Interview with Armah Mitchem - Personal Trainer

My guest on this episode is personal trainer Armah Mitchem. We are unpacking the concept of balance. In the body, but also in life generally speaking. Armah has a wealth of experience helping others improve their overall health and fitness, and is just an all around likable guy.

To learn more about his training and get tips from Armah follow him on Facebook or Instagram or email him at armahthetrainer@gmail.com. He also has a YouTube channel where he shares valuable information. 

Please like and subscribe here and also visit my links page to see all of the other places we can connect https://www.joyfulicity.com/links

Transcript

Laura Wakefield: 0:08

Welcome to the joy Felicity podcast. I'm your host, Laura Wakefield. My guest today is our Ma Mitchum I met are my years ago, we actually worked at the same gym. I knew his children better than I knew him because I was in the child care center. And I didn't get to know him real well until we met up again in a Toastmasters group. And I can tell you, our Ma, in addition to being a personal trainer, is also an amazing public speaker, loving father, fantastic husband. He's just an all around wonderful person. So I was thrilled when he agreed to be on the show today. Welcome Arma.

Armah Mitchem: 0:50

Hey, welcome. Thank you for the introduction.

Laura Wakefield: 0:54

It's so good to have you here. You gave a speech one time back in the Toastmasters days, you moved away, I moved away, I haven't seen you for a long time, but your speech stayed with me. And the topic of that speech was the concept of balance. That's what I had told you earlier, I wanted to talk a little bit about today, you have been a personal trainer for how long now,

Armah Mitchem: 1:19

since 2009, for quite a while. So quite

Laura Wakefield: 1:23

some time, tell me about balance and how it relates to fitness, body fitness, in particular, to start with, yeah,

Armah Mitchem: 1:32

I would start off with saying mentally balanced would be a good way to start with your physical, a lot of people, whenever they come to me, they have a little bit of a void or a little bit of a balance leaning towards the visual aspect. But there is an emptiness on the inside. So I guess the out of the exterior is taken over, they see something they're missing something on the inside, but tilts to looking to the outside to try to fix something internally. And a lot of times you'll see the I call those the Biggest Loser moments where somebody breaks down and has that cry, because they finally found out that it wasn't necessarily something that they see on the outside that they needed to fix right away. But once they fix the inside the outside started to make more progress and make more sense. As far as fitness imbalance, I would definitely say that it's really easy for me to help you on the outside. But all of the results start to multiply once you start to fix on the inside. And then we get to get to start working together. Things can be really fun after there's that common balance as far as the physical as in the internal or the external and internal. And we start to really have some fun in the gym, because you're able to enjoy just the time. That's it's your time. Right? Exactly.

Laura Wakefield: 2:55

That's interesting to me. Because I know that when we start feeling depressed or like out of sync with life, so often we look in the mirror, and we're not happy with how we look, we were overweight, we don't feel like we're healthy. And we think that if we can just fix that, that will be better. Yeah,

Armah Mitchem: 3:13

it's just kicking the can down the road, I guess, you kick it a little bit of a distance, there's a little bit of a walk to it, then you go and kick it a little bit further. That's the analogy that kind of pops into my head, whenever I'm looking for reasons. So if I don't like the way this aspect of my body is and then I don't like the way this aspect of my body is. And so it's really a genuine imbalance. As far as your perception of what needs to be fixed throughout your life. It's the external things well, I don't like the way my legs feel or, or my butt feels, or my abs look this way or my arms are. But really, if you start to fix some of the internal things, you start to make that make it all make sense. And then it's not one plus one equals two, one plus one now equals four, or five or six, just because you've gotten commonalities, two heads came together me as a personal trainer helping you as the trainee, we both mesh our ideas together to amplify the results that you get. That's why even all the professionals they have their own coaches and trainers, managers, there's managers for baseball teams, football teams, basketball teams, there's people that are at the center of it and give that idea to them to help them focus their talents. It's there's a whole lot of talent from the big men in basketball to the little point guards or the smaller point guards. And it's more about just getting everybody working on the same page. You're really good at passing the ball. You're really good at dunking the ball you're really good at shooting the ball. How can we all make this make sense? That's the relationship that you build with a personal trainer. Let me help you make it make sense.

Laura Wakefield: 4:54

I have found along with what you were saying that it's very difficult to separate Write that mind and body like you really can't. And a place that you start to do work starts to spill over into the other, and change you. So if you work on the mind, it's funny, oftentimes your body just kind of comes along. And if you work on your body and start to feel successful there, sometimes the mind comes along as well. And, and that's kind of like you said, a one two, punch that you're getting more benefit than you thought you were, from the effort that you're putting. Yeah, for sure. So I've started doing yoga, on a pretty serious level. And balance in yoga is a big thing. And starting just from the physical standpoint, I didn't realize until I started doing yoga, how off balance I was, when they first started trying to do some of these poses that required you to be able to balance. It was a struggle, but us for real, like I was really happy hard time I was falling over. Talk to me about how people can honor just a physical level improve their physical balance,

Armah Mitchem: 6:08

physically, let's just talk about what I do as a personal trainer. And I think that that might help to understand it. But as a personal trainer, I always talk about the five areas, the five areas of personal training, is the strength training aspect, the breaking it down the muscles through a external force us, it could be your body weight, but it can also be dumbbells, bands, or machine weights, or even yoga. Yoga, I guess that's your personal bodyweight. But breaking down through the physical aspect of it. The second thing that I focus on is the cardio aspect of it. Cardio is just energy expend, expending through action. So it's intentionally moving your body for certain periods. So it's intentionally running, it's intentionally riding a bicycle or dancing or just moving in a certain way that you want to burn energy. Okay, the third aspect that I work with people is with nutrition, and the physical things that you put into your body. So I'm not a dietitian, I'm not a nutritionist, but I am there to hold you accountable to the things that you're eating. If you pick out an eating program that you want to adapt, how can I help you optimize that better. So that's the physical aspect of eating. The third aspect is the activity. So this is the unintentional use of energy, this is just walking around. So when people say, Oh, I went to New York, and we walked a whole lot, that's good. That's activity. And I want you to continue that. But that's there's a difference between that and doing cardio activity. Cardio is intentional, just having to go to more blocks, because that's where the closest bathroom is. That's unintentional activity. But it's still very important. Or instead of sitting in front of your computer, watching Social Media, you're intentionally listening to audiobooks and cleaning your house, so your moods still moving your body. And then the last aspect, the fifth aspect that I work with, on the physical is with sleep, so making sure that you have the right amount of sleep. So with all those other four aspects, your body doesn't do very much to improve your body until you shut it down, and you're able to get some good quality sleep. So where do they say the phrase, abs are created in the kitchen, no ABS are provided nutrients in the kitchen, but they're not utilized till you get the sleep. So the people that sleep very short hours are missing out on a lot of the great results, that they're that they should be accumulating, because they're not sleeping full amounts. At nighttime, it's like saying, I want to build a house. But you can only build this house within a three month timeframe, when really it takes eight months to really build that house. So you've only given that those people three months. So it's they're constantly trying to siphon some extra time here or there to build that house. But in all reality, it's going to take longer to build that house because you're not providing the right amount of time. So give the body eight hours, a night or eight months to really properly build the house that you're looking to achieve. But as far as what does it take to balance it all out? Those five areas, the strength training, cardio, nutrition, the activities you choose, and the sleep are the five areas of balance that a lot of people can as hardly get those physical improvements by just kind of sleeping regularly. You know, they drink a little water, they stop eating out at restaurants, so they naturally eat better when they're at home. And oh yeah, they don't necessarily go to the gym but they'll do sit ups and push ups at home every night and they go take the dog for a walk but they only they need to get around and take the dog for a walk before they go to work. So they have to rush to get it done. So they're unintentional movement. So you can have has really lose a whole lot of weight by just doing these things. But it's more important in my opinion to know what you're doing with all those all five of those just in case that weight creeps back into you, or onto I should say that well, you can say I put on a lot of weight last year. But last year, I was doing X, Y, and Z. And so let me get back to that. For me it personally, I record most of my workouts 95% of the time I record workouts and know how much weight that you were lifting. So if we say, let's get back to what we were doing a year ago, and here's the weights that we started with. And here's the weights that we ended with. And let's try to improve on those numbers. That's my aspect of physical balance, and a little bit of an insight into what I do as a trainer. And my approach. My mindset is always so cheap, those five areas of emphasis, I

