The Stacking Benjamins Show
The Greatest Money Show On Earth
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This is a different kind of episode. No trivia, no headlines, just Joe and longtime health and wellness expert Angelo Poli having an honest, unscripted conversation about what happened when a training injury, a missed diagnosis, and months of frustration sent Joe into a spiral he didn’t see coming. It’s a personal story, but the reason it belongs on a money show is simple: your ability to earn, think clearly, and actually enjoy what you’ve built depends on your health just as much as it depends on your portfolio.
What You’ll Walk Away With
Why This Matters Now
It’s tempting to treat health and money as two completely separate categories of adulting. But the connection runs deeper than most people realize: poor sleep, low energy, and physical pain make it harder to think clearly, work efficiently, or make good financial decisions. And the whole point of building financial security is having the health to actually enjoy it, time with family, travel, the ability to do the things you’re saving for. Taking care of one without the other only gets you halfway to the life you’re actually working toward.
Resources Mentioned
MetPro — Angelo Poli’s concierge nutrition, fitness, and lifestyle coaching program, free session for Stacking Benjamins listeners
During our conversation, you’ll hear us mention:
A big thanks to our contributors! You can check out more links for our guests below.
Another thanks to Angelo Poli for joining us this week! Angelo Poli is a health and wellness expert with MetPro who has spent more than two decades helping people improve their fitness, nutrition, body composition, energy, and performance. After a serious injury left him walking with a cane for 10 years, Angelo turned his own recovery into a career studying the science of lasting health and behavior change.
Book a free coaching call with Angelo by visiting at metpro.co/sb.
Tune in on Monday when we’re talking risk and how do you actually gauge your own risk tolerance and create a portfolio that achieves your goals and lets you sleep at night.
Miss our last show? Check it out here: The 5 Secrets of a Happier Retirement with Wes Moss (SB1892) | Stacking Benjamins.
Written by: Kevin Bailey
Episode transcript
[00:00:00] Joe: Hey there, Stackers. Today we’re talking about health and wellness. I know what many people think, especially if you’re new to Stacking Benjamins, “What does health and wellness have to do with my wallet?” And it turns out, a lot. And by a lot, I mean everything. Number one, if we just work backward, right, if we begin with the end in mind, our goal is to have the money so that we can do things with it.
[00:00:21] Joe: If we can’t retire successfully, if we can’t enjoy our children, if we can’t enjoy our friends, if we can’t travel, whatever it is we wanna do, we need a certain level of health to make that happen. Number two is, is that when we’re healthier, we can think clearer, we can make better decisions. So many of the experts that we’ve had on our Wednesday mentor segments, and also on our Friday round tables, have told us about this science.
[00:00:49] Joe: So I could go on and on, but this directly affects your wallet, which is why we’re talking about it today. So the stakes are high. Our goal isn’t just to have money. Our goal is to enjoy money. That’s why I’m super excited, if you’re brand new to Stacking Benjamins, Angela Pole’s back.
[00:01:06] bit: Who’s with me?
[00:01:19] Doug: Live from Joe’s mom’s basement, it’s a special episode of the Stacking Benjamins show.
[00:01:35] Doug: I’m Joe’s mom’s neighbor, Doug, and this holiday weekend, as we get ready to roll into fall, many people start getting serious about work. But what about your health and wellness? Today, health and wellness expert Angelo Poli joins Joe for a special one-hour conversation. No trivia today, just you, Angelo, and Joe.
[00:01:57] Doug: And now, a guy who just found out the rules are changing on this episode right before we hit the record button, it’s Joe Saul-Sehy.
[00:02:09] Joe: That’s right, Doug. Thanks a ton. We do have a special episode today. It’s been too long since we’ve had our fitness and health expert, Angelo Pollion. As he and I were talking, getting ready for today, I was telling him some personal stuff, and he’s like, “We need to talk about this, because this is not you.
[00:02:27] Joe: This is… All of our Stackers go through times like this.” So this is gonna be a little uncomfortable for me, because, you know, some Stackers accuse me of sharing everything too much. Some stuff I don’t share. And normally I probably wouldn’t share this, but I told Angelo ahead of time I thought this was important enough that maybe I’d get to it someday on social media.
[00:02:48] Joe: He’s like, “No, hit record right now and we’ll do it.” So the guy keeping me brave today, our health and wellness expert from MedPro, Angelo Pollio’s back. How are you, man?
[00:02:57] Angelo: Oh, it’s great to be back, Joe. I always look forward to these conversations.
[00:03:02] Joe: I normally do. This one’s got me a little
[00:03:07] Joe: This one’s got me… But I do agree. I told you that people need to hear this stuff, and you’re pushing me to do it, and you know what? When smart people like you push me to do things, it always ends up great.
[00:03:19] Angelo: Everybody goes through challenge. That’s the one thing you can guarantee. When we work with people, I, I get asked often what’s important.
[00:03:30] Angelo: Is it discipline? Is it willpower? And yes, all of those things are important, but y- you know, at the end of the day, we are always going to have ups and downs with life that happens to us, which is why we need a routine that outperforms our mood. Because your mood is thus and such today, but guess what?
[00:03:52] Angelo: Life doesn’t behave. You get surprised. And when you do, what are you gonna do with that, and how do you get back on track? I wanna hear your journey. I wanna hear your story, Joe. I wanna hear what’s, what’s been happening.
[00:04:04] Joe: All right. Stackers have been with me for a long time. You know how much I love to tell stories, but not this one.
[00:04:09] Joe: So I’m gonna take a breather and get ready to go. We have a couple sponsors who make sure that we can deliver all this great stuff to you for the value price of zero, of absolutely free. We’re gonna hear from them, and then we’re gonna have Steve, our producer, put on some of the OG story music behind me as I’ll tell you and Angelo a little short story, and then we’re gonna unpack really what’s going on.
[00:04:34] Joe: ‘Cause I think a lot of you have been here before, and if you haven’t been there, there’s gonna be a time when you’re there. So we’ll be right back All right, here we go. You ready for the story, Angelo?
[00:04:43] Angelo: I’m ready.
[00:04:44] Joe: Okay. I ran a half marathon a couple years ago, and with Jessie from your team’s help, Jessie’s gonna come up a lot, everybody.
[00:04:52] Joe: So Jessie is my, my MetPro genius expert, and now my buddy who kicks my butt, and I absolutely love her and hate her, depending on the day. But generally, generally, generally I love Jessie, and it’s because of Jessie that I feel good and that I keep on the straight and narrow. Not all the time, as she will tell you.
[00:05:11] Joe: She’s like, “Yeah, there’s times when Joe’s easier than other times.” But she helps bring me back, and she’s a vital part of this story. But anyway, Jessie’s helping me get ready for this half marathon, and it’s in Hot Springs, Arkansas. It’s called the Summit to Summit, where there’s a mountain on one side of Hot Springs, a mountain on the other side of Hot Springs.
[00:05:29] Joe: You run up one mountain, back down it, up the next mountain, back down it. And as I’m training for this, I’m feeling this, uh, inflammation on the bottom of my feet. And so I go to my doctor, my foot doctor. I told her, and unbeknownst to me, she orders the wrong test. She ordered a, an X-ray instead of an MRI.
[00:05:51] Joe: And I don’t know anything about anything. My wife’s a medical professional, but really I, I, I still thought, you know, she’s a doctor. She knows what’s going on. So she looks at the MRI, and she diagnoses me with two words Getting older. Get used to it. Four words, get used to it. So now I get some inserts in my shoes to kinda help me, uh, with that.
