Mark Bell's Power Project - Power Project EP. 91 - Jay Ferruggia

Episode Date: August 2, 2018

Jason Ferruggia is a strength & conditioning specialist and muscle building expert. He has worked with firefighters, police officers, military personnel, Hollywood stars, entertainers, and many athletes from the NCAA, NFL, NHL and MLB organizations throughout his career. His work has been featured on Men’s Health, Muscle & Fitness, Maximum Fitness, Men’s Fitness, Fast Company, Huffington Post, LiveStrong, Muscle & Fitness Hers, and many more. ➢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 ➢ YouTube Channel: https://www.youtube.com/markbellspowerproject Podcast Produced by Andrew Zaragoza ➢ Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/iamandrewz

You know Smitty, right? Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, so Paul and Smitty run this kind of business and personal development group. So they asked me to come out to speak for that. So that's what I originally went there for. And then so my wife was like, should I come? Just the same thing. I was like, dude, the pace we're going to be on for six days is going to be nonstop.

You're not going to have fun. You're going to be just pissed that you came. So just hang out here. Well, and then when you're hanging out with your buddies, it's like everything's so centered around the gym right yeah it's like yeah i mean especially people in the fitness industry it's like all right let's you know what gym are we gonna hit up and then like what place we're gonna eat at it all it all winds up two main things and your wife will be like this sucks yeah right yeah exactly she'll be she'll be bored to tears yeah yeah we've done about 15 podcasts since i got here and then on top of that i just was thinking about it when

i went into the gym today so i have this weird thing where i i go into the gym and i either do my cardio or my lifting okay but it's not an official second workout unless i leave the gym and like change my shirt so i go into the i go into the parking lot and i change my shirt i come in i'm like workout number two and i check in again go yeah yeah and uh but i i probably have worked out uh whatever the hell day it is multiply that by two and that's how many times i've worked out since i've been here wow i've just been killing myself yeah and i didn't really i haven't really felt much of anything until yesterday yesterday finally i was like we were about midway through the workout i was like oh that's not feeling so good like there was nothing left right i'm like oh you

just got to suck it up but there was nothing there's nothing to suck up there was no deeper uh nothing uh nothing left you know so what you doing, like a body part split now? Yeah, it's like a standard kind of bodybuilding style workout. It doesn't matter what day it is, but the body part just keeps rotating around every five days or so. But we haven't taken any days off, which I don't know if that's smart or not. That's just the way we've been rolling. I've been training with Mike O'Hearn and my brother, and evans has been joining in and my friend friend daniel rego and uh even

some of our own camera crew and some of our own guys that we have have been jumping in and we've just been just smashing ourselves wow do you end up training by yourself a lot i do which i don't love that was what was great about the trip is I got to train with somebody every time. It's like having your own place. I used to have my own place for 15 years. I would train with a crew all the time. Even though I've been here seven years, I haven't really found an ideal scenario yet that I love.

I'd much prefer training with one or three people. You've been in this area for seven years? Yeah. Where were you previously to that? Jersey for 36 years. Oh, okay. Yeah, and that was where I had my gym. Central previously to that? Jersey for 36 years. Oh, okay. Yeah, and that was where I had my gym, Central Jersey. Had the gym for 15 years. I thought you were out here longer for some reason.

No, just seven years. Yeah, that's cool. I couldn't take another winter, though. I had to get out. Was that kind of the main reason for the move? Well, the reason for the move, there was a bunch of reasons for the move. I kind of i i just wanted like i love this right like i can't beat the ocean yeah yeah yeah i mean you know you're east coast

guy like being out here is awesome i love it so that was definitely part of it but i kind of reached a point in my life where i don't know i just had this awareness and this awakening where i was like man i'm not really living the way I want to live. And I identified, like I was always really insecure and shy and socially awkward. And I had a lot of anger and bitterness from childhood. It's good to see that nothing's changed. Yeah, exactly. And I was like, man, I got to make some changes, you know? Yeah.

And I started to become more aware. Like when you're not aware of it, you don't really know when everyone you hang out with is complaining or they're negative or they're gossiping all the time. And then when you make this kind of switch, you're like, man, I never noticed how much that guy fucking complains or bitches or talks shit about everybody. And I was like,

I got to get away from these people. But some people can do it and kind of reinvent themselves where they are. I couldn't. I was like, I got to move the other side of the country and and reinvent myself and and kind of create this new environment of people that i want to be around i mean you know the importance of being around people who are living the life in new jersey it's like that's some picture yeah no and that's the

thing i always want to clarify like it's not just dirt i mean there's definitely a stereotypical new york new jersey attitude and it's funny because – I mean, there's definitely a stereotypical New York, New Jersey attitude. And it's funny because we were just back there and I was cursing more and, like, had a little more attitude for a few days. Oh, you sound just like them after a while, right? Yeah, yeah. Like, shit, just going right back into your own habits. Yeah. But that is really important to try to find, you know, people that are positive. And we all complain, right?

Yeah. I mean, that's's just who even knows why he who even knows why it's part of human nature but for some reason what i find interesting about a complaint is that like if i'm complaining to you about something i'm gonna keep complaining to you as if i'm trying to convince you of it right and that's kind of the danger of it because then you might be somewhat convinced of it and uh it might make your feelings towards that thing worse yeah you know kind of exactly kind of drag it just drags the room exactly that's why i think it's so important to get away from people who are doing that all the time because no matter how many books you read and personal development things you try to do it's like man

if everyone around you is constantly bringing you down like the crabs in a bucket thing it's hard like you gotta be superhuman to overcome that so to get away and i knew that environment triggers behavior so like even the people i was around i could not call them back and not hang out with them as much but for me it was just like driving past certain areas or being around certain family members or whatever i was like man they're just holding me down and i'm going back into that place so had to move reinvent myself and uh just kind of create that environment with the kind of people that i wanted to be around and has the weather been a big difference too oh yeah yeah like a seasonal disorder depression whatever it is is real like if you know when you're back east and it it you don't see the sun in the winter and it's 15 degrees for like two weeks straight like you're bummed out

isn't it nuts when the weather changes here like if it gets first of all it's los Angeles, so it's very rare for it to even be too hot. Right. Yeah, yeah. And just like a week ago, it was too hot for everybody. Everybody was flipping out. Yeah, I was freaking out. It sucks. Everybody was so mad.

Or if it rains for like two or three days in a row, it's pretty unheard of. Yeah. People are like... They can't drive. They don't know what to do. People are losing their mind. There's nobody at the gym. Everyone's too depressed to get out of bed.

Yeah. People can't handle it. There's nobody at the gym. Everyone's too depressed to get out of bed. People can't handle it. Can't get out of bed. It's funny because we left in the middle of that heat wave, and everyone was complaining. And then we get to New York, and it's 100 with 100% humidity. That was a totally different kind of heat. Yeah, humidity is bad. You get out of the shower, and you're still wet.

