Barbell Shrugged - The Steel Mace Practice and How The Strong Coach Helped Leo Make $20K in 2 Months w/ Leo Savage & Serena Elizabeth  — The Bledsoe Show #105

Episode Date: October 22, 2018

Leo Urquides, a.k.a. Leo “Savage”, is the creator of MaceMovement and founder of Steel Mace Flow. Leo is a Steel Mace Flow coach based in Austin, TX that travels across America teaching his Steel Mace Flow system. His unconventional approach to training is based on his belief in function over muscle. This philosophy has lead him to the use of tools such as kettle bells, battle ropes, sandbags, body weight, and his favorite- steel mace. Leo is also a certified trainer through the ONNIT Academy in multiple disciplines: ONNIT Academy Foundations, Durability, Unconventional barbell, Battle ropes, Kettle Bells, and Steel Mace. Serena Elizabeth, a.k.a. Steel Mace Gypsy, is a certified Steel Mace Coach, a Steel Mace Flow Guru, and an Onnit Steel Mace Specialist. In this episode, we talk about how “The Steel Mace” makes you look like a badass warrior, how does this one tool heal your body and wake up to train all aspects of core and all the spaces in between with a 360-degree swing, and how ‘The Steel Mace’ impacted people on a deeper level not just their physique and how you can create the world you want with this practice. We also dive into how The Strong Coach program changed Leo’s relationship with money and how to be open to receiving, as well as the freedom found by The Strong Coach and how Serena can simply just “Be” now. Leo and Serena both achieved a new-found confidence from The Strong Coach program and they trust themselves as coaches more than ever. Find out how to get the first week of The Strong Coach program for FREE!   Enjoy!   - Mike --------------------------------------------------- Show notes: https://shruggedcollective.com/tbs_steelmaceflow ---------------------------------------------------   Please support our partners! @foursigmatic - www.foursigmatic.com/bledsoe  to save 15% on your first purchase @vuori- www.vuoriclothing.com - Use coupon code BLEDSOE25 @neurohacker - www.neurohacker.com - Use coupon code BLEDSOE @elementalwizdom - www.elementalwizdom.com - Use coupon code BLEDSOE   ► Travel thru Europe with us on the  Shrugged Voyage, more info here: https://www.theshruggedvoyage.com/ ► What is the Shrugged Collective?  Click below for more info: https://youtu.be/iUELlwmn57o ► 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

Well, where you're like, tune in, tune in, and then one day it's just a special thing. Hangout session. Yeah. Yeah. All right. So, Leo, the last time you were on the show was back in the spring, early summer. We hung out. It was nice.

Met up in Austin. And we have Serena here as well. Yeah. Thanks for having me. You've never been on the show. No. I'm so excited. All right. And then, uh, co-hosting with me here right now is Danny Rios and, uh, head coach for the strong coach. Awesome, man. I didn't know it was co-hosting. Thank you, Mike.

Yeah. There you go. I don't know. I mean, we're all really just hanging out. Because I do, Danny, I got some questions for you too. But I anticipate that you're going to have questions for these too. So we'll get a quick update first. We'll start off with since people know Leo from the last show, give us an update from back in the spring. I think it was May when we hung out. Yeah.

So the biggest update that I want to start off with is i now say what the deal is so i want to spread that out there to all your audience there you go let me let me get into it what the deal is so that's been a change okay okay well but uh besides the comical things we've definitely gone through quite a transformation um so yeah when we, I was definitely headed in a direction at a slow pace in the direction I wanted to go. And we recently completed the strong coach course. When I say we, Serena and myself are both strong coaches. What do we say? Graduates? Certified? Are we just saying we're strong coaches? Graduates for now. I've got to come up with some type of certifying.

I do like saying I'm a strong coach. Yeah, you are a strong coach. One of the mantras that I put together. Nice. So yeah, that strong coach program really just opened up that journey I was on. And I said that the journey was a slow

process. Getting to go through that strong coach program with other people who were making headway but in a slow in a slow way like myself really helped me evolve at a very very quick pace before I was so to tell your audience, just in case they don't know, I teach people how to express themselves using fitness and movement practice that we call mace movement or still mace flow, just to catch everybody up on what I do. And I was performing workshops across America, four-hour workshops, and that practice has now evolved into I certify people in Still Mace Flow. You guys are actually in my very first Still Mace Flow certification.

Yes. We just did that yesterday. Yes. It was epic. I want to hear from Danny. Your experience with the mace before yesterday, what was that like? It was finding out information on YouTube and figure out what this guy does on his Instagram and try to put it together. It's very outside of my norm

of training. I come from the traditional collegiate strength conditioning background, periodization, focusing on very similar planes of motion, going into CrossFit. That has been my training for the past 20 years when I started picking up a barbell. Yeah, 16 years that I've been working with the same planes, ranges of motion and my body's been talking to me that i should change things and and just experiencing what 10 pounds can do to you with a mace and the different adaptations of that um it's it's pretty gnarly stuff i want to give people uh a little perspective here. What was your best back squat? Best back squat was 575 for a double in college. Yeah. So you're not like a weak guy walking into this.

I think you're probably the strongest guy walking into the room. And yeah, what was working with a 10-pound mace for the day like for you? It was discovery. And this was like your first time using the mace for the day like for you? It was a discovery. And this was like your first time using the mace. I've messed around with it. But like I said,

there's very little application out there that you could to the depth of where, what they shared and just how to create torque and tension around that mace that you can make a 10 pound mace um and then taking it through uh different uh time under tension you could create a lot of force through that uh so that's something unique that i've never it's always been just go heavier just go heavier just go heavier and with 10 pound mace uh you can i've i they showed me how I could make a lower body workout with such a, what I thought was an upper body type of tool.

And so understanding different ways to adapt that for the lower body was pretty incredible. incredible um and and just that 10 pound mace uh it's it's the way you can flow with it uh you could definitely i haven't cramped up like i did yesterday um like since i played college football um that thing kicked my ass and and for me to you know i trained predominantly crossfit and you know dabbling with a lot of a lot of different methods of training, to be challenged like that with 10 pounds, it's very humbling and it makes me want more. Yeah. For sure. Yeah.

One of the things I really like about the mace and the way that you guys teach it is that 360 degree strength. Can you tell the audience more about that? Go ahead, Lou. 60 degree strength. Can you tell the audience more about that? Yeah. So, um, we swing a mace in 360 degrees and, uh, around us. So really we're being, uh, we're using this tool in rotation in 360 degrees. Of course we control the rotation. Um, we try and control the rotation in such a way that we can tell the mace how to move rather than the mace tell us to move uh so in slowing down the 360 you really get to hit your body in 360 degrees i mean you can see it uh you guys had a front row seat of like when Serena did her 360, we, I was like pulling on the 360 all around her and showed you how we created a high tension field to make it extremely effective and give a prime example of

the 360 degrees. So that really kind of plays into the three sixties, kind of the hallmark move. You asked about the 360 degrees, but we can also look at that in the other movements. Like one of the things that we learned in the Still Maze Flow curriculum is when you learn a new move, you need to see what plane it exists in, what side of your body you can do it on, and what steps the footwork that we teach, what footwork does that particular move work with.

So we were really like introducing a move to the frontal plane and then introducing it to the side. And I don't think we got into too many of the moves behind the back other than the 360. But I mean, the tool is dynamic enough and light enough that you feel safe moving it around in all these various degrees. We live life in a 360 kind of way. And for me, it, um, you know, we don't just move forward and back and side to side. There's, uh, degrees within those, you know, there's the North, South, East, West, and you have Northwest and every degree, every degree in between. And so I think it, um, compliments a body in a way, um, to teach you and strengthen you in those degrees in between, you know, we're constantly moving.

Life is constantly tugging on us in certain ways. And I think it's a perfect tool to strengthen us in every aspect of those degrees, you know, not just these rigid lines. You know, we teach, we teach that structure of lines first, and then we teach how to strengthen in between rigid lines. You know, we teach that structure of lines first, and then we teach how to strengthen in between those lines. Yeah, those transitions, the gaps in between. Right. And being in the strengthening conditioning world for over 20 years myself now, I'm being introduced to.

And also, like I've thought about core, okay, we need anti-extension, anti-rotation, anti-flexion, anti-lateral flexion, you know, I've thought about the core and these four different planes of movement to make sure it's strong, and so you stay healthy as an athlete, and in my experience, it's always been a pain in my ass to try to make sure I have, you know, a movement that's going to cover, I got a movement that covers this and I have a movement that covers that aspect of core and all this. And of course, like, you know, things get left out because my focus is somewhere else in the workout. But then when I pick up the mace and I start working with that, every single core, uh,

direction that my core could get strong and is getting done plus the spaces in between. And so it's, and I've been thinking more about my core as a sphere. And so even say 360 degrees, that's still a two dimensional conversation. And to me, I think about my core from my pelvic floor up to my shoulders as this, basically the spine, basically tailbone to C1 is what I think about my core now. I try to make that as strong as possible. Yeah. And with a 360 degree swing, you know, you're getting pulled down and up and side to side. It's not just that two-dimensional 360-degree plane. So it's definitely a tool that's woken up parts of my body

in a way that was fun and easy. And so I think that's a huge differentiator. It's like, yeah, I could do a bunch of corrective exercises and go and, you know, which I do still. But when I pick up the mace, I go, oh, wow, this is doing everything I was trying to do with corrective exercise, and it's fun, and I'm getting stronger, and it's athletic in nature because it's dynamic.

And, yeah, it's been a lot of fun for me to explore. And doing the certification yesterday was fucking awesome. That's a positive review, fucking awesome. that's a that's a positive review fucking awesome yeah i'll put that on there yeah what i said last night if we were talking i said it felt really special you know it's been a long time since i was at a or i don't think i've ever had an experience at a certification where i it like i i had a moment it wasn't I was just learning and going, oh, I've been blown away at certifications before, but this was a very personal moment

because I suspect why that happened for me was I was being given the tools to express myself through movement too versus just copying what someone else is doing. And so it was really cool to be given those tools. The rotation aspect of it, there's all these different planes of rotation, and really we deal in anti-rotation,

purposeful rotation, counter-rotation. And those things can all be hard to explain, so I like to summarize it like this. Make rotation your bitch. I mean, you really need to own rotation. You can break down those principles, but really just having control of rotation. How far are you going to rotate?

