Mark Bell's Power Project - Power Project EP. 64 - Has Mark Bell Ever Questioned Himself?

Episode Date: June 4, 2018

Today we are talking motivation. Where did Mark find it, where did it come from and how was he able to keep pushing forward when no one believed in him and also find out if he ever questioned himself. Re watch the live stream: https://youtu.be/YfNgRX2rOhA ➢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

uber has a new panic button it's uh like the rape um butthole button we should get one of those here fuck yeah we need one bad especially with smoky running around that guy chasing after everybody oh my god we're going live you didn't tell me that why don't you say something well now we're going live so we weren't live 10 seconds ago, but now we are. Dude, you piled up all these notes on me and I just got here. Well, I just got to keep you ahead of the game. I was at Phil's. I was enjoying myself.

You panicked. You're like, we got to do a podcast. And it's like, we do one every day, it seems like. Sometimes twice a day. I don't know what this new schedule is that you, you got me going on, but it's, it's not working for me. I,

I don't even know what half the stuff says. Actually, now that I look at it, I think I wrote most of this. Maybe all of it. Yeah. Did you spell check though? No,

no, just a pencil. Rough draft. You know, for some reason it's real, real rough. Uh, for some reason I,

I never have a pencil sharpener but i like to write in pencil and so everything's just super like light sharpening a pencil pencil never even really works like sharpen it and then if you sharpen it too much then it breaks i mean there's all kinds of there's a there's a fine line and you got to get right up to that line there's that uh will smith situation remember he sharpens the pencil too much and he pokes right through the paper. Oh, yeah, men in black. Sliding that chair across the room.

It's all loud. You want a piece of this? All right, cool. And then he breaks the pencil and he tries to hold it together still to make it look like a full pencil. That's amazing. All right, this is Mark Bell's Power Project.

And the price of admission is free. And thank you guys for tuning in. Um, before we get hopping into this question, um, the question, uh, kind of on a broad, broader scheme of things is, uh, have I questioned myself and we'll dive into like different parts of that in a minute. But before we do that, I wanted to talk about the war on carbs because, you know, I don't come on here and plug stuff that much. A lot of times if we're going to plug anything, I'm going to be talking and chirping up stuff from other people because we have guests on the show. And they have great products, great ideas, great apps, great information.

And I like to sling that out to you guys so that you can become more smarter. But a friend of my wife's got the war on carbs a couple of days ago and she was blown away. She was like, the information in there is so easy to understand. It's so digestible and there's not a lot of junk in there that I don't understand. And it's just easy to follow. It's practical. I'm really proud of it. I'm proud that I wrote it with my homie, Mariel Tagg. I think we did a great job.

So if you're somebody that struggles with a diet and you can't figure out what the hell to do, give it a shot. Give it a shot. War on Carbs. Go to markbellslingshot.com. And if you type in... So that's for slingshots only right now. Oh, it's forbellslingshot.com. And if you type in. So that's for slingshots only right now. Oh, it's for slingshots only.

Sorry. Type in nothing and you get no discount. The book is only like 25 bucks and you can also get it off of Amazon. And I think off of Amazon, I want to say it's like 12 bucks or 10 bucks or something, something absurd like that. But just because the book doesn't cost a lot, part of the reason why the, why I kept the cost low, uh, was because I wanted to get the information out to you guys. I could easily mark it up and have you guys think there's some sneaky extra value to it. This book can change your life. It's only 25 bucks. Um, but I associated the dollar amount with, uh, a, my cost and B, uh, how long it took me to write it.

It didn't take that long. It's been a by-product of me being on and off a low carb diet for the last, uh, you know, 15, 20 years or so. But, um, I wanted to give you guys something affordable, easy to understand. And the book is short. I didn't give you a bunch of science. I didn't give you a bunch of craziness. I gave you the facts and I gave you what you need to know.

All right. So here we go. We're going to dive into this and this question. So somebody came sliding into my DM, which they often do. And Andrew and I, before the podcast, have a revolutionary idea. I probably shouldn't spill the beans because someone will steal it. Sorry, but if we say it right now, we'll be the first ones. We'll be the first ones.

So we might as well go on record. Yeah, let's do it. They got to at least admit they stole it. So there's all these people sliding into my DM and they're sliding in hard. And what we do here at Slingshot is we make protective gear for exercise. Well, with all these people sliding into the DM so hard, we figured that you guys should be protecting yourself before you wreck yourself when you're sliding into the DMs as well. So we're going to make a special DM sliding pants. There you go. Along with some knee sleeves and some

elbow sleeves. You don't scrape yourself up. Genius. Yeah. Just, you know, just a little, just want you guys to know that we're, we're always thinking about you and not just ourselves. So the question for today is, have I ever questioned myself? And then as we break that question down a little bit more, it kind of turns into multiple things of, have I ever questioned what I'm doing and why I'm doing it? ever question what I'm doing and why I'm doing it. I would, I mean, I have to back up a little bit and maybe I can explain some of it this way. I have been, I have been questioned about just about everything I've ever done my whole entire life. So if I was going to question myself, then I'd have nobody on my side because it feels like every single thing that I've ever tried to do has been in question. In terms of diet, in terms of school, in terms of lifting, in terms of, uh, lifting in terms of, uh, professional wrestling,

uh, in terms of playing sports. Like it just seemed like at every turn I've always been questioned. And sometimes it's just people just asking you a question cause they're talking to you. And sometimes, uh, it was more, it was more malicious and it was more Sometimes, uh, it was more, it was more malicious and it was more intentional to try to, you know, 250 pounds, 260 pounds, 270 pounds, and he climbed my way all the way up to 330 pounds. Uh, I'd get the question often, Hey, um, you know, no one really, no one would ask me like what I lifted. This is like kind of more, is more family slash friends, people we associate with. Not even always just family, but just sometimes people that you run into. The first question they'd ask is they'd say,

you make any money doing that? And then even when it came to professional wrestling and powerlifting, both of them, can't you get hurt doing that? You know, it was always like, I don't think they really wanted to know the answer. You know, I don't think they were even looking for an answer. I think it was a way of like, hey, what you're doing sounds kind of dumb, sounds kind of stupid. And so I think that I've always been kind of lumped into some of that.

You know, when I was in school, I couldn't do certain things because, well, I shouldn't say I couldn't do certain things. I probably could have done certain things if I was walked through the process a little slower. It's because I just had a hard time learning. I had a hard time reading. When it comes to reading comprehension, I really have a hard time. Even today, you know, if you told me, hey, pick out these three things that you got from this paragraph, I'd just crumple up the paper and probably hit you in the face with it. It's just hard for me. I don't, who knows why. I'm good at bench pressing.

I'm not good at reading. I don't know. I don't know what genetics that came from or what or how it happened, but that's what happened. That's the way it is. And, you know, when I was in school, I didn't have to play an instrument. When I was in school, I didn't have to take a language. I mean, it's a requirement of all kids. There's certain books you read. There's certain languages that you're supposed to take. At least that's what was going on in New York at the time that I grew up and went to school. And I didn't have to do some of these things. So even things like that, you know, somebody would see my report card or somebody

would just in talking to friends and talking to other people, they'd say, oh, what, you know, what'd you take French, Italian? You know, and I'd say, no, what, you know, what'd you take, French, Italian? You know, and I'd say, no, I didn't take anything. And right away they're like, oh, well, you're fucking stupid. You know, you didn't take an instrument. I want to say also, too, I want to follow that up with, I don't feel like bullied or anything. I don't feel that I'm in that category that way.

I don't feel that I'm in that category that way. I think luckily for me, I had enough things to, I had enough things to lean on to where none of that stuff ever really mattered to me. You know, I, I would say that, and this is a, this is a bad analogy, especially because of what has happened more recently, but in some way, a lot of this stuff was kind of arming me. A lot of this stuff was kind of making me stronger. It wasn't making me weaker because it was like giving me ammunition.

You know, like a football team, a football coach will take the words said by, let's say, let's say the Jets, my favorite team. They always suck. And this has happened before. The Jets are playing the Patriots and the Jets in this one particular case, the Jets were actually really good this particular year. And the Patriots were having some tough times and they were going through some struggles the jets and patriots play each other twice every year the

jets no matter how bad they are a lot of times they do pretty well against the patriots but they still always lose and uh one of the guys from the jets said oh the patriots you know they're right for the picking like we're we should be able to beat them because they're struggling they have these ups and these downs. And Tom Brady totally had a character for Tom Brady. He went on a, like a podcast or radio show and he went off. He was like, I hate the jets. He's like, and they will not beat me no matter what.

It's like, they kind of like woke him up. Right. So he had this ammunition from something negative and he turned it into fuel. And I think I've always been able to do that. And I think that a lot of that came with having a foundation and having, uh, substantial things to lean on. Obviously I've talked many times about my parents. I have wonderful parents that were always there and always supportive. Um, even like my mom would say kind of weird stuff to me. Now I think back, um, about school, you know, like I'd get a bad grade or something would happen.

And maybe she was too protective. Like maybe she should have just said, Hey, uh, we should figure out to get you helps and get a better grade. Cause you know, you should have better grades. You should know this material. Right. But she would just say, you know, she's like, that teacher is not, that teacher is not smarter than you. You know, she'd be like, you're, you're, you're smarter than that teacher. She's like, so what? You got a D and like, whatever it is, or, you know, she, she kind of like downplayed it a lot. So the comments kind of reminded me of some of those grades and stuff and they never, they, they deflected off of me. Now, luckily I as I'm also fortunate to grow up with two older brothers and to see the different

things they did, to see how they interacted, uh, with my parents to see their, their coping skills and lack of coping skills. Um, I would notice that my brothers would get in trouble and, uh, they just had a harder time, a harder life basically. Um, anytime they stirred the pot. So I learned at a young age, okay, you know, note number one, don't stir the pot. Don't be too loud. Uh, don't, um, you know, don't talk at a turn. Don't, don't be rude. Be nice to people fly under the radar.

And when the time's right, I can open up and do my thing. And that's kind of what I've always done. And so, um, there's, there's many, many years that went by of me just not having money, but I was also never like totally broke. I also had some support of my parents. When I met my wife, uh, my wife was the breadwinner for the family. She made the dough, she made the money, she brought home the bacon. And so, um, you know, there's other people that aren't as fortunate. There's other people that have had to, uh, you know, kind of live in their car for a few nights and these different things. My parents, um, they would,

they would never allow anything like that to happen. You know, um, the only way that would happen is if I wasn't communicating with them in some way. So, um, I think these things are important to talk about. Most people don't ever talk about how they've gotten help. Um, but my parents have been very supportive. Um, there's probably, let's see from age of, yeah, you know, from the time that you graduate high school, man, all the way until you're like, uh, it depends on how, how quickly you mature. Uh, I would say like a career maturity is different than just maturity in general. Some people have like a career based maturity at a really young age. Uh, I'd say my friend, uh, Brian, who I went to high school with, and, um, he, he probably,

uh, established that at the age of like 13 or 14, he worked for his uncle doing construction. He always knew he wanted to do construction. And he also knew that, Hey, you know, you know, swinging his hammer every day sucks. I want to do more of what my uncle wants to do. So he, he wanted to be a contractor or be like a foreman, but he didn't want to actually do a lot of the, uh, manual labor. For me, I never envisioned anything like that. I never envisioned, I never envisioned a job period. I never envisioned one style of job ever really in my life. When I was really young, I wanted to play football and I thought I was gonna be NFL football player, just like any little boy in America, pretty much, especially at that time. But other than that, I was never like, I'm going to be a doctor. I'm going to be was never like I'm gonna be a doctor I'm gonna be a lawyer I'm gonna teach

I'm gonna be a teacher yeah I always looked up to the like the kids that were like in my grade that had jobs with their uncles or their dad or something like dude how the hell did you get that and like oh my uncle owns this company yeah some of those kids have a lot of money yeah some of the kids are like I'm a mechanic on the weekend and they got like they just have a shitload of money in a while you're like what the i mean they're probably full of shit because all high school kids are right yeah but i used to be like dude i'd much rather be doing that than going to school you know probably not the best mindset but yeah shit dude they had what you know not what i wanted but they just seemed to like have cooler shit and

always were able to do stuff that i couldn't i i know it's, it's, it's when you look back on those times, yeah, I was the same way. I had some friends that had some dough and they were able to do stuff that I couldn't do. And I was like, shit, man, how do I, how do I figure that out? I remember a buddy of mine, he had a job on the weekends and I remember he would call a taxi to go to McDonald's to get food. That's great. He would pay like over like $70 because the taxi was like, oh, we're going to charge you every minute that we're stuck in this line.