[00:06:15] Joe: Turns out, by the way, the inserts made my feet turn even more, which put pressure on my tendons. More on that later. And so I worked my way through, not knowing that I had two stress fractures that my doctor had not picked up, and my feet just increasingly hurt more and hurt more and hurt more, even with the things.
[00:06:32] Joe: I power through it. I have a really fun time running the half marathon, although near the end I was struggling. I was struggling enough, Angelo and Stackers, that I realized that I maybe had one more marathon in me, and I really had to stop. I was like, “You know what? I gotta find other forms of exercise.”
[00:06:49] Joe: And I talked to Jesse, because as you know, Angelo, working with a lot of athletes and former athletes, and I’m gonna stop here for a break with you, changing from the thing you’ve been doing since you were 14 years old to realizing that you’re not gonna be able to do it anymore and you should do something else, emotionally, that’s a very hard time.
[00:07:07] Joe: And as you were telling me earlier, that plays out in a lot of different ways.
[00:07:10] Angelo: Everyone experiences that. As we mature, right, I’m gonna use the word mature in life, it’s easy to mourn, deeply mourn the things that have changed. But there’s a lot that, believe it or not, the body and our mind, and our mindset plays a huge part into this, is able to handle and convert to, and so much that we can still do that we get in our own head space because this one small thing has changed, that I am saying goodbye to everything that I love.
[00:07:47] Angelo: And I, I’m gonna give you an example of what I’m talking about Us guys, as we get older, and when I say older, I don’t mean even in our 50s, 60s, 70s. I mean just in our 40s 40s, 30s … 40s, we don’t bounce the way that we did when we were in our early 20s, okay? So we played football, and we could smack into the opponent, and we’d just bounce off of them.
[00:08:13] Angelo: And you know what we’d do? We’d get up and we’d go on to the next play. Well, when you’re in your late 30s, early 40s, guess what? You don’t bounce, you snap.
[00:08:22] Joe: We see this with pro athletes at the end- Correct … of their careers over and over and over every year.
[00:08:27] Angelo: Correct. Yeah. And that is the way of things. You can do a lot to mitigate that, but that is the reality of the march of time.
[00:08:33] Angelo: But you know what? That doesn’t mean that we lose all of our strength, and I see a lot of my competitive mindset athletes, my guys that were, you know, they ju- they were just weekend warriors, and they’re gonna be weekend warriors the rest of their life. The problem is because their competitive battlefield has shifted, sometimes they mourn that loss.
[00:08:52] Angelo: And the ones that just realize, well, the next adventure awaits. You don’t have to completely give up that desire, that passion. I’ll, and I’ll give you an example. Have you ever gone to, uh, a power lifting contest? Have you ever seen any of the regional- I have … okay.
[00:09:08] Joe: I have.
[00:09:09] Angelo: What’d you notice about the ages of the lifters?
[00:09:13] Joe: Oh, uh, sometimes go, moving up
[00:09:15] Angelo: That’s right. Yeah. What our body does, maybe it’s, it doesn’t handle that impact the way it did, but if, for guys for example, we still have testosterone, we’re still putting on muscle, we can still keep our strength well into… And by the way, guys listening, well into your 60s and 70s, and for a special few, even beyond.
[00:09:37] Angelo: You would not believe, I was just at a power lifting competition and I watched an 84-year-old deadlift. Wow. He can deadlift nearly as much as me. Wow. You know? And so, a- and, and granted, that is unique. But the moral of the story is not, okay, get into power sports. No. The moral of the story is transition gracefully, but keep that goal.
[00:10:00] Angelo: You have to have that thing you’re striving towards. You can’t just say, “Well, hang up the shoes. The race is over.” Because guess what? When you stop moving, then you do really start aging. If we don’t… It’s true. It’s an adage. Mo- use it or lose it. That’s the mindset of really exploring the different ways that I have seen individuals successfully transition from one season in their life gracefully into the next, and a big part of it is mindset.
[00:10:30] Angelo: And I have a feeling that’s where you’re, you’re kind of starting to go with this, Joe, but I wanna hear what happened next.
[00:10:35] Joe: So you’re saying, you’re saying before we move on, you know, I would sign up for races, then I would take the training seriously. Now I sign up for bike rallies and take- Sure … that seri- bicycle rallies.
[00:10:45] Angelo: Absolutely.
[00:10:46] Joe: And take that s- seriously. Just transition over what the goal is. Absolutely. Tr- you know, swim contes- whatever it might be. Yeah. And,
[00:10:52] Angelo: and let me actually interject there because here’s the science why. So this is 101. So I’ve been coaching athletes and weekend warriors for two and a half decades now.
[00:11:05] Angelo: At MetPro, what we basically do is we analyze all of the attributes that make someone successful, and that’s from the scientific side of things, to macronutrients, micronutrients, to the training, activity performance side of things. But guess what? The mindset side of things is huge as well. And so goal setting.
[00:11:24] Angelo: So people will ask me, it’s like, “Okay, well, what’s the meal plan?” We’re on, “Okay, we’re following this strategy.” “What’s the training plan?” “Here’s the training plan.” Now what’s our goal and what’s the date? Because you have to have something that’s time-bound. You have to have a goal that’s attainable, that you can see reaching, and every step on the path on your way to pursue that goal.
[00:11:44] Angelo: If you don’t have the goal and you just have the routine- You could be applying the same science, but we see over and over a failure to progress if there isn’t that date on the board. And I, and I, I’ll illustrate that. For years when we used to have our brick-and-mortar gyms and facilities, every year, actually about twice a year, we would take some of our clients to competition, physique sports.
[00:12:08] Angelo: Okay? So men and women competing in physique, fitness, in some cases bodybuilding category, but usually physique categories. Everyone at the gym got to train for that date, and on that date, that was picture day, right? Now, not everyone at the gym is getting up on stage in a Speedo, right? Right, right. That was never the intention, right?
[00:12:31] Angelo: Right. But having that date to support those handful that were competing, diet and train alongside of them, knowing that on the same day they’re gonna go and bring their best and they’re gonna get to have their photo taken and compare it to six months prior, psychologically, Joe, huge. Huge. And if we even take a step, one further step back, now this has been clinically proven, clinically proven in study after study, humans require hope.
[00:13:03] Angelo: There has to be what comes next. As soon as you lose y- your hope of what comes next, we start to decay. And so that’s why it’s critical that we transition from, “Here’s where I am. Here’s where I’ve been. Here’s what I’m doing next, and here’s what I’m proud of,” that.
[00:13:20] Joe: Yeah, that is more than you know it, Angelo, a little foreshadowing on where this is going.
[00:13:23] Joe: And by the way, Stackers, and I don’t want to delay, I do wanna tell you the rest of the story, uh, even though I’m reticent. But I also don’t wanna make this about me, I want it to be about you. And there are many times when I don’t put the goal up on the board, when I don’t have it in front of me, when I don’t have it on the mirror in the bathroom, when I don’t have it wherever.
[00:13:40] Joe: I would love it if you stop the podcast right now and put the goal on the board. Let’s put it on the board right now. Come back, Angelo and I will be here waiting, and you can hear the rest of this, uh, this, uh, this rollercoaster story. All right, you’re back, and I hope you did it. I hope you’re, you’re not just powering on.
[00:14:00] Joe: Here’s what happened next. So I decide it’s time for the last marathon, and this is a very emotional moment. But to your point, Angelo, I can do this part gracefully because I know I got one more, and I’m planning it almost a week early, ’cause I know exactly which one I wanna do. I know what thing on the board excites me, still excites me.
