Redefining Success: Allan Misner's Journey from Career Triumph to Holistic Health

When life threw curveballs, Allan Misner caught them and threw them right back. Embark on a compelling journey with our guest, fitness guru and podcast veteran, as he shares the challenges of his youth and the competitive fire that was stoked within him. His candid retellings of a high school sports career cut short and a dream of space exploration grounded by military service are emblematic of a man who's learned to roll with the punches, turning each setback into a stepping stone towards personal growth.

Imagine reaching the zenith of your career but at the cost of your health and relationships. This episode peels back the curtain on a high-flying accounting professional's sobering realization that success isn't measured in titles, but in the moments shared with loved ones. Hear the heartfelt story of how a simple request from his daughter led to a transformative commitment to fitness, epitomized by the symbolic defeat of the Warrior Dash and a shift from the sidelines to the forefront of his health journey.

Our conversation doesn't end with the physical; it delves into the realms of mental and emotional well-being, highlighting the oft-overlooked importance of quality sleep and the courage required to leave toxic relationships behind. Discover how prioritizing rest, nurturing healthy connections, and setting attainable goals can pave the way to a balanced, fulfilling life. Whether you're seeking inspiration to kickstart your own wellness journey or looking for practical steps to maintain it, this episode is a treasure trove of insights and relatable anecdotes ready to guide you.

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Chapters

• 0:00 Life-Changing Challenges With Coach Allan
• 6:14 Transformation Through Fitness Commitment
• 19:30 The Importance of Quality Sleep
• 35:27 Commitment and Motivation for Health

Transcript

Brad Minus: 0:25

All right, welcome back to Life-Changing Challenges. This is Brad Minus, again your host, and on today on the podcast I have Allan Misner. Now Alan, or Coach Alan, is a certified personal trainer with NASM, a precision nutrition master, health coach, a functional aging specialist wellness coach author. He's got 634 episodes of his own podcast. We'll talk about that and yeah, just overall good guy. So welcome to the podcast, alan. Thank you for coming. Thank you, brad, I appreciate it. So I do this with every single one of my guests and basically he'd give us a little origin story. So where did you grow up? What was the complement of your family going on in your childhood, high school? That little bit could give us a little bit of background I was.

Allan Misner: 1:21

I was a military brat, so I was born into a military family, pretty much the product of divorce. The day I was born, my parents split up and so I had stepfathers plural growing up. So a lot of moving around, a lot of shaking and, as a result, when you're a military brat, you develop slightly differently than the kids that grew up in just one place with the same people. I didn't make deep friendships. Very often the few that I did were very deep, but I couldn't count on being in any one place for very long, so I never did until I got to about high school age, and then for me it was really about performance.

Allan Misner: 2:00

I was an athlete in high school and so that was my performance. When I got into college, it was making the grades because my athletic career was over. And then it was the army I went into. Similar thing I wanted to be the best performer, and then when I started my career again, it was how do I become the best? How do I do this better than anybody else does? And so for most of my growing up years I was competing. Rather, I was competing against somebody else or against myself. My whole life was geared around competition and that was good. But, yeah, it also brought up a lot of bad as.

Brad Minus: 2:40

I got older. Interesting and I want to get into that. I definitely want to get into that. Because that's interesting, because basically I coach in this similar fashion with my endurance athletes is you are competing. Most of the time. You compete against yourself, competing against the clock. You just want to be better than you did the last time you ran this distance of race, the last time you race. So I'm interested in the negative side of that. So we're going to have to get back to that. Just can I ask what was you said you're an athlete, what sports were you involved?

Allan Misner: 3:11

in. There was some baseball until I had a falling out with the baseball coach, but football predominantly. I also. So I was an offensive lineman for the most part in football, but I could play every position on the field. I knew every position on the field so the coach knew he could pull me in for any play, put me anywhere and I could run and go with it and that that happened from time to time. And then I was a track, I ran the two mile and I did shot put. So I'm I'm right in the middle of with the little big little guys and in there with the big guys and never really fit super well with any of them, other than again, once I was put into a situation I was going to do the best I possibly could and I was also on the tennis team.

Allan Misner: 3:53

So that's what you normally see as an offensive lineman playing tennis. But there I am.

Brad Minus: 3:59

Oh, no More power to you, but I got to tell you as an offensive lineman I would think that tennis is pretty good because of the lateral shuffling, the linear, so you're getting the best of both worlds. You're getting good footwork and the whole bandwidth. It had to help you somewhere in football. Did you find that?

