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- [00:07]
Tony Horton
Journey on magic lies within the trails we ride. You're listening to the Journey on podcast with Warwick Schiller. Warrick is a horseman, trainer, international clinician and author who helps empower horse people from all over the world with the skills, knowledge and mindsets needed to create trusting partnerships with their horses. Warrick offers a free seven day trial to his comprehensive online video library that includes hundreds of full length training videos and several home Study courses@videos.warwickshiller.com.
- [00:44]
Warwick Schiller
G'day everyone. Welcome back to the Journey on Podcast. I'm your host, Warwick Schiller and my special guest this week is a guy named Tony Horton. And people who live in America probably know of Tony Horton. Tony, he was an American. He's an American personal trainer, author and a former actor. He was the creator of the commercial home exercise program called P90X. So P90X used to be sold on an infomercial on TV. So if you live in America and ever were awake at 2 o'clock in the morning, you've probably seen P90X on the TV. Back in the day, I believe it was the world's highest selling fitness program ever. And in 2017, Tony suffered a debilitating illness called Ramsay Hunt Syndrome, which is actually, it's shingles of the inner ear and it affects your brain. Anyway, Tony lost over 30 pounds and P90X had gone by the wayside by this point in time. And so Tony, you know, was wheelchair bound for a while, had to relearn basically how to do everything and came up with a new program that helped him do that. But I met Tony's wife Shauna about 10 years ago, I think, and it was actually my wife Robin reached out to Shauna here a little while ago and said hey, we've got this podcast and we really feel like Tony would be a great guest for the podcast. So between Shauna and Robin, they got him all sorted out and I got to chat with Tony. I hope you guys enjoy this conversation as much as I did. What a fascinating story. Before we get to our next guest, I want to tell you guys about our new Journey on Podcast courses. You know, we have a podcast summit every year where we have the guests come and present over three days and the feedback from that has been absolutely amazing. And my wife Robin thought wouldn't it be a great idea if we could get these guys to do some sort of an online course where people could dive deeper into each of the podcast guests area of expertise. And so at the moment we have 11 of these journey on Podcast Courses. We have one from Heather Lucas called Rewilding. Carla Buckmuller does one on the writer's breath unlocking the power of proper breathing. Jamin Fraser from Australia does one called unhindered. My wife Robin does one called reset your nervous system, reset your life. Hannah Paz Quinzo does one called mindful mornings. Everybody's favorite astrologer, Denise Elizabeth Byron does one called flow with the changes. Pete and Louisa Brendell do one on long riding explained. So it's videos on how to long ride if you want to do what they're doing. Super Guini does one called light your life on fire. Shalin Harkin does one called the genie within. And Cathy woods does one on mindfulness and horsemanship. And also Emily Kaisedotter does one on. If you've listened to her podcast episode and she talked about the Hashemite horses, which fascinated me, she does one called the seven lines, the teaching of the Jordanian Hashemite horses. And so I can't. I. It's a four part zoom series and I cannot wait to listen to that one. But yeah, if you guys are interested in doing a bit more of a deep dive into any one of these podcast guests, these courses are great. They're exclusive, so you can't get these information, these courses anywhere else. All you have to do is go to courses.war.com and you can get started on those. Tony Horton, welcome to the journey on podcast.
- [04:37]
Tony Horton
Warwick. We've been looking for this, looking forward to this for some time, man. So I'm glad to be here, my friend.
- [04:42]
Warwick Schiller
Yes. It's kind of come full circle. I met your wife, probably. Well, you've been married for 10 years and it was. You were married. It was before you guys were married that I met Shauna. Oh, because you were her fiance at the time.
- [04:56]
Tony Horton
That she was. We were both fiance's at the time. Yes.
- [04:59]
Warwick Schiller
Yes. You're both fiance at the time. Yeah.
- [05:01]
Tony Horton
Yeah.
- [05:03]
Warwick Schiller
So how's things?
- [05:05]
Tony Horton
Things are good. You know, that's a, that's a great first question, Alice. It's like not, you know, what's your number one book? Which I have. I have several. They're back there behind me. You know, we're kind of in transition over here at the Horton House in the Horton World, you know, we've got. And if anybody's looking in, you know, I was with Beachbody for 20 years and that was a heck of a ride. And I thought that wave would never come to shore, but it did. And for various reasons, I don't know whether to get into here or not, but, you know, so that I had to kind of jump ship and go on a couple other things. So I was, was with Tonal for a while and that was fun. That was a nice four year relationship and I made a lot of programs for Tonal and then, you know, my wife. Then Pandemic hit and then Sean and I just as a hobby started putting live workouts up on, on. On the Interweb for folks. And it turned into a full blown business called Power Nation. And we've got nine trainers and I don't know how many employees, you know, and, and that's going really, really well. I had a supplement line up till a short time ago, but we could not see eye to eye on, on. On a lot of things and it was very frustrating. I'm not gonna lie to you. Just the way they want to do things as opposed to how I want to do things. I'm a big fan of, of transparency and integrity. These are, this is kind of where I try to live. And, and that's how we sold P90X. You know, like, hey man, here's. You got to work out six days a week and eat vegetables. You're in or you're out. You know, I mean, like we didn't pull any punches.
- [06:33]
Warwick Schiller
Right.
- [06:34]
Tony Horton
And, and for that reason, you know, that's what I wanted to continue to do with everything else I was doing and you know, I mean, whatever. I don't want to get in trouble.
- [06:45]
Warwick Schiller
But don't get yourself in trouble. What I actually want to do is back up just a little bit. Yeah.
- [06:53]
Tony Horton
To finish that, you know, I signed up with a new company. You know, I'm doing a lot of public speaking. I'm in the middle of writing a new book. So, you know, there's some exciting stuff going on.
- [07:04]
Warwick Schiller
That's awesome. So our, my audience is not limited to the United States. So quite a few people listening wouldn't even know what P90X was. So right now maybe let's talk a little bit about that. So you were you. Back in the day when, I don't know, when everybody, before everybody had Netflix and stuff and you used to watch channel TV channels that had ads on them.
- [07:26]
Tony Horton
Yes, sir.
- [07:27]
Warwick Schiller
There was a couple of major fitness programs that, you know, if you were. I'm sure they ran at other times, but if you're an insomniac and you're awake at 2:00 in the morning, they'd be, they'd be rolling up on the TV there and one of them was P90X. And that was you. How long were you involved with. With? Well, actually, no, let's not even go there yet. Let's. We know that you were a major influencer in the fitness industry. Okay, we'll get to that. Let's go back to the beginning. How did you get from. I believe you were like an army brat.
- [08:01]
Tony Horton
I was. My father was the tank commander in the army and we moved a bunch, you know, I mean, we moved like six times before we finally settled into a town called Trumbull, Connecticut, you know, and, and I had a speech issue.
- [08:12]
Warwick Schiller
I.
- [08:12]
Tony Horton
It was, I guess it's clinically called cluttering. It's just talking too damn fast, man. You know, and all the words were kind of stumbling on top of each other. And so that was a bit of an issue. Made me a target. I was not athletic. My dad was. I mean, he was a three sport captain going on, you know, in his fancy taper academy that he went to school. So all the movement, all the moving and, and I probably had add, adhd, Elemental, peeing. I had all the acronyms you can imagine.
- [08:38]
Warwick Schiller
Have you, have you ever been diagnosed?
- [08:41]
Tony Horton
No, no, no, no. Just.
- [08:43]
Warwick Schiller
I have, I haven't either. But yeah, I've had a number of therapistic people. I was either, you know, in therapy with them or talking to someone I knew was a therapist. And they said, you ever been diagnosed with adhd? Like, no, they said you got all the signs. But I was reading a book recently called ADHD A Hunter in a Farmer's World. And it was basically saying that people with ADHD have the instincts of hunters. You know, their focus changes a lot. They're, you know, here, there and everywhere, whereas the rest of the world, they're kind of farmers. Which means you can put a hole in the ground, put a grain of wheat in it, put another hole in the ground. And I don't know where Shauna ends up in this whole thing, but it was saying that hunters or ADHD people are great entrepreneurs up to a point. They can start, but they can't finish very well. And you need, you need the farmer to, to, to carry it. And so my wife in our business is, is the farmer. I'm the, I'm the scatterbrained ideas guy.
- [09:48]
Tony Horton
Same here.
- [09:49]
Warwick Schiller
Yeah. So it's just interesting that you mentioned, you know, you probably had adhd. It's a superpower, you know what I mean? Um, but yeah, I agree. For me, I think. So. The other thing I want to ask you about is the, the cluttering the talking too fast. Looking back, do you think that came from anxiety?
- [10:08]
Tony Horton
Absolutely. Part of it. Part of it, yeah. Insecurity, anxiety, stress, fear. Yeah, all those things. That's. I was. I was in a constant state of all those things most of the time from. From when I woke up in the morning to when I went to bed at night.
- [10:22]
Warwick Schiller
Yeah. So it's not a speech impediment, like a. Like, say, maybe a lisp has something to do with how you form the words with your tongue or your lips or whatever, but this one sounds more like it's. It's. It's the symptom of something else.
- [10:40]
Tony Horton
Insecurity.
- [10:41]
Warwick Schiller
Yeah.
- [10:42]
Tony Horton
I. I felt that the majority of the things that I had to say didn't have any value. And so I would. When I started speaking to people, the looks on their faces caused me to speak even faster so that I could at least get the intel out to some degree so that, you know, they would absorb it to some extent and then we could move on to the next, you know, sentence or topic or whatever it was. Yeah, yeah. And that just took practice. I would play. I would read magazine articles and newspapers, and I'd record it. And if I didn't like the way it sounded, I would do it again and again and again. And, you know, now part of most of my life is sitting, reading a teleprompter. You know, I mean, I do that. I was. When I was with. With Tonal and. And with the company that I had my supplements with. Yeah. So. And I would give. Every once in a while, it'll kick in. And I've been doing, you know, I do a lot of breath work and a little bit of meditation, and it sort of slows me down and I can kind of regroup where before the panic would just get so overwhelming that I. And I didn't have any skills to. To teach me to stop. You know, I would. I learned how to stifle myself and say, okay, hold on, wait a minute, I'm going too fast. Take a breath or two and then get back into it again. You know, so the insecurity is gone and the fear is gone. The anxiety is gone. You know, I did a speech about two months ago for the AIFF. The AIFF or a AI or IA I don't know. International association of Firefighters. That's right. 2000 men and women from around the country and all over Canada, you know, out there, a lot of. A lot of mustaches. I never saw so many shapes and sizes of mustaches in my Life, you know, and these guys are hardcore, right? These are not. You know, you're not. You're not talking to fifth graders. And, you know, I mean, I had my act together and I got up there and it was smooth. And I think maybe, you know, 20 years ago, that would have, you know, I would have frozen to death on that stage. But. But, yeah, you know, the more you do, the better you get. Right? I mean, practice, practice, practice. And, you know, I always say it's tough until it's not. And so what happens between those first few days when you're trying to figure something out, whether physically, mentally, emotionally, whatever it is, and, and, and then the final result being a pretty good one. Yeah, you're gonna fall down and get up and fall down and get up. I mean, everybody knows that by this point in life, but a lot of people fall down once, twice, they're done, know, and they move on to something else or they quit and all these future opportunities are missed because they don't understand that it's. Yeah, it's supposed to be hard. You got to figure it out. You got to put the time and effort into it, or you don't. And you have a smaller life if you don't. Right. So, you know, these are things that I practice on a regular basis, day to day, minute to minute, month to month, year to year. And at 66, I've gotten. Gotten this far and it's working out okay.
- [13:34]
Warwick Schiller
So you were saying you had this speech impediment when younger, and then you video. I mean, you would record yourself reading magazine articles and stuff. What age were you doing this at?
- [13:45]
Tony Horton
Teens. Teens, 20s.
- [13:47]
Warwick Schiller
Oh, okay. Okay. So later on. Not. Not.
- [13:49]
Tony Horton
Yeah, yeah, yeah. I was, I was in trouble right up into my 20s to some degree, you know, with all this stuff. And then most of the books behind me are personal development books. You know, Andrew Weil and Deepak Chopra is back there and Tony Robbins and Richard Carlson and. And Gary Zukoff and the Seat of the Soul.
- [14:12]
Warwick Schiller
Have you got that one?
- [14:12]
Tony Horton
The Soul, Dude. It's up there. And all the companion books are there somewhere. I was a big fan of M. Scott Peck, too, for a while. The Road Less Traveled. Further down the Road Less Traveled. Beyond the beyond. The Road Less Traveled. I was really. Because he had a spiritual element to what he was doing, you know, and, and just resonated with me. And he was a great storyteller. He. A lot of it was through storytelling, not through, you know, patience and love. And, you know, it wasn't. It wasn't like that. It was just through these really cool stories.
- [14:40]
Warwick Schiller
I think the best educators are really good storytellers.
