How Yoga Turned Tragedy Into Triumph | Jerome R. | Better Man Podcast Ep. 116

Dean Pohlman: Hey guys it’s Dean. Welcome back to the Better Man podcast. Today is a member interview focused on reclaiming your fitness. This is Jerome. And yeah, we’re going to talk about his story. So, Jerome, thanks for being here.

Jerome R.: Well, thanks for having me on the show.

Dean Pohlman: Yeah. So let’s just get an intro. So, you attended the Mental Yoga Workshop series in Chicago in October.

Jerome R.: October? I’m sorry, this is October. In August? Yes.

Dean Pohlman: That’s August. Okay, cool. Yes. And I met you then you talked about some of your story. I think you had talked about lower back pain was a big issue for you, right?

Jerome R.: Yeah. That was one of the motivating factors in me starting man flow yoga. Yes.

Dean Pohlman: So was that your was that your OSHA moment realizing that the back pain or what. What was the moment when you realized that you weren’t where you wanted to be with your fitness and you needed to make a change.

Jerome R.: Well in general what happened was, you know, I know this sounds kind of heavy, but, one of my best friends at work passed away suddenly at work from a heart attack, and that was very much of a shock to me, of course, because, you know, losing your best friend suddenly is a shock. But then it made me think, because he and I were part of what we called the Breakfast Club, where we would, after work on the last day of the workweek.

Jerome R.: The next morning, we would go out to him, you know, have breakfast, and he would usually get something huge, like like the lumberjack combo. And of course, I jokingly told him was, you know, your lifestyle is not that of a lumberjack. You know, it’s you’re more likely to split a seam than you are to split, you know, a long time in the near future.

Jerome R.: And he just laughed it off and he said, I’m okay, I’m okay. Well, after too many of those hearty breakfast, which were not too good for his heart, that incident worked. Happened. And it made me think, well, my gosh, you know, of course I’m a couple of years older than he is, so maybe I should look into my heart health now.

Jerome R.: At that time I was about 245. You in 245 pounds. And my ideal weight is somewhere between, you know, like about 201, 90 to 200. I’m given the fact I’m six foot one. So it made me think about trying to focus on fitness because, you know, my life literally was at stake. Okay, so I tried a couple of things, but the problem was I was not able to get in terms of fitness because I’m just have an average fitness background.

Jerome R.: I don’t have any. You know, I was not a jock in high school, that kind of thing. So what I realized was that I was having a hard time sticking to a program. You know, I would start at the gym and then it would go fine for about a month, and then I would drop off. And the same thing with, another yoga program I tried online where I would do okay for a couple of weeks, but then it would drop off.

Jerome R.: And then I realized, My God, what’s so what’s wrong with me that I can’t stick to a program?

Jerome R.: And so when anyway what I did was I said I’ll look into, you know, what’s wrong with me by taking a psychological, psychological test, a personality test. And, you know, you’ve heard of the Myers-Briggs personality test, you know, but this is something newer called the Big Five personality trait system. And, you know, I wanted to explain this.

Jerome R.: Your my results just because it has a bearing on this yoga program. You know, the, the five traits are, you know, the acronym is ocean and that they stand for always for openness, which is kind of like the curiosity trait, curiosity and creative ity. And then the, c is for conscientiousness. That’s where rather than the big picture, you’ve got a person who focuses on details and more importantly, gets things done and finishes what they start.

Jerome R.: The E stands for extrovert. Now that’s kind of familiar trait that also is in Myers-Briggs. The Ace stands for agreeableness, which is kind of like, how much? If you have interactions with another person or group, how much you’re willing to put their. How much you’re willing to put their, needs above your own. It’s kind of like a I almost like a maternal instinct.

Jerome R.: Well, I it’s like a people pleaser trait. Okay.

Dean Pohlman: If you want people pleasing.

Jerome R.: Right. And then the last one is and for I hate the term this is called neuroticism, but basically means like your negativity bias. How much is your emotional state, how easy it is for you to get thrown off and turned into a negative direction by perceived threats in the environment? Okay, now my results were were basically I was very high in openness, very low in conscientiousness.

Jerome R.: And you know, in as far as I’m very much introverted, that’s why I’m INTj in the Myers-Briggs system. Hey, I’m high in agreeableness, which means I like to work with groups of people because I like to help others. And the negativity is relatively low, meaning that I have a relatively stable emotional state. And I consider myself to have a, you know, pretty good, like a sunny disposition for most of the time.