You're like, I just toweled off. How am I still wet? We were in the city just walking around all day shooting and i went through like four t-shirts just completely soaked how did all this start you know i remember you know years ago you and i've known each other for a long time we've known of each other for a long time and this is the first time that we actually met in person which is still crazy to me you're handsome as hell i gotta say that thank you um you know i first started to learn about you through elite and uh started to see some of the success you

were having as a trainer and as a coach and at that time you know it wasn't like it wasn't everybody was jumping into the fitness industry it wasn't like everybody was hey i'm gonna be a strength coach and i'm gonna like make some money and I'm going to train people independently. But that's what you were doing. And you were kind of the go-to guy. I think I remember even, I can't remember if it was a phone call or just exchanges back and forth long before I ever had super training. Yeah. Yeah. We talked on the phone long before that. Yeah. Some exchanges and you were like, well, this is kind of how it works. I charge people and this is, you know, how I do some of these things um i guess first of all like how did you how did you kind of get into some of that yeah so i was same thing as you were two

years apart i grew up watching stallone schwarzenegger and the ultimate warrior and hulk hogan and everybody you know so i was like man i want to be like those guys and i was just this skinny fat kind of dweeb you know and so my cousin christine in 1987 was was dating a dude named eric wita and he was a pro wrestler not with wwf it was some other small federation but this dude was 6'4 250 jacked out of his mind east coast for some reason too is full of people like that yeah yeah yeah like i i grew up with like at least 20 or 30 people around that were like that right and he had like the uh uh you know like a shaved uh mullet type of deal going yeah and um so he got me into training and uh that was

personal training or no like he just wrote me a workout and a diet and i was just this chubby little weakling you know and i started doing that and um then i just became obsessed with it so i continued to read more stuff you remember back then like you couldn't, there was no internet or anything. So the back of Iron Man magazine would have all those books you could order. So I started ordering a bunch of old books like, you know, like Super Squats and John McCallum and all that kind of stuff. And just became obsessed. Some of the old school stuff. Yeah, yeah.

Even like Hackenschmidt and Saxon and all that. And I really became obsessed with it. like Hackenschmidt and Saxon and all that. And I really became obsessed with it. And then so I went into college as a communications major, which looking back was kind of delusional because I wanted to either like be on SportsCenter or like host a radio show. But back then I was so insecure I barely said a word.

So it was a waste. Didn't make any sense, yeah. Yeah, yeah. So and then I started interning in the weight room. Like I was just hooked and hooked and hooked. I interned in the weight room. Like I was just hooked and hooked and hooked. I interned in the weight room. And then I sophomore year, sophomore, junior year of school, I got super sick. And I had to transfer home.

And I was on bed. I actually got tuberculosis, which I didn't think anyone since Doc Holiday got that. So I had to be in bed. I was in the hospital for a week. And the doctor said if I didn't come uh that day and they drained they drained like a pint of fluid out of my lungs he said if you waited till tomorrow you would have drowned your lungs would have filled up yeah so i go home and i had to take like 15 pills for a year that that turned my piss like fire engine red and but anyway during that

time when i was home i got my first personal trainer certification later that summer i started training people just bouncing around to like their houses. I was charging $20 an hour. For whatever reason, and I didn't really know anything about business. I wasn't even that good of a trainer at the beginning, but it just grew rapidly. I had good luck at the beginning. Then by the end of that summer, I was actually on pace to make six figures when I was 19. I transferred back home, went to Seton Hall, and I started running the business. And it just kept growing and growing and growing. And two years later, I saved up the money from bouncing around different people's houses to rent some small space. It was literally underground.

We talk about underground gyms. It was in a basement. Right. It's 1,000 square feet. And I knew that I was like, man, I really want to train athletes and young guys who want to clang and bang get after it and go hard so just the other day we were in the city and we met up with mike schwab who at that time was 12 years old and he was my first athlete client he's now 36 so 24 years ago i started training mike and he's still like a little brother to me which is super cool to see you know that's great uh mike came and he

was a really good wrestler he's was a really good football player. And I started training him. And by that time, I was, like, into some West Side stuff and, like, Anthony DiTillo, like, some 70s powerlifting, Bill Starr, like, all that stuff. So I was still experimenting and finding out what worked and trying all this stuff. And Mike was getting great results.

And, again, back then, it was, like, you either go to you either go to like valleys and do like a bodybuilding workout right or there was the it wasn't today where every every corner has like a hardcore warehouse style gym or a crossfit you know there's none of that a lot of squat racks and sleds and places do battle ropes and kettlebells yeah and nobody had that that's what we have now yeah yeah so so in 1996 was when i opened up the facility there was a book called dinosaur training which i'm sure yeah brooks cubic and he was the first guy that introduced me to uh all the stuff you just mentioned sleds ropes sandbags tires and so you couldn't get it like there was no rogue you couldn't go on and order it so in new york and jersey like you had to know a guy who knew a guy and you could like go to the docks where the boats

come in and get those ropes we made our own sandbags we would get anvils from places we would you'd have to go to a liquor store and beg the guys like yo can i buy an empty keg and then like figure out a way to like seal it up and shit so uh well back to mike first mike was getting such great results that he referred me like three other friends who were superstar athletes. And then within probably two or three months, they all wanted to start training together. So I started training them together and nobody was doing group training at the time. And I was like, well, let's just train them together and then I'll make it half of what the adult rate is. And that was how I kind of came up with this system. And then before long, I would have after school every day, I would have 50 to 70 high school kids coming in and training in groups of like 8

to 12 until 7 at night and then i would train with a group of uh guys our age uh well you know back then i was way younger but anywhere between like 28 and 50 i would have this group of like 12 guys uh our age used to train and and that was my life for like 12 years straight just doing that kind of stuff and and i think i remember the first time a uh like a big um sports specific facility opened up like a mile away and i was like oh shit this is gonna crush us and it absolutely did nothing did nothing for my business because i had every single school within like i don't know how many mile radius i had the the rushing uh leader like all kinds of record holders and people just that place struggled right to make money but we were just killing it there and it was awesome

i think that was when i first spoke to you because you were considering doing something for the first time and dave tate was like oh you should talk to jay about some stuff yeah yeah i was kicking around the idea of super training and uh it was something i thought about every day for you know months on end but couldn't figure it out because i just didn't have any money so i'm like what you know and i just always would look at different spots and i'm like that would be cool to have a gym there but i can never figure out like how the hell do i get started how do i pay the rent like i've i've trained people before but i used to live here in los angeles and uh i've trained people before at some different gyms and stuff but i was always

thinking like well if i started my own spot like i'm not popular enough to really have like you know a big a big following to do anything like that and then my wife and i moved around the country a little bit i went to west side and and learned some stuff from Louie and once once I kind of acquired that knowledge that really helped that was a game changer because then at least I had something under my belt that was going to allow me to um be able to express myself differently like I was like you I was pretty shy but once I started to know what I was once I started to understand what I was learning and once i was able to put up like points on a scoreboard by like squatting a thousand pounds and stuff like that then it's like well i don't feel like i'm bragging and i feel i don't feel like i'm talking about something i don't know

anything about because i just squatted a thousand pounds you know and so it became easier and easier to talk about it and then you know super training it's just it just took a long time for me to kind of make the jump and uh you know kind kind of just hit the start button and go. But, you know, the first place I started out at was I started out in somebody else's gym, which was a nice baby step into it. And then it just progressively kept kind of moving and moving, moving. We have like five different versions of super training. Where was the first one yeah so the first the first super training gym uh was was inside of somebody else's gym called body construction zone that was in woodland

california and they fitted the bill for everything they bought all the equipment they bought it from elite and what happened was that's right yeah you told me yeah they bought it from elite and they bought it through me you know when i was jackass on elite right so they bought it for a discounted rate well these people were so dumb they don't even remember what they bought it for so they they made me like the general manager of this place plus i was a trainer and so i was getting a check you know every week that was significant because i wasn't making any money before that so it was the only thing i knew and uh things were looking pretty good and then one week i didn't get a check and i started asking each person like oh you got to talk to so and so and these were people that i actually knew so i was like guys just like if i'm not getting a check like if there's