- [14:44]
Tony Horton
Yeah, for sure. That's what I do on stage. I start up with my story, whatever, 10 minutes, and I go, yeah, you know, speech impediment, got the snotnik beat out of me. Move six times, super insecure. And I, then I sold 11 million copies of Hardcore Fitness. Like, you know, bop bop. There's a, there's something going on between those two things.
- [15:05]
Warwick Schiller
There's a lot going on between there. But since you're talking about your books this early in the thing, do you have a, do you have a favorite book you, not necessarily your favorite book to read, but a book that you tell people about the most. Like, you need to read this book.
- [15:18]
Tony Horton
It seems that the first one that pops into my head all the time is John Rady's book Spark. You know, it's the effects of physical activity on the brain and how the brain functions. You're releasing norepinephrine, dopamine, serotonin, brain drive, neurotropic factory. Like all these things that are, that are exploding like miracle grow inside your hippocampus. And a lot of people are struggling in their life not because of, of education or the right opportunities or, or, or making the right connections. And those things are all, all part of it. But it's just like when I read what, what movement does for the brain, like that direct connection to those two things. Productivity improves, communication improves, creativity improves your ability to be able to kind of follow through on certain things, improves decision making. It's just all of that, you know, the desire to want to learn improves by running, by doing push ups, by doing yoga, what. You know what I mean? And I've met John Rady. He's been to my home, he's spoken at my events. Just a huge fan of his, man. I mean, anybody that reads that book goes, oh, okay, I can't. I have to do. I have to do all the right things all the time? It can't be sporadic, you know, I, I have an expression like, okay, I'm working out how many days a week? Three, man a minute. How's that going? Well, you know. Well, because the other four days you're doing nothing. You know what I mean? So, you know, you do that, you pay your bills all the time, you breathe all the time, you eat all the time, you go to work all the time, all the other things you do all the time to survive. But you want to, I'm assuming you want to Thrive. So if you want to go from survival to thriving, you have to exercise all the time. You have to eat pretty damn clean all the time. You got to find a mindfulness practice. You got to, you got to work on rest and recovery as well, you know, especially as you're, as you get past 50 years old, you know, these are things that have to be part of your life all the time. And then you'll begin to be able to do have the lifestyle that you want, you know, because I think a lot of people, there's such a great decline after 35, 40, 50, 55, 60. A lot of people are just living through their kids and grandkids, you know what I mean? Like, my wife and I got on a couple of bikes in, in Rome on the Appian Way for four and a half hours. And I don't know if you know, but when Caesar put the Appian Way in the, the, the cobblestones were like bowling balls. Like, geez, didn't they have any flat rocks back then? They're still like bowling balls. So here are my wife for four and a half hours. But like, other people are like, looking at it from binoculars on and from their car, you know, I mean, it's like a completely different experience to be right there in it, you know, I went skiing with a bunch of guys last, a couple weeks ago who had only recent got recently gotten back from, from Everest Base Camp. They, they went to, they went from Kathmandu to Everest Base camp, hiked for three days, and then climbed a 23,000foot peak. So these guys are hardcore mountaineer, excuse my French, sons of like, they're just, they're thin, is. Their skin is this thick, they're tough as nails. They're fearless, they're ice climbing, they're mountain climbing, they're like, you know, whatever. And these guys ski at 100 miles an hour. And I'm up there with them, man, just having a blast and not being afraid of it, you know. So that's what physical activity has done for me and anybody else who understands the importance of moving all the time. And John Ratey's book Spark starts out with a story, you know, starts out with a story. A bunch of kids at a school, they're all struggling in school, not doing well. And the physical education instructor somehow forced the, the school board to get these kids out on a, on a, on a track and make them run or walk or whatever they can do, jog a mile before they got to school. And then grades went up, fighting went down, attention Spans improved. All because, you know, he made these kids get out in the track before they went to school. And so, you know, that's the one that I seem to be recommending the most these days also. I gotta do, too. Don Miguel Ruiz's the Four Agreements.
- [19:17]
Warwick Schiller
The Four Agreements, yes.
- [19:18]
Tony Horton
Yeah, man, I've read that. Such a beauty. Such a sweet, sweet book that is. Yeah. So those two.
- [19:26]
Warwick Schiller
Yeah. Quite a few people have actually recommended the Four Agreements. And it's. It's so simple, but it's so profound and all encompassing, too. It doesn't miss much.
- [19:38]
Tony Horton
Yeah, it's 134, 143. I don't know, some pages it's not. Yeah, it's not a big book back there somewhere. Yeah, man. Yeah, the other one, too. I'm good with you, too. But the Magic Lamp is. What is the book when I was younger and struggling.
- [19:55]
Warwick Schiller
The Magic Lamp. I've not heard that one.
- [19:58]
Tony Horton
God, I'm forgetting the author. It's right here. Keith Ellis. There she blows.
- [20:07]
Warwick Schiller
Magic goal setting for people hate setting goals.
- [20:13]
Tony Horton
And by the way, there's a. There's a. I even took notes, man. I mean, look. Look at. Look what? That. You got all my little notes.
- [20:20]
Warwick Schiller
Oh, you got all the notes in there?
- [20:21]
Tony Horton
Yeah, yeah, man. Just from. Yeah, yeah, it was a good one. So, yeah. What I gave you three.
- [20:29]
Warwick Schiller
So what you're saying is you don't become Tony Horton by chance?
- [20:33]
Tony Horton
Hell, no, man. I was just so damn sad and depressed so much, and there was a tiny little voice that said, there's things that you don't know yet that you might want to figure out to kind of get you out of that state. You know, I always talk about the three states that I want to be in almost all the time. Joy, happiness and laughter. I talk about it my seminar. How do you find a ton load? Ton load. Not a real word. Joy, happiness and laughter. It's got to be in there somewhere, at least a little bit every day, you know? I mean, where do you and my wife, Shauna. You've met Shauna. She's just. She's hilarious. And I did stand up for a couple of years because I thought it was funny. Stand up is hard. I also. I was with Second City LA for a while doing improv comedy. I did a fantastic Columbo, I got to tell you. And so, yeah, I just love making people laugh. And I love the laugh. Like I love. I saw all my friends are not all of them, but a lot of them are all in the entertainment business. A lot of them are comics, professional comics and actors. And they're creative and funny and silly. And that's where I get a lot of my joy, happiness and laughter. And I like to try to disseminate some of that out into the world as well. P90X did well because we were goofy having fun and, and I was saying silly stuff, you know, in the middle of kicking people's ass. So, you know, that was a combination that didn't exist prior. Everybody else was very serious about their fitness. Exercise, fitness, here we go. We're going to do this, you know, whatever. Exercise is hard. It's physically, mentally and emotionally painful on some degree, especially if you really want to see results. Right. You know, so there's, there's, you know, there's variety. That was my thing. But intensity is part of it too. And if you're going to add intensity to any part of your life, you've had an intense life too, man. I mean, you know, I know who you are and what you've done. I mean, you didn't get to where you are because of just like haphazard behavior. You got there because, you know, you hunkered down, you know what I mean? And, and, but, you know, hunkering down is scary and hard for a lot of people. So let's find some humor in this and see if that helps you get through it. And that's, that was my, that's been my way since I've stopped cluttering.
- [22:35]
Warwick Schiller
Pretty much stop cluttering. I want to go back to this Spark book because you said, you know, you're talking about how exercise creates all these chem, you know, releases all these chemicals in your body. And something I've been on about for quite a while, or really interested in for quite a while is like our hunter gatherer ancestors and how we were supposed to live. And we are supposed to be active, you know, like we, we have, we have this, this epidemic of, you know, mental health issues, but only in, only in civilized countries. Like you've probably been to third world countries. They're the happiest people you ever come across, you know, and it's, yeah, it's just really interesting that it's almost like coming full circle, you know, that I was, I read quite a bit about hunter gatherers, but they were saying that they had way more free time than we have and they would sit around a lot, not doing much. But the thing is, when they sat around, they never sat in chairs. They squatted, squatted, full squat all the way down, squatted or they sat cross legged upright. So using, you know, sitting cross legged upright, you've got to, you're so they were always using their body even when they were doing nothing.
- [24:00]
Tony Horton
Yeah, yeah, yeah. A friend of mine who works at stretch lab here in la, this kid Spencer, he tries to spend at least a half an hour every day in a full squat. You know what I mean? Like feet flat on the floor. That means, that means there's a whole lot of flexibility in your hips, in your knees and in your ankles. A lot of people get in a full squat and their heels come off the ground.
- [24:21]
Warwick Schiller
Yeah.
- [24:21]
Tony Horton
And their kneels, their knees feel like they're going to explode. I mean, like they can't do it for a minute. Like a minute. It's like they're, it's like they're trying to hold a handstand, you know what I mean? So I love that, you know, I don't do a half hour, but I, I, you know, I get down in a full squat every day. And the workout that I'm going to do tonight, here on a Wednesday night when we're having this, we are as low as we can go and we are as high as can go. So we go as deep as we can and we jump as high as we can. Carefully, softly, you know, we get the right kind of flooring, right kind of shoes. That matters too. And you know, it's, it's kind of a plyometrics without plyometric boxes. Just, you know, jumping, lunges, lateral movement. We move in, you know, we move in every possible direction like the human being would if they're doing anything athletically. And it's about an hour and yeah, so we're down deep. And a lot of people who show up to my class for the first time, like, what do you, I can't get down there. It's because you never work on it. It's tough until it's not, you know. So if it matters to you, if you understand the importance of what it is and how it, how it improves your health, range of motion, flexibility, you know, everybody's lifting weights and doing cardio. You know, where's the speed work, where's the, where's the flexibility, Range of motion, where's the balance? So that, those are the three categories that I live in. Now I'm going off into a tangent, but, but yeah, so these are things like what you're talking about getting as low as you possibly can, spending some time doing that and understanding the benefits. And you are, you're not physically moving when you're doing an isometric version of that. But the benefits are, are incredible. Just, you know, at least getting there, hopefully some point.
- [25:54]
Warwick Schiller
Yeah. So let's back up to this, this kid with the, with the, what did you call it? Cluttering.
- [26:01]
Tony Horton
Cluttering.
- [26:03]
Warwick Schiller
That's an actual term, is it?
- [26:04]
Tony Horton
Yeah, yeah, yeah. I googled it. I did a little research, you know, like, what is it? What was this thing? Because I wasn't stuttering and it wasn't stammering like you said. It's, you know, so I am self diagnosed, but I see it in other people. I see it in other. A friend of mine, I won't say his name because he's a famous person, but, but he struggles with it as well. And he's on stage in front of people and his wife says, hey, man, you did it here, you did it here, you did it here. You know, when it comes to comedy, he's a comic. The timing is everything. Like learning when to slow down, when to pause, like these, these pregnant pauses that land before the, before the, you know, maybe during the setup, right before the punchline, then there's a tag, you know, so there's like, with comedy, it's a simple formula, you know, that you're telling your story and then it's like, oh, that seems real. And then you hit him with something from the left field, but if you're zipping through, does it deflates the whole joke, you know, so, so yeah, he struggles with it too. And he and I talk about that, you know.
- [27:16]
Warwick Schiller
So when you were this little kid, what did you want to be when you grew up? What did you, what did you think?
- [27:21]
Tony Horton
I wanted to be a movie star and a cop? Oh, yeah. Hell yeah. From the beginning, from the beginning, because I was, I, I, I was an entertaining kid. I used humor and silliness and they weren't. My parents weren't funny. Yeah, I just was entertaining because when I was being funny or silly or doing whatever little goofy stuff, I, I dabbled in mat magic. I felt present. I didn't feel freaked out, you know, and I was getting a positive reaction from people when I said funny things. And I was in the high school theater group, I had tiny parts. I didn't have big parts. I was a theater major back at the University of rhode island for 10 minutes. And then I just got, I, I went from that to communication because it was easy. I was getting over my. That's the period there between high school and college. Teenage teenager where I was working on, you know, if I'm on stage. I have lines. I have to say the lines in this character. This character doesn't have a cluttering issue. You know what I mean? So that was my way of. Of doing it, you know? And. And so I came out here and To California, and I was in commercials, and I had little parts and TVs, and I was in a couple of Schwarzenegger movies, you know, and I was. You blink. You know, you'd blink to see my stuff. I did a movie last summer. I mean, a. A supporting role in a film called An Autumn Summer, and it's going through the. The festival circuit right now. You know, I had monologues, and I'm all throughout the movie, and. And I will tell you, dude, I was scared to death because these are all professional actors. It's a feature film, right? And, you know, I was in sag. I've been paying my SAG dues for. For all these years for no reason. And I went, oh, good. I finally got to be in a film, and I was scared, and. And I turned out to be okay. Shauna was next to me at the. Not the premiere, but a screening. And I brought some friends, which was, like, risky. And my wife, who doesn't pull punches, you know, Shauna, she turns to me, I'm gonna get all teary now and get all goose bumpy and weird. She goes, you were amazing. You were really, really, really good. I was. Oh, because, honey, I love you so much. And if I was that, you thought it was terrible, I knew you would tell me. So. So it was.
