Transcript:

Shane
Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to this episode of The Horsemanship Journey Podcast. I'm Shane Jacob, your host, and thank you for taking your time to be with us today. Today, I'm excited to introduce Steve, Steve Hochman. Hope I pronounced that right. Steve went from living in an old beat-up car to co-founding the world's largest boot camp franchise, the Fit Body Boot Camp.

He completely and permanently changed the personal training and bootcamp industry, and he was on top of the world, but it all came crashing down. We're excited to hear the story and hear about his experience and advice for parents and leaders. Steve, thank you so much for taking your time to be with us today.

Steve
Yeah, Shane, thanks for having me on.

Shane
All right, well, that's a pretty short introduction. Tell us about who Steve isand where it began and how you got to be where you're at.

Steve
Yeah, definitely, Shane. I think everything happens in our life for a reason. You know, what stands in the way becomes the way. So for me, going through a lot of adversity I think, put me in a position to solve those problems and then give those solutions to others, which I'm very grateful for.

When I was a little kid, when I was about seven years old, I just knew there was something a little off with me. I was actually diagnosed with Tourette syndrome. I had Tourette's really bad as a kid, like the whole everything you could imagine—the noises, the ticks, like the whole thing.

So because of that, people thought I was basically dumb, and so I was in a special ed class, one class a day. I really didn't have any friends, didn't have a lot of socializing just because I was the weird kid that made a lot of weird noises. And, you know, by the way, I ended up, I don't know if I willed it away, or sometimes when you reach a certain age, those symptoms can really dissipate, or it might have been a combination of both, but, you know, I was blessed enough to have gone through that. But I don't go through that anymore, which I'm very grateful for.

So I have a unique perspective of someone who was on the other side of all this stuff. When I was in high school, we lived out of a car my senior year. So my dad—I didn't know this at the time—he was, I thought he was the greatest guy in the world, but he was really a con artist. And, you know, we kept getting kicked out of house to house until we eventually lived in a car. But, you know, I was really goal-focused. I wanted to get a football scholarship, and by the end of my senior year, you know, I was an All-American, and I got a full scholarship to the University of Miami.

When I got there though, I still, you know, so much of this is personal development, and, you know, I just still wasn't there yet where I was ready to just be off on my own. I was in a really controlling relationship with my dad. He kind of... yeah, the good things he did was he made me feel like I could do anything. But the bad things were he controlled every single aspect of my day, every single aspect of my workouts, my training—just basically did my schoolwork for me because he just wanted me to, you know, get a scholarship, go to the NFL, and then be his meal ticket.

When I was in college, I ended up blowing out my ACL my first year. I ended up recovering, and I was okay, and I kept playing. But when that happened, at the same time, my dad gave me this phone call and said that he was being framed for check fraud. Which at the time I really believed he was framed, which obviously he wasn't. He just did check fraud. He said he needed $18,000 or he was going to go to prison, but he's not going to go to prison. So, you know, in 20 days, if he doesn't get this money, he's going to kill himself.

So, here I am, 18 years old, away from home for the first time, blown-out ACL, and my hero at the time, my dad, was going to kill himself. Which, obviously, as a parent, you know, no hero of a parent would ever say something like that to their kid. You know, I should have known right then and there, but I wasn't... I wasn't me who you see right now yet. And, and so I, you know, I was trying to get him this money. Of course, I couldn't get it for him.

And there was this countdown to he was going to die. Of course, he was just conning me. He never intended on killing himself. But at the very end of that, I took a bunch of caffeine pills because I was, I was trying to stay up to study. I had my ACL thing going on, my dad was going to kill himself, and I took all these pills and I ended up having this massive anxiety attack. I was in a football meeting, my heart started racing, I started blacking out. No one knew why or what, why it was happening. They took me to the hospital.

They finally figured out it was just caffeine. But at that time when it happened, something like broke in my brain where I would have these anxiety attacks like 20 times a day, for 10 years, you know, up until I was about maybe almost 30 years old.

And so, again, you know, going through Tourette's, going through this anxiety for 10 years, having a dad that was a, you know, controlling con artist, it just really gave me the opportunity to choose my own path in life and to get a unique perspective that a lot of people. You know, know there's a lot of people that have it way worse than I had it, but I'm just saying for me, it gave me an opportunity to have this perspective.

