exos

Reviewing one’s activity and experiences to assess the effect or value of the outcome is what we often do with intention, sometimes without even realizing we are doing it. Thinking about how we performed, interacted with others, or maybe even didn’t do enough is important. What’s more important is how we manage those thoughts where we regulate what we think, how we feel, and what we need to do. There are specific techniques that help! Focusing on the mental and cognitive aspects of our performance is a key component in the complete package of personal optimization.

 

We’re talking Reflection and Regulation. Listen in as Colin and I continue our discussion journey of how EXOS delivers value toward helping get you ready for the moments that matter. Remember to take time to care for yourself.

 

We have all we need to become the person we want to be…let’s remember how to connect with others with sincerity and genuine intent as we continue the mission to serve.

 

 

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Episode Transcript:

00;00;08;00 - 00;00;33;07
 
You're listening to the Oracle Maven podcast, where we bring people together from the veteran affiliated community to highlight employees, partners, organized actions and those who are continuing the mission to serve. Welcome to the podcast. I'm your host, Chris Spencer, and in this episode I'm joined by our guest, Colin Young, senior director of Operations with Axios, reviewing one's activity and experiences to assess the effect or value of the outcome is what we often do with intention.

00;00;33;16 - 00;00;55;11
 
Sometimes without even realizing we're doing it thinking about how we performed, interacted with others, or maybe didn't do enough are important. What's more important is how we manage those thoughts, where we regulate what we think, how we feel, and what we need to do. There are specific techniques that help. Focusing on the mental and cognitive aspect of our performance is a key component in the complete package of personal optimism.

00;00;55;22 - 00;01;12;11
 
Today, we're talking reflection and regulation. Listen in as Colin and I continue our discussion journey of how EXOS delivers value towards helping you get ready for the moments that matter. Remember to take time to care for yourself. We have all we need to become the person we want to be. So let's remember how to connect with others with sincerity and genuine intent.

00;01;12;12 - 00;01;28;08
 
As we continue the mission to serve. Thanks for listening. We hope you enjoy this episode and please remember to check in on your buddies and family. Collins Contact details are in the podcast description and you can always find me on LinkedIn Call and what's going on.

00;01;29;09 - 00;01;30;10
 
Good morning. Good afternoon.

00;01;31;11 - 00;01;59;20
 
Hey, it's great to have you, Colin. You know, I know we've we've got a pretty good schedule going on. And for everybody out there listening, we've got Colin Young here, who is the senior director of operations within XO. And the topic for today that Colin will speak to is focused on reflection and regulation. And in the scheme of everything that we're putting together, how we broken down on these components, it's important that we we cover the whole gamut and make sure that we're talking about how to think about things and consider what you're going to do moving forward.

00;01;59;21 - 00;02;05;22
 
So the depth will come from Colin and everything that he's going to do to explain it. So Colin.

00;02;06;10 - 00;02;15;04
 
So you know, you're expecting depth. All right. You know, I usually hang out with my son in the shallow area, but I'll do my best to dove in with you today.

00;02;15;05 - 00;02;17;04
 
So let's go. Yeah.

00;02;18;02 - 00;02;39;01
 
So, yeah, so I'm really excited to be here. My background for, for those that probably haven't heard my name is in coaching in general. I started as a strength coach, like many folks who have been with EXOS for a long time. Right. We were athletes performance a long time ago. And have since rebranded and expanded. And so I started coaching at a young age.

00;02;39;17 - 00;02;58;18
 
I was involved in sports in high school and college, played college baseball and it was a small school. So oddly enough, I ended up being our strength coach my senior year. So I got my first kind of like dabble into that world before I was even out of there. I was an extra science and sports science major, so I really enjoy the coaching aspect of it.

00;02;58;28 - 00;03;27;24
 
Went on to join athletes performance in its infancy, and we expanded and now we coach in a lot of different realms. We coach in the workplace, we coach incorporate fitness facilities, but still rooted in that kind of like athlete's background. Which I always very much relate to myself. So now what I'm doing is shifted kind of pretty dramatically into more of the mental and cognitive performance side of things, which is still just coaching with a different lens.

00;03;28;05 - 00;03;56;10
 
And it's just been incredibly rewarding and an educational and just a ton of fun for me to to shift my lens to this new space and understanding how much overlap there is and being able to bring my experience there. So direct director of operations and say a whole lot with the title, you know about it. Yeah, that's, that's where I'm at now is operating a lot of our programs that are designed around mental and cognitive performance.

00;03;56;10 - 00;04;09;00
 
How can I get the most of myself? How can I get the most out of my team? How can I find the most kind of rewarding aspects of what I do and who I am as an individual each day? And that's that's my focus day to day now.

00;04;09;25 - 00;04;14;24
 
Got it. Now, I appreciate that backdrop but what position in baseball?

00;04;15;19 - 00;04;41;24
 
I was an outfielder, and then my senior year I got to D.H., which is like the best position in baseball, especially playing ball in the Pacific Northwest. You know, it's not exactly your season starts in February. It's not the greatest weather. So it's like, all right, I've been playing defense. I'm a step by the space here. Like, you guys are great, you're doing great out there, and then go up and hit, you know, three to five times a game and come back and said so yeah.

00;04;42;14 - 00;04;49;08
 
I got to say, because of all the great dishes out there, do you have walk on music? What was your what was your song?

00;04;49;09 - 00;05;15;02
 
We we did oh, man. You know, I think I was always and we'll maybe get to this. Maybe we can dissect some of my own internal workings here. I didn't I wasn't always and still to this day, not like super high volumes go, go, go type music, whether it's hip hop, rock, whatever it is. So my senior year, my walk up song was Fortunate Son by CCR.

00;05;15;05 - 00;05;15;24
 
Oh, there you go.

00;05;16;05 - 00;05;25;05
 
It's just kind of like, hey, I'm already hyped up enough to get to the play. Like, let me call myself down a little bit and kind of get zoned in. So yeah, that was my walkup song my senior year.

00;05;25;14 - 00;05;28;01
 
I like it. Yeah, that that paints the picture.

00;05;28;12 - 00;05;28;29
 
There you go.

00;05;29;16 - 00;05;33;18
 
All right. So so about when did you did you join XOs?

00;05;34;13 - 00;06;02;09
 
Yeah, I did my internship in 2008 it was where I started. And then after that I worked mostly with baseball players, obviously with my background a little bit with our combine prep program that you may or may not have touched on in previous episodes with Anthony or John or whomever. So mostly baseball guys. And then I see it, the longer, longer I've been with the company, the more it feels like a little hiatus.

00;06;03;03 - 00;06;24;18
 
It was on a paid internship. They didn't have anything for me. I went and got a job elsewhere. I did some coaching at a charter school coach, football and baseball and soccer and everything from like kick and giggle all the way up to two more competitive spaces. And then was a director at the YMCA for a few years at a very young age and three apartments, our wellness membership and aquatics department.

00;06;25;01 - 00;06;41;10
 
Oddly enough, they just kind of kicked it to me. So and then came back full time with the company in 2011. So and then since then I've held a ton of different roles. Like I said, I started as a strength coach when I came back and then kind of shifted into management and then have shifted and since into this kind of mental performance space.

00;06;41;27 - 00;06;51;22
 
Got it. And so what's the attract into this mental space that we're talking about and what is, what is reflection and regulation mean to the layman?

00;06;52;15 - 00;07;16;07
 
Yeah. So first question kind of what, what attracted me to the space? Yeah, my my other major in college was psychology. So that was always kind of around. And oddly enough, I really enjoyed my time at the Y Looking back on it, maybe I didn't enjoy it at the time, but it was it was such a rewarding experience for me to see in the grand scheme of things.

00;07;16;07 - 00;07;45;07
 
The YMCA is is not known for its progressiveness and excellence in the movement and fitness space. However, if you look at and think of some of the benefits and some of the things of the YMCA as well, it's community and that society just kind of so I really delve into the psychology of how to build a community, how to get someone and many someones to start a habit and keep a habit that's positive for them.

00;07;45;07 - 00;08;09;05
 
So you learn things like motivational interviewing, you learn things like group dynamics, just kind of on the fly and you see the attitude there. And so that really helped propel my, my interest in it and have since taken that and apply to both to my own teams that I manage within EXOS as well as with the content that we create for this kind of mental and cognitive performance space.

00;08;09;05 - 00;08;27;27
 
So it's always kind of been around for me. It was kind of accelerated with with the YMCA at the time with that concept of community because you know, we say all the time you could have the best program in the world. If someone doesn't show up to do it, it doesn't matter. And so it's like, you know, they get results from people just because people enjoy being there and coming back.

00;08;27;27 - 00;08;46;14
 
So it's like, how do you how do you pair the two to really get the most out of someone, get them coming back and then, man, you're really dialed in for one of their and so now, you know, we're where we're at with mental, mental and cognitive performance. It's it's really, really interesting to kind of apply that in the workforce.

00;08;46;25 - 00;09;17;04
 
And certainly for me in my own personal endeavors as well, and that's where I loved it was probably a favorite topic to talk about a reflection and regulation and what does that mean? So reflection is really just can I observe myself and my surrounding sands critiques sans ego, right? Can I do it without judgment? And then regulation is can I go through that observation again?

00;09;17;18 - 00;09;40;29
 
Can I then determine what is required of my own performance and those around me eventually? But typically, most of us spend a ton of time on on our own endeavors. Can I understand? Hey, here's the situation. Here's what I understand it to be and here's what's required of me as far as my own performance. And then that regulation gets into a bunch of different kind of wires that we could certainly go into a little bit.

00;09;40;29 - 00;09;54;10
 
So a lot of people love to just jump into regulation. It's also like yeah, so we can get into it further, but a lot of people love regulation. I kind of have spent an equal time in both, and I think you need both to maximize performance.

00;09;55;25 - 00;10;22;26
 
Hundred percent immediately. I'm applying it, I think, well, in the past episodes I've probably bored people with how I look at it for me. And when I'm talking to those of you that have this specialization, the principle is if I'm getting ready to go out and do something, I'm thinking about me and kind of translating and what you're saying as far as observing the surroundings, hey, my I'm recognizing my physical limitations or the abilities.

00;10;22;26 - 00;10;40;12
 
And so I'm going to go out and I'm going to run the mountain or I'm going to run up this hill, I'm going to run or I'm going to walk or I'm going to do something. I'm trying to trying to figure out whether or not I'm capable of doing it with the things that I know and then trying to anticipate whether I know what I should know.

00;10;40;22 - 00;10;50;28
 
Right. And so I'm just trying to figure out, is that is that kind of the idea between the reflection is you're kind of going through the cycles of your own mind to figure out what you want to do, where you want to do it and how you want to do it.

00;10;51;24 - 00;11;17;28
 
Yeah, I think, yeah. You summarized it really nicely. You know, there's there's so it starts with kind of drive, you know, we do something calls about a values exploration and kind of understanding what's driving you both in a positive and a negative. Like that's one thing we call kind of the shadow self a little bit. You know, a lot of people call the subconscious whatever it is, you know, we are as human beings are built to kind of go on autopilot.

00;11;17;28 - 00;11;34;10
 
And a lot of those things aren't necessarily helping us kind of get to that next level and kind of grow and do what we want to do. And so understanding what those drivers are, you might have a conscious driver of like consciously, you and I probably sit here and go, oh, I want to be as healthy as I can be.

00;11;34;16 - 00;12;03;12
 
I want to go train every day. I want to train hard, I want to eat healthy, I want to be present with my family. I want to do all of these things right like consciously I'm going to say, of course, we're gonna be like, yeah, you know, and but subconsciously, like, why don't we every minute or every hour of the day and every day of the week and every week of the month and month of the year, why don't we always strive towards doing those things which we consciously say Yes, that's what I want.

00;12;03;12 - 00;12;24;16
 
That's a driver. And that's that's kind of the, the, you know, one of the spaces you can take is, is what is truly driving me. And that's, I think, a great place to apply kind of what we would look at as a reflection. We break reflection down in the name. Reflection is a little bit misleading because it's things it kind of leads you to think retroactively.

