Eager to be Healthy—Billy Ruggles— Jiu-jitsu and Landmark

Billy Ruggles: Sounds good. I’m Billy Ruggles and I’m eager to be healthy. You’re listening to the Eager to be Healthy podcast with Scott Eager. Learn how to be happy, healthy, and living life to the fullest.

Michael Scott Eger: Okay BING! On this recording we have Billy Ruggles. ⁓ So Billy why don’t you introduce yourself.

Billy Ruggles: Uh, yeah. So I am Billy Rebels. I’m a 33 year old from Brooklyn, New York right now. Um, and met Mike, I want to say about six years ago up in West Springfield. And, um, he’s a very, very interesting smart dude. I’ve seen him go through a lot of changes and, uh, you know, glad to be talking to you, man.

Michael Scott Eger: Talking about those changes, you played a role in some of those changes, I believe, you?

Billy Ruggles: Yeah, you know, I like to think so. You know, I think when, when, when people, you know, get a chance to meet, you know, they have an opportunity to, play a role. And I always want to make a difference in people’s lives. We met up in a True Green, you we were both salesmen. know for a lot to say that, but either way we met at that job and you know, there weren’t really a lot of strong, ⁓ I guess enjoyable parts of doing some of that work. But again, I guess trying to make a, make a bet that of a tough situation was was kind of where I was at when when you and I met.

Michael Scott Eger: So, I think I remember that time before I really started to awaken as far as my true potential. All I just knew at that moment was I wanted something different for my life. And taking that job was my first test to see if I could live a life that was outside of my old career with technology. You’re my guest, let’s talk about Billy, okay? Over the years, I’ve seen you make a lot of changes to your personal health. for the better. One of them was you joined a Brazilian Jiu Jitsu gym. You want to start talking about that and all the other changes that followed since that.

Billy Ruggles: ⁓ yes sure absolutely ⁓ you know i think ⁓ i always had ⁓ of passion for physical combat sports i was a wrestler for most of my life and ⁓ you know so yeah i haven’t exactly been training in the athletic board for many years now just kind of in doing gym work but i ⁓ i actually changed up my diet regimen and that was part of what had me kind of looking for something new I was making changes. started in Massachusetts. I had reached at some point 310 pounds. And this is again going on about four years ago. So it’s been a long road, but you know, I started doing, you know, paleo organic type diets and that helped me go over time from three 10 to about a two 60. And, I kind of got stuck at plateaued and I was looking through several different diets. I did one where I had to pay a doctor a whole lot of money for a really, really kind of crazy crash diet. tried it all. But that actually did help me go down from about 246 where I ended up getting stuck at probably down to about 196. And to be able to kind of maintain diet, I’ve been doing the Dolce diet and he’s pretty well known in the fitness industry around being the, I guess, coach, the stars of the UFC. And, ⁓ I ended up calling into his radio show or his podcast, kind of like this, or, I think I messaged them, but either way they read my question on air where they said, you know, know, Billy Ruggles, you know, dropped 113 pounds and using the living mean principles to keep it off. Where is the place where I could train and do mixed martial arts? And Mike, ⁓ answered the question personally, he put it out to his audience, which is really, really cool. But you did say, you know, yeah, look, whenever I’m. and then had in the brooklyn area where i thought i was from i would go to hand them so hand-held great he is part of the lineage that of the family that actually created the danger to it’s just world-class training and it would be great people over there

Michael Scott Eger: But before you did that you found a place in Massachusetts where you were living, right?

Billy Ruggles: yeah you are right yeah i’m always kind of try to get into it so the place where i trained at up in massachusetts was in wublo massachusetts called team link and ⁓ the ufc started actually connected to that you know if you’re on the power and i got and ⁓ the other local wublo ⁓ a gentleman that owned the jim his name is marco alvin and that ⁓ gilbert and others it was part of friends all really really great

Michael Scott Eger: So you found a jujitsu here, found another place in New York and you’re on a dochi diet?

