How to Make Fitness Fun
– The MOVEMENT Movement with Steven Sashen Episode 148 with Mason Bendewal
For over 20 years Mason Bendewal has helped build top fitness companies and coached trainers to become on-camera fitness stars. He’s crafted innovative programs that shattered sales records beginning with the home fitness sensation P90X. Mason went on to become the Chief Production Officer of Daily Burn (an IAC Company) and launched the first fitness streaming service of its kind; he built the entire streaming library, creating the most comprehensive modern fitness catalog ever, training 13 world-class trainers, and creating 18 programs with over 200 workouts.
Listen to this episode of The MOVEMENT Movement with Mason Bendewal about how P90x made fitness fun again.
Here are some of the beneficial topics covered on this week’s show:
– How fitness has evolved over the last thirty years.
– How people, especially older individuals, are more aware they need exercise in their life.
– Why pushing yourself to extremes during fitness is not the right move to make.
– How talking about our differences can lead to deeper and more fulfilling connections.
– Why you should find a way to exercise that you find fun and entertaining.
Connect with Mason:
Guest Contact Info
LinkedIn
Linkedin.com/in/megamace
Links Mentioned:
megamace.com
Connect with Steven:
Website
Xeroshoes.com
Jointhemovementmovement.com
Twitter
@XeroShoes
Instagram
@xeroshoes
Facebook
facebook.com/xeroshoes
Steven Sashen:
What if one of the creators of one of the most successful fitness programs in history would say that he thinks fitness is horrible, he hates fitness, has once nothing to do with it really? Well, we’re going to talk to that guy on today’s episode of The Movement Movement, the podcast for people who want to know the truth about what it takes to have a happy, healthy, strong body starting feet first. Because those things are your foundation. Although he might take it in a whole different direction. What do I know? And he’s got a cat on his lap, which we can talk about too. We’re now dog people in our house that are cat people, but that’s a whole other conversation. Anyway, this podcast is for people who want to know what it takes to be able to run or walk or hike or play or do yoga or CrossFit, whatever you’d like to do.
And to do it enjoyably efficiently, effectively. And wait, did I say enjoyably trick question? I know I did. Because look, if you’re not having fun, you’re not going to keep doing it. So find something that you want to do that’s fun. And I am Steven Sashen from zeroshoes.com, your host of the podcast. And we call it the Movement Movement because we’re creating a movement that involves people. You are one of those people, I’ll tell you about that. It’s really easy about natural movement, letting your body do what bodies are supposed to do. And what else can I say about that? The movement part is really simple. We’re just trying to spread the word.
So go to www.jointhemovementmovement.com. You’ll find previous episodes, all the ways you can interact with the podcast, which means like, and share. And give us a thumbs up, hit the bell icon on YouTube, et cetera, et cetera. You know how that works. And in short, if you want to be part of the tribe, please subscribe. And so let us jump in. Mason, tell people who you are and why you’re here. And I don’t know if we want to start on what I teased in the intro. Yeah, we’ll do that. So what are you doing here and why did I say what I said?
Mason Bendewald:
Well, I thank… First of all, thanks for having me on the show, Steven Sashen. I’m like most people, I’m a lifelong fitness enthusiast, but I don’t like fitness. And when I got into directed P90X, it was like the last thing on my list. If you were like, Do you want to do a car commercials, do you want to do this? But I was very lucky and what I did was just really flip it around. Because prior to that it was like Jane Fondas and everything was pastel and perfect. And I really wanted to have fun. I wanted to make fitness enjoyable. If you were going to spend an hour working out, I wanted it to be something that was an experience and fun, not just counting reps or talking about weights and posture. So I joke and say, I don’t care about fitness, I care about entertainment because it’s in front of the camera and you can entertain people. Well then they keep coming back and they don’t think about it as fitness. And then lo and behold, if you show up on a regular basis, you’re going to get some results.
Steven Sashen:
I always find the phrase working out very funny because who wants to work and why are you doing something called working out indoors? It seems a little now odd to me, but you know, and I have a P90X connection. Do you know about this?
Mason Bendewald:
What? No, I do not. What is it?
Steven Sashen:
All right. One evening Sunday evening, my wife and I are on the couch watching TV as we do because as an entrepreneur, I think the most important skill you can have is knowing how to turn on a television and turn your brain off. Because holy crap. Anyway, phone rings. I look at it and the caller ID says Tony Horton. Tony Horton.
Mason Bendewald:
Yeah, a little bit.
Steven Sashen:
Yeah. Tony was… For people who don’t know or remember, he was the guy in P90X. Tony is Mr. P90X. So I say, hey, look at this. And my wife says, well if he’s the famous guy you think he is, then why is he calling your cell phone right on a Sunday night at eight o’clock? And so I went, yeah, right, I’ll let it go to voicemail. And then a couple hours later I check the messages and it was, in fact, Tony and I call him back and we hit it off way too crazily.
I mean, we’re in many ways, brothers from another mother and just had so much fun. And happily, and you don’t know this, apparently Tony’s been wearing zero shoes for a couple years now and has turned almost everybody into… Turned almost everybody he bumps into zero shoes fans because they put them on and like them. That’s my wacky connection to P90X. But so how did you become a P90X director? And people might find this interesting, What does it mean to direct… I don’t know if you did the infomercials as well as the workouts themselves, but what does that mean and how does one get that kind of a weird gig that no one ever even thinks about? They don’t even realize what you do to do that.
Mason Bendewald:
Exactly. Well back when I directed it, the end of 2003, believe it or not, or close to the 20 year mark. It was just by luck. So one of my sister’s roommates had married the CEO and Beach Body was a very small startup. And Carl and I became friends. He’d said, I’m looking for somebody to do young directors. And I became part of the original P90X test group. And one thing led to another and I end up being the one who directed it. But I kid and say, or not really, but doing… Back then, doing a fitness video to me was akin to doing a wedding video or porn. It was the same. Nobody cares. You’re going to get some money. But it’s not a career-
Steven Sashen:
Well just slightly sweatier than the latter and slightly more interesting than the former.
