That’s the question Daniel Fajardo—a doctor, husband, and father in St. Simons Island, Georgia—found himself asking a few years ago, after years of heavy lifting left him too sore and stiff to play with his kids. The answer he found was Onnit. The Onnit 6 programs’ focus on mobility and longevity helped Fajardo reframe what fitness means, and restore the body he thought had given out on him.

Fajardo tells his tale to Shane Heins, Onnit’s Director of Community Engagement, in this week’s Onnit Story—part of our ongoing series of live video interviews with people who have made great life improvements with Onnit’s help. See the video below, along with an edited transcript of the highlights, time-stamped so you can easily find them in the video. Stay up to date with Onnit Stories by following Onnit’s Instagram TV (IGTV).

Daniel Fajardo Show Notes

4:20 – How Daniel Got Onnit

Daniel Fajardo: It was kind of a happy accident. I was just scrolling through Facebook and an Onnit ad came up, asking if I wanted a free workout. I had been working out for several years, but things weren’t right. I always felt sore. I was very stiff. That got me looking a lot into mobility. I tried different mobility programs and had some results, but I still wasn’t satisfied. I wasn’t enjoying doing them.

So when I saw the Onnit ad, I just clicked on it, entered my email address, and I got this free workout with some guy that was jumping up and down screaming, “I’m a beautiful butterfly.” [Shane Heins, who coaches several of the Onnit in 30 workouts, likes to make them entertaining.] I got into it. I thought, “Well, this guy is a little strange, but he’s got a lot of energy.”

The workout was short, but I enjoyed it, and I felt like I got a lot of benefit from it. I was just doing mobility, but my heart rate was up, and I felt good. I noticed that, the next day, Onnit was offering an Onnit 6 Challenge.

I had a lot of workout tools already. I had kettlebells, but I wasn’t really using them. I even had a five-pound steel club that I’d bought for a different program. I contacted Onnit and asked what kind of workout to do for the Challenge. I said, “I’m very stiff. I have a lot of neck, back, and shoulder soreness, and hip stiffness.” The rep I spoke to said, “You need to try Durability.” I said, “I’ll trust the process and do it.” The rep also told me to join the Onnit Tribe—the Facebook group where Challenge participants can talk to each other.

I joined the Tribe thinking, “Oh, here’s my competition.” But very shortly afterwards I didn’t see them as that. The members came from different walks of life, but we all had the same goal of improving ourselves. I found a lot of support in there. Everybody was very positive, and I saw that even though some people were going through some real struggles, they were very open about it. I’m not usually that open, so that was a big deal to me. People weren’t afraid to be vulnerable in the Tribe. That’s pretty unusual in the world of social media.

Over the course of the Durability program during the Challenge, a lot of the stiffness got better. The pain started going away. The workouts were different from what I had been doing. They were challenging for different reasons. There are three levels of difficulty with each workout in Onnit 6, and in the beginning, I thought I’d never get to Level 3. But the workouts showed me how to modify the exercises so I could go at my own pace. By the end of six weeks, I was doing Level 3 movements.

I’ve always had problems with my hips. I had hip surgery when I was in my early 40s. I liked the hip exercises in Durability so much that, sometimes, after I finished a workout, I would do them for an extra few minutes, and I noticed a lot of benefit from that. 

I became a father late in life. I have three young boys—ages nine, six, and four. Last year, when I started with the Onnit 6 Challenge, it was February 2021. I remember one day my boys wanted to go play soccer. I had to say to them, “You have to give me about an hour to get my body ready.” I would have to stretch first, and do a certain amount of warming up, just so I could play with them. By the time I was ready to take them to the park, we could only play for about an hour. By then, it was my three year-old’s nap time. Well, fast forward to about halfway through the Durability Challenge, and I noticed that I only had to warm up about five minutes before I could go out and play with the kids. So Durability gave me back quality time with my children.

I used to feel like I couldn’t do a lot of things. I was just like, “Yeah, I can’t lift you up. My back is killing me.” Or, “my shoulders are really bothering me.” Now, over a year later, my stiffness is never to the point where I can’t play with my kids. Now I do yoga. I never liked it before because it was very hard for me, but now I can do the poses, or modify them as I need to.  

That brings me back to the Tribe. If I say I’m having trouble doing something, they say, “Well, maybe you should try this other thing first, and then, as time progresses, you’ll be able to reach your goal.” They showed me that if I put the time in, I will get to that point. I’m still not super limber, but I am miles ahead from where I was when I first started, and it’s showing.

13:40 – On Flexibility

I’ve noticed the mobility I’ve gained helping with other things I do, like jiu-jitsu. You have to be able to move in jiu-jitsu. I used to get trapped in submission holds and before the other guy had even sunk in the technique yet I was already tapping. Now I usually feel like I have a little more range, which buys me some time. 

One of the first things I noticed about the Challenge was how the people in the Tribe don’t shame you for the things you can’t do. We had a family emergency come up, and I wasn’t able to do the workout one day. I thought, “Man, I’ve already messed up on this Challenge.” I posted about it, but the Tribe members said, “Don’t worry about it. Things come up.” Now I see problems as just a speed bump. They slow you down, but that doesn’t mean you have to stop. I think it’s important, sometimes, to slow down, just to make sure you don’t stop completely.

16:10 – Daniel’s Background

I was born in Peru and came to the United States when I was 10. I moved around the US a lot and now I’m in St. Simons Island, Georgia. My job requires a lot of sitting because I spend all day on a microscope. I think that’s why my neck started hurting in the first place. It’s a very sedentary job, so I always tried to work out a lot. For me, that usually meant heavy weights, but that’s not the smartest thing at my age. I was getting injured. I tore my rotator cuff. I had to ask myself, “What’s important? Moving this heavy weight, or being able to move myself?” I actually haven’t even touched a heavy weight in months because I’ve been doing the Onnit 6 HydroCore program.

I’m not against lifting weights now, and I’ll probably go back to it in some form, but I’m glad I’ve found other ways to work out. I don’t push through injuries like I used to. Onnit taught me discipline, and true discipline isn’t just working out when you don’t feel like it. It’s not working out when you SHOULDN’T work out.

24:00 – Abandoning The All-or-Nothing Approach

The Tribe encourages reflection, and tries to help you understand your why. “Why are you doing this?” My first why with Onnit was because I wanted to win the Challenge, but then I started to ask myself why I really wanted to work out. I realized I wanted to play with my kids. I wanted to move around and not be in pain.

Then I started to think about how I would reach that goal. I knew that the kind of training I had been doing couldn’t be a part of it, because I had torn my rotator cuff. I had six months where I couldn’t lift my arm above my head. Did I want that again? So my goal was not about just working out but working out smarter. 

It’s easy to get hooked on the negatives. You have these goals, and when you don’t reach them, you feel like you failed. But you don’t really fail. You only fail when you quit. Things come up in everybody’s life. So you may not reach your goal in the time you allotted yourself, but you definitely will never reach it if you completely stop.

The Tribe never tells you to just “suck it up and do your workout.” Or, “push through the pain.” That’s so different from what I’m used to—going all in or going out of it entirely. I finished the last Onnit 6 Challenge a week late due to illness, but I finished it. I’m behind in this Challenge, but I’ll finish it. And the Tribe members are still encouraging me all the way.

Here’s another example. I had a trip planned for Costa Rica. I was so excited, but then I ended up getting COVID-19 and I couldn’t go. I even infected my three year-old, and I had to quarantine with him. I felt miserable. But the more I thought about it, the more I realized that I had never had that much uninterrupted time with my son before. My son had some mild symptoms, but he was fine, so we could play together and I could read him books. So I may have missed out on Costa Rica, but I had a whole week where I got to spend time with my son. And then, earlier this year, I got to go to Costa Rica anyway, and I enjoyed it—but I look back on that week I had with my son even more fondly.

33:15 – Becoming A Tribe Moderator

It was very humbling, when I was asked. It was about a year ago and the other moderators said, “We value you as a Tribe member. Join our team.” It felt really nice. I said, “Oh, OK.” I was just posting because I enjoyed interacting with the other people. But they said, “We feel you’d add a lot of value to the Tribe as a moderator.” So here I am.

36:20 – Daniel’s Go-To Supplements

I take Total Human^® every day. It’s basically a mix of supplements organized into night and daytime packets. It includes Alpha BRAIN^® and ShroomTech SPORT^® and a greens formula, among other things. I use it every day. I noticed I feel a lot better, sleep a lot better, and have more energy. I do like Alpha BRAIN on its own too. I’ve tried the different versions, from the capsules to the different flavored Instant mixes, and I think the peach one is my favorite. I also like to eat the Protein Bites, but I have learned to slow down because I can scarf quite a few in one time. The S’mores ones are really, really good.  

I take creatine as well. I think the science behind protein and creatine is pretty solid. Creatine has been found to help with cognitive function as well as the muscles. With Alpha BRAIN and Total Human, I just go by the way I feel. I think they help me focus, which is very important in my job. If I forget to take a packet, I do notice the difference without it. 

39:20 – Daniel’s Favorite Fitness Equipment and Workouts

Right now, it’s the HydroCore bag. I was fortunate enough to participate in the beta-testing of the new Onnit 6 HydroCore program. Like I said, I had an injury, but I didn’t have trouble training with the bag. It’s done wonders for my shoulder. I feel like I get a workout with it, but I never feel like I’m wrecked afterward. I also like steel clubs quite a bit. The steel clubs from Onnit are excellent. Third on my list would be kettlebells.

The Onnit in 30 workout programs, I think, are probably some of the best $10 you can spend. The amount of training you get for that is amazing. I do the Move & Groove and Morning Mobility very often. Juan Leija’s My Warmup, Your Workout is brutal, but I like it because it’s very specific. It really gets your heart rate up. For a while, I was using that for my warmup and then the Mobilized Strength for my workout. Then, for the cool down, I would use Decompress To Defy. So that’s three programs. For those three Onnit in 30 programs, you get 30 workouts for $30. That’s a great deal. 

The Onnit 6 Steel Club program has yoga workouts in it, like all the Onnit 6’s. But the Steel Club ones are my favorite. I was someone who hated yoga, but the Onnit 6 program makes it fun, and my body feels great afterward.

Of all the Onnit 6 programs, the Bodyweight is probably the most challenging. I had to learn to start at Level 1 until I got comfortable. Then you can increase the difficulty to Level 2, or increase your reps, or go faster. It has a lot of modifications too. If you can’t do a pushup on the floor, you can start by doing one on a chair. 

43:20 – Shane Sums Up Daniel’s Journey

Shane Heins: For people who don’t know, Daniel is a strong, strong man. He’s got muscle on him, and he used to refer to himself as a rock. Watching him move now, you wouldn’t know he has a history of things he’s gone through with his shoulders, wrists, and hips. 

Daniel Fajardo: Yeah, and just to clarify, I used to refer to myself as a rock because I was so stiff, not because I thought I was jacked [laughs].

Shane: To see the way you move now is a testament to not just all of the effort that you’ve put in, but the shift in the mindset that you created for yourself. You’re a lot like [Onnit Chief Fitness Officer John Wolf]. When people see him they’re like, “Big dude. How does he move like that?” Well, it’s because he takes care of himself and continues to practice mobility.

The post “Problems Are Just A Speed Bump”: Daniel Fajardo’s Onnit Story appeared first on Onnit Academy.

Cruz, one of our Austin, TX, gym’s earliest members, didn’t know if she could handle Onnit’s workouts, especially coming off an injury, but she had the guts to try… and now we can’t get her to stop! Hear her story, as told to our Chief Fitness Officer, John Wolf, in the newest installment of our ongoing Onnit Stories series—interviews with people who have made inspiring life changes with Onnit’s support. You’ll see the video of John and Jennifer’s interview below, along with an edited transcript of the highlights, time-stamped so you can find those moments in the video.

You can stay up to date with Onnit Stories by following Onnit’s Instagram TV (IGTV), where a new one appears every other week.

Jennifer Cruz Show Notes

3:10 – Onnit Gym

Jennifer Cruz: I first came to Onnit Gym in May of 2015, and I actually walked in with an injury. I spoke to one of the trainers, and he was like, “It’s going to be just fine. We can work around it.” He gave me the best advice, and it was very different from what I had heard from my doctor. I’ve learned so much about what I’m capable of from training here.

I’m not a good patient. I don’t like to be sick. So if something’s wrong, I just think, “Oh, I’m fine. It’ll be fine.” Onnit’s process taught me to look into the body, apply all the education, and trust the trainers at Onnit, because they have the best knowledge and they have our best interests at heart. John, you’ve always been super supportive with education, and guiding me to respect injury, but also pushing me with my journey. Even when the gym programming is pretty intense, it’s so much fun. When my knees can’t do certain things, there’s always a different answer, so I can continue to progress, and I love that.

