Mark Bell's Power Project - How This "Loser" Went From The Dirt To Hollywood || MBPP Ep. 1028

Episode Date: January 3, 2024

In episode 1028, Luke Hawx, Mark Bell, Nsima Inyang, and Andrew Zaragoza talk about Luke's incredible rags to riches story where Luke explains how he came from lower than dirt to following his dreams. Find Luke on IG: https://www.instagram.com/lukehawx504/   Official Power Project Website: https://powerproject.live Join The Power Project Discord: https://discord.gg/yYzthQX5qN Subscribe to the Power Project Clips Channel: https://youtube.com/channel/UC5Df31rlDXm0EJAcKsq1SUw   Special perks for our listeners below! The Athletic/Casual Clothes we're wearing! 🕺 ➢ https://vuori.com/powerproject to automatically save 20% off your first order at Vuori!   💤 The Best Cooling Mattress in the GAME! 🛌 ➢ https://www.eightsleep.com/powerproject to automatically save $150 off the Pod Pro at 8 Sleep!   🥩 HIGH QUALITY PROTEIN! 🍖 ➢ https://goodlifeproteins.com/ Code POWERPROJECT to save up to 25% off your Build a Box ➢ Piedmontese Beef: https://www.CPBeef.com/ Use Code POWER at checkout for 25% off your order plus FREE 2-Day Shipping on orders of $150   Best STYLISH Barefoot Casual/Training Shoes! 👟 ➢https://www.vivobarefoot.com/us/powerproject to save 15% off Vivo Barefoot shoes!   🩸 Get your BLOODWORK Done! 🩸 ➢ https://marekhealth.com/PowerProject to receive 10% off our Panel, Check Up Panel or any custom panel!   Best 5 Finger Barefoot Shoes! 👟 ➢ https://Peluva.com/PowerProject Code POWERPROJECT15 to save 15% off Peluva Shoes!   Sleep Better and TAPE YOUR MOUTH (Comfortable Mouth Tape) 🤐 ➢ https://hostagetape.com/powerproject to receive a year supply of Hostage Tape and Nose Strips for less than $1 a night!   🥶 The Best Cold Plunge Money Can Buy 🥶 ➢ https://thecoldplunge.com/ Code POWERPROJECT to save $150!!   Self Explanatory 🍆 ➢ Enlarging Pumps (This really works): https://bit.ly/powerproject1 Pumps explained:      You Need Greens in your Life 🥦 ➢https://drinkag1.com/powerproject Receive a year supply of Vitamin D3+K2 & 5 Travel Packs!   ➢ https://withinyoubrand.com/ Code POWERPROJECT to save 15% off supplements!   ➢ https://markbellslingshot.com/ Code POWERPROJECT to save 15% off all gear and apparel!   Follow Mark Bell's Power Project Podcast ➢ https://www.PowerProject.live ➢ https://lnk.to/PowerProjectPodcast ➢ Insta: https://www.instagram.com/markbellspowerproject ➢ YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/markbellspowerproject   FOLLOW Mark Bell ➢ Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/marksmellybell ➢https://www.tiktok.com/@marksmellybell ➢ Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/MarkBellSuperTraining ➢ Twitter: https://twitter.com/marksmellybell   Follow Nsima Inyang ➢ https://www.breakthebar.com/learn-more ➢YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/c/NsimaInyang ➢Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/nsimainyang/?hl=en ➢TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@nsimayinyang?lang=en   Follow Andrew Zaragoza on all platforms ➢ https://direct.me/iamandrewz   #PowerProject #Podcast #MarkBell #FitnessPodcast #markbellspowerproject

Here I am, this poor white trash kid from New Orleans, never thinking I can be anything. I've been kicked my whole life. Every time I said I'm going to be in a movie, or I'm going to do a wrestling, I'm going to do this, do that, they told me what I was going to be was a loser. You know, my brothers are heroin addicts. You know, my mom was a bad alcoholic and drug addict.

I grew up in a boy's home. I didn't have shit. So, like, you couldn't embarrass me any more than I was already embarrassed. Only place I had to go was up, because anything lower would be death. Lewis Hertham, who's a really great actor, and I was already embarrassed. Only place I had to go was up, because anything lower would be death. Lewis Hertham, who's a really great actor,

he was nice enough to meet me for breakfast, and I said I wanted to be an actor. And he said, well, I think you'd be better off as a stuntman. He goes, why don't you come to this audition with me? What's going on here where you're like, you're so comfortable with just, like, fire? Why are you so comfortable here? I was married before. The truth is Mark Bell and Chris Bell changed my life.

And I'll cry right now and tell you that. Bigger, stronger pastor changed my life. Power Project family, we've had some amazing guests on this podcast like Kurt Angle, Tom Segura, Andrew Hooperman. And we want to be able to have more amazing guests on this podcast. And you can help it grow by leaving us a quick rating and review on Spotify and iTunes. If you're listening to the podcast, just go ahead and give us a review. Let us know how you dig it and help the podcast grow so we can keep growing with y'all and bring you amazing information. Enjoy the show. It's hard not to when you're in each other's ear. You know what I mean?

It's true. Whispering sweet nothings. That's why people... I don't know why people are so surprised when we act kind of sus. It's like we are in each other's ears all the time. When you're used to another man being right here, I mean, how can you not get a little bit, you know? Workout purposes, too. We got to be close and we got to give each other a lot of support, spotting and stuff like that. Yeah, we have to palpate the muscle tissue so you know when you're feeling it in your glute or your back. I don't want to.

Of course not. Half the time I don't want to, but I mean do it because it's necessary gotta help your homies grow it's needed yeah speaking of all this what's going on with your butthole luke it's been roughing it it's uh i got this little spine thing going on what's what's it that what's the tip of your tail called the coccyx it's got it's's got a word that I don't want near my butthole. The coccyx. Exactly. But, no, I did a stone-cold stunner about, I don't know. Is it true you got to send them money when you do that move? No, I technically didn't do a stunner because it was outside the ring.

That was the whole problem. It was on the apron, the hardest part of the ring. And that coccyx decided that it – I thought it was bruised. I went and got an X-ray two weeks ago. And they said, oh, yeah, it's got still a little slight fracture. But it's been there for a year, so we would have figured it would have fixed itself already. Yep. a little slight fracture, but it's been there for a year, so we would have figured it would have fixed itself already. Yep.

So I got to ask, in respect, like, how is the other guy doing? Because a stunner done in the center of the ring, the ring does have, you know, people probably don't know, the ring does have some padding. But outside the ring, where the ring is harder, not only did it have an impact on you, but the other guy is probably dead. Correct. Has he survived? Yeah, but the other guy is probably dead. Correct. Is he survived? Yeah, he survived.

He didn't die. But the thing is, what saved him was I hit it on the ropes. So he didn't take the full stunner into the shoulder or his neck. Yeah, yeah. Well, his throat caught more of the ropes than it did. I mean, look, you see my arms, right? Yeah. You see my arms?

Is this a veteran guy or something? Bestia, say, say, say, is from Mexico. He's a lucha... Knows how to defend himself. Yeah, I mean, his dad's Damien, say, say, say. He's one of the most famous luchadors from Mexico ever. Damien, say, say, say? Yeah.

Oh, 666. You see? Yeah. Very evil. He's an evil man. He sends chills through your body. He's got bad intentions. And his son's very evil, um i'm gonna try this mind bullet too i haven't had any yet you mind if i try this let's get it oh you got one over here yeah andrew do you have one no i'm good

andrew will turn into a gremlin yeah the gremlins when they get water yeah yeah wait what happens to the gremlins when they get water. Yeah, yeah. Wait, what happens to the gremlins? Well, Gizmo turns into all the gremlins and shit. That's what happens. We're on the Mark Bell power project. Cheers.

Here we go. Cheers. Make it official. Oh, yeah. Let's go. Give me some, brother. It's Christmas. It's Christmas.

Merry Christmas. Oh, man. He's like almost a one sipper kind of guy yo how much i love getting people's reaction to the flavor hey it tastes like kratom there you go that's exactly what it tastes like kratom with a little tea you know i don't mind nailed the taste then so yeah yeah because the thing. The thing is, if it tastes like shit, I wouldn't be able to stomach it. And that's just the truth. Like, I don't, I won't. That's why, look, you know, I've been with my supplement company for seven years now. I've never changed. I've always loved their products.

This ain't a cheap plug. I'm just telling you for a fact. Give them a shout out. Who is it? It's Isatory. Oh, cool. FitLife Brands. And they've been great to me.

And they own PMD. They own a bunch of brands. They've been phenomenal with me. And the truth is, every time my contracts come up, I've had offers from other people who want to offer me more and do things. But I've always liked Isatory's products. And some of the products I've offered, even though they offer me more money, I wouldn't't really drink them i couldn't stomach them yeah so it comes down to a moral thing do i want the money that bad or would i rather stay true to the people that have been good to me and

the products that i take and true and that's you know one of the things and this actually this isn't bad i don't mind the taste of kratom kratom you say earthy but i don't think it has a bad taste like i've i've drinking so many more protein shakes or pre-workouts that when you drink them like you're like yeah you're like what was that yeah this this isn't like that this has uh alpha gpc a little bit of mct oil powder in there as well yeah a little mind bullet tea right you fired up a little bit of caffeine not too much you know it's wild i mean you it is a tea and i don know. I drink a lot of tea now. But it tastes like tea, bro.

It tastes like tea. Yeah, tea is not like extraordinary, right? Well, you get used to it, right? If you drink something or you take it like Stan got me on the peer-pressed cranberry juice at first. And when I first drank it, whoa. Oh, yeah, first. Rough. But now I can just sip on it. problem is it's like it's like alcohol

right i guess when people when you first taste alcohol you're like bitter and then you see somebody like sipping a tequila or sipping like jack daniels i'm like why would they want to sip on that it tastes you get fucking wasted you're like i like this how do you recover from a coccyx injury well i think how do you get yourself back on track? Well, they told me this is a true story. They told me that they're going to have to go up in there, which I'm not, you know, I haven't been comfortable with

and I haven't accepted it. And how long? You're about to be like, how many years? Oh, good thing my phone shut down. No, but yeah, yeah. I'm a man. I'm going to get it done. I'm going to go home.

I'm going to go over to the training room on Veterans Highway, Metairie, Louisiana. Shout out to the training room. Physical therapy. And I'm going to have Jonathan over there go ahead and take his hand and probably stick his fingers where no man has ever stuck his fingers before, which that's his lie, actually. One man has stuck his fingers there before. And that is an adjustment from that?

Yeah, it was a doctor. Why are we glazing over? It was a doctor, so let me finish. I thought it was during a match. No, no, no. It was a doctor. So yeah, so he's going to go in there and give me that adjustment, I guess. And he doesn't, we're saying this on air, he doesn't officially know he's doing this yet. He's offered. We're saying this on air.

He doesn't officially know he's doing this yet. He's offered. Now we're saying it on air. Hey, you're going to stick your finger in my ass, Jonathan. You're going to fix my coccyx. Shout out to the training room. I want your finger in my ass right now. He's got to be excited.

He's got to be, yeah. And, you know, hey, shout out to a physical therapy brand that's willing to do that for you, willing to go the extra mile for their patients. You know, these guys have been doing jiu-jitsu. Andrew's now been doing it for almost like a year and a half, and his team has been doing it for many years. But they probably don't know how to reverse themselves out of something like the figure four leg lock. Could you let these guys know, just in case they ever get themselves in that predicament,

how they would get themselves out of a figure four leg lock? Especially the science behind it, too, because that fascinates me. What's a reversal look like? Okay. We have some room on the floor right here. Andrew? No, no, no. And see when you come down, Andrew hands the camera.

And look, I'll put the figure four on you, and then I'll have you reverse it on me so you can feel how the pressure hurts your legs when I have you in it. And I won't put it on tight. I'll just put it on just loosely, right, so you feel it. And then I'll guide you over to a reversal, which is really simple, and you'll have it on me. And I'm just going to beg you right now,

don't fucking tighten up because you'll break my legs wait you truly want me to do this yeah i mean i'm gonna teach you right mark's act we talked about this the other day i said when we get on the podcast we're gonna get this motherfucking figure four right okay we have to excuse me for my cursing i i've we can maybe bring up a clip so i can kind of see what's going on with the figure you gotta use rick flair you got the reversal the reversal i was getting ready to start moving cameras around shit hold on you said rick You can kind of see what's going on with the figure four. You've got to use Ric Flair. You've got to use Ric Flair. The reversal of the figure four. I was getting ready to start moving cameras around and shit. Hold on.

You said Ric Flair? Ric Flair. Figure four reversal. Yeah. No, don't show him the reversal. Just show him the figure four. Okay, okay. We can't show.

Yeah, you can't show the top. Yeah, yeah. We'll show the figure four. And then we'll have andsema demonstrate the reversal. Dude, perfect technique. He's in pain right away. As soon as he cinches back, look at that. Oh, Lord.

That's like a double tap. Yeah. You probably don't see people tap out like that in jiu-jitsu, but he's doing like a double arm tap at the same time. You can see he's getting leverage. He's getting leverage by scooching up like that. And I feel like doing drills over and over would teach you better technique on this. Look at that. All right, Andrew, you got some sort of mobile camera here?

This is the first time ever done on the Power Project. I'll figure it out. Why are y'all gangstering me into this shit? What? No. If anyone's going to do this, what? I don't want to. I don't want to. I don't want to.

Why are you adjusting the camera? No means no. Hey, what if you go to Worlds and someone tries to put you in this figure four leg lock? I'm pretty sure no one's going to be putting me in a figure four leg lock at Worlds. You've seen the UFC or MMA match where the guy put the Boston Crab in. Oh, yeah, yeah. There's a match where a guy puts a Boston Crab and he submits him. I did see that.

Yeah, so you don't know. This is an opportunity to learn from the best. You might fight someone who just grew up loving Ric Flair. They might want to slap the figure four on you in the middle of a fucking jujitsu. You know who is a huge wrestling fan is Rick Rubin. He's nuts about it. Oh, really?

Yeah, he absolutely loves it. He said that he loves it because he thinks it's more real than anything else in the world. That's what he says about it. Which is kind of funny. It's super real because it's a real lifestyle.

We talk about it all the time. How real wrestling is. When people... It's funny to bring up a point is is people like to shame wrestling right and they say it's fake it's fixed it's this it's that but what happens when you have a movie like iron claw comes out and zach efron and you know jeremy and harris and all these guys go on the first thing they do is praise those guys for the the the condition where they put their body in the pain

you know they go oh we know that wrestling's real hard and it hurts and it's training you know but it's funny when they when they when they talk about wrestling doing they kind of discredit them like oh because just what you do every day so it doesn't matter but when somebody from the outside world steps in they go holy how are you doing this that's it's such a tough job it's so hard and it's so hard on your body and it's so impactful. And, you know, it's just crazy how the perception changes. Did you guys see that movie?

I haven't seen it yet. I saw it. I liked it. I made the movie. Oh, what? So, yeah, I made the movie. But, yeah, so I was the assistant coordinator on it. So I was the trainer. So I coordinated a lot of the scenes with Shava Guerrero

and trained Zach and trained. So I was just telling Mark earlier, the a lot of the scenes with Shava Guerrero and trained Zach and trained. So I was just telling Mark earlier, the first day I got there to train was Zach. Epic bench workout, I heard. Oh, man. So check this out. This is a cool story. So the first day I got to Iron Claw, I had just flew in from Memphis from Young Rock.

