Mark Bell's Power Project - Mark Bell's Power Project EP. 202 - Elliott Hulse

Episode Date: April 22, 2019

"Putting the Pussy on a pedestal" with Elliott Hulse. Elliott Hulse is an internationally renowned Strength & Conditioning Coach, Strongman, Author, Social Media Celebrity, Mentor, Holistic Life Coach, and Inspiration to Millions of people. Sharing his message “Be the Strongest Version of Yourself and Inspire Others” through his YouTube channel “Strength Camp” he made himself a name for unifying the development of the body and the mind. ➢SHOP NOW: https://markbellslingshot.com/ Enter Discount code, "POWERPROJECT" at checkout and receive 15% off all Sling Shots Find the Podcast on all platforms: ➢Subscribe Rate & Review on iTunes: https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/mark-bells-power-project/id1341346059?mt=2 ➢Listen on Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/4YQE02jPOboQrltVoAD8bp ➢Listen on Stitcher: https://www.stitcher.com/podcast/mark-bells-power-project?refid=stpr ➢Listen on Google Play: https://play.google.com/music/m/Izf6a3gudzyn66kf364qx34cctq?t=Mark_Bells_Power_Project ➢Listen on SoundCloud: https://soundcloud.com/markbellspowerproject  FOLLOW Mark Bell ➢ Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/marksmellybell ➢ Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/MarkBellSuperTraining ➢ Twitter: https://twitter.com/marksmellybell ➢ Snapchat: marksmellybell Follow The Power Project Podcast ➢ Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/MarkBellsPowerProject Follow Nsima Inyang ➢ Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/nsimainyang/  Podcast Produced by Andrew Zaragoza ➢ Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/iamandrewz

yeah all right mark in case there's anybody listening slash watching that has no idea who's going to be on today can you please give us a quick rundown yeah so we have a guy the you know the only people that will understand this uh analogy is the older crowd but back in the day when we played games like donkey kong and pac-man and some of these games where you could get like a high score on there the game would like have like an ending and uh they used to call it like flip in the game because the game would like flip and the game would just like like the screen would like actually like flicker and it would flip so when i saw elliot holes you know get to like a million uh subscribers and just really just blow up YouTube. Like no one in the history of fitness has.

And then he like kind of dropped the mic and he was out. I was like, holy shit, he flipped YouTube. I think anybody could actually do that. You know? And so that's kind of what my first reaction when I saw, you know,

him build everything up. It's a really interesting thing because that, that's what a lot what happens to a lot of people um think about it you know um somebody tries to build up wealth and they get on a new block and they want everybody to see the car they drive and they they want people to know about it right but then what happens from there when you earn more and more money now you're in a gated community, right? Then people start moving out into like the country more and they start getting away and people are trying to find ways of getting away. And that looked like that's kind of what Elliot was doing. He built up and dominated YouTube in such a way. It was just so unbelievable. And he impacted so many people that I think ultimately that's what drew him back he was like okay I wanted I want to leave YouTube for me but I really fairly can't leave YouTube because

there's so many fans and you were one of them yeah no I definitely started watching Elliot back when I was like 17 18 um I think I learned my like deadlift technique from one of his videos because he had like the science of the deadlift and one of the big things about like what I liked about Elliot was that he never really answered questions straight on. Like if someone said, Hey, I'm injured, what should I do? He'd go on a philosophical, he'd take a philosophical, uh, take towards it and then get back to the subject of what they should do. And it just way of explaining things in his way of talking to people is something that really drew me in and i'm pretty sure that's one thing that drew a lot of young men towards his content he he he yeah you just wanted to almost kind of just

be like him he was also massive like he was big he was strong like he was probably what 230 and and and in really good shape too right yeah jacked and stronged and strong. And like, yeah, he was heavy, but he was like, he was one of those, he was like, I think he was one of the first big strength athletes on YouTube. Dude, and how many guys out there are black with blue eyes? Yeah, right? I mean, he's rocking that look hard.

My wife said, look, she said, don't let this guy fool you. She goes, the only reason why people are watching is because he's hot. I was like, I can't wait to tell him that. Dude, the only reason why people are paying attention is because you're good looking yeah i remember it was him and the hodge twins that's right back in the day that's who it was for me it was uh so subscribe to ct fletcher first and then i was like how do i deadlift because i would see guys in the gym deadlifting and i'm like uh youtube and how to deadlift oh elliot holst like man he

looks like the hodge twins over here and then so then hodge twins was like the third like uh channel i subscribed to on youtube breathe into your balls oh yeah yeah that was that was like in every video breathe into your balls yeah yeah his video is breathe into your balls like a boss yeah that's where patrick mckeown got that from then yeah that's right you know? Similarly, though, those two have some crossover because if you remember what Patrick said, he was speaking about mindfulness and the only people that would listen were women, right? And he was trying to have, he wanted to speak to men originally. And so then he figured out his way to speak to men was through performance.

But now what does he do with men? He talks about the oxygen advantage, talks about breathing through your nose, but then he also slips in talking about mindfulness much the way Elliot Hulse slipped in mindfulness and being a thinker rather than just a savage lifter. We all love lifting weights and yeah, we want to learn how to squat. I want to learn how to bench more and deadlift more. And I want to learn how to get leaner all the time, everything. I want to learn it all. Right. But at the same time, it's great to have people out there that are saying, Hey, you know what? We, maybe we should think about this a little bit more and maybe we should look at it in some different ways. Cause maybe it means, maybe it does mean something more to more people. I know it means a lot to me.

Like lifting means everything to me. I love it. That's why I'm in here for so many hours every single day. I'm obsessed with it. And it means more to me than just hitting up some weights. There he is. Look at him. Oh, freshly sheared scalp and everything. Look at that. Yo, yo.

Oh, there we go. Hey, now. Cool. Can you hear us, Elliot? Hey, Mark Belknight. Nice to meet you, bro. Yeah bro yeah yeah good to finally meet you man I've been uh waiting for this moment for a long time I'm super excited to have you on the show today and uh standing to my left here is Nsema Iyang who's been a long time fan of yours as well

yep we also have our co-host Andrew over there. And Seema does powerlifting, bodybuilding, jiu-jitsu. And Seema, why don't you kind of kick this off with a question since you've been a long-time fan. Okay. Well, let's see. I think the first thing I want to get into is because you started picking this up recently. I know you did it a long time in the past was fasting. And myself, I picked up fasting, I think like maybe a year ago or a year and a few months ago for the mental benefits. You know, I was kind of scared of doing it because I was scared that I'd lose a lot of muscle. And that was the big thing for me. I didn't want to lose muscle, but I also wanted to become better at like the work I do. I wanted to have a clearer mind and it helped

me massively with that. But I also found that I didn't lose much muscle. And I've been hearing that you've been doing 10 day fasts and you've been like taking it to the next level. So physically and mentally, what have you noticed by picking up fasting and like, what's been the big benefits for you? Well, I'd say that one of the big benefits has been this sense of detachment and discipline that's associated with it because you can't, you can't be a pussy and fast you got to be pretty freaking tough and so you know one of the things i've been speaking a lot about is over feminization of the western male of men in general here and i think one of the things that keeps us trapped in this is this addiction consumption always consuming always taking things in you know

i'm a little weird and i kind of think the body is a uh is a reflection like the physical is a reflection of the metaphysical and consumption is very feminine just think about the vagina right right? Vagina. You know, we've been kind to be constantly taking shit in and by using austerity to discipline ourselves, to break free from the addiction of constantly fricking eating, from the addiction of constantly freaking eating, we regain some of our masculine, of our masculine character. And so all religions and all teachers and all traditions of the past have told men to fast, to break free from the constant consumption.

So, you know, it's physical and it's metaphysical. And like you said, you know, you got into it because of the mental clarity that's associated with it. There's a lot of reasons why. But a lot of what I like and what I experience and a big part of the reason why I recommend it is because of the metaphysical, because of the spiritual side of things. Are these 10 day fast or is it just drinking like water and maybe getting some electrolytes or something like that? Yeah, so I would put sodium chloride, potassium, and sometimes some magnesium in the water.

And you know, that way it avoids the cramping that may come with it. You know, you guys are beasts. So if you're lifting and you're training and stuff like that, you don't want to just be drinking tap water or even like reverse osmosis water that drains the body of the minerals that you need, even for brain clarity, you know. So absolutely supplement with the minerals, dude. So absolutely supplement with the minerals, dude. You recently turned 40 years old and congratulations on, you know, getting in the best shape of your life as well. I've heard you talking about that and I'm 41 myself and I feel like I'm in the best

shape of my life as well. What are some things that you've done aside from just fasting to get in the best shape of your life? Because that's a hard challenge and a lot of you hear a lot of people use the age as an excuse. So what are some things that you've done? Well, you know, it's more a matter of walking with nature, honoring my body than anything. Yeah, I know you guys are power lifters. I was a strong man. I think we can all agree that we're masochists in a kind of way. We like punishment, like beating the shit out of ourselves until we can't do it anymore. And so I've got to honor myself a lot more these days. And that means, you know, not being so extreme in the gym. where I expressed all the extremeness that I could through sports. But in the second half,

I wanna live to a hundred. So longevity is super important. So, honoring even my rest wake cycles, I get to bed 8.30 every night. That's super key. I don't mess around with my sleep. And just the lifestyle choices that I make in general. I don't really drink alcohol like I used to.

So it's just making better choices about caring for myself rather than, you know, using the body like a battery ram. Like where, you know, I've seen you before, Mark, where you're like, you're fat as fuck. I've been there too. I was pretty. Because we don't care. I've seen you before, Mark, where you're like, you're fat as fuck. I've been there too. I was pretty. Because we don't care. I was pretty plump. I'm just going to suck myself. I'm going to eat.

