REAL AF with Andy Frisella - October 21, 2022


402. Andy, Dr. Layne Norton & DJ CTI...


Episode Stats


Length

1 hour and 42 minutes

Words per minute

198.84567

Word count

20,476

Sentence count

1,659

Harmful content

Misogyny

10

sentences flagged

Hate speech

33

sentences flagged


Summary

Summaries generated with gmurro/bart-large-finetuned-filtered-spotify-podcast-summ .

In this episode, Dr. Lane Norton comes on the show to talk about how he got his start in the fitness industry and how he became a world class powerlifter. He also talks about why he doesn t like being called by his real name.

Transcript

Transcript generated with Whisper (turbo).
Misogyny classifications generated with MilaNLProc/bert-base-uncased-ear-misogyny .
Hate speech classifications generated with facebook/roberta-hate-speech-dynabench-r4-target .
00:00:00.000 What is up guys, it's Andy Priscilla and this is the show for the realists, say goodbye
00:00:20.740 to the lies, the figness and delusions of modern society and welcome to motherfucking
00:00:25.260 reality guys. I've got something and it's really fucking good. You're going to want to come
00:00:34.480 here, come in closer, lean in a little bit because today we have Andy and DJ and Dr.
00:00:43.040 Lane Norton. Cruz the motherfucking internet. That's fucking right. And you heard that right
00:00:47.680 too. Lane Norton is sitting five feet from me. Actually he's standing. How are you bro?
00:00:52.300 I'm so relieved that you can drop F-bombs here. I feel like I've found my people. 1.00
00:00:57.160 You have. Sorry. I found my motherfucking people. There you go. Yeah, you definitely have. There
00:01:02.060 you go. Uh, bro. Thank you so much for coming in. Uh, it's been a long time. We've been trying
00:01:07.320 to get this show together. Uh, excited to have you excited to have you in the building. And
00:01:12.360 you know, for those of you that guys that don't know, uh, Lane is one of the premier, I would
00:01:20.480 say the benchmark for bullshit in the nutritional supplement industry training industry, basically
00:01:30.740 the entire fitness community, uh, Lane has served as, and by the way, there's a ton of things he's
00:01:37.060 accomplished. I mean, dude, he's a world-class power lifter. He's an entrepreneur. Uh, he's a PhD.
00:01:41.920 He's handsome. Yeah. He's fucking super handsome. Um, it's true. You know, he, he has a, he has
00:01:49.220 been a mainstay in our industry for 20 plus years, you know? And, uh, and he, he sets the
00:01:56.580 bar for the truth when it comes to what companies are doing or what's true, what's not true. And
00:02:04.100 I, and he does an amazing job at helping educate people on how to get better with real science.
00:02:09.880 And, uh, bro, thank you for everything that you do, man, because it's a, it's a, it's an awesome,
00:02:14.780 it's an awesome thing to have witnessed for so many years. You know, we've talked for, for years
00:02:18.720 and years and years. Uh, and this is the first time we've actually gotten to get together. So
00:02:23.020 it's really cool to have you on the show, bro. No, I'm, I'm grateful. I feel like it's, uh,
00:02:27.720 after that introduction, I can only go downhill from here. I apologize to everybody for the
00:02:32.360 disappointment in advance, but not honestly. Like, um, you know, it's funny. My director of
00:02:38.360 operations actually was like, you know what? You and Andy would have an awesome podcast together.
00:02:42.740 You should reach out. And I'm like, you know, maybe a little ego thing where I'm like, you know,
00:02:46.800 I don't like like asking to be on things. And then, and then I had talked back and forth via
00:02:52.420 DMs and text message for years. And I'm like, listen to the episode. I'm like, yeah, this
00:02:57.420 motherfucker and I would vibe for sure. So I think we sat down in there and you came over and we just
00:03:01.800 were like talking about stuff that would have made for an awesome episode for about an hour
00:03:05.340 anyway. So now it's been great. And everybody has been like, just so hospitable. Like it's, um,
00:03:12.420 I've really appreciated. It's been a great experience. Yeah. Brother. Anytime, man. You know,
00:03:16.380 uh, it's weird. I don't ever ask my friends to come on the show for the reason I just described
00:03:21.040 you off air. Okay. I just got done saying to lane. I said, Hey dude, if, uh, if I get a little
00:03:26.800 too hot or become a liability to your brand, right. Make sure you let me know. Cause I don't want to.
00:03:31.480 And the reason I don't ask my friends to come on the show is because I'm comfortable with
00:03:35.320 the heat. I'm comfortable with the fuck. I I'm used to being called all the names and all
00:03:39.360 the things. And, uh, you know, I don't, sometimes that gets put on other people and I don't like
00:03:44.200 that. So that's why. Yeah. I mean, uh, I'm not exactly. No, you're not a music controversy.
00:03:50.900 People are like, are you sure you want to call people out? Like what if they don't, what if
00:03:55.740 like, I'm like, honestly, all the people I caught, I don't really like, I don't want
00:04:01.380 to do business with them. I don't like, that's not my people. So let's talk about you for a
00:04:05.240 second before we get into the actual show. My favorite subject. Yes. Mine too. Mine is
00:04:09.660 myself. Let's, let's do what all podcasts do. And let's argue about who's cooler and
00:04:14.720 talk about all our compliments. That was a dig on the table right there. Yeah. You, you can't
00:04:20.280 participate. You're only 27 years old. All right. You haven't paid your dues yet, but
00:04:24.380 Lane and I, we can participate. Got enough gray hairs. That's right, dude. Uh, tell
00:04:29.720 everybody a little bit about yourself and how you got to be here because, um, inside
00:04:34.900 the fitness industry, Lane is very, very, very well known, uh, a very, very well
00:04:40.020 known, known name. So, um, let's hear it. How did you get into, how did you even get
00:04:47.560 into training, dude? Yeah. So I described myself, uh, one of two ways, either a meathead
00:04:53.340 who loves science or a science geek who loves to lift heavy shit. Yeah. Um, I got
00:04:59.140 into lifting because I got bullied really terribly all throughout like
00:05:03.860 elementary, middle, high school. And I mean, you know, more than just the
00:05:08.100 average, like, like jokes and stuff, like, like just brutally bullied.
00:05:12.900 Kids are mean as fuck. Yeah. It's, it's rough. It makes me like, I get, I remember the
00:05:17.280 first time my daughter came home and she had said that a kid said something mean to
00:05:20.280 her and I had to say, you know, honey, just remember like them saying that to
00:05:24.620 you is only because how they feel about themselves. Yeah. You know, it's hard to
00:05:27.780 explain that to a six-year-old. Yeah. It's hard to understand that even today.
00:05:31.140 So I got bullied a lot, didn't get much attention from girls. And so I started
00:05:35.200 lifting weights cause I figured I'd solve those problems. It didn't solve either
00:05:38.460 of those problems. Uh, but I fell in love with lifting weights and, um, you know, I, I
00:05:43.660 kind of picked it up from 14, from age 14 to 16. And like, literally I had a set
00:05:49.260 of sand weights that were in my basement from the, my dad had, I couldn't afford
00:05:53.680 to get a trainer or a gym membership or anything. So I walked down to the library,
00:05:57.120 checked out a book on strength training. This is back when you actually checked out
00:06:00.200 books at the library. Um, and just read it and made up my own program and started
00:06:05.180 lifting weights every day. And I kind of like did it on and off and by on and off.
00:06:09.720 I mean, I got my first girlfriend and I stopped it and then she dumped me and I
00:06:12.660 started it again. Uh, but when I started again at age 17, I never put it down and I
00:06:17.660 played sports all throughout high school. I played baseball. And then as
00:06:21.340 baseball was coming to an end and my high school career was, was coming to an
00:06:24.440 end, I knew I wasn't going to play in college. I probably could have walked on
00:06:28.220 somewhere, but you know, average height, right-handed medium hitting first
00:06:32.500 baseman aren't really like a hot commodity, you know? So I was like, well, I
00:06:37.960 could like pour myself into this weightlifting thing and I could do
00:06:40.740 bodybuilding. Like that seemed like a natural progression. I was already reading
00:06:43.620 bodybuilding magazines and whatnot and, um, got to college. And originally I'd
00:06:48.980 gone to college to do marine biology, but I had just like really started getting
00:06:52.620 involved in bodybuilding. And so I changed my major to biology cause I didn't
00:06:56.680 really know what I wanted to do with my life. And then I had a great, um, I had
00:07:00.900 great professors and my general chemistry professor, Dr. Schnabel, give him a shout
00:07:05.240 out here, Chris Schnabel said, Lane, you don't, you don't want to do biology. If you get a
00:07:08.900 degree and you don't go to grad school or med school, you're just like a bio major
00:07:13.700 or pre-med major who didn't get into med school, you should do biochemistry. And
00:07:17.600 that's going to teach you everything about the human body anyway. So I was
00:07:20.820 like, again, thinking like, I'm sure you've had these like moments where your
00:07:24.580 life branched one way or the other based on what seemed at the time to be like
00:07:29.000 kind of an inconsequential decision. So I changed my major to biochemistry. Um, and
00:07:34.320 then I did my first show the summer after my freshman year, I won the teen
00:07:38.200 division at a bodybuilding show and I was hooked. And around that same time I
00:07:42.920 had started posting on the bodybuilding.com message boards. Now for you
00:07:46.580 youngins out there, this was social media before social media existed. Okay. It was
00:07:51.000 these forums. Uh, it was the only way you could really get information quickly
00:07:54.360 about bodybuilding. And this is also where my introduction to you started. Right.
00:07:58.320 Right. So, um, I was posting on bodybuilding.com's message board and a couple
00:08:03.400 of the guys on there and said, Hey, you know, you ought to try to consider writing for
00:08:06.680 the site. Cause you're, you know, you're a competitive bodybuilder, you're doing a
00:08:09.340 degree in science, uh, and you write pretty well, like your posts are well put
00:08:13.320 together. I was like, Oh, they wouldn't want me. And then it's on a whim. I reached
00:08:17.020 out. They were like, yeah, write for us. So I started writing articles for them, did
00:08:20.420 that for a long time. And so it kind of grew in popularity. And then as I got to the
00:08:27.140 end of my undergraduate career, I kept writing, I kept competing and I still, I
00:08:32.180 didn't know what I wanted to do at the time. I kind of told you like at the time,
00:08:34.860 this is circa 2003, if you wanted to make a living in the fitness industry,
00:08:38.520 which I knew I wanted to do, like I knew I was in love with bodybuilding, but I
00:08:43.240 mean, at the time, what was your options? Go be Mr. Olympia, figure out how to get
00:08:46.660 into magazines. Right. Yeah. Um, be a personal trainer, start a supplement
00:08:50.840 company, start a gym. Those are pretty much your options. Wasn't really interested
00:08:55.540 in being a personal trainer that didn't call to me. Uh, didn't feel like I was
00:08:59.580 going to be Mr. Olympia and, you know, starting up my own companies. I came from a
00:09:04.340 poor family and had no capital. Right. So maybe there was a way, but at the time
00:09:08.720 I didn't visualize it. So I was like, well, maybe I'll go to graduate school
00:09:12.380 and just delay the real world. What year is this? This is like 2003. I was a junior
00:09:16.220 in college. Yeah, bro. We had just started our retail stores. So we started our
00:09:19.560 retail stores in 99 and I can remember sitting in the back. This is so fucking
00:09:24.120 weird. It's weird that we're sitting here right now because I could, we lived in
00:09:27.160 the back of that first store for the first three years on and off. So me and
00:09:31.620 Chris, um, and bro, I can remember I had this fucking little computer. It was
00:09:37.420 back. It was, I had my corner of the fucking back area, right? Chris had his
00:09:41.140 corner and dude, I would sit online cause dude, we'd only see one or two
00:09:45.060 customers a day at that point. Right. So like I'm fucking reading on
00:09:48.060 bodybuilding.com, you know, I'm trying to learn shit because bro, I didn't know
00:09:51.680 anything. You know what I mean? So like I'm sitting here reading your shit back as
00:09:56.280 you're, as you're, dude, it's just weird. And now the timelines have like
00:09:59.680 collided. Converged. Like it's fucking cool, man. Yeah. So I, I, um, I'm on the
00:10:04.540 archive page of bodybuilder looking at all the posts right now. Yeah. Yeah. Oh
00:10:07.760 yeah. Tons of them. You should read them all. You'll learn a lot. I think on the
00:10:10.540 forum I made like, and so this is funny. It's like, you know, we were, um, I think
00:10:15.360 at lunch, Sal and we were talking and somebody asked how long it took to build
00:10:20.000 this, you said it, how long it took to build this 20 years. That's right. You
00:10:25.500 know, like, cause you're just looking at the building, but how long it took to
00:10:28.420 build it? And I look back and people will be like, Oh, well like they'll say
00:10:32.120 like, Oh, I want to do what you do. How'd you do it? And I'm like, well, I'll go
00:10:35.440 make a hundred thousand posts on a bunch of different bodybuilding forums over 10
00:10:38.940 years, answer about a quarter of a million emails for free, never expecting
00:10:43.220 anything. That's right. And then also by the way, like probably about 50,000 direct
00:10:47.100 messages on these different forums. Um, so I was in my junior year decided I'll go
00:10:54.100 to grad school or at least apply to grad school to delay the real world a little
00:10:57.120 bit longer. And hopefully if I had a master's degree or PhD, I wouldn't be in
00:11:00.420 the unemployment line. That was my, my game plan. Right. And I didn't know where
00:11:05.020 to go. And at the time pub med, which is where you find this repository of
00:11:09.320 scientific studies, uh, had just kind of started. And I was just like, well,
00:11:14.340 instead of going through like every school and trying to find an advisor who
00:11:19.000 fits with my research interests, I'll just search on here what I'm interested
00:11:22.640 in. And I'll still remember I searched leucine muscle protein synthesis. And the
00:11:27.920 second paper that came up was from a guy named Don Lehman at the university of
00:11:30.780 Illinois. And I just sent him an email and I was like, Hey, I really like your
00:11:34.420 research. I'm interested in going to grad school. Are you, are you taking grad
