Jey (00:08.587)
Alright, alright, alright settle down. It's an exciting episode. Super excited. This is a total episode 99 of the podcast so I'm super excited for that first and foremost. Next week's a very special episode of the show. It's April so it's my birthday month and It's show number 100 and I have an amazing guest lined up. Someone very close to me in the fatherhood world is coming on as a guest. I'm super excited but welcome in to another week of the Young Dad podcast and that's what you call a teaser.
I'm super excited to be here today with Ethan. Ethan is an online health and fitness coach. He's a dad. He has a nice, fresh little babes. Fresh out of the oven. Probably seems like it was just yesterday that he came out. And he just has a wealth of knowledge and I got connected through him, through another friend of mine that podcasts, I heard him. I'm like, I wanna talk to this guy more in depth, but with my style. So.
Really excited to talk to you today, Ethan. Ethan, go ahead and tell us a little bit about you, about your, what you do, and just a little bit about your fatherhood journey so far.
Ethan Linn (01:11.242)
Yeah, so my name is Ethan Lin. I've been a health and fitness coach for a little over 10 years now. Married, a beautiful wife. I have one son. He's just turned one years old, so I'm a very new dad. We have talked about having a second kid at some point. We'll see when that time is right. Still making adjustments to learning how to do this the first time,
Yeah, uh, rip the Pacific Northwest. So everything outdoors is kind of what I grew up doing. Uh, love the West coast. Yeah.
Jey (01:53.419)
I love it. No, West Coast is best coast. As the listeners know, I'm in Washington. I grew up in South Seattle for majority of my life and then in Mill Creek, Bothell area. And now I live in the Tri-City. So I'm more so rooted in Washington than anything else. Mariner baseball, Seahawk football, Husky. Huskies are my college team. Even though I get banished to oblivion for rooting for them on this side of the state.
Ethan Linn (01:57.207)
That's right.
Jey (02:21.659)
It should either be Wazio or Gonzaga. I do love some Gonzaga basketball. I think everyone in Washington loves some Gonzaga basketball. So yeah, PNW where it's at. If I had to give you one piece of advice, I know you didn't ask, but I'll let you know anyway. For the one kid to the second kid, what my ex and I did was that we waited till the first one was gonna be out of diapers before the next one.
Ethan Linn (02:38.734)
Please.
Jey (02:51.839)
So making sure the first one's.
Ethan Linn (02:51.85)
Yeah, that's one of the things we've talked about.
Jey (02:55.771)
Yeah, so 100% that's like the deciding factor. At least it was for us. It's like we could have another one, but it's like she sleeps through the night now. She's a little bit more independent. She could do a little bit more for herself. And so she's a little bit more self-sufficient. Am I seeing kind of the backside of that now with her actually being older and having younger siblings? Maybe it forced her into a little bit too much independency or it didn't get her.
enough attention early on but you know that's what therapy is for.
Ethan Linn (03:32.601)
That's right.
Jey (03:34.96)
So tell us a little bit about you've been doing health and fitness coaching for 10 years. That's a very long time. That goes back to 2014 when it was probably a whole different ball game. So tell us how you kind of approached it from 2013, 2014 because back in that time, I also did personal training and it was wildly different than it was now. I did it while I was in college. It's wildly different now than it was before.
Ethan Linn (03:41.483)
Yeah.
Ethan Linn (03:48.29)
Yeah.
Ethan Linn (03:56.735)
Okay.
Jey (04:02.647)
ever was before, 10 years ago. So tell us a little bit about how it was when you started and kind of where you're at now and what you focus on with your clients.
Ethan Linn (04:15.311)
Yeah, so when I very first started, I was going to school to get a degree in exercise sports science. And I started working at a big box, like 24 hour fitness. So I was training any clientele. I had a 13 year old client. My oldest client was 97. So like goals range all over the place. But I was also a very new trainer.
And I was also young enough that I bought into a lot of like, bro science and like, this has to be your life. And everyone has the same 24 hours in a day. You have to make this a priority and like all of this. And for some people that were great. Um, and for a lot of people that didn't work well at all because, because life, um, so as I matured and as I, as my training style also changed, um, and how I developed over the years and like,
what does real health mean? And what do the vast majority of people, when they say, I wanna get healthy again, or I wanna lose weight or be able to whatever, what does that really mean? And so my coaching has changed drastically. And a big piece of what I have been trying to do this whole time is continue educating myself and figuring out the best way to do things. So how I coach people has changed drastically. I was doing in-person coaching, so face to face.
for most of my career, 2020 happened. I opened up, I helped open up a small independent gym and then like three months later, COVID happened. So we actually rented out all of our equipment to all of the members that had signed up and we did everything over like Zoom. And so that brought this whole new era of like remote coaching. And then I started doing online coaching. So now 80...
Five, 90% of my coaching is either over Zoom or totally remote through my coaching platform. So I have clients in Canada, I have clients on the East Coast, I have clients down in Texas, I have clients in Utah, like all over. So that's been really cool, but it's also made me, and forced me to adapt how I act as a coach and how I coach my clients because I'm not there in front of them like, here, squeeze this muscle. I can't like poke their back and be like, squeeze your lap.
Ethan Linn (06:39.534)
That's not a thing anymore really. So how I coach people and how I help people get from point A to point B looks completely different than it did when I started and even from five years ago. Yeah.
Jey (06:51.611)
I could only imagine because I remember you mentioned bro science. I was like, oh yeah, that was kind of the thing. But it was always and it still is with a lot of guys I see that are that are my age. That is more like, oh, we're just going to lift and we're just going to get big. We're just going to get swole kind of thing. We're going to live for good bulk. We're going to do all these things. One thing that I did that was so different with that I did with the other group, I worked through my school and.
we had this program that was called the Biggest Winner. So kind of like a positive spin on the Biggest Loser, where it was people who had the health issues that really needed the support and the coaching and the training for them. And so that was a unique challenge for me, because it was like, okay, I'm used to working with dudes who are all subscribed to Braille Science. Now I'm working with women, some older people who are a little bit older.
Ethan Linn (07:27.798)
Yeah, yeah, okay.
Ethan Linn (07:45.13)
Yeah.
