Mark Bell's Power Project - Mike Tornabene: Why BroScience Ended, Gym Culture, YouTube Fame & Building Shell Corp

Episode Date: June 8, 2026

Mike Tornabene, creator of BroScience and the legendary Dom Mazzetti character, joins Mark Bell on this episode of Mark Bell’s Power Project.Mike talks about the rise of BroScience, why the gym was so intimidating when he first started lifting, how Dom Mazzetti became a way to make fun of fitness culture while also helping people feel more comfortable in the gym, and why he ultimately decided it was time to move on from the character.Mike also breaks down the creative process behind BroScience, the pressure of making every line a joke, how social media has changed comedy and fitness content, and why chasing views can destroy the soul of what you’re trying to create.The guys also get into Shell Corp, Mike’s clothing brand, building a real business, learning through failure, creating products that actually fit well, skateboarding, self-expression, identity, and finding new ways to grow without being trapped by your past success.Follow Mike:Instagram: @miketornabeneBroScienceLife: @dommazzettiShell Corp: @theshellcorpWebsite: theshellcorp.comSpecial perks for our listeners below!🥩 HIGH QUALITY PROTEIN! 🍖 ➢ https://goodlifeproteins.com/ Code POWER to save 20% off site wide, or code POWERPROJECT to save an additional 5% off your Build a Box Subscription!🩸 Get your BLOODWORK/TRT/PEPTIDES! 🩸 ➢ https://marekhealth.com and use code "POWERPROJECT" for 10% off Self-Service Labs and Guided Optimization®.🧠 Methylene Blue: Better Focus, Sleep and Mood 🧠 Use Code POWER10 for 10% off!➢https://troscriptions.com?utm_source=affiliate&ut-m_medium=podcast&ut-m_campaign=MarkBel-I_podcastBest 5 Finger Barefoot Shoes! 👟 ➢ https://Peluva.com/PowerProject Code POWERPROJECT15 to save 15% off Peluva Shoes!Self Explanatory 🍆 ➢ Enlarging Pumps (This really works): https://bit.ly/powerproject1Pumps explained: https://youtu.be/qPG9JXjlhpM?si=JZN09-FakTjoJuaW🚨 The Best Red Light Therapy Devices and Blue Blocking Glasses On The Market! 😎➢https://emr-tek.com/Use code: POWERPROJECT to save 20% off your order!👟 BEST LOOKING AND FUNCTIONING BAREFOOT SHOES 🦶➢https://vivobarefoot.com/powerproject🥶 The Best Cold Plunge Money Can Buy 🥶 ➢ https://thecoldplunge.com/ Code POWERPROJECT to save $150!!➢ https://withinyoubrand.com/ Code POWERPROJECT to save 15% off supplements!➢ https://markbellslingshot.com/ Code POWERPROJECT to save 15% off all gear and apparel!Follow Mark Bell's Power Project Podcast➢ https://www.PowerProject.live➢ https://lnk.to/PowerProjectPodcast➢ Insta: https://www.instagram.com/markbellspowerproject➢ YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/markbellspowerproject

Unfortunately, there's going to be no more bro science for this foreseeable future. It's just, uh, it's time to go, man. It just became sort of a how-to for fitness culture. I realized that comedy was also a bit of a protective veil. I can always keep myself a little bit removed from how I really feel, who I really am, because it's a character, it's a joke. In your head, you look at your girl, and you circle all the body parts that need work. Bro science was just scratching the surface of who I am as a person and who I am as a creator.

There are some things that I'm like, I just want to say this with my chest. People are just trying to get the hook. You're not really thinking like, this is the thing I want to say. You're just like, here are the views I want to get. And here's a puzzle left to put together. I'm not going to sacrifice the quality or the message I want to say. Gold's gym, I always feel like is a, it's like a little bit of a pit and like a time warp. Yeah, it's like a time capsule.

Right. Every time I go there, it's like some things have just made the same in the past 12 years. Same people and they move some stuff around, add some new things. And the people look the same because everyone's found the fountain. You everyone's got peptides or whatever else they got going on. So it doesn't matter if someone's 50 or if they're 60, they still look amazing. Right. Something comforting about that.

But sometimes you're there and just like, I need to get out of this. So you've moved on from the bro science stuff. You're trying to bury this character that you created that everybody fell in love with. And, you know, getting you in the building today was hard because I saw those people out there throwing tomatoes and stuff at you. Oh, yeah. You know how to dodge it. You know, if I think, don't wear the headband. They want you to, they, people are getting violent.

They want you to bring it back. I know. But it's just, it's time to go, man. Time to go and switch gears. How did you come up with it? I mean, you know, bro science stuff has been popular for many years now, but I think that you helped make the term popular all the way to the point where now we have people talking about like science-based lifting.

It's got a whole circle. People go on the complete opposite direction. Like I want to get away from bro science. And then people always tell me that I have bro science. But I always take it as a compliment. Yeah, I'm, how did they get into it? I started working out in college. And that was like peak bodybuilding.com era.

So it was just like a lot of like, all you had was bro science. You had like muscle and fitness magazines. And like there wasn't a lot of access to information. And there also weren't a lot of like really jacked dudes at the gym. You know, now there's just like gymflation. They're everywhere. then it's like you had like one or two guys that would be like that dude is fucking jacked whether or not he's on on gear it's like you don't really know at the time and it almost doesn't matter like some of the natural guys even like back then were just like that guy's jacked and so you just listen to whatever he said because of what other resource do you have and I just found it really fascinating and very interesting and like genuinely being like obsessed with that gym world at the time and all the funny like tutorial videos just thought it would be a good kind of parody of of explaining. not like how to work out, but like how to navigate the gym and all the social aspects and just like the

the insecurities behind it all. And then it just became sort of a how to for just fitness culture, more less than, you know, like exercises. That's a good way of putting it. Yeah, fitness culture. It is interesting how you're, you know, when you're lifting your eyes, you know, you gravitate towards let me find the biggest most red guy in the building. That guy noticed what he's talking about. Yeah. And like why do you gravitate towards that? But we're not looking for necessarily, I guess maybe because we're in our 20s,

maybe when we're getting into lifting a lot of times. We're not really looking like, who's the healthiest guy here? Does that? And it's like, what frame of reference do you have for that when you're young, right? Right. Like, you know, you're healthy, you feel healthy. You think like this is what's most important to me is looking good. You're like this guy looks like he has a refrigerator stuffed underneath his sweatshirt.

And he can barely move. But I'm going to go talk to him. He's got a big neck. Well, you know, I think it's interesting, too, because when I started, it was just less prevalent that you were on steroids. So maybe less knowledge of who is and what the side effects were. But so when I'm doing, it's like you are healthy. You are going to the gym.

You are doing healthy things. And I think for the most part, until I was like taking a lot of pre-workout, you know what I mean? Like that's when it starts to be like, all right, now you just don't really don't know what you're taken. but for the most part, like, you're like, I am healthy. Like, I am working out. I'm eating well. Like, I am doing all the healthy things. I don't think you thought so much, at least when I started of like, this guy is on steroids

and we know possibly the side effects or the health implications. This wasn't really a thought. You just think you are doing something healthy. I think now we know better and we're just choosing to ignore it. We're like, all right, I just want to be jacked at all costs. And that's why you got, you know, kids being like, I'm going to jump on whatever I can as soon as I can. and not really thinking like, hey, this is like a lifelong thing.

Like, do you even love fitness that much? Do you even want to be that jacked? And so we were really thinking about that. What do you think of, you know, nowadays, things are so much faster. Yeah. You know, when we had YouTube, you know, some of your segments and some of your skits and stuff, they last a little longer. It's not, you know, it wasn't 30 seconds to get a point across.

Yeah, what do you think about like the, I guess, gym culture today and some of the fitness culture where things are maybe just moving along like a lot. faster. It's you lose a lot of context and you also lose important information. People are just trying to get the hook. They're trying to get the views. They're trying to get the money. And they're not really caring too much about what the message is because you're like, how do I have room for all this context when I have, you know, to make this hook that gets the views. And that's the first three seconds. Then I have to, you know, keep your attention here. You're not really thinking like, this is the thing I want to say. You're just like, here are

the views I want to get and here's a puzzle I have to put together to get it and you're just kind of saying whatever information gets that. I don't and then I find if you are genuine about trying to give your information and educate people, you still got to play that game and you're like, well, if it's over 90 seconds, maybe it's not going to do as well. So I got to chop some of this out. And I find that with a lot of different pieces I'm making where I would like to have a broader discussion on it, but you have to sacrifice some things to get your point in a way that. that's digestible and also favorable to the algorithm. It's a creative challenge, and sometimes you can work with it.

