About Episode
This introductory episode is a dual broadcast with our podcasting partners That Post Show (part of the That Studio network). Therefore the host of this specific episode is Kanen Flowers, not Zack Arnold. This episode also features Norman Hollyn and Monica Daniel. The show is a roundtable discussion with Fitness In Post creator Zack Arnold about why he designed this program, who it is designed for, and what it can do to help people in the post-production industry take charge of their health and wellness.
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Transcript
Zack Arnold: Welcome to the very first episode of the Fitness in Post podcast. We are a member of the That Studio Podcast Network, the producers of the number one post production podcast online, That Post Show. Our first episode is a unique one because it’s also an episode of That Post Show. Therefore, I am not the host, but rather Kanen Flower is. This episode will introduce you to why I decided to create Fitness in Post, how it works, and who it can help. Thank you for finding us. I hope you enjoy this brand new show and become a regular podcast subscriber.
Kanen Flower: Hello, and welcome to That Post Show. In this episode of That Post Show, we have three very special guests and an incredibly awesome topic. Hey, you’re on the show, Monica Daniel.
Monica Daniel: Hello.
Kanen Flower: Who I have not called Monica Daniels in two years, and I just want to point that out to every single person who’s listening to this show.
Monica Daniel: Well, if it makes you feel better, Zack did the same thing, literally like three weeks ago.
Zack Arnold: Yes, I I did it in writing on the website as I was developing it, I still feel very bad about it.
Kanen Flower: Exactly, the sound you may hear in the background might be a vacuum cleaner. I am broadcasting from a hotel in San Francisco. Apparently, I am quite the jet setter these days, right, Norman?
Norman Hollyn: You mean Normans? Is that what you mean?
Kanen Flower: I mean Norman Hollins.
Norman Hollyn: Norman Hollins. That’s right. Yes, it’s on the mat or my air conditioner. You are a jet setter. Actually, I’m exhausted just hearing you talk about your trip, so I need to go to sleep.
Kanen Flower: Nice, thanks, Norman. And then we have the special guest for the show, and the reason that we’re actually doing this show, Zack Arnold.
Zack Arnold: Hello, sir.
Kanen Flower: Hey, good to have you back on the show. Always a pleasure.
Zack Arnold: I’m excited to be here.
Kanen Flower: Me too. We we brought you. Well, you brought us mostly, but we also brought you and everyone else on the show because we’re actually doing something that’s really exciting, which is we’re all trying to take command of our weight and our health, and we’re all trying to take a look at something that you’re actually putting together called Fitness in Post, and I think we’re going to talk a lot about that today.
Zack Arnold: I sure hope so. I mean, this this is a joint podcast and my intro podcast for my Fitness in Post program, so I’m really hoping that’s what we talk about today. Otherwise, we’re wasting our time.
Kanen Flower: So let’s let’s start with. I think everyone here works probably 1012, hours a day.
Zack Arnold: I wish. Yeah, that’s that’s like those are half days. That’s that’s when things are going well and it’s not too busy. It’s like a 10 hour day, for at least for me at least.
Monica Daniel: Well, I feel a little spoiled. My regular job that provides most of my work is eight hour shifts, but then I’m always working on side projects, so I guess that could be accurate in a matter speaking.
Norman Hollyn: Yeah, and that’s actually I think what most of us are increasingly doing is doing multiple projects, often in multiple places. So that I think is probably something that we should talk about as well, because different setups and different editing rooms and different. Well, I do a lot of teaching and walking around that way. It’s it’s totally different depending upon where I am. Besides sitting in front of my guests,
Kanen Flower: Exactly. I mean, I’m in a hotel right now, sitting in the single most uncomfortable chair that has ever existed, sort of precariously propped up with the the blue Nessie microphone in front of me, and you know I’m away from my standing desk and my like the comfort of my office, and I got to say it’s both unpleasant, and my back is already starting to scream, and it’s been like 10 minutes,
Zack Arnold: And that’s probably because you’re not a sitter anymore. Would that be correct? You you stand at your desk now?
Kanen Flower: Yeah, I either stand or I perch or I sort of propped myself on the edge of a stool. I’m not, yeah, I’m not really sitting in a chair. And actually, I yesterday I drove 13 hours from Portland to San Francisco.
Zack Arnold: Right.
Kanen Flower: So I drove. So my back is already so a combination of being in the car for 13 hours, a combination of the awful soft hotel bed, which I just hate, and then sitting in the you know this wooden chair that was like developed by the Marquis Assad or whatever the hell company made this
Zack Arnold: Probably Aaron
Kanen Flower: Oh those guys
Zack Arnold: Yeah don’t get me started
Kanen Flower: I think we should I think we should have hashtag death to Aaron
Zack Arnold: Yeah no I’m I’m not a big fan I believe that I I say some fairly strong things about them on the website.
Kanen Flower: So let’s talk about that. The website, yes, fitness in post. We’ve all heard of fix it in post. This is, I think, a clever turn of phrase. So, so what what is fitness in post?
Zack Arnold: Well, fitness in post. Before getting into it, when you say it’s a clever phrase, I need credit to go where credit is due, and I actually want to say that one of the initial conversations that you and I had when I first had the brainstorm for the program was I had introduced what I was thinking to you, and you were the one that popped out the name Fitness in Post. So I just want it to be on the record to your audience and to mine that you were the genius behind the clever turn of phrase.
Kanen Flower: I think you’re giving me credit. I think honestly, I. You came up with it, and you’re just giving me credit for it. So we’ll we’ll say it was a joint effort.
Zack Arnold: All right, we’ll we’ll say it was 5050 brainstorm right there.
