Mark Bell's Power Project - EP. 302 - Andee Bell

Episode Date: December 31, 2019

Joining us today, wife of Mark Bell, bad ass Entrepreneur, The First Lady of the Sling Shot Empire, the one and only Andee Bell! Andee returns to the podcast, last heard on episode TWO, to re-share some of the early days of The Power Magazine, the earliest of days of the Sling Shot, the struggles and miss steps taken and how they were able to survive World Record Setting Squats, a family and running a business. Andee is someone all aspiring entrepreneurs, male and female, can look up to. When asked how did she have the courage to go all in and believe the Sling Shot invention would work, her answer, "we had no other choice". Subscribe to the Podcast on on Platforms! ➢ https://lnk.to/PowerProjectPodcast Visit our sponsors: ➢Piedmontese Beef: https://www.piedmontese.com/ Use Code "POWERPROJECT" at checkout for 25% off your order plus FREE 2-Day Shipping on orders of $99 ➢Perfect Keto: http://perfectketo.com/powerproject Use Code "POWERPROJECT" at checkout for 15% off your order! ➢SHOP NOW: https://markbellslingshot.com/ Enter Discount code, "POWERPROJECT" at checkout and receive 15% off all Sling Shots FOLLOW Mark Bell ➢ Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/marksmellybell ➢ Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/MarkBellSuperTraining ➢ Twitter: https://twitter.com/marksmellybell ➢ Snapchat: marksmellybell Follow The Power Project Podcast ➢ Insta: https://www.instagram.com/markbellspowerproject ➢ Twitter: https://twitter.com/mbpowerproject  ➢ LinkedIn:https://www.linkedin.com/in/powerproject/ ➢ YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/markbellspowerproject Follow Nsima Inyang ➢ Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/nsimainyang/  Podcast Produced by Andrew Zaragoza ➢ Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/iamandrewz

Hello? There you go. What are we talking about in this one anyway? We're going to be talking with Andy Bell over here. Oh my gosh. Yeah, buddy. Second appearance, right? On the podcast? Yep. It's been a long time. Long time coming? It's been a long time.

Here with Andy Bell today. My first time was pre-entema. Oh yeah. I wasn't here. The good old days. Yeah. Yeah. Things really took a turn for the better. Anyways. So how was Christmas, Andy?

It was good. We hosted Christmas Eve at our house and then went to my sister's house for Christmas Day. And went to the movies. Oh, what did you guys see? Uncut Gems, the new Adam Sandler movie. I saw that too. It's weird. Oh, it made me so anxious.

It was dark. That's the one where he's like, I saw it yesterday. Yeah, it gave me a lot of anxiety too. I was like, what the hell is going on with this thing? Yeah, I didn't know what to expect and then it wasn't what I expected. But I liked it. I thought it got better as the movie progressed but i didn't i didn't feel like it was an amazing movie but it was good to see adam sandler try something different yeah yeah i was way different i thought the ending

made the movie worth it though even though it was like yeah unexpected i'm not gonna ruin anything anyone but i got so mad like my mouth mouth was open for five minutes after that ending. So I'm not going to say anything more about it. Yeah, yeah. I got to go check it out then. KG was awesome in it, I thought. He was. That was surprising.

He kicked ass. Yeah, a lot of time athletes, they suck when they do a movie. You know who was also awesome when he did a movie was LeBron James. When he did that Amy was LeBron James. That Amy Schumer movie. He was amazing in that. Is he in Trainwreck? That's what it was. Yeah.

He's funny. I didn't see that. Oh, it's good. He was really good in it. Yeah. That's interesting to hear that KG was good because when they won the championship, the famous blunder of a line, he's supposed to say say impossible is nothing right when he wins the title. And he says, anything is possible!

Totally blew it. And everybody remembers that one thing that he messed up the line. So it's cool that he actually got it right. He got some redemption. You know one thing I'm happy about from this movie, Uncut Gems, though? You know The Weeknd? Yeah. Okay, so my girl loves The Weeknd.

And she'll always be saying some annoying stuff like, oh, if The Weeknd was here, I'm sorry, but I'd have to go to... It pisses me off a little bit. But he was playing such a perverted role in this movie, and she's like, I don't like him that much. I'm just like, yes. Yes. Yeah, that was good.

Andy's a huge fan of movies. Mm-hmm. I am. Big movie buff. Yeah. What do you think about Top Gun coming out? You mean Maverick? Andy is a huge fan of movies. Big movie buff. What do you think about Top Gun coming out? You mean Maverick? Right, there's another version of Top Gun.

A sequel? Yeah, no, I'll definitely see it. Top Gun is probably my favorite movie of all time. So I think I have to see it just because of that. I love Tom Cruise, even though he's crazy. I'll see anything with him. I love him. Yeah. But, yeah crazy. I'll see anything with him. I love him. I'm excited about Maverick. I have no idea what it's going to be about, but

I'll see it. Is that a Top Gun sequel? It is. I have to watch Top Gun. Sorry, guys. I think I've seen part of it when I was a kid. That's disappointing. How about Hot Shots?

No, that doesn't ring any bells. Oh, that's Mark's favorite movie. Oh, yeah. I love that movie. I love those. Yeah, those are amazing. Kind of like Airplane. Yeah.

Andy, how are you liking the new whip? The new Tesla? Well, it's not mine. Uh-oh. I thought you guys both got one. I made that very clear to her. Oh, yours hasn't come in. No, I'm supposed to get a Saturday.

Oh, shit. I thought they both came in, yours hasn't come in. No, I'm supposed to get it Saturday. Oh, shit. I thought they both came in. No, they come in. It's such a weird circumstance when you, I didn't know this, when you get a Tesla, you order it online, you pay $100, and that basically reserves your spot in line. And even though we ordered ours on the exact same day, it just depends when you get your delivery. And they had a big delivery a week ago. They're all coming in. And you just get a text out of nowhere.

And it says, your Tesla's ready for delivery. And you have like a two-hour window to pick your time. And if you don't pick your delivery time, you lose your car. It goes to someone else. So I got the text about his car. And I reserved the spot to pick it up on Monday. And then I I got the text about his car, and I reserved the spot to pick it up on Monday. And then I finally got the text about my car, I think Sunday night, and it's pickup for Saturday the 28th. So what was it like when you guys went to Tesla?

I know sometimes a dealership will kind of look at the couple and play good cop, bad cop type of thing. No, there's no haggling. Nothing? There's nothing. We walked into the dealership just to test drive. And then if you order it at the dealership or you order it at your house, it's the exact same price. Everyone pays the same.

