the show, right? They a lot of them are into lifting. Maybe they're not yet, and they're gonna get there the more they listen. And they train, you know, three, four days a week. They might be eating enough protein, sleeping seven hours, you know, but they're having some issues, right? Maybe their body composition isn't changing. They're feeling a little fluffy, they're not feeling their best self, they don't have the energy. And I know when I dig into a lot of these issues, especially with men, it's not their job, it's the relationship or something at home or something that they don't want to bring up because it doesn't feel like a fitness problem or it's something that they're uh scared to talk about. So tell us about that pattern. Like, what do you see in your practice when you talk to men and women, predominantly you work with men in terms of how impactful home is?

Everything Is Connected

Mitchell Osmond 3:02

Yeah. Well, that's a great question. And I think it's a good way to start off the show because I I think of it like spaghetti, you can't pull one noodle without affecting the others. You know what I mean? And when we talk about fitness, when we talk about marriage, when we talk about our emotional life, our work life, it's all connected. And so if we think that we can keep them separate, I believe that's a fallacy. And so they they affect one another highly. And so, and what I mean is if things are off at home and maybe you're having a fight with your wife or your husband, whatever, you're just not going to be in a great place emotionally. If you're not in a great place emotionally, you're not gonna be that motivated to go to the gym, right? And train. On the other side, if you're at the gym and you're working out and you're frustrated and overwhelmed with what's going on at home or whatever, your workouts might be lagging, right? You might be not fully focused in the gym, you're not motivated. Not to mention, which we could get into, you know, later on on the show if you want, but just the physical effects that stress and emotional distress has on your body, like physically. But I think the reason why it's so important is because it's all so connected. And every single one of my clients has their own custom nutrition plan and training plan because that's a part of the puzzle. It's a non-negotiable. If you're gonna work with me and talk about how to become a better man and husband and father, and to have a great marriage, then you have to be the best that you can be. How do you be the best that you can be? You be healthy, number one, because if you're sick and you're bedridden, you're not much good to your family, right? So your body is plan A for you to be a great father, great husband, you know, all those different things. And so we start with fitness. And people join my program, they're like, shouldn't we be talking about my marriage? Shouldn't we be talking about, you know, my temper? I'm like, yeah, we'll get there. But I mean, when you exercise, let's talk about the norepinephrine, dopamine, serotonin, neurochemicals that are released that help you deal with stress, that help you manage your emotions, think creatively, all those different things, right? So for me, it all begins with that because it's all so connected. Does that make sense?

Philip Pape 5:04

It may it makes sense. And the the light bulb that came into my head is how how bi-directional some of this stuff is, because your coaching isn't about fitness, but starts with fitness. My coaching is about fitness, but often quickly goes into other directions as well. So it's it's bi-directional, right? Because you know, I can think of a client who has his own business and was doing at camp for like the last 20 years where he would go and dedicate himself to volunteering at this camp. And between that and finances and like overhead for his business, all of that he could barely focus on his fitness, right? Even though we wanted to and he knew what he wanted to do. So it definitely goes both ways. And I like that you start there. But then also the problem is if you're doing the fitness stuff and it's not working and itself becomes a distraction, or maybe is there a way, Mitchell, that the fitness has to come down in priority while you address something else and then it kind of comes back to the top?

Lower The Bar To Win Long Term

Mitchell Osmond 5:57

Oh, I love that. I love that. And I'm really glad you asked that question because I get in trouble for saying this all the time, Philip. But here's the thing. If your goal or if your bar is too high and you're not setting your goal, lower it. Right? And a lot of people are like, What? Why should you lower your standards? Why should you lower your goals? Because a goal that you can't meet is not effective. And so you lower it until you can achieve it, right? Here's the thing: even when it comes to fitness, when it comes to relationships, conversations, ways of parenting, ways of being a husband, let's not set you up for failure by asking you to do something that's not sustainable. I'll say this all the time. If you can't do this for the rest of your life, we're not gonna do it for six weeks. Because what's the point? Are we intentionally setting habits that we're intentionally gonna break? No, we're trying to change our life. And so we're gonna do things that we can do for the rest of our lives, sustainable things. And so oftentimes, I mean, and I think it was Bill Gates who is accredited for to this, but he said he said most people overestimate what they can do in one year and they underestimate what they can do in 10. And it's like they hyper focus on this year. It's like this year, I'm gonna lose 60 pounds. This year I'm gonna make you know 500k. This year, it's like, dude, chill, man. Like, just what are you gonna do in five years? What can you accomplish in 10 years if you set realistic goals? Which brings me to my second exercise, which I would love, you know, for your listeners, write this down if you get a moment. And it's a little bit of a framework that you can use, and I call it the life report card. Now, the reason why this is effective is because, well, let me get into it. You think about like so for me, when I grew up, I would when I was five years old, I started kindergarten. One, two, three, four, five, all the way up through 12, and then you know, university. I grew up in a system. Well, you tell me, Philip, what was the goal when you were going to school, when you would do tests and assignments? What was the goal?

