Barbell Shrugged - How Weightlifting Can Change Your Life w/ Danny Soul

Episode Date: July 1, 2015

Part 3 of 5.

This week on Barbell Shrugged, we interview Danny Soule, a man who was once addicted to heroin and used weightlifting to help get him out of rock bottom, became an athlete, a coach, gym owner, and now puts on some of the biggest meets in Southern Florida. Hey, this is Rich Froning, you're listening to Barbell Shrugged. For the video version, go to barbellshrugged.com. It's a weird sitting. You guys are always thin, right? Do I look fat? I like this. I do.

You look pudgy, Mike. You look fat. Look at your belly. Welcome to Barbell Shrugged. I'm Mike Bledsoe. Sitting here, because these couches are lovely, with Doug Larson, Chris Moore. We have CTP behind the camera and Charlotte as well.

And we're sitting here with Danny Soule. We have traveled down to, where are we at? South Florida. We're in Fort Lauderdale. We keep saying Miami, but that's not where we're at. Mojitos, pressed ham sandwiches, this place is kicking it. I love it. MIA Classic is what we came for. Weightlifting

meat. Danny picked a stellar venue. What is this place, Danny? It's been done like this before. This is not a high school gymnasium. No, not at all. The name of this place is Revolution Live. They also own a coffee shop called Stash and that's where we're in now. Next door

is a two-story concert venue that houses hip-hop acts, DJs, lots of punk hardcore. It's not just an arena or anything like that. It's got character. It's a place where gigs are going down. Pitbull's playing here tonight. We're performing here tonight. I've been waiting my whole life.

Pitbull, we support what you're doing. We brought Danny on the show because not only is he a weightlifting coach and he puts on weightlifting meets, but you had a previous life where you weren't really into fitness. You weren't into lifting weights. You would hit what some people might call rock bottom. And I think a lot of people, they've either hit their own rock bottom at some point, and they've discovered something that helped pull them out of the ash.

And I think that a lot of people are going to be able to maybe not directly kind of feel what you're saying, but kind of like pull some stuff out of it. So we're going to dig into Danny's story about kind of hitting rock bottom and how he rebounded from that, and then talk about how that might apply to you. And not just rebound, but you've created something in this area, a culture around your gym, a culture around these events that I think is really special and extraordinary.

It goes much deeper than just we're going to lift weights and be fit. I think that's the essence of what your story is all about, man. Yes, let's dig in. Cool, appreciate it. How did it all start? I mean, you were just telling me at the bar at the age of 14. You were already getting into some rough stuff. Yeah, by the age of 14, I was getting into plenty of trouble, for sure.

So at the age of 12, I was taken out of a private school and put into public school for the first time. Leading up to that point, I was born and raised in Miami, Florida. I come from a great family. Family's heavily involved in my life still to this day. And at that point, we were just like sheltered young kids. We never had conversations about sex drugs alcohol never ever um we ran into some issues so we were taken out of private school and put in public school both my brother and i and within fat cloak off yeah fat cloak off fame my brother um

we were pulled out of the school and put in a public school for the first time. And I was seeing fucking people smoking cigarettes out front of school, people sneaking vodka inside of water bottles and just living a life that I had never seen. At this point, I was like super overprotected, right? Yeah. You're barely 13 or whatever. I was 12, 12. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I had just turned 12. And to make a very long story short, within a few months, I was arrested for possession of marijuana. 12 years old, and I had never even attempted to smoke marijuana. You were just carrying it around for fun?

I bought it from a kid in the bathroom in middle school. Did you not know what to do with it? It smells like cat piss. What do we do with this? Never. It was probably oregano, to be honest with you. I was arrested, and I did like a 10-day suspension, right? And I come back to school, and I'm in seventh grade, and I go from being this like overweight, awkward, nerdy fucking kid that didn't know anyone in school to all of a sudden being the coolest kid in the school that everyone wanted to know.

Lesson learned, kids. Get arrested. Buy pot and get arrested. My social clout went up tenfold just by getting in trouble with the cops. It was great. So when I bought this bag from this kid, I go off to school the rest of the day. And mind you, I had never smoked. I'd never smoked marijuana, cigarettes, never drank alcohol, nothing, ever.

And I showed this bag off to every kid that would come within two feet of me. And that's how I ended up getting arrested. That's how you got caught. Yeah. It's a big mystery. If you're going to break the law, kids, just be discreet. So just one thing kind of turned into the other. I got attention from people that i had

never gotten from my peers for whatever reason um and i fit that mold very quickly whether or not like i was supposed to be that guy uh there were people who for the first time like wanted my phone number and were asking me to go to parties and get them pot and cigarettes and fucking cigars and black and milds, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. So all of a sudden there's an incentive to get looser and looser and take your eye off whatever ball you might've had it on a time. But it's not like you start off going, I think I'm going to make some bad decisions and see where it takes me.

