Mark Bell's Power Project - Turning Childhood Trauma Into Strength | Shaun Vasquez of Pride Foods

Episode Date: August 31, 2026

From surviving an unimaginably difficult childhood to becoming a professional bodybuilder, Army veteran, father, and successful entrepreneur, Shaun shares how suffering shaped his life—and why he eventually had to change his relationship with it.He opens up about breaking generational cycles, rebuilding himself, becoming a better father and husband, and turning his experience in bodybuilding into Rice and Grinds.Special perks for our listeners below!🥩 HIGH QUALITY PROTEIN! 🍖 ➢ https://goodlifeproteins.com/ Code POWER to save 20% off site wide, or code POWERPROJECT to save an additional 5% off your Build a Box Subscription!🩸 Get your BLOODWORK/TRT/PEPTIDES! 🩸 ➢ https://marekhealth.com and use code "POWERPROJECT" for 10% off Self-Service Labs and Guided Optimization®.🧠 Methylene Blue: Better Focus, Sleep and Mood 🧠 Use Code POWER10 for 10% off!➢https://troscriptions.com?utm_source=affiliate&ut-m_medium=podcast&ut-m_campaign=MarkBel-I_podcastBest 5 Finger Barefoot Shoes! 👟 ➢ https://Peluva.com/PowerProject Code POWERPROJECT15 to save 15% off Peluva Shoes!Self Explanatory 🍆 ➢ Enlarging Pumps (This really works): https://bit.ly/powerproject1Pumps explained: https://youtu.be/qPG9JXjlhpM?si=JZN09-FakTjoJuaW🚨 The Best Red Light Therapy Devices and Blue Blocking Glasses On The Market! 😎➢https://emr-tek.com/Use code: POWERPROJECT to save 20% off your order!👟 BEST LOOKING AND FUNCTIONING BAREFOOT SHOES 🦶➢https://vivobarefoot.com/powerproject🥶 The Best Cold Plunge Money Can Buy 🥶 ➢ https://thecoldplunge.com/ Code POWERPROJECT to save $150!!➢ https://withinyoubrand.com/ Code POWERPROJECT to save 15% off supplements!➢ https://markbellslingshot.com/ Code POWERPROJECT to save 15% off all gear and apparel!Follow Mark Bell's Power Project Podcast➢ https://www.PowerProject.live➢ https://lnk.to/PowerProjectPodcast➢ Insta: https://www.instagram.com/markbellspowerproject➢ YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/markbellspowerprojectFOLLOW Mark Bell➢ Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/marksmellybell➢https://www.tiktok.com/@marksmellybell➢ Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/MarkBellSuperTraining➢ Twitter: https://twitter.com/marksmellybellFollow Nsima Inyang➢ Ropes and equipment : https://thestrongerhuman.store➢ Community & Courses: https://www.skool.com/thestrongerhuman➢ YouTube : https://www.youtube.com/c/NsimaInyang➢ Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/nsimainyang/?hl=e#PowerProject #Podcast #MarkBell #FitnessPodcast #markbellspowerproject

My childhood was just ongoing suffering, probably, you know, from a very young age. That guy has a better physique than me, or he's got bigger legs or arms, whatever, but I'll suffer more than it. My mom was murdered when I was about three and a half years old. I thought that was normal. I was really good at suffering. I was really good at making progress. The cool thing is that you can still make the change. Yeah.

I think a lot of people don't understand that. The phytic acid and the fiber, it's just a recipe for disasters as far as digestion. And so white rice being void of essentially both of those, it just digest so much. what's king, right? I started having digestive issues after my pro debut. Like I had severe digestive issues and I couldn't get any help. I learned about like how important quality of foods is, like the, from the soil to the processing and everything. All right, Sean, great to have you on the show today. And thank you for the years of support with the rice and grinds. Yes, sir. Thanks for having me on. I really appreciate it. So, man, there's a lot of stuff to get into, but let's just

kind of start off with how did this rice and grinds thing start. I know that you were a professional bodybuilder. He had a stint with that for a long time. Did that kind of make you create these amazing different tasting rice cereals? It certainly helped. So I'd worked with Meadows, I think 2013 with John Meadows, and that's when my first intro to cream of rice started, but the orange box, right, the Uncle Ben's. And it was just so difficult to get. Everybody had a problem getting it. And when I actually found out or when I decided to do launch pride it was after I'd already been done bodybuilding I mean I just

it was training and like had desires of wanting to like go back and come out of retirement or whatever that means but I had already put down the put down the trunk so to speak but I was working for Neutrex research and I through that the manufacturer that we worked with was in Dallas and I had learned the back into manufacturing kind of going in and out of there and seeing production and I was like this is not that difficult and then simultaneously I

I started having digestive issues after my pro debut. Like I had severe digestive issues and I couldn't get any help. I'd go to a number of doctors. Couldn't get anything from them. I tried everything under the sun. I read a book by Dr. Stephen Grundy, The Plant Paradox. Yeah. And I learned about like how important quality of foods is like the, from the soil to the processing

and everything. And through that process, I started to clean up what I was eating at the same time. And then through learning the process of many, manufacturing through reading that book. And then on social media, everything started to blow up. People were making their own, you know, Meadows Concoction Bowl, if you will. And so one thing led to another. I'd source the rice, you know, from the manufacturer, from the vendor, or from the farmer, so I should say.

And I gave it to the manufacturer. I said, hey, try to flavor this for me. And no, no bullshit. The brown sugar cinnamon, our top flavor ever, like it was a home run after the first pass. Right out of the gate. Right out of the gates. Yeah. Yeah.

So, and that started at 2018. Yeah. Yeah, hot rice cereal is like an afterthought for some reason. There's, I guess grits are fairly popular. And then you have, especially in the South, grits are very popular. And then you have oatmeal, which is most people just think of like that's the only hot breakfast cereal that comes to mind for everybody. But yeah, when you bodybuild, you end up with like strict instructions. And some people, you know, some people like the oatmeal, but some people also feels that oatmeal.

will, like, bloat you. You know, it's like a little on the heavier side, which can also be, like, a nice advantage because you have that kind of bulk in your stomach and it can kind of keep you full. They'll satiated. Maybe for longer, but it also might, like, bloat you and make you not look so good.

