Dr. Joey Munoz: Changes in the Industry, Coaches Using AI, & What it Takes to Scale
3 Key Takeaways:
Experience is the fastest way to challenge your assumptions and grow.
Success becomes a lot more complicated once you're responsible for other people.
Most people don't need more information—they need more clarity.
One of my favorite things about podcasting is that sometimes you sit down planning to talk about one thing, and the conversation ends up somewhere completely different.
That's exactly what happened when I had Dr. Joey Munoz back on the Choose Hard Podcast.
If you've followed Joey for any amount of time, you know he's one of the most respected voices in evidence-based nutrition. He's built an incredible coaching company, creates some of the best educational content in the fitness industry, and has a rare ability to simplify complicated topics without watering them down.
But what stood out most in this conversation wasn't nutrition.
It was perspective.
As we've both gotten older, built businesses, become husbands, become fathers, hired teams, and taken on more responsibility, a lot of the conversations we used to have about fitness have evolved into conversations about life.
And honestly, I think that's inevitable.
Because if you coach people long enough, you realize fitness is never just about fitness.
WHO IS DR. JOEY MUNOZ?
Dr. Joey (PhD, Nutritional Sciences) is a prominent fitness educator, science-backed fat loss coach, and the host of The Dr. Joey Munoz show podcast. He focuses on sustainable body transformations, muscle building, and simplifying nutrition without yo-yo diets.
The More You Learn, The Less Certain You Become
One thing I've always respected about Joey is how open-minded he is.
That might sound strange considering his background in research and science, but I actually think that's exactly why he thinks the way he does.
When you're constantly looking at evidence, you're forced to accept that sometimes you're wrong. You might believe one thing today and discover new information tomorrow that completely changes your perspective.
Most people struggle with that.
They become attached to opinions, identities, tribes, and labels. They dig their heels in and defend positions because admitting they're wrong feels like losing.
But growth doesn't happen when you're right all the time.
Growth happens when you're willing to challenge your own assumptions.
Throughout our conversation, Joey shared examples of beliefs he once held that completely changed as he gained more experience. Ideas around money. Parenting. Relationships. Business. Success.
Not because someone argued him into changing his mind.
Because life did.
Experience did.
That's something I think we could all benefit from remembering.
A lot of people are extremely confident about situations they've never actually lived through.
It's easy to have strong opinions from a distance.
It's much harder to maintain those opinions once reality gets involved.
The Reality of Building Something
Social media has made entrepreneurship look incredibly attractive.
Everyone sees the freedom.
Everyone sees the money.
Everyone sees the flexibility.
What they don't see is the responsibility.
Joey and I spent quite a bit of time talking about what happens when your business grows beyond just you.
When you're working for yourself, the pressure is relatively straightforward. You have to provide for yourself and your family.
When you build a team, everything changes.
Now people depend on you.
Their livelihood depends on your decisions.
Their families depend on your leadership.
And that's a different kind of weight.
It's one of those things that's difficult to explain until you've lived it.
Ironically, both of us agreed that there are seasons where life was actually simpler when it was just us coaching clients. The money was good. The schedule was flexible. The stress was lower.
But growth has a way of pulling you forward.
Not because you have to.
Because you want to.
Because creating something bigger than yourself becomes meaningful.
The challenge is learning how to balance ambition without sacrificing everything else that matters.
And that's a lesson every entrepreneur eventually has to face.
Most People Don't Need More Information
One of the most interesting parts of our conversation was talking about the clients Joey works with.
People often assume that because he's known for evidence-based nutrition, his clients are science nerds who spend their free time reading research studies.
That's not actually the case.
Most of them are normal people.
People who are trying hard.
People who care about their health.
People who are motivated.
People who have simply been overwhelmed by conflicting information.
And honestly, I think that's where a lot of people are right now.
We live in a world where information is unlimited.
You can find a thousand opinions about nutrition before breakfast.
One influencer says carbs are bad.
Another says seed oils are killing you.
Someone else says fasting is mandatory.
Then another person tells you breakfast is mandatory.
No wonder people feel stuck.
The problem usually isn't a lack of effort.
The problem is confusion.
The clients who succeed aren't necessarily the smartest people.
They're the people who finally stop chasing every new answer and commit to a proven process.
They stop trying to outsmart the fundamentals.
And they start doing them consistently.
Why Experience Matters
One theme kept resurfacing throughout the entire conversation.
Experience.
Not opinions.
Not theories.
Experience.
Experience teaches you what actually works.
Experience teaches you what you're willing to sacrifice.
Experience teaches you what you value.
Experience teaches you who you want to become.
I think that's why mentorship matters so much.
It's why coaching matters so much.
It's why surrounding yourself with people who are further down the road matters so much.
Because sometimes the fastest way to grow isn't accumulating more information.
It's borrowing perspective from someone who's already lived through what you're currently navigating.
Choose Hard
Toward the end of the conversation, Joey said something that stuck with me.
He talked about spending time around people operating at levels far beyond where he currently is. Not just because it shows what's possible, but because it also shows what those levels require.
The travel.
The sacrifices.
The commitments.
The tradeoffs.
And sometimes that's just as valuable.
Because success isn't about chasing somebody else's vision.
It's about building a life that aligns with your values.
The hard path isn't always the path that makes the most money.
It isn't always the path that gets the most attention.
Sometimes the hard path is having enough self-awareness to define success for yourself.
That's what this conversation reminded me of.
Keep learning.
Stay open-minded.
Challenge your assumptions.
And remember that experience will always be a better teacher than certainty.
Choose Hard.
Watch the full episode of Choose Hard with Dr. Joey Munoz here: