Mark Bell's Power Project - Power Project EP. 148 Live - Set Backs are Set Ups

Episode Date: November 30, 2018

Set backs are just set ups for come ups. Today Mark Bell shares a story about his friend who was going down a bad and unhealthy path and used a set back as a set up to get his life together. ➢SHOP NOW: https://markbellslingshot.com/ Enter Discount code, "POWERPROJECT" at checkout and receive 15% off all Sling Shots ➢Subscribe Rate & Review on iTunes at: https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/mark-bells-power-project/id1341346059?mt=2 ➢Listen on Stitcher Here: https://www.stitcher.com/podcast/mark-bells-power-project?refid=stpr ➢Listen on Google Play here: https://play.google.com/music/m/Izf6a3gudzyn66kf364qx34cctq?t=Mark_Bells_Power_Project ➢Listen on SoundCloud Here: https://soundcloud.com/markbellspowerproject FOLLOW Mark Bell ➢ Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/marksmellybell ➢ Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/MarkBellSuperTraining ➢ Twitter: https://twitter.com/marksmellybell ➢ Snapchat: marksmellybell Follow The Power Project Podcast ➢ Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/MarkBellsPowerProject Podcast Produced by Andrew Zaragoza ➢ Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/iamandrewz

The button has been pressed. Oh my goodness. Detonation in three, two, one. Right? Yeah. That can happen. It can. Good squatting today, huh?

Today was, I will admit that it was tough. Not so safety squat bar. I was just going to say the worst name, well, second worst name, second to sissy squat. Sissy squat. That's a worse one. Yeah. That's a trick. Well, the safety squat bar is like, hey.

It's okay. Your back hurts? Don't worry. It's safe. Oh, your back hurts down right there? Yeah. okay. Let me do everything in my power to make that spot hurt. It literally feels like you're stacking as many plates as you possibly can, and you're trying to balance them just right on your head.

And it's just compressing you down towards the earth. It feels awful. Safety squat bar. Yeah, and then. Safety squat bar. Yeah, and then you have somebody, deep breath, get your breath, and you're like, I can't breathe. Or see. You can't do anything. I don't, I mean, I like it because, yeah, it is hard, but then when we go to a straight bar as opposed to the gay bar.

The gay bar. Yeah, the straight bar, it just just it makes it feel so much better and i mean i guess that makes sense right yeah it's uh it just it changes the center of gravity i think is what it's doing you know it just uh gives you something different to do and maybe for some people out there maybe using the safety squat bar would be easier but for me it feels a lot harder it feels like it wants to just hunt you over it feels like it takes your like it forces you to use your lower back a lot. But then I think you just realize how weak your lower back is.

Yeah. And it feels like your quads are on board with it. Your quads are like, yeah, this is fine. What you're doing is fine. Your lower back is like, no way, man. Like, what are you talking about? Like, we can't even keep our chest facing, you know, facing the wall. It's facing the ground.

Yeah. And then I tried to cheat by basically leaning back to get my chest up and I let go of the bar. I had to have somebody help me up. That was really weird, but I came back and I got it. But once we went to the straight bar, we were, I like to say we're teabagging Satan, the low, low box, super low box. But Lauren had a hard time with that one where I didn't. He was saying that bothered his back a lot more than the safety squat bar. Using the straight bar.

Yeah. Yeah. Well, that one is like iffy because we were just going so low. So low. You know, and for him, it might, you know, he's like 6'3". So maybe it's a little worse for him. Yeah. A little bit more travel.

Low box and then elevated with the plates. Yeah. It felt so good. Yeah. It's a good way to kind of like stretch it. It works a little bit similar to the way that the leg press does where it's pushing, you know, it's pushing you in a way that maybe you otherwise wouldn't normally be pushed. And you're going in a range of motion that you, you know, wouldn't normally go in. Yeah.

going in a range of motion that you wouldn't want me going. Yeah. And then the leg press, of course, the leg press of doom, getting stuck in there. But then switching that up with hammies also, the single leg ham curl, I don't know what it's called. That machine's great. Single leg hammy. What's it called? There it is.

Single ham hock. Moons over my hammy. Moons over my one ham. That is a good exercise, though. But yeah, we got through a lot. We got through some variations of some squats off some boxes. And I switched from the safety squat bar to the straight bar and ended up doing higher reps with the straight bar and lesser weight. So that's a good thing that a lot of people that follow this program, a lot of the people that follow Mark Bell's Power Project, you can implement this into your own training very easily.

We like to start out a lot of our workouts with a heavier weight and then we go lighter and we'll do like double, sometimes triple the amount of reps. Yeah. Sometimes it is a little like, you know, you do the heavy weights, you know, so I'm going to do a set of three. Okay. Once I survive this, it's cool. And then when you drop down the weight, it's like, okay, I'm going to do a set of three. Okay. Once I survive this, it's cool. And then when you drop down the way and it's like, oh shit, we're going to wait, wait, how many reps? Like 15? Like, oh, like, okay, let's go.

But it just, it feels so good though. It's tough. It's tough to get through it, but it brings up your conditioning and, you know, we're not, we have, you know, we all have a similar goal of getting better. That's a very general thing. There's a lot of different ways to get better. And so for us, it's like, okay, well, let's try to get better at everything. And so we, uh, you know, we're not unfocused because of that, but we are, we're like, okay, well, we want to get the most out of going heavy, but we also want to end up with the benefits of doing reps. We want to kind of get that time under tension. Um, and for

you, the time under tension is really practical because now your body is also learning how to do the movement. You're getting your quote unquote reps in. Literal repetition of learning the exercise. And that's one form of coordination. Just like shooting a free throw would be a form of coordination. But another form of coordination is like your central nervous system being on board with the amount of weights that you're doing. And that's a very specific sort of coordination. And that is like a real genius thing to possess is the ability to be able to move and express

your movement and move in a fashion that you just don't crumble under the weights. It's really a magnificent thing. And I think that it's, I think it's really overlooked. I think you're just like, oh wow, that's crazy. That guy squatted 900 pounds, but I think, I think there's a lot more going on than just that. Yeah. And then just for yourself, like just knowing that, yeah, that didn't crush me. Like that's, that's where I'm at right now. You know, cause of like when I was, when I was just warming up, I'm like, oh my gosh, like how am I going to get through today?

And then eventually, you know, got up to a plate and a quarter with the safety squat bar and got through that. And I just, now I'm like, yeah, fuck you squat bar. Yeah. It's all a big, it's all a big learning process. And you, you're, you're, you're right. You said trying to figure out how to get through it. You know, you're trying to figure out how to get through it.