Jey (07:49.751)
And then just all these different sizes and shapes of body. So I was already kind of working with healthy dudes Who just needed a bit of a push who just needed a bit of a More of a plan more of a routine To get to what they wanted to do But now it totally changed like how I looked at things working with this new group Because it's like I need to work with them on their total body like I need to work with them head to toe, I can't just say go and lift a
Ethan Linn (07:55.309)
Mm-hmm.
Jey (08:17.599)
go throw two 45s on that bar and, you know, give me 10 sets of five squats or whatever, you know, or split jumps or whatever. I can't tell you, I can't tell this person to go and do that because they physically cannot do that. They can maybe do one set of five with a 10 pound dumbbell over their head, laying flat on a bench kind of thing, you know? So it was completely different. So then I really started to learn more about like total body.
Ethan Linn (08:26.944)
Mm-hmm.
Jey (08:47.291)
And that group I was with, we had a couple other trainers and they introduced me to something that for me, just my own health, really helped me. They introduced me to a super circuit. Something that if you're subscribed to Bro Science, you probably don't know what a circuit workout is. Then I found this and I'm like, holy crap, my butt, I would do the workout with my people. It's something I always really like doing.
Ethan Linn (08:48.644)
Mm-hmm.
Ethan Linn (09:06.062)
Mm-hmm.
Ethan Linn (09:15.766)
Uh-huh.
Jey (09:16.411)
was to do it side by side with them. So then I got introduced to the circuit workout and I was drenched, I was tired, I was, my whole body hurt cause I worked everything, neck, shoulders, back, core, hips, legs, everything, I worked everything. And it was, I'm like, holy crap, this is like more for me than anything ever was before because all through high school, I was always like, I was like skinny fat.
Ethan Linn (09:26.646)
Yeah, yeah. Right.
Ethan Linn (09:42.542)
Mm-hmm.
Jey (09:46.175)
So I wasn't like out of shape, but I wasn't like the most in shape kid. But I was athletic enough to get by. And so, but it was always like, well, you need to get muscle. You need to get big. You need to do this. I tried all the stuff that my coaches told me in high school for different sports. None of it worked for me. I couldn't get bigger. I barely got stronger because it was just, I'm just lanky. I'm just lanky. I would just get fatter if anything else. And I didn't like that because I was eating more, trying to lift, but my muscles didn't grow.
Ethan Linn (09:50.254)
Sure, sure.
Ethan Linn (10:02.946)
Mm.
Ethan Linn (10:06.142)
Mm-hmm. Yeah.
Jey (10:16.271)
And once I was introduced to this, I was able like, holy crap, this is just overall strength training. Like head to toe, like this for me is going to help me be sustainable for a really long time. So even now, when I go and work out, I do some cardio, I do, I don't do a ton of cardio because I can still get cardio in through lifting. Because it's going to work my heart just the same. And.
Ethan Linn (10:28.398)
Mm-hmm.
Ethan Linn (10:37.485)
Mm-hmm.
Jey (10:41.459)
But now I try to make my own circuits because my gym doesn't have a dedicated circuit area like a Planet Fitness or big box gyms gonna have. But I think it's just so much healthier and it definitely has changed because I still don't see a lot of people doing it when I go to the gym. I still see a lot of people subscribe to like bro science. I see a lot of dads who are kind of just doing, you know, maybe some treadmill, maybe some elliptical, maybe some...
Ethan Linn (10:48.495)
Oh, sure, sure.
Ethan Linn (11:02.456)
Yeah.
Jey (11:10.103)
minimal cardio, lifting some weights and then you know, oh, I was enough calling it a day kind of thing. So how, what are some things that like dads can do for their overall like well-being? Definitely it's going to be like per person. Everyone's going to be different for what they need but for you, working with different dads and whatnot, how do you, how do you work with them?
Ethan Linn (11:30.542)
Sure sure sure.
Jey (11:36.363)
Because I'm sure there's some commonalities when it comes to that. So what are some of the common things you see trying to work with them?
Ethan Linn (11:42.966)
Yeah, so the first one is usually trying to get to some baseline strength metrics, right? Of like, here's where you are, let's get you to be able to do X, Y, Z thing, right? And we don't have to get there by doing, you know, bodybuilding style workouts. I actually don't recommend bodybuilding style workouts from most people at all.
But as a dad, I think it is your responsibility to be strong. You need to be able to lift heavy things if needed and not be a concern. And that doesn't have to be deadlift 500 pounds, but you need to be able to do a pull-up. That's a minimum standard. Every dude should be able to do a pull-up. And if you can't, let's get you to do a pull-up.
And what's cool about having strength standards is everything else kind of falls into place. So if you need to lose some weight in the process of trying to get stronger, we will push your body to a point where like that will be a byproduct. You will lose weight because your goal is to get strong. If you want bigger muscles, because you are getting stronger, your muscle size will have to increase because that's how you get stronger. So you add muscle to your body. So dad's mom's really most anyone I train with now, the focus is always like.
Let's get you strong. Let's get you moving well. Let's get you pain free. That's another big one. Like parents, dads especially, have jobs that are labor intensive. They have jobs where they're sitting a lot. There's aches, there's pains, there's old injuries. Like I work with a lot of dads who, you know, I play sports in high school or college or whatever. I have this shoulder that always gives me problems. I have this knee that always gives me problems. And so like playing with their kids, they can't play with their kids as much because their knee hurts.
whatever, so it's like getting them out of pain, getting their body as healthy as possible, and then getting them as strong as possible. And strength, what that means for everyone can look a little different, but in the process of getting strong, most other goals are achieved, losing weight, building muscle, feeling better, having more energy. And there's so many other things that go into that, you know, sleep, nutrition, recovery, stress management, there's like this, I'm very much the whole approach to health now. But uh.
Ethan Linn (14:04.962)
But yeah, it's never like, how big of a dumbbell can you bicep curl? Because who cares? Fuck it, doesn't matter. But can you pick up your kids and play with your kids all afternoon? That means way more than curling 60s. So.
Jey (14:24.391)
No, very true. And it's also, I think that pain-free aspect is a huge part of it. Because there's always aches and pain. Like I get made fun of by my fiance all the time. For being an old man. Because something will just randomly ache or hurt randomly. So I get made fun of all the time. Not that I'm currently undergoing anything significantly in pain. It's just like a little sore, or maybe I was sitting too long. It's gone in a couple seconds.
Ethan Linn (14:36.822)
Yeah.