something wrong just somebody's got to just let me know i have a family like i need to i need to know what's going on yeah and i'm like yeah things aren't going so good here and i was like okay well you know somebody should have told me ahead of time that some of this was you know going going to happen and i said well here's what i'd like to do i don't want to you know get in any like legal battle with you or anything and i don't want to sit here and fight over it all i want to be able to do is buy the equipment and i knew that they didn't know how much the equipment even cost because they were super careless and that's why the gym was going under anyway right so uh they were like okay well what do you think it's worth i said i said i'd like to buy it from you like right now for like five grand but it was like 15k worth of stuff very

easily yeah and uh they're like okay we'll get back to you and i think we settled on six grand and and that was that that was the kind of the beginning stages of super training. Cause I bought a deadlift platform, a bench, a monolift glute ham raises, and you know how expensive all the bars are. I bought all the bars, all the plates. We still have a lot of the equipment, you know, in super training now. So, uh, that ended up, ended up working out really well, but it was, it was hard just to even you know it's hard to even just get started yeah that was that was probably the hardest the hardest part of the whole thing as you uh you know you so you don't do that anymore do you miss some of that

oh definitely yeah yeah like when interaction with the kids and stuff and these younger high school guys that that's huge yeah they're just savage and they like i'm sure they share all kinds of stuff with you too so there's that side of it as well right yeah and you know that from working with kids like for me it was cool to see a kid let's say get a scholarship or break a record or something like that but it makes you feel better when the parents come up to you and like like mark you know so and so is a better person because of what you did for like that really makes a huge difference so and kids are so impressionable at that age so to be able to do that kind of stuff you miss that uh i do miss the the atmosphere i mean like like i said we were just back home and we were literally can mentor

some of these i'm sure you trained females as well but you literally mentor some of these young men into how to become men right yeah and they see it from the other athletes that are older yep and it trickles down yeah and then it's cool to see the guys who start with you let's say freshman year and by the time they're a junior in college now they've become kind of like a coach under you and they're mentoring and teaching the younger kids and then you're like wow this is really working pretty good yeah yeah and then it's fun to see them kind of like you know make make the younger kids kind of earn their spot and kind of, you know, abuse them a little bit, punk them out and stuff like that.

Right. Yeah. But, yeah, I definitely miss that. You know, I was with Joe DeFranco the other day, and we were saying the same thing. We both kind of miss that. He still trains people and stuff, right? He still trains a few people here and there.

He trains Triple H and Steph and a few pro guys, but nowhere near what he used to do. How about for you? What do you do nowadays? So I got the podcast. I run about six of my own events a year. I still have an online coaching platform. So we have Renegade Strength Club where I post workouts monthly and do Q&As in there. So that's a big part of it.

I do a lot of speaking. those are about the main things when you when you left new jersey did you like sell the business or something or so what i did was i tried to run it cross country with my brother running it and my brother and i don't have the relationship that you and chris have we're complete opposites and not really quite as close yeah uh so that was a disaster as a complete clusterfuck and within about a year and that year was super stressful i was like dude you just buy the gym off of me or i gotta sell it to somebody else and he's like yeah i'll just buy you out and then he changed the name and did other things so it's better we have a much better relationship now because that was a disaster uh and then the first year or two we were here everywhere i would

drive by and see a sign i would write down the number and call and thought about opening up a place here. And then that kind of faded for a while. Things were going well, just doing my own thing. And like I was discussing with Joe the other day is after you put in 15 years of 12 hours a day in the gym, you get burnt out, really burnt out. 15 years of 12 hours a day in the gym, like you get burnt out, you know, really burnt out. So it's kind of nice to not have that now be able to do this and be able to travel and do other things, which I love, you know, so I wouldn't be able to do that if I was still in the gym that much. Now that said, recently we've, we've started looking for space again, but I don't think I would ever turn into business, you know, the way I used to, it would be more just,

um, just for a place to, for friends friends to train just shoot some content and stuff right yeah what are some things that you learned from from uh having that facility and working with those kids because there's there must be like just a lot of a lot of kind of life lessons that you learned you know things what to do and things not to do and things that you probably still carry on right yeah i mean there's so many like if you talk like from a business perspective or life perspective or both yeah for yeah i mean let's start with the business side of it well the business side is i made the mistake that i think so many entrepreneurs and small business owners make is you try to do everything yourself and you have to at first no one else can do it

the way you exactly yeah at first when you can't afford it you kind of have to like that's the mind that's that mindset right yeah you can't get out of that for some reason no one's gonna be able to do it like me yeah it's it's tough to get over that for sure you have to relinquish control and that's really tough but uh at first if you're starting out you don't have a ton of money yeah you probably have to clean the toilets and answer the phones and train everybody but eventually once you can afford to you should hire people outsource stuff and now it's so much, once you can afford to, you should hire people, outsource stuff. And now it's so much easier. You can get virtual assistants online. There's so many things you can do that we couldn't do back then. But that was a huge mistake. And I think a lot of people make

that mistake of, just like you said, no one can do it better than me. So those were huge mistakes and not hiring people sooner, not outsourcing sooner. And then I think what I would say is specializing more early. So when you're hungry and you need to pay the bills, you say yes to everybody. So if a guy came in at 60 and needs a whole prehab program, I'd say yes to him. And then I'd say yes to high school athletes and yes to this person, yes to that person. Now, granted, 75% of my clients were athletes, but I was still training so many other people. And that I think prevented me from being even better than I could if I just said I only train athletes. Because then if a guy who plays golf comes in and he's all banged up, he comes in

on a Thursday, he's going to start training on a Monday. I'm like, I really have no idea how to rehab this guy's shoulder, but I'm going to figure it out by Monday. You know what I mean? So I'm kind of diluting my focus, trying to do all all this stuff and then in certain people's eyes you become a jack of all trades and a master of none so which is why i think i i give the advice to people starting out like focus on one thing and do it really well there is something good about telling people no too like exactly then they're like wait this is exclusive it totally yeah like yeah i'm sorry dude but yeah it may not be for you because we train really hard and then they're like, wait, this is exclusive? Totally, yeah. Like, yeah, I'm sorry, dude, but it may not be for you because we train really hard. And then they're like, what?

Like, I want to train really hard. Yeah. And eventually I learned that and I started saying no. Like, saying no is super powerful. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, I have a friend that I've been working out with in the morning. He's a private chef. And when people ask to hire him for, like, catering and stuff, and he does some things like that.

when people ask to hire him for like catering and stuff and he does he does some things like that but he usually tells people no no no that you know this is not a typical uh catering company they're not a big company it's just me and a couple other people and uh we make very very healthy meals like we're very health conscious and then the people are like well i they're like i want to be health conscious and he's like well you know he'll explain it more a little bit but he he said that every time he says that it's never like oh okay never mind they're always like well how much like what you know what do i got to do how do i how do i do this you know and he and then same thing with like meal prep he's like well you know meal prep it's like really takes it really takes a long time so you're gonna get you know charged even extra for that but he makes it an exclusive thing, and I never want to be part of it that much more.

