UX3 Restoration Radio is proud to have Clark Bartram on. Clark is a top fitness professional, best selling author and an all around good guy. Listen in while we discuss the role forgiveness plays in your life.
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John Rowley: Hi, this is John Rowley. Welcome to UX3 Restoration Radio. I’m here with a very good friend of mine. He’s been a mentor of mine for years, we’ve been friends for a long time. My buddy, Clark Bartram. How you been doing, man?
Clark Bartram: I’m amazing, and he’s on an incline. I’m really not that short. It’s the hill, just so you know.
John Rowley: There’s no hill. The whole theory, the whole [inaudible 00:00:30] concept behind this podcast, behind this radio show is restoration. Taking your life … Some people take their lives and everybody talks about transformation, I want restoration because most of us were born healthy. Most of us were born mentally sound and then over a period of time through challenges or whatever else, maybe gain weight, maybe have mental challenges, spiritual challenges, things like that. Have you ever had anything like that in your life, where you’ve had to overcome something in order to get to where you are today?
Clark Bartram: Absolutely. I think it’s a great title for what you’re doing and it’s a great subject because we all need restoration. We’re guys, right? Let’s look at a car. Matter of fact, we were driving to the gym and I saw that nice Chevelle up on the thing and the first thing I did was I looked at it and I thought, “How great would that car look restored?” That’s what people do. They go into the restoration business and they bring cars like that back and they take so much pride and joy in them. Let’s think about life for a minute. We put all that emphasis in something that really does nothing. It’s a car. It’s an inanimate piece of metal. It might look good, it might mean something to us, but we overlook our life oftentimes and we don’t restore the thing that really matters.
It’s my opinion that if we take a real hard look at ourself, we all can find something that needs restoration. Yes, I’ve had certain things and I work on myself daily, on every single area of my life. It could be spiritual, it could be mental, it could be physical, it could be in my relationship, and those are all areas that we need restoration in. I applaud you for what you’re doing and I think it’s really great. I really want to encourage everyone watching to take a real hard look at your life because I think as guys we get so much pride and we get so much arrogance built up, we’re like, “I’ve got it all figured out,” when the truth is you don’t. You don’t have anything figured out, I’m going to tell you right now, you don’t. That’s just the truth.
John Rowley: What have you had to overcome?
Clark Bartram: Everyone … What do you want to talk about?
John Rowley: I know you had military experience, business experience, did you have something devastating in your life that you really had to work on overcoming?
Clark Bartram: Let’s talk about forgiveness. I think that’s one of the biggest things that people have. You mentioned business. The first thing I thought was a good friend of mine stole a lot of money from me. I won’t say how much, but it was a lot. He did it to myself and another friend of ours, so collectively this guy got a whole lot of money. Matter of fact, he’s in prison now because of it, but I had to learn on restoring my thoughts toward this person because what could happen instantly? Someone steals from you, you want to kill them, you want to do all of these things that are not conducive to a productive life.
It was interesting, the thought pattern that me and my wife took and then the other couple took. Long story short, the other couple ended up divorced because they started arguing over that money and they didn’t restore themselves in the way of, “You know what? We just have to forgive this person and let him move on in life.” I didn’t want to harbor any of that anger, bitterness, or any of that, so I’m having to overcome a financial obligation that I’m now responsible for and every single day I have to choose to forgive this guy and not have any anger or bitterness because I don’t want my relationship to fall apart. I don’t want to get all bitter and mean and angry and upset. If I’m taking that energy and using it for all those wrong reasons, I can never pay back this debt that I now have.
I’ve just had to refinance my house. I’m just being real and honest with you right now, you asked and I’m telling you. I have nothing to hide from anyone because it’s important that we really do take a look and go, “Yeah, there is areas.” I have financial burdens that I’ve had to overcome, I’ve had relationship burdens that I’m overcoming right now, as we speak. It’s hard, but if you stop looking at everyone else and start looking at yourself, to first be restored, that’s where the healing comes in. Whatever area you’re in, it doesn’t really matter. I could go on and on about the different things that I have to overcome. Physically I’ve never really … I’ve always been pretty amazing, but that’s beside the point. Not to get off the subject.
John Rowley: And humble. Very, very, very, very humble.
Clark Bartram: It’s all playing, man. I was joking.