- [29:35]
Warwick Schiller
It's.
- [29:36]
Tony Horton
It was thrilling. You know, I can't wait for my next role. I don't know what it's going to be, but. But in and amongst everything else I'm trying to do.
- [29:42]
Warwick Schiller
So is that what brought you from the east coast to the West Coast? You wanted to be an actor?
- [29:46]
Tony Horton
I came out here for a summer vacation in 1980 with 400 bucks in my pocket. I ran out of money. Now, remember, one of the. Well, one of the things that I learned because I had the speech issue was pantomime. I was fascinated with pantomime with, you know, with the whole. You know, the box and the walking in the wind and all of that, you know, and. Hold on, you know, anything I can do. And that's how I made a buck. Once in a while in the summertime, I was a waiter as well. So I would go out in the street, put the white face on, put the. You know, it'd be 95 degrees out there, wherever the heck I was. And I, whatever. When I came out here to California, I packed my makeup and my mime stuff and I went out in the Santa Monica Pier into Westwood and I'd make whatever 25 bucks and I'd live on Cheerios and yogurt for three days, breakfast, lunch and dinner. And that's. That was, that was how I got started. So when I did standup, for example, there was always a very strong physical component to what I was doing on stage. A lot of the stuff I was doing, I don't even think you can do anymore because the world has changed a little bit. It was pretty irreverent, it was pretty raunchy, you know, I did some raunchy stuff. But back in, you know, back in the 70s, on the college, you know, at the college campus, they loved it because they were all, you know, they were all drunk and I was playing, you know, Magical Mystery Tour, full, full, full volume and doing my crazy stuff. And I don't even know what the hell your question was, Warwick.
- [31:07]
Warwick Schiller
I just went off. I was wondering, you know, what brought you to la. It was to do that. Had the dream of being an actor and a comedian.
- [31:15]
Tony Horton
Yeah, I mean, I literally, I came out for the summer. I went, well, let's check this place out. Because I was going to go to Boston and wait tables, you know, I want. That sucks. And my, my. One of my best friends who still is, he was my best man in my wedding. You know, when I got married to Shauna, he said, I'm going to, to Cali LA for the summer. You want to come? Without hesitation and with no money. And I ran out of. I ran out of money in Boulder, you know, and Boulder is a big kind of a. Not a hippie town, at least it was then. And I had my makeup and stuff and I, and I made 125 bucks in an afternoon in Boulder, on the streets doing mine. And that got me to LA, that 125 bucks. And we were sleeping in the car and we were sleeping at national parks. We were flat broke, you know. And then when I got out here, it was Miman, the Pier, whatever, Huntington Pier back then. And, and Peyton Houses. That's, that's how it started way back.
- [32:04]
Warwick Schiller
In the day, painting houses. Had you painted houses before that?
- [32:07]
Tony Horton
Yeah, I know how to paint a bedroom. You know what I mean? We weren't painting the outside, we were painting.
- [32:11]
Warwick Schiller
Oh, you're painting the interior.
- [32:12]
Tony Horton
Doing inside work. Hallways and bedrooms and dining rooms.
- [32:14]
Warwick Schiller
Okay, whatever.
- [32:15]
Tony Horton
Yeah.
- [32:16]
Warwick Schiller
Have you ever read Lewis, how's book the Masks of Masculinity?
- [32:23]
Tony Horton
No, no, I don't know that one.
- [32:26]
Warwick Schiller
You know who Lewis Howes is?
- [32:27]
Tony Horton
No, no.
- [32:28]
Warwick Schiller
So he was like an all the all American college athlete, played briefly in the NFL, full time big time jock sort of thing, you know. Yeah. But then he ended and he wrote a book called the School of Greatness. It was about achieving things or whatever. But then he, he had this bit of an epiphany where he realized that most of everything he'd been doing was for the wrong reason. And so he wrote this book called the Marks Masks of Masculinity. He talks about how especially boy, you know, especially boys, you know, you, you're not supposed to be emotional and so you develop these masks to hide your tender spots. And there's like the aggressive mask. The guy wants to fight everybody if you challenge him. You know, there's the sporting mask, there's the achievement mask. You know, he says a lot of CEOs end up being CEOs because dad didn't pay enough attention to me, whatever, you know. But then he said there's what he calls the joker mask. And he said that what's a big place in la? A lot of people get this. Tony's pointing to himself right now. Is it the Comedy Store or something?
- [33:42]
Tony Horton
The Comedy Store, the Laugh Factory, they're all over the place.
- [33:45]
Warwick Schiller
Anyway, one of these things, the guy was, he was saying that the guy that owns the place says anybody who comes there to try it, because I want to be a professional comedian, he says, obviously you are severely depressed. So I've got a therapist I work want you to go and see. And the whole. And it really struck me because I used to tell jokes a lot as a kid too, you know, like that was my way of kind of breaking the ice sort of thing. And it was really fascinating that he said, he said that most professional comedians have quite. Have a fair bit of depression going on. It was really, really interesting. The correlation between that, you know, I just didn't know if you'd ever read that book saying you're talking about the comedy thing.
- [34:26]
Tony Horton
Oh, I think I will now though. I think that's interesting. Ye.
- [34:30]
Warwick Schiller
It's fascinating.
- [34:31]
Tony Horton
Yeah. You know, like, you know, the a blank statement, like most comics are depressed. I think they are at some point, you know what I mean? But you know, I, I also think that, that if you make it in that industry, you know what I mean, you're probably getting some therapy. Your standup is your therapy, your income is increasing, you're me. You're meeting incredibly new new people who are. You know what I mean? So you're probably not as depressed as, as you used to be. John Belushi was certainly falls into that one. You know what I mean? There's a lot of comics that they're, they're manic, you know what I mean? They truly are. They're, they're, they're putting on that show, but there's, there's a lack of authenticity in what it is they're doing. They're trying to cover up from everything else that's just going hell in a hand cart.
- [35:18]
Warwick Schiller
And so think about like that, like, say that John Belushi's one, like the overweight comedians, like, you know, Chris Farley and like that, that, you know, that.
- [35:27]
Tony Horton
Was there fall in the exact same category. Absolutely.
- [35:31]
Warwick Schiller
Yeah. Yeah, it was. Anyway, it's just an interesting. When I was reading the books, like, I never even thought of that, you know, but that book really made me think about these days. I'm not that. I wouldn't say impressed, but I'm not that interested in what people do. I'm interested in why do they do the thing they do, you know, what's, what was the, what was the motivator behind it?
- [35:56]
Tony Horton
You know, you know, for me, I have. And I'm only. This is. Our conversation is sort of making me think that. And I thought about this before, but maybe not really spoken about it before because I, I know I, I see what's happening with a lot of peers, friends, you know, who are not taking care of themselves. And maybe their life didn't go the way they turned out. It turned out they wanted it to turn out. And so, you know, their world is getting smaller and smaller and smaller. A lot of their peers are passing away. They're not making new friendships. They're not trying new adventures. They're physically, you know, in probably some of the worst shape of their life in their 60s. And they don't have a lot of joy, happiness, or laughter in their life. Right? Like, that's whatever they had of that is gone and everything is sort of just surviving and, and, and reminiscing and, and, you know, whatever or, or arguing or what. You know, I mean, if you look, a lot of, A lot of my peers are just not happy anymore. They're not like, you know, like, there's people that I know who don't, don't laugh hard out loud, like, you know, I'll say something, and younger folks or people of mine that whatever. And then there's other, like those. They're all in the same room. It could be me, it could be somebody else all telling a joke or just telling a story. And people who used to laugh hard, who used to like, oh, I just kind of look, I look on their face like, huh, Yeah. I don't know, you know, And I think, holy, that ain't getting better, you know, I mean, you better like, what is it that you need to do? And my, my, my go to is always physical movement, you know, I think to myself, it's just so, you know, it's. It's hard. It's hard to get older folks, you know, old dog, new trick. It's hard to get older folks. And I guess I'm older to get into the gym and start doing yoga and take a martial arts class and get on a mountain bike, ride with me or go skiing with me. They're kind of done. And when that physical stuff kind of goes away, their personality changes too, you know, not only are they not in good. Good enough shape to do all the stuff that I'm doing, they're just kind of a. I don't want to use the wrong. I don't want. They're kind of a bore, you know, they're kind of. They're not interesting anymore. They don't. Because how can you be interesting if you don't want to try anything because you're afraid you're going to get hurt? You know what I mean? Or you feel like, you know, you're, you're not going to be able to keep up with others. And I, I figured it out through personal development and experience. You know, the more uncomfortable I am physically, mentally, emotionally, the more interesting my life's going to be. You know what I mean? It might not go the way I want. I mean, I keep my ex. Like I always say, keep your expectations down and go do it anyway. You know what I mean? That's kind of how I live. And I'm not attached to the outcome like I used to be either, right? These are just little, little things that seem to work for me. They keep me moving forward, trying new things, hanging out with new people. I'm in Jackson Hole last week, twice I skied with total strangers two different days just because, you know, I'm the P90X guy. So people come up to me and go, hey, man, can you save. Saved my life. Hey, dude, awesome. Are you. You. How are you skiing tomorrow? Boom. Guy wants, Want to take, Wants to take a picture. I'm skiing with him the next Day. And by the way, he's got three other friends that show up with him and we're all skiing. And there's another guy, the Mountaineer guy, he's there too, because we're at a hot dog contest on the top of the mountain watching one of the girls nieces eating a hot dog as fast as she can. And there were eight of us one day, nobody knew each other. I was like six degrees of Kevin Bacon. The heck with that. Six degrees with me. I got the guys from Memphis, Tennessee. I got the Mountaineers, who are locals. They were all ripping powder together. And so. And there was a lot of these guys were quicker and faster and better skiers, and some of them weren't. And we were just out there supporting each other. And now we have a text chain, you know what I mean?
- [39:44]
Warwick Schiller
Oh, really?
- [39:44]
Tony Horton
Yeah, it's really cool. I like, I just. I'm just sitting here waiting for winter again, you know what I mean? Like, I want to get out and do that with these guys. Plan. Plan trips. It's just awesome. Like within two days, total strangers all having the time of our lives together. It was just. Yeah, it was really, really cool, man.
- [40:00]
Warwick Schiller
That's super cool. So we've covered the comedy bit. Okay, but that was. What have we kind of touched on?
- [40:09]
Tony Horton
We covered it all.
- [40:10]
Warwick Schiller
No, we haven't covered. Okay, all right, we'll keep the comedy going. But. Yeah, but that wasn't the major part of your life. You know, you want to be a comedian, an actor. Somehow you ended up getting into the whole fitness thing. Where did. Where did that come from? What was the beginning of that? Were you, like, into it as a kid? What. Where was the stat?
- [40:30]
Tony Horton
How much time do we have, Warwick? How much. This. This is. I mean, this story. Every time I tell this story, and I've told it a few times, it's in my last book that I wrote called the Big Picture, I think in pieces. I was not athletic kid at all. I was. I wanted to be because my dad was. A lot of my friends were, but my fat. My father was on the road five days a week, so I didn't have a mentor really. And back in the 60s, you know, either you were an athlete for whatever reason or you weren't. And all the wannabe athletes got kind of kicked to the curb. And I. And that was me. I went out for the football team my senior year of high school because I used to play sandlot football and whatever. You know, I play out in the street or out in the local park, but I Didn't know what the heck I was doing and. And they didn't. Our football coach didn't cut you. He ran you into the grass. He didn't like you and he didn't think you were. He would run you into the ground till you quit. That was his thing. He was a masochist. He was a son of a. He was a product of the 40s and 50s. I don't even want to say his name because that's probably.
- [41:32]
Warwick Schiller
He was a bitter human.
- [41:33]
Tony Horton
He was just an. Can I swear on the podcast or not?
- [41:36]
Warwick Schiller
Yeah, please.
- [41:37]
Tony Horton
He was an asshole. This guy was awful. Twice during practice, he humiliated me personally and kicked me off the field because I did. I didn't run the right route or something. Horton drag it off the field. You know what I mean? He thought that. That like we didn't have double sessions, we had triple sessions in the middle of August, so kids were peeling off left and right. But I didn't quit and I hung in there and I got the snot be out of me. I'd go at home covered black and blue, you know what I mean? And I wanted to be athletic. I was not a great tennis player. I was not a great basketball player, but I loved it. I wanted to be. Was very frustrating that how bad it was. I didn't have somebody who pulled me aside and go, man, let me show you. Let's do some basketball drills. Let's do some tennis drill. They didn't have any of that. Didn't have.
- [42:23]
Warwick Schiller
So. So on that subject, what do you think makes someone athletic? Because it's almost like it's. It's almost like it's a mental skill. Not. It's not the physicality you're born with. It's the way your. Your mind relates to things. Because if you can take someone who's not athletic and given some drills to do and practice some certain things, and now they're athletic, that means they're not a new human. They're the same human they were before. So do you have any thoughts on what makes someone.