Billy Ruggles: Yep, they call it the Dolce Diet. He calls it Living Lean. It’s the book that he wrote about it. And yeah, it’s a great lifestyle.

Michael Scott Eger: So how far have you progressed on that and what really drives it to you besides the fact that you get to grapple?

Billy Ruggles: I think my whole life I’ve been trying to just get better and better at something. You I think, you you and I as men, something we always kind of tend to do is to want to do something, whether it be physical or testing our bodies, whether it be doing, you know, marathons, whether it’s, you know, doing a sport. I just found myself always being a really competitive person. I like it that I did wrestling for about, I don’t know, about 10, 10 years or so on and off through my twenties as well. And I’ve always loved physical things, you know, every kind of area of my life, I try to master something, move on to the next level. And I guess it was just kind of the next thing I was looking to change up my physical regimen. And I knew that there’s a belt system there. There are goals for me to attend levels of training to, to master and continue to move on. ⁓ so I kind of looked at it as a challenge and one that’s been really, really fun to tackle and also has a good physical benefit.

Michael Scott Eger: One of the things that you introduced me to, I’m actually grateful for, really helped my transformation from employee to coach, and that was landmark education. Do you want to talk about how that changed your life?

Billy Ruggles: So I started doing my landmark coursework in 2008. remember April 2008, I had just plummeted through my music career and my band had fallen apart and that was pretty low point for me. But I think I was just kind of looking for a way to live my life better. I know that somewhere along the lines in college, I took a course called Stress Management as part of Psychology. And I remember studying a guy named Hans Belier and he was like the father of modern day positive psychology. And he always said, you know, I’m paraphrasing here, but I shouldn’t be expected to enjoy my stresses, but merely expected to appreciate them. You know, so just taking that course, studying, you know, modern day positive psychology, you can call me a bit of a self-help fool or junkie at that time. But in any event, I just knew there was a different way to live life. think kind of like how you said, you you knew that there was a way to change your life and you kind of challenge yourself with that. So doing that, I got to take a really good look in the mirror and I found that I didn’t really like a lot of the things that I saw. Again, I think it was about 28, 29, but since then now I’m 33. I hate saying that.

Michael Scott Eger: Well, I’m nearly 40, buddy.

Billy Ruggles: But hey, it’s something I’m really, really cool with now. I wasn’t always, but in any event, I got to, again, make a lot of differences in my life and my family, cleaned up a lot of my relationships and, you know, ultimately got to a more complete date in my life where I’m more living out an authentic expression of, ⁓ you know, the picture of life that would actually get me out of bed in the morning. Like I said, landmark was a very, very positive. did it for about five years ourselves.

Michael Scott Eger: Everyone and talk to the Dunn landmark internalizes it differently if you could give us a bullet points of what you learned Just so people can’t understand it outside of the brochures

Billy Ruggles: So, you know, landmark education is a training and development company. It’s a leading organization. are several out there. You know, that’s one thing I will say is landmark is phenomenal. That a lot of really great, uh, you know, a lot of really great changes came about in my life as a result of the work, but I’ve been a part of many, many training and development and there are really some phenomenal people out there and of course what to do again, having done landmark. You know, I went through their entire curriculum. They kind of have a course of study to kind of help you in any area of your life that you aren’t, I guess, performing in the way you’d like to. You know, I think at that time for me that really looked like personal relationships and having some integrity. You know, I knew that I had struggled with it because my band fell apart, like I said, and I really had to kind of redefine who I was and that’s all I knew. So I ended up going in, really transformed my family. Initially, I told my father I loved him for the first time in about 20 years or so. Really just started cleaning up lot of relationships. And I realized in the first course that I wasn’t everything I thought I was cracked up to be. I got to go do something about it. And I think that’s kind of the first thing I’ll point out about landmark is it’s coursework. They will definitely help you get insights into different areas of your life and how to get more out of it. But a lot of people, I think in any training and development or self-help, take their insights as transformation. And transformation is not having an insight. Transformation really happens when you produce results in your life. So once you take the action, you take the risks, you’ve done the work. that’s breakthrough breakthrough happens in action. Okay. I made a million dollars. You know what? have five healthier relationships and I’m talking to these people where I wasn’t before. So again, you know, for me, I ended up changing career, getting in sales, mastered that, ⁓ moved on to that. And I’m a, I’m a relatively high level educator in, in healthcare, health. So my, my life has continued to kind of develop, develop. And I think more than anything, Before I did Landmark, I was kind of always going through life, again, wondering how to get the best out of my life. But since I didn’t know, I felt like I wasn’t capable, I wasn’t good enough to go out and get the life that I wanted. And after I basically found out that I could really define it, how I, how I see it. So that’s kind of my, I think long-winded summary of Landmark for me.