Kanen Flower: Exactly. But
Zack Arnold: Yeah, the the idea behind the site was actually just a random idea that I had when I was in the middle of borderline heat stroke when I was out hiking about two and a half months ago. Kind of to back up a little bit from that point, I for years I’ve been very active, and it’s been a hobby of mine to try and find ways to stay healthy despite the working conditions that we have. And I don’t want to make it sound like we’re coal miners. It’s not like we’re you know breathing in all these horrible chemicals and we’re all going to die of cancer. But at the same time, over the last few years, there’s been a lot of research that’s all saying the same thing: that essentially sitting in front of a computer all day is killing us, and being sedentary for long periods of time is really bad for us. It’s bad for our heart. It’s bad for our circulation. And my reaction, my gut reaction when I see these articles is, oh, well, I’m fine. I stand all day and I work on a treadmill workstation, so I don’t have anything to worry about, but then I start to think about the bigger picture, and I think, well, I know a lot of people that I know and care about, and there are a lot of people in this industry, and we’re all fighting the same fight together. So, what if there were a resource that all of us had to come to together that helped us find a way to beat this problem as a group, because there’s this thing called the internet, and it provides all of this information to all of us. But there’s so much of it that you don’t know where to start. And it kind of dawned on me that I just myself, through my own personal testing and doing different programs and seeing what works and what doesn’t work, I’ve probably been doing this for almost 10 years now. And I realize that even though I’m not a fitness expert, and I’m not a personal trainer, and I’m not a dietitian, I have no license whatsoever to be doing this and saying that I’m an expert at this. So I make it very clear that I’m just a normal guy, sit in front of, or I stand in front of a computer. I’m an editor like everybody else, but I’ve done a lot of the legwork. So what I’m trying to do is create a resource that people can come to in this industry, and see all of the information that I’ve gathered, and say, “Oh, wait a second! This guy’s fighting all the same obstacles that I’m fighting. Let me try some of the stuff and see if it works for me. But more importantly, what I’m trying to give that does not exist yet, because all the information that I am giving out exists and it’s coming from other people. I kind of think of myself as an aggregator of fitness information, whether it be exercise, nutrition, wellness, health, ergonomics. I’m trying to aggregate the resources that matter to us, so you kind of have it all like a one-stop shop. But the thing that does not exist is a community and a place to build accountability between people in our industry. So what’s important is that as an editor, if you’re saying I want to get into a fitness program, but I just don’t have the motivation to do it. Well, if you work out with 10 other people that are also in the post production industry and you all have the same hours and you’re facing the same challenges, what you’ve done is you’ve leveled the playing field, and now everybody’s motivated to move further. So, the thing that that I’m creating that does not exist in the world is a centralized resource for accountability and community for the post production industry. All the rest of it is just aggregating information that I’m getting from other people that are the experts. I’m not the expert, so that’s kind of the idea behind it,
Kanen Flower: And as part of that, you’re actually starting, and we and we can talk about the specifics of that. But you’re actually starting a movement where you have a test group, and the idea is that we spend some number of weeks collectively wearing a step tracking device or a heart monitor, and then and then watching our our eating habits, and then trying not to be so sedentary. And that’s where Monica and Norman and others actually come in.
Zack Arnold: Yes, there’s actually going to be 12 members of the test group, and we’re just getting started. And all three of you on the call are members of my test group. And the reason that I’m doing that is that I’m a big believer in sharing information that I know firsthand is working for people. There’s a parable that I don’t even know if it’s true or not, but it’s a famous parable about Mahatma Gandhi, where a mother brought her small boy to Gandhi once, and she said to him, “Please help my son stop eating sugar. He’s eating way too much sugar. It’s very unhealthy for him. Can you please tell him to stop eating sugar? And Gandhi looked at the mother and said, “Please bring him back in two weeks. And she looked at him kind of weird, but she thought, “Okay, all right, I’ll bring him back in two weeks. So two weeks later, the mother brings the son back and says, “Please help me tell my son to stop eating sugar. And Gandhi looked at the child and said, “Please stop eating sugar. And the mother looked at him and she’s like, “Well, why couldn’t you have done that two weeks ago? And he said, “Well, I had to stop eating sugar first. And when I read that years ago, that really stuck with me because it meant that he would not give information to others unless it was something that he was doing himself, and that’s something I really believe in strongly. So there, anything that I’m saying to do on the site is something that I’ve experimented with myself. And for example, I am a. Proponent of Beachbody fitness programs. I haven’t done every single program. I’m not going to say that I’ve done all 30 that they’ve offered, but I’ve done five or six of them, which tells me that this company really knows what they’re doing, and I can recommend them as a whole. But it doesn’t mean I’ve done every single one. But when it comes to supplements, when it comes to fitness trackers, when it comes to you know using the the yoga site that I recommend, all of the resources there are things that I have tried and I recommend firsthand. So it’s not, oh, hey, I read this book about this one thing; it sounded pretty good. You guys should do it. If I haven’t done it and tested it on myself and know that it works for the people in our industry specifically, I’m not going to do it because I just found that in the years of the research that I’ve been doing, everything I look at is somebody saying, “Hey, you only need 60 minutes a day, and it only takes 30 minutes a day to prepare healthy meals. And I’m just like, “Screw all of you! I don’t have the time or the energy to do this every day because I’m working from 930 in the morning until 1030 at night. This does not work for me. So I’ve been trying to experiment with things that do work, and kind of the culmination of all that is putting the site together. But I need the test group to actually confirm that it’s working. So the idea is I’m starting a test group that’s going to come out well before the site goes live, and the site may even I think the site will be live by the time this podcast comes out. But we’re recording well in a month before that, so I’m using the test group to help me develop the site and make sure the resources that I’m giving out are actually working. And then once the site goes live, I intend to develop another challenge group that, and it’s something I’m probably going to do. I don’t know for sure yet, either every month or every three months, where we have groups that come together and they’re working through the central site on a leaderboard, everybody’s tracking their progress, and then at the end of the three months, if I can to move backwards for a second, for the end of our test group, the person that quote unquote wins, and that basically means if they have the most steps, if they burn the most calories, they’re the most active. There’s a whole lot of factors that go into it. They’re going to win a geek desk, which is not cheap, and that of course came from your partnership with them. So I’m very thankful that you were able to hook me up with them. But if if they’re really interested, then that means that every three months we can have editors working towards getting themselves a standing desk, and the best way to avoid sitting all day is to not sit. So that’s the idea behind the test group in a very long-winded roundabout way.
Kanen Flower: So, Monica and Norman, you guys are going to be in this test group. I want to talk a little bit about like why you guys are coming into Fitness in Post, like what it is that’s attracting you to be part of this this Fitness in Post thing. And I’ll start with you, Monica, if you don’t mind.
Monica Daniel: Well, Zack bribed me. He took me out to lunch. No, I’m kidding. No, he did take me out to lunch, but he didn’t bribe me.
Kanen Flower: Just fed you tons of carbs while you guys sat down and had lunch.
Monica Daniel: I think I actually had a healthy soup, but it’s I’ve actually I used to be really active as a kid. You know, I was I was involved in like dance, color guard when I was really young. I was in gymnastics, so I always had some sort of physical outlet to stay in shape, and after college, that kind of all went away. I I started taking martial arts classes, and then what happened is I got pregnant, had kids, and my health went to crap after that. I stopped working out, I stopped exercising, and because all the hours I was working, and plus dealing with having kids, I just pretty much became almost completely sedentary, and I didn’t realize how bad I was feeling until a couple years had gone by. Just because I got used to feeling like crap, and I essentially got tired of feeling like crap, and I wanted to be more focused and have more energy so I could play with my kids and just for myself, so I could do all the projects that I want to be involved in, and I just every time I tried to do a workout routine, my first day I would go in and I was so out of shape. I didn’t realize how out of shape I I am, and I would work really hard and then make myself sick for two weeks, and I I would never start back up again because I was afraid of relapsing because I I get sick for two weeks at a time and that just sucks and so I really needed like a support group and Zack sort of came in took me out to lunch and I was like this is exactly what I need I need a support group I need some guidance ideas to help me figure out what will work with my weird, crazy schedule. Because just I think I mean Norman’s kids are grown now, except he has all his students that are his kids. But like we all have young kids. Just managing those kids on top of our work schedules is insane. Like all all the editors I work with who are are able to work out, they’re all like single with no kids, or have girlfriends who have you know work long hours as well, and so they have time to go work out. And I’m just I’m just kind of there feeling sluggish, and it it just really sucked, and I wanted to change.
