EP #163: Train Your Mind, Elevate Your Life: Finding Happiness in Gratitude with Ron "Boss" Everline, Celebrity Trainer & Founder of Just-Train

Welcome back to another episode of Everyday in Dorfins, a mental health podcast focused on the importance of finding joy and happiness in daily living. I'm your host, Stella Steffanopoulos, and this week I had the absolute privilege of getting to sit down with Ron Boss Everline, who has really made personal fitness in training his life's work. Boss attended Northwest Missouri State University on a full athletic scholarship in pursuit of his football dreams. Once rejected from the NFL, he decided to rewrite his feature by starting his own business and doing really what he loved, helping other people succeed through fitness. Now Boss is the CEO and founder of Just Train, which is a global concierge wellness business that includes trainers, chefs, and therapists. He's also the most highly sought-out after trainers in Hollywood. His celebrity clients include Kevin Hart, Neo, DJ Mustard, and more. I was so impressed when I heard Boss speak at Cannes Lions earlier this year, and just truly really grateful for this opportunity to get to talk with him and more depth about his philosophy on training, not only your body, but really your mind, and that's exactly what we talk about in this episode. I think one of the biggest takeaways is Boss's philosophy on happiness being a state of gratitude. And I thought that was really fascinating because oftentimes we don't practice enough gratitude in life. And I think it's a beautiful reminder that really we don't need much to be happy. We just need to bring to mind the things that we're grateful for and the things that we do have. I can't wait for you all to listen to this episode. There's a lot of wisdom in here, but before we dive in, reminder to like, rate, and review this podcast on whichever listening platform you prefer. Hi, Boss. Thank you so much for coming on to Everyday Endorphins. It is so great having you here. I'm so happy to be here. Thank you for having me on your show. I am going to pretend that we're back in the South of France, although we're not, but that's okay. It was truly such an honor getting to hear you speak at Cannes Lions earlier this year, about a month ago now. Time is flying, and I just remember feeling so moved by that panel and really inspired by your story and everything that you had to share around acting with discipline and grit. We're going to get into all of that on the show, but I'd love to really start off by having you share a little bit more about your background and how your background in fitness and athleticism led you to where you are now and also more in the entrepreneurial space as well. Yeah, yeah. My background, for me, I actually try to make it to the NFL. A lot of young kids from multiple communities and my career didn't go as planned. You have to make that switch over that pivot and it's been the best thing that ever happened to me. I have a knack for business. I love figuring out ways to create value for companies and created a company called Just Train, which is in the health and wellness space. It was just me and then we built out and so it's been a great journey and so health and wellness has been my breaking point. It's been the door opener. It's been my golf club. It's been my country club because I've been able to connect with people all across the world by honing in on my craft. By honing in on my craft and discipline is allowing me to open up a lot of doors and watch entrepreneurship that has created a lot of value across the board that have been having a lot of fun doing. Yeah, I mean, the health and wellness space is fascinating and the community is only growing. I think COVID really kind of set the scene for a mass interest in well-being and what it means to actually take care of ourselves. But I want to go back to really the inception of your story. You were training and really hoping to be in the NFL and things didn't go as planned. Can you talk a little bit about what that experience was like for you when you were working so hard towards accomplishing a goal that you really had set for yourself and to not accomplish that on paper. What was that experience like for you? What was going through your mind at the time? To be honest, when you're dreaming to do something where the world's watching, it's all about the hard work. It's all about the dedication. There was a state of misunderstanding for myself of like, was I not good or then I realized that that wasn't my calling. Being a football player was my calling and I'm walking in the true blessing that I am today. So I think about the hard work that has positioned me to be where I'm at today. So sports allow me to be in show up the way that I need to today. Then I could have ever been. So that what I don't call a failure is my greatest success because that has allowed me to be the businessman, the father, the husband, all the things that you know you desire to be. It takes hard work dedication. And when something doesn't always work out on paper, you still have to find a way to make it work. And so life is a game. Life is a game no matter what you have to prepare for it. And so then positioning that and now I want to use my voice to help athletes understanding value on the field and off the field whether it's the courts or the fields or whatever it's just swimming pool, whatever it is that you do. How do you use your discipline to reward you for life successes or if you're not disciplined, it will punish you. Yeah, that's a really good point. And you know, a phrase I always come back to is you make plans and then God laughs, right? Like we're so sad on certain things to happen. We think we can control everything. And right as you think you have control, you don't. And you're humbled. And something happens that you can't predict and it completely changes the course of