00;12;25;02 - 00;12;46;00
 
And we look at it. You could also use a little bit of a synonym towards awareness and that word might spark things a little bit differently. So we break it down into three spaces. There's proactive and retroactive certainly. So like proactively to your point of doing an assessment, say I'm going on a hike or whatever, doing that assessment, like where am I truly at doing that self assessment?

00;12;46;20 - 00;13;04;17
 
What do I need? You know, the proactive space and then retroactive would be going out. Like how did that go? How did I feel? What did I experience? What did I do well? What could I have done better right there? Those kind of bookends of it. But then that holy grail of what we categorize under reflection or awareness is real time awareness.

00;13;04;27 - 00;13;25;02
 
And that's where reflection in regulation or awareness and regulation or almost an inextricably linked. It's also probably the most challenging place to get to when you're trying to upskill in this space of self-awareness for a variety of reasons. So yeah.

00;13;26;00 - 00;13;43;20
 
Is that just so I'm clear on that one? Because when you said it, I started to smirk. Now I'm running, I've gone through the first two things, now I'm running and I'm imagining how much this running sucks. Is that that part where it's the real time awareness to where you're going through it and then you're paying attention to what's happening while it's happening?

00;13;44;01 - 00;13;45;00
 
Where am I off there?

00;13;45;16 - 00;14;06;25
 
No, no, not at all. Yeah, that's that's part of it. Again, within that awareness we've got, we'll break it down for we love turning things into systems. I think that's what's allowed XOs to be great is you've got phenomenal, you know, the coaches and, and string coaches and within each section and with their specialties all over the place.

00;14;06;25 - 00;14;31;26
 
And that knowledge end up staying very tribal in nature. And with them learning what access has been able to do really well with systematize a lot of this and have it makes sense and this really makes sense to me. So it's like within real time awareness. There's three things that we're looking at. What you're definitely talking about is, is there's the kind of what we got into receptive like physically what's going on within my body at that time there's emotional awareness.

00;14;31;26 - 00;14;55;28
 
So like what emotions are my experiencing? Like am I, you know, okay, this is difficult. Like in what how am I tackling that? Am I frustrated? Am I, you know, looking at is is as some type of challenge, you know, whatever it is, right? What emotions are bubbling up for you? And then from kind of like a thought pattern awareness.

00;14;55;28 - 00;15;17;08
 
So, you know, what am I thinking? Where am I going with this? Can you this is where like meditation comes into play really really as a tool to teach this, to help you observe your thoughts, like, oh, wow, this is really challenging. Do I immediately go to school I can take this on? Do I have the self-efficacy to say this is challenging, but it's doable.

00;15;17;08 - 00;15;33;14
 
I can do this. I know it's difficult. I've done difficult things before. I'm going to do it or is like, I want to give up I hate this. This sucks. Whatever it is, right? There's no right or wrong within that space, but just being aware of which way you kind of go in that space. So like what are my emotions?

00;15;33;14 - 00;15;42;11
 
What are my thoughts and what's my body telling me doing in the space and being aware of that in real time can can be really challenging yeah.

00;15;42;11 - 00;16;05;13
 
That that's, that's where I think the discipline in those things is probably I'm assuming that the focus here is to get you to understand there's phases of realizations. You broke them down seemingly in chunks of threes, which is a great start, but it's procedural and you've planned for that. And this this is all again, to reiterate, this is all part of the reflective component.

00;16;05;22 - 00;16;10;28
 
We haven't gotten to the to the regulation part or has that kind of mixed into each.

00;16;10;28 - 00;16;48;23
 
Other it certainly ties into it, absolutely. You know, so emotions, right? They'll they're going to bubble up. So they might as humans were designed with these crazy, amazing survival mechanisms. And so what happens is in real time, we take in a stimulus from our environment or even from our internal environment. We might remember a stressful thing in our body is really good and our brains are really good at making something that either hasn't happened or or has happened and isn't happening to us anymore feel very real.

00;16;49;14 - 00;17;13;04
 
And so the stimulus could be from our external or internal environment. It bubbles it up. And then our brain the thing is that stimulus goes through the amygdala, which is at the base of our school, which is the emotive center of the brain after it's also interpreted by the central nervous system that allows us gets us ready for movement.

00;17;13;09 - 00;17;35;23
 
So we're already already ready to move or act and we're already feeling things before that stimulus makes it up into our frontal cortex or frontal lobe, which is where our executive function and that's where we actually cognitively and consciously can start to internalize what this is and so that's designed to help us react very quickly to a life threatening situation.

00;17;35;23 - 00;17;56;17
 
Right. Which was there were a lot more of those back before modern medicine and before our stressors. So it's like these stressful environments. Right. Cool. So my brain is automatically looking at some shaking bushes and interpreting all these different signals, sounds, smells, like it's all those things to say, hey, is that just the wind or a squirrel or is that something a little bit more threatening?

00;17;56;28 - 00;18;16;26
 
And so I perhaps chose to act it helps us with through emotions, ties it to previous experiences of, oh, it was a squirrel. Cool. You know, I might, you know, by the time he gets to the frontal lobe, I can say, yeah, that's not not a big deal. Or is it like, oh, that really resembles a time where I had to get out of Dodge.

00;18;17;03 - 00;18;44;23
 
And so it's we're already like anxious. We're already are our senses are heightened and we might already be a little bit frightened or scared. And so when we get a stimulus that is is sent to us there and the stimulus has shifted, now it's I get you know, someone triggered me because I they said something in a way that someone in a toxic past relationship said something or I had a bad manager or my manager isn't great in there.

00;18;45;00 - 00;19;21;08
 
They're, you know, sending an email in a certain tone and so that starts to trigger. And our body interprets that and our brain interprets then it ties it to a survival mechanism. Oh, if I lose my job, I can't provide for my family. You know, I'm not going to be able to to make things happen. So it bridges this huge gap for us, even though the stressors of change, the response is the same and so we're already fighting against this uphill battle of of the survival mechanism when we have especially stressful or interpretative stress for stimulus into our environment.

00;19;21;08 - 00;19;42;03
 
And that's where the awareness piece can come in being aware of, hey, I'm feeling a certain way. I'm feeling this physical sensation of, oh, I'm sweating or my, my stomach is upset or my heart is racing. There's the interceptor oh, my thought patterns are going, oh, I'm not very good at my job because I screw this up or whatever it is.

00;19;43;05 - 00;20;12;29
 
And then now being aware of that, then we can start to look at regulating in that that space. And then we can start to say, Okay, wow, this anxiety is built to help me survive. Right? There's a purpose for it, but it's not serving me right now. So then how do I, in this case, down regulate my body and my brain to help me come to a more we'll call it productive outcome for this.

00;20;12;29 - 00;20;28;28
 
So that's a long ways. I say it's really challenging. Why it's so challenging to both be aware in the space and also why regulation is so challenging to put into play and why you have to have both. Because if you don't know what you need to regulate you're not aware that you don't. It doesn't matter. We can be all the tools in the world.

00;20;29;03 - 00;20;33;16
 
You're not going be applying it properly. You're going to be trying to eat a bowl of cereal with a pitchfork or something, you know?

00;20;33;17 - 00;20;36;14
 
So it's a big old ball. Remember those?

00;20;36;27 - 00;20;38;16
 
Hey, you know what? Now I'm kind of hungry.

00;20;38;16 - 00;20;42;14
 
So for charter school, come in front of the TV on the table.

00;20;42;27 - 00;20;43;19
 
That's right.

00;20;43;19 - 00;21;08;19
 
Captain Crunch for days right. So I'm so thanks for that. I mean, so there's a couple of things with this to kind of just figure out where it applies in some scenarios. So, I mean, you talked about some workplace scenarios, talked about says anywhere in life, you just basically assessing when you're when you're awake and you look around, things are happening all the time.

00;21;08;19 - 00;21;25;03
 
You've you've regulated it right now. I know you're going to get to that. But just kind of for for all of us trying to figure out what bookmark where we are. You regulated it in a way, too, where you've now understood it enough to say threat, not threat is that we're saying, right, I'm getting up I'm walking here, no big deal.

00;21;25;16 - 00;21;43;24
 
But if I'm now same scenario or I'm getting up, I'm the environment's different. I'm in my tent in the middle of nowhere where I already know that there's threats of bears and wildlife and things like that. I'm getting up needing to go walk over there. I'm more alert. It's different because you're regulation hasn't yet the experience of that particular scenario.

00;21;43;24 - 00;21;54;21
 
So you're developing these patterns that we can maybe simplify our self-talk, right? You're trying to speak yourself through these scenarios. Is that kind of a good gauge for that situation of what you just said?

00;21;55;13 - 00;22;00;18
 
So you're talking about like in an actual scenario where you're out in the wild or, you know.

00;22;00;27 - 00;22;05;13
 
Kind of piecing it together and like this reality component of everything that you broke down?

00;22;05;25 - 00;22;32;20
 
Yes. Yep. So we talk about all the time. Biology will always trump psychology so, you know, self-talk can be great in more of a proactive space, you know, and saying, hey, look, we know that like talking and rewriting even more so helps ingrain things in the brain to to help us overcome. So if you're for example, you know, like your hike or you run or whatever, right?

00;22;32;21 - 00;22;53;27
 
Like if you get to a point where you're actually anxious or you're kind of beyond just kind of walk all of the norms of of, you know, our emotions and our reactions, psychology and psychological tactics like visualization and self-talk, they get a little bit diminished returns to the point where they may not and may not be be helpful.

00;22;53;27 - 00;23;11;23
 
And that's where we use things like breath quite a bit to help us use our biology to try to change the psychology. There's this interesting feedback loop, and I'm pointing between my brain and my body if we're on audio here, right? It's like we think of it as like brain and body, but like it's all the nervous system.

00;23;11;23 - 00;23;31;26
 
It's all it's all linked together. But there's this feedback loop of like my brain in how I thought we talked about how you can relive past experiences, and that will trigger physical response, could be anxiety, could be joy, could be whatever, and then vice versa. We can actually have our bodies say, look, we're in a safe space. You know, we don't have to be stressed out here.

00;23;32;04 - 00;23;51;27
 
And that's where you can kind of calm yourself down or downregulate. And so we use things like breath, we use things like vision, natural light, movements are all wonderful strategies to help us kind of up or down regulate, because there might be times where a lot of us we're talking about downregulation, there's stress and we need to kind of bring ourselves down.

00;23;52;05 - 00;24;13;08
 
There's also like, ah, afternoon low, I'm a little lethargic or I didn't sleep well and I need to be kind of dialed for this coming up. I mean, that's one thing why we talk so much with our special operators. The community that we work with about sleep is like, Man, you're starting this huge deficit. We know you're going to be going and going out at different times.

00;24;13;08 - 00;24;32;27
 
It doesn't matter. You're on the different patterns but sleep when you can because it's always kind of a huge hole to dig out of. But then and you might need to upregulate, Hey, I know I'm going into a dangerous situation. I need to be dialed. I want to have some of those things like adrenaline going through my body because it will focus my attention and energy and I will be more alert.

00;24;33;07 - 00;24;54;07
 
So there's kind of like, okay, turn the dial up. Turn the dial down. That's where a tie is to reflection. Hey, what do I need in this space? And we really try to use especially for Downregulation, but also for up using using biology to help us out and so that's where like breathwork comes into play is a fantastic strategy both directions, so.

00;24;54;17 - 00;25;21;02
 
Got it. Okay. Thanks for that. Yeah. So yeah, the second one I was going to you answered already because then I was thinking about movements. If you're, if you're injured and because of in the rehab process, you're having to address that injury the hesitation, the reluctance to do it because you had the pain receptor is recognizing if I do that, move my knees going to whatever I think my knee is going to do, whatever kind of the same thing, different scenarios.

00;25;21;02 - 00;25;23;29
 
I guess it's just kind of how you're imagining things. Yeah.

00;25;24;12 - 00;25;47;12
 
Totally. Yeah. I mean, what we're talking about, the ability to regulate the ability to kind of get ourselves up to do the hard thing to to, you know, find space and clarity in a stressful situation, very much like especially there's trauma, emotional trauma, like physical trauma. You're going to avoid it. That's a shadow driver that you may or may not be conscious of for a long period of time.