Norman Hollyn: Yeah, I had you know I probably have a slightly different story because I don’t think I ever. Particularly was athletic at all. Well, I know I wasn’t particularly athletic. I spent large chunks of my high school career probably hiding in the locker room rather than going on doing anything, and so it was very easy for me in the editing world to get seduced by the idea that there’s so much mind stuff going on. I always lived in my mind more than in my body, so it was really easy for me to be passionate about spending 1214, 1618, hours a day working on something, and much, much more difficult to get passionate about anything that seemed like real work, which was the exercise or the health part, and that kind of I think when I started a billion and a half years ago in the editing room, we were working on film. I was working on upright movieolas, and I was standing all day long when I was cutting. We had an uncomfortable high chair, but primarily I was working, and also not only standing while I was working, but moving around a lot because the film bins, the 35 mil film bins, were off to the right, and so I would be moving that way. And then the the splicing block was on a table off to the left, so I was constantly moving. I can’t say that editors were way more healthy then than they are now, just kind of looking around, but there was something about moving that I think kept me more awake, and so I didn’t have those kind of afternoon slow periods where I just went, “Oh God, it’s hard to move, it’s hard to think. So I came to the whole thing from a different place, I think, than most of you did, but I did feel as I was going along that it was getting harder and harder to do things that I wanted to do, even if it was just, hey, let’s like walk across the street and doing something and be like, ah, no biggie, and I didn’t want to be that guy. So for me, part of this, and by the way, parenthetically, no lunch from Zack for me. Okay, so just didn’t this this came completely unbidden that way, right? But that I when I heard about I owe you
Zack Arnold: Lunch, Norman.
Norman Hollyn: There we go. I don’t know. Maybe maybe upgrade to a Shakeology, right? Yeah, there you go. There we go. But when I first heard about this, it was like I’m getting to the point where it is so so easy to sit and do all of my work that way. I must spend a good eight to 10 hours a day at a desk, and when I’m teaching, then I’m standing. And there’s something that feels really good about when I’m in front of the room or even walking through a lecture hall, talking and interacting with people just feels more energetic to me. So I started to feel a bigger dichotomy than I ever had, and this came along at a good time, except for the busyness part. Yes.
Zack Arnold: Yeah, of course. But one thing that you said that really stuck with me, which is one of the main reasons that I’m doing this, is talking about how editing is all in the brain, right? It’s all about thinking, and it’s all about cognitive function, and it’s about the mental. And I kind of started in the same place where I was extremely athletic growing up. I was a black belt in martial arts, and I play football, and I played baseball, and in college I taught martial arts and did yoga, and so I came from a background of understanding fitness and being fit to begin with, and I took that for granted when I started working in this industry because I moved out to LA. All that literally just disappeared completely, 100% and I started working really hard. But I was just thinking, well, it doesn’t matter. I’m just using my brain. But the number one way to get your cognitive function moving more and be smarter and work for longer, be more efficient is proper fitness. And what I want to make sure is define the word fitness in my terms. So what I want to make clear is that fitness to me does not equal exercise. Fitness to me equals proper exercise, proper diet, dealing with sleep, and dealing with stress. There’s and there’s also the the over idea of wellness. So fitness in post is encompassing all of those things because in all of the research and experimenting I’ve done over the years, fixing one component does not fix anything, and you don’t really see results because I’ve tried just doing really intense exercise and being like, all right, well, I’m exercising and burning calories, so I can kind of eat whatever I want. Didn’t go anywhere. I failed massively. I’ve tried just fixing my diet and eating better at work, but not really getting any exercise or activity. Guess what? That didn’t work, and I went back to my old habits. So what I found is that finding a way to integrate all four of those different things is really the key to getting this to work, and I’ve been developing this program over the last two or three months while working full time on a series for ABC. So it’s not like I’m doing this during hiatus and saying, “Hey, this stuff works, but only when you’re off and you’re not working. That defeats the purpose of it. So I’ve been developing it and doing it myself for the last two and a half months in a job where. Working 10 or 12 hours a day, and I have two young kids that are four and a half and two that wake up at 6o’clock in the morning. So if I can make this program work for me, I feel like it can work for a lot of other people, and they just find ways to adapt to their own lifestyle and modify to their own physical abilities. So I’m really trying to make something that works for everybody in our industry, not just certain ones, but it’s really all about getting closer to higher levels of cognitive function. Because at the end of the day, editors don’t want to be slow and sluggish and have the brain fog. And when you’re sitting with a client, you want to be on, you want to be in that zone and that state of flow. So this is for me the way to do
Norman Hollyn: It. Well, let me ask you a question, Zack. Do your Monday through Fridays look pretty much the same every day, or are they wildly different?
Zack Arnold: They’re not wildly different. It depends on what stage of the process I’m in on a specific episode. If I’m in dailies and I’m only in dailies and I’m not juggling four simultaneous episodes, which I was earlier this year, but if I’m in dailies on one episode, then I essentially run my own schedule, and to get through a day’s worth of dailies will usually take you know probably about 12 hours. So I just know that for two or three weeks straight, that’s going to be my schedule. Then if I’m working with a director, my schedule is going to be very different and completely dependent on the way that they want to work. Because a lot of TV directors they’ll just kind of phone it in, literally. They’ll email or give you notes over the phone. You do them. You post it online. You’re home by 5o’clock I had one director this year that I did 814 hour days in a row. So it it just completely depends. And then when I’m in producer’s cut and studio notes and you know the the network notes, it’s it’s a little bit unconventional. But basically, what I’ve done to modify is knowing that I need to find number one healthy ways to not eat crap all day long because that’s kind of the number one trap that I know a lot of people in post production get into that I was in for years. It’s so easy to have a bowl next to your edit suite that has pretzels or M and M’s or mini Twizzlers, or whatever it is. We all know that the snack walls at all of these post-production facilities are ridiculous, and I mean that in both a good and a bad way because they’re like ridiculously robust with all these snacks and all this good quote-unquote food. But it’s really not good for our cognitive and physical function. So what I’ve done number one is try to find a way to eliminate that and still feel good and not be hungry and not craving it because if you’re craving it and you’re trying to fight willpower you’re going to fail, but then secondly, I try to find ways to adapt my physical activity and the first adaptation that I’ve made is I have a treadmill in front of my workstation, so I’m always getting some level of activity. I’m either standing or I’m walking, but third, if I know that I’m going to be done by eight, nine, or 10 at night at least, as long as I can get home by like nine or 930 then I can usually fit in some form of workout, and I just have to adapt based on the amount of time that I have, whether it’s a 20 minute workout, a 45 minute workout, a 60, or even a 90 minute workout. But yes, I’ve with my schedule. What I have to do is constantly adapt, and that’s one of the main parts of this program is not having the all or nothing approach, which is my personality. I’m just the kind of person that says I’m just going to do this 100, and I’m going to knock it out of the park. And oh, I missed two days. Oh well, screw it. Now I failed, and I’m just going to quit. And that’s a very common mindset for people, and what I’m trying to do is get people away from that mindset and say, “Hey, my schedule is this today, so I’m going to do you know I’m going to do an hour workout because I didn’t have to work that long. Oh man, I worked 14 hours today. Well, maybe I just do a 10 minute stretching exercise while I’m rendering. So the idea is to have something that’s constantly flowing and changing, so it will always work for you, and you never feel like you failed, and you have to give up.