00:11:37.360 students? He said, yep, come on up and interview. And again, just like zig when you 0.99
00:11:41.940 could have zagged, um, he was, so that's where I ended up going. And Dr.
00:11:47.020 Lehman was a fantastic advisor. Champagne? And Champagne. Oh, that's awesome. Okay.
00:11:50.980 Yep. So he was a fantastic advisor. So I was there for six years. I continued to
00:11:55.340 write. And also when I got there because of my articles, I had already been helping
00:12:00.020 people online with nutrition for a long time. And this is, so again, nowadays,
00:12:05.100 everybody on Instagram is an online coach, right? Like everybody. Back then people
00:12:10.080 didn't believe you could do this stuff online. Right. Everybody was like, well,
00:12:12.640 they just went to their, their personal trainer. So I had people I was already
00:12:17.240 doing diets for, but then when I got to grad school, I was like, well, you know
00:12:19.680 what? I probably should get paid for this. So I took my first client online. I think
00:12:25.480 I charged $10 a week and, um, just started working with people, mostly for
00:12:31.740 bodybuilding shows. Mostly people were competitors. And over the course of the six
00:12:37.060 years, I was in grad school that went from just somewhere like, Hey, I've got
00:12:40.200 some gas money to, by the time I finished, I was making a full-time living and had
00:12:45.420 not only that established like a coaching tree where like probably two dozen
00:12:50.820 people I had coached had begun and gone on to become successful coaches. So
00:12:55.700 then, uh, at the end that time won my pro card and bodybuilding and natural
00:13:00.280 bodybuilding. And then, uh, did a pro show after I graduated my PhD and won my
00:13:05.560 first pro show as well. And then, um, after that series, I kept growing my
00:13:12.180 business in terms of coaching. And then I got into powerlifting, right? But it was
00:13:16.020 just like powerlifting was just this thing where I'm like, Oh, I'm just going to do
00:13:18.760 this in the off season just to, you know, just for funsies and whatever. And I did
00:13:26.020 a meet in Florida or South Florida was my first, uh, USAPL powerlifting meet.
00:13:32.560 USAPL is the IPF affiliate and IPF is the biggest powerlifting organization. They are
00:13:37.300 Olympic, uh, recognized. They're in the world games. Like it's a very, very, like
00:13:42.280 they're very buttoned up. This is a very well-oiled machine. And I did the meet, didn't
00:13:47.880 really think much of it. I won and I qualified for nationals. And a week later, I got an email
00:13:52.600 from a guy named Matt Gary. Now Matt Gary is the head, was the head U S coach at the
00:13:56.900 time and has forgotten more about powerlifting than pretty much anybody else in the world.
00:14:01.160 And Matt sent me this big, long email about, okay, last year with your total, you would
00:14:07.620 have won nationals and you would have been seventh in the world. You need to do nationals.
00:14:13.160 I was like, okay, I guess I'll do nationals. So I went to nationals, but like nobody in the
00:14:17.780 powerlifting community really knew me that much because I was just this bodybuilder kind
00:14:21.160 of doing it for funsies. And then I go in and win nationals in the 93 kilo class in a class
00:14:26.660 of, I think we had like a hundred guys in my class, something like that. And so after
00:14:32.120 the meet, Matt Gary comes right up to me. He's like, so are you going to worlds? And I'm
00:14:35.980 like, again, I don't know anything. I'm like, where's worlds? He's like Finland. And I looked 0.95
00:14:40.500 at my coach Ben, I'm like, you want to go to worlds? Ben's like, let's go to worlds.
00:14:45.180 So long story short, we had a really good run in powerlifting. So I won that nationals.
00:14:50.300 Then I won the Arnold. Then, um, uh, I went to worlds and I, again, an email from Matt
00:14:56.940 Gary, uh, was, was, I was telling you about this. Um, so I was nominated seventh, which
00:15:03.420 means my total going in ranked me seventh. And Matt sent me this big, long email of all
00:15:09.120 the people in my weight class, all their strengths, all their weaknesses, broke it all
00:15:13.760 down. At the end, he says, he said, um, I'll never forget this. You have the opportunity
00:15:18.560 to get a medal here, but you have to be perfect. If you miss one lift, you're going to be out
00:15:23.200 train. Like your life depends on it. And I was like, Ooh, don't tell me that. Don't tell
00:15:29.000 me that. I mean, when I say I was in the gym for three, four hours a day, I mean, my total
00:15:33.960 squat volume for a week was probably over 50,000 pounds. Like I was squatting, you know, just
00:15:38.800 insane amounts of weight four times a week. Like I was, I did whatever it took. And I was chasing
00:15:44.720 this squat record because the squat record at the time was, uh, 300 kilos or 661 pounds.
00:15:50.600 And funny enough, hopefully I'm not going too far with this story, but funny enough at
00:15:54.680 the Arnold, our plan was to break it at the Arnold. Hold on. You realize what fucking show
00:15:58.540 you're on, right? So my plan was to break this record at the Arnold because ideally you break
00:16:04.720 it in your home country. Uh, and you can only break it at a world level meet, but the Arnold's
00:16:08.740 a world level meet cause it has world level judges. So ideally you break it in your home
00:16:12.700 country cause you're not flying overseas. There's not a bunch of extra variables, whatever.
00:16:17.400 So, um, we get to the meet and I hit my first two lifts and I look at Ben and I tell him,
00:16:24.280 uh, 302.5, which is, um, I forgot that you can ship a record. So usually you go up in two
00:16:30.320 and a half kilo increments, but if you're going for a world record, you can go up by just a
00:16:33.920 half kilo. So world records 300. I said 302.5. I get backstage and I'm waiting and I see
00:16:40.500 the attempt number go up and it says 300 to tie. And I look at Ben and I go, I thought
00:16:47.560 we're going to break the record. And once you put an attempt on squat, you can't change
00:16:52.820 it. So I saw all the color and my Ben was a phenomenal coach. He just had a brain cramp
00:17:00.080 at whatever that moment was. And I saw all the color like drain out of his face. Right.
00:17:05.280 And he goes over to the table, but he already knows he can't change it. And he comes back
00:17:08.620 and he like tries to play it off. He's like, well, we're just going to go for the win,
00:17:11.940 you know? And I'll still never forget. This is the hardest squat I've ever done because
00:17:14.980 that six 61 was still heavier than I'd ever squatted. And now you don't have the, like
00:17:21.620 the anticipation of like, you can break this record. So I think I was like, probably like
00:17:26.300 a seven second concentric on that squat, you know, but I hit it. Um, and obviously it was
00:17:32.460 kind of disappointed, but won the Arnold and that was cool. So then I went to worlds and
00:17:36.340 I'd been dealing with some back issues during that time. I couldn't even really start squat
00:17:40.180 until about six weeks out from worlds, get to worlds. Um, and I hit my first two attempts.
00:17:48.220 I go backstage for my third and I look up and it says 303 kilos. I'm like, Ben, we only
00:17:53.340 need 300.5 to, to break the record. Like if I miss this, I'll, I won't even get a medal
00:17:58.540 for squat. Like I'll be off the podium for squat. And he's, he looked at me and goes, I
00:18:02.540 know, but you're not going to miss today. That's what's up. And I was like, yeah. And
00:18:06.300 I know Ben, he does not. Yeah. I'm like, all right, let's go. You know, I went out,
00:18:11.700 hit it. Um, and then ended up going nine for nine at that meet was the first time ever
00:18:15.400 went nine for nine. Uh, got a gold medal in the squat, silver medal and deadlift. Um,
00:18:21.000 and then got a silver medal overall. And, uh, yeah, it was pretty cool experience.
00:18:24.980 That's fucking bad. And then more recently, um, again, a lot of what I talk about now online,
00:18:29.420 besides science and whatnot is mindset. Because I think one of the things that lifting taught
00:18:35.120 me that I always tell people, if all you get out of lifting is getting stronger and more
00:18:40.760 muscular, you totally missed the lessons that I was trying to teach you because that taught 0.74
00:18:46.200 me resiliency. It taught me how to deal with a setback. It taught me how to deal with frustration.
00:18:51.740 It taught me how to like, like be plateaued for years and keep pushing and like having
00:18:59.520 faith that if you do the right things, things will work out. Right. So after that world
00:19:04.820 championship, I won nationals again, and then I started accumulating injuries. I had to drop
00:19:09.940 out of worlds the next year, do a hip injury. So during the course of my career, the last seven
00:19:14.440 years, I've dealt with two disc herniations, my low back, two other discs that were bulge.
00:19:19.040 I've torn a muscle in both hips. Uh, I've partially torn my left pectoral and I've dealt
00:19:26.220 with a left knee patellar tendonitis. It took me seven years, seven years. And I qualified
00:19:31.980 for, I went to master's nationals one qualified for IPF masters worlds. So seven years later,
00:19:38.220 I went back to worlds. And last week I won the gold medal for IPF masters. And I, I tell
00:19:43.080 people, I'm like, what a fucking story of fucking resilience. Yeah. Right. And those some
00:19:47.740 persistence. So I tell people resilience is a superpower. Yeah. Cause I, and I might sound
00:19:52.860 arrogant, but I think a lot of people would have packed that in and said, you know, this
00:19:55.340 is not, I had a good run. No, that's not arrogant. That's fucking fact. Okay. That's the biggest
00:19:59.820 problem with motherfuckers in this world today is that they have zero fucking grit, zero resilience.
00:20:05.560 And the first sign of major fucking hardship, you know, there's some people that think they're
00:20:10.000 tough, dude. And they're like, yeah. And bro, it's easy to be, it's easy. And it's not easy.
00:20:15.280 Okay. But a lot of people can become great without facing any major setbacks. And like, dude, it's
00:20:23.480 how you face that major fucking setback that really tells the story, you know? Um, everybody's
00:20:30.540 got to play until they get hit. That's right, bro. But like, dude, you know, uh, there's a lot
00:20:35.100 of guys out there and this could be, this could apply to anything. It's compliant at basketball,
00:20:38.860 baseball, fucking football, any, any competitive environment business. You could apply it to
00:20:43.980 anything. There's a lot of people out there that get pretty fucking good, even great without
00:20:50.040 having to experience a major setback. And dude, that major setback is the one where you're
00:20:56.760 truly going to find out if you're fucking made for it or you aren't, you know, a seven 0.93
00:21:01.240 year, a seven year, persistent, consistent grind, not even knowing if you can even get
00:21:08.600 back. That's different level of fucking intestinal 42 grit and all of the things that we talk
00:21:14.500 about here on the show quite often. Yeah. You know, I'm going through a little bit of
00:21:17.860 this as well. Uh, I've destroyed my fucking shoulder last September, not last month, but
00:21:23.460 a year ago ago. Yeah. And bro, like the uncertainty, like it wasn't seven years, but it's been, it's
00:21:31.440 been, uh, 13 months now since the injury. I'm still coming back from it. Nowhere near where,
00:21:37.100 I mean, I'm near where I was, but I mean, I'm talking about functionality, but like
00:21:42.780 I, I cannot explain unless you've been through it, how mentally taxing the uncertainty is,
00:21:55.180 you know, the uncertainty of, because dude, really, I hadn't felt that level of uncertainty
00:22:00.320 for a long time because the last time I felt it was really like we were trying to make it
00:22:04.840 in business or get to a level where we could like, you know, be a decent business. And,
00:22:10.380 uh, no, that's not, my point is that's not fucking arrogant. It's fucking fact. Most people
00:22:15.980 will pack it in the first major hit they take, even if they become good or great in any area,
00:22:22.540 there's very few people that come back from a comeback, truly come back from a, from an ACL
00:22:29.020 injury in football or a fucking Tommy John and baseball. And, and people don't appreciate 0.71
00:22:33.920 how hard that is to come back from. So like, bro, like while you're telling that story, man,
00:22:42.400 it's making me want to go fucking lift. I'm like, fuck, let's go fucking train right now.
00:22:47.000 Well, and you know, it's one of those things where, you know, I think
00:22:50.220 I've been blessed to have setbacks early on. Yeah. So I learned how to deal with it when I was
00:22:56.860 young. Right. So like when I was 20 years old, I herniated two discs in my neck and I lost like
00:23:01.700 40% of my strength on my left side. And you know, I had a doctor be like, yeah, you'll probably never
00:23:06.340 be as strong as you once were. Six months later, I'd come back from that. Oh, okay. If I can get over
00:23:11.080 that, you know, what else can I get? You got that shit in you, bro. And you got that fucking,
00:23:14.720 you got that same shit I got where like, dude, if you tell me I'm not doing it. Yeah. I'll do it twice.
00:23:19.220 I'll burn the motherfucking world down to prove you fucking wrong. Yeah. Like, and it it's,
00:23:24.280 it's not healthy sometimes, but, but I mean, like, you know, it does. It's one of those things
00:23:31.680 where I completely tore my right pectoral in 2008, came back from that. So like I had these setbacks
00:23:40.880 and like experience with overcoming them and whatnot. And then even like leg development. So when I was
00:23:46.100 coming up, I was a cross country runner in high school. I had skinny, skinny legs.
00:23:49.220 Oh, I remember. I remember. People used to make fun of me on the forums. Yes. I remember
00:23:53.100 being on the fucking forums, reading all of your shit and then motherfuckers trolling you for having 0.99
00:23:58.580 small legs. Like, oh, do you even train? You got chicken legs. Except for he's up there pulling
00:24:03.180 twice what they can pull or pressing twice what they can press. Like, you know how the internet
00:24:09.260 is. So I, I'll tell this story. It's one of my favorite stories. But I remember that.
00:24:13.140 Yeah. Because people will be like, they'll be like lifting hard for two years. I'm like, oh,
00:24:16.380 you know, I just don't have good genetics. I'm like, you have no fucking idea what you're talking
00:24:20.300 about. Right. Yeah. Like two years is nothing. No. No disrespect. It's not. It's more than most
00:24:24.740 people do, but it's nothing. Yeah. So I had been lifting for, I've got a picture after I've been
00:24:29.160 lifting for four years. Hard. Right. Going hard. And I used to obliterate people who would try to like,
00:24:34.860 you try to train with me. I took it as a personal insult. Yeah. Like that was, you're going to walk
