Finding Mastery with Dr. Michael Gervais - Kevin Levrone: Strength

Episode Date: December 2, 2015

The path toward mastery requires honoring what is true. Often times what is true can be intensely painful. Kevin Levrone walks us through his journey of loss, grief, turmoil, love, commitment, and risk -- which eventually lead to being inducted into the hall of fame for his craft. Kevin has much to teach. His humility, honesty, and courage to be vulnerable in this conversation is as refreshing and inspiring as you would hope. Kevin is former American IFBB professional bodybuilder and now entrepreneur.Show Notes: 12:03 When his path began to become the best in the world 21:15: Taking his pain out on bodybuilding 30:15: Why he wouldn't change anything in his life 37:05: Gift of faith "I'm willing to endure the pain for the results" 37:20 49:50: Steroids on the world stage 1:02:08 Mental aspect of weightlifting 1:11:41 How he kept himself mentally strong 1:20:04 Why he's hard on himself 1:28:53 Facing a terrible injury and responding 1:36:25 Most effective inner message that allowed him to recover 1:45:05: Deciphering between the good and evil worlds 1:54:28 Defining mastery_________________Subscribe to our Youtube Channel for more powerful conversations at the intersection of high performance, leadership, and meaning: https://www.youtube.com/c/FindingMasteryGet exclusive discounts and support our amazing sponsors! Go to: https://findingmastery.com/sponsors/Subscribe to the Finding Mastery newsletter for weekly high performance insights: https://www.findingmastery.com/newsletter Download Dr. Mike's Morning Mindset Routine! https://www.findingmastery.com/morningmindsetFollow us on Instagram, LinkedIn, and X.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

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he's really good at it. He's been inducted into the Hall of Fame for bodybuilding. And I didn't realize that this was such a thing. I didn't, naively, I didn't have a deep understanding of the process of becoming one of the best bodybuilders in the world. And the way that he captures the bodybuilding art and science is that he's captured it in a way that's a very dangerous sport. And I don't say that lightly. And one of the reasons being is because they push their body to these unbelievable limits. And then when they go perform the thing that they do on stage, posing and highlighting and shaping their contours and their musculature and the way that they've shaped their body,

they move their body fat down to something near three percent body fat and then they're on stage and they're straining at 90 max maybe even 97 max and the cost to the internal system for that performer is difficult and it's so difficult that the way he describes it is that when he performs, he's actually in a near-death experience. Not like near-death in the way that he's had a spiritual finding, but near-death in the place that it's really a hostile internal environment for him. So why pay attention to this conversation? He really has a rich understanding of the psychology of fight and how to fight to make a better life that the cards that he were dealt this this is not something that i think

many of us would wish upon and he starts right out of the gate bringing us into his path and his process and the early struggles that he had in his life. And it started really young. So those of us who have had challenges in our life, he goes and cuts right to the center of it. The other maybe reason why I pay attention is that the cost of protecting ourselves emotionally, which we all do, the loneliness that comes with that, he puts his finger right on the pulse of that and the thoughts on how we can become more open and the courage it takes to do so i think that's universal for all of us to pay attention to that second piece and then maybe the third vector on

this is that the whole industry thought that he was done. So imagine if your whole world, everybody that you know, everybody that you are competing with, or that is part of the ecosystem in the world that you work with, whether it's your family or your business or the hobbies that you might have in your life. If everybody thought you were washed up, you were once good, but you didn't have it anymore. And so that's basically living in a world where most people are doubting you. And he walks us through how he came back from that space, that environment. And for him, he had an injury, a career ending injury, where he tore one of his muscles. And most people in his space don't come back for it. And they were just thinking that

he was washed up and he didn't have any more. And he talks about what a dark place that was for him. And there's an incredible insight that comes from how he's illuminated the process in which he faced that dark place and the steps he took to move through it. So he talks about loss. He talks about pain. He talks about selfishness. He talks about becoming a pit bull to becoming strong because of his fear of feeling weak. And so he dedicated his life to becoming strong and he took all of his pain and he found comfort and gratification in going to the gym. And this started off at a very young age for him. And basically what he did is, this is now we're talking about psychological framework,

he said it to himself early on, I'm going to develop my body and become a character. Because of the pain that he had in his life, he wanted to become a different version of himself. And that character was to become a big and powerful man. And check this idea out. He said, I'm going to do so in such a way where God couldn't take it away from him anymore because he had such pain early on that he was going to create a version of himself where not even God could take it away, that he was the only person that could maybe kill off that personality or that person or that part of him. And so this is really rich. I mean, these are layers upon layers that he's really clear of now that he's outside of bodybuilding of what he was doing to protect himself from vulnerability and

the vulnerability of being hurt again, I should say. And I know that this is a central theme for many people is that it's difficult to be vulnerable because we put ourselves in harm's way, then we risk being hurt if it doesn't work out the way that we hope it will. So he's got lots to teach us about this. He talks about being able to connect to a greater purpose, being able to focus on something greater than ourselves to be able to explore our potential. He's got this really nice insight about what is normal. And he's got a phrase in here that hopefully you'll tease out, which he says, you know, what is normal? My normal thoughts are

different than other people's normal thoughts. So what is this thing? What is normal? And it's just a really great way of getting to the simplicity of what makes people different and the same, which is their thinking and the behaviors that they choose from that. And he also drops right into that when he was in the deepest part of his pain, that when he would look out and see others acting lovingly and having affection that he he talks about what an incredible gift that was to observe people doing and being loving to each other and at some point he just said you know what life is beautiful and that was demonstrated not by from within but by seeing other people do loving things and loving acts and And so that reminds me of the science of random acts of kindness,

is that when we measure the neurochemistry in a person that does a random act of kindness, there's an incredible flood of particular neurotransmitters, the feel-good neurotransmitters. And the person who receives that random act of kindness also gets that a similar flood of neurochemistry the feel good neurochemistry so there's a buzz between those two people and interestingly enough the science also found that a casual observer of the person who did the random act of kindness that third person just the observer of it also has a flood of neurochemistry and and gets that euphoric feeling from just observing it. And so he talks about how important those moments were in his life. And when we think about,

in this conversation right now, when we think about how we're demonstrating love for other people and care for other people, not only is it good for ourselves, but it's also good for the person that's receiving the gift and the person who just might happen to observe it. Okay, so then he gets really specific about risk-taking. And he talks about his decision-making process to decide whether he was going to take steroids or not. And in the world of bodybuilding, this is something that many people do. And he had to wrestle with this from a health standpoint, from a science standpoint,

and then from a moral and ethical code. And he talks about that decision-making process. And it's great. We get cut off a few times in this conversation and the audio isn't stellar, but the insights are worth every audio glitch. So stay with it. It's a, it's a long conversation.

And I know I've said that a few times on these podcasts, but here's my thinking behind this, is that one, I don't think we're going to hack insight. I think that it takes time. And it takes time for the two of us in these conversations to find a comfortable vibe, to be able to explore the truth of things. So the first part of the conversations are just getting story and history and us building

a cadence. And that's all part of the essence of who a person is. So the way that I hope that you'll, at least the way that I listen to podcasts, is that I'll fit it in 15 minutes at the gym or 20 minutes in car rides or when I've got some alone time before or after I've got some alone time before or after I'm getting my day started for work. And I'm just fitting it in. And the way that maybe this is presumptuous, but if these podcasts are being found valuable to you that, you know, we're releasing them once a week. So maybe you have all week to think about digesting

this. And if this is an hour plus conversation with Kevin, that maybe you just spread it out. At least that's how I do it. As well as there's one important part of this conversation that I want to highlight. He's got a deep insight on death and he's had a real loss in his life from a very early age. And the way he's captured that pain and loss is that God got his attention. And so he talks through how pain and loss and struggle hurt and created a divide with his relationship with God and also strengthened it and brought it back around. So he's a spiritual being. He's a spiritual human that has created space in understanding how pain works and loss works and also being on a path of mastery at the same time. So we take lots of twists and turns.

It's dark. It's light. It's fun. I think what you'll find is that he's an incredible, incredibly open to explore. And so with that, let's get right into the conversation with Kevin Lavrone. Kevin, welcome to the Finding Mastery podcast. Oh man, thank you for having me. Yeah. So, you know, I'm excited to introduce your story to folks because we don't know each other. We haven't yet had the chance to really

know, but I've had a good understanding of where you've come from. And the part of this story that I'm interested in is the years that it took for you to become great at what you're doing and the dedication in that process. So we want to understand and unpack that. And then the second part is, you know, what you're doing now, which is taking your talents that you learned from your first industry of becoming one of the best bodybuilders in the world and being able to convert that into the insight that you understood, which was about nutrition. So the first kind of question I have is,

when did you set out on this path to become one of the best in the world in your craft? I set out on it after my dad died. My father died when I was nine years old. He died in a matter of like 30 days and um we buried my father uh about a couple days before christmas but i i say that because that was a turning point in my thought process as a child and you had five or six other brothers it was six six of us total and my father used to take me to school, to the bus stop, pick me up from school every day.