I was filming out there. And I got in, I guess, around 3 o'clock in the evening training was gonna end at five mm-hmm so I come in I introduced myself to Zack and guys they'd already been training with some of my coaches from my from my Wildcat League excuse me I'm wrapping up that earthy yeah but um yeah so so I got there late cuz I'd flew in late for the first day of training. And they were so super welcoming when I first got there. Zach was so cool. And we spent about two hours together.

And then I told everybody, bye, I'm going to go work out. They said, well, where are you going to go work out at? I said, I'm going to find a gym because we're in Baton Rouge. I don't really know anything in the area. So I said, they probably have something close to the hotel. And Zach goes, oh, I got some stuff at the house. Why don't you come work out at the house? I said, well, I got to bench press and, you know, do some benching.

Yeah, yeah, just come over to the house. So I'm like, all right, Zach's super cool, right? And then he gives me the address. I go over to Zach's house. And he goes, hey, I'd like to run to warm up. Do you mind going on a little run with me? So we go for a run, and we just get to know each other a little bit and, you know, just jogging bullshit and we go back to the garage

and he says, all right, get ready to work out, you know. He opens the garage. He's got about five or six kettlebells there and I thought I was in there

with that motherfucker with an enzima and I was like, God, what am I going to do? Like, I got to bench press, man. I got to move some weight. I can't do a kettlebell workout. I got to, I want to, you know, I want to do some uh i got a bench press man i gotta i gotta move some weight i can't do a kettlebell

workout i gotta i i want to you know i want to do some pause benching today some pause repping yeah so he told you there was going to be a bench press yeah and then there was no bench hey and he kicked my ass on the kettlebell workout and i swear i thought of you when because you were the first person i thought he brought it up earlier too he said the same thing because i was like you always working with him and man i that was the first time i did a kettlebell kettlebell workout and it demolished me yeah it was moralizing yeah well i i'm not i'm not very coordinated in uh as far as like dancing and all that stuff goes like so that rhythm with the kettlebell and the movements like i haven't mastered it yet especially after only doing it two or three times you know like definitely not mastered it you could hit that shit up like super easily though because you did

wrestling hey he's uh trying to get out of the figure four no we will do the figure four it'll be easier if we uh do the video outside you know in the gym but the thing is you could you could figure out kettlebell shit because again wrestling for as many years as you have you got to right yeah well i mean practice with anything. This is what I teach my kids. If you want to get good at something, you got to practice it. And those were values that I learned later in life.

You know, we want things quick. We want things easy. We want things, we want results fast. That's, you know, it's even worse now. But what nobody really taught me early on throughout my life was what you, was the suffering and the pain you had to go through to get what, to get to where you truly want to be.

You know, if you want something bad enough, you're going to, you will go through that suffering. And that's what I did with my career, with wrestling, with film, you know, with being a father, with anything. I'm pretty open about my lifestyle. So I was talking to Mark recently. You know, me and my son Perry, he's 25. You guys know him.

He's been here. He's been my best friend. Him and I had a falling out, and we haven't spoken in eight months, and it's been really difficult. And just being young, and it's my phone, sorry. phone sorry um he he had to me he hasn't learned the value of true life and work ethic because a lot of things he got was because i was his father and as long as he was a good kid i gave him those things i just gave him to him because he was a good kid because he never got in trouble he never acted up he never got a behavior report he never acted up. He never got a behavior report. He never talked back, you know, maybe sometimes, but, you know, not that much.

But he was always a good kid, so I gave him everything. But what I didn't do was I didn't teach him. I just told him or I gave him things where I said, hey, go do this or do, you know, I didn't tell him why we do these things. Or how long it took you to get to be able to do some of those things maybe right well people you know i i didn't know nobody taught me so and i i learned so i had to make you know with my second one who was 12 i had to say okay well i kind of got to dial back a little bit on everything i i've give you i can't give you as much as i gave your brother even though i have

more now in my life, you know, even I'm in a way better place in my life. And like, even sometimes as you fight, like, you know, I'll, I'll, I'll get into it with my ex sometimes and we'll have conversations. And like, I've, the comments been made before, you know, where, Oh, you do this in this relationship and you don't do this. You didn't do this in our relationship. And you go, okay, well, look, I was 17 or 18, 19 years old when I was with you, you know? I was couch surfing until my mid-30s, you know, like trying to find a career, like not find a career.

I was chasing the career. This is my career. And we know it's not easy. You know, we know the story of the struggling artist, the struggling actor who waits tables in Hollywood or, you know, does whatever. Right. And so that's been my struggle my whole life is chasing the dream. And when I finally got to the point where I was successful, I learned so much, but I learned I had separated myself from so many

other people that I grew up with or throughout my life because my lifestyle had to change so much for me to become successful. You know, before for me to take that next step or to go to that next level, I had to, you know, separate from certain people. And my son was one of those people. And it's unfortunate because he wasn't, you know, to me, he wasn't putting in the work

that needed to be put in for the jobs that require it. And I know what it was like to get those opportunities. So can you imagine what it's like for a guy like myself who comes from nothing, and I want my family to prosper, and I want my family to break these cycles and do good. And, you know, now all of a sudden, I gotta make the decision to feed somebody else's family instead of my son's son, instead of my son,

because he's not putting the work in that is required on the job behind the scenes, you know? And I have to make that decision as a boss and as a leader, because I can't be a hypocrite and go, son because he's not putting the work in that is required on the job behind the scenes you know and i have to make that decision as a boss and as a leader because i can't be a hypocrite and go okay well i wouldn't give that job to somebody else if i had the opportunity because i know that person's not working for it neotropics every single biohacker and their mother talks about the benefits of lion's mane or alpha gpc blah blah blah we have this of supplement. But no one really tells you how to analyze what you actually should be trying to take or what problems you may have. That's why Andy Triana

has made the Nootropics ebook now on our website at powerproject.live. Now, we've had Andy on our podcast multiple times, and he's educated us on so many different things along with Nootropics. But in this ebook, he goes in depth on how to analyze what your problems may be specifically and how to utilize nootropics to help fix those issues or to help progress in certain areas. Like if you're wanting to speak better, think faster, communicate better. There are so many things he goes in depth on in this e-book, and you can get it now on our website at PowerProject.live. The link's in the description along with the podcast show notes. Yeah, I'm kind of all over the place today. Sorry about that.

But no, it's been, you know, but it goes back to just, you know, just adapting to the changes and moving forward with what I want. I know at that time I was focusing on, you know, growing my company for him. I was focusing on our tag team and being a good role model and going as far as we can with the father-son film and wrestling thing. And then

all of a sudden that curveball came in and it was really out of nowhere. And I had, you know, and then it got worse and worse and I fought it for a while. Like, Hey, are you making the right decision? Hey, are you sure? You know, you kind of start butting heads a little bit. And then I realized that all my plans involved him, and I didn't have any on my own. And I said, well, now it's time for me to, sorry about that, in order for me to run this, I got to be on here. But in order, my plans were always with him and all of a sudden now my life didn't include him and I had to figure out where to go with my life and what was I doing for me

and that's where I decided well you know there's so much I still want to do that I haven't done and I've neglected a lot of things because I know so many people depend on me in certain markets, but if those people aren't by my side and putting in, matching my efforts and work, then I have to really figure out what I'm gonna go into. And I decided that I wanted to, you know, really chase my acting because my acting's been really beneficial towards my career. And, um, and I also wanted to get into some bodybuilding

because I never seen myself doing it. I had some mentors, you know, kind of push me in. And I seen Mark do it and I seen, you know, guys like you do it. And I don't want to make a career out of it, but it's very, you know, I bodybuild. You know, that's what we do. We work out, we train, you know, I power lifted Pharaoh with you guys

and learned a lot from you guys. And, you know, now my aesthetic look is so crucial on camera. You know, I don't want to be the big bad guy anymore. I don't want to be the thug. I want to be the lead. You know, I want to be the good guy. I want to be the superhero. I want to be, I can be more than what I was.

And for the longest time, I was projecting myself as the big strong guy. And I made that projection. I put myself in that position. And now I go, okay, well, now I have my son. I do this tag team thing. Now what do I see myself going without him? Okay. I don't have to be the angry guy anymore. Now I want to be the guy who cheers people up.

I want to be the guy who's building people up. I want to be the guy where when I take my shirt off, people go, damn, I want to look like that. I don't want to just be the big, strong guy. I want to be the guy who's building people up. I want to be the guy where when I take my shirt off, people go, damn, I want to look like that. I don't want to just be the big, strong guy. I want to have the look. I want the abs, the muscles, the arms, the biceps, the peaks. I want to take it off, and I want people to go, oh, shit, and their eyes pop out their head,

especially when you're doing that in your 40s. You know what I'm saying? I'm walking around every day. I can take my shirt off any time like you. And I told you earlier, I complimented Nsema because I said on camera he always looks great so we we take for granted how good he looks and how hard he works because large yeah he's large heavy guy but I've seen you now coming and seeing you in person for years now but like just seeing you I haven't seen you in probably a year or so at least, you've slowly put on some mass.

So when I see you now, you're thicker than what you were, and you're more dense, and you're so huge. But on camera, it doesn't show. But if you've seen this guy in person, he's a monster, and you understand why he's wrapping people up at jiu-jitsu and everything, kicking ass. Like if he touches you, you're screwed. I might not let him put me in don't i might not i might not let

him put me in the figure four leader i might not let it because i might be i might uh let's back things up a little bit um you mentioned iron claw and you mentioned some of the stuff you did on there uh explain to us a little bit about uh that experience and maybe explain to us a little bit about just even how you got involved in movies in the first place. Okay. Yeah, and I was all over the place. I'm sorry we kind of jumped all around. No, no, it's fine. It's just that I think that you and I have known each other for so long, and you've been on the show before, and we've talked about you before,

but I don't think people know some of the details in the background. I think we're just taking it for granted that people just know who you are. New audiences, and nobody knows who I am. I'm not Mark Bell. Come on, man. and nobody knows who I am. I'm not Mark Bell. Come on, man.

No, so I started in film from wrestling. So I've been a pro wrestler 25 years. I started in 1999 right here. Wow. How old are you, by the way? I'm 42. Dude, you look good, man. Jacked and tan, crushing it.

You look good. Hey, and I'm all natty right now, too. Wait till I get on some shit. Hey, I walk around the gym every day, and I tell these motherfuckers, I got to take this shirt off. I'm like, hey, I'm letting y'all know I'm natty. Just wait till I get on some shit. Then y'all really fucked.

Wait, how natural are we talking? Oh, man, I ain't been on some shit in about a year and a half. Oh, man, that's natty natty. Oh, yeah, that's true for natty. I just did the Merrick Health shit too so I did all that and I got all my levels tested I'm feeling good baby good shit

but yeah so I was wrestling still wrestling and I got an opportunity in 2005-6 I had a TV show on MTV called Wrestling Society X

with Kevin Kleinrock and worked with some awesome talent on that and a lot of music talent that's why I became friends with three, six mafia and,

you know, form their brotherhood with them. But yeah, it was cool. So then back then, um, I was young, skinny,

hungry. I got the opportunity to do a film from that. And, and I thought it was BS. You know, I met a guy there and they said they, it was vampiro. And they told me,

you know, me and me and him had a wrestler. Yeah. The wrestler, we had some vampire wrestler. Yeah, the wrestler. A vampire wrestler. Oh, of course. Go figure from the name. So him and I had a head.

Again, I just think we just take it for granted. Be like, yeah, yeah, Vampiro, yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. The guy is 456 years old. Yeah, yeah. Okay, go ahead. Famous wrestler in Mexico named Vampiro gave me the opportunity to be in one of his films, an independent film. And when they first called me to do the film, I thought they were full of shit.

You know, like you hear it, you think they're full of crap, right? So they're like, oh, yeah, man, we're going to fly you down to Mexico and we're going to pay you $1,000 a day and it's going to be this. You're like, get out of here. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And at the time, I'm wrestling, but I'm also working like two or three regular jobs. I'm plumbing, you know, and I'm working like $500 a week, working 45, 50 hours a week, tunneling underneath people's house, replacing their sewer,

like, you know, 100-foot tunnels under, like, apartment complexes and shit tunnels of water, wearing waders, making $12, and I was miserable, you know? But then you're trying to find a gym, and you're trying to do all these things on top, and like I said, I was couch surfing forever, chasing the business. So I got the

opportunity to do the first movie there they did fly me down to mexico i spent a week there called the dead sleep easy i was terrible in it and i thought i knew everything i said oh man i could do this movie stuff you know and man when i watched the playback i that's the thing about me i watched i said man i was terrible but i wanted do more, and it lit a fire underneath my ass because here I am, this poor white trash kid from New Orleans, never thinking I can be anything. I've been kicked my whole life. Nobody ever told me I can do anything.

They always told me what I can't do, and they told me what I was going to be was a loser. You're going to be in jail, a drug addict, just like your parents, this, that. That's all I've ever been told. Nobody said, hey, man, you're going to kick ass, and you're going to chase your dreams. Every time I said I'm going to be in a movie or I'm going to do a wrestling, I'm going to do this, do that.

You know what they said? Man, you stupid. Why would you do that stupid shit? You know, why don't you do something? You're going to get a real job, be successful. Yeah, that ain't you. You're not going to be able to do that. Yeah.

That kind of shit, right? Yeah, exactly. Nobody gave me any real encouragement and uh but but i came from nothing so i had nothing to lose and uh i'm jumping around again giving you a little backstory but we wanted some of this and uh but anyway i did the movie and i was terrible and i started making some connections and i met a guy named lewis heartham who's a really great actor out of uh he was born in baton rouge but he lived in santa monica and he's been in everything but his first big film

was murder she wrote the tv show so he was one of the deputies on there and wow huge show yeah it was massive show he was nice enough to meet me for breakfast because of a mutual friend and pick and let me pick his brain on film and i I said, I wanted to be an actor. And he said, well, why do you want to be an actor? You've never acted before. He said, you never went to school for it, you never went to theater school, you never went to any of this.

And I said, well, I don't know anything about none of that stuff, but I wanted to be an actor. He goes, well, I think you'd be better off as a stuntman because, he's like, you can act because, you know, you've been in front of live audiences and you have this advantage from wrestling and stuff like that he goes but you've never taken classes or anything goes but stunts you know you're you're a natural born stunt man you're a daredevil you're this that she goes why don't you come to this uh audition with me and be my guest and i went to

this audition at philadelphia's house a stunt guy out of uh bush Louisiana. And there was about 25 people there, I think there was, when we went to the open audition. I was the only guy they kept. And I started training for two years. This is a true story. Like, all my stories are true. I always say that. But I always say it because it sounds like bullshit.

You tell these stories and people go, oh, wow. You got some wild shit. Yeah, just wild shit, man, wild shit. So what I would do is, like, I would wrestle on a lot of the weekends, but I'd work during the week plumbing. I would get off and bartend in the evenings, and then on the weekends I would bounce at a nightclub and I would train at stunts.