Mason Bendewald:
And so there’s a lot of those jobs that I had turned down along the way. But this one felt like there was some opportunity there. And one of the big opportunities that I latched onto was Carl, the CEO had said, this is going to be completely different, it’s extreme and just the completely different part. I was like, great. So there’s room for me to bring in some other ideas. And he had a crew of producers and everything that I was wanting to change, they all kept on going, you can’t do that, that’s not how it’s done. And I said, Yeah, that’s how we’re going to do it. And Carl kept on saying, Yeah, trust this guy.
Steven Sashen:
Let’s back up around that era. What did the fitness… I mean, hold on. 20, 23. So I was long out of coaching and teaching by then, I was working at a gym in New York in 19… When did I graduate high school? 1980. So 1980, ’81 when aerobics was the thing. And so leg warmers were everywhere. So now we’re talking 20 years after that even. What was the universe looking like and what were you then looking to do to shake that up?
Mason Bendewald:
Jane Fondas was still on the scene. Richard Simmons, Tae Bo, like these were the leading brands and they all had some-
Steven Sashen:
Sorry, wait and sorry, Billy Blanks were zero shoes.
Mason Bendewald:
Billy Blanks. Yeah. Nice. Yeah, you’ve got some good endorsers there.
Steven Sashen:
Well, Billy, the problem with Billy-
Mason Bendewald:
Got to get Jane. Got to get Jane in there.
Steven Sashen:
Oh man, that’d be great. The problem with Billy is that I probably shouldn’t have even said that because while he’s been wearing our shoes, he won’t publicly say that a number of other people, unless I gave him an insanely large amount of money, which we just we’re not that kind of company.
Mason Bendewald:
Well, you could say it.
Steven Sashen:
I can, I guess we’ve seen. Well yeah, to that’s… There’s things we’re not allowed to do. There is a photo circulating around the internet of Billy Eilish wearing our shoes.
Mason Bendewald:
Oh cool.
Steven Sashen:
But we can’t promote per se. So anyway, all right. So yeah, as Jane Fondas, Richard Simmons, although Tae Bo was kind of breaking out of the mold because that was trying to-
Mason Bendewald:
Well it was, it wasn’t. I mean the big difference, the big difference in the production and I would say in the approach that I took is that right, there wasn’t really directors of fitness, they just set up cameras and people did their thing. I approach it very much as theater. I looked at it as I’ve got all these talented people I get to work with, not just in front, but behind the camera. I’m a very creative person. I’m an artist at heart. I grew up as an actor at the High School of Performing Arts and studied dance outside of it. And I just loved musical theater. And so eventually I got into film and video and directing and producing. And so when I did P90X, I just brought all of that to the table. I was like, How do I make this without overthinking it?
I really didn’t like… I didn’t say, I want to make this entertaining. I was doing it because it was fun for me, but I didn’t like the repetition and just the music that most other brands relied on. You know, think of Billy Blanks at the time and I loved aerobics, but it was a repetition that was the driving beat to it. Jane Fondas was music. And all of these, including everything that was done at Beach Body at the time. They were shot in blocks, people took breaks, they toweled down, they shot things. And I said, we’re doing it one take. And everybody thought it was nuts. And they were like, I why do you want to do that? And I said, well this is supposed to be extreme-
Steven Sashen:
Well, and that’s what you’re asking the people who bought it to do is do it in one. Brilliant.
Mason Bendewald:
It seems so obvious. But yet it was still not how things were done. And I was very much looking for the saga of it, the breakdown. I wanted Tony to push as much as he did with me in the test group. I wanted to see people fail. I wanted to see the drama of how incredibly challenging this was. And I broke the third wall. We brought cameras into the set and had Tony talking to them. And I hired real people. We cast people that had been through test groups. We cast people from real life. It was only… And prior to that it was all fitness models. So we had a couple of them. And that really made it fun. And the biggest compliment I ever got was hearing people as… I directed every P90X there was, except for the very last one, which was P90X3.
But there was P90X plus and P90X one on one that went on for years and P90X two. And I would get this note every once in a while from a fan, somebody who was part of the beach body community, they’d say, man, your stuff is so good, I will sit down and watch it and have some popcorn the first time before I even work out. That’s how… And I, at first I thought it was a joke and then I realized, it was like, no, I’m dead serious, that’s how entertained I am, I just enjoy watch and-
Steven Sashen:
Well, but what’s funny, there’s the flip side of that too, because I remember seeing some of the original infomercials and they were so engaging that you… I mean literally remember getting off the couch to follow along with the infomercial, which was not something you could do with any of the other ones. I mean it was-
Mason Bendewald:
That’s great storytelling that was done by somebody else. But of course all the videos, the cutaways of the videos and the before and afters were because of the product. Yeah.
Steven Sashen:
Fascinating. So then how are your… Say more about then your thoughts about fitness from what you did as again, being a pivotal component. That’s a horrible term. I couldn’t think of a better one critical component. That’s what I was looking for of one of the most influential, if not the most influential fitness products to now.
Mason Bendewald:
So the question is, where are we at now or where-
Steven Sashen:
No, well it’s more like how is your thinking of… How’s even what you do evolved as now that you and I and other people, I hear rumors have gotten older, that changes things as well. And as things have evolved in the fitness world. I mean of course the joke is the biggest change in fitness in the last 20 years is testosterone. But that’s a whole other story. So I mean it’s just unbelievable the number of people who were suddenly diagnosed with low testosterone, which is a statistically meaningless phrase. But since you were behind the scenes there and really seeing what for quite a while was a real trend. And things have evolved. I mean now CrossFit is a thing, “Functional” fitness, I’m putting air quotes around that is a thing. Zumba is a thing which, what does someone call that? Oh they called it white person Jazzercise size.