your path. And I think in those inflection moments in life, we have two choices. Choice A is to wallow and to have that victim mentality and to feel paralyzed and trying to move forward because you're so upset over not getting that outcome. Choice B is exactly what you're talking about is finding a sense of meaning is moving forward is allowing that rejection to be a source of redirection in your life. I don't think that that's an easy mindset to cultivate. And I'd love to hear a little bit more about certain moments in your life that actually informed that perspective for you. Was it through the process of training and building that disciplines on the field and being an athlete? Was it family values and how you grew up? Like where did that resiliency in your mindset really start to establish for you in your life that allowed you to not let that rejection make you feel like a failure? It was actually a catalyst for so much amazing opportunity to eventually unfold in your life. I think it's a little bit of all of it. I think when I go back and I think about my life, I think about overcoming really, really early and realizing there's no one coming to save you. And I think when you realize no one's coming to save you, you build a level of resilience and mindset. And so so many people realize no one's coming to save them. I think once we all realize that is that life happens, things happen. We're either victors of victims and then you have to choose to be a victor in all situations. And so not saying that you don't have good days, bad days, whatever it is, you just have to choose to make the decision towards positive outcome. Right. So football didn't work or there's some businesses didn't work or a friend shipped in work or someone we've hired. You just got to realize that that's the process. And the process just always is going to be what it's going to be. And that goes back to understanding that I have no control. I lost my mom at a young age. You realize you have no control. You really realize that you're, you know, I always wanted to make my mom proud. And the things that I do every day is about what I think her or printables and value were to our family. And you just show up every day and you beat the pavement and you go and it's grounded printables that I think all clear role and all the things that have happened in my life to be able to say there's no one thing because our family members have brothers. You know, I'm a student. So I watch people and I don't always have to make the mistakes that someone else has made. And that's a blessing. Yeah, there's so much insight in what you're saying. And, you know, the experience of losing someone close to you, especially at a young age, when you can't really make sense of how certain things happen. I would imagine really kind of put other life's challenges into perspective because oftentimes I think we tie our identity and sense of self so deeply to our outcomes and our achievements and how things look on the outside, wanting to accomplish something, wanting to be the best at something else, right? And once life hits and things happen that you can't control exactly what you said, boss, I think, you know, I could imagine it's in those moments where we start to reevaluate what really matters to us. And I'd love to hear a little bit more as well about how all of these experiences have now informed of the way that you approach this concept of failure in your life because you've been able to build such a successful brand and company and are really, you know, a passionate and thriving entrepreneur. And I could imagine, you know, reaching that kind of experience in your life or stage in your career, it's kind of this like positive upward spiral of just momentum of continuing to accomplish in life. But what happens when there are setbacks that you experience now presently? How do you approach that? given what you've gone through and the way that you've been able to train your mind to have that resilience forward thinking. Yeah, so I think when I think about so much failure today, I'm just such a solution oriented guy addressing things, you know, you make the failures early on by not addressing things right away and I'm learning that but, you know, things come, right? I just want to be focused on a solution. And again, it's not a, this isn't an internet thing for me. This is who I, or anybody that knows me, I'm positive, right? I can have a conversation about something negative, but it's the solution to like, why would you know, but I move past it really fast because you can't harp on things that aren't creating value. And I think that's what I've learned. Things that aren't creating value, we can have conversations about it, but I don't want to sit and talk about things that aren't creating value. So it's really being solutionized that focus and that's really what has transpired my mind, but that's been my lifestyle, right? You know, because I'm I think you were in can I said this is like, I don't know what I don't know, you know what I mean? And when you don't know what you don't know, that's the most beautiful thing. And so I'm living in a space of I don't know what I don't know, what do you know? And if we did something wrong, how can we fix it? And it's really, really simple. And we understand life has his problems. There is not this like calming, everything's going to always be okay. I think just knowing that everything won't be okay and preparing yourself for it. The blow is a lot not walking around. The blow is a lot softer, but what I want to say not walking around with the fear that something's going to happen, right? But also not walking around that with that everything's just going to be teaching cream and there's nothing going to happen. So I think there's a balance between it all of really understanding who you are and how you solve problems. And when you become a leader, you have to be solution oriented or