It seems like it's just fine at the time. Yeah, absolutely. It honestly felt like it was just harmless play, you know? Never in a million years would I have ever thought that my life would have ended up where it did. And things just started to progress very quickly, and I assumed that role, like I said, you know? After that, like, I got kicked out of every school that I went to, and I was sent to treatment centers and rehab centers. So how did this gap get filled between, ah, I showed off some pot, and then you really started making decisions that were really pulling you way farther off than what you anticipated?

Yeah, well, like I was saying, I felt like I was getting attention from my peers for the first time ever. Like, I've done some self-discovery and self-searching, and I can point back at certain situations in my life. I was very overweight as a young kid and so was the rest of my family. I loved sports when I was a kid, but I could never play them

because I was so fucking overweight. Loved music, but was never talented enough to get into like magnet schools and to be placed playing music in school. I was smart, but at a very young age was like diagnosed with like ADHD and smart kid, very outgoing, but at a very young age was diagnosed with ADHD. And smart kid, very outgoing, but didn't test well.

So I always felt like I never quite fit a certain mold or what that status quo mold was supposed to be. I think a lot of people feel like that. It's a shame. Yeah. Oh, yeah. I think a lot of people get confused about where they fit in the world. Definitely for about the first 30 years of my life. I feel specifically like a lot of CEOs and people that run companies, entrepreneurs,

they fit that mold very, very well because they're usually big picture people and they're not detail-oriented people. And so they do test poorly because there's a bunch of stupid details they don't give a shit about. But big picture-wise, you almost never get tested about big picture stuff in school. No, never. No one's there to set things in context saying, well, just in case you might struggle here, young Danny soul, but you could have these qualities that make you bloom later on. No one's there to reassure you and say, hey, look, there's another path.

Never. The schools that I was in, the counselors or the fucking priests that were shoved down my throat, whatever the case may have been, I always felt like I just didn't belong. Like I didn't fit a certain mold. And the skills that I had didn't work for me either. You know what I mean? What about your own skin, too? Because you said you had, you're not a fat guy now. Right. But you said you started this journey being at a place maybe your sense of identity maybe wasn't there. Yeah.

Yeah, 100%. I'm totally with that. 100%. So when you say you went to a bunch of treatment rehab stuff, what were you in there for? So it started out with just innocent fun and pot. When you start getting arrested, your parents don't think it's as innocent

as it was no matter what they were like and being, you know, I think I can listen to your stats about alcohol compared to marijuana, how you really haven't done anything wrong, mom. I was just making some decisions. When the cops are starting to show up at your house and you're 13 years old for fights and graffiti and stealing and having fun, your parents really start to see this being a lot more of a problem.

They're starting to open up their checkbook and having a you know fork over money to schools and lawyers etc etc etc um and that identity that like very punk rock identity just consumed me um by the time i what you know i dropped out of high school my uh second year of 10th grade uh dropped out of high school got my GD started working starting was involved in a lot of illegal activity left my parents house right when I had turned 18 I had my first apartment had a car was involved in a lot more serious illegal activity marijuana turned into pills which turned into more pills which turned into cocaine which inevitably turned into heroin and those two are are no good yeah i mean it's can be good to dabble sometimes in some things but cocaine heroin those are not

things like you just play with they have a a reputation for a reason. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I always say that like there's certain substances and there's certain activities that you can involve yourself in where you like, we were talking about it earlier, Doug, where you like cash in your chips, like you've had your fun. You're not allowed to play anymore, you know? And that's where I found myself so uh I end up 21 years old homeless with nothing I got to a point where my family wanted nothing to do with me had restraining orders against me I had wow I had been serious business yeah had bench warrants in Miami-Dade County and Broward County um in it like I said in and out of detoxes and rehabs and getting arrested on a regular basis

couch surfing for a while trying to keep it together until even like my junkie friends wanted nothing to do with me wow yeah that's when you know

you've arrived right well you are irresponsible Danny we have our shit not together but you you really don't have it together

one of the last conversations i actually had with my old man uh he's just like i don't give a shit if it's christmas holiday birthday you're not welcome here you come here we're calling the cops well um and i would and i would go by and the police were called on a regular basis and he told me we paid for another treatment center for you, it's a place called South Miami Hospital you know where to go when you want help

outside of that you're not coming back to this home you're not a member of this family, click and I was just like, fuck it, I'm going to keep doing what I'm doing one morning I just came to and I was using substances that you have to physically continue using, or if not, you get sick. Wow.

Nasty withdrawals. Yeah, terrible withdrawals, Xanax, crack, heroin. And I went to this hospital, not because I wanted to get clean, not because I saw a burning bush, not because I saw a white light, just because I was fucking sick. Just like brutally sick. You ran out of shit. Ran out of dope, had no money. Nowhere else to turn to.

No, nothing. It's called the Metro Rail in South Miami behind a mall called Dayland, living on a bed outside with a bunch of bums behind a strip club, breaking into people's cars, pawning radios, going to towns that I have no business being in, taking the Metro Rail back and forth, back and forth, back and forth, just doing this on a regular basis. And I'm not, like, glamorizing it. I was not out there for long. It doesn't sound glamorous to me at all.