Which I thought was a pretty funny phrase. I’m not trying to diss Zumba, I just thought it was kind of entertaining. But it’s an interesting thing. Zumba is much more low impact in dancey rather than high intensity, whatever. CrossFit is trying to take high intensity to an extreme. The first time someone put me through a CrossFit workout, they’re trying to yell at me to motivate me. I went, it’s not an actual competition so you’re yelling at me is doing nothing. If there’s a guy next to me that I want to beat, that’ll work. Otherwise I’m just doing this for me. But that’s just because the way my brain works. But anyway, I mean the way fitness has evolved in the last 20 years is tremendous.
Mason Bendewald:
Oh yeah. I think the good news about where we’re at in fitness today is so many more people are aware that they need fitness in their lives and older people. I consider myself in the older category in my mid 50s, there wasn’t a lot of people exercising in their 50s when I was a kid walking, but-
Steven Sashen:
Playing casual tennis.
Mason Bendewald:
There you go. And today people take it really seriously. I know I take it very seriously. And it doesn’t mean that you have to be extreme. So where have we gone? P90X certainly had its moment. I will say the lessons that I personally learned from it were, it’s too extreme. You really… Easy to get injured if you weren’t really listening to your body, which Tony always preached. But it’s a lot harder to do when you’re also being told go for it.
Steven Sashen:
Well there’s also a line that I say which is, you don’t know you did too much too soon until you’ve done too much too soon.
Mason Bendewald:
Yeah, exactly. Yeah. I still… Right now I’ve had a week and a half hiatus where I just didn’t have my normal routine down and getting back into it, I know that if I turn on the music and I get it in my head, I’ll do too much. And then I have have a couple days where I can’t really work out because there’s a problem. But if I really just go, okay, 20 minutes of moderate working out and then the next day maybe move on to some cardio and then maybe come back to strength, then I know I’m really going to… But that takes time to understand that-
Steven Sashen:
It’s hard. It’s hard because-
Mason Bendewald:
You want to push.
Steven Sashen:
Yeah. Because going hard is going all out is more fun than knowing that you’re pulling back in order to build back up. I mean I’ve been off the track for a couple months cause I have a messed up spine and I did something where my sciatic flipped out and I haven’t been able to run for a couple months and I’m going to be on the track this weekend and it’s the same conversation. It’s like, how do I do these high intensity drills at 50%? How do I do my all out sprint at 60% and just do that? Frankly, we’re taping this in the beginning of November. How do I do that for the next month? Yeah. So I’m ready for the next indoor meet, which is six weeks from now. It’s hard.
Mason Bendewald:
It is. But again, back to where we’re at in fitness today is more people aware and it’s more accessible than ever. The thing that I preach and talk about, which goes back to P90X, which I still use as kind of my anchor because it was such a change, is that somebody like yourself who’s self-motivated, who’s in the industry, who’s creating products and stuff, it’s a different story. But the average person has access to tens of thousands if not hundreds of thousands of videos and experts, “experts,” claiming they can get you in shape. And so the good and the bad there is it’s more accessible. People are more aware of the opportunities to be in shape. The bad part is it’s a glut of kind of, I don’t know, mush. There’s not to find somebody you connect with who not only understands it but then can motivate and entertain you. So my big thing is take an expert and teach them how to be a performer and then you really have a magic recipe.
Steven Sashen:
Because otherwise the entire training you need to be a fitness professional is to be able to count to 12.
Mason Bendewald:
Exactly. And I get one of the first things I do when-
Steven Sashen:
I’m sorry for people who don’t get the reference, that’s just the maximum number of reps you’re going to count to. Yeah.
Mason Bendewald:
I tell trainers, I go, If you are counting while I’m paying you, you are the most expensive counter on the planet. I’m like, stop the madness and you’re not going to teach me how to do a pushup. Stop explaining how to do a pushup. It’s ridiculous.
Steven Sashen:
Sorry, you’re not allowed to say stop the madness.
Mason Bendewald:
I can’t. Why not?
Steven Sashen:
Susan Powder.
Mason Bendewald:
Okay. All right. Stop the insanity?
Steven Sashen:
Oh, insanity. That’s what it was. Yeah. There we go.
Mason Bendewald:
So it just… It’s as simple as going, we know that we need to get out off our asses, out from behind the computers and move our bodies. There’s no one magic bullet or secret. You’ve got to do the moves and if you’re entertained, you find somebody you connect with, then you can keep doing it. And that’s when success comes.
Steven Sashen:
It’s really interesting to say that one of the things that was so fun for me when I got back in a track and field now 15 years ago, is that it’s all the track and field events. So everything from the short sprints, which indoors 50 or 60 meters outdoors a hundred meters, the shortest that they care about, all the way up to marathons and ultra marathons and beyond. And I say the thing about… And then of course the field events. I go, the whole advantage of track and field is you can find the thing that works for you that you enjoy doing. And then you said about the entertaining part, I have two training partners and on any given day, at least one of us will say to at least one of the others, I’m so glad you made become out here because I wouldn’t have done it on my own. But we just love hanging out. And that’s social component, even if it’s not from a coach, from a peer, is so critically important. And I think that’s often overlooked.
Mason Bendewald:
Totally. And a lot of people don’t have that. They don’t have a peer, if you don’t have a group, you are looking for something online. You are looking for your own community. And often that comes in this kind of form, which is you are on camera with somebody or you’re working out at home alone. And so it really then falls to the trainer to excel in reaching through the camera and being able to connect with somebody at home that that’s the part that I like working on the most. My cat is making so much noise.
