Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Speaker A: Foreign.
[00:00:06] Speaker B: Welcome to Disability Empowerment now season four. I'm your host, Keith Murphy de Gansini. Today I'm talking to Adam and John White, brothers who are the co founders of True Chat.
[00:00:35] Speaker A: Thanks for having us on, Keith.
[00:00:37] Speaker B: Yeah, welcome to the program.
So I would say, how did you two meet? But that's so self explanatory.
How did you come up with, with this idea of True Fit adaptive fitness?
[00:01:05] Speaker A: Yeah, it's a great question and there's definitely a neat story behind it. Again, Adam and I were brothers. He's the older one. He's got me by about four years of experience. But when I got out of the Navy, I moved in with him and his daughter. And you wouldn't believe it by looking at him, but he was over £300. And when I moved in out of the Navy, I was a trainer and I was into fitness.
[00:01:31] Speaker B: Wait, wait, Adam, what supplements are you on now?
[00:01:38] Speaker A: And so a lot of our, the real beginning of our company all started around this idea of we wanted to get families exercising together. We wanted to get parents working out with their kids. And the situation we had where Adam was here, he was gaining weight, he had a job that was kind of in the food industry, and he had a daughter at home. And my impression was, well, I got to find a way to get him excited about exercising. And that created True Fit as an idea of this family fitness company, which we kind of went down that path for years and years and years.
That path obviously led us to working with families who had different disabilities, whether it was themselves or whether it was a child or a family member. And we realized that the industry of fitness is a very competitive.
There's a lot of ego drive, there's a lot of who's better than who. And our version of fitness was really that shocking.
Our version of fitness was all about be your best version of yourself, be able to do things with your kids, be able to do things that people maybe suggest to you that you've never done before. And along our path of really getting this message out there, we ended up here in San Diego, where I live, working with a couple different resource centers that they cater to adults with different abilities. And so we were working with folks who were on the autism spectrum, working with folks who maybe had been missing limbs, folks with cerebral palsy and spina bifida and a lot of different conditions. And we realized that a lot of folks weren't getting engaged with fitness that was actually going to benefit them and really help them to better their lives. And so we decided to pivot. And we really made a decision with the company of that. We wanted to shift from not just being this family fitness company, but we wanted to really focus in on helping families and individuals with disabilities to understand fitness, to kind of get their exposure into it and then really develop a lifelong strategy that's going to help them to get fit, feel good, and then have that confidence to continue to move forward.
[00:04:00] Speaker B: Well, I would ask you, Adam, how do you follow that?
Well, that's a great introduction, Adam. How do you follow that?
[00:04:16] Speaker C: Yeah, well, you know, I, you know, I, I started, you know, visiting, you know, John out in California. I went out actually for, you know, for his wedding. And, and that also. Right. I mean, literally right after our, his wedding.
We ended up going and, and working at the ARC of San Diego that day for a fitness class. That's how I was introduced to the disability population there in San Diego. Made a lot of friends that day, got a lot of hugs. And I learned a lot about things that I had no clue. Right. They were just never something that popped up in my life.
And it changed my perspective on the disability community and really opened my eyes to a lot of the inequities that are experienced know there. And so that sort of sparked conversations with John about, you know, what was he doing and why, you know, how was his program so popular and important at the ARC of San Diego specifically. And then started exploring ideas about how could we take what he had created and make it more accessible, not just in San Diego, but throughout the world.
And, and that was where, you know, that led us to software. Looking at software as, as a platform on which we could expand this and, and get it out there to more folks.
And you know, so that's, you know, where we're at. You know, we've, we've started, we've developed a lot of the software. We're always in a development stage, but we've gotten it to a point now where we're able to implement this program into a classroom setting for a special education, you know, program at a school. We're also working with nonprofit organizations to give them an opportunity to offer a health and wellness recreation program to their members.
And we're looking at other sort of market segments within the disability community in which we can support improving health and wellness, you know, for this population as well. So it's, you know, we're just going on just over four years of sort of full time working on this project.
It's been a fun and challenging, you know, adventure for both of us and the rest of the team that we're putting together, but it's been very, very beneficial for us.
[00:06:41] Speaker B: Hold on, I have to step away for a second. Hold on.
So where did we leave off?
Oh yeah.
So development in software. I was just thinking about it.
You guys have been around for four years, almost five years, even ten years ago.
Acts.
Oh no phones or still in their infancy.
And so being constantly in development in terms of the abrogation, it's always good, particularly when you're a fitness company.
So wedging slew right out of my mind.
So how did you come up with the name? I mean.
[00:08:03] Speaker A: Yeah, well, I mean.
[00:08:07] Speaker B: There had to be a destroy genesis behind the name because it had to mean something to you. It's literally what people will find you under. So how did. It can't be or it shouldn't be just putting together two words or two little phrases and then abracadabra or late. It shouldn't be that. How did you come up. Up with that name?
