Mark Bell's Power Project - What Happens When You NEVER Grow Up || MBPP Ep. 843

Episode Date: November 28, 2022

In this Podcast Episode, Mark Bell, Nsima Inyang, and Andrew Zaragoza talk about what comedian Danny Brown said on JRE. He mentioned that if you want to play around and be a kid, you have to earn money to afford the freedom to do so. Today we dive into that idea. New Power Project Website: https://powerproject.live Join The Power Project Discord: https://discord.gg/yYzthQX5qN Subscribe to the new Power Project Clips Channel: https://youtube.com/channel/UC5Df31rlDXm0EJAcKsq1SUw Special perks for our listeners below! ➢https://hostagetape.com/powerproject Free shipping and free bedside tin! ➢https://www.naboso.com/ Code POWERPROJECT for 15% off! ➢https://thecoldplunge.com/ Code POWERPROJECT to save $150!! ➢Enlarging Pumps (This really works): https://bit.ly/powerproject1 Pumps explained: https://youtu.be/qPG9JXjlhpM ➢https://www.vivobarefoot.com/us/powerproject Code: POWERVIVO20 for 20% off Vivo Barefoot shoes! ➢https://markbellslingshot.com/ Code POWERPROJECT10 for 10% off site wide including Within You supplements! ➢https://mindbullet.com/ Code POWERPROJECT for 20% off! ➢https://eatlegendary.com Use Code POWERPROJECT for 20% off! ➢https://bubsnaturals.com Use code POWERPROJECT for 20% of your next order! ➢https://vuoriclothing.com/powerproject to automatically save 20% off your first order at Vuori! ➢https://www.eightsleep.com/powerproject to automatically save $150 off the Pod Pro at 8 Sleep! ➢https://marekhealth.com Use code POWERPROJECT10 for 10% off ALL LABS at Marek Health! Also check out the Power Project Panel: https://marekhealth.com/powerproject Use code POWERPROJECT for $101 off! ➢Piedmontese Beef: https://www.piedmontese.com/ Use Code POWER at checkout for 25% off your order plus FREE 2-Day Shipping on orders of $150 Follow Mark Bell's Power Project Podcast ➢ https://lnk.to/PowerProjectPodcast ➢ Insta: https://www.instagram.com/markbellspowerproject ➢ https://www.facebook.com/markbellspowerproject ➢ Twitter: https://twitter.com/mbpowerproject  ➢ LinkedIn:https://www.linkedin.com/in/powerproject/ ➢ YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/markbellspowerproject ➢TikTok: http://bit.ly/pptiktok  FOLLOW Mark Bell ➢ Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/marksmellybell ➢https://www.tiktok.com/@marksmellybell ➢ Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/MarkBellSuperTraining ➢ Twitter: https://twitter.com/marksmellybell Follow Nsima Inyang ➢ https://www.breakthebar.com/learn-more ➢YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/c/NsimaInyang ➢Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/nsimainyang/?hl=en ➢TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@nsimayinyang?lang=en  Follow Andrew Zaragoza on all platforms ➢ https://direct.me/iamandrewz #PowerProject #Podcast #MarkBell #FitnessPodcast #markbellspowerproject

Paparazzi family, how's it going? Now, we've been working on straightening our feet for a while now, which is why we partnered with Niboso Technology. These are the mats, these are the balls, these are the things that you see us standing on during the podcast. And the main reason why is because of the texture

on the mats helps drive sensation and stimulation and blood flow to the bottoms of your feet, which is gonna be super important as you're trying to get more out of your feet over time. The NeuroBall, which is what they also have on their website, is two different balls connected together, but you can smash your feet against it while you're working, while you're sitting, while you're chilling. These are all things that you can do passively so you can get stronger in the long run. Andrew, how can they

learn more about it? To learn more, you guys got to head over to Naboso.com. That's N-A-B-O-S-O.com and at checkout, enter promo code POWERPROJECT to save 15% off your entire order. Links to them down in the description as well as the podcast show notes. I'm ready. Let's roll. I've been getting message after message after message from Greg Doucette. Oh, really? Yeah.

He loves Bart Kay. He's a huge Bart Kay fan. He's signed up for the Bart Kay newsletter. And actually, Greg said he can't wait to come on the show to denounce the fact that calories aren't calories. Oh, yeah. He's full on. He's going for it. It's not calories in, calories out, he said.

He agrees with Bart, and he's waving his flag, and he's surrendering. It's unbelievable. I can't believe the change in tone. Oh, really? I know. It's been sick. I can't wait to see the new cookbook. I know. He's got to start all over. Just steak, eggs, butter. Wait, what's the title of his cookbook?

I don't know. I think he has a couple different ones. It's going to be 10,000 calories a day and how I lost weight. The forwards from Bart K. I'm obviously messing around. I thought i thought i thought he was gonna come on here though but the amount of comments on the bart k thing was kind of hilarious and ryan i think ryan's been doing a lot of the uh bites for bart k so it's literally like our channel has nine bart k videos in a row that's true it's like it's so good people oh man well ryan loves that shit he

does he loves yeah he loves to fucking poke the mind stir the pot a little bit yeah i gotta say i still appreciate people like that like i don't know maybe bart's talking out his ass uh maybe some of the things people say about him is true maybe they're not true i don't know i don't really care i think it's kind of cool though for somebody to come in and just say, hey, I think all this is wrong. We've seen that happen a bunch of other times, and we've seen it lead to, I mean, at the very least, it just challenges people like Greg Doucette and Lane Norton for them to really stand their ground and say, no, no, no, this is, like, people are, I think, double and triple checking their facts and they're they're

talking about it more and more and more and so maybe uh maybe when new audiences start to hear some of these nuances maybe they didn't know they didn't know some of these things so i don't know i think it's good yeah he definitely he definitely i mean i read one of the comments where somebody had said it's nice how after you guys got going you guys were all very sure how you were speaking after that point because bart kind of speaks in uh what's what's the term um in debate form like all the time when we're having a conversation so he does that but like for greg doucette for lane norton you know he they can't slip up one bit because he will jump on that shit you know and he will find any vulnerability and go for it so in a way he does bring out the best in everyone in that like arena as even if you highly disagree with what he has to say he's just like uh like yeah he's i don't

want to okay so i'm going to use the word annoying but i'm not really meaning it in the like normal sense what i mean is it's like fuck dude like i have to make sure my x's and o's and my i's are dotted and all that shit you know so i think on that sense yeah he's making sure everyone is keeping themselves in check as well let's be real dog that shit's annoying you know what i mean like i don't know him personally i don't know what he's like in like an actual like off air but at least on the surface like if you know what I mean? Because I don't know him personally. I don't know what he's like off air. But at least on the surface, it's like if you're rolling with a white belt that just happens to be annoying. And you're just like, fuck, I can't let this guy go now. I can't let him get past this or that.

Yeah, the overcorrection of stuff can sometimes be frustrating. When you're communicating with somebody and it's like, motherfucker, I know what you know what I'm talking about. I know what you know what I mean. I know that you're going after a single word I'm saying just so you can say, oh, but you said, like, shut the fuck up. And no, I'm not saying, Bart, shut the fuck up. But at the end of the day, it's kind of,

it is very annoying to try to communicate with somebody where you're like, I know you know what I'm talking about, but you're acting like you don't know what the fuck I'm saying right now. You know what I mean? And I don't even think that Greg and Lane have to be more careful because we, Bart admitted in the podcast that he's like, yeah, I kind of do some of this for clicks and views and I go after specific things. Like he goes after Lane for the law of thermodynamics. I mean, dog, that's why I asked, why does this fucking matter?

It doesn't matter to the end consumer the person who's trying to get results does not give a fuck about the first law of thermodynamics dude you're really heavy if you're 40 50 pounds overweight you probably do need to work on figuring out a way to eat less food the only people that care about that are the people that are like ah gotcha bitch like that's the only person that cares and that's not the person who's really caring about the results and there's not like someone at home who's like 400 pounds like hey i figured it out i was eating way too less i was waiting well yeah i need to eat way much way way more oh and then boom the fucking metabolism kicks in you're sweating all the time because you're burning through all those calories. And now you burn an extra 1,800 calories every day

because you're eating more food. And you're not eating the salad. Right. Yeah, that's what did it. Fucking apple. That apple. Fucking peach. That one peach is going to lead to...

Never mind. Oh, God. I do think for nuance's sake, it's nice to try to know about if we're going to call things a calorie and the calories work this way outside the body. It is a great idea to start to learn, well, how do they work inside the body? And we've had people come on here and talk about circadian rhythm, the second meal effect. Come on here and talk about circadian rhythm, the second meal effect. Like there's a lot of different things that can happen that can kind of alter how your body turns those calories into energy. Whether your body really is going to, I don't know, use that source of food as like a quality energy source or not.

