ISI Brotherhood Podcast

141. Stronger for Life: Building Functional Strength That Lasts with Coach Mike Boyle!

• Aaron Walker • Season 2 • Episode 26

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What if real strength isn’t what you lift but how you live? We sit down with legendary coach Mike Boyle to rethink training, leadership, and legacy through a simple lens: show up, serve people, and build habits you can sustain for decades. Mike shares why most men chase aesthetics and numbers that don’t translate to life, and how functional strength keeps you capable—hauling wood, climbing stairs, playing with grandkids, and getting off the floor with ease. He breaks down the essentials for men over 40: avoid joint pain, use unilateral work to protect balance, push sleds and carry loads, and measure progress by how you feel getting out of bed.

Beyond the gym, Mike opens up about mistakes, counseling, and the cost of being absent at home. His leadership playbook is plain and powerful: hire people who like people, build a client-first culture, and remember that a good coach with a simple plan beats a great plan with a mediocre coach. We talk presence over ego, how to create teams that greet and care, and why some high-profile relationships are transactional—and why that’s okay when your real life is built locally with people who matter.

You’ll also hear the daily practices that keep Mike sharp: early mornings, a one-sentence gratitude journal, short naps for recovery, consistent reading, and 20 minutes of intentional thoughtfulness to check in with others with no ask attached. Walk away with one challenge: choose a single functional rep for the part of your life that’s slipped—body, marriage, or mission—and repeat it daily. 

If you’re ready to trade mirror muscles for a life that works, press play, subscribe, and share this with someone who needs a nudge. Then tell us: where will you show up first this week?


SPEAKER_00:

Discover the brotherhood that sharpens you. The ISI community is free for 30 days. Join now at isibrotherhood.com forward slash community. Hey guys, welcome back to another episode of the ISI Brotherhood Podcast. I'm Aaron Walker, your host, and I couldn't be more excited. Listen, the interview today is going to be around mental strength and physical strength. And most men train for size and not strength. They train for aesthetics and not function. But what if we had a true measure of strength wasn't how much you can lift, but how well you can live? Well, today's guest has coached Olympians, pros, and champions around the world. But what makes him truly exceptional is how he trains people for life. Coach Mike Bull has spent decades redefining what it means to be strong, not just in the gym, but in leadership, purpose, and legacy. Today we're diving into how functional strength can transform your body, your mindset, and even your relationships. Coach Boll, welcome to Iron Sharpens Iron Brotherhood. Good to have you today. Thank you very much for having me. I appreciate it. Yeah, one of our previous members, Zach Lush, uh highly recommended you. And he called me, he was all excited, and he said, Big A, I've got somebody that would be amazing for your organization, for your listeners, and to get this guy would be amazing. And so I think he worked on you and twisted your arm a little bit and got you to be my guest, but I couldn't be happier that you're here today. Listen, let's jump right in. You've trained world champions. I said that in the bio in the introduction just now, but let's kind of start with the foundation. What does strength mean to you beyond the physical?

SPEAKER_01:

I think beyond the physical, it really relates to discipline, to the ability to be consistent, because when we look even in strength and conditioning, which is what I do, a personal training or or however you want to look at it, we're kind of in all those areas now. But the really strong people are the people that keep showing up. And if you keep showing up, and I guess there's a probably a life metaphor in there somewhere, but if you keep showing up, you will get better, and you will, you had mentioned that you're 65, I'm 66, and half the battle as you are aging is to keep showing up.

unknown:

Right?

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, eventually, right.

SPEAKER_00:

We're all gonna check out, right?

SPEAKER_01:

We're all gonna check out. And so it's just a matter of how good is that time. I was lucky to be a physical education major at Springfield College in the 1970s and early 1980s, and they used to always say, Hey, this won't add years to your life, but it may add life to your years. That's what they said to us in the 70s and 80s. Now they know that it may add years to your life. So you may be able to look at this and think, I will not only live longer, but I will live better.

SPEAKER_00:

What's the catalyst for you to getting into this space? Like give us a little bit of a background for context.

SPEAKER_01:

Aaron Powell My father was a coach. I grew up in this, so this was something I guess I didn't think that I was destined to do it, but now that I'm 66 and I'm sitting here, I probably was destined to do this. My father was a a teacher, a coach, uh a helper his entire life. His he died unfortunately really young, younger than both you and I are now. And but his wake, I remember his wake and his funeral because it was like an all-day festival in terms of kids he had had in school lined up. I still mean my wife has met people out in restaurants that had my father in school who will rave to her about my father and about the impact that he had on their life. So uh I was lucky. I was just I was brought up in the in the right situation at the right time, and I kind of stumbled my way along for a while trying to figure out, okay, exactly where am I going, and the strength and conditioning thing sort of ended up being there for me right at the right time.