[00:08:53] Speaker A: Well, a lot of it kind of comes back to the, you know, that first example where we mentioned the fitness industry has a lot of competition. There's a lot of people trying to, to show off how much better they are. And, and to us, you know, that that wasn't a true representation of fitness. It was, it was one that if we really looked at humanity and the reasons for being fit, it's about community, it's about helping out. Our community can thrive and survive and everybody can engage in the things they want to do. So, you know, there are other companies out there that, you know, one of them that was kind of popular is the CrossFit community and things like that.
[00:09:38] Speaker B: Never heard of them.
[00:09:41] Speaker A: Right.
[00:09:42] Speaker B: And they, they run Paleon.
[00:09:47] Speaker A: Right.
[00:09:48] Speaker B: Another company.
[00:09:49] Speaker A: They wildly.
Right, they wildly got popular in a lot of their. The premise, a lot of their rationale behind what they were doing was actually stuff that professionals in the industry, we, we were looking at that saying, whoa, hold on, that's not actually how we operate. But people were still gravitating towards it. Even espn, they got all into it and it's a sport now, but to me, it really still doesn't represent the purpose of fitness. Which, yeah, being your best to help others, being your best so that you can share that strength. And it's not about selfish, it's about doing this for a community. And so we went with True fit to, in a way to kind of grab people's attention of like, what do you mean? Do you mean that this is true fitness and we do that that is exactly what we mean. Where this is a truer representation of fitness, the health is not just about looking good. It's more about your mental health than anything.
[00:10:50] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:10:50] Speaker A: And a strong mind, having a strong level of confidence. It doesn't matter what your physical body type is because if you want to do something and your brain is fit and is able to grasp what you need to learn and do, then you're going to do it. And, and we wanted to represent that. We wanted people to say true fit, what is that all about? And get them to kind of be welcomed in of saying, you know what, I don't want to compete with you, but I want to work with you. And yeah, and it goes for everybody. I mean even folks who, you know, folks with disabilities are absolutely welcome to use our program in a way independently that benefits themselves. Additionally, we have the opportunity to have like teams, you can have groups on there, you can be a part of like a yoga club or a weight training club, things like that that are on the app. And so you know, we allow folks to strengthen themselves up but also do it as a part of a community. And we don't do it in a sense of competition the way a lot of fitness and sport. You know, to me a lot of times when you bring that in, it really adds a layer of sometimes anxiety, it adds a layer of that, that ability to.
[00:12:08] Speaker B: That I've never heard of that.
The jokes write themselves.
[00:12:17] Speaker A: But you gotta do stand up.
[00:12:20] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah, I'm in the wrong job.
No, I love my job.
The competitive angle of what we, what we think of ads, fitness, if you look back at the entire industry and the entire beauty industry, it's all about wait, wait, wait, wait. And who can lose it the quickest.
And I mean fitness is great but if you go into it with the obsession of losing weight as that's your main goal and for some people it is their main goal and there are health reasons why. But for most of us, what makes a brakes fitness is that uber obsession with weight. Weight and losing it. No one wants to really gain weight as much as they want to lose weight.
And so how, how had that dynamic that in to true fit and the culture that you promote because it is a very inclusive, user friendly application. And I'm sure you do group classes in person sometimes.
But in being a app I can take you guys anywhere that my phone has or my tablet has Internet connection. So how had realizing that the uber absent of losing weight, how have you refined that?
[00:15:32] Speaker A: Yeah, a lot of what we try.
[00:15:34] Speaker B: To do is imagine that in your company, right?
[00:15:41] Speaker A: And a lot of what we try to do is really focused on skill development. And so we look at the body with all of the different abilities it has, from flexibility to like hand, eye coordination, strength.
You know, there's a lot of different concepts that kind of make up our lifestyle and our movements and our activities. So our goal with the program is to introduce people to new concepts, new ideas, new exercises that help them improve their skill sets. As the skill sets improve, the confidence in your mind starts to improve. And a big part of it for me is all about creating the identity for the individual. So if you joined our program and you might not identify as an athlete or somebody who even exercises or is very healthy. And so our goal is to help you to shift that identity into somebody who is driven, who does have options and is willing to challenge themselves to try to better themselves. Now, we know that when it comes to weight loss, that it is 99.9% of what we eat in our calorie consumption in the makeup of those calories. So a thousand calories of fast food is much different than a thousand calories of fruits and vegetables. And as people start to develop the knowledge and the identity of themselves, we find that the weight loss and the decisions that are being made when it comes to nutrition are start to improve. We give individuals a motivation on why to make that proper decision when it comes to food choices, because the reinforcement has been there through the activity. And so somebody who maybe didn't think that this was for them is now starting to identify themselves as somebody who is active and does need to start paying attention to what they eat when it comes to things like cardiovascular training. You know that a lot of people when it comes to fitness, they think of three things. They think of running push ups and sit ups. And for some reason those three things are like, they're like, that's exercise, right?