I remember having like, I would drink muscle milk, but then I would put cereal in it, cream, and just like guzzle the shit because I didn't care how big I was. I just wanted to be strong as hell. That doesn't really fly any longer. You know, I can't get away with that. Do you think that you had to be extreme to get some of the results that you got back then? Or do you kind of look at it differently nowadays? So I take an extreme approach to almost everything I do. I know they say that the middle path is where you want to be. Yeah, that's a Buddhist concept. But I rather like if I want to be that the middle path is where you want to be. Yeah, that's a Buddhist concept.

But I rather like, if I want to be in the middle path, I'd rather go really far that way and then go really far that way. And then somehow my life balances out and I'm somewhere in the middle. So like, for example, with fasting, like everybody's intermittent fasting. And I'm like, nah, fuck that. I'm going to fast for days and days. So I take it to the extreme no matter what. It's just in my nature. How does your wife and kids play into some of this? Like just being social, having events or having parties or, you know, it's one of your kids birthday parties or

something like that. You just sitting there sipping on some water or what? kids birthday parties or something like that. You just sitting there sipping on some water or what? Yeah. So my family, they come to expect that I'm always doing something odd. And so it's funny because when I did the 10 day fast was actually much shorter than I intended. I wanted to get, I wanted to move, I want to do 40 days because, you know, I think I'm Jesus over here. you know, I think I'm Jesus over here. So yeah, I wanted to do 40 days because from March 1st to April 10th, it was exactly 40 days. And that would take me to my 40th birthday. And I'm like, it's meant to be, I'm going to fast for 40 days. But, you know, brilliant me, I decide to take my family on spring break to Disney World in the middle of my fast. And so, you know, I figure I got this, I can do this.

And on the 11th day, we've been walking around in the sun, standing on fricking lines all day long in Disney World. And I'm getting, I'm starting to get hang, not hungry angry, but like I'm getting, I'm starting to get Hank, not hungry, angry, but like I'm getting real irritable and I'm not being a nice guy to be around. And I'm dehydrated also too, cause I wasn't drinking enough water while walking around. And, uh, that's actually when I, I broke the fast. So, you know, my family gets to see me be weird, but they see my weaknesses also too.

What does your wife think about a lot of your thoughts that are so overly positive towards men being masculine and some of these things, which is not popular in our culture nowadays with the Me Too movement and things like that? Do you and your wife see eye to eye on some of these things or how does that sit with her? you and your wife see eye to eye on some of these things or, uh, you know, how does that sit with her? Yeah. For the, I'd say 90%, you know, but yeah, she's, she backs it completely. And she agrees that it's because men have been weak that women have been allowed to be so, uh, been allowed to be so, been able to walk all over men. And so she agrees with me and she asserts that if most men would just man up, be a strong man in the house, be a provider and protector, that the women would be, they'd fall right into their place. It's not even about putting women

in their place. It's about men standing in their place so women can relax into their place. It's not even about putting women in their place. It's about men standing in their place so women can relax into their place. So what are some things that you see is like really then lacking within men nowadays? Like, cause you're saying that they're not as strong or is there not maybe being like the classical male that you like see within the Westerns or like the Bible or something like that? What do you think is lacking within the way that men are brought up or the things that they do now that they're not meeting that standard? Well, there are two things and it begins with an inappropriate relationship to the feminine, particularly through the mother. And so if you study initiation processes cross-culturally,

there are two recurring themes. The first is a movement away from the world of the mother. The second is atonement with the father. And so in our world and in our society where, like I mentioned earlier, consumption is key. In order for the system to continue to be what it is, we got to keep consuming. So it's set up in such a way that mommy becomes not only the main caretaker, but the main pattern by which most men pattern their behavior after. And so a part of the reason why that happens is because a lot of men are weak. So even if they are in the home, they act like one of the kids with the wife. They say, happy wife, happy life. And

they're basically like they're like one of the kids, Homer Simpson types, either that, or, you know, the government has set it up, especially in the African-American community where there are bonuses for getting daddy out of the house. So, you know, welfare state, the, the divorce laws lean heavily towards women. So, you know, it, because Hitler once said, I read this in a book, he says, that if you want to control the people, you get the father out of the house and you make the women and children dependent on the state. Because women are receptive.

They're easily manipulated, much more so than men. And so by propping women up in this particular way, we make them the leaders in the home. So that's why the left wants to destroy the family so much it's easier to control especially when you get the woman in charge and get the man out of there so men are in prison men are over are working way too much outside of the house because again they got to provide so that they can consume and then this so that's about you know the

inappropriate attachment to the feminine and the inappropriate attachment to the mother. Overly, overly. Too many mama's boys, you know, and then the second half, meaning. I feel like you're calling us out, bro. Yeah, I mean, but I had to deal with my own inner beta to be able to even say this stuff that confidently, you know, I think a lot of us sense this and, uh, I sensed it for a long time, but it wasn't only, it wasn't until I was able to confront my inner beta and deal with this shit myself that I, I got the voice to be able to speak this way. I think my mom's listening

to this right now and she's getting scared that I'm going to call her able to speak this way. I think my mom's listening to this right now and she's getting scared that I'm going to call her and yell at her later. Well, see, that's the thing. It's the emotional attachment to mom that keeps us trapped. And so, you know, one of my mentors, I consider him a mentor, he's a YouTuber, JLP, Jesse Lee Peterson.

He says that you've got to forgive your mother. That's the first step. And that's the way he describes it. He says you've got to forgive your mother. That's the first step. And that's the way he describes it. He says, you got to forgive your mother, because if you have any emotional attachment to her beer, be it anger, you know, resentment or, or just this overprotectiveness about mommy, you know, a lot of guys have don't say nothing about my mama. You know, a lot of guys have. Don't say nothing about my mama. You know, it's just, it's too much.

In the book Iron John, which is a book about men, which is a wonderfully poetic account of how our ancestors brought men into manhood through mythology and story. He talks about how the the cherokee men who were known for being when they went through their initiation process i've got a book here if i go in and let me know yeah the connection's starting to get messed up frozen on your screen yeah you guys hear me

we can now we got a storm here we got you now sorry about that yeah i got a storm passing through here so it's gonna be a little weird uh one of the things that would happen when they after they were initiated by the elders and by the the fathers and the grandfathers, they would come back to the society and for a period of time they were not allowed to talk to their moms. If they wanted to relay information or communicate with her they would have to do it through their sisters and have somebody like give the message. And this not only cut the apron strings, they would say,

but allowed the man to build that chasm between himself and his mama boy-ness and stand on his own two feet. So, you know, that's a far cry from in our society where, you know, again, the mother is the main pattern setter and leader in the home. So we've got that. And then we got the other half, which we could talk about, you know, again, the mother is the main pattern setter and leader in the home. So we've got that. And then we got the other half, which we could talk about, you know, if you guys are interested in atonement with the father, because that's really where men begin to find their purpose and develop a connection to the legacy through the father, you know? So, yeah. What do you mean by atonement with the father then

if we can dig on that a little bit right so think about the word atonement and it's like resonance you know you know you're going to tone tone is like a sound it's a vibration getting into vibration with the earthly father the fathers the, the men in the society. So, of course, the process would be that the men stepped up when it was time for a little boy, for a 14-year-old usually. And we go through initiations. I see them about every 12 years. So 12, 24, 36. But, you know, it begins between 12 and 14.

The whole society recognizes, recognizes okay it's time for him to to be initiated so the fathers would come in and they would strip the boy out of the home you know wherever he is with his mommy and the moms and the women would all play along with the the show oh no don't take my boy and you know they they play along with it because they recognize all right it's time for him to stop being a little bitch and to grow up and be a man. And they would take him out and they would bring him into the forest somewhere. And they would, number one, begin to break down his beta ego, his feminized ego. And it always began with austerity and challenge. So for example, my brother was heavily involved in a Native

American community when we were younger. And he's gone through their rites of passages. And one of the things that they had him do was to fast for four days. But not only that, they took him out to the top of a cliff somewhere. And there was a rock, a big boulder. And they told him, sit there and don't move for four days. So he had to sit on this frickin rock for four days in a fasted state, baking in the sun. And what they call that was a vision quest. And so he was there in order to have his complete ego broken down so that he'd be available to receive from the father. so that he'd be available to receive from the father. And so this is where we can begin to talk about the legacy that's associated with being introduced to the world of our ancestors.

I'm getting blurry here. Hang on. Yep. So you remember that movie Lion King? Simba, you know, of course his father dies. He goes out into the wilderness and he's lost. He's confused. But then the old initiator, the old monkey finds him, takes him up to the cliff. the sky and he says look simba you're not alone bro and he points to the sky and he sees an image of his father and his father talks about the grandfathers and the fathers and all the great and this is where our society we get religion i know i'm breaking up so i'll just pause every once in a while this is where we get religion. I know I'm breaking up, so I'll just pause every once in a while.