Yeah, yeah. The phytic acid, at least what I found, I think I even read it in Stephen Grundy's books with Dr. Stephen Grundy. But the phytic acid and the fiber, it's just a recipe for disasters as far as digestion, especially for performance, you know, aspects. And so white rice,

being void of essentially both of those. It just digest so much. It's king, right, for performance carbohydrate. You know, it's interesting. Like, you just, we just, like, eat food, but we don't really learn that much about it a lot of times. And I watched just some short thing on, like, one of these, like, nature channels or whatever,

and they were making, they were baking rice. And the process seemed, like, really tedious. They were, like, shaking these things and, like, getting, like, these little kernels out. And then it's like, you just don't think about it because rice is usually fairly inexpensive. So you're thinking like it must be fairly easy. Like how hard could it be to farm this stuff? But there's a lot that goes into it.

Yeah. Were you watching it? Was it somebody like in a different country that would like, where they breaking the rough rice? They were getting the hole off of it. That's what they were doing. So they were doing that. We obviously have large manufacturing facilities to do that.

But yeah, yeah, there's a whole process to it from, I mean, and I have a, so we're launching the organic Jasmine Rice I mentioned. my friend and he's actually been in the fitness space straight jasmine rice just organic jasmine rice that's great because up to this point everything you had it's been more of a hot breakfast cereal right and they've and they've all been flavored yep yep so this is just organic jasmine rice i was talking with my buddy who's the farmer's a third generation farmer and he's just educating me on all things rice right from from farming to the process from milling and everything and uh i mean if they have a drought or if they have too much like if they have too much water a drought a drought

they can somewhat control because they'll just pump water up and they'll maintain it but if they get too much water like they need to be flooded anyways but if they get too much water that that ruins the crops as well and so it can it can mess an entire year of which downstream of that would like affect us right so there's a lot that goes into it how did this whole bodybuilder thing start because bodybuilding is a tough sport and to do what you did uh is very tough uh you became a pro in bodybuilding and that just seems like it seems like it's such a nitpicky sport that it's tough to get that pro card. And you did it years ago, too. And I'm not saying it's like way easier now, but those are some pretty, pretty impressive shots there. Yeah, no, I, I started training when I joined the Army. I was smaller. I graduated high school like 135, 40 pounds,

soaking wet and more of a basketball player. I played football, but I was really good at basketball. And then the Army is a bunch of, you know, you're with men, right? I was a boy. And there's a bunch of Jack guys and there's gyms on every corner. I was at 101st in Fort Campbell. Giant amazing gyms there and just wanted to start training. So a buddy of mine from Panama, he was like 6'4, he's like 200 and I don't know, 60, 70 pounds of the time. Just huge guy. And I was like, dude, like, how do you?

And so he would just give me magazines and I started reading magazines. I knew nothing about bodybuilding at the time. I all remember was like he gave me a magazine with like Gustavo Badell. I think that's how his name is pronounced. And so I started training then. And we would break into the gym in our barracks. There was a gym in the basement. And so a lot of times we were like working past the hours of the gym.

And so I'd just break into the gym downstairs, like double pull the doors. And that's how I started training. And then when I got out of the military, I was going to college. And I got introduced to a guy out in New York that was helping Steve Weinberger with all the shows and everything there. and he was my first coach and I kind of got I got bit by the bug there did a prep with him I did very well my first show I won the novice overall got second I think in in the open class and I didn't I kind of didn't look back for about six or seven years yeah bodybuilding's tough sport what what is something that you had to like that you had to bring up you know everyone kind of goes to these shows

and someone's like oh your hamstring suck or your shoulders suck was there any area that you had to really work on that was tough to figure out. Chest. Yeah, chest upper body, like, especially because shoulders, shoulders were overpowering my chest. So, I mean, I've been in the gym and, like, you know, a little kid, I throw a fit and just throw the weight down and leave because I'd be doing chest presses. And my shoulders are just getting, like, pumped up. And I'd just get so mad.

So I had to, like, Meadows was one that really helped, like, all right, you know, well, you're just trying to push weight to push weight. And though his training style and pre-fatiguing things and exhaustion. Yeah, how did you, how did you narrow down and, work on the chest. So just not going straight to, you know, heavy movement or not doing barbell just because everybody, every other media start out on bench. And yeah, it might not, bench might activate and stimulate some fast twitch fibers or something like that, but it's not really getting into the, the reason why you're doing it, which is the hypertrophy side. Right. Right. And so,

and just going heavy to go heavy, right? It's the slowing down. And what, what John really mentioned, kind of got got to me is, I don't, he like, I don't know, man, find what works for you. Like, you didn't stay with that. You don't have to, because everybody else is doing it or because I put it on whatever, you know, Wolverine training thing that he'd send over. He's like, the exercises that fit your body and that feel good for you, just stay in that zone. And so that once I did that, it's like, all right, now, you know, a little bit more frequency here and there, less weight and it started to respond.

Maybe starting a workout with like cable crossovers or flies or something like that just to get a little pre-fatigued and then because these are all things that I ended up doing in power lifting as well where you know somebody's like oh man I'm having a really hard time tapping into the triceps and I always think like well almost everybody feels the triceps when you do a tricep push down it's kind of like it's very simple to do right so you do a couple sets of that and then maybe you do your dumbbell lying you know trice or skull crushers or whatever it might be and then you have a tendency to be able to feel that second exercise more because it's already blood to the area yeah yeah that kind of what you've found to 100% and there's a weird thing that even the guy in the army had told me like he would do biceps before chest and he had a massive chest and for whatever reason like he just I said getting it out of the way so it's just either pre-fatigued doesn't take over when you're trying to do those exercises obviously chest is not going to take over or biceps aren't take over on chest but it was just he would give me that advice many years before john but yeah yeah just getting that blood

flowing in the right direction probably helps too i mean i don't know what the science it would be but like I would imagine, you know, getting just blood into your upper body and or into your lower body, depending on the area that you want to stimulate. Like if you were trying to stimulate even like your quads or something like that, I know that for years, Jay Cutler would do like five sets of leg extension before his squats. And then you've seen the way that Jay Cutler squatted. I was ass to the floor, three plates, four plates, five plates for sets of eight, ten reps. I mean, it was like unbelievable.

