Doug Bopst: Fitness is the Gateway Drug to Personal Development


Today, in the Scheer Madness Podcast, Rachel Interviews Doug Bopst, an award winning a personal trainer, author of three books and host of the Adversity Advantage Podcast. Doug is on a crusade to inspire others to overcome adversity and become the best versions of themselves. A former convicted felon, he slayed his personal demons, kicked addiction and reinvented himself into the man he is today.

For more information about working with our team at Rachel Scheer Nutrition, book a free 30-minute call at www.rachelscheer.com/application and learn more about functional wellness coaching at https://rachelscheer.com/functional-wellness-coaching/

To hear more from Doug Bopst check his website: https://dougbopst.com

Pick up your copy of ‘From Felon to Fitness to Free’ here: https://www.amazon.com/Felony-Fitness-Free-Everybody-deserves/dp/1503365026

Listen ON:

Apple: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/scheer-madness/id1490423541

Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/5OLd9BtesW7Oe4nSH0QF9W

Chapters: 

  • 00:00 Intro
  • 00:25 Who Is Doug Bopst?
  • 06:30 Fitness saved Doug from the depths of despair
  • 19:35 Rebuilding your self love
  • 26:35 Fitness is the Gateway to personal development
  • 31:35 Coming into Faith/Relationship with God
  • 36:30 Figuring out who you at your core
  • 40:12 Finding your self love
  • 47:35 Where is that place we are ultimately coming from?
  • 55:30 What is the fitness industry missing?
  • 1:07:40 How bad do I actually want this?
  • 1:13:16 Your bbsessions change over time

Check Out Doug Bopst:

Connect with Rachel:

Website | Instagram | Facebook | YouTube

 

[00:00:00] Doug Bopst: When we set those goals that seemed like Mount Everest to me, and I think a lot of people with with with their own goals, it seems like Mount Everest at times, whether that’s you know, losing a bunch of weight, but whether that’s getting sober whatever it is, it seems like so much right. But the reason I think it worked for me is because we focused on just taking small steps up that mountain.

[00:00:25] Rachel Scheer: Everyone and welcome back to another episode of sheer madness. I got an awesome guest joining us today, Doug bops, he is an award winning a personal trainer, author of three books and host of the adversity advantage podcast. And he’s on a crusade to inspire others to overcome adversity and become the best versions of themselves. He’s a former convicted felon, oh, and a drug addict who spent time in jail for possession with the intent to sell. We’re gonna dive into exactly what that means in a minute. Well locked in his cell he slayed his personal demons kicked addiction and reinvented himself. As a matter of fact, he hasn’t touched drugs since the day he was in car serrated in 2008. And he has been featured now on NBC today’s show, Men’s Health for retro the skinny confidential Impact Theory. And the list goes on and on with how many awesome achievements that he has had because of his journey. So he’s gone from a felony to fitness to three and a short documentary about his story. And I’m honored to have him join us today on the podcast. Doug, welcome to the show.

[00:01:46] Doug Bopst: Rachel, thanks for having me. I don’t know. So my last name is Bob. So I don’t know if that matters. But

[00:01:51] Rachel Scheer: oops, what did I say? Bob’s but it’s okay. Austin Pope’s bops.

[00:01:55] Doug Bopst: Yeah, but it’s but it’s interesting. I think there’s a cool place for us to start because, you know, back in the day, like people called me bops all the time. And I never had the self confidence to like, say what my actual last name was, like, I didn’t have the self esteem to stand up for myself. I was like, Alright, I’m not going to correct myself and actually say what my last name is, out of fear of judgment, or what their what somebody else is going to say to me? Or if I actually correct them, are they gonna make fun of me even even more? So now it’s kind of interesting that things come full circle. And let’s face it, my last name is super easy to mispronounce. I would say that if I wasn’t, if I didn’t have my last name, and I saw it, there’s a variety of things that I would say, as far as how it was pronounced other than boepd. Right? And but now I’m like, at a place where if somebody says it, like, I’m not, obviously I’m not offended, but I’m like, hey, just to let you know, this is how you pronounce it. And I just think that that’s an important lesson, right? Is that something as simple as your as your last name, but there’s so much importance to that, right? Because that’s like your people talk about your identity, like that’s your identity, that’s your last name. And there’s so many times people have their have something mispronounced in their life. And so many people just don’t even have the courage to stand up and say, Hey, like, this is actually how it’s pronounced like, I appreciate you trying. And then that that ends up carrying over into other areas in our lives. So I just thought that was actually an ironic place for us to start.

[00:03:28] Rachel Scheer: Yeah, especially on the confidence piece with everything that we’re going to be diving into today. But I appreciate you correcting me sincerely. I’m but you’re probably most people. When I read them, and I told you, I was gonna probably butcher the intro here. But I think that is ironic, you know, I know I’ve mispronounced people’s names, and even one of my clients for the longest time. And it was like a year later. She’s like, by the way, it’s not clogged, it’s closed. And I’m like, I’ve been calling you Claude for over a year. And now it’s like engraved in my brain. I’m like, Why didn’t you say anything? She’s like, ah, you know, I don’t know, I just, I felt kind of uncomfortable about it. So it’s interesting, even like, small things like that. It’s really about that self esteem piece ultimately, right?

[00:04:18] Doug Bopst: For sure. And we all like do it. Right. Like none of us are perfect. And I mean, I made a mistake. That was far that was far worse than what you did with my last name. And you know, you talked about your your client, and that kind of brought something back for me where I was training this woman who I helped her lose a bunch of weight. And one of the local TV stations was was coming to interview us about her weight loss journey. And she was I forget her exact age, but obviously, you know, you’re you’re a female and you know how sensitive people can be women can be about their age, obviously, right? We were sitting there doing the interview, and I was like, yeah, she’s in such good shape for somebody who’s who’s a middle aged woman. And afterwards She was so upset with me. And I was like, what? Like, what did I do? And she’s like, I’m like 43. And you call me middle aged on TV? And I was like, I was like, oh. So after that, I’ve obviously been very careful. And with that, because it’s like women with their age, it’s kind of like guys in their height, right? Guys are sensitive about their height. And it’s just, it’s just a thing.

[00:05:23] Rachel Scheer: Yeah, yeah. being cognizant of, you know, what we really speak into existence. And words matter, I think so much, you know, not only with the, what we speak to other people, but also what we speak to ourselves. And, you know, confidence is something that I love to speak on, you know, while we’re kind of going down this rabbit hole, especially when it comes to fitness. And I know your background is in fitness as a personal trainer, you crush it in that area, that I think most people who get into fitness tend to struggle in the confidence department. And that’s kind of what brings us into fitness. At least that’s what happened for myself in a lot of ways. Like I struggled with confidence for most of my life. I was a very shy, introverted girl. And for me calm, or for me, fitness was like that one area where I felt like I could create strength and I could transform my body and I could create a level of self discipline. And at the beginning, it was a level of right confidence. But eventually, it actually did the opposite for me, as I pushed further and further and further. So I’d love to hear a little bit about your journey through fitness. I’m a big believer that, you know, fitness is the gateway drug to personal development. I’m not sure if you’ve heard that saying before, what it really does for us, so how, I guess my question I’m asking is how has fitness been transformational for you in the confidence department.