And he just didn't care. Yeah, exactly. He had no bills, nothing, just, you know, like a hundred bucks to a kid back in the day, like with no bills, like, dude, that's a lot of money. He just didn't, didn't give a shit, huh? Like, dude, that's a lot of money. He just didn't, didn't give a shit, huh? Yeah. So, I mean, a lot of this, um, you know, I was, uh, relatively strong.

I was strong enough to cope with, um, not really questioning myself. Now this all went on for a long time though, where I didn't really have much money. Um, there's also a long period of time before I met Andy and I was just kind of on my own trying to figure shit out. And, uh, those, they weren't, they weren't, I can't like, I can't say they were tough times. They were, it was fun. I had a, I had a good time. I, um, you know, would lift at whatever gym I wanted. Cause I'd always figure out a way to like sneak into the gym or get let in through the back of the gym.

That's why that's part of the reason why super training gym is free because i've never been able to speaking of andy bell she's calling me now um i've never been able to i wasn't able to afford a lot of the gym so and i didn't want to pay like 15 or 20 bucks for one day i'd sneak in um but a lot of these uh a lot of these, uh, a lot of these things, um, didn't really deter me from, you know, kind of moving forward with my dreams. I guess, um, I've always been a, um, I've always, I've always had big dreams. And on the side of that, which is probably quite interesting to a lot of people is I, I also never envisioned the work for it. I just envisioned the dream itself. There was no hurdle. There was no, there was, there was no barrier to entry. There was no like, like, Hey, when I do this for 10 years, then maybe I'm going to try this. When I do that for a long period of time and I get good at that, then I'm going to do

this. It was just, what I didn't recognize is that while I was training, while I was lifting, I didn't have an understanding that I was, uh, I didn't have an understanding that I was, uh, building up willpower. I didn't understand that at all. And ultimately when I look back and I start to think about, um, my success versus some of the success of, uh, people that I grew up with or people from my area, like, I don't know one other person that I went to school with my graduating class. There was like fucking 1200 people or something. My school was pretty big. Um, and you know, I was probably sliding in at 1201, you know, in terms of graduating class, I don't know in at 1201, you know, in terms of graduating class.

I don't know one other person that's, uh, this successful, but I mean, I could be wrong. It could be somebody who, you know, knocked it out of the park, but I've always been able to kind of, uh, have enough structure, have enough, uh, coping mechanisms to be able to deal with. Even my own internal thoughts, whether they were negative or positive. Um, you know, I, I recently put on some posts,

um, you know, dream, dream harder than you work, you know, because I think that if, if you're only focusing in on the work, then I think you're missing out on a big piece of

the puzzle because the work, the people that work get paid less, right, than people that have ideas. People that, a message I shared with you the other day, the guy Simon Sinek, he said, you know, learn to speak last. And I think back to my life and I'm like, oh my God, my two older brothers overran every conversation I ever tried to have. And I would just wait and I would listen and I'd look back and forth and when I did speak, it was, um, not that it was like better than what they said, but it had meaning to it because, uh, I realized my parents' attention or whoever I was talking to, their attention would be short. And so it's something that I learned over a long period of time. But if you don't work on building your willpower, you'll never have a chance to, to really do anything. never have a chance to, to really do anything. You know, people aren't buying, um, slingshots and knee sleeves and wrist wraps and all these things. Um, they're not buying into, uh, what

I'm doing. They're, they're buying into why I'm doing it is, is the stronger, is a stronger part of the entire message. And when they see it it starts to, at some point, become undeniable. My brother's a great example of that. He continues to get in better and better shape. And I'm sure there's a lot of people in the beginning that were like, oh, you know what? He still kind of looks fat, you know? Oh, so what? He's a year sober.

Big deal. A lot of people do that. And they go right back to the bottle. They go right back to this or that. And then they look and they're like, oh, still going hey he's two years sober okay he's three years and so on and now you look at his instagram and you're like holy shit man he's starting to look pretty fucking good like not just good for somebody that used to be overweight and addicted to drugs starting to look good period right and he's starting to get stronger he did a 500 pound

trap bar deadlift for five reps the other day at some point all these things start to be undeniable and for me i'm really fortunate that that lifting happened at such a young age uh because it was a talent it was something that i could always i could always lean on um the period of time that I think a lot of people go through where they really struggle and they start to have, um, they start to get depressed. They start to get, um, I don't know, they start to just kind of run into, uh, you know, being depressed and being worried about what this person's and that, that person's doing. That doesn't really happen that much when you're older, and that person's doing,

that doesn't really happen that much when you're older. Although it can happen. But you'll notice like a guy that's like 50 years old, he might just fart in front of a bunch of strangers and not care, right? Yeah. You know? It happened in Costco the other day. Yeah, right.

It's just like, you just get to a certain age where you're like, you know what? This is bodily function. If other people can't handle it, you know, maybe you're not going to do that everywhere all the time. But just as you get older, you kind of let your guard down. Yeah. And I know that's happened a lot for my wife. Not that she's farting on everybody.

But I know that's happened for her where she, I mean, men and women have, I never want to try to just say it's on one side, but men and women obviously have body image issues. But I think women deal with it in a different way. And I think it's a little stronger the way that they're scrutinized in our society here in America. And I think for her, as she's gotten older, you know, she's like, you know what? Like I do, I do feel good about my body. I do like, this does feel good. This does feel right to me and not worried, not comparing herself against somebody else. So when you start like, um, when you start to not believe in yourself, it's, I think

a lot of it has to do with comparing yourself to other people. Because if you're just thinking about where you are, let's say you're 25 and you just lost your job. Could be devastating, right? Or let's say you're 35 and you just got divorced. All those things can be really devastating, but have other people been divorced before? Have other people lost their job before? They have. So if you start to doubt yourself, it's probably because you're holding in high regard what you think success is, what you think being great is, what you think that you need to reach for. Whatever Instagram tells you is great.

Yeah. And ultimately you probably don't really need any of those things anyway. And so for me, you know, questioning myself hasn't really happened a lot. Um, have I questioned, you know, what I'm doing and why that has, that has factored in a little bit, but by answering the first question, no, then the second question matters a lot less. Cause in general, I haven't really sat there and been like, Hmm, I wonder if I made the right decision, you know, in terms of, uh, like letting people go here from a slingshot and from super training, like all those decisions suck, but I don't sit around and, and, and, and think about them in those terms. It's just what I feel is best for me, my family, the company at that particular moment is something that I have to, uh, move, move forward with. Um, there are definitely times, you know, I've talked about, you know, being in my van before and I, my, both my kids were trying and I punched the horn and the steering wheel and that's where the horn was. And so the horn just stayed on and it went, you know, it just, it wasn't even like, it wasn't even like it beeped strongly down the road.

It was like, it was like making all this, yeah. Making all these weird noises. And as I got into, um, as I got into, uh, you know, just driving around town and stuff, the thing would periodically, you know, beep and go off and, and all kinds of things like that. And so I've had definitely had frustrating times. I definitely had some times where, um, I was kind of upset about where I was, but at the same time, I was always doing something. And I think that's a big factor. I think that's something that factors in here very heavily because if you are standing still, then that's a lot of time to reflect. And again, bringing up the divorce, bringing up losing your job, bringing up, uh, someone

passing, bringing up any of these things. If you are sitting still, then you're going to think that's when a lot of thinking is going to occur. Now you can use that positively and you can use it negatively. There's going to be times in your life where it's probably better off that you don't think a lot. Yeah. You're probably better off not viewing other people's Instagram.

You're probably better. Like if you're sensitive, if you're just, I mean, look, you know, guys don't think a lot yeah you're probably better off not viewing other people's instagram you're probably better like if you're sensitive if you're just i mean look you know guys don't talk about a lot but whether you're male or female you got your ups and downs right and as a guy um there's scientific proof that guys have similar hormonal imbalances once a month, just like women do. And if you're in that rhythm where a certain song hits and you're in tears over it, because sometimes shit like that happens, dudes won't admit it. Everybody listening right now, they're like, that doesn't happen to me. No, no. If you're like that, then what, then why, why go to social media and, and dig up?

I mean, a lot of times you're like looking for it. You're trying to dig up something that hurts, like who the fuck knows why. Right. But you're like, if you took a photo or something, you're gonna be like, Oh, I'm going to check this out. You're not looking for positive comments. You're hunting for the negative for whatever reason. And you're already not feeling great about yourself. And that's when you start to really, that's when you really start to question yourself. Yeah. If you look hard enough, you're going to find it. But you said that you always dreamed big. Did you have a specific dream early on?

Like, was it just, I just want to be rich. Like, that's kind of a weird thing to do. But like, was there something specific? Yeah, when I was a kid, there used to be, and I don't know why this bill, I should actually look into why this building was even there in the first place. I don't even know if it's, I don't know if it's still there, but the county that I grew up in is called Dutchess County. And, uh, they had, um, on this one road they had, it was just all by itself.

There's this huge ass building. And I don't remember what it was to begin with, but I think it was supposed to be maybe like one of those Renaissance, like entertaining type things or something like that. And then it turned into like a racquetball gym thing. Anyway, this building looked like a castle. anyway, this building looked like a castle. And when we would drive by it all the time, when I was probably six or seven or however old I was, I would always tell my dad, I'm like, I'm going to live in a castle one day. I want to live, you know, I want to, I want to get a castle. And, um, so I was always like, it was more like it was, and I, and in terms of like a dream, like actually like dreaming, um, I did have a dream that, that changed everything kind of forever, but, um, it was more of like

a vision. I always wanted to, I always wanted to like live well. Um, for whatever reason, I always kind of had a taste for expensive things. I appreciate and like expensive things better than I like something cheap. If you were to line up a bunch of coffees up here and you blindfolded me and I tasted each one, I'm pretty damn sure I would pick out the most expensive one without knowing where it came from. And the same thing goes with wine. You know, I'm not snobby that way. At least I don't think I am, but I like things to be nice. I like convenience. I like, um, so I had to match up, uh, some of, some of the things that I wanted at a convenience, um, had to match that up with everything. Cause I'm like, well, if I like these things, then I know that my life will be more fun. It'll be better. It'll be more relaxed

if I actually work, you know, work towards these things. And so that's, that's what I spent, uh, a long time doing. Um, I'd also say that like an, in terms of like an actual dream, uh, when my brother passed, um, I was, I already had ideas of, of the slingshot. Um, I can't remember like timing wise, every detail, but the slingshot was bouncing around in my fat head for about two years. And, um, I went to many different companies and tried to explain what I was, what I wanted to make and how I wanted to do it. They didn't really understand the vision very well. Wasn't able to explain it very well.

