Tony Horton: 08:50
Well, you know, it happened, I think within the first year of being out here. Growing up on the East Coast, typically there weren’t gyms on every corner like there were in Southern California. You know, you found a gym at the high school or university, and there were athletes and non-athletes. And usually it was the athletes that were in the gym, and everybody else was just skinny because, you know, there was no health care crisis back then. But people didn’t, you know, jogging was sort of a phenomenon happening in the 70s.
You know, people were jogging. That was the first. There were no aerobics classes, there were no step classes. There was no mixed martial arts. None of that stuff existed. You know, there were people who went to the gym because they were an athlete and everybody else. But out in California, it was interesting because it was the first time I had experienced. Joining a gym just for social purposes for, you know, you know, because, you know, obviously out here in California, a lot of people are pretty hung up about the way they look.
And so that was one of the reasons why. And, you know, I took step classes and aerobics classes, and I was on these various machines in this gym I had never experienced before, because back in the 60s and 70s, when I grew up, it was mostly barbells, dumbbells, Nautilus machines were just being introduced back in the late 70s and early 80s.
You know, this brand new silly machine that was you can only work one body part at a time. And so I just did it purely because I was new to the area, and I thought it was a great way to meet people, as opposed to going to a club or going to a bar, which I still did too. But I thought, you know, why not add to the, you know, another, another way of meeting people. And I really, I really enjoyed not only how it changed me aesthetically, but also how it made me feel, you know, I had more energy, I had more enthusiasm for life. I wasn’t really quite tweaking my diet just yet back in those days because I was broke.
So I was living off of pizza, burgers, hot dogs, whatever I could get, you know, Taco Bell, whatever I could get Ahold of. And. But I was young, my metabolism was pretty good and I was pretty active playing football on the weekends and basketball sandlot, you know, pick up basketball and also going to the gym 4 or 5 times a week. So diet really wasn’t a was an equation because I was so young. I figured that out later in life.
Dr. Jeremy Weisz: 10:54
Gives you an edge because you were in that place? And when you’re talking to a huge audience and you can kind of relate to maybe where they’re at in their budget or what they’re eating, you know, within what you’re describing, your workouts.
Tony Horton: 11:10
You know, that’s a great question because, you know, everybody’s in a different place, you know? I mean, I don’t know, it could be as odd as barometric pressure or altitude or, you know, economic situation or family issues or a lack of athleticism or lack of coordination or lack of access, you know, or just the opposite of all those things. You know, some people have have the access, they have the time, they have the money, they have no excuses, you know, but the fact of the matter is, you know, if there’s a if there’s gravity where you are and there’s a surface of the earth that you can move on, and there’s a willingness to to educate yourself, well, then yeah, you can, you can, everybody can do push ups, sit ups, you know, some kind of some form of cardio and some sort of leg or, or, you know, plyometric routine. And it’s just about, you know, deciding whether you want to figure that out and spend the time doing it. And it doesn’t have to be an hour.
No, it can be, you know, I mean, I’ve created a program called ten Minute Trainer for people who, you know, we say don’t have the time to exercise. But in reality, a lot of people just don’t like being physically uncomfortable. And so if you don’t like being physically uncomfortable for an hour, I get it for half an hour, I get it. But if you don’t understand the importance of moving for at least 10 minutes or 20 minutes a day, then you’re going to you’re going to you’re going to suffer from a level of discomfort and sadness that you don’t need to, as opposed to somebody who makes those those positive choices in their life, who, who has a much, much more positive outcome. I mean, moving physically and eating well creates for a completely different person.
Oh, I lost you.
Dr. Jeremy Weisz: 12:43
I’m here.
Tony Horton: 12:44
Do you see me?
Dr. Jeremy Weisz: 12:45
Yeah, I can see you. Can you see me?
Tony Horton: 12:49
You know I can’t see you anymore. All I have is a.
Tony Horton: 12:51
Did you.
Tony Horton: 12:52
Know? Oh, there you are. You’re back.
Tony Horton: 12:57
Brother.
Dr. Jeremy Weisz: 13:00
So with the fitness, when did you start getting traction results in your training business?
Tony Horton: 13:09
Well, you know, when I first started exercising, I was doing it for the sole purpose of, you know, like I said earlier, you know, for more social interaction with people. And I was an actor at that time. And you know, when you, when you’re in Hollywood and you’re looking for a couple of things, man, you’re looking for that agent, right? And you’re going through that whole getting your headshots taken care of and you’re trying to get in the union that catch 22 about trying to get in Screen Actors Guild and after. And you know you can’t get your screen actor.
Screen actors Guild card unless you’ve worked. You can’t work unless you’ve got a Screen Actor’s Guild card. You know, it’s the ultimate catch 22. So you’re doing a lot of these non-union gigs with the hope that an agent will see them and like, you sign, you get you a union gig. And there’s something called Taft-Hartley.
The reason why I’m saying all this, is there a reason for it? But, you know, the main problem for me was that I wasn’t getting the work I wanted to get because the agents that I was talking to were saying, look, dude, you, you don’t, you don’t look like the typical Californian. You’re a little pudgy around the waist. Your arms are a little bit skinny, you know, you’re a fairly decent looking human being if you want, if you want to create another edge and you want to, you want to be physically fit. Because a lot of the things they wanted to send me out on, you know, a lot of these auditions required somebody who looked a little fitter than I was.
And so that was the ultimate motivator for me. And, and, and then, you know, I started training for that sole purpose early on to meet people, but also to get to make some money, you know? So I wasn’t broke, I didn’t. I got tired of washing dishes, dishes and doing mime at the pier. So I just thought, this is another avenue.
But in the process of doing that, I was one of my many jobs was I was a PA over at 20th Century Fox, a production assistant, and I was working for this guy, Harlan Goodman. And, you know, Harlan was pretty stressful life trying to make a movie. And he saw that I was changing and I started training my own boss three days a week in the morning, and I didn’t know what I was doing. I had no clue. He just said, hey, make me look like you.
Based on the little I know, I’m doing cardio certain days, certain hours, certain, you know, at certain times of the day. And I’m also lifting weights and doing basic resistance pull ups and sit ups and crunches and squats and lunges. And I got the guy in phenomenal shape. You know, I mean, he went from doing nothing to eating better and exercising and it works for everybody. And then he introduced me to Tom Petty.
And, and, you know, when I was training some people in my building and him and maybe a secretary over the 20th century lot, but I wouldn’t call it a fitness business. It was just a guy making a few bucks on the side while also waiting tables doing mime and running around, you know, delivering scripts. And then when I started training Tom petty, everything changed for me, you know, because I thought in that moment, it’s time to get serious here. This guy is a big star, and I want to make sure I don’t hurt him. And I want to make sure that there’s a lot of people looking in, you know, checking me out.
You know, who is this guy, Tony Horton? What are his credentials? Is he even certified? You know? And so it was one of those, you know, things where Tom and I got along and he trusted me, and I got him in the best shape of his life.
And he went off on tour for months later and nobody recognized him. I mean, there’s Tom Petty with tank tops on, you know, completely ripped.
Tony Horton: 16:14
It’s three hour sets. People going, is that Tom Petty or Bruce Springsteen? What the hell’s going on? His band was even saying, Holy crap, man, this guy’s got more energy than he had when we were first starting out. And at that point, you know, within that community, the word got out.
And so at one point, I think you mentioned some of the people that I was training on an average Monday, Wednesday, Friday, it was Tom petty, Billy Idol, Annie Lennox, Stephen Stills, Bruce Springsteen. I had those five people in a row. Pretty sweet rocker to rocker to rocker. And then, you know, I mean, within the course of a year, I was up at 5:00 and I was coming home at 930 at night, just training anybody and everybody who thought I knew what I was doing. And even at that point, I still wasn’t certified.