You know, even like what they say, one bad night of sleep can make somebody cut their blood sugar can make them look like they're pre-diabetic. Yeah. So it's like, I don't know, how does your body metabolize food on those particular days? Those are things I would love to learn more about. And I think it could be helpful, but again, if somebody is really heavy, we need to get you moving. I think movement is the first place to start because movement by itself will make you feel better. Eating less food will not necessarily make you feel better. It will probably make most things in your life a lot harder. If you just all of a sudden out of nowhere are trying to cut out things that you really enjoy and things that you really love and you're having a little bit more output, that'll probably be hard.

But if you just start to walk a little bit and you start to think about not necessarily eating less, but how do you cut back on some of the processed stuff that you eat, those would all be excellent places to start because those are probably areas where you do kind of overeat, but you're not going to necessarily miss those foods because they're not very filling. So you're not necessarily going to be any more hungry. So if you replace some processed food with some protein, you'll be more full. And if you are having some energy out over a period of time,

you should be losing some good weight. Yeah. Yeah. Keeping it simple. Or all they really need to do is just listen to John Anderson deep cheeks don't be a little fucking bitch

go fucking handle your shit don't be a little fucking bitch I send these to Tom Segura all the time I'm like this guy is 50 years old this is what you need to look like when you're 50 like let's go yeah if you hopped on a whole lot of trend you probably could get close to that you never know you never know he has great genetics for that

shit anyway uh i got a topic for today i was listening to joe rogan and he had a comedian on the show. Was it Danny Brown? Is that who I said it was, right? Yeah. His show's hilarious. What he said during the show, they were going back and forth on some stuff, and they were talking about trying to come up as a comedian

and how hard it is and all that kind of stuff. And they were talking about basically trying to have a career while you're trying to go for something. A comedian is basically an artist, an entertainer, right? An actor, we hear like the word starving artist, the term starving artist type thing all the time. But he kind of mentioned how he felt like you had to be rich in order to not grow up in order to kind of like stay like a kid. And I thought that that was really interesting, because I know a lot of people, especially like, you know, being a longtime power lifter, I know a lot of

power lifters that like, I would say they never really like quote unquote grew up. They just kept following power lifting and they kept following their passion and they kind of stayed within that and they never really went out and had a regular nine to five job. They just kind of stuck with that and they stuck to what they love. My brother is like that as well, where he's never really had a, trying to think of, yeah, he's had some normal-ish jobs over the years, but not many. He's a filmmaker. He's a creative guy. He loves that kind of stuff more. I'm the same way. I never really had much of a normal job. And I've always tried to just, I guess, pursue what I like, pursue what I love. There was other stuff that I could have done and probably maybe should have done. But I was always

like, you know, I don't think any of that's for me. I don't really like, I don't like any of that. And I remember hearing people say, well, it doesn't matter what you like, like you need to go and make a living. I'm like, well, I don't, I think, I think I'll be able to eventually make a living this way. But I do have to admit, I've had help from my brothers. I've had help from my parents. So there has been other types of support because some people are like, well, you have to make money in some way. And I didn't have money for a long time, but I did live with my brother and my parents did help us for a little while when I was younger, probably until I was about 23 or so. So I needed some help from high school to and then obviously, you know, lived at home like a normal kid, you know, all the way through high school. And then obviously, you know, lived at home like a normal kid, you know, all the way through high school.

But yeah, when I moved out at like 21, 22 and moved to Los Angeles, I had some help from that time until I was around 23. And then I was I'd work as like a bouncer skill set that I don't love just to make money so I can continue to do some of the side stuff that I love and I can continue to, I don't know, be a kid. Quick question, man. Because at the time when you were in your early 20s, there wasn't like internet, there wasn't YouTube, there wasn't social, right? For, for me, there was the internet. Like there was less of a risk for me because I've seen people use the internet to do shit, to, to get stuff out there, to make money. But at that time for you, there wasn't an internet for that. So who were you looking at as like a potentially a blueprint or were you just like, I'm going to go ahead. This is what I want to do. And there was no blueprint because like I had people who I was like, Oh, they're

doing this. There were, there were people who were doing stuff. Exactly. Like there were those, there were people who were coaches and doing stuff online, but I could still see, okay, they're doing well. And there's a path to learn stuff to do this. For you, was there anybody you were looking at like, ooh, okay, I could do that? I didn't realize it until way, way later on. I didn't realize it until I already did well and already made some money. But I had a girl interview me for a college paper and she asked a similar question that was like that. And when I gave it more thought, I was like my grandfather and my dad. And they're like, well, what do you mean by that?

So my grandfather had a used car lot and he would fix up cars. And I remember as a kid seeing like he had, it was called Shell Bell Auto. He had shirts, hats. He had like stickers and stuff. Shell Bell is supposed to be Sheldon Bell? Yeah, Sheldon Bell. Okay. Yeah, Shell Bell Auto.

