Embracing Fitness, Overcoming Challenges, and Building a Legacy with Tony Horton, Creator of P90X

Episode Summary: In this encore episode of the L3 Leadership Podcast, you’ll hear Doug interview Tony Horton, Founder of P90X. In the interview, Tony shares his story, the lessons he’s learned, and encourages you to never give up on your dream.

About Tony Horton:Tony Horton is the wildly popular creator of the best-selling fitness series: P90X®, P90X2®, P90X3®, and Ten Minute Trainer®, and most recently his 22-Minute military inspired workout, 22 Minute Hard Corps®. Tony is a world-class motivational speaker and the author of top-selling books “Bring It”, Crush It!” and his latest motivational book, “The Big Picture” 11 Laws that will change your life. He has appeared on countless television programs as a fitness and lifestyle expert to promote healthy living through exercise and proper nutrition. In keeping with Tony’s passion for a healthy lifestyle, he’s teamed up with the beauty experts at Ultimate Salon Professionals to create his new hair and skincare line, TH Care by Tony Horton, because he believes what goes on your body is just as important as what goes in it.

3 Key Takeaways:
1. Tony candidly discusses the challenges of public recognition and the sheer peculiarity of fame.
2.  He recounts his harrowing battle with shingles, shedding light on the profound impact it had on him, physically and emotionally.
3. We explore the dreams that keep Tony going, including his aspiration to provide his wife with a ranch in Arizona.

Resources Mentioned:
Power Life

Quotes from the Episode:
"You've got to be extraordinary in your field. You've got to stand out.'"
"Move your body, make good food choices." 

Connect with Tony:
Website | Facebook | Tony Horton’s Next Level

Transcript

Doug Smith: 0:07

Hey, leader, and welcome to another episode of the L3 Leadership Podcast, where we are obsessed with helping you grow to your maximum potential and to maximize the impact of your leadership. My name is Doug Smith and I am your host, and today's episode is brought to you by my friends and better tongue advisors. We also recorded this episode live from the new reiturn. com studio. If you're new to the podcast, welcome. I'm so glad that you're here and I hope that you'll enjoy our content and become a subscriber, also, that you can also watch all of our episodes over on our YouTube channel, so make sure you're subscribed there as well. And, as always, if you've been listening to the podcast for a while and it's impacted your life, it would mean the world to me. If you leave us a rating and review on Apple Podcasts or Spotify or whatever app you listen to podcast through, that really does help us to grow our audience and reach more leaders, so thank you in advance for that. Well, leader, today you are going to hear a throwback episode to one of my favorite interviews of all time, and that was with Tony Horton, who is most well known for being the creator of P90X. I did P90X in 2008 and it transformed my life forever, and so Tony was on my bucket list to interview for a long, long time and we finally made it happen, which was amazing, and Tony did not disappoint, and you were in for such a treat. But before we dive into the interview with Tony, just a few announcements.

Doug Smith: 1:11

This episode of the L3 Leadership Podcast is sponsored by Beratung Advisors. The financial advisors at Beratung Advisors help educate and empower clients to make informed financial decisions. You can find out how Beratung Advisors can help you develop a customized financial plan for your financial future by visiting their website at BeratungAdvisorscom. That's B-E-R-A-T-U-N-G-Advisorscom. Securities and investment products and services offered through LPL Financial. Member of FINRA and SIPC. Beratung Advisors, lpl Financial and L3 Leadership are separate entities.

Doug Smith: 1:44

I also want to thank our sponsor, Henne Jewelers. They were joined by my friend and mentor, John Henne and my wife Laura and I got our engagement and wedding rings through Henne Jewelers and had an incredible experience. And not only do they have great jewelry, but they also invest in people. In fact, for every couple that comes in engaged, they give them a book to help them prepare for marriage, and we just love that. So if you're in need of a good jeweler, check out HenneJewelerscom. And I also want to thank our new sponsor, returncom, and Leader.

Doug Smith: 2:08

Let me just ask you this have you ever had an interest in investing in real estate? Well, now, for as little as $500, you can become a commercial real estate investor. Just visit Reiturncom to learn more. That's R-E-I-T-U-R-Ncom. If anything involves risk, please consult the Return Offering Circular if you're interested in investing. And with all that being said, here's my interview with Tony Horton. Well, hey, tony, thank you so much for taking the time to do this interview, and if there's anyone listening to this that doesn't know who you are, can you just give us a brief overview of who you are and what you do?

Tony Horton: 2:42

Well, I'm a trainer and I'm a writer and I do public speaking and motivational speaker and I have a supplement line and I have a brand new fitness equipment line that will be coming out very soon. I've written three books. You know I've been in the health and wellness industry for a long, long time. I started out as somebody who is a personal trainer to a lot of celebrities, mostly rock and rollers.

Tony Horton: 3:02

I kept rock and roll alive from the 60s and 70s. Thank you very much. You know I've been Billy Idol and Tom Petty and Annie Lennox, and you know other people you've heard of, maybe Ewan McGregor and Bryce Dallas Howard and Allison Janney, and some movie stars too Sean Connery. Sean Connery and Shubh Marine's Don't React Well to Bullets. There you go. Thank you very much.

Tony Horton: 3:23

Shilin McClain, who was part of the only female member of the Rat Pack back in the old days. You know I'm 61, so I've been in this industry for a long, long, long time. And yeah, I guess that's sort of the very, very, very short version. I'm somebody who came up with. You know, I was, fortunate enough, I was a young actor in a comic and did some improv stuff, and so I had a lifestyle of trying to become an actor, but I was also a fitness trainer, training all these celebrities and stuff, and so and the two came together when I started working for Nordic Track up in Minneapolis up there, you know, up there, you know, in Minneapolis. So yeah, I was the pulp up there in a ball, you know. Anyway, so there's my Minneapolis accent. Thank you very much. I'll be here all week and you know, so I really was getting my chops on camera because I was able to walk and chew gum at the same time. You know they would hire an actor. They didn't know much about exercise science or kinesiology. And then you know they have bodybuilder types for fitness people. They weren't really spot on when it came to being on camera and I was able to do that, so that was sort of my break in point.

Tony Horton: 4:25

And then I met a young entrepreneur named Carl Deichler and he said I want to do this thing called Great Body Guaranteed. Will you do it? And it was just another gig as far as I was concerned. It made some money and then it made enough money. So they said, hey, let's do something called Power 90.

Tony Horton: 4:38

And I liked that idea. So I helped create that. And I have a dog here. I might know it's not about that. My dog sheds and I can feel his dog here. Either that or I have a twitch. I'm not sure what it is. And so we did Power 90 and it just changed my life forever. I mean it really was. We sold about three or four million copies of that, which was incredibly unexpected by everyone, even us. And then the next thing was P90X, which you know I didn't even think that was a good idea. I thought it was too extreme. And when he said, hey, I'll give you a year to really develop this thing. And so I talked Carl and the folks at Beachbody into creating this thing which we invented eventually called muscle confusion, which was really a lot, of variety in fitness.