And you pick different features. Even you? Oh, my gosh. So you pick. There's like five options. So you pick the color. You pick the interior setup. You pick your performance, performance your tires and all that

changes so the base is one thing but then you add on stuff and they can change the price but you just check out and then you bring your money when you pick up your car so it's everyone just kind of does the same thing as everyone else yeah did you ever think that you'd be driving an electric car well i never really thought about driving anything other than i have a range rover and i love it i never thought about having anything other than that until we test drove the tesla and then we were like man this is so cool and not now that we live out in the country i get gas like probably every five days you guys got to take it first you got to take it for a spin it's pretty amazing yeah it'll just like blow your, and you won't be able to stop thinking about it.

That's what I'm worried about. Even just if we go somewhere and we're sitting in it. It's like being in a spaceship. It looks so cool. It's a little scary, though, because you think like... Remember the movie Christine, which you probably haven't seen. I haven't seen that one. What's the Stephen King movie?

Or Stephen King book. They made it a movie where the car is alive. Okay. And it does scary stuff. But you feel like the car is like it opens doors on its own, shuts them on its own. And it just does stuff that's real intuitive, but it's a little scary because you're like, okay, this car. I mean, eventually it will drive you around. We upgraded to the self-driving thing when it becomes available,

but you plug in an address and it'll take you there, supposedly. The window thing seems pretty trippy. You get used to it, but it's cool. Oh, wow. Yeah, there's no roof. It's all windshield. Just one piece of glass, right? One piece of glass, yeah.

It starts kind of back here and it goes all the way. Yeah, it's cool. i love it so far um for those people that don't know uh andy is the uh is my better half over here and she uh runs a lot of the back end stuff of slingshot and has since the very beginning um since we've been slinging out those slingers from our garage. And she went to school for business, a Division I swimmer, and she's been able to kind of pick up where I am weak, where I'm screwed up and don't have the maybe knowledge or know-how. That's where you kind of are able to pick up, you know, from a business perspective and maybe just in general.

I'm not very organized or punctual or any of those things and she picks up on a lot of that. And then when we, I think we've rubbed off on each other and kind of have helped each other in a lot of different ways and a lot of different senses. Yeah. Well, when Mark and I met over 20 years ago, we're celebrating 20 years next summer. August. August.

But when we first met, I was working full time, you know, had a typical nine to five job. Mark was a bouncer, you know, not a ton of responsibility, but, you know, he wasn't like, you know, a loser or anything. He just was different. I was a loser. He was in a different place in his life than I was. And he was, you know, one of those guys that's like, I had a lot of work out, you know.

And I'm the kind of person that if something needs to be done, I won't rest until it's done. And, you know, he's like, oh, don't worry about that. It'll get cleaned up. I'm like, well, who's going to clean it up? Somebody's got like, oh, don't worry about that. It'll get cleaned up. I'm like, well, who's going to clean it up? Somebody's got to clean up. It just doesn't happen. It'll work itself out. So, you know, I've mellowed, I think, a little bit since we've met. And I think he's become a little more responsible.

Absolutely. So where he used to just be like, ah, it'll all work out. And it's always worked out for me before. And I'm like, yeah, because people do stuff for you. Um, and then now I think I'm a little, I'm, you know, I don't get so uptight about stuff and I try to be a little more, okay. Yeah. We don't have to tackle that problem right now. We can wait and, you know, see, cause I'm one of those is like, I want something in music to get done. I'll do it right then and stay until it's done. Yeah.

When Mark was going for the crazy big numbers in the gym, you know, the 1080 squat, 8, oh, this sucks, 8. Uh-oh. Oh, 8. 854? I was going to say 851, and I knew that wasn't right. The 854 bench, what did it take for you as a mother of the family to kind of understand? And I don't want to say let him go, but essentially be like, okay, he's focused on this one thing. I want to support him.

I definitely need support at home too. But like, yeah, basically like how did you like your mindset? Well, you know, throughout the entire time that Mark's been powerlifting and been my husband and been a dad, he never would, like, have something take over his life. I mean, he still, even when he was going for those big numbers and he was at the gym, he would still be home and he'd still be with the kids. He'd still be helping me out. So I never really noticed a huge difference in our life because it was just all pretty normal i mean his workouts obviously were more intense and on his time but when he

was home he was he was just you know the same so um i mean i knew and i would i would you know go to the meets and stuff and the kids were real little so we would try and time it so we could at least see one lift but i couldn't stay for the whole meet and everything and so i've seen a couple of his big lifts luckily i wasn't there when the squat when he fell and stuff but um that was probably the worst part of everything because i didn't know what had happened and um i don't think anyone even called me i think i just found out when he got home and he had to be like carried into the house yeah well i uh i still i stayed for the rest of the meet yeah and i helped some of the other people and i was trying to get around but like everything didn't like start swelling up and getting really weird until

later yeah and then it just got worse and worse and worse and so that's why no one like it wasn't like no it didn't seem like an emergency it didn't seem like i got killed by it. Yeah, and I remember Mark mentioning that that was, like, at that moment, he kind of thought, like, okay, shit, what am I, like, am I going to keep doing this? I can't do this forever. Did you have kind of, like, a similar thought when you heard about it? Well, when he got home and after a few days went by and we realized how serious the injury actually was, it was definitely a thing where it's like okay you

know what what's the plan and how much more do you want to do this because it is risky um power lifting meets are if you've never been to one they're very like scary because um you know i think the bench is the scariest one because it could like land on your face essentially if the spotters aren't quick enough so it's very very scary but I always was very comfortable when the meets he went to they ran really well and they had

really good spotters and that's the first thing I look at when I go to a powerlifting meet I look at the spotters and if they're like no offense but if they're like girls or like high school kids i'm like no i'm like no no this isn't happening so um but but you know other than that i think um yeah that was probably the moment where we started to to have an actual conversation about the plan um and we hadn't really talked about it before then, but he would always let me know when he had a goal

or how I could help if I needed to. And mainly, you know, he would just say, you know, I need... The harder part was when he was doing his bodybuilding. He said he's going to do another one next summer. Oh, yeah, sure. He said he was super motivated. Watching my transformation, he wants to go again. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

No, that was actually harder because it was the power lifting is just like go to the gym, do your power lifting, and that's it. You don't really take it home. The bodybuilding was 24 hours a day. So it was up at 3 in the morning doing the cardio to get your seven sessions of cardio in or whatever you need and eating meals very specifically not being able to really eat with us because he had to eat on his own time so he'd be in bed you know it was really intense i i have a huge respect for bodybuilders and their significant others during a you know a prep yeah because it's um i don't know how people do it multiple times i mean one time was enough and uh luckily he did really well so hopefully he got all that out of his system but yeah the whole time like he better do well

because if he doesn't he's gonna want to do it again yeah was there one thing that was like more eye-opening than the other? Like you just mentioned like the frequency of the workouts and the meals and stuff. But was there one thing where you're like, okay, shit, how long is he going to keep doing this for? During the bodybuilding? No, I don't. It was pretty, I mean, you know, he's pretty disciplined. I was an athlete my whole life, so I kind of knew what it would take.