10:00 – What Fitness Means to Jennifer

I’m a gym rat. I have been all my life. I used to teach aerobics in the 90s, which is probably why I have knee issues now, but Onnit is extremely unique. When you come here, you’re going to learn a lot about fitness. Fitness is not just how much you can lift, or how far you can go with your endurance. It’s a lifestyle.

You’re going to learn a lot about your body. You’re going to learn a lot about yourself mentally and emotionally too. And the trainers at Onnit are so supportive. They’re OK with you saying, “Maybe I’m just not feeling it today.” They’ll tell you that you can do some other exercise instead, if you need to. You’ll learn the right balance.

12:30 – Getting Over Intimidation in the Gym

Onnit introduced me to a lot of moves that I’d never done before, and they seemed incredibly intimidating at first. Because you think you can’t physically do it, you have this mental block. But I told myself, “You bought the ticket, now you’ve got to take the ride.” You have to honor yourself by showing up.

I remember [former Onnit Gym Director of Fitness Programming] Juan Leija telling me, “Just try.” I’m like, “Juan, that’s maybe a bit heavy,” and he’d say, “Just try it.”

I used to watch Juan train his small groups in the gym and think, “I really want to do that.” Finally, I decided to join the group myself, and after my first session with him, I was like, “How did I do?” He said, “You did fine.” I loved his style. I loved his approach. He’s very stoic, but he’s also very supportive, and there’s just this way about him that makes you want to make him proud.

When you do a hard workout with someone like Juan, it eventually becomes your normal, but it’s not because you get used to that type of intensity. It’s because you’ve grown as a person. You learn that you can handle it, and you go into the next session thinking, “What else can I do?” Just when you think you’ve got it down, Juan makes it even more intense.

He used to run a women-only program, and it was a wonderful experience. The community of women at Onnit is awesome. But I also really enjoy Onnit’s coed classes. I’ll never be as strong or as fast as a man, but just being in class with them gives me that extra motivation to give 100% every time.

I can remember a long time ago, when Juan used to teach a conditioning class on Friday mornings, I showed up one day and it was just me, Tim Kennedy, and another very athletic guy. So I had to keep up with a squad of gorillas. At the end I was hurting, but I was just proud that I was actually able to keep up, and everybody was cheering me on the whole time.

20:00 – The Nobility of Mobility

I learned through Onnit that mobility is just as important—recovery is just as important—as training. That’s made a huge difference for me. You need mobility for longevity, endurance, and strength. And it also teaches you a lot more about your body. When something is off, you’re more aware of it, instead of just thinking, “Oh, I’ll be fine.”

24:20 – John and Jen Discuss How To Measure Progress

John Wolf: I think a lot of us, at times, ask the question, “How do I know I’m improving?” We experience life so subjectively. It’s like, “Well, I kind of feel good today.” Or, “I don’t feel good today. But if I’m improving my fitness, then shouldn’t I feel good more days than not? Or all the time?” That’s an incorrect assessment of what life should be like. I don’t think you can expect there to ever be a time where you’re absent of challenge or hardship. I’ve never gone any significant amount of time without one of those things really rearing its head.

So when we test ourselves in our Onnit workout programs, the tests are designed to highlight what somebody might not have been prepared for. I think that is so rewarding, and I don’t think people are aware that enduring the unexpected is a form of progress. They just measure daily effort and ask themselves if they tried really hard.

Jennifer: I feel that another huge part of progress comes through the Onnit community. The people that we take classes with are so supportive and so nice. I’ve talked about the ton of really great friendships I’ve made with the amazing people there. When we’re struggling in a workout, we come over and we help each other. That makes such a difference.

30:20 – Jen’s Favorite Unconventional Training Tool

The steel mace. It was just the most challenging, and it’s a lot of fun to learn how to control that thing. It really helps with shoulders and your upper body. It helps with mobility. It fires all of these little muscles that are stabilizers. It’s so much fun to use the mace in a flow series. It may not look like you’re doing a lot, but it’s a really good workout.

32:20 – Jen’s Favorite Onnit Supplements 

Hands down, my favorite product is Total GUT HEALTH™. I only take it maybe two or three times a week, but I can feel a difference in my digestion. I’m not as full or bloated if I have a cheat meal. I also absolutely love Shroom Tech^® SPORT. If I’m going to go through a workout, I take two of those bullets. I take Total Nitric Oxide^® as well before workouts, and I do VIRUTech^® for my immune system. Of course, I love the Protein Bites as a snack. My favorite is Cookie Dough.

37:00 – What Makes Onnit Gym Different

The programs are something that you’re not going to find anywhere else. They’re goal-based, not cookie-cutter. The second thing is the community. The people are just awesome. Once you go through a session, you’re going to be friends with the people you trained with. You’re going to support each other and you’re going to look forward to seeing each other in your next session. And if you go MIA, somebody’s going to text you and go, “Are you OK?”

Another thing is that all the coaches have done the same workouts they ask you to do. They practice what they preach.

41:20 – Jen’s Advice For Those Interested in Onnit Gym

Don’t second-guess yourself, because you’re worth it. Once you step through those doors, you have made a decision not to fall, and you are much, much more capable than you think you are. Expect the unexpected, but that’s the exciting part. You’re going to do something new, and you’re going to learn, and you’re going to make friends who are ready to support you.

The post “You Bought The Ticket, Now Take The Ride”: Jennifer Cruz’s Onnit Story appeared first on Onnit Academy.

In this interview, Brandon reveals how he survived life on the street, quit drugs cold turkey, and why the Onnit 6 Challenge is really a contest without a competition.

Onnit: Tell us about life before you found Onnit.

Jake Brandon: I joined the Army as soon as I was 18, and still a senior in high school. I felt like serving my country was just something I had to do. The 9/11 attacks happened two days before I graduated basic training, and I wanted to go to Afghanistan, but I had already been assigned to a reserve unit in Omaha.

I was trained to be a helicopter mechanic, but there never seemed to be a helicopter for me to work on, so I went over my head to an officer that I shouldn’t have, asking to get deployed. Instead, I got reprimanded, and was eventually let go from the Army with a less than honorable discharge—just because I broke rank.

That experience left a hole in me somewhere. There was also a death in my family around that time, and it sent me on a downward spiral. Health was not remotely a concern of mine.

I got married, and my wife and I had my first son. Four years later, we had another boy, but I was gaining a lot of weight. I started a job that had me working on wind turbines, and that’s when I started to see the value in keeping myself healthy. I had to climb towers that were 300 feet in the air, and doing that multiple times a day is a workout. That made me start paying attention to what I was eating.

I got the job weighing 268 pounds, but 265 was the weight limit for my position, so I promised that I would lose it. Over the next year and a half, I got down to 215.

Something tells us it’s too early for a happy ending…

You got it. In 2015, my marriage ended in a nasty divorce. My wife took my son away, and he was everything to me. I got depressed, moved back to my hometown, and lost track of fitness again altogether. I was too ashamed, or too prideful, to reach out to family for help, so I ended up staying with a friend of mine—and I use that term lightly. I knew he had done drugs in the past, but I didn’t anticipate it rubbing off on me the way it did. Staying with him in the mindset that I was in at the time made me the perfect victim.

I started doing a lot of hard drugs, and it didn’t take long for me to find myself on the street. I was surviving any way I could, sleeping in the woods or an alley, and occasionally crashing at someone’s place. I made sure that wherever I slept, no one else could see me. I wasn’t proud of where I was at, and I continued using drugs.

In one of the lowest moments of my life, I slept in an abandoned house with no windows. It was the middle of winter. I managed to scrounge up enough money to buy a Marlboro sleeping bag from a pawn shop, so I had that for warmth, and a few blankets, but I woke up in near hypothermia, urinating on myself.

After about a year and a half of being homeless, I had had enough, so I reached out to my brother. He told my mom everything and, even though my mom and I didn’t have a great relationship at that time, she offered me a place to stay. From there, I was able to get myself clean. I never went to rehab—I just stopped using.

The first couple weeks were the hardest. Head to toe pain, body aches, and chills. But I was motivated by my boys. My oldest was four and a half, and my youngest was six months, and I didn’t want them to discover that this was their dad. When my head was clear, I developed a plan to start life over again.

What was the first step?

I started a new career in HVAC. I wanted to do heating and air replacement and repair, and I had to show the court that I was rebuilding my life before I could get joint custody of my boys. The HVAC company had their own apprenticeship program, so I didn’t have to go back to college to get another degree. I could go through the apprenticeship while I was working. Of course, it raised some red flags when I applied, but I told them I would be the best hire they ever had if they took a chance on me. As it turned out, I became their top apprentice for the next three and a half years, and I was made lead of a division in the company.

About a year into the job, I was talking to a coworker, and I found that we shared a love of mixed martial arts. That evolved to us talking about fitness, and he asked if I ever used kettlebells, and showed me the Onnit 6 Kettlebell program. In 2019, I started working out on my own with it. I didn’t want to commit to any Onnit 6 Challenge yet; I just wanted to see if I could do the workouts, because, at that point, my weight was up to 299 pounds.

I was pretty disgusted with myself and I didn’t know if I could handle the workouts. My friend showed me another workout program, RUSHFIT, from Georges St-Pierre, who was one of my favorite UFC fighters. RUSHFIT was more cardio-based, and I used it to help melt some of the fat off and prepare me to do Onnit 6. The more fat I lost, the more comfortable I felt doing the kettlebell exercises I saw from Onnit, and that’s when I decided to join the Onnit Tribe and do my first Onnit 6 Challenge.

By the way, I got joint custody of my kids a year and a half after I started the new job. I want to say that I couldn’t have done it without my Mom, Grandpa, and God in my life.

What were your first impressions of the Tribe?

I joined the Tribe out of curiosity. But I was also skeptical. I had it in my head that it was going to be just fitness enthusiasts with years of experience in there. I thought I wouldn’t fit in. To my shock, the Tribe turned out to be made up of everyday people. No matter your fitness, financial, or social status, you were welcome. But I didn’t open up to the members right away because I felt I didn’t belong. After my drug history, I felt like a fraud being a part of a fitness group.

I kept pretty quiet for the first Challenge I did—the kettlebell one. There was one couple in the Tribe that I did go back and forth with in conversation, and they hounded me about opening up to the whole group. They just said, “You’ll get more out of this if you share more.”

Talking to [Onnit Chief Fitness Officer] John Wolf helped too. He shared details about his past, which included drug use, and that inspired me. Here I was thinking that I was the only one in the Tribe with a story like that, but I wasn’t. The Tribe became the most important people in my life. That’s when I realized that I wasn’t doing another workout, diet, or fitness fad. I was beginning a whole new lifestyle.

How did you like the Onnit 6 workouts?

When I started using the kettlebells, it was awkward at first. There are three tiers of exercises you can choose from when you do the Onnit 6 workouts, and I stayed at Level 1, instead of jumping ahead, and that made all the difference. I have herniated discs in my back from when I was in the service, but the way the program is designed, I was able to build up strength in my back without aggravating it. Now I don’t have low-back pain anymore.

Doing the Onnit and RUSHFIT workouts got my bodyweight down to a healthy 175. I think by now I’ve done every one of the Onnit 6’s. The programs Onnit offers, with or without the Tribe, are on a whole other level from others I’ve tried. Other fitness programs have their benefits, but they’re laser-focused on just one thing—fitness. My whole outlook on fitness now is that it’s a lifestyle. I’m getting my mom and my boys into it too. I want to show them what you can do if you put your mind to it.

My six year-old son is eating more whole grains now. He had been living on white bread with ketchup and eggs, but I prepared meals in front of him so he could see what I’m eating, and he learned to try new foods. I ask him if he wants to try what I’m having. Sometimes he turns his nose up at it, but sometimes he’ll try it. I have him two weekends a month, so I do my best to lead by example.

In spite of all the kind things you’ve said about the Challenges, you took a step back from them for a while. What was that about?

I’m a competitive person, and that can be a bad thing. When I compete for something and don’t win or get noticed, it can have an effect on me. About four Challenges ago, I wanted to stop participating. I was putting everything I had into these contests, but I hadn’t been named as a finalist.

I was getting up at 5 a.m., getting back from work at 4 p.m., and my life was all about Onnit after that. I really didn’t have a life because I was so focused on this new fitness lifestyle. There wasn’t room for anything else anymore but work and fitness. I thought that if I stayed very regimented with training and eating, that that discipline would keep me from going back to drugs.