SPEAKER_00:

Did your dad get an opportunity to see you flourish and to have the impact that you've had? Did not. I was 25 when he died.

SPEAKER_01:

He has no idea. Sure he does have an idea, but he does not see it within my lifetime. And uh that's probably if I have a singular regret, I would love to have had that opportunity for him to see. I would love for him to to see that his grandchildren ended up being good kids and good athletes, and that I was able to to get out and have the kind of impact that he had, which was really profound. He was uh the type of guy that, again, if you went to Malden, Massachusetts, you would see the Arthur P. Boyle building. And the Arthur P. Boyle building is named after my father. And there's a little picture that's tiled right into the front of the building of my father and mother at a senior prom because my father was the guy who he was at every game, he was at every prom, he was at every concert. He uh he he never missed an event, particularly for the the people that he was, I guess, uh the people that he felt like he was serving, the kids at his school.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah. I know you're proud of him, and I bet he would be equally proud of you. And I'm sure the impact that you had today uh measures up with your dad as well. You know, you've been coaching for decades now. Do you would you say that your definition of success has evolved when you started MBSC in 1996 to now? Oh, without a doubt. Uh it's what's changed? Completely.

SPEAKER_01:

What's evolved? It was I think before it was much more about the jersey and about who you were training and about the notoriety, and it was much more about the the things that you were going to get. And uh I read a quote one time, it said it's very important to learn to um to use things and love people, as opposed to the reverse. Um it's it's that like I've gotten I've gotten much more worried about who knows about me or what's kind of revolving on the outside part, and much more tuned into are we really making an impact? Because for us, particularly with our older clients now, which it wasn't something that I ever thought about training when I was younger, I was very focused on athletes. We really are impacting a lot of people at a really important time in their life, people like us who have suddenly have the time and the disposable income and all these things to be able to lead a better life, but sometimes can't get out of their own way. I had a I had a very successful, wealthy client one time, and one of the things that he told me, he said, Mike, everybody will spend money on their body. He said, It just is a matter of when. He said it might be a really nice managed care facility, it might be an unbelievable casket. He said, but they're gonna spend the money, and it was the best sales pitch anybody ever gave for me to give. I say it all the time to people in my business when they say, Oh, I don't have time or it's expensive, I look at them and think, in like your audience, you run the company, so you got as much time as you want to give yourself, and you're making tons of money, so regardless of how expensive it is, it's not too expensive, and you're gonna spend it anyway. So why not do it in a really proactive way that's gonna improve the quality of your life? And my client Steve, who I loved, he had one of these guys, he had a massage therapist and he had a yoga teacher, and he was training with me, and he was just he was like, I'm gonna, I'm gonna spend it now and and hope that it pays dividends as I age.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah. My wife and I had this discussion. My wife and I both uh avid uh we're not athletes, but we're avid, uh, we're aspirational in keeping and taking care of ourselves. And we had a discussion at dinner the other night. My wife was saying something about how expensive some of the food that we were eating, and I made the similar comment. I said, we can spend it on good food or we can spend it on medicine. Um we're gonna spend it. And it's kind of the same as what you're saying. What would you say to the person that's listening out there to now, uh to our audience, small business owners that are young or maybe they're a little bit older in regards to getting started? Some of these guys are like, man, I wish that I had, you know, they're 50 years old or 40 years old and they they're not athletic. What would you say to those persons? Is it too late or can they get started now?

SPEAKER_01:

It's I would say one, it's never too late. I would say start tomorrow. I'm a I'm a bad quote machine, but I I love the the best time to plant the tree was 10 years ago. The second best time to plant a tree is tomorrow or today. And so I would I would say get out and do it, find somebody. The hardest part in our field, honestly, in this fitness field, is finding somebody good to work with. One of the things that I would recommend to somebody is to go and watch some sessions and go and look and see what you see in terms of the quality of the interaction between the coach and the trainer and what the facility is like. And are you gonna be comfortable there? Is this person going to be the person that you want to be working out with? Because we've got a very um, I'm gonna try not to swear on this podcast, but we it's kind of a hard ass field where people think they have to uh sort of push you. And I'm always looking and thinking, I I'm gonna nudge you, but I'm gonna consistently nudge you along. I'm just gonna keep nudging you, I'm not gonna stop nudging you to get you to move forward. I'm probably never gonna push you, particularly if you're 65 years old. I'm gonna think we're just gonna nudge and nudge and nudge. And I'm gonna tell you that if you don't get worse, you're getting better. Because aging, particularly as you get past fifty, the decline gets very steep and very rapid if you're not doing anything. And that's why you say, is it is it too late? It's never too late, but it's never too soon either, in terms of the sooner that you start. The other thing I would say is don't don't work out like it's your high school football team. Which is what uh again, another bad quote, but the number one injury caused in old men is them thinking that they are young men. And so it's it's being able to get out there and realize, hey, I'm not 25 years old anymore. And I talk about this all the time, but uh, my big rule is does it hurt? If we're gonna if I'm gonna ask you to do an exercise, I'm gonna expect you to say to me, that exercise does not hurt. I I may feel it in my muscles, but I don't feel it in my joints, I don't feel it in my back, I don't feel it in my neck. And then I'm gonna ask you the next day, how did you feel? I I like to ask people, how do you feel when you get out of bed in the morning? Because that to me is the really big barometer. If you get out of bed and said, Oh my god, I I couldn't move. You know, I I struggled to move around the first ten minutes, I'd say, okay, we did too much. But if you said, gee, I got up, I want to get up and feel like uh I did something. I I exercised yesterday, that's the right feeling because we're gonna I don't know if you've ever read Jeff Olson's book, The Slight Edge.

SPEAKER_00:

It's one of my favorite books, but I have not read it, but I'd like to.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, you should put it on, you would love it. But Olson basically says that the slight edge rule number one is show up. And slight edge rule number two is continue showing up, and slight edge rule number three is show up with a great attitude. And if you can get people to come to the gym on a consistent basis and to be there with a really positive attitude, which is going to come from being in a really positive environment, you can you can get a lot done.

SPEAKER_00:

You know, one of the reasons that I enjoy working out is I'm able to do my daily activities and be able to complete them. Like we live in the woods and we've got hills around us, and I like to go out and work with a chainsaw and a saw and haul limbs up and down. And like I couldn't do that if I didn't work out. There's no way I could go up and down these hills and do that. Getting stuff out of the attic, going up and down the stairs, playing with my grandkids, you know, these are the things. Plus, you know, I've seen about a 30 to 40 percent increase in the weights over a two-year period just working out with a trainer. He's our age as well, and he's been training for years, and he takes the same philosophy as you. He's like, hey, I'm gonna nudge you along, I'm gonna push you a little bit, but I'm not gonna push you to a point to hurt you. But if we do these things actively every single week, you're gonna see a lot of result out of it. You know, many guys, though, they're chasing muscles and performance, but you really emphasize functionality. What's the biggest misconception that men have about training for life instead of training for looks?

SPEAKER_01:

I think the biggest misconception that they have are though all of those things that were built up when they were younger. Because this is a pretty young field when you really look at it. I started when I started in strength and conditioning, it didn't exist. So 50 years ago, there might not have been one strength and conditioning coach. They were not personal trainers. It just was a very, very different world. And we've been heavily influenced by sports like bodybuilding and powerlifting and Olympic weightlifting and things like that. And a lot of people think that's what training is supposed to be like. You described my vision of functional training, right? Functional training gets you ready to do whatever it is that you want to do in life. Like for you, it's being able to lug the chainsaw and being able to cut up a tree and move the pieces around, which, depending on the size of the tree, can get pretty heavy, right? And the ability to do those types of activities of daily living, what you want is to do things that enhance your life, not enhance your muscles. The muscles to me are secondary, and they're gonna come. If you train smart, your muscles are gonna be fine. One of the things we notice, if you came to my facility, we have about 300 adult clients, so 300 clients between the ages of, say, 25 and 90. And everyone looks younger than they are, every single person. If I walked around with you and said, This is our oldest client is actually a retired doctor who just retired at 89 years old, he was actually my son's pediatrician, still in the gym, still working out, still pushing sleds and lifting weights. His wife, Judy, is 85 years old, still in there after a couple of knee replacements working out. And it's it's that ability to to figure out what your activities of daily living are that are realistic. That's the other part. Sometimes people are unrealistic. They want to you know, they want to run a marathon or climb Mount Everest or do a whatever. And I don't know if that's something for us to be thinking about as we move into our sixth decade, but it's just that ability, as you said, to get up and down from the floor. We see people I I've seen men come in and watch them take uh ten, fifteen seconds to get off the floor and thought, wow, this guy really this guy really needs our help. If we can just get him to the point where he can transition from, say, being on his back to being standing and he can do that in two seconds, that's a massive change in his life. And we start thinking as we get older, number one issue for us is falls. So if we're training with machines and we're doing bodybuilding type stuff, that really isn't the type of fall prevention that we need. We do a lot of unilateral work, a lot of things on one leg, a lot of things people might look and say, Oh, that's more of a balance exercise. And I think it's not more of a balance exercise. But if you tell me that you struggle with it because you don't have good balance, then I'm gonna tell you that that makes it that much more important for you. Because you've already identified the weak link. And the weak link for us as we get old is balance. Falls, I just saw a stat the other day, they said if you fall after if a woman falls after 65 and breaks her hip, her life expectancy is about five years after that.