That's a huge lesson, yeah, saying no, making things exclusive, focusing on one thing and not getting distracted. And nowadays it's easy, right, to get distracted and try to do 50 million things. So someone's new starting out, they might say, well, Mark has a podcast, he has a gym, he does that, and then they try to do all that at once, which you didn't try to do all that at once. You've done these things in steps, which is what people need to do. What was something that made you start the podcast?

How long have you been doing it for? I've been doing the podcast for four years. And that was kind of when I was into this journey of just personal development and becoming just a better version of myself. And it's funny because I went into college wanting to be a communications major and host a radio show. But I was way too quiet and insecure for so many years. So then around 39, which was four years ago, I was like, man, I'm about to be 40.

I've got to start doing some of this shit that I want to do forever. I've got to push myself harder out of my comfort zone. And so we started the podcast. And that was one of the main reasons why just for me to push myself out there more having that many clients you must have learned an awful lot about communication yeah for sure yeah yeah having those conversations all day well some people if you uh don't have um enough contact with they'll kind of fall off sometimes 100 happen to billy or whatever like i don't know man some people you got to like text them or call them or email them or whatever you got to make sure other people don't

need that they're just going to show up yeah they know the training starts at four and they're just there yeah and then other people like i don't know it's like you know you know you know the routine you know the days you know when we work out yeah so that must have been that must have been something that can kind of carry over into what you're doing today. Definitely. I mean, that's part of a, being a good coach is, is kind of knowing the individual personalities and kind of, you know, knowing you're, you're part therapist and you're, you have like, some people do really well when you break their balls. Some people, they kind of need to be coddled a little bit more and you got to know that. And then if you're not that kind of guy, like you said before, say no. Like if you're one of those guys who needs to be

coddled, don't come to this fucking gym you know what i mean like you got to be good with that stuff and you got to know that business is relationships and it's people skills so for so many years uh speaking for myself and i know a lot of people do like you focus on your training knowledge your your nutrition knowledge your body knowledge of the body whatever it might be and then your marketing skills your sales skills or whatever to make money but you don't work on your people skills and your relationship building skills at the end of the body whatever it might be and then your marketing skills your sales skills or whatever to make money but you don't work on your people skills and your relationship building skills at the end of the day that's really the most important thing like can you connect with another human being can you be likable you know and and that's going to grow your business and

that's going to change your life really so um well how long you said you've been doing the podcast for four years yeah and uh what kind of guests do you have on there i know i've been doing the podcast for four years. Yeah. And what kind of guests do you have on there? I know I've been on there. Yeah. My brother's been on there before. Is it kind of a wide array of people or is it mainly fitness? It is a wide array of people. I'd say it's probably at least 70% fitness.

But we've had just people that I think are cool doing cool stuff. Pro wrestlers, friends of mine, authors of some of my favorite books. It tends to be fitness and personal development. It's someone that's doing something cool, and so there's takeaways for the audience and whatnot. You went out to the Sorenix event that they have every year, and you said you liked it a lot. It was cool.

It was amazing. Such a great event. I've heard nothing but good things about it. Yeah. Bert's one of the coolest guys you could ever meet. His dad, obviously, they've had the company for, I don't know, over 30 years now. Their is a mustache yeah i mean it doesn't get any better than that no no i kind of said that kind of says it all yeah but they've just created such an

incredible culture and environment where there's no egos and a couple people said to me this is the only event i've ever been at where all of the speakers are at attention and sitting within the first 10 rows like paying attention to all the other speakers not like we're in the back just drinking and hanging out like you know a mark speaking like everybody's up front like i want to hear what everybody's saying and pay respect to them and then just it's a really fun thing where so there's speakers nine to five i i spoke this year was super fun and it's funny one of the things i said to bert was i for whatever reason i I grew up insecure and shy and quiet. I don't get nervous.

If you brought me to the Staples Center right now and said, go on stage, I'd do it in two seconds. But in front of the 600 guys there, I said to Bert after, that was the most nervous I ever was. And he was like, why? I said, it was kind of just out of respect for you and your family and your dad and the culture you created here and how everyone else is trying to do their best job you know and i was like we all kind of want to hold the standard for you there's nothing worse than watching people go before you too yeah yeah like oh great that's why whenever we do stuff like i always just grab the mic and i just start going first yeah right i'm like i'm just gonna kill everybody in the beginning and then they can try to figure out how to catch right right right yeah exactly uh so it was cool. And it's cool to meet some guys that I've admired from afar from so many years but didn't know, like you or Brandon Lilly or someone like that.

I'm just getting to meet these guys in the last few months. And it's perfect timing, though, too, because, you know, Brandon said, had we met five years ago, he was a bigger asshole, I was a bigger asshole. So we probably wouldn't have gotten along. So it's cool to see, you know. He was a bigger asshole. I was a bigger asshole. So we probably wouldn't have gotten along. So it's cool to see, you know.

Even Joe DeFranco and I, we've known each other since 96. And we weren't friends for the first five or ten years. We were kind of just acquaintances. But we were in competition. Both from Jersey, right? Jersey meatheads with an attitude, kind of want to beat each other. And now we hung out the other day. Like, we were really good friends. And, you know, we want to support each other.

And I think that's something you could speak to, too, right? Like, when I was younger and more insecure, I didn't want to promote other people. Like, I didn't even want anyone to know Mark Bell exists because he might steal my fans and my customers, you know? Same thing with Joe or something. And now I'm like, dude, I promote everybody. Like, if you're a good person, you're doing good shit. Like, I want more people to know about you, you know? Yeah.

yeah and you know sometimes sometimes there's times where that's not appropriate or or or it can be uh it it's not always in your best interest to always promote other people but uh usually it's not going to hurt you the way that you think yeah normally it's not going to hurt you the way you think like i've i've been on joe rogan's podcast before my brother and i've been on there and you know he's asked us point blank like hey who else you know should we i tell him all the time like stan efforting i'm sure i'll get around it stan efforting will eventually be on the show um but there's no reason for me to not mention stan efforting right like stan efforting is not going to take anything yeah from me you know and he's and i'm not going to take anything from him like it's just gonna it's just gonna

promote him more yeah but it will also help me. I mean, that's the way things work. Oh, exactly. Because everybody always remembers the person who referred them somewhere else. And so what? Even if he gets on there and has a great time. People are always expecting to kind of get that credit back or whatever. You can't do things expecting things in return like that.

Yeah, but the credit, it's out there anyway. It in like the ether or whatever it's in like the system it's yeah it's checked off next to you and you don't need the other person to say hey man thank you so much you hope that they do that because that's just the common courtesy of the whole thing right but yeah i've always found that to be interesting you mentioned um uh personal development now it's impossible to have any sort of personal development if you're in the gym uh 12 hours a day monday through monday every single day for 12 years right i mean in the gym for that many hours um so you had to kind of you had to break free from that yep in order to kind of work on yourself and and to probably think a lot more because you don't have a second to think all you're doing is working right right yeah they say i i don't know if it's

warren buffett i could be wrong but someone ultra successful like that plans two hour blocks in the middle of his day to this day just to think but like you said when you're doing that like you can't think when you're going on stuff so what i finally did was you know i hired more trainers at the gym and kind of weaned myself out of being there 12, 15 hours a day. And then that was kind of when I came to that realization in Jersey, because I had more time to think and I had more time to start reading all these different books and whatnot. And I was like, then I became more aware. I was like, I'm just not on the path I want to be on. I'm not really the person I want to be. Like I'm comfortable and confident in a gym with 12 to 20 guys doing the thing, playing my kind of music.