And, and I was able to find my passion, which was fitness and personal development. And, you know, first it starts with me. I was able to solve my own problems, and then I was able to give that solution to the people I cared about. And that turned into, you know, me being homeless to having, you know, a six-figure business, helping hundreds and even thousands of others grow their personal training business, helping tens of thousands of people get fit, lean and healthy, and with a strong mindset.

And eventually, yeah, I did, you know, co-found this big boot camp franchise. Sold that boot camp franchise in 2012, and I started a new company about 12 years ago called OC Fit. It's fitness boot camps and it's also personal development. So it's nutrition, fitness, and personal development. And here we are today. So that's kind of the backstory of me.

Shane
Right on. That's a lot. Go back to, if you would, just to this time. I mean, sounds like it was a hell of a struggle with this anxiety. And I was wondering if you just... you know, we hear a lot about that today with teens and with parents. It doesn't matter what age, but there's just so much anxiety. I'm just wondering if you, when you look at yourself then, from your 20s to 30s, and you're having anxiety attacks and you're in the middle of that... the two questions are: what was it really like? What's going on inside of you? And then today, with who you are today, if you could look back at your 20-year-old self at that time, what would you tell yourself?

Steve
Those are great questions. So, what it was like... it was like being imprisoned in your own body. So, from the moment I woke up to the moment I went to bed, I felt like there was a person sitting on my chest. For 10 years, I just couldn't take a deep breath. My heart would start racing. You feel that, like someone startled you, but that feeling would last for like an hour. And it would be maybe sometimes three times a day, sometimes 20 times a day.

Every day was like torture, you know? And what I would tell myself, if I could go back, the first thing I would tell myself is to be aligned with my conscience. And so, what that means by being out of alignment with you conscience, everyone has an internal mechanism. You know, a lot of times we tune it out, and the more we tune into it, the stronger that voice gets and the easier we can hear it. But we all have it. And it basically says, "Am I supposed to be doing this, or am I supposed to be doing that?"

It doesn't necessarily mean you're doing something really bad. Like, you might be eating a bunch of sugar food all day long, and it's not aligned with your conscience because your conscience wants you to be healthy and eat healthy food. It could be that you're just avoiding things that you were meant for—that you were put on this earth for—you’re out of alignment with your conscience. It doesn't have to be that you're doing bad things

I believe a lot of anxiety comes from being out of alignment with your conscience. And a lot of it is just a feeling of like, "I'm not where I'm supposed to be. I'm not who I'm supposed to be." And I would tell myself, well, now I know what my purpose is. So I would tell myself, your purpose is to give the most value in the most ways to the most people. But the only way to give the most value to the most people, in the most ways, is to be that value. You can't give what you don't have.

You know, when you see a parent that can't control their own vices, telling their kid to get off TikTok and study, well, that parent hasn't solved that problem for themselves. And they therefore don't have the solution for their kids as well. And that's where this kind of crosses over to parenting. It's where I see it a lot. You see a lot of this stuff when it comes to fitness and nutrition. A lot of these issues of being out of alignment come out. But I would be a person who would tell myself what my purpose is, and all my actions would revolve around that purpose.

Shane
So that's super interesting. You're saying that, you know, if we're listening to our internal voice of right and wrong, basically, right? If we're listening to our conscience, we don't have to be doing something illegal or terribly wrong. It's just something that we know maybe we should be doing something better than what we're doing. But the more that we're not aligned with our conscience, or we're not acting in accordance with or in alignment with, I'll say, of what we believe to be true, that this creates anxiety. Like you're not doing what you're supposed to be doing. Is that kind of what we're hearing? I mean, how does that go?

Steve
Yeah, I think it's a natural feeling. And, you know, one of the things that we're supposed to be doing is, you know, obviously we're supposed to work, and we're supposed to be financially successful so that we could provide for our family, provide for the people we love. We're supposed to be fit because if we're not, if we're unhealthy, we can't—we're unable to do what we're supposed to do.