- [42:54]
Tony Horton
To some degree, it's genetic. It is just, you know, you have your mesomorph, your ectomorph. You're endomorph, right? So I'm. I'm a combination. I'm more of an ectomorph. And if you know the difference between those three.
- [43:05]
Warwick Schiller
I've never heard those terms before.
- [43:08]
Tony Horton
That's why we're having this conversation. Ectomorph. Long distance runners, marathoners, half marathoners, long distance runners, skinny people Right. And their parents were skinny. They had sex, they made them. They're skinny. Mesomorph, muscular linebackers, running backs, you know, guys who on either defense and defense and offense are running into each other. And then you got your endomorphs, which are like sumo wrestlers, just people who, who have a lot of subcutaneous fat who are just bigger, genetically bigger. That's all. You know, that's your genetics, right? So. And I'm, I'm, I've, I'm ectomorph, I'm skinny, skinny guy. But I've lifted enough weights, done enough hypertrophy exercises that I'm muscular now, but it's like my muscle, especially because I'm 66, I suffer from something called. And so do you. And so anybody over the age of 50 all deal with sarcopenia. Sarcopenia is age related muscle loss. So an ectomorph who has to deal with sarcopenia. Protein. Protein. Pushing hard just to keep it, you know, so, you know, there's those, those factors are, are important when it comes to, like your early days. Like, you know, if you're super skinny and that's your thing, you got to go into the gym, man, and pump a bunch of iron and take all kinds of protein and do whatever just so that you can be on the football team. But maybe you're a baseball player, or maybe you're a basketball player, or maybe you're a runner. You're just in the wrong sport. And the other thing too, everything has to do with desire. Like, you can be the, you can be the least athletic person in the world. You could have the worst genetics in the world, but you want it so damn bad that you figure it out through your mentors, coaches and teachers. If you can find the right ones that aren't like what I, you know, so, so I had the desire. I just had the worst mentors in the world and they didn't help me along. That didn't happen until I came out to California and I noticed there were gyms on every corner. Like back in, back in Rhode Island, Connecticut. The gym was on the college campus. The gym was in the high school. It wasn't a gym for, for regular people. They can just go aerobics. There's. They like. It's all women in there. Aerobics. Can guys go in there? Yeah, I'm going in there. I'm gonna learn some aerobics, you know. Okay, this is what. Okay, this side. Okay, great. Hey, what's your name? Sally. Nice. Hi, I'm Tony. Nice to meet you. Okay. You want to go for a coffee? You know what I mean? Like, that was cool. Plus whatever. 25 treadmills, 25 bikes. Hack, hack every machine. Like. I joined this gym in LA. It was $99 a year, which I barely had, but I. Whatever. I got in there and I couldn't believe it. It was. It was as social as it was physical, you know, and the atmosphere. I fell in love with it. You know, I fell in love with it. I just thought this was really cool. And I took a weightlifting course in college and my GPA went up that. That semester. Well, that's weird because I started going to class. I don't know why. I just. I kind of feel like. I feel like going to class because I was taking a weightlifting course three to four times a week, which changed my brain camp. I didn't know that because Spark John Rady was in high school. I don't know where he was still a kid like me. And. Yeah, so these are the lessons that I learned along the way. And of course, then I had my. My first client, which was just the craziest story in the world. I didn't want to be a trainer. I was just working out because my Hollywood agent that I finally got said, you're kind of. Because after the high school, after the college weightlifting course, I came out to California. I was painting houses, I was doing mine. I wasn't going to the gym just yet. That came a little bit about a couple of years later, but I finally got an agent. The agent said, you're looking kind of. You're not going to work in this town unless you gotta look better. So I did. I was like, okay. And then I joined that gym with all these people and the social and the aerobics and this is really cool. And you know, just like a. These layers of life came. And then I came up, became a PA for Julia Phillips, that her ex husband had produced Close Encounters of the Third Kind, Taxi Driver with De Niro, and then this thing with Robert Redford and Paul Newman. And like now I'm. I'm a pa, A production assistant for this woman. Only because a friend of mine got a gig with Dolly Parton who had the job. He was now writing for Dolly Parton. He said, hey, man, you want my job with Julia Phillips? She's kind of crazy, but, you know, you get to go on your auditions. And so I started training her partner, this guy Harlan Goodman, because he noticed that I was changing from the day he hired me to like three months later, because I. They hired me about the same time that I got a. I got a. What's the word? Magic word. Got an agent and he's like, you were skinny when we hired you, and now you're fit and I'm fat and. Can you help?
- [47:53]
Warwick Schiller
You went to work for him as a personal assistant, but you end up being a personal trainer.
- [47:57]
Tony Horton
One of Julia's partner's trainer, along with being his employee. Okay, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Crazy. And then whatever. Then, you know, they couldn't make a movie. They got kicked off the Fox lot, the two of them, and she was a maniac. She fired me every Friday. He rehired me every Sunday night, you know, because I didn't put a light bulb at the bottom of the driveway in the land or if the. The scripts were placed in the kitchen. I should have been in my office. So she would fire me because she was nuts. And then. So he left. He goes, I can't. I. We can't make movies and we're not on a lot anymore. We were operating outside of her in her house. And so he went back to East End management. This is the part of the story that changed my life forever. And. And he's at Eastman Management. He's 35 pounds lighter. And Tom Petty's walking down the hall the other way, spoken to a cigarette. Tom. Tom looks at Harlan Goodman. He says, holy crap, Harlan, you look fantastic. What happened? What? You used to be a big guy, now you're. You look lean. You look gorgeous. He goes, yeah, I've been training. Boxing? No, like lifting weights and doing cardio and hitting a heavy bag. Really? That's. No kidding. This is my top, Petty. Thank you very much.
- [49:07]
Warwick Schiller
I trained good, actually.
- [49:08]
Tony Horton
Train them for 32 years. So I come to the house, and that's how he was. He goes, well, can I have this fella's phone number? What's his name? His name is. His name's Tony. Tony Horton. So, you know, he calls me up. I'm in my little apartment that I lived in for 21 and a half years. 1438 15th Street, Santa Monica, California. My roommate Bob will drag me out to California. Still. My roommate picks up the phone. Hello. Hey, it's time, Petty. I'm looking for Tony Horton. Bob turns to me and goes, dude, it's the guys downstairs that's screwing around now. I go, hang up.
- [49:40]
Warwick Schiller
Someone's jacking with you.
- [49:41]
Tony Horton
Jacking. Like, why is Tom Petty calling my house? It's like, insane. So Bob hangs it up on Tom Petty.
- [49:47]
Warwick Schiller
Phone hangs up On Tom Petty hangs.
- [49:48]
Tony Horton
Up on phone rings seconds later Hey, I think we got disconnected. My name is Tom Petty. I'm a friend of Harlan Goodman. He says he's friend of Harlan's. How does he know that? Give me the phone. Hello? Nice. I'm Petty, I'm fat. I'm going on tour and nobody likes a fat rocker. Can you come help me? I helped Harlan. He looks fantastic. I go, yeah. I turn to my roommate Bob. Dude, stop. It's great. So we went to his house. He lived in Woodland Hills. Long driveway. I like this house with a big gate, long driveway, trees going on the drive. I remember it to the day I died. I walk in, gold platinum records on the wall. Cool little rocker house, you know, the wallpaper was all like velvet bitching, you know, and hey, nice to meet you. Puts out the cigarette, I mean, you know, and I tell the story on stage, you know, every time, you know, I hand him a couple of 12 pound dumbbells at bench press and I thought both his arms were going to fall off, you know what I mean? And I get him on a trip, I get him on a. And I had to, you know, the first time I got him, he didn't have any of this stuff. So we had little, little chit chat about what he needed. And so I had to him right away I put him on an old life cycle and I was doing level six or seven, it went from one to 12, you know what I mean? 12 is like, you know, you're climbing Mount Everest at 20,000ft. And, and so I put it on three and his legs went like this. Oh, I can't do it. So I put it on, get it to go, couldn't get it to move. And I put it on one like, okay, one is. And it's like, oh, this is really hard. So I just reached down, I turned, turned it off and oh yeah, that's better, you know. And you lasted a minute and 34 seconds. Oh, I'm exhausted. I go, holy. There's no tension and it's a minute and a half or whatever and he's exhausted. Holy crap. You know, So I thought, oh my God, this is going to be brutal. At the end of the four months I had him, four months, he was doing level six, 25 minutes. He's hitting a heavy bag like, like, like Muhammad Ali and he's bench pressing 40s and curling, 30s and squatting and crunches and everything. He, we went on tour, he was lean, he was mean, his voice was freaking awesome. He started cutting the sleeves off his shirts because he wanted to show off his arms, you know what I mean? He's wearing vests without shirts. And everybody's like, what the hell happened to Tom Petty? You know, like, it was crazy. And then during fourth of July weekend, I mean, you know, whatever. He went on tour, I think in May or something. And then I'm at my parents house, fourth of July, and the phone rings. My mother picks up the phone, hi, it's Tom Petty. I'm looking for Tony Orton. My mother's like, tom Petty is calling our house. You know, I didn't give my phone number. How does he even know? Hey guys, I am getting fat again. Can you go on tour with me? Oh, yes, I can. So I went on tour with him for the Jersey, New York City, Madison Square Garden, Long island, part of the tour. The coolest three weeks of my freaking life, man. Walking around with that laminate hanging up in the rafters. And when we went, when we were driving, it was Tom, his wife Jade, his two kids, Kim and Adria, the bodyguard and me on that bus. And then the rest of the band was in the other bus. And you'd show up at Madison Square Garden and whatever, you know, like they get off the bus, you know, whatever. It was just like, you know, room keys are flying your way. It was crazy. It was really something, man. And then Tom Pet. And then Billy Idol called, right, mate? Brought a year. Petty looks fantastic, mate. Can you do that for me? And then it was Stephen Stills and then it was Sean Connery and Shirley MacLaine and Bruce Springsteen and. And Stephen Stills from Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young and. And half a Fleetwood Mac and actors. And now I'm. Now I'm a trainer. Okay, I better get certified here at some point.
- [53:37]
Warwick Schiller
Wow. So it kind of took off.
- [53:40]
Tony Horton
Yeah, that's like a late 80s, early 90s. Yeah, that's. That's when it all, you know, before.
- [53:45]
Warwick Schiller
We came on here, I asked did you know Peter Crone? And you didn't know Peter. I've had him on the podcast, but he British guy, but end up in la, ended up being a personal trainer. And one day the guy that ran the gym that he was training at, I said, hey, I got these people that need a personal trainer. Can you. I'm gonna introduce you to him and see if you can help me out. And it turned out it was Tom Cruise and Nicole Kidman. Tom was traveling around doing all the Mission Impossible. So he traveled with them when they were doing all the, all those Mission Impossibles. But Yeah.
- [54:23]
Tony Horton
I think I met him once. Yeah, I think he lived in Santa Monica, actually. The gentleman who trained Tom and Nicole Kidman. Yeah.
- [54:31]
Warwick Schiller
Yeah, super cool dude. So Bruce Springsteen wouldn't have been a fat guy that, would he?
- [54:37]
Tony Horton
No, Bruce was already ripped. And I was training Patty Scalfa, his wife. And they, you know, they live in Jersey, but they also live in la. They got a little compound here in la. And Patty was my roommate at that time. This guy Tom Mickelson was their personal assistant. And they had let their trainer go for whatever. He did something stupid. And he said, hey, you know, you mind meeting Patience, Patty? Bruce had his own trainer, also named Tony, in Jersey, and I think he used to travel with Bruce. I'm not exactly sure, but I trained Patty, I don't know, because they were here, they were there, they were on tour. And one day, which was. So that night before, when they were in town, he was doing a. He was at the Staples center or the Great Western Forum, I think it was way back then. And so I got tickets through Tom, who was their assistant. And, you know, you're watching Bruce up there for three and a half hours, like it's a gymnastics performance, performance up there. It's just so incredible. So it's just the guy, it's a superhero, you know. So the next day I was supposed to train Patty. Now at that point, I had my first infomercial for power 90. This is pre P90XP, all that. But I was on the TV, whatever, at 3:00 in the morning. And so I went the next morning to train Patty and she's in her street clothes, was like, oh, God, she forgot to call me and tell me she was not going to work out. And so she comes, and the extent of my hellos and connection with Bruce was like, hey, Bruce. Hey, Tony, how you doing? You know, he would wave, he'd be some Cheerios. Wait, and that'd be it, not nothing else. So Patty comes out in street clothes and says, hey, so sorry, I've got an appointment this morning. But Bruce was. Wanted to know if. If it'd be okay if you worked out with him, you know, And I, I'm training Stephen Still's petty idol, but it's the boss, you know. So I was nervous. I was like, yeah, sure, sure, sure. And he had a book, he had this booklet with all, you know, I think was everything in there that his trainer and Jersey set up, it was beaten up and sweat, blood and tears was on this thing, you know, so where his house was, we had to kind of walk through to another property. He had converted a four car garage into a gym on the next property. And so we're kind of walking. Hey, man, good to see you. Yeah, yeah. And he goes, hey, you know, today I think I'm doing. I don't know who I'm doing. Bruce is like, I got, you know, shoulders.
