Welcome, Lazo.
Hey, big hello from London. It’s good to be here, Stephan.
Me too. You’re someone I’ve been looking up to for a while since we’ve met. In 2011, we were in a secret society together and that was awesome.
To see all the changes from there is just phenomenal in the past 3 years.
It’s been a huge impact on my life, going through all those intensives and implementing the stuff I’ve learned and –
Your evolution has been phenomenal, it’s been an inspiration to me to be like, “Wow, Stephan’s really taken it up a notch.” It’s so cool to see other people raising the bar because we slightly lose our expectations and we get complacent. Whereas you were like, “Nope, got to wait to play the game”, as it were.
Kind words, thank you. If you could share a little bit about your story and how you started. You have rags to riches story, I have one too. I know people love to hear that people going from where they were to someplace extraordinary, could you share your story?
Yeah, sure. This could go back to 1980, the day I was born. The Iran-Iraq war that Saddam was invading Iran, it was an 8-year war. At the time, my father is Kurdish, and Saddam was persecuting the Kurds, and my mother’s Arab. So we had to flee for our lives – literally for our lives. There’s a story behind that which one day I’ll get my mother to share because it’s phenomenal. Anyway, so we came to this country, in London, as refugees, I was about 4 years old. We were imprisoned in Romania for like 6 months, so I was in prison as a 3-4-year-old. So we came to this country with zero, my parents had to start from scratch. They were wealthy in Iraq, but they had lost everything. So they just started from nothing at all. Never took any so-called benefits, just a really hard-working family pushing themselves.
Everything is not so much a desire but more of a design.
But my problem was I was diagnosed as dyslexic so I couldn’t read until I was about 15. Like I just didn’t know how to read and decided one day I’ve got to learn how I process this. And that was probably the beginning of understanding how I learn and how I process things. And everything is not so much a desire but more of a design. So I got into the idea of designing systems for myself in learning. But that transferred in terms of training and my business. I’m more interested in terms of design than just massive desire. The environment creates results as it were. So I finally figured out how to read and went to university and became a complete geek, studying biomedical engineering, I was wearing glasses. I didn’t really enjoy the subject, but I got great grades. I got into university in London, a prestigious university, I got all A’s, I didn’t lose a mark on my papers.
But at the same time, I didn’t enjoy the subject. I didn’t enjoy the people I was hanging out with. I didn’t know what my life was going through. I was having all these internal issues, it’s been a problem with my family. So I realized I couldn’t control the world, but I could control myself. The Ancient Greeks believed that if you strengthen the body, you strengthen the mind. Because the body is the mind, it’s part of it. People think it stops here, but it’s actually the whole thing – it’s the emotion. So I decided I’m just going to take care of my body because I can’t change anything on the inside, but I can change the outside. But just like a geek, the three weeks prior to I made the decision and studying everything I could on fitness, nutrition, I studied all the books. I geeked the f*** out.
This was pre-Google where you can find all this information online. It was books and videotapes and cassettes you had to listen to back then. So, I happened to go to this bodybuilding gym in Topsville Park, it’s this very old school bodybuilding gym. They had to clean the rust out. I thought, “This is perfect; this is exactly what I needed.” It’s just hardcore, there were no egos, you have to work or get out. That’s the place where I had to be. Baptism by fire, as it were. And I think enthusiasm is the key to any success, people noticed it. They feel that energy and my mentor appeared and showed me how to actually train. I thought I knew how to train, but it was theory and books and watching. I didn’t really know how to train. But he showed me how to train effectively and I used his system. I achieved successful results in twelve weeks, but the funny thing is when transforming your body is you see yourself every day. You don’t think you’re good enough. Because it’s not like an all-of-a-sudden you look good. It’s every day you’re just chiseling and chiseling and working and you still have the image of “I look like a fat piece of s***” or whatever I was telling myself at the time.
Enthusiasm is the key to any success.
So I overtrained and I overdid it but it did end up having a great result. I ended up winning body for life, which is a huge competition. Cindy Crawford came down to give me the prize, and there were tons of girls everywhere. I was like, “This is really effing cool!” It is something that was actually cool, and I enjoyed the process. I thought, “let me take this just as sort of a part-time job while I study biochemical engineering”. I kind of fell in love with it at that point. I totally fell in love with it. My goal was with my clients is to transform them. I wanted to share the feeling that I had, personally. And I realized that maybe 30% transformed and 70% didn’t transform. I gave them the same workouts, same nutrition, nothing happened. And then I continue with that kind of intention but the design wasn’t there.
