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[00:00:00] Hey there. Welcome to Big Asian Energy.
Today I've got one of my super close friends and just a rockstar of a human being, Dan Gogh. And he is like a fitness legend, he's like the coach of coach of so many CEOs that I know and so many people who got their shit together. As a result, I always want to get into the mindset of Dan, because I've always wanted to know how do you lead and coach somebody?
So many people who are entrepreneurs, who are heavy hitters, who are go getters. So Dan, what's your secret? Man, the [00:00:30] secrets. This, I have these two words that show up in my mind every single day. Just show up and do the work. That's it. Oh, just show up. Do the work and good things that happen.
I was actually talking about this on a little thread that I was like posting on Twitter the other day. And, there are five types of luck that are out there and one of them is dumb luck where a bird just like shits on your shoulder and some guy wins the lottery or whatever it is. And this is not luck that you specifically control.
There is the sweat [00:01:00] equity, luck, which is the luck that you do by showing up to work, the luck that you get from showing up to work every single day. Doing your job and just putting it out there regardless of ever however you feel. And that kind of work just attracts people on opportunities. The other one is environmental.
It's the places that you put yourself in. it's going to an expensive gym. It's being the dumbest guy in the room. It's that type of luck. And then there's social luck. It's you and I talking on this conversation right now, it's because we're a part of this group and we're a part of this group of super high [00:01:30] achievers that have done things with their lives.
And we would not have met if we weren't within this set network of people. And, I really just think it is really just showing up to these things, smashing your ego and going into these things and just making sure that you're doing about 80% of the success work, which is literally showing up and doing the work.
I like that. 'cause we hear about these, like showing up and doing the work so much. Especially, like growing up that was basically like, the idea is that you just gotta keep working at it. But I like the way you broke it down to these five separate categories because you start realizing that [00:02:00] showing up and doing the work.
There's different ways of a way we show up. And there's so much truth behind that. Cool. All right. I always love starting to list this question because there's so many layers to this question. So I'll let you figure out what you wanna make it mean. Where are you really from?
Where am I really from? Are we talking about like existentially? I think it's Asian Americans. We get that question so much, right? We get that question like, where are you from? And I think this is the story of Lineage. So what do you identify as? I think that's a better question. Like where are you from?
What's your background? I. Man, even the idea of like identity to culture is, when people ask me, I [00:02:30] just tell 'em that I'm Chinese, Filipino, right? But like, when I get deeper into it I was born in the Philippines. I'm not Filipino. I was born there, my dad and my mom, or Chinese. My dad actually comes from the province of Shia men.
And he was born during a time where people were actually trying to leave China as a result of the communist rule that was coming in. That's why there's like a ton of Chinese people in Philippines and Malaysia pretty much like every single country that we can think of. And yeah he ended up residing in the Philippines built a life for [00:03:00] himself up there.
Unfortunately got swindled and a lot of his, I guess you could say his income was taken away as a result of getting swindled. And then he ended up moving our family from Philippines to the States and then eventually to Canada. And maybe I was just like born by the time he got to the States.
And I remember being in the States and being able to speak better English than a lot of the American kids that were around me. And then after kindergarten, I ended up going to Canada and that's where I spent the bulk of my life [00:03:30] living in Canada, living in Toronto, and. I'm really just thankful to my parents for bringing us here.
Right now I'm in Canada right now. I'm in Toronto right now and living here we've been traveling around a little bit, came back, but I'm just really thankful that he gave us an opportunity to be here, to live here. I believe that North America is definitely a place of just massive opportunity and he put us in the environment in order to make something of ourselves.
So he actually gave us some environmental luck and put us in the right position to win. So If I were to say like, where [00:04:00] I come from, man, it's kinda like asking someone like, what do you do? And then when someone asks you what you do, you're like, oh, I don't know.
I dunno. It's even hard for me to answer it like that question. But, if people were to ask Missy, I was, I'm actually from Canada, I'm from Toronto, right? And I was born in the Philippines. That's probably what I would say. Cool. All right. Let's make it, let's just make it that much more complicated than Dan.
What do you do?
Almost made me spit out my water right there. So if. I'll give you the elevator speech. So I help high achieving entrepreneurs transform their bodies with ease and minimal stress.[00:04:30] And the way in which I do this is I coach them specifically. I work with what I would consider to be like the best of the best New York Times bestselling authors, CEOs, founders, and I work with these guys because, I love working with them.
That's pretty much it. I love the type A personalities. I love guys who are mission-based. And one of the things that just drives me is that, if I can actually help this person, this high achiever transform their body and get into their best shape, then what do we get as consumers?
We get better products, we get better books, we get [00:05:00] better everything as a result of them being at their best physically and mentally. So yeah, yeah. I gave you my elevator speech. That's pretty much what I would say to, anyone asking me that I particular question.
Yeah. Yeah. so those of you guys who are listening and who are watching it on YouTube Dan is like one of the fittest guys I know and I wanna really clarify this 'cause I almost had this thing, I almost wanted to say like one of the fittest Asian guys I know, but really just fittest guys ever.
I know. Yeah. And I really want to point that out 'cause I don't know, but have you ever been said, have anybody said that to you before? [00:05:30] Like you're the fitness Asian guy I know, like that addition Yes. Of that. I'm tall. Some people will say, oh, you're the tallest Asian guy. I know. Yeah.