[00:06:56] Doug Bopst: I mean, fitness literally saved my life, from the depths of despair when I was incarcerated on felony drug charges back in 2008. And just to give people an idea, like maybe they’re seeing this on video, or maybe they’re listening to me, or they’ve maybe even seen some of my content on social media, they have an idea of who I am now. But back then, I was in jail, convicted felon, 21 years old, I had 21 jobs. By the time I was 21. Damaged so many relationships in my life. I was 50 pounds heavier than I am now completely overweight, out of shape out of my mind. Hopeless having suicidal thoughts before I went into jail, incredibly depressed, anxious. I mean, you see where I’m going with this, like I was the polar opposite of of who I am now. And when I got to jail, I had to kick a horrific opiate addiction that I had had prior to going into jail like opiate, opiates were my thing. And I had a three 400 milligram a day oxycontin habit. And so when I went to jail, the first few weeks in there, it was a it was a it was I had to detox from that and the symptoms were like having the worst case of the flu, uncontrollable bowel movements, vomiting, shaking like the whole nine yards, right. And my soon to be cellmate was sitting at sitting there at the Scrabble table. And he looked at me he was like, when you get done your your detox, when you get through this, you’re gonna start working out with me. And my cellmate looked like a more. He looked like a more jacked version of Brad Pitt from Fight Club, like this guy was shredded. And he could just tell there was something off with me in the sense where I didn’t have self confidence. I had super low self esteem, my shoulders are rounded forward, I spoke super softly. And he could just tell I was lost. And when he said that to me when he made that offer, to me to to exercise, I was like, Dude, are you kidding me? Like, have you seen me? Like, I could have been a model for Pillsbury. At that time. There’s no way. I’m exercising. He’s like, Alright, man. And then shortly after that, I saw this guy work out. And he was in the common area of the jail doing 1000s of push ups, hundreds of pull ups running all over the common area of the jail, and I was like, man, who is this guy? And then several minutes ago, he was a couple of nights later, so shortly after that, like, we were talking in the cell, and he looked at me, he was like, man, like, why are you here? Like what happened? Because he could tell that I just clearly like, knew I, in a way that didn’t belong there, so to speak. And, and he was like, I mean, obviously, I belong there. But like, at the time, like I felt like so out of place because I just was, I was so timid as a kid, right? And I said, my parents got divorced, and girls rejected me in school. I was bullied. I went through all kinds of abuse, like blah, blah, blah. I was cut from all the sports teams. I was blaming everybody else for my problem. owns, but myself. And he looked at me. And he was like, quit being a bitch. And I was like, why? He was like you’re blaming everybody for your problems, but yourself. He was like, You got yourself here. And it’s on you to change. He was like, there’s plenty of people that went through what you went through that aren’t in jail, right, Doug? And I’m like, Yep, he’s like, You got two choices. Be a man. And look yourself in the mirror. And say, it’s, it’s, it’s on you to get yourself out of this whole, like, no one’s coming to save you. And that’s the thing. It’s like, I think we’re in we’re in some of these dark times, as much as it would be great for someone to save us. And it would definitely be helpful for like somebody to come and just say, All right, I’m gonna give you a headstart and take care of all your problems and give you a good jump out of this hole. Even though that would be really ideal. There’s a few things that I think are bad with that a you would learn the lesson be, there’s so much confidence, there’s so much good. There’s so much life changing strength and wisdom that comes from believing in yourself, that you are worthy of crawling out of that hole. Right. And also, that it’s just no one’s by the time you actually wait for someone to come help you like, you’re gonna be waiting your entire life like no one’s coming. And what I mean by that, also, I want to say that it doesn’t mean that you’re not you won’t get help. It doesn’t mean that people will might not come alongside of you. But if you are just waiting for someone to do all the work for you, you’re going to lose. And up until that point, that’s what I was doing. I was waiting for girls to come save me. I was waiting for drugs to save me. I was waiting for you know, my victim, me being caught up in the victim mentality to save me from any accountability that I needed to take for my own actions. I was waiting for my pet my family to come save me. And so in that moment, when he said those words to me, I was like, man, like, clearly he’s right. Because I don’t have it all figured out. I’m, I’m a drug addict. I had like I said, I was an opiate addict, convicted felon in there for someone drugs, damaged relationships, couldn’t hold a job. You know, completely hopeless, poor mental health spiritually broken, that I was like, maybe I’ll just try this other thing. And he was like, alright, you can be the man do the thing. Or you can go be a bitch, go cry in the corner, say woe is me and blame everybody else for your problems, like most people will do that. And for the first time, in my life, I felt the sense of empowerment. And I don’t I don’t know exactly. Like, how to explain why other than I just this, this guy came into my life who had no skin in the game as far as what I was doing and was like, dude, like, this is your reality. This is like your harsh truth, right? And it’s up to you. And so that inspired me to at least give it a go and try working out. And at the time, like I said, my self confidence was like, if it was if your self confidence could be like in the negatives, mine was in the negatives. And it even got even a little bit worse after I tried to exercise because the first time I tried to exercise because you suck at it up first, right? You suck at it. Not only do I suck, I mean, I was embarrassing. I got to tell him to do a push up, couldn’t do a push up, couldn’t even do one for my knees. I would walk up and down the steps to like in between my sets of little quick bent knee push ups or whatever. And I’d be huffing and puffing because I was smoking cigarettes before I went to jail as well. And I remember saying to my cellmate Eric, I’m like, dude, like, why can’t I do a push up? And he was like, cuz you’re fat. And I hated that word. Like, I hated it. Because I was called that a lot as a kid. And I was like, Well, what do you mean? He was like, dude, like, I’m not sugarcoating this. He’s like, your core is weak, you got a lot of belly fat, your upper body is weak, you know, you can’t hold yourself up. So you’re gonna collapse. Like, that’s just the reality. And I swore to myself that I would never be called that be called fat again. And so Eric, my cellmate agreed to train me in there every single day during my 90 Day sentence, and we set some goals. It was like, we’re gonna do a set of 10 Push ups and run a mile by the time I got to jail. And when when we set those goals that seemed like Mount Everest to me, and I think a lot of people with with with their own goals, it seems like Mount Everest at times, whether that’s getting into a new relationship after a breakup, whether that’s, you know, losing a bunch of weight, whether that’s getting sober, whatever it is, it seems like so much right. But the reason I think it worked for me is because we focused on just taking small steps up that mountain. We didn’t try to sprint we frickin crawled. We will walked, and then we jogged, right. So once I was able to do a push up for my knees, boom, some self confidence was was, was built because I was able to do something that I never was able to do. And I never thought I was able to do, it was just as simple as doing one, Bettany pushup, then that led to two, three, that led to a four bent knee push ups, and then five, and then six, and all the way up until I’m able to do a set of 10, bent knee push ups, and that like built so much self confidence for me, because it’s just so simple, right? I mean, you would think you wouldn’t think that something like that would build an immense level of confidence. But it did, because it’s all relative, right? Like when you’re in the thick of it, and you’re physically mentally spiritually broken, like some of that stuff seems very challenging. And then because of that, the next step was working on being able to do a regular pushup. And then once I was able to do that, I was like, Whoa, I can’t believe I can do this. And then two, three, and then, you know, by the grace of God, I was able to do that set of 10 Push ups, and then and run a mile, by the time my sentence was over, and it completely transformed my life. Because I was able to finally get comfortable being uncomfortable, I was finally able to reattach some bait different behaviors, to emotions, because before I went to jail, my default with dealing with my emotions was, you know, act like getting angry and lashing out at people, drugs, you know, drugs, stuff that involve money, you know, doing other things that I would never recommend people do to to deal with, with stress and anxiety and depression. And I didn’t have any coping skills. And so when I went to jail, and I was able to finally grasp the fact that I didn’t need to numb myself with substances in order to feel good about myself, I felt so great about myself, because it was something I’d never been able to do.