And other times it just leads to slop that this leads you in whatever journey you're looking for and just gives you bad information. I think we lose some site that all of its entertainment, you know, whether it's YouTube or Instagram or what it is, it's all forms of entertainment. And I think that what's even lost even more so is the fact that being a good YouTuber is actually very hard. Yeah. Or being good on social media is actually very hard. Yeah.

And it doesn't really get, I guess people understand it maybe better now, but I don't think it used to get the respect maybe it deserved. But, you know, people like Bart Kwan and people like Bradley Martin and people like yourself, coming along with creative content and being able to get a ton of subscribers, get a ton of people watching those videos, sharing those videos, it's a talent. And it's a, it's not an easy thing. to figure out. But what I would say about it that I find even more interesting is that if you can

navigate those waters, because most of the big brands and most of the big companies would love to be able to solve the riddle of being able to be more exposed on social media or have better exposure via some of these platforms that we're talking about, but they can't seem to figure it out. So it's actually challenging and difficult. And now people are, I don't know how much stuff you scripted out, but like a lot of stuff is very well scripted out to the point where you're like, well, shit, you're a writer, like you're an entertainer. I don't think maybe people fully understand that. Yeah, I script it all out. Like, well, I guess it depends on which channel it's on. But yeah, I went to film school. I wanted to be, I wanted to be a writer. I wanted to write comedy. I wanted to

sell scripts, a TV show, a movie, whatever. And the idea of being a YouTuber was just, non-existent. There was no like, there's a few people doing it and it didn't have the respect or the ecosystem behind it to support all these creators and be like this is a job, a career. It was just a launching pad for me to get my name out there. And so I was like, oh, if I make some sketches, people will read my scripts. I'll get a job in Hollywood. I'll, you know, sell a TV show, whatever. And so I always approached it as as entertainment, not as like, I want fame. I want views. I want to build a career from this. I was like, I, I have a craft and a gift that I want to utilize to be my career.

And that is entertainment, that is writing. And with the initial Domazetti videos were all improv. They were, like, we'd set a camera up like here and like, yeah, would interview me and I would like riff for like 45 minutes to an hour. And, you know, he would ask some questions and he would throw some jokes in there. then I would just cut that down to like a two minute bit. And we'd that for like two years. And then with bro science, then we started scripting everything out.

So even up until the last video, it's entirely scripted. And that takes the most amount of time. That's what people probably don't realize where it's like, why aren't you posting every week? I'm like, this script alone, like, is so, so draining. There's like, I once counted and it was, I think, 50 jokes per video, per script. Like every single line is a joke. Every single line is a punchline. that with the satire and then you have to have like the commentary and like the real stuff buried in there

and it's just it's a lot of work and it's not like I don't I'm afraid of the hard work it's just there's a creative resource that can get drained and I want to put it towards other things and I realize if I keep putting it towards this I can't grow other things so um the fact that I do treat it like entertainment and don't want to sacrifice that to satisfy the algorithm or just make it more clickable I want to make exactly the piece that I want to make, and I'll do what I can here and there to make it a little bit more favorable for the platforms, but I'm not going to sacrifice the quality

or the message I want to say, and that may have limited the growth of the channel a bit, but I do believe it's what allowed me to do it for 16 years instead of just being a flash in the pan and then burning out, which is what I think people struggle with now is like, it's easy to get views now. It's easy to get famous, thanks to TikTok and all these algorithms, but then it's like, what do you do next? Do you even know what you're doing? Do you even know

what skill you have? Do you even know how to recreate it? No. So you're just kind of like lost out there now searching just for the views again instead of being like what am I actually here to offer? Were any of these videos that you made were any of them expensive? Bro science? Absolutely not. There's dirt cheap. Yeah. Dirt cheap. It's like the opposite of filmmaking. Oh yeah. Like filmmaking's list like let's burn three million dollars boom like that. Dude bro science was basically all profit. I I had a car show on my other YouTube channel, which was very expensive. That was shot like TV.

That was self-funded. Cars are expensive. Adventure, travel, all these things. And just took a long time to produce. And it was 2016 about. And it's just the economy for YouTube wasn't the same as it is now. Brands weren't taking YouTubers as seriously. The money wasn't really there.

And so it wasn't really lining up with how expensive it was to make versus how many views it was getting versus how brands, you know, how seriously brands took YouTubers at the time. So it just didn't make sense financially to do it. But now the Brose Sign stuff is, other than my time, is incredibly cheap. Yeah. I edit it. I do, I edit it myself. You know, I have a buddy shoot it and, you know, pay him some money and that's it. Have you had brands hit you up for like consulting at all or was like your stuff maybe like too satire-ish for them to recognize? I've never done consulting though. I think I would be pretty good at it.

I'm imagining that you would be amazing at it with your knowledge of YouTube and and also your filmmaking background. Yeah. But no, no one's ever hit me up for consulting. They're just like, you know, they want the whole package.

They want me to do Tomazetti. They want the views. You know, sometimes it's like, it's a bit harder to sell that when they're like, well, you also have the platform. We want the views that you get.

Like, the consulting is great, but like, you got to, you know, it's like you're going to get that at a really super, discounted rate if they're like, you know, why would I pay X amount for for this when I can also get all this? What did you feel was a good, like what, what do you think made it click with people?

It was sort of the thoughts and a little bit of the insecurities that everybody has that you're, you feel more comfortable when they're out in the open, you know. A lot of people say, like, I started lifting because of bro science. How difficult was that? Yeah. Like, because it helped me get into the gym. And it's so intimidating to be in the gym. Like, I know what that's like. Like, you know, I was a much more shy kid growing up. So just to, like, have the friend that brought me to the gym was, like, the whole reason I was able to do that and fall in love with it.

But if I was on my own and didn't have that friend, I don't know if I ever would have, right? Like, it's just, it feels such a tough world to navigate. And, yeah, sure, there's a lot of people tell you to do how to do a bench press. But no one's going to tell you, like, what? to wear in the gym and what to expect and sort of laugh at the things that people take so seriously. So I think a number of things was connecting with like the insecurities people have and making light of them. And also showing the gym, which seems to be a very serious tough guy place in a much more lighthearted manner. And it's like you can then enjoy it much more and it becomes something silly instead of just like, you know, hard ass shit.

The gym being a tough guy thing has always been interesting to me, you know, being someone that's like, like a powerlifter. Yeah. And I'm sure as a power lifter, I and my friends and other people around us probably give off that image that were like a tough guy. But I always thought like, I'm not tough.

Like I hope nobody wants to start some shit with me because I don't fight, you know? Yeah. So it's just, I guess it's like a perception that we have that like the gym is going to be this particular way. But I do think that you go back like 10 years, you go back like 20 years. Going into most gyms was,

uh, you kind of like before, cross-fit and before all that stuff kind of started to get really popular, I think the gyms were like less inviting. For sure. Yeah, it is a lot more people are just into fitness these days, which just opens it up to new people and you have, the benefit to social media is that you do have a lot more people talking about it, a lot more information and you get more comfortable. I mean, like, just having knowledge about anything is probably the biggest hurdle to getting over your fear of something. But yeah, it definitely was.

it was a lot more intimidating to when you did see like bigger guys because you know so little about them. Now they're a little bit more familiar. Like we see their personality with social media. There's more. And then it feels very intimidating because you're like, it is all just perception. And usually when you get to talking to that guy, he's like the nicest dude in the world. And all he wants to do is tell you how to lift. And that's kind of like where a bro science came from.

It's like you listen to that guy because like for whatever reason, he just really wants to tell you like what he learned and you know there's something really sweet in that and it takes down that barrier of you know the intimidation and makes a little bit more approachable so I think like that's part of what bro science did and help people see beyond that that tough guy facade and what made you ultimately decide that you needed just to move on there's a lot of factors in that I mostly I just want to to focus on other projects creatively. I love my new clothing brand, Shell Corp. I love designing clothes. I love making the media for that. I love the messaging behind the brand.