So I wasn't that surprised. Probably the hardest part is just, I think, how selfish bodybuilders have to be because it is literally all about them leading up, especially the few weeks before. And then I think it was really eye-opening to be at the bodybuilding competition. And, Seema, I remember you were there with me when we were sitting in the front row, and I was like, man, it's like a dance that you have to know and he didn't know any of the steps so i was like oh how's this gonna go and you're and i remember and see me like oh no no i told him what to do and i'm like i don't think he's gonna remember and he kind of did his own

thing but he killed it yeah he did some of it of it. But it's funny going to that. I think it's the closest that you would come to a beauty pageant for guys. And it really is about who shows up that day, too. All those guys that were there were probably like, well, shit, who's this guy? Because he's not in the circuit. But it was fun to have done it but i definitely don't think i could be married to someone if that that was their thing that was just not it was too it was not what i had signed up for if i had met him and he was a bodybuilder

and i that was our life that'd be one thing but um it was very different yeah um even doing my little thing where i was trying to obtain abs um i noticed if i told friends and family like hey like i could bench 225 now they're like is that good like cool um so with mark it's like he squatted you know over a thousand pounds i'm sure people are like oh my gosh that's crazy but then when they seen his bodybuilding stuff did you get any crazy feedback from friends and family when they saw what Mark turned into? Most people just commented about his tan. That was pretty much the main conversation. That was it, yeah.

I posted a couple pictures, and all the comments were, wow, that's quite a tan. But, yeah, no, not really. I mean, I think everyone that's friends with me kind of knows us both. So it was just pretty normal. I don't think anyone was too... Everyone expected him to look amazing. What's your... I know it's probably hard to pin down, but what's your favorite episode of the podcast?

Let's see. There's so many to choose from so many favorites right exactly how about the one we had phil heath on did you like that one what's he a guest are you messing with me i mean he was supposed to be and then we ended up just doing a youtube video because he just he talked so long yeah we never got to actually... It was weird. It was weird. I actually did listen to the one with Jake Cutler, and I did like that one a lot. That was a good one. That was a good one.

Well, that's your favorite. That's my favorite. There you go. There you go. I am really curious about this, though, because I've heard a little bit about how when Slingshot was really young and how you guys were grinding and making it grow. And you mentioned you went to business school. But I feel like with the way that this business evolved, that you probably had to do a lot of outside learning and education.

I don't know. For sure. What did you do? How did you evolve outside? You know, that's a really good question, and it's very true. That's a really good question, and it's very true. When we first started, well, for anyone that goes to business school, I went to University of Kansas with a business degree,

and you really just learn how to do a balance sheet and how to do accounting, and you learn the basics, I think. And really, I picked business just because I didn't want to have to do a foreign language. That was the major that you didn't need a foreign language with. At KU, it was a lot of math, and I was pretty good at math, so I was like, yeah, that'll be pretty easy. When we started the business, I had to learn about exporting and importing products i had to learn about customs i had to learn about duty fees and uh shipping and all this and um i had then when we went to do the patent i had to learn about patent law and work with my patent attorney and

trademarks and all these things um and in general you know with the with the website because it was a it's a you know an e-commerce business i I had to learn about, okay, you have a website, but then you need a shopping cart. You need software. You need to link your bank accounts. You need shipping software. You need all these other things. And I would either figure it out myself by going on, you know, the Internet, or i would ask people that i knew like i i knew some people that had their own business then they'd use shipping software so i asked what they used

and how they did it um and then i for the when we were importing our products i asked somebody who also had a business that they would import from someone asked well what do i do oh well call fedex and you'll set up this account and then you'll get a person assigned to you and that kind of thing so um it was having a business base i think is good because you do understand um what you need to figure out like you go okay well i i definitely need to like i know i'm gonna have to pay taxes and i need a resale license and i need to start i know what i need to keep a hold of. And I didn't even have an outside bookkeeper until just a couple of years ago. And that was a huge relief because things just get so big. You have vendors and you have invoices and all this stuff.

But it really just kind of gets you, I think, aligned. So, you know, things. I also had a marketing emphasis. So I knew about a little bit about marketing, media buying and things like that. So when you go to do advertising, you can, you know, the also had a marketing emphasis so i knew about a little bit about marketing media buying and things like that so when you go to do advertising you can you know the language a little bit like cpms and cost per points and all this stuff so you kind of knew a little bit about that but um but yeah it was a it was definitely a lot of learn by doing yeah and it was it was a thing where it wasn't like a choice and i didn't want to pay someone. A lot of times now people will be like, oh,

well I'll just pay a firm to come in and do my website and set all this stuff up. And we didn't have any money. And so I was like, well, I have to do it all because I don't, I don't have any money to pay anybody to do this. So I'll just figure it out. And we did that until we got to the point where we got big enough where it's like, okay, now I do need to bring some people in because we're not going to be able to grow if I keep trying to do all these things myself.

So that was kind of the grind that you that you referenced. That's kind of how I feel. What that was was the just grinding of me doing all the jobs of what our staff does now, which is like 15 people. I actually think you having the job that you had before we started our business was really huge. Well, two different jobs. One in sales I think was huge. And then just being an assistant and having a good mentor because when she was an assistant, her mentor,

he didn't really ever care about how you got it done. He just wanted you to get results. And he wasn't an asshole. He was nice about it. He was somebody that I think was a good motivator, too. Yeah, he was, he always, his name is Paul Gregory, and he actually works, I think, he was, I worked in radio at Westwood One in the beginning, and then, well, there was a smaller company, and then, but I worked with him at these both these places and he always wanted me to learn what he was doing and why he

was doing it because he was he ran the whole like you know west coast sales region for the network radio and i was his assistant and he was like no i want you to be in on these calls and listen to how i deal with these media buyers and his marketing people and he would help and then he'd have me put together his proposals. And he would take me to all the events, you know, because we would go to the Grammys and do these really fun things because it was radio. He's a guy that doesn't take any bullshit from anybody. He's a New Yorker.

I can only imagine what those phone calls were like. But he wanted to make sure because he's like, I don't want you to be my assistant for longer than like two years. And then I want you to move on. So he had a plan that either you move on here or you move on somewhere else but you know he um that was his thing like he he went through a lot of assistance because he wanted him to move on and he's great i still talk to him he's awesome we saw him when we were out in la last last summer but um but he yeah he was great. He kind of was someone who I learned a lot from about just the whole ad sales side of things,

which does set you up for a lot. If you can do ad sales, you can do anything. Yes. It sucks. Did it make sense during the time? Because sometimes Mark will have me do, like, a project or something, and I'm like, dude, why is he, like, man, adding more stuff to my plate?

