James Fell is an author and public speaker on the subject of personal transformation. His bylines include the Los Angeles Times, the Chicago Tribune, and others. His next book is titled “The Holy Sh!t Moment: How Lasting Change Can Happen in an Instant,” coming January 22.
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JAMES’ BIO
James Fell is an author and public speaker on the subject of 
personal transformation. His bylines include the Los Angeles Times, the Chicago Tribune, the Guardian, TIME Magazine, and many others. His blog, www.bodyforwife.com, has millions of readers.
His next book is titled “The Holy Sh!t Moment: How Lasting Change Can Happen in an Instant,” and is coming from St. Martin’s Press January 22, 2019.
LINKS TO JAMES:
www.bodyforwife.com
www.facebook.com/bodyforwife
www.twitter.com/bodyforwife
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**IMPORTANT: This podcast episode was transcribed by a 3rd party service and so errors can occur throughout the following pages:
Mike Domitrz: Welcome to the Respect Podcast. I’m your host Mike Domitrz from mikespeaks.com where we help organizations of all sizes, educational institutions, and the US Military create a culture of respect. And respect is exactly what we discuss on this show, so let’s get started.
Mike Domitrz: This week we have James Fell, an author and public speaker on the subject of personal transformation. His bylines include the Las Angeles Times, the Chicago Tribune, and others. His next book is titled, The Holy Shift Movement: How Lasting Change Can Happen in an Instant, coming soon. In fact by the time this is out the book will be out. So you can check that out. James thank you so much for joining us.
James Fell: Oh, you’re very welcome. Is it okay if I correct you now on the title?
Mike Domitrz: Yeah, caught it right afterwards. I caught right I after I said it. I thought I saw an F and there’s not an F there. It’s the Holy Shit Movement, correct?
James Fell: Actually, Moment. The Holy Sh!t Moment-
Mike Domitrz: There we go.
James Fell: … when someone has a sudden enlightening experience.
Mike Domitrz: All right. Excellent. We’ll talk about towards the end. So, thank you for that correction. I appreciate that.
James Fell: No problem.
Mike Domitrz: Your website is bodyforwife. So, how do you address concerns about two aspects? One is making our bodies for what our partners want? That’s question number one. And then we’ll go on to the second one in a moment. So, we’ll just start with the first one. When people hear that, body for wife, and they see you as what they assume as identifies as a male and they go, “Well, wait isn’t this our bodies for us not for just for others?” So, how do you answer that?
James Fell: Occasionally, people get the wrong idea about it. But most people understand that it’s a joke. And I have explained it a number of times. The history is that long ago when I wanted to propose to my wife I decided, well I’ll get in shape first. You know this is just a good impetus to change. But I never believed that this was something that was a duty that I had to do in order to win her love or anything silly like that. The term comes from years ago I used to work out with all these guys that were on the Body for Life program, which is one of the most popular weight loss books ever written. And it just came out as joke one day, that they were all doing Body for Life and I just said, “I’m on the Body for Wife program.” And they laughed and here we are. It’s just old inside joke among friends. I never actually considered that my personal fitness and desire to have the body that I do really had much of anything to do with pleasing my wife.
Mike Domitrz: Great. And I knew that from you and I talking previously. But I wanted to make sure our listeners understood because the second half of this I think you’ve answered some of it already which some of our listeners might be thinking is, “Well is this very heteronormative? It’s body for wife, he’s a guy, is this an inclusive approach what we’re about to discuss?”
James Fell: You know they say write what you know and I have written a number of articles that are relationship oriented and one of the things I say is that, “I apologize for the heteronormative language that I’m using here but this is based on my own personal experience of what I know.” I am a firm believer in letting people to love and be with whom ever they wish and identify the way they wish. I’ve written many articles that relay that information. But for me it’s just … there’s so much personal antidote in what I write and communicate that it’s just my own personal perspective that people may or may not identify with.
Mike Domitrz: Sure. And is there a problem, do you think, with the lack of respect for people’s bodies and their health.
