Robert Sikes explains the advantages to the Keto lifestyle on today’s episode of Acta Non Verba. We’ll also discuss why it’s important to push your body to its limits and how recovery is equally as important as progress.
Robert Sikes (@ketosavage) is the Keto Savage, Founder of the Keto Brick, and accomplished Keto Bodybuilder. Robert hosts the Keto Savage Podcast , the popular Keto Savage youtube channel with vlogs, cooking demos, and he also coaches clients through online coaching to improve their health, performance, and body composition.
Episode Transcript:
00:40
Acta Non Verba is a Latin phrase that means actions and not words. If you wanna know when somebody truly believes, don’t listen to their words instead, observe their actions. I’m Marcus Aurelius Anderson and my guest today truly embodies that phrase. Robert Sykes is a lifetime natural competitive bodybuilder, ketogenic nutrition coach.
01:05
Host of the Keto Savage podcast, as well as his new podcast, the Low Carb Hustle with Adam Shibley and Danny Vega. He’s also the creator of my favorite low carb nutrition supplement and snack, the Keto Brick. People, this thing, if you are into the low carb lifestyle, if you want to get into the low carb lifestyle, the Keto Brick is the one to go with. The Chocolate Peanut Butter Cup is undeniably the best I’ve ever had.
01:30
He has an incredible array of supplements there. Everything that you want to know about him is at keto savage.com. And I’ll just go ahead and launch right into this because this is the man that I trusted enough to learn about the carbohydrate, to learn what the ketogenic diet is, and then it’s truly changed my life. So without further ado, Robert, thank you so much for being here today. Welcome. How are you my friend? I’m great, man. I’m excited to be here. I appreciate the opportunity. It’s cool for me to see you having your own podcast. And now we’ve talked about my podcast several times and
01:59
I’ve always suggested that you run with this platform because you’re going to rock and roll with it, man. So I’m excited for you. Now we connected a few years ago. And as I was saying, since that time, I got to meet you in person. We’ve been together, we’ve worked out together, we’ve had lunch and dinner together, and we’ll be seeing each other in the near future as well here in the Midwest. So it’ll be awesome. But it’s interesting how the ketogenic diet, how the low carb diet has kind of, I don’t want to say it’s exploded because it’s always been there. It’s been under present. But
02:25
We see more and more people that are doing it. We see people like Tom, Bill, you and Lisa, but you that built Quest Nutrition basically on that mentality of endometabolic disease. And that’s really what you built your entire empire on is this low carb idea. And so many people have a lot of misconceptions about it. They feel that it’s unhealthy or how can you get all your nutrition necessary from a low carb diet? Could you name a few other people that are on the low carb diet?
02:52
And why are they on that? Why is this such a big deal right now? And because I remember you telling me, and I will always remember the statement you said that the low carb diet is the secret weapon for entrepreneurs and leaders. And that really got my attention when you said that. Yeah, man. I mean, it’s interesting because my inner circle has become predominantly comprised of people in the low-carb space. I mean, all of my best friends have met through the community. Danny Vega.
03:17
And Adam, that you mentioned at the beginning of this podcast, they’ve been doing this for years as well. I started doing it, I want to say back in 2014 or 15, somewhere in that timeframe, before there was any conferences or websites or books on the subject. And then in 2017, it got really popular and then a bunch of conferences started happening. That’s where I really sort of plugged into the community. That’s where I met Danny Vega. That’s where I met Adam. That’s where I didn’t meet you at a conference. I’m pretty sure Adam introduced us together, right?
03:44
We had a mutual friend that introduced us because they wanted us to do a collab on something in business initially. And then when we started talking, we were cut from a similar cloth. So I totally forgot about that, which is crazy. Cause I was talking to her about the keto diets and then yeah, that, that all came to be man, so small world indeed, but pretty cool story for sure. It is. And then there’s people like Ryan Muncie, a lot of other people that are in this peak performance environment.
04:11
that are very much into the low carb idea. Even Tim Ferriss cycles in and out of it to keep him in those places where whenever he’s working on something or trying to keep his focus mentally, to be able to have that kind of productivity, that’s what he kind of turns to, to keep him in that place. From a productivity standpoint alone, I feel like all senses are just heightened. I mean, with a fat dependent approach where your body’s getting its energy and fuel from fats and ketones, you’re able to have more satiety by the day. You’re not a slave to eating every two or three hours. You don’t have to spend as much time cooking.
