Ditch Your Habits And Choose Excellence Instead - Episode 91

[Intro Music] >> Jarlo: Hey everybody, this is Jorlo, GMB Fitness. I'm really excited today for today's podcast. My good friend Rolando Garcia, I've known Rolando ... How long has been now? Ten years? >> Rolando: I think a little longer than that. >> Jarlo: A little bit longer than ten years. We got together years ago, because of our shared interest in martial arts, and actually, Filipino martial arts in Pacific. We knew each other from these, of course, the online forums and all that stuff, and then we met over in Hawaii when we came up for the Guro Inosanto, wonderful seminar, wonderful seminar. >> Rolando: That was really wonderful. That's correct. >> Jarlo: Our teacher Burton set it up with only about ten people. If you've ever gone to a Guro Dan seminar, you know that's extremely rare, extremely rare just to have ten people. It was awesome. It was awesome. We have Rolando on today to talk about personal excellence. A little bit about his background. He's a successful martial arts and personal trainer, and also, in the last few years, he's been at Equinox over in New York. Not just the Equinox health club, but it's called E. It's a very exclusive club where they train clients of pretty high status. >> Rolando: That's correct. >> Jarlo: Yeah, high status, meaning people that are willing to pay for the time and the excellent instruction. They could go anywhere else, but they go to E. >> Rolando: That's correct. That's true. >> Jarlo: I'm going to have Rolando talk a little bit about what's happened to him in the last couple of years. >> Rolando: Well, thank you Jarlo and thank you for having me on your podcast. I'm very happy to be here. Like you were saying, I have been managing E here in Manhattan at the Time Warner Center. E is essentially the premier offering of Equinox, and the annual membership in twenty-six thousand a year. The members- >> Jarlo: Wow. >> Rolando: Yeah, it is. Yeah, it's at a premium. We offer some pretty premium things. Obviously there's privacy aspect to it. There's an eye scan, so members get an eye scan to get it. That's number one. Number two, they don't have lockers. They have their own private cabanas, so they don't have to share locker room space. They have their private cabanas. Most importantly, because we emphasize a lot of the qualitative aspects of managing the aspects of their health, fitness, and wellness as it relates to their movement, their nutrition, and regen, essentially, what they are getting is high level lifestyle management. It's very detail oriented with a lot of emphasis on communication with four of the best Tier Four coaches in the entire company who are essentially handpicked by our executive team. Because of that, that's what they get by paying that premium. Because the quality is so high, we are currently delivering the highest level of participation in sessions in the entire company. This past January, we delivered the highest in productivity in the past six years. This past February, we delivered the highest February session productivity in its entire history. This March, we're positioned to deliver the second highest in productivity in March as well. A lot of that speaks to the client base and coach culture that we have cultivated here. It's very team-based, community oriented, so that everybody knows where everybody stands in terms of what they need, what needs to be heard, what needs to be addressed. That type of boutique experience is something that they get here in E. In addition to that, I did just recently finished and is now available through Dragon Door, Intrinsic Excellence. It is my book which is essentially my position and my philosophy that is based on the years of developing successful personal training divisions, not only here in E but also at my previous division at 54th Street, where essentially, this is how you create the proper personal training and client relationships so that everybody wins. That's what the book is about, how do you win, how do you excel at this from a qualitative standpoint, from a relational standpoint. >> Jarlo: I think it's great, what you've been doing the last couple of years. I know we've talked quite a bit over last year, right when you started at E, and then within the last couple of years, how you've seen that growth. One of the things I'm interested in is what you described at E, the twenty-six thousand dollar payment, this boutique experience. That's really far-removed from probably most people listening to this podcast and for me as well. Can you tell us a little bit about the lessons that you've learned from that and how to apply it to someone that's probably can't afford the twenty-six thousand dollars a year for a boutique experience. >> Rolando: Right, it's a good question, and one thing I have learned not only in E but over in my entire life also, especially in my career in fitness, in that excellence is essentially a choice. I want to go into that a little further. There has been a lot of conversation in the past few years about the development of habits, the development of the appropriate behaviors. There's a lot of research that in order to develop a habit, one study says, ten thousand hours, and other study says, two hundred something days in order for a habit to kick in. A habit by definition is something that you do regularly and essentially something without much thought. It's an interesting conversation because we have to put it in the appropriate perspective. A habit