Norman Hollyn: So that’ll be the. I think I don’t know about Monica and Kanen, but I would imagine that our days over the course of four weeks are somewhat different than that. And for me, I need to be able to kind of inculcate that in my brain somehow, so it becomes something that I don’t have to think about doing. I just do, and that’s really hard for. In literally out of my seven days of the week, I would say none of them look like any other day. So I’m not even in the same places a lot of the time. So having a desk in one place wouldn’t help me for you the other days or something. And I don’t know about you guys.
Zack Arnold: Well, let’s let’s do this then. Let’s let’s use you as a sample case study because I really believe that this is something that you can find ways to take baby steps and modify to work in just about every situation. Because I’m not saying everybody on this website is doing P90X for 90 days and doing this diet, because that would be a massive failure. Because not everybody’s going to be able to do it or be interested. So walk me through an example of your schedule during the week, and let’s see if we can find a way to start the test program where we can move and change little things. Where you’re making these small changes that eventually do become habitual.
Norman Hollyn: Well, I can give you probably seven different examples because out of the seven day weeks, they’re all different and they will vary from week to week as well. But I might start off with a meeting off campus. I might be editing something that I need to deliver soon, so I may be at home for a little bit. At some point, I will need to go onto campus. I may be teaching that particular day, so I may have three hours, or or on some days seven hours in a classroom. Maybe broken up by lunch, or maybe not. And then there’ll usually be a a stack of meetings that often will happen in my office, but sometimes in editing rooms, sometimes in different buildings, and sometimes back off on campus again. And then at some point, might be 789, or on some days I teach until 10 o’clock. Then I’ll either head to a mid-evening meeting, or then I will go home. At some point, I do end up going home, and sometimes I’m real shredded at the end of the day. So I couldn’t even imagine at 1011, o’clock at night going, getting home and going, “Yeah, I’ll do a workout. So it really varies, but it’s some combination of those things,
Zack Arnold: Right? And the the good news is that there are steps in the program, and there are ways to approach your schedule that can make a lasting difference in the way that you feel and the activity that you have. It’s just a matter of adapting to your situation. So my suggestions, and this will kind of help introduce the program in more detail. The whole program, as I’ve laid it out, is six steps. The first step, which to me is by far the most important, and I have ordered them in order of importance. The first one is to just set a goal. The first thing that you require is motivation and a desire to make a change. Because if that desire is not inherent and inside of you, you can do everything you want, but you’re not going to get there because you don’t want to get there. And obviously, everybody is here in the test group and interested because they want to get to a certain place that they’re not at now. So the first step is to set a goal, and that goal might be, well, I just want to lose five pounds, or I’m just I’m tired of being so exhausted and having to take a nap at 3o’clock every day, or you know there are so many different things. I want my clothes to fit better, whatever it is, but you want something that’s lasting and long term, not just oh, I want to drop 20 pounds in a week for this or that. What I’m trying to do is develop long term, lasting changes that you can stick with. So that’s the first step. The second step, which I know you’ve been on board with for a long time, is tracking your movements, which means getting something like a Fitbit or a jawbone or a polar loop, which I actually don’t recommend because everybody that I’ve talked to that’s gotten one didn’t like it. So Fitbit is by far the most popular, and the idea behind that is that you’re quantifying your daily activity, which will inherently motivate you to move more because you’ll look at your numbers and say, “Oh wow, I haven’t moved as much as I thought I had today. I’m going to go ahead and I’m going to take a walk. So I really believe that the second step of this program is vitally important to making any kind of lasting change, and that is tracking your own movements and having a sense of where you’re starting. You need a baseline to be able to make progress, and then the third step, which is perfect for somebody like you, because for you to go all the way through and get an intense Beachbody program, like it’s just not going to work. You’re going to buy it, and it’s going to sit in a box because you can’t stick with it on a regular basis because your schedule is so erratic. So the important thing is you need to find a way to incorporate regular activity into your daily life. So what I’ve done in step three, which is titled “Make Small Changes, making small changes in your life is completely free unless you decide that you want to start supplementing with something in your diet. So some of the examples that I say are: stop using the elevator, go ahead and take the steps. And I know where your your office is, Norman. It’s on the fourth floor because it was right near where I was doing my student teaching office. So I know those steps, and I whenever I would go to my classes during the week, I would just take the steps instead of the elevator. And this is actually something that I learned from my friend Christopher Rush. And as all you guys know, I’ve been working on a documentary film that I’m directing that I’ve been working on for like seven years now. And that was it. Wasn’t until I met him that I realized that he had to use an elevator his entire life. The kid never got to go up or down a flight of steps once. And I thought about that, and I thought, you know what? If I have the steps and I can use them, I’m going to use them. Now that doesn’t mean that I do it 100% of the time, because sometimes I there’s a meeting on the 20th floor, and I have five minutes. It’s like I’m not going to run off the steps and walk in being winded and have sweat all over me, but for the most part, I never take the elevator no matter where I go, and that makes a difference. And the Fitbit will quantify that and will tell you how many flights you take during the day. Another recommendation from the Make Small Changes is: Do you have an assigned parking spot at USC? You probably do, don’t you? If you don’t. My recommendation is that wherever it is that you park, I know some of the lots. Like I park in the M lot. I don’t know where you park, but wherever you park, if there are a few spaces, if it’s not just trying to find the last one, rather than finding the closest one to where you’re getting, go out of your way to find the farthest parking spot away. And I’m not saying park a mile and a half away, but if you’re in a lot and it’s an extra 150 feet to the back corner of the lot, park there. That’s what I always do. It’s just kind of become habit. That does two things. Number one, it gives you a little bit more physical activity and steps. But number two, it ridiculously lowers your stress level because you don’t care about finding a good spot anymore. Because you always are thinking, oh, it’s good. Oh, I just want to get this good. Damn it, there’s no parking spots. But if you’re like, you know what, I want the farthest one away, you actually feel better about yourself because you know you’re making a change, and you didn’t stress out for those five minutes and raise your cortisol levels because you care about the quality of your parking spot. So that to me is a really big change you can make. Another one that I know you can make, and you probably do this already, is if you’re going to different meetings and going to classes. I’m assuming that you’re walking to them, correct?
Norman Hollyn: Yeah.