But what I had was a curiosity about different types of training, whether it be Pilates or yoga or intervals or core or resistance exercises. And I brought that variety to the clients because it prevented boredom, injuries and plateaus. Right. Which are the three things that kept people from exercising. So that’s really how it shifted from guy at the pier doing mime to building a fitness fitness business.
Dr. Jeremy Weisz: 17:19
That’s one thing you incorporate in your programs is just a variety of things. When did you hit a like a tipping point or turning point for in terms of your fitness. Mind to do that because not everyone obviously that is, not everyone thinks like that. They just kind of do the same thing over and over a lot of times. When did that click in your head to do that?
Tony Horton: 17:38
Well, I have a form of add OCD that keeps me, you know, I think curious. I think a lot of people feel like they need to stick with what brung, you know? And so whether that’s Pilates or yoga or bodybuilding or whatever, they end up just doing this same myopic stuff because it did change them initially, but they’re not sometimes aware. And I talk about this a lot in my book. The big picture is understanding when it changes and understanding that variety is the spice of fitness and understanding that if you if you start working on your weaknesses as much as your strengths, or you start working on, on, on, on any kind of fitness that’s brand new to you, then it’s going to enhance already enhance the things that you’re pretty good at.
So when you add, when you’re a bodybuilder and you had yoga. You’re going to be a better bodybuilder if you’re if you’re typically somebody who just likes Pilates and yoga and you start adding resistance exercises, you’re going to be better at Pilates and yoga. I mean, it’s, it’s like a rocket science, you know, it’s not rocket science. It’s what I’m basically saying, always continue to grow and get better and not be bored and not get injured. Typically, if you’re smart with your with form and function when it comes to exercise.
Dr. Jeremy Weisz: 18:49
You’re working with a lot of celebrities, what’s the next milestone that you hit with your business?
Tony Horton: 18:56
Well, you know, whether it be a celebrity or an executive or a mom of five, you know? That business had a ceiling, you know, because there’s only so many hours in a day. And I tried early on to try to recruit other people, you know, in case I was traveling or I didn’t have enough hours, and I just didn’t want to build that business.
Dr. Jeremy Weisz: 19:17
Because you’re already.
Dr. Jeremy Weisz: 19:17
Working 530 in the morning till ten at night. So you can only add a few more hours there.
Tony Horton: 19:23
You know. And I was getting 20% of what the other trainers that I hired. But then my clients would always say, I want you. I don’t want so and so, you know, I mean, they’re good, but they don’t have your sense of humor. They don’t have your, your style and your techniques and your sense of humor or whatever.
I always say that. But so, you know, I thought to myself, wow, I’m not going to, I’m still going to live in this three bedroom apartment with a view of a convalescent home with a broken down car. I’m not having to do the other types of things that I was doing prior anymore, but but I need to go to the next level. So I was still trying to work as an actor. I was still going out on commercial auditions and a couple theatrical auditions.
I got a couple of movies here and there, small, tiny parts that if you blinked, you wouldn’t even know I was in the movie. But, you know, I was pursuing two careers at once with the hope that, you know, maybe in the fitness industry, I could become a spokesperson or maybe within the, you know, as an actor, I could get a TV series or become a regular commercial actor. I didn’t really know, you know, I didn’t really understand that these two, these two careers were going to come together and create what we’ve got now.
And so I just got very fortunate because a friend of mine worked for NordicTrack. He was out of Minneapolis and he said, you know, I think you’d be the perfect spokesperson for some of the Nordic track line of fitness equipment. So I went up to Minneapolis and I did a little audition and they liked it. And I, you know, I worked for them for a couple of years. And so now I had that spokesperson background in conjunction with the trainer so I could walk and chew gum, you know, because typically they would try to hire a trainer person who couldn’t read a teleprompter.
Dr. Jeremy Weisz: 20:55
Yeah. So what were some of the skills you learned that were helpful?
Tony Horton: 20:59
Very much so. You know, but a lot of it is serendipitous, you know? It wasn’t like I said, okay, I’m going to do this. And in the course of six months, I’m going to reach this goal. You know, I went from somebody who said no quite often because I didn’t have the self-esteem or confidence or wherewithal to be able to do some of the things that I was invited to do.
And I had a couple of bad experiences because I showed up unprepared for a voiceover job or for a spokesperson job where I just wasn’t up to snuff. And so, you know, that’s why I continue to work on my acting career and working on my voiceover stuff so that I could better represent a particular product if that opportunity came along again. And so, you know, with NordicTrack, it was the perfect experience for me, you know, because you have to start, start here, walk over here, talk, talk about the piece of equipment. Some of the stuff that you have to say is on a teleprompter. Sometimes it’s not. And so just your brain is going at the same time while you’re trying to stay relaxed and look confident.
Dr. Jeremy Weisz: 21:53
Right?
Tony Horton: 21:54
And it wasn’t easy going at first, you know, it was really hard. But I put myself in these positions. I exposed myself to situations that were scary and hard. And then, you know, like anything else, it’s about mileage, you know, it’s about doing enough of something so that you become pretty confident, pretty good at it. And then, you know, at that point, I was acting and I was training and I had this pretty good life.
And I had, I had two broken down cars instead of one. And I was able to sort of pay my bills and work on getting out of debt and go on the occasional ski trip and living in the same apartment for 21 years. But it was a nice three bedroom rent control apartment in Santa Monica. So, you know, not so terrible. But then, I was in the right place at the right time when I met Carl Deitchler. Carl Deitchler is the CEO of Beachbody, and it was a non-existent company in 1999.
Dr. Jeremy Weisz: 22:39
So how did you meet him?
Tony Horton: 22:41
A mutual friend of mine said, you got to meet this guy. You have the same sense of humor. You both like to train. You both, you know, like to laugh. And that’s what it was.
You know, we just got along. You know, he loved my training techniques. I went off to Canada about three months after I met him, and I set him up with a program, a program that was very similar to what I said Tom petty up with or Bruce Springsteen, you know, which was sort of a six day a week program rotating between cardiovascular exercises, high heart rate, lung and leg stuff and resistance training, and just kind of going back and forth.
And I came back three months later, actually 4 or 5 months after that film. And I looked at him, I didn’t recognize him. And I said, wow, man, you look insane. What happened to you? She said, I did that thing you gave me. And I said, wow, you stuck with it. He said, yeah, I really believed in who you are and what you did.
And, I’ve never looked this good and felt this good. And at that point in his career, he was looking to do his next fitness program. And so we created something called Great Body guaranteed. He paid me a flat rate of 2000 bucks, which for me at that time was, you know, good money, a couple of thousand dollars was great money. And we put it out there on these wild spots, these regional spots, you know, like Tampa, Florida, Seattle, you know, maybe Poughkeepsie, New York.
And we rolled the dice. And every time we spent some money on media, it made money and it kept growing and growing and growing. Investors saw what Carl had done. And at that point I thought, oh, all right, I’m on TV. Yeah.
That’s cool. Finally. And then, you know, we did power 90, which was really the program before P90x, that thing, you know, the first year tanked because people would look at it and think, six days of exercise, I got to eat really well three times a day. Where’s the magic chair that.
Tony Horton: 24:16
Three days. You know. But there was a very, very substantial percentage that did buy it and loved it and begin to and began to submit their before and after pictures and their videos. And we would get this material and we would look at it and think, oh my God, this, this thing is really working. I mean, it worked with our test group, but you know, most test groups, it’s pretty, you know, it’s pretty.
There’s a lot of rules there.
Tony Horton: 24:37
Pretty fit.
Tony Horton: 24:38
Pretty well. They weren’t fit. But you know, there were a lot of contingencies for them to stay part of the test group. You got to show up to the workouts and you’ve got to eat the food we tell you to eat. And not everybody did that, but the few, you know, maybe the 8 or 9 people who did made up that first infomercial, which like I said, you know, it was just barely hanging on.
And then we got these before and after pictures from real people, and we got real video from real people, and we injected that into the infomercial and power 90 exploded. It really, it built the company and I was able to move out of my three bedroom rent control apartment at that point.