is something that you want to cultivate if what you're looking for is equilibrium. Meaning, in your life, what do you want to have an equilibrium? Obviously your health, you don't want to have to think about your health. That's why you hear things like eat an apple a day, make sure you floss, eight glasses a day. Just something that you don't have to think about because your health, your physical health, your mental health, your overall physiological health is something you want to be happening on an automatic level, something you don't have to think about, but excellence is different. Excellence means you don't want to do the normal things. That's the point of excelling. You want to be a little different. You want to be a little better. In order to do that, that requires a very high level of awareness and conscious choice. The one thing I have learned, not only through the coaches that I have developed and the trainers that I have hired who have become successful but also through my clients who have become successes in every aspect of their lives on many levels, is that excellence is a constant choice. Meaning, you have to be willing to risk failure, risk it all, you accept the fear and you just go. Yeah, and that's not for everybody. >> Jarlo: No, it's not. >> Rolando: People who are listening to this podcast, you have to think, well, am I the kind of person who has a relatively low tolerance for volatility? Meaning, there is a risk of failure. Tomorrow you could fail. Tomorrow you could lose it all. If you can't accept that, you might have to consider what your personal definition of excellence is, but there are people with a high tolerance for volatility. Meaning, you could be up two thousand percent one day, and be in the negative the next day. >> Jarlo: You're fine with it. >> Rolando: Yeah, but you're fine with it. That's correct. >> Jarlo: Yeah, and I think that's a big part of it. It's not just being able to say, "Oh, there's a risk here and I'm willing to take it," but you have to be able to deal with the inevitable failures along the way, right? >> Rolando: Yes. >> Jarlo: It's not just one big step up, step up, step up. If it were, then it's not a risk. >> Rolando: Yes. That is correct. Every day, you have to look at that, correct. >> Jarlo: One of the things we've been talking about here at GMB is the growth mindset. Success isn't something that happens because you're smart or you are skilled. Success is something that happened because you're willing to work for it and you're willing for that success not to be in sight. You talked about this before, having the vision, like you don't have that sense that your vision has to be validated right away. You're willing to take that risk and you're willing to keep taking that risk even if it seems like you're not getting anywhere, because how long does it take? You don't know. You don't know how long it takes, and so having that mindset to be able to deal with that and just to keep working and keep going. Not punishing yourself but just thinking, okay, I'm doing what I need to do, I figured this out, I have applied critical thought to it. I'm just going to keep going. I'm going to keep going, and essentially, you're like, "See what happened, see what happened when you just keep going and keep working hard towards your goal.” >> Rolando: Yes, in fact, and that is something that I mentioned in my book. That a lot of trainers, if you're not careful, if you're addicted to success, people who tend to be addicted to success tend to have low tolerance for volatility, because they love the idea that, wow, I've gotten ten wins in a row, twenty wins in a row, my record is unmarked. >> Jarlo: Right. >> Rolando: People who are addicted to success are very much into protecting a record, but trainers who become really successful at this, when they take a look at the vision, they're constantly aware that in that vision, there is also a high probability for failure, and they will take every step possible to ensure that not only do they succeed, that's a big part of the work, I'll take ten steps to ensure that I succeed, but they'll take another twenty steps to ensure that they have a lowered risk, not a completely eradicated risk but lowered risk of failure. They have the checklist in there as well of people who tend to manage both checklists in that they have the ability to tolerate the possibility of success, but a great possibility of failure, those are the ones that grow. >> Jarlo: They're not attached to success, but they're attached to the work. They're attached to their commitment to their success. I think it's a big distinction. >> Rolando: Yes, it's a big distinction and this is where I tie it in in Intrinsic Excellence, both coach and client are actually in the same process. The client is going through the same thing too. I'm going to go in and do my session today with my trainer, but ugh, the last time I worked out, I barely made my ten push-ups, and the walk, that incline walk, I was dying. I don't even know if I'm going, where I'm supposed to be going. There is a cost to benefit thought process going there, but notice that when that process kicks in, that's not a habit. That is you choosing, well, am I going to do what makes me excellent today, as in I'm going to go in whether I succeed or not, or I'm pretty sure I'm going to fail at this thing anyway, so I'm just going to stay home, right? >> Jarlo: Right. >> Rolando: There is- >> Jarlo: That's your choice. >> Rolando: That's the choice. That's