I mean, except for the strip club part. I never thought about being homeless, but that's what I'm into. Living behind a strip club sound is glamorous, but outside of that strip club part is fucking cool. No, but like I'm a private school kid,

dude. I'm a fucking suburban kid. I don't belong there. I'm not meant to be out there on the street. I was not out there for long. When you're out there, man, it's whatever time of the morning it is, you gain consciousness.

I guess you're not waking up out there to rest one night's sleep. What is the first thing as the priority, as the main thing that would strike you in that situation? What do I got to fucking do today? Money. Dope. Money and dope.

That's it. Nothing else matters. Nothing elseope. Money and dope. That's it. Nothing else matters. Nothing else matters. Money and dope. Nonstop. On repeat. So you run out of stuff. You go to the hospital.

Because you're sick. Yeah. Just because I'm sick. That's what happens there. So I go to this hospital. This is the second time I'm there. They know who I am. They're familiar with me.

You got a record. Yeah. I go there and I check in and they give me stuff so I can sleep and to help with my withdrawal symptoms. And I remember like the head therapist, he like calls my old man and my old man's like, what the fuck ever? Click. Wow. And therapist is just like, I don't know, man. I don't know what to tell you.

You need to be here for yourself. You know, uh, they don't want anything to do with you. Your ex girlfriend doesn't want anything to do with you. You've burned every bridge. Like you're going to do this now for yourself or nobody else. Cause that's the only thing that's left. Right. And I decided to stay because I didn't want to be sick at no point did I tell myself like, all right, I want to get clean. All right. I want to get sober. I want to live a different lifestyle. No point did that thought even occur to me. Um, they started to bring like young dudes into that treatment center and into that detox that look like me, that talk like me, that went to the same like shows that I went to that I recognize from just my past life who had gotten clean. And I was like, dude, how the fuck did you do this? And they would tell me their story. At first, I was so emotionally bankrupt that the only thing I could attach myself to

was the fact that they had stuff. They had a car. They had a girl. They had a house. That's why they could do it had a car they had a girl they had a house that's why they could do it yeah they had a job well not that that's why they could do it but that is what gave me hope oh you saw that they they had it back yeah yeah they had things i have nothing do what they're doing and i will then have things as well. Right. So then like, very reasonable. Yeah. He's considered. I mean, at that point, yeah. Like you,

not that like I'm bashing any like way of life or anyone who has their own story, but I, I, you know, I go to these functions and I speak at schools and I talk to kids about my story on a regular basis. Cause I have this weird story where like,

Oh, this kid's never experimented with drugs. He gets arrested, never having touched them. And like like it's this epic story and i hear all these other accounts of like that burning bush syndrome where i woke up one morning and i realized i had no desire to use drugs and alcohol oh that's what i was doing i can't relate to that like i was so dead that i couldn't tap into anything spiritual or emotional. Like you had a girlfriend and that was cool.

Like you had your shit together and that was cool. I want that. So I'm going to do what you tell me to do until I don't want to do it anymore. And I still very much applied like punk rock principles to some kind of recovery. You know, 30 days rolls into 60 days. I start to feel a little bit better. At that point, I was 140 pounds when I got sober. My biggest, I was about 330.

You were having my territory a little bit. So you were 330. Yeah. And when I walked into treatment, I weighed 140, 145, something like that. And you walked out of treatment, you were. I walked out of treatment. I was probably back at like 215. All you do in treatment is go to meetings and eat pizza and shit and smoke cigarettes.

So how long were you in treatment? For about a year. Oh, so you were in treatment for a year. And this is like you stayed there. Yeah. It's like inpatient treatment where you live there and you have like your own cottage house kind of deal and they take you to meetings and they take you to therapy sessions and there is fitness that's like the first time like i was introduced to some kind of fitness there's a very funny story with that that we'll get into in a second but um after about nine months of being in this treatment center you go to like a halfway house or a

three-quarter way house where like you're living in the world, just like with, it's like structured living. You have some rules. You don't have to abide by these rules. If you want to live there, you have a curfew, get drug tested, et cetera, et cetera. Wow. Yeah.

So it's just a year of doing that. And just little by slowly, my life started to come together. And that's why I continued to stay clean is because. Sounds like a big progressive thing. Yeah. Not like a, oh, one day my life changed. It was like hard work. It's like hard work.

Yeah. Takes time. Yeah. Like it's not going to be, it's not easy. I mean, dude, up to that point, I was honestly spoiled. I was having this conversation on the car the way here. I was a spoiled brat. I was spoon fed everything. Anything car the way here. I was a spoiled brat. I was spoon-fed everything.