00:24:38.860 out of there puking. Right. So I get offended. I get fucking offended that motherfuckers even 1.00
00:24:47.280 think that they can compete with me. Right. Like I get a, like if we're going to fucking do whatever
00:24:53.100 we're going to do, I am a, just know this about me. I am. I might be smiling and I might be happy,
00:24:59.060 but I'm offended that you show the fuck up. Like, let's be real. And I know you were the
00:25:04.840 same fucking way, bro. Yeah. So I, I four years in, I've got this picture of me and my legs are
00:25:11.460 still not impressed. It's like skinny. Right. Doesn't look like I really train legs. I look
00:25:16.420 like your typical beach body guy. Right. And I made this, I can still remember making this pack
00:25:21.360 with myself because part of me was like, you know what? This bodybuilding thing, maybe it's just not
00:25:24.960 for me because I got a good upper body, but no lower body. I'm like 10 years. I'm gonna give myself
00:25:30.380 10 years of going hard. And then if it's cause I love it, I love bodybuilding. So I don't want to
00:25:35.660 quit. Right. Like I would only be quitting out of frustration to save my ego. Right. And that's
00:25:39.520 a lot of people, right. You're just trying to protect your ego. Cause so many people are scared
00:25:43.660 of what if I went all in and it didn't work out. Right. Here's the rub. It's not going to work
00:25:49.260 out if you don't go all in. That's the thing. Dude, that's that fucking, what you just stated
00:25:53.840 is the entire thought process as to why people do not succeed at anything.
00:25:59.240 Self-sabotage. Yes. They look at the mountain that must be climbed and they assume that there's
00:26:07.400 some magic to it other than just one step in front of the other. And so they think like,
00:26:12.160 and this is the story, bro. I used to tell myself this fucking story too. So I know it's real.
00:26:17.160 It's what if I do all this work? What if I go all in? What if I fucking commit
00:26:22.640 to, to building that career or that company or that body or that level of performance?
00:26:28.800 And it doesn't fucking work. But the fucking thing is, bro, is that it does work. It's very
00:26:34.960 simple. And there is no magic to it. When you, once you've been someone like you, or you've,
00:26:39.900 you've looked at that mountain, you said, motherfucker 10 years, that's fine. I'll fucking
00:26:44.200 doing it. And you look back, you're like, bro, there was no magic to that. It was just showing
00:26:48.820 the fuck up and doing the work. The magic you're working for, the magic you're looking
00:26:52.980 for is in the work you're attempting to avoid. Yeah. No shit, bro. Fuck, that's gold.
00:26:57.980 And a lot of people, most people. Brad, that should be a fucking shirt for you.
00:27:02.180 I think I saw it from Renaissance Periodization. I'm just saying.
00:27:04.940 I want to give credit where credit's due. But a lot of people are willing to do the work
00:27:09.660 if they're guaranteed an outcome. Yeah. Right. They'll work hard as long as they're getting
00:27:13.040 their paycheck. Right. They'll work hard as long as, okay, if I do that, that's the people
00:27:17.000 who are like, what are my genetics like? Because they want to know, oh, you got good genetics.
00:27:19.900 Okay. Then I'll do the work. You have to be willing to do the work with absolutely zero
00:27:24.180 promise of an outcome. Yeah. You got to be willing to put it in.
00:27:26.720 There's only one guarantee. The guarantee is this. If you don't do it.
00:27:31.000 You won't get it. That's right. So I committed to 10 years and I, I mean, I trained like a madman.
00:27:38.340 I used to like, I still to this day, 23 years later, I will get butterflies when I go into
00:27:45.660 squat because it's, my body still remembers skinny leg lane that people used to make fun 0.71
00:27:52.260 of. And it's like, and every time it's like me just like, yeah, we're going to show them.
00:27:56.740 That's right.
00:27:57.660 And so I'll never forget before I was getting ready for my first pro show, I was like two
00:28:03.020 weeks out and I was doing some posing practice with one of the judges from the organization.
00:28:06.720 And I'm like doing some different poses. And I said, I was talking to them and I said,
00:28:12.020 well, you know, I know my legs are a weak point. So I'm trying to, and they stopped me and
00:28:16.180 they're like, your legs aren't a weak point. And I've just remembered thinking like, then
00:28:21.960 they were like, they're not gonna be the best on stage, but they're, they're, you know,
00:28:25.040 they're good. And I'm thinking, did you see him? Right. Yeah. Right. Were you looking at
00:28:30.340 the right shit? Right. Right. Right. Yeah. So it's like, it's like, holy shit. That
00:28:33.200 was the 10 years. Right. Yeah. And I also, I still, I still remember this too. I was
00:28:36.380 like, you know what? I'm going to squat 500 for reps one day because there might be somebody
00:28:41.340 out there who squats 500 for reps with small legs, but I haven't met him yet. So that was
00:28:45.480 my goal. It did that. So then, uh, this is one of my favorite stories as well. Afterworlds.
00:28:51.080 So backstage afterwards, I went and got drug tested and then I come back and my coach Ben
00:28:56.200 is sitting down and it's a cool story about Ben is he was younger than me and I actually
00:29:00.780 coached him for bodybuilding originally. That's how we met because he was on the forums too.
00:29:04.500 And then he became a great powerlifting coach later, but he's, he was not somebody who just
00:29:09.360 threw out praise. Like he was very, very targeted with his praise, but I came back out from drug
00:29:15.580 testing and I see him. He's in the corner backstage and he's sitting down like this box and he's
00:29:21.360 crying. He's got his head in his hands. I'm like, Ben, dude, we did it. And he looks at
00:29:27.100 me and he's just like, his head comes up and he goes, how the fuck did you just do that? 0.63
00:29:30.860 That's fucking awesome. I'm like, what do you mean, man? That's what we trained for. He's like,
00:29:34.400 no, he's like, you were the guy with skinny legs that everyone made fun of. And you just went out
00:29:39.580 and set a world record in the biggest powerlifting meet to that point in history. And I'm like,
00:29:45.700 it's the work, man. It's the work. So again, like when I, that's such a fucking awesome story,
00:29:52.580 dude. It was cool. I mean, I still, I can remember as clear as day. And so this past week,
00:29:57.320 I mean, again, like this was not a seamless process, like even 10 weeks out from, uh, worlds
00:30:04.920 like going in, I was nominated second, but I was like nominated about 80 pounds under the guy who
00:30:10.420 was in front of me. And again, this is my goal. I like, I wanted to get that goal overall. Like
00:30:15.040 that, that's what I wanted. And like 10 weeks out, I was feeling good. And then after a session,
00:30:20.560 like, Oh man, there's my back tightening up again. And we had to train around it for about
00:30:26.300 four or five weeks. And it wasn't literally till about two weeks out. So I had my first pain-free
00:30:32.940 squat session. And, uh, it might've been a blessing, a little more fresh, maybe. Yeah. And, um,
00:30:40.980 so anyways, we, we get to the meet and I'm, I'm kind of like, all right. And then can't really go too
00:30:47.380 much into it, but I had a very, very stressful life event happen this, like literally this last
00:30:51.920 week, right before the meet. And, uh, my best friend, Mike was with me at the meet and he's
00:30:57.040 like, man, is your head all right? Like, you're going to be okay. And I said, man, I know this
00:31:00.740 would rattle most people, but I'm telling you, I'm about to have the meat of my life. That's
00:31:03.880 fucking right. I'm like, I'm going to show everybody why I'm built different. And, um, so,
00:31:09.020 you know, backstage warming up, getting ready. Like I'm feeling good. And, uh, you know, I, I, um,
00:31:16.020 uh, I looked around and I'm like, man, this is what I missed. I miss this community. I miss
00:31:22.060 like the, I miss the tingles. I always tell people like I get, I used to get those butterflies
00:31:25.760 playing baseball and I would like try to like, calm down, calm down. And, uh, I'll never forget
00:31:31.820 a line that changed my life. I was watching the ultimate fighter. It was, uh, Sarah versus
00:31:36.520 Hughes. And there's a guy, he's getting ready for a fight and he's getting like sick, right?
00:31:41.280 Like he's vomiting in a bucket. Right. And he's saying, man, I can't, I can't do this
00:31:46.240 anymore. I can't, I can't do this anymore. You know, I hate this feeling. And Matt Sarah
00:31:50.840 looks right at me and he goes, what are you talking about, man? That's the feeling of
00:31:54.200 being alive. No shit. And I was like, like just completely reframed it instantly for me.
00:32:00.080 So like, like now when I start to get those butterflies, I'm like, hell yeah, let's, let's
00:32:04.220 fucking go dude. And, um, so yeah, I went out, I went three for three on squat, hit a
00:32:09.440 601 pound squat. The, the guy was really, it was neck and neck with was the champ
00:32:14.320 from Mexico. Great guy. Loved him. Just a really awesome dude. Um, he missed two of
00:32:19.220 his squats. And so I felt pretty good going into bench. I missed a bench. He missed a
00:32:23.820 bench. So going into deadlifts, I was 33 pounds behind and, uh, but I felt good about
00:32:30.160 it and ended up going out. I actually won on my second deadlift because we tied at the
00:32:35.620 second deadlift, but I had the lower body weight, which I did on purpose. I made sure I
00:32:38.900 weighed in light. Um, and so actually I told Ben, I'm like, well, if he misses his third
00:32:44.340 deadlift, I'll have already won. Let's load up the world record deadlift and take a swing
00:32:48.420 at it. Took a swing at it. I ended up not hitting it, but, uh, you know, got the gold
00:32:52.880 medal. It was pretty cool. Uh, pretty cool experience. So that was just this last week
00:32:57.540 and, you know, just like, uh, sitting down and then again, again, a nice, real nice Ben
00:33:03.340 moment. Ben handled me, um, at the meat flew up and, uh, he put together this real nice
00:33:09.360 post and he's like, you know, one thing about lane is he's always been willing to do the
00:33:14.200 work and he trusts the people around him. And you know, when you go to a meet, you're not
00:33:23.460 getting a minus lane Norton. You're, he is going to bring it every time. Yeah. And, and
00:33:29.100 bro, you've shown that for the fucking last 20 years. I've watched it. Yeah. So
00:33:32.800 watched it again. Like I, I don't mean to turn this into a motivational speech, but if
00:33:36.840 I could like impart anybody out there, like if you, like, if you want to, if you
00:33:41.660 decide you're going to quit something, ask yourself first, am I quitting out of
00:33:45.500 frustration or am I quitting because I'm just not passionate about anymore? Cause
00:33:49.240 if you're not passionate about it anymore, that's okay. That's called going to the
00:33:52.860 next chapter. Right. And maybe that will happen one day with me for lifting, but I
00:33:57.560 knew like, even in the midst of like where I couldn't even put a barbell on my back, I
00:34:02.340 was in so much pain. Like if I quit now, I'm quitting out of frustration. I'm not
00:34:07.680 quitting because I'm not passionate anymore. I'm not going to allow myself to do that
00:34:11.220 because I know I felt like, and I've had people say, well, you're doing this for other
00:34:17.040 people. And I said, no, no, this one was for me because I felt like I had this in me
00:34:21.380 and I wanted to prove it to myself. And I was the only the old guy's class, but still
00:34:25.060 like, you know, it's IPF worlds. It's, it's a tough, it's a tough, uh, competition. So
00:34:29.680 sure. Well, the master's class is different than it used to be 20 years ago. I mean, like
00:34:34.160 dude, now you're dealing with a class of athlete. You know, I feel like, and maybe I'm biased
00:34:39.660 because I'm in my forties now, but I'm at my best almost, you know, like I'm, I'm not
00:34:45.260 far off from my absolute best of all time physically.
00:34:50.800 Well, speed deteriorates a lot faster than strength. Yeah. In fact, the guy who broke
00:34:55.040 my world, my world record squat later, the guy named David Ricks, who's already in the
00:35:00.080 powerlifting hall of fame. He was 57 years old when he broke my record. He squatted 683
00:35:06.120 pounds. Yeah. Yeah. It's fucking amazing. 205 pounds at 57 years old. That's fucking awesome.
00:35:11.200 So I always, so now, you know, what I tell people is, um, bro, they did that fucking,
00:35:16.500 uh, um, skip the core lately. Yeah. Fuck. He's in his sixties, bro. He looks as good as
00:35:23.600 he did when he was fucking in his thirties. Well, the thing about muscle is once you've
00:35:27.880 built it, it is what's needed to maintain. It is far, far, far, far less. Yeah. I mean,
00:35:34.000 there's even research that shows that once you've built a certain amount of muscle, you could
00:35:37.760 get by with one third to one ninth of the volume that it took you to build it and keep
00:35:44.040 it. So that makes a lot of sense, bro, because I can tell you just anecdotally from my experience,
00:35:49.800 like my shit's coming back so fucking fast. Yeah. Like it's almost like I'm like, I'm almost
00:35:54.940 getting to the point where my body is like, it's not, I almost, I can lay the pictures
00:35:58.420 on each other and it's almost like I didn't get fucking hurt. So, and there's actually scientific.
00:36:02.880 So this idea of muscle memory, there's actually scientific evidence for this. Yeah. Um, it's,
00:36:07.760 not completely accurate, but something called myonuclear domain theory. So basically your
00:36:12.860 muscles, you've heard of satellite cells, which confused your muscles. Now muscle fibers are the
00:36:18.200 only multinucleated cell type in the body. And what's interesting is when you lift and like
00:36:26.020 steroids actually work this way too, you get more fusion of these satellite cells, you get more
00:36:30.500 myonuclei. And the idea is the myonuclei control muscle growth for a certain area. So your muscle
00:36:39.060 can only grow as big as your number of myonuclei you have because of certain, like one myonuclei
00:36:45.760 can only expand the muscle fiber for a certain amount. So much, right. I'm kind of butchering
00:36:49.740 it a little bit, but this is the crux of it. And the, our best understanding right now is that
00:36:55.060 once the myonuclei fuse, we don't think they unfuse. So if you stop lifting or you have an
00:37:02.620 injury or whatever, where you lose muscle mass, those myonuclei are still there. So that when
00:37:07.620 you come back, that's why when you come back it, well, that's why we believe when you come
00:37:11.300 back, it comes back much faster than it took you to build in the first place. Cause you don't