04:41
I mean, for instance, today it’s 4 p.m. here in Arkansas, and I have intentionally not yet eaten today because I had this podcast coming up and I knew that I was gonna be more mentally sharp without a full belly, full of food. So I was able to just focus on getting a lot of stuff done today, I’ve had a busy day, I’ve gotten a lot done, and I’ll have a big new after this recording, but I knew that my presentation and my ability to just pick up on the conversation was gonna be heightened without a stomach full of food and spiked blood glucose, so.
05:09
from a productivity standpoint, as if for me as an entrepreneur, it’s been a game changer. I agree. And like you were mentioning, the capacity to fast whenever you want to. I just finished a three day fast. I just broke my fast this afternoon. And as you said, if you’re fat adapted, it makes it much easier. And then it also helps you see how dependent or how ritualistic our feedings are in society where I wake up, the first thing I have to do is eat, and then I have lunch. And then again, if you have a lot of carbs in your lunch, your productivity.
05:37
goes down and then you’re trying to recover by the time the clock gets five. So it really has helped remove that shackle from me. And you’ve actually done some extended fast as well, where you were hitting PRS in your lifts, even in that past estate, which shows, especially our ancestors. If we look at what happened, an animal is going to be more likely to able to be able to get into a tree and eat like all the bananas or all the fruits and stuff. And I won’t be able to, I won’t be able to compete on that level, but I can still trap that animal. I can still hunt that animal. I can still.
06:06
knock the animal over the head and survive off of what they have because they’ve consumed those nutrients and then that nutrient becomes more bioavailable for me once I’m able to consume it. Yeah, I mean, just simply from like an evolutionary perspective, humans have been brought up to have a period where they’re feasting and a period where they’re fasting. I mean, if you’re hunting scarce game that can outrun you, can out think you out maneuver you oftentimes, then you need to be prepared to go days on end without eating. But when you do, you know, capture that quarry, being able to just feast on it.
06:36
before the meat spoils is typical. So, I mean, that’s what that’s what lions do in the Savannah. I mean, that’s just how, how the apex predators operate. It is. And then after listening to you and learning from you, when I reduced the carbohydrates and I went into the ketogenic diet, all the inflammation from my injuries in my body reduced, I would say 80, 85%. And then even this, the last two years, I’ve continually inched up what I thought I could do from a physical capacity.
07:02
As you know, I ran a marathon last year for the first time I trained up to it. Unlike you who just ran the marathon, which we should probably wise or fourth. Though I don’t, I don’t know. I did it, but I wouldn’t recommend it. But the thing for me was as things change in 2020 and some gyms were closed or there was some accessibility that was denied. I said, okay, this is my opportunity to run. And I ran for five minutes. And then the next day I would take the day off and then I would run for six minutes and then take the next day off to give myself plenty of time to adapt.
07:32
And I hadn’t run at any real distance since the military. And I kept telling myself the story that I wasn’t built to run or I’ve got, you know, short stubby legs or, you know, I’m built for speed, but I realized that that was a story that was a, a rational lie that I was telling myself to justify not doing it. And then by the end of the year, I clicked in a couple of marathons on my own, just individually, which allowed me to embark on kind of where I’m at now. You’re doing the live savage mentality of doing something everyday, physical.
08:02
I really think that that’s something that most people should embrace more of because in today’s society, not having the physical capacity leaves them woefully unprepared for any of the things that can happen, whether it be the ability to be leaner or the ability to operate if your body needs it in a situation. It’s almost like a life insurance policy that we can easily dump into if we’re willing to put in a little bit of discipline and consistency. Yeah. I mean, we live in a day and age where we can get by.
08:30
with doing the bare minimum from a physical standpoint. I mean, we’re compensated oftentimes, depending on our professions, based off of our mental prowess, being able to function and make money online. And you can do that without having to truly push your body to the limits. However, I would argue that that doesn’t make it right to not push your body to the limits. I mean, we have to subject ourselves to this self-imposed hardship in order to stay sharp and stay, you know, acute and prepared in life. And I feel like for me.