- [57:02]
Warwick Schiller
Did you just get your impersonations mixed up right? Then you went, yeah, I think I.
- [57:05]
Tony Horton
Was doing, I think I was doing. Who's the actor from.
- [57:09]
Warwick Schiller
You know, I think you're doing De Niro, right?
- [57:11]
Tony Horton
I think I'm doing De Niro or, or Lawrence Olivier. I don't know who the heck I'm doing.
- [57:18]
Warwick Schiller
But it's Springsteen you're doing right now. Okay.
- [57:21]
Tony Horton
Yeah, but, you know, Bruce is like this old met Bruce. And so he goes, I said, hey man, I saw a show last night. Dude, you're amazing. It's just incredible. So impressive. Just really enjoyed that. He even said, you go to the show? I said, yeah. I said, I was. My mind was blown. Then he shows me his book and I'm looking at it and it's kind of old school. There's some old school stuff in there, you know. And I went, hey, would you be open to, to try and kind of where I'm at, what I've been doing, I've been doing with, with Tom and Billy and others. And he looked at me like, like a long pause, went, okay, you know, like, hey, man, this is. I'm in my routine. It's worked really well for me. And now you're gonna screw with it. But I, you know, and then he says, you know, Patty and I were, I'm gonna do a mild Bruce. We're in bed last night after the show and we, we saw you on, on the infringe commercial. So I turned to her and I went, hey, as you train her on tv, can I work out with him this morning? And my top. My roommate Tom goes, yeah, he didn't care about you at all until he saw y'all on the tv, right? So. Which was kind of cool. So I kept, you know, I, while they were in town, you know, I think I trained Bruce 10 times on and off over the years. And I was supposed to go on tour, like a six month tour with him, but it was really more about the training, the kids. And I wasn't a kid trainer, you know, I mean, he had his young kids and we, I got along with his kids great. I just didn't. I thought, oh. And I had an Acting career. So, you know, I wanted to go still go on auditions, and, you know, who knows? I always look back and go, would that have been life changing for me to go on tour? But I ended up not doing it, but yeah. So that's how I got introduced to Bruce, through Tom, through his wife Patty, through the fact that he saw me on an infomercial the night before after the show at the Great Western Forum.
- [59:05]
Warwick Schiller
There you go. So how did you get into the infomercial? So you're, you're, you know, you're a personal trainer. How did you get into. Who did you meet to. What was the intro to that?
- [59:17]
Tony Horton
One of the books behind me, and I don't even remember which one. I don't remember the author, which is kind of a bummer when it comes to telling the story. But it had lessons at the end of every chapter, and one of the lessons was like, okay, here, here's what, here's what I'm going to teach you in this chapter. And then I want you to go out and practice it. And so this, this chapter was about altruism, about being selfless, about. It's not about you, like, get your together, buddy. And then once you do, you have to share what you know with others because they need your help, you know, And I've always said the worst kind of advice to give in. The worst kind of advice to give is the kind that's never been asked for in the first place because your best intentions are received with resentment. So you have to find that window with somebody. You don't just go, hey, dude, you're effed up. Let me show you the way, right? That person has to come to you first. And that's what I learned. You know what I mean? And a lot of people go, you know, my mom, she's really struggling, and I've gone through this journey and I feel like, how do I help her? When she asks, right? When she asks. Because prior to that, you're just a pain in her ass, you know, I mean, like, don't. I don't.
- [60:19]
Warwick Schiller
I'm.
- [60:19]
Tony Horton
I still want to drink my coffee and drink my alcohol, and I still want to eat my bon bon. Shut the f up. When I'm. When I'm ready for your advice, I'll ask you for it. And that's, that's the thing that I learned. So in the end of the chapter, go out of your way and do something beautiful, extraordinary, wonderful, caring, loving, whatever it is for somebody that you're in conflict with. Not your sister, your Brother somebody. Somebody who you like, who the last person on earth they would expect you to.
- [60:48]
Warwick Schiller
This is how that. Like that. What's that meditation to where you initially you like, you extend during the meditation, you extend love to someone you love, and then you extend love to someone a little further distant from you. But then in the end you extend love to someone who you hate their friggin guts, right? It's almost like that Shauna does that.
- [61:11]
Tony Horton
On a regular basis, man. She does. And you know, I mean, I do it. I don't. This. This one was the one that changed my life forever, you know, I mean, I think. And it sucks that I cannot remember the book or I keep thinking it's the magic Lamp, you know, Keith Ellis's book. I'm gonna have to start, you know, firing through it to see it, because there were lessons in that book. Anyway, so I used to play basketball on Saturdays with a bunch of lawyers. And they were all. They were all from one or two different firms. And only because one guy who I had known when I first came out to California, was in law school, became a lawyer, got with a firm, and we used to play hoop together, you know, just kicking around. He goes, man, you should come to our group. We got a nice indoor gym. And there's this one guy, his name is Ben, who was a. I don't even know if he. And he and John, who invited me to play were in the same firm, but he was a. He was a big guy, overweight guy, good ball player. I mean, he just knew the game. And I was like, durr. You know, like I could, I could make some shots, couldn't dribble, didn't know where to be on the court. I. I didn't. Should I bounce pass or what? You know, I mean, I loved running and my thing was setting picks. I love setting, having guys run into me. I just thought that was my favorite. I was good at that, but I just love. I love the game. I just never got really that good at it. And I always thought this guy Ben was a bit arrogant, you know, because he was a top of his class at Harvard and he was, you know, at the top of his class at ucla. He was the president of his class in UCLA and a brilliant, brilliant guy and ended up being my mentor in the end in a lot of ways. And so whatever. And he would. He and I would do this, you know, before I got to know him on the court. God damn it. Weren't. You're supposed to be over there? Do you pass the ball? What are you doing? You know, and whatever. Turnover, turnover. And he got really frustrated with me, and he was intimidating, and I didn't like him. Didn't like him, and he didn't really like me. I didn't think so. In between games, he's saying to his buddies, other lawyers, man, if I lost this weight, this game would be a whole lot easier for me. Now he's not actually reaching out to me, right? Asking for my advice. I don't even think he knew what I did. But I was already training, you know, a couple celebrities. So I heard him complaining about his weight, and I thought, go out of your way and do something wonderful, nice, extraordinary. Care, caring to somebody you don't like. So I walked over. Hey, Ben, I don't know if you know, I'm a trainer. He goes, yeah, yeah. Don't you train like some celebrities? Like rockers or something? Like, oh. Because I think my friend John told him that. And I said, hey, man, I can help you with that weight loss thing. I'm pretty good at that stuff. He goes, oh, okay. He goes, well, give me your number and I'll give you a call. He wasn't gonna call me. He called me that afternoon. He showed up my house on Monday. I trained him every Monday, Wednesday, Friday for a year. And he was in the infomercial business. He was the head lawyer for Guthy Rinker, who had the biggest infomercial company in the country. And whatever, we would, you know, talk shop or whatever. And we became very close, and he gave me some financial advice and other things. One year later, he hired some guy by the name of Carl Dykel out of Philadelphia who did eight Minute Abs. You know, if anybody knows anything about him. Eight member, eight Minute Abs. So he goes, hey, can I invite this guy Carl over to the house to work out with us? Just because, you know, he's a new employee. I want to you. I think you guys would get along. Carl and I were thick as thieves within two weeks. So Carl's working for the biggest infomercial company in the world. I'm training Ben and Carl. Carl goes to Ben one day. Go, I want to do an infomercial with Tony. Just a couple. I don't know what to name it. Can we borrow your camera, people? Can we borrow the studio? Can we borrow your editing? You know, because Carl was doing infomercials for stuff, stupid stuff he didn't want to do it for. But he. Fitness was his thing. He did eight Minute Abs, and now he's doing infomercials. For Guthy Reny, for panty pantyhose that don't run, you know, like, let me just do something I want to do. And so we did and we called it great. Guaranteed. Carl paid me $2,000. And I was doing commercials and little things. And I was. I was at that point going back and forth to Minneapolis, working for Nordic Track on there, some of their commercials and stuff. So I had. I was a trainer and I knew about that and I was on camera ready. So Carl's like, let's just do this thing. Pay me two grand. Did really, really well. Everybody at Guthy Rancor like, oh, maybe you're the fitness guy. And then Carl was like, I'm out. I'm starting my own company. And then he came to me and says, what are those workouts that you do with me and Ben and Billy and blah, blah, blah. Can you do that in front of a TV with like resistance bands and mats? People don't have all the stuff, you know. And I went, yeah, I'll figure it out. And we called the power 90. We sold 5 million of them and I got royalties and I got to move out of my apartment after 21 and a half years. And I got a four bedroom house with a view of the Hollywood sign. I got a Mercedes Benz and I got no furniture in the house because I can't afford it.
- [66:01]
Warwick Schiller
So these. Was this on VHS or was this on vhs? VHS tape. Okay. Wow. Yeah, back in the day.
- [66:10]
Tony Horton
Back in the day, back in the day. And I remember, you know, like broke. I went, you know, I met Carl. 60 grand in debt, same apartment, you know, I mean, I was trained as celebrities, but I was driving from Culver City to Malibu to Hollywood to Pop pop in my 66 Mustang convertible. And the engine would blow up and then turn it because I don't know about cars. The engine would blend, the transmission would die and the brakes would fry. And so I had to buy another car. I had an 84 Land Cruiser that was like steering a boat. This thing was a. Because if one car would give out and I'd have another one, both me in the shop, my life was crap. Even though I was training Tom Petty and Billy Idol and all this stuff. And then I, you know, I work three days on an infomercial and the royalty checks start coming in. Because what we did was the truth. Power 90 was a. Was a mellow version of P90X, really. So it was six days a week and eating right, you know what I mean? And America was like, most people are Doing this with the remote going, garbage, crap, stupid. Wrong. Just hear about. And they went, oh, whoa. They're doing push ups and they're doing squats and lunges and running a blue. And there. There's a diet thing. And anybody with any common sense was like, I got to give this thing a try. And so, you know, I got to move out of my apartment and get a nice house and. And then what's the Next one was P90X and that was, you know, game over.
- [67:35]
Warwick Schiller
Before we get into P90X, I want to. You. You just gave us what I feel is like the secret to life. You just didn't tell us that's what it was. But I believe the magic is in. There is a energy to doing things for others with no thought of getting anything back from it. And I feel like.
- [68:03]
Tony Horton
You.
- [68:05]
Warwick Schiller
If you can do that, you look. You look back from where you are right now. You look back. Where did it all start, really? Was that you. This altruism thing you're talking about, the tr. The hard part of it is, is if you know about the magic, then you do, then it's hard to do things without any thought of getting anything back because you know, this is going to get the things back. So it's. You almost got to be naive at the time.
- [68:39]
Tony Horton
Right?
- [68:40]
Warwick Schiller
That.
- [68:40]
Tony Horton
Right.
- [68:41]
Warwick Schiller
That magical energy of the universe to where. Because if you. Once you're aware of it, it's hard to not Your expectations go north. Right.
- [68:52]
Tony Horton
Right. And so I'm gonna do these really nice things for you and then like, hello, where's my. Where's the payback? No, no, you got to be a little bit. But that doesn't mean. It doesn't mean that. That formula still won't like, like with me, like total strangers, eight guys who didn't know each other, having this wonderful day together, you know, that was just purely based on making connections and, you know, what will come of it? I don't know. I mean, I was on a podcast with three guys and they. They have their own fitness program now, and they're making royalties just because I was on their podcast. I go, you guys are hilarious. You're all super fit. The Lawrence brothers, we call it Lawrence Power. And we shot up. We shot a. All week. And now they just sit around and collect checks. You know, I mean, and they're all dear friends of mine. It's, it's, it's. It's about that. I think it's about being fearless in regards to showing up no matter what. Keep your expectations down and and keep your eyes open, your ears open, and connections to making. To make connections with good people, good at good, productive, fun people. Like I always say, you got to get the chaff out, man. You got to figure out the naysayers, the wannabes, the finger pointers. They got to go. And you might live in that house with them. You got to figure out you might be married to one of them, you know, I mean, and so what do you do? Like, what steps do you got to take? Because life is like birth, school, work, death. Okay, That's That. That's the sequence. And it happens at about 45 minutes. Zing. So what are you gonna do between birth and death? Are you gonna hang, spend decades with a bunch of that are mean and nasty and ugly and telling lies and, And. And putting down others? Is that who's in your world? Get them out. Get them out, man. Find the light. Find the folks that are all not about them. Like the Beatles song, I, Me, Me, Mine, Remember that song? It ain't about. I mean, it's about what can I do for you? How can I help you? Because there's a possibility that, that might improve the quality of my life expectations down there, right? So. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And that's what I've been doing ever since, man. That's what I've been doing.
