Mark Bell's Power Project - MBPP EP. 600 - CT Fletcher & Samson Fletcher

Episode Date: September 30, 2021

Our first ever podcast in front of a live audience with Fitness Legend CT Fletcher and his son Samson Fletcher. CT is known all over the world as one of the most motivational and most influential figures in all of fitness. His son Samson joins us today who CT claims is stronger than he ever was at similar ages. Special perks for our listeners below! ➢Magic Spoon Cereal: https://www.magicspoon.com/powerproject to automatically save $5 off a variety pack! ➢8 Sleep: Visit https://www.eightsleep.com/powerproject to automatically save $150 off the Pod Pro! ➢Marek Health: https://marekhealth.com Use code POWERPROJECT15 for 15% off ALL LABS! Also check out the Power Project Panel: https://marekhealth.com/powerproject Use code POWERPROJECT for $101 off! ➢LMNT Electrolytes: http://drinklmnt.com/powerproject ➢Piedmontese Beef: https://www.piedmontese.com/ Use Code "POWERPROJECT" at checkout for 25% off your order plus FREE 2-Day Shipping on orders of $150 Subscribe to the Podcast on on Platforms! ➢ https://lnk.to/PowerProjectPodcast Subscribe to the Power Project Newsletter! ➢ https://bit.ly/2JvmXMb Follow Mark Bell's Power Project Podcast ➢ Insta: https://www.instagram.com/markbellspowerproject ➢ https://www.facebook.com/markbellspowerproject ➢ Twitter: https://twitter.com/mbpowerproject ➢ LinkedIn:https://www.linkedin.com/in/powerproject/ ➢ YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/markbellspowerproject ➢TikTok: http://bit.ly/pptiktok FOLLOW Mark Bell ➢ Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/marksmellybell ➢ Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/MarkBellSuperTraining ➢ Twitter: https://twitter.com/marksmellybell ➢ Snapchat: marksmellybell ➢Mark Bell's Daily Workouts, Nutrition and More: https://www.markbell.com/ Follow Nsima Inyang ➢ https://www.breakthebar.com/learn-more ➢YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/c/NsimaInyang ➢Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/nsimainyang/?hl=en ➢TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@nsimayinyang?lang=en Follow Andrew Zaragoza on all platforms ➢ https://direct.me/iamandrewz #PowerProject #CTFletcher #MarkBell

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Head over there right now so you can enjoy cereal again. And Seema's not going to let me be on the outside. No, I don't want to be over there. Trying to out-angle each other over here. These guys came in today looking like WWE wrestlers. Oh, WWE. So I'm rolling on my side. How's video doing?

Everything good? Everything going? We're DTF. Down to film. All right, so here we go. CT, you mind explaining how this came to be today? Because it was kind of unconventional, but I know you have unconventional thoughts, so I tried to poke and prod at you a bit to get you here today. Mark called me up and he said, hey, CT, get your ass up with Super Training.

And I said, yes, sir. It was something like that, but you go into more detail. Yeah, I was just messing with CT. I know that he's been through a lot. I know that the family's been through a lot with CT literally standing here today with somebody else's heart inside of his body. Pretty incredible story. And so I was just thinking about him. I was watching

one of the videos he had up and I just like, I love this guy. And I know everybody else does too. So I just hit him up. I was like, we need you around. We need you back on the podcast. We need you at Super Training Gym. And he and I went back and forth just a little bit and he's like, I'm there. And so here we go. Here we are are and i don't travel smelly but for you and then i heard uh mr bell was gonna be here and i would uh go anywhere do anything for that man right there uh you guys don't know but uh smelly told you a little bit. I had a heart transplant, and when I was down, down, down, down, down, Mr. Bell called me up and he said, Hey, CT, do you mind if I pray for you?

And I'm a big believer. I don't try to convince anybody else to believe me, but I'm a big believer in prayer. And when he said that, I said, yes, sir, I need those prayers. And he prayed for me. And from then on, Mr. Bell was my hero. So, yeah, Mark called, but I had to come to Mr. Bell. I knew he was going to be here.

What's it been like having your son, Samson, getting into lifting and getting strong now and everything? My son has recently started lifting and he's catching the bug he's in here every day now so i'm like oh shit like it's happening but what's it like having your son getting into lifting the way he is uh you know you already know but uh to see my son it's if you guys uh follow him from the very beginning he used to trail behind me in the gym you know when he's a little little bitty kid you know we used to go up to those gyms on the weekend when and he'd be you know i want to go i want to go you know and he still just barely out of diapers he wanted to go with daddy wherever i was going man And he'd been trailing behind me at the gym.

But whenever you're the son of Mark Smelly Bell or an old guy like C.T. Fletcher, then the expectations are going to be through the roof. And if you make any kind of mistake, everybody is going to be quick to say, hey, you're not your dad. You're not Mark Smelly Bell. And he's not supposed to be Mark Smelly Bell. He's not supposed to be C.T. Fletcher. He's Samson Fletcher. I'm C.T. Fletcher, and that's my son. And I'm super proud of him. He, you know, he withstood all the hate because there was a ton of it.

I mean, all, you know, one bad lift or one miss, and, I mean, they come out the woodwork. Everybody all of a sudden knows how to deadlift. Oh, yeah. I mean, they were all, and he took that, took all of it, and continued to lift, continued to stand there. So I'm super, super proud of my son. And I know you are of yours too.

Did that hurt you? I was seeing negative comments and those kinds of things because you're probably like, this is going to be fun. It's a good opportunity to bond with my dad. And you get into lifting and then kind of all that hate happens. I say it hurt me in a good way. I use that for fuel and um yep i just used the criticism for fuel and it ignited that passion even more to let them know that you know nothing will stop me i'm still here what are some big goals that you have personally

because like your dad and obviously a world champion at a certain point right yeah so for you in this within the realm of strength and then not just in that but like just doing what you're doing what are some things that you want to do differently for yourself potentially and maybe some things also down that lane of strength just you know uh it's a really good question. Just honestly being a better person, better dad, first and foremost, and helping others, just how he did. Wow. That makes me wonder, too, real quick, being a great father, too. Yes.

Like CT, you've talked a lot about, like, your dad and things you had to face in terms of becoming a father yourself so that makes me wonder number one what do you think you learned having multiple kids right and having to be the father that you did not have because there's probably maybe a few fathers in here what are some big things that maybe men should understand and know in terms of being a good father to whether it's a daughter or a son, et cetera? Communication is key. My dad lived to be 86 years old, and we never, one time in 86 years that he was on this earth, that had a conversation. was on this earth that had a conversation. I never held a conversation with my dad.

And all that time he was here, you know, the longest conversation we had probably was three or four minutes. Yep. And that's when I apologized to my dad because I waited my whole life to get an apology from him, which was never going to come. That was going to, I just said, you know what, I'm close to dying, and he may die, he's 86 years, I'm not going to get this apology, and this thing is, that I've been carrying my whole life is eating me up. It seems like he's fine, but it's kicking my ass. I can't sleep at night. I'm waking up punching and kicking. I'm fighting my dad. I'm 58, 59 years old. I'm still fighting my dad in my

sleep, man. So I said, I got to get this burden off me. I'm not going to get here. He's never going to apologize, so I'm going to do the apologizing. I said, look, Dad, I'm sorry. to do to apologize. I said, look, Dad, I'm sorry. I'm sorry for holding all this resentment against you for all these years. I'm sorry for the way I felt about you for all these years. I apologize to you, and I hope that you can accept my apology. And he graciously accepted my apology. I said, thanks, Dad. I still didn't get mine. At least he accepted my apology. So I was able to sleep at night after that, man. I didn't wake up anymore kicking and punching.

So if you're holding a grudge against somebody, it's doing you a lot more damage than it's doing them. Get it off, man. Tell me, you know, forgive them and get on. Life's too short. Way too short. I also think just amongst family members, whether it's spouse or whether it's a brother, sister, son, just stopping for a second and telling someone that you're proud of them.

It doesn't really, it doesn't cost you anything to do it. I know sometimes there's sibling rivalry amongst kids, or there's even some family rivalry. There's competition everywhere. But just giving pause to that just for a second. My dad called me like two days ago. I mean, he does it fairly frequently, but he was just telling me how proud he was. And it's like, I mean, that gives you a huge boost.

You know, I think that maybe when someone says that, I don't think they maybe understand. Like that might be the most powerful thing that you can do for somebody um smelly you said a great deal right there if my dad had told me that you know he was sorry uh all those trips to the er and all them black eyes and broken noses, I'd have forgiven. Just to hear, I'm sorry. So it's super important. So you actually, you got to meet my son today. Thank you so much. Yeah, super heavyweight. I know, I know, right? How can, so like you did an amazing job because Samson, he's pushing it in the gym. He's trying to be a better man.

That was like one of the coolest things I've ever heard. How can I push him to be a stronger man, be a better man without getting any resentment? You know, like I don't want to be the dad that's like, no, son, you're going to be in the gym every day. You're not going to school or whatever it may be, right? I don't want to do that because what's going to happen? He's going to be resentful and not want to go. But what do you think is like the right way to go about encouraging him to, you know, come come clang and bang with, you know, with us?

Whatever it is, son, whatever it is that you decide to do, I'm going to be proud of you. I never tried to get him to be a weightlifter, you know, because I knew if that's the lane that he chose, he was going to get him to be a weightlifter, you know, because I knew if that's the lane that he chose, he was going to get that comparison right away. And I knew it wasn't going to be an easy road to travel. Being a weightlifter and your dad was a weightlifter, it's always going to be that comparison. But, you know, I believed, always believed, and I still believe that he's going to surpass anything that I ever did. But just let him know how proud you are of whatever he chooses to do.

I'm going to be, I'm your number one cheerleader, son, whatever it is. You guys have quite a bit of years between you, and, you know, things change over the years. So my dad and I, we talk about politics. We talk about all kinds of different stuff talk about race and uh like what do you think is uh ct what do you think is kind of different in today's society uh versus maybe the way that you grew up in the uh however i forget how old you are you're 60 60 60 yeah are you going through the time in the 60s you're going up you're growing up with some of the some of the time periods that you grew up versus you know what you're seeing your son uh grow up with and and yeah what are just some of the kind of i guess major differences that you've

seen um the major differences are things that used to be um taboo or uh not said out loud or shit i mean shoot that's okay things that i never thought i'd see in my lifetime are, you know, front and center now. And it's okay. It's just okay. You know, and I'm like, back then, what the fuck? I mean, what, I'm sorry. You know, like what, you know, when did this become okay? And I thought, you know, we was a lot more conservative back then. You know, my dad taught me to work hard and work for it if you want it. I mean, he taught me that very early. I taught my dad, but everything wasn't bad. He taught me a work ethic that was, you know, second to none.