Allan Misner: 4:15

I was an athlete, that's plain and simple as an offensive lineman. No, the running the two mile and track and playing tennis didn't help my football much, because I couldn't put weight on. I was moving too much during the off season to really put on any mass, and so, as a result, I was undersized, particularly as I got to my senior year, and so that's why I said my my, basically my athletic career was over because I didn't fit the position. Going on to the next level of what you would want in an offensive lineman, I was roughly about 50 pounds too light.

Brad Minus: 4:49

Understood, yeah, definitely understood. So fast forward. You got a job. Did you go to the military right away, right out of college?

Allan Misner: 4:57

I did two years. I did two years in college. I majored in physics because I wanted to be an astronaut. So I'm one of those weird people All the dreams you have. I wanted to be an astronaut. So when I went to college I majored in physics because I was going to be an astronaut. But my sophomore year the little thing happened called explosion of the shuttle and they killed a civilian. Now everybody's watching and you've probably seen those plumes of smoke in the air. When the shuttle blew up, when it was taking off, everybody else was looking at it, thinking, oh wow, look, how big, how that looks. I'm thinking they just killed a civilian. This program is dead until they find every little piece and figure out how this happened and how it can never happen again. So that was my window, my astronaut window just closed.

Allan Misner: 5:48

So I decided to join the Army myself. I majored in infantry. So I spent two years basically doing a lot of fitness stuff and learning how to kill people. That was my job title and I was with the Ranger unit. So again, some of the most competitive athletic people in the military and I was in that group. I know if I re-upped they probably would have sent me to Ranger School. But I didn't go Ranger. But I went through two years of that.

Allan Misner: 6:14

Basically it was to raise money for college and when I went back I decided to major in accounting. Had never had an accounting class. All I really knew was it wasn't what I would have been doing for two years and it was totally different and I was going to make a go of it. It turned out I was really good at accounting who knew? And it turned out to be a really good move for me. So I got a master's degree in accounting, passed the CPA exam and started working in the field. I had a 25-year career working in audit field and was really good at my job, and so I made vice president before I was 39 in a Fortune 500 company and was C-suite on the board meetings and doing all the things that I thought we were supposed to do, and I was very successful.

Allan Misner: 7:00

But the problem was I wasn't successful anywhere else. I had toxic relationships, I had very poor health, I was way overweight and almost no fitness level at all. I had toxic relationships, I had very poor health, I was way overweight and almost no fitness level at all. All I was really doing was just working and I was really good at it, but 16 to 20 hour days every day, six days a week, it just and traveling as much as I did, because I at that point in my career I was traveling about 90%. And for anyone that hasn't done traveling and doesn't understand what those percentages means, it means I was home about one weekend per month, and that's it.

Allan Misner: 7:39

So a lot of traveling, a lot of time in hotels, a lot of time in hotel bars, eating whatever the bar food was, just wasn't taking care of myself, and it became clear to me at that point that I needed to do something. So I made a decision. I was going to fix myself. I took a vacation which I hadn't done in three years. I bought the timeshare just because I knew if I bought it I would show up. So that was kind of the first step in my change.

Allan Misner: 8:07

Model was make yourself do the things that you're supposed to do. But I still went through eight years of not really accomplishing anything except increasing my income. I wasn't any healthier, I wasn't any more fit, I wasn't any better off. I was still that terrible guy that I didn't like anymore, and so that was where I found myself.

Allan Misner: 8:31

And then it really all hit a cusp. My daughter was 20 and she had she'd just she'd just gotten her level one CrossFit coach cert and she was doing these CrossFit competitions and these mud runs. We were talking on the phone and I know this is a Southern thing, but she said, daddy, I want you to come watch me do this competition. And it was like a punch in the gut. I'm not supposed to be watching my daughter do things. I'm supposed to be a participant, I'm not a spectator.

Allan Misner: 9:03

I got outside of myself of why I wanted to do these things and why I wanted to be healthier and why I wanted to be more fit. And so that was the first kick and I just sat back and asked myself why am I not able to do this? I've done all these other hard things. Why am I not able to fix my health and fitness? And then it occurred to me Every other time I'd been successful, every other time I'd had something great happen in my life. I had always committed to it, I was always 100% in. There was no failure, there was no way out. There was in doing the work to get what I wanted.

Brad Minus: 9:56

And I had not done that yet, so I made the commitment to take care of myself and get myself to a point where I could be a participant in the things my daughter was doing and not just a spectator.