James Fell: Absolutely. We are an incredibly judgemental society about the way people look. Fat shaming is rampant. That being said, I think a gradual shift is taking place. We’re having the conversation now at least that, you know years ago people made fat joke all the time and people laughed about it. You know the whole, “You’re mamma’s so fat,” type of thing and now people are saying, “Wait a minute, maybe that’s not so nice. Maybe that’s not so funny. What can we do to change the messaging here?” It’s slow to uptake but at least I feel like we’re making progress to be less judgemental about the way people look and, as well as understanding that the way a person … you know the amount of body fat that a person carries, as an example, it’s not fair for us to judge that person because so much of it is societally constructed. It has so much to do with the environment that it doesn’t mean that they’re a bad person or a lazy person or anything that it’s … we’ve seen an explosion is obesity rates over the past few decades that has far more to do with the food environment than anything else.
Mike Domitrz: Well, I think a good example of that is if anybody’s ever watched an Ironman Triathlon and they’ve gone there to support a spectator or they’ve participated in one, and I have because family members of mine have been in Ironman’s. My sister Rita has done Ironman’s. And you’re sitting there and you’re watching somebody that by societal standards would look like a large individual, by the stereotypes of societal standards, and they’re going right by the person who looks like they have no body fat, who looks like they’ve been training for 20 years, and they’re going right by them. And people watch this and they go, “How is that possible.” Because they have such these stereotypes that, that all muscle body must be in better shape than this body who looks a certain way and doesn’t fit the stereotype.
James Fell: Oh, you’re absolutely right and that’s actually one of the encouraging things that I see taking place the last few years. Especially I’m seeing it with a lot of women where we do judge women more harshly on their bodies and we do have a tendency to place more value on women looking a certain way. I’m seeing a shift where a lot of women are rejecting that in favor of performance. They’re treating their bodies as performance machines to see what they can do, rather than putting any type of focus on taming those trouble spots, that kind of toxic mentality of you’ve got to get rid of saddle bags and cellulite and all that type of garbage mentality. And instead just saying I want to see how fast I can run, how much weight I can lift, how far I can swim, those types of shifts in mindset that are far more mentally healthy as well as physiologically healthy.
Mike Domitrz: Now, what’s interesting about this is you can get both perspectives. You’re right our society notoriously fat shames and at the same time there’s a thin shame too. Which is this weird double system that’s going on in regards that if a guy looks in the mirror and looks too thin he’s sitting there going, “I need muscle because men are supposed to be this big muscular mass.”
James Fell: It’s really interesting the way that the media perpetuates that. If you go and look at fitness magazines, and you look at the ones that are oriented towards women versus the ones that are oriented towards men, the women ones have messaging that are all about reduction, being smaller, leaner, thinner. It’s all about removing.
Mike Domitrz: Tightness. You see that all the time in women’s magazines. It’s this idea of being tiny and tight.
James Fell: Yeah. With men, it is the exact opposite. Everything is about adding. It’s about adding muscle, you know even adding to your penis size. Even when it says about seeing your abdominal muscles, it’s not about losing weight, it’s about getting abs or getting ripped. That type of mentality permeates it depending on what the gender is.
Mike Domitrz: Yeah and so what it leads to is you look in the mirror and we can fall prey to it. I know people go, “Oh, once you realize this you don’t fall prey to it.” But society keeps throwing it at you. So, you can even know it and still fall prey to it. I think that goes back to our original question, is what are the most common ways that you see people disrespecting their own bodies and their health?
James Fell: Fad diets is the biggest one. There’s a never ending slew of whatever the latest dietary nonsense is, that’s … it used to be Paleo was the big thing and Paleo if you look at the Google trends for it, its on it’s way down. Whereas, Keto is on the way up.
Mike Domitrz: Everybody’s talking Keto right now. I mean in my own world of talking to people about health and all, Keto’s what everybody seems to be trying and I’ve tried elements of it. I’m curious what do you think of the Keto? I mean it’s key that you follow it precisely. With Keto it can be dangerous.