Michael Scott Eger: One thing I took away from Landmark was the power of language in your life and how emotional language changes how events occur to you. Can you say anything along those lines?

Billy Ruggles: Absolutely. Um, you know, I think one of the biggest lessons that I got out of Landmark, I’m not really sure which course it was in. I think all of them kind of have a relatively similar theme with a focus in a specific area like communication, relationships. Um, you know, with that said, you know, I think, I mean, there’s, there’s really just so much to say about it. So Michael, tell me a specific situation in your life where Landmark really opened up. in an area of your life.

Michael Scott Eger: There’s been a lot of times there was a lot of regret for things I didn’t do correctly. so the language around those events was screw up, failure. I could have done things better. Why didn’t I? Instead of just taking those events for the learning opportunities there are. If I took those actions and I just said, I said something, this happened, it would just cause an effect. That’s actually what happens. All the language around it, the emotional narrative language we put around events really change things. if the story is bigger than your present, your story of your past is bigger than this. The story of your present, your past is going to rule you.

Billy Ruggles: Absolutely man, I think one of the biggest areas for me, I think I had mentioned that my family relationships really opened up and I realized that when I was younger there were a lot of I guess negative things that happened. What I mean was that people that did that things to me, they did that to me because I was wrong or bad. I made that up when I was about five or so. I a… kind of unfortunate thing that happened, but again, we all do with that said, ⁓ you know, again, what I made it mean with that, you know, my parents didn’t love me and if, you know, how it was being treated with love that I didn’t want it. So it was definitely tough to build close personal relationships because I just didn’t trust trust people. didn’t trust situations. And, ⁓ I think just an element of who I am just was completely shut off. and doing landmarks coursework, got to look at, again, like you said, what happened, you know, what happened to me was, you know, I had some unfortunate things happen. What I made it mean was that, know, love wasn’t real. Love was abuse and I didn’t want to have to be part of it. So, you being able to look at it for what I made it mean instead of what it actually was in reality allowed me to act differently in my life. And it definitely altered the course of my relationships. And again, it was really, really powerful stuff.

Michael Scott Eger: Now, when I took the forum, I crashed at your place and I had the opportunity to meet your mom and dad and they’re wicked cool. Yeah. Okay? So, it’s amazing how if you told me the story that was in your head about your parents and then compared it to how they occurred to me when I met your parents, would really, there would be some disharmony there. But because… just so cool that things occur to people differently and we have a choice of how things can occur to you and me. Yeah. So I guess the next thing I want to talk to you about and it’s a little controversial. Are you okay with controversial subjects? Notice you take in a larger interest in your face life. Okay and I know I know in the coaching world we try to make things so

Billy Ruggles: Sure.

Michael Scott Eger: neutral and so agnostic not to offend people. The thing is when you look at three major faith systems out there you got Christianity, got got Judaism, and you got Islam. I see themes that overlap in all of them and three vastly different religions as far as how they occur to the followers have ⁓ very big base to it. So it gets me to think, religions were truly different. Why are they using the same story over and over again? Why are they using elements of the ⁓ same story unless if there was something to that story? Maybe there is a message encoded in that story that we have to be open to. I want to talk to you about your spiritual awakening, what the means meant to you, and more importantly, how you learned from it.