00;25;47;26 - 00;26;19;02
 
And so kind of digging into it in the right way and within the right boundaries is going to be critical and doing it over and over again, practicing that just like with rehab. Right it if you have a phenomenal surgeon, put everything back to back together, if you don't kind of get those reps in of putting it through the range of motion strengthening, you know, getting that confidence and like that's oftentimes a huge portion of rehab is like guys physically how the capabilities to come back from an ACL.

00;26;19;11 - 00;26;37;28
 
But they just it's so tough to trust it there and you've just got to get the reps in. You know, I can change direction, I can change direction, I can change direction. And then when it comes into that kind of chaotic space like on the field, then you don't have to think about it. You don't want to have to be think about it's like you make a make it unconscious.

00;26;37;28 - 00;26;59;21
 
And so it becomes a habit. And so it just like with that emotionally and regulating, putting yourself in those situations, and creating that tolerance to stress is is is really helpful or understanding, you know, putting the reps in to understand that awareness. Like that's where meditation like a lot of people hate it. A lot of people struggle with it.

00;26;59;22 - 00;27;17;02
 
Our CEO, you know, that's my I'm on, I'm on. I work with her a decent amount and that's my goal is to get her to just, you know, spend, you know, 5 minutes a month, you know, just taking, you know, stillness practice and kind of bringing the attention inward with no distractions. That takes practice and you can get better at it.

00;27;17;27 - 00;27;35;09
 
And so, yeah, the injury analogy is, is perfect of, hey, there's something that's driving us in that I'm working around. If I can kind of keep digging into that, keep get those reps in, I'm going to be able to regulate more when there's a little bit more stress. I'm going to be able to understand myself and how I'm going to respond in those situations.

00;27;35;15 - 00;27;40;07
 
And therefore make it a more productive outcome. So, yeah, it's it's spot on.

00;27;40;24 - 00;27;59;08
 
Got it now. Thanks for that, doc. I mean, I now I know what you mean where you're going to bounce back and forth when you try and explain one of the other. So I think we covered the reflection part and we've dabbled in the regulation component and let's dig deeper.

00;27;59;20 - 00;28;31;24
 
Yeah. So I'd say one of the big tools we use is a good representative of up and down regulation is, is breathwork. So we're trying to like, okay, let's make a tangible call and cool. You know, you're going off on bushes and stimulus and you know, things are going to harm me. What I like is it's kind of sounds a little bit out there, but like, okay, let's make it tangible the first thing from a reflective component that we can do is take a few moments proactively.

00;28;31;24 - 00;28;50;03
 
What is the day going to demand of me? Okay. Hey, I've got a podcast that I've got to chat about and try to sound smart for a few minutes. I want to make sure that I do the right things proactively to get myself ready for that. And then afterwards I'm going to say, Hey, well, why didn't, you know, get feedback from Chris and all that kind of stuff?

00;28;50;03 - 00;29;08;06
 
And so cool. Did you know, how did I do with that? And then real time I got to make sure, hey, what is my, my current state, my getting really excited talking about this stuff? Do I need to maybe slow my voice down a little bit? Right. So there's there's that component to it. So finding that space, I think, is really crucial.

00;29;08;06 - 00;29;28;14
 
That's one thing that we straw like that. We we see that high performers struggle with is everybody wants to do more, give me more stuff to do. And we love to focus on being. And so when we're tired, that's where, you know, again, I'll come back to the concept of stillness or meditation or mindfulness, whatever you want to label it.

00;29;29;18 - 00;29;54;29
 
Some we work with a lot of SEO is a lot of athletes, a lot of special operators. Just give me more to do. I give me the perfect exercise, give me the perfect meal plan, give me the perfect strategy. But when you just say, cool, here's what I like you to do. I would like you to sit alone with no distractions in your eyes closed for 5 minutes and people almost like recoil from that.

00;29;55;16 - 00;30;20;14
 
But what we're doing is as we're getting better at understanding what's going on internally, and be depending on what your protocol is for your meditation, you're learning to bring your info, your focus and attention to where you want it to be. And it just I know it sounds maybe, I don't know, base level, but think of just truly how powerful that can be throughout your life.

00;30;20;14 - 00;30;41;16
 
Like when I want to focus and bring my attention to something that's important to me, man. Like, I want to be perfectly I got a two and a half year old, like the days and months are flying by. Do you know he's talking? And I just I still remember and he was just, you know, a little tiny nugget and like, I don't want to I don't want to be distracted from that.

00;30;41;16 - 00;30;57;14
 
And it's, you know, there's everything is is designed to distract us from it, thinking about what happened at work, our phones, you know, everything going on. What do I have to do tomorrow? But, man, that is what's really important to me right now. And I'm going to do my best to make sure that I can focus that. And so you have to practice that.

00;30;57;22 - 00;31;16;28
 
You have to practice not getting distracted and so, you know, that's that's for me what's most important. But for others, it could be, hey, I really want to dial an interview. I want I've got to get up for again, our special operator community like I've got to be perfectly dialed and focus for this mission because it is literally life or death.

00;31;16;28 - 00;31;32;26
 
Right? So like imagine being able to to bring your focus and attention where you wanted to be. So I'm from a kind of awareness standpoint. I think that's that's a great place. Do you have to kind of the book ends of the day for the proactive and retroactive of those are great places to start there a little easier, right?

00;31;32;26 - 00;31;54;05
 
You're a little further removed from, you know, the real time kind of chaos of of life. And then, you know, the meditative component or the stillness practice, there's a bunch of different ways you can do that, but just sit alone and with with nothing, no distractions for a minute, for 2 minutes, for 5 minutes. And and that can be really, really powerful.

00;31;54;05 - 00;32;24;16
 
So that's from a reflective or awareness component and then from a regular literary component, especially in an in the midst of kind of needing to get myself up or bring myself down. We love starting with breathwork, and it's really the simple strategy is the longer your exhale is especially and compared to your inhale, the more signals it's going to send to your brain that you can be in this rest and digest state.

00;32;24;20 - 00;32;54;26
 
So if I have a nice like an elongated exhale there, that's going to start sending signals that, hey, anxiety isn't really what I need here. I don't need my brain and my thoughts to be going a million miles an hour. I just can be calm. And then it's quite the opposite. Like forceful, short exhales you think of like things like athletes or like I always think of like a bobsled or like they slap their legs and then go, right.

00;32;54;26 - 00;33;17;01
 
They're actually up regulating so we have, you know, a ton of different protocols that can go as long as 25 minutes. They can almost put you in a bit of a euphoric state. When you get there. Yeah, but just like short, you know, power breathing, that kind of stuff. Like is, is kind of the, the simplest way to break that down and utilize your breath.

00;33;17;01 - 00;34;03;09
 
So most people, I would say throughout the day, breathe too quickly and put themselves into more of this kind of fight or flight stress response chronically which does not serve us. And so most people, we could benefit from slowing our breathing down just in general. And for those that are like colony loss me and meditation but maybe, you know, I want to do something to help myself, breathwork and even just rhythmically breathing without having a crazy protocol, but just focusing a little bit more on that exhale, rhythmically breathing for 5 minutes a day has actually been shown to have the same chronic benefits as far as like morbidity, blood pressure, heart disease, all those things like in

00;34;03;09 - 00;34;24;05
 
a positive manner in the same way that like meditation can. So like if you're like, I don't really want to meditate, but hey, maybe I'll try that. You're just focusing on my breathing and bringing attention there that can be really beneficial. So you don't you don't need to meditate to calm yourself down a little bit. But there are certainly other benefits of meditative practices.

00;34;24;10 - 00;34;28;02
 
So yeah, it's so that there's a bunch there.

00;34;28;14 - 00;34;28;23
 
Yeah.

00;34;29;09 - 00;34;37;07
 
But so I wrote down some things as you were going through that stuff and so that the kind of the that stuff, I don't mean to undermine what you did.

00;34;37;08 - 00;34;41;12
 
Oh no, it's totally fine. My wife feels the same way. So yeah, that's about what I do.

00;34;41;20 - 00;35;05;03
 
It's, it's you know, the, the do more and doing right. And then it's the, it's the, the, maybe it's not what I believe so much is. It is what it could be but I'll say I believe it to be this way as it's conditioned. We've been led to believe that we have to in order to influence or persuade others that were effective.

00;35;05;19 - 00;35;28;14
 
I'm, if I'm doing more than they'll look at me as I'm being bringing some value. Right. And so I think there's this value component is started in this kind of play games, at least in my life stage, to realize what the value is that is actually giving me the belief that if I do more or if I do X, then I'm going to get the things that I'm expecting.

00;35;28;14 - 00;35;57;29
 
So the expectations that come from it. And so when it comes now to the the to the flow of thought to believe, when you say, oh, you want to do that, let's start with 5 minutes of breath work immediately. Is it is it do you find that it's because you're telling them something that's so far off when they thought they were going to hear from you as far as what the steps would be on how to get to that high performing out element of breathwork?

00;35;57;29 - 00;36;13;05
 
What are you talking about? So it's the resistance of what I've what I've been conditioned to believe or understand as far as what is necessary to become a high performer. Never thought about breathwork. Is it more of a resistance to what they've been conditioned to understand or is it something else?

00;36;13;29 - 00;36;34;19
 
Yeah, you know, that's a good question. It's certainly a little bit different for each for each of us like. Well, again, that goes back to drivers, right? You know what is what is driving the need for this accomplishment, this need to do more? A lot of it is. And this is where we talk with a lot of our clients about a lot of it is not necessarily time management either.

00;36;34;19 - 00;36;56;29
 
It's about attention and focus management and what you want to do. And so people just want they they want to just add more and really that the limiting factor to their their long term, especially their long term performance, not just performance in general, but like we very much about sustainable performance, right? Like we want you to have a long career in the NFL, in the MLB.

00;36;57;04 - 00;37;12;10
 
We want you to come home from all the missions. We want you to be able to you know, continue to achieve what you want to in the workplace, where whoever we're working with, it's all about sustainable performance. And yeah, in the short term, doing more can give you more. You get you get more ROI, right? It's a media.

00;37;12;10 - 00;37;34;18
 
It's also like the same thing of like, oh, why people more people will exercise till the cows come home and CrossFit are the day away and all that kind of stuff. But it's like really the limiting performance to what you want out of your fitness right now is just nutrition. And that requires restraint and that concept of restraint is, I think, where people really, really struggle.

00;37;34;18 - 00;37;58;20
 
And so, you know, it could be they've been brought up with our culturally or from family, from childhood. A lot of the stuff that we work with is, is, is your stems from that. But, you know, for whatever reason, it's like I've got to hustle culture, right? That's also like media. It's like hustle culture, hustle culture. And and so it's slowly starting to kind of shift back a little bit.

00;37;58;27 - 00;38;31;27
 
So we're fighting against those expectations. But I think it's that element of restraint that people are really challenged with. It takes it sounds weird, but it takes more willpower for a lot of folks, especially people who are achievement oriented. Like you don't get anything back right away from sitting along with your thoughts for 5 minutes, just like you don't really get anything back from eating one vegetable bowl like you had a bunch of vegetables over time and suddenly, wow, there's a lot of these wonderful benefits, body composition, blood pressure, you name it.

00;38;31;27 - 00;39;02;04
 
Right. So, yeah, it's it's this we deal with that concept of restraint and helping people to understand the value that like doing less now over the long term is going to pay dividends because you're not going to be burnt out and tired all the time. From Go, go, go. And because you're going to be more present in the time that you do go and do things, you are more efficient at it because hey, you're suddenly more understanding of how you operate internally.

00;39;02;09 - 00;39;06;03
 
And so you can navigate a lot more different scenarios of that makes sense.

00;39;06;11 - 00;39;45;08
 
It does 100%. I'm recalling what and I probably everybody that we talked to, whether it was John or Jan or Anthony I'm Stefan and now you it's implying we'll just call it as a break taking a nap. I mean, been talking to John so you're saying is taking a ten minute nap is going to be beneficial because you're going to reset and the optimization of time is instead of staying awake for 24 hours because you believe it's going to give you an opportunity spend more time doing more but you're going to be slower at it less efficient and probably risk injury in some capacity whereas if you took you know in this case context the ten minute

00;39;45;08 - 00;40;06;27
 
break or nap, you can refocus your body can kind of reset, recalibrate. This is kind of the same thing it sounds like is what you're doing is the same level of decision making that goes into deciding to do something. The restraint component is to say the temptation to feel like you got to do more is the same thing.