So I would get off the nightclub around 3 to 4 a.m., we'd go to IHOP, eat breakfast, drive an hour to stunt class, take eight hours of stunt class all day come home, sleep for a couple hours go back to work all night, drive back across the lake do the stunt class again what is stunt class like? you're up all night, you're banging red bulls

to stay awake and you're learning how to do fire burns and you're learning how to fight film fighting like getting lit on fire, I'll show you some clips I'll send you some clips you can throw it on fire kind of recently right yeah if you go to my instagram it's on my instagram if andrew can pull that up i was watching that because i i know ross's house i i know that's awesome that's fucking awesome sick i know some of this stuff you know because you know i've known you for a long time and i obviously know the wrestling backgrounds

of course you know how to fall and you know how to do certain things but I saw this and I was like oh my god but Luke is on fire so that's Rick Ross's house every year we go back for heels and we shoot a scene so I coordinated that big scene right there with the wrestling see the wrestling going on in the background

they tell him the power project says hello what's going on here where you're like you're. I tell him the power project. The power project says hello. What's going on here where you're like, you're so comfortable with just like fire. Why are you so comfortable here? I was married before.

He's been tortured before. He's felt the pain. He's like, this ain't worse than my last marriage. Oh no. Staying on fire. But seriously,

like back to, like why, what? Just lit Staying on fire. But seriously, like, why? Just lit your back on fire. Yeah. So that's a half burn. And to be honest, I don't get any thrills from that. I don't get hyped up. Like, most people, I've been doing it so long now that it's just second nature, right?

But you always respect it. You never dial off and, like and turn it off, the respect, because it's so dangerous. But I've always been cool, calm, and collective under pressure. So that's like the first time I... I remember the first time I wrestled for WWE in 2003. We came out. It was about 13,000 people.

And I only did indie shows before that. I did a couple thousand, 3,000, 4,000, 5,000. But the first time I did a big thousand three four five thousand but the first time i did a big show it was natural like i didn't there was no nerves it felt like i belonged so and it's kind of how i feel when i do all this stuff it's like you feel like you belong and you feel like i i just have such a strong um confidence in what i do in my abilities but but i also train really hard right i work I practice like you. Like, I'm not going to try and—I'm a wrestler,

but I know how—you're a world-class athlete, and I know you'd probably kick my ass right now pretty bad if we tried to grapple, and I'm pretty confident in my wrestling skills and my grappling abilities, you know? But I'll put you over live on air and, you know, how badass you are. Like, I know that you're a world-class athlete when it comes to it. And, like, my abilities aren't as good as yours. So what I'll do is I'll, you know, would want to work with somebody like you

and spend some time with you and spend a couple days with you and just pick your brain and just have some knowledge and maybe show you some of the things I do and you show me some of the things you do and just learn. And I always do that with Mark. I do that with everybody. I did it with CT, you know. I did everybody that i meet you know with the film business the wrestling business the fitness business and what we do is we kind of bring people together because

we connect each other and we do these different things because this is your guys's life it's your livelihood so you have these abilities to have all these cool guests come in you learn all these different things from people around the world you know and and it's what you do i have something to offer i can come share my stories my experiences but i can also pick up on things from y'all while i'm here and take those advantages and every time i come here i want to leave with knowledge yeah and i want to take it back home and i want to share it with people that that you know who others that want to learn these uh different movie roles that you have uh ended up with um sounds like most of it was stunt work in the beginning but now it's starting to turn into

some other stuff you're starting to turn into acting right yeah well yeah yeah it turned into acting a long time ago um i was lucky so i love stunts i got into stunts and um i i you know i i got known as the wrecking ball really like they were like luke luke's tough destroy him and i started doing like some pretty gnarly stunts where they would just wreck me all the time yeah logan that was so cool man how cool was that to be you know that's the comic scene and then that's the movie scene wow you know like that's like i dreamed of that i legit dreamed of that you know like when I was a kid like I wanted to be in X-Men

I wanted to be in that stuff you know and I come from dirt dude I come from the bottom of your shoe I'm serious you know and never in a million years would you expect that I can do something as cool as that you know or

and not just me it's like you know what's better than that we're going off subject a little bit but like not just spotlighting the things i've done but my my favorite things to do are when i have the opportunity to change somebody else's life or give somebody those dream jobs you know i just got to walk the red carpet with danny flamingo for iron claw and um you know like this guy's been alongside me for damn near 12 years now and helped me build my company. And he's a hard worker from Chalmette, Louisiana. And he, you know, he was never given a chance at life.

You know, he was given, he was just always going to be a hard, blue-collar worker the rest of his life, right? And have tough times and, you know, the struggle, the fight, the working man, you know, that's so common in America. That's what I was. Still am. You know, and that's what we represent. And that's what Danny is. And, um...

You know, he stuck with me and he knew he was never gonna be a superstar wrestler because he was never gonna have the body and he was never gonna be able to put the time and the training because he had all these bills and he had kids and he had these, you know, responsibilities that he couldn't just be able to put the time and the training because he had all these bills and he had kids and he had these, you know, responsibilities that he couldn't just push off to chase the dream. But guess what?

He looked like Buddy Roberts. And I was able to cast him in Iron Claw and do the job. And he's done other projects with me like Heels and now he got to go to Dallas and he got to walk the red carpet with Zac Efron and all his friends and family get to see this guy. And they're talking about him on Entertainment Tonight, and they're talking about him on all these talk shows.

And just for me to see my guys light up and to see their families and to see the way their kids or other people's looking, that's Brady. We'll go to Danny Flamingo. If you go to my tag pictures in there, I know he just posted one of those with me, so that will pop up right away, my tag pictures in there, I know he just posted one the other day with me, so that will pop up right away in my tag pictures on Instagram. But it's cool.

We all love our personal accomplishments, right? You've done so many amazing things. You've done amazing things. It's cool when you win, you work hard, and you win something, right? But doesn't it feel so much better when you get to help somebody and you get to give somebody something that changed their life? You're not doing it because you you know to make somebody to assist somebody in feeling anything in the way that you feel about something is amazing yes like that is like the most

incredible feeling ever i know the feeling and i know how hard it is to get those jobs and i know how hard it is to or how how much you want something you want some recognition or you want some opportunity and you work hard and you work hard and you think oh man maybe I'll just never get it and then one day something comes and then you know like man I'm just so thankful like I can go on I don't I don't want to but I'm serious I you gotta cut me off because I'll go on days about how happy I am about my friends being successful and being able to have these opportunities with them. It's amazing.

You said you came from the bottom of an enzima shoe. Where is that exactly, and what does that mean? I was dirt poor. Drugs, alcohol growing up. My brothers are heroin addicts. We've talked about this on the show in the past, but we'll bring it back up. My mom was a bad alcoholic and drug addict.

I grew up in a boys' home. I went into Boys Town at 11 years old. I got out of Boys Town at 15. What's Boys Town mean? It's a boys' home based out of Omaha, Nebraska. They're across the country, but it started out there. And I'm actually going to Omaha in Januaryuary for first time to go to boystown headquarters to speak to children because i do a lot of giving back with boystown

when i uh was boxing i went to cat skills where mike tyson trained and they said what home are you from and i was like i don't know i'm like what does that mean you know and then somebody else told me like all these dudes want to kick your ass because you're rich. I'm like, I'm just not in a home. I'm not necessarily rich. I hate rich kids. I like to them, you're rich. Yeah, yeah. See, this is the, it's funny because, like, poverty, race, all that plays a factor.

Like, I remember I had a friend, Fred. He was, when I was in my, like, early 20s, maybes me like 21 22 I was working with a black guy named Fred that was in his probably late 30s and he told me we worked every day side aside side by side and he told me at that point he goes hey man I'm glad I work with you we became good friends and he goes before before you and I became friends he goes I thought all white people were rich and that's what he told me and this is a grown man and he's like i didn't know y'all struggled like we do and everything and it's just poverty from being in the south you know and uh and then when i and i understood oh i didn't understand that but i did understand like

what you said like i hated everybody that was rich when I was poor because rich people typically treated me like shit. And they always looked down on me. And I wasn't allowed to play with those kids because the parents didn't want those kids playing with me. I would have hired you or something to clean up my house or do some plumbing or something around there. I mean, to be fair, you've always actually kind of, I think, fished and kind of offered me stuff here. I have. You have. A couple times you asked me what my interests are and just fished out there to see what I was into.

And I don't know who the hell is calling me. We're live on Instagram. I should have signed into your Wi-Fi so I could have turned my service off. It's all good. Wi-Fi in here sucks, bro. But no, yeah, yeah, yeah. You've offered me positions, but I've always been grateful for everything you've given me because you've taught me so much along the way that I can take with me and pass down to so many other people.

And I can never thank you enough for it. I can never thank your brother. I can never thank your brother i could never thank your father your mother like the times i've got to come here and spend with y'all and talk and have conversations and just you know pick his brain um coming from the life i've come up in i i was so limited and i was in such a bubble and then what i realized as i got older that's everybody everybody lives in this little bubble and they don't know anything outside of their bubble. So it's our job to educate each other and teach each other and help each other grow no matter what we do.

And like I said, when I was young, I was hard-headed. I didn't want to learn anything. Now I want to learn everything I can. Like, I want you to teach me. I didn't realize how crucial learning was. I had a learning block. I had a learning disability because my learning disability was I wasn't taught to learn. I wasn't realize how crucial learning was. I had a learning block. I had a learning disability because people didn't, my learning disability was I wasn't taught to learn.

I wasn't taught to work hard. I wasn't taught, you know, like to be what you want to be, you have to put the work in. And it's true. Everybody says, you can do what you want to do. You can be what you want to be. Just work hard. That's true.

But they don't really tell you, you know, it's a formula. It's a real formula. Like you can pull everything aside. Like to go, if you want to be a lawyer, you got to go to law school. If you want to play in the NFL, well, you should start in peewee football and come up the ranks and play high school football and go to college. Poverty is usually ignorance. Poverty breeds ignorance.

So just the littlest things aren't taught. Having a little bit of money is just sometimes one less thing to worry about for somebody uh but you're you're still gonna have to teach your child or teach the people around you even if you do make money you're still gonna have to teach them the value of it and how you were able to obtain it how you were able to get it yeah and then you gotta learn i mean like look when you first buy a house nobody tells you what comes along with the house and how to pay your bills. And, you know, this code and that code, and you got to file for this license once a year.

You know what I mean? Or you get ripped off here. You pay fees here. I'm sorry. Stuttering. But, yeah, you learn as we go. So I just publicly thank you. You know, I'm talking.

I don't want to keep going over. But I just publicly thank you. I appreciate that. Thank all y'all. Andrew, everybody here. If I've ever sent you a message, y'all respond. And the same, you guys send guys to me. I told you, Jimmy.

Oh, Jimmy House. So our boy, yeah, he's going to come down and do some training with me he's doing some pro wrestling and you know and that's a tank dude yeah and i'm really focused on um taking 2024 and doing some amazing things like i'm always pushing boundaries and trying to do things i never thought i would do before so i'm gonna do this bodybuilding competition in march right march 30th i'm gonna get to get on stage in Louisiana and blow some shit out the water down there. Okay. And then I'm going to keep this poster boy look and try and have that Asima abs as I walk around 24-7,

you know, make sure I'm looking good for the ladies so I can be on people's walls. I want to be on walls. I want to be like the heartthrob. Remember when you used to go to the grocery store and you'd see those? Like a poster? Yeah, like posters, but even those magazines

and the guys like on the cover and just like yeah yeah i'll never have the hair flowing and like that but i can all i can all on my hat power project family we talk about beef and meat all the time on the podcast that's why we partnered with certified piedmontese beef but did you know this That 85% of all grass-fed, grass-finished beef in the United States is imported from other countries? 85%. Damn. But Certified Piedmontese is made in the U.S. of A. America.

America. Fuck yeah. So go ahead and get some of the best tasting, some of the leanest, some of the best beef from Piedmontese. Andrew, how can they get it? Absolutely. So you guys can head over to cpbeef.com and check out enter promo code POWER to save 25% off your entire order.

And if your order is $150 or more, you get free two-day shipping. Again, cpbeef.com. Links to them down in the description as well as the podcast show notes. Fuck yeah! How do you, you know, from the way that you grew up,

you shared with us before that you were, you grew up basically with hardly any parents, any parenting, and you went in and out of these homes and I'm sure school

was a mess and stuff and then later you got adopted by a teacher, I believe, right? Yeah, he was a teacher then he was a disciplinarian and assistant principal. How do you, how do you kind of go from some of that background to how do you not have resentment as you move forward as you're lots of resentment

you know big chip on my shoulder lots of resentment um frustration anger resentment doesn't pay the bills, though. No. You can't use that. You can't be like, hey, but this. Hey, but my life's been hard. You don't have a ticket or you don't have a thing to show anybody. This is what I've learned.

I don't want to discredit the resentment. I don't want to discredit the anger and the chip on my shoulder because all of that fueled me to push past. I was a fuck you guy. Because everybody always told me what I can't do. So it was always fuck you. Nobody came and gave me a hug and said, let me show you how to do this, kid. Let me teach you how to do this, kid.

And, you know, very few people did did and i'm sounding like a broken record mark bell is one of those first people to do that for me seriously um you know he's seen something in me and um and then that helped me but i learned a lot from you as far as that aspect you never know who you're gonna you never know who you're gonna help you know i think people should keep that in mind you never know who you're gonna i don't want to lose this thought i'm sorry go for it go for it but you um i learned when i go back to saying i learned a lot from you what i learned over time is like you had a lot of like chip on your shoulder i'ma kick your ass type attitude and you've kind of humbled as you went along. Your attitude's changed. And I didn't say mine changed because of that, but getting to follow in the footsteps, right?

As I got older, I don't want to fight everybody anymore. Like, I can. I'll fucking fuck somebody up right now. You know what I'm saying? Like, I'm ready to go. But I would rather love you. I would rather love you and help each other and let's learn from each other.

You know what I mean? Like, I don't want to I don't want to fight. And it seems like everywhere I go, I always have to fight. And I'd much rather be in a situation where we could always work together. My wife always tells me, you know, like, from when we first got together,

she says, it's us against the problem, not us against each other. Yeah. Yeah, she knows. She knows, dog. So that resentment made me that fight made me who i am it made me that dog you know i mean like like you wasn't gonna fuck with me because if you came at me i'm coming for your neck you tell me i'm not gonna do it now i gotta do it motherfucker i might not even really want to do i might just set it on my ass before but you said i couldn't so now i have to yeah now I'm gonna make you eat that shit so

and I still like that to this day but what I find out is nobody ever tells me I can't do shit no more because they always go oh shit now whenever I say something oh shit Luke's gonna Luke said he's gonna do this we better watch the fuck out because they know I'm crazy and I'm gonna do it

like what I say I'm gonna do I'm gonna do bro like bottom line that's good say I'm going to do, I'm going to do, bro. Like, bottom line. That's good. And, you know, even when it comes to a strong arm, even when it comes to my son, you know, we go back to that. Haven't spoke to him in eight months. I don't agree with things he's doing.

