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Joshua Holland is a man who knows the importance of building your healthiest bag of tricks. Joshua is an in-demand biohacker, fitness trainer and holistic health coach. He brings his experiential knowledge and deep wisdom into all he does from working with professional athletes and well-known celebrities to exploring the latest tools and technologies in the marketplace.
On episode 66 of Awesome Health Podcast, Joshua tells us how he got started in the world of health and fitness.
Born and raised in Oklahoma, Joshua’s dad had a martial arts school. Before he was 12 he had a black belt and had an understanding of Eastern philosophy. His dad was also the chief of police for the town of Chandler, as well as being an EMT, a storm chaser and an herbalist. His dad was living the highest form of martial arts: he was a healer and a guide.
One of Joshua’s commitments with his business and his work with clients is to also be a healer and a guide, like his dad.
From that discussion topic we then go into Joshua’s participation in other sports and how he made the transition into fitness training. We also talk about his typical day, something I was curious about given his biohacking expertise. He wakes up with as much as light as possible and then he meditates and preps himself for his day. Part of this process is listening to podcasts including Dave Asprey, Ben Greenfield and The Breakdown.
Another part of his morning routine is to shake his body, it moves the fascia of the body but it also releases stored emotions and trauma. He also makes a cup of coffee by grinding his own beans. While his coffee is still hot, he cleans up after himself so he doesn’t have to worry about it later. If he doesn’t have to rush out of his house then he’ll read for a bit. He uses a couple of different gadgets while doing so and he explains which ones, how they work and what they do.
Be sure to join us to hear his explanation as well as which assessments he uses with his clients and his top 5 biohacks right now. You’ll learn so much from Joshua on those topics and much more on episode 66 of Awesome Health Podcast!
Episode Resources:
- Joshua J Holland’s Website: https://www.joshuajholland.com/
- Simply Walk The Talk podcast: https://www.simplywalkthetalk.com/
- Joshua Holland on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/joshuajholland
- Simply Walk The Talk on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/simplywalkthetalk
- Systimfit on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/systimfit
- N.O. Dump with KAATSU video
- M.A.P. (Movement Analysis Pattern) video
- The Fat Burn Fix by Catherine Shanahan, M.D.
- Deep Nutrition by Catherine Shanahan, M.D.
Read The Episode Transcript:
Wade Lightheart: Good morning, good afternoon and good evening. It's Wade T Lightheart from BiOptimizers with another episode of the Awesome Health Podcast. And I am joined today with none other than Joshua Holland. And let me tell you, this guy knows a lot about fitness, wellness, lifestyle, and biohacking. In fact, celebrities and high profile clients are scrambling to get him. We've caught him in between trips, even during this whole lockdown thing. He's in demand. He's been in the Hamptons. He's in New York, he's coming to LA he's all over the place. Well, we're going to find out why that is. Bottom line is Joshua is quote unquote, a dedicated bio-hacker state-of-the-art fitness trainer and holistic health coach, as well as sports professional. And one of the interesting things that I think Joshua talks about is his philosophy of awareness through experience. And so one of his big claim to fames, if you will, is he consults with elite professionals to kind of build a bigger well, a deeper bag of tricks or tools, or resources to evoke the alignment of the body, mind and spirit for his clients. There's so much, you can learn here. By the way, if you haven't checked out his Instagram or checked out his profile, I mean, it's pretty, he's got some pretty awesome stuff and he's one bad-ass looking dude, awesome. I'm so excited because of course my background is in fitness and all that sort of stuff. So it's really great. By the way, he is the co-founder of several fitness and health entities, including being a global ambassador for a number of companies, including techno gym. Love techno gym. So awesome of that. And he leads a team of trainers and health coaches at System Fit in then Flat Iron district of New York city. Oh wow. Where's this? It is like dream lifestyle, man. Like you made the big time, as I said. All right. So, hey man, Joshua, welcome to the show. Joshua Holland: Wade man, I appreciate it. Thank you for having me on. This is a definitely a highlight of my day. I'm excited. I'm excited to chat with you and share my experience and just let's have a good time and vibe, man. Thanks for having me on. Wade Lightheart: Thanks. But you know both Matt and I, who are the co-founders of BiOptimizers, we started in doing personal training nutrition, and I think personally it is one of the most rewarding careers anybody can get to. Number one it started my business career because literally, people were paying me, that you could never get an appointment with ever, and they're giving me their insights and advice for free while I'm getting paid. I love that part. And I know you're in that situation, but how did… Let's get a little background. How did you become a go to person with kind of some of these who who's, we can't name names or anything? So folks just be ready for that part of the deal. When you deal with, you know, big name people, his privacy is as an utmost important of a professional relationship. And so we're not going to be throwing around celebrity tidbits and stuff, but we can get some insights because these people can hire anybody. Why are they hiring you? How did you get to that position and tell us the whole backstory. Joshua Holland: Okay. Wonderful question. And thanks for the lovely intro and nice lead in to the question. I feel like my need or the desire to work with me has started since I was a little boy. And,you know, I grew up in a martial arts background, so my father has a martial arts school in Oklahoma where I'm from. And I grew up in a very very small town and I basically was, I like to say my brother and I, we grew up and we were born into martial arts. And if you are, any of your followers and listeners are familiar with the martial arts world, it's a very different way of growing up. You know, it's especially if you're kind of born into it, you learn the Eastern philosophies at a young age or at least I did. I learned how to be a good leader. I learned how to be a good follower. I learned how to use my experience and my understanding of the arts to elevate me to another level. Right. So when I was 12 years old, actually, before I turned 12 years old, I got my black belt and my dad's karate system because of his experience, in his background, he developed this martial arts style called American karate system, which was a blended style of arts because that's what he experienced growing up. So he decided to create his own blend. And this was all kind of before UFC and mixed martial arts became a thing. Right? Wade Lightheart: Wow. Joshua Holland: Yeah. So he decided, okay, look he created this karate school on the side, but he was also the chief of police of my hometown. Right. Chandler, Oklahoma. He was EMT, he was a storm chaser. He was a carpenter. And he was also he did massage therapy and was in herbologists. So he did all of these things. Wade Lightheart: The true martial arts pathway of, you know, coming eventually. A lot of people don't know this about martial arts. It's like the highest forms, is you become a healer essentially. Joshua Holland: Well said. Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. And I would even add another level to that. You become a healer and a guide because, you know, and that, we can also talk about later, when it comes to my brand and methodology and ideology, but my goal is to be a guide, right? And I had to be guided in order to learn what a good guide is. And so I got that from both of my parents, because I also was able to see that my mom, you know, my mom and dad are now since divorced, but together when they were together, it was interesting to see the relationship between how my mom who is powerful being in the family structure and my dad who is powerful being, but they were very different, powerful beings. But they came together to create this system for my brother and I to grow up within. And, you know, once I learned all there was to know, at least with martial arts, like for instance, to become a black belt in my dad's system, you have to certified an anatomy, first aid, because that's what my dad had to do at being an EMT. But he also thought let's instill that as a part of the protocols, because not only should you be able to hurt someone in case you need to hurt someone, but you also need to be able to take care of someone in case you need to be able to take care of someone. So that was his art, it was more about defending yourself, protecting yourself, helping others, but also kicking ass if you need to at the end of the day. Right? Wade Lightheart: Wow. That's really cool. It's kind of that classic, you know, where the guy meets the little old bearded guy at the other end of the thing, and he's like, oh the muscle in the philosophy, you know, it's kind of like, you've got to understand. And I think a lot of people miss, these's two things that you brought up and we'll get into that more, but I want to touch base on number one. I think everybody wants to be a leader today, but few people need to learn how to be coach and the follower, that's the first stage of that process. The second thing that you brought up, is the components of a philosophy. It's not just a boat. Hey, I can, you know, kick this high or beat up this many people or do all this sort of stuff. There's an overarching philosophy. And that's obviously, this is probably leading into what you're going to share, but keep going. I just, I want to make those comments so that we touch back on that, because I think it's really important. Joshua Holland: It's very very important. I think, you know, for my experience, and again, I'll use the word experience a lot because I think that's what ultimately shapes who I am and how I teach and how I work with people. It started with this idea of sort of looking within introspection, learning. And at a very young age, I had to understand that. I knew without a doubt, that there was this idea of me being, let's say, 12 years old or pre-adolescent and getting to the ranks of a black belt, or, you know, surpassing that. But then having like 35 year old, 40 year old people bow to me and… You know, understanding what that's all about, right? And it's not about, Oh, why am I bowing to a 12 year old? Why am I bowing When I entered