00;40;06;27 - 00;40;10;27
 
Is the temptation is to not take a break. Would you say.

00;40;11;13 - 00;40;14;08
 
On vacation, spot on, spot on.

00;40;14;23 - 00;40;35;21
 
The view out there, they're saying that your work life balance is an element of understanding this and that it's tough for whatever it starts with you. It sounds like this is what directing is internalizing, which is the friction part reflection. It's your self. If you understand how you can self-regulate you're saying the biology, I guess, is probably the best way to say it.

00;40;35;21 - 00;40;46;21
 
Through these practices, these techniques, you're going to see the benefit that can be comparable to allow you to make decisions differently to know what sustainable even means, because you'll feel it over time.

00;40;47;18 - 00;41;08;08
 
Yeah. And this this is where for me, it's been really rewarding to dove into a lot of the stuff and putting it into practice for myself because this isn't just for sports, you know, you see the application there, right, of understanding your own abilities and, and having that ability to regulate and calm yourself down in stressful situations, you know, fourth quarter scenarios, that kind of thing.

00;41;08;08 - 00;41;29;15
 
Right? You're going to have an edge over your your competitor right? In the workplace, you know, the ability to kind of have that that ability to stay calm in stressful situations, to be more creative when it's, you know, when the necessity arises to be able to problem solve because you've created that space for yourself to be able to do that.

00;41;30;09 - 00;41;48;24
 
It's going to be critical and certainly just to be a better partner. Right? Oh, I I'm in an argument with my partner. Right. It's it's it's you know, I think what a lot of folks will say is you're never going to find that. You're not going to argue with just the ability to to come to a common understanding and commitment.

00;41;49;07 - 00;42;10;00
 
It's not snapping and saying something that you regret later. Right. Because you said, oh, I'm I recognize this internal state. I understand what I need. I can call myself down and I can then respond, not react. And so, you know, it's it's the ability to bring that to whatever scenario. And yeah, it's it's less about going and finding.

00;42;10;06 - 00;42;26;08
 
I mean, yes, they're breathing protocols. But you said like just breathing rhythmically is going to give you a benefit, right? You don't need to even have a perfect protocol for you. And just creating a space for yourself is is going to be really just so powerful. So.

00;42;26;20 - 00;42;37;06
 
Yeah. Yep. Okay. Well, we scratched the surface, clearly, but anything else to touch on before we close?

00;42;37;24 - 00;43;16;05
 
Now, I just I hope that people take some space after listeners for themselves and just see what happens. Be curious about what's going on in inside, and that's just going to help you in so many ways. You know, it's, it's and can be really rewarding because you're just being more present with yourself, with those around you and then, you know, finding those strategies that work for you once you understand where you need find those strategies and you're going to find that, hey, I'm, I'm at my best a lot more frequently when I'm able to do that.

00;43;16;05 - 00;43;23;19
 
So yeah, go ahead and just take some time and try doing nothing for a minute. See what happens though.

00;43;24;03 - 00;43;26;03
 
You're doing nothing is doing something. Yeah.

00;43;26;13 - 00;43;26;22
 
Yeah.

00;43;27;01 - 00;44;02;00
 
I've learned that when it comes to decision making, when we don't take a position on certain things and then when we sit and lay on the grass and look at the sky and you actually imagine how nice it is to do that and you forget so. Mm. So thanks for that call and thanks for your time. I will, I will say this and take an opportunity to challenge anybody listening then, you know, 30 days try for 30 days, you know, a minute, 5 minutes a day for 30 days journal it just, you know, jot down how you felt before you did it and then when you made the decision maybe jot down why you made the decision

00;44;02;00 - 00;44;24;18
 
to do it. Try it 5 minutes breathwork. If you're not completely sure what that means, you know, find out from EXO's, go on site, find out what's available, maybe Google some things do do whatever it takes unless you have a resource immediately available where you can ask that person Hey, how do I do this? Find out, do for 30 days and let us know what you get back, you know?

00;44;24;19 - 00;44;30;19
 
So Colin, if you're up for it, if, if anybody wants to reach out and connect with you, what's the best way?

00;44;31;18 - 00;44;52;08
 
Yeah, I'm not much of a social media warrior, so probably I'll throw my email out there. See Young at Axios dot com and I always love talking shop. I always love talking about how we can help you. And if you want to understand a little bit more about how to reflect and bring awareness and regulation, your space man all talk your ear.

00;44;52;15 - 00;44;52;25
 
So.

00;44;54;10 - 00;44;56;28
 
Got it. Appreciate your call and thanks for everything you're doing.

00;44;57;14 - 00;44;58;00
 
Yeah. Thanks, Chris.

00;44;58;17 - 00;45;00;08
 
All right, everybody, keep moving forward.

Today we’re getting dialed into training plans and dig deeper into how we need to consider building foundations and how mindset, nutrition, movement, and recovery work together. If pain-free, functional movement is something you want to achieve, listen up, take notes, and go! Best quote I’ve heard in a while “It’s the simple things done savagely well”. Be consistent and find what works for you.

 

From individuals and athletes to businesses or military…Be Ready as we continue the mission to serve.

 

Thanks for listening. We hope you enjoy this episode and please remember to check in on your buddies and family.

 

- https://teamexos.com/

- https://www.linkedin.com/company/exos/

- https://www.teamexos.com/athlete/military

- sunderwood@teamexos.com

- ahobgood@teamexos.com

- https://www.linkedin.com/company/the-andrews-institute/

- http://www.andrewsinstitute.com/

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- https://andrewsref.org/donate/

 

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Episode Transcript:

EXOS is the global leader in human performance and in this episode, we kick off the EXOS series to highlight Anthony Hobgood. As the Senior Director of Performance, Anthony tells us about his humble beginnings and how his early life influences played a significant part in carrying with him his purpose having experienced the many things he helps treat as an EXOS leader and coach. One who dedicates his craft to healing others, Anthony explains the foundation of how EXOS came to be, the programs offered, and what it takes to earn results; a brief summary of the EXOS mission as they commit to serving communities, companies, and our military.

 

Seek to understand as we continue the mission to serve.

 

- https://teamexos.com/

- https://www.linkedin.com/company/exos/

- ahobgood@teamexos.com

- https://www.linkedin.com/company/the-andrews-institute/

- http://www.andrewsinstitute.com/

- https://andrewsref.org/

- https://andrewsref.org/donate/

 

---------------------------------------------------------

 

Episode Transcript:

 

00;00;00;00 - 00;00;29;04

You're listening to the Oracle MAVEN podcast where we bring people together from the veteran affiliated community to highlight employees, partners, organized sessions, and those who are continuing the mission to serve. Welcome to the MAVEN podcast. I'm your host, Chris Spencer. And in this first episode of our EXOS series, I'm joined by our guest, Anthony Hobgood, senior director of performance at EXOS.

 

00;00;29;12 - 00;00;49;04

In this episode, we kick off the series to highlight Anthony, who tells us about his humble beginnings and how his early life influences played a significant part in carrying with him his purpose as an EXOS leader and coach, one who dedicates his craft to healing others. Anthony explains the foundation of how EXOS came to be, the programs offered and what it takes to earn results.

 

00;00;49;07 - 00;01;12;05

Which is a brief summary of the EXOS mission as they commit to serving communities, companies and our military. Anthony's contact details are in the podcast description and you can always find me on LinkedIn. Seek to understand as we continue the mission to serve. Thanks for listening. What's going on, Anthony? Good morning, Chris. How you doing? I'm doing all right, thanks.

 

00;01;12;07 - 00;01;35;07

A little trouble getting in today, did you? Yeah. The three mile bridge coming to work. I got stuck in traffic for a half hour, which was a great way to kick off your Monday morning. But actually, Tuesday morning, Monday, it was like a monday. What did you do over the weekend? My son had a baseball tournament, so I coached a nine year baseball tournament in Fort Walton Beach, Florida.

 

00;01;35;10 - 00;01;59;16

The weather was pristine and perfect. Monday, I cooked out with some friends of ours and built a homemade slip and slide that was four times larger than what you could buy. So cooking ribs and a barrel cooker while your kids run on a 40 yard long slip and slide. That's it was a good day and is a good day.

 

00;01;59;18 - 00;02;19;13

The one we had when I was younger was, what, ten foot? Yes. Usually ended up on the edge of the grass that transitioned into the sidewalk. Belly Burns. Exactly. Yeah. You can. You can go to a Home Depot and buy a big roll of of plastic that makes the best slip and slide in the world for about $15.

 

00;02;19;19 - 00;02;43;03

So it's a great time. It is a great time. Nice. How about you? What was your day yesterday? Yeah, it was great. Thanks for asking. And it was, you know, of course, Memorial Day. And so we do. Well, I do. Family will follow up later, but from my house to the Presidio National Cemetery is just over 26 ish miles, just enough to call it a marathon.

 

00;02;43;06 - 00;03;05;03

And so I yesterday rucked, learned I got baby feet. So footwear is key but but in on the route passed by two cemeteries go Golden Gate Cemetery and then landed at National Presidio National Cemetery which is nice because it's reflection walk and you know just good opportunity to walk through the community and see where we are at the society.

 

00;03;05;03 - 00;03;37;03

So that's that's the idea. Yeah. Good. It was good. Awesome. So today we are talking about the first of our seven episodes Anthony is going to cover expose the organization, how he became a part of it and what the contributions of him at an early age bring it up to his dedication to the field in which he's working and we'll start to hammer out some details that'll just give us some teasers on on what the company's about and and the services that they provide and how it helps our community and others.

 

00;03;37;05 - 00;04;00;05

So, Anthony, if you wouldn't mind just and we talked about it, you can start where you want. Well currently I live in Pensacola, Florida, and our facility access facilities in Gulf Breeze, Florida. My current position now, I'm the senior director of performance for XO Sports Division. Essentially manage the teams and the service we deliver across our our sports training sites.

 

00;04;00;08 - 00;04;23;21

I've been at this location now, actually, I think going on 16 years I've been here. We opened up this location in 2007, so I'm basically then I'm a coach, so I've had my I kind of had my head under the hood for the last six years at this location, coaching, training, athletes, working primarily, working a lot of the military, which I will get into a little bit later.

 

00;04;23;21 - 00;04;46;24

But yeah, I've been here that I've been here a long time been it's been a tremendous, tremendous last six years being here. But yeah, prior to coming here, I grew up in a little small town in Mississippi called Picayune, Mississippi. It's a little town on the Louisiana Mississippi border, just probably 40 miles, 45 miles outside of New Orleans.

 

00;04;46;27 - 00;05;08;13

I grew up there in a little small community, in a little country town. And it's interesting, I was reflecting on this this past weekend. You know, my parents didn't let me play any sports until I was ten years old. And when I started playing sports at ten, it changed my life like I was I was really good at it, just naturally play baseball.

 

00;05;08;19 - 00;05;36;29

Started out playing soccer, but started playing the sports. And that led to going in and playing football in college. So I was playing football at Ole Miss from 2002 to 2006, and that whole journey was just as is another long story that was very, very life changing for me. I think about it quite often and just how all the pieces fell together and how my journey from high school through college and how I even ended up here.

 

00;05;37;02 - 00;06;04;15

But I got into this field because I was an athlete and fell in love with the strength conditioning piece and got my degree in exercise science. And and that's that's essentially the, you know, the catalyst for how I stepped into the human performance field most students do through athletics. And then once we started work on the military, I realized that working with tactical population was really the the gold standard of my field.

 

00;06;04;15 - 00;06;38;18

So. So yeah, that's, that's the big rocks of my of my background. Got it. So small town sports that's a big deal. I mean how seriously was was did the community look at sports pretty seriously and think about think of a little town where on Friday night everybody's at the football game you know and and then growing up in little community that I grew up in, I was around you know, the street I grew up on was named after my last name I grew up on at first when I was a kid was a dirt road.