[00:17:51] Speaker B: I mean, I tried to dispute that in my mind, but no, no, people, people, as much as the over obsession with losing weight is prevalent with why people work out, what you just said, John, is the standard of what people think the totality of exercise is. And I want to point something very interesting out. You said running sit ups and push ups, the weight, the free weight industry, which is huge.
You didn't mention that. And yet it's so. And I'm not mentioning losing weight at all, at all. I'm just getting back to the motivation of why people start and often struggle and often fail at exercise as a healthy lifestyle where the.
Because they Judge said either they said or the cultured sets are both, usually both set. That's unrealistic expectation that your main focus should be always, always losing weight.
That's the really only point to exercise, to living healthy.
And that should not, that shouldn't be the driving force behind help.
[00:20:37] Speaker C: Right.
[00:20:37] Speaker A: And a lot of it, I feel, comes back to the days of high school where it's all about who's the jock, who's on the varsity team.
Yeah. And a lot of it falls back to that. One of the things that is neat about the app that we have is we have a way to where you can take any exercise and you can make it easier or more difficult, depending on where you are finding success. And so the goal is that with an exercise, we don't want to set you up to make this difficult. We actually want you to learn it. We need you to understand the movements or whatever it may be. And so we find a point of success and then we build upon that. We also track that. So the idea is that, and I tell people this all the time, a lot of people quit trying to exercise right before they're going to start seeing results. They're, they're impatient.
[00:21:27] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:21:28] Speaker A: They want it now and it's not going to happen now. So then they quit and it's like, whoa, give it one more week and you would have noticed it.
[00:21:36] Speaker B: I'm sorry to interrupt. That's such a vital point, which is.
I'm a huge Shakespeare fan. Another topic. But what you should said is like one of the greatest Shakespearean tragedies of why people struggle so much with help and they think health is just health working out again. We get into this one track mind of it's all about losing weight.
And it, it's, we all know it's not losing weight. I mean, if it was, everyone would be way below healthy weight levels.
Physical trainers would just disappear after a while, like psychologists, because you, you get to that point and then you don't need them anymore. It's just like I'm, I'm talking about a lot of the competition culture that had unfortunately permeated the entire industry probably for centuries.
But this is what people think about when they think about walking out, about a healthy lifestyle. A healthy lifestyle does eat so much more than just losing weight. My birth was 2lbs 11oz. I was born three months premature and I have cerebral palsy.
I geek out on memes a lot. And there's a meme on Facebook that said, I've decided not to go back to my Birth weight. And I'm like, yep, that's, that's that.
Because I, I just got a smart scale and I'll share how much I weigh because I really have no shame in that. I'm about 167. I'm about to hit a big milestone birthday, and I'm 5 foot 4. According to that scale, my ideal weight is 1 29.
[00:25:34] Speaker A: Wow.
At 5 4. Right.
[00:25:39] Speaker B: No.
[00:25:40] Speaker A: Who came up with that? Right. Who came up with that? Right.
[00:25:43] Speaker B: No, and I mean it. That's for a male.
And so you do a female configuration. The ideal weight for someone at middle age at 5 foot 4 is 120.6.
Again, no doctor is. Or no trainer is gonna be like, yeah, that. You should really shoot for that.
It like the algorithms of today came up with that. They're way off. I mean, no, the lowage a doctor has ever tried me to shoot for, it's 140. The closest I've come is 147. My body seems to like to be in the range of 150 to 155. I haven't been 120 since the last year of my teenage years.
Oh, no.
24.
A little bit older. Eight inches. But again, we're shooting for often these unrealistic goals when no one should really care.
Because you'd say John, they apply. It's more about mental health than anything else.
So, Adam, do you agree with everything John always says?
[00:28:18] Speaker C: You know, I think, you know, I think he's, he's pretty right. He and I are oftentimes, you know, somewhat function as one mind when it comes to a lot of what we do.
[00:28:27] Speaker B: I'm giving that impression very succinctly during the interview. Go.
[00:28:37] Speaker C: But, yeah, you know, I think it's important to note that for, for us at True Fit, especially working with the disability community is, you know, for us, health and wellness and fitness is much more beyond. Goes much further beyond just weight loss loss. Right. We're looking at improved mobility, improved confidence, empowerment through education. Right. If you're an athlete who knows nothing about fitness or health and wellness, and you come to our app, what we're doing is taking steps to educate you as an athlete to better understand, how can this make me a better person? How can it make me more independent, more confident, more maybe even more ready for a job, you know? You know, a lot of employers, and it's unfortunate, but this is a reality is a lot of employers out there don't hire people with disabilities because they assume disability means additional burdens on, you know, their employees, additional sickness. They feel like disability is very closely related to illness or sickness and it's a, it's a burden on their health insurance, it's a burden on their employees. You know, additional accommodations needed to, to hire someone with a disability. And we're hoping to change that. We're hoping to be able to, you know, help our friends with disabilities improve their independence, be more job ready, be able to be more autonomous, especially in a job setting. And these are all things that, you know, by, by working out, by eating and, you know, improving nutrition, improving emotional wellness, which is another big thing that we include in our program. Right. We do meditation, we have breath work, we have adaptive yoga. So we do a lot of things to help really build not just physical fitness, but mental and emotional fitness as well.