Tony Horton: 5:17

You know, making people who lift weights to cardio, cardio folks lifting weights, adding in yoga, martial arts, all of it. And you know, here it is 16 years later and it's still not as popular. But you know that was really what established me. And so you know, now I walk through the airport of anywhere and people tap me on the shoulder and, much like you, Doug, who lost a bunch of weight doing P90X. But then since then, you know, I've been still. You know P90X X2, x3, 22-minute hardcore one-on-one series. You know we did a lot of incredible products. It was a lot of fun. Now I'm with GuyMTV Fitness Yoga, a program that people are loving, called the Next Level, and I'm working with two other companies to develop other fitness programs. And you know, this challenge, these challenging times that we're in right now, has prevented that from happening. But as soon as things normalize, air quotes, whatever that means, but people can get this studio and shoot I hope the next two products are out by the end of the year. That would be really exciting.

Doug Smith: 6:15

Yeah, tell us real quick about the Next Level, Like where can people find it and what's the premise of the program.

Tony Horton: 6:19

Well, if you have Verizon, Vios, Amazon Prime, Roku I mean almost any type of format, whether it be cable or satellite you know, you just go to GuyMTV Fitness Yoga and you check it out it's called Next Level and you sign up through your cable or satellite provider and I believe right now on Roku, it's 30 days free. Amazon Prime 30 days free because it just kind of giving people a break, which is a really smart idea. Yeah, you have this thing that's going on, Just to kind of you can pretty much do every workout in the 30 days. There's two seasons, season one and two, and there's 23 total workouts and you can get them all in for free, which is pretty cool.

Tony Horton: 7:03

But you know, if you don't have Roku or Amazon there is Verizon and Vios and Spectrum and all these other versions of people have, so GuyMTV Fitness Yoga. It's kind of a mouthful, but that's how you get to it.

Doug Smith: 7:15

Yeah, and we'll throw links in the show notes. Man, you've had quite a journey and I'm just curious you know, what do you wish people knew about that journey that they may not know? They see everything you're doing now, what you did with P90X, what do you wish people knew?

Tony Horton: 7:28

You know, I think a lot. But they see you in this place where you, you know, you're successful right and you've reached whatever pinnacle of success. I think a lot of people assume that you've always had kind of an easy go at it, which is certainly not the case. You know, I don't think. I mean people think, oh, he was probably the captain of the football team, you know, and dated the cheerleaders and was always a pretty good student and was always very ambitious, and none of those things are true.

Tony Horton: 7:57

You know I was a C-minus student with the speech impediment. I moved six times in fourth, fifth grade because my father was in the military and then he got different jobs, we got transferred. So you know I was always the smallest kid, the scrawnyest kid. The speech impediment, I think, called cluttering, didn't help me at all. You know I was a target. I was the kid that got his lunch when he's told, and shoved in the locker and beat up at the bus stop, all that kind of thing. You know what I mean. So I was super, super insecure and my life was filled with lots of fear and trepidation and you know. And then I started doing some personal development in college. You know I read your erroneous zones and, looking out for number one, I'm trying to think it's not Zig Ziglar or Wayne Dyer, but it was somebody like that and I really thought, wow, this is information I never got in school. You know what I mean.

Doug Smith: 8:43

So it was a long and winding road, as the Beatles would say.

Tony Horton: 8:46

For me it did start out very easily, but I always had this little voice in my head that said you know, life can be a whole lot better. I don't know how to get there. And then I just started taking new information. You know, I was going to these seminars, these personal development seminars, and it was, you know, it was above and beyond. It was just how to be a more productive, happier human being, because I was not in a relationship, I was living in a you know a little two bedroom apartment with a view of a convalescent home not you know car getting broken into. And when I first came out here to LA and you know I was, I was somebody who was a handyman and a carpenter and I was doing mine at the pier.

Tony Horton: 9:18

I was a, you know, I was a trained mine back in college. What is what's going on, doug? I can't, oh, oh, that's just the screen, sorry. You know what I mean. And so when I was out of money and that was often I'd have to put on my outfit, my, my mine face, and go down to the pier, into UCLA, which was nearby, and put the hat down. And it's no fun performing for food. It's very different than you just got on stage and you're sort of entertaining people. It's a different sensation Because you're always looking down at your hat going okay, is that enough money to go buy some yogurt and Cheerios? You know, then they would live on breakfast, lunch and dinner for three days.

Tony Horton: 9:51

You know, these were really really hard times and it took a long, long time. And the lesson in that is, you know, and everybody said stop, get, move back to the East Coast. What are you doing out there? You can be a great this or that or the other thing. You know you could be a restaurant manager, you could. You know you could be a salesman or whatever. And I just, I just stuck with my vision. You know what I mean and I just assumed that at some point, even though it took decades to get there I mean, you know, making it. I didn't. You know, I was out of debt and I was. You know, I'm not going to call myself a C minus celebrity I was quasi famous and successful in my 40s.

Tony Horton: 10:27

It took. It took. You know, it didn't happen in my 40s. My this journey started in my early 20s. I came out to California in 1981. I was 21 years old and so it took a long, long, long, long time, but I was not to be detoured. I was going to continue to fight the good fight and I didn't know I was going to end up. You know, as a well-known trainer, this book had a lot to do with it. It's funny I've been doing a couple podcasts when breaking up this book, if you've ever read the magic lamp, the magic lamp by Keith Ellis.

Tony Horton: 10:56

You know it just sort of helps you figure out what, who you're supposed to be. You know you're supposed to follow your passion and it would. You know you it would. There were these great lessons in there, like a write down, all the things you think you'd be able to do, things Are you interested in, and then pit one against the other. You know you make a list here and a list here. Do you want to be a jet pilot and or a movie star? Okay, you want to be, you want to be, and then you go all the way down and eventually you're just stuck with two things and it came Out movie star and gym owner. Over and over again, you know me, like you know if I had to be, if I want to be, you know our famous comedian.

Doug Smith: 11:25

Whatever in the entertainment, entertainment field or in the fitness field, Can you, can you talk a little bit about tenacity and pursuing your dreams? Because you stuck with it, didn't see success until you were in your 40s, but I'm sure there was thousands of others that had similar aspirations that you did and and Ended up going back home and being a restaurant owner or manager, like like so many people. Encourage you to do. What would you encourage people to do? Who, who may be trying and trying, and trying and trying for years and they're still not seeing the traction that they want to see? What would you tell them?

Tony Horton: 12:01

Well, you know, typically along the way, almost anybody who's trying to pursue their purpose or their passion or that are, as their French would say, as their raison d'etre, as they come into roadblocks and the roadblocks are enough to sort of kill the journey, so they go back to doing some other you know menial job that pays bills.

Tony Horton: 12:19

When I was an acting, when I was an actor, and I had a acting coach, the acting coach said you know, I want you all to know, and it was a class of 30 plus of us and you would say, as much as you all love this, this business, it's one of the most brutal in the world and you probably know that already because of all the auditions you've gone on and all the gigs you never got. You know, and that's just the net nature of it, and you're here in this class honing your skills and I I hope the very best for all of you and this is his name is Darrell Hickman. He was amazing, a great mentor, and that's another thing when it comes to, you know, pursuing your dreams, finding mentors, and I'll get to that in a second.