And then I woke up one day and I had to walk to the bus stop. But that was a huge turning point in my entire life because I never walked to the bus stop. And then after school that day, my father wasn't there to pick me up. The janitor of the school brought me home. So it was at that point, my father wasn't there to pick me up. The janitor of the school brought me home. So

it was at that point, I think, uh, I said, you know, um, daddy's gone. And I saw my mother, you know, wanting to just be strong. And at that point I said, you know, I got to maybe not cry in life, be strong in life and help my mom out. So that's when I kind of became I want to I don't want to really say self-, you know, I want to be able to learn how I could build who I am and be a better, better or be stronger. Back then, I was looking for strength. And I didn't know what else to turn to but to myself because I wanted to just be there for my mother. So that was a turning point at that age. And so, you know, we play with this concept that people and events begin to mold us and set us on a trajectory.

And it sounds like that was your first memory of like, okay, this is when I was looking for strength. And you dedicated your life towards your strength. And it was to be strong for your mom, is that, do I have it right? Yeah, it was, it was the inner part of me, you know, and maybe, you know, some people out outwardly act and they grow up and they become violent. For me, it came inside and i said i just want to be able to take that experience and make the best of it you know and that experience i mean i don't i

have no idea what it's like to to be a nine-year-old and lose the well you're talking about death you know the first funeral i ever went to was my father two weeks before not yet two weeks before well not two weeks but december the 17th he was born he was he was buried you know going from holding your kids every day you know to you know daddy put me to bed every night you know and and it's crazy because i slept between my mother and my father you know as a child and as a kid and he was just gone no matter 30 days gone so that right there um molded my thoughts and ideas at a very, very young age. And that was something that I still think about now. I carry it through my whole life. And it was probably one of the main seeds that God planted in my life that

harvested into who I am today, without a doubt, man. Yeah. And so just yesterday I was having a conversation um with a very successful uh person in the corporate world and the question was about mike what is one of some of the insights that you have about the world and i said it's life is fragile and i'm wondering how you've been able to articulate the pain that you've had from losing your father like that fast at a young age and your appreciation for life um now and so can you talk us through that a little bit which is like how do you understand life because you've lost a life at a young age maybe

one of the most important people that you could have lost it's like um everything that you have right now if you're married if you have kids if your home not being there your children gone just everything wiped out and being able to survive and wonder like what happened what just happened it's it's like that much of a shock it's that much of an adjustment of situations or circumstances and as a grown-up it's hard for someone to be able to say goodbye to a wife, goodbye to your child or goodbye to your, you know, your brother or your sister. So for me, it was it was tough. And I say that because guess what?

Oh, the day that my my father died, the day that he died, a day before my aunt died. So it was my aunt. So we grew up in a close, my father was Italian. We grew up in a close family. Growing up, for me, at that point, God, and my mother used to take me to church when I was a kid. And I would sing in a choir with my two sisters, my three sisters, and I was the youngest of six kids. And at that point, I wanted to know who this God was. Who was God?

Who is this God that everybody talks about and says is they're so sweet and precious, right? Right, Mike? That would implement so much pain on a woman that has six kids. I was nine, and all of us are two and a half, three years apart.

Six kids. And leave her with questions and doubts of how is she going to provide and take care and raise these six kids without the structure of a father so i can only imagine what she was going through now look on top of it get this because this is something that i struggled with and it never made sense to me until i retired from bodybuilding and what it was was it was and i always i kept the focus on myself the pain of what i was going through what was my father going through you know i have a nine-year-old son right now i imagine i had six kids and the doctor told me today hey uh he ain't gonna be around here for another 30 days you know you better figure out how you're gonna say goodbye to your wife all those kids you have in your job and every and all your brothers and

sisters you know you better figure that out real hard can you imagine what he was going through right lying there in a hospital bed right mike so i did that because i was so focused on my pain and my agony and hey kevin damn life is tough life is this you know that i was outside of that box until after my bodybuilding career was done so propelling me forward into bodybuilding i became very selfish I became very self-centered. I looked at things in the world as, you know what, this ain't going to be here a long time, so I need to take advantage of this opportunity. I became like a pit bull, you know, a pit bull when it going to school after my father died, all the kids would say, well, you know, that's Kevin. You know, he doesn't have a father back then in the 70s and stuff. You know, it's weird to not grow up in the family. So I was made fun of her kids laughing at me, pointing at me, you know, when I was going through school and growing up. And I didn't want to go to school.

I hated school. I freaking hated school. Couldn't stand it because I figured out that, you know what, it's not a fun place to be anymore. And I just took all that pain that I gratification and the comfort that I needed. And it was going to gym, going to gym. That was a turning point. When I went to gym class as a child and started pushing the weights and something and stuff like that, and I started getting bigger. And I said, you know what? I'm going to develop my body. I'm going to develop a character.

I'm going to develop, and I want to be strong like freaking Arnold Schwarzenegger, Lou Ferrigno. I want to be strong like the military guys. I want to be a big, powerful. I was growing up 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, becoming a teenager. I just wanted to hold on to something that God couldn't take it away from me no more. I latched on to me and I was able to build a foundation and the character that I believed in making my choices because of what I went through in the world. And I mean, I don't know what happened, but God, unfortunately, I was able to take my pain, agony, and all of my thoughts and turn it in and become one of the best bodybuilders.

And I always tell the fans when they say, well, was it your dream? Was it this? I always say, you know what? My confidence came from the pain, the torture, and just life directing me into creating Kevin Lavrone, the bodybuilder, something that I could trust my decisions. You know, I could trust what I was doing was right because it gave me the satisfaction. Going to the gym, I could build my body.

You know, when I graduated high school, I was 147 pounds. I built it, built it, built it, built it built it and i said you know what as long as up to me it'll be and i can make these decisions that will never go god would never be able to take it away from me because it's something that i'm giving to myself so that's what i grasped on to you know yeah when i hear you talk about this um there's there's so many things that are happening for me is that one is um pain is the reason we change and the pain that you felt as a nine-year-old a nine-year-old mind said well why am I feeling this pain how could God do this to me and what you did is because you were losing trust and you were feeling out of

control is that you said you know what I'm going you know what, I'm going to take control. And I can take control of the thing that I know I can influence deeply, which is this thing that I'm attracted to going to the gym, working hard, becoming strong, becoming big, becoming one of the best. And so we talk about this all the time. And I'm Kevin, this is the dark side of becoming one of the best in the world. Not enough people talk about this. Right. And it's like they just see people on stage and they say, oh, it's glossy. Now, they see what they say.

I can do it. Yeah, right. You know, I can do it. I can catch that ball or I can, you know, I can put like Tiger and drive like Tiger or I can do a Muhammad Ali, whatever it is can you know i can putt like tagger and drive like tagger or i can do a muhammad ali whatever it is you know no it's it's so much more going on man man deep down and um you know and and and and it's just uh i'm glad that i'm talking to you because i've never really had the opportunity to to talk to speak or speak with anyone that understands that process. What do you feel as you're as you're putting words to the fuel that you captured for 20 years, right?

That was born out of the pain of losing your father. What comes up for you as you're talking? My whole history right now. I mean, right now, as you're talking to me, I went back to my childhood days, you know, the photographic thought and the process of, you know, what what it was to feel like that. I felt all that, you know, high school. I actually went through the whole, you know, the whole high school process. And I was just really, really, really thinking about a lot. And I was thinking about up to competing and where the sport has taken me through my thought process. So bodybuilding and what I've been through, it's completely mental um there's a dark side but there's a very bright side to the darkness

there you go so there's light inside of that darkness and the light inside of the darkness is it this is it all the pain that i went through as a child okay you grow up yeah yeah what forget the pain man grow up be a man that's cool grow up be a man so you turn pro right then you got to make certain decisions in your life am i going to head down the path of taking steroids, right? Because you're growing up in that world. You're growing up in the world of where there's not peer pressure, but the world of opportunity, the world of, hey, man, this is what, the world has a lot to offer us, okay? So what road do you want to head down?

So I had to make that decision you know do do do i want to get involved with uh um the steroid thing was that a was that a crisis like a decision making process that was difficult to make it was a decision making process that to perform at a certain level, to be able to take it to that level. I'm going to tell you right now, you know, I had to make that decision and I was able to make that decision because of, again, going back to what happened in my life. So we just got over the father home when I was nine and 10 and stuff. My mother died.

Just when I got out of high school, she died from cancer. So that was the real turning point of me saying, you know what? At that point, Mike, I said, you know what? At that point, Mike, I said, you know what? At this point, if I have what it takes, then I'm willing to all put it on a line and I'm willing to risk my life. OK, I'm willing to risk my life. Kevin LaVruni is to do some great things in this world.