What's rotating you? Are you choosing not to rotate? So rotating... Where are you rotating from? Yeah. I mean, we need to master those things. I'm glad that all the reviews from everybody I've talked to who, you know, this has just happened yesterday, but everybody had a lot of fun. So I'm glad to hear that you had fun.

And, you know, when you said yesterday that you had a moment, I can really appreciate that. I mean, I think we all had moments yesterday. I mean, there were grown men crying at the end of this thing. That might be something we're a little used to, but in developing this program, I really, and I try to put some emphasis into it, I was taking you guys along for my journey from start to finish.

At the end of the certification, we had quite a tough test. So you had to do 500 360s. Again, I've never had a test at the end of a certification like this. It was what a test, right? Amazing. Come to think of it. So we had to do 500 repetitions, unbroken 360s. And after that, you had to do the master Class Flow. The Master Class Flow is a series of movements that I put together in my journey that taught me about flow. How do I get from this step to this step? How do I introduce this move to these steps?

I expressed that with you guys and gave you part of my life. I spent four years developing this program in November. Next month will be my fourth year that I've been doing this. But I got to give everybody there part of me. I got to facilitate a special moment for you by giving something that was very special to me. I appreciate that. Thank you. It was very digestible, everything that you covered.

And then it allows you freedom for application, however you want to express yourself with it. And, you know, being around strength conditioning for a while, you don't see that in a lot of practices in strength and conditioning. And so I can, I, I can see the benefit of, of, um, mixing both of those, um, with standard, you know, strength and conditioning models that, that most people are using, uh, and sprinkling with, with some of this it's yeah. Like Mike said, we could hit a lot, uh, a lot of things that we used, we used to isolate. We could do in a very, very fun, fun manner. And I'm looking forward to keep uh keeping that mace on my hand keep swinging and healing my body through it because i know he needs it so

yeah thank you for that thank you guys for that absolutely yeah it was our our pleasure i can't wait to you know see what you guys do with this foundation you have because we didn't just like you've said we didn't tell you okay you need to go out there and you need to do these things. It was like, here is a box of toys that you can play with. And here's a box of useful physical training methods that you can use. However, at the end of the certification, I said, I can't wait to see what you do with this. Like, Danny, you own a CrossFit gym. I wouldn't expect it to turn into a mace gym but i would expect the knowledge you took in based off of the things you said to help improve your personal

practice and being that you're a leader at the gym i can only imagine that once people see the transformation you're going through i imagine there'll be some physical changes like you'll might lift more weight or control weight but uh having an area where you can just play around, I think that'll inspire people who might feel stuck in a situation working out where they have to play by the rules to experiment a little. And that was one of the biggest coaching things that ever happened to me was learning about fitness. Everything was very dogmatic.

When I was in karate, you had to breathe a certain way. You had to punch a certain way. When I was in Thai boxing, you had to make certain sounds. You had to kick a certain way. I did TRX and kettlebell sport, and it was like, you have to do it this way. And I never did well with those things. I might have done well with them in periods, but at the end of the day, we all just want freedom. So once I would learn the tools, I would want to quickly get out of whatever I was learning so I could go experiment with them on the way that I thought they could be

used. So I wanted to build a program that said, hey, I want to empower you to create something. Actually, that's one of our models. One of our mottos is inspire to create. I think it's important to create. I mean, we just went through this Strong Coach program, and one of the things you installed in us on the first week was survival mode versus creation. Well, in my language, I didn't hear creation. I heard create.

It's kind of the same thing, but as I started thinking about it, I get stuck in not being able to perform or not being able to work out, and it's because I get into survival mode. So learning how to get the fuck out of survival mode was essential to me, and I got to hand that gift down to my students in that what we create is patterns, but I might have a specific pattern that I teach the masterclass flow and all these different flows in it. But at the end of the day, I want you to go out with these pieces and create your own thing at your CrossFit gym or, you know, whatever gym

the information might be going to. You know, the ability to build something and create something for me has gotten me out of depression. It's gotten me out of fear. It's gotten me out of survival mode. And that'll probably be the biggest lesson I take from the strong coach and will continue to pass on for years to come. And I'm sure it'll serve many people. what we are doing is in fact arming people with the ability to create their own world our genre our movement practice has really lit a spark under the people we've been able to touch with this message that is hidden behind a really cool magical mace swinging practice because at the surface it's like we swing mace but once you get into it and you start understanding that there are levels to what the mace has to offer,

it really opens up a rabbit hole that many people have enjoyed going down. You know, in our opening statement yesterday, we – and I was blown away by the response. But I was talking about the different levels and the surface level versus once you start going down the journey. And I, you know, I asked people, I said, who came here to learn mace? And that's an easy question. Everybody there was there to learn the mace and how to move the mace. Everybody raised their hand and getting into the idea of that. There were different levels.

The next question was to prove that there were different levels. And the question was, do you guys remember it? I know I wore you guys out. out don't don't worry about that so it was um swings it was uh who came here because the mace means something more to them and it was like fucking 90 of the room rose their hand and i had a moment there where I snapped out of my coach flowing zone and just kind of sat back and was blown away that this thing that Serena and I helped create has impacted people on a deeper level

than just the surface. What's the surface? It's my fucking physique, right? Anybody can work on your physique. I think it's actually counter right anybody can work on your physique i think it's actually counterintuitive to work on your physique before you get your mind right and coaching people you get in you got to find out what the fucking problem is right like we can do sets all day and we can write workouts or create movements or beautiful patterns or whatever you're into but none of that information is going to stick

unless you can find out how to help out that person truly on the inside. I enjoy a world where you get to learn about life and as a result, you might get some gains or some more mobility and your body rewards you for going through that natural system of of thank you for taking care of me yeah yeah that's what i've made the biggest gains in my my physique and my athleticism

my strength is when i'm not actually trying to go after the thing i'm going after what's creating this pattern of behavior. And I make that one little switch at the highest leverage point. And all of a sudden, my posture got better. Because I healed something that happened when I was five years old, emotionally. And also, I can stand up taller. And it can be something as deep as that. But there's a lot of things along the way.

And I think that being a coach can be, people are really trusting you to take care of them and to guide them. So I think as deep as the mace goes, coaching goes insanely deep as well. Definitely. So it's cool to see what that rabbit hole is like uh serena what was since this is the first we're hearing from you uh what was your introduction

to mace and how did you get involved with leo and now uh y'all are y'all are traveling the world putting on these life-changing seminars. Yeah. I met Leo at the UFC gym. More like I saw him from a distance and was like, wow, I can't talk to this guy. Because I'm hot. Mind you, that was pre-beard too.

Oh, wow. Yeah, no, he was... He was attractive without the beard, huh? Yeah. Not as attractive. No. I tell him, please keep the beard. You know, I've been involved with fitness my entire life.

My dad was a martial artist. And so I was raised in that structure of discipline and honor. And so that followed me as an adult. And I've always enjoyed martial arts. So the UFC gym, I had a girlfriend that was going there, she invited me to take a class, I took a class ended up signing up. And that's where he was a coach at. And that was before he'd even picked up the mace. So I had taken maybe a couple of his kickboxing classes. And, you know, at some point, that's where these, you know, things started

popping up at the USC gym. It's this big, long pole with a ball on the end. And he ended up moving to another gym. And my girlfriend was a student of his. And she said, hey, you know, Leo's at this other gym. He's got this mace class going on. You should try it. I think you'd really like it. So I said, sure. You know, went and took his very first class. That was my first time picking up a mace. And ever since then, I haven't put it down, you know. So that was actually a couple months before I was starting massage school. So I started school and my schedule didn't really allow me to take his classes during the day and I couldn't take classes at night. I had a restaurant job. So, um, the gym was 24 hours. So I had a little pad key that could

get me into the gym. Um, so I'd go in, you know, at 11 o'clock or midnight and go in and work out. And I would always find myself going to starting with the mace or it would be the the main focus of my practice and um I just kept playing with it and then I'd watch him on Instagram and figure out stuff I noticed he would he started doing more dynamic stuff more tosses and catches and just looking like a badass warrior and that's the thing I always appreciated about the mace was um the way it made me feel. Like Danny talked about a certain movement that he felt was great. It was a bow and arrow set, you know, an extension. And there were so many different movements where I just kept getting this empowering feeling.

And for the first time in a very long time, I didn't want to stop working out. I would go through periods of, okay, we work out really hard and then I would drop off and not go to the gym for a week or a month. And then we'd have to start that whole process of, oh, I got to get back in shape. With the mace, it was never – I didn't even worry about the fact that I was trying to get a workout in or I was trying to gain weight or gain muscle or, you know, any sort of process. It was more of there's this puzzle piece in front of me and I want to figure out how to put it together with this tool. You know, you just crank up the tunes and you get in that zone and you just, you just go. That's what I would just tell myself before I knew what flow was. And I mean, it was really choppy. You watch my older videos. It's just terrible. I cringe so

bad, but the feeling is, will always be the same. It's just intensified as I have progressed with the mace. Um, so yeah, I mean, I had my mace practice was going through massage school and I graduated and, um, I had a girl from massage school that would come into the gym with me. She didn't want to take classes from Leo. She was, you know, too intimidated, but she kind of has that factor going on about him. It's the intense eyes. I'm intense. So I started teaching her and he came in one morning and, you know, gave me some pointers. And he was like, hey, I'm, you know, looking to start teaching some coaches, you know, train the next batch of Mace coaches. Would you be interested? And I was

like, well, yeah, I'd never thought about coaching ever. Um, I'd coached like little league soccer and things like that, but never on a physical fitness aspect. So, I mean, that was basically it from there. That's really when, you know, we, I began essentially my mentorship with him. And it was more so not a, hey, we're scheduling this day. And you're going to come in and train with me for this time. Whenever I'd see him, I'd go and ask questions. And it would just spark these big old long conversations where we'd work movements. And then I kept up with his YouTube and his Instagram.

Like, I was obsessed with this tool and it's you know it's been the tour his tool he did his first workshop and um you know he invited me to come to the workshop and then it was i was just i was there to learn that's what under my impression i was just there to learn and because go walk around you know go help fix people and so that was my introduction to the workshops you know i'd fill in for classes when he started to go out of town. That's really where my, my coaching started kicking in and I got to teach classes. And that was, you know, it's, it's fun being the student, but when you're empowered to teach others, it just makes your brain go in a whole, you know, you think, start thinking about this tool and in a

completely different aspect where, you know, it's like, I can do this movement, but can I teach it? And then you break down the movement and it makes you understand it even more. Like my relationship with the Mace has completely changed because of coaching. You know, my relationship with myself has completely changed because of coaching. Um, and so he did two workshops in Albuquerque, which is where we're from originally. And then he started doing the out-of-state workshops. And that's when I would fill in for the classes. And then I took my foundation certification,

which is through the Onnit Academy. And that was the cert that just really ignited this fire for my coaching. And I knew I wanted to do more. And I knew it was the first time where I told myself, I have the capacity for greatness. First time ever in my 26 years of life. It was the craziest moment. You know, we go through, we go through so much of life beating ourselves up or being our worst enemy. And that was the first step in the right direction for me to be on my team, you know, back myself up and have faith in myself. And the first time where I really wanted something so badly that I was willing to give up everything to pursue it.