[00:17:03] Rachel Scheer: Yeah, I think that’s really powerful. Your story there for a lot of different reasons. But I have to ask before I ask those questions. What was the guy Eric in jail for?

[00:17:15] Doug Bopst:  Yeah, he was in there for just a bunch of drug related felonies. You know, he was also a drug addict. And I don’t remember his exact charges. But I think it was, like burglary, different types of burglaries where I think he would break into people’s homes and take stuff when they weren’t there, and then sell it for drugs and stuff.

[00:17:35] Rachel Scheer: Yeah, it sounds like it was just like, well, I did it. I’m here, whatever. And let’s work out and get up. So but I think it’s really cool that you’ve had someone like that, you know, ultimately, in your life. You know, some people do have someone who walks into their life and is super pivotal for them who like believes in them. And I know he had like a ton of tough love, right? Who was like saying you’re fat, you know, either don’t want to blame but yourself. But honestly, I think some people need that kind of mirror up to them sometimes. Because essentially, we’re lying to ourselves about where we’re ultimately at in our life. And that’s what leads us to get to this place where we’re ultimately at rock bottom right? Where we’re like, Fuck my life, like, Where the hell am I’m spending most of this time running away, because that’s really what we’re doing. We’re running away from having to feel a certain way. Whether that’s shame, or anger, or whatever feeling of inadequacy, or unworthiness, manifesting in addictions, drugs, you know, the list goes on and on. And I think that’s why most of the population is overweight or obese. Why, you know, there are drug addictions, whether it’s alcohol addictions, we’re all running away from something, and it’s not always just the anger, you know, that’s a secondary emotion to that core emotion of, we feel like shit about who we are, we don’t feel like we have self worth, you know, very often it manifests in, you know, either end of the spectrum, it can be the person who’s overweight, unhealthy and distracting and numbing through food and vices. Or it can be even someone like me and my story where I pushed my body to the extremes of trying to prove something to myself, and ended up with all of these health issues and burnout and exhaustion. But I think that’s really the epidemic that we’re in, you know, we can label it as confidence. We can label it as inadequacy or unworthiness, but it’s like, how do we really create that self worth for ourself? It’s not given. I don’t believe it’s given like we truly have to create it. We have to prove it to ourselves, ultimately, throughout our life. And for me, I think some of the things that you’ve even shared there about like, I had to get myself up I had to like do the work in the gym and develop some of that confidence. Some of the things I know I say to myself is like, you know, Rachel, do you believe you’re worth the fight, you know, like, I have to believe that I’m worth the fight. Every single day, especially in those moments, you know, the reasons were I get down and I’m exhausted and I’m fatigued, and I’m going through depression, and I’ve gone through all of that throughout my entire life, what actually gets me up is that belief of I’m fucking worth the fight. And that’s what keeps me going and over time develops, develops that incredible amount of self worth and self trust for myself, not because it was there, and I’ve always had it. But because I’ve had to really fight for myself and to step into that version of myself, ultimately. So I think that’s cool that you’ve had someone who was pivotal, but you had to go through this kind of development of self worth, where it wasn’t something you’ve had, because I think it is very much the opposite. I think people think like, we’re just born with it, or born with confidence, or born with self worth. But it’s really a muscle, you know, like in the gym, you don’t just have all these muscles that are there right off the bat. Like you have to create it. And one of the best ways to cultivate that I believe is you know, fitness. And fitness isn’t always just like, lifting weights. That can be an avenue, but it’s being fit Mind, Body heart, ultimately, and how do we do that? Through pushing ourselves to do things that we know are good for us, but we ultimately don’t feel like very often doing in the moment. So I love that you speak to that part about fitness.

[00:21:36] Doug Bopst: Yeah, I mean, it’s, it’s so powerful, right. And I think, at the end of the day, like rebuilding, your self worth, rebuilding, like self love, ultimately comes down to, as I look back, like a few things, I would say, like what you want, what do you want in life, you know, I deep down, I want it to change. I want it to get off drugs, I want it to be healthier, I want it to lose weight, I wanted to be a better human being. But I didn’t know how, like, I didn’t know how to do it. So and I just based on my track record of the many failures that I had as a teenager, and this and I know, like they say like, you know, failure is good, and failure is good. But as a kid, like the failures that I had, I mean, they weren’t like, quote, unquote, the good kind of failure where you actually like, believe in yourself, you tried something and then like, it didn’t work out, then you learn lessons, like, I was purposely failing, you know, I was acting like a jerk. I was quitting jobs without notice, because I didn’t feel like showing up to work, I was getting fired. I was lying all the time, I was damaging relationships. Like that’s, that’s a good type of failure. When you’re making the same mistakes over and over again, that’s a habit. Those are habits or patterns. That’s not good. There’s a big difference in my opinion. And, and so I felt lost. And I felt hopeless, because I just was like, alright, well, I’ve already proven to myself that I can’t figure out how to do the thing, which is life, I might as well just keep messing things up. Because that’s where I’m going to end up anyway. But when I got to jail, and again, I started to do certain things that I always had wanted to do. But I didn’t know how to do it in a way that was sustainable for me to get to the place of where I wanted to go. I started to make these incremental changes in my mindset, where I started to actually believe that I not only was going to be able to get to that place, eventually. But that I now I had the tools to know how to do that, if that makes sense.

[00:23:49] Rachel Scheer: Yeah. So like you had to create the belief that it’s possible, first and foremost. And then I always say like, prove it to yourself a small wins, like you talked a lot about like those incremental, like doing that one push up, and then doing that second push up there. And I think that’s what our brains always searching for is, you know, okay, I’m trying to create something new. And I don’t know how many times maybe in your life, you’ve tried to convince yourself of something. And immediately, like the first thought that comes in is no, that’s not true. That’s not right. And so the brain always looks for evidence to believe what we, we say is actually true. And that’s why it’s so crucial to give the brain evidence to give us proof. And I would imagine as you started doing some of the workouts and the push ups, that was some new evidence for your brain to really see and start to believe that there was another option for you.

[00:24:43] Doug Bopst: Right and then there’s a lot of talk now about neuroplasticity, and rewiring your brain and changing patterns and habits like all the stuff that we see now on on social media and back then, like I didn’t I didn’t know any of this, but I learned to figure out, like, just through my own process that that was happening, right that after I started to develop these new coping strategies and realize that I could use fitness as a great outlet for a lot of my, my pain, because that was that was a great tool for me was, I had all this pain that I buried inside of me, and then I just suppressed for, for so long with, with drugs and, and other things that it was going to come out one way or the other, you know, because in jail, like I had to break up with a lot of things, I the masks had to come off, I had to break up with addiction, I had to break up with trying to fit in, you know, break up with the drama that I was causing break up with the line, like all these things came to the surface where now it was just me versus me, Doug and his feelings, Doug versus the person he wants to become. And it was ultimately up to me to to deal with that. And so when I started to work out some of the guys and they were like, You need to think about what makes you angry when you work out. And I hadn’t I didn’t really learn, I didn’t really know what that meant. But shortly after getting involved with fitness, I was able to tap into that. And once you tap into that it’s a game over because I would think about all the girls who rejected me, I would think about kids who bullied me, I would think about my own mistakes, I would think about all these things when I was working out. And I felt like I was able to somehow process some of that while I was exercising. And I felt some of this pain just slowly. A lot of this pain slowly subside over time with with doing stuff like that. Yeah,

[00:26:35] Rachel Scheer: So like that fitness became that new avenue to get a lot of that shit out for you. From there, you know, after you got into fitness, you’re in jail, you come out of it? Do you feel like fitness was really that big piece that stuck with you that kept you going on this journey of personal development? And like, obviously, you’ve achieved a ton of success in your life with everything that you’re doing. But do you feel like fitness was that main piece? Or did that lead you to other avenues that helped you thereafter?

