Mark Bell's Power Project - Mark Bell's Power Project EP. 225 - Todd Abrams

Episode Date: June 27, 2019

Todd Abrams is the CEO and founder of Icon Meals. He is also a founder of DadBod Inc. which is a passion project for him where he aims to transform what we think when we hear the term “dadbod”. Todd got into fitness and bodybuilding after his hockey career, and since then he has competed in many NPC Men’s Physique Shows and won his pro-card in 2012 before he opened up Icon Meals. ➢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

I can project. Oh, there you go. Okay, there it is. Yeah. Hey now. Oh, Andrew, you haven't told him that he hasn't actually been on any of the shows yet. No, I know. Yeah, your microphone's been unplugged. I've seen the videos and I've listened and I'm like, where's my voice? How come you haven't said anything? No, no, I'm embarrassed. I'm just happy to be here. That's good. Isn't that Marshawn Lynch? I don't know. I'm just happy to be here. Isn't he saying it over and over again? Marshawn Lynch in those Super Bowl questions.

He just says the same thing over and over again because he got fined because he didn't say anything to the media. Yeah. You can't not show up to press conferences. And then he was like, okay, I'll show up. So then he showed up. And you can't just not answer questions. This is part of being a professional football player. So you've got to find a bunch.

And then so every time they asked him a question, I'm pretty sure he just kept saying, I'm just happy to be here. My favorite was Rasheed Wallace back in the day when he said both teams played hard. He said it a hundred times? Just, yeah. Like, so what do you think was the determining factor? You know, blah, blah, blah.

Both teams played hard. And then it's like, how about your offense today? It seems like it was a little bit odd. Both teams played hard. And he got fined so much. I mean, you know, whatever. Nothing for a baller, but, you know. We got talking the other day on the podcast,

and then we pulled up a clip because Nsema brought it up. This guy was like done. He got finished with a soccer game, and he was like – he was so excited and so happy. And he's like thanking people. I think he thanks like the other players and the coaches and stuff. And he's like, and I'd really like to thank my girlfriend. I mean my wife. And then he went in like deeper on like how much he loves his wife, and he like frazzled you know it's like whoops a daisy yeah yeah i don't

think uh his night went over so well after that we're here today we're joined uh with my boy todd abrams we've had todd out a few times and uh i was really it's really great to get an opportunity to have you on the podcast today and get to chit-chat. You're somebody I look up to, and it's good to have you here today. Got some good training in. Got some good deadlifting in. We trained some back. We made sure that SEMA wasn't part of the process because we can't have the guy get any bigger or stronger.

Told him the wrong time. Yeah, it's just embarrassing for the rest of us. So, yeah, exactly. We tell him the wrong place, the wrong time. Yeah, it's just embarrassing for the rest of us. So we, yeah, exactly. We tell him the wrong place, the wrong time, everything. He was over at 24 Hour in Sacramento waiting for us at 7, but we trained over here at 4 instead. All the time. Always get in the shaft. That's the way we roll around here.

So last time I had you out, we went and we had some dinner with my buddy Jason Kalipa. That was pretty cool. That's awesome. And then it was just kind of a weird set of circumstances where I also had Brian Shaw here and Taylor Woolham. But the gym looks a lot different than last time you were out, huh? It looks awesome. Yeah, back, I think you guys were just moving in here. Yeah.

We were joking around telling before we were deadlifting on that particle board. Yeah. Did a workout on the next day and there was a few dumbbells and different things. But it looks awesome. Just proud of everything that you guys have accomplished. But just the overall setup and even like the podcast room was you didn't have any of this setup before. Looks fancy, doesn't it? Looks fancy.

Yeah. I asked Andrew to put this stuff together. He took some mind bullet. Next thing I know, boom, done. Yeah, pretty much. That's the secret. Yeah, I had no idea what was going on. I literally only took one capsule of MindBullet, and then blink, and it's done.

Yeah, it was just a synergy that happened. You can't make this stuff up. So what's going on with this Icon Meal stuff, man? You've been hooking me up with these products for quite some time, and we're seeing meal prep companies pop up all the time. What's going on with Icon Meals? Yeah, we've been at this now for, I guess, almost four and a half years, so lots of changes, lots of what I'll call learning. Like I said before, if we knew now, back then what we know now, we probably wouldn't be in the meal prep game.

It's a lot different. Just chit-chatting before and saying, one of the biggest things is, I guess, frustration, right? As far as, like you said, meal prep companies popping up. Everyone wants to be in the meal prep game. And there's a lot of, I think, differentiating factors where apples aren't sort of always apples and perception's not always reality, right?

So especially with today, a lot of these big influencers and stuff. It's hard to say, right? It's hard to come out and, like, it's your own product. So it's hard for you to say, hey, listen, these other guys are crap. What we have is the best, right? Yeah, it's not even that, Mark. It's more, I think, keeping standards, right? Because when you're talking about food, you're talking about a product that,

just as we talk about, like, the MindBullet and different things, you have different alcohol legalities, but also responsibilities of what you're putting out to other people right so it's not just in from a standpoint of it's a lot easier if we just said hey we want to look at making money and as you know in meals and perishable foods there's not the margins right so it's a lot of regulations a lot of differentiating factors but again there are standards that need to be followed just to not make people sick but also from an ingredient standpoint, from a macro nutritional standpoint, people shouldn't just, I don't think, well, they should be able to trust and say, hey, it is what it is when it's what it says on the package. But that's not always the thing, right?

And we're talking about, hey, Mark, you just showed me your prototype room and you say, hey, buy this and that from different people. And we probably spend $3,000, $4,000 a month buying, I'll call it competitors, not really competitors, but people in the space. Right. And we're not going to be the people that go out and say, hey, this is what it is and show the world. But I say karma is a bitch, right? So whatever. But we want to understand what other people are getting in that experience. And it's crazy.

You're not buying it to copy it. You're buying it to see what the product looks like and see how you feel when you receive the product. But like, I'll give you an example. So we bought just probably two weeks ago, we bought $399 of food from Company X, right? And they shit on everyone in the market that uses dry ice because this and that, and they use gel packs, blah, blah, blah.

And look, we've learned a lot of things. We've done everything. It's very different shipping methods. We have a whole department. That's all they do. But we get their food and we fail under FDA and under sort of state inspection and stuff. If your food comes in, it's warmer than 40 degrees. So we get this and they're all, hey, this is overnight shipping, FedEx shipping overnight, 24 hours. We get their food. First thing my guys do is laser test it,

through the box, whatever, 54 degrees. Laser tested inside, 53 and a half degrees. The problem is there, people then take that food. They go put it back in the refrigerator. So pathogens, what happens is when food cools, comes down, temperatures reengage, pathogens come up. What do you do? Oh, put it in the fridge. We put it in the fridge and this other company only has five to seven day max shelf life

because they're using normal cube containers. Well, it's not nitrogen plush. It's not oxygen deprived, et cetera. So from that standpoint, that food's already been up and down in temperature twice, been sitting in 115 degree, probably FedEx truck, but people don't understand that. Right. And so that's like, just give you one example, but there's been other examples and we'll have like different foods that we send to a lab. Well, people like every single one of our meals, I'm spending $856 to $1,100 per meal to have it lab tested. Like that's what we have to do.

So the standard in the industry is called, it's a database program called Genesis. And most companies use Genesis, I think a lot of, but Genesis to me is only as good as people that are putting the ingredients in. So let's say for instance, Cisco, we buy a lot of our food. Well, Cisco says, hey, it has this much of one thing. We found tons of errors the whole time that it's not what it is. So a rice might be different than another race, right? But it sets the macros off. And that's only, so that's not lab testing. Lab testing is chemical analysis where it breaks the product down into cinders and then tells you, Hey, these are the macros.

This is the protein. This is the carbs. This is the fat, sodium, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. But I guarantee you, okay. 85%, 90% of the companies out there because they are not held to that standard. I can't get a label approved and people say, Hey, 85%, 90% of the companies out there because they are not held to that standard. I can't get a label approved and people say, hey, what's the difference from three years ago? The difference is we've been state inspected, FDA inspected for three years, have an inspector on site. But for me to get, let's say, Bo Jackson's playing card with these details on the back, right, published, I have to have that approved by the state. What does that mean? Follow their standards. Chemical analysis comes back.

I submit it to the state. The state goes, yes, yes, yes, yes. Like even to the artwork, right? This meets our standards for the label. And then they say, okay, now we can put it in. So I can't just roll out 10 new meals this week that I want to roll out. They have to have that proper labeling. So that's, again, just going through, I think the standards aren't comparable, right?

We talked about like a lot of other things. Isn't that hard to follow through? Like, obviously, like, I know that you kind of chose this route because you're shipping across state lines and things like that, and you're getting to different vendors. So there's different rules. So you chose to be like FDA approved, right? So let's just, the standard is, so anyone can come and play. And this is to me, like I told you before, a little bit ass backwards or whatever. Anyone can come, sell food, and anywhere in the U.S., right? If they're manufactured in the U.S. and FDA, USDA can't say anything. So I can send it.

So Seema and I can start a meal prep company. We can cook in our own kitchen or something like that. Well, you're not supposed to cook in your own kitchen. The standard is supposed to be in commercialized, et cetera. But there are people cooking in their own kitchen. I'll give you another example. This is pretty bad, okay? One of the companies that's in the industry

was cooking in a strip club. Strip club only operates till whatever time. Well, then there's a downtime. I know it's funny, right? Twang to it. But what they start because they're going to find a commercial kitchen. Well, strip club has off hours, right? They're off hours. Typically strip club is not going to start till the afternoon. So they're cooking after they're done in the night, but that's where that food was coming in. Okay. But no one ever says that. And then from that genius idea, by the way, it's good to save money, I guess, right? Get a little extra, extra, but from that standpoint, you can ship anywhere. Okay. Then if I want to sell to wholesalers, so that would be a gym, Mark Bell's gym, right? Having

my food put in you. So it's changing hands. You resell in our 24 hour fitness instate, you have to be what's called state approved. So you have to get a state grant. It's not easy. They command you have to have a HACA plan, which is like a hazard protocol that you follow. Ours is 90 pages every single day that we have that inspector going through, right? So that's temperature testing. It's product formula. It's red tagging. Let's say they're taking, I don't know, X amount of pounds of Sirtoline and they're sending it off to the lab. We have to do water testing, like all this different testing on a daily basis. So a lot of additional costs associated with that. So that's that if I want to sell in my state. So if I'm in California, I'd be state restricted there. If I'm in Texas, then there's USDA. USDA only requires their involvement if

you're going to sell wholesale across state lines. So that's, again, you pick your battles if you want to do that. But I think if you're a meal prep company, it should be one standard, right? Why is there a lower standard? You should be put on one standard. And if everyone's going to sell food, we might as well make sure that everyone's going to be eating the same inspected healthy product across the board. So that's sort of biggest frustration. I know that's a little bit of a rant, but it's just – it's not – I don't care about the money aspect of, oh, taking away business and stuff. I don't believe it's fair to the end consumer because they're miseducated and perception is not always right.

It doesn't matter how shiny this bullet is. It's not – you're not eating what you're eating. Yeah, that can be very confusing, right? confusing, right? Like, you know, like if I'm searching online and somebody, you know, let's say a trainer, you know, recommended, you know, that, that, Hey, like it might be easier for you to, you know, get a meal prep company. And I Google it or look it up or find the influencer that posted something about it. And I look on and they got nice pictures and they, you know, it's somebody I trust. I'm like, okay, well that looks good. And I don't know anything about like packaging. I don't know about nitrogen flushing But I don't know anything about, like, packaging.

I don't know about nitrogen flushing. I don't know about how they can seal their packaging up so no oxygen gets in there and so the temperatures don't change. And, you know, it's hard. So do you think, like, a lot of these regulations are, like, bullshit? Or do you like going through them and you just think that everyone should have that standard? I think it has to be, it's like, sure, it's a lot easier when you don't have those regulations, right? But I think it is a standard that should be followed and should be implemented. Keeps people safe in the long run. Correct. When we go back and we talk to like our inspector, the FDA or USDA people that are in house and they come in and out like doing inspections

and stuff, for us, it's their biggest frustration is they don't have enough people to police. So let's say for instance, you have meal prep company. No one's ever going to come and say, hey, Mark, your food's not legal and this and that, unless someone calls and complains. Anonymous complaint has to go into the state, right? Then they'll send an inspector. They just don't have a lot of people to go. There's like every single health place in Texas, okay, is going to sell some sort of food. And people in Texas aren't supposed to carry food from a company that doesn't have the state seal, inspected grant. So we have a little sticker like this, right, that has our number. I forget what our number is, 4166.

So it would be in there. This little thing here is on our actual label. So every single label that has meat in it. So it only applies to meat. Like if you have chicken, meat meals, et cetera, steak, whatever, they're on it. But they know that they're not supposed to carry that. But then there's different authority bodies. So in County X, let's say in Frisco, Texas, there's the local health, right?

They don't necessarily know what the state knows. So they're saying, hey, to you, Mark, in your store, you can sell whatever you want. Well, no, you can't based on state regulation. So there's like a conflict there, which is sort of weird as well. But again, it is a frustration. I think that everyone should have one standard to follow. regulation you have to so there's like a conflict there which is sort of weird as well but um again it's just it is a frustration i think that everyone should have one standard to follow i don't think it'll ever be that way though because just there's not enough people ever coming out like no one says hey i want to grow up and i want to be freaking fda food inspector

right and we're finding that like we talked to people and there's 20 art inspectors like yeah my dad was here for 22 years and i'm like it's crazy it's like an old boys club or old girls club right but um it's just it's it's been interesting the things you learn there and even like with the fda and then when usda people come there's only so many inspectors per jurisdiction and these guys are way underpaid and way overworked like some of these people were driving 150 miles so they're doing five or six different plants they leave us they start at five o'clock in the morning. They leave our place at 830, and they're going to like five or six other plants. They're using our place as like a home-based facility,

so we have to provide them like their own office, a shower, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. That's where they do their education stuff out of and have a full-time office in our facility. It looks to me like the company's grown a lot since the time I first got food from you. You guys have changed a lot of things. It's very clear, since the time I first got food from you, you guys have changed a lot of things. It's very clear that you're putting money back into the business. Um, how did you, how'd you even like, how'd you get this thing like off the ground? And, and, uh, I guess maybe even, you know, why, like, why'd you get it off? Like, why'd you start it?