into the dojo? I had to quickly learn in this 12 year old mind, I had to learn that, wait a minute, this is all about respect. This is all about discipline. This is all about keeping your dojo clean, taking your shoes off before you come in, respecting the dojo when you enter and when you exit, respecting your elders, but also respecting those that I've put in the heart, you know, the blood, sweat, and tears before you, no matter what age they are. And that's what became sort of evident from a very young age. And, you know, it's also, I always like to say this story, because when you go from my dad and my dad's system, you go from a white belt to a yellow belt, and there's three yellow stripes in between before you go from white belt to yellow belt. And the average person, it takes approximately two to three months to go from white belt to yellow belt. It took my brother and I two years. Two years to go from a white belt to a yellow belt. Now imagine that 10 year old, 11 year old, 12 year old boy, or, you know, even, maybe we were little bit younger,.But imagine seeing all of the peers around us, all of the kids that were our age, all the kids are older than us developing and getting their belts before us and the pain that's welling up inside of us, seeing all of these other people, you know, get their rank before us. And yet we're doing it just as good. But our dad said, he never wanted anyone to try to claim that we got our rank because we're the son of the sensei. Wade Lightheart: Right. Joshua Holland: And talk about manipulating or changing, altering the mind of that young being, which is me, right? And then I take that into getting my rank getting the confidence, being number one in the state for multiple years in fighting and breaking, in forms and all the different things, but then letting that become the catalyst into actually going into other sports, because my dad was like, look, when you get your black belt, you can then go on and do whatever you want in school. It was kind of like he wanted us to become, my brother and I, to become black belts as a part of his vision for us. But then he knew that deep down inside, we wanted to do other things, you know, we wanted to do what the other kids in school were doing, play baseball and football and basketball. And then that's what ultimately got me to where I am today, which we can talk about more. But I bring all of that up mostly to say that there is a real difference between working with someone who understands people and who understands discipline, who understands respect and people at the high level, they can sense that. They sense that immediately. They sense it. And so that's something that's very very hard to teach but when you do have it, or you do happen to learn it, utilize that to get you wherever you need to go in life. Wade Lightheart: So well said, I think what I would say, it creates sort of a presence and people can recognize, hey man, there's something about this dude that's different. There's something about this guy that you know, you got kind of like, it's almost like cheap power you build up. You build this… Joshua Holland: Well said. Wade Lightheart: Presence that people go, I want what that guy has. And I know I asked, you know, many of my, when I left the personal training industry and today my top five clients who I was training at that time 20 years ago, they're all my best friends today. And you know, I always found it fitting. They said, yeah, we just saw that you had this other thing. Like they wreck, they were exactly what you said that you have the, as in French, they would say the Je Ne Sais Quoi. That something, something, something, right? So, all of that discipline and everything. Now, one of the things I've noticed with people who start martial arts at an early age, martial arts and gymnastics particularly, they seem to be able to do well in other sports later in life, their motor skills, the development of their muscles, their aptitude to pick up other things, their learning capability. Did you find that it was easy for you to pick up other sports and do other things? Does that come natural and easy for you? Joshua Holland: I have a big smile on my face and I'm grinning because I'm so happy you asked that question and I'm happy that you are asking the way you did, because you chose two specific sports when you asked that question, martial arts and gymnastics. Both of which usually are done barefoot. And I'm a huge barefoot component, a proponent of barefoot. And I love to talk about developing the foundation. I'm a big believer in developing the foundation and that kind of goes across the board with anything. And I feel like teaching my body throughout my younger years and continuing up into my pre-adolescent years, to and even within my teens, being barefoot most of the time is what enabled me to create that sensory input from the bottom of the feet. Being connected to the earth, whether you call it grounding, whether you call it earthing, whether you call it developing the strength and the dexterity within the feet, whatever you want to call it. That I truly believe is what enabled me to pick up things a lot quicker, because there is that connection between the synaptic firing from the bottom of the feet to the brain and back, right? And so when you have that part of your body and your entire body, your entire being developed at a very young age, and you keep that going, then it almost makes everything else a little bit easier to pick up. So that's how I was able to, you know, and I don't mind every once in a while, I can mention a few names because, you know, it's okay. Like that's ultimately what enabled me to work with somebody as big as Madonna. And you know, to work with her I have to be able to learn how to dance and because she wanted to do dancing back when I used to train her. I trained her for about four years when I was actually her trainer. And she's like, look, I want dance fitness as a part of my cardio program. So I have to learn how to dance, right? So, I mean, I wasn't necessarily a dancer. I would never, because I have a lot of friends that are to this date, actual really bonafide dancers, professional dancers. So I would never call myself a dancer, but I had to learn to become somewhat of a dancer in order to be able to carry on that job. Well, if I was unable to do that, I may have lost out on that opportunity, which may not have gotten me on your podcast, right? Because maybe I wouldn't be where I'm at. So all of these things kind of play into each other and it's all about adaptability, but also the willingness to learn. I always say having the willingness to want to learn is just as big as having a talent. Right. You know, you can have talent, you can turn on your jeans, right? Or you can leave them off and you can figure out ways to hack it. And so we can talk about that as well. But yeah, that's, I think that's a long winded answer to, I think my foundation in martial arts definitely helped everything else. Wade Lightheart: So at what point did you in this kind of journey, so you got into kind of wind in, got your black belt at 12, and then like what happened from 12 to becoming a fitness professional? Like what went on that kind of led you into this career? Because I think that coaching and training for people who are thinking about a career in fitness, you know, I sometimes miss those days, you know, I miss those days and I really have never lost that. I've never lost that sense of the value of seeing somebody where you assess them, you see the rock potential in them, and then you extract the best parts. To me, it's one of the, probably one of the most beautiful relationships there is. The coach and the student like that, it's a very pure relationship because the coach's job is only to get the best out of that person. And the coaches determined his quality or her quality by the amount they can get out of people and the amount of people they can get the best out of, you know? And so how did you make that jump? Cause' obviously it became natural. You're doing this as a 12 year old in the gym. When how did that translate into your career today? Where, cause' you went from a small town to the big apple, right? Joshua Holland: Yeah. Yeah, exactly. Okay. I'll try to give you the quickest a bit in there, and then you can, we can dive deeper in parts that you want, but to wrap up that whole martial arts experience you're precisely correct in saying that my teaching, because you also have to have a certain amount of teaching hours to become a black belt and at least in my dad's system. So I had to learn how to actually teach and then you show that you're a good teacher so then you get rank, right? So you get promoted. So from playing or going from getting my black belt, I then started to do more in sports in school. And I started to run track and play football and baseball. And I wanted to try my hand at all kinds of sports because I'm like, you know, I've been doing martial arts since I was born basically, but I see all these other kids doing all these other cool things. I want to try that. And I ultimately stumbled on if you will, basketball. Basketball became literally a passion of mine. And I'll never forget when I first created my first email address. I chose the email going pro 22. And that was, one, that was my basketball number that I chose. And I remember looking up to Michael Jordan and Reggie Miller and all these people and it became my thing. And my dad put up a hoop on a tree in the backyard. And in the backyard it was such that over the years, the grass got worn down and so the hoop actually became higher. But then there was also another hurdle at the back in which that there was a fence. And just on the other side, that fence going downhill was a lot of poison Ivy and poison Oak, right? So if the ball, if you missed it so much so that it bounced and went over the fence, good luck because either the ball stays, you lose a ball. And I grew up very poor. So I didn't have money to do that to buy balls all the time. So I had to learn how to become a better shooter. And again, I'm telling you this, because this is what shaped who I am, and it's this idea of trial and error or trial and continue to work on, right? And so I learned how to get much better. So I became a great shooter. And then I started developing a knack for being a great basketball player. And that's what enabled me to start traveling outside of my small town, because I was asked to go to this tournament and I was asked to go to that state and I got these accolades for this. And we won state championship in basketball at my high school. And it just started to go on and on and on and on. And again, the point of me bringing this up is I started to see how other people trained. I started to see how other trainers worked with their teams. And, you know, I had this background of, cause' in the martial arts world, there's this notion you don't lift weights