[00:27:07] Doug Bopst: I think fitness was definitely the catalyst it was the gateway I use, I think you mentioned towards the beginning of our conversation, because it got the ball rolling as far as rebuilding my self confidence, transforming my health, giving me new coping strategies, showing myself the importance of self discipline, following through with my with my intentions and all the things that we know fitness does for you. And then it also taught me with my cellmate that I didn’t have everything figured out, like he quickly showed me that I needed people in my life to help guide me, you know, so he taught me early on. I mean, I was 21 about the importance of like mentors, and spending time with people that knew more than me, and they were smarter than me. And, and also, like being of service has been big as well because the day I left he I asked him I said How am I ever going to repay you for helping me and he said don’t mess up and pay it forward. And I didn’t know what pay forward meant back then. But I mean, over time, I’ve definitely obviously learned what that what that meant. So I got out live with my my grandparents for a little while. And they gave me some some rules and stipulations that I had to abide by while I was there like that I had to get a job I had to come home at a certain time I had to communicate with them effectively had to work I had to work out had to like take care of my my room and just keep the place tight and just essentially just show respect to them. Right. And they would also on their end, they would provide me with food and a place to live right at the penny money and they would give me money for for spending if I needed it as long as I provided receipts. And it gave me this great balance of love with accountability that I needed at the time. And from there, I just continued on the path of fitness continue to work out, lost a bunch of weight and then got to a place fitness wise where I wanted to help other people use fitness to change their lives. So I ended up becoming a personal trainer back in I officially got certified April 2011 April 1 or March 31 It was I forget which day it was no I think it was March 31 Remember the next day I came in and told my boss I failed the test is an April Fool’s joke but it was a joke. So I think it was March 31. But before that I had worked at this gym that I was a trainer at for like maybe like four or five months or something as just like a front desk person fitness like specialist on the ground. And I was able to formulate a lot of relationships during that time because I was still like on this honeymoon phase I guess if you will of my fitness journey, right? Because I think we all have that honeymoon phase where we’re super excited about fitness. We love it. And then eventually, like it just it’s I mean you’re still excited about it but you’re just like no, it’s just part of my life. Here’s what I do, right? And, and so I was able to connect with a lot of the members there, because I was just, I had nothing to lose, right, I just would go up and just ask them what their goals were, what they were doing there, and they would open up to me and share certain things. And then I was able to get deep with them, I was able to get deeper with them than most other people at the gym, because of my story. And because I’ve experienced so much pain in my life. And I’ve experienced a lot of sadness, because of the way I felt about myself, because of the way I looked. Because of the way I took care of myself that I was able to connect with people at a level where they trusted me, and they related to me, and then that helped propel me propel my fitness career as a personal trainer, you know, back in 2011. And, you know, things, the timing was right for everything. And I was very grateful to build a very successful personal training career pretty much from the start. And, you know, haven’t really looked back. And I think there was a couple things, though, that you talked about, like what else has been transformational for me. One of the things has been faith. Because I didn’t growing up, I grew up like old school religious. So I didn’t have much faith because my idea of faith was, if you’re good, you go to heaven. And if you’re bad, you go to hell. And I was like, Well, I’m on the highway to hell. So there’s no point of believing in God. And the other side of that was if God’s about love, the wise, all this bad stuff happened to me. And so I hated God for a lot of my life. And one of my clients was a nondenominational pastor at a local church. And he was like, Doug, like, you should come to church with me on Sunday, I was like, No way I don’t belong there. He’s like, Alright, man, you kind of just let it be. And at the time, I’ve been a trainer now for probably been about a bit about five years, I think, because the the felony, so I went, when the judge sentenced me to jail, I should say, he sentenced me to five years suspended everything, but 90 days, give me five years probation, 200 hours, community service, all kinds of fines, drug classes. But he was like, Doug, if you could plead everything without messing up, I’ll take the felony conviction off your record and give you a PBJ at the end of the five years of your probation. And again, when I was 20, I was like, there’s, there’s no way this is going to actually come true. Like, I’m going to die. But I’m I’m 25. And thankfully, but that transformation happened for me in jail. And so when I’m, when I was talking to my client who wanted me to go to church, at that point in my life, I thought I had everything figured out. Because I thought that as a kid, I was like, man, as long as I can get to a place where I was fit, I could chase pretty girls, I was making like good money, I was successful, like, all my problems would go away. And so after I got out of the jail, and I started down my fitness path, I chased that to where when I was, you know, at the height of my, the height of my training career, I was like 5% body fat. I was super lean. And like, I was obsessed with health and fitness, like obsessed, like, I was traveling on planes with like chicken breasts and broccoli. And, again, if people do that, there’s nothing wrong with that. But for me, it was super unhealthy. Because I had an unhealthy relationship with my body. I was like, not going out with my friends. So I was afraid of eating like food out at restaurants, which again, no shame, or judgment, if somebody does that, but for me, I was doing it from a very unhealthy place. And, and at that point in my life, I was so broken, Rachel, because I thought that if I got to this one place, that I’d he would be healed. Like I felt that if I just could be fit, if I just could get attention from girls that my problems will go away. And I was also being mentored by this guy, Todd Durkin, who’s out in San Diego, he’s like, one of the most well respected fitness professionals there is like he trains a bunch of professionals, professional athletes and just a super solid good dude been in the business a long time and it’s been a big mentor of mine. I remember him saying to me one day he’s like, Dude, you gotta get some like faith in your life. He was like, You have everything else figured out. He’s like, You got a good business. You’re good kid. You’re good looking and you got a good group of friends your purpose you just I just wrote my first book and felony fitness to free but he’s like there’s something else is missing. And again, like around the same time, all these events started to happen. Like I had that conversation with my client. I was feeling broken it personally still and then that and then Todd was also talking to me that I just had I reached like a breaking point where I just couldn’t do it anymore on my own. And I ended up calling my client and I just said, Hey, I think I’m ready to give this Jesus thing a try. And he liked the way he reacted to me. It was like I just told him he won like the Mega Millions. I was like, why is this guy so happy? So, so odd to me. And I remember going into his office, this is I remember going into his office and, and praying this prayer that was like, I acknowledge that Jesus died for my sins, sort of bawl my eyes out. I just, I don’t know, I honestly don’t know why. And I felt this massive monkey come off my back that I felt had been there for for so long. It was ironically, the same monkey that came off my back when I started to do drugs, walked out a church called my mom apologized like the first time authentically. And I started to understand that I might not have been proud of everything that I did. But God was because he was able to use everything that happened to me and everything that I did to myself to now help myself and help other people. And then it also helped me come to terms with a lot of the past stuff that I hadn’t really dealt with. And it also helped me understand that, like, external stuff, is never going to fulfill you, it can like, definitely make things better, like money can make your life better, right? In a way, I think it can add value to your life, I think solid relationships can make your life better. I think fitness and health can make your life better. But if you at your core don’t have it figured out as far as like who you are, what you stand for what you want being okay with who you actually are. We know that stuff matters. Yeah,