Zack Arnold: So that’s something that you’ve already incorporated where you can walk. But if you know that you’re going to be in your office for eight or 10 hours, what I would do, and I actually do this, you can do what I call hacking your Fitbit, and you can set silent alarms on your Fitbit. So what you do is just go onto the Fitbit website, go to silent alarms, and you can have it vibrate at a specific time during the day. Pick one or two times based on your schedule that day, or based on your weekly teaching schedule, to just go for a walk for 15 minutes. That’s it. Just walk down the steps to the first floor, go outside of the the Cinematic Arts building, and just walk for 15 minutes. Go back and do the same thing that you’re working on. Number one, you’re going to have more blood flow, which means you’re going to feel better. And number two, cognitively, you’re going to function better as well because you’re going to feel more awake and more alert, and you’re going to be able to concentrate and focus for longer. So there’s actually more that’s going to go into that than just oh, I’m taking a 15 minute break. So it’s it’s going to have a lot of other effects. And then another one that I recommend highly, and I give my assistant crap about this all the time. Is if you’re talking with somebody in your department and they’re fairly close, like on the same floor, I say walk down to the room and knock on their door. I never use my phone. I don’t even know how to use the phone in the the job that I have now because I just walk to somebody’s room and knock on their door, and that forces me to get up and move around. And number two, it’s actually good to have that that social interaction. And knowing you, I would know that’s probably something you already employ. But just for people that may not think of that, you just you get so locked in your dark room that you have somebody three doors down, and you pick up the phone and you ring their extension. You’re like, hey, so this file name, like I’m having trouble. You know, I’m having trouble downloading it, or this thing’s not working. Like, just stand up, walk over, and knock on the door, and you’re you’re gonna start racking up your Fitbit steps pretty fast. So that’s another recommendation. Those are all really good ways to get in some form of activity. It’s not high intensity interval training. It’s not you know doing P 90x but just making those small changes and quantifying them is really going to make longer-lasting habits that are going to help you get more activity in your life. Which, at the end of the day, is going to give you better cognitive function, which is really what everybody listening to this podcast probably wants more than anything. And then the other big change that anybody can make is finding ways to incorporate more nutritious things into their diet, and what I’m not advocating to people is to change your diet and get a new program and start from scratch because you will fail. What you have to do is start with where you are and start making small changes. And I would recommend like once a week. You say, “All right, based on my habits now, I find that at 10:30 every day, I’m walking into the break room and I’m having my second cup of coffee and I’m having a bagel with cream cheese. Don’t change anything about that except the bagel and cream cheese. Maybe you try and turn that into like a nutritious smoothie, and that’s something that I’m a really, really big advocate of. There’s a product called the NutriBullet, and I essentially try to sell it to everybody that I know because it’s just an amazing, amazing product, and it’s one of those things that you see on TV, and immediately you’re like, “Oh, well, if it’s one of those stupid products, it’s probably crap. I can tell you firsthand that it’s not, and I use it about four times a day. But essentially, what it is is just like a little-it’s a plastic cup that holds, I think, like 16 or 18 ounces, and you just put whatever you want into it, as far as fresh fruits, fresh vegetables, milk, peanut butter, protein powders, whatever it is, and it literally just pulverizes it into nothing. It’s way more powerful than a blender. I’ve had a blender for years. I haven’t used it literally for a year, and it’s sitting in the back of my kitchen cabinet because the NutriBullet will pulverize anything. So what I do is I have one at home and I have one at work, and at 1030 every day, my Fitbit starts to vibrate, and it almost becomes like Pavlov’s dog. You’re like, “Oh, Fitbit vibrating. Oh, that means I must eat to eat nutritious food now. I will walk to a kitchen and eat something. It literally gets to that point where you just it becomes ingrained in your brain, and you start to crave that process. But just replace your snack. With something else, but you’re not changing the habit. You’re not trying to cut it out. What you’re doing is just replacing the thing that isn’t working for something that works better. And if you go on the website, I offer different ideas for what you can put in the shake, and I have a link to the NutriBullet. And there’s also a product that I highly, highly, highly recommend called Shakeology, which is a product that comes from Beachbody, and it’s essentially a-I don’t want to call it a protein powder because it’s not. But if you’re unfamiliar with nutritional supplements, it’s-it’s basically a packet of powder that looks kind of like a protein powder, but it’s actually a highly nutrient-dense powder that has all kinds of superfoods and nutrients and protein and some carbohydrates and even some fats and some of the healthy levels of sodium that you need to keep your body functioning. Because the odds are that all of us are not eating a giant healthy salad with everything that we need every single day. And this is kind of like blending up a giant healthy superfood nutritious salad and putting it into a blender. Literally, and I’ve timed this to make a NutriBullet shake, or to make a piece of toast and put peanut butter on it, it’s faster to make the NutriBullet because you don’t have to wait for the toaster. That’s a big change that I recommend to everybody in this industry that will make a huge difference in how you feel.
Monica Daniel: Something I I just want to point out on that note: the real selling point when when we talked about me being involved in the program and really joining it, yeah, the exercise is great. But you know, there’s lots of groups out there to support you. There’s lots of different ways. The real selling point is the fact that you, Zack, are a huge sugar junkie. But I, I don’t know if you’re a bigger sugar junkie than I am. But we are both huge sugar junkies, and so the fact that you understand my pain to turn down those cookies was really huge for me.
Zack Arnold: Yeah, it’s it’s a gigantic struggle, and I would say that at this point, you definitely are a bigger sugar junkie. 12 weeks ago, or better yet, a year ago, I would have just ground you into the dirt, like I, I just love, love, love, and was addicted to sugar, completely addicted.
Monica Daniel: I have to, I have to tell this story about those donuts. Okay, so this is, I’m like a a sugar dealer. So when Zack was like, I think literally the night before his first Spartan race, I wanted to be supportive. So, have you guys ever seen those big Simpsons donuts from the Universal Theme Park? Kanan, Norm, have you seen those? They’re like as big as your head. They are. They’re
Zack Arnold: Literally the size of a human head. They’re gigantic. They’re
Monica Daniel: As big as your head. They are. They’re covered in pink frosting with sprinkles, and I not I didn’t get just one for Zack, I got two for Zack, and I expected him to share one with his family, and then he could eat the other one. I think he kind of ate both of them, and they’re just
Zack Arnold: Sitting. By the way, they’re probably at least 1000 calories apiece.
Monica Daniel: No, I think it’s more than 1000 Seriously, that’s that’s just like full on dense donut pastry and calories and carbs,
Norman Hollyn: Right? Gotcha.
Monica Daniel: But but that’s what I gave to Zack to cheer him on the night before his Spartan race because I’m like, enjoy yourself, treat yourself. You’re gonna be burning off those calories anyway. That’s what I did for. I burned
Zack Arnold: About 5000 calories that day, so I’m not advocating eating giant lard, lard lard donuts after a big event-it’s really bad idea. But I just didn’t care. They’re so
Monica Daniel: Good, so good. Oh
Zack Arnold: My god, it was so good. I still think about the donut.
Monica Daniel: I could get another one. What does it help? Is my brother works there, so he gets them at a discount. That’s why I got. I was like, oh, might as well get two for the price of one.
Norman Hollyn: Right, but yeah, first one’s free. I’m very
Zack Arnold: Glad to hear you say that because what I’m really trying to sell is somebody that’s been through and is going through all the same struggles as my audience. If I were somebody that worked three hours a day and I had already done all my editing and I was independently wealthy, and then I was starting this program. It’s like, well, bullshit. You don’t get it, but I do. I’ve been working in this industry for 15 years. I know what it’s like to work ridiculously horrendous hours and be under a ton of stress and be sedentary all that time. So I know exactly what it feels like to go through that. And like I said, for the last 10 years, I’ve been fighting and fighting and fighting, trying to claw myself out of that hole, and I finally feel like I’ve done it. And that was when the brainstorm for the site came up. So I’m I’m glad that that was something you were you were attracted to in this program.
