In Search Of Excellence - Flex Lewis: The Gym Rat’s Road to Riches – Bench Presses, Business Plans, and Brand Building | E108

Episode Date: April 16, 2024

Welcome to another episode of In Search of Excellence! My guest today is the incredible Flex Lewis. Flex is a serial entrepreneur, coach, motivational speaker, and one of the greatest bodybuilders of all time. He has won 7 consecutive Mr. Olympia titles.He's also the co-owner of Arsenal, strength gym equipment, the fastest-growing fitness equipment company in the world, and the owner of the famous Dragon's Lair Gym in Las Vegas.01:21 - Joe Gold recruiting Flex Lewis and living with John Cena and Hulk Hogan11:50 - Motivation and background of Mr. Olympia25:15 - Flex's last Mr. Olympia28:00 - Flex's parents supporting him38:20 - Hustling, relationships, and free protein powder49:45 - Having a long-term view and the shelf life of careers1:00:33 - Dana White1:10:05 - Extreme Preparation1:17:09 - Flex's family1:23:54 - Extra questions, Joe Rogan, and pigeons on creatineSponsors:Sandee | Bliss: BeachesWant to Connect? Reach out to us online!Website | Instagram | LinkedIn

Half a centimeter away from having my arm amputated at 15. So that was part of that mentality. It's like, wow, you nearly lost your arm. And you've got a pin in your arm and a scar that's showing on your arm right now, which is there. Still got a pin in my arm. And I was able to achieve this. You can achieve anything. If you're not all in on whatever it is.

I was all in on bodybuilding doing in that chapter. Chips on. I was all in on bodybuilding doing in that chapter. Chips on. Chips all in. But if you're not all in and you're leaving things off the table and you're playing this precautiously, then you're not going to achieve

what you want to achieve. We've got to get our shoes up there. Oh. I was like, what are we talking about here? He just said, he just said, from posing trunks

to like getting something up on the table. I was like, oh, when is this podcast kicking? We got to show off the shoes. I kind of think that we should have had part of the show with the shoes in the show. I was thinking about it, but I didn't want to be disrespectful.

Oh, it's not disrespectful. My boots were on creatine and glutamine and everything. They were on tonics and yeah, they were all jacked up. So let's talk about that. Let's talk about chasing dreams and making sacrifices. So many of my guests, 90% of the guests on my show, and obviously talking about Mike Tyson, Mark Cuban, these guys slept on the floor. They were in a one bedroom apartment with five other people, had electricity turned off, didn't have a car. The car broke down that they bought for $300. So tell us about your first trip to the U.S. when you were 20.

Your visit to Gold's in Venice Beach, still there. My wife just started to train there. Oh, really? Yeah, she says, you know, you've got to come. And I'm like, I'm too insecure to go. I'm like this thin guy. I can't go there. But you came to the U.S.

Yeah. And when you finally moved here, you slept on a couch for one and a half years. Yeah. Do you want me to tell you about the two parts of that story? Absolutely. Yeah. So when I won the British Nationals,

which came after, you know, transcending the story of myself and Neil working together, I get this email from the United States saying that he was the owner of Gold's Gym. He would love to fly me out to America to do a photo shoot and just expose me to America and the Gold's Gym, you know,

that I was reading about in the magazine. That's the place, by the way, in the world. The Mecca. Arnold started there. Everybody trains there. The who's in the world. The mecca. Arnold started there. Everybody trains there. The who's who. Yeah. Who's who.

And I got these emails that came in probably next session of probably like back-to-back within a week or two. I looked at it first. I was like, this guy's unreal. There's no way. First of all, how did you get my email address? Because everything was new back then, right? Right.

And then he messaged me again. He was like, I know this is kind of a little bit weird that you get out of this blue message, but I assure you that, you know, I'm real. If you need any references, let me know. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And I still looked at this. And of course, I showed my parents, my mom, especially. She was like, oh my God, you're going to go to America. You'll get locked up in a closet and you'll never be seen again. You'll be brought up for some fun times, some weirdo. You'll never be seen again. Of course, again, I don't understand. I understand now as a parent.

Back then, I was like, Mom, you're overthinking. Now as a dad, I understand, you know, having this strange email. Back in them days, too, there's no social media to check up on anybody. So a couple of months went by I get another email probably another two and I ended up getting a name to connect with and I knew who this person was connected with this person and he said this guy is great he's helped a lot of people out and you should take this opportunity I heard the word opportunity so I reached back out probably cyfle. Rwy'n ddweud y gair, cyfle. Felly, fe wnes i ddod yn ôl, yn ystod o blwyddyn, o'r tro cyntaf, i fynd yn ôl ac yn ôl a rhannu sylwadau. Roeddwn i ar y pwysau i'r

U.S. am y tro cyntaf. Ac fe wnes i ddod yn LAX. Yn gyntaf, ffwrdd o sioc cymdeithasol. Ffwrdd o sioc cymdeithasol. Roedd popeth yn fwy. Roedd, cars, people, food. And I felt at home. It was weird. I just knew, as much as it scared me, that I needed to be in the United States. And again, it was the infancy stage of the business, too, you know, the moving company. But I was like, wow, this is great. I hadn't even stepped foot in Gold's Gym at this point in time so when Ed, his name Ed Connors

one of the original owners of Gold's Gym bought it off Joe Gold and his partners he brought me to his house which is a beautiful house on Santa Monica the boardwalk yeah in yeah Santa Monica Venice on the boardwalk yeah in um yeah santa monica uh venice on the boardwalk right on the beach and i got there at night so of course i get that it's dark the house is dark i knew there was other house guests there yeah i wake up in the morning i'm the earliest up and i'm getting to see the house for the first time in light and just the experience of seeing people rollerblade past rock walk in jogging keeping fit all shapes and sizes all ethnicities just seeing that again different world from I'm coming from not many people walking on the road to be

fit back then it was good weather early in the morning nonetheless but I was like wow this is a great place to be. And of course, then the house guests started waking up and I got to meet some people. There was a bodybuilders and WWE guys. In fact, side story, but nonetheless, one that's a big part. The guy who was in my room prior to me coming in just left to do a TV series called Tough Enough. And that guy now is now known as John Cena.

So John was in the room prior to me by a few days. He left to do this TV series, and I jumped in his basically grave when he left. It was magic dust. Yeah, magic dust, I'll take that. But it was the who's who of people who had been in that house, all the way from actors wrestlers bodybuilders but Ed's goal as he made a lot of money from Gold's Gym he

franchised it he was behind that and took it all around the world he was he seen the opportunity to bring athletes myself including many other people to Gold's give him the experience host him a house, and not pay a dime. And for me, that was an incredible thing. I had no money. I got exposed to the dream. I walked into Gould's gym, and I seen, first day I was there, Jean-Claude Van Damme, there was Hulk Hogan, and then there was all the bodybuilders from that era.

And I'm like, it's a magazine. And everybody was obtainable, everybody was respectable, everybody was cool for a photo. Although I didn't ask, I'd seen it firsthand, but it was just a magical experience that I went back home and I knew that I had to save my money to come back. So that's what I done. I worked, I saved, I came over. I worked, I saved, I came over.

Whilst simultaneously growing my business in the UK, coming over here whilst trying to make my name in the US. And then it came down to the tipping point of where I had to make that choice then to come to the United States. But all that was in Venice, goals. Santa Monica. The first couple of trips over, the gym was packed full of all the best athletes in the world. But then as the years went by, the gym started becoming very quiet. And coming from a gym that was clanking and banging a lot of heavy weight lifting a lot of motivation there was hardly any motivation in Gold's Gym there was a lot of old guys who

retired and they were just potting around talking to girls and I'm like why have I moved the other side of the world to see this I want to be around the savages the best I want to sharpen my sword and it was a couple of months later that I heard about a gym up in Fullerton, California. And I bought my friend's car, jumped up in the 405, had no clue about traffic, you know, coming from the UK. Stuck in the 405 for an hour, finally got to this gym. And then this gym became my new home for the next couple of years. And that was a gym called Coliseum Gym. And the first day there, the owner at the time, who now full circle trains in my gym,

Milo Satchev, he introduced me to another guy who was my age. And he said, you guys need to work. You need to meet. Flex wants to move up here. He was kind of speaking on my behalf.

And he was like, you can put him up in your house, right? And this kid from Hawaii, awesome guy, Everett Lacroix. He was the housing manager for Chapman University in Orange County. So he was able to hide me in the housing stuff. I slept on a sofa for a year and a half.

Horrible. No AC. Everybody was broke. When it was hot, it was hot. When it was cold, it was cold. Sticky sofa, you know, that old school leather. And then the leather had peeled off and it was just fabric. That was my life for a long time. But I was focused on that goal and that dream to be the best.