Jey (14:51.987)
Beyond that, I think it's so important for dads to be able to go to the park and not get winded running around and playing with their kids.
Ethan Linn (15:00.298)
Yeah, yeah, exactly. Yeah.
Jey (15:03.823)
It's so important for you to be able to pick up your kids whenever they ask, because they're just going to get bigger. Uh, and you're going to get her and those things don't necessarily agree heavier and older trying to balance that. And so, and kids want to be picked up. Uh, you never know when it's going to be your last time picking up your kid and you want to be able to do it, uh, for your entire life.
Ethan Linn (15:10.659)
Yeah!
Ethan Linn (15:21.94)
Right. Yeah.
Ethan Linn (15:32.15)
and you want to be able to do it. Yep. And the other, like the next step of that, I always tell people, I always tell parents, especially as like, your kids are gonna have kids one day and you're gonna want to be able to pick up your grandkids. So like, if you don't prioritize your health now, 30 years from now, when you're 60 and your kid has a kid and you haven't taken care of your body for the last 50 years.
Jey (15:34.601)
That's so important.
Ethan Linn (15:59.466)
you're going to be so upset that you can't pick up your grandkid or that you can't sit on the ground with them and play or whatever. So like, yeah, it's about you being a good parent and playing with your kids, but like long term, think about your grandkids, think about like you taking care of your health now has this generational benefit to like so much further than you could. It's like the one of the best gifts you could give your family is like being the example of what strong and healthy looks like.
because then your kids are going to teach their kids, and then you get to enjoy the time with your grandkids. I mean, it's just a very cool, perpetual, positive influence and impact that you can have on your family. So yeah, it's important. It's important.
Jey (16:42.899)
100%. And I think just the added layer on that, that a lot of people don't, I think it's, I don't even know how to describe it, but an added layer on top of all of it, like yes, you can work out, you can have a great routine, but you also need to have a strong, solid diet. And you need to be eating well, you need to be putting the right stuff into your body. Like for me personally, like I, I'm not a big vegetable person. Like I don't like green things. I've never liked vegetables.
But what can I do to make that up? I can supplement. I can get a powder, mix it in some cold water. I can get probably 10 times more from that powder than I actually am getting from eating a stick of celery or something, you know? So it's just about knowing like, exactly. I'm like, I'm not gonna eat the celery. I'm not gonna enjoy it. Like I get it. It's hydrating too. It's like, well, look at how big my freaking water bottle is. Like.
Ethan Linn (17:28.886)
especially if you don't eat the celery. Right, if you don't eat, yeah, if you don't eat the celery. Yeah.
Ethan Linn (17:41.463)
Yeah.
Jey (17:42.511)
I'm hydrated, like I supplement my greens, like I'm good. Like I started doing kind of a, my brother and I, we actually started doing like a keto carnivore kind of diet, kind of December-ish coming into the new year. So we're both kind of doing like a keto carnivore diet with a little bit of cheating allowed, just to like not cold turkey ourselves or like hurt ourselves or do anything like that. But we're both feeling just...
so great off of it. But that's what works for us. We know ourselves, we have similar genetics, so we're not gonna push down on anyone else. I have a friend of mine, her and her husband are vegan, and they're super happy, they feel really good, their blood work came back better after being on it for a few months, like it works for them. But you have to have a good diet. You have to make sure that you're eating well enough. Eating well enough isn't getting takeout every day.
Ethan Linn (18:15.685)
Yeah.
Jey (18:40.475)
or some version of takeout or whatever. Eating well enough is packing yourself a lunch, maybe eating a little boring, maybe eating leftovers from the night before or whatever, but that's okay because that's still better food that you're eating even though it's boring than getting the McDonald's fries and hamburger or whatever. And I'm not trying to bash on big food or big fast food or anything because do I still eat it sometimes?
Absolutely, I do, but...
Ethan Linn (19:12.65)
Yeah, and that's how I coach all my clients is, it's the 80-20 principle, right? 80, 90%, when you're crushing it, like 80, 90%. If you're eating to actually fuel things that you say you want, I wanna be leaner, I wanna be stronger, I wanna feel better, you can enjoy the other 10%. It's not that you can never have a piece of cake ever again, or you can never go to Christmas dinner ever again. It's...
those are the exception to the rule, not the standard, right? And so if you're eating McDonald's every single day, that's a very different story than I have McDonald's once a month because there's a kid's birthday party and that like, or something like that, it's very different. And so balancing those two things of like, yeah, the majority of time, if you can look at your food as a thing that's helping fuel the goals and desires that you want.
Jey (19:44.691)
Mm-hmm.
Ethan Linn (20:09.906)
eating the boring food is easier because I'm like, this is helping me get enough protein to build muscle to stay lean. Fine, I'll eat the food. And then when I have that special occasion, I can eat and not have any guilt or shame or weird feelings about eating the fast food or the whatever because I've been so consistent the vast majority of the time that I know that this isn't gonna throw it off. And as long as I don't let that one meal turn into a cheat week, turn into a cheat month, turn into a cheat year,
You'll be just fine. Yeah.
Jey (20:42.735)
Exactly, and it's all about having like a good for me. It's about having a good guilty pleasure snack my guilty pleasure snack is a really tiny bowl of Cheez-Its and A bunch of pickles. I love pickles. I'll drink pickle juice pickle juice is packed and loaded with goodness actually Pickles are just they're a top tier like to me. They're my guilty pleasure snack because all this
Ethan Linn (20:50.423)
Yeah.
Ethan Linn (20:58.414)
There you go. Yeah.
Jey (21:09.563)
Much I'll get the big o like tub of Grillo's pickles from Costco. So I have like a tub of pickles that I mow down Not at all at once I could but I'll like stick a straw in there and drink the juice I'm weird like that. But for me like I really struggled with the whole 100% there their next level. They're crunchy. They're salty. They're kind of filling so they hit so many categories for so many people
Ethan Linn (21:14.827)
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Yeah.
Ethan Linn (21:25.858)
Pickles are great.
Ethan Linn (21:36.578)
Yeah, yeah.
Jey (21:38.551)
least for me. But for me, I struggled with the whole food thing. So after my divorce, I don't think I've ever told this story on the podcast. So after my divorce three years ago, it'll be three years this year, I was, I remember explicitly, I weighed myself and I was about two, I was six, I'm six feet tall. I weighed about 240. I was wearing XL shirts, pushing double
Jey (22:09.971)
Within probably six months of my divorce, it was a mix of the depression, not eating, staying up late, a lot of caffeine, just not putting anything good into my body really. Maybe eating once a day, once every other day kind of thing, just because of how, of all the emotional and behavioral factors that were at play. I draw, I went from two...