Monica Daniel: I think that was probably the big the biggest selling point for me because we work in LA. We’re surrounded by people obsessed with their diets and what they they eat and sometimes when I the way I hear people talk who I work with sometimes I’m just like really guys you’re a little ridiculous eating one Skittle is not gonna you know make you gain five pounds like sometimes it gets that bad I’m like they’re driving me crazy no I’m not gonna eat your vegan crazy nuts. Only diet plan. That’s stupid. Like to me, that just does not make sense.
Zack Arnold: I I could not agree more, and I despise that type of thinking and just that type of behavior. What I’m obsessed with, and I am making it very clear that I am unabashedly obsessed about this, is being efficient. That is the script that’s written into my brain, and the type of person that I am is I’m always trying to find ways to do things the most efficiently, do them the best of my ability, and do them as quickly as I can, and still have it be good work. So this is really all about, at the end of the day, me being a more efficient person at what I do because I essentially consider what I do as an editor to be my identity. Like I can’t separate the two. Being an editor is not my job, and then I go home and I’m something else. I just am an editor. It’s what I do, and it’s so hard to be good at what I do when I feel like shit. And I’ve probably spent over half of that period of 15 years doing it while feeling like shit, and I just got tired of it. And I know there are a lot of people, and it really where part of this came from is I’m constantly approached by people I work with in person, where they want to know about the the desk. Like, oh, tell me about the standing desk. This is intriguing. Or wow, you got a treadmill. Like, why did you decide to do that? And hey, what’s in that NutriBullet thing that you’re using? Like, they just see that I have energy and I feel good and I’m working ridiculous hours, but it’s not affecting me. Like, I’m not walking in the next day completely exhausted and wiped out, I just walk in after a 12-hour day, and I’m like, “All right, let’s do it again. And they see that, and they’re like, “I kind of want, I want to understand how you’re doing that because I’m going through the same problems. So that’s what this is about. It’s not about me developing something new and fancy and newfangled. It’s just, “Hey, I’ve gone through everything that you’ve gone through. Here’s the information that I’ve aggregated. Let’s see if we can make this work for all of us together. So, I anybody that tells you this, you know, you need to eat less Skittles or less M and M’s or whatever, like that’s not what it’s about. You should eat less Skittles and less M and M’s because having high level they aren’t good for you. I’m not going to say that you should eat them, but at the same time, that’s not what it’s about. It’s about making longer-lasting changes that are attainable over a long period of time. And guess what? Last night I said, “Screw it! I’ve been really good all week. So I had a handful of M and M’s and I had a bunch of chips. I was like, “I just don’t care. This is my night off. Fridays, I just kind of say to myself, “I’m done. I’m not going to worry about it. One night off isn’t going to kill me because that’s something that you can attain long term. If you have any type of program that’s an all or nothing diet, all or nothing fitness, whatever it is, you’re never going to last long term. In the research that I was doing that I found recently, I’ve been doing a lot of research into diet specifically and learning more just about nutrition. And there was an amazing statistic that I heard on a podcast that I listened to, and it was that when you’re looking at people that are trying to cut calories, the whole concept of eating less and exercising more, the failure rate of people that try to have a minimum calorie diet and cut out food was about 96% failure rate, which means that a little bit more than I think it was like 4.5 or 4.75% of people actually had long term success with a caloric deficit type of diet. The success rate for people that quit smoking cold turkey is higher than that, which means that it’s actually harder to quit food than it is to quit nicotine. So the idea is not cutting things out and completely taking a crazy approach, it’s just finding simple ways to adapt things that are working, eliminate the things that aren’t, and slowly that progress will start to add up, and you’ll feel better and better and better. So anybody that’s come to the site or this podcast thinking, “Here’s the answer in 60 days, you are in the wrong place. This is something that takes place over the course of months and years, but over time, it makes a tremendous difference, and literally will change who you are and change how good you are at your job.
Monica Daniel: Well, I actually had to do kind of the cold turkey food diet once, but it was because my life was on the line. Literally, when I was pregnant with my first kid, I had gestational diabetes, and little, literally overnight, I completely had to change my diet, cut all sugars out. I everything was regulated overnight, and I was very cranky for three months. And the only reason it kept me going is because I wanted a healthy baby, and that’s what it took for me to actually do that. And of course, I didn’t stick to it, as now I’m in this place where I’m really out of shape, but I mean it’s really really hard.
Zack Arnold: Yeah, I mean the the lesson to learn from that is that you tried it and with your life and your baby’s life on the line, you stuck with it. But the second that risk factor was eliminated, you went back to your old habits. And what I’m trying to do is the opposite, which is find small ways to gradually make changes over a longer period of time, the longer you go, the more you want to make more changes. Because it’s not just, oh, I’m going to totally become a vegan tomorrow. You’re going to fail. I promise. I’ll, I’ll bet the mortgage you’re going to fail. But if you say eventually, I want to be this, so that means that there are 25 steps to get there. I’m going to try one or two steps a week and see what happens. That’s kind of the way that I took this approach, and a lot of that actually I’ve quote unquote stolen from Christopher’s Go Far program. As anybody that knows both of these knows that they’re actually very very similar, and he’s had a lot of influence on how this is structured. But the idea is that you have to you have to hit smaller goals in order to attain the larger ones, and you can’t just always focus on the main goal. So the main goal is important, but then you have to understand it’s broken down into series of smaller ones and hit them one at a time and just take baby steps. That’s the only way you’re going to make lasting results.
Kanen Flower: I want to tell a quick anecdote, which has nothing to do with fitness in post, but other than I think it actually is super connected. So when I was in my mid 30s, I was about 210 pounds, pretty out of shape, and I was traveling. And I’m ironically, I’m a little bit over that now, but that’s a whole different story. So I was traveling around, and I actually had a two day layover in Bangkok, Thailand, on my way to Hong Kong, and I ended up falling in love with the area with Thailand, not Bangkok, but Thailand in general, and I stayed there for like 14 months, and I changed nothing about my lifestyle and diet other than I I became a citizen of Thailand. Right, I lived in Thailand, I interacted in Thailand, I ate the food there. When I came back 14 months later, I found that you know because I was walking, and because I was active, and because I was happy and not stressed out, and I was eating things that were basically either pulled or killed that morning, right? So there were no preservatives, there was no garbage. When I came back, I was 165 pounds, and I wasn’t emaciated. My friend Mitch Bryan, who he’s a he’s a really good guy. He was the co-creator of Batman, the animated series, when he first saw me, he said that it looked like I’d been carved out of wood, because my whole, my entire body changed just from being more active and eating less crap. Because you know, in in Thailand, you just didn’t have ready access to all these sugars and all the things that we have here.
Zack Arnold: Well, and the the other component that you said too is that you were just kind of doing your thing, so your stress level was probably immensely lower than it is working, right? Yeah. So there are three of the four components that we’re all working together. You weren’t even. It’s not. I’m guessing you weren’t doing a Beachbody program during that, right? No,
Kanen Flower: I wasn’t doing anything other than living my life and and a lot of walking because you know just the nature of that culture is you do a lot of walking,
Zack Arnold: So just regular physical activity, not eating processed foods, not eating sugars, not eating all the garbage in our diet,
Kanen Flower: No workout, and not being stressed.