And I won't speak to him. And it sucks. It's rough, but it's hard on me. I know that I can't change his time. I mean, his mindset. I have to let him go through the struggles to learn the appreciation. But what it does for me is it takes time away from, you know, I don't, I'm older, I'm not old, but you know, like, like I, I would much rather have my son here, teach him,

live in the dream life and go on all these cool things and, you know, father, son, things that people dream about. But I know that's not reality right now. I know it. going all these cool things and you know father son things that people dream about but i know that's not reality right now i know it i know that i have to move forward i have to push forward with i want he has to go find his own way and again that's resentment right that's resentment too because it's i'm resenting what has to be done but i still got to do it because that's what we do as men. The bill's got to be paid. I got to show up for work tomorrow. I was going to the gym at 2.

I wasn't sleeping, bro. For the last year and a half, probably, I slept three to four hours a night every night. Damn. And then I just finally, Thanksgiving was the first time I got eight hours of sleep in so long. And the stuff with my son was driving me crazy. I would go to, like, I would get up, go to the gym about 2, 3 in the morning, and I would ball cry, do a set, ball cry, do a set, ball cry, do a set. But I knew my shit had to get done.

I knew I couldn't just go sit on the couch and curl up in a ball because I got people that depend on me. I got a company. I got a wife. I got another son. I got a wife. I got another son. I got a community. You know, I have all these things, but I still have problems like everybody else. Yeah.

But I still got to come out and get on camera and come on this podcast and smile and wave no matter what shit I'm going through in life. Yeah. No matter how hard life is, I got to show the fuck up. You know, and I tell that to everybody else too. Stop crying. Show the fuck up. We got to do what we got to do and let's do it. You know know and I tell that to everybody else too stop crying show the fuck up we gotta do

what we gotta do and let's do it you know that's all to it and that's been my attitude on everything that's why I can be a wrestler

that's why I can be in movies that's why I can come train with Mark Bell you know when I first started coming out here I didn't want to get up early and train

but Mark would say hey meet me you know at this time whatever time 5am whatever time I did whatever he told me to do, because I want to learn what he knows. So, so I, I'm not going to say, well, Hey, you think you do about 10am, man?

Come on. You're like, did we have, nah. Same thought in my head, bro. Yeah. Well, so now I get up early. Now everybody looks at me like i'm crazy it's like these certain paths and um you know um influences that are provided throughout life positive influences you knowledge is power you know better you do better so when you learn them you do them

all right roger family it's time to step up your barefoot shoe game now we talk about foot health all the time on the podcast but the winter months are coming and Vivo's come out with some slick boots. These are their Gobi boots and they have different colors on their website. Now these have a wide toe box. They are flat and they are flexible and they're stylish and sexy as boots. But obviously Vivo is awesome because they not only have boots and casual shoes like their Novus right here, which again, wide, flat, flexible, so that your foot can do what it needs to do within the shoe. And you're getting the benefit of having your feet improve while you're walking around in shoes, but they also have shoes for the gym, like their Modus, again, flat, flexible, wide toe box, along with their Primus Light 3s and all the classics that you know. They also have shoes for running and trail running on their website. So again, for all

barefoot type shoes, Vivo is your one-stop shop for pretty much all the types of kicks you need. Andrew, how can they get it? Yes, you guys got to head over to vivobarefoot.com slash powerproject. There you guys will see a code at the top. Make sure you enter that code and you'll save 15% off your order. Again, vivobarefoot.foot.com slash power project links in the description as well as the podcast show notes let me ask you this man because you didn't well it seems that you did have some people that helped you out when you're younger you talked about um some guy that gave you some opportunities when it comes to wrestling but you know you have two young boys right you're two boys yes two boys two boys where do you think you learned how to be a father because like you know i'm still learning you're still learning of course so so what do you think

helped you out with that um well the first one is i wanted to give him everything i didn't have of course this can i be real You want me to be real on here? Of course. I'm going to say some shit that probably people don't talk about. I questioned having kids. I questioned myself as a 42-year-old man why I had two kids. Not because I don't love my kids,

but I'm going to say shit probably we think that nobody talks about. I don't know what's going on in the world. When I was 20 years old, I wanted to have kids because I love my kids. I wanted to share love. I don't know what's going on in the world. When I was 20 years old, I wanted to have kids because I love my kids. I wanted to share love. I wanted to give him the love that I never had before. I wanted to spread so much love and say, I can be everything my dad wasn't. Right? Yeah. I wasn't thinking about the world. I wasn't thinking about finances. I wasn't thinking, you know, I just thought love, love, love. But that wasn't

the way, you know, when real life comes into play, love don't save you. You know, and love fades. When I got married, you know, my wife's Indian. She's Punjabi. Her dad told me, you know, we don't marry for love. And I never understood that because he said love goes away. You know, I mean, you could love somebody today and not love them tomorrow and break up with them. We marry for, like, basically investment opportunity. So, and that stuck with me. And it's true because love, if you love something, you might love it at that time, but it's a commitment to love a kid for the rest

of your life right and then most people how many people you know that are neglected as children i was a neglected child yeah you know and i'm not saying my mom told me she loved me every day i believed her and as i got older i said damn my mom may have loved me I don't question that she didn't love me but she didn't know how to love me she was terrible she didn't know how to operate herself she had three kids

she couldn't take care of herself so most people do that and I'm sure it wasn't because she didn't love me but now I'm going to go back to me saying I question having kids at 42 years old because I don't know how the world's going to be in 10 years from now i've seen so many rapid changes in my 42 years you know you're not sure about even like the existence of another person yes well i want to protect the world is so goddamn complicated

how can you protect them how can you like i die tomorrow. And then when I went through this falling out with my oldest son, you know, to be honest, you know, a lot of times I thought death would be better than this because I was in so much pain because my son was the only thing I had from my childhood on. Like, I don't have no family, no none, like no relationships. Like, this was the only thing that has been the consistent throughout my life. And I fought hard to keep him. I fought real hard to keep him by my side. You had him at a pretty young age, right?

Yeah, 16. 16, okay. So I, you know, and, you know, I had a lot of battles with his mom. And, you know, that was always nasty. And, like, she was a great mom. But, of course, she put me through hell, too. We always do. You know what I mean?

Like it goes through. And we were young. And she's going to make mistakes. I'm going to make mistakes. We're still learning. You say, how do you know? I'm do. You know what I mean? Like it goes through and we were young and she's going to make mistakes. I'm going to make mistakes. We're still learning. You say, how do you know? I'm learning, you know, I'm learning, but I did the best I can. And I showered him with love, but I didn't have the stability.

Like I didn't have a house. I didn't have a, you know, uh, I couldn't, I couldn't provide him with, with any of the things he really needed, like education. I told him now, one of the problems we had was early on, we had a talk when he got engaged. And I said, look, congratulations on your marriage. Why are you getting married? Oh, because we love each other. Well, I said, well, that's not a reason to get married. You know, love, love can fade. I kind of went into the whole thing, but I said, look, I'm sure you want to have kids, right? Well, yeah, we want to have kids. Well,

you, neither one of y'all have any real responsibilities in life. Y'all can't cook. You don't know how to cook meals. You don't know how to do this. You don't know how to do that. So these are things like you can't bring a kid to eat. You can't bring a baby to eat fast food. You can't bring a baby out to eat.

You have to, you know, like all these responsibilities that come along with having a kid, and you try and explain this to them because I didn't know this, right? Yeah. Like we just jump in head first typically, anything we do. We jump in head first. And then you learn along the way. You this, right? Yeah. Like, we just jump in head first, typically. Anything we do, we jump in head first. And then you learn along the way. You go, oh, fuck. Like, you said this training a long day.

You said, I remember, I'll never forget this. One day you said, sometimes, exact wording, excuse me, I don't know. But you said, sometimes you need to engage in something, like, push yourself past limits. And you go, oh, fuck, that was a little more than I bargained for. Now I know. Yeah, all the way to the point where you're really actually concerned about yourself. Yeah. Like you're like, that might have been a big mistake. I think it's important that I think most people that do train hard,

I think they probably have got themselves in that position before. And that's what happens when you have a kid, right? it's all good and you know it's a kid and then you're like oh fuck i ain't slept in two weeks or months or whatever it is you know and you're like oh i gotta bring him to school and then i gotta i gotta get him ready for the bus and i gotta be to work and you got all this shit everywhere yeah i text these guys and i was just playing and sorry to this was like a pretty heavy conversation but my son shit everywhere there's literally shit in his armpits it was on his elbows it was on his legs it was on me his son's 19 by the way i mean shit the way he eats we'll see but there's shit everywhere nobody nobody preps you for that. No, you don't learn.

But, look, I thought I had what it took to be a father, and I'm still learning, and I just want to make sure that, you know, I leave my kids, you know, with enough knowledge to provide for themselves when I'm not here. You know, I'm just trying to teach, teach, teach, and explain as much as I can, but also have some fun in the meantime. And it's rough because I'm not a. I'm just trying to teach, teach, teach, and explain as much as I can, but also have some fun in the meantime. And it's rough because I'm not a full-time father. You guys get to be full-time fathers.

Look at me, and I'm a dog dad. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I'm sorry, but I'm saying, Mark comes home to his kid every night. I've always been split. I've always lived across country. I've always lived chasing film. And it's

great you know people i get to do my i've been in films with both of my kids you know both of my sons act and they do film and then it's been an amazing feeling but you know it's a shitty feeling when you don't see your kid for six months because you're on a project or you might see him a weekend two or three weekends out of six months that fly by and it's no real time and he's growing up. But that's just what comes along with it. Are you religious at all? Yeah. So I just started recently like really learning a lot more.

I never grew up religious, but I had some experiences. And, you know, I had some experiences with God. I always pray. But recently my life was this year was turned upside down, personal reasons with my son, those things. So I didn't look to God for that. I wasn't praying for any of that. He came to me, and he came to me in a lot of different ways,

in several ways. I actually passed out on the job i got this film in north carolina called uh blue ridge and it was a tv show and i was got hired as a recurring actor on it and my first day there i passed on i was working with michael hearn me and michael hearn were working and uh i passed out on set with mike and uh i was i was that's when i was running ragged, dude. I wasn't sleeping. I was super depleted. I was bouncing from time to time on different projects, three different films,

and then I was dealing with the stuff from him, and I couldn't tell anybody. I just had to keep a smile on. I was losing all this. Dude, it sucked. So I passed out on set, and it was the craziest thing. I'm sitting there rehearsing a scene, and I'm talking to the girl, and all of a sudden it's like a curtain came down. And I woke up, and the lady's rubbing my leg, and she says, He's got you.

He's got you. She's referring to God, obviously. And I had so many other incidents that happened. Was that maybe just stress-related where you passed out? Well, I went to the hospital. I thought I had a stroke. So go into it. It was long. I stayed in the hospital for three days. That's when I had to the hospital. I thought I had a stroke. So go into it. It was long.

I stayed in the hospital for three days. That's when I had to get all this blood work and tests done. I was super nervous because my body shut down for basically about a month. I wasn't on any gear. I wasn't on nothing. And it was just my body was so stressed out. And I was running. Like I said, I was going to the gym at 2 a.m., do a set, cry my eyes out,

do a set, cry my eyes out, barely eating anything, and just trying to make it through every day. Being do a set you know cry my eyes out do a set cry my eyes out barely eating anything and just you know just trying to make it through every day being a man you got responsibilities i gotta show up for my other son i gotta show up for my business i gotta do these you know my career's really taken off so i can't i can't you know turn any projects down or i gotta be 110 on everything i do because it's it's crucial right for to continue. But I had all this negative stuff going on behind the scenes that I couldn't share. And it was eating me and eating me and eating me, and I didn't know it.

But what happened was eventually my body just went, turned off. And when that happened, it scared me. They ran all these tests. When it came down to it, they said, okay, your brain's good. Your heart's good. You're in, like, super prime shape, man. And they're like, but your body is in severe shock right now. And they're like, it won't calm down.

So I literally lost functions of my body for about a month. Like, I couldn't go into the gym. It was so hard to do. Like, I lost about 20 pounds within a couple days. I was about 220. I dropped down to I'm about 185 right now. days i was about 220 i dropped down to i'm about 185 right now um and then that's when i decided like when i started feeling a little bit better i said i'm gonna start cutting i'm gonna do some bodybuilding and i'm gonna change you know because it was always lift heavy strong strong strong mark

bell told me you should be as strong as you can at all times blah blah blah you know so strength strength strength and i was like you know what nah i i i wanna i wanna have those peaks on my biceps yeah i wanna see your striations in my chest yeah yeah yeah my arms are fucking huge dude you see the peaks on my bicep so uh no my chest is coming good man i'm feeling good i I started bodybuilding from there. But it was a big mental fuck because I like the strength. So when you got a chain, you're not strength training no more. And, you know, when you could put 315 on your chest and play with it, and now I can't bench it. For one, I can right now, but at first I couldn't.

And that was like, I'm going to be a weak old man. I'm going to be a weak old man. I'm going to be a weak old man. How do you change your mindset? You know, cause I know that you have a tendency or is that something you're even working on? Cause you have a tendency to sometimes say that even today you'll say I'm white trash or you'll say I'm dumb. You'll say, I hear you say stuff like that sometimes. I don't know if, I don't know if you're just being self-deprecating, kind of messing around. But I found it useful for me to do my best to – I haven't been able to eliminate all of it, but I do my best to try to eliminate as much of it as I can.

So when I say it, I'm not being negative, right? And I think that's what – everybody's offended. We talked about this. Everybody gets offended. I'm not saying it to everybody gets offended i'm not saying to be offensive i'm not saying to talk down on myself i'm white trash i grew up white trash i'm ignorant i you know i you ever watched trailer park boys i didn't so so there's a guy named ricky on and he always says he's ricky isms right did you grow up with a broken down car in your front yard if i had a front yard

so you already passed and we didn't even get to any other questions yeah but but that you know that that's something that will always be with me i know what it's like like i'll show when we get off the phone i'll show you videos of my living conditions as a child and the houses and you know there's those same living kids my grandma if you go to my grandma's house right now with my mom and my aunt she's down syndrome they don't have no teeth look it's bad bro she's 90 something years old they don't have a running bathroom there's holes all in the floor there's rats everywhere and here i am on television and they all look to me, but they don't do nothing for themselves.

So it's like you can't help them. And it sucks because I can't have that relationship with them like I want to. I say want to, but I would like to see them more and spend a little more time, but you can't because it's so depressing, and there's nothing I can do for them except give them some love when I see them. Right? But if I let them, they'll drain me for everything. And not not not because they're malicious.

They don't understand it. Right. Like they don't they have never been able to fight their way out the situation they're in. They don't even know no better. But I do. So I know to not put myself in those situations, because if I do, then first off, it's going to hurt me mentally because to see them continuously struggle still hurts, right? Even though it's not me, it's my parents, my mom, my grandma. I still care about them even though they had rough lives and bad and the things they put me through.

It's still, you know, I look at them as dumb. And I'm not saying to be offensive. They're dumb. I was dumb. I'm a lot more smarter now. But I'm still dumb, you know? Like, I'm still going to mispronounce words. I'm still going to, you know, like, but it is what it is, you know? I was terrible at school.