If you want anything, don't ask for it, work for it. I'm like, hey, Dad, I was looking through a sales paper. Hey, that's cheap. What do you know about cheap? You don't know anything about cheap. You got to go out and get a job and work for the venue or something about cheap. I was like, four. Okay. But as soon as I could, got my ass up, start cutting yards, throwing paper route or whatever, working at a gas station 12 hours a day when I was 12 years old, Mr. Fletcher taught me to work. He taught me to work for it. I try to instill that same thing in my son, but it's a lot crazier place

today. The world is a lot crazier place than it was in the 60s. I thought it was crazy then, but it's night and day now. I think a big aspect of that is like, you know, if you're, if you're on like Instagram or TikTok or any of these apps, right, you see everything that's going on. And one thing that I was realizing, especially when I'm talking to like, I have friends that are like 20, 21, 22, it's weird to say early twenties, but yeah. And they're talking about like things that are going on in Israel, things that are going on in different parts of the United States, whereas back then you

didn't know everything that was going on everywhere. And people are stressed out because of all that, right? And I'm just curious because, I mean, first off, you came from an era where like you had to physically deal with effed up things in the 60s, the early 70s, right? But now that you see everything and everyone sees everything, I know you mentioned that it was more conservative back then, but do you feel that things are heading towards a better place now since everyone can see everything that's going on or does it make things a little bit harder? Sometimes I wish things were a little more like it was back then, really.

Really? To tell you the truth. With everything being out, but, you know, I'm still stuck in the 60s. I still like old stuff. I like old cars. My house is filled with old things. The 60s was my, if I could go back, I'd probably go back. I like the 60s a lot.

But we've made a whole lot of advances, but everything I don't consider to be a great advance. I wish we still had some of the moral codes, ethics that we had back then. I still wish that, you know, parents taught their kids respect like we did back then. Because growing up back then, I believe every kid was taught to respect their elders. I mean, that was normal. And now you see kids cussing out their elders and their moms and their dads.

If I thought about it, if I just frowned up at my dad, I wouldn't be here today. So, you know, I see them cussing their parents out. So some things I wish were more like they were back then, but some things, the advances that we made, you know, we don't have to sit in the back of the bus. There's not colored only water fountains. And I came when I came to California with my mom from Arkansas. We had to ride in the back of the bus. And, you know, today we can sit in the front. And some of us are driving the bus. Those kind of changes I like. What about how sensitive everyone is now? You can't say the right thing.

You can't call them the right this or that. I mean, I'm sure, Samson, you probably had to tell them, like, you can't say that. Things like that, right? Absolutely. Oh, big time. I mean, I slip and say the wrong thing all the time. And I don't know, Mark. I didn't know I was messing up,

but they have to correct me. Correct terms. You can't say this. You can't say that. I'm like, oh, wow, because I never mean any disrespect. I'm just an old guy. Sometimes I say old stuff

from back in the day. No, you can't say that no more. Luckily, I got Samson in this, but keep me straight. I feel like training and fitness in a lot of ways is like a secret. A lot of us know about it. Millions of people that know about it. Millions of people that enjoy it. But it seems to cross over a lot of boundaries.

It crosses over people being in their own minds, thinking that they're not capable of things. It seems to cross over race barriers and all different kinds of things because we all love to come together and train. What has your experience been over the years, you know, with the camaraderie of training and going around the world and, like, breaking world records and those kinds of things? I have a saying that says we're all the same under the bar. And that's because, you know, weight don't give a damn. Excuse me, Mr. Bell. Weight does not give a damn what color you are, your nationality.

It does not care. Heavy is heavy. It treats us all the same. Now, I would like people to be more like weight. To treat everybody the same. We're all the same. Now, I would like people to be more like, wait, you treat everybody the same. We're all the same. That's a big thing, a big message that when I used to travel all over the planet, we're all the same, man. I went to Russia and they treated me wonderfully in Russia. One of my favorite tips. And if you look at the news, you would think, oh, no, they hate us in Rush.

Rush was fantastic. I'm thinking about moving over there. It was so wonderful. So that's one thing that weightlifting does. I know you've been all over the place. Weightlifters are like a big-ass family. Universal language. Absolutely.

When somebody lifts something heavy, it's a body of work. And I think anyone else that lifts can say, hey, that took a long time to be able to develop that. Yeah, we can appreciate it. Of course you're going to have haters all the time. Can't get rid of them. It kind of makes me wonder, though, because I think as people, there's a lot of different types of people in this room right now.

though because like I think as as people there's a lot of different types of people in this room right now humans generally when they see something or somebody that's different from them there's an intrinsic like there's an intrinsic camaraderie that I have with you two because I can physically see and it's not even it's not even when I think about it I just can see that y'all look the same as me so there's a level of comfort that's there even though I've never really met your view guys but when it comes to me and mark there's a level of comfort that's there even though I've never really met either of you guys. But when it comes to me and Mark, there's this visible difference between us two. And there's a slight level of discomfort even though there's nothing to be uncomfortable about. I mean, I don't feel uncomfortable towards you. You know I love you.

But with everybody, there is that. And people always wonder, is there a way that... There's this phrase that people don't see color. Is there a way that there's this phrase that we can't we don't or people don't see color. Is there a way that people can that that's actually going to end up not being a thing over time? Like do you like especially being what going through the things you've gone through? Is that a possibility in your opinion? A hundred percent. And the reason why I said a hundred percent possible is because my mom taught me, you know,

even though we came over here in the back of a bus, my mom taught me, son, you have to love everybody. And she taught me that, you know, as far back as I was, diapers were as far back as you have to. And I'm like, but mom, everybody? And she's like, yeah, everybody, son. It's easy. She said it's easy to love people who love you back.

That's, anybody can do that. Loving people who love you back, that's no problem. Anybody can do that. That's the easy part. But if you want to be like Christ, you want to be like the Lord, you got to love them people that you don't love. Then you're doing something. It's so easy.

Oh, yeah, you love me? I love you back. No problem. But if you love somebody that hates you for no reason, oh, boy, then you're doing something. Then you got doing something. Then you got that Christ-like thing. I watched my mother's example her whole entire life, so I knew it was absolutely

possible. That's what I always strove for, to be like my mom. She loved everybody. It didn't make her no difference. I've seen a whole lot of church folks, grew up around a whole lot of church. That's probably why I'm not religious today because I grew up in religion, super religious, super religious. Everything was a sin. That's probably why I'm not religious, but I am a man of faith. I believe Mama was right.

You have to love everybody. You don't see no color. That's just because it's assholes in every color. Every color whatsoever under the sun, just like it did for people. It's assholes in every color. But you got to love everybody, even them assholes. And Mama Fletcher proved it, and that's how I try to live my life. Do you use the N-word?

No. Hell no. And why not? Hell no. You guys hear me say every bad word under the sun, but you will never, you can look at all my videos, you will never, ever hear C.T. Fletcher say the N-word. And it's like this. That's how I explained it to Heath.

It is. Yeah, yeah. He asked me the same question. And I said, it's like this. Okay. People call each other the other. They rap songs. I mean, that's the number one lyric is the N-word.

And they call us, but they say back and forth to each other all the time, back and forth. N-word this, N-word that, N-word this, N-word that. He said, how come it's okay for them to say it to each other, but I can't say it, CT. Now, say it like this. Mark Bell, where's the board? The board. Oh, he's in here somewhere.

My brother, yeah. His brother. I'm sure when you and him grew up, y'all used to get in fights. Oh, man. And y'all called each other everything under the sun. Actually, it's my brother, but I call him everything under the sun.

We fight, we strap, we go back and forth with each other. But you let John from down the street come over there and talk about whooping your brother's ass. You got a problem. John got a problem because John ain't in the family. That's right. I can call my brother anything, but John ain't in his family. So, John, you can't.

And the family, you know, black folks, the skin color makes them, whether they want to admit it, it makes them, they all came from Africa. We all got a little family bond there. So they think it's perfectly fine to sit amongst each other. And that's the difference. That's family, because they know, because you knew, that you could call your brother this or you could yell at him, but I still love him.

He's still my brother. I love him. I love him. So black brothers, I can call him anyone I want to call him, because they know that there's no animosity, there's no bad will, they don't mean nothing. But I love them. They're still my brother. I still love them.

I'm just saying this, you know, because it's the cool thing or it's funny, it sounds funny or whatever. There's nothing behind it. But then you have somebody else say it. But the reason I don't say it is because if you do say it, I feel like, just like he asked me, just like he told me, well, how come I can't say it? If I said it, then he got the right to ask me, well, how come I can't say it? If I throw it around like it's nothing, I throw it around like it's, you know, the cool thing to say, well, how come I can't say it?

So I don't want him or anybody to say it. Well, CT was saying it that's okay because it ain't you can say it amongst your friends all you want to but you can't say it around me or we're going to have a problem real side do you do that you know

I'm just curious since he doesn't do you ever sometimes alright Say the N-word? Yeah. I'm just curious. Since he doesn't, do you ever? Sometimes. All right. It's all good. Wow. You've got to be careful with this mic. I'm sorry. Some close friends.

All right. I'm just curious. CeCe, I'm curious. What do you think about Nas? A couple albums ago, he wanted to name his album the N-word because his idea was, I'm just just gonna make it and put it out there so there's it no longer has power but then you know the heads of the company are probably like we we can't we can't sell that look you got nwo right all right yeah nwa is good

but yeah i'm just curious like do you think there's any merit to trying to like not give it any more power or is it just let's just never say it again and get rid of it and forget it exists um you say nice yeah okay uh i don't listen to rap first of all but i know i don't i mean, because Samson plays it. But to me, if they didn't have no rap, I'd be okay. Nas, his theory on that, I think of a very famous comedian named Richard Pryor. Yes. His favorite word was the N-word.

Every other word was the N-word. Every other word was the N-word. And one day he got up and he went to Africa and he took a trip over there and he came back and his eyes were open and he said, I'll never say the N-word again. I'm on the same tip that Richard Pryor's on. I don't care to make it so common that it has not, that it looms. Because I don't believe that. The power behind it depends on the person delivering it. so common that it has not, that it looms, because I don't believe that.

The power behind it depends on the person delivering it. It doesn't depend on, you know, whether it was so common that it was going to sap all the power. That's bullshit. I happen to disagree with Mr. Dimes. Nope. Yeah, I'm really happy you said that. I mean, I have friends that will say it around me and it has gotten so common that I don't even acknowledge it. I hadn't

seen it the other day. Like, what happens when it's said? I'm just like, I honestly like, it's just because I do listen to a lot of hip-hop, like, I don't even acknowledge it. So I didn't know if I was doing a good thing or being like, whoa, you need to stop. So I'm glad you said that so that way more people can just get rid of it in their vocabulary.

Yeah, that's my opinion. I'm an old dude. I dig it. And Seema probably don't feel the same way. I'm 50-50. It doesn't hit me. It doesn't hit me. Okay, you say it doesn't hit you.