And then he invited me to come to New York and teach a workshop out there and the rest is basically history I've been on every single workshop since well you actually did give up everything to pursue the still mace yeah I mean I moved shortly after shortly after the New York workshop I moved to Austin and I had moved to Austin yeah maybe like a month before, and Serena had left everything, her whole world, to come down and continue the mission. It's really great to hear you talk about your journey,

and I'm glad people get to hear that this is bigger than a one-man show and how much growth we've been able to we've been able to accomplish for our students a lot of that is because of you oh thanks thank you man the day i showed up is seven in the morning serena was teaching uh her student danielle sears still mace my normal reaction when someone's teaching still mace in my gym is what the fuck is going on over here but for some reason when i saw serena teaching the student i was just very at peace with it and i just listened to it i just said well what all right let's check this what the deal is and i watched serena coach and i just said i just was like i was astonished that she could not come she couldn't make it to the weekday classes.

Every now and then she could get a weekend class. But the amount of knowledge that she put into it was from self-practice. And I could immediately relate to Serena being at the gym at midnight trying to figure the shit out because I went through that same journey. So when I decided to mentor Serena, it was, yeah, it was right away. I mean, I knew Serena would be an awesome representative. I didn't really understand how awesome. Like, I can do my thing.

I can swing a motherfucking mace. People think it's awesome. And I'm used to performing in front of people and the reaction. You know, people. People think it's awesome. And I'm, I'm used to performing in front of people and the reaction, you know, people are like, this is awesome. I get the vibe. But the first time I took Serena to New York, she taught with me. Serena got to perform in front of everybody. And I had never seen this reaction before. Cause here's the thing is I got a beard I got fucking tattoos got biceps so of course I can control this fucking mace. Serena's like

120 pounds? I'm 127 these days. See I was giving you 70 pounds because anyhow for these people to see Serena, men, women you know all different mixture of people to see you know a men, women, all different mixture of people to see

a female control the mace the way she did. I mean, jaws fucking dropped to the floor. We worked on posture for eight hours. At the end of the day, when Serena performed, everybody lost their shit. Their postures all disappeared.

Their jaws literally opened up and they were just in awe of what she did, what she was doing. And I was included in that. It was really magical for me because usually I'm the facilitator of the event. I present. I do all the talking. I never get to sit back and just admire the beauty of what we're really doing. Yeah, that was a magic moment. That whole trip was very special for me

because that was my first time really having a piece of the program to teach on my own. Usually it was I walk around and I cue and I help people. That was my first time presenting and I've never really had stage fright. I used to do plays and I did a lot of public speaking roles in, in my youth. That was the first time I was about ready to shit my pants. Because it means that much to me, you know, and here's this workshop where I, we had a couple of coaches that I'd followed on Instagram that swing steel me. So one in particular, his name is Jeff. And, you know, when you have someone that you respect highly and you, in a sense, look up to, and now you're their teacher. Oh, fuck, like I better not screw this up, you know, and so we, all I was teaching was four simple steps. You guys learned

them step one, two, three, four, and you know, breaking it down why we're stacking our joints and why we're stepping like this. And I, I worked with him closely and I would start speaking and he'd be like, no, that's not how we say it. I'm like, well, why can't I just say it like this? And yeah, it would frustrate me. I would get so frustrated because I would say in my head, I know this. I know this stuff like the back of my hand. Well, true, I know it. But how do I get that message across to others? And there's a rhyme and a reason why we say certain lines.

And that's one thing I've learned because you set the tone and it feeds into something else. And that feeds into something else, you know. So I sat there and I practiced. I wrote out how I was going to present this and I coached it to a wall I've done this a couple of times coached it to nobody and you know practice my voice and how I was going to move my body and all of these things and like okay'm like, okay, I feel pretty prepared for this. So he's like, all right, you're on. And I get up there and I start talking way too fast. I'm shaking. I'm like, oh my God, I'm tanking this so bad right now. All these people are here in front of me. This is my first time teaching. And, and then I took a second and I went, fucking relax. Like, this is fun. You love this stuff. Like, this is what you're

made for. And so, you know, I was able to get through it much more at an easier pace. And, you know, it's really, it's a really interesting feeling when you see, you know, 20 eyes or 30 eyes are strictly on you. You've got their attention. You feel that energy. And, you know, to be able to give something back to them is completely magical. And to also give it to people that you really respect and you have some sort of connection with and really to make that physical energy connection was awesome. And I think that's the biggest thing with coaching that I really take away is you make these connections. And I want to make every biggest thing with coaching that I really take away is you make these connections. And I want to make every single one of them special.

I think with each workshop, it has helped me open up more as a person. And, you know, with this particular now certification, I went in with the intention, I said, I'm going to hug every single person that I see. You know, that's part of it. And I'm going to make a strong connection with them because that's the only reason I got a hug. Well, no, among other reasons, I was very happy to see you, but yes, you know, but, um, what, what, what you guys, you said the, it was a special moment for you. Um, I've had those moments in certifications and like the, the on itnit certification. I can never forget my first certification with Onnit because it was that special and I was made to feel that.

You get that spark, that inspiration, and you just want to do so much. And I am now the facilitator of that. I am the person that sparks others now and empower, that inspire and empowering. It's, it's my job now, you you know and I want to make every single certification and every single person in it feel that and feel that one-on-one connection I'm not just speaking to everyone I'm speaking to you directly and I want you to remember that because I have taken those moments away and those moments in a certification a workshop or whatever type of learning platform have meant the most to me. You know, I can never, I'll never forget John Wolfe because of how he made me feel in a certification and how he came over and directed me. I'll never forget Shane Hines. You know,

these are the educators from Onnit. I will, I can't forget Leo. I'm in your face all the time. Yeah, but I mean, there's different degrees of our relationship of how it's progressed. It was my coach friendship and now relationship. Relationship. Hey! That's changed since the last time. It's changed since the last time we talked. I'm in a relationship. That's right.

I was a single mace-swinging That sounds awesome. I was a single mace-swinging savage. Wow! Traveling wow traveling the land slaying women now yeah me too i still do the slaying but it's in a different way but no i can i can relate back to you know leo was my was my has been my first real coach, has been my first real inspiration. I really look up to him.

I still do. You know, even though the degree of our relationship has changed, I give him so much shit. I'm no longer the boss. That changed. As soon as we entered a relationship, my boss just disappeared 80% of the time. I still have 20% retention on my boss. You know, Serena talks about me being her coach,

but you can't be a coach without students. You can only have certain conversations with yourself, right? I can't get outside perspective. So having Serena challenge me in a way like i didn't have any students who could do the i did and so serena was the first person to really cross that platform and she said i can do this stuff and it became a matter of okay well i have to be able to teach it you know so serena would see me do something neat she'd go teach me that and i would have to use my coaching mind to break down this flow inspired movement and to give that flow

foundation so serena helped me fucking grow as a coach by asking the questions by showing up every I credit Serena alone for our level two education, our level two workshop as well, because I would have never learned how to break these elaborate moves down unless I had somebody to challenge me. Nice. Serena, I will rewind a bit. You were talking about moving to Austin and leaving everything.

I've had students in the past who go, oh, this is what I want to achieve. These are the things I want to do. And then the majority of the roadblocks are, there's nothing in my town. And a lot of times it does come down to mentorship. You know, if someone needs to leave town

to achieve something, it's because there's no one in their town to teach them. And this last Strong Coach group, we had one guy who, he was like, I just don't know what to do. In the town I'm living, I go, well, you can, Danny was in the car with me.

It was the first call I had with him. I go, well, you could leave town. And he goes, oh, I never thought about that. Yeah. Like, if you want something bad enough, do whatever it takes. And it's interesting because for a lot of people, doing whatever it takes, they don't even know what that means. Yeah.

You know? What does it mean to give up everything? And I know that in my life, in the moments that I've given up everything, is when the most beautiful everything shows up. Everything I wanted to happen, everything that I wanted out of life shows up after I give up everything that I currently have. So what was that like for you to give up everything and move? One of the scariest things I've ever done. And I questioned it a lot in the

beginning, whether it was the right move. Um, so everything to what is my everything? Um, it was, you know, my life was in New Mexico. I was born in Missouri. We moved out to grants, New Mexico, which is a very small town. It used to be a mining town when I was a year old. I grew up there on 12 acres of land in the mountains. It was beautiful. That was my playground. I was a bit of a loner child. I grew up in my imagination. I had imaginary friends. And so I was very attached to the land. It was one of the biggest things. Like the nature of New Mexico, while harsh, was also one of my biggest teachers. I moved to Albuquerque, which is one of the bigger towns in New Mexico when I was 18. And that's really where, you know, I've lived in Albuquerque ever since. So it was about like seven, eight years.

And I played around from Albuquerque all the way to northern New Mexico. So I built a life there. My mom lives there. My dogs are there. All my friends. I had roots. You know, I was in a relationship. And I was in a stepmom role, you know.