Well, I'm going to get through it the way i got through other exercises the way i've got through other workouts i'm going to toughen up right now and i'm going to you know i'm going to see if i let me just double down let me just concentrate here for a second not worry about whether my knee hurts or my back hurts or whatever let me just concentrate on lifting this damn weight and and getting in there and just doing the exercise like everybody everybody else in the group's doing it just fine so why don't i just stop being a puss get underneath that weight and just lift it no 100 that's the same like the exact same thoughts that went through my head because i'm like man i i didn't i didn't wake up early enough to to eat so i'm like okay oh shit oh man i'm

gonna be weak or whatever right and it's like oh my back kind of is a little bothering me because this damn bar and like what the heck my knee's starting to hurt and then i look over at you and you're just you know three plates like it was nothing and like okay come on like you're gonna be fine like just relax well that's why we live together that's why we live together you we lift in a group we try to lift with each other and other people and it's so you know when i'm lagging and you've seen me lift it's not like you're gonna necessarily grab more weight than me but you've seen me lift, it's not like you're going to necessarily grab more weight than me. But you've seen me lift and you're going to be like, dude, like, what are you, what's going on? What are you doing? You don't feel like lifting today?

Like, would you get all dressed up for nothing kind of thing? You know? So we're not doing that fitness stuff anymore. We're going to move on to something else. Yeah. We decided to show up today at 530 in the morning. It's like, you know what? You know, we, we got up early.

Like, let's just, and not every day is going to be a great day. You can't make, you can't force every day to automatically be awesome. But what you can do is you can acquire enough knowledge over a period of time that you can make every day great. And that's what we talk about on this podcast and welcome to Mark Bell's power project. I appreciate you guys tuning in. We appreciate all the fans. We appreciate you guys commenting and writing. Andrew is the guy behind the keyboard who's writing over there back to a lot of you fans. And keep the questions flowing, man. We love them. We love when you guys have intelligent questions, not just something about how do I get a better lockout for the bench,

which I don't mind answering that either. But I think we have more to provide you than just how to improve the lockout of your bench press. So, you know, keep those questions free flowing. And Andrew is, uh, our podcast engineer. I am your host and I have been powerlifting since the age of 12. My 42nd birthday is coming up. Um, I like to mention these things. I like to say these things, uh, to give you guys an introduction into who we are every single time and pretend that you never heard of the power project before. Um, when I turn 42, I'll be celebrating 30 years of lifting 30 years of being under that iron. And, uh, it's been power lifting all the way. You know, I did, I did bodybuilding. I did a bodybuilding show. did professional wrestling i played football i did track i boxed i did all kinds of things but i'm not a boxer i'm not a

football player um i'm not any of those things i'm a power lifter that's that's what i am and i have invented things and i have uh three united states patents but i don't really even consider myself an inventor although that's one of the things I am more proud of is having those United States patents, because that's a big deal. And that separates you out from the pack a little bit, right? But I identify myself as a power lifter. I'm also a dad. I'm also a husband. And obviously those are the most important things in my life. Lifting is something that makes me very happy. And I love, I love to lift. I love to be able to over a period of time, lift more weight or lift more weight, weighing less or lift more weight as I get older or have a PR in a

particular weird lift. That's not just a bench squat and deadlift because it's hard to get better at something all the time when you already achieved and acquired a reasonable amount of strength. The same as it would be hard to, for LeBron James to get better at basketball, but it'd be very easy for me to get better at basketball, right? Like I just, I'm awful. So any practice would help me to get better. But these are the things that I'm trying to teach. I'm trying to coach you guys. I'm trying to honestly be the people's coach. I do want to help people. I want to reach people. I want to make an impact and I want to help you not only have better lifting, but have a better life. And I, I'm not arrogant or cocky and thinking

that, uh, I can solve all your problems. I certainly do not believe I can solve all your problems, but I can help you work through your problems. And I can certainly have you commit to just understanding that you have all the faculties, you have all the things that you need in your body right now to do a lot of the things that you want to do. You have everything in your mind, everything in your, in your mind, in your body, in your spirit, your, uh, your strength level, your, all these different things

that you have in your body, the amount of muscle you have. Uh, we have the same amount of muscles. You and I have the same amount of muscles, no matter where you're listening from, whether you're in freaking Argentina, Germany, or New York City, or wherever you're at. We have the same number of muscles, right? We have a lot of the same things. We have a lot more in common than we do that's not in common, right? I've told you guys before, my struggles in school. You look at me finishing school with like a third grade reading level and you would think, all right, well, that guy's an idiot. The guy's just a jock. He's just a lifter.

Right. But I was able to acquire other skills by working on them, by thinking of them. And the dream and your goals don't stop just because somebody said or because you felt that you were dumb because I felt that way. I've been stuck there before. And something I want to talk to you guys about today is I'd like to, you know, I know we have listeners of all various age groups, but I think there's a lot of great things to share. There's just different things that I hear that I like to share with you guys. great things to share. There's just different things that I hear that I like to share with you guys. And one thing that really clicked with me today that happened was that setbacks, you know, I like to look at, I like to look at certain words and kind of almost cross them out,

not erase them because it's important that you can still see them, but just put a line through them. Something like a setback should have a line through it. You should take a pen, write the word out right now, write down setback or setbacks. You may have had more than one in your life. You write that bitch down and you look at it and put a line through it. And instead of saying setback, you got a setup.

It's a setup for victory. It's a setup for the next chapter of your life. It's a setup for the next chapter of your life It's a setup for the next change You're with a girl right now and for whatever reason she she's not reciprocating the love back to you. It's not working out You guys are just not compatible. It's not working out. You're not getting the message You couldn't be any more heartbroken about it. This is a really hard setback for you. No, it's not a setback. Cross that bitch out and get ready for a setup because now you're going to find the right

person. Now you're going to find the perfect person that fits you and that fits into your lifestyle, that fits into your needs and you fit into their needs. That's the way life works, ladies and gentlemen. That's the way it is. We're all going to have set it is we're all going to have setbacks we're all going to have things that happen to us that that suck sometimes they're not like horrific um like for example you know trying a 300 pound deadlift and not getting it

that's not horrific nobody had to die for you to you know be able to deadlift 300 pounds a few weeks later. Uh, so not everything in life has to be so tragic or so, um, uh, or, or such a setback like that. But even those setbacks, even when somebody dies, it is a setback. It is devastating, but I've dealt with a lot of death, death in my life. And I can tell you, they've all been setups. They've all been setups, not for something better necessarily. Um, but it's been setups towards, uh, opening your eyes and almost getting an opportunity to like relive your life. And the reason why this whole thing clicked with me today is we went and saw a very good friend of mine. Um, he's been on the war on carbs diet. His name is Scott Fuller. And, uh, he's been on the War on Carbs diet. His name is Scott Fuller.

And he's been a friend of mine for years. He's not only a friend, he's actually part of the family because he's married in this kind of weird way. And it's a lot to try to explain. So it's pointless to try to explain that part to you. But we are related. We're not blood, but we're related in some way. Connected in some way, family-wise. Anyway, Scott had life happen to him.

He's 48 years old. He's probably about 6'3". He's a big guy. And he got up to close to 300 pounds. He was living his life. I don't think he was thinking about it too much. He's a medical professional. And in the medical profession, what do you do? You care for other people. Other people's lives

are on the line because of you. Other people's health is on the line because of you. You care for other people. You care about their health. And a lot of times you end up caring about their health more so than you care about your own. But how many times have we seen that happen with an electrician, a plumber, somebody that is a tech person, or whatever profession it is that you have? We've all kind of let go of our own. We've got stuff that we need to take care of, right? Absolutely. Unfortunately, I'm just thinking, okay, I have access to cameras all the time.

