Barbell Shrugged - Abandoned but not Broken: Turning Childhood Adversity into a Career in the NFL w/ Anthony Trucks — Barbell Shrugged #431

Episode Date: December 25, 2019

Former NFL player, Antony Trucks is not only physically strong but is tough-minded, as well. After living in deplorable conditions for the first 20 years of his life, Trucks decided to turn things around for himself. He went to college and started playing football. He had a brief NFL career and retired at 24 with a shoulder injury. Anthony Trucks, is now a motivational speaker, who encourages people to hustle and reach their full potential.   In this episode of Barbell Shrugged, Anders Varner and Doug Larson discuss:   The definition of adversity   Watching your mom leave you at the age of 3   Overcoming adversity and finding football   A career ending injury and finding the next step   Overcoming the ego and how it nearly cost Anthony his marriage   How to live your best life and taking action   And more…   Anthony Trucks on Instagram   Anders Varner on Instagram   Doug Larson on Instagram   TRAINING PROGRAMS   One Ton Strong - 8 Weeks to PR your snatch, clean, jerk, squat, deadlift, and bench press   20 REP BACK SQUAT PROGRAM - Giant Legs and a Barrell Core   One Ton Challenge    8 Week Snatch Cycle - 8 Weeks to PR you Snatch   Aerobic Monster - 12 week conditioning, long metcons, and pacing strategy   Please Support Our Sponsors   “Save $20 on High Quality Sleep Aid at Momentous livemomentous.com/shrugged us code “SHRUGGED20” at checkout.   US Air Force Special Operations - http://airforce.com/specialops   Organifi - Save 20% using code: “Shrugged” at organifi.com/shrugged   WHOOP - Save $30 on 12 or 18 month membership plan using code “SHRUGGED” at checkout   ---------------------------------------------------------------- Show notes at: http://www.shruggedcollective.com/bbs-trucks ---------------------------------------------------------------- ► Subscribe to Barbell Shrugged's Channel Here ► Subscribe to Shrugged Collective's Channel Here http://bit.ly/BarbellShruggedSubscribe 📲 🎧 Listen to the audio version on the Apple Podcast App or Stitcher for Android Here- http://bit.ly/BarbellShruggedApple http://bit.ly/BarbellShruggedStitcher Shrugged Collective is a network of fitness, health and performance shows that help people achieve their physical and mental health goals.  Usually in the gym, but outside as well. In 2012 they posted their first Barbell Shrugged podcast and have been putting out weekly free videos and podcasts ever since. Along the way we've created successful online coaching programs including The Shrugged Strength Challenge, The Muscle Gain Challenge, FLIGHT, Barbell Shredded, and Barbell Bikini. We're also dedicated to helping affiliate gym owners grow their businesses and better serve their members by providing owners tools and resources like the Barbell Business Podcast. Find Shrugged Collective and their flagship show Barbell Shrugged here: SUBSCRIBE ON ITUNES ► http://bit.ly/ShruggedCollectiveiTunes WEBSITE ► https://www.ShruggedCollective.com INSTAGRAM ► https://instagram.com/shruggedcollective FACEBOOK ► https://facebook.com/barbellshruggedpodcast TWITTER ► http://twitter.com/barbellshrugged

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Metcon pacing strategy, and increase fat loss. The perfect supplemental conditioning program for barbell shredded, a $47 value on top of the already 50% savings on barbell shredded. Get over to shrugcollective.com forward slash shredded. Friends, today Anthony Trucks is on the show. This is a great story. When we went to the Spartan World Championships, we had an inside scoop on this guy's life.

He was abandoned as a child. He remembers his mom driving away and turned that into a great high school career, a great college career, a great NFL career, and then because of injury had to leave early, but has parlayed that success into helping others chase greatness, hustle, and live their best life. Fantastic interview, Anthony Trucks.

Let's get into the show. Got that Barbell Shrug tattoo. Went on the show. There it is. Welcome to Barbell Shrug tattoo went on the show welcome to Barbell Shrug, I'm Anders Varner that's Doug Larson, Anthony Trucks we are in Tahoe at the Spartan World Championship, Spartan World Media Fest presented by ATP Science we're at the Airbnb that they put us up in

it's a very modest Airbnb I think we're contributing to what's going on down at the village right now by bringing him away from the village and away from the event to here so we can talk about all the things on this beautiful mountain that I think we're going to run on Saturday. Dude, it couldn't be nicer out here. It's beautiful.

It's gorgeous. When do you start running? I did the Beast last year with my wife. Oh, yeah. Me too. The kids behind me at the first 100 yards are like, I got this. You can't breathe. Can you believe that the professional OCR people were good friends with Hunter McIntyre?

I don't know if you know him, but he won this event a couple times. Oh, wow. They're picking off, like, sub-five-minute miles for 13, 14 straight miles at a time running up that hill. That's nuts, man. It's not a hill. It's like 12,000-foot mountain. When I think about just running a five-minute mile, it seems impossible to me. It's on flat ground.

Much less running up a mountain plus obstacles with no air, and you're just picking off fives. They're humans. Thirteen at a time. Our military should make the people do that because they just go crazy. Dude, I feel like the five- minute thing might be a little exaggerated, but they're going super fast. I think they're right around five minute miles.

Five minute miles going straight up a mountain? Yeah. I heard somebody finished it in three and a half-ish hours. I don't know how many miles it is. Last year was 13 and change. It was like a legitimate half marathon. I think it was five minutes. If you did a half marathon at your local half marathon. I think it was five. Because if you did a

half marathon at your local half marathon and you were really good, you're doing it well under three and a half hours, I would imagine. Yeah, I think so. I don't really know. I know somebody recently, some Canadian guy, finished a whole marathon in a couple hours recently. Two hours is

the standard for marathons for really fast. At an hour for the hill. It's just wild to me that somebody, even if it was 530, if you're going sub-6 for 13 in a row up a mountain with 12,000 foot of elevation, you're a freak of nature. Oh yeah, and then carrying things, obstacles,

yeah. Yeah, you have to stop every once in a while. That bucket that you carry at the top was surprisingly heavy last year. I almost passed out carrying that. I'm not even joking. I got lightheaded multiple times carrying the bucket last year. Well, I go into it, and I'm like, I'm probably stronger than 90% of the people here. I assume I'm stronger than most, and this is a general event.

I picked the bucket. I was like, fuck, this is heavy. I hope there's no cameras around of me struggling to grab a hold of this thing now i said my wife yelling at me because she already like she finished it faster she's like hurry up i can't beat you like right at the end i'm gonna roll down i'm gonna pass out and roll down that's how i'm gonna get down here um yeah the sandbags carrying it up the hill that was tough yeah the the rope climbs were the things that got me the most i thought i'd be able to handle rope climbs and and then but i don't ever rope climb with soaking wet hands that have been cold and then you grab the rope on a very thin

rope yeah it's like a big thick there was not much well i did that american ninja warrior tv show so i was like i saw that your bio yeah the three years what's the what's the what's the process to getting to on the show yeah you. You submit a video, man. Honestly, when I first did it, we came back from Costa Rica. My wife was bored, I guess, and submitted this thing. And it got 80% done. It didn't have a video. So it was like, hey, you got to film a video.

And I thought it was Wipeout, that show where they laugh at you in Chinese language. I love that show. Right? It's hilarious. It's funny. It's hilarious. And so I was like, I don't know. So I put the video out, and I completely forgot about it. February-ish, I get a call like, hey, in 30 days, you're about to go on this TV show.

So that was 240 pounds. Like, I'm not meant for this show. Yeah, you're not like the classic American Ninja Warrior guy. And I went down there, man, and I killed it. I was now the first former NFL athlete to hit a buzzer on the show. I made it from city finals to city qualifiers, or city qualifiers to finals, three years running. So you don't just start on the TV, on the TV show. There's a process to it. No, you start on just start on the TV, on the TV show. Yeah.

There's a process to it. No, you start on the TV show. Oh, really? You just show up. Yeah, they did like 100-something people. They put you out there. You get one look at it. You go back in a holding pen.