Laura Wakefield: 10:56

want to come back to a couple of things that you said, because I think for me, who has yo yoed around with my weight, having had a bunch of children, my weight has gone up and down around all of my life, I've come to see this, that it has to be hard, it has to be a massive chore, it has to be painful, it has to be successful. You have to and I kind of love that, that you're saying not necessarily you just have I mean, sleep is important. Sleep is not hard, but yet somehow we neglect it. So just focusing on keeping all of those things in balance, I guess what I'm saying is like, I think, Oh, if I'm gonna lose weight, I have to be out running 10 gazillion miles and wearing myself out. Let's say

Armah Mitchem: 11:35

you had three children. And if you were to think on paper, let's say you just journaled a little bit of your workout, you'd remember the process. I was the fittest on my second child, but the first child I was, but Is that accurate? And so you have to go back to the notes and say, if you thought on paper, didn't you be able to see that's not really true. I was really just skating off of the hard work that I had on after my first child, that the second child was easier. Now you're on to the third. So what does it take to actually make that happen? So think on paper and record those numbers. It's just like the people that scales, they hate the scale, the scale is now not good or bad. The scale is just a scale, it's just telling you a number. Now, if you were to record your scale weights, and you would see how you're losing weight or making progress through your journey, then you would have a better understanding of what's going on. So was it really that you put on five pounds after each child or X number of pounds after each child? No, that wasn't the case, but you had some ups and downs. And actually, you might be 15 pounds heavier, or you might be less than what you did, you don't really know that you just remember how it was at the end of the journey. So it's like training to run a marathon. All right, at the very end of your marathon training, you might be able to run a two hour half marathon or a four hour marathon. I'm just throwing out numbers here. In the beginning, it took you three hours to run that half marathon or it took you seven hours to run that marathon. So all you go back to say it let me get back to running a half marathon or a marathon. And I just remembered that I was at two hours or so and so hours to run that thing. You just remember the end, but you forgot completely what it took to get to that endpoint. And so I love that you're doing the yoga journey. And I love the people that get yoga. So here's the funny thing is that the hardcore bodybuilders fitness enthusiast I don't understand how people are losing weight in yoga often because it's very calisthenics base. But once you get into that yoga mind, once you get into that, quote unquote, flow of that yoga lifestyle, you don't need to have all the junky foods. You don't want to have all the junky foods you want to move your body in a certain way. You want to have that balance, but you often notice what's off kilter what's off center, and that helps you make better decisions. So I go back to chiropractors and I often say that I don't see out of shape chiropractors very often because they align themselves there. They say balance I don't often see misaligned yoga instructors, because they often practice balance. Now I will see some out of shape bodybuilders because they don't have that the right balance they offseason they might eat like a sumo wrestler or eat a lot of food for one part of the year but then another part of the year. They eat very strict and very regimented. So that's not the right kind of balance. That's a very unhealthy aspect and a very regimen and health balance in season versus offseason. So I think that might be sort of sort of what you're getting at as far as having kids or just you or any woman having children or any man that It goes through different seasons, any person that goes through different seasons of life, if you're not recording on paper, whether it's just the Notes app on your phone, or writing into a journal, or having a workout journal or any other way to know where you're starting and tracking those results, you will often miss out. And so I tried to pull it back full circle, just like the scales. I compare Monday to Monday, don't compare Monday to Tuesday to Wednesday, with a scale because you're not going to be happy with the results. If you weigh yourself. On Monday, you have one regimen of the day. And then on Wednesday, there's a completely other but most people weigh heavier on Monday, because you're coming off the weekend and lighter on Friday, because you had a regimented day to five days of waking up consistently to go to work. And then you're not snacking while you're at work. So that kind of balance, it's not fair to say, well, at the beginning of week, I was heavier. And at the end of the week, I was lighter. And then oh, it now it's Sunday. And I'm heavier, because I went crazy Buchwald on Friday and Saturday, and now you're holding a bunch of sodium. So there's a flow to it. And unless you really stay true to one core eating program, the scales not going to be fair to you. So it's important to weigh yourself every day and take the seven day average of those weights. Or just weigh yourself one day a week, or just consistently know if you're making progress in those areas. Does that make sense? Hopefully? Well, there,

