Before Spartan Race became a global phenomenon, Joseph Anew was invited to a very different kind of event in the mountains of Vermont.
The Death Race had no fixed finish line, no cheering crowd, and no promise that anyone would make it through. It continued until roughly 85 percent of the people who started had quit.
At the time, Joseph was trying to rebuild his life after childhood accidents, multiple concussions, a fractured skull, and neurological problems had pushed him away from the physical life he loved. One doctor told him he would be “Michael J. Fox by 30.” Instead of allowing that diagnosis to determine his future, Joseph entered the woods.
The experience pulled him back into his body. It restored his confidence, changed his relationship with discomfort, and placed him at the beginning of what would eventually become Spartan Race. Joseph spent the next eight years helping grow Spartan from an experiment on a mountain into an international phenomenon while teaching trainers and athletes around the world.
But becoming physically capable did not automatically make him healthy.
Behind the Spartan identity, Joseph was still working through neurological recovery, burnout, and the difference between performing well and actually being well. That tension eventually led him to create RUNGA, a gathering that began in the jungle of Costa Rica and evolved into a community centered on health, recovery, connection, and purpose.
Along the way, a conversation about extreme endurance opens into something much larger: the strange power of names, why burnout can expose the wrong kind of success, how ancient practices can exist alongside modern wellness technology, and why finding your purpose may matter more than simply becoming good at a job.
How much power should a diagnosis have over the life that follows it?
What began as a race designed to make people quit became the experience that helped Joseph refuse the future he had been handed.
Follow along with Tab Salsman and Joseph Anew as they talk about the Death Race, rebuilding health, and the beginnings of RUNGA.
Show full transcript
Transcribed from the source recording. Timestamps may differ from the edited video.
Joseph Anew
What is Runga? It started in the jungle of Costa Rica.
Tab Salsman
All right, Joe. Sir. What are we doing with your hair? What's working and what's not working? Um,
Joseph Anew
well, you know, the length isn't working all out well. It's kind of shaggy. So, um, yeah, I mean, I think we just need to trim it up a little bit. Make me look less
Tab Salsman
Um, I was thinking when, when I see hair like this, I think David Lynch, yeah, it just gets really big and tall.
Tab Salsman
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Just a little bit more presentable, you know, probably half the length it is now. All right. Um, what is your styling routine? So you get out of the shower, your hair is wet.
Joseph Anew
What
Tab Salsman
do you normally do? And then I'm going to, I'm going to, I'm going to assume that's different than what you would do if you are.
Tab Salsman
Um, going to like an event or function. So, um, my
Joseph Anew
typical approach is this, okay. All right. No product, not that you ever use product. If I'm going to an event, if I'm going to an event or a function, as you said, you know, I'll put some gel in it. And then even then, is it, is it gel? Or is it like, you're just using the word
Tab Salsman
gel loosely loose?
Tab Salsman
Uh, it's, um. It's the white paste. Okay. The white paste. Oh, paste. That's white. Got to go. And you put that in when it's wet, you put it in when it's damp. Do you blow dry as you towel dry it? Um, I put it in for, I have to leave the house. So whatever, whatever day condition, whatever, wherever your hair is at.
Tab Salsman
That's fine. That's fine. This is, this is real life stuff. This is good. Awesome. All right. So a quick couple of things, depending on how firm or how soft your paste is, and that's going to determine the hold. So. It's harder and more clay. Like you're going to have a higher hold. And if you're ever struggling with like, I wish my hair had more hold.
Tab Salsman
Yeah. Um, you could slip out, swap out the product. That's one thing. The other thing you could do is get your hair more dry because water is going to be the great diluter. God has me to make. So, uh, so yeah, so let's go through and let's get your hair all. Might be like pomade. Does that make sense? Is that a product?
Tab Salsman
Yeah. Pomades. Again, pomades and like white paste in clays are all, um, all usually they get used together. Yeah. When the reality is that each one is very different. Usually pomades have Lighter hold, higher shine, um, paste or somewhere in the middle where the end result is more sheen and then, uh, clays are usually more matte.
Tab Salsman
There are a couple of products and brands out there that are the outliers where you have a pomade finish, but it has a really high hold and there's a brand called Layrite and like. They do that the best. Um, and then if you're looking for something like a paste, I would do like the Pureology mess it up because it works to give you that sheen.
Tab Salsman
And if you wanted clay. Then, but what I like is by, um, statement. So that little black one. So you have, you have, you have three options. If you like that shine, go with the layer, right? You want that sheen, go with Pureology. And you want that matte, go with clay. Got it. Statement. All right. So let's get your hairspray down.
Tab Salsman
Can you do that? So
Tab Salsman
you and I met through our wives and
Tab Salsman
we've had many conversations. Cutting your hair, but I want to know the one of how you got into doing what it is that you do. So they know it's health related. So I just want to know like your, how did that all happen? Yeah. Well,
Joseph Anew
um, you know, I'll give you the abridged story, but essentially when I was going to college, you know, I, I didn't do all that well in high school, had a real problem going to class and things like that.
Joseph Anew
So. Um, when it was time to go to college, I got into a, you know, local state school, but you know, I didn't have super high expectations, but it was sort of important to my parents that I go to college. So when I got there, I knew I wanted to study business, um, but I didn't really know, you know, what I wanted to do with my life.
Joseph Anew
In the first semester, I started going to the gym, which had always been an interest of mine, but my roommate and I got super competitive. We were like the same weight class, same size, and we got super competitive in the gym, which made it fun. And, um, and what I ended up doing was I ended up majoring in business and minoring in exercise science and, um, late in my second year, I ended up flipping those.
Joseph Anew
So now my major is, uh, was exercise physiology. And, um, one of the things that was just super impactful about my college career was one of the first days of exercise class, my professor says that he's running a hundred miles, wait, a hundred miles. Yeah. Can barely run one from one. Right. Hey, and my understanding then around running distances was more about history, you know, the run from.
Joseph Anew
Uh, the run to marathon, right? The, the, the ancient Greek who, or the Olympics, right. But the first marathon was, uh, a guy running, you know, kind of like a Paul Revere type situation. Okay. And he ran 26. 2 miles to Warren. I believe it was the city of marathon in Greece. Um, of, you know, the invading Persians or something and died when he arrived from exhaustion or running 26.
Joseph Anew
2 miles. So my understanding was like the, the marathon was the peak, like the, that was as long as a human being could run without dying and when he says, and he's a, his name's Jeff goad and he's got like a super thick Boston accent. Cause that's where I went to school. He's like, yeah, I got a hundred mile.
Joseph Anew
Uh, I'm running a hundred mile, uh, you know, in a week. And I'm like, I was so kind of taken aback and I had to ask so many questions like, what, what do you, what do you mean, like, you can't run a hundred miles. It takes hours to drive a hundred miles. Like, and so that, that created, like, it kind of gave me this, like real curiosity.