So fitness of the mind. Right. Like John said that that mental wellness, all of this is, is a, it all has to come together, right? You can't just do one without doing the other. There's no way you can do that. You have to bring it all together.
So that's what we're trying to achieve, to extend beyond fitness and actually bring a very holistic, all encompassing health and wellness program to our friends with disabilities. Helping them out, job readiness, independence, you know, really learning about things like outdoor recreation as well, things like hiking or, you know, adaptive skiing. We also run an adaptive surfing and sailing club in San Diego. So, you know, if you're ever in San Diego, you could come out and go surfing with us. You know, different things like that. I volunteer here in New Mexico with an adaptive skiing and snowboarding program.
The idea is to help, you know, introduce those kind of lifestyle sports to people with disabilities. So it's something that they can train for and accomplish and look forward to for the rest of their life.
That's what they can do with those kind of sports. So this is also part of what we include in our program.
[00:31:51] Speaker A: Yeah, there's definitely a connection between the natural world and our own human health and well being and the more connected we are. I mean, it's funny because we're a technology company, but me and my brother are the first two to say, hey, we can't wait to put our phones down and to get out there in the world because we know what that does for us and we see that a lot of our friends aren't getting those opportunities. Again, similar to the reasons Adam said about employment, people feel that there's just this extra work that was going to be required or it's not going to Be fun. And part of what we wanted to do with Waves for All, which is our adaptive surf club, and is to literally invite everyone who is drawn to the ocean, who feels that need of connecting with the ocean and the waves, all ages, all abilities. And we get together every month and we kind of have a beach party and people surf and some folks just hang out, but people have a good time. And there's something that's connected with that, where we're with the ocean, we're out there in the sunshine and the elements. And there's this identity piece again, that's getting worked into the minds of individuals. I work with a lot of individuals with spinal cord injuries, broken necks, broken backs. And I get these guys or girls, you know, generally within a year or so of their, you know, life anniversary to get them out into the water, get them experiencing something, doing something they maybe thought was never possible and that other people might have thought would have been too much of a task. And I try to get people to understand that not only is this possible, but there are people here who want to help your. Yourself or your child out. There are people here who want to be able to be a part of their experience of getting back into life. And we find that individuals with physical disabilities in a lot of ways, can provide almost like a role model example for some of our friends with intellectual disabilities. And I have a lot of friends who are on the autism spectrum. And a lot of my friends, they're not as interested as they are hanging out with me, as they are my very good friend Josh, who's totally blind and goes out surfing. And if you can only imagine being 100% blind, only. Only black, no shadows. And he goes out and surfs with me, and I. I talk him into the waves through instructions. And some people are so amazed by that that then they start to get a new thought process of, well, what is possible for me. And if I had the right training, if I had the right skills, if I had the right team and the right equipment, then it almost seems like there's nothing that's impossible. And that's the truth, and we know that. And so our goal is getting people to see themselves differently, getting people to see exercise differently, and putting those two together so that they can grow into an individual who then maybe starts to say, hey, there's a great big world out there, and I want to get in it. I want to be out there. I don't want to be limited to what maybe a doctor or some people who don't know anything about Me are going to say, well, this is what you can do. I want people to feel that if they have it in their mind, that we can then work with their body and we can create results that are going to help them to do things that are absolutely amazing. I mean, just epic, epic life moments. Because if you're not getting them in, if you're not thinking. My brother just climbed 50 mountains in New Mexico in one year. He wrote a book about the. The 50 greatest peaks in the state of New Mexico. That's an epic life story. That's something that's so powerful and it can never be taken away from him. That. That could drive him to having a healthy lifestyle and keeping that going for the rest of his life.
[00:35:45] Speaker B: And so why did you stop at 50? Why not?
Excellent.
[00:35:53] Speaker A: They ran out of mountains.
[00:35:57] Speaker C: We. So it was. It was actually a book for falcon guides that'll be coming out next year.
But it. It was supposed to be a book about 40 hikes to 40 peaks of New Mexico.
Some of those hikes that I chose ended up hitting multiple peaks. So in one hike. So, you know, in fact, one. We hit eight peaks in one hike. So, you know, so we actually climbed 50 peaks in 40 hikes in New Mexico. And then now it's a. It's going to be a guidebook to guide people up to these mountains throughout New Mexico.