Steven Sashen:
Oh, it’s not coming through the mic. That’s cool. Okay, good. Mean no. And FYI, my wife… So I reluctantly got a cat 30 something years ago and it was my favorite thing ever. I mean, I love this cat and everyone who knew her said, this is not a normal cat. Which she was not. And then she died and we had two more cats and then they died. And we were thinking, no, we’re not going to maybe not get any pets. And to make a long story short, we both got our first dog or more accurately, we both got a dog together. It’s our first dog. And my line is, I can’t say that I love my dog more than my wife. She tells me-
Mason Bendewald:
Oh you better not.
Steven Sashen:
Yeah. She says, I’m not allowed to say that, but that’s okay. She thinks the same thing. It is crazy. So for both of you… And we still love cats, but holy smokes man.
Mason Bendewald:
Dogs are, I got my big guy laying here and I-
Steven Sashen:
Yeah, there you go.
Mason Bendewald:
The old adage is like, I don’t know what I did to deserve him. It’s like-
Steven Sashen:
I hadn’t heard that.
Mason Bendewald:
But much better person than I am.
Steven Sashen:
Oh, there’s no question about that. It’s all pets. I mean at some point we were thinking about getting a parrot, actually a… But then we realized that we weren’t planning on having children and getting a parrot is having a 33 year old for 30 years.
Mason Bendewald:
So that’s funny.
Steven Sashen:
So we decided not to do that. But anyway, so backing up to fitness things, if somebody were to approach you at a random social event and said they were looking to do something, getting into the fitness, not even the fitness business, but they’re just looking to find a program, find something to do, they’re looking to get in shape, they’re trying to lose some weight, whatever it is. How do you, given your experience, what do you say to them? How do you respond?
Mason Bendewald:
Well, I think I’d reframe it and say, if you want to make it, if you’re a trainer and you want to make it in the industry today, you real… The only way to do it besides of course, just the part that I don’t care about is the fitness part. So get your fitness credentials, be great at it. But that is like square one. The bigger part is most people, if you want to have a longevity in the industry today, you really have to have a presence on camera, even if it’s only for marketing. But if the idea is you want to make more money than just the hours you’re trading in a gym, you have programs, you can do Zoom, you can do group sessions, and then you can really have a career. But to do that, you have to have a personality and to have a personality… How I coach and experience-
Steven Sashen:
Wait, hold on. Where do you… Can you find those on Amazon? Is that-
Mason Bendewald:
You can buy your personality in a combo platter if you… No, your personality is who you are and it’s one of the most frightening and hardest things to tap into. We’re sharing stories here in a conversation. The thing that I teach and preach is that you have to learn how to tell stories about your life through in your fitness workouts. Because I use the example of the Food Network or any cooking show. We don’t tune in because we’re like, oh, I need to figure out how to make flapjacks. You’re tuning in for the story and the emotional value and you’ll pick up some stuff, but there’s not much… Food Network and the channels are running 24 hours a day. There is tons of it.
And it’s not recipes, it’s storytelling the majority of it. That’s why we watch it. And so trainers are just now learning how to tell stories while they’re taking you through a HITT workout. It takes some work. But that’s where… Those are the trainers I see excelling and doing really, really well is how they bridge that gap, build the community, build the trust, and really then get fans that follow them forever.
Steven Sashen:
Well that’s great from that perspective. And before I ask the next question, I do have to back up and say that I don’t think anyone has ever tried to look for or even tried to make a flapjack in the last 50 years. So the fact that-
Mason Bendewald:
You like my old school flap… sounds better than a pancake. That’s one of things that makes it different.
Steven Sashen:
Yeah, absolutely.
Mason Bendewald:
Like you and I even talked about where we were from and how it feels. You were talking about New York and Colorado and we know… You made a joke. You said, I moved on Halloween because the culture shock was going to be less. And for those people don’t get that joke. People in New York are so different and strange that only at Halloween in a place in the middle of the country, could you even come close to finding those kind of people. You and I know that in shorthand, but what makes… But if you had that conversation with a virtual audience and I wasn’t here talking to you, explaining that in such a way would be is entertainment.
It is interesting to hear where people are from. It is interesting to hear our differences. And by talking about our differences, there’s often these deep connections, which is the best part. And for any listeners who happen to be trainers or thinking about this and scratching their heads, my favorite moments with trainers is when we get to the heart of who they are, which is usually through our greatest struggles, and figuring out how to tell a bit of that story and bring it to the lens.
Steven Sashen:
There’s something interesting about it. First of all, I’m still stuck on flapjacks. I’m trying to think of what else I can channel from the Little Rascals to beat that reference. But yeah, that’s a tricky one. I’ll think about something Darla said.
You know what, I was at an event for people who wanted to start podcasts and after hearing 50 people pitch what made their podcast so special, I noticed something that was kind of funny and interesting and it was that everybody was pitching what you just said. It was their story of some struggle and how they overcame that struggle. And there was two things that were interesting to me about that. One is after you hear the 50th person tell their story of struggle and redemption, it’s like, yeah, yeah, I’ve heard it before. So on the one hand it is what we as humans relate to. On the other hand, everyone was pitching it as if their story was special. And what’s so interesting was it’s so universal and not special at all. And that sort of weird… Not conflict, that sort of weird contra-
Mason Bendewald:
Duality.
Steven Sashen:
Yeah. It’s like that’s just such an odd thing to hold that on the one hand we relate to these as being very unique special stories and yet we all have the exact same thing, which creates a different kind of bonding. And I find that fascinating. And of course I have to throw on the flip side is, I mean my quote “struggle redemption: story just about being a injured runner, taking off my shoes and finding out that cured me could not be frankly less interesting compared to, or less dramatic than what everyone else was pitching. I’ve been very fortunate that for whatever reason, mostly because I’m oblivious to many things on the planet, I never had big struggly things that I had to deal with.