And then at the end, I'm like, oh, like, mark works in mysterious ways like mr miyagi yes exactly do you know that reference yes i do like jayden smith right oh no i'm playing i hurt my stomach um so when when you're seeing that he he goes through like these assistants every two years. In that moment, were you like, shit, why am I going to pour so much into it? Or did you see the value? No, no. You saw it right away?

I was like, awesome. I don't want to be someone's assistant for longer than a couple years. And I want to move up to being an ad executive or whatever. And so I love that. I love that I got to see all the different aspects of what he did and what other departments did and um no job was ever beneath me like i would pick up his dry cleaning and i would you know and um go and feed his cat when he was out of town like you know i was fully in but then i would also help prepare these really huge presentations and stuff so that's cool i just felt like nothing was um you know off the table as far as that goes, and I never complained, ever.

I just think she learned probably just the value of, like, why not me? Why don't I just do it? We've had a lot of weird things happen in our company that you're like, well, I don't even have any clue on what to do about that. But with hers, I think she's just like, well, somebody has to take care of it, so I'm just going to do it. For example, your product's getting stuck in customs. You have to pay for that every day.

You have no control over that. They charge you every day for storage, and you're like, well, I don't want my products to be stuck. I'm not trying to store my products there. And that's where you have to just take your own responsibility and say, say well somebody's got to figure it out otherwise we'll just keep paying this stupid fee all the time yeah yeah it's little things like that kind of pop up all the time but um but yeah he's right i i feel that there's when you when you're presented with that kind of challenge um my instinct is to is to figure out how to fix it, not pass it on to somebody else, but to figure it out.

If I sit and think about it and realize I can't figure it out, then I'll think in my head, who do I know that can help me with this? And there's usually somebody. There's usually somebody you can think of to kind of help you. Yeah. When you guys were launching the company, I mean, well, first off, like what was your initial thoughts when you heard of the idea of the Slingshot um well we had just launched power magazine so that was the first thing we did after i lost my job i lost my job in 08 when the economy all went to crap and um nobody needed ad

sales people because nobody had ad budgets anymore and um so we decided to launch the magazine, which kept me busy, but it didn't really pay a lot. And he kind of was working on the idea for the slingshot. And when he finished it and showed it to me, I thought, well, this will be nice to help. You know, it'll maybe bring in some money to help with the magazine. And maybe doing these two things together, we'll be able to like afford our bills, you know. And that's what I thought. I didn't have any idea that it would turn into an entire company with an entire line of products that would be, you know, fast forward 10 years where we are today. I had no idea.

Yeah. And then you said you guys started with no money. I know there was a situation where you thought you could pay a certain amount, get the products, and then pay the rest. Yeah, so what happened was when we got the invoice for the first, I think, 4,000 slingshots that we got, we scraped together that money to pay that invoice to the manufacturer. that invoice and um to the manufacturer then when the products arrived i got a bill from fedex saying well you got to pay the customs and the duties and i was and it was a lot it was thousands and thousands and i was like what i thought we just had to pay this one bill and so um so we had to call on some a friend of mark's to get the money because I honestly didn't know.

No one told me that, even the FedEx people. When I set up the account, I thought it was all built in, and it wasn't. So we had to pay that, or they wouldn't release it. So it wasn't a choice. We had to figure it out. I think in every person's story, there's probably a little batch of good luck mixed in there, like John Hennigan, a former WWE wrestler, he still wrestles to this day,

he overnighted a check for $25,000 to us. Like who's going to do that for somebody? But probably in everyone's history where they're successful, there's probably something weird or something like that that probably happened somewhere along the line. Yeah, but it's not like you were doing nothing. Right, right. You put yourself in the right position to receive that.

Yeah, and we would have figured out probably something. Yeah. We would have made something. Well, John came in and no questions asked, just sent us that money with not even of like, when are you going to pay it back? He just sent it to it. Yeah, I called him and I was like,

I remember the invention I told you about and stuff. And I was like, I need like some money. And he's like, yeah, what do you need? And I was like, well, it's kind of, he's like, just tell me what it is. And he's like, it'll be at your door tomorrow. I was like, oh, shit. Okay. Yeah.

And that was a huge deal because every, like he was telling earlier, every day you don't pick something up from customs, they charge you a storage fee of like 500 a day or something great and so it was like we needed to get that money get those products out of there and start selling them so um so that was a huge huge deal and um yeah it did take us a couple years but we did pay john back eventually nice um there's there's couples and families that are they're facing weird situations where like i don't know if this is gonna work out how the like where did you find the strength and courage to like follow through with this this band that goes around your chest to do well we didn't have an option i mean we had

nothing else we had the like i said we had the magazine and then we had this so it had to work we had to figure it out um and you don't think about it like, okay, where am I going to be in a year or two years? When you quit your job and start a business or in our situation, I lost my job and we started this business. You take it one day at a time. You just say, okay, I got orders that I need to fulfill from the website today. I'm not going to stress out that there's only five. I'm just going to, maybe tomorrow there will be six. And every day you just keep figuring out, okay, what do we need to do to get more orders?

And then you just got to figure it out. Okay, well, all right, now we have to maybe, when are we going to need to order more product? And you figure all that out. But you don't have time to sit back and say, oh, this doesn't work. We're screwed. You just have to say, this is going to work work and how are we going to make it work and so you just have to figure out okay you know um how are we going to do marketing and what can we do that doesn't cost money and so that's where mark and i would just do everything ourselves because we

didn't have money to do with anybody else so we just figured it out but it's it's i think it's a thing where you can't think about what's going to happen in six months you have to just say okay what what i got to do right now and what's my next thing for tomorrow and just do that yeah mark mark has always said in the past like you kind of have to eat a lot of shit shit sandwiches for a while before you can actually you know you get whatever it is that you're working towards. How long of work in the business before you guys kind of said like, this is a win? Like we finally, like this is turning into something. I actually know exactly when, because it was the moment that we actually owed taxes. Oh, there you go.

Then I'm like, we actually made money. Yeah. taxes. Then I'm like, we actually made money. Because again, I wasn't very good at my bookkeeping. The last week of December, I'd finally go through everything and figure out how much money

we actually made. I was like, oh shit, we're going to have to pay taxes this year. When you work a regular 9-5 job and you get a W-2 and you pay taxes every month and then at the end of the year you always get a refund right i think that's yep and you get so excited right um and then that was me too until we start our own business and then you don't have

that same system and you don't know if you're gonna how much you know you're gonna have to pay and that was i was like wow all right we made. And then the next year we owed a lot of taxes. I was like, oh shit, we're getting, now we're getting somewhere. You know, I know there's probably a few or quite a few couples listening that have a business together, whether they're married or not. And I feel like it's a specific type of difficulty that not many other business owners have to deal with. Like maybe the wife owns a business and the husband's not a part of it or vice versa. Now, for you two, both owning this business, are there any pitfalls that you see other couple business owners that they fall into that you guys didn't maybe have to deal with? Yeah, I think that the biggest problem is when you have, whether it's a married couple or two best friends or whatever, when you don't stay in your lane.