- [71:09]
Warwick Schiller
That's the magic of the. That was the. That was the start of the whole thing. And, you know, we talked before we started recording this podcast, and I said, you know, hearing people's stories, the, The. The listeners, you know, they can either get, like I said to you, the validation or inspiration and that, That I wanted to point out that the thing that you did, I wanted to make sure that people didn't miss the fact that the altruistic thing you're talking about, that doing these things with no thought of getting anything back are usually. And it's not the only way, but there is a magic to it that. That is. You just can't capture it. It's.
- [71:52]
Tony Horton
It's.
- [71:52]
Warwick Schiller
It's intangible. But if you can do the right things for the right reasons. So then you did the, the first.
- [71:59]
Tony Horton
Thank you for finding that in our conversation, like finding that golden nugget. Because I, we. I probably just would have smoothed over it. I mean, obviously I talked about, you know, personal development, do something nice for somebody you don't like, blah, blah, blah. But that formula, it's a fun ride when you, when you do that a lot in your life, and a lot of people don't have that in their life at all. Right. Just got their nose to the grindstone. They're doing their job. Get out of my way. You know what I mean? They're fighting the fight, but they don't have that altruistic peace. You don't have that caring, loving, looking out for others peace in their life. And if you. It's just. And it brings pleasure. It just brings like at one point it was just helping Ben learn, lose 35 pounds and just to watch him play hoop better and feel more comfortable in his own skin and have more energy and like that was enough. But look what, look what else happened, you know, I mean, who knows?
- [72:51]
Warwick Schiller
Yeah, but the thing was you didn't do it because you're like, well, I know this guy's in the infomercial business and I could. You know what I mean? There was none of them planning, scheming, me, me, I'm gonna get something out of it. Things like, I'd like to help this guy.
- [73:07]
Tony Horton
Yeah, exactly, Right?
- [73:08]
Warwick Schiller
Yeah. So after the. What was the first 90 thing? What was it called?
- [73:13]
Tony Horton
Power 90. Well, great body guarantee. Then Power 90, then P90X.
- [73:18]
Warwick Schiller
So tell me about P90X because that was. P90X was probably the big one. Was not that, that, that was.
- [73:25]
Tony Horton
Some people say it's the, it's the biggest at home fitness program ever created in the history of man. Let me pat myself on the back.
- [73:34]
Warwick Schiller
I was just gonna say you should watch over forward.
- [73:38]
Tony Horton
You know that P90X. There were a lot of other ones that were very, very popular, maybe as popular, but didn't become part of the lexicon like you. You can watch a late night TV show 20 years after. It's. You know, you can watch Colbert or you can watch Jimmy Kimmel or you can watch it happened with, with Jay Leno. Celebrities would come on and talk about P90X and it wasn't part of the conversation. You know, I mean like I, I've been to, I've been to. Where is it? Hold on, Wait a minute. I'm moving.
- [74:07]
Warwick Schiller
He's moving his camera and he's going to show me something.
- [74:09]
Tony Horton
Wait, wait, wait, wait. Where is it? No, wrong direction. Hold everything. This is going to work.
- [74:15]
Warwick Schiller
You guys at home aren't going to see this, but I'll have to describe it to you.
- [74:18]
Tony Horton
You see all those, That's.
- [74:20]
Warwick Schiller
What are they?
- [74:21]
Tony Horton
350 challenge coins. Challenge coins are given out by all. All. I'll get my mic here. So you can still hear me. By every branch of the military army.
- [74:33]
Warwick Schiller
Oh yeah, I know what they Are. Yes, yes, yes. Is that the coin where, like, if you walk in a bar and put your coin down and someone else doesn't have it, they gotta buy.
- [74:40]
Tony Horton
Yeah, something like that. And it started in World War II because the Germans could. Could make dog tags. But if you were in a particular division, whether you were at whatever base, you know, Kadina Air Force Base, I don't think Kadida didn't exist yet. We put that in after the war. That's in. That's in. In Japan, but whatever, all over Europe, if you had a challenge coin because you were with whatever division of Army, Navy, Air Force. Army, Navy, Air Force, Marines. Look, some cluttering just kicked in there. Dude, I want you to point. I want to point that out. I'm so excited. That's what it is. I'm not nervous. I'm just excited. That was your way of determining whether you were a spy or whatever. That was it. And so they all have them now. I mean, there's. And so I've been to 63 military bases around the world. The folks at the Pentagon knocked on my door and said, you know what soft power is? I said, no, what's soft part? He goes, we're hard power. We're. We're guns and tanks and. And bombs. And the soft power is. The Peace Corps is soft power. Usaid, which maybe might be dismantled at this point, is soft power. It's us putting out super positive things that helps people. Kind of like what my story is. He goes, you are that guy. And so my cousin, who's a lobbyist in Washington, was getting his haircut. He started a conversation with a colonel who just got back from Afghanistan and Iraq, who is at Andrews Air Force Base, which is outside D.C. which is where they have Air Force One and Marine One and all those kind of things. They're just kind of talking, and they go, oh, what do you do? I'm a lobbyist. Oh, I just got back fitness. Oh, yeah. I was projecting P90X on a huge screen at every base I was in and Afghanistan and Iraq. And my cousin's like, that's my cousin. What you think? I'm. I'm stationed at Andrews now. You think you'd want to come and teach a class at Andrews? My cousin calls me up. I just met Colonel Steven Shepherd. He's all them. All his guys are in Middle east using your stuff. Do you want to come? And I was coming to D.C. anyway, because I was the Canadian. The Canada. Canadian embassy, they were all doing my thing, and so they had Me, I'm coming anyway, I just go to Andrews. So I'm standing there and there's a screen behind me, like the size of the Empire State with me. I'm being projected behind myself with army because Andrews is the joint base. Like, so it's everybody, even, you know, English and Turkish soldiers, they're all in attention, like about to go through my workout. So anyway, I got up there and I was nervous, so I was overly funny. And then, then they set up an appointment at the Pentagon. Hey, we got a thing called Armed Forces Entertainment. Do you want to go to Europe, work with our troops? I go, well, I've got a, I've got a yoga retreat. I'm going to Italy. Goes good. We've got three bases in Italy. We got Vicenza, Derby and Aviano. Do you want to go? One was Army, Air Force, Navy. I don't know if it was a Marine base. Boom. And that was the first one. I've been to Japan twice. I've been to Korea, I went back to Europe. I've been all over the States. Every, like, you know, we have 739 bases around the world and I've been to 63 of them. And so that's the influence that this P90X has had. It's, it's worldwide. It's, you know, I mean, I've been on the Today show, I've been on Dr. Oz. I've been on, you know, all the morning shows. I mean, it's, it became the biggest. I mean, I'm 20 years later, I'm in a, I'm in a. The Casper Lodge at Jackson Hole, and people are coming up to me like it's 20 years ago. Hey man, I'm still doing Aberbarex. Hey man, I did yoga this morning. Hey man, I can't take a selfie. Blah, blah, blah. And those are the guys from Memphis, Tennessee that I ended up skiing with for the next few days. So, you know, I don't know how many other people have created programs that are getting out of my. That much attention. But it's awesome, you know, it's just awesome though, that this thing that's 20 years old. And then we did X2, we did P90, X3, we did 22 minute hardcore, which was a tribute to the military stuff. You know, I've done a bunch. I've done one for kids, did Tony and the folks. Tony and the Kids. I mean, I've done tons of programs. So, yeah, they're still.
- [78:45]
Warwick Schiller
You had said that the, the, the first. Not The Pin on X, the one before that, the power 90, whatever it was, it sold like 5 million. Whatever. What. What did you end up selling with P90X? How. How?
- [78:57]
Tony Horton
Well, P90X was 11 million DVDs. This is. We were like. We were in the DVD station.
- [79:05]
Warwick Schiller
DVD stage.
- [79:05]
Tony Horton
And that. That number 11 million was like 10 years ago. So, you know, it's still streaming. I still get royalty checks for P90X 20 years.
- [79:13]
Warwick Schiller
Oh, really?
- [79:14]
Tony Horton
Yeah, 20 years after it was made, 21 years now. So it's just one of those things that. Because most things come and go, you know, like people are still watching reruns of I Love Lucy because they, like, you know what I mean? They're still. Because they'll go to the gym and they'll do CrossFit and get hurt or whatever. They'll do something else in the game. They're not. It's not working. The son of a works and it's hard. And these workouts are an hour, and you got to hunker down. And now the whole new generation is doing it because they were like watching mom and dad doing it when they were 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10. And they were kind of like, you know, farting around in the corner when their parents were doing it. And now they're doing it. You know what I mean? I mean, it's. It's weird. And that's why we created Power Nation. That's the reason why we thought, well, let's give something. Something fresh, you know? And I'm in basically the same shape as I was 20 years ago. I'm no weaker. I mean, I. I'm even. I can even run faster now at my age, because I didn't run then, I didn't run fast. Now I do hill sprints three times a week. So, you know, I. I just love learning new things. And when I first started doing hill sprints, I pulled my hamstring three times. My ADD doctor once, I was like, wow. I'm like a. Like I'm like that keeper trying to run up this hill. Like, the stuff keeps breaking. So I figured it out, you know, I did some research on how do you learn how to run up hills fast? Don't just go. You know what I mean? Like, what's. So now I do like almost a. Almost like an hour warm up before I go do those hill sprints. But I want to share that stuff with folks. I want to share all the new techniques, the new martial arts, the new boxing, the new, you know, whatever it is. And. And now I Have nine trainers to share that with people. So I'm the boss now. It's, it's, it's cool. It's really fun. I like and like all my trainers, you know, they're like at the local gym, they got whatever people come to their class and then now they're on camera in front of the world and, and they only had to work four days and they get paid, which is what happened to me. And it's like, okay, if Carl can do it, I can do it. And the biggest thrill of my life is helping other struggling trainers who have tons of talent, who are really good at what they do, to let them have my gig, you know, and I'll be in their workouts and I'm playing director now. This is kind of, I go, I don't know if I can. So, yeah, so it's, it's awesome, man. It's a nice stage we're in right now. Again, this goes back to the original question.
- [81:33]
Warwick Schiller
So what are you up to that, that you mentioned? There's some, there's a martial arts component to it too. Do you, do you do martial arts? Like apart from the fitnessy, the fit.
- [81:48]
Tony Horton
I'm the fitnessy version. I don't get in a ring with anybody. I never did. But when, When I developed P90X, I met a guy who was a third degree Kempo Black belt, this guy Wesley Idol. And, and I really felt like, because Originally Carl wanted six routines, a master program like take power 90 and just make it harder. And I go, no, we got to add yoga, we got to add an ab. We gotta, let's not, let's double that. Let's make it 12. I shot, I, I, I, I had the first 11 down. But the martial arts thing, I just wasn't good at it. I wasn't good at teaching it. And so that took forever. But with Wesley's help, we ended up doing that one. And I've gotten, you know, that was a category of my fitness that was, that was weak, that was lacking. And I only teach, you know, I mean, P90X3 had mixed martial arts. We called it MMX, you know, mixed martial extreme. And so down strikes and sprawls and, and, and back fists and swords. And I was like, oh my God, I'm so terrible at this stuff. But I can teach it now without it looking completely awful, you know, but that's because I found the right coaches, mentors and teachers to guide me through it.
- [83:03]
Warwick Schiller
You find with your, with your, your nine instructors now a big part of it is teaching them how to be natural on camera.
- [83:15]
Tony Horton
Yeah. Having done it for. Since, you know, since the old Nordic track days when I was in my 20s and being in front of, you know, like, with. With tonal. With tonal. It's just me in the machine. I don't. I. I was so used to working with. Hey, man, looking good. Form is good. Now look over here. He's got to bend his knee more. And I. Keep your eyes up, you know, make sure to breathe. All those things you got to say. So. So having done it for so long, it's just like breathing to me. It's not even hard. And then you think, these are really funny. Talented, great trainers. Oops. Cut, cut, cut. Dude, no, no, man, stop looking at me. Stop looking at me. Look at the camera. You got three cameras. I am not one of them. You know what I mean? And then, dude, you seem angry. Why are you like, no one at home is going to be all right? And then if they're working with other. With other people on the set, what do you see them doing? What do you see that? What? Don't like, one of the guys is like, yep, good. That's good.
- [84:11]
Warwick Schiller
Good, good.