[00:36:40] Rachel Scheer: Yeah, we have that God sized hole in our heart, and we’re looking to fill it with all of these things. And that’s, that’s a beautiful testimony, Doug, and I really appreciate you sharing that in, what you’re really speaking to something that actually I speak to quite a bit is, you know how one healing comes full circle. And I believe that’s when we can really take our pain, and our own story, and go through our own healing, and then bring it outward to serve other people. And that’s really what our purpose ultimately is, is to take all this shit, we walked through, heal from it, and then to bring it out of us to help other people do the same. And that’s why, you know, you can have multiple purposes in your life, essentially. But also, too, we always have to ask the question, like, where are we guiding people to. And that’s something that I’ve really, really had to get clear on in these last couple of years with running my business and having a team and speaking and podcasting. Because if we’re just serving self, you know, or we’re serving money, or we’re serving whatever it may be, it’s always going to lead to this place of emptiness, essentially. And we have to ask our question, like, where are we guiding people to? Okay, I’m helping people get fit, I’m guiding them to confidence. But then, then what? And then what are we really at the core, like the mission we’re on, like, we’re on the mission of guiding people to some place. And I think that’s really, why we do the work that we do, why we go through the healing, it’s guiding people to one poor place, it’s guiding them to that, that connection with themselves. And also that connection, you know, ultimately with God. And I think for a lot of people that can look, you know, different. I think God lives internal. You know, there’s Jesus, God, Holy Spirit, but that internal part of God in us, and when we say, like, I resent God, I hate God. Really, that’s because, you know, there’s that core part of us that’s missing. And we’re struggling so much with that in our authentic self. So I like that use speak to that quite a bit there. 95% of your body’s serotonin is produced by the bacteria that resides in your gut. And this explains why when my gut was a wreck, or when clients come to work with me at Rachel share nutrition, they don’t just suffer from things like bloating, constipation, diarrhea, but they also have symptoms of anxiety, depression, and brain fog, because our gut and our brain are highly interconnected. And as Hippocrates says, all disease begins and ends in the gut. And this is the exact reason why I am so passionate about taking a functional root cause based approach for any chronic health condition, gut issues, mental health, illness, autoimmune conditions, stubborn weight loss, you name it. Me and my team do a comprehensive analysis looking at all these different systems, so we can test instead of just guess, and then develop a customized nutrition plan in protocol to address these root causes. Causes imbalances in the body and restore function. If you want to book a free 30 minute call with anyone from my team, click the link in the show notes or visit Rachel share.com, where so many of us really struggle with that self worth piece too. It’s interesting that you talk a little bit about how like that confidence and self worth piece wasn’t there, you built up some confidence with fitness, but still at the core, right? That root causes kind of still there, with still chasing that worthiness, whether it was from women or from like that validation like that root cause never really went away. And the root cause was really that place that were coming from that self love that self trust and really filling that that hole that was ultimately there. That was missing. Would you say that’s true?

[00:40:53] Doug Bopst: Yeah, and I also want to say that I definitely think fitness is a really great tool to rebuild self confidence, and to rebuild self love, and self worth. But it became unhealthy, where I thought that if I was not only just doing it, to rebuild myself from the inside out, I was doing it because I thought that it would just give me this one thing that really just was unachievable. And that to never struggle with problems again, or just to get external validation from women if I got to a certain fitness level, or that people would like me more if I got to a certain fitness level, right. And once I got to that place, I feel like I got humbled really quick. And this is kind of a crazy, it’s a kind of a crazy story, especially as somebody who’s a personal trainer, in that I was I forget exactly how old I was, I was in my 20s. And I, at the time, I was very successful as a personal trainer, been an author, and obviously was, had some great people around me was well liked in the community. But I was also like just trying to get to that next thing and fitness because it’s like, once you get to like one thing, whether it’s a physique level or a fitness level, if you’re not careful, you’re constantly chasing after that next thing. And yes, you have to have goals, I think that’s important. But it’s like sometimes you do it to the detriment of your own, like mental health and your own well being. And for me, I had so much going on, I was working out like crazy. I was busy as heck as a trainer. And I was also in the midst of trying to compete in a men’s physique competition. And I remember, you know, I’d started to do the diet, I’ve started to work out like crazy. And this was like, again, like a point a crossroads for me where it was right or I think this is all right around like the when the the faith when the faith piece came into play as well, where I was just so caught up in my appearance. And the way I looked that I thought that if I competed in a men’s physique that I would get more attention, or that I could say I did this thing and then that would make me so much happier. And really like wow, while I was competing. I was early I was training for it. I was miserable. I was so miserable.

[00:43:23] Rachel Scheer: Yeah competing not healthy at all.

[00:43:27] Doug Bopst: And then there was a there was a time where Under Armour. They were testing these new prototype heartrate monitors they they given out to some of them or some of their top to top trainers in the area. And so me and a few other trainers were testing these heartrate monitors out during a workout. And all of a sudden I was on the rower and I saw my heart rate spiked to over like it was like over 200 or something. And I got up off the row. I was super dizzy, super woozy. And I remember like looking at my, one of my bosses at the time. And she was like, You don’t look so good. And I was just super pale. And I ended up having a severe panic attack. And I was so upset because I had panic attacks. When I was a super scary for a number of reasons. I had panic attacks when I was a teenager. And the reason I started using oxycontin was to be able to to substitute like subdue the the panic attacks so that I could actually you know, so the the reason I started to take an oxycontin was so that I could like self medicate from the anxiety and the panic so that whenever I could stop whenever I got high off pot, I had smoked so much that it just started giving me paranoia and anxiety so whenever I would get high with my friends, I would get panic attacks. So taking the Oxy allowed me to be able to get high with my friends not have a panic attack and then also became a mechanism for me to numb pain. And so when I started having a panic attack as a trainer, I’m like holy crap, like, am I going backwards again, like am I going back to that? old version of me. And now then I’d also created like this, this phobia where now I told myself in my brain that every time I work out now I’m gonna get a panic attack. So what happened every time I worked out, I got a panic attack. And so now it’s like the one thing that I thought saved my life was now an enemy of Mine fitness. Yeah. And I taken it so far. And so I ended up going to my primary care doctor and like telling him what happened. And of course, anybody who’s listening to this or watching this or Rachel, I don’t know if you can relate to this, that when you have like panic attacks or panic disorder, I guess it’s called the you, you all do all you automatically think like, everything’s wrong with you. Like I thought, My there’s something wrong with my heart. There was something wrong with my lungs, but there was just something off with my head, like whatever it was. And so I told the doctor, all this stuff, and he knows I’m a trainer. He’s like, looking at me like I five heads, he’s like, you’re fine. What do you mean? So he’s like, if you want to write, you know, a referral to go see the cardiologist. So go see the cardiologist, he puts me on the treadmill, do a stress test. And when I walk in, before when I walk in, he’s like, oh, like, are you here? Is your grandparents with you or something? Are you just bringing them? And I’m like, No, it’s just me. And he’s like, oh, like, what do you do for work for work? I’m like, I’m a trainer. Like, why are you here? And I’m like, I don’t know, I just want to make sure there’s nothing wrong with my heart. And then he put me on this treadmill. And I was able to, like, run on the treadmill for like, 20 minutes or whatever. And he was like, you know, we’ve never had anybody run on this thing before. Normally, like people are, you know, you know, in and out of that. And then he just, he’s like, man, you got a healthy heart. He was like, you just have some anxiety and you don’t take some medication or something. And so that was when I got back on because I was on like medication when I was a teenager, but I gotten off it for a while. And then I went back that’s when I got back on anxiety medication, not not I never not Xanax or valium or anything, but just like an SSRI. And, and so that I started taking it then. And I honestly just recently came off of them several months ago. And it’s been quite a journey. And I think that was just the kick in the teeth back then to say, Doug, like, fitness can be certainly part of your life. And it’s certainly important, and you should definitely continue to work out. But you can’t make it this crazy obsession. Yeah, that overrules everything else in your life.