Jerome R.: But anyway, getting back to the two traits that have. Something to do with yoga, of course, I’m hiding in curiosity. So for me, trying yoga was a no brainer because I. Yeah, that’s cool. You know, I don’t care. It’s nontraditional method for fitness. I’m willing to try anything that works. But I realized my problem was that since I’m so low in conscientiousness, I really had a problem in persevering and sticking to a program.

Jerome R.: So it’s one thing to start the Man Flow yoga program, which I did in July of last year. But the real problem for me is what what can I do to make sure that I stick with it? And, so I started in July 2024. I’m 2023, sorry. And I started with the Absolute Beginner program. And, you know, I started the String Foundations Challenge and found it a little bit too challenging.

Jerome R.: So I went back to the beginning, the Absolute Beginners program, where it’s only 15 minutes and I did it every day. It was like a seven day program. I, if I remember right.

Dean Pohlman: And yeah, seven days is one of the options.

Jerome R.: Well, and here’s the features which I think really helped me in, you know, becoming a person who can persevere. First of all, it’s very structured. You know, the the program that I had tried for a little while, it wasn’t that structured. And the second thing was the learning curve that you go from intermediate to, to I’m from for beginner to intermediate is very steep.

Jerome R.: Whereas the program that you’ve got, you’ve got, you know of course the beginning programs. But then that intermediate 90 days to flexible is where I’m thinking of where you really start you out in the beginning, and by the end you’re at intermediate level. And and that was my goal for the year was to get to the intermediate level program by May.

Jerome R.: Well, my birthday last this year. May, you know, this year. And I was able to do that. So that was very good. But the two other things I thought were good about the forum, besides being structured, is that it’s not like you go from program A to B to C, you do program A, but then you repeat it a couple of times, you know, that’s you.

Jerome R.: I don’t know how many times you recommend it to be repeated, but I actually would go and repeat it more times than you, you know, recommended because I really wanted to get this habit down.

Dean Pohlman: So,

Jerome R.: So what happens with the repetition is this when you go through it the second or third time, what happens is you’re not yes, you’re doing the same exercise, but it’s really not the same exercise because the exercise is the same. But you are different. You are stronger. You are more flexible than you were last time. So you can see progress.

Jerome R.: And so that gives you the motivation to say, oh, I’m progressing. So I really like that about the program. The repetition of the of the various work, you know, workouts, the first moment, which.

Dean Pohlman: Makes me think of the, sorry. It just makes me think of the, makes me think of that. It’s a quote or it’s a paraphrase quote says, a man never walks in the same river twice, for the man is never the same, and the river is never the same.

Jerome R.: Right? In this case, the man is not the same because you’re, you know, stronger than you were the last time. And the third thing I have to say, it was very helpful were the modifications. In other words, if you are doing something like the side plank, you know, the very first time I saw you do the side plank, I just my jaw dropped and I thought, you’ve got to be kidding me.

Jerome R.: I don’t know if I could be wrong, but I tried it. You know, the the easiest model, you know, the lowest level. And then the second one. Oh, I was able to do more. And by the end of the time that I had finished through that thing. But I think was the Strength Foundation series, I was able to do all of the modifications.

Jerome R.: And so that is very helpful because that way you can adjust your, you know, you’re still doing the same muscle groups, but it’s maybe not as intense. Right? And you can build up the intensity through various repetitions. So I thought all those three elements together made it easy for me to go through all the programs. And like I said, I was able to get it to the intermediate level by this year.

Jerome R.: Now my goal this next year, I’m getting a little ahead of myself, but my goal for next year is to be able to finish all the intermediate programs and get to the advanced ones. You know, I’d love to be able to someday be able to buy a yoga piece t shirt. So. So we’ll see.

Dean Pohlman: You know, we gotta we gotta work on that.

Jerome R.: You know, but anyway, that’s my eventual goal is to be able to do all the programs.

Dean Pohlman: Yeah. That’s awesome. That’s a great goal. So when you first got started, what do you think? I mean, you mentioned all of these things that enable you to, to be consistent. So those are, those are some features of the program, kind of internally with you, though, let’s, let’s say you wake up and you’ve done a few days of exercise and you’re just not feeling as motivated as you have been in the past.

Dean Pohlman: So what did you what was the self-talk or what was, you know, what what what did you how did you motivate yourself to do those workouts even when you didn’t want to do them?

Jerome R.: Well, the first thing I have to say is I adjusted the time that I was doing the yoga because, as you know, motivation is kind of, it’s a finite resource. So during the day, the less physical energy you have, the less mentally energy you have to tackle a challenge. You know, the very first program I did, Absolute Beginners, that was 15 minutes and I did it when I came home and after work.