James Fell: I am not personally a fan. Scientifically, I don’t think that it is really that healthy as a long term strategy and there’s a lot of evidence to support that. When it comes strictly to weight loss it can be valuable for some people because when it comes to losing weight the most important thing is adherence. One of the things that can be very helpful with adherence is low rule complexity. If you have a very complex diet that has all these different rules it can become very difficult to stick to. There are people out there that for them problematic foods are high in sugars, high in carbohydrates. And if suddenly they just adopt a very simple approach to eating where it … I’m just going to cut as many carbohydrates, as many sugars as I possibly can then it can mentally make it easier for them to stick to that eating strategy. Unfortunately we see a lot of very cult like and disordered eating behavior that can become associated with it and some people fall off the wagon hard.
James Fell: From an athletic performance standpoint Keto is not good at all when it comes very high intensity exercise. The people that are involved in high intensity lifting or sprinting type of activities, you need carbohydrates to fuel that type of activity.
Mike Domitrz: Well, it’s interesting so this summer I tried something that was very close to it. Just because I am one of those, which you just described, I’m the person who struggles with the high carb, the sugar. For me it’s that late night sugar. So, I thought, “Oh, I’ll go to this.” And it worked brilliantly in some ways and that’s the danger of that fad. You get caught into that, right? I wasn’t trying to lose weight. I do not have a body frame that necessarily needed to lose weight. But I did. Then your brain, “Oh, look how … wow, I wasn’t even trying to lose weight and look what it did.” And you buy in. But then you start to realize, “Wait a second, my energy seems a little off. My brain seems not as sharp as it’s been.” And you go, “This doesn’t work.” But it’s weird how you want to buy in because of the one result, even though it wasn’t the result you were looking for necessarily.
James Fell: Often those very early results are a result of water loss anyway because when you deplete carbohydrates you end up losing a lot of water. So, it shows up not just on the scale, but on the way you look.
Mike Domitrz: Oh my gosh, yes. Your chest is popping out and your stomach looks tighter. And it’s only been like three weeks and you’re like, “I’ve never had my shirt fit like that.”
James Fell: Yeah. This is a miracle diet.
Mike Domitrz: Right. Right. And you go, “No wonder why everyone loves this.” Yeah, you know, so we fall into that, and these are the diets now. But I think your point
Mike Domitrz: [inaudible 00:12:00] to stay clear of any fad diet. What do you think is the best overall approach, then, if you’re going to stay clear of all that, what’s the healthiest approach?
James Fell: I think people get a little bit too wrapped up in the way that they look and what the scale says. And too much focus upon comparison with others, that you look at the cover of a magazine, and those bodies have this sort of societally constructed perfect ideal that so many of us can’t help but compare ourselves to. It is such an unrealistic Photoshopped standard that’s being set.
James Fell: Instead, if we look more from the perspective of finding physical activities that we enjoy and endeavoring to get good at them, working on being a better runner or a better cyclist or a better weightlifter. Or, for my wife and kids, the thing that they’re extremely passionate about is karate. Just getting into that community and having a very positive reinforcement from each experience where you feel good, where it doesn’t feel like it’s destroying you, but it’s lifting you up.
James Fell: Then looking at it from the perspective of, okay, how do I fuel this physical activity appropriately? What is the type of high-quality food source that’s going to make me better at this activity that I love doing? If you take that mindset, you’re going to end up experiencing changes in your body that you’re most likely … including the way it looks, that you’re most likely going to be pleased with. You’re going to say, “Hey, I’m happier with the way that I look.”
James Fell: Then focusing on the positive changes, rather than this mentality of, oh, I’m still not good enough. I’m still not as lean as this other person. My muscles aren’t as big as this other guy’s. Focus on the positive accomplishments, rather than the fact that you’re still not looking like this other person that probably it’s their job to look that way. They spent months training for that photo shoot, and then they still got Photoshopped.
Mike Domitrz: Well, and I think the tougher one is the real person you see. You’re somewhere, and you see someone who’s not the model who looks like that. And you go, oh, geez, and that almost hits people harder, because that’s a real person. You think, well, if they could do it, why can’t I do it? Oh, and they have a job, and they’re a parent, and they’re … and they look like that? I think that’s where the guilt kicks in.