Some of them said, Hey, well, you know, you got bench shirts. Why wouldn't you just, why wouldn't you just tell someone to wear a bench shirt? I'm like,

well, bench shirts are ugly. They cost too much and they don't really help with what I'm trying to explain. And so, um, a good period of time went by and that was a period of time where I, I didn't doubt the idea. I thought the idea was good, but I got enough feedback from people telling me that it's not worth a shit to where I did start to buy into it. And I did start to say, well, you know, these people are already in the industry. I'm not really in the fitness industry. I'm just a power lifter.

You know, and I started to kind of like undervalue myself. And I was like, well, yeah, I don't know. Like maybe they're right. Maybe they're right. Maybe it's not a good idea. Was there one person, like you don't have to name names, but like, was there somebody that you were like, for sure they have my back, showed them the idea. And then all of a sudden like, oh shit, maybe this does suck. Like, was there somebody that maybe that. Well, there's a, there's a, there's a few people that are involved, um, in some of this. Um, the there's, there's pre-existing uh powerlifting manufacturers now that are out there

and i went to every single one of them uh one in particular was titan another one was elite um and i went to a few i went to a few other people um the weird thing was in going to elite you know they elitefts.com my buddy dave tate he and i are still friends um the weird thing with them is i was already doing stuff for them and i worked for them for free for a long time uh posting up logs and and making people aware of my training and that's how i just got known and powerlifting in the first place was was through dave tate's platform and so when i went to them with the concept and idea, I thought for sure, I thought they'd be like,

oh yeah, it sounds pretty cool. But they didn't really want to, they didn't want to explore it. You know, they didn't say, hey, it's a shit idea. They just said, hey, we sell bench shirts. And at the time, that company wasn't really making some of their own specific stuff that way. I think if I went to them, you know, more modern times, I went to them now,

people have more access to some of these things. And so they can make things easier. So maybe they would have, they would have, but they, anyway, the point is they, they didn't think the idea was good enough to move forward with it. And, you know, in going to Titan, I knew that like, I didn't think the idea was good enough to move forward with it. And, you know, and going to Titan, I knew that like, I didn't really know them. And,

uh, and I, and I just, I knew that that probably wouldn't work out so great, but we did have some conversations and then the guy, you know, be, be careful of,

of be careful of people because people always have their, their own best intentions at heart and not, not your own. You know, they're not looking out for you. They're looking out for themselves. He sent me back a letter or a contract or something. And, uh, we were exploring making a product together. And, uh, it was just like the most demeaning backhanded like thing i've ever seen it was like yeah if we make this you know you'll you'll be able to make up to like five percent and i was like five percent i was like what the fuck and it was just the way it was written um was just it was just insulting too and i was like i don't remember exactly what i said but i think i kind of told him to fuck off yeah because i thought it was rude what he sent to me and then so uh i don't

remember if i went to elite first or whatever but i got enough feedback that was negative enough to the point where i'm like all right well i don't really know i'm driving around these crappy cars my i'd have one car overheat and the next car overheat and this happened and that happened time and time again. Many frustrations that many people face. And, you know, all while having children, all while trying to build a family. Yeah. And then some things started to kind of turn around. My wife and I started to work on Power Magazine and some things started to start to make more sense.

Even before Power Magazine, did you ever kind of, when you're questioning yourself or trying to figure out if all these people were right or wrong, whatever, did you ever think like, shit, maybe I should just stop with all this nonsense and go get a job, like a real clock in and out job? Yeah, my wife thought that was a good idea, but I never did. I never, um,

I never thought that my, my brain never worked well in school. And I already proved that to myself and it just didn't work out the way it was supposed to, you know, school probably works out great for maybe, uh, you know,

60% of the people or so. Um, and, and, and I was part, part of the percentage. I mean, school doesn't even work great for people that are really smart either. You know, people that are really slow or people that are really smart, those, that, whatever percentage of people that is, it doesn't work great for, but it works pretty good for all those people in the middle. doesn't work great for, but it works pretty good for all those people in the middle. And, um, you know, having, having known that I was like, I'm not going to deal well with the structure of a regular job. And, um, and also, so now, now that we get into this a little bit more. So

when, when I think about things now, have I questioned myself? And I think about it in terms of like what I do now. No, I haven't really questioned myself. Because I think for whatever reason, I've known for a really long time. And I say it all the time is that I was put on this earth to make the world a better place to live. And I feel really strongly about that. I feel that the message that I'm about to share, uh, with my brother and myself and us combining together on making another film, um, I think bigger, stronger, faster showed people a lot of that. But I think that this film that we do on nutrition is going

to blow people's faces off. I've always kind of felt that I've been here for a very strong purpose. And I always knew that the lifting thing was somehow tied into everything else, but I didn't know how, um, have I questioned myself when it comes to outside and it comes to not doing any of the things that I'm doing now, then the answer would be a hundred percent. Yes. Cause now that I think back of it,

back to it, I had a lot of fear. Um, when it came to a job, the reason I never had a job was because I didn't, I didn't want to explore how fucking scary that would be. And I knew like in school, I didn't do well with certain things.

So I was like, well, if I'm like a waiter or something, my handwriting is bad. Maybe I'd write the thing down wrong and like, then fucking communicate that wrong. Um, I'm not great at math.

So if I work a register somewhere, I'm going to fuck that up, you know? So I just kind of thought like, I'm going to screw up everything that I get my hands on. So the only thing I could really do in terms of any work that I've ever done has been just physical stuff. Like I worked at a company where I moved fitness equipment. Uh, I did some construction stuff in the past, but anything that was outside of that, I, I was definitely, I definitely questioned myself all the way to the point where I was like paralyzed to the point where like, I couldn't, I couldn't do anything about it. Or at least at the time, that's what I thought.

I thought that I couldn't do anything about it. Um, as you know, as I got older and as the lifting started to become more of a thing, I started to recognize, okay, this is like a real, this is a real strength that is much different than just bench pressing a lot of weight or just lifting a lot of weight. This has an association into other aspects. And I started kind of learning about, you know, personal training, being a strength coach and some of those things. And I started just kind of kicking around a lot of these different ideas. But what kept it all together for me was the fact that I was always doing something. So because I didn't have a job, I mean, some kids, their parents are saying, hey, you're, you know, you're 15, 16, whatever age they determine that you need to get a job. Kids go out and they get a job and they sweep up or they do whatever at a gas station or whatever. Right. Um, I never did

any of that. And my parents encouraged me to do it, but I never did. And so instead I just piled on more and more sports as much, as much sports as I could. I did track, I did boxing, football, basketball. Um, it didn't matter like, you know, what time of year it was. I was always playing something. And on top of that, I was still lifting. Sometimes I remember like after school, like on like a Friday, I'd have like a track meet um and uh you know friday at like freaking five in the morning i'd go and uh and lift weights before school started and then go through the school day and then do the track and anybody that does track knows that a track meet takes forever um i know some remember some other situations where I like went to school, played basketball and had track practice.

Like it was all in the same day. I just did like, anyway, I was just keeping myself occupied. I was just doing stuff. So I didn't have time to sit around and think about what I'm not good at. I just was working on things that were already strengths for me. And so a lot of times you hear people give the advice of, hey, like, you know, you should really work on, I think, you know, working on a weakness is one thing, but trying to fix them, I think is a mistake. I think they're weak for a reason.

And I think that your weaknesses in some areas, like your kryptonite, will show strength in a lot of other areas. And so I never really tried to try to fix some of these weaknesses. That's why there's still today, there's still pretty goddamn weak, I gotta admit. Um, but where I'm strong has been amplified. And I think that's what people should concentrate on. You know, what are you going to make money with? You know, what, what's going to be, what's going to be your weapon weapon what's going to be the thing to help you break out from where you are and it's probably not going to be anything that you're not good at right now it's probably not going to be uh that you're all of a sudden out of nowhere going to be a great chef when you know that you fuck up uh a mac and cheese recipe that

says add water right like yeah you know that you're not going to be good at that. Yeah. So you and Andy started a power magazine. It, it seems like you've always had support from your parents and you have some, you had support from Andy. What if somebody doesn't have that type of support? You know, it's, it's, um, you know, I, I can't really, uh, put myself in, in those shoes. Cause I don't know, I don't know what uh, put myself in, in those shoes. Cause I don't know, I don't know what that's like to walk around in those shoes, but, um, I would still say that you just need, you need something, you know, if you don't have someone, then you need something, you need to be able to lean on something. And so if there's something that you do that you really

like, that feels right to you, do it more it more you know do it more often than you do everything else if you like to lift weights and do it more often than all the shit that you hate um if you like to play music then fucking play me like don't worry about what your parents say don't worry about your friends say you can be hard at times but if that's what you like to do there's an actual very specific reason on why you're doing that at that particular moment in your life. It might not ever turn into anything necessarily, but it could turn into something huge. And those pieces of the puzzle, you won't be able to connect them and you won't be able to have a puzzle that looks like anything until way later in life. But life is, uh, life is very cyclical.

It's just a big giant, it's just a big giant circle. And as you go around that circle, when you're polite to people, when you do the right thing and you do it over and over and over again, you walk past somebody and you're like, oh, that's the guy from da, da, da, da, da, that I bought a coffee for. Oh, that's somebody over there that, you know, I, I remember that guy. I remember this person. And when you're nice to people and there's that energy, it's going to give you a little bit of acceleration towards whatever those goals are. Yeah.

I was just asking because somebody was pretty open last night on our Instagram post. Yeah. He's just like, yeah, I'm getting divorced. Yeah, I saw that. Yeah. I mean, he didn't say anything like, now what do I do or whatnot. But, you know, I know like some friends, you know, they're just like, oh, I got to stay with somebody because I'm going to have nothing after. I'm just like, you have a lot of shit you can be doing right now.

You know, there's a, there's a lot of things. There's a, there's a lot of, uh, people will think something like this is crazy, but get an exercise routine, get on a diet. If you are in the worst spot of your life right now, get your ass on a diet. If you're in the worst spot in your life right now, get yourself some sort of training regimen. I'll say this upfront is the diet's always going to be the hardest part, you know, for just about anybody. The training side of it isn't really that bad because you, everybody has a friend, a cousin, an uncle who's a, who's a maniac who loves to work out, right? Everybody knows somebody that likes to exercise.

And just to piggyback off of them and to actually, in a very sincere way, go to them and say, look, you know, look, I want to make some real changes to myself and I want to work out with you. Now, don't go diving all in saying you're going to do five days a week. Say, hey, I want to come. I want to work out with you. Now, don't go diving all in saying you're going to do five days a week. Say, hey, I want to come. I want to work out with you. This is going to be a new experience for me. I don't want to be sore for three months.

I want to get a workout in, and I'd like to build up some consistency with that. What that will do for you is back to what I said earlier, and it's a message that people can't hear enough of. You have to figure out a way to build some willpower so that you have, you have enough strength to lean towards the habits that are going to get you going towards your goals. Are you got to keep in mind too, that your, your thoughts end up becoming part of the things that you do, the things that you think about end up becoming part of you. They end up becoming part of the things that you do. The things that you think about end up becoming part of you.