John Rowley: I know you are. Let me ask you. Forgiveness is a big thing. I think Zig Ziglar used to say, “Unforgiveness is like …” Maybe it wasn’t Zig Ziglar, but it was somebody who said “Unforgiveness is like drinking poison and expecting the other person to die.” Unforgiveness, it’s funny, I didn’t even think about as far as restoration, but it’s something that most of us have to overcome at one level or another, because it can eat you alive if [inaudible 00:05:00]. How did you go about working on … It was just a conscious decision? What were the steps you went through to forgive this guy?
Clark Bartram: I looked at this person’s life and I realized that the history was there. This person just has that in him. He’s not a very trustworthy kind of guy. I had to look at my responsibility in that transaction and not place all the blame on him. I’m like, listen, me and my wife chose to do this, we wanted to make money, we had good intentions in mind, and maybe this guy’s full intention wasn’t to rip me off. I stopped looking at it from an angry place, “I’m going to kill him!,” which is what the other guy was doing.
Then what started happening was he and his wife started to argue and have confrontation within themselves. I’m looking back and observing this going, whoa, I don’t want that in my life, so I have to let this guy out of my life because what happens when you don’t forgive someone? They control your life. They absolutely control your mind, they control your attitude, they control your energy, they control your business, because again, if you’re all pissed off and angry at somebody and you’re not really addressing the restoration that you need within yourself, you can’t go in here and produce like you would if you had a clear mind, a clear conscious, and didn’t have hate and bitterness towards someone else.
I realized that me forgiving that person was really for me and not so much for him. It was to allow me the freedom to move on in my life and have a healthy relationship with my wife and be able to on and go, you know what, I wish I had that money back, I really wish I did, but I don’t hate that guy at all. I really, honestly, I feel sorry for him because I see, one, he’s in prison now. He doesn’t want to be there, and I really, honestly don’t think that his intention was to hurt me.
I could go back in my life, my mom’s boyfriends, Vietnam vet, crazy, drunk guy, come home, beat us all up, I could’ve had bitterness at that guy forever, but one day I decided, I’m going to call Big Ron. Out of nowhere, I just got this thought, I called my mom, I said, “Do you have Big Ron’s number?” She’s like, “What are you talking about? I do, that’s weird that you would ask.” It was funny. I called him up and I just said, “Man, I forgive you. I let you go out of my life so I can move on.” It was a great, beautiful process. I think forgiveness is probably the biggest thing that most of us really need to look at in order to be restored.
John Rowley: You mentioned your mom, your family. Was forgiveness something you had to work on your whole life? Is it something you’ve been very cognizant throughout your life? Was it something you kind of started realizing as you got older?
Clark Bartram: I think as I evolve as a person, spiritually, emotionally, mentally, educationally, in all these different areas, I’m understanding that that is the key and it’s a process. I didn’t one day just go, I’m this forgiving guy. If something else happened in my life, maybe I would be holding onto anger and bitterness and unforgiveness and that sort of thing, but I had enough time in these situations to allow myself to heal and understanding that, with the things that I’ve been studying like Zig Ziglar, I actually wrote that same thing in my book. Where your mind goes, you go. It’s the first day is forgiveness. I quote that. It’s a process. I just understand that the benefits are for me. If you can get that, it makes it so much easier than going, “I don’t need to forgive that person. You know what they did to me?” The key word in that is ‘me.’ What did they do to you and what is it doing to you now? Why aren’t you letting it go? How much benefit will there be in your life if you do let it go? We all live in our own universe and we’re all messed up. Are you allowed to cuss on this podcast? Because I wanted to say something right now just to drive the point home, but I didn’t and I filtered myself.
John Rowley: Well, thank you, you’re the only guest who has filtered themselves so far.
Clark Bartram: All right.
John Rowley: We need to get a little blooper thing that goes over people’s mouths. Clark is in the fitness industry, so give them a little bit of an overview of your background, what you’ve done and what you’re doing now.
Clark Bartram: I’ve been around fitness my entire professional career; it’s all I’ve ever done. I’ve been fortunate to have had some success in the industry and I started body building back in the ’80s and from that I realized that I had this predisposition to build muscle easily. Genetically I was made this way. My dad married my mom to breed the world’s greatest athlete. I was actually supposed to be 6′ 3″ and that was his intention, but I absorbed all the looks and the physique and all that and got stiffed on the height factor, but it’s okay, I make up for it in other ways. When I started body building, I parlayed that into other things. I knew I could be in the magazines, so I really worked hard to find out how to get in the magazines. I remember one day, years ago, I got in a little picture in Muscle and Fitness. It was about Larry Scott, his interesting way he did shoulders.