This is where we get religion. This is where we get a sense of purpose and meaning and legacy that a man comes back to his society and can live through. Because if he doesn't have religion, if he doesn't have the father, the only thing he's going to be able to attach to is to his sensual nature,

his material nature. And that word material, you know, the word father comes from the word pattern. Patter, paternity, is about the spirituality of things, the archetype. But the word material and matter is where we get maternity. And so we end up or he ends up in a state where most men find themselves today, where the material world, money, sensuality, sex becomes their god rather than the, you know, the pattern above, the father above. you know, the pattern above the father above. I find all this really fascinating how you've, you know, kind of ended up, you know, for lack of a better term, becoming enlightened, right? That's, you probably hear people mention that all the time, but something that is really crazy to me is that you went through all this through having, growing up with four brothers,

you grew up with four brothers and now you have three daughters. And kind of around that time is when you probably started this march towards enlightenment and march towards learning more about being a man, right? Yeah, it's funny. Yeah, I grew up the oldest of boys. And, you know, I was like the alpha kid on the block, you know. And in phys ed, I was always captain, captain of the football team, pro strong man. And then, you know, getting married at an early age, you know, I married my high school girlfriend and then having three daughters forced me to look at how I was wrong and where I was stunted in my growth as it related to women and more appropriately, my inner feminine.

women and more appropriately my inner feminine. And so, you know, one of my mentors, Paul Chek, says that Elliot and I, when I started at age 36, I started down a, what I call, it's another initiation phase, but I call it the tunnel because it really taught me a whole lot. And I was having a conversation with him. He says, Elliot, you're never going to become fully man until you become a woman. And I, you know, he speaks in mystical terms. Like, yo, bro, like, what are you talking about? I didn't get it. But then the injury started happening. And the humility associated with it started happening. And I was really forced to go in. Remember I talked about the vagina? Going in. And I began to be able to relate this breakdown process that God was putting me through. I tore both my biceps, tore my Achilles

tendon. I had a hernia. I fell on my head but I was on a trampoline I was able to really bring it into context through a one-liner in Iron John by Robert Bly where he says every wound is a womb and he began to relate how men particularly like physically strong men you you know, alpha, type A, guys like us, the only way to humble us is to humiliate us. And that every wound, every injury is like an opening in the body, almost like a vagina vagina where spirit can pass in and God can finally actually start doing some integration work within our souls. So I had to be beat the fuck down and digested, assimilated and spit back out of the whale in order to, you know, to allow this integration

to happen. Yeah. The same damn thing happened to me. I got wiped out with a big squat and, uh, you know, I, I never ventured down that same path ever again. I was like, Nope, I'm out, I'm out of here. You know, kind of like you did with strong men. Yep. Um, what kind of blowback do you get from this? You know, uh, people are like, dude, I'm trying to learn about how to deadlift. Like, can you teach me about, and you've done this, you've taught, you've have thousands of videos on how to deadlift and how to bench press and how to squat and how to do all these movements. Um, what kind of blowback do you get from shifting and talking about something so different now? Well, Well, I'm kind of used to blowback because I'm a creative guy. And so, although I've already given myself 100% to various forever. But I get bored. I was diagnosed with ADHD when I was a kid. I get bored. So even though I can win, I'm a fucking winner. I'll win at Strongman. I'll win at football. I'll win at YouTube. I'll win at business.

thing. And if anybody's attached to the previous version of me, that previous winner, then if I allow that to dictate how I go about my life, it keeps me back from the next win. So, you know, you mentioned enlightenment before. Well, this is going to sound strange because it's like anti-enlightenment, but it's like, I'm going to fucking win enlightenment. I'm going to go hard with enlightenment. And it's like, I can't go hard with enlightenment if I'm still over here teaching you how to fucking deadlift. Go watch my old videos. But if you're ready to take, you're ready to step into my new art gallery, I got a whole bunch of whole new stuff for you. It's going to be a win. new stuff for you. It's going to be a win. You're the saying in a lot of your, your videos. And I don't know if you still like, cause you're, you're trying to help people become the strongest version of themselves, you know, or the best version of themselves. Um, and you know, you talk a lot about helping men become more masculine and more alpha, but what if like, cause you've probably come across a lot of men that let's say that they have an excessive amount of masculinity or alphaness to them so how does one do you want men to like

that on that side to tap into the more feminine of themselves or is is is that what you're trying to do to help men become more even or to trend them more towards the masculine direction? Well, so the word that really describes what I'm after personally and what I'm working with the world to achieve is integration. And so if you remember my friend, Paul Cech said that, he told me that, you know, you're going to become fully man. And here I am thinking, I can't get any more man than I already am. do you mean breathing into your balls and shit oh yeah yeah i i'm known for talking about breathing into your balls and lifting what else is there you know but uh you know according to car Jung and Neo-Jungians, they say that within every man, there's a woman.

They call it the anima. And within every woman, there's a man. And so, and another way to look at it, and I've heard it recently, is that, you know, the aspect of the spirit is masculine, but the aspect of the soul, the heart, is feminine. So we've got the feminine of the soul, the heart is feminine. So we've got the feminine, the feeling, the dark, the intuitive heart, and we've got the logical, we've got the masculine,

we've got the angular, we've got the rational head. And so another one of my teachers, this is the way she put it. She said, Elliot, in order to achieve the integration that you're looking for, way she put it. She said, Elliot, in order to achieve the integration that you're looking for, you're going to have to learn how to think with your heart and love with your mind. And that has everything to do with taking the feminine aspect. Now, when I say feminine aspects, I'm not talking about being feminized and taking on the nature of your mother and being a beta what i'm talking about are this this the soul qualities the spiritual the intangible qualities that are associated with the feminine uh the the feminine reality that you know the everything in life is is masculine and feminine i mean even the digital what we're doing right now is it's a series of zeros and ones you know if you look at it it's

just a bunch of codes zeros and ones if you think about zero and one what is it power through yeah so um i don't remember what the hell i was talking about but it's a it's a matter of uh of bringing this integration so that you can be fully a fully integrated man that has both what i like to say tenderness and aggression and this usually happens towards midlife you know or or like the second half of life and the reason why this naturally happens and it it'd be wonderful if it was honored it's a big part of what i'm aiming to do in this world is to honor it is because as we age as men our body we we don't produce as much testosterone and it's normal it's natural it's okay or we you know none of it we're not as big and as powerful as we once were uh and our power begins to steal inward and the reason why is because nature is only interested in perpetuation. And nature knows,

I don't care how much you fucking deadlift, you're going to die. And as you're making your way out, there are young men that are going to make their way up. And if you're still competing with young men, like you're 20 years old, and you're still, you see them as your competition, then you're not going to be available to be the mentor. You're not going to be available to be the elder, to mirror them and support them and to coach them in their, in the, in the prime of their lives. So to become more intuitive, to become more sensitive, to become more caring, to become more feminine, gives us the capacity to truly take on our roles as mentors and elders for the men that are coming up behind us. And women, there's a flop. Women become more masculine as they get older because they have to be a bit more stern with the flimsy girls that

are coming up you know we see it like boys they come up real hot 14 years old they start feeling their testosterone like that's when they join gangs and start being violent uh girls that's when they're really susceptible to being sexually manipulated you know they're they, they're in love and they're weird. So as we age, we kind of flop so that men are there with more tenderness and intuition and compassion for the red hot men that are coming up. And, you know, guys like us, we can relate. Like, I know what you're going through right now, dude, and you're a red hot stage. Let me impart some wisdom and some care for you. And the women, it's the same thing.

Women start becoming a little bit masculine towards their middle age, and they can see past all of the flimsiness that the young girls are going through, and they can be a bit more firm. So, you know, this is the cycle of life. Elliot, so what I'm getting is you're seeing just a lot more betas in general. Um, how does one become more alpha without alienating the woman of the house? Cause there's a good chance that, um, you know, growing up, you're in the same society. Uh, you don't want to have her parents be like, Hey, that, uh, that Jim bro of a, of a man you have is just

becoming a big douchebag by, by just, uh, trying to be more masculine. So how would, uh, cause like you're, the way you speak is you speak with real strong conviction, right. Or conviction. Um, if I were to go home right now and, you know, walk in, walk in the house, slam the door, you know, tell my fiance, like, I'm going gonna breathe through my balls and I'm the man now it's it's not really gonna sit too well so is there like a progression or is there a basically how would Elliot do it well you know that won't work for you she doesn't trust you right right and so the very first thing work for you if she doesn't trust you. Right. Right. And so the very first thing for, in order for your woman to trust you to lead, you've got to have a vision. You've

got to have a vision for your, you're the leader. You're the visionary. You've got to know what you want in life. You want to know what you, what kind of family you want. You've got to set that pace, set that tone. And in most families set that pace, set that tone. And in most families, the women are setting the tone. They're the one that decides. And the husband just kind of, you know, happy wife, happy life and follows suit. And that doesn't create a situation where she can trust you and relax into her femininity, knowing that my man's got this.

He can take care of it. And I've got three daughters and I want nothing more for my daughters than for them to have strong, masculine, alpha partners, husbands in their lives. I don't want them to have any soy boy, flimsy dude showing up at my house. There's no way, you know, but that's my hope, my dream. But they show up with some, you know, flimsy blue haired beta boy.

I'm not going to be too happy, even though, you know, and a lot of fathers, they don't realize this. They want they you know, they want their daughters to be strong and independent, which sounds nice. But that just simply simply means she's going to be anxious and she's going to have a weak husband. And she's never going to be able to relax into her femininity and fulfill her purpose. Where do you think guys are confused? Because from what I can see, like in society of today, it just seems like there's some confusion on what guys should be kind of leaning into and leaning towards to become more manly. We hear people talk about this all the time.

And so, you know, what are some things that you think people could be doing and should be doing? Well, I think a lot of the confusion comes from our relinquishing power to the vagina. And I really and truly believe that sex is an addiction. And when we're out there having, you know, sex with women, we start becoming emotional. And when a young man, you know, 16 years old, you know, they start having sex and whatnot, starts having sex with a girl, he can very easily become addicted to her sex, think he's addicted to her, and then he doesn't want to lose that. And this is where you get a lot of guys.