But, you know, if it comes to working out, I'll come work out all day. If it comes to teaching choreography on a film or wrestling or, you know i was terrible at school but you know if it comes to working out i'll come work out all day if it comes to teaching choreography on a film or wrestling or you know action stuff i that's how my brain works i get these ideas and i come up with things like my brain works in different ways but i can't fucking spell to save my life so i say i'm dumb you know well it's a joke but it's just like like i just know i'm not as educated as I like to be But I'm constantly learning So well real quick if you could adjust your beanie it got a little messed up when you adjusted your hat looks there we go That's a little bit better more presentable. Yeah

But thank you also, so I know you said you had you know quote nothing to lose But the stuff that you're doing you are really putting yourself out there i mean you're talking about being on camera in front of a bunch of strangers and then in people that you do know that you you probably hope that didn't watch whatever it was that you were a part of whatever project it was you're like i hope that guy doesn't see it because he's going to talk or whatever it may be so like other than quote having nothing to lose what made like what gave you the courage to literally put yourself out there to do some like very like extra extra how's the words word uh

extravagant shit that's gonna like like like vulnerability is like 100 when it comes to that sort of thing but you also didn't know how to act you didn't know how to make these connections but then all of a sudden you're like yeah i'm gonna'm going to go do that and I'm going to kick ass at it. But again, like you're putting yourself out there and being extremely vulnerable. It's like, what was it? It's really nothing to lose. I didn't have shit. So like you couldn't embarrass me any more than I was already embarrassed.

You couldn't push me down and I was already where I was at. I was low. I was low. Only place I had to go was up because anything lower would be death. You know, that's the truth. I had nowhere to go. So I wanted to go up. I was tired of living in those conditions. So, so I knew that I can confidently do these things or things like I didn't know that I could do I learned learned so like I practiced and I might have fucked it up the first couple times

but I kept coming back and most people don't keep coming back once they don't get it they quit it's not for me and you know again learned to when it gets hard that means you need to fucking work harder at it when it gets hard that means you need to practice i tell my son every day practice practice practice you know um i got good at bench pressing i said

good i can't say good around you motherfuckers because y'all are like come here smokey's little ass benching mother hey smokey you man you that's what we say every day pretty much uh but no i got decent at benjamin because fucking did it for years and I practiced and I tried every which way I could learn with you know bands and slingshot and this and that like same with squat I couldn't squat for nothing I never did legs

you know before really meeting Mark and the reason I wasn't doing them was because the way I was doing them were wrong and they hurt me and then I'd go train with somebody and you know instead of somebody teaching me Mark was the first person to sit down and go, oh, yeah, it's cool. You got some strength. But like, hey, let's position your feet like this and let's do this

and let's drop your ass back. And these little things, oh, I didn't know that. Oh, try these shoes on. Put a little lift in your feet. Your hips are this way. I learned. And I think if just be open to learning, if I could say anything to people at home, be open to learning. Because as soon as you close your brain off, you're fucked.

You know, as soon as you shut your brain off, you're dead. You're fishing in water. You know, dead fish in water. That's all it is. Because if you ain't learning, bro you're dying for real what do you think there's uh if you do think there's anything is do you think there's any way to get your son back yeah yeah and you know um i do i the the thing is i i think he just has to go through the process i think i don't think there's any talking i don't think there's anything they can do to reconcile us you know uh we have some differences and uh he has his differences i have my differences

where did where did you maybe go wrong i went wrong at losing my cool you know uh again the chip on the shoulder the resentment and all that stuff you know like i'm a fighter so as soon as like i can only take so much. And in that situation, I took it for a while and I kept it to my chest, kept it in my chest before I said anything to him. And then when I, like, I got so fed up with him, one day I blew up on him.

Like, instead of, like, we've, because we had several conversations, obviously, but they never went anywhere. And then finally, it just got to the point where I exploded. And when I exploded, well, the truth was, he called me a Facebook father in front of my friends at a wrestling show. And...

You're like, it's more Instagram, but anyway. Yeah, yeah, yeah, exactly. And he said it to hurt my feelings. Yeah. You know? But he said it in front of people, and it did hurt my feelings. Yeah. You know? But he said it in front of people, and it did hurt my feelings. And I had to leave.

And one of my friends told me right then and there, he said, man, if I was you, I would have slapped the fuck out of him. And I had to walk out because I started crying because it hurt me so bad. And I was like, man. And he probably thinks like that, you know, because I post about him so much because you're proud. Yeah. And you go, man, I'm so proud of my kid. I don't want to get in the middle. Did it lead you to say stuff to him well i told him fuck him i told him fuck him and you know everything is and and i truthfully truthfully i'll say it i meant it because he's

being hearted i can't take away the things that caused my my grief you know what I mean? My anger, my pain, all that stuff. Like, I can't turn it off, and I can't turn a blind eye to it, and I can't. And I love him. I'll just love him from far away. I love him more than anything. I'll look in the camera and say, I love you more than anything in the world.

I do, but I have to be here, and I have to be a man, and I have to take that step back, because he has to walk on his own feet, and he has to figure out who he is. And, you know, and one day, I told him, you know, when I was in the hospital, like, he has to walk on his own feet and he has to figure out who he is and you know and one day i told him you know when i was in the hospital like he didn't check on me right which was kind of weird and uh crushed me because like damn even when i thought i was gonna might die he didn't he was so stubborn he didn't check on me and i said hey this might kill me and i said one day if it kills me you better hope that we fix this and I didn't die.

You know what I mean? Because like, like, and I felt that way because at first I thought it was going to kill me. I didn't know if I was going to make it through it. I was questioning myself. We were talking about it earlier. I kind of went on probably off to the right like I always do. But I was questioning death. I was like, would death be better than not that i wanted to kill

myself or anything i not that it was just i was in so much pain from losing my son and i was so close to him from such a he was the one thing i had it crushed me it took my soul it took my spirit it took everything but then i had an amazing job i had an awesome wife i had you know my other son's amazing and like like this career i built and my friends and everything. But at the time, none of that mattered. All that mattered was I lost my son, and then we were having these issues, and it broke my heart. And this is the first time I'm speaking about it, by the way.

So besides with friends, besides our personal conversations. But, yeah this i've never spoken about this before it gets complicated you know like it seems sometimes these things happen in families and it seems like oh man there's got to be it's got to be some way to resolve it like some someone could talk to someone and someone could but it's just sometimes it's just these things get kind of stagnant they just kind of sit there well i was watching home alone for christmas yesterday and yeah it's a christmas movie right and the funny thing is a lot of things like look i'm not going through nothing that 500 million other fathers and mothers don't go through right

um home alone the old man remember the creepy old man at home alone like the looks like he's homeless the guy kevin's scared of he sees him in the church when they talk so he's when the guy sits in the church and they talk, they have a conversation. And he says, well, why are you in church? And he says, oh, well, this is the only place I can see my granddaughter because my son won't let me see my granddaughter. And he goes, we haven't spoken in so many years and blah, blah, blah. And, you know, it's just the same thing.

And you watch it on television. You're like, oh, man, it hits home. Everybody goes through it. And it's great. It's a little kid. He's asking such simple questions. Like, well, why don't you just go over there yeah yeah why don't you just call him and he goes well i i'm afraid i'm afraid if i do you know like i've tried to have conversations with my son we've we've

talked and as soon as we talk like it goes into places it doesn't need to go and i know for me as an adult like when he told me that comment, I said, hey, you're lucky I'm 40 and not 30 because if I was 30, I would have came over here and ripped your fucking head off. I would have because you're not going to disrespect me like that. But at 40,

I know that me going over there and kicking his ass would make me feel better at that time just to prove a point. But in the long run, it would do so much more damage and it would make it so much at that time just to prove a point. But in the long run, it would do so much more damage and it would make it so much more worse. Right?

And I'm thankful for me having that discipline now. Because like I said, back in the day, I would have went over there and just beat the hell out of him because he hurt me that bad with the comment. And I know it's not going to get me anywhere. I'm i lost track would you just ask me something it's all good um you know i think like i said i think sometimes these things are super hard to like to figure out you know and i think uh it's uh just relationships can be so complicated and then there's like a lot of a lot of people get involved a lot of other family members get involved and it

just gets to be it gets to be nasty and especially around the holidays it can be everybody takes sides even more even more complex look i've fallen out with most of the people a lot of people over you know i mean because some people don't understand my adoptive parents we've we've kind of had a falling out over and i haven't spoken to them really uh you know little text here there it's just nobody understands and they don't understand your position and they don't understand why you can't just you know oh just say i'm sorry and go you know he's 25 let him make his choices let him do this i don't know i have to treat him like i would treat anybody else i can't give him i gave him special treatment his whole life i can't give him special treatment anymore you feel like maybe to some degree um because you know being a parent

you could we can always uh look back and I could say you know maybe I could have done that a little better do you think maybe and we talked about this on the phone do you think maybe you stole maybe too many of his problems yeah and maybe just kind of set him up like a little too easy on certain things yeah he said that he said that and you know some ways He goes, oh, you did this. Oh, one reason why he was really angry at me. He says, you make me do all these things I don't want to do. And I said, well, like, what's that?

He said, oh, movies. And I said, well, you don't have to do movies anymore. And he got mad when that was a whole other side talk. But what it came down to was, I said, well, tell the world that you're angry at me for making you do movies. He said, no, because I would sound stupid. Because everybody knows it's a good opportunity. I'm like, yeah, exactly, bro.

Like, everybody knows it's a great opportunity. And he just, look, he walked in his dad's shoes for so long, and he'd done everything, like, dad just told him what to do. Now he's got to find out who he is, who Perry is, who PJ is, right? And I understand that. It just sucks that we're going through all this and we're not going to see eye to eye for a long time. Maybe never again.

Who knows? I've accepted that, but that's why I grieve so hard. That's why I went through such a process this year. That's why I had the stress on my body. That's why I lost all that weight because I know myself. Like, you guys probably know yourselves better than anybody else knows you. So I knew what I had to do mentally was I'm going to have to basically treat him like he does not exist or like he's just another person.

And that was a lot for me to accept. So when I got, you know, and it put my, it drained me. And then when I finally got the mental strength up, I was out here. I was out here. It was the week before my wedding, October 23rd was my wedding date. And, uh, I was leaving the gym about six in the morning. I just crushed a workout and we talk about God, right. And I, and I, I was driving home and I feel, I don't feel, I know God spoke to me and people can say what they want. They can call me crazy. God told me to pull over. I pulled over on the side of the road. And he for the first time, like I heard someone speaking to me.

If you want to know the truth. And he gave me everything I needed to know in life at this time, like to get through the situation. He told me that it was going to be all right and that I needed to enjoy my wedding. Because, you know, it was on my head that my son wasn't going to be there. And there's a lot of things. So he told me to enjoy my wedding and, you know, all my work with everything. And, like, he flashed my life before my eyes. I'm going to get a little sentimental on here.

I know I've cried before on here. But I tell Mark when I come here, it just brings up a lot of stuff because this place is a very special place to me. So when I was a kid, when I was a kid, I seen like Hulk Hogan and Jesse Ventura and Terry Funk in all these movies, right? Like Roadhouse and Pred predator and all these famous scenes and then you'd see the pictures of them in the magazines and jesse ventura's working out with arnold schwarzenegger and stallone's working out with hogan and you know and it was the top guys

the top guys worked out with the top stars and i wanted to be that i wanted to be it so bad i was chasing my dreams i was doing everything and i never got to where i wanted to be it so bad. I was chasing my dreams. I was doing everything. And I never got to where I wanted to be. I never got to that top spot, right? I was always, I wanted to be the heavyweight champion. I wanted to be this. I wanted to be that. And everybody was like, oh, you're too small. You're this.

You don't, you're not educated enough. You don't talk well enough. You're not presentable enough. You don't, you're not pretty enough. It was always why I couldn't do something. So I had that fuck you attitude, right? Well, then that week when God spoke to me, he sat me down, like, at this time. And, like, he just flashed everything.

And he said, hey, man, you're working out with Zac Efron. You're working out with all these elite people and all these, you know, all these actors and all. And they all, you know what they come up to me when they see me when I'm on set? They come up, oh, man, look, I follow yourself. I see, you know, they come up to me when they see me when I'm on set, they come up, oh man Luke, I follow yourself, I see me you know, like, they know who I am and then they go dude, how do I get arms like that, can you take me through an arm workout they gotta grab my arm, they gotta, you know

and it, like, I didn't realize that I worked myself into that spot, cause I was so focused on grinding, I was so focused on the things I didn't get and the things I didn't accomplish and the mess ups I had and the misses and all that stuff and things i was lacking i didn't realize everything i fucking did you know from a-list top movies with all the biggest stars from stallone schwarzenegger statham jamie fox you know, all the A-list directors, Peter Segal, you know, Peter Berg, Francis Ford Coppola, like the top, top, top, top guys.

I've got to work for them and do amazing projects and work myself into the positions I wanted to be in. But I'd never seen it because I was focused on what I didn't do or what I didn't have. Yeah. And this literally just happened in October. And it was all because, like I'm telling you, God pulled me over the side of the road and talked to me. And it sounds crazy, but again, there was a lot more to it.

And it was a process, but it was, I never asked him to come into my life. Well But I never asked him to come into my life. Well, I did ask him to come into my life. That's another story. But I didn't ask at that time. It wasn't because I was going through the things with my sons. That's what I'm saying. I wasn't in a time where I needed it.

I wasn't asking because I needed it. I needed it, so he gave it to me, which was, for me, amazing because I didn't know what that felt like. it to me which was for me amazing because i didn't know what that felt like and i when i went to church and i went to went when i went to uh anything with with someone who had experiences with god i couldn't relate because they would explain these things and they'd all god talked to me god did this guy did that and i couldn't really i said man that never happened to me i don't know what you're talking about well for the for the first time it happened. And when it did, it was magical. And it gave me the, I guess incentive would be the right word, to want to learn more and want to gain more knowledge. So I started making more of an effort to dig a little deeper and learn more

about religion and God and the process and everything. So that's what I've been doing. I've been spending a good amount of time. I say a good amount of time, not a ton of time, but like a good way more than I would normally do. I've been making an effort to like, you know, listen to the Bible and understand it a little bit and just, again, broaden my knowledge and broaden my horizons. Again, like we talk about earlier a lot on this podcast,

everything I've said today has been learning. If we go back to everything I've been talking about, it's been about learning. And that's one thing I've been learning about God. So if you have any God knowledge you want to drop on me, you know, your dad's always been a big supporter of that and always drop a little line here or there on me. So if you have anything you guys want to drop on me today live or on air off air i'm all ears i was curious man because you were mentioning that that car ride and you kind of sat to the side of the road before that like how often did you think about like how grateful you are for stuff because that's something that i consistently have to remind myself of i used to journal a lot and i'm sure i'm starting to bring

back journaling because of the conversation uh we were having via text thread um and you had a journal prompt you can mention that but that was a practice that even on days where like let's just say like i'd be like like you said you're always focused on the shit that's not going right you're always focused on the shit that you know is just like not great or this happened and this happened and this happened in the family and whatever but when you're able to shift that and just remind yourself of all the things that are good it it really just immediately shifts the mood yeah and that's something i've been trying to practice every day journaling again writing down specifically the things i'm grateful for because it's like it just shifts the focus and it's so fucking helpful well my wife brought this to me when we got together um

before we go to bed every night no matter if we're angry or if we you know because we we it's a relationship yeah every night ain't a happy night. Sometimes she's moody. Sometimes we had a bad day, you know, but we have a good relationship overall. But she makes me, both of us, say one thing we're grateful for for the day. She knows. So every night before we go to bed, we name one thing we're grateful for. And it's hard, right?