James Fell: Now, but everybody’s different. There’s tremendous genetic variety. There’s medical conditions. There’s …
Mike Domitrz: I love that you’re bringing this up.
James Fell: Yeah. Past life trauma, there’s medications, there are so many different things. Genetics plays a tremendous role.
Mike Domitrz: Yeah. I’m going to hop in here because I get excited about this one. The one example I’m going to give is I was in the gym a couple of years ago. A friend of mine in the gym, we’re direct opposite body builds. I’m the tall skinny … There’s not a lot of mass as far as … He is the short, stockier mass guy, right? He walks in and I’m on the rings doing some movement. He’s like, “How the heck are you able to pull that off at our age?” That kind of a thing. He is on the bench press pushing something that I’m sitting there going, “Oh, my gosh. How are you hitting those numbers?” You know?
Mike Domitrz: We’re cheering each other on, but having fun with it, and the trainer’s like, “Hey, you two. Just remember, the ostrich doesn’t become a penguin, and the penguin doesn’t become an ostrich, no matter how much they work out.” And it was a brilliant line of, that’s the mistake we fall into. We think, well, you’re doing that, I should be doing that, versus, oh, that’s cool that you’re able to and that’s cool you’re able to.
James Fell: Exactly. I think that we have a tendency to be drawn towards activities that we excel at. I think I was a terrible runner growing up. I was always at the back of the pack, but I had this feeling that, you know, if I really worked at it, I could become passable at it, and it took a long time. It sucked. Becoming a good runner was hard, I got to tell you. Eventually, I qualified for the Boston Marathon, so it was something that for me, genetically, I think that there was at least some underlying talent back there that I had the ability to just suffer through and keep going.
Mike Domitrz: Yeah, and I think that drawing that is always the tough part, because I think sometimes, there’s activities that we enjoy and there’s activities we don’t that we’re also good at, and that’s the trap. The trap is thinking, I got to do that one because I excel at that. I win every time I do that. But you don’t enjoy it as much.
James Fell: Yeah. Really, you have to look at it from the perspective of life is too short to look at physical activity as a constant suffer-fest. I’m 50 years old now, and I’ve been making some changes to the way that I do things because I want to preserve my body and not do things that leave me in pain. I don’t have as many years ahead of me as I do behind me, I figure, so I’m just going to do stuff that makes me happy and doesn’t hurt too much and gives me the results that I want. Forget what society or other people think that I should be doing.
Mike Domitrz: I love that, and then speaking of society, what role do you think the media … Now, we talked about the magazine world, that imagery. What role do you think the media has in addition to that, that magazine world of what we see in the models?
James Fell: Well, I think a big part is the quick and easy mindset that gets perpetuated. The weight loss industry is extraordinarily corrupt. It wants to sell these miracle fast weight loss solutions, because the reality is it’s slow and takes a tremendous amount of effort and nobody wants to hear that.
James Fell: The media gives a lot of attention to the latest fad diet or the latest fad exercise program that perpetuates this myth that it’s something other than steady caloric restriction. They always want to know about what the new silver bullet solution to weight loss is, or the new scapegoat that is allegedly making people fat. So, that’s part of the problem.
James Fell: Then of course there are the unrealistic beauty standards, that we are seeing more inclusiveness now, in terms of so-called … I’m not sure what some people think about the term plus-size models. Some are for it, some are against it, but the reality is we are seeing a wider diversity of people being models and set back … I don’t want to say the term sex objects, but you know what I’m saying. Being seen as desirable, which I’m a big fan of. I mean, I think everybody has the right to feel desired and sexy, regardless of what their body shape is, because there’s people that …
James Fell: Not everybody likes the same thing. Some people like a wide variety of body shapes. But still, when it comes to the latest big-budget movie, the celebrity trainers come out in force and help these celebrities get in just ridiculous action-figure looking shape for this role.
