“To break through and get into that really, force myself into that uncomfortable situation, forced the most growth in my life by far. Now, I feed off of that. I feed off of uncomfortable positions because I know what’s on the other side.”
Will Armijo – Founder of Will Powered Transformation & Apparel; Forming Habits; Living a healthy lifestyle; Building a business; Listening to your market.
Segment 1: (Length :04:00) – General Updates; Introduction to Will Armijo and his journey as an entrepreneur; His dreams of playing professional baseball; Changing the course of his life; Getting his MBA; Going all in on his passion.
Will’s finer points:
“That’s a pretty important part of where I’m at today and why I’m doing what I’m doing, is because I had to go through a few things that really opened the door mentally for me to understand my purpose here.”
I'll just start out, when I was younger, I grew up overweight, I was definitely overweight as a kid. I felt like I was destined to be a Major League Baseball player.
“One of the craziest things is, I grow up in this little town, the only left handed pitcher in this town, I think I’m going to play Major League Baseball. I get out of the town, I move to a bigger city, Phoenix. Everything’s going great, loving baseball, thinking that’s what I’m going to do the rest of my life. My life shifted pretty dramatically when I had Tommy John’s surgery.”
“For any of you out there that know baseball, you know what this surgery means, how a year of rehab put me out for a while, right in the middle of college, doing great.”
“Anyway, I go down to Tucson, Arizona to try to play baseball at the University of Arizona, one of the best college baseball teams in the nation by far, and I put in all this work, man, I’m down there, move there about a week before school starts, I don’t know anybody. I’m throwing baseballs against a fence. I’m throwing baseballs into a bucket. I have nobody to do anything with. I’m training every day, I’m a premed student. I’m doing everything right, I’m doing everything that people told me or society told me was the right thing to do.”
“I didn’t want to tell anybody, I felt like I disappointed everybody. I couldn’t understand why I put in all the work, I did everything right, and I wasn’t going to that next level.”
“What I came to realize was, it was a huge turning point and it was going to lead me into what I’m doing today. Very next day, I actually, funny thing is, I walked into the coach’s office, I bypassed security, I don’t know how. I bypassed the secretary, walked straight into his office, and I was like, ‘Hey, look, I’m not done playing. How can you help me play baseball somewhere else?'”
“He told me that they changed the NCAA rules, they couldn’t take any more players. Long story short, he got me into a college in Arizona, Grand Canyon University actually, that’s where I finished out my career.”
The biggest turning point there was, was understanding that despite you doing everything right, I kind of went against the rules and I broke the rules a little bit, I barged into the office, I wasn't satisfied with what I had seen now in front of me, and I feel like I changed the course of my life just by doing something that is against the norm, that normal people wouldn't do.
“That carried over into the rest of my life by really showing me that you can pretty much get whatever you want if you’re willing to go to those extremes to actually get it. It really opened the doors outside of the education system and what we are designed and shown growing up that you really want to do something, you can actually make it happen.”
“That changed the course of my life. That’s what led me into after college, I stayed in school, I got my MBA degree, I knew I was going to own a business in health and fitness. I saw that I had a passion for nutrition and exercise, and I said you know what, I’m just going to go for it.”
“I’m going to go all in, I’m going to start my own business, I have my MBA, I know what I need to know, and that’s what has led me into where I’m at today.”
Right after college, I said all right, I need to get my MBA degree, because I want to own a business in health and fitness. In order to get my MBA degree, I needed to work full time at the university, work my normal nine to five, because they were going to pay for my education.
“I worked the corporate life. I saw what that was all about, and I knew that I just had a bigger purpose. I knew that, I liked my job, I didn’t struggle, I wasn’t one of those people who hated my job or anything like that. I just had known that I had a bigger purpose, and based on my past experiences, I knew that if I took action on that, I could have it.”
“I worked in corporate for a couple years, and I started my own LLC. I put my two weeks in, and the rest is history, man. It was a lot of pressure, it was extremely scary, it was extremely uncomfortable, but so much growth came from that.”
“So much growth came from any extremely uncomfortable position that I’ve had, especially when we look back at the whole baseball situation back at UofA, that was the most uncomfortable thing I’ve ever done in my life. Before that, I had done everything.”
“Even though it’s uncomfortable training, it’s uncomfortable doing what you got to do, that’s the process that everybody has showed you to do in your life. I was just going through the motions the right way.”