Once again, the Tribe helped me through it. Tim Sibley said I shouldn’t view the Onnit 6 Challenges as competitions in the sense of one person against another. They’re supposed to be about all of us working together, competing against our former selves. Tim said that you can’t compare one person’s progress to another person’s, “because we’re all on a different point in our journey.” There’s no standard to measure up against.

That helped me to let go a little and have fun with the Challenges again, like I did in the beginning. When it started to feel like fun again, I was able to look at where other people were at and help them do better. I could see myself in some of the other Tribe members and knew what they were struggling with, and that allowed me to support them. 

Interestingly, I ended up being a finalist in that Onnit 6 Challenge, using the Onnit 6 Barbell program, last August. So, looking back at the process, it isn’t just a fitness journey I’m on. It’s been about building my character.

Are you a fan of any supplements?

I’ve taken Total GUT HEALTH™. I’m studying right now for my journeyman license in heating and air, and you can bet that I’ll take Alpha BRAIN^® Black Label before I take that test [laughs]. I also like New MOOD^® for when I’m going to sleep. But for the most part, I do well on what I eat. I used to take supplements for a kick in the butt, but now I find I have the energy from a healthy diet, so I don’t need supplements for that anymore.

What’s your advice to people who may be considering joining an Onnit 6 Challenge, or the Onnit Tribe?

Have fun with fitness. Don’t take it too seriously. Yes, it’s about your health, and you need to be consistent with it, but don’t let it consume you to where you don’t enjoy life. Fitness should be a way to make friends, and you can find a lot of amazing people in the Onnit Tribe on Facebook and on Discord. I got away from Facebook for a while because of their politics, but I’m back on now so I can be in the Tribe. It’s important to me to give back to a place that I got so much support from.

The post “It’s About Building Character”: Q&A With Onnit Tribe Member Jake Brandon appeared first on Onnit Academy.

Read about Maggie’s MS journey below, and make your contribution at the Onnit Social Responsibility Committee’s donation page. Onnit will match all donations up to $1,150.

“Don’t Tell Me You’re Sorry”: How Onnit’s Maggie Cunningham Is Facing Down MS

It started with stomach pain, but this was no garden-variety bellyache. Maggie Cunningham, age 20 at the time, hurt badly enough that she had to avoid food altogether, and if she did eat, she felt dizzy. Maggie stopped going to work and school, and confined herself to the couch. In three weeks, she lost 50 pounds.

It would be another decade before doctors found out what was wrong.

Multiple sclerosis (MS) is an autoimmune disorder where the body’s immune system mistakenly attacks the myelin sheaths (protective coverings) of the nerve cells in the brain and spinal cord.

The effect is like an electrical wire that’s had some of its rubber coating worn off—when the nerve fiber inside is unprotected, nerve transmissions can be slowed or blocked. The body will try to repair the damage, but in doing so leaves scar tissue in the affected areas. Sclerosis means scarring, hence the term multiple sclerosis.

Symptoms are highly variable, which makes MS difficult to identify. Nearly one million people in the U.S. live with MS, and roughly 200 new cases are diagnosed each week. To date, there is no cure. The most famous MS case in recent years may belong to actress Selma Blair, who made a documentary about her struggle in 2021.

On Pins and Needles

Maggie, from Austin, TX, never liked going to the doctor. As a kid, she was diagnosed with vasovagal syncope—a condition where certain triggers cause enough emotional distress to make your heart rate and blood pressure drop suddenly, resulting in fainting. Maggie’s trigger was medical settings.

Confronting with anything to do with doctors, hospitals, medical procedures, or health troubles provokes a visceral reaction. For years, she ran the risk of passing out when getting a shot, or even waiting in an examination room.

“I don’t know where it started,” she says. “Doctors have asked my mother if I had a traumatic birth, but I didn’t. I can remember being in the fourth grade, reading a book in class about a guy who went blind by stabbing himself in the eye. That made me fall backward in my chair! Then I threw up on the teacher.”

Maggie laughs. “But that’s fine. She was a mean lady anyway.”

So, when Maggie’s stomach pain and wasting got too serious to wait out any longer, her family had to take her to the hospital by force.

A doctor told Maggie she was merely constipated, and that cutting out meat, dairy, and gluten would solve it. She was compliant for the next six months, and while the pain and disorientation abated, she didn’t feel normal.

A few years passed, and in 2015, Maggie was bending over to pick up a box at work. “It was heavier than what I should have tried to lift on my own,” she says, “but I have trouble asking people for help.” She immediately noticed a tingling sensation, like pins and needles, in the skin around her stomach.

By the end of her shift, the feeling had spread around the right side of her back to her spine.

By the end of the week, it had moved down to her toes.

MS often causes odd sensations in the legs and arms, due to the nerve signals being interfered with. This can progress to loss of power in the limbs, pain, spasms, and difficulty walking. Symptoms can come on over the course of a day or two and last days or weeks, usually resolving—or at least improving—on their own, as the body attempts to heal itself.

MS can also result in blurred or lost vision in one eye, fatigue, incontinence, sexual dysfunction, and, if for no other reason than it’s so challenging to live with, depression.

MS usually shows up in people between the ages of 20 and 40, but it can strike anyone at any time. Low levels of Vitamin D are associated with increased risk, as is being overweight, and women are three times as likely as men to get relapsing-remitting MS—the most common type, which is characterized by repeated attacks, or relapses.

White people, particularly those living in the northern U.S. and Canada, have the highest rates of MS.

Searching for Answers… And Finding More Questions

Maggie went to a chiropractor who assumed the tingling was due to a pinched nerve sustained from picking up the heavy box. She got some adjustments, and it went away. A year later, the feeling came back, but this time in her hip. A doctor gave her corticosteroids to no avail, but the issue once again resolved on its own within weeks.

In 2017, Maggie started work at Onnit as a Customer Service Representative. Her first week on the job, the tingles struck one of her legs. To add to the confusion, her eyesight was affected as well. “I could see, but I couldn’t focus on anything,” she says. “I felt like I was going cross-eyed. But at the time, I just thought I was adjusting to having a desk job and sitting in office lighting in front of a computer.” She was all right again within days.

Another two years passed, and Maggie was working out at Onnit Gym. She started feeling back pain in the midst of an exercise. She told Coach John Wolf, Onnit’s Chief Fitness Officer, she felt like there was a gremlin next to her spine. “He told me to stop the workout, which was great, because I’m the kind of person who will keep pushing even when my body is screaming not to.”

Another chiropractic treatment brought no relief, and the next day, Maggie couldn’t feel anything but tightness from her waist to the middle of her thigh on both legs. “I was waddling around the office feeling like I was wearing a wetsuit that was three sizes too small.” The day after that, she could hardly breathe due to restriction in her chest.

An MRI revealed bulging discs in her low back, as well as arthritis, but these aren’t uncommon conditions in most adults, and they often don’t manifest with symptoms.

“I started seeing a physical therapist,” says Maggie, “but the problem kept getting worse until I couldn’t get out of bed for six weeks. I worked from home for the next two months until it went away.”

Maggie continued assembling a small army of professionals to help her live a (somewhat) normal life. A functional medicine clinic and dietician identified low Vitamin D levels. (That’s putting it mildly: normal D levels are thought to be 20–50 ng/mL, and Maggie’s were at 14—low enough to be associated with a higher risk of all-cause mortality).

Lifestyle changes brought tenuous improvements, but by the end of 2019, she was in a near-constant struggle with her body. “My leg would go numb and then fix itself,” she says. “Then my hands, and they would fix themselves.” Sometimes her thinking would be so clouded that she’d have to step away from her work and take a 10-minute walk to clear her head.

The bad doctors told her that all the symptoms—from the gut pain, to the numbness and tingling, to the complete loss of feeling in her muscles—were all a figment of her imagination. The better ones believed it was a musculo-skeletal problem, likely caused by some injury. But it was becoming clearer that the issue was neurological. By May 2021, Maggie’s physical therapist threw her hands up in defeat.

“She said, ‘You’ve been coming here two years, and while I can keep helping you manage your symptoms, we need to find out what the underlying cause is,’” Maggie says. Suspecting an auto-immune disorder, the PT told her to see a rheumatologist.

Getting blood drawn required a friend to hold her hand, and lying down to keep calm, but Maggie got through it. And her labs came back… normal.

“I walked away from the rheumatologist sobbing,” Maggie says. “I texted my friend Chanda [Mise, Onnit’s Sr. Director of Customer Experience]. I said, ‘Why can’t I ever leave a doctor’s office with answers? I’m so frustrated.’ But as we talked, I realized that the worst symptoms always came in times of extreme stress.

“It started getting really bad and not going away in 2019, when I was planning my wedding, and I was working almost every day. I have a tendency to overwork myself to the point where my body starts screaming at me.

“Chanda said, ‘OK, you’ve figured out your trigger. So treat that, and wait till doctors meet you halfway.’”

Maggie had learned to use breathing techniques, psychotherapy, and anti-anxiety medication to help manage her vasovagal syncope, and they could mitigate this mystery disease too.

Fortunately, Maggie didn’t have to wait much longer for the revelation. The rheumatologist referred her to a neurologist who ordered an MRI of her brain, thoracic spine, and spinal cord, requiring Maggie to lay in the noisy plastic tube for 90 minutes—but finally, in August 2021, she had an answer.

“When the MRI came back, the neurologist showed me the lesions on my brain and spinal cord, and said I have relapsing-remitting MS”—the type identified in approximately 85% of MS cases. It was three weeks before her 29^th birthday.

“I kind of blacked out when I heard it,” says Maggie. “My husband started asking questions, but I zoned out from shock.”

As the information sunk in, Maggie’s reaction was more relief than grief. “I had spent most of my life at that point being told by doctors that any health issue I came to them with was ‘All in my head.’ Well, the joke was on them, because it turns out that it literally was in my head—and also in my spinal cord and nervous system… So please, don’t anyone tell me you’re sorry. That’s my only request.” Maggie is just happy to finally know the truth.

As it turns out, Maggie’s great aunt has MS too, though the family never spoke about it, and Maggie never knew. At 85 years old, the aunt is perfectly healthy, apart from some vision problems. While your risk of getting MS is higher if it runs in your family, it’s not thought to be a hereditary health problem. You’re only one percent more likely to get MS if a parent or sibling has it.

Life Goes Onnit

Maggie’s neurologist explained that her treatment options included daily pills, drugs she could inject herself, or an infusion. While all are effective, each came with its own caveats. So powerful were the pills that if she missed a dose, she’d have to take her next one under medical supervision to ensure she didn’t have a bad reaction. Her fear of needles made self-injections out of the question, and that left only the infusion (which, luckily, was the doctor’s recommendation anyway).

“Up until the needle goes in, I’m scared,” says Maggie, laughing. “But once it is, I’m totally fine.” 

The infusion contains a monoclonal antibody. It kills T-cells, essentially weakening the immune system so that it doesn’t attack the nerves so hard. The main side effects are fatigue for a few days afterward, and an increased risk of infection. “It takes longer to heal from cuts now when my dog scratches me,” Maggie says. “So I eat well and do everything else I can to keep my immune system strong.”

With prep and post-treatment observation, the infusion process takes eight hours, but Maggie only needs to do it twice a year. Thank goodness for medical insurance, as the treatment costs $99,666.43 each time.

(Yes, that comma and decimal point are in the right places. The total lifetime cost of treating MS, per person, has been estimated at $4.1 million.)

But so far, it’s been worth every penny. “Stress is my trigger,” says Maggie. “The last 10 months have been really hard, as my marriage was breaking up. If I hadn’t started the infusion therapy when I did, I’m pretty sure that I would be almost completely disabled now.”

Armed with the medicine, Maggie hasn’t had to modify her lifestyle too greatly. She avoids pro-inflammatory foods (including starches, although she still enjoys potatoes), and keeps her gut microbiome balanced with probiotics and prebiotics.

Extreme temperatures tend to aggravate symptoms in MS patients, and that can be challenging for a Texas resident. “If it’s over 85 degrees outside,” Maggie says, “that strip from my waist to my knee feels like it’s burning. But if I go inside and sit by a fan, it goes away. If it’s cold out, my knees hurt.”

Maggie remains as active as possible. She’s even helping test out the upcoming Onnit 6 Hydrocore workout program before it’s released to the public. (Each Onnit 6 program is given a dry run by volunteers from the Onnit staff. The program is then tweaked according to their feedback before its debut.) It’s the first structured routine Maggie has been able to commit to in three years. “Working out [in general] is good for MS,” Maggie says. “The workout activates the nervous system, but the cooldown is the most important part for me. It helps me regulate my heart rate, which calms down my nervous system and lessens my symptoms.