because you don't want to slow down. You don't want to be slow. Joshua Holland: So that's all I knew. That's all I knew. Now I understand that to be so not true, right? But back then as a 16 year old, 17 year old, you're kind of like, okay, pushups, a lot of pushups, a lot of stretching, but don't lift weights. I started lifting weights and I started jumping higher. I started running faster. My shot, I was able to shoot from farther out. Now I'm getting noticed by colleges. And now, you know, I've been, I progressed to playing in college and started to do well in college. And then I, while I was in college to supplement my income, I had a couple part time jobs. And one of those jobs was working at GNC. So I worked at GNC, General Nutrition Center. And I started to understand supplementation and nutrition, even though I say quotes around nutrition, because like, let's face it, it's probably not the best nutrition and supplementation information out there, but at least got me started along the path of… Okay, wait, so creatine can do this and you know, ginkgo biloba can do this. And you know, you can start to learn all these different things. I remember my dad was, he was a herbiologist and he liked to do it, because we used to treat pain with these potions and these tinctures. Right? So, I had all these different ideas. And so I then progressed on to, I graduated college. I feel like I was a late bloomer. And I think it was my junior year or senior year. I ended up breaking my wrist. And my sophomore year in junior college, I broke my finger. I broke my wrist at the university I played in a four year school. And during these moments is when I got a chance to be in the medical side of things, right? I got to go to the x-ray offices. I got to talk to a bone specialist. I got to talk to all these people. And anyone who knows me, I'm a very curious being. So I'm asking all the questions and I'm sure I probably pissed a few people off, but I just want to know, right? Wade Lightheart: You're that guy, right. Well, what are you doing there? Joshua Holland: The STEM machines on me. And I'm like, well, what's that, you know, what is that doing? And they're just like, dude, just lay down. You know, like, no, no, no, I really do want to know. I'm curious, you know. So that's what ultimately got me interested in the world of training. And so I majored in mass communications at the university. It was Northwestern, Oklahoma state university. So my major was mass communications, which I think communications is huge, which is as we're doing exactly what we're doing now. But then I minored in physical education because I knew at some point somewhere I would be dealing with it. And, oh my goodness. I, now know that what I learned back then was just a bunch of BS. I mean, listen, it got me asking the questions, but back then it was like, what I learned about nutrition is not nutrition. I mean, it's just like these made up things and we can go down a rabbit hole there, but then even just learning how muscles function and things like that, it's like everything is in a vacuum. And so once I learned it, I almost wanted to unlearn it. But then I had to go back into that, that vacuum, again, to get all my certifications, because you know, I didn't come in at this from a physical therapy standpoint, although I did choose physical therapy and psychology as my first two majors when I went to the junior college. But because I had to work and because I was a tutor and I was playing basketball and I was taking 20, 23 hours, 25 hours, my first semester, it was too much. So I was interested in all that, but it wasn't until I started doing my certifications after college, that I started to think, wait, so this entity is saying the muscles function like this protagonist, antagonist, and you know, and don't round your shoulders, but keep your back straight, but don't stabilize it. And then this entity is saying, no, the body's supposed to flow like this. And then this entity is saying, oh no, you're supposed to eat lots of fat, fat is good for you. And that it's these saying, don't eat animal meat. And it's like, I was like, okay, you know what, let me do all of it. Let me do all of it. So that's what I do. And that's how I got to where I am. Wade Lightheart: That's so beautifully said, because I think that kind of leads into the next thing, which is, you know, obviously the real master tries everything, discards, what doesn't work and integrates, what does, and also needs to have an understanding that different bodies, different styles, different exercise, different goals, require different components. And that's what I think is so dogmatic where people become a, you know, an X, Y, Z diet versus, you know, an ABC diet and the ABC years against the X, Y, and Z, you know, and it's like, no, let's talk about first principles. You know, cause 80% is uniform. And then there's these branches depending on where you're going to go. And the only way you really discover that fully and can get past kind of what I call the, the algorithm, the algorithmic prisons that lead to confirmation biases and tribalism out there. That's you know, people are living in there, they're just getting their own biases, reaffirmed by their little tribe and going up against other tribes and stuff. And it really, you know, the best thing that happened to the fitness world and nutrition world in the biohacking world is interconnectivity. And the worst thing that happened is interconnectivity. Joshua Holland: Well said, well said. Wade Lightheart: Yeah. So, with this background, essentially, what you're saying is you started your kind of find a foundation of what I call the real principles biohacking, which is let's go try this and see what happens and do some experiments? Joshua Holland: Yup. Wade Lightheart: And then you got out of college and then that led you into you decent, what am I going to do with my life? Like everybody else. Right? Joshua Holland: Right. Yeah. Well, what that did, I was still in Oklahoma then so I graduated from Northwestern, Oklahoma state. And then I was like, okay, I didn't want to fully give up on the whole going pro thing. Right. I got it. I was like, no, I'm good. I'm a good basketball player. I want to definitely go pro. But when I graduated and I dealt with injuries that I dealt with, I kind of thought, all right, I need to find my path somewhere somehow some way. And it's like growing up in Oklahoma, I almost felt, especially in a small town, I almost felt like what everyone used to say is you got to graduate high school, you got to go to college, you've got to get married, you've got to have kids, you got to find a job, you got to work and then you die. And it, and then, you know, that's it. Wade Lightheart: That's it. Joshua Holland: I was like, nah, I've never really liked that. And the reason why I felt like that wasn't for me, that path wasn't necessarily for me is because I saw this within my dad. I saw that he could do all kinds of things. So I was like, okay, let me just try something within my field, because I did just graduate with a communications degree. I was still working part time at GNC. So I'm like, okay, that's the physical education part, I guess. Let me try my hand at doing something in advertising. And so I got this advertising gig where I thought, Oh, this is perfect for me. And I low and behold, it ended up being MLM, multilevel marketing scheme, if you will. But when I noticed that it was a multilevel marketing scheme, I was like, because it had a bit of a fitness component to it… The fitness component was you go door to door in different neighborhoods, knocking on people's doors and you selling them on these different cards. Most people at that point are like, Oh no, I'm out, I mean, you know, you gotta do this every day and whatever, but for me, I was like, Oh, this is a good opportunity to kind of stay in shape. Cause' I might be doing something in fitness. You never know. Like I was thinking maybe to do some modeling or some acting or whatever. And I treated that as an opportunity. Every door that I knocked on… Wade Lightheart: Beautiful. Joshua Holland: I got a chance to meet a new person. And I also knew that each person that was opening that door chances are, they're looking out, they're looking to see who it is. It's probably somebody to sell me something. So I was always deflecting that with a smile. And bro, like that was to watch that interaction happen. Wade Lightheart: Right. Joshua Holland: I, you know, and I even would bring people along with me to show like, cause' each day I would have to, the goal was to use law of averages and to try to get 10 sales per day. But in order to do that, you know, the law of averages is one out of 10 basically. Right? So I would have to see how many houses, 100 houses. So in a day I would have to plan on going to see a hundred houses. Chances are all the averages. I'm going to get 10 sales. And I would take people to show how I do this. And there would be a few times where I got so good at just interacting with people. It wasn't really about what I was selling. It was about the interaction. Wade Lightheart: Right? Joshua Holland: I had to show this to these people that I could sell somebody without even telling them what selling. Now I will disclaim. I'm not. I ended up at the end of the interaction, I would say, hey, by the way, this is what you got. And it would be a great thing. Like they would get a bunch of free food and it's tickets to ball games and things like that. But it was about buying into me and that's all ultimately what has enabled me to create a brand and to try to create an ideology, a method. And that goes back to that question you asked earlier, why are people wanting to hire you Josh? It's because of that interaction and what I learned with many different types of work that I've done, you know? So I felt like that was a good segue into… Okay. I ultimately knew that in order to progress in that company, you have to kind of stay within that company, build all these groups and I was like, okay, I'm done with that because it served its purpose. But then from there I went on to move to New York and I decided like, hey, I want to kind of try my hand out at fitness modeling and commercial modeling and did a little bit of fashion modeling and some acting. And I literally just decided to visit one day. I never thought I would live in New York. And I was like, Oh, what the hell, let me go and visit. I wrote a couple of emails to some of the fitness magazines. A couple of them wrote me back and they were like, hey, yeah, like if you're in New York, we would meet with you. Met with a couple, signed with a couple of agencies, moved and I thought, maybe I'd be here like six months and 15 years later, I'm still here. Wade Lightheart: That's amazing. Joshua Holland: I've been traveling the world and meeting, you know, working with high profile people. And one thing that I do like to