They end up becoming part of the things that we engage in the most. You know, you look where people's, you want to know where someone's mind is, grab their phone from them and look at their last couple searches and look at what they looked at. And if somebody is talking about being the best in the world at something in particular, and their phone is not directed towards those things, then you'd have to say, well, I think you're talking about stuff that you're not really that dedicated to,

because at least for the last half an hour, however long it was you were looking at, God knows what, you weren't engaged in that, right? Yeah. You can't, and it's hard, you can't it's hard you know you can't be that way all the time this is where we are human beings you're not a robot um but it does show you that there's a lot of room to improve yeah okay so power magazine gets started people are still doubting you what did you do to break through or how did how did it kind of all come to

be the uh you, the lifting was a big part of it. So those people that don't have another person, they don't have anybody, they don't feel like they have anybody to lean on or, or any of these things. Um, you know, for me, I always felt that the lifting was a big part of it. The challenge, the challenge of lifting powerlifting specifically was a big deal for me because, you know, it was, it's you against the weight and I never really, well, I won't say never, but I didn't get into a situation that often where I was really comparing myself to what other people were doing. I was honed in and I was focused in and locked in on what I was doing.

And I had very, um, very specific goals that I wanted to hit at very specific times. And so I was able to build momentum. I think the hardest part of all this is, um, it's really hard. It's really difficult for people to face their fears. And so it's like, okay, I understand you're saying, you know, get momentum and then continue to build it up. That seems really logical. You think about like a snowball, you know, starting from the top of a mountain, you roll it down the hill and it gets bigger, gains momentum and starts going faster, right? Those things are kind of easy to understand. Like, okay, there was, you know, you overcame inertia and you started moving in one direction and you're an object in motion and you just keep kind of cruising through motion, right?

But how do you even get momentum? How do you even face your fears in the first place? And that's a really hard thing because you have to, there's got to be some place somewhere that you're able to draw confidence from. And I think our job as human beings is to understand and to have a better idea of, hey, you know what? That person over there, they might not have grown up the way I did. that person over there, they might not have grown up the way I did. That person over there might not feel great about life the way that I do. Maybe they're behind.

Maybe they are stressed out. Maybe they have shitty parents. Maybe they don't have a good relationship. Maybe everything is completely stacked against them. So our job as human beings is to figure out, you know what, can I, does it cost me anything to go give that fucking guy a pat on the back? Tell him he's doing a great job or, hey man, you did a good job dropping some weight or you did a good job with this or that. And that's why it's important for you as an individual to take ownership of the things that are going on in your life. individual to take ownership of the things that are going on in your life. You don't have, you didn't have any control over your parents and maybe you lost control of your relationship, but you can control yourself. You can control your own actions. And even for people that are

married, I think that people kind of view it the wrong way. They think that just because you're laying down with somebody at the end of the night, they think that you're with somebody, but you're not, you're still with your own thoughts and you're still with, just because, just because I lay down next to my wife doesn't mean that my mind's not free to wander to wherever it wants to go. Right. And so there's still, there's still morals and values and things, uh, that I have to be locked into. And that goes back to keeping yourself active. Yeah. If I'm active and I'm moving around a lot and when I go to bed, I'm actually tired. I'll just go to sleep. Right. It doesn't, it doesn't even leave,

it doesn't even leave room for you to fuck around. It doesn't leave room for, and all these things are, no one ever wants to talk about any of this shit, but they're, they're all things that are just normal. They're just natural. You know, uh, every, you know, uh, Louie Simmons used to say this all the time. He said, you know, I'm getting older, but my eyes are still young. You know, he basically meant like when he saw a young girl that was pretty, he's like, my eyes, my eyes will still light up. And he's like, I got no, you know, very happy with my wife, but he's like, I got no control over it, you know? And, uh, I think if, if other people are being honest, I think they, they feel the same way. And how do you get momentum? How do you get moving

in the right direction? It just goes back to, you know, a, uh, just as human beings, let's try to pick each other up because there are people that don't have those same situations. That guy that said he was getting divorced, he said he's been really motivated by some of the messages that we're sharing here on the Power Project and some of the stuff that's been coming from Super Training Gym. Nobody does it by themselves. Nobody's out there really doing anything on their own. It's always with other people. It's always in conjunction with other people. There's always other people involved. Some of the advice I had for my friend, Jesse Burdick, when he was going through a divorce,

he was going through some stuff that I just didn't know anything about. I'm like, I, you know, I can help you because we're friends and I can talk you through it and I can say, Hey man, that sucks. And I can, you know, shout out some, uh, advice here and there on what I think is, is good. Um, but really, uh, an important thing is you're going to have to figure out, cause I don't live near him. You got to figure out how to surround yourself with some good people. And if you feel like there's really no one to talk to, there's always options. You can A, go to a therapist, which people are always against,

but I think it could be really valuable. Another thing that you can do is you can go to a church, even if you're not of that religion and you may have to fish around, you may have to go to a few different churches because it might be too awkward. But even just talk to some friends. If I talk to everybody here at the gym and said, hey, you're going to know a good pastor, you know, a good preacher.

Or, you know, I just, I got to get some shit. I need to talk to somebody. Churches will always take you in. There's not a church that's going to be like, no, fuck you, motherfucker. You ain't coming in here. They're always going to take people in. And so there's always options to communicate. And if you don't want to, you know, just end up randomly, uh, talking to a stranger, attach yourself to something, attach yourself to a super training gym, attach yourself,

attach yourself to Joe Rogan, attach yourself to Andy Frisella and the messages that they are sharing on a daily basis, allow that to be your momentum. Allow that to be your gateway towards you just being able to get that first step going. Yeah. And I think a lot of people, they're kind of resistant to quote, attach themselves because they're like, well, who the fuck's going to listen to me? Just regurgitate something that Andy Frisella said. But a lot of times your family's not checking into andy forsella or joe rogan but they'll pay attention to whatever you have to say next thing you know you're you're spreading that message or trying to make this world a better place to lift like i was trying

the other day with your nephew that was i was fucking that was a lot of fun but um yeah i think if you don't even know like like he's super? Yeah. You don't really get much feedback from him, but we have no idea what that, what that led to. Like that might, that might spawn him for the next two years to go on a full on lifting spree. Yeah. Right. Like he might, might be like, Hey, you know what?

That wasn't that hard. Yeah. That was fun. And how easy would it have been for me to be like, well, Mark's his uncle. Like, he's just going to go listen to him. He doesn't give a fuck who I am. But it was fun. Yeah, I mean, you can make some huge impacts on people's lives.

I think another underlying thing to all this is just your perspective on things, kind of how you look at things. I heard a really cool story the other day that I'll share with you. There was a guy named Samuel Langley. And on December 13th, 1903 is a day that he abandoned this dream that he had. And it's because on December 13th, 19 or 17th, rather 1903, he abandoned his idea. or 17th rather, 1903, he abandoned his idea. His idea was to create a flying machine, a.k.a. a plane. Well, on this date that he decided to quit and give up was the day the Wright brothers came up with the invention and came up with the idea.

The Wright brothers, quote unquote, flew under the radar so low that nobody even knew what they were doing. There was no newspaper following them around. They had no press. It was actually the day they discovered flight, they had to report it several days later because they didn't get in contact with anybody until a couple days later. This other guy, Samuel Langley, all he wanted to do was make money. And all he wanted to do is create a flying machine. The Wright brothers' vision was way different. They're like, this will change the world forever. If I can figure out how to get people to move faster, that's all they were really trying

to do. You know, they were obsessed with flight in some way, right? But all they're really trying to do is have know, they were obsessed with flight in some way, right? But all they're really trying to do is, is have the transportation be faster. So their goal was, man, if we can, could you imagine like somebody that works in New York could, you know, fly three, four, like at the time they couldn't fly very far, but they could fly two, three hours away and they could, they could go work in that area. Like, like this will change everything, shipping, everything. This will change the world forever.

And that was, that was their vision. Their vision was to make a positive impact on the world. Meanwhile, this other guy, his impact was only for himself. His impact was only, I want to reap the benefits of creating this machine and being first. Now, why the fuck did he give up too? Why did he give up? Like, why did he give up on that date? It's because his heart wasn't in the right place.

If his heart was in the right place, he can be like, fuck the right brothers. I can do way better than that. Cause you don't have to be first. You just have to be better. You look at, I mentioned this on the podcast before you look at my space and then Facebook came along, right? There's always these new, there's always somebody. There's always somebody that comes after somebody and as big and as powerful as Nike has been for so long.

You know, when Nike, there'll be a point where that ain't around anymore and something else is going on and Under Armour and so on. And, um, all these P all these different things that build up into these huge juggernauts. Um, you don't have to always be first. It helps. It's kind of great to be first. You know, I was first with a lot of things to market in the fitness industry and it makes me feel good and it, uh, it can make you a pioneer, right? But it matters. It matters where it comes from.

You know, SBD, the guy that runs SBD, nobody even knows who he is. Nobody knows his name. Um, he's just trying to make money in the, in the industry, which is totally fine. He makes good products. I'm, I can admit that I've been making products for the last almost 10 years. He makes good products. He's in it for a much different reason than I'm in it for. He got into it for a much different reason than I got into it for. He got into it because he saw an opportunity. I got into it because I fucked myself up lifting heavy ass weights and I don't want to see other people do the same thing. Yeah.

That makes a ton of sense. I was actually talking to a weird photographer slid into my DMs. I'm going to have to get him some sliding shorts. Man, these people. Yeah. Sliding in unprotected. Yeah. Yeah.

That ain't good. Long story short, I just told him, like, look, dude. He just asked me how I got to be where I am. I was like, dude, I truly felt that my photos would one day change the world. I was like, so when I had that mindset, I didn't give a fuck what I was getting paid. Because that's what he was asking me. He's like, you know, how, like, wrapping my head around money is so hard.

I'm like, don't worry about the money right now. Well, and when you have that mindset of, you know, this is going to change the world, you might take some weird photo that no one else has ever thought of. Yeah. Because your vision is so different. Your intention is so different.

Um, there's a lot of, you know, people use the term like starving artist, you know? Yeah. I think there's a lot of, there's, well, entrepreneur is just such a weird word. It's hard for me to even spit it out just because, uh, everyone claims they're an entrepreneur, but they haven't really started anything yet. So, but there's a lot of almost like starving inventors as well. There's people that are trying to make products and trying to create products that you just can't figure out.

You know, it's a lot different than just taking some t-shirt blank and putting a logo on it. Yeah. There's a lot more that goes into it when you're trying to create or invent something. You're like, oh my God, where do I even, just think about like, if you were to make a shoe, where, where the fuck do you, where the fuck do you start with making a shoe? Yeah.