230 240 down to 170 in a matter of just a few months which is Unhealthy, which is super unhealthy because I went and then I remember going to the doctor explicitly I went to the doctor probably four or five months in to get some blood work to get a checkup You know normal things because I wanted to get my thyroid checked I wanted to get some blood work done to test where my you know testosterone levels were just all the you know typical blood panel stuff and he
Ethan Linn (22:41.746)
Yes. Curse.
Jey (23:03.091)
The first thing that he commented when he came in, he's like, are you okay? He's like, I've seen that you've lost a lot of weight since your last kind of you came in, which was maybe was less than a year. So it was kind of obvious. I'm like, yeah, I think I have. Like I don't like, I'm not trying to, it's just kind of happened. Um, I'm like, I've been really down, got divorced a few months ago. And then he.
did his whole screening thing for depression and all those things that he has to do and just to make sure I wasn't like at risk of hurting myself or anyone kind of thing. So he does that and he's like, this is not good. Pretty much he was very straight on this would be because I've been seeing him for a few years so he was able to be you know quite blunt and he's like this isn't sustainable. Like what you're doing isn't sustainable.
Ethan Linn (23:36.482)
Mm-hmm.
Jey (23:57.863)
Like, it's not, you're not gonna stay here, you're not gonna stay it this way, you're not gonna do this. Like, where you're at isn't sustainable, it's not gonna work. He's like, your panel came back really good. No thyroid issues, no diabetes, no... None of this. No major issues, except your protein is ridiculously low. Your protein levels are dangerously low, your vitamin K and your vitamin D are crazy low.
I'm like, vitamin D, I get outside and I work outside for a lot of the day. He's like, it doesn't matter. Like you're not eating it. You're not putting anything into your body. I'm pretty sure my iron, my protein, my vitamin D and my vitamin K were really low. All the things that you get from eating food, right? From carbs and meat and things like that. And so I had a very honest conversation. Um, but then I still couldn't really figure it out. I was still maybe eating.
Ethan Linn (24:36.974)
Food. Yeah.
Jey (24:50.419)
I started eating more than once a day, maybe one and a half times a day, some snacks, things like that. I started feeling way better. Working out a little bit more. Things like that. So now I'm right back up to about 180, 190 range, kind of float in that range, depending on how hard I am, I'm going, how bloated I am, how crappy I've been eating. Will definitely fluctuate my weight more than anything. But now I'm in a range where like, I feel really good for my body. Like my body's not hurting. I'm not.
Ethan Linn (24:57.198)
Mm-hmm.
Ethan Linn (25:14.87)
Yeah.
Mm-hmm.
Jey (25:19.691)
too big, I don't feel too small, I feel all my things are more or less normal. I still definitely struggle with my protein level just because I don't eat nearly enough. I still maybe eat one to two times a day. I intermittent fast, so that doesn't necessarily help me all the time. But I'd rather have just my protein be a little off or a little low some days versus having...
Ethan Linn (25:27.935)
Excuse me.
Ethan Linn (25:33.198)
Mm-hmm.
Jey (25:45.607)
the things wrong because I'm not eating at all. So definitely trying to find your balance with your diet is super thing.
Ethan Linn (25:48.844)
Totally.
Jey (25:54.283)
So yeah, enough diet talk. Anything else that you wanna mention about health, fitness, or anything?
Ethan Linn (26:01.189)
Um, no, I mean, I think, uh,
Ethan Linn (26:08.718)
Cool. I guess a piece of advice I'll throw out there for the listeners is if you could stop expecting a huge result in the short term and you are more okay with it taking a lot longer to get where you wanted to go and just trust that it's gonna happen if you keep going, it'll happen. I see this, I've seen this for the last 11 years now where people go, I wanna lose weight and they...
are doing all the things for like 90 days, 60 days, and then they're not where they wanna be, and they're like, I give up. It's like, man, it's been 15, 10, 20 plus years that you have not been prioritizing your health, and you expected it to happen in 60 days. That's not how this works. Especially if you want, like to your point, if you wanna do it the right way where it's healthy, like I can get anyone to lose a lot of weight really fast.
but it's not gonna be healthy and you're gonna gain it all back because we're doing extreme nonsense. So instead, if you could give yourself a year, two years, if you could give yourself two years where like, I'm just gonna keep doing my best and every day try a little bit harder to stay consistent, in two years, people would be shocked with how much progress they can make if they give themselves that much time to get there instead of like, I have to do this in 90 days.
Because that is gonna, if you do get crazy results, it's not gonna last and you're gonna be so bummed when all the weight comes back or you feel terrible six months later. Give yourself more time, you will be infinitely happier and you'll be able to keep all that because you did it at a pace that was healthy and sustainable. So you'll be able to keep the results for the rest of your life. The reason why diets fail is because people do extreme stuff. I don't know if I can curse. I'm trying to be very...
Jey (28:02.094)
You can. You can.
Ethan Linn (28:04.526)
Okay, cool. People do crazy shit. They're like, I'm gonna do this crazy diet. I'm gonna do this crazy workout routine, hoping that in 30 days, I'm gonna look completely different. And it's never the case. If you're trying to do it the right way. So stop trying to get results in 30 days and start thinking in like six, 12, 18, 24 months, you will be shocked with how much progress you can make. Yeah. Get off my soap block.
Jey (28:29.252)
So talking about the first 30 days, you're good. Talking about like 30 days that you're expecting something crazy different. Let's talk about those first, let's talk about the fourth trimester, aka the first 30 to 90 days after the baby comes out, after your baby's born. And let's talk about that a bit. I think this is a great segue. Those first 30 to 90 days, that fourth trimester for men.
Ethan Linn (28:44.747)
Yeah.
Ethan Linn (28:51.798)
Yeah.