always, again, disclaim, if you will, is working with celebrities and working with high profile, people doesn't mean anything other than it should show that you have a certain capability of handling people at that spectrum that end of the spectrum. You know, it's not even really about bragging. Oh, look, I've got the celebrities. Wade Lightheart: It's a person like everybody else. But usually the level of excellence that they demand out of themselves and the people around them. And I think a lot of people mistake that… Like I think people who are outside of that world kind of assume that a lot of these people are, you know, something that they're not. And I really think there's a big disservice and in movies and TV shows of what these feel like. I found many of these people to be some of the most kindest, considerate, wonderful people in the world, but they do demand. This is the standard that we live at and that's how they've become so successful. And that tells they've built these empires or become famous or done like the commitment, the drive and the standard that they set. And when you enter into that world, you either deliver at that level or you're not there anymore. And it's not a personal thing. It's just like, Hey man, this is what I demand of myself and that's how it's going to go. Joshua Holland: Yup, exactly. I mean, well said, and clearly you get it, you get it. So what you do with that is it, you know, you also have to understand that there's a certain level of exploiting that are not exploiting that, right? So, you know, you want to make sure that you don't burn any bridges because it's like that, that whole going back to respect. If you're talking crap to your best friend about that person, what do you think that person is thinking? The person you're talking crap to is going to somehow in the back of their mind, subconsciously, they're going to be thinking, okay, so this is a funny story you're telling me, ha ha. But subconsciously, that person is going to be thinking, I wonder if he's talking about me like that whenever we're not together. Joshua Holland: And that just goes one to the next, to the next to the next. And so when you nail it and you just become an authentic person and you're very genuine about what you do and you truly have a passion about helping people, then it's easy. It's easy just to say, Oh, well, yeah, he works at Madonna's. Okay. I get it. Or he, you know, he's worked with this person. Okay. I get it.And then I also kind of back to what we were talking about before, when you mentioned how many people can you get versus, you know, how can you transform each person I had to learn and understand early on in my fitness career that it's not a bad thing if a client you're working with goes on to do something else. Right? Like for instance my goal in training people, whether it's training, coaching, talking, whatever, it's not forced to be together for life, except maybe if we progress into becoming good friends, but it's to graduate you. Just like, we all have graduated in life. Right? And so again, I'm the trainer out there that when I see somebody on social media of Victoria secret model, that I've trained, who's now training at this other studio. But I noticed that she may have unfollowed me. I'm like, what happened there? And that's mostly because the person she's working with now is like: Oh, you're my client now. You can't work with anyone else. But I'm only in the back end like, Hey Bravo, good job. Now you can do a good squat, really good job. You know, like, why do we have to… There's enough trainers out there, there's enough clients out there, there is enough people out there, but I feel like we should all embody this idea of graduating to the next step, no matter where you feel that void. So anyway, as you can see… Wade Lightheart: No, I'm with you on that. Because I used to say the same thing when I was coaching with my clients. And this is for all the trainers out there for you to take in, this is what I call professional etiquette is. You want to be confident enough in what you're doing and how you're doing it that you're like, look, this is the area that we're going to work with and the idea is not for that person to be dependent on you forever. It's to master that skill and master that ability and then take it to wherever they need to go. Now, some people are going to want you to be around with them or be that thing. But even today, I remember when I left the industry and my clients are like, what am I going to do? Like my close ones. And I'm like, well, there's this person and this like, this guy and this girl. And like, I really love what they do. And I think you're going to do really well with those people. And they got some things that I don't have, and I think you're going to go and sure enough, they were able to move on and develop new relationships and expand beyond my little world. And that's really the final test I believe as the coach, as the trainer is. Can you let the student go? Joshua Holland: Ooh, powerful, powerful. Wade Lightheart: That's the lesson within all of the coaches to do, to me the highest level of profession, because, you know, Hey, I know what I'm doing, I know what I'm good at. And there's another client coming, and there's another quote, unquote, celebrity or famous or whatever. Or maybe there isn't, it doesn't matter because my integrity to my career says that I need to do this. And it leads you in great places. And I always find that, that relationship when you, when you let that go, it circles around in some other way. Like that person, usually that person's like, you know what, go see my friend Joshua. You're in New York, go check him. I worked with him for two years and it was the best two years of my life. You're flying in, go see him or get this person. And it opens up other doors. Joshua Holland: One hundred percent. I really can't stress that enough because I know there was a bit of a point when we were talking about I think you may have touched on it. I get this question a lot. You probably get it a lot as well. But hey man, what should I do to do what you're doing? Like, how can I get to where you are? And I go, okay, are you ready for this? Like have a seat because it's going to take a long time. You know, it's basically what we've been talking about through this interview so far, which is there has been a lifetime of experiences that have been had, right? I can help guide you, back to that word guide right? I can help guide you into what paths I took, but I could also help you to say like, you know what, look don't think of it that way. And I really think that being curious is one of the best attributes any of us can have in this field. And probably any field. Staying curious and not being a one trick pony. I like, I pride myself in not being able to be labeled. That's why, when you know, I think before we hit record, it's like, okay, we could talk about anything, health, wellness, fitness, lifestyle, biohacking. Joshua Holland: I've got used to saying that because like I should be experienced, right? I have experience in all of these modalities, all of these domains. In fact, I'm the person that's when a client of mine is like: Josh, you know, I went skiing. I tore my ACL. I am not going to be able to see you for a while. And I'm like: it's okay, you can still see me. Like, I can help you out with your rehab. Well, but my physical therapist, I know, do you not want to see me? You said, you wish you could see me. I can come with you. You know, I'm invested in you now I'm going to go and see. Hey, maybe I can learn something that the physical therapist is doing, or you're about to have a surgery on your knee, on a treatment, STEM cells, regenerative medicine, something like that. I'll go with you if you have me. And now that's what it's the norm for me. I've been in all the operating rooms, I've been in, you know, working with all the physical therapists. And what that does is it opens up my network, kind of like you just said. So, if somebody comes to me, I don't expect to always be able to work with that person one on one, but I definitely know. Hey, listen, I can lead you in the right direction. I can guide you. I can say, go work with this person, go consult with that person and try this out. You know? Wade Lightheart: Beautiful, beautiful. So let's get into, let's talk about, I want to talk… I know a lot of our listeners are going to say, well, what are, what is Joshua doing on a day to day from like, you're, as you said, a committed biohacker, right? So, what was your day like today? What did you do? How would you set up your day? What's your typical day in your life? Joshua Holland: Okay. So you probably already know I'm going to say this. A typical day for me is random. It's never the same. But the things that I can control, the things that are somewhat like a non negotiable is how I wake up. How I wake up. I try to wake up with lots of light. So either artificial light by way of all my toys or actual direct sunlight with the big windows that I have in my apartment. And then I try to mentally plan out my day. Now I'm not the typical meditator. I do meditate, for sure, but I have some meditative practices that I consider meditative by listening to podcasts every morning. It's setting me up for my day. And so this has becomes a part of my routine. I think routine can become a meditative practice if you intend it to be right. So I have a… Wade Lightheart: I gotta check. I gotta check first. What's your favorite podcasts? What ones are your go to? Joshua Holland: I'll be honest. My favorite, I think my top two so far is Ben Greenfield's podcast, Dave Asprey. Yours is definitely on my list for sure. So this podcast, we're listening to is on my list. In fact, if anybody thinks I'm not being genuine about this, I could… I was just listening to Dr. Oz, his interview, on your podcast, which is amazing. But I have it all in my list here. Let me think, what else… Another one that comes to mind is, oh, The Breakdown. So that's totally separate from health and fitness. Shaun King. Wade Lightheart: Okay. The breakdown. I don't know that one. Joshua Holland: Oh, get ready. That one is, he's a political activist. So it, you know, it's a very good and it helps to separate and not always be just inundated and in the cloud of just fitness, health and wellness. But that is a part of my day. Wade Lightheart: I got some wild podcast. Like most people wouldn't like most of the podcasts I listen to. Like nothing to do with health and fitness. I mean, of course. Ben and Dave are my go to. You know, I'm really right now I'm into The Portal with Bret Weinstein. So he's like a polymath and he's got his brother Eric and they talk about subjects that aren't part of the normal news cycle. And these are really super smart guys. Like these are confirmed, not just geniuses, but polymath geniuses is like the geniuses in multiple areas. And I'm like, okay, I want to hear what's