So I think a lot of us now, you know, more people than ever are depressed and have anxiety, but also more people than ever are seeking perpetual pleasure. They're always trying to hit that pleasure button, whether it's through laying on the couch and watching Netflix, sleeping in instead of getting up and working out, drinking alcohol instead of dealing with whatever issues they have, eating, you know, fast food instead of eating healthy food.

And I think that what people don't understand is that happiness requires contrast. You know, you can't have light without darkness, hot without cold. You can't have happiness without pain. So, what I discovered is you either choose the positive pain in your life, or the pain chooses you. So, for instance, in the morning, if you're going to work out, that's the only time you have to work out. So, your alarm goes off and you could either choose the pain of getting up and working out, which is positive pain, or you could choose the pain of regret and guilt by sleeping in and then waking up and feeling like you're out of alignment with who you really are. You let yourself down. You once again lied to yourself.

And I think it's like that with everything. In today's society, people think you're supposed to just feel good all the time. "I'm just supposed to feel good. I just want to feel good, but you... that's not how nature works. That's not how life works. It's a contrast. Happiness isn't the absence of pain. It's the relief of pain. So for me, when I have a really hard workout, the relief of that pain is I feel so good now. The things I was stressed and worried about don't seem as important. They don't seem as big anymore. I'm just relieved. I'm not, I could breathe now again.

You know, same with, you go in a... I have a 220-degree sauna that I go in, you know, four times a week for about 21 minutes. And when you get out, whatever you were worried about doesn't exist anymore because the contrast of that pain. You're just like, actually, life is pretty good right now.

And I think people are seeking that constantly. You see people vaping all day long. They're just hitting that vape. "I want to feel good. I want to feel good. I want to feel good." Then, I want to eat this fast food." I want to eat this fast food. I want to sit on my couch, watch Netflix." And then they don't understand why they're depressed. It's because those pleasure buttons don't work anymore because your body has acclimated and adapted to it. Because there's no contrast.

Shane
That is incredible. That is so interesting, that, you know, what's happening...like the thought process. So let's just say that, you know, I set this big goal. I'm going to start working out, and I'm going to do X, Y, and Z. And so now the time comes, it's time to execute, right? This is what I planned into my schedule. It's time to come, and you know what I'm thinking? I'm thinking like five other things that seem, are starting to seem pretty important, right?

Right. But if I go and do them, you're saying that, you know, I'm not, it's not going to feel good. It's not, or my thoughts are going to give me some anxiety. I'm not going to get the big reward in the end. But I guess what I'm saying is, when you get to that decision point, before you form it into a habit is, you know, you just look at it and say, "You have the willingness to go through this temporary pain because you see the big gain on the other side." Or what helps you through that point where it's the decision point?

Steve
Okay, I'm going to put it in a way where it's going to make total sense. So it has nothing to do with me. I don't exist. Here's, here's a way that makes total sense. Let's say you're going to work out, and you know, it's time to work out, and you look outside your window, and it's freezing cold. It's so windy, it's pouring rain. I mean, just pouring freezing rain. And you're like, "You know what? Man, I'm not motivated to go out there today. You know, I'm going to work out tomorrow." Right? I am going to work out tomorrow. It's all about me.

Now, let's say you look out your window, it's cold, dark, windy, freezing, rainy, but you gotta go pick up your kid from school. Do you need to go get motivated? Do you need discipline to go pick up your kid? You know, in fact, you're going to get out the door faster because you don't want your kid sitting there in that freezing cold rain. That's the difference between being purpose-driven and being self-driven. And, and it's not about me at all.

I know because my purpose is to give the most value in the most ways to the most people. And when I say the most people, I'm talking about not only my coaching clients and friends, but I'm talking about my kids and my wife and my family. And if I don't do something just because I don't feel like it, but it's what I'm supposed to do, how do I be that solution for them when they're in that same situation? I can't, I can't give what I don't have. And when you really fully realize that, life becomes a lot more simple.

But I think a lot of people do it for themselves because they thought that's what they were told, "You need to do it for you." But the truth is you're the problem. I want to sleep in. I want to work out. Which me is going to win that day? I want to be healthy, but I want to eat fast food. Know, I want to stop drinking alcohol, but it's fun to party today. It's just you. Sometimes this part of you wins, sometimes that part of you wins.