Yeah. Originally we started, um, based on, I'll call it selfish reasons, right. From the standpoint of we just, there was a few other options. One of my friends owned another local company, didn't necessarily like exactly what they're doing. It's picky. Didn't want to have certain ingredients, certain preservatives and stuff in what they were doing. So I met my partner, Danny, who was the head chef at the Omni Hotels. Danny's culinary background, as long as he's been around pretty much, and just really understood the food side of it. And we put that together, started doing custom meals where building your own macros, et cetera, and then got into signature meals. And to me, any business that

you have, I've always, I've had three other businesses prior, but you have to have two things. One, for me, it's important to have a residual or recurring revenue stream. And I look at food as that. Everyone buys and has to eat, right, every five to seven days. So it's recurring revenue. The second thing is I think you have to have, I'll call it, a solution to a problem. And our solution that we try to provide is convenience, right? Everyone lives a busy, hectic lifestyle. And you guys have all heard the Blue Aprons and the Hello Freshes and everyone else.

The big, I think, what I'll call downfall in that aspect is people think it's great for the first, maybe four, six weeks, maybe a couple of months. But after the fact is you still got to build, you just got to put that meal together where it takes 15 minutes, whether it takes 30 minutes, right? You have to put it together. So from a convenience aspect, our food's ready to eat on the go. I don't know. You got mommy. Interesting way of putting it out. If you think about it, like sometimes people will say that you can't like time is the one commodity, the commodity that you can't buy. But in this case, commodity that you can't buy but in this case you kind of can i think you're buying back a little bit of time you know it buys convenience and adds to that whatever you're doing microwave it for three minutes you're good to go yeah or eat it cold like i do half the time in the car

but it's uh so you started it mainly for yourself and then how were you able to like get it off the ground? Did you have investors? How did you get things going? So it's been self-funded up until basically a year ago. And I'll call it still self-funding. Really, a year ago, we took a partner on. But that partner was really just for our CPG.

I'll call it relationships and different things. So myself and my partner had funded it. And then based on cash flow, funded it. If you look, it wasn't the flashiest. A lot of the stuff is, like we had this discussion. How did you fund it? What did you do before? I had, the last business I had

was a company called Layer Technologies. I owned data centers. We did cybersecurity hosting. So I had that for 14 years. So when people say, hey, like about materialistic objects and like things that happen quick and the internet millionaires and stuff, I say, dude, we're four and a half years in. And to me, we're just really getting started, right? That, for 14 years before that, I had another company that was software.

I grew up in Canada. So I don't know if the accent's showing out and about in the house. It comes out here and there. Yeah. I grew up actually in the funeral industry. So my dad owns funeral homes and cemeteries. There's a recurring revenue stream. but uh never going away so one thing's gonna happen you're gonna die everybody needs to die and everyone needs to eat right so um but that's

sort of i started a software company that way and i think that propelled us into we rolled out the the hosting company from there and then um we sold that and i've always been like i don't know eating healthy my wife more than yoga and vegan and stuff so it's been a part of our lifestyle and it just made sense but also i call it more it was more i had the data centers and had their things and those were big companies that 220 people in the last company but it wasn't really like this is more more passion for me, right? I believe the food, and I'm talking about why it gets me riled up about the FDA and all that stuff

is just because I truly believe we're helping someone, right? The biggest thing to me is obesity is a huge epidemic in this, like in the country, right? Not only in the US. But at least he has a smile on his face, right? That's true.

He's happy about it. So if I can feel like we're making a difference in someone's life or someone's child, like the child, that's to me, right? Everything comes through your kids and stuff. And it pisses me off because when we bought the company, like when we bought the first, we were renting a catering kitchen. And that catering kitchen, we went ahead because we were using it for almost 24 hours a day. So we went ahead, bought all their assets and almost 24 hours a day. So we went ahead, bought all their assets and stuff. And the guy owned a meal prep business,

which was for private schools. He's like, hey, I want you to take over these contracts. And it was disgusting to me. So he would go buy Domino's pizza, okay, and other crap

and basically cut the pieces that were like this into three pieces. So he's buying a pizza for $7. And then that would be part of their meal. And I'm like, dude,

we're not frigging taking over this country. I don't care if it's quarter million dollars, half a million dollars. If we can't sell our food, I'm not going to feed shit. Right. So that's, but that's what so many of this is out there. Right. So if I can feel like we're making even a small difference and that's when we look at

like going ahead on our snacks and different things and what we're trying to do with clean ingredient decks and things that like, I want my child to put in his mouth. Right. So the other thing is, look, we're never going to commit with a product that we're trying to do with clean ingredient decks and things that like i want my child to put in his mouth right so the other thing is look we're never going to commit with a product that we're not going to eat so i'm not going to commit with some meal that i wouldn't eat myself i wouldn't feed my kids like it's funny because my whole family my kids and stuff for probably the last three and a half four years we eat icon meals and i get lazy going to the grocery store so it's the other day my daughter's like like, hey dad, hey mom, what's for dinner? And I said, I cut meals. She goes, I cut meals.

I've had I cut meals Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday. I don't want I cut meals. But that's what it is, right? Just it's convenience. We live a busy lifestyle, like hectic lifestyle, three kids, working, et cetera. So it makes life easier for us. And if I know we can have ingredients

that while we're making life easier for us are going to hopefully keep us healthy, nutritious, et cetera, then that's, I feel good about what I'm doing. And that's what makes me want to go to work every day and like better and do different things. And it makes me want to do the crap that I don't want to do. I don't want to deal with the FDA and USD every day. Right. We just went through and for the last four years, we're in 12,000 square square feet we just took over a 31 000 square foot facility so like going from doing potential a big 50 000 meals a week in that facility max right so we had three shifts 24 hours a day because we just had no more room we had 70 people whatever on top of one another this place we've gone back to three shifts so

instead of an overnight stops probably at midnight one and starts up at five but this facility has the capacity right now with current technology to do about a quarter million meals a week. So again, can do a lot more things. We'll have a lot more coming out, just a lot more evolution and growth. But there is an easy road. There is an easy road where you can skimp corners and buy crappy product and do different things that necessarily probably aren't integrative and different things. And there's a harder way. And I think we've chosen the harder way, but to me it's the right way. And that's again, going back, why I just feel so passionate about the different aspects of not everyone competing on that same level. So, you know, I'm curious because when you said, when you started, right. Obviously I can tell

that you started with a wanting to have quality with everything that you put out. But with so many meal prep companies that are coming out right and left every single year, how is it that you managed to separate yourself from everybody else while, like, everyone's trying to do that same thing? So I think it's not necessarily – I think what a lot of these companies get rolled up into is looking at, Hey, what is Mark doing? What are you doing? Right. But to me, it's not that we've always wanted to evolve. I think if you're not evolving and growing, you're dying. Right. But for me, what that is, that's always trying to push, not the envelope as far as like quality and things, but pushing new product, doing different things. And I'll say, look for us, people say, Hey, what's the deal? You want

to sell the company? So look, my blinders are on. I told my partner, Danny, just a couple weeks ago, we were in four and a half years in the other place, right? I said, forget that four and a half years. I need your undivided attention for the next 18, 24 months because we're back at ground zero, right? We're 31,000 square feet. We have now about 90 employees, et cetera. But I need us to build Icon version 2.0. What's that, right? New meals, like we're rolling it family style, rolling it kids style, okay? We're doing a lot with the

a la carte, a lot of different functional food items. So you'll see five new snack or functional food items rolling in. But I think that's one of the things like, look, it's the same as in working there. Don't try to compare yourself to someone else, okay? If you want to compare yourself to someone else, first, step up and make sure you're doing all that back work that no one sees, right? No one sees the crap that we do with the quality and the FDA. And like, we talked about box testing and packaging.

I've got people that run over the boxes. I've got people that are like, we've done things on YouTube, like off a 25 foot ceilings, right? Like for foam testing and for allergens and recycling. And like, we do tests that frigging packages go with robotic like thermometers around the country and we're getting temperature testing back to see what it does on FedEx. No one ever talks about that, right? And

that's cost us. But I think that's the thing that you got to understand what you want to get from your business. If you're just doing it for money and you're cooking food, I can cook food and I can charge money and not worry. But again, you you got to understand i think what you want to get and then blinders on focus where you're going and everyone else can do their own thing like i believe there's many other companies that have copied different things that we've done is great i don't really care congratulations to them right but if they want to play exactly apples to apples and start and i try to stay out of like talking junk and stuff and it it's funny because my partner gets real riled up, right? Mexican and different things.

And I'm like, dude, don't worry. It's like imitation, but it's a form of flattery for you, okay? And I'll put my chef like Danny, my partner up against anyone like head to head. And I think that's really just blinders on, focus on what you're doing. Like Mark said, who cares about what the other people are doing right now, right? 10 years down the road, they know that you were the guy that started it so if they can perfect it and make it better than yours so yeah right okay yeah todd and i were just talking a little bit off the air and he was like i see like a lot of knockoffs of this product and that product and

i was like yeah you know but i won't get any credit for that for a while you know because we're all kind of like everyone's kind of like fighting together you know but it will be 10 years 20 years um down the line where someone will be like, you know what, that fucking guy started all that shit, you know? And, and, but it's like, what does it really matter anyway? Like, I don't really care. I just, I want to make things better. I want to see things improve. And like you said, you know, you started your stuff for selfish reasons. Same here.

Like I made all the products that I made, especially in the beginning, like just to serve purposes for myself. Well, I liked about what you just said though, really, it's like, you know, kind of in a nutshell, you know, you're talking about like grow and evolve and don't focus in on what someone else is doing. That's a great message for all of us, uh, in this kind of like Instagram, you know, lifestyle, this Instagram world that we're in, where you, when you see other people, what they're doing, you're like, oh man, I think I need to do that. Oh man, I think I need to do, you know, you see, see a Michael Hearn workout. It's very easy to like all of a sudden change your, change your plan and start following his program. But meanwhile, the program that you just started, you didn't

even give a chance to let it grow or let it, let it work. Uh, maybe you heard of somebody's, uh, diet or nutrition advice and you start trying it for a few days and then you hear somebody else's and then you hop on that. It's like, no, let's let's kind of build towards the future. And maybe rather than comparing yourself to other people, compare yourself to yourself, compare yourself to where you're at and compare yourself to kind of like where you want to get. Compare yourself to where you used to be. Think about where you want to get, compare yourself to where you used to be. Think about where you used to be. You're probably, you know, hopefully, you know, if it's two, three years into your training process, hopefully you're further ahead. And if you're not, that's when you have to start asking yourself some questions. Have I really been consistent with this? Have I, you know, if I,

am I at a six or am I at a nine in terms of like effort, things like that. Here's what I say to that. So I think a lot of people, it's two things, right? I put a quote out there the other day and it's like a lot of people are going to come and go. A lot of things are going to come and go in your life. But the one thing that's constant is when you look in the mirror, that same person you're going to see, right? You're going to see him now.

You're going to see him hopefully 70, 80 years down the road. Okay. The second thing is on that, what you just said, I asked a question in a little video and I got a bunch of bad feedback the other day. I said, Hey, are you an integrative person? And they're like, fuck you. I'm integrative. So I'm like, I live by integrity stuff. Okay, great. But are you

being integrity, integrity person to yourself? And that's like, are you doing the things that you're telling other people? Okay. To yourself? Like, look, I didn't have to get up at two 45 in the morning the other day. I was in the, I sit in my garage gym. It was frigging two 30 in the morning. I'm doing what I don't want to do. Okay. But I could have taken a picture and this and that and posted it and not done it. Okay. But that's, again, I am going to live hopefully my life doing everything that I can do with integrity for myself. That's doing the things that I'm going to say I'm going to do to tell other people. And that's, I think one of the biggest things. And then the second thing I'd say is I think there's a lot of, again, perception, not always reality out there where when we focus

on what we're doing, we have a lot of affiliates and people say, Oh, you work with all these big people. And I think people probably think we're bigger than we actually are. Right. But the other thing that people don't know, they see all these affiliates with these companies and stuff, or people have been with us and gone somewhere else. And I'm like, they don't understand that they're getting paid. Okay. And I have worked with, I'm not going to mention names, but they know who they are, but a lot of big people in the fitness industry and others that aren't necessarily with us, but why they go somewhere else. Okay. Because I told them, look, if you need eight to 10 grand a month in base, and you're this big dude, we're not for you. I want to work with people that find value in our product. If you look

and you work with us, as far as a partner, there's no, Hey, you got to post this. You got to post that. If we're not adding value to your life and my product does not add value to your life, then it's not a fit and we're good. Right. Go somewhere else. But they don't see like there's tons of other meal prep companies that, Oh, I'm working with this person. Yeah. Look at your frigging payroll for paying them. I don't care. Okay. I've worked with like, we still do food for like the rock stunt double, like Tenoy and those guys sometimes, right. We work with a ton of the ufc fighters ton wwe there's other companies that say hey we're the sponsor of ufc great i could have paid a five million dollars over x many years right they don't it's not perception is not always reality you paid for it

and great they paid for it i love some of those other deals pga and all this other great but i do not pay our affiliates like they can make compensation and stuff we do different partnerships different events they have but again I want to provide them food and stuff if it adds value to their life right and I truly believe that all their followers followers people that follow you guys everyone eat right so if we can give them good nutrition and again good education and good information, that's another big thing. I think there's a ton of self-reported gurus out there. Everyone wants to do a, Hey, everyone's a diet doctor now. And everyone has a diet plan in this follow what

frigging diet works for you. Okay. Don't chase this shiny object. Don't chase this frigging magic wand keto this and that there's so much confusion out there, right? Follow something, follow it through, be integrous to yourself. And during that process, make the small changes, make the small adjustments along the way that gets you the results that you want. Nothing's, you're not wrong for following one thing, but don't be jumping here and there and everywhere. I think like you've also seen some affiliates and partners that, Hey, jump to this company and jump to that company. And like like, people got to realize at some point. So, again, I'd say, hey, when we work with anyone,

I'm the easiest guy to get along with. Just don't screw me, okay? If you have a problem, come face-to-face. I'm all about no drama. I don't have room in my life for drama. Former hockey player, you got to watch out, man. They deal with things a little differently than most. Pull the jersey over your head and start throwing uppercuts. really is when you're talking about diet for a bit like do you have

certain diet principles that you follow specifically because you know we talk a lot about carnivore keto all these different types of diets do you try different stuff or i've done like i did a lot in merc this is uh the best part about a meal prep guy who does a lot of fasting i used to i could send you empty containers too we could start another company the fasting company actually there are companies that do that yeah when you fast so you still have to eat right so um again i've tried different things but again i would not give anyone information that i have not personally done okay so i've tried keto i've tried like i've did a lot for over a year of intermittent fasting and you can look at my facebook and Instagram posts and people say,

oh, this is Photoshop. No, that's just me putting what's out there for me. Right? Like I took four different days on a fasting. So I did 60 hours, Mark knows 84 hours of stuff, but the changes in the mindset and different things like those are just real raw examples, not Photoshopped anything. But yeah, for me right now, I have a protocol over the years and i think that's the biggest change so i said hey i used to lift way back like way back when i was younger 20s and before that they used to call me lumpy right so i was like big boy 252 pounds 38 inch waist a lot has changed but the biggest thing i think has changed not just the working out it's the diet the diet for lumpy lumpy there you go that's wrong i think uh smoky over there was husky husky back in the day but yeah diet to me is is key so i found what works um i've done like a

bunch of different physique shows i got my pro card for men's physique back in 2012 but um again never really had a diet coach right so i've used like i've worked with a few different people but again for the last few years it's just it's been me and that's more for me what i find right now really had a diet coach right so i've used like i've worked with a few different people but again for the last few years it's just it's been me and that's more for me what i find right now and stick to more is a higher protein so i'm typically like 250 to 300 grams a day um i don't do well on a lot of carbs so for me i load up on carbs i'm sleepy like different things so i just my body i find doesn't process them as well so i'm probably probably 100, maybe 150 day at my high day. And most of those are going to be right around my training.