Yeah. okay you see it doesn't hit you yeah but if a blatant person blatant racist said it to you would it hit you then would it make it any different i mean that's happened to me a few times and and i i like when as i got older i just like like ah okay i'm gonna ignore that because number one i look the way I do. Now, the last time that happened, I'm like, if this person has the audacity to say that to me, there's something that's not right up here. Like if you have the courage to look at me and then you think you can do that, I'm out. So I just left the situation.

But when I was younger, I got expelled from this Catholic school, St. Joseph's, because this guy, Michael, he he said that and he flipped me off and I broke his finger back. So I didn't always have that self-control. So I mean, if it happened to me now, I'm calm now. It wasn't always the case. That's a good answer. Yeah. I still think somebody could get on these interviews. Oh, no, absolutely. I agree with you. I agree with you. I do think that it's hard to interpret what other people are saying or what other people are talking about. And it's very easy for people to say the comment that you said where someone's like, well, you're saying it. Why can't we say it? And people will probably most likely always think that way.

So I guess it's up to the individual on how they think they should use it or when they think they should use it. That's why I'm for the general ban of the term period. If you send out the message that it's not okay in rap songs it's not okay for you to it's not okay anytime if you send that message

that message out there then you won't have that question that's why I'm of the mind it's a bad term to use any fucking time when did you first recognize Samson that you, starting to get hooked when you started becoming, like, an iron addict?

Because I know that your dad said you were in the gym a bunch, but was there, like, kind of a moment where you're like, oh, this is for me, too. I really like this a lot. I was about 14, and we're at Metroplex. And I think it was, like a four plates on the trap bar. And, um, I did that at 14. I was like, I got it up though, you know, which I think you have a video. Yeah. But yeah, uh, that was when I flipped the switch. I was like, okay.

And then, um, between all of us here, uh, my dad would always tell me, I started believing that, I was like, okay, and then between all of us here, my dad would always tell me, I started believing that, that our genetics were kind of like one of a kind, and, you know, because it goes down from, you know, you know, our roots, my grandpa, you know, Mew, he's known to pull out a, put a donkey out the ditch. And when I started, you know, pulling some stuff and not so good form because, you know, I didn't really care about it at the time. But over time, you start to, you know, mature, start to get better with the negativity. When he when he did that 405 trap bar deadlift, was it hard to hold back the tears, CT? Were you trying to play it cool in the corners, be like, hey, son, that was a good job?

No, hell no. All I needed was some pom-poms because I was cheerleading my ass off, man. Yeah, that's my boy. So I'm always extremely proud of him. If he didn't want to be a weightlifter, I would be extremely proud of him. I have another son that's not a weightlifter, and I'm extremely proud of him. If he didn't want to be a weightlifter, I would be extremely proud of him. I have another son that's not a weightlifter, and I'm extremely proud of him, too. You guys don't

see much of him, but I'm just as proud of him. Did you start lifting to maybe build yourself up to be able to confront your dad or anything like that, or is it totally separate? that or is totally separate uh absolutely um i started doing everything i joined the army as soon as i could uh 17 i had to wait before i started basically in 18 when i joined at 17 and as soon as i got in there i started uh my martial arts lessons. I started lifting weights. Did you guys ever see him throwing a kick and stuff? No, I haven't. It's wild.

I wanted to destroy my dad. I wanted to become so proficient in martial arts and find that I can whoop his ass easy. I want to talk to him when I whoop his ass like he used to talk to me when he was whooping my ass. You better not cry. I want to tell the same when I whoop his ass like he used to talk to me when he's whooping my ass you know you better not cry I want to tell the same you better not cry I wanted to get that good at it but that's uh yeah that had a a big driving force on me I mean I was uh practicing every day you know four or five I go to work uh still come home and practice four or five and it's just punching and kicking and all my different routines, sparring and stuff.

I wanted to whoop Pop's ass and he did not cry. I'm just kidding. Yeah. When you gained that discipline, did you utilize it against him or did you just, you probably felt differently once you knew how to defend yourself? Once I got all the satisfaction in the world once i knew that i could do it that was enough once i knew that i could do it and he knew that i could do it then i was completely fine i didn't have to actually do it as long as he knew you know when i was able to tell my dad you know

what i ain't scared of you oh man it man, it was like 10,000 pounds was lifted off my shoulders. It's looking at the big, bad wolf, and it's like Little Red Robin telling the big, bad wolf, I ain't scared of you. What you want to do, you know? No problem. Whatever you want to do, it's cool with me, wolf. So that relieved all of that tension once I was able to do that. So that relieved all of that tension once I was able to do that.

I'm just curious, like, what spurred for you the understanding that you had to be the one to forgive him? And number one, and number two, like, how you found the idea that you didn't necessarily need the closure of hearing those words from him? Because, I mean, he's still alive, right? No. No, he's not alive. Yeah, he passed away. Yeah. I mean, he's still alive, right? No, he's not alive. Yeah, he passed away. He passed away and I never got those...

Yeah, yeah. He passed away within the last five years. Yes, about two years ago. Well, three years ago because I couldn't go to his funeral because I was having a heart transplant. That's why I couldn't make it to the hospital. I would have went, but I couldn't go to his funeral because I was having a heart transplant. That's why I couldn't make it to the Pals funeral. I would have went, but I couldn't go because they said if I left, then I would have to start all over back on the transplant list and go back to the bottom. I'm like, no, I kind of want to stay around for a little while longer

if I can, so I'll go ahead and stay. You've got to forgive me, Pals, or I'm not going to be able to make it to your funeral. So I didn't make it to Pops' funeral. I knew that, you know, last time I talked to him, that I was not going to get that apology. That was, you know, I had hopes and dreams. And then if Pops would just say, I'm sorry. All them years of me hiding in the closet when I heard his keys jingling in the door, you know, wanting to disappear. I wanted to just physically disappear, vanish. When I knew my dad was coming, I'm like, oh, my God, I wish I could just vanish. And I wanted to be the invisible man big time.

It was a serious, come on. And I knew that I was never going to get out of this. I was 86. It was my last opportunity to talk to him. I wanted to finally hold a conversation with him. And as long as this conversation was looked at, I'm apologizing to you because I think, you know, you're probably going to outlive me at that point. I thought he was going to outlive me.

So I'm like, you know, I don't want to leave this earth with feeling like this or holding this against you. So I have to get this off me. You're obviously never going to say yes or no to me. I didn't tell him that, but I'm saying I just want to apologize for holding this in my heart against you for all these years. And, you know, actually he didn't say any word. He just nodded his head. So I took that as him accepting my apology. So he nodded his head.

I gave him a kiss on the forehead. That was the last time I seen my apologies. So he nodded his head. I gave him a kiss on the forehead. And that was the last time I seen my dad. Do you have any resentment, like, towards, this kind of might sound like a weird question, but do you have any resentment towards the fact that he still sort of made you into Compton Superman? Like, you wouldn't have been Compton Superman without him, probably. Absolutely. It's like it's a fucked up way of sorry Dan the messed up way of looking at it but right yeah absolutely I mean um I used to you know resent it a whole lot but if it wasn't for Buddy Fletcher Corporal Buddy Fletcher United States, you know, I definitely would not be the person I am today. Because when I went into the Army, I was ready for the Army.

I was already used to saluting and standing at attention and saying, yes, sir, no, sir, because that's what we had to do. My dad was, he was a soldier until he left this earth. until he left his earth. We talk about mental, I was talking to your dad a little bit about mental aspects and the depression and stuff, but my dad was, they used to call it back then, Mr. Bill, shell shot. And they call it PTSD now,

but the term back then was shell shot. And my dad went into the Army when he was 16 years old he had a guy named arthur levin i'll never forget this he didn't talk about it much but arthur levin signed the paper so he could go into the army at 16 so he went in the korean war at 16 years old so if you can imagine what you were doing at 16 and this guy's in the Korean War, dead bodies, all the people blown apart, people that he went through basic training with blown to pieces. At 16 years old, it's going to leave you a little nutty. Oh, excuse me, I know that's not PC to say nutty.

But you're going to have a mental problem. So he had a mental problem. And, you know, they didn't talk much about it. I had to find out this from relatives that knew that, you know. It's not interesting to think, to reflect on that because, I mean, not to make excuses for him, but maybe he did suffer from severe depression. Maybe he had a bunch of concussions. Like maybe he, like you said, saw horrific things, horrific things wasn't able to you know really turn the corner and maybe there

was you know if there's a time period in his life where he wasn't maybe violent like was he i don't know if you've heard that from your besides besides at home yeah you know i he was uh uh a very violent person and his mother he his mother um killed her husband so he comes you know so you imagine how his home life had to be for him to choose to voluntarily choose to go into war to get away from home how bad home had to be for him to volunteer now you know like you don't go in i went it's peace time when i went in the service he went in knowing that it was a full-blown korean was a full-blown korean war he went in knowing that to get blown Korean war was a full blown Korean war. He went in knowing that to get away from home.

So home had to be pretty bad. And he always told me, you know, as bad as you think you got it, I had it a lot worse. OK, I'm sitting in the ER going, OK. But yeah, he told me he had a lot worse than I did. That makes me wonder, to be honest, like a lot of people have different types of traumas that they have to deal with. Traumas potentially from their parents, relatives, etc. Right. And as you get older, you start to realize that maybe there's some things that you do that are reminiscent of those individuals. Some people take one of two routes. Some people are like, I do this because my mother or father did this to me so i do it too and some people are like i choose not to do this because they did it absolutely you

obviously chose not to do that as it was or because it was done to you what was it the military that that was that did that for you was it seeing your mother like what was it that made you make that choice because a lot of people they blame blame those people for their traumas, and that doesn't allow them to ever get out of it. You're absolutely right. And what did it for me was how I felt I didn't want my kids to feel the same way about me that I felt about my dad. When I had children, I said,

I don't want my kids to be waking up in their 50s and 40s punching and kicking and screaming and thinking about, I want them to look back on their childhood and have good, happy memories. We shot a movie called Magnificent Obsession, and there was a scene in there where me and my dad, they asked my dad, can you remember any happy memories,

childhood memories of you and CT? And man, it seemed I was waiting on this one, man. I'm like, I want to hear this shit. What, what,

what? I mean, I want to know, you know, if he can think of one, because I can't, I want to know if he can think of one, because I can't. I want to know if he can think of one happy memory. And I was, okay, well, what are you going to do? And he didn't have one.

And I was like, okay, that's cool. That's cool. If he had made up something, then I'd have been pissed off. But, you know, he didn't have an answer for me. People don't know, but that was a big scene for me because I was like, I'm waiting to hear this. I remember that time I took him to get ice cream. I remember that time we went to the park and threw ball back and forth.

