The Science of Training with Kyle Weiger

[00:00:00] Ali: All right, folks. Welcome back to the Pursuit of Something. Ali here. I am with one of my best friends, business partners, life companions, Mr. Kyle Weiger. We were just catching up, shooting the shit before we pressed play. And I am excited to have you, you already know that. Just to give some quick context. We've known each other for, getting close to what, a decade. Ever

[00:00:30] Kyle: move to Denver. If you, if you rewind to Qualview, we knew who each other were, but it took a year after that to start working together.

[00:00:38] Ali: Indeed . And Since then we've done a lot of life together. You know, you're one of the few people that I get to see regularly, which I cherish in person.

And today you get to be one of my early guests where we're just going to talk about what's in focus, what you're pursuing, but first, how would you like to introduce yourself, Kyle?

[00:01:00] Kyle: I am a, lifelong learner. I love digital marketing. I love figuring out how people think on the internet and what inspires them to make a purchase or join a group.

I also specialize in the fitness world and even to niche down to the most niche thing you can, I'm a handstand coach. I have online courses. I travel around and do workshops with people. And what I've realized is that I'm not just a handstand coach. Handstand is a vehicle to learn about yourself.

Cause it's hard and it's frustrating, but the reward is awesome when you put, when you put some effort in. So I've been really diving into the inspirational side of my coaching business, not just the technical, here's all the skills and drills kind of thing, I'm really watching people grow through that.

I guess I got a couple zones of genius and I rarely venture outside of those digital marketing and handstands, that's it.

[00:01:51] Ali: Yes. And you're remarkable at them. One of the things that I will say too about you in context of being a coach is that you're very sound in the technical aspect. What you just referenced hand standing your, your specialty.

This is not a simple thing. And I remember back in the days of my CrossFit career, where I was flailing around trying to hold it, trying to walk on it, it is a skill which you can educate us a lot more around where it's beyond something that most people can do. It requires a technical understanding. But the other piece that I'll I'll bring in here is that I've had the opportunity to witness you coach in person. I've been a student of it, like I said, back in the CrossFit days. And then I'm very aware and sort of integrated into your online coaching systems and you really care. There's a difference in people. There's a huge difference in coaching.

I've actually learned that a lot in playing with coaching, being coached, learning about coaching, reading coaching books, and there's so many different levels. I just want to honor that you take the tactical side and then you really invest in people's success. Whereas a lot of people, especially in the online world they're just on the pump and dump model. How many people bought my course. Cool. Instead of continually trying

[00:03:08] Kyle: to level up. That's been a huge focal point for me recently is I've always been a people person. Even when you met me at Qualvu I was on the sales team. I'm just an outgoing dude. I'm not an introvert by nature.

I live alone and I have a gigantic desk with 81 inches of monitor space over there that I could work at. Mac mini, all the fixings, you know, where I work, I grabbed my 13 inch laptop and go to the coffee shop so I can sit with people. You know what I mean? And I think that translates over as I genuinely like people.

And then when I see them go from a state of struggling with a skill. And then in a three-hour period, we get them much further along in the path. And it's the look on their face. There's no better feeling than when the student looks up at you to see if you were looking at them because they wanted that proud moment.

Kind of like when, whenever Everest, when your son does something and he's like, dad, dad it's like, it's that kind of feeling like, yes, I acknowledge you. I see you. And you are amazing.

[00:04:03] Ali: You read my mind. As you said, those words, that's exactly what I started to process is that there is this beautiful side of children and we still have it as adults, which you just referenced where, when we accomplish something new, especially something that was guided or coached.

The first person we look at might not be our parents. It will be the person that coached us. Sometimes that's the parent. Sometimes it's not. And dude, that's such a great point. So that's your why, right? That's your why for doing it.

[00:04:31] Kyle: Yeah my why aside from the business aspect, in this kind of more free life that I live, cause it, it started as this kind of an accident.

I was in Australia at a yoga workshop teaching a weekend. And then at the end of the workshop, I used to lead this thing called yoga ninja, which is like a gymnastics yoga flow and then arm balances, which is different than handstand. You know, crow pose and forearm stand and all that.

And then we would cap the weekend with the handstand workshop because that is its own animal. That is its all one thing. When I was leaving Australia you know, I have Reflection Yoga. I'm no stranger to making online videos. And these Aussie students were like, hey man, do you have any courses or materials?

And I was like, Oh, my God, Kyle, how have you not done this yet? So, I pop over to the front desk I get on their wifi. Cause they had another class for like an hour before I got my ride. And within that hour I was on Amazon buying a tripod, microphones, lenses for my iPhone because that's what I shoot on.