[00:47:30] Rachel Scheer: Yeah, it really makes us ask the question of like, what is really the place that we’re ultimately coming from, and I love fitness. And it’s always a part of my life. But I will say like, fitness for me now looks very different, because our stories are very similar. I got into fitness for like, healthy reasons, confidence, all of that, and then eventually went to the extreme point where I ended up with the gut issues and hormone issues, almost having my large intestine removed, rock bottom, and I had to really create a new relationship of what health really meant to me. And previously, my definition of health was, you know, having a perfect six pack abs, which I still have six pack, but I’m not doing the things that I had to do in order to try to get it I was trying to shave myself to being healthy and fit, which is so backwards. Because that’s not what health ultimately is at the core, like we can’t shame ourselves to health, we can’t heal a body we don’t love. And that’s what so many of us are trying to do. And not saying like, that’s what everybody does. But I do see when we’re not really getting to the core place of where we’re coming from, and really doing the work to heal. It does lead to that, because it doesn’t just go away on its own. Yes, we can create confidence, and we can get a six pack abs, and we can do the discipline work and we can do hardship. But at the end of the day, that is really that core piece that we really need to heal and understand. We need to understand where are we coming from? You know, and why do I struggle with this. And I’ve done a lot of my own healing work. And, you know, it’s really the relationship we have with ourselves, right, we all relate to ourself every single day in every single event. And we begin our relationship with ourselves very early on, with our initial caregivers, and I can go down that rabbit hole of like childhood stuff and all of that, I won’t go there. But really in every single moment, all of our circumstances and all of our relationships are a byproduct of the way in which we relate to ourselves. And when I say relate to ourselves, I really mean that relationship with ourself in all relationships have thoughts, feelings and views about them. So we all have about herself thoughts about ourselves, feelings about herself and views about herself, which create our circumstances and ultimately our relationships and drive us to do everything that we do. And that’s why like, so many of like, the hacks I believe are great, doing hard shit, getting in the ice bath, pushing your body doing that kind of stuff. But we really at the core need to change the relationship we have with ourself. How do I view myself? How do I think about myself? And where are these coming from. And some of the things I’ve even had my clients do is like, go back to scenarios in their life previously, that created a certain view that they had about themselves. And in that view, that typically likes to come up right a lot later. It can be a good thing can be a bad thing. But it really is shaped the way in which we view ourselves here today. And you know, I’ve been on antidepressants, I was on it for, you know, 10 plus years put on it when I was 16 years old, is a moody teenager. And it was the worst thing ever coming off of it. And I know you and I had some conversations previously about that, but it is the worst experience ever. And I think really, the epidemic, you know, we’re in now today is essentially labeling, managing the symptoms, and not really getting to the root cause of where these things are coming from. And we can even do all the testing, like what I do look at the hormones in the gut and find out those things and say, Okay, you have inflammation, and all of this is going on. But the true place is always that heart piece in where we’re coming from and doing that type of healing work, ultimately. So, yeah, it’s it’s a lot. It’s it’s a ton of work there. But I think that’s also what’s kind of missing with a lot of this personal development and self help stuff out there now today, is there’s so many hacks and tricks and things but we’re not really ultimately getting to that, that core place of where are we coming from? And what is the relationship we have with ourself and why?

[00:52:06] Doug Bopst: Yeah, I mean, I would say that, most, if not all, hacks are frickin worthless, if you don’t have a healthy, you know, relationship with yourself, or you’re not coming from it from a place of I’m using some of these tools, to better myself, and not just to do it, because somebody else is doing it not to do it to impress people, you know, not to do it. Because I think it’s just gonna wipe all my problems away. The fact is that you can’t out supplement a bad diet, as we know, you can’t, you know, hack your way out of doing the work as far as like just being in the thick of it and taking radical ownership and accountability, and you’re doing some challenging things. And sometimes, like the challenging things don’t even need to be like something physical, sometimes it just needs to be like standing up for yourself, like we talked about the beginning of the conversation. Sometimes it just needs to be like going. And having a conversation with a family member that you haven’t had in a long time. It’s breaking off a relationship, it’s, it’d be starting a gratitude practice, I mean, all these things that sometimes can be very comfortable to do when you first start them that can pay dividends long term and doesn’t require you to, you know, physically exert yourself, necessarily, because I think, if you’re coming from it, if you’re coming at this from a place of I want to better myself, because I care about myself, I want to better myself, because I’m worthy. I want to better myself, because I want to change the way my life and my story ends, then yes, like a lot of these tools can be great. But again, you have to learn how to master the fundamentals. Like one of the things I’ll often say is like, like don’t even mention, like, pack biohacking anything to man. So you’ve, you’re drinking enough water, you’re, you know, eating? Well, your caloric intake is in line with your goals. You’re on a solid exercise plan, you’re hanging out with great people and you’re mastering your sleep like, like, don’t talk to me unless you’ve done those things. Because the end of the day, like there’s no supplements that are going to fix any of that stuff. I mean, it can certainly help. But it’s not going to get rid of problems. You can take all the sleep supplements in the world. But if you’re, you know, staring at your phone all night, before you go to bed and or you’re drinking a bunch of caffeine, or you are super stressed before you go to bed, you don’t know how to manage your stress, like none of that stuff’s gonna matter. And I think so many people they’re well intentioned to want to, to do the thing and try some of these hacks and I think that obviously there can be a place for these things. I’m not obviously I’m not anti supplement at all. I take supplements, I support supplements, but I think there’s also a lot of nuance to it, in that people want this quick fix, but in reality, like the ultimate Net fix long term is just mastering the fundamentals, doing the work. And using these quote unquote, fit quick fixes just to make these, these these the fundamentals a little bit easier, if that makes sense.

[00:55:14] Rachel Scheer: Yeah, that makes sense. And I think it’s like that gateway, like we talked about, like, all of these hawks are great, but uses a gateway drug to do that, and deeper work that you ultimately need to do. You know, that’s where fitness can be that point for a lot of people. But I’m curious what you feel like the fitness industry is really missing. I think, you know, we tend to put all these health, you know, in a box, you know, just go to the gym, lift around some heavy things, you know, eat healthy most of the time, but so many people struggle like they truly do they struggle with, you know, reaching their fitness goals. And there is oftentimes, like, I have to be at rock bottom, and I don’t want people to have to get to rock bottom, you are obvious at rock bottom. I’ve gotten to a place of rock bottom, but it’s like, how can we create the change we ultimately want. But, you know, my definition of fitness and health has really, really changed. Like I said, it used to be this whole way I looked coming from this place of not feeling good about myself trying to prove that to I don’t even think it was to anybody else, but myself trying to prove it to me, which was at the time. I’m provable right through the avenues that I was walking through. And it wasn’t until I really started to work on that relationship with myself, and start doing to come from a different place where now it’s not black and white. And what I mean by that is there are some days where the most loving thing for myself is saying Rachel, get off your ass and get in the gym and do a hard workout. And there are some days where the most loving thing for myself in terms of health is saying you know what you’re good. Like, like, slow down, rest, you’re tired, you’re exhausted. And that’s why it’s not just like this prescription of like, this is what it looks like. It’s where we’re ultimately coming from some days when it comes to my nutrition, the most loving thing is like, hey, I need to eat my real whole food and eat my chicken and my arugula and my avocado and my sweet potatoes. And that’s the most loving thing for me. Sometimes when I go out with my friends in social events, you know, with where I’m at, and my current health that actually looks like okay, I’m gonna enjoy myself a little bit, I’m gonna have a little fun. Before it was black and white, this is what it has to look like all the time. And that just doesn’t work. And that’s where that relationship I think, when we begin to develop that with ourself, really starts to make things a lot more clear. And fitness is an off course a way to develop that relationship with ourself. I always say like, Hey, you want to have a good relationship with your husband, you want to have a good relationship with your friends, like you have to spend time with them. You have to get to know them, you have to really understand them. And a lot of us aren’t actually spending time with ourselves. We’re not getting to know ourselves. And we’re wondering why we struggle so much. So I know that was a long winded kind of explanation. But what do you feel like is missing in like the fitness industry right now?