Dr. Jeremy Weisz: 25:14
So tell me. I think it’s interesting because what things in power 90 because you have this test group. And what did you find out from the test group that you ended up really working in power 90 that you wouldn’t have known otherwise? Because I think this applies to any business. You know, we don’t test enough things to know what to actually put into the product.
We just kind of do what we think is right without going through that test group.
Tony Horton: 25:39
You know, I had known at that point, especially after having gotten Billy Idol and Tom Petty and Annie Lennox and others in pretty good shape. You know, there’s, you know, here’s the crazy thing. Everything works if you’re willing to show up and do it. I mean, every diet out there works if you’re willing to restrict your calories and eat better quality foods. But how do you sustain that?
How do you maintain that you know the variables, you know what forms of accountability are in place? What is your plan? What is your purpose? And if those things are lined up, then you’ll be successful. I don’t care if it’s with me or somebody else or CrossFit or or, you know, gymnastics training or mountain biking, whatever it is.
You’ve got to kind of be enthusiastic about what it is that you want to do. And everybody has a different a different reason why. I had known prior to creating power 90, what was it was it’s a simple formula. Number one, it’s got to be consistency. You’re not going to get results two, three times a week because you know, two days on means five days off.
And the five days are always going to beat out the two. I don’t care how hard you’re working on those two days, even on even with three days on and four days off or four days on and three days off four days on, it’s just still a struggle. But you know, it’s like everything else, you’re going to have better success with your teeth overall if you brush them and floss them on a regular basis.
Tony Horton: 26:55
If you’re sleeping eight hours every night, you’re going to you’re going to have low cortisol levels. Your growth hormone is going to go up and you’re going to have more energy and enthusiasm to go about your day and add training and, and keep your cravings at a minimum. You know, there are certain rules to life. You know what I mean? You got to begin to figure those out.
And I had already known what those were when I created the power 90 test group. So I put Carl, our CEO, and John Congdon, our president. They were my guinea pigs for the first time. I mean, it changed and morphed. We took moves out.
We put new moves in. We we we we we messed with, you know, sequencing over and over and over again. And so they went through the, you know, the rigors the first time around. And even after we went through the test group, the first time we thought, oh, you know what, we have to add more, more pull exercises. We need to add an extra ten minutes of, of cardiovascular training here.
You know, so it really was a real test phase. But by the time we actually got it to video for people to buy and I’m talking video back in those days because, you know, nobody had DVDs yet. They had their half inch tapes, you know.
Tony Horton: 27:58
Things like Buick in their living room underneath their TV set. But at that point, you know, we knew what the formula was. We knew how long the cardio moves routine should be. We knew what kind of what the sequences of resistance exercises were. We wanted to introduce yoga to a program that was, you know, that programs like that hadn’t seen that before because I thought that was really important.
And, and it was just, it was really amazing, you know, to go from total obscurity to having something that was on the air 24 seven and then meeting people that were doing the program at airports or grocery store or walking the sidewalk, you know, people would see me. And it was the most bizarre sensation for me, thinking, Holy crap, this person recognizes me. What did I owe them money back in, you know, back in 75, what happened? They would tell me their whole story because they’re seeing me every single day for 90 days or more. And it was just a really, really fun shift in my life.
It was really cool to have that experience and meet people like that. And here we are, you know, it was 99 and here we are, 2014, still doing it and still having pretty good success with programs like you said, with one on one P90x X2X3. You know, P90x plus, you know, it goes on and on.
Dr. Jeremy Weisz: 29:14
I mean, it sounds.
Dr. Jeremy Weisz: 29:14
Like an upward trajectory, but I know there were blips on the screen. What were some of the obstacles or challenges you had to overcome?
Tony Horton: 29:25
Well, you know, it’s like any, it’s like any band, any rock and roll band out there that comes out with that, that, that, that premiere album, you know, and it just blows up and then you can’t figure out why. Two albums later, the band is broken up and they’re not around and they can’t make any music anymore. It’s not easy to do. It’s not easy to top yourself. I gotta, I gotta say.
And so you have to be willing at least I have to be willing to walk your own talk. You know what I mean? Put myself in situations with other types of physical activity that I’m not very good at. For example, P90x3 has a Pilates routine in it, and I was I didn’t I thought Pilates was silly, much like I thought yoga was silly 12, 15 years earlier. And again, I was wrong.
You know what I mean? So I finally, at my age, at 55, I stopped judging fitness programs that I’m unfamiliar with. It’s just stupid. I mean, I just jump in feet first. I mean, right now I’m taking hustle classes with my girlfriend, Shauna.
And on a scale of 1 to 1010, meaning I’m awesome and a one, meaning I’m the worst person in class. I’m a -40. Okay. That’s. You would think that everything that I’ve done trained pantomime, I can do handstand push ups.
I can do backflips on a trampoline. I can’t shift my weight from right to left and turn and twist and hold my girl without kicking her in the stepping on her foot and heads and getting dizzy while doing it, you know? So I finally, I’m at that stage of life where I understand the importance of always educating myself and becoming more familiar with mixed martial arts, with Pilates, with yoga, with core and functional fitness. And if you look at P90x two, for example, it’s so different than P90x, you can’t believe it. And it’s very hard.
P90x 2 is an advanced program that takes you from that P90x fitness into the next level. And a lot of people who buy P90x two don’t want to go there. They’re very disappointed because you’re doing push ups on four medicine balls. You’re doing a move called impossibles. And I named them that because for the first two months, one rep is impossible.
And so people just think, well, if I can’t physically do the move, then why am I even bothering with this thing? And so the whole idea here is you’re not, you’re not doing this program. It’s not like P90x. You’re trying to change your body and lose a bunch of weight and get more fit. Now you’re trying to take that fit body and learn something.
You’re learning a skill. You’re learning to be better. You’re learning to be athletic, you’re working on your proprioceptors and that connective tissue, which makes you a better athlete. So yeah, you know what I mean? I mean, if you look at any athlete, they’ve all gone through that, that process, you know?
And so now I’m teaching you how to do that process. So if there was a blip in the sequence of success, I would say that P90 X2 unfortunately, was not a product that a lot of people gravitated to because it was too hard. And that’s why we changed with P90x3. We said, okay, let’s get back to the basics of P90x, create routines that are still hard, still effective, but in general pretty doable for most people. But at the same time, let’s cut that timeframe in half that workout time frame in half so that we kind of kill that excuse of not making time.
And so I think as unbelievably successful as P90x was, X3 might not be there yet, but it’s still early. It’s too early to say, but our success rate is five times what P90x because people are finishing.
Dr. Jeremy Weisz: 32:41
It, right? When you hear 30 minutes, you’re like, okay, this is doable. I can do 30 minutes.
Tony Horton: 32:47
You just hate exercise. You know, you just just can’t, you know, if you can’t swallow that half an hour, you know, Shauna, for example, P90x was just too daunting, too too hard, too long, too much time in the gym. And I understand that. You know, I mean, she’s pretty busy. She works for me, so I keep her pretty busy.
But x3 she just finished it. Boom. I think she missed a day, but that one day she missed. She went to a Pilates class, so she really didn’t miss any days. And so she’s fired up to start her second round because she can get her mind around that 30 minutes.
And so, you know, that’s why over the course of of this time, you gotta understand what the public wants. You gotta understand what they need. And you have to understand that it changes all the time.
Dr. Jeremy Weisz: 33:26
So what, what worked really well to get it out there? I know you obviously had infomercials where there were certain components within the infomercial that you felt worked really well. And what else like for someone who’s like, I don’t have the budget for an infomercial, what else can they do to get their product or service out there?
Tony Horton: 33:41
Well, you know, you gotta there’s a couple of things you have to have. You have to have a website. If you’re in my industry and you don’t have a website, well then you know, what are you doing? You know, you might as well be 1965 itself a really slick website that tells everybody who you are and why you’re so cool. Second, get yourself a YouTube channel.