Yeah. Yeah. Meadows was always big on like hamstrings before. quads and I mean that was quads was never my my issue but it always I think it probably helped fend off any injuries but it always felt good to go into squatting because that's one thing I always always do is squat heavy yeah if your quads are any bigger in this picture here then you're going to look like you're 5-1 yeah yeah it was that so the problem was is like that's a sweep right there yeah I have a high insertion so like on the on the outer it doesn't you know most guys go

all the way down I don't know if that like draws it up to right look bigger on the hips but I have a super high insertion. Yeah, it makes you look like you just got off a horse or something like that. Yeah. What, you know, bodybuilding takes a ton of, like, discipline and stuff. And then you were in the military as well. Have you always been, like, someone who's had good discipline with stuff? I think on things that I obsessed over, yeah.

And maybe that's the case for most people. Like, was the military hard for you? No, no. I mean, man, no, it was a big party. Like I was with a bunch of friends that once you get to know, then they're all brothers and sisters. And we would drink and party. And I mean, I'd just, I'd wake up and, you know,

we'd still be hung over from night before going and running 15 miles. Nothing to us. Wait a second. That's what our taxes are going towards? 100%. 100% it is. Yeah. How do you bond though?

Right? You got to bond somewhere. Yeah, right. But no, you know, I know, I never, nobody ever asked me if the army was hard. No, it wasn't. It was like everything, the physical stuff, not only was it easy, was fun. What about the haircut? Yeah, that was hard. It really was because I saw. Did you go in with long hair? No, I didn't. But I grew it when I was in because I didn't want to look like everybody else.

And all like my NCOs and my office officers, they would call me, hey, hey, SF, special forces, because special forces had long hair. And they would like, they did after me. I'd be like, hey, I'm in, I'm in regs. Like, change the regs. Companies can change the regs where you got to shave it. And I'd always tell them, I'm in regs. Leave me alone. But yeah, I hate it. I hated having hair like everybody else. But, yeah. And how did you get into the Army? What was a decision, I guess?

Yeah, it was a decision not rooted in like in, in patriotic. Yeah, in patriotism. We, like, I don't know. I'm going to do it myself. I mean, I'm just going to go in the Army. No, no, I can get into it. I don't know if you want to. Yeah, it's a little personal, but.

Yeah. So I was trying to figure out what the heck I was. was going to do with my life. I was living in San Antonio. I moved back home for a little bit, got a job. Dad and I got in a fight. I got in my pickup. I put my motorcycle in the back of my pickup. I had a 1984 GMC and no no air condition, no radio. I had a flip phone cell phone and I drove across the country with a thousand dollars to my name. And I drove up the up the five, you guys call it, right? Yeah. You got the lingo down there. Yeah, because in in Texas, we like I-10. Right, right, right. Yeah, they say the five. Yeah. So,

I drove all the way up. I spent all my money on gas because, I mean, it's a V8, you know, 1984 pickup. I had no insurance, no registration on the truck, and just a hope and a dream. And my sister was in Washington, so I drove all the way to Washington. And I mean, up there, I ran out of, I had a job interview, but I ran out of money. I ran out of food. My sister was there. She was going through hard times as well. She had just had a baby. And so one thing led to another. And they were like, well, her, she had been in the army. And my, uh, brother-in-law at the time had been in the army as well. He just gotten back from Korea, I believe. But they were like, hey, you can go to maps and you can, you can test there and they'll feed you. And I was like, that sounds amazing.

I would love food. Yeah. So I went, I went and tested and tested fine, you know, uh, picked the job. And then I think it may be about two weeks later. I was maybe a week later, I was gone. They fed me, of course, a couple meals. Yeah. And, uh, and I joined. Yeah. Was there any particular reason with the Army or is that just because other family members had experience? Yeah. My sister was there. My brother was supposed to join and they never did. But it was yeah, nothing outside of that. And I mean it might have come up in conversation like before that. It said something to do. But it was never a really big focus. But it was the best decision I think I've ever made one of them. And what what division of the army did you end up being in like in representing?

So just just the oh, okay. I joined his National Guard, and then once I decided I wanted to do this full time, because I really enjoyed the physicality and the camaraderie, I went straight active duty. I never even checked in the guard. And then I was a mechanic, 63 Bravo. Wow, cool. Wheeled mechanic.

Yeah. That's better than jumping out of planes, I guess. Well, we did. I did some of that. Air assault. I wanted to do 80 second, and I wanted to go airborne, but I did air assault. So there in Fort Campbell were the, yeah, so just like out of, Blackhawks. And then in, you know, transitioning later in life and going through bodybuilding and

everything and then going into being an entrepreneur, were there aspects of being an entrepreneur that were hard? Yeah, a lot, a lot of aspects, especially because like there's no blueprint, right? There's no blueprint for anybody, any, any, any entrepreneur. But I, you know, my dad was a truck driver my mom wasn't around and so like I didn't have anybody showing me or giving guidance and and so there was a lot that I had to learn the the hard way and still am and some of that is like by my own fault right by isolating myself right but yeah there's been a lot of learning lessons and unfortunately some of those learning lessons have been rather expensive yeah I look at a lot of what other other friends of mine have executed especially people that have like apps and

and things like that where they have like more complicated inventions. I feel like the invention that I created is, you know, simple and it's not going to spoil. You know, it's not a food product. It's a quick, easy thing that I can mark up quite a bit. It worked out really well. But when I see other people execute, I'm always like, man, like, there's a lot going on with that. Somebody makes like a machine or something and it's like 600 pounds, you know, and then they got to think about like storage. and shipping and I'm always like, man, my hat goes off to them because that's really hard.

But there's some huge difficulty surrounding like having food items. And, you know, and there should be, right? I mean, it's great to have standards. And then so, you know, you got, you got the standards that you have to hold, but then you have to kind of double and triple check and make sure your manufacturer is who they say they are. You got to go and visit them probably and communicate with them. How do you find a line on rice and like, how do you find a line on rice and like, how? How do you, how do you, you know, how do you learn some of that stuff?

That's got to be hard. Yeah, we just went through a pretty, pretty. Because we got a lot of rice here in Sacramento, by the way. Yeah, yeah. We just went through a pretty, like, a tough learning process that we don't, well, we'll get into. But it was just sitting down and listening to the experts and then asking the questions as to like, okay, what can we do moving forward, right? Especially since we have, like, organic rice.