So if I can do great things in this world, then I'm going to risk my life for it. If I don't have the genetics to do it, then I'm not going to do it. And guess the decision that I made was, I'm going to risk my life. Finding Mastery is brought to you by Momentous. I'm going to risk my life. moment I sat down with Jeff Byers, their co-founder and CEO, I could tell this was not your average supplement company. And I was immediately drawn to their mission, helping people achieve performance for life. And to do that, they developed what they call the Momentus Standard. Every product is formulated with top experts and every batch is third-party tested, NSF certified for sport or informed sport. So you know exactly what you're getting.

Personally, I'm anchored by what they call the Momentus 3, protein, creatine, and omega-3. And together, these foundational nutrients support muscle recovery, brain function, and long-term energy. They're part of my daily routine. And if you're ready to fuel your brain and body with the best, Momentus has a great new offer just for our community right here. Use the code FINDINGMASTERY for 35% off your first subscription order at livemomentous.com. Again, that's L-I-V-E Momentous, M-O-M-E-N-T-O-U-S, livemomentous.com, and use the code FindingMastery for 35% off your first subscription order. Finding Mastery is brought to you by Felix Gray. I spent a lot of time thinking

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no funky color distortion. Just good design, great science. And if you're ready to feel the difference for yourself, Felix Gray is offering all Finding Mastery listeners 20% off. Just head to FelixGray.com and use the code FindingMastery20 at checkout. Again, that's Felix Gray. You spell it F-E-L-I-X-G-R-A-Y.com and use the code FindingMastery20 at FelixGray.com for 20% off. What was the value of your life at that time? Did you value your life or were you in a place of turmoil and and pain that it didn't feel like that risk was difficult or would or or was it so well you're talking from 9 10 11 12 34 to 15 16s you're talking eight years nine years of your father being dead and you being as teenager this young little boy growing up this spirit out in the main world society okay so when you say you know um this and that and

what was going on what was the turning point it was it was a survival turning point there you go okay okay yeah it was survival and for me hey guess hey, guess what? My dad's gone. My mom's gone. And I remember making this decision. I remember it clear as day. And I said, you know what? I don't have anything to lose. If all I have to lose is myself, then I'm going to take that risk. But if I win and I turn out and I can go out here and be a professional athlete,

then I'm going to make the best of it. Was it what you thought it was? When you were going through that incredible phase of your life with deep pain, losing the love of your life, and then making a decision to go for something great, to take that risk, looking back now as an adult who's been through the process and you can look times. Would I change anything if there's anything in my life that I would change? I wouldn't change a thing, man. I wouldn't change a thing. value was this um when i um when i i mean i mean looking at my record right now i mean i retired as having the uh the best record professional bodybuilding history to date that's right um i competed 68 times over a 12 year uh 11 year 11 year uh period i turned pro in 1992 i competed my first mr olympia got second but i competed to 2003. so 11 years i did 68 shows out of the 68 shows i won 23 and out of all those our top uh second 18 times and the rest was top five okay so i have the best record professional bodybuilding history but that being said guess what i said god if i'm

gonna do it i'm gonna do 100 you know i remember one time when i was at the Mr. Olympia and this is going forward a little bit. And I was asking God, I said, God, God, you know what? I never did win a Mr. Olympia. And I have doubts about all this stuff that I put in my body. What is my purpose? What's the point of me doing this? Right. And I came home one day.

Because now that's very different than what it was when Right. And I came home one day. Now that's very different than what it was when you're nine, when you're 18. And now there's a third perspective shift. It's crazy, dude. Yeah. And I came home. And, you know, so here I am, the successful bodybuilder of people looking up to me and there was a kid and the grand and wish foundation is in baltimore maryland where where i grew up grand and wish foundation both

of my parents passed away from cancer so i would do benefits for the grand and wish foundation for these kids that's the my charitable event that i contribute my career my my my funding whatever they need whatever that's what i did so my whole career so towards uh i remember getting a call in in the middle of my career and i was in a hotel room i think i was in prague i got a call from the founder of the foundation brian he says hey when you come back and i says i'll be back in the states probably within a week he goes well remember that one kid that you visited and i says well who you talking about there's a lot of them he said uh yeah he said the kid's name i don't want to say it right now but i was like yeah you know michael right he's like uh yeah well we lost him and he had to have a

spine operation and I remember it clear as day man and I came home and he had He had passed away And this boy Little boy He was about 8 years old I remember I had to go to the hospital And I went up there to visit the family And everything And on the way Because

He was They still had him at the hospital. So I went up there. And on the way to where they had his body and everything, a family come up to me. And the lady goes, oh, you're Kevin LaVroni? Yeah. And they remember me from going to the children's house and being the big muscle guy. And she said, my son just came out of surgery.

Can you come past the room? Because we haven't had a response from him. And the last day. So this kid who had cancer went in and had a surgery, and he wasn't responding to his mother or grandmother. And I'd just come back from competing and stuff. I was tired. And as I was walking down a

down a hospital a hallway and i went into the kids room and it was one of the kids that that was one of michael's friends he was there and stuff and i walked in i had a tank top on man and i said uh i said muscle man's here muscle's here. And I started making my pecs and stuff jump. And I was big. I was ripped. I was huge. I was like two freaking 65. And that kid, that little kid, man, he reached up out of the bed.

And he reached and he wanted to touch my bicep. And he started smiling and laughing. And I looked over at his grandmother and and his mother and they were crying and laughing in joy they said because they said thank you so much because of you we've been able to to have a respond from our son and at that point man i said god you know what if if this was the turning point of my father dying if this was the turning point of my father dying, if this is the turning point of my mother leaving this earth and dying a year before I turned pro, is this the turning point of all my pain?

Then I'll accept it. You know, because I had so many questions. And they were answered that day, you know. And ever since then, man, I've i've been good i've been it all made sense to me and um i found my full circle you know what i mean yeah yeah you know you um your experience in life i think when you said what's my purpose i can't wait to hear how you articulate it but um just from the lenses that i i see the world through is that you understand deeply loss you you have the one the winningest record okay so at the top of the stage at the world stage world class you understand winning you but it's the the loss that you

understand that grounds that and although you haven't haven't had the number one spot at Mr. Olympia, can you teach us about the process of loss and the pain that comes with that? But more importantly, the resiliency and the process required to continue on a growth arc, which in my mind, that's what you stand for. The ability to grow in the face of pain. Yeah. Yeah. I, you know, I got to tell you, man, I, God gave me a gift. And, you know, I don't want to, I don't know, man. I just got to, I feel like I got to express it.

And the gift is, is the gift of faith. I'm willing to endure the pain for the results. And it's a communication thing. When my father died when I was nine, I was able to be able to understand to wait and to listen. And in waiting and listening, my focus wasn't on the things that I wanted. My focus was on, I don't want to sound like a religious person and all that, but my focus was on the God, God in the universe and what was going on around me. And because of that, I became humble. And even though no matter what was going on in my life, no matter what people wanted, I was able to tune in to another level of understanding and knowing almost when something was going to happen, why it happened, and understanding the process of it and to this day I can honestly tell you that I can almost it's weird

man I have a connection to where I can I can tell what I need to do to make this happen because of the the process of understanding where I'm at now and what I went through in the past and how to get to tomorrow and, you know, uh, 24, 12 months from now, you know, how do you, how do you get to that point? I was able to, to develop that, that sense. And you want to develop that sense. And you want to say sixth sense or whatever it is. At such a young age that, okay, if I got something going on six months from now, or I want to do this six months from now, I got to freaking do this. If I know that this is going to happen 12 months from now, I got to do this.

Okay. And that survival technique came in at a very young age. And I applied it to my training. I applied it to the gym. And when people say, yeah, you got to live for the day, living for the day and understanding the process of the day leads you to not only tomorrow, but it leads you to the vision of six months from now. So how do you live in the future? You know what I mean? So I was able to figure out, well, how do I manipulate, not manipulate, but how do I take the process of today

and create that into what I want to happen six months from now or a year from now? And that was like, yeah, that was like something. Yeah, you're decoding right now how you did it. Everyone has to work hard, right? There's hard work involved in anything you want to do. But what I'm hearing is that you had a deep connection that it mattered to you.

Yeah, to the pain in everything. So what I did was went down deep into, yeah, you said decoding. If that's what it is, it's method. I went back to the method, you know. Got it. Of the process of everything, and I wanted to make sense of it and grow out of it and understand what it is that I need to do today to have a better tomorrow. And that's how I've always moved forward and been able to make

decisions to help, to help me get to where I'm at today. So. Jesus, brilliant. Does that make sense? A hundred percent. A hundred percent. Kevin, when we think about the one word that you stand for most in your life, or the cuts to the center of what you understand most, what is that one word? I'm going to have to say that. That one word is waiting. Okay. I'm willing to wait. I'm willing to wait. I'm willing to wait. Wow. I'm willing to wait. I'm willing to wait.

And most people aren't willing to wait. When you're willing to wait, you're opening yourself up to whatever the wait brings. You know, waiting can bring better tomorrow. Yeah.