why excellence is a choice. You have to choose to go in, and you're right, that day, you may feel ... You've seen this Jarlo. You've seen this in your clients and you've seen this in yourself. That day, you feel like you're going to fail, all of a sudden, you lift the heaviest thing you've ever lifted ever. >> Jarlo: Yeah. >> Rolando: You think you know what's actually happening. >> Jarlo: You don't know. >> Rolando: You don't. >> Jarlo: You don't know. >> Rolando: It's only when you're in it, it's only when you're immersed in it, when you're not considering success or failure, winning or losing, you're just willing to be completely in it no matter what, that's when your outcome becomes favorable. >> Jarlo: I love that. You talked earlier about checklist along the way. Do you have any specific examples of that? >> Rolando: Here's a good one that I happened to like a lot. I've read it in several sources. If I'm going to go in, whether I'm just going to go in to work, or I'm going to go in to workout, or I'm going to go into a meeting, or I'm going to go into a writing session, more often than not, you have some sort of internal chatter going on. That tends to happen right before you immerse yourself into something, because when you're in the middle of a workout, when you're in the middle of lifting something, when you're in the middle of a Jiu-Jitsu session, you're actually not thinking. There's no internal chatter, but it's right before you go in, that's when your brain is going haywire. Look, don't do that. You might injure yourself. Oh, don't go too far, because you might not know how to come back. You have to do this checklist. This is what I like. The minute a thought comes up, the first checklist I ask myself is, is this true? Is it true that if I lift this, I may get injured? Is that the truth? Is there a way to measure that? If I run an extra mile, is it true that I'm going to twist my ankle and then never be able to walk again? That's a very good question to ask yourself when you have fear reactivity chatter going on right before you jump in. Is this true? Is this true? That's the first thing I ask myself. Number two, who does this benefit? If I'd go in and do this, who does this benefit? You have to ask yourself this, because the usual marker that this is a good idea, one, this will definitely benefit you, number two, it should benefit somebody that you love. >> Jarlo: I like that. >> Rolando: If I'm going to go in and, let's say, I'm going to get on this treadmill, well, what's the benefit? Well, it should be good for my heart health, which should increase my longevity because Peak VO2 is an interesting predictor for longevity and sustainability in health. This should improve my VO2, which means I get to hang out with my wife a little longer and probably spend time with my grandkids, so that when we play soccer together, they won't whoop my butt. I can actually a pretty fun grandpa to be, and so who does this benefit? If it benefits me and the people I love, that is a really great thing to ask myself. Now, let's say I head into a bar. Give me a Johnnie Walker Blue, make it a double. Well, who does this benefit? You know how that's going to go. >> Jarlo: Right, right. >> Rolando: This is why, it ... Number one, this internal chatter, is this true? Number two, who does this benefit? Those are the only two. Once you get that figured out, just go, just go. You'll never regret it. >> Jarlo: That makes a lot of sense. First you're trying to deal with these fears in a really rational way, and then you're making a choice for yourself. We talked a little bit about that, external versus internal motivations, like asking yourself, well, who does this benefit? You're thinking it's always going to be you, when you do an exercise, when you eat better, when you get your rest and recovery, but really, who it benefits is everyone around you. It benefits your family. It benefits your community when you can be the best of yourself. When you're feeling bad and when you're not feeling healthy and you're making these wrong choices, and you can make wrong choices ... Another thing that seems to be around is, oh, every choice you make is good if it's what you're feeling in the moment. I think that's wrong too. >> Rolando: I agree. >> Jarlo: You can definitely make wrong choices, and I think we've done that before, so I love that. If you have these two questions, is it true and who does it benefit? If it's just benefiting you, this temporary you in this really ephemeral situation where all you want to do is get drunk of eat that entire pie, then that's not a benefit. >> Rolando: Correct. I have to add this because again, both you and are marital artists. We're lifelong martial artists. A big portion of who we are as people is through the process we undergo as martial artists. To your point about making good choices and bad choice, Hélio Gracie, one of the four founders of Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu, I love this quote, I read this interview somewhere, he said that, "You know what? A lot of people know me as a good person, but I know myself. I know my own thoughts and I know my own feelings," and again, I'm paraphrasing this. "I can be just as bad as anybody else. I can do terrible things also. The only difference between a good person and a bad person is that through my process of martial arts, I've learned how to control myself. Without my self-control, I can be just as bad as anyone. I can be just as terrible a human being." Through the