And I'm like, dude, I'm just a tall guy. Yeah. I was actually doing the podcast interview with one of my friends and then he messaged me right before our podcast is like, are you ready to do the podcast of the most handsome Asian men in the world? And I messaged 'em back and I was just like, I'm ready to do the podcast of the most handsome men in the world, regardless of the Asian bit that we put in there. Yeah. So I don't know. I wouldn't consider [00:06:00] myself to be the fittest guy ever. There are definitely a lot of guys out there that are fitter than me. I try my best, obviously. and the whole connotation with the whole Asian thing is like something that we feel like we have to interject in there, as if it's like this certain subset of subculture that we have to, conform to.
I guess you could say our perceived standing. But no, I don't know. I don't wanna talk, I don't wanna talk, turn this into a culture conversation, but my whole thing when I was growing up is I literally want to forget. I want to keep the really awesome roots of my culture and yet [00:06:30] forget about it all at the same time.
And I do believe that when I was on the come up, certain Asian mindsets and Asian mentalities would be like, Oh, you're gonna be like the Bruce Lee of the fitness industry or whatever. I would put myself in like that box a little bit. And then now I'm just like, nah, I'm gonna be the best day and go there is out there regardless of culture, regardless of color.
guess you could say, but I appreciate the compliment fitness Asian guy. But even when it comes to Asian guys, I'm pretty sure there's a lot more Federer Asian guys than me for sure. Absolutely. I'm not sold on that, but I definitely know that there's no other [00:07:00] guy I know who has a haircut quite as good looking as yours, that's for sure.
Thank you. I appreciate it. And this is something that's come up, right? 'cause like I've been hitting in the gym, I've been lifting weights inspired partly by you. Actually. I've seen that for the last few years. and I'm really proud of my own growth, I remember one of the first days that I've ever hired a trainer, this was years back, like I was in university.
And I worked with a trainer at the time and she did a whole like, breakdown, like a study, like all the measurements. And one of the things that she brought up was, at the very end I was like, oh, I want what? And she was like, what are [00:07:30] your goals? And I'm like I wanna look like Thor.
that's my goal. I wanna look like Thor. And she kinda paused. And she looked at me and I think the softest, gentlest way I think that she could really muster. She is you're Asian and genetics sometimes play a role, so I want you to have realistic expectations.
she was genuinely trying to be nice. I didn't call her out on it because I could tell that intentionally she was trying to really be nice. She wanted me to set realistic expectations. But as a result, I've always had this belief in the back of my head. It's true. I don't see a lot of superfit Asian guys.
I don't see a lot of yes, you definitely see [00:08:00] some, there's a lot of guys on Instagram. There's definitely, if you go to the gym, there's definitely tons of Asian guys and we see rock stars, like ou. But I really want to ask this question. I, is there a difference? Is this something that is bigger than, what is it?
Is it genetics? Does it play a role or is this just something that we've been taught? Genetics always plays a part into the ability of one's self to build the physique that, they feel, that they want to aim for. So genetics always plays a part but to a certain degree, like just when I think back to myself, it's just like belief and the way that you [00:08:30] think and the things that you believe are possible for you.
They play a massive part into creating either the business that you can create or the body that you wanna create, or the life that you want to create. Your thoughts and the beliefs that you have, or the beliefs that have been programmed into you, either by yourself or by other people. They are gonna play a massive part in whether or not thinking that you can actually reach this certain type of pinnacle for yourself.
Far be for me to say when you said Thor, I'm just like okay. It's like a bunch of D ball, a bunch of Anna Ball and we're there, yeah. it's such [00:09:00] a joke in the fitness industry, but, we're about of us, 95% of us know that Thor has been on some juicy supplements in his day.
and yeah, if an ju juicy supplements you, you mean steroids, right? Yeah. Just to be clear. 'cause I yes. Okay. Alright. Yeah. Yeah. And the thing is that if another Asian dude took, those particular types of anabolics, would they be able to create the same physique with having the same work ethic?
I'm pretty sure they would get pretty damn close if not there. Yes. But yeah it's never an either or thing. It's always like a both. and I [00:09:30] do feel that there is this pervasive thought I guess you could say, it's like it keeps other cultures, in their belief systems around like how Asians should look and it also keeps Asians in believing about how they should look and what they should be doing.
Yeah. So totally. I'm probably like one of the worst examples of I would say, a traditional Asian. Because I'm prob okay. I'm not gonna say I'm the worst at math. Like I'm actually pretty damn good at math. I wouldn't be able to be great at business if I wasn't good at math. But I failed grade 11 math like twice.
I never got anywhere past grade 10, like a [00:10:00] grade 10 math, I guess you could say contemporary level. Like I never got past that, and all Asians are supposed to be great at math and science. And I don't know, man. I don't necessarily think I'm like the prime Asian cliche example that a lot of people would actually hold in their minds in regards to what they feel like the classic Asian should be.
Again, that's only because I grew up very differently. I grew up around multiple cultures, and I've had friends who have been of multiple cultures I've hung around people who haven't necessarily, been of [00:10:30] the Asian stereotype. I've hung around very different people. And then all of that has amalgamated into me believing different things as they grow up.
So yeah, I don't know if I'm the model Asian so to speak but that's exactly perfect, right? I think so many of us are done with the idea of that model Asian, that model the stereotypes and a couple of things you brought up funny enough, like not being the model agent, like you talked about failing grade 11 math.