08:56
Just committing this year, for instance, through this, you know, 365 Savage, as I call it, where I’m training every day, I’m running every day, I’m doing something every single day that moves a needle forward, no matter how small that is, as long as it’s moving forward, it’s considered a win. And I feel like that’s it’s, it’s had a subconscious effect on my outlook as well, because, you know, before I would have predetermined off days where I would just intentionally not train hard, obviously in recover and recovery is very important. I don’t want to downplay recovery at all, but
09:25
When you go into the day knowing that no matter what you’re going to still run at least a mile and have some form of training, even if it’s mobility work, you just have a totally different outlook at the onset of the day. You know that you’re going to get the blood pumping and you just have a more proactive and a more active outlook on the day. And I feel like that just has benefited everything. I agree. And a lot of people that I coach, they’re high performers. They’re pushing.
09:52
And the question they’re always asking themselves is, how can I push harder or am I pushing hard enough? But the question that they should be asking is, am I doing the things necessary to allow me to recover? Am I doing the things necessary to allow me to operate at the ultimate level? Because in the entrepreneurial space today, many people will try to push really hard for six months or a year and they’ll burn themselves out. And then they lose the ambition. They lose the consistency. They lose…
10:22
that drive that they had in the first place when if they would do sort of what you’re saying or what we’re talking about in general with this space where give yourself that opportunity to click the needle up, but then also respect again with the mobility work, also respect with the physical recovery with sleeping, with meditation, with stillness to give yourself those opportunities to go to the next level. Because if you don’t give yourself that, it’s very easy to dull the blade by over sharpening in the process.
10:51
place right now with regard to all my entrepreneurial endeavors. And I’ve got several big projects that I’ve got on the horizon that I really want to just sink my teeth into and complete. They’ve all been started, but they’ve not been finished. However, due to just the day-to-day operations of our line of work, we’re very shorthanded right now, so I could make part of me, my, you know, interior, just like get it done, beast mode status, wants to just burn the candle at both ends and knock out all the projects simultaneously, keeping everything moving with the normal day-to-day production.
11:19
But I inherently know that would just lead to a very less desirable quality of life in the short term and not necessarily burn me out, but it would make, you know, it would strain my relationships. It would make the entire process much less pleasant. And I’m all for having periods of, you know, not being pleasant, but for the sake of my own sanity and those around me, I’ve opted to play more of a long game approach with this and just focus on, you know, getting one thing knocked out at a time, prioritizing things.
11:45
And even if the projects don’t get finished as soon as I would like them to, they’ll all get completed with a likely higher degree of quality because I’m able to focus on it 100% as opposed to just half-assing multiple different things at once basically. There’s two ways to do it correctly and again, right? Exactly. And like you said, it’s easy for us to try to prioritize everything. But like you say, if we can sit down rationally, maybe even with a piece of paper and say, okay, let’s 80-20 this. And let’s say if our goal is monetary.
12:14
then what is that one thing that I can accomplish to get that monetary endeavor going as opposed to thinking, Oh, I went all this stuff done well, you know, if what you’re trying to work on is like a not nearly as money generating, so to speak, why would you waste your time on that? And I think that’s also a good point where people may claim that they want certain things, but again, octanon verb, if you want to know what they really believe, you look at what they put their energy behind consistently. So if they’re claiming that they want a better relationship, but they’re still,
12:43
the 90 hours a week workaholic mode, that’s probably not what they’re doing. Maybe they’re saying that to placate to somebody else or because they heard somebody else say it on a podcast or it sounds like it’s the right answer. But that self-knowledge is what’s so important. And that’s why I love your journey because you very much come from just working your ass off to get to where you are. You figured it out as you went along. You’ve taken lumps. And now you’re at a place where things are starting to really explode for you. And
13:13
When we first started speaking a few years ago, could you tell me the difference in maybe say your day architecture now compared to the way it was back then? Because even back then you were very efficient, but now how is your day different than it used to be when you first were starting this? Well, when we first met, I mean, shoot, it’s been almost four years, man. I mean, I was incredibly broke and probably just coming out of a depression. And I was a bottleneck with my own business. I didn’t have any employees at that point.