And that taught me a lot. And so that's where I was, you know, and that taught me a lot. And so that's where I was. You know, when the fitness stuff started coming in, I was a mom, I was an LMT, and I was on this road to being a coach. And I didn't, I didn't really know I had no direction. What LMT means? A licensed massage therapist. Yes. I really had no direction with the coaching. I, you know, I was just, I I was like this is fun you know and it's extra practice for me you know I would do a couple classes a week and mace was just part of like my daily practice it made me feel good that was my feel-good thing

and you know essentially I had I had this vision for my life of I would get married, I would have more kids, and I would live in this really small town, and I would be the housewife type of thing, and just have land, and take care of my kids, my husband, and animals, and whatnot, and that was it. I've always had, but there's always been this other side of me that's like, ah, we don't know. We don't know if that's necessarily right for you. And that's where the, you know, people call me the steel mace gypsy, um, take away the steel mace before that it was just the gypsy. You know, it was always this wandering person that wandered and hiked and, you know know whatever my soul told me to do

that's what I did and um so there's always that little side and I I have I wrote a blog about it and I said that I had essentially put that part of me to sleep I was it was it was in slumber um and so I was so focused on being someone for someone else that I had essentially put that part to sleep. And, you know, the steel mace and this coaching role is really what began to stir it up again. And so I built this life, but put this huge part of my personality, who I really was to the core, you know, put it in a box and let it go to sleep. And when it reawoke, it was, I had this like, oh shit moment, you know, that's where after I got back from on it, that's really what happened. So I was split, I was torn. And what really, I knew that I had a couple options, you know, I could try to continue this relationship

and push for the coaching and make everything happen in New Mexico. But there was a stall, you know, New Mexico is a little bit behind in the times they're very, um, uh, rooted. How would you say that? How would you describe that? I mean, thank you. Thank you. Um, you know, and my, my ex was, uh, had that, had that stubbornness, you know, he was like, cool. I don't, I don't understand what you're doing, but that's cool. You know what? That's good for you. But once it started to take life and take this, you know, there was this direction that began forming with the mace and with coaching where it would, you know, take me out of state and I got busier and busier and more involved with that I noticed a

resistance from him in that there was he while his words said support his actions said I don't approve of this you know and when I say this was the first time that I wanted so something so badly for myself well you know, it pushed me to this point. There's that crossroads. And so I had to make the conscious decision of, well, I love this person, and I love our life, and I love this child. I know that if I don't pursue this, and if I stay, I will resent him for the rest of my life, and I will hate myself. So that was the first time I ever made a really hard decision, and I ended the relationship. So I, that was the first time I ever made a really hard decision and I ended the relationship. And so shortly after that, that's where I just, I just dove into the

coaching. And shortly after that, um, it was the move. There was that, well, should I stay here in New Mexico or, you know, what's next? And my mom, I was staying with my mom at the time and our relationship has grown like I'd always had a really rocky relationship with my mother and we'd actually we've become very very close she's one of my best friends now and so there was that relationship to handle well do I leave my mom behind type of thing and I had the conversation with her and she cried, you know, but she did the mom thing and said, I love you and I support you and I want you to be happy. And if this makes you happy, I want you to go. And she goes, you just have to promise me that you still, you're going to take care of me when I'm older. You can't put me in a home type of thing. When you make all your

money and you're a rich, famous coach, you got to take care of your mom. I said, okay, mom. So, you know, there was a lot of emotion involved. And also, you know, I'm, it was very, like I said, in touch with nature and it's, that was really hard for me, you know, moving out of comfort. I know New Mexico very well, like the back of my hand, I can find any back road. I can get lost in nature. It's just so simple. Like the snap of my finger, I'm there. All my favorite food spots, my gyms, you know, even my job. As a massage therapist, I was only working at a massage envy. However, I had regulars there. And that's a very personal connection that you make. As a massage therapist, you get really in touch with your clients. Like that's a very emotional relationship. You know, you take care of them. You're a healer. You don't want to,

it's really hard to leave these people behind. You know, so that was something I had to handle, like handing off my clients to other massage therapists, all these relationships I had to not end, but give, hand them off or take care of them, wrap them up, all of these things. And so I said goodbye to Austin. I said goodbye to Albuquerque, not knowing if I would return or not. And I took that 12-hour drive to Austin. It was about 12 hours. Packed up all my mace.

I packed them up all in a little blanket, made them nice and comfortable in the backseat. Every time they would clang, I'd yell at them. We call them our kids. Like our mace have their own characters. They all have names. It was a very interesting drive. And I made it to Austin. And Austin is very different than New Mexico.

And when I first got there that first week, I was like, I hate this place. I want to go home. But I told myself, you have to give yourself six months in a place, you know, really to get acclimated and situated. I've lived a few different cities longer than two years in my adult life. And I find that it takes about two years

to find your group of friends. I've had people move somewhere for a year and be you know maybe six months or a year into a place and they go oh it's not working and what i know from my and i'm somebody who i would consider myself a social butterfly uh it's taken me two years to figure out i need a lot of people but i don't find like i don't find the people i want to hang out with you have a lot of acquaintances yeah it takes't find the people I want to hang out with. You have a lot of acquaintances. Yeah. It takes a couple years to find the people that vibe with you and all that kind of stuff.

That's what I found to be true for me. So a lot of times when people, they're in one city for a year and they go, oh, it's just not working. I was like, wow, it takes longer than that. Definitely. You know, and I enjoy Austin fully. You know, just being able to go to Onnit, which is a gym there, is great. You know, it's got a great vibe. There's a lot to do in Austin.

Everyone's very friendly, which was a trip for me. Where we come from, people, I don't want to say this the wrong way because I know you will. I know you will. People in Austin are friendly. People in Albuquerque, you don't make eye contact with. Yeah. So when you walk down the street in Albuquerque,

you just tend not to say hi to everybody. It's a weird thing. Yeah. You know, you're always on your guard. I always want to know where my wallet is. Have you guys seen Breaking Bad? Yeah. Yeah. It's a weird thing. Yeah. You know, you're always on your guard. I always want to know where my wallet is. Have you guys seen Breaking Bad? Yeah.

Yeah, it's fucking true. That's Albert Kirk, right? Yeah, that's Albert Kirk. For sure. For sure. I think everyone, you walk around with a chip on your shoulder. You do walk around with much more alertness and a little bit of leeriness. There are certain places you just don't go after dark.

I'm from a similar place. Yeah. And then you go to Austin and people just walk up, hey, how's it going? You're like, what the fuck do you want? So breaking that habit for me. Because I do consider myself a friendly person once I can break that ice. Feel safe. Yeah, feel safe.

Yeah, exactly. So to break down that barrier, I still have it. Especially if I go to a different state and I'm like, feel safe. Yeah, exactly. So to break down that barrier, I still have it. You know, especially if I come, if I go to a different state, I'm like, all right, you know, I'm on my guard. I'm five foot two. I'm not going to get jumped today. That's what Albuquerque does to you. Yeah.

Yeah. I'm not going to get jumped today. I mean, that's, she's not joking around. Albuquerque is a treacherous place. Yeah. However, Austin is completely different. Austin's pretty dope. Not to say that Albuquerque doesn't have its awesome. I still love Albuquerque is a treacherous place. However, Austin is completely different. Not to say that Albuquerque doesn't have its awesome...

Alex Stringer says that there's trouble going on in Austin. You know Alex running for mayor? No, but is that his campaign? There's trouble going on? No, the campaign is build the dome. He wants to build a dome around Austin to keep out the

Californians. The Californians. Yeah. All the Uber driving Californians ruining the traffic. That's his thing. They got to go to Albuquerque and drive around.

It's hilarious. Oh, man. Now I want to hear, Serena, what was it like? Why did you join the Strong Coach? And what was that process like for you? So you jumped in before Leo. I did. I jumped on it.

That was a wild time. I was jealous. I could tell. I could tell. You could. We didn't even communicate much. I could feel it. I could feel it in my body. You were flowing a lot different during those times

when Serena was getting all her strong quotes. Yeah, your flows were a little choppy. Just want to put that out there that these fine gentlemen watched my work over and over and could tell it was choppy. Yeah, go ahead, Serena. How well was that? Oh, the strong coach. First off, I want to say that I met Mike through Leo.

We went over to Adi and Michael Cashew's house. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yes. And, you know, swung some mace with everybody and it was a really good time. Had no fucking clue who Mike Bledsoe was. I was like, oh, this guy's cool. You know, he's a, I know he's in fitness.

I saw him at the steel mace specialist corset on it type of thing. And, you know, so I go home and, you know, kind of research this guy. And I went, oh shit, this guy's like legit. And I just went over and hung out with him. Did you hear that? I'm legit. Yeah. So, and then.

Make sure my wife hears that. Hey, Ashley's legit in her own sense too like she is the shiz um yeah so you had posted something about the strong coach i was like what is this and uh me as a young coach i'm always looking to better my game and um uh i just knew that there was something you, I, you had a description about it, you know, wanting to better your coaching and all these different aspects. And to be honest, I didn't really, I didn't really knew, know exactly what the vision was going to be. I just knew there was, there was, yeah, great. But I had this feeling about it, you know, and, um and I was like, I know I have to be a part of this. This is, this is going to be something that I need to do. And that was before I learned about, you know, relationship with money. So I was very hesitant about spending big amounts of money. Like when I bought my, uh, it seemed like a big amount of money at the time. Yeah. It was, it was a thousand bucks for the beta group. And I was like, fuck, that's a lot of money. I just moved. I have no job. And I was like, I just know I have to make this work

somehow, you know? And, um, yeah, so scrounged up whatever money I had and threw and threw it at it. And I was like, all right, here we go. You know? So that was, I mean, that was basically it. And then you just dive deep into the courseware. So it was quite literally a life-changing experience. And not only for my coaching, but really it's that personal development. That's what I think it's interesting to talk to people who have been through the program, especially now having my partner take it too. Like he took something away from it completely different that resonated with him, you know,

and I've taken away something that, you know, has completely resonated with me. And it was more of the personal development that I needed work on. Like it made me realize I've always had these, I've always had the ability to be great. I've always had fantastic coaching abilities. I simply needed something to structure it and give me the confidence to believe in those abilities

because once you believe in yourself you can do anything anything that old saying you can put your mind or anything you put your mind to and I've really ran with that and having the business side of it comes along and just getting a little bit of structure there was fantastic. I kind of gave myself a title

in our business. I'm just like the operations and communications director. Just. No way. She does way fucking more than that. Leo's like the movie star. He's the face. Using that word just's like the movie star. On the face.

Yeah, he's the face. Using that word just is some soft talk there. Yeah. What do you do? There I go. I have to do affirmation, change it.

Yeah. Take it out. Yeah. But what did you say? Just remove the just. Just remove the just. I am the operations and communications director,

motherfuckers. Yes. What I really enjoy watching is your guys' process. I did the first beta group of Strong Coach with Serena and watching you guys develop the online certification that you guys have and then watching you guys live and apply those principles, like connecting, saying hi to everybody, making everybody feel special. That's something that we cover in the Strong Coach.