00:37:14.220 have to fuse. It's been crazy. Like it's, uh, I was talking to one of my kind of fun, right?
00:37:18.480 Like it's like, it is cool. It's frustrating. Cause like I was, I was at my physical best
00:37:25.540 of all time and I'm still not there. And like, bro, I'm obsessed. Like I'm an obsessive person
00:37:30.200 in this way. Like you are. So it's like, now I know where I can be and like, I'm not going
00:37:35.340 to be satisfied until I'm past that point. It's just how the fuck I'm wired. But what you
00:37:39.540 said something, dude. And I wanted to add on this, which I thought was a really point, a
00:37:43.820 good point that we, that, that I don't want people to miss about the puking in the 0.99
00:37:47.580 bucket. Okay. Most people will do any fucking thing they can to avoid the, the fear to avoid
00:37:58.060 being scared at all. And here's the thing that people and you guys need to really understand
00:38:04.740 is that all of the good creative shit, all of your good ideas, all of your, uh, you know,
00:38:11.660 like if you're in business, like your good ideas, your best ideas are going to come when you're
00:38:17.260 fucking terrified because your body goes into hyper solution mode and starts thinking all 0.85
00:38:22.520 this crazy shit. And this is why the saying comfort kills, right? Like people who get comfortable
00:38:27.980 that don't allow themselves to feel that fear or that anxiety or that, you know, the fucking, 0.82
00:38:34.120 they get too far away from the fire. You know what I'm saying? Bro, they lose. And dude, that,
00:38:39.080 that, uh, that saying of, you know, that, that Sarah said about what are you talking about? Like
00:38:46.160 that means you're alive. However, he fucking said it feel to being alive, bro. That's all the good
00:38:51.240 shit comes from those times. If you allow it to, you know what I mean? But if you avoid it,
00:38:57.080 you can't ever really get anywhere. You can't, you can't fucking win a fight. You can't build a career.
00:39:03.880 You can't build, bro. How you're an entrepreneur. How many days when you first started out, did you
00:39:09.360 wake up fucking terrified every day? It's a hundred percent fear like all the time for,
00:39:15.200 and by the way, not for a week for years. And people think like, it's interesting in a business
00:39:22.720 context, how people are like, Oh man, like, this is really hard after like three months. I'm like,
00:39:28.780 I don't want to tell him this, but I want to be like, well, maybe you should consider something
00:39:37.660 else. You know what I'm saying? Like you have to be built or at least become built for it by
00:39:44.520 tolerating it and dealing with it. You know what I mean? Cause like, bro, I used to be the guy who
00:39:49.020 was fucking a little nervous about confrontations or, or building something or trying something new. 0.92
00:39:54.660 And, um, once I figured out that like all the really good creative shit that I've ever thought
00:39:59.920 of or ever implemented or ever created came from necessity out of fear, my life changed.
00:40:06.480 It was, it was a huge point. And so like those butterflies that you're feeling before that,
00:40:11.740 before that thing that everybody tries to avoid, or they quit when they feel that dude, it's like,
00:40:17.140 you're, you're so close, dude. You're so close to understanding the fucking magic of the whole thing.
00:40:23.380 You know what I mean?
00:40:24.940 The human body is always going to fight for homeostasis and that, that goes for like mindset
00:40:29.220 and everything. Right. So, um, one of the things my, my current coach, Zach Robinson,
00:40:34.580 he, he always says is adaptation is never comfortable, right? So you're, you're, if you want to be
00:40:40.760 stronger, if you want to get bigger, you have to induce that through putting yourself through
00:40:46.480 something uncomfortable, right? Lifting weights. Um, and even like the soreness and the, you know,
00:40:51.760 like the, the dinks and the dunks that go along with it, but that goes for anything. Yeah. Like
00:40:55.960 if you, if you to stay where you are, you can be comfortable. Sort of. If you want to grow in some
00:41:00.800 way, you have to be uncomfortable. But you're not really staying where you are because all the
00:41:04.400 motherfuckers who are uncomfortable are moving forward. You're staying where you are, which 1.00
00:41:07.620 by default means you're moving down the ranks. Yeah. You know, and that's, that's what people fail
00:41:11.780 to understand. And at a point that's going to get uncomfortable too. Real fast. This is a business
00:41:16.800 thing, dude. A lot of these guys in business, especially over the last 10 or 12 years, when
00:41:21.860 things have been really good, they don't understand that while the success of business may create
00:41:30.740 from the outside, a more comfortable life, right? You can live it. You don't have a problem with money
00:41:36.340 really, right? You, you, you vacations, you get to a nice place, like your place on the water,
00:41:41.180 my place. You know what I'm saying? Like there's comfort there, right? And people see it and they
00:41:45.680 think, Oh, must be nice. Yeah. Must be not motherfucker. You couldn't live for 24 hours.
00:41:52.640 My life. You couldn't fucking do it because the discomfort is all the mental anguish that you're
00:41:57.800 not seeing that you're literally incapable of fucking tolerating. Well, what I tell people is like,
00:42:03.120 and that part never stops. That's what the thing is. That part never fucking stops. I have all these
00:42:08.900 entrepreneurs coming to me all the time. And they're like, bro, when's, when do you like get
00:42:12.680 to relax? And I like laugh at them. I'm like, I don't know, bro, but when you figure it out,
00:42:17.840 let me fucking know, you know? Cause like everybody I know that kicks their feet up and starts living
00:42:22.300 life and doesn't give a fuck. Guess what happens? They lose. It might not be today. It might not be
00:42:28.100 next week, but they eventually lose. And I can't think of an example that hasn't been true in that
00:42:33.920 situation. Yeah. No, I mean, it's, it's very cliche to say that, you know, you got to push yourself
00:42:41.400 outside your comfort zone, but it is the truth. One of my, one of my other favorite sayings is
00:42:46.080 if you try to avoid discomfort, you will actually make yourself more uncomfortable because if you try
00:42:56.580 to like moving, exercising is uncomfortable, but if you don't do it, guess what's going to happen
00:43:01.860 in 30 years, you're going to be real uncomfortable. Dude, this is, this is true for people with 1.00
00:43:05.720 anxiety. I learned this people with anxiety. The reason that you're a lot of people are so overly
00:43:12.360 anxious is because they're so aware of every little thing that creates any little anxiety
00:43:16.720 that they blow everything up that makes them uncomfortable into this massive ordeal.
00:43:21.300 And they start thinking, fuck, I can't escape the anxiety. It's there all the time. Well,
00:43:26.340 yeah, motherfucker. Cause that's all the thing you're trying to avoid. And it's a natural
00:43:29.540 circumstance of life. You're far better off building yourself into someone that can effectively
00:43:33.980 absorb the anxiety and continue to move forward and understand that this is just part of what we
00:43:39.020 do. When we hyper-focus on these little issues, they become massive issues, you know, and avoiding
00:43:44.380 the discomfort, your natural perspective is going to be being aware of everything that causes you
00:43:50.100 discomfort. And then, and then those problems that are trying to tell you something in your life,
00:43:54.480 like, Oh, I'm uncomfortable because I'm financially strapped right now. Well, the problem doesn't get
00:44:00.780 better by you trying to avoid the problem. Yeah. The, there's a saying, um, if you do what is easy,
00:44:06.980 your life will be hard. Yeah. If you do what is hard, your life will be rewarding. Yeah. And it's so
00:44:13.340 funny how this dichotomy of life that is whatever you do in the short term, the opposite in the long
00:44:21.100 term will happen. That's right. If you do really hard things in the short term, your life will be
00:44:24.900 easier. If you do really easy things in the short term, your life is going to be way harder. It's
00:44:29.740 biblical. There's a bit, there's Bible verses that actually say this, like that's in the Bible. Like
00:44:36.140 it talks about that when you practice discipline, uh, you, you, I don't remember the exact, I fucking 0.90
00:44:43.180 posted it just yesterday, dude. It was, hold on. It might still be up. Uh, look, Hebrews 12,
00:44:48.800 Hebrews 12, right here. No discipline seems pleasant at the time, but painful later on.
00:44:54.580 However, it produces a harvest of righteousness and peace for those who have been trained by it.
00:45:00.260 It's in the Bible, dude. Yep. No, I mean, I think, you know, people could learn so much from just like
00:45:08.440 the idea of delayed gratification, you know? Um, and here's the thing too. Like if you got awesome
00:45:14.700 stuff easy, it wouldn't be awesome anymore. Like look at what happens to people who win
00:45:19.280 the lottery. Yeah. 80% of them within like, I think it's like 80% within five years of
00:45:24.100 broken. Yeah. Yeah. And their lives are a disaster. Right. Usually worse than how it
00:45:28.860 was before. Right. Because you haven't, even though like, yes, they did earn it technically
00:45:34.580 because they want it. You didn't earn it through a long period of time of changing your habits
00:45:39.840 and like, you know, changing your behaviors. Yeah. Right. Exactly. It's like, you have to
00:45:45.860 build that stuff along the way. And it's like, if you give, when a kid turns 16, if you give them
00:45:52.540 a car, trash it. Right. Because they don't value it because they got it for free. That's one of the
00:45:57.180 things I tell people like in my seminars and stuff. I'm like, honestly, I'd get up here and do this
00:46:01.000 stuff for free. Like if I could, if I could feed my family, no joke. Um, I would do a lot of this
00:46:06.960 stuff for free because I fucking love it. Yeah. But bro, here's the thing. The reason you get
00:46:11.020 paid for it is because you did it for free for fucking 15 years. That's also true. Yes. And
00:46:15.620 I'll tell people like they'll like they'll, uh, back when I was coaching more, they look at my
00:46:20.880 prices and like, Oh man, that's really expensive. I'm like, well, the, you're paying for Coca-Cola
00:46:24.920 right now. You should have gotten me back when I was the Kmart brand. Right. You know what I mean?
00:46:29.880 Like, like now you're paying brain. That's because you're Dr. Pepper. They should have got you
00:46:34.660 when you were Dr. Thunder. Yeah. You're paying for the 10 years of work you didn't see. That's
00:46:40.560 what you paid for. Right. Lane ain't no fucking Dr. Thunder anymore.
00:46:45.880 That's not an ad by the way. Yeah. No ads. There's no ads on the show unless.
00:46:50.560 What you got over there? Well, if I were going to do an ad on the show,
00:46:53.400 it would definitely be for that, uh, that amazing looking energy drink that Lane's
00:46:57.600 sipping on right there. Pretty good. I like it. It's a, it's from this company called First
00:47:01.320 Form Energy. I don't know if you ever heard of it, but if they wanted to like pay me to advertise,
00:47:06.220 I'd probably, probably do it. Yeah. But we don't run ads. So that's the way it goes.
00:47:11.260 No, I think that, you know, I put this up the other day. I said, you know, if you just,
00:47:16.100 if you can just ingrain this idea into your soul, right? Like this, this, you just tell yourself
00:47:22.240 come what may, no matter the obstacle, no matter the setback, no matter the enemy,
00:47:28.840 no matter the tears, no matter the frustration, no matter the failure,
00:47:32.140 if you don't quit, you're never out of the fight. That's right. And so, I mean, I can't tell you,
00:47:39.200 bro, that's a true warrior mindset. I can't tell you. And the other thing is too, is if you have
00:47:43.820 setbacks and stuff and you've come all the way from the bottom, like literally could like, again,
00:47:48.060 like what I was passionate about powerlifting, I couldn't put a barbell on my back for almost a
00:47:51.400 year because I was in so much pain. Somebody who's come all the way back from that.
00:47:56.300 Yeah. Watch out. Yeah. Cause you cannot break them mentally. That's right. You know what I mean?
00:48:01.760 Like, that's right. You hear about these stories of people who go to the bottom and come back.
00:48:05.440 Like that's a very dangerous person. Yes. Because they're not afraid to the bottom. They're not
00:48:10.300 afraid. They've already been to the bottom, dude. They're not afraid. Like, bro, people, people are
00:48:14.180 like, I get this all the time. They're like, aren't you afraid of losing this or that or this? Fuck no,
00:48:19.840 motherfucker. Like I lived in the back of a store and a fucking mattress from Salvation Army had a
00:48:24.900 motherfucking piss stain on it. And with another dude, and I'm not gay. All right. You're probably 0.98
00:48:29.160 perfectly happy. Yeah. You know what? Looking back, it was actually like at the time it was like,
00:48:34.960 holy shit, this is fucking hard. Looking back, it was some of the most fun times I ever had.
00:48:39.580 But you know, you don't realize that at the time. Right. Well, that's the thing is like,
00:48:43.600 I'll tell you this. I wouldn't want to go back. Right. But if I had to, I'm not scared to. Yeah.
00:48:49.680 And that, because I know what can be done. And dude, had I known then what I know now that journey
00:48:55.940 wouldn't be 20 fucking three years. It would be two. Yep. And I think, but that's, that's why they
00:49:02.080 call it wisdom. Yeah. Right. And I think one of the things I really would impart to people is I get
00:49:07.620 asked a lot, man, how do you stay so motivated? I'm like, my secret is I'm not, I don't worry about
00:49:12.900 motivation. Motivation is feelings. So I operate based on data. So when it comes to like, let's say
00:49:19.420 for example, lifting, there are plenty of days where I go to the gym. I'm like, I don't really
00:49:23.540 feel like being here, but I know overall, I love lifting. So it doesn't bother me that I don't
00:49:29.820 feel like it today because all that matters is what is my goal? What does it require to get there?
00:49:35.940 That's it. And then I just execute on that. Yes. And feelings don't have to enter the equation.
00:49:40.340 Right. Now, some days I am motivated and I'll like, that's like adding nitrous, right? Like
00:49:44.480 motivations like nitrous, right? Disciplines the gas tank because nitrous will take you really fast,
00:49:50.500 really quick, but it runs out real quick, right? That's motivation. Discipline is what will get
00:49:55.620 you there. Yeah. Right. Because you operate based on that every single day. And so I'll tell people,