Zack Arnold: Yeah, that’s all it takes.
Kanen Flower: Yeah, and it was amazing, and that’s a lot of weight, and like I say, happy, healthy, and and here’s a here’s a funny the the tail end of that anecdote is, for about six months, I maintained, you know, plus or minus a few pounds. I maintained that weight, but even more. This is actually more to the point, and more the reason I’m interested in fitness in post. For about six months, there was nothing, not a single thing that happened in my life. Even some really like terrible behavior on some people’s parts, there was nothing that stressed me out. I was completely centered as as a person, and and completely centered with who I was because I was mentally absolutely aware of what was happening and able to adapt to situations. And that had nothing to do with my physical. Well, you would argue that had everything to do with my physical. Yeah,
Zack Arnold: They’re completely interconnected. So yeah, I would argue against that, but yeah, I I’ve been through that as well, and I’m actually in that state now where it’s just kind of like whatever comes up for the most part, it’s just like eh, whatever. You know, I’m just gonna deal with it, and tomorrow is gonna be another day. I actually had a similar conversation with Allie Hamilton, who’s gonna be on an upcoming podcast. I’m gonna be recording with her soon, but she is the owner of Yogi’s Anonymous, which is one of the major major resources that I’m recommending for everybody. Like, there is nobody on the planet that cannot benefit from some form of yoga. Like, there are a few things that I say will work for everyone. Yoga is something that works for anybody that has a pulse and breathes oxygen. Like, I’m just going to make a blanket statement because it does that. It teaches you that being in a certain uncomfortable situation, whether it be stressful or whether it be physical, those situations pass. And the sooner you realize that they’re just going to go away, no matter how you react to them, you just kind of start to be less reactive as a person. And it kind of sounds like you were in that position where you were just in a state of wellness, in a state of kind of being present. It’s like, well, whatever,
Kanen Flower: Right? Very much a state of being present. And I want to, I want to actually clarify. It sounds a lot like I’m saying apathy, but I just want to make, I just want to make it absolutely clear that I’m not saying it’s not apathy. It was, I was absolutely aware that things were falling apart in certain situations. I just didn’t react to them the same way.
Zack Arnold: Right. It’s there’s a big difference between apathy and being non-reactive, and you were being non-reactive, which is totally different and very healthy. And by changing your diet, having more energy, being more active, you have less cortisol flowing through your body 24 hours a day because there there’s something called. The sympathetic nervous system and the parasympathetic nervous system, and as you know, the the common word for this is the fight or flight syndrome, right? And when you look at the way that our bodies evolved and developed over millions of years, fight or flight meant holy shit, a lion is running after me. I need to get away, or I’m going to get eaten, right? We don’t do that anymore now. Now
Kanen Flower: It’s my landlord was a dick. Fight or flight kicks in. My
Zack Arnold: Landlord was an asshole. I’ve been stuck in traffic all morning. I have how many emails? Wait a second. You want me to get this out by noon? That’s not. Oh wait, now my lunch meeting has been moved. Just blahdy blahdy blahdy blah. You were in fight or flight 24 hours a day, and that chronic stress and those chronically high cortisol levels will destroy you as a person, and I say that firsthand because I literally was on the verge of death at the age of 25 years old because my stress levels were so high from a miserable project that I was working on, and I was working 14, 16 hours a day for I think it was about three months straight. Literally, it was three months, seven days a week, 16 hours a day, with a director behind me that I hated, and I almost died. That’s the
Monica Daniel: Worst. I
Zack Arnold: Literally almost died. This is not a parable. This is not a metaphor. I was almost at the point of death, and my doctor basically said that they’re like, at your age, you are just about to die. Like as far as my stress levels and just all the numbers in my system, and you know, different hormones and cholesterol, like it was horrible. And I was 165 pounds. I was not obese. Somebody would not have looked at me and said, “Wow, you look really unhealthy. But I felt horrible, and my body was completely screwed up because of my cortisol levels.
Kanen Flower: It’s interesting. It sounds like you’re saying fitness, and I know you said this in the beginning, but fitness seems a lot more holistic than just eating right and exercise. It seems like you’re actually talking about much a much more holistic.
Zack Arnold: There’s there’s way way more to it, but at the same time, I want it to be approachable. And if I said that, oh well, fitness in post is about meditating for two hours a day, and it’s about you know using all these newfangled neurofeedback products and like all these other things, like people are going to be like, click, I’m done, going to the next podcast. Let me
Kanen Flower: Go watch a cat video on YouTube.
Norman Hollyn: There is something very interesting, I think, that is part of what you were just talking about. That’s not really sort of in the six steps, but that is making wiser career choices, so it is, and this is very different early on in your career than in mid stage and later in your career, I’m sure. But that I do see this wonderful sort of sense in a lot of my students that not every single job that gets kind of wafted in front of them as possible is the right one, and sometimes they’re thinking about I’ll be insane on that job. And I know when I started, that was never a factor. The idea that like if someone was going to give me some contacts and give me a check at the end of the week, I was there and making some better career choices seems part of this whole fitness in post aspect, though I’m not sure it’s part of the the six steps, but it certainly needs to be dealt with at some point.
Zack Arnold: Yeah, I think that that’s a brilliant addition to it because part of the the four main components that I’m really trying to hit, be it fitness or be it exercise, diet, sleep quality, and stress level. That one fits right at the top of stress level. I just didn’t think that saying step five, don’t work with assholes, was really going to work. But yeah, no, I I completely and it’s something that’s worthy of an entire podcast because it was the same for me. It was only 15 years ago that I got into this industry, and it didn’t matter who it was or what the project was. Oh, I just want to work. I just want to build context and get a resume. So yeah, hearing that from your students, and I’ve heard it from mine too, is a huge paradigm shift in the right direction.
Norman Hollyn: Yeah, yeah. My wife is a career counselor, and I do this in the class. has has a series of three overlapping circles about what kinds of jobs you should be looking for. The top two are fairly obvious. One is what your skill sets are, and then what are the skill sets that a potential employer is looking for. But the bottom one, almost no one ever talks about, and that’s what your personal needs are. And it’s in the overlap of those three circles. I speak about this a lot in terms of job stuff. It’s the overlap of those three circles that says this is the these are the jobs I want to go for. And if that bottom circle is too small, you don’t consider it, you don’t get happy.