I've always found that in waiting, it's always a happy outcome, man. In time and waiting, yeah. How did you not go from deep pain to struggle, from loss, from not getting the thing that you wanted on the world stage? How did you go through that and stay resilient and open and patient and kind and giving and loving. How did you do that? Let me share the thought behind my thought. I'm way more interested in this part of the process than what it takes to become great.

The what it takes to become great can be summed up like match your genetic coding with an environment that's going to support and challenge you and then be willing to put in the pain and the suffering to be able to explore potential okay easy not easy but easy to understand but the yeah what happens when you face down a double barrel shotgun like that's where most people run that's where they become embittered or they become scared and this is the part of the your life journey that I hope you can continue to teach um what was that question again how did you go yeah sorry how did you go from uh from pain and loss and suffering and stay open to the process of growth, being resilient, and being patient, rather than needing to have it all about you,

which is what it was younger, to being about growth and change. How did you do that? Because I felt like I was willing to take on, I had built an understanding in the process of the world of whatever the world throws at me, I'm willing to take on the challenge. If it brings me down, if it builds me up, I'm still going to stand my ground and not move and be who I am. And I think just the truthfulness. And I always, when I go out and I talk about things, I always say that when we're born, we're born with our own greatness. We're born with success.

We're born with strength as we grow we grow to take on what the world wants us or what the world expects or able to separate the two and to be able to operate outside of the world, but still be in the world so that the world will be able to. I don't know. Look at what I'm doing. So I think... Does that mean that you didn't get sucked into being the person the world wanted you to be? Well, you can't try to be anybody else. You can't try to be Michael Jordan or Kevin LaFroni or or lee haney or eight or nine time mr olympia i just

had to endure who i was and accept my life where i was and be the person that i was and that's what i did and i didn't and in that process you learn to just wait and but more than anything it's it's being able to um say that you know what i'm no better than my environment right now is a growing process and i'm going to learn from my environment you know it's going to teach me a lot more than i've ever learned from any other experience that i'm going through right now what we're going through right now is is is is special because i don't really know you you don't really know me right but we're trying to communicate on a level to that's going to make sense to whoever's listening and everything else so this is a growing process and i think as long as we're in the moment

living in the moment of what it is that you truly feel what it is that you truly feel, what it is that you truly believe, and being true to your expressions and where you're at. And without hesitation or without anything else, I think that's the most important gift that you can give to yourself. When you express that and people feel that and they see it around you, then grow from it i think i think people try to adapt to what's going on around them and try to do this and that and they become weak so i found my i found my strengths just being in a solid place understanding the pain understanding my life and accepting it and saying you know what wow i bet if my father known that his last few days your youngest son would be one of the greatest in the world he'd probably been okay with that that's amazing you know yeah

yeah because my son's gonna go out and touch a million kids' lives in a positive way. Daddy probably would have said, you know what? It's okay, guy. Take me out of here. If my son can do that, then cool. And my mom would have probably said, you know what? My youngest son, I didn't want to say goodbye to him. My mom had cancer six years before she told us.

She didn't want to leave us alone but but she had to go i think if my father had known that you know what my my youngest son is going to go out and do some great things and because of him leaving this earth early unprepared or whatever it is that his boy would be able to take that and just turn it into something, you know, and go out and help other kids be strong and help other people get through their adversities in life. Then, you know, be OK with it. And probably the same thing with my mom, you know, even though I know she wanted to stay around and see her kids grow up and stuff. But, you know, I mean, it's sometimes, you know, what we think is such a tragedy in one's eyes, it could turn out to be something great for so many other people, you know. And that's kind of like what happened with my career, to be honest with you.

I mean, you know, I've struggled and I said, you know what? Should I ever take steroids? You know, I've always I've always, you know, thought, wow, you know, it's such a bad, bad, bad, bad thing. But if I had not or my parents had not passed away and if I had not made that decision to say, you know what, this is something that I'm going to take a risk at doing, then I would have never been who I was in the sport of bodybuilding and able to touch people's lives, you know, and here I am in the bodybuilding hall of fame now, not looking back and questioning anything that or any decision that I've ever made about my career, just taking that and the pain at the time or decisions at the time, just owning it,

understanding the process and moving forward to say, you know what, there's a greater purpose than just me dwelling on my adversities or what I thought would be an adversity. I've just been able to turn that into upside down, man, and say, you know what, it's good. On the world stage, let's say top 25 guys, what is the understanding about steroids in your sport on the world stage? When you say understanding, what do you mean? What do you mean by that?

Yeah, like is it common practice that most people are using? Is it accepted? Is it a dirty little secret? Is it? I don't think anything. I don't think it's dirty. It's not a dirty little secret is it um i don't think anything i i don't think it's dirty it's not a dirty little secret it's just one of them things that if you're married to something or if it's part of your personal life you don't you don't really need to really advertise it you

know it's almost saying hey you know how's your how's your, how's your sex life, you know, how good are you, you know, on, you know, in your private sector of your life, you know, with your, with your significant other, it's just kind of one of those things, you know, that, you know, it's there, but you just really don't elaborate on it, you know? Yeah. And I mean, I'll be honest with you i mean i you know me and my position and where i'm at i've never had a discussion like i'm having with you with any any of uh any of my colleagues you know in in detail about anything that any of us may or may

not have done it's just one of those subjects that you just don't really talk about, you know? It's just a private thing. It's like almost, what do you do when you close the bathroom? You know, how do you, how do you, you know? You know, that's kind of like what it is. Okay, so let's take this idea. Let's make sure that you and I

are sinking in the right direction, that there's no judgment at all about this conversation. But I'm really, yeah, I'm really curious about how did you, I understood why you took the risk. And then I'm curious about, and as you framed it earlier, that taking steroids was risky because it was such a bad, bad thing in your mind, and you didn't know about what you, you had to somehow get informed about what you were taking

and what it was doing to your body, whether it was dangerous or not. So how did you go and get better at this risk-taking process? Well, first of all, there's a thing called medical world and everything else. Being an athlete, you do have access to doctors and access to certain individuals, whether it's chiropractors or you just take on a whole thing of if you're going to do it, like in my mind, if you're going to do it, if I decided that, you know what, if I do it, I want to do it right. So first of all, I began all of my research and all the studying on what I would decide to take, what it would do, what is the purpose of it, why was the chemical design and what's the purpose of it.

You know, and steroids are used for so many different things. There's some steroids for people who have asthma, people who can't gain weight people who nowadays who have you know um aids and then there's people who um just uh to develop an appetite you know so there's so many different uh uh scenarios medically what it's used for patients in shock trauma units that are in massive car accidents that really need to heal their bodies and muscle tissues and fibers together and tendons and stuff. So this is what it's really used for. It's some kind of masking agent. So when you take that and you give it to someone who doesn't have those medical issues or is using it that kind of way or really needed that kind of a way what it does is it enhances the process and develops you a lot

quicker and a lot faster you're able to you're able to move quicker carry more weight around eating less food and so on and so forth and I mean that's that's a short short kind of uh way of explaining it um and then bodybuilders we get scientific to where you know um there's a steroid out there you know called uh winstrov that they give to horses. And it's a horse medication to lean a horse down, to enable that horse to not eat as much food or not eat as much that he needs to eat, but he'll still hold on to that muscle mass. So you'll be able to cut your calories in half

and still hold on to all of that muscle mass and your body will just burn the fat for energy. So there's different types of steroids that do things like this. You just need to know what you're doing. And in order for you to know that, you just really need to do this research. And for me, it's people, my family that was in the medical industry, in the medical business, and I went to them for advice. You know, I went to the doctors and I got my blood work drawn and and i um laid it

all out on the table and i made that decision from a medical standpoint to say okay if i do this this is what's going to happen but if i do do it i'm going to go and and get my my blood work done to see what my kidneys and and and stuff is doing so that i don't overexert, um, any strain or anything that I'm putting on my body. So it's just, it's just an enhancer, you know? Uh, and, and that's what, you know, I've used it for to enhance who I was, my thought process, my performance process in every angle. And that's what it does. If you have the genetics, then it'll just magnify those genetics tenfold.

But you have to, and I always tell people this, you know, steroids don't create a champion. You have to have that will, the drive, the determination, the dedication,

the discipline to eat, sleep, train, and to continue going on no matter what. So if you're a champion, thought process, mentally, whatever it is, and you're willing to sacrifice all ends and put your life on the line, you know what? You're going to come out and you're going to beat the average person because the average person is not going to think like you think. Just naturally gifted athletes, you know. And you don't get that out of a steroid bottle anywhere.