Tony Horton: 12:52

But, you know, he said to everybody you better find a second passion, you better find a second one, and you might not love it as much as you love this, but you better find it, better be something close. And I don't know what that is. And if you don't know what that is, then you're gonna, you know, then you're gonna flounder, maybe for a long, long time. You know You're gonna live in that studio apartment with a few of the train station into your 50s Because you're pursuing this act, acting career, and all you ever got was a, you know, was a sleep aid commercial. You know, I mean this.

Tony Horton: 13:19

The idea is that is to be successful and to be happy and to be able to afford things and have the life that you want. And it might not happen here. So you know, what am I? What am I? What I tell people is, if you keep banging your head against the wall, even if you have tremendous tenacity and even if you're really organized, and if, even if you aren't surround yourself with the right kind of people, excuse me and Then you better find a second thing. So I had my fitness business and I had my acting career and I was very fortunate to those. Two things came together.

Doug Smith: 13:48

And it could have been just one or the other.

Tony Horton: 13:49

I don't know, but I got a combination of the two and and the other thing is, you know you can't be. You can't be the kind of person who is overly attached to the outcome.

Tony Horton: 14:01

Right, you know the past is history. The future is a mystery. You got right now, how much you know who you're gonna surround yourself with, find from. You know, get rid of the chaff in your life, get rid of the people who are the naysayers and the finger pointers and the ones who aren't really supporting your journey, and tell you to do something else, because that becomes very confusing. You know what I mean and so that's super important and you've got a really you know one of the things for me. I had a conversation in a, in a podcast, yesterday. You know they were asking me like what we're all? We're all the things that you felt that you needed to be to be successful.

Tony Horton: 14:33

You know and it's funny and I'll repeat you know authentic, bold, funny, articulate, innovative Camera ready. You know you got to be ready to get on camera and knock it out of the park. You can't be intimidated by this little silly piece of you know, this lens in front of you. You know my industry super fit like. There's a lot of people who do this, who are. Remember the first time you went through P90x you did the program but you didn't eat. Right now you had to do both, you know, and expanding your vocabulary. Knowing the difference between didactic and pedantic, you know I don't know.

Tony Horton: 15:06

I mean you know you can't be saying um and uh and like and bro, and you know I say you know too much, but that's something. You've got to be encouraging and well groomed. Hello, you know, you got to be stylish. There's a lot of things I mean, honestly, you've got it. You've got to be extraordinary in your field. You have to stand out Amongst the others and those are really really important things and you have to work on those things. And for me, you know I was going to acting classes, in prop classes, doing stand-up comedy, going to scene study classes, going to the gym five, six days a week and showing up at these auditions, getting rejected over and, over and over again, and and being patience. I think patience is really really important and just keeping, you know, your eye in the prize. But but you got at some point go. Okay, this isn't working. Whatever this is, is there a second option? You know what is that second career?

Tony Horton: 16:00

There's a great story of a um, of a gentleman who I didn't know, but a friend of mine knew him and I love this story because it just, it's just so pinpoints. You know how to be, how to find your, your raison d'etre, your purpose. So he was a brilliant math guy. You know. I mean, he was a great accountant and he got to work with this great firm and and that was it really wasn't his thing I love. You know he loved mountain biking and any kind of biking you just love bicycles. You know that was his deal.

Tony Horton: 16:28

So you know he got married and had kids and you know he moved his way up through this firm but he's still in a box, you know, amongst other people, you know looking at a fake fern and you know four walls and every Saturday and Sunday, you know he would sneak away or he'd ask his wife or bring his kids to the bike shop, his local bike shop in his town. And he was there so much that the manager said hey, you know, you know more than half of my staff, you want to, you want to work here, like on a Saturday? So, oh my god, oh my god, you gotta be amazing, right? So he goes back and his wife was awesome and said well, you're there anyway, you might as well get paid to do it, right? So you started working Saturdays.

Tony Horton: 17:02

Then sometimes you work Saturdays and Sundays anyway, long story short, five years later he owned the place. Wow, he owned the place right. So you've got this thing where you pay the bills and you make some money, and it may not be what you want, but your hobby could turn into the thing that you love and could really change your life forever, and that I don't know who knows. That story is Is 18 20 years old, so you know, you might have eight bike shops by now.

Doug Smith: 17:28

Well, that's great. I'm curious. You know you talked about the things you thought you had to be or wanted to be. Fame wasn't on there, but I am curious. I've been watching the live has gone rock or I'm sorry, the rock has gone live a few times recently and and people are saying hey, do you like being famous? Do you hate it? Do you love it? And I just think it's an interesting question. And you know, I know you say you're a c-level celebrity, but You're very, very well.

Tony Horton: 17:52

See minus.

Doug Smith: 17:53

There we go. My apologies, but I am curious. What did you learn about becoming known or becoming famous? And uh, do you like it? Do you hate it? What's that? Like you know what?

Tony Horton: 18:04

and all the interviews I've done. This is why you're you're good at this. I've never been asked that. I'm never been asked that and, uh, I think I've sometimes Brought it up on my own just because it sort of led into one part of the question. Um, I, I like it 97% of the time.

Doug Smith: 18:25

I mean I I really do.

Tony Horton: 18:26

I think I was probably a. You know, there's past life. I was a politician or something. You know I maybe I would any Roosevelt or something when I was, uh, you know, in another life. Um, because, a, because I had the kind of career that is different than maybe, uh, a musician or or an actor right, because people like that person's music or they like their films, um, but but what I've been able to do is I, I've been able to change people's lives in the process of them seeing me and when they I don't know what this is. I hope it's not COVID-19.

Doug Smith: 18:59

Um, you heard, you heard it first on that, the goner oh yeah, I'll be in intensive care within the hour.

Tony Horton: 19:05

Um, I shouldn't even care about that, but um, you know. So that's, that's different. People are seeing me five, six, seven days a week, for months at a time, in years at a time, so, and in the process they're changing physically, mentally and emotionally, and even spiritually in some cases. I would think, and um, and that's a different kind of I, I have a greater obligation. So I feel like I have a greater obligation. When somebody comes up to me and they say to me because they don't say to Sean, to, to I still, I kind of say you changed my life. Hey, billy Crystal, you changed my life. I'm hanks. You changed my life.

Tony Horton: 19:41

You know me no but hey, I really like doing that movie, and and so I feel very compelled To have that conversation, to, to engage with that person. I mean, I sign every autograph, I'll take every selfie. You know I never say no, you know, except for those few times where I'm. You know, I'm rushing through an airport and I'm trying to catch a plane, or maybe I'm sitting down in my you know, you know my meal and somebody taps me on their shoulder and they want to have a conversation. I'm at a restaurant, you know. I mean there's a few times where it's not a whole lot of fun, but um, but the other part of that answer is there's no course that shows you how to go from total obscurity to being recognized. There's nothing that you know, I mean.