And I turned up every single day, sometimes twice a day, to be at that gym, to be part of the photo shoots. That's where all the photo shoots for Flex magazine were taking place. I stayed in shape and basically pleaded for the opportunity. I'm in shape. A lot of these guys were under contract back then. We were getting paid big six-figure contract sums and turning up not in shape. So I'd be like, hey, I'm here. Your camera's set up. Take some photos of me, you know, in that respectful way. And in the end, them calls started coming in. It's Flex jump in and then I'd have a small little article

in Flex magazine that came out three months later and then them articles went a little bit bigger and then it was a full page and yeah it was just

putting myself in front of people to not be ignored and also kindness kills right I won the respect of

these incredible photographers by just being respectful and waiting for my chance I wasn't annoying I was like hey this is an opportunity for me I'll jump in I'll stay in shape all year which I did and it's suffice to say you know at every reason Randall to go home every reason the business my parents my mum must you know say no it okay, if it's not working out, come back home. And there was a little voice that was that guy in the shoulder there. But what I tried to do back then, of all the things that were going wrong,

10, 15 things that weren't happening, give me that one thing that was. And I homed in on that, and that kept me in the game. And then one turned into two, and then I just kept on focusing on that. Of course I'd go home. I was on a 90 day visa at the time traveling visa totally abused that. I forgot who I was going to go back to. I did forget because I needed to stay. I did do a couple of trips over to Mexico I'm not gonna lie but I did go back home save up my money and also going back home reminded me of why I needed to be back in the United States.

I love my home. I love all the attributes that my culture has exposed me to. You know, you'll see my gym shortly. It's full of dragons. That's my country's flag and my accent I've held strong onto. Yeah. A little nervous to go there, by the way. I'm going to be intimidated.

No, no, no. Same with you. Just, you know, flexing in front of me. I don't know. No, it's going to be fun for you. But it's part of my culture. It's part of my DNA. And that's one of the reasons why I went home as much as I did and stayed back.

Because I go home not only just to save, see my family, I get motivated for the reason why I was leaving everybody to do what I needed to do. So let's talk about motivation, which is one of the goals. It's the central goal of my podcast, which is is to inspire motivate people to be the best that they can be and I think most people listening to my show want to be the best of what they be they want to be successful they want to live up to their potential they want to crush it so tell us about mr. Olympia mm-hmm what it is and at what point did you say I want to be the single best person in the world at what I want to do well that dancer backwards was the moment that I stepped off that's that plane

coming to the United States I didn't come here to be second I didn't come here to make up numbers on stage. I also was coming off an unbeaten amateur career. So there was only one thing that I knew and that was win. So that mentality, again, there's the flex, Lewis, the humble, one that's sitting in front of you, and then there's the alter ego version. Now the alter ego, I was coming here and I was going to dominate. But bear in mind, that ridiculous mindset was so skewed because the champion at the time was Ronnie Coleman, the greatest of all time. And I was saying to myself, I will be Mr. Olympia. But you have to have a delusional mindset in many cases to go after certain things until momentum happens

and it turns into reality. But again, coming from Wales, everything I was talking about was a delusion. I want to be a millionaire, I want to be the best in this, I want to start up my business, delusion, delusion, delusion. So I was like, okay, keep telling me that I can't do this. So getting off that plane. Feeding the beast.

Feeding the beast. Feeding the beast, tell me I can't do it and I'll somewhat find a way to prove you wrong. And it's like I said, a transcending torn that's happened throughout my life. And going back to the timeline, me stepping off that stage, I knew that I wanted to be a bodybuilder as soon as I got exposed to it. Going back home, you know, it was fueling my fire. So when I committed myself and I got my athlete visa,

finally, when I didn't have to go back every 90 days I can control my narrative then and my environment because I wasn't going back anywhere until soon because there's a different mentality being in the UK to being in the US and the the attributes that I was around in the US when I go back to the UK was somewhat being bled over now this mentality here and maybe it's something that comes from school pan fyddwn i'n mynd yn ôl i'r DU, roedd yn cael ei ddysgu. Nawr, ystod y bennod hwn, a efallai ei fod yn rhywbeth sy'n dod o'r ysgol, mae pawb eisiau bod yn wych. Mae hyfforddiant yn ei ddweud, byddwch chi'n rhaid bod yn y gorau. Dydyn nhw ddim wedi rhoi eich holl,

mae'n gofyn mwy o chi. Dydyn nhw ddim yn cael hynny yn ôl. Yn ysgol, ie. Ond, ar gyfer y rhan fwyaf, y diwylliant rwyf wedi tyfu o fewn y rhan academaidd, nid oeddwn yn myfyr academaidd. Felly, fe wnes i'n ddweud i'w bod yn dweud am faint o amser most part that the culture that I grew up in the academic set of things I wasn't an academic student so I got told how many times you know cows fly home that I was stupid the word stupid is always used yeah different era of teachers too but the uh this was me I knew that bodybuilding was in my

control if I wanted to be bigger just like like an artist, Arnold spoke about this, put some clay on, sculpt the body. For me, it was time in the gym, earning my stripes through compounded time periods of focusing on this. So going back to what I was saying,

when I was in the US, I was focused. I wasn't leaving anytime soon. I didn't have to leave in 90 days. I could truly go all out and focus on everything that I was trying to achieve. And that was become the best. And I'd won my pro card whilst going back and forth. When I was to do my first pro show, I was living here.

Now, that said, they created the new class, which at the time was 202, not 212. So I thought, oh, my gosh, what a beautiful thing. This is meant for me. And that's what we've done. We threw ourselves in the heart and the ring for that. And that was my focus. That was my goal, to be the best 202 at the time. Right.

So just for people who don't know this, 212 pounds. Absolutely. What do you weigh now? Probably the same. 212 pounds? Oh, no, no, no. I'm lighter. Right.

So there was the original 202. Okay, 202. 202. And you go up. And then they bumped it up 10 pounds, which is when I found my home. Okay. The 202 wasn't a struggle, but it was a new year of show. And a lot of the guys who turned pro as a middleweight, light heavyweight,

they can't hold their own to the open class guys. So they created this class, kind of like Arnold and Franco back in the day, two height classes, but this was weight. And what we're talking about, also to clarify for the audience listening, is the Mr. Olympia. That is the Super Bowl of bodybuilding. There's no higher title that can be won. You could say, well, like you said, Mr. Universe, which a lot of people know more than, believe it or not, than Mr. Olympia. But the Mr. Universe is an amateur title in a different federation. The Mr. Olympia is the highest title you can win of all federations. It's the king of the hill. So that was my goal, to become Mr. Olympia. And

obviously when they created this class, my goal was to become Mr. Olympia and obviously when they created this class my goal was to become Mr. Olympia in that field and then I was all in all in on that from the moment that they they put that news out there. So you won seven in a row. Let's talk about the first win. The first win. Right so what was the exact feeling at that moment that that you won? Exact moment? Well I think it was a multitude of emotions. More than anything else it was like, you fucking done it. You said you were gonna do it when you came here. And even going back to the memories of me breaking my elbow, right?

I was told back then, kind of to take myself off the place, but I was half a centimeter away from having my arm amputated at 15. So that was part of that mentality. It's like, wow, you nearly lost your arm and you've got a pin in your arm and a scar that's showing on your arm right now, which is there. Still got a pin in my arm and I was able to achieve this. You can achieve anything. And also, it was kind of like a middle finger to the guys who told me I couldn't do it, too. I love it, too.

I love it. I celebrate my successes and also kind of celebrate the... Not that I told you so, but it's just... I don't need to say it, because nobody's going to come out and say, oh, I was wrong, I'm sorry. But a lot of people hate their words. And being able to call yourself the best of the best and also not come from you know the US which is bodybuilding

obviously a big US sport it was anyways gone more international now was reassurance for me that I I could do really anything respectively within certain parameters that I put my mind to. But I also knew that this show now was the first foot down of what was about to change because when you win the title it comes with a complete new set of responsibilities. You're the champ. You're in media. How you walk, talk, act. How you conduct your business on social media. How you talk to your fans that are there standing for three hours in some cases.

So thankfully, as I mentioned in the earlier part of the podcast, I learned a lot of lessons from being the paper boy. Having my business. That when I was able to talk to these fans, I tried to give everybody the experience that they should have with a champion, as opposed to the one that everybody's kind of got to know where it's like, I hate that. I hate the stereotype.

And also another reason why I marched against the bodybuilder stereotype was I wanted to do something different and march to my own beat to my drum, but yet make sure that in doing so was aligned morally to what I believe in and who I am as a person. So kind of elaborate what I was saying, but bodybuilders have that stereotype of being the biggest guy in the gym.

How many sets you got left? I need to work that piece. I hated that. I was always in baggies. I was always in my 3 or 4X t-shirt. That's how big I was back then. Covered up. I never wore a tank top in public. I just wanted to stay against it. And it also has allowed me to get into different spaces and be around different people because the business side of things was also prevalent during the Olympia stuff too. I started my different businesses up. But being a bodybuilder, just by looks, you get, you know, whatever perception that person has of X, whether they've a chael unrhyw bwynt o'r person sydd wedi'i ddysgu, a ydynt wedi cwrdd â rhywun yn y gym, ac maen nhw'n ffynnyddus neu'n gwych,

rwyf wedi bod yn gyflawniol ac yn bles i ffyrdd o'r byd a chyfarwyddo mewn clas y busnes, i rhai pobl anhygoel sydd ddim wedi cwrdd â'r ffynnydd, ond sydd â'r stereotyp. Mae'r bobl hyn yn llawn cyfeiriad, ddim yn bwysig yn ffynnyddio, ond maen nhw wedi dod i wylio pob un o fy mhrolymiadau. full circle I have no interest in bodybuilding but I've come to watch every one of my Mr. Olympias and these people are in different different genres from diamond mines

to waste management companies but again you kill people with kindness I would sit on a flight next to these people first thing I'd say sorry I have to eat

every two to three hours as part of my job wouldn't talk about bodybuilding what I won they might not even find out that I'd won the Mr. Olympia. I would find water on that level and speak to people.