[00:14:18] Joe: I ran my first marathon at Walt Disney. I ran one partway through my experience, I ran a thing called the Goofy, where you run the half marathon on Saturday and the marathon on Sunday. I always wanted to do the Dopey. And what the Dopey is, you do the 5K on Thursday- Okay … the 10K on Friday, the half marathon on Saturday, and the marathon on Sunday.
[00:14:42] Joe: I’d always wanted to
[00:14:43] Angelo: do it. Oh, my goodness.
[00:14:44] Joe: And I said, “You know what? This is it. This is my last one. I’m signing up for this thing.” So the day comes, this is March of 2025. Yeah. March comes and it’s time for open enrollment and… Or not open enrollment, just open registration or whatever the… They’re opening the floodgates.
[00:15:02] Joe: Anybody that’s tried to register for the Disney Marathon knows you gotta be there ahead of time. They give you a little quick thing ahead of time. You try to get in line as fast as you can. And then luckily, I had my daughter, who said she was gonna come and run my last marathon with me. She was gonna go to D- I think she just wanted to go to Disney, but- Me too.
[00:15:20] Joe: Who doesn’t? So she did that. My sister, who I ran her first marathon with her, uh, the Marine Corps in Washington, DC, she tells me she’s gonna come as well. Cheryl, my spouse, is gonna come. So I have this nice little, this nice little group of people that are gonna support me and are going to, uh, help me make this transition out of running.
[00:15:40] Joe: And we made a big moment. If I would’ve tried to get into the Disney Marathon by myself, I wouldn’t have gotten in because, uh, they just never called my number. Luckily, my sister got on, and we’re texting back and forth, and she’s like, “You want me to sign everybody up?” So bam- Wow … I’m in the Goofy. My sister and my daughter get in the marathon.
[00:15:58] Joe: My spouse, Cheryl, gets in the half marathon. I’m just gonna do the 5K and the 10K by myself, right? Easy. So now I’ve got a training program because I begin with the end in mind and I start designing backwards. And Jesse’s helping me look at different dates, and we’re, we’re going through what my nutrition program’s gonna be.
[00:16:16] Joe: I pick out these races, so some 5Ks, some 10Ks. I use the Galloway Training Program, which is kind of the easiest way to do this. I’m not looking for time, I’m looking for comfort. Sure. If I’m looking for time, don’t Galloway. If you’re looking for comfort, Galloway’s great ’cause you probably won’t get hurt.
[00:16:32] Joe: So people can look that up. But anyway, so we begin this thing- My training is going really well, but again, my feet just continually hurt, just continually hurt more and more and more. My back always hurts, so I’m used to that. I finally get to Disney weekend, and I run the 5K no problem, run the 10K with a little bit of problem, but I’m powering through it.
[00:16:54] Joe: Half marathon comes the night before I go out to get ready, and I just, my left foot just does not feel right.
[00:17:02] Angelo: Oh.
[00:17:03] Joe: So I stop. So I stop, and I’m like, “I’m just gonna save it. Maybe it’s just tonight.” I hydrate as much as I can, and I go out there for the half marathon. Well, I had never put in what time I wanted to run, so because of that, they put me in the back.
[00:17:18] Joe: There are thousands, tens of thousands of people running this marathon. I’m running behind the slowest people on earth. You know what’s a happy place on earth? I’m in the most miserable place on earth- … behind runners way slower than me. I’m not fast, but these people are prac- How, how you can almost walk 26 miles…
[00:17:34] Joe: Good for you, by the way. Good for you. I’m not ripping anybody who does it. I’m glad you do. I decide to go in the grass to pass. The first time, it’s great. The second time, it’s great. The third time, I step in a hole, and I hear a pop. Oh. But I’m stupid, Angelo, so I keep running.
[00:17:54] Angelo: Yeah, most of us are.
[00:17:56] Joe: And my foot, by the way, does not want to go, if the road goes to the left, you know, the drainage of the road we’re on is draining to the left, my leg, my foot screams at me.
[00:18:08] Joe: I have no idea why at the time. I find out later, ’cause my left foot. If I go to the right, it feels much better. So I am… And by the way, you have no idea how many roads Disney has where, where it goes to the left, ’cause- Ah … my foot’s screaming at me nonstop. A couple miles later, I roll it again. I’m right in front of Cheryl, and she just sees my, my ankle just give out, and I just fall.
[00:18:28] Joe: I get back up. We find a place to tape it. I finish my slowest half marathon ever, but it’s done. That night, we go to get new inserts. I raise it. I put ice on it. I go out for the beginning of the marathon. I do all the things. I go out for the marathon. My sister and my daughter go with me, and in a very, I’m still gonna tear up, in a very kind of tearful moment I’m not sure if I’m gonna finish or not.
[00:18:56] bit: Hmm.
[00:18:56] Joe: They both had faster corrals. They were gonna run in the slow corral ’cause I never put a time in. Um, so I just let them go. Because inside I was like, “I don’t know how this is gonna go. They don’t wanna, you know, sit and babysit me the way Cheryl did before. I don’t want them to do that. If I can’t do it, I can’t do it.”
[00:19:12] Joe: And I had this plan, Angelo. The marathon goes all the way around Epcot, and when you get to the 5K mark, we’re back by my car, and I could just stop at 5K if it’s not happening.
[00:19:23] Angelo: Sure, sure.
[00:19:24] Joe: Then you go down from Epcot to the Magic Kingdom, and that’s where Cheryl’s gonna be, and I’ll just stop there. That’s at seven miles.
[00:19:33] Joe: So if I make it to three, that’s my first one. If I make it to seven, I can stop. After that, if I made it seven, I’m going. Even if I have to walk, I’m going. Mm-hmm. I’m going. I’m fine. Mm-hmm, mm-hmm. I’m all amped up. People can go to my TikTok page and see the videos, the Stacking Benjamins TikTok. You can go back to last January, this January, and see the videos.
[00:19:52] Joe: And I’m excited. I’m ready to go. I have tons of adrenaline. My feet feel great. Everything feels great. Angelo, I ran 100 yards.
[00:20:02] Angelo: Yeah. I get
[00:20:03] Joe: it. I go- I get it … I go 100 yards and, uh, and nothing. So I’m done, and I have a very tearful video that day. This part doesn’t tear me up for whatever reason, because I think I’d already kinda let it go with my sister and my daughter, you know?
[00:20:17] Joe: So I walk off the course. I walk back to my car. This part I’m only gonna tell the story ’cause it’s funny. I’m sitting there getting into my street clothes, and I’m just gonna go. I, I have no idea, by the way, the extent of which my injury is. More on that later. Sure. But this dude in a full-on vest and a badge and a radio comes while I’m on the ground putting pants on outside my car, and he goes, “How you doing?”
[00:20:41] Joe: And Cheryl and I go, “Oh, we’re doing good.” He goes, um, “Sir, what are your intentions?” And I go-
[00:20:47] Angelo: To have pants on.
[00:20:49] Joe: I know, I know. Well, at this very moment I’d love to have some pants on. Uh, I said to him, “Uh, excuse me?” And he goes, “Well, there was an officer standing next to you when you walked off the course.
[00:21:00] Joe: They assigned me to follow you across the parking lot, and I’m wondering what you’re doing now.” And all of a sudden I go, “Oh,” and I tell him, “I’m trying to run the Dopey. Yesterday I stepped in a hole. I’m not gonna continue.” He goes, “So you’re officially stopping?” And I said yes. So then I couldn’t even try to cheat.