Laura Wakefield: 16:38

but I liked what you said about intention. Intention, of course, is something we talked about a lot in yoga, I liked that you said that. It's not just about doing the activity, it's about doing it intentionally, absolutely. Having a plan and then tracking that plan can make all the difference. In that you were saying that people don't understand how you lose weight with yoga. It's actually remarkable because you are so focused, and you were so intentional about your movements, that even something that before I did it, I would see people doing some of these moves like a tree pose that doesn't really look that hard. You're just standing there until you do it. And then you realize that, I mean, I will start sweating like crazy doing moves that from the outside, don't look that hard. But you're so focused in intentionally putting your body into a position. It's amazing how all those little micro movements of your muscles add up, and really can get you. Yeah, it's exhausting sometimes.

Armah Mitchem: 17:38

Yeah, but you're also present in the moment, right? And you're focused on just paying attention for quite a bit of time. And you can hear how your body's not necessarily hungry, but you're just tired. And you just need to slow things down. And listen, when you hold those long form posts. Now, I'm a big fan of the slower facets of yoga. So I like long holds. I like very deliberate movements. Whenever I'm going to yoga, I can't do the fast flows. Like it doesn't work for me. But the slower ones where I can listen to my body. Wow, I'm achy right there. Or I'd noticed, wow, I have all this energy. How can I better utilize it after I leave this gym. And man, it just, that's the best part about yoga. I love that part. Well,

Laura Wakefield: 18:25

in the smallest changes, you know, I'll be doing a pose, I think correctly. And then my teacher will come along and just move me like two inches to the left or something. And it's like, oh, that's a completely different feeling. But I didn't feel before. And I would think when you're working with clients in the gym that the same is true. You see people at the gym, lifting weights haphazardly, but having a trainer that actually can tell you how to do it properly. The smallest change can make a huge difference, right? Yeah,

Armah Mitchem: 18:53

man. I'm a man of Jack of many trades is that is that the phrase, but I was spent a period of seven years as a amateur bodybuilder, and I was I would compete in competitions, and they would often talk about the mind muscle connection. And so people in bodybuilders take a little bit from them, right? So they go from out of shape form over to the in shape, very muscular, very low body fat. And what do they take from that? It's very much just like yoga where they take their time, they're very intentional with their movements. They're lifting just to work one aspect of their body, it's their arms, it's their chest, it's so legs, they're trying to get find those little details. And so there's I appreciate bodybuilders and when in my journey, I started at a one point I joined a 12 week challenge. And I was able to lose 23 pounds in three months. Because I was working with a trainer and I just asked him What's it gonna take for me to do what you're doing? He was a he was also an amateur bodybuilder. He's like you're doing everything right Don't change anything, just put intentionality behind it. And over the next eight to nine months based on the next year, I was able to lose 62 pounds. And it was mostly just because I got intentional of for where I was going and what I was doing, there's no difference. I mean, all the rules that you should be eating better, you shouldn't lift weights, you should get a little bit of cardio in to move your body and burn some energy. And on top of that, you have to go to work. So that activity, that fourth aspect that I talked about earlier, that's getting the emails in getting the work done, make sure the kids are where they should be. So you have to be intentional with your time once again that intentional work intentional with your time and make sure it's all done by x time of the day so that you can get so many hours of sleep that bodybuilder now I'm not saying that you need to be a bodybuilder, I'm not saying that you need to be a yoga specialist. But if you can kind of put those tools together, put those pieces together, the intentionality really starts to happen. And if you can find a enjoy, whether it's to be a better yogi, for yourself, or put both hands on to the floor to strap be able to stretch and put your hands to the floor or be able to look a certain way like bodybuilders do. Or to just be a better 5k runner parents or some kind of external aspect, you do have to turn on that internal switch of intentionality. I'm doing this because I want this result of being able to have flexibility, being able to look this way being able to do this with my kids being able to go for a long walk with my spouse, not huffing and puffing. So you put that intentionality through your gym time through your cardio activity through the nutrition through the activities of your day, being a better boss, being a better employee, look at who you are, as a podcast host or whoever you are, as a real estate investor, how you are as a project manager at work, you put the intentionality if you manage other people, and you see them slacking off, what where's the balance? What are they doing this, it's not balanced when they're slacking off showing, showing up to work 10 minutes late, only getting so many emails taken care of only doing this but they expect the balance of you paying them at the end of the day. That's not balanced. So you have to go back to that job agreement, right? You have to go back to that original goal to say, hey, here's what we signed up for. This is why you got this job. This is why I'm going to the gym. This is why I attend this boutique yoga studio so that I can get this result so that I can live this life. Why did you have kids so that I can be a better parent? Yes, intentionality is part of balance. If you ever tried to balance a scale, you have to be intentional of where you place those weights on that scale to get to that number. intentionality is the glue that sticks it all together. I love it. I love that analogy that's I didn't even know