I sucked at math when I was twice, but yet here we are two entrepreneurs, right? You and I have built like very successful [00:11:00] businesses. And, have been for a number of years. So clearly that wasn't an issue and you brought up this word, great word, which is that mindset, right?
Because it's true. Growing up, I grew up around people who are like, agents are smart. Like we're seen as like the smart, nerdy kids. Were not the ones who are, in the gym, who are like lifting weights, coming out, being the most athletic kids in school, but were the ones winning, like athlete competitions.
Not to say I was, a theater kid. so for you, because you grew up around more multicultural people, did you have to go through your own shift in mindset [00:11:30] in recalibrating what's possible for you? Yeah, it's actually. Very interesting you're just bringing me back to the way I grew up, so back in the day, back in the day, as Jocko Willink would say, and I grew up in public school around mainly Caucasian people around a lot of cultures.
When I got to high school, it was again, around Caucasian people until I got to grade 11. And then I got exposed to hanging around people of my own color, people, Asian people. And [00:12:00] we had a little bit of a crew going on there. And then like fast forward, past, say college, getting into kind of like our twenties, actually getting into my thirties actually, that's when I met you.
And one of those first trips to Whistler with the people That we're associated with right now, our club essentially. our super cool entrepreneur club. Yeah. And I found myself, especially when I was hanging around primarily Asian people. It was amazing because there's this level of comfort and there's like this level of like comradery.
And it just [00:12:30] felt comfortable. And then I felt at some point in time that it was a little bit too comfortable. And I needed to break away from that. And that's actually like a little bit A little bit of a time where I separated away from my friends. From my Asian friends and I started to like, just like force myself into these rooms where I was dealing with not only people of like different colors, but people of like different statures.
We were talking about social luck or environmental, like just speaking, being like the dumbest guy in the room and just putting yourself into those situations. And I found that the [00:13:00] more I like pushed myself into that, the more I was able to break past, I guess you could say these little programmed beliefs I had in my mind about what I was capable of, about what I wanted to do with my life, about how I wanted to live my life.
And the more I got this holistic view of just chilling with like, all sorts of different types of people It really expanded my brain into thinking like, what was actually possible for me. And I'll give you an example. I thought my whole life I would be working a nine to [00:13:30] five. And I do believe that was like placed into my mind as a result of just immigrant parents wanting their kid to be as safe as humanly possible.
And I got the nine to five job and then after a while I was just like in the nine to five job and I'm like, I hate this. This is horrible. And I was working this corporation. I hate, I was working a job I hated. And I wanted to do something that was actually gonna help people. And one of the things that came to my mind was, Hey, why don't I be a personal trainer?
And one of the things about being a personal trainer is it's like [00:14:00] not a lot of Asian kids. Our personal trainers, like this is 18 years ago before Instagram, before TikTok before all these social media channels before fitness was like a thing. Fitness actually were being a personal trainer at that time was seen as a side job.
It's seen as something that you do on the side, that you make money while you make more money at your regular job. And I remember me going into this field of personal training and all of my friends God bless 'em, but all my friends are just like, why would you wanna do that?
You make money from this thing. What were, these are Asian friends. These were like my [00:14:30] inner circle Asian friends. Yeah. And they were like, why would you wanna do that? Like, why would you wanna leave this secure job and go and do something that's like this, quote unquote side hustle.
Yeah. And it was only because I wanted to do something I loved, which was fitness. And that just didn't seem like a reality for a lot of people, or actually just like a lot of people of our culture. Yeah. A lot of kids I talk to like even people I coach who are in their twenties and thirties, they reflect that.
Like they've been taught to value safety, right? Yeah, exactly. As said here you got like this [00:15:00] safe, secure job, and they'll talk to their parents. They'll like, should I quit my job? And I think this is why this, the entrepreneurship in the Asian community is seen with mc size. Like we have yeah, we got like the Jack MAs, but so many parents are still like why don't you take the safer route?
Yeah. It's the immigrant mentality. It's the immigrant mentality. Because when they came here and they came here to this country. They did whatever they could to keep us alive and to create this life for ourselves. When they did that, what do they want for us?
They want us to be safe. They want us to be as comfortable [00:15:30] and to have a nice nest egg and to just be able to just live as safely as humanly possible. But what they didn't realize, when they brought us here is that They gave us opportunity. And it is on us to actually build on that opportunity that they've given us.
So we're living in the world right now where we can create our own path and we can write our own tickets now. The internet has broken down barriers, and now we can literally be whatever we wanna be. So yeah. The older generation or the immigrant generation, the people who came here [00:16:00] 20, 30 years ago without money in their pockets, sometimes it's hard for them to grasp that.
I remember I talked to my dad and I told them I was gonna do fitness training, is like, dude what are you doing? Okay, fine. I'm gonna give you two years and if you're not successful, then you're gonna come here and work with me at the printing shop and help me grow this thing. I was like, done deal.
And that was the best decision I ever made. Yeah. What about all those kids? I can already hear like an audience of kids who have that ambition who are looking up at oh yeah, like fitness, but they're, not everyone could be Dan Gogh, right? What if they've [00:16:30] got those same fears of what if I'm not good enough?