Um, you know, where, where do you start with, uh, where do you start with creating a book? You know, like we self, we did this on our own. We did it ourselves. We didn't, we don't have a giant printer here. We didn't physically do it ourselves, but we found people that could do it right so you know people face peaks and valleys um you lost your brother in the middle of all of this how the fuck did you stay positive or not not necessarily stay positive which is how'd you keep pushing forward yeah you know my brother passing was actually a huge motivator it actually um, um, just launched me forward. The interesting part

about that is it launched me forward and it launched my brother backwards, you know, in some, in some ways, my brother, Chris, in some ways it's like, you know, um, in some ways, like you drop a bomb, you know, right between both of us. Right. And I got propelled forward. my brother got shot backwards my brother um he he uh after my brother passed he was uh watching a yankees game and my brother let my brother love he loved the yankees mad dog loved the yankees um he was a big baseball fan played baseball growing up and he was a hell of a baseball player but my brother's watching it. And my brother just said, he just started crying. And he's like, he, he sat there and questioned himself. He thought to himself, oh man, I wonder, you know, he was like, am I crying?

Cause it's the Yankees. And then he thought about it more and he was like, no, he's like, I'm crying because this is the first day that I've been sober since he died. And I was like, holy shit, man. Like I, and I didn't even know my brother felt that way. And when he was watching this baseball game, it was, um, you know, months after I brought my brother passed. And so I didn't know that he, I didn't know that that's what happened to him. what happened to him but for whatever reason in my life i had an um a strong enough base to have the coping mechanisms uh to not let really anything drag me down um

somebody dying is a is a it's a really crazy thing it's a really permanent thing i still have his number in my phone i never had the guts to delete it right like it's still there i still want to call him i watch football i watch wrestling and like you know i don't fuck i don't even know how many years it's been it's been a long time but i still you know when i'm watching some of that stuff i was like oh i'd love to give him i'd love to just talk to him right and uh but the reality is is it doesn't matter what the fuck happens to you it just doesn't it it matters you, and there's things that you have to try to figure out on your own to get yourself moving forward. But you still have to function. You still have to work.

There's still a lot of things to get to. Just because somebody died doesn't mean you don't have responsibility anymore. Just because you got your foot blown off in a war doesn't mean you don't have responsibility anymore. Um, just because you got your foot blown off in a war doesn't mean you don't have right. Memorial day just passed. Thanks for all the men and women that have served this country. Really appreciate all of you. Um, just because something happened doesn't mean that it doesn't mean that you, you, you just can turn into a giant piece of shit. Um, you know, I can't like, you know, when the time comes every year that my brother passed, I can't like go on a bender and like beat my wife.

It's still, um, it would, it would still be abuse, right? It would still be, it's illegal, right? It's not the right thing to do. It's just, it's, um, yeah, you're going gonna have to pick up the pieces and there's gonna be good times in your life and there's gonna be bad times in your life i think something that we should all be thankful for is just life itself just waking up and it sounds like such a cliche thing but if you don't view life that way then then how are you ever supposed to have a good time how are you ever supposed to like live life to its fullest?

If, uh, if you don't enjoy just waking up, like I love waking up every day. Um, you know, I'm not always like in this crazy chipper mood or whatever, but, uh, I am excited to start my day. I'm excited to get things going. And when my brother passed, you know, it did drop a big bomb on our family and it definitely changed a lot of the family dynamics. Uh, but it also brought everybody a little bit closer to where we communicate better. You know, you might say to your mom or dad or to your brother or sister, whoever it is, you might say, Oh, how are you doing? Right. And they just, it's just a,

it's a, it's like automatic. Yeah. It's not anybody, any different than giving somebody a fist pound or whatever, like, uh, you know, just a, Hey, you know, it's, it's a acknowledgement that you recognize that they're there. Uh, you're not really a lot of times asking the question to truly get the answer back of how are you doing? I think, you know, some things that have changed with our family, we've, we've grown closer. And, uh, when we say, how are you doing? Like, we're waiting for like a response. Like, how are you doing?

And if somebody saw them, okay. Like, we don't really let that happen. No, no, no. How are you doing? Like, what's going on? You doing all right? I don't really need to do that that much with my brother because we see each other, you know, quite a bit. But, um, that's a much different question.

You know, if I just say, if I was to, you know, even though we do communicate a lot, if I was to see him right now and say, how are you doing? He'd be like, great. You know, the diet's going good. You know, I, the creative movie went really well and he'd have all these positive things to say. But if said you know no no i'm asking you how are you doing how are you doing not how are all these things that you're doing doing how are you personally doing what like right yeah there's a big difference right there's a big difference in a lot of that and so um i just think that the the world would be a better place if we um it sounds funny but if we just care about each other more you know you just think just think that the world will be a better place if we, um, it sounds funny, but if we

just care about each other more, you know, you just think, just think about other people more. I think, uh, you know, a huge problem that happens is that people don't think about other people. People don't think about what it's like to be in that person's shoes. People don't. All people want to do when somebody says something, especially if they say something negative,

is they just want to kind of like ball up their fist, right? If somebody says something and they're just like, right? They're thinking about like somebody kind of, you know, threw a punch towards them, they want to throw a punch back. And it's not a great way to live your life. There's other ways to handle it. There's other ways to go about doing things. And when somebody says, somebody says something negative, you have to think about how is your response going to be perceived and what is that going to be? You know, what, what are the next couple of things that happen after that? And I think that people just aren't, aren't thinking in those terms.

Now I mentioned earlier about being active and moving around a lot and doing a lot of things and, and not having a whole lot of time to think the flip side to all that is that you have to be strong and you have to have some time to yourself. If you want to be able to defeat the world, if you want to be able to kick ass every day, if you want to be able to kill the day, then you're going to need time by yourself. That is, that you're just totally and completely by yourself. You're not consumed by other people's thoughts. You're not consumed by a lot consumed by other people's thoughts. You're not consumed by

a lot of everything else that's going on. Now you don't want to sit around and, and, uh, and, and be all sad or anything like that, but you want to sit around and you want to think about, you know, what are the things I need to do today? Uh, and, and sometimes like for me, I just have a lot of downtime. It's actually, this will sound really funny, but it's important to sometimes have some downtime where you're not productive, where you're kind of like unproductive. You're not really doing anything. Maybe you're checking that funny meme that a friend sent to you. Maybe you're, but you are trying. But you are trying, you're at least setting out to educate yourself, answer emails, post something, whatever, whatever any of those things are.

You're, you're still looking to figure out a way, uh, to advance yourself. And so for me, you know, with my brother's passing, I think that, you know, the family growing stronger together and me figuring out how am I going to take care of myself? Uh, those things were, those things were really, really big in, in, in me being able to propel forward and to move faster because those were things that I wasn't doing before. Mm-hmm. And when he died, it kind of slowed me down in a way. It kind of was like, okay, you know, life is short. You need to figure out how to execute on some of these things that you keep talking about that you never do.

You need to figure out a way to make those fucking things happen. Remember, we, I say this all the time. Cowards talk about what they'll never do. Cowards can be like, oh yeah, I'm, I'm, uh, I could kick that guy's ass and they like, they never fight or whatever. Right. And you're like, yeah, okay. Okay, buddy. Sure. You can. Um, cowards talk about what they'll never do. People are always talking about, oh, I'm going to start this, this particular business, or I'm going to do this particular thing and they never do it. And there's no reason to even engage in talking about it because it actually for you think you're doing something

positive because you're saying something that you think will float well with somebody else but you're actually doing something very negative to yourself because you're never going to actually act on that thing and so it doesn't make any sense it doesn't make any sense with your fitness doesn't make any sense with your diet doesn't make any sense in in any regard uh to to do that. So it is important to dream, but there's also gotta be, you gotta be realistic and getting some time to yourself could be as simple as going for a walk.

I go to coffee shops and just kind of hang out and I throw headphones on. That's another piece of advice that I'd give everybody is like get yourself a pair of headphones, invest in them. Don't be scared to pull the trigger and spend some money on some headphones that will really get that noise

fucking drumming into your head the right way. Cause there's a huge difference between, you know, listen to something in your car with, uh, you know, with just like iTunes playing or just with YouTube playing without it running through the speakers of your car versus having headphones on. You'll see, you'll understand the impact. It's much different when somebody's voice with YouTube playing without it running through the speakers of your car versus having headphones on. You'll see, you'll understand the impact. It's much different when somebody's voice is like drumming through the side of your head. Yeah. Yeah. So getting through Mad Dog's passing, you start to see a little bit of success or maybe a lot of success depending on where you want to take the story now. But how did you kind of, you start to, you know, like I said,

taste some of that success and how did you like use that to propel yourself? Like what motivated you to do even more at that point? So just back in regards to my brother passing away. Yeah. You know, it's not, it's also important to understand. It's like not something you ever really get over, right? Like it's, you don't need to get past it because it happened and it's a thing that's there and there's like nothing you can do about it so it just it

happened it's there can't figure out a way to to get past it time does heal and it does help um but but off of my brother's death and i've talked about this in the past as well um i had a dream and i went to bed one night and it was just a few days after he passed on and i had a few days of being tired and and everything else um actually let me back it up a little bit so when my brother died he died on a sunday and i can't just came home from the gym and uh i was kind of hanging out with my family my dad called my mom screaming in the background I was fucking just this is awful you know just just a just a terrible scenario and uh so I get this phone call from my dad I'm like fuck I don't you know and I then I tell my wife and she's like holy shit and i don't know

where to go because like i got two kids and i don't want them seeing me like crying and i i'm not i'm not ready to like you know maybe tell a bunch of people that he's that he's dead right my kids are really little so i'm like they don't want to even understand what the hell i'm talking about you know and so i just like go into the bathroom and I just kind of hang out in there for a minute, try to collect my thoughts. And I had my phone with me and I'm like, oh, you know what I'll do is I'll, I'll, I'll hit up, I'll hit up a couple of friends. And so I texted, uh, our boy, Tristan Scholl. I hit him up and said, Hey man, uh, are you around? And he said, yep. So I called him. We spoke on the phone for a couple of minutes and I said, Hey man, uh, are you around? And he said, yep. So I called him.

We spoke on the phone for a couple minutes and I said, Hey man, I was like, my brother died, man. And I, you know, I just, I need somewhere to go. I needed to like, I need to get out of my house, you know? And then, so I went over to my wife and I said, I'm, uh, going over to Tristan's house and Tristan, you know, at the time from where I lived, he probably lived like 45 minutes away in probably like the worst rainstorm I've ever seen here in Sacramento. You know, I'm cruising down the street. I'm making some phone calls to, you know, Jesse. And then so in talking to Jesse, Jesse says, like, he's like, where are you? It sounds like you're driving or something.

He's like, don't do anything crazy. And I was like, no, I'm actually going to hang out with Tristan. He's like, okay, good. Yes. That's the best thing to do. Go hang out with a friend. He's like, don't drink, you know. Yeah.

Don't do any. And I'm not into drugs other than performance enhancing. And so, you know, he was just kind of making sure I wasn't going to do anything that was, you know, out of character and, uh, yeah, hung out with Treston and we kicked it for a few hours and we talked about it and, um, I cried, he cried. We all kind of hugged it out. A couple other guys from the gym came over and, um, that is a great way to deal with things. It's try to, you know, try to surround yourself with, maybe you can't always handle everything. You know, maybe you can't handle everything on your own.

Maybe you need help. And, uh, that was the best thing for me to do at that time. And, uh, you know, it, it allowed me to kind of just get through to the next day. And so back to this dream sequence, uh, I, uh, i had all these ideas for the slingshot all these ideas the things i never acted on i go to sleep this one night delirious after my brother died and i'm starting to have these dreams he's there and i get this whisper in my ear which didn't feel like it was part of the dream it actually felt like it felt like somebody whispered into my ear, which didn't feel like it was part of the dream. It actually felt like, it felt like somebody whispered into my ear and I woke up and I was just like, uh, cold and hot at the same time

feeling sick and, uh, feeling pale, if that is a feeling. Um, and just like terrified, like goosebumps and, and the words that were said into my ear just said, think. And I was like, oh, and I kind of just sat up on the side of the bed and I started to think about that. Like, what does that mean? Why, you know, why would he say that? And, you know, I took it as it meaning like, you're smart enough. You know, you have enough, you have enough knowledge.