And if you have an iPhone, you got a YouTube channel. You know, I mean, it’s not that hard to set it up. And so you want to do 3 to 5 minute little sequences about why you’re awesome. You know what I mean? I don’t care if it’s physical or it’s purely text or you want to blog, right?
So you want to use social media and you need, you know, do you need Warner Brothers or NBC? No. The amazing thing about this, the way you and I are communicating is it gets information out there to a lot of people who otherwise wouldn’t get it, you know? And so you need an electronic press kit. What does an electronic press kit.
It’s basically a really cool. You hit a link, boom. And this thing pops up and it’s got maybe five, six, seven pages of who you are, why you’re cool. Some great text. You know, your mission statement, some great, maybe some video of some interviews that you’ve done or interview or just interviews you’ve or, or just interviews you’ve done with yourself, you know, explaining who you are and why you want to help and inform people about being healthier and fitter.
I don’t care if it’s even fitness. It can be finance, it can be relationships, it can be anything. You know what I mean? So those are sort of the basics. Twitter. Instagram. Facebook, Tumblr. Boom. Use them. Use them as much as you can and try to build that fan base that way. And then go ahead.
Dr. Jeremy Weisz: 35:06
I was going to say, so what did you do with the cues from the P90x? Worked really well. And what did you do with the now the P90x three, because of what you learned that just launched P90x through the roof or you already have that fan base. So it was easier. Well, I guess that proves because with the P90x two, it didn’t do as well as you wanted.
So what did you do with the P90x three that you learned from P90x?
Tony Horton: 35:30
Well, we learned that not everybody wants to be LeBron James. You know, not everybody wants to do backflips on their skis. You know, I mean, that’s the kind of program that P90x two is. It really does focus on being a better athlete. But most people are too busy and, you know, trying to get through their day to day.
And all they’re really trying to do is sort of sustain and maintain what they may be achieved with P90x. But, you know, I did a phone interview with somebody only about a week ago, and he had done P90x, P90x two, he’d done P90x three, but his his biggest issue was being able to link them together, program after program after program, you know, without, you know, he would take 2 or 2 days off and two months would go by and realize, oh my God, I’m right back where I was working so hard for 90 days and then taking two months off and feeling like I have to start all over again. That’s just a horrible feeling. That feeling is worse than somebody who’s clueless and has never exercised, ever, because there’s nothing worse, nothing worse than being at the mountain and being on top of that mountain and then letting it all fall away, and then feeling like you have to start all over again. You know, if you look at me, I understand the importance of regular exercise and regular diet and, and the key, like I said earlier in our interview, it’s about being consistent and not being attached to the outcome, showing up anyway, doing your best and forgetting the rest.
And that’s why, that’s why we decided that P90x3 shouldn’t be an extension of two. It should be. It should really be about getting back to basics, which is what P90x was. But eliminating the I don’t have enough time excuse by making everything 30 minutes instead of about 55 minutes to an hour. Because the idea here is to get people there’s this little voice inside of your head that says, oh my God, I got to do an hour.
Dr. Jeremy Weisz: 37:22
Right?
Tony Horton: 37:23
Tony’s funny. The results are happening. And I’ve done that for the last 72 days, and I’m going to fight for that day 90. But I tell you, man, when day 90 comes, comes around. For most people, it doesn’t feel like day 91.
It feels like day one. Even though they fit and they’re strong, they’ve lost weight and they feel good. It still feels like, Holy crap, I have to do this for 90 days. Again. I just have to do it today.
When today’s done, you figure out who you’re going to do it with and what time are you going to do it? And then you’re going to have day 9293. And then at some point you’re going to be at day, you know, 10,016, 30 years from now. And that’s the mindset. But people struggle with that hour long concept and we know it works.
So what do we have to do with P90x3? We had to we had to shut me up a little bit, a little less talking from Tony and making sure that the sequences of the exercises were such that you could have very little downtime between each one. So typically P90x had 20 to 24 exercises per workout. How do we make the most out of 16 to 18 exercises per workout? Well, the sequence has got to be so that you can go from body part to body part to body part to body part.
If you look at it, if you look at the challenge in P90x3, it’s pull ups, push ups, pull ups, push ups, pull ups, push ups. But at the same time, we’re not telling you to do. You got to do 12 of this and 25 of that. We tell you that you get to pick the number so that you can stay with the pace of the routine. And then over the course of time, because practice makes for more athletic people, your, your, maybe you’re starting out with five pull ups and 15 push ups.
Just, just because you’re doing it on a, you’re doing it more often and you’re doing the other things that are going to help that improve that those numbers are going to go up. Inevitably, they have to go up. All you have to show up and the numbers go up. And oh, by the way, your fat percentage goes down, your muscle mass increases, your brain functions better, you sleep better, your sex drive improves, you have more energy, you have more, you have a greater desire to kind of explore outside of the, you know, indoor and the outside world. And that’s the whole thing about it.
That’s what the whole thing is about. It’s about taking these basic movements that you do in front of your TV, so you can go out in the world and have some fun.
Dr. Jeremy Weisz: 39:32
So what’s you know, you ask people they’re big y to motivate them to work out at this point, what’s your big Y that just keeps you going? Because you could probably go sit on a beach somewhere if you wanted to, but you keep producing and keep moving. What’s your what kind of motivates you to keep going?
Tony Horton: 39:49
Well, you know, in this interview with this guy the other day, you know, it was really about, you know, how do I stay motivated? And it was about accountability, motivation and inspiration. You know, those are sort of typically the things that people struggle with. And I asked him right out of the box, I said, do you work out alone or do you work out with somebody else? He says, I’ve always worked out alone.
I said, well, there you go. That’s part of your problem. You need to surround yourself with some really cool people who want to do fun stuff with you because you’ll push them, they’ll push you, and it creates that accountability because you want to. You don’t want to disappoint them. You’re going to disappoint.
Disappointing yourself is one thing, but typically most people show up more often if they’ve got some people to work out with. And so what inspires me is I love getting together with people who love to kick butt, you know? So I work out, I have workouts scheduled seven days a week. That doesn’t mean I necessarily work out seven days a week, but I will work out 13 days in a row and go, I should take a day off, you know, I mean, I took yesterday off, I took Wednesday off. That’s the second day I’ve taken off in 16.
Dr. Jeremy Weisz: 40:43
I was going to ask you about law 11 of your book and if you actually abide by it. Recharge. Recover. Relax.
Tony Horton: 40:50
Charge by. I love sitting on my butt with my girl and watching, you know, episodes of Dexter. And I mean, I do, I do a probably more TV time than most people would expect. That is my time to just chill. I mean, I love the news, I love politics, I love to educate myself about the world.
I don’t want to stick my head in the sand. I want to know what’s going on, you know? So I watch the shows like Vice and Frontline and 60 minutes in the nightly news. I just I’m it’s super interesting to me, but it’s also a chance for me to relax. I go to yoga every week.
Yoga is a combination of yin and yang. It’s not one or the other. It’s super restorative. It’s great for balance. It’s great for increasing flexibility and range of motion, but it’s also strength.
But there’s a real super relaxing element to it. And, and, and one thing that I don’t do that I wish I did more, which is really sit back and read. You know, just kind of I mean, for example, I go on, I go on YouTube a lot. It was a great doctor, doctor Berg, who I don’t know if you’ve ever interviewed Doctor Berg. I’m not sure his name.
Phenomenal guy. Super bright really, you know, knows about health and wellness and nutrition. And I just sat back for 20 minutes and that was my form of relaxation, just sitting in a chair, you know, learning about glycogen and glucose and liver and pancreas and, and, and horse, horse, horse. Human human growth. Oh my God.
Dr. Jeremy Weisz: 42:17
You were just thinking of Shauna’s Shauna’s website, right?