Jerome R.: Now the good thing about that for me was I was able to that was able to help me. You know, when I anchored that habit, I was also able to help it reduce a negative habit, which I had, which was, of course, coming home and on the way home, going to a fast food restaurant. There is no way you can do yoga on a full stomach, especially if were going to do something like the cobra.

Jerome R.: So I said to myself, I wanted to go for the fast food, but I said, no, I’ve got to workout. And so therefore, you know, I kind of skipped that and that helped me in that way. But then when I came back from 15 to 30 minutes, the second program, I had a hard time, you know, making sure that I did the program in the in the evening because I was tired.

Jerome R.: So I thought, well, I’ll switch for the morning. And that meant getting up early. But you see, by then my energy levels had started to rise. So getting up half an hour earlier to be able to do the yoga was not that much of a problem. And so that’s why shifting to the morning gave me a lot more motivation.

Jerome R.: Now, every once in a while I can. For example, if I’m feeling well, the times that I’ve got like a couple of weeks ago when I got Covid, I of course I didn’t do yoga and I was having Covid, but when I recovered, I was a little bit weak. And so I would, I found some of the shorter workouts and the restorative workouts, and that’s something about 90 days flexible.

Jerome R.: It has some shorter workouts that are like close to 15 minutes, as well as the restorative workouts that are more like a 45 minutes to an hour. And so I found that I was able to switch off and and do those those those are, let me say, do those workouts based on, you know, if I wasn’t feeling too well.

Jerome R.: But I have to say that for me, right now, where I am is I made sure I did yoga every day, but this summer I kind of lightened up in the sense that I’m doing five days a week usually, and and I’ll split it up. You know, I have I’ve kind of an interesting schedule for Wednesday off, and I work Monday, Tuesday, Thursday, Friday.

Jerome R.: There was a two week, ten days. So I try to do longer workouts during the times when I’m off and then the work days I’ll have shorter workouts, the ones that are like half an hour. So that’s kind of why, that did adjusting my schedule was able to help with the moderation. The other thing I have to say is that getting the the cork mat, you know, the the branded m you know, man, yoga corp mat was also helpful because, you know, some of those those things I was doing in the strength Foundations course, like for example, the low lunge, you know, it’s putting a lot of pressure on your knee.

Jerome R.: And I, I always have to put some sort of on a towel or a blanket under my knee to prevent it from being uncomfortable. But when I got that yoga mat, that was the cork mat. Those thicker, it was comfortable enough that I didn’t need that. And of course that made the workouts a year ago. I didn’t have to swap, you know, all the time getting a blanket.

Jerome R.: So having a more comfortable mat was actually a good motivation for me to be able to do the workouts.

Dean Pohlman: Okay. Cool. So, I why don’t you take me back to that first month? Did you notice improvements? Not just improvements in, you know, the workouts, but did you notice results in your first month? And if you didn’t, how long did it take you to notice results in your, you know, good day to day life? Maybe it was on the scale, but I’m curious for you, when did you first notice results?

Jerome R.: Well, it happened with by the time that I was done with the first month, our first time, all my back pain went away. I realized when I was starting the next program and the next, you know, program in the series that I realized I hadn’t had back pain. And and it was due to the fact, of course, that, well, I had actually tried to go to a chiropractor during the summer, during the spring, that is before I started the Man Yoga program.

Jerome R.: And yes, the chiropractor. It helped temporarily, but then when I would go back to work, it would come back. So it was like alleviating the symptoms was not getting to the root cause. And as anybody knew.

Dean Pohlman: What do you do for work, Jerome?

Jerome R.: Oh, I work in, Amazon. I work in the operations department, so we’re getting packages.

Dean Pohlman: Are you first?

Jerome R.: You know, and so.

Dean Pohlman: Therefore. Or do you move a lot for that or are you at it are you at a desk or are you moving?

Jerome R.: Well, before last year, I would I was in a process assistant position when I was moving a lot. But now I’ve gone back to the tier one level. So I’m at a station, but for the most part, you know, the previous place where I was previous facility had a lot of heavier objects as well, and that was one of the reasons I would have back pain.

Jerome R.: But, I found out that through the, you know, if anybody has been to one of your programs, knows the real problem. For example, the back pain is the problem is not focusing on the back, but the support structure of the core that supports the back. You know, that’s the same for anything, any of the other, you know, joints.