And you just can't fabricate that. It's just going to magnify who you are and put you on a larger playing field. Yeah, I think it's a misnomer that steroids creates strength and power and size. It actually will allow you to recover faster so that you can work harder in a shorter time period. That's one of the anabolic benefits. But there's this challenge in my head right now that I'm having between the path of mastery, which is doing the difficult and lonely work for an extended period of time in a very curious fashion to see what you can leverage from knowledge and skill development

to accelerate a deep understanding of the craft. And then there's also the idea of shortcuts. And I think many people would say, well, steroids is a shortcut and that can't be that can't work in the um it's a shortcut and it's also not legal in the sport so therefore yeah you know if it's cheating it must be a hack towards well this is it if you if you take the steroids out of every game the champion still will remain the champions regardless you You know, I mean, I've bench pressed 460-some pounds natural. I mean, that's pretty unheard of. The records and the things that I've done naturally was just a natural gifted athlete.

You know, I mean, I ran a 40-yard dash when I was 21, you know, 4.3. You ran a 4.340? Yeah, 4.340 all day long. How tall are you? 5'11". Wow. You know, vertical is off the hook, you know, 36 inches, something like that. Broad jump, you know, is close to 11 feet standing broad jump, you know. Wow.

So, yeah. Like, you know, well over 10, 10 point, you know, whatever it is. But, you know, that's what I'm talking about. So when you take somebody like that and you enhance that process you know then it's gonna it's gonna put you amongst the elite you know and and is the assumption that the other elite are also using steroids as an accelerant in our industry industry, you know, in our game, yeah. I mean, yeah. What percentage, if you had to guess?

On that level? I mean, you know, you can, on a level to where the best in the world, you know, the best in the world you know the the best in the world I mean it's it's on a 80%

80% maybe more you know maybe more you know it's almost an experience that you you for me it's almost an experience that you you you you uh for me it's almost an experience it's that that i sit back and look at it now that you would have to have um in order to master your craft in our industry in your sport yeah and my sport and is that because you're using medical science to accelerate and enhance the work ethic and the genetic coding that you are wanting to exploit?

Wanting to exploit, but also as a top athlete in our industry, you're going to look at every opportunity and you're going to try to make a decision hey you know what is this something that i need and you're probably going to try it and to see what benefits you might reap from it you know what i mean at that level i mean there's athletes that say you know what i've done this far i've come this far with my body and i don't want to put that on the line okay and then they're just not going to get so far but in our industry where you're talking about you know you're being judged on muscle bellies, freakiness, striations, ripped, shredded, how big is your legs, how big is your arms, all these things. You're going to try to leverage what you can from the medical industry, from the best food to the best equipment that you work out on. about and you're talking about going against the grain and almost uh you know you're talking about the best the top two or three whatever on the planet i mean people don't this is the abnormal

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mastery. So if we switch gears just a little bit and get into the mental part of the game how important is the mental part of the game the mental aspect of the game for your craft in my opinion it's the hardest sport in the world in my opinion um it really is. How come? Because you have to go in a gym and work out two, three hours a day, every day. Wake up in the morning, do your cardio, eat five, six times a day, the same thing for extended months and months and months at a time, continuously until you see your body start to make a change. As a bodybuilder, you're trying to build your body from the inside out mentally.

So I would get up five o'clock in the morning. I would do 45 minutes of cardio. After the cardio, I would eat my first meal at 8 o'clock. I would eat 8 o'clock, 10 o'clock, 12 o'clock. You eat every hour, every other hour you'd eat. I would eat 5 pounds of fish a day. I would eat bags of broccoli a day. I eat um uh bags of broccoli a day you know i would eat 4 800 calories a day a high protein medium carbohydrate low fat diet so my my nutritional program was designed around the workload that i was putting on my body so if i would go to the gym and i would

burn off a certain amount of calories and I would lift a certain amount of weight. So it's like and then on top of that, then you have to you have to rest. So this is what it's like. It's like when you go in a gym. You go through a workout, you have to design chest, shoulders and triceps, you know. Each body part, 16 sets per muscle grip. That's what it takes to tear down the muscle fibers. You're actually literally ripping your muscles underneath the skin by

training and moving the weights. By training and moving the weights constantly. You got your chest you got to do. You got your shoulders you got to do. You got your triceps. You got your back you got to do. You got your biceps. You have your back. You got to do. You got your bias. So you have to have a design routine regimen for each, every body part. After you do that, then you have to say, okay, I took down these calories.

Now I got to feed my body the, not only the amount of calories that, that, that I burnt off, but even more to do for recovery and healing process. Now you say, okay, how long will it take my body to heal for the muscle fibers to grow back? Probably about 48 hours, depending on if you have enough protein, your carbohydrates are adjusted to your fats, okay, to heal those muscle fibers, because muscle fibers are protein. So all of these things got to be calculated. So over a period of time, that soreness and those muscle fibers grow back thicker. And when they grow back thicker, you then have to be able to –

they grow back thicker because they've prepared themselves to handle more of a workload. So when you go back into the gym, you're designing a new workout program with more weight to handle the thicker muscle fibers because they're bigger now. And you just keep stacking, stacking, and the fibers will grow, and you're just adding more weight to support the workload,

and then your calories have to increase to support all that. That is a scientific approach, along with sleep okay and then you watch this body a grown man's body form into something that you've created it to form into adjust it around your training your workout program and the times that you sleep okay that's how it all works how much sleep are we talking times that you sleep. That's how it all works.

How much sleep are we talking about that you would average? I would do 10 hours of sleep. I would do 8 nights then I would take 2 hours of sleep during the day. Depending on what I wanted my body to do, I would design my workout program and my

eating habits around how I wanted to look. So that's why I say it's the hardest sport in the world because most people can't figure it out. Two, most people don't have the discipline. Three, is when you get to the point of walking on stage,

now your body fat went from 16% in a matter of six months or a year, whatever long it takes, down to 3% or 2%, 2.7 was the lowest I had mine, but 3%. But how can a body function, think, process, everything, the brain,

how can the brain process you walking around at 3% body fat? That's not normal. So you now have to go out and perform at a show, and the show might last 24 hours, but you're down at 3% body fat because you've completely deleted all the water out of your body. Now you got to figure out how to survive and perform at even a higher level because now you have the lights the cameras the action and 50 60 100 some thousand why lights shouting down on you for hours at a time how do you put

them at that level without messing out without your body going in a shock without having a heart attack without um you know yeah exactly so how do you do all that and that these are the things that we got to figure out as bodybuilders being at that top level and able to perform at that top level to be six time or eight times to Olympia or to compete end up in the Hall of Fame so that's why I say always you know we gotta trust our instincts and believe who we are because everybody's different now. What works for me won't work for you. So are you willing to take that thought process and take your life into your own hands? You know, because there has been people who

has designed workout programs and did their own thing and has done certain things and they ended up dying you know so it gets deep man so people it gets people in your sport die in for in training well a few people have like you know you know second thing else man you can get addicted to something, whether it's drugs, alcohol, bodybuilding, or not eating. You know? And you just completely drain yourself, and your body just can't take no more. It just stops. You know? If the NFL is a rugged environment, just as a...

It's rugged. I mean, the amount of work and the intensity of work and the collision that they've go under and the amount of training that they put in, how would you compare? It's totally different obviously, but how would you compare the ruggedness of the NFL to the internal willpower and the intensity of getting the body down to a two mass mass, a massive amount of mass with under 3% body fat.

If the word's rugged for the NFL, what's the word that you would use for bodybuilding? Oh, man. Yeah, NFL is very, very rugged. They get hit. they get beat up. For us, it's... I don't know, man. I don't even know the words that I really could explain

for what it is that we have to endure. I think it's survival. You know, for us, it's just pain. It's agony. It's defeat. It's, you know, the survival. It's a survival world out there because you're by yourself. You know, you don't have a team you know

you've made every decision and you're going to walk out there on stage and your life is in your own hands if you're rewarded great you're the winner if not then you're the loser um you don't have any teammates to cheer you up in the locker room you don't have uh you know that that pep talk you know of someone waiting for you when you get off stage or or going out there to perform it's just you it's one of the most loneliest uh games that you possibly could play and when your family and your friends and your loved ones are on the outside looking again it's it's painful for them so you're walking you're walking uh a thin fine line between life and death man and and it that's that's how i would have to probably you know explain it because

you just you just don't know you don't know you know you just don't know you know, explain it because you just, you just don't know. You don't know, you know, you just don't know. You know what I mean? Wow. I've never, I never understood at the level that you've just described, but so how would you keep yourself mentally strong? What, what were the things that you would do that maybe all of us can learn from? Well you know there's a thing called mental genetics you know some people can block things out some people can endure more more pain than others um i think michael honestly you know the when my there's a reasoning behind the thought process. Okay. So, you know, man, let me tell you, it's an individual sport that I absolutely love. You know, teams and all this stuff, team sports is great. But for me and what I went through when I was a kid sitting there at my father's funeral and I saw him, the first casket of a dead person I ever saw in the body was my

father. It was my father and it was God and it was me. And he was gone. So God got my attention real quick. So my communication at a very, very young age wasn't focused on the outside world. It was focused on what I needed to do to survive. I wasn't looking for somebody else to hand me the ball or pass me the ball to make the jump shot or cover my back to do any damn thing in life. I said, you know what? If it's up to me, I'm going to make this happen. And that's what drove me to have that killer thought mentality that that i ended up with and and bodybuilding was i was able to create a character that the only way this guy would go away is if i decided if he goes a little bit wow unbelievable

yeah i mean you follow what i'm saying because oh yeah but but look the downside to that is relationships communication understanding other people you know yeah that's where we start talking about the dark side is that your your commitment to your excellence, the cost of that was the connection with others. Oh, man. That right there is enough of an episode, man, to where you know, I didn't cry like, you know, I cried at my dad's funeral when he

I was a man, I cried then, but I didn't cry for like probably about 15 years. That would be the two of us. Yeah. Until I retired and got away from bodybuilding. And then when I was able to be in touch with my emotions and feelings and look at trees and see things for what they were in real life again. Then I started having emotions and feelings, and I opened up to other people. But prior to all that happening, I was shut off because I needed to be,

you know what I mean, because I just didn't care about anything weak, you know. So, but look, going into being able to open up and love and understand people, I didn't want to love anything because I didn't know how long it was going to be around. You know, how can you love a woman? How can you care about something or any of this? Because God might take it away at any given time. So opening up to trust somebody with your feelings and who you are as a person, how do you know that that person is going to be around? Right. So that was my hardest struggle.