So it wasn’t fully there for every individual because every individual has a different human condition and a different set of ideas about self-image, the subconscious – there’s all these sort of things that I didn’t really tap into yet. I ended up winning natural bodybuilding shows in your country, America, representing the UK. I won the Musclemania Miami and got pretty decent stage time. I got this great physique and kept on breaking plateaus and breaking plateaus because the program always changes. But then I started to study psychology because it is my body. Today, I just had this kid ask, “How do you get a great body, Lazo? What’s the secrets to achieving a great body?” Everyone’s looking for secrets, or secret steps or secret part 1 – all this nonsense. I told him, “There is no secret apart from one. Fall in love with the process”. If you love the process, that’s going to get you the results. Then you get interested in creating the right design and want the environment to create the performance, to create the results. That’s what I go to.
That’s not that different from Napoleon Hill who wrote “Think and Grow Rich” and those principles are applicable to fitness as well and creating an amazing body; the desire, the faith, the autosuggestions, the self-hypnosis, all that stuff just as equally well to building your own body.
Absolutely. That’s the weirdest thing, the synchronicity starts to happen. I actually drew this thing, I’ll have to send it to you guys, I drew a picture of how I wanted to look, this was after I did the body for life challenge onstage, and two and a half years later it was the exact same look. Because I kept looking at it. I’m a good cartoonist, I’m pretty good at drawing. It was the exact same look; because I kept looking at it. It was my brain process; I do believe it is a part of our biology that will affect your genes and turn the right hormones on and turn the wrong hormones off. It shifts the chemistry; there is science in epigenetics and belief systems that actually start to recharge your chemistry.
I studied biochemistry and I remember one of my professors, he said “life is biochemistry”, and that one statement stuck with me until this day, to understand “How do you become the chemist of your mind?”, The body doesn’t know what is real, perceived, or imagined. You’re going to watch a horror movie and get scared and adrenaline and cortisol are shot through you. It’s nothing, it’s just a photo of life, there’s no actual or real danger. As human beings, we’re always shooting adrenaline or cortisol because we’re playing with negative emotions and we’re annoyed with somebody and the argument has gone on long enough. That’s not good for your body, that’s chronic stress, and most people I think need to manage it. If they manage that, the body responds pretty quickly.
So what is your process for your clients and you have some really high profile clients.
Super wealthy, billionaires, and they’re a different psychology altogether because they’ve got a sense of empowerment; they’ve got all the choices in the world to not actually stick to it; really different animal altogether. But my mission is still to get my clients to fall in love with working out and fall in love with their bodies and the byproduct is going to be losing 20 kilos or gaining a certain amount of muscle. But if I don’t get them to fall in love with their bodies, it’s just going to be motivation, and I don’t want them to be motivational. I want them to be inspired to take action when I’m not around, and choosing the right types of food and making sure they are getting the right sleep.
But the key to that, Stephan, is something I became a big Demartini fan and let’s say I used one of his techniques on value systems. It’s something worth checking out because you can always trust someone to follow their values. The great thing about the body is that you take it everywhere you go, it is our true home. We take it around town, as we’re sitting in our body right now in our apartments, so it is this flesh vehicle. So any sort of success or any sort of productive thing is taking care of this body. And if you do so, for our viewers listening, it will take care of you. That’s the way that works, right? You have to see it as a friend and how it serves your highest values. Your highest value might be life, for example, one of my clients wants it so he can play with his kids. So my workout is training and talking about his kids. Training and talking about his kids. And then reinforcing that. He’s actually lifting his kids up and his kids are inspired to train because they’re watching daddy do press-ups on the floor and all sorts of stuff. And then they get active. That’s going to reinforce that belief system of, yeah, my body has a positive impact. If that’s not consciously aware, if they’re just extrinsically motivated to look good for the sake of looking good, that’s not enough.
So what makes your system unique from just a really good personal trainer that I might find in my local gym?