being avoided or… I'm really into psychology. I listened to a lot of Dr. Peterson. I'm into recently I've been listening to stuff from Thomas Sowell. Who's a real legend, you know, the guy's like a 90 year old guy that went through the whole book. Beautiful man, just this rich 90 year old. Wade Lightheart: Intelligent black man genius is explaining his experience from Harlem to the Ivy leagues to… Yeah. Really rich people. And I want to cook, I want to expand my world into physics, and mathematics, and philosophy, and psychology, and culture, and politics and get a wide breadth because you know, in the normal news channels, this is what I love about long format and podcasts. Wade Lightheart: Like in the soundbites of Instagram, Facebook, you name it, you go all down the list, Twitter. It just keeps getting worse. In my opinion, there's less and less contextualization and anybody can be taken apart. And I want to listen to a guy that's shares his life experience, and it might take me 10, 15, 20 hours to get a full scope, how that person came to that conclusion. And so that's really fascinating for me. And, of course Ben, but Ben and Dave are obviously go to I've been fortunate to be on their podcast, but they're really kind of like at the Ivy league of the biohacking world, right? Joshua Holland: Of course. But by the way, speaking of polymaths, are you familiar with the name Dr. Ted Achacoso? Wade Lightheart: No, I don't know him. Joshua Holland: Okay. I'll see if I can make an introduction for you. This guy. So I just interviewed him for my podcast and that should be going live in a few days. So maybe I can even share that with you, but it's… This guy is another level he's like rated like one of the highest IQs on the planet and yeah, he's brilliant. So I think that's he's also the person that created a TRO scriptions. TRO scriptions blue cannatine, the methylene blue. Wade Lightheart: Yeah, yeah. I just tried that the other day actually. Joshua Holland: I was gonna come on this on the show today with my blue tongue, but I couldn't find my thing. So I'm like, I think I've given them away, which is also something I do. You know, I think being generous is also something that we do, right? So, you know, people are like, dude, you're not going to give me your last of your blue cannatine are you? And I'm like, why not? I mean, you know, like, you're curious about it. You wanna try it here? Check here. Wade Lightheart: I got some here. I know people coming into my house. When I opened up the car, I was like, what do you want? Right, right. Pick a bottle of this, try some of this. You like that? You know, my mom taught me that. My mom, I came from a poor family as well. And anybody that came in the house, they left with something. They left with dishes, they left with food, they left with clothes. They left with something, every, like everybody left the house, but my mom always had stuff coming in, even though we didn't have like, you know… So there was, it was really interesting. And I do believe that spirit of generosity opens up the door to many, many extraordinary experiences. So we got you in that. So we kind of go off on a tangent there.. Wade Lightheart: So going back to your meditative experience, you're listening to podcasts kind of your morning routine and get some light, in your zone, get set up for the day, you're kind of, you know, information of the day, what else? Joshua Holland: Right. So while I'm listening to my podcast, I'm also beginning to move clearly, cause' I'm moving around and so I let that become a part of my day and I do something very simple, like shake. I shake the morning like the idea of animals shaking in nature and it's like the only way that they can actually release trauma. And I kind of emulate that by literally just shaking my body. I do that almost every single morning and that… Wade Lightheart: It's like a fascia, like it's a fascia movement. Like I know, you know, that's what I find too. And I had a friend that was a shaman and his, like, he gets up and shakes and yells and does all kinds of crazy stuff. I was like, that's a crazy thing I ever saw. Then I started doing it, I was like, Hey man, this is pretty cool. Joshua Holland: Yeah. It's a nice release. And it also, for instance, I can tell you, you probably know about the Apollo neuroscience band, right? You probably heard of that? Wade Lightheart: No. Joshua Holland: No. Okay. Not to be product heavy, but there's this band called Apollo neuroscience, I think is the full name. And it's this little bracelet/anklet that creates these very small vibrations… In the body to sort of help to release stress and trauma. But before I ever got this, I would do that manually just by shaking a little bit. And then from there I go and I grind my coffee. So I'm an intermittent fasting guy. I… Wade Lightheart: You grind it, you grind it by hand? Dude, I got a hand coffee grinder right out here at my coffee shop. Yes! Joshua Holland: And you know, you're probably thinking I'm crazy, but I spent like almost 300 bucks on a very high tech, cool black stainless steel hand grinder. And it's really nice and durable and I travel with it cause I travel a lot, right? So, but for me, it's I, of course I could go out and get ground coffee, but it's part of my experience in the morning. It's part of my routine. Wade Lightheart: Ritual. It's a ritual. Joshua Holland: It's a ritual. Yeah. So I'm grinding my coffee, listening to something that's going to benefit myself or others, right? Wade Lightheart: Wait, what coffee are you putting in that machine? What? Let's talk coffee! Joshua Holland: It goes back to the top two podcasts I mentioned. So I go between keon coffee anda bulletproof coffee. And I've been a fan of bulletproof for quite some time. I tinkered around with… I first learned about bulletproof with Tim Ferris. And I saw, well, actually I got, I learned about biohacking from somebody like Tim Ferriss. Wade Lightheart: Tim? Tim led the way in a lot of ways, right? Joshua Holland: Yeah. And then I came across Dave Asprey's work and then eventually Ben Greenfield and so on and so forth. But throughout that journey, I learned the differences between adding fat and taking it away. I even toyed around with being a vegetarian. For about three years I was a vegetarian. And then I transitioned away from that to basically be an omnivore, but mostly vegetables. You know, I have days or weeks even where I don't eat meat. You know, so I'm always playing around. Again, it goes back to tinkering, right? Wade Lightheart: Tweaking. You got to tweak. I call it tweakology, you got to tweak. I'm always running an experiment. Right? Joshua Holland: Exactly. So that's, that's kind of my morning routine. Once I make my coffee, then even cleaning and putting things up and I kind of mastered the art of preparing my meals and the way that I go about my lifestyle in as minimal amount of devices or utensils as possible. Why? One, because I always want it to be ready when I need it. And so that means I'm always cleaning it at a point at being finished. So my coffee is still hot piping hot right there. I'm going to spend that extra 30 seconds or a minute to clean it right away cause' it's peace of mind. And it's like, oh, I'm finished. Wade Lightheart: I'm blown away because I think exactly the same. I make a shake in my cup. I drink it. I cleaned the shake. I make the things I like, I got to like complete each thing. And again, being a mini, I'm a minimalist essentially. It's like, I get too much stuff on. It's like when you have that moving around lifestyle, it's like, you can't have all that stuff. It's just annoying. Joshua Holland: Yeah. It's annoying. And you know, what's really funny about saying, moving around a lot and having all that stuff is that's actually what ends up getting me to work with some of these clients. And they're like: hey Josh, so you know, your flight is confirmed for LA. And oh, by the way, don't forget to bring all your toys. Like, oh boy, here we go. Because you know, when I use it on them, then there's certain devices that I have… Like, you know, bring it. So I'm almost forced to have all these toys, but within a minimal fashion, if that makes sense, you know? Wade Lightheart: I totally get it. You got your two suitcases of toys and you got a little carry on for yourself, for your life. And this is like the gear that comes with you. I totally get it Joshua Holland: Thousand percent. So, yeah. So from going from making my coffee, drinking my coffee and cleaning my French press. So I French press mine. And I use the stainless steel and glass because, you know, obviously you probably talked about this on. Wade Lightheart: The boat. Yeah. Like a boat. Joshua Holland: And then, now my day is kind of set. Now, if I don't have to rush out of the house, then I read. Reading is a huge component of my lifestyle. And I usually read with either I have the Vera flux light and I also have the energy square, which is the photobiomodulation. This one that I use has a far infrared near infrared and it has yellow. Joshua Holland: Really, really cool. So I use that. I also have panels, but I'm reading with the light set up and my molecular hydrogen inhalation device. So that's my, that's kind of my morning routine ritual. Wade Lightheart: Beautiful. Beautiful. Love it. Love it. That's great, man. That's great. Joshua Holland: Yeah. So, you know, and listen, like I still, this is what I made this morning for coffee. Because I had the podcast with you today. I was like, oh, you know, one of my really good friends and celebrity clients asked me to: hey bro, can you come over in the morning? I'm leaving tomorrow. I'm not going to see him for a couple of weeks. I was like, for him? Yes. Because he's like a brother to me, you know. And I was like, okay, I'm going to go and do it. I still haven't even finished it. It's still coffee from this morning, man. But I'm feeling off of ketones, so it's all good. Wade Lightheart: Beautiful, beautiful. So, let's talk about couple of things. Let's talk about your company SIS fit that you're running. Systimfit. Excuse me. Joshua Holland: Systim, System fit. Wade Lightheart: Sorry. I don't know why I said Sis. But and that's S Y can you pronounce S Y S F I T, right? Joshua Holland: S Y S T I M F I T. And the idea there is the STEM in system. Stim is for stimulation and stimulus. And… A lot of what I do around, you know, my work is all about the stimulus and stimulation. And obviously there could be a negative connotation to that, or a very positive connotation to that. And I choose the positive stimulation. And also when I first created a company with my business partner, who's also my business manager. We were focused at that time, primarily on electrical muscle stimulation, whole body electrical muscle stimulation. But then when we sort of developed and grew, expanded the company, we still kept that name because it seemed to make sense anyway, because