Then I got on the plane and I wrote the entire outline of six weeks to handstand from Melbourne, Australia to Los Angeles International Airport. Started filming three days later.

[00:05:44] Ali: It does not surprise me whatsoever. Before we hit play here, we were talking about how you have this gift and characteristic where once you decide something in that moment, you're like, wait a second why haven't I done this? You go! Tell me about that. Where did that start? Can you trace that back to childhood? How did you get this go button where you can just accelerate.

[00:06:08] Kyle: This is a double-edged sword because it does come with an anxious kind of energy around it. It's like, well, we gotta move fast. However, I would say this. It started with my dad who had extreme anxiety. And I was always raised, like never be late for anything. So that's something I still work on. In a household where everything has a place for everything and everything in its place, tidy, neat, never out of order. You're on time, you're composed. And then that translated into me thinking that if I was ever late for something, the world was gonna end. And so I just move quickly and you're

[00:06:40] Ali: never late by the way, but keep

[00:06:42] Kyle: going. Never.

Socially, this sometimes hurts me. Cause people like to be around relaxed Kyle, just chill Kyle. Business it helps me a ton because I get things done. I mentioned before we hit record, I have kind of this 75, 80% rule. If I hear an idea and I'm 80% convinced it'll help my business. I will give a hundred percent of my effort to go do it right then. It's going to happen fast. When I wanted to make some new videos, and for anyone that edits videos, you know, it's not a fast process, but I was like, ooh, I need this new series of videos on this page, this page, this page to guide them through the selling process.

I just get it done. I don't care where I am. I don't need a studio. I, as you can see, I got my ring light. Like I filmed right here, or if I'm on the road, I always have like a little microphone with me that plugs into my phone so I can just be moving. And it shows on my website. We took that from zero to hero very quickly, but I mean, it stems from maybe some not so healthy things.

And as in adulthood, I'm learning how to be less fast. If you look at my old travel lifestyle, new city every week for three months in a row, take one month off, do it again. It seemed fun and it fit me, but as I get older, I do want to slow down more. So I'm working on separating those two things, keeping fast, business Kyle that's actionable keeping him right where he is.

And then social Kyle that wants to sit down and connect with people and dive deep into conversations. Maybe slowing that guy down a little bit. You

[00:08:11] Ali: know what I mean? Okay. That's interesting. How does this play into the traveling and maybe you give our listeners some quick context of what travel used to be pre pandemic.

Clearly it's, it's slowed down for obvious reasons and then what it is going to be. Cause it sounds like you may have some intentions to design to travel a little bit differently this time around, is that correct?

[00:08:38] Kyle: Pre pandemic, let's say the years of 2017, 2018 and 2018 and 2019 were insane. I realized during the pandemic that I flashed back to all that travel part of that was me loving people.

Part of that was me wanting to get out and touch people and see the world. Another part of that was ego because I wanted to kind of show off, like, look everyone who ever doubted me, look at me now, look at me now, world traveling, coach. And then I wrestled between those two things. So it used to be, I would go on a tour. I had a booking manager.

We would book these cities that have yoga studios or CrossFit facilities. And I would try to do them in a certain order. I would hit a pocket. Right. I would go do like Asheville, North Carolina, Nashville, Tennessee, West Palm Beach, Florida, Naples, Florida, head home. That's a month on the road because you always run your workshops on weekends.

It was fun and it fit me then, and it does not fit me now. Actually a woman that I was seeing recently broke up with me because she was like your life is just too fast for me. I was like, oh God, you should've seen me two years ago. Right. And I can respect that.

Actually, let me outline the longest one I ever did. I started in LA. I flew east until I circumnavigated the entire world. So I went from LA, workshop in Denver, workshop in DC, workshop in New York, workshop in Belfast, London, Florence, Bali, Melbourne, Sydney, Gold Coast, Brisbane in Australia (Brizzy), quickstop in Honolulu, then back to Los Angeles. That whole thing took three months. And all I had was a backpack and a carry on. Cause with that many airports, you don't want to check a bag every time. So I made it work, made it happen. The second part of your question though, Ali, travel for me now is a much different.

I just had a workshop in Washington, DC. I flew Denver to DC for four or five days. Flew home. That'll be it for the month of December. I run occasional retreats, but my goal is one weekend workshop a month where I can still get out and connect, but I also want to stay here. The woman that I was recently seeing brought up a point that became super apparent to me when I was doing the world travel thing. It is impossible to find or manage a relationship.