And it's just where I want to put my time. And like I said, with the amount of creative energy bro science takes, it's draining a really valuable resource. And I'm realizing if I want to not just grow this to where I want it to be, but if I want to design, my life the way I wanted to be like this is where I want to put all of my energy and if that means sacrificing some money and you know bootstrapping it a bit to make it work then then I'm going to do that and that was I think the driving factor in terms of logistically like why I needed to end it to start and really commit to the next thing because even though I've been doing shell corp for about five years now and it's doing well I'm seeing that I'm like every time I have to go write a

bro-science video, it's like just a week-long process just to get the script done. That's not even including shooting and editing. And that whole week, I could be doing anything else of like going where I want to go next. And I don't mind working 15, 20 hours a day on something that I'm like really devoted to. When I do that with Shell Corp and these other projects, I'm like, this feels like time well spent. It started to become with bro-science that I was like, this feels like time I need to be putting elsewhere. And it just felt like it was to competing with where I wanted to go. And then there's a whole like personal aspect to it of identity and playing a character

and just like my entire adult life doing this. Definitely created a lot of, you know, interesting conflict, I guess. Hard to grow, right? Like if you're kind of stuck on that same character and everyone's wanting you to be that character, which is cool. Yeah, it's great. I love that they appreciate it. But at the same time, it's like, yeah, I want to move on and do some other things. I'm sure that you probably still have a huge burning desire to write and to do film to some degree.

Because I don't think that ever, I don't think that flame ever dies out. You know, having a brother, that's a filmmaker. My son's a filmmaker as well. They're just always thinking about like writing a script or, you know. Yeah, and that's what that's what it was too. I realized that bro science was just scratching the surface of who I am as a person. person and who I am as a creator, a storyteller, and I wanted to be free to lean into more things. I realize that, like, as I have a gift for comedy, and I think that's pretty obvious, but

more so than that, I think I have a gift for reaching people. I think I have a gift for translating ambiguous emotions into clearly understood stories. And that's, you know, essentially what pro science is at the end of the day. And it's a little bit easier to to digest because it's comedy, so you can just laugh at it or you can look at it very deeply. But I think I just got, I think with the way the world is right now, the satire got lost. There are actual people out there that are even more fucked up than Domazetti, the character. And they're just out there, like, doing shit for views. And it just starts to feel like you see the character. And it just starts to feel like you see the character and you're like, if you don't, unfamiliar, this is just another asshole.

You don't even stick around long enough to like listen to the satire or listen to the point I'm trying to make. And I just didn't want to be another one of those voices really. And I think all the core fans really know I'm not. But I realized that comedy was also a bit of a protective veil of how I can talk about things, where I can always keep myself a little bit removed from how I really feel, who I really am, because it's a character, it's a joke, it's satire. You kind of have to decipher what my meaning is.

And there are some things that I'm like, I just want to say this with my chest. I want to talk directly about this. And I don't necessarily feel the need to make a joke about it. Now, humor is great, and it can be a great vehicle for delivering a message. But I don't feel like I want to make it the only thing anymore. I will always incorporate humor. But I think there's just more value I have that I want to express. and in other ways that I cannot do through Domazetti.

So, you know, it's got a time for something new. I have a couple friends that all we do is mess around. And so every once in a while they'll just be like, are you serious? Yeah, yeah. Like, no, I'm actually in serious. Like, are we in character? Like, what's going on? Like, are we just messing around?

Because we just say like wild, wild stuff to each other. It's just fun, right? But every once in a while, I'll try to relay something like you just actually have to have, like, hey, meet me here at 10. You know, like, yeah, yeah. Like, yeah, no, I actually want to meet you there at 10, you know, like there's certain things you can kind of communicate like more straight up, I guess you'd say. Yeah, yeah. So, you know, I just, I think all those factors just kind of conspired to put me where I am now. And it feels good. You know, like, I also know that my audience has grown, you know, like I'm, I'm not the same age as when I started it 16 years ago. Neither are most of my, my fans. You know, they're at a different point in their life and they're experiencing different things. And I'm, I'm sure that I have other stories to tell and other messages to convey that will relate to them much more impactfully where they are now. And that's the stuff that I really want to lean into.

What made you fall in love with film? It started with skateboarding. So I would, I was skateboarding all throughout high school, and I would shoot videos of me and my friend's skating. And then I would sit in my basement on the computer and edit skate videos and just do that for fun for hours. And now it's funny because everyone's like hates editing videos. Like, that's my job and the worst part is editing. I'm like, that's what got me into it. It was just, you know, the actual act of it was firstly through, through skateboarding.

I love that. I love that. Like, you know, people might not realize are building up another skill as they're doing something that they really love. Yeah. Pretty cool. Yeah. And so that's where it started.

And then, you know, I was always a funny kid. And I would like to shoot like sketches and whatnot. And I think it came time to think about what I wanted to do as a couple of, you know, career and what I wanted to go to school for. I was in high school and we had some filmmaking classes and I was like, yeah, I'm going to, this is what I'm going to do. I love, you know, shooting video. I love editing. I love creating video content and film and I like being funny. And so I'm going to just lean into that. It was kind of just like a, oh, why not sort of thing. And I just ran with it. And then, you know, I went to NYU Film School. And from day one,

I knew I wanted to write more so than I wanted to be like a director. or behind the camera or even an editor, I just liked the writing aspect of it, especially when it came to comedy. And so I just started writing scripts from day one. It was like, this is what I want to do. Do you have some things that you've written that you want to see get made

that are kind of just, maybe they've been sitting around for a bit? Not anymore, to be honest. It was the goal for so long. It was like since 2006, which is when I was a freshman in college, I wanted to, like I said, create a TV show. And everything we did up until like 2017

on Bro Science and Domazetti was geared towards that goal. And we got pretty close. We started doing the pilot with The Rock and his production company. And it just did not go the way we wanted to go. Got the Hollywood treatment. And they turned it into something that I couldn't pay me to do. And I was like, I'm done with, I don't want to do this.

And it was at a way. weird time when YouTube was really starting to pick up for people with its legitimacy and the opportunity and people seeing it as a career. Now for me, I'm seven years into a successful YouTube career at 2017, so I'm like, I'm still seeing it as like, I need to get out of here. I need to get to the next level. The next level being traditional media, Hollywood. And at that time, it just started to turn where like the next level is YouTube, is staying on YouTube. It's staying on YouTube. And so I was like, all right, you know what? Maybe I don't really want to go into this. Maybe I want to stay exactly where I am. Like I have all the creative control.

I make what I want to make. Nobody tells me otherwise. And there's a ton of opportunity here. And so I kind of like, not that I was forced to give up on that dream. I think I was just forced a new perspective that made me go, hey, maybe this isn't really all that's cracked up to me. Maybe this is just guiding me to where I want to be next. And it guided me back to YouTube. The unfortunate thing was like maybe it was a bit too late for me to like go back full force because I seven years in it, like it's probably not at its peak anymore. At least I know I didn't have the creative energy the same way I did the first seven years to put another seven into it at the same rate.

So that realization came what felt like a bit late to like have a resurgence of like, this is my main thing. But it did lead me to where I am now, which is I don't have the desire to make a TV show anymore or sell scripts. Like I, it's a weird combination of things is put me right here and I just absolutely love what I'm doing. And I just want to keep doing that. That's really weird because I bet you that something they'll probably be now that you

said that and said it that way, something will probably pop up that will. That's how it works. Yeah. Yeah, that's a cool part of it. Probably like a cool opportunity that pops up. Yeah. I do think it is interesting what you said about like social media is the media. Yeah.

you know. Yeah. I always I always felt you know on a kind of a separate note I always felt like physical education is the education. You know it's like where it's where all education begins. It's why the brain exists is for movement. Yeah. And then beyond that we learn our ABCs and our one, two, three's and so on. But yeah, YouTube, you know, trying to get yourself away from like the YouTube universe, but then recognizing the power of just sort of streaming and Instagram and TikTok. And now what people are doing, whether, I mean, who would ever thought that you would just like lie? The least, like when somebody does live streaming, if there's like nothing pre-planned in it, it seems like more people want to watch it. Yeah, it's, isn't that interesting?

It's strange. Yeah. And people are just like really the intimate insight into people that you follow, I think people just crave. I can't relate so much, but I understand. I think that's probably why. I think I will probably see more of that as people get really tired of AI. You know, we'll see a lot more people just wanting to know there's a human being and I can prove it.

See more real. Yeah, to see more people being people and connecting that way. You know, I think there's also, you know, the aspect that you feel like you're, you know, you're along with them. And that can be good and that can also be a bit maybe not great to mental health. But yeah, you know, I like to see the positives in the models. I think, you know, streaming probably got fairly popular through people watching other people play video games. Yeah.