Tony Horton: 42:21
How that interacts with, you know, trying to get that in levels of cortisol. I mean, this is fascinating to me because, you know, it really comes down to, oh, yeah, I’ve got to eat seven cups of vegetables every day if I want to stay young and have tons of energy. And last but not least, you know, I, I, I’m consistent and I maintain my exercise intensity because it makes me happier than when I don’t. Yeah. And you know, if you’re, if you’re looking at our interview, you have to decide whether you want to be happy or sad.
And that’s a choice, you know? It’s a choice in more ways than one. But the potential to be more happy more often without having to get, you know, into your head too much about it is from physical movement because physical movement changes your brain chemistry. And brain chemistry is what, what allows you to make decisions every given moment. And the beautiful thing is that’s happening every day.
It can happen, you know, that could happen 50 times in the course of an hour. And so if you’re exercising on a regular basis in conjunction with eating healthier foods, you’re going to be happier than somebody who isn’t. It’s really that it’s that clear. It’s that simple. It’s that universal. And so that’s why I do it.
Dr. Jeremy Weisz: 43:30
It sounds like, you know, the big thing that inspires you is surrounding yourself With inspiring, motivated, unbelievable people. So who are your favorite people? And you can’t say, Shauna, who are your favorite people to work out with? And who are your favorite people to surround yourself with business wise?
Tony Horton: 43:51
Wow, that’s a great question. You know, a lot of the people that you know from P90x are still people I train with. I still train with Bobby Stevenson from chest and back, Scotty Fifer scissors, you know, world famous Scotty Fifer scissors. I still train with him. And now there’s a new group of young guys that I train with from, from, from the original P90x three test group.
Oh, this guy Victor, who’s in P90x three. Kevin and editor. Now editor is the is really sort of the star. You know, Kevin and Victor and editor are really the stars of the brand new P90x three infomercial because there are three overweight, overwhelmed, unhappy, miserable guys who exercised for half an hour for 90 days who no longer. They’re not those guys anymore.
They’re confident, they’re happy. They’re fun, they’re athletic. They’ve completely changed their lives physically, mentally and emotionally 180 degrees. So I’m thinking I want to go hang out with them. You know, especially Kevin Mims. The guy’s 23, you know, so here’s this young, ambitious young actor. You know, he’s just sort of, you know, 23 years ago, he was an embryo, you know, and now he’s.
Just, it’s really cool. And he made this choice and he made his decision. And so I want to hang out with those guys. I want to younger guys that are willing to push the envelope used to be, you know, really overweight and miserable because they inspire me. You know, I mean, I go to, I go to yoga on Saturdays and, and I’m inspired by the guy who teaches the class.
You know, Ish Moran is the guy who introduced me to, well, he’s one of the first people to introduce me to yoga, but he’s hit. If you look at the P90x original yoga workout, it’s inspired by ish. You know, I hang out with Ted McDonald. Tim McDonald has created the P90x two yoga sequence, and he’s a guy that I’ve traveled the world with. I’ve been to I’ve been to Kosovo and Korea and Italy and Japan, and I’ve been around the world, you know, on, on, on military tours with him and friends of mine and these yoga retreats that we do together.
You know, we were in, we were in, in Italy, which was ridiculous. And in Tuscany and Rome and Siena and, and it was because of this guy, you know what I mean? So my life is much more interesting. It’s expanded tenfold because I’m hanging out with people who want to see the world and kick ass and, and work out hard. And those are the people that I train with.
I know there was a second part to your question.
Dr. Jeremy Weisz: 46:04
Yeah. I want to ask about the business now, the who you like to hang out with from the business perspective, but I have to ask this. So if you had to choose one person that you want to train with or train in general right now that you haven’t trained yet, famous or not famous, who would you want to train?
Tony Horton: 46:24
Wow, that’s your $64,000 question, right? You know, there’s people that I’m intrigued. Intrigued by I think Elon Musk is certainly one of them. Who is it? Musk. Oh, yeah. You know, sex and Tesla. You know, he’s the I know. I have a friend of mine that works with him occasionally, and he says, you just sit next to this guy for four hours and you can’t believe how big his brain is. You know, which is pretty cool. Yeah.
I think there’s probably, you know, like somebody like Steve Nash. Steve Nash has I’ve always been a big fan of Steve Nash. I’d love to meet with him and train with him. You know. Blake Griffin is another guy. I’m really impressed.
Dr. Jeremy Weisz: 47:02
I’m sure he’s amazing.
Tony Horton: 47:04
He’s such a rock star. The Clippers struggled a little bit last night but that’s right. Hopefully they’ll come back you know. Yeah there’s people like that. I’m working on a I just did a pilot which I’m really excited about. And the pilot is TV pilot. You know, we’re going to actually go to some, some.
Dr. Jeremy Weisz: 47:23
Can you say what the what it’s called or.
Tony Horton: 47:26
Not yet, but I can say what it’s about, and it’s really about meeting some of the people that I’m most impressed by. Not only people who are great athletes, but maybe maybe a first responder or a, or a truly altruistic individual like Scott Pfeifer. You know, Scott Pfeiffer’s from P90x has started the go campaign, and Scott is making a huge difference for kids around the world. You know, kids, young orphans around the world, just doing an interview with Scott and showing people, hey, look, you don’t you don’t have to be a miserable lawyer for a firm who’s getting the snot, beat him, beat out of him every day. You can you can create a business that changes lives and end up being ten times more happy.
That’s really kind of Scott’s, you know? Yeah. And there are a lot of stories like that, a lot of people out there like that. And that’s what the series is about. It’s sort of immersing myself in these people’s lives and hearing what their stories are and sort of showing to our audience.
Look, you know, you don’t have to. You don’t have to be in that cubicle doing that job, you know? Maybe there’s a hobby out there that you really love. You know, focus on that hobby because that hobby would turn into your next business. A great short story is there was a guy who had just that lifestyle.
You know, he was working for the man. Pretty miserable, but he loved bikes. He loved mountain bikes and road bikes. And he would spend the entire Saturday at his local bike shop, you know. And then the manager of the bike shop said, geez, man, you’re here every day.
Why don’t you just you want to work for me on Saturdays? Because I need a part time help. Five years later, he owned the business.
Dr. Jeremy Weisz: 48:53
Wow.
Tony Horton: 48:54
He’s not the guy who’s, you know, crunching numbers in a cubicle. He’s the guy that owns the store doing what he does. And so, you know, I talk about that a lot in my book in the big picture is that, you know, look, do do what you love, do what you want, and you might not be able to make a living at that right away. And that’s a beautiful thing. If you look at Beachbody has this Beachbody coaching opportunity.
I met two gals in New York City. One was a former New York City employee. The other one was a teacher. And, you know, they were overweight women and jobs that provided enough money to be able to feed their kids and assist with the bills. You know, and now they have fit clubs where 150 people show up on Saturdays.
And they have these coaching businesses where they’re, you know, they’re selling my products and other products at Beachbody makes and they’re making six figures.
Dr. Jeremy Weisz: 49:39
Wow.
Tony Horton: 49:40
And they’re both one lost like £100. The other one lost £45. And they’re completely different human beings because they’re doing what they love. And so I think that’s really ultimately what it’s all about.
Dr. Jeremy Weisz: 49:50
So who do you surround yourself from besides the fitness aspect, the business aspect, because you have, you know, books coming out, you know, P90x3, you have Tony Horton’s Kitchen. I’ve watched your videos on making smoothies. Tell me, who do you surround yourself from a business perspective? Who are some of your mentors?
Tony Horton: 50:08
Very lucky. And so, you know, when I met Carl Daikeler and John Congdon at Beachbody in 1999, I didn’t know who I was surrounding myself with, was I, you know, I was like a young actor who was just looking for a gig, looking for some money so I could pay my bills. And so when two total strangers for the most part say, hey, you’re a cool guy. Can I start training with you? Oh, by the way, your training techniques have changed me.