So personal trainers, this is interesting, is a few things. I have a business called Body Transformation Academy that actually teaches trainers to become body transformation coaches, so you’re coaching instead. The thing with personal trainers is there’s no barrier to entry, it’s very easy to be a personal trainer. If you’re a smart guy, you could probably read a day or two and pass the exams. The second part is that trainers are not understanding the human condition of that individual client. What is their negative personal behavior, what is that program that software they’re running. That human condition.
Nobody talks about it, that’s the funny thing. People talk about nutrition in Crossfit, you do this workout, you become vegan, and blah blah blah. It’s a tool, but it’s not getting into the reason why they should be training. They do that, they can truly wire the individual because the brain is plastic. Then the client becomes truly inspired to take action and they fall in love with that process, so the biggest difference with all personal trainers is that they don’t ever focus on the area. And also they don’t put their money where their mouth is. I believe that Stephan, if I came to you and I was a builder and you said you wanted a whole refurbishment, and I’m charging per hour, I’m going to take my sweet time because I know I’ll make more money. And you say, That’s ridiculous, the job costs $1000. This is my expectation, realistically. Alright, fine. Now I have to do the work and make sure I get the cost of finishing right. Now it’s my duty and obligation to make sure you do that. Now there’s something in your psychic that says, while, that’s a client forever, and it can shift.
It’s like our incentives are not aligned. It’s the fundamental premise in Freakonomics, if you’ve ever read that book. It’s an awesome book, it’s fascinating to learn about how our economic system and many systems are broken because the incentives are misaligned. So the incentives of the general practitioner are not aligned with me as a patient, or if it’s referring me on to a specialist, like a heart doctor or whatever, with the recommendation to get angioplasty. Well then the specialist, his incentives are to push an angioplasty in order to keep the lead flow coming from that general practitioner, even if it is showing not to extend the lifespan or any of that. We want to get those incentives aligned, absolutely, and having people who just see you as a paycheck every month, that’s not in your best interest.
The same thing happened to my mom when she had chemotherapy for when she had cancer, the oncologists are only worried about removing the cancer, they don’t worry about the rest of the body. They wanted to give her a drug. Herapseptin? I forget the name, this was a while back. but it has the potential of giving heart attacks. They don’t really care, they just want to make sure they get rid of the cancer, that’s the cardiologists problem if that ever happens. She didn’t end up taking it because my brother’s a doctor and advised her not to, but when you’re scared or you’re fearful or you’re desperate, you’re going to make those choices, Somebody who, has a breakup, let’s just say, and now they want to really look good and they are desperate to find the right personal trainer. But they don’t know who is the personal trainer, they don’t know if their intentions are good. The doctor says you’re going to have a heart attack, they need to make a change, they’re desperate. There’s lots of people who go to training in a desperate state and expect the trainers to fulfill on their promise but have the wrong incentives and that breaks down.
There’s lots of people who go to training in a desperate state and expect the trainers to fulfill on their promise. But they have the wrong incentives and that breaks down. Share on XDo you have a framework or some sort of blueprint for people to follow in terms of doing this body transformation process?
It takes me three weeks to really understand the client, everything from their mindset to the way they move, the way their relationship to the trainer is; the biggest part is breathing, they don’t know how to breathe, so they’re not present in the workouts. When someone’s not present, they’re going to not be in their body, they’re still going to be in their head, so it’s a very feeling movement, so it’s important for my clients to really disassociate from their thinking mind go and feeling. I don’t care about sets, I don’t care about reps, I don’t care about weight, all I care about is can you make it more intense. Obviously the technique and the angles and all the starts and the form but that’s all I care about.
And the beauty of that is they are so focused that body group and the muscle or the movement so that time space disappears; they are present in their body, and that’s when you’re rewiring body awareness; otherwise they are just doing exercise versus training, and exercise – well, you can give me a program and work me out and I’ll be exercised, right? Training has an intention, where you actually lose yourself in the movement. And that’s the first three weeks, I call it the Mr. Miyagi. Right? Wax on, wax off, all that – the idea is to really feel it. And then there’s the assigning of the program specific to age, hormonal levels, we do a blood test to make sure where they’re thyroid is, where their testosterone is, their sleeping patterns.