Philip Pape 7:50

To get a good grade, to get a good grade is to get an A.

The Life Report Card Framework

Mitchell Osmond 7:54

And if you could get straight A's, you were winning, right? That was the for 18, 19, 20 years. And so what happens is we get out of school, we get out of college, we go to our job, and it's like, well, no, you have to be the best. If you want to get a promotion, you want to climb the ladder, you got to be the best. Okay, great. What happens though is we take that attitude into our marriage, into our fatherhood, into our fitness, into our friendships. And it's like, no, no, we have to be straight-eyed in everything, or else we're a failure. And so what happens is we develop this all or nothing mindset. It's like, well, if I can't work out for uh 60 minutes today, I should just not work out at all, right? If we can't have, you know, I mean, you could talk about any any situation. What happens is we get frustrated, we get overwhelmed, we hold ourselves to this high standard that's maybe not even realistic. What happens though is we don't meet it, then we get discouraged, then we fall off the bandwagon, which reinforces this negative, self-limiting belief in the first place that yeah, you you were never gonna be able to do that anyways. And so we drive ourselves in a deeper rut. So the life report card exercise says, hey, in this season and in each season and in every season, you're gonna go through your life and give yourself a report card and you're gonna assign yourself grades. So, for example, before we had kids, I was getting an A plus in fitness. I could train six times a week. I was at the gym 90 minutes a session, sauna, massage, I was doing it all, man, living it up. No, two kids, you know, an entrepreneur, growing business. Maybe I'm not gonna be an A plus in fitness, and maybe that's okay, right? So it's situations where you might say, you know what, I'm gonna have to be a B. I'm gonna take a B in this in this season, or I might be a C. And dare I say, there might be things in your life that you might need to give an F. And you might need to be like, you know what, I'm done with this. This is no longer serving me, this toxic relationship, this, you know, whatever the situation is, this work commitment that's not really moving the needle for me. I'm actually just gonna say, I'm done with this, and I'm gonna, I'm gonna give myself an F and move on. That is such a life-giving exercise because it gives you permission, not just physically but psychologically, to say, hey, I don't have to be perfect. It's okay if my fitness is a B, because you know what? It's better than an F, right? Because six months ago I wasn't in the gym at all, right? So this idea of having grace and understanding what is sustainable for me in this season. So for there are times for me, you know, when our first son came, it was like, you know, in in these next in these six months, my boy is is A, and maybe maybe my my wife is an A minus for a season, right? I mean, she's always in the A for sure. But you know, you have to understand that and give yourself grace. Does that make sense? It makes total sense.

Naming Emotions And Disconnection

Philip Pape 10:38

And it also, if you reframe it to the space that it gives you in those other areas, totally it's super powerful because then you're like, it can reduce that stress of saying, Oh man, I was putting so much into this. I was putting 99% to get the extra 1%, but I could put in 60% and devote all that extra energy to the next thing on the list and lower the bar, like you said, like have that minimum achievable that helps you move forward. And you mentioned a six-week time frame, which I like because that's generally what we see right in in the in the literature for habit formation and breaking some of the trigger habit connections and all that stuff. So if you can't even do it for that long, it's not going to go beyond that. And then the the last thing I like that you mentioned was the one year versus 10. It reminds me of a different, a different thing I heard years ago where when you look back on your life, the last 10 years will always surprise you. The amount of change that happened in the last 10 years, you'll never have predicted it. And so this thought of like, don't rush it, don't try to accomplish everything in one year because at the end of the day, it's going to fall where it may, focus on the things right ahead of you. So yeah, that's a great report card. I'm sure you have like a more specific framework for that. I don't know if we have a link or something we could throw in for people to like understand what those categories are, but we can do that. So so that's that's the psychology behind it. But I want to go dig one more one more level deep into when you're talking to, especially men, about these issues. I think there's a phrase you use, normative male alexithemia.

