Up and Adam with Adam Von Rothfelder Operation Podcast

Save 15% on Strong Coffee Company with checkout code UPANDADAM at www.StrongCoffeeCompany.com
Up and Adam is an Operation Podcast production. For your podcast needs email us at info@operationpodcast.com. This show is filmed at IBBLE studios in Austin, TX.
John Romaniello is a NYT best-selling author, writing mentor and business coach that helps entrepreneurs build and scale businesses through writing and branding. His partner, Amanda Bucci, is an online business and conscious leadership coach that helps entrepreneurs start, grow and scale their business rooted in alignment and authenticity.
Follow John @johnromaniello
Follow Amanda @amandabucci

Save 15% on Strong Coffee Company with checkout code UPANDADAM at www.StrongCoffeeCompany.com
Up and Adam is an Operation Podcast production. For your podcast needs email us at info@operationpodcast.com. This show is filmed at IBBLE studios in Austin, TX.
“It’s hard to be depressed or be sad or be worried about shit when I’m helping someone change their life.” ~Ryan Thomson
Ryan Thomson is a Milwaukee-based fitness coach who specializes in boxing, strength, bodybuilding, fat loss, endurance, and HIIT training. He is the owner of multiple 9Round franchises and the General Manager at social performance club KOLLECTIVE.
A college dropout, Ryan suffered a career ending injury playing football during his freshman year, causing him to fall into a deep depression for a couple of years. The thing that eventually turned his life around? Fitness. It was his original passion and continued to be that driving force behind his success in life and in business. Fitness truly did save Ryan’s life.
Ryan opened his first gym in 2013, and his second in 2014. He loved the process of putting together these “communities” of people who were united in their quest for continuous growth in both their physical and mental wellbeing.
Things weren’t always smooth sailing for Ryan. He went through a rough divorce five years later, which led him to sell his two gyms and recalibrate his direction. In April 2019, he ended up in Austin where he and partner Otto Ohlsson launched SWAY Boxing Studio.
 
Follow Ryan @ryan_thomson44
Follow Adam @vonrothfelder
 
Key Highlights
Ryan shares how he was able to run an extremely profitable gym franchise in Milwaukee. Ryan’s divorce flipped his world upside down. He talks about the lessons he learned from that experience and how he is coping today. Adam and Ryan discuss the art of pricing and programming for gym clients. The path towards success and significance is paved with risk—and with risk come failures, distractions, and setbacks. Ryan encourages listeners to persevere in the face of hardship, because on the other side of the obstacle is the reward. Powerful Quotes by Ryan
Most coaches or trainers struggle to make money, and it’s either because the gym is taking everything or they’re just not charging enough. Everybody has their shit. The million dollar question is: How do you operate with your shit? If you’re still here, you’re not done yet.

Save 15% on Strong Coffee Company with checkout code UPANDADAM at www.StrongCoffeeCompany.com
Up and Adam is an Operation Podcast production. For your podcast needs email us at info@operationpodcast.com. This show is filmed at IBBLE studios in Austin, TX.
Being an entrepreneur can be challenging, moreso if you’re a family man. Nicholas Noel just so happens to be both. He is the CEO of Meal Proz, a healthy meal prep service with three retail locations around Austin that offers low sodium, no added fat or sugar, prepackaged meals.
Adam speaks with Nicholas on the ins-and-outs of running a meal prep business and how the company has evolved since its founding in 2014, particularly now, two years into COVID. They also dissect a few modern nutrition-related trends, including keto and the efficacy of low-carb diets in general.
They also touch on the nature of a man and their roles as husbands and fathers in a society that in many respects turns a blind eye to uniquely masculine needs and desires. Nicholas talks about how he sets his priorities and manages his roles as a twice-divorced African-American father and entrepreneur.
 
Follow Nicholas @mealproz
Follow Adam @vonrothfelder
 
Key Highlights
Nicholas shares the biggest challenges he has faced as the owner of a meal prep business, particularly during the pandemic. If you’re going to pursue a relationship with an entrepreneur, be prepared for the intensity that comes with it. Nicholas gives his advice on maintaining a healthy relationship if one partner runs a business—or if both do. What makes a man? Adam and Nicholas touch briefly on their unique roles as husbands and fathers. Powerful Quotes by Nicholas
As an entrepreneur, you can’t let your staff, your team see you all stressed out. You have to maintain and keep pushing. If you’re not built for stress and anxiety, don’t get into the meal prep business. If you can’t support your spouse with their vision or their dream, then what are you guys doing?