Zack Arnold: Yeah, having having passion for what you do is what makes the difference between wanting to go to work and not wanting to go to work, or even calling it work, like I have a hard time calling what I do work. There are days when I call it that, but for the most part, it just doesn’t feel like work because I look forward to it and I enjoy it. But 10 years ago, I was not in that place and I was miserable. And I really was like, I don’t want to be an editor. This is not the career choice for me. I just, if this is what it’s like, I just can’t take it, and I’m done. And I’m really, really glad that I was I was pulled out of that very, very dark hole because since then I spent 10 years trying to figure out how to solve this. But more importantly, I’ve stuck with my career, and I’m very glad that I did that because now I love what I do. And
Monica Daniel: I’ve kind of a couple years ago I reached a point where I I was trying to figure out where to navigate my career and what would make me happiest? And you know, I was of the mindset. It’s like, oh, I got to try to get on those, get those bigger credits. And with my kids, you know, I I knew those bigger credits usually involve kind of sacrificing your family a little bit a lot of times. And so I had long conversa. I think I’ve had conversations with you, Norm. I’ve had long conversations with Alan, and he Alan should be the next drinking game for that post show, Kanen. So I’ve had long conversations with Alan Bell about this, and it made me realize. And I think this has a lot to do with one of the kind of unspoken goals of fitness in post is your quality of life is more important than trying to get the biggest best credits you could possibly get. Like a couple months ago, there was this really great editor at Lasky Pug. I believe you were their dorm for it. He, you know, he’s had a fantastic career. But one of the first things Michael Horton pointed out that the editor was wearing a wrist brace because he had just had surgery for carpal tunnel, and you know, he’s just he wasn’t healthy, and I’m actually starting to show some injuries along that line. So I’ve been trying to get more into ergonomics and really struggling to keep the right alignment so I could have a long, healthy career. And I think that’s another benefit of being healthy, working out because this happens because I’m tired, I’m sluggish, the stress of my shoulders, my shoulders get really tense, and the way I used to work out the stress was literally working out, exercising, or doing martial arts, or whatever I was doing, and that will release the tension and stress, and I was able to stay healthier and not have the pain in my wrist that I do, you know. And I have poor circulation as well; like my hands go numb sometimes randomly. Just like I’ll be reading a book and my my fingers will go numb, so I think that’s all part of it as well. Other than you know, not just getting healthy and getting fit, it’s really about preventing those those injuries that could be debilitating to your career.
Norman Hollyn: Yeah, but but it’s even more that. I mean, you have. I remember you saying something to me, Monica, about on days when you aren’t working, you always try and take your kids to Disneyland because that’s that’s great for them. And you phrase it like that’s great for them because. But the thing is, when I see photos that you post on Facebook of you at Disneyland with the kids, you have the biggest smile ever.
Monica Daniel: It’s just so
Norman Hollyn: So well. Yes, the happiest place on earth if you don’t work there. But that, but that for you, it’s clear that this is a place that you super really love to be. That is with your kids, and so you’ve made that choice. And I think that that’s a life-sustaining choice. In addition to the fitness thing, there’s the mind fitness thing we’re talking about.
Kanen Flower: Absolutely, and I think we’re going to use that as a segue to to end the show. But I will say, Zack, Norman, Monica, I would love for us to come back and actually continue the conversation at some point about making choices and about you know how things are going with fitness in post, and talk a little bit about how it’s changing our lives and and and all of those things because I think all of those things are super important. Zack, I think what you’re doing is very important for this community.
Zack Arnold: Well, thank you. I appreciate that, and I think it would be awesome since I’m already going to be part of the that studio podcast network. It would be great to do another joint podcast where you know after a month or two months of progress we just come back have the same conversation but see how things have changed and it’ll just be a joint podcast and be on both both shows. I think that’d be awesome.
Kanen Flower: Yeah, I think that’d be great. And Norman, we can come back and because one thing that Zack did talk about was yoga, and I just I had to chuckle to myself a little bit because I keep thinking of me and you doing yoga. I made I made
Monica Daniel: My husband do a postnatal yoga class with me once, and man, it kicked his ass. He’s like, “I have so much more respect for you guys. It was hard, but I didn’t know it was this hard.
Zack Arnold: Anybody can do yoga. It does not matter how old, how fat, how skinny, anyone can do yoga. There’s a form that works for you, and it will absolutely change your life. Of everything that I’ve ever done, every experiment, every type of exercise, yoga is the number one transformative thing I have ever practiced. I think that’s probably
Norman Hollyn: Why it’s hard for me, right? I I I can’t get my mind to quiet down. Yeah, to do yoga. My mind is the drugs first to get to the mind part. I don’t know.
Monica Daniel: I actually, my mind is always going too. And how I get to focus is I focus very much on is my form right? Because yoga, it’s all about being very exact with your form if you’re doing it right. And so that’s what I focus on. I focus. On all the little details of my body, and that kind of gets my mind to slow down just for a little bit because I’m just so focused on making sure I have the right form. But just
Zack Arnold: Remember though that what yoga is about is not having good form though. It’s about being okay with where you are and being able to breathe through it. So I just I don’t want to give people the misconception that yoga is an exacting physical science. I I like that you’re using that as your way to kind of get in your mental space and stay focused, which is great.
Monica Daniel: I think it’s because of my dance background, because everything had to be exact, and you know, to make sure that you’re getting the stretch correctly. That actually helps me relax.
Zack Arnold: But the the important, and I agree with everything you’re saying. Just for anybody that has never experienced yoga, I don’t want them to be intimidated and think, “Oh, well, if I can’t do that pose perfectly, then I’m not going to try. What it’s about is just finding a way to get into yourself, challenge it physically, but use that as a way to learn to quiet your mind, be okay in whatever moment you’re in, and breathe slowly through it. And if you use exacting your position as a way to stay present, be in the moment, and keep your breath in that place. Then that’s awesome. I just I just want to make sure it doesn’t intimidate somebody that’s never done yoga or really understands what it can do for you.
Kanen Flower: Yeah, meditation is the same way. And Norman, I think we should come up. We should do Kanen Holland yoga. It’s like hot yoga, except it starts with like gelatinous blob. That’s the first pose, and then the second pose could be like lethargic slug. I think I could really get into that yoga.
Monica Daniel: So there’s there’s gonna be a lot of child pose you guys are doing.
Norman Hollyn: Yeah, and and frankly, I’m I’m perfectly happy with my gelatinous blob pose. So I think that that’s by by Zack’s definition, that’s that’s what yoga is about.
Kanen Flower: Amorphous solid. That’s the third pose. That’s right. Amorphous Solid Asana. There you go. That’s awesome. Well, thanks again, you guys, for being on the show. I really appreciate it.
Zack Arnold: Yes, thank you, Kanan. Thank you,
Norman Hollyn: Zack.
Zack Arnold: Yes, absolutely. But I really want to thank Kanan for for letting letting me be a part of his network because the the first thing that I came to him with when I had this program is I said me developing it and not getting it to the right people is a complete waste of my time and resources. So the only way this works is if I can get it to the right people. So this program would not exist without Kanen’s involvement because he’s helping me get it in front of the right people. So I want to thank you for that.
Kanen Flower: Well, you’re sweet, and I’m going to demurely say thanks again for being on the show.
Zack Arnold: No problem. Thank you. Let’s get going, guys. Test group, baby.
Norman Hollyn: Thank you.
Zack Arnold: Okay, take it easy
Monica Daniel: To go. Have a shakeology right now.
Zack Arnold: Nice.
Episode Credits
This episode was edited by Kristin Martin (@KristinCMartin), show notes were written by Maciek Kaliski (@MaciekKaliski), and the show was executive produced by Kanen Flowers (@iamkanen).