Jerome R.: But I found that strengthening the core, which was part of the basics that you learned even at the beginning, that was enough to be able to strengthen the core. So that and of course, if I had a package and I had to lift off the ground, I would make sure to, you know, tense my abdominal muscles so that it wouldn’t hurt my back.

Jerome R.: So anyway, I found that that that process of strengthening the core was what got rid of my back pain for good. Now, a couple months later, I learned another one that got rid of foot pain. And that was the short form exercise. You know, where you’re trying to essentially, exaggerate the arch. And because I like you, I have flat feet.

Jerome R.: And so therefore, pronouncing the arch when walking helped me get rid of my foot pain because I have size 13ft. And sometimes the shoes that I’m in have too much room in them. So I make sure that I’m walking mindfully when I’m in the facility, you know, and and trying to make sure that I focus on my arches.

Jerome R.: Of course, getting some insoles actually helped as well, but that’s short form exercise was responsible for getting my foot pain, you know, away. Now that’s the inner. That’s the immediate results. Now, of course, what happened there was there were other results that I noticed that happened as the months went by. And the typical one that I saw was having my energy level rise gradually.

Jerome R.: You know, when it was when it’s the peak season at Amazon, which is usually right at the end of the year, you know, they would have us do not only extra days, but an extra hour of work every day. And I know, but by the end of that workweek, I was seeing my God who that who turn up the gravity, you know, and so I would have not just coffee in the morning, but I would have an energy drink once or sometimes twice.

Jerome R.: This is before the mental yoga program. But then I noticed the December last year, at the end of that peak season that, you know, I hadn’t had any energy drinks that whole month. And it was, you know, just being able to subsist on coffee. And now I’m at the point that even from my regular workdays, I don’t drink coffee in the morning.

Jerome R.: I don’t need to because I have so much energy now. I’ll drink coffee on the week.

Dean Pohlman: It’s amazing.

Jerome R.: I like it, but you know, I’ve got enough energy that I just go and I don’t need that. That shot, you know, to survive in the morning. So that’s that’s been a gradual but really good change.

Dean Pohlman: That’s really cool to hear. Can I, can I ask how old you are?

Jerome R.: Yeah I’m 67 right now.

Dean Pohlman: Wow. That’s really cool. That’s really cool to hear that you don’t that I mean that’s that’s really significant that your energy levels went up that much. That’s amazing. So I mean, good job on you for being consistent with the program.

Jerome R.: Well, the other thing too, I have to say is that I never when I was younger I had asthma. And so therefore I thought of myself in high school, I was never a jock, you know, more like a nerd, you know, given my interest. But I never saw myself. I saw myself as not being a weakling, necessarily, but I never felt of myself self as being a strong person, you know, in my own self-image.

Jerome R.: And that gradually changed, especially with the strength foundations challenge and being able to do some of those things like the the yoga push up and things like that. So I think it’s helped my self-image. Now, of course, there’s other results too, and I wanted to mention 1 or 2 of those that have been more long term. I started at 245, which given my height is, you know, it’s in the obese, you know, column as far as you know, what my body mass index is.

Jerome R.: But I got down to 225 and right. And then right now I realized the summer that I was kind of in a plateau between 225 and 220, I would be able to go less than 220, for example, when I had the Covid a couple of weeks ago. But then I would always go back up. And so I realized that in the next year I need to add some things to my to the mix of fitness, namely, and I’ve already been concentrating on my, my, my diet, my nutrition.

Jerome R.: But I wanted to add an exercise regime. And I mean, you know, weight involved in weightlifting. And that’s why I joined that great father program. You know, the one that doctor, a doctor Bell, he has his is the head of. And it was interesting at the Chicago workshop that I went to in August, I found some guys that actually had started in that program and were crossovers to man flow yoga.

Dean Pohlman: So although yeah, we’ve got a ton of overlap.

Jerome R.: Yeah. And you know, I looked at the program and there are some common elements. For example, it’s very structured. The community is very positive. And so that’s something that I wanted to add to the mix this next year is is trying to do. So right now I’ll tell you where my where my schedule is right now. So I have, you know, on the week I’ll say the weekend days, meaning Saturday, Sunday and Wednesday.

Jerome R.: I do yoga first, first thing in the morning, but then I’ll do either, do the weightlifting routine, you know, that apex ten program from Structured Father program or I’ll go on go to go on a walk. You know, either it’s like a mile to the local, to the local park or two miles downtown if I want to go and get a coffee.

Jerome R.: Now on the week days, you know, you know, Monday, Tuesday, Thursday, Friday, I’ll do the half an hour yoga, but then I’ll follow it immediately by doing, meditation. And that meditation was hard because that meant getting up an additional 15 minutes earlier, but well, I did. What’s your advice? It start small. I just did five minutes a day, first of all.