But then you get me out in real world situations. I'm not really the best. I'm not that confident. I'm not secure. I'm too focused on myself, like just focus on getting better, making more money, blah, blah, blah. I wasn't really a great person, I don't think, back then, you know. And so I knew I had to change those things. And so having that time, like you said, to get out and think and evaluate myself i was like man all

right i just start making some changes how'd you come to some of these conclusions this is this through books and podcasts and different it was all the above yeah it was just having that time like wow i'm a dick yeah yeah yeah my friends are right i'm i'm an asshole yeah and then i i just became more aware of people that were doing things that i admired and that i liked and i'm i'm an asshole yeah and then i i just became more aware of people that were doing things that i admired and that i liked and they're like they're just doing things differently that i'm doing they're approaching life differently they they're not quite as selfish they're helping more people and doing things without expecting anything in return and and it was just the insecurity too i was like i'm not i'm not gonna get where i want to be if i'm just gonna always because you we can

tell ourselves this story and write this narrative like look at you you're in front of a camera or behind a mic all the time but you grew up an insecure kid like me so you could tell yourself that story you're 41 now you could still be hiding and be like i'm just insecure i can't do it which a lot of people do like no that's just who i am i'm just introverted i'm shy and they do nothing but you and i are proof that that's not true like if you just push yourself you can become someone else and do something it's like first time you walk in the gym you let's say you can only squat 95 you don't say oh I can't squat 405 I'll never squat 405 you just can't do it right now you push yourself and get better you can get better at anything you know I agree and a lot of times i think people with uh with some of the

businesses they'll get into or even somebody that already has a large business they might try to get into something else and be like oh it's like a little side thing like what a horrible what a horrible perspective yeah like why would it be a little side thing why why isn't it just treat it like you treat everything else yeah and it'll turn into what it's going to turn into. Yeah, because you're already putting limitations on it. Yeah. Yeah, you've already kind of created a ceiling for it. And I think, luckily for us, weights teaches you that. Lifting weights teaches you that right away.

And it's very black and white. I have a 14-year-old son. Did you do your homework, Jake? Did you do your homework, Jake? Yeah, Dad. Yeah, Dad. You can lie about that all day and there's there's not a paper trail i mean nowadays they they have everything online you can kind of like look or whatever right but we still don't know if he lied or not until we get the report card i mean it's still the same as it was years ago yeah when it comes to weights hey did you you've been working on your deadlift you don't

even have to ask anybody right the guy goes to lift 315 it doesn't come off the ground it's like you haven't been doing your homework yeah you haven't been doing your shit you haven't been paying attention you haven't been eating enough you haven't been sleeping enough you haven't been you know it's it's an interesting thing because there's a a pyramid that kind of leads you to some of these greater things and people forget how important uh some of the things that seem like they're little and they seem like they're unrelated are the most related like getting proper sleep having proper nutrition like without without sleep and nutrition you can't have the building blocks for strength and then you get people that ask you a question all the time

they're like uh why do you hook grip it on your deadlift and it's like man you're you're really like if you're not sleeping you're not eating properly then there's no reason for us to talk about these various techniques or strategies let alone programming i mean we're way we're way off track you sleep five hours and we're trying to talk have a discussion about this. That is not going to work. And I see a lot of people, they'll go to bed at 11 o'clock. They'll go to bed at midnight. And they're starting their day way too late. And then they're trying to catch up throughout the day, but they ate a bunch of junk.

Or they didn't eat at all. And it's 3 o'clock in the afternoon. I mean, I know there's intermittent fasting and some different things. But it's like, man, you got to lay some of this groundwork down if you want to be on that next level yeah absolutely it's it's uh it's just uh you just see it in in so many different uh aspects of life what are some other business things that you uh want to venture into uh got some other things that you've been cooking up or you know i i'm just really focused on on kind of growing the podcast and we're doing way more video content

trying to trying to get on your level now and uh my speak i love speaking so i just yeah what do you what do you uh prefer to talk about when you do some of that stuff so what i what i did for a few years so here's kind of the history of my speaking real quick in a nutshell i had never spoken before in front of an audience i was i was comfortable in the gym but in 2007 cj murphy who owns total performance sports in boston brought me jim wendler alan cosgrove and jim wendler the the anti-social media the anti yeah everything guy dave tate was there smitty was there. So that was really my first time speaking in front of a big group. And I was absolutely the worst speaker ever. I was nervous. I was stuttering. I was just horrible. And I said to myself, like I said, telling ourselves a story

or writing a narrative in your head, I was like, oh, I can't, I can't speak. I'm horrible at speaking. I can't speak in front of groups. And so I didn't do it probably for five years to like 2012, maybe something like that. And then a couple of guys invited me to speak out at smaller things. And I was like, ah, let me try it again. You know, I'm here. I've, I've, I've kind of worked on myself. I've been going through that journey a little bit and I was pretty good and I had fun at it. And then I started doing improv classes at second city in Hollywood, uh, about four years ago. And that was a game changer for me. I was like, this is amazing. Because you know John Morrison, John Hennigan? Absolutely.

Yeah, so John texted me one day and he's like, hey, I'm doing a show at Second City tonight. You guys want to come check it out? I was like, yeah, sure, I'd love to. So I go watch the show and afterwards in the bar, I was like, dude, that was amazing. I loved it. He's wild.

He doesn't mind. I mean, he'll make the biggest ass. Oh, yeah. Yeah, totally. And then do you know Ryan Nemeth, Dolph Ziggler's brother i do not know okay so he was uh i don't know if he was at ohio valley he was in nxt but anyway so so ryan was there and i was like man i gotta do this and one of the one of the uh teachers at second city was with us at the bar after and he said next semester starts tomorrow he's like here register right now so i registered on my phone

oh wow started it and and within 15 minutes of the first class i was like this is what i was missing this is gonna push me and make me better and get me out of my comfort zone and i was better than i would have been a few years earlier because i had read so many books on communication skills and and human nature and psychology so some of the things we were learning in class like listening skills and all that i kind of grasped faster than some of the people there. And like you said, just from being in the gym and having all those one-on-one interactions all the time and getting better at listening to people. So that was a game changer for me. So then anytime someone would ask me to

speak, I would speak more and speak more and get more confident each time. But what I was doing was someone would say, hey, can you come in and speak? I'd say, yeah, what do you want me to talk about? And then it was kind of like high school. I would do my homework the night before. I would just write the talk the night before and then go and give it. And you can't become a good speaker just making shit up on the fly. If you look at a stand-up comedian like Rogan or any of those guys, they work a year to come up with one hour. So they'll be at the comedy store every Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday night.

Sebastian Maniscalco, all those guys are doing that. And any good speaker at a Tony Robbins level, they'll work for a year to come up with one good talk. So then I started working on this talk about two years ago.

And people, a bunch of my friends who I respect were really good speakers. They suggested that my talk be something along the lines of Super Connector. Because now, for so many years,

I didn't know anybody. And now I know everybody. Right. And I'm always connecting people. So, okay, why don't you tell your story and then how you got to this level where when you have a UFC party at the house, there's 30 people over there and they're all people you're fans of. They're pro wrestlers. They're authors of your favorite books, all this kind of shit. And how do you overcome that?