“MS has made me listen to my body more,” says Maggie. “I’ve learned where my limits are and not to push them too hard.”

Maggie’s current title is Onnit Social Media Community Manager. Part of her job is acting as an administrator in the Onnit Tribe—Onnit’s private support group on Facebook and Discord. Members of the Onnit community (fans, customers, and employees) post in the forums, sharing thoughts and feelings about their workouts, as well as their personal lives.

Maggie is known for rallying behind members when they need encouragement, and now they’re doing the same for her.

“I had been open about my medical problems in the Tribe until my marriage started to fail,” she says. “Then I just felt like I had to pull away for a while. But I remembered how anyone can be completely honest in the Tribe, and how helpful it is to share. So now I’m back, using my posts in the Tribe to log how I’m feeling, and also for accountability on the Hydrocore program.

“Working in social media is so helpful in times like this, because I can connect with other people who are experiencing similar things. Whether it’s someone who’s immune-compromised or has MS, it’s just nice to know I’m not alone in this. Even if I’m not sitting next to the other person who’s struggling, I can connect with them and engage.”

She credits her team and coworkers at Onnit as well. “The fact that I can talk openly about my disability at my job speaks volumes about this place. I’ve heard so many stories from people about how badly or unfairly they were treated at work because of a health problem. But I haven’t experienced any of that. I’m still treated the same and provided the same resources and opportunities that everyone else at Onnit is. If I didn’t have Onnit, I’m not sure how I would have processed all this.”

Maggie calls MS an “invisible disease.” She may look fine on the outside, but could be experiencing multiple symptoms at any given time. She doesn’t know if her condition will get worse over time, or in what ways it may affect her future.

“As someone who is a planner,” she says, “that’s hard for me. I’m a type-A personality. A control-freak. So having to take each day as it comes has been very different for me, but very rewarding too.

“I’m still me. I’m still out there being loud and opinionated [laughs]. I’m trying to enjoy life, and I’m learning not to focus on what I can’t control. At the same time, I’m tackling this in every way possible.”

She still regularly sees a physical therapist, psychiatrist, primary care doctor, and neurologist. One of the silver linings to her MS has been its effect in helping her overcome her fear of medical settings, to a degree. Another has been gaining the ability to ask for help when she needs it.

If she chooses to have children one day, MS likely won’t complicate it. Women with MS can safely carry a baby to term. In fact, expecting mothers often get relief from symptoms during pregnancy.

If you’re currently dealing with MS, or symptoms that may reflect it, Maggie urges you to take them seriously. “Don’t let doctors gaslight you,” she says. “Keep going until you get an answer, and know that there are people out there who will offer support.”

*   *   *

The Onnit Office Olympics in support of the National MS Society will take place at 2:00 p.m. on Friday, June 3^rd. Inspired by elementary-school track and field events (as well as The Office TV show), the Olympics will feature a mobility warmup and relay races, as well as some mental gymnastics (riddle-solving, a paper airplane folding contest, and more). Onnit employees are invited to participate in person at Onnit Gym, but all others are welcome to participate virtually by logging onto TBD.COM, where the event will be live-streamed.

Donations can be made at the Onnit Social Responsibility Committee’s donation page, which benefits the National MS Society. Onnit will match all donations up to $1,150.

For more information about MS, visit the National MS Society.

The post “Don’t Tell Me You’re Sorry”: How Onnit’s Maggie Cunningham Is Facing Down MS appeared first on Onnit Academy.

We talked to Cairney about his troubled upbringing, battle with alcoholism, and why, at an age when most seem to be playing it safer, he’s still exploring uncharted waters (last one, we promise!).

Onnit: You’re a boat captain, which has to be one of the coolest jobs in the world. Tell us about that line of work.

Jamie Cairney: I used to run a lot of dolphin-sighting and eco boat tours, but when the pandemic hit, that mostly stopped. Now I do a lot of private charters, and I contract out as a captain. So I might go to Maine, Michigan, or California, and sail around those places for a few months at a time. I’ve been able to see the country. I also do boat deliveries for people who want their boats moved. I sail them north in the spring and south in the winter. Cape Cod to Fort Lauderdale is a popular route, since Florida is a springboard to the Bahamas and the Caribbean.

Can you tell us a good fish story?

How about one with a whale? [Laughs] My last job was running whale watch tours in Alaska. Last summer, I was on an 80-foot catamaran with about 50 people, and one of them asked if I ever see the whales breach. I said no, because you usually see that only in warmer climates.

I took the boat to the North Pass, which is usually a pretty good spot to see whales because it’s narrow and there’s a tremendous flow of nutrient-rich water, which makes it like a buffet line for whales. That turned out to be the right move, because it was full of whale activity. We saw orcas and humpbacks, and they were swimming up to the boat and sticking their heads out of the water.

Suddenly, this giant behemoth from the deep shot himself out of the water in front of us. It was a full-grown, adult male humpback, and he breached so close to the boat that I thought his pectoral fin was going to splash onto the deck. For a split second, we were eyeball to eyeball, and his eyeball looked like the size of a Volkswagen! He must have been the size of four tour buses end to end, and there he was, maybe maybe 30 feet in front of me. It was one of the most incredible experiences of my life.

How were you living before you found Onnit?

I’ve always been active, but I also used to party like a rock star. I was really into martial arts in my 20s and 30s, but in my mid 40s, I just let it all go and I became a mess. My drinking got really bad—I was going through almost a liter of vodka a day. I started missing work, and when I did go, I could barely get through it. My wife knew what was going on and she’d say things like, “I’m really worried about you.” And I’d say, “Yeah, so am I.” She knows my personality, and that I’m the kind of person that if you tell me not to do something, I’m going to do it even more. So the best thing she could do was not be pushy. My daughter, thankfully, was too young at the time to really know what I was doing.

I remember walking out to my car one day and I just felt like an old man—I was hunched over and frail. I thought, “This is killing me. I’ve got to stop.” But I didn’t… yet. Not too long afterward, I found myself in the emergency room with alcohol poisoning.

At that point, I thought, “I have a wife and kid, this is ridiculous. I need to get my act together.” I quit drinking then and there.

Really? On the spot?

I never really had a physical addiction to alcohol, so I didn’t have to go to AA or anything. Looking at my lifestyle then, a lot of people would say that I was a functional alcoholic, but I never identified as one. When I decided to quit, I told myself, “I’m not a problem drinker, I’m a problem thinker. If I can just get my head straight, everything will take care of itself.” And that’s what happened.

If I told myself I wasn’t going to drink for 30 days, I knew that would seem like too much and I would break down and drink again. But I learned that if I could tell myself that I wasn’t going to drink for the next hour, I could make it. Then, after that hour was up, I’d tell myself to set a goal to not drink for the rest of the afternoon, and then for the rest of the day. After a few days like that, I felt I had momentum, because I didn’t think I could get that far in the beginning. That thin line of sobriety became a thick rope, and then a steel cable. Now we’re coming up on three years that I’ve been sober. I won’t say that I never, ever drink, but these days, I’ve learned to control it. I can have a drink once in a while on special occasions and I don’t go crazy. It’s not like the old days when I’d have one drink and then be like, “It’s off to Vegas!” [Laughs]

Congratulations. Why do you think your drinking became such a problem in your 40s? Did something trigger it?

I had a lot of anger and resentment about things that happened to me when I was a kid. I didn’t realize it when I was younger, but I understand it now. The drinking was just a way to numb myself. 

Everyone says they have a screwed up family, but mine is right up there. My family would give anyone a run for their money as far as dysfunction goes. I had a turbulent childhood, and there was domestic violence. The police were at our house regularly. When I was 12, my parents got divorced, and I am the spitting image of my dad, so staying with my mom was bound to cause trouble.

When I was 15, my mom threw me out of the house. She had been stashing some money in a dresser drawer, and she came home one day and couldn’t find it. She asked me where it was, and I said I have no idea. She said, “Well, it was there, and now it’s gone. You were the only one home, so it must have been you.”

I had just woken up and I was in boxer shorts with nothing else on. She grabbed me by the hair and dragged me to the front door and literally kicked me out. It was January, and we lived in Canada. I was absolutely freezing, but she said, “You’re not getting back into the house.”

Once I realized that she meant it, I ran down the street to a friend’s house. He lived about a mile away. I got there, and as I waited for him to answer the door, I thought, “Their doormat is really warm.” I looked down and saw that my feet were soaked with blood. My friend’s mom answered the door, looked at me, and said, “What in the world…” She knew my mom was nuts and she had almost been waiting for something like this to happen. She let me in and I lived with them until I was 18. 

But just for the record, I didn’t steal any money! My brother later opened the drawer and found it—the cash had been there the whole time, and my mom just hadn’t seen it. Still, she never apologized or admitted she was wrong.

OK, you beat alcohol and exorcized some of your demons… Now how did you find your way to Onnit?

When I quit drinking, I suddenly had all this extra energy. I started rearranging the house, and then I wanted to repaint it [laughs]. I began working out again, and I bought the Insanity^®  program from Beachbody. I liked it, but it was just a workout program—you work out and that’s it. It didn’t connect you with anyone or do anything to change your lifestyle. But I do credit it for introducing me to the concept of training at home, and how effective that can be.

Eventually, I joined a gym, and I was going there until the pandemic hit in spring 2020. That made the gym close, but I didn’t mind, since it wasn’t really my scene anyway. I remembered how much I liked the Insanity^® program, so I thought I would start working out at home again, but I figured there must be something newer and better than Insanity^® out there now, so I went online to look for workouts. That’s when I found Onnit.

The Onnit 6 Bodyweight program intrigued me, but I was intimidated by some of the moves. I thought, “I don’t think I can make my hips do that.” But the workouts looked so cool, I wanted to be able to do them. I did some more research and I found a video of [Onnit Chief Fitness Officer] John Wolf saying that if you want to do Onnit, start with the Onnit 6 Challenge Durability program… and life’s never been the same since.

How did you like Durability?

The workouts almost seemed too easy at first, but I could feel the difference within a few weeks. You don’t know how bad you feel until you feel good again. I became so much more fluid in every way. It wasn’t hard to get out of bed anymore! In fact, everything I did felt easier than I remembered, whether it was crouching down to get something out of a cupboard or reaching up to grab something. I had been getting more slumped over and fragile, and then, after six weeks of Durability, I was standing taller with my shoulders back. I could breathe deeper. 

When I quit drinking, I also lost interest in crap food. Now it actually grosses me out. I am much pickier about what I eat now. I buy more organic, sustainable foods. I buy in-season and local. I’m more aware of what I put in my body because I want to start treating it right. Thanks to better eating, and Onnit, I’ve lost 30 or 40 pounds.

If you had seen me a year before, you would have thought that I was an old man who couldn’t even walk across his driveway. And now here I was, getting honored in a fitness competition: I had improved so much that I was selected as a semi-finalist in that Onnit 6 Challenge.

Onnit 6 Challenge participants are given access to the Onnit Tribe. Did you take advantage of it?

Not at first, because I’m not a big social media person. But every time I posted something in there, I was amazed at how well received it was, immediately. If I just wrote that I did my workout that day, people would say, “That’s awesome that you did your workout! Good for you.” Everyone was so supportive and encouraging and nice.

It’s amazing that the Tribe came into my life when it did. When there was so much social separation due to the pandemic, this group of people came together and  connected through exercise and a desire to be better human beings. My social circle has always been small, but it’s tight. The Tribe expanded it with this nurturing community that is always right there for me. Some of the friends I have made through the Tribe are some of the best friends I have ever had. Tim Sibley and I talk all the time. People in the Tribe have invited me over to their house when I’m in their town.  How could something so virtual and remote connect people so well?

Can you answer that question yourself?

Well, I think part of it is that people in the Tribe don’t talk about any of the stuff you hear all the time everywhere else. There’s no politics, no negativity. It’s the only forum on the internet that I want any part of.

How has Onnit helped your personal development?

I appreciate my family more now. I don’t take them for granted like I did when I was drinking, and I’m glad that I can be in better shape for my daughter, who’s 10. I don’t care that I may be the oldest dad in the schoolyard when I go to pick her up, as long as I’m the fittest [laughs].

In general, Onnit has given me the ability to see what’s possible. If I hadn’t seen, at first, how I could change my body, I never would have known how much more I could get out of life. Since my first Challenge, I’ve written a book! Before, I would have thought, “Why would anyone want to read something I wrote?” But now I think, “Maybe they would.” I used to talk myself out of things all the time, and now I have the confidence to try them.