I remember that time we played football. I was waiting to hear something like that. He was cricket, so I said, cricket so okay pops at least you keep it real as long as you keep it real we cool or i would have blasted him out right on the bullshit excuse me excuse me i'm like no that didn't happen uh samson do you think that uh dad was sometimes uh too kind uh when you were growing up like maybe uh i mean maybe because of some of the things he experienced, maybe he had like less rules for you or something like that? That's a really good question too.

And the simplest way to answer that is he was just a great dad. You know what I mean? The rules I was always raised with respect. You know, I mean? The rules, I was always raised with respect. You know, my dad always taught me to say thank you for everything. And I was often told that I say it too much. And, you know, I apologize. You know, that's just me. And my mom, you know, obviously her being a Pacific Islander,

she's all about respect too. Yeah, I think your dad, when I've asked him a question like that, when you weren't here, um, he said, uh, come to the effect of, uh, I'd rather give my kids an ice cream cone than a punch in the face, you know, and if the ice cream cone, you know, leads to them being, uh, maybe coddled or something like, I'll maybe have to deal with that at some other time. But I thought that was a good answer. You mentioned how if he didn't take up, like, weight training and all that type of stuff, it'd be cool.

But you named him Samson. Yeah. And I don't know if some people, like, realize the, like, what the name Samson comes from. Absolutely. So weren't you kind of setting him up? Yes. Absolutely. So weren't you kind of setting him up? Yes. Absolutely.

Honestly, when I found out I was having a little boy, I was like, oh, yeah, this is going to be the next powerlifting king right here. He's going to be the king of the bench press. He's going to follow in my footsteps. Samson, that's got to be his name. And then after I was like, oh, fuck, what if he don't want to lift weights?

But thankfully it worked out. He likes lifting weights. But yep, I had that in mind when I named him. I said, dude. CT motivates a bunch of people, literally millions across the world. Does he help you out as well? Absolutely. What's that like?

Yeah. It's, I don't't know him being my dad it's the same effect that it has on everybody else just because he's my dad doesn't you know separate me from anybody else he's the pop you know he's pops to everybody yeah at first i wasn't cool with it i was like he my pops you know what I mean? But then I got older, and then, yeah, that's pretty much it. Now we're in the backyard every morning together. The tables have turned. That's right, pig iron. The tables have turned.

Now he's in. They've turned actually more than one time. When I first had my first open-heart surgery, I went into that one, you know, had my first open heart surgery. I went into that one, you know, being pretty big and pretty strong and came out when, well, I went into surgery when 275. I came out weighing 193 pounds and I was a skeleton. And my biggest cheerleader, always, always, always, my biggest cheerleader is standing right here. Always, always. I mean, any dad will tell you. I'll tell you what.

If you want to do something, you wait until that little boy right there says, come on, dad. Oh, man. You will kill yourself trying to do whatever he's cheering you on to do. If you hear them words from your kid, come on, Dad, you can do it, you will kill yourself to try to do that. So whenever I had to come back from winning 193 and skin and bones, I could sense him right long beside me, come on, Dad. You know, when I was just trying to put one foot in front of the other,

trying to stand up straight, come on, Dad, you can do it, you can do it. After this heart transplant, my number one cheerleader, Samson, come on, Dad, you can do it. When I hear that, you know, even at 62 years old, when I hear my son say, come on, Dad, you can do it, that's the, you know, the best motivation I could ever get right there. And he's got baby weight on the bar. Now he's my instructor. He's, come on, you can do it, Dad, come on. So the tables have turned, the roles have reversed. I love it, man.

I love it. I'm just so happy to still be here. You know, to be able to lift a couple of weights with my son and be in the backyard with him, every day is just a blessing. Do you remember, Sam samson uh first time that you recognized your dad to be like not just like kind of popular amongst people lifting weights but you know insanely popular like where there's like huge line and a lot of people like i mean people tend to uh you know some people get excited when they see him and they're like

but some people really lose their you know holy f you know it's easy get excited when they see him. They're like, oh, CT. But some people really lose their, you know, holy F, you know, it's CT Fletcher. Like, when did you kind of first recognize that? Probably back in 2015 when he was with Isatory. And I seen that line wrapped around at the LA FedEx. And, you know, people that were in wheelchairs were trying to walk that were, you know, paraplegic, paralyzed. And they were trying to, you know, walk and told, you know, my father what the, you know, great impact that he had on his or he had on their life. And that was huge. That one can be so powerful, but not just his voice, just, you know, his overall energy.

so powerful but not just his voice just you know his overall energy did something like that or was there any other situation that led you to maybe because like you know he's creating content gym and stuff like that but like you're not always seeing all these videos you're not always with him i'm sure did you seek out like watching some of the content yourself or or did you just happen to be around at all that reppping 500 naturally that's still my everyday motivation you know and uh yeah that's pretty much it i suck at podcast guys so bear with me you do great uh what about like friends or people in school yeah what was i was hoping you asked me about that yeah every time and i took joy in this every time that um my friends or peers had dads and they looked at him like superman i was i'm gonna show you the hulk you know and he'll

come and pick me up i run to him you know what i mean but in the back of my mind i was like i want to be like that when i do decide to have kids yeah i want to be that big presence i want to you know and also be a good person first and foremost but i decide to have kids, I want to be that big presence. I want to, you know, and also be a good person, first and foremost, but I wanted to have that big presence, you know, as in the power it creates, to be honest with you, and, you know, the eyes, stuff like that. It's just not your, you know, your average Joe. You know, he was there and picked me up every day, actually, He was there and picked me up every day, actually. But, yeah.

Was it strange for you, CT? Because I watched the old videos of you. You're just kind of sitting there humbly talking about the exercises that you're doing, and you're going about your thing. And I think you worked for the United States Postal Service, and you're doing that, and you're lifting. And then it turns out that you end up turning into a lifting celebrity, and almost really the first of our kind. We didn't see that much.

We saw, I guess, with Arnold, and there's some people who tried it in some different ways and had some success, but in terms of that YouTube audience, you were kind of the first man through the wall. Was that weird to you? And then was it like, did it ever feel like just strange? Because your personality on there was a little different than what we saw in those earlier videos. It still feels strange.

I still don't understand it. I mean, my first YouTube video, excuse me, Mr. Bell, I said, I don't give a fuck if you watch me or not. If you don't like what I got to say, turn the shit off. I don't give a fuck. And I had no idea what YouTube was. My only question was when the guy came in and said, you want to be on YouTube? I said, can I say whatever I want to say? And he said, yes, you can. And that's what I chose to say. Turn me the fuck off. I said, can I say whatever I want to say? And he said, yes, you can. And that's what I chose to say.

Turn me the fuck off. And in regards to the older videos, the first videos where I was kind and didn't say any bad words is because they wouldn't let me. They would not let me. I said, I said, I slipped one in there and he's like, oh, everybody, you know, the whole film crew almost had a heart attack. I think I slipped a fuck, and then it was like, oh, my God, you can't say that. I was like, oh, really? Okay, well, now that you told me, I don't want to watch my mouth. So I kept it clean, but I was talking the same way back then. Anybody who knew me back then knew that that was actually acting.

I see. To keep it knew that that was actually acting in that video. I see. To keep it clean, that was acting. Yeah. You were actually the first YouTube channel I ever subscribed to a little bit over nine years ago now. Wow. Yeah, so I caught the lifting bug late. I'm 36 now.

But the first channel was like, let me learn how to lift, and there's CT yelling at somebody. Oh, man. It's amazing that it's come full circle to be here with you today. body so it's amazing that's come full circle to be here with you today but one of the one of my most favorite things and i'm like actually getting the chills uh and i i forgot if it's just a youtube video or a documentary but you were talking about when you'd go to like a meet and you'd go to the warm-up room and you'd walk back there which one of you mother is gonna get second place today where does that confidence come from? Like I,

somebody like me, I mean, I know I'm the smallest one here right now, but like, I can't even fathom having that much confidence to come into a room full of strangers and be like, which one of you is going to come in second place? Well,

tell me now. Cause I got versus me, whatever else you guys want. You guys figured out on your own with your past of having your dad abuse you and all this stuff how do you develop so much confidence to be able to walk into a room and just tell everybody like hey you're all getting first place losers over here obsession as you know I was um I just knew and it's probably because of the way I grew up, that nobody could match my obsession for winning, for being the best. I had a big old chip on my shoulder.

I had something to prove to the world as far as I was concerned. My dad used to always tell me that if I wasn't, his business was preaching. He was a preacher. He worked in the post office, too, but he was a preacher. And he figured that I'd be in the family business and I was going to be a preacher. And it really cracks me up. Sometimes people say I sound like a preacher. But he says, if you're not going to be a preacher, then you'll never be anything.

You'll never be nothing. If you're not going to follow my footsteps, you'll never be nothing. So I wanted to prove to him, you know, to everybody else that that wasn't true. And I knew that. I know Mark Bell and Seema, the preparation for the contest is what gives you that confidence. The preparation. You know that when you have prepared, that nobody worked harder than you did.

Nobody was willing to do the things and go to the lengths that you were willing. When you are absolutely positive that you have crossed every T and dotted every I, that nobody back there, nobody that shows up anyway so it's getting smashed today and seaman when you know you've got that you when you know you've done everything that you can do i know you may not say it out loud but you know hey they ain't gonna be in trouble

when i show up mark bell you know when you ready ready ready they gonna be in trouble when I show up. Mark Bell, you know when you're ready, ready, ready, they're going to be in trouble when you show up. I just happened to be a big-ass mouth and didn't mind letting everybody else know what I was thinking in my head. Which one of you motherfuckers is coming in second? My training partner, Richard Schoenberger, exact opposite, exact opposite of me. He would never say anything like that and and i would

i would say that and rich would be like this oh man hey i'm sorry man it was like fire and ice right he was he was a training partner he goes strong as hell and he could have said that but he it just wasn't his personality to say anything like that. And the people that you rubbed elbows with were really high level, though, like O.D. Wilson. Your training partner was very strong. I think he benched around 600 pounds. Yes.

So you've seen 800-pound squats, 800-pound deadlifts. It was pretty routine. And then I think some of your martial arts were done with, like, Billy Blanks or Banks. Yeah, Billy Blanks was.? Yeah, Billy Blanks. We competed around the same time. He competed before me during the same time, and it was the same weight division too. And I was mighty glad.

I tell him all the time, I said, man, thank you for not whooping my ass. I didn't get a chance to, because a lot of people know him now as just a Taibo guy. But Billy Blanks can whoops his ass. He was a real fighter. He was really knocking people out. And, you know, people don't really know that part, but he was a bad dude. We've all heard that to get optimal sleep, you should cool your room down to 68 to 69 degrees. But that's not all you need to do.