There's no reasonable woman that would date me. Like, hey, you're going to leave for three months. Awesome. What a great time to, spark up a conversation? And that's life goal of mine is to find a partnership as well. So being a little more grounded makes that a lot more possible, which is why the, the online income is fantastic.

[00:11:16] Ali: One hundred percent. What I want to ask. And maybe you traverse back to that three month marathon in doing that you had some professional obligations, but like you said, you're extremely social, very easy to talk to and connect with. What did you find different about people, in training, cause like I said, you have this special gift in training people for this technical thing. Was there some variance in how different people reacted and picked up on the training? Like, is there a specific type of a group in the world that's just better at hand standing, like the Germans?

[00:11:56] Kyle: Bodies are bodies. It depends on the facilities I go to. I find it varies by practice. So if I go to a yoga facility, I'm usually a lot softer in those workshops because I know that some people are coming in and like, I have a fear of falling or yoga is just a softer practice.

Versus when I go to CrossFit, they're like, shut up and give you the drills. Give me the drill. Let's go. And so to answer your question there was really no difference because people are people. The thing I can tell you that transcends all nationalities, is in my profession, handstands are universally cool.

It's the most anatomically unnatural thing you can do with your body. Homosapien, which we are now, the latter version of homoerectus, the upright man. Our job is to stand on two legs, upright, and walk that's the most anatomically natural thing you can do is to walk or run. So I'm teaching people how to stand statically on their hands.

As you see someone in a handstand to the late person, they're like, oh my God, we must be a gymnast, but anyone can learn it. So I found that culturally there were differences of how people embrace or how they welcome you. In the states it's pretty much the same. New York's a little, you know, east coast, it's got a little bite to it. Down south is very welcoming. Southern hospitality is definitely a real thing.

When I was in Italy was one of the most memorable. Florence, I, first time I cried leaving a workshop. They just treated me so well. Everything is about community and family. And big dinners, not just two people, the whole neighborhood is coming over, we do dinner like this.

Let's see the workshops were six hours, two, three hour periods. We hung out probably four X as much outside of the workshops as we did there. They're super inquisitive and taking me around Florence, one of the most historic cities in the world. So that was really cool, I would not trade that for anything.

That was an experience. But I guess to your main question no, there's not one nationality that's more prone. Actually, there is, Ukrainians, but I've never been there . There's this circus school in Kiev and they turn out a high number of Cirque de Solei level, hand balancers.

And so if you see a hand balancer with like a chiseled jaw and more fair skin, you got like a 90% chance he's Ukrainian.

[00:14:15] Ali: You had a previous coach that was Ukrainian, correct?

[00:14:18] Kyle: Yeah. Yeah. I've got a couple. I've trained with on a session basis with a couple, one, I got a little more serious with. He's Russian, but, trained at the Ukrainian circus.

My current coach I'm working with kind of on and off is an American man out of Houston, but what I do enjoy about the culture of those kinds of coaches is they don't really care about your feelings. They tell you things. Americans, we're very sensitive. We don't like, like, hey you're not very flexible.

People would be like, hey, I'm triggered. But you're Ukranian coach is like, oh no, you're, you're not flexible. We need to work on that. I'm like thanks, thank you for this. They don't pull any punches. He's like, take your feelings out of it and just do the drills.

I'll do a handstand, like a one-arm attempt, you know, when it's a very hard skill to learn when I'm handstand I'll come down I'll want to talk about it, dissect, he's like, no, no, no talking just back on the wall now. It's the most direct route to getting results.

Instead of sitting there and having an emotion about it, just remove the emotion from the physical skill and know that if you practice it enough, you'll get it. And that's, I guess what would be different is training mentality amongst different cultures.

[00:15:24] Ali: That's a great point. You reminded me.

[00:15:26] Kyle: The Italians show up like 15, 20 minutes late to your workshop.

[00:15:29] Ali: Right, right. This is it. This is a great distinction. I've actually had some interesting experiences specifically with people of Russian culture where I really appreciated their directness. I built this bar years ago when I moved into this house with my wife and I had to go get this big slab

cut for the bar, this expensive piece of granite. And I went to a family owned Russian shop where they sold such things and she's asking me, "What city do you live in?" And I'm like, oh, we live in Littleton. And she's like, what's your address?

I gave it to her and she goes, that's not Littleton. That's Denver. I was like, shit. You're right. That is Denver. Most people referred to it as Littleton. I have a really good friend in my FRD community that has this beautiful way of giving you direct, but soft advice or guidance, whatever it is.