- [84:13]
Tony Horton
No, you can't say good 15 times in a row with your arms fold and look at one of the people on the set. You got it? So, you know, the biggest lesson is, is have a crapload of fun. Do not be attached. We can always redo it. It's not. You're not on a stage, it's not a play. And just say what you see. I think the number one cue is say what you see. If they're doing great, say what it is that they're doing. That's great, right? That's one thing. See, he's got. His arms are straight here, extended. Good breathing. Blah, blah, blah, everybody. And then. And then the. The most important person in this workout is the one behind the camera. You guys at home, man, so proud of you and just thrilled that you're here participating with me. It's a big deal. Don't beat yourself up if you're not, you know, like these. Say what you see. Have fun. Talk to the folks at home. And that comes semi natural to some folks, but, you know, whatever. I'm not going to name names, but there were some long days getting people to. Because they were doing what I was doing. The first day I had. I had a TV show on the Playboy channel called 360, and they hired me because I was cute and I was funny, but I. It was a Three camera show with a co host. And the very first day I was flop sweating. I had to change my shirt. I was so nervous. My personality was gone. All right, Tony, we're going to start on camera one. We're going to go to three, back to one, to two, and then you're going to turn to Tracy here and finish that. What? What, what? Hi, everybody, it's Tony. I'm going to. Today we're going to. Hello, Tracy. We. I thought they're going to fire me, right? So I know, man, I was there. I. I was like, you got. And I wouldn't even say, you guys can fire me now. You can just fire me, me, because I'm horrible. I'm not doing this well at all. And they go, no, Tony. And they kept me, dude. I did two seasons of this show and by the end, we're doing sketches. We're in the. We're at the LA Zoo. We're just shoot. We're doing like. And, man, the learning curve was. And they stuck with me. It was the best experience of my life. And then I went off to Nordic Track and I could kind of, you know, walk and chew gum. And so when it was time for me to do my thing, I was ready. But a lot of these trainers, they're doing it in a class, you know, in Culver City with some people in the room, and they don't because there's three cameras on our sets, plus, you know, plus dealing with the cast. It's a. It's a bit of a juggling thing, but. But a couple of folks came in and just like our friend Tasha Danvers, two time Olympian, she put off her shoots twice because she was so nervous and she's a natural. She just didn't know it. And then we finally said, you can't cancel a third time or you're not going to be one of our trainers. You just got to be here. And so she came in and she just like. And this was me. This was me the whole time on all seven or eight of her workouts. And action. And cut.
- [87:10]
Warwick Schiller
Good.
- [87:11]
Tony Horton
All right, let's get to the next one. Like, I don't have to say a word. And our friend Michael Bradley, who is a. Who's certified 15 different ways, I mean, he's the single most talented on camera athlete I have ever met. I mean, he. He's better than I am, this kid. And that's the reason why he's the number one trainer on our platform, because he's super handsome, he's super charismatic and He's. His workouts are so unique and so amazing and they're a. They're hard. And our. Our. Our quiver of fans love having their ass kicked. They did it with P90X and X2 and X3. And then Michael has filled in really nicely for me. And he's just brilliant on camera because, you know, he teaches like seven classes a day. He drives all over Provo and Salt Lake City, and. And he was ready for prime time, you know, but. Yeah, so to answer your question, some folks are naturals and some need a little help.
- [88:08]
Warwick Schiller
Yeah. And I think even these days, you know, every person's phone has a camera on a video camera, and you're always getting videoed. So it's. It's probably. People grow up these days, probably used to being recorded in some fashion a lot rather than back in the day when.
- [88:27]
Tony Horton
Yeah.
- [88:28]
Warwick Schiller
You know, I remember when you pointed a camera at me, I'd kind of. You know what I mean? It takes a while to get comfortable that.
- [88:37]
Tony Horton
It's tough. It's tough until it's not.
- [88:39]
Warwick Schiller
Yeah. So I want to switch gears a little bit because you were, you know, you were on top of the world there for quite a long time. Then a few years ago, you had a bit of a medical mishap, didn't you?
- [88:54]
Tony Horton
Yes, yes. Yeah. Yeah. I got Ramsay Hunt syndrome, which is basically shingles in your brain. And, you know, one in a hundred thousand people. I don't know if this stat is true, but it certainly sounds impressive. At least that's what I remember it. One in a hundred thousand people who get shingles get it right here. Right here inside your ear. Justin Bieber had it there and he had a tough time. Our Senator Feinstein got it, and it was partly what killed her in the end. She was in her 90s or 80s or something. She was old. Older gal. Yeah. And it's a little bit rare, and you end up with Bell's palsy. It affects. It affects a lot all the nerves that affect your sight, your smell, your taste and your balance. So sight wise. Everything. Everything was like this jittery. Everything was like, you know, like when I turned my head, my vision would go, which would make me incredibly nauseous. It wasn't like vertigo. Vertigo is more like spinning, you know?
- [89:56]
Warwick Schiller
Yeah.
- [89:57]
Tony Horton
And. And my smell, taste, my smell was gone. Everything smelled like secondhand smoke. I just felt like I was in a. In a. In a club in 1960, you know, like.
- [90:09]
Warwick Schiller
Right.
- [90:09]
Tony Horton
Just smoke. And I go. And Sean said, nobody's smoking. It's Just your brain who's pissed off. And then everything. All food had no flavor. No, just. All I had was texture. I had no flavor whatsoever. Kind of like what Covid does for some folks, right? So everything tasted like, you know, old gum. It was just really lame. But the worst part was the balance. I could not. I could not walk in a straight line because of the visual part of it. You know what I mean? This. And so I was. I lost 30 pounds, give or take 25. 30 pounds. I couldn't get out of bed, I couldn't eat, I couldn't exercise. I couldn't drive. I couldn't do anything. And all I did was vomit. Because when you're, you know, when you're. You're nauseous like that, you just makes you throw up all the time. So every time I would a lot of shakes and a lot of, like, oatmeal, and I could barely get it down. And then I'd get up and I'd turn, you know, the first three months were. Were a living hell. It was because if all you're doing is sleeping, vomiting and. And crying because, I mean. And then I had the Bell's palsy. And that doesn't always go away. There's a lot of people that have to have plastic surgery and everything else.
- [91:22]
Warwick Schiller
So was it. Is it one side of your face?
- [91:24]
Tony Horton
Yeah, this eye did not blink. This side of my, My. This part of my. This part of my face was frozen because it was here. And so nerves are funny. I mean, skin and bones and tendons and there's a predictability to when those things are going to heal. But nerves, they take their sweet time or they don't heal at all. Mine was October 2017, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24, 25. Hello. Eight years ago. And my balance is only. Within the last year. Improved to be normalish, really. But every once in a while, I'll still get a wave. Like I'll wake up some morning because of fatigue, because of stress, because of any kind of. You know. And shingles are chickenpox. If you had chickenpox. They're in there. They're in there, man, just waiting for you to get old or waiting for you to get stressed out.
- [92:21]
Warwick Schiller
I mean, I was going to say, isn't shingles. Can't shingles be bought on by. By stress?
- [92:26]
Tony Horton
That's the main reason why they're brought on. Yeah.
- [92:29]
Warwick Schiller
And do you know why you're.
- [92:32]
Tony Horton
As a kid, three things were. Three things all happened within the. Within a week. One you know, do I blame. I went to 20 years of service at Beachbody. I went in to get look at my contract and the deal was so friggin horrible I had to leave the company. You know, I mean, they thought it was a good deal. Hey, this is a good deal. It has lots of potential. I can't, I can't sign a deal based on potential, okay? Because after I shoot, after I create what I create and I shoot what I create, I hand it over for you to do media. Now if you're going to put a bunch of girls with big boobs in the damn Influence commercial, I can't control that. How about we do what we did with P90X which is tell the truth, work your ass off and eat right. All my stuff should have been done like that. But it got really, it became about other things and stuff I couldn't control. So maybe the company was struggling at that point and I was unaware, I don't know, they weren't giving me the financials every month. But the, the deal was just unbearable. It was awful. And I had to leave. And I'm like, oh, when you're on a 20 year wave and, and life is as good as it was for me and then you see what, what they offered and go, oh geez. So it's hard to go from, you know, and that happens to a lot of actors and people in business or whatever, like, you know, struggling. They work their ass off, they get to a point and it you don't, nobody ends up here. There's usually some of this and some drop off. Oh, right. So you know, I got two houses, I got big mortgages, I got, you know, I got stuff I'm trying to sustain here and do I downsize? I refuse to downsize. So there was that. And then friends of mine were at the Vegas shooting and they didn't, they're telling stories about people getting picked off left and right. And I'm like, I don't know man, that just, that just screwed me up. And then the next day Tom Petty dies, right? So that was all within like a five day time frame. And I remember I had a, I had a playa workout here in my backyard and there was, and they knew about the, the Beachbody thing and they were sensitive to the, but the, the, the shooting was like the day before and then, and I'm teaching a yoga class and I find out that Tom's dead, right? And then I'm, I mean these workouts that I do here at my house are all free. I invite people. Nobody pays a penny. And they were, like, 10 people in my yard doing plyometrics, and they were all effing off. Like, you know, like. And I go. And I just lost it, man. I. Like, I'm surprised. I just. I can't even tell you what I. If I reenact it, I can feel it. Like, I'm giving you free workouts. You're all screwing around, and you're all talking, and you're not doing what I'm asking you to do. And this is effing free. And my friend, after 32 years, is dead, and a bunch of people were shot up, like, how many? And you're going like, it's like. It's like a sunny and rosy perfect day. It is not. And so you're taking advantage of me, and it's pissing me off. And. And then, like, oh, I got a weird tingle in my ear. What's going on? What's going on? And I thought. At first, I thought I was having.
- [95:42]
Warwick Schiller
Is that when it started?
- [95:43]
Tony Horton
Yeah, yeah, yeah. Wow. Yeah. Wow. I could feel like, oh, my ears, itchy. That's weird. And I thought I was having a stroke, like, within three days of that. Oh, wow. I'm really dizzy. You know, I had brain fog. I couldn't concentrate. What's happening? And I let this thing fester. And I didn't see him. I didn't see the sores. Like, you know what shingles looks like? It's open sores. And Sean looked at my ear, goes, your ear is on fire. Like, what's going on? And so I went and had physical therapy. You know, I should have had. I should have had the meds right away. And then when I. And when it was its worst, when I got a week, like, if I caught it on day two, three, four, five, I might not have gone through the hell I went through. I just let it fester, not knowing. And so I go to the hospital, and I'm vomiting in the lobby, like, wow. And they get me back there, and they're looking at my symptoms, and the doctor's like, huh? You know? And so now he's on. He's on his laptop, Googling my symptoms. He goes, oh, I think you might have something called Ramsey Hunt Syndrome. He goes, oh, yeah, yeah, you got shingles in your ear, dude. It's all your nerves are fried in there. And then he go. And then within, like, I don't know that my face was okay. And then within a couple of weeks, right?
- [96:55]
Warwick Schiller
Oh, so it didn't the Bill's pulse.
- [96:56]
Tony Horton
It didn't been kicking right away and that went away after about a month, which is like, wow, thank God. And yeah.
- [97:05]
Warwick Schiller
Yeah, I bet that was a bit of a wake up call. Yeah. Well, as far as the, you know, you're sleeping and vomiting, that is definitely no fun. But thinking about, you know, your, your face not quite working again. Oh, he's gone and got some books for me.
- [97:26]
Tony Horton
That's that one.
- [97:29]
Warwick Schiller
What's the guy's last name? John. What?
- [97:30]
Tony Horton
Rady. Look, he signed it and everything, man. Oh, yeah, Spark.
- [97:36]
Warwick Schiller
But the reason why is that. Is that A R or a B? R I T, E?
- [97:42]
Tony Horton
Ray. People want to say ratty, but it's not. It's Rady. R A T E Y.
- [97:46]
Warwick Schiller
The Revolutionary New Science of Exercise and the Brain.
- [97:51]
Tony Horton
Now that's not this. This is the book that saved my ass right here. Here, man. Full Catastrophe Living. John Cabot Zinn.
- [98:02]
Warwick Schiller
John Cabot Zinn was a Buddhist monk. Yeah.
- [98:04]
Tony Horton
Yeah, dude. That's a whole lot of book, bro.
- [98:10]
Warwick Schiller
Big book.
- [98:10]
Tony Horton
There are sections in there that I.
- [98:13]
Warwick Schiller
You know, there's a lot of underlying sections in your.
- [98:16]
Tony Horton
I mean, like, like. So here I am, I'm suffering. I don't know what to do. There's nothing that works. All the king's horses and all the king's men can't put me back together again. I wish I can remember the person that recommended this book because I was in such a state of complete angst. I got better now all through the book. Meditation and breath work that let me. That helped me get through the day. So the lesson was like, I have a. I have a arrest and recovery because I can't get that again. I don't want to get that again, but I could easily get that again. So this is my. This, these are things that I didn't really do before I got Ramsay Hunt syndrome. These are things that I do one or two, three or four, five, six, seven every day now. Because if I'm going to kick my own ass physically, mentally and emotionally, what am I going to do to help my body heal and recover so I can repeat that behavior till I'm in my hundreds? You know what I mean? So I'm going to listen to music and I'm going to go for a walk and I'm going to play with my dog Charlie, and I'm going to take naps and not feel guilty about taking a freaking nap. But I'm not going to make it more than 15 minutes because I'm not going to Know what the hell day it is if I take them for more than that? For that meditation, breathworks, sun salutations. Like, I'll just add movement to breath. I'll do 10 minutes of sun salutations, reading, spending time with Shauna. What can I do to make your. Like, I'll turn to Shauna, go, honey, what's my job? Oh, brother. I go, but wait, what's my job? To make my life awesome. You got that right. Instead of being a selfish son of a. And then, of course, altruism is on the bottom of the list. And then recovery, cold plunge, sauna, foam rolling massage, jacuzzi, compression supplements, protein heating pad, electrolyte, sleep, cryotherapy, cold plunge.