To break through and get into that really, force myself into that uncomfortable situation, forced the most growth in my life by far. Now, I feed off of that. I feed off of uncomfortable positions because I know what's on the other side.
Segment 2: (Length :08:00) – Talking with Will Armijo; Thriving off of pressure; Understanding habits; Creating cues for your habits; Making habits a part of your lifestyle.
Will’s finer points:
“What I like to show people and tell people is, okay, for example, I have two cars. I went out and I got two cars. A lot of people will say why, why do you need two cars, why do you have two cars?”
What I tell people is, it's not so much about the cars, it's about the pressure. I've learned my entire life, I thrive on pressure. I don't recommend this to everybody, but look. When you put pressure on yourself and you force yourself to perform, and that is an uncomfortable situation, if you have that X factor, you will perform, and pressure will make you perform
“I apply pressure to myself, so the car situation, it was more of a pressure situation. I said you know what, all right look. If you want to level up, if you want to get to that lifestyle you want, and you want to get to the bigger picture, you got to put pressure on yourself.”
“That’s what I did, I do it with my cars, I do it with my living situation. I love it, and I love the lifestyle, but it’s pressure. It makes me perform. The moment you get comfortable, is the moment you become complacent with everything. You start to justify why this is okay, why this is how your life should be.”
“You go the rest of your life living like that, and you know it’s just that famous saying, it’s like, what are you going to do on your deathbed? You’re going to regret everything you didn’t do. I’m not going to let that happen. I’m going to make everything that I want happen and I know what comes along with that. That’s uncomfortable pressure situations.”
Here's the crazy thing. You start putting yourself in pressure situations, and you see what comes from it, you will start to thrive on that. Which actually gets into one of our topics is habit. You start to create a habit out of that, a habit out of creating pressure situations, you will never want to take the easy route in anything.
“You will have no desire to, all you will know how to do is instinctively put yourself in uncomfortable pressure situations and you will just start to see success just happen organically.”
“One of the important things to understand is, I do what I do because I went through it all. I went through the yo yo dieting that all of us have probably done. I bet 90% of the listeners on here have done some type of program, some type of diet, joined some type of gym.”
“We need to ask ourselves, why does that never stick? Why can we not stick to something? Why do we want the magic pill? Why are we constantly looking for that instant gratification when it comes to our body image and what other people perceive of us?”
“What happens is, people can manipulate other people by saying oh look, here’s this diet pill. Oh, here’s this transformation in six days or let’s go on this juice cleanse. It never sticks. People constantly struggle, which makes the situation even worse.”
What I sought out to do was create a program that was going to help you design the lifestyle that you want. The keyword there is lifestyle. This is not something that you're just going to go through, you're going to maybe get some results and then go oh, now what do I do, do I take a break? Oh man, that was hard.
“No, that is the cycle that everybody, that is the trap that everybody falls into. We’re trying to create the lifestyle out of it. To answer your question, the biggest thing people struggle with, there’s thousands of diets, there’s thousands of workouts, there’s all these things out there, why can nobody stick to it? Because all of them are unrealistic.”
“You set unrealistic expectations for yourself, you throw yourself into these programs and they never work, because it’s hard for people to build a lifestyle around something, and that’s what everybody wants.”
“Today’s society is just, it’s a struggle, like I said, based on body image and what people are thinking of you. One of your points earlier, one of the key things is the psychology aspect. The psychology aspect of this is way more important than the food and the exercise.”
“One of the key things, anybody out there that is struggling with diet, with exercise, with sticking to a plan, the psychology of it is going to be your most important aspects.”
When you talk about consistency and habit, that is the key, consistency and habit is the key. Consistency is king and habit is the way to get there. Habit creating, creating a process that you can do repeatedly every day is going to maintain the results that you want.
“For example, you wake up every morning and you brush your teeth. You created a habit out of that. You wake up, you have a cue. Your cue is when you wake up, or you walk into the bathroom. That’s your cue, the process is brushing your teeth. The reward is your mouth feels good, you have a fresh breath.”
“It’s a cue, a process, and a reward. You have to do this, you could do this same thing with anything. Any type of habit that you’re trying to create. You want to create a habit out of going to the gym? Pick a time, every day, or three times a week. Pick a very specific time.”
“Don’t say, I’m going to go to the gym one Monday. What time are you going to the gym on Monday? Put that in your calendar. Then, put your clothes out on your bed, or on your kitchen counter, your workout clothes. Lay them out, so you have a cue. You have a time, you have a cue. The process is working out. The reward is the feeling you’re going to get when you’re done.”