If you just think, then you can change your life forever. And that's what I started doing. You know, the very next day is kind of when I started, uh, going to coffee shops and sitting there with a pencil and writing shit out the slingshot, uh, power magazine, everything was created at, at Starbucks, uh, with, uh, a notepad and an iPhone or an iPad, whatever I had at the time. And, uh, you know, looking back on it now, the rest, the rest is history. And so it's a weird set of circumstances, but if he didn't die, you know, I wouldn't be, I wouldn't be doing all this. And, and, uh, oddly enough, when he was

alive, he told me some of these things, he said stuff like this, you know, he, you look back and you realize how many times Biggie Smalls talked about dying. Right. Yeah. And you're like, oh my God. Um, my brother knew he wasn't designed to be here for that long you know he he knew that he was kind of a loose cannon and uh he he lived life in the fast lane but you know he's told he told me many times like maybe i'm living my life this way so you don't have to you know maybe i'm taking some bullets and maybe these bad decisions are a way for like this is a this is a real-time example this isn't you in high school watching some bullshit video of some kid getting high you know and then he crashed his car into a telephone pole

like this is some real world shit that you suffer through but maybe because we suffer through it as a family you know we have uh he's like i you know i'll be the one to kind of take the bullet so you don't have to type of thing and you know looking back at it now i mean fuck he was you know he was he was dead on with that uh statement because uh that's exactly that's exactly what happened damn yeah pretty brutal you know it's um you know people are like how do you talk about it like i've talked about it a lot you know and uh it still hurts it's still not fun do you talk about it? Like I've talked about it a lot, you know, and, uh, it still hurts. It's still not fun, uh, to talk about, but it is exciting for me to talk about because it can help a lot of other people.

Right. Yeah. My brother was addicted to drugs, uh, alcohol, kind of anything he'd get his hands on. He just had that personality, whatever you hear people talk about all the time. I got an addictive personality and um yeah he clearly had that he's also diagnosed as being bipolar and so i think he was just trying to figure out how he could how he could have his best representation of uh feeling normal and he could never find it he also could never find being happy And so that there's a big lesson to be learned there.

Um, have I ever questioned myself? Yeah, I have questioned myself, but I've always been pretty happy. How do you figure out how to be, how do you figure out how to be happy? That's, that's the real key. That's the key question is how do you figure out how to be happy? Because there's no, there's no greater pinnacle in life than being happy. Think about your favorite photo of your dad or your favorite photo of your mom or your favorite, you know, it's usually, it's, it doesn't have, the person doesn't have to have this crazy smile going on, but you can see the happiness in their eyes, you know, being a photographer. Yeah. You can see for some reason, I don't know why if somebody doesn't

even do anything different with their face, you can see happiness in somebody's eyes, right? Correct. You can see a lot of these things and figuring out a way to be happy is a way that you can manage all this stuff forever. Uh, I remember as a kid, I didn't even understand like stress or depression. I remember I used to be like, why the hell? Cause my brother, you know, being bipolar, um, at the time, uh, they would talk about these extreme highs and extreme lows. And I was always like, why the hell is anybody depressed?

Like, what would you be, what would you be depressed about? And some of that is, I think I was just a little bit born that way. Um, I think me having some weaknesses in school created other strengths and it created, uh, it was important to me to be funny. So I'm like, well, if I can't be smart and I gotta be something, where do I fucking fit in? And I didn't have any strength at that time

because I was just a little kid. And so that was my way of fitting in. My way of fitting in was, you know, not to solve some fucking math equation. My way of fitting in was to say something funny and off the wall that made people laugh. Right. And so a lot of times these, these weaknesses that start out, um, everybody always wants to, to try to fix them up in some weird way. And, uh, I don't think they have to be fixed. There's still things you should work on, but you don't have to fix them. I think just amplify those strengths and you'll shine through every single time. And it doesn't matter what it's on. It could be relationships. It could be business. It could be anything. Yeah. So back to what I was asking you, like what, basically what motivates you now? Like, you know, you had some success now, like some people might like, you know, they, they see the top of the hill, they get over that hill and then it's like, well, now what?

It's like, what's pushing you to look at that hill down? Yeah. You know, that's a great question. And it's a, uh, it's a great analogy. Um, anyone who's ever, uh, well, I mean, you, mean you you get the idea especially through driving but uh paint a different picture uh let's say you're say you're running or even just walking yeah well you walk up you know something pretty steep right and there's eventually there's an end to it right and you get to the top and then what do you realize? There's another one. There's another one. Right. And so that's,

that's, that's where I'm at. You know, I, what drives me, um, working makes me happy. Working out makes me happy. Working hard makes me happy. Uh, having intense workouts makes me happy. Um, only to a certain degree though. Um, there's people that like to work out way harder than I do. There's people that like to push it way harder than I do. And I don't know if it's cause I've done it so long or what situation is, but, um, I don't like to, I don't like to push it. You know, uh, John Anderson will say, you know, um, uh, deep water, you know, like I, I don't, I don't really train that way.

I don't train without, without intentions of how I'm going to get back because I want to get back because I want to get back to the dock and I want to get back to shore so I can recover. And so I can feel good because if I, if I'm, uh, if I'm just sitting here going, Andrew, dude, my fucking quads, dude, they are killing me. That's all my concentration. I can't, I can't think about anything else.

So for me, I like to push it hard and I like to do these things and I like to have things, uh, in my life that make me happy. The only way I can have those things is to be in control. I think a lot of people spend more time out of control than they do in control. And when you think about these situations that happen in your life and you think about the passing of a sibling, the passing of a parent, maybe you just had a bad situation happen and you can't stop thinking about it. Maybe you just had a bad situation happen and you can't stop thinking about it.

All these things can be fixed. Well, not totally fixed. All these things can be assisted and helped and supported by you working on being in more control over the things that you, the littlest things that you let get out of control can amplify themselves times a thousand, like something like paying a, uh, a phone bill. Yeah. Who gives a fuck about the phone bill, right? Like, come on, Andrew, is your heart still beating? You still breathing?

Fucking good, man. Gives a fuck about your phone bill, right? But things like that get amplified because you start to get frustrated maybe you get frustrated with your girlfriend and you're like i thought you were going to take care of it she thought you you know and it's just it's like it's making everybody fucking crazy and what people need to do is they need to take a deep fucking breath and you slow down and you say okay it's a it's a phone bill nobody nobody died thank god let's uh let's just sit down and let's figure out who should handle it and what's the best way to

get it done do we both need to handle it like just i'm just using the phone bill it's a stupid scenario right but that happens in relationships all the time my wife and i got an argument about scheduling some stuff the other day and her and i it's really rare for us to get into an argument but those arguments are important to talk through and to figure out it always shows you that there's some sort of breakdown of communication you know they say the uh worst thing with communication is thinking that it ever happened. It's like my favorite quote. Because I can be like, Andrew, I told you,

you got to have it. I'm like, I don't know if I told them. Right? And it's like, or maybe I didn't express what I needed to really say. Like, hey, it would be great if you got this podcast out ASAP. I really want people to hear it. Well, that's a lot different saying, Hey, it's gotta be out.

It's gotta be out Thursday morning by 8 AM. It has to be up. Right. That's way different, right? There's in one scenario, I told you exactly what I wanted. And the other scenario, I just said, as soon as possible, who knows what you have going on in your life. So I might've miscommunicated.

Now I'm all frustrated. Now I bark at you and now you're frustrated. We just fucked everything all up because we didn't, we just didn't, uh, communicate, uh, about it, about it the right way. And so I think, you know, things like that are really important to in your happiness and, and going back to, uh, my brother, he was just not, he was not, my mom would think, man, like she wouldn't be able to hear somebody saying that he wasn't happy, but he wasn't happy. He wasn't happy. Like overall, he'd be happy day to day. You'd see him

smile. He had a really big laugh. He loved to have fun. He loved to tell jokes. He was just funny by nature because he was like wound so tight. He would say something and he'd be like, what the fuck? Like, okay. And it would make you laugh. Then he'd be mad and want to beat your ass. I know, I know. He'd be mad and want to, you know, beat your face in over it. But, you know, the things that, the things that keep me motivated, things that keep me determined today is that there's more hills, there's more things to climb, there's more things to, um, and I guess like, I feel like, you know, uh, having a successful, uh, business in the fitness industry is, is a forever, uh, growing and evolving thing. I, I feel that it's necessary to, uh, continue to water this, uh, slingshot project and to get more sunlight on it and to make sure that it turns into what it needs to turn into.

Cause it's still not there yet. It's still like maybe about, maybe about halfway or about halfway to where I'd like to see it, uh, get to. And then it's possible that, uh, things change in the industry and it's possible that, uh, it just kind of like somewhat levels out a little bit, which I'm totally fine with because, uh, that has to happen at some point, but all that would mean is that I'm onto something else, you know? So, and that's, and that's some of the things I'm working towards right now. I'm working on other things because it's my job as a leader. Uh, I'm not just like, I'm not just leading.

I'm not like, Hey, come follow me. I'm like pulling everybody with me in some way. And in order to continue to have the strength and the resources to continue to pull everybody, I got to continue to explore new and different things. I have to continue to, to look into other things that are going to create more opportunity. And it can't be about me. Remember the situation about Samuel Langley, you know, giving up his dream because the Wright brothers, you know, got flight before he did. His heart was in the right place. My heart's got to be in the right place towards this.

And my heart is in a place where I want to figure out how to continue to create more opportunities for the people that work here. Little things like we've talked about the YouTube channel. I allow the media team to make some money off of the YouTube advertising that we have. And it's hard to really explain because people will be like, oh, what is that, right? Well, first of all, it's a nice amount of money. But secondly, I built that motherfucking YouTube channel about seven or eight years before any of these guys

arrived. So for me to, for me to, uh, say, Hey, you get to do this. There's a very specific reason for that. And the reason is my heart's in the right place. I want to create better opportunities for them. It's not about me. It's not about me saying, in the right place. I want to create better opportunities for them. It's not about me. It's not about me saying, oh, well, I'm going to get it 500 bucks or a thousand bucks or whatever it is every month that I would, you know, pull from there. Right.

It's about creating opportunities for other people and how fucking cool would it be if we're all driving around slinger mobiles? You know, I talked on here last time too about, or a while back about, you know, we have a car service, and it's fucking great to use that car service. And sometimes we get, you guys seen the videos on Hustlemania, we get shipped around in one of those sprinter vans, and we get six, seven, eight of us in there at a time. And it looks like we're about to shoot a motherfucking rap video in there, right? Yeah.

It's always too cold. Oh, it's freezing in there. And the last time I just took it because I'm like, you know what? I love that we're just wasting resources. And so I just sat there in my T-shirt and just froze the whole time. But that's, I mean, you the next the next trip would be great like if we're on a private jet like why not like why not just keep why just keep going and and not just not just from a company standpoint not just uh so you guys can so we can all enjoy one day let's all enjoy uh the years. You guys making more money is a,

is a great place for that to start. My wife and I invested in a beach house more recently. My wife and I invested in a truck recently. And part of the reason why we invested in these things is to share them. We want to share them with the people that are here. Our hearts in the right place. We feel like we're in a good position to do good things and to do great things for other people. And so that's what we're trying to do.