00:50:01.720 stop waiting to be motivated. Yeah. Just do, like just do. There's no fucking feelings in discipline,
00:50:09.740 dude. Yeah. There's no fucking feelings in it. It is, it's either it is or it isn't like it's
00:50:15.080 binary in nature. And the other thing is people get like, there's all these, I always chuckle people 1.00
00:50:21.180 like, how can I build my confidence up? I'm like, get in the arena. Yeah. Now I'm not necessarily
00:50:26.640 talking about competing. I'm just saying, go do stuff because you can read all the books about
00:50:32.340 confidence. If you have, if you have never done anything, why would you be confident?
00:50:40.040 Confidence is only going to come through experience. And a lot of confidence comes from,
00:50:44.520 okay, I did something, but then I had this setback and then I got through it. I overcame it. And that's
00:50:51.000 what builds confidence. And you don't like, nobody starts out with the confidence. Like, you know,
00:50:55.940 if you put me at age 18 in the same situation of where I had the seven years to come back,
00:51:01.200 I wouldn't have been able to do it because my mind could not, I could not have my mind around
00:51:04.760 that. Right. But I had that exposure over time because I was in the arena. I was, I was writing
00:51:11.040 and putting content out there and getting criticized and I was lifting weights and I was competing and I
00:51:16.080 was doing a PhD. So I was, you know, I call that stuff just being in the arena because I'm doing
00:51:21.040 hard stuff. Right. And you learn so much throughout that process. And so it's like this accumulation
00:51:26.920 effect where it just, it hardens you a little more and a little more. And the more hard
00:51:30.980 stuff you do and the more setbacks you get through, the more hard stuff you can get through
00:51:34.780 and it just builds and builds and builds. So by the time, you know, it got to be where I'm going
00:51:40.840 through all these injuries and stuff and it's years after years after setback after setback
00:51:44.860 after setback. And people were asking me like, why do you keep coming back? I'm like, because I
00:51:48.980 still believe I can do this, you know? And, um, you know, so just imagine anybody out there,
00:51:55.500 if you had something you wanted to do, if you just committed to yourself that I am going to go
00:51:59.660 hard for 10 years and I'm not going to quit no matter what happens. If I'm not dead, I'm not
00:52:04.760 quitting. And then maybe at 10 years, maybe you don't get your goal, but I promise you,
00:52:09.360 you will be a different human being. Bro, that happened to me.
00:52:11.620 You'll be a different human being and you'll, you'll be more successful than you would have been.
00:52:15.420 That happened to me, bro. The exact same thing you were describing. That's what you're describing
00:52:19.820 is exactly how it played out for me. My first three years in business, we fucking sold nothing.
00:52:25.700 Okay. Like I didn't get paid shit. We had fucking three, four, five days in a row. Sometimes we
00:52:30.220 didn't even see a customer. Okay. The next seven years. Okay. Now remember this is, we started in
00:52:37.280 1999. So there is no social media. There's, you know, like you're sitting here talking and I'm
00:52:42.500 thinking, yeah, the big objection to most of these people who are afraid to get in the arena is they're
00:52:47.780 afraid of the comments on the social media. It's like, bro, you don't know how lucky you are to
00:52:51.360 have that because back when it didn't exist before, nobody even knew I existed on the fucking planet. 0.85
00:52:57.960 I had to go door to fucking door to fucking door for 10 fucking years. Okay. So you are blessed
00:53:06.400 for the world to be able to see your face and hear your voice in a way that is, can be communicated
00:53:12.860 if there's true value there. In my opinion, it's, this is the best time in history to be
00:53:17.700 an entrepreneur. No question. But people think it's the hardest. It's not the fucking hardest
00:53:21.720 dude. Having some people say some fucked up shit about you is not the hard shit. You need
00:53:26.760 zero capital to be an entrepreneur, right? Exactly. To start. Exactly, bro. Exactly. You did social
00:53:32.340 before social was fucking social because you were doing it inside the forums. And then that way, 0.73
00:53:37.000 when social clicked over, you had a presence and you've built upon that by adding value over value
00:53:42.540 over value for literally 20 fucking years, dude. And people don't see that. They don't understand
00:53:47.780 that. But you're, you're describing when you said, uh, the 10 year thing, bro, that's exactly how it
00:53:54.080 happened to me. I fucking went 10 years. Okay. Made fit. I made 58 fucking thousand dollars. My first 10
00:54:01.000 years combined. Wow. Okay. At 10 years, I had a situation where we were going to close the
00:54:09.740 business. Chris and I, we weren't rich. You know, when we started this, we're like, we want to be
00:54:14.100 fucking ballers. We're going to fucking do all this cool shit. We're going to be on yachts with models
00:54:18.580 and all this fucking shit. Right. And 10 years, bro, we're fucking broke. Right. We're 10 fucking
00:54:25.320 years in, but we were close. We were fucking close. And so even if you commit to that 10 years
00:54:34.080 and you get close to like shit starting to work, you're going to go that extra one year or that
00:54:41.060 extra one fucking step because dude, and here's the beauty. You guys are sitting here thinking we're
00:54:47.280 fucking 10 years is a long time. Yes. But also Lane and I come from a time pre the tools that you have
00:54:54.800 available now. So that 10 years for, for, for us could be three years for you. And so you guys are
00:55:02.880 so set up to win and you just lack the perspective of how blessed you are to have what you have to
00:55:09.760 the tools you have to win. But bro, you're a thousand percent, right? Because that's the life
00:55:15.540 I've lived. It was 10 years. And then it was like, we chose, we had the situation happen where we were
00:55:21.180 going to close the business. We had a conversation about what we liked about the business because our
00:55:26.820 options were like not good otherwise. Right. It was like, uh, I was going to, I was going to be
00:55:32.280 cleaning carpets in a Sears franchise. No bullshit. I was, I was a fucking inch away.
00:55:40.140 It's a branch of your life, bro. I was an inch away from being a, no offense to anybody who cleans 1.00
00:55:46.240 carpets, but it's quite the fucking drastic difference from where I am today. Okay. I
00:55:52.700 would be cleaning carpets right fucking now. Understand that. Okay. Had I not decided that
00:56:00.080 I wanted to stick it out for another fucking year. Okay. Now that another year we made a key
00:56:07.080 decision in our thought process and it has to do with true entrepreneur skills, which is a practical
00:56:12.380 skill. Uh, it had to do with intent. So for the first 10 years, we were the motherfuckers that
00:56:19.900 you call out. Okay. We were the shit bag fucking supplement store salesman. I'm not saying we were
00:56:26.260 the worst ever, but like we would do think it wasn't, we weren't thinking, I don't think we were
00:56:32.300 ever like immoral, but we were not thinking about the customer at all. We were thinking about us.
00:56:37.640 How much could we sell this person who was wanting to make this change today, uh, and walk out the
00:56:44.320 door with that sale today, right? Transactional thinking that most people fucking operate on,
00:56:50.120 which is a huge mistake. We changed our intent and our intent went from what can we fucking make 0.69
00:56:57.540 on this transaction to let's work to create the one thing that we both said we loved about our
00:57:04.960 company. And it was this every once in a while, even though we fucked everything up, there would 0.74
00:57:10.540 be someone who came into our retail store who talked to us for 30, 40 minutes about the basics of how to
00:57:18.420 fucking get in shape. And they would come back and it would be six, seven months later. And they were
00:57:23.560 down like a hundred fucking pounds, bro. And they come in and of course, you know, I don't recognize
00:57:29.280 them. They're down a hundred pounds. They got fucking tears in their eyes and they come up and
00:57:33.460 they're like, you have no idea how much you guys helped me. I just came in here to say, thank you.
00:57:40.180 You know, I'll never go anywhere. And bro, we both agreed that that was the best part of our business.
00:57:45.900 We loved it. Like we loved it personally, even though like it wasn't, you know, we, we, we basically
00:57:51.740 accepted the fact that we weren't going to be rich. Okay. And we're like, fuck it. I'd rather try to
00:57:56.900 produce that than go clean carpets for, for the next fucking rest of my life. And we did
00:58:02.940 that and we made a pivot and we, and we followed through on it. And, and bro, out of that first
00:58:07.500 form was born fucking the next five years in our retail company, we went, we grew a hundred 0.61
00:58:12.460 percent every single year. We have the most profitable retail model right now outside per
00:58:18.500 square foot outside of Apple stores because you went from trying to make money to trying
00:58:24.640 to help to solving problems. That's right. Um, people have such a hard time grasping that
00:58:29.660 bro. And I, I tell you guys listening, if you would just build your shit around producing
00:58:37.920 results, instead of selling shit, you would fucking dominate. And it doesn't matter if you 0.75
00:58:43.560 sell, uh, fucking supplements or you sell ice cream, right? Ice cream doesn't make people 0.97
00:58:50.480 quote unquote more fit or healthy. It's not just exclusive to getting better, but the experience
00:58:56.360 that people are looking for with your ice cream, what they're looking for, give that to them
00:59:01.720 the best way that you can. If they, if they're trying to have a nostalgic moment, create it.
00:59:07.440 You see what I'm saying? Of course. So whatever it is, your business does figure out what the
00:59:12.640 fuck it actually does for people and operate and build your company around that intent point.
00:59:18.040 And you will fucking win because bro, that's the only secret to anything I do.
00:59:22.360 And honestly, bro, it's your secret too. Yeah. You would do this shit for fucking free. Cause
00:59:27.420 I know you and I've watched you. Cause I've done it. That's right. And anyway, I'm getting
00:59:32.480 fucking hyped up, but like it's real shit. I was remembering, um, an image, um, that I've
00:59:38.900 seen many times and it's two guys and they're both digging for gold and it shows you where
00:59:44.800 the gold is buried. Yeah. Yeah. Right. Now they can't see where the gold is buried, right?
00:59:48.920 Like they don't know how far it is. So one guy quits, the other guy keeps digging and eventually
00:59:55.120 gets to it. And the guy who quit, quit when he was this close. Right. Yeah. So you might,
01:00:01.080 again, like where I've been most frustrated in my powerlifting career. And again, I keep going
01:00:05.760 back to that cause it's the most recent thing. Cause I was this close. I just felt like, man,
01:00:10.980 I'm so frustrated. If I just, you know, again, it would be me protecting my ego. It would be like,
01:00:16.640 okay, at least I wouldn't have to deal with the first, this frustration. Right. But then I'm going
01:00:20.600 to deal with the pain of what would have happened if I would have done it. If I went all in.
01:00:25.700 Let me ask you something real, dude, like real talk. Did you ever decide to quit? And then for like
01:00:30.600 a minute? Nope. All right. Well, I have, okay. I'll be real. There's been a couple of times.
01:00:36.440 I've had to enter my mind. So there's been a couple of times real talk where like, I've been
01:00:41.960 like, fuck, I'm fucking done. And I meant it, dude. I meant it. I'm like, we're doing this.
01:00:47.820 We're doing this. We're doing this. I'm going to go do that. And I fucking start Googling
01:00:51.980 and shit how I'm going to do. I'm like really doing it, bro. I'm quitting. Like I'm doing
01:00:56.160 something else. And he's going to go clean fucking carpets. Right. And, and dude, after
01:01:01.380 like an hour or two hours, I get this fucking feeling and I'm like, I can't fucking quit. 0.74
01:01:10.700 And bro, I have no, I cannot quit. Like, it's just not, I can't do it. And I know you're
01:01:16.260 wired up the same way. I just didn't know if it actually ever got to the point where you
01:01:19.420 were like, all right, fuck it. I'm done. And then like came back. But for me, there was,
01:01:23.220 there's been a, there's been a five or six times over my life where there was like
01:01:28.780 real decision made that I then went back and redid the decision. Cause I just fucking couldn't
01:01:36.680 do it. I mean, I've definitely had those thoughts, you know, like I, again, like, um, my PhD is one
01:01:41.880 of the hardest things I ever did. Uh, I haven't shared the story many times, but, um, after two
01:01:47.280 years I have doing my PhD, I had no data. Um, most of my experiments weren't working at all.
01:01:55.820 And I actually got kind of gun shy and I really kind of just stopped doing the work.
01:02:00.200 And, uh, again, I just credit having an amazing advisor who, you know, I've always reacted really
01:02:06.220 well to people who were firm, but fair. You know what I mean? And, uh, he called me into his office
01:02:10.980 and he said, he said, you know, close the door. And I sat down and he never raised his voice to
01:02:16.460 me, never got upset. And he just looked at me and said, listen, you are at the best university
01:02:21.860 to do the research that you want to do with protein metabolism, which I was like Lehman is
01:02:26.860 a legend in protein metabolism. He's like, there's a lot of people who would like to be in your position.
01:02:34.840 So if you're not going to give this everything you have, then it's time to step aside and not
01:02:41.160 one of them have it. And if you don't start producing, you know, we're going to put you
01:02:45.200 on, on probation. And he's like, you know, maybe a PhD is not for you and that's okay. And, you know,
01:02:49.700 we can move it to a master's, we can do whatever. And I just remembered thinking, man, I know I have
01:02:56.560 this in me. Fuck yeah. I know I have this in me. And I just looked at him, I said, you're right.
01:03:01.060 And I'm going to fix it. And I swear, swear to God, the way I got through my PhD was I had a
01:03:07.800 wipe off board right next to my desk. And every day I went in, I wrote just three things I needed
01:03:13.560 to get done. And whether they took me two hours or 20 hours, I had to get them done. And I just,
01:03:18.760 I said to myself, like, I'm in the tunnel. I can't see light on either side. You know what I mean?
01:03:23.100 And I'm like, all right, I'm just going to do, I'm just going to write down three things every day.