Which, you know, I'm 49. So that time is like, I didn't ever understood. I'm like, I don't understand why anybody else is watching somebody else play a video game. I mean, I used to do that as a kid. I loved it. It was like, but it was always enjoyable for me to watch friends play. like a story mode or campaign on a video game because it's phenomenal storytelling and it's interactive and you're a part of it so I get that part I think that's fun but yeah it's got to be

where you know and then now there's not even a video game you know it's not even a story you're just there yeah but just going out and doing whatever like cavicular or whatever these people are that are it's a bit wild streaming stuff Larry wheels yeah doing stuff but I mean Larry like he he always have some sort of entertainment value yeah in the stuff that he's doing he's always doing something like collaborating with people or something, you know, entertaining. I think it's a, you see that a lot. And like people start out in fitness. You're like, what do I do next? You know, especially if you've tied your whole career to social media and it started with fitness. You're like, it's not a whole lot you can do after a certain point. So some people are

like, all right, I'm going to get into more entertainment. I'm going to get into more of the viral aspect of social media, which is stepping away a lot of the, you know, from the fitness focus content. Yeah. How was it funding? It sounds to me like your car, your YouTube channel that was dedicated more to cars. It sounded like that was self-funded. And correct me if I'm wrong, it sounded like a passion project.

Yeah. How did that make you feel like? You probably felt pretty good about it, I would imagine, even though maybe that wasn't really generating a lot of money. I loved it. It was one of my favorite things that I've made. Some you really care about. Yeah, and I think part of it too was a bit of what I was saying earlier about being direct

about the messaging I have and the stories I want to tell was it was a lot of fun. We were young guys and we'd do like reckless wild adventures. But at the end, I would always have this sort of recap that would be inspiring and relate this lesson of what I've learned to other people in their lives. And sure, you know, you might see this, you know, young YouTuber with supercars doing all this wild shit and be like, how do I relate? but I would find this life lesson that can help people relate and motivate them to, you know, live the life they want to live and then lean into who they are.

But it was always just like kernel at the end of it, a bit also buried in some of the wild, more easily approachable things. But it was always a lot of fun. I got to do some of the most exciting adventures of my life and do them with my friends. I learned a lot. I got out of my comfort zone over some fears. explored things outside of Domazetti, and that was a huge hurdle. So it was really rewarding to even know that I can create something out of character that people loved.

And they really did. They really loved that channel, even to this day. They want me to bring it back. And yet, like, now it might be able to make more money. But, again, I'm at a different stage in my life, and I want to do similar things to that, but learn more from what worked and what I want to talk about. But yeah, it didn't make any money. Like it was just all a money pit.

It just we couldn't figure out. I said nothing. The whole infrastructure of social media was not there the way it is now. Brands don't look at it the same and be like, yeah, I'm going to put money behind this. And then the algorithm's kind of fucking you up. And then the adpocalypse at the time

where literally overnight, you would earn a third of the revenue on the same amount of views. I remember seeing it with bro science. Like overnight, same amount of views one-third the revenue. And because I had most of my money coming from merchandise and clothing, I was like, this is fine.

But it doesn't work for another, you know, fledgling YouTube channel that is doing really well, making some ad revenue and all of a sudden, zero income, you know. So it just didn't really work for the time. But I think it taught me something that I think about now and guiding like what I want to do, where I was always trying to make a ton of money doing things I love. And then I was asked a question, what would you do if you had all the money in the world? And I thought about it.

And I was like, I would still make clothing. I would love to do that. I would still make the type of media I'm making now on my personal Instagram and tell those stories and possibly do it in a bigger way. I would even take it as far as like I think it would be cool to be able to make clothing and give it away for free. I think that would be so fucking rad to be able to afford to do that. And it made me think like, okay, if I had all the money and I would still do this,

I just want to afford to be able to do it. Like if I can make a bunch of money and be very successful on paper with what I love, amazing. But at a bare minimum, if I can just afford to keep doing it and spending my time on it, then I'm happy. And I think there's real value in that for me as in terms of the most important thing. how I spend my time. And there's value in that for other people,

that I'm trying to do something that I feel has real value to somebody, that I just want to give to them and not rely so much and how do I ring every last dollar out of it? Because like I said earlier, that's when you start to suffocate the soul of what you're doing. You're like, let me scrape some of this off

and some of this so we can make it more views and get rid of that because it'll do better with the algorithm. I'm like, no, I don't want to do that. I'll play ball a bit. I'll put the hooks in there. You know, I'll make sure it's this, but like I'm not going to sacrifice the core of what I really believe in just to get more views, just to get more money.

And there's a lot of peace in that because I know exactly where I want to put my time and exactly where I want to put my effort. It's an interesting question. Yeah, if you had all the money in the world, what would you do? And the answer wouldn't necessarily be, even though it would probably be in there somewhere, it wouldn't necessarily be to make more money.

Yes, exactly. It wouldn't be like a focal point. Yeah. And you know, you got to be realistic about it. Obviously, you need to survive and you want to be able to provide for yourself, your family, the people you love. So it's like if those things are taken care of, that's when you start to ask yourself.

Because I'm asking myself this question off of, you know, already a foundation of success. But at the same time when I had nothing and I was broke trying to be a, you know, a writer, I didn't get into it thinking about how much money I could make. I got into it being like, I want to tell jokes. I want to make people laugh. I want to do this thing and I want to live my life doing that.

And yeah, there's a price tag that comes along with that that you got to be realistic about. But beyond that, that's when you start to ask yourself, like, what am I making this for? What am I doing? Is this for me?

Is this how I want to spend my time? Or is it just for more views? Is it just for more money? Like, what's next? What am I doing all this for? Solving problems isn't always what it's cracked up to be. You know, like making money is amazing.

And it can provide a lot of conveniences, but I don't want to say it's a nice problem I have, but it's a great riddle to work your way through because of what it can make of you, because everyone just feels like they need this thing. And then you work your way towards that thing and you start to get more of that. Over time, you just realize what you bought yourself was like a little bit of freedom and convenience towards doing things that you just enjoy doing more. Yeah, yeah. And I think it's important to know that it's easier for me to come to that realization, having had those things.

Like having achieved that success, having made that money, especially young, it's easier for me to look at it being like, this isn't fulfilling to me in the way that I thought it was. And so there's a lot of people who may never achieve that and go their whole life chasing that because they've never had that to confront achieving what they thought they wanted, only to be like, it still isn't it. And it's not that I'm looking for, a lot of people like, oh, you just got to have balance and this and that. It's like, I don't mind working every waking hour on something that really fucking matters to me.

And I'm not thinking how much money I'm making doing that. I'm thinking, this is what I want to do. And I want to be able to, it's just a time thing now. It's just, that's the most important factor to me. What got you into making your own clothing brand? It started with knowing,

it was I guess you had Bro Science clothes too Exactly that's where it started So like it's it's kind of a full circle process Where it did start thinking like how did I make a living Like with this what did I do that was that I enjoyed That was successful that I know how to monetize well

And that I can use my creative skills for And most of my income came from clothing With merchandise from BroScience So I was like well that's a good start I also I've always liked art, drawing was one of my first hobbies and passions as a kid. Self-expression is something that I've learned is really core to who I am, and clothing is a very easy, clothes, cars, tattoos.

Yeah, you know, it's just like things that, like customizing yourself and expressing who you are and leading into that. And that came a little later, I think, but the more obvious things were, you know, to, I knew the business, I knew it made money. And so therefore it was viable, at least for me. And to the things you needed to grow it, I was good at and enjoyed doing, creating media, telling stories.

And I thought it would be an interesting way to explore that business, kind of flipped the way that bro science is, where it was, I would create entertainment and then sell clothing on the side, just so happens to make a lot of money. Now I would be like, I want to create a clothing brand. and then make entertainment around this. But the ads are not just ads for clothing. They are pieces of content that you would enjoy watching whether or not you were being sold, you know, apparel.

So it started with sort of like short filmmaking in that sense. A little bit like there's, you know, certain brands have certain types of commercials or certain types of advertisements where the brand maybe the logo is flag. at the very end. Yeah, yeah. Like a Nike commercial. One that comes in mind is like,

I think it was a Nike commercial, but it was like Grunkowski and Tom Brady and like, I think Grancowski throws a snowball at the house and then another kid. Like it's kind of like their kids. Yeah, yeah, playing some backyard football. Right.

It doesn't, it just at the end it says Nike, you're not seeing like Nike shoes. Right. All over the place or even the way like Red Bull. Yeah. If you go on the Red Bull Instagram, there's not one thing that really.

says much of anything about any drinks, I don't think. Yeah. I think it's all more like lifestyle. It's more like what they believe in. Yeah. They support like those extreme games and different things like that. So you see a lot of that on there, but you don't see them being like, hey, this has this much caffeine and this is what this does.