Mitchell Osmond 12:01

Alexithymia, yeah.

Philip Pape 12:02

Alexithymia, so yeah, yeah. And it's it's like men who can't talk or don't have the vocabulary for their emotions. Like, how does that connect to these discussions? And even if it's the self-talk, honestly, going through the rapport card, how does that connect with this?

Core Needs: Seen, Heard, Safe Vs Respected, Competent

Mitchell Osmond 12:15

Yeah, I love it. You did your research, man. I love that. Yeah. So, dude, the reason why I talk about that is, you know, I I only work with men, and and that's because I'm a man, but I understand men and men for the most part, and I know probably the women listening may not agree with this. Men for the most part are fairly simplistic creatures in the sense that we have two or three basic needs. We're all driven by the same desires, we all wrestle with very similar challenges. One of the biggest challenges that we struggle with is our emotions. Number one, our emotional intelligence, but also the communication of our emotions, right? And so you're talking about normative male alexothomia, which I'll unpack for you in a moment. But the reason why I talk about this and the reason why I think my work is so important is because in the US today, we know that 70% of all divorces are initiated by the women in the relationship. Okay, now when you dig into the data, it the number jumps even more. So in situations where the wife is a high earner or has a high degree of education, that number jumps to 90% of divorces are initiated by women. Now, for men, that should be a huge eye-opener. But here's another crazy statistic. Of all those divorces that are initiated, approximately 79 to 80% of the time, the main reason cited for the divorce is not sex, is not money, is not abuse, is not cheating, like everyone thinks it is, it's emotional disconnection. My husband, like, I feel like I'm married a robot. He's not present, he doesn't connect with me emotionally. And so it's really important to understand that for men because that is the need. She doesn't need a bigger paycheck, she doesn't need, you know, a bigger company. She doesn't need you to have, I mean, she needs you to be healthy, but she doesn't need you to have a six-pack and you know, 7,000-inch biceps. What she wants is for you to show up and hold space for her emotionally. Now let's get back to that term you just mentioned. Um, because on the flip side, is women look at men and say, Well, what's wrong with you? Why can't you talk to me? Why can't you talk about your feelings? Why are you so closed up? So, normative male alexithymia, if you actually break down that that term from the Greek, it it means normative, which is pretty straightforward, but male alexithymia is a lexus thymos, which literally means to be without words for emotions. Okay, so if you put it all together, it means it's normative, it's normal for a male to be without words for his emotions. This is a term psychologists have coined. Okay, this is this is well known in the world of psychology that men universally wrestle, I mean, not all of them, but we wrestle with talking about our feelings and talking about our emotions. Now, why is that a problem? Well, if 80% of the divorces that happen are because they feel there a lack of emotional disconnection, it's probably important for us to understand that, right? And so what happens is men, they'll come home and then they the wife will maybe have a conversation about maybe she got a fight with a sister or the kids are driving her crazy or something going on at work, and men go to solving mode, they go to fix it mode, right? Because for the most part, men go to work and they get paid well to solve problems for eight, 10, 12 hours a day. And so they come home and it's like, well, this is I'm great at this. I do it all day. Well, here's a solution. And they start shoving strategies down their wife's throat, right? Treating them like an employee or a colleague, where she's like, I don't need you to fix this. I just want you to listen and say that I'm not crazy, right? But for a guy, I say this all the time, for a guy to listen to his partner and not offer a solution, it literally feels on the inside like we like me and you are like sitting in front of my house and it's up in flames, and I'm looking at you and I'm like, Phil, I could turn on the hose and and then I could put it out. And you're like, no, man, keep it off. We're just gonna watch it burn. That's literally when frustrating it is, right? And so it's important for us as men to understand that, but it's also important for women to understand that it's normal, that's part of the male expression. And so, what do we do? Well, we develop those skills, we have those conversations, and that's largely what I do with men is help increase their emotional intelligence, which then helps them connect with their wives on a far deeper emotional level, because men and women are wired opposite. We women need to be engaged emotionally to become physically engaged. Men, after they become physically engaged, then they can become emotional, like the pillow talk, you know, all that stuff. They can just open up about their feelings. So actually, we're wired completely different, right? It's important to understand that.