Joseph Anew
As to what the body is capable of. And so I started running and he was like a mentor to me. I took almost my whole degree because it was such a small school. I took almost every class with him and fast forward. Um, in 2007, when I was finishing college, it was my final year. I started to have some health issues and, and these related to, um, I had a couple of bad accidents as a, as a kid.
Joseph Anew
And, um, some of those kind of, we'll just say injuries kind of started to perk up and kind of like set me back. And so I had to kind of like shelve a lot of the fitness stuff I was doing. And it was right kind of at the end of college. And so after school, Jeff and I started to, you know, we kind of like lost touch for a couple of years.
Joseph Anew
This is the roommate. No, Jeff's a professor. Professor. What was your roommate? My roommate's name was Andy. I don't know how I got those two confused. There's a, and he's a chiropractor now. He's a in Connecticut. He's really successful at it and he's really great. Um, but Jeff Godin was professor. We were really close again.
Joseph Anew
I took almost every class with him. So after I graduate, we don't talk for a couple of years, but he calls me in 2010. I still remember exactly where I was driving. And he says, Hey, I want you to come do this death race with me. Death race. I'm like, death race. You know, I hardly run anymore. I've been kind of on like this walking program, trying to just get my health back.
Joseph Anew
What do you mean the death race? I'm trying to survive here. I'm trying to like get my life back. Um, but essentially he's like, you know, this. You know, this guy, so what ends up happening? I go up to Vermont. It turns out that, you know, this death race was this 24 hour, um, just, just suck fest up in Vermont at a guy named Joe's house.
Joseph Anew
He had a large property and fast forward. And, and that, so what's, what do you do in these 24 hours? So, well, the death race, that's a thing is it's essentially the opposite of an iron man. So an iron man, you, you swim, bike and run, and you know how long you're going to swim, bike and run for. And it's all in a day.
Joseph Anew
And there's people cheering the death race was about no one cheering, um, not knowing how long you're going to run for, not knowing how long you're going to do this activity for, you might burpees or something right in the middle of the event. So there was no rules and it was literally just this whimsical thing.
Joseph Anew
And it went on not only for 24 hours, but until 85 percent of the people that started it had to quit, that's how, that's when the race end. And it
Tab Salsman
sounds like the most fucked up Lamont's race track cars, but for people, like it's, you break the car, you build it back and you're fine. Yep. You break your body
Joseph Anew
rehabbing for months.
Joseph Anew
Yeah. So the funny thing was, was the death race started to gain popularity. Uh, and Joe, who is hosting this miserable event on his mountain, on his property said, what if we cut it down to 5k? And what if we kind of theme it around the ancient Greeks bringing this full circle with the marathon? And that became the Spartan race.
Joseph Anew
So Oh shit. Yeah. So you, you
Tab Salsman
got to do the Spartan race when it wasn't even the Spartan race. Right. Right. Badass. Yeah.
Joseph Anew
It's badass. So
Tab Salsman
I've always wanted to do a Spartan race.
Joseph Anew
Yeah, it's, it's a good time. You should do it. And it's so great for kids now. And you know, it's a scaled. And it's safe and everything.
Joseph Anew
So that kind of, um, I fell in love with just the physicality and it really gave me my life back because since 2007, I'd kind of been on, not on the couch, but I hadn't really been training that hard. And there's a lot of lessons we could dive into from that experience. But basically I got sucked into the vortex of Spartan for the next eight years.
Joseph Anew
And, um, and what do you, what do you mean sucked in? Like, what does that, what does that mean? Well, I ended up working with Joe and Jeff for the next eight years. Okay. So you, so you started actually just like working with that. Yeah. And no one, no one thought Spartan race was going to do that. Like no one thought it was going to be, you know, two or 3 million people a year running.
Joseph Anew
In 30 countries around the globe, we were like, do you think 25 people will show up to throw spears and jump over fire?
Tab Salsman
I
Joseph Anew
remember
Tab Salsman
it was probably around 2011, like something like that really early on. And I remember there was, I remember seeing something like on, on YouTube or something, I'm like, somebody was like, can you believe they're doing this?
Tab Salsman
It's like an Ironman, but it's like crazy primal, primal Ironman, right? And I thought that was so cool. And I love the ideas. There's fire, there's like, you know, throwing spears and all this like primal caveman shit. Um, and I thought it was going to be a huge success. Yeah. So it's funny. Cause like I saw this, I'm like, dude, this is going to take off.
Tab Salsman
Cause yeah, I think everything life. You get to a point where like the, uh, absurd becomes the norm. Yeah. That's the reason I think UFC is popular because boxing now is just less brutal. Yeah. Than UFC
Joseph Anew
and then something else is going to come along and makes you'll see. Now they just slap each other in the face with no defense.
Joseph Anew
Have you seen that sport? Oh, they just, they just stand there and slap each other. I've seen it with tortillas. It's, it's seeing a light. It's the UFC guy. Yeah. Now it's, I think it's called slap and they just stand there and just slap each other in the face. Is there an arc to slapping and there is because it's basically, you know, do you knock the person out or not?
Joseph Anew
And I'm worried about getting punched in the nose and have to worry about being slapped now. Um, it's just awful. And it's like, you know, I've seen a couple of these slaps and it's a, it's not just a slap. It's a total body. You know, it's like swinging a baseball bat without a bat, you know, it's like this total body, um, get the hips into it, smack this person right in the face.
Joseph Anew
And it's like when they don't pass out, then the person that just slapped is like, Oh shit. Like, you know, it's coming. Yeah. So, so
Tab Salsman
back up. So you're, you're, you're working for like the next eight years with Sparn. Yep. And then what happens
Joseph Anew
from there? So kind of, then I start running these kind of parallel lives because.
Joseph Anew
The spark of Spartan that I fell in love with, you know, there's so much, it's so interesting, like words or spells. And so for me, you know, if a doc says, like, I had a couple, like just idiot doctors that like gave me some pretty grim diagnoses, but I can see how people get trapped in the system because if a doctor says, Hey, look, you're going to be Michael J.
Joseph Anew
Fox by 30, which is literally what they told me after college. Um, because I had a lot of neurological stuff because I had too many concussions, fractured my skull, I had a lot of these crazy accidents. Yeah, that's that scar. Essentially what's interesting, what was crazy about it was Spartan proved that you can break these spells.
Joseph Anew
So in other words, it's like when you, if you internalize a diagnosis or a spell and you let that run your life, it'll make you miserable. But what happened at Spartan is I've got, you know, now I'm crawling under barbed wire. I've got like, you know, barbed wire sticking out of my ass. I got like throwing a spear.
Joseph Anew
I'm running through the woods. There was so, you were so present and you didn't have any, unlike like running a marathon where you're just by yourself for three hours, four hours, you're, you're so immersed. And what I noticed is that my health improved, my mindset improved, my commitment to just living my best life just came back.
Joseph Anew
And so it provided that spark, but the parallel lives that I mentioned, I still needed to do a lot for my health, but my fitness was at least being taken care of the physicality. And that is sort of those two. And it was crazy that, you know, I kind of developed the founder of Spartans. Name is Joe DeSena.