And organic rice is treated differently, right? there's different guidelines what you can and can't use right there's different standards to it and so um asking those questions and and not like the five what is it Murphy's in law if it can't it will right and so like all these things that come up it's being able to like all right ask the questions as to like how we can move forward and then have a plan moving forward but um it's the the the learning process on the food the storage um oh because I wanted to ask you this because like with rice my understanding is like mold can be a huge deal. Like when I was watching this documentary

and they were talking about how they were preparing this rice, I was like completely stunned by how much stuff was going into it. Now, I do remember what they were making. They were making like the packets of the 90-second rice. That's what they were making. Yeah, so the, you know, I wish I was a little bit more educated on this as well because I love cooking rice in the rice cooker

and then leaving it and then coming back to them. like, oh, half rice already made. But apparently the longer the rice sits is when you start to get the bacteria that grows. So on hours, it's a lot, a lot more shelf stable. There's not much concern with like the dry rice because it hasn't absorbed the moisture. Like for example, when we get our rice from the manufacturer, so it's made to order. Our rice, our base rice is made to order. We don't go through another vendor that goes to.

We go to the farmer and the mill and they make it for us. They do have a giant freezer where it's like negative 10 to, and they hold it there for X amount of time and it kills off anything that might be in there. But without rice being the broken rice, they don't use that because they, it would potentially bring in some moisture and because it's so compact, it would hold the moisture. They do it. They do it on like full, on full rice, right? But the concern would be on a finished product sitting there and ground mold.

And specifically, we actually have been talking about a 90 second type of rice thing down the road. And that was like a question that I earmarked. that like, all right, we have to figure this out. Because there's so many different touch points on like where that product's sitting, that the temperature is very, it varies. And so we have to have that in mind where if it's going to Amazon, what do their warehouses look like, right? If it's sitting in our warehouse, what does that ambient temperature look like,

especially in Oklahoma where we are, it gets pretty hot. You did a great job with rice and grinds because when you, you know, when you buy oatmeal, if you buy like an instant oatmeal, it's like these are cool. They have, you know, brown sugar, cinnamon and it's all this kind of stuff. But then it's just like full on sugar. Yeah. You know, as a bodybuilder and as somebody that's, you know, trying to be conscious of their physique and trying to be lean,

we can have some sugar, but it's not great to have, you know, a lot of sugar in your diet and a lot of just junk in your diet. And you guys did a great job of really trying to keep it as clean as possible, but then also flavoring it. And you got like pumpkin and you got chocolate and you got mocha. You got all these different flavors going on. Was that something that you started with?

You mentioned that cinnamon one. that you kind of, you kind of kicked things off with. Was that some of the original intention was like, let's keep this as, let's keep this, you know, almost for the bodybuilding audience, but I know that you've expanded beyond just bodybuilders buying your product. Yeah, yeah, good question. So pride actually stands for, I couldn't get away from the acronyms in the military, personal responsibility in delivering excellence.

So there's a bit, there's a, there's a kind of a backbone behind when we create these products. We're one of the top, the top ingredients, right? And I was going to go flavored out the gates and not do anything unflavored. And my wife's going to love this. Literally at the last minute, she's like, why don't you do an unflavored? And I was like, that's dumb. Like, what do you mean?

Like an unflavored? She's like, yeah. She's like, why don't you just do like an unflavored, like a big bag? Because we did 12 servings to start out. You never know what the customer is going to want. It's our hero skew across the board on Amazon, on our website. Like, everybody, unfavored. It's our big.

Because people are like, I don't like natural flavoring or I don't like Steve here. I don't like, you know, and you're like, well, It's hard to, people don't understand. It's kind of hard to make a product that's good, that tastes good, that people are going to enjoy. That doesn't have at least a little bit of these things. And some of these things are for a bunch of different reasons. You know, some of it's for caking. Like the stuff can get caking and just get too weird.

And sometimes it's just for the palate, just for the flavor. Yeah. Yeah. So having the unflavored was brilliant. And it was 100% my wife's idea. She's going to absolutely love that shout out. Is she part of the business as well? She is, she's not doing anything on the daily, but she makes sure this thing doesn't fall off.

Yeah, so she worked for Anheiser-Busch for 10 years. Wow. And we started to homeschool the kids while she was even at Anheiser. So I was running the company and homeschooling. And then she had our son. She went back to work for a little bit. And then the goal was to always get her out and retire her out of there. And then homeschooled kids and just work as a family.

family unit. Yeah. So that's what we're doing now. Yeah. And when you were, when you were in bodybuilding, you were, you and I were talking a little bit on the walk and you were saying that you kind of put yourself in a, like a, you put yourself through a lot of like suffering, pain. And why did you think you did that? It was home. It was, I was accustomed to it. Um, my childhood was, uh, just ongoing suffering, probably, you know, from a very young age. And, and I'm open book. Like, if we want to talk about that, that's fine too. But, and so it just, I always had this saying and is this chip on my shoulder that like, yeah, that guy has a better physique than me or he's got bigger legs or arms, whatever, but I'll suffer more than him, which means I'll get in a better condition, right?

And at least nobody will beat me there. And so I'll out suffer them, which now what I know about bodybuilding and the body is not like, you don't want to just go that, you know, you want some, I don't know if the word's balance, but you want some, a little bit of balance there. but yeah so it felt like home but by doing so it also pushed me further away from enjoying bodybuilding and so i just did it because i was really really good at it i was really good at suffering i was really good at making progress yeah yeah what uh what was going on with your childhood that that was difficult yeah so growing up um my mom and my dad had split and things were already you know from from not my recollection but from stories i guess been told uh pretty careful um pretty careful

chaotic and my mom was murdered when I was about three and a half years old and then I was supposed to come to California of all places. My dad and my uncle kidnapped me and then, you know, that's what they say they took me from my grandparents and then back then you couldn't really find somebody, right? It was like 88. You really couldn't find somebody. Right. So they took me and they hid me from the cops and then I, so I grew up with him and then just, you know, my siblings and I were just subjected to what you would probably call like alphabet abuse from emotional, physical, sexual, verbal abuse on and on. I had two stepmoms. Both have since passed. My first stepmom mom had a really bad drug problem. And then she was in and out on and off throughout the years. And then

my second stepmom came in. And she was actually, we were talking about this earlier, she was killed on a motorcycle accident as well. Wow. And then, so she had two sons and they were, they were pretty abusive to me as well. And so a lot of obviously instability there, a lot of, you know, seeing the worst part of human beings there. And then my dad has changed his life drastically now. He doesn't drink anymore. It doesn't smoke.