Philip Pape 16:56

It is. And as a husband of almost 20 years this year, actually, we it it, you know, I think about that and it creates a sense of, okay, we're talking about stress here. When you're not resolving those issues, you as a man can can sense it. Like, as much as we don't aren't given credit for having like that intuition, there is a level of you sense the energy, right? You sense the energy with your spouse and in the house, and like things are are on this path you don't like, and all of a sudden things get closed, start to get closed off and the disconnection starts to go up. You know, I've I've been through bouts of this in my marriage. Fortunately, I'm at a place now where I it took a lot of hard knocks and years of like experimentation and and listening to to figure out a little bit of what you're talking about, which is you do have to talk through things and not try to fix everything. But then for those men who are in that state right now listening, or women listening who feel their husbands are doing this, it creates a stewing brew inside you of like, you know, in the pit of your stomach, at least is my personal experience of you know there's there's there's something that's bothering you. And then you think about it while you sleep, or it could keep you up. You think about it at work and you're like, am I gonna address this and fix it? And then it, of course, a lot of situations is no, and it leads to divorce, like you said. So let's talk about that connection, how how it connects back to someone's like internal stressors, this unnamed emotional stress, and then how you know, because again, again, we want to connect it to the physical manifestations of that.

The Crazy Cycle And Gym As Escape

Should Couples Train Together

Mitchell Osmond 18:20

Yeah, well, well, I think, you know, the drift happens. I like that you use that word, and that's what happens in marriage, right? And and when you don't, when you don't have those those communication skills, not only does it affect you, you know, relationally, but like you said, it you know, there's physical impacts as well. But let me bring it back to the relationship for a quick moment, because this this is going to be very simple, very practical for your listeners. Every every woman, for the most part, has three core needs, right? And and I've been in the space for a while, and I've never heard a woman disagree with me on it. Not to say that you know it's it's the ultimate truth, but for the most part, women have three needs. Number one, to feel seen, number two, to feel heard, number three is to feel safe. Now, there's actually multiple breakdowns of those three needs in different aspects. But if she feels seen, if she feels heard, if she feels safe, for example, safe, it can be broken down into four quadrants emotionally safe, relationally safe, like that you're not gonna step out on her, you know, whatever, um, financially safe, and physically safe, right? So, but you think about it if a woman doesn't feel safe with you or around you, she's not gonna be physically intimate with you, obviously, right? If she doesn't feel seen, if she doesn't feel heard, she's not gonna want to connect with you in any other way. Now that's a that's a woman's basic needs. A man's basic needs is for typically we have two the the need to feel respected and the need to feel competent. Okay, so if you want to crush a man's spirit, make him feel incompetent, right? Challenge his competency, disrespect him. You want you wanna you want to break him down? And here's the crazy thing: I've done this before. You get into a room of 500 men, 1,000 men, whatever, and you ask these men, would you rather hear the words I love you or I respect you from your wife? Which one would you rather hear? And 95% of the room would be like, I respect you. They would rather know that their wife respects them, that they think they're the best husband, worker, career, you know, whatever provider in the world, than say, I love you. Now, why is this important? Because I say to women all the time, and it used to you, you know, women say I love you a lot, and that's great because that's a need that they're craving. But the most powerful thing you can say to your husband is, I believe in you. I think you can do anything. You're such an incredible leader. I see how you handle the kids, you're an incredible dad. That kind of language, man, a man can live on one of those compliments for six months. So let me bring it back. Here's how to come to the middle is having that conversation, having a husband say, Hey honey, what does it look like for me to help you or for me to make you feel seen, heard, and safe in our home and in this relationship? And for a woman to look at her husband and say, How have I disrespected you in the past? How have I made you feel incompetent in the past? What does it look like for me to respect you in your different roles? Or what does it look like for me to make you feel competent? Right. And if you can both genuinely have that posture, your marriage can transform like overnight if you are seeking to meet those needs. Now, what happens if we're not meeting those needs? Well, that's that's when the drift happens, right? And we go, you know, we sort of drift away because what happens when a man's need for respect or competence is not met, where does he go? He finds it in other places where he feels respect and competence. AKA work. Philip, I've had guys call me 10 o'clock at night on the phone and be like, I'm sitting in a dark office and I'd much rather sit here than go home because at least here I know what I'm doing. At least here my my colleagues appreciate me, my boss respects me, whatever. So what does he do? He digs into his work. What does the wife do or the woman do when she's not getting her need to feel loved and cherished? She finds it elsewhere in the children. And so that relationship, she gets those needs met that way. Then the husband plays, becomes the becomes second fiddle, you know, to the kids. So what happens is we spiral, we go away and away and away and away, and we drift and we drift and we drift, and we never have the conversation. And then that affects us physically as well, right? Not just to mention physical intimacy, but physically, like your stress levels increase, your your anxiety increases, potentially depression, you know, different things that come up. And we all know how those, I mean, I'm sure your listeners, I'm sure you've talked about how that affects you physically. Like when your cortisol spikes and how your body, you know, preserves fat, you know, your metabolism lowers fight or flight mode, your like conservation mode. You're not that's why your metabolism isn't skyrocketing when you're going through situations like that. So, and not to mention you're not going to be motivated to go go for a PR in the gym if like your personal life is a disaster, right? So I went on a ramble, but uh hopefully that will connect with your listeners.