you lose trust in your individuals. I could not agree more. And I'm so happy that you bring up this distinction between positive thinking and toxic positivity because, you know, my brand and the show is rooted in happiness and exploring what brings people joy, how they define happiness. And we're going to get to some of those media questions towards the end of the interview. So I'll sprinkle it on now so you can start thinking, but I think there's a very big misconception around how people view happiness. There are a lot of people that think that, you know, if I just think positive thoughts all the time, like, therefore I will be happy. And it's true to an extent around like the power of positive thinking. But one would live, I think, a very ignorant life and naive life if they just believed that everything is peaches and rainbows and whatnot because that's just not what life is. Tragedy and whatnot doesn't discriminate against anyone. Like any, you know, hardship can happen at any given moment, right? And so what I've come to learn and what I really do believe kind of sets the foundation for taking happiness and well-being into your own hands is learning how to sit with the discomfort, learning how to tolerate those negative emotions. And it's exactly what you just described around kind of being real about what happens and knowing what you don't know and having that awareness. But a lot of people I think are fearful of even inviting that sort of curiosity because I think we're afraid of what we don't know, right? So what are things that you do or how have you been able to get comfortable with bringing awareness to the fact that like there are things that you don't know, right? A lot of people get I think nervous or fearful around like not knowing everything or they allow kind of fear to paralyze them. And I would love to hear your mindset and perspective on inviting more curiosity to the things that you don't know. Like letting that actually be something that superpowers you, not hold you back. Curiosity is what got me in the position I'm in, being able, you know, so for little context for people that don't know and probably don't know who I am, I'm just trying, Rob Boss, everyone and I train a bunch of celebrities. I've trained some of the biggest stars in the world, some of the largest CEOs in the world. And there was a moment where I wanted to be known as a business executive and I was running away from the title of trainer, which not realizing this the most powerful title. Though the title of trainer, I could explore my curiosity of business because I love business, but I need to do really well at training. And so that allows training, allow me to scale and get into some of the biggest rooms because fitness became my golf. And when I allow fitness to be my golf and people come and work out with me and they had an experience, how did I take the curiosity to build something greater with someone else? So you think about a company like C4, that curiosity, now I'm 10 years into a company and an equity partner and executive there, path order, I sell on the board. There's so many companies of like the curiosity, I always wanted a water deal. So we invest in a company. I said on a venture capital, I manage venture capital. I'm not a traditional venture capitalist. It's what I learned and what I, the people use around yourself around is the curiosity of trying to understand other people's journey. But I'm mashing the craft of making people better in the gym, which was a mindset thing, not a physical thing. Though that was the physical result, the mind shifted. And I want to be super intentional. So you asked the question in the beginning of your statement, you said, happy. And this is a happy podcast. And people don't realize happy is, it's not an always on thing. Happy is a state of gratitude, right? State is happy is a state of understanding, like, eggs and flows. We're not going to always be happy. But we always should come around and back to a state of gratitude. Happy is like in a moment, right? Gratitude is what we live. And so when you live in gratitude, you have a sense of happiness and thankfulness for all that you have. And that creates even more opportunity because you show up authentically yourself. When you show up authentically yourself, you can say you went home happy. And that is because you're grateful, but happy is not an always on place. And so I hope I answered both of your questions and one, but the context of where we are is like to lead from a place of gratitude, not a place of happy is like, oh, I'm so happy. Gratitude is like, I'm thankful for the things that are around me. I'm thankful for the people that are around me. They'll be happy moments, but the number one space we should live in is gratitude. And so I really want to lean in on that because I think that's the most important cue to living a more fulfilled life than just chasing things and happiness because you won't be as believing. Exactly. I think that was so beautifully articulated. You answered both of my questions spot on perfectly. And I think it was actually before your panel at the wellness oasis lounge that the founder of the five minute journal came on to the stage and gave a little talk about the science of gratitude. I might be confusing my days. It might have been the day prior to your panel, but if I'm remembering correctly, it was the morning of when you were speaking. And I love her brand and her company. I actually have the five minute journal. I've been using it for a while now. And there is truly science that does support what happens in our brains and like that physiological like emotional feeling that we get when we bring to mind the things that we're grateful for. And so for me, I found little gratitude jars or journaling. This helps kind of ground me and redirect my attention to the things that really light me up and make me feel really good. How do you