Kind of lives a little bit of an isolated life out there in the country. But it was, it was pretty rough. He was a, it's so hard to, where I've grown as an individual, it's so hard to, you know, to talk about, like, the things that he did, but not for the reasons you may think. It's because, like, I'm going to make mistakes, too, right? And, like, so to talk about another man's mistakes is kind of, like, especially about being my dad, but there were a lot of things there. Alcohol was typically, like, the gateway to a pretty rough evening, so to speak.

And, yeah, so, like, you just on and off for 18 years. I think the other thing it makes these things hard to talk about is that, you know, when you overcome something and you get past something, like you, you leveled up, right? And there's a lot of like you can be kind of brought down and kind of like brought through it and drag through it and then talking about another man's mistakes and another man's, you know, it's just like it's just like an ugly spot to kind of roam through. and even for myself, I never had anything like that happened. But just getting through my childhood, just thinking that I'm dumb and being put in special classes and stuff like that, when you do put that stuff behind you, it's not like, hey, that's not like that is still part of my history. That is still part of who I am.

And those things they do pop up every now and again. but I feel like I I feel like I'm inoculated to it you know I feel like I'm immune to it at this point I feel like I can talk about it a lot easier even my brother's own death or my mom's death those are those are much easier things to talk about now because I've I've played through those scenarios so many times

and um for you do you kind of ask or did you there must have been some point of your life where you're asking yourself like kind of like why like why why this happened to me and my sisters and me and my family members like why are we kind of put in this circumstance you know I remember when I was younger at one point it's like I don't have very many memories growing up whatsoever like many good memories and I remember one time like asking like I was crying apparently and asking like why me and I think you know what I think it was so I was told that my mom was hit in a car accident up until you know my teenage years I can't pinpoint

the year exactly and then I I was told what it happened. And I remember that that's when I was, I think that's around the times I was pretty upset, like asking, you know, why this, why that. And the reality is, is although they didn't tell me, there was some part of me that understood and knew what happened. I mean, I was with my mom 24-7, the evening that had happened, right? I've recently reading the police report, trying to figure out a little bit more key things here

and there because there. because there's a debate as to where I was when it happened, whether I was actually there, like it happened in front of me or if I was in a crib or somewhere else. But I've been trying to figure this out for the past, like, a year or so. I can't get any answers. And, but the reality is, let's say I was in bed, right? The reality is, is the person that I was with 100% of the time was there,

and then I went to bed and then she wasn't, right? So whether that, you know, I kind of got off on a tangent. But the truth is, is like, as I was, I got an older, and even when I met my wife when I was 20, I never asked those questions why me, because I thought that was normal. Like, I thought the things that we had gone through, and a lot of it because it's like the people that I was around, like my cousins, a lot of them were going through somewhat similar, maybe turned down a little bit on the volume, but they were going through a lot of similar things as well. And so I just thought this was like norm for everybody.

And then I met my wife. I met people in the army. And, you know, I started to like slowly learn. And that's when the question started to raise, like, well, like, what, like, what's going on here? Like, we aren't, not why me, but what the heck is going on? Yeah. Yeah. It does, uh, it makes a lot of questions pop up and you just kind of, I sometimes wonder, like, why people have kids? I'm like, why can't have kids if you know.

But I don't think anyone, I don't think anyone's setting out to, you know, maybe make some the mistakes that you mentioned. Yeah. Yeah. I don't think, I don't think any, that's anyone's goal at all. I think they're probably well-meaning at some point. and then life stresses and so forth build up. And then it's tough to kind of figure out.

How do you think you got through some of that? Do you think you got through some of that just being kind of numb to it? And because you're saying, like, you don't have a lot of childhood memories and the memories that you do have just aren't very good. So you think you're asking how I got through it as like a kid or like when I got older, like come to? Maybe a little bit of both. Sure, sure.

When I got older psychedelics. But when I was a kid, obviously I wasn't doing that. But I mean, it was touch and go because it was like it was literally on a daily basis, right? So it's just like the part, I guess part of the good good thing is, is like if I can make sense of it. I was left alone to my own devices quite a bit. Now when I wasn't, when we were going somewhere or we were at, you know, doing something. Obviously, if there was a parent involved, then it was kind of a, we knew kind of how to eat. was going to go, right? But there was no consistency. And so like when you get numb to it or like

you get used to it, there was just no consistency. So I was just, it was so inconsistent with the, whatever step-parent that was in the picture or if my, the only consistency was is my dad. And it was pretty, pretty chaotic, right? Like Monday through Thursday, we were probably pretty good, but band practice would come in on Thursday night, Friday, and the drinking would start. and it was just kind of assessing the situation to see how bad it was going to be. But there was some awareness when I was around, I think, 12 or 13 years old. I went to Colorado to visit my aunt, my Thea, and I stayed with her, and everything was great, but I didn't tell them anything that was going on.

And this was with my second step mom back at home, and her sons were being abusive to me. We was getting ready to leave and pack up, and I just started having a breakdown. I didn't want to go home. And so she started to ask why. And so I tell her everything that's going on. So she calls my dad. And she's asking if I can stay there. And she's telling him what's going on.

Because he's at this point, like he's, he's a truck driver. So he's gone, right? He's on in the morning and getting back late. And we would just, so I was supposed to stay there. And they ended up getting me to come back. But there was a little bit of awareness that like this is not normal. This is not healthy. Yeah.

Yeah. That was like an interesting, interesting, interesting background. now you have kids yourself, right? And you get to break the cycle. Yeah. Yeah. And that, that's been the work, right? So like if the box that I've, you know,

went from that box growing up to the box of bodybuilding into, I mean, I don't call what I do now a box, but like the thing that I obsess over now is, is a box with certain things in there and being, being a good father and stopping these cycles and being a good husband. Like these things are what are now in that box, so to speak. I don't understand why more people don't know about certified Piedmontese beef. The steak, some of the cuts are just as lean as chicken breast. To me, it's amazing. It's pretty crazy because, like, you know, don't get me wrong.