SPEAKER_00:

Wow. Yeah. Wow. Yeah, that balance becomes very important at that point, doesn't it? Right? Yes, it does. No question about it. Coach Boy, you've built one of the most respected strength facilities in the world, without a question. I mean, there's no doubt about that. What have you learned about leadership and culture from running a team of elite coaches?

SPEAKER_01:

I think the one thing I've realized is that uh culture, everything is about who you hire and how you train them. So I always say I, again, as I said, I'm just a cliche machine, but I always say I can make you smarter, I can't make you nicer. And so for us, we're gonna really put a lot of emphasis on hiring the right people. And the right people, I always say in the fitness world, the right people are people who like people, not people who like exercise. I actually tend to shy away when people when I see a resume and people start listing their hobbies as powerlifting or bodybuilding or things like that, I think, uh, that they're probably not for us because those people are very probably going to be very self-consumed. I want people that are gonna be consumed by our clients. I want people that are really gonna think all the time about can I get my clients better? And then yeah, I want you to get your workout in. I we our c I would say our coaches they probably train a minimum of three times a week, but it's not their priority, it's not their life's work, they're not worrying about themselves every minute of the day. And in the fitness world, a lot of times you can run into people who are really, really egocentric, really self-centered. So we want to not be egocentric, we want to not be self-centered, we want to be really client-centric. And that I think creates a really good culture. You get good good people training people who know you care about them creates a really good environment.

SPEAKER_00:

What gave you that disposition? Because I would say that's not the norm in your space.

SPEAKER_01:

I I think a little bit of doing it wrong in the beginning. I think I was probably a little bit of a because I started out, I was dealing primarily with athletes. And but then I started to realize even the athletes, like the better athletes, the professional athletes, you couldn't kind of you couldn't badass them. You you couldn't they were having none of that. And I and I realized that very early on that if you didn't genuinely care about these people, that they probably weren't going to listen to you. Then I started to realize that that carries over into every aspect of life. And I think just we the team sport world unfortunately is very dominated by what people see in college where your uh your athletes are kind of captive. Now they we've got a little bit of a different world now with the transfer portal. The last five years have been different. But in general, a kid would come to a college and and just you'd tell them what to do and they'd have to do it. And a lot of people thought that was good coaching. Then we started to see what was happening at the professional level, and they realized, wow, when these guys are making a lot of money, you can't coach that way anymore. And you started to see more people, I think, talk what we might call soft skills, and I don't know if soft skills are soft, but I do think that soft skills are really important and your ability to be relational and your ability to get people to understand that you actually care about them makes a much bigger difference because you can no longer lead by authority when you start to have people who make more money than you. Because you don't I said, look at I when I first started, I had uh uh Josh Beckett, who was a great pitcher for the Red Sox. And Josh in the beginning didn't like me. He told me, he said, I don't I don't think I'm gonna like you. I like the other guy that they got rid of. And he said, I might not even talk to you. And I thought I went home to my wife and I said, had a really good first conversation with Josh Beckett today. He said he didn't know if he was even gonna talk to me. And over time I just wore him down. I killed him with kindness. And after a certain point in time, we were joking and having fun, and he realized that he did, in fact, like me and that I didn't know what I was doing, and that those were two things that, from a career standpoint, had value for him.