13:41
My girlfriend at the time who’s now my wife, I was seriously putting a strain on that relationship because I would literally just work nonstop. And I don’t regret doing what I had done at that point because it wouldn’t have led me to where I am now if I hadn’t done it. So I now like where I am now so I wouldn’t have changed anything. But now I’ve got a great team. I’m building a great team. Like that’s one of the main things that’s taking advantage right now is we’re in the hiring process. So building a team and a network of people that removes me as a bottleneck and just grows it exponentially.
14:09
That’s where I’m focusing my efforts now. But then, I mean, just typical day to day, like I’m not in the production aspect of making the bricks anymore, which is great, you know, before that’s, that’s all I was doing. I was working in the business instead of on the business. And I feel like now, especially once we get these new people hired, I’ll be able to really just remove myself entirely from the day to day production and just the planning and really be strategic and, you know, big picture growth of the company. So I’m taking a much more long-term.
14:37
look at how things and just trajectory of the company as a whole. And I’m focusing more on the relationships, both internally within our company and externally within the community at large. I feel like when we moved to the new compound, for instance, we just bought up the building that’s getting renovations done now and anything I’ve learned in business is stemmed from the relationships that I’ve built and what I’ve learned in those relationships. So I’m really going to double down and focus on the relationships. When we moved to the new location, the podcast is a massive platform for our company, it’s just trade exposure.
15:07
So I’m going to fly all my future guests out there to record in person and build relationships, you know, looking at it, you know, across the table from somebody like humans are supposed to communicate. So I’m super excited to fly you out there, by the way. I mean, it’s going to be a whole experience. Like it’s going to be, you know, I’m going to train with you. I’ll take you sailing. You know, we’ll shoot some pool. We’ll talk philosophy and then we’ll record a podcast to kind of recount the entire week’s experiences or whatever. But doing that and just building.
15:34
quality relationships with people in the keto space and then circles outside of keto. That to me is what a properly implemented company is built on. Having a foundation like that is you can’t buy that, you can’t build that out of a box. I mean, that is something that has a long game approach to it, but it makes you super solid. It does. And as you say, Tim Ferriss had a podcast where he was like how to build a multimillion dollar network without killing yourself years ago. But it comes down to, again, being human.
16:04
doing the right thing. The people that I meet, the people that I work with, the people that I even am on their podcast or have them on mine, now it’s the same way where I look at, do I wanna know this person or do business with this person for the next 20 years? Do I want this person at my wedding? Do I wanna go meet this person? Do I wanna go spend time with them? And that’s the way I try to look at it. So again, it’s thinking long-term, but that’s just sort of something incidentally where all these other beautiful things happen because of that. But the intention is,
16:34
Is this a person that I know, respect? Is this a person who is honest, who is true, who has a similar work ethic? And if all those ethos are lying, then there’s the potential for doing things. So like you said, being in person, that’s key. Ryan Muncie, I went to his place to be interviewed by him and it was the same thing where, you know, training together, learning things, having keter bricks together, even though, you know, that was kind of a serendipitous thing. It was neat where he’s like, do you, do you know what these are? Have you ever had these? I was like, dude, yeah.
17:03
I’m going to introduce you guys. So, uh, I’m going to give him a direct quote where he was like, yeah, I have to come in a half because I’ll eat them all if I don’t, if I don’t cut the thing in half and it’s a thousand calories. So you gotta be careful sometimes, but I absolutely agree that those experiences and having you with the live event, getting to meet Crystal, your wife, again, that’s where that, that true community comes from. And even at my event, you know, I didn’t have to tell any of you guys, Hey, I want you all to interact. It was just the right people were there. So when we were in between sessions.
17:30
everybody naturally gravitated towards each other, everybody naturally connected. And I don’t mean they gave business cards. I mean, like they’re asking for phone numbers, like we’re having dinner together. We’re having those conversations that really it creates that experience that everybody wants so much of, especially in the environment now, where everybody is kind of maybe more isolated than normal. So I think that that’s the best way to do it. And by doing it the right way, you don’t have to worry about being in a hurry because it happens as it shall. I think you’re in a position also where
18:00
conversations you had maybe one or even two years ago, now those things come into fruition in a business capacity, in a personal development capacity, and a friendship capacity. And so it’s just all part of the journey as long as you’re going the correct direction of what you’re really wanting to do, which is so important. Can you speak to how you were able to have that self-knowledge to come to this place, to go this direction because so many people, especially because entrepreneurship is so young and sexy now and everybody wants to do it.