martial arts, which is in my opinion a process of growth, anyone who immerses themselves or more importantly exposes themselves to the process of growth, when they understand that truth of who they are, then they will understand how to choose, not only for themselves but also for the people that they love. They will not indulge in behaviors that not only hurt themselves, but they understand the impact that it has on the people who they love and love them. >> Jarlo: I love that because it's more than just someone saying, "Oh, how can I be a good person," or "I need to be a good person," it's recognizing that you have a choice. When you have that choice, it's empowering just for that knowledge. It's not like, "Oh, I'm here with my checklist of my morals and my ethics, and I'm going to make sure I follow it." No, what it is, is that you're choosing within that moment to do what you want to do. Maybe it's going to be a bad choice. We don't all make great, excellent choices every day, but we do have that capability to make a good or a bad choice. I believe that's an important distinction versus getting down on yourself for not doing the right thing every day or every moment of your life. >> Rolando: Correct, and this is why it's important to make that distinction that in light of everything that we've been discussing, the training is not a habit. Training is not a habit. Excellence is not a habit. Training and excellence is a choice, and you make that choice every day, every moment because that's what gives that type of way of life, that way of being, virtue. If there was no choice, you could just create good daily habits on a daily basis. I'm going to invent this word. You can habitualize yourself into some level of excellence and some level of achievement, but if you look back on the achievements, the great achievements that have been made throughout human history, no it was not because of healthy habits or two hundred fifty days of healthy habits. They all made daily choices, daily sacrifices to achieve the kind of things that they achieved and become the kind of people that they became. >> Jarlo: Very good matching. Well, I think all of that was just great. I mean, the recognition that you have to make a choice, and I like what you said about it's not a habit. Sometimes it's a matter of terminology. We want to be able to get people to do things consistently and to make the correct choices for themselves. I think habit can be a word. It's an easy enough word for people to understand, but I do like the word choice better. I love that lexicon of choice, because in the active thing, habit can be, as you mentioned earlier, not automatic. Sometimes, well actually not sometimes, all the time, habits are not conscious. I love the word choice because it is a conscious thing. In light of that, can you think of a story or an example of how you've helped or an organization or anything, how you've helped them to recognize that it is about choice? >> Rolando: I do have a story, but you know what? It doesn't involve me helping someone, but it's a story that has helped me a lot. It show you how powerful it is, how we as human beings are so completely empowered, and it actually starts with a choice. I believe it was 1966. Okay, this is 1966, and there's this newly married couple. They're very happy. They're very much in love. The husband is twenty-seven. The wife is twenty-two. They're married. They have their families' blessings, and then before you know it, they start a family. First born child, and the child is not breathing. He has turned blue. They revived him, but then when they revived him, I mean, the body is starting to die. He starts going to rigor mortis, because the body has gone into this type of shock where it's actually dying. When they try everything they can to revive the boy, all of that oxygen deprivation has essentially, one, left him brain damaged, and number two, one side of his body was completely damaged. These couple is in their twenties, and here they are with this child, and this is the 1960s. They go to all types of specialists to figure out what to do with the child. Every specialist basically tells them, look, your son is braid-dead. He's going to be a vegetable. You're better off institutionalizing him or giving him away. One doctor went so far as to tell the woman that I don't think you should have any hope at all, because your son is probably at most has one year. Every time they would prop him up on a seat to feed him, he'd be drooling. He couldn't make any eye contact, whatsoever, and sometimes, he would just drop dead and start turn blue again. This went on week over week over months. This couple is devastated. If you consider the medical community in the 60s at the time, consider the level of education that they have, the data that they have, based off of their knowledge, based off of what studies were available to them at the time. If you look at the historical analysis and the overwhelming body of knowledge, they are correct. The child is hopeless. These two people who had no medical background, and it's their first child, this is their first time being a parent, made a choice. We want our child to live. You know what they did? They fed him. They sang to him. They read to him. They guy would actually, when he came home, he would read him poetry, he would read him comic books. Within about eight to nine months, he was able to say da, which is dad, and then before you know it, one year becomes two years. Two years becomes three