[00:36:35] Speaker B: So.
[00:36:35] Speaker C: And I, Yeah, I had one year. One year to do it, you know, one year. So 52 weeks to do it. And it was. It was a lot of. It was a lot of fun. It was, you know, that's what pretty much took up most of my weekends.
[00:36:46] Speaker A: And it was challenging.
[00:36:49] Speaker C: Yeah, it was a great challenge. Yeah.
[00:36:51] Speaker A: If you don't do something challenging, you'll know it.
[00:36:55] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:36:55] Speaker A: If you do do something challenging and you accomplish that, you know it, and it is huge. And just like my friends who I take out into the ocean who don't know if this is something they can do, and you get them into that wave and you can see it on their face. They're like, I am now a different person. I'm back.
[00:37:14] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:37:15] Speaker A: And, yeah, that. That's, again, it's part of nature. It's a part of that connection with our natural world. But it generally, for humans, it only comes if we put in the upfront work and develop skills and develop a healthy mind, develop a healthy attitude and are willing to work with the team, because there's not anybody out there who's really doing this on their own, you know, do that on his own. There's always there's a team, a support team, a motivating team. There are always. Somebody's always there to not have to be alone in this journey. And I think through our app, you know, part of what we want to do with our exercises is we actually use examples of with individuals with the different abilities. So individuals with missing limbs or autistic or somebody who's a wheelchair user, we show them performing the exercises. We want other individuals to be able to identify as look, here's somebody similar to my situation. And they're not giving up. They're actually pushing their. Their limits. And I like to see how they're doing that because that's how I want to do it myself.
[00:38:26] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:38:26] Speaker A: It was really important for us to have that authenticity. You know, a lot of our exercises and our programming and everything. It's developed in collaboration with myself and probably close to 50 to 60 individuals with different abilities who we all communicate. We talk about what we're trying to accomplish and we view ourselves as a team.
[00:38:52] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:38:52] Speaker A: Trying to help the rest of the world. Again, that's epic. And if, yeah just if we can get a sliver of the world, if people disabilities all over the world just a fraction, if they can get engaged, if they can find out what we're doing, their communities, their own personal communities will start to boost up. People will start to wonder like wow, all of a sudden so and so is so active. There's. They're talking about wanting to do all these things they're in. They're motivating me. I want to get involved. We can see dramatic change across the world through exercise health. But again, it's done without the competition. It's without the ego. It's all about, yeah, let's be kids.
[00:39:33] Speaker B: Really. The. The uber absent of weight loss, it becomes about the ego and not feeling like you are not as you are let you reach.
I make the joke that if I try to get anywhere close to 120 people would start sending me gift certificates to fat food restaurants because everyone will be so concerned about my health. I will look like a twig. I will look so unhealthy and it.
[00:40:35] Speaker A: Could be dangerous yet.
[00:40:37] Speaker B: Could be dangerous. Actually we can get the word could out of their. For me it would not to mention a lot of other people. It would actually be life threatening.
It's just.
And so you almost had five years as a company.
What are the next five, 10 years like for True Fit? What are some of those epic moments, those big dream aspirations where you want the company to go?
[00:41:37] Speaker C: Yeah, well, you know, one of the things that we're doing is, and I don't have one in front of me, but you know, we're, we're taking our program with a, a adaptive physical education curriculum. Right. So, and we're putting that right now, there it is into schools. We're piloting with schools with special education departments throughout the country right now and testing the, the use of the curriculum with our program. And the goal with this is to intervene early on with youth in elementary, middle. Right. You know, a lot of, a lot of schools with students with disabilities do not have a very, a comprehensive physical education program for those students.
So what we're trying to do is, is give those schools a very effective solution for them to start building that physical education for their special education students and students with disabilities. So there is a solution for those students. It's a national mandate. Federally schools are supposed to provide something and most, I mean it's a, it's surprising when we learn this, but most schools throughout the country do not have an actual physical education program for their students with disabilities. We're hoping to solve that, that will, that will hopefully improve the overall health and wellness statistics, you know, of obesity and diabetes and cardio, all these things. Right. That, that happen in adult life. Like what we're hoping to do is change the trajectory of that with the youth. You know, the other thing we're trying to do, and we're working on this right now is establishing partnerships with non profit organizations in the disability community and working with them to bring to their members a recreation program that is focused on improving their members health and wellness through those two channels that we're focusing on there. Those are two what we've identified as very effective ways to really influence long lasting change and improve health and wellness overall.