18:29
They’re all concerned about the X’s and O’s and the tactics and the mentalities, but yet they have no clue what the hell they want or what they believe in or what they would be willing to work their ass off for or what they would be willing to even die for if they needed to. Can you kind of tell us about your process, how you were able to get to that place and then how you were able to bring that into this powerful keto savage brand that you have now? Yeah, I mean, it definitely didn’t come.
18:53
all at once. Like it stemmed from just years and years of learning who I am. And once I had that self-awareness, I can pick and choose my day-to-day actions with much more clarity. So when I look back on, you know, the very beginning chapters of what led to me creating the company that I have now, I mean, I’ve always wanted to be an entrepreneur. I’ve always wanted to own a company or build a business simply because I never liked the idea of being trapped in a job that I did not genuinely love. I feel like a lot of that stemmed from my parenting, probably.
19:23
I was just thinking the other day that so many people go into life with the expectation that they could only do X, Y, or Z, and they put themselves in these boxes. And to me, that seems incredibly demoralizing. I wouldn’t want to wake up and get out of bed every day thinking that I’ve only got this ceiling that I can reach and that’s it. So I’ve always believed that I could become whatever I wanted to become. And I feel like owning a company and being your own boss is a great way to manifest that in physical form. And I mean, it’s very, very…
19:51
malleable, you can make it in shape and form, or however you like. That’s kind of one of the beauties of owning your own company. And when I asked, I mean, I had several failed business steps that just did not pan out because I didn’t know who I was. I tried to create them. I’ve always been interested in fitness and nutrition and keto was the first thing that actually stuck and helped me recover from eating disorders, having a very negative relationship with food. It gave me the performance I needed to excel with my, you know, just day to day activities. So I knew that I wanted to kind of fashion something around my passions and skills.
20:21
with regard to the fitness industry and natural bodybuilding, and then also intertwined with the ketogenic diet and lifestyle. So that kind of led to me brainstorming on what kind of brand or business I could build. And it started very modest with just simply, you know, online keto coaching. Because there was no coaches out there in the space at the time, because I got into it at the very early stages. So there’s a massive demand for that knowledge. And I’d been doing it for several years at that point. So I just started putting out content. I didn’t know anything about content creation.
20:50
but I had read a couple of gay advantage books and it was all about, you know, put out content. So that’s what I did. Started putting out Instagram clips and YouTube videos and podcasts recorded in my closet with a black beach towel as a backdrop. Not even had to edit or do anything. But I started gaining some traction, gaining some momentum. And then I recognized that people were seeing value in this and I was getting emails about how something I had said or done had led them to improve their health and that improved their relationships. And I felt fulfillment from that. And that led to
21:19
Once 2017 hit and I was doing a competition prep with a ketogenic approach, I gained my pro card and that really solidified in my mind. Okay, this is, this is an effective approach to natural bodybuilding from an elite level performance standpoint, uh, which just really kind of made it very certain in my mind that this was an effective way to go about it. And then during that prep, I made the keto brick for my own personal consumption because that’s what I needed. I needed something that was macro. They fit the macro profile. It was easy and convenient. And.
21:47
took the guesswork out of my nutrition. So it just kind of was a natural fit, to scratch my own itch. Never planned on it being a product. But again, just simply in publishing content, you start to see where the interest lies, what people are wanting. And it was obvious that there was a demand for those bricks. So Crystal and I just rolled up our sleeves and started making these things out of our little apartment townhouse. Our living room was racks of ingredients and shipping supplies. And we’d stay up all night making these things. And that just grew and compounded into what it is today. And we have…
22:17
several employees, multiple warehouse spaces. And we just bought this new building to renovate and move into. So all along this journey, there was not any defined roadmap. I just lived my life a hundred percent authentic to who I am and what my interests and passions were. And I, I focused and listened to the community and the audience to see where their interests line and what their desires were and what values they needed to fulfill their questions. And then I built the business around that. I feel like some people get into business entrepreneurship.