Go to Costco, go wherever, get your meat. But there can be a lot of fat in certain cuts of beef, which is why some people don't. They aim towards eating chicken breast and chicken thighs. But they have certain cuts that have like the same amount of fat that you would have in a chicken thigh. But it has all of the nutrient content that you get from red meat. You freaking iron, vitamin B, all these other things, that chicken just doesn't have. Grass-fed, grass-finished, regenerative agriculture, kind of the only way to go. And a lot of the meat that we see at the stores and stuff, sometimes it says it's grass-fed,

and sometimes it's not grass-finished and so on. But I've actually been out there and seen what they have going on at Piedmontees out there in Omaha, Nebraska. And it's pretty impressive operation they got going on over there. So if you had to Piedmontees.com and use code power at checkout, you're going to get four pounds of grass-fed beef with your order at checkout. Being a maniac about good stuff. Right, right, right. Being like, you know, really focused and honed in on kicking ass, but in a good way.

Yeah, yeah, in a nice way and being healthy about it. But yeah, with being a father, I remember my daughter was two years old and she was doing what a two-year-old would do. Just didn't want to go to bed, right? And I go to pick her up and I'm like, come on, like, it's time to go to bed, Kay. and she gets her arm back and she smacks me in the head and I was like like don't do that and she does it again and something happened inside of me that I just did not like and I had like I hadn't started doing really any of the work that I've been doing the past five years to like you know for the childhood stuff and my initial like response in my body was wanted to like hit her back right not like punch her but I just wanted to hit her back and I was like I was so mad at myself that that came up so I took her in a room I put her in a crib and I was like, you know, don't, you know, you don't hit people this at and I left.

And I went to my room and I like slammed my hand against the door. And I was, my wife, you know, later we talked. And she's like, you mad at Kinder? I'm like, no, I'm mad at myself. I'm mad that like my initial response is to like retaliate to a two year old is just being a two year old. That's just what they do. And I was like, I don't understand why is this like inside of me? Like, why is this like I didn't have control over that, that response.

It just, it just wanted to happen, right? And so that was, that was like a red flag that was like, okay. Then I started to look at like my, all my, you know, childhood years, my past as to like programming, which, which, you know, hearing certain things on certain podcasts and the ways people talk about it and experts talk about it is when I realized that like, well, it was not healthy. It was not right. And I can, I can't make these changes. But there was a lot of work ahead of me to do so. Yeah. It was like a learned behavior almost. Yeah. Yeah. 100%. And then psychedelics. When did you get into those? 2,021 or 22? Yeah. And I don't know what your experience has been,

but like my experience with them and most of the people I know that have some experience with them, um, the thoughts are really interesting and the things that you learn are really fascinating because they're, um, man,

they seem like quite a bit different than what you would think, you know, like in your scenario, um, I could picture, you know, some scenario where you're thinking in your head, like, oh, I'm going to confront, like, you know, all these things that happened in my childhood. But a lot of times, it's like, you end up really just confronting yourself more so than,

I don't know. What was your experience? No, no, that's a good way to look at it. You know, one thing I learned during one of my sits is like, or maybe even before integration was like, yeah. Is there was a, like a monster, like a shadow of, of a monster, right? And then there was what I didn't realize, like, well, there was me here and there was his shadow. But the shadow was a version of me casting the shadow. Like, I thought it

was a monster, right? So I'm looking at this giant monster. I'm terrified of, and it was just a shadow of me behind me, right? And yeah, I tried not to lay, have expectations as to how they're going to go. And it's hard not to, right? You're human. You're human. But the more that I've done, I've done them in group settings, I've done an individual. And the more that I've done, the most important thing that I've found for me is safety within, like, the space or that individual that I'm working with. So that this actually doesn't come online. Because the problem with a lot of my earlier sits is this comes online. So the brain comes online.

And whatever story I need to make up or visit or whatever, and it's been excruciating. It's been some of the hardest things that I've ever chosen to do. Like bodybuilding has nothing compared to four hours of like, you know, sitting with ayahuasca and, you know, three nights in a row. My brain is just creating stories of, you know, really bad things that not even that happened to me that I'm doing now, not knowing what reality is. And my perception of it was that it's essentially keeping me from, it's a standing, standing guard at the gates, right? My brain's coming online now like it had to whenever, you know, you asked, how did I numb to it? Well, somehow this brain just figured a way to survive and thrive or be happy in those situations. And so the brain's coming online again to help me

navigate through those, those tough times. And largely, I think due to probably not having the safety with that one-on-one person. And now that I have that, it doesn't seem, this doesn't seem to come online really at all, which has been, nice to not suffer through that because like then I was back to like am I doing this because I'm suffering same thing is it a different box now did I go you know from bodybuilding now to to to doing this and and for me it doesn't like it doesn't it hasn't been you know suffering the past year or so it's been you know all the the foo words right kind of eye opening probably yeah yeah eye opening it's been more I think the the word generally used is somatic it's

been more physical or the body is like releasing whatever stored energy or trauma that it couldn't, you know, I don't know the scientific stuff about it. I just know the experience behind it. And then afterward, all the gifts come, you know, the analogy I like to give is to like how you can see the, the, it change on a physical level is like, I can't stand or used to not be able to stand when like things fall off of a counter. And if you have, you have, you have kids, things fall off a lot, right? And a lot of it's glass and it breaks. But luckily, that, that doesn't bother me anymore. But, um, especially as a body. better. You had Tupperware, and I had glass Tupperware because it was like better, right?