Joseph Anew
And this is what kind of actually gave me my interest in names, which we can talk about. But my name then I've changed my name since my name then was Joe DeStefano.
Tab Salsman
Yeah.
Joseph Anew
And that's when I met you. Yep. I became Joe D. I. That became my name. Because Joe DeSena, Joe DeStefano, everyone was confusing us. And so I just became Joe D I because he was Joe D okay.
Joseph Anew
And so at the company, if someone says Joe 20 heads of turn, yeah, 20 heads turn. So, so I became Joe D I, but I still kept my name in my, in my health stuff. So I did a Ted talk in 2015, um, around breathing and that was my full name. But if you go on YouTube and type in Joe D I. It's this Spartan warrior guy that, so I, it is your alias.
Joseph Anew
It's an alias. It's a, but it's a character too, you know, and, and I had this whole content series called ring the bell. Hey guys, what's happening? This is Joe D I welcome to ring the bell. I had this whole content series and then on the weekends I'd be, you know, on stage lecturing about breath work, about cold immersion, about.
Joseph Anew
Yeah. And, um, what I realized is that, you know, our names, our names essentially create a persona and a character and a vision of the world. So if someone called me by my full name, I know I'm in my health mode. And if someone called me Jodi, I know I'm in this physical fitness mode. It's interesting. And as I started to research names, it's, it's, it's wild.
Joseph Anew
Like there's a disproportionate number of dentists named Dennis. Weird. There's a, an abnormal number of, uh, Callahan's living in Calgary. So our names get into the subconscious and we start to latch onto things that we don't even realize. Like, you know, why do you like the street you live on? Why do you work in the job you do?
Joseph Anew
It's wild that your name can truly kind of pave the way for your decision making and your subconscious. And there's a lot of evidence of this. And so I started to get intrigued by names, but that's, we can come back to that, but, um, but yeah, that's kind of the story. So this, this parallel running lives where I had this health brand, this health.
Joseph Anew
Persona and this fitness persona and the health persona went and created Runga, which is my wife and I's current business and the fitness guy stayed at Spartan until 2018 when the health business started to grow. And I needed to kind of, um, spread my wings a little bit and go all in on the health and wellness stuff.
Joseph Anew
So. That's kind of the story. Uh, what is
Tab Salsman
Ranga stand for? Cause you're talking about names, right? So I'm imagining if you're, this is just me like bullshitting or like shooting the shit on this idea. But like, if you're having this conscious understanding about names and how these names affect your profession or could affect your outcome in your life, right.
Tab Salsman
And you're. And you're already knowing there's a mental switch like Bruce Wayne, Batman, right? I bet if you called Batman, Bruce Wayne, he'd be like, what? And he'd be, you know, he'd be thrown for a loop. He'd have to reset. He'd have to reset. Like I'm not, but I am, but I'm not, you know, uh, not right now, right now.
Tab Salsman
That's at the philanthropy. Then I'm Bruce Wayne. Um, yeah. So imagine there was probably a lot of thought, a lot of conscious choice in picking a name for your company, because I don't want to say that's more important than your own name, but it's something that if you do right, it outlasts person. That's how I think about it.
Tab Salsman
Right? Like. Think about Cadillac or Ford, like Ford was just, you know, it's named it. Like most companies usually start with naming after the person like, like Ford. Yeah. Henry Ford created Ford. I don't know where Cadillac comes from. I don't know where Chrysler comes from. But, but regardless, we know the brand.
Tab Salsman
We don't know the person who started the brand outside of, in my knowledge of Henry Ford. Who's Ford. I don't know any, maybe that was the same thing with Toyota. So if you're this conscious on it, what is. Like, what's it mean?
Joseph Anew
Great question. Great question. So the Runga is now, you know, we do online coaching and health coaching, and we have live events and gatherings, but it's talk about those events and galleries.
Joseph Anew
Yeah. It started in the jungle of Costa Rica. So it began in a, even though it was health focused, it was still quite primal. Okay. So Runga is this word I invented that I came up with that, that just felt true. And the story is, this is that when Spartan, when we started, we knew it was going to catch on a little, but like, we didn't know that in a couple of years, you know, we'd be on literally NBC sports.
Joseph Anew
We had a TV show right after Ninja warrior. We didn't expect, you know, Reebok to write multimillion dollar checks to us. So, um, the growth years from say 2011 to 2014. It was this explosive time where the company went from like a dozen people working at it to hundreds of people working at it. And during that time, I was shacking up, you know, I was in charge of training at the time.
Joseph Anew
So all of our, you know, content around training, we were certifying personal trainers to prepare people for the event. So I taught over a hundred workshops in 20 countries to. To educate personal trainers on like the demands of Spartan, like physically energy systems, metabolism, how do you fuel, how do you prepare?
Joseph Anew
How do you train? It's so much more complicated than a marathon when you have to. You know, do 30 burpees every five minutes when you fail on an obstacle. And, and so I started educating on those demands and, and I was basically on dozen, I was on something like 70 flights a year, many of which were international, so I was totally burnt out, totally exhausted.
Joseph Anew
And I've always had this belief since I started personal training back in 2000, technically 2004, I always noticed that after Thanksgiving. Through the end of the year, like it's just the Bermuda triangle for fitness.
Tab Salsman
So I agree. I actually have a similar, but probably different reasoning for that. But yeah, I agree.
Joseph Anew
Yeah. It's like, um, but in January, you know, gyms make 20 or 30 percent of the revenue for the year and the month of January. Right. And so as a personal trainer. It's funny how in December you, you end up, you know, most personal trainers work on commission and, and when you have a full boat of clients, it's great.
Joseph Anew
But during that Bermuda triangle time, what I was picking up on is that. You know, I'm going to have a 10 AM and a 5 PM today, and I'm only getting paid for two hours of effort, but I got to stick in the gym all day because I got these two appointments and meanwhile, come next month, I'm going to have 12 hours a day of training.
Tab Salsman
So you're not going to have, and you're, you don't want to work if they wanted to, they probably could have even worked 14, 15 hours in January. Yeah, absolutely.
Joseph Anew
I mean, working all nighters, so I basically was like, why would I work in December at all? Why wouldn't I, why wouldn't I rest up? Why wouldn't I just close shop after Thanksgiving until the new year rest and restore and in January come out swinging, you know, and not that I'm in competition with anyone, but while other personal trainers are struggling through the month of December and wasting so much time and energy in the gym and no one's in there anyway, like, let me just like rest up.
Joseph Anew
So I had this belief. That December was kind of this no man's land time. And so what happened at Spartan, I just took that concept into, into Spartan, where once we got through what became our world championship, but you know, we didn't put races on between Thanksgiving and Christmas either. Sometimes we had one in random the first week of December, but I wasn't really involved in that event.