Laura Wakefield: 23:04

about. Well, so that kind of leads me to my next question, actually. So we do all this stuff we get with a trainer maybe and we reach a goal, we run that marathon or we lose this amount of weight. I've done that before in my life. At one point in time after my last baby, I lost 90 pounds and I was in the best shape of my life. Right? We reached these huge goals. What happens though, because so often, we it's we know what to do, because we did it, we achieved it and we are a result of it. And then we let it go. And yeah, get back out of shape. And we go backwards again. What happens when that happens? Like what's going on there?

Armah Mitchem: 23:48

We've seen people lose weight on the Twinkie diet, the subway diet, the keto diet, all these diets. if I'm completely honest, they all work to lose weight. But here's the thing, it's not so much that we don't want to do them anymore. It's just that the other things get more convenient for us to do. McDonald's doesn't sell burgers to make you unhealthy. McDonald's sells burgers to make you enjoy your time eating a burger. So they don't want you to be unhealthy. They just want you to buy their food. And so it gets really easy to do that I think about those people that kind of molded the health culture and it's somebody like Jack McLean, who says eat the vegetables and drink the juice. And you didn't do anything wrong. It's just that marketing gets really good. So remember back in the 90s 80s Long time ago when restaurants close that eight and nine o'clock at night you couldn't find a restaurant open longer than 9pm but now you can go to as as easy as the growth the corner gas station to get at Anything you want, you can get sushi at gas stations, you can go for a sushi, the pizza to tacos, who hot dogs, you can eat whatever you want at any point. And so once again, I'll bring it back to intentionality. If you give yourself a, that's why intermittent fasting has become so popular is because I have to be intentional with the food that I eat. within this time frame. There's no secret to intermittent fasting, you're just eating less calories, you just committed to not eating it before this time or after this time, but it's still it's calorie reduction. It's but it's also intentionality, of calorie reduction. There's no secret to intermittent fasting, you just eat less, your body's able to process that food, you have activities along with it. So the same activities but eating in a shorter window, it's there's not a whole lot of science behind that other than less calories in. And more calories burn

Laura Wakefield: 25:56

really are so basic, so simple. It's not that we don't know, we do know, it's just that something went out of whack. Maybe in the rest of our life, you kind of hinted at that earlier that that in order to be able to stay intentional here, we also have to be finding balance in the other areas of our life, like you hear the term work life balance a lot and home life balance. Talk to me about how these concepts apply in those other areas of our life, because I don't think that we can have it just one place or we end up getting knocked back off kilter again. For me, like usually what happens isn't that I stopped wanting to do the fitness, it's that life got crazy somewhere else. And if I need to balance at work or balance at home, I probably would still be imbalanced physically?