[00:21:16] Joe: I mean, there’s no reason I’d cheat anyway. But I couldn’t even try because he grabs my number, or he looks at my… He has to see my number, and he calls it on the radio. They ask if I need medical help. I said no, and we’re on, and Cheryl and I spend the rest of the day. Anyway, I go to my… And by the way, as he’s walking away, he tells me, “You have no idea how many people cheat at this marathon or try to cheat.”
[00:21:34] Angelo: Huh.
[00:21:34] Joe: Why?
[00:21:35] Angelo: Oh, that is… Wow. The Disney Marathon?
[00:21:39] Joe: Wow. The Disney Marathon. Yeah. Like, who cares? Is my ego tied into- Like, my ego’s tied into whether I feel good or not, right? Of course. My ego’s tied into can I be a good dad and be here forever for my family or as long as possible. And if I’m here, can I make them good years?
[00:21:55] Joe: Which is why I work with Jesse and you guys. So anyway, I go to my doctor, same doctor that I know now ordered the wrong test and didn’t know I had two stress fractures. At this point, she orders an MRI.
[00:22:08] Angelo: Okay.
[00:22:08] Joe: Because it’s an MRI and she’s seeing the bones, she does not see that there is a tendon that has been separated in two places.
[00:22:16] Angelo: Oh, I’m so sorry,
[00:22:17] Joe: Joe. And she doesn’t see the mess. And so I go back to her, and she goes, “Good news, we avoided surgery, and it’s just gonna heal over time.” For about the first month, I was okay with that. And then as my wife sees me walking on my left foot like I’m walking on a rail on the outside of my left foot, and hobbling wherever I go, and my friends, one of my friends is my doctor, another is a, a physical therapist, they’re watching me.
[00:22:47] Joe: They outfit me with braces from the local sporting goods store. We do all kinds of stuff. And it was at about a month, I realized that this is the way I’m probably gonna be for a long time, and I immediately, and this is- I know
[00:23:02] Angelo: exactly what you… I think I know what you’re gonna say …
[00:23:04] Joe: this is where I start ignoring Jesse’s calls, I start ignoring my Met Pro app- Mm
[00:23:12] Joe: and I eat my feelings.
[00:23:14] Angelo: Mm-hmm.
[00:23:14] Joe: 100% I eat my feelings. It was amazing, Angelo. I gained… And this is where your point about having hope, I gained 20 pounds in a month.
[00:23:26] Angelo: Yeah.
[00:23:27] Joe: Maybe less than that, maybe three weeks.
[00:23:30] Angelo: I’ve seen it happen. It is… So this is where that, the mindset piece, and I, I’ll be candid, it helps to have someone you’ll let in your life help you kind of walk through that and unpack that a little bit, especially someone who’s seen it day in and day out.
[00:23:50] Angelo: Y- your scenario, Joe, you’re, you’re gonna be on the other side of this. You’re gonna get… You’re gonna recover, you’re gonna be able to do all kinds of stuff again. It’s a bummer. It’s gonna take time. You were robbed of a particular experience. So you were gonna be there with your family, and you had, of course, rightfully so, built up in your mind how this experience and memory was going to play out that you were gonna hold onto for a very, very long time.
[00:24:18] Angelo: That got robbed from you. And so understandably, that can set us on our heels, and it would, it would do that to anyone. Uh, you know, the, what, what’s the Rocky line where it’s not, you know, throwing the punch, it’s can you take a punch and keep going? But in the moment, you don’t realize that this isn’t the knockout punch.
[00:24:42] Angelo: It’s not the knock- not by a long shot, Joe. We’re gonna get on the other side of this and you’re gonna be back to the tip top. When that happens, walk through it, unpack it, and say what comes next. You can have your moments of saying, “You know, this sucks. This is a bummer,” and you know, you can find your way to the bottom of the insert whatever your favorite, uh, decadence is for a day or two.
[00:25:13] Angelo: But then what I want you to know, if anyone’s listening, I, I want you to pick yourself up and do exactly what Joe said. Remember he said, “Go and write what that goal is, look at that goal, and ask yourself- Can I still get there? Can I still make it? Can I still summit my mountain? If because of your setback the answer is absolutely, positively no So be it.
[00:25:39] Angelo: Give us the wisdom to understand the things we can’t control. Pick a new mountain. Pick what your next challenge is. Don’t stop climbing
[00:25:49] Joe: I’ll tell you where this leads. Every day that I ate worse and I in- ’cause I’m indulging my feelings-
[00:25:58] Angelo: Yep …
[00:25:59] Joe: I wake up the next day, like this is in hindsight, right? At the time you don’t feel any of this.
[00:26:03] Joe: Every day, Angelo, I feel worse. And as I feel worse, the spiral got easier and worse because if I had stuff that wasn’t kind to my brain, to my muscles, to my body, the next day it was like, “Hey, I liked the taste of that yesterday. I’m not working out today. I don’t really…” It just got easier, you know, and the wall’s now crumbled, right?
[00:26:27] Joe: Yep. The, the whatever determination wall I had is just gone. There is no wall. So the enemy is invading, and your lizard brain that just loves sugar, I’m sure. You know this better than y- y- you know this better than me, but my lizard brain is like, “Let’s carb it up, baby. Let’s sugar it up. Let’s fat it up.
[00:26:43] Joe: Let’s grab all the above and see if we can put it on a bun and see how fast I can choke that down.” Or ice cream, you know? Mm. Salt. Oh, God. Saltier the better. And while I know each of these individually, and I’m not a pro, is not the victim, it just got e- my point is it got easier every day. Correct. It got easier to do the wrong thing every day.
[00:27:02] Angelo: Let’s unpack that a little bit, both psychologically and then what’s the biology of what’s happening there, ’cause we all experience it. And just, you know, for our listeners, some of the listeners have been hearing us have these conversations for a while, but most people probably don’t remember my backstory, literally backstory.
[00:27:18] Angelo: So my lowest point was I was literally sitting outside the social services department with the paperwork in hand because my injury was so severe that I thought, “This is where I file the paperwork. I, I need to go on disability.” And by the way, if that is your scenario, I am so grateful that we have a situation where there are programs like that for those who need it.
[00:27:41] Angelo: Sure,
[00:27:42] bit: yeah.
[00:27:42] Angelo: So those who don’t know, I walked with a cane for 10 years, and that’s how I ironically got into fitness and nutrition and coaching and the science of human transformation. There’s nobody on this planet that understands what cheeseburgers and Oreos does to your body better than I do. And let me tell you, I went straight there, Joe.
[00:28:03] Angelo: I was right there with you. And then here’s what happens. Obviously we know when I eat junk food, we don’t feel good. Our stomach grumbles. Our blood sugar isn’t great. What we underestimate, however, is how that scenario will undermine motivation and ambition. That’s the deadly part. Once you start taking those steps, our biology becomes sluggish, which is why we have to recognize and eventually draw a line in the sand.
[00:28:36] Angelo: And it’s hard to do. And people talk about… I’m sure at some point you’ve, you’ve had a conversation, ’cause there’s different sides of the fence on this, but what do you do? Do you find the willpower, the desire first, or do you act first? After helping, I worked with about 24,000 people, I can tell you which one needs to come first.
[00:29:00] Joe: I will tell you which one was first for me, and I can’t wait to hear what that is. Normally here, Stackers, we have a trivia competition on our Friday episodes. Because this is a special Friday episode, and also this is k- this is a whole different tone, I don’t think having a Doug style trivia question in the middle of this is, really fits the tone.