But when you remove yourself and connect it to a higher purpose, it's very easy to clearly see what to do.

Shane
That is awesome, right on. Excellent. Steve, so, all right, so next question is... I wanted to talk a little bit about parents and leadership, whatever kind of leader you are. Specifically at The Horsemanship Journey, we talk to a lot of kids and parents, teens and parents. But as far as parents go, how do you recommend, how do we come to kind of a person that we would admire and that we would listen to?

Steve
Well, I think, you know, when you said "listen to," I think kids listen to 10% of what you say, and they emulate 90% of what you do. So really the easiest way to simplify this is: eliminate everything in your life that you regret and increase everything in your life that makes you proud. How simple is that? And to do that, it requires 100% self-honesty. You've got to be 100% honest for self-mastery.

So you've got to really, you know, people talk about journaling, and I used to journal, but I would only journal about the things I regret. So at the end of the day, I would write everything that I did that I regret or everything I didn't do that I regret not doing. And at the end of the week, I would see what patterns, what things kept repeating themselves. What did I procrastinate at? Where did I screw up? What do I regret?

And I would just slowly start eliminating those things I regret. Then I would say, "Gosh, what makes me proud?" Well, I'm going to just do the things that make me proud. I'm just going to stop doing the things that I regret. You know, that sounds so simple, but it is simple. I think people overcomplicate it. They want the easy answer, not the simple answer. And the simple answer is that: eliminate what you regret and increase what makes you proud.

And, you know, one more thing to that, you know, you tell your kids, what do you tell your kids about lying? Is lying bad? "Don't lie," right? So every time we say, "I'm going to start eating healthy starting Monday," and then we break our promise to ourselves, we just lied. Every time we say we're going to work out in the morning and we sleep in, we just lied. Every day we say, "Tommy, we're going to start on that project," and we don't, we procrastinate. We just lied.

And you know, even going back to the anxiety example, when you're around a liar, it's very stressful, and you have a lot of anxiety when you have a close relationship with a liar. And a lot of people don't think of themselves as liars because it's just them, and they're just so used to it. But the truth is, when you really don't trust yourself, especially with the little things, you don't trust yourself with the big things. And when there's no trust, there is a lot of anxiety.

And how do you tell your kids not to lie when you're constantly lying yourself, even if it's just to yourself? So that's why I'm saying you have to give—you can only give what you have. And so, if you're not an honest person, a lot of people think, “ I'm an honest person.” Really? How many times a day do you lie to yourself? Just because it's you, doesn't mean you're not a liar. And so, you just gotta know that you can only give what you have. You can't give what you don't have.

Shane
That's a great answer. That's a good truth. I don't think a lot of times we're paying attention to it. Just like you said, you might not be telling some blatant outright lie about XYZ, but what's going on with that? And your kids are seeing that. Super excellent. I heard you say, Steve, that I think I heard you say that motivation sucks. Tell me what you're talking about.

Steve
Well, yeah, I mean, that is what I'm talking about. Like, imagine, just imagine if a parent said, "I gotta have, I have to get motivated to pick my kid up, you know, from school in the rain." You know, like, what do you mean? You gotta get motivated? Don't you love your kid? Like, what are you talking about? That's what I mean by that. When you're purpose-driven, motivation seems silly. It doesn't matter, you know?

And so I think a lot of people you know, motivation is just how you feel. So you're basically saying, you take the word motivation, it just changes the feelings. You say, "When I feel like it, I'm going to do it. When I don't feel like it, I'm not going to do it." And it just sounds silly to me. Like, motivation? So the next step up from motivation is discipline. "Well, I have discipline, so I'm a disciplined person. So I do it because I'm disciplined." That's definitely a huge step up from motivation, right? Because that just has to do with how you feel.

But then the next step from that is, "I'm purpose-driven. I am a purpose-driven person. I'm aligned with my purpose, and I do the things that align with my purpose. I don't need discipline or motivation because I'm aligned with my purpose, and I know what it is." The sad thing is if you stopped 100 people on the street today, 100 people—"What is your purpose for being here, Go.” Probably 99 out of 100 people wouldn't know what their purpose is. So if you don't know what your purpose is, how do you know what todo?