So I felt it was my duty, my honor, my goal to conduct myself. And then obviously the media obligations opened up. So going into my second year, compared to everybody else who I stood on stage next to, I already had this added element of cameras on me, demanding more time for me, which put another spoke in the works. But it also allowed me to adapt and be like, okay, this is part of it. You wanted to be the champ, you trained to be the champ, this is the unspoken about elements that come part of being in the shoes you're in right now. And I embraced it.

I used it to fuel my fire. Win in the shoes you're in right now and I embraced it you know I used it to fuel my fire you know winning the first I wanted to win the second to prove to not only myself but everybody that it wasn't a fluke there was one or two pros that were missing in the first one that returned to the second there was a little bit of shit talk a little bit of banter that I went on and they turned up and and suffice to say the guys who beat me as a 2-2 guy didn't come close in the 2-12 category because that was my class. And even though I was on the road doing all these extra stuff,

taking the ability of me to focus on bodybuilding 100%, I gave these guys all the chances to catch me up. But when I had my chance and I was home, I was all in. And that's the time I was able to grow, make the changes needed and step on stage every single year with a new improved version of myself. Did you cry when you won? Good question. I probably did fake cry. I don't know.

Fake cry? No, I cried. You're a tough guy. We're going to be real on this show. No, I'm... So I grew up in, as I said, in a very tough upbringing. I never see my parents cry much. My mom a little bit bit different but more in pain

so when you emotionally win something, yeah it was like a different world for me I think more than anything else, I had tears, it was just like satisfaction tears but it was years later that I truly learnt to embrace the journey and collectively memories, travelling, doing what I'd done, going the extra mile, having all these added elements that were against me in defending the title, injuries, whatever else, all the unseen, unknown stuff. That's when I started getting tears. Because when I was younger, it was like,

oh my God, god yes I won like a couple of tears come but then there was true emotion as the years went by and a different set of tears when I had my kids too but this was earned and through sweat equity blood sweat equity and a lot of lost time away from

and the sacrifice but there was a different like I said set of tears but truthfully the reason like I said set of tears but truthfully the reason why I'm struggling to remember I can't remember many of the shows I was so in autopilot I was a freaking machine I won the Olympia I went backstage done my press went to my after party and at the after party was always looking for Irish goodbye because I had to cardio the next morning. I had to get my weight back down,

and I had to head to Korea the next weekend to win another show. So my mentality was always the next. So it was just like, yes, I won it. I'm the best in the world. Okay, go backstage, do my thing. Best in the world, best in the world, best in the world. Time to think and process. All right, what time is it?

Okay, I've got to get up and cardio at 6 o'clock tomorrow, 5 o'clock in the morning, best in the world, best in the world. Time to think and process. All right, what time is it? Okay, I've got to get up and cardio at 6 o'clock tomorrow or 5 o'clock in the morning, get my weight back down. So it was always on to the next, always on to the next. So now to answer your question, it never really hit me until Christmas time. And the show was in September when I was home in Wales on Creature Comforts. And I was on my own, of course. You know, I wasn't around people people and it just hit me like a ton of bricks. I was like, wow.

But it never hit me at the time until my last. And the last was a promise to myself that this was going to be my last. I put it out in the air, my last 212, and I was going to be present. I would enjoy enjoy it I would have sensory overload and I can remember thinking about me putting my foot from the cold concrete backstage onto the first set of stairs going up and now the stairs got hotter and hotter because the lights on stage and I remember how hot the stage was because they're unforgiving lights the best in the world all these things remember fan interactions I remember seeing when my parents were sitting now

granted you can only see so many rows back because the lights yeah it's so in your face so I could but I could see where they were sitting if not I could you and my mother anyway my mother's got like the best accent of course she called me GM standing out from everywhere else too so just hearing them the crowd and being able to pinpoint certain people too. So I truly can say I enjoyed that show more than any other show. Yes, it was my last. It had a different meaning, but I had some real tears for that that were in the moment

and earned. We all want affirmation from our parents, right? Whether subconsciously or not. Did your parents cry? Oh, yeah. They were crying when i was on stage they all saw my from somebody who thought there was going to be a completely different world they embellished it my mom became like the mayor she'd walk around the exports like these people have like two or three hour lines you're talking about the biggest names you know in the fitness industry if not connected to the fitness industry

aside from bodybuilders and they all knew my mom so this massive line that wrapped around the biggest names you know in the fitness industry if not connected to the fitness industry aside from bodybuilders and they all knew my mum so there's massive line that wrapped around the building and they'd see my mother they were like she also knew the game too she was like oh I just want to say hello you know she got the front I just want to say hello oh come in come in and the fans some of the fans knew my mother anyway so they would bring my mother and skip the whole line and she built a rapport of being you you know, the mom on site, the long of my dad who was trailing behind, you know. But they truly loved what I was doing and seeing what I was doing with it.

Again, like me, you know, this was an untapped world. I didn't know where I was going until I discovered what I wanted to do with it. And then when they started seeing me do more and more stuff that was in the sport and then out, and how it didn't change me as a person, you know, just because I was the champ, I wasn't talking a certain way. My mother actually has signs in the house that she's got up on the wall. One is something about basically basically egos you know whatever whoever you think you are in this house you know your family she's got these little signs

i don't know if it's anything to do with me could be but we we just stayed all all humble and driven and but again the see my parents assume that role also as their son was the champion and then be part of every show outside of the international stuff they never missed a show they came to all the olympias all the big important shows they came to and they seen the i mean they seen the unseen they see me struggle trying to make weight of course my mom still is a nurse mentality, see me like slow, trying to drag myself down to get on the scale, make that scale and then just get back up on food. But I never shied away from not showing them that. We'd get a couple of rooms in different hotels, different suites and

they would all be joining and connecting. So as I started progressing in the sport, obviously my family started growing too. My daughter was being around it for years. My parents would come in and obviously kill several birds with one stone, see me, see the kids. My child at the time, my daughter, I'm sorry. But all the rooms would all be open. And they'd be in and out of the rooms all day. The media would come in. There were different people coming in for interviews, whatever it would be. They'd seen the reality of what it was. And then when I would walk out into the exports, it's just the pros,

the bonus of what comes with being who you are, the security that takes you through and the big lines that await you in different booths. Then you get shuttled from one sponsor to the other sponsor, all while still managing to stay on prep because you're still competing that next day. So I had to stay on times. And another thing, too, which I hated, and just this is my mentality,

most of the guys that I competed against or in the open class would always sit down at these events. I hated that. So you've got these fans who stand in line for you for a long period of time and then they're kind of like going down to shake your hand. And it probably didn't favour me by doing this, but I would stand the entire time I mean I love engaging people I love talking and interacting and just being in that moment was the moment that I heard and somebody may have flown from the other side of the world their only opportunity to meet me they stood in line they get the experience yet my rule of thumb was I treat the same person at the front as I do

at the back and I'd never walk away from the line we'd always put people in the line to stop the line and when I seen that last guy there I was like I've done my job but I'd never walk away from the line and I'd never do all these little things too because it's an experience for the fans I've also been on the receiving end of meeting athletes and they weren't good experiences in fact some of them are friends of mine now. But I also remember the first interaction I had with them and I was like, okay, I don't want that to be my case when I meet my fans. But my parents got to see that, be part of it, and also just live the moment with me too. Because again, we're all from the same small town and now we're on this big stage and everybody's screaming my name.

We all want to be successful, right? And there's naysayers all along the way. You know, there's the doubters and so important when you want to be successful just to tune it all out. But I had a girlfriend in law school. I had done well. Studying was my ticket out, right? So my mom struggled when we were younger, a single mom. First memory in my life was my mom struggling because she couldn't pay rent

Crying because she couldn't pay rent. So I always wanted to do better and like you I wanted to have money in my pocket where I could do certain things and so Graduated top 1% of my class the University of Michigan graduated I did well at Northwestern Law School and then I I got a job and I was in law school I had this girlfriend home in Aspen Colorado very fancy very she she very wealthy family they had a home in the south of France and I remember going to this party with them and I didn't have the right clothes I mean this beautiful house in Red Mountain he ever been Aspen before I have not but I'm very well I

think I was huge mansion or whatever everyone there's uh sophisticated i remember calling my mom long distance back then you know no cell phones and just saying hey i feel insecure um i don't it's weird she just told me to go back out and have confidence and later on during that trip uh my girlfriend's mom took me for a walk around the block and she said and I was a motivated kid right but they wanted her daughter to marry someone of wealth and so we took this this walk around the block and said how much money is it going to take for you to stop dating my daughter true story true story I remember we were walking by the little Nell, it had started to snow, and I remember looking at her mouth, I don't know, I was 22 years old. And I'm sitting there thinking to myself, I mean you see this stuff on TV and it was happening to me.

I mean it was like a fiction novel and I thought gosh you know that's that's absurd. And in my mind I said gosh, gosh, you know, one day, there will be a point in my life where if the situation were equal and we were measuring on that day, I don't think she would be saying that. And when our company went public, our stock closed the first day of trading

at $14.4 billion. And it shot up two months later to $35 billion, which at the time was more than the market caps of Chrysler, Ford, and GM combined. And I'm from Detroit. It was a big deal. When that happens to you, you're under the microscope like you're under the microscope. Everyone wants you to be arrogant. Everyone wants you to say the wrong thing.

Everyone just wants to criticize you. There's people who are not happy for you yeah um i'm smarter than that person and people want to call it luck none of my friends thought it was like the people who knew absolutely i slept on couches i worked i was in the library till 11 o'clock when magazines, how this kid had done really well, a kid from Hummel Roots in Detroit. And I remember thinking, is there one person, did she ever know? And I learned later that she did know. Oh, no.