That's why a lot of people, working out in the morning is one of the best things to do. It's hard to wake up a little early and work out, but the endorphins that are released when you train can become addicted to them, and that becomes the reward.
“You do that repeatedly a few times, and it becomes a habit. It literally is like brushing your teeth. When you forget to go to the gym, it’s like forgetting to brush your teeth. You can create that in your life.”
“The same thing happens with food. People struggle. ‘I don’t have time for food.’ The funny thing is, when you’re super busy, which I’m that’s everybody’s excuse, super busy, there’s things out there like food prep companies, where you can order your food.”
“We got Matt on this food prep company right now, I’m on the food prep company, I’ve got a lot of people on this food prep company, and what you do is, you put in your order every Friday, they deliver it to you on Sunday, and you have meals every single day. All you have to do is warm that food up and eat it.”
“Same thing, you create a habit. You create a habit out of going to lunch every day. How many people have habits of going to Starbucks?”
Talk about a multi billion dollar company, brilliant. Brilliant. Let's instill something that is based off of a reward, which is the way that you feel from a stimulant, which is caffeine, that is the reward, let's instill the process of driving through the drive thru line at Starbucks and getting your latte, and what is the cue? Let's open super early in the morning, let's instill this into people that this is the first thing they need when they wake up. It's brilliant. You can use the same marketing tactics on yourself.
“If you’re not using a food prep company, it’s the same thing like I talked about with exercise. Pick a day and pick a time and say, this is when I’m prepping food, and decide what you’re going to prep, and just do it. Just do it. Then the day will come and you won’t know anything else to do except pre the food.”
“When the food’s there, the process is just eating it. The reward is the way that you feel and the way that you look. You have more energy, then you start associating things with the reward.”
“The process becomes an addiction. You don’t want to do anything else, you start to go, I don’t want to go out to eat, I don’t want to go get fast food, because I’m not going to have that feeling that I have when I eat the food that I prep, that I cook. Then you create a lifestyle out of that.”
Segment 3: (Length :10:00) – Taking time to reform habits; Bringing habits into your lifestyle; Listening to your market; Making changes in your business for your market.
Will’s finer points:
The best thing you could do is think about your day. Think about your schedule and where can you implement small things or where can you replace bad habits.
“Here’s the first thing to understand. You can’t get rid of bad habits. You can’t. They’re already instilled in your mind. They’re not going anywhere. Why do you think alcoholics can quit drinking for five to six years and then all of a sudden they drink? From some event that triggers it, the old habit kicks back in. Understanding the old habits aren’t going anywhere. What you have to do is create new ones that are more powerful to replace the old habits.”
The first thing that I would recommend to people is, don't think you're just going to quit everything at one time. Don't think that that's not going to happen. Don't think okay, I eat a bunch of fast food, I drink Coke every day, I smoke cigarettes, and I don't work out at all. Don't go try to eat chicken every day, work out six days a week, quit smoking, and only drink two gallons of water every day. It's not going to happen.
“I’m telling you right now, the human body will not allow that to happen, which is funny because that goes into the concept and the topic of willpower. What is willpower? What a lot of people don’t understand is willpower is a reserve. You only have a certain amount of it. Willpower can be strengthened over time”
“What happens is, when you set too many goals and you try to change your life too drastically at the beginning, you deplete your willpower. It’s like filling up your super nice car, fill it up with gas and you run out of gas and it doesn’t drive, it’s useless.”
“That’s how your willpower is. When you run out of it, why do you think people snack at night and not in the morning? You don’t see people reaching for chips at six o’clock in the morning when they wake up. It’s 10, 11 o’clock at night. Why? Because your willpower is depleted.”
The best advice that I could give to anybody is, replace one of the bad habits you have, replace it now, do that for a couple weeks, and then when you feel like there's not as much pressure, then replace another bad habit.
“That’s going to initially allow you to just lose fat or feel better in the first place, then you add in one, two days of exercise, and then you slowly increase over time. Don’t try to jump all in on the whole fitness bandwagon right away. It’s not going to work. You’re going to go through that vicious cycle.”
“As humans, we all want to go to the next level. We all want to level up, that’s our thing. All of us. We all want to get that next level, whenever it is. The same thing happens with your physique.”