They obviously don't need to do that the same way anymore. But yeah, it's interesting because it's hard to do that when you're like when you're Nike or when you're Red Bull. yes, probably dumping an absurd amount of money into things that have a very indirect return probably makes some sense. Yeah. But when you're just starting out, you need people to know the name. Yeah.

People to know where to order. As I was saying before, is it got to be pragmatic about it. And I think that's kind of what led me there was knowing I've done both things. I've done a business that, yes, bro-science. I don't want to describe bro science like I wasn't, I wasn't passionate about it. At a time, I absolutely was. At some point, I've outgrown it. But it showed me that here's something that I can get a lot of success from and also know that it's maybe not the most fulfilling thing for me.

And then I did the car show, which showed me that I can be very fulfilled, but this isn't sustainable. Like I can't pay my bills with this. I can't really, this is too much of a, this is a dream right now. And I need to live in reality. And so marrying those two together leads me here to be like, okay, well, I know this is a viable business. Maybe it won't be as big as BroScience, but I know that I can make money doing this because I have. And how do I make it the thing I wanted to move on to creatively next? I'm going to infuse all those things I learned from both BroScience and NARPM, the car show, and design what's next for me.

And that's what I did. And I was like, okay, I know it feels as fulfilling as the car show. and it has as much potential as bro science to survive. And that's just how I approached it. A lot of challenges making clothing. Yeah, I thought I knew the business until I got into the business. I had a friend. He unfortunately took his own life years ago.

Super nice guy. It's like it's really rare that meet people in business that give you like the keys to their, you know, he was one of those kind of dudes. But anyway, he created kuzzi. you, which you must have seen that brand. It's a hunting brand. But, you know, he, so I went, I went over to his facility. It's in Dixon, California, which is kind of near where I live. And he just, he told me, like, everything. Like, I thought he would be, like, secretive, like, some things are, you know, IP or this or that. He told me everything. And he told me, like,

the show to go to this show. He's like, you know, go to this show. He's like, to have all the stuff you're looking for. And I was like, okay, cool. So, but I didn't really realize why he did that. He, he did that because he realized how hard it is. It doesn't matter if you lead someone, you know, doesn't matter if you lead someone to the water. They're still going to have to learn, you know, if they, if they can drink it for themselves. Yeah. Anyway, you know, so like when I went to this show, you know, I went and there was one company had zippers, so you got the zipper on there, right?

And I'm like, oh, these are really cool. And I was like, I like the fabric and I like, and so I go and I try to communicate with somebody and they didn't speak English and I went to someone at the booth that did speak English. And I started communicating with them. And they're like, no, no, it's just a, I was like, oh, oh, you're just the zipper. Yeah. Okay. So, okay, so you only make, okay, you only make zippers.

And then I'm like trying to figure out patch the clothes together and everything out. And it was a lot. It was a lot to try to figure out. So that business seems to be. Yeah. Really difficult to piece together. And, you know, you don't want anything to break or be cheap or. Yeah.

There's a lot of things that you got to account for. and it's way different than just merchandise. And yeah, so I was like, I know the business. I didn't know the business. You know, I had some idea, but I learned a ton from it. I really learned how to run a business. Like I said before, pro science is all profit. Like I knew how to be an entertainer and make money doing it.

I wasn't really running a business. And now I am, and it's a crash course in it, in some ways more than I bargained for. And others, I'm very excited to be able to do it. learn from it. But yeah, clothing, a lot of challenges. It's tough too because all the different sizes of people, the way that people are built different. Like, hey, do you, you don't have that in a medium? Yeah, the inventory breakdown, the way it's the, and I'm very, very particular about how it fits. That's the most important thing, quality and how it fits. So I'm always spending so much time, like the minutia of, you know, half an inch here, a quarter inch here, the body's got a drape like

this. And if the shoulders are down here, this will do that. And I just like really invest so much time in that where a lot of people might be like, this is fine. This is, this is, this is clothing. It's good quality. It fits normally. Put it out. But I'll be like, nope, several more rounds of samples. So much time. And now we're not selling the products. I'm not making the money. And you're like, buck, I got to get it done. But I'm not, I'm not going to skip this crucial step. So, you know, when you're selling merchandise, it's like you have a blank t-shirt that you know fits well. You print on demand. Quality's there. You just sell the stuff, you know. Well, it's different too, right?

Because people just, with bro science, people wanted to like rep it. People wanted to, like, know, they wanted other people to know that they know about it. Yeah, and it's a novelty shirt. You know, it's funny. Yeah, it's like you're buying it for the humor as well. And it's just totally different business model. But I'm glad I landed here. And you guys make everything, shirts, pants?

Everything I'm wearing right now. The shirt, the hat, I have these cargoes that are dropping on Saturday on the 9th. Yeah. We don't make shoes yet. We make random accessories. There's a basketball that comes with this one. We do everything. Damn.

That seems like a huge undertaking. Yeah. I think I saw you with the jacket. Yeah, the outerwear does really well for us. Our last thing was this reversible jacket. And that was complicated to make. I think there's good timing. I think that, you know, the,

I think it's good timing. you know, men a lot of times only learn how to shop at like one store. That's, that is, yeah, that's the demographic. Like, I'm, again, I'm looking to myself to, as a starting point to create whatever I do. But just having something a little different, that's not the Lulu Lemon or having something a little different for wherever the guy normally shops or wherever the wife normally shops for the guy. Yeah.

Maybe the guy sees something from you and it's just a little different. And then someone's like, oh, wow, it looks really nice. Like, it's just, it's not, you know, I guess you don't want things to be like so over the top that it's, It's almost like picking a name for a child. You don't want the name to be so absurd. No one's ever heard of it, but she wanted to be unique. Yeah. That is kind of the customer base I go for, where I see myself as someone who a lot of my identity and physical appearance is based around the gym and how big can I look in something.

And that can stunt your style bit, you know, as the years go on. And then you're left to be like, okay, well, I've done the gym thing and I feel good about my body or I'm just kind of like not as obsessed with that. and I want to dress maybe a certain way or I want to dress differently or I'm not sure how to dress and I don't really know where to go, so I'm just going to shop at the same store and wear the same thing. The way that I use methylene blue is very similar

the way that you're using it. I don't use it every day. I think things that push that button to change your mood, you might want to be a little cautious with it. In my opinion and the feelings that I get from methylene blue, it does change my mood a little bit. It's a mood enhancer. When I go out and run,

I feel like I do have a little bit more endurance. I do feel like I can breathe a little bit a little bit better, but that could also be, I've been training very hard as well, so it could be an adaptation to that as well. But as we've had, you know, David Herrera and many other people come on the show before, they basically just say methylene blue is a electron donor and it allows the body to utilize energy just more efficiently. And I don't know if I can feel that per se, but I know that I feel better when I'm running when I'm using methylene blue. Yeah, post sessions of grappling. That's what I usually use. I use it two or three times a week. Post sessions,

Jiu-Jitsu, I always feel like I have more energy, like much more energy than I typically have, which makes me understand that, you know, if I did want to go for longer sessions, I could, but it also helps me understand that I'm going to be recovering better for my next session, the next day, which is a big deal. But yeah, I think that if you guys, first off, this stuff is great because it's third-party tested, methylene blue in other sources, like the stuff that you'll see on Amazon or like random websites, there's no regulation. So a lot of people have levels of toxicity from the supplement because it's not dosed correctly. And there are other things in that methylene blue.

Again, this is something that is lab made. It's not, you know what I mean? So you got to be careful. And this is why we like using this stuff because we know it's not going to mess us up. You can go on their website. You can go on the proscriptions website and you can get a report of the third party tested methylene blue and double, triple check it for yourself. In addition to that, they have the canotene, which I, I have not used that much, but when I have used it pre-workout, I did notice I get a zip from it.

It has, I think it has nicotine in it, along with a couple other things to go along with the methylene blue. So do yourselves a favor. Check out transcriptions. Check out what they got. Strength is never weak. This week. This week, it's never strength. Catch you guys later. So I like to design clothing that helps people get out of that comfort zone with their style in an approachable way, but also a substantial enough way to feel like they are expanding. their self-expression. And so sometimes, you know, some things might be a little bit too loud for people. Sometimes they're right on the money. And we are constantly figuring that out. And I think part of the messaging with the brand as well is giving people that roadmap, giving people the bit of confidence that comes with evolving who you are. And clothing is a very easy package to put it in.

You know, it's the confidence you feel anytime you feel more like yourself. And if you can do any little thing to do that every day, you're going to help. You're going to build this little roadmap for yourself. And it means like putting on a shirt that you look in the mirror and go like, I like the way this looks on me. I like the way I look, I feel good. That little bit of energy is going to carry into your decision making throughout the day. You're going to feel a little bit lighter, more agile, and more yourself.