I know what the hell i'm doing the last time we took family portraits was like two years ago you know it's just one of those things you know electrician their houses has wires everywhere you know it's but yeah so for um scott that's basically what it is right yeah it's yeah it's the same. And a lot of people, um, and, and also maybe like Scott is like, he, he's very, very intelligent, but also a lot of physicians are probably very smart and they're like, man, I don't just don't who, like, I don't want to dig into that. I don't want to, I don't even want to see what's underneath there. You know, like, I just don't even want to, they're going to know all the ins and outs

of how bad things actually are. It might be a mechanic who like, doesn't want to look under the hood you know this is i know this car is a piece of shit even though i get to work on uh you know fancy cars all day long or whatever i don't even want to i don't even want to look at what's clicking and clanking underneath that thing yeah like i have an idea that my oil is low right now but if i check that means i have to take care of it and it's like uh it's only the most important thing of your whole car right and it's like quit being so damn lazy it's kind of like the only maintenance that you need to do other than put gas in it correct yeah and

it's like if i know that it's kind of low like it's stupid of me to not check it just to make sure goddamn automobile yeah i know i heard uh uh, uh, I forget how to say his last name, Degrass Tyson, right? Yeah. Is that how they're named? Yeah, Neil Degrass Tyson. There we go. Neil Degrass Tyson. I heard him on, uh, Joe Rogan's podcast and he talked about, uh, Christopher Columbus coming to America and how it's the... That's a, I love it. Yeah. Yeah. It's really cool. It's a great conversation. He talks about how it's the most important thing to ever happen in the history of human beings. Um, where, where I would, where I would disagree is, is, um, and you know, all this is up for some huge debate. Um, you know, but Michael Jordan, Duncan from the free throw line is pretty rad.

No, somebody right now listening is like, Dr. J did it first, you know? Yeah. But, uh, further back know yeah but uh further back too i think yeah further back with the afro yeah but you know when you think about it's it's hard to compare these things but man the creation of an automobile is is and and it's like you know i know henry ford didn't necessarily make the first car and and right there's other people that are probably credited. It's hard to figure out and it would have happened anyway.

And you can say the same thing about Christopher Columbus. It would just been someone else's name. Like people were on their way here, you know, as it was anyway. And there's debate on whether he actually quote unquote discovered America or whatever. Well, obviously there's a lot of other people here too. There was people already here. Right. Correct uh that's a whole nother uh conversation but even i guess i guess in in his uh argument him saying like hey look this act of him coming over here and showing other people that you could come over here that makes sense because now it's, we didn't, we didn't really know if that world existed, but because of what you did now, we understand it. And I think a lot of the stuff

that I teach on here, a lot of the stuff with diet and nutrition, people don't realize there's a whole nother world out there for you. You, you don't know the truth. You don't know, you don't know what lies beyond what you can see. All you know is what you can see. All you know is what's in front of you. Yeah, and I had this, like the same like awakening yesterday because my fiance's friend came over and we're trying to help her out with like exercise and diet.

And, you know, she's going to hop on the war on carbs also. And then she's like, so can I have sweet potato? It's like, no, like just no carbs. Okay, what about a regular potato? And you know, it's like, it's just so crazy. I'm like, so does she, is she playing dumb? Like, does she genuinely not know the difference between a carb and not a carb?

Eighth grade health class, right? Then they go over like starches and stuff. I mean, it's not like they don't like somebody, a lot of times people are like, Hey, they should teach us in school. Well, they kind of do like, they don't teach that much in school, but they, they go over carbohydrates and stuff like that in school and protein and fat. Yeah. So I told her, I'm just like, how, like, it's impossible. Like we all know, like, you know, we're supposed to eat vegetables and we're not supposed to eat cake every day. And she's like, well, no, because when she was younger, she was just super thin. So she never had to think about it. She never had to make a choice of like, do I need to cook or go to McDonald's? Like, well, obviously I got a car now. I'm a teenager. I'm

just going to drive to McDonald's because that's a super easy choice and it tastes better than anything I can make. So she never had to actually even think about food and then one day she woke up and was like oh man like what's going on here like i'm tired like joints hurt like what's what's right how did this happen and so now we have to try to educate her on like no like this is what you need to be eating right not this other stuff and so it was that moment where i'm like does she really just not know but yeah she she doesn't because she never had to think about it right so it's interesting yeah i'm not exactly sure where christopher columbus you know started his voyage from right uh it's like uh south like uh oh my gosh i'm killing myself um well because the hard thing is i can't say like oh he he went to uh he

discovered the cubans first right right because the unfortunately the culture that he discovered the Cubans first. Right, right. Because, unfortunately, the culture that he discovered, he got rid of every single one of them. Right. It was like a mix of Central America and somewhere south. Right. So they were like a combination of a couple different things. Right, right. And then eventually he made his way to central america and a lot of people don't know this he got rid of 95 percent of everyone that was here oh my god

what do you have a nuclear weapon he just walked up and said hey how about some chicken pox or smallpox like here you go um i'm super torn on the whole Christopher Columbus subject because for the, like I'm Mexican American. Right. So yeah, I can say that like he got rid of 95% of my ancestors, but at the same time, if he doesn't do that and doesn't have his men rape the women, I might not be here. Right. It's such a weird twisty turny thing. Yeah. And who knows, who knows not be here. It's such a weird, twisty, turny thing. Yeah, and who knows what the hell. Yeah, but anyway, so he basically discovered,

so when he came over. He came from the Indies or something, right? Yeah. But wherever he came from, this is what I'm envisioning for a lot of people, is when you start to go on a diet, and when the diet is just better than what you were previously doing, and you get hooked into it, when you start to go on a diet and when the diet is just better than what you were previously doing and you get hooked into it and you start getting results for someone like

Columbus, who, you know, got to America, wherever he, wherever he was from, wherever he came from, people are probably like, I wonder when he's coming back. And it's like, I'm not coming back. And the same thing can happen with your nutrition. The same thing can happen with your exercise, wherever you're at currently right now. I know it's hard to see. It's hard to understand that you could end up way the hell over here. But once you do, once you do end up on the other side of the world, it literally feels like a new world to you. And it's not hard to abstain from eating the junk food. It's, it will always be difficult. There'll always be some level of difficulty to it. Um, and some people are more attached to food than others, but you, you will feel better from eating healthier food than you

will feel satisfaction from eating junk food. You'll get to that point. It's a wild ride. It's a wild thing to experience, but this is where my friend Scott got to. This is where Scott Fuller got to. And he had to come to this realization from a setback. He was just at his house. He was 300 pounds. He's thought about going on diets before, but he was never, most people have to be forced into stuff. We've talked about that before. If you're not forced or backed into a corner, why would you learn anything new? Right. Why would you, why would you bother to take care of yourself? If everything's been fine, if I've been skinny as a teenager and I can eat McDonald's, why would I, why would I cook up chicken breasts at home? Yeah. You don't learn until there's like some

force or some power, uh uh powers that be at play well scott fell on his stairs at home he was just walking down the stairs i don't know if he's getting a cup of coffee or getting some water in the middle of the night or what he was doing and he was wearing some flip-flops and he just took the wrong his flip and flop then flippy flopped and he just fell and he ended up like with one leg back behind his body and one leg out in front of him. He tore, um, he tore some quad muscles. He tore his, uh, patella tendon on both legs. So here he is 47, 48 years old, tears up both legs and is, you know, uh, stricken to a wheelchair for a while.