“Yeah, you can get healthy and you could be eating clean, but I want to look good. I know everybody listening wants to look good. There’s not one person that’s going to be like no, I don’t want to look good. Of course not.”
Then, when you implement the good habits, and then you're ready to go to the next level. It's one of these things where in order to get to the next level, you have to master the level that you're at. You have to.
“You have to be comfortable and confident and ready to go that level, and that next level may be a program. It may be a personal trainer. Maybe you sign up at a crossfit gym or you start going to hot yoga. I don’t know. Whatever it is, you have to be ready for that next level, because then you appreciate the reward so much more.”
“Somebody wants to lose 40, 50 pounds. If you just handed them the perfect body that they wanted, without any work, I guarantee you they would appreciate it for a day, and then they would start eating the bad food again. You never replace the habits, the bad habits start coming back. That body’s gone in a month.”
“When you put in the work, and you install the new habits, and you define consistency in your life, and you actually change your lifestyle, not only do you get the body that you want, you appreciate the body that you want.”
“On a psychological level, that’s a game changer. That’s what changes everything. That’s when you start to change your confidence, and you start to change the people in your life and what direction you’re going, and you become way more empowered because you earned it.'”
“There’s something about us as humans when we’re working for something and we earn it, we appreciate it so much more, instead of it just being handed to us. The sad thing is, we kind of want to seek that out through a magic pill. I’d like to tell everybody right now, there is no secret magic pill. There’s not one.”
“Before you jump the gun, go and get you really blood work done. Just go get your blood work done, make sure everything’s good. Whatever you’re deficient in, then go and get a supplementation for that.”
You got to think again, it all goes back to lifestyle. The things you're doing now to get your transformation, can you sustain that the rest of your life.
“You made a good point with solving a problem. That’s what I sought out to do was, solve my own problems, and then I realized that there’s so many people with these same problems.”
“One of my biggest attributions to everything is that I’ve gone through everything myself. I have the experience, so I know where people need what they need when it comes to this lifestyle.”
My thing is, I want to connect with people. One of the biggest aspects is connecting with the person and helping them, like we talked about, change things not only with nutrition and exercise, but on the psychological level. That's one of the biggest attributes to actually having a successful business, in any industry.
“I do it because I’m passionate about it, and I know that I’m passionate about it. Because of that, I seek out to solve problems. That’s essentially all I’m doing. I’m just doing whatever it takes to solve these problems that I can relate myself to. That, when you have a business model and you put two and two together, the sky’s the limit right there. That’s every business model’s dream pretty much is just solve a very specific problem for people.”
“That’s what I’m doing, because I’ve had those problems myself. I’ve become obsessed with the process of solving these problems for people.”
“Being my first business and being new to the whole entrepreneur stuff, you have to listen to your market. You have to let your ego go, and you have to just listen to what the people want. It becomes, when you’re truly, truly passionate about something, you’ll do that. But when you’re in it just for money, or it’s cool to be doing what I’m doing, you will not listen to anybody.”
The people who are coming to me are women that are 35 to 60, most of them going through menopause or hormonal issues, thyroid issues, you name it, I deal with it. I started to realize, these are the people that I have a niche for to help, so that's how ... From a business perspective, that changed everything. Changed my marketing approach.
“You could learn the business strategies, you could hire somebody to do that, but it takes you to actually let your ego go and just listen to your market. If you’re truly solving problems for people, they will tell you. The people that want you will tell you. They will come into your life. You just have to, you can’t be ignorant, you got to open your mind and understand it’s right in front of you.”
Segment 4: (Length :03:00) – Hustler Thought of the Day:
Never ask advice of someone with whom you wouldn't want to trade places. - Darren Hardy
GENERAL NOTES:
Will Armijo – Founder of Will Powered Transformation & Apparel
- Will Armijo is the Owner and Founder of Will-Powered Transformation Systems & Apparel Line in Scottsdale, Arizona. He is a 9-time National Physique Committee (NPC) competitor and current Classic Physique competitor.
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Will holds an MBA degree and is certified in nutrition and personal training. While studying for his Pre-Med and Undergraduate degree in business Will became enthralled with fitness and nutrition.
- With eight years of coaching experience, being a national level NPC competitor and playing NCAA Baseball, it is safe to say that Will is a bit of an expert in the field.
- Will-Powered is a movement that was created to help everyday people and athletes of all ages and backgrounds learn and sustain a healthy convenient way of life through coaching, nutrition, and exercise.
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