What if I don't have what it takes? What would you say to them? Oh, man. I remember I was actually coaching I was coaching a fellow Asian kid, I guess you could say in business. And long story short, we helped him we helped him get up to, six figures income, created a life for himself. He's doing what he loves, which is like fitness right now.
Nice. And I remember that we had this conversation ' cause we taught in the system. And actually, here's the thing, it's Every single thing that you want is behind the system. Every single thing that you want is [00:17:00] behind a system that someone else has used in order to create the success that you want.
One thing you gotta ask yourself is, do you really want this type of success? Do you really want this another person's type of success? I really think that in order to really like, understand where you want to go, it's like an understanding of yourself You can use people as Models of where exactly you wanna go in terms of certain direction, but everyone's unique and everyone has a unique angle in terms of where they are and who they wanna be and the type of like knowledge that they wanna [00:17:30] bring out into the world and the gifts that they wanna bring out.
So yeah, if someone was able wanting to say that they wanna do what I'm doing, I'd say just make sure that's something that you wanna do. Either, something that you really wanna do as opposed to something that you feel like know you should be doing. But, I was talking with my coaching client and.
We got him on the system and we got 'em to start working, and we got 'em to start getting clients. And one of the things that happened with them during our calls is just he was like, Hey, like this this week, wasn't that good? I didn't get this many leads and da. And I was like, okay, [00:18:00] cool.
Let's work back. Okay. How many times did you like reach out to people? How many posts did you do on like Instagram or, we went through the system. He's I didn't do this, I didn't do that, I didn't do that. And then I asked, and then he is basically said I said to this kid, I was like what's stopping you from doing the work?
And we had to ask him. What's stopping you from doing the work? And we had to dig on this literally dig, because if you don't dig into this, you don't get into the reasons why people stop themselves, especially when things are working. It's actually, it's gonna come back. And his thing, his psychology was the fact that he felt like he was undeserving of the [00:18:30] success that he was getting.
Whoa. It felt like he was undeserving and almost like an imposter. With the clients that he was signing on. And I told him, I was like, did you not help this other dude drop 20 pounds off of his body? Did you not help this other person do this? And I do feel like a lot of times it's dealing with this fact of imposter syndrome.
And thinking oh, I don't wanna start because I'm gonna look like a fraud. Or I don't know if I feel like I'm putting myself out there too much. That's actually being too big on my britches. That's actually the tall poppy syndrome that Australians talk about.
I shouldn't market myself, I shouldn't [00:19:00] speak too loud. And that's actually something that we get a lot from Asian culture as well. It's don't hundred percent put yourself out there too much. Yeah. the nail that sticks out gets the hammer. Exactly. And I told him, I was like, okay, why do you believe these things? He believed these things. 'cause he was programmed when he was a kid by his friends, his parents, his teachers. Don't stick out too much. And then after that, it was just like, what if you just did two things? What if you actually just showed up and did the work and you just did it regardless of how you felt, you did it regardless of feeling like an imposter.
You did it [00:19:30] regardless of feeling like a fraud and you just kept on doing the work. Would you not get better at what you do and simultaneously get the rewards and results that you're after in the first place? I was like, yes. I was like, so why don't we fucking do that then? Okay.
And basically I told him, sh fucking pull up your pants and do the fucking work. That's basically what I told him. And what happens when you do this? you create more luck on your side. You're putting yourself out there more, you're creating more opportunities, and you're also getting better at the vocation that you are trying to get better at.
So you cannot create these opportunities without putting [00:20:00] yourself out there first. And I think that's what stops a lot of the people. and also self-sabotage to a very large degree. But again, I digress. We have to watch the programming that we get from other people and also the programming we give ourselves, which is the thoughts that we think, the things that we say to ourselves on a regular basis.
So step one, in dealing with that imposter syndrome, that fear, especially in growing up that we've been taught that, don't stick out too much, don't speak too loudly, don't put up your hands, it's not safe to do that, especially, in this Asian kind of culture or background. Step number one is to just be like, okay, cool, I feel it.
[00:20:30] And then take action. Just pull up your big boy pants and take action. First even while experiencing that doubt, that uncertainty and that lack of safety even, you don't have to wait until you feel safe to take that first step. Yeah, you're never gonna feel a hundred percent ready. And I think that's what a lot of people are waiting for.
They're waiting for this quote unquote, perfect time to do it. And I do agree that timing does have an effect on things, but it all comes down to it, you're never gonna feel a hundred percent ready to do the thing that you feel pulled to do in your life. And [00:21:00] it is on you to fulfill. And I don't want to get esoteric and spiritual on you, but I do believe that every single person on in this world, regardless of color, was put on here to do something really good for the world, to do something really good for the people of this world, to help people in a very unique, certain type of way.
And I think it's in the front to the person that created you, that you deny this of yourself, and that you deny your unique ability and the unique things that you wanna bring up to this world because you feel like a fraud and you feel like an imposter. Guess what? Everyone [00:21:30] fucking feels that way.
Everyone fucking feels like a fraud especially, and an imposter, especially when they're just beginning. How else are you gonna get the reps? That stuff goes away over time. And then it just comes back when you cross different mountains and you see another mountaintop in front of you is not necessarily gonna go away in your life.
But again, everything is behind the veil of showing up and doing the work. Once you just step into that arena, get yourself bloody, get your face pushed in a little bit, make your mistakes, then you prove to yourself that you can do this. And it is only the people in the [00:22:00] arena that count.