Armah Mitchem: 26:46

Yes, I guess what I would say is that it's important to be health conscious. But you've got to be conscious on all areas of your life. And it but that does not mean that they all take precedence at the same time. So you cannot multitask. And that multitasking makes it kind of hard. And it's not that you are wrong, or that you're a bad person for losing focus on yourself. But that just it's just a different season of your life. And so in order for you to get back to where what's important for you personally, you just have to reset. And so thinking on paper, go back to those days where you were feeling the best, and just try to recount what you were doing what your life was back then. And then and this doesn't, I'm saying you personally because you're asking the question, but anybody that's listening to this, I can just go back and you can start by thinking on paper right now, what were you doing then, or what is your ideal life now, and write out your full day I work with a trainer. So I kind of alluded to having a trainer back then. But I've worked I'll go on and off of having a personal trainer for myself physically, as well as a business coach. And I'll have those throughout my year. And I alternate between the two. But when I worked with a business coach a while ago, and he had me write out my ideal week, and it was so fascinating. I'd never done that before. But I wrote out on Monday, I want to wake up to this time, I want to get this done. I mean, I micromanage my whole life for a week span. And it was really changing for me, because how do you make a year you take one week, and then you multiply it by four, and then you might take that four, and then you multiply that by 12. And now you have a whole year, if you just get really good. And like I said with the scale, you can't compare Monday to Tuesday to Wednesday, you just want to make the best Monday that you can have. And coming off of a weekend. What does the ideal day look like? Don't compare Monday to Tuesday, because you're going to lose yourself. Now. How did I start my week this week? And how did I start my week, the next week and the week after that. And then you collect all these Mondays, and you only have 52 of them to work with. But you go through a section of it and you just get really good at that. So as far as the work life balance, write it all out. I'm a big fan of just thinking on paper because you can kind of see and you can tweak it a little bit. And it doesn't mean that you have to live up to that. But that's the roadmap of what you want to do. You wait woke up 15 minutes later, but you still have the same things that you have to accomplish now, what do you leave out or where can you speed up so that you can stay on track to making it? It's student loan, it's it's getting out of debt, take the same policies of getting out of debt. Dave Ramsey's talks about all that same stuff, go with the smaller things, get knocked those out of the way so now you have more time for the bigger things.

Laura Wakefield: 29:56

I love that because so I did that. I'm a big believer in that I've never heard it said think on paper. But I love that phrase. And I'm going to start thinking that every time I need to make a plan, because it's so helpful, I did that once, I was feeling very stressed out in my life generally. And so I kind of did an exercise like that, and wrote it all out and genuinely realized, there wasn't enough time in the day for everything I was trying to do. And it was time in that case, to actually pick what was most important to me. And priorities. Sometimes we realize there's more time in this day than we thought, but sometimes, maybe we're just trying to do too much. And yeah, which matter the most, and our health and our fitness and our wellness mentally, spiritually, in all aspects should be I think one of the most important things about so often, it's the thing that we set aside, and don't make time for,

Armah Mitchem: 30:49

yeah, you can apply. I'm a personal trainer, I'll talk fitness all day long. But I'd be a really good life coach, if I ever chose to leave this profession. Because it's the same, it's a lot of the same principles. In my head, the analogy of leaving your home and going to somewhere is the same thing on any goal. So if you left your home, and you wanted to go to the bank, you say, I made it to the bank. So I'm going to the bank, I left the bank, now I'm home. But you didn't count all of the roadblocks that you had. It's not a straight line. So you, when you left your house, you had to back up into the street, you had to make a turn, you had to avoid the roadkill in the road, you had to avoid the little kid, there was a red light, there was a stoplight, there was another term, there was a U turn. There's a cul de sac, and there was a roundabout that you had to make the third turn, but you made the second turn instead. So now you have to turn around. And then finally you made it to the bank. And then you have to do all that again. You forgot about all those terms, those stops those distractions. Oh, there's a sale over there at that store. Let me go there before I go to the bank. But then you go later on your day, hey, what do you do today? Oh, I went to the bank and I came home, you forgot about all those other if you thought on paper, write down how to how to get to work. Think about that. Like how would you get from your house to work every day. And don't leave out any detail. Don't leave out any detail, you would see that there's a lot that you just accomplished. But the goal was still the same. And it makes sense in my head. I don't know if it ever makes sense whenever I explain that to people. But hopefully if you hear this, and then you hear it again and you hear it again, you'll start to say, Wow, that's how goals really work. You start with a plan, and then you execute it, the plan was to backup into the driveway and get to the light. But then you had to avoid the road kill the kid that was playing in the stop sign.