[00:58:16] Doug Bopst: It’s such a complex issue. I appreciate you asking there’s there’s so much I first want to say there’s a lot of good in the fitness industry, right? I mean, that the focus there hasn’t there’s never been this much focus on health and wellness, right? I mean, it’s it’s, it’s at the forefront of so many people’s minds. And with technology and podcasts and social media and books, people have access to information and things that they didn’t have access to, you know, decades ago. But I think with that can also come confusion, I think with that can come overwhelm, I think with that can create stress. And so I think the the issue, in my opinion, is that fitness, you know, isn’t necessarily the only thing that people need to focus on when it comes to their health are so many other variables, right? Their environment matters, right? Because if they’re trying to get healthy and work on their health and fitness goals, and they come home, and everybody else in their house is eating like crap and not focused on their health, well, there might be a problem there. Right? Then mental health right we also we’re in this big mental health epidemic now. And I think that you know, food and, and stuff like that is often used to to numb feelings and deal with with pain and that sort of thing. And I think that sometimes that can get in the way of people making progress because they’re so stressed at home. Maybe they have you know, some some underlying trauma they haven’t dealt with and they’re depressed or anxious. And that is all well and good to go the gym but then they come home and they’re stressed and they just end up eating a ton of food. Well, that’s going to impede their progress in the gym. Right? The other thing is that I think it’s not necessarily the information. It’s more like I just don’t think I think people struggle with, with how, like the habit part, you know, in that like, Well, how do I do this? Like, how do I build discipline? How do I build habits? Because that’s, that’s the at the foundation of achieving any goal, whether it’s business related fitness related relationship related is it’s discipline, it’s showing up every single day. And how do you teach that? It’s a hard thing to teach, right? Like, I can say how I do it, you can say how you do it. But but how I do it, how you do, it isn’t going to work for everybody, right? And so it’s such a, I wish I had a silver bullet to be like, this is what needs to be done. But I think hopefully what I’m saying gets people to open maybe to open their eyes a little bit and say, Huh, like, I never thought of it that way. I never thought that it’s there’s so many other things that go into achieving health and fitness goals other than just going to the gym. Yeah, there’s so many things that that people struggle with it aren’t even diet or fitness related, like people, they see a diet online or they see a thing and they’re like, Oh, my God, I’m going to try this diet, I’m going to cut out everything. And meanwhile, they’ve been eating nothing but processed foods for the last 20 years. Like how realistic is that? That would have been like me in jail? my cellmate being like, Alright, I want you to go run a marathon tomorrow. Not realistic.

[01:01:30] Rachel Scheer: Yeah, I think you’ll stick with it too far, then be like, okay, I’m good and collapsing.

[01:01:36] Doug Bopst: Here. Yeah. And from what I understand from like, what a lot of the research says, and, you know, hearing talking to people like Elaine and stuff, Leigh Norton, is that like adherence matters. So like, I think people have to find what works for them. And that, you know, you can go on the best diet in the world. But if you don’t enjoy doing it, or you don’t like doing it, you’re not going to stick to it necessarily.

[01:02:02] Rachel Scheer: If you have resistance to doing it, ultimately, it’s, it’s going to be something that’s going to be hard to stick with, until you get to the place where there is no longer resistance. And what I mean by that is there may be resistance at first right with going to the gym, just like there was with you like doing the workouts, there’s like that resistance, but eventually it has to become a place of now this is something that is getting back to me, there’s not the resistance there. The reason why currently, like I work out every single day, or I move my body every single day, is because for me, that’s like what keeps my anxiety low. That’s what gives me energy, it boosts my mental health. And I feel like shit every single day not like to in the future, not down the road. But today, if I don’t have that time with myself to connect with myself to move my body. So there’s this massive immediate pain right now. And there’s a pleasure now when I do it. So it makes sense for like a lot of people to have that resistance early on, right? Because there’s the pain, the pain of having to go to the gym and compare themselves and look at themselves and be like, I suck at this, I can barely do a push up or, you know, the fear of losing sleep or time away from family, like all of those things come up. But eventually there has to be this shift of, you know, this is really actually giving me far more than it’s ultimately taking away. And I think that’s where people quit far too soon is because maybe they’re in the initial phase of like, okay, there’s still this pain piece of that’s keeping that resistance there on what’s making it difficult to make that shift overall. But if it’s always like hard, like if it’s always shitty, like, if you hate the food you’re eating, always. And you don’t feel that shift, if you hate what you’re doing in the gym, always like no one’s gonna stick with it ever. Not gonna.

[01:03:51] Doug Bopst: And here’s the heartache. I think making healthy transformations suck, and they’re freaking hard. And I think that’s often miscommunicated sometimes where people they go on like a health transformation, like, oh my gosh, I’m gonna lose a bunch of weight, I’m gonna do the thing. And then all of a sudden, like they do they start to lose some weight, they start to feel better. And then life hits, right, the scale doesn’t move. You know, they get a little bit busier at work. And they’re like, oh, my gosh, this wasn’t so easy. And now I’m like feeling depleted because that quote unquote, honeymoon phase has worn off the excitements worn off and now you’re just it’s this is just like, it’s got to be part of your life now. So what do you do? And this is where a lot of people stop, because they’re like, oh my gosh, I’m not excited about fitness anymore. This means I should stop doing it. Like, no, no, no. Like, that doesn’t mean you should stop doing it. That means like, you should continue to do it because you know that it’s going to improve your mood. You know that it’s going to reduce stress, you know that it’s going to enhance your relationships, you know that it’s going to make life easier, right? Does that mean you need to spend hours to the gym, no, but I think it means that you need to move your body on a regular basis. And you also have to come to terms that, that there’s two types of suck at that point is that it really sucks to not achieve a goal. It sucks, like when you don’t follow through, and you don’t like, stay intentional with who you are, you’re going to look back and be like, I wish I would have done it or things are going to start to play out in your life, you’re going to start to develop some things physically that maybe you didn’t want. And I’m not just I’m not talking about from a weight perspective, and my blood pressure goes up, maybe your your blood sugar goes up, maybe you’re pre pre diabetic, right? Like, that all sucks, you know, and reaching a goal also sucks. It takes a lot of hard work takes dedication, it takes, you know, sticking with it even during times where it’s painful, and not from a physical pain. I’m talking like emotional pain and mental pain where your energy is low, and you don’t feel so good. And you’re like, oh my gosh, I don’t feel good, I’m gonna stay home. Like that’s when you need to persevere and push, and not necessarily to the point of exhaustion, but at least go out and do something. Because then you’re teaching yourself that even though you don’t feel your best, you’re at least give it your best that day. And then over time, the the stuff that comes from that is life changing. It’s it’s life changing. It’s so important to people to understand and realize that. And I think it also like shows up with like in relationships sometimes where you’re super excited to be with somebody, and then you like him, you have a lot in common. And all of a sudden, like the excitement wears off, and you’re like, Oh, I’m not as excited about this person anymore. Break up. Yeah, I’m out. Like, no, I think that that means you should, you know, that’s normal. And that, you know, now you’re in it. And now this is where the hard things. This is where things get hard, where you actually have to really understand why you got into this relationship to begin with. This is where you have to learn how to navigate conflict and all the things that people necessarily have a hard time doing. Yeah,