Save 15% on Strong Coffee Company with checkout code UPANDADAM at www.StrongCoffeeCompany.com
Up and Adam is an Operation Podcast production. For your podcast needs email us at info@operationpodcast.com. This show is filmed at IBBLE studios in Austin, TX.
“In some way, even if our circle or our audience or our whatever is being reduced, it’s possible that our impact is actually becoming greater. [...] Starting anew, right now, is the best thing we can do.” ~Joe DiStefano
Joe DiStefano is a coach, educator, the Founder of RUNGA, and host of the STACKED podcast. Joe joins Adam once again on this episode of Up and Adam to look back on the past 19 months since the beginning of the pandemic and offer their thoughts and encouragement as we move forward into a post-COVID world.
Adam and Joe believe that the reclamation of one’s individual sovereignty should be the top priority if we are to step away from the culture of fear that has defined the first two years of 2020. In Adam’s words: “We rolled into harbor. Through that storm that we weathered, we formed bonds. Now it’s time to get off the ship and burn the f*king boat because it is time to move forward and pursue the path that we are truly meant to be on.”
Asked about how his approach to RUNGA has evolved in the new normal, Joe says that the sifting process for his events has always been incredibly stringent, and that he has only doubled down on those high standards while increasing the frequency of these events in the coming years.
Adam then switches gears to talk about what drew Joe to the world of psychedelics and gets his thoughts on heroic dosing versus microdosing as well as finding the medicine that works for you. Finally, Joe looks forward and paints a picture of where he plans to be by the end of 2022 and gives his final words of encouragement to listeners as we begin to emerge from a period of intense vitriol and seemingly endless uncertainties.
 
Follow Joe @coachjoedi
Follow Adam @vonrothfelder
 
Key Highlights
How do we move forward in a world where people we called “friends” in the old normal have now deemed us crazy for holding certain views that contradict the mainstream narrative? Joe explains how he has adjusted RUNGA in the new normal in order to bring people closer and remove all the negativity of the outside world. Joe shares what drew him to psychedelics and his thoughts on heroic doses versus microdoses. Joe paints a picture of where he will be by the end of 2022. Powerful Quotes by Joe
In order to achieve your highest greatness, not only do you need Strong Coffee, but you need your tribe. You need a constellation around yourself to be the best Adam this planet has ever f*cking known. With ketamine, the idea of the journey is to get to that one insight that helps guide you. There are people who are far more knowledgeable about psychedelics than I am; but, I think that having the right sherpa is probably the most important thing in choosing the right medicine.

Save 15% on Strong Coffee Company with checkout code UPANDADAM at www.StrongCoffeeCompany.com
Up and Adam is an Operation Podcast production. For your podcast needs email us at info@operationpodcast.com. This show is filmed at IBBLE studios in Austin, TX.
Joe DiStefano is a coach, educator, the Founder of RUNGA, and host of the STACKED podcast. Joe joins Adam on this episode of Up and Adam to do a deep dive into the science of stress, how the modern world has cornered us into a neverending state of survival mode, and how to break out of that vicious cycle.
Joe kicks things off talking about his transition out of the corporate side of the wellness industry into pursuing an NASM certification in 2004, during a time when “the fitness scene was very much ‘sit-and-push’ and personal trainers were basically ‘rep counters’.” After a brief period of learning in physical therapy circles he opened his own gym, Ultimate Athlete, at the age of 24. Down the road, he sold the gym and got the opportunity to become an early-stage company advisor—and later full-time executive—for Spartan.
“In the fitness franchise,” says Joe, “I learned how to scale coaching.” This was the reason he joined Spartan, and a foundational experience that led to his success as an sought-after authority in the world of fitness.
Asked about the psychology of those that dive into endurance events, especially one as grueling as the Spartan Death Race, Joe says that it comes down to the accessibility of endurance sports and the opportunity they give us to stretch ourselves beyond our limits. This led down into a rabbit hole that contained the real meat of today’s discussion: navigating stress in our fast-paced and increasingly tribalistic society.
The prevalence of chronic stress in today’s world means that a large amount of our energy is being shuttled away from our vital systems and toward those that fuel our primal survival instinct. This high-stress state that too many of us have been living day-in and day-out has been a huge blow to our gut and reproductive health, not to mention mental health. Joe and Adam go into how “bad” stress negatively impacts our lives in more ways than most think, and how we rise above the noise.
 