Mike Domitrz: Yes. Yeah. When we talk about that and the perceptions people have, I always like to tell people, “Hey, find the part you like. Focus on the part you like. We have so much to our bodies. There’s got to be something you like.” If somebody will go to, in the moment, what if somebody says, “There’s nothing”? But I think there’s always something, right? If you think, well, that’s part too small, or that part’s too big, well, what part do you like, and focus on that?
Mike Domitrz: I think it’s true of our partners too. I know people that their partners have changed a lot over … They’ve been married for 20 years, and the body that their partner has today looks very different than the body that partner had 20-some years ago. You think, okay, but which parts do you like? Don’t focus on the parts that have changed you don’t like. What parts do you like, and just focus on that? Treasure that.
James Fell: The same goes for the physical activity that they choose. When I started running, quite a while ago, I picked it up because I figured it was going to be good for helping me with weight loss, and it was going to be good for my health. But what I didn’t realize was that a few years later, when I became a writer, was how meditative it was, and how helpful it was for my career. I almost always prefer to run alone so that I can just let my mind wander. So much of what I come up with for articles and books that I write, as well as idea generation, and just achieving a sort of sense of peace and zen or whatever happens while I’m out for a run and just letting my mind wander.
James Fell: It can take time to discover what it is that you like, a certain activity. Sometimes, you kind of have to struggle through and suffer a bit. You’re not automatically going to fall in love with a physical activity right away, that it can take some time to figure out what it is that you find this little spark of doesn’t suck, and you nurture that into a small flame. Then eventually it can grow into a bonfire.
Mike Domitrz: What are some examples of activities that you think a lot of people don’t think about? For instance, I’ll give you an example. At our age … So, you and I are very similar in age. At our age, a lot of people think running, swimming, biking. They think those are the natural ones. Now, the one a lot of people don’t talk about is strength training, which is really critical, because as you get older, that bone mass is going to be everything if you take a fall. If you’re strength training, you’re going to be way farther down the line than if you’re cardio training, when the body gets weaker. Both are important, but you need both.
Mike Domitrz: What are some things you think people miss out on, that they fall into the trap of, oh, I just need to do this.
James Fell: Well, it’s just … To address that question, yes, the first part is that yes, they are both quite important. I wrote an article about this for the Chicago Tribune a little while ago. The aerobic training, your running, your swimming, your cycling, just using those typical examples, are really good for your organ health. Then the resistance training, which doesn’t have to be lifting weights, there’s a variety of different ways to do resistance training, are more about keeping you spry, I guess, keeping you independent.
James Fell: So, bone strength is very important so that you don’t break bones. But actually with strength training, you don’t have the fall in the first place that breaks the bone, because your muscles keep you from falling over, you’re able to … It keeps you more independent as you age, where you can walk on those slippery steps because you can take a good firm grip on the handrail. And you can carry your own groceries, and you can get up out of chairs and bathtubs, and all those types of things. It keeps you independent. So, in conjunction, the two things work remarkably well together.
James Fell: But I think that there are so many different things that people don’t even think about as options that … For example, people who … I live in Canada. There’s a lot of people that don’t like to run in the winter, and they find treadmills boring. Well, you could try cross-country skiing, as an example. My wife, I got into shape, and
James Fell: I tried to get her into weight lifting, she didn’t like that. Running was never going to happen for her. But she’s a very intelligent woman, she graduated top of her class from medical school. And the thing that she fell in love with was karate, because it involved so much mental stimulation, and so much memorization that that became her thing, and that’s what our kids got in to as well. I think that just Googling a list of types of sports that people could just surf the net and then say, “I don’t know, would I like that?” And asking the question, “Would I like that?” Well, if it’s practical for you to give it a try, give it a try, because you never know what you’re going to fall in love with.
Mike Domitrz: Yeah, dancing can be a blast.
James Fell: Absolutely!
Mike Domitrz: And that can bring you great cardio, and there can be resistance depending on what kind of dancing that you’re doing. And we talked earlier about, just briefly I said, “Hey, find the parts you like.” Right? Treasure the parts you like of your body. What are some other ways that you think can help people be less judgemental of themselves, harsh on themselves?