Jey (28:55.995)
We're going to talk specifically about men. I think everyone knows how hard it is for a woman going through breastfeeding, recovering from pushing a baby out of your body, having to your body dilate to 10 centimeters to get this baby out and all the pain, the blood, the horror, all the things that come with that. We know that we know how hard it is on moms. It can also lead to C-sections or all the different things that could happen. We know that we validate that we honor that we love that we respect it. We could not.
appreciate it more. One thing that we don't, that's not talked about in any way, shape or form anywhere that I've seen, minus maybe my friend Kelly's podcast, new podcast that he came out with a few months ago called The Miscarriage Dad. Outside of that platform, I rarely see anyone talk about men dealing with postpartum depression. And that first 30 to 90 days, like your whole world's turned upside down as a dad too.
Ethan Linn (29:28.018)
Yeah.
Ethan Linn (29:47.714)
Yeah.
Jey (29:54.955)
Because now you don't get really any time for yourself because you're taking and that's okay. Part of that's part of the what we signed up for when we decided to, you know, get our significant of the pregnant. We knew that was going to be part of it. But so we're not complaining about it. So please don't hear that we're complaining about this at all or we don't want to do it or didn't want to do it. We're not complaining at all. It's all just a preface here. But that.
Ethan Linn (30:05.038)
That's it.
Jey (30:24.671)
We're taking care of our wives or our baby mama, whatever they are to us. We're taking care of the baby. We're getting up. We're likely still going to work, well, after a few weeks or whatever, not nearly as long as she's going back to work. And so we're still doing all the things plus more. And we are now suddenly, we're cut off from all our friends, anything that we wanna do.
If we want to play games, nope, I got to take care of a baby. Pretty much the only things we get to do are take care of our wives, take care of our babies and go to work. That's pretty much it. That postpartum depression can definitely set in really hard for men. Let's talk about that. It gets disregarded. It's super real. For you personally, did you feel yourself that you dealt with some postpartum depression after your son was born?
Ethan Linn (31:05.55)
That's it.
Ethan Linn (31:23.134)
Oh yeah, so back store and I will add to your preface, like I agree 100%. This is nothing to take away from the, my wife's experience or any woman's experience with delivering a baby. But it is something where I remember when I kind of had the aha mode of like, I'm pretty sure I'm having like,
Postpartum, like this is, cause I've usually been very even keeled emotionally in my relationship with my wife. I was the emotionally, I was the rock. And after the birth, it completely flip flopped. We were both kind of drowning there for a little bit, but then she kind of fell into this more stable position and I was just a mess. But when I would tell people this, they would all shrug it off like, dads can't get that. That's exclusively a...
a new mom thing and I remember being like, oh, that's crazy because I can't, I don't know how else to describe what I'm feeling other than depression. And so that was interesting just how that was received by people, but it was very real. I own my, so I own my own business, so I got no time off. He was delivered, he was a NICU baby as well, so that was really hard and I was in the NICU working on my computer.
And that was horrible. That was rough. And then he came home. Luckily, he only got better and better through the NICU experience. So that was a relief. But leaving your baby at the hospital, going through that whole experience of childbirth, and then leaving your baby at the hospital to go home every day was also a very traumatic, seems a little extreme. But that was a very hard experience.
Jey (32:53.515)
Yeah.
Ethan Linn (33:20.398)
your child who isn't healthy in every way, shape and form. And you're having to leave them behind to go home and just worry the whole time. So that was rough. Working for myself, I got three days off essentially. He also was a month early. So like, I was prepared, but we weren't expecting that to happen. And so my plans around like what my time off was gonna look like and prepping my clients.
That timeline all got crazy, so I got no time off. And then, yeah, I just noticed just how my emotional high after delivery just plummeted and it never came back. There was never this feeling of like, I'm so happy right now. I'm so happy that my wife is healthy and safe and she's recovering well. I'm happy that he's recovering well in the hospital, but like...
My personal joy with the situation was not there at all. It was a weird void that I had never felt before and there wasn't anything I could do because I also feel very blessed. I do what I love for a living. I get to touch people in health and fitness. I love health and fitness. So like, I love what I do and I got no happiness from my job anymore, from my work.
Um, yeah, it was this very strange void that when I told people about most often was dismissed wholeheartedly, which also was so strange to me. Uh, but it also just was like this very rash reminder that most often men are only seen as valuable for their utility. If I wasn't offering utility, it's like adding value to the situation. So, uh,
That was also a glaring reminder that so often I think men have their own struggles. We do struggle and it's, you know, we can work through it and most often guys struggle silently because if we tell people about it they're like, cool, who cares? Which is rough.
Jey (35:41.875)
Pretty much, and no, 100%. And I think it's a couple things that I don't love about this conversation that we were having. I love the conversation overall. It's a great conversation and needs to be had. But the first part of it is that we have to preface it so much and we have to give so much preface in context. Like that in itself is very disheartening. And I'm sure a lot of other dads that are listening right now are like, wow. Like.
Ethan Linn (35:59.807)
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Jey (36:10.667)
I didn't even think about that, but we do have to preface everything that we want to say about ourselves, feeling wise, emotionally. We have to preface and not to take anything away from anyone else, but to actually give ourselves a little bit of light for it to be okay. And then the fact that you thought about not using the word traumatic, because that experience, at least for me, I work in mental health, I'm a mental health clinician. I would perceive that experience as traumatic for you.
Ethan Linn (36:22.347)
Yeah.
Jey (36:40.207)
I would perceive that as traumatic for myself. Going and leaving my baby every day at a hospital, hoping and praying that they just get better, but not knowing and being able to do it. Something that's completely out of your control, that you're not even there all the time for, that you're just going back home with your wife every day and sitting in silence, probably a lot of tears, probably a lot of anxiety, probably some depression. So that's traumatic, but the fact that we can't even say that our experiences are traumatic.
Ethan Linn (37:05.351)
Yeah.
Jey (37:09.231)
or a whole other thing in itself. Because like you said, it will get dismissed. It does get dismissed 100% of the time. I say society's slightly moving in a direction to where it's not, but there's still a big reason, and this is part of it, that there's a four to one suicide rate for men. Why men take their lives by more lethal means. In our country, in America, day in and day out. Four men to one women, day in, day out.
fathers, veterans, normal guys, men that are over 40, husbands, fathers, uncles, friends, neighbors, four to one, four to one. I lost my little brother about four years ago to a suicide. Like there's
Ethan Linn (37:56.226)
I had a good friend last year, who I worked with actually, who took his life.