Joseph Anew
It was actually. It was actually in Texas. Um, Glen Rose where the climate would probably be more designed. Yeah. Glen Rose, Texas. Um, so, um, so when I, so, so Runga began the first week of December annually, it was a once a year event and it was in the jungle in Costa Rica and we moved it to Panama and Dominican Republic and moved it all around, but when 20 around 2016, I decided to give it a name.
Joseph Anew
And. I was bringing down this yogi named, her name is Jules and she did this, she, she taught these brutal yoga classes. They were like, you know, and you never know how long the class was going to be. Like sometimes it was, it was a death race yoga edition. Oh gosh. And it was, it was Bikram hot, but it was like Vinyasa power flow.
Joseph Anew
So it was this brutal yoga class. And for
Tab Salsman
those who don't know, I'm going to look in the camera. I'm going to break the fourth wall here. Bikram is yoga done in like crazy heat and crazy humidity. Basically it's like a hundred degrees in like what? 95 percent humidity or something like that. And Vinasa is very like fast pace and it's very like a workout.
Tab Salsman
It's a workout. Yeah. Yeah. It's it's. It is a workout. So to have those two together to me is. Death Race Yoga. Yes. Okay. You are. I just wanted to like, clarify that because some people may not know. Right. Absolutely. I've done both and I've never done both together and I hope I never have to.
Joseph Anew
Gosh. It's. Like you are, you're, there's just a puddle on your mat at the end of her classes.
Joseph Anew
It's crazy. But here's the thing is there's a, there's a pose in her class. And then so many classes, uh, called Chaturanga. I've heard this and Chaturanga is this pushup kind of pull your, you kind of pull your chest through your hands and you kind of do like a little bit of a, it's called like a Hindu pushup.
Joseph Anew
And what I realized in Jules's classes is that if I make it to Chaturanga without tapping out and quitting and like just going into Savasana early. If I make it to Chaturanga, I survived the class. I did it. I'm from, it's downhill from Chaturanga. And one day I was in her class and I said, I think I'm going to name this event Chaturanga because my life is this yoga class.
Joseph Anew
And when I get to Thanksgiving, it's Chaturanga. If I could just make it to Thanksgiving with these 70 flights a year, I'm on, I just make it to Thanksgiving. I survived the year and I can do it all again. And, you know, it didn't take me long to go Chaturanga is kind of cumbersome. Let me just trim it down.
Joseph Anew
Ranga Ranga. Ooh, that is a good job. Feels good. Yeah, that feels good. And literally the first event, I wasn't sure if it was going to stick. And the first event, like almost on the first day, people are like, it's a, why do you get in cold water? Oh, it's a runga thing. Why do you put coconut oil in your coffee?
Joseph Anew
It's a runga thing. My runga tribe, my, it just like, it was like wildfire. It was like contagious. People loved it. So I started selling t shirts, you know, I have all these like funny t shirts that I, that I made in the beginning, early days. They said like. One of them said, I'm here for the Sabasana, which is like that end of the yoga class where you just lay down and do nothing.
Joseph Anew
And then I had everyone, you know, was on a paleo diet. Yeah. So I had one that said gluten for punishment instead of, instead of glutton for punishment. So the t shirt started to like go bananas too. And humor is also. Like a really great marketing thing. Yeah. Like those puns are great. Right. The one I have on now has been around for a while.
Joseph Anew
It says today's the best
Tab Salsman
day ever. I actually saw that shirt and I was like, I, um, I was like, I was going to ask you where you got that.
Joseph Anew
Yeah. It's ours. It's our staff shirt. Now I need one in a medium. Yep. I'm serious. You got it. You got it, man. All of our events, we staff our angels. We, we have this amazing crew of just incredible people that we call the angels.
Joseph Anew
And every day they wear a shirt that says today's the best day ever. Well, like,
Tab Salsman
okay. So like that actually kind of goes along the line with like people asking like what my favorite haircut is. And I say, it's this one. Yeah. And people are like, you're, Oh, you're just saying that. Right. But the reality is like, if I don't think that's, if I'm not excited cutting this hair, it's going to show.
Tab Salsman
Yeah. So I have, like, this has to be my favorite haircut. Right. Not by force, but by, by like. Desire. Right. It should be my favorite haircut I'm doing because. There's also the other phrase, you're only as good as your last haircut. It's not the haircut of the day. It's a haircut that client leaves with. So this isn't my favorite haircut.
Tab Salsman
It's not going to be your favorite haircut to walk home with or leave with. So I saw that shirt, bestie ever. It made me think like, um, this is my favorite haircut. Yeah.
Joseph Anew
So right on, right on, man. No, it's, I love that. It's like such a good. It correlated in my head, it, it's, I ching ponged around and it got there, it keeps you in the present.
Joseph Anew
It seems like you're not resting on your laurels and you know, you know, you're not that haircut. You're not that, um, that person that's like, how many people, like, it's like the. It's like the guy that can't like get over his high school football career. It's like, I don't sit down and you're like, in 2016, I gave a haircut.
Joseph Anew
That was just, but you know, yeah, it's amazing. It's like, you know, move forward, dude. Like don't rest on your laurels. Let's make this the best haircut ever. Yeah. I love that. There's actually a documentary
Tab Salsman
that's like really similar to that. Have you seen the Jiro dreams of sushi? No. Okay. Um, it's about a, the only three star Michelin sushi chef in the world.
Tab Salsman
It's like a hit. It's like eight bar stools in the subway of Tokyo. Right. And he's 80 something years old or whatever. Michelin in the subway. Huh? Exactly. Three stars. Only guy who has this. Well, I'm gonna summarize it is like, he talks about sushi and he's like, today I made the best sushi of my life. And tomorrow it's going to be better than what I did today, right?
Tab Salsman
It's that same idea. Like every day is a new day to improve, which would be the best day ever. So, you know, so
Joseph Anew
like. Well, it gets into purpose and Dharma, which is something we teach a lot about in our online coaching programs. And this, you know, it's funny, right? Like personal training as an example, cause we're talking about it.
Joseph Anew
It's this funny thing where there's millions of people go get a personal training certification and there's only, you know, maybe a hundred, couple of hundred thousand personal trainers. Right. Yeah. And the, because it seems like this opportunity where, you know, you get paid pretty well and you know, you kind of count reps and you, you like health and fitness, so you can do it for other.
Joseph Anew
But what ends up happening, you have the life expectancy of a personal trainer is like a year max, six months, because it's a tough job. Like it's, it's challenging to if someone, you know, I always taught that, you know, everyone's got to be a hundred percent. So if the client walks in the door, it's 50 percent because they're tired from their job and their family and their kids and all that stuff.
Joseph Anew
The trainer now has to be 150%. So in other words, like there's an energetic exchange in that type of environment and in that relationship. Yep. Where if the clients are coming in less than a hundred percent, the trainer's got to make up the difference. So if you talk about doing that five, six hours a day, yeah.