And the beauty of what the Strong Coach is and the work that you guys do, it's a here are the principles, but now have the flexibility to do whatever you want with it. And seeing the application of both um in this workshop uh where you guys are having um it's it's a it was a very interesting crowd um there's a little bit of everything and and you know what i imagine it is you guys are at the grassroots of of steel mace and what's happening with the movement you guys have going on um so watching all of this unfold um to me that was very special and and, and, you know, I have, I have a, uh, interest, special interest in you guys since I've been part of your journey. And so,

uh, uh, seeing all that come together, it was just amazing. So, uh, I really appreciate you guys being part of the strong coach and you guys are great ambassadors of the program. Um, it changed my life as well. And so it's, it's something that I'm super thankful for you guys that you always have amazing things to say about Mike, the program, and everything that he's doing for your life. So, yeah, thank you guys for being so open and vocal about it. Thank you. Yeah, the strong coach, like, you know, we say it changed our life, but it's kind of hard to measure like we feel we walk a different way we have different posture but i went from like figuring out how i was going to pay rent like you know we're doing workshops and those two okay to taking a couple weeks of the course and it was kind of like the conversation you had with your friend

about well why don't you move like i wanted to create a still mace certification and it was just like that easy well why don't you do that and i asked myself well why don't you and with the tools you gave us i was able to map out a chart and come up with what we came up with, which ended up being 10 times the product it would have been had I not taken this course. I made $20,000 in two months. I made more than that, but just to put it down like something you can measure. There was a lot of work that was done beforehand,

like creating my brand, creating my persona, my personality. And you weren't starting from zero. I didn't know what the fuck I was, what to do with it. Right. You know, I was just a dog

barking at cars. You know? And then one day a fucking car stops. I'm like, well, okay, what do I do?

You know? I learned that you piss on the tire. Yeah. Yeah, so, you know, and I just,

I encourage all coaches if you have a gift and you feel like you're stuck you know this is what you fucking need you need direction and you know one of the first things we went over is get your house in order like that was like maybe one of the first things you said in like the first video and i like stopped and I pressed pause and I was like okay let me think about this get my house in order and I looked around at my house fucking trash on the floor my fucking pile of clean laundries in the corner on the floor my bed's not made I said okay let me get my fucking house in order I can't I can't work like this just cleaned up did the things I

I created an environment that was respectable for the education i was about to receive oh wow that's awesome yeah that feels so good to hear yeah well cool yeah that's i mean it's it's great to like support product support your friends you know i'd like to say that we are all friends we've shared some time i got to know each other and it's it's nice to like endorse products or to be proud of a product, but having the two work together. I'll always support Mike and I'll always support you, Dani, and you, Serena, of course.

Oh, thank you. But it's great to get this information out there, to support my friends in more than one way. I can serve my students by telling them to be part of this you know strong coach program so interesting um uh reflection i had so i i started the program in what i think what do we start in june july some somewhere in there yeah like end of june beginning of july somewhere in there yeah so as i we were finishing up my group was finishing up uh while we were in washington we were both sicker than sicker than anything and we were at the flow state summit you know

performing and teaching and um that was uh that was really when i think he made the conscious decision that he wanted to do the certification so i'm coming off of this the the strong coach and we're going through this you know um this creative stage or this creative process and it's we're under tension like it's time under tension you know i think the when you're under the most tension is where some of the most beautiful things can be made. And all I remember was how can I be of support to him to get him through this so we can start this process. Like it started off pretty rocky to say the least, um, for the certification.

Bouldery. Bouldery. You know, and then that was when also he made two decisions. I'm going to make a certification, or I should say we are going to make a certification. Thank you. And he said, I'm going to do the strong coach. And I went, fuck yeah, yes. Because I'd been trying to,

you and I had had that conversation, like Leo needs to do this. And I was like, I know Leo needs to do this but there's always that a little bit of hesitancy like you know do I want to invest my time is this you know really worth it and I mean he had seen the transformation in me and I think maybe that was part of it that was part that was that was the the biggest part of it was my first-hand experience you know it's interesting you were mentoring her and she went to the strong coach first which if you're if you're in a coaching position like that that gave serena i imagine what i saw a lot of structure that was she didn't have and

for her to start having this structure in this conversation and you not being a part of it, what was that like? It was awesome in that I thought, cool, I don't have to do that stuff. Serena can do that stuff. But at the same time, like, I'm very proud of what we do. And I wanted to contribute and be part of it. My initial thing, you know, we saw the beta group and I had saw it. And Serena saw and she mentioned, hey, you know, this is Mike Bledsoe, of course. And she signed up for it before I got the chance to, and I wanted to take the course.

So I thought I could take the course with Serena, definitely got the money to do it. And then I just said, you know what? Serena's never been the lead. I would just really like to honor Serena and let her have her own thing. And so really part of it was in the decision-making process to go into the courses Serena had this thing. And she was extremely useful in her own. She created an area in our business where she could

you know what are you the project you're the i'm the boss you're the boss serena created a position for herself and you know and i saw the changes happening i said man i'd really like to get into it but i wanted to respect serena's space and let her have the the deal and you know we were at um we were performing in washington and it was a tough time in washington washington to say the the least fucking sucked i taught a the world's biggest still mace flow workshop and I got stiffed. My business partner took me to the cleaners. I was supposed to film

another project with this business partner. I had to cancel the shoot. We both had the fucking flu. It sucked. But I watched... Sounds like something was out of alignment. Something was out of alignment. I can tell you... Alright, cool. We're all was out of alignment. I can tell you.

Yeah, yeah. All right, cool. We're all on the same page. I said Serena's handling her shit. Not me. I don't know what the fuck to do. And Serena strong coached the fuck out of me. And just said the thing.

Serena knows me pretty well to encourage me to have the conversation with you. And then shortly after, I think you had messaged me about being part of the program. And I had mentioned that to Serena and Serena said, Mike wants you to be part of the program. And this is awesome. Let me tell you why this is fucking awesome.

Sometimes we, as strong-willed as I can be and as much belief as I have in myself, I have moments where I don't believe in myself and that's just being human. But whenever, and this is something that's helped me out. So you guys get a pen and write this shit down. I'm going to give a second for them to get a pen. Okay. When I don't believe in myself, I believe in the people who believe in me. And so what I heard in that conversation is Leo, I believe in you. I'm willing to share my life's work with you. And actually I have a spot for you.

And I said, Michael, that's who believes in me. And I use that all the time. You know, I've used that with Danny, with you as well, with a lot of my mentors, John Wolf,

Shane Hines. We have some of the same mentors. And I created a mantra for myself in believing. If you guys don't know what mantras are... Join the strong coach. Yeah. I was just going to say, fucking pay for it. Don't be pay for it don't be an asshole

but you need to respect the program I mean you can tell people what it is but it takes two or three weeks for it to even sink in so a mantra is just it's a way of telling yourself you believe in whatever you're saying

you know we use specific words to accurately describe what it is I'm going to do or who it is that I am. And my mantra, I wake up in the morning, I go through my routine, make some strong coffee. Shout out to strong coffee. Von Rothbilder. I grab my first joint of the day. I walk outside. I'm in my very joint of the day. I walk outside.

I'm in my very, very short shorts. I open my sliding glass door. I walk out. I open up my chest. I stretch my chest towards the sky. And I say, I am Leo Savage. Because Leo Savage is the identity I've created to help me navigate this new journey I put myself on. And when you say you created an identity,

what's wrong with you, man? Like nothing, we all create identities. Matter of fact, who you are right now is the identity you created to be in the situation you are. If you're stuck, it's because you created that situation. However, all right. I guess that's where they hit on that. Love it. Love it. Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. I mean, to dive deeper into mantras, that's, I mean, essentially you're retraining your brain to think this way, like to believe it, you know, it goes back to that belief. Mantra was a game changer for me as well. It took a minute for me to really like get into it. I was like, oh, I say these words and I'm better. Yeah, right. You know, and I made myself vulnerable enough to say, okay, you know, let's try this. You know, let's give this a shot. And, you know, my biggest thing for my biggest struggle in life, you know, has been a being against myself, you know, I've always I've never been in my own corner. And I felt like an outcast, you know, I had a very troubled past with my family. And so something

that I'm actually currently, you know, going through and handling, I suppose, or growing from. But, you know, my, that belonging really got to me, you know, that affected my life in such a manner that I, you know, you act a certain way, or you do certain things just so you can simply belong somewhere or to someone or to a group. And that was, I look at it now and I'm like, gosh, that was stupid. You know, why did I ever need to belong to anyone or be in a certain group? And so a line that we came up with for my mantra was I belong. I actually changed it up a little bit. So it's now the line is I belong to me and

what that did essentially was put me back in my corner you know because at the end of the day who is the person you have to live with all the time 24 hours a day every second of the day yourself you know there's not he's not gonna always be around or my mom's not gonna always be around or my mom's not gonna always be around shit my dog is not always gonna be around my dog is my rock just so you guys know all right that was he was my rock um but i changed that up essentially to give myself the strength to be independent you know we um people either want to belong or they want to stand out.

Well, why do either? Why aren't you just happy with how you are as a person and grow from there? And you'll either, you'll find people that you can be in a group with, and you'll also find happiness in being, um, you know, standing out alone. You'll stand out by being who you are because everyone else is still trying to belong somewhere. Everyone else is trying to be like that other person. I'm fucking happy being, being me, you know, and I'm happy learning how to because everyone else is still trying to belong somewhere. Everyone else is trying to be like that other person. I'm fucking happy being me.

And I'm happy learning how to integrate myself with other people because I can be pretty stubborn and different and hard-headed. And Leo knows that very well. There's some interesting identities you have. Just on the surface. Wait till you get in there. There's all kinds. You know, but I mean, that mantra feeds into the next couple of mantras, which comes down to love. You know, love is a big thing.

I think everyone wants to be loved. Whether you admit it or not, I know you do. Love is a big part of being human. And I didn't feel loved when I was young. And from the people that I wanted to be loved by the most. You know, that's your family. Or, you know, for other people it could be your partner. You know you want a lot of love from a certain person or a certain group of people. And I never felt that.

Occasionally I did, but I was always yearning and searching and trying to be the certain person. So I would receive that love. So I would receive that belonging and I never did. And we said, um, I am worthy of love. You know, I, I am worthy of love. I'm a pretty good person. I have compassion and I have passion and all of these things. And so that was a big one for me. And it plays into coaching, you know, as well. The I belong plays into coaching because I belong to me and that gives me the strong platform to help others find their own belonging to themselves. The I am worthy of love means I can open myself up more to my students and make that connection. When I talk about the me going and hugging you know the people making that point to make that connection is I'm worthy to

receive that love and they receive my love. You know it makes me vulnerable and it allows for a stronger student-coach connection in a sense. And the the I am worthy of love goes into, I love me. You know, you, you should love yourself. Like I said, you're the person you live with 24 hours a day. You can't, um, I went through this, this dark period of beating myself up where I felt really guilty for, um, for leaving New Mexico and for choosing myself, that selfish decision. I thought it was very selfish.