And with some of the things I'm going to get into next, you know, that's going to be some of the goal too, is that it's going to help people in a much different way than the way that we're helping people now. When you reach like a new peak or a new level like say you guys i'm on a new level yeah say you have you ever seen sorry i love that song dude i'm on a new level no it's um which one's the bald guy from key and peel i don't know which one's which oh i always mess those guys up too okay so the bald the bald one. Taller guy. Yeah, he did an SNL skit about being on an HNL. That's a whole nother level. That's great.

Dude, those guys are no joke, man. Those guys are funny. Those guys are talented. They're so good. I mean, beyond their comedic humor, those guys are amazing. So when you reach an HNL, do you give yourself time to sit back and be like, damn, I'm proud of that?

You know, like, do you sit there? Not sit there, but, you know, do you look at it and be proud of it? And how do you do that without feeling lazy? I'm writing this down. Whole nother level. HNL. I'm going to pull up the skit.

It's too good. Dude, remember that one where they're doing the thing? The hats? Yeah, the hats. That was sick. I like the one too. Beach.

They're talking bad about their wives. Now I forgot the question. See how that works. Hold on. When you reach an H&L a whole nother level do you give yourself time to look at it whatever the hell

the accomplishment is and be like dude I'm really proud of that then is there a time period whatever the case is like how do you do that and not feel lazy

you know like like we had a certain number on the podcast I look at that and be like oh dude that's fucking awesome like I'm not gonna sit back and be like we we hit a certain number on the podcast i look at that and be like oh dude that's fucking awesome like i'm not gonna sit back and be like well we're done here like no i'm really really motivated to like well i want to double that but for you on it's it's on such a grander scale i think it's very healthy to be competitive with yourself and and also um have some honesty with yourself have some honesty with yourself.

Have some transparency with yourself. Many of the people that listen to this, that follow my Instagram, at Mark Smelly Bell, a lot of you guys see that I wake up early. A lot of you guys see the 4 a.m. post. Sometimes I'm in my hot tub by 4.30 and I'm here at the gym by about 5.30.

I like to start my day out early. I like to get rolling early, but I'm here at the gym by about 5.30. I like to start my day out early. I like to get rolling early, but I'm also realistic. When I wake up at 4 a.m., it's a byproduct of me getting to bed seven or eight hours earlier than that. It's not a byproduct of me waking up saying, I'm going to show the world tomorrow that I'm determined. I'm going to show the world tomorrow. I'm going to get my day going super early because i want to get out in front of the day well it doesn't mean no good if i'm sleep deprived it's i can't really get towards my goals and so uh almost every single human being on this planet needs seven or eight hours of sleep it's kind of a uh it's just a for

whatever reason that's just what we got maybe some some people can say seasonally, maybe we need to sleep a little different due to our circadian rhythm matching up with the sun and the moon and whatever the hell. I mean, you can make all kinds of arguments, but basically we need seven hours of sleep, eight hours of sleep. And if I'm going to be, I need to always be realistic. Like this morning, I didn't wake up at 4 o'clock. This morning, I think I got out of bed at around 6.45. I just didn't have as much to do.

There were still a lot of things to get to. There were still emails. There were still text messages. There was still a lot of stuff to get to. But a lot of those things are still going to be there tomorrow. It's not detrimental that I get to these things immediately. I need to understand that my life is not condensed down to one day. My life is not condensed to one thing.

There never has been, and there more than likely never will be just one thing that forever changes everything else right um even my brother's death like it was it was a part of it but it's like well then i had to figure out how to fucking make slingshots right it was a whole nother thing right yeah so it's not one thing it's it's uh accumulative circumstances that end up leading you to be able to do some of the things that you want to do um and when it comes to getting on a whole nother level um i never really i don't really feel that like let's just say the war on carbs let's say like despite that i didn't i didn't play the normal game that everybody does and pay for my New York times bestseller marking.

Um, let's, let's just, uh, let's just say that they got one anyway. Right. Well, that wouldn't change anything. I'd still have the desire to write another book. Um, and it all goes back to making the world a better place to lift. It all goes back to, I want more people to feel about fitness and to feel about training and to feel about dieting even,

the way that I do. I love this stuff. I enjoy it thoroughly. I wrote a fucking poem about powerlifting yesterday. We made a goddamn rap music video, you know, talking about powerlifting. I love strength training. I love the challenge of it. And I would love for other people to feel it. My parents have never

felt it. My parents have never felt, they never got bit by the iron bug. They don't know what it's like to be, they don't know what it's like to go from one meal to the next, where all you're thinking about is how that food is going to help you and there's a lot of people that don't understand what that's like i can look back into my life and not even and it's so i'm so far removed from this time period in my life that i don't even understand what it was like to not be on any sort of regimented diet right yeah um obviously like you have your ups and downs i got certain times times of the year where I allow for certain things, but we've also talked on this podcast. My worst day is going to be better than yours, right?

Like my worst day is going to be better. My worst day is going to continue to get better over the years. You're going to continue to have a higher standard for yourself. And when you look at other people and they're struggling and they're not getting by and they're not getting ahead, kind of nice if you can kind of like shrug your shoulders, smirk at them a little bit and be like, sucks to be you because you got shit figured out that they don't. Now you still, you know, you still might want to help that poor bastard out.

Right. Yeah. But a lot of people don't know what that feels like. And so, you know, I say that the more that you do, the more that you can do, the more that you can do,

the more that you can handle, the more like, how is it that somebody in my position, I texted somebody today and they told me that they're swamped. Right. I texted, uh, the guy that,

uh, trains, uh the guy that uh trains uh trains uh ryan reynolds a few weeks ago and uh he said i'm swamped i'm i'm uh i'm under it or something like he said something like that right and i'm like yeah you're so i wrote back i was like yeah you're so busy right like you don't you don't have fucking time and i i wrote back i wrote in this whole thing i'm'm like, dude, that's fucking bullshit. You got time, like prioritize. You want to make time to do something together? Let's fucking do it.

Stop talking about it. And he kind of wrote back, like he was kind of frustrated, but when we actually did what he wanted to do, we got on a podcast together. He goes, man, he's like that fucking pissed me off. He goes, but it made me mad because you were fucking right. He's like, man, I was, he was like, I because you were fucking right he's like man i was he was so mad he's like i was looking at that and i was just like god damn he's he he uh he hit the nail on the head and so you know i think it it's a it's a natural tendency to to think that what

we're doing is like miraculous you know to think what we're doing is like miraculous, you know, to think what we're doing is, is, uh, is, is amazing in some way. And, um, uh, I heard recently Matthew McConaughey talking about the word unbelievable. He's like, just get it out of your head. He's like, it happened. It's believable. It just, it just, it just occurred. Right. It's like, stop using that word unbelievable. And so you should never really think you can definitely be proud of the things that you do. Um, but you shouldn't think it's so unbelievable.

You just like stop, you know, there's a saying too, that, uh, and I guess you could apply this to people in general too, but I learned it in football, satisfied athletes suck. Like if you're satisfied with your four, six, 40, maybe you're going to get run down in the fourth quarter when it's the most important to get that one extra yard to get your ass in the end zone because you thought you were fast enough.

Yeah. Right? Yeah. That's tough. So you've heard the song, Mo Money, Mo Problems. Who hasn't? Yeah, yeah, yeah. where all of a sudden now you have a lot of money, a lot of people kind of depend on you, making sure you get,

you know, you don't run this whole thing into the ground. Yeah. Yeah. You know, you, you can't, you,

you can't, you can definitely run into some of that. Like, uh, I think the, I think the more problems thing might come more so with, uh, fame than it would come with just money.

Yeah. Um, fame and fortune together could really, could really turn into some things that were, that are really hard. Um, when you look at, uh,

you know, somebody like the rock or some of these people that are, that are really, really advanced that have really done some cool shit or, or Arnold Schwarzenegger. Um, these are people that have burned the candle from every possible end that they can think of and uh and these these are people that may have um they may have done things that they like looking back on it they would love to be able to

they'd love to be able to change because the money and the fame creeped in the money and the fame changed them for some, uh, some period of time. Um, back to what I was saying too, about like being too busy. The whole, one of the reasons why I brought that up was to bring up somebody like the rock. Like, I know that you, I know that you're not nearly as busy as that guy. Like there's not nearly as many people trying to get to you as that guy. And, uh, you're not anywhere near his level And you're not anywhere near the level of a Brad Pitt Or any of these other people you see on TV

So if I'm not seeing you on TV and you're not in the movies And you're not like Joe Rogan, right? Then you probably do have time And if you don't have time, then from a mental standpoint Why would you say that you don't have time. And if you don't have time, then from a mental standpoint, why would you say that you don't have time? You know, just say, maybe you say something along lines, I'll get back to you later in the week, because that's a different mindset. Your mindset is critical. Your viewpoint, your vantage point, your, we are the most critical people of ourselves. And we tend to, we tend to self-sabotage everything if i say that

i'm too busy it doesn't help anything it doesn't help anything it actually is causing more stress for me because i just said that i'm too busy which doesn't make any sense it's kind of like an overbooked flight how the fuck does it ever happen? It happens all the time though. Yeah. You got fucking 360 seats. How did you book 361 seats? You know, you got seven days in a week. You got 24 hours in a day. That's been happening your entire life, I think. Right.

And now you don't have time. The fuck. Yeah. You know? And so rather than like saying something to me it's a negative to say i'm swamped or i'm overwhelmed or say if you need to say anything at all i would just wait to get back to the person say i'll get back to you later or you say you're too busy and then all of a sudden you look and you're like shit i got nothing to do then you feel like a

piece of shit because one you lied and two like oh maybe i'm not as busy as i should be yeah that that that can happen too yeah um one question well i guess like my last question for you is how the heck do you balance everything you got your lift you train every single day uh you you work this business every single day you're a father every day you're a husband every single day and you you got all these plates spinning, you know, at the same time, but you keep, you manage to keep up with all of them. How the heck do you do that? Um, it's just, you know, just a little bit more every single day, just, uh, trying to be better every single day. Um, you can't, you know, you can't, uh, there's only so many hours in a day. So you can't like, just continue to pile shit up on your day. That doesn't really make any sense. Um,

kind of back to some of the other questions that you had earlier about, um, about like what, like why you don't stop. And, uh, and, and if you do something great, why you would stop. So like I would, I would stop after something to allow myself recovery. I've talked about this before too. I have power lifted everything I've ever done. I put in a maximum effort. I go as hard as I can. And then I rest as long as necessary to be able to put in another great effort.

And my life feels like that on a daily basis where, um, you know, certain things don't take that same concentrated effort, obviously, like hanging out with my family is not a maximum effort necessarily, but it is an effort. There is, it is associated to taking up time, right? But it doesn't feel like taking up time because it's fun. It all goes back to staying happy and being happy and finding the things that you really enjoy doing. I enjoy hanging out with my family and I probably enjoy hanging out with my family because I have everything else done that needs to get done. And so you just want to be better than you were the day before. You don't want to be an almost like everybody else.