Anything I wanted was there like this. So I really didn't have the essence of hard work. I didn't understand what that was all about until everything was gone, and I reached a complete rock bottom. And the only way up and out was to work myself out of it. As things progressed, there were figures and sponsors and my wife and my family that came back in my life, my brother, my best friend who I employ now, who definitely like facilitated better recovery and helped me grow. But what brought me out of

the hole was myself. Did you see anybody in there that were obviously waiting for gifts that weren't, they didn't realize that it was going to be one step at a time, them lifting themselves out. How many people succumbed or they think it's going to all of a sudden come in a wave of relief, like, I'll find my way out. There'll be some trap door. I'll find a way out of this bottom. Somebody will come save me from it. Maybe that moment doesn't really come. Yeah. I mean, that's super common in those circles, especially like sometimes I feel the worst for people who haven't reached an insane bottom like I did.

Because sometimes you equate some of the activities that you participate in as really not being that bad. Drugs and substances like alcohol that people have problems with that are commonly accepted. I mean, we're in a bar right now. Yeah. It's a little strange that it's commonly accepted.

No, I mean, it is strange that I find this really, because I don't drink very much anymore. And there was a time where I drank a lot more. Right. And it was extremely common. It was like, oh, you get drunk on Friday and Saturday night. Yeah. It was like, that's normal behavior. It was almost weird not to.

It shouldn't be normal behavior. Right. Yeah. I mean, so I have pretty intense opinions on all that stuff as a result of what happened in my life. And I have those opinions for me. You know that I believe in that stuff because it works for me. I don't think that everyone else needs to adhere to those principles, but I don't drink. I don't smoke. I don't use any substances at all. And for me personally, I believe it's poison. And what keeps me clean now is the fact that, like, my life fucking kicks ass. My life is amazing. I have a three-year-old. I've played in bands that have toured the United States. Your wife is awesome.

My wife fucking kicks ass. I employ my best friends. I own a fucking amazing gym. I teach seminars for Coach B. I work for another company, Progenix, that has afforded me amazing experiences and has taught me a lot. You've traveled Latin America teaching weightlifting, right?

Yeah, I work for Coach Bergner's seminar staff, the Latin American staff, teaching seminars in Latin America, teaching people how to snatch a clean and jerk. So, like, what keeps me sober, what keeps me clean is because I don't need to change the scenario. Like, this is a formula that is proven. This is something that works. Why do I need to change it? And that, in a sense, is what keeps me clean. Yeah. You know, that's number one.

Nice. Well, let's take a break. When we come back, we can talk more about how weightlifting and fitness has played like a really big role in your purpose. Cool. This is Tim Ferriss, and you are listening to Barbell Shrugged. For the video version, go to barbellshrugged.com. Barbell Shrugged is brought to you by you.

To learn more about how you can support the show Go to barbellshrugged.com And sign up for the newsletter And we're back Sitting here with Mr. Danny Soul And What were we supposed to talk about? Oh yeah

So long ago We wanted to hear your story About your journey in uh fitness your first introduction the uh the the rehab center right and you said that was a funny story yeah so man this story's nuts so what happens when you go to these places you're given a schedule of like the agenda for the day and it has like morning meditation and checking a breakfast at this time and your bed has to be made by that time and roll call groups meetings etc etc etc in the middle of the schedule a couple times a week was jazzercise and um for a few weeks

which you were probably pumped to do i was so excited to jazzercise. And a few weeks would go by and I'm like, I'm not fucking going to jazzercise. And the therapists are telling everyone it's optional. You don't have to go. All my roommates, the whole crew, like all the cottages, they're all doing this stupid jazzercise thing. And they're asking me to go. They're like, it's not jazzercise. Dude, it says on the schedule it's fucking jazzercise. And I'm not into this.

I'm here because I shoot dope. I'm not here because I'm trying to jazzercise. Um, and, uh, you know, they tell me it's like this boot campy thing where they play basketball and volleyball, whatever. So they, I ended up going one morning, um, small Asian guys teaching the class and they're doing like speed and agility drills and shooting free throws. And they'll do like squats and pushups, sprint to the other side of the court, shoot free throws, sprint back, do layups, et cetera, et cetera. And I end up like being into it. And, uh, we take what we learn and we bring it back to the treatment center and we start doing some of those exercises there in the actual treatment center when that Asian guy is not there. So you want to go in the first place. Now you're like doing it on your own

really to just kill time. It seemed like we would spend a lot of time there, especially on like rainy days. We would just end up doing like these weird bootcamp sessions inside of the treatment centers. Everyone would like put their cigarette out and do. You guys want to do some jumping jacks or what? You said you went into treatment specifically because you felt so sick all the time. Was that helping you feel better day to day? Yeah. Just doing some exercise?

Like a lot of things, it helped give us some kind of focus and purpose, if anything. Again, like I said before, I think at the time i was so like bankrupt like i keep referring to like emotionally bankrupt yeah i i just i couldn't tap into a lot of emotion it was just something to fucking do yeah so um you know treatment finishes i go into a halfway house i go into a three-quarter way house and uh i get a membership at a bally's total fitness and i get muscle and fitness a Bally's Total Fitness and I get muscle and fitness magazines and I'm copying what they're doing in there. And I end up working at a rehab center. At that rehab center, one of my very close friends who also played punk rock,

who was also in recovery, that I had a strong bond with that I knew from the days when I used to get high. He worked there. He worked in the office, and he showed me CrossFit.com. And in that website, that's how I was introduced to fitness. I think it was like in 2007, something like that. I would pick and choose the workouts. I'd be like kipping pull-ups. Nope.