So my book is called The Fearless Tiki. I used to work in an area that was popular with tourists, and there was a guy who took people out on a boat to drink. It was like a floating tiki hut, and because of that, other boaters didn’t take it seriously. The tiki boat got shunned by the other boats. But when the water was rough, this guy would still take people out, even when cruise ships wouldn’t dare to. So he got a reputation as the “Fearless Tiki.”

Inspired by that, I came up with this children’s story about a little tiki boat that wants to be treated like a real boat. He goes out on the ocean one day to rescue a boy when none of the other boats have the courage to, and he earns a hero’s welcome when he comes back. I got this amazing artist to do watercolor illustrations for it, and I’m going to self-publish the Fearless Tiki next month. I plan to donate what I make on it to a foundation that supplies life jackets to kids.

I also have plans to open an Airstream B&B. Picture this: you’re staying in an Airstream on a secluded beach. There’s a hot tub right outside. A gourmet chef arrives to prepare you a dinner, and then leaves you to eat under the stars. There will be different packages you can choose from, depending on whether you’re celebrating a wedding, a family vacation, or whatever. 

One thing I’ve learned from Onnit is that how you make people feel is what matters most. It’s not what they get, but how they feel. That’s why Onnit has such fiercely loyal, rabid fans. Another company might be able to put out a product like Total Human^® for half the price, but I bet no one would buy it. It’s because Onnit makes you feel like you’re being taken care of that it’s products are successful. 

Look at the Onnit 6 programs and Challenge. When I was doing Insanity^®, [program creator] Shaun T never called me up and had a conversation with me about how I was doing, but [Onnit Director of Fitness Education] Shane Heins does when I’m doing Onnit 6. The people at Onnit care about their customers. That’s what helped me get the concept for my Airstream business. I want to sell a feeling in the same way. I want people to show up thinking that they’re going to be staying in a trailer, but walk out feeling like they were on vacation at a five-star hotel. 

Since you mentioned Total Human^®, are there any Onnit supplements you use regularly?

Onnit’s products are the only supplements that, when I take them, I actually feel a difference. I take Total Human^® myself, but the real game-changer for me has been New MOOD^®. I’m happier when I take it. It’s easier for me to dismiss things that would otherwise drive me crazy. If I take New MOOD^®, and someone cuts me off in traffic, I can say it’s no big deal. Of course, it’s not a tranquilizer, but I feel like it gives me much more control over my bad moods.

What would your advice be to someone who’s interested in Onnit, and maybe the Onnit Tribe, but hasn’t pulled the trigger yet to join?

I believe that if you discover Onnit, you’re being presented with that opportunity for a reason, so choose wisely. If you put a little into Onnit, you will get 100-times that back. And the community that Onnit creates with the Tribe is what makes that possible.

I believe that people in general are more connected than we realize. I think that if you checked in with everyone in the Tribe at, say, 7:30 one night, and you asked them what they’re thinking at that exact moment, you’d find that some of them are thinking of the exact same things. When you go to a familiar place every day, with familiar people, it creates an alignment between all of you.

When I was sailing in the Gulf of Alaska, I wouldn’t see another boat for days at a time. You start to feel like you’re the only person on the planet—it’s a feeling of isolation but also oneness with the ocean, the sky, and the stars at the same time. You’re alone but you’re still connected, and I get a similar feeling from being in the Tribe. The Tribe gives you this feeling of connection no matter where you are in life. 

The post “Onnit Helps Me See What’s Possible”: Q&A With Onnit Tribe Member Jamie Cairney appeared first on Onnit Academy.

Maddox spoke to Onnit’s Director of Fitness Education, Shane Heins, to tell his Onnit Story, the latest in an ongoing series where we do live interviews with people who have made inspiring life changes since discovering our brand. Watch the interview below, or see the edited transcript of the highlights, time-stamped so you can find these moments in the video.

You can stay up to date with Onnit Stories by following Onnit’s Instagram TV (IGTV), where a new one appears every other week. 

Preston Maddox Show Notes

4:30 – From Steak Tips To Motion Pics

Preston Maddox: I started at Onnit three years ago. One of their videographers was looking for help with video, and at that point in my life, I really wanted to focus on getting back into video and photography. So when that opportunity opened up with Onnit, I was like, “This is awesome.” I started by editing [founder of Onnit] Aubrey Marcus’ podcast.

The first clip that I worked on was Ben Greenfield talking about the best way to make a steak. I had to condense 10 minutes of steak methods into one minute, so I learned a lot about how to edit audio and video and condense a narrative and make it all sound natural.

From there, I did a documentary about some college athletes that were training at Onnit to go pro, and then I got into doing camera work. There’s so much you need to know about lighting, proper angles, the right lens to use, and how to make things look good, and I grew into that role. Now Onnit has these directors who tell me what they want for a video. I go and create it, and then they tell me if it’s good enough [laughs].

7:45 – Preston’s favorite things to shoot

The lifestyle content for the Onnit 6 workout videos is my favorite to make. They’re the most challenging videos for the camera to shoot—trying to follow a person’s movement with a kettlebell and really land those shots. Sometimes the directors just throw stuff at me to see if I can do it, and then I have to rise to the challenge. I love that we film the real coaches who work at Onnit and the people who train here. It gives a level of authenticity to the video that I really respect and appreciate. 

Most companies go by how they want to present their brand, and they might hire professional models for their videos to do that. But Onnit just represents it as what it is. We don’t have casting calls or actors, or try to get The Rock to appear for us—although that would be cool [laughs]. So, if you’re listening, Dwayne Johnson, let us know!

But it’s generally easier to work with people who know Onnit and what we do here. They know the exercises already. I’m very impressed by the coaches and pros who have done these Onnit 6 videos for us. How they’re able to do these moves for hours and hours on end so we get the video we need. They might be throwing a kettlebell around all day, and then I ask them to get a few more reps, and they always do, nailing the shot each time. Our fans should know that Onnit doesn’t do it the traditional way. Traditionally, you put out a casting call and then you hope you get people who can do what you ask, and sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn’t.

15:00 – Shane and Preston talk about how shooting workouts made Preston fitter

Shane Heins: We ask people to do challenging movements for the exercise videos, but that also requires you to contort your body to be able to capture them.

Preston Maddox: Shooting some of these workouts is like doing a steel club workout by itself. I’m filming with a camera that’s 10 or 12 pounds, and I’m basically doing the move the model is doing along with that person in order to film it. Shooting like that made me realize I needed to be more fit myself in order to shoot those moves smoothly. So the camera doesn’t make it look jittery. That makes it easier editing the video later.

So I started training mobility to be able to move better. I discovered that I was strong in some areas of my body but not in others, and I had to learn how to reconnect those areas. I talked to John Wolf [Onnit’s Chief Fitness Officer] about this, and he explained it like a software and hardware thing. A lot of times, the hardware is functional, but the software is not, so you need to update the software. I’ve worked a lot of stuff from the Onnit 6 Durability program to improve my movement skills. That gave me the software update that I needed so all the parts function properly at the same time.

18:30 – How movies influenced his videography style

We started trying to shoot some of the workout videos from overhead, because I’m a big Spike Lee fan, and Spike Lee always has overhead shots, or God’s angle views, in his movies. You can see those in our steel club Onnit 6 workout promos, and our last Black Friday video. 

There’s always a certain emotion and a certain visceral quality that you want to get across when you’re shooting. It’s not as simple as just filming the move. You’re also filming the person’s own personal journey, in a way. If you’re filming in someone’s backyard, you’re trying to make it feel like more than just somebody’s backyard, because it is more than that—it’s their special workout sanctuary. It’s where the person goes to work on their dream, and you want to portray that in the video. You want it to look just slightly better than reality, because that’s how it feels when you’re working out. Getting that kind of feeling conveyed, I think, is just as important as showing the exercise properly. 

25:15 – On music

If you see a really bad image, but it has outstanding audio along with it, it’s cool. But if you see a great image that has terrible audio, people will turn it off. So your audio has to be really good. Having a background in music taught me that, and it made me a better videographer.

I think the skill that’s transferred over from my live music playing that would be the least obvious to people is having live show experience. When you’re playing live, you can’t stop. If you have a problem, you have to fix the problem right then, and you also have to plan for the problems you’re going to have, because the show must go on. You can’t say, “Hold on. Let me figure out if my amp works.” You just don’t have that kind of time.

Being on a shoot is the same thing. If I have a problem with the camera or some sort of technical thing, I need to have a solution. You don’t want to risk losing the vibe of the shoot while you stop to fix something. Getting ready for band tours, I had to get organized. “Do you have all your cables? Do you have all your pedals?” It’s the same thing with camera stuff. “Do you have all your lens filters? Do you have the camera? Do you have the batteries?”

32:10 – The power of humor in professionalism

People who don’t take their work seriously make me think, “What are you here for? Do you really not want to be as good as you can be?” But what I really like about working at Onnit is that we take the work seriously but we don’t take ourselves too seriously doing it. And that’s generally how people who are good at what they do act. It’s rare that I’ve met somebody at the top of their profession that took themselves super serious.

It’s important to care, but you also want to have fun too, and if you’re too serious all the time, it’s not fun. If you’re too serious making video, that will come across in the video. So I think one of the most important things about being on set is that everybody has fun and feels good—about themselves, and about what they’re doing. I like getting most of the work done before we even show up for the shoot, so that we can let the good times roll when we start shooting, and everybody is free to do what they’re good at. 

35:50 – How to be Onnit

Onnit is an inclusive community. I feel like a lot of fitness companies are exclusive, or they’re branded in that way. They show all these super fit people selling the brand, and you have to clear some bar to be part of their community, but I don’t feel that that’s the case with Onnit. I feel like the only bar to clear is interest. “Do you want to do this? OK. Well, here you go.” Or, if you’re not ready yet, that’s cool. There are ways to build yourself up to where you feel ready. One thing that brings everybody into Onnit is the idea that you can start at the level that you’re already at. 

I feel like a lot of times people focus on an end goal, and I think that’s missing the point in a way, because there is no end. Getting there is a constant journey. Any time I accomplished a goal, no matter how great it was, it was not enough. Realizing a goal has always been a bit of a let down, because it’s like, “Oh, crap, the journey’s over now, and I need to find another thing to go and do.”

You have to learn to enjoy the progress you’ve already made along the way. If I’m ever discouraged in any way, I just look back to where I was a year ago, and I see how much progress I’ve made, and that ends up making me feel really good. With any goal, the point is to do it, period, and then to see the benefit that you got from having spent the time doing it.

44:50 – Preston’s favorite supplements

The two that I take religiously are Creatine and Glutamine. I also take Total Human^®, and sometimes the Key Minerals, if I’m working out a lot and sweating. Glutamine can be very helpful for the gut, and creatine can help extend the amount of time I work on an exercise, which helps develop muscle. I track everything with a Whoop tracker, and mine has confirmed that these supplements are helping. 

46:15 – Preston’s favorite food products

I can’t do Protein Bites anymore because I eat too many of them. They’re just too tasty. But, for people who can control themselves, I would recommend the Protein Bites. 

48:50 – Fitness tools

If I had to pick a desert-island fitness tool, I’d have to go with the kettlebell, just because you can do so much with it, and you only need one to work all kinds of stuff. But if I had to pick my favorite piece of exercise equipment, I’d probably pick the steel clubs, because with the clubs, I can adjust the intensity of the workout just with my hand placement. That gives me a really great workout for my forearms and wrists that I can’t get as much from the other tools. The little five-pound clubs are great for Durability, or any other mobility work you might do on your rest day.

51:00 – Digital content

I have trouble committing to a program in general. It’s really hard for me to start at Day One and then stick to it all the way through. So I do the Onnit in 30 workouts more than the Onnit 6. The Onnit In 30 stuff is very focused. If I want to do kettlebell work, or mobility, or bodyweight, that’s available to me with the Onnit in 30 workouts. I know immediately how much time it’s going to take—30 minutes—and that’s appealing.

The post “You Want It To Look Better Than Reality”: Preston Maddox’s Onnit Story appeared first on Onnit Academy.

Waterson met with Onnit’s Director of Fitness Education, Shane Heins, for this week’s Onnit Story—part of our ongoing series of live interviews with people who have made inspiring life changes with Onnit in their corner. Watch the interview below, or see the edited transcript of the highlights, time-stamped so you can find these moments in the video.

You can stay up to date with Onnit Stories by following Onnit’s Instagram TV (IGTV), where a new one appears every other week. 

Michelle Waterson Onnit Story Show Notes

6:15 – Onnit and Michelle: The match is made

Michelle Waterson: “Onnit has been my longest standing sponsor. It’s become family to me. Aubrey [Marcus, founder of Onnit] decided to sponsor me before I had really become anything. It was 2011, and I had just had my daughter and was looking for support. I went out to see Onnit’s headquarters, and I felt like it was Disneyland for adults who want to optimize their humanness, their health, in every way.