It's hard to always be grateful. Some days it's tough. You got to sit back and think because some days are just wrecked days. But there's a lot. Sometimes it sounds or feels kind of corny. Oh, I'm grateful for my relationship with you. But it's a great thing to fucking draw attention to if things are going good or if this thing in your life is something that is makes you feel good or is working well for you.

Then why wouldn't you give it some praise? No, 100 percent. And I think we should probably do that more. I think everybody should. Right. Everybody should talk about what they're grateful for. I never really had time to be grateful, to be honest. what they're grateful for.

I never really had time to be grateful, to be honest. I don't think I was sat back and really appreciated my opportunities because of I was always told I wasn't shit. Even when I did something good, everybody's like, who the fuck cares? Big whoop-dee-doo. Who do you think you are? You think you're hot shit now? Oh, you're in a movie?

Oh, you wrestled? Who gives a fuck? You know, and when you first start who gives a fuck you know and when you first start doing that stuff you do it you want acknowledgement right you want people to be like yeah yeah like when i go anywhere like when i wanted to tell people i'm in movies now it it's it's it's it's shifted it's the opposite i'm in a way where i never thought i would be mark you're a great example of it everywhere i go if I'm around you you tell people who I am and what I do my wife does the same a lot of my friends do the same it's cool it's bragging

but now I'm kind of like oh yeah you know to y'all yeah well to y'all be like fuck yeah Logan stabbed me in the head yeah you know i mean yeah i'm an x-man yeah i'm fast and furious whatever but um you know out in the real world you're just kind of like oh why they don't give a fuck that i'm in a movie why are you telling them that you know so but they do you know but but i'm just so tall is vin diesel yeah yeah yeah exactly but i'm so used to just people just you know shit knowing what you, you think you're better than me because you did this? No, I'm just happy about what I did, man. Can I be thankful? Can I be happy that I made it?

You know, can I be happy and thankful that? No, you're not supposed to be, right? And then the other thing, you know this too. Life's changed so much with social media. Dude, this is a great story. I fucked up one time. I think I fucked up with Batista. Batista was always awesome to me super cool like he was another guy when i was you know nobody was giving me a chance he's seen something in me he was super nice and

the first time we actually had conversation i was backstage at wwe working and um i was sitting you know back then like extras aren't allowed to sit with the contracted talent. So I was sitting by myself and Dave came over and sat with me and he could have sat with anybody else there. And he came by himself and he sat with me and he knew who I was. And we had a conversation and he put him over my work and, you know, he said, I'm gonna say a little word for him because I know you're talented. And that was nice, and Dave was always super cool, and you see how his career took off.

He worked real hard. He took a gamble on himself, and he worked really hard to get there. But when social media really started coming around, I'll never forget this because it was a weird market where, like, wrestlers don't take pictures. You're not supposed to ask each other for pictures and stuff like that. And I was trying to grow my social media, and I knew it was big to get, you know, content at the time. It was just kind of taking off.

And before we left, like, we were just hanging out. He came in town to shoot Kickboxer, and he calls me up. He said, come down, hang out, blah, blah, blah, at the hotel. So I went over and hung out with him. And at the end of the night, I was like, before I leave, I made the comment. I said, hey, can I take a picture so I could post for Instagram? I was like, you know, you got to keep relevant on social media,

like trying to build it at the time, you know? And I just remembered, like, it was really before anything took off. And he didn't say anything, but I could feel like it wasn't appropriate. You felt the energy switch. Yeah, and I felt like an asshole, and i was like man i'm trying to grow my career and i'm trying to grow myself and he's a big star and i don't want to you know like it's cool to get the rub and i you know you want to obviously you also want to brag about your friends like you're proud of them right like you somebody's so cool like you want i tell everybody

about mark you know i tell people about you i tell everybody i meet so many people that come here and they do cool things so i want to talk about it. And at that time, I was like, hey, let's take a picture for my social media, blah, blah. And then I kind of feel like we haven't really talked that much since then. You know, we've couple texts here and there, but like, I've never seen him again.

We never hung out again. We never done anything. And it wasn't nothing negative, but I had hung out with him several times before. And he blew up seriously, big time. And it might even be on his radar. And we've talked since then like i said text but uh it was just one of those odd positions i put myself in you know and it's a good learning uh situational because uh of the talent that you're around now and now you like uh you know when you're filming these movies,

you don't want to be that guy. No. Well, it's different now. Now everybody pops their phone out right away. Like, I'm serious. Everything's on social media nowadays. So, like, you can kind of get away with it. Like, now people take pictures backstage at WWE all the time.

Back then you used to get kicked out if you were caught with doing something like that. So it's changed so much. The industry's changed so much. Like fitness. You know that. So it's changed so much. The industry's changed so much. Like fitness, you know, the fitness industry's changed so much. Like you trained at Westside Barbell. What would have happened back then if somebody walked in with a camera? I was like, yo, I want to get this squat set on camera. You know, they would have probably fucking beat the shit out of you.

They would have broke the camera probably. Yeah, yeah, they would have broke the camera and broke your ass. It was hard for me to even get a camera in there when my brother was filming a movie. I'm like, this is going to be a, an actual movie. Billy's like, I don't care. So let's say that you've already gotten your blood work done with Merrick health. You've gotten the right supplementation. You've handled your nutrition, but how about the people close to you?

How about the people in your life? Recently I had my mom get her blood work done with Merrick health and she's gotten her blood work done many times in the past. But Merrick did an amazing job at looking at her blood work and giving her the supplement ideas to help her move forward. Because one thing is, is when you go to hospitals and they get your blood work and they do your blood work, when they look at your numbers, they're comparing you to the average person. They're not trying to optimize you and help you move forward. They're just trying to make sure that you're not breaking. Whereas Merrick Health, when their patient care coordinators look at your blood work and when they looked at my mom's, they're trying to figure out how to optimize you and make you live the most vital life possible. So if you've

gotten your blood work done, great. But think about the people close to you. Would it be good for them to get their blood work done and get this type of work done? If so, Andrew, how can they get in contact with Merrick Health? Yes, super important stuff, guys. Head over to MerrickHealth.com slash PowerProject. That's M-A-R-R-E-K Health.com slash PowerProject. And at checkout, enter promo code PowerProject to save 10% off the PowerProject panel, the PowerProject checkup panel, or any lab that you select on their website. Again, MerrickHealth.com slash powerproject. Links in the description as well as the podcast show notes.

You were talking about going to some boys' homes and going in there and talking a little bit. Yeah. Did you ever have anybody – two questions, I guess. Did you ever have anybody that was relatable in that way? Did you ever go or did someone ever come to your school or like anything like that or and also um did you deny the love from your uh dad that adopted adopted you no i didn't deny the love um that that was always a kind of i'd say odd relationship because he didn't have a wife and kids when he first adopted me and then um you know i was a teenager so like i was already set in my ways so he knew he couldn't push on me

too much uh because i would go the opposite but he did teach me lessons and uh one lesson he taught me i tell this famous story that i love so much is uh one discipline thing he taught me is he had punished me at one point and I wasn't supposed to be on the phone because uh I didn't take out the trash so trash comes twice a week and I missed one so it piles up quick so he put punishment from the phone so he takes the phone away. Well, I'm way smarter than he is. Of course, I thought I was. And I said, he's going to go to work.

So when he goes to work, I'll be home from school earlier. I'll be on the phone. I'll call my girlfriend. I'll call my friends. And I'll do all this stuff, right? So I use the phone while he's gone. He thinks, you know, I don't think anything of it. And the next day he comes around,

guess who forgets to take out the trash again? And he also called the phone while I was gone. We didn't have a call waiting, so the phone was busy, so he knew I was on the phone. I didn't know this because I wouldn't have a way to learn this while I'm on the phone to know that he tried to call the house, right? Yeah. So the next day I go to school.

He leaves in the middle of the day. I guess he must have took a lunch break or something, comes back home. I come home from school that day. He took all the trash from outside. He brought them all inside. He dumped every single can on my bed in his own house. So not only did I have to clean out all the trash on my bed, I had to wash my bed sheets

my room smelled like shit but he taught me a lesson and I never forgot to take the trash out so I mean like he couldn't hit me right he had in like like like he had to teach me some way he had to be creative because he's told me a couple times take the trash out okay you don't want to take trash out take the phone away, that didn't work. So he had to get my attention somehow, and he did. And, you know, I'm thankful for those things. And so he didn't – that was his way of showing love. You know, it wasn't going to be I love you, give me a hug. You know, I don't even know if his family really did that.

First question, what was the first question? The other question was did you ever have anybody that was like a role model that was like relatable where you're like oh i maybe i can figure something out because this guy comes from like a background that is education oh you i thought you told my cabin yeah sorry i didn't mean to cut you off um throughout life or just like as a child just uh home age just like any was there? Just like any, was there any hope? You know, was there like, did you, you know, sometimes somebody will. That's what I'm asking, age though.

Because you got to give me a range because like now there's seven guys. Yeah, from when you're younger. When I'm younger. Like someone in Ireland or something might have looked up to Conor McGregor or you always hear people talk about with boxing. You always hear people talk about like Muhammad Ali boxing you always hear people talk about like muhammad ali or tyson's background and people relate to him and then they i mean i had my celebrities but like you know like back then it wasn't like it was today you didn't have all the accessible to the internet and see the backstage shit or have them talk and

it was all you know everything was a show back then so what you've seen on magazines and the news is what you saw but there's nobody like in your hometown. No. Nobody's like brother like made it out and did something cool. Nah, but I had people who were good to me. I had Vic Del Giorno, you know, he awesome guy. He was just at my wedding. He was my coach in baseball when I was like 10 years old, you know, and I didn't play much sports growing up. But like when I did, like a couple times I got to play on a baseball team,

I did there. He gave me an opportunity. I still great with him. He has a podcast. I got to play on a baseball team. I did there. He gave me an opportunity. I'm still great with him. He has a podcast. I'm always on his podcast. I mean, this is a guy who coached me when I was 32 years ago. Wow. And we're very close.

He was just at my wedding. And he was just always a good positive influence. I can't say a mentor because he wasn't teaching me life, but he was always a good positive influence. I can't say a mentor because like he, he wasn't teaching me life, but he was always a good positive influence. So I had positive influences throughout my life here or there, but, um, nothing consistent.

I didn't have anything I looked up to was, was wrestling and television and film. So, so I wanted to be those guys, you know, I want this bigger, stronger. Look,

the truth is bigger, stronger, faster changed my life. I probably talked about it on this podcast every time I'm on here and I'm being humble, but like I came here today, I cried. I tell you how,

you know, how much you guys mean to me and, and they might not want to hear it at home, but the truth is Mark Bell and Chris Bell changed my life. And I'll cry right now and tell you that. Bigger, stronger, faster changed my life. I was in a real rough stage, and I was young, and I didn't have shit. And I was working so hard to try and make it.

I was working hard, man, and I was fucking in credit card debt. My minimum payment was like 900 a month. And that was just killing myself trying to get out. And I was living, I was renting a room. And, you know, I had a 10-year-old son at the time. And like everything was just fucked up, man. And I went to Blockbuster and I was going to rent something. I don't even remember where I was going to rent something. I don't even remember where I was going to rent,

but I never did this before. I seen Bigger, Stronger, Faster there, and it just jumped out at me. I never grabbed something I didn't watch a preview for. And I swear, I said it jumped out, and I said, what is this? I'm going to get it. And I rented it, and I rented whatever else I rented that night too, but I completely changed my thought. Like Bigger, Stronger, Faster was the first thing I watched. I watched it and everything with Mike and all that stuff.

Dude, like I wasn't really lifting that much back then. Like I didn't know a lot about lifting. I was lifting, but I didn't know a lot. And like I seen stuff online, and I was following things, and I was just starting to get to, you know know find out like about hardcore gyms and stuff and so i seen you guys lifting and i seen the story with mad dog and i knew who mad dog was i'd seen all the matches and i watched the stuff with saturn a ton of times and like like i seen all these things with him and it fucking hit me bro i. I bawled cry that night.

I was bawling crying to my girlfriend at the time. I said, I got to work with this guy. I got to get in touch with Chris Bell and I got to work with this guy. And she said, how the fuck are you going to do that? I said, I don't know, but I'm going to get in touch with this guy. And I looked him up, and I realized we had some mutual friends, and I called Kevin Kleinrock in an accident and put me in touch with Chris.

And he did, and me and Chris had lunch. And I came to L.A., and me and Chris Chris had lunch and we worked out at Gold's. My brother's a loser, by the way. He's always available. It wasn't like he had to set up some giant meeting with him. The movie was just so relatable to me because I was struggling with life and I was struggling with wrestling. I was struggling with trying to make a name for myself. And I wasn't addicted to drugs or anything.

I didn't have no substance abuse problems, but my family, whole family did. So everything related, you know, with Mike, I was relating to. And I didn't relate to y'all's good family and the brothers and how y'all loved each other and all that. I didn't relate to any of that. But, um...

But it just, I... It hit me on all aspects. And one thing led to another and I met Chris and we became brothers. And then, you know, Chris, so he got to meet Mark. And then, you know, Mark, I was friends with CT Fletcher and I connect them with CT, but like I would go train with CT and it was just all kick your ass, kick your ass, kick your ass.

But I wasn't really learning. Well, I was learning, but not like, you know, he wouldn't go, this is proper form, this is how you do this. And when Mark invited me up to do the first podcast back in the day and get a workout in and taught me how to deadlift and squat properly, and that was my first time ever squatting and deadlifting properly, and it legit changed my life, and it fired me up, and it, you know, took me in so many different directions

and helped me get bigger, helped me get stronger, helped me get faster, helped me do all those things i wanted to be and he started connecting me with people you know hey this this can help you here and then or or he would say hey somebody somebody would contact me and say hey mark bell told me to contact you and and then you know you made a connection if i knew mark con told me to contact they're great people so like we just started helping each other and and and you know i i'm speechless because if i didn't have mark and chris bell i definitely wouldn't be where i am today and i can i'm sorry i'm very it's it's hard for because you guys don't know what you mean to me. Y'all don't know the ways you've helped me,

the influences you had on my career, not just help me, but in turn help so many others because I'm able to pass it down. So that's why I fucking actively go out of my way to text Mark and tell him, thank you. And I do it to Chris and I probably bother him when I do it. I'm serious. I probably do.

Cause I say it's a fucking broken record, but I'm going to always sell him, tell him, thank you. I'm always going to tell you how appreciative I am of you and your brother and your father. You know what I mean? Because you guys have, you didn't have to give me the time of day.

You didn't have to show me. You said, you said, you know, you measured the character of a man by not what he does, but what he doesn't have to do. You didn't have to do any of that shit for me. You know, I don't know a lot of quotes from a lot of other people. I can't quote, you know. Shakespeare. Shakespeare. I can't.

But I can fucking quote Mark Bell. I'll tell you that. You know? You changed my life. You changed my kid's life. You changed my student's life. And you did that because you're a fucking good man. And your family's good and your brother's good.