Jerome R.: And then the next month I did ten and now I’m doing 15. So that meditation rate is that’s also been a very, helpful thing for me in terms of my mental health, because that means if I’m in a situation where it’s stressful at work, I can harness my, you know, deep breathing to get to trigger that parasympathetic relaxation response as opposed to the usual thing when you’re stressed, you know that when you see something that you’re startled by, you have a deep intake of breath.

Jerome R.: And that’s because your your body’s giving that fight or flight response. And by the way, that reminds me of that’s why I think one of the most underrated or least mentioned programs that I really enjoyed was the breath series. You know, where you’re you’re not you’re actually rather than just doing a breathing exercise during the workout or before the workout or afterwards, you’re concentrating on breath the entire time.

Jerome R.: And that wellness of the breath really carried over into my regular everyday life, where you’re able to stop yourself. And I wish I had that when I was younger and would be able to stop asthma attacks before they occur. Because, you know, when you have asthma, it’s a kind of a it’s kind of a positive feedback loop in the sense that you starting to feel contractions, constriction of breath, and that makes you panic because you’re feeling because you’re feeling claustrophobic.

Jerome R.: And that panic attack then feeds into the, you know, that kind of thing. And so I thought the ability to short circuit any type of stress reaction at work, well, you know, when something happens so line breaks down, you’ve got to move or whatever, that really is really helpful to be able to just relax and be able to, you know, accept whatever changes going on and not freak out about it.

Dean Pohlman: Yeah, I think that’s something that that’s something that we hear about. And that’s something that I’ve personally noticed too, is when you, what you do on your yoga mat goes into your day to day life. So when you practice body awareness, when you practice breath awareness, it doesn’t just stay, you know, relegated to your yoga mat. You notice, oh, I can do this when I’m walking, or I can do this when I’m at work, or I can do this, you know, when I’m with friends and maybe potentially having a difficult, difficult conversation.

Dean Pohlman: So I think your example is a is is a great one.

Jerome R.: I was also thinking that in my own mind I have, you know, because I was never really into fitness before. But now what’s happening is I feel kind of an impetus, like a, pushed, I, push to action, push to motion. When I’m out, for example, I’m at the grocery store and I’m waiting in line. My body wants to move, and so I’m not going to do anything to get me kicked out of Costco or anything.

Jerome R.: But, you know, I will, you know, stretch a little bit.

Dean Pohlman: If I’d be curious what you need to do to get kicked out of a Costco. So I’ve never seen anyone forcibly removed from Costco. But, you know, I’m I’m I’m excited to see what someone does need to do.

Jerome R.: Well, that would be a good TikTok video to tempt to try that out and see what it takes to get those.

Dean Pohlman: Yes. Inside. No. Those are the worst types of people on the internet. The ones who just go to like to mess, to mess with people. Yeah. For attention and views. God, I, anyways, that’s that’s like my cranky old man talking,

Jerome R.: You know, but yeah, going back to your topic of things spilling over into regular life, well, that’s really thinking about the the meditation because you talked. I forget the names of them, but the two guests you had, you know, in the first 100 episodes that you said were really deep meditators, you could tell there was just like an aura of calm, you know?

Jerome R.: Oh, yeah, from them, you know me.

Dean Pohlman: Amazing. You can they’re just they’re just like the interactions you have with them. You’re like, why are you so calm? What’s wrong with you? And they’re like, oh, I meditate every day. You’re like, oh, but yeah, like you were saying, they meditate for like 30 minutes a day or like an hour a day or two hours a day.

Dean Pohlman: I mean, they have a significant, you know, the amount of hours logged in their meditation, but you can really tell.

Jerome R.: But it’s interesting to me because I realize what happens. Well, for example, if you have the basic states, you know, consciousness, you know, waking dreaming is in and, you know, dreamless or deep sleep, it seems to me that the ability, you know, like artists, for example, are those that are able to take that energy from the dream state and use it while they’re awake.

Jerome R.: You know, that’s what we call daydream, you know, and with I think with meditation, what’s happening is that same calm energy you have of dreamless sleep and being able to bring that into, like, your waking life. I think that’s what’s happening with those minds now. That’s more meditation experience than I have, but I’m not doing it for half an hour.