SPEAKER_00:

You earned his respect because you know what you're doing, right? And then you weren't arrogant. Uh you killed him with kindness and you won him over. I love those kind of stories. Hey, I'm Aaron Walker, founder of Iron Sharpens Iron. Every successful man needs a band of brothers to push him to grow spiritually, personally, and professionally. Each week I meet with like-minded Christian business owners in our mastermind groups. We share wisdom, tackle challenges, and we hold each other accountable to grow, not just in business, but in life. Don't do life or business alone. Join the brotherhood that will challenge, encourage, and sharpen you. Visit isibrotherhood.com and take the first step today. You said, and I've read that you say a good coach with a mediocre program beats a great program with a mediocre coach. How does that principle translate to business and life leadership?

SPEAKER_01:

I I think it's exactly the same in terms of I always tell people, uh, I could write a business book, but it would be really short. And it would basically be treat your employees well, treat your clients well, charge a fair price, right? I mean You're gonna make plenty of money. You'll do good. It's not, it's so I tell people all the time it's so not complicated and it's so not specific to the fitness business. But no matter where you are, if if the when you go in there, you like the people that are in there and they're doing their job effectively, you're probably gonna go in there again. I don't care if that's a restaurant, a dry cleaner, a gas station, whatever it is, you're gonna go to that place and you'll probably willingly pay a higher price for that. And yet I think people are constantly going about it in the opposite way. I put a lot of emphasis on how we're gonna treat, I don't even like the word employee. I try to never use uh I get angry when people I can tell I'll I'll let me put let me step back. I was with a guy at a conference the other day and he introduced me to the person that was with him, and he said, This is Joe, he works for me. And I immediately had this thought process that I don't like this guy very much. Because when I introduce people, I would say, Hey, this is Joe, we work together. Because I would want to look at the guy and think, you already know I'm the boss. The only reason I'm telling you I'm the boss is because you wanted to say it and you wanted to feel better about yourself. So I think so good.

SPEAKER_00:

I like that, Michael.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, so I think in that, you know, and people always talk about you can tell, you know, how people tweet, treat the waitress or the waiter or whatever it is. All that stuff really does matter. And I think when you're in, particularly in small business, I think it's different. You know, if you invented a product or something like that, maybe you get away with not being as good a person. But I think if you're in a service type business, which is what we are, then you're gonna sink or swim based on that interpersonal reaction and then your ability to train other people to have that same interpersonal reaction. Uh same thing. I just don't, we don't put up with uh if you're not a good person, you're not working for us, period. And I don't care how good you are at your job. And I made the mistake. I had some people early on that weren't good people and were really good coaches, and I put up with them, and it was costly in a lot of ways, psychologically, financially. But the last 20 years, I've gone totally the opposite direction in terms of and people anyone that comes to our facility, and Zach would tell you this, he's been there a bunch of times, you get greeted repeatedly, almost to the sim someone will say, You're the tenth person that said hi to me so far. And when I hear that, I'm glad when I think, okay, you get over helloed here today, that's perfect. There were too many people who came up and introduced themselves to you and said, Do you need anything? That's perfect. That's that's exactly the environment that we want.

SPEAKER_00:

Aaron Powell You can smile at that. You know, you've coached athletes at every level, from college students to pros. What do you believe separates those who succeed long term from those who fizzle out?

SPEAKER_01:

Uh well, I'm gonna say the one bad word, genetics. Uh there's no question, there's no denying the genetic part of this. We've seen some really not great, probably human beings become incredibly successful in the sports world because they have great genetics. If we take that one factor out, then it goes back to what we talked about in the beginning in terms of discipline and the ability to continue to show up. I've had I've had NFL guys who've got into the second or third year in their career, and suddenly I had one guy whose name I will not mention because I love the guy, but he was like, Mike, I'm moving to Miami. You know, I I love Miami, I love the women, I love the scene. The next year he was a backup the year after that, he was cut. He was a starter when he went to Miami. And I remember thinking, that's that's not a good decision. And but I've unfortunately I've gotten to the point where I've probably stopped trying to counsel people out of their own bad decisions because it's uh it's a bit of a fool's errand when you get these people. Some people think, hey, I I got there, I'm at the top, now it's gonna be easy. Uh another one of my my favorite quotes anytime life gets easy, make sure you're not going downhill, right? And it's like there's uh there's a lot of people who end up in those situations and very quickly it's over, and then particularly in the professional sports world, it's devastating because uh you have the reverse income curve where your highest earning points are very, very early in your life and you can never reproduce that again. The average person's kind of income curve is is very linear and very uphill. And a professional athlete's is is unfortunately very linear and very downhill. And so the the guys that really are disciplined, I've had some great guys who've made it into their late thirties and early forties, and they tended to be guys that that lived a little more modest life, guys that were okay with driving maybe not the newest car, guys that were okay with living in a house that was maybe not quite as ostentatious, and those are the guys that have had the better probably end-of-life experience or end-of-career experience.