01:03:27.060 And I'm going to do those things and I'm going to make sure they get done. And that's how I got
01:03:30.620 through my PhD. I was just doing it three things at a time. Right. That's it. And, um, you know,
01:03:36.960 it's so funny. Again, I was right at the edge because the really hard part was I was actually
01:03:42.480 starting to make good money with my coaching. And it was like, you know, I don't need this
01:03:46.420 aggravation, you know? But then at the back of my mind, it's also like, uh, if you, if you left and
01:03:52.820 you were like, oh, I'm doing well coaching this and that, it would just eat at you for the rest of
01:03:57.880 your life. Yeah. You know? And so, um, God, dude, we're, you and I are wired very similar.
01:04:04.060 Well, I think like I'm sitting here fucking listening and I'm like, yep, yep, yep, yep.
01:04:09.300 Well, I think, you know, and that's not, that's not often. It's like that for sure. Maybe we're,
01:04:14.700 we've got a new bromance here. We're both, we're both from Midwest. You know what I mean?
01:04:17.960 Handsome as fuck. Also true. Um, and I think, you know, how it started out probably wasn't the
01:04:26.040 healthiest thing in terms of like, it started out for me just to prove people wrong. Cause I got told
01:04:30.600 by all my peers growing up, you're worthless. Nobody will ever care about you, you know, this
01:04:35.360 and that. Cause I was just different. Like I had ADHD, I wore glasses, I was goofy, you know,
01:04:39.540 but it was just like, it started out as this thing where like, I'm going to prove all of you
01:04:43.600 wrong, you know? But I'm not upset about that because there's nothing wrong with that.
01:04:51.040 That mindset got me into the habits that kept me going. So that once that anger had dissipated
01:04:57.780 from my childhood, it was like, okay, I've built these good, this good work ethic, you
01:05:03.960 know, I've built, I'll never forget. Like I had this little electronic planner when I was
01:05:07.540 15 and like, we're talking like a 32 bit, you know, sort of thing. And, um, it, it said
01:05:13.480 on, I had the, my home screen that when I opened up my planner, it would say, don't you have work
01:05:18.920 to do? This is a 15 year old kid. That's not a normal thing. Right. And actually I want to tell
01:05:24.840 a story because I think when you're a kid, you don't, you don't necessarily understand the idea
01:05:29.680 that you can get better at something. Like you go out and you play a sport and there's people who
01:05:33.320 are better than you. There's people who are worse than you. And it doesn't, that is, that's what
01:05:36.840 it is. Like, that's what it is. Right. That person is just better than me at that. And so I'll never
01:05:41.240 forget this. I was, um, we called it minor league baseball, which was basically like with a pitching
01:05:45.820 machine, right? It's before little league. And I, they used to stick me in the outfield
01:05:51.160 cause I'd get distracted easy and all that kind of stuff. And, um, my mom, I came in from practice
01:05:57.180 one day and my mom looked at me and she was like, listen, honey, we want you to have fun playing
01:06:01.840 baseball, but we want you to, we want you to work at it because we are spending, you know, a hundred
01:06:06.120 dollars for you to be in this league and it's a lot of money for us. And she's like, and if you 0.57
01:06:10.120 don't like it, we'll, we'll put you in something different, you know? And I remember thinking,
01:06:14.180 well, I don't want to, I don't want to stop playing baseball. I like baseball, you know?
01:06:17.160 So I just, I started just working a little bit harder when, when it was time for drills
01:06:21.800 and all that kind of stuff. And at the end of the year, um, our team, we were kind of like
01:06:26.340 the, what is it? The bad news bears. Yes. Yeah. So we're like the misfit team, right? We actually
01:06:32.080 ended up like in third place in the league, which we were like, I think most people thought
01:06:35.600 we'd finished dead last and our coach got us like extra trophies. So he got like most
01:06:41.300 valuable player, you know, best fielder, best hitter. And when it came time to get most improved
01:06:46.200 player, he called my name. I was eight years old at the time, but I'll still never forget
01:06:50.340 this. And that was when it clicked for me that, wow, you can work at something and get
01:06:56.100 better. And, uh, work ethic is the great equalizer. Yeah. Yeah. Yes. If you have somebody
01:07:02.620 who's genetically gifted and they work really hard, if you're work really hard, but you're
01:07:06.040 not genetically gifted, you're not going to beat them. That's right. But if you're not
01:07:10.860 genetically gifted and you work really hard, you get damn far compared to people who just
01:07:15.980 get by on genetics alone. No, you could be great. You can still be great. You shock yourself. And
01:07:21.200 here's the other thing. You don't know what your genetic, all you kids out there who lifted
01:07:25.620 for six months, like, Oh, I just don't have good genetics. You have no idea what your genetics
01:07:30.360 are. Go hard for 10 years and then talk to me about genetics. Nor do you know your
01:07:33.840 potential. Like, dude, take it away from just physical genetics. You do not understand
01:07:42.060 because these little, these little Y's or T's that we want to call them where we can go
01:07:46.940 one way or the other in life, they happen over and over again. Yep. And the bigger and stronger
01:07:54.280 and better equipped you are mentally, the better the decisions that you get to pick
01:08:00.720 from, you know? And that's, that's something that people just don't understand is like,
01:08:07.720 if you continue to move and you continue to work and you could, you're going to gain skills
01:08:13.360 because you're going to get punched in the fucking face, bro. And guess what happens when 0.91
01:08:17.120 you get punched in the face and you see the same punch again, you move. Yep.
01:08:21.060 And through this skillset over time, you create momentum and then better opportunities come
01:08:28.220 and you're able to leverage those. And so like, for those of you, my point is, is for those
01:08:33.000 of you guys at the beginning and you're looking at whatever it is, whether it's power lifting
01:08:38.020 or whether it's business or whether it's fucking whatever, it doesn't matter. You have no fucking
01:08:44.720 idea who the fuck you are. Like you might have, you might be legitimately the greatest ever.
01:08:51.160 Like how many greatest evers never even became because they were afraid to take the first two
01:08:58.400 or three steps or the first 10 year commitment to that craft. Right. Steve jobs said, you cannot
01:09:04.580 connect the dots looking forward. You can only connect the dots looking backwards. So you have
01:09:09.440 to trust the dots are going to connect in your future. Yeah. And so again, it's like that,
01:09:14.300 like, I'm not talking about religion, but just having faith that if you do the things that you
01:09:18.980 need to do, and we know what the principles are to be successful. Like these are not a secret,
01:09:23.560 right? Um, no, people look for a secret to avoid the secret. Yeah. Yeah. The magic. If you think
01:09:30.060 it's a secret, give me 10 bucks. I'll tell you. Yeah. Venmo. Exactly. And, you know,
01:09:36.640 I think unfortunately, you know, like we live an amazing time. I can pull this thing up and I can
01:09:43.300 have any piece of information I want in seconds. Right. But to build something, to go through
01:09:49.060 something, like the only way to go through something is to go through it. Yeah. Like
01:09:53.160 that's, that's the, I keep coming back to that quote. The magic you are looking for is in the work
01:09:58.680 you're trying to attempt, you're attempting to avoid. And I see so many people who just have this
01:10:03.300 paralysis by analysis. And it's almost like provides an excuse of, well, if I just, if I
01:10:13.920 just, I've got to make sure everything's lined up just right. Right. Like once this is done,
01:10:18.560 once that it's never going to be right. No, it's never going to be right. And then what happens
01:10:22.200 after that, what happens after that, after they wait their entire fucking, however long they're 0.89
01:10:27.380 willing to wait. Right. I can still have the dream and waiting for the right time because
01:10:33.140 the right time never fucking comes. It just doesn't. You have to learn to operate when
01:10:37.240 conditions are fucked up or you can't do shit. That's the truth. But what happens after they
01:10:42.820 wait enough time and conditions never get right, they give the dream up. Yep. Okay. And then
01:10:47.760 when they give the dream up, they go back to living however they were living before they,
01:10:53.080 they don't talk about their dream or their ambition. And then what they do is they start
01:10:57.500 villainizing people that are ahead of them or have achieved things under the guise of
01:11:02.620 humility because they think it's morally superior to actual success. And that's where you get all
01:11:10.020 these falsely humble motherfuckers that don't even know the true humility. Like, bro, you have to be
01:11:16.040 fucking good at something. Like you have to be great at something and have achieved shit to be
01:11:20.960 humble about it. You don't, that's not, that's an excuse. And everybody that knows fucking anything,
01:11:25.780 living a small life, that's meekness. That's smallness. That's a choice. Simple is okay. But when it's a
01:11:33.420 choice to be simple, not when you live the simple life because it's all you can afford and you actually
01:11:38.740 used to have big dreams, but you gave up on them and now you hide behind humility. You settled. Like, bro,
01:11:43.480 that's a bullshit way of thinking. And a lot of society thinks that way.
01:11:47.900 Those who have abandoned their dreams will attempt to discourage you from pursuing yours.
01:11:52.500 Fucking facts. That's, you know, so one of the things I'll say, and I think I made this quote
01:11:56.900 up is nobody will remember the names of the critics, the liars, the haters. So make sure
01:12:03.200 they remember yours. Yeah. And you know, I just, I'll tell people, you talked about like the mean
01:12:09.220 comments. When I see mean comments, I'm like, oh man, see I'm motivated. I'm, I'm jacked up enough
01:12:18.060 on my own. You're going to give me some extra. Yeah. Why, why would you do that? Dude, that's
01:12:22.200 how I work. That's not a good idea for you. That's how I work too, man. Because there's
01:12:25.520 been a lot, I was telling you this earlier, but a lot of people come along and said they
01:12:29.060 were going to take me down over the years. A lot of people, a lot of motherfuckers with 0.92
01:12:33.660 L's in their column. Yeah. Well, so when I think I just say, come get your L. It's hard
01:12:38.380 to beat someone, bro, who can't quit. Okay. Who is willing to do the work and who absorbs
01:12:46.340 negativity and understands how to pivot it into productive action. When negativity comes
01:12:52.280 to me, bro, I don't respond to it. I fucking absorb it. And then I get fucking focused and
01:12:59.540 I execute and it serves up a shit sandwich of, of reality. That is a thousand million
01:13:09.780 times the size of me responding back to someone's bullshit. You know what I'm saying? Plus it's
01:13:16.200 bad karma, bro. I'm not, I'm not, I'm a karma guy. Like I don't put out negativity, bro.
01:13:20.660 I try to, I'll take it in, I'll use it, but I try not to put it out. You know what I'm saying?
01:13:25.420 No. And I think like it, it, I do understand it is scary to put yourself out there because
01:13:32.960 you know, nobody likes criticism. No matter how much anybody says, nobody likes it. I don't
01:13:37.540 like it. Um, well, it depends on how you look at it. Yeah. If you see it, bro, there's always
01:13:43.360 a lesson to learn because in every hater comment, well, not everyone, sometimes people just lie.
01:13:47.860 It's complete bullshit. Sometimes people do just lie, but like when they say we're not handsome.
01:13:52.380 Yeah. Come on. Obvious lie. That's
01:13:55.420 that's like denying gravity. Okay. You can argue about it all you want, but you go step
01:14:01.020 off that building. It's going to teach you a fucking lesson. Same exact same thing. Parallel
01:14:05.080 science. Dr. Lane Norton confirms. Okay. Correct facts. So, um, when we think about fuck, what
01:14:12.700 was I talking about? I lost my train of thought. Uh, hater comments. Oh yeah. But there's always
01:14:18.480 a little lesson in there, right? We are really similar. Cause I do that shit too. Yeah. There's
01:14:22.160 always a little bit of a lesson. Like, you know, even if what they're saying isn't true,
01:14:26.560 you at least have the opportunity to check yourself and say, well, fuck, is that true?
01:14:31.900 Right. And there's an, there's an opportunity to self audit. So like, I think one of the
01:14:38.360 biggest keys that people miss is that in the criticism, there's always opportunity. Yeah.
01:14:44.040 There's opportunity to improve if nothing else, you know? And that's why, like when people
01:14:48.360 come at me and they say the things, whatever they say about me, I don't mind it because I'm
01:14:53.360 like, okay, well, are those things true? Okay. They're, those are not true. That might be a
01:14:57.220 little true. I can fix that. Uh, you, you get, you get what I'm saying? Yeah. And there's
01:15:01.180 opportunity to move forward. And it's taken me a long time to get to that point. Cause I used to
01:15:04.760 let it get me really fucking upset. Um, I think the other thing to remember too, is when it comes
01:15:10.680 to social media and I think James Smith is the one who said this originally, but like the comments
01:15:15.920 are the only place somebody can complain. Yeah. Right. So you're going to disproportionate amount
01:15:19.980 of complaints. So like if you're getting mostly positive comments and this is human nature
01:15:26.220 and I'm guilty of this, you get a hundred positive comments and it's that one that's negative
01:15:30.620 that you end up focusing on. Right. But I mean, I think it was Aristotle said in, or maybe it was
01:15:38.260 Socrates. I could be wrong of either one, but it was a, in order to avoid criticism, say nothing,
01:15:43.900 do nothing, be nothing. That's right. So whenever you put yourself out there, yeah, I mean, it's
01:15:48.240 going to happen, but what's like, what's your alternative? Right. So I don't like to look at
01:15:54.840 it like other people look at it. Like, right. Like, like when I watch your shit, right. There's
01:15:58.760 always some fucking, uh, counter counter arguments to say, say politely. Right. Right. Sometimes
01:16:04.560 they're assholes. Sometimes they're really big assholes, but you know what, bro? I, I like,
01:16:10.660 I look at it like this. I'm like, well, you know, fuck that guy. Like as somebody who understands
01:16:15.160 your, your, and I think, I think if you look at, look at your own shit, like you're like people