You know, a lot of people i see are are almost good enough to do this they're almost good enough to do that they're almost good enough to write that book that they've been talking about they're almost good enough to start that podcast they're almost good enough to become a photographer they're almost good enough to start powers like it's just just fucking just just go do it yeah get it done it done. Um, when I started running, there was no talking of me running. I ran one day with Cameron Haynes and I'm like, okay, I'm really, really bad at running. That kind of sucked. And it should be something that I should work on for a little while because I think it will help a lot of the other areas of my life. And that's not, that's

not necessarily fixing a weakness that's exploring and that's expanding, uh, into other things to kind of broaden your horizon because you should try new and different things because the things that you'll get out of that can be, can be huge. dad? Can you be a better husband? Can you be a better lifter? Can you be better at your diet? Can you be, um, can you be a better friend? You'd be more mindful towards other people. Can you take care of yourself better? Can you get better rest? Can you brush your teeth more often? Can you wash your hands more often? Uh, just, I mean, you could literally break down every single thing that you do. Could you stop biting your fingernails more? You know, I always

pick at my hands like these fucking calluses on them. And it's a terrible habit because then my hands are all rough all the time and it's not a habit that leads to anything

that is designed towards going towards any lifelong goals or dreams that I have. And the answer is yes. If you look at everything, it can really be overwhelming. And if you look at other people, they can be really sad. It can kind of almost hurt your feelings. When you look at what somebody else is able to accomplish

and you're so far away from that, you don't have the momentum enough to be strong enough to cope with having more rational thought towards that. Your thought process will be screwed up. You won't be thinking correctly. You'll be thinking, why do they have this? Why do they have that? And you're not thinking about, rather than thinking about any of that, you're not thinking about, wow, that's really cool. I wonder how I can get myself started in the right direction to go towards that. Right. That's a way different conversation.

Wow, man. I really admire that those guys have a podcast and they got eight cameras, right? I really admire that they have, really admire that setup that they have and that they go live. Wow, I really, I really admire that. You know, I'm going to send them an inquiry and see if I can figure out, you know, how they got some of these things done or whatever it might be. There's just, there's so many different scenarios of things that it can be. there's so many different uh scenarios of things that it can be but i think that your mindset towards it is going to matter the most in terms of you trying to be successful in terms of you not questioning yourself or not allowing you know i'm not allowing your questioning of yourself to

be negative um not everything always has to be negative. Not everything always has to be a positive thing. Questioning yourself to some degree is a sign of intelligence. I'm not really so sure about this, right? I mean, that's going to happen to you here and there. It's going to happen to you from time to time. And when it comes to the slingshot, when it comes to these different things that I've created and that i've made in the fitness industry um there really

hasn't been a lot of hesitation but of course i've kind of asked myself like what is this going to do you know and as i mentioned before being put down so many times um you, you know, I heard it that it wasn't a good idea enough times to where that started to creep into my head, but don't worry about what other people say. Don't worry about what other people do. Stay in your own lane, do the best job you can have taken care of yourself. Make sure you're recovering from the things that you're doing. Cause it's great to sit here and talk about all this stuff all the time and pound my fist on the podcast table and say, you have to get better. Well, you can't get better

unless you recover from everything that you do. So if you're staying up till midnight and waking up at four to try to attack the day, that's not gonna be anything that's gonna have enough longevity for it to turn into anything that you need. There are going to be, you will have to suffer at some point, but you're not suffering for anything that you even know is going to happen yet.

You're suffering for things that are unknown. You are, um, maybe you're fucking eight year old kid and you're punching a punching bag and you're in the garage with your dad. And every time you punch the punching bag, it hurts your hands. That's an example of suffering for the unknown later on when you're 19 and you win a golden gloves championship or whatever, whatever these different scenarios might, uh, might play out to be, or maybe you're an inventor and you make a better boxing glove or better punching bag. I don't know. It'll turn into something, but you have, there has to be some work that's put in. Yeah. There has to be, uh, there has to be resistance. You know, you can look at, you can look at lifting

as you just lifting weights and you're moving around heavy stuff to get stronger. Uh, or you can look at it as what it really is. And it's a process that you have to adapt to. It's a process that you have to recover from so that you grow. And isn't it amazing when we start to utilize some different exercises, we grow in other areas. How is that similar to life? How is that similar to the people we've had in this podcast? Each person we've had has had their own set of favorite books. If you only read one book in your life and never communicated with one other person, you'd only know the contents of that one book. But because we communicate with other people and because we read other books and

because we listen to other types of music and because we try new things that are different, some things that scare us, some things that are challenging, some things that are hard, when we face resistance and we try things that we haven't done before, maybe try to learn another language like how painful and how tedious would that be, especially as you get older, that resistance is going to allow us to grow and to become stronger and to be able to handle all the shit that we have to deal with on a day-to-day basis. Boom.

Well, what's next for Mark Bell then? What's next for me? I need to drink more water because I'm thirsty. They stole my phone, which had some notes on it for some of this podcast.

I have it over here, but... Oh my God. It's been... You got a couple text messages. I'm responding to everybody for you. Did you rub your butt on it over here, but. Oh my God. It's been, you got a couple of text messages. I'm responding to everybody. Did you rub your butt on it? No. Oh.

My, nevermind. Oh. Hey, hey now. So this came out today. Oh yeah. My brother's movie, A Leaf of Faith. Fucking fantastic. Yeah.

I can't wait to watch it. And is it on? So right here it's on iTunes, but it's also on Google Play. Oh my. Yeah. I can't wait to watch it. And is it on? So right here, it's on iTunes, but it's also on Google Play. Oh, my. Yeah. You guys should watch it, man. My brother did a great job. You can get it on iTunes, and it's $12.99.

Google Play. And it will be available on Netflix, but I think we got a little bit of time, uh, before it's available on Netflix. Okay. But, um, I got to see a screening of the film down in Los Angeles. I loved it. I thought it was great. My brother did a good job.

He did a good job of showing both sides. Um, you know, something to keep in mind with, with Kratom is that there's a lot of different people that have kind of thrown their hands into this, no pun intended, pot. And Kratom currently is mainly available at like head shops and places like that. You can get it in some other spots too, off the internet, things like that. But a lot of the companies that are making kratom right now, they're not doing their due diligence of making sure the product is as safe as they need to make sure that it is. And so because of that, there are properties

in some kratom because there's not really these, there's not these tight regulations on it. because there's not really these, there's not these tight regulations on it. There's these properties that are in some kratom that have addictive properties to them. Now we've talked about this before too. Not everything has to be negative. Not everything has to be positive. Just because you're addicted to something doesn't mean that it has to be negative. You can be addicted to lifting and it's totally fine, right?

Right. You could be addicted to your diet and yeah, it can have pros and cons. You can end up with an eating disorder. You can then, even through lifting, you can end up with some disorders, but in general, it's pretty, it can be pretty damn positive for you. Now, an addiction to caffeine and addiction to kratom and addiction to food, all these things, it is a little bit of a roll of the dice and it can be, it can end up being negative. Like you wouldn't want to have to rely on tons and tons of Kratom the rest of your life. Right. Right. But, and here's my sales pitch. The company is called Urban Ice and it was created by a guy named Kelly Dunn who has over 30 years experience, uh, in fitness industry, in the supplement industry. And he has been working with Kratom for the last decade or so.

He knows his shit. They're making sure they're checking the products for impurities, making sure there's no bullshit in the Kratom that they sell. And from my understanding, it gets tested several times over. So you at least have one brand that you can trust. That's the brand that my brother uses. That's the brand that I use. And it's called Urban Ice.

And I think if you just Google it, you'll end up on the right website. But it might be urbaniceorganics.com. I think that might be the website. If you never tried it out before it's something that you should it's something you should give a try um i've had friends that uh that have some warranted anxiety they they are they are very very well known uh outside of just fitness and uh they they do a lot of do a lot of, do a lot of work, do a lot of big time business. And with, uh, you really enjoy the benefits of Kratom. Some people have said that it helps quite a bit with, uh, reducing anxiety. Others have said it helps reduce pain, uh, for

myself, just a little example of it from this morning. Uh, I didn't take my Kratom this morning. I got out of my, got out of my slangermobile and i went i went to go on my 10 minute walk and i'm like man my feet are fucking killing me and it's just because i forgot to take my kratom it just takes the edge off yeah you know it's and if you're somebody that feels perfectly healthy and you feel that you you feel you don't need it then don't worry about it but if you're somebody that has some anxiety, you're somebody that, uh, you know, could, could utilize something that, uh, mitigates your pain a little bit. You can think about it and that it's like, uh, maybe acts a little bit like a slingshot. Like if your shoulder's really killing you, when you throw a slingshot on the pain's not going to all

of a sudden disappear a hundred percent, but you're going to feel a lot better than you did without it. Same thing with a pushup and same thing with, with uh taking kratom for some pain it's not going to solve all your problems uh but it will help quite a bit it's almost it's almost the equivalent maybe i don't know if you would agree with this andrew but it's almost the equivalent of it's almost the equivalent of like getting a warm-up without warming up yeah like it doesn't heat you up necessarily but like if your back is tight and some of these things, it just tends to, it's not, it's not taking away all the pain.

If you're in severe pain, I want to make sure I'm clear with that. If you have pain that's on a level of like a nine out of 10 or something like that, and you're at a nine for most days, all it's going to do is take you down to a seven or six. It's not going to take you down to a zero though. I want to be perfectly clear with that. Even if you took a bunch of it all it's going to do is take you down to a seven or six. It's not going to take you down to a zero though. I want to be perfectly clear with that.

Even if you took a bunch of it, it's going to take that ledge off. Yeah. It just, it just helps. Like, I mean, so why not? Gives you a sense of euphoria as well. Anything else going on with you? Not too much, but I just, my experience with Kratom is I love, sorry, my throat's still jacked up. I love editing with a little bit of Kratom in there.

Right. And that's a side of it that hasn't been talked about that much. It has a creative component to it. It has a component to it of, in my opinion, being creative, enhancing your thinking a little bit. And excitement gives you just this little bump of euphoria. It gives you this little boost, almost like you just listened to your favorite song or something like that. Yeah, that's safe to say.

A little bit of kratom and caffeine is what I like to go with. Yeah, it puts me in a good mood. I don't want to make it sound lame, but I'm definitely more loving. It does, yeah. Give me a hug. Yeah, exactly. It does.

It puts you in a loving mood. And for some of you pricks right now that are like, oh, my God, there's big advertisement. We don't do a lot of this. We don't do any of that on this show, really. We always just start every podcast. We don't have intros. We don't say any of that stuff. So eat a dick of this. We don't do any of that on this show. Really. We just, we always just start every podcast. We don't have intros. We don't say any of that stuff. So eat a dick.

Yeah. Well, that's all I got for you. All right. Strength is never a weakness. Weakness is never strength. Make sure you tell people about Mark Bell's power project. You can catch us on iTunes.

You can catch us on just about anything that you can figure out how to play audio or video off of it's's powerproject.live. We're also live on Facebook. We're live on the YouTube. We're as live as we get, as you can get. And I appreciate you guys watching. Give us a good review on iTunes if you like what we had. If you like this message, if you like what we did today,

the best thing that you can do for us, because the price of admission is free, but there's always a catch, right? The catch is I need you guys to share this. I need you guys to tell other people about this because the more that we can get this word out and the more, uh, the more people that we get, listen to this, the easier it's going to be for me to make the world a better place to live. So please help my dreams come true. Strength is never a weakness. Weakness is never a strength. Catch you later.