22:47
wanting to make money so that they can have a sports car or something. And it’s just a very skewed perception as to how to get into it. Like you need to, and in my opinion, I would never have been able to see the success I have if I wasn’t passionate about the work that I was doing, because I wouldn’t have had the staying power to really just dig my heels in and get through all the hurdles. But because I was passionate about it, and I would have done it anyways for free, I had that staying power. And then by being very vigilant to what the community was wanting and needing, I was able to…
23:14
answer that need with a product that I myself needed. And it just became what it is now. I feel like that’s a really surefire way to create a viable company. I agree. And even me writing my book and doing my TEDx, I didn’t do it with the intention of trying to build what I’ve built from it. I just did it because I needed to do it. This is something I had to do. I had to write this book. I had to tell this story to help other people because telling one individual, seeing the impact that it makes is like, okay.
23:43
more people need to know about this. And then again, by doing the right thing and being very honest with yourself, that’s what will allow you to endure the hurdles, like you say, to fall down, to get back up and to realize. And this is the thing guys, what Robert’s talking about is all the hours, all the stress, all the sleepless nights put into it. So there are gonna be components where there is a grind to it. But if it is something that you enjoy and that you are truly passionate about, that grind will be nothing compared to.
24:12
what it feels like when you’re on the other side of that, once you’re over that hurdle. And here’s the thing, once you’re in the position where you’ve tasted some success, you’ll look back at all the adversity that you went through and you’ll be like, I wasn’t as bad as I thought it was. Yeah. And then it redoubles your efforts for the future because you’re like, wow, if I could go through that, now that I have an idea, because if you’re in business and you look back a year ago and you don’t sort of laugh at some of the stuff you did, then you’re not evolving fast enough. So you look back at some of the stuff you did, like you said, where you’re in that little apartment and you guys are just trying to,
24:42
put contents together or trying to create the ingredients to make this brick. Again, that’s something that you kind of look back on and snicker about. It’s one of those nice little jokes that you kind of tell each other. Yeah. I mean, if I was to rewind and look at all the hurdles that I’ve had to jump through in business and it was just all compiled into one list and they handed me that they one said, okay, in order to be successful, you’ve got to knock all these things off this checklist. I’d been like, all right, take me away from here.
25:09
But you don’t think that way when you’re in it in the moment, because you’re just, you know, you make progress day after day. You have setbacks, you have hurdles, you have obstacles you learn from, you move forward. But in doing that, you gain so much perspective. Like when I have an obstacle noun, like it’s almost just laughable because I just have to smile and say, okay, this is just part of it. This part comes to the territory. Let’s just roll up our sleeves and get it figured out. And that happens all the time. I mean, literally like the, the world can be falling down around me right now. I wouldn’t be surprised. It’s just.
25:38
roll up our sleeves and get to work and make the best of it. I mean, that’s just how life is. Anything other than that is just negative and I just don’t have time for negativity. I agree. And as a person that’s successful like you and you’re really starting to hit this fever pitch, how do you celebrate victories? Do you allow yourself the capacity to celebrate a victory or do you just keep driving on? How do you find that kind of, I don’t want to say a balance because there’s not such a thing, but how do you find that space to allow yourself to?
26:06
Celebrate a victory without the fear of losing the edge or is there a fear of losing your edge in the process? You know, I’m not really good at celebrating my wins. I celebrate them internally. Like I feel pride when I do something that I know I did to the best of my ability and it worked. But I don’t really make it a point to say, okay, I’m blocking out a week to just, you know, fixate on that time. Maybe I should. Maybe that would be better for me. Maybe that would make it all more sustainable. But for me, the satisfaction of fulfillment comes in.
26:34
The grind comes in just the journey. So the actual summit itself, like the actual finish line is kind of just an arbitrary win. Like I don’t really feel the satisfaction from that. Like I do the actual journey to get there. So I’m normally right back onto the next thing and climbing the next hurdle. Yeah. We always have to move that goalpost even sometimes before we get to it. Once we see that it’s attainable, but we do have to give ourselves that ability also to breathe, to enjoy it and to celebrate the victory with those around us. Because
27:03
that is more sustainable, but it’s also one of those things where understanding the grind and enjoying the process along with it, like you said, once we hit that summit, it allows us to truly benefit from it in a different level. So I think that’s beautiful. I do think having a wife like I do now has made me taking the time to celebrate those wins much more applicable because in the past it was just me. I would just beat myself up and get on to the next thing. I wouldn’t take the time to celebrate the wins. But with her, like what fulfills hers.