John Rowley: Shoulder presses, yeah.
Clark Bartram: Yeah, so I had that. It was like a postage-sized picture in Muscle and Fitness, but that was my entry into that world. I’ve achieved some success in that area and from that I’ve turned that into movies and television shows and Home Shopping Network and QVC. What I’ve effectively done is taken my body and my ability to communicate an my looks, I guess, and turned that into a brand, no different than you have, I’ve just chosen to use my brand in a different setting than John uses his, right now, with all of the great products he has to offer. I’ve been a guy that’s been in the magazines, but I’ve got to figure something out quick because that train’s coming to a stop pretty soon.
John Rowley: We’re partnered on something, so you’ve got something [inaudible 00:10:19]. Tell them what the name of it is.
Clark Bartram: We have a program called Ready, Set, Slim. It’s addressed at people who are struggling with weight and different issues like that. It’s a really complex program. Not complex in the sense of figuring out how to use it, the effort that was put into making it simple for you to follow a program to help you live in your healthiest body. That’s one distinction I want to make for everyone. You need to understand the difference between a perfect body and a healthy body. A perfect body doesn’t exist. It’s nowhere on the planet. As good as I look, as good as I think I look, as hard as I work, I have flaws, I have imperfections, I have things I want to improve on. If we don’t emphasize on that, we realize that our goal should be to live in our healthiest body. What does that look like? It could be your blood work is coming back great, it could be the fact that you can play with your grandkids and not run out of breath, it could be the fact that you used to be a runner in college and now you can actually go out and perform some type of running, maybe not at the level you were then, but you’re able to do activities that aren’t necessarily world-class or anything, but you’re not limiting yourself in life. That is the key to fitness, is really having a holistic approach to it.
That’s what Ready, Set, Slim does, it helps you understand the balance, it keeps your accountable, it gives you all the information you need, and I break it down and make it really simple. We’ve created a really great program. Much like all of the things that you have, but we realized people are different and different people will resonate with different things, so there’s opportunities for you to take advantage of different information that’s being presented from different people and living your healthiest body.
John Rowley: I find the one thing that’s so important for most people, I’m sure you agree, is their daily habits. Do you have specific habits … Give us a day in the life of Clark Bartram. How do you get up? What do you do? What happens throughout the day?
Clark Bartram: A day in the life of Clark Bartram is I usually wake up around 5, 5:30, get up. First thing I do, and here’s what everyone can take away from this interview, everyone can do this. First thing that you do in the morning is you drink at least eight ounces of water, period. You hydrate your body. Why? Because you just were on a dehydration period for however many hours you slept, plus the hours you didn’t drink water prior to going to sleep.
Speaker 3: Come on [inaudible 00:12:23].
Clark Bartram: What most people do … Party time over there.
John Rowley: We’re on the golf course.
Clark Bartram: Yeah, guy must’ve either gotten hit by a golf ball or made a hole in one. Either way he was celebrating and enjoying life, that’s the key to fitness, man, that’s what it’s about. Yeah! Come on, baby! In the hole! In the hole!
John Rowley: If he got hit in the head with the ball, he wanted to listen to this so he could forgive the other guy.
Clark Bartram: There you go, right. So, drinking water is vital to get all your internal organs going and all that sort of thing in the hydration factor, but what most people do, John, is they get up and have coffee.
John Rowley: Have a cup of coffee, dehydrate themselves more.
Clark Bartram: Yeah, so now we’re getting in this cycle of treating ourself bad when it’s so simple. I say, “It ain’t easy, but it’s simple.” It ain’t easy until you connect with it emotionally and mentally and understand when you had that Oprah, “a-ha” moment and you’re like, “Oh my god, I get it.” How many times have you talked to someone you haven’t seen them in years and they come back and you’re like, “Oh my god, you look great! You lost 60 pounds, what did you do?” And they’re like, “Go figure, man. Everything that you told me two years ago. I ate right, I exercised, I had a good attitude, and I was consistent.” It happens. It ain’t easy, but it’s simple.
It’s simple when you finally connect with the fact that if I get up in the morning and I drink my water and then I make healthy choices when I eat. Everyone makes these radical changes and they go onto something completely different, broccoli and chicken, and you can’t sustain that. It’s not a lifestyle that anyone can do. Making better choices is important. Those are the things that I do during the day. I’ll drink my water and I’ll make healthy food choices and I go to the gym and work out. Did you almost fall down?