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Oh, yeah. And you saw people that were really good in these different categories. You were able to carry it over into some of the stuff that you did, right? I tried. Did my best. Yes, sir. You know, what mark mentioned right there getting around good people i it makes me wonder because like i think that i'm not when it comes to

motivation um i think a big part of my motivation is because i have certain people around me like i i have people around me that are always super motivated so it would like i would feel out of pocket if i wasn't also trying to drive my shit forward, right? But a lot of people, like, when it comes to the idea of motivation, a lot of people are like, oh, maybe I need to get some TRT, or maybe my test is low, or maybe there's something that I need to do to bring out some motivation. But I'm curious, what do you think are some of the biggest drivers? Because you're known as somebody who motivates other people, but obviously you've been through a lot of things that you needed to continue to motivate yourself through really tough shit.

That makes me wonder for yourself, what do you think is the biggest factor in terms of maintaining motivation for a long period of time? Because there will be days where you feel motivated, and then there are days where you're like, I don't want to get out of bed, or I don't want to go to the gym. How would you suggest people do that? Find what drives you.

You have to find out what are you passionate about. One of the biggest things that bug me and see me is a motherfucker that has no passion for anything. I gave a seminar in China once, and I said, so first you have to find out what your passion is. Lady shot her hand up in the air, and she goes, I don't have no passion. I don't have no drive, and I don't have any passion. So what do I do?

And I really wanted to tell her that you need to be in another seminar. But I said, you don't have any passion for anything? Nothing? I mean, you don't have to be a anything nothing i mean you don't have to be a weight lifter you don't have to i mean if you flip pancakes be a passionate pancake flipping motherfucker if you wash dishes be a passionate dishwashing motherfucker if you sweep the street be a passionate dish sweet street sweeping muscle whatever whatever the fuck you do, find your passion, be passionate about that, whatever it is. You don't have to be a way to find that passion. And if it's a really, really a passion, I'm going to tell you something, when all my strength was gone, everything left, couldn't do one push-up,

had trouble putting on my clothes, standing up straight. Then you'll find out what real strength is. If you've been strong all your life and you ain't never had a big-ass sit-by, you know, okay, well, I'll come back. I'll be able to bounce back from this. We hate it when we start injury or something happens. You have to take a little time off. But when you're talking about,

hey, I may not even be able to wake up in the morning, then, I mean, that is a different type of strength. And without that passion, without a faith, the strength, that takes the strength to knowing that there's something bigger than you.

There's, this is not the end. I know this is not the end. It's going to take the passion or the drive. You have to have something. And for me, it was faith. You know, I'm laying there. I don't know if I'm going to open my eyes the next morning or not,

but I had faith, big-time faith. And the faith was not that I was going to wake up the next day. The faith was whatever God got for me, I mean, it's okay. If I don't wake up in the morning, that's okay too. It's not in my control. I don't know whether I'm going to wake up or not. Whatever God decides, then that's okay. And after that, after I made up my mind that I was fine

with whatever the outcome was, they would say, well, aren't you worried? Aren't you scared? No. It ain't even up to me. Why am I going to be worried about it? Why am I going to be sweating? I'm getting more gray hair. Oh, this is great, by the way. This is just for me and Big John. Why am I going to be worried about it? It ain't even my control. If I could just say I'm going to keep living and keep living, then I wouldn't need to believe in nothing else.

I wouldn't need no faith. But I don't have that kind of power. I don't have that kind of control. So I had to look to somebody who did have that kind of power, the power over life and death, the power to say, yep, you keep living, or no, you don't keep living. When I turned everything over to him, I didn't have no more worries. I wasn't worried about nothing.

It ain't up to me. Well, you work, no, not worried at all. How you doing, Mr. Fussman? Doctor's coming in. How you doing, Mr. Fussman? I'm blessed. I opened my eyes up this morning. I'm blessed.

I'm good. doc uh samson did your dad ever uh talk to you about you know he getting a heart transplant did they ever talk to you like just say you know this might be like my last day or my last days coming up like because you know it's it's good while the situation is tough, it's good that you can have that conversation. Because sometimes people just die in car accidents and stuff. And when you know you're going to have a big surgery, do you guys ever have that moment? Yes. So while we were waiting on his heart transplant or his heart to arrive, my mom was actually back in the islands. And she went with my sisters and my brother-in-law. They all went out there and I was the one that stayed back with my dad. Obviously, I wasn't

going to leave. But there was a time, kind of hard to process it but there was a time where uh he was in his chair his you know his rocking chair recliner chair and um it's bad he's pale you know um and you know he told me i'll never forget this he was. He was like, I asked him, are you okay? He was like, he told me to shh. He's like, I think this might be it. And his eyes were, he was going out. He was dying. And I put my hand on his lap and I said, you're not going anywhere because I heard God tell me this. I swear to God, you know, until this day. And I was like, you got to stay with me though. I kept talking to him, making sure he was, you know, responding and he was responsive until the, you know, the paramedics came and yeah, it was, you yeah, that was really, really tough,

but not as tough because I already had that confidence because I already heard God talking. He's here now. How do you get a heart? You guys said you were waiting on the heart. The heart gets shipped to you in like a box of ice or something? That's pretty much it, Smelly. Yeah, when they find the right one.

You know, the day before, they called me up and they said, well, it's probably going to be a while. We think we're going to send you back home, and then we'll give you a call or something. So me and the wife were prepared to go back home at about 3 o'clock that morning. They called and said, hey, Mr. Futch, we found the heart. And I'm like, whoa, we found the heart? And they said, yep, everything matches up good with yours,

and about 7 o'clock this morning we're going to bring you in and do the transplant. about seven o'clock this morning, we're going to bring you in and do the transplant. And I was like, she called me just like, you know, she was telling me the weather. Like, it's clear outside. We found the heart. Okay. All right. Thank you. You know, and I was very grateful because I had flatlined two times the week before, had flatlined. So I was like, man, I don't know how many times they can keep bringing me back.

The fifth Flatline, five times at Flatline, I'm like, I don't know how many times I can come back from these Flatlines. I don't want a Flatline no more. So when she said we had a new heart for you, I was pretty happy. I was crying. I was ready. I was ready.

I was ready to go. Now, that makes me wonder, are you scared of death in any sense, since you died once, technically, right? Well, I guess technically, flatlining five times,

I told the doctor, I said, well, you know, I've been dead five times, doc. He goes, well, technically it was what do you call a pause? I'm like, a pause? I'm like, motherfucker, my heart wasn't beating. Anyway, he goes,

so technically I guess I paused five times. So to answer your question, absolutely remove all fear of death. Yep. Don't fear death at all. It was the most, those pauses were the most peaceful, the most, it's, I've never felt that tight.

It's such a difference between being in a deep sleep and being dead the difference is you think oh man I got a good rest I'm feeling really good try dying it it is no rest

like being dead it was the most peaceful most calm I think anybody who's been that close or had that near-death experience will say the same thing. They don't fear dying anymore, and they'll take that with surety that death is not the end. That's not it. I mean, it's a different phase, but it's not the end. It's not the end of all people think, oh, that's it. That's it. A lot of people think that way, but anybody who's ever been that close to it will tell you it takes the fear.

But what I I don't want to leave. I still like living. I still want to be here because I want to see my grandkids grow up. I like playing in the backyard with my grandkids. I love being here and I want to try to stay around here as long as I can. But when it's my time, it's my time. You know, I'm okay with that. I'll say, okay, you saved me enough time. So, you know, what can I say?

Just give me one more time, one more time. You gave me five. I need six. No, no, no. I'm okay. I'll be okay with the next one. Probably more fearful of not living while you're here oh absolutely dying right absolutely this wasting time is my biggest fear now wasting

time you know because it's so little of it and it's so precious that it's not to be wasted i don't want to give the uh the keyboard warriors any shine and like because they're just the worst people on the planet sometimes. Trolls, right? The last time we had you on and we were talking about the heart transplant, right away they come in droves saying it's the supplements. It's working way too hard. It's a bad diet.

See, working out ain't good for you. What do you have to tell those people that are saying it was the supplements it was all the damage he did to his body he i'm not even gonna say what they say but you know what i mean like what do you tell those people okay uh the same thing i've been saying you know but uh they don't say supplements i know yeah they steroids i don't want to be disrespectful i don't yeah, no, no. I don't mind at all. He had to overdose steroids and take steroids for his whole life. And no matter what I say, there's always going to be people that say the opposite

or say I'm fucking lying or full of shit or whatever. It's always going to be those people. You know, it used to make me mad. I would get on the internet and when I first started, they'd be, oh, you definitely take steroids. And I'd be on there, you know, fuck you and beat me in back of the chin. Come on, you know where I'm at, motherfucker. Come on. Because it would piss me off. It would piss me off. I explained the whole thing numerous times, magazine articles, everything. When I was a young man, when I was a very young man, I told them when I first saw the guys coming to me, and I tried them.

I think I'm doing the right thing by being honest, open and honest. I tried them. Yes, I tried those for about six months. And what really, really got me, what really got me started was, it was something I was ashamed of. I was so ashamed of it. I had a young son at the time. Oh, man, I don't want my son to know that I'm trying this shit. I don't want him to find it. So I tell guys, if it makes you feel like that, if it's something that you're ashamed of, if you don't want to do it, you don't want your kids,

you don't want nobody to know about it, then you probably shouldn't be doing that shit. So that conviction, and I've tried being, I said the same thing in a magazine, countless magazines, before the internet, before YouTube, I just told the truth. And people, they don't believe it. I don't give a damn whether they believe it or not.

And it used to really bother me. I'd say, come on, man, I'll take your drug test. You get $25,000, I'll give you $25,000 of my money. If I fund the drug test, I'll get off the internet, get off YouTube, get off everything, off social media forever. You won't ever hear me again. If you show up and give me, just do anything I possibly can, just write on it. I don't forever. You won't ever hear me again. If you show up, just do anything I possibly can, just write.

I don't care. I don't care now. And then I explained to him that my mother, all nine of her brothers and sisters, ten of them, all nine of her brothers and sisters, all died from heart problems. So heart problems are hereditary

in my family. My older brother, who was just a year and a half older than me, passed away from heart problems. My dad had a heart. Everybody, my whole family history is lined with heart problems. It was just my turn. It was my turn, man. All them double cheeseburgers didn't help. Yeah. What advice do you have for my big little brother right here uh because we look at him every he can't go anywhere without somebody telling him he's on something of course of course but see when i look at this young man i don't have a problem believing that he's natural a lot of people won't because they do the comparison test the comparison test right up they'll say uh well

i can't look like that if i do so there's no way possible that it seemed could possibly look like that they judging them view on their scale and you can't do that and In SEMA's genetic potential, I mean, it's always been like this. There's always been men that were genetically superior, if you want to put it that way, to others. There's always guys

that have been bigger and stronger than others. Jim Thorpe, all the way back to, you know, the beginning of the Olympic Games, outrunning everybody, jumping over everybody, winning the Olympic Games, all the gold medals,

and they didn't handle steroids. He wasn't on steroids. I don't think he even developed steroids back then. He was just genetically superior. Jack Johnson, the great boxer, the heavyweight champion of the world, knocking people out left and right, all the many, no steroids, just genetically superior. So I have no problem believing when I see somebody else,

other guys say, oh no, it's no way possible that he can... Oh yeah, it's possible, motherfucker. Look at his dad or his mom. He was destined to be a big motherfucker. I have no problem with it. But that's me. The thing I hate

about this whole discussion, or this thing, is like it doesn't change the fact that no matter who anybody is, if they're trying to get in shape, no matter what genetics they have, you need to still do the shit you have to do. You've got to not compare yourself to other people.