 

00;06;38;20 - 00;07;08;23

It was called I think my address was Route six, Box 59. That was my address. It was a route under coach. And then as I got older, it was changed to Hobgood Lane. That's because my family owned the land that was there. And so I grew up around all my cousins and I mean, imagine waking up in the summertime as a kid and you've got about four or five cousins your age and acres of woods to explore and bikes to ride, and I mean trails to riding your bike.

 

00;07;08;23 - 00;07;46;03

And it was just that was how it was. And then when I started playing baseball, I wasn't very good initially, but I was just a big athletic kid. And then I started seeing a lot of success really quick. And so it just expanded my network tremendously. So I went from not really having many friends outside of my family to it just exploded my network of people that I knew in my town and friends and in my experience, as you know, when I was 12 years old, we played we almost made it to the Little League World Series and we import Williamsport, Pennsylvania.

 

00;07;46;03 - 00;08;08;13

Like, really, we can really close to make it to Williamsport. But what was interesting was when I we are the town, the city we represented, our team won the state championship in Mississippi. So we represented the state of Mississippi in the Little League regionals down in St Petersburg, Florida. And the city flew us down there on an airplane.

 

00;08;08;16 - 00;08;28;27

Well, my dad and I got on the airplane and it was both our first time ever on an airplane. My dad had never been on an airplane. I was 12 years old. I had never been on an airplane. And so so yeah, that's we flew there and did that. And then and then since I was, you know, I was I was one of those kids that was early bloomer, right?

 

00;08;28;27 - 00;08;47;22

So I was really big as a as a young kid. I mean, shoot, I was some in some cases, as you know, 13, 14 years old, I was larger than the empire that was umpiring the game. And so everybody was always on the ball. Don't you play football? You know, you should play football. You play football. And so in eighth grade I was like, okay, well, I'm going to try this football thing out.

 

00;08;47;23 - 00;09;13;12

And I did that. And and that's when I started playing football. And that also then expanded my, my again, my network of people that I knew even greater. But what really started changing for me was two things. One, I met a guy who ended up becoming my brother in law that married my sister, who really became a mentor to me when I was in high school.

 

00;09;13;14 - 00;09;35;28

And then the combination of him and getting recruited to go to college. So I'd never wasn't even thinking of college, wasn't even my radar and I got an invite to go to a visit to the University of Southern Mississippi, and it's the first time I'd ever set foot on a college campus. And so I started getting recruited for college football.

 

00;09;35;28 - 00;09;58;21

And then I started thinking, Oh, man, I want I want a part of this. I want to be you know, I want I want to do this. And so football was really my catalyst for start to start creating an interest in going to college, you know, without going too deep. Both of my parents dropped out of high school when they were teenagers and got married, and my dad worked hard, manual labor jobs my whole life.

 

00;09;58;21 - 00;10;15;20

My mom, you know, when I was really small, she did everything from job, a school bus to she was a teacher's aide, and then she cleaned houses for a living when I was a kid. And my dad worked manual labor jobs. And it wasn't even my college wasn't even on our radar. It just wasn't something talked about in my house.

 

00;10;15;22 - 00;10;43;15

Yeah. And recruited to put, you know, being recruited to go to college is the first time that that actually opened a whole world to me that I would that I started to explore and that that absolutely changed my life. Got it that that's that's that's an interesting transition baseball to football of course the influence however they were looking at you and it's not uncommon I guess so you're pretty used to it.

 

00;10;43;18 - 00;11;04;17

These things that we indicate sometimes is or uses indicators to point us in a different trajectory. It's amazing how it turns out. On considering things that you never thought that you were able to do. I mean, going not only in a different sport, but then expanding and going to college, that that as a result of that stuff. Yeah.

 

00;11;04;19 - 00;11;27;20

I mean, talk about life skills development, looking at things. That's good. That's good that you and your family were open, of course, because where you are now, what was happening is my what was a time when my mom, who was my brother, my brother in law now went out. You know, he played college baseball and he he grew up in New Orleans and he grew up in a big city.

 

00;11;27;20 - 00;11;46;15

And he had been he had been around the travel song and he sees this young kid who had very little life experience outside of a small town. And he started speaking things into my life, basically saying, hey, man, you could you got a lot of potential. You should you know, you should go to college, you should go play sports in college.

 

00;11;46;15 - 00;12;15;13

You should, you know, And he really was an encourager to me to step out and really painted a picture for me of of, you know, some things I could have accomplished. And long story short, going into my senior year of high school, I was being recruited by LSU, Southern Miss and University of Mississippi, Ole Miss. And I went to a I went to a football camp that that was at LSU, that was put on by Nick Saban.

 

00;12;15;16 - 00;12;37;07

And at that camp, I it was really kind of like a semi camp slash recruiting visit. I tore my ACL at the camp and make a long story short, I had to sit out my entire senior year of high school football. I was back in rehab and was back, you know, for baseball that season. And we had a great year.

 

00;12;37;07 - 00;13;00;13

We won the state championship for the only time in history, in school. History was great, but my all the recruiting to the big schools stopped because I tore my ACL and I wasn't able to I didn't even play my senior year. So I ended up signing a junior college football scholarship and a lot of the smaller schools, you know, were still offering me.

 

00;13;00;15 - 00;13;18;27

Well, I wanted I had kind of set my mind on playing in the SCC. Well, I wanted to go to Ole Miss and my coach who was recruited me, called me and said, Hey, we would love to have you here, but we can't give you a football scholarship. You didn't even play your senior year. So if you find a way to get here, we'd love to have you on the team.

 

00;13;18;27 - 00;13;42;24

But you have to you have to walk on. And I'm like, Well, I can't do that. Long story short, man, I ended up getting an academic scholarship that paid for all of my college, and I showed up to Ole Miss. I passed up a JUCO scholarship and some other opportunities and I went to Ole Miss as an invited walk on on an academic scholarship.

 

00;13;42;27 - 00;14;09;18

And just to give you a picture of what that was like, imagine you are part of the team, okay? You are training, you're practicing, you are, you're in the grind as a team. But then on the team, like after workouts, when players are getting like post-workout, you know, supplements, you can't have it. When the team has like a team meal after practice, you're not allowed to participate or to partake in it.

 

00;14;09;21 - 00;14;31;01

And so I had this like chip on my shoulder of I need to earn every single thing that I get because they're not going to give me anything. So I went from showing up and not allowed to participate in some of the benefits that the team was getting. Even though I was on a team and practicing contributed at a high level.

 

00;14;31;01 - 00;14;55;18

I went from that to to to being to lettering, to actually play in and, and, you know, being on the team. And so anyway, that's that was a whole that was a life experience journey for me of truly realizing that to be on that field on Saturday was more a 100% merit based system that you had to earn.

 

00;14;55;21 - 00;15;17;27

And not just earn, but you had to like you were in the negative, like you were in the negative starting out and you had to go get every opportunity. You had to go take advantage of every opportunity that you have to be able to make it. And and fortunately, I did. So that was that was quite a, I would call a forging moment of my life going through all of that.

 

00;15;17;29 - 00;15;47;18

Yeah. I mean, everything everything that you're saying has me swirling around life lessons, mentorship, encouragement. Yeah, accountability. You know, I mean, the last part itself, and we'll get into it more. I'm hoping. I'm sure we're appreciating injuries or things that prevent you from hitting your potential in this case because of where you are and what you do. I want to be able to plant the seed right now.

 

00;15;47;18 - 00;16;09;08

And as you tell it, as we talk more, is how does that how does all that experience bring now a perspective into the value that you're you're providing to your clients or to customers? I mean, just just the whole idea of saying you're in a bad situation, you're in a situation bad is relative. You're in a situation right now that you don't want to be in in order to get out of it.

 

00;16;09;08 - 00;16;33;01

We're going to we're going to approach it, but you're going to have to work for it. I'm going to give you the give you the answers. You're going to have to study and get the results. I would say I mean, I could I could go. There's even more after that. I could get into it. But I would say if I were to reflect on the biggest thing that I've learned in my life is that think about a human being's life.

 

00;16;33;01 - 00;16;51;17

If you were to track their life the way that you see a stock, think about a stock market graph, right? So you see a graph where the line is increasing, then it drops and then it increases and it drops and it increases and it drops and increasing it drops. But then the overall slope of that graph is this gradual increase.

 

00;16;51;20 - 00;17;18;20

I think our lives are that same way where when I look back on what I would consider very challenging and hard circumstances in my life, those are the times where I grew the most don't grow when things are easy, you grow when things are hard. So I began to just embrace the hard things, like if something is hard, it's the opportunity to get better as opportunities to grow.

 

00;17;18;23 - 00;17;49;26

If things were always easy, I would, I wouldn't. I wouldn't learn anything. It would just stagnate, you know, I'd become stagnant if not go backwards. So every hard thing I see in my past was a very, very important period in my life that made me who I am today. So therefore, if I'm going through something challenging right now, I'll look back on that this years from now and realize that that was that was beneficial for my growth.

 

00;17;49;29 - 00;18;15;04

Was there a sense of ownership as far as paying it forward when it comes to that of those that put helped you get into that situation where it's also included in that reflective moment of how are you going to push through the hardships? Yeah, I mean, is there like a sense of ownership in myself or you said, Yeah, and yourself, it's, it's somebody gave me the chance to, to do the things that I'm doing now.

 

00;18;15;05 - 00;18;51;29

Without that, I have to push through it because I owe it to those who supported me along the way. Yeah, yeah. 100%. I def You definitely do. I mean, you, you're, you're going to get opportunities in your life. Okay. When I say opportunities, an opportunity may be as something as simple as you meeting somebody in the office for the first time and the way that you interact with them, like every day is every day and how you conduct yourself is an opportunity for you to expand yourself as a person to become better and it's essentially, what are you going to do with those opportunities?

 

00;18;51;29 - 00;19;17;05

Are you going to take it back? Are you going to take those opportunities for granted, or are you going to approach life with a sense of gratitude and realize that man, that, you know, I'm thankful for being here, I'm thankful for the app and I'm thankful for my employer. I'm thankful for the people around me. And I use this opportunity to improve myself and improve those around me like a constant state of growth.

 

00;19;17;07 - 00;19;35;21

And so so yeah, I definitely think there's an obligation there. And I think that is I think that obligation is founded in the concept of gratitude. You know, like I'm grateful to be here, therefore I'm going to take advantage of this opportunity and not take it for granted if that made any sense at all. But that's my mindset now.

 

00;19;35;21 - 00;20;00;13

Immediately I wrote it down. If I ever wanted a soundbite, that was it. Yeah. I mean, that's a it's a very powerful statement. How, how, how people look at the things that are giving them. It's offering them everything, you know, relatively good or bad matters less, but all of it is now factor that's based off of the foundation that somebody laid out for you to be where you are.

 

00;20;00;16 - 00;20;27;17

So gratitude is the is the key for sure in this. And we we we have said this many times. Well you know, as we'll get into a little later, you know, the founder of our company is, you know, Mark Verstegen, right. Mark Verstegen founded EXOS back in 1999. And as when I came into this company, I was giving lots and lots of opportunities like I had.

 

00;20;27;21 - 00;20;49;00

We had special operations groups inside the military that were inviting us in and to come in and work with them. And the person that they got was me. And there's a, there's a tendency, because of your own selfish human pride, to think that, Oh, I'm getting invited here because of me and because I'm good at what I do.

 

00;20;49;02 - 00;21;07;24

But the reality is, no, you're not getting out of there because of me. I'm getting invited there because of the the the work that was laid before me by great people like Mark statement, like I'm coming there for the name of my shirt, not because of Nate, not because of who I am, because of Mark, because of that was because of the people who came before me.

 

00;21;07;24 - 00;21;32;16

Therefore, I have to through two things. Number one, I have a I better be grateful for that because if it wasn't for them, I wouldn't be asked to come here. Let's get a clear to I have an opportunity. I have an obligation to be good stewards, be a good steward of this opportunity, and and basically do a great job.

 

00;21;32;19 - 00;21;59;23

Right as much This is much bigger than me. And so I see a lot of people today who have tremendous privileges that that that they did not earn that is just there. But they don't have any sense of gratitude for what they have. They don't have the right perspective about it. They don't understand it. They take for granted that you can go to your waterfall, sit and turn it on, and clean drinking water just comes out.