And while he goes through this process, he starts to get depressed. He's not feeling great about himself. He, um, he and I, I'm not sure exactly how we got in contact. Like he and I've known each other for a long time. And I did mention he's part of my family, but I don't know how we kind of like rekindled or how or what happened but i actually think that maybe a family member told me he fell and he went he went through some hard times and i know from being a professional wrestler that when somebody's hurt you reach out to them because it's devastating it's it's devastating anybody listen to this show you know anybody that gets hurt they break break something, they fracture something, they tear something. Please contact that person. Please pay a visit to the hospital.

You don't understand how much value that provides. Like people are scared, man, when they get hurt. It could be something minor. But if someone gets like if someone gets jacked up enough to where they end up in the hospital, you should try your best to go see them. Like who knows how long they're there for. That's shit that people won't ever forget. It's like showing up to somebody's wedding, right? There's some things that some people won't ever be like, man, that guy, I remember he

showed up to that shit, man. That was, that was awesome. Like people don't forget that. But anyway, I think I might've reached out to him because I heard that he fell and he tore some stuff up. And then we got a little bit of conversation and bada bing, bada boom. We got him on the War on Carbs. And I started going over some diet information with him.

And at the time, the War on Carbs book wasn't even quite out yet when he started his journey. And I said, hey, I just got done writing a book. Let me just send you the PDF. And he's like, shit, you got a book? And I was like, yeah. So I shot it on over to him. And he started to follow a lot of the principles in the book And he started to lose weight Um, he followed the principles in the book. He cut out a lot of carbohydrates

It wasn't difficult for him because he's a meat guy. He loves meat. He loves eggs. He loves cheese. He loves bacon of sausage He loves all these things And he wanted he wanted a change, you know, but he needed this setback to happen. But this setback really turned into a setup and it set up for a better life because we went to go see him today and man, I was excited when he opened the door. He looked great. I haven't seen him in a few months. He looked awesome.

Yeah. I never seen him prior, but he looked good. Hey, it looked good. He's in, he's in good shape. He's probably six, three and about 240 or so. And, um, you know, it was just great to kind of help him through this process. But I think that he didn't think like he even kind of said that he didn't, he didn't really know, uh, that he was going to end up in this spot. He didn't, he didn't know exactly where this whole thing was going to take him. He knew he was going to give it a try, but I was, uh, reassuring to him. And I, you know,

said, look, man, just all you got to do is follow what's in the book. You know? And then he started kind of asking some side questions here and there. And he'd say, Hey, well, what about like Mexican food? Can I have some of that? And I said, we, I said, we can get to that. We can, we can get to a point, you know, like, let's, let's, first of all, like what, what's your goal? You know, he's like, I just want to lose weight. I said, okay, well, let's, let's knock off like 10 pounds and then we'll start to figure out like, you know, what else you want to do. So we took it about 10 pounds at a time, which is a good idea for everybody listening. That's a great way to do it. Cause 10 pounds is not a huge amount of weight. If you're a smaller person, maybe you go five pounds at a time, but 10 pounds, you know,

at a time for this guy who weighed nearly 300 pounds at the time was a good way to do it. And as we progressed, we talked a little bit more about goals and he was like, I want to get to, you know, I want to get down to 270. And so we got him to 270. When he got to 270, I said, Hey, look, man, this is going to be hard, but you got to start to wrap your brain around 250. You know, we got to start, we got to start thinking about what that's going to look like. Cause you made it this far. You already proved yourself.

You know how to lose weight. And you know, the great thing about him was in that he, he, he just listened, you know, the stuff that's in the book, it's all there, all the information's there, but he also just listened. I said, you know what? Just the book, it's all there, all the information's there. But he also just listened. I said, you know what? Just, just try not to eat carbohydrates, eat more fat and start to cut out your sugar and just go for some walks. You know, as soon as your legs feel a little bit better, just go, you need to walk anyway to rehab your knees and rehab your legs.

So, uh, get your ass moving, get moving, you know, get one foot in front of the other and get out there and start moving. He started to, uh, to end up having really great progress, started to lose, you know, five pounds, 10 pounds, 20 pounds. He started to feel better. He started to feel better about himself. He started to actually physically feel better. And he's like, you know what, this is, I need to, you know, I need to hit the gym.

I need to, cause that was something I shared with him. I said, if you want to gain all this weight back, only diet and don't lift, you know? And so he, uh, you know, he's former football player. So he's like, you know, I need to get back into that anyway. So love that shit. So he got back into the weights and everything. And now everything worked out the way that it did, but, you know, again, the setbacks that you have, that it did, but you know, again, the setbacks that you have don't allow those things to make you quit. You know, just look at them as being a setup towards something else. Maybe something just happened to you like recently, and you're super bummed about it and you're sad and you're depressed about it. Well, look at this guy, look at this one example. There's millions of examples.

Um, but look at this one example, this guy trips, he falls, breaks, breaks up both his legs really bad. And, uh, he could have sat around and felt sorry or sorrier for himself. And he could have ended up by the time he got out of the wheelchair. And by the time he, uh, you know, got well enough to get back to work, he could have been 330 pounds, but instead he's 240 pounds. So, you know, that's, that's the way we got to, we got to, we got to take, we got to take this as a challenge. You know, you have this setback and you got to take these things as a challenge and you got to figure out a way to stand up to him. Why do you think he was so welcome to the idea of actually like putting in the work? I think there's two reasons.

Number one is because he knows my story. He knows that I was big before and he's seen me over the years. He knows I was big and fat before. So if I say, if I, if I'm trying to share information with you, I'm trying to share a message with you. It's, it's a lot easier if I said, I've done this before. Like I've been down this road before I've handled this before. And so therefore I can probably help you handle the same thing.

I've been in your shoes. I've been a big guy before. I love all the same shit that you do. I have horrible eating habits. I have horrible sleep habits. And, and I'd rather stay up at night and eat cereal and watch football. You know. I would rather sit there and watch SportsCenter for the 50th time that day. On repeat. On repeat. But I also know that that's not really what I truly want. So I think for Scott, I think he recognized, hey, look, Mark's done this before. I've seen him lose his weight, and he's done it through this program. And I'm going

to give it a shot. I think the other thing too, I think he was ready. A lot of people are ready. And that's where it's important to communicate with people, you know, talk to people. If you, you know, if somebody, you know, is addicted to drugs or alcohol and they're in a rough spot, you know, you don't have to jump on them about, Hey man, I know you're a fuck up. That's not going to solve anything. You know, Hey man, we know why you always late. Why are you doing this? Why? None of that's going to help at all. The only thing, the only thing that you can do in that situation is say, um, Hey man, you got some time to go grab some coffee or get some lunch. Then that's where you would find out how their, how their life is going. And you, you,

you would know right away, you know, they don't, they haven't made any changes. All they do is still complain. Everything's everybody else's fault. And then you would kind of know right away, Hey, look, you know, this person still has a drug or alcohol problem. The problem isn't anybody else. The problem's them. And that's when you can, you can either take the road right there to be frank with them and say, listen, you know, the reason why I took you to lunch was I, I, I want you to know I'm here to help you. Whenever you're ready for help, I'm here. I can, I'd, I'd love to, I'll, I'll take you to a treatment center.