Allan Misner: 10:04

So was that before or after the beach trip? That was after. The beach trip was when I was 39. And that's when I first realized that I had a fundamental problem, that I was not healthy, I was not fit. The relationships that I was in at that point in time were just not what they needed to be. I had a toxic relationship with a girlfriend. I had not really great relationship with my family and excuse my language, but I'm sitting on the beach and I basically thought you're a fat bastard, my language, but I'm sitting on the beach and I basically thought you're a fat bastard. I didn't even like myself. And why would anyone else like me?

Allan Misner: 10:34

And so it was really that moment that I started, but I still wasn't doing the things. I still wasn't changing my behaviors, my lifestyle. I'd have a little bit of success and then I would fall back. And I'd have a little bit more success and I'd fall back, and the core of it was I really wasn't playing to my strengths. I was basically, I would say, trying at it. I wasn't really doing it.

Allan Misner: 11:00

And so that was where the fundamental change came, eight years later, with the gut kick from my daughter. She didn't know it was a gut kick. She just was inviting me to come watch her do a CrossFit competition and of course, yes, I did go watch her do the CrossFit competition, but it was a kick in the teeth for me to realize I am not the man I want to be. My daughter is right where I was at her age an athlete pushing herself doing really well and I wasn't. And and I'm like I've got to get back, not necessarily back to my 20s, but back to a point where I can feel comfortable and confident that I'm going to live a good, long, healthy life and I'm going to be involved with my family and I'm going to be able to help my family, versus the other way around.

Brad Minus: 11:47

So what was your first step? So you're 47. You just got done watching this thing, watching your daughter compete in CrossFit and you figured out that hey, I need to make a commitment.

Allan Misner: 11:59

What is your?

Brad Minus: 12:00

first step.

Allan Misner: 12:01

I made the commitment and then what I did is I signed up for a Warrior Dash and got some folks together and we all did. I know Warrior Dash if you're not familiar with it basically a 5k race. It's in the mud, so it's not like running on the street. It's a little bit hard, a little bit harder than that and there's some obstacles now. But the cool thing about a warrior dash is it's a very friendly mud run. People are helping each other. So if there's a part of it that you can't do, there are other people there to help you complete this race. So it's just a really fun time.

Allan Misner: 12:37

I was not in the shape to really be able to do it on my own, so it was good that I had a little bit of help from complete strangers during this race. I didn't do it with my daughter, she did it with her friend and did it much faster than I would have, but I did finish it, and so then I did the stupid thing. I called my daughter and I said hey, why don't we do a tough mudder Now? A tough mudder is 12 to 13 miles of mud run, much more difficult, a lot less friendly and a lot harder obstacles. So people will help you on a tough mudder, but it's not like what I had on a Warrior Dash Almost everybody acts like they're on the same team. On this one, there's a little bit more of in for yourself get your race done, and so there's a little bit more of in for yourself get your race done, and so there's a little less of that. And the Spartan is even a little bit tighter, where if you can't do an obstacle, they expect you to do 10 burpees. The Tough Mudder was a tough one. I was running it with my daughter, so it wasn't like I had a team, but I did not want to slow her down, and at the time we signed up for it around March.

Allan Misner: 13:49

The one I signed up for was around Tampa, so be it. And I bought our plane tickets, bought our tickets to the event, and I realized that I needed to lose a significant amount of weight. I needed to improve my strength, particularly my grip strength, and I needed to do that in about eight months. And so that was the fire that I lit under my butt to be in the gym every day, to be eating the foods that I needed to eat, to not be drinking the alcohol that I had been drinking and to get myself in some form of shape to be able to do this, and the change was quite phenomenal. I managed to lose 66 pounds of fat. I put on 11 pounds of muscle.

Allan Misner: 14:30

Now I was still traveling and doing everything else that I had been doing, so I couldn't hire a coach. I really couldn't hire anybody. I was looking around for resources At the time. Nobody was talking about fitness over 40. If there was a book, it was about stretching, but the most strenuous thing they figured people over the age of 40 needed to do was stretch. And there were no podcasts and there were no online coaches. I found online coaches for bodybuilding prep for a show like doing your poses. I found some for powerlifters, but there was no one doing online personal training. So I couldn't even hire a coach.