Hey, do you want $2,000 for a video? You know, it wasn’t like I said, well, I’m going to pick you and I’m going to pick you and I’m going to pick you. No, I was just, you know, somebody asked me to do something. And I was at that stage in my career where I wasn’t afraid not to try.
Dr. Jeremy Weisz: 50:42
Right.
Tony Horton: 50:43
Past I had been and I just said yes. I said yes to two people who wanted to give me money to develop a program. So who knew the company was going to grow and be as massive as it is? I mean, it could have gone away and it could have. I could be doing something else.
You know, who knows? But so, you know, I make sure that while I’m working with that organization and that’s really the bulk of my income, you know, let’s face facts that I try to do anything and everything I can, you know, and I try to be as creative as I can. I try to, you know, show up and be, you know, the best possible employee, not really taking an employee. I’m sort of a hired gun. I’m a consultant.
But, you know, we’ve had this kind of a success over these many years. Because I really do care about the customer. I care about the company. I care about the ideas. I care about what direction we’re going in.
But at the same time, I’m not going to sit on my hands and assume that that’s going to go on forever. There’s a lot of people in my industry and, you know, we can name them on two hands. People that were super famous all over TV were gone. Right? Gone, because they just assumed that that wave is going to go on forever. That’s Tony Horton. I developed Tony Horton Kitchen because it’s another way to sort of help people understand it’s important to eat really well. You know, it’s if people don’t know what that is, it’s organic, fresh food delivered to your door. If you live in the continental United States, this is fresh food.
It’s not frozen, so it’s triple sealed. You order it on one day and it’s at your door 48 hours later and all the time. And we’re also working with 7-Eleven to try to create that model at 7-Eleven because, you know, there’s there’s a really cool young executives at 7-Eleven right now who understand they’ve got this massive international company that’s selling hot dogs, Slurpees and bagels and Red bull.
Dr. Jeremy Weisz: 52:23
Good point. Yeah, yeah.
Tony Horton: 52:24
Oh, and I’m thinking, and a lot of them in the middle of these food deserts all around the country, all around the world. And they and they understand, you know, these young guns over there came to us and said, you make this great product and we want to be able to get it in your stores. And so we hope for a late May, early June launch. We’re very close. We’re excited about Tony Horton Kitchen not only delivered to your door.
And by the way, here comes that first plug of the interview, Tony Horton kitchen.com. Go check it out. You can do five days a week, seven. You can do breakfast, lunch and dinner. You can do lunch and dinner only vegan, pescatarian, flexitarian, whatever you want to do.
Right? So there’s that business outside of Beachbody. And so I’ve surrounded myself with, with, with some great people at 7-Eleven and, and, and two high school friends of mine that were, you know, kind of business guys that want to get into something different. And we’re working together to try to do that, do that. And then I’m trying to start my own clothing line, and we hope to have that out and about come end of July and August.
The samples for the men’s stuff are in. It’s. This stuff is so beautiful, so state of the art. The material is so awesome, you know. I mean, we’re so excited.
Dr. Jeremy Weisz: 53:25
So what is it? What is the material?
Tony Horton: 53:27
Well, you know, if you look at if you it’s, you know, it’s high end stuff. It’s like a cross between a Ralph Lauren sport and Under Armour or Nike or, you know, that kind of quality. But there are different materials, you know, some that breathe. The weight is just right. It works really good.
You know, I mean, like, for example, it’s material that, you know, if you’ve been in it for a couple of hours, it doesn’t, you don’t smell like you’ve, you know, lived in a sewer for three days, right? Those kinds of things matter. It’s, I don’t, I don’t want to do just t shirts with my logo on it. I want and women have been getting all the cool stuff, you know what I mean? Guys get t shirts and sweatpants made of cotton.
I mean, you know, there are some companies that are making nicer stuff. Like if you look at a company called Arc’teryx or Mountain Hardwear or Northface, they’re getting away from The mountain climbing gear and the ski gear are beginning to make fitness wear, and they’re making beautiful stuff out of beautiful, beautiful material. But I wanted to start there. I didn’t want to make my way there. I wanted to start there. And those samples are coming in in the next couple of weeks.
Dr. Jeremy Weisz: 54:28
It seems like two like such a different industry and a huge learning curve. What were some of the. Yeah, what were some of the things that pitfalls you hit with though? I mean, food and then clothing seems like you have manufacturing all these difficulties. What were some of the pitfalls that you wish you watched out for?
Tony Horton: 54:48
Well, you know, these experiences building my own brands are not that dissimilar from what Karl and John was going, you know, happening to them when they were building Beachbody. And it was kind of a shot in the dark. You have this vision about something that you really believe in, and you only hope to God that you get in bed with the right people who have the same mindset, that you have this ethic that you have to have, that are willing to kind of do deals where everybody benefits and not somebody you know doing better than somebody else. You know. And so, you know, without getting into details, there were some major pitfalls with Tony Horton Kitchener early on.
You know what I mean? Our vendor wasn’t always the best and always on time and paying on time.
Dr. Jeremy Weisz: 55:27
It’s tough.
Tony Horton: 55:28
Really hard, you know. I mean, it doesn’t mean you.
Dr. Jeremy Weisz: 55:29
Stop especially.
Dr. Jeremy Weisz: 55:30
Fresh food and delivered quickly. That seems really difficult actually.
Tony Horton: 55:35
He already had a business where he was doing that. You know, he had a regular that was, you know, our original vendor was somebody did that for a living and saw that my you know, that Tony Horton brand was pretty popular. And so he said to us, he came to us and said, what would you want in these food deals? What would you want it to look like? What kind of food, you know?
And so he already had his kitchen, he already had that going on. And so he already had the packaging.
Dr. Jeremy Weisz: 55:58
So partnering with someone who’s doing it, who’s an expert is key.
Tony Horton: 56:03
It will help. That’s how I did it. I wouldn’t say anybody. And you look at 7-Eleven. 7-Eleven has 26 commissaries around the country.
So, you know, they make it on a Saturday night. It’s in the store on Sunday morning. Right. But the idea here is, yeah, we’re not making bagels and donuts in your commissary. Right? Sandwiches that have 1500 ingredients in them, you know. Do you have access to, to, you know, farm raised, farm raised chickens? Do you have to whole grain breads? Do you have access to, you know. So they had to kind of, they had to do their due diligence in regards to finding different vendors so that the food is more healthy.
Dr. Jeremy Weisz: 56:38
Yeah, I like that changing fitness now changing food. And Tony, I want to get before I bring on the special guest, I want to know what one of your favorite stories is from the big picture from the book.
Tony Horton: 56:52
One of my favorite stories. Yeah, from. You look at the chapter intensity. I was, I was when I was in, when I was in Korea, I was fortunate enough to get a ride on an F-16. And so. Oh, Shawna doesn’t like that story. I shouldn’t tell that story. Oh, it was Japan. I’m getting my. Yeah.
Dr. Jeremy Weisz: 57:10
Oh, she mentioned. I have that in my notes to ask about this because I asked her what questions I should ask and she said, mention the F-16. So go on.
Tony Horton: 57:19
Well, you know, yeah, I was down in Japan and, and a lot of the, a lot of the guys on the base, the Air Force base were all using P90x. So they found a certain intensity to that. So they thought I would love an F-16 flight. And it’s a pretty long story, but a long story. Good. It was a lot more intense than I anticipated. You know, I threw up seven times.
Dr. Jeremy Weisz: 57:38
Oh, really?
Tony Horton: 57:40
Yeah. Oh, seven times. Easily. They told me not to eat too much, and they told me to eat a lot because the training process is almost eight hours. You’ve got to learn about the flight suit.
You got to get that thing on. You got to get your breathing, you know, correct. You got to go through a full physical, you got to do your parachute test. You have to do your ejection seat test. There’s all these things that you’ve got to go through during the course of the day.
It’s pretty, you know, you don’t just hop in and go, you know, they want to prepare you in case there’s an emergency or something, right? So, you know, breaking the sound barrier was, you know, going 900 miles an hour. But you don’t really notice that because the boom happens behind you. But you just you can see the speedometer there. It’s pretty cool.