“So Aubrey and Onnit have been with me the whole way. I went on to become the 105-pound champ in Invicta, an all-female MMA organization, and then I signed with the UFC, and I’ve been there for eight years now.”

9:30 – The time having Onnit in her corner helped the most

“Onnit had my back when I won the Invicta belt, and Onnit had my back when I lost the belt. It’s nerve-racking to have sponsors when you’re an athlete, because when you lose, you never know if they’re still going to support you. Some companies just want to ride with you when you’re high, but Onnit was willing to stay with me when I was low.

“Aubrey brought me out to Onnit and we made a cool video about what it’s like to lose something—to have that fire in your belly, to keep pushing forward, and to know that your goal isn’t lost just because the fight was. We tried to show that losing should drive you forward to be even more passionate about what you’re trying to achieve.”

12:15 – On being a lover and a fighter

“As a fighter, I sign on the dotted line and then try to inflict as much damage on the other person as possible. I want to make you give up. That’s my career, but anybody who knows me knows that I’m a very compassionate, loving person. For a long time, I really struggled with owning the idea that I was a fighter.

“Then I talked to Aubrey, and he was like, ‘Fighting is your job. You might feel like you have to shy away from the aggression because you’re a good person, but this is what you and your opponent decided to do. It’s a mutual understanding. So if you don’t go in there and try your best to take your opponent out, you are doing yourself and your opponent a disservice.’

“The way Aubrey explained it, it really stuck with me. At the end of the day, mixed martial arts is still a kind of art. If I hold back from trying to create beautiful violence, then I’m doing everybody who’s watching me an injustice. So I owe it to my opponent to bring it!

“And after every fight you always walk away a better person. A smarter person. When the fight’s over, you’ve given that person a part of yourself and you’ve also taken a part of them, and made it a part of who you are. So there has to be mutual respect.”

15:15 – Michelle’s most memorable fight

“I had a fight with one girl whose claim to fame—her superpower—was never, ever giving up. She had never been submitted or finished in over 30 fights. So it was my goal to be the first one to finish her. I got on top of her and I was ground and pounding her, and she wasn’t protecting herself, so the ref stopped the fight. When it was over, I picked her up from the ground and she looked at me and she hugged me. And when she hugged me, she buried her face in my chest, and I could feel her trembling like she was crying, almost as if she was embarrassed. But she chose me to be the one to comfort her.

“I was the one that caused her that pain, but I was also the one that was there to console her. We weren’t fighting anymore, and I was just there because I understood the pain of loss. So I was there for her, to cover her tears so that nobody else could see, to keep that between the two of us. It was a very intimate moment and something that I will never forget.”

21:20 – Balancing being an athlete and a mother

“I try to explain it like this: You’re on a plane and the flight attendant tells you, ‘In case of emergency, these masks will drop down. Put the mask over your face first before you help your children.’ There’s no way you can help your child if you’re not taking care of yourself first. 

“When I first had my daughter, I didn’t have a desire to do anything else but be with her. I wanted to just stare into her eyes, watch her sleep, make sure that she was breathing, and enjoy this little bundle that came out of me. But as time went on, I started to feel that fire in my heart again, and I wanted to continue to compete. Incorporate your family into what you’re doing, and let them know what your dreams and goals are. I let my daughter know that being a champion is my goal, and she understands that in order to reach it, sacrifices have to be made.

“I was gone the last four months filming a movie. It’s the longest I’ve ever been away from my family, but they understood that that was something that would help my career. I don’t think that your children will fully understand what goals are until you show them the sacrifices that are made for them. I think it’s our job as parents to show them what it is to be accountable. One of the ways that I know how to do that is through sports. They let you see what it is that you have to do in order to accomplish a goal.

“You have to put in time, work, effort. You can’t just want it. That’s what I always tell my daughter. Of course, we all want to be a superstar. Of course, you want to be a gold-medal Olympian. Of course, I want to win the UFC belt. But how am I going to get it? My daughter’s been doing gymnastics for four years now. She’s struggling, and she’s seeing the other girls get on the podium, and she’s not understanding why she hasn’t been able to. I said, ‘We have to put in the time. Put in the work. It’s not just the time that you go to gymnastics. It’s what you do on top of that. It’s the extra effort that you put in.’

“Outside of her gymnastics, we’re doing fun stuff that is still geared toward her goals. It’s silly things like, ‘Once you get 100 pullups, we’ll go to your favorite restaurant.’ I come up with fun challenges, but the results from doing them compounds over time. We have this huge calendar in our house where we’ve written down all our own individual goals as well as family goals. When you get your family involved, it’s not such a huge shock to anybody when a member of the family has to make sacrifices. We all understand why you’re sacrificing.”

26:40 – Shane and Michelle talk about how to make family understand your goals

Shane Heins: “I’ve heard people say their family makes them feel supported when they’re chasing their goals, and I’ve heard people say that their family makes them feel more alone. People are sometimes uncertain about whether they can share what they want to do, because they’re worried it might change the family dynamic.”

Michelle says: “I think people are scared of change. One of the things that allows you to be comfortable with your family, or in your relationship, is routine. So, when you’re trying to shake things up, it can make other people around you uncomfortable. They’re like, ‘Whoa! Wait, are you going to change on me? Is this going to make you want to do different things? Because that’s not what I signed up for.’

“I can talk to my husband and I can talk to my daughter, but it’s ultimately up to them to decide what they want to do in their lives. I always encourage change and growth and evolution. It’s important to want to grow, and I think that a relationship will begin to have troubles if you just try to keep it the same. You should want to grow with each other. [My husband] Josh and I have been together for almost 13 years, but we’re not the same people that we were when we first met. I think the best way to grow is to work on yourself and allow the people around you to see the positive impact that it’s had on you. When they are ready, share it with them.”

32:00 – Michelle’s advice for setting goals

“When you set a goal, you want to create habits that help you chip away at it. You take it one step at a time, versus trying to scale a mountain in one bound. And you have to cut yourself some slack when you fall short. If you forget to do what you said you were going to do for one day, you don’t give up on it altogether. I always give myself one day to mess up. If I create a goal to run every other day and I skip one of those days, I tell myself, “All right, just don’t skip another day.” If you miss more than that, you have to start the habit over again.

36:45 – Does Michelle let her daughter watch her fights?

“She’s been to pretty much all of my fights. People always ask me, ‘Why do you take her? Isn’t that scary?’ But I’m like, ‘Why?’ She needs to see the good, the bad, the ugly. Seeing me fight is actually the reward. She gets to deal with cranky Mom who’s dieting and working out four times a day and still has to cook dinner for months, so she should be able to see Mom in action. Then she can see what all that hard work was for. 

“When my daughter was really young, she saw me get really, really hurt. I lost my belt. My eye was swollen shut, and she just kept staring at me. I was crying, so she was crying. She was touching my face, and I could see she was thinking, ‘Is this going to stay on, Mommy?’

“It was weird, because I had just lost, so I wanted to be selfish. I wanted to be pissed. I wanted to just crawl into a corner and cry. But mommy duties never end, and I realized that it was a really good teaching moment. Through my tears, I said, ‘Mommy’s OK. My eye doesn’t hurt as much as my heart hurts. I’m just sad because I lost.’ And then she understood.

“It was funny because she knows the movie Wreck-It Ralph, and [the character] Fix-It Felix. Felix has that hammer that he just hits things with and it fixes them. My daughter said, ‘We could go get Fix-It Felix’s hammer,’ and hammer my face to make it better. I mean, it made me smile, and it just kind of put things into perspective. Every time I try to give my daughter a teaching moment, I end up learning something for myself. I realized then, ‘It’s not the end of the world. You lost your belt, but look what you have in your hands right now.’”

41:25 – Michelle’s favorite Onnit supplements

“I love Alpha BRAIN ^®, especially the little Instant packets you can take to go. I have them in my car, in my purse. They’re all over so that if I need them at any point in time, they’re there. Also, if I see somebody else who needs it, I’ll say, ‘Here, take some of this. You’ll thank me later.’

“I train four times a day, so I need to focus all those times. I’ll have coffee in the morning, but I don’t want to have coffee at three or four in the afternoon. So Alpha BRAIN ^® comes in handy for helping me focus without caffeine.

“I also like New MOOD^®, and I give that away to people like crazy. I have nurse friends that have trouble sleeping because their sleep schedules are so off, and I’m like, ‘Take some New MOOD^® before you go to sleep.’ Everybody that I’ve given it to swears by it. For me, it’s really helpful because when you get into fight camp, your mind is just going nonstop. New MOOD^® helps me relax and not think about anything and get a restful night’s sleep.”

45:10 – Michelle’s favorite training equipment

“I love kettlebells. I think they’re just so versatile. You can have a single kettlebell and get a complete full-body workout with it. I also like the sandbag, because sandbags are more realistic when you’re trying to simulate carrying another person’s body in your training. Lifting a body isn’t like lifting a bar or a ball. Bodies move, and the sandbag kind of mimics that movement. You can travel with a sandbag—empty it out, pack it up in your suitcase, get to wherever you’re going, and then fill it up with some dirty clothes or some sand from the beach.”

46:30 – Michelle’s favorite Onnit digital workout programs

“The Onnit 6 instructors are very inviting. They’re not intimidating. I think a lot of people look at some of Onnit’s athletes and they think they’re superhuman. ‘Yeah, right. I can’t do that.’ But anyone can do Onnit 6 Bodyweight. You don’t need any equipment, and you’d be surprised by all the things you can do with your body.

47:40 – Michelle’s favorite UFC fighter

“I’ve always looked up to Holly Holm. She’s one of my best friends and a huge mentor of mine. She walks the walk, and I’m a huge fan of someone who puts in the work.”

49:30 – Michelle’s workouts

“My workouts are more high-intensity, short spurts. So, in the morning, I’ll go for a run, and then I’ll go to an MMA class that’s an hour and a half. Then I’ll do a 30-minute mitt session, and an hour of strength and conditioning. Some of my workouts are 30 minutes; some of them are two hours. Some are really intense, and others are more technique-focused.”

51:00 – Michelle’s plans after fighting

“I would love to get more into acting in action movies. I’m such a movie buff. The reason why I love movies is because they inspire, they tell stories, and you get to play a character who’s outside of who you really are. I would also love to coach MMA.”

53:20 – How she stays motivated

Shane: “Is there a quote you think of when you feel like you’re close to giving up?”

Michelle: “I don’t know about a quote, but what I tell myself is, ‘Bring it on.’ You have to kind of bite down on your mouthpiece and swing for the fences. That’s what life is.”

See Michelle Waterson in action on Saturday, March 26, at UFC Fight Night: Blachowicz vs. Rakic.

The post “My Daughter Needs To See The Good, Bad, and Ugly”: Michelle Waterson’s Onnit Story appeared first on Onnit Academy.

But once surrounded by the positivity and encouragement that the Onnit community provides, Oulhen, 39, started to see past her self-imposed limits. Originally from Brittany, France, Oulhen spoke to us in her melodious accent about how Onnit helped her find freedom and overcome malnutrition, pain, and other obstacles, ultimately reaching potential she never knew she had in all sorts of areas.

Onnit: What was life like before you discovered Onnit?

Nathalie Oulhen: Before I found Onnit, I wasn’t eating healthy at all. I was vegetarian, and I still am, but I wasn’t taking the time to eat healthy food. I used to eat sugar all day! I would bring chocolates with me in the car when I went to work—that’s how I started my day. I wasn’t getting enough protein, and I was deficient in several vitamins and minerals. I was so malnourished that I would get dizzy just from walking up the street. I even passed out from time to time. I went to the emergency room several times, and doctors couldn’t find anything wrong with me other than my nutritional deficiencies.

I didn’t work out because I would get bored at the gym, or tell myself that I didn’t have the time because I worked day and night. I love my job, but I need to distract my mind from it sometimes. For a long time, I had nothing else outside of my work, and that’s not healthy. I live in Massachusetts, but I work in Rhode Island, so I have a 45-minute commute each way. Most days, I don’t get home until 1:00 a.m., and I’m not in bed until 2 a.m. I used to wake up at 9:00, read emails, prepare for classes, have online meetings, and then go off to the lab.

I had a lot of joint pain, too—another reason I believed I couldn’t work out. Just turning my wrist hurt, so lifting anything heavy was scary to me. I thought I might hurt myself more.

How did you come to find Onnit?