[00:43:52] Speaker A: Yeah, some of our long term goals too are going to be having a presence at the LA Paralympics. That's something that we plan on and then working up with different organizations to support that at the high level. But like Adam said, is to really work with the students, to work with the younger generation to get them to realize all of the things that are opening up for them. Because a lot of doors are opening every year. There's more and more inclusivity, especially here in the states. And I think a lot of our goal here and a part of the reason we're really driven out of Southern California is because we know we can set an example for not just the rest of the country, but for the rest of the world to follow. And I would hope that you know, within a few years, our app is, is, you know, pretty prominent across this nation. And then going into other countries to where we're helping individuals who maybe don't have access to everything that we have here in the States. We're working right now with an organization called Hands with Hearts and they go around to third world style communities who don't have hospitals, don't have education facilities, and they actually provide treatment for individuals with disabilities who live there. But they're only able to do that for like a week or two at a time at each location. So they might be in Thailand and then the next thing you know, they're in somewhere else in Micronesia or they're in this other country and they're going to Ukraine and helping out, you know, veterans there. There's a lot of places where they go, but then when they leave, the services that they provide are also dropped off. And so people don't know how to continue on. And so our app's going to be able to fill in the gaps for individuals in those kind of programs. Folks who work with a physical therapist, occupational therapist, our program will fill in the time between appointments. So now your OTPT experience can actually be greater than the one before and not just a status quo kind of, you know, barely moving the bar along. So there's a lot of that. There's also the idea of like integrating with things like Fitbit and different wearables. We want to track for individuals they're sleeping, we want to track their activity time, we even want to help them with their nutritional tracking. And that's something that we're building into the program for next year, is folks will be able to input in what they are eating and then get ideas on. You know, is that actually what I want to be doing or are there other alternatives that we can maybe suggest, you know, to help people with that dietary goal? And a lot of times the dietary goal might not be necessarily about weight loss, but if it is, again, we want to drive that individual towards boosting their confidence and then developing the mindset of their identity, driving their decision making. And so that way we hope that when it comes to the nutritional decisions, they can eat a healthier, balanced diet. But I know firsthand, you know, I work with, with hundreds and hundreds of individuals with disabilities, all shapes and sizes, and we, when we are out in the water or when we are in our activity mode, we're not sitting here counting calories and weighing folks, it's all about doing the best you can with what you got today. And knowing that that can improve, but that we're going to go out there with what we got. And I think for a lot of folks who have the weight loss, as maybe other people are telling them this. Yeah, my, my frustration would be that you would have an individual who maybe has an epic moment. Maybe they go, you know, out on the lake and they go kayaking for the first time ever, and it's just incredible. But then when they get home, somebody says, well, did you lose any weight today?
[00:47:38] Speaker B: Yeah, that would.
[00:47:40] Speaker A: That entire.
[00:47:41] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:47:42] Speaker A: So for me, it's about. We want the. The community to understand and we want the community to provide for itself. The. The consciousness to realize that this isn't about weight. This isn't about, oh, did you. Did you paddle faster than the other person? But it's about looking at each individual and understanding what that meant to them in terms of themselves, their growth and then. And then fostering that so that individual can grow.
The number of weight can be very discouraging for individuals and, and even in some cases with competition, that can be discouraging where somebody will go out and they'll have an amazing time, but they didn't quite win and so. So now they feel like a loser. And it's like, hold on a second. You just did something incredible.
[00:48:30] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:48:30] Speaker A: That's been taken away from you because layer of. But you had to beat the other person. So, yeah, to me, it was about if you're really strong and you're really fit and you got it all going, then come on over here, join us, and let's work together and let's boost up the entire community. So if I have a friend who's a quadriplegic who wants to go out and go surfing or go climb a mountain, which I have friends who are quadriplegic, going, I want to go up that mountain. How are we going to do it? Well, we can figure that out. We can design gear, we can work as a team, we can come up with solutions, but it requires the individual to have that desire as well.
It's one thing for me to go up to somebody and say, hey, man, do you want to go surfing? It's awesome when I have somebody coming to me saying, hey, I want to go surfing. Can you get me out there? And by the way, I have cerebral palsy, so I'm going to need. I'm going to need a particular situation. But for me, that's not a. That's not a reason not to do something. That's a. Yeah, that's why we're given brains to figure things out. And that's what we do.