Philip Pape 23:24

No, it no, it all connects. And you know, I'm not, I don't want to force like going down a specific route for this topic because I think everything you're talking about is super powerful and important anyway for the listener. And if it ultimately can help resolve some things and unload some of that stress and make you feel more confident and respected as men and also help women understand their husband better because the ladies listening, it affects our relationship too, of course, and it affects their, you know, physical manifestation. All of them are trying to work out as well and do all the things we talk about in this show. What you know, if we then connect that to some of these escape mechanisms you mentioned, like work, is would you say is going to the gym also an escape for some guys?

Modeling Health For Kids

Mitchell Osmond 24:01

Absolutely. Yeah. Because remember, when I go to the gym, especially if I'm in great shape and I know what I'm doing in the gym, and it's a bit of an ego boost when I go because I'm already kind of jacked and I feel great about myself when I'm there. Yeah, I'm gonna go to the gym because at least I know what I'm doing there. Right? People, I got buddies there, women, I catch women glancing at me there, right? Versus at home when I I come through the door, my wife doesn't even look up from her phone, right? Or or even a woman could do that too. Well, hey, I'm gonna put on a nice outfit, I'm gonna do my hair, go to the gym, you know, if these guys hitting on me, fits it fills that need, right? Versus coming home and and my husband's just scrolling on his phone all day or he's snapping at the kids or whatever. So why would I why would I spend my time here? Let me take the kids and go on a on a you know on a hike and you just stay home. You're you're you're grumpy anyways, you know? And so we call this the crazy cycle when we're not getting these needs met. Because when a man isn't doesn't feel competent, doesn't feel respected, he becomes unloving, right? And when a wife doesn't feel loved and cherished, she begins to say things or you know, may say things that might make him feel incompetent as a husband. And so that you get that caught in that cycle and it goes around and around. And so, yeah, the fitness piece can absolutely be a distraction. It can become an addiction. I've seen that as well. Where guys they're making a ton of money, they're in the best shape of the life, and the wife is about to walk out. She's literally packing her bags, and everyone thinks on the outside the dude's crushing it. He's got a six-pack, he's making, you know, six multiple six figures, but he does the but they don't see what's going on behind closed doors, right? So you gotta be careful because you can let that take priority over your marriage, you can let that take priority over your kids. So it's definitely a fine line because I would also say on the counter, you have to make space for each other to take care of yourselves. Like a husband to say, come, hey babe, I'm gonna grab the kids, you know, for an hour. Why don't you go grab a workout? You know, and or uh or a wife to say the same thing. I'm gonna take the kids this morning, why don't you head to the gym? I know that means a lot to you, right? So we got to make space for that for sure, but not let it get to the point where it becomes a an escape for sure.