Joseph Anew
Weekends, you know, get gaps in the middle of the day. As I said, everyone wants to work out before work or after work. So if you're not super, if you're not that sushi chef, that is so passionate. About not only writing programs, but delivering them and keeping high energy and, and, and picking up where the client is lacking emotionally or energetically, it can be a really burnout job.
Joseph Anew
So, you know, the life expectancy of a trainer is quite short. And, um, and part of that, part of that, part of what I would teach. Is that a lot of people that are in the, that burn out it's because of, instead of five years of experience as a trainer, you have one year of experience repeated five times because they just kind of, it becomes groundhog day and they go on auto and that burns you out.
Joseph Anew
But this sous chef or this, this sushi chef that, um, is looking at tomorrow's going to be even better than today. He's constantly evolving, constantly growing, constantly learning, which is, which is how you know, when that comes naturally, it's how, you know, you're in your Dharma and it's how, you know, you're in your sacred duty.
Joseph Anew
The thing you're supposed to be doing on this planet, because, you know, we teach kids, you can be anything. You can be an astronaut, you can be a carpenter, you can do whatever you want. Yeah. But the truth is there is a calling for everybody. There is a divine purpose. There is. A perfect job for each person, but sometimes conditioning pushes us to be a doctor or a lawyer because we'll make more money and go to this school because our parents went to that school.
Joseph Anew
And we, we lose that
Tab Salsman
Dharma a lot. I also think, uh, geographical locations and accessibility to things that are outside of your community are also a huge factor. I mean, that's the whole story. I left the small town because. I knew there was nothing here for me. Right. They looked around and said, all right, I did the same thing.
Tab Salsman
I was like, there's nothing in this small town. I'm in for a salon. Nobody gets me. I don't get them. Yep. These people seem like I'm going to click with them. Yep. And you don't
Joseph Anew
know until you do it off to la la land. Exactly. Yep. That's it. And so, and that's courage. And it's also a Testament to. To some extent, how you were parented to some extent, the freedom your parents gave you where you knew you could choose, you know, you weren't offending them by leaving.
Joseph Anew
You know, there's, there's so much tied to our decisions to how we're parented. And so you didn't, you didn't see because you must have had good parents. Like, you didn't see yourself as a victim that there was nothing for you to do in this town. You saw an opportunity to leave and go find your people.
Joseph Anew
Yeah.
Tab Salsman
And also my, also my whole upbringing was really like, uh, I could do pretty much whatever I want. I never had a curfew. Right. Um, but there was really just two rules. Uh, one rule was my grades couldn't go down. Like I had to keep a particular GPA. Okay. And that particular GPA also correlated to lower car insurance.
Tab Salsman
So, yeah, so at least State Farm at that time. So as a, as a 16 year old male, particularly supposed to be high risk wild, wild, interesting. If I kept my GPA above a certain thing that I got like this good student discount, right? It fell below my insurance would go up. My parents said. No car. Wow. That was like one incentive.
Tab Salsman
'cause you know you're 16. Yeah. You wanna, you wanna move, you know you got wheels, you gotta go. Yeah. Man, you got dates, you, you got events, you got whatever the other one was, don't be an asshole. . Which is like, if my attitude changed, right? Yeah. And, and, and, or I just started, you know, getting in trouble or, or whatever was like the don't be an asshole was like this massive umbrella for like, look, if you start hanging out with the wrong crowd, it's gonna show.
Tab Salsman
And then if that happens. You know, domino effect. Yeah. So it was just really two simple things. Don't, don't be an asshole and keep your grades up. And with that, I was able to pretty much have carte blanche
Joseph Anew
That's it. And don't you love how so wise people like perhaps, you know, we'll say your dad can, can distill
Joseph Anew
all the ideas, all of, cause there's, there's, there's 25 rules within those two rules. Exactly. And it's sort, you know, like Einstein had to do a lot of work to just spit out E equals MC squared. It's like, so the, there's, there's some, you are taking on a lot of responsibility, like, and it's funny cause as far as race, we had a rule don't suck.
Joseph Anew
And so it's this. Well, oh my gosh, like there's so much interpretation, but there's so much, just don't be an asshole. Yeah. Like you take that to your haircut, you take that to the grocery store, you take that to your job, you, and it, and it guides you in a way where your dad, you know, maybe if he wasn't as wise, he would have had 25 rules and it's like in, in haircuts act this way and at work act this way and at, but just saying, don't be an asshole is a language you spoke at 16.
Joseph Anew
And it, and it carried the weight of, of, you know, all 10 commandments
Tab Salsman
and I started finding out very quickly what don't be an asshole meant in certain situations, like, Oh, there's degrees of freedom there that follows now that's under the umbrella. Yeah. Oh, okay. I thought I was okay on that one. Right.
Tab Salsman
That also falls into it. Oh gosh. You know, um, like staying, I, I was seen out to like. Sometimes in my senior year, I was staying out till two, three in the morning, going to concerts, playing with my band up in LA, or just going to a concert, let's say, and instead of staying out till two or three, like I had friends who were like latchkey, they could just do whatever they wanted.
Tab Salsman
The parents never knew if they were home or not. Right. But like, let's say I was at a concert, concert was over and I said like, Hey mom, um, the concert's over, but I think we're going to be able to hang out the band afterwards. Yeah. If that happens, I'll call you and let you know. And you'll expect me home at two o'clock.
Tab Salsman
Yeah. And as long as they had that communication, that was another thing that also fell into don't be a, don't be an asshole. It'd be an asshole move to not leave your mom, to leave your mom hanging. That would be like, okay, did he, is he in a car accident? Something happened and you know, and that's an, that's an asshole move.
Tab Salsman
Right. So I kind of think about those two things now as parents, which. I think that whole conversation will be a whole other haircut. Yeah. Let's talk about that. But, um, so anyways, the, the rules, the don't be an asshole, the Dharma. Yeah, man. It's, um, but you were, you were, um, I want to get back into the, uh, so, um, shoot, what was it?
Tab Salsman
It was like the, the whole, you were talking about, we're talking about the best day ever. Yeah. We're talking about t shirts. Yeah. You're making all these shirts for running. Yeah. Yeah. I just wanted to back it up a bit. Yeah. A fun exploratory conversation. That's right. So you're making these shirts, making the shirt people are getting into the
Joseph Anew
name Ranga, people are digging it.
Joseph Anew
And, um, over the years I identified that our product, like the service we were actually. Creating for people wasn't like, you know, the, the jungle, it wasn't the beach in the Dominican Republic. You know, we had some events, we rented this palace, literally this palace in the Dominican. It was fricking crazy.
Joseph Anew
But what we identified was the beach and the beauty and the nature. We, I love nature still. I shouldn't say that, but it was a little bit of a distraction because when the, the, the true product was. A higher sense of self and a sense of community and being on a beach and being in a far off destination meant you not only needed to use your vacation days, but you were on vacation.