And then if I don't have control of it and they say, okay, Kevin, bye. I don't want you no more. Bye. And you've opened your heart up and trusted that person. Well, guess what? That pain would endure back to the childhood that I felt when God took my father away. So I blocked all that off. So how'd you come through that?

How'd you go from being blocked and being almost deadened to emotions and vulnerability? Yeah, it's a pain, man. How'd you do it? It gets deep. You know, bodybuilding, man, I tell you's even to this day you know i mean i uh what is normal you know i mean i i don't i don't even know what normal is your normal thoughts and my normal thoughts are two totally different thoughts i just know that the world sees me and say wow kevin laveroni you're great you know you're awesome but then i know what kevin laveroni

is greatness and awesomeness to the world, I have to sleep with that every night. So I know what my movie is that I play in my head, right? So, you know, I don't know if... I have a lot of ups and downs. Music helps me get through the process. When I see kids, that helps me. When I see people loving and affectionate to one another, that helps me look at them and I say, wow, life is beautiful. And that helps me look at them and I say, wow, you know, light life is beautiful, you know,

and that helps me open up. Um, you know, uh, yeah. Yeah. Do you consider, do you consider yourself strong now? Like, are you a strong man now? Yeah, I'm strong, but I beat myself up a lot, man. Because I don't have no in my vocabulary. If I can't do something, I'll continuously say, yeah, I can do it. Or yeah, I'll help you or whatever it is. And I think in the end, that could cause some pain. Because I always want to help men, women, whatever it is, people to be better than they are. And then in turn, what I do is I'm a giver, you know. And I try to fix everything and fix people and fix the situation. And not all the time you can fix the situation, you know, and mentally because she may have been in some

bad relationship or something and you just want to be and i refer this back to my mom you know because i you know here i am wanting to be the rescue person to help to help women you know whatever they're going through and and to say look, you know what? You can make it through this. So I find myself giving in that way. And then I find myself, for the men out there who have doubts and could be very successful, perfect, whatever it is,

I'm like, come on, man. You have to be strong in these situations. You have to be there for your wife, for your girlfriend, blah, blah, blah, blah. And I'm applying all this in my head mentally saying, so I've become a fixer-upper, but what happens is there's nobody fixing me. Yeah. Yeah, I hear that.

You know what I mean? That's not an uncommon thought. And if I could share this with you, and then I want to follow on with a question, is that what I've come to learn over the last 20 years of having conversations with people that are straining and striving or are one of the best in the world is that the conversations they have with themselves are so hostile and so aggressive and so cutting that they would never have that say those same same things to somebody else that they cared about because it would hurt them deeply. But somehow they think it's okay to do it themselves.

I don't do that to myself at all. I like the person I am. That's what I was wanting to understand. I like the person I am. I just wish I could do more for society

and help people more. I wish I am. I just wish I could do more for society and help people more. I wish I could. So when you said you're hard on yourself, you're hard on yourself to be able to have a deeper impact in the world. When I say it, I just expect more. I always feel like, you know what? I probably could have done a little more, you know? You know what I mean?

Yeah. And when I say I'm hard on myself because there's days when I will like, I've gotten phone calls where I had to fly out of the United States and I just dropped everything that I was doing at the time. And I said, you know what? I'm just going to go. I'm just going to go, you know, in a matter of 24 hours, I'm on the plane heading to Egypt. Okay, fine. Go on. Boom. You know, and I'll go and I'll just go in faith and I'll be like, you know what? It is what it is. And then I'll think and say, damn, you know, that was that was that that was pretty crazy.

That was a pretty event adventurous. But then you find yourself sitting there in a hotel room and you buy yourself. OK, this is what I'm talking about being hard. You buy yourself and you're thinking yourself, okay? This is what I'm talking about being hard. You're by yourself, and you're thinking, you know what? This is probably pretty crazy for the average person to do this. But then you say, well, you know what? I'm not really average, and I don't really operate on a schedule from day to day basis. So hard on myself is probably like going to the extreme to help others in sacrificing my um comfort zone i always do that i always do that man i think that's my biggest weakness i was gonna say that my i was just about to say that the sensitivity that you have and the words that you choose and the way

that you choose your words to capture the feeling of what it feels like to be you is is wonderful and i was just about to say that one of your greatest strengths is how much you care. And you just said, I think that's my weakness. So we go back to talking about average and perspective. Yeah, man. I remember one thing my mother said to me. You know, childhood is so, so important, what you say and do around a kid at those younger ages because i remember her saying kevin if you could ever help someone help them and don't expect anything in return you know and i sat

here and i i rubbed my head and i'm thinking damn god you know who do i have to talk to you know i i sometimes man i'm you know i i get I get so lonely and I feel so lonely. And, you know, and I'm flying on a plane, you know, sitting there by yourself, going through customs by yourself in a foreign country by yourself. Even though there's people there to to to to to get you, you know, you're still living this world of loneliness, you know, and you get off that plane, man, and you got the VIP people waiting and the cameras and the limos and the fans, you know, just roaring, hey, man, we love you, we love you, we love you, but it's like, at the end of the day, when the lights shut down and the door closes and you go in your room, you're all alone. And you're going back to that comfort zone when you were that kid or that child.

What's the purpose of it all? You know what I mean? And the questions your thoughtfulness um and the depth of your of your thoughts is is what makes that one of your gifts that makes you really special but it's probably because of the pain you've been through oh yeah probably yeah but i think i think it's uh and people always say and you realize who you are i'm like i don't know not really you know you know it's this it's this odd juxtaposition. You're a large human being and have pushed as far as you possibly can.

But the words you choose and the emotional experience of your life and the care you have and the sensitivity to be able to say, listen, I've come from very dark places. I was a tortured soul for a long time. And the most torturous moments were when I would shut the hotel door and I'd look at this one little bedroom place and I felt alone. And like when you were walking through

getting off the plane and being greeted by people to take you somewhere, less the fans for me, because that's not part of my life. But what an absolutely lonely journey that is to go to you know i i just feel all of that with you and it's it's awful that part can be can be yeah you know and not in a desensitive unsensitive way because it's wonderful to travel to see the world and to meet people and to be part of projects and experiences that are challenging and rewarding but there are moments when it's like most of my travel is done by myself and I find that to be a pretty difficult time

so I've got a question on confidence for you if If confidence is said to be the cornerstone of great performance, I'm not sure if you had confidence when you were one of the best in the world. I don't know if you were confident, but maybe you can help me understand how you generated confidence or if you struggled with that. No, I've always been very confident. I've never felt like i couldn't do something you know um i have always overcome or whatever it is obstacles i've kind of like learned that at

young age too so the confidence for me was yeah you know what, if it hasn't been done, then I'm going to do it. And I'll tell you this. Okay. Talk about confidence. I turned pro. Matter of fact, I was an amateur bodybuilder. And I was an amateur and I did three shows. My first show was in 1990.

Okay. Ever. At an amateur was in 1990. Okay? Ever. At an amateur event in Maryland. Okay. Okay. Ever. In 1990, I did one... I did two shows.

I did... And I won the Mr. Maryland. So in 1991... 1990 qualified me to go to Nationals. and I won the Mr. Maryland. So in 1991, 1990 qualified me to go to nationals. 1991 was my third show and I went to the nationals. And I won the nationals in 1991.