Philip Pape 26:08

Yeah, so a couple things came to mind when you talked about the supporting of each other. What are your thoughts on two things that come to mind? One is working out together, because I know that's that could be polarizing, that could be a that could be a not a great idea, depending. And also going back to the men being competent and feeling respected and wanting to fix everything. Some men get into trouble trying to coach their wives. So kind of though those two topics are interesting.

Start Small: Behavior First Fitness

Mitchell Osmond 26:38

I get this question all the time. Because remember, no, listen, ladies, no disrespect. I only work with men, so I only hear from men for the most part. I see, how do I how do I get my wife to go to the gym? All right, how do I get my wife to eat better? I'm like, who, brother, please tell me you did not ask her that question. Please tell me you did not tell her to go to the gym. Here's how you do it you model it, all right? You be the example. Same thing with your kids. If you want your wife to exercise, you want her to become make that a part of her life, you you have to do that because you're leading the way. If you want your kids to follow, you want your kids to work out and go to the gym and be and and eat great, but you're crushing donuts and you're never hitting the gym, why would why in the world would they ever do that? They're gonna follow you. Um, you are their blueprint. And so for me, on that question of of you know working out and then women, men and all that stuff, I think the best way you can do that is to inspire them by how you live. And if you're a wife, your your best chance at inspiring your husband to do the same is is to do that, right? It's to exercise, to prioritize your health, get your kids involved, and he's gonna feel it pretty quickly, right? Um, it is it particularly works in the inverse, like when a husband, when a man takes starts to take his health seriously, the tone of the home totally changes. Now, to your to your other question, should people work out together? You know what, dude? To each their own, I would say, you know, me and my wife didn't for years. It was just not our thing. I'm like, hey, you and we didn't even go to the same gym, but if we did, we're like, hey, you uh you go to that side, I'm gonna go to this side. It's just like my personal thing for me. I go, I go there, it's like my sanctuary, you know. I get in my head, I'm thinking, I I don't want distractions, right? And she's the same way, she gets after it. And so for us, it didn't really work. Also, I just I was pretty insecure, so I felt like she was like critiquing my form. But once we had a kid, now we both value we both value fitness, but it's like we want to model this for our kids, and so we have a workout uh centered uh little thing down in the basement, a gym, and we train down there with our with our kid, and he he watches and mom's showing him how to do a little squad, and you know, I'm just you know whatever, doing a bench press, and he's sitting on my chest or whatever. And it's like we do it together because not only do we want him to see us together, we also want him to see us doing things we love together, but we also want him to see us actually lifting weights because we are going to be the model for him. So, you know, it depends on your motives, right? And it's been both for us in different seasons.

Eulogy Exercise And Closing The Gap

Philip Pape 29:28

I think that's that's the best answer. You honestly answered the parenting question in general. I think you did an episode, it might have been as far back as 2024, and it was about fat loss and nutrition and everything. And you had a segment in there about how do you get your kids to eat better, and it's like you have to model for your kids, but also that kids' connection with emotional eating, binge eating, and things like that come from the connections you make when they're young, like giving them a cookie for comfort and things like that. And let me tell you, we h we homeschool our kids. And again, you said to each his own, which is great. Everybody has their different things that they can and want to do for their children. And I will say, every little thing that I see my 12 and 14-year-old doing now, I could trace it back to something we did when they were one or three or five when I when I compare to say someone else's kids or different, you know, nature versus nurture, it's almost all nurture. I mean, you know, we have two kids that have very different personalities that would have gone on very different tracks with different parenting. I'm not trying to say I'm an amazing parent, but like what you say resonates with me. And I hope anybody listening, this is not a parenting podcast, but man, if you want your kids to be fit and eating well and doing all the things and not have emotional eating issues when they get older and go on lots of diets and try to be skinny all the time and all those things, it starts when they're kids. Okay. Very powerful, man. So modeling. The thing about the wife and the husband working out also agree. Like we have a gym, we work out separately. Just because she wants to work out for 10 minutes, I want to work out for an hour and a half. You know, like the kids, she wants to get out before me, and I don't want to get up that early, right? But the kids are in there with us. So when you're coaching clients, you mentioned that, you know, it starts with fitness. Like, how do you unpack all this stuff in a very, I'll say kind of simple way for listeners now or listening saying, look, I don't have all this together right now. Maybe my fitness isn't totally on point.