And that was a source of some satisfaction for me. I mean, I never called. I never sent her a newspaper clipping. You should have. Well, it's like, you know, you don't want to be that asshole, right? Yeah. And I kept thinking to myself, you know, I want to be the same person that I am. I obviously have a lot more money than I had before.

And, you know, it felt pretty damn good. It's a win, right? It's a win. I mean, I've never, I've even never heard of anybody having personally a conversation from somebody's parents that say, hey, you shouldn't date my kid anymore

because you don't make any money or you don't come from money. That's honestly, I couldn't imagine being in your shoes because I've come from humble beginnings and getting told that, especially at an age where you're kind of all in. You haven't even started your life at that point in time.

Now, if you were, you just said you were motivated, right? So I'm guessing you were looking to do stuff as I was. Well, I wanted to be rich, by the way. I just wanted to have my own business and want to make it on my own, which I did, and wanted to be wealthy so I could not worry about money every single day of my life. Same thing. But to get that in your head. I mean, listen, I probably have a different story, but as that was a love of yours, right? I was told by people that maybe I were friends

with, I wouldn't say love, but you're not going to do it. You were told by somebody's mum that you were dating. And that's a hella motivating factor. Again, powered by trauma, right? Whatever that was to you. It was like, I'm going to fucking prove you wrong. And you did. Not wrong, but tenfold, hundredfold.

So now they're probably talking about you in family get-togethers. Oh, do you know that little man we used to date? No doubt. Exactly. And listen, it is what it is. But isn't that a great thing

where you've been able to feel that feeling, horrible as it is, and I'm sure that has been let out of Pandora's box, I call it, many times to fuel you through some of the hardest of days. Yeah. Whatever it is. Yeah. And I'm sure that has been let out of Pandora's box. Yeah. I call it. Many times to fuel you through some of the hardest of days.

Yeah. Whatever it is. I stuttered as a kid too so I was bullied from the time I was three years old through senior year of high school

and everyone, you know, they'd make fun of me, River or Randy and all. It doesn't do well for your self-confidence. I mean,

when I was younger I'd be afraid to go to school i come home crying every day and all the people that made fun of me everyone knew the story by the way back home of course everybody and it i had since seen those people i go i'd gone back to visit my family and you bump into people and it was just a whole different perception and then you go to your high school reunion you're the most successful person there not not by and there were successful people but when you hit it big in the technology business it's it's not like having a good mortgage company and you've got you know 50 people it's just you know the the valuations of these companies are big so that that... Sure felt good. Yeah.

Fucking awesome, by the way. Yeah, sure do. Yeah. Again, you lived in your own shoes and been in your own shell for all these years. So for somebody that can just judge, and this transcends to some of myself too, somebody can judge you based on reading your bio, right?

They'll assume, they presume. But when you hear about that story that you just spoke about, about being bullied, and it's all made you into the savage that you became. Staying in the library for later hours, making sure that you put all this extra work in academically into literature and class, you know, homework, whatever it would be, to then turn into the monster you are right now, in the good way, you know? Yeah. Animal. Animal.

You know, I use that word the most complimentary way. I want to fund an animal. I mean, I'll venture capital. I want a fucking animal who I know is going to do every last thing to have a win. I want that person to think they're on a raft in the middle of the Pacific Ocean, because this is how I think that I'm going to find land. Yeah. And you've got to have that mentality, too.

I've thought about that, too, weirdly. I put myself in these weird, weird scenarios in the past where it's like, okay, what happens if I was stranded on a desert island? What would I do to survive? I don't know why I've thought about stuff like that but now that you've mentioned that analogy, it's it's truly a tool that I've kind of discovered where I came to the United States. I knew one person. I was going to make it. That's the island, right? It's like okay I come I come here, I don't know anybody.

There's coconuts up in the tree. I can collect water and these leaves when it rains. When I came to the US, I had no money, very little money, should I say. Everything that I had went all on food. Thankfully, I didn't have to pay rent because I stayed in Ed's house for the first part. But I had to ration everything out and thankfully again key people in my life at that point in time whether they knew it now they do they would give me protein just gone out of date protein that I was able to survive

and turn into meals all these small little collective things allowed me to stay in the game when I had the excuses to go back home because I didn't have it but instead I was like okay I'd go to local supplement stores and be like hey you guys got any dented product you want to give get rid of and I got free product from from that too so I hustled and I worked and I pour into relationships because he seemed guys that were around me then I still around me to this day. So much so that one I've already mentioned and one of the owners of the Max Muscle store is now in my gym training on the daily. And he'll tell you all these stories that I can't even remember about me coming in thick Welsh accent.

I've worked really hard to make sure I'm understood every other word. But back then I had this thick accent and that's what they kind of knew me for. This kid that speaks English but doesn't speak English. So they all seen the potential I had, and they also seen that I was relentless in my pursuit. So whether they knew I was going to make it, I don't think they thought I was going to make it. The statistics were so against me. If I was a Vegas bet and odds, I'd be God knows, plus 1500, whatever. But I did. And now I can lean into these

people who helped me back then and say, hey, you believed in me back then. Whether they did or not. They did believe in me to give me protein powder, whatever it was. Small little, or some people would take me out for food and seen I was struggling but was all in on this. It's just full circle now. But again, all in, right? You've got to come into something and if you're not all in on whatever it is. I was all in on bodybuilding doing in that chapter. Chips on.

Chips all in. But if you're not all in and you're leaving things off the table and you're playing this precautiously, then you're not going to achieve what you want to achieve because you're giving yourself a plan B. And I came to this country without a plan B. There was many times, as I said, my parents were like, okay, come home now, we've been gone for a couple of months. And, you know, if things are not working, come home, plan B.

My business was a plan B. I didn't see are not working come home plan B my business was a plan B I didn't see it as a business plan B I was all in on plan A and plan B I already created a few years ago and I had got contracts from the council which are hard to get I had councils from the NHS which were basically paying me a lot of money. Even though I had to submit an invoice, I'd get it a month later, to move a bed from one hospital to the next. They gave the contract to me and my team. And I was all in on that new chapter.

Because if I allowed myself to go home, I would find myself finding that fast cash again. And I'd be still in the groove of moving people and I knew there was something much better for me and it was in the United States and that's why I said I'm all in no going back so a lot of things motivate us and people who say this doesn't motivate them I think they're lying and I don't trust them sorry so no I'm talking about money. Oh, money. Yes. Okay. So money is a motivator for everybody in the world. I think if you're poor and are struggling to put food on the table, you need money to put food on the table. And then you want to be a millionaire when you're younger and there is no such thing. And now you are a millionaire. The average

bodybuilder makes $40,000 to $70,000 a year. It depends where you live, of course. In the United States, you make more. And you have to be in the United States to be in the sport and be at the top level of the sport. Mr. Olympia, I think, pays $400,000 to $500,000 now per the top prize. Open class. What's that? Open class.

Open class. So where does money rank as a motivation factor in your life? And what's your advice to all of the either future bodybuilders out there or non-athletes out there where money should rank in terms of their motivation on their quest for success? When I made my first, I would say, bit of money that just didn't cover the bills, I started looking at making my money make me more money. Started looking into opportunities to invest my stuff into. Started my first business up, and that was a smoothie bar in Tennessee.

That was my first ever business, U.S. business, with a tax ID and all that stuff, outside of me being the brand, of course. That was 2000, 2004. Yeah. You got the brand of course. That was 2000-2004. Yeah. And that was an exciting time. I was with Gaspar Nutrition and that was the first time I ever started that business. But I knew that I wasn't getting paid the money that I wanted to get paid.

So I had to create them opportunities yet again. So prize money in the 212 is significantly different to the open class. So the open class was getting 400,000, 500,000, whatever it is right now. The 212 was getting 40,000. So I had to be very intelligent with my ways of making extra money up through guest posing, through different brand endorsements, yet I never looked at myself as a subcategory in the sport of bodybuilding. You know, Mr. Olympia, the open class, is always gonna be looked at as the top of the tree.

The 212 class was created for athletes within that realm and i was like this is the mr olympia for everybody who is at this weight category and i truly believe that why would i not i earned the stripes so um monetary wise not much money in competing business sponsorships i made more money one month i made more money a month than I did winning the Olympia because of strategic planning, investing, investing in people which turned into opportunities and showing up as the champion in rooms, masterminds, whatever else to network to create further opportunities. So the mentality of a bodybuilder is truly loved in the entrepreneurial world

because you stick to a goal and a game plan, come hell or high water, on that date, whatever it is, June 4th, whatever it is, you will do that show if you're of that mentality. Injuries, setbacks, there's no stopping. So if you transition that same mentality into entrepreneurship, that's a savage.

So at a very young age, as I said, from the experience I had from being in Wales, I said to myself, if I'm not going to make money in bodybuilding, as a businessman, I'm not doing this. This isn't just about titles and accolades, yes, that's the perks of everything, being known as the best, but this has got to be a business. I've sacrificed my business in the UK to come here. So I picked up my first contract from Joe Eder at 23. Which was the exact set of weights that your dad had. At the exact set of weights.

In the barn. Yeah. Locked barn. Yeah, I didn't think about that. Yeah, it's a full circle moment. I haven't thought about that for a long time. And he sponsored me. Now, Joe Eder, the godfather of bodybuilding, he's the guy who discovered Arnold.