Muscle-ups. Sorry, no. handstand push-ups, definitely fucking not bench press, Linda that's cool this CrossFit shit's cool cherry picker, yeah, total cherry picker you were well over 200 pounds at this point still is that right? No, when I went into treatment, I was weighing about

140, 145 I can imagine you like that now. So as a kid What are you weighing right now for the record? Right now I weigh 200 pounds. Okay. So healthy 200. Yeah, Karen it will. Yeah. When I was a kid, I was very overweight.

I got down to about 140, 145 when I was shooting dope, smoking crack, living very unhealthy and that's how I walked into treatment. I checked out a treatment about 215, 220, something like that. People don't lose weight in treatment. No, all you do is eat pizza,

smoke cigarettes, take away the heroin, put some danishes in front of you. Let's just eat this for a while. You're definitely not going to think about this for the next hour. Just eat this sugar. It was fucking Hot Pockets, dude. That was the thing in treatment. Man, I could really go for a Hot you're definitely not gonna think about this for the next hour eat this sugar it was fucking hot pockets dude that was the thing so man i could really go for a hot pocket right now place contents directly into it that's a shorter definitely better than dope yeah so um this guy ends up partnering up and opening up a

crossfit gym crossfit 305 one of the first CrossFit affiliates in Miami. And I start going there with some of my buddies on the weekends and I take my wife there and we just start hanging out and CrossFitting with these guys. And more gyms start opening up. I end up interning at a gym and about a year later, I running another gym the first gym that opened up in my neighborhood in south miami and uh things didn't really go as planned there we weren't really pumped on the situation so we said fuck it open our own gym yeah so soul opened in 2010 and at the time um there was not any weightlifting in miami-dade county there wasn't any weight lifting really south of orlando there was danny camargo in or-Dade County. There wasn't any weightlifting really south of Orlando.

There was Danny Camargo in Orlando and some other guys in Orlando north of that. Nothing else south of that. So if you wanted to go to meets and wanted to compete. People forget, dude. It ain't been a long time since it was an option to train places. Yeah. I mean, dude, just as recent as 2007, 8, 9, 10, there was nowhere to snatch a clean and jerk in Miami at all.

There was one gentleman named Art who was the, I don't know, affiliate holder for a USA Weightlifting Club called Team Miami Dade. And he would train. He wouldn't even train anyone. He would let kids come snatch a clean and jerk in his garage a few times a week, very unscheduled when he was there or not. It's kind of sketchy. And he, like, de-affiliated or stopped

doing stuff with usa weightlifting and um these weightlifters needed a place to train so um seeing that we chose to invite them into our gym and started to learn about the sport of weightlifting via them that's kind of how that whole journey started. We don't really have a story of being raised by strength coaches and performing snatch, clean, and jerk in a high school gymnasium and having that background in strength and conditioning. I learned about snatch, clean, and jerk through CrossFit in large part. Yeah, so what ends up happening is we start to snatch a clean and jerk,

and we have like a weekly weightlifting class is how it started. And at this point, are you just like, you're just hooked on weightlifting, like this is going to be your thing, or are you kind of just playing with it? Well, yeah, definitely just playing with it at the time. You're doing some CrossFit, some weightlifting. Yeah, some CrossFit, some weightlifting. We opened up in 2010, and what we really did best was we started looking at the rest of our field, and there was no weightlifting in Miami.

We looked at some of the idol programs and gyms out west in California, and a recurring theme was they had barbell clubs, and they knew how to snatch a clean and jerk, and they were taking athletes to meets and and that has always been like the most attractive part of crossfit for me was the barbell in whatever form it was was all about a barbell that's like what really pulled me in like i said like i would see videos of like these athletes doing like 100 kipping pull-ups i'm like yeah it's cool but i'm really fucking pumped on watching like rob orlando videos that's what i would have doubt about at the time you know and especially what was it about the snatch a clean jerk that was just a sheer challenge that you quickly discovered in those lifts the the coolest thing that i would see is you would have these like real strong you

know collegiate football players or whatever the case may be walk into the gym who can squat a house and you teach them how to snatch and they can't do it right so it was more technical it's it's a barbell sport but it's more about being technical than it is being strong just because you're strong does not mean you're going to be able to snatch a clean and jerk right so there's a lot more to attach yourself to for me than other strength sports with a barbell. There's something just so much more interesting about it that you can have a guy that can squat a house, but he's not going to be able to snatch a barbell.