They become addicted to the vagina, to the emotion, and to the sensuality of getting their nut off, and they'll do anything not to piss off their woman or to rock the boat. So, you know, this whole movement of MGTOW, men going their own way, I think it's a step in the right direction. I think men need to, and NOFAP, I think it's a great way for men to take back their power as it relates to them giving themselves over to the sensuality of sex and beating off. I believe in that 100%. I think

it's a good idea to utilize the fasting. You know, we're talking about fasting away from food. I think it's a great idea to fast away from certain things that we just do too much. Maybe it's a good idea to occasionally fast away from being in the gym. Maybe it's a good idea to fast away from running or, you know, doing something

that you are just so obsessed with. Like, you know, I think it's a good idea to examine all these aspects of your life. I agree. I'm curious to see your take on this because I've heard of you talk about men not having sex and fasting away from that so that they can think more logically with the way they feel towards their partner. But I haven't heard you talk much about like nofap and masturbation because I, when I was younger, I started watching porn at like 12. And you know that when a man starts doing that when he's much younger, it has a bigger

effect on his development and his brain as he gets older than it does for, let's say, an older person who maybe their first viewing pornography was at 26 or 27. It has a big effect on young men. I've seen that and I've experienced it, which is why I had to find a way to get it out of my life, which was a big benefit for me. But how do you see that? Do you see that as something large affecting young men? And what do you suggest for them in terms of potentially ridding that from their lives? Do you see that's something they should do? Should they just do less or should they get rid of it? Well, I kind of lumped that into the video game addiction and how men's energy has been diverted to the virtual. And so, you know, watching porn is is virtual sex playing video games is virtual football or virtual gunning people down and you know rather than trying to offer a solution you know i just want

to talk a little bit about that the problem with that it it robs us of our vital energy men are supposed to be doers we're supposed to be. Men are supposed to be doers. We're supposed to be warriors. We're supposed to be out there crushing it, getting things done, taking that surge of testosterone and energy that rises when we hit puberty and having a purpose. But all the purpose that we're given is usually the feminized purpose. You got to sit down,

shut up and get good grades in school. So I think one of the ways that there's this term sexual transmutation, one of the ways that we can transmutate or that older men can give space for younger men to take that vital energy and turn it into something productive in the world is through lifting. You know, if you're addicted to, to, to fapping, it means you got way too much

energy going on, bro. Go get in the fricking gym and lift the barbell. I attribute so much of my, who I am, my character to when, when I turned 14, two, two things happened that kind of kept me, kept me in line at age 14. I started lifting and I've gave all my aggressive energy, all of that vitality to lifting in football. And I met my wife, I met my girlfriend. I started, I started having sex also. So I can't speak too much about it because I was having all my needs met and I had a place to put all my energy. But get out of the virtual stimulation and do your best to create something. Women are inherently creative because they make babies. Men are the creators of empires. Men build skyscrapers. So find a creative pursuit that you can put that energy into. Do you think that's why we're here on this earth? To be creative and to produce and

to be doers? I think it's a part of it. You know, that's one portion of it. If you look at the work of Carl Jung, he talks about the quadrated psyche. And in personality assessment, they talk about thinking, feeling, doing, which is one part that we're talking about, and being. And if you study the work of Robert Moore, who's a neo-Jungian. He took each one of those aspects of, you know, when we're here, we're either thinking, feeling, being, or doing. And he related them to what he called the four masculine archetypes. And that to be a fully integrated man means that you're standing fully in your king, your inner king, warrior, magician, and lover. So to say that we're here just to do is one part of it. But we're also here to think and to create creatively in that way.

We're also here to love and to feel. But most importantly, when we're really standing in our fullness, we're here to be. And that has a lot to do with relaxing the neurosis associated with constantly having to achieve and allowing your true self to emerge in your life. Do you think this message goes over the head of some of the people that you're trying to share it with via YouTube, you know, because where you started was with fitness, basically. And where you've ended up is so different. And I know you started different channels and different things like that. Do you feel like people are getting it? Are they getting the message? Yeah, the ones that are supposed to get it will get it when they're ready to get it. And those that don't get it, they'll get it when it's time for them to get it. They're just not ready. Yeah, they're not ready. And that's okay.

I've been getting, this is a recurrent comment that I get. Elliot, when I first watched your videos, I hated you and I didn't understand anything you're saying. Then a year later, I went back and oh my God, you're a genius. It all makes sense now. So, you know, I don't expect everybody to be able to pick it up. Not everybody will. Some people will never pick it up. Some people are not supposed to pick it up, but when the time is right, what do they say? The master will appear. Do you think people are kind of stumbling upon this due to anxiety and depression and things like that? Well, it had been my intention, and it usually is the case, that young men come into my work through lifting, the doing aspect. Because between the ages of 14 and 24,

we're really in our warrior. I talk about about the king the warrior magician lover there are different stages for those phases and uh we're very much into our warrior into building you know if you're attracted to it building muscle being strong uh being attractive burning fat so uh that's that's usually the place they come in. And that's the way I inserted myself into this realm. And I still have a lot to offer there and I'm learning more as I go along. But, you know, I know a lot of marketing. I learned a lot of marketing. You always have to have an upsell. Don't just sell the fucking hamburger. You got to ask them if they want fries. Cause some people want to go deeper. They want more. So that's when I created the second channel and, and build the, the confidence to talk about these deeper things, which is like, look, Hey, you came here, you got the hamburger,

but I got fries and a shake for you, baby. You built a lot, you know, through, uh, through YouTube, through technology, and then you've built out other, uh, you know, other channels and things like that. Um, you know, and we're talking about, uh, you're talking about like a lot of times being a little bit more traditional and not being a fan sometimes of technology. I've even heard you talk in the past about trying not to have a TV and things like that. Did you go through a really hard time when you spent all this time building up your YouTube

and building up these things, and I'm sure you're able to like monetize it and you're able to enjoy certain cool things that come along with it that may have helped make your life more comfortable. But then you dropped the mic and you took off on us. And you talk about kind of going through the tunnel. When you disappeared for a while, did you go through like a hard time?

Was it enjoyable? Was it rotten? How did it work for you? Well, it's funny because when I was in my hottest warrior stage i remember being a personal trainer at a local gym here i'd work from six in the morning to nine at night i just go balls to the wall because that's how i do but i remember saying to myself as i was doing this that there's gonna be a time where i'm gonna retire and'm going to do nothing but smoke weed and do yoga. I was going to go and I was going to,

I was going to seduce and coax and be compassionate with myself because I know that I'm, I'm an overworker. I know I was going fucking hard. And so I, I would visualize and I'd imagine, you know, and I never smoked weed before. You know, I wasn't, I didn't smoke weed in high school and college. I wasn't, you know, never a pothead. But when I was called to go in, I took full advantage of it. I hung a hammock in my house. Like I said, I was smoking weed.

I gave up weightlifting and started doing yoga. I went and like self-mothered myself, if you will. And so I needed that time for healing. I needed to heal myself. I suffered a bunch of injuries that kept me down there. And so if I had to describe that time in one word, I would call it nurturing. I was nursing myself. You said you were called to go in. What does that mean? My intuition, my gut started telling me, you know, Elliot, you need to stop making YouTube videos. And this was like right at the, this was right at the top and stop lifting. And, you know, this is my entire identity. Yeah. I was like, what the fuck, what do you mean? And, um, and I got a pretty strong ego. So, you know, when I started to, I started to like have,

I could pinpoint various events in my life that caused me to start like moving in this direction. The death of somebody that was very important to me and a few other things. The call was to, it was to put down the barbell and to get out of the limelight because you, I'm not going to be able to, and I sense that I'm not going to be able to, and I sense that I'm not going to be able to go as extreme. Remember, I'm an extreme guy. Go as stream inward as I know I needed to

in the opposite direction of how extreme outward I was. I'm extreme extroverted. You know what I mean? Think about the YouTube videos and millions of followers. I'm out there. And so I needed to go just to create that balance. We spoke about earlier there. And so I needed to go just to create that balance. We spoke about earlier before. I don't, I don't, I don't tread the middle path. I go that way and then I go that way. So to come, to come full circle, I knew I needed to, to disappear and to go dark. And that's what I did. How, how did you do it? Because there's people listening right now that are attached to something and they just they don't feel that they can they they'll even say i can't i can't do that i can't

uh i can't go on a diet i can't fast for a couple days i can't they they really feel that they're just stuck whether it's their job or their relationship or could be anything? Well, if you don't listen to your soul, you're going to get smacked upside the head. And so I can't say that it was easy for me. You know, like these guys who I know I should stop eating fast food and drinking soda all day long. I know I should. That's their soul telling them, like, you got to give this shit up.

But then when the diabetes comes, when heart disease comes, that's like a slap upside the head. So it's like your path in life will be revealed to you, whether you gleefully glide down that path or you need to be kicked in the ass down that road. down that road. And so I kind of had like a, I kind of had a little bit of both where it's funny, like I announced that I would stop making YouTube videos, but I kind of went halfway because like I said, my ego is strong. And so, you know, God was kind of like, oh, okay. You think you're tough enough to do it your way? Well, I started getting the slaps in the head and that's when the injuries began so like i couldn't make any videos like what am i gonna do now i've got two torn biceps i'm my right biceps deformed and you know i'm a big part of who i am is is aesthetic like you know i was doing videos with my shirt off and shit and And so I really had to be worked on. I really had to be broken down.

And so, you know, humility also has the root word humus, you know, where we get dirt. And I just had to get my shit kicked in the dirt for quite a bit in order to be able to go down that deep. Yeah. Alan Watts talks about aiming and shooting at the same time. You know, he says, you can't, uh, you can't tell people that you owe money to that you're going to skip town and you can't, uh, can't tell the devil you're going to be deceitful because he says, who do you think the devil is? He's like, look in the mirror. That's pretty cool stuff. What you got buddy? people listening to this that are like, they listen to your stuff and they're like, you know, it's 2019. There's no reason for men to have to be that masculine anymore. You know, it's not the twenties when you're having to defend people and kick people off your land. Why? Like, let's say, I know, I know you don't really care about people that don't necessarily agree with what you say. You care about the people that are going to hear you, but for the people that have that type of sentiment about it, what would you have to say to them?

Well, I'd point out that the reason why you think that way is because you have the mind of your mother. You're thinking like a woman. And, you know, it's not a judgment. Yeah. But the only reason why someone would think that way is because they've taken on the feminist agenda. And for men who defend in that particular way, they hate themselves. They hate masculinity. They probably hate their father and they have no connection to, to the father. You nailed that. Yeah. Um, where should somebody, uh, where should somebody start with some of this? You know, like this is a, there's a lot of stuff that we're unpacking.