They call your name, and you got one shot. So it's like there's like 100 people out there, and then they show like the top 12 or whatever, like whoever did extremely well or extremely bad. Or, I mean, it's a TV, too. So, I mean, they like my life story. So there's weight with that. So that was something that was cool for them to put on.

I got a little, they call it a home package. So they sent people to your house, a whole expose that was aired. So I got a good five-minute block on there, which was pretty cool. But yeah, man, it was a cool experience. And then after my elbows started hurting because my body's way too big for that stuff, I was like, ah, I think I'm going to pass it. So now I do a master's track, old man track. Dude, I feel like we made it the other day.

Someone tagged us on Instagram. So we run a program called the One Ton Challenge. It's basically a super total squat, clean jerk, snatch, clean jerk, squat, deadlift, bench press. Add them all up, and our goal is 2,000 pounds for males. And someone did the One Ton Challenge, videoed it, and that's their audition tape to go on to the Titan Games with The Rock. I was like, someone thinks this is cool enough that this is their audition tape. We made it.

Yeah. They just did season two casting. I got an email for that. Nice. I'm not going to do it, though. Why not? I don't see I got a bad shoulder. The ninja's easy.

I can hang, right? But when I got hurt in the NFL, I tore my shoulder. So any pressing but i got hurt in the nfl so i tore my shoulder so any pressing like i have no upper chest like it just it kills my shoulder so that whole thing like it'd be nice but if i'm gonna lift things like i'd be out there looking like a baby girl yeah was it like one big catastrophic injury for your shoulder is that just like repeat injuries it was one big thing yeah it was 2008 playing with the pittsburgh steelers against the philadelphia eagles um some, like it was a toss play. I went outside.

I tripped on one of my teammates, went down, and the guy lineman from the other team jumped on my back as I'm getting up, popped my shoulder, and I saw it on video. You know, shoulder went in and out, tore it. I didn't even know. Like, can you play through, like, just you don't even know your body's hurt. It wasn't even until the next day I even realized there was something wrong with it. And then, yeah, man, sure enough, career ending, season ending.

It was a different world. The NFL is so wild. Like, I talk about this a decent amount. But when you're growing up and you're, like, playing tackle football and it's fun. But when you get in the NFL, it's, like, real men that really understand aggression and anger and testosterone. And there's, like, a level of aggression that I've gotten to in my life, but the NFL seems like it's miles down the road on just I'm going to kill you right now. Like John Welborn, I watched a video of him talking about the NFL.

He's like, I have a weapon on my head. It's a helmet, and I'm trying to put it through you. And I remember Ray Lewis in an interview was like, I have a weapon on my head. It's a helmet, and I'm trying to put it through you. Oh, yeah. And I remember Ray Lewis in an interview was like, what do you think about when you tackle people? And, like, the interviewer was, like, happy, nice. She clearly was in an office setting. He was like, everything about him changed. He was like, I want to take your soul.

And I was like, oh, my God. I'm terrified through the TV. This is so scary. Because imagine this. If you go out there, because I played line take your soul. And I was like, oh, my God. I'm terrified through the TV. This is so scary. Because imagine this. If you go out there, because I played linebacker also. If you don't have that, you get eaten alive. Yeah, someone's going to do it to you. So it's a different level of, like, just expansion.

So when guys come out, like, legit, we're a little bit crazy, man. Like, it took a while for me to, like, calm down, like, enter to society. And, like, when you make me mad, I can't hit you anymore. You had this outlet for a long time. It was gone. And it just got ripped from me. So, yeah, man, it's the football world. And what's even worse is, like, you get just a constant level of discomfort.

Like, people think you're uncomfortable. Imagine every day going to work and your boss telling you, hey, if you don't do it right, we're going to get rid of you. Yeah. You got to go home. And your family's not going to be able to eat. So, like, when I'm going against you, it's not just the aggression. It's, like, if I beat you, you can't feed your family. Yeah.

It's a just the aggression. It's like if I beat you, you can't feed your family. Yeah. It's a different world. One of the things, what's the HBO show? Hard Knocks. That I love. I love watching. It's terrible probably, but I love watching when the last day of cuts happen. Yeah. Because all the kids come in and they're kids.

Yeah. But the coach has been through this so many times that cutting people is just a day. It's normal. It's like they come in and they know what's going on. If I got called here, but the kid's like, shit, I don't have a job. What am I going to do tomorrow? The coach is like, hey, you were great. You were awesome.

But just, yeah, I'm sorry. You've got to go. Peace out. I think the whole life is over. It's what it feels like. Us Redskins, we were talking about Tuesday's a cut day. And my wife and I, our team, my buddy, teammate, just got cut, played with him in Oregon. So we're just having a dinner, like seeing him off.

And cuts, I think has to be done by like 6 p.m. on Tuesday. We're having a conversation at dinner talking about how he got cut. He's going to go somewhere else. I'm like, well, glad I didn't get the call, right? I go to the bathroom like five minutes later. 5.58 I get a call. Hey, trucks, we're letting you go come in tomorrow to playbook like i just moved my wife there just moved my son there like so like i had like i just

signed a lease like dude it was just but it is it's like that man when you when you have your family with you and all of that i mean what is that process coming home i imagine getting cut sucks but you just move your family out there yeah Yeah. Where's the next step? You don't know. I mean, first you got to go tell your wife. Yeah, that sucks. That's a hard step. Like a loser husband. It really does, bro. It's just a defeating feeling. The loser husband. Good. That's a brutal one. Right? And so then you got to just figure it out. I mean, that's why I think for me in my life, I navigate things incredibly well because I've dealt with craziness like that. But you just honestly, you can't dwell on it.

You just got to go. As long as you sit there, like, bills pile up, you're stuck. So we just came home. Smart, I guess, luckily we had bought a house. It wasn't smart. We bought it in 06, right at the top of the market crashing. So we had this house to go back to. Genius.

Yeah, right? We knew. We knew it was coming. That's why we bought it that time. Yeah, exactly. And then sure enough went home and then just figured out life, man. And, yeah, I mean, I ended up getting picked up a few weeks later by those Steelers, was with them until obviously the next year got my shoulder torn.

But, yeah, man, when you get cut, bro, it's just this world changing. And you don't get – people think you get paid. Like, you only get paid when you're playing week by week. So you can be there from, like, you know, the end of the season before February all the way through OTAs and training camp and off season, through all of it, and then right before the first game they can be like, ah, go home. And you don't get anything. Brutal.

You could have a $50 million contract, nothing. Regarding the comment about being a quote-unquote loser husband, you know, that's obviously not true, but that's something that people, that's a common thing for people to experience. Like something negative happens or they perceive to be negative, and then you get down on yourself and you start saying those types of things to yourself. Like how long did it take you to work through that? Dude, I mean, in that moment I was still a football player, right?

But then when I tore my shoulder, that's a whole different conversation because then my actual career was over. And it's – what, 2008? It probably took me a good five years to really figure it out because you try to find yourself in other stuff like you know like you know the girls would be like i gotta go find myself like legit to figure out who i am it's different for us guys all i know is how to work hard football right and so unfortunately i neglected everything else but what i had to build to make

myself feel great again so i had this gym like that's where i spent my time yeah but you know my wife was at home with my you know brand new twins i had my my son is older um and then i'm just at the gym like literally there from like 6 a.m until 10 p.m yeah my head is i'm working for the family but her head is like you aren't even part of the family right now yeah and so and i was trying to find myself and in doing so i ended up losing the marriage, losing my family. So, yeah, everything disappeared. And it took me a while. It wasn't until probably 20, yeah, man, like 2013. I kind of like popped my head up like I got to figure this dang thing out.