we added in a pulse centers, PMs, which is stimulation. We added in ARX, we added in Vasper, we added in hydrogen therapy, we added in ozone therapy. So we've got all these things, right? But the foundation of it all is stimulation. So… SystimFit. So that's yeah. That's what is all about. Wade Lightheart: So now when people come to see you, do they come into this place and get assessed? Are they doing all this stuff, or are they getting this at home? Or like, how does this all integrate together when you're dealing with one of your clients? Someone says: hey, man, I need to get XYZ. What's your typical client? How does that process go? And what happens there? Joshua Holland: All right. Good question. So the, a lot of what happens and we'll have to talk about pre pandemic..? Cause you know, like obviously… Wade Lightheart: Let's talk pre pandemic and then like, how this we'll get to what's going on during the pandemic. Cause' this is a big thing. I've got… A lot of my former friends have called me. Like, I shouldn't say my friend, but like trainers who are now branched off into other areas in the pandemic, has like, what do I do? And I get, I don't know how many of those calls, right? So it'd be great to… So typical under quote unquote old normal is that the word? We got old normal, new normal. I don't know what it is, but yes. So how's the process? Joshua Holland: What would normally happen is it's either… Okay. So I have a team of trainers that work for me and I like to say work with me because, you know, it's all good. I'm sure. You're kind of understanding who I am. So I have a team of trainers that work with me and a lot of times, what I like to try to do is identify who might be better suited for each client. So we have a intake form type of situation. And it's like, if it's a referral, then that's a little bit easier because then I can say: oh, okay, I'll sit with you, talk to you and figure out, okay, what you need, what you want. And then let's see who's best suited for your availability and all those things, right? Cause' all of those factors are important. Joshua Holland: And then it also depends on, are they coming for like, do they want to lose weight? Do they want to, are they trying to increase performance? Do they just want to tink around with some of the cool biohacking toys that we have or do they just want to kind of like their friend looks good and feels good and says that everything is awesome at SystimFit. You want to kind of experience it as well. Okay. We'll give you the whole shebang. But typically what happens, let's say I'm working with a person. What happens is, I want to assess every detail of that person when they come in. So there was a recent article that just came out about me. Sort of like an interview style article that talked about. My idea is to make sure that a person leaves my studio or my experience better than when they came in. In whatever capacity that you feel like is important. That could be a better mental state. That could be a better walking gait. That could be a better you know, pain has subsidedgut issues have subsided or you now have a program and a plan and you have hope, but that's the goal. The goal is to always send them on their way, better than they're when they've arrived. And then how do I do that? One is an assessment. And so there's the mental assessment, psychological assessment, so to speak, which is pretty easy. I think if you what I do is pretty easy to kind of see like, okay, this person's stressed to the gills, right? So that's a pretty easy one. And I have, we can talk about this too, if you want, but I have five pillars of optimum health and wellness. And each of those pillars, I'm kind of looking for voids to fill in each of those pillars. Wade Lightheart: What are those pillars just quickly, real quick. Joshua Holland: Quickly. Awareness is pillar number one, most important. And I treat them all as a prioritization or a triage effect. So number one is awareness. And, and I use the term quality in front of each of the pillars. So quality awareness is one. Number two is quality sleep and recovery. Number three is quality consumption. Number four is quality activeness. And number five is quality exercise. Joshua Holland: And the way it's all put out, I'm sure you probably have some questions there, but if you notice that my claim to fame is fitness, everybody knows me as a fitness trainer, but it's the lowest on the totem pole, in the pillar from health, for health and wellness. So if I can get you to do well on one through four, number five is a piece of cake. Wade Lightheart: So true. That's so true. Yeah. Well, awareness. I mean, I think a lot of people, just the point that they're coming to see you indicates that they've risen above the level of awareness of the masses like, okay, you know what? Something's not working, or I need some help or they've opened up awareness and the opening of humility, which opens the door to everything, right? Yeah. Yeah. Beautiful. Beautiful. Okay. So someone gets assessed, they go through that process and then you take them through all the different things based on the modalities they're going to require whether they're in pain or whether they're, you know… Wade Lightheart: Dance, fitness or they need kind of movement training, or they need like muscle building or fat loss or stretching or whatever it happens to be from that component. Joshua Holland: Right. Yeah. Because, you know, it's like, I'm, excuse me. I'm also the kind of guy that doesn't like, I'll tell a person straight up. You don't need me. You know, this is all you need to do, go and do that. But that's, what's given me the respect or that's why I've gotten to where I'm at is because I'll shoot it to you straight. I'm not the right person for you. Now. Maybe one of my trainers could help you, or you actually need to go to this studio, you know? So then what I'll do is I'll kind of break down, okay. I could probably see you once a week and we could get some great results or I might need to see you every day, but just for a few weeks, because again, my whole idea is to graduate that person, to get them onto the right path. So it just depends, but chances are, I'm going to definitely take them through a movement assessment that I have. It's called MAP, which stands for Movement Analysis Pattern. And it's a series of moves. I could show you or I could send you a link to what it is. Wade Lightheart: Please do send us the link. We can put it in the show notes so people can get all that info. Joshua Holland: Cool. What it does is it's over my decade plus years of experience in fitness, in a movement and health and wellness, I started to understand that, okay, you know, you're probably familiar with FMS, right? Functional Movement Screens. Right? So I certified in that years ago and I thought it was really cool, but within their movement screen protocols, you gotta have a board and a rod and, you know, step over this thing. And I thought, okay, this is cool. This is like a snapshot. And then it's like, you go on from that and then the idea is supposed to be you're good to go from now on. And I was like, you know, I want something that's that can be done each time I see a person… And something that doesn't require tools to carry around and like, well, I don't have it today so I can't assess today. So that's why I created MAP. And it's basically starts off in a deep squat. Then it transitions on to all the different movements that I may take a person through. And I want to see, like, Monday, you might crush it. You might do very well, but Friday… Like let's say, maybe on Wednesday, you went out and you played basketball, or you went skiing or you played tennis or something, and you're really sore. So maybe on Friday, you see me, I have you do the Movement Assessment Pattern again, before we start, because it serves as a warmup and as an assessment tool. But I might see that, wow, your ankle flexibility is trash or your balance is way off, right? So I can use that to say, hell, here's what we're working on today. So I go into each session with something in mind, but I let the Movement Assessment Patterns dictate what it is we truly do. Wade Lightheart: That's really unique because I think a lot of people don't recognize that that's very high level observational component because it's so true. It's like, if you see me get up on a Sunday morning after I've just done a ferocious leg workout over here at Gold's gym the day before. I don't move, like the way I moved going in, or if I really killed a back workout or did dead lifts, or, you know, got into how I'm connected and movement. And it's funny, I'm working with the guy who's not really a massage therapist, he's kind of like a massage activation for those very things. Cause' he's like, if I'm sitting here at my desk all day, and then I go to the gym and do a weight training workout, and these types of things, all of a sudden, I'm not connecting and I'm not moving from my center of my body. Like, my arms are moving and my legs are moving, but I'm not moving. And you know, he's like, he picks it up, but he's like: dude, what are you doing, man? Like, you know, I'm moving. Right? You know, he's got a background in dance originally. And so, you know, and dancers and martial artists learn to move from the center of the body. And which is the opposite. When I was a bodybuilder, you're trying to isolate everything. Wade Lightheart: You know what I mean? So you don't learn. And I think that's where the original idea of muscle boundess came. Is that people would do these isolation movements, but not learn to move using the whole body. And so it's a code, you know, combining both, but that's really neat that you've been able to assess and show people how their lifestyle or what they're doing is might be taking them out of their natural movement plans. Did you discover that? You just come up with that on your own? Joshua Holland: Yeah. Yeah. It was a very intuitive part of my personal practice. And again, it goes back to what I've been saying, you know, so far is experience, experience, experience. You can't find that in a certification book. You can't find that online in a certification course. Wade Lightheart: Right. No, you can't. Joshua Holland: Right? And I'll give you another one, if you are happy to have it. The idea of… Here's something else that I've realized, and I thought this was a light bulb moment. It happened a couple of years ago, but okay… So I feel like I'm getting, I'm nailing my process, working with clients, whether they come to my studio or cause' I still, you know, I go to clients' homes who have home gyms and you know, all that stuff. But I noticed like these one percenters out there, but also most, a lot of other regular clients, I noticed that many people that I work with won't do something unless I tell them to do it and tell them why they're doing it and how many reps to do. So let me throw them a curve ball