There's so much more technique. There's so much more science, and there's a finesse involved with the sport, especially with the snatch. So you discovered weightlifting what 2010 or 2007 you said you started crossing yeah i started doing cross in 2007 so i would say in about from 2009 to 2010 is when weightlifting became like a really big part of my life via mostly the internet and reading and just being self-taught at first at first but now it's 2015 five years later like how did you get to be the expert

you are now yeah so what ends up happening in about 2009 2010 um we had this like irregular weightlifting class in my gym and we had this like small group of weightlifters and in comes a gentleman his name is camilo garcia comes into my gym with like this, he had this box and portfolio of these like rusty, dusty, gross looking newspaper clippings from Cuba of him holding medals and him having all these records in the clean and press and in the bench press. Old school, baby. Old school, yeah.

And how he trained all these different, he trained a decathlete and a thrower and all these dudes and all these newspaper clippings. And he still had some medals from Cuba. I'm Cuban. So instantly. It's resonating with you on a whole other level. Yeah, there's like something right away. Like my old man had a bond with him right away.

And there's another older gentleman in the gym that knew people that he knew from Cuba. And he was his weightlifting coach. And he coached Pan American team. And he coached on a really high level national champion. Still record holders from Cuba. And he was his weightlifting coach, and he coached Pan American team, and he coached on a really high level, national champion, still record holders in Cuba. And he said, I want to work here. Yeah. And I was like, well, fuck, I shouldn't be coaching this.

You should be coaching this. So almost instantly, this gentleman is starting to coach at Seoul. Yeah. Weightlifters were coming in, paying nothing, and we're paying him to come in and coach. It's like a recipe for disaster for business. But they were like, it was something that no one had in South Florida, literally nobody. It was not happening there. So you got, you got coached by

one of the best. Yeah. And then you also ended up coaching on a CrossFit staff. Yeah. So what ends up happening, I'm just learning more and more and more about the sport of weightlifting. I'm doing my own work and my own research and reaching out to subject matter experts in the area like Greg Everett, like Coach B. I end up going to take a Coach B course. And meeting Coach B, I asked Coach B to come to Seoul to teach one of his seminars. He comes down, I intern, and he finds out I'm Hispanic. And he tells me, hey, I have the first CrossFit weightlifting seminar going on in Colombia in a few months. How would you think about going to teach it with this gentleman? His name is JP Bolwan.

He's going to lead the course, and I would love for you to assist. And I was like, it's mind blowing. I'm a junkie, dude. Yeah. Five years ago, I had a needle hanging out of my arm

and now you're asking me to go and teach a weightlifting fucking what? Right. Are you sure you're not talking to this guy? Yeah. Yeah. You know, and he's like,

yeah, yes, it's cool. Go with this guy. And I went down there and taught my first weightlifting course with him. Since then, I think I've done 12, gone to Portugal, Brazil, Chile, Columbia, uh, Costa Rica twice, Puerto Rico, um, been all over teaching the courses now doing them by myself. Nice. So during this whole process,

like what, what was there any drive to like regress back to where you came from? Like to regress back to doing drugs and getting back into your old lifestyle or was it just a clean break and now you found weightlifting and you're, you're passionate about learning about all this, this whole new world and there's just no drive to go back or was it a fight or what's the story there? Was it just a clean break? Yeah. I would say for the first like year or so of me

getting clean, there was definitely moments of there being a fight and there being some kind of a struggle. But like I said previously, uh, my life kicks ass and there's no reason for me to use drugs and alcohol. So so there was after it got to a point my life improved so much i mean literally going from having nothing to being homeless to now coaching a weightlifting club being self-taught um there's no reason for me to ever look back well dan you have those moments though i mean on a high level you don't have to look back but there has to be day-to-day struggles when it's you in the gym, at least early on,

and you're facing the bar, and then, you know, giving this history. Your mind can go to dark places. Yeah, I know. It can rise up and say, you know, here's what your history is. Here's what you could go back to. What does it look like day-to-day to fight off that

and get back on the diligent path of, the next best thing I can do is do this workout with this barbell right now. Yeah, a hundred percent. So what, you know, as far as like putting up a fight, as far as drugs and alcohol go, that's not an issue in my life anymore. I don't think about it. I don't talk about it often. That's not a thing still though. Like in between my ears, my head can be like a really sick, dark place sometimes. And that can oftentimes impact my training, my coaching, my attitude in the gym. Is it self-doubt?

You can't do this. You're going to go back. Yeah, a lot. Like even thinking about how I'm not – I was not raised by a strength coach. And I didn't – I was not a high school athlete. I was not a football player. I have self-doubts about that stuff all the time. And then a self-talk, who am I to help somebody? Yeah. All these other coaches and all these

experts in the field who have all this wealth of knowledge and I trained under so-and-so and I did this and I was, I mean, I've never even competed myself at a national weightlifting meet. So a lot of times I have that self-doubt and I go to that dark place. But keeping the positivity and staying focused comes first. Keeping that PMA, keeping that positive mental attitude, always looking forward, always staying positive is what helps me stay focused to be a better coach and to be a better athlete myself. Even if someone hasn't gotten kind of as low as you got they didn't get addicted to heroin as an easy example like you don't have to get addicted to heroin right step one rock bottom yeah but but everyone to some extent could probably could probably say