Yeah. And so just really sinking back to finding out. This is the hardest thing. Where everything had to dial back to my fault. Because it's difficult for you to like to see a problem and take ownership because then you've got to build the pain of it. So I didn't want to blame myself for why my wife had an affair, man. It broke my heart. I didn't want to take any blame for that,

which there's part of it in the sense of her choice was her choice, but the two of us got to that choice, right? I didn't want to take blame for the business being bad. I'm a football guy. I'm great. I didn't want to take blame for being a bad dad who wasn't present. I didn't want to take blame. And so because of that, I kept doing the same actions and kept that as part of my life yeah and when i popped my head up i was like dude you gotta change stuff

then i took you know i took ownership it sucked but i got my power back but then i gave myself permission to fix things and that's how my life has massively turned around since well your story starts significantly before that. And talking to Marion, we have this beautiful house, so I had the inside track. I said, look, just tell me the people that I need to talk to. I don't need to go through the whole list. I said, just tell me the coolest kids. We'll have them to the house.

It'll be great. And you and Eric Burns were the only two people she sent me to talk to. Oh, nice. And your story kind of starts when you were three years old. She mentioned that, I guess guess getting into the foster system uh and kind of remembering oh i'm not being there um can you take us back to a little bit of that beginning because i feel like there there's some threads to the story of being feeling like a bad dad or being in the foster system that kind of create the stories and the actions

that lead to a big reckoning of having to take ownership. I think we all have programming from our past. If you think about how we operate, you've seen the TV show Westworld? Yeah, I've heard of it. It's freaky. These bodies, the programming creates the individual. I don't know if I was ready for that show.

That's a crazy show, dude. Part of me was like, that'd be weird. I don't want to go kill anybody. Unless I got there and I could. I don't know, maybe I would. Is there a crazy show, dude. I mean, part of me was like, that'd be weird. I don't want to go kill anybody. Unless I got there and I could. I don't know. Maybe I would. Is there a consequence? So I can?

You're allowing me? But no, it's the kind of thing I looked at, like, we all get programmed from, like, the past. And we don't really know what's going on. And so we just operate

a lot of some outdated software. And so that was my, you know, the spinning wheel of death, we'll call it. It was in 2011 or 2008 when it all took place. And so what it was is if you go back to my beginning, three years old, put in the foster care system, me and my three siblings.

So I started my life feeling like I didn't matter. Like my own mom, when you want to love you, like doesn't even care, gives you away. And in the foster care system, back then you were what's called a paycheck, which means that if you're with this family, they get paid to have you, but as long as you don't die, everything's okay in the world. So what that meant is I got beaten, I got starved. That's a low standard. It sucks.

There's no TV, media, there's no phones back then. There's families I get put in this chicken pen, forced to chase chickens to catch a chicken to be able to have food that night, to earn it. And there's one family, they put me in a shopping cart, pushed me down hills. Really weird stuff. Just between the age of three and six. Jesus.

Like heinous human beings that just didn't care. Six years old, I get picked up and put in a family, which is my family to this day, which is dysfunctional. That's really strange. You would think somebody that's interested in the foster care system, they're not looking at, or a parent that is adopting foster kids is not looking for a subject matter to abuse. Yeah, I think at the time, though, I don't know how new it was, but now people have a heart. I think back then, legitimately, just didn't even care. I mean, there was a time where, like, actually at one point with one of the families, because there's five, I distinctly remember all of them. Like, the layouts of the house is just weird.

But one house, like, I was there for, like, a week a week and the end of the week the kids were going to disneyland the whole week i'm excited i'm gonna be able to go to disneyland for the first time it's a little kid you're excited it's disneyland yeah and then i remember like disneyland like they're getting up they're walking out of the house going to the van and as i'm going out there's a van that they have to go to disneyland and there's a black crown victoria to take me to a new house and nobody told me so i mean just walking out just i feel it now, like just the weight of, like, crap. And you don't know where you're going. Like, you don't know if you're going to a good house or a bad house.

So, like, this was my programming. Like, this is where a lot of my, like, root of instability, lack of trust, like, a lot of it. And having a reason to create blame for everybody else. Like, it was all your fault. Because that's how I started. You know, it wasn't my fault. It was this little kid getting thrown around. Yeah, man.

Then at six years old, I got put into my family. And then the dynamic there is it's an all-white family. Really, really poor. So I make this dumb joke that I grew up poor white trash. Because you were like, super, super poor, man. I'm a black guy, if you guys don't know. But, yeah, man. So I just, we just, it was just a situation like a drug what's

it like growing up like white trash i got all the benefits i'm an expert i got the fun things i have a weird perspective on like racial yeah because i grew up in a situation where like be like you know we'll call white being really poor white like their life wasn't great and i'm the black kid on that it's like man, double whammy. It's a lot of weird, fun, weird, crazy jokes my family has. It's dysfunction. It's family. It's just what it is. Throughout this whole thing,

you seem to have a pretty light-hearted, fun, you're able to joke around, you're very playful. Were you always like that, even back then? Were you kind of brushed this off? Did you develop that later? I think I had a desire. I have ADHD, so I talk a lot. I was always a kid talking.

I don't know if I always had a light heart, though. It's come recently from a sense of sheer gratitude for where I could be. Because what people don't know, statistically, if you look at any prison in America, 75% of the inmates are former foster kids. That's where I should have possibly been. If you look at the homeless population, 50% of the homeless population in America are former foster kids. So, like, numerically, statistically, like, I'm really not supposed to be doing very much. And so I have a great deal of gratitude for my adoptive mom and that family who loved me through my crazy.

Like, I was, the first week there, I broke all her lamps. Like, I'd get in trouble at school. I was a klepto at school it's weird just i mean it's always weird things i was hoarding food because i didn't really get fed much yeah and so she just was like loved me through it all weirdly and uh and she was one of the big catalysts to me kind of like opening my heart because it took me eight years to let them love me like that's when i got adopted you know i for the whole time wanted to be with my real mom but she was a horrible human i didn't know you just want to be with that person and we have that in life as adults there's people we want to be with that we know aren't good for us but like we're addicted to that that pain that's just so odd um but i had a young age man and so

at 14 uh i let them love me i severed what's called parental rights could finally get adopted uh and then i got to hit people without getting in trouble, man. I got to go play some football. Yeah, I was actually wondering while you were going through that, like what is your relationship with anger and aggression growing up in that system? A lot of fights in school. I think in sixth grade I got 16 referrals or like 16 fights or something crazy. Like I was just angry a little bit.

I was just always poking fun and getting in trouble. When I was in sixth grade, listen, they didn't allow me to go to the sixth grade camping trip Not because I was in trouble, but I was a flight risk Like I was a kid that might just cause a lot of problems and burn the place down Cannot go and to this day. I still like I'm still talking about it still eats me up a little bit Yeah, but I get it. I mean if I was a a teacher i wouldn't have let me go as a grown man now but but yeah the lighthearted stuff it never took place till later uh and the football anger i was a great outlet like i never had i couldn't play organized sports because my real mom wouldn't let me so when i got adopted now i could play

yeah and that was the big thing is having aggression so your real mom your biological mom was still in the picture even though you were adopted uh so when when she left you at three how how frequently was she in your life kind of through childhood just enough to mess it up man just enough to cause the problems and leave enough so she she was like this anchor that i wanted to be with and so you don't really realize at a time she's not great and so we have these visitations she's supposed to go to in a town called Martinez. And so we go to visitation. I have three siblings, all different dad.

They have the same dad. I have a different dad. And she would never show up, but their dad would. So I'd sit there and just watch them play with him all the time. And, like, I'd cry. There's no one. I don't have a dad. I don't know who he is.

You know, my mom, she's MIA, and she's legitimately loopy. And so every time the visitation would happen, like, when she didn't show up, they got longer between. So if she's not showing up every week, let's just make it every two. And then every month, and then every two, and then every three, and then every six. So it got wider and wider. But every time she'd miss, which was like 95% of the time, I'd get a call later on that day. This happened up until 14. Later on with some crazy excuses of why she didn't make it.

And she's what's called a pathological liar. So she'd make excuses, at one point she owned Microsoft, she owned Apple, she was an astronaut, Mensa member, like I kid you not, the craziest things you could think of. And as a kid I'm like, oh awesome, I'll get it, it's okay. Next time, you know, next time I'll see you. And then she'd end the call with, pack a bag and wait by the window, I'm going to come pick you up.