SPEAKER_00:

Any favorite athletes you've got out there with a good mindset, a good work ethic uh that you've seen really do a great job in every regard?

SPEAKER_01:

I've got so many, honestly. I have I am very proud to say that I have coached two team presidents of NHL teams. I think I have either five or six guys that are general manager of general managers of NHL teams that I have coached. I have one of my former clients, Craig Breslow, is now the general manager of the Red Sox. Uh we've got a lot of really, really successful uh but and all those guys, the one thing that those guys all did have in common was they were all long haul guys. They were all guys who very uh what I guess we might describe as kind of a lunch pail mentality. They showed up every day, they did the work, they were never looking for shortcuts, and now they've become really good executives within this world.

SPEAKER_00:

There's no silver lining, there's no magic bullets, uh you've got to show up and do the reps, right? How how do you build trust and accountability in your athletes and staff? And what can fathers or husbands and business leaders learn from that approach?

SPEAKER_01:

I think you show up uh it's by showing up and by being present, honestly. I think that's the biggest thing that that fathers can do, that as husbands can do that. I I've had my blips. Uh I've been better as a father. I wasn't as great as a husband, probably in the beginning. I there was a lot of time that I was absent, and there was a lot of time that I convinced myself that I was absent because I was doing it for my family. And I think sometimes you realize you're doing it to your family, not for your family, and that they'd be much happier with you present and a little less money than you absent and a little more money. I think we very often say we're doing it for our family when the reality is we're doing it for ourselves, we're doing it for our own ego, for our own gratification. So I think that would be the biggest thing for me is just realizing be present. There is no meeting that is that important. There's nothing that's going on that's more important than your kids' wife's dinner or you know, whatever that is. Because you and we all know we've heard the cliches, right? You're never getting that back. You're not getting that back. No one is gonna come back and say, Oh, Mike, you get to go back and do it over and and get to that Little League game or or whatever it was where you get to go to that dance recital that you blew off because you had a meeting. And there's too many of us who are, I think, kidding ourselves more than anybody else in terms of that that we're doing that. I mean, there may be situations where you're not the boss and you've got to be there. I get it. I had that. When I worked for the Red Sox for two years, I did miss some stuff because I had no choice. Now that I have a choice, I don't miss anything. I miss nothing because I am the boss. I decide what my day looks like if I need to get up two hours earlier to get done what I need to get done so I can leave two hours earlier, then I do that. And I think more people should approach it from that kind of a lens.

SPEAKER_00:

Mike, I uh tell the story I came home at 40 years old with a pocket full of money to a house full of strangers. And my wife said, Hey, thanks for our beautiful home, all of our tangible possessions, but I feel like a single mom. And it ripped my heart out. It was like, man, I've got to fix this because you only get one chance for those kids. You don't get a do-over. That's right. Exactly. And that's what you're saying, regardless of who it is or what you're doing. You know, in ISI, we teach about being vulnerable, being transparent and authentic. Is there a role in that for coaches? Do you do you think great coaches and leaders need to be open about their own struggles?

SPEAKER_01:

I do, yes. I and I've gotten better about that as I've aged. I've done a couple of talks, a couple of keynote presentations where I've talked about the struggles in my marriage and the fact that I mean my wife told me before we even had kids that if I if we didn't go to marriage counseling, she was out. And I really thought for sure, I've told this story a bunch of times, and it's amusing. I thought we were going to go to marriage counseling, and this counselor was going to tell my wife how crazy she was and how lucky she was to have me and what a great guy I was and how I was working so hard. And we got into this counseling situation, and the first thing that happens is we go in and it was a woman, and I thought, okay, it's two against one. I'm gonna it's gonna take me two days to get this squared away. One day that I had allotted for this. And uh we both kind of pitched our side. My wife talked about he leaves at, you know, five o'clock in the morning. He doesn't go home till eleven o'clock at night. I don't, you know, I don't see him awake for days at a time. And then I told my story about well, I'm working for the Bruins and I'm working at Boston University and I'm doing all these great things. And uh and the woman looks up to me and said, So you think what you're doing is normal? And I was like, three three sessions. I think I'm up to three sessions now because I I don't think I just I didn't win session one here. And uh we were there for about six months once a week. And uh and I learned a lot about myself because again, I was brought up by a father who was, again, a tremendous person, revered in the community, but not present. Yeah. Because he was totally dedicated. The reason Malden High School building is named after him is because he was dedicated to Malden High School. And I really thought that was my definition of success as a child. I want to be like my dad. I want to be like this guy that everybody at school looks up to and everybody in the town looks up to. But I realized that that there were there's sacrifices to that. And and luckily, hey, thank God, my wife, you know, 36 years of marriage later, she's still here. But thank God she was willing to say that 20 years ago and say, hey, or 25 years ago now, that uh I'm not I'm not doing this if this is the way that it's going.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah. So uh you did learn a lot about yourself that introspection really probably made you reorient your focus and do some things different. You say that your job is to make people better. How much of that is mental and emotional versus physical?