[00:29:21] Joe: So we’re just going to break right here for our sponsors who make this whole thing possible. Big thanks to them for making this possible. Angelo and I will be right back, and we’ll find out which one came first, and we’ll, we’ll find out what happened next with me, how that applies to you and maybe where you are, and what we’re all dreaming of next.
[00:29:47] Joe: I’ll tell you what happened to me. My sleep is getting worse. I can feel my sleep worse. My work, I’m working longer hours. We’re still putting quality output out for Stacking Benjamins, but it’s taking me a much longer amount of time. And I realize, kind of tangentially, not really, but, you know, there’s some little piece of me that knows what’s going on.
[00:30:07] Joe: Of course, I’m s- I’m still getting on the scale bec- Right … and I’m still measuring. Jesse insisted that I get- You still have Jesse in
[00:30:13] Angelo: your ear, right.
[00:30:14] Joe: Well, I still got something to track my steps. I still get on the scale every day. I still do the measurements, ’cause that, that was the Jesse training. Jesse keeps calling, though, and I’m ignoring her.
[00:30:24] Joe: I’m not putting anything into the thing- … but I can see it going up. There’s this this isn’t me thing going on, but, you know, my loser brain is like, “Oh, just one more day. Y- just another… D- let’s just keep going.” One day Jesse calls, ’cause she didn’t give up on me- And I don’t know why, but I finally decided to answer.
[00:30:43] Joe: And she was so, excuse my language here, Stackers, but she was so positive. She was so, “You know what? You’ve got this. You’re gonna be great. It’s not as bad as you think it is. It’s gonna be okay.” And I’m doing what I’m doing now, where I’m tearing up. Like, I’m tearing up on the phone ’cause I feel like I’m talking to, I don’t know, a priest or s- You know what I mean?
[00:31:01] Joe: I’m talking to, I’m talking to somebody. I’m finally giving it up to somebody else, which I think, you know, we’ve talked about the importance of having, not just in your financial life, but in your whole life, having good coaches who you know have your back. I’ve been working with Jesse now for how long?
[00:31:15] Joe: Jesse’s got my back. And so I finally let her in, and the next day, just because I knew she was in, I just started acting. It wasn’t, it wasn’t… It was, “So I’m going 100%.” It was acting for me. I’m going, “It’s 100% acting.”
[00:31:30] Angelo: It’s 100% acting.
[00:31:33] Joe: Just move your feet.
[00:31:34] Angelo: Absolutely. Now we get into the science part. You have to start by acting.
[00:31:41] Angelo: It is critical that you do the right number of things. The right number of things is one thing. One thing. Here’s why we don’t act. Because most people, when they’re trying to pick up the pieces, “Okay, I need to get myself healthy. I need to change my habits,” well, they think of how that’s gonna interrupt their schedule.
[00:32:02] Angelo: It’s gonna interrupt their workflow. It’s gonna interrupt what they’re currently eating. It’s gonna change their sleep. It’s gonna change their workout routine. One thing, otherwise we will get paralyzed and do nothing, and then it’s, “Well, I’ll start tomorrow. I’ll start next week.” One thing. What’s that one thing?
[00:32:18] Angelo: Well, I can give you a list of statistically what those one things could be that will have the greatest impact, and I’ll, I’ll give you a little CliffNotes on that. It can be as simple as breakfast. Believe it or not, at MetPro, we made people start eating a mid-afternoon snack, and there’s a whole rabbit hole of science and data why we, we make that the one thing.
[00:32:36] Angelo: But pick your one thing and start. And as I opened the discussion with, we need a routine that outperforms our moods. Because your mood will go up and down based on the blows you take, but if you have a routine that you fall back into and figure out what your non-negotiables are… And this is kind of a, a heavy hitter.
[00:33:04] Angelo: Your audience, Joe, is they’re, they understand the importance of being financially responsible and what they have to do and next steps and what their non-negotiables are re- being good stewards of their family and their assets, et cetera, et cetera. Do you think that applies to health and wellness? You think that it’s just as important when it comes to our health?
[00:33:26] Angelo: The difference is if we are irresponsible there, nobody else is immediately looking over our shoulder going, “Wait a second. What are you doing there? That impacts me.” Or, “See, that’s gonna leak over into…” Whereas in other areas of life, here’s, here’s an example of a non-negotiable. Tomorrow you wake up, “I don’t really feel like going to work.
[00:33:50] Angelo: Eh.” What are you gonna do? You’re gonna go to work.
[00:33:55] Joe: W- w- You’re gonna go to work … exactly, if I wanna get paid. But I’m also thinking while you’re talking, if you don’t go to work, ’cause I do know some people that somehow have powered past that-
[00:34:03] Angelo: Yeah …
[00:34:04] Joe: it’s easier to not go to work the next day- Yeah … and not go to work the next day.
[00:34:07] Angelo: Yeah. And then now you’re in that hole that you have to dig out of. But for most people, work is that non-negotiable.
[00:34:15] Joe: You’re gonna go.
[00:34:16] Angelo: You’re gonna go. So what’s your non-negotiable for your health and wellness? A lot when I talk with clients about is physical activity, and I say exercise, I’m not talking about a knockdown, drag-out, you have to get to the boot camp, you have to kill yourself.
[00:34:31] Angelo: That’s not what I’m talking about. If that’s you and that’s where you’re at and your level, awesome. I love it. Totally cool. But if you’re just start, what’s your level? Is it walking? Is it just having a movement pattern? Is it non-negotiable? In other words, Johnny needs to be picked up from school at 2:00.
[00:34:49] Angelo: It’s 2:00. What are you gonna do? I don’t feel like it. I’m busy. I’m, I’m tired. You’re gonna pick up Johnny. You have to get your health and wellness pieces in your life into that non-negotiable category, and the reason that people struggle to do it comes back to, remember I said start with one thing? The reason we struggle to do it is because we try and shovel 10 pounds into a five-pound sack.
[00:35:16] Angelo: We try and go, “Okay, I need to do this, this, this, this, this, and now I’m overwhelmed,” you know? The guy meets the girl at the coffee shop. She’s really nice, and then he’s imagining himself with six kids and a mortgage. Look, just get her name, right?
[00:35:28] Joe: Right, right, right, right.
[00:35:30] Angelo: You have to act. Take that first step, and then just like, it’s exactly what you said, Joe, how it got easier and easier to not.
[00:35:40] Angelo: It will become easier and easier to.
[00:35:44] Joe: It’s so amazing. It’s like you’re telling the rest of my story, ’cause this is what happened, was that Jessie and I just peeled off, you know, going to the grocery store, rebuying just the stuff that I really should be eating, ’cause if it’s in the fridge and it’s in front of me, I’m gonna eat it.
[00:35:58] Joe: So now I have Honeycrisp apples, which I love. I will- Nice … I, I will die on that hill. I had an argument with somebody, with a financial person, saying, “Those are so expensive.” They are worth it. They are worth it. Honeycrisp- You
[00:36:09] Angelo: can’t take advice from him. That’s no good …
[00:36:11] Joe: no. Yeah. Gala, screw you, Gala apples. Uh, I don’t want any of that.
[00:36:16] Joe: But, you know, so buying those things, and then that led, that led to me becoming a scientist again, and really instead of being in defensive mode and being ashamed, to being let’s get playful again. And I, I went back to how Jessie and I over the years have been playful with this, and seeing this works, this works on my body.