You know, and it starts with first defining what your purpose is. If you don't know, and your purpose has to be something that doesn't have to do with you, it has to do with what you give, not what you get. And if you don't know your purpose, then I really don't know how, how you reach your full potential in life.

Shane
That is awesome. I think you've covered a lot of things that I was going to ask you about in parenting as far as influencing our kids and having them respect us. That's what you're talking about, and just how to become better parents and leaders. Is there anything along that subject that I missed that you want to comment on?

Steve
Yeah, I mean, I definitely want to say this. So I'm talking a lot of talk here, and I want to be very honest that I screw up. You know, I'm not saying I have this so perfectly dialed in that every day I have zero regret and just pure being proud. That's not, that's just not how life works. You know, every human is flawed. No one's perfect at all. The whole thing to this is to just be honest about it.

To call yourself out on your BS. You know, when you do screw up, it's so important to be honest and to be, you know, as a parent, it's important for kids to see you own your own mess-ups. A lot of parents, they feel like it'll make them look weak if they make a mistake in front of their kids and then own that mistake. But the only thing that looks weak is seeing a parent whose ego is too big to admit they made a mistake.

So, you know whether I screw up with myself, or with my kids, or with my wife, you know, I'm so excited to say, "You know what? You were completely right. I was 100% wrong in this, and I'm proud of you for seeing that. Thankyou." Like, that just made me better. I'm glad you were able to see that, you know? And here's my plan, you know, here's my plan for next time, so I don't let this happen again, you know? And really, again, it's all about example.

Like, I feel like how a parent apologizes to their kids says so much about what kind of parent they are, because you know, if you're not apologizing to your kids once in a while, you're not being honest because every parent messes up. You are not right all the time, you know? And the way you apologize to a kid, and the way a kid should apologize, is how anyone should apologize to anybody.

And it's: one, take complete ownership—not part of it. Not, "Well, this part was my fault, but that part was your fault." You take 100% ownership of everything that was your fault. Number two: you apologize. You say, "I'm really sorry that happened." And number three, you say, "This is the plan that I'm going to put in place to make sure that never happens again." And that's how a kid, like, when you start apologizing like that to your kids, they start apologizing like that to you.

When you have ownership of everything in your world, they start owning everything in their world. And so I think I just want to make sure I'm upfront that, like, understand these concepts. I figured out a lot of things, but I will constantly be working on this for the rest of my life, and it'll never be perfect.

Shane
Yeah, that's right. That's important to know. I appreciate you saying that that, you know, this, this is a process, you know? It's not going to be over, like you, you know, you reach it. It's like something you can check the box and move on to the next thing. These are ongoing pursuits. So right on. So just wondering if you could also comment, Steve, on like, when you really run up against something bad. You've talked a little bit about this, but like exactly, you know, how do you handle the setbacks, the negative people, the things that really come smacking you down?

Steve
Yeah, so the most important thing in life for handling setbacks is perspective. So when I was playing college football during a game, I was running to make a tackle. One of my teammates got to the player first and just really hard hit. And he ended up knocking himself out. He knocked himself out. So we were standing around, everyone crowded around him. And when he opened his eyes, we knew something was really wrong.

And what happened was he severed his spinal cord. So here's this 20-year-old kid, All-American athlete, on top of the world, and in the blink of an eye, he's never going to walk again. He's never going to use his arms again. He's never going to have sex again. He's never going to run again. You know, I mean, like he's just a person trapped in a body with a head that could think and talk. And, you know, his name was Marcus.

And so I visited him in the hospital, and I'm 20 years old, and I'm looking at my friend Marcus, and all this is hitting me. And in that moment, I had a paradigm shift where I realized that from this day forward, my worst day would be Marcus's best day. Like, if I came to Marcus and said how frustrated I am because his business deal didn't go through, or my girlfriend broke up with me, or I lost this money, you know, or some guy hit me in my car and now I got all this damage on my car, he would give anything to be in that position.