SPEAKER_01:

I would say realistically, I'd probably go 60-40 on the mental emotional, to be honest. Wow. I do think the physical part is really important, but I also think that getting people to feel better about themselves is probably more significant and will have a bigger long-term effect on their life, and that's why I think people enjoy being part, they would look at our gym and think about being part, they're part of a community, they're part of a group, and they're part of a group that has a really positive message in terms of yes, we we obviously want everybody to be healthier and live longer. But we don't there's not a lot of it's not like there's testing, you know, we're not rewarding aesthetics, we're not rewarding strength, we're not rewarding any of those things. We're sort of we're rewarding attendance and camaraderie.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, that's good. I'd love the culture of your gym, and I've never even been there, even hearing you describe it, makes me envious. I would love to have a culture like that in our gym. What habits and disciplines or daily practices keep you personally sharp, not just as a coach, but a man pursuing growth and purpose? What are the habits?

SPEAKER_01:

I get up early I get up early, and I think that I think one thing you will notice, I do not know many successful people who do not get up early. I'm not saying that you cannot be successful if you don't get up early. I just have not had a tremendous amount of experience with people. I don't know anybody in my life who said, I sleep till 10 every day and I'm doing great. I'm killing it. I'm in your camp 100%. I agree. Yeah. And so that's I think number one. I try to journal. I've that's something that I've I went to later in life. I have something they call a one-sentence journal. It's actually sold under the brand name Happiness Journal, but and I try to just write every morning and I try to make that writing something positive, something about something good that happened yesterday. And it might just have been what happened yesterday, and the fact that yesterday happened was good. I try to I I'm a a reader by nature, so I I try to read every day. And uh it's funny, there's a guy that I I really like. His name is Alistair McCaw. He's a uh I think he's actually South African by birth, but he's also a he's a mindset coach. And he talks about the idea, he said, you know, everybody every day you should get 20 minutes of exercise, 20 minutes of foam rolling and stretching, a 20-minute nap, and 20 minutes of thoughtfulness. And I love that. I nap, I'm a napper, I'll nap every day and I'm not ashamed. I used to be ashamed of the fact that I didn't want people to know I took naps. Now I brag about it because I think it's the best thing that you can do. And I really try, I think about that 20 minutes of thoughtfulness sometimes and think, okay, I just need to text so and so who I just I just thought about. Maybe I thought about you and said, Hey, we haven't spoken in six months, and just texting or reaching out.

SPEAKER_00:

Don't need anything. You just want to reach out and say, Hey. And you I always think you are, and you always want to be ahead.

SPEAKER_01:

I never want to reach out to somebody when I need something. I never want to be I because I I get too much of that in my life, unfortunately. A lot of times when when the phone rings, I usually know it's someone who needs something. They want something. Very happy to deliver that for them usually if I can do that. But I also like to be someone who is I, you know, even if it's calculated, I'm I'm one move ahead. I've been I've continued to check in and I don't need anything. I'm not asking you for something, just saying hello, hoping you're well and kind of move on.

SPEAKER_00:

That serves you well. That'll go a long way. And then when you do need something, it's pretty easy to get when you're calling, checking on people right all the time. Well would you say that?

SPEAKER_01:

I try to say I just try to teach my kids that too, though, in terms of sometimes they'll say, Oh, can you get so-and-so to do this for us? And I'm like, Yes, I'm not going to. But if I asked them, they would. But I'm not going to ask them because that's not who we are. We're not going to spend my life getting you free tickets or whatever it is that you might be in search of at this particular moment. And and again, I think that's a lesson they've learned. They know not to ask me about things that if it's important, they ask about it. If it's unimportant, they can do without it.