And I think that's why Mark and I have been so successful is because what I know is completely different from what he knows. But we need each other to become a whole to make the business work. work so i would never say oh well you know i think we should come out with this type of knee sleeve because in my extensive powerlifting career this is what i felt and he wouldn't say well how are we going to do the marketing plan and what is the product cost and what's the margin he would never ask me that um so it works and it's worked for 10 years but when you have a two people that are really into marketing or they have two people that have a lot to say about the color scheme of something then it becomes difficult like we just renovated our house um that we just moved into and he we were working on for nine

months with a designer everything and he gave zero input zero Zero. But that was fine. It worked. So my designer said she's never worked with an easier couple because I made all the decisions. So I didn't have to get anything passed by. He just said, I don't care. I don't want to know. But I think that's the problem is a renovation project could take twice as long

if you have two people that are fighting about what tile to put in. And that's the same with business. I think if you both have an opinion about something that is a big thing, you could fight about that forever. And then someone always loses. But we just don't ever chime in on the same questions. He just tells me, we have a new new stuff coming out. I go, all right, I'll make sure it gets on site and figure out how to get it here

i'll get an invoice together and you know i don't question anything i just say what are the what do i need to know you know yeah that feels like that seems like it was just like super fortunate because i i that it's difficult to run into something like that you know yeah they play well off each other yeah yeah i think another uh key factor was um you know the fact that i kind of already had a social media presence i think helped a lot like the fact that we already had like i was shooting videos for you know for years since since 2005 basically um and then we uh and then we had like you know bigger stronger faster and things like that so there's some recognition there.

And then once we actually started the business, which was 2010, we already had a nice push. You know, it didn't, like, didn't come out of nowhere. And I kind of just always acted as if I was already successful, like, without even really planning it. I just thought when I showed people something, I just thought it was cool. Like, I'm like, in my head, it worked out. In my head, it made sense. I'm going to show this to people, and everyone's going to love it. I didn't even think about negative criticism.

I didn't think about if somebody was going to not enjoy it. I just was like, by me videoing this and putting it up, the people that are fans and the people that are into super training, they're just going to love it. I never thought about, ah, they're maybe they're going to hate it. Maybe they're going to think it's cheating. Maybe they're going to think it's, I never thought about any of that stuff. I was just like, well, I like it. I think other people are going to dig this too. And we just started putting it out there. But like, you know, she had, you know, every job that most of the staff has now.

She took on all those jobs, whether it was marketing or figuring out how to put on the back end of the website or getting pictures for it or any of that kind of stuff. And then I handled all the, I guess you'd say, media side of things. Yes. Figured out a way to get it going. But back to what she said, it's because we had to. We didn't have any other. It wasn't like we had a bunch of great options in front of us. It was like, we've got to kind of make this thing work.

Yeah. And then how about Mark wanting to make the gym free? That had to make a ton of sense back then, right? It was actually, I was like relieved because it was when we first kind of had the gym going, there was a handful of people that paid clockwork. I never had to chase them down. They would just PayPal the money consistently. Ryan Spencer.

I was going to say, yeah. It was him. And everybody else, it was like, oh, I've got to get a check from this guy. And I was never at the gym, and I had to go there specifically and ask people. It was always amazing. Somebody would give me like 80 bucks you know because like 125 bucks a month they'd give me like 80 bucks i'd see him again they give me 20 bucks and i'd see him again it was impossible to keep track of all i can man whenever we gotta make it work but i'm like trying to like write it down and yeah and he would hand me a lot of money i he'd be like i forget who gave

this to me so when he it was probably like that for a year maybe and then finally i was just like the business started growing and the gym became less of a thing where we needed it to like pay our bills so when he and i did feel bad that like ryan always paid on time and he was like the only one so i was when he we both kind of talked about and he's like i'm thinking i'm like yes let's do that because it it doesn't bring in that much money anyway so let's just make it free and then it kind of went from there but um it that too was all about timing i mean because if if it was just the gym and we had to uh live off that money then i would have worked harder to make it more consistent and really track people down and get on a better system.

But it wasn't. It was always a little ancillary thing. So luckily the business grew enough where it didn't become an issue. But not everyone can do that. So I wouldn't recommend free gym as your business plan, but it works for us. And I know, okay, this might be, I guess, too many things in one question,

but it feels like within the past few years, you guys have grown a lot in terms of employees, right? Like in terms of just new people working in here. Now, when would you think that most businesses should think of adding in different employees for stuff? And do you guys, guys just like i feel like jess like jessica right yeah she's just part of the crew but she's also really good at what she does so do you guys try and hire in-house or well so the first part of the question is when when do

you know and i think that's a really critical part of of knowing of being a good boss i think that or being a good owner is when i felt that when that when I got to the point where I was either not, like I did customer service by myself for the first year or two of the company, and when I wasn't able to get back to people or call them or answer phone calls, I'm like, all right, I finally need to hire maybe a part-time person to come in and help me answer the phones because I'm doing a bad job of it. And so I was like, all right, now I got to break down and pay someone to do this because I, or.

The greatest customer service rep of all time. I think it would be amazing. Like the videos would go viral if we just had a video of as soon as she hung up. That fucking guy. Oh my God. That guy went on and on about his 365 bench. He's like, I give a shit. Oh, my God.

He wouldn't stop talking about his shoulder and his elbow. Oh, shit. Just buy a goddamn slingshot already, would you? Well, the first question I would ask people when they would ask me about which slingshot, what size, and the first thing I'd say, I'd say, how much do you weigh and how much do you bench? And they would always lie'd say, I'd say, how much do you weigh and how much do you bench? And they would always lie. And I knew they'd be lying.