Joseph Anew
And so things like alcohol consumption and elements of being on vacation that actually detracted from at times, I'm not saying having fun detracts, but as we started to realize that we were a very, it was, it was about mindfulness and connection. Yeah. And why we took it home back to the U. S. was, was to control things like food quality and some of the elements that were really challenging to, to, to get right abroad consistently.
Joseph Anew
But what we realized is that this product would be, would serve people better being, requiring less sick days. So in other words, less days off work. So let's tighten it up to three or four days instead of seven or eight. And let's make it accessible. So some people don't even have to fly and they can just come in for three or four days and the current product is feel 10 years younger, feel connected, have new friends, belong to something larger than yourself, nourish yourself with incredible nutrients.
Joseph Anew
You know, in our current events, they're very, they're high end events, their premium events, but people are coming in and they're leaving 10 years younger, they're spending hours in hyperbaric oxygen chambers to completely revitalize their cellular body. They're eating incredible food. They're getting.
Joseph Anew
peptide injections, anti aging injections that are just open bar and a la carte. It's just this powerful experience blends all of that therapy with mindfulness connection events where you get to know people, of course, some health and fitness stuff. We do kettlebell training. Sound bats gone bats. So there's sort of the, the, the best wellness retreat you've ever been on combined with some of the most high end services and modalities that exist.
Joseph Anew
So it's kind of like going backward and forward at the same time. It's like you're bringing in the ancient traditions of sound healing, sound bowls, meditation, mindfulness with modern. Injectables and hyperbaric oxygen chambers and things like that. So that's kind of where it really
Tab Salsman
ended. I think that's cool because I actually think that like, um, like some of these things, these, uh, like, you know, primal ancient medicines, these shaman things are finding out that like, some of this stuff is.
Tab Salsman
Kind of useful. Uh, like a lot of shaman would use psilocybin, right? Like mushrooms. Yep. And we're finding out that this is a really effective way of treating PTSD, depression. Yeah. Um, and you know, these things just, you know, they grow out there everywhere. Um, but like, we're just starting to like, kind of, I think, crack the code of that because What you're, what you're doing is like, you're using modern science.
Tab Salsman
We're using today's latest technology, but we're also finding out that some of these like, you know, hippie things, I call it hippie stuff are also, uh, it's like, I remember reading a thing about like white chicken noodle soup. Is effective against cold. There's something with the chicken broth that like the way it's structured, I'm probably butchering it, but it was like, it's related to an enzyme that's quite similar to like penicillin or something like that.
Tab Salsman
I remember reading about this like years ago. And I don't know if I read what's true or not, but if it was true, let's just say that for sake of the article, it was argument, then you kind of go like, Oh, so these old wives towels do have some substance in them. And I think what's, what sounds cool about your event is you're, you're finding.
Tab Salsman
Look, these things do have substance. Yeah. Yeah. It may seem hippie dippy, but like there's a, there's an actual purpose. Cause now science is able to start cracking, cracking these codes of more,
Joseph Anew
more stuff. Well, there's the, it's funny, like people these days, yoga as an example has been around 5, 000 years, but some people needed to see proof before they would take a class.
Joseph Anew
Like they need to see the science. They just need the science, even though, you know, people have been doing this for, for so long. And, you know, and we've, we've thought about dropping psychedelics into our event, but our event doesn't really need it. It already creates the profound change people need. Um, yeah, no, I'm not saying you would do that, but using that as an example, because well, it's a great example because, um, you know, there's reason to believe that everyone from Plato to Leonardo da Vinci were using psychedelics.
Joseph Anew
And that's what we call the first wave of psychedelics. Those, you know, it was seeing it, it was seeing it, it let's see the, I can't say it, you'll lose Sydney and it'll lose Sydney and mysteries that are spoken about, you know, as a reasonably good chance that that was a very ceremonial. Um, crew they had, they were bringing together.
Joseph Anew
So, and then you have like the seventies where, you know, Albert Hoffman invented LSD in 1938. And then there was actually some pretty significant research that was cluing us in that. Substances like mushrooms and LSD were curing depression and, and doing amazing things for people. And then the sixties and seventies with, you know, Timothy Leary and they just went bananas.
Joseph Anew
So this, this, and then we had the war on drugs in the seventies and eighties. So this current wave of psychedelics, you know, MDMA is a Mali ecstasy party drug, but it's in phase three trials with the FDA right now to treat veterans for PTSD.
Tab Salsman
Yeah, no, no, it's
Joseph Anew
crazy. It's it's wild. So now it's like this, okay.
Joseph Anew
The seventies things went sideways, but now they're, you know, trying to get the, these medicines, um, where they need to go in a way that's, you know, that's actually helpful. So, um, but any who, yeah. So, um, that's kind of the journey. And so now over the last. A couple of years, um, using fitness instead of the primary driver of transformation for people like I did at Spartan, it's now woven into all that I do in a much more healthful way.
Joseph Anew
So in a way that, cause a lot of times people get fit and realize they're still not healthy or they get fit and they still have a, you know, God shaped hole in their heart or something. It's like, so fitness is a, is a tool in the tool belt of health and wellness, but, um, and it can overflow like it's Spartan race.
Joseph Anew
If you go all in on your fitness, it can overflow and make you healthy and help you stick with the diet. But now our, our sort of approach to fitness is evolved quite a bit at Runga with our coaching programs and such. That's cool. Yeah. When's the next one? Well, next one, well, we've got, cause we do a lot of private corporate stuff, so we've got 10 event days between now and October and then, but those are all private offerings.
Joseph Anew
Um, and our next public event is in October in Austin, Texas. So that's cool. That's awesome. Yeah, man. And then we have, you know, the online coaching program, which runs three times a year at 60 days. What is, what does that focus on? It's called momentum and it is this. 60 day program where you kind of architect and dream up the life you want and take strides to get yourself closer to it.
Joseph Anew
So it's a, you know, eight weeks, first four weeks are about building a life and a living structure that affords you the ability to accomplish more than you're accomplishing now. So in other words. Understanding the, the means pads and ways to basically exceed expectations at work while exceeding expectations at home while exceeding expectations with your kids.
Joseph Anew
And this is sort of built on my life, you know, running multiple businesses, traveling kids, family, juggling everything. I kind of created a pretty nice structure for it. That's based on the 20 years I've been working with people. And then the last four weeks are really about finding Dharma, about connecting with your purpose and taking strides to, to make it a reality.
Joseph Anew
So when the program ends, it's kind of like. The first four weeks are the, uh, it's kind of like what I would call in a word talking about distilling, distilling things down to simple truths. Yeah. The first four weeks are ready. Yeah. The second four weeks are aim. And then the program ends and you fire up, you, you go get it.
Tab Salsman
How's this all great, man. How's the, the top? Is it too long? I think it's great. I'll be running an answer it. Cause that's usually how we know
Joseph Anew
if it's good or not. It's perfect. It's perfect. This is exactly. So this is, this is how I do my hair in the morning. Hand pull. There it is. Ready? Aimed.
Tab Salsman
Let me get the, the neck shaper.