Mason Bendewald:
I bet you have and you just don’t think they are because of how you look at it in life. The other thing is, if people don’t understand that-
Steven Sashen:
That could be.
Mason Bendewald:
I’m guarantees even if we had the time, I would ask you questions, then I’d be like, that’s a-
Steven Sashen:
Let’s just say… Let me it this way. I don’t have any memory of ever having an experience that seemed like hitting bottom or having to ask for help. I’ve just been… But literally I don’t think, I didn’t grow up in some sort of rarefied, privileged air. It was really that…. I remember my parents used to take vacations without my sister and I, and it was like, all right, whatever. But I just didn’t care. In fact, it was like, oh God, I don’t have to think about them for a few weeks. That’s awesome.
Mason Bendewald:
They’d go away for a couple weeks?
Steven Sashen:
They’d go with her two weeks. Yeah.
Mason Bendewald:
And how old were you?
Steven Sashen:
Oh, from the time I was seven or eight maybe.
Mason Bendewald:
And who did they leave you with?
Steven Sashen:
Some human, I don’t remember.
Mason Bendewald:
That’s good. Well listen, so you and I are similar in that respect. I don’t look at… The other way of saying it is, it doesn’t have to be a struggle, it can just be a big shift. It can be a time where things, everything changed.
Steven Sashen:
Oh, okay. Well I got one of those.
Mason Bendewald:
So I was embezzled and it was a horrible experience, but I don’t spend a whole bunch of time dwelling on it. I learned from it. I move on. It was a horrible experience. But I like… In the right time and the right moment, I share that story. In the right time and the right moment. I share the story about spending time on a ranch in Montana, even though I’m from New York City and being called out as the city kid and crying. I mean there-
Steven Sashen:
Oh no, no,-
Mason Bendewald:
Those are hard stories to-
Steven Sashen:
No, it was worse. You were a city kid who liked musical theater. How did you not get the shit beaten out of you every minute?
Mason Bendewald:
Yes, very true. See, so exactly that. Even though I look back on all these experiences as good ones. I mean, what you just said is funny and very true is that there were some very hard moments growing up. My parents got divorced. I still don’t look at some people, it’s like it ruin their-
Steven Sashen:
But this is going to come back to our whole thing about fun. And I still have a question that I’ve had locked, unloaded for about five minutes, which is that… And this is me personally, I’m not suggesting other people should be like this, but because these stories are so universal, I fundamentally don’t care about them. I’ve gotten kind of bored with them in a way. So if you’re going to interact with me, I’m most likely to not give a lot of weight to your story of woe and misery and I’m, and by just saying that as being horribly rude. But what I’m more interested in is-
Mason Bendewald:
Very rude, Steve.
Steven Sashen:
It is. But what I’m more interested in is what you’re doing… I mean, when I meet someone, I’ll often say, So what do you do that you find fun and keeps you happy? I don’t care what you do for a living. Although if that’s what it is, I’m happy to hear it. I want to know, I’m just curious about the cool part, the afterwards part. I don’t need the because part before-
Mason Bendewald:
Well, you know what, maybe I didn’t finish this. Ultimately a great story is one of redemption and it explains what you’ve learned and how you have blossomed because of it. So it’s not woe is me.
Steven Sashen:
No, no, I get it. Well, but my thing is for whatever reason, and this is my whacked out psychology, I will confess. I don’t even telling my own stories of anything that may have been unpleasant in the past. And there’s a weird, again, I’m just revealing a bunch of my bizarre psychology… Lena, my wife, refers to something that I do as my most endearing and confusing trait. And that is there are people who have done things that have cost me in actual dollars like tens to hundreds of thousands of dollars or more now that I think of it. And in a few cases literally millions of dollars. And when I see those people, I’m still happy to see them and curious to know what they’re up to because I know that what they did, even if it was personal, which it never was, but even if they were trying to deliberately screw me, that’s just some messed up thing in their brain. It’s not personal. So I don’t take it personally. And so I am curious about that.
Mason Bendewald:
But now I’m going to ask you a question. How did you arrive… You didn’t born doing that?
Steven Sashen:
I was.
Mason Bendewald:
Well that’s unusual.
Steven Sashen:
A agreed. This is my point. No, no-
Mason Bendewald:
That’s unusual.
Steven Sashen:
No, I’ve been like this for as long as I can remember. And look, you could argue that it’s sort of spectrum ish if you will. But it’s really that I just like when someone is… I had a situation like this the other day. Somebody called me, they were potential investors in our company and they were going to pass on investing in us. And I could tell from the opening line that it was going to be a, it’s not you, it’s me call. And as soon as they said, look, we’re going to… Ah, you can stop right there, I know what you’re going to say. And I don’t care about what you’re going to say after the word because, so I will tell you that in six to 12 months I’ll be sending you an email with a subject line, is it too rude to say, I told you so?
Because we’re going to prove that you’re wrong. But that’s okay. If you don’t believe me now, I don’t care. I’m moving on. Or here’s a weird version that’s relevant] pulled out of today’s headlines. I remember when I was going away to a summer camp for a couple weeks when I was, I don’t know, 10 actually, I know exactly how old I was. And my dad who grew up in Redding, Pennsylvania as a Jewish kid in a predominantly Pennsylvania dutchy neighborhood, he got hassled a lot. And so he was sitting me down talking to me about antisemitism and all I could think when he said, There’s these people who might try to get in your way and prevent you from doing things because you’re Jewish. All I could think was, well then I’m just not going to deal with them.
I mean, why would I try?