That's the biggest thing. I think when I was younger, where I was with what I was doing as far as my coaching stuff or whatever, I'd always be comparing myself to people that were making more money than me, and it would fuck me up in the head. Because I'd be like, oh, this guy is 22, and he's fucking making this. Or she's doing this.

I'm here, and I'm not there just yet. And it would get to me. But I think the big thing is when I look at your content, it's motivational. And it's things that i can use as an example to bring myself forward in anything that is i'm trying to do so rather than us comparing ourselves to every person what they've been able to do just take what they're doing apply it and just do the work no matter if it's in business entrepreneurship whatever fitness just do that work so you can become the best version of yourself.

And fuck genetics. Genetics aren't that. It matters, but it doesn't matter. Still got to do the work. Even if you take roids or whatever the fuck you take, if you don't work, you just, you don't be, if all you had to do was take steroids and everybody would be yoked. If all you had to do was take steroids to be yoked,

everybody would be walking around, yoked jacked as fuck.ed. If all you had to do was take steroids to be yoked, everybody would be walking around yoked jacked as fuck. That's all you had to do. But you still got to work your ass off. And that's the part they don't want to do. I want to say people always compare my son to me. My son is much, much better than me. Because when I was his age, like I told you, people come to me, hey,

you could be on the cover of this magazine. If you do this, you can lift weights for a living. That's what I wanted to do all the time. I can lift weights and make money? Shit, yeah. That's what made me want to try. Instead of throwing all these mail sacks

at the post office, I can lift weights to make money and I love lifting weights I'll give it a try it wasn't even illegal back then fuck I'll give it a try come to my son all the time all the time if you just do the same speech all these years later all same speech you could do this you could do that You can do this. You can do that. You can do this. You can pass your dad. You can do this. You can do everything. If you just give this a try. If you're that strong without doing it, if you just give it a try.

And my son had more strength than me because he said, no, fuck no. I don't need it. More strength than I ever had. More courage than I ever had. If he compared to me, I wouldn't be like him he had the strength to say fuck no I don't need it

and that takes a pair of takes a lot of strength I think we should try to open it up to Q&A we have the ability to do that right here or do we have to close out the podcast no no let's just keep it rolling so if anybody has any questions you can either line up right here if you guys i mean not

all at once but if you want to walk up here we'll turn this microphone on and then you guys can ask ct mark anybody uh if you got a question as they wait uh it's still your motherfucking set so one thing that we like to preach on this podcast is, you know, especially if people don't get it, sometimes they'll see the podcast because, like, oh, Mark Bell, whoever that guy is, he lost 100 pounds. How did he do it? I want to lose some weight. But then they stick around and we're like, hey, the things that you're going to learn in the gym, all that stuff, that's going to carry over into the office.

all that stuff that's going to carry over into the office so can you quickly like explain what it's still your motherfucking set is and how that mentality can help the person that's going to the office monday morning like how can that mentality help them climb that ladder if they wanted to you know what i mean as soon as soon as the adversity hits uh no matter what the field whatever you know i i got so many things I got to get out before tomorrow. I got so many tasks I got to do. Whatever it is, a lot of people, as soon as the real adversity hits, they throw up their hands. Oh, my God, what am I going to do? Oh, my God, what am I going to do?

You know, put your head down. You know, do the fucking work. You know, do whatever it takes to get it done because no matter what what comes what goes five flat lines heart transplant whatever comes and goes hiding in the closet before your dad comes home wanting to disappear as a kid whatever comes and goes it is still as, it is still, as long as you're breathing, as long as you're still on earth, it is still your motherfucking set.

You got life. Set ain't over till you're dead. That's where it comes from. Where did it first originate from? I think maybe, didn't it, you were doing a workout maybe with Mike Rashid or something like that, right? Big Rob. Oh, okay.

Yeah, Big Rob. We came, it was in the gym when that phrase was coined. That's the background for it. But that phrase was coined when Big Rob was in the gym, and we was putting him through the paces, and Big Rob went away, and he threw up. He came came back still had shit on his mouth i wiped that shit off the corner of your mouth big rob because it's still your motherfucking set left in the middle of a set to throw up and i'm like that's the motherfucking set when you get

back buddy but uh yeah that's how i came about in gym terms yeah your dad has uh put me through the gauntlet tricep gauntlet, and a bunch of other workouts. Has he shown you some tough love in the gym where a situation has been pretty difficult? Absolutely. The gauntlet still is a crazy, crazy workout, especially when you do the Iron Marathon mixed with it.

He's like, we're going to do 500 reps today. I'm like, what? Why? That's going to kill. Who is this old, wumpy motherfucker with his T-shirt and all these muscles? How are you doing, man? Good, ZT Fletcher. So overtraining.

When I'm training in the gym, sometimes your voice pops in my head. Yes, sir. And I'm questioning, am I training hard enough? But where's that threshold of overtraining? And I think you've given your opinion before that most people aren't near the threshold. But just any more updated information, and especially now with Samson, from him also, like where is the threshold and how do we know if we're pushing it? And do you still think that even amongst the people that are training hard, they're still not even training hard enough? I'm so glad you asked that question, young man. Me and Joe Rogan had a real debate about this. He goes, you say there's no such thing as

overtraining, right? And I said, yes, I sure did, Joe. And he said, well, you know, that's bullshit. And it's a whole lot of people that feel the same way that I'm full of shit when I say there's no such thing as overtraining. Because in my opinion, if you suffer from some effects that you think is overtraining, suffer from some effects that you think is overtraining, it's mostly because of something that happened outside the gym or outside. When I say overtraining, I mean you did too many curls. You did too many squats.

You did too many. I have never seen a motherfucker do too many curls. I've never seen a motherfucker do too many squats. I've never seen a motherfucker do too many deadlifts and, you know, suffer ill effects from that. I know people who do, you know, every day, seven days a week. And just like gymnasts train for the Olympics, they do this shit four or five hours every day and no overtraining. Now, if they didn't get enough sleep, they didn't have the proper nutrition, they partied all night long, and they went to the gym, and they fucked themselves up. And somebody said, that's overtraining. I said, bullshit.

It was because of that drinking or the partying or staying up too late or whatever. But you didn't do it in the gym. Outside circumstances is something that had to, you know, contribute to that. I did too many cons because I had bench press from sunup to sundown and didn't fucking, you know, of course I was sore, but I didn't suffer from overtraining. I think that it's, from personal experience,

it's just impossible to in the gym, to overtrain in the gym. Now, I know a lot of people disagree with me and that's fine. I just have a difference of motherfucking opinion. I've been doing this shit for 50 years, and I have yet to see a person that went into the gym and did too many reps

because the kind of training I grew up in, I had a training partner. His name was Big Jim, and he'd go in the gym. On the weekend, we'd go in the gym, and he'd say, look, I'm not leaving this motherfucker until you leave. I'd say, we're going to be all day because I ain't leaving until you leave. And we would be in there all, but just bench pressing all day, no overtraining. So I just think it's impossible to do it through physical energy. But now other contributing factors, if you, like I said,

you didn't get the proper nutrition, didn't get proper rest, then you go in there and try to do something like that, then you can have a fucked up condition. It's still fucked up. And then people will say that that was because of overtraining. Yep. How about Samson? Do you feel the same way about overtraining?

Absolutely. I feel like there's no limit to the training. I'm Monday through Monday, honestly, until I get tired, then I go again that same day. Because I train like there will be no tomorrow. So you know you're done when you're just totally wrecked then? Yes. I look at my babies, get re-energized, and I go right back out there. so you know you're done when you're just totally wrecked then yes that's what you just can't look at my babies get re-energized and i go right back out there all right he's mimicking me the cheese

burger diet so so you're famous for the you know getting in the calories you needed to eat a huge amount of food because you had a fast metabolism and you're trying to grow and be strong so just going back in time what diet would you have done instead that still would have met your goals? Like for those of us that want to get the calories in and knowing what you know now, what would you have done instead of the cheeseburger diet? Oh man, that's a damn good question. Cause I mean, I swore by them double cheeseburgers because I was at my strongest when I was eating all that bullshit, you know, and I thought it was not just that people, you know, you ate four Big Macs,

four french fries, and, you know, that was just lunch. They don't realize that that was just my lunch. Every day I ate that for lunch. But there was other meals, and I'd have a steak or two, you know, that same day, and I would bring a double cheeseburger in the gym and be eating one while I'm bench pressing. Between sets, I'd be eating double cheeseburgers.

So that was just one meal, but I was a big time beef-eating motherfucker. I ate a whole lot of beef, and I felt that big-time beef-eating motherfucker. I ate a whole lot of beef, and I felt that was the way to get strong, was to eat a whole lot of beef. And if I had to do it all over again, I would choose cleaner. I would choose cleaner.

Back then, I didn't care what it was. I didn't care what it was. All I wanted was the calories, and I felt that beef gave me strength, so I would try to eat a cow every day, but I would try to eat a lot cleaner. So it would be like grass-fed beef now. Yeah, you know, grass-fed beef, and you know, I'd throw some salmon in there, some lean chicken shit, but back then I... But still definitely the beef backbone. Yeah, the only meat I ate back then was beef.

How about samson what's your how tall are you samson and how much you weigh right now uh six one uh 242 oh yes big yeah so so what are you eating to get enough calories in and how old are you again i'm 26 yeah yeah so still fast metabolism so what do you eat um Partly, you know, bad and partly good. I eat better because of trifecta. Shout out to trifecta. I eat their beef now. I used to eat cheeseburgers too.

And I was feeling really strong too. Yeah, so still a beef foundation. Oh, yes, for sure. Okay. Because it does make you stronger. All right. You and Mark got something in common. Go get some beef beef mark's the beef

guy for sure yeah thank you well thanks tony uh you never went to like you never go to like burger king it was always just mcdonald's uh i mcdonald's was the closest thing to my job so that's why i was back down i mean i i would in there. They'd have it all on the tray already. And employees would just like to stand around and watch me eat it. A couple of times, they'd just give it to me for free because they wanted to see if I could eat all that. Chocolate shake, vanilla shake, what else? Strawberry was my favorite choice. That's for the extra strength.