So somebody is listening to this and is there a particular video you could point them to? Or is there something you can kind of say that just to kind of spark them in the right direction on where to start? Well, you know, I think it's fascinating that we're in the world of lifting. And I think it's, I think lifting has been for me when I was 14 years old, my uncle put a barbell in my hand, changed my life forever. But I'm going to assume that most of the guys are listening to this kind of already have that one down. And I would invite you to begin fasting. And what happens when we fast, there is an aesthetic quality to it where we're forced to let go of our attachment to sensuality, our addiction to materialism, and all of the things that society has conditioned us to be and do in order to keep this system running. When you stop consuming, you stop being a customer. When you stop consuming, you stop being a woman. You stop taking things in. So you do two things. Number one, when you start fasting, you break free from the mother, the matter, the first step

in initiation. It's austere, meaning that you're going to be challenged all of the guys that are watching this are probably lifters you know and we wouldn't get into lifting if we didn't like being challenged but one of the things with lifting is that as you lift and you build that muscle and you put more plates on that barbell our ego grows so it becomes like austere. It becomes a challenge, but then there becomes the ego attachment to it. And it was hard for me too. I know you mentioned this before, Mark, to let go of the muscle, to let go of the need to constantly win with the barbell and to be huge. I was, you know, they call it bigorexia. Like I was addicted to being fucking huge. And so you get to put down the addiction to food. You get to put down the addiction to food.

You get to put down the addiction of who you think you are, your ego. You get down to put, you get to be a man by doing what I believe to be the most disobedient act in a world that wants to keep you trapped in this feminized agenda, which is to stop buying, stop consuming, stop being a customer, being a cog, being a battery in this system. You stop eating, you take money away from the two biggest, most corrupt industries in America, which is the processed food manufacturers and the pharmaceutical company because fasting heals. I think it was one of those old Greek geniuses. I remember Plutarch maybe said that it's better to fast a day than to take medicine. Fasting heals. So another thing that fasting does is that it allows you, it speeds up the breakdown and build up process within the body. So you literally rejuvenate, you become new physiologically too, through autophagy and stem cell production.

So all of your biology changes. So that's one part of it. It has a lot to do with breaking our attachment to mommy, to material, to sensuality and addiction. But the second half, the second part of that is atonement with the Father. And there's a good reason why all, you know, talking about old Greek dudes, geniuses, you couldn't, I think it was Aristotle when he wanted to go study in the Egyptian mystery schools, they wouldn't take him until he fasted for 40 days because all the esoteric knowledge that you need is only available to you when you declog your system and put down your primal urges. This is why Jesus went out into the desert and fasted for 40 days before he brought his message to the world, because he needed to cleanse himself so that he can fall into tone or alignment with his true pattern, the Father above.

So when you begin fasting, you open yourself up to receive your inspiration, your mission, your purpose, your path in life. You no longer have to be like a woman. Women look outside themselves for answers. You know, that's why they have sewing circles and chatty groups. They always like to talk. Instead of being, you know, one of these guys who are always looking to someone else to tell them what to do or how to be, uh, asking advice all the time or taking on the pattern of their favorite Instagram star. They can go in and allow God to show them why they're here and what they're doing. Would you recommend fasting away from social media as well? I would first begin with the food.

And the reason why I say that is because when you fast from food, you begin to, you start to become grounded. And this sense of groundedness will automatically begin, you'll start dropping all of the other things that are associated with your addiction. So the addiction to food is first, and then you'll find, huh, I just lost my craving for Instagram. I lost my craving for fapping. I lost my craving for, you know, so all the other cravings are kind of, you know, are contingent upon the consumption of food. Stop, stop eating, make that your willful effort and you'll find that all the other, all the other things that you're addicted to will just start to fall away. other, all the other things that you're addicted to will just start to fall away. I actually noticed that too. It's, it's, it's odd. Like when I started taking a fasting, I mean, I obviously noticed clarity when I get my work done during the day and everything else, but I've so much more self-control, not just with old food cravings, but literally with everything. I just feel more in

control of my emotions, more in control of like how I am with other people. There's, there's just more, it's just, it's so much more clear. Let's just put it that way. And just, uh, fasting is just something that a lot of men are just really scared of taking up, you know, especially guys in our groups because losing that muscle, that, that, that muscle you took so much time to build is scary for them, but it's so huge. You're 170 pounds nowadays, right? Yep. Like when I was in ninth grade. Yeah. And then how much did you weigh when you were doing strongman stuff? At my heaviest, I weighed in at 249 pounds. And has some of this been pretty difficult to kind of kiss some of that goodbye or does this

feel really good to you? Well, right now it's taken some work. It's taken some time, some ego deconstruction. How much time? Well, between 2000 and when I was 36 and I just turned 40. So 2014, I began to feel a call in and it was not linear at all. You know, I kind of went and then I came out and it was, you know, it was, it was definitely a process. I remember it was so funny though, that when I, when I first started this downward trend, the first thing that came to my, one of the first things that came to my cognition, my intuition was, okay, Elliot, now it's time to fast. Because I had been fasting before, since 2002, I started as a religious, for religious reasons. And I resisted. I made up all kinds of bullshit reasons. And I tried all kinds of dumb things, trying not to fast. And so I really had to

become humbled enough. And this is only like, you know, maybe like the past eight months or so. I needed to become humbled enough to say, okay, that's it. I'm ready to let go and move on to the next phase of my life. And that's when I started prolonged fasting. And when I started a prolonged fasting, it's almost like everything just started falling into place again. Paul Cech talks a lot about working in. I love that rather than working out, working inward. What are some ways that you work in? We're talking a lot about fasting, journaling, hiking, like what else do you do? Like what works well for you? Well, yes, of course, fasting. I've been meditating for going on two decades in various different ways. And, you know, although I use, and I am a proponent of various different types

of meditation, including active meditation, the one mainstay for me that has always been a continuous practice or something that I come back to has been the use of frequencies, binaural beats. And so I was put onto Holosync binaural beats. And so I was put onto Holosync maybe about 12, 13 years ago. And it's almost magical what happens when you use this brain entrainment process where it's designed to, if you know anything about binaural beats, it's designed to build commissarial neurons and balance the brain. I have to admit, I'm kind of an imbalanced guy.

So when I started using these binaural beats, and when I'm using them consistently, there's a sense of groundedness. There's a sense of objectivity. There's a sense of clarity and creativity that is always accompanied with it. So, you know, I often recommend that. Getting into nature is really important for me also. I've got, I live in Florida. I live in Tampa Bay, Pinellas County, which is pretty cool because it's, Florida is surrounded I water,

but Pinellas County is a peninsula on the peninsula. So I'm surrounded by water, which is surrounded by water. And so I could watch the sunset and the sunrise, you know, on this, over the water any day. So being in touch with,

with nature through the water, and then we've got this nature preserve here in Pinellas County called Sawgrass Lake Park, where it's like a little swamp in the middle of the city. And they got alligators there and turtles. And it's like it's a throwback to maybe 200 years ago. And so these are the places I go to sort of connect. hundred years ago. And so these are the places I go to sort of connect. What happens if we're all alpha, all of us? Can we all be alpha? Yeah, we're all supposed to be alpha. And when I say that, I mean that when men are standing in their true strength, their true power, they not only know how to lead, but they know how to follow. their true strength, their true power. They not only know how to lead, but they know how to follow. It's very, I say that women work in circles,

but men work in hierarchies. And it's not about dominance. That is the, that's the immature masculinity. It's about honoring those who are, those who are our leaders. That's why men always looked above. Men look up. That's why men created religion, because we always have to have an ideal to reach for or someone to look up to. This is why men need mentors. I don't think it's a mistake that the word mentor has the word men in it. So if we're all being alpha, we're all actually being great leaders

to those who need us to be leaders. We're also being great followers to those who are, were called to follow or to pattern ourselves after. If I know it's hard to simulate, I'm curious how you would take this because, you know, looking at 26, 27 year old Elliot, right. Who was super like active, massive, you weren't fasting then. Um, and you're, you know, you, you would say that fasting would be something that you'd suggest that all men do would that have, how would you have, would you have fasted back then? Like, I know you write like you didn't, but how would you have convinced yourself to take that up while being as active and as a warrior as you were at that time? That is an amazing question. Yeah, because I've

thought about that. I started fasting in 2002 after I played college football and I knew that I was going to shrink. So I was prepared. And when I was 27, I was competing in strongman and I was just trying to grow. So there was a, there's a season when I would fast every March for 21 days, I would fast. And that happened to be right at championship season for strongman. So I was like, I just decided, well, uh, it's more important for me to win these trophies than to fast, even though I had been doing it for the years prior. So I just gave it up. I was like, as long as I'm a strong man, I'm just, I'm not going to do it. But if I were to give myself advice, if I look back, which is a great question and give that guy advice, I would say, okay, you don't necessarily need to do it

during championship season or while you're, you're training for competition. But right afterwards, there's, there's an off-season. Go into a prolonged fast. You don't have to make it a lifestyle. You don't have to do it every day. But I think, like right now, it's my intention to do a prolonged, meaning five to 10-day fast every quarter. But back then, I could have very easily just chosen a month, chosen a week that wouldn't have interfered with my competition and just fasted once a year. It seems tough to fast that long. What's the longest fast you've ever done in SEMA? Like 26 hours. The thing is I fast pretty much every day for 20 or 21 hours. But when I eat, I eat a lot because like I'm still super active. So I got to eat a lot of food to make sure that calories.

And yeah, it makes sure I don't lose so much. Yeah. I've done a 42 hour, but, uh, it is intriguing to try to do five days or 10 days. Uh, what, you know, when you did the 10 day fast, I mean, you mentioned towards the end of it, kind of feeling like shit because you were in the sun and things like that. How did you feel through most of it? Well, it's interesting that hunger is not cumulative. And so after the first day, maybe two days, when we start kicking into using ketones for energy and blood sugar,, you know, we're not no longer dependent on glycogen. Hunger goes away and a sense of clarity and calm starts to take over. And you'll find that you can just keep going. You're not very interested in food, right?