Allan Misner: 15:09

So I was like, how am I going to do this and figure myself out? And that's why I signed up and did NASM for the certified personal trainer and then I said, okay, my movement patterns are all wonk, so now I also want to do the corrective exercise specialty. And I did that. And then I'm like, okay, I need to do something with my nutrition. Here's the fitness nutrition certification. So I did that, and so the first certifications that I went through were just so I could coach myself.

Allan Misner: 15:39

I had no intention of ever becoming a wellness coach. This was just what do I need to know If I had a coach? What would my coach tell me? And so I became my own coach, and I did this, and so we signed up for the race. And then November came along and we did the race and I finished with my daughter Didn't slow her down a bit we crossed the finish line holding hands. It was a wonderful event. I'll remember it for the rest of my life. And, as you might imagine, when you post a picture of yourself and you've lost 66 pounds in about eight months, people start to ask questions, and so I had one of my friends asking about it. I said, look, it's not rocket science, but it does take effort and discipline. And but that's not discipline that you have to have, it's discipline that you can get from someone else. So I'm willing to coach you If your wife will come along for the ride and I can record our coaching sessions as a part of the new podcast I'm launching.

Brad Minus: 16:42

And so Idea like the way that you could get content that way. That's fantastic.

Allan Misner: 16:48

And so I did. I coached them for 10 weeks and each week when I had my calls with them, that was content for the podcast. And John, over 10 weeks, lost 39 pounds. His wife lost 28 and she couldn't even work out. Her back was, her back went out. She wasn't even able to get out of bed for much of it. But with what I was coaching them in the nutrition space and then what movement that they could do, they both managed to lose a considerable amount of weight. So I knew I was onto something like okay, I know how to train people over 40. And so I went ahead and launched my podcast. I launched my training and I started training people on the side. I still had the corporate job, so I was still doing that.

Allan Misner: 17:29

But one of the things that happened around that time was just the recognition that I needed to be making all of my decisions differently going forward, that I shouldn't just factor in how much money is this going to make me if I take this job or move to this place.

Allan Misner: 17:48

It was what is this going to mean to me long-term from a health and wellness perspective? And so there was a point in time when I said, okay, I'm not going to set my alarm to wake up in the morning. I'm going to go to bed early enough so that I get a good night's sleep every night, and I found that was about 830. So if I go to bed by 830, I will wake up sometime between 530 and 630 in the morning, just depending on how many sleep cycles my body needs. I measured it for a good long time to see what was going on, what my sleep cycles were. They're almost exactly 90 minutes, and so I haven't. Unless I have to get up for an early morning flight, I don't set an alarm, I just get up. When I know I've had enough sleep, I get up If I haven't. If I need another sleep cycle, I stay in bed, and I've done that every day for at least the last eight years or so.

Brad Minus: 18:53

And then I've done a lot of other things we'll talk about in a minute. Yeah, so that's interesting that you mentioned sleep, because I know that people take it for granted. I know I take it for granted. I seem to feel my best between six and a half to seven hours of sleep. Anything if I get seven and a half hours, I might internally feel good, but externally I feel like I'm dragging, and that might be, that might be just for habit, but I see what you're saying. But yet I do set an alarm and the whole bit as well. So that just might be it. But it's interesting that you say about sleep. So let me just step back real quick. So before you decided to hit your alarm or before you decided to stop using your alarm, how did you sleep, how did you find that you were sleeping and how many hours?

Allan Misner: 19:42

A lot of times I didn't think I needed that much sleep. I was working longer days, so you know, every hour I'm asleep when I'm home is an hour. I felt like I was losing of my personal time. Okay, and so if you're working, if you're working a 16 hour day and you sleep eight hours gone, no-transcript. And I, and it was, and what I found was I can get by on four cycles, okay, but I do a little better at five cycles and occasionally I need six. But there have been times I've slept 14 to 16 hours. I just went to sleep and I didn't wake up.

Brad Minus: 20:49

I can't even imagine. I know I did it when I was a teenager.

Allan Misner: 20:52

Yeah.

Brad Minus: 20:53

But that's incredible. So what was your? What was the difference in? Let's start with mood. Let's start with me. Yeah, I think the difference was in mood, when you decided that you're not setting an alarm anymore no-transcript.

Allan Misner: 21:43

Deep sleep and you're now in light sleep and this is the best time for you to be awake. You've completed the cycle and those sleep cycles are really important for brain health, for mood, for energy, for all of it. It's how your hormones regulate. It's really the magic of setting your body up for success is making sure that you're getting good sleep.

Brad Minus: 22:04

So basically you're saying ditch the POMO Straight fear of missing out.