Does it maybe trigger you to kind of maybe revert back to some habits of when you were bigger too, if you eat carbs? Yeah, I think it's, I learned a lot of things. And one thing I tell anyone, people say, hey, what diet, what's this and that? And one of my biggest things to me is if you don't know what you don't know, you need to know. And I, what I mean by that is you need to go get your blood work done, a full blood panel. Don't go to your traditional normal doctor.

You get some wild blood panels done, don't you? Like you get like a few hundred things tested or something. Well, I do. I work with a hormone doctor and every quarter I go get my blood work done. But what that tells me, and I've written a couple articles on this, you don't understand. It's like there's a lot that you can learn from what's in your blood, right? And that's from what foods. So maybe you've been eating a food for 10 years and you're not losing weight or you're doing this,

but you don't know you're allergic to it or your body doesn't process it this way, right? There's even genetic testing. So one of the first things like for gene markers and stuff, the first time I ever got a full panel done, I was like, holy shit, this is 23 pages. There's stuff in there that I don't want to know, right? I'm like a guy that has something that's like only 14 percent or whatever. But again, I want to know because it's like my body doesn't process fast a certain way. So for me, keto isn't the best. Right. It's my body takes different carbs. And for me, I don't do a lot of

rice and stuff. If I'm going to do carbs, it's typically going to be sweet potato, dry rice cakes, et cetera. But again, I've learned a lot. I react really well to fibrous vegetables. So a lot of my carbs come from asparagus and different vegetables. But again, I just know what works for me, right? So I have learned a lot. I'll try a little here and there, but I have a proponent typically of my diet is higher protein, moderate carb, and moderate fat.

And you just have like kind of general principles. Like you train every morning somewhere between like 3.30 and 4.30 or something like that. Yeah, always fasted. And then, yeah, always fasted. And then you don't eat until around lunchtime normally, right? Typically. And I think that that's, you know, really what people should be kind of in search of. And I like a lot of what Todd's message was here is, you know, you're going to have to find what works for you.

And what you have to be honest with yourself, like, is it really working? You can't just say that, you know, you can't just say because I hear people, too, is, oh, you need like a balanced diet. And that may be true. Like some of these things might be true. But if you're still 50 pounds overweight, maybe maybe your diet needs to be out of balance for a little while. Maybe you need to try some intermittent fasting. Maybe you need to try eating less carbohydrates or something. I bet the integrity side, right? People lie to themselves.

People accept excuses from themselves on a daily basis. You first have to accept that, hey, you are 50 pounds overweight, right? And whatever you're trying is not getting you the results. It ain't working. It's not working. So go back and you have to be the hardest critic on yourself right and there's so many people that like i'm not even going to get into it right now but the dad bod okay because we talk about that oh great we're going to talk about michael hearn

big sexy there you go but from that standpoint there was a article published which got me fired up and it came out but if you look at it who is it published by planet fitness okay and they surfed but it says hey x amount of percentage of women out there love the dad bod, right? But come on, okay? Like, so from that standpoint, the only reason I even mentioned this, Mark, is because to me, that's the mediocre mindset. Someone who's published this article now can play the victim and they can appreciate getting

patted on the back because someone else told them that it's legit to have overweight. Yeah, boobs. Et cetera. For dudes that have boobs, yeah. But you got to be the harshest critic on yourself. And then if you really want to change, right? But that's like going into anything in life. I do think from a guy's standpoint, I mean, look, I think it's okay for a guy to have a little extra weight on them.

And I think it's fine for women as well. I think a lot of people find it attractive for people to be a little thicker. It's fine. It's okay for a guy to have, you know, a little extra weight on them. And I think it's fine for women as well. I think, you know, a lot of people find it attractive for people to be a little thicker. It's fine. It's, it's okay. But to be like sloppy, like that doesn't make any sense. And to be kind of always living in excess, you know, it's like, you're just, in my opinion, you know, you're, if some people don't care, some people don't, they don't care that much about it.

But I think, I believe that most people would feel better and feel better about themselves if they lost a little bit of weight. So I'm 100% of that same belief. I don't care how people look when I say dead body. It doesn't mean six pack abs and stuff. But to me, it's about longevity and healthy. If you're 20 pounds, what would be classified as overweight or 50 pounds overweight, but you're healthy 100%, okay?

By all standards, every test and stuff. And you're pretty happy. You're happy. You're loving life, okay? So all standards, every test and stuff. And you're pretty happy. You're happy. You're loving life, okay? So be it, right? I think where I have a problem with that is if you are a parent, okay, and you are sloppy and you are overweight and you're supposed to be a role model for your kids,

I have an issue with that. I don't care, okay? Because to me, you have a responsibility and accountability to be the best individual the best version of yourself for you because it's real rubbing off on everyone else so it's almost like smoking 100 it's like you're you're invading my space well i'll give you because you're fucking up everybody else in our society yeah i agree yeah one thing and hopefully it doesn't mean like i'm too shallow or anything but in toy story 4 it's okay all right cool in toy story 4 the parents of the the kids the

kids parents yeah they were both they were a little out of shape they're a little fluffy yeah and i remember looking at it like i wonder if i'm the only one in this whole theater that that recognized that but i think part of that's also because the traditional population recognizes and like can feel the same way right so it's sort of that feel good hey if you had like the fantastic four or whatever he had like whatever other people in there with his capes and superhero stuff on i think you were my favorite one of my favorite scenes in any movie is in the incredibles the uh the guy works out so hard and gets himself in shape it's like this montage of him working out and exercising and he you know because he got fat and he's like he's a superhero so he spends all this time he's

like lifting and doing all this stuff and he finally gets like his like shape back and then he goes and he goes to get that uh outfit from uh that woman and he's he's on that screen she has a like a camera you know for her house or. And he pulls up and he says who it is or whatever. And she looks and she like pulls her glasses down and she goes, Oh my God, you've gotten fat the whole time. This guy has been like exercising and training and she just took the wind out of his cells. Yeah. Here's, here's, here's the clip right here. It's hilarious. I look at he's running with a train, Brian Shaw. What do you think about? Cause you mentioned, you know, if you're healthy and you're whatever, 20, 50 pounds overweight, that's fine.

But, you know, like the healthy at every size movement that that's on. So, so I think it goes back to the question you asked me about diet and stuff too. I think one of the things that I've evolved with and grown as I get older is more longevity, right? Yeah. I'm looking at like, if I'm healthy, longevity, I want to be around for my kids 20 30 40 years right so but also going into what food we provide and stuff like i want people to consume product that's going to allow them to have that opportunity right i can't i can't rip my head off it's a big frustration for me because like even i'll give an example in

the airport yesterday i was sitting up in the front of the plane and there's a lady who's probably 350 pounds and she was talking about all how i listened to her talk about all how this person is smoking and it was crazy and stuff as i watched her jam and combos okay those little nut snacks and cheese things in her mouth four five six bags but she's literally probably 200 pounds overweight and i'm like something's wrong here right like that's so for me it's longevity. How can I take my time here, okay, by looking at what I'm exercising, what I'm putting into my body, and what kind of example do I want to be, right? Like for me, it's all about, my whole mindset's changed. Like I've been married a long time.

I've had kids. I'm like weird, 19, 15, and three. So I'm back in the rabbit hole, okay? So I've got to be that example. Like it was weird coming back and all of a sudden you're not sleeping well i'll sleep anyways but like changing diaper stuff like that but it's i got to be that best example and role model for me i see everything little thing that he copies right like is it funny like he'll stand in the mirror like you'll see like little abs it's like shot and stuff but he doesn't know necessarily why but he's seeing daddy

of course okay doing stupid stuff like that and he he mimics that. So it's every single thing, like what does he put in his body? If I just let him eat whatever he wanted to eat, but he doesn't know, he's never probably seen some of the other snacks, right? So he's eating a lot of icon, but he's eating a lot of other things, which are hopefully going to build habits for him. And I think what we do, like even exercising and stuff, right? He's at the gym with us. He's at different places, but again, just building that lifestyle and that's putting those habits and stuff into what I'll call future generations and stuff. But also just out there, what kind of role model, what kind of example do you want to be? What kind of like – I'm not – just that's – again, really passionate about just that because that's a big, big frustration for me.

But I always say, hey, I wish I could rip off off my head put it on someone else's body to help them and it comes from inner conflict i'll say quite frankly like inside my family just one of my uh siblings and stuff is like just got three kids he's got twins and stuff and i just oh i don't have time i want to punch him right in the teeth like i can't sit like me and him i love him. Right. But it's let's go bar brawling because we just it's 10 minutes together and I can't take any more shit. Like it's I can't I don't accept excuses. It's not there. There's no excuses like there's never an excuse. You always can make the time.

It's a priority of what you've set forth in your life. And it's the same thing as what you're shoving in your mouth is a priority. And it's how you feel about yourself. Internalized. Yeah. Get attached to something. shoving in your mouth is a priority and it's how you feel about yourself internalized yeah get attached to something you know find something to you know a good practice for a lot of people that maybe don't necessarily love the gym is like maybe find something that you used to like to do maybe you used to like play volleyball maybe you used to like play basketball or find something that

you used to like to do and figure out a way to get a chance to do that again. Maybe you have a friend and you used to go cycling with them or whatever it is. Find that thing and then try to build some consistency with it. But even to me, your 10-minute walks. Yeah. Okay? Simple. Someone can talk on their damn phone for 10 minutes. Someone can do their social media for 10 minutes, right?

Walk. Like going back in my family, oh, I don't have time. Dude, don't sleep in until 11 o'clock, okay? Again, 10 minutes. Walk. back in my family oh i don't have time dude don't sleep into 11 o'clock okay like don't like again 10 minutes walk like i you know work 50 hours a week and you're like i work 100 so like what's the difference yeah to me i don't know i'm again not going to be that accepting of anything i it's my choice as yours right to wake up but i'm always up before my alarm i'm passionate about what i do i can can't wait to get into my day.

Have you always been this way, and has your sibling always been the way he is? It's interesting because, no, he used to be big into MMA. He was fighting back in the day with big martial arts guys, Chuck Liddell and all those guys. Do you think maybe he got burnt out or something? I think it's comfort. It's also the lifestyle as far as like, I can get a bunch of different excuses, right? I don't have time to do this. We eat out all the

time. We do this and that. But again, I just, I'm not accepting of it because anyone can adapt. But he used to have like the internal drive and for whatever reason, it's just not there anymore. Yeah. And I think it's going back to not just nutrition and fitness, right? It's like, how do you develop yourself? How do you personally develop yourself, your mindset? Mindset plays to me a huge important role, right? Everything else is driven by your mind. Your body is always going to do whatever you tell it to do.

It's your mind giving it before, like pushing through. Your body is going to do it. So if you have not worked on you, whether that be through podcasts, through books, through following other people on YouTube, whatever, you have to have something that drives you. And if not, you're just, I say like you're, you're sleepwalking through life. And to me, sleepwalking through life is not living. So, um, and I think there's a lot of people that are just doing the day in and day out. Um, which again, going back to this individual, I don't really know what drives them. Like you can say,

Hey, money drives me great. But if you're not around to see that money, do anything good for your kids or whatever else, I don't care. Like my whole mindset has changed. Your money's a motivating factor, but it's a factor for me to allow other people to be able to do more things, right. To provide value. Okay. Um, and from that standpoint, I'm all about experiences now. I've had a big shift over the past, I'll call it five, 10 years. Right. And me, I want to experience more with my kids. I want to experience more with other people in life. I love things like this, bringing it together. I'm all about network, building relationships, right?

What value can I add to someone else to put into their life? Back when you worked in that tech company before Icon, were you still as health conscious as you are now, or did that shift? So the last, so in layered tech for the 14 years I had that, that's when I, so I got my pro card back in 12. It was weird because sort of in 2012, 2011, 12 was really when I had a shift. So I used to enjoy the alcohol, I used to enjoy the different things and I wasn't necessarily overweight. So my big shift for me was back, I guess, 1993, 94. that's a long time ago but um i got sick really

bad with a severe case of mono i was in intensive care for 41 days i lost or 21 days i lost 41 pounds right so it i was going to play junior hockey up in northern canada and it sort of changed everything based on coming into that that's probably from my lifestyle prior to a lot of party and a lot of just different things and that's when i started i never put that weight back on but i was like soft it was like hey i thought i'd be working at a college and stuff but i'd still be i was a bouncer and i was enjoying like the party and and stuff and then 2012 just made a decision i can still remember clear on new year's eve i said hey i'm gonna do a freaking physique competition they're like this was just when it started like the steve cooks and those guys and everyone's like oh yeah bullshit bullshit i'm like that just fired me up more

and then from there i went and i did a bunch of npc shows i got my pro card and when i got my pro card i was like holy shit this is like now i either got to step up and look like you okay or sort of end of the road and can get my mark and that's where i have done that i've done pretty much two to three i've done five one year and again it's not necessarily for me about the competition i like the journey i like internalizing and pushing myself and that's to me i'm always going to be in the better shape i don't really have a problem getting shredded down and stuff i've had to learn how to try to maintain muscle and grow and change the diet and change training principles and stuff but again it's been that self journey.