 

00;21;59;25 - 00;22;25;23

They take for you, take for granted that I can go flip on my light switch and my light bulb comes on. I don't realize that what it takes for that to happen. Okay. And so anyway, I think a the right perspective leads to a healthy dose of gratitude, but also a healthy dose of ownership and responsibility to to be good.

 

00;22;25;25 - 00;22;51;00

Yes, to all of it. Okay. Well, that's that's a if anybody out there is not picking up what we're laying down there, this is this is the the attitude in the brand. And I can say that and I'm oversimplifying it, not doing it justice, but the relationship between individuals that are performing on behalf of others, in this case, you just got it.

 

00;22;51;02 - 00;23;15;18

So now let's talk about EXOS. So let's talk about the founder. Let's talk about the premise in which the organization was created, what it's serving, the growth that it's experienced, and then slide in there. Anthony, if you wouldn't mind, please. You know, so you're you're out of college and you start to consider what you're going to do next.

 

00;23;15;18 - 00;23;36;22

How did you land here? And kind of as best you can make it both a minor. Yes. So I'm at Ole Miss playing football. I had worked really hard and in the spring of 2005, I was going to my junior season and I was in line at the starting position as the full back on the football team was mine to lose.

 

00;23;36;24 - 00;23;58;01

I had paid a lot of dues to be in that position and in the spring training I had my first concussion and medically was not cleared to continue to play. And so I had worked really hard to, you know, I played I was I was playing, I was on special teams and was in the rotation. But I wasn't a starter that worked really hard to become a starter.

 

00;23;58;03 - 00;24;27;00

And then here it here what seems to be the rug getting pulled out from underneath me? I wasn't playing anymore. Well, my coaches wanted me to stick around the program and just like, help coach be like a student coach, like intern as a coach. Well, I didn't want any part of that, but I loved the training piece. So I started working in the in the weight room with the strength staff, and I finished out my time at Ole Miss, you know, as a volunteer and as an intern on the strength staff.

 

00;24;27;00 - 00;24;53;27

Well, I was seeing my coaches. We were opening up the weight room at 530 in the morning to train athletes. Well, then you're you'd be there at 6 p.m. at night training the baseball team and that lifestyle of you can't do anything other than just work. I didn't want that because personally I had a lot of ambition of having a family one day and I'm going to go to coach my son's baseball team.

 

00;24;53;27 - 00;25;28;24

If I had a son right, I wanted to be able to have a life outside of my work. I didn't want to just be one dimensional. And so long story short, my my Bama can ex professor at Ole Miss. His name was Dr. Chip Wade. He got the director of research position at a place called the Andrews Institute in Gulf Breeze, Florida, and he called me in his office one day and he said, Hey, I'm going to be going down to Gulf Breeze to run research at the Andrews Institute, which was an orthopedic surgery center for Dr. James Andrews, who's one of the most renowned orthopedic surgeons in the world.

 

00;25;28;26 - 00;25;53;19

And they're going to run a human performance facility at that campus. And they want to integrate human performance into the campus. And they're talking with this company out of Arizona called Athlete Performance. And it looks like athletes performance is going to come in and run the performance center at the Andrews Institute, and they are the leaders and tumor performance globally.

 

00;25;53;22 - 00;26;14;17

If you're an elite athlete and you want to go to private training facility athletes, performance is the place to go. Well, I had never heard of it and I said, man, I'd be. It sounds like a great opportunity to go and be a strength conditioning coach in the private sector. And oh, by the way, I get to go to grad school and they'll pay for it'd be like a G position.

 

00;26;14;20 - 00;26;34;11

I said, Let's do it. So I moved down to I moved down to Pensacola. I'm leaving out a lot of details here, but I moved down to Pensacola and was a grad assistant in the Bahamas in a research lab for the Andrews Institute. And I worked in the biomechanics research lab and went to the University of West Florida and got my master's degree.

 

00;26;34;11 - 00;26;51;14

And I did that at nighttime. Well, I wanted to get my foot in the door of the athlete's performance. And so I was I was as much as I could hang out with the staff and help and take the trash out if I see them cleaning out, grab a broom. And I just started volunteering with athletes performance because we were in the same space.

 

00;26;51;16 - 00;27;17;15

And anyway, I got an opportunity. They hired me as a part time coach because they, they, they sold a high school football speed training program over the summer. That was a hundred athletes coming in here to train and they let me come in and run it. And so that was where I cut my teeth with athletes performance. And then when I when I was I was part time and then I became full time when I graduated in oh nine.

 

00;27;17;18 - 00;27;52;16

And so but here's what I didn't realize, what I what I learned by coming here was I'd learned I'd learned about this company at the time. Athletes performance was a very small company, and it was it was founded by Mark Verstegen in 1999, and back in the nineties Mark Verstegen was at IMG and he left img to at the time was to create something that didn't exist and he wanted to create a training facility, not just a facility, but think about a training experience where an athlete had everything that they needed.

 

00;27;52;16 - 00;28;35;07

In one location. You had physical therapy, you had performance specialists, you had dietitians, you had massage therapists, you had all the different professionals in one location, but not just there, but they were there seamlessly integrated as a staff by their culture and also a methodology. So you walk in as an athlete and you have this multidisciplinary team surrounding you, all working together to help you reach your goals, whether it's recovering from an injury, whether it's preparing for an event or just training in the off season, you had a place that was like a sanctuary for pro athletes and he created that.

 

00;28;35;09 - 00;29;03;25

He took all the he took what we knew and human performance and basically packaged it into a system that became known as the access methodology, the access training system. And that system, rightly understood, could can be manipulated in an infinite number of ways to help anybody, whether you are, you know, an athlete or not an athlete, have a healthy lifestyle or prepare for any kind of training or event.

 

00;29;03;25 - 00;29;39;20

And so so yeah, he he started that company in 99 and built something very, very special that became a magnet to pro athletes globally which which was the catalyst for the military coming and saying, how can we take what you guys do and apply it to our world? Humble beginnings, it seems in that story, something a part of your life you've demonstrated through storytelling is gravitate towards that opportunity.

 

00;29;39;23 - 00;30;02;08

And you mentioned some of the things that you'll do just to be around those things, you know, clean in. And then I work a couple of years without getting really paid anything for it. Yeah, paid a lot of dues. Right. But what you earned, I mean, it's priceless. You know. But that's really true, though. Like, like I was I was I was earning number one.

 

00;30;02;08 - 00;30;29;21

I was learning because here's what I realized, Chris, is what we do. What I do for like, when I'm training an athlete, you know, I have a master's degree in extra science, I have my CSCS certification, but 99.9% of what I do, I learned from on the job training by doing it and by being mentored by the people and the education and the degrees and the certifications only give somebody a foundation.

 

00;30;29;21 - 00;30;54;03

It gives you an understanding of the human body and it gives you essentially you to, you know, how to speak the language, but you don't know how to do it. And so you have to basically become an apprentice and learn from others for a period of time before you can really, what I would say, do a great job at training somebody.

 

00;30;54;05 - 00;31;19;10

Yep. Sounds like there's continuity between that and the approach. So what is what is so Exos interesting name. What does it stand for itself? Well, prior to 2014, our company's name was Athlete Performance and Mark had had wrote a book called Core Performance, and we actually had athletes perform it. He had two brands. It was kind of two brands at the time.

 

00;31;19;11 - 00;31;41;10

You had athletes performance that was geared more toward athlete facing populations and you had core performance that was geared more toward general population. And we actually we actually opened up our core performance training facilities in California that was geared more toward Gen POC. Well, it was there was it was kind of confusing, you know, having two brands. But in the same company.

 

00;31;41;12 - 00;32;05;10

And then when we were going to the table to to expand our reach and influence and working with different corporations like Google, for example, or the military, when you're when you're talking to a Google or the military, the first response is, well, we're not athletes. You know, you see athletes performance, but we have a different population with different job and a different demand.

 

00;32;05;10 - 00;32;43;16

So how was that resonate? It didn't resonate very well. And then those different non-athletic worlds. So in 2014, as we began to expand our impact into military and and into serving employees and big corporations, we went through a complete rebranding and we went away from the athletes performance and the core performance brand to a brand called EXOS. The name EXOS comes from the word EXOSphere, which is the outer level of the worlds of the Earth's atmosphere.

 

00;32;43;18 - 00;33;11;27

So from just a figurative standpoint, it it's it stands for the highest level on earth, really. If you look at the if you look at the the X s, the x is broken into four little pieces. If you look at the logo. And those four pieces represents our four pillars of our of our of our methodology, which is mindset, nutrition, movement and recovery.

 

00;33;11;29 - 00;33;44;12

So what we if you think about our our our our methodology from high level, if we're working with military general population employees for organizations or elite athletes, if you want to optimize your performance, if you want to have sustainability long term, you need to be firing on all four of those cylinders. Mindset, nutrition, movement and recovery. Okay? If you look at the oh for the in the name excess, you'll notice is broken into two parts.

 

00;33;44;14 - 00;34;15;23

Well, and part of our methodology, we have a concept we call the recovery cycle, which is work plus rest equals success. Another way of saying it is work plus rest equals adaptation. That is one of the core fundamental principles of our system is if you're seeking an adaptation, you have to have work, which is some type of stimulus paired with breast, which is your recovery in order for adaptation to occur.

 

00;34;15;25 - 00;34;38;21

All right. And if you think about that equation, why that's important is if you were to if you think about how, you know, example will commonly used as if you look at how calluses form on your hand. Okay. So if you were to rub your hand on concrete or sandpaper on your hand, right. You do it for a period of time with the rest your body is going to adapt and your skin is going to thicken.

 

00;34;38;21 - 00;35;02;05

And former callus will in order for the callus to form, what is more important, the stimulus or the rest? Well, the answer is both. Like you can't have one without the other. And so what, Chris, why that's important is what that means is, is as an athlete, personally, I only focused on my training. I thought that my training is where I make my improvements.

 

00;35;02;07 - 00;35;26;19

And I didn't make a I didn't put a priority on how I recovered. And so as a college athlete, I was training really hard, but I would stay up late at night and I wouldn't prioritize like how I took care of my body. And so if you have the proper mindset, you're going to value how you manage your recovery just as as as much as you value how you put a training stimulus on yourself.

 

00;35;26;22 - 00;35;57;02

And so, again, going back to to the to the logo, you ask me what does that mean That that is essentially like outer atmosphere of the earth. That's where the name excess comes from. And as you kind of peek into the actual logo itself, you'll see our four pillars built into the X, you'll see the recovery cycle built into the oath, and that concept of mindset, nutrition, movement, recovery and work stress, equal success really is at the core of our methodology and how we serve people.

 

00;35;57;04 - 00;36;27;00

That's awesome that the connectedness in itself, in the brand and how it brings together through the words and the imageries. I mean, it makes sense. And you're right, always a student. I'm learning, especially in the fitness area where people like me have been making attempts at trying to be physically fit for decades. It's always working hard. Nobody brags about how much rest you're giving your body or how much recovery options that you've planned for.

 

00;36;27;03 - 00;36;52;21

I mean, the good ones do, right? Right. So so in that transformation, I can't help but to bring up the reflective effort to go into the brain connectedness because talking about how how people become aware of what organizations do you know, a lot of us will put myself included. I'll put weight into like we talked about the imagery.

 

00;36;52;21 - 00;37;14;04

I'll look at the words, I'll look at the company name. I won't make the association. So then I dismiss it and move on. I'm gathering that in that and I'm oversimplifying it. That's part of where you your organization had realized that in order for us to be more effective, expand the reach and have people gravitate towards the offerings that we have.

 

00;37;14;06 - 00;37;35;16

We have to be able to symbolize that in the name, in the words to get the hook, if you will, to get them to realize what we're doing. And so in that evolution where you change the name, what does that done for the organization to help simplify that process of people becoming able to connect what your name is and what you do?