seek to infuse more gratitude into your day to day? Do you have a certain practice? Do you kind of talk about it with friends and family? Or has it just become kind of this like autopilot way that your brain operates now? I'm autopilot gratitude. I have a look around and I'm so thankful for everything while I work for more, right? Like full transparency. I wake up, I grind, I'm a pusher, I'm a, but you look at moments, right? Where someone may say there's more gratitude in a moment. But I just, life is like I'm thankful. I'm grateful to be in a position to speak the way we're speaking now. Like I'm grateful. So much gratitude and everything when you look at it in a perspective of like I have it, but I couldn't have. I'm thankful for this, you know, the conversation. And it's not like I'm like, oh, I'm not thinking gratitude. I just operating gratitude. I operate in authenticity. Anyone that meets me says, oh, if you don't like me, that's your own fault because I showed up as myself. We're not all supposed to be liked. We're not all supposed to like each other. So that's okay. So yeah, for me, it's, it's an autopilot thing. It's not even a thought. It's like I live my life with pure gratitude. And I think also the more that our, our minds are like wired to have that bias towards gratitude, the more we attract the right opportunities for us because we're living in alignment with who we are and who we want to be. And that's exactly how I felt coming out of Can Lions. I just genuinely felt so grateful to be in shared spaces with people like yourself who are so successful and lead with their heart truly and want to give back to the community and want to really help elevate other people in their mind, body and spirit. I really believe. And something that really fascinates me about your fitness philosophy, your wellness philosophy, I'd even argue, is your statement around just training the mind and the body will follow. And I think that's really fascinating to take that perspective as someone who is a trainer because I feel like we focus so much on how we look and our own physical metrics and all the things that are composed and contribute to being physically fit. But how do you balance this idea of training the mind first and then the body will follow? What does that look like in practice and also with your clients? - Like I said, I don't train a lot of people anymore, but my specialty is it's meeting a person where they are versus where I'm at. And I think that's the number one key to being a successful anything and how you approach if you're leading people or you wanna leave, even if you're just gonna get friend, you have to meet people where they are, not where I'm at. And so emotional journey, I'm not the best at empathy and I know that I like that in a way because I'm such a mental focus kind of, it's gonna be okay kind of guy. I'm not gonna change that. I'm just not the right person for you to talk to. So I lead with a place of how can we get better all the time? All right, here's the situation. Okay, what's the move past? You can talk about the situation, but it's mine, right? You wanna get in better shape. What does that look like for you? It's mine, right? You start thinking about it, you start working towards it. It becomes you because if you think about eating healthy and you think about a healthy lifestyle, it starts in your mind. You know, people don't merely wake up successful. There's a mindset first. You don't merely wake up and fit. You have to have a mindset. I know the people that come to me and say, I'm ready. You can look in their face. So the question I ask is, okay, you ready to start right now? And the people that say, yes, those are the people that you know mentally are ready versus the people that say, give me a week, give me two, there's no wrong answer. But when you're mentally ready, you go. You don't need a trainer, you start walking, you start eating healthy, you start, there's so many different things. And people are here in the world of day, people are a lot of people say, well, we're afraid of you, you're tough. And I'm like, that's fine. I can be tough. Like, I'm not for the week, you right? And I'm from the strong mind. It's someone that wants to be pushed, someone wants to be challenged because it's beyond the gym. Because I believe what I've done is when you're successful in the gym, you'll be successful in business. I know it to be a fact. When I tell people I'm a human performance coach, I am. And I'm talking about the pure sense of human performance, not physical performance. I make people better in real life. Rather it's being more kind to people, rather it's building a business, whatever it is, we build and we do things that make people better. And I want my team and the people around me to have that effect knowing that most won't. But when people come in contact with you, are you making them a better people? That mean you're always nice, 'cause I'm not always nice. I don't want this misconception. And I'm like, oh, I'm the nice guy. No, I'm a good guy, but I'm not always the nice guy. Yeah, no, it's funny as you were saying how people, like maybe you can be tough on them or whatever the phrase was that you used. In my head, I was thinking to myself, if I ever had the opportunity to work out with you or like train with you, I would be deeply humbled because it can be very intimidating, right? And you're so right, people need the conviction. They need to have made the choice that they want to make the change. Otherwise, the change is not gonna happen. And this goes with fitness, but like anything in life, you cannot force someone to make a change. They have to intrinsically have that desire to make a change. And I think sometimes there's blockages or like there's things that hold us back to wanting to make the healthier choice. And you know, Mel Robbins says something that I absolutely love and stand by. She says, act