[01:07:03] Rachel Scheer: One of the favorite, my favorite quotes that one of my coaches said to me once is perfection doesn’t exist, but perseverance does. And that’s something that has like resonated with me forever, throughout. Just everything that I’ve walked through, because I always have wanted it to look perfect, you know, and be how I think it should look. But the reality is, is how bad do you really want it? And that’s the question I love asking myself is I say want this, but how bad do I really actually wanted? Do I just want it when everything is perfect. And it looks how I think it should look? Or do I want it because I’ve really actually want it. And I’m willing to do whatever I need to do in order to get it. And I’m also willing to bet on myself. And I think when we can step into that place, that’s where we have that self love. We have that self trust, we have that confidence in ourselves. Because what we’re saying in that moment is, this is hard. But you know what, I’m betting on myself, I got this. And I’m going to still go after it, even though it’s not looking how I think that it should. And I wish more people could experience that in their life. Because that is frickin powerful. That is where like, we really do get to step into the versions of ourselves that we want to not from just reaching the goal, but going through that type of a transformation.

[01:08:31] Doug Bopst: Yeah, I agree. And one of the things I’ve been talking about recently I’ve talked about recently is that often in life, we’re faced with this junction, right? Where, depending on the situation, you can make your life really easy initially. But long term, there’s going to be a lot of pain, long term, there’s going to be a lot of hardship, right? Depending on how you behave like the fitness, the fitness example, it’s really easy to just sit on the couch and watch TV and do absolutely nothing. That’s easy. But down the road, life’s gonna get a little bit harder for you. Right? Unless you’re a freak of nature, born with like insane genetics, which 99.999% of the population isn’t right. But then there’s also the juncture that’s like, life’s gonna get hard. Initially, you know, you’re gonna have to make certain sacrifices, you’re gonna have to develop self discipline, you’re gonna have to spend a little bit of money and buy a gym membership. Maybe you hire a coach, maybe you’re spending a little bit more time in the kitchen, preparing meals, like that stuff’s hard. I mean, I’m not gonna lie, it’s challenging. But life gets easier. Because now you’re building your you’re building your self confidence, which I know has been a theme of our conversation. Now you’re meeting I mean, the best way to meet new people is at the gym. If you’re looking for like new relationships or new friends, go to the gym like there’s I can’t think of a better place where people are more optimistic. Exactly. It is So all these things in life come fairly easy. Later on, it doesn’t mean that you’re not going to have any hardship. But it means that I think a lot of the, the hardships that you will face will become a little bit easier to deal with. Because you’ve used fitness to develop self discipline to develop this muscle of getting comfortable being uncomfortable that I think will will serve you down the road.

[01:10:28] Rachel Scheer: Fitness is the gateway drug to personal development. It is that last question I have for you. How would you define fitness now with where you’re at? Versus what it was for you early on?

[01:10:44] Doug Bopst: Wow, that’s a that’s a great question. And I think it’s definitely evolved in a few phases. So early on, it was obviously everything to me, because it was the only thing that helped me deal with my stuff and manage my emotions at a time where I thought the only way to do it was via substances. And it was also the gateway drug, like you said, to finding myself personal development, changing my habits, all those things that was super important. And then as I transitioned out of that phase, and I realized that I had rebuilt my life in and then it became unhealthy, because now it became my entire life, everything. Fitness was like the nucleus of my life. And then everything kind of fit in where fitness did and if that makes sense. And then that became unhealthy, as I’ve talked about. Now, it’s like the nucleus of my life is kind of like my values, my beliefs, my dreams, my vision, my purpose, like everything that I want. And then fitness fits on the outside of that, because that’s part of what I want, I want to be healthy, I want to obviously, like maintain a low level of body fat not necessarily, for I mean, the, the aesthetics component, yes, I guess I’m still a little vain in that way. But more so because I know it’s healthy to have, the less, you know, to have like a lower percentage of body body fat, so to speak. And then off of that nucleus is different things that are important to me relationships, you know, family, you know, pod the my business, podcast and faith and, and everything. And I think faith probably in the center, it goes in the center to it probably has obviously a lot of overlap, because a lot of my beliefs and values and purpose drive from that. But there’s just different spokes on the outside that are kind of, you know, an extension of that nucleus. Now we’re at, at the beginning, fitness was everything. And I think it was the right thing at that time for me. But as I progressed in that it became super unhealthy. We’re now fitness, which is taking up other areas of my life that I think needed healing and working on as well.

[01:12:51] Rachel Scheer: Yeah, fitness is a part of you. But it’s not all of you, if you ultimately are

[01:12:56] Doug Bopst: Yeah, exactly.

[01:12:58] Rachel Scheer: And I believe like fitness is really that maintaining fit heart body in mind, ultimately, and whatever that may look like for every person’s and that’s going to look so different. So

[01:13:12] Doug Bopst: Hold on, I want to say one other thing. I want to say one other thing. Yeah. So and I think that’s something that came to my mind is sometimes like, I think you’re going to be more like you’re obsessed and your obsessions change. Over time. I think like what you focus on changes. Like if somebody’s like 200 pounds, overweight, their doctors, like if you don’t lose this weight, like soon, like, you’re gonna be on some all this medication, you might have a heart attack, like, I think you need to be obsessed with your fitness, like I really do. Like, I think that needs to be like, your main focus, you need to do whatever you can to stay alive, right? Like, that’s, that’s the thing. But what I’m saying is, like, once you move past that, where it’s like, Alright, now you’re in a safe spot where your health is good. Let’s dial it back a little bit and make, like you said, make fitness part of your life and not your whole life.

[01:13:58] Rachel Scheer: Yeah, yeah, I’d agree with that. If you’re somebody like borderline, like gonna have a heart attack, like it does need to be like a priority in your life. Sure, but essentially getting to that place of where we can have somewhat homeostasis in these areas, but never perfection. It always is ever evolving. But I think this is an incredible conversation that so many people are going to relate to really about how fitness is that gateway drug for us creating the life that we ultimately want for yourself, stepping into the greatest versions of ourselves. Doug, where can people find out more about you, your books or podcasts, all of the awesome things you’re doing? Well, first,

[01:14:39] Doug Bopst: I want to say thank you so much for having me on. This has been a great conversation. I love talking shop. I love obviously talking about mental health and healing and all those things. So appreciate you having me on. The best place to find me is just my websites. Doug boobs.com. There, there’s links to the podcast, there’s links to my books. There’s links to other interviews I’ve done and And as far as like social media I’d say I’m most active on Instagram at Doug Pope’s and then YouTube. Doug Pope’s Tiktok Facebook Doug boobs, so if you want to come over and her you know, check me out, check out my page and maybe share a takeaway or something that you learned from this episode with Rachel and I think that’d be awesome.

[01:15:21] Rachel Scheer: We’ll put all of that in the show notes everyone if you want to go give Doug boats a follow it’s time and thank you for tuning in. Dad. It’s been an honor. This has been sheer madness.

 

Read This Next

Exploring the Impact of Micronutrients on Well-Being

Micronutrients, or the vitamins and minerals your body needs, typically work like a team. To…

Can Probiotics Help to Improve Gut Health?

If you want to improve gut health, or even optimize your overall health, you’ve probably…

What is SIBO? Your Simple Guide to Understanding and Treating Small Intestinal Bacterial Overgrowth (SIBO)

Have you ever found yourself grappling with the discomfort of abdominal distension, bloating, or cramping,…

Posted in

Leave a Comment