Build Muscle with Mindfulness: A Masterclass On Understanding Yourself and Your Goals with Ben Pakulski — Muscle Maven Radio Episode #8
Barbell Shrugged
Doug Larson
4.7 • 2.8K Ratings
🗓️ 28 March 2019
⏱️ 72 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Ben Pakulski (@bpakfitness) is an IFBB bodybuilding pro who's competed in the Arnold Classic and Mr. Olympia, and now runs a successful muscle building program and gym in Tampa Florida called Mi40. He also offers business mentorship coaching, hosts the popular Muscle Intelligence Podcast, and travels the world speaking about the practical, scientific, and mental aspects of living a healthy, happy, and fit life.
Ashleigh sits down with IFBB pro bodybuilder, podcast host, and owner of a successful gym and coaching business, the bodybuilding yogi, Ben Pakulski for a deep dive about Ben's work to change the paradigm of muscle building: to encourage fitness enthusiasts of all ages and backgrounds to approach their goals with as much introspection, mindfulness, and strategic thinking as possible. We cover topics like encouraging young people to find their own personalized approach to fitness; practical ways to reverse-engineer your goals in order to establish clear steps to achieve them; how pain and empathy helps you grow (both in the gym and the rest of your life); and some personal stories about how Ben became the muscle expert that he is—starting out as a skinny, vegetarian runner who was told repeatedly he would never find success in bodybuilding.
Minute Breakdown:
5 - 13 Intro to Ben's background with and passion for bodybuilding, including the fact that he started as a vegetarian runner and gained 70 pounds in a year through food and training when he was 17
13 – 25 How Ben is trying to change the paradigm around muscle building through his work, including his plan to create resources for teenagers to learn the tools needed to develop their own personalized muscle building program. We discuss the importance of positive influence and direction for young people, and how he encourages his own kids to be fit and healthy
25 - 34 The limitations of our obsession with trying to quantify movements and exercises, and why most people need to focus on mastering the basics before worrying about details
34 - 39 The importance of sticking to the goals you set even when your plans change; knowing you can stick to your word is a base from which so much success and growth can happen. How to pinpoint what gives you joy and make time for those things and be intentional about creating joyful moments so you don't crave quick fixes or seek comfort with distraction.
39 - 45 through a very personal story about Ben's upbringing we discuss the importance of relationships, how to invest in them, how to communicate, and how this can inform your health. How pain can help you grow if you find gratitude in the learning experience and bring empathy and understanding to your interactions
45 - 58 – We discuss ways to reverse-engineer our goals by understanding and clarifying what value we bring to the table. A discussion of his work with business mentorship clients
58 -: In goal setting and achieving a happy, healthy, fulfilled life, we talk about how to "find your why" and identify not only what your goals are but why those are your goals, so you have a deep level of clarity when challenges arise
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
Show notes: http://www.shruggedcollective.com/mmr-pakulski
----------------------------------------------------------------------
@whoop: https://www.whoop.com - "Shrugged" for 15% off a WHOOP
► Subscribe to Shrugged Collective's Channel Here
http://bit.ly/BarbellShruggedSubscribe
📲 🎧 Listen to the audio version on the Apple Podcast App or Stitcher for Android Here-
http://bit.ly/BarbellShruggedApple
http://bit.ly/BarbellShruggedStitcher
Shrugged Collective is a network of fitness, health and performance shows that help people achieve their physical and mental health goals. Usually in the gym, but outside as well. In 2012 they posted their first Barbell Shrugged podcast and have been putting out weekly free videos and podcasts ever since.
Along the way we've created successful online coaching programs including The Shrugged Strength Challenge, The Muscle Gain Challenge, FLIGHT, Barbell Shredded, and Barbell Bikini.
We're also dedicated to helping affiliate gym owners grow their businesses and better serve their members by providing owners tools and resources like the Barbell Business Podcast.
Find Shrugged Collective and their flagship show Barbell Shrugged here:
SUBSCRIBE ON ITUNES ► http://bit.ly/ShruggedCollectiveiTunes
WEBSITE ► https://www.ShruggedCollective.com
INSTAGRAM ► https://instagram.com/shruggedcollective
FACEBOOK ► https://facebook.com/barbellshruggedpodcast
TWITTER ► http://twitter.com/barbellshrugged
Transcript
Click on a timestamp to play from that location
| 0:00.0 | Hey guys, welcome to Muscle Nave and Radio. My name is Ashley Van Houten and I have a big |
| 0:06.7 | guest today, both literally and figuratively. And I have a big question for you to start |
| 0:12.0 | off this little intro. And the question is, why do you want to be strong? And I'm going |
| 0:18.0 | to let you think on that for a bit while I give you an intro into today's guest because |
| 0:22.4 | asking questions like that, I think it's crucial to success in anything. And it's a big part |
| 0:28.2 | of the reason why people who meet with or work with or listen to my guest today, Ben |
| 0:33.4 | Pekulski, they immediately want him to be their mentor or their coach or their big brother. |
| 0:40.2 | Because not only is he extremely successful and knowledgeable in muscle building and what |
| 0:45.5 | he does, he's very thoughtful and methodical and honest and he asks questions and he's |
| 0:51.3 | willing to help people who are willing to put the work in. And I think that the thoughtful |
| 0:54.5 | part that I touched on here is so important because so many of us, so much of the time, |
| 0:59.3 | are on autopilot without even realizing it. And I'm speaking about myself here and I know |
| 1:03.8 | that many of you are going to resonate with this if you allow yourself to be honest, because |
| 1:08.1 | we spend a lot of time filling ourselves up with distractions so that we don't have to |
| 1:12.5 | be thoughtful and introspective because that shit is hard. So we're scrolling social media, |
| 1:18.4 | we're following other people's stories and it's not always useless stuff. We're doing |
| 1:22.0 | tasks every day. We're cooking and cleaning and working and working out and we're doing |
| 1:26.6 | things that we're so used to that we don't really have to put a lot of thought into performing |
| 1:31.2 | them. And we also don't have to think about why, why are we performing them? Should we |
| 1:35.4 | switch it up? Should we do something different? What's the end game here? We don't take the |
| 1:39.3 | time to ask why we're pursuing the goals that we're pursuing. And I think we consider it |
| 1:44.6 | a given that everybody wants to look fit, be as strong as possible, make as much money |
... |
Please login to see the full transcript.
Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from Doug Larson, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.
Generated transcripts are the property of Doug Larson and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.
Copyright © Tapesearch 2026.