Billy Ruggles: trying to think how to concisely kind of sum up something that’s really, I guess, spanned over my whole life because my spiritual awakening has been a lifelong thing. And, you know, I grew up, I grew up Roman Catholic. I was going with my mom, went to CCD, it was confirmed, did the first communion there and did a whole lot of things that I didn’t exactly understand, you know, about the church and about faith, about spirituality. So again, look at myself very, very, you know, young and, um, you know, kind of moving up into my teen years, we, kind of moved away from the Roman Catholic church. Again, there were just certain things I didn’t really understand about it. But with that said, we ended up moving on to other charismatic faiths. And I think we had a church of God and white Baptist church where you live in several different churches. You know, with that said, I’ve kind of settled in. relatively charismatic church essentially that you know believe in the fruits of the Holy Spirit and I have just really become at home at it. I think that’s kind of what spurred it. I wasn’t really deeply religious during most of my landmark days and to be honest with you during that time I really questioned faith and religion and the validity of it and you know that was ⁓ a very interesting time for me and really just go out there and pursue things and study other ways of thinking, ways of being philosophies. And, you know, think at the end of the, at the end of the road, I found myself in Springfield, Massachusetts, ⁓ hadn’t really made a lot of relationships, kind of felt lost. ⁓ and found myself at a church out in, ⁓ Agua and I remember going there and nothing was very familiar for me because there was much more. a different format for the denomination that we were going to. In any event, there was a certain sense of it that I just felt really at home and at peace with. So I’ve always found comfort in the church and I’ve just felt God’s hand moving through my life at different points in time. You know, yeah, this past couple of years has been a very, very interesting walk, seeing all the changes going on around the world with the different world religions that were, and there’s a lot of change happening in the world. So… It definitely tested me to study more about the scriptures, what it means, how they interact with the different world religions. And there’s definitely some really tough subjects inside of that because there’s some really, really bad stuff going on in the world, in America, and lots of different places all over the world. It’s a pretty ugly place right now. But at the end of the day, feel what I feel is the main thing for Christians is to remain loving. in this world and this society, you know, be able to carry out the message of the gospel. And I think ultimately that’s a message of love, and I think most people don’t know that.

Michael Scott Eger: You said something when you were exploring Landmark and other ways of thinking that you felt away from your faith. I actually experienced that myself. Less with Landmark and more with the positive psychology because a lot of these gurus will try to agnosticize or take away the faith and make it secular. And they use language like all-knowing universe. And the thing is, I’m not sure what prompted me to do it, but I downloaded the Bible app. This was after I met my friend Amy. So she was talking about a few things and then, and then what I learned from landmark. And then one day I opened, I opened up the Bible app. It was the first book of the New Testament. When I started to read it, the parable of the talents. you had the three people that were giving gifts and two of them took risks and made investments in it and showed dividends and they were rewarded and one person played it safe and just buried it so he wouldn’t lose it and so the ones that took risks transformed it were the ones that really got the praise and the way I internalized that was my higher power, the one I call God, he wanted us make the most of what he’s given us and he wants us to make investments in those gifts. And then you go into the loaves and fishes and the seeds that are rough and all these stories are like, here’s a problem, here’s a mindset, and let’s break that mindset and let’s show you what I can do. And that is how the New Testament opens. I had to read those passages a few times. like, it’s encoded right here. And it’s encoded right at the beginning of the New Testament. So it was no longer the rules. And it was more about faith, hope and love. And especially when you focus on faith and the gifts that were given to you, you can move mountains. And that was deep. Finding more encoded personal transformation stories in these parables in these stories and that’s what really connected old Books with the new thinking have you ever read Napoleon Hill’s outwitting the devil?

Billy Ruggles: I’ve not read the whole thing. what I have read has been absolutely fascinating.

Michael Scott Eger: It really streamlines all the stuff I internalize, all I take in, because what I’m really building is a philosophy of one, happy lifestyle. And it’s so cool finding these stories encoded in texts that are thousands of years old. ⁓ Would you like to add something to that?