You know, so I hated myself for a while. And I mean, that's just one example of it. I think we all go through life and certain points of our life, maybe we hate ourselves for something we did or, you know, something we say. And it took a long time and a lot of self-talk to say i had to forgive myself first and foremost you know for some things it's like you it's you made that

decision for a reason you know and there's no going back you've already done it so there's no point in dwelling on it you made the you made you did that thing so now what are you going to do to go forward you, whether it be good or bad, but the biggest decision was, you know, the, or the thing that made me feel so guilty was leaving my mom behind and, you know, breaking up with my ex. Cause I knew what I did to him. I knew that I broke his heart for essentially if you, this piece of steel, but that piece of steel represents something, you know, know, it represents the true birth of who I really am. And I essentially, I did him a favor.

You know, and we're still, you know, we talked about it. I actually had a really good conversation. That was part of my growth was to be able to own what I did, give an apology and explain why, you know, and he understands, which was great. So that I love me has been a big one. Like I can, I can say that I love myself because now I'm really being who I am, you know, versus trying to create the, trying to be someone for somebody else. I'm just trying to be me, you know, and that's where when you're truly yourself, you'll find people that are like-minded or like-hearted.

You know, that's what I really like the most. We can have differences and opinions, but if you have that genuine heart or that feeling, you know, that's great. And then the last one was, oh, no, there's two more. I am good. I always thought I was a bad person. I was told as a kid I'm really bad. So I went through life thinking I was this bad person and then also growing up Catholic, you know, going into sin and all that, that affected my relationship with a higher power. And now that is, that is coming

along swimmingly. I had to digress and really look at the root of that relationship, which was very interesting. That one I'm still going through. And I believe I'm a good person. You know, we make mistakes. That's called life. That's called trial and error. Not everything is going to be perfect and we should revel in that. Revel in those times where we make mistakes and we move forward from them. You know, revel in life itself. It's a game, really. That's all. We're playing a game. Oh, well, you know, we have this opportunity to go forth. Let's see what kind of pieces we can put into this game. Let's try this. Oh, well, that didn't work. Okay, well, let's take this part out and try this. You know, it's all fun now, even with money. That really changed my relationship with money as far

as when you told me there's all the money is out there You know, there's plenty of money in the world. You just have to go and get it, you know So it's that running out of money. I've run out of money so many fucking times in the last year It's like no my bank accounts at zero again. Well, let's get let's see what we can do to you know, that's fun I think more than getting it. It's being open to receiving it. Oh Yeah, I like that. That's difficult to do, you know, because what we,

and I'll speak for us both, but correct me if I'm wrong, we're so passionate about what we're doing, we want to give, we would give it away. Right. And that's something that, you know,

my relationship with money, I wasn't comfortable with receiving money. You know, I wanted to do this out of the goodness of my heart. But you can't fucking do it when you don't have anything to eat and a place to sleep.

You got to eat. You got to sleep somewhere. You need plane tickets. And it's not a – money's not a – You got to take care of yourself, too. Money's not a bad thing. You can buy weed. Important stuff here, guys.

I will say that it's good to be the savage. I am now a sponsored cannabis athlete and I don't have to buy weed anymore. So I'm just trying to create a life around the way I like to live. It goes around that perfect day. And that's one of the cool things that the Strong Coach teaches you is how to create that life for yourself. And I, uh, the story that you told about, uh, leaving everything to pursue this. Imagine having the knowledge that you have from a strong coach and how much easier that journey would have been for yourself, uh, knowing that you're, you're acting in what you want to create in life. It just, uh, allowing yourself to create that

sometimes is, is the hardest part of the process. And I could only imagine what that would have done for me. And also in my own journey, when you have to let everything go to make it happen. You know, and that kind of brings us full circle for my mantra, actually saying that the last part of it is I am free, you know, and now that we have this information, we've gone through this beautiful course. And we know that it could have helped us. But now it's it is helping us now. And now we have this freedom and this knowledge to give to others. Now we get to help others in their journey. And maybe we get them at the start of theirs where they're getting ready

to make that big change, but they're unsure. And then they go and take this program and they learn from people who have been through it. And that's the beauty of it. Now we have this freedom. We have the freedom to simply be as humans. Like take, I always, I, when I say that's, that's been something that's stuck in my head. I have the freedom to simply be, you know, take a second in the moment, you know, don't live for the past or the, or the future. Just revel in this moment. And it's beautiful. I love to, I find myself constantly reflecting of where I'm at. And it puts me at peace because I struggled with, I'm not the best coach. I don't have all the information or this coach is so much more experienced than me.

They could be a better partner for Leo to do this program with. You know, I would constantly second guess myself and all of these things. And yet when I paused for just a second to look at my own journey and where I am as a coach, I was like, this is fun. This is it. This is what it's all about. It's not where you're going to get or where you have been, but where you are at in the journey. Sure. I'm a

young coach. I, the thing I know the best about coaching is steel mace. You know, I'm learning about other stuff. Like I, I understand that my interest in fitness goes beyond the steel mace and it really is more so about creating a beautiful lifestyle for people, whether it be with a mace or a kettlebell or whatever tool I put in your hands, you're going to be able to pick it up and you can flow with it or you can do anything with it. But taking it back to this is where I'm at with my education. This is where I am at with my how I coach is beautiful. And so that gave me a lot of peace of mind. And I know I'm right where I need to be.

As many, I still struggle with it. You know, I still have my moments where I have complete meltdowns. Like I had a complete meltdown before this certification. And I was ready to throw my, I was throwing my hands up. I said, you know, I kind of regressed a little bit and this one over here was like you don't throw away your strong coach coaching you know stuff like you have this implemented in in you to use in this moment and um it took me a minute took me like a day actually because you know that the journey is hard but when you can reflect back and say I made it through that that is beauty you know so the journey is hard because you know that the journey is hard, but when you can reflect back and say, I made it

through that, that is beauty. You know, so the journey is hard because you care about it so much. Yeah. You know, um, people say, man, like you have a really awesome life and I do, my life is fucking cherry. Um, I count my blessings as part of my morning ritual, uh, whenever I'm feeling, you know, down, but just because you love what you do doesn't mean it's going to be a cakewalk in fact because I love this so fucking much that when I have a letdown it touches me in the heart just because you get to work on something you love don't expect the easy road matter of fact it will be the hardest thing you've ever done because of that emotional investment into it. And so, yeah.

It's been great. It's been a ride. And thank you. You're allowed to freak out. I mean, this is the great. And then I bring it all back in. This is the fucking great thing about being. We all freak out, man. Every once in a while.

This is the great thing about being part of the Savage is you're supposed to express yourself. Yeah. And if you feel like fucking freaking out, it's probably, you should listen to that. I wonder how good a controlled freakout would work. A planned freakout. I'm going to freak out on

Saturday. It's called an Osho meditation. Okay. True. He said it. He said true. He's been hanging out long enough. Man, it was beautiful watching you guys do your thing yesterday. And, you know, I keep thinking back to the certification. And it's usually beautiful movements.

Like when I do these type of events. Like there's this dude who did this thing. And Serena, did you see Ellie do that move move but when i think back uh to the you know this last 24 hours it's like your guys smiling faces uh i pulled mike mike uh bledsoe up front to demonstrate something he didn't have a fucking clue he was gonna do uh we were doing a 360 swing switch nobody knew what a 360 swing switch was. And so me and Mike were going through that. Mike had the hugest smile on his face, a red rosy face. I looked to the crowd and Ms. Bledsoe, Ashley, she's sitting there.

She's got the biggest smile on her face. It's spreading like wildfire. There's all these smiles. And I remember Danny figuring out the hunter uppercut, which is part of the warrior walk flow. I'm name dropping to get people excited. They're doing warrior walks and shit? I want to be part of that. That shit's legit.

That shit's legit. And Danny was having a hard time figuring out this cross-body press, and then he got it. And he just kind of sat there for a little bit, and he smiled, and I was like, yes, that smile. It was contagious, man. What a fucking opening. All right.

We usually do a roundtable like, hey, introduce yourself. Tell us where you're from. It helps us as coaches because if you tell me you work with a tool, I can relate everything to you. If you say you do jujitsu, well, I speak the language of jujitsu. I can make this work out for you. So usually it's like an information gathering session, like, okay, who needs help? Who's never been here before? But like, this is pretty much how it was like, hey, so and so i'm from canada i love to smoke weed i'm here to fuck with the mace cool my name's alan i'm into all the drugs and i'm here to swing mace i mean wasn't that like the radius fucking open it was great it's so great

it was uh it was a great catalyst i went first and i and i heard everyone talking i go man i really held back on my intro you know it just really like when i was sitting there and people were sharing these things that maybe you keep these things aren't like widely spread like these are secrets that people live with right like they don't run around telling people they live this type of lifestyle but we created an environment where these people from all over the globe could share openly. And not just in Mace. Not just in this expression, but like sharing their vulnerabilities. Here I am.