 

00;37;35;18 - 00;38;01;12

Yeah, I think I think if you look prior to that, that brand change, it was the name I guess cured a stigma with it, right? Well, first of all, I'll say this like if you want, if there's a back up of the reason that access is where it is today is because of the character of the values and the humility of Mark stigma.

 

00;38;01;14 - 00;38;22;13

When Mark started this company, he didn't name it for Steeg and performance. He made it athletes performance. And what that essentially means is we have an athlete centric approach to what we're doing. We're going to put the athlete in a center and we're going to ask this question what is best for the athlete? And that's not what's best for me, what's best for my image or my career.

 

00;38;22;13 - 00;38;52;07

But what's best for the athlete. You're putting the athlete in the center. And so that that values that value structure of of really elevating the individual that you're serving over yourself was the catalyst for our growth as a company. Because if it if it wasn't for that, our athletes performance would still be a tiny, small little company in Arizona where elite athletes were trained in what was stagnant.

 

00;38;52;07 - 00;39;11;20

It would still be their coaching every day. But because of the I'm going to I'm going to do I'm not going to start going to be about me. It's going to be about the individuals that were to serve us. That's allowed us to reach all the people that we've reached over the years. I mean, thousands and thousands, if not millions of people that we've impacted.

 

00;39;11;22 - 00;39;36;27

And then again, as you as you think about the the name and the brand, you know, the moment you see athletes performance, you automatically associate, you know, the stigma of a training for sport. And when you disconnect from that stigma and you look at it, do you know, you're not associated with that. The name EXOS now doesn't carry that.

 

00;39;36;27 - 00;40;01;04

Oh, it's just for an athlete like this. This is a this is a group of people that can help me, whether I am again, if I'm in the military or if I'm just looking for how to combat my sedentary lifestyle that my office job gives me. This is a brand and a system that can help me accomplish any of those things.

 

00;40;01;06 - 00;40;21;19

And it just doesn't it's not pigeonholed. I'm used to, you know, to 1 to 1 area, which is one of the reasons that we wanted to get away from that name in the first place. It makes sense. It was a nice, nice way of explaining it. I mean, it was clear and concise. And the thing is, is the reality is because I am one that didn't really understand the depth of those offerings.

 

00;40;21;25 - 00;40;52;28

So for everybody out there, EXOS is the primary fitness center management company for Oracle. And wherever there's a fitness center in our locations, there's EXOS. And if one were to go to our headquarters, you would see a very nice facility with an outstanding staff that until you actually have the conversation, you would just think it's fitness center because you're you're conditioned to just realize whatever a gym looks like and you're like, Oh, it's got stuff in there.

 

00;40;53;05 - 00;41;16;00

There's some people stand around, help in training, what have you. But I will advocate for this. If you're curious about what else can be offered to you and you know that you need something else other than just the physical component, you need to have a conversation and be curious with the staff members and could do this anywhere to kind of test what would Anthony's describing it, what EXOS is.

 

00;41;16;01 - 00;41;58;13

It's it's the holistic view that encompasses all the elements, the pillars, all the elements of what an individual needs to plan for. Because one if one of those is deficient, that's not going to get you to where you believe you want to be, where you can be your potential. So that's the element, which is what got us to sit here today and introduce this seven episode series of EXOS the depth of EXOS today we're just talking about the introduction and some at the very high level, but it's to set the foundation of the people that EXOS brings in which Anthony's talked about who he's developed to be, from where he started to where he is.

 

00;41;58;13 - 00;42;22;27

That's an element that's a good symbolic range of the type of individuals that you'll be working with when you talk about EXOS. Well, we'll get into that a little bit more detail now because I am curious and there's more to share. But just just to be clear, the the realization that everybody has to have on how we're how how you play a part in society is to understand where you need to be better.

 

00;42;23;00 - 00;42;59;01

And that comes with realizing how well rounded of a perspective you should have on the pillars, because they all play a part in each other. So now, now that we have a better understanding of the cultural component which traversed from an old way of of presenting the value athletic performance, focusing on like you call it, like a pigeonhole sort of to where now people just misunderstood that to be only specific to a demographic, a specific demographic that is moral, all encompassing of anybody.

 

00;42;59;03 - 00;43;30;16

What what organizations or what other demographics are you specializing in now with what you're offering? Well, you have at our at our training facilities, you'll see here you're going to see that we work with the spectrum of athletes from youth athletes, high school athletes, sports teams, college athletes, pro athletes of all sports. We also have extensive experience working with the military, which is really my favorite, my most favorite thing that we do.

 

00;43;30;18 - 00;43;53;00

And very thankfully, you know, a lot of the work that we did in the military, we have done military was originated out of our facility here in Florida. And so if you think about the broad reach of of access, every spectrum of athlete and in in even every spectrum of of military personnel. So there's a think about the life cycle of in the military.

 

00;43;53;02 - 00;44;14;28

If you're young in your career versus you're in the middle of your career, you're 20 years in, you know, we have solutions for both of those. You've been injured and you're trying to get back to the, you know, operational capacity. We have programs for that. That's that is our that's our our key program in Florida. We call it the Accelerated Return of Duty program.

 

00;44;15;00 - 00;44;41;20

And so that program is built around this concept that you have an injury that has that prevents you from doing your job. You come here and we take you to an immersive experience. That is a monologue that we help you get back to where you're able to go back and do your job. So there's that. But then there's also as you begin to transition out of the military, your goals change, right?

 

00;44;41;20 - 00;45;16;19

You're you're trying to stay fit for operational fitness. Well, then as you retire, you're not trying to maintain that level of operational readiness. You're just looking for I want to feel good. I'm going to wake up in the morning in my back, not hurt. I want to maintain a level of fitness for my health and longevity. And so then whether again, whether I'm early in my career, whether I am operational, whether I'm injured, trying to get back to operational status or retired and looking for health or longevity we have plans for all of those.

 

00;45;16;21 - 00;45;34;19

And then if you think about it, this and probably the same concept for somebody who's, you know, just general population, we're all at one point in time play sports or you have these different goals. But then at some point time training is really reduced down to I just want to be healthy and be able to function and live the life that I want to live.

 

00;45;34;22 - 00;45;59;00

And so EXOS is motto now is we help you get ready for the moments that matter most to you wherever you are. Right? And then if you if you look into the corporate setting, you, you know, you may not be training for a particular event or something that requires you to perform at your peak. However, you know, these days we do most of our work on computers.

 

00;45;59;00 - 00;46;26;06

And so you're sitting at a desk for 6 hours a day, you know, how do I get out of that position and and go and activate my body in a way that allows me to maintain a level of cardiovascular fitness, you know, muscular strength and movement in my body to where I can still thrive as a person and live the life that I want to live, even though I'm not I don't have any particular performance related goals in terms that relate to sport or my job.

 

00;46;26;08 - 00;46;52;11

And so again, I'm an athlete or I'm in the military or I am working as a as a employee for a corporation, I still, you know, wherever I'm at there, we we serve that whole spectrum of individual needs that's solid. I mean, that's I guess the question I would have then is how do you how do you plan for with the staff?

 

00;46;52;11 - 00;47;17;26

How does the staff learn the component of discovery? I'm going to say discovery, but you're asking questions and finding goals. I mean, there's got to be at some point, not only the hard skills that you have, bringing to the table, learning how to to work with bodies and then all of its functions, but how the conversations going with people that want to learn exactly what it is that people say and how it translates and what they mean.

 

00;47;17;29 - 00;47;42;06

Yeah. So if you really if you really zoom out and look at what it is that we do, we take the needs and the wants of people and we build game plans from that. And so you, you find out what somebody needs through a process of evaluations and that can be different depending upon where you are. But here at this, we're out we're at our performance training facility here.

 

00;47;42;09 - 00;48;06;21

When somebody shows up, we take them through an in-depth physical therapy and email to find out about injury history to to to have to move and and discover other dysfunctions in their movement. Do they have pain with all of that? Gives us gives us information about needs. Okay. We'll take them through a nutrition consultation to find out what their goals are.

 

00;48;06;21 - 00;48;26;25

From a nutrition standpoint, are you trying to maintain your body weight, lose body weight, increase body weight, change your body composition? What are your goals there? Well, that needs assessment for body comp or for nutrition standpoint drives the plan and game plan for how we support someone a nutritionally an improved form of performance standpoint. We have performance evals.

 

00;48;26;25 - 00;48;50;15

We take our people through. That usually takes the form of doing what's on top of force plates where we can look at how they how they generate and exhort force. And so we have a we have a performance evals, nutrition evals and physical therapy evals that gives us information about needs. Sometimes you don't even know the things that you need from there.

 

00;48;50;15 - 00;49;12;12

We do. We do a a consultation where we find out what somebody wants. And that's a that's essentially sitting down with somebody having a conversation seeking to understand what are their big picture goals and the short term goals, like what are you trying to accomplish while you're being here? And we take those that combination of needs and wants and we build a game plan that fits that.

 

00;49;12;15 - 00;49;39;16

Now, if you zoom out and say, well, how like that same concept, the Navy came to us many years ago, the Navy, and they said, Hey, we hired we have all these fitness instructors that train our sailors across the entire force. There's no integration or it's all just it's all siloed. And in terms of how we do it, can you guys help us build a training program for our sailors?

 

00;49;39;18 - 00;50;05;14

And we said, absolutely. So we went out to the Navy and they took us aboard their large ships. They took us aboard aircraft carriers into submarines, onto their actual gyms that they have. That's a military base. And they said, Can you build us a program that whether you were at a full working gym out on base, if you're on an aircraft carrier or in a submarine, then you can still do it.

 

00;50;05;16 - 00;50;25;09

And so we built a program for the Navy called the Navy's program, which stands for Naval Operational Fitness and Fueling series. And we built that. And if you look it up, you look up NAF, Naval Operational Fitness and PHENIX areas, you will see a program that 100% of that was built by EXOS. And how do we build that?

 

00;50;25;09 - 00;50;47;05

We had to go in and seek to understand what are the needs, what are the constraints, what's the environment, what are you guys asking for? Who's the problem, what population we're working with? And and so we built that program and I was part of the team that went out and ran education courses with all of their all of their fitness instructors for the Navy, for the for the Navy.

 

00;50;47;07 - 00;51;14;19

And we ran these education courses where they're with their teams going through our training methodology and actually diving into the actual training program self. And so that's just an example of seeking to understand it before you go build a game plan. The performance code we have is called Learn, design, deliver, refine. And so you learn about somebody. You design a game plan, you deliver the game plan, right?

 

00;51;14;19 - 00;51;33;28

And then you riff and then you refine the game plan. And it's a constant thing about a feedback loop, learning design to deliver, refine, learn, design, deliver, refine. You constantly are doing that with people that you're working with or organizations you're working with. The idea there is in fact the growth, the growth pattern, right, is as things evolve and change, you're constantly reassessing.

 

00;51;33;28 - 00;51;58;17

So I, I can see why it's successful. You're out there putting in front of everything that you're doing. The intent, if it's not the name, it's the people and the way people conduct themselves. It's the the manner in which the professionalism and the brand and the caring of the individuals paying it forward for the foundation that's been built, it's the continuity between an expectation and hope.

 

00;51;58;19 - 00;52;17;01

You know, an individual that is in, I'm sure you know, in front of you is there's hope. A lot of you know, for me it would be desperation. I'm like, I'm in a place right now I'm not familiar with and I'm I'm struggling to accept it because I'm limited in the things that I used to do. Well, I can't do as well now.

 

00;52;17;03 - 00;52;42;10

And I'm hoping that you can help me. So with that comes with the confidence in what you're doing individually as you represent the organization. But the approach I think, is it's an outstanding approach because it's incorporating the factors that not only makes sense, it gives us the confidence in trusting you to help reshape whatever it is that we're needing and wanting.

 

00;52;42;12 - 00;53;13;24

Yeah, I suppose we can leave it there because we don't want to give too much away for the next couple episodes, but that's been my head. What what else would you like to share that we haven't yet covered? So if you really think about our our work with this other military just really big picture of man probably back 2005, I believe there were some groups inside of the special operations community that that came to service and said, we want to seek to understand what you guys do and apply it to our world.