Yep, that's what we do at Truth. But we figure it out, we find that success, and we foster that mindset of confidence, belief in oneself. And then everybody else who maybe not have believed in you, they will, they'll see, they'll. They'll get with the program. If not, they can get left on the couch. That's just fine, because we're. We're here to help those individuals who have that desire, even if it's just a flicker in their mind of, yeah, I want, I want to increase mobility. We have a good friend where, when I met him, he didn't use his right hand. He has cerebral palsy. He didn't use his right arm. He's joystick power chair. And he drive himself around. And when I met him, he, you know, he's like, yeah, this is. You call his bad arm. And when I was like, well, you know, give me a high five or shake my hand with that. And he did. And I'm like, well, if you can do that, let's see what else we can kind of start to come up with. And within a matter of months, not only was he able to, like, we had a ball like on a pendulum swinging, and the, the first goal was to use your bad hand, use that to deflect the ball. Just hit it away from you. You don't want it to hit you, and so hit it. Next thing you know, he's catching it. Next thing you know, he's using his right hand to make adjustments in his chair. And the next thing you know, we get a phone call from his dad saying, you guys aren't going to believe what just happened. But he's making his own transfers now. He can get himself over into his bed. He came up with the technique of pulling on his bunk bed and lifting himself and moving himself, which required the two arms. But he had the confidence to do it, and now he's able to do that for himself. Giving his dad a break and giving him that confidence to say, hey, you know what? I need to go to the bathroom. I got this. Yeah, I need, I need. I need to get up out of bed and get ready for breakfast. I got this. And to me, that, that is so powerful because all it took was somebody taking his situation where you are right now, understanding where you want to be, and then filling in the blanks, just like an algebra problem. And we can do for an individual, we can say, this is who you are, and this is who you Want to be. I know the result you're looking for, but what do we have to do to get from here to there? What do we subtract? What do we multiply? What do we divide out? What do we, you know, do first in parenthesis? Whatever it is, it's a math problem. But it's always going to have a result that we can predict because we're all humans, we all share the similarities that fitness is going to respond. Fitness doesn't know that, oh, my best friend Hunter is autistic. It doesn't understand that.
[00:52:18] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:52:18] Speaker A: And so if I apply concepts that work for me and you and my brother, they're also going to work for my buddy Hunter. And they do.
[00:52:26] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:52:26] Speaker A: I just got my buddy to learn how to swim. Eighteen years old, he put in a pool, he would just sink to the bottom. We developed techniques, we developed concepts, and then the next thing you know, he's able to go off the side of the pool, jump into the pool, swim across the pool. And I looked at his mom and I said, if you ever get invited to a pool party, now you know, now you know. And that could be huge for a young 18 year old.
[00:52:51] Speaker B: Yeah.
Yeah. And so wrapping up, and I hope you guys will come back. This has been a delightful interview.
I should have introduced you, John and Adam, though, considering how much John is talking, I should do stand up. Maybe that's my next gig.
But I always ask two questions at the end of every episode is in case there are any aspiring advocates who want to get into adaptive fitness either at the trading level or at the trainer level.
What would be some advice, some action steps you would give them?
[00:54:12] Speaker A: Absolutely. If somebody would want to be a part of our program. And this, this is for anybody listening. If you're listening to this and you're saying, I want to be a trainer, I want to be a coach, I want to take my strengths and I want to help others. We have a way to help you do that and we have a way to help you build a community locally or maybe virtually. And we can help you to instruct individuals to provide your expertise combined with our ideas and insights to create your own team and to really make a difference for those people who are looking up to you and might be looking to you for that help because they don't know where else to look. Now, if you're an individual and you're thinking, I want to be a participant, I want to work maybe with a local team or maybe I want to be a part of Coach John's team, You know, I have a public team. Just like, people probably don't remember my space, but remember everybody was friends with Tom. You know, that's. That's kind of in a situation we have here to where you can be a part of my team. I can actually assign workouts, and you can create workouts and say, what do you think about my workouts? Or what do you think about my performance? I. I'm struggling here. Or I'm excelling. What should I do next? Because I'm. I'm actually feeling really good about this. They can download the app. It's available in the app stores. They can visit our website, which is gettruefit.com or they can visit the app on their desktop. So we do have. The app is available on your computer if you don't want to use a phone or a tablet. And that is just app dot get true fit dot com. So it's. It's get true fit dot com but we just put app in front. That will bring them up to the actual desktop version of the app. So everything communicates. Your phone and tablet and desktop would all communicate. You could join up our teams. You could actually, if you were interested in learning about the curriculum that Adam mentioned, which, even though it is. It is kind of written for educators and students, it's a great resource to kind of just learn about adaptive fitness and to kind of first kind of move down the path of activity and creating some accessibility with some of these exercise equipment.
So we can share that with folks as well. We recommend that, you know, they. If they want to reach out to us personally, they can reach out through email. We can set up zoom, you know, conversations or talk with somebody over the phone if they have questions about how to get started or how to maybe build their team. And if you're an individual and you're thinking to yourself like, I have a team. I have some friends, and we want to do this, let us know. Because you can create your own private team on the app. And so that way you don't have folks from, you know, wherever joining your team. It's just you and your friends on there, and you're all getting to work together, build exercises, cheer each other on, and then you can share that information with your coaches, with your loved ones and things, and kind of show people saying, hey, look, you see me. You've been working out well, let me tell you about my progress. You know, the first time I did this exercise, I was only able to do it five times, but now I can do it 20 times. And, you know, the first time I threw and was working on my accuracy, actually never hit the target, but now I can hit it 50% of the time because I've learned how to accurately control my hand and with my mind. And so we really want to encourage people to join us to go through a discovery process on themselves and then share their feedback with us on how they're liking the app, things that they might want to see improved. And if somebody wanted to see themselves on the app as an example, we welcome that as well. So say maybe you're a very great athlete. You know, a bunch of exercises with the hula hoop. Well, you could film those exercises yourself. Get a friend to film you doing them. You could submit those into us, and then we can put those on the app. So say you're somebody who uses a power chair and you want to show off how you do these exercises, maybe a little different from somebody who's ambulatory. Well, then we can have that example on the app for other folks to be able to observe and to get ideas from. So it's very much about building a community. Everyone is welcome into this community and we really appreciate you, Keith, for sharing our message.