We're going to drive off together. And, dude, as a little kid, like, I consistently, I'd sit there. I'd pack a bag. I'd wait. And, like, the street we lived on, it was, like, next to a jack-in-the-box. So a lot of cars would drive by. So imagine every time you see lights, your heart races, and then it sinks. By the end of the night, I'd cry myself to sleep.

Up until, like, 14, I would wet the bed every night, only on those nights. Couldn't stop it. And sure enough, it was just weird anger. So she wasn't a picture. But even that, it was a really weird route. And so the good part that's come out of it is when I get into a relationship because of a connection to a woman, because of that weird tie, I'm super incredibly faithful. It's not even that I desire anything.

I just want to make sure that that relationship's great. So it benefits that sense. When you are a kid, your self-worth and your idea of identity, and clearly this plays out in what you're doing now, but do you think about, in hindsight, kind of like what your self-worth was being kind of kicked around a lot and struggling with that mia man didn't have any yeah i you feel like a dog yeah you don't feel like you matter to anybody like the people are supposed to you know care for you they they don't and so yeah self-worth was non-existent for me it was a very like i used to

have this like i didn't feel like I mattered at school because I was always in trouble. So it was my fault. I would act up, and every teacher I can picture from, like, kindergarten to sixth grade in my face screaming at me, like, because I was just that bad. And then at the house, and between Belshaw Elementary and the house was this tunnel. I'd walk to school back and forth, and I would pace that tunnel as long as I could because it was the only place I felt comfortable.

And it was only, it was a middle of a freeway. Like this is where transients are, and that's where I felt comfortable, you know. Because I didn't feel like I mattered at home. I didn't have any worth there. I didn't feel like I mattered at school. I was a floater. And so, yeah, for a lot of years, expected to do nothing. This story hits a lot harder because I have a kid now,

and I couldn't imagine her going through that. It's tough, man. a kid now and I couldn't imagine her going through that stuff like it would be very very just kind of seeing how she develops and in a somewhat normal home I guess the the how you would describe it but the the idea that even at you know such a young age like being passed around and not really knowing where that is but also seeing how those anchors like need to be there and how the at such a young age, being passed around and not really knowing where that is, but also seeing how those anchors need to be there and how the stability of a kid's life really kind of plays out. When you got to football and found sports, was that something that you just really grabbed a hold of

as something that you could control where you were important to provide a little stability? It's the first place I found self-worth. Because I had a family I was with, but it's always just rooted in the back of my head like then, like, oh, it's not my family, I'm just here, you know. But football for the first time was like, I remember AJW, Junior Wolverines was the team name.

And I was a receiver, and I was horrible. Garbage, I couldn't catch a cold, man, I was slow. And all my teammates just smashed on me because I'm the new guy. But there's one play where the quarterback threw it up, and somehow it landed in my arms on accident, and I got the ball. And I remember getting up and looking back, and the crowd was just cheering. It was the first time I was like, man, I matter. And the world, for the first time, told me, hey, you matter in a way.

And so I did get addicted to that feeling. Like I wanted it. I found out later it's not the best thing to be driven off of yeah but for that time and they had that gave me like oh i want to do this and so that was the the push i needed to get over being horrible at the game because i think we all have something we want to do but at first we suck like i'm sure when you guys started this you sucked right but over time still working on it yeah right you figure it out because like you know i want to go through to get whatever that is and so

unfortunately a lot of people their identity slows down like they cut it off before they get to that point of like success and for me i'm thankful that that's been part of who i am is i just pushed and so i'd like i want to do this thing i'm going to push into it i leaned in i went to the craziness to figure out how to how to be better how to be faster how to be stronger and turn into something special uh when you think about kind of your relationship with the the idea of love and not having it as a kid but then finding it in a in an external way uh with having crowds cheering for you playing football being good at sports um that's also kind of a smoke and mirrors type of love when did you start to maybe break down some of those walls or understand that

just because they're cheering for you, that's not real. That's a fake thing that's happening because I'm good at football instead of like a real self-love or having a really tight-knit circle that you can trust. Yeah, I mean, first I had the moment of realization when they didn't love me. It was like the next year, my freshman year. Every time I dropped the ball, they didn't love me anymore. Yeah, that's what happened, man. My fourth game, I had like three games amazing in freshman year. And my fourth game, I think it was, I dropped like three touchdowns. And everybody just butterfingers, all the names.

Like, the world took all that back from me. And so I learned pretty quickly, like, ah, you can't live off that. When I finally truly grabbed love was when i had my first kid because it was like that and i don't think you really know like how much a parent loves you till you have a kid yeah it's this weird creepy like indescribable like connection squeeze the thing so much right yeah fucking head's gonna pop off one day and so i thought you loved me that's why i ripped your head off i loved you so much i know that I knew it.

That's how it felt. Let me be honest. Going back, I went from being a college athlete that was playing sports, and I was a dad now. I was a dad that played sports, went to school. That was my perspective. And so that was the first time I really anchored down to loving something, and I think it came to realizing that love is an emotion from an action. I hadn't given the actions of love to many.

Therefore, I wasn't receiving it. You have to give to get. And so when I was finally giving, I was like, oh, it comes back. Dude, you're a college athlete and you have a kid. Were you married at the time? No, we were engaged. I was the weird guy. Did you go to school?

Yeah, I went to school, man. I graduated with a degree in kinesiology. I feel like there's no time. Yeah, there wasn't. I'm telling you, my schedule with my fiancee. Especially D1 football at Oregon. You guys are practicing 12 hours a day. We were, and I was still killing it, bro.

Your whole life. I was getting down. I mean, academically, I was still doing well in school. I've got a weird brain. Like, I don't do homework, but I can sit and listen, and I'll be able to regurgitate everything. It's weird. So I would go to class.

As long as I went to class. I think I missed two classes in all four years. So as long as I went to class, I would get by. I'm not going to be the guy saying, oh, academic sound. No, I was academically eligible, but I wasn't balling. But then my wife was, though. I was like 2.7, no lie. I was like 2.7, bro.

I'm right with you. I was the opposite. I never went to class, but I could read the book. Yeah, no, I couldn't do the book stuff. I fall asleep when I read books. I act like getting a 2.7 is something to be proud of. Oh, yeah, you can do it. No, it's nothing to be proud of, but you can do it.

It's close to a 3.0. Yeah. Yeah, right? That's kind of my thing, man. We balance it out. My wife is amazing. She graduated summa cum laude with her master's. Damn.

With a baby. Get it. And a guy who was playing football most of the time. Beast, right? That's savage. Aroo, man. She's a beast, man. I love her to death. Yeah, that was kind of our

navigation of college. So college was a tricky thing, but it's funny. If you look at pictures from us in college, we had this friend's house we would go to. We wouldn't go to clubs a lot, but we'd just go to the friend's house and have some drinks. And there's multiple pictures of my son as a baby with a bottle of Hennessy next to his head.

So it's so bad I mean we never ever did anything drinking and I didn't really drink I think I drunk like five times in college like so just more so hanging out but we we had fun man I enjoyed my college experience did you swing the other way with your kid where instead of like being neglectful having experienced that yourself like did you swing the other way and like you're like overbearing with how how how much you like showered your kid with love where they're like fucking dad leave me alone like yes i know you love me but yeah let me out of here he does to this day man i just left this morning like he's 14 i gave him a kiss on the floor he's like dad like this one dad so i never

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needs. Back to the show. Like ever. In fact, our kids, it's so normal in our house. Like I'll be walking and they'll be on the other side of the house like, love you dad, like love you too. So it's a very common thing. I hate the stories where I hear people like, I didn't hear my dad tell me he loved me till i was like 35 like damn so i think that yeah like you said because of

what took place i just choose to do opposite now and that's really how i run like my life and my perspective especially in parenting like i'm still amazed like i get to wake up and my own blood children are in my house sounds so simple but, but, like, I'm dead serious. Yeah. It's a weird, like, cool feeling. Well, you mentioned earlier that you and your wife had, I guess, a rough divorce. Yeah. Back together.