Brad Minus: 22:09

Because, you just knit the nail on the head for me. What you went through back then is what I'm going through now. I definitely feel that I feel like, hey, I want to get up. I get up at four every single morning, without clockwork. With light clockwork, even my body will wake up before the alarm. It like races the alarm, and so I'm up at four, and it's mostly because of that and yeah, don't get me wrong I am out getting my workout on between five and 530 without hesitation, and that's the reason Well, it's a starting of the reason of why I started that, but I'm also the same exact way. Is that hey?

Brad Minus: 22:45

I'm only got so many hours in a day. Sleeping is like non-productive.

Allan Misner: 22:50

I've changed my opinion of it. Yeah, I've changed my opinion of it because I feel good getting good sleep, and so my energy level the next day, what I'm capable of doing the next day, I get more done. And for me, if I'm fatigued and tired and I didn't get a good night's sleep, my performance on everything, my performance in the gym, my performance in my work it all is reflected there. I've come to fall in love with sleep, and it's one of my favorite things to do with my spare time is to get good sleep excellent and that's great.

Brad Minus: 23:24

That's great advice. All right, so you ran the. You ran the tough mutter. I've done one of my stretch on the sheet myself, so I know exactly where you're going with that, and that was a good experience that kept you going. What was next? Okay?

Allan Misner: 23:38

I got married, my relationships were improving Again. I was now that I was nicer to myself, because we all have that voice and that voice is mean. I called mine the fat bastard and he was a mean one, and so it was like, okay, I have, I've done a lot, that's good, but I've got other things to do, and so part of it was fixing my relationships. And so I broke up with a girlfriend. That was a very toxic relationship and I had gone from one toxic relationship to the next and I told myself I'm not doing that anymore. I'm going to find the right person, and then that's going to be where I go with this Eliminating toxic relationships maybe the hardest thing for someone to do.

Allan Misner: 24:27

I think I did one more, one more thing that was a little harder. But yeah, I just ended those relationships. I said I'm done with them and I'm not going to do this anymore. And as soon as I started looking out for myself and I wasn't interested in looking for the next relationship I found one, and so I had say I've been single for 17 years. I hadn't been in a super, super committed relationship other than, yeah, living with a girl or there's that.

Allan Misner: 24:53

But those relationships were just putrid. They were terrible, and so I wasn't. I didn't get anything from them. That was what was the worst part of it was they were so one-sided and I didn't care. I was working so much, I was doing so much, I didn't care. And that's the worst way to be when you're in a relationship that you can literally just say I don't actually care anymore, and so I ended them, and I just decided I'm not chasing people that need to be chased, and so I ended them, and I just decided I'm not chasing people that need to be chased, and so I stopped. And that again put me in the right place to find the right person. So that changed. And then, yeah, I got married and again working my career, doing my thing. Everything was clicking, things were starting to look better, but I still had this very stressful job.

Brad Minus: 25:39

Right, okay, so you're still an accountant at this point.

Allan Misner: 25:43

Yes, I say accountant, but let me explain what my job was. I was internal audit, and so an internal auditor works inside of a company to make sure that the people in the company are doing the things they're supposed to do. Also, if someone does something they're not supposed to do, ie take money, I do the investigations, so that's interrogations and all that kind of stuff. So, but I have a reputation. I had a reputation at the company of being the guy everybody hated the most. I was the most hated man in the company and it wasn't even close. Literally everybody in the company hated me, and one being the most hated person in the company. And then also the fact that if I miss something, I would be the one to get blamed. So if somebody did something they weren't supposed to do, it would come up in a board meeting. Hey Alan, why didn't you catch this? So there's only one other person in the company I think that had more responsibility for the company than me, and that's the CEO. If anything went wrong, it was going to come down to me and it could end my career. So that was my everyday, everyday existence was nobody liking me, no one wanting me around. I'm doing the fraud investigations. And then there's this little thing on top of it of working for a corporation that seemed to really enjoy layoffs. So every year, right around Thanksgiving, I would get word that I needed to let a few people go, and I had to figure out how to let them know the first week of December that they would no longer be employed with the company as of the last week of December every year. For three years In fact, I was so stressed out at one point I put my name on the list and was told I couldn't be on the list. But the next year I did that. And then the next year rolled around and they decided to just go ahead and outsource the whole department. Now I had already started stepping out the door because I was doing the online coaching and I was enjoying that so much more than my day job. I had a five-year plan. The problem was we were only two years into it. Five-year plan the problem was we were only two years into it when they told me in September that my job was coming to an end and I needed to let everybody go.