And I think back in 2012 is really when I said, Hey, I haven't really drank since then, et cetera. So, yeah, there's a lot of, you know, a lot of great things that you can learn from, you know, someone like Michael Hearn, but I know you train with him quite a bit. What are some things that maybe like, maybe what are some things that people don't see that you've picked up from him that have helped you uh in training and business and in life in general so i think one of the biggest things a bit in training um it's a totally different mentality right for me i was always of the

mentality and i think just a lot of people are the same hey you got your rep range you got your eight to ten your twelve your hypertrophy etc working with mike i have to adjust my mind i'm like add in my mind right i'm gonna be 45 minutes in the gym superset drop sets and there's a time and place for that mike does that but the biggest thing i think is learning how the overload principles of like your cns and stuff and you know a lot about that about your power lifting but it's building that core base so when we work and i was thinking like mike's crazy because like even in these videos right we'll go in we'll warm up on chest incline do one rep put it up and I'm like what the hell does that do and Mike's like so I've worked with Mike enough but like even on squats we do one rep put it back two reps put it back and then we're into working sets but you're already eight sets in right

and then you start with like your 315s and stuff like that but again my central nervous system after two or three days with him being out there is just shot. But it's allowed me, as I told you earlier, Mark, to hold a lot more body weight, a lot more mass. I think maybe whether it's like growth hormone release and different things, that'd be one training principle. And Mike is key as he's telling you here. He gives a lot of insight into movement, into why. You talked about, I think, the magic finger and pointing and touching different things. into movements, into why, right? You talked about, I think, the magic finger and pointing and touching different things.

But I've learned so much with him on just different training principles and how to incorporate. And you can do one movement one way, right? Pull-downs. But as you do it with him, the weight comes in half and you're utilizing different muscles individually. Yeah, and he's still using heavy weight too.

You're like, how is he doing that? And then the second thing I think a lot of people don't realize is everyone says, oh, hey, naughty and duck eggs and this and that. They don't understand what they don't see behind the scenes. They don't see – me and Mike are a lot similar in nature as far as – he's a little bit older than me, but I've taken a lot of vitamins and different things behind the scenes, right? If you go to Mike's, Mike's whole thing is a bit like we're talking about K2 collagen, different things that are joints, that are ligaments, that are mind, that are heart. And those are things that help your body recover and your mind recover in different things. And with Mike as well, it's all, it's mindset, right? That mindset is what drives Mike to be

better on a daily basis. So I think there's, there's those three things and we've, we've meshed well on a lot of those, but the key thing on differentiating is, is the principles of, for me on his training style. Yeah. It's a, you know, we're going to have an opportunity for all of us to work out with him in a few days and we're, we're super fired up and excited about it. But I think, yeah, I just think that he has, you know, he has a lot of fans. He's got a lot of followers, but I don't think they really, like there's something genius about the guy. I have a hard time like putting my finger on exactly what it is

because he's not going to like finish a set and then nail you with like a bunch of science. But somehow he knows the body. He knows the mindset of training I think almost better than anybody I've ever met. I believe like it's true. I think he comes up think he came up with a long time ago his style, what he calls power bodybuilding, right? And if you really listen and sit down with Mike, it's not going to explain the science, but it's going to explain why different things do different things, right? And I think that's where he doesn't overcomplicate it. Some of the people come in and say, hey, this is the

science of this and that. And Mike tries to give you real real deal data i'll call it where it's things that you can make small changes over time and like it humbles you like we talked about squat going back down he's like like he tells me all the time i send him videos he's like no more fucking squat you suck okay i'm like i want to tell like fuck you okay like but it goes back 135 right and it's like working on hip placement working on sitting placement working on sitting back working on different things right working on firing off like you were helping me today but that's those are key things and even like going back down to chest like we'll go back put a plate on right it's all about angles it's about different um pieces of working little tiny muscles

that you might not even think about so again i think it's his uh delivery of how he does it and he's never one thing that you'll know with Mike, Mike never talks down to you, right? You're not dumb, okay? He's delivering, it's like almost like a teacher. He's delivering that content and education and he adopts that style better than anyone based on who he's talking to.

Whether you're 12 years old or whether you're 90 years old, Mike has a sense of where you are and is able to deliver what you need. He's pretty complimentary and he's pretty positive. Yeah, he will talk some shit here and there, but most of the time, if he does that, it's usually afterwards. It's not usually while you're in the middle of a set or anything like that because we all like to have fun with that kind of stuff. But, you know, when I was, uh, training with him, you know, for that time, you know, through, through the summer and stuff like that, it was just, it was just awesome just to kind of see like how he, he attaches his mind to like whatever it is that he's doing. So I always say to have an intent of the day. And, uh, what I used to mean by that was, you know, to kind of have

like a schedule, you know, what are you going to do for that day? What are like, have a plan when you go into the gym. And even if you only have the plan, once you get to the gym, that can be okay too, but have a main intent. What am I trying to get from this day? Am I really just trying to get like a good lat pump or am I trying to train my back heavy?

Like what is the intent? What's the first exercise? What's it going to look like? And then kind of start to roll out what everything looks like from there. But what Mike does, he takes it a step further is whatever the intention is, he attaches his mind to it and his body and kind of syncs it up. So like he might do say like a tricep pushdown or something. Well, he's not just doing a tricep pushdown, getting a pump in his tricep. He's thinking

about the connective tissue and you'll see him close his eyes. And I've asked him before, I'm like, you know, kind of, what are you you doing and then when i think about people like wim hoff i think about some of these other people that are um the names alludes me for now but kyle kingsbury was talking about him as well uh paul check paul check talks about working in and paul check is a genius there's probably hasn't been a smarter person on the planet when it comes to training than Paul Cech. But here's Mike kind of taking a more of an approach, learning it all like under the bar. But he closes his eyes and he's thinking about the connective tissue. Now, one person might say, well, you can't really do that. Well, Wim Hof has proved otherwise because you can put that dude in a tank of water and he can change the temperature of the water with his mind.

It's insane. Like they've run all these crazy tests on him. And I believe that, you know, what Mike is doing it's obviously effective the guy's never been hurt yeah that's one of the things i was going to say with mike with wim hof going into his breathing techniques and stuff that's a lot that mike takes internally he's just started talking a bit more but those are things that he does do right and the one thing that me and mike get along great with is like it is that intention and mindset so me and him always challenges that are like a bit like when we fast right like you can push okay let's say 84 hours or whatever right or again who's going to get shredded and it's like i joked around saying hey it's like two friggin teenage kids that

i sleep over but we're frigging these 50 years old and i'm 44 okay it's crazy but again it's it's enjoyment getting from that right and seeing each other be better and being able to still push but again he is an individual that's hardly ever never been hurt right? And seeing each other be better and being able to still push. But again, he is an individual that's hardly ever, never been hurt, right? And if you look at him, and it's one thing that I've learned as well, like no, we never use wraps. I'm not saying no wraps and stuff,

but again, since I've been trained with him, I had to throw my straps away, right? Different things. But again, there's reasons for him doing that for me. And it's funny, because I went and got decks of bone scans and stuff, and the lady's like, hey, the only thing is your forearms.

And it's like, you've been using wraps for like many, many years. I'm like, well, she's like, that's probably one of the main reasons. Because the only thing in your whole body where it shows bone density is not as thick is your forearms and your actual. Right. So, but he does a lot of different things that are just not common knowledge. Right. And still, like the other day, frigging 455 for incline. Okay.

Just for reps. Four four reps like absolutely crazy and people say hey how long is mike going to be doing this i say he's gonna be doing this for a long long time yeah he can shift over into that pretty quickly like he might do 405 and and you know kind of struggle with it but for him it's you know some people can make whatever they want about the drugs or whatever they're going to always kind of throw that in there right uh but i've taken drugs and i i'm not able to uh make that shift the same way he is he does it with food he does it with sleep he does it with recovery he does it with the way he trains i think it's also key that just mentioned like i've worked with mike now for almost five years on food right so mike uses food as i'll call it a drug mike uses as a weapon it's a weapon. He uses it as a weapon. It's a weapon, yeah.

And it's selective choices. So with Mike... This guy, Shredder, what's this dude's name? Sean Rez. He's awesome. He's a good dude, one of our good friends.

They call him Mr. Five-O. He's always 5% body fat or less. Damn, what? Yeah, he looks insane. He's usually between three and four, but he's a good guy. So again, I introduced Sean to Mike

and stuff and those guys and they've been training partners for a while. But again, it's a good back and forth rate mentality of different training styles. But good group of people. You know, as far as like, you obviously took away a lot from Mike in terms of like fitness and stuff.

But when it comes to what you've done in terms of business, is there anyone in your life who you could credit that to or that you continue to learn from? Yeah, so when I started my first company, we actually merged with, so I had the first company was in the funeral industry and I merged with another company and an individual there was my mentor for a long time. His name was Bob Neon. He owned the largest real estate investment trust in Canada, lived offshore in Bahamas, is billionaire. And unfortunately passed away back in, in 2007. He had an oversized heart he's very healthy

individual wrestled for canada and stuff but um i guess it's called the silent killer too much muscle around your heart etc and um had that hereditary and passed away but i learned a lot from him i met a lot of like um billionaires and really big business people and just different philosophies on life different philosophies on business and And he's played a huge role in my life. And then my partner as well back that was partners with him, a gentleman by the name of Michael Plattner. And those guys played a big, big role. And I guess I continue to learn from people a lot of even like current stuff, right?

So I try to take different pieces of business and information that I believe that they've done well and try to mimic or mirror and learn from them and going back to what i said earlier i think for me it's a bit who can you surround yourself with and i never want to call it um i don't know it's different because my other companies always had like bigger people that made more money than me who had more experience and stuff and then icon it was different because i didn't really have a group of i'll call it Executives we have like 80 some people but those people are in the kitchen, right? So for me I had to get back into those masterminds and networks and stuff where I thought So I didn't have like the law of the lid

I don't think ever read John Maxwell or anything, but he talks about law the lid law the lid You're coming up against the lid you're hitting that top so you got to expand yourself, right? So I always want to be around people that make more money that have more knowledge have more experience and some of those people are Great now I do a lot and um really i'm grateful for uh different input and stuff i've got from people like bedros koulian right like mark i've learned just a lot from you whether it's not been directly hey told to me but just different things that you've done right and accomplished and i love seeing that and i can take internalized pieces of that um so from people like that, that have really, I think, just added value.

And again, a lot from Mike, right? Whether on business, maybe not directly just financial stuff, but pieces that I can take and implement into mindset in business, I think is key. Yeah, just people that execute at a really high level, doesn't matter what they're doing. Doesn't matter if they're an MMA fighter

or a lifter or a business entrepreneur, right? Yeah. And I think there's a common trait and commonality between like people like you, myself and like Mike, other people. I think like those are the people that like, why do we all get up at 4am, right? And different things to me, it's doesn't necessarily say you have to get up at 4am, but it's that mindset that drives you to be more, to be better, to add more value, to want to add more value to other people's lives, right? It's not just about the money. Okay. It's a bit like, Hey, what can you contribute? What kind of impact you can make on society and stuff. So from that standpoint, I think there's a lot of

great people out there. My son was saying the other day, he's like, you know, asked me like why I trained so early in the morning. I was like, well, I was like, it's the best way for me to get the best workout. And then also like, I just have a busy day with work and he's like, but you're already big and strong and you're already rich. And I'm like, exactly. And then he kind of sat there and he was like, I get it. And he's like, I get it. You know, it makes sense. That's kind of like why you're where you are. And I was like, yeah, that's it. It's part of it. You know, like you got to kind of lean into the things that are a little bit tougher, you know, over a long period of time, you start to develop stronger willpower and you start to become, you know,

you start to change over, over a period of time, you start to be better at handling more stuff. You don't get worse at it, you get better at it. And I think that, you know, if I knew something like that, you know, when I was younger, maybe I would have started, you know, on the mission a little earlier, you know, to, to work towards these things. That's true. I think one thing that I've taken, um, I don't know if you can relate to this, but like I say, someone that wants to work with me or it might be a partner or something potentially, right. In a other business say, Hey, let's go train. Okay. And then from taking what kind of person they are in the gym to me 100 whether other people agree or not i don't really care equates to what they're

going to be like in life right and i've had people like ah he quit on that lake or or it's not looking so good here's even the better thing even before you go in the gym they say hey oh 10 years ago i had this injury i already know what it's going to be like right but that's going to translate to me to be excuses because i've got other people with a mentality of whatever it takes. So I've had people in there that don't say anything. We're going to train. I know they're not training like how I train, but they're puking, okay? Or they're this or that. And they've been successful in business, but I know I want to be part of something with them because that's a mindset. I don't want people that have the excuses and stuff because again, I don't have time for

drama. I don't have time for different things in my life i know what i want right but for me that gym is a parallel to what kind of your person you're going to be outside yeah you work out with somebody and have a great workout and the guy tells you afterwards like dude i had three rotator cuff surgery i was dying when we were benching but he didn't say anything the whole time until afterwards like like well you said something well give me example they didn't have the mindset to even go there like hans mollenkamp right for mma okay that guy's got freaking two disc fusions in the back he's got multiple screws this and that Well, I'll give you an example. They didn't have the mindset to even go there. Like Hans Mollenkamp, right, for MMA, okay? That guy's got frigging two disc fusions in the back. He's got multiple screws, this and that.

The guy's fighting with DC, okay? He's fighting with both. That's insane. John Jones, okay? He's fighting with every single person, and he's going rounds and rounds and rounds. You don't hear him saying crap, right? Yeah. And again, so that's just what kind of person do you want to be,

but it goes back to what we talked about before, the integrity in different things, right? Personal integrity, et cetera. And it's, again, how you live your life. Everyone has a choice. I would love to spend like four hours on this next question. But instead of being real general and ask you and Mark, like, oh, how do you balance everything? Maybe just narrow it down more to like you're an awesome shape.