And not many cultures can do that. Like Persians, we want to beat around the bush and bullshit. We have this thing called tarof where we fight to pay the bill no matter what. It makes complete sense to me that Ukrainians might have better gymnast, better handstand athletes.

And this actually leads to something you put me on to years ago. I remember reading this book, The Talent Code.

[00:16:56] Kyle: By Daniel Coyle. I recommend it to every hand student I ever encounter.

[00:17:00] Ali: And learning about myelin. What would you share with people about that?

Because I remember reading that book and it clicked for me to being like, oh, this is why Brazilians are better at soccer. Russians are better at ballet, et cetera, et cetera.

[00:17:11] Kyle: For anyone watching this, I'll give you the book in a nutshell right now, but you should definitely go get it on audible or paperback.

So every time you perform a motor scale of movement, like throwing a baseball, shooting, a basketball, doing a handstand in order for your muscles to move, to do that, your brain has to fire an electrical signal through a bundle of nerve fibers or neurons that connect to the muscle associated with that movement.

Every time you do that, it lays down this tiny little layer of myelin, which is a fatty kind of oily substance that goes around or encases, the neural pathway. So. The more you do something, the more myelin gets laid down in the electricity travels through that fatty sort of insulator. So you can refer to it as like your talent insulator or your skill insulator.

So if you watch circus level, hand balancer, do their routine they make the most impossible human movements look effortless. If you watch Steph Curry's jumpshot, Ken Griffey Jr's epic swing. They have myelinated. Let's use Steph Curry. He just broke the record for all time. Right? All the time threes. It is poetry in motion. It's gorgeous to watch because it's mechanically perfect. It is not clunky. It's not all weird form. It's just every time. And he, he just pulls up from these insane ranges. Just mid-court whatever, not the game on the line buzzer beater. This has now become a regular jumpshot for him. It all has to do with myelin.

Another athlete who is known for going to practice early and staying at practice late is Kobe Bryant. Whoever stays consistent with the myelinating process, wins, that's it. It's actually how I pitch one of my handstand courses, Six Weeks to Handstand. I tell people in the opening letter, your ability to do a handstand, all has to do with a little substance called myelin.

And then I explain what myelin is. And the other part about Daniel Coil's book, he talks about talent hotbeds because there's science behind group learning. Right? One person who's super obsessed with a skill, they're going to myelinate it, they'll get good. Put them around five people as obsessed with the same skill and the learning curve is insane.

So, there's my Kyle, the scientist, neuroscientist cat, but I just, I find it super interesting how people acquire skills. Skill acquisition is one of the nerdiest things that I geek out on. When people say like, oh, I can't learn a handstand, again, take the emotion out of it. And then just rely on the science, just do the work and your body will adapt. So big, old soapbox moment there.

[00:19:36] Ali: No, that's great. That's exactly it. Your mind will play tricks on you. The fear will set in, the doubt, the self-sabotage, whereas to your point and to the book's point, there is science-based evidence. That's why there's that saying, practice makes perfect, repeat and rinse and commit to it. You will get there.

[00:19:53] Kyle: Perfect practice makes perfect because the downside, the downside is that myelin is emotionless. It doesn't know whether you're doing a skill correctly or incorrectly. It only myelinates whichever skill you do most frequently.

So let's use the CrossFit handstand for example. I see people kick up. They got a big banana back. They kick to the wall. They slam into the wall. They've myelinated that. Now, we have to undo that because you did it so many times. You had some bad habits that we have to re-learn.

[00:20:24] Ali: It's like a golf swing dude. How many of us slice?

[00:20:27] Kyle: Yeah. You look at Charles Barkley's golf swing. He does this weird like hitch thing and he stops like halfway through and then finishes. That is a neurological disconnection taking place in your physical body.

It's coming out physically . It was really strange, but that's how he learned how to swing I guess. Maybe he's cleaned it up since then. I don't know, but if you want a fun five minutes or so, Google Charles Barkley.

[00:20:53] Ali: Nice man. Something else that pops in on this topic is you have a clear history of teaching. You just explained your sort of process and passion as a student learning progression. What do you think motivates you to keep going? And to open that question up a little bit more, like, I'm pretty curious, because I've been trying to answer this question myself lately. What inspires you to keep learning, to keep coaching, to going to the next level? And subsequently I think the ultimate question there is like, what's enough? And how would you know? Would you know? That's like, that's like 15 questions in one.