Tab Salsman
Thanks. Perfect. You have like a, a neck line that like, come,
Joseph Anew
it's crazy. And then down. Yeah. So I'm hoping my kids don't get that. Well, you just never know. It's like, yeah, the back of my head grows in every different direction.
Tab Salsman
It's actually not that bad. It really isn't. You, I mean, you have two cowlicks.
Tab Salsman
Versus the, what I call the devil's triangle where you get three and then they go in all different competing directions. And of course the individuals who usually have that all want a haircut, that, that stuff doesn't work. Um, for you, for you, it's just about making sure that we don't, I just create a nice little.
Tab Salsman
Outline, but I don't take it too short. Yeah. So like the, uh, and I, I would say like younger version of me, I would've been really intimidated by seeing this. But instead I'm just like looking at where your hairline stops, right? By your MAs doing process, that's a little bone behind here. I'm just gonna continue that line down.
Tab Salsman
Yeah. Versus trying to like fade this up. Yeah. Because it already pulls up. So if I pull it down and I take it shorter, it's gonna look like a skin fade. And then you're going to have like no hair, and then you're going to have like this weird little point, like a headless Pete, but in the back of your head.
Tab Salsman
So just by creating my own little line, like you need the hair there, but we need to, after this, I need to go through and like actually take out some of the density, if you will, in the center. So that way the sides don't look as hollow as they, they would appear. Only because all that hair is getting forced because of the growth pattern into the center.
Tab Salsman
So it's like really misleading because it's probably one of the more complex necklines to work on. Because if I just, like right now, I just took a straight line just to clean it off. If I leave it like that, it doesn't look good. Yes. Um, I have to go through and use a multi tooth scissor. The ones that have the little holes in them.
Tab Salsman
Like a really, really refined ones. That way I don't take out any huge chunks of hair where it looks now like. Now there's a hole, right? So I think he slid out, might do this. That's why you get paid the big bucks, man. Well, big bucks are relative. I mean, if you're charging 10 a haircut, 20 sounds like big bucks, you know?
Joseph Anew
But no, but it's, you know, it's not unusual that I get a haircut and I look in the mirror and I get home and I'm like, never by me, never by you. No, no. I mean, my past. Not since I've been coming here, but when I used to be on the road all the time, as I was telling you earlier, I would just end up in like the, the strip mall franchise, the haircut place.
Joseph Anew
Yeah. And I would almost always leave, like, I don't know if this is better or worse than what I walked in with.
Tab Salsman
Yeah, no, that's, I, I heard that with, with, with guys who would do a lot of traveling, like my male clients over the years. And so what would happen is. I would give them very specific instructions on my look,
Joseph Anew
if
Tab Salsman
your travel schedule doesn't allow you to see me before your next travel, whatever that may be, here is what you can do yourself.
Tab Salsman
Or you're going to go into said salon, barbershop and tell them to do this very, very specific thing. It's actually the one thing I, I think hairdressers should do is give our clients. Like some very helpful things like, look, if you can't get into me and you need your bangs cut, or you need this done and you can't see me or I can't see you, whatever it is, I always try and make it work.
Tab Salsman
But these are the things you need to, to keep in mind. And here's how I would explain it. Uh, because as a hairdresser, these there's like lingo and most of us, uh, speak a very similar lingo. It's just. Not, um, we don't all use the same terms for everything, but it's pretty close. Yeah. I imagine it's like Spanish and Italian.
Tab Salsman
There's certain things are exactly similar. Then there's a couple of differences, but, uh, everybody I know who speaks Spanish understands Italian and everybody I know who's Italian understand Spanish. And I view like hairdressers are the same way. Like, oh, I call that slicing. I call that channeling. Okay.
Tab Salsman
Well now we know, you know, just show me the maneuver.
Joseph Anew
The best of the old timers, the old time barbershops. Yeah. Where everyone gets the same haircut. I've been to some of those. I went to one of those at Palm Springs once. My wife and I went to a, we just spent a weekend when we lived in LA and I was like, Hey, I got to pop into this barbershop.
Joseph Anew
Guy didn't even ask me what I wanted. He just like got to work on just like the last guy. That's great. That's pretty hilarious. Maybe that's why people come to him, you know? Yeah. You know what you're getting. Except I came out like it was my first day in the Marine Corps high and tight. My wife is like, what
Tab Salsman
in the world?
Tab Salsman
You could probably rock a pretty good high and tight. You bring a hat. You bring a hat.
Joseph Anew
Yeah. Except for that huge scar on my head. Yeah. Yeah. You, you, let me see. I usually keep a little bit of hair on there. You know, I know you could keep, okay. It looks like a part. That's the thing.
Tab Salsman
No, no, no. You could do a high and tight right up to here.
Tab Salsman
You could do that. Yeah. I mean, I wouldn't recommend it. I mean, it would take care of this graying problem I've got. No, actually what it could do is it could actually make like. If you go any shorter, so the more your hair loses its color and it starts to become, you know, more translucent for lack of a better term to not offend people, that's the not offensive term.
Tab Salsman
Yeah, I think so. White, gray, translucent is worse. I think just call it what it is. Yeah. Well, you know, another term I had clients say, go see my sparkles. Yeah. So like. The more you get the lighter hair coming through, the more the hair is changing color. The lighter hair coming through. There we go. Is it can also make it look like you have, I have to be careful to not take it too short because then what happens since there's no.
Tab Salsman
So light will go through the hair and then it all looks beautiful, looks bald. So like on people who are red blonde, you don't have to go as short for it to look almost like a skin fade. Got it. Yeah. Yeah. See, that's, you're going to have a whole new issue of like, you may actually start wearing your hair a little longer if this continues all over because you're not going to want to take it.
Tab Salsman
Right now you have enough depth in there where it's not an issue, but if it becomes. More and more white all the way through. Yeah. On the top you may be like, you know what, I might take this full shorter. I might leave the sides a little la And that's why I always find that you find guys who have a full head of like white hair.
Tab Salsman
They all have a very similar haircut. Yeah. Because if you take it a little too short, it looks like they have no air. Right. And uh, when you reach whatever age it is where you get a whole head of naturally occurring white hair and uh, you have a full head of it, you. Those are bragging rights. Apparently I've heard, I've had clients say like, look, I have a full head of.
Tab Salsman
You know, white hair. I want people to know I have hair. And if we take it too short, I look bald on the sides. And I don't want to look like I have a, what's that rockabilly term? Uh, white walls, like the, like, uh, uh, like a tire white walls with a,
Joseph Anew
Oh yeah. Like, yeah, 50s, 60s, uh, my Chevys. Yeah. They call them white walls.
Joseph Anew
Yeah. White walls.
Joseph Anew
It's a slip she's on you as Joe for my wife that that's because you sleep on that side. That's why that side's getting so great
Joseph Anew
Well I've gotten older. We're all getting older. Yep. I mean, it's I think it's you know, I think there's I mean Who knows right who knows what? If it's, it was just in my destiny that some of this was going to go gray, or if it's like having a three year old and like jobs and work and busy and sleep. Well,
Tab Salsman
I actually think everyone has aged a little bit faster due to the year of 2020.