I'll, you know, whatever you, whatever way I can support you. But I, I, I recognize this as a problem. This is not going good. And that kind of straight talk like that, it kills people. It's fucking devastating. Devastating to even bring up. It like hurts your heart to talk that frank with somebody. And it's going to hurt them too.

But what if for the last five years, they've been just praying. They've been praying, praying, praying every day. I just hope to God somebody comes along and tells me to knock this shit off because the second that they do i'm gonna at least try what if they're what if they're there what if that person's there what if it's the same thing with food what if you're you know 300 pound aunt who has diabetes what if she's just been praying for someone to say something to her What if she's just been praying for someone to say something to her? Not say, hey, you're fat as hell.

What's happened here? Not anything like that. Just say, hey, what's been going on? How are you doing? And then they're going to say, well, you know, I'm not feeling so great. I haven't been out of the house in two weeks. And they're just throwing that line out there for you. They're just throwing it out there for you. Like, Hey, you know, help me.

Just hoping, even though they'll probably be hesitant because you're going to want to, or they're thinking like, Oh, he's going to take all my, all my treats away. Yeah. But yeah, they're right. They're like, they're fishing for help. Yeah. Hoping you get that hook. That's right.

And the second that they, uh, start to give you excuses and stuff, you can cut them off right there and you can just say, you don't have to say, I'm not listening to any of your bullshit excuses. You don't need to say anything like that. All you need to say is I'm here whenever you're ready for help. Yeah. But listen, I'm here whenever you need the help. I'm here. Yeah. But you know, I, I, you know, they let me off my job and I've been kind of different. Whenever you're ready, I'm here to support you. I'm here to help. And I can buy you a book. I can take you to the gym. I can whatever you can help with. The other thing on that is don't say anything too outlandish that you can't do, because that's not good.

That's, hey, I'm going to come over here and walk with you every day. And then if you can't, then it's like, that's definitely not a know that's hey i'm gonna come over here and walk with you every day and then if you can't then it's like you know you just that's that's not that's definitely a not not a positive thing to do i'm gonna help you meal prep but i gotta do mine first so then i'll maybe make it over to your place i'm not sure that's awesome yeah uh like i was telling you earlier um cool thing i heard in a book. It's funny. If you don't change your mind, you can't change your mind. But if you keep doing what you're doing yesterday, or if you keep doing today what you did yesterday, then tomorrow is already set.

What that means is if you ate like shit yesterday and you keep eating like shit today, tomorrow you're going to eat which means you gained weight yesterday you're gonna gain weight today you're gonna gain weight tomorrow so if you did that for the first well let's say with we're in december now almost did that for this whole year and you haven't changed anything it's gonna happen again next year right it's pretty crazy so it's actual like um for for some people like I used to be this way, like I needed to see like actual fact like factual info. So if you change your mind, you physically change your mind, meaning, you know, you wake up at the same time every day, you go to bed at the same time every day, you work at the same place every single day, you eat the same crappy food every single day, your brain is already hardwired to do that. That's what it does. Then all of a sudden one day you decide to wake up early and go to the gym or just even go for a walk or wake up early and meal prep. Your brain's like, whoa, he changed his mind. He or she changed his mind. We have to make this new tunnel in our

brain to connect these two wires that were no, that they weren't there before. And so now blow the smoke off and blow the dust off. Exactly. And like it physically changes your brain. And so it's funny. Cause like, you know, like someone like Ryan Spencer that we both have high admiration for because he's, he's in the gym at 4 a.m like every day and then he runs home cooks food for his family and then goes to work and he's a beast he has a pretty important job i don't know exactly what he does but he nobody does he does something important i look at him and i just be like oh he just has good habits uh you know he's just been doing it for a while but it's like no his brain is actually has a different makeup now because he's been doing it for so long.

And then so I'm thinking about that. And I'm wondering, like, you know, people, they don't really understand when it comes to like, well, how's going to the gym going to help me do better at work? Like, that doesn't make sense. Like, it's not going to help me, you know, speak better in front of people. It's not going to help me get my job done quicker. But no, like, you understand, like like it will because your brain is now different like you're going to be able to figure shit out a different way because you're you're like i said you're making these weird connections in your head that weren't there before well not only that but i mean exercise just says so much for your brain i mean there's so much science behind it um to the the human the human mind uh some

people it's some people's belief that the human mind like the the the brain that we have uh it's kind of unbelievable what people think it's for it's it's not it's not what you or i would typically think of of why we have this brain. I'm pretty smart, so I mean. And why it's supposed to be able to do all the things that it can do. But there's a lot of people, and a lot of people are a lot smarter than me, that have been studying this for years and years and years. There's people that believe that we have a mind,

we have the brain that we have for advanced movements period end of story right and when you actually start to think about it you're like well no well wait what about like you know my like um you know like when i interact with andrew and then like he upsets me. Cause like something he said like that, that doesn't have anything to do with, you know, advanced movement. And it's like, okay, well, what you just said also doesn't have anything to do with evolution or survival. You know, Andrew, uh, communicating me to me in a certain way and making me sad, it really doesn't matter. I didn't mean it though, man. Like, you make me feel guilty. Yeah. Yeah. Why you got to make me feel sad? I didn't mean it.

But, um, you know, the, the human brain is, is mainly for advanced human movement and the brain actually has to grow for you to be able to do, uh, more advanced movements. It sounds wild, but I mean, that's, that's the facts of it. And, um, you know, exercise is huge. Exercise is a huge part of the, a huge piece of the puzzle. Um, yeah, you can manage your weight through food and you can do it that way. Um, but really I, you know, I think it's a really weird thing. Cause I, I think what a lot of people are trying to chase after is happiness. They're trying to chase after being happy,

but I think being happy, uh, it's, it's only, it's like a made up thing. It's not, it's not a real, it's, you're not going to be any happier, uh, tomorrow because you reach some goal and you are today. It's just not going to happen. I mean, you'll be happy for a little bit and there'll be some self-fulfillment from that, but fulfillment and happiness comes from working your balls off. That's when it, that's when it really hits. That's when you really feel good. That's when you really feel substantial. That's when you really feel strong about what you're doing in your life and with your life is when you worked really hard towards something and for something. You know, it's, you know, obviously, like, if you gave somebody a bunch of money, it's going to make them pretty pumped, and you could give them life-changing money, and that's kind of different, because who the hell knows what they'll do with that.