Yeah, hot apple pies. Don't be shy with questions. Here's a great opportunity to ask C.T. Fletcher some questions. So anybody else want to pop up? I know it's a little nerve-wracking being on the microphone and being on a podcast that's downloaded by just a couple hundred thousand people. But it would be great to have you guys add some more questions in. So it's still my, I'm not going to say the F word, it's still my i'm not gonna say the f word it's still my set right when's the first time that that came up because i'd still that's another thing that

plays in my head all the time and i'm wondering it's an obvious thing but like when was the first time that it actually you actually coined that phrase uh me and big rob i had a good friend named rob we were doing a particularly, I think it was the first time I had him do the marathon on the bench press, which is 210 reps, by the way. And we were doing the marathon and Rob, in the middle of, you know, halfway through the marathon, he runs to the

trash can and throws up, comes back, goes, Pops, man, I'm sick. And he still had a little throw up on his mouth. I said, just wipe that shit off the corner of your mouth because it's the same motherfucking set. Lay your ass on back down on the bench. I said, let's keep going. So that's where we first coined the phrase,

in the gym, training with Big Rob. It's the same motherfucking set. You can't quit the middle of the set, man. So that's where it came from. Where did of these old school crazy uh workouts come from because uh I think everybody here probably is aware of some of them like you know 21s that you do with like bicep curl or bicep extension or something like that but seems like you have a whole giant list of exercises that are like that yeah um from i saw um there was a guy that got me uh really into doing a trillion reps and his name was jim brit called big jim and we used to work

out in his garage uh every day and big jim's that once i got to the point where I was stronger than him, he said, well, I bet you can't out-rep me. But then it became a repping challenge. And every day we would battle back and forth to do the most reps. And that's where most of those were. And this is 35 years ago. Most of those routines that I do now came from that garage and comp. If you were to change anything about the way if you were to change anything about the

way you trained in the past because you got super strong right but would there be anything you would do differently to potentially add more longevity to your training or would you have just kept it the same? I know nutritionally you would have changed some things but as far as training is concerned would you have just kept it the same? I know nutritionally you would have changed some things, but as far as training is concerned, would you have changed anything too? Well, my training style changed drastically. Well, it kind of reverted back to all the reps. Like I started with Big Jim, and we got into trying to see who could do the most reps all the time.

And then I turned and wanted to be a competitive powerlifter, so I had to do shit like Mark Bell does it. I didn't believe in programming or any of that shit at all. I just thought, you know, I'd go to it. But once you... I want to interject for a second there. Many years ago, like when I got into lifting, no one ever talked about programming.

There were no programs. And then when that started to come around, people were talking about programming. I was like, what are they talking about, like computer programmers? I literally didn't know what they were talking about. Kind of all we had was just lift heavy. Yep, absolutely. We didn't really have like a program. I guess maybe the five by five was like maybe like a program, but there was no programming. Absolutely, and i did not believe in it i was like oh hell no uh i just figured two or three reps at the top weight you know and do that but as you start competing you go and get in the contest and you want to get you lift heavier and heavier weight

then somebody say hey have you ever tried a program? I'm like, what the fuck is that? I didn't know what the program was. He told me, oh, you got to start at this percentage and go back. What do you mean? That's a lot of math. Yeah, man. Are you crazy? I hated math. You want me to do that? But anyway, the programming works. I tried it once and I was hooked after that. Yes, sir. I actually have a question. I keep getting injured recently. I've strained a muscle in my upper back. I've pulled my Achilles tendon. How do you come back from muscle injuries? Because I'm always fearful now. Like I'm in pain actually right now, but I wasn't going to miss a chance to not see you in person. But, I mean, this injury, pulled muscles, strained muscles, how do you come back from that and not be in fear of re-injuring yourself

the second you start lifting heavy again? That's a damn good question. One more, what do you use? Like, do you use, like, CBD cream for muscle pain? Do you just take, like, you know, Motrin? How do you get over those? I think that people think that the things that they're experiencing are like normal. You know, we tend to think, oh, it's normal for me to have knee pain because I'm a lifter.

It's normal for me to have elbow pain or pain in my neck because I squat all the time. And it's actually not true. The human body is really set up really well to be pretty much pain-free. So you should be able to recover from your workouts to the point where you're not experiencing tons of pain. If you do experience pain in the gym, it's not pain in the muscle or it's not pain in the joint. It's like irritation or not irritation even. It's just stress in the muscle or it's not pain in the joint. It's like irritation or not irritation even. It's just stress in the muscle. Like that's what we want so their muscles can grow so we can get stronger. But we don't really want hardly any pain at all. And so what I usually tell people is

if you have pain that's above a level of three out of 10, it's not worth it. Just find another exercise. So if you go to do like a lunge or you keep hearing people say, oh, you need the big three, you need the big three, you need to squat, bench, deadlift. But when you go in the gym and you try the big three and you're not successful and it causes a pain that's on a level of five or seven or 10, those exercises aren't for you at the moment. And many, many times I would say 100 percent of the time when i've told people they're like man i really have a lot of pain when i do tricep extension and i say have you ever tried it with five pound dumbbells and they're like no and i'm like well so you you don't know if you

always experience pain on the tricep extension you just may not have gone light enough yet so i would encourage you to examine a lot of different exercises. Try a lot of different movements. And don't be afraid to kind of lean into the exercises that maybe aren't as tough or aren't as hardcore. It's okay to do those. Utilize those to their advantage because you'll see guys like Jay Cutler, even guys like Ed Cohn, people that have built tremendous physiques and have built tremendous amounts of capacity for being strong, have utilized a really wide variety of exercises.

It's not always just a squat, bench, deadlift. So don't feel like you have to do particular exercises to be successful. Whatever the exercise is in here, you don't necessarily need a leg press to have big legs. You don't necessarily have to lunge to have big legs. But you've got to find resistance in some form. So try to find things that don't hurt. Concentrate on the things that you can do rather than being concerned or worried about things you can't. And lastly I would say it wouldn't hurt to be like a massage therapist or professional just to kind of look and make sure things aren't busted up too bad. Thank you. Real quick, what was your name and where are you from? My name is Mike Cisneros. I'm from West Sacramento right here. There you go. So just because I thought it was great. Mike was like

the first car I seen when I pulled up to come into work. So he's been waiting a long time. Really appreciate that, Mike. Thanks, man. And then so other people can still come up and ask questions, but it might be a little nervous because it's C.T. Fletcher, a legend. You're a lot of people's idols. What is it like when somebody comes up to you and they say, C.T., you're my hero? I still can't believe it because I consider myself is absolutely nothing. myself is absolutely nothing. From the guy when I was young to walk into a contest and ask which one of these motherfuckers is coming in second, to the transition to, I had to go through something, I had to be humbled, and to be to be humbled and to be brought down.

And now I consider myself to be absolutely nothing. You know, not worthy of any praise whatsoever. I didn't do nothing special, nothing whatsoever. I'm just, you know, I'm blown away when people, I just want to go, no, I don't deserve it, man. Don't say that about me. Because I'm nothing. I'm absolutely nothing. I'm just blessed to still be here.

That's it. How you guys doing? Appreciate you coming. My name's Nige, at your boy Nige on all social. My name is Nige, at your boy Nige on all social. But I'm really passionate about business and teaching people about just helping them with their ideas to be successful. And you guys have done, all of you guys have done that for me. Been following you all for many years.

But wanting to make money and lift weights or do something that you're passionate about so you can lift weights or be athletic or do those types of things. Can you kind of go over some of the things that you are involved in business-wise and some of the best or the biggest successes in business that you've had and some of the woes, maybe something that people can look out for? Okay, I'm going to start. Then I'm going to let the real successful businessman talk. Okay. First of all, I'm a horrible businessman.

I wanted to show you guys that. I've had people ask me a lot of times, hey, I want you to be on this wealth seminar panel, CT, so you can tell other entrepreneurs how to become wealthy. And I tell them, hell no, because if I knew, I'd be wealthy my goddamn self. So I'm not wealthy, and so I can't tell other people how to get wealthy

because I'm not a wealthy person myself. The only thing that I can tell people is they say, well, how do I in my, I want to start a YouTube channel. How can I be successful? I got, I, the only thing I can tell people, the best advice I can give them about that is to be yourself. Be true. I don't know how many people told me in the beginning, oh, CT, don't cuss no more, man. They're going to think you're an ignorant guy from the street, your ghetto. And just don't, all the cussing, you're not going to get anywhere if you keep cussing. And I said, fuck you.

Kept right on cussing, and the same people is cussing their ass off today doing the same thing. So that's all i say be yourself be true and people can they can usually tell you some shit and how to be a successful businessman that's mark bell right you see how many uh in your estimation how many different like city or how many different like states and how many different countries have you been in from just lifting weights basically oh man oh and cities we were going to a different city or a different country every weekend before covid we were flying all over the world england australia russia china we you know we hit all the contests. We were in a lot of military bases. I would always, you know, travel to a lot of them because I'm ex-military.

We did a lot of traveling to the military bases to try to, you know, encourage the troops and live with the troops. And that was all, you know, no, I never charged anything for that. So we did that because I feel like I'm still here. I owe a lot. I owe a big old debt, so I'm always trying to pay it back. How much money have you earned from breaking a world record in any sort of lifting, or how much money did you earn in going to some of these competitions that you went to and kicking everyone's ass?

Mark Bell, I know you already know the answer to that, but I'm glad you asked because maybe some of them don't. Nothing. A big old zero. When I was a six-time world champion, this is what I earned from lifting weights. Trophy? Oh, yeah. Man, I got my trophies. I got a room full of trophies and no damn money. But I got some trophies and some memories, that's for sure.

After you broke your first record and didn't receive any money, did you stop? No, hell no. Hell no, I did not stop. I thought, you know, that if I lifted enough and won enough world records that I'd get that recognition and some sponsor would come knocking on your door and say, hey, I got this pot full of money that I want to give you if you just say that my shit is the best shit ever. So I kept on living, hoping that call would come. I turned 53 years old, and still the phone didn't ring. And some guy comes in the gym one day and says, hey, you want to be on YouTube? And that changed everything. Didn't get on there until I was 53. Just the moral of the story there is just, you know, if you follow what you're interested in,

you'll probably hang in there long enough for it to turn into something eventually. This opportunity just, you know, it didn't come out of nowhere. This YouTube opportunity didn't come out of nowhere, but he also wasn't even trying. And you'll find more often than not, when people aren't really trying to do anything in particular, sometimes they're trying to when people aren't really trying to do anything in particular. Sometimes they're trying to maybe just make something more efficient or make something a little bit better, and so they're like, I'm going to put this out into the world, and then it ends up being super successful.