Well it just didn’t occur to me that any… I mean that just seems silly. It’s like why beat my head against a wall if someone has some crazy thought? And then in college I was dating a woman. We were having a great time. Then we had, I don’t know, some vacation is something that we separated. And when we came back she totally ghosted me. And this was before that was a verb when I finally tracked her down and said, you know what happened, we were having a great time. She goes, I found out you were Jewish. And I went, wait, are you serious? She goes, yeah. And I went, that’s the funniest thing I’ve ever heard. And I just walked away. I mean-
Mason Bendewald:
I had the exact opposite experience of that really close girlfriend and she broke up with me because I wasn’t Jewish. We’re still friends. But I remember going, wait, what? Yeah, yeah, it’d never work out.
Steven Sashen:
I remember saying to my parents when they did have the marry a nice Jewish girl thing and I said, look, if I can find anyone who can deal with me, putting an extra barrier in the way of that is just really a problem. It’s not going to be worth it.
Mason Bendewald:
I get your point. I mean people do it on with religions all the time.
Steven Sashen:
But suffice it to say again, what’s interesting to me is always what are we going to do moving forward? I don’t care… This is something that happens even with the business. Someone does something and they made a mistake, whatever it was. And I say I only care about the because to the extent that you’ve built in a system for not doing it in the past, but I really don’t care why you did it. I just want to know what you’re doing to make sure it doesn’t happen again. Because for me to talk about, unless you need me to help you hack out a system, I just don’t care because it’s not going to help us.
Mason Bendewald:
So here’s something interesting that you’re doing, pardon me for interrupting, is so you’re doing another version of entertainment or we are having this conversation where you’re talking about your philosophy in life and so that’s another way of going that’s a little bolder because it can come across as preachy. Here’s how I believe you should live your life-
Steven Sashen:
Oh no, it’s just narcissistic.
Mason Bendewald:
Well there’s a lot… Listen to be in front of the camera, you’ve got to be confident and a little bit of that too. No, but it can come in all sorts of forms of entertainment. At my point, I just want to get back to the idea-
Steven Sashen:
Entertainment. Okay.
Mason Bendewald:
You’ve got to be able to do more than fitness. So if you can do what you’re doing, which is, here’s my philosophy in life, I usually like the idea that it stems from something you learn. So you can explain the learning process, but you could also do what you’re doing right now, which is, hey, this is how I’ve lived my life and I believe it’s a good way. And always looking forward never back-
Steven Sashen:
Oh yeah. Well of course I would never say that because… This is going to be a weird one friend of mine, another entrepreneur calls me one day and says, hey, we’re getting some people to get together to go to Richard Branson’s island to hang out with Richard Branson, do you want to go? And I said, why would I do that?
Mason Bendewald:
I’ll take your place.
Steven Sashen:
Well this happened in the past. I said, but why would I have any interest in doing that? They said, well imagine what you could learn from Richard Branson. I said, I’ll tell you what I could learn from Richard Branson. I’m not Richard Branson.
Mason Bendewald:
Right? Yeah.
Steven Sashen:
No one else is Richard Branson. You know how we know? There’s only one Richard Branson?.
Mason Bendewald:
There you go.
Steven Sashen:
I don’t need to spend 20 grand to sit on an island and figure that one out.
Mason Bendewald:
You had to spend 20 grand.
Steven Sashen:
Oh it’s going to be stupidly expensive. Yeah, it was not going to happen. So here’s the question that I’ve had locked and loaded for now about an hour and a half.
Mason Bendewald:
I’m ready? You got to be warmed up.
Steven Sashen:
Now let’s start. So we talked about what you need to do in the fitness world about being a fitness professional, but let’s say we’re at the same dinner party and someone comes up to you and says-
Mason Bendewald:
That’d be a fun one.
Steven Sashen:
That would be a fun one. We’ll have to do that. We’ll get Tony involved too. That’ll be a hoot.
Mason Bendewald:
Oh boy.
Steven Sashen:
It would be ridiculous. Anyway. Ridiculous-
Mason Bendewald:
You think you and I talk a lot, you didn’t get a word in with this guy.
Steven Sashen:
Well no. This is why he and I got along so well is that it was just verbal tennis for an hour and a half and it was silly. And we said things that are just not fit for human consumption. So we’re at said party and someone who comes up to us is not looking to be a fitness professional, but is just looking to get in shape and without just saying, hey, get some form of P90X, given the plethora of options and given your experience and given this whole idea that we want this to be fun and we’re talking about the professionals making it entertaining and fun, what do you recommend to someone who’s looking for something to do to get in shape or whatever that means?
Mason Bendewald:
Yeah, I mean there’s so many questions to ask of somebody, but if I right here-
Steven Sashen:
Here, I’m that guy. Hit me.
Mason Bendewald:
You’re that guy. So what do you like to do, first of all? I know you-
Steven Sashen:
Well other than watch TV and cook, I like those things. I get… What happens is I get to the point where I just feel like I’ve got to go do something and I have a fondness for high intensity things. I mean I’m a sprinter and I’m not a runner. I like lifting heavy stuff. But as a 60 year old guy with a back problem, I’m not allowed to do that so much anymore. But I like things, I get bored easily. So it’s got to be something that’s engaging and it’s got to have a challenge component to it. Either a literal competition or something that is self competing enough, self motivating enough, self-motivating enough and where I see progress so that I want to get to that next step. There’s got to be some light at the end of tunnel, some thing that I can actually accomplish that feels satisfying.
Mason Bendewald:
So remember, I’m not a fitness professional, I’m an entertainment professional, I’m a director, but I would say you could be my older brother in terms of our age. And I would say if you didn’t know much about fitness and I’d say, look, Steven Sashen, you’re right, you’ve got to be careful with your body. Everybody’s backs break down as we get older. You number one, protect what you’ve got. And number two, you got to keep moving. So for instance, one of the things I’m picking up because I like to keep on changing it up is pickleball. Because I like community, because I like movement, because I like-
Steven Sashen:
You’re over 50.