27:32
oftentimes slightly different than what fulfills me. So it’s kind of had this, you know, built in integrated checks and balance system. So I’ve taken that time more frequently since being married, which I think is healthy for sure. Plus we can celebrate it together, which is a worthwhile use of our time. No, I agree. And Tom Bill, you even said that his wife, Lisa Bill, you was sort of the canary in the coal mine, so to speak, where if she’s feeling that there’s stress or that there’s not enough communication and there’s not enough.
27:58
they’re not feeding their relationship. She’s the first one to say it because as you, like you were saying, I think as men is this cabin, this kind of warrior idea, that’s what we do. We just push, we just press whatever it is. I just push harder, but there has to be that place where we, because if we don’t reflect on that, if we don’t acknowledge that at least for their sake, then it’s hard for them to see, well, why would we keep doing that? There’s no one inside. There’s no way to really have satisfaction in this. So I think that’s a good point as well. Yeah. It’s, it’s, it’s funny, man. There’s so many parallels with life. Like when I look at my life.
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with Crystal, like there’s so many things that I just would not ever even take a moment’s notice to take the time and reflect on. But with her by my side, it’s like, okay, I’m less selfish. You know, I don’t view life selfishly. I don’t really think I was maliciously selfish in the past, but you kind of have to be selfish to a point because you need to put your blinders on just have to have a vision, which I think is very important. But once you start to have that momentum and you can just make sure that you’re keeping things on the right track in your trajectory is solid.
28:58
By having a significant other, you can look to them and take a much more inclusive approach to your day-to-day actions. And I feel like she’s only enriched my life in that regard. And I felt the same way with my fiancee, Cindy B. Wife, where she’s an entrepreneur. She’s been an entrepreneur for 18 years, yet we still bring things to the table for each other, for their businesses. I learned a lot about leadership by seeing her with her team because of the way she acknowledges or the way that she confirms or the way that she corrects as opposed to…
29:28
You know, the way I am, I have said it the way I may have done it. So it gives you that perspective and it helps you see something that you would normally have been blind to. When you first started your entrepreneurial journey, there’s so much bad information out there, but I’d like to ask you about something that you believe to be completely true. When you first started this, that you were like, I hang my hat on this. This is the truth. And as you went through this turned out to sort of unravel and become not as true as you thought that it was once. So.
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You’ve referenced Tim Ferriss a couple of times already in this episode. And one of my primary motivations for getting into business was his book, Before I Work Week, which I’ve read probably six times now. I’ve literally got a white book with like every single relevant note from that book written line, you know, it has great content, great content. But all of my failed businesses stemmed from me really just taking all of the stuff he said in that book to heart and trying to craft something that removed me from the equation and not to say that that can’t be done or not to say that that shouldn’t be done, but for me.
30:26
building a business around my passions and intentionally not removing myself from it, but rather digging deeper into it because I am passionate about it, was where I started to see the success that I have now. And that takes much more of a Gary Vaynerchuk’s approach towards business and entrepreneurship. I feel like Tim Paris has got some great, great insight, but for me doing it that way, just simply removing myself entirely was not the answer, not the solution. Building a business around my passions, which is something I learned much later on.
30:56
was the key tipping point for me in seeing success. So that’s definitely one thing that is not in line with what I was thinking when I first initially started. Well, I think also that people don’t understand that sometimes the information that we read in a book or hear in a podcast or see on an article, you have to ask, is this information being given to us from the place where that person is now or from the place they were five years ago or when they first started? So again, when he first started, he was working 15, 20 hours a day.
31:26
The person that he was going to marry left him because he’s a workaholic. That was his wake up call that he needed to step out of it. So even with what you were doing where you fell down a few times in the understanding of I need to go towards what’s important for me. And then once you did that and you created this incredible community, you literally say in your keto seven set Sundays, which is a newsletter you should all subscribe to, you actually say you are my oxygen and you’re talking about the customers, the people that listen, the people that buy the people that just.
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consume your content. And I think that that’s where your efficiency came, which was being ruthlessly inefficient initially to create the space you’re in now. So that now that you’ve created this very powerful, very real, very organic business, and now that allows you to, as you step out of it, to let these other people kind of do some of the day-to-day business model stuff. But that still allows you to step even closer to the people that are consuming your content, that are your clients, again, all these things you have on the horizon.