Mitchell Osmond 31:27

Yeah, so when it comes to uh so when it comes to fitness species, are you asking for fitness specifically or like the whole thing? Good question. I don't know what I'm asking, man.

Philip Pape 31:38

You know what I'm saying? I'll answer for both.

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Mitchell Osmond 31:40

Yeah, I'll answer for both. So for the fitness piece, a lot of guys come in and they're like, okay, uh uh what what do you want me to do? You want me to go six times a week? You want me to train 90 minutes? You want me to eat chicken and broccoli and rice? I'm like, no, man. No. Maybe maybe let's just maybe let's just cut out potato chips. And they're like, what? What do you mean? Just that's it? Like, we're gonna add maybe two liters of water a day, and we're gonna cut out potato chips. You know, or like they'll be like, if if I'm training a local guy, they're like, okay, man, uh when do you want to meet to meet me at the gym? You know, I'll show up and and it'll be like they're they're ready to go, and we'll park in the parking lot. I'm like, amazing, dude. You made it. Here we are. Okay, let's jump back in a car, let's go home, I'll see you tomorrow. And they're like, what? We're not gonna work out. I'm like, no, we are going to form these behaviors and these behavioral patterns slowly and gradually. And then the next day we get to the parking lot, it's like, all right, let's go in. We could change, we'll do one or two exercises, we'll leave. Right? Because if I go and I take him to the gym and I just destroy this guy, you know, over 90 minutes, he walks out feeling crippled like he needs a wheelchair. What are the chances that he's gonna have a good association with fitness, right? So, what I'm trying to say is we go very simple and we change the behaviors, right? Because that's what this is about. You talk about emotional relationship, it was a learned behavior. My mom fed me chocolate chip cookies when I was bullied in in elementary school. I didn't realize this, but as a grown man, I was stuffing my face with chocolate chip cookies when I had a bad day at work. I had no idea why, right? And it was our good intentions, but it was a learned behavior. And so it could be something as simple as like, hey man, we're gonna cut out, we're gonna cut out, you know, soda, we're gonna cut out whatever. So it less of the taking things out and more of the adding things in, we're gonna add in protein, we're gonna add in 30 grams of protein every meal. That's it. I have a simple rule with food. If the these guys are like really rudimentary, I'm like, put three colors on your plate. That's it. Just make sure every time you eat, there's three colors. And if there is, then you're in the right direction. But if you look down and all you see is brown, chicken fingers, French fries, cornbread, whatever, there's a problem. But if you look down, you see orange carrots, green broccoli, red steak. All right, now we're in the right direction. So if you just eat three colors, that's a great place to get started, right? So I'm hoping you're seeing what I do what I take do is like a slow process and simple, sustainable changes. Then over time we start cutting out and but we make achievable goals. What do we do in the in the overall? You know, this is a really fun exercise that I do with my clients, which sounds a little bit morbid, but we actually start with a eulogy riding exercise. I don't know if you've ever heard of this before, but my transformation moment, dude, and we didn't talk about this, but uh when I hit my rock bottom moment, I got let go of a senior leadership position. Me and my wife got in a massive fight. I was out of work and I was coming home every day wondering is this the day that I'm gonna see the ring on the counter? You know, I was 60 pounds overweight, we were 100 grand in debt. I was medicating every day with alcohol and drugs to cope. My turning point came when I was asked to sing at a funeral. And it was the this philanthropist, there was a couple thousand people in the room, and the minister asked the question after he talked about all the things that this man had done. He said, Are you living a life worthy of imitation? And for me, he said, Would you be proud of the legacy that you left? And for me, as I grabbed my guitar and I was getting ready to sing the last song, staring at the casket of this man, I was faced with my mortality. If this were my funeral today, what would people say? Would they want to imitate my life? Would they be saying, Man, I want to have the marriage that Mitch had, I want to have the bank account Mitch had, I want to have the body Mitch had. No, at that point, they would have said, he died early, he had a tough life, and he and he died too soon before he had a chance to turn it around. You know, so for me, beginning with the end in mind, I mean, Stephen Covey talks about that, Napoleon Hill talks about that. So many thought leaders of our time say, you gotta know where you're going. And so what I do is I'll I'll have my clients write that eulogy exercise. If you're if your life were to end today, you're gonna you're gonna write this eulogy from the perspective of your wife and your kids. What would they say? Well, Philip was a blank man. He was, he did this, he cared about this, and would you be happy with what they said? Now, number two is you're gonna you're gonna dream about who what that what that life would like if you were 100% the man that you were called to be. What would she say about you at that point as she stood over your casket? You know, and then we we take those and we draw the comparison. We we because the gap between who you are and who you want to be, that's where your anxiety is, that's where your frustration is, that's where your tension is, because you're living short of your purpose, you're living short of your potential. And so what we do is find all the things in that gap and we take care of it and we create men, you know, to be the men that they know they could be.