Sleep is really important. Some people suffer from insomnia, we offer techniques that they can do naturally to shift that. That’s where the recovery is, to have people have good sleep. You can have the best workout plan in the world and it’s not gonna work. That’s so important if you can get deep REM sleep. One thing for some of you Optimized Geeks, and it’s a very simple thing, it sounds whoo whoo, whatever you want to call it. Just sit down and write 20-30 things you can be thankful for. And totally feel it. It switches off the sympathetic system into the parasympathetic system. You do take whatever problems you have that day into bed. So if you can switch that off; it is just really important. Drink plenty of water, I’m so surprised how many people just don’t know how to drink enough water, since you’re made out of 70-80% water. And every reaction involves hydrolysis, breaking fat or the making of muscles, so that’s a huge one. So the first week is can you drink enough water? What is your diet currently like as opposed to – I don’t want to guess, I measure things before we start any sort of program.
The great thing about the body is that you take it everywhere you go, it is our true home.
Peter Drucker says “What gets measured gets managed”.
Exactly, exactly right. I have to figure out what I’m going to do the 8 or 9th week, because if they are doing everything in the kit, and they hit a plateau, which the body does quite marvelously because it adapts, Now I don’t know what to change anymore. I have to time it right.
Tell me about this muscle confusion sort of thing and how it fits into the equation because I’m not really that clear how important that is and how that gets incorporated into your workout regimen and that sort of stuff.
There are different things. You can train through isolation, or you can train altogether. It’s almost like math. Integration, or differentiation. They are both aspects you can use in terms of building the body. Or shaping the body. Or just feeling good. I start with isolation. Can they feel the rear delts? Most people don’t even feel their rear delts. Or their biceps or their triceps or certain exercises. The idea is to put the mind into their muscle. They’re really just there, there is nothing else going on besides that. Muscle confusion that word means you are shocking the muscle. You change tempo, you do drop sets, super sets, there are all these ways; that’s usually when you plateau. We wanna change programs; instead of the barbells we’re doing dumbells because the body is like “I’ve got to do something different”. So you’re shocking the body. The body has an amazing way of getting used to workouts, so there needs to be a switch at some point, I usually say six weeks.
And how long does this body transformation process take, typically?
Mine’s at 12 weeks, but I say if you can do it in 6 months, that’s still a great result. So whatever it may be. But I do 12 weeks, and the reason being is I just want to get on to the next client and help as many clients as I can. That’s my goal.
What gets measured gets managedPeter Drucker
And then what happens after the 12 weeks?
I’ve had 2 clients, one was a law student from Oxford, another one was a CEO of some drink, they became personal trainers. I got them to fall in love so much that they decided to go do something else with their life But, that’s it. I tend to give them a program they can follow. Some end up getting another trainer, because I’m just like “I’m done” and why pass them through now, so I move them to one of my trainers, and that’s the process.
Now, the form is the key – what I was learning in that process is that, well, I’m lifting this, using this machine in a way that is really sub-optimal. And I’m all about optimization, I’m in search engine optimization expert, so I should be all into optimizing my workout, right?
Right. Because the body wants to cheat, the body wants to make the easiest way to get the job done. Because if you’re trying to work the triceps, you might be doing more shoulders than triceps, so you shift the ratio. Shoulders will still be a component, but you can shift the ratio so there’s more isolation on that body part. CrossFit is more balls-to-the-wall, let’s just work out like crazy and you get a more whole-body kind of feel, but you’re not really isolated. I’m more into body sculpting than that methodology. And that requires that your angles are perfect and your form is on point.
Once you develop these associations and wiring, you can’t actually cheat to get results, your body is going to contract in the right way, it’s part of the wiring. My brother studied neuroscience and used to cut rat’s brains, and shock certain parts and he proved how stimulation in a particular muscle area creates muscle growth. So focused training creates muscle growth. So you don’t have to lift as heavy. I had one guy who I did transform in six months who was a vegetarian and we were so slow in our workouts, and there was so much focus in it, that the muscle had no choice but to grow. It was like that.
Focused training creates muscle growth.
I’m vegetarian – well technically pescatarian, I do eat some fish now, but I find that it can be a little bit more challenging with that type of diet because I gravitate towards fast food that I can pull out of the fridge or freezer, and that stuff is so processed, even if I get supposedly healthy meals from Amy’s Kitchen or whatever – what do you recommend for a vegetarian?