Feel free to judge me. Yeah. And you created that before anyone got in the door. Because there's no way that people got in the door and go, oh, I feel comfortable. It was because of the interactions you have with people on Instagram. And I know that there are many people in the crowd

where you knew them by their handle. You're like, I don't even know your real fucking name. Or you did. You may have known their name, but... I stare at the handle. The handle. It's like, oh, you're so-and-so. That's a strange name. Or you did, you may have known their name, but. I stare at the handle. The handle, it's like, oh,

you're so and so. Yeah. That's a strange name. Brink and legs. Yeah. Yeah, so it was cool to see you interact with people

who, I don't know if you'd ever seen them in person before or not, but you definitely had been interacting with them online. So there were,

and I'm just honored that I've been teaching an evolved program for two years you know it's changed however i've had people revisit the experience and i really like to say experience because it's a fucking experience but i've had people that were there that it was their third or fourth trip with me and then of course people who i'd never coached or met uh i only knew their instagram handles we had a family of gym owners in canada from canada that saskatchewan from saskatchewan like the the part that's empty

oh yeah yeah there's not very many people there not Toronto we're not talking about Toronto or Vancouver we're talking about in the middle they have a big mace following up there they have a lot of students so yeah getting to yeah I don't give a fuck about a handshake we're touching hearts

I'm putting my chin on your left shoulder you're putting your chin on my left shoulder we're bumping hearts and I'm probably going to pull you in to where it's uncomfortable because i love these people and i want to i want to compress their nervous system that i'm about to fuck up for the next eight hours before we uh get into the the shenanigans let's see there was a guy abram i know i know his name's Abram, but his Instagram handle is

fuckabox. And I think that's actually why I decided to start following him. It was just based on his... I didn't even know what the box was, but I was like, yeah, man, fuck that box. They try to put you in a box. But I wanted to call on Abram. I'm having a whole different line

of thinking. Yes. There's levels to this shit. But I wanted to call on Abram. I'm having a whole different line of thinking. Oh, that part. Yes. There's levels to this shit. I couldn't even go where you went with it. I always go that direction first, and then I get stuck. So I knew Abram's journey to get there, and I wanted to honor him by pulling him up on stage

and having him present something. But I didn't want to be disrespectful and call him Fuckabox in front of everybody. He's the one that chose the name. I know. Well, yeah, if there was ever a place, hey, Fuckabox, come up here. I did kind of like,

because not everybody who traveled there would necessarily be into the lifestyle that we've... That Fuckabox is into. He's into it. However, there were probably some people like the opening ceremony. We all smoke weed. There were like several people who like raised their eyes like, shit, are we about to get sent to the principal's office? Can we say this in here?

So there were a couple of people who... People eyes like, shit, are we about to get sent to the principal's office? Can we say this in here? So there were a couple people who... People were talking about smoking weed. We didn't all smoke weed together beforehand. We didn't? Where was I? Oh, you were a day late. Oh, yeah. We did.

Oh, a day late, yeah. Yeah, no, we didn't have a good smoke. Some of us have to work, Leo. I was working too, my friend. It's part of the process. It's part of my sponsorship. I have to smoke cannabis. Represent.

Speaking of that cannabis sponsorship, shout out to Bake Bros in Arizona. I'll just say it. Best cannabis experience I've ever had. You guys have seen me smoke. I've ever had. They make a... Oh, wow. You guys have seen me smoke. You guys know I've... I've been witness. You guys know I have a healthy relationship with cannabis.

The guys at Big Bros, they make a syrup cannabis with the thought of know your dose. They want to dose people properly. You know, edibles are scary. So basically, look at it like, it's like NyQuil, you know, it's like a syrup like NyQuil and you dose it just like you do NyQuil.

It hits you pretty quick. It doesn't have a huge come down. It lasts just as long as an edible. So if you're like into flow states or working out for long periods of time, it acts as a really good pre-workout. It's a different type of flow state. Yeah.

I just, I love it. Like they gave me, I don't know, 15 bottles, 150 milligrams. And I opened up the first one and I took it. And like once I realized like what I had, I was instantly in fear of running out. I have fucking a case of this shit at home. I opened the first one and I'm like, fuck, I might run out.

So shout out to Big Bros. Can I... I need a bottle. I need a pre-workout Big Bros bottle. Every time I find something neat, I want to share it with my people, especially cannabis. And, yeah, they were just really cool guys in that they believe in the mission,

the openness, and we're very proud cannabis supporters, users, whatever. They're really big into the education of it. Nadim, right? Nadim. Nadim, Nadim. Yeah. Um, you know, their, their thing is how, you know, we heal with a mace, you heal with cannabis, you know, treat the dosing and helping people that are in pain and knowing that you can implement it into your day to day life, um, and not overdo it, you know, they're, and they're trying to take away the fear that, you know, has been placed on

cannabis. Cannabis has been around for so long, you know, it's been around a lot longer than all of these medicines and things that we have now. And that has a, you know, you don't, that addiction is one of the biggest things, you know, for pain, managing pain after surgeries and things like that. I, my relationship with cannabis is very interesting because growing up in a religious home, it's the devil's lettuce. Oh my God, I can't. Oh, I'm trying to eat a salad with the devil. Yeah, so I mean, I dabbled a little bit with cannabis

when I was in my 20s. I took cannabis in ecstasy. That was interesting. Sounds awesome. Sounds awesome. Took cannabis in ecstasy. That was interesting. Sounds awesome. Sounds awesome. But I still had that fear in me. I was like, I got to quit this. Like, it's bad for you.

It's bad for you. It's bad for you. And I, you know, when you hang out with Leo, it's just you're predisposed. It's the same, man. You're going to hang out with a savage. You probably got told some bullshit when you were growing up. Yeah. Part of the Strong Coach when you were growing up. Yeah. Part of the Strong Coach program we heard unlearn.

Yes. The best thing ever. You know who I like is Eddie Bravo, right? He's this conspiracy nut, right? And he just says this line, like, you should look into it. Oh, yeah. Yeah, like it doesn't matter what it is. Earth's not flat.

How do you know? Or Earth's flat. How do you know? You should just look into it. Oh, yeah. Yeah. Like, it doesn't matter what it is. Earth's not flat. How do you know? Earth's flat. How do you know? You should just look into it. Have you looked into it? Should you look into it? By the way, I looked into the flat Earth thing. How would you find? It's still round for me. So, once you

are put in somebody else's habitat and you see that they're breaking all the rules that you were taught, you start having this conversation. Liberating. I really like the phrase unlearn. Yes. I used it on my mom.

Yeah. You used cannabis on your mom? No, that's the first step. No, the unlearn. The learning and unlearning. Well, because I don't give a fuck. I'm just going to say I had my first LSG trip, which was amazing. Very, very insightful. It was with the savage.

Of course. All my medicine-related trips are usually with you. He's my guide. Just trying to expand that consciousness. You know, so I dial it back just a little bit with the cannabis stuff. I started hanging out with him, so I started smoking more. And then just learning about cannabis, like the education. Educate yourself.

That's another thing that I took away from Strong Coach is this thirst for knowledge and wanting to learn more. Because as a business owner or as an entrepreneur, you've got to start somewhere, right? You can say business owner. Totally. Yeah, it's's a business i'm in the business of steel masonry um you you have to start somewhere and we don't automatically know everything you know and so if you don't if you have a if you have a question on something that you don't know how to do go find the answer you know so i've started implementing with everything. And even the littlest things, I was sitting there in bed one night and was like, who made beds?

Just like the most random question. I was like, I'm going to fucking Google this. You created a monster. Yeah. A proper monster, like Frankenstein. We love Frankenstein. Monster or monster? Monster.

You created a proper monster. Serena's like, she'll run into the house, she's like, hey, did you know? And she just drops bombs of knowledge on me and then she'll like show me her notebook

and she's got like diagrams and I studied all last night about, you know, whatever the thing is and I created a manual. Yeah. Yeah, I did. I'm writing a blog

about cannabis and my relationship with it. It has definitely changed. I no longer fear it and that, and in freeing myself and that it has opened up the exploration you know of other of other medicines you know because really it's cannabis is a plant and you know it comes from the earth it wasn't manufactured there as far as addiction i know that i can go i i'll take to i like to play i like to i like to play with myself is what I was going to say.

Yes. Who doesn't? I like to test myself. And so I'll not smoke for a couple of days just to see what the effects are. And I'm good. Not me. I'm totally addicted. Yeah.

Fuck the bullshit. They're like, oh, yeah, cannabis isn't addictive. You should see me after a few days of not smoking yeah and I want to point out everybody's different

yeah so and you know what and there's been times where I could smoke every night and I was great with that and there's been times

where I needed to take a break and I took a break and not only is everybody different but you're're different every time you do it. So if you, for me, I had, you know, I might have an experience five years ago, but the way I experience it now is not the same. So your physiology is always changing. Your perspective is always changing. Your perspective is always changing. I think that

that's one thing I'd like for people to appreciate about any of this stuff that we're talking about, especially in regard to any types of substances, is everybody's different. It really makes me I get upset when people want to

make, to force other people to live by rules. Yeah. You're like, you should not do this because it does this. I'm like, well, that might be your experience of it or more than likely you've never had the experience and that's why you don't want other people to do it. But, you know, I'm going to force you to live life the way I want you to, because I've, I had this one experience in this one point in my life.

Right. And so people get stuck and on this one moment or this one thing or this one idea. And I think it's important for people to recognize the process, which is they themselves, and then also recognize that everyone else is in their own process. And what may be working for one person right now may not work for somebody else and vice versa. Yeah. And what may be working for one person right now may not work for somebody else and vice versa. And so what I really like is diminishing, like what you're talking about, Serena, getting rid of the fear around a thing so you can actually see it for what it is. Yeah.

Instead of, you know, maybe what parents or politicians, you know, scared the shit out of you over at some point. Humans are highly influenceable, you know, scared the shit out of you over at some point. Humans are highly, um, influenceable, you know, um, and, uh, you know, as children, we are brought up in a certain way and how we are brought up is based off of the opinions of people, our parents, it's their opinions, what they've been experienced through lives. And I think as a parent, if you give your child the opportunity to explore, I think that's a beautiful thing. You know, learn how to, it's just, I look at, you know, now having structure for my own life, I look at structures in different settings. And, you know, childhood is one of those things where that's where most of the shit happens to us and that's where we get molded. So when you have all this negativeness, negativity in your life, or if you have certain things, it molds you or it sticks with you,

you know, and then going into adulthood, it's like we get to a certain point where you just hit this roadblock. And it's because of things that have happened in the past. And because we were taught a certain way, like can't do this or you shouldn't do this or this is wrong it goes back to how we speak to people you know the the affirmations versus negations was huge for me and now i i bought mark england's program the procabular and i've got i'm only you know two or three lessons in but i'm just fucking mind blown if you want to do that go to pro cap pro vocabulary.org.org okay yeah if you want to do that, go to procabulary.org. Dot org, okay.

Yeah, I just wanted to let people know that. Yeah, it's, oh God, it's dope. Oh yeah, and use the code BLEDSO for 100 bucks off. There you go. But I mean, it, I am very conscious about how I speak to people now, or I at least, I try to make a conscious decision

to speak to people in a certain way, or we have, it's fun for us now when we catch, what catch each other. Oh, what did you just say? Or what did you say that word? You know, but, um, uh, if you allow a person to explore and just, and simply be open and try things, you know, form your own opinion first. Don't, don't, don't take my word for this shit. You know, do it yourself, educate, get in the process of it and see how things affect you it's been that that whole way of living has um has really made me um enjoy life a little

bit more you know it's fun it's fun and you um recognizing what is fear what is fear itself that's it's pretty deep i wrote something I wrote something along those lines too. And fear is essentially what you could say is somebody else's opinion as well. You gain the sense of fear from what somebody else says. So if you eliminate that and if you see something for what it is, well, is it fearful now? Or was it someone's opinion that affected you? Yeah. Yeah.