And I always added like 15 pounds to their weight and subtracted like 15 pounds from their bench. They'd always lie. And then the other thing is, too, can I talk to, like, is Mark there? Yeah. Or can I talk to a guy? Yeah. You know, like, she doesn't know anything about lifting, right? That still happens today. Like I hear, well, we had, you know, somebody working in the back near the podcast studio. Oh no, Mark's actually not here right now. Like, huh. Well,

I guess that's one, one way to go at it. Does he happen to be there? And then every now and then I would put the, put them on the phone with people and they'd be like, oh, my God. Yeah. But then, so I think the time, you have to know because you can do yourself a detriment if you don't hire somebody or people when you get to the point where you can't handle that task or whatever and it starts to hurt you, especially customer service is so important. hurt you especially customer service is so important but um the second thing is is uh about your question about who you know how who do you who do you um hire we didn't really in the beginning didn't have a real strict interview process it was it was a lot of like mark's like i met this guy at starbucks and he seems cool and i'm like uh how about that and then i meet him like yeah i guess he is cool but i mean what would he do

you know and so in the beginning it was like let's find this guy a job because he's cool um but now i we are definitely uh i i said that kind of era is over you know we're not that we're kind of like a legit company now and we have to actually do have protocol and we need people that that have a resume and so we're getting a little more buttoned up about the hiring process um but yeah i think in the beginning it was there's a lot of people that just worked out at the gym that now work there just as one and um a few other people that have come and gone but um and it's good it's i think having a fitness um i guess not you don't need a fitness background or be super into powerlifting,

but having a fitness like at least being aware, working out, caring about your body, that's important. Because it's the environment at Super Training. And we want that in the company. I think the word afford is an interesting word because somebody might think I can't really afford to pay somebody but maybe you can't afford not to pay somebody like maybe it's maybe it's hurting you too much like maybe orders are getting messed up which would be really obvious or maybe it's just like overly stressing you out and then you don't have time to put into other things like if it's if it's compromising some things that you're good at and some of the core values and core competency of the company,

then maybe it is time to invest in paying somebody. So you may have to do it like it might be a little painful to pay somebody. Oh, it always is painful. Every time I run payroll, it's painful. I don't think it would. It just comes out of Smokey's check anyway. Oh, yeah. But I don't think it hurts to wait.

It's not really going to be, unless your company is exploding, which is a cool problem to have, I don't think it would hurt you at all to be like, I'm just going to wait it out a few more weeks or months. But you do sometimes have to delegate

and have people do other stuff for you. Yeah, for sure. Mark has been teaching the world, or he's been saying, you know, let's make the world a better place to lift and now he's going with the uh or we're now preaching lift through it which has been amazing um has it been kind of i'll just say weird to see the impact that mark has been able to make on the planet um i don't know if weird is the right word i think it's been um

it's been exciting and it's inspiring. I think it's cool to see, especially when we go to concentrated events where there's a whole bunch of people that probably know who he is, and to see them get excited to tell their story. One thing that I notice, because I'm always the on-the-outside kind of person, like we go to Body Power or the Arnold. And not a lot of people know who I am. So they're like, you know, ma'am, is Mark available?

And I'm like, oh, sure, wait in line. But when I go to other booths and I see people waiting in line, they just are waiting in line to get a photo and maybe a signed something. They're not talking to these people. They're just doing a photo op to like put on their Instagram. And Mark's booth is so different. It's like the line never moves because he spends like 20 minutes talking to every single person that comes up and that's what they want. They might not even remember to take a picture. They just want to talk to him and tell him their story and, um, and, and explain how explain how you know how much he changed their life and that's really cool i think that um it's cool too because it's all these different things

it's either someone had addiction and they learned his story about his brother and you know the intervention and stuff or they lost weight or they got into lifting or they follow their dream and started their own business so there's all these different facets of storytelling that people share with him and i think that's really cool it's not just one thing it's not it's not it's even nowadays it's almost never about lifting it's always something else mostly like weight loss and and and overcoming something which is really cool it still always surprises me when somebody is like, I was waiting in line for two and a half hours,

and they're like, I got a question. I'm really struggling on the bench. I'm always like, oh, my God. They waited in line. I mean, there's so many videos of me talking about it. I mean, I'll still answer it, but it's just funny. I'm like, that's your, or like, it'll be like, how do I get my triceps bigger or something?

I'm like, oh, my God. Just listen to the podcast. That's right. Yeah. So you said 20 years in August. Yeah. What's the secret? Well, you know, it's funny.

Someone asked me that the other day and I think, I think the secret actually is. Lots of crazy sex. No, I knew you were going to say that. No, the secret. Other than that, we knew that. Yeah. Well, that's the basis. No, I think you have to really be friends with the person that you're with.

It's one thing to have this attraction or to have these common goals or to have we want the same things in life. But if you're not friends, like best friends, like really good friends then you you're not going to be with that person forever you know or for very long because you'll start to not like them you know and i think that you have to be really good friends i know communicate there's all these other things communication honesty um all that but you got to really like the person like like them not just not just be attracted to them but like like them. Want to hang out with them. You like them so much that any weird quirk that they have is like doesn't bother you at all. Your mom said something really interesting yesterday.

She said when you really don't like somebody that much or when you don't really love them, the things that they do that bug you are huge. Like your loud chewing. Yeah. That was funny. We got to tell that story. But you know, the, the, the, the small things that someone does, like, I don't know, somebody bites their nails all the time or something like, you know, cause you're with them all the time. When somebody does something like that and it really bothers you, you can kind of, if it's really bothering you, you can question like, maybe you don't even, maybe that's not the right person for you because whatever that thing

is shouldn't be amplified like that in the first place. Yeah, it shouldn't be that big of a deal. Yeah. Tell a chewing story. Oh, well, okay. So Mark does chew really loud and he doesn't, I guess he never knew this and I think it's gotten louder, but I was talking to Mariel. I get pretty hungry sometimes.

It's all the fasting. I was talking to Mariel. I get pretty hungry sometimes. It's all the fasting. I was talking to Mariel Tagg one time. Because she spends a lot of time with him. She co-writes a lot of his books and stuff. And we were just chatting one time, just her and me. And I was like, yeah. I don't know how we started talking about it. But I said, oh, well, Mark's such a loud chewer.

She's like, really? I never really noticed. And I was like, oh, my God, yeah, it's loud. So then fast forward to the next day. And we're all three, like, having lunch. And she just looks at me. She goes, oh, my God, you're right. He is a really loud chewer. And he goes, what?

And I was like, burial. That was between you and me. I really haven't noticed. I've never noticed either. Yeah. Oh, now you're going to notice. I'm going to start paying attention. Yeah. Now I can't eat around you guys.

It's hilarious. At least I don't think you don't chew with your mouth open. No, it's not. That's what gets me. It's not that. I can't stand that. It's his jaw. I don't know.

It's a thing. Well, it's the food, too, because it's steak. I'm probably excited. You've got a lot of force behind that jaw that's what it is i think yeah geez this might be personal but i'm curious because a lot of couples do talk about like a lot of couples say it's super beneficial but have you guys ever done like therapy together or you guys have just never yeah yeah we have yeah no we've been married a long time and it's not it's not perfect you know and whenever we we actually have a guy that we just

check in with every now and then but earlier you know and it's it's been a while but in when you have young kids and you have and or if you travel or anytime you have something that is stress causes stress in a relationship um it's really important, I think, to recognize that. And if something's bothering you, you know, Mark and I learned this actually from going to therapy is like, you really need to tell that person if something is bothering you or you're not getting something out of the relationship or out of the friendship or something, you have to tell that person that and then you have to tell that person that, and then you have to work on fixing it together. And I think that we have a pretty strong relationship. We've been together a long time. I mean, I'm 44, so I assume we'll have been married longer than I've been single, which is kind of crazy.