You guys both train your faces off how do you yeah balance everything but also not feel guilty for spending so much time on yourself me first so i think that's an easy question for me i get up at 2 45 in the morning my kids my wife do not wake up before six o'clock i can make the choice to sleep till six o'clock but then i would feel guilty about taking away time from them. Right. I have a routine that works well for me and maybe not everyone else. I wake up, get my time before I'll call my gym therapy.

I'm the guy in the gym in the morning, headphones on. If I'm not trained with Michael Hearn hoodie up and I do my thing. Right. But again, for me, it's not about talking to people in the gym. I want to do what I do. I have a routine that I follow. I'm not saying it's like just going through the motions. I'm still pushing myself every day, challenging myself.

If you watch like even any of my stupid little videos, like if I'm doing cardio, I'm going to challenge myself. I play mind games, right? Changing if it's as high as it can go, then I'm going to change the speed or I'll do different things that I can't stop unless it's a round number, whatever, okay? But for me, I don't feel ever selfish because I made that decision to put a priority to do it at six, at two 45, three o'clock in the morning. I don't have the time at the end of the day. I try to get home when before eight o'clock at night to put my three-year-old to bed. It's a routine I have. People say, Hey, how do you not

sleep? You're only got, well, look, it works for me, right? I put him to bed at eight o'clock. I read him books. We go through prayers, all that stuff. And I'll fall asleep in his damn bed every night between 8.30 and let's say 10, if my wife wakes me up, right? But those are my best two hours of my whole night's sleep, right? I'm out cold in his bed, okay? And I'll wake back up, maybe whatever, something else. And then I'm back in bed, but I'm getting my five, six hours. People don't understand that, right? So I'm not, hey, watching TV. Again, choices I just make, right? I'm not the guy that's sitting in bed going social media. I have my different things.

So my 2.45 in the morning, I'm going to the gym. I do a lot of different things. I go through just, I'll call it rituals for me, like grateful appreciation, like prayers, prayer stuff. I'll do some journal work potentially in the morning. I tried for a long time to get in to meditate and stuff. My mind can't do that. I gave up.

So I don't give up. Yeah. You're pretty fidgety. Yeah. I was like, Hey, I'm going to do this 10 minute meditation thing in the sun. I was like, I can't frigging do this.

I want to punch myself in the head. Right. It just, it does not work for me because my mind's all over the place. So again, different things, but that's how meditation gives you anxiety. I might need more mind bullet over that one.

I don't know. So I do never, I don't feel selfish because if I am not the best version of myself, I cannot contribute back to my family, back to my employees. Right. So I was telling Mark earlier, if it's day two and I haven't worked yet, my wife's like, get to the effing gym. Right. And that's, she just knows that's, it's not spending money. It's not out my wife's like get to the effing gym right and that's she just knows that's it's not spending money it's not doing this that's what I need for me but I have to do that and prioritize that in my life to be the best version of me for everyone else that

interact with so that's I'll call it balance and I don't really think there ever is balance because balance would be waking up at seven o'clock and going this no there's no balance in me waking up at 245 people say oh you I say I wake up early they say no you don't the middle of the night well define what what works for you right so so like uh other than you know the the right before bed you're reading to your your kid um do you have any uh rituals that help you get there like on time because that seems to be the like problem with like for me personally is like getting in getting to bed on time kind of transition but it doesn't matter it's to me it's a mindset right it's a and it's a thing that i've just in my mind like we talk about intent right my intent i got in here last night at 137 in the morning okay i went to the hotel could have complained reservation screwed up so i got to my hotel at 202 in the

morning i was here at 354 okay like we trained I didn't, I slept five hours the night before, but that's an intent. That's what I wanted to do. That was my choice. I made right priority. I could have called Mark and said, man, my frigging hotel was screwed up. Can't we just go back and start at six o'clock in the morning? But that's just, it's not me. And if I did that, that's giving in and bowing to, I'll call it mediocrity and different things that would parlay into other things in my life. And I think once someone makes a choice and just bends that rule that they have for themselves a little bit one way, they're out of balance. I don't know definition of what everyone's balance is, but to me, you've just shortchanged yourself, right?

And that then allows for a little bit more. And I think when- How many times have we all done it with food? Yeah. You let the food slide one way and you're like, oh, the day's gone. Oh, the week's shot. It goes from Friday to Saturday to Sunday. I'm starting on Monday. Here's one thing I take back to Mike and to me, and I think anyone that's successful in any realm of life. So if I'm going to diet, I'm saying, hey, I'm going to do a show, right? To me, it's not, there's no off season and there's no this. I need a couple of weeks, right? But maybe it'll take me a couple of days, but I know in my head already, it's me for two or three days.

But once I made that decision, it's cut over. My kids could be eating cake. Brownies could be eating this and that. It doesn't affect me. And that's intent decision. That's same with Mike. Mike is one of the best people in the world. Once he makes a decision, it doesn't matter.

He always says, oh, we're going to go cheat this, that. Mike made a decision. There's no break-in, okay? There's nothing. And that's, I think, what parlays to a good business person, to a good father, to a good parent, to a good anything. With that 100% rock solid blinders on, you've made the decision, the mentality, you have the intent, and you're not going to waver. So many people, I think, in the society and stuff waver. And they go back and forth.

They let that little devil and then they parlay back and forth. They try to give themselves excuses and shortchange. That's how I think we end up in society with where a lot of people we are so yeah you end up not having a choice because you're like this is what i decided to do and this is how i'm going to do it this way almost like treating it like a job like you don't really have a choice to show up you know 15 minutes late to work every single day right like it wouldn't make sense after a while like your luck would run out with that. But again, just going back and not getting into another rant,

one of my biggest things, pet peeve, is being late, right, for someone. So for me, if you're on time, you're late, okay? And that, again, though, tells me how you care about, like, priorities and different things, right? So when you say, hey, how do you get up in the morning? Well, I have my alarms. I post a lot of times. I have 315, 330, and 342.

I'll never make it before, like, it'll never go off before 3 o'clock. 248, 245. I'd be sound asleep, don't have a clue. Like, this morning, the alarm didn't go off. Okay? I woke up at whatever time it was, 313. Got to go to the gym. But it's also, like, it's, to me, I feel excited.

Yeah, and that's a different time zone, too, right? Yeah, so whatever time it was. But I'm just, I don't know. I think like, to me, there's too much people allowing themselves the opportunity to fail. Yeah. So if you have intent, you have a solid mind, you've worked on yourself, then there's no excuses. There's no questions, right? There's, there's never anyone like you're the only person that's limiting your belief. Okay. Limiting what you can do, limiting the choices you make. And so many people are looking for like that article by Planet Fitness on the back, hey, you're okay.

Society accepts you. Screw that. I don't know. I think the only way you're going to be great at anything is to have a lot of practice at it. So when you have a lot of practice, you're probably not going to have a lot of balance. You might have to go to like a camp, you know, like you see the fighters do it all the time. They go to camp and they're gone for six weeks or eight weeks or 10 weeks. And then how many times a year do they have to do that? You know,

they got to kind of kiss their family goodbye, like literally and figuratively, and then they have to go and they got to work their face off. And I think when it comes to business or when it comes to anything else, the same thing, it's going to take a lot of practice. You don't just start a food company and start randomly shipping stuff out. Somebody has one bad experience with your food. If I got food that was spoiled, which I've had happen before, not with Icon Meals but with other companies, you're out, dude. That's different than buying a watch and it breaks or buying shoes and the the shoelace bust or something like that that's way different when you have food that like goes that's a totally different category right so you got to make sure you're really on point with stuff and the only way to be on point with anything is probably to be a little bit out of balance for certain periods of

time and i think if you can recognize as a younger person if you recognize there's a time and place for everything there's a time and place to like live in a you recognize there's a time and place for everything, there's a time and place to like live in a crappy apartment. There's a time and place to have a shitty car. There's a time and place to kind of like be up against it and to be frustrated. And I'm sure you've been so frustrated with your business for where it brings you to tears. You're like, I just can't, how the hell do I figure this out? I need to figure this out. Eventually with enough practice, you'll get over the hump, but there's going to be times where your wife looks at you your girlfriend looks at you and it's like what are you doing like you know i listen i'm working i need to get over this let me just let me am i am i working way too hard do i need to be home more because i can figure that

out too but like i need to get over this hump first and then let me uh kind of i think that's awesome put more time on you. I think that's awesome. Like Andy, 100% supportive and stuff for you, right? I think that's key to me. Kind of. Kind of. No, she is.

She's amazing. For me, that's been like I've been married. We talked about coming up 21 years, right? 25 years together. But that's key. So I'll give you examples. So LayerTech, we sold LayerTech. And when I started LayerTech, we had no money.

We just found out that we were pregnant and had a baby, right, and stuff. And then we sell LayerTech and we find out that we're having another baby 15 years later, right? And I tell Deb, hey, I just got out of this and I'm going to start another startup. And she's like, looks at me, are you fucking crazy?

She's like, 14 years ago, 15 years ago, we had no money, we have a baby, and now why can't you just go take a job and stuff? But that's not me. So here, just your perfect point, okay? So we've been living in this house for 10 years. To start Icon, sold a million-dollar house, moved my family now of five into a four-bedroom condo. Okay, got my wife that has been comfortable in a 6500 square foot apartment a house for 10 years

Right and moved into a four-bedroom condo took three storage units and put all our shit in storage and took all that money and started icon And that partner had to trust me right was that in balance? That's no friggin balance Okay, but I had to buy in and the support in different things And I think I'll add one more thing like one of the key things over past, I'll call it really four years for me is if you can't believe in yourself and you can't, what we're talking to make yourself do those things, invest in a coach. And I don't mean a coach just in first fitness, right? I have mentors and I have

coaches that I work with and I invest in, I pay money to, right? For these guys on a weekly basis. Okay. And that's a business coach. That's a guy that has helped me expand my vision in different things. When I talked about like the law of the lid and stuff and really doing different things and then surrounding yourself with those people. If your fitness is somewhere which is failing, right? Don't just take a self-reported a $29 grew. If you're going to want to be successful in any area, you got to have those coaches, right? And all the top people, okay, that are making millions of dollars have the fitness and stuff like O'Hearn. He's not going to go talking about this, but there's a lot of people involved in different areas in his life,

right? And I think those are key areas that you have to invest back in yourself. So if it's diet, if it's fitness, if it's business, if it's financial, right? Again, I'm never going to have anyone that's coaching me or that has not been them in themselves successful in that realm, right? Like, Hey, the diet guy or the finance guy, whatever. So again, that's just building that network up. And I think you can get a combination of, but again, you have to not be afraid to go invest in yourself. You know, you talk, obviously we're talking about a lot of personal development here and there's probably maybe a lot of young men and women that are listening and maybe they want to get themselves around high performance coaches etc but they can't

afford that and you've also mentioned a lot of like books you've read right what are maybe some like top three books you've you know that have helped you in terms of learning a few things in terms of leadership or principles that you'd recommend people get there so there's a ton of different books if people a lot of people heard john maxwell's name right and he's like a ton of leadership books so there's a ton of different books that A lot of people heard John Maxwell's name, right? And he's like a ton of leadership books. So there's a ton of different books that you can go and start from him. Yeah, and I actually went to one of his leadership summits. And yes, it's not cheap, but it's worth every penny.

I think the seats that I had were probably like $3,500. You can get away with going to one of those, I think, for like $1,500. It's like a three-day event. The next one's in Miami. Yeah, John Maxwell's. I get trained by him. It'll pay you back a million times over. So there's a lot of different guys and gals out there.

But again, it's understanding what you want, right? Like if you need leadership, if you're in that role, if you're starting up in an entrepreneurial environment, there's a lot of different business coaches that can help you if you need scale or branding. And it doesn't have to be super, super, uber expensive and stuff, right? But there's different things, I think, and it's a constant evolution. It's not, hey, you go once and you're done. And that's what I think some people fail at, right?

Because they think, oh, they're ready now to tackle the world. But it's got to be self and continued. Because, look, as you're growing, I'm sure you can experience this as well. You said, hey, before I worked at 24 Hour Fitness and stuff, it's a constant evolution and growing as yourself as a person year over year, but also at different stages in your life. So there's different coaches that I think add value in different realms in your life over that period of time.