[00:36:37] Joe: And what’s funny is I didn’t initially lose weight, but I stopped gaining weight. Immediately I stopped gaining. Sure. Of course. Like, immediately. It was just, it was amazing. And maybe I’d lose a pound, I’d lose two pounds, and I might gain it- back or lose or whatever, but I stabilized, and I felt stabilized
[00:36:56] Angelo: We weren’t leaking anymore.
[00:36:57] Angelo: E-
[00:36:58] Joe: exactly. And I knew now that I was stabilized, I’m like then I was able, to your point, Angelo, then add the next thing. I had frozen my gym membership when I felt bad, right? ‘Cause I’m like, “I can’t go there because of my foot.” Well, my friend, who’s a physical therapist, you know, that brace that I got that was better and better, I put that brace on, and I go to the gym, and I try it out.
[00:37:21] Joe: And guess what happens when I tried it out? I found out what I could do and what I couldn’t do. I start experimenting. “Eh, I probably can’t do that.” And then I joined a group because I know that if Jesse’s calling me, I will respond. If Jesse doesn’t call me, left to my own device, I’m not to be trusted.
[00:37:33] Joe: Like, I am not to… But I know me, right? Right. I know me, so I join a group. I end up working out with a guy. He’s a nice guy. I found out he’s the mayor of Texarkana, Arkansas, and the nicest guy, and we’re just- That’s awesome … and, and I don’t like him ’cause he’s the mayor, but there’s four of us who are in our 50s and 60s working out together, and now I’ll tell you, my gym workouts, going to the gym, is not about going to the gym, it’s hanging out with these cool people.
[00:37:59] Joe: Sure.
[00:38:00] Angelo: Yeah, when you have a tribe, it makes all the difference.
[00:38:01] Joe: I get so exci- ju- just like to your point, I, I would get excited about going on long runs, not because of the long run, but because there were, like, 10 of us doing the long run together. It was so fun hanging out. We’d talk about what movies you’ve seen, what’s going on.
[00:38:14] Joe: Before you know it, you’ve run 10 miles. So I start going to the gym. Then I start seeing weight loss start to occur, a little bit, but I’ll tell you what really helped then. Everybody ganged up on me and said, “You need a second opinion because there’s no way your ankle is right.” And this is the other thing.
[00:38:30] Joe: You’ve gotta make sure, and I know this, you gotta make sure that your medical professionals are the best ones you can get.
[00:38:36] Doug: Yep.
[00:38:36] Joe: And I understand you gotta trust people, and listen, I have a medical professional in my family. The number of people that go, “Well, I did my homework,” which means I, I went to WebMD- Ah
[00:38:46] Joe: or I looked up ChatGPT. You’ve heard this, Angelo. Oh, every day. You know, it, it, it makes you roll your eyes. But after a number of months when it’s not working, maybe the professional’s good, it’s just not good for you, which is okay. Which is okay.
[00:39:01] Angelo: Absolutely, and that’s why it’s called a second opinion, and in a multitude of counselors you’re going to find wisdom
[00:39:09] Joe: My doctor, my primary doctor refers me to another person for my ankle.
[00:39:14] Joe: I have to drive to Dallas. I drive three hours to this person, and when I went in there, he has me do a simple X-ray of my left ankle and my right ankle. I know nothing about anything. I could show you these two X-rays, Angelo- Hmm … and I could point out to you as a non-medical guy exactly what’s wrong and exactly how he’s gonna fix it.
[00:39:33] Joe: Wow. And driving home from that, I’m talking to my mom. Later in the day I talked to Jesse, by the way. I call my mom on the way home, Cheryl’s at work, and I said, “Mom, I’ve got the best news I’ve had in months.” And she goes, “What is it?” I said, “I’m gonna have surgery.” And she’s like, “I thought you said it was good news.”
[00:39:51] Joe: I’m like, “No.”
[00:39:51] Angelo: Sure. Yeah. No, no. I… You have to trust me.
[00:39:56] Joe: And between surgery and now, because I have a bunch of travel I don’t wanna give up on, he’s gonna outfit me with this brace called an Arizona brace, which by the way, just a few weeks ago as we record this, Angelo, I got this Arizona brace, and I’m sure you’ve- Yeah
[00:40:09] Joe: probably heard of an Arizona brace. This thing is a godsend. Oh, that’s awesome. The off-the-shelf thing I got from the sporting goods store, okay.
[00:40:16] Angelo: Yeah. Yeah,
[00:40:16] Joe: yeah, yeah. But this Arizona brace, I am 90%. I’m about to go hiking in Alaska, and I’m not worried about it. Wow. I am not worried about my ankle at all, ’cause this thing is amazing.
[00:40:29] Joe: I went on a seven-mile walk yesterday in the, uh- Really? … 90, 98-degree heat with, uh, Cheryl, and we powered through seven miles in the heat. Lots of water, lots of breaks. Wasn’t gonna get heatstroke, but if I can do that, I can take a casual hike in the mountains where I take my time, you know, and hike in Alaska.
[00:40:51] Joe: So-
[00:40:52] Angelo: So what are the next steps for you in this
[00:40:54] Joe: recovery? Well, let me tell you what happened next. Once I knew I had hope, we went from stability to full-on go. Ah. Because then I was able to up my walking, up my stuff, really then began to lock down because with h- I feel like it’s a cycle both ways, Angelo. I felt like it was a cycle on the downward spiral, and now it’s a cycle on the up.
[00:41:14] Joe: On the
[00:41:14] Angelo: upward. Yeah. I love hearing that. But- That’s fantastic …
[00:41:18] Joe: the competence in my corner gave me the confidence to go. The confidence made me perf- not perfect, but get better at the things I was doing and get comfortable with it so that I would take the next step. Taking the next step made me ask questions that made me more competent at that step, which then gave me the confidence to take another step.
[00:41:40] Joe: And so hiking in Alaska in the next week. My weight has come down. My high was 220. As we sit here, I’m at 210 and going down.
[00:41:50] Angelo: Very
[00:41:50] Joe: good. And-
[00:41:51] Angelo: Very good …
[00:41:52] Joe: even then my face, ’cause I, I, I think I told you this, Angelo, we’re all looking at me, Cheryl, Jesse, my friends- I’m not losing weight rapidly, but my body composition is changing very much.
[00:42:06] Joe: Cheryl has said that you’ve only lost 10 pounds, but your face is so much narrower and tighter and, and the skin color is healthier. You know, you can just see the, the health. Right. So f- and for me it’s not about losing weight, it’s about feeling healthier.
[00:42:20] Angelo: Healthy. Of course. Well, those are all classic signs that are improving your health markers.
[00:42:26] Angelo: And so your body fat percentage is coming down, your inflammation is reducing, and you do all the things that come with getting back into your healthy lifestyle. And, you know, and for the, for the Stackers, this isn’t about following some death march routine. There’s life in this. It’s about having a routine that supports your body and your health so that way you can perform at your best.
[00:42:51] Angelo: That is mental clarity for business, for finances. That’s for health and wellness. You have the energy to play with the grandkids, and that’s same exact science that we use for our top, top tier, some of the highest paid athletes in the world, is the exact same science that we want everyone to be able to apply.
[00:43:11] Angelo: And it starts with Act. One step.
[00:43:16] Joe: Just go.
[00:43:17] Angelo: Just go. Don’t wait. Don’t say tomorrow. You know, and it’s the same thing. You know, all the research says, ’cause you, you know, and I was just writing a, a white paper that required some of this research, and we look at all the latest studies. We compare those studies against, you know, our thousands and thousands of clients.