And you guys never asked me for anything. All you wanted to see was me get better. And, you know, for me, no matter who, what I do, or where I am in my career, I'll stop what the fuck I'm doing to come over here for Mark Bell. You know? Like, that's the bond you have with me. I'm not your best friend. I'm not going to be able to spend five hours talking to you on the phone

all the time because you're busy, I'm busy, whatever. But I promise you this. When you call me, I'm coming. And if I need someone killed I know who to go to you motherfucking right I make some calls I can't get my hands dirty anymore the right people yeah you fucking don't And he's a beast. Fuck. We're going to see him. That's why I'm ready to put you in the figure four here. Don't think I forgot. Oh, my God.

Why not just get a regular job and go that route? That's not me. I hated life working. I never wanted to be a regular worker. I never wanted to be. And there's nothing against regular work. You did do a lot of that, though. I did a ton of it.

A lot of plumbing you mentioned earlier. Yeah, it taught me discipline. Hard work. It taught me structure. it taught me discipline. Hard work. It taught me structure. It taught me discipline. A month ago, I sat down with the guy who gave me my plumbing job. I took him to lunch. I hadn't seen him in years.

I just took him to lunch and thanked him. I said, hey, you taught me these things in life that I needed. You instilled discipline in me. I didn't want to go to work every day. I didn't want to get up early. I didn't want to do these shitty jobs. And he told me, and I said, I'm grateful I did, though, because you taught me so much.

And therefore, transition later in my life had helped me with just, you know, now I can fix things in my house I need to fix. I don't have to call somebody. And I can teach my son to do those things. But, like, he told me, he said, well, that all goes back to old man Blair. That's the guy who owned the company before him. He goes, and that's because when I got out of high school, Blair hired me. And I called Blair up about 4 o'clock in the afternoon and said, okay, just finished my last job bringing the truck in.

And he goes, bringing the truck in? Oh, no, man, I got a job for you in the east. And he goes, oh, well, it's 4 o'clock. If I go out to the east, it's going to take me an hour to get there, and I'm not going to get home until 6 o'clock. And he's like, what's that, son? You want to come park the truck? No, no, no, sir. I'm on my way to the east it's gonna take me an hour to get there and you know i'm not gonna get home to six o'clock and he's like what's that son you want to come park the truck no no no sir i'm on my way to the east and he goes but this is what that motherfucker would do because i get done with that job at six o'clock i call him and say hey all right just finish it on my way and go okay i got one more for you on your way home now i'm not getting home to 7 30 8 o'clock yeah That instills character, discipline, some educational words that I'm probably not familiar with that Mark knows a lot better than I do.

But, you know, you build character, right? Like I had to do things I didn't want to do, but it made me a better person. And you think I want to come stretch for 20 minutes before I work out? No, but I have to, and I know it's going to make my workouts better. Discipline. Discipline is a big factor in life that didn't come along until a lot later in life for me. I don't know where you guys found, I mean, you're a champion in everything,

so your discipline has been around forever. Nasima, you're a phenomenal athlete. Where was that point in your life? Where did you really find discipline? For me, it was like very late, you know, later than I wanted it to be,

to be, to be honest, very late. Where, where did you find discipline? Where, where was, where was discipline?

Did you grow up with discipline? Like, and I don't mean paddle, like, hey, I have to get up and run at this time. Hey, I have to eat these meals on time. Hey, I have to do this. Where did discipline come into your life? I would say for me, I think it first happened, uh,

when I was pretty young, I think I was probably like almost going into like high school. Um, I was already like, well, I was already working out. my brother showed me working out my brother showed me how to lift and stuff like that I'd work out with them some stuff though isn't really disciplined because some stuff's like oh my brother's lift so I lifted I didn't necessarily like love it yet didn't fall in love with it yet but as I got into like more sports as I got into like track and football and as I got into more stuff i just kind of recognized things that i wasn't good at i remember in football i remember like running and just being like really really winded and being like one of the last guys like in this um this drill that we were doing um we're running like 100 meters and you you would run the length of the football field and you would do so every x

amount of seconds or minutes and i could run fairly quickly fairly fast but uh i was like dead last on on this stuff and i'm like man it's just so i just remember that feeling and i was like whatever this is like i i because there's guys that are better than me and there's guys that are they're bigger than me so it's not just because i'm because i that was the excuse you know like i'm I'm, I'm a little bit heavier, I'm a little bit bigger, but I'm like, there's another guy in the team is like six, five and he's, and he's crossing the line before me. So just, I think at that point, I started to kind of recognize, like I could probably make some changes and probably do some. So I just, I would, um, wake up super early and like work out before I went to school and,

and stuff like that. And I noticed that I got better. And then as I got older, that happened more and more and more. And I was like, Oh my God, these variables are like so controllable. And I think I was blocked off to a lot of stuff too. Cause like I did it physically and I didn't really recognize that I could do it mentally. Like it took me a long time to catch on. So it started probably when I was a teenager, but I'm still working on like getting deeply rooted with discipline. But I would say it got really, really shaped probably like almost like mid-30s. So it took a while. Yeah, and I'm finding the mind-muscle connectivity and stuff.

Like when I was powerlifting, I didn't have that. It was just come in, try and rip it up and try and give all I got. But now, like with the bodybuilding stuff, I started feeling like that connectivity to the muscle, and I really enjoy that. It's a good feeling when you can single out a muscle and you really feel it activating. I really enjoy that feeling. So I wish I could have found that early on because I don't know if I could have been potentially better than I am now

if I would have found that earlier. What about for you, Encima? Oh, discipline-wise? I was super fortunate. Even though my dad wasn't there my mom was extremely involved and my mom was uh she put me in like uh music stuff when i was younger so i learned how to play the clarinet and piano super well uh and i but i stopped playing that in high school but the thing is is like that's something that i had to go to practice

for that every single week i'd have for that every single week i'd have to practice every single day i'd have to get ready for solos and recitals and shit for my clarinet but i was able to see that okay i can get good at this type of thing and you really did did you like it when i was younger i liked it because i got really good at it but when i got to high school she was like if you want to you can keep playing i was just like nah and i truly like realized i didn't like the clarinet but the guitar is something that i dig that's why i picked it up in adulthood i think that's kind of cool that's a good lesson as a parent like it's not easy to kind of you know push your kid into something or to kind of like quote unquote make them do

something but you might want to give them exposure to something that they might not think that they like because it might teach them discipline. So it's like you really – it's easier to learn that with something that you don't really love. Like, hey, we're going to soccer practice. You're all fired up. You're always excited probably every time. But your mom wanted you to be well-balanced as well, I imagine. Absolutely.

And that's another thing that I'm extremely grateful for because you mentioned how there was nobody in your life when you were younger that really told you you could do things when you said, I want to do this. Everyone was, like, talking shit on it. She was, like, the things that I wanted to do, even though she wanted me to, like, head towards medicine and other stuff, like, she put me in soccer, she put me in baseball, she put me in basketball, she put me in all these sports.

And going to practice, getting better, I had that experience of anything that I want to do, I can just practice it and get better at it. So I never had a limiting mindset on the things that I wanted to take up. And that kind of bled its way into myself as an adult. And I'm thankful for that. I'm lucky in that sense. Even though it was just her, that helped so much.

So it's just like, if you got kids, or if you know a kid, you know what I mean, that doesn't have that, doesn't have somebody like that, you can be that person to kind of like feed them that type of idea. Because like you mentioned, you can learn anything. Yeah. And that's what I keep just telling my son, my youngest son. It's like I just want to teach him as much as possible. He's partly crazy, right? Super crazy.

Because I remember last time he was like a little guy he's awesome though and you said it was you said he was nuts he's calmed down but he yeah he's he's i mean his first word was fuck like that's right oh yeah he used to get so mad when he's like he swears a lot i think you said yeah i used to like super aggressive yeah super aggressive like like but but like remember andrew yeah i remember this like didn't he tell someone to fuck all the time yeah as a kid dog he did like you could beat his Aggressive, too, right? Yeah, super aggressive. Hey, remember that, Andrew? Yeah, I remember this. Didn't he tell someone to fuck off? All the time. As a kid, dog.

You could beat his ass. It didn't matter. I never hit him. His mom hit him. But his mom would tell me, she'd call me up, and she'd go, my ring name's Orin. She'd go, Orin, you got to do something. She goes, my hand hurts from hitting him so hard.

It ain't even affecting him. He just looks at me. He'd tell me, he used to tell me, oh, I'm going to be so bad when you drop me off at mom's. He's like, hey, she can hit me. It don't matter. I'm still going to be bad. I remember you saying that. Yeah, I'm going to be bad.

He's amazing. I'm going to be bad. He's hilarious. So funny. Yeah, great little actor. He just started wrestling. He's in his second year wrestling he's in seventh grade and uh he's getting his ass kicked dude they're beating the shit out of him look because like he's varsity he's seventh grade varsity second year wrestling

his wrestling team to be honest isn't great like it's a it's a smart school so they're not very athletic driven it is it's not very athletic driven right so is. It's not very athletic driven, right? So he's going and he's wrestling. His first match in sixth grade, bro, he wrestled a 17-year-old senior girl last year, and I thought she was going to kill him. I was like, please don't let this girl. I'm like, how can this grown woman be wrestling my little bitty son? Because he's in sixth grade, and he's wrestling a 12th grader.

But that's the same weight class. So, and to be honest, he held his own a little bit. Okay. Like he took her down. He got one takedown and I thought she was going to kill him. And so I'm just glad he walked away. Was she being kind of nice since she was older or was she giving it to him? I think she was trying to get into him a little bit.

All right. Because, you know, they're about the same size. She probably had 10 pounds on them. I'd forfeit if I was going to go against a girl at that age. I just feel like the singlet situation is not going to be good. What am I thinking about? I'm rolling around with a girl. It's not going to work.

You have zero control at that age. You don't control at that age. Especially being in sixth grade, you said, right? And then you're going up against basically a woman, right? Because she's 17. Yep. Yeah, no, that'd be tough. But he he's enjoying it he's been getting his ass kicked i said look just stay with it and eventually you're gonna get the strength you can get the size but look he's doing things that i go in the room before bed he's doing push-ups

you know i mean so these are things at 12 years old like I didn't do that. Positive influences. They go a long way. He sees dad eating this. He sees dad training this. I see my parents banging dope. I'm walking in the bathroom. My mom's smoking crack. There's a difference in what the hell I'm seeing

compared to what my kid's seeing. Yeah. I know that I'm influencing him in a direction that will help him for the rest of his life if i teach him how to eat properly now if i teach him how to take care of himself and you know these things i didn't know just the stupidest things like like like i was explaining to you earlier before we went on air i was explaining to these guys that i had a stomach problem for years for over 20 years i had a stomach problem and i went to several doctors i couldn't fix they gave me every medicine upper gi

and you know what their effect was the reason why i had stomach problems was i was overeating i would stuff i was so used to being poor that every time I ate, I stuffed my face until I could not eat anymore. And nobody ever said, hey, man, are you eating too much? Are you doing this? No, that wasn't even a question. It was just life. It was just, oh, well, what effects are you, what symptoms are you having? Oh, well, let's give you this medicine.

Oh, well, we're going to have to take you and do this. I mean, look, just for my coccyx the other day, I went to an orthopedic for the first time. We were talking about my coccyx earlier. Yes. And we were making jokes about it. But the reason I found that out is I went to an orthopedic for the first time. And the second time I seen this guy, the first time was for my ribs. It was a rare injury.

He couldn't fix it, couldn't do anything, time to heal it. Second time I went to see him, he told me the same thing. This is such a rare injury. He's never seen it before, blah, blah, blah. And you know what he told me? Right off the bat, recommend he wanted to prescribe me some medicine. And he said that they were probably going to have to do surgery and might have to cut that area of my tailbone off.

He doesn't know, but they want to start talking to a specialist. They want to talk to a spine specialist. This is two weeks ago, bro. This is two weeks ago. bro. This is two weeks ago. I'm an athlete. If I didn't know what the fuck I was talking about and I didn't know health and I didn't know my body and I didn't know this, they'd be

trying to cut me open, bro. Yeah, you'd believe it because he's a doctor. Yeah. Yeah. So you know what I mean? I'm thankful for the education that I have. I'm thankful for the Power Project putting have. I'm thankful for the power project, putting out all this free knowledge for people to learn and do things like go to Merrick health and do your blood work. And you know what I mean?

Get your levels tested. So many little things that you guys give out for free that a lot of people can pick up on to help. Cause if I didn't get it, if I didn't know better, I'd be, I'd probably be taking some drugs right now and not, you know, over-the-counter, behind-the-counter drugs, whatever you call it. Prescribed drugs. Yeah. Prescribed drugs. And

setting up a surgery date. But since my wife's a physical therapist and I take care of myself. Just get that finger up the butthole. Yeah, gotta get the finger up the butt. There we go. And we'll be... Learn that from the Power Project. You know. That's what we talk about all got to get the finger off the butt. There we go. And we'll be all good. You learned that from the PAF project. You know this. That's what we talk about all the time. One finger, not two.

You're working on the movie Iron Claw. What are some of the things that you did? What are some of the experiences you had? Because a lot of times you're like directing some of the action scenes, right? Yeah, coordinating the action scenes right yeah coordinating the action scenes putting together and teaching the fight so it's a iron claw was a cool project because it was it was a true story you know everybody knew how popular the von eric's were

um oh yeah there's a trailer right there it looks like jack was right so my god yeah he looked incredible he's uh so he's so shredded and jacked in the movie that he's wearing like kind of a not not a really tight shirt but this scene where he's just wearing like kind of a normal shirt and you see his abs like layers of abs just right through his shirt you're like holy fuck he really took his time getting jacked for this you know what i like is uh those shorts are back in style now oh that dude that dude from The Bear. Yeah, Jeremy. Oh, he's such a good actor. He's great.

Jeremy's awesome. So hard of a worker, too. Now, Holt, the dad, how did you think he did? I thought he was absolutely incredible. Oh, so good, right? Yeah, he was amazing. Holt was amazing. He's got to win an Oscar for this performance.

He was unbelievable. He has to be at least nominated because Ht's performance as as the day was just so oh like like you love him and you hate him at the same time but but like like because he was so stern he was so stern and so raw and rough but that's how it was back in the day you know there wasn't no crying you couldn't just you know you you that dad didn't give love. Dad didn't hug their kid there and say, come here, son. Everything is going to be all right. Let me take you for ice cream.

You know, back then, your dad was like, I don't care. Get your ass out in the field and do this work, boy. It's a fun movie. I liked it a lot. How did you end up getting into coordinating stunts? Well, I was a stuntman. Well, I am a stuntman well i am a stuntman so uh from there obviously my your wrestling background probably helped with that yeah of course because because because we coordinate a lot and we choreograph a lot in wrestling right there's a lot of

choreography that goes along with wrestling so we put it together but my first project was uh a film called not my first project my first project I did some coordinating on was Mysterious Island, Jules Verne Mysterious Island. Remember that movie? I don't. So, well, The Rock was in the Disney version. Oh, okay. So then they made, you know, back in the day when they had a big movie,

sci-fi would always do a knockoff or something. Yeah. It's like a cheap version from Sci-Fi Network. Yeah. It's like a cheap version from Sci-Fi Network. So when Jules Vernon's Mysterious Island came out with The Rock for Disney, they had the Sci-Fi version. So I got casted as like this evil pirate in it.