John Rowley: I almost fell. I wasn’t surfing, folks. We’re standing on a hill.
Clark Bartram: Now the truth comes out. There is a hill.
John Rowley: But Clark’s standing on the high part of the hill.
Clark Bartram: My day is basic, it’s simple. It’s not as complex as a lot of people would think. When I go to the gym, I might stay in there 20 minutes, literally. I do 20 minutes of good training. I don’t lift heavy, I don’t go crazy, I’m not trying to kill my joints, I’m trying to connect my mind and my muscle to get the most out of every single rep and I’ll go do 15-20 minutes on the step-mill and I go. Then I go back to work, I get on my computer, I answer all your emails and Facebook messages. That is me. I take it very seriously. The platform that we’ve been given is, to me, something that’s very important, and I don’t take any email that I get lightly. I am very concerned with each and every person who comes to me for advice because I want everyone to get results, much like yourself.
My life is really revolving around these choices that we all need to make and I’m no different than anyone else. I love pizza, I love cheesecake, I love to sleep in and not go to the gym. I would rather have coffee in the morning, a lot of times, than water. I’m just another guy. I’ve just learned over the years to start doing these things slowly but consistently and eventually it builds up and becomes more a part of your life and then the results come and you live in your healthier body.
John Rowley: What time do you usually go to the gym?
Clark Bartram: I go to the gym, I get there between 8 and 8:30.
John Rowley: Then you work and you have lunch, dinner, what time do you normally get to sleep?
Clark Bartram: I go to bed pretty early. I’ll go to bed around 9, 9:30. Everyone that knows me, don’t call Clark after 8. He’s shutting everything down. I try not to be on the internet, working with people, because I want to clear my mind before I go to bed. I’m not trying to carry anything to bed with me. Listen, here’s another takeaway. Don’t watch the news, don’t look at all the doomsday shit that you’ve got going on, just pour something healthy into your mind before you go to bed. You have to meditate on that all night, so what good is the news going to do you if you’re going to bed knowing that 12 people were murdered in your town and you’re fearful now. That adds all of this stuff into our life that we’re self-imposing. So many things that can be fixed just by us taking a look at ourself. Take a high-level view and take a look at your life and go, all right, what can I do to fix these things? And start fixing them. Start restoring them, just like that car. If we went and bought that car, we’d pull it up in the driveway, all four of us here would step back and look at it and go, “What are we going to do first?” You might say paint, blah, blah, blah …
John Rowley: We’d be excited about that, but restoring our own lives, we don’t pay any attention to.
Clark Bartram: That’s the thing.
John Rowley: Most people pay more attention to their motorcycles and cars than they do to their own lives.
Clark Bartram: Yeah.
John Rowley: The old motivational speakers used to say if you spent as much time planning your life as you plan your vacation, you’d have an incredible life. Most of us don’t take that interest. We’re trying to keep these to 30 minutes or under, so we’re going to have you back again. Clark’s always going to be on because he’s a good friend of mine and he’s always got something valuable to share. In closing, have I missed anything that was important that I should have touched on?
Clark Bartram: No, I think we hit everything. If people would really just run with what we talked about right now, there’s more than enough to work on for the next 30, 60, 90 days, literally. I know forgiveness is a big one for a lot of people. That’s your deal, that’s your choice, I’m not telling you what to do, I’m only offering a suggestion on all of these things. Drinking the water is easy and making good lifestyle choices is very simple stuff that you can start doing today. I’m all about action. If you watch this and you don’t take any action, you might as well not watch another one of these, honestly, because you’re just being entertained. We’re not here to entertain you. As joking as we might be, we’re here to challenge you to restore your life.
John Rowley: Best way to reach you? Clarkbartram.com?
Clark Bartram: Yeah.
John Rowley: Facebook?
Clark Bartram: Yeah, whatever man.
John Rowley: Facebook, clarkbartram.com, go find him. Clark, thanks for being here. I appreciate it.
Clark Bartram: My pleasure.
John Rowley: Clark Bartram, clarkbartram.com, aka Mr. Humble. Be sure to come back and see these, you can click on the buttons, you can subscribe to us on iTunes. You can come see us at johnspodcast.com. Be sure to go to johnspodcast.com or UX3nutrition.com to go to the same page and click on John Rowley’s Ready to Be Younger. We’re giving away a free 30 days in there. We’ve got all kinds of meal tips, tricks, techniques from doctors and chefs and everybody else. Go check it out. Have a great day, God bless you, and thank you for being with us today.