Jerome R.: But I can. I can tell sometimes when I’m stressed mentally that besides that, that calming reflex of of deepening the breath, like doing a simple counting, like when I meditate, counting from 1 to 10 or that kind of thing will calm my mind because it’s taking me off of whatever is bothering me at the moment. So I think that’s a that’s that spillover effect has been kind of gradually occurring, but I can tell that it’s something that’s really helping my regular life.

Dean Pohlman: Yeah, that’s really cool. So, you know, you talked about the things that you’re doing in addition to yoga. You talked about meditation. We talked about your improving, you know, your nutrition. You’re getting into weight training. So my next question is how have external support systems been helpful for you along your fitness journey? If if they have been.

Jerome R.: Well, let’s well, this is where for me, the Better Man podcast has been very helpful because that’s focusing on the whole person. You know, of course yoga is helping your physical fitness, but that mental fitness, fitness that that is that mental health is something that I think is very it can be supported. Of course, mental health has a lot of things that can can affect it.

Jerome R.: Let me just kind of give a little, simple explanation of something called the four quadrants, which means that any time you have something like mental health, there are four perspectives you can take on any, you know, complex phenomenon. Of course, one is physical and the second one is mental, the third is social, and the fourth is environmental.

Jerome R.: So what that means is that yes, if I want to improve my mental health, I can do things like journaling or going to a therapist, both of which I’ve done. But another thing which can help your mental health is of course getting a good sleep. You know, when I have, I mean, I’m sure on sleep, that set point, that mental set point of negativity that I talked about earlier can be more, can be knocked more easily out of whack.

Jerome R.: If you don’t have enough. And so if you get enough, hey.

Dean Pohlman: Can I, can I ask you about that really quick? Yeah. Because I think a lot of people who a lot of guys especially, they get into their 60s and their 70s and beyond, and they just think that sleep is just going to suck for the rest of their lives. What do you do to get good sleep?

Jerome R.: Well, first, one of the first things is, for example, I talked about the environment. One of the things about the environment is making sure that your environment is conducive to sleep. Of course, that it’s quiet. Now, personally, I like to have a, little fan on, even if it’s wintertime. I like to have a little fan on because that flow of air helps.

Jerome R.: Cool. Number one, it helps cool my body, but also it helps reduce, you know, the white noise essentially. Yeah, sure. That I don’t hear a little thing and think it’s like a mouse scurrying or, you know, that kind of thing. So yeah, that is helpful. Now, if I’m really if I want to get a good sleep sometimes I’ll go and have a shower before.

Jerome R.: Not because I think it’s important to be, you know, clean when you go to sleep. But again, that cooling off process helps you, you know, with with getting a good sleep. The other thing too, is that I of course, I’m going to bed. I get up at 4:00 in the morning on a, on a workday. So I’m going to bed at 8:00.

Jerome R.: That means I’m getting into bed at 7:00 and I’ve when I, I, somebody asked me about, sleeping naked and I thought and I thought that’s kind of an intrusive question. They meant sleeping without electronics. Meaning that I will not look at Tick Tock or something like a blue screen before I go to bed. Now, I might have my phone with me, but I’m listening to an audio book or something like that, and usually that will help me get to sleep by, you know, getting my mind on instead of off of what happened during the day.

Jerome R.: It’s talking about a science fiction story or whatever, you know, and as long as a science fiction story is not like a horror story or like that, you know, that’s not going to be conducive to a cut to good sleep or dreams. But that really helps me to get to sleep. And you know, that that really helps. So those are the things that yeah, go back to.

Dean Pohlman: Your back to your four quadrants. Sorry. Yeah. I took you off of your previous.

Jerome R.: Oh, but that’s the environmental side. Now the other thing that helps with mental health and I mentioned this in connection with our, you know, our workshop we had in our in August is that having those connections that that’s the great thing about man flow yoga program in my you know of course that the workouts are fine, but the community is really great.

Jerome R.: For example, when I would start out and I would say, I’m how are you having trouble with such and such exercise? Immediately a chorus of guys would come up with with advice or encouraging like, keep at it, that kind of thing. And now I’m find myself in the other situation where somebody is starting out and they’re the absolute beginners and they’re saying, oh, I’m having trouble with X, Y, or Z, I want to go in and help them.

Jerome R.: And so that willingness to go in and help others, which of course, that’s one of your motivating factors in doing this whole program in the first place. But the guys that are in the program that are active contributors, they like to help other people. And and that’s that’s one thing I think is really great. And I mentioned that at the at that workshop, as I was going to the last day of the workshop, I realized that.

Jerome R.: You had had a guest on I don’t know who. I forgot who it was, but they had said it was talking about longevity, that those people in the blue zone. So the ones that that live up to be 100 years old, like Okinawa and Japan, for example, those people are one of the contributing factors. The longevity is they are the community they belong to.