What was a little bit of that scenario, and where did that find you? What time in your life was that? That was around 11, man. So this is where I came home to figure out who i was big identity crisis right one of the biggest right after the nfl it was like the the major one because i'd spent this thing you know 12 years developing me and then me was no longer me the identity thing gone and and i i try to pour into something to rebuild anthony and it was the gym i got to find some way to make my name powerful again and really it was just me

trying to you know stay close uh to not going. Like that's pretty much the goal. Like just don't go broke this month. And in doing so, like I neglected, I did become that dad. It was neglecting his wife and neglecting his kids. And when it happened, as I sort of say, like me doing that together, we got our relationship to a point where she just wasn't fulfilled and she needed things and she sought it outside of the marriage. Broke my heart, dude. So now I'm going through, I've lost my relationship. I've lost my family. I've lost my successful business.

I had no name there. I've lost the one thing, football, that made me me, and I legit went into a fog. Like when you get like the whirlwind of life and you can't manage it, like we get overwhelmed, we just go foggy. And I was foggy for a while, and I remember going to a UFC fight with my buddies at my buddy derrick's house actually my best friend was there and i just but i'm told i just sat there for like three hours staring at a screen which is probably

normal for me at that time because on top of this i'm still running a gym so i have no happy but my job is to come and make you happy every day i'm pulling it from nowhere so i'm drained everywhere and i go home to arguments it just was crazy and i I remember walking out of the UFC five, it was like nine o'clock at night. And my buddy walks over to the cars. I'm walking out and he stops me. He says, Hey man, um, I see that you're not you. And he's like, I got a realization that I need to tell you. He says, this is your reality. It's like, you need to realize that this is what you got going on. You haven't accepted it or whatever it was whatever conversations were and the words of like this is your reality just slammed on me yeah and i think what we don't know is the brain if you look at like you know science

like it can't actually sometimes distinguish between emotional and physical pain it feels the same and i didn't know at a time but like that it's probably what led to but like it was just a pain i could not stop it was like this weird like and so i just couldn't stop crying i couldn't breathe and i sent a text my friends and family said please tell my my kids their father was and drove off looking for rat poison it was thankfully late enough parked the car somewhere gps cops found me i snapped out of it brought me home and like that was a journey back to crazy and i think for me one of the biggest biggest things was one of my buddies had come up to me after the fact. He's like, dude, I found out what had happened.

Everybody's looking for you. Because when I drove home, I drove home and there was a house, my house, 40 people outside that are all like ground central trying to find Anthony. And it was like the weight of shame, man. I can't even explain to you right now. Wait, how did all these people get together? How long were you gone?

Maybe three hours. And 40 people showed up to your house? Yeah, man. Weird. You have friends, bro. I do. And I think this is what nobody – Damn.

No one told me. If I'm gone three hours, there's like kids napping, wife's napping. Yeah. House is quiet. Yeah, it was different. I think that's what it was. Do you feel like they knew what you were going through and you were kind of on watch before?

No. This is following you sending out the text? This is right. Yeah, I sent the text. I drove off. I drove to Stockton, of all places, and then I sat. I drive by whenever I go out to Stockton. I drive by that same gas station, right?

So I know the place was at, but it was like a few hours later, nobody knew where I was at because I just took off. Yeah, man, so I came back, and like you said, it was like people few hours later, nobody knew where I was at because I just took off. And, yeah, man, so I came back. And like you said, it was like people had loved me and I didn't really see it. I've always just been like a joyous – I think the joy came from when, like, I had kids and I had football and I just – I learned how to be happy. Like I've always not wanted to be in an internal negative space. So I just choose to be happy.

So people just around me were happy, man. And what ended up happening, a buddy was like, dude, he says, you know, I felt like I almost lost a hero. A guy I played high school football with, a guy who worked at the gym with me. And I was like, what are you talking about? He's like, man, at the end of the day, like, we all here, we know what you've gone through in life. We've seen, we know your story and what you've accomplished and who you are.

Like, you're a lot of inspiration to a lot of people. And it was like the first time I realized, like, I had been accidentally living a life that had been helping people. So maybe all this craziness was for something. And so I then purposely tried, like, all right, what if I try to do something positive? What if I try to be a better guy?

And so it was kind of like that start, still a journey to be able to figure out like a lot of these things I'd put on were partly my fault, right, because this place I'm in, it wasn't because of anybody else but me. Like it was how I handled the situation at hand. It may not have been my fault, but it was my responsibility to navigate this stuff. And so I had to go back

a few years, figure things out, and you asked about the relationship. A lot of it was blaming her. Your fault. How could you do this to me? And that's where I wanted to go, because I don't got to take any weight, right? You can blame, because it's your fault, so I don't got to have any weight for this. When you feel bad enough, then I'll feel feel better which is an odd way for us to operate especially with somebody you love and so you know i put that weight on my wife and and so when we

were separate you know we both you know did our thing but she got to the point she's drinking and partying and everything and i just i got to the point where i started realizing that the life that i was living of having multiple partners was not one that I enjoyed. Like, it was not who I was at my core. I felt like if my son did this, I'd have lost respect for him. So I couldn't do it myself. So I remember I woke up one day, I was like, I'm done with women for a while. And in that time, I also realized that, like, she wasn't the best mom. And she'll tell you that.

But the thing is, it's like, how do I make her a great mom for my kids? Because I wanted my kids to have that. I didn't want to have, like you said, I didn't want that to for my kids because I wanted my kids to have I didn't want to have like you said I didn't want that to happen how do I have my kid not have a mom like mine and part of it was like I gotta I gotta plant a seed and then give her space because what I've been doing is placing a lot of shame on her and then hoping for her to be better it's like putting a board on a brand you know brand new freshly potted plant like it's not going to grow so I realized like if I can take this off because I've now point realized like, damn, like a lot of this stuff was because of how I acted, how I operated, um, how I didn't give her what she needed, whether it was what I thought she needed or not, she needed different. I didn't, I didn't show up. And so I like, I took my blame.

I let her know like, Hey, here's my weight. I'm letting you know that some of these things, I helped lead us to that place. I forgive you for what you did. Because also when people do stuff to hurt you, I don't think it's always malicious. We feel like it was, but a lot of it's like they're doing something for them. They're lashing out of some sort. And it's not even always lashing out. A need had to be fulfilled. There was no thought of me.

It was almost just the pure selfishness of what created that, but I was the byproduct. My pain was. So when I got that realization of she was honestly kind of doing the best best she could hanging in there for that damn long I got to a point of the forgiveness I got to the point of understanding my place and I gave her that space and and she then had the board lifted off and she grew so she she found faith which is amazing because I'd always tried to have to be part of our family but she grew up differently so it wasn't her thing and then also like I I just I was able able to celebrate what she had done in her life,

the mom she was becoming. And then she invited me, like, three years ago on this trip to Costa Rica to get away from, like, our area. Because when you're in, like, an area you grew up in, everybody knows you're dirt, man. And so she invited me to Costa Rica. We went out there, and it was pretty much like, hey, just you go to your spot. I'll have over here just so we can take the kids on a vacation and be able to have some fun.

And that was where I got to. The way I put it is I got to meet somebody for the first time that I'd known for 18 years. And it was like this moment where she was different, and I was different. Different conversation. And when we came back, it was like, let's try again. Was there a part of that you guys were had your you guys were together you had a baby when you were 20 yeah this is many years later you went through college football to the nfl where you guys just stopped checking in and being like oh hey this is where i'm at right now like

life is moving so fast that one day 10 years later you wake up and you're like i don't even know who you are anymore no i think massive life events going on. Yeah, a lot of them for her, too. I mean, she was going through stuff, you know, and she wasn't just hanging around. Like, she had a relationship fell apart. She had a different dad. We had twins at one point, you know. So a lot of stuff happened, and I think the journey for us was we grew up together.