So if you're not in the arena, you're not giving yourself a chance. So ignore the critics. 'cause they're not in the, they're not in the mud with you anyway. Ignore people who are questioning other things, like your friends on the side and being like, dude, what are you doing? Go back to your nine to five.
So when I first started getting into fitness now I'm gonna say something, but I don't think that everyone should go down this path because it's not a path that is sustainable. But every single person that told me that I couldn't do what I wanted to do, I put that in my inventory, it added a log to the [00:22:30] fire, and it essentially said I had this whole mentality of I'm gonna do this or I'm going to fucking die.
And it literally, it's I'm gonna succeed at this. And there were two prevailing mindsets. It was like, I'm gonna do this. I'm gonna make it work and I'm gonna figure it out, or I'm gonna perish. and also if someone else made this happen in their life, if someone else was able to do this, that means that.
I have every single talent and ability to be able to bring the same reality that this person brought into their [00:23:00] life. Those were like the two things that just kept me going. 'cause it was a slog at first. It was really hard to go from one industry to another to start all over again.
But those are the two things that just kept me like going. And then every single time that someone just like poo-pooed on my dream and just ended up talking crap about it or whatever, and just told me to do something else. I was like I just kept myself quiet. I said in my brain. I'm like, thank you.
That just gives me more motivation and more drive to do this. Now, the reason I say do not rely on this type of energy is because it is not sustainable. You do not [00:23:30] want to keep on succeeding in spite of other people. So it's good launching energy. It's not good sustainable energy. The sustainable energy is afterwards.
The love of what you're doing. The love of bringing your unique ability to this world, the love of the process, the love of helping people. That's the sustainable energy. So I have to caveat that with saying that. I love it. So like we have different types of energy, just what you talked about before.
And one of the type of energy and motivation that we can actually tap into when we encounter the naysayers, when we encounter the [00:24:00] doubters is to actually file that as fuel and be like, you know what I'm gonna take that, I'm gonna use that to prove you wrong. I'm gonna use that to like, to get further ahead.
But maybe not using that all the time, because after a while we start burning out and we find that love and connection back to what's important to us, our values. Yeah. It's kinda have you ever watched the Michael Jordan documentary? It is called the Chicago Bulls documentary, but it's really the Michael Jordan documentary on Netflix.
No, but everyone keeps telling me about it. It is the quintessential documentary on [00:24:30] competitiveness. Okay. And, but the sad thing about that documentary was every single thing that Jordan accomplished was in spite of other people, it was accomplished because he was like, that guy said something to me, and then I took it personally, and I really think that I don't really wanna live my life that way. It was good to start, it was great, I don't wanna live my life that way. And I wanna live my life. Sustainable energy. And that is to me, love the uniqueness of what I do. So speaking of [00:25:00] sustainable energy, 'cause I wanna come back to this previous point you made, which is that you found this to be your passion.
This, like you figured out, you said every single person you believe are here, I would use the word purpose. Is that right? Is that an accurate word? Like we're here to contribute something, make the world better? Yeah. I would say, I don't know about purpose. Yes. I believe in that. I do believe in unique ability.
So every single person is actually this law of compensation. So I heard this from and Donna Con and Donna Ksu, I think that I'm saying his name right. He's a American football [00:25:30] player. And he was talking about this idea of the every single successful person that he knows has compensated for their success.
So what does this mean? It means that the weaknesses that you have inherent in you, they actually create the biggest strength. So let's just say like someone is blind. And they cannot see. So as a result of being blind, their ability, their touch is amplified, their ability to hear and listen is amplified.
Their ability to smell is amplified. So I like to look at things as, what are you uniquely able to [00:26:00] do in this world? Maybe it's speaking, maybe it's Freaking out. maybe to some people it's organization. There is something unique to every single person, which is an amalgamation of their strengths and their weaknesses and the things that they had to compensate for.
so to me, purpose is actually something that I found as I was doing what I was doing. But unique ability is something that I went right into, right away, which is my ability to just talk to people and my ability to like, motivate them and [00:26:30] just inspire them to do better. But that sounds interesting.
Like I'm somebody just starting off my journey. I'm exploring who I am at this point. How do I know what it is that's my unique ability? Like, how would somebody figure that out? And a lot of people really in general, especially when they're in that early stage and they're trying to decide between that nine to five slog and deciding no.
I'm gonna go into this. That's a scary thought. 'cause most people are like, I don't have a unique ability. or I'm pretty good at this, I'm gonna eating, I'm gonna sleeping. I'm good at, playing video games. I don't know what that unique ability is. How do I find [00:27:00] that?
What would you say to that? I like to think about it as, Putting your hands into as many cookie jars as possible. And you cannot find your unique ability over the course of, let's just even say like a year when you start searching for it, you find your unique ability over the course of possibly decades.
And the way I look at Unique ability is also like looking back at what your favorite subjects were at school, at what your favorite jobs were when you were growing up, and what are the things that gave you joy. Maybe you weren't like the best at it, but what are the [00:27:30] things that you just enjoy doing?
One of the things I loved doing was when I was in school is physical education. I loved the phys ed class. I hated all the other classes, but I loved phys ed class. Probably because I had a really good PhysEd teacher back then, but I just loved phys ed class. I loved playing sports and all that kind of stuff in regards to my jobs.