No, it just kind of goes away. You know, know, I, I, I made a lot of mistakes this, this last 10 day fast where I was like beating myself up in the gym. I went like really hard, you know, cause you know, ego. So I think I can just do that. Like, ah, I'm just going to lift like a beast. Well, that kicked me on my ass also too. So if you're wanting to, you know, go into that prolonged fast, definitely just Arnold Ehret, who was very inspirational to me and going into these fasts. He was around in the late 1800s. He says that when you're fasting, consider that you're laying on nature's bloodless operating table and that you're going into a healing process. And if you're laying on an

operating table, you're being worked on. You're not going to beat the shit out of yourself. You're not going to go hard. You're not going to have a lot of expectations for yourself. You're going to, you're going to just honor your body and be compassionate with yourself. How about the grounding camps that you do? Like what are they meant to do for the men that you have sign up? And I mean, I don't, are women allowed to go to your grounding caps or is it a, it's a men only event, correct? It's a men only event. Yep.

So with the grounding caps, yeah. So you remember earlier, I spoke about rites of passage initiation and these phases that we all go through. I see them every 12 years and I learn that that's true and I've experienced it myself, but I also see that I have more 24-year-olds following me than anything else. It's my biggest demographic. And there's a good reason why. And it's because life starts to become confusing around these times. And so what our ancestors understood was that when a man is going through an initiation phase in his life, be it at 14, 24, 36, 52, doesn't matter.

He needs two things. Like I said before, he needs to separate himself from the material world. He needs to be set aside. He needs to be pulled out of his current day-to-day. This is why you've got a lot of guys who go through midlife crises and it's tough for them. It's a crisis because they're so attached to the world now. They can't stop their job like I did. I stopped my job for a couple of years. I was like, all right, fuck it. I'm not going to work. But I got it like that because I built a lot of momentum. So like when I stopped, basically stopped working, I was like, well, I got enough

coming in that I can do that. Most guys, they can't, they simply can't, but it is so necessary for them to separate themselves, to find and be in a sacred space. And it can't be at home with your wife. It can't be around your drinking buddies. It's not going to happen at the gym. And because our society is not privy to the things that I'm talking about here, for the most part, if you start bringing this stuff up or considering it, they'll tell you that there's something wrong with you

and you need to go on medication when it's not the case. Our ancestors understood that this is a very sacred time for an individual. So with grounding camp, the very first thing that we do is it's a sacred space away from the world. We've got to get away from work. We've got to get away from women. We've got to get away from all kinds of waywardness. And so, you know, we're going to start doing a lot of fasting at grounding camp. forwardness. And so, you know, we're going to start doing a lot of fasting at grounding camp. As an initiation, there's also communitas, which is, it's sort of, if you remember like playing football or being in the military where, you know, men who are going through struggles together

build a stronger bond with one another. And at grounding camp, there's struggles. It's austerity. I'm putting you through the ringer. And it's very physical, but it's also very metaphysical. And so you're there with these other guys going through these physical challenges, and it builds a support structure where you give yourself for the first time, and probably the only place where it's appropriate to be vulnerable. And then the final piece as it relates to atonement with the Father, finding your path or your purpose for this next phase in your life, we do a tremendous amount of meditating and journaling and reflecting in order to open up the space for what you need to do next or what is unfolding for you in this next phase of your life to be revealed. So it has a lot to do with

separating from your inner beta and your attachment to the material world. And again, atonement with the Father coming back to your true nature what's all the um so is this because i've seen videos of grandin camp with a lot of guys like jumping around and stuff i know that's not all you guys do but is that a form of meditation that you guys are doing like what what is that so osho who uh is where our invitation from, he was an Indian mystic who began working with Westerners. And he found that working with the Western mind was much different than working with, you know, Indians and, you know, the Chinese. Totally different culture. And that within the West, we're very physically anxious.

We carry a lot of our attention in the body. We're very armored. And he learned a lot of his concepts from Wilhelm Reich, who spoke about psychological trauma being trapped in the body through muscular armoring. And that you could talk to somebody until you're blue in the face, and you can have them make sense of all kinds of things through conversation. But until you can break down the muscular armoring that stifles a person's ability to breathe deeply and our breath is our primary vibration. They're just going to be anxious. And so, you know, he's the story goes, you know, he's working with these Westerners to teach him how to meditate. And he noticed that, like during meditation, they would be on the grass. At the end of the meditations, all the grass would be dug up because they're sitting there trying to meditate, but they're anxious and they're like pulling up the fucking grass and shit.

And so, you know, armed with the work of Wilhelm Reich and the understanding of muscular armoring and anxiety and how it's held in the body, you realize I got to get these guys off of their ass and I got to tire them out in a very scientific way to get them to fucking relax. That's a big part of it. We're tiring you the fuck out. But it's not tiring you out like CrossFit or lifting. not tiring you out like CrossFit or lifting. It's tiring you out in a scientific way, which has a lot to do with breaking the holding patterns in the throat, in the face, in the solar plexus, the belly and the pelvic floor that keep our breathing stifled. And so, for example, you know, it looks like we're dancing and, you know, we are, we were doing a lot of weird stuff like that too, because a big part of what needs to be achieved so

that you can receive your path is you gotta, you gotta destroy the ego. And I got a saying that I, that I remind them when we're there is that the ego cannot survive in an environment of ridiculousness. So we do a lot of ridiculous shit so that you can get over yourself. So it's like everybody here is going to look stupid. You're going to look stupid too, but you literally got to be courageous enough to look stupid or to do stupid things.

So it's kind of stupid in one way, but it's very scientific in that like, so for example, dynamic meditation, which is a five-stage active meditation, which is Osho's most profound, is designed to open up the breathing. And I'm going to do it now. Open up your breathing with a very chaotic movement and chaotic breath that looks like this. Wow.

And you do that. You do that. You can't help but to start digging. In order to be able to do that, you've got to free yourself of a lot of tension so that you can bring that breath down into your balls. And so that you can open up your solar plexus, open up your lungs, open up your nostrils and your throat and get out of the way so that breath can just move through you.

And you do that for 10 minutes. You do that for 10 minutes. You're charged the fuck up. First of all. And then the second stage is called catharsis. And so once you're charged up with the breath and you're, you're charged the fuck up, first of all. And then the second stage is called catharsis. And so once you're charged up with the breath and you're getting out of your own way, mind you, it doesn't happen in one day,

but we consistently practice it. You go into a state where you allow all of the emotional content that has been holding you captive, old traumas, old hopes, fears, and dreams, and anxieties. And you've got a phase where you let it all go. You let it all out. It's amazing. Before I knew it, actually, I knew about this. One of the things I used to do in my gym when I would work with young men is I would encourage them to shout. I was like, you got to shout. So, you know, if we're doing like an overhead press,

like this would bug them out. But all of a sudden, their energy, they turn into something else. When you let a young man press a bar over his head, let it all out for the first time. And then one of my rules was, you press it overhead, you got to drop it. So you let them shout and then drop it there is a sense of freedom that comes along with it a lot of a lot of young men have never experienced because they're constantly being good boys so whatever comes up you know if there's anger that comes up

or there's sadness a lot of you know a lot of men it was the first time that they broke they break down into tears and sobbing because you're getting out of the way. And there's a, there's an environment for that. And then, so that's the second stage. Third stage is grounding. And that's a, that's a physical movement. It's, it's about getting into the zone. So it's, it's exhausting. You know, we're jumping up and down. and then there and then we move into stillness so what osho understood and it's based off of what wilhelm reich called the orgastic wave and he like wilhelm reich likened everything onto sex and so there's a build-up there's a climax but then there's a relaxation that's associated with it and so then once that we have that climax opportunity of the moment, you can finally sink into stillness. And so that creates an opening. Joe Rogan has recently been ridiculed for not having enough women on his podcast. And obviously it's a very men driven type of show. And there's been people on there that have large male followings, such as Jordan Peterson.

And the list kind of goes on and on. What are some of your thoughts? How would you weigh in on something like this? Like, it's kind of amazing to me that it's even like a thing, but it's something that's popped up, you know, in media today. Well, I'd say don't go the way of the Boy Scouts. Right? Yeah. It's like, I'm kind of at a loss for words, almost like how you said, I can't believe we're even having this conversation, but it just shows you how perverted our culture has become where they want men to be women and they want women to be men. And, you know, it's a definite sign of the time,

you know, in the Bible that says that the end, the first shall be last and the last shall be first. And you know that that's when we're coming down to the, to the line here. And so what you're seeing is a total swap in any and everything that made sense ever. And the most fundamental building block of life on earth is sexual polarity. Everything comes from sexual polarity. So if you want to fuck with the people on the planet, you convince women that they're men and you legislate their power because men are the stronger sex. There's no question about it. We're stronger. That's it. By nature, by God. But when you legislate power, when you give women power in that particular way, everything goes topsy-turvy. And when you start making men women

by poisoning us with all kinds of xenoestrogens, phytoestrogens, and shit in the air and water, and then you brainwash us through school and media to be more like women, you've got a backwards fucking world. And that's what we're living in. Yeah. Women had Oprah for decades. Give us Joe Rogan. Let us have, let us have Joe Rogan. Leave us alone. Right. Joe Rogan does a really good bit that you would love because Joe Rogan has four daughters and he talks about like, he goes through this whole thing and you want to talk about somebody letting loose and not being shy of like uh just uh not not feeling weird in front of people he does this whole thing about just uh how he internalizes how he feels uh with all these women in his house and just what it's done to him and how it's turned him into a little

bitch basically it's really really good i'll try to I'll try to find a clip for it on YouTube and send it on over to you. That'd be great. Yeah. Thanks. What you got, Andrew? Mark was able, speaking of Joe Rogan, he was actually able to convince him to try an all carnivore diet. What was your experience on the diet? Carnivore? Yeah. Well, i can't say i've been 100 carnivore okay i thought i had saw something in that direction but i'll tell you that um for years i had been suffering with a lot of like skin conditions skin issues i started you know back when i was maybe about 23 years old and i found that an all meat diet meat is the only thing that doesn't cause inflammation in me it's the only thing that I can eat that doesn't give me a reaction and so through elimination