Maybe they can turn that into a lifetime of happiness. Like, maybe they could figure some things out. But if you gave somebody, 5,000 bucks, it's not going to really do a whole lot. 10,000 bucks. I don't really do a whole lot. It'll make you feel good. And there's things you can do with it. And then you can have, uh, some sense of financial freedom for a short period of time where you purchase something or invest in something. And maybe the money, you know, turns into something else, but it's really, it's really not truly what you're after. You're, you're trying to, um, you're trying to be significant. You're trying to be substantial. You're trying to be somebody. And in order for you to be somebody,

you have to be healthy. You have to be strong because you have to be important to the people. It's cool to be important to a lot of people like this podcast is and like the gym is and stuff like that. That's great. But that's nothing without me being important to my wife, without me being important to my kids, without me being important to my dad. And then I can't be important to those people if I'm not living my life the right way, if I'm not making the correct choices. So that's really what it boils down to is you're not, I think a lot of people are trying to like, they're running towards happiness. They want to kind of chase that.

But if you did everything that makes you happy, you'd be one fucked up person. I mean, cause you'd be drunk, you'd be high, you'd be cheating on your wife and girlfriend or whatever. Right. I mean, you'd be all over the place if it just was like just boom, impulse of everything that you think would make you happy. Just leaving your DNA everywhere. Yeah. Yeah.

And then also like. Squirt emoji. Yeah. And if, you know, you are important. So it's like if, whether it be a fan or your family came up to you and was like, hey, man, I'm really having this hard time with this diet thing. And you're like, ah, it, just have all the carbs you want. Eat sugar, eat candy, and just have at it, buddy. It's like if you don't actually have the knowledge or whatever,

it's just not going to work out. You can't be a phony. Yeah, you have to be kind of all in on whatever it is that you're about to embark on. And it's important, too, for you to go off on your own journey. You know, you're going to learn a lot of stuff from other people. And there's a lot of great information out there. But you know, when I'm talking or you listen to somebody like Joe Rogan or whoever it is that you find, uh, kick some good wisdom your way.

When we mentioned other people on this podcast, we mentioned Aubrey Marcus. Boom. You should be like writing that shit down. Be podcast, we mentioned Aubrey Marcus. Boom. You should be like writing that shit down. Be like, who's Aubrey Marcus. So Aubrey Marcus is the owner of on it. And on it is probably like, I don't know,

a hundred million dollar a year company. I don't even know. They, they execute really well. They kick a lot of ass. Right. That's all you need to know. And,

and, uh, Aubrey Marcus has done a great job with that company, his own podcast. He's written books before. Um, he seems to be just a cool dude that you should you should find out what the hell he's got going on yeah if you want to kind of you know

you want to try to um you want to further educate yourself you don't want to just take my word for it and you don't want to just take your dad's word for it you want to take your own word for it too so you want to kind of investigate and poke around and then you're going to take something Andrew said, something I said, uh, something somebody else said in passing, something your best friend said, you're gonna take all that shit and you're gonna throw it in a blender. You're gonna blend it up real good, throw some MCT oil in there. So you got a good poop story and you're going to drink that. And that's, that's going to be, uh, that's going to be what you digest the best because it's a blend.

It's a blend of a bunch of things that you maybe halfway believe, you know, that this guy said, Hey, you know, a low carb lifestyle is a way to go. Maybe you halfway believe in something that somebody else shared. And so you take, Hey, why don't I take that low carb lifestyle that those guys were talking about? And why don't I take, you know, what Lane Norton's talking about with tracking my, my calories and why don't I track my calories, but follow a low carb lifestyle. But you know what? I also think that some carbohydrates are good. So I'm not going to be on a keto diet. That's when you start to make your own decisions. And that's when things start to get really good. And that's when you get into a rhythm, you get into a spot where you just become,

you become very, very strong because now you have people that you believe in or people that you believe, you believe what they're sharing with you. You have your own beliefs and now they're all matching up together. They're aligned. Remember I talked about alignment before. It's really important that your, that your messages are aligned with each other. You're not going to be able to get anything done. If you're,

if you're veering off this way and veering off that way, you got to streamline it. You got to stay, you got to stay on task, get to stay on point. And you may veer off here and there. That's going to happen. Uh, you're definitely going to do a lot of things that aren't conducive towards your

end game, towards your goal. But you're going to have to figure out a way to get back on track. The best way to get back on track is not to ever get off track too far. There's something else I want to share today with you guys is, um, you know, this is, uh, not a hundred percent related to what we were just talking about, but when, but, but it is, it has everything to do with what we're talking about. Um, when you think about, you know, somebody that's a winner, you know, you think about somebody that wins somebody that gets ahead. And we've talked about this before, you know, diligence is the mother is the diligence is the, is the mother of, uh, you know, good luck, right?

Like people think that good luck and fortune just happens, but people that have good luck and fortune in their life knows that good luck and fortune happens because they work really hard. They put themselves into the correct position. Um, they, they get themselves in, in, in the right spot at the right time, um, in order to, in order to be able to make the play. Right. And, um, I mentioned this the other day, you know, baseball players up to bat and, uh, and I mentioned this the other day, you know, baseball players up to bat, and you got a, you know, there was four righty batters were up in a row, and now a guy who's lefty comes up. Well, the infield and the outfield, they shift around a little bit. Why are they doing that?

They're trying to align themselves into a better spot so they can make a better play, right? It's your job every day to align yourself with what's about to happen in anticipation for each day. That means prepping your meals. That means knowing when you're going to work out. Why would you start any day without knowing when you're going to work out?

You should at least have an idea of when you're going to work out. If working out is a priority to you, if it's something that you want to do, think about things in your life that you set up that happen every day. Maybe you end up eating dinner with your family every night. Well, if you end up eating dinner with your family every night, well, that's something that you commit to and you do a pretty good job with that. You're there every night. You're there every

night at 530 or five o'clock or whatever time it is. Well, why can't we just take that and say, okay, well, that's that time. And I wouldn't compromise that time for anything. Once you take that and put that into a workout and maybe you don't have to work out every day, cause maybe that's like too much. Like maybe you don't, you maybe don't need to work out that much. Maybe you do need some rest and recovery. Who knows? Maybe some people are right about that, but you can probably, you know, reasonably insert two or three workouts a week. Um, and this is a really important thing for people to do is you want to try to think about the advice that you're getting. Are these things practical? Are, can these things actually be done? The things that can actually be done, the things that are actually easy to do are things that you actually be done, the things that are actually easy to do

are things that you can do. There are things that you can handle. There are things that can fit into your lifestyle. You don't want the rate of difficulty to be a nine or a 10 just to get started on something because you're just getting started and it'll probably be worse, you know, over a period of time when you have more stress, when there's more stuff going on with your kids, when there's holidays and this going on and that going on. It's going to be too hard to implement some of these things. But you have to be pragmatic. You know, that's that's an important word. And if you don't know what it is, get yourself a dictionary.