Tony Horton: 20:24

And so your character comes into play. You know who you are as an individual, because so many people you know who are, they're thriving, they're, they're, they're striving for their, their purpose, and maybe they weren't terribly charismatic or friendly to begin with, and so now they're thrust into the situation to have to engage with people when they don't want to. And so there's nothing worse than when you finally meet somebody you really admire and then they act like a bonehead, and I've seen it. I know people in my industry and I know people in other industries that just treat the public like crap and it just blows my mind. I just can't. I don't know why they would do that, because it's those people that they're coming up to say hello. They're allowing them to have their lifestyle and they're allowing them to be the stars of whatever it is on stage or screen, and then they treat them like crap. I don't, I've lost my mind. So you know, I always feel very, very obligated to do it Occasionally it's a little hard.

Doug Smith: 21:28

Yeah, I was going to say what's the 3, 3, 1, 1, 1.5%. You don't like?

Tony Horton: 21:32

Yeah, they put people like you know, in the middle of like, truly like dude, oh whoa, and I hate what might if I hold on. You know that kind of thing. Or people who are, you know they're not stalkers, but but they're just. You know, you meet some quirky, odd folks that you would never meet otherwise, and these are the types of people who feel like, well, I've seen you in my house every day for months and months, and months, so I'm going to, you know, I'm going to try to get into my world, you know I mean they're trying to. You know they're not outside the doors.

Tony Horton: 22:05

There's been a couple, but but yeah they're just. You know you meet some oddballs and and you know I'm not trained for how to deal with that. I'm cordial and nice and friendly, but you know, like people will, like people will drop to their knees.

Doug Smith: 22:20

Are you serious? Get up, get up. What are you doing?

Tony Horton: 22:26

You know, because if they've lost 180 pounds or whatever it is, it's, it's so transformative that they get kind of a I don't know what. That complex is called hero complex and they, you know, they, they think I'm somebody super, super special and I'm just a dude struggling like anybody else who happened to make something that work. You know, I mean so.

Doug Smith: 22:46

Yeah, talk about that. You know you talked about you had to put in decades of work until you really took off. What was it like after P 90 came out and P 90 X? Like, was it as satisfying as the journey to get there, was it a let down? And you were like, is this it? I'm just curious how you reacted. To quote unquote some people would see as arriving.

Tony Horton: 23:07

No, I think when you're in the middle of it, that's a great. Another great question. Change is good, so. So when you're in the middle of it and it's going really well and you're in your kind of, you're at the very beginning of the creative process, all right, so where should this work out, and what should we name that? And you know, you're just, it's like a little puzzle. You're trying to put the different pieces where they're supposed to go and you know you're running to some, some problems. And that's why you have test groups. Right, you put people through, I mean power 90.

Tony Horton: 23:34

The first test group was was Carl Deichler and John Condon, the president and CEO, and they would come on over my little two bedroom apartment and they would work out. You know one of the bedrooms and you know they would say I don't like that, I don't know that move next to that move doesn't really work. And it was a very collaborative thing. It's really really fun to kind of brainstorm and and you know, having these little skull sessions were trying to figure out the formula, you know. And then after that, all right, well then let's put a big group of different kinds of people in a room and see how that works. And then the change again Right, oh, you know what I think we need. You know that move is too complicated for too many people.

Tony Horton: 24:05

And then we started thinking about well, let's come up with modifiers. You know, and a lot of programs prior to mine, there was no such thing as modifiers. There was the person in front and all the pretty people in the back and everybody was perfect, and so anybody looking in always felt like, well, I can't do that, this is no good for me. It's because the production crew or the creators didn't understand that there are people at all different kinds of levels. So I always felt like, ok, watch so and so they're going to. You know, mellow out here, they're not going to jump as high, they're not going to reach as far or whatever it is, and keep an eye on them. And if you look at the guy in workouts next level there are three very distinct levels. I mean, we've got cameras on each and every one and that way you can really all right, I'm going to focus on level one over here, because I'm nowhere near level two and three, and so we really took it a step farther and that process is just a blast Right.

Tony Horton: 24:57

And then you're in the actual shooting phase, which is which is for me, and initially I used to get so nervous and so freaked out, but then, as I got better at it, is like all right here we go and you can tell if you look at the original Power 90 workouts.

Tony Horton: 25:10

Hi everybody, tony Horton here and we're going to do some great workouts, we're going to do some push ups and it's going to be great. And then P 90 X. You know what I mean. You can really see how I evolve Dog hair on my face. There it is, I got it. That'll be weird for people to watch.

Doug Smith: 25:29

But, as you can tell, I just do, and so that that's.

Tony Horton: 25:32

And then you know that it's out there and then you're holding it right in your hand. You're looking at the disk. You're looking at, you know, because there were photo shoots and there were discussions about the colors and the font, and then adding the music, you know, it's like making a movie, you know. And then and then you know, you kind of roll the dice. I'm not really part of the media, part of it, you know. I mean you, hopefully you've got enough good footage and the folks that are going to, you know, put this out in an infomercial. You hope it's going to do pretty well.

Tony Horton: 25:59

And then Power 90 went up, you know, through the roof, and P 90 X went through the roof. And you know I'm not going to lie to you. You know, when I was, when I was making Power 90, I lived in this apartment for 21 and a half years. Wow, the same apartment. The carpets when I moved in were the same carpets. When I moved out, you know, I asked the landlord, I don't know, two dozen times, can you know? No, just will clean them. You know what I mean. The carpets went from a carpet to basically it looked like cement really there's no pad left.

Tony Horton: 26:32

It was whatever Right. And then you know you make something and it does well, and these royalty checks come in the mail and you pay off. You know you can, you can buy a new car and you can pay off all your bills and all your visa cards and all your other cards. You know me, and because I had, you know like I don't know how many cards I had you know living from whatever credit card to credit card and and that's amazing, that's an amazing feeling. You know, you feel like it, you feel like you won the lottery or something, and then you know that you don't have to. You know what. You start looking at houses, really houses.

Tony Horton: 27:09

You know, whatever, and I didn't, you know, I was because Power 90 had done so well that I went from a two bedroom apartment and I got to skip a couple levels and I, you know, I ended up buying a four bedroom home with the view of the Hollywood sign, santa Monica, with guest house. It was nuts. And then the house was empty because, you know, eventually that wave came home and then we made P 90 X and then P 90 X, and then we put furniture in the house and not, you know. So it's fun, but in between, in between, it's kind of like OK, let's go, let's go, what's the next one? And you have to kind of wait your turn.

Tony Horton: 27:44

That's what happened with Beachbody. You know, he hired Autumn and Chalene and and Sean T, and you've got, you know, and Sige, and all of a sudden it was just me and and was it only one? One other trainer, debbie Sebers. We would rotate, so we were always working, and then, as is the, as the list of trainers got longer and longer. You're waiting longer. So it's a little frustrating. And you're under contract, right, so you're under contract. So it was like in the old days in the movies. You know you'll, you'll work, and we tell you you can work. You know, I kind of want to work now because I like that feeling of what we were doing before and I want to do that more often.