So I've continued to kind of refine that talk uh because it's applicable to anything so i could speak at a fitness event a business event um so i so i did that at sorenx i did that at a business event in boise a few weeks ago i did that i think in san diego i just did that in new york so i'm continuing to refine that and kind of add more comedy to it and more improv and more jokes and you know i get feedback from jay like how was my timing or my punchline on this one? So that's that's the one topic I'm working on now. And then I'll work on a second one after that. Very cool.

Yeah. Improv classes and that kind of stuff, I think, is probably something that everybody should engage in at some point. But everyone's like, you know, even like i i'm in front of a camera a lot but i would even be terrified i've done some stuff like that when i was in school and uh yeah just awkward yeah you know the teacher will get up and like just ask you to do something really weird i remember in one of my classes uh the teacher like you know told people like make love to the chair yeah you know and like some people would some people or they'd say something different to each person and a lot of people would go what

because because like they're already got like a they're already worried about what they're gonna do they heard what they teacher said yeah but they're like what then they're trying to like reinterpret it and there was other people that boom they snap right into it they didn't care what it was yeah and you're like man how'd that guy do that yeah it's amazing but it does it really uh gives you life skills like listening skills and thinking on your feet and not planning ahead uh so i love to do it now like whenever i speak i incorporate some improv and i'll bring people up so at soar next in front of 600 people i got brandon brandon lily up and i asked for a suggestion from the audience and they they uh our suggestion

was that we were in a hot tub together and we just had to go and it was so it was so much fun and Brandon just went for it he didn't care he was hilarious he was really good I'm sure that he would probably dig that because he he uh I've seen him uh do all kinds of funny stuff yeah I've seen him do uh like karaoke and yeah things like that yeah crip walking and all that yeah yeah that kind of fits fits him well as you've gotten older have you have you noticed um you know like as a as a young nervous kid who's kind of afraid to really say what's on your mind uh have you noticed like you know here in california got people like surfing or skateboarding or these various things that are kind of going around um do you kind of notice that you're less fearful of those things you're like yeah fuck it i'll try that yeah whereas when you

were young you're like i'm not trying to yeah i mean i mean it's kind of like as a kid i would do more reckless stuff right for sure i'm a little, I have a little more trepidation about certain things now. And then, but I definitely want to push myself to try more stuff. You know, like I box with my friend Tony Jeffries, who's an Olympic medal winning boxer now. And anything that I'm like, oh, that looks kind of scary. Like I was too scared to surf for years. So now I do that. And I, I do kind of push myself more because as you know, when,

you know, if you fear something and then you push through it, it makes, just makes you a better person, you know, feels good. Yeah. Feels good.

Yeah. I mean, it feels like you just won like a championship or something when you do it, you know? So I, I do continually push myself way more and way harder than I used to as a kid. Definitely. But some things it's funny.

Like the other night we were, we're on a busy street in New York and there was a bunch of like uh 20 something year old kids and we're uh it was just three of us we're trying to go find some more quiet to catch up and talk after we had dinner it was like 11 o'clock and that was making me nervous we're back in the day but like oh let's get in there and party and start slamming shots i was like i feel like someone's gonna punch me in the back of the head or something like i want to get out of here you know it's weird this place is too noisy yeah that's when you know you're yeah so you know you're way too old man is the music got to be this loud yeah it's funny because i love music as much as anyone i know and i'm always cranking music but

yeah i'll catch myself saying that now or like there's too many people i gotta get away from this like shit man i've become that guy yeah yeah yeah i i really uh have um you know haven't been afraid to try different things and so far every different thing i've tried it's it's led led to something more fun you know something better and uh i think that's something that people should understand is that you might not be great at it maybe it's not even your thing maybe you just do it for like two weeks and you find out ah that sucked or maybe you revisit it again right you know i'm kind of hoping after i do this bodybuilding show coming up uh for a little while when's your show it's at the end of august oh come on wow yeah it's like about a month away where i was uh it's it's just in sacramento okay yeah and i was hoping like after that, uh, just before some

of this came around, I was running and I was just started running every day. And, uh, when I started that, I was like two 55 and now I'm two 25. So once I kick back out of this bodybuilding thing, I'd love to, you know, work on some of that again. And, um, I running is something I just never have done as adult. And, uh, uh like you said you're just like oh i can't i can't do that that's not me i i'm not good at that right and i've learned that that's just a shitty yeah a shitty excuse you know there are certain things that i won't do just because i don't have a previous history yeah of doing them i like to stay pretty grounded. I'm not going to like ski. I'm not going to surf. Um, I just think that the, uh, learning curve on it would be so great that I probably wouldn't have a very good time. Right. You know what I mean? So I still got to keep it all like in

perspective of, of things that I feel that I can at least adapt to a little bit easier. But, uh, those were things I've been thinking about and even yoga you know it's like people have been urging me to do yoga forever they tell me all the time like man you're really stuck together you know your your body's real stiff and uh it would benefit you and i'm like at this point i'm like well what do i got to lose why don't just try it yeah maybe it'll work maybe it'll feel good yeah so have you jumped in yet or not yet i have not yet but i need to yeah i need to i mean that's kind of the kind of the point you were mentioning uh john hennigan do you know john hennigan and i's history at all i'm sure john's told me but i yeah so john uh he's been a friend of mine for a long

time i met him i actually met him here in los angeles in elundo at the Raw Training Center, which was like an MMA gym and a pro wrestling gym. And that's the first time I saw him, and he was just coming off of the show Tough Enough, I think it was called. Oh, yeah. And he won the show, but he couldn't say anything about it at the time because the show was not officially over

as it was playing on television. But I kind of assumed i was like oh he probably won that's probably why he's here and he was just shredded it's like my god this kid looks like an anatomy chart he was just so lean he had like striations through his stomach and stuff it's like holy shit anyway he and i became friends and he he shared a lot of stuff with me like uh his passion for making movies and, you know, he always liked acting and he was, uh, got a creative mind and stuff. And so we, we became friends long story short. Uh, you know, we, we met up again in Ohio Valley, uh, when I was wrestling in Louisville, Kentucky,

uh, for a while. Um, and as time progressed, uh, I, you know, I, I left the wrestling business and, uh, started getting more into like the fitness industry kind of through powerlifting, I guess you'd say, and then had the idea of the slingshot. And as I was playing around with this idea for the slingshot, uh, I was able to get some money from my parents. I had some of my own money and I needed money from somebody else. And so, uh, a friend of mine stepped up and he was like, I got you. And, uh, I had a misunderstanding with how it was going to work to get this thing off the ground. And I thought I, I thought that I

would send half the money to where, to the manufacturer. And I thought they would send the product and I'd send them the other half, but it was more like I sent them half the money. They made the product and then to ship it, they but it was more like i sent them half the money they made the product and then to ship it they were they needed the rest of the deposit you know well anyway my friend that stepped up to help uh he he's like man i i'm sorry dude like this deal fell through for me and i don't i don't have i don't have the money it was like 20 or 30 grand it wasn't like it was cheap you know it was a good chunk of money and um so i was like fuck man i'm like who can i like shit who can i talk to that has that kind of

money just sitting in the bank you know yeah and i'm like well i'm like i don't want to bother because i've been friends with john cena for a long time like i don't want to bother cena because like he and i are good friends but i was like i never really wanted to ever bother him that way yeah oh he works really hard for his stuff too and i just i just never felt comfortable with any of that so i was pretty close with hennigan so i was like well let me call hennigan so i call him and i'm super nervous i'm like i kind of need some money and i got this invention and uh you know he's like he's like dude just tell me what you need and i was like well i need maybe it's 20 grand i can't remember the exact amount i was like i need 20 grand he's like well you know you said it's for an invention and you feel like you