My boyfriend, Steve, is a part of the Onnit Tribe, and he’s really into fitness, but I didn’t know anything about Onnit. One day, he said to me, “There’s this Onnit 6 workout program, and it would be good for you. I signed you up for the Onnit 6 Challenge as well.” I said, “What?!” I hadn’t worked out in years, and now, all of a sudden, I had to follow a structured, six-week workout plan.

A lot of people would be offended that their boyfriend would push them into doing a workout program. Did you put up a fight?

I was upset at first, but I didn’t take it as, “He’s giving me a not-so-subtle message that he wants me to get in shape.” I was angry because I felt obligated to do this workout now. My boyfriend really knows me better than I know myself, in some ways. He knew that I needed to try Onnit’s program, so he provided the outside perspective that I needed to get healthy. Like I said, he was already a member of the Onnit Tribe, and he signed up for the Challenge too, so I didn’t have to do it alone.

To make me feel more comfortable, he said I should join the Onnit Tribe before the Challenge started. “They’re a really supportive group,” he said, “and you’ll see that you’ll be working with nice people before you start the Challenge.” I joined the Tribe at the end of April 2021, and I had a month to get familiar with it before the Challenge began in June.

As soon as I joined the Tribe, I met all these great people who were supporting each other and telling their stories. I went in thinking that, because it’s a part of the Onnit 6 fitness Challenges, it was going to be all about the competition. That people would be posting about who’s the strongest, and who’s pushing themselves the most. But the Tribe doesn’t feel like a competition at all. Everyone is helping each other get better, and you can ask questions and talk about anything in your life that you want. I still look at the Onnit Tribe page every day—those people are a constant inspiration.

I was immediately touched by Angi Sanders’ story. She’s a Tribe member, and she’s amazing. She helps you realize that there’s so much we can learn to do better in life. That helped me understand what the Tribe was like, and it made me feel confident to post my own feelings in it.

The Tribe is one of the main reasons I did the Challenge in the first place, and why I’m still doing Onnit’s workouts today. It’s like having a big family around you. 

What kinds of changes did the Challenge and the Tribe help you to make?

They taught me about nutrition and got me to change my eating habits. I added more protein to my diet, including Onnit’s Whey Protein powders, and I started eating more eggs. The more protein I ate, the less sugar I craved, so the problem of me eating chocolate all day solved itself. As I ate better and got stronger from the workouts, my joint pain went away. I can see muscles in my arms and legs now [laughs].

I also gained so much mental strength. I became less stressed and more confident. I learned the power of positive thinking: Just by telling myself that I can do something, I do it better, not just in my workouts, but at my job as well. I used to stress out when I had to speak at a conference, but now I’m more aware of my skills and I’m able to reflect on things better. I tell myself that I can do things and then I do them!

That Onnit 6 Challenge took me from doing nothing to working out every day for six weeks, and it completely changed my nutrition. I guess that’s why I was a semi-finalist in my first Challenge. I can’t believe how Onnit has changed my life in less than a year.

Which Challenge did you start with?

I did the Steel Mace Challenge in June, and I was really scared of it at first because the mace is so unusual. But I started with the seven-pound mace, and before long, I was able to lift the 10-pound one and then the 15. The Onnit 6 program is progressive, so you can build your strength gradually.

I used to go to the gym for a week and get bored, and then not go again for years. When you go to a gym, no one guides you on how to use the equipment—you’re on your own. But when you do an Onnit 6 Challenge, you have coaches that explain everything to you. The workouts change after a few weeks, so I never get bored. I also really enjoyed doing exercises I knew no one else was doing. When I told my friends I was doing a Steel Mace Challenge, they said, “A what?!” [Laughs] Onnit’s workouts are fun, and there are so many things to learn about them that you can repeat them over and over and pick up something new every time. 

How were you able to fit your workouts into that hectic schedule you described earlier?

I didn’t think I would have time to work out, but when I got into the Tribe, I saw people talking about organizing their schedules to make time for workouts. I thought, “OK, I can do this too.” I realized that I only thought I couldn’t make time for exercise because I wasn’t making it a priority. The funny thing is, I found that once I started working out, I had more energy throughout the day. That helped me finish my other work faster, so I became more efficient. I still work really late and get home late, but I can usually squeeze in a workout at 11:00 or noon. I even have time to make a healthy lunch before I leave for the lab. I didn’t have to sacrifice anything else in my day to do the Onnit workouts. And because the Onnit 6 workouts let you train from anywhere, I can make up workouts when I miss one. I don’t have to race to a gym before it closes, or be there right when it opens.

I used to make excuses for why I couldn’t go to the gym, like it’s too cold out. But now that I train in my living room, I can’t let myself off the hook like that anymore [laughs].

Making time for workouts has shown me that I can have time for other things I like, too. Onnit was the start of me doing several other physical activities that I hadn’t done in years, such as walking and playing tennis.

People in the Tribe are calling you an “unstoppable tiger.” Why?

Because after my first Challenge, I told people I went from being a sloth—because I was doing nothing—to a tiger. I went from always sitting down to having the energy to do anything. I love to work out now and push past my limits and get better every day. A tiger is more fun than a sloth!

Are you taking any supplements to help with your workouts, or any other aspect of your day?

Apart from the chocolate and vanilla Whey Protein, I like New MOOD^® for helping me relax. I also love the HYDRATech™ Instant Tangerine powder. It’s delicious, and I feel like I can push myself harder when I drink it.

Rumor has it you’re a budding children’s book author. How did that come about?

Yes, I had started trying to write books for children years ago—stories that had science facts so kids could learn about marine animals, which is my field of study. During my second Onnit 6 Challenge, people in the Tribe were asked to pick an activity that we wanted to do better, and I chose to go back to my children’s books and finish them.

I wrote a book about a little girl who finds a starfish and sea urchin in the ocean and keeps them as pets, but they want to go back home. So the three of them go on an adventure back to the ocean. I found a lady to illustrate the book, and now we’re submitting it to a publisher this month! I wasn’t confident enough to finish the story and send it to anybody before, but, thanks to the Tribe, I am today. And now I’m working on a second book.

Onnit is really not just about workouts. It’s so helpful for getting you to reflect on your life and see what you can do better. There are actually a lot of scientists in the Tribe, and we make science jokes together all the time. We have so much fun. Whatever you’re interested in, I think you can meet someone in the Tribe to share in it.

The post “I Tell Myself I Can, and I Do”: Q&A with Tribe Member Nathalie Oulhen appeared first on Onnit Academy.

Your fitness journey, just like your journey through life, will have its ups and downs, and while you have to stay positive to see progress, no one expects you to perform like a robot who doesn’t have emotions, doubts, and the occasional defect. Tim Sibley, 40, of Wyoming, Minn., a continuous improvement engineer for a medical device company, reframed his view of fitness with the help of the Onnit 6 workout programs and the Onnit Tribe—our private Facebook support group.

We interviewed Sibley, a father of three, about the physical and psychological changes he’s made since discovering our community—and his delicious homemade maple syrup! 

Onnit: What was your experience with fitness before you found Onnit?

Tim Sibley: My experience with fitness growing up was through sports like football. Fitness wasn’t about a healthy lifestyle; it was competitive, and something you just had to do to stay in shape. It certainly wasn’t something I saw as fun. In fact, running was a punishment if we lost a game in football. There’s a reason we called sprints “suicides.”

In college, I went to engineering school, and I stopped doing all sports. My eating and my partying increased, and I put on 40 pounds my freshman year. But then I met the woman who became my wife, and in preparing for our wedding in 2009, I got in the best shape I’d ever been in up to that point. I was hiking, biking, and going to a gym. My wife had been a hockey player, so she was fit, and I wanted to keep up.

Then, a year after we were married, we had our first child—and that was the beginning of my fitness decline [laughs]. My wife put on weight, and while she was recovering from the pregnancy and taking care of our son, she couldn’t go for runs or bike rides, so I stopped doing them too. She was eating ice cream, so I did too. I put on a lot of what I guess you’d call sympathy weight.

We had two more kids pretty quickly—all three of our children were in diapers at one time—and my health got worse and worse. I wear dress shirts to work, and I couldn’t tuck them in anymore because they didn’t fit. I always loved mountain biking, but I was at a point where I wasn’t doing it as much, and when I did, I couldn’t keep up with people.

So what was the turning point for you, when you decided you had to change?

I saw a picture of myself one day, and I didn’t like the person I was looking at. I didn’t feel like I was setting a good example for my kids or my wife. In early 2019, I decided to lose weight, but I didn’t really know how. I literally Googled “how to lose weight,” and I didn’t come up with the best tools and resources. I understood that you needed to create a calorie deficit, but I ended up starving myself. I was eating around 1,200 calories a day, which is not enough for an active adult male. But I was somewhat successful in the beginning, and dropped about 30 pounds. 

I have a good friend who became a monk. He was living in a monastery, and I visited him. When I gave him a hug, he was just rock solid. Here he was, 35 years old with a beard down to his bellybutton, and six percent body fat. I said, “Man, what are you doing?” He showed me his gym space, and he had steel clubs and kettlebells and maces. I was really impressed, so I went home and ordered some steel clubs and maces from Amazon.

When did you discover Onnit?

I was talking to a guy in my office, and he does CrossFit and is in great shape. I told him I was using the kettlebells and maces, but I didn’t really know how to get the best use of them. He said, “There’s a company you should check out that has a program for steel maces—it’s called Onnit.”

I found Onnit online, and I saw the Onnit 6 Steel Mace program. At that point, it was early 2020, and the pandemic had started. I wanted to come out of it a better person, feeling stronger and healthier than ever, so I bought the program. I saw the Onnit 6 Steel Mace Challenge was about to start too, and I thought it might help me stay accountable with the program. It doesn’t cost anything, so why not?

After you sign up for the Challenge, Onnit sends you a note saying, “Why don’t you join the Onnit Tribe?” So I joined the Tribe. The Challenge started on a Monday, and I posted in the Tribe on the Friday before. I said something like, “Hey, everybody, I’m not sure what I’m doing here, but I’m looking forward to getting in shape and seeing how this goes.” I didn’t expect much of a response, but I got feedback instantly—a bunch of people saying, “You got this,” and “Welcome.”

I wasn’t sure how to engage or interact with the Tribe, but right away, I saw that it was a different kind of community, and that Onnit offered a different kind of fitness than I had ever been exposed to before. The Tribe wasn’t a group of people trying to show off how strong they are, or competing to see who was the most badass. They were encouraging each other, lifting each other up. The more I saw that, the more I wanted to contribute to it and lift other people up too.

Initially, I was hoping the Tribe would just keep me accountable to myself, and it did. But it made me see that what I was doing—posting about my workouts—was resonating with other people and inspiring them. That was so powerful; it made me want to keep going with the program all by itself. The Tribe has been a blessing, especially during the worst days of the pandemic when there weren’t many social interactions happening in person. I really feel like I’ve made a bunch of awesome friends.

How did you like using the steel mace?

So I started that Onnit 6 Steel Mace Challenge in April 2020, and all I knew how to do with the mace before that was 360 swings. I had a 10-pound mace, and that was all I needed. The first thing I noticed about it was that I was having fun using it. I felt like I was doing something unique—training for a battle, as opposed to typical gym workouts of bench presses and curls. For the first time, working out didn’t feel like punishment!

When I do something, I jump in and do it the best I can, so I did everything the program said to. I did all the warmups, cooldowns, and the yoga. Before Onnit, yoga, to me, was something only patchouli-eating, meditating people would do [laughs], but I came to love it. I was never really sore during the program, which I think is due to my following all the restorative work it called for. I actually felt recharged after every workout. It was like I was putting energy back into my batteries.

Apart from making you feel accountable, what effects did the Challenge and the Tribe have on you mentally?

I lacked confidence for most of my life. I grew up in a small town where I was the only kid with red hair, and I was bullied and picked on a lot. I didn’t feel comfortable with my shirt off. I saw all of that change over the course of six weeks. All of a sudden, I was taking pictures of myself with my shirt off, flexing! I started posting pictures and videos just to show my progress and prove I was doing the program, but they made me start looking at myself in a new way.

When you go on the Tribe page, you’ll see people being very vulnerable and honest. They’re posting about having a rough day, missing a workout, and saying things like “I’m really struggling.” I can relate to that emotional roller coaster, and that made me feel comfortable expressing how I really feel. And when I did, I immediately had people respond, telling me not to be so hard on myself and pledging their support for me, which always makes you feel better.

A lot of people reading this might wonder, “He has a wife and a family. He has friends. Why didn’t he talk to them instead of turning to strangers in a Facebook group?”