Tony Horton: 28:23

So eventually, you know, it was important for me to kind of say hey, you know, this has been a great 20 years with Beachbody. I'm still an ambassador for the company. I still love everything they do. You know I still promote bond and I'm doing, you know, promos for double time right now during this this, this virus situation. So the relationship is still rock solid. But I needed to go. I needed to. I wanted my own supplement line, I wanted my own fitness equipment line. I wanted to do my own. I want to do my next batch of workouts. I wanted to work with more than one company and so now there's much more freedom and still be. You know, it's 61, still pretty fit, still doing alright. People still want me around. I'm not so old, that that I. People still don't want me, which is nice.

Doug Smith: 29:05

More serious question and kind of the last person want to ask is in 2017 you had a pretty big scare. You got diagnosed with Ramsey Hunt syndrome and I'm just curious can can you just talk about that experience and what you learn from that?

Tony Horton: 29:21

Well, I recovered to. I wrote yeah, absolutely, because that's a critical piece of my life puzzle.

Tony Horton: 29:28

Yeah, you know I mean it's stress related. So I shingles in my ear, you know I mean, and so there's a lot of nerves in there that go into your brain and when you get shingles in your ear it can pretty much destroy those nerves. And those nerves have everything to do with with vision, with hearing, with smell, with balance, right, and and you know it's funny, when you, when you cut yourself in your skin, you break a bone or or are you, you know that those kinds of normal natural injuries or your terror muscle, you know it's like a four to eight week time frame in which things get better and nerves are like you talk to doctor, never two years from now, eight years from now. I mean it's just nerves just take forever and ever and ever and ever the healing process and for a lot of people, when you, when you burn out a nerve, it never gets better, and so that was really kind of tough right.

Tony Horton: 30:24

So here I was in the stress that was. The stress was probably call calls by a combination of two things day apart. So there was the Vegas shooting and I had some friends that were there and they witnessed some really crazy, horrible, horrible things and they came away unscathed physically, certainly not mentally, and so I just that event made me so angry, just so angry that something like that could happen in this country and the following day Tom Petty died. I mean, I trained Tom for 30 something years and he was a good friend. I went to birthday parties and hung out with him and I went on tour with him and I was there for, you know, when his kids were little and growing up. You know, and it just shattered me the combination and I just the combination of being sad and angry. And I was going through contract negotiations you know that in my opinion weren't going very well and that was really frustrating.

Tony Horton: 31:20

So I was really nervous, nervous, I was sad and I was mad, and so you know what I mean. I chicken pox as a kid, and if you had chicken pox as a kid, then it sits there. That virus is sitting there and just wait for you to get bummed out. And I did, and I just had a massive. We were having a party one night, friday night, like a little dinner party, and the right side of my head halfway through the night just like oh my God, what's going on?

Doug Smith: 31:44

And it's not something you get a headache.

Tony Horton: 31:45

It's not like you rushed to the hospital, to the ER, and if I had known, if I had known, I could have gotten some antivirals and probably nipped it in the bud. But a whole week went by and so I thought I maybe had that stroke. You know, I thought, oh, my God, what's going on?

Tony Horton: 31:58

So I was going to a physical therapist and nobody knew what was going on. And when I went to the, to the ER, I literally asked I was in the waiting room and I was vomiting because I was so nauseous and I was so dizzy and everything was out of whack. And they looked at me and they didn't know and they had to Google it and they go oh, you have something called rancy huntsome room. And they looked at my ear and they go how long have you had this rash? I go what rash I get this? You know it shingles, it's in your ear, it's in your ear canal, anyway. So so I was deathly ill for two months, didn't get out of bed, didn't eat, lost 25 pounds. You know whatever kind of rehab or we go into a. I think they're called auto rinal laryngologist. You know as the throat guy doing all these tests and you know my these nerves were fried, my balance was out of whack. I was incredibly nauseous. I couldn't eat a thing. I couldn't, I couldn't drive, I couldn't get out of bed except for to eat breakfast, lunch and dinner. And I was. I was sleeping, or pretending to sleep, or trying to sleep, for 12, 13, 14, 15 hours at a time and it was awful. I mean it was awful. You know, several times I would just lay in my, my wife's lap and just weep. You know I said I cannot because it was relentless. You know what I mean. You break a bone, you know right. If you get a laceration, you know whatever. You tear a muscle, you know you can kind of semi function. This was I can't do anything and all I want to do is vomit, and the pain is a 12 and it lasted for months. You know what I mean. So, um, and so you know, 20 people like how are we doing through this COVID thing? I'm doing pretty good, you know, I mean because I might, I might get it. And, um, I already know what horrible is right. And so everything, every event, every travel thing, everything was canceled right. So my income, right, thank God. I had things on the air, and you know I was. I had a contract and I was making money that way, but I wasn't able to do anything like I was, and so so many things got canceled, unfortunately, and uh, and and, after about two and a half months, I started to come out of it so slowly and um, the that was the end. It was October 2017. And uh, you know, here it is now, uh, it's April 2020.

Tony Horton: 34:16

And I still have little uh, trace um issues, trace issues not the right way to say that, but I still suffer from it on occasion. Um, the other day, in the middle of the workout, it just kicked in Because when I was getting better, it was always like on a scale of one to 10 to 10, meaning you know, like it was when I first got it. Just horrible, I can't function, I can't go to bed. It would, it would kind of pair down to a like a, a five, six, seven or a or a or a or a four, five, six. You know what I mean, where I'm miserable and I'm dizzy and I can kind of drive. You know what I mean and I can kind of start to work out again, but it was just really uncomfortable. And then, um, I had a huge, I had a big blood test. To make a long story short, I had a blood test and I discovered that I had Epstein bar um in conjunction with uh, with, you know which so when it's not.

Tony Horton: 35:09

Ramsey Hunt syndrome anymore. It becomes bilateral vestibular hypofunction, which is like a form of PTSD. Um, a lot of people who are not Iraq and Afghanistan and come back with it and it's just a balanced thing. Like they got some. They got blown up. You know what I mean. They survived. They got blown up and all the nerves in their ears cause it's an ear thing and a brain thing.

Tony Horton: 35:28

And so I was going to the same rehab person as people who are coming back from from the Middle East and, uh, it took a lot of rehab to learn, learn how to walk again. I learned how to walk in a straight line and I remember my first job about six months afterward. It was in Las Vegas, and I had to use my, my um carry on luggage as a cane on wheels to get through the lobby and to get to my room, and when I was on stage I had to focus to walk from the back of the stage to the mic. You know what I mean, um, and so even now, here it is, I don't know over two years later, and I still deal with it and I'm 90, 97% better. But I had this episode like out of the blue about five days ago where I I was like walking in a bang and I fell into a wall, you know.