And so it's going to have this effect. And I'm like, how do you package this idea of confidence and give it to people? And some of the easiest ways to do that is with clothing. That's like a Dionne Sanders saying, I don't know if you ever heard his thing, but he's like, I think it's like, look good, eat good, eat good, play good. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Some sort of play on that kind of thing. When you look good, you feel good, when you feel good, you, something, do good. Yeah, do good, eat good. He says it real quick, because they're super fast. But it is important to just have confidence and to feel good. And I think as men, where I see,

men sometimes taking more risks is if they're going to lift, they might wear something a little different. They might wear, they might wear shorter shorts. They might wear like a different color than normally just a gray or a black or whatever the normal colors are. And then also being a runner, you know, I've somebody that I picked up running over the last few years. I see more, you know, pink and purple from guys than I've ever seen before. Yeah. I didn't really see like much, you know, color years ago. But again, people aren't necessarily incorporating that much into, you know, to their regular everyday wardrope. Russ Swole is a really amazing powerlifter.

And he sometimes will like, you know, just put his stuff on before he goes to the gym. Like I'll make an Instagram video. And he was just saying, you know, he goes, you know, most you guys, he's like, you care so much about looking so big all the time. He's like, you know, he goes, mainly keep that for the gym, you know, keep that for the, and he had like a tight shirt on and stuff. And he put on some other stuff. what he put on like this fanny pack. I'm like, damn,

the guy looks like a million bucks going to the gym. Yeah, you kind of forget about that. You get too focused on one thing and you forget that like, you know, life and your,

your self image is built from multiple things. And if you put it all on one pillar, it's pretty unstable. And I think as gym rats, a lot of us tend to put it on one pillar for me too long. And then you realize like,

hey, this whole thing that I started to like help with my insecurity is actually making me more insecure. So I'm like, yeah, it's because you need more pillars. You know,

and I realize that, myself when the gym sort of felt a bit stale and I wasn't feeling that great about any of these things. I started skateboarding again. And I stopped skateboarding because I was afraid to get hurt and then ruin my gains and get small. And so I stopped skating for like 15 years. Oh, wow. And I picked it back up again in like my mid 30s. And when I did, I found it made me enjoy the gym much more because it alleviated the pressure that the gym held as like the only pillar of my physical self-expression, my self-worth or my identity or even the hobbies I did or the physical activity I did, I was now spreading it out over different things and it allowed me to, in some ways,

like put more effort back into the gym. So I think that's an important aspect. Yeah, the gym is a strategy. Yeah. Right. And skateboarding is a strategy like just dealing with life, dealing with stress. And, you know, you can kind of get as weird as you want with it. But like for some reason, maybe at a certain point you were like were so locked up in the gym doing so much gym bro stuff that you're maybe your body was like getting tighter and maybe you wanted to you know getting more into um exploring some of these other things that you wanted to explore maybe literally your body just wanted more movement yeah yeah it's crazy there's a lot of things and it did too because i i was doing i was skating for like two hours a day and then lifting

pretty much every day of the week and i got i got so lean But part of that too was, I remember skating was like really the foundation of where like all my Identity came from my sense of style and in self-expression and when you're a lot of that is how you dress a lot of that is how you You look it's an aesthetic visual a whole entire thing it's music it's everything Yeah, and so when when I was younger I was remember seeing guys skating that were a little bit more muscular always looked a bit strange And again this is way 2001 so like there weren't a lot of jack guys. Even got a little bit of muscle, like as a kid, you're like, that looks a bit weird. Like it looked better when they were like skinnier and like it just fit more. And so the guys got the

mobility of a trash can. Yeah, exactly. So when I started skating and I was a bit heavier, um, it looked a bit odd. It was top heavy. It just like didn't, it's like, I don't like the way this looks on a skateboard. And then unlock something and me to be like, oh yeah, there's multiple ways to look good. And not that I wanted to get smaller out of shape. I was just like, this isn't everything. such a narrow minded way of seeing myself or seeing aesthetics. And so then I just lost weight because of how much activity I was doing. I was eating a ton and losing weight and I got pretty shredded.

And that looked good for skating, but I was like, I think I might have gotten too thin. And then you get a good foundation now to build back up. And then I gain like 20 pounds. And I'm like, okay, I'm at a good place now. And it was all these things kind of working together and like experimenting with it that actually eventually made me in the best shape I've ever been. And I was, you know, at a time for that only focusing on the gym and really getting nowhere. Skateboarding probably brings in some athleticism, right?

Some rotational work. Oh, yeah. You're sore in the weirdest places. Like your feet, the arches of your feet are sore. Like your hip flexors, that's probably even more obvious. But like it's a lot of rotation. It's like two hours of plyometrics. It's like, yeah, it's, and you can get into a flow state really easily.

I have a tough time with just like steady state cardio. But I can skate for two hours. That's crazy. You left it behind for so long. Dude, but that's what I mean. Like the gym is healthy as it can be and as great as it can be, it can be really damaging to your life as a whole. Like I literally stopped skating. I was really good when I was in high school.

I literally stopped because I was afraid to get hurt and lose my gains. And I just like abandoned something that was so important to my life. And it all worked out because it led me here and I'm very, very happy. But it's crazy to look at and know that, what am I?

am I giving all this up for this? Like, yeah, I might have gotten hurt. Maybe I didn't start pro science, whatever, whatever. But like, the idea is being able to look back on that and then make a more well-rounded decision in the future and be like, what is really important to me? Again, like having done all these things, I can now say, here's what I want to do next. Harder to say in the moment. That's why it's important to take stock of that and then, you know, design your next steps

based on what you've learned. I think you also probably got leaner just you were doing something you enjoy. Doing something you're like, so it's easier. to put more time into it. Yeah, you're out in the sun, you're getting tan. You know, it's fun, yeah. That's really cool. You've had the clothing brand for five years, you said.

Yeah. What are some of the things coming up that you're going to be working on to try to get the brand name out there more? So one of the biggest things we needed to do for the brand to scale was to scale back. So there's a lot of random success in the beginning and you're trying to recreate it,

And it's leading you down rabbit holes that you think are the way and you're spending money and it's a little bit misdirected. And I realized I needed to scale a lot back in order to understand the brand and understand the foundation. And I cannot scale until I have a solid foundation. And I think that's an important lesser for anything in life. You need to build a really strong foundation on which to build. Because otherwise, any success you might make might fall apart because it's unstable or it came from, and a lack of understanding of what the groundwork is. And so I spent the last year kind of deconstructing the clothing we make,

the way we drop it, the strategy, the inventory we have, the price point, and really understanding every single aspect of it. And now we finally achieve that, and everything is going really well. The drops are selling out. We're ordering the right numbers. And so the next thing is, once that is stabilized, we can start to experiments a little bit more. Now we have some money to order restocks.

And with those restocks, we can invest in cold traffic and meta ads and possibly affiliates or bring people onto the brand. Where before, if you're running a drop model, when it sells out, that's great. But you can't scale a brand when there's no products to sell. So you have to have something in between while still keeping up some of the exclusivity and just all that balance. So for me, it was checking off the, just the stability and foundation of the brand. And next, it's, I want to grow it through the products mainly. You know, I think there's so much of my life I've looked at something of like, how do I grow this through virality?

And I really believe in the clothing we make. And I want that to be so solid that this can help grow the brand on its own with the right. strategy and infrastructure behind it. And that will unlock some more funds that we can use back into the media to bring, you know, strategic partners on board. And I think I don't, I don't think I'm going to go like the normal affiliate route. I think that's a pretty watered down, hard to compete with. But I like the idea of bringing somebody on that is just another me.

Somebody that is younger, has a different audience, has a different perspective, maybe even different sense of fashion, but really connects with the brand and, you know, bring them on in a material way where it's like, you know, see how they perform, see how we work together. And if it's a fit, then it's somebody who, you know, maybe has a piece of equity in the company. And, you know, just instead of just scattering it a bunch of people that are a little bit too disconnected from it, I want it to feel purposeful for whoever is involved. And right now, it's me and some friends and, you know, an important message. And there's a lot of very, very, very, very, loyal customers. I think our customer return rate is 73%. So, you know, yeah, I think I just want to

make sure we are delivering the best products possible and let it scale from there. It seems exciting, especially because you're, you know, you're having like limited runs on some stuff, right? So then you're probably getting an idea and then, you know, you're probably trying to put that out there on social media a little bit. And then maybe the idea changes a tiny bit. So you're kind of running and gunning like early days of a business, you know, even though you're already five years in. But I remember those times with, with Slinghot, it was just a lot of fun. There's a lot, there's so much fun having to like figure out these problems or these situations as they happen in real time.