I just did nothing but customer service jobs. I work, my first job was actually working at my parents' place. it actually taught me what I didn't like to do when I was like 10 years old. Taking out the garbage stapling papers together and whatever. Second job after that, or [00:28:00] first real job would be like McDonald's.
I worked for customer service there. I was talking to people. That was fun. And that was like being front facing and actually talking to people was something that I found as like this common thread throughout my entire, like work career things like, they're just like odd jobs that I would just go into and be attracted to.
So that in itself is you do all these like things as you're growing up. You see exactly what the things that you liked when you are going to school with that kind of gives you this actually just like compass point of maybe what you enjoy doing. And then you find it by just trying out different [00:28:30] things.
You're not gonna find the person that. you wanna marry by dating one person. You find them by meeting so many different people and you find out, okay, I like this about this person. I don't like that, and I like this about this person. And then, you go through so many of these kind of stages, eventually over time, it just hits you like a ton of bricks.
You're, this is the thing. Now this is where we talk about upgrading, right? Because your journey, you're not like most fitness trainers that I know, like most fitness trainers I know, they're like, they're just trading time [00:29:00] for, they're making, 30, 50, maybe a hundred bucks an hour.
And that's if they're on the higher side, right? A hundred, 150 bucks. That's pretty good. But you built like a multiple six figure business. Like you've got a business empire and you lead the top of the top, you lead, like you said, CEOs of like major companies, seven, eight figure companies like.
It's like, how did you make that leap from okay, I'm just regular fitness trainer slogging through my hours into this next level up. So a couple of things that come to mind in [00:29:30] regards to that and Yeah, we're, doing multiple six, we're getting up there, we're crossing that seven.
Yeah. Yeah. So one of the things that comes to mind first Is the constant of setting up goals. When I hit one Pinnacle and one milestone, it just set a bigger goal afterwards and I just set a bigger one and bigger one. And here's the thing. I think everything comes in stages.
So I don't think I did this purposely, when I was a personal trainer, I was a personal trainer for about two years, then I became an in-home personal trainer, and then I owned my own gym. That was done for about 11 years. I sold the [00:30:00] gym. And then I ended up going into online, doing, going into what I would call the online sphere, which is what I'm doing right now, helping entrepreneurs, helping founders, also putting myself out there on social media and doing so from a very confident base because I have this foundation of knowledge that I've acquired.
And, for me it's just like a little bit of an ascension model a little bit. It's like after one, you go to the next, you go to the next, and you just keep on. It's like that thing that we said, it's like you're never gonna be a hundred percent ready to do these things. So you just gotta know when the right time is to exit and when the [00:30:30] right time is for you to enter. And that's part of it. It's just just constantly seeking growth and never letting yourself get stagnant at one level. And the other thing that comes to mind also is Man, if I just set bigger goals because the thing is that we're only limited by what our minds believe we can achieve.
And every single goal that I've ever set for myself, I've achieved. And then that to me is it's actually good and it's actually bad. It means one I was dedicated as to achieving that goal and, we hit it. That's amazing. Number two, did we [00:31:00] set it too low? If everything is like just the co conceptualize if I think let's just say like we're about money, so to speak.
So if I'm talk about money to me is energy. And why I set these goals or these goals that I feel are are realistic is because again, The way I've been programmed of thinking, okay, this is the in the mount. And then once you cross six figures and get to seven, then you're like, okay, like seven's the next one.
But then the thing is that you have to realize that we are only confined by the level of our thinking. And the level of what we believe is possible for ourselves. [00:31:30] Going into this next phase of my life right now, I'm thinking massive. I'm thinking incredibly big.
And then that alone changes the way in which I see my business changes the way in which I operate in my business. It changes like the opportunities I look for. So for me, if I were to say anything, it's one, yes. Ascend yourself. Get that level of foundation where you can feel really confident about talking about what you wanna talk about or whatever it is that you wanna do.
But set massive big ass air hairy goals and then set plans to achieve them, to make them [00:32:00] realistic. And then that, to me is the core concept right there. I want to interject here because I wanna point, do you mind if I tell people and I don't know, maybe you've updated your rates?
'cause every time I meet you, I feel like you keep scaling up. The last I heard Dan charges $50,000. To train. Are you still at that rate? Have you gone to a hundred, 150? Where are you at now? We're at 60 K to train with me, to coach with me. So like you're let's just, and we have a team.
Yeah. So I wanna clarify here again, just for the guys. You are a fitness trainer. You charge [00:32:30] $60,000 to train one person and this is to coach them online? Yeah. To train one person online. And and how long is that for? What are they getting for that? That 60 k They're getting like a year upfront and a year.
And what they're getting to me is what they're getting from me is the culmination of 18 years of experience. Basically. 18 years of experience encapsulated in one year. So every single mistake that I've ever made and thousands of mistakes and thousands of lessons, they're getting that encapsulated.
To a person [00:33:00] who wants to go from. A to Z, so to speak, when it comes to their bodies. Basically they're paying 60 K for an education on how to keep their bodies in shape for the rest of their lives. And that's an incredible value. So in the context of what you just talked about here, this is why I want to bring it up, is the fact that this number probably for a lot of fitness trainers is blowing their minds, right?
I can imagine a lot of fitness trainers going wait a second I'm making, let's say a hundred dollars an hour over the course of, so you're talking about upgrading your mindset and the way you look at scale. [00:33:30] How did that come into play? But here's the thing, John, that's just working with me, right?