That’s a fair question, and I guess the answer is that I don’t want to burden the people closest to me with those problems. I’m the kind of person who hides his frustration by putting a smile on. It’s not always easy to talk to friends, and I don’t want to bring them down. I don’t want to burden my spouse, and I love my kids, but they’re too young for me to share with them how I’m feeling. There’s something about the Tribe that makes you want to let it all out. There’s no judgment in there. I’ve seen Angi Sanders talking about her journey, which has been really hard, and if she can be comfortable putting that out there, I feel like I should be comfortable talking about my problems. The Tribe lets me feel like I don’t always have to be Mr. Positivity.

The more comfortable I’ve gotten with myself, the more inspired I’ve become to do more things. I used to write music on the guitar, and I had dreams of recording an album, but I hadn’t played much since the kids came along. The O6 Challenge got me to pick up the guitar again and tap into that creativity. I shared some of the songs I wrote with the Tribe because I felt comfortable enough to do so, and they responded positively. 

What physical changes did you see after the six weeks of the Challenge?

I weighed 230 when I started, and at the end I was down to 214. I gained a ton of strength and mobility, and felt 10 years younger. I ordered a size L T-shirt from Onnit because I hadn’t worn anything but a double-XL in such a long time—and it felt so good to wear it. I was declared a semi-finalist in that Challenge.

How have your kids responded to dad becoming a fit person?

My kids see me having such a good time when I’m working out and they want to jump right in. They love the yoga in the Onnit 6 programs. They always ask me, “Are you doing yoga today? Can I do it with you?”

My kids don’t see exercise as a punishment like I did when I was their age. They’re learning that being confident and leading a happy, healthy life comes from what you eat and what your daily habits are.

Have you been using any of the Onnit supplements?

I’m currently trying out Total Human^®. I love the vanilla Whey Protein—it’s so smooth—and I sometimes like to mix it with the Tangerine HYDRAtech^™ Instant. As for other products, I own a bunch of Onnit’s kettlebells now, the Quad God steel mace, and the Hydrocore bag. I wish Onnit would make a program for that piece of equipment!

You’re renowned in the Tribe for your homemade maple syrup. How did that happen?

We have a lot of maple trees on our property, and I’m an avid do-it-yourselfer. I like teaching my kids random life skills and that they can make things—not everything needs to come from a store. So I’ve been making syrup the last four years in the spring.

It’s very demanding work, and it really depends on how Mother Nature cooperates. It’s a seasonal product. You need specific weather for it to happen. It has to be below freezing at night and above freezing during the day, so the season can last a month or more, or just a couple of weeks—you never know. I’ll boil down 1,000 gallons of sap to get just 11 gallons of syrup, and that thousand gallons has to be hauled back from the trees in five-gallon buckets—so that’s a workout in itself. 

I would say the taste is night and day from the store-bought stuff. The flavor is silky, buttery, and a little smoky. I made a batch this year and I intended to sell it—it costs hundreds of dollars to make, so it’s not something I do for profit, but friends told me I should sell some. I announced I was selling maple syrup on my personal Facebook page, and told some of my Tribemates, who immediately asked if they could buy some. I warned them that it was an expensive product and costly to ship, so I may have to sell it for up to 50 dollars a bottle. They all said, “We don’t care; we love it and we want to support you.” Shane Heins [Onnit’s Director of Fitness Education] ordered two bottles from me, and then he announced in the Tribe how great it was.

I ended up selling out of my stock—100 bottles in a couple days—and shipped them to 15 different states. It was amazing. I’ll let everyone know this next spring if the syrup is coming back [laughs]. I love putting a smile on other people’s faces.

The post “Exercise Isn’t Punishment Anymore”: Q&A with Onnit Tribe Member Tim Sibley appeared first on Onnit Academy.

The moral is clear: be a tortoise. Whether you’re trying to change your body, break an addiction, show up better for your family, or, in Nick Bethke’s case, all three, slow and steady is the way to go. When Bethke, 33, a design engineer in St. Paul, MN, took on the Onnit 6 Challenge, it seemed to him like he was moving too slowly to succeed. But, with the help of Onnit’s private Facebook support group—the Onnit Tribe—Bethke learned that the real prize is progress, at whatever rate it moves.

Bethke spoke to us about how the Tribe and the Challenge helped him find perspective, and achieve the kind of results you just can’t rush. 

Onnit: You were pretty ripped before you found the Onnit 6 Challenge. Why did you feel you needed our help?

Nick Bethke: I’ve been fairly active in the gym since college. A lot of my friends were very athletic in middle school and high school… I was not. But the weight room became one way I could stay in touch with them. Working out became my release valve for stress, and it has been ever since. I’ve always been a very goal-oriented person, in the gym and elsewhere, but when you have kids, you tend to give up on your goals and hobbies as your personal time shrinks.

At the beginning of this year, my wife had our third kid. Because I didn’t have a lot of time to train, I wasn’t really thinking about goals with my training, and without goals, my motivation to train at all was falling by the wayside. I was trying to stay in the gym, but I was having a hard time defining my fitness goals and surrounding myself with people who saw fitness as valuable. Many people in my personal life did not see fitness and eating properly as a significant part of being a better parent, or a better person. 

I had heard of Onnit from Joe Rogan’s podcast, and [Onnit founder] Aubrey Marcus’ social media, and I saw an ad for the Onnit 6 Challenge back in January. But at that point, I liked the problem-solving challenge of figuring out my own workouts. Doing a fitness challenge hosted by someone else felt like cheating to me—I wanted to do it all myself. So I continued to struggle for another six months, until I saw that another Onnit 6 Challenge was coming up. My birthday was around the same time, so, in June, I asked my wife to buy me the Onnit 6 Kettlebell program as a gift, and then I signed up for the Challenge.

What goals did you set for yourself in the Challenge?

The funny thing is most of my goals were not fitness-related. I had four goals in all. I wanted to finish the whole program without fail, doing everything it asked of me. But I also wanted to quit chewing tobacco, be a better supporter of my wife, and connect with my kids.

Like I said, my wife had just had our third kid, and she was having a hard time getting her body back in shape. She had some body image issues, and I wanted to figure out ways to help her. And as far as my kids go, I just wanted to work on being a better dad. I have two sons—ages five and one—and a daughter who’s three. I wanted to find out more about what they’re interested in and get them involved in more things.

You said one of your goals was to quit chewing tobacco, which is notoriously addictive. Had you tried to quit before?

Yes. I’m from North Dakota, and chewing is a super common thing when you come from a rural background and hang out with farmers. Chewing is what you do. I started when I was 15. Apart from the gym, that’s how I dealt with stress and managed things. I was heavily addicted to nicotine.

At the height of it, within the last year, having two cans of chew every day for days at a time was not out of the norm. In the morning, I’d brush my teeth, have a chew, and from then on in the day, if I wasn’t eating, I was chewing.

I had tried everything to quit, and nothing worked. I tried setting goals with rewards, like, “If I can go two weeks without chewing, I’ll let myself do this fun thing…” I tried the nicotine gum and the patches. I had heard it was easier to quit smoking than chewing, so I was like, “I’ll just replace chew with cigarettes…” But it wasn’t long till I was smoking with a chew in my mouth and a patch on my arm! Then I thought, “OK, this seems like it’s going in the wrong direction.”

I even got a tattoo on the inside of my lip, only because I thought I wouldn’t chew during the healing process, and that that would lead to quitting. But I just ended up chewing with an open wound in my mouth that let the nicotine into my system that much faster.

Participants in the O6 Challenges often use the Onnit Tribe for support. What were your first impressions of the Tribe?

I’m very introverted, especially on social media. If I want to tell something to someone, I’ll just call them—I don’t need to tell everybody in my life what I’m doing. So when I joined the Tribe, I was hesitant at first to share anything. But I told myself that if I was going to do this Challenge, I was going to go all in on it, and that I would do it how Onnit suggests to.

I started by just posting my goals for the Challenge every Monday, and letting the Tribe keep me accountable. But it blew up into much more than I expected. I went into it thinking Onnit 6 was just a fitness contest, and that people would only be talking about the workouts. I also thought that this forum could just be another Twitter, with the same kind of trolling and negativity. But it didn’t take me long to find that the Tribe offered a level of support that I didn’t know could exist on social media.

The members talked about much more than fitness. Once they found out I had kids and I was trying to be a better dad, I got dozens of messages saying “Me too,” “I have kids the same age as yours…” It turned out I had a lot more in common with these people than I thought, and that shocked me. I suddenly had people cheering me on that I had never even met before. People who only knew I existed for the past two weeks! And they were honestly interested in how I was doing. I thought, “This is bananas.”

After two weeks, I was posting every morning, starting each day by checking in with the Tribe. 

How did the Tribe help you work toward the goals you set?

The Tribe offers a lot of encouragement and helps you put things into perspective. I’m a perfectionist, so if I’m not doing something well, I tend to want to not do it at all.

After 15-plus years of chewing, those first few weeks were BUM-PY! I cut down on my use, but I was still chewing. I’d have really good days where I didn’t chew at all, and others where I’d have just one can. Even though I was doing better, my thought process was, “You wanted to quit, and you haven’t quit, so why are you even trying if you’re not going to quit.”

There were a lot of people in the Tribe who had been through the same thing, and they told me to give myself some space. They said things like, “See the progress you’re making, even if it’s tiny progress.” That helped me get over the all-or-nothing attitude. The Tribe was a constant voice, outside of the one in my own mind, saying that you’re doing good—you’re trying. “You had one can of chew, but instead of it lasting one day, it lasted you a day and a half. Just keep going. Get 1% better every day.”

With my kids, the Tribe encouraged me to sign my oldest up for jiu-jitsu, and reminded me that if he likes it, awesome, and if not, we can find something else for him. I realized that my just being involved with him more is a huge win. The Tribe showed me that trying your best, in everything, is just as important as succeeding.

And as far as my wife goes, there are a lot of women and moms in the Tribe, and they gave me a lot of great feedback on how to help her. I’d tell them about something that was going on with my wife, and they’d answer very politely, like a friend would do, every time. They told me to give her space, try this or that… it was extremely helpful. 

The Tribe really helped me to understand the timeline of a woman coming back from pregnancy, and how important it is to be patient about that process. As a man, I don’t understand what the trauma to the body is like having a child. How long it takes to come back. No matter how hard I try to understand what it’s like being in her position, I’m never going to be able to fully relate to it, and that’s OK. I learned to give her time. 

Did you get back on track with your own fitness goals?

Yes. The warmups and cooldowns in the program alone did more to keep me in the gym than anything else. I had been approaching my workouts up to that point like the 21 year-old I once was, but I had 10 more years of wear and stress on my knees and back, and I had to get smarter about my training. The structure of the warmups and cooldowns, the yoga and active recovery days, they really straightened me out.

I saw performance gains too. My resting heart rate was pretty low going into the program, around 45 beats per minute. But after six weeks, it got down to 40. My HRV [a measure of recovery] was much better too.

I started the program using 35-pound kettlebells, and I was using the 50s by the end. They selected me as a semi-finalist at the end of the Challenge.

That Challenge ended in July. How have you been doing since then?

My success inspired my wife to do the Onnit 6 Bodyweight program. She said, “You’re doing too good for me to not try this myself.” And I hopped right back on the Onnit 6 train by doing the Steel Mace program.

The workouts have really helped me be a better father. Just being able to be in the gym and make the most of that time has helped me be more patient and present with my kids when we are together. And I can see that they’re starting to learn about fitness and appreciate it through me. My daughter is only three, but she knows what a kettlebell swing is. In this country, these days, I think that’s so important—to be raising kids who appreciate fitness. 

Quitting tobacco is still a fight for me every day. I’m doing leaps and bounds better than I was, but I haven’t quit yet.

You mentioned earlier that you had a lot of people in your life who didn’t support your quitting, and didn’t understand the whole fitness thing. Are those people still in your life?

Yes, but I’ve learned how to deal with them through the new people I’ve met in the Tribe. There’s such a large spectrum of people in the Tribe, and everyone has a different opinion about how to deal with people who aren’t supportive. You get all this great feedback, hearing how the members solved those problems in their own lives. I’ve learned that it’s OK to tell people I’m not going to drink, so don’t hand me one, and I’m not going to chew, so get that can away from me.

Any message you want to close out with?

For anyone reading this, know that no matter who you are, you can find a spot to fit into the Tribe. There’s space for everyone in there, no matter what you’re going through. 

*All photos courtesy of Nick Bethke

**Visit the Onnit Tribe Facebook page. It’s free to join anytime. And if you’re looking for a workout system that will change your body and your life, try Onnit 6.

The post “Trying Is Succeeding”: Q&A With Onnit Tribe Member Nick Bethke appeared first on Onnit Academy.