Tony Horton: 36:11

So you deal with it, man, you deal with it. But what's the lesson here? The lesson here is that, uh, you know, I'm in a better place than I was and, um, it's something I'm going to have to live with for the rest of my life. And most of the time I have really good days, and occasionally I have some bad ones, um, but as a 61 year old, I'm fitter than I've ever been, probably as a result of this thing, you know, and a lot of people who get what I get, ramsey, I'm syndrome that turns into the bilateral, the particular lack of function uh, live in a very secluded, um, life. You know what I mean. They maybe they can drive again, but there's.

Doug Smith: 36:48

But they don't, they don't. Maybe you know, and I try to tell people you got to.

Tony Horton: 36:51

You got to do 10 times now than what you did before. You know what I mean. You got to be relentless about your rehab, or relentless about your diet, relentless about your workouts, you know. Get on a slack line, do yoga where you know. I do yoga now and I'm, I'm afraid that I'm going to be a domino in warrior three or half moon pose.

Tony Horton: 37:10

You know what I mean. It's like I'm still trembling. You know if you, I've been doing these um Wednesday night plioclasses and there's two exercises where you do on one foot and you know I'm like an 80 year old man, right, it's, it's uh, whatever, you know I'm exposing myself to folks who are watching me fail, and so you know that's relatable, because they're probably going through similar things.

Doug Smith: 37:32

Yeah, Well, thank you for sharing that journey.

Tony Horton: 37:35

Yeah, yeah, yeah yeah.

Doug Smith: 37:38

Um, with the time that we have left, uh, I do want to go into the lightning round. Um, I guess just on the health and fitness side can you just talk about. I guess I'll just leave this really, really wide open. But what have you learned about longevity? If you could do one more cup for the rest of your life, what would you do? Any any uh habits that you share with people?

Tony Horton: 37:58

One where I do chest and back every day. If, if, if it had value to be every day. I love pull ups and push ups, man, I love Ninja courses and ropes and peg boards. I just love, you know, I think I was a monkey in a past life. I know who knows. Uh, I was Teddy Roosevelt and a monkey in the past life. I just love that.

Tony Horton: 38:13

I hate cardio, but I do it because it's probably the most important thing next to yoga. Um, yeah, you know, because at my age of 61, speed, balance and range of motion go first, right, so that's why I get my treadmill and sprint, that's why I do martial arts, because it's fast, you know. And balance, you know. Even though I'm not very good at it now, I work on it so that it doesn't deteriorate even more. Right. And then flexibility.

Tony Horton: 38:35

I mean you look at old folks, even old folks who train. Often they're still doing the same routines they did in high school and college. I mean that's nuts. You got to expose yourself to things that are going to really, really push you, you know. And so, uh, you know, that's why I still do yoga, that's why I still do cardio, that's why I still do, uh, you know martial arts stuff and I keep the variety up. I don't lift those. I don't lift weights as much as I used to because they're rough on my joints. I do body weight stuff. You know what I mean, but I do crazy body weight stuff. I climb ropes upside down and do whatever you know. Um, yeah, there you go.

Doug Smith: 39:08

All right, let's dive into the lightning round. Uh, just a bunch of fun questions. What is the best advice you've ever received and who gave it to you?

Tony Horton: 39:21

Oh man, I never had great mentors. The entire time the books I read were my mentors. So, whether it was Keith Ellis or M Scott Peck or Wayne Dyer or Gary Zukoff or whoever I was reading at the time, I'm a collection of information over the course of decades. I think the first person that really changed my perspective about exercise and I don't even remember his name, which is really too bad which was a weightlifting coach that I had in college Because he was funny and he was relatable and he treated us like peers and not like just punk kids. I really enjoyed his company and I really look forward to that class. I wanted to work really hard for him because he was just a great guy.

Tony Horton: 40:10

That was sort of the beginning for me. And then those first books, those first person development books. I mean I was self-taught mostly. You know what I mean. My dad was traveling Monday through Friday. You know what I mean. There were no coaches or trainers that I had in high school or college that I really cared for. So yeah, that's the answer to that one.

Doug Smith: 40:30

If you could put a quote on a billboard for everyone to read, what would it say?

Tony Horton: 40:33

Do your best and forget the rest.

Doug Smith: 40:36

Love it, I was waiting all the way to interview for that.

Tony Horton: 40:38

Do whatever it is and your best changes day to day, hour to hour, month to month, but just you know what I mean. Another one is the more you do, the better you get. So repetitive, being consistent, purpose, plan, accountability, variety I write about that in my book. Having a plan, having goals, surrounding yourself with really good mentors you know what I mean. Getting rid of the people in your life I know it's hard, that they're just dragging you down and you got to do it and you have to have those conversations. That's kind of a combination platter, but you know, there you go.

Doug Smith: 41:10

Yeah, best purchase you've made in the last year for $100 or less. I'll say that one again Done. Best purchase you've made in the last year for $100 or less, oh my gosh.

Tony Horton: 41:24

Oh, $100 or less. Okay, well, you ready. Toilet paper. You all and I stocked up on because we have these Paragon events here at our house. We have like 30 people in from around the world. We had to cancel our March one. We've had three so far. We had three in 2019. We hope to have a couple more here in 2020. But we always like uh-oh, you know, because we're going to have a lot of people here. So we get cases and cases of toilet paper. Yes, haven't had to buy any since.

Doug Smith: 41:56

That is one answer I've never had before, so thank you. Well, it's true, True Is there. You've got to hang out with some really cool people in your life. Is there anyone on the planet left that you'd like to have lunch with? Who's number one?

Tony Horton: 42:07

Stephen Colbert. I want to have lunch with Stephen Colbert man, I just and Tom Hanks, I just want to hang out with Tom Hanks. You know what I mean.

Doug Smith: 42:17

Can you?

Tony Horton: 42:17

make that happen? Is it going to happen? I don't know man. I was supposed to be on Colbert's old show on Comedy Central but I got bumped or my pre-interview sucked, I'm not sure. I think I might have embarrassed myself in the pre-interview.

Doug Smith: 42:31

You know what I mean, Because I would.

Tony Horton: 42:32

You know, I'm just a huge fan and you know I think he's spot on. So yeah, maybe one of these days, Stephen, if you're listening or watching, come on, man. I think you're fantastic and I'd be a great guest. Let's do it.

Doug Smith: 42:45

There we go. Maybe this will be the thing that makes it happen. Do you listen to podcasts? And if so, do you have a favorite podcast?

Tony Horton: 42:51

You know, I don't, I really don't, and everybody's asked me to have my own. I think I just have too many balls in the air and I just Joe Rogan. I've checked out his a couple of times because people say, hey, check this one out. But I think my new favorite one is going to be this guy, Doug Smith.

Doug Smith: 43:08

Oh, thank you, he's my man my new man right there. Yeah, thank you, sir. What are you passionate about right now?

Tony Horton: 43:19

I'm passionate about my supplement line. It's really, really. It's been a long haul. It's taken longer than I expected, but we've crossed all the T's and dotted all the I's. We've made some amazing formulas. I'm really proud of them. I'm proud about the way the bottles look, the photos and mostly the contents. You know I mean what we've been able to do.