If you would have asked me six months before it happened, three weeks before it happened, I talked to him the day before it happened. He wouldn't have known, he wouldn't have known. Because when people say, how you doing? We go, I'm fine, I'm okay, I'm good. Or whatever platitude we kind of throw out there because it is easier than saying, I'm drowning. Someone please help. So, yeah.
Jey (38:21.419)
Mm-hmm.
Jey (38:30.855)
Yeah, it's like I'm exactly because it's easier because no one's going to carry anyways, which is part of the problem. Part of it's also our system that we have here in our country, you know, that if we do go and talk to a doctor, it's maybe we get five minutes with our doctor to actually tell them what's going on. And they'll just write us a script and send us on our way. Here you go. You're depressed. You go get out. Go. I got to go to my next one because our system is so it's like over jam packed.
Ethan Linn (38:40.512)
Yeah.
Jey (38:58.719)
But then again, you have to make sure that you have medical care to be able to go and see that doctor. So you're not paying an absurd amount of copay. Because if you don't even have insurance, you can't even get in the door because there's no way the normal person can afford that out of pocket. And then it all wraps back to, and I've been talking about this a lot lately. If you've listened to the last few episodes, there's probably nothing more lonely than being a dad, than experiencing being a dad at times.
It can be the most joyful thing, be the most fulfilling thing, but it's also one of the most lonely things at the same time, which is so weird. But I love how you mentioned that nothing was bringing you joy and fulfillment anymore. Your job, your kid, like there was just this void. And I think that's manifested so different for different men. For me, that was manifested in a lot of anger. I was angry. I would react.
Ethan Linn (39:38.832)
Mm-hmm.
Ethan Linn (39:55.414)
Okay.
Jey (39:56.515)
negatively toward people I work with and interact with. And I would interact negatively with coworkers at my job with my wife at the time to where that like kind of just played through our whole marriage to where the birthing experience the first time around was really, really not great for her second time around better. I'm better now I'm a different man than I was then. Regardless it manifests itself in so many different ways.
And I think it's important to realize that how it manifests for you, like my depression, my anxiety, things I've always dealt with have always been manifested through like anger and reaction and being reactive toward others and lashing out toward others. So that I don't lash out at myself so I don't hurt myself in some way it goes out towards others. But that loneliness kind of wrapping back to that like it's lonely being a dad, which is really, really weird at the same time because it's like.
Ethan Linn (40:39.95)
Mm-hmm.
Jey (40:54.059)
there should be so much more fulfillment in this. We have our kids, you know, it's a joyful time. We're hopefully still loving and supporting partner within marriage and things like that. But it's very lonely at the same time to where it's very hard for men to work past that, to work through that. So.
Ethan Linn (41:19.544)
Yeah, I-
Ethan Linn (41:23.374)
I feel extremely lucky. I have a loving wife, I have a loving partner. My son is healthy now, he's doing great. But yeah, it's definitely, since having him, my emotions have taken a turn and I'm feeling like I have to work significantly harder to stay in control of my emotions. I also like, my go-to emotion is also anger, funny enough.
which I think a lot of men, that's probably the case, because that's kind of how we were taught to respond to emotional things, because it gives the illusion of power and strength to be angry and prove that you're the alpha or whatever. But yeah, I have cried more in the last 12 months than I've cried in the last 30 years of my life. It's been...
Jey (42:11.924)
Mm-hmm.
Ethan Linn (42:23.266)
very odd that there will be days where it's like, I can't shake the feeling that the world is ending. And so again, we're going back to preface things, which I'm glad you pointed that out. Like to preface, I feel extremely lucky. I have a good job. I have a healthy business. I have a beautiful wife, healthy kid, beautiful. Like my life's great. It doesn't change the fact that like, it's real. And-
I, one of the, one of the things I was, I heard not too long ago, which I thought was just brilliant was with men, and especially when we're dealing with anxiety and depression, if you go see a therapist or you're getting help with it, oftentimes we are presented that solutions are presented that are emotionally based and men are like action based creatures by nature, most of us, right? So like, I want to be able to do something to solve a problem. Give me an action.
Jey (43:21.478)
Mm-hmm.
Ethan Linn (43:21.834)
And so, what it's like, try this like journaling. Like, okay, great. But like, tell me like to do something. And so one thing that I've actually found with a lot of my dads that I work with, especially if they're struggling with this is like, we're gonna get you to have a health and fitness goal that's specific to like, it's something that is gonna be hard for like, super hard for you to do. I wanna be able to.
deadlift a bunch of weight, or I want to be able to run a just sediment mile, whatever it is, but it gives them this task where now they have this like, I have this goal that I have to work hard to achieve. And I have seen more dads work through emotional stress, focusing on their health and fitness and prioritizing themselves and getting that, than the experiences they've had.
And this is all anecdotal, right? This is them expressing this, but like, they're working with a therapist or just getting on an antidepressant because that's what the doctor ordered. Like, cool, let's focus on like this goal, this task that you can accomplish. And then that I have seen work wonders. So it's something that I now practice. Like I have stretch goals with my health and fitness because it gives me a task and that has done.
Jey (44:21.269)
Mm-hmm.
Ethan Linn (44:46.454)
wonders in terms of helping, but it doesn't take away from like, there's just days where man, it's rough. So continuing to work on that. Yeah.
Jey (44:53.448)
100%
100%. I think one thing that men don't understand when it comes to the therapy world is that yes, it can be about working through emotions and feelings and trauma and things like that, but it's also a great place to learn new coping skills. Men, we light up, it's like, oh, I can learn a new skill. I can have more skills, more things I can show off. Like, look how I can calm down. Look how I can...
Ethan Linn (45:14.487)
Mm-hmm.
Jey (45:24.679)
do this or kind of thing. So it's all about working with your audience kind of thing. If you're working with a guy or with a dad, well for me in my work it's like, okay, I know I need to set you some things to do. I need to keep you busy kind of thing. So I'm going to give you a task to here are your five different coping skills. You have one physical, one emotional, one mindset, one maybe two physical or whatever. These are your coping skills that you're going to work to master.
You're going to work to master these coping skills. You're going to work on them and you're going to try them. But coping, I think coping skills, most people also perceive as like deep breathing and yoga and meditation. Like that's when you think of coping skills, but it's going for a walk. It's going for a run. It's building Legos, playing Play-Doh with your kid or all these different things, playing a game. Those are all different coping skills too. So being able to realize that mindset as well, super, duper important.