So I had done three shows before I won that. And I turned pro, okay? At 24, all right? Okay. And I had only been working out for i don't know a year two years two years okay so 1990 from 1990 1992 i did my first pro show and i was second in the world so that's like tiger woods competing in the pros tiger woods turning pro in 1991 and going to his first pro event and getting second out of all pros in the world so he was an amateur in 1990 so i'm just saying yeah i'm an amateur in 1990 so i i'm just saying yeah i'm an amateur in 1990 uh just a no name nobody knew i was 1991 when i won the nationals nobody knew i was and i ended up turning pro 1992 i went to

the mr olympia and got second i was the second professional best bodybuilder in the world that means i bet i beat a hundred professional top athletes in the world and i was now ranked second in the world at 25 years old what was that like for you it was like unbelievable and for the first time i met arnold schwarzenegger and joe weider and hey man i was famous i was like wow and I thought wow man if I can do that in this short period of time then I can do anything but look so I got second at the Mr. Olympia come home and I remember I was in the gym working out the competition was in September and I came home you know December Christmas and all this February came home and I had a terrible injury.

I tore my pectoralis major and minor. I was bench pressing 600 pounds. I ripped my chest muscles completely. They came dislocated from the tendons. My tendons snapped in half from the bone. My chest pectoralis major and minor snapped, tore completely in half from the bone my chest pectoralis major minor snap tore completely in half and it's like a top professional football player having a culeus tendon injury his first you know super bowl right right done so how do you come back from that? Because in my sport, no professional athlete never returned back to the stage after having a pec tear.

It never happened. And I was the first athlete that ever did that. Yeah. This is the part of your story I love. Like, teach us how you did this. This shit was dark man so you know i tore my pectoralis major minor and it happened after my first pro show i was in a 12 i did a six hour surgery um at the university of maryland and then they had to go back and

operate on me again with another four hours so i I was in a partial body cast from February, March, April, May, June and July. My body went from 240 pounds down to 220. OK, my whole right side had atrophy. I had to learn how to eat with my left hand. I couldn't do a push-up. So you're talking about an athlete that could bench press 600 and tearing his muscle, having surgery, and the whole industry said, well, he's done. He'll never be back. And I lost a lot of weight, and I became very, very small again. And I didn't know what my muscles were going to look like uh after i took off the partial

body cast sling thing out of my arms but i couldn't do a push-up mike i couldn't do anything wow i could not even bench press 100 pounds so teach us how you started to think so that we can crazy yeah teach us how you started to think about about the next phase of this thing that you wanted to go after again uh i did a lot of research and i said two things can happen either i can take this um and do something that no athlete has never, ever done before in our sport, or this is going to get the best of me. So when I, I mean, believe me, man, I mean, when I say I couldn't work out, I couldn't go to the gym. I mean, you're talking six-month layoff from the gym. And I had signed the contract.

I had to compete again that year year you know the same year I tore my chest I had to go on the Mr. Olympia stage and compete so nobody I really knew I tore my chest because I didn't want to tell the industry because they would have said well your contract is done and you're done and all this. So when I finally did tell them after I had the surgery, you know, people were saying, well, you're a fly-by-night. If this really happened, there's no way you're going to be able to compete again. It's just not going to happen. Look at all the athletes that this happened to prior to you. Your contract is done.

You know, you're not going to be nothing. Your career is, you know,'re not going to be nothing your career is you know you're you're you're flopping the bucket and i just turned pro and i just signed a contract and this happened to me 12 months later so it was devastating um i had to mentally say all right well this is what we got to do was it that simple was it that simple like to make a decision okay that was the decision like i'm gonna i'm gonna give it everything i have because what this idea i have matters to me and i'm gonna go get it was it that simple yeah i i had no choice there you go yeah i i had no choice um you did i had no choice but you did you could have

you could have said you know what i'm gonna try i'm gonna go for it and said those words but hesitated in the form of of doubt and not believing in yourself and not being all in or you could have walked away like Like you, you at least had three choices. Well, in my mind, I didn't have a choice and it was the other, the other stuff didn't matter. And no matter what I was going to continue to, to proceed forward. And that's what I did. Now, looking back at that injury that I had, like I said, no other bodybuilder ever came back from that injury. And my whole career, like I took off the partial body casting. I had to learn how to do push-ups.

I had to learn how to use my right arm again and go in the gym and train at the level where I was training. And I only had 12 weeks to do this this and I had to be back on the Mr. Olympia stage right where I just walked off and got second in the whole entire world on the pro level I had to go back on that stage in three months and I did it I came out yeah and I did it. And guess what I placed? I placed, I think in 1993, Kevin Laroni missed Olympia. I think I got fourth or fifth place. I think I might have got fifth place or fourth place. Might have been fourth in the world. Now, at that point, I said, you know what? If I can do what I just did after having this major serious injury,

not training for six or seven months, having an injury, rebuilding my body in a matter of three months, I said, you know what? It's not going to take, I don't need all year to train to beat these

guys so what I did I realized at that point that I didn't need to train all year round to compete at the level where I was competing I would wait until four months from a show, then I would start training. So I started taking off seven months at a time. I wouldn't even work out for seven months. I would pick out a show, then I would start training for the show, and I would train for that show for about four to three months, 100%. Then I would go on a show, and I would win. And that's when I learned a lot about eating, what worked for my body, my mental state of mind. You know, there was nobody around for me to talk to.

There was no psychologist for me to talk to. You know, I was at the top of the world and then I was faced with this injury. My father wasn't there. My mother wasn't there my mother wasn't there so here i am poor little lonely kevin grown-ass man left by himself to kind of figure this freaking thing out and what would be this what would be the the inner dialogue that you could share with us that was most effective coming through uh that allowed you to to to keep going what was that what did that dialogue sound like kevin you can do it you It was like, you know what, God didn't bring me this far to leave me. God didn't bring me this far to leave me.

My mother would say, Kevin, you can do anything in the world you want. All you got to do is believe. All you got to do is believe. And I said, God, you know, you took daddy away. You took mom away. You gave me all this to do something with it. Now you're trying to take this away. But I don't believe you're trying to take it away. I think you're trying to teach me something. So I'm going to keep on going. We got this.

So I didn't want to be around nobody. I didn't want to talk to anybody. Because this, again, guess what? This was a battle between me and god and i said you know what okay now you're throwing this on me huh okay i got this i'm gonna die proving you wrong i will put my life on the line to make it through this process okay because you're taking everything else away. You're not going to take this away.

So in my mind, right, that's what it was. Can I walk you through just a couple quick phrases and see how you respond to them? Does it seem weird to you, man? Or is it like, it's a lot there, right?

Oh, no, there's absolutely a lot. Your path is unique. And you've owned it. And you've come from a place of honesty and you've had the courage to face down some incredible things that, you know, and I'm still wanting more, which is like, how? How? What did you do? How did you wake up in the morning? Like, what were the thoughts that you had? And it sounds like what you just said was okay it was a battle between me and god

i was going to go to work he was my partner but he's also testing me and he was challenging me so i'm going to keep working because there is a greater purpose for me to explore you know something like that that was like your psychological framework would be that and you also had the courage to not back down from just about anything including yeah dad dying mom dying tearing your peck you know um being lonely and having all the fame and not getting too sucked into the fame yeah yeah man for me it was all about the challenge i i think that's what kind of kept me going man yeah okay so try this just respond and we can go as quick or as fast or as long as you want on these but pressure comes from

outside world can you can you add one more thought to that people how do people bring pressure for you? Expectations. Okay, so expectations of others is what brings pressure to you. Yeah. And then how did you manage the expectations of others? Not wanting to let others down, I imagine. Yeah, when you say how did I manage it, what do you mean? Like, how did you deal with the pressure and the expectations of other people?

Oh, it was by spending, I don't't know by being alone by myself i guess finding a way man i don't know well i don't know man but you did it i did it yeah still do it how come how how come you never um took uh top podium at mr olympia like how what what what was so elusive about first place for you um why didn't i win politically i don't have to say this is politics yeah oh politics okay yeah do you know what do you know why do you have any insider thoughts about why um yeah I believe you know it was just business at the time business decisions made at a higher level um

yeah okay so meaning that there was a they wanted to promote your idea is that they wanted to promote somebody else it wasn't good to have you as a champion not at the time I think I think the industry you as a champion not at the time i i think i think the industry was leveraging off of opportunity at the time probably yeah yeah boy that's a tough one to

swallow yeah it is okay um it all comes down to me the crossroad in my life was you're good god what do you what do you mean god's the crossroad man you know um every time i come to a crossroad or whatever it is i i just stop now. And I said, you know what, God? What are you trying to do here now, man? What's up? You know? And I'll just stop and I'll just wait. That's your gift, right?

And then what are you listening for? When you ask the question to God, like, how do you get the response or the information back to you? I'm waiting for the answer. But how does it come to you? Yeah, I hope you don't think I'm weird. Do you, man? No, I think it's brilliant. I think it's absolutely brilliant.