like the person that you want to become. And it's exactly what you said around success and mindset. Success doesn't just come out of thin air, you snap your fingers or successful. You have to start believing it and cultivating that mindset first. And same goes with being healthy, eating well, working out. There's one thing, you know, saying you're gonna do these things and it's a completely other situation when you actually act against it. So I think that's such a good call out. And from that, I'd love to hear just some of your advice for maybe those who are struggling to just act. Like what's one piece of advice you'd offer someone who's having that difficulty to step into that person into that healthier version of themself that they want to become? - It's positive affirmations to yourself, but a lot of times people see me or any trainer that is extreme and it's intimidating versus, you know, a good trainer or a good person knows how to again meet you or you are. And the number one thing you should do is meet yourself where you are and go for a walk. Right, everything starts with taking one step, one little step, all you need to do is say, I'm gonna do this much today and that's it. That's it, just a little bit. If you do that, you'll look up and you'll find yourself better, right, don't overcomplicate it, keep it super simple. Block out all the noise, there's everything telling you to do this, you could take that, you could do this, you could do that. Block out all the noise and go back to cave man. What did they do without all of this to get better? Minds it, go for a walk, do something basic, do a squat, look, whatever it is, and it's not just the physical side, I wanna be really clear, it's really making this step, right? If you say you're gonna do something, get up, be disappointed in yourself when you don't hold yourself accountable. Stuff accountability is an amazing thing, but we don't tend to point to three fingers back at ourselves. We tend to point to finger, but there's three point back at you. And so when your conscious of the three point back at you, you'll be a lot more accountable to yourself. There's so much wisdom here, I wish we could continue this conversation, but truly I feel so inspired. And I think that exactly what you said is really kind of the take away message here, it's about cultivating that trust with yourself, how do you do that? You have to show up for yourself and you have to keep the promises that you make, and that's discipline. And it all comes back to your mindset, and I really believe that the messages that you advocate for are amazing. And truly the secret sauce to how to create the life that you want to live and be the healthiest and happiest version of yourself. And of course, coming back to that point on gratitude, I think is so spot on and incredible. I'll land here boss, because this is the question that I ask every guest that comes onto the show. We already talked about how you define happiness. So we covered that one. But I'd love to hear from you. What is something that brings you a bit of endorphins every day? My endorphins is discipline, getting up, going to the gym, whooping my own ass, and being able to go lead people, but from a place that I've already done it, I've led from a place of discipline. That's my endorphin. I love the gym. I'll tell you, no matter who you are in the world, you should go to the gym. That's how I've connected the world. You rich, poor, middle, doesn't matter. We all should go to the gym. And the gym is a safe place. There's no judgment. Everybody that's trying to go to a gym or on a walk or a trail or a bike ride or anything is saying, I just want to do a little bit better. I want to clear my mind, whatever it is. So that's my endorphin. I is what I do in the morning, 4 a.m. 5 a.m. getting up, going, you know, these podcasts, people talk about, oh, the 4 a.m. right? There's your true power of 5 a.m. morning, right? There's a book called The Power of 5 a.m. I love the internet. The jokes that are being made about 5 o'clock. I'll wake up at 5. 5. 15. I've done this by 10 o'clock. You know, I've let three meetings and like, I take advantage of my time, but I love the jokes around it. And then my that functional every day? No. But for me, it's about a regimen and being regimen and in that is a track given itself. No matter where I'm at, I take a 16 hour flight. If I don't go straight to work or meeting or I go straight to the gym. It doesn't matter to me. I go straight to the gym. But I don't care. A tire of exhausted. Go to the gym. Mm hmm. And it's no excuses. And you're keeping those promises to yourself. And exercise brings you endorphins and endorphins. Thank you. Happy. So you're doing it in service of your wellbeing. I love that. Boss. Thank you so much for coming on to the show. It's been an absolute pleasure having you as a guest. And I know that everyone listening, I'm sure has gained so much was done because I know I have. So truly, it was just such a pleasure. And hope to see you around you in France next year. Yes, absolutely. Thank you so much. And thank you for having me on. It's a pleasure. Much success to you on your journey and acting amazing questions in everyday endorphins. I love it. Keep pushing it. And I'll see you at the top. Thanks for listening to this episode of Everyday Endorphins. If you liked what you heard, make sure to follow along. If you stay plugged into the community, you can do that through a variety of ways. Follow the podcast on Spotify, Apple, wherever you stream your shows. Stay connected on Instagram at Everyday Endorphins. Find us on TikTok and subscribe to my substack, which is also Everyday Endorphins. But on the substack, I get to explore some of my own personal musings on what it means to lead a joyful and happy and fulfilling life. Reminder to keep spreading indoors. and focus on the things in life that bring you joy. Until next time.