A vegetarian – it’s twofold. It’s a lifestyle issue. All my clients have different lifestyles, I have to respect that, I want to negate it. Anything that can negate the kind of lifestyle they have. Obviously, you don’t do coke and drugs, and I won’t support a client who does that, but I need to make sure it is as easy and fast as possible in terms of getting your nutrition. And it’s going to be a high nutrient-dense food, that’s the key. One of my main rules is my clients have to have my green drink, it’s friggin rocket fuel and it has so much, kale, garlic, spirulina, you name it. It’s just a very strong drink. So that alkalizes all the body, and it’s key for like a vegetarian or anyone who wants to build muscle is to get enough protein. It’s finding out what you can and can’t do and where is the best source of that food and can you delegate someone else to cook it and prepare it for you.
And the second step is for those who eat out. I eat out every night. It’s knowing the 10 best restaurants where you’re getting the best quality food. So, instead of someone saying “let’s get takeout at this Chinese place” and saying “no, no, I can’t go there, let’s go somewhere else”. So it’s kind of dictating where the restaurant eating is. That is really important. Otherwise, you’re gonna slip because you’re gonna want to eat it at some point. We do a social detox or what if the scenario came up and I had to solve it because most people do mess up. Like, what do you do if you have to go to a barbecue and there’s just all this meat? You need to be really on point with that, but after that it gets really easy.
I remember I was on a trip to Colombia, and I basically starved that whole 2 weeks, it was impossible to find anything vegetarian anywhere. It was horrible.
I know somebody who would basically take 2 bags of hemp protein to the country so you’re maintaining that muscle mass as opposed to putting on muscle. That’s the strategy I would put into place.
Let’s talk about body sculpting because there are parts of the body that are more important from an aesthetic standpoint to sculpt than others, like adding muscle to the tops of your shoulders and things like that. I remember you mentioning that.
Your posture affects your psychology.
For sure. They had a study about which was more attractive, a tall guy or a guy with a v -shape and – which was more attractive? It was always the v-shape. It’s very attractive to women, it’s very attractive that, oh, that guy stands out. That v-shape. To widen your shoulders has 2 effects. It actually makes your waist look smaller. Capping those deltoids and rounding the three muscle heads you’re going to look wider and that’s going to make your waist look smaller. And if your waist gets smaller, they both have this certain very powerful and primitive kind of signaling effect to your social surroundings.
Another one I teach to my clients is posture, because your posture affects your psychology. If you’re like this and you’re bowed and you’re slumped, you’re not breathing right. There’s no way you can get enough oxygen into your body. Building your back and your glutes, you’re naturally going to stand up straight, right. That makes more sense. Build the muscles to help you stand up straight, as opposed to the natural stand up for three minutes and then slump down again. So that opens up your chest and makes you look more like you’re taking up space and demonstrates you know confidence, what’s the reality. Those simple things are really important.
So speaking of attractiveness to the opposite sex – you’re learned a lot about how to pick up women. Can you share some of your exploits and some fun stories with our listeners.
Oh wow, you name it from models on runways to porn stars to glamour models to CEO women to all across the board. Training helps with masculine energy, it’s proven to increase your natural testosterone, testosterone raises this energy. There’s something very attractive to a woman that wants all this masculine energy. I don’t even know where to start because I’ve got a girlfriend right now and she’s going to hear all these stories and wonder “what the hell?” You remember Ryan Brown (aka, I don’t want to say his real name because he wants to keep this quiet) we were just on fire in LA from talking to women in tube stations to outside the clubs to women’s strippers because it was our birthday at the Roxbury. We met them outside and was just something about our energy, we were so energized and pumped up and whatever line came out of my mouth, I don’t remember, but they were like “Come to our strip place and we end up getting tickets and darting across LA to wherever the destination is and it was just an epic adventure, let’s just say. Once upon a time I used to be this real geek so this is a real shift in lifestyles, that’s for sure. Good days.
Paint a picture for my listeners, how geeky on a scale of 1 to 10, what did you look like?
I was fat, I had a belly, lacked a certain amount of confidence, didn’t really understand how social interactions quite worked as much, I went to a very preppy school with all these suits and ties so when I went to university, I was very antisocial. I didn’t know how to behave as well. I used to wear glasses, which is not a bad thing guys, but very very geeky. You’re always in the library, there’s no practice at social interaction. I wasn’t exactly the life of the party, I’d say.