Somebody like Jeff Bezos, I think, is a really good example of that. He just looked at the category of book, and he's like, there's more books in the world than any other item that you can purchase i don't know how he figured that out whether that's true or not but there's just a lot of skews of book and there's a lot of different books and written in many different languages throughout history and he was just thinking like well if i can just create some way for people to get book that would probably be great because it would it would uh really further educate people and sound like it could be something that's super profitable and

he's got that famous picture of him in his uh like you know little office in his in his house with the cheap little amazon uh thing in the background and you hear stories like that kind of over and over and over again for me it's always been the same thing just continue to follow my interest um and then like i just try to be creative and try to think of uh ways to make things better like as you're going through the thing that you're interested in whether it's uh you play basketball or you like jujitsu or whatever it is that you do maybe you have an idea for a certain type of clothing that can make you better at that particular thing maybe it's you maybe it's a piece of equipment that you use in the gym

maybe it's a supplement but every single person in the in this room right now has the ability to come up with ideas. And a lot of times, some of the best ideas come from thinking of the worst idea first. And so you think of an idea, if you have trouble being creative, and you're like, man, I don't think I have that in me, just walk yourself through that of just thinking of like what would be really dumb or what would be opposite of something that would be really effective. It just allows you to spitball ideas and to kind of put them forward. And then over time, you'll be able to come up with something. I would also like to say that a huge part of anything that has kind of led me to any of this stuff is the fact that I literally grew

up with weights and money in the same exact spot. My dad had a business that he ran out of our basement. And the other part of our basement was a gym. And so I would get done with lifting. And I would walk over to where my dad was doing taxes and teaching people about finances. And so I would get done with lifting and I would walk over to where my dad was doing taxes and teaching people about finances. And he would say, I made 350 bucks today. And he would like, show me like the checks or show me the money that came in. Or, and I was like, that's so, you know, I was only working out for two hours. How do you make that much money? This is crazy. Um, and then I also noticed on the checks when they were written out to him that it had family members' names on it,

and I was like, you make money off of our family members? I thought that was really strange because I'm like, that's Uncle So-and-so. Why wouldn't it just be free? And he's like, oh, no, I've done them for free a bunch of times, but they don't really let me do it for free anymore because I provide a service for them. And many years later, you fast forward, I've been to like seminars and stuff like that where people get a crowd, they get a line of people that want to take a picture with them and things like that. But they didn't really have an item to sell. So when I had people come up to me,

they're like, oh, I bought the slingshot or hey, can I buy a slingshot here? And I say, oh, yeah, we've got a thing over there. You can go purchase them right there. So I don't think there's any shame in thinking about money and thinking about how you're going to be financially successful and kind of putting that forward. Another thing that my dad taught me was to never be ashamed or worried about how much you like your work. be ashamed or worried about how much you like your work. I think for some, maybe just people in general, but I've noticed this with a lot of men, sometimes you get caught up in your work, do so much work that you're no longer there for your family maybe. But he said, you know, don't worry about it. If the work feels good, you know, keep going for it to a certain degree, obviously. But all those things have been really helpful and have assisted me to

what you kind of see here today. Yeah, well, I feel like a lot of my success in life, whether it's business or just life in general, comes from the big failures in life. And I'm sure you guys can all relate to that. More for Mark and CT, my children are older, 18, 22 years old. And, you know, me and my wife coming from. You ain't even 25, you damn self. He is going to be that old. It's all that steak shake. Steak shake I've been drinking, which I need some more chocolate.

It's always gone. There we go. I wasn't pointing at you and Seema. No, no. Anyways, just having several businesses and learning from these big mistakes and seeing my kids have a lot of the enthusiasm and maybe skills that my wife and I both possess, but have zero desire to be a part of the businesses. I've expressed to them how it makes me feel like some sort of failure that I've had.

And I'm just kind of curious what you guys think about that and how you feel about it, because it's not like my kids are young teenagers. They're already adults. And I would love for them to take part and be enthusiastic about it. But it's kind of like the saying is, hard times make hard men or women, and easy times make soft men and women. And I don't want to say that that's what they are, but it's a different scenario. And just curious on your thoughts. I think life-altering experiences are around the corner for everybody, you know? So if you feel that there was no friction, like not a lot of friction in your household for your kids to grow up and experience, I think that that's actually a really positive thing. And I think that that's a good sign that you, I mean, as Samson pointed out, he just said, hey, he's been a great dad. And that sounds like you're protecting your children from a lot of things. And just because you may have protected them a lot and they haven't really

experienced much friction yet, I don't think that's a negative thing um they will find they will find this stuff themselves and it doesn't always have to be a negative we don't have to go through negative experiences to end up being a positive and strong person um i i think that i i feel that way i don't feel like i really i mean i've had family members die and i've had a couple things happen, but, and I, as a kid, I thought I was dumb. You know, there was, like, certain things, but, like, I've had a really, really awesome life, and it was provided to me by both of my, I had two parents that were there all the time for pretty much everything. So I don't have any complaints. I went through life kind of, what's just flat out say, pretty frictionless. You know, I'm not afraid to say that.

That's my life experience, and I know different people have different ones. So maybe I was able to start off a little bit further ahead. But for your kids, it might be, you know, something similar. I think it's a misconception that you need to learn from your failures or you have to have these huge tragic things happen. Because for me, I've noticed failure all around me. I've always been someone that observes a lot. And I've seen my brother die from, my brother died from wanting to be great. He didn't die from drugs. He didn't die from alcohol. He died from a desire to want to be great,

but he didn't have the ability to be good first. And so it tortured him. He was a tortured soul. He always wanted more. And we all at this table, we all know that feeling. But for him, he didn't have enough self-control to take those small steps. So while somebody might look like they're having their life be maybe not a lot of friction or turmoil,

but over a period of time, they might just be putting one foot in front of the other. Next thing you know, you'll watch your kid kind of start to head down a direction that you're super pumped about that you're really excited about i've seen that with my own son my son is like he's he's in here training with his friends but he's also um somebody that his uh nephews and nieces and stuff like that really look up to because one of the older kids and my son is so quiet he's so reserved you don't hear a peep out of him so you don't really recognize him as like a leader. But over the last couple of weeks, I've been like, what is going on with this guy?

This is pretty cool. So I think the big things and the good things are probably yet to come for some of your kids. Right on, man. Thank you, guys. Appreciate it. Thank you. How old is your son? How old is your boy?

My son is 17. How old is your son? My son is 17. Getting old. I know, right? Yeah, we got another question popping up over here. Hi, CT. Hi, Mark. How you doing? This question is for you guys.

I'm a small business owner right here in Sacramento. And I just recently lost my mom and I got three little brothers and I gotta ask you guys how can I be the best role model for them? Man, I lost my mom a few years back and I miss her big time still miss her every day

it's not an easy thing. People say, you know, you'll get over it. Time does help, but it won't erase. It won't completely erase it. You don't want to erase it anyway. That's a hard one. But the best example I think that you can set for them is being true to yourself. You know, you don't want to set an example of pretension,

of you pretending to be something that you're not, and then they'll try to pretend to be something that they're not. But if you're true, be your true self and stay true to yourself. Hold fast to your principles. And you set that type of example for them, they see that, you don't have to tell them or beat them over the head, try to make them, if they see the example that you set, that's the most important, watching you, watching your example,

how they'll turn out, man. They watch you and see how you deal with things, how that mark build. Yeah, I think maybe your brother's seeing how you deal with the, I'll let Mark build. Yeah, I think maybe your brother seeing how you deal with the death of your mother, that might be something that could be helpful because, as we know, you can go many different directions when somebody dies. My brother Chris, I believe he mentioned after my brother Mike died, who did overdose on drugs, I think my brother recognized

that maybe it was like a year after my brother passed that he had been drunk every day for like a year, you know, and that was the direction that he ended up kind of ricocheting in that direction. And fortunately for me, I didn't end up going down that same path. I had different set of circumstances. I had other different set of circumstances. I had other family members around me and stuff. But in my opinion, a lot of life is interpretation. And you can take your mom's death whatever way you want. You can be sad about it and be disappointed about it or angry about it. But a lot of times, those modes of interpretation

aren't really useful or helpful towards you continuing each and every day to come up with victories and to be thoughtful of the people that are around you and just be productive in general. It's really easy to say, hey, like, things have been stressful, things have been hard. I'm going to, you know, drink tonight. I'm going to do this. It's really easy to kind of slip on that banana peel type thing. So just be kind of cautious of some of that. But, you know, as CT was talking about, I think it's important that you're not trying to really do anything else or be anything else. Let them grieve in whatever way they need to grieve because their situation is different than yours. And lastly, I advise this of everybody, whenever you deal with a death,

is to try to take the characteristics of your mother that you really enjoyed and really thought were really powerful and try to carry those on. You know, those are things that you can pass on to your brothers your friends and even your own children someday um i i got respect for all you guys at the table but i got one more question for ct yeah sir i got a 69 chevelle oh now you're talking which car is your favorite classic yeah without a question a 63 split window Corvette 63 split window Corvette is my favorite

fast car of all time and I happen to like the 69 body style a lot better than 70 and 70 is the most powerful one

but I like 69 better so you did a good job man yep alright thanks guys thank you appreciate it

well thank you guys so much for your time today I really appreciate you guys coming out here. Thank you, everybody, for listening, the live studio audience. We have not done anything like this, so this is really cool. Andrew, take us on out of here, buddy. Yes, sir.

Yeah, again, just reiterating, thank you guys for being a part of this. This is freaking incredible. Man, thank you, CT. Sincerely appreciate this. I can't even, I forget what I'm supposed to say right now. But thank you everybody for checking out this episode on iTunes and YouTube. If you guys dig it, please hit that like button, hit that subscribe button if you're not subscribed already and subscribe on iTunes and drop us a review because that really helps. Follow the podcast at MarkBell's Power Project on Instagram, at MB Power Project on TikTok and Twitter.

My Instagram and Twitter is at IamAndrewZ. And on TikTok at TheAndrewZ. Jean-Claude Vandetti, where are you at? I don't see me on Instagram and YouTube. I don't see me on TikTok and Twitter. Samson. Where can people find you? CtFletcher.com.

You don't have to remember shit else, but CtFletcher.com. Samson Fletcher official. There it is. On Instagram. Samson Fletcher official. Thank you guys so so much really appreciate having you guys and thank you yeah the love that you guys have for each other is like it's just awesome and it's really cool to uh just every time i get around you like i it gets me fired up gets me excited and uh it's great to see like you're maturing over the years because you know i've been uh talking to your dad about you kind of on the sidelines here for a long time.

And it's been nothing but positive, nothing but good things. So keep doing what you're doing. Thank you guys so much. Strength is never weak. This week is never strength. I'm at Mark Smiley Bell. Catch everybody later. Thank you.