Allan Misner: 28:05

I went home and told my wife what was going on. I said, oh, and I'm not going back to corporate. I hate those people. I do not want to be sitting in a boardroom where we're talking about headcount, we're talking about span of control, when I know this is not just three people. This guy, his kids got drug problems. This woman we gave her a promotion in February so she just bought a house. And here's another woman that's having problems with her kids, custody problems with her kids and I know these people personally. I have to then go in and tell them it's not you, it's the company it's got to let three people go. And so it was extremely stressful those years. And then again I told them again, making the decision what is best for me, not my career, not some goal of what I want to be when I grow up, just like really what is the best decision for my well-being? And it was not to go back to corporate. So I said I'm going to make a go of this, I'm going to make a go of being a full-time coach and see where it takes me.

Allan Misner: 29:07

And it's taken me to a lot of places. We had a beautiful house on the beach in Pensacola and every year, rolling around from June to November, is this thing called hurricane season, whenever a hurricane manages to get into the Gulf of Mexico, particularly around the September timeframe, it's nothing good. Nothing good is going to come of that at all. Especially in Pensacola Beach. We had this beautiful house and we were paying buku dollars to own it. My wife and I were sitting there one night and we just decided, hey, we could move to the Caribbean, lower our costs and live a lot more frugally with a lot less stress. And so we started exploring places to go, and one of the places I recommended was Ocas del Toro. It's an archipelago off the coast of Panama and it's a Caribbean island that does not get hurricanes which has got to be a lot better than where you were right.

Brad Minus: 30:10

Yes, not worry about the hurricanes right.

Allan Misner: 30:13

We put the house on the market and we sold our all our stuff and so that other big dream. Everybody says I'm just going to sell everything and just live in a shack on a caribbean island. We did that standing and so you know I've always been a person, though.

Allan Misner: 30:29

I've always been a person. So you look all the way back to I wanted to to be an astronaut. So what did I major in in college? Physics, of all things. Because I, when I have a dream of something, I never really tell myself I can't do it, it's always just how can I do it? And obviously the shuttle blowing up I couldn't. I couldn't make that happen any faster than fix that. So I did know my window was probably lost, but I just pivoted and this was no different. I lost my job and I really didn't have the income to afford that big house on the beach.

Brad Minus: 31:08

So I pivoted and did another thing that we all talk about, which is sell all your stuff and move to the Caribbean, and you actually did it versus the rest of us that are just. It's just a pipe dream. That's amazing, right, no, and that's amazing. So you started coaching online. How did you start getting more clients, enough to where you could basically live and not have to worry about anything else? How did you end up gathering more and more of clients?

Allan Misner: 31:33

The podcast is really the driver of all that. That's how people typically meet me.

Allan Misner: 31:37

Another thing I did do right after I lost that job was started outlining and I wrote a book called the wellness roadmap, and so that was an award-winning book that you can get anywhere you buy books. I'm very proud of that book. I worked really hard on it. Published that in November of 2008. I did the audio for the audio book, which you would expect from a podcaster. I thought it would be weird if they're used to listening to my podcast and then all of a sudden it's somebody else's voice on my book. So that was a new experience recording myself reading a book. But I did it and I feel good about it. So that went out. That's drawn people into my sphere. The podcast obviously draws a lot of people in.

Allan Misner: 32:21

From all that, I've built up a Facebook group and some other things and so really just have tried to create an ecosphere of where people over the age of 40 can find what they need, dig through all the muck and have someone there to help them, help guide them. So things I didn't have. I didn't have a coach because I couldn't go to the gym and have a coach. I'm now making myself available to be that person. There were no podcasts on health and fitness for people over 40. It was just assumed you do the same thing everyone over 20 does, or you don't do anything at all but stretch. But no, I was the first one to do that too. So here we are, over eight years later and, as you said, 634 episodes in. But what I'm really proud about with the podcast is that every guest that I have on my podcast almost every one of them has written a book, and I don't just invite them on and ask three questions for everybody, or ask them the questions they want to be asked. I read their book. So over the course of that eight years, I've probably read over 400 health and fitness books. Yep, so I see a lot of things.