[00:21:31] Kyle: No, this is great though. Cause I preach this to a lot of my students who are like, I just want to get a handstand and I was like, you won't. Like once you get it, you won't, you're going to be five steps ahead at that point. It's a moving target. And when people have a goal like that, right now I'm on my one arm handstand on, you know, 10 seconds on the right is the goal, 10 seconds on the left. And once I get that, I'm going to want 20. And once I get that, I'm going to want a minute and all the things, right.

So I guess let's go first one - how do I stay motivated? Some days I'm not, I mean, we've, we've had deep talks about this. Some days it's just not there. I've found I've trained my brain to have this switch where if I'm unmotivated for a certain period of time, my brain is like, all right, dude, this is enough, let's get after it. I find to bust out of a slump, I go be around people I love. I will listen to an app called Peptalk. It's like a Spotify, but for motivation and discipline and all that for businesses. It's awesome. And I get motivated by my students a lot of times. I have this online group that I manage and we will log in and on a morning, even if I'm not feeling great by the end of that call, cloud nine, cloud nine, because I get to watch them perform and make gains.

In my own personal practice that, that isn't even motivation at this point. It's habit. When I wake up, I go over there, I grab my bag, I lock the door. I go to the gym. There's no in between. It's not even a thought process. Like, should I go to the gym today? It's like, you train. You just train because. And it never used to be like that. I would be like, oh, let's feel into my intuition. And now it's like, I know the myelinating thing and I know whoever is most consistent sees the gains the fastest and watching people. I mean, social media can be a double-edged sword, but it's great for my business because I get to watch my people that I look up to. I can, I can turn on Instagram right now and in my feed, if I scroll for three minutes, you'll probably see five of the world's best hand balancers, you know, it's like constantly in your face. People do this with weight loss. They take their before picture and then what they want to look like after, hang that thing on the bathroom mirror, walk by it 20 times a day, be present to your goals or have them presented to you constantly. So that's how I stay motivated with my practice. With my business, you know, back to the fast mover thing, a new project or a new idea, or the opportunity to be on a podcast, I'm just getting out there and like shaking it up.

I find because I thrive well with people, I sometimes don't thrive if I spend too much time alone. I need to feed off the energy of other people. And the other thing that I'll add on to my training thing, along with the myelin, there's another principle that once, you not only understand the principles, but once you believe them at a core level that your body will adapt, the principle is called the SAID Principle - S A I D - specific adaptation to impose demand. That's how you get bigger muscles, how you grow your chest from bench press. That's how your body hypertrophies or grows a muscle. I, I look at this, I was like, okay, so my body will adapt specifically to whatever demand I impose on it.

So regardless of how I'm feeling, if I go impose this demand today at the gym on my body, then it will respond with my goals. So knowing how the brain works and then how the muscles work, that for me is like, oh, I can just rely on that.

I don't have to like journal about, oh dear diary, I hope I get my handstand today. I'm just going to do the work. I've taken a very hard nosed stance on this in my recent years. I used to teach yoga and I was very soft. I came not really feeling it today . You do that too many days in a row, do that for six months, you skip one day a week for a year. Your competition is going to be light years ahead of you. Sorry for rambling. I just love the motivation question because it waxes and wanes with everyone. Even on the days you're not motivated. Go do the work.

[00:25:24] Ali: So what I hear is discipline. I hear a commitment to discipline. Yeah. I want to ask when you'll know it's enough? When will you know the discipline paid off?

[00:25:33] Kyle: So.

[00:25:34] Ali: Like how disciplined can you get? Let me give you an example so you don't overthink this because I want to know what you really think. And I'm going to give you some context that I'm going the opposite way. I was so similar to you, whereas now I'm starting to break down some of that discipline and being like, what can I learn from not being so rigid?

I will say that the discipline is still there and it still serves me well, it's still a part of me, but I got so calculated that I can predict what this week's going to be like. And where's the expression in that? The artist in me had sort of died.

[00:26:04] Kyle: It kind of lacks playfulness and curiosity, I totally get it.

[00:26:08] Ali: Yeah. That's the trade-off is that when you get to this, position, this state of extreme mental and physical discipline, your subduing creativity, playfulness. Right. Because that has its own way of coming out. And that can be very impulsive. Where just like you said, where you can wake up and be like, fuck the gym. Today I'm going to go do this, but there's trade-offs. And what I'm curious about is when's it enough? Well, that's the thing, because if you're already an animal, let me give you some perspective cause you might not see this you're so inside your head. You're in the top tiniest percentage of the world at your skill, and you're still hammering at this level that's unprecedented. So that's the question, how will you know?