Tab Salsman
I think we all went through like one dog year. Yeah. Because I look from like 2019, the end of 2019, I look at. The end of 2020, I look at photos of my own self and I'm like, man, I don't look as rested as I did, but now from 2020 till now, I don't really feel there's been much of a shift. Right. I think that the uncertainty of that year really played a huge factor on everybody.
Tab Salsman
Yeah, I think, I think that that is accurate. It's like, have you seen these, uh, the images of people who go to war? Yeah. I mean, we know about it with presidents, but like to see like. Enter to the war, the exit. It was like four years it looked like. Yeah. 30 on some people. Yeah. It's nuts. Hey, let's get your eyebrows.
Tab Salsman
Okay. Yeah, man. Okay. Oh yeah, yeah. You gotta get these guys. So I was, I'm reading, um, I think it's called Blitz. Okay. Relax. Relax. Don't, don't do that. Please. When you do that, it actually arches the eyebrows and then I can end up creating bald spots. Yeah, we don't want that. Please. I don't want bald spots on your eyebrows.
Joseph Anew
Okay. One eyebrow done. Go to the other one. So the book is called Blitz and the subtitle is something to the effect of drugs in the third right. Okay. And it's insane. So, basically, the entire German army was addicted to meth. Yeah. And it was being promoted, it was a medication, but I'm fairly certain it seems like it was even maybe over the counter or whatever.
Joseph Anew
But
Joseph Anew
the soldiers were not sleeping. They were just messed up and heavily addicted. Yeah. Yeah. To You know, I keep wanting to say pro vigil, which is a modern medicine, but it was called the meth was called like, you know, something like that, some pharmaceutical name. And yeah, the amount of methamphetamine, like, yeah, those soldiers aged 10 years and four years is my guess.
Joseph Anew
Just it's wild to hear the accounts and read about it.
Tab Salsman
I, uh, I remember hearing about that and I'm not sure. For certain, but I remember reading or hearing something that like the inspiration for Mad Max Fury Road, where those soldier guys would snort that stuff. Was inspired by what a lot of soldiers would do.
Tab Salsman
I think certain ancient, uh, armies would do that. Also more recently, the, uh, the third Reich would have that with the methamphetamine. They get all hopped up and hyped up and they don't feel anything. Yep. They're not thinking clearly. Totally. And it's like the best mindset you want. First, if you are leading an army to just run
Joseph Anew
without thinking, just fight.
Joseph Anew
Right. Yeah. And, and that's the thing is meth came after cocaine and heroin. So like basically, and I don't quite remember the order, heroin might've been first. And it was like, okay, heroin, but that was like, opium, opium, opium, dense, but I think it, yeah, I'm pretty sure they call it heroin in the book. So it's like they were giving it to kids for teething and shit like crazy that would definitely stop
Tab Salsman
the, uh, the crying.
Tab Salsman
Yeah. Uh, that that's like bringing a nuclear bomb to
Joseph Anew
get rid of the ants in my backyard. Right. Yeah. Just getting chemotherapy instead of a haircut. Um, the, that was what, that was what that line I just said was from Michael Jackson's, um, doctor when he described Michael Jackson's like sleeping pills and drug use.
Joseph Anew
Yeah. Yeah. They, he said something like the drugs he was taking to sleep where they would be the equivalent of getting chemo instead of a haircut. Oh, wow. Um, yeah, it was like a horse pill or something. So, um, but anyways, the way the book was kind of outlined, it's like, yeah, like heroin and cocaine came in and it was everywhere.
Joseph Anew
Cocaine was everywhere. And then they were like, Oh, that's not so good. Let's use this much safer alternative meth.
Joseph Anew
Um, but yeah, it's kind of funny from, from our side being like, gosh, if we had just like blown up the meth factory, it might've won us the war a little quicker. That's actually, I actually didn't
Tab Salsman
even think about that, but that's actually a really good point, taking out the gusto of
Joseph Anew
fueling. These people, I mean, yeah, it's kind of, yeah, the more you know about your enemy.
Joseph Anew
Right. You
Tab Salsman
did you ever see Enigma movie about the, the guys who were able to crack the German Enigma? No, they, they were able to figure out where all the, uh, what was it? Where every tap was going to be. The English army, I figured out, but they never told anybody. So they, all these attacks are going to happen and they just happened because if they had stopped one, they thought that the, um, the German army would figure out that they had cracked the code.
Tab Salsman
And then all I kept thinking about when I was watching the movie, it's like, well, why didn't they just like, like you said, like take out the factory? Like, yeah, I can do this. Let's just destroy something before they can even get there. Right. I haven't read many books lately. I usually, I have a problem. I start falling asleep.
Tab Salsman
Yeah, I start reading stories to my kids. I start reading it's like, you know, Oh, all right. This blue fish done. Totally. Yeah. Yep. Certainly. All means bad. Yeah. All right. Let's get all the air off your face. Okay, cool. So if somebody wants to be part of the rum guy,
Joseph Anew
yeah.
Tab Salsman
Uh, how do they find you? And I know you have a podcast too.
Tab Salsman
Yep. So what is all that info?
Joseph Anew
So runa life.com. Okay. Business is called Runa, but someone squatting on our domain name. So runa life.com. Runa Life is also the Instagram. Okay. That would be, that would be really the place to go podcast is called
Tab Salsman
Intuitive Warrior. Is that linked onto like a, to the Runga stuff or is that linked on your own?
Joseph Anew
It's beneath Runga now. So everything's moving over to Runga. Um, yeah. So, um, my first, I still have an Instagram and stuff, but, um, Runga is the place to go. Everything is migrating over there. Okay. Uh, and my podcast is actually, I'm, it's still going. There's 230 episodes out there. But I am considering pausing it and actually hosting an existing podcast that is, um, I would be going in as a host for a different podcast, which is, uh, something I'm contemplating right now.
Tab Salsman
Awesome.
Joseph Anew
Which would be pretty neat. But TDD on that, but Ranga has two podcasts actually have intuitive warrior and then we have heartful. So my wife's mindfulness podcast where she shares. Um, meditations and lessons and mindfulness and mindful living and conscious awareness. So, and the mind's more like health fitness, cold immersion, breath work, kettlebells, interviews with, you know, major experts in the field around whether it's sleep or back pain or whatever it is.
Joseph Anew
So, but yeah, run the life and you can check out momentum. That's our big program right now is our online coaching program. And then of course, check out the gatherings that we host the next ones in October. Awesome. All right, thanks Joe. Uh, I guess we'll do this in five weeks. What's
Tab Salsman
that?
Joseph Anew
Well, I guess
Tab Salsman
We'll, I'll see you in five
Joseph Anew
weeks.
Joseph Anew
Yeah. See you in five weeks. That sounds good, man. Thank you so much.