Laura Wakefield: 32:49

I like that. Because if we're not super clear on where we're trying to go, all of those little sidetracked things that come about could lead us a totally nother direction. But if we're clear on the end goal, when those things come in, we can swerve around them, we can adjust but we're still going the same place. And I've really liked that analogy of planning out your trip to the bank. Because it's true, it never goes exactly the way that you think. And if you don't leave some flexibility and some room to make changes, that kid runs behind the car, you stop and you don't start again. Because you forgot where you were going because my brain will do that my brain will run in the monkey mind, I call it off in a million directions. And the other thing I've discovered about time is if I'm not super intentional about making time for say fitness, since we're talking fitness, but it can apply to anything, it won't happen. Like it doesn't just happen life will throw so many things at me that will sidetrack me off in somewhere else that if I don't have it a super strong why as to why I need to do this and stay super intentional. It just will never happen.

Armah Mitchem: 33:58

But that's the yoga in you. That's the intentionality and you and you're gonna, and you're gonna get there. So when you take the work life balance, if you don't have that, why the far off? Why the third, the third year? Why the fifth year? Why the tenure, why it's not going to be there. I would love to buy my daughter the white Jeep when she turns 16 And I'd love to put a bow on it. But if you're not intentional that's why I'm making X number of dollars and this is why I'm putting so many dollars to the side. Then it's you lose it. And you if you give up on that why? Oh yeah, let me go back to that why but I have to restart. You forgot the journey. You're not really focused on it. And so that work life balance, put a little bit to the side and say and if from the beginning a baby girl, it's not gonna happen with that white teeth right now, or in that third year, because Daddy didn't plan for it. Then who's upset now who is the bad guy? I am because I've just I've just taught my daughter a lesson that daddy's not focused.

Laura Wakefield: 35:04

So many things competing for our time, all the different branches, our jobs, and I have found that any one of those aspects will take all of you, if you let it. Like your career, if you let it could take every moment of every day, every thought could be focused on that. And it would take all of it that you would give it. Family is another one. I mean, we want to give a lot to our family. But if we're not intentional about all the areas of our life, it will take all of it any one of those areas could take could consume all of us, unless we see ourselves as a total person. We need this we need our body, we need our mind, we need our soul, we need our careers, we need all these different things, and it can feel a little overwhelming. What are some things that you do to kind of manage and all of those different things? Man,

Armah Mitchem: 35:57

that's a good question. What are your non negotiables that's what I asked people what's non negotiable, or I have to give people non negotiables, hey, you have a X number of pounds weight loss, you have to get six days of cardio in, you have to eat an apple a day. That means that you have to require that it's going to require you to wake up at this time to get out and do your cardio, it's going to take you as long as you or buy seven apples in your grocery cart, you're going to end up a week from now with zero apples. Don't end up with one don't end up with two, that means that you messed up and you missed a day. So what's non negotiable and make those commitments? What's the non negotiable of you going to the bank. So it's the non negotiable Is that you, I guess you have your bank card, you have gas in your vehicle, or you have transportation to get there and back. Another one is just to make sure that the bank is open. So other than that, the other non negotiables, everything else gets deleted. That's basically what I'm going with the stop sign doesn't matter. The roadkill doesn't matter the kid playing in the street doesn't matter. Because you have that goal that why I gotta go to the bank, because I'm going to be overdrafted. And I have to pay a bill. So the stop sign the all the terms, the cul de sac, the roundabout, those don't matter, because you're going to the bank, and you're coming back, and you accomplish that goal, focusing on the non negotiables, create the non negotiables create the intentionality of the movement, get things done. I love that

Laura Wakefield: 37:38

because I think the biggest thing you probably hear as a trainer is people's excuses as to why they're not doing things is I don't have time, that might be the biggest thing. I mean, that's my biggest excuse on a personal level, I don't have time, I don't have time. But when you have those non negotiables in your mind, that kind of helps you focus on what to make time for and where to start your day, maybe even I,

Armah Mitchem: 38:02

for one of those seven years of bodybuilding, I had a desire, so don't quote me on this and don't this is one of those don't try this at home. But I had the desire to have a doughnut every day of my competition, prep. And I had I did have a donut. But the non negotiable is that I gave 110%. So I had to work above and beyond to earn my donut while I competed that year. So don't try this at home, of course, if you have your goal, but that, honestly that year is that was just the season of life. I wasn't I wanted to do things I wanted to be a rebel of that training program. And I didn't win that year that that competition. But my non negotiable was that I'm giving it all that I can with the caveat that I could have a doughnut and be happy. That little

Laura Wakefield: 38:56

carrot at the end of the stick, or the end of the stick is very helpful.