32:24
I think that you were able to balance that beautifully in the process. And again, everybody keeps thinking there has to be a book or there has to be a product or there has to be something I can buy online that’s going to give me the next answer. But honestly, if you’re following your own path, you can get ideas, you can get direction. But in the end, we have to walk it. We have to figure out what it is for us. And sometimes what worked for somebody else that we really, really love or want to emulate is not necessarily the best answer for us. And we have to have that self-belief.
32:53
better than ourselves, we have to quadruple down on our belief in ourselves and just move forward even if it’s only by faith initially to get to that place and then once we’ve been there now we can have that perspective we can look back there’s a little bit of clearing now we can say oh this is why it took me this route or this is why it took me this long there are many paths the top of the mountain and we have to be willing and frankly brave enough to take those paths even if at first it doesn’t seem like it’s gonna go where we want it to
33:20
Yeah, I mean, it’s very easy to get trapped in the analysis paralysis phase with regard to starting your own company or side hustle. I mean, I had read every business book that I had could possibly get my hands on. I spent hours and hours at Barnes and Noble getting all the business books, reading them all, taking notes on all of them. And that was a great, I feel like it probably, you know, gave me some perspective for sure. But I didn’t see any traction, so I just dove in. I mean, you have to just dive in at some point. And the same is true with nutrition. The same is true with your.
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training regimen, I mean, the same thing with anything in life, relationships. And you can read every relationship book on the market, but that’s not going to prepare you to be the best spouse to your significant other. It just takes, you know, putting in the reps. And I feel like that’s what life’s all about in the first place living, you know, truly putting in the reps. You can’t read how to do everything in life. You just have to get out there and fall a few times. And I feel like I’ve fallen a lot of times. There’s going to be a lot more falling in my future for sure. But
34:13
by falling as frequently and as often as I have, I’ve gained so much more perspective and perspective and perception in life is what gives you the mental fortitude to keep pushing forward and make progress and learn from the mistakes and grow. I mean, this is all very cliche things. We’ve all heard these simple one-liners a million times, but it’s so true. And they stick and they stand at this time because they’re true. So I feel like just simply getting your hands dirty and living boldly is absolutely key. There’s speaking about Tim Ferriss again, there’s one of the quotes in
34:42
the four work week is there’s two types of mistakes in life. There’s mistakes made from ambition, in which you make a mistake based off of not having all of the information at your fingertips at the time you make the mistake, which is to be encouraged because it’s ambitious. Fortune favors the bold. And there’s mistakes of sloth by simply having no action. Those are to be swayed away from because that’s just not living. So I always try to view my life through the lens of, okay, I’m gonna be bold.
35:09
I’m going to make mistakes, but I’m going to be bold, you know, and stem from the things I’ve learned and gain perspective and know that every decision I make in life, every communication that I partake in is based off of me having that information at that moment and making the most of it. And I feel like if you do that, you maintain your integrity and you just be the best person that you know to be. I mean, there’s no reason to hold your head down. I agree. And the thing too, is like you were saying about falling down. Once we learn to fall down and we learned that we can get up, we aren’t as nearly afraid of it as we were initially.
35:39
Sometimes the fear of that failure is enough to hold us back as you were saying. And I always tell people that adaptability is more important than balance. The ability to even have this idea of balance is usually this false notion of I’m going to be stagnant and nothing’s going to move, but life is always moving. The world is always moving. Inversity is always in route. So by understanding that I don’t have to be balanced perfectly, I just have to have the ability to fall down and get up to know that I’m strong enough to know that I’m resilient enough.
36:08
And that’s where that preparation builds the confidence in the process. That was part one of my interview with the keto Savage himself, Robert Sikes, founder and creator of keto brick and live Savage. You can hear part two of our interview on the next episode of Acta Non Verba, where we talk about which entrepreneurs and warriors that Robert would love to have a conversation with, how studying people of the past can give you a greater business insight into today and the importance of having a thick skin in business and life.
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You can find out more about Robert and Keto Savage at KetoSavage.com. Thank you for listening to this episode of Acta Non Verba.