[00:58:29] Speaker C: And Keith, have you joined John's group?
[00:58:34] Speaker B: I believe so, yeah. I just updated my phone, so I'll log in. One question before you to go. For now, it's jokes writing themselves, people.
I like to think that both advocates with disabilities and those who have yet to discover and breed their own disabilities legend and watch this program in groups within those groups legend and watch this program. I'm not naive to think that every group takes away the same points from each episode. The same ads others, dude. So, ads my guests. What do you hope that abricate with disabilities take away from this episode? And what do you hope that those who have yet to discover or imprison their own disabilities take away from this episode?
[01:00:11] Speaker A: My biggest would just be, you know, one phrase is that you have an ally.
And I want people to realize that we're here to use our experience and expertise and strengths to help others, just like you are as an advocate. And sometimes being the individual you are is going to actually help us to understand our community even better. So we appreciate the feedback and we encourage you to, if you are an advocate for your community, for your group, to express what you maybe got excited about here today. If this excites you, let people know that this is something that is is happening and this is just the beginning. We are going to be a powerhouse for this community and we're going to be able to serve as a beacon for so many individuals to where I. I see us helping folks through transition for some, but for other folks, we might be with them for life as a partner in health and wellness for others, we might help them to discover their strengths and they're able to. To go on. But we really feel like we're developing a program here that can have lifelong positive implications for anybody who's a part of it. Yep.
[01:01:26] Speaker C: And I'd like to say that, you know, it's. Expand on that is. Is this is. This is a community that is being built. Right. Not just. Not just a local or a national, but a global community community. Right. And this community that we are trying to build is there to. Is solely in existence to help improve the health and wellness of the disability community, to empower them, to introduce them to new opportunities and help them realize that there is so much more that they can accomplish than they've ever thought they could. And we're here to help and work with them hand in hand to make that happen.
So, yeah, you know, open communication, like John said, feedback, helping us learn from them. You know, I'm. I've learned stuff from you today, Keith. You know, and every time I talk with someone with a disability, I learned something new, and I think of new ways to create solutions so we can help them. And that's. That's our sort of perpetual mission. You know, I'd say this is, you know, for me and John, this is our life mission. This is, you know, this is probably why we exist on this planet at this time. I feel like there's so much more than this is. Just.
[01:02:34] Speaker B: Are you sure, Adam, isn't it, that you want to go to A Hundred Peaks and write another book?
[01:02:49] Speaker A: I'll do 100 peaks in Alaska.
[01:02:52] Speaker B: We'll do a second.
[01:02:53] Speaker C: We'll do a second edition. You know, we'll.
[01:02:55] Speaker B: We'll add.
[01:02:56] Speaker C: We got about 25 peaks, have 2500 peaks in New Mexico. Somewhere between that and 3000. So I got plenty of mountains to choose from, you know, but. But yeah, I mean, that's, you know, same thing. It's a community, right?
[01:03:10] Speaker B: Yeah.
[01:03:10] Speaker C: And getting people out there. What I want to do is write a book about accessible outdoor recreation opportunities, you know, And. And rate them. And. And they have. There's a couple books out there that do that, but, you know, there's nothing here in New Mexico. They're in other states. But that's something else that I'd like to do. And now that I have my foot in the door with the publishers. That's something that I'm going to pitch them soon.
[01:03:34] Speaker B: And to bring it back to the main point we started that showed on there's nothing wrong with weight loss being a goal, right? Yeah, it should not or it shouldn't be. The be all in all goal of a healthy lifestyle, of working out of physical fitness.
Just like psychology, meditation, it's about the mindset, all in all the body.
And it's. I mean, I have such respect for what you guys do. I'm thankful that you guys exist, that you are doing what you were made to do on the job. And I judge, am honored and humbled that I get to be along for the journey with you two. And I really hope that both of you will come back and do another episode at some point.
[01:05:24] Speaker C: We would love to come back, man. And thank you for inviting us on to today's podcast. This has been a great experience.
[01:05:41] Speaker B: You have been listening to Disability Empowerment. Now I would like to thank my guests. You are listener and the Disability Empowerment team that made Vidsum episode possible.
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