Remember earlier when we were talking, I was telling you that I'm able to figure things out before they happen and then when things start to reveal themselves and it happens then that's when i stop i'm like okay so what are you trying to tell me or all right i'll wait because of what it is that you're trying to show me next, you know? So I have this concept of God. It was this idea that, let's talk about afterlife for a minute. And there's the pearly gates as we were taught in grade school. That it's not a selection process, but God will recognize his friends. And if he recognizes you as a friend meaning you've built a relationship with him not really a him but that the spiritual um energy that's aligned that you go you know

it's like it's easy of course you go to the light and you know and i'm wondering like how you it's like you said you know like you ask the question and then you just listen and that listening is actually um i think that that's a skill that many of us don't have because we do all the talking you talk a lot too though right like you you have a lot to say even in this conversation i do because you're you're asking me yeah bullet bullet point questions about important um things that happened in my life like i'm i'm i'm going back to the method parts of my life that was very important to me so i'm able to talk about that you know it's like we have in this therapy section session you know what i mean what do you do to train your ability to be present so that you can take in information from the world and feel it and see it?

Like, what do you do to train to be that present in your life? What do you mean when you say train? Like, what do you do to cultivate the ability to be present? The ability to be present is being by yourself see when i'm alone and i'm by myself yeah then that's when um i can hear and and take everything in you know it's when I'm around people and centered in the world and stuff like that, it's a distraction. So when I'm by myself, that's when things become really, really, really visual for me mentally.

You know, I can see things very, very clear. You know, alone time, downtime, things like this. You know, like something happens, man. Like, you know, when I when I say, you know what? I don't know. Yeah, this is I don't know how religious you are. I don't know this whole. Like I told you earlier, when you sacrifice eating, when you fast, there's a reason why the Muslims do it. There's a reason why people fast.

There's a reason why people go on a 30-day water fast, you know, to cleanse their body. Because there's a spiritual world going on out there. And it's good and there's evil. And in that good world, there's direction. And in the evil world, there's direction. You have to be able to cipher what's being told to you because you're either going to go one way or the other way. So for me, what I need to do is just be by myself, a place of solitude, go through that sacrificing phase. Say, you know what?

I'm willing to not be around people. I'm willing to not really fill my stomach up today. I'm willing to do what it is that I need to do to get in touch with Kevin's spiritual soul well-being so that whatever God's trying to tell me, I can be in tune with it directly. Man's a practice you know that's what that's exactly the like i didn't know that would be your answer by any means but that's that's the training really yeah that's well that's what i would call the training is the discipline to and you know what i've been doing i've been yeah go ahead no please no tell me what you were going to say that that's training that's training to be able to be present to be available to be able to take in the information in an unfiltered way to be sensitive enough and

connected enough to get to the truth so that you have clarity i will go in a closet i will go in a closet close the door and do nothing sit there in the dark do nothing do nothing to nothing until i've actually calmed down right or i i was finished crying or i felt better and then i come out of the closet you know when i was a kid you know then i go outside ride my bike maybe up and down the driveway and stuff look at the birds see things yeah i get some answers you know and then I would go around my cousins and friends and play, see how I felt around them. Then I would leave and go home, yada, yada, yada. But I would always find that place of solitude.

And, like, again, it happened when my dad passed away and stuff, to where when I went and got away from the outside world or any distractions, I was able to, you know, register know register process and go without and say you know what this is really comfortable right here i'm gonna this suffering or whatever it is that i'm feeling it i kind of feel good so i'm gonna stay here and see see what happens yeah that in and of itself the ability to embrace suffering and the courage to face it and stay with it and not run away from it and not put something on it like food or sex or drugs or TV or like that, that is a, that's an ancient tradition, but also something that you've felt, you know, you've found to be useful for yourself. Yeah.

Okay. So, um, just a few more questions. Kevin is like, how do you answer this? I am the best. That was so easy to say for you. Oh my God. I did not expect that again. All right. Um, are you serious? No, I did not expect that again all right um are you serious no i did not expect that that is the best i could be right now man i mean i i'm the best kevin that i could be right now you know hopefully next year i'll be a better kevin than i am right now but right now i'm doing the best i can do i can't do any better than i've already done. And this is it. Do you compare yourself to other people to be able to say you're the best? Or this is the best Kevin that I know how to be and I'm relentlessly pursuing that?

If I make a mistake, you know what? I've tried my best. If I fall, you know what? Sorry. I've tried my best. Yeah. No, I don't compare myself to nobody yeah you know I don't know if I don't know how many people I don't know what your uh loving relationships are like but the

way that you have captured you this is maybe sound gonna sound weird to you you're very loving and you're very lovable like the availability that you have to say hey man here i am like i'm gonna try to be my best yeah yeah there you go did that get weird no not at all not at all i'm trying to understand myself uh anyway so you're really helping me out here too oh i love and i'm learning as well see there we go again all right um what do you hope the next generation gets right? Less mistakes. Make less mistakes, you know. I think people really, really make a lot of mistakes. And the next generation, it's like they're just hard-headed, make a lot of mistakes, man.

You know, I try to tell people you know hey man this is you know what you need to do or what you got to do but yeah i mean i just i would like to see less less mistakes made in people's lives you know not everyone can recover from their mistakes man you know honestly yeah no right and not everyone embrace embrace their their their mistakes you know you know what do you hope you what do you see your industry in the next five ten years you know you got crossfit you got all these other things that are taking place in your space what do you see in the next five ten years for your industry i think it's going well well, right now, it's

in every house damn near around the world. I mean, you're talking about eating, nutrition, and training. I think every man, it's just, yeah, I mean, if I can contribute to it, I would just like to like to

be able to probably help educate the kids a little more and to provide for the kids who don't have enough food and proper nutrition. nutrition is number one for for children in developing you know whether they're they're in sports or educational wise to be able to think clearly and not depend on um medication you know we think that wow because this kid over here has a problem concentrating or he might have ADD or whatever. But again, it could be because the lack of education of the nutrition in the home. I really believe that with the foods in the world, in America and stuff, with all the preservatives and things that they put in, processed and everything through foods, I think this causes our generation to be depressed, to be ADD, and to not be able to concentrate and not sleep and so on and so forth. So I think it just starts with what you put in your body man

and and it's bigger you know i mean you're a researcher of this and you know that this is not just a belief like there's lots of research and statements and facts around the importance for the neurochemistry that comes directly from what we've put into our bodies yeah and can you can you can you share what's the name of your new venture or your venture with nutrition? And it's a global company that you've got as well, right? Yeah, man. We're in 50 some different countries around the world. It's called Lebroni Supplements. And my supplements, we manufacture and we make supplementation for the body.

Protein, we make protein. We make protein powders. We make weight gain formulas. We make energy uh former formulas we make um pre-workouts post-workouts bcaa vitamins um testosterone boosters pills and and supplementations that uh you don't necessarily get everything from food but it's a supplementation to help you uh sustain your energy levels throughout the day and to help you your body heal and grow and in the process. So I've been able to develop a line called the Livroni Signature Series line, which mimics after my career. It's a very straightforward upfront

formulations, no proprietary blends or anything we probably have about 15 different products out from protein bars that stuff that you can eat protein powders down to pills that you take to you know help males or men develop their testosterone more and it's a non-proprietary blend you can find us online lebronisupplements.com we're in like i said close to 60 different countries around the world It's a non-proprietary blend. You can find us online, lebronisupplements.com. We're in, like I said, close to 60 different countries around the world. And they're natural products. Yeah, okay.

That seems to have alignment for you. Yeah, man. Last question. How do you articulate, how do you get your head around mastery? I would say staying true to who you are and what you feel. I've always really not really hesitated to express

my thoughts at the time. I think as long as you come from a truthful place, it's always going to be powerful god bless you know that yeah you're you're uh this has been a joy this has been like a we've been we've had technology challenges but the conversation has been eloquent and thoughtful and purposeful and i want to thank you for uh bringing your heart and your mind into the uh this conversation and i've learned so much thank you yeah brother and um very much man this means a lot to me yeah man that's good let's do it again let's i'd love to on that next time we

have a conversation is to pull out your philosophy about nutrition and um and really highlight that a bit this has been one of the most interesting interviews i've ever done in my life um because i've not once have you talked talked about how much i can bench press or how many sets of reps that i do you know yeah that's just the thing that you've put your attention to be able to do. Yeah, it's not that. Yeah. Yeah. It's the mental process, which is cool, man. And, uh, yep. Okay.

So, so let's wrap this here. Um, thank you. And, uh, for those of you who are still listening to us, head over to iTunes and, um, tell someone about finding mastery and you can do that by going to finding mastery.net. You can hit us up at Facebook forward slash finding mastery. And then also, Kevin, what's your Twitter handle?

My Twitter, Twitter handle is, is just straight up. Lebroni, Kevin. And then my Instagram is Kevin Lebroni. And my Facebook is the official Kevin Lebroni Kevin. And then my Instagram is Kevin Lebroni. And my Facebook is the official Kevin Lebroni. And that's it, man.

Awesome. So send us questions. Send us questions about the process of being deeply entrenched in a lifestyle that requires courage and risk and commitment. Send us stuff. And you can find me at at michaelgerve.com kevin thanks again i hope you have a great night and look forward to talking to you soon thank you michael thank you guys for listening all right take care kevin bye all right bye-bye all right thank you so much for diving into another episode of finding mastery with us

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