We were 16 when we got together. I mean, we were kids. So when we get to the age of, like, 25, I don't know who I am without you. Totally. And if I always have it in the back of my head, like as much as it sounds odd right now, knowing what we've got now, what we've created, if I knew back then I would have to go through all this to get here, I'd do it again. Yeah.

It sounds hell odd, but like I would legitimately do it again because we've got something now that like I couldn't put in words how great it is. Like it's strong. It's anchored. It's not perfect, we argue. I mean, that's just natural, right? But our kids have a solid home. They have a base of who we are.

They feel loved. I feel loved with her. I feel more free in this relationship than I've ever felt in my life because I don't have to worry about chasing chicks and texting. I can worry about changing the world. I couldn't imagine being single. It's weird.

It would be fucking awful trying to keep up with all that, texting people all the time, feeling like I'm obligated to do something. I just – Fisher's on Bumble last night and I was like, how do you do that? It seems like so much. Yeah, it's work. It was work, dude. It's so much work.

Yeah, part of the stress point is, like, you're texting, like, three or four different people, and I'm not saying this is the way to go. I'm just – this is what was going on in my life and it's like just stressful because I'm trying to work and I like she wants me to talk to her and I want to go here I got it and like I don't want it and I just like cut it all off too much so so my focus is pulled away from doing impactful work and now because where my heart's at to help other people navigate these shifts in their life like because I'm anchored there, I can give here. It's better for the world. What is a little bit of that process for?

You mentioned the idea of success is just a part of who you are. Getting people to break up with some of those old stories and creating this new identity of a successful person that you're going to find success because it's your destiny. I don't know if it's destiny. It's more of like uh like it's second nature there's things that we do that are just normal like people that look at you guys like how do you do that it's just like that's what we do it was built like it was designed your

programming you know at some point upgraded like you took your operating software and made it current and so for me what i do i have a process called c shift sustain it's actually a framework i walk clients through but the first stage is the one that we all go through is like you have to see the actual problems. Like for me, my C phase of this change was back when I had to see that a lot of the situations in my relationship were my fault. I had to see it with that, like with that pain comes with clarity. It's like, all right, now I see how I got here. Now I see what I got to do. And then now that I've seen it, it's like, okay, cool. I can now work on that. I give myself permission to work on it so a lot of us in this tracing we're like well

I don't know what's wrong just talk to the people who are already yelling at you who are already arguing with you because they're telling you you just don't want to take it in yeah like it's right there swallow your pride take it in because that right see what they're seeing for the first time and then from there once you have clarity like all right I can move past a lot of people

like they don't dream at full speed is what i call it so if you think about like it's major beautiful open you know desert and you get the nice let's say a ferrari hit the gas throttle your heart's beat you can open up and just go but what if you put a speed bump in the middle of that or a wall or crazy left turn right so a lot of people do is they get going the far and they put a speed bump of well i don't know how to do that. Or I don't got any money. Or I've never been there before. Or, yeah, but I don't have enough time. And so you start dreaming, but you start throwing your own walls and speed bumps in.

So for me, the beginning is first, see what you got to work on. Secondly, stop making stupid excuses. I usually tell people to ask somebody else if they were to dream for you, what do they think you're capable of? And they'll tell you something you never thought of. It scares the dog crap out of you. And that's what you probably might try. Like, at least that direction.

But now you're – because they don't have the speed bumps that you have. You're putting your own in. They don't have them. They're just like, oh, try this, this, and this. Like, oh, oh. Right? It's scary a little bit. Yeah.

But you start a journey, and then it starts to unfold. And the more you do work, the more it becomes who you are. I believe what you create creates you yeah what did you i'm totally gonna steal that exercise by the way do it and take it i do that time you can steal it do whatever you want with it bro he's the first person i'm gonna ask so you ponder that over there i will while we talk i'll be distracted for the rest of the interview thinking about my answer uh when you look back at your nfl or collegiate football career do you see a lot of the process that you teach now that you were just kind of naturally doing,

maybe without thinking about it as a system? Yeah. But in order to create success and play football at the highest levels, you have to have these kind of pillars and this foundation, whether you know you're doing it or not. It's got to be there. I call it the Midas touch. Some people just have it. Like it's just like everything they touch turns to go, Richard Branson, 250 businesses.

It's not because he has different tools. It's just he's a different person. Like he's a different identity, right? And so it's his second nature to do certain things. That's my favorite thing in the whole world is being next to people like that. That when they enter the room, you just go, oh, that's the guy. Everyone knows that's the guy. It's so obvious because the way they carry themselves.

It's different. I trained with John Cena for four years. And you can go to all the schooling you want. You can have all the degrees. I'll give them all to you. You don't know what it's like to sit on your squat rack with that guy for four years. You don't understand what he does every day until you're in it. If you don't know what it's like when he walks in the room and how he makes everyone feel,

you don't take your degree. I don't need it. I've watched that. That's insane. When you stand next to people, like C.T. Fletcher is another guy. When people see C.T. Fletcher, they just love him. And it's because he makes them feel amazing. And that Midas touch or whatever it is, it doesn't exist.

That's a skill that they've developed because they've been practicing. It's not that they're not authentic. It's they want to be this higher being that is able to influence and create good amongst everyone that they come in contact with. It's my favorite thing in the whole world to be around those people. Same here, man. A lot of individuals I'm blessed to be around. And I think the people that get envy or people envy them or the haters will call it because

they haven't grasped that that's something you could be. Yeah. But you want to stay stuck where you're at. I actually call what's called an identity gap. You asked that I do those things in the past. And yes, some of them yes, some of them no. But there's always this difference as a person who is who we are now what we do and as a person that we want to be that has what we have and in between those two is this gap and we don't

usually see it but it shows up in places that when you actually dig in like oh it's right there but that gap is what separates you because if you were the person to have what you want you'd already have what you want yeah it'd already have what you want. Yeah. It's really that simple. And so when you talk about those guys, they just closed the gap somewhere of the self-belief that was limiting or the procrastination or the excuses. Like they now find solutions before they find excuses.

And so when I look at my life in the past, the programming was I was a guy that I would find the problem. I could have easily said I suck at football. I'm not going to do this. I'm meant for something else. But I was like, no, no, I want to be the guy that's on the field that has the touchdowns. So what do I got to do? And what I got to do is close the gap. And that usually meant doing things that were not who I was just yet. Right. It was like, I want to be a great football player, but I'm not. But what does that person do? Let me do those things. Right. And when I would do those things, again, what I was creating was creating me. I create a faster, stronger, smarter body, right?

I create a different sense of pride from my actions I'd created. Then when I stood up later on, I made plays, balled out, touchdowns. Hey, right? So now I look great. And then what happens now, like I'm the guy that's confident. I have the belief. I have the strength. I have the little chip on my shoulder.

It didn't happen by accident. I could have easily been the other guy, but I closed the gap. And so for a lot of people, you have to start creating. And as you create, it will in turn, like all that stuff created that guy that I'm going to be. Do you see people, I would say specifically in the NFL, where people are so gifted athletically, but they don't have to do that self-work? Oh, yeah, yeah. Where the story doesn't turn out.

I think that that's a situation in which the story doesn't turn out great most of the time because they haven't put that work in. Yeah. I mean, some guys are able to get 73% of people, guys in the NFL that leave, they go bankrupt within like three years. That's crazy. One of my favorite documentaries of all time is the Broke documentary. Yeah.

It's hysterically terrible. You have millions of dollars. Yeah. And it's gone. Gone. All you had to do was do nothing. Yeah, you could have sat there and left. You were a train wreck.

You knew it was happening. And you couldn't hit the brakes. It's nuts. There was not enough self-work done to just say, stop. No. I'm going to keep the money. Yeah. Well, they want to be somebody else.

They want to be the guy that, it's like now they have a gap of like. Just balling out of control, though. Yeah. So some of it's'm going to keep the money. Yeah. Well, they want to be somebody else. They want to be the guy. It's like now they have a gap of like. Just balling out of control, though. Yeah. So some of it's reversed. They were the guy. And they fell back behind the gap not being the guy. But they wanted to be this guy.