He's the guy who owned Flex Magazine, Muscle muslim fitness and a multitude of different magazines back then to have that little extra money coming in from uh from my sponsorships truly allowed me now to invest in myself a little bit more so me being the biggest investment um being the brand the second thing was starting to look at opportunities to invest into that made me more money like outside of the sport but then still was around me so I started putting in into businesses. I started doing things completely different at a young age obviously as the years went by I started investing into different businesses which which I'm sure we'll speak about. But monetary-wise, I was making the most money that I've ever seen in my life by signing with a supplement company that truly signed me as a racehorse.

I was with the company for a long time, Gaspari Nutrition. Shout out to Rich Gaspari, one of the legends in the sport. Traveled around the world with him. By the way, it's so important to give the shout-outs, right? Because no matter what we do, I mean... I served the lessons. Yeah. So Rich was one of these guys who had been there, done it,

was second to Lee Haney, trained with Lee Haney, you know, one of the greats. And Rich was into the business world. He had Gaspar Nutrition. He was blowing up. And I was his first athlete that he signed. So we traveled the world together. I was able to get into rooms and listen to how the dynamic of business was going on overseas.

How they would leverage certain things. Okay, we're going to give you a thousand shirts, but this is the price point that you're going to buy now. If you buy this, it was just an entrepreneur's dream to be sitting there, listening to the conversation that went on, an apprenticeship. Bottom line, Anna was living the shoes of what Rich Gaspardi used to be in. So we trained, we hung out, he's like a big brother to me and then his company started growing. I was there for a long period of time and again I'm very loyal to the tea but again I started having this massive carrot dangled in front of me. There was a lot of money and I said no to it for two years straight in hopes that they were going to match it and they brought somebody else in. this is nothing to do with Rich guy that

never was in the industry one of these C-level execs that don't know what you've done they just tell you what what you need to do and they were like just be loyal suck it up and get paid I was like okay this you're gonna ruin this relationship and they did and then I had the an opportunity and to sign with another company and they offered me a ridiculous salary and I slid the paper back over to them and said I said life-changing and I looked at it and I was like oh my god I went my home I told Ali I said it might be the best the worst decision I've ever done but I looked at this and I create contract and

I said it's gonna be life-changing and 20 20X. So, I mean, nothing like a 20X, right? Nothing like a 20X. I'm Pooks. I'm bonuses. So you said that where a lot of bodybuilders go wrong is that they're very focused on the sport only. You've always had a long-term view of careers. I mean, so many people, they do one thing. They have a fairly short career shelf life,

for whatever, a better word or not, but you didn't think that way. You've networked, and network is really the wrong word because it's about building relationships. So tell us how you build those relationships and how to make them authentic and not just the, hey, Flex, you know, meeting you one time. Hey, you know, can I get something out of you? Yes. See that point right there. Because I was surrounded with MOs being who I was. So if I had the chance to meet somebody that I wanted to genuinely meet

or I got introduced to somebody and I didn't know who they were, I soon learned who they were or not I just genuinely love meeting people and if you've got greatness or you've succeeded you've done something then even more so I want to know how maybe so you mentioned the word authentic authentic is what I really stand by, whether it was with my fans, meeting my fans, and then at the gym every day. They come from all over the world to meeting people that I aspire to stand next to on stage or have been on stage or that's in the bodybuilding space to business.

So I try to have an eclectic version of people around me at all point in times who weren't in the sport and were in the sport because they give me a different perspective and a different mentality check. Because if you've got somebody that's so ingrained in the sport and that's all they do every single day, they don't see past that. If you have people who are kind of successful like yourself that are being there done that and got the t-shirt many times then how can I integrate what you've done into what I'm doing right now and then exit to do other things but what lessons can I learn from you and you organically and authentically not

tell me the cheat sheet because I'm going to abuse my friendship with you right now. I hate that. Again, it happens to me all the time. But also, no, I read people very well. I've got this ability to be like, okay, there's an air more. But the skill set that comes with being able to talk to people, again, it comes from the paper route, from the business, and being able to talk to different people at different levels, whatever they're in, sports, athletes, coaches, successful business people, parents, whatever it is, at Olympias, at airports when I'm walking through. Because maybe somebody might recognize me,

and then I get to meet their family, and I meet everybody, and then they all become fans. So every opportunity to meet somebody is an opportunity to make an impression. And unfortunately bodybuilders have this mentality, it's a stereotype, where they're so big that they're unapproachable. When that should be your calling card, it's like, I know I feel unapproachable,

but I'm going to make sure that I'm not that guy, but meet me first. So I love the stereotype and I love breaking it, but I encourage all these bodybuilders that, again, have the, or feel like they're the stereotype, to break it. Put yourself out there, meet people,

because you're in the sport right now. This is the life you live in right now in 2024. 2025, God forbid, you might have an injury. And if you haven't set yourself up by networking or pouring into people or selectively putting yourself out there, then you're still in this space now of a injured disgruntled bodybuilder who wants to be up on stage that doesn't and have no opportunities and unfortunately when you're injured sponsorships go everything goes and you just have a gone face so it's creating the opportunities putting hay in the barn when you're chasing the title whether you are the title holder

whatever it is and also networking to make sure that not only you are the title holder, whatever it is, and also networking to make sure that not only you are received the way you want to be received, but also create the opportunities that are outside the peripheral vision that you're in right now. You got a lot of cool friends. You get texts from Dwayne The Rock, Jonathan, on your birthday. I mean, it's pretty cool, right? It is awesome. Yeah. I'm not... You're hanging out with The Rock? We were supposed to catch up this past Super Bowl, but he only had one chance to train and it was at one o'clock in the morning.

I was like, you still should have told me I would have come down. But yeah, he's definitely one of them guys who is honestly so high up there in my eyes of motivation and example of a good human being. There's not one day, not one Father's Day he's not beating me to a Happy Father's Day text and also just random check-ins too, you know. Granted both sides, right? When I message him I don't expect a reply back. It's kind of one of them like, hey, just checking in your opal as well, you know granted both sides right when i message him i don't expect a reply back it's kind of one of them like hey just checking in your opal as well you know he might message me

back straight away he might mess me back in 48 hours you know but then i see what he's doing on instagram and the guy doesn't sit still yeah so when you think you're busy there's levels to this stuff and i understand that he is at a completely different level that anybody i personally know uh but when somebody says oh I was too busy to text back, you know, it's like, okay, well, I always throw in what you heard from DJ. That's amazing. So many times in life,

one thing leads to the second thing, and we don't think about what's out there, the third, the fourth, even the hundredth thing. So tell us about Dragon's Lair, and one path leads to a fifth path. And you gotta tell me what the posing room is, and then you've got to tell me what the posing room is, and then you've really got to tell me about what the torture room is. Yeah.

Torture room? You've got shackles in there and chains? No, thankfully. But, yes, that's what it sounds like. It's definitely a place where you can enjoy pain. I do. I fall asleep. But a lot of people, you can hear them laughing because they're in pain.

The massage therapist is what we're talking about with the torture room. So I own Dragon's Ledge, which is in Las Vegas, here in the state we're in right now. And it's become truly a destination place now where people travel from all over the world, not to come to Vegas, but to come to my gym and train in and out of my gym.

It's amazing. So we have, it's like Disneyland. So you have people that are coming in that have been on a flight for like 20 something hours, walk into the gym and they're, oh my god, it's so great to be here. I remember being that guy. I remember being that kid when I walked through the doors of the Mecca Gold's gym. So what I've tried to do is duplicate that. We're not trying to be the Mecca, we're being the Dragon's Lab. But there's elements of what the experience that i had when i was that 19 year old kid coming off the plane for the first time that i now see and live through the people that come through my gym and we grew this from a concept i came to las vegas uh as i said um during covid and it was a ghost town it was i

am legend nobody on the strip i mean my wife knew we had to be here when, you know, there's blood in the water, you know, people can swim away from it or you can see the sharks. And I was all about jumping in and exploring what I could do in Las Vegas. Obviously, I had the private gym, which started off in Boca Ratonon we had a lot of celebrities but just to quickly tell you the story there i started up a gym um it was because i was going to different gyms and they were doing these meet and greets for me unbeknownst to me and went to another gym something happened there opened up the dragons lair a lot of vip celebrity friends of mine started using it no windows no doors so we had paparazzi sitting outside the gym we had kids sleeping in cars waiting for the top athletes to turn up and me and my wife knew during corvid we had paparazzi sitting outside the gym we had kids sleeping in cars waiting for the

top athletes to turn up and me and my wife knew during corvid we had something we didn't want to twitter in florida she's born and raised there so we came out to vegas and uh when we came here i was like okay this is the opportunity i do a lot of stuff in the west coast with monster being one of my sponsors for ufc and stuff and you're the only bodybuilder sponsor they have. Yeah, yeah. Thank God. And we went to this town and we're like, okay, we're going to move you. No, as I said, she's born and raised there. My fear was my daughter and the schooling system. We found a schooling system that was correctly aligned

for her and we were all in. We started building this and we opened it at the tail end of COVID and we built through COVID. I had the goal to open up this badass gym. Was there fear? No. Was there concern? No. I had the same feeling that I did when I

jumped on that plane coming to the United States for the first time. And that was, this is going to work. It's not going to be easy. You just got to put your heart back to front and work. And now the Dragon's Lair has become the number one tourist destination in the country, where we have people that come in like I said from all over the world and get day passes, week passes, move here for camp, moved here from other sides of the world

just to train in that gym to be around other athletes and now we have a wide range of celebrities that train there and call this their home from home when they're in town. So, and simultaneously, we, you know, I've been able to grow and scale as I was competing to Arsenal Strength. 2015 is when we started the business. And now my gym is predominantly Arsenal Strength, which is my company you mentioned earlier. Fastest growing fitness gym equipment company in the world. Yeah. Yeah.