- [100:12]
Warwick Schiller
How often do you cold plunge?
- [100:14]
Tony Horton
Not enough. Because I hate it. I hate it. I hate it. Man, my cold plunge, when I was away and the fires were here, you know, that we couldn't be at our house for a month, and it just sat there and it just turned into a mosquito pond.
- [100:29]
Warwick Schiller
Right.
- [100:29]
Tony Horton
You know what I mean? Like. Oh, God. So I had. So now it's sitting in the back drained and not being.
- [100:35]
Warwick Schiller
Oh, really? What. When you were doing it, what temperature do you normally do it at and how long?
- [100:39]
Tony Horton
I'm embarrassed to say. I started out at 65 degrees, and I think I got as low as 45.
- [100:45]
Warwick Schiller
Okay.
- [100:46]
Tony Horton
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
- [100:47]
Warwick Schiller
Well, they say it's got to be below 45 to affect your vagus nerve.
- [100:50]
Tony Horton
Right, right, right. I just did 65 to wake my ass up in the morning, you know, that was being cold. And when I'm in Jackson Hole, I filled the tub and Jackson Hole, I don't know what temperature is. It's like 33 and a half. I mean, it's. I can't. I. Two minutes is, you know, like, I have a stopwatch. I get in with a stopwatch. You know what I mean? Like, and I'm out, you know?
- [101:22]
Warwick Schiller
That doesn't sound good. You need my wife. She's the ice bath doula. She can. She coaches people through ice baths.
- [101:30]
Tony Horton
I need her. I went up to Laird Hamilton's house in Malibu. Name dropping. And I did his whole pool workout. And you get into a tub of ice, and there's a clock on the wall at his house. And I couldn't do the three minutes. I couldn't do it. I go, laird. No, not yet. Sorry. So I completely wussed out on the man.
- [101:51]
Warwick Schiller
Robin, my wife, Robin helped a guy through an ice bath. He recently. And his first ice bath was with Led Hamilton and Gabby.
- [101:59]
Tony Horton
Ah.
- [102:00]
Warwick Schiller
But it was a different experience because the way my wife does it, it's nervous system states than it is applying cold to yourself. So you know, she has people like do a in for four, out for eight breath before they get in. Oh, when you step in, you breathe in for four as you step in and then as, as you start to lower yourself, you start your out breath. And the key is to keep your out breath going out as the water comes up to your chin and keep blowing out because you're, you're, you're sympathetic nervous system wants to kick in and you want, you want start doing those short breaths and then it's, it's got you by the short and curly sort of thing. Whereas if you can control that breath, that for me that's the, the main reason for. I mean there's, there's so many benefits from it. But just controlling your breath in that stressful situation is we, we feel it's the most important part. You know, like I said, the guy that he did it with led. Led said just get in and he gets in and then you end up getting out. But the thing is there's no, there's no change in your nervous system. You know, the thing we're trying to do is get people to get in there and they start to freak out and then they, while they're still in the stressor, they get control of their nervous system. And I, and like I said, there's so many benefits.
- [103:27]
Tony Horton
I'm not a sophisticated cold plunge person as obviously based on my story, but I'm at that point now where I didn't know about. As you, you know, as you sort of submerge and letting the air out. I just get in and I panic for a bit and then I do my box breathing. Usually 4 by 4, 5 by 5, 6 by 5 or I'll do, I'll do, you know, short inhale, long holds, relaxed exhale, short hold, whatever. Like I, I play with it. One of the, my Michael Bradley that our top trainer on the platform has this meditation breath work workout on it that is just gold. A lot of, A lot of like purposeful, hyper, what do you call it? Hyperventilation breathing mixed in as well. Where you can do it? Yeah, we can do it. And you don't need an inhale for two minutes. It's crazy stuff, really interesting stuff. And big long breath hills. He, when he's here at the house, he'll put everybody in the pool underwater the first time and whatever. 30 seconds, 40 seconds, blah blah, blah. And then he'll get out. He'll go through this whole hour and a half breath work process and people are doing two and three minutes underwater, you know.
- [104:39]
Warwick Schiller
Right.
- [104:40]
Tony Horton
Which is really amazing what he can do. And so I'm, you know, that's an area that I still need a lot of work, you know, I mean.
- [104:46]
Warwick Schiller
But I'm James Nestor. No, he reaches over and he's got it right there. Yeah.
- [104:54]
Tony Horton
You mean that one?
- [104:55]
Warwick Schiller
Yeah, that one. Yeah.
- [104:56]
Tony Horton
I bet a mouth. I've been a mouth taper for two plus years.
- [104:59]
Warwick Schiller
Oh, have you been taping? Yep. Did you find it made a difference?
- [105:02]
Tony Horton
What? It's changed. It's game changer. And that story about the Indian tribe there who are all like perfect teeth and they're all tall and. And what? That's a piece of history. How come nobody knows about that stuff? I love that book. That's another one. I did want to recommend 80 books when you told me about three, but.
- [105:23]
Warwick Schiller
Yeah, that one is like that book. You read that and you're like, holy cow.
- [105:28]
Tony Horton
I know, I know. Anytime I see somebody on a plane with their mouth open, sleeping, I just like.
- [105:33]
Warwick Schiller
You want to reach everyone?
- [105:36]
Tony Horton
Yeah. Like I'll walk through an airport on the tram in Jackson Hole. Everybody's here. Yeah. Okay. You're a bit like, yeah, the gob is for eating and talking. It ain't for breathing, man.
- [105:53]
Warwick Schiller
And that's a huge complex not for breathing.
- [105:56]
Tony Horton
Great book. Yeah, yeah.
- [105:58]
Warwick Schiller
Awesome stuff. So how do people find your. Your latest offerings?
- [106:05]
Tony Horton
They have to wander through the woods, come over the hills and the dales, swim through the river and here I am on X. It's at Tony Underscore Horton. I'm looking at my cheat sheet over here. Instagram is at Tony S. Horton YouTube, Tony Horton and then of course Tony Hortonlife.com. that's the website. Also, if you want my fitness equipment, it's th fitness.comtonyhortonlife.com will tell you everything, all the events. One thing that I don't know when this is going to air, but May 7th through the 10th, we're going to be in Santa Ana at the big ninja course. They are having a three day event called the Paragon Experience. And you can go to Tony hortonlife.com hit the events tab. Come and check us out. We still have more. We still have plenty of seats available. It's workshops and tutorials and workouts and ninja and yoga and great speakers, great workshops. You know, we're talking diet, we're talking meditation, we're talking breath work. We're Talking fitness. I teach a bunch of classes. My, my talk is not about, you know, how you use exercise to get in shape. I've covered that topic too many times. Mine's more about the mental game, kind of getting in the mental space so that you thrive and not survive and, and making sure that, that exercise in this lifestyle's priority one. And I talk about the tactics, strategies, methods, techniques to, to get there so that it's hopefully permanent and not sporadic. And that's, you know, avoiding exercise. Bipolar disorder by doing it once in a while and feeling really good and feeling really horrible and just doing it all the time and learning how to do it all the time and how to make it not so stressful and make it enjoyable and, and I talk a lot about surrounding yourself. I talk about purpose, plan and accountability. You know, like, what is your reason why, how are you staying accountable and what's your plan to get there? You know what I mean? And once those things are in place and you can't do that after figuring that out, then you just don't want to be happy. You don't care about joy, happiness and laughter. You just, you know what I mean? And I talk a lot about. I'm writing a book called Right Now. The working title is vitality at 60. What the hell is it called? We've had like.
- [108:32]
Warwick Schiller
So I don't know, it's your book.
- [108:34]
Tony Horton
My book, it's called Vitality 60 Plus.
- [108:38]
Warwick Schiller
Okay.
- [108:39]
Tony Horton
Which I don't like that working title. I, I'm still, I'm still playing with that. So I talk a lot about that because I think quite a few folks are good at. Actually that's not right. A minority of the people that are coming so far are my age or around my age and they're scared to death because they just don't think that they're capable. And I know they are. I'm working with a guy right now, kind of one on one thing with an old friend of mine, this guy John, who had gained like almost 80 pounds and he's lost the weight and he looks better, but he's, he's weak as a chicken, you know what I mean? He does the stairs in his neighborhood three times a week ago. John. Not even close, dude. It's six days a week and here's the reason why. And we're texting every day and it's 63, 60. No, he's 60. He goes, I, I had no idea I was even capable half this crap you're showing me, because I can't. I thought the stair thing was good and my weight was down and I was fine. You know, I'm making him do push ups on med balls, you know. You know, I'm making them do stuff. You know, he put two hands on med balls in the floor and it was like an earthquake, dude. Yeah, it shouldn't be that way. So. Yeah. So that's it. Come to paragon. Go to tonyhortonlife.com and check us out.
- [109:47]
Warwick Schiller
Cool. You just mentioned the ninja thing. I read this morning that the 2032 Olympics has a new sport, Ninja warrior.
- [109:56]
Tony Horton
I'm not surprised it's such a popular thing. I have a ninja course in my yard. I have, I have two double 30 foot rope, 20 foot ropes. I have a high bar next to that. I got parallel bars next to that. Down in my gym I have a pegboard and I beam. Down below I got a pegboard and another 15 foot rope and a high beam and another pull up bar. And then I have an entire ninja course on another part of my yard. And that's how I move. And I can do what I can do because I'm not just doing linear bench press. Hey, Tony, what can you bench? I don't know and I don't care. How much do you deadlift? I don't know and I don't care. But I fly around on a ninja course like a 19 year old. You know what I mean?
- [110:34]
Warwick Schiller
What do they call it? Novel movement?
- [110:37]
Tony Horton
Yeah, yeah. Parkour is like that, Ninja is like that animal flow. I don't know if you've ever seen or tried animal flow. Like wow, you know, frogger and predator and, and, and dragon and these, you know, and crab and bear and beast and it's just, there's a learning curve. Like with yoga. Like I first went to yoga, I was like, what the heck is this? This is going to be so easy. I've been down dog five minutes, I'm in a flop sweat. Like I had no idea I was so tight, you know. And yoga, yoga was that first step. Then Pilates, which I'm still not great at. But this animal flow thing, oh, it's, it's the fountain of youth, man. It's special.
- [111:16]
Warwick Schiller
Yeah, I've seen, I have not tried it, but I've seen video of it. Looks like, looks like how we used to be as kids.
- [111:21]
Tony Horton
Yeah, you got to do like a 15 minute wrist warm up. You know what I mean? Because you are, you are front. There's a mobility factor, a strength factor, a balance factor. It's, it's. And it's you on the floor flipping around. It's, it's simple, it's cool. Yeah.
- [111:39]
Warwick Schiller
Looks super cool. Awesome. Well, thank you so much for joining me today, Tony. It was great to hear your story and, and you really should resurrect your, your career as a comedian because I think you're funny as hell.
- [111:52]
Tony Horton
Well, thank you. Yeah, I wanted to be Jim Carrey and Brad Pitt all wrapped in one and I ended up being a trainer, you know, whatever. But that, the silliness those years on stage and the years over at Second City LA that allowed me to disseminate my form of fitness in a different way unique to me and, and people gravitate to it too. So in the movie that I did is a little funny. I'm funny and there's some funny scenes. So.
- [112:17]
Warwick Schiller
But being that movie, so we can keep an eye out for it.
- [112:19]
Tony Horton
It's called an Autumn Summer. So if anybody's looking in, there's a festival in Phoenix and there's a festival in Miami. We were, we were in the one in Indianapolis. I was able to go to that one. And out of 110 movies, we were number seven, top 10. It's.
- [112:35]
Warwick Schiller
Wow.
- [112:36]
Tony Horton
It's a sweet little love story about these. I play Steve, I play the father of the lead boy. And an autumn summer. It's good. Yeah. So if you are, if anybody's in Phoenix or Miami in the next coming weeks, go get a seat, man. It's, it's a, it's a sweet film. It's really, I'm, I'm proud of it and I'm proud that I didn't screw it up.
- [112:57]
Warwick Schiller
That's awesome. Well, once again, thank you so much for joining me. I really appreciate you sharing your time with us.
- [113:03]
Tony Horton
Pleasure, Warwick. Pleasure. I'm glad Shawna made the intro. Dude, you're the man. This is fun. Fun and unique and good questions. I appreciate the stuff you're asking.
- [113:13]
Warwick Schiller
You're welcome. And you guys at home, thanks so much for joining us and we'll catch you on the next episode of Journey on Podcast.
- [113:22]
Tony Horton
Thanks for being a part of the Journey on podcast with Warwick Schiller. Warwick has over 850 full length training videos on his online video library@videos.warwickshiller.com. be sure to follow Warrick on YouTube, Facebook and Instagram to see his latest training advice and insights.