They kept doing weird things with their money. But they weren't this guy. Because they didn't have what that guy had. And so, like, for me, my agent, he's been really cool. He's like, honestly, I didn't make the money a lot of those guys did when I was playing. You don't need all of it. No. I mean, i was honestly just doing okay in the nfl is better than okay in most places minimum i want to say it's like around 400 something thousand league you're

doing great that's a good check every week yeah none wrong with that but you squander it because you try to play catch up with the big boys and man it sucks unfortunately those things go bad because those guys aren't prepared for life after the game because they don't know who they are anymore. Yeah. How do you help people identify, like, the very specific thing that is causing that gap to form? I call it roots and fruits. So, like, if you think about a tree, the trees have roots.

And however strong or deep the roots are, they get nutrients. They create fruits. Shade, you know, fruits you can feed your family. They're fruits of your labor, so to speak. And so what I really do is you go back and say the roots, which are your faith, family, friends, health, and emotions, what depth do they have? I numerically number it one to 10. What's the depth? Once we get those out, we say, okay, great. Maybe you're a five or four or three. We just look at, Hey, what do we got to do to move that one tick? Like what's the, what's the

reason it's not the next level or what is why it's not a 10, right? And you'll be able to explain it. If you're honest, you'll be able to explain it or ask somebody else in that realm the reason it's not the next level? Or why it's not a 10, right? And you'll be able to explain it. If you're honest, you'll be able to explain it. Or ask somebody else in that realm why it's not that thing, and you'll get that answer. Same thing for the fruits, which is going to be your career, your education, your escape, your lift, and your finances. Lift is more your purpose, like why you're here. And if those aren't providing fruit or aren't great, like, why is that? And so now we have those. It's like we now can see there's a problem. Let's now

analyze that specific problem. That gives us a clear picture of what the gap could be. If your finances aren't great, maybe the gap is you don't save or you buy stupid stuff like Jordans and Louis Vuitton belts. Stop doing that. I don't do J's. I'm not a J's guy. I'm a Chucks

and Nike shoe guy. What was the escape? The escape is more like, are you going and living life? Some people are like, my buddy, I love him to death. He doesn't take his vacation very often. And so what happens, we never get recharged. We burn out. And it's just, you keep trying. And the burnout, I think, happens because you're trying to be that guy that's that thing,

like that money, the house, whatever it is. And you just get stressed. And so the escape is like, escape from the normalcy just for a minute to understand why you're doing everything in the first place. Like enjoy the fruits of your labor. One of the biggest skills in life is to objectively view your own actions. It's really, really hard to step outside your body and see the cause and effect of how you live your life. I mean, the people that you're working with, are you more reaching them on a business level? Is that kind of the angle or is this people trying to just live a better life?

It's people who are trying to live a better life. I mean, more so ambitious people. I don't do well with the people. I got to talk to you to get off the couch. You got to be wanting to get off the couch. How do I do something? Yeah. I need someone who's like, dude, I want to get that done.

So it's an ambitious heart. Those are the people I work with. And they're executives. There's moms. There's dads. There's business owners, obviously. Because for me, it's an ambitious heart those are people I work with and their executives there's moms there's dads there's business owners obviously because for me it's like you're human you have an identity and if you are human identity who has an ambitious goal yeah there's a gap somewhere I have gaps of

what I want to do I'm not gonna lie like there's things I want to achieve like but I'm a guy doing the work while teaching the word right so I'm not saying I'm gonna teach you how to be you know the rock like I'm not the rock you know I'm not that level I don't want you how to be the rock. I'm not the rock. I'm not that level. I don't want to be the rock. I don't want to. He's crazy. That lifestyle is nuts.

Anytime he posts a picture at like 3 a.m. of me eating a pizza, and he's like, got home. You have kids. You just got married. How did this happen? That's the thing. So it's like there's levels I want to achieve, and so I realize I've got to find my gaps.

I've got to close them. And so for me, it's expansive. And what's cool about it is once you start doing it, like, it's above the level of, like, just mindset or, you know, just working really hard. Like, there's a level above because it's all comprised. Like, your mindset, a lot of people have great mindsets that are lazy still. Like, I'm going to work real hard. I'm powerful. I'm creative.

I'm strong. But then when, like, push comes to shove, they make really good excuses, man. They're soft. They don't get under the bar. It's just a different world. The weight room was a place that built me internally. Knowing I couldn't do something, building that all out. I went from being like a buck 83 when I went into college as a high school kid, came out

at like 240, a house. Damn. I got a picture I'm going to show you, man. I was a house back in the day. And it was just like I learned how to be able to push through all these different areas, and it created me in time. Look at this picture, bro. Here it is.

Look at – that was me when I was a monster. I was a house back then, dude. You look like you belong in that. I don't – what did you run your 40 in? 449. Trust me, you don't want to get hit by that guy that had a picture running a 449. Yeah, man. That would hurt somebody.

I was big and brutal, but I was an angry dude. Yeah, man. That would hurt somebody. I was big and brutal, but I was an angry dude. Yeah, man. That's the way we live. Yeah, that dude being pissed off and hitting you at full speed must fuck some people up. Yeah, in my shoulders. I hurt myself a couple times, too, unfortunately. Do people find it interesting? I assume that they find you, and they obviously know that you were in the NFL and that you

had a successful career. Do they, in their first interactions with you, is it interesting to them that you don't have it all together? Yeah. Does that catch them by surprise? Yes and no. I think everybody realizes that, you know, nobody's perfect. But if you think about a football player, it's like this person on a pedestal. You'd be surprised the guys I played with, they used to run around the locker room playing soccer butt naked with this just junk jangling around.

Like we're real humans. I'll tell you a really funny story about that. You got one? It's hysterical. One of my buddies, I say he's a coach at, or he was a coach at UCLA. He was basically like he slept in the gym locker room. And it was his first coaching gig out of college. And he invited us down.

So we go to the Rose Bowl. We're hanging out. We got to go on the field afterwards. He was like, yeah, just swing by the locker room. We were with, it was me, my buddy, and his girlfriend and another girl. And we're like, all right, well, we'll just meet you in the locker room.

So we go back into the locker room and me and my male friend take a left into the UCLA locker room and there is just wang everywhere. It's like by the time all the reporters, girls, guys, it doesn't matter. These dudes are in their own world. Junk is

out. Shit's flopping all over the place. They're having a great time. It's basically a playground where you just don't have to wear clothes. And we just walked in and was like, turn around, guys. You do not want to take three more steps into this locker room. Yeah, it's how it is in baseball, man. That's the reality of the game, realistically.

Just big kids hanging out. So they do. I mean, so nobody's perfect. I mean, for me, 100%. I don't think they're surprised that I don't got it all together. I think they're surprised at times that I will admit that I don't have it all together. Yeah. Because a lot of guys don't. We all have stuff. We got garbage. But you can't work on it if you don't got it all together. I think they're surprised at times that I will admit that I don't have it all together. Yeah. Because a lot of guys don't.

We all have stuff. We got garbage. But you can't work on it if you don't own it. Yeah. Is there a piece to coming from the NFL or being kind of like this big macho athlete of really letting go a lot of the ego? Is that a very challenging – or was that a very challenging thing for you? Of course. I think that's what led me to like the path of crazy is because I just didn't talk about it.

Yeah. I'm this former NFL guy. I got this gym. I'm the's what led me to the path of crazy is because I just didn't talk about it. I'm this former NFL guy. I got this gym. I'm the dude from my own town. I'm the guy. You don't want anybody to take that luster. You want that shine. And so the ego is the one thing.

I call it everyone's greatest obstacle, EGO. But for me, yeah, it definitely got in the way. That's good. I like that. Yeah, it was one of those things. But when I was able to push it aside long enough to actually see what I needed to work on, then my life got better. Yeah. Because before that, I was just, now I've got this wall up. If you think about, imagine a peg in the middle of the desert, and there's this weird orb floating around it, right?