Billy Ruggles: uh… there are lessons in the trip to accept the way i mean we’re talking about landmark before you know i think that you know landmark is you know i have a lot of different information and knowledge that you know originally is in there’s uh… a lot of universal information knowledge together in a package in that single week is originally landmarks is the way they’ve together their coursework but it’s actually a i think it is a lot of different psychological you know exercises that they do in their coursework. There’s a lot of neuro-linguistic programming where you’re using your language to help transform your life. But there is in my opinion and not everybody necessarily agrees with this but there is I believe a spiritual connection to what happens in those types of courses. again I think a lot of the wisdom that’s in those courses comes from the world of religion and the world of philosophies. of all time and just put together in packages in specific way. And yes, if you read through ⁓ proverbs, Ecclesiastes, you’re going to listen and read about the meaninglessness of life and a lot of really like just incredible transforming knowledge in my opinion. All that stuff is just littered throughout the course of the landmark. And I think there’s knowledge and truth out there. you being able to look at what your interpretation of them is and turn that into your faith or your belief system. Yeah, I think they’re all pretty closely related.

Michael Scott Eger: We’re coming to the end of our time. I just want to see if there’s anything else you want to add before we get into the closing of the show.

Billy Ruggles: Yeah, you know, don’t have anything in particular. You know, one thing I will say, you know, Mike, I’m really proud of you, man. You I’ve seen you run through a lot of changes over over the years. I think that there are kind of moments I look at in my life where I say, you know, I took a risk. think the chance of this, I took it and this is what it proves. You know, I definitely know that there weren’t a lot of things that came out of me going up to, you know, True Grain. There definitely were some solid blessings that were incredible. You know, but being able to watch you go through your changes, cause I definitely saw something, um, you know, when you and I met at True Green and, yeah, you, you, you really just done a lot of work on yourself and it’s really cool. I’m really proud of you. Just want to make sure to know that.

Michael Scott Eger: I probably would never discover Landmark if you didn’t spend two years basically on my ass. Dude, you got to do this. You got to do this. Man, ⁓ you would be foolish not to do this. This will change your life. You will only take yeses for answer. When was I going to give you yes? When was it now? And so you kept going for the yes and eventually I know I I I did it and luckily because of what happened to me with my car accident I had the money to put into my personal transformation and and yeah I mean it really started to open my eyes and it wasn’t the first time I was ready for coaching but it was the first time that really worked in that type of environment and I thank you for that. Also thank you for our conversations we had in the past, the ones that are not on the show.

Billy Ruggles: Yeah

Michael Scott Eger: We find a lot of my belief systems truly believes that our friendship change us both for the better and I am grateful for that opportunity.

Billy Ruggles: So, ⁓ is this where I’m supposed to say something? So I, ⁓ I don’t have any specific product or album, ⁓ to, to advertise, but, I think just kind of where I’ve been in my life and the things that I’m going through, just what I would be putting out there to people is that you look making change in your life. It really takes on the thing. ⁓ you have to take into some action over a long period of time. So if there’s anybody out there kind of looking to better themselves, make a difference in life, just know that. the landscape of transformation is a really, really big picture. So just understand that changing your life is a marathon, something that you got for the most part never done and it’s never finished. You’re always developing and, uh, just kind of be patient with yourself in the process. It’s been a fun ride, uh, in the most part. So it’s been awesome. Thanks for having me on the.

Michael Scott Eger: Okay, one more time before we end the show. What would you total weight loss?

Billy Ruggles: ⁓ it was a hundred and fourteen pounds

Michael Scott Eger: That’s twice as much as I lost. Impressive. All right, until the next time, I’d to have you back on the show. And thank you for coming on, Billy.

Billy Ruggles: Thanks man. Absolutely man, thanks a lot bud, talk to you later. Thank you for listening to the Eager to be Healthy podcast. If you liked our show, please give us five stars on iTunes and sign up to become a healthy bee at eagertobeehealthy.com slash podcast.

Michael Scott Eger: guest.