Tony Horton: 43:38

We've got two plant-based protein powders chocolate and vanilla, two-way and these are grass-fed Irish cows man, I even met the people from Ireland that take care of these cows, which is really cool and the combination of vitamin D and BCAAs and something called HMB. The studies are amazing about HMB and it really shows that even if you're coming out of surgery or something and you're older like me, or even in their 70s, it can help actually create muscle mass from not doing anything. You know what I mean, and so I've noticed a lot of changes in myself because I work out like a maniac and there's something called sarcopenia, which is, you know, which is this when you're in your 40s, 50s, 60s and 70s. It's just, you know, it's age-related muscle loss. It's just going to happen, and we've come up with a formula that's going to kind of help slow that or stop that for some people.

Tony Horton: 44:28

And that's cool, so I'm really I'm really, really excited about that and the next level workouts with Guy and they're fun, People love them. Not everybody knows about them yet you know they're still doing beach body products that I've done, which is, you know it's fantastic too, but those are really, really great, and a lot of the original cast members. So you know it's fun to do that. I can't wait to do some more.

Doug Smith: 44:48

That's great. So what are some of the unusual habits that enable you to be successful?

Tony Horton: 44:56

That's a great question. Yeah, man, it's just kind of a I write everything down, I write everything down and I have notes everywhere. I have a notepad in my shower. It's waterproof, really, yeah, you stick it up on the wall. It's got two little and I always get inspiration in the shower, of course. I have a pad next to the sink where I brush my teeth, where I get ready in the morning, right, you know so because I don't want to go back into the shower. I write things down. I've got notepads in different size notepads, things written on them, right.

Doug Smith: 45:28

And you know, sean, I love this Notepads everywhere. Is she a fan?

Tony Horton: 45:31

Yeah, no, no, yeah, because she borrows them all the time. She's always she'll drop right down, take it on her desk. I mean, literally, look at this man. This is all. These are all to do things here, right, and? And so what I do is I go through my lists and I cross them out and that's that's a. You know, that's a simple habit.

Tony Horton: 45:51

Another one is, too, is just is making sure that I'm dealing with the people in my life that work for me. Well, you know what I mean. Like everybody's up to speed, you know and some. But in the old days when I wasn't good at I, wasn't good at managing people, and now I'm just checking in all the time. Hey, do we have everything lined up? It's just, you know, because I got a manager, sean, it works for me. I have an assistant, I have two social media people and then, of course, all the people at GuyMTV, fit and Yoga, all the people at Golden Hippo that are making my, my, my supplement line, just making sure that I'm staying on top of all that.

Tony Horton: 46:25

You know people say what do you do throughout the day? It's just managing those things. I mean, you wake up to 50 emails and you know 20 texts. That takes some time to get through that stuff and before you know I would let, I wouldn't. I wasn't as good at it. I think I'm better now because I made those mistakes. I don't want to make it any more.

Doug Smith: 46:42

Do you have a routine, a morning routine, or do you just wake up and check email and texts?

Tony Horton: 46:47

I don't. It depends on the day, because my route, especially now, especially now with this virus, you know, I would have my early morning workouts and buddies of mine would show up and do it, and I'd have my afternoon, late afternoon, post work not for me because I work at home, but I have my friends would finish work and I'd have another group of people showing up at six o'clock or six 30. And so that's all been shattered and now I'm falling into my natural rock and roll pattern of staying up really late and sleeping in right and setting up a podcast like this at 11 o'clock with you Right.

Tony Horton: 47:22

So I used to have, you know, I used to have eight o'clock in the morning I had workouts at seven 30 or or, yeah, seven 30, and then I'd have something after that or I'd eat or I'd do a post recovery thing. So my pattern is completely out of whack right now. But I'm sure once things normalize it I'll go back.

Doug Smith: 47:39

We talked about a bucket list person you'd want to meet with. Is there anything on your bucket list left to do? What would be like the top thing on your bucket list experience?

Tony Horton: 47:47

You know I've done a lot of because of the success of all these programs I mean, I've gone heli scheme, which is was always on that list, and then that's, you know, something I'll hopefully continue to do. I think one of them is is to be successful. This next stage is to be successful enough to be able to buy my wife a little ranch in my awesome or in Arizona or something you know.

Tony Horton: 48:13

I mean have a property. I've always wanted a property with a stream that runs through it and a pond that freezes that I can skate on. You know what I mean? A couple of horses out in the field for my wife. I don't really ride. I mean I do ride but it's not my only thing.

Tony Horton: 48:28

But just to be able to provide that for my wife, because she works so hard for me and she's so amazing and I love her so dearly. I just would love to just say, hey, guess what? You know, the vitamins are doing great, the equipment line is doing great, all these other things are doing great, and so I just want to continue to work really, really hard to be able to provide that for her.

Doug Smith: 48:45

I mean we've got a pretty good setup.

Tony Horton: 48:47

We live up in the hills, we've got incredible views. We have a small place in Jackson Hole when we want to go there and ski, but yeah, my bucket list is you know, I've jumped out of airplanes, dude, I've been in two jet fighters flying upside down all around and then, you know, I've been to 62 military bases around the world. Yeah, you know, I just want to ski and I want to hang out on my ranch with my wife and my bucket list is filled All right?

Doug Smith: 49:15

Well, hey, we'll push that link out. Yeah, hopefully everyone listening to this can help make that dream come true. If you could go back and have coffee with 20 year old Tony, what would you tell him? 20 year old Tony.

Tony Horton: 49:29

I wouldn't give him any advice. I would say, dude, just do what you're doing. I'd say a little less procrastination, maybe, drink a little less beer, smoke a little less pot. Really, it's probably better off if you'd get off the weed and get off the booze. I mean that all happened anyway. It happened probably four years afterward, you know what I mean. Like I just went, oh, I'm working out a lot of next time I think I'm bad, you know. I mean I haven't had a drink. I can't. 30 years, 35 years, I don't know what's been thrown. And yeah, you know, I mean, would it have sped things up for me a little bit? No, I mean, everything happened, I think, for a reason.

Tony Horton: 50:05

And you know I was kind of lazy then and I was procrastinating then and I was partying too much then and then again so was everybody else around me. I was able to meet enough of the right people, have a decent enough work ethic that I could kind of begin to sort of make my way to where I am now, which is pretty great. I mean, do I wish I was? Do I wish I had more money in the bank? Sure, like everybody else, do I wish I had that ranch for my wife already. Yeah, sure, but you know it is what it is and I'm trying to be present, I'm trying to be in the moment, I'm trying to work really hard. You know what I mean.

Tony Horton: 50:41

I've got 22 failed businesses in the process of all this. You know, I had my own watches that didn't work, had my own sunglasses that didn't work, had my own mouth guards that didn't work, had my own clothing line four times that didn't work. Had six TV pilots. None of those took off. You know what I mean, and so you know what do I. What do you learn from that? You know, whatever Water onto the bridge, move on, keep moving. You know what I mean. And so is my brand new fitness equipment aligned. It's not quite out yet. Is that going to blow up? I don't know, but I'm going to keep pursuing it because I'm doing it, you're going for it.