Ethan Linn (45:54.594)
Mm-hmm.
Ethan Linn (46:04.567)
Right, right.
Ethan Linn (46:10.946)
Hmm
Jey (46:22.535)
for everybody. So I think that's just a big part of here.
Ethan Linn (46:25.526)
Yeah, no, and you're probably one of the few, I wouldn't say the first, one of the few mental health advocates where that is defined clearly. Cause I think that's kind of like, we're gonna work on your coping skills. And it's like journaling and things that, it's just not a task oriented action. And for men, so much, even if it isn't like,
fitness related, like playing with Legos, like build this thing, it's a task, but once you complete the task, it does something in our lizard brain that I think helps tremendously. So yeah, I think having that delineation is huge.
Jey (47:08.883)
And I think 100%, I think also understanding like men, like we're lizard men, we're lizard brain, and we're also, but we're also warehouse brain. And what I mean by that is we go into our warehouse brain, our brain's a big warehouse, right? And it has rows and rows and rows of steel, right? With racks, racking, everything, right? And each row has boxes on it. None of these boxes touch, because they can't touch. They're close by, but they have just enough space.
Ethan Linn (47:19.766)
Yeah.
Ethan Linn (47:25.321)
Mm-hmm.
Jey (47:38.667)
They're beautiful, they're perfectly aligned. If you look straight down, you know, oh, that's crisp line right there. So then we go to row four, third thing in on the left, and we turn to the right and we have our box of, I don't know, our box of jokes or whatever. I'm just spit balling. But we have our box of really awesome dad jokes. And we know we're in the time and a place, like, okay, it's time for me to use my dad jokes.
Ethan Linn (47:40.354)
Mm-hmm.
Ethan Linn (48:01.878)
Yeah, whatever.
Jey (48:08.939)
So now I'm gonna get out my box. I'm gonna sit on the floor. I'm all play with my box Okay, I'm done playing with that box now. I'm gonna close it up I'm gonna go I'm gonna put it back same spot same place So I know where it is the next time and I'm gonna go a couple rows over I'm gonna get my next box and play with it because that's how our brains work That's why we're so solution based action based logically based. That's why men are that's kind of just how we're made up That's the best like
That's the best way to mansplain it for a man, about how your brain works.
Ethan Linn (48:41.418)
No, I think it's perfect. It's so funny too that you mentioned that because even my wife was giving me a hard time because I was playing with my son and I like pulled one box of toys and we played with that one. Like instead of like pulling out all of his toys and he could play with whatever, like I pulled out like one box, like we're gonna play with these magnets right now and that's what we're gonna play with. He was done, we like put that box away and like pulled out. So like even in a literal sense, like, yeah, we're lizard.
Jey (49:01.288)
Yeah.
Jey (49:10.039)
Exactly, exactly. But like for me, like I'm the same way. Like I'll get into like this podcast. Like it has to have like, I have no other screens open, no other tabs open. Like I have this and I have your questions that you sent me. That's all I have open because that's all I can think about and focus on right now. I'm maybe taking a drink of water. But before that, I have to make sure all my other boxes are put away. Dishes are clean. Desk is cleaned up and organized. Things are tidy.
Ethan Linn (49:10.286)
For lizard brain things.
Ethan Linn (49:23.176)
Mm-hmm.
Jey (49:39.287)
Laundry's done. Like if those things aren't done, then I my boxes are gonna start mixing really quickly It also doesn't help that I have ADHD. So the boxes do mesh very quickly. Sometimes I forget to put a box back But that'll happen. But regardless No, I He's he good. He good He needs some drink
Ethan Linn (50:01.558)
He's good.
Jey (50:03.867)
Nice. All right. Any last?
Ethan Linn (50:05.954)
these key things to be so as to stick with them.
Jey (50:08.939)
Oh, those are the days. Best things, get like, get him a chew toy, a baby chew toy. Those things work wonders.
Ethan Linn (50:10.862)
I don't know, Fortnite.
Ethan Linn (50:20.798)
Yeah, we got a bunch of the ones that you like put in the freezer so they're cold and they seem to help a lot.
Jey (50:24.507)
Yes, yes. Or like freeze up some fruit like frozen bags of fruit are really good. Young dad tips, young dad tips right now. Get a frozen bag of fruit then he can just suck on like the strawberry or something that helps and then he's also getting a strawberry at the same time so it's kind of like a two for one. But yeah cold chew toys, definitely some great teething things.
Ethan Linn (50:32.201)
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Ethan Linn (50:36.267)
I'm going to go to bed.
Ethan Linn (50:41.478)
Mm-hmm.
Ethan Linn (50:57.186)
Bye with the computer.
Jey (50:58.307)
He wants to play with it. I remember that. I miss that age. Lots of fun. But yeah, anything else, any last things here that you want to touch on about postpartum depression, mental health challenges for men in general, before we jump into the YDP-3 here.
Ethan Linn (51:16.994)
Yeah, I think just if you are a dad or not a dad, if you're just a dude who's struggling, like please, please find somebody, whether that's a friend, if you have a father, father figure, uncle, like somebody, find another dude. I promise, like someone will listen. And if you can't,
find someone as a friend or family member, like go talk to someone. The world is better with you in it, I promise. And yeah, please go talk to somebody because we want you around. So please take care of yourself. Yeah, that's it. Yeah, literally, my DMs are always open. Yeah, yeah, my DMs are always open.
Jey (52:02.987)
100%. My DMs are always open. My DMs are always open over on the podcast page. So hit us up. Always open. All right. Let's jump into the YDP-3. So the YDP-3 is three questions that I ask every guest, no matter who they are, about kind of like their life, some things that make them who they are. It's a great way to end the podcast. On a bit of a philosophical note, because we get real deep here.
The first one here is where are you rooted? What makes up who you are? Where are your values, your core values, or what kind of things? Where are you rooted? What makes up the innermost workings of Ethan?
Ethan Linn (52:50.294)
Yeah, I think...
Ethan Linn (52:54.326)
It is the responsibility of the male species to provide and protect. And so if you can't do those two things, and that can mean a bunch of different stuff based on what you're doing in life and who you interact with, whatever, but if you can't provide and protect for the people around you, you have something to fix. And it is your number one priority to fix it. Because if you don't, someone is suffering because you are not doing your job.