[00:26:50] Kyle: So for me I like measurables. I love measurables.. In business, you can measure through revenue or a number of members on your site or traffic, you know, page hits, whatever. In handstand you have measureables and it's in time.

So first to get your one minute or you get your 10 seconds, like at the beginner phase. And then you get your one minute and then your two minute, and then if you want to go beyond two minutes, you can. For me, now it's one arm. I've been on it for two and a half years and I still can't do it just to give you an idea of how hard that skill is.

There's a term in poker called pot committed. Even if you know you have a losing hand, you already got so much money in the middle that you can't back out. So I'm pot committed to what I'm doing. I don't need it for my business. I don't need to be able to do a one arm handstand to go teach a beginner handstand workshop.

Right. I got that in my pocket. This is for me and I've found something that I love doing more than anything else. And of the few seconds of hang time that I've caught in a one arm, Bro, I got to tell you, it is one of the coolest feelings in the world. And I also want to address something because to you, you've watched me grow and people that are outside of the circus, you might be like that guy's really good. When I go to where I go, I'm in the lower one percent. Imagine that. The world of hand balancing is actually very deep and I thought it wasn't. I thought it was like, oh yeah, I'm posting to Instagram. It's like, I'm a really good handstander based on the stuff I'm seeing.

And then my eyes got opened to the circus and how superhuman. When I watch my coach, I think he's a cartoon. I was like, you shouldn't be able to do that. And you just realize how deep the rabbit hole goes. Funny story I'll share with you. So I was at a regular gym in Salt Lake City and I got like a little box, like a plyometric box.

I like to hand sand from deficit. I jumped on the box and was in like the open training area away from the free weights and I was doing like my choreography. By the way, when I referenced choreography, I don't mean dancing, I mean, hand stand choreography with different leg patterns. And this woman comes up and this has happened several times.

I'll just use this example. She's like, are you in the circus? In my heart, I just laugh because I'm like, no, I'm a 39 year old, very below average hand balancer. But to her though, she'd never seen anything like it. So I appreciate the compliment and it's all relative. Because when I go to Las Vegas and I go train, there are people that aren't even hand balancers that are in the circus that are like straps or aerial artists that are a better hand balancers than me, just because they've been around it for so long.

And to that point, my business is not performance. My business is coaching beginner adults. That's my zone of genius. If you're an adult beginner and you want to learn how to handstand, I'm your dude.

[00:29:33] Ali: Okay. That's fair. I dig all of that. I'm also going to give you a book recommendation called The Gap and the Gain.

What you just referenced is that you could still potentially be telling yourself a story that you have so much more to learn and maybe that's true. It's arguable. It's not a fact. We can't prove with science that Kyle has more to learn about balancing. Whereas in reality, there's a really clear picture to see how far you've come and been like, holy shit, bro.

[00:30:03] Kyle: I get those memories on Facebook that come up like, hey, here's your memory from nine years ago when it was me back when I thought I was good and this goes for any craft. And I know as a father and as a man you'll agree here. The more you learn, the more that you know, the more you realize you don't know.

Absolutely. Back when I could hold a banana back handstand for 20 seconds, I thought I was good. And now that I have the, the knowledge and capacity that I have now, I realized how much is out there that I know nothing about. And that for me is exciting. There's some area for curiosity and playfulness and be like, man, what else have I, not yet.

In nine years of hand standing, you know, three or four professionally with online courses and coaching, I've come this far. Like what else is out there? I'll be doing this, assuming no injuries or anything. I will be doing this for the rest of my life.

Cause it's just fun. So when's enough enough? I don't know. I would imagine I'll, I'll probably soften up on myself once I get this one-arm handstand in my pocket. I want it to be a cold skill, a skill that you can bust out whenever.

[00:31:07] Ali: And maybe there's not an answer to that because a committed, perpetual student might not have a target. Maybe it's just the craft of learning.

[00:31:18] Kyle: I say that to my students a lot, because they think they want the goal of a handstand and two points on that. Don't have the goal of a handstand. Be someone who trains handstand. It's a way of being. You know who doesn't have a goal of a handstand, me, because I train it all the time.

It's just part of my training. You know who doesn't have the goal of losing 20 pounds, that dude that's in the gym lifting four days a week and eating right. He doesn't have a goal of 20 pounds cause his way of being ,is a fit lifestyle. So if you have a skill, the the way of being is to be a person who trains it. So the goal isn't handstand. The goal is to map out a training regimen that you can stick to and stay consistent with. That's it. Consistency and accountability. I don't care whether it's a marriage, job, physical skill, diet regimen, whatever. The only two things that matter are consistency and accountability.