And maybe it's like you need coaching on something for your business. Maybe it's social media, right? Social media mastery. Maybe it's like different things like on email and stuff. If you were saying, Hey, who's the number one person probably that I know, if I wanted to go on my email list and build a huge following, like, I don't know if you know who Joel Marion is, right? Owns Biotrust and stuff, but Joel's like the goat in that area, right? If you wanted to say, Hey, who's the person for number one in the world, if I'm building a business and I need affiliate help, right? You got fleishman dan fleishman is the like he is i'll call it the goat in that like ty

lopez and those guys he all works with okay built that but so humbled individual that behind the scenes no one ever sees him right or or low silver from svg media who's another one right like a lot of these guys that have built these huge brand personalities that are you'd come to know i'm name names to tell who they are but like if there's so there's different areas you have to understand, it's not just one coach or one style of, I think, um, education really does different things and people learn differently. Right. So anytime that I put a group together, I try to make sure that I have, some people are going to loom by like video and in different ways, but, um, there's a lot of, I think things. Yeah yeah i like what you're

saying because like as you go through the personal development process you might listen to somebody and like turn them off pretty quickly you might get their book even if it's like an audio book you start to listen to it doesn't vibe with you even if you're reading it you're just like ah it's just it's not hitting you uh the right way because you're just not prepared for that information maybe you haven't made the leap to start a new business yet. And so then therefore some of the information that they're sharing doesn't even pertain to you because maybe a lot of the information in the book, it could be an amazing book, but the book could be about like leadership in like an office. And

you're like, I don't even have an office yet. So I like what you said there, because I think that it kind of depends on where you're at and then what you would be kind of in search of. Like you don't need some guru for an email list if you haven't started anything quite yet. You're going to need something different. Yeah, and I think it goes back to a combination of like I try to listen to a lot of different podcasts. And again, just because one individual, I might not go through all his podcasts because they're not relevant to me. Okay. But I have certain podcasts that I believe that I like the style and the messaging and what I derive from that. So I have some business people,

I have some mindset people. Again, to me, on one of my things that every year I'll go through is like how many books read. And it's not just him going through the books because if I get into a bookmark and it's not what I want, I'm not just going to say, Hey, it's I'm finishing this book because it's number 19 on my list of 30 this year. Right. I'm going to change it and go to something else. So, but again, I do a lot of audio books and people say, Hey, audio books are cheating. Well, look, I do read every day. Right. But audio books for me are convenient things. So I try to like, I'll train and stuff. And if I'm doing cardio and I'm doing 30, 45 minutes cardio, I'm getting 30, 45 minutes, but I also have an hour drive now. So our drive is I'm filling my mind with podcasts

or audio book. So, um, I'm typically going to be like, I think probably 30 ish books a year sort of deal. And those are actually reading books. Um, but again, when I'm, it helps my mind wind down. So I'm in a habit ritual called before I go to bed, I'll read sometimes in the morning, not every day, but, um, typically in the weekends, I'm not, habit ritual called before I go to bed, I'll read sometimes in the morning, not every day, but typically in the weekends, I'm not, I probably still will go in at four o'clock or whatever, just because I wake up, but I'll come back home, sit on the couch inside by the pool, whatever. And I'll read and it just, it helps my mind to unwind. And I've just got different things that I've tried. Like for me, it's important. I wake up in the morning, my gratitude, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. But then also try not try, cause it's hard for me not to touch my phone for that first 30 to 60 minutes. Right. And that's because what

happens is there, if I'm going in and I'm driving 20 minutes, 30 minutes to the gym and I get this email that just pisses me off, it sets me crazy. So I've learned that. And that's like from Andy for selling and a couple of other people that just different principles. And again, not necessarily everything that that individual or someone else has said, but I take different pieces and I implement them into my life if they work for me. Right. And again, I don't just say, Hey, I did it once and it doesn't work. I got to give myself that opportunity to make it work. And I think a lot of people don't do that. A while back, I was helping Andy Priscilla drop some weight and stuff like that. And, you know, I was texting him information back and forth and I was kind of like,

you know, uh, kind of asking him like like what are you doing right now and he was like I'm in the gym I'm like okay well even though I know that I'm texting you and I'm trying to help coach you through this we need to figure out a way to get your phone away from you um I said maybe you want to buy like an iPod or something or something that doesn't have like a wi-fi or something or put in an airplane mode and listen to music or something because as he was saying, he listens to music. So I was like, well, you got to figure out a way because you can't have business going on while you're trying to train. It just won't work.

Something will happen and it will piss you off. It'll throw you in the wrong, throw you in the wrong kind of frame of mind on this kind of topic of mindset and leadership, because I think everyone can grow from that. What are some good books that you've gotten into that you really like or some good coaches i need to grab that phone i got all my list in there so yeah yeah go ahead i'm drawing blanks after training with you so because i know i know um you know i like i that's what i really loved about the summit that i went to it was all uh leadership based And so it didn't matter who got up and talked and really what they talked about. It still landed on me really well, regardless of the fact that these people had companies that were so different than anything that we have.

So just for me, so this is what I got going on right now. I typically have two on a time, but one of the ones that I'm reading is Trillion Dollar Coach. You listen to two books at the same time. That's how this guy gets so much work. I don't listen to two books at the same time. He's picking up both of them much work. I don't listen to two books at the same time. He's like picking up both of them somehow, like one to the left and one to the right. No, I'm going to have two going as far as one reading and one audio, right? But like the Trillion Dollar Coach, okay? So that's the latest one I just started. So I'm about two and a half hours into that audio book. And that's the guy that basically coached like all the Google founders and a lot of those guys. So a lot of the

presidents and stuff, he was the personal business coach. So again, taking that, and that's more business related, right? The other one that's really, really, really been key to me is, I don't know if you know, his name's Todd Harmon. It's called the alter ego effect, okay? And for me, I have this, I won't call it a problem, but it's a challenge.

It is a problem for me, challenge. And it was an internal challenge that I want to overcome, not necessarily a problem, right? And my personal mentor is a problem for me, challenge. And it was an internal challenge that I want to overcome, not necessarily a problem, right? And my personal mentor is a gentleman by the name of John Cheplak. Mike had him on a few times. He's a friend of Mike. Oh, yeah, I've seen him on there. So John Cheplak personally coaches me.

He coaches a lot of people. I coach with him once a week and a half for a few years. It's one of the biggest things that's benefited my business, right? I've had him speak at my masterminds and stuff. But he introduced me to this thing. And for me, I've been successful. I'll call it in fitness, right? I can get no problems down 4%, whatever. It's just a mindset thing. I can, I had some problems if I want to put on weight, but I think I've overcome that. But in business, it's like, I've made money and stuff, but it's like, why can't I do the same thing on business?

Because to me, and Andy talked about this for Sally, you might remember this, Mark, if you've been successful in one thing in life, you can be successful at all things, right? But something is holding me back. And it comes down to me being too nice in business, pretty much, right? Like, I'm the guy that, like, accepts and different things. So I've been working on,

after this book, like, he introduced me to it, John Shepley did, The Alter Ego. And it's really, like, so many people, if you read this book in life, like all the big guys, like all business, NBA, NFL, have this alter ego, okay? It talks about like people going to the NFL field,

but they're the nicest person, but they're going to absolutely kill everyone on the field, right? And it's flipping a switch. And whether that's like if I'm speaking at an engagement, maybe I'm wearing my glasses or something, right? But I have this almost building, like I had to work on this alter ego, but I know I've always had it

because growing up playing hockey, I'm a nice guy. I'm pretty flexible, but, like, when it's time to go, it's time to go. And that would be, for me, it was like black and white. So I love physical contact in hockey, right?

Smashing. I love to fight and different things, but it was like two different people. And he's been able to pull that sort of mentality out of me it's the same thing in the gym i can like say a couple things and i'll drive through those reps or i'll do that it's not going to be like hey if it's close to 500 pounds on the bench i could i mean on deadlift right i would love to push 500 pounds like you but on the ground it's going to

come off but it's like i could give myself excuses but if i can flip that switch like and that's what i've learned a lot on that alter ego. So that, I would say, is a great, great book if no one's read that or you wanted to because everyone has this alter ego. And once you nail that alter ego, it even talks about, like, Spider-Man, Clark Kent, like, all that stuff.

They're all alter egos, right? It kind of reminds me of, like, really good coaches that I've had. I remember, you know, when I was boxing and then also even just playing, like, high school football, I remember, like, even my coach, who was, like was like 65 years old he'd get pissed off at somebody and he'd be like that's not the way you come off the line he's like you know what the fuck are you doing and he'd get mad and he you know like it was a long time ago so you can kind of do and say whatever you want

he smashed a clipboard over someone's helmet or whatever he was just like raging right but he'd be like this is how you do it and And he gets down in his stance. And when he got up and out of his stance and he hit you, this guy weighed 170, 65 years old. And you're like, holy shit, this is a violent individual. Meanwhile, he's sitting there talking about God and he's sitting there

being a great mentor and talking about loving each other and how the other team isn't going to beat us because we care about each other so much. that's the way we're going to win. And you're like, that's the same dude who just ripped the other guy's head off because he didn't make the right block or whatever. If you read that book and stuff, you're going to hear some of the biggest speakers in the world have this alter ego before they go on stage.

And I think even if I were to Andy and a couple other people, just tell different things like that. But that's a great book. There's other ones. Depend on what you want. I've got a bunch of books on habit so the atomic habit by james clear okay there's another one that's probably some of you guys have read probably called the four agreements and it's way way back like it's uh uh miguel ruiz but

it's an older book but it's a four agreements you can take and pretty much um implement into any area of your life but you read that it's a different mindset understanding um there's a bunch of them like i like even aubrey marcus from on it right own the day that's a great book i read that a long time ago i've read that twice now um so far this year i've got like crap loads of books that i've read so h3 leadership principles it just depends what you're wanting right so right now i'm reading like the nike book okay like um shoe dog and even though it's so old and stuff my wife bought it for me so i've been reading that out by the pool and stuff. Um,

again, just, I like taking different things. I like a lot of, uh, I'll call it true story, like, like fiction,

right? Like to me, my mind on all the stuff that's not true and stuff, whatever. Like, um, so for me, that's a lot of them.

I also like a ton of Grant Cardone stuff way back, right on the sales trainings and different. I just love his grind and like hustle and just that mindset right and again he's one of those guys oh why the people say why are you so harsh why are you like so he knows what he wants he's driven right and that to me is a character trait that i'd love to have in every single employee that i have i'd love to have my my kids and stuff that way right i don't like the rest of the world is taking it a different way because they're never going to be where he is going to be right Right. Grant Cardone has some really fun.

He has some fun things that he's done, you know, like he'll send out like an email blast and he had like one that would go out weekly and then the people would report back and they're like, yeah, you know, when we're doing it monthly, we didn't hear any complaints. But now that we're doing a weekly, we're starting to hear more complaints. He goes, you know what? Let's double it. Yeah. You know, he's like, let's triple it.

He's like, let's do it every day. He's like like let's triple it he's like let's do it every day he's like fuck him he's like let's see what happens and like it just people started getting used to it and people started responding to it there would be some people who like i'm on following it but what happened was you know let's just say you have a hundred thousand people on an email list well maybe it shrinks down to 70 000 maybe even shrinks down to be half but what if the half is more responsive to the email the email blasting you know what and what if they're receptive to it because they really do uh enjoy what you're selling they do enjoy really enjoy the product so then it's not such a hassle to them they don't mind being blasted

with it because they like what you have to say there's one like if you want if you can't inspire yourself and you can't be motivated by yourself right like like grant's got lots of good books like i read this earlier this year how to get and stay motivated right so there's different again principles if you're having money problems okay you want to understand your finances more like there's you're a badass at making money in mastery okay by um i forget her name jen whatever but that's it's a bright green cover and um again just taking different principles that can apply to you right it's not necessarily saying hey how to save your pennies and stuff but different mindset things on your personal finances because a lot of the time a lot of people aren't successful in finance.

It has nothing to do with they can't save and stuff. It's their mind, right? They don't believe they're worth it or they don't believe they should be paying themselves first or they don't believe this or that. And it's like some kind of, I'll call it even from their childhood, how their parents maybe dealt with money, right? But I've had to learn a lot of that. And that's one thing that's a lot different for me as I've grown up. But a lot of my mentorship on the firm, my partner that was a billionaire changed a lot of that and that's one thing that's um a lot different for me as i growing up but a lot of my mentorship on the firm my partner that was a billionaire changed a lot of those things for me as well so yeah um there's like i got tons i've read probably 40 like the 10x rule if you don't take any other book from grant cardone read the 10x rule to 10x

your life in every single aspect if you implement some of those things and some people say oh this is crazy try it okay because again it's a mindset thing right if you 10x your mindset maybe you don't achieve that but you've got eight and a half times right or whatever so well most people we admire we kind of do shake our head and be like that dude's crazy yeah you know that's usually what we end up saying like when the person walks away like that that guy's crazy man i don't know what else to say about him but he's nuts jason kalipa like he's nuts. Jason Kalipa, like he's a nutcase, right? We love him. He's a good friend of mine, but yeah, he operates at a high level. One of the other key books before I'll stop with this is like,

if you haven't read any other book, I'd take Tim Grover, Relentless. I don't know if you know who he is. Yeah, Tim Grover is a guy who used to train Michael Jordan. Michael Jordan, Kobe Bryant. We're going to have him on the podcast too. We're actually going to go out to him. Yeah, he's a beast. You need to read it.

It's Tim Grover. He's absolutely an incredible individual. But also – We've got to go to Chicago. Yeah. So, again, there's a ton of books. But just, again, taking different principles, what you want, right? And there's lots of people that publish different things.

I've read a ton of Gary Vee. David Goggins from A Mindset. Yeah. David Goggins is a killer. Game over, yeah. It's the first time I ever have to tell you we were a couple years ago and we were going to a road trip a bunch of guys to go snowboarding and these guys are all big real estate dudes they're making millions of dollars and then david goggins playing is one of his books right it was um um living with a seal one of the first ones yeah and we were up in uh in um

pagosa springs so by wolf creek and they're like oh he talked about like this cold water plunge i'm like freaking we're at pagosa springs 106 107 but there's a trail down and it's a lake and the first freaking thing was 25 degrees where there's a freaking hole in the ice and you go and it's because david goggins but again his books from a mindset standpoint i love the guy because there's no excuses right he's a no bullshit guy that has beat the crap out of his body but it shows you what your mind is capable of doing your body's going to go through right and if he can do it there's no reason why you can't do it it goes back to like i've become pretty good friends with a couple navy seals and stuff and those guys are just off the rocker right

like i've met a lot of them through through bedros and through mike and stuff and i love their friggin mentality right it's It's absolutely a different mindset. Yeah, we got to get Pedro on the podcast. You do. We've been chatting back and forth for a little while. We're going to have him sometime this summer. We just haven't locked anything in quite yet, so maybe you can help us.

Yeah, I'll be actually with him in another couple weeks up there. Oh, cool. You help us lock that in because I know that Andrew's wife or fiance follows the boot camp stuff that he does. Yeah, they got a crazy boot camp coming up they got one that's i don't know if i should be mentioning it but it's actually got uh quite a few it's some

navy seals and it's actually like a hell week boot camp oh snap it's uh sold out it's only i think 14 individuals but um it's something that's it would be life-changing for those 14 individuals yeah also if no one's like everyone, we talked about like mindset and we talked about mentorship and stuff, like he's got a great, him and Craig Ballantyne, they own the Empire Mastermind. If you're not subscribed to their Empire podcast,

you'll learn every single day, every single episode from those guys. That's a great podcast. I've listened to it before. Yeah. And if someone's looking to something that will change their business, they have in August,

they have what they call the Empire Business Summit. And it's in San Diego for two days. But again, some of the top, top guys, the people that I mentioned as far as like Dan Fleischman, Lowe Silva, they've got different Navy SEALs training.