Like, oh, shit, we already put that on the website. Oh, crap. We already sold some, you know, we didn't actually have the inventory all the way. Or something, I don't know, just weird stuff always happens, right? Yeah, yeah. But it was exciting. And it's, it was a lot of fun. And things with slingshot, I've had the business for a long time.

So I don't have as much to do with like the day to day operation anymore. But I just remember those times being exciting and they kept leading to better and better results. And I think that's the attitude you have to have. Like once you unlock that ability to see challenges and setbacks as exciting opportunities to learn, then it's like you are unstoppable. Because it's, you feel very stoppable when it's early on and things go wrong. you're like, I'm sunk. Like, I don't know how I'm going to do this. And I think it's important to know that you'll never not feel bad about that.

Like it'll always sting when something goes wrong. But like letting that emotion happen, pass through you and get right on to, okay, because this went wrong, I have really valuable data that I would not have if it went right. And when it goes wrong and you can have that excitement of like, I get to learn and I get to solve this problem. And because I have this, now I have unlocked an even bigger potential for my brand because we've learned something from this. that and that is just opportunity to grow. And I think if you have that mentality where you're excited about these things after you've, you know,

taking the moment to take the hit, that's when you really start to embrace it and it flourishes from there. How do you and your team deal with, you know, something happened that maybe gets interpreted as negative, you know, something gets fumbled, something gets a little messed up? How do you guys auto correct for that? Um, it, uh, it is ultimately my responsibility. I, I, I, what, who, like, whatever happened, I have to look like, what, what, what, what, what could I do here to improve this? Even if, like, it is somebody made a mistake. Like, as a, as a, the, the manager of this. Did you not communicate properly? Yeah. Yeah. Could I, could I, could have done something better here? Is the wrong person in the position? Like, even down to that. It's like, once I've satisfied all those things, like, okay, I know I'm doing my job as a leader and a manager.

then I could start to be like, okay, you may have dropped the ball and how do we correct that? Sometimes it comes down to they're the wrong person for the position and they're just messing up. But you cannot know that until you do your job properly as a leader because otherwise you don't know what they'll be able to be capable of if led properly. And right now it's a really small team and we have trimmed the fat of a lot of people who just were not right for the brand. some people who were, but just the paths were different, and that's okay. But when something goes wrong, I think there's, I'm just, it's a better skill now to be like, okay, well, so that didn't hit like we thought it did. What happened here?

Okay, let's look at it. Was it, you know, the price point, was it this? And we get to analyze these things. And it just becomes a creative problem solving session and no longer a fuck, what happened, we're screwed. It's just you turn it into a puzzle. Yeah, yeah. And then when something does happen, that is someone's fault, you know, like I said, I communicate very clearly what, we talk over what happened, right?

Like that's where, like, all right, where did this fall apart? We try to see where my responsibility is and I'm like, hey, okay, next time, it's always about looking forward, right? Like, you guys might have dropped the ball here, but in order for you to not drop the ball in the future, it could help if I did it this way as well. So if I give you this amount of communication and understanding and we meet a bit more often or we do this next time, then I'll be sure that you guys can have everything you need to do it right. And that helps people feel a little bit easier taking accountability as well, which is hard because if you just come at me and be like, you're wrong, you're like, well, you didn't do this. And then it just becomes no one's solving anything and you didn't and you didn't do this. So when it's seen as let's find a resolution instead of let's find someone to blame, everyone's a little bit more quick to take accountability because no one wants to make the same mistake twice.

Like because they fucked up doesn't mean that they want to fuck up again. And if they're like a little bit hesitant to own it, it doesn't mean that they're going to want to fucking do it again. They're going to want to really not do it again. So like how do we help each other not fuck up again? And that should be the goal. And I think that can be used in any relationship, business, romantic friendship. It's the goal should be how do we improve from here? How do we find a resolution and how do we make it work for everybody? And when you do that, you also can learn who

and what isn't right for you. If you've done all those things, then you could say this business partner, this romantic partner, is not right for me because I've done all the things and maybe they've done the things and it's just not working or they're not stepping up to the plate and it's easier for you to make a decision on when to let go. It's probably you in the company, I would assume, Is there anybody else that's with you on like, hey, this sucks. Like this t-shirt that we tried to make. It's just, I know we're on our fifth iteration of it, but it's lousy. Like, let's make a better one.

Yeah, I think we. Not that you're all getting negative. I'm just saying, like, maybe just being real. Like, this is not a good problem. I'm not surrounded by yes, man. I'm surrounded by people who I have a trait that they want to lift others up, but constructively. I don't want people who just blowing smoke up my. and neither do they. And so we work well because we have, we value,

has to say that especially in fashion. Someone's gonna say, hey, that doesn't look right. And yeah, we always do that. And it's like, it's because we value and respect each other's perspective and we've sort of vetted through this process. We know there's, when you, when you trust somebody's code or their integrity or they've shown up in a number of ways, you take their criticism a lot better. Because you know where it's coming from. For instance, somebody might have some notes on something, but they're not notes that might make the product better. It's their notes that they want to put on the product. They want to put their stamp on it. And you don't know if they're actually

providing valuable feedback because, you know, there's some other questionable things about how they operate. So you go, is this actually good feedback? Or are they just trying to put their own thing on this? Or they just doing it for their own self-interest? And so when you can trust the people you're with and know that they operate with a certain code, you really do, value their criticisms. You do value the challenges they have to what you're creating and you don't see it as a threat. You know, I want to know what my friends think and what certain people think, but I also don't want to hear criticism from other people that I don't think is going to be valuable. Sometimes it's just too much noise. You can have it designed by committee all fucking day long.

You know, do you like this? Do you like this? Eventually, you just got to make what you believe in. and you keep that circle small, you keep it honest, and you stay, it's how you stay fast. In lifting, we used to say lift it perfectly or lift it whatever way you can, meaning like, you know, sometimes the weight's just getting heavy. And you do have to just, you know, okay, you lifted 90% of your max and you did it really well, but now you're at 95%. You know, now you're at 98%. Now you're at 100%.

You know, same thing with making any product. there comes a time where you're like we'll have to that's the best execution we can handle for now I would like if it was able to be a little bit better if I can wave a magic wand but we'll put it out there we'll see what happens with it yeah yeah and then we'll come back around and you're always shooting for excellence you're always shooting for the best but you there's a lot of reasons on why you can't just make something like super perfect you know like even even with my my protein powders and stuff. We try to make them as natural as we can, but it's processed food. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It's it's protein powder. Yeah. Yeah. You know, it's like this is, you know, it's way protein. It's

it's beef protein isolate. It's collagen. It's all these different things. And then to make it taste good. It's like, well, I have to have sweeteners in there. I have to have to have flavoring in there. And so we've actually made ones that are like unflavored. Yeah. Yeah. For people that just want to have it be as strict as, you know, have it be stripped down as much as possible. Yeah. But yeah, there are a lot of reasons. And when you're making products like you're making, I'd imagine you're faced with a lot of challenges. What's been the hardest thing to make?

Like, is it jeans? Is it shorts? Is it shirts? Is it hats? Is it? The hardest thing to make, I think... Or the biggest challenge you guys had? I think overall pants are the hardest thing to make. It's just a lot to try to accommodate. And when you're trying to keep your inventory selective,

it's just making sure it fits as many people in the way you wanted to. And with style evolving and your own style evolving, it's like the little measurements here and there. I think we also put a lot of functionality into it, and we're asking a lot of the manufacturers. We work primarily with one, and they do a really good job. And so, like the pants I'm wearing now, they zip off into shorts. They got the toggles at the bottom. They have a built-in belt. The material is just very nice. It's not something you'd normally find in like a cargo pant. And so all these things, we have to learn from every time we messed up. It's like, all right, the hips are too wide on this pair of pants.

Let's fix it on here because now we know how it's going to lay. And it just takes a lot of back and forth. And so in that process of getting these blueprints down for how it fits is the most challenging part. We can go back and forth on how big an armhole is on a shirt forever, and only to find out it's not the arms, it's the shoulders. It's like, I don't really, I didn't grow up with a fashion background. I'm learning as I go. So, and then it fits really important to me, like you got to learn pretty quick.