So our business has coaches and we have salespeople, and we have marketing people. Our business is like a business. Like I don't do the bulk of the coaching at all. So a lot of the coaching is actually taken care of. From, our people. And actually the reason why I set that rate in the first place, I'll tell you right now, is because I don't really wanna work with that many people, that's actually why I set it in the first place. So if someone wants to, work with me or whatever, we [00:34:00] set that rate, people pay it, whatever it is, but I'm only working with maybe seven or eight people each and every year. That's all I wanna work with.
And, the way I get to there is really just like valuing myself and it is literally just seeing what does my time. Cost based on how I charge for my time, and that's how much my time costs now. And I believe that year after this is gonna be a hundred k, the year after that is gonna be 150 k.
The year after, that's gonna be 200 K. And why is that? Because basically as the business grows everything that I'm [00:34:30] doing in regards to like the growth that I'm experiencing, as that grows, I'm not necessarily gonna have that much time to be spending on, these calls or to be trading my time for, say dollars, whatnot.
It's just been like this process where, before I was charging. Maybe three K for 12 weeks and then just it gently, just gently. Slowly but surely as my business has grown, that number has gone up, but only as a reflection on what my time actually costs.
Got it. Mindset wise, coming back into this, if you're talking to somebody [00:35:00] who is, let's say you're talking to yourself a few years ago where, younger Dan Gogh, how many years are we talking about? That's a good question. Let's say wherever it is that would have not thought that your current size and scale your business was possible, which I don't know, may, maybe that was 12 year old when you were 12 years old.
Maybe that was, 10 years ago, wherever it was, how would you help the answer to the really question is how would you help somebody unlock that mindset, really change that perspective. 'cause that's not an easy thing to do. That's not an easy thing to look at yourself and be like, you know what?
[00:35:30] I'm gonna be worth. The 60 K per client, that's a hard thing for somebody to easily step into. So how would you guide them to step into that bigger identity, bigger self, bigger mindset? I think it does depend on context a lot. Because let's just say, I'm talking to the Dan from five years ago and that Dan five years ago already had 13 years experience inside of the gym, and inside of training the master.
Yeah, that's a lot of time. That's more than 10,000 hours of time spent coaching. So if I was like, if I was gonna say to that, Dan, I would [00:36:00] actually say set a target that you feel would blow your fucking mind and we don't even need to make the target financial. We can make the target. How many people do you want to help?
We can make the target anything but set a target that. You understand is something that would just blow your fucking mind, but you know that someone else has actually accomplished. And then afterwards, once you set that target, do a little exercise, create what you feel would be the preliminary plan to get there, create milestone goals for yourself in order to know that you're [00:36:30] on the way to getting there.
And then create a plan that's just so that's just like funnels all the way down to the very first step that you have to take right then and there. So after that you take the first step and then you make it a reality. And one of the things that I would say to that person is, regardless of whatever success that you have, show up.
And just do the work. This actually reminds me of the so I would say like my biggest amount of growth actually came when Covid was here. So when Covid hit, the government locked things down and I was locked down [00:37:00] in my house. I had my baby daughter on the way and I was just like, what am I gonna do?
And I actually had some coaching clients be like, yo, can't do coaching with you anymore. I don't know exactly what's gonna go on with the economy and all this kind of stuff. Sure, yeah. And it was scary. Like it was really scary. And what happened as a result was I was like I'm not doing anything and I'd rather be doing something.
So what is that gonna be? And lo and behold, an opportunity comes up where this guy that I know from Twitter, he is like, Hey, I'm gonna teach you how to like, do this Twitter business, or not this Twitter business, but I'm gonna teach you how to grow on Twitter. And I ended [00:37:30] up taking him up on the offer.
'cause I was just like I've got nothing to do and I wanna Yeah. And for me, it's like when I was working in the local sphere, when I had the local gym, when I was working as a personal trainer, like I only had the reach of the locality that I was at. I only had the reach of the town that I was in And I was always searching for something that was expansive, scalable, something that could actually be able to reach not just like tens of thousands of people, but like millions of people. Obviously social media was like that thing. So once I started to do a system and started to post on Twitter my Twitter [00:38:00] started to grow exponentially.
It started to get a lot bigger. I remember I got to a thousand followers. I was like, whoa, this is crazy. And then I was just like, all right, show up, do the work. Got to 5,000 followers. I was like, whoa, this is crazy. I was like, all right, show up. You are. I got to 10, then 20, then 50, then a hundred and each and every time I was just like, all right, cool.
This is awesome. All right, back to work. So really it's just I don't want to let, I don't wanna take these things as flippantly as possible, but really it's, everything is on the backbone of just like me showing up to the computer, creating every single day and [00:38:30] doing the thing regardless of ever how, however I felt.
And yes. Now we're like now like we hit say a hundred. Actually, we just passed 200 K on say Twitter. Now I set an even bigger, more massive goal, right? All of this is to say is just Hey, this is all because of the sweat equity that you put into this whole thing. And if you just show up every single day into the arena, you do your thing, then you know you're gonna make things happen and good things are gonna happen as a result.
And yeah that's my whole thing is I consider myself to be a very lucky guy. And it is [00:39:00] only it yes, I consider myself to be lucky. Shit pops on my on my lap and I'm like, oh, cool. This is great. I do believe that one of the things that, you know, that the one of the beliefs that you should actually incorporate is you are a lucky person, or I am a lucky person.