They got Bedros and Craig. I might encourage people to take a look at that. It's probably almost full day, but I think it's August 15th and 16th or 16th and 17th in San Diego. And again, you'll take away so much more value. Well, you have your own podcast where you're interviewing dads and talking about like you're talking to a lot of high-level people,

but you're not really talking about business, but you're talking about what Andrew mentioned earlier about balance, right? I think a lot of people are trying to figure that out more so than they are thinking about putting points up on the scoreboard for business, you know? Yeah, we started. So again, a passion project for me and people like, why did you start it? Because it's what I'm passionate about, right? Like we started a website, DadBotInc, and to me, I titled it The Business of Being a Dad. And I think it's the same as if you're in business anywhere, like Andy says, you don't want to freaking get a participation trophy. And I'm sort of sick and it saddens me almost to see like these dads with

the participation trophies, right? If so, from that standpoint, if it's a business, you want to dominate, you want to be the best leader. You got to constantly improve and better yourself in order to have your people with us, employees, whether that's your kids, whatever. And we started a podcast called the dad bod show and just got two episodes up, um, just on iTunes, but we've got a fairly good lineup, a great lineup and Mark, we want to get you on there. But the whole goal is they're talking about the not so glamorous underside of the business of being a dad, right? Most of the people that we, all the people we have on there have been very successful in other realms of life, but a lot of them,

it's not behind the scenes, right? I think a lot of those people have characteristics and stuff that are great to be seen by the audience that maybe isn't even a dad, right? Whether you're a new father, you're some point in your life going to become a father or you're like me, spread it all over the place. I think maybe I'm not the perfect dad, not the perfect parent, but I've got, I think a lot of experience have been 19 years now, right? All different stages and I'm back in the rabbit hole. And to me, I think I've had to work a lot on myself so i think i can contribute a lot back but what i want to give is we're providing a lot of free content so you'll have like yeah fitness stuff working

mindset but it's not just to me fitness right it's your mind body spiritual okay it's there's there's different finance things that have to change you can't be selfish when you're a dad right i've had you know that's like we talked about kids driving and stuff but my son son, junior hockey, I say, holy crap, finally this year, knock on wood, he was off. He's off payroll, ready to get drafted. But for 10 years, more than that, you're talking about almost sometimes up to six figures, right? That's a lot of different. If you want to say, Oh shit, why don't you have a shiny car and stuff? Well, I got priorities, right? I got things that I'm not selfish about and stuff. And so I think we're just trying to give back a lot of content. We have new blog content going up every couple of days.

We actually just had a, we did a, it was pretty cool. We got into muscle and fitness. So for Father's Day, it was the July edition. It's out there. It's the one with Bruce Lee on it. So we got two pages in there. Oh yeah, we have it here. Yeah.

And from that standpoint, they did a dad bod thing. Oh, that's great. But you'll see a lot more coming out as far as some other publications, both in Canada, abroad and different things. Bodybuilding.com just put out a new series as well, which is coming with the dad bod. So we have a lot of content. We did the in here with Muscle and Fitness, there's actually a contest with Real and their product is the essential amino acids. And so we did a Real dad contest for Father's Day. So you had to upload a picture with your son, daughter, et cetera. Moms could do it as well. And then they did a drawing for your product and some other things. But it's just to build awareness. And I think in a community,

we can help and give back more than individually. And it's all different. Hey, dad bod's not supposed to be like just a ripped six pack and stuff. That's what you choose. And I'll call it different areas of where you're comfortable with. But there's also, I think, a lot of education that we're going to do through there. And we'll have a lot of articles. We just published one that's coming in for like, how do you engage to, I'll call it athleticism, right?

And stay motivated in your kids' lives. Well, you got to understand, hey, some kids aren't going to respond and they're not the ones that want to be in the team sports and stuff. So there's different content that can be given back and can hopefully be implemented at different stages in people's lives. Our goal is to, longer term, do a few physical camps as well, actually together in different cities and have a lot of big individuals that want to participate

and give back into different elements of content, not just fitness. And we've got challenges and some other things. There'll be diet stuff on there. There's a lot of different things. But again, just building up the podcast is one big thing that we'll be dropping one episode a week, week over week. And then you have an Icon Meals podcast as well? You're still doing that?

Yeah, Icon Meals podcast. We're just trying to hire a few more people. But on that, we've been talking a bit more with our athletes and partners, really, about the implementation of nutrition and stuff in their life and how they've done some tips and feedbacks. What that's going to transition into more is some of the stuff we talked about at the start, more in regards to the back end. So we're going to open it up and we're going to actually do a live hour feed once a week into our kitchen. So the good, bad, the ugly.

You've got a live feed. Everyone can hit it. They can see everything going on in the kitchen. Oh, cool. I got to see all that, and that was remarkable. You haven't seen the new place. You haven't seen the new place. It's four and going on in the kitchen. Oh, cool. And then more – I got to see all that, and that was remarkable. Well, you haven't seen the new place. You haven't seen the – the new place is four and a half times as big. Oh, wow.

But – That was a hell of an operation. You had – the cooks were kind of like kitchen area, and then you had like a prep area. And it was all like immaculate, and it was all like – it was organized and clean the way that you'd want it to be. It was awesome. It was really cool. Yeah, so we're going to transition that to more, hopefully, educational content. A lot of shit figured out, too.

Those insulated containers and stuff looks like a giant pain in the ass to figure all that out. Yeah, it's been interesting. Did your dad have a big effect on you in terms of what you've been able to do in terms of being a father and the bad body thing that you're doing now? Yeah, I think I've taken things from my dad and then also like my dad did a lot for me growing up and I've taken a lot of those things, right? As far as I think one of the things like he's very focused on the business and stuff. So I'll take different aspects of that where I've tried to take some more, I'll call it things that not necessarily that I missed, but what I want to be more involved

in every aspect of my kid's life and priority wise. Um, and then I've taken things from, like I said, my, one of my mentors was Bob neon before, right? I thought he was like my second dad. So growing up a lot of different things. And Bob, was he the billionaire guy? Yeah. Okay. So, and had him in my life and he was involved a little bit, um, both kids early on, but yeah, I've learned a ton from my dad, taken a ton of different things. Um, again, he's a hundred percent been the one that's been over supportive, whatever we wanted to do in our life. And, uh, just again, that mindset of making the place better based on what he can contribute back. Got it. And there's something you mentioned, um, when you, I don't know how long you were at 250.

You lost that weight and then you had to somehow gain that weight back. Did you have any issues trying to build because you used to be so big? Did you have any issues trying to. Yeah. So in this picture there, I was probably like I was probably 240 or whatever. And again, I thought working out was working out right. I thought anything put in my mouth was macros and stuff. So the 230s, the 250s was sort of I'll call it, probably 17 to 19-ish area. 19 was when I got sick and I went down like closer to right at 200.

And then building back up, I never really put, I'd say, a ton of fat back on. But I also would adapt to a lot of different things. Like in this transformation, that's 20 years. Oh, wow. So that's going from there to there like this is that was a month ago or whatever right a couple months ago that's a mike's place actually in la but that i was that weight on the left for a long time and i thought hey that was like i was bench pressing and doing all my stuff but again not focused on diet not focused on i didn't understand right a lot of people are built like that like on uh you are on the left there, just from like, yeah, they're training, they're taking the supplements,

they're doing a lot of things, but they just don't have the education. But here's what I just want to mention on that piece. To me, I wasn't necessarily 100% healthy, right? Right. I had higher blood pressure, had different things. But again, the food that I was putting in my body was affecting me differently. So higher insulin, like insulin resistance, different things, right? And I think a lot of people don't understand when they say, hey, a carb, a carb, a carb,

it's not a carb, it's just a carb, right? So, and I think a lot of it goes back to the shit we eat in just society today where it's processed, right? And that has different effects on your body. So looking at that, some people say, hey, there's nothing wrong with that. Great. I have nothing wrong with that. If you are personally one, healthy, okay, and two, happy, right? And I think so many people like me there. I was probably like, okay, I'm happy. But if you read what I posted stuff, like my posts are, hey, I'm still looking at all these guys in muscle and fitness, right? And I'm all looking at these guys in muscular development thinking, man, they must have good genes of this.

And I think a lot of people just think they're never going to do that because they can't believe in themselves and they don't have a path to do it. And then two, once they do see the path, they don't have the drive and the frigging desire to go after it. The picture on the right, are you healthy and happy? Yeah. So like I said, blood panels for me, it's just a part of my normal maintenance, right? And that's just to make sure like I'm talking everything from like thyroid to blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. I just actually.

You're not far off. I mean, you're lean year round pretty much, but you look a little thicker. You look like you have more, like maybe more mass on you than last time I saw you. But that was just diet. That wouldn't take you. That wouldn't take. How long would that take you to get like that? Three weeks? Yeah, give me two weeks.

All it is is really for me, I add a little bit of cardio in and then I'll strict around the diet. Like I'll pull my fats and stuff but again but at this at this level that you're at right here does this feel a little bit better like is this a little bit more manageable i guess so that to me like mark if i like right this morning stuff like yesterday three and a half three plus gallons of water and stuff so i'm shooting this sunday right i'll be down to that right on sunday where i'll start pulling my water in a little bit like I'm not got it so it is manageable because you're basically there to me though it's lifestyle yeah right so I'm gonna walk around like I got I don't know what this

is four weeks ago so three weeks ago was in Toronto was May 1st I had Pedro speaking on stages with David more enough you know David cover model and stuff diamond ties all that stuff but we went on stage and they had that what do you call it the fat thing that measures your fat and stuff, diametize, all that stuff. But we went on stage and they had that, what do you call it, the fat thing that measures your fat and stuff? Yeah. Fat caliper. Yeah.

So mine came in at 6.6. I was 217 or 218 pounds. I was dieted down. And that's like probably 6.6. So they're like, oh, you're not three. Well, it's not. It's where you hold your fat, right? Okay.

And it depends on where they pinch and everything. Well, it's that damn thing that you hold. So when you do a DEXA scan. Oh, electronic impedance. Yeah. So like on my DEXA, I'll do a DEXA once every six months, and that covers my bone density and fat. But my body fat's typically 6% to 8% is where I'm going to fluctuate up and down.

But I can make 6% look like 3%, right? It's just depending on where you hold it and stuff. For you, you're pretty lean through your stomach. Yeah. So I have like my pretty lean through your stomach. Yeah. So I have like my visceral fat was 0.33. So when I get my visceral fat done on DEXA, but where I hold it is in my hips and my butt. But you can't like I wouldn't say, hey, I'm holding it there. But that's where the chills are holding, right?

Right. And then it also measures brain fat and stuff. So when you're doing that other one. Fat head. Yeah. But over there, I'm probably 18, 20%. People say, and that's, I think a wrong measurement of what society puts it there. Hey, you're typically healthy if you're 20% or 18% by whose standard.

Okay. And I think standards have to change and evolve today because I think that's one thing where necessarily we might not have as a society evolved as much as far as like you go to a traditional doctor, traditional doctor is going to tell you, Hey, your test levels are great at 300 or whatever. And you're going, okay. But traditional doctor is going to tell you, hey, your test levels are great at 300 or whatever. And you're going, OK. But what people don't understand as well, it's like it's not just, hey, it's not people don't take TRT and different things for like growth and all this. Right. It's mental as you grow older.

OK. Different things. Right. And there's people don't understand a lot of those different metrics on what necessarily I think healthy is. and what necessarily I think healthy is. If you go to a general practitioner to a thyroid or to a hormone doctor, you get three pages versus you get 23 pages, and it's much more detailed and much more, I'll call it, usable data.

What's the company that you went for to get, or was it a specific company you went for for that type of blood work? So I use a company called Smart Wellness Now, and they're a DFW. I actually met this individual. He works with a lot of the cowboys, a lot of the wrestlers, a lot of the bodybuilders, and he's one of the guys that has fixed um a lot of the women bodybuilders and men that we're all in all this gear right and bringing them back to where they needed to be after they're done on the professional stage so he's worked with like i won't name names but like miss olympia people right like brought and good friends of mine but brought them back over a three-year period to

get them back to where they are and for me like, like I just did a cardiac, a full, because Brandon Fulkin was with us and we were shooting with Per Brunel and after that Brandon had a heart attack. And Brandon's only 36 years old, right? But it's hereditary with him and stuff. So I was like, screw this, I'm going to go get this full. So I did all that stuff, right? And people say, oh, it's expensive.

Well, fuck, to me $1,200 is nothing for what you get back, right? So I got all those back because I want to know if something's wrong. I don't want to just play it by the cards. I want to make sure what I'm doing. And I think that's the same thing as taking your car. If you're driving a Ferrari or driving a Lamborghini or driving whatever frigging supercar Bugatti, right? You're going to frigging not complain about $10,000 on the oil change. You're not going to complain about the $7,000 per tire, right? You're going to do the necessary things to do to make sure it runs optimally and that's the same with you as your body if not you're shortchanging yourself if not go drive a fucking kia there's certain tests that you can get done too that aren't expensive like

you can get what's called a calcium score uh it's like 75 bucks yeah but your doctor like when you mention it they're gonna like urge that you don't get it done because i just think like always want you to go the most expensive route, especially if you're a big, heavy guy. They're going to be like, oh, no, we need to check this, this, and this. You're going to see that your blood pressure is messed up, your cholesterol. They want to prescribe you medication. They want you to take the long route. They want to charge you a fucking ton of money. It's $75 to get a calcium store.

What's with the hormone doctor, like any of those wellness clinics, right? They're not going to try to put you on prescriptions and all this stuff, right? It's like, and it's not expensive. My blood work, once I record, is 160 bucks, okay? And I get that done. You can go into any, there's a lot of labs around that'll just do it. But the reason I go to a doctor is because I sit down and have a consultation. I've got a relationship with him.

He knows, right? I want someone that, like we talked about, hey, guru diets and this and that. I've been with an individual now over four and a half years. He knows what my body is, right? He knows, so he can see things, hey, why is this up and that. I've been with an individual now over four and a half years. He knows what my body is, right? He knows. So he can see things. Well, Hey, why is this up in that up? And some normal doctor might say, Hey, like my liver enzymes are always this and that, right? I don't drink. Okay. I don't take any drugs. Right. So, but again, it goes back to different training styles and what is not in a normal range for someone who trains a certain way and versus how

their diet is, is, is what yours is. But if you didn't have someone that's bettering in his own practice and learning and stuff, right, and can tell you different things, you're not gonna get that kind of feedback to help you optimally continue and be better and grow. Do you stop working out before you get blood work done? So typically there's two types of panels you'll do. One, every other time I do them back and forth.

So I'll do a fasted panel, 100%, and then he'll have me eat and stuff. But I won't train before I'll go to do a panel. Typically, I'll get my panels done at 6 to 8 o'clock in the morning. So I wouldn't train that day. I wouldn't take pre-work. I wouldn't take anything like that before. Yeah, that's why I didn't partake in this morning's training because I'm getting my blood work tomorrow.