01:16:21.320 who love you and appreciate your shit, look at you and you're just kind of like, yeah,
01:16:26.420 whatever dude. And keep moving. You know, I think that's a more healthy way to look at
01:16:30.560 it because we do have the, um, tendency to focus on the fucking, that one comment or that 0.85
01:16:40.340 one really dark remark or whatever. But if you were, if we're really honest with ourselves,
01:16:45.900 the ones that bother us the most, the reason they bother us is because there's some truth
01:16:52.500 to it. Yep. You know what I'm saying? That's, that's, that's like, um, you know, that's one
01:16:57.520 thing I've had to learn over the years is like, I can decide what bothers me, right? Like I,
01:17:03.180 I have the ability. There's, um, my friend, John Deloney, he has a really great podcast on mental
01:17:08.840 health. Um, but he said, he said, um, you know, there's only a few people in my life who I allow
01:17:14.920 to upset me. My wife can upset me. My kids can upset me. Some random personal internet.
01:17:22.620 They don't get that power over. No, bro. And if you think about it like this, this is how I think
01:17:26.860 about it. Like, look, man, you ever been in like a gas station, bro. And you like walk in to pay for
01:17:32.760 your gas and there's somebody like standing in front of you and you're looking at them and you
01:17:37.140 know, they fucking, their, their fucking shoes are turned in and they're like, they look like they 0.98
01:17:41.780 fucking haven't showered in a fucking month. And you're wondering like, how the fuck does this
01:17:46.860 person operate in reality? Those are usually the exact same people that you're getting in
01:17:52.180 arguments with on the fucking internet or it's bots. Yeah. Russia and China. Yeah. You know what
01:17:57.620 I'm saying? Like, so let's, let's be real about like the people who behave that way in general,
01:18:02.260 like a normal human that you would interact with. Isn't a hateful, spiteful, uh, you know,
01:18:09.060 douchebag. Well, and usually like, again, it's been very, very rare that I've come across people
01:18:15.000 who have had success in an element of their lives who behave that way. Right. Because I'll never
01:18:21.240 forget. I had this, um, I had a argument online with somebody probably 10, 12 years ago. And I,
01:18:29.880 and they were like, well, I'm going to become, you know, they were like criticizing me as a bodybuilder.
01:18:34.440 I'm going to become a bodybuilder and I'm going to, you know, beat you on stage and this and that.
01:18:38.440 I said, you know, what'll happen if you actually are able to achieve that. My guess is your attitude
01:18:44.960 will have had to have changed during that process. And you won't feel this way anymore.
01:18:50.100 And no kidding. 10 years later, that guy messaged me because I could see the original messages
01:18:55.540 messaged me and said, Hey man, I just want to apologize to you. Um, because I, I did end up winning
01:19:01.620 my pro card, but now I've seen how much work went into this and I have so much respect for you.
01:19:07.640 That is badass. And that's like, um, same thing. I think that's why the,
01:19:11.700 those are the people I have the most respect for is people who can like own their fucking mistake.
01:19:17.600 Right. Yeah. Well, honestly, when people say nasty stuff to me now over like DM or whatnot,
01:19:22.380 usually if I respond at all, what I'll say is, Hey, I'm sorry, you're having a rough time and hope
01:19:27.000 things get better for you. Yeah. Because like, honest to God, the only time I've asked. And what
01:19:31.640 happens when you say, dude, I do the same. And 50% of the fucking time they'll write back two or three
01:19:36.960 days later and be like, bro. And they'll tell you what the fuck was going on. And it was bad. It's
01:19:41.620 usually bad. Yep. Cause I think about like, when, when have I ever done stuff like that on a rare
01:19:47.280 occasion? And it's only been when one, I've been feeling really crap about myself and my life's
01:19:53.440 been really, really stressful. Yeah. Right. So it's like, you know, I, it's like, uh, I kind of call it
01:20:00.580 like deescalation, right? Like right now we're, we're seeing superpowers escalate stuff. And it's
01:20:05.420 like, you know, it only takes one person to just back off just a little bit for things to start
01:20:10.380 improving. Cause what you do when you do something like that, you just completely disarm the person.
01:20:14.240 Yeah. Right. And well, also you're stopping the karma, right?
01:20:18.240 Yeah. Just because someone says some fucked up shit to you and you go back and fucking wreck them
01:20:23.800 worse, you're still creating karma for yourself. Yeah. So like, dude, when you have good intent
01:20:28.660 for even the people that come at you, I look at it as like, that's just an investment in my wellbeing.
01:20:34.380 Yeah. It'll come back. No, for sure. And I think that's what, like, I used to have much more vitriol
01:20:40.600 in my videos for people. And I think, you know, thankfully to people around me who kind of like
01:20:49.480 said, Hey man, you know, like what you're doing has good intentions, but you could probably go about
01:20:56.380 it a little bit more positively. So now I say the vitriol for just the worst offenders of things,
01:21:02.100 but I, I've seen that. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, you used to be the dude that would fucking wreck people.
01:21:06.820 Yeah. And like now it's not even like I could, I sense it to be honest, dude, I think the content,
01:21:12.060 there's a lot more to learn from your content now than there was then, because instead of like just
01:21:16.900 fucking destroying these persons, these people personally, you know, you've realized that the
01:21:22.500 better approach it seems to from the outside, at least for my take is to, to highlight the lesson
01:21:27.520 that can be learned. Yeah. And I think that's, I wrote to me that that's when I was like, fuck.
01:21:33.120 Yeah, bro. Like I, I really thought, I think your content got tremendously better when, when you
01:21:39.580 started to focus on that, it was much because every time I'm watching, I'm like, okay, yeah,
01:21:43.760 this guy fucked up. That was fucking shitty. You know what? Uh, people, we shouldn't do that.
01:21:48.420 Let's avoid that. You know, there's, there's good lessons there instead of making it just like a
01:21:52.200 personal thing. Yeah. And I think like, you know, some motherfuckers do deserve it. Yeah. I mean,
01:21:57.920 like I said, like I'll have a few people who I'm like, okay, you've consistently shown over the years
01:22:03.180 that you're not going to change and you keep doing the same stuff over and over. And so, you know,
01:22:08.320 but I think it's one of those things where, cause sometimes you are the fucking karma.
01:22:12.320 Well, and I tell people, I'm like some people, and I, I get this argument because I used to do
01:22:19.720 the same thing. I used to say, you know what? I'm just going to, I'm just going to put out my
01:22:23.420 content. I'm not gonna worry about other people. You know, if people say BS, you know, it is what
01:22:28.460 it is and I'm going to let them, you know, they'll, they'll get washed out of the industry. And then you
01:22:33.860 realize that there's, you know, people always coming into the industry. And so there's, you know,
01:22:38.100 they say a sucker's born every minute. Right. And I feel for those people because, you know, 0.89
01:22:45.140 when you're dealing with health and people's wellness, like there's a lot of people who
01:22:48.280 are really desperate out there and will believe some of this stuff. And at best it's going to set
01:22:54.540 them back in their journey because they're wasting time and money and energy on this stuff. And at
01:22:59.140 worst it can actually harm people. And in some cases like kill people. Yeah. When you take away
01:23:04.480 fucking everything from someone because you're intent on canceling their fucking lives, bro. 0.99
01:23:10.700 Listen, every motherfucker out here in the world has made some fucking mistakes. You know,
01:23:15.880 just because there's a lesson to be learned doesn't mean that we need to remove people's
01:23:19.680 fucking entire lives from them. And, you know, people don't think of the consequences of that,
01:23:25.080 bro. Oh, and I'm not like, what if someone, what if someone, you know, like these people that
01:23:30.200 truly get their fucking jobs taken away and shit for stating an opinion, you know, like 0.96
01:23:34.880 the culture is crazy when it comes to this shit. Yeah. And it's interesting because I've had like
01:23:40.580 some people say, uh, like for example, um, you know, I've, I've really gone after Paul Saladino
01:23:46.320 before one of the carnivore advocates and he got, uh, deplatformed and now he's, he's created another
01:23:53.340 account and he's back. And people are like, Oh, you must be happy about this. And I'm like,
01:23:56.520 not really. Um, because yeah, they, they got, you know, the right guy this time,
01:24:05.200 but what happens next time? If I say something, I don't agree. Yeah. Dude. You know what I mean?
01:24:09.580 Like you have to have open speech, but you gotta be, you gotta be. And, and, you know, the part of me,
01:24:14.740 you know, I would consider myself a fiscal conservative, social liberal, which I don't feel
01:24:20.700 like I'm going to be that far off of most people here. No, I think that's, I think that's called,
01:24:24.980 we call that these days common sense. That's what I thought growing up. I know, you know,
01:24:29.900 my parents are like, you just don't, don't, if other people, if they're not doing something that
01:24:33.040 harms you, you stay out of their business. Yeah. You know? And the problem is that those of us that
01:24:36.520 think that way now, those people are taking advantage of that mentality. Yeah. You know,
01:24:42.300 I just want to be left alone. I want to talk about this shit. And I think the, the problem with
01:24:47.520 the idea of we're going to cancel, you're going to take away your ability to earn a living is
01:24:52.000 eventually it will come for you. That's right. Cause you can't be, you can't be self-righteous
01:24:58.040 enough. You got to be really careful weaponizing self-righteousness because we are all humans.
01:25:03.740 And I'll tell people, listen, as somebody who's made mistakes, made really bad decisions before in
01:25:12.360 my life. Yeah. Um, you know, like even I am, I don't even mind talking about it because it's real.
01:25:18.800 Like I've, I've only ever, you know, been with two women in my entire life and I, one of it was an
01:25:25.480 affair and it's one of the most shameful things I've ever had in my life. It's in my first marriage.
01:25:30.800 And, um, you know, like people came for me, right. You know, and it was like, and I, but even like
01:25:38.780 10 years earlier, I had been so self-righteous. I'll never forget this. I put out a tweet where I
01:25:44.460 said, Oh, you know, I would never do business with somebody who cheats on their spouse because,
01:25:48.160 you know, if that person can't trust you, why would I trust you? And it's like karma, right? It's
01:25:53.560 like, you know, I just, I was too young and dumb. Life hadn't punched me in the face enough. You know
01:25:58.840 what I mean? And you get older and you realize every human makes mistakes. Now what you look for
01:26:05.500 is patterns of behavior. That is, that is repeated mistakes over and over and over. Yeah. Yeah.
01:26:09.860 Do you make those choices? Right. Right. So like, again, as, and like that whole thing,
01:26:17.760 like just shattered me because I had this idea of who I was and then my actions were not in alignment
01:26:23.900 with who I thought I was. And so it took me a long time to like forgive myself for that and get
01:26:32.080 through it. Yeah. Um, but as weird as it sounds, I'm in some ways grateful it happened because like,
01:26:40.760 I realized, wow, okay, good people can do bad things. And, um, now it's like, I'll never forget.
01:26:50.920 Um, I was watching game of Thrones and I don't know if you ever, if you watched it or if you're
01:26:55.120 a fan, but it's a good show. There's this guy named Jamie Lannister and he starts out in the
01:26:59.040 show. You're like, wow, this guy is the biggest piece of shit in the world. And over time you
01:27:04.740 actually become somewhat sympathetic to him because he starts to change. He starts to change
01:27:09.680 and he's reading this book. He was in, he was in like the King's guard, which he was the guard of
01:27:15.280 the King. And he ended up actually killing the King. And it's one of the reasons he's infamous.
01:27:18.460 And he, he, he's reading his, his entry in this King's guard book. And it basically says,
01:27:26.560 yeah, he was a guard and he killed the King. And then there's a big space and I'll never forget
01:27:31.940 what he said. And he said, there's still space in my pages. Like basically like I can still make
01:27:37.660 a difference, you know? And that's kind of how I viewed it. It's like, all right, I can either use
01:27:42.560 this as like, this is the end or I can use this as impetus to do it differently and understand,
01:27:51.100 you know, why I made these poor decisions and how I can be better in the future. You know,
01:27:56.860 and that. That's all we can do as humans, dude. Yeah. That's all we can do. So I try to get real.
01:28:01.760 I really try to be very careful before I judge people. You know what I mean? Because it's like,
01:28:07.900 yeah, yeah. Somebody does something repeatedly. The universe has a funny way, bro,
01:28:11.440 of teaching us those lessons. Hell yes. And while it may not seem at the time
01:28:17.000 that that could ever happen in your life, it's very important to remember that when you judge
01:28:24.180 those things, it's actually biblical that they talk about this. And by the way, this idea exists
01:28:33.240 in a number of different religions, uh, that when you judge people for shit that they did that you
01:28:40.080 haven't done yet, a lot of times those situations actually come to you. Well, one of the things I
01:28:45.580 say as well as, um, you know, I'm far more, I have far more grace. I think it's normal as an,
01:28:52.760 like, as you grow up, very black and white when you're younger. Yeah. When you're, when you're
01:28:56.000 fuck, when I was fucking 30, I was, it was this or that I knew everything, bro. Cause I wasn't twenties
01:29:01.260 and I wasn't dumb. Uh, but I was thirties and I was, I knew everything. And you know,
01:29:08.160 when you lived enough life and you've experienced enough things and you've seen enough,
01:29:12.440 you, you come to realize that it's better to give grace than it is to judge because that
01:29:22.320 motherfucking judgment always comes back. It just always comes back. And that's why the canceling
01:29:27.560 thing. It's a boomerang, dude. When you throw the shit out and you fucking cancel people,
01:29:32.700 that shit comes back. It's going to hit you right in the fucking face when you're looking