It's been incredible. incredible oh it's great feather on my heart but again one of the things i in business is a different side of me if we're talking bodybuilding there's a humbleness but when in business i do enjoy hearing that stuff because it's a different animal that i can control my body, I can put the muscle on, I can control my business too, but it's a lot more variables, right? There's a lot more other things, especially when you're involved with scaling and stuff. And yeah, I have incredible partners, the founder, Andrew Hall and his wife, Jamie, based in Knoxville, Tennessee. That's where we make and manufacture the gym equipment, American made, American steel and yeah the company's grown

exponentially now where as you mentioned we've got that title and we've got you know DJ, The Rock has got our pieces, Dana White's got our pieces and they were all bought Dana's amazing by the way, one of the best dudes around Dana has been one of Dana's

helped me so much in this town I tell him all the time when I see him. He said, I haven't done nothing. I'm like, you have, because it's just speaking about somebody when they're not in that room. You know what I mean? So I interviewed Dana at an incredible conference founded by Kelly O'Connor called the Scale Global Conference. It was this incredible conference last May in Vegas. And she's a big fan of my podcast she

said will you moderate a panel i'm gonna interview someone on stage i've never done a live interview before i've had a lot of podcasts yeah but in front of 2 000 people in the yeah you know grand ballroom at the uh bajo hotel it's a little intimidating yeah yeah so i'm doing a ton of prep doing a ton of prep and it went really well on stage with Dana. Made him cry on stage. Really? Yeah. That's tough. Another story. Yeah, that's tough. He said to me, this is an Oprah moment. And when I got off stage, my son's a huge UFC fan, and he wanted to come to this conference. I said, no, it's a little weird. You know, you're 20 years old. You're a sophomore in college.

I don't think there's going to be another college kid there. And I don't know Dana. So it would be a little forward of me. But I said to Dana at the end of the show, I said, my son's a huge fan, and will you shoot a video for him and say hi? He said, yeah. Give me that phone. So here's what he did. So I'm

going to turn up the volume because it's going to play quickly. We'll have to rewind this. I can't believe he didn't. Hey, Charlie, Dan White here. I'm in Vegas with your dad. I can't believe he didn't let you come to this thing. I mean, come on. How does he not let you come when he knows what a big UFC fan you are? So you know what we're going to do? We'll make it up to you. Your dad has my number.

And you pick the fight you want to come to. I don't care what it is. It could be a Conor McGregor fight. Whatever fight you want, I got you. That's awesome. Thanks for the support. And I look forward to meeting you soon, buddy. He's such a great guy.

Who fucking does that, by the way? How good is that? Incredible. I won't pull my phone out. It just disappeared somewhere. But to your point, I had my 40th birthday, and my wife kind of surprised me. So I'm a big UFC fan. That's my sport that I follow inside out sugar sean was on my show a few weeks ago yeah i seen i seen so i went to uh the ufc which john jones and steeper were supposed

to fight on unfortunately john got injured right but i was gonna be in uh new york in new york marston square yeah so i went to the box in that week which i kind of knew i was going to go we were in new york and we're going to do like a 40th birthday trip. And then I started getting these little hints that we might be going to the UFC. No, Dana hadn't told me nothing. Hunter Campbell is another friend of mine. He didn't tell me anything. And then Ali kind of had to let the cat out of the bag the day before.

It's like, okay, you probably guessed, but you're going to the UFC. I don't know what it was, UFC, whatever it was. And, of course, Dana found out it was my birthday and put the full red carpet down and experience and they always look after me but here's another thing too I I was going to the UFC fights so the guys knew about Arsenal strength Hunter Campbell as some of our pieces he came into the gym we met first time we clicked it off he's like I know you're into UFC because I've seen some of the stuff you do and uh I guess he has like a you have an Instagram account with his name not on it so I love UFC he was like you want to come to the apex now granted COVID and the UFC and WWE were the only two things that were going on during that

period of time very smart of them yes incredible Yes, incredible. Keep the ranks moving. And he said, you want to come to one of the fights? Now, me thinking like it was going to be in a couple months' time, my enthusiasm goes, yeah, yeah, just let me know whenever in the future. I really appreciate it. Thank you. Of course, not thinking anything would come of it. He's like, there's a fight coming on this weekend if you want to come.

I go, I thought there was no crowd. He said, there isn't. Went there, sat there, watched the UFC fight, Apex, all the rules, all the regulations, social distancing, limited production. There was probably about 15 people in that room, with production included. And then you've got Dana, Hunter,

DC, Joe Rogan, Arnick, Bisbin, all of them there, social distanced. And then we all go back in the room like nothing happened, you know? It's just like, oh, get this shit off our face. But we all were able to see the fights in real time, in real life. I was watching on TV anyway,

but then to be part of that experience, that ambience, and that's a shout out to Dana and Hunter. I just moved to this town. My goal was three years. I wanted to have a kind of relationship, which ended up becoming in the first three months. Isn't that amazing? So we were going to go to the Bones Jones fight in New York.

We had a trip planned. He got injured. So we went to the fight in December and one thing I recommend as a father to you it's the best thing that I've done is take your kids on one-on-one trips every year dad trips only and it's been one of the best things I've done in my life because you get that bond right because you know you're busy I'm busy you're in a ton of stuff. Your wife is incredible. I want to talk about her in a second too, but just having the bonding time, dad, daughter, dad, son is

incredible. So my son was 20, by the way, it's second time in Vegas. We race Ferraris and Lamborghinis out at that place. He likes to shoot guns. We go to a range and just like that, we went to Carbone. He wanted to eat there, by the way he we got the spaghetti and you know the waiter said oh you know you want some truffle on that yeah it was $185 for that day. I was like okay whatever but you come here and set up with the tickets go to will call I don't know if we're sitting on the second level or what level or whatever. So you've got the special wristbands. Don't know where we are. And we're in the right next, there's four rows right about. Dana section.

Dana section. I mean, Gary Brecko was sitting in front of me and who I met. And he's going to do my show, I think, next week or the following week. And it was so VIP. Yeah. It was incredible. I mean, he made us feel so good.

My first experience. I have a massive fan now. And it's amazing. As a leader of a company that now, I think, has a $20 billion market cap, they merge. And he built that company from nothing. Such a leader. Touching every fan like you do as a star in the sport.

That's how you build things. That's how you build loyalty and happiness. And that's how you get word of mouth. Because now I've said to my friends, man, you guys got to go check out these shows. They're incredible. Oh, it's amazing. And to your point about Dana, right? In this town, he's truly looked after so many people.

You know, these are the things that you hear about Dana on social media, and then you hear about Dana Vegas. And he's very well loved in this town. He looks after a lot of people from the valet guys all the way to whoever's serving him. I knew you about Dana Vegas. And he's very well loved in this town. He looks after a lot of people from the valet guys all the way to whoever's serving him. And it's a testament to him because people, first thing they think of when they speak about Dana is how great he is and what he's done. They met him at this place.

And again, shakes fans' hands, does the whole shebang, plays the part, promoter, but also still has the enthusiasm to do it every single event. That's hard to turn up and be that guy and more. Because he's not just being the promoter. He's the face as well. He's on the press conferences. He has to watch all the fights to get all the feedback.

He has to understand who's next. There's so much data, and he's still on top of it. He's still on the gas of the dynamics of how the UFC is moving and evolving. And also, it's like, think about how many times Dana was told that this is never going to work. They're going to go bankrupt. This is cockfighting.

This state had it banned. That state had it banned that state had it banned here to just believe in the brand and stay focused some you know create a team of people that could allow him to be dana white and allow the business to to grow into these you know into the flow that it's become and And, of course, may have started off being, you know, through lack of knowledge, this sport, clusters, whatever else, perception, as we've mentioned so many times. But now my wife is one of them. When we first started dating, I'd have that thing playing on first thing in the morning, eating breakfast.

She'd say, babe, turn this off. I don't want to see blood in the morning. Now she knows all these people personally. She loves UFC. We go to as many fights as we can together if I don't want to see blood on them. And now she knows all these people personally, she loves UFC, we go to as many fights as we can together, if I don't have to go on my own. And she's a true fan of the sport, but because she understands the sport,

because of the knowledge that has been shown through the UFC by showing these athletes on things like Embedded, where you get to fall in love with the athlete and see that, oh my God, this guy isn't just, you know, know the old stereotype a thug or uh somebody wants to pick a fight on somebody no this guy is highly educated this guy was this or this guy now is skilled in all these different skills and he's actually training three to four times a day and and then you start gathering the value and the respect for these guys because the UFC have seen it now

from the branding and marketing element and they're promoting these fighters as well as promoting the fights and Dana's done a great job of that and kudos to him and the vision that he's seen in this company to where it is now and merging with TKO is oh my gosh

incredible one of the things that's made me successful and has helped made my podcast successful is something I called, I've been mentoring on this, called extreme preparation. I'm talking about not normal preparation, which someone may prepare one hour, two hours, or something.