I think that it's important to have that third-party perspective to sometimes just to, like, reassure you that, yeah, you are on the right path and you guys are doing the right things and you are being good parents and you are taking time for yourself or taking time as a couple. Because sometimes you don't know if maybe I am being too selfish or maybe we're not spending time with our kids or maybe we do need to take more trips. But when you have that third person come in and talk to you about your life and what are you doing, it really puts everything kind of in perspective. And you do it together, so you talk about it. And I think it's really healthy. I mean, you know, we don't go every week. We go, you know, once a year or something and check in and stuff. And it's also this safe space if something hasn't bothered you.

Like the chewing, no. But yeah, no, I think it's a great thing. Because it doesn't have to be when you're about to get divorced. Now we've got to go to therapy. Sometimes it's good when things are going good. You go. And just to kind of just keep everyone in check yeah a lot of dudes they they don't want to be open they don't want

to talk about emotions and stuff and that mark your real understanding and you are open you don't mind you know you even talked about crying like after a lifting session and stuff um but what's therapy like for you from a guy's perspective uh much like what she said i mean just having someone else to uh explain something to because you're like excuse for your behavior or your excuse for uh whatever it is you're doing or not doing um when you when you say it to somebody else it's different than if I go to her. She might think it's irrational what I'm saying. And it's like, well, now we have kind of a mediator. And it's not like, hey, see, I told you so.

It's not like that either. But we have somebody that can help. And then it's three adults in a room. And so you can all start to apply some rational thought to that. And say, does that really make sense? Or are you being selfish about that? Or are you not, you know, following through with everything you're supposed to be doing? It's almost like having an interpreter sometimes. And even just, even just saying it is therapeutic,

you know, like even just, even just, uh, a lot of times a therapist is going to make you repeat what you said. You know, you'd say, Oh, well, well, you know, your feelings were hurt because she was talking to somebody that you don't like or something. And they make you repeat that. You realize how dumb that was. You're like, well, why do I care if she was talking to someone that I don't like? Like, then you start to internalize it more. And you're like, first of all, why don't I like that person? Like, what's my hang up with that?

You know what I mean? And it makes you really question a lot of stuff. Makes it makes you do a lot of deeper thinking yeah deep thought yeah yeah all right now i know that you well i want to know this would your goals for the i guess where the business is going be the exact same like are you focused on making the world a better place to live like is that like what you think about when you think about the business or like are you looking for five years from now 10 years from now a different type of perspective yeah i think i think we do look at it differently and have different goals he again because my i'm more back end so i'm looking at like okay what are what are our sales what are our sales? What are our product lines?

You know, where's our focus? How many businesses do we have? You know, where are we going to be with that? And I think he's looking at like, you know, we need to have more media people. Actually, she's thinking about like trimming the fat and I'm thinking about like making us fatter. She's trying to think about like what can I chop off or what can I... Well, not always. Everybody's on the chopping block.

Andrew, let's talk later. She's going to be all nervous when she comes into the office. Just in terms of how fast we're moving, it could just be inventory. We don't need that much inventory of that product, you know, or, or let's, let's just stop selling that product. Well, yeah, my goals are more like, yeah, let's streamline, like, let's figure out how to be more efficient. Let's get our margins healthy. Let's like, you know, let's get our, get our, you know, let's get our, our profit up and our expenses down. I mean, that's always the goal for me. He doesn't look at those

numbers so his goal is hey i want to have like more more products come out next year i want to have more launches i want i want the company to to be you know in at this in this you know light and i want to have this many videos and i want this youtube channel going and i want this exposure and i want you know this so i think's, they'll, they in line because they all achieve the same thing, but we approach it differently because I'm looking at that side and he has, he doesn't say like, oh, well, I want our gross sales to be X and I want our margins to be this and I want the company to gross this. He doesn't think that. Um, but he does say, well, I want to have this many new lines and this much new stuff and um and that that all works towards my goal yeah so we also uh we have not ever uh done anything where

we've like written down a goal or anything like um we're not that technical with it um we've never really like we do have like mission statements and stuff but these are all like things that came much later they came through just like uh consultants coming in and saying hey this is a good practice to have like what is your mission statement that way if you're a new employee i can explain and say this is why we think this way this is our motivation this is what we're trying to do but like really her and i don't care that much about stuff we just want to continue to get the products out to people and we want to continue to have people be motivated and inspired by the products and just get it seen by a lot of people through marketing, advertising, word of mouth, that kind of stuff. Yeah. Is there anything you're most excited for for 2020?

Yeah, there's lots of things I'm excited for. I think we're working with some new outside people that are doing some really exciting things for us in the video and social media realm. And I'm excited to get that going. I think 2020 is going to be a huge year. We have a lot of new products that we've been working on for the past year or so that are all going to kind of start coming out in 2020. And just, yeah, everything is, it feels like everything's just kind of, we've been working on some of this stuff for years, and I think now it's finally going to kind of come together, and it's going to be really cool. You know, in football, like this time of year, you know,

it's getting close to like playoff time. They'll say, you know, the Seattle Seahawks aren't the same team as they were in the beginning of the year. And I feel the same way with our team. I feel like I'm excited about, like, we have new things coming out. We've got new this and new that. I'm excited about all these things. But the people that work here have all improved so much.

So I'm like, that's going to be cool to see how that plays out and see how that works out. Because that's like having something new, too. Because everyone has the same goal. wants to improve they want to see the company improve and so i'm fired up and excited for all that in 2020 uh top three favorite wines well i mean you do you mean like just i just i have no idea when it comes to that sort of thing but i just know that you guys you guys will pop a bottle whenever we're celebrating something. Yeah, well, there's lots of different... That's a tough question because I like white and he likes red.

So right there we always have a big dispute. Are you a glass of night type of person? Yeah, usually. A couple. Depends on the day but yeah i always probably at least at least a glass of wine and i i like chardonnay and stuff and he likes cabernet and she likes cheap wine she has no class that's not true she has no class box of wine uh in college yes um but red wines are just always, they're just more expensive.

And so that's why he's Mr. Fancy Pants. But you're not always in the mood for a big, giant, heavy red. I like white. He, yeah, every now and then you might have some white. Maybe. Yeah, he hasn't been drinking much. So, yeah, it's usually just me by myself. Aw.