that they have some dark days and in their head they they you know they get down on themselves and whatnot and is was that the biggest thing for you what you just said like the positive mental attitude or is there more to it than that how do you how do you grind through those those dark days yeah there there's a lot more to it than just that there's a big element of of of surrounding myself with people who can teach me things like people who are ultimately more positive than I am putting together like a good team of athletes in an environment where I can thrive in as a coach and as an athlete myself so so maybe a takeaway for someone listening to this that maybe they train on their own and they have those dark days like instead of just trying harder to not have

those dark days and trying to be positive which is a very hard thing to teach yourself to do. Like most people probably want to be positive and they have, if they have a dark day, they want to pull themselves out of it. But the easiest way for them, you know, in your experience, are you suggesting that maybe if they just went to a gym or probably a CrossFit gym or a weightlifting gym, something specific to what they want to do and just surrounding themselves with those positive people would be the easiest way to like put a condition in place to make that happen automatically. Yeah. I mean, you know, fill in the blank as far as the bottom goes, right? Like the bottom is relative. It's, it's, it's when you've, when you've made the decision that, Hey, I've felt enough pain here and it can be snatch. It can be

clean and jerk. It could be heroin. I mean, it could be whatever it is. It's just the point where you're, the point where you're fed up. That's the bottom. For some people, gambling. For some people, training. I mean, whatever the case may be, when you're ready to make a change, you have to go through some suffering to see the other side. Sometimes you don't know how bad it can be until you've experienced that. So where I see that, like where I connect the dots as far as training and as being a coach, like the emotional connection I have with weightlifting is, is, is huge because like you can come in like having a bad squat day, but you're still going to squat. You can come in and having a bad snatch day and you might not even hit 70% of your opener for the day. So the emotional focus that you

need to continue moving forward in the sport of weightlifting is huge for me. And that's how I relate that to my history and my path through getting sober, through getting clean, and then now coaching a weightlifting club. I think a lot of people see people who are

successful and they only see what they're doing right now. Yeah. Fucking shit. That's why I say I'm waiting for my big idea that maybe I can be like Danny. That's not what happens. Right. I mean, this is a perfect example of we're not looking at your life right now as a snapshot in time. You're able to tell your whole story. And I don't think there's many people, especially in the United States States that can say that they came from a darker place yeah and so like how you know how do you deal with people

who are making excuses you're like hey I had to fight like heroin addiction yeah to get to where I am now I mean you went from all the way there to all the way here what do you tell someone who you know they're not they don't they didn't't have that, that day that was that dark. Well, you know, growing up, like I reflect on a lot of things. And like I said, before we went on break, I've done a lot of self-discovery and through treatment and therapies and such. And looking back, uh, I was a spoiled little rich kid when I was growing up. And, and, and, um, I didn't have like, I didn't have, like, I didn't understand really what hard work was all about until I lost everything. Your slate got wiped pretty clean, dude.

Yeah, gone. Literally, like, a garbage bag with a bunch of shitty, smelly band shirts. That's, like, all I had. So I'm doing all right. I could have nothing. I got some cool shirts. I fucking wish I had some of those shirts. Um, but, um, you know, there's a lot of people who like contributed to,

to my turnaround and, and, and to my recovery. But number one started with me and pulling myself out and doing the hard work. And that's what taught me how to work hard and to stay focused. Those same elements, that's what I talk to my athletes all about. You don't have to be the most gifted person on the floor. You don't have to be the strongest athlete. You don't have to be the most naturally gifted athlete. Or smartest or well-funded or fucking anything. No, some of us, we have to work harder than others.

And if you have that situation and you're prepared to work hard, you can work yourself into nationals. I've seen athletes who people look at them. Yeah. I actually heard this the other day. We were talking about our friend Mike McGoldrick. And he coaches with some of our programs. And they go, oh, yeah yeah but he's a genetic freak I was like what I was like no he's not fucking blind like

have you ever seen a genetic freak I was like I was like let's go to NFL game or some shit I'm sorry Mick Goldrick but like you're just a fat white kid from middle Tennessee, bro. Yeah, he would agree. He would agree that like – I mean, he played hockey. I mean, he was athletic. But he wasn't like genetically bred to be, you know, a champion of anything. That dude has discipline, hard work. I mean, he started what, CrossFit in 2008, 2009.

He could not work hard. And then like, you know, he cuts loose, like, one week of the whole year. The rest of the year is spent, like, everything, the food is set out. Everything is step by step by step. The average person looks at him, the average CrossFitter goes and looks at him and goes, that's a genetic freak. No. They have no idea, like, where he came from.

It's like the struggle that someone goes through, like, that's an assumption people, that's an excuse people make. Dude, Mick Goldrick was in a movie one time, and there was like 15 minutes left in the movie, and his alarm went off because he was supposed to go to bed soon. His alarm went off, and he didn't wait 12 minutes for the movie to be over. He was just like, oh, excuse me. Excuse me. I have to go home and go to sleep.

