Episode 70

"I only had twenty percent to give." No. You were at one hundred. I'm at one hundred. We are always at one hundred percent capacity. So if you want more in your life, you cannot pile more on top. You have to let something go first.

The real reason you are stuck has nothing to do with how hard you work. It is the belief running underneath. The quiet story that you are not enough. That you are not worthy. That your worth lives in your bank account and in how other people see you. That story runs most men their entire lives.

Here is why letting go is so painful. Your identity is propped up by the very things keeping you stuck. The belief. The story. The person. Let it go, and the question becomes terrifying. Who am I without it?

In this solo episode Adam gets personal and raw, in the middle of letting something go in his own life right now, because he will not call a man into a fire he is not standing in himself. He goes at the wound that says you are not worthy until you check every box, and calls it what it is. A lie. You are worthy. No fine print. He talks about the power of plant medicine in the right setting as an accelerant for letting go. He talks about why most men live as performers, and what it costs to keep the mask on.

What if the worst thing that ever happened to you was the thing that set you free? You would not have chosen it. You could not have seen it coming. Then you come out the other side and realize it was a gift. Adam shares the phone call from a man he had not talked to in ten years who asked the question that flipped everything. How cool is it that you get to start over?

This one is about letting go. The story. The fear. The secret. The version of you that has to die so the next one can show up. So here is the invitation. Look at where you feel stuck, and ask yourself what you are really holding onto. Find one thing. Just one. Let it go.

The Burn Up Podcast is built for men who have lived something real or are living it right now. Every conversation pulls back the curtain on what it actually costs to build something, lose it, and come back stronger. No highlight reel. No performance. Just the truth.

Connect With Adam:

Instagram: https://instagram.com/adamnugent

Website: https://burnup.com

Substack: https://substack.com/@adamenugent

Episode 69

The formula for losing weight is not complicated. A caloric deficit, adequate protein, and consistent resistance training are the core ingredients, and anyone can find them with a quick Google or ChatGPT search. The fitness industry has no shortage of programs, coaches, and systems that will tell you exactly what to eat and exactly how to move.

Yet the obesity rate in America keeps climbing. Most people who lose the weight gain it back.

The formula is not the problem. What is underneath the formula is.

In this episode Adam gets into what the fitness industry is almost entirely missing. The emotional wound that sits underneath the weight. The reason most men turn to food is not hunger. It is pain. It is avoidance. It is a lifetime of using food to regulate emotions that never got addressed. Until you deal with that, every program, every plan, and every 75 Hard is a band-aid over something that needs real work.

He also gets personal. His rock bottom with food, the night the shame of what he had just done to himself hurt more than whatever he was trying to avoid, became the beginning of everything. He shares what he discovered working with men in his fitness program who could not even identify a healthy goal weight because they did not believe it was possible for them. Men who had so much emotional weight tied to their physical body that they could not even allow themselves to imagine what healthy looked like. He talks about the moment he broke down in a dressing room after losing a hundred pounds and finally fitting into regular clothes. He also gets into what preparing for his first physique competition has brought up in him that he thought he had already healed from.

This is not a fitness episode. It is an identity episode that happens to be about weight. If you have ever lost the weight and gained it back, you already know exactly what this episode is about.

The Burn Up Podcast is built for men who have lived something real or are living it right now. Every conversation pulls back the curtain on what it actually costs to build something, lose it, and come back stronger. No highlight reel. No performance. Just the truth.

Connect With Adam:

Instagram: https://instagram.com/adamnugent

Website: https://burnup.com

Substack: https://substack.com/@adamenugent

Episode 68

The Pentagon last week did not recognize the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (Mormons) as a Christian religion. And the reaction from members, politicians, and leaders across Utah and beyond was immediate and intense.

We are Christian. We are Christian. We are Christian.

My first question was not about the Pentagon. It was about the reaction. Why does a government institution's opinion on your faith matter so much? If you truly believe what you believe, why does anyone else's opinion of it shake you this deeply? That question is the entire point of this episode.

Here is where the irony lives. Between 2010 and 2018 the church spent a reported $300 million on the "I'm a Mormon" campaign. Billboards. Buses. Documentaries. Members building personal profiles. The entire institution leaning into that identity with everything it had.

Then in 2018 prophet Russell Nelson stood at General Conference and declared that using the word Mormon is a major victory for Satan. He called it a divine revelation. A command from the Lord. The choir was renamed. The campaign was dismantled overnight. Hundreds of millions of dollars and years of brand building were wiped out because the entire strategy had shifted. The goal was to be seen and accepted across mainstream Christianity.

In 2026 the government said they are not Christian.

After all of that. After all the money and the rebrand and the revelation and the campaign. The people they were trying to impress still said no.

And this is not really a story about the Mormon church. This is a story about what happens when any person or institution changes who they are to gain approval from people who were never going to give it.

I was raised Mormon. Served a mission in Argentina. Lived this world for almost 40 years. My parents are still devout members. I am not here to attack the church. I am here to ask the questions most people in this conversation are avoiding, including the most important one. Why does their approval matter so much to you?

Your reaction says everything.

The Burn Up Podcast is built for men who have lived something real or are living it right now. Every conversation pulls back the curtain on what it actually costs to build something, lose it, and come back stronger. No highlight reel. No performance. Just the truth.

Connect With Adam:

Instagram: https://instagram.com/adamnugent

Website: https://burnup.com

Substack: https://substack.com/@adamenugent