[00:43:33] Angelo: You know, we aggregate declassified data, and we look at, okay, what are the numbers telling us? What are the trends? What are the highly relevant pieces? And when we’re looking at all of this, what’s absolutely lining up that we’re seeing in practice and in the research is the earlier you exercise in the day, the more effective you are.
[00:43:52] Angelo: Lot. ‘Cause there’s no science that says AM exercise is more effective than PM science. It’s that there is 101 opportunities the longer you wait. Every hour in the day, there’s 101 opportunities for someone else’s emergency to become your emergency, and then it doesn’t happen. And so that’s why acting early in the day is critical.
[00:44:12] Angelo: Acting early in the week is critical. I tell people, “Here’s your exercise routine. We’re exercising three times Monday through Friday,” or for some people, five days a week, Monday through Friday. If you miss a day, ’cause life happens, we’re gonna use the weekends for makeup. Why do we do that? Is there some magic science behind Thursday versus Sunday?
[00:44:30] Angelo: No, it’s the reality of human behaviors, what a man will do and what I cannot get him to do. So we act early in the day, we act early in the week, and what I want you to do right now, if you’re listening, act right now. Write down that goal. If you want, get that… Talk to someone. Be on that team to get that support.
[00:44:52] Angelo: See the difference it will make in your life if you take action instead of saying, “Oh, this sounds good. What Joe said in his story really motivated me. Maybe I’ll do that next week.” 2%. 2%. So we’ve aggregated the data. So when somebody calls me up, okay, and I am doing a… I wanna be candid. Everybody on, on this podcast knows what a sales call is.
[00:45:14] Angelo: So someone gets on the phone with me ’cause they knew someone who’s, was a direct contact. They’re talking with me, and they say, “Mr. Poley, I know who you work with. I’ve seen your transformations. I know what your company does. I’m thinking about making some changes in my life.” And then we have a conversation, and I walk them through all the steps.
[00:45:34] Angelo: “Here’s what it’s gonna take. None of this 2:00 in the morning infomercial nonsense about the ab crunch machine or taking this pill.” “And it’s none of that. It’s like, this is gonna be hard work, but here are the actual levers that matter. Here’s the noise. This is the stuff that matters. This is all just clutter and noise.
[00:45:52] Angelo: You’re gonna need to do this, this, this, and this.” And they listen to me and they go, “Okay. I believe you. You know, I’ve, I’ve seen what you do. I’ve seen the, I’ve seen the work. I believe you.” Let me think on that. Let me think on that. Let me get back to you the beginning of next month. Now, they believe, they are absolutely speaking to me in earnest.
[00:46:14] Angelo: They liked what they heard, they’re going to think on it. Now I have this awkward moment where they think, “Well, wait a second, this guy’s just trying to close a sale.” I’m not trying to close a sale. 2%. That is how many people, if it is, “I’m gonna think about it and get back to you in two weeks 2% follow through.
[00:46:39] Angelo: Why do you suppose that is, Joe?
[00:46:41] Joe: Just your brain talks you out of it. Your brain likes the status quo. Yeah. The status quo is fine. Your brain’s gonna find 5,000 reasons why the status quo is better than change. In every- That’s what I think. That’s my guess …
[00:46:52] Angelo: in everything else in life, okay, you’re gonna make a financial decision, once the inspiration hits you, don’t act.
[00:46:58] Angelo: Stop. Talk to people. Count the costs. Right. But if the motivation hits you when it comes to making a change to benefit your health and your wellness, do not stop and think about it. Act immediately, because the next day, a whole new set of less important but more urgent issues are gonna crowd it out. I wanna repeat that.
[00:47:28] Angelo: Less important but seemingly more urgent issues are going to undermine. Act. Act today. Act right now. Take that next step. Lock it in. And this is why our model… ‘Cause we’ve done this. We, we’ve done models where we do, where we have a co- we’ve done self-directed models. I’ve been doing this 24 years, Joe. This is why to this day we have a client, that one client works with one coach who gets to know them.
[00:47:58] Angelo: Because when you commit to a person, you’ll let yourself down, but we don’t like to let others down. It’s hardwired into us. We hate letting someone else down. It’s the worst thing in the world.
[00:48:13] Joe: I get so excited when Jesse’s proud of me.
[00:48:15] Angelo: See?
[00:48:16] Joe: I
[00:48:16] Angelo: do. Isn’t that great?
[00:48:17] Joe: That’s great. I do.
[00:48:17] Angelo: Yeah. That’s, that’s exactly what we’re talking about.
[00:48:21] Angelo: And so that’s why get… And y- you just said it. You wanna have the best medical and wellness team you can have. Figure out what that team is. Move the dial forward, even if it’s on something small. Even if it’s not grandiose, if you know you wanna do it, don’t wait. Act now. It’ll make, it’ll make all the difference in the world.
[00:48:42] Joe: Yeah, I saw it when people were looking to hire financial planners back in the day, back when I was working with clients. It was, it was incredible to see people go, “You know what? I’ll get back to you in a week.” And I would just go, “No you won’t. No you won’t.” And by the way, six months from now- Yeah … this stuff is gonna be sitting there.
[00:48:58] Joe: Yeah. And I’m not, and I’m not being… You know, I have plenty of clients. I’ve got plenty of stuff going on. If you hire me, great. If you don’t, great. I’m just telling you you’re not gonna do it. You’re not gonna do anything.
[00:49:06] Angelo: Sure.
[00:49:06] Joe: Uh, ’cause, just ’cause that’s what happens. And it sounds cynical, but it’s just the truth, and it is frustrating.
[00:49:13] Joe: And I’m so happy that I picked up that, uh, I picked up the phone that day. That’s all it took. I picked up the phone and reengaged and said, “Nope, I’m, uh, we’re gonna turn this around.” And so, and it hasn’t been fast. hasn’t been easy. We’re recording this in August. This thing started in January. Mm. I mean, it has been an eight-month turnaround.
[00:49:32] Joe: If I wouldn’t have taken that call, by the way, uh, I c- c- you know, for a lot of people it’s 5 years, it’s 10 years- Yeah … until they turn around. It is fascinating to me how much your brain gets in the way. And as I said at the very top of today’s show, if I hadn’t told you at the beginning how much this had to do with your wallet, you would’ve been like, “What the hell does that do with my wallet?”
[00:49:51] Joe: You know, this stuff. This had everything to do with my wallet. What’s amazing is for me, my wallet equals productivity. I work for myself. Not only am I working more efficiently, so I’m working fewer hours, that means more time doing other stuff that I love. My daughter just got engaged, Angelo. Oh, congrats.
[00:50:09] Joe: I can spend time with her and my new son-in-law, find out who this creep is. No, I’m kidding. Actually, that’s- We’ll
[00:50:17] Angelo: take him in the back room.
[00:50:18] Joe: Bryce, that was comedy. That was your, your, your future father-in-law with comedy. I, I love Bryce. Bryce is incredible. My daughter’s incredible with him, so it’s great. Uh, spend time with my son, spend time with my spouse, and spend time with my friends.
[00:50:31] Joe: Like, this time that I was increasingly spending working ’cause I didn’t feel good, I can feel that retracting. I feel our system’s getting tighter. Awesome. So I was still producing good stuff, but there was a cost, and it wasn’t just a cost of hours for me, there was a cost of what we’re really trying to do for, not solve for more money.
[00:50:48] Joe: We’re trying to solve for more happiness, and that includes your wallet and your waistline. It’s all a part of it. I owe you this, Angelo. Let’s take a couple minutes. There’s 100 ways to slice this, guys. This is not a sales pitch for MedPro. Angelo’s got plenty to do. Uh, I have him back ’cause he’s a badass and he’s helped me so much.