Allan Misner: 33:36

The strings through all of them, why someone would think carnivore is a better diet, why someone would think a vegan diet is a better diet. The reality is that the reason their diet is the best diet is because it's whole food. We'll even tell you that it's a whole food, plant-based diet. Yeah, okay, but you're arguing that theirs is terrible because it's not whole food. And if theirs is whole food, wouldn't it be just as good as yours? And so I can have those conversations now, because I see those common threads and that's what I'm here to do is to help people get through all that muck, realize what certain things they're doing, and when something new comes out, I'll find the experts and I'll have the right conversations so they can know okay, is this a zyptic thing for me? What's it doing and how is it doing it? Oh crap, nobody actually really knows, but it does.

Allan Misner: 34:28

But if you don't care how you're losing weight, then yeah, by all means. If they're not telling you how to change that, you have to change your lifestyle. They're just saying, yeah, take this drug and you'll lose weight. And that's what you think you're doing. I'm I feel bad for you because there's no magic bullet. You still have to do the work. It was just a helper. Can't just do it and then think everything's going to be fine. You've got to change the lifestyle too. So I'm here to help people work their way through that stuff, and that's what the podcast is about, that's what the book was about and just helping people get the right mindset so that they know, when they sit down to do this stuff, that they're not alone. Other people have been on this and they can learn from them, and so I try to help them do that.

Brad Minus: 35:15

Excellent, and that is a. That's a perfect way to segue into. Let's call it lessons learned, takeaways, whatever you want to call it. I usually use takeaways in the show notes, so we'll see that. So you first started. Your biggest thing was number one was commitment, right?

Allan Misner: 35:33

Yes, yes.

Allan Misner: 35:34

So commitment is where you take your why? A deep, emotional why. That was my relationship with my daughter and how I saw my life going forward. And it has to be emotional. If you just go in there, you're going to lose 25 pounds. And it has to be emotional. If you just go in there, you're going to lose 25 pounds. Why? Why is that emotional? Why do you care? You're going to look a little better, you might feel a little bit better, but why do you feel that's what you need to do? You've got to have a deep, compelling one.

Allan Misner: 36:02

Mine was my relationship with my daughter. I have three moments in her life that were really special, that I'll remember for the rest of my life. The first one was the day she was born and she wrapped her hand around my pinky. The second one is walking her down the aisle last year, and I know in my heart, if I had not done what I did, I probably wouldn't have been here to do that. And then the third was holding her hand as we crossed the finish line at that Tough Mudder. It completely changed our relationship. It changed the way I look at my life and the way we live, and so you know that's it.

Allan Misner: 36:35

It always has to start with that and your vision might be different. Mine started as a Tough Mudder, but now I look at it and say, okay, who am I now as a 58-year-old man? Can I go do a Tough Mudder? Yeah, I can train for one and go do one again if I want. I don't know what my grandkids are going to be doing, and so our two daughters got married this last year, so there probably will be grandkids coming up soon. I want to be able to get on the floor and play with them. I want to be able to keep up with them when they go to the zoo, and we didn't have Tough Mudders growing up, but they have them now.

Allan Misner: 37:16

I don't even know what they're going to have in 15, 20 years from now, but I'm going to be the crazy 80-year-old doing that stuff because it's with my grandkids. So, having a vision, having a compelling line, you only live once. You get to decide how that life goes. And if you decide you want to be sick and frail, then that's still a decision the decision to not do the things you need to do, start training to be that person. I call that fit for task. I want to be able to open my own pickle jars when I'm older. I want to be able to wipe my own butt when I'm older.

Allan Misner: 37:40

And I want to be able to get on the ground and play with my grandkids when I'm older, and so all of that you have to take into account. Are you doing the things necessary today to make sure you're the person you need to be a year from now, 10 years from now, 50 years from now?

Brad Minus: 38:01

why have an emotional connection with that? Why? Second is and what I would be now is knowledge is the hop. How are you going to get to this point and what do you need to accomplish to get there?

Allan Misner: 38:23

That make sense. I didn't have some of the advantages we have today After COVID. You can't go online without finding an online coach, but when I was looking, there was nothing. There was no one there to help me, so I had to go the long course. I had to go and figure this all out myself. You don't have to do that. There are people available to come help you.

Allan Misner: 38:45

And one of the cool things is if you start looking at what motivation really is. Motivation is not this magic power that just shows up when you need it, or maybe not show up when you need it, or goes away. It is. You have to do something first. So the easiest and quickest way to get yourself motivated is to hire a coach, because if you hire a coach, the coach is going to be there to hold you account, making the same mistakes over and over, but the core reason you want to coach is they're making. They're giving you that accountability, and that accountability will lead to motivation, and so the do is hiring a coach.