Aw, I know. That's sad. Her just drinking away and me with my weird weird diet yeah eating his meat yeah yeah are you gonna participate in world carnivore month um you know i did do the thing after thanksgiving where he did the three days and the three i couldn't eat the three rib eyes it was a lot but um i liked it it was fun it's it's a nice reset you know i told him i really like some of his practices like last night we went to the movies i had popcorn which i love but it kills me all the time so i'm fasting because whenever i have a night where i feel i've kind of gone off

the rails a little bit um drink a lot of wine had popcorn all that i'm like you know what i'm just gonna kind of fast until about two or three just to kind of reset and then by then you know we go to bed at like seven, so you can only do so much damage. It's perfect, too, because your body's running off the hydrogenated oils from the popcorn and the wine. It works out really well. Yeah, I feel fabulous.

Are you still swimming every morning? I try. I didn't swim today because my stomach was messed up from that popcorn. But I swam yesterday, or not Christmas Day, but I swam the two days leading up and I'll i try to go at least three days has the the new house like location made it a little bit trickier uh no it's the same actually it's uh same commute because i swim on the other side of town so now i'm kind of more triangulated so it's it's not any different i think uh your nutrition is pretty simple she She eats protein. You fast pretty often.

And then if you snack, you just don't. It's really rare. I've almost never seen her, maybe like twice since we've been married. I've never really seen her overindulge on anything. I've never seen her eat like six slices of pizza or anything crazy like that. If she has pizza, she might eat half of it or something.

Like I said, I've been an athlete my whole life, so I know discipline, and I know what's good and what's bad. It's not that hard. But I try to live my life. I'm not going to not have my fat girl parties with my sister where we have cheese and wine and crackers. And SEMA knows what I'm talking about.

Yeah. Yes, I do. SEMA walked off a lot of cheese that night. Yeah, he likes brie. He likes brie. This is the best. So good. He likes that often.

But, you know, so I'm still going to do that. But I make effort, you know, but I still have to swim every day. And, you know, in order to have that lifestyle, you have to, there's, it's a give and take. So you got to, you got to pick your battles, I guess. But, yeah, that's what I try to do. I just try to be smart about it. Cool. So swimming is that thing that you're probably going to just do forever?

Yeah, I mean, you can forever. I swim with people that are in their 90s down on the other side of the pool. And it's a non-impact sport, you know. And you can do it forever as long as your shoulders and your knees hold up. But, yeah, I love it. I mean, it's just it's my one hour day that I'm with my little swim crew. And, you know, and it's just my thing. And I do it and it sets me up for a great day because I get my workout in and, you know, get my little adult socializing with people that are just kind of from a different world, you know. It's good.

What did you swim in college? There might be a couple people listening that are swimmers. And then do you remember any of your times or anything like that? That's tough. I was trying to think about my times the other day, and they're all kind of melting together. You can't just lie about it like everybody else. Well, I was a 400 IM-er. I did a 400 IM, 200 IM, and I was a breaststroker.

So mainly 200 breaststroke. But I also did 200 free, 500 free. So I was middle distance. Gosh, my 400 IM, I think, and this was short course. So there's meters and short course. But I wasn't very good at long course, so I did short course. But I think my 400 IM was a 421. And my 200 IM, a 203 maybe what's that feel like

when you're done does that feel like this all out just oh you're dead are your lungs burning well the 490m takes four minutes so it's four minutes of going as fast as you can that's horrible and it's awful yeah and then so middle distance swimming, is that similar to maybe somebody that runs like a 400 meter? I guess so. I don't know how long it takes to run a 400 meter. But, you know, sprint is like the 50 where it's 20 seconds, 25 seconds. Well, four minute mile, right, in running. So I guess it might be more like that.

Yeah, maybe. But what sucks about being middle distance is you have to train all of it. So you have to have the endurance of a long-distance swimmer because you have to go all out for four minutes, five minutes. But you need that get-up-and-go. So when I was at KU, I lifted three times a week, trained twice a day, every day. But then I would do some long stuff and some sprint.

And one of my roommates was a sprinter, and she would just come in and she would do, like, an hour workout because she just did sprints, and they would do starts and turns, and I'm like, this is bullshit. But, yeah, now they're getting a lot smarter, I think. Now, when I swam, it was all about yardage. You know, we'd do 10,000 yards in a workout and, you know, do all this

crazy stuff but now they're doing a lot of um high interval training where they're they know like okay well if you come in and you just do five 50s all out that's your workout nothing else you don't need all this bullshit yardage oh wow and so and that's how people are like you know people are way faster now you know like people are busting out two minute 200 ims like it's nothing you know, people are way faster now, you know, like people are busting out two minute, 200 IMs like it's nothing, you know. And back when I was swimming, which was 20 some years ago, that was a lot harder. But, you know, everything evolves. That's like people looking at like high intensity interval training with like, you know, what, sprinting? Yeah.

Or football players or soccer players versus doing like longer workouts. It's the same type of idea, I guess. Yeah, it is. And it doesn't make sense to me me i'm like how i don't know but there's some coaches that's all they do with their athletes and it seems to work but i'm like i need yours you know it's i honestly wish i could swim and this is nothing it's not even supposed to be a joke like i just like i just sink bro like it's not well does too. It's the muscle mass. I think it's the muscle mass. It is.

It's not anything else, Andrew. I don't know why you're laughing. Okay. We need floaties. We really do. It's difficult. Yeah, the African team's usually not winning any Olympic medals in swimming. You know what?

I've been really wondering why we haven't been able to attack that sport. Because I feel like we've got a lot of long... But there is... The Nigerian splashing around. There's one guy. Oh, no. able to attack that sport because i feel like we've got a lot of long but there is um oh the nigerian splashing around there's one guy holding on to the lane line like oh fuck you know what actually the last sports bullshit no there was this there was a swim meet and the two it was a two it was uh i think it was nc2as and it was a 200 breaststroker from i think georgia there is a guy who's dominating yeah and he And he's like 6'6",

and he's black. He looks like the Natty Professor. What's his name? I can't remember, but he's adorable. He was Nigerian, right? Oh, he might have been. I think he was Nigerian. And he was gorgeous, and he was real tall,

and he had the most beautiful breaststroke I've ever seen. It was very exciting. That makes me so happy. He was jacked. Finally, we have somebody in the water. That always happens. Somebody in the water. That always happens. Same thing in hockey. There's like one black guy,

but he like dominates and kicks everybody's ass. It's always like labeled as, oh, he's the Tiger Woods of. Right. Yeah. Exactly. Oh, man. Cool.

All right, Andrew, where can people find you, buddy? At IamAndrewZ on Instagram. And then, of course, follow at MarkBell'sPowerProject on Instagram. And we're on Twitter now, at MBPowerProject. And we're actually on LinkedIn. Not sure exactly what the hell is going to happen with that, but I'm attacking it. And real quick, thank you to our sponsors, Perfect Keto,

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