feel really good about it you you're excited about it and i said absolutely i'm gonna make this thing work and he goes it'll be in the mail tomorrow he'll be on your on your porch in the morning no shit that's amazing i never do that he fucking sent it uh like first class mail or whatever and that's amazing see that's what a good dude john is he would have never told me that that's super cool yeah he's a savage that's amazing yeah it was it was it was really amazing and and then like you know i told him i was like i'll pay you back in a year and he just is like look man he's like you're gonna need more than a year you know it's okay like don't worry like you'll pay back when you pay back and i did pay him back but he was right it did take time because even though we accumulated some cash through the sales of

the slingshot it took a while uh for us to have the capital to be able to pay him back plus fulfill orders and order more stuff and so on you know yeah but yeah that was a really uh that's a great story it's a crazy connection yeah you know and super cool and you were mentioning how your friends encouraged you to uh to do your talks about being kind of a connector yeah and i love that kind of stuff i think that is important yeah i mean since you got here you're like hey do you know so-and-so do you know this guy and it is important to uh to communicate like that i'm sure like at these ufc parties that you have there's probably a lot of business that's being done oh yeah everyone's just friends hanging out uh drinking a beer or something but at the same time somebody's like oh yeah give me your

info right definitely yeah all the time people are hitting each other up yeah yeah i love that what do you have coming up any travels anything like that going on uh we got let's say i got a couple so we're going to montana i've never been to montana so we're gonna go there uh we'll see smitty out there we're just gonna be good i'm just gonna go around for a few days and then um what's going on there just never been so so my my friend of 20 plus years 25 plus years uh he does a lot of uh i guess for lack of a better term like life coaching and he's always been as a kid at 12 years old his name is mike disani uh so he and he knows brandon like smitty has worked with him and and uh brandon ben pokulski and guys like that are big fans of him now. He helps me do these events that I do.

But at 12 years old, everybody meditates now. He was meditating when he was 12. He was reading Thoreau. He was into all this Native American stuff. So he's like certified in all these different ceremonies. He was into all that at 12 and he didn't kill himself by now? Yeah, yeah. Sophomore, I don't remember, sophomore or junior year of high school in Jersey. He went into the woods behind his house and slept outside for a year. He built like this little Native American hut.

People are like, what the fuck? Yeah. Yeah. So he's running kind of like this ceremony and this week out in Montana. And a bunch of guys are going. Smitty's going to it. And then we're going to hang out with all of them afterwards. Sounds like an ayahuasca party.

You guys are going to run around the woods naked basically. There's some of that. Some of that's be going down yeah yeah sacrificing sheep yeah yeah yeah absolutely so we're doing that and then we have uh i have one of my events here and then we're going up to seattle uh do you know becky lynch ww wrestler okay she's a good friend of mine so uh and she's a huge pearl jam fan as well so a bunch of us are going up just to see pearl jam and hang out in seattle and then we're going to chicago some of the wrestlers it's sometimes weird sometimes i do know them and i don't realize it because it's like the wrestling name versus the real name yeah yeah and i'm always like i don't know yeah i might know

who she is yeah uh we'll do it with uh like uh red hair she and charlotte flair are best friends she may have even come to my gym now that I think about it. Maybe, yeah. Yeah, but so we're doing that. Then we're going to Chicago. And then we're probably going, at some point, we're going back to New York and New Jersey to film more stuff there and do some stuff there.

What are you trying to do with the content? Like what type of content are you guys producing? Is it like kind of based on lifting or based on kind of the adventure? Like is it a little bit more like Matt Vincent-ish or is it a little bit more like a little both matt vincent ish or is it a little bit more like what i do both kind of combination yeah yeah so just going around visiting people doing vlog kind of stuff uh just all the above kind of how's your diet and stuff especially when you travel are you able to kind of keep keep up with it and and stay in intact with it or you don't care too much so

what's interesting is uh because you had said now you're doing more of a bodybuilding, like higher carb, lower fat diet. I actually tend to look better and perform better on that kind of diet. But when you're traveling, it's hard to find sweet potatoes and rice. The only carb you can get is fries half the place you go, especially if you're going to middle America. Isn't that really interesting? It's so weird. It's a really weird thing that you can't find a healthy carb yeah and so then carbs get a bad rep right and then you know we got like our war on carbs that we call it

but and that's kind of why there has to be a war on carbs is because there's such shitty carbohydrates that are available every once in a while at uh some of these places you can get some fruit yeah that's about it you can't really find you're not going to get a like a regular dry potato or you know you know like dry potatoes kind of rough yeah eating white rice isn't so bad you throw some salt on there some soy sauce and yeah you're good to go yeah so when i travel i tend to go lower carb because you could always just get meat somewhere you know just get meat and salad and that's easier but you got to cut out something right yeah i mean if you're if you're trying to balance you're trying to balance out the energy system um you know i i don't love the whole

calorie thing because i think it can sometimes uh be like an inaccurate measure but yeah uh it is the only thing that we have to measure the energy and so you have to figure out like yeah am i going to eat more fat and less carbs or am i going to eat more carbs and less fat yeah you got to figure out a way to balance it out yeah and i for so many years well i ate shit just to you know when i used to spend a ton of time with with wendler and tate i used to eat a ton and like i graduated high school same height i am now 147 pounds and i was like up in the 220s but my face was like this big and i was just eating like dave like dave and i used to hang out all the time he would come stay at my house we would have six uh egg mcmuffins for breakfast with a gallon of milk and all that you know so i just looked like this and i thought i was huge but i was just like you're fat you know i'm getting so strong yeah i

was getting strong but i was just a giant dough ball. So I never actually got visible abs. When I tried to get visible abs for years, I would go low carb, and it just wasn't working for me. So when I was 39, I did a bodybuilding diet like you're doing, like low fat, high carb. And I was able to get visible abs for the first time in my life on like 500 grams of carbs a day, like maybe 200 grams of protein, 500 grams of carbs, and like 80 grams of fat.

Right. Yeah, so I played with that on and off, but I think it's good to switch it up. Everybody gets bored, and I think it's just good to switch it up. You're not a Tupperware kind of guy, right? Nah. Yeah. I hate that too, and that's what I hate about this current diet is that when I'm on a low-fat diet, I'm not really worried about the frequency. Yeah. I hate that too. And that's what I hate about this current diet is that when I'm on a low fat diet, I'm not really worried about the frequency. I might still eat four to six times a day depending on how the training's going and things like that. But traditionally I would use

some form of intermittent fasting and eat like two or three times a day. It's just easier. And I'd just, I'd work out in the morning, fasted, I'd get all my work done. And then by the time, I don't know, 3 or 4 o'clock rolled around, then I'd start eating. And I'd eat maybe twice and then kind of rest up and go to sleep and start the whole day over again. And just kind of repeat. But it was nice because there's no meal prep. Right. There wasn't a lot of just cooking up stuff and being prepared. Yeah.

I find my digestion is a little better on lower carb. If I eat red meat, I have no digestive issues whatsoever. So this morning before I came here, I had probably, I don't know, maybe like eight ounces of buffalo and an avocado, and I feel fine. Whereas sometimes if I was stuffing down sweet potatoes or rice, I'd be pretty bloated and stuff. You know what I mean? Yeah, it makes you gassy.