I may do 20 or 30 or 40, depending on how important this is to be. But my goal is always, and I coach this, it should be everyone's goal who wants to succeed, to be the most prepared person who has ever stepped foot in that room and blow that person off the chair who you're meeting with. It's just amazing how that leads to success, faster results, dramatically improved results,

results that otherwise wouldn't have been possible. Absolutely. Can you talk about how extreme preparation has led to your success? Extreme preparation was bodybuilding, right? If I didn't make a plan, I'd plan to fail. Bottom line. First step, prepare to plan. Yes.

And that plan of action would be written down months before the show was even promoted. We'd have the game plan of where I needed to be at what certain time and also start moving my schedule around to make sure that I didn't book anything in that time period. Because I didn't care what you were offering me. When I was on lockdown, I was on lockdown. I didn't allow anything to distract me hence why I created the Dragons land poker at all I control my variable I knew who was training with me I didn't allow anybody else to come in it wasn't open to the

public but that's one of the things to preparation for me is everything if and even though with the new endeavors I'm getting into, if there's no plan, then like I said, you're planning to fail. And there's so many lessons that I have learned through the bodybuilding chapters of my life that now I realize that's in my day-to-day that I didn't even know I was learning. But bodybuilding has truly taught me so many invariable lessons that no book, no book I could ever read could tell me. I might read something, but to live the moment,

learn the lesson, and then be in another chapter of life now and be like, oh shit, I've been here before. But for me to get to that level of what I'm trying to achieve next, as you said, preparation. Even having a wild imagination, delusional ask of yourself is still there too. And if I'm the vessel of my ship, I'm the guy who can make it or break it or not even start it. So I've realized soon enough that if I want to be,

you know, if I want to be a freaking ballerina dancer, then I better hire a ballerina coach and start putting myself into there through whatever else. Bad example, by the way. But one true example is I'm doing a lot more public speaking. So the same thing that I thought, well, what I left with bodybuilding

was a massive void when I retired. And I was trying to chase that hole that I had and I didn't think I'd ever replace it. Public speaking is the closest thing I've ever come to. It scares the shit out of me. Growing up with a speech impairment, growing up, you know, being told I had this, that, and the other,

and now to be on stage and be asked, hey, how did you do it? Tell me your secrets. Again, that comes with preparation, right? If you're going up there and you're aimlessly talking all over the place and you're just going to bore the crowd, but having a plan of action is just like bodybuilding. If I don't make the preparation, then I'm going to look like a fool up on stage. So many correlations between public speaking and bodybuilding. And it excites me too. It excites me to get up there and just smash it out

and deliver the message, deliver the story, and have something that motivates somebody in the crowd, whether it's everybody or whether it's one person. My job is up there to do the job that I've been asked to do there. And again, I'm now starting to do more masterminds, more speaking engagements, keynotes. And it's a whole new world for me that hasn't filled the void of what competing gave me

because that was a different mentality I had to tap into because you're exhausted and you still have to demand the best version of yourself on no energy. With this, it's trying to tap into something that didn't come naturally to me

that was talking and storytelling. Storytelling's good, but talking wasn't and putting stories in the right order. But yeah, that's something I'm really putting stock in I've hired a coach and and yeah I got a speaking coach now

Rene Rodriguez shout out to Rene Rodriguez and yeah me and him have been putting together a plan of action and we're gonna hit the lot more stages this year that's awesome I'm training to do some paid corporate speaking as well my topic is extreme preparation there we go my speech is an hour and 10 minutes it's 37 pages long and i'm on i think rehearsal 250 uh we ran it sound stages we're going through it i'm getting rehearsing in front of people so it's tough i'm super excited by it though i'm nervous speech impediment i was younger can i get up there in front of 500 people but yeah you're gonna man i'm gonna do it i'm

gonna crush it you're gonna that's the mentality you have to have if you go up there with the nerves of um i need to make sure or what if then it's gonna happen Yeah, put it out there will happen but put it out there that nothing will happen And also it's like even if it does happen Who knows? Only you and that's what my pause routines taught me to I used to be pissed when I didn't hit a certain pause on a certain mark or I didn't hit it in sync with the music or whatever else. But nobody in the audience knew. The tens of thousand people that were watching me didn't know. So when I'm up on stage right now and I'm speaking, maybe

I didn't get it how I wanted to in my head before I thought, you know, before I walked on stage, but I still delivered the message. Maybe not as direct as I hope, but again, it's you. Uh, as long as you have the confidence to, to want to do what you're doing up there, because listen, some of these motivational speakers up there right now, they're a joke. They haven't achieved anything. You know, Rene using his name, he says, give me the confidence of a, of a 20 year old life, life coach. Who's done nothing. So many out there. And there's so many out there.

Ridiculous. So for me, I've lived a life. I've earned my strikes. I've got the failures. I've got the wins. All I'm doing is telling my story up there. So even if I don't get the timeline right at that point in time, move on. The message is still to be delivered.

And it's me that's telling the story. I'm not reading a book. I'm telling my own book. And I'm just in this chapter right now. We've got many more chapters to go. That's awesome. We've talked about so many things. We've talked about parents,

growing up, challenges, failures, failures successes achievements and business pinnacle of our careers let's talk about the most important things in our life which is our family so tell us about your awesome wife how she's changed your life and your kids and how important they are to you well myself my wife comes from two different backgrounds so me obviously being Welsh I don't know if the viewers know that already well they've already gone halfway through the podcast three quarters through but Welsh my wife grew up in South Florida Jewish we met together she was Miss USA again I chased what I want to chase and fell in love with this girl knew that she was

built differently to the other girls that I'd been speaking to. I was living in Tennessee at the time. She was living in Florida. Again, we hit it off. We started flying back and forth. She started coming to Tennessee, wanted to move to be with me, and I thought, you know what? I've done everything in this area of Tennessee, and I'm flying out to this airport in Nashville all the time,

and it's always a puddle jumper. If you come to me, you're probably going to bump into a few ex-girlfriends that I don't want you to see. Maybe I'll move to Florida. Fresh dance. Small town, Angle. Yes.

So I ended up moving to Florida, and one thing about myself and my wife, from the very get, even when she started coming to visit me, I was living in a shit place. She came from a different world but she fell in love with me and all that I wanted to achieve in life, because I was speaking it out in the air to her, I want to do this, I want to do that and whether she believed I was going to do it or not she was there and she believed in me and so much

so she started getting a little bit more involved with the business side of things where I had she believed I was going to do it or not, she was there and she believed in me. And so much so, she started getting a little bit more involved with the business side of things where I had a lot of fan mail and they'd be all over the floor and I had to hand sign all these fan mail from China to everything else. Have you ever tried to write Chinese? Terrible, by the way. Most of that stuff got sent back to me. But she said, babe, you know, there's something called Shopify, which is relatively new at the time. You just, these people's information is in there, you know there's something called Shopify, which is relatively new at the time. These people's information is in there. You hit and it prints out all their addresses.

You peel them off and you put them on their packages. I'm like, you've got to be kidding me. You're a keeper. What else do you know? So we ended up teaming up together. Now my wife runs all the companies. She's the CEO for the companies, owner. She's, I hate to say this, but she's boss bitch, you know.

She is an incredible entrepreneur. Great speaker, by the way, too. She just found her own voice up there by coming to the masterminds with me. And she was like, wow, I can actually do this. I told you. But she had heard it from other people, not from her biggest supporter, too.

But the biggest gift that my wife has given me outside of her self-belief and confidence is two incredible children. And that is the biggest badge and trophy I have on any display is having my son and my daughter. I'm getting emotional, but I always wanted to be a dad from a very young age. And when we found out my wife was pregnant, that was number four, I think, of chasing titles. Maybe number three. I can't remember. But either way, it was motivation that I never found before.

It was a sixth gear because I knew this baby was coming. And it wasn't just me and my wife anymore. It was plus one. And when I had my daughter in my arms, I was like, wow, I'm always going to take care of you. You're never going to have some of the struggles that I've gone through. And that motivation then, again, just found me another gear that I stayed on. And obviously now, two years ago, we found out my wife was, well, only two years ago, but we found out my wife was pregnant again, and two years ago, but we found out my wife was pregnant again and I was still in the body building mindset of his and becoming a dad again and being able to relive

these moments now, but not as a girl dad, as a boy dad, and see the differences, which you know is crazy difference, right? He now is coming up to two in a few months and the difference between my daughter and him oh my gosh she was an angel every tell us that we were like well we wouldn't know so first and then this guy oh my gosh there's he would have climbed everything you know he would have pulled him down you'd see that weight because he knows what weight is he would have tried to pick it up 25. But my wife's relationship with me, my kids, she's an incredible wife.

And then the relationship that she has with my family back in Wales is one of the reasons why that, you know, this woman is everything and more to me. Because again, she's been there, she's seen the unseen. You know, it's hard to hide pain. It's hard to hide emotions when you're with somebody all

the time you can do it to the fans you can do it on instagram because that's a highlight reel but when you're home and you're limping you've torn your shoulder you've got business stresses you've got kids stresses you've got all these other things who is it that you really want to have as your biggest support network and that that's your wife, right? Or that significant other. And that's what my wife has been to me. So we've both complemented each other tremendously. In fact, when we got together, I never lost a single show at all, all around the world.