[00:51:08] Joe: But let’s talk a little bit about how you guys are different and what sets people like you and Jesse and our friend Dennis apart. D- nobody knows Dennis. I know Dennis. Hi, Dennis. But the whole team. Uh, Crystal, who does your podcast, you guys have great podcast episodes, but what sets MedPro apart? How are you different?
[00:51:27] Angelo: It’s so funny because we started this. Now, I’ve, I’ve been doing this over two decades. Back in the day-
[00:51:32] Joe: That’s what you said …
[00:51:33] Angelo: yeah, I’m getting old, Joe. You know, people, I would have to explain to them what fitness and nutrition, nutrition really, coaching is. Like, “Well, what, well, what’s that? You, you, you’re gonna work with me remote to help me with my, my diet, my training, my…”
[00:51:51] Angelo: And I’m like, “Yeah, here’s this process and here’s how we do it.” Now, everyone and their mother, you can go online, there’s a bazillion, you know, nutrition plans and online coaching and all that. The problem is they all use the same words. And now, y- you know, there’s programs that are $9.95, and then there’s programs that are $19,000, right?
[00:52:15] Angelo: So what is it that you… What we do is we work with people on an individual basis as an advisor. We’re a pushy advisor.
[00:52:25] bit: Yes.
[00:52:26] Angelo: We’re a pushy advisor. So when somebody works with us, it’s not some online program. Yes, we utilize online tools, we utilize technology and all that sort of stuff, but it’s a advisory and coaching relationship where we’ve, we’ve taken basically the best sciences and decades of doing this, and thousands and thousands of aggregated data fed from clients to come up with a scientific progression.
[00:52:52] Angelo: And let’s talk brass tacks. Uh, about 92% of people who hire us, they want either fat loss or weight loss. Now, we do work with a lot that are like, “Help me put on muscle, help me perform better at my sport, and I wanna grow.” We… Same exact science. Most people are getting stymied because they need help improving their energy, their productivity, and getting to an optimal body weight.
[00:53:18] Angelo: That is hard to do when you’re flying down the highway at 70 miles an hour just trying to keep the wheels on. So how do we implement a strategic approach that is going to ensure forward progress at a pace that’s gonna keep you engaged? ‘Cause if you don’t see progress, you won’t stay engaged. You have to see progress.
[00:53:39] Angelo: That’s what keeps us motivated. But also fit into your busy lifestyle. And I know you’re busy. I’ve been doing this 20 years. I’ve had four clients that I got to work with that weren’t busy. Everybody else- … they were busy.
[00:53:52] Joe: And you felt bad for those four people.
[00:53:53] Angelo: I felt bad for those four people. So that’s what, that’s what all of our day in and day out interactions are focused around.
[00:54:01] Angelo: And now I can get into the nuance. We wanna see weight loss at a pace of .053% body weight in 72 hours. Otherwise, we’ll start manipulating your macronutrients. And there’s so much to it that you don’t have to worry about. You don’t have to worry about. That’s our job. Your job is to, we’re gonna take the cognitive load off, we’re gonna help you identify what the wildly important items are in your day-to-day routine.
[00:54:25] Angelo: We’re gonna get rid of the noise. We’re gonna focus on one thing at a time. And, and spoiler, it’s always nutrition. That’s the foundation. Exercise is just as important. Nutrition first.
[00:54:37] Joe: When I was putting the wheels back on, that’s the way we did it. Yeah. Nutrition first, and then we’ve, w- then we began building the exercise routine around it again.
[00:54:44] Angelo: Precisely. You gotta have energy- Yeah … for the exercise. Yeah. You have to have the foundation.
[00:54:47] Joe: That’s true.
[00:54:48] Angelo: We put all those pieces together, and- You can have a great time. You’re gonna immediately feel better. I’m not telling you it’s not work. It’s absolutely work. But it is also refreshing. It’s work that gives you, pours back into you, where now you feel like, “Hey, it’s the middle of the afternoon, and normally this is where I feel worthless, like I’m crashing, and now all of a sudden I have this energy.
[00:55:15] Angelo: Hey, I got up and I was able to do a little bit of my exercise today, and I didn’t feel thrashed because I have a routine that’s supporting it.” That doesn’t mean you’re not taking your wife out on date night on Saturday. It doesn’t mean you- you’re having to live a life of restriction. What it means is on middle of the week, it’s Tuesday, nothing special is happening.
[00:55:34] Angelo: We’re gonna be men and women of action, and we’re gonna have a plan, and we’re gonna progress that plan, and we’re gonna make sure that we’re progressing towards your health and wellness goals.
[00:55:46] Joe: And I would just add, if you look at it like a science experiment Even though it’s tough, I find it really fun.
[00:55:53] Joe: I just find it really fun to continually look at this. As a guy that knows nothing about nothing, I’ve learned so much, and it, it is fabulous. Except for when, you know, when you wh- when you have that incident that we talked about today. For those of you that are longtime Stackers, you already know what the URL is, but a long time ago Angelo and the company set up a special URL for us.
[00:56:14] Joe: It’s metpro.co/sb. So if you go to metpro.co/sb, they’ll know that you came from the podcast, and, uh, you’re a member of the Stacking Benjamins family. Angelo, thanks for being a mentor. Thanks for being annoying and making me tell my story.
[00:56:30] Angelo: Thank you for that passionate story. Wow, that
[00:56:34] Joe: was awesome. Well, thank you.
[00:56:35] Joe: Thanks a lot, brother, and we’ll see you at the end of the year as we get ready to… This is so weird to talk about, to get ready to transition into 2027 and come out of the gate next year. Joe, you say that every
[00:56:47] Angelo: year to me. You say it every year.
[00:56:48] Joe: I know. It feels like it was four days ago, but we’ll be back.
[00:56:51] Joe: We’ll have you back in December.
[00:56:53] Angelo: Looking forward. All right, Doug, uh, what should we have learned
[00:56:56] Joe: on today’s show?
[00:56:57] Doug: So what should we have learned today? First, take some advice from Joe’s story. Everything counts when you’re trying to be healthy. Your brain, keeping that in the game is a huge part of winning with weight, exercise, and life.
[00:57:12] Doug: Second, thinking about getting started on an exercise or workout regime? Start measuring. What you monitor can help you tweak the right moves for bigger results. But the big lesson, maybe we should have special episodes more often. I’ve been able to book the next five Sizzler happy hour gatherings for the whole gang while Joe and Angelo did this whole show.
[00:57:35] Doug: Man, this just got easy. Thanks to our old friend Angelo Poli for joining us again today. Looking to take control of your diet and fitness? Get your own free session with a coach at metpro.co/sb. We’ll also include links in our show notes at stackingbenjamins.com. This show is the property of SB Podcast LLC, copyright 2026, and is created by Joe Saul-Sehy.
[00:58:04] Doug: You’ll find out about our awesome team at stackingbenjamins.com, along with the show notes and how you can find us on YouTube and all the usual social media spots. Come say hello. And oh yeah, before I go, not only should you not take advice from these nerds, don’t take advice from people you don’t know.
[00:58:23] Doug: This show is for entertainment purposes only. Before making any financial decisions, speak with a real financial advisor. I’m Joe’s mom’s neighbor, Doug, and we’ll see you next time back here at The Stacking Benjamins Show.
[00:58:46] bit: It’s called the medium sketch. The medium sketch?
[00:58:50] bit: Yeah, it wasn’t rare, and it certainly wasn’t well done.
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