I need my recovery. And he just left. Dude, I think these two sports that we're talking about, weightlifting and CrossFit, are full of that. It's not cheap to work out in a CrossFit gym. It's not cheap to buy some Alico plates and to snatch a clean and jerk and find some good coaching. So what commonly comes along with that is a demographic of people who tend to not grow up on the streets hungry, having to play football to find their next meal. And they want that hope. So what oftentimes happens when you train these like mid to high

level CrossFitters and weightlifters, they are a demographic of people that have to focus and have to work hard to yield big, impressive results because they're not genetics freaks. I coach very few of them, and I coach a ton of people. Right. So having that concept of positivity and hard work coupled together can take you a very long way within both sports, I think. And personally, revolutionary. Yeah. Remember one more thing you pointed out earlier

is that you used punk rock to help you? What the fuck does that mean? I mean, Doug hasn't earlier is that you used punk rock to help you what the fuck does that mean I mean Doug hasn't listened to a lot of punk rock yeah I'm not into the whole scene

so educate me well you came to the right Mike is Mike knows everything about punk rock he had a way with the coach when he was 10 but he did not have

a bad brain yeah I'm that guy I didn't grow up angry so I did a little bit I'm still kind of angry but so what so how has punk rock like affected

my career as a weightlifting coach and athlete and and it seems like it wouldn't however you know having the attitude and and sometimes to a fault of everyone's going to go in this direction. Everyone is going to serve this thing. Everyone is going to hashtag this and that, whatever we're going to do something else. And like I said, sometimes to a fault, that's how our program started. Even looking at weightlifting was everyone's doing this like brand style of CrossFit and fuck man, no one's doing this. I'm going to learn how to snatch a clean and jerk. No one in this city can teach me how to snatch a clean and jerk. I'm going to figure this out myself. Right. Fuck it. You know? Um, and that continues to happen with our weightlifting club, with our program, uh, the way that we brand

ourselves, the way that we carry ourselves, we're very outspoken again, sometimes to a fault. And, and some people don't like us, but guess what? Some people are really stoked on us and that's how it's going to be. It's going to be one or the other. You're going to hate us or you're going to be really pumped. I think it's better to be, you know, polarizing. Yeah. It's a good thing to be. If you're trying to please everybody, that's not, I don't think that's a great place to be. Was that almost a similar situation to when you were 12 years old and you got that first bag of marijuana and all of a sudden people wanted to be around you,

they wanted your phone number, they were inviting you to parties and shit. There's something to this. You had something cool and unique and then now, however many years later, 10, 20 years later, you're in Miami and you're the only person that knows weightlifting and then all of a sudden people are like, oh yeah, this guy's cool, he knows weightlifting, he's the only guy that knows weightlifting and then all of a sudden people are like oh yeah this guy's cool he knows weightlifting he's the only guy in those now all of a sudden you're getting all kinds of attention i hate to tell you very much this is the same

thing your life homie weed saved your life shit just got meta on you son so you know it's funny that you say that because I really believe that it's more important to, like, leave a mark on this planet in some way. Like, leave your stamp. I would rather be gone and have people talked about me in some way than just be a fucking wallflower and just someone that everyone forgot about. And for good or for bad, you know. Especially not listening to the same shitty music everybody else listens to.

Come on. Fucking hell. Pitbull's playing time. You said that, man. I wouldn't have forgot Pitbull. Pitbull, sir, I'm sure what it is you do is great. Let's wrap this up. We are now talking about Pitbull.

We're never airing another show again. I'll make one more point though there's another thing Danny it's like you hit rock bottom and a punk rock thing to do is like you have nothing in the world and you can still do

fucking everything blank slate to Miami Classic started with nothing I got here just by the will to say let's fucking do it man yeah man for sure you know

everything is like a microcosm of what happened right like I was homeless and pulled myself out of the ashes, like you said. And I and we, my team, my family built something for ourselves. The same thing with our weightlifting meet. The same thing with our weightlifting club.

First weightlifting meet, 800 or 1,000 square foot gym, 26 lifters. Borrowing different gear from people, only two referees. And now five years later I have to turn people away that want to come lift at our meet. We're doing it at a freaking concert venue. It's pretty dope. Yeah. This is the most unique meet that you could come to, I think.

I appreciate it, man. Yeah. Love it. Where can people find out more about the meet? Instagram, MIAClassic or the internet. Use the internet. Look on www.miaclassic.com. HTTP.

What's your gym? CrossFit Soul at CrossFit Soul on Instagram. CrossFit Soul Miami is our website and you can find me at DannyXSoul.

If you're in the Miami area, you've got to come down and train at Soul. It's one of the coolest gyms you're going to find. Appreciate it. Yeah. All right. Thanks for joining us and make sure you go to flightweightlifting.com and you can, we actually put together an ebook for some people who like, if you're new to weightlifting, if you've been doing it for maybe less than two years, it's a really great place to start. If you want to like,

just get the intro information. You don't have a weightlifting coach in town to lead the way. Thanks for joining us.