[00:32:12] Ali: I love it. Normally we ask this early, but now it feels like the appropriate time since we've just navigated through all these awesome topics. Let's pause. What's currently in focus for you now? If you had to answer the question, What is Kyle Weiger pursuing? It can be anything.

[00:32:29] Kyle: More human connection. Here's what I've learned. For those of you that don't know much about my history, I have a course I produced, sold it on Kyleweiger.com and made a couple other courses like a more beginner one, a more advanced course. I sell them on Facebook and Instagram ads.

And I wasn't really touching my customers at all. I would run an ad, they'd buy my course, the most I would talk to my members would be if they had a support ticket or they'd email me a picture of their hand stand. And it was a very disconnected business on a human level. It was a purely automated digital marketing business for many years.

The only thing I did was to go into Facebook ads, tweak a couple of things and then be out. Now, I've started, earlier this year I did like this hybrid model where I blasted out to all my people who have purchased my course, like, hey, would you like to do this, but live with me on a Zoom call.

So, they have homework. They do the course. And that one experience changed my entire model. Number one, Facebook went through some major changes where advertising became more difficult. And so I was like, I'll start looking at a new model and I did this. And it was groundbreaking for me. Instead of having, I mean, I love, don't get me wrong, any of my members watching this, I love the 8,000 active members on my website each and every one of you. For sure. And I'd like to get more of you. I would like to be connected to you more. So this group of 71 people that did my live launch and we spent six weeks together, every Sunday and every Wednesday we'd train, they would do homework. There was a private Facebook group. And I was like, this gives me life again. I got bored selling courses. You go through the ups and downs of like, yeah, okay, whatever, had some sales today, maybe didn't. Again, I like people, so it doesn't surprise me that I got bored running a business where I'm just behind a computer screen, you know, answering an email here and there, but I'm not going to touching people.

Now I have an even smaller group called the handstand inner circle. They all have my personal phone number and they text me when they're having a rough day or they're having frustration. And a couple of weeks ago I opened up to them about something and I realized this is more than a handstand group.

We do like a 60 to 75 minute training. And then I'll have a question of the day for the group. And we go around and people are opening up and sharing what they're feeling and going through. And I was like, holy shit. Like you can't do this with an online course.

[00:34:52] Ali: And that's a beautiful name for it. Inner circle. It's perfect.

[00:34:55] Kyle: Yeah, it really is. So in focus for me right now is growing that group to be incredibly powerful and impactful thing that I can offer on my site. You're going to get your handstand. You're going to get it. If you practice, you'll get it. What I want people to think about more is that at the end of my life, I hope that on my tombstone that it doesn't say here's Kyle, he was really good at handstand. Right, right, right. I hope it's more than that. I hope it's like this guy brought people together over this cool and fun physical practice. But at the end of the day, friends were made, we're a little family now.

Everyone's like in their group, they, they practice sometimes without me. And they're like, do you guys want to hop on a Zoom call? It's like, oh my God. That's amazing. Yeah. So that's my focal point growing an online community and every so often I get to see one of them in person. Her name is Yvonne, she's in my group.

She's like my, daughter goes to school in Colorado Springs. I'm going to have an extra afternoon. Can I come up and see you for a private lesson? I was like, you Yvonne 1000%. Yes. And she walks in the lobby of my building, I turn the corner and she's like, oh my God, I'm starstruck. I'm like, don't be like, don't be at all.

I have a lot of Instagram followers, big deal. Right. Anyways, we had this amazing session and we just got to sit down and map out kind of like where she's at mentally with her practice and where I can help her. So I, I know I said what I say there is counterintuitive or counter to what I said before, with myself, I drop the emotion and I go train.

With my students though, and especially these people that are in my more private group, the inner circle, with them it's like, hey, we can talk. If you want to train high level skills, you need the discipline. If you want to train what we're training, you don't necessarily need that level of, grit, that level of coldness.

So, yeah, that's, that's, what's going on for me, trying to think of anything else. I probably won't be producing many more courses. I got one or two, like I'm kind of tinkering with in my head. But other than that, it's human connection, man. There is no substitute for dropping in with someone.

[00:37:10] Ali: That's awesome. Connection, you talked a lot about community. You're forming this true community. The world needs that right now. I had a really good conversation with a buddy just this past weekend around like, what does community mean? And I'll probably record a podcast around that.

On another note, you just described the other question I generally ask, which is what you're selling? You're selling this mission of creating more human connection and you're sharing your craft. So let's jump into some fun questions to wrap this up. How does that sound?