So you started training, and you had all this great success with mastering your body, but what about the techniques? You learned from Neil Strauss obviously because we met in his society.
Definitely Neil, but it was also meeting people like Ryan and just people who were on the same page. As much as you can learn all the stuff, it’s also about getting out there and talking to girls. My frame is simply, and it’s probably the best frame, is that I just want to meet people and have fun, and if a girl ends up uninterested, well I don’t want to talk to you anyway if you’re going to be like that. While before, it was like go in and get laid, or I really just want to kiss a girl, so there’s so much expectation and desperate energy. So the best advice I can is meet people and have fun. Make people feel good, be interesting, be interested in them, work on yourself. That is attraction, take care of yourself and your family and your friends; that’s very cool . That’s probably the best advice instead of learning lines and going out and giving this desperate kind of energy.
So if you go in without the expectation and without the neediness, whichever way it goes, you win because you learn something or you get some success of some sort. But either way –
Yeah, you win. The rest is just a bonus of some sort, but if you frame it going in and say “I want to make people feel good”, which is known as charisma, just making people feel good, then you have to feel good. There’s no way you can make someone else feel good without feeling good. So you know you have to take care of yourself and make yourself feel good. And hopefully that shares and transpires and you meet a really cool girl and you hit it off. Awesome things happen.
Have there been people who have made a significant impact in your life beyond those we’ve spoken about? You briefly mentioned Dr. John Demartini, we talked about Neil Strauss a bit, and you had a mentor on the bodybuilding site who took you under his wing in the beginning.
He taught me how to bodybuild, he was awesome.
Anyone else who had a really big impact?
One of my mentors still to this day is my mother. I can give you a story, we briefly mentioned that she had cancer. She went through chemotherapy and obviously lost her hair and everything else, fingernails are falling off and everything, but she’s such a tough lady. Super tough. I was supposed to pick her up from St. Bartholomew’s hospital which is about a 40-minute walk from my apartment. I was running a bit late and I told her just hang in there, wait for around an hour and I’ll be there. I get to the hospital and she’s already left. She decided to walk to my place all alone, she just wanted to leave the hospital. Tanked up to the gills with all these chemicals from chemotherapy, right? She could’ve gotten into a road accident, she could have fainted, all of these things could have happened, right? She gets home apparently and decides that she’s thirsty.
Fall in love with pain, there are certain types of pain where the magic happens.Lazo Freeman
So she walks another 20 minutes to Camden to buy a big watermelon. I live on the 5th floor, she went all the way up the stairs. I run back home, not knowing any of this, I’m just like “Where is she?”. I get back and she’s lying on the couch. And then she’s like, exhausted. It dawned to me that she walked all the way here because she’s like this. I know my mom, she doesn’t like spending money on taxis and so forth, she’s not that kind of person. And I’m angry, but glad she’s there. She had this tiny smirk on her face, just this little tiny smirk like she beat it. “I’ve got this under control, I can’t let the chemo overtake me”. She had this strong belief. I walk into the kitchen and I see this watermelon and I’m flabbergasted and I go back and she’s got a bigger smirk on her face. Whenever I have problems or it’s too tough, I remember my mom’s got it harder than I have. Because of that kind of story or that stock of who she is, I know I can push myself more. If she can do this, I can do this. In terms of that, my mom has been my mentor. In terms of business, Daniel Priestley, he’s a mentor to me in terms of understanding how to structure my business and taking my body or my studies to the business world, so that’s where I am right now.
Any last words around next actions to take or pieces of advice or something?
Go the extra mile with anything you’re doing, go the extra mile, even if you think it’s uncomfortable, you better get comfortable with it and then get uncomfortable again. Fall in love with pain, there are certain types of pain where the magic happens. Fall in love with going in that space wherever it is. Meet people like yourself who know the game in the industry and learn from them. I’m a big believer in mentors and peer groups because the peer groups we shared with Neil, and I’ve started a peer group here in London and that’s taken me to another level, and it’s just so much fun. I believe that we live in this very strange age of technology where you can hang out with cool people. But if you hang out with these cool people, your life can be transformed rapidly.
All growth happens outside of your comfort zone. Thank you so much.
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