Yeah. Yeah, so you take like any days off uh of your training typically or no no but here's what happens to me so what about uh what about your sleep so you mentioned you get five or six hours of sleep so is that is that every day they get five or six hours of sleep i'll say you get any naps at all i'll say typically probably five to seven hours a day right so if i count let's say i'm in bed with him at eight o'clock eight to eight thirty eight to nine nine to ten okay wake up maybe so let's say eleven to in bed with him at 8 o'clock, 8 to 9, 9 to 10, wake up maybe. So let's say 11 to 12, 12 to 1, 1 to 2, 2 to 3.

That's six hours every day. And people say, well, that's because 8 o'clock, right? And then sometimes on the weekends, you probably experienced this, but I might go where I've gone, gone, gone, gone. And all of a sudden, I just hit a brick wall. It's like, shit, I can't get out of bed. It body just tells you hey you're being an idiot you should stay in bed and that's that's me being stubborn right right but it's again i don't have a lot of i'll call it vices and different things and if that's my one of my worst vices then i'll take it and it's also like we mentioned earlier helps me put in to get into my place and if that's my

the price i pay and look the doctors like i like I told you, say, Hey, everything's good. Just, we got to look at how you can work harder in a shorter period of time, right? Because you're fighting that father time thing. But again, that's what I love. So it's, it is one thing that I need to work on. But me and Mike always joke about it because he's like day off and I'm like, I don't know what to do with myself. Yeah, Mike doesn't really. I mean, he does those early morning workouts. But I think one thing that people don't understand or don't see is that a lot of the training sessions also happen at 6 a.m. or 6.30. Like it depends on what he's doing.

Sometimes you're doing like a shoulder workout with him. He'll call for it to be a little bit later in the day. If he's flying back from somewhere, I experienced that a few times with him. He'll never train on days that he travels typically. The other thing that people don't understand is in Mike's life, it works for him, right? It's smart. It makes sense. So if you, like when I stay with Mike, right?

Like I'll joke around saying, hey, I'll be back. He's like, what time are you coming home? It's like checking in on me. I'm like, I'll be here after 6.45. Okay, the door will be open. It's 6.45 at night. He's like up in bed, right?

It's seven, eight o'clock. But that's what works, okay? And then people don't understand. Like, I'm staying at Mike's the next four days, but every day I don't have to set an alarm. He's up at 2.45, so me and him will be in the kitchen shooting the shit before Gold's opens at 4. But what people then don't understand is he goes back and he'll be to sleep for an hour, okay?

So throughout the day, depending on what training regimen, if he's dieting, if he's cutting, if he's doing this, he can sleep for that hour, two hours. And those little rest naps, I think there's scientific proof that show that helps a lot, right? Rem sleep, different things. But Mike does get, he'll tell you, hey, today we're not training, we're training later. He's got his eight hours. So there's different things.

He doesn't just necessarily say, hey, these are what it is. But those are things that implement and work well for, again, he's so focused on longevity just with like new baby and stuff. That's like the most important thing for him, but he's built up that lifestyle that it's not going to ever change. Right. What are some things? Cause you, you mentioned like you don't watch TV,

right? Not a lot. Yeah. Like what are some things that most people do? What the fuck do you do? Yeah. What's some things that most people do that you don't do? Like,

like I love eating. Right. So I spend like a shitload probably that you don't do? I love eating, right? So I spend like a shitload probably of money on going out. I just enjoy that. Like me and my wife go out with my kids, but we'll eat. And people say, oh, you eat healthy. But yeah, you'll see me eating healthy, but you also see the shit I post all the time. But I know what works for me, right?

And I enjoy that. So I'm not going to say, hey, I won't ever have a glass of wine. Like I enjoy it. I go out with my wife and stuff. You do, okay? My wife loves wine. I'll have a nice glass of wine, enjoy a good bottle of wine over a nice steak and stuff. It's just I enjoy sushi, steak, all the stuff in between.

We'll have whatever we have. I think the other big thing for me that I've had to learn is I love to travel. And more and more, there's certain, I'll call it seasons of your life, that it doesn't necessarily make sense like last year was the first time that i've taken a vacation for seven days in a long time it was a 20-year anniversary we went to st um to st lucia and it was the only crazy thing is your damn phone worked over there it sucked but um on day five i was like what the fuck i'm just starting to go stir crazy here but i have to so i love traveling that's one thing that

like we try to do more i'll call it mini vacations where we'll take two or three days, staycations, hotels in different parts of Dallas or just Airbnb here or there, California for four days or Miami for two days. So those are different vices. But I don't know. To me. You also love being in shape and you love training. So I think a lot of times people are like i don't understand how that guy lives his life that way but that's what you enjoy doing here's one crazy thing so maybe this is crazy maybe i'm weird to joke around with mike like if i'm gonna plan a

vacation i want to know what gyms are there okay so if we're going to miami right i want to go like hey what are the badass gyms i'm going to train at or my wife same thing as her yoga yoga is her passion right so she's going to go we're going gonna make plans to go somewhere based on like hey what yoga studio she wants to go to or like and that's so that's just sort of how we are and even if i'm coming out to a hotel and i have to stay somewhere for business for four days i want to know what the gyms are because i'm gonna wake up at 245 if there's no freaking 24-hour fitness or 24-hour gym somewhere or the hotel gym opens at six o'clock that's the dumbest thing ever as well six o'clock know why a gym opens at 6 o'clock at a hotel. But I can't, like, I've got three hours that my mind's going, right?

So I don't know. You probably have, like, the most epic accountability partner in Icon Meals, right? Yeah, we do. You can't be all out of shape and, you know, pushing a food company. Yeah, I think that's one thing that's, I think, again, it would be, I don't know what the word, I'm drawing a blank on the word, but like a hypocrite, right? If I was a byproduct of eating my crap and I've had different people that have worked for me in that.

And like I put up, I'm not naming names of these watches, he watches it, but like he gave 5,000 bucks. He's overweight. When he started with me, he's 185. Year and a half in, he was like almost two, whatever. I said, here's frigging five grand cash. Okay. You got to lose x right he trained with us and stuff but he didn't want and i said hey you don't forgive back you don't

pay the money back whatever it just i would i take five grand that kind of challenge but again so from that standpoint i think like there's yeah you have to be a byproduct of your product and i think i would be a hypocrite if i'm saying hey hey, I'm 300 pounds and you know I'm not eating my food because if I'm putting what I'm putting in my body and it's Icon, then you're not going to be like that. Yeah, Mark kind of did the same thing for me. He's like, here's five grand. You can't stay natty.

So I took it. You were mentioning earlier about paying coaches and stuff, and that is something that Stan Efferding did when he came here. My gym's free, but he, you know, he and I went to lunch one day and he explained, he's like, I want to break, you know, all time world records. And, you know, I know that this is the right place to do it. So he's like, here you go. And he slid 5,000 bucks in cash across the table, you know? And I was like, well, uh, I was like, I don't, you know, I don't, I don't accept money. I don't train people for money. And he was like well i was like i don't you know i don't accept money i don't train people for money

and he was like no i need to pay you for this because this is going to be different like i i want to learn what you what you know and so i want to be by your side he'll be he was like i'm going to be a pain in the ass and he was he was praying in the ass but you know and i accepted it especially at the time i didn't have i didn't So I was like, sure, all right, you're going to twist my arm, I'll take it. But it made it worth it for both of us. It was a good spend of money on his part because he ended up with what he wanted. He got to those all-time world records. But hadn't he not done that, had he just came to me and said,

hey, I want to break world records, I'm going to be by your side, it wouldn't have had the same impact. it might not have resulted in the same way and because he was paying me i was like okay now i need to kind of i need to step up the service a little bit it's not he's not just a regular training partner he's paid me i need to explain what we're doing why we're doing it what these exercises are for why do i have him training with bands or why do i have him training with chains or why are we doing a box squad need to explain all this stuff to him yeah i think there's uh always that like a lot of people with free content and everyone wants free in this right and there's only so much value in free like if you're not accountable and you're

not paying for something then you're not we're going to hold yourself accountable and i put a post it there a while back and i saw mike took it ran with it because it's a lot of things like i know mike and like so many people DMing this and that, hey, information, information. Dude, the guy's worth so much value, right? But he never charges what he's worth, okay? And I think that's one thing where you have all these people out there today,

again, they want this, they want this, they want this for free. But look, I think you have to step in and you have to realize if you want to be anywhere in life, it's going to cost you something, right? Because free is not worth, it doesn't give any value. There's always a price.

There's a price. And maybe it's not financial, but yeah. Yeah, whether it's your time, whether it's this. But on a monetary price, let's say, for instance, the individual, if money means the most to them and they have to actually put up their own money to get where they want to be, then that's maybe what it takes for them, right? Maybe they don't have a problem waking up at 2 o'clock in the morning, but they can't force themselves.

Then they need to pay what it's worth to get where they want to be. I think you only get better by increasing that realm of value. There's different ways of training here. The gym is free, but if you're not providing value back into the gym, then you're probably kind of wasting your time and probably spinning your wheels. Then you could come here and be like, well, they just have nice equipment and the gym's not that intense. And it's like, well, what do you, are you contributing to the gym not being that intense? Or are you contributing to the gym being intense? Like, what are you, you know, what's your role in all this? Cause that's, you know, you got to really

kind of like bring it every single day you go into a training session. Yeah. Well, if you look at, I'll go back to Bedros, Bedros and how i met bedros was like their mastermind and stuff their mastermind is not cheap 50 grand up front you wire transfer you transfer money before you even get accepted on the application right but again there's other masterminds okay i'll give name and names but there's hundred thousand dollar masterminds there's seven figure masterminds but why do people pay those okay if you look at some of the most successful people out there and you know some of these guys like byproducts of Bedros and great friends of Bedros and stuff now are like Steve Weatherford, right? Ben Palusky, okay? A lot of these guys,

but they've been 10 times that $50,000. But people are like, holy shit, $50,000. But look, Bedros is probably worth $50,000 in a 20-minute conversation, the amount of value delivered back to you, okay? But you have to understand and you have to believe in in yourself and he's going to help you. They're going to lay the blueprint and plan. And if you can have someone come into your business or into your life and lay out a blueprint or strategize or help you overcome a different problem and work towards that accomplished goal in a predefined preset, accountable, accountable, like you're accountable, accountability partner, then it's well worth it. And that monetary amount should be, you should be able to 10 times, 20 times, 100 times, right?

So that value. But again, there's so much people that don't believe enough in themselves. It's just a common theme. Like Sean Pervost was here too. He owns a bunch of Dutch press in the area. You probably know him. And a bunch of other people

that are high performers like both of you. It's just a common theme that you guys are consistently learning, consistently doing, and always taking new information in, learning stuff from new people. I think a lot of that you guys are consistently learning, consistently doing, and always taking new information in, learning stuff from new people. I think a lot of people like that are my age and maybe younger or whatever just need to realize that we need to be doing more. We need to be continuously learning even after college.

I think that's where a lot of people just stop. Do you do it to a point where you're sometimes sick of it? You're in the car. You're listening to one of your audio books, and you just shut it off and turn on music like it happens to me like i do it so much that it almost makes me nauseous yeah so i'll i'll i'll be accountable to myself right i say hey but then like at some points like i've had a day let's say it's a i don't know afternoon right and i'm freaking 16 hours in 18 hours in the day it's nine o'clock i've been going since two o'clock and i'm in the car hopping and turn the audiobook on like fuck this and it's like music right or whatever i gotta get it's again my mindset gangster rap yeah that's what it is

sometimes change your mind change your mode right people say hey what do you listen to i'm like i listen to freaking everything from country to hip-hop to whatever mood i'm in right right and i i'm when you say that that brings it like 100 I'll do that a lot of times, podcast or have an audio book and I'll flip it off. And it's just, then it's music or it's maybe nothing. Right. Right. But when I have nothing on my mind starts like,

yeah, that's when you're a madman. When you drive, like driving with no music on or nothing on, that means you're crazy. Yeah. So I'm crazy. Yeah,

you are. No, it's actually kind of cool though. Like, have you ever driven like two hours and like, you're like, I didn't have music on. I didn't glance at my phone. I don't remember how I got here. You just were in a trance.

Yeah, I like to have audio conversation, have some audio scene if you're talking to yourself or what you're doing. I've done different things like that. Keep yourself awake, whatever you got to do. Some other good podcasts, just to kind of round this out, since we did end up talking about business so much. Definitely listen to Andy Frisella's podcast. MFCEO. Yeah, the MFCEO project.

That's fantastic. Ed Milet is another good one. I heard a podcast with, I think, Ed Milet and Grant Cardone, and they were bragging back and forth about who had a faster private jet. It was really funny, and Grant Cardone, and they were bragging back and forth about who had a faster private jet. It was really funny, and Grant Cardone was like, no, he's like, mine's faster because of this and that. And you can see Ed Milet, he was getting frustrated. But Ed Milet's podcast is one of the best podcasts out there

in terms of helping build personal development, just learning. I mean, he has a lot of great people on his show. A lot of variety too. It's not always- Which ones I'm listening to right now. Yeah. It's not always just him diving right into just pure business stuff. I know some of you might be like, oh, great. But it's just going to help you improve a lot of facets of your life. Ed Milet even has a audio thing where he talks for about 20 minutes just about building his business.

I don't know if you ever heard that. But man, it's like, I listened to that. I was like, how is this free? Like, this is so cool that he put this out there. You need to read his book as well, if not. So go online and get his book. It's free. He pays for it, even the shipping.

But another great one as well, as I mentioned, Joel Merriam. But if you haven't listened to his yet, it's called Born to Impact. And it's absolutely incredible podcast. Got some just like, he said, as I mentioned, Joel Merriam. But if you haven't listened to his yet, it's called Born to Impact. And it's an absolutely incredible podcast. It's got some – just like he said, Trent Shelton, a whole bunch of people on. But again, he's had Ed, he's had Andy, all those guys. But again, just great guys from that standpoint.

Bedros' The Empire podcast is amazing as well. I got to listen to his podcast more. I was on a little track of listening to it for a little while, and I've fallen off. So I got to get back on that horse. All right, guys. That's all the time we got. Strength is never weakness. Weakness is never strength.

Catch you all later.