 

00;53;13;26 - 00;53;44;13

And so back when we opened this facility in 2009, we became kind of the hub where a lot of members of Special Operations community would come here for training. And we created a program that we called the ARD Program, which stands for Accelerated Return of Duty. And these military service centers would come here for an immersive experience where they'd get physical therapy, nutrition and training and Chris, the amount of lives that we were able to change was was remarkable.

 

00;53;44;15 - 00;54;03;17

One one key person that that came at that time was was Marcus Letrell. Right. So I was somebody had gave me the book Lone Survivor and I was reading it, actually read it like three days. And while I was actually reading the book, I walked in the lobby and I looked up and it was Marcus sitting in the lobby.

 

00;54;03;19 - 00;54;22;29

And he had shown up because he had heard about our program and he needed some help. And so he came in and we surrounded him like we do everybody else. And and he stayed here for months and we trained and rehabbed him and fed him and all of that. Well, it had such a profound impact on him when he was leave.

 

00;54;22;29 - 00;54;54;18

And he he wrote a check and he said, I want to pay for someone else to receive what I received. Well, at that time, we didn't really have we didn't have anything set up to receive a donation. And so that started this concept of, well, what if we could set something up to where we could receive donations? So we partnered with the Andrew's Institute Research and Education Foundation, which is an upstairs part of our building, which is a nonprofit arm of the Andrew's Institute.

 

00;54;54;18 - 00;55;23;24

Dr. Andrew's is his nonprofit, and we created a designated fund when we needed the Eagle fund, and we started raising money to pay for the training and the cost of this program for military service members. And Chris, we started out doing cookouts like in the facility. We built presentations and went to churches and gave a presentation on what we're trying to do and asking people to get behind and support it.

 

00;55;23;26 - 00;55;49;28

And we eventually secured a grant from the state of Florida, and the state of Florida actually pays money on a reoccurring basis every year to fund the Eagle Fund. And we take that money. And at this facility we have about 120 individuals that year from so com that come to our facility that we take care of and they average about a month to stay in debt to be in here.

 

00;55;49;28 - 00;56;19;28

So and then the last since we started the Eagle Fund we have we have service I think right at our over 2000 service military service membership. So just at this facility alone and that the relationships and the experiences that we've had through that have been remarkable. That was also the catalyst where the military says, Man, you guys, we want access at our place.

 

00;56;20;01 - 00;56;41;15

So that started us with some staffing contracts inside of so com a different units where we went in and then brought staff to be there just from the for those units that actually we actually started a we had a contract with so com when we were in education we ran these tactical performance mentorships which is where we teach human performance trainings.

 

00;56;41;18 - 00;57;03;23

The concepts that we do every day. We, we talked to the military and so in a in a span of, I believe about two years, we had 200 service members come through our facility that we taught education to. And I could keep going. I mean, we went very, very in-depth with how we've been able to interact and impact the tactical community.

 

00;57;03;23 - 00;57;29;16

And it's been an absolute incredible experience over the last 15 years. And and today, this morning, we had 13 service members show up this morning to come into the program. So we'll be busy, busy for the next month surrounding these individuals with training and nutrition, physical therapy, and all of them show up with a goal. The goal may be an yard and I want to get back to my job.

 

00;57;29;18 - 00;57;50;22

The goal may be I've been injured by my career and I'm about to retire and I want to have quality of life. So wherever they are and whatever their goal, it is, our our, our responsibility that we have is to help them reach that goal. So that's kind of in a nutshell. And how we've been able to work with an impact.

 

00;57;50;22 - 00;58;27;29

That community that's been that's been that's been the highlight of my career that's amazing and it what other programs are there that you have that's relative to the different types of individuals looking for help. So we've talked about the military. It's talk fitness centers. So as the primary fitness center management organization for Oracle, what would be in this case an example for that similar like program Individuals come in, they ask for one thing or is the same process followed for them to assess what what they actually need and then the recommendations?

 

00;58;28;02 - 00;58;51;05

Yeah. So depending upon our location, the if our process may look a little different. But in a nutshell, what you have access to, you you have access to in-person training right where you are, you are, you are you have a professional on location that can be a guide for personal training journey, right? We also have remote offerings, right?

 

00;58;51;05 - 00;59;12;09

So you have we have an app called Access Fit that's phenomenal where you got programs on that app that you can that is based out of our whole system. Our whole system is integrated to that experience there. And there are programs you can you can you can use all of access fit. There's live programs. You can sign up for this coaching consultations.

 

00;59;12;09 - 00;59;47;19

You can sign up for three access there. And then there's the experience. We call it the game changer, which is essentially like a deep dive into the overarching mindset, which is the most important pillar that have because my mindset is the glue that holds everything together and it is the vehicle which propelled me forward. And so those are whether whether it's an in-person experience, whether it's a digital experience or a remote experience or experience dealing specifically around my mindset.

 

00;59;47;21 - 01;00;10;02

We have we have solutions in that that are really encompass all of that. So what we try to do is we want to make we want to we want to be an organization that can meet you where you are, wherever you are in your journey. We we have a solution that can help you right there and help out come alongside it.

 

01;00;10;04 - 01;00;39;25

Can't say that I'm unfamiliar with the game changer went through that. So fortunately with the relationships that we have with the fitness center, Austin Howlett, who runs our Austin facility but also manages other locations, he introduced me to the game Changer, went through it last year. It is amazing experience because it does if we can dive in a little bit about that six weeks, couple of hours a week, starts with a foundation assessment and then foundation that builds from that.

 

01;00;39;27 - 01;01;00;10

And this is why we're talking about it. The perception that we have at times when we associate a name or an activity based off of what we believe is we can misunderstand things. So I thought I thought those were just fitness. And so when I was introduced to the game changers details, I was asked, Do you want to go through it?

 

01;01;00;12 - 01;01;19;02

And I didn't even bother reading about it. I was just like, Yes, So I did. I didn't I hadn't realized that there was depth to what EXOS delivers, so I thought it was just a physical training thing. And so I didn't read through the documentation. And so on day one, when we show up, I was pleasantly surprised to learn that I was ill prepared for what it was to provide.

 

01;01;19;02 - 01;01;38;00

And so it took me a little bit longer to get caught up. But what did do is it introduced now the relevance of the things that you described over the last hour of the combination of things that have to be accounted for, where you might put a little bit more emphasis on the mindset or put a little bit more emphasis on the recovery like we talked about.

 

01;01;38;00 - 01;02;12;04

Like I personally believe I could do things. I just need to know why I'm doing it and the benefit, and that's enough to convince me to do that. So if that's a connection on a relative mindset, what else is there that EXOS provides for people in remote locations? You talked about EXOS Fit. What else is there? I would say currently the primary solution we have for somebody getting EXOS but not going into that facility is access to that.

 

01;02;12;07 - 01;02;35;26

We currently have programs that we are delivering through bridge athletics, so that's if you come to our facility, you know, where used to write programs in Microsoft Excel and printed off into a sheet of paper and hand it to you. We now program our programs just out of bridge and it's a digital platform where we have iPads mounted on our racks, dragging a sign into an iPad and boom, my whole training program is there.

 

01;02;35;26 - 01;03;18;04

The beauty of that is I can leave here and access that program through my phone. And so that allows me as a coach to continue the program and deliver it and update it and interact with that platform. And that's that's makes it a very, very it makes it a very seamless touchpoint to continue to interact somebody remotely. And so we have that and we also are beginning we're beginning to build programs where somebody can just buy a program through bridge built by access and access it and we just launched one recently for around the NFL combine where, you know, one thing that we do a lot here is we train an athlete, we train football

 

01;03;18;04 - 01;03;46;08

players for NFL combine, right? Well, we just built a program in bridge that somebody could buy where it's built for linear speed. So it's got lifting, it's got speed work and so if someone's a high school athlete and they want an access program to help them get faster, then go and buy that program. So but the primary the primary platform is going to be explicit that we integrate, interact with from a remote standpoint.

 

01;03;46;10 - 01;04;08;27

Got it. Solid. Anything else? No. I appreciate I really appreciate you taking the time. And yeah, if there's if there's more you want to get into around you know, what we do with the tactical space, I'd be happy to dive into that. But but yeah it's essentially it's essentially good people servant of the people. That's what we do.

 

01;04;08;29 - 01;04;46;07

That's clear. I mean and there is there is a lot to unpack and everything that we're talking about. But it again we've got we have seven episodes. So I think the idea of here where we can have it be more applicable is just the introduction of the offerings. And so we'll just take this minute to summarize, it's you've got Anthony here that serves in a role where there's a personal investment based off of what he's experienced growing up, coming up and, how he's paying it forward to gratitude in an organization where that is the premise of what they offer and not only why, but how they offer.

 

01;04;46;07 - 01;05;12;22

It is to remember the purpose and the meaningful work of who they're supplying it to and for. It's selfless. It is a matter of understanding that cultural component when you're investing trust and time in others to help you through the most difficult, most vulnerable moments of your life. This is an element of where it's all encompassing. It's factored into not only the game plan, but it's also into the brand with the pillars that are developed.

 

01;05;12;22 - 01;05;45;08

The subcomponents where you work and rest equals success. I mean, that in itself is identifying the key components to where when you're ready and you ask for help, you can get it. And when you get it, have an expectation of excellence serving the community with the ones that offer excellence. I mean, again, an organization like Oracle is wanting its best for its employees, and how they do that is bring in partners that deliver the best EXOS Is that so?

 

01;05;45;10 - 01;06;26;01

You know, be curious about what it is that you're wanting to do. Release a little bit of some anxious moments and ask questions and start to build the reasons why want to do it. Reach out to the ones that you can trust to do it for you. And when it comes to the fitness component, you're looking at the things that matter and how it all plays a part that you can find in EXOS Specifically, we're talking on the premise of the service to the military and how you're paying it back and providing our service members and veterans a way to now understand how how the experiences that have changed their bodies, mechanisms and the mindsets

 

01;06;26;01 - 01;06;57;21

that may as a result have been affected by that limitation, new limitation, and how you can bring them back to a place to where they want to be. Closing remarks Now. I really appreciate you doing this. You know, we we have a heart to serve and we want to serve and help. And the more that we can, the more people understand, you know, the premise of what we do, the more likely they're able to take it, take advantage of it, and and and utilize the resources that are available to them.

 

01;06;57;23 - 01;07;18;24

And the more people, more lives that we can impact. So, no, I really appreciate it. Thank you. Oh, you bet. It's it's without a doubt one of the most important things that I love about what we're doing is the people we get to connect with. How how does somebody get in touch with XO or U or how they want to learn more about their situation?

 

01;07;18;24 - 01;07;40;12

What are the options to choose from to get connected? Yeah. So if you have a SO one, if anyone wants to reach out to me, my my email is a Hobgood at team EXOS dot com. You can always shoot me an email you also have off if you go to our team access dot com website. There are ways to connect with us if you want to go that route as well.

 

01;07;40;12 - 01;08;18;24

But then if you have a a EXOS performance coach specialist and that's your location that you can tap into. I would 100% start there, go there and see them and just, you know, seek to understand the resources that they provide. But yeah, you can definitely reach out to me if you ever have any questions for sure. And there is a presence on LinkedIn and I will note that that you know, as in a professional world now is as some may be more familiar than others, because I know service members may not leverage LinkedIn regularly, but there are some things that you can see through LinkedIn that EXOS is putting out on some good articles and

 

01;08;18;24 - 01;08;44;25

things like that. So there's there's a bunch of different ways to do it. As Anthony's mentioned, use those specific ways, those specific parts. But if you're still unsure at a minimum, go, go to the the interwebs look at their their website, go there, but also use some of the other media tools that are available to get free free components that will get you more in the know and more confident to get to the point when you're ready.

 

01;08;44;25 - 01;09;07;12

You can think, to understand. Now see, to understand. All right, Anthony. Well, I'm looking forward to these next episode. You on a few of them. So yeah, I'm looking forward to reconnecting. And by all means, you know, if there's any additional information that you'd like to share, let me know and I'll put it into the description as well as just make it available for when people start to ask for feedback.

 

01;09;07;12 - 01;09;51;11

And this is going to be good. So thanks for taking a minute to kick us off. You're welcome. Thank you, Chris. All right, everyone, keep moving forward.