years. He couldn't walk, so they carried him everywhere. Then eventually at around ten or eleven years old, the boy could actually speak and he learned how to walk. These two people, but also the boy, made a choice, a choice against, against the existing body of knowledge in science, against the data that they had, against the authority of their profession. They made a choice. That boy is forty-five years old now. That boy is my older brother. The husband and the wife are my parents, and so whatever strength I have, whatever knowledge I have, whatever belief I have in my life it is because of the strength of these people who taught me by example that you have a choice, that life is what you make it. Can you imagine the devastation they had to overcome and the support that they did not have to raise a child purely on their choice to live? That is why I am in personal training, why I choose to help not only every trainer that comes my way to ensure that they become successful but every client that comes my way, because my job, my life's work is to show everyone I run into, you have a choice. You can choose. There is no such thing as fate. You can create it yourself. You are not destined to lose. You can create your own destiny. That's my life work. >> Jarlo: I love that. You have good parents. For us on the outside it seems like, "Oh, how could they make that decision?" It could've lead to more heartache, or like, "How strong could they have been to do that?" It already seem to me that with your mom and dad, there's like there was no ... They didn't even think of it any other way, but this is what I'm going to do. >> Rolando: Yeah. >> Jarlo: It's almost like, everyone talks about destiny and things being there and happening, but I never really believed in that either. >> Rolando: I'll tell you something about my older brother. Very, very special guy. I love that guy to death. I would die for him. This guy, you know what this guy said? The guy has a hole in his heart. The guy was born with a whole in his heart. He's like forty-nine years old. It's not like he has a girlfriend. It's not like he has best friend. It's not like he has a car and he can drive around. No, he's with my parents. You know what he says to me whenever I talk to him on the phone? He always says to me, "You know what? I'm a lucky guy." He says that. One time, one time when I was in my twenties and I was heartbroken over some girl or something or other. Of course I'm crying over that. Oh God, what the hell am I going to do? That's what you do when you're a younger man. You have no idea what's actually in front of you. You know what he said to me? He said, "What's wrong? She broke your heart?" You know what he said to me? I'll never forget it, and it became the basis of my life work. He said, "You know what you have to do?" I said, "What do I have to do?" He said, "You have to love everybody, because if you don't, you'll never love again." That stopped me dead in my tracks, because I'm looking at him. He's supposed to be this special needs child who can't put words together, can't put sentences together, but what he taught ... I remember looking at him and I said, "What did you just say?" Then he goes off, he goes and watches a cartoon. I turned to my mom. I said, "Did you hear what he just said?" It became the basis of my life's work, which is you have to learn to love yourself, you have to learn to love every human being that comes your way. You have to open yourself to the possibility that this human being cannot only change your life for the better, but you could change their lives for the better as well. That's what my parents without any medical degree, no special support or anything, were able to achieve through choice. Excellence is a choice. Your quality of life is a choice. Your quality of character is a choice, and more importantly, love is a choice. >> Jarlo: Wow. That's great. I think a lot of that goes to making sure with your choices and your expectations, what are your expectations right away can determine a lot of where you're going to be headed. You can have these negative expectations. Oh, this isn't going to work. Why should this work? Even in your own experience, like it hasn't worked before. Well, a lot of this is, you don't know. You said that earlier. You don't know what's ahead of you. It's not a positive thinking aspect, but it's going in with that leap of faith and just having that, okay, let's see what happens. Are my expectations either false or are they going to happen? You don't know until you start going in there and you start working. >> Rolando: Not only will you start working, you have to understand why you're doing it. You know what? If I went to somebody right now, any of my clients right now and I say, "Look, you got to pick up that two hundred pound barbell off the floor." I will get all types of feedback. They say, "Well, no. Have you done my movement screen? Have you taken a look at my orthopedic history? Why would you just ask me to pick up two hundred pounds?" It's not a question of the fact that they can or cannot. It's the fact that they don't understand the purpose of it. Nobody can lift anything if they're lifting something for themselves. Nobody can achieve anything of worth, any level of excellence if they're doing it for themselves. If you're doing it for someone you love, you can do anything. You can absolutely do anything. If I said, "Look, you got to pick that up, because your son, your husband is depending on it," they won't care what