And yeah, there's, I think the most challenging part is them just making mistakes, is the manufacturer making mistakes in the sampling process. And it costs so much time. And that time is so valuable when you are running on a drop model because you're like, here's where I make my money. And now I have to wait another month to make my money. how am I going to pay for the next drop if I haven't had to close it. It's just like that's where it gets really challenging.

It's like you said, like do we stick it out to make it perfect or we just execute right now? I don't think I've ever pulled the trigger on something I don't feel completely confident in, but there's a piece of everything I've looked back on and be like, we can do a little bit better here. I think it's a good attitude to have. Like not that I put it out early or rushed it. It's just we put it out and with enough time and experience, you learn, okay, can do a little bit better. And now those pieces that we feel we can do better on

are getting smaller and smaller and less frequent. And now we're like, these are things I'm confident in. I can build the brand around these. I can say, do this one again. For instance, we have our jacket sizing down perfect. And I love that. Maybe over the years we'll add half an inch here just to accommodate certain styles and things we learn.

But like right now, this is the blueprint. And that makes everything go so much faster. We can delete four to six weeks of sampling, time by just saying these are the measurements, use it from this. And that took probably three years to figure out. I had a really weird issue with knee sleeves many years ago where it was pretty crazy, but like we were just getting these discrepancies in the knee sleeves and we weren't really sure exactly what was going on. But the customers, you know, would say like, oh, you know, the one side fits fine, the other side doesn't fit well, or the one side's baggy and the other side's.

And then what I was grateful for is that at least it was consistent. It wasn't like the right was messed up one time and the left was messed up another time. It was just all the left knee sleeves were all kind of screwed up. And what it took for us in that process was for us to communicate to our manufacturer and not only to the manufacturer, but to the actual people that were like running the knee sleeves through the line. What was happening was they weren't recalibrating the machine. And so it was off by just a small amount after they run so many hundreds of thousands or

whatever, niece leaves through, it has to be recalibrated every X amount of time or whatever, right? The thing's heat up and all kinds of different things happen. And so they were just off by like, I don't know, like a half answer. So were they running all the right ones first and then do it? I was going to say like that, okay. I was like, isn't that crazy? Yeah, they'll run all the right ones and they don't calibrate it. So the left ones are off. It's, it's fascinating what you learn when you have to solve the problems of your business. It's just something like that where, you know, you can allow that to like drive you completely nuts or make you crazy. Or you can just say, all right, well, this is what we're dealing with. And okay, we have a lot of customers

that purchase these knee sleeves that are messed up. But now it gives us another opportunity to communicate with the customer again. Hey, how do we make this right? You know, we've never had this problem before. What do you think we should do? We would love to offer you this if you're willing to accept that. Is that okay? You know, it's like, but it ended up being great. Like, so these things that happen in business a lot of times, and just in life in general, where something you think is like kind of the end of your world or the end of the world to you they a lot of times our blessings and disguise are going to give you an opportunity to do a lot better in the future hopefully you can fail fast but maybe not fail so often but fail quickly and learn learn from

those mistakes yeah i think that's the great way of looking at it and the blessings in disguise it helps with the sting a bit to go if i didn't if this didn't happen you wouldn't know that about the machine you wouldn't know that it needs to be calibrated now that you know that there's There's possibly a bigger order or a bigger product in your future that won't get messed up by this because now you know. And you would have never learned that if it went right. Because when everything goes right, it's just a series of things working out perfectly and sometimes it's luck. When it goes wrong, you have to dive in. What fucked up here?

The machine. And now that it did that, you have the confidence to know to check that. So you can be like, this probably would have happened in a bigger way later on that might have been more harmful to the company. So that's the attitude to have of looking at these things where, yeah, it sucks, but like, be thankful because if you learn from it, then it is a win. What do you do from a diet perspective? Just track my macros. I have a meal plan, and I eat pretty consistently on the weekends.

I still like to go out and drink sometimes and eat whatever, but, yeah, it's pretty balanced. I think it's just... When you eat whatever, do you track that? No, I think when you, I think the... Isn't that funny? You track the healthy food and you don't track it? Well, what I learned from it was like I tracked for a while and I would track everything. And then I stopped and I found I was eating more whatever more often.

When you have a frame of reference of like I've done five days a week and I know that I've done them perfectly, now you have a bit more freedom to be like, I can afford to just do whatever the fuck I want. When you're not sure, like when you're not budget. properly you feel guilty every time you spend money but if you have the budget then you know exactly how much you can fucking blow on dumb shit so that's the same way with the diet like the balance to me was like I've done both and I thought there was more freedom and not tracking it but really the freedom comes and being like this is assigned for my diet and this is a sign for fucking off essentially and and you know I'm happy with it there's times when it gets a little

bit like heavy on the side of fucking off but you know I It'll correct and I like where I'm at, you know. You know, it's interesting because, you know, we all have these, you know, particular goals and, you know, it's great to get leaner. It's great to get bigger. It's great to kind of go back and forth. But usually what you learn for yourself is like, well, I just kind of need to stay somewhere that's like that I'm happy with. That's super manageable for me. Yeah.

And not really worry too much about the other things. And yeah, you can always like tweak and get a little leaner for like three weeks or something. But usually that's, usually that's when your luck runs out. Yeah. And your body's like, yo, like, you need to like start giving me some more calories again. Right. Yeah. It's the sustainability is a big part of it. You know, it's how it's not that you're complacent. It's just you want you want to be as good as you can be for as long as you can be. And that's, that is a factor where sometimes you have to spread it out a bit. You can't just be like, I'm going to be max shredded, max jacked forever. Because then you're like, I'm actually miserable with doing this. And then maybe you're that way for a year or two. and then you just fall completely off the wagon, and you're like, my body fell apart. Versus like, you know, maybe I'm pretty good where I'm at,

and I'm going to do like the absolute best over a bigger time period. Do you do some cardio type stuff or mainly just lifting weights? Skateboarding, yeah. I would like to get over the hump of being good at running, but it's just. Oh, yeah, it takes months. Yeah, yeah. It takes months and months to do it.

Um, I still have a lot of time either, especially with skating. It's time consuming. I, I even have a hard time finding the time to do that. Um, but, you know,

yeah, I think I need to prioritize it more because that is a huge factor of just longevity and health where I'm like, okay, I can, I think I could take maybe another day off of lifting to do some cardio and get it in there because now I'm like, yeah,

you know, age is a factor, getting older, got to stay healthy. No one really likes these for some reason, but I think it's really beneficial is just to do some walk runs. Yeah? Just walk and run.

Like, I don't know why it's not appetizing the people. Like, maybe it doesn't, like, get to the brain the same way as, like, just constant, like, run for five miles. It gets to you. I think for me, being unfamiliar with, like, running in general, it feels like I'm not doing enough. Like, I'm just, like, not running. Like, this isn't enough cardio.

You need to actually be running. Yeah, I think, I think, you know, for someone your size, and stuff like that and you probably have a decent fitness level, especially with the skateboarding and stuff. I think if you were to just go on like a, like just try it, you know, sometime next week, just go on like a three mile walk run. You don't even have to really jog necessarily, except for maybe in the beginning to warm up. Yeah. And you know, you're not trying to run super fast. But you're, you're actually like where someone would be like, oh yeah, he's like, he's running. He's not just like

trotting or jogging or shuffling. I think he would like it a lot. Yeah. And if you just did like, I don't know. You do like six or eight runs and then that's it. Yeah. Just in between the walking and like you can mess around on your phone. Like I do business stuff like I mess around on my phone. That is way more appetizing. Yeah. That's way better than yeah. Just trying to run for three miles straight and be like this is I can't fucking do this. Yeah. Yeah. Running, you know, running kind of out of nowhere and trying to run three miles straight. I think people do they, there's a part of that that they like because of the toughness of it. Yeah. And then the walking and running back and forth. I think people feel it's not tough enough or not hard enough. Yeah, yeah.

But it still give you a great cardiovascular. And you can maybe just run for like 30 seconds. Yeah. Walk for a minute, run for 30 seconds. And as you get better at it, maybe you will string together sometimes where you're just like, oh, I've got to just run the whole thing. Yeah, probably. Yeah.

Thanks for coming on the show. Really appreciate your time. Thank you so much. Where can people find you? Where can find your clothes? You can find the clothes at the shell corp.com. Instagram at the Shell Corp. I post a lot of stuff on my personal Instagram at Mike Tornibney.

And soon to come YouTube stuff on that channel as well. well unfortunately there's going to be no more bro science for this foreseeable future but if you want to check out some old stuff bro science life on YouTube and at Domazetti on Instagram thank you so much appreciate it strength is never weakness week this never strength catch you guys later bye