Jerome R.: And so those people that have a person in their life, at least one person who has their back, tend to live longer than, you know, guys who are poor, alone or lonely or whatever. And I thought to myself, otherwise, going to that gym on that last day, that here’s a whole room of people that have my back.

Jerome R.: And I thought that really kind of gave me a mental boost because I felt supported by that community. So all of those factors can help your mental health and not just, of course, focusing on the mind, but also on your physical body, the community and your environment.

Dean Pohlman: Yeah, I think that’s a great answer, and I love that you pointed out, you know, how supportive our community is and that you’ve been able to benefit from it. That’s awesome. So we’re getting into our rapid fire questions here. So our first question is, what do you think is the one habit, belief or mindset that has helped you the most with your overall health and wellness?

Jerome R.: It’s that that that four quadrant model I talked about that realizing that everything is connected so that if I’m worrying about mental health, I can focus on physical health and that will affect it. And also that I can focus on the community and in my environment also with physical exercise to making sure this environment that I’m in right now is conducive to, to yoga, for example.

Jerome R.: So the a sense in a sense, knowing that everything is connected is really helped me to realize that that mind body connection that you’re forging in yoga, you know, it’s something that’s that’s really good. Good to to keep going.

Dean Pohlman: Yeah definitely. Great. So what’s the one thing that you do for your health that you believe is often overlooked or undervalued.

Jerome R.: Yes. The gratitude I remember the episode you talked about the gratitude journal. You know when you talked about you were upset about, you know, the passing of the, you know, Tron and how that much that upsetting and how you focus on gratitude to keep your mind focused on what you have to be thankful for, not what you just lost.

Jerome R.: And so after that program, I got a gratitude journal, and I’ve been filling it in. It’s called the Six Minute Diary. It’s basically you have the morning, you know, the morning questions and then the evening questions when you come back. So you’re doing it twice a day, you know, for about six minutes. But every once in a while, every week or so it’ll ask more long form questions.

Jerome R.: And so I think that gratitude Journal has it was very helpful for me for a couple of things. Number one, it helps with that. You know, that negativity, that trait I talked about before, when you have the set point in your mind, a lot of us will either because the personality trait or circumstances might veer towards negativity, but that gratitude is another thing.

Jerome R.: It spills over because you’re constantly searching like a search light for something to be grateful for, and that spills over into, you know, into your regular life as well. Not just the six minutes you do it in the morning, in the evening. So, for example, if I’m if I’m thinking about either rehearsing some negative thing in an argument or whatever I got into, or I’m anticipating a negative possible event that might happen rather than staring off into, you know, catastrophe, catastrophizing or whatever that verb is.

Jerome R.: You know, just gratitude helps you because it focuses you on the present. And the other thing it does, too, is kind of interesting. After a while, it changes your your frame of mind. You’re I this may sound kind of ethereal, but it changes your your relationship to existence itself, meaning that you can see life as something happening to you that’s saying life in the third person.

Jerome R.: And so a lot of times people complain because they feel victimized, because life is happening to them. But one of the things that I think the gratitude does is because you are constantly essentially talking to the universe and say, I’m grateful for this. You are responding to the universe. And it’s not just and in fact, that’s one of the things I think is one of my favorite authors are the stoic authors, you know, like Marcus Aurelius.

Jerome R.: And you talked about Ryan Holiday and his books about stoicism. And I think that’s kind of the the philosophical underpinnings of stoicism is that you’re changing your life from something which is happening to you, and you know that your meaning is not what happens to you, but your meaning is how you respond to it. What’s the answering call?

Jerome R.: Yeah, okay. You got an illness or or whatever. How are you going to respond to it? That’s where the meaning is. And so therefore and like gratitude helps you with that because you are now taking your, your life and you are essentially saying here’s how I’m going to respond with positivity. So all of that made for me, made for me gratitude.

Jerome R.: In a very important habit to keep going.

Dean Pohlman: Yeah. I mean, very well said there. I have nothing to add. That’s all I, I, I, all of those things are things that I can relate to with my own gratitude practice. So I’m, I’m really glad that you started your own. So third question is what is the most stressful part of your day to day life?

Jerome R.: Most stressful is, well, some. Every once in a while at work there’ll be something stressful just because the nature of operations piece of equipment breaks down. You have to change, you know, whatever station you’re at. But that kind of thing is is stressful. But on a regular basis, my most stressful part of the day was getting out of the because I try to be very punctual person.