[00:37:40] Kyle: Let's go!

[00:37:41] Ali: Great. The first one should be relatively easy. What's the best book you've read lately. It cannot be The Talent Code since we talked about that.

[00:37:49] Kyle: Right, right, right. I'm in the middle of one. I'll talk about it called Profit First. It's the whole business finance thing on its head. I had some airplane time, which for me that's my audio book time.

So Profit First and then, The Bulletproof Diet. Ooh. Okay. I really subscribed to the high-fat like ethos and that book just breaks down everything you need to know.

[00:38:13] Ali: Awesome. What animal are you most scared of?

Oh, I have a very unhealthy and unrealistic and unnecessary fear of raccoons. Don't want it. Don't want it.

Really, that Trump's like bears and snakes?

[00:38:33] Kyle: Oh, yeah. Cause when am I going to come around a bear and snake? So it happened when I was living in California. I was taking out the trash at night and in California, there's ton of raccoons are all like domestic. They just live in the neighborhoods and I turn, and I see this Raccoon staring at me. I, I darted and I went like this close to a metal, like this metal thing that was sticking out of the dumpster. And I was just imagining me going full speed, like shattering my cheekbone. And ever since then I was like go away. Don't want you. Nope.

[00:39:10] Ali: So I have a funny experience with a raccoon. Earlier this year in the morning, part of my routine is using the restroom and I heard this thing, this rustling behind the bathroom wall, it was coming from outside. And I'm like, what is that? It sounded like a human, no doubt. And I'm like, someone's on our deck. So like, I'm going into like protection mode. I'm like, shit, where's like a bat or something. Right. Early prime time. You know, I wake up very prime time for like someone to be checking out the house or trying to get in. So I'm like strategically, like CIA, like moving over back to my bedroom. I opened the curtain and flip on the lights and like, I'm ready now. Like adrenaline's pumping. I'm like, who is back here? And it's these two raccoons who freeze and just like you. No out in the yard. Thank you for that.

[00:40:04] Kyle: Oh my God.

[00:40:06] Ali: One's on the deck and one's on the tree right by the deck. And they both look at me and I bet I got the same interpretation that you got, like the way they stare. It was almost like, they're like, you want some of this man and I was like get off my deck! You just scared the shit out of me.

[00:40:23] Kyle: You know, that the mortality rate for rabies is super high if you don't get treated within a certain timeframe too. So I'm like, dude, we all go one day, but I don't, I'm not letting rabies take me out. Nope.

[00:40:38] Ali: All right. One more question. Okay. Because you have such a broad experience of the world thus far, where would you live if you could choose one country besides the U S.?

[00:40:51] Kyle: Oh, man, this is tough, bro. Cause some parts of me really like beachy vibes, like a Costa Rica jungle, small town, like Sayulita in Mexico. But I think that would be too slow for me. My favorite city in the world probably, oh, I live in my favorite city in America.

I live in Denver. I choose this. Um, Brisbane, Australia

[00:41:17] Ali: Yeah. You've mentioned that before. What makes that special to you?

[00:41:21] Kyle: Number one, anyone who's been to Australia knows the culture down there is amazing. The people are amazing. There was something that felt right in Brisbane. I have a couple of really good friends there that were kind enough to show me around.

And I dated a woman from Brisbane. Maybe I fell in love with the accent. It was just any time she would open her mouth, just like, okay, whatever, whatever you say. But the city reminds me of Denver because it's a small, big city. If you go to LA, Chicago, New York, Miami, these are big places.

I kind of liked the small, big city vibe in Brisbane really gives me that. They have a river that runs through the town and then they have this thing called the story bridge, which is an amazing piece of architecture. And I just liked the Australian culture. Brisbane really grew on me. So I've been back there a couple of times. But if you're like, you can only pick one and it can't be in the U.S., I would go Brisbane.

[00:42:10] Ali: Very cool. Love it. Okay man. Well, this feels complete unless there's anything that was left unsaid.

[00:42:18] Kyle: No, man, I appreciate you having me on. This is a nice mid day, Friday pre weekend chat. I told you about my friendship audit that I do every so often. I am blown away at how long my friends have been around Clayton-19 years, Dell-13 years. You going on 10 years, a decade. It's a quarter of my life that I've known you. And then we have a special relationship, obviously, because we've done business things together. But, yeah pretty much anything that you're on any project you're on, I'm there for it.

I appreciate that man, thank you. It is mutual love. So, we will close on that and I will catch you in person soon. I'm sure. See a brother.