I mean, we, I mean, our universe is made up of our words and I, the way I look at the world is one of the ways, one of my frameworks for how I can be with the world in a more intentional and conscious manner is that I look at my relationship to the thing, which really means what's my relationship to that word. Right. And so what's my relationship to the word? We can say cannabis. What's my relationship to the word

exercise? What's my relationship to the word um muscle and or you know because i think people think about relationships and they think about relationships to people yeah um and we did this in the strong coach but your relationship to money correct and then you're bringing up the word fear and something that i did a while back is it's very meta because people normally do work around their relationships with the things that they fear in some way like i fear this i need to work on my relationship with it what if you worked on your relationship with fear itself and that's something that i've done and i've shifted over time and i experience fear differently than I used to.

And everyone experiences everything differently, so I know I experience it different than other people. And I definitely notice that when I'm going through life, sometimes people are going, what the fuck? No. And I'm like, this is amazing. 99% of people are running one direction I'm running the other direction

and um but it it really does come down to those things that you're talking about Serena yeah I I'm uh a writer uh I yeah writing was one of my first forms of expression you know I mean we we're talking about expression um through steel mace flow and um you know then it translated into music which is another form of expression of words of my inner being but writing has come back to me like we we practiced uh journaling exercises in the strong coach and so that really brought me back. I have so many different journals. But what I really started getting into, words would stop, would pop into my head. Like, you hear a lot of words. Trust, fear, truth. So what I started doing, like, what do these mean to me? Like, what if we want to talk about trust? First off, look up the definition of trust you know what does that word truly mean everyone has a concept of trust but what does your trust look like you can see it in a broad spectrum of what everyone has predisposed for trust you know but what does your trust look

like for your love relationship what does your trust look like for your friendships or your family and really trust comes down to what is your expectation of that person because of expectations yeah because if a person doesn't know your expectations and they don't live up to them then you're setting yourself up for disappointment and that is breaking trust you know so a person has to you need to set that up like what does that look like to you does my trust with leo look like i mean if he doesn't tell me he did the laundry you know type of thing and i want him to tell me he does the laundry which i don't do fucking yeah you know i mean something as simple as that can lead to

a disappointment or a lack of trust you know just a small example of it you know so that's been really breaking down words has been really fun for me and it makes anything that I write very important you know when I wrote the introduction to the manual I did a lot of it was write a sentence and then look at the words that are in the sentence what what do those mean and everything flows together and it has meaning it has rhyme and reason and it has a purpose and there is um an expectation to be met for this manual you know so it was fun that was another creative outlet for me to flow in you know flow um hypo or transient hypofrontality um if we want to get really scientific with it i've dived deep deep into it. No idea what that means. Just got hit in the brain. Yeah. You're using different parts of your brain and you're shutting off that frontal cortex,

that part of your brain that does all the thinking. That's what we use for work and it's decompressing from that. And so allowing the creative juices, allowing the creative sides of your brain to really work. And I mean, I'm still learning about it. It's very interesting to me. As a body worker, I want to know everything about the body and how it affects me. So this flow state is what we call it, is really, really good for you as a person. And we hit it hard with Steel Mace. However, you can access flow state through many things. There is research of micro flow state and macro flow state. Can I hit flow state while I'm working?

Sure. It's this state of being where you are so zoned in to something and you are just, you know, when you start writing, what happens if you start with a thought? You just, you can write forever and forever. That's a flow state, you know, when you start writing, what happens if you start with a thought? You just, you can write forever and forever. That's a flow state, you know, and it's beautiful. It's the ability to create. So you don't have to swing a mace to enter flow state.

Absolutely not. However, it's the best, so far it's been the best. Leo's so disappointed. No, but it is, that was my introduction to flow. You know, there's so many reasons why the steel mace has changed my life. And that's what we prescribe. We don't just teach steel mace. We teach steel mace flow because we want to teach people that flow exists.

And you can use it in your life for your tasks that you might find to be uncomfortable. Maybe you can find a way to flow through those. Right on. Where can people find out how to do the certification, workshops? What do you guys have to offer and where do they find it? All right. So the best way to keep track of me is my Instagram handle, Leo Savage. I try and keep my audience updated as to what I'm doing. Of course, it's easy

to miss an Instagram post. I do have a site, stillmaceflow.com. You'll have to forgive me. It's under construction, but should be ready November 1st, which is here. How many days? 15 days? Something like that? 15 days?

About two weeks away. Oh, man. I may hold on to this long enough for you to have that done. Perfect. But we will be launching our Still Mace Flow online program November 1st, stillmaceflow.com. There are various levels of certifications you can jump into. We've got a wonderful month-long Still still may certification that I'm very proud of. You know, the certification that you guys went through, even though it was like special and we had some magic moments in it. The one thing that I wish I could make last longer is the ability to ask

questions as you grow in the process. So getting to take the lessons that we learned in one day and separate those over a month i'm going to build an army of some amazing steel mace coaches and i can't wait to facilitate and have questions from people from all over the world what we do is we create um right now small groups so our first group's 13 people we have have coaches from Australia, Singapore, the Philippines, all over the United States. We got a guy from Peru. So I just think of like what a neat service that all these coaches who are going through the same process, who live in all different corners of the world, get to share questions and insights from what their clients are doing. We travel throughout America and we teach workshops,

our certifications and workshops, but the steel mace flow.com will be where our platform, where we operate from the most. Cool. Instagram. The IG steel mace gypsy. That's where you can find me. And yes, the same, the steelmaceflow.com.

I mean, we both manage that. Hell yeah. Yeah, but IG is where I connect with everybody. So, you know, and just to touch, just to differentiate a little bit for the Steel Mace Flow, it's the online, it's a coaching program. You know, it's more in-depth. You guys got a taste of what we do at the workshop. The physical part. Yeah, that's the physical part. That's the online it's a coaching program you know it's more in depth you guys got a taste of

what we do at the workshop the physical part yeah that's the physical part that's the hands-on and while that's great not everyone can um come to a workshop or a certification you know they are from different parts of the world or they don't have the means to travel um you know this online coaching program opens up that door up to where we can be face to face, at least, you know, we can answer your questions. We can coach you through your steel mace program. And then, you know, those, that first week, that first two weeks were, we'll actually be taking through through our strong coaching, you know,

that we've learned, you know, and helping implement that into the steel mace flow coaching program to make our coaches not only good with a mace, but everything behind that. You know, what makes a coach a coach? They will be able to coach in 360 degrees. That's what's up. Boop, boop.

And we're going to teach everyone the savage handshake. Well, we're going to teach you guys that too. That's what I was going to say. What the fuck? Oh, you're going to like it. It involves a fuck. It does. Yes.

Uh-oh. I know where your mind goes, so I just. Now I'm scared. Yeah, I'd like to say thank you, Mike, for your support and spending some time. We're in Long Beach, California. You took some time out of your busy schedule on your birthday weekend to come down here and share some time and space with Serena and I. And, of course, you brought your wife. Shout out to Mrs. Bledsoe.

Thank you so much for being part of our journey and being my coach through the Strong Coach program. I wasn't sure at first when you jumped onto the Strong Coach program, and I just didn't have a relationship with you. And after getting to go through that first Strong Coach session with you, I knew right away that you were the right coach, and I could take everything you said into heart. And I just want to pay homage to the people who have helped me get to where I am in this moment. And I'd like to thank my sponsors. I've mentioned most of them. There's a guy out there, Robert Patton, and he's just a good buddy of mine. He happens to make an awesome product, and I love and support him for what he does.

He builds amazing underwear and so uh robert uh has helped fund a lot of my journey when i was when i did not manage a lot of money and uh just want to tell robert if he's out there listening thank you so much for what you do and to anybody who is out there one thing that was said on Instagram was, not on Instagram, at the certification was, I stalk your Instagram. I stalk every, there were a lot of people who said that,

but I never looked at it as stalking. I just, I always think it's support. Yeah. When somebody takes time to watch a video or comment on it

or just add a heart, I just think like it's a show of support. So not only to the big contributors, the people who have spent time and taken time out of their lives to come hang out with me, or Robert Patton for writing me a check every month so I can pursue my goal. But it would be impossible without the audience of supporters. So I just want to thank everybody out there who has been on this four-year journey with me, including you too, Serena. I want to thank you very much for being part of this.

You're welcome. And I want to... Yeah, I'm glad I got to express that. Rad. Right on. Thanks for all that. And I'm glad you're able to talk about your sponsors. It's hard to talk about sponsors a lot of times.

Because they support us and the companies we believe in. And making sure that the people who are paying attention to what you're doing also get that. It can be challenging. It can be. I developed a system for my sponsors. I don't support people or I don't support products if I don't believe in the person who created them. I have no problem telling people about amazing products that whenever you spend your hard-earned money or exchange your energy for that product, that that money is going to a good cause. Yeah. Or a good person. Awesome. All right, and since we talked about the Strong Coach,

obviously go over to thestrongcoach.com. And Danny and I have decided to do something special. We don't know how long we'll do it. Maybe we'll do it forever. We're going to try it out. We're going to give away the first week for free. Dang! You guys are in for a treat. In that first week for free. Damn! You guys are in for a treat.

In that first week, that's the steps we take right before creating those very powerful mantras. So people's worlds get rocked in that first week. Well, don't tell them that. It's supposed to be a sneak attack. No, you can't.

So this is for, I've been around Mike for a long time and all the products he's put out there. So take advantage of this opportunity. Just you're going to get a lot just from that first week. that the program is putting out that it'd be silly if people don't take the opportunity to learn about themselves. And it's amazing work. So I'm excited for people to have that opportunity. That's an amazing gift.

It's an amazing gift. So looking forward to people downloading that and taking action in it. Yeah, I mean, a lot of what we talked about was that first week curriculum. The fact that you guys are offering that out there as an insight as to what's going on behind the scenes. You guys are going to change a lot of lives. I know you've got a goal for a certain amount of coaches that you'd like to have by the end of the year. I don't see any reason why you guys can't do that. Yes, sir. All right. All right, guys can't do that. And then so.

Yes, sir. All right. All right, guys. Thanks for joining us. Thank you. What the deal is. What a pleasure. What the deal is.

Later. Bye.