when I see them. So sometimes what I'll do is after I assess them… I noticed that they're almost like they're like beings that are just standing there. Like, okay, what are we going to do next? What? How's Josh going to blow my mind today? And I go, okay, you know what today, what we're going to do is I just want you to move for 10 minutes, ready? Three, two. And they always stop me before I can go three, two, one, especially if it's the first time. And they're like, what are you? Joshua Holland: They're like, Oh wait, wait, wait, what do you mean move? I'm like, you're a being that's designed to move and I've been helping coach you to move. Right? Let's just move for 10 minutes. You ready? Three, two. And they stopped me again almost every single time. And they're like: but how? How should I start? And that's when I educate them and say: listen, I want you to never encounter this situation ever again. You are designed to move and no one should tell you how to move. Let your body move. So I'll give you an example. But next time I should not be able to give you an example. You should be able to just go. So that means it looks like dance to you. If that means shaking up and down, if that means lying on the floor, if that means jumping, whatever… Fitness and exercise should not be in a box. So just move. Wade Lightheart: Beautiful. I love it. That's super, that's super high level. It does. It freezes a person. Joshua Holland: It freaks them out. Man. I had one guy, I won't name him, but I had one guy. He got pissed. He got pissed off at me. He literally was like: so you mean to tell me, I'm paying you to come here to train me and you're just going to have me move for 10 minutes. I said: that's exactly right. That's exactly right. Ready, go. Wade Lightheart: Woah woah woah. Here comes the dialogue. Joshua Holland: He was like: well, can we just do like five minutes? And it's like, even that is a win, right? Because now you're getting, you're breaking that person down. You know, they have me come to them because they're type a, and you know, throughout their entire career in life, they are the ones that are like, do this, do this, do this. But then when they see me, they're expecting me to go do this, do this, do this. And that that's that interaction that they need. But when I tell them: hey, let's just be free for a moment. They unravel. That's what helps me to understand the psychology of why I'm doing what I do though. So there you go. It's very Mr. Miyagi moment, he got to enter into the beginner's mind right before you can unlearn what you've learned. That's beautiful. All right. So man, this time is flying by. So let's say what, or would you say is your top five… Top five bio hacks that you think, okay, these are the top five things. And if you have to go more than five that's okay. But if like, what are your five favorite biohacks right now? Cause' I know it's always changing, right? Cause' I find I get into trends and I'm on something for awhile. Joshua Holland: Yeah. You know, good point. Good question. And I would say that's probably the one downside of this trend of biohacking is that there's just always something new, something new, something more. Right. But, yeah. I could answer this in two different mediums. So to speak low hanging fruit or high level tech. Wade Lightheart: Well, you could do both. You could do both. Let's do both. Joshua Holland: Well. So one of the main ones, again, going back to the whole, I could probably break it down in the spectrum of my five pillars. So that's probably the easiest. Right? So and the quality awareness, I would say meditation is the number one biohack. Joshua Holland: Now within meditation, the low hanging fruit would be learning how to meditate, right? Or practicing your breathing, which is also a form of meditation, right? So you can consider it a breathing meditation. You can, there's many different ways of doing that. Or you can do what we talked about before, which is create a ritual that it could be considered meditation. Okay. So that's the low hanging fruit, the sort of high brow high level would be doing things like 40 years of Zen. Wade Lightheart: Have you gone, have you gone to 40 years of Zen? Joshua Holland: I have not. I did speak to a doctor Drew and Dave actually a couple of years ago when I was on tour. And I talked about trying to set it up and do it and just, I haven't had a chance to do it. Because… Wade Lightheart: Shout out to the world. I've been meditating for 20 years. Last year… So we take our executive team to 40 years of Zen every year. It is the number one return on investment that we can do. The capabilities, that capacity and stuff, and a shout out to that. It, the last time I went, which was in February, it pushed my meditative practice probably at least 15 years. Joshua Holland: Wow. Bravo man. Wade Lightheart: Yes. Bravo to Dr. Drew and today for creating that phenomenal job, I went to the, of course I've went to Biocybernaut the, kind of the progenitor with Dr. Hart and did all that and then went to 40 years of Zen. And I got to say anybody out there, that's meditating? You want to take your meditation to the next level? You want to refine that meditation? You want to get to that sublime state that you read about? That's a great way to go. Joshua Holland: Yes. And a segue into that is, well, hopefully I get a chance to do that because it is something on my list, but a good segue into that would be if we do get you to connect with Dr. Ted Achacoso you'll want to talk to him about what all the stuff that he does, because that will be next level. But another, maybe not as high tech or costly as a 40 years of Zen would be like the muse headband neurofeedback of any sort that you can understand, you actually can become aware of your awareness. If that makes sense. And that's deep. Wade Lightheart: Become aware of you're awareness. That's so true. Become like one of my teachers called it the I of I. By Dr. David Hawkins, one of my spiritual teachers. So go ahead. What else? Joshua Holland: Okay. So that will be, the sort of meditation piece, would be the probably number one biohack. Okay. Then everything trickles down into the quality sleep and recovery. So the low hanging fruit is get more sleep. Right? Like do whatever you gotta do is set up your environment to get better sleep. And that goes from, you know, making your room cooler to turning off lights and devices before bed. Also the way you eat before going to bed. And for lack thereof. Wade Lightheart: Nothing throws off your sleep, like eating before bed, right? I mean, it just blows everybody out. Joshua Holland: Right. And then the higher tech piece of it, I would say track it, become aware of it by getting something like an Oura ring, which I have on obviously. So like oura, I mean, there's so many different like sleep tracking and hacking tools out there. I also have the, what is it, the chilly pad you know, different, you know, there's a lot of cool devices out there that can help with that, but it depends on where you are in your situation, but those are good. Moving on down is quality consumption. So a low hanging fruit pun intended, I guess, is focus on your, your meals. Right? So get into this practice of. A great resource that I give out to a lot of people. I'll give out in the form of a person is Dr. Cate Shanahan and her book, Deep Nutrition, and probably my absolute favorite resource as a book right now is the Fat Burn Fix. So if you want to learn about quality hacking for your food and nutrition, definitely read those. But a quick tip is get rid of vegetable oils and maybe teach your body how to fast. That's the whole, the low hanging fruit. Fasting, intermittent fasting, and figure out what windows work best for you and what macronutrient ratios and all that stuff. But that's the low hanging fruit. Wade Lightheart: Fasting is amazing. Joshua Holland: It is amazing. It's transformed my entire practice. Wade Lightheart: A hundred percent. I think it's so, it's inexpensive. I mean, you're talking about… It's the cheapest way to master your body. I'm doing alternate day right now, 12 hours of eating and then 36 hours off three days a week. And… It's extraordinary. Joshua Holland: And you're not a skinny guy by any means, right? Wade Lightheart: No, no. Joshua Holland: I'm not a skinny guy by any means. Wade Lightheart: No. I'm actually, what's interesting about that is I'm recomping up. I'm almost 50 now and I'm gaining muscle as I'm losing body fat and and I got three 36 hour periods where I'm not eating. And every guy that I got doing this right now is experiencing the same thing. And we're riding off body fat. I never seen anything like that. And it's leveraging the power of your hormones and your endocrinology and all these other components. I think that in today's world where we eat all the time that we don't leverage this extremely powerful anabolic system. Joshua Holland: Absolutely. Totally agree. So that's the low hanging fruit on the consumption part. On that sort of the higher tech… Again, it goes back to just, there's a lot of apparatuses out there that allow you to track your food and to track your quito cycles or if you're producing ketones or not. And so you can obviously that's pretty high brow. Next would be quality activeness. So the low hanging fruit there, which also ties into the consumption part is just going on a walk. Right? Going on the walk, like first of all, have a continuous glucose monitor on, right? Joshua Holland: And what I've learned from that is if you want to moderate and adjust and work within your glucose levels and your glycogen levels and your insulin, and you want to kind of create this nice harmonious balance in the body, go for a walk after you eat. I mean, in fact, go for a walk, anytime you can, but especially a nice little walk after you eat, does so many wonders for your body. It's amazing actually, right? Wade Lightheart: And in New York you have to, right? Because everybody walks everywhere in New York. And it's interesting when you go to New York, you see a lot of in great shape people relative to other cities. Cause' everybody's walking around in New York, forget driving. I mean, like it's nuts there. Right? It's like, forget it. Joshua Holland: Exactly. So that's the you know, just getting active and remember I put activeness ahead of exercise because… I like to think of what is the low hanging fruit again, what is the most bang for your buck? Well, we can do walking and activeness components far more than we can ever exercise without damaging our system. Right? Because you don't want to put too much stress on the body. There's a good amount of stress known as hormetic stress or the hormetic effect. But we also need to understand that, like I could walk for two hours, but if I try to exercise for two hours, I'm probably doing more harm than good. So that's that one. And then the high tech part of that would be, you know, tracking it with