Protecting that orb or protecting that post. That post is who you are as your identity. It's literally who you are. And the orb's your ego, and it shows up in protection. Good and bad, actually. It can be bad if it's like, I don't need help. I'm good. I'm protecting this little, small, weak, timid individual. It'll show up and make

excuses and just push people off and not let people in. On top of that, it could also be somewhere where it's like, I'm a great football player. Therefore, I'm going to protect this with my actions of going to get my weights done. I'm going to eat my food. I'm going to show up for playbooks and learn my plays and I'm going to get my weights done I'm gonna you know eat my food I'm gonna show up for playbooks and learn my plays and I'm gonna do my film I'm gonna do that stuff with the actions same for a great dad a great podcaster right you guys do things

other people wouldn't do but it naturally happens and so when you can get to that kind of being your autopilot which means first taking the ego out kind of reprogramming the stinking thing and then putting it back in and figure out what identity you want to create to protect, that's where people get to that, like, I call it success becoming your second nature. It's normal. Like, it's almost the same kind of, like, ease and flow people have in life now, but the output is way higher.

So you do one-on-one coaching with clients. You've mentioned that. Is that just with you, or do you have other coaches, or do you have other resources for people? Like what all is available? Yeah. So I do some one-on-one. I don't do much. I only take on four clients at a time. The majority of my work is actually group programs. And we do like live events and workshops and retreats kind of stuff. But yeah, so when you work with me, like it's my curriculum. I have people I have certified that are kind of going through the process, but I

don't put them in the realm of my work yet. So I have a good structure of how I'm live, where I coach the groups, but they're also following my curriculum in the background. So what specifically are you teaching people? It's all based on identity, but how do you phrase it? How do you pitch that to people? A little tell them I'm going to teach you how to make success your second nature, like how to close your identity gap, and I call it how to make shift happen.

That's literally it. Like the goal for a lot of people is – You've got some great terms. I've spent some time doing this, man. I walk into the whole C shift sustain. We have what's called the shift starter, which is the whole C phase. And in that, it's all unpacking all this craziness. Like you said, where's my gap?

Where's my issues? Like how do I fix those? And then once you get to the ownership and you see, then we dream and create a big vision. The next one's incubator which is all about like the actual work to shift and the incubator like it helps develop so it's more of a group environment accountability um so it's really helping like people leave that four month period of like it's who i am now like i own this is who i am and then we go to accelerator which is more of a mastermind helping you take this individual and accelerate results based on what you individually

want to do so that's that's how we do the work, man. Where is your biggest gap now? Where are you working to close it? So my biggest gap is trying to get to what's called the TV land. Like I keep getting weird calls for TV, and they want me to make a unique show concept, but I haven't leaned into doing it. And so the gap is me telling myself, like, it's not time.

Oh, I have a lot I can pitch to you right now. Yeah, I'm sure you can. Hopefully you're not naked and wings hanging out. I'll be good. That could be a byproduct. You want ratings or what? That's great. And then I think one of the other things gap-wise for me personally,

I have a gap and I'm trying to become like one of my kids. My youngest son has ADHD. I love the kid to death, but my gap is like being able to not emotionally fire off when he does stuff and i do it because i know what's going to happen because i was that kid if he doesn't figure it out you know calls home from school so my gap is like how do i because when your emotion is high your intelligence is low so my emotion gets high with this guy so quick he just eats up i call my patience points he eats them up at like six in the morning they're gone sometimes so it's like dude and i'll spend the most of the day like trying to figure it out so my gap is just

a dad and a human is like i try to figure out how do i in these moments navigate that better i i i sometimes feel like and one time he like recently said like you're always raging on me like like he like he said that we do this thing every night called good day bad it was a good part of your day bad part of your day this day he'd been on fire and when someone said what's dad's part he says i'm dad's worst part of the day i was like damn bro like that is not okay that's on me like that's on me i'm the adult here and so these are things i'm trying to navigate those my wife would have real conversations and i'm not saying i'm perfect in any way but i'm working on i'm sitting admitting it therefore i have permission'm working on it. I'm sitting here admitting it. Therefore, I have permission to work on it. Yeah. Where can people find out about this course?

If you go to, actually, I have a quiz. It's called slowergo.co. That's the website you go to. But it actually gives you a quiz you can take with a report that'll tell you whether you're a slow identity or a go identity. Slow is pretty much like you're a person that when opposition hits you, like, oh, I gotta slow down. I gotta figure things out. And you just don't go.

A go person is at multiple levels to a go identity. Like, I'm a go identity, but The Rock's a different level go identity, right? So it's a matter of figuring out who you are. But they can find that, slowergo.co, or just follow me at Anthony Trucks on Instagram. What's the gap you're closing? Man. Oh, I just dinged him right there. Doug Larson on the interview right now man you want you know some real shit i'll give you real shit right now always i want the real

thing always um i just said this somebody for the i don't think i'd told anyone this beside my wife until earlier today when i was talking to aj richards at breakfast because he was talking about what he does he does like helping people with uh mental toughness and things like that and uh he was talking about um getting having like early life trauma and it and he works with a lot of people that have had real trauma you know like you have like a really intense childhood compared to my childhood you know i mean like some people have just they get a different set of cards and uh so he works a lot of people that you know they may have been you know beaten or molested and they have trauma and that that's manifesting as they they overeat to try to comfort themselves and then they end up obese and it's not really like a food knowledge

problem it's a psychology issue and uh and he was saying well it doesn't have to be like getting beaten or molested when you were young that causes these that causes you to go down a certain path later in life it can be something very mild that might have might affect you but wouldn't have affected somebody else and i said yeah like i remember one time when i was a i was a sophomore in high school and a girl a female friend of mine who who ended up being a friend of mine all throughout high school, um, asked me a very basic question. She said something like, well, if I, if I score something on this test, like, I think my grade can only go up. And I was like, well, I mean, it could go up

or go down. It depends on what you scored. I just gave her like a very basic, like accurate answer. And she said, she looked at me and she goes, you're no fun. I was like, oh. That shit fucked me up for like 20 years. For me thinking that I'm not a fun person. The whole expression of girls just want to have fun and I'm not fun really ate me up for a long time.

My gap that I'm closing is believing that I'm a fun person. So that's your answer. I like that. I'm closing is believing that I'm a fun person. Yeah. So that's your answer. There you go. I like that. Put the heart on the table right there. I'm going to do it too.

You can find him at Douglas E. Larson. I'll answer that one for him. All of the four things that I really focus on in my life right now, dad and business and training, I feel very, very happy about. But with all of the success of that and being on the road as much as we are, I feel like I have a big gap in the husband that I would like to be. I feel like the more success you have in some areas,

it pulls you away from other things and the reconnection and making sure, I mean, we're on the road a lot. So it'd be weekend three in a row and then we go to Sweden for 10 days. Luckily, they're allowed to come and be a part of that. But we spend a lot of time away from the people. It's hard to always be connected and be the person that you want to be

slash should be. And, yeah, I'm in the middle of ensuring that those connections stay where they need to be and being a part of that. The ownership piece of that. Because when everything is going right in all of the other things, it's easy to be like, what's wrong with you? Why isn't everything going right right now with you? And I am the reason that it's not actually. And being able to like be home, be present as husband, even though dad and business and training and all those other pieces are pretty fantastic.

There's always one that you've got to pick up. I know the feeling, man. I'm Anders Varner, at Anders Varner. We're the Strut Collective at Strut Collective. Squat, clean, jerk. Squat, clean, jerk. Snatch, clean, jerk. Squat, dead bench.

OneTonChallenge.com. Come hang out with us. We'll see you guys next Wednesday. That's a wrap friends been a beautiful 2019 again the one ton challenge eight week snatch cycle brand new snatch cycle can be found over at shrug collective.com forward slash otc snatch shrug collective.com forward slash OTC snatch and barbell shredded over 50% off with a bonus product, Aerobic Monster. Shrugcollective.com forward slash shredded. That's Shrugcollective.com forward slash shredded. And I want to thank our friends over at Momentous.

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