Allan Misner: 39:28

Alternatively, you can join a fitness group, so I can be a spin class or run group just a group of people that are going to be there and keep you accountable. What I found is if you go to the gym at the same time every day, you start seeing the same people there. So I was going to the gym at five o'clock in the morning. It was the same people in the gym at five o'clock, so five o'clock people were all in there. So there's a girl who's always on the elliptical, there's the guy who's always overtraining his biceps, but we're all there and I know if I don't go to the gym, they're going to be there. Anything to them. It's not heads, as we don't buy it by each other. Just having people around you that are doing the same thing you're doing is going to help you stay motivated because they're going to help keep you accountable.

Allan Misner: 40:13

So the two easy ways is the accountability. Now there are harder ways that are actually stronger and it gets into self-efficacy, but I won't go there right now. But I would just say don't be afraid to get help. You're not in this alone. Hire a coach, join a group, whatever you need to get the knowledge, the skills and all those things developed up. But more importantly is the accountability that they can offer you, because they're going to keep you going and as you go you learn. I'm someone who learns by doing, and I think most people are that way. So I could teach you everything you want to know about nutrition, but if you don't do it, it doesn't matter.

Brad Minus: 41:00

Oh yeah, I get that, and I've got clients who do the same thing right, Constantly reviewing my fitness pal to make sure that they're getting what they need in order to fuel and to have proper nutrition to keep them going. So I completely understand.

Brad Minus: 41:14

So the next thing it seems like from what the story I gathered is that now you evaluate what's going on around you what is your life like, what are things that are working and what's not working and then find a plan or work through some solutions to make it better. That's what I came up with. That seemed like that was for you. You evaluated your job, you evaluated your relationships. What was going?

Allan Misner: 41:43

on yeah. I think the core comes down to Okay, all right, yeah, basically, as you come upon a decision, so you want to take that step back, it comes down to okay, all right, yeah, basically, as you come upon a decision, so you want to take that step back. The step back is where you can now evaluate it in total, holistically. Too often we find ourselves saying, oh okay, here's a better job that pays more. I'm just going to go do that without really evaluating the impact that's going to have on your health, on your fitness, on your mental health and all of it. So, just taking a step back and saying holistically what is the best decision for me. It's hard. This is maybe one of the hardest things I had to do, but when I did and started functioning that way every day, it's paid off in ways I can't even describe.

Brad Minus: 42:38

It's amazing.

Brad Minus: 42:39

And then, of course, our last one is execute, and that's a term I use all the time is that now you execute and now, hopefully, at this point, you've got a coach helping you, you've got a partner helping you, so you can move on from there.

Brad Minus: 42:55

So, anyway, I'm sure that for those of you watching on YouTube, you've seen the changes in the lighting that that happened with Alan and so he had a little power outage, so it's so I thought he went dark. So we've been, we've been communicating this and and then, and he's working on his phone, so we're gonna, we're gonna stop right here. Hopefully, at one point in time we'll bring Alan back to talk a little bit more in depth about nutrition and maybe some case studies from some of his clients that I'm sure that he's got great ones, and some of the case studies that I've talked about, and we can compare notes. But just to give you first of all, as he mentioned before, on Amazon, the Wellness Roadman by, again, Alan Meisner that you can catch on Amazon and I'll link it in the show notes, and his podcast is the 40 Plus Fitness Podcast. Is that correct?

Allan Misner: 43:47

Yes, yes, it is.

Brad Minus: 43:49

Yep, okay, and he's got like that 634 episodes and a bunch of them are or a good amount of them are interviews with other health care professionals. All that have written books, so a wealth of knowledge in those 634 episodes, so definitely check him out there. His website is hgt I don't need to do that 40plusfitnesscom, so you can check him out there. His website is H-E-T I don't need to do that 40plusfitnesscom, so you can check him out there. And if you're looking for a coach, definitely talk to Alan.

Allan Misner: 44:20

And is that the best place for them to reach out to you? Yeah, I'm actually going to build a page just for you. It's going to be called 40plusfitnesscom. Forward slash life changing.

Brad Minus: 44:27

Awesome, and I'll link that in the show notes as well. So anyway, alan, thank you. Thank you so much for joining us today. I really appreciate it. I think this is a wealth of information. We will talk to you in the next episode. Thank you again, alan, I appreciate it and we'll see you in the next one.