steps and creating, gamifying your situation. And then last but not least would be a quality exercise and within quality exercise, it's a number of things that I could talk about, but I'll keep it simple. A low hanging fruit go… I dunno, go online or get with a trainer or try to educate yourself on how to work out. One of the best workouts that I could give a person, suggest a person, is the Inno dump, the nitric oxide dump that was sort of formulated by Dr. Zach Bush. Wade Lightheart: Some people might not know about that. You want to expand on that right now? Joshua Holland: Yeah. I'll quickly touch on it. So the nitric oxide is, I kind of like to explain it as a way to increase circulation throughout the body. And so there's different ways that you can achieve certain levels of nitric oxide bleeding into the body. You can do it by a nasal breathing. You can do it by practicing breath holds at the end of, you know, or even through workouts or walking. Or you could take supplements like beets. You can take and another cool supplement that you can takeor you can do a workout that is sort of a low level workout, only nasal breathing and do a certain amount of movements, right? And so this initial dump, the nitric oxide dump, is designed to… You do a series of four exercises, done three rounds, 10 to 20 reps. Again, I can send you a link to this. And the idea there is the body is sending more nitric oxide through the body so that you get better circulation and it boosts your hormone levels for up to two hours. So if you're doing that two or three times a day, now you get a chance to benefit from this hormonal boost. This is especially for guys, right? Like we can get this testosterone boost for doing something as simple as a four minute exercise routine, two to four minutes. You can do it while you're brewing your coffee. It's really really cool. And it's, what's enabled me. I do it with my katsu bans. What we can talk about another a day. Wade Lightheart: Oh beautiful. Joshua Holland: So I do that workout. That's the one I'll send you actually, I'll send you my katsu workout.Wade Lightheart: That'd be a great one. For those who don't know, the katsu is about where you're, well… I'll let you explain the katsu thing so… Joshua Holland: It's a blood flow moderation. More commonly known as blood flow restriction. And that also is a way to kind of… I think the easiest way for me to explain all these modalities is that it increases circulation. Our body really needs circulation, and that's why walking is beneficial. So you're getting that lymphatic drainage, you're getting that lymphatic movement. And then, when you restrict the blood, what you're doing is you're sort of slowing down the veins right? The veins flow. So blood is able to go into the muscles. So if you're restricting the arms at the upper arm near your shoulder and your armpit, if you're restricting the blood from leaving the upper arm, then it starts to swell. And there's a signal that happens in the body and says chemical signal that happens systemically. So even though you're affecting the upper arms with the blood flow moderation band, there's a systemic effect. That's like: hey, we've gotta do something to get all that blood from pulling in the arm to go back to the rest of the body. Joshua Holland: So the nitric oxide comes in and helps to kind of expand all the different blood vessels. So now this blood, once the pressure goes away, it now speeds up this circulation process, but you've also got this chemical signal that's happened throughout the body. So if someone has never experienced like a katsu workout or blood flow restriction, workout, get ready, cause' it'll blow your mind. And you'll fee this level of fatigue without having to do heavyweight in seconds. Wade Lightheart: It's such a different feeling in sets. And the katsu bands is the safe and healthy way to do it. If some people are like tying off their arms and stuff with bands and stuff, like do the katsu program it's much better. Joshua Holland: Absolutely. So yeah, so that I think is my very long list of five. Wade Lightheart: It's a great, that's a really, really great list. And thank you for sharing that with you. And then I know we're coming up here about an hour and a half, so I want to ask really quickly, what have you been doing in this whole lockdown thing in order to train your clients and coach them through, you know, this, you know, person to person restrictions? Joshua Holland: I've been utilizing technology. It's really interesting because I think it was about… So we're in 2020, it was about four years ago. I had a stint of about nine months where I had a contract with Microsoft and Skype where they hired me to help to promote the idea of training via Skype, because back then Skype for the longest time, it had been known as this opportunity to like use technology, to talk to people overseas. And they didn't want to be limited to just a conversation to some friends and loved ones overseas. What are other ways you can use Skype? And so for me, it was a very natural flow back into doing that because I was already used to doing that anyway. Joshua Holland: And so I just kind of now started utilizing Zoom and FaceTime, and I still use Skype every once in a while to work with clients one-on-one via Skype. I've also… Because I know my privilege in being able to work with very wealthy clients. I've also decided not to do a lot of group classes, because I want to open up the opportunity for people who do need that income that comes in on their online platforms. And then I've been just sharing a lot of this. So a lot of my trainers that work for me, anytime that they host a class, I try my best to either hop in or share anything that they're doing. And then every once in a while, I'll do freebies for different companies. Like, you know, they'll have me host a workout for an hour or so. So that's what I've been doing. Wade Lightheart: Beautiful. And so Joshua, where do you see the future? What do you see happening for Joshua over the next 5, 10 years? Cause' obviously your star keeps climbing and climbing. Joshua Holland: Ooh, that is a good question. I hope that the world becomes a better place first and foremost. And I hope what we're going through right now is a lesson for all of us, that we are truly one and how we treat one person affects all of us in some capacity. Okay. And so I hope that there's more inclusiveness and less exclusiveness when it comes to all things, but especially in the world of fitness, health and wellness. I get sick and tired of, well, this is my method and this is my invention. And I did this first and this is me, me, me, me, me, whereas, Hey, let's get together. Let's pull together to try to truly help each other because if I help you, you help me. We help we. All of us. So I feel like there's going to be more studios popping up that do a lot of what we're doing in my studio. And yeah, I think that there's going to be some… I'm hoping to do a little documentary series about more like in depth on what I do. I have this idea, this project. So if anybody out there is into this kind of stuff… But a lot of people are probably unaware of this, but my family they're all in Oklahoma and especially on my dad's side, they're morbidly obese. And my dad is close to 500 pounds and he's been dealing with health issues for all his life. And that's probably why I take so much passion in what I do. But I want to do more with working with him and in order for me to be able to go back home to Oklahoma for some period of time to do that I want to create a project around it that enables me to still work and live and maintain, you know, all the things that I have going on, but also to help him so I can help the world. So that's what I hope the future brings actually. Wade Lightheart: That's a beautiful dream and anything we can do to support that, that'd be great. Any final words that you'd like to leave with before we wrap up this episode of the show? I'm going to have to get you back cause' we're having so much fun, it's just like, I'll mind-meld. Joshua Holland: I would be more than happy to come back on. I guess one final thing and something we didn't touch on and something I think is very important is I am very appreciative of what you and Matt are doing with your company, right? Because, and I'm dead serious about this. When this opportunity came up to do this podcast, I was like, of course, because I've learned so much about the enzymes from listening to you, YouTube, you know, and what you guys have developed. And I have to say one of my favorite supplements to date right now is the magnesium, the magnesium breakthrough. Joshua Holland: Yeah. And I'll just end by saying this. So I'm a guy that for my entire life have dealt with cramps, muscle cramps. I, and it was, it's almost a joke. Like I would literally growing up, I would be sleeping in the front car if you're playing a basketball tournament, you know, in the front seat of my dad driving me to and from games and I would cramp and I would hit him so hard that like, you know, he's like what's going on and it would even affect my driving. You know, like if my right leg cramped up and it's on the gas, you know, like, can you imagine what happens? You're on the highway. Joshua Holland: Anyway, I haven't had one single cramp since I've been taking the magnesium breakthrough. So let that be something. And I mean, this is my entire life. I'm 39 years old, just turned 39. So for 38 plus years, I've been having cramp. Well, I don't know if I was cramping when I was, you know, a baby, but you know what I mean. It's been a breakthrough for me. So thank you for that. Wade Lightheart: Oh, thank you. That's so great to hear. I love that. And yeah, the magnesium deficiencies so deep and we've kind of covered the whole spectrum with it. So thank you very much. Joshua, man, you're just such a pleasure. I could spend all day talking to you. We'll get you back. And it's so neat. How sharing similar backgrounds we've come to the same conclusions organically through movement, and people, and exercise, and philosophy, and teaching and student, I mean, beautiful, beautiful time. Thank you so much for joining us on the Awesome Health Podcasts. For those who want to find you, can you share where's the links, Instagram handles all that sort of stuff? Joshua Holland: Oh yeah. I was… Well, thank you for the opportunity. I am fortunate to have all of my social media and ways to find me to be one simple thing at Joshua J. Holland. So that's Joshua J O S H U A, the letter J for my middle initial and my last name Holland, H O L L A N D, like the country. And that's that's the handle for Twitter, for Facebook, for Instagram, tick tock, and it's even my website, www.Joshuajholland.com Wade Lightheart: Well thank you for joining us on another Awesome Health Podcast. We'll see you guys on the next episode. Take care.
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