And I'm lucky that at a young age, I got that perspective. And so when things go wrong in my life and I'm having a bad day, as soon as I catch myself, I just pretend I'm telling my bad day to Marcus. And I immediately— not always immediately, but very quickly— switch to what I can appreciate. And I change that frustration into appreciation. You know, the state of appreciation is one of the highest-frequency states you could be in, you know? And it's like, I feel like you could call it God, the universe, whatever, whatever you want to call it. I feel like it's like a parent, and if you had a kid with a bunch of toys that are really cool and they all work, and your kid says, "I won't be happy 'til I get new toys, so take me to get new toys or else I'm just not going to be happy." Of course you're not going to get those new toys.

Now, if your kid's like, "I love my toys. I'm so grateful and happy for these toys, and if I ended up getting some new toys, that would be exciting too." That's the kid that you're going to be like, "You know what? Let's go. We're going to Target. We're going to get you some new toys today because you got the right attitude."

And I think that's what happens when you're in the state of appreciation. I think the universe or God, or whatever it is that you believe in, sees that you're worthy of the new stuff because you appreciate what you got right now. So I use perspective in those times.

Shane
Excellent, excellent thought. Appreciate that. So, rewinding just a little bit back to having this purpose so that I'm towards my conscious that I want to go. If I'm out there and I'm just thinking, I'm not solid, I'm not clear on my purpose, do you have any thoughts on just how to go about getting clarity on this? If you don't feel like you're quite there yet?

Steve
Yeah. A couple of things. One, I believe most people are good, and I believe good people want to give value to others. Whether it's their friends, whether it's their clients, their kids, their spouse, their family, they want to give value. So as soon as you really realize that you can't give that which you don't have, when you really understand that and you also understand that the pain that you feel, if you don't solve your pain, then you're agreeing to pass on your pain to the ones that you love.

So, for instance, if you look in the mirror and you're super overweight and it brings you pain because you're embarrassed you're unhealthy, you know. Everyone's going to the pool, and you're like, "My God, this... I can't, I don't even want to do this." Well, if you don't solve that, then everything you do, you're passing on to your kids, and then they're going to have the same pain that you have.

Once you realize that, and if you're a good person, you want to give value. Then if you don't know what your purpose is, make your temporary purpose just to give value. And so anything that brings you regret, you can't give value with that because you don't have a solution for it. So you immediately just genuinely start trying to solve all the issues that you have. You start trying to solve the issue of being more financially successful. You start trying to solve the issue of being more fit, being more healthy, being nicer, being in control of your ego.

You know, as you start trying to give value in all the areas that you can, you also get to enjoy this awesome version of yourself that has value to give in all those areas. And I would tell someone to just start with giving value. And that, I mean, that's, that's where I started, and I have never left. I never left that start, you know.

Shane
Awesome, yeah. Thank you for that, Steve. We appreciate all that advice. Last thoughts for The Horsemanship Journey today—what would you like to leave us with today?

Steve
Yeah, I would just say, you know, honestly, do what we talked about earlier in this call. Like, one action. People love action steps. Like, "What can I do right now? Tell me an action step." Okay, cool. Immediately when you regret something, put it in the notes on your phone. Just write it in the notes on your phone under, you know, this date and regret. At the end of the day, briefly looking over all the things that you regret and think, "What would the solution be?"

At the end of the week, pick out the patterns of the top three things that you regret the most and find a solution to those things. And eventually, all you're going to be left with for the most part is the things that make you proud. And that's an action step that. Anyway, there's no one that would journal what they regret and genuinely think of what they could have done differently that isn't going to improve. So that's an action step. It costs no money; someone could do it right now. It doesn't take much time, and it has a huge impact.

Shane
Perfect, right on. Cool. Appreciate that, thank you. So Steve, tell us, where can people find out about you, your boot camp, the stuff you got going on, where do people reach you?

Steve
Yeah, the best way is just Instagram. On it, it's Steve Hochman. So S-T-E-V-E-H-O-C-H-M-A-N.driven, on Instagram. stevehochman.driven. You know, that's where I put my daily videos of all my mindset—everything I know -  mindset, nutrition, fitness, just anything that worked for me that made my life better that I could share with others.

Shane
Steve, we wish you continued success. Thank you so much for taking your time to be with us today.

Steve
Thanks for having me on, Shane. Appreciate it.

Shane
Right on.

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