I just had to get rid of food after food after food and it hadn't been until recently I know you had um uh Sean Baker yeah Sean not Sean. Not Sean Baker. Paul Saladino. Yeah. I was familiar with the work of Weston A. Price many years ago. And I know how he talked about the Eskimos and the natives and they would eat like every bit of the animal. And so I was kind of privy to that idea. And when I started watching his videos and I watched the one you had with

him, then I realized, okay, this is something that can be done and it makes sense if you do this nose to tail deal. So it's only been like a week that I've been adding the collagen and bone meal and eating the liverwurst every day, the organ meats. But I could only imagine good things coming from it because I'm not having any inflammation. One of the foods that I didn't think was screwing me up that now that I've done a couple of days of carnivore, I realize is nuts. I'm like, I can do keto and I would done a couple of days of carnivore, I realize it's nuts. I'm like, you know, it's kind of, I can do keto and I would eat a certain amount of nuts every day, but I'd still

get inflammation and I couldn't figure out why. So going all meats seems pretty promising to me. What's, what's been the coolest thing that has happened from this whole experience over the last five, six years of you going in, going in deep on yourself, whether it be the response from other people or what you've learned, or maybe you've been able to help a family member. It could be, could be anything, but what's the coolest thing that's happened so far? You know, I've always had a big mouth and I've been pretty confident about the things that I talk about, but I've become that much more arrogant now that I've gone in. It's like, you couldn't tell me anything before, but now you

really can't fucking tell me. Cause like I've been there, you know? So I know that I'm a coach. I know that I'm a mentor. It's been my path. It's been revealed to me. But I also know that I'm a healer. And I also know that I am an elder, and some might even say a shaman. But I couldn't be, and I couldn't stand in those shoes until I did my own healing, until I went in on my own. And it's given me the confidence now to accept that fully and accept myself fully. There were parts of myself that I wasn't willing to accept and I was still apologizing for and still had some shame about. But now my level of confidence may even be a little bit pathological, but that's a part of the gift. is, uh, may even be a little bit pathological, but that's a part of the gift.

Do you think that we, uh, need to get wounded? Do you think that we, uh, need to challenge ourselves hard enough to get wounded, uh, like you did, uh, to be able to come full circle? Well, we all are wounded. I think just by manifesting into the 3D, into the carnal life, we live in a world of boundaries. And whether it be a psychological wounding, a soul wounding, emotional wounding, or a wounding of the body. I'm a body guy. I'm an Aries, which is ruled by Mars, which is associated with Achilles and warriors. And so for me, you know, it always shows up in the body. So being a lifter and being an athlete. So I had to get my ass whooped physically. But I don't think that's the case for everyone. I think a lot of a lot of people go through depression or have, you know, various experiences in their life, like tragedy in their lives, deaths in their lives and things like that. They're all means by which our sword is being sharpened. These pains, be them physical or metaphysical, are like sandpaper sharpening or that stone that sharpens the axe. You got to have that roughness that's just working on you some way

so that you can emerge. Another analogy is like the pressure with the coal that makes the diamond. So you can emerge as your diamond self, as your fully integrated self. That's why we come here. That's my conviction, that we come to earth as a, it's a school, it's a learning ground, it's a training ground. And whatever we didn't learn in previous lives or whatever parts of ourselves we want to experience and to sharpen, we're going to come here and we're going to face the challenges

that are associated with it. You hire, you're a power lifter. You hire a coach because you want to increase your bench press. Well, he might look at your bench press and realize, oh, okay, you need a little bit more work on your lockout. Well, it's the same thing with all the experiences that we have here. It's like, you know, your lockout might be how you deal with money. You know, You came here because I got this lack mentality. In previous lives, maybe I was a peasant and I had animosity and I hated people with money and it kept me poor. And so in this lifetime, that's your lockout.

Like, bro, now you're going to need to work on that. Otherwise, you're going to carry that karma with you to the next life and you're just going to be stuck. You know, I know you're a big learner and you're a big reader. What are maybe three to five books that you'd suggest that every man should have in his library or his audiobooks? by Robert Bly. And you gotta be, it's one of these books you gotta be ready for because it's, it's based on stories and mythology and religion and poetry. And so these are, these, the way he describes it, he says that it's food for the heart. It's not, you're not, these are,

these are stories that have to be taken in slowly through the body. This is how he describes it. And so, you know, what's wonderful is that it's available on Audible. And the reader, the guy that reads it, is freaking amazing. So I've listened to it a dozen or more times, easily a dozen times, probably a dozen and a half, maybe two dozen times over and over and over again until it's hypnotized me. It's amazing. So I put that right at the top of my list for masculinity. I would also put any and all work by Robert Moore, who rest in peace, passed away. Passed away right around the time

I started going into the tunnel. Interesting. Who wrote the book King, Warrior, Magician, Lover. These are all very archetypical. These are all, they're Jungian, these books. So they're spiritual, they're mythological. And, you know, like I said, you got to be ready or you have to have a taste for that kind of stuff.

Religious even. But then I would I would throw in all three books by Rolo Tomasi, the Rational Male series. You guys familiar with that? I've heard you talk about it before. Yeah. Red pill. You got to be red pilled, woke. yeah, red pill. You got to be red pilled, woke. And, uh, and Rolla Tomasi, yeah, to the feminine, the feminine agenda, the feminine primary agenda, he calls it. He, and he's a super logical guy, you know, where I, I tend to be a little bit more poetic and that's where I love his work. Like it, like he puts it right down and he's square in that it's all very black and white and all very clear, all very scientific. And if you're going to be dealing with women, you ought to know about the mating schedule. You ought to know about hypergamy. You ought to know about hitting the

wall and monkey branching and all that shit. So there's a whole language of the manosphere that I learned maybe the past year through studying his work. He and I will be doing a workshop together at the 21 Convention coming up here in May. So you got to become red pill. You got to become red pill aware. You know, look into MGTOW and red pill.

So as a man you got those you got those three um i think i'm going to stop there i'll probably be reaching too hard yeah but yeah iron john king warrior magician lover you know robert bly broke down each one of those into a book itself king warrior magician Warrior, Magician, Lover, and the Inner King is available on Audible also too. So I throw that in there. He goes really deep into what it is to access your inner king. And then as far as like intersexual dynamics and understanding women and the role reversal that's going on in society and how to navigate it resourcefully as a man. Yeah. Look at Rolo Tomasi's work. What are some things you've

learned about women just from living with four of them? Yeah. Like when you, when you read some of this stuff, are you like the, all this shit's clicking and you're thinking about your mom and you're thinking about your relationship with your wife and your children, stuff like that? One thing that I've learned is that, and I said it in a video the other day, you know, they say women or girls are sugar and spice and everything nice. And that's not entirely true. And I believe that for, you know, I put the pussy on the pedestal

for many years. And, you know, when I say that, I don't, I'm not saying it all about sex. Like I said, I married my high school girlfriend. I'm talking about always looking for approval for women and, and kowtowing and bowing down to women in the feminine agenda. And, you know, I didn't realize how feminist I was. And, and I think it, it's bred into us from the school system. And because it's gotten to the way to where it's gotten now, women exercise this, this dark conniving power over men now in a very overt way, where it was more hidden because they had to they had to hide it they had to be submissive because men are stronger men rule the world but now that the the tables

have been turned and power has been legislated uh they're far more overt and you get to see just how ugly they can be you know you've pictured picture most feminists. They look horrible. They're fat because they don't give a fuck because they don't need men no more. They've got big daddy government. And, you know, they dress all kind of weird ways and shit. So you get to see just how evil the heart is within the woman. You know, they like to they want to point out men as being toxic.

Women are fucking evil. And this is the reason why the snake came to Eve in the garden. The snake, Satan didn't come to the man because the man's got sense. He's got logic. He's got boundaries. He wasn't going to be easily manipulated, but it's easy to get to the woman, you know, and you promise her all kinds of things like easy abortion. You don't have to have babies. Birth control pills. Oh, you don't have to have babies. Birth control

pills. Oh, you don't have to stay married to him. Easy divorce. Oh, you want to vote so you can bring betas into office like Obama. You can do whatever you want and then you get the world that we got. Last last question. I don't want to chew up any more of your time, but should people be married? What are your thoughts on marriage? Well, you know, of course I've got my lens on because, you know, I am married. I'm happily married. I wouldn't get married again. Let me put it that way though. Like I'm very happily married. I'm doing this thing. You go to your wife and you're like, Hey, I read this thing in this book and we got this thing that we're doing. Like, we're not doing it anymore. Probably wouldn't go over so well, right? The reason why, the same reason why I quit making YouTube videos.

I got the fucking trophy. I win and then I'm on. I'm gone. So like, you know, I'm death to us part for sure with me and my wife. But if she dies, I'm not going to do like these dudes do and go get remanded. And you did the woman thing. I've got children. So like I'd be MGTOW all the way afterwards. But as far as like advice for young men, look, man, because because big daddy government is their father now, government is the father. You know, if you marry, when you sign a government contract, a marriage license, you give up a tremendous amount of authority in your home. The state now basically owns your children. And so I am totally against government being big daddy.

I'm anti-establishment of America, but there's a whole lot that I don't love. And so I would advise most young men not to have a marriage license. Don't bring the state into your marriage. I do believe in pair bonding. I'll just, Oh, this seems good. No, actually we're good now. Sounds good now. You can hear me now. Yep. Okay, cool. So, um, yeah, I do believe in pair bonding, but I don't believe in having big daddy government

be a part of my relationship. I wouldn't, if I got married again, I wouldn't do a, I wouldn't sign a marriage contract or a state. I wouldn't do it with the state, even though they got ways around that too. If you live with a woman, it's like called common law marriage. So once again, big daddy government becomes the man of the house. And so I'm against that. I would say if you're going to marry, if you're going to be pair bonded, do it through your religion, through your church, through your own ritual. And have an agreement.