Mason Bendewald:
There’s a little… Yeah, I’m over 50. And there’s excitement and there’s fun. And again, community and getting out. So there’s one I’m also doing and I would recommend for you a little bit, not that this replaces everything. I think variety is really the spice of fitness. So I did some consulting for a VR company that was bought by Meta called Supernatural. And because of that I researched VR and now I play table tennis with people around the world in virtual reality. And it’s mind blowing. And I am dripping in sweat often at… Most of the time I’m having good conversations.
Once in a while there’ll be some jerk that’s on there and you have to turn them off or deal with without them. Fun. And then my last comment, you would be if you wanted to get some… I know you’re in Colorado, so you have sometimes when you, usually you’ve got beautiful weather, but sometimes if you’re indoors, one of my favorite content is treadmill wise is iFit has a Nordic track. I did a bunch of work with them. And they have done an extraordinary job of creating content that is not based on fitness, it’s based on an experience. So one of the things I do, and I’m not a runner, but I wanted to do more cardio, do more walking, do more running, learning how to do it, is I climbed Mount Everest.
It was a six week pro… I think it was six weeks, a six-week program with three of the best climbers of Mount Everest in the world that told their stories, talked about the history of the mountain. It was almost like watching a natural geographic movie while you are participating. And so that is something that stimulates the imagination as well as getting you in great shape and is different. So those are like the three different things that are in my life and that I would recommend to you since we’re in similar categories.
Steven Sashen:
I love it. And the VR table tennis, and I’m not a table tennis player, but I love that idea is fascinating. But I’ve got to tell you… Wait, where are you living now?
Mason Bendewald:
I’m in Los Angeles.
Steven Sashen:
If you were back in New York, I would point you to our friends over at Roam149, which is a sort of VR treadmill thing. I can’t even describe it. Let’s just say Chris McDougall, who wrote Born to Run, we sent him over there and he said, this is the most fun I’ve ever had running. I don’t mean running on a treadmill, I mean running ever.
Mason Bendewald:
Nice.
Steven Sashen:
And so they’re just getting started. They’re hoping that they can franchise or build out over time. But for anyone who’s in New York, go check out Roam149 for something.
Mason Bendewald:
I’ll do it next time I’m there.
Steven Sashen:
That’s cool. Yeah. In that same vein… They’re in Hudson Yards, I think. So, yeah. That’s… It’s so funny. It’s like I’m thinking about when the Nintendo Wii came out and it sort of virtual fitness, except that everyone quickly learned that you could just sit on a couch and flick your wrist, do the same thing as what they were doing. The Xbox Connect never really took off in that same regard because it was a little ahead of its time in terms of what it could do about being engaging. But those are really interesting ideas. There’s one that I was waiting to see if you said it when you said indoors. One thing that I actually do, but I don’t do it enough, I don’t know what that means, is jumping rope. And I like it because there is that thing of developing a skill where you can very quickly see that you’re demonstrably getting better and finding ways of making it harder too.
There’s not… I’m not allowed to mention this one explicitly the same way that I mentioned people like Billy Blanks before, but there’s a guy who owns a… Or he’s the CEO of a multi-billion dollar footwear brand and he’s a big jump rope and he calls me every couple months to say, you know I only wear two shoes, the ones that we make and yours. And I wear yours when I’m jumping every day. And sometimes I just keep them on all day and I’m not allowed to say who it is. But that’s another… Again, for me that was… In fact, I was competing in Jump Rope for a while until I realized… What happened? I don’t know, there was something about it where I hit a point where I went, eh, I’m not going to be able to do the things that I really want to do. I’m too old to be able to do some of the stuff that was super, super fun.
I hit a limit in… Or sort of way back when I was doing circus arts like Chinese pole and trapeze and things. And same thing. I’m not going to be in Cirque du Soleil, I’m not joining a circus and this is really hard. So yeah, that didn’t do it. Sprinting is still, for me, a thing that I just enjoy if, and I’m going to throw something else in the mix. I’m going to say that… And I’m going to see what you think about this one. Ideally, you also might want to find something that gives you some intermittent reinforcement, where you can tell that it could have gone a little better if you had only done that. And I say that because intermittent reinforcement is the most addicting thing for human beings.
Mason Bendewald:
Give us an example.
Steven Sashen:
Well, sprinting. So no one has ever finished a race thinking they did it perfectly. They always could have done better. When I finish a race and someone says, how’d you do? I said, go you just want a number for the time or can I tell you what I did wrong and give you the excuses? Because that’s the way we normally talk about it. It’s like I did okay, I stumbled out of the blocks… And even if your time is great, you always know you could do better. And that’s very addictive. It’s very much like any of the Japanese arts like Zen Archery or I mean any of the Japanese arts where they set you up where you want to try and do it perfectly, but it’s just not possible.
Mason Bendewald:
But it’s true of anything in life really.
Steven Sashen:
True. But they really explicitly put you in that bind and you either just finally go, screw it, I’m not going to do it. Or it just keeps you for life because you can always do a little better. You can always pull that slot machine and get all sevens instead of seven, seven and Bart Simpson. And so whether I think the social component is huge, however you do that. And then that intermittent reinforcement… Look playing table tennis, I have no doubt without asking you a question that there’s times where you walk out and you had a great workout, but you’re going, ah, god dammit, if I had just hit that one shot.
Mason Bendewald:
There’s always somebody better. It’s always in my head, how do you get that guy’s spin?
Steven Sashen:
There you go.
Mason Bendewald:
Oh it’s nonstop. That’s what I like about it.