It's incredible. Undefeated. So it's been quite the ride. And we joke and laugh, but the life that we were living in Florida was pretty good. Mae wedi bod yn eithaf iawn ac rydym yn sgwrsio a chyffro, ond roedd bywyd y byddwn yn ei fyw yng Nghymru yn eithaf da. Rwy'n gofyn, ond rydyn ni wedi'i greu. Ond bywyd y byddwn ni'n ei fyw yng Nghymru yn Las Vegas yn anifeiliaid gwahanol. A siaradwyd amdano, am y cyfleoedd, a chreu'r cyfleoedd hyn, a nawr ein bod yn byw'r cyfleoedd hyn dyddol, ac mae gennym bobl sy'n dod i mewn a allan i'r gym, rydyn ni'n gofyn am ffrindiau, mae gennym ddinas hefyd. creating these opportunities and now that we live these daily and you know we've got people that come in and out of that gym that we call friends we go to dinner too it's like wow that risky move

from Florida to Vegas has paid off and we have to remind ourselves about that too because you can sometimes get caught up in the norm when that's not the norm and it wasn't certainly the norm three years ago the new norm is a new level and now I'm up in the bar to create and chase much more levels too. I've got to give a shout out to my wife Madison as well. I've got five kids. They obviously come first as they would in her life as well. We have two together, three from prior marriage, but she's been the most important person in

my life since I met her. Gives me strength and motivation every day. Supports all the things I do, no matter how crazy or how wild they are. There's a lot of wild ones, that's for sure. Yeah, mine too. I think it's so great to have someone behind you who you love and who loves you and who motivates you. And that's my wife. Compliments you, right? Compliments me. I'm high-strung. She's not. I think that's a very important thing. Ying to the yang. Pardon me? The ying to the yang. The ying to the yang. Yeah, that's how Ali is to me too. Before we finish today, I want to go ahead and

ask some more open-ended questions. I call this part of my podcast, Fill in the Blake to Excellence. Are you ready to play? Let's go. Play the game. The biggest lesson I've learned in my life is? Embrace failure. My number one professional goal is? Legacy. My number one personal goal is? Be a great dad. My biggest regret is? Yikes. Not seeing my parents more. My biggest fear is? Losing it all. The craziest thing that's happened in my career is? Friendship between the Rock Johnson.

I don't know. No. Craziest thing. Speaking into existence the things that have happened. That's so profound, by the way. I love that. That's probably it. The one thing I've dreamed of doing for a long time

but haven't is. It's so much. I can't give you a list. But one I would say is getting my pilot's license. To be able to take me and my family places that I'd be able to take them and not, you know, conform to the airport, I guess.

I don't know. That's a good question. PJ? Private jet? Yeah. Or prop plane. I don't know. Let's start somewhere. I don't care.

We've got to start somewhere. There's levels to this shit, okay? No, but that's a good question. That is a good question. There's a few things that I would love to say, and I probably regret now driving home, but I do, should have already done, okay, I'll tell you this then.

Move my parents to the United States. Be more aggressive. My parents are so home body, but they're such great hands-on grandparents that me and my wife know this last year being super aggressive again to move you a lot more. So that's even me taking heed in that and going out to this room today being like,

okay babe, we need to get my parents here. Thank you. If you could meet one person in the world, who would it be? I would say right now that kind of, that's in and around my life. I would love to do a Joe Rogan podcast. That's the dream, right? There's a lot of, there's a lot of, yes, I would love, there's a lot of people I'd love to meet, but then I would be meeting them just to shake their hands. But with Joe, I truly believe we can have a really good conversation just like this, right?

Maybe a little bit shorter. Right. Because I talked way too much. The one question that you wish I had asked you but didn't is? I always get asked this question about genetics. And what I want to tell people is genetics are just the ability to get you somewhere. And work ethic takes you to that extra 1%. So having genetics, like anything, you're either born fast or you're not.

You can be fast on that track, but if you put extra time in the unseen, as I keep talking about, you will get faster, whether it's one second, and that might take a year, two years, but you will get faster. And genetics play a massive part in bodybuilding, but then the work ethic is what separates you from the pack. I think it's important that we leave the house excited. You want to feel good when you walk out the door. We both love something very similar, so I think we've got to get him up on the table. Get him up on the table.

We've got to get our shoes up there. Oh, I was like, what are we talking about here? He just said, he just said, Greg, from paws and trunks to like getting something up on the table. I was like, oh, when is this podcast kicking? We've got to show off the shoes i i kind of think that we should have had part of the show with the shoes in the show i was thinking about it but i didn't want to be disrespectful oh it's not disrespectful i think it's great the shoe game for we had the chance to talk off air prior to coming on and we were talking about our love for shoes and this was a this has become a new love for me since moving to the United States

and so more more so moving to Vegas and you know growing up in the UK we never could or could have nice shoes because the weather and financially we weren't in that position so when I came to US and I started hearing people talk about kicks and this and that. I didn't know the lingo. Now I do. So my collection has grown exponentially. And also just to tell you more of a feather in the hat to my wife, my wife is the shoe plug. She's got more connections in the shoe game than me. So she's the one that gets me all my shoes.

I go, babe, can you get some Travis Scott's? And you get them probably at retail, right? She's got the plug. So you're not going on StockX? No. I haven't been for a long time. Yeah. So thankfully, I had a connection here for these shoes that are listed on StockX for $12,000.

That's $12,000 right now? $12,000. Do you know what I love about the shoe? You got the little pigeon on the back. Can you see that on camera?, they've got everything on there. I mean, they've got a number seven. I have no idea what that is. Well, the pigeon is kind of part of my upbringing

because I went into the pigeon racing at one point in time, too. So to see them and seeing that pigeon is kind of cool. Again, that's a bird that gets a bad reputation. Yeah. Now, again, you can relate it to human beings, right? You've got the racing pigeons who are athletes, and then you've got the ones that you see around the streets that's kind of like the malnutritioned homeless people. But the racing pigeons, they're athletes.

They train the same way, they do the races, they fed the same way. And obviously having that experience with them you know as a young kid and blitzing everybody in the pigeon club um i changed the feather kind to the two-legged kind in the in the terms of chasing birds um because it wasn't cool to bring a girl back to my parents house and say like i got pigeons in the pretty shed in the back you know shitting all over the place shitting all over the place yeah but it was being a again it was a chapter of my life and I'm glad to say

had I not lived these chapters every one of them small to big has played a role in creating the DNA you know again I can talk about

and laugh about these situations and things that I was into I was just an entrepreneur trying to hustle because there's money in pigeons too yeah

so in fact the world's most expensive pigeon if you guys want to Google it I think it's like 1.2 million. I've chased, I've never been a sheep. I've never chased sheep. If everybody's into something I cannot be because I feel it's going to you know. 1. how much 1.3 I stand corrected for a pigeon we're not talking about a thoroughbred racehorse we're talking about a pigeon we're talking about a thoroughbred pigeon the how it comes to the pedigree right what does that pigeon do makes it worth 1.3 million dollars

it's gonna sit in the shed for the rest of its life and procreate it won't it won't see another sky unfortunately because how did it get to be worth $1.3 million? At some point it's out flying everybody. I don't know what it's doing. It's that or they buy from the lineage, like racehorses. The DNA is in the blood. Huh. Interesting. Yeah. And then you can dissect this even more where you've got certain birds that are for short sprints and then long distance. It's very interesting in a world where you can just say pigeon this and you'll have a chuckle and a laugh. But then when you put your head into it and you realize the money is there, first of all, that's the biggest draw, right?

And I was like, okay, let me find out. And then you start realizing like you train them. My birds were on creatine and glutamine and everything. They were on tonics and, yeah, they were all jacked up. And a trainer. They were me. I was training them. And also, just, yeah, so what I'd done is I linked in with a local transportation company,

found the routes they would go in. So these birds would always fly in the southwest direction. So anybody who was going towards the midlands england way i threw through this guy five pounds or whatever else it was he'd throw him on the back of his truck and let the guys out on the way to his destination and what happens is these birds pick up landmarks they do gps in there it's just incredible if you look into it it's amazing and they have an instinct that's what they call homing pigeons okay and. And then you do these long-distance races, which they take them all the way to the UAE

and fly them from the UAE to the UK. Yeah. And most of them, fortunately, the majority of these birds, you know, they never make it back home. Hawks, sea, water takes them out. But, yeah, going off the point. Again, prolonging your podcast, man. This is the problem with Flex Lewis being your guest. see water takes them out. But yeah, going off the point. Again, prolonging your podcast, mate.

This is the problem with Flex Lewis being your guest. Flex, this has been one of the best shows I've ever done. You're an incredible person, by the way. I mean, congratulations on all your success and all the things that you do. I mean, you're an inspiration to me and I know millions of other people. Same for you to me. What you've achieved is incredible, mate.

I appreciate that. I just want a few numbers next to my name.'ve put up you put a lot of numbers next to your name but and congratulations and and kudos to you of just you and the story what you had to endure and put into your day-to-day step to to sit in the seat right now and now be able to have that feather in your heart and now still be motivated and energized to go on to do these new endeavors such as the public speaking and interview some other incredible entrepreneurs whilst being in many cases much more successful than them is is a testament to you because success is is measured in many different factors but I garner

success from people who've achieved stuff by working hard. It doesn't matter what you have in your bank account. If you've gone to work in rainy days and you've been motivated to do so, then I like to be around that mentality. And suffice to say, to me, I add it to the list of people I look

and get motivated to. And thank you for all the success you're now, to me, added to the list of people I look and get motivated to. And thank you for all the success you've had and motivated me to. Well, I appreciate you. We're going to be a good buzz, I know. This has been awesome. Thank you so much. Pleasure, pleasure.