We broke three G’s, five G’s a couple times and then 8.8 GS. We’re trying to go nine G’s. And if you break nine G’s, you get A9G pin. But it was a cold, rainy day. So the jet just couldn’t get up to nine. But it didn’t matter because I, you know, when you’re doing the scariest roller coaster in the world does about 1.6 GHz. Our first maneuver was three.
Dr. Jeremy Weisz: 58:33
Wow.
Tony Horton: 58:34
So we’re doing almost twice what you’d ever see on a crazy ride. So you’re rolling, you’re banking. You’re going straight down. Straight up. They gave me.
Dr. Jeremy Weisz: 58:41
I’m getting nauseous hearing the story.
Tony Horton: 58:43
Rolling like this. You know, I mean, one minute we’re a we’re a bullet going into the ground, the next minute we’re a, you know, a rocket ship going into space. And they let me fly it. You know, it’s so funny, really. And I’m making myself vomit.
I mean, I was a wet rag when I came out of there when the canopy and the helmet came off, Shauna was there. My whole kind of my entourage on this fitness tour was there. There was a couple of generals and colonels and majors and about 20 people. And my when the canopy came off and my helmet came off. The reaction, the look on people’s face. They were applauding. And then all of a sudden they looked at me and went, oh my God, I looked like a I look like a Shar pei, a 79 year old shar pei. It was just God.
And Mark Briggs turned to Sean and said, well, now you know what he’s going to look like when he’s an old man in white and melting off my face. It was brutal, man. But it makes for one of the all time craziest stories.
Dr. Jeremy Weisz: 59:39
So everyone should check out the big picture before I bring the guest on. Tony, tell people where they can find you. What are some of the sites they should check out?
Tony Horton: 59:47
Well, you know, you can always go to beachbody.com p90x3.com excom. You know, if you’re looking to buy, you can go to shakeology.com, which is, you know, if you want to look into shakeology, those are simple ways. But if you really want to kind of get to me, You can go to TonyHortonsWorld.com, but the new one is Tony Horton Life pretty easy. TonyHortonLife.com.
And then you can go to YouTube and that’s Tony Horton Fitness. So you’ve got Tony Horton fitness, Tony Horton’s world, Tony Horton life, so great ways. And the great thing about Tony Horton life and Tony Horton’s world, you kind of know where I am and where I’m going and what I’m doing. There’s a live event and you’re in that neighborhood. It’s really easy, simple way to kind of find me and show up and be there.
So I’ve got events in Mission Michigan coming up. I’ve got one in Bakersfield and I’ve got one in Hawaii in September. So come to that one because I think that’s the one. I’m going to ask Shauna to marry me, so that’ll be fun.
Dr. Jeremy Weisz: 1:00:45
I won’t publish this till after then.
Tony Horton: 1:00:48
I think she knows. I mean, she, I think she’s in on the on the the jig is up on that one. But so yeah, there’s a lot of events like that. And, and that’s a great way to find me. I’m going to be in upstate New York at, at Omega, which is a beautiful place.
If you’re anywhere in New York, New Jersey, you know, New England, Pennsylvania, Canada, you know, come see me at Omega and that is at Tony Hortons World.com. It’s a great three day event. It’s super intimate. It’s out in the middle of these beautiful woods. The food is organic, super clean, yummy.
You can slackline, throw frisbees, hang out in the grass and get your butt kicked by me for a couple of workouts, but you have to sign up early because that’s going to sell out. I think they’ve got room for about 200 people. And there and there they got about 50 spots left. That’s in New York and that’s called Omega.
Dr. Jeremy Weisz: 1:01:40
It will go quickly.
Tony Horton: 1:01:42
I think so.
Dr. Jeremy Weisz: 1:01:42
So, yeah, I’m gonna bring the guest on. So I have on my to do’s right now to make sure to facilitate you training Elon Musk, Steve Nash and Blake Griffin. So that’s on my to do’s. Let me I’m gonna bring the guest on one second. You know, one of the things that I write on my questionnaire is who’s on your bucket list?
You didn’t choose Oprah. You didn’t choose the president, but you chose Tony Horton. So I wanted to have you and have on and have your way. And ask your questions that you have. Tony, I appreciate you indulging in this.
Tony Horton: 1:02:16
Not a problem. Dustin how are you?
Dr. Jeremy Weisz: 1:02:17
Dustin. Tell them a little bit about you and I know you have a few questions.
Dustin: 1:02:20
Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. Thanks, Tony for doing this. And I definitely look up to you. I’ve got a program, a movement I consider called Fit Moms for life and kind of known as America’s trainer to the moms.
And with that, I’ve worked with about 5000 clients in person, and then about 15 to 20,000 through my DVDs and various various things. So really look up to you as an inspiration, not only from a business standpoint, but also from a fitness standpoint. I’m 30 now and just what you’ve done to really inspire, you know, the world to, to be healthier. And, you know, so many of my clients have P90x and ten minute trainer and all those, you know, great programs. So just really respect you a lot and super excited to, to be on with you.
Dr. Jeremy Weisz: 1:03:08
So what are. Your, you had a few questions. I know, Tony, you have what, like four minutes, five minutes, right? So yeah.
Dustin: 1:03:16
Sure. Okay. So yeah, my first question is kind of what is it like, you know, working with Beachbody, the pros and the cons to it, you know, do you have to sign your life away or do you have freedom to do other things?
Tony Horton: 1:03:27
Well, I love it. I mean, it’s completely changed my life working with this company that’s grown so far so fast. I mean, it seems like, you know, when I look back at the last how many years, 16 years, a lot, a lot has happened, you know, and, and I think the positive things are pretty obvious. You know, you look at the products we’ve created together and without them, I would have never had that opportunity. Right?
Without them, I wouldn’t have these other opportunities. I wouldn’t be able, you know, nobody would know. Tony Horton from Adams. So. I wouldn’t have these opportunities with 7-Eleven and this clothing company, and I wouldn’t have been able to meet the folks at Harpercollins and written these books.
And so, you know, it’s just it’s not only improved my lifestyle and allowed me to have access to, to really amazing experiences, but it’s opened up other doors as well. And that’s really been pretty awesome. But, you know, I would say some of the cons are, you know, when you get to this point, you know, you feel like Paul McCartney in The Beatles, you want to kind of break up with the band and go on your own. Because, you know, there are certain restrictions, restrictions within my contract which are there to protect not only them but protect me. But there’s a lot of things that I can’t do because, you know, I can’t you know, you can’t play for the green Bay Packers.
And, you know, the New York Jets, you got to stick with one team. So you can’t compete against yourself. So, you know, but but the great thing about Beachbody is they’ve opened up categories like food, like, like fashion, like book writing. And, and so in the meantime, I do what everything I can with them and try to, you know, be able to adhere to the restrictions of that contract and build these different products and still be able to go off on my own and a certain in a certain way, it’s probably good because there aren’t enough hours in the day to be able to, you know, do a lot of the things that I’ve been offered lately.
Dustin: 1:05:11
Right? Cool. So I’ve got two more questions. I know time is tight. So I’m obsessed with creating communities.
That’s what I believe is how we’re going to change the future of our culture and that change that conversation we’re having in our homes, schools, churches. And so I’ve created a lot of groups around the country. We’ve got about 105 fit mom for life groups everywhere around North America right now. And our goal is to have 14,000, which is one for every McDonald’s in America. That’s kind of our 3 to 5 year plan.
And we just find, you know, women in the community that are looking to start a group up. But so my question is kind of, what do you think about that from a community standpoint? Do you think it is one of the most important things to kind of change the way our culture in America and the world is, you know, living today. And how are you planning on doing that? Obviously, Beachbody as a Beachbody coaches and different avenues, but I would just be curious to hear your opinion on that.