James Fell: I think if they focus on the positive changes about what they can do, that they couldn’t before, rather than on comparison with others. You know, compare yourself to your former self, is a great way to approach it. Because no matter what it is, there’s always going to be somebody stronger than you, faster than you, more muscular than you, more ripped than you. It’s just, you know there’s always going to be someone who can do it better.
Mike Domitrz: I love this, Dan Sullivan calls in business, the gap. Where you were, to where you are today. And we often forget to look back, and treasure that gap. Like, “Holy cow, the differences.” Instead we’re looking ahead going, “Oh, I need to get here.” But we don’t just pause and go, “Look where I’ve gotten to.” And it’s so powerful. Today it just happened, I got back in the water and started swimming about a month ago, for the first time in my life where I was really training regularly three days a week. And then did a meet this weekend, and then got back in today, and did the yardage. And right away I said to myself, “Oh, my gosh, a month ago I wouldn’t have done half this.” And it felt good to just know I can easily do this now. But treasuring that gap made it that much more fulfilling, versus getting in the water going, “Man after that meet, I realize how far I have to go still.” Which would have been depressing, versus, “Wow, look where I’m at already.” You know finding … Minding that gap from where we were to where we are today can bring so much uplift.
James Fell: Oh, you’re absolutely right, Mike.
Mike Domitrz: What are changes you think that are needed at the societal level, James, for improving our health and the way we feel about our bodies? On that deep foundational level.
James Fell: Well I think that, from a very big picture perspective, we do have a problem with the way that the food industry is funded. And the amount of commercials that are allowed, that target treat food towards children. That the reason why obesity is rampant has been a fundamental shift in the food environment. So I think that governments need to be more directly involved in preventing the runaway food consumption, because we’ve got a lot of government money going towards subsidizing calories that are not necessarily good for us. And allowing food industries to have too much influence over what it is that we eat, and how much we eat. So that’s the really big picture perspective.
James Fell: But I think that we need corporations, and some of these corporations are doing so because they’re reacting to the societal groundswell, to be more accepting of the tremendous wide variety of body types that are out there. And we’re seeing some pretty good examples of this, we’re in the infancy stage, that you know there’s not just you’re either … You either have the perfect body, or you don’t. That’s kind of the way it used to be. Whereas now is, you know we’ve got a lot of different messages getting out there saying that it’s a micro-percentage of the population that can look like these models. So let’s have a more accepting and understanding of what it is that the wide variety of people actually look like, and perform like. And not be so judgemental of people that don’t fit this, “Ideal.”
Mike Domitrz: And that’s so, so important. I love that you shared that. What got you here? What drove you down this path, James?
James Fell: In terms of body acceptance?
Mike Domitrz: Yes. The whole movement. What brought you into fitness, and caring about the fitness of others, and yourself?
James Fell: Well I got into shape myself, and then it was something I was passionate about, and I was also passionate about writing. So that was merging those two things together, is that, “Well, I really like writing, and I really like health and fitness.” So that was a … After getting an MBA, and working in business for a dozen years, I decided on this career change a dozen years ago. And I wouldn’t say that I was really guilty of fat-shaming when I was early on, but I did buy in a little bit into the, “Rah, rah! You can do it! Anybody can do it. Just do it.” Kind of mentality a bit.
James Fell: And then after a few years I had an important encounter with a man, Dr. Yoni Freedhoff who runs the blog Weighty Matters. And he works with … So he is an obesity researcher, and a family physician. He was a fan of my writing, he reached out because of an article that I wrote in the Los Angeles Times, and we became friends. And it was just through his influence that I began to learn more about fat-shaming, and how detrimental it is to people’s psyche, and how the opposite of helpful that it is. That it actually creates worse mental, and physical health outcomes. That I really woke up to how bad, and toxic it is, including in the fitness industry. You have a lot of fitness experts who engage in fat-shaming, and I realized, “I don’t want to be one of those guys.” I really want to help people, and if the way to help people is by being more compassionate, and understanding of how we got here, and how to help them, that’s going to be the approach that I take. And so I’ve become a voice for the body-acceptance movement.