Philip Pape 37:02

Does that make sense? Makes sense. Begin with the end in mind, begin with the and then draw the comparison because that gap is where the anxiety lives between where you are now and your ultimate purpose and your potential. I think that's super powerful, man.

Mitchell Osmond 37:15

Well, you think about it, right? Like, I'm not happy in my marriage. Well, why? What was your expectation? Well, if my marriage looked like this, okay, that's the expectation. Well, here's where I am in my marriage. Well, that's your reality. Expectation versus reality. That's your your your marriage that doesn't look like what you wanted it to be. Well, let's fix that. If your body doesn't look like what expectation versus reality, there's the gap, right? So it's true, it translates in every aspect of your life.

Philip Pape 37:41

And it's consistent with what you said before about looking out 10 years instead of just one, in that you're not going to solve all those and put all those behaviors in place tomorrow, but eventually you're going to express that identity, let's call it, with your behaviors by gradually building up to them. And that's a sustainable way to do it. We love sustainability here. So, Mitchell, I know we're uh we're running out of time here. I want to let folks find you and reach out to you. Where can they look you up?

Mitchell Osmond 38:06

Yeah, honestly, if you just Google the Dad Nation, you'll find me. My face is plastered around to the because of the podcast. But yeah, check out the show, the Dad Nation Podcast. You can check out my website, dadnationcode.com. But listen, I'd love to give your listeners a free gift if you're okay with that. Let's do it. What do we have for them? So we talked about this idea that men, you know, struggle to talk about their emotions. They struggle to connect with their wives on an emotional level. Excuse me. Well, I've created something called the connection code, and it's 50 questions that you can ask your wife that think that will spark the fun and get the fire back in your relationship. Because a lot of times as we go on date nights or we put down the kids, and it's like we ask the same boring, dead end questions. How was work? How are the kids? How'd you sleep? Blah, blah, blah. Right. And we wonder why conversation didn't go anywhere. And so 50 of these questions, these 50 questions, sorry, uh, are strategically designed to connect with your wife and to to draw her in on an emotional level to make her feel seen, heard, and safe. It's a free download. And I, dude, I've had people, I've had wives email me, be like, who was that man that took me out last night? Because he was asking me questions he hadn't asked me since we were dating 30 years ago. You know, so it doesn't matter. You can you can pull a few questions off the page and take her out, or maybe you want to put the kids down, pour up a glass of wine, and you know, as long as it's not above your caloric intake for that day, Philip. I got to say that. And pull a couple questions off the page and ask her. And I tell you, it'll have a tremendous impact.

Philip Pape 39:36

The connection code. I'm gonna get that myself. I haven't gotten it yet, so I'm gonna download that myself. I'm a husband, I want to check it out. I love like table topics and those kinds of fun, fun games. So it sounds like a great resource. We're gonna share that in the show notes, as well as the Dad Nation podcast. Definitely follow that, guys, dadnationco.com. Mitchell, it's been a pleasure. This is awesome. Thank you for coming on Wits and Weights.

Mitchell Osmond 39:57

Thank you, Philip. I'm so glad to be here. It's been a privilege and an honor, brother.