Look that shit up because you need to figure out what's practical. You need to figure out what's worth your time this idea of pragmatism means really just to be practical, right? It means dealing with things sensibly and realistically there you go sensibly and realistically And when you think about sensible and realistically That's the same thing as saying. Hey, is this worth my damn time? right I mean, what a what a great what a great uh what a great way to educate yourself throughout the day throughout the weeks throughout the months is that worth my time do i need that could i possibly use that

is what this guy is sharing a is it easy for me to consume? Because first things first, if it's not easy for me to consume, I'm out. Like if it's going to be way too hard. Now, if you do need to learn it, then that's a different subject and you have to kind of, you're going to have to figure out a way to make that work. But is this something that's even worth your while, worth your time? Is this something that's going to be useful to you? Those are all things that you want to try to consider. But when you think about somebody that wins, somebody that ends up with a W at the end of each day, and when you think about the times that you've done it yourself, we've all won, we've all lost, right? How long should it take you to get something done?

Well, if you're a winner, a winner does something until it gets done. They don't stop until they win. They don't stop until they get a victory. You want to try to figure out how can you set up each day like that? How do you set your life up that way? How do you set your workouts up that way? Let's say that you start a workout and you, let's say that for the day you scheduled out to do some bench pressing. You lay down on the bench and first thing, oh man, shoulder's say that for the day you scheduled out to do some bench pressing, you lay down on the bench and first thing, oh man, shoulders not feeling good. Okay. Well, we got some, we got some options and one of the dumbest options is to continue

bench pressing. Option number one is warm up more, go do some bicep curls and go do some lateral raises and get, get the front delts and rear delts and get everybody all warmed up. Get your body all warmed up. Get it on board with what you're about to embark on. Okay. You go back to the bench and you're like, oh damn. Like, okay, that didn't help at all. It did nothing. Now you want to start to think about, okay, maybe I can get away with wearing a slingshot for today. Really, the other thing that should be in your head too is maybe I'm just not going to bench today. Who cares? It's not the end of the world. Find something else to do. How else could I work my chest if my shoulders bother me? Well, I could

do flies. I could do a bunch of variations of flies. You can do dumbbell flies. You can do flat. You can do an incline. A fly movement's not going to hurt your chest at all. Maybe you can find a machine that you can do for the day. Maybe you can't work your chest because your shoulder's dinged up, so you got to do some back work that day. Maybe you got to just audible and do something totally different. That's the way things are going to be. That's the way things go. That's the way things are laid out for you. You're going to have these things that come up that you think is something that's in your way but all you have to do is audible and go towards something more sensible something that makes sense

and you can still get some of the results you're looking for but in order to get a victory you can't ever stop you gotta you can't let go of these things you gotta figure out a way okay i really wanted to get a good workout in today that's not working so great and if i continue to do it then i end up with a loss in that category for the day i don't want to i don't want to put an l next to my workout um i don't want any of that shit in my life i want to try to win i want to try to get victories and you can you can set all this stuff up yourself if you have a specific day that you decided, you know what, I'm going to have at it with my food on that day. Well, that day is not a loss. A loss would be

if you went off the rails and did something that you, that you had no conscious thought of and you just did it. That would be, that would be a loss. You want to at least think about it for a second. You want to say, you know what, like, okay, like, yeah, I, you know, I, my cheat meal was, was Saturday and it's only Monday and that pizza looks good, but I'm going to hold off for, you know, until, and, and just try and try your best with that. You know, those things are hard to do, but as Andrew pointed out, once you start to change your mind, your mind has changed for you, once you change it your your mind is like hey that's what we want to go towards remember we're talking in the early going about you know explorers coming uh you know to america and people probably like hey when they coming back like we ain't coming back we found we found

the most promising land there is we're good um or when people started to travel out West and find gold and all that on all those kinds of things, like we're not going back to that way. We're not going back to that other world because the world that we're in right now feels great. This feels profitable. This feels, um, this feels like a place for growth. This feels like a place for opportunity. They call America a land of opportunity, right? Yeah.

We're, we're in the, we're in the land of opportunity, but you want to create your own land of opportunity. They call America a land of opportunity, right? Yeah. We're, we're in the, we're in the land of opportunity, but you want to create your own land of opportunity. You know, and how do you do that? You do that by being in the right goddamn place all the time. How do you end up by being in the right place all the time? How do we do it? How do we figure it out? You gotta be ahead.

The only way to be ahead is to plan. You gotta write shit down. I talk about this every day. Yeah. And if you keep doing the same shit you were doing yesterday tomorrow is already set i fucking love that quote all right i i think that's uh i think it's awesome that's from aubrey marcus no i actually i don't even know the author of this book that i got it from i'll have to go back and look but yeah you know you you talk to

people it's like oh but I can't give up pasta. I can't do this. It's like, well, you haven't tried because you haven't tried to change your mind to do it. But also it's easy for us because we've been doing it and we got, yeah, we got in the habit, but our brains look a little bit different than yours

because we've been doing it for so much. It's like, like I said, those little canals in our brain have been developed and our brain has physically changed. We have a movie to watch in a few minutes here at work. We're going to watch Death to Smoochie. I've never even heard of it, but Smokey says it's amazing. It's amazing.

It's something Smokey and I connected on early in our relationship, I'll say. Can I get a hey now? Hey. But before we run away, I wanted to share this with you. My brother, uh, shared something with me. I thought it was really cool. He said, um, that his girlfriend Lauren, um, while Chris was dieting and stuff, and he was working on getting in better shape. Um, she, she just didn't, she didn't really believe that he was going to really make such

a change. I think she's seen him, you know, drop some weight before and she's seen him do some stuff here and there, but she actually told him this the other day. She actually said, you know, I, I kind of like wrote you off. You know, I, I, I, I've seen you that I saw that you've lost weight before and done some things before, but I was like, ah, it's just Chris. Like he's, you know, he'll, yeah, he'll, he'll drop 10 and he'll gain five and I'll drop 10. I'll gain five and he'll just float around and he'll get to a body weight. And then he'd just, he'll be stuck and he'll just kind of stay

stuck and he'll come off the diet and on a diet and off the diet and on a diet. And he won't really ever get to where he wants to be, which actually that may be true. Cause my brother is like never satisfied with anything, but, um, she kind of told him that the other day and he's like, man, it like made me feel really bad. But then at the same time, it made me feel really good. Cause he's like, well, you know, I, i i guess for him he didn't even really know that he was going to be able to do it either and so that goes back to look if you're not going to believe in yourself if you're not going to have the courage which i encourage everybody to do if you don't have the courage to hit your own like button then why the fuck's anybody else going to like it

i love my own messages right i i don't mind it i i i agree with messages, right? I, I, I don't mind it. I, I, I agree with it. That's why I wrote it. So I don't mind hitting the like button on it, but you should be hitting the like button on yourself in your everyday life. You should believe in yourself enough. If you believe in yourself, other people will believe in you. We had an employee here years ago that when I first, uh, when I first got, when I first brought him aboard, um, you know, I said he did photography and videos and stuff. Right. I, I knew that he did photography, but I didn't realize that he's never done video before. And so I just asked him like, Hey, can you shoot a video for us too? And he, without hesitation, he goes, Oh, a hundred percent.