Armah Mitchem: 39:01

Yeah. But then I did have a couple years in there where I didn't cheat at all. Where I was so rigid that i i said I'm giving this 110% So when I get people I have had several clients that that do not deviate from the plan. And those are honestly the the easiest people to work with. Because you give them the plan, they execute the plan and everything works out and they get the results. But most people aren't that committed. I get it. So let's find what works. So

Laura Wakefield: 39:35

do you work with people only in person? Or do you work with people online through zoom or tell me about your training? I

Armah Mitchem: 39:41

still talk to people I still work with people. I guess I do. I am that life coach that I talked about because I do conversate and work with people via social media online, but 99% of the time I'm in person with them. So I do encourage people to read reach out to me to get some advice and to work out. And I'll definitely follow along. But most of the time, it's more about the people that are in front of me. I'm a gym trainer, out here in St. Louis. But I do encourage you to reach out to me and I'll find a way to help you out in some

Laura Wakefield: 40:18

way, shape or form. Yeah, where can people go social media

Armah Mitchem: 40:21

is always the best way to reach me, I don't, I don't want to have the capacity to host a website or to work with a website. It's easiest. Everybody has a cell phone, everybody has social media, Facebook and Instagram are the best ways to communicate with me, I have LinkedIn, I have other social media. But I've just found that Facebook and Instagram are the easiest to to communicate through. You can find my YouTube channel, it's just our Ma the trainer online and our MA The trainer@gmail.com is a great way to reach out to me through email, if that's the way that you like to go. DM me, private message me, that's a great way to talk regularly and work together with me.

Laura Wakefield: 41:07

I'll put the links down in the show notes for anybody that's interested in reaching out or following you along on your online journey. But the last question I have for you Armand, this podcast is called The Joy Felicity podcast is primarily focused on finding greater joy and happiness and purpose in life. How does the concept of balance and fitness and wellness lead to greater joy for people in their lives?

Armah Mitchem: 41:37

Oh, man, it's called squaring the curve I this stolen idea of I can't remember who I'd love to give credit where credit's due. But it's squaring the curve. It's going as far as you can in life and then being done at the very end of your days, instead of slowly dropping off and having a long and painful exit from this world. It's just going as long as you can, as high as you can and then falling off. That doesn't sound very joyful. But it's knowing that you're giving your best and you're at the highest peaks that you can live at that leg. I love thinking about squaring the curve and competing, whether I'm competing in bodybuilding, which I don't anymore, but now I train for half Ironman, and it sounds really daunting, but I chose to compete uncomfortably and so getting uncomfortable with life and trying to make the best of me as a person as I can. My

Laura Wakefield: 42:36

favorite Bon Jovi song is it's my life. And it's about really while you're alive. And that sounds a bit like what you're saying to just really live. Having a healthy body and mind helps you to do that. It

Armah Mitchem: 42:52

really does just laugh a whole lot.

Laura Wakefield: 42:55

Rmi is just one of the most kind hearted people that you will ever meet. I've never seen him not making an effort to make other people around him feel comfortable and feel supported. And it's one of the things that I've always admired most about Arma thank you so much for being my guest today. I really appreciate you taking the time to come on the show. I

Armah Mitchem: 43:16

appreciate it. I hope to be asked back end we can talk so much more about different topics but no, I really appreciate you extending the offer to have a chat with you. Fantastic

Laura Wakefield: 43:26

reach out to our Ma look in the show notes for all of his links and have a wonderful day everybody. Thank you for joining me today on the joy Felicity podcast. If you enjoyed this episode, please like and share and come follow me on all major social media sites at Joy Felicity or on my website, Joy felicity.com. You can follow the link in the description for this episode two all of the places that we can connect. Have a great day everybody and remember, dare to dream. Plan to play live to learn