their exercise history was. They will find a way to pick up that two hundred pounds. >> Jarlo: Right. There's a reason why you hear this over and over again, different anecdotes and people saying these things, "Oh, I didn't know I could do it until it happened," because it's something that just had to have happened for them, for their family, for any type of situation like that. >> Rolando: Yeah. That's the kind of strength that people ... I believe, in the next few years, I believe with the greatest awareness of our spirit that we are also spiritual beings, that if we start to connect ourselves with who we really are and who we're really connected to, we'll be able to do a lot of great things for ourselves and for each other, but it starts with that complete acceptance that who we are and what we do is a choice. >> Jarlo: I like this a lot, because on the face of it, your book is just for personal trainers and their business development, these core competencies, but from what we've talked about, you can definitely apply it to everyone in general. I love that you've come up with your different stories and relating your family experience and also relating your personal life and the choices we all make. We all have this ability to go one way or the other. Sometimes one way isn't the best for us at that time, but we can go ahead and double back, make a different choice the next day. That more empowering for me than just a positive thinking mindset or something where if I'd do this one thing every day, then I'm on my way to success. >> Rolando: Yeah. >> Jarlo: I like that a lot, the choice. When you said that, it made a lot of sense to me right away when we talked about this earlier. It's like, "Oh, it's an active thing." That's empowering. That's true empowerment. >> Rolando: Yeah. >> Jarlo: Awesome man, thanks again for coming onboard and doing this interview with me. I'm glad we got a chance to talk. I know you're super busy, and we need to talk more and get together, right? >> Rolando: Yes, of course. >> Jarlo: I'd love to go see you again. Martial arts was our first passion, I think, and we connected that to our growth in business and our growth in our personal lives and relationships. One of the main things, I think, and I know you'll agree with me with this, is the struggle, the struggle with yourself, whether you're against an opponent or you're working on your particular technique and the frustrations we have. Oh man, how many frustrations, either when you're beginning something or when you think, oh, I got this down, and then you go into your training session like, "What the hell happened? I just lost it." The ability to just keep going and make that choice to practice, as for me, when we talk about martial arts, what's it about. It's not about fighting anymore. You can be a good fighter. It only takes a few months of training. You know it, right? >> Rolando: Yes, yes, sure. >> Jarlo: You do a few things, and you can be a good fighter with a really short amount of time, but after that, what are you doing it for? What are you doing it for? It's for self-expression. It's for cultivating your own, personal excellence. That's why we can do this for years and years for the rest of our life. >> Rolando: Yeah, it's cultivating your own intrinsic excellence, because anybody can beat one person once, maybe two, or even three. Anybody can do that, but if you use martial arts to cultivate your own intrinsic excellence, you don't need to beat one or two or three people. You get those same three people on your side and maybe more, and maybe, once you guys decide to come together, you can decide, you can make the choice to do something really good for everybody. >> Jarlo: Right, awesome, and for us, it's martial arts. For other people, it can be something else. It's your choice and you're going to find your passion, and then within that passion be able to extrapolate it into the rest of your lives. That's what really we're talking about when we're talking about being a personal trainer. What you're doing is you're helping your client to realize that they can be their own individual agent of change. They have that choice. >> Rolando: Correct. >> Jarlo: Through it, you're doing it through whether it's rack pulls or doing those intervals on the row or something else. In our case, it's working on our skills as a martial artist. You could be a runner. You can do all of these things, and that's what I love about your book, is you provide these different examples and you give a person the ability to analyze what's on in their life and how can they use what they have within themselves, within their environment to create excellence. It doesn't have to be one thing. >> Rolando: Yes, that's correct. It's a book that yes, it's within the context of personal training, but most everybody who has read it, I'm very thankful that they were able to understand what I was really going for, is that this is a book about how to cultivate excellence in general. >> Jarlo: I love that. Well, thanks a lot Rolando. I'm really happy you found the time to talk with me. What I'd encourage everyone here to do, listening, is go ahead and click on the links that we have available. Also, you contact us through info@GMB.io. Just drop us a line anytime. Also, we'll have available ways to contact Rolando if you'd like. Thanks a lot Rolando. I really appreciate, and we'll talk again soon. >> Rolando: Thank you my friend. Thank you for having me. Talk to you soon. >> Jorlo: Thanks. [Outro Music]