And do your best to have an agreement that this is an agreement between you and I. And Uncle Sam shouldn't have anything to do with it. Awesome, man. We appreciate you so much. I've been a huge fan. I know I speak for the whole crew here. We've all been huge fans. And even everybody at Super Training Gym in general,

everybody knows who you are. Been huge fans for a long time. Really appreciate your time. Thank you. And I appreciate you guys also. You've been inviting me over, Jim. I'd love to make it up. We will, uh, we will definitely figure out a time, uh, for you to get up here and we will definitely figure out a time, uh, for me to get out there or for all of us to get out there.

Hopefully at some point, uh, that would be amazing. Thanks again for your time. Thanks again for your time, man. your time man we really appreciate it catch you later all right take care guys i'll keep going yeah real quick that'd be good yeah we're going for about an hour and 45 yeah dude ellie holst man yeah he's rocking so good he's rocking it you know i i think if you kind of just if you've been listening to this show for a long time you know and you're trying to unpack some of what he said it's like man you can get it can get really confusing and it's like well why can't the dude just answer the question why has he got to go off on these uh but he has a lot of explaining to do there's a lot of of explanation behind him answering any of the questions. And so it's almost like, you know, if we're going to, if somebody asked the questions,

Hey, should I do dynamic effort deadlift? It's like, okay, well, hold on a second. Here's what a dynamic effort deadlift could do for you. And here are some reasons why you might use it. But like, what do you currently deadlift? So you got to ask a bunch of questions when you're asked a question, especially when you have people coming in that are kind of new to some of this topic and some of this information. And so I thought he did a great job kind of addressing that.

But if you've listened to this show for a while, we talk about it all the time. We try to talk about being better. You know, he mentioned fasting. Well, look, you know, if you haven't ever really fasted before, he's talking about a 10 day fast. That wouldn't make sense for that to be a place to start. If you freak out because you have a doctor's appointment and they tell you that you need to not eat before they do blood work at 8 a.m. Maybe the first time that you fast, maybe try just 12 hours.

Try something really simple. And anything that he mentioned, they're all add-ons to your life. You don't have to take away or subtract anything. These are all things that you get the opportunity to try, you get the opportunity to implement, and you can work on being better at it than you were yesterday. But if you try to implement everything he said all at once, you're going to like go crazy. You're going to lose your mind. If you try to read all the books

that he mentioned at the end, he started mentioning a lot of books. You're going to go, you're going to go crazy. You go bonkers. So some of what he said, I think is very easy to implement. He mentioned a great place to start just in general is with fasting. That's very simple. Yeah. And like I said, I do find it really interesting that, you know, you, you asked the question, do you think people should fast off of social media? And then he went back to start with the food, like start with the food and it's going to kind of pour into a lot of other things. And it's, I want, I really do wonder why is it that that happens? Like even for me that happened when I started fasting with food, a lot of my other

habits that I may have been trying to build changed or improved. And it was because of my control over that aspect. And I mean, we've talked about how much I can and could eat. It made a big difference for me. It's going to be something that I continue to do even as I, you know, continue lifting as much as I do and doing as much jujitsu as I do being an athlete. It's something I'm going to continue to implement to some extent or the other, just because of what it does for me outside of the whole lifting sphere. It's huge. Yeah. I think it's a, it's a little bit hard for like, cause even for myself to really grasp like, why is fasting going to help in you know this area or that area

but I think if you were to say like hey you're going to unplug your TV and not plug it back in for a month like imagine like just the TV but imagine how much that's going to affect the rest of your life like oh I got a lot of stuff done today like oh that's weird you know

I don't watch that much TV but at the same same time, it's like, well, I do. So maybe if I were to do something like that, you know, like fast from TV, you know, it's like it doesn't make sense. Why would that help me in the podcast? But it will. So it's like, you know, with the fasting from food, you know, it's just going to trickle into other areas of your life. I think that one of the, first of all, food, it's important that it's actually food, right? Like you can fast, you can fast away from other things. Uh, but we know that you need food to live, to sustain life. We need some calories, right? And, uh, I think it's all the thoughts that go behind, uh, eating, I think is a big part of it.

And he said, uh, you're getting away from kind of the emotional attachment to food. Um, just being sustained and not needing stuff. You know, I, I think I've said on this podcast before, I remember, uh, John Cena was in town. He was coming to the gym and, um, he, uh, I made fun of him cause he slept, he slept in the parking lot, but he, he has this like massive, uh, RV thing that, you know, is nicer than 90% of the population's homes pretty much. Um, but, uh, you know, I asked a bunch of questions. I was like, he was with his girlfriend at the time. I was like, you need coffee. Like, can I bring anything? Uh,

I'm like, I can, you know, fry up an omelet or something. I can take you to breakfast or like, like, cause I know that he kind of can't go out. So I'm like,

I can grab something on the way. Like he, it's John Cena. He can't like, he can't just like roll into a black bear doctor and he get mobbed. Right. And, um,

each, each time I texted him, you know, he said he was good. He said, thank you. And the last thing he said was sustained. Like I'm good. Like I got it. And, uh, what a great feeling that is to be sustained, to be, to just, you're totally okay. And I think that's what you're proving to yourself when you fast. You're like, I don't necessarily need that. I want that, but I don't need it. I told my wife, I told my girlfriend, I told somebody, you know what? I'm going to do some 16-hour fast this week. I'm going to give it a try.

You told yourself, certainly, if you didn't tell anybody else. And who can fast? Everyone. Yeah. Yeah. else and who can fast like everyone yeah yeah i mean there's some people unfortunately they can't even walk there's some people that can't even see it can't even hear uh but everyone can just not eat you know i mean uh and you might think that you can't but i think the fact that you tell yourself that you're going to do it and you actually come through and you actually do it. I think that is really, really powerful. And we think about all of our goals. There's going to be a lot of stuff that we just, we're going to try our best and we're going to tell ourselves that we're going to do it. And, uh, hopefully we obtain

it. Um, but part of setting goals and things like there's going to be some times where you just you try and try and try and it and it just gets harder and harder and at some point you start to because your goals always get bigger they're a moving target i want to win worlds i'm sure you'll do that right but that won't be the end of it now i got to go to this you know there's this other thing and it's gonna it's gonna gonna turn into a whole big thing basically but fasting is something that you can set a goal for and boom you can do it and you can get instant gratification of whether you've reached that x amount of hours or that x amount of days it's not a surprise that you see like a lot of a lot of fitness individuals now are starting to

get into fasting nowadays like that we're doing this for a lot of years, you know what I mean? Not doing fasting to realize the benefits of it, you know, coming from like that. I mean, myself coming from an IFYM background, I think it's, it's really good that I had that experience of like counting macros and I still think that's really beneficial. Um, but it's mainly that crowd that's really resistant to this whole idea you know i mean i did that i did that at a high level i got to extreme levels of conditioning doing it and it's not like it works but i still think that there's something bigger here than there that people should take into account so it's great to see that elliot's done that and obviously he's taken that to another level he said he's gonna fast for 40 days like j said he's going to fast for 40 days. Like Jesus, that's going to be crazy.

Yeah. That is pretty wild. Uh, it was amazing to hear him say that. I mean, I don't know how you felt about this Mark, but like, I wanted to go give you a big old high five when he's like,

yeah, I was watching your guys' show with Paul Saladino. Oh hell yeah. Yeah. And I'm just like, dude, uh, you know,

I just turned 34. So like I said, the first, one of the first persons i followed on youtube was elliot holst and it's like dude holy shit like seven years later is that the math yeah seven years later it's like he's on the show and he's saying that he watches our show we're gonna get everybody watching the show at some point you'll have no choice yeah i mean like coming up we have got rich froning on like who doesn't want to hear from the four-time CrossFit champion, right?

I mean, that guy whooped up on everybody. Yeah. And then he was like, oh, I'll just go, you know, I'm going to cut way back. I'm going to do team. And then his team wins two years in a row. I think he's on, you know, going on his third. It's like just guys are mutant. And that's another weird thing.

The first CrossFitter who ever knew it was Rich Froning. Yeah. Yeah. He even tried some crossfit workouts kind of based off of some stuff that because i seen this guy named rich froning i'm like who is that yeah like geez i want to look like that guy and obviously didn't understand genetics the other thing i think that the fasting does is it it puts it puts things into uh perspective too you know like when you kind of like like, ah, I don't really, I don't really need to eat. I don't really need that. And it just, it gives you a, I don't know,

it gives you a sense of like, just not needing stuff as much. And so maybe, you know, maybe for that reason, it helps you abstain from other things and realize like, it's not that bad to, to do that. Or it's not that bad to work out five days in a row. It's not that bad to make a commitment to stop eating junk for a few days in a row. There's, I think it just puts things into perspective. You're like, man, I was able just to not eat for 20 hours, you know, a couple of days in a row. Yeah. Overall consumption of things in general, especially things that may not be that great for you is reduced. Like you just feel more in control. That vagina consumption. That's what you're talking about. Yeah. Pussy on a pedestal.

That should be the name of the podcast. Yeah. Not bad. We don't want our podcast named Pussy on a Pedestal. No, I just meant like that episode. I know. Ooh.

Yeah. I was just picturing it like a bright light, you know, like up on a pedestal. Shining down on a vagina. Bright, fluorescent, black light.

Mm-hmm. Yeah. Show showing the glow. I guess we have some pro ballplayers here that want to say what's up. Oh, cool. Dope. All right. Well, I guess we're done. Strength is never a weakness.

Weakness is never a strength. It's awesome having Elliot Hulse on the podcast today. And I'm excited. I'm fired up. I'm excited that we finally had a chance to communicate with him because that was some deep shit it was catch you guys later