Steven Sashen:
I interviewed a guy on the podcast, interviewed, had a chat with a guy on this podcast who’s a professional… Well world class table tennis player. And he said something that I had never even heard of. He goes, oh, I’m a defensive player. It’s like, what? He goes, My whole job is just to return the shot. I’m not trying to crush it. I’m not trying to spike it.
Mason Bendewald:
That’s true.
Steven Sashen:
I’m just going to wear them out. I was like, oh, that was so cool.
Mason Bendewald:
I’ve played people who are much better than me. And sometimes I’ll pick up, I’m like, oh, they’re not killing the ball, they’re just returning it. I’m the one who’s trying to kill it. And eventually I make the mistake. Yeah, it’s brilliant.
Steven Sashen:
You know what it’s like, this is going to sound crazy, but just for the fun of saying it. So another conversation I recently had was with someone that we support named Raufeon Stots, he’s an MMA world champion and in fact we’re about to start a contest. He’s got a world championship fight coming up and we’re giving away to one person tickets for two. Fly you there, put you up, the whole thing. And I said to Raufeon, how do you… If for someone who’s never watched an MMA fight, who thinks it’s just horrible, brutal, whatever, but if you were going to sit them down and watch it and have them understand it at a different level, what would you ask them to do? He said, you want to constantly look to see if you can figure out who’s in control. And interestingly, the guy on the bottom, on the ground, is often the one in control. And same thing with table tennis. It’s like everyone’s looking for the smashes, but the guy in control is probably the one who just returns those.
Mason Bendewald:
Often. Yeah.
Steven Sashen:
And that’s really cool.
Mason Bendewald:
Yeah.
Steven Sashen:
There’s nothing I like more than discovering something about a sport or an activity that I would’ve never imagined in a million years. And that’s a good one.
Mason Bendewald:
That’s true. It’s very true.
Steven Sashen:
So this is one of the podcasts, in fact, maybe the first where we haven’t talked and don’t necessarily even need to talk about feet and footwear unless you find some urge to say something about that. But this has been more than enough fun for me without it.
Mason Bendewald:
I have nothing to add. Probably that hasn’t ever been said on your show about that.
Steven Sashen:
No, it doesn’t matter. But more importantly, this I will… Well anyway-
Mason Bendewald:
I will add this about… Actually there is something. We adopted our children from Taiwan. This goes somewhere, believe me. And we were visiting, we went back for a visit and they’re much more in tune with just general body wellness. Not fitness, but body wellness.
Steven Sashen:
Yeah, yeah.
Mason Bendewald:
So we went to the old neighborhood and there was a park that ran down the middle of a thoroughfare and there was a gazebo that was a very long gazebo and it had all of these rocks that were embedded into this walkway. And it was long, I mean it was like a hundred feet. And we realized what this was for, this is for you to walk and to work on your feet to build up, to work on your nervous system. And none of us could really do it. I think I walked the whole length, but it took forever. And I’m taking my time. And now I’ve bought a small pad and almost daily during TV time or something, I’ll take off my shoes and socks and I will need my feet on that. And it’s gotten better and better. And I very like soft feet because I wear shoes all the time-
Steven Sashen:
Yeah. Musical theater.
Mason Bendewald:
It’s great. It makes a real difference in your body health, I believe.
Steven Sashen:
Well, thank you for that pitch for a little product we saw on our website called a ROX, R-O-X, mat. It’s a little-
Mason Bendewald:
There you go.
Steven Sashen:
Version of that same thing inspired by that same idea.
Mason Bendewald:
Might need to get one of yours.
Steven Sashen:
I know a guy who can hug you up. And so there’s that. We also have… There’s a friend of ours, a doctor… Surgical podiatrist named Emily Splichal, and she’s developed a product called… It’s a technology called Naboso Technology, which Naboso means barefoot in Czech. And it’s basically the right geometry for these little foot stimulating things. We have them as insoles, and we made a sandal with the Naboso technology that’s all about foot stimulation. We don’t need to dive into this. We had more than enough fun. But that starting by just getting your feet able to get the stimulation they need and then be able to function in something like a rocky surface is critically important for anything else you’re going to do. My wife and I, we had an little anniversary vacation up in Grand Lake, Colorado, which is the headwaters of the Colorado River and the trails around there, it’s just all granite and I mean, it’s like lots and lots of rocks.
They dug these trails out of a mountain and it’s just so many rocks coming out of every place you could possibly walk. I joke that when they built the trails, it was like, eh, this is good enough. And then they just walked away. But it’s incredible. If you’re in a shoe like ours or you can hike these things barefoot, you have to actually work with the terrain and think about it and you’re working a problem. It’s like rock climbing with your feet in a way. And it was so much fun to do that. So yeah, that was another blast. Anyway, any last… Anything we want to think about in terms of the fun of fitness instead of the counting to 12 of fitness?
Mason Bendewald:
Find what… Back to our personal conversation, find what works and don’t measure yourself against anybody else.
Steven Sashen:
Oh, see, I’m going to counter that with… Pardon me. One of the reasons that I love sprinting… Well, there’s a caveat to it. Is that you do measure yourself about, against other people. Like at the starting line, someone will invariably turn to us and very seriously, it’s have a good race. And I go, hey, look, have fun. Don’t get injured. And oh yes, I really want to kick your ass.
Mason Bendewald:
I think that’s fine.
Steven Sashen:
It is.
Mason Bendewald:
We do very different philosophies though.
Steven Sashen:
It’s also, all of it encompass. We all want to have fun and we’re all trying to win. Let’s not be coy about it. We’re all super competitive. We know that about ourselves. We know that it’s stupid and we’re over trying to change it.
Mason Bendewald:
But I get it for.. Like the table tennis, usually I want to win. But when I’m playing somebody who’s much better th
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