And that has given me more purpose than almost anything else in my life Is and it's changed right over the years. It's changed Now as a dad like provide and protect my family is always gonna have a house They're always gonna he's never gonna have to worry about where his next meal is coming from. My wife is never gonna have to worry about Some strange dude walking up to like her on the street and me not being able to handle that situation like
It's changed over the years, but that is your responsibility as a dude, as a man. You need to provide and protect the people around you. So that's number one.
Jey (54:00.384)
I love that. And what grounds you? Like when you're high end, when you're stressy and depressy, that's just one of my favorite things, but when you're like stressy and depressy, what kind of brings you back down to earth, snaps you back into reality a bit?
Ethan Linn (54:10.29)
That's great.
Ethan Linn (54:17.886)
Um, so I found stoicism a couple of years ago, and that has been the most grounding philosophy ever. That, uh, I have to remind myself that sometimes that's what life is. It's not always sunshine and roses. And if I can be okay with that, oh my gosh, if I can be okay with that and I can work through it and I can stay level headed through the stress and depressive, I'm going to use that. That's great.
As much as possible, that's part of life. And unfortunately, if you can get better and better at that, life actually gets better through the hard times. And the hard times aren't so hard. So I would highly recommend, because I'm a big book guy.
Jey (55:09.003)
We're busting out the literature.
Ethan Linn (55:11.37)
So Ryan Holiday, literature, super great. Ryan Holiday, anything from him is great. The Daily Stoic is a great, like, it's a daily meditation. So it's 365 days of like a stoic thought and then he kind of breaks down the thought. That's awesome. And then he came out with the Daily Dad. So it's stoicism for dads. 365 days, same guy, Ryan Holiday. I'm plugging all these books. This is amazing.
So I bounce between both of those. Most, I'm guessing people, Jordan Peterson, 12 Rules for Life. Every man should read this book. Everyone should read that book. And then everyone needs to read his 12 More Rules.
Jey (55:47.936)
Oh yeah, everyone knows who's Jordan Peterson. Every dude.
Ethan Linn (56:00.942)
What else? Start with those. If you haven't read those.
Jey (56:01.927)
And you don't have to read them, you can also listen to them. You can also listen to them. Audiobooks.
Ethan Linn (56:07.278)
Please, yeah, audio books, audio books, in terms of learning, reading and reading and listening, in terms of retaining information are the same. If you can read and listen at the same time, there's a little benefit. And then if you can watch something that explains something, sometimes that can hit the brain center a little differently. But like, listening or reading, if you have to do one or the other, I listened to so many books driving around. So like, it's the same.
Jey (56:17.387)
Mm-hmm.
Jey (56:25.247)
Oh, it takes it, yeah.
Ethan Linn (56:36.578)
But anything from Ryan Holiday on stoicism is great. And then Peterson, both of his books, every dude should listen to those. But I would say that's a grounding activity for sure. Huh.
Jey (56:46.292)
100%.
Jey (56:50.051)
Love that. All right, last one here is let's say I don't know you, you don't know me, I walk up to you. Let's say we're at the park and I see you having just a great time with your kid. I'm just like, that guy's got it together. I approach you, I'm there with my kids too. I'm not just a random dude at the park because I would probably get arrested. I walk up to you and I'm like, I don't know you, you don't know me. I'm in this really dark place. My vibe is just giving off.
all the darkness, all the low vibes, all the like, I don't want to be here anymore kind of vibes. And I'm just like, what's your secret sauce? Tell me something that's going to bring me a little bit. So you get to tell me one, maybe one and a half pieces of advice.
Ethan Linn (57:42.042)
Um, that is a good, that's a good deep one.
Ethan Linn (57:50.562)
think oh man now wait to this question I love this question um
Ethan Linn (58:00.814)
I think the first thing I would probably recommend would be to find joy in the smallest thing humanly possible. Because I think we think about happiness as the cool new car or the bigger house or the fancy vacation. And if you can be grateful that you have access to clean water.
The perspective of life changes really fast. Oh my gosh. It has been a new practice of mine to do a daily gratitudes list. So I have to list out five things. So I would encourage you at the park, I would say, here's an action item. Here's something you should do is sit down for five minutes. Think of five things that you're thankful for and they can be the smallest of things in the world.
and do that for a month and never repeat a thing. So like every day when you list out the five things that can't be unthankful for my wife as one of the five things every day, like every day you have to come up with five new things and you will so quickly realize like life's pretty good. For most people life's pretty good because you have to get down to such a small minute like my car, I got to work today. Like do I love my job? Maybe not, but like my car works. That's such a blessing. So it's finding the smallest things to be thankful for.
Jey (59:15.819)
I love that.
Ethan Linn (59:30.334)
And then the second thing I would tell you to do as a man is go help someone Like go help someone do something and make their life better you will feel on top of the world
Jey (59:44.66)
I love that. All right, Ethan, I'll let you wrap up here. He is so cute. Tell the people a little bit about where they can find you, where they can learn more about your coaching and different things like that. They want to connect with you.
Ethan Linn (59:44.962)
I think those two things.
Ethan Linn (01:00:00.618)
Yeah, so I'm on all of the socials. I recently just changed a lot of like my username. So Ethan underscore Kettable Coach. You can find me on Instagram, you can find me on Facebook, TikTok, Twitter.
Ethan Linn (01:00:22.59)
If you are looking for a coach, like I said, I work with people all over North America and Europe. So if you're listening, no matter where you are, if you need someone, my DMs are always open. If you wanna talk about coaching, great. If you just need some fitness advice, I give that shit out for free. I would rather spend five minutes giving you the right answer than you going on Google and getting a pro science answer and like not being able to get the results that you want.
Jey (01:00:48.351)
Oh, yeah.
Ethan Linn (01:00:53.122)
Please reach out and if you're a dude listening, there's someone in your life who probably cares more than you know and reach out.
Jey (01:01:04.115)
Well, Ethan, thank you for your time. It's much appreciated. Yeah, appreciate it. Thanks for plugging those books. Thanks for plugging yourself and thanks for having the conversation with me today, the hard conversations and talking about the big topics that need to be talked about more. So I appreciate your time and just your effort today. So it's much appreciated.
Ethan Linn (01:01:12.706)
Yeah.
Ethan Linn (01:01:25.282)
Yeah, of course Jerry, thanks for having me on man.
Jey (01:01:27.275)
course.