Doug Smith: 51:19

Yeah, I love that. And you know, many years from now, when you're looking back on your life, what do you want to be remembered for and what do you want your legacy to be?

Tony Horton: 51:33

Yeah, that I did everything that I could to help as many people as I could. You know, I mean like your story. Before we started the podcast, you were telling me my story and how I was able to change your life. You know, that's that just God. That just fills me up. It fills me up, I feel like you know, because when I was younger, I always everything, I always felt like I was coming up short, like all the time, every day, like, god, was that the best I could do today Was this week worth? You know anything, god? I don't feel like I accomplished anything this month. Boy 1987 sucked, you know what I mean. I don't have any of those feelings anymore. I don't. I just feel like, wow, I've got an amazing wife.

Tony Horton: 52:16

I have a beautiful home, I'm able to kind of do almost anything I want to do, and it was all as a result of being able to help people. You know what I mean. It wasn't like I was selling, you know, weapons or nuclear plutonium or whatever, you know, I mean, it was because I was helping people.

Tony Horton: 52:37

I mean one of the store. This one kid contacts me and it turns out that this kid, a total stranger, is a friend of family members of mine. It blew my mind. He was out of shape, overweight, was in the best shape of his life. He was like 80 plus days in a P90X and fell off a three-story building into an alley Because he fell over some bricks. It was dark, they didn't have any light, they didn't have a building. He broke everything Broke his face, eye sockets, arms, wrists, fingers, ribs, because he landed upper body first. The only thing he didn't break his legs was the only thing. Everything else was destroyed. He was pronounced dead three times. He came in to give him his final a couple of times, you know, and he immediately goes.

Tony Horton: 53:34

P90x kept me from dying because I talked to my surgeons multiple surgeries. Later I got that note and I had a phone number at the back because he contacted me through my website and I called him up. All my doctors said if I was in the shape I was in, if I didn't have the basic muscular structure that I had, I would have died on the spot. Come on, man, I was at death's door. I was a full-blown alcoholic drug addict. I had OB'd a bunch of times. My girl left me, I was out of a job. Then some friend of mine introduced me to P90X. I became a trainer. I married the woman of my dreams and I have three kids, and a fitness is part of my life now. Those are just two. There are hundreds of stories like that.

Doug Smith: 54:22

Hundreds I collected them.

Tony Horton: 54:24

I'm going to write a book and just have those stories in that book. So, yeah, you know, I want to keep doing that. I want to do that until like, when are you going to retire, retire? I like my gig, I want to keep doing my gig.

Doug Smith: 54:36

I mean, I'll take more days off.

Tony Horton: 54:40

So that legacy right there. You know, I'm blessed. I'm blessed, Very fortunate.

Doug Smith: 54:46

I'm one of those stories that I told you, so thank you for transforming my life. I can't imagine my life without you, and is there anything else you want to leave our listeners with today? Gosh no, I think we covered a lot.

Tony Horton: 54:57

Yeah, I mean, usually at the end I have a little sort of a you know, I'll leave with this, I'll leave with this If you feel like you're stuck and you feel like there's a. You're not quite where you want to be in your life, whatever, whether it's physically, mentally, emotionally, spiritually. You know, I mean there's a lot of things that we can do, a lot of things that we can read. You know there's a lot of practices that we hope will alter things and change things. But I know that there's. I know there's one thing that's true for everyone, it's a universal truth, right? So there's not very many of those, but there's two things that we can control for sure, 100% what we decide to eat and whether we decided to move or not physically on a particular day the traffic, the weather, your family, whatever the coronavirus work. You know, I mean, there's so many things that are out of our control and it's those things that are out of our control that makes us crazy, that creates all this frustration and fear and trepidation, right? So you know, it really comes out of brain chemistry, you know. And so when you're eating the right kinds of food because you know, I had this bilateral vestibular hypo function and Epstein bar and I dramatically changed my diet and that has been suppressed. Like the Epstein bar, it's gone. I mean, I had that. It's literally. It looks like narcolepsy. You're exhausted all the time and so diet is huge. You know you are.

Tony Horton: 56:16

Do you eat? Jack Elaine said that you know half a century ago and it's still true. Because when you eat right, when you exercise, you got to be consistent. It's got to be five to six days a week, it can't be three. If you work out two, three, four days a week, four is even not enough. You end up with what I call exercise bipolar disorder, because when you do eat the right foods and you exercise consistently, you release norepinephrine, dopamine, serotonin, brain derived neurotropic factor. It's virtual miracle growth for the brain. It happens inside your temporal lobe, inside your dentate gyruses. It's this little tiny thing, it's smaller than your pinky finger, and when you exercise, molecules and proteins start to vibrate, they come together. They change your perspective, improve your memory, your cognition, your sex drive. The glasses have full.

Tony Horton: 56:59

I mean it changes everything about your ability to deal with all the things that are outside of your control, so that you can have a level of productivity you never thought you could have, and it's purely because you moved your body and you made good food choices, because everything comes from up inside of your noggin and if you're inconsistent with those things, then everything in your life will be inconsistent. So if you want your life, it's not going to go like this. It's going to go like this as opposed to like that right, because nobody's getting younger. We're always aging. We're always going to go sarcopenia and a lot of other things internal organs, brain function. It slows down Exercise and diet keeps that from happening.

Tony Horton: 57:45

I mean, when I'm 91, am I going to still be on the slack line and on the pegboard? God, I hope so. That's it. Move your body, make good food choices, especially now, during what's going on around the world. I don't understand why so many people who are dealing with very tough times make really bad choices so they can make that situation worse. That is, I mean, that's how we are right. I mean, as human beings, we always have a tendency to take the easy road, but if you're willing to put in the time and make better choices, you'll notice in a week or two or three that you're able to deal with this much, much better and you'll have a completely different story at the end, and I know you want that, so thank you so good, tony.

Doug Smith: 58:28

It was so great to meet you and spend an hour with you. This is going to add massive value to our listeners. So thank you and thanks again for everything you do. Well, hey, leader, thank you so much for listening to my conversation with Tony Horton. I hope that you enjoyed it as much as I did. You can find ways to connect with him and links to everything that we discussed in the show notes at l3leadershiporg forward slash 393.

Doug Smith: 58:47

And, as always, leader, I want to challenge you that if you want a 10 extra growth this year, then you need to either launch or join an L3 leadership mastermind group. Mastermind groups are simply groups of six to 12 leaders that meet together for at least one year in order to help each other grow, hold each other accountable and to do life together. For me personally, mastermind groups have been the greatest source of growth in my life over the last eight years. So if you're interested in learning more about launching a joining group, go to L3leadershiporg forward slash masterminds or email me at Doug Smith and L3leadershiporg. And, as always, I like the end of every episode of the quote, and I'll quote Jim Rowan today, who said this. He said if you really want to do something, you'll find a way. If you don't, you'll find an excuse. Boom. Well, leader, know that my wife Laura and I love you. We believe in you and I say it every episode. But don't quit, keep leading. The world desperately needs your leadership. I'll talk to you next episode.