So I would just drop containers. And as it's dropping inside of me, it was just like revving 10,000 RPMs. And I remember this from, you know, before I had kids. I'd just be so mad. And I'd be like yelling or cussing or this, that. And it was just, it was automatic. It was an automatic response. And nowadays, like my son especially, dropped the glass the other day or a couple glasses. And I'm just like grabbing the broom before he even hits the ground. Like it's not a big deal. It's no you. And so, but both of those are involuntary. Like, I'm not choosing to act that way. It's just not a big deal. And beforehand, it was a learned behavior, right? I wasn't choosing to act that way. It was just, it was a learned behavior. Yeah, pre-programmed in there. And so you're going to have to

work exponentially harder to make the change. But the cool thing is that you can still make the change. Yeah. I think a lot of people don't understand that. Sometimes people say they're like stressed or they're overwhelmed or and um you know it's not it's not great as a friend to point out to someone like hey well you don't have to choose that you know like it's not that's not that's not the best wording of it but it is true you don't have to choose that like if you're crying or super sad or super upset about something it doesn't that you can you can change the station and you can play a brighter song you know you can play a different tune you can um you could tune into a different frequency. Now it might take you a moment and like yourself, somebody who has had a past like that,

it's going to take more work than someone else. But, you know, we can kind of look at it this way. Like for me, I had to work harder to read or have good reading comprehension than maybe the next person. So maybe my homework takes longer. Sure. You know, maybe you have to repair, you know, other things and prepare differently for stuff than I do for us to, maybe. Maybe, you know, maybe any sort of success of ourselves, right? And I think it's just a it's a tough pill to swallow that regardless of what has happened, we can still we still have choices on how we react to it. You know, and it's just like it's such a tough thing to to come face to face with because it's like, man, no, that was like, you don't understand how difficult.

You know what I mean? Like when somebody, everyone feels like. like their difficulty and their thing is is the hardest thing. And I would say that it sounds to me like some of what you shared, at least as far as the stuff I know in life, it sounds like you went through the hardest things. But you're still here and you're still successful. Yeah, up until a certain point,

I didn't even accept them as hard. I just accept them as normal life, right? And so once I accepted them as like, okay, okay, yeah, these things were terrible, right? And then that's part of assuming the responsibility for moving forward. And that's that was the way that, all right, yeah, these, these things did. Like we, my wife and I had a, we've been married 15 years, been together 20 years. And so early on, which you've been together with, with, with, with, 26 years married.

Yeah. So, you know, they're not always rainbows and butterflies, right? And so early on, we had some, some difficulties and she wanted to go to counseling. And I was like, this is a terrible idea. I'm not doing this. So we went in the first session, the guy, like he, oh, man. He broke me down. We were going back and forth.

And then he, at the end of it, he's like, Sean, I think you actually need to come in here and see me one on one before we can do anything with couples, right?

So I said, okay, I'm going to do this. You're like, whatever. You don't know me. Yeah, yeah. Like my life,

this is all normal. So he made me do this giant, like, poster, like, you know, the big white poster boards that you do projects on at school.

And I had to write on there, all the things that I remembered that like people did that were bad to me, you know, whatever. And I filled the, front the backup. And I brought it there and I just like I was a mess because I never really like

seen it. It's just things that happened. Right. And somebody else to tell me that, hey, these things are pretty bad, right? It shouldn't have happened, et cetera, et cetera. Yeah, it could show you somebody else's bored and there's none of that there. There's not one. Yeah. Or or there's five. Yeah. Rather than a hundred. Yeah. And so that was a that was the awareness that then led eventually to the responsibility to move forward with these things. But I think you bring up a good point that you have the choice and that awareness comes. And then you have the awareness that you get to make a choice. And then I think one thing to add that I would add there is so growing up, I was a hammer.

Everything was a nail, right? And so quite frankly, I didn't have a toolbox. And if I did all the tools, like I was using a hammer for everything. I needed a wrench for this. I needed a razor blade for that, whatever. I was just using a hammer on everything. And so the work that I've been doing the past five years is to get a toolbox, organize that toolbox. And like you're saying, when those things happen, you have a choice to change the station.

Okay, well, I'm going to change the station with a white glove instead of a hammer this time. Or, you know, just as a way to say it. But organizing my tools has been the biggest thing that I've been to in my benefit to move forward from all of it. Yeah, I mean, you know, take another scenario, let's say that you had leukemia when you were a kid, you know, you didn't ask for that. Yep. You know, you didn't ask to be brought into this world into the environment that you're in. You know, if you had leukemia, it would be the same thing. You didn't ask for that.

100%. You didn't, you know, it's just a hard thing. It's a thing that happened that has some difficulty around it that may make other aspects of your life a little tougher to figure out. points but then also and then also there's the other side of it that it might make you stronger than everybody else around you that that's a you know that's something that like i i like your dad could make you the greatest dad ever that's that crazy it's crazy to think that right yeah yeah yeah and then the reason i was i excelled at bodybuilding and so fast i mean i did my first show in 2010 and that's that's that's nationals in 2016 and I want so I won nationals in 2016 it

look big there how much do you weigh right there to that's I think that's nationals yeah that's 18 yeah 218 I was one of the lightest uh lightest guys I think to win nationals um because you just got peeled yeah and I didn't worry I wouldn't worry about like the weight you know I I law I got third place two weeks before that show at a state local at a local show. Oh shit. Just missed the peak. Yeah.

Took some diuretics and just looked awful. And then I went back and learned my lesson. Got the carbs back in you. Yeah. Yeah. But yeah. You know, I often think like the one reason I was able to do bodybuilding and excel, especially in that amount of time frame, that time frame is because of the things that I went

through as well. Right. So I do fight with that sometimes. You know, those things also kind of make you. somewhat superhuman at times or sometimes it feels like it, but everything has a cost and I just wasn't willing to pay that cost anymore. I think maybe a little bit of like a mini lesson in there would be like you can make your kids do stuff that they don't really like here and there. Right. It's like, you know, that's like a that's like a halfway, you know. Yeah, little micro, little micro dose. Yeah,

yeah, yeah. Yeah, microdose, you know. Yeah. Because it's hard, you know, like you try to make your kid, you know, quote unquote, make your kid do something and they play baseball or something and they strike out or they're not, they're not that good at it. And it's like, well, you're not that good at it because you don't have a lot of practice with it. You know, so let's play for a little longer, but it's kind of hard to keep them stick into something if it's like frustrating. You are trying to really, I think what I was trying to do with my kids and still trying to do it with them, but they're 22 and 18. But what I was trying to do is highlight the things that they were already attracted to. and then make a deal of that and be like, oh, this is awesome that you want to do this. But I can admit that I would have been better off forcing them to do a little bit of stuff earlier. I think the earlier you can get to them the better. I think when they're 11 or 15 or something, that's not a great time.

I think I think getting to them when they're three and five. Yeah. And really, you know, like, because why really have your kid eat a lot of junk food? they're going to be exposed to junk food once they start going to school and all these other things. So maybe before the age of five, they pretty much just only know what you have in the household. And hopefully that's healthy stuff that's helping them grow and expand and recover from all the different things that they're doing. Yeah, I think a big thing for us is intention. It's owning a food company, right?