Jerome R.: I try to always make it to work on time. So getting out of the house on time was was stressful. But I essentially created a routine. And of course the the energy level I was getting from the yoga made it easier for me to get up when I have to to be able to get everything done. And so therefore I’m doing it more of a leisurely pace, rather than hurrying to make sure I’m rushing to the car.

Jerome R.: You know, so the the planning, the routine that I developed helps because most of the time I’m not stressed because I prepared, you know, at least on a daily basis in the morning.

Dean Pohlman: Yeah. Cool. All right. Last question. What is your best piece of advice for men who want to be healthier?

Jerome R.: Well, let me put it this way. The best piece of advice is, well, it comes from you know, I lived in Japan for a couple of years and, you know, and that’s one thing you and I have a common we’ve we’ve lived abroad. You went and lived in Turkey for a year. And I’m sure that in learning the language, you learned something about the culture.

Jerome R.: Well, let me tell you what what Japanese people say when you’re starting a new endeavor. You know, if you’re starting an endeavor like an exercise for what do we say? We say good luck, right? You know, usually, you know, and in Japan they say combat, criticize, which literally means please persevere. Now what’s behind that? Those two expressions, if you say good luck to a person, that implies that their success is based on luck or fortune, something which is external to them and not under their control.

Jerome R.: Okay, but the Japanese expression means that your success is based on your ability to persevere through, you know, obstacles or whatever. So therefore it is number one, internal to you. And it’s it is under your control. And that’s one thing that I think that, that this program has helped me to do is develop that perseverance. You know, my natural trait is very low in conscientiousness.

Jerome R.: So my natural inclination was not to be able to persevere and just give up after trying something. And it didn’t work. Well. Now, because of this program, you know, essentially, even though my internal trait does not push me in that direction, I’ve now got enough of a habit that I am able to persevere. And yes, when you’re doing this program, you will come up for obstacle with against obstacles and barriers.

Jerome R.: But what do you do? You know, you don’t call it a failure. You call it mentally, oh, this is the second, third or fourth attempt that I’m doing before I finally succeed. So my basic advice to somebody who wants to focus on their on their on their well-being is combat. Who decide, please persevere.

Dean Pohlman: You’ll love that. That’s fantastic. All right. Well, Jerome, lots of, lots of really good nuggets of information here. I think you’ve done a fantastic job of being a an example of what can happen when you make changes to your life. I love that you’ve also done all of these all of these mental things. It’s not just exercise for you.

Dean Pohlman: You’ve done all these things to shift how your mind works to, like, practicing gratitude. You know, shifting your yoga practice so that you’re being more mindful of how it can assist you with your day cutting down caffeine. I mean, these are all really and this is all happened within, like less than a year, which which for me is like, wow, that’s some really impressive changes for, you know, a year of time.

Dean Pohlman: So, you know, I.

Jerome R.: Just wanted to mention one other thing, which is, it’s for a piece of advice that just came to me. Is that. Yes. You want to focus on your goals, but don’t be overly focused on the goals so that you, you know, it’s something that I call a happiness horizon. Sometimes we play this game with ourselves. If I get to this goal, I will be happy, which implies you’re not happy now.

Jerome R.: And the problem with putting everything your happiness on the horizon is that one of the definitions of a horizon is an imaginary line that goes farther away from you the closer you get to it. So don’t just focus on the future. Enjoy the journey. In other words, when I started yoga, when I went to 15 to 30 minutes, you know, I would be, you know, looking at, oh my God, and we’re only ten minutes in.

Jerome R.: Wow. Oh God, when is it going to end? But then by the second term I was really getting into it. And so therefore enjoy the journey, you know.

Dean Pohlman: Yeah.

Jerome R.: And that’s that’s the second thing is not just focus on the goals, but don’t decide to be happy when you get the goals, but be happy now enjoying what you know. Well, that’s the whole thing. Enjoy your fitness, you know.

Dean Pohlman: Right? Yeah, I think that’s definitely something I can relate to. And fitness and and and life in general. So, thank you for mentioning that. All right. Well, guys, thanks for joining us. Jerome, thank you so much for for joining us for this episode. I appreciate all of these, again, these nuggets of wisdom and information that you’ve shared.

Dean Pohlman: And I’m sure it will be helpful to other people, so. Yes. Thank you.

Jerome R.: I hope so, yeah.

Dean Pohlman: All right, guys, I hope this inspires you to be a better man. Be on the lookout for, more of these Reclaiming Your Fitness episodes with members from our community. So I’ll see you on the next episode.

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