Follow Joe @coachjoedi
Follow Adam @vonrothfelder
 
Key Highlights
Joe shares what motivated him to sell his gym and work with Spartan. What type of personality becomes motivated to take part in the Spartan Death Race? Joe talks about the difference between “good” stress (ex. athletic activities) versus “bad” stress (ex. watching the news), and when it might be a good idea to exercise less. Joe explains why you shouldn’t get your news from the same place you read up on conspiracy theories. Powerful Quotes by Joe
We all need something, and I think that endurance sports are just low-hanging fruit. Exercise is beneficial, but if your exercise is a super beatdown, and you’re super-stressed already from watching the news or having some sort of emotional stress or fighting with your spouse, then you might have been better off doing a half-hour foam roll than doing some super-hard exercise session. Anything that’s metabolically expensive and doesn’t lead to an increased chance of survival under stress is basically stunted, or shunted, until the stress goes away—but the stress never goes away these days.

Save 15% on Strong Coffee Company with checkout code UPANDADAM at www.StrongCoffeeCompany.com
Up and Adam is an Operation Podcast production. For your podcast needs email us at info@operationpodcast.com. This show is filmed at IBBLE studios in Austin, TX.
“How do you get into that ‘state of flow’ within your business? It’s all about finding that intersection between what challenges you and what you can truly be the best at.” ~Geno Mattioda
Geno Mattioda is the founder of the Austin-based wellness hub known as theDEN. Geno joins Adam on this episode of Up and Adam to discuss his long and turbulent journey leading up to theDEN’s founding.
Football was Geno’s first love and was the center of his life all the way through college. It was an outlet for him to express himself and do something he was truly good at as he struggled academically growing up.
He reached a crossroads right after college in the early 2000s when he was offered an opportunity to go into business in Chicago. In a single night, Geno went from being a guy who had nothing but football in his life to lacing up his new loafers on his first day in corporate America—a world he would be immersed in for the next ten years. In 2008, he was bankrupt and foreclosed while raising two kids under two.
Resiliency always came naturally to Geno, whether on the football field or in an office building. His determination to stand tall and take the blows that came his way allowed him and his young family to persevere during those tough years ushered in by the Global Financial Crisis. He eventually went down the path of entrepreneurship and founded the commercial business insurance company Wolf Point Advisors® LLC in 2013. A few years later, right after the birth of his fourth child, Geno once again found himself penniless.
This was a turning point in his life. He knew he needed to heal. And that was when Geno became obsessed with ritual, personal growth, and biohacking. His new path led Geno to move to Austin, where he began to conduct retreats via theDen whose activities draw on the convergence of spirituality and science with the ultimate purpose of finding flow in every facet of life.
 
Follow Adam @vonrothfelder
 
Key Highlights
For Geno, love and vulnerability are vital to every man’s growth. He and Adam give their thoughts on finding a role model as a man in the 2020s. Geno reflects on a career filled with unforeseen challenges and how he was able to find the courage to keep going. From relying on the outlets he was most familiar with—such as the gym and the football field—Geno eventually gained the courage to step out of his comfort zone and find new ways to recharge and grow. He shares the many “levers” he pulled in his quest for flow. theDEN combines social and health, and brings together spirituality and science. Geno explains how and why. Powerful Quotes by Geno
Hard work ethic and a warrior mentality will get you through anything—until it doesn’t. We all need our gurus and mentors, and it can’t just come even from the best father in the world. Resiliency defined my early adulthood. Standing tall in those moments became a real badge of honor. How do you get into that “state of flow” within your business? It’s all about finding that intersection between what challenges you and what you can truly be the best at.