We're always talking about like the business and food in general. But when we like when we do tell our daughter and our son, he's three and a half. so he doesn't really understand yet. But my daughter does, and we've always been this way with her. We tell her the intention why. We don't just say no. We say no, and we give her. And it might not be somebody else's intention,

and they might be okay with if it's dies or this or that or the other. But we tell her the reason why. And then we also say, with that exception, is that, like, sometimes we're, like, yeah, we might go here and, like, we're probably going to have s'mores tonight at the auto camp with the whole families, right? And that's about the experience in the community.

and because we are so intentional, 99% of the time that we can let loose and we can be part of the community and we can have a good time. But she also knows why. She knows why we're not doing it and then she knows why we are when we are going to do it.

And that's been pretty awesome to watch it happen and see how she's learning it and she's like helping with my son now as well and she understands. It's been pretty rewarding. That's cool. You have the older one helping out.

Yeah. That's really neat. She's helping us. manipulate him. Yeah, that's right. Mold him. Yeah. Get him doing his push-ups and his sit-ups every morning.

Yeah, man. Get him training hard. Yeah. So what's next with rice and grinds? What do you have coming out? You mentioned you have the just pure rice, which is, I think that's going to be an awesome, an awesome thing, just like when your wife encourage you to come out with the unflavored. Yeah. Yeah.

So the organic Jasmine will launch about two weeks, four pound and 25 pound. And I've got a full access to all different rice from that contact as well. And so I think it'll do well. If it does well, then we may open it up to more there. We've got some fun LTO, limited time offerings, flavors that are coming. Some for the fall, just some, you know, later this month. Somebody was telling me about some, like, fancy rice cooker. Have you heard about these fancy rice cookers?

That one right there. Zozhi Rushi. So is it a big difference? So I got turned on to it by Jason Huh and Evan Sintapani. I saw some videos and I was like, I don't know about this because like isn't a rice cooker, just a rice cooker? It can bake cakes. Really? Yeah, apparently can bake cakes.

You can steam vegetables in it. It's got a jasmine setting. It's got a quick setting. It's got sushi setting, brown rice setting. And it sings to you. So you know when it's like done, it goes, dee, dee, dee, dee. Oh, plays a little song. Dude.

Yeah. And so, you know, I'm a little bit of a granola. that bowl on the basin on the inside. It's an aftermarket one because the one that it comes with is in stainless steel. So that one's stainless steel. So if you get that one, it does dry the rice out faster. The one that comes with them with all the PFAs and all the good stuff. Yeah, right.

That one, that rice stays perfect. Like, it doesn't sit in there and, like, get crusty on top. Right? Like, it controls that. You throw a little bone broth in there? Yeah, a little kettle on fire. I love that. You know, throw a little protein in there.

What we're excited to do. Later this year, something that is coming. The owner of Ketto and Fire started a company called Light Labs. You've ever heard of them? I have not. They do testing. You know, when you send your product off for gluten or testing. So they do that.

See how much trend balloons in the products. All of it, I hope. And they offer a widget that's forward facing to the customers on the website. So they breaks it down to the laymen's and so that they can read it. And so we're looking to execute that later this year for all of the products. So the customers have it because we want to, you know, We did create the flavored cream of rice space, and now we've got a ton of competitors,

but we still make the premium one, and we want to kind of take it up another notch as well. Yeah, it's kind of funny because, you know, when you're at the store, there's like a lot of different oatmeal. You know, there's steel cut, there's this oatmeal, that oatmeal, and then there's cream of rice. Yeah. And there's just like the one orange.

One orange box. One orange box, and that's all you get. Hopefully we'll see your products available at all these different spots, you know, at the Walmarts and the targets and stuff eventually. That's the evolution. We got to get in the reps, and that's the evolution. We started to scale slowly. So that's the plan. Yeah, you got to take your time with all this stuff. Yeah.

Well, congratulations on it all. Really appreciate it. Where can people find it? Where can they find the products? Yeah. So our website is www.pridefoods.org. We're on Amazon under pride foods or rice and grinds. And our Instagram is the Pride Foods.

Oh, and I have a question about Ben Greenfield, because you were just hanging with Ben Greenfield, right? I actually have a phone call with him on Thursday. We're part of this group phone call thing. But what were you doing at his house and what does he have going on? Oh, my gosh. You know, one of the leaders in the longevity space. Yeah, we were just having a powwow out there. So I'm in a men's business group that I actually met through all the work that I've been doing the past five years.

I got referred into the group, and that's who I'm here with at the Auto Camp. And so he, I don't know if it's every year, every other year. He's hosted, he's been a part of the group, I believe, since like 2013 or something like that. And he hosts a weekend mastermind at his house. It used to be in Washington. Yeah. And I think they talked about he had like the races, the courses in his backyard. and they were all doing that.

But so he's got his new place in Idaho. And so we were out there just eating and getting together and sauna, ice bat. I mean, he's got, I mean, his place is insane. The house itself is insane. It's beautiful. Like the countryside is beautiful, but all the toys that he has in there. I mean, I left there with like, I just wanted to buy like $100,000 with equipment. He's got like special water that goes through like all these different things, right?

Yeah, the water's felt like the water. that is filtered is filtered or something they were making a joke about, but he's got copper in the, so it's heated with copper in the floors. I would assume no off gassing from like paint or concrete. You said he even had like cork in his like gym or something. Yeah, his office gym has, it's a, it's the cork,

which is no off gassing. Right. Which is now I want. But yeah, super, super cool. Yeah, he's done a great job kind of figuring all that out. And I think his home that he had in Washington,

I think he was, doing all that too. But this, this house in, uh, is it Idaho? Yeah. Yeah. This house in Idaho was designed from the bones. Yeah, from the ground up. Beginning. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. To be that way. My friend David Herrera did something similar. He lives out in the middle of nowhere too, kind of off the grid. Yeah. Yeah. Trying to get away from all the, uh, the Wi-Fi, very tin hat-ish. But, Hey, look, you know, uh, if it makes it feel better. Sure. Right. Why not go for it? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. All right, everybody. Strength is never a week. This week. This week. It's never strength. Catch you guys later. Bye. Thank you, sir.