And it was me and my buddy Sean Brolin, another buddy Eric, and we're in this one scene. Well, we were in a few scenes, but the stunt coordinator that day, he was juggling two projects, and he had an emergency on the job. He had to leave and go to the other project. So he goes, Luke, you're the wrestler here. You got the fighting experience. You got to coordinate this little fight scene for y'all.

I didn't know a fucking thing, bro. I mean, I knew how to coordinate fights, right, from wrestling, but, like, I didn't know movies. I was still very young. And all I knew was an opportunity was dropped in my lap. I had to do well with it. I couldn't let this coordinator fail because if I failed, he failed, and he probably wouldn't hire me again.

And it wasn't like it was this big, difficult scene. It was a simple fight scene. But for somebody that doesn't have that much experience and you know also now a director's coming up to me mark shepherd comes up to me he says uh oh luke you know at the time he gives me his lens he goes you think we should shoot this with a 50 i didn't know what a 50 was you know i'm like yeah 50 sounds great man let's shoot a 50 maybe a 55 sounds good like maybe a 53 he would have been like those don't exist like yet so uh yeah it was so funny dude so i bullshitted you know i just oh yeah and then uh i hated that i had to do that though because i was it was awkward right yeah and i and i i was i got put in the position But the guy left me in it because he trusted me.

And I don't think he would have made a poor decision. So I coordinated the scene, and we shot it, and it was great. And I was like, oh, it gave me a little confidence. You can do that. I can do it. Well, it was the same with acting and film. When I first got into it, I didn't know somebody like me could be in wrestling and acting in television shows. I thought you had to be from Hollywood to do that stuff. You know, I didn't know somebody like me could be in wrestling and acting in television shows. I thought you had to be from Hollywood to do that stuff.

You know, I didn't know. And again, my whole life, everybody always told me, oh, you're not, you don't have this. You don't speak properly. You're, you know, or you're not pretty enough or you don't have whatever it is. And then all of a sudden people all started going, hey, man, you did really good at this. Oh, man, we like you. Look. Oh, you look. This was awesome. Oh, good at this. Oh, man, we like you. Look. Oh, you look.

This was awesome. Oh, you crushed this. Oh, we want you in this. And then I started kind of building myself up because somebody else started building me up. And I always had some confidence, but I never had somebody. My confidence was more arrogance, I would say, because it had to be. It had to be. So everything I had to come in and do was I had to because it had to be. It had to be.

So everything I had to come in and do was I had to get it done. I had to come in here and work out with Mark Bell. I had to work out with Mark Bell. I had to do what the, you know, I'm not going to do what he's doing, but I had to do what he tells me to do, no matter if I didn't know what I was doing or not. Same in those situations. I had to do whatever the hell I had to do to get it done,

to grow my career and be what I wanted to be. And now all of a sudden people started. And once I did a good job at it, I said, okay, well, if I work a little harder here, I could get better here. And if I work harder here, I can get better there. And if I do this, again, the learning, the practicing, that's been like the subject matter today, learning and practicing. And I just started, you know, working on more things.

I started taking my phone and recording myself do stupid things and just, like, practice or talking to myself and going in the camera, shooting promos or trying to act out a scene. And just, like, I would just be doing it. Like, I'd pick a scene, and I would walk down the street. It's the same way I would do with wrestling. I would walk everywhere. and i would walk down the street because same way i would do with wrestling i would walk everywhere if i'm walking down an aisle in a grocery store there's some you know cereal boxes or something i'm giving it a wrestling question you know and

people think and walmart think i'm fucking nuts and i am but i'm nuts because i'm doing it for a reason right like like like like when i when I'm practicing a scene, if I got some dialogue, I wouldn't want to walk around and be in character. But now I'm like, I'm studying for my job. So I might walk around this fucking hallway in character. Oh, hell yeah, doing my Steve Austin. Just practicing whatever my dialogue is. And you can't be embarrassed about it.

I have to become what I need to become in order to pull that job off. Yeah. So if it's wrestling, if it's film, if it's coming on here and podcasting, you know, we've talked about fitness. We've talked about my personal life. We talked about my son. We talked about film. We've been all over the place.

You know, and typically, like I you wouldn't share none of that stuff but I'm open so I want to share it and I want to share my experiences because somebody out there can relate to that people know what it's like to go hungry you know people know what it's like to have a problem with their child and not speak to them people know what it's like to lose someone people know what it's like to have relationships get get fucked up you know people know what it's like to have some get fucked up. You know, people know what it's like to have some success here or there or do good or get a pat on the back, you know?

Everybody loves to be patted on the back. Nobody likes to be told they're doing something wrong or they're fucking up. But sometimes you got to be told you're fucking up, right? Somebody needs some... Mark had to tell me, hey, you're doing this wrong. And I, oh, shit, okay, well, nobody ever told me that before. So I have to fix it.

Now it's up to me to fix it. So self-awareness, we didn't talk about that. You know, I think that's one thing a lot of people, I tend to think I have good self-awareness. I know I talk a lot. I know I bring my conversations in different directions. I try and fix that. I know that I'm a lot to handle.

And I'm honest because I'm all over the place. And that's just how I function. Like sometimes I haven't mastered a lot of the things I do yet. I might start something right here. I might be working on something right here, and all of a sudden something pops in my head, and I have to stop what I'm doing right here and go do what pops in my head,

or else I won't do it, or it won't get done. And then I'll come back to this. You're aware of it. You've got to do that. Yeah. So there's little things that I'm aware of. It sucks because I would rather just focus on this one thing and finish this project. But I know that if I don't stop, I'm not going to go do this over here or I'll lose out or I'll forget it or I'll forget what the idea was.

So I know that my focus isn't always there. air. I like that you, uh, when you called me, you said, um, you know, you have the situation with your son and, uh, maybe you're not as focused as you would like at the moment. And you decided to do a bodybuilding show. That's kind of why you set it up. I think it's important for, uh, people listening to kind of hear that because I think a lot of times people are, I don't know, people just, sometimes they need goals. Sometimes they need like a North Star. Yeah, goals are great. Everybody should have goals. You should have a vision of where you want to be and where you want to see yourself going.

But here's the thing. Everybody has ideas of what they want for their self, but they don't always put the steps. They don't take the steps needed to go in that direction. And then they often wonder why they fail and why they never got what they want. Here's what I really liked about what you told me, though, is that you wanted to do a bodybuilding show, not necessarily just to do a bodybuilding show. You wanted to do a bodybuilding show to get leaner, to get in better shape, to have the experience of doing a bodybuilding show,

but then you want to do another one. And then you want to just chill and you want to just try to stay at that body composition-ish for as long as you can because you want to kind of rebrand yourself. Because what I said was, and he hit it on the head, but what I said was I want to do one, right? And I'm going into the first one blind, no experience. I'm going to get some coaching.

I'm going to talk to some guys and get some help with it. But I know what I really want to do is for my first competition I would have preferred to spend a couple days with someone during their last week of prep like a you know somebody who's serious in it and go to prep with them and go to the show with them but I don't have time to do that now so anytime I've ever had to go to like Olympia Arnold's always been with Isatori and them so I've always been there as making an appearance come to the booth you know or come over to slingshot booth hanging out with you guys i've never done the actual competition so out of respect for the sport i want to learn more about the sport of bodybuilding

and uh show proper respect because anything i go into like acting like i want to respect i want to be respectful to anyone who does that as a career. I would never want to come disrespect the guys who take bodybuilding as a career or powerlifting anything. When I'm going into somebody else's world, you know, I want them to know, Hey, I'm doing this not because I think it's easy, not because I think I'm better than you, not because I think I can beat you, but because I admire what you guys do. And I want to totally respect what you do and the efforts you put in. So please show me and teach me what you know or anything that any tidbits that I can pick up on to help me make my journey a little better and make my knowledge a little more powerful, you know. And I think that going into the second with the first one, I don't know what to expect.

So I give myself a second one. So after the first one, I can go, okay, well, I kind of got a little wind in my wings. Now I know what to expect for the second one. And then figure it out from there if I want to do anything else with it. But if I can knock two out and, you know, I know I can do well. I know my drive drive i know my discipline i you know lord forbid you know i get hurt or anything i don't want to say i just want to stay healthy let's let's make sure i can keep everything level and you know um push myself i've been

getting up training harder i've been pushing myself training like i wake up in the morning my workouts are a lot harder now i'm really focused on making my workouts harder instead of just, like, for a while this year, I tell you, I was going through the struggles. I was coasting on my workouts. I was getting through my workouts where I'd have a good workout. But now I'm pushing myself. Matt Vincent. One thing Matt Vincent told me that changed me a long time ago was i um wanted to train with matt you guys set me up with matt and matt lives in baton rouge which is an hour away from me and matt invited

me up to come train with him so i'll say what gym are we gonna go to he goes oh we're not going to gym we're gonna train in my garage and i never worked out in so much garage at that point you know this is years ago but I was like oh man you don't go to the gym you know you don't see all your friends and get that camaraderie and he goes nah man I train by myself every day I was like man you train by

yourself in this garage like how the fuck do you do that that's why he's a two time world champion that's why he's a two time world champion because he has a mental mindset to go in the garage and kick his ass. And I learned. Like, I learned from him. I learned that, like, you have to be self-sufficient.

You have to be self-aware. You can't depend on anybody else. Fuck a gym. Like, get it done. I trained this morning. I called Mark up. You know, I wanted to do legs here because I wanted to train at Super Training. And he said, hey, Super Training might be a little weird because we're moving some things around.

So you know what I did? My ass went to the gym at 5 a.m. this morning when it opened, so I made sure I got my workout in before I came here just in case I couldn't get one. Yeah. Just to be sure. You know, 10 years ago I wouldn't have did that. Maybe not even five years ago. But now it's the most important

thing is my health, my workouts, my diet, and teaching that, again, to others. Again, my kids, my friends. And that also disrupted relationships because I can't tell you how many relationships, if I ain't going to the bar drinking

or if I ain't going to Hooters or if I ain't going here, my friends ain't going to get clean eating with me. They don't want to do that. They don't want to going to the bar drinking or if I ain't going to Hooters or if I ain't going here, you know, my friends ain't going to get clean eating with me. They don't want to do that. They don't want to go to the gym. They don't understand why I'm in bed at 9 o'clock and getting up at 4 in the morning. You know, why would you work out before you, you know, get up early and go? And I don't have to get up early. That's the thing is I don't have to because I don't have like a 9 to 5 job, right?

So I could sleep to 8 and go to the gym, but I don't have to get up early. That's the thing is I don't have to because I don't have like a 9 to 5 job, right? So I could sleep to 8 and go to the gym, but I don't. I get up 3.30, 4 o'clock every day. And, again, a testament to this man. And you guys, you know, I see all this training, and I've always been told, you know, the best workouts are the first thing when you wake up in the morning. And when I was younger, I didn't want it. Now I crave it.

Now, seriously, you look me in my fucking eyes when i go to bed i dream i think about what i'm doing the next day at the gym i can't wait to fucking i get so excited before bed i pass out but i'm like i get so excited before bed because i'm thinking about gym the next day gym gym gym gym i'm gonna fucking squat i'm gonna bench press i'm gonna curl i'm gonna do whatever it is, you know? Every day, that's my mindset. You know, Stan told me, Stan Efferding told me a long time ago, every time I go to the gym, it was a fucking party. So I was like, I want to party. And I'm dropping quotes. Like I said, I can't quote Shakespeare, but I can quote Mark and I can quote Stan and I can quote Matt, and these guys that helped change my life and helped push me in a different direction,

helped me be a better athlete, helped me be a better father, helped me be a better friend, you know, and that's what life is about for me. And now I'm just trying to pay it forward. I'm still trying to grow. I still have a long way to go. Like I'm going into more acting, more coordinating. You know, Wildcat Sports is growing. We got big plans for 2024. That's my wrestling company down in New Orleans. We're crushing it, more coordinating. You know, Wildcat Sports is growing. We got big plans for 2024.

That's my wrestling company down in New Orleans. We're crushing it, you know. We're in the rebuilding stages right now. But we had that, you know, my son jumped off the mall. We went super viral before COVID. Y'all seen that video, right? You never seen that video of my son jumped off the stage? Yeah, if you go to my Twitter or if you're just a kid

jumping off the mall, wrestler jumping off the mall, you'll see it. I think you showed it to me before, but I forgot. Hundreds of millions of views. And then, you know, like, yeah, yeah, like that. Wow. I had this idea for him to jump off the second story at a mall when we had a mall show. And I shot it bird's eye view because I said it would go viral if we shoot it like this, right?

I shot it from every angle, but I knew this one angle would be perfect. So when we shot it, dude, it went crazy. And then covid hit three weeks later and shut the world down but we were on espn for a week straight every show sports center you know his girlfriend uh jumped off the cable machine no no no that was my girlfriend that was a friend oh a friend sorry sorry sorry a friend she was a girl though yep there you go whoa hey my wife gonna this you can't say shit like that whoa man

oh man that looked like it yo that looked wild yeah rewind that again one more time that must have hurt it's just that this is your son that's me down in the ring too

oh my gosh hey what a good dad, huh? Hey, son, you want to jump off the second story of this mall? Wow. What would Andrew's finishing move would be? Andrew's arrow goes over there. I've been getting into grappling, so there's that. A go-to choke that I have been going to is called the bow and arrow.

I know the bow and arrow. Okay, yeah, that's been... It's good to have a hold, but he needs a move too, I think. Yeah. What do you think? You put together shows. Yeah, yeah, yeah. How's he going to win this match?

The only thing that's on my mind right now is a finger going in my ass. So I'm like, just everything I'm thinking is, please stay away from my ass, Andrew. Stay away from my ass my fingers are pretty long too so you do have long fingers that could work he's even got a little tattoo on one of his fingers too oh yeah i think that's a sign it could be the stopping point don't go past wait let me see the finger first i want to see this guy right here so yeah don't go past where it starts okay about the first knuckle. Yeah, the first knuckle.

All right, man. Well, it was amazing having you here. Always appreciate you coming around. And good catching up with you, man. Yeah, it's great. And, again, I was all over the place today. I didn't have a game plan when I came in here, and I didn't know what you guys wanted to talk about.

But I want to publicly say um not just thank you for everything you've done for me but thank you for letting me come on here and be real and maybe hopefully talk about something different that does happen in people's real life like we're not we did talk fitness we talk movies and we talk bullshit right and we joke around but we talk about real life stuff and today we talked about something that was personal with my son and that was very very I told him out of everything I've been through in my fucked up life

that was the most difficult thing I've ever been through it was just a different feeling a different emotional loss when I went through it so to come on your show and be able to open up with people, I hope that, you know, people at home listen

and they can, you know, hopefully see something in their life and see if you're struggling with this situation, just know that, you know, others are going through it too and keep your head up and, hey, the bill's got to get paid. We got to go to work tomorrow, you know, and we got to lift each other up and be as positive as we can and be here for each other. And Mark Bell, Chris, has done that for work tomorrow you know and we gotta lift each other up and be as positive as we can and be here for each other and mark bell chris has done that for me you know and i cherish every opportunity i've ever had to come on here and i appreciate it cool stay tuned

because we're going to try that figure four but strength is never weakness weakness never strength catch you guys later bye