Tony Horton: 1:06:01
I think you’re right on track, Dustin. I think it’s critical. You know, I think a lot of people are becoming so detached that it’s becoming more and more difficult for people to sort of maintain and sustain their health and wellness. So I would say you’re spot on, you know, trying to create as many communities. Creating communities creates accountability and it creates purpose.
And, and when you’ve got a group of like minded people in a room, you can really change the world. And I think you’re spot on. It’s funny that you used the word fit mob. You know, I was in the early stages of creating an app called Fit Mob. I don’t know if that’s.
Dustin: 1:06:35
Fit moms or fit mob?
Tony Horton: 1:06:38
Fit moms.
Dustin: 1:06:39
Yep, yep.
Tony Horton: 1:06:40
Yeah. I think it’s wonderful. You know, it really is. It’s a great idea. I think you found a beautiful niche and it sounds to me you’ve had some great success.
And so no, I would not deter you in any way, shape or form. I would not have you stray from that formula. I think creating those communities is great. It gets people away from the screen and they’re in their phones and their TVs and it gets them out and about. You know, I mean, I try to do that with things as simple as getting together with some friends and doing these dance lessons, which apparently I’m, you know, I’m going to take.
Dr. Jeremy Weisz: 1:07:09
I’m going to try and get you on dancing with the stars. I think that is your next gig.
Tony Horton: 1:07:13
That’s the way to get close to that one. I was asked a while back or there was early talk of it, and after these few lessons, I discovered that idea. So.
Dustin: 1:07:22
And Tony, we’ve got a lot of mutual friends together. Someone like Joe Polish, for example. There’s I mean, his, his group and a lot of different groups that we have a lot of, a lot of mutual mutual friends and people. So hopefully someday I’ll get to meet you in person. So my last, my last question for you is kind of, you know, with P90x and stuff, we kind of wrote this DVD wave.
I’ve written it in a much smaller version than you did. And you know, where do you see it going from here? Obviously technology, mobile, you know, making things as convenient as possible, which I think is where things are going. And my, my belief is, you know, with the communities and trying to pair both together to create experiences, but where do you kind of see, you know, Beachbody yourself, your own brand, going to really try to again, change the conversations we’re having? Because I still don’t believe that there’s this tipping point yet in our culture.
You know, I see so much resistance with my clients. They’re trying to eat healthier. They’re trying to maybe drink less alcohol or whatever it may be. And they’re getting such flak and crap from their friends. And it’s still not cool nationally to, to be fit and healthy and to say no to certain things.
Tony Horton: 1:08:24
Well, you know, I think the future, I think it’s changing. I think it’s changing.
Dustin: 1:08:27
Absolutely.
Tony Horton: 1:08:28
And I think companies like ours, I think Beachbody is in the midst of trying to make that shift. I mean, the idea of somebody seeing an infomercial and then having to get on the phone to call somebody who might be in India or somewhere and, and, and negotiate what to pay and for how much. And then pay extra money to have that shipped. You know, at a certain period of time and then waiting for the mailman to deliver it so that you can open up the box, take out the disk and put it in a machine. So you have to, you know, sit through the, you know, first part that is so archaic.
Dustin: 1:09:04
Yeah.
Tony Horton: 1:09:05
I mean, streaming now. So we’re working on that. And I, you know, I make that email at least four times a week. Hurry up, hurry up, hurry up. Because we got to be part of the future.
We don’t want to get caught behind the eight ball, you know? But how do you. You know, the problem with Beachbody is we’ve got this coaching business and, you know, we have these challenge pacts with the coaches, you know, try to promote to help build their businesses and share, share our products with other people. If you’re streaming a video, how does the coach manage to build their business and not screw that up? And so it’s a very, a very complicated equation, but we’re working very hard on it.
So, you know, and when it comes to training techniques, if you look at it now, you know, look how much yoga has changed. You walk into a yoga class these days. Doesn’t even look like yoga anymore. I don’t think it’s a bad thing. There’s a lot of traditionalists that feel like, oh, you know, where’s the traditional hatha Ashtanga yin type yoga?
They still exist. But you have to understand that, you know, people want to add cardio to yoga. You can call it something else, but I don’t think it’s kind of silly to get upset about those types of things, you know? And same thing with resistance. I mean, you look at core and functional fitness.
You look at the popularity of P90x and CrossFit. You know, the idea here is to be excited about what you’re doing, be okay with the fact that things are going to change, and that’s probably a good thing. And hopefully you’ve got the right instruction and motivation. So that you’re not getting hurt. You know, there’s a lot of people who are pushing the envelope who shouldn’t be.
Yeah. So yeah, it’s all good. It’s going to change. It has to change. And if you’re not moving, if you’re not changing, if you’re not reinventing yourself every once in a while, then you’re going to get, you’re going to be stuck in the past.
Dustin: 1:10:35
Yeah. I feel like really the shift to is going to really come when it hurts people’s pocketbooks more through insurance and through work, you know, work compensation or whatever. I think that’s really when some of that change is going to happen, because people are going to feel in their pockets.
Tony Horton: 1:10:51
You know? The thing is, is that sure, there’s going to be there’s going to be pushback from members of your family and people at work and blah, blah, blah. People don’t like to see you change. They’re so used to seeing you a certain way, and it’s really comfortable for them to fit you in in a very easy, understandable box. And, you know, I mean, you have to have the courage to, you know, tell them to f off to be honest.
You know, I mean, sorry to, you know, that’s fine. But you know, a great example is this girl Cathy. You know, she had tried everything. She was five foot three, £220, miserable, you know, taking a bus to work. No support from her husband.
She bought power 90, did it three times, did P90x, did it three times. We put her in an infomercial. She lost 100 plus pounds. She couldn’t do a single push up at the beginning and could do ten pull ups. The day I met her and got grief every step of the way from almost everybody in her life.
But somehow she knew deep inside of herself that it was the right thing to do. Because when she was done with that workout, she felt better about herself, and feeling better about herself was enough of a signal to ignore all the all the chaff that was going on around her. And and that takes a lot of courage. And so, you know, if you’re listening to me, then you have to find that you have to find the power to stick with it and understand that feeling that you have at the end of the workout is ten times more important, a thousand times more important than all the negativity that’s coming at you from all your friends, co-workers.
Dr. Jeremy Weisz: 1:12:13
Well, thank you so much, Tony. I know you have to go. I appreciate your time, Dustin. Thank you very much.
Dustin: 1:12:19
Thanks for making that happen.
Dr. Jeremy Weisz: 1:12:20
Steve Nash, Blake Griffin, Elon Musk, if you’re listening, this man wants to train you.
Tony Horton: 1:12:28
Thanks for your hard work and what you’re doing. You know, I can’t do it alone. And it’s great to have really smart, thoughtful, enthusiastic people like yourself in the community, man. So keep up the good work and pleasure chatting with you today. And Jeremy.
Same deal man. I really enjoyed this hour together and I know there’s some great information here that could help you.
Dr. Jeremy Weisz: 1:12:47
Shout out to Shauna as well. Thank you Shauna. You made this happen real quick.
Dustin: 1:12:51
Tony, I just wanted to say that one of my visions is to pack out arenas for fit mom for life rallies. And our first one, we want to have Michelle Obama on it. But I want you on there too as well. So I’m just going to throw that out there in the future.
Tony Horton: 1:13:04
First lady. I’ve met her a couple of times. You know, she’s such a good, good person really looking to, you know, help people eat better and move on a regular basis. So yeah, yeah, I’d be glad to do it, my man.
Dustin: 1:13:13
All right. We’ll be in touch.
Dr. Jeremy Weisz: 1:13:15
Thank you.
Tony Horton: 1:13:16
My contact info. So I’m in.
Dustin: 1:13:18
Okay, great. Thank you.
Tony Horton: 1:13:19
Great.
Dr. Jeremy Weisz: 1:13:20
Thanks, guys.
Outro: 1:13:21
Thank you.
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