I like that. But also it's because of the luck that I put on my side, Of the social luck, the networking luck the environmental luck, the sweat equity, luck all of these types of luck I put on my side by showing up to these types of areas and just being there. So yeah, set a big has big ass area goal set a plan [00:39:30] that you feel is realistic in order to achieve it, and then start with the first action and take a few simple actions that you can do on a daily basis and just keep on doing those every single time.
Beautiful. Yeah. Yeah. So just a quick sum it up what I've heard as a while, I think number four, I can't even remember what number one, two, and three were anymore, but I think we're on number four now. Number four, in terms of blowing up your own world and reaching those like levels of really like big levels.
Set goals that really scare you, that kind of blow your mind a little bit. Number five is then going to find models of people [00:40:00] who've done it so that way you have a scale and understanding so that way your reality is cemented in your mind. And that way you're not just stuck in this idea of what if I can't, what if I can't?
then creating a plan for it because our minds, we like plans, right? Our minds like to know that there's a kind of step by step number six is to show up daily and just keep putting that sweat equity, but not obsessing over the numbers and everything like that. Take a look at it, keep an eye on it.
But in our obsessing about it. Putting the time. Yeah. Yeah. Let it give you that little bit of a dopamine hit and, feel good about it. Celebrate with your loved ones a little bit, maybe just like for a tiny little [00:40:30] bit, and then get your ass back to work. Beautiful. Awesome. Yeah. And then number seven was the, I am a lucky person.
Add that belief into your list. I forgot to add one more thing in there, which is reputational luck, which is the amalgamation of all the sweat equity, like the environmental luck, the social luck. So reputational means it's like someone referring another person to you because of the work that you've done.
And your reputation is something that you build over the course of years. And that's just like again, one other piece of luck to develop as you are growing in this world. Got it. So what, we'll, all these, again, lemme just make sure that [00:41:00] we, we have 'em all down.
We got sweat. Like this is how you build, it's such a funny thing. 'cause we say the word luck, we usually mean oh, you got lucky. Yeah. But this is how you're viewing them in a different way. So we have sweat, equity, luck, reputational luck. And what were the other ones? Social luck.
So it's putting yourself into the rooms where you can meet people. Success is not just what you know, it's who you know. And the more that you meet these people, the more you have these acquaintances, the more that you actually have these friends and you can create so many really cool things.
The other one is environmental luck. It's actually being at those [00:41:30] places, let's just say it's like a dating example, right? if you wanna date and have a relationship, but you're staying at home, not doing anything, and sitting on your hands and not putting yourself into target rich environments, then you're not gonna have environmental luck.
You're gonna have nothing. Sure, we can talk about cider all we want but again, we wanna be able to put ourselves in situations where we're meeting the people at the places that we feel will meet our ideal mate. Environmental luck is a huge one as well. Beautiful. And each of these ideas of luck is imagine that every single time you're showing up, you're rolling the dice and you're not gonna hit every single [00:42:00] time.
But the more you show up, the more you're likely to hit the dice. Yeah. I feel like you just show up. You be yourself, be yourself is also a term that maybe we should talk about. You show up you go out there, you talk to people as if you don't need anything from them and you put yourself in those positions, then you never know what's gonna come and land on your lap.
That's cool. Yeah. Alright. we're just dropping knowledge bombs today, all day. Fantastic. Finally, is there any final kind of like I like this word, which is like, what is an unconventional wisdom? Because, growing up Asian Americans we have literally millenniums of [00:42:30] conventional wisdom being passed on to us.
What is some unconventional wisdom bombs that Dan Gogh can drop on us? Man, get lucky. Get lucky. Yeah. Pretty much Put luck on your side. I'd say that's one of them. I would also say, as an unconventional thing, it's more of a roundabout thing, and I bring this back to what I do, which is like fitness.
I feel like fitness is the number one meta habit that makes all other things easier in your life. And the more healthier you are, the better you bring yourself up in regards to status. The more attractive you look, the better energy you have, the more confident [00:43:00] you feel. And I do feel that everything stems from being a healthy person and everything good.
Essentially. there is no negative to being healthier and to working on your fitness and to getting yourself in shape. So I feel like fitness to me is the lead domino to which all good things come from as a result. Get fit, show up, put in the sweat, equity, luck. Get that reputational luck, that social luck, that environmental luck and get lucky, awesome fans.
Yeah. Fantastic. And where can people fan out more about Dan Gogh? They can find me at Twitter. It's at [00:43:30] fit Founder. They can find me on Instagram. It's at Dan Founder. I have a podcast. It's called the Dan Go Show. Gonna come out with a YouTube channel as well pretty soon. And yeah, you can find me on those channels.
Fantastic. And I also see that there's a Triple W to high performance Vid e. Video course. Video course. Cool. Yeah, if you wanna know, like the forcep system that gets all of our clients into shape has 'em all creating high performing bodies, go to high performance video course.com and you'll be able to get our system.
Amazing. [00:44:00] Thank you very much, Dan, for all of your time and your and your wisdom bombs here today. Dan, go, everyone. yeah, absolutely. Go check him out. You're gonna get fit, probably get way more money in your life and feel better doing so. Thanks very much, Dan. Have a good one.