SPEAKER_00:

Trevor Burrus, Jr.: Mike, uh, there's a few people I know that are influential, and I have people do me the same way. They know I know them, and they'll call me and they'll say, Hey, can you have him reach out to me? Or can I I say no. Uh because what have you done for him? You've not read his books, you've not attended his classes, you've not done anything, and all you want is something from him. And you want to use my relationship with him to get that rather than you doing the reps and doing the work. And it's the same way. Like we got to do our part. What have the world's best athletes taught Mike Boll about humility, resilience, or maybe faith in the process?

SPEAKER_01:

I think one, and I'm this is gonna come off as really crasp, but some of the world's best athletes have taught me that that some relationships are purely transactional. And that that's that these people are not gonna be in your life. They're not your best friends, they're not gonna be there for you 20 years later. And that's a really hard lesson to get, but it's a really valuable lesson in life because it makes you value the real friends that you have. Like I have a lot of friends now. They have no idea, people will be surprised when they realize what I do. They'll come into the gym and they'll be like, wow, I didn't realize you had the gym was this big. Or I didn't know, you know, I was talking to a kid about a World Series ring. He said, I didn't know you have a world, I didn't know you had a World Series ring. I'm like, that's because I don't wear my World Series ring and I don't tell anybody I have one. But I realized that the really important people in your life probably will not be people that you were involved in transactional relationships at some point, no matter how good that relationship was. And there'll be a few, you'll have some good ones, but uh the vast majority, they will be these kind of ships passing in the night scenarios where, okay, you and I were both in the same place at the same time and we both served each other well, and now you're on to whatever it is you're doing, and I'm on to whatever it is I'm doing. But but my life kind of revolves around the whatever the five square miles around my house or around my gym. And that's where I really need to put my time and my energy. So I don't I don't put a lot of energy into to to chasing fame or to you know to kind of hey, I there was a time when it was really cool to sort of be on the fringes of some of these things and think that you're you're going places that are cool or you're doing things that are cool, but with a very few exceptions, uh I've learned that it's the it's just the close circle that really is going to matter to you.

SPEAKER_00:

Last couple of questions. Looking back on your decades in strength and conditioning, what legacy do you want to leave, not just in the industry, but in the lives of the people you've touched?

SPEAKER_01:

I've thought about this one a lot and I've answered this question a lot. The number one thing I wanted to leave is I want people to look and think Mike Boyle was really successful and he was a really good guy. I always think if they can say that I was a good guy and that I was a good husband and that I was a good father, then I will have had all of the impact that I needed to have. Because I think then at least I can show people that, hey, you can be successful in this field and not be a jerk. You can be successful and and still be a good husband and still be a good father and still be a good even a good coworker. I want to be a good coworker. I don't want to be someone who thinks I, God, I hated working for that guy, or God, I hated my time at Mike Boyle's strength and conditioning. I want people to think I loved my time at Mike Boyle's strength and conditioning. Maybe I left because a better opportunity presented itself, but that no time was I was I unhappy or did I feel that I wasn't treated fairly. That's all I that's all I really want, truthfully.

SPEAKER_00:

Mike, my final question: if a man is listening today and he wants to build strength that outlasts his muscles in his body, in his marriage, and his mission, where should he start first?

SPEAKER_01:

Showing up in all of those places. Show up at the gym, show up at the game, show up for your spouse. I think that's the number honestly, you can't beat showing up. You you very rarely find somebody that shows up consistently that you don't like. So I think that's if you if you're gonna do one thing, that one thing is if you can get there and then you can maybe bring along some humility with the with you, then you're gonna really do well.

SPEAKER_00:

Mike, it's been great to have you today. Thank you so much for sharing this time with us. Uh it's been phenomenal. I knew it would be. I was excited when Zach arranged this, and so you've brought a lot of value to us today. So I just want to publicly thank you for being here. For the listeners, just remember that true strength is functional. It's not flashy. Strength is about doing life well, moving efficiently, leading intentionally, and staying consistent when it matters most. Coaching is leadership with accountability. Whether you're training athletes or leading a family, your presence and example matter more than your program. And finally, legacy is built through discipline and simplicity. The best results in body or business come from consistent execution of simple, proven habits over time. Do what Mike says. Just show up. This week I want you to train for function, not appearance. Pick one area of your life that's gotten out of shape. Maybe it's your physical routine, your connection with your kids, or your consistency at work. Design one functional rep for it, a daily, repeatable action that makes you stronger where it counts most. Because we here at the ISI Brotherhood, we don't just lift weights, we live lives. So glad to have you today on the ISI Brotherhood podcast, and we'll see you again next week.