Never shot it before in his life. Who, who knew that? Just him. Who just got themselves a job? He did. Right. He, he got himself a job because he believed in himself enough to say, absolutely. And then he said, you know, he told me later on he's like dude he's like i scrambled

like you wouldn't believe he's like i never videoed anything i was like how am i going to edit this he's like i had to download programs he's like strictly just photography he's like i never it never edited like any videos my whole life and i was like dude when you showed me that video i was like wow this is great like this is fantastic i had no clue and so that's what you you know you don't want to lie to people. Right. Um, but he didn't, he didn't really lie. Cause I didn't say, have you ever done, have you ever shot videos before? I just asked him if he could do it. And he said, sure, but you do want to believe in yourself. If you're not going to believe in yourself,

other people aren't going to believe in you. Just like Lauren didn't believe in my brother, but my brother started to believe in himself more and more as he got more momentum. And that's what we're always trying to preach here. That's what we're trying to always preach here at the Power Project is you got to figure out a way to get some damn momentum. Once you get momentum, then you're going to be an unstoppable force. But how do we get that inertia? How do we get that urge to get up off the couch? Well, we're not going to get it by somebody saying, hey, man, you should come and, you know, do this power thing workout with me. We're going to do some heavy deadlift squats and, you know, bend over rows and overhead presses and all these different things.

No. Start with something simple. Put your socks on. Put your shoes on. And go outside and go for a walk. Yeah, but it's really cold here in Minnesota. Okay. Go in your garage, dust off your treadmill, walk on that stupid thing, or just go up and

down your own stairs. If you have stairs in your house or option number one, option number two, option number three, it's, uh, there's, there's, you know, there's plenty of options. If you're in somewhere, if you're somewhere where it's really cold, then, uh, walk around your grocery store a little bit more before you shop, walk around the mall before you shop. You know, it's the season now is a lot of people will probably be, I know a lot of people just hit up Amazon, but a lot of people still go out to shop. You go out to shop, walk a little further. You've heard this before.

You've heard these things before. There's not any secrets to being successful. Remember, success comes from small advantages over time. That's what it's going to come from. It doesn't come from one big chunk. It doesn't come off from ripping off one big thing. When we talked to Sean Frankel here the other day one of the greatest power lifters of all time he said big deal he squatted 900 pounds one time he's like

so what he's like i i wanted to be considered one of the greats and so i wanted to do it constantly consistently right you want to be able to put points up on the scoreboard but to have him stay there he's still in really good shape. He's still really strong. He's about my age and he benched 545 right in my face while he was here. To do things just once is not going to be good enough. That's going to mean that you're maybe a little bit better than most. But is that the goal?

Is that the goal to just be a little bit better than most or just to float around being average? The goal is to get better. The goal is for you to be better. You don't have to be better than everybody else. It's not necessarily the goal, but the goal is in order for you to sustain life, in order for you to make the progress that you're looking for, you're going to have to figure out some ways of improvement. Improvement is success. That's how I rate improvement, and that's how I rate success is by seeing people improve. If somebody comes in and they've deadlift 500 pounds and I've never met them before,

I'm like, okay, cool. It was a 500-pound deadlift. But I'm not going crazy about it. Oh, man, okay, cool. It was 500 pound deadlift, but I'm not like, I'm not like going crazy about it. Oh man, that was sick. However, if somebody that I knew had a bad back and barely deadlifted 135 pounds, but recently as deadlifted 300 pounds, I'd be fucking pumped for that. Hey, thanks man. Yeah.

Appreciate it, dude. That's what it's about though. It's about improvement. It's not, is that, you know, yes, we do want to see the men and women squat some big weights like we want to see that shit we want to see these world record lifts and stuff but i but i still i don't care who's on the platform if i don't know their story if they don't have much of a story and they've just been a freak their whole life and they just squatted a thousand pounds that That's cool. But I'm over it in 10 seconds. Right.

Right. I mean, that's true. Yeah. It's just like a bad movie. Like a bad movie doesn't sink you in with the main character. You know, if something happened to Rocky in any of the Rocky movies, then you're like super worried. You're super like, what, what? Oh man.

Like not, not Rocky or like Braveheart, you know, in Braveheart, when they slice his wife's throat, you're like, oh man. And then they give you, they give you everything back that you were looking for. Cause he gets, he, he exacts and writes all the wrongs that happen. Right. And he, he comes flying in and he gets, he gets revenge on everybody and he basically kills everybody. Right. Those are the kinds of things that get you fired up because they took their time in the beginning of the movie. They show William Wallace from when he's really young. And all he wants to do is fight from the time he's really young.

It's how the movie starts. It starts out with him wanting to fight. And his dad's like, no, I know you can fight, but it's our wits that make us men. It's our thought process that makes us men. And then William Wallace later becomes like this great leader, this great warrior, this great strategic fighter. Not just somebody who's going to go out and just bludgeon people. He tricks the English and does all these crazy things because he's outnumbered. Right.

So he's got to outsmart him. But you're not going to even care about what the movie's three hours long. Who the hell's got time to watch something that's three hours long? It came in like eight VHS tapes back in the day. Yeah. Yeah. It was huge. Yeah. Try fixing the track and all those bitches right it's wild right but like you wouldn't you wouldn't care you wouldn't watch the story you wouldn't watch the movie if if they didn't sink if they didn't uh you know sink their claws into you in the beginning you know they get you involved with him as a character. They have this woman that he falls in love with and it's, it's, they take their time.

Like the movie takes its time. That's why it's so long. But if they don't take their time and build up these characters, then you don't care. And it's just, it's the same thing with watching people lift. If I didn't see, if I don't know anything about your progress, I don't know anything about your story. How attached are we to Jeremyeremy avila seeing him hit a big lift dude yeah guy died a bunch of times and he told us all about you know he told us all about these crazy moments that he had yeah well now we're behind him now we want to see what's going on

because he went from absolutely nothing to having at least a little bit, right. With some of these big cliffs and it doesn't matter what, it doesn't matter if he's a millionaire or not. Like those things are, they're totally, uh, completely insignificant. What matters is we saw where he was. He was in a really bad spot. He told us about it and he overcame all that shit. And now he's in the position that he's in now. And he's in now and he's knocking on the door of like a 900 pound deadlift he is also he has a significant other it seems like things are really positive right there he seems very happy i mean how happy that guy's so happy so positive right yeah he's smiling giggling as he's walking up to the platform yeah he's having a blast you

know he's having a blast but back to what I said at the beginning, you know, don't chase happiness because you might be making a mistake. Happiness might be a trick. You, you want to, you want to work hard and you want to work for, and you want to work towards your goals. And as you get closer to those goals, that's, what's going to be fulfilling. That's what's going to make you feel really good. You can't have any form of success without some sort of, there has to be happiness in there somewhere, but you can't have success without improvement. And the only way to improve is to work hard.

Anyway, I got to go watch Braveheart after we watched Death of Smoochie. I want to watch Creed 2. Creed 2 is awesome. I can't wait. Strength is never a weakness. Weakness is never a strength. Thank you guys so much for listening to Mark Bell's Power Project. If you like this, please give us

a review on iTunes. Tell your friends about it if you found this useful. Catch you guys later.