Yeah. Sometimes eating some of those carbs. I think one thing that happens sometimes with the carbohydrates too is that they do taste good and you tend to like, you're really like eating them like you're an animal. Oh, yeah. You're really like stuffing them in your face.

You're not even realizing it. Yeah. I think sometimes you're just not chewing it. I think with a steak or something like that, you really have no choice. Yeah. you got to really chew that thing up yeah plus the nature of it is it has more fat and stuff so it's going to digest slower yeah probably gives your body time to kind of break it down yeah you know separately rather than just the body getting hit with everything all at once yeah and like even a potato like with the skin and stuff it's probably a little tough to to digest it and everything yeah for sure you have any kids i know you're married right yeah

i've been married for uh six years now i think i don't have kids did you meet your wife out here no i met her in jersey and i was gonna move here so it'll be 10 years ago this september that i met her and i was actually going to move to L.A. that October, and I ended up staying there another three years with her, and then we moved out. So she's from New Jersey as well? She's from Jersey, yeah. Yeah.

What was that like, kind of convincing her to move out here? Was it not hard? Well... Or was it brutal? So she's not as much of a natural risk taker as I am, so she was nervous because I had told her from day one, I was like, look, I'm never getting married. It's just not in the plans for me. I i don't know i just don't want to get

married there you go yeah yeah right now she's more interested leaning in right she's like wait what's this exactly she had mind tricks so uh uh she wasn't i i had said to her a few months into it i was like i really want to move to cali i want want to move to Santa Monica. I want to live on the beach. I want to get out of here. And she's like, I barely know you. I can't do that. So then I was like, all right. I hung out.

A year later, I said I want to do it. And she was teaching at the time. And I was still sticking with the I'm never getting married thing. So she was like, I got to stay here an extra year to get tenure. So if we break up, I'll have some security and I can move back and teach again. I said, okay. And then eventually we ended up getting married anyway so uh and she loved it what we did was because she had the summers off and i had slowly started transitioning out of people seeing me on the gym floor every day like i had a number of trainers so we took a month and then two months two summers in a row and rented a furnished place like this out here no well not

as nice as this but uh out here two summers in a row and within a furnished place like this out here no well not as nice as this but out here two summers in a row and within a day she was like oh i see why you want to live here why you want to move here i'm down so oh that's cool yeah it's hard for people to leave the east coast a lot of it is a lot of people have um i mean not that the families here aren't close but that's what i dealt with a lot with my friends is like they're all still there yeah you know and they they won't move because they're real family oriented, oriented, even within my own family. Like they, they live on top of each other, basically live like, they literally live on

the same street. Yeah. A lot of my family. And they could not imagine not, I mean, forget, uh, moving somewhere. They don't even go on vacation hard. Right. No, I know a lot of people go to Florida or something like that. They might, they might, you know, but it's going to be on the east coast yeah yeah i mean they're

finally all of them are coming out uh at the end of the month end of next month for my dad's uh 70th birthday okay so that'll be cool but they're all terrified like they never like a lot of them have not even been on a plane right and we we had a bunch of people who visit who were like oh i want to move here i see why you moved and then nothing ever happens right yeah yeah yeah because they well they just it's hard it's hard for people to really some people uh i guess some people just just don't and they they don't envision how their life could be yeah uh a little bit more on their own yeah i think it's scary for people like oh man i'm my my mom and dad aren't gonna be nearby and my aunt and my cousin and my right but really like once i moved

i mean i it sucks but even if i still live there i wouldn't talk to anybody anyway because i had got my own stuff going on and i have my own family and uh so it doesn't matter if they're 45 minutes down the street or whatever 45 minutes away versus them being you know a six-hour flight away yeah you know it's like it's not going to probably happen anyway yeah um even my i'm sorry god i was gonna say even my my uh uh we have you know a lot of relatives that live near us, and we see each other quite a bit, but sometimes just life happens, and they got their kids, we got our kids, and they're hustling them around to wherever. We don't see them for two or three months at a time anyway.

Right, right. But your parents are out here now. Yeah, I live in Davis, California, and then my wife and I, through all the stuff that we've been able to do with the business and everything we were able to move my parents we bought the house right next door to us wow and that's so cool yeah how long ago was that uh that was probably about four or five years

four years ago probably something like that yeah and they love it your parents yeah they love it they're right next door and my my kids love it yeah my kids will get mad at me and my wife and they're like we're going to grandma's yeah we're going to grandpa's and my kids love it. Yeah. My kids will get mad at me and my wife, and they're like, we're going to grandma's. Yeah. We're going to grandpa's, and they slam the door. We're like, cool. Yeah. Right.

Yeah, stay over there. Yeah. You know? And your parents are doing well? Yeah, they're doing good. Yeah. My dad is doing good. My mom had a surgery on her leg slash back.

She had this kind of back thing going on for a while where she had some numbness in her leg but she's been rehabilitating from that so she's getting better so we're hoping she can move around a little bit more she dropped some weight and stuff like that too so hopefully we can get her on the comeback trail too nice you know we were able to my dad had some crazy uh issues years ago where he was like in the hospital for like 70 days in a row he had this cancer type thing going on and oh man yeah it was nasty it was a it was like uh he was coming from california coming back to new york for tax season and uh something happened in his stomach or something his stomach got real bloated

he thought he just had to take a shit or something he didn't know what was going on and uh the pain just got worse and worse his stomach started to stick out more and more and he was in so much pain he passed out but they were still in the air they were like over like the mississippi or something like that and the pilots kind of you know they they're not going to reroute a plane yeah really for just for anything i mean very very rarely um maybe if somebody can't breathe maybe you know but then they still can't land it fast enough to really make that big of a difference anyway so there was uh there was not a medical doctor on the plane but there was like a veterinarian or something somebody at least had some education and,

uh, they were able just to simply calm him down. And then he like passed out and, and they took him to Jamaica Queens hospital. And, and, uh, you know,

that place is used to dealing with people that have been shot and stabbed different shit like that. So they're not really used to some of these more complicated things, but he had, you know, some sort of, he had some sort of leakage of his gut or something like that that caused all this because he had cancer years ago uh anyway long story short

he's just up and down and up and down and he's he's a pretty heavy guy i would say he's normally probably 240 250 he's only like 5'2 you know he's pretty short uh but his weight plummeted way down he lost like 100 pounds when he's in the hospital his face was all gone and we almost lost him a couple times was able to kind of battle back and um he's been he's been doing good i mean i was that was probably about six or seven years ago and uh he's a tough bastard yeah you know those old old timers right right made out of something different than the rest of us here yeah so yeah it's been it's been amazing having them around and that yeah that has been a real uh kind of turning point in my life that he was able to get through that because of all the time he's able to spend with my kids has been really really awesome my kids love they love

hanging out that's great to hear like even while we've been here, we want to go back and see grandma and grandpa. Yeah. I'm like, we're in Malibu. Yeah. Just relax. That's for fun. Right. Where can people find you? JasonFarugia.com, or since that's super hard to spell, they can go to jay.fit, J-A-Y.fit,

and RenegadeRadioPodcast.com. I hope you start your own gym up, so next time I come down here, I can- Yeah, that'd be great. I can throw down over there there that'd be really cool absolutely all right my man strength is never weakness weakness never strength catch you guys later that was awesome dude thank you thank you