Mike Domitrz: Well thank you for doing that, I appreciate that. And your upcoming book for everyone again, we said at the beginning, but tell them about the title and where they can get it? Because it’s going to be out by the time this show airs.
James Fell: It is called The Holy Sh!t Moment: How lasting change can happen in an instant. And it is about the science of the life changing epiphany. And there is some stuff in there about body-acceptance as well, because there’s some weight loss stories in there. But I want people to understand that whatever type of massive flash of insight that you have, if it is about your body, that it’s about having self compassion for yourself. And not looking at your body as something that you’re disgusted with, but something that you’re inspired for what it can do. Probably the best way for them to get it is to visit my website, bodyforwife.com, and there’s a books tab right there. I talk about my book a lot on my website, it won’t be hard to find!
Mike Domitrz: All right, fantastic. Thank you so much, James, for joining us today.
James Fell: Thank you, Mike, it was a real pleasure.
Mike Domitrz: Absolutely. And for our listeners, you know what’s coming up next, that’s Question of the Week. Before I answer this week’s question of the week, I’d love to ask you a question. Would you please subscribe to this podcast? The RESPECT Podcast with Mike Domitrz. By subscribing you can make a huge impact. Now you might be wondering, “Mike, how does my subscribing to your podcast make a huge impact?” Well, here’s how, for every person that subscribes, it raises the rankings of the show on the search engines. So for people who care about respect like yourself, when they’re doing a search for podcasts, they’re more likely to find this show. Thus providing an awesome opportunity for us to spread more respect around this world. And all you do, is hit subscribe under your podcast. Plus, the second benefit is, by subscribing you automatically get every episode right into your phone, or whatever device you are listening to the podcast on. It happens automatically, so subscribing also makes your life easier.
Mike Domitrz: Now let’s get in to this week’s Question of the Week. Oh, and by the way, you can always ask your questions of the week, by joining us on Facebook in our discussion group. It’s called The RESPECT Podcast Discussion Group. Go there on Facebook, and ask whatever questions you would like me to answer, and/or address in this segment of the show. And then listen to each episode to find out when your question is included.
Mike Domitrz: This week’s Question of the Week comes from Phil, and you may have heard other questions from Phil in the past, and by the way we love that. We love when listeners submit lots of questions, because that gives us more ability to have a conversation, which we greatly appreciate. This week’s question from Phil was, “Mike, why do you keep doing what you do? You’ve reached hundreds of thousands, millions even. Why keep it up?” Well, we have our personal why here at our organization, and I have my personal why. And that why is what drives me. Our why is to create a culture of respect for all people. And that can be from the workplace, to the home, to the bedroom. We want a culture of respect, which also means when we’re talking about in the bedroom, sexual intimacy consent. And mutuality in relationships, in all those realms: workplace, home, bedroom. Also that it be mutuality. And while we’ve reached millions, there’s billions to reach. And so we are fired up to continually help reach those billions, sharing the skills-sets that allow people to transform their own culture. Which is the key to all of this taking place, is for us creating that shift, long-term, for all of society. Thank you so much Phil, for asking this question.
Mike Domitrz: Do you know what I would love? I would love to hear your answer to this week’s Question of the Week. So would you please answer what your answer would have been, if you were asked that question today on the show? All you do is go to our Facebook page, we have a special group where we have these discussions, called The RESPECT Podcast Discussion Group. So the RESPECT Podcast Discussion Group, and share with us, what would your answer have been to this week’s Question of the Week. And take a moment, post us a new question for future episodes. What question would you like to hear me answer on an upcoming episode? That’s all done on Facebook, in our special group which is, The RESPECT Podcast Discussion Group. Can’t wait to see you there.
Mike Domitrz: Thank you for joining us for this episode of The RESPECT Podcast. Which was sponsored by the Date Safe Project, at datesafeproject.org. And remember, you can always find me, at mikespeaks.com.