01:29:36.080 the other way. Yeah. I true. Oh no, I was, you know, it's one of those things I say, just
01:29:44.780 be very careful because everyone has said something or done something that if somebody had a cell
01:29:51.080 phone and broadcast it to the world, you'd be a pariah. So just be real careful before you
01:29:56.060 like, thank God there weren't cell phones in college, you know, bro. I think the world is
01:30:03.260 literally a not just different place, but a much more inferior place than before the technology
01:30:15.300 of a cell phone. I truly, I, at least, at least overall, at least the smartphone. Okay. I can see
01:30:22.680 the cell phone. Got to call you, call me this, that, but when it started absorbing our lives,
01:30:29.560 the way that it does, it changed fucking people, bro. Like a lot of people that are so absorbed into
01:30:36.260 this technology, they literally like the shit we were talking about earlier about actually building
01:30:40.100 something. It's incomprehensible that it's even possible because of how much brainwashing there is
01:30:48.380 on social and how much villainizing there is of success nowadays, right? It's not cool to win
01:30:56.320 anymore. It's not cool to be great anymore. It's not cool to be wealthy anymore. But the problem is,
01:31:02.300 is the only place it's not cool is in this fairytale world you motherfuckers live in. Out here,
01:31:07.580 it's pretty fucking cool. Okay. You just haven't stuck your fucking head out in the real world.
01:31:12.280 You know, it's cool to not have to fucking worry about, uh, your bills. It's cool to be able to
01:31:19.420 fucking do great things for people. It's cool to create jobs. It's cool to fucking walk around in a
01:31:25.760 body that you're fucking proud of. Well, it's, it's hard to serve people when you're broke. You can't, bro.
01:31:31.080 I mean, you can, and a lot of people do, and it's a, it's, it's needed, but you could serve them at
01:31:38.340 scale with, with finances and that's about real change. That's what people don't understand.
01:31:43.740 Like when they, and, and, but actually people do understand it. It's those same group of people
01:31:49.320 I was talking about that gave up on their dreams earlier. Those are the ones that say that same
01:31:53.580 shit. You know, they're like, Oh, it's looking, you don't ever talk about the good things that
01:31:58.380 financial success actually does. If you actually knew how much good you could do with financial
01:32:04.740 success, you would fucking pursue it with everything you had, because you would understand
01:32:09.580 that it is highly moral to win and be able to help people and also highly fulfilling. And,
01:32:17.220 um, by the way, people appreciate it and need it. You know, I think a lot of this comes back to,
01:32:24.300 I really see like this, this broader culture war in society, which is on one hand, you kind of have
01:32:31.360 people that are like fate ism and determinism. Like nothing is your fault because you were like,
01:32:38.280 you know, there's people who actually believe that there's no such thing as free will that like the
01:32:42.420 way you act, the way you respond is just all pre-programmed based on your upbringing and your
01:32:46.360 genetics and all that kind of stuff. Then on the other side you have, you know, everything is in
01:32:51.340 your control on a hundred percent responsibility, you know, like those sorts of things.
01:32:56.040 And reality is the truth is probably somewhere in the middle. I tend to be more towards this side,
01:33:02.400 you know, but what I tell people is over here where there's, there's nothing is your fault and
01:33:10.100 you're a victim of your circumstances. That is really, um, uh, attractive for your ego because
01:33:18.640 if nothing's your fault, then nothing's your responsibility to fix. Right. Which is also
01:33:24.460 false. But, um, but you know, over here it's like, okay, everything is your fault, but you also have
01:33:33.620 the freedom to change. Right. So one of the quotes I really like is that, you know, it's important to
01:33:40.320 acknowledge it. Yes. Certain people based on their upbringing, based on abuse or trauma or whatever it
01:33:46.160 is, they've definitely got it harder than other people. But one of the things I'll tell people is
01:33:50.220 your excuses are valid because it can make things harder, but they're also invalid because no matter
01:33:55.160 how bad you had it, somebody came from worse and did better. That's right. I can promise you that. 0.99
01:33:59.040 That's exactly fucking right. And if nothing is your fault and you're a victim, then there's nothing in
01:34:06.540 your control to change. So it doesn't, it doesn't matter what happened to you. It doesn't matter who hurt
01:34:13.540 you. What happened? It may not have been your fault, but the responsibility is yours to fix it.
01:34:23.000 That's right. Because you're the only one that can. I was telling Sal this earlier, like people get so
01:34:27.900 focused on other people. And I'm like, think about how hard it is to change yourself. Now imagine the
01:34:34.340 arrogance of thinking you can change another human being. Yeah, no shit. Right. Like, and let's say that
01:34:39.820 person who hurt you, did something terrible to you actually apologize. How does that change your
01:34:44.460 life? You can't take it back. All you can do is decide whether or not how you're going to move
01:34:49.800 forward. And like one of the things that got me through one of the hardest periods of my life where
01:34:54.220 I got kicked out of a company I helped start. And then my, my ex-business partners actually like
01:34:59.180 frivolously sued me to basically try and bully me into taking less than my shares were worth.
01:35:04.820 Cause I was also going through a divorce at the time and they felt like I wouldn't have the
01:35:08.560 money to fight them. It was a very dark time in my life. I owed more money to attorneys than I could
01:35:12.700 write a check for at the time. I just kept repeating to myself, I cannot control everything
01:35:20.260 that happens to me or what people do, but I am in control of how I respond to it. And that has given
01:35:27.140 me a lot of peace, uh, in times of stress. It's fucking gold, bro. You know, I was, we were going to
01:35:34.600 make this in the CTI, but like, bro, we're kind of at time. So like, I know you got to catch your
01:35:39.920 fucking flight. We got one, we got through one question. How did you get into this?
01:35:45.160 This has been, we'll just call this a full length because like, dude, uh, this has been a
01:35:50.400 great conversation, bro. And, uh, I really appreciate you coming on and sharing your story
01:35:55.500 and your lessons and, uh, like just getting to have this conversation with you live for people
01:36:01.220 to hear because, you know, we know each other, we've known each other for a long time, but this
01:36:06.080 is the first time we've gotten into talking about any kind of our stories or anything like that.
01:36:10.140 And it's just, bro, I just truly appreciate your story. Um, and commend you for, for, for your
01:36:16.660 persistence because I've watched you do it. This isn't what he's talking about. That's not some made
01:36:23.660 up entrepreneur fucking bullshit. I fucking slept on the street story. I watched him do it because I'm,
01:36:30.160 I'm in the same industry and I'm reading his shit on a computer while I'm building this and he's
01:36:39.160 building him. So understand this is like real shit that he's talking about. And I think like now being
01:36:46.100 a dad and having kids, it kind of ratchets it up a notch because now you think about, all right,
01:36:52.600 like I've done something that I wouldn't want my kids to do, right? Like I just talked about it,
01:36:56.720 but also like thinking about like, did you ever get frustrated and feel like quitting? I'll never
01:37:01.960 forget this about a year ago. I was in my garage, uh, training. Um, I'll usually go to a gym,
01:37:09.480 but sometimes I train the garage and my daughter, Olivia, she asked to, to come out. My son,
01:37:14.300 Robert, um, is nonverbal autistic. So his, my relationship with him is just a little bit
01:37:18.480 different. My daughter is completely verbal and makes up for anything that Robert 0.96
01:37:22.940 doesn't say. Um, they're both great kids, happy kids. Uh, but Livia came out and she was kind of
01:37:28.700 like watching me and asking me questions about, you know, lifting. And she was like, you know,
01:37:33.960 why do you, why do you train so much? And I said, well, you know, I love it. And I was,
01:37:37.860 I was really, really good at this. Like I was the, I was second in the world and I almost,
01:37:42.820 I almost was a world champion. Um, and then I got, you know, a lot of injuries and it's been a lot
01:37:47.640 of work to try and come back. And I'll never forget, you know, this little innocent five-year-old
01:37:52.840 at the time, she's now six. She looks at me and she goes, daddy, are you going to try and be a
01:37:58.120 champion again? And I'm like, Oh fuck. Now it's like, Oh, so that's like when I got to that meet
01:38:04.680 and I was like, I didn't have a choice. I was, I was like feeling healthy. Like I, I, I texted my
01:38:09.820 coach. I'm like, these motherfuckers are in trouble. So actually my daughter and my son got to go
01:38:14.860 to nationals, um, which was my first meet back in like over three years. And so I've got all these
01:38:20.740 pictures. Like my daughter got to come backstage and like, you know, she's like helping me chalk
01:38:25.480 my back for, you know, bench press and stuff. And, um, afterwards it was this really cool moment
01:38:31.460 after my last deadlift. Um, there's a video of her and she like starts to run up to the platform
01:38:36.580 and then stops halfway and everybody's like, go, go, go. And she runs up, gives me a hug on the platform.
01:38:41.420 And then, uh, the guy who got second place, his son was also there and it was actually on
01:38:47.040 father's day. So this was on father's day. And I asked the meet director, I'm like, do you mind
01:38:51.980 if I take my daughter out when I go accept my medal? Yeah, of course. So we like walk out there
01:38:57.600 and I got this really great video for like skipping out there. And, um, so they put the medal around me
01:39:03.780 and then I, after I get off, I put it around her and she's like, I got this great picture of her
01:39:07.440 being like, you know, and, um, she was so excited. My, my, my, uh, my buddy, Mike, who was there with
01:39:14.280 me, he's like, dude, she's going to remember that for the rest of her life. And like when she,
01:39:19.060 when we were in Canada, I couldn't take her with me to Canada or my son with me to Canada either,
01:39:23.200 but, um, they were streaming it. And so, um, when I got back, I was kind of like, well,
01:39:29.680 what did you think? And she's like, I knew you would do it. Ah, bro. And so it's like seeing,
01:39:34.580 seeing, seeing that, like, I'm not going to pretend like I did it for my kids. I didn't
01:39:37.780 do it for my kids. I did it for me. But like, all, I also know, like, that's so important for
01:39:42.760 them. Yeah. She just, kids don't do it. Bro, you didn't have a choice. Yeah. You didn't have a
01:39:47.320 fucking choice. One of that T moment. That was one of those for her. Yeah. She could have watched 0.84
01:39:52.620 you fucking quit. She could have watched you sit the fuck down and be like, yeah, I almost made it 1.00
01:39:57.540 right. Right. Or she could have witnessed and experienced what you created for her. And that's,
01:40:03.640 that's bro. That's what being a true father is. I mean, I know, you know that, but it's fucking
01:40:10.900 awesome. No. And I'm like, I'm not letting the moment, but I'm going to clearly point out how
01:40:16.780 fucking bad-ass that is. No. And again, it's like, you know, kids, I mean, this goes for company as
01:40:22.620 well. Sal and I were talking a lot about culture here because I've been really impressed. And it's
01:40:26.840 like, it doesn't matter what you say. Words mean so little. What matters is what you do.
01:40:34.140 That's it.
01:40:34.920 Because if you, if your words are not in alignment with your actions, it's going to be a bad outcome.
01:40:40.900 And the same thing is for kids. You can say whatever you want, but kids look at actions.
01:40:45.780 That's right. And so, you know, that was definitely one of my prouder moments of being able to like,
01:40:52.080 she saw all that, you know, my son saw all that. And, um, yeah, it was really, really cool.
01:40:57.440 Oh dude. That's, I mean, that's what it's about, bro. And I mean, like, again, like standing
01:41:02.660 backstage, that's what the fucking world needs right now. Like the entire world, the entire
01:41:07.820 world needs that. That's what the fuck we're missing.
01:41:10.760 Well, it's just called getting in the arena. Like if you get in the arena and you do stuff,
01:41:15.100 like even if you don't win, you'll come out a better person, you know? And again, like just
01:41:19.960 standing backstage before we went out for deadlifts, you know, I'm like, like, okay, in the next 45
01:41:26.660 minutes, I'm either going to win this or lose this based on what I do. And I just kept replaying what
01:41:32.820 she said to me in my head. I had my pictures, you know, of my kids pulled off my phone and I was just,
01:41:39.280 I remember thinking there is no fucking way I'm not walking out of here with a gold medal.
01:41:44.160 That's what it takes. It's pretty, it was a pretty cool experience.
01:41:46.660 Fuck yeah, man. Well, bro, thank you so much for coming on the show, man.
01:41:50.280 Oh, I thoroughly enjoyed it.
01:41:51.480 Yeah. I would love, I would love to have you on, uh, again, whenever, whenever you want,
01:41:55.860 but next time get a guest house in St. Louis, next time we're going to shoot some guns.
01:41:59.720 Yes, absolutely. Yeah, absolutely. I, I miss going out and shooting.
01:42:04.140 Well, bro, thank you so much for everything that you do. Thank you so much for everything you bring
01:42:07.860 to the industry and, uh, and to the world, man, that, that kind of leadership inside the house
01:42:13.220 is, uh, the most important thing that we need right now. And, uh, I really, I think out of the
01:42:18.480 whole show, that last part, I'm just super thankful that you shared it. So thank you, man.
01:42:22.900 I'm thankful. I experienced it. Thank you for having me here. I've thoroughly enjoyed it.
01:42:27.320 Yeah. Thank you, brother. All right, guys, that's the show. Uh, appreciate if you would share the show,
01:42:32.440 if you're afraid to share the show, or you're going to say, I know Andy's not your cup of tea,
01:42:37.980 but I'm going to share this show and you apologize for it. Don't share the show and don't listen.
01:42:42.140 All right. Thanks. See ya.
01:42:44.360 Yeah. Went from sleeping on the floor. Now my jewelry box froze. Fuck a bowl. Fuck a stove.
01:42:50.280 Counted millions in the cold. Bad bitch. Booted swole. Got her on bankroll. Can't fold. 1.00
01:42:56.160 Doesn't know. Headshot. Case closed.