And that was my grandfather's name. And then he gave that name to my dad. But my dad hated it so much he just went by Mike. father's name. And then he gave that name to my dad, but my dad hated it so much. He just went by Mike. But anyway, I never even knew the word entrepreneur. I never knew what it meant. And as I got older, I remember that word swirling around. And to me, like at the time, it really just meant that you didn't have a job is what it used to mean. And then it turned into this like cool thing where I guess you can have your own, your own job. But I didn't really realize it as a kid that my grandfather was an entrepreneur because he is somebody that

served in our military and he's somebody that then went and worked for the railroad. So he worked for like systems and he worked within the system and, and did stuff, uh, for the government and stuff like that. And then my dad did the same thing. My dad played a similar game. My dad went to college and then he was with IBM for a really long time. And he got booted out on his ass when he was like 40 because he just like cost too much. And so they brought other people in. They could have three or four people work for the amount of money that he was making type of deal. And then he just turned and started his own business. So my grandfather and my dad were people that didn't have conventional jobs. And my dad was somebody that, uh, I don't think he meant for all three of his sons to never have

normal jobs, but, uh, he kind of taught us at a young age that you can kind of, you know, you can follow your dream. You can, you can do of you know you can follow your dream you can you can do what you want um it's it might not be easy you know it might take a long time um but mike uh followed his dream of being a professional wrestler chris followed his dream of making movies and i followed my dream of being a fat power lifter did uh i mean because you were around louis simmons so much and you watched him build a lot. Did that influence you quite a bit? Yeah, that was huge. And Louie just had endless amounts of like,

I mean, he just gives stuff away all the time. People would come to the gym and they'd check it out. He'd be like, you need this reverse hyper. Your back is terrible. And he would tell a guy or whatever. And Louie'd be like is that your truck right there he's like let's just load it right let's just load that in the back and the guy's like i can't afford and he's like i'm not charging you for it he's like you need this

it's going to change your life i'll help you tie it down and everything so he he would pay for people's lunch and pay for people's breakfast and he had he had the means to do so, obviously. I mean you can't just – you can't just like make it up, right? But he – I think because he was so generous, I think that's how he got to be so wealthy because he was – I think he was always that way. I think if he had a little extra, if he had the kind of guy like if he had 20 bucks in his pocket, he'd give you 10 of it. And he would be like, I'm going to be fine. Like the money is going to come back to me anyway. He's also generous with information, right? Absolutely.

Yeah. So he's always giving out information. And I saw the value of giving out free information because Louis would also spend a lot of time with people. And he would teach them a lot. and he would teach them a lot. And then the next thing you know, that guy would turn into being Buddy Morris, the Cleveland Browns strength coach.

And then Buddy Morris would hold seminars and Buddy Morris would have Coach House and Mark Uyama and James Smith. And it just started this kind of, Bill Walsh is former football coach for the 49ers. He has this giant tree of other amazing coaches beneath him, kind of the same as you saw with Bill Belichick, a football coach for the Patriots. American football.

Tom Brady, quarterback. The guy gets to hike and throws a touchdown pass. Since it's like the World Cup is going on right now, we should just refer to American football as American football, not football. This brings up another topic, which is going to sidetrack us for a moment, but I think it's worth it. Yeah. A back squat.

Okay. Okay. That's a CrossFit term. It's a fucking CrossFit term. Wait, where'd this come from? How did you guys both know this inside joke what's going on it's not really an inside joke it's just it's just fucking blasphemy to call it back squat it's a squat i that's actually i personally have i have no idea where that came

from and i think it came from olympic lifting okay so i just know when we're around crossfitters and they're talking about programming or something they'll say blah blah blah blah blah and then we're gonna back squat and i just remember being like what the fuck is a back squat and so i was just thinking maybe a step back lunge or something and then one day i was like oh they just mean a squat you're right i'd never call it a back squat i never wow that's fucking weird so why did this hit you guys we need to have a whole entire podcast about this with uh max aida and zach when they come zach to lander when he comes here as well because it's a funny topic my uh one of one of my friends is uh she she loves crossfit and she was talking about um a back squat and my wife just looked at her.

And my wife's like, listen, I can't handle this anymore. You always call it a back squat. And she's like, well, what is it? That's what it's called. It's called a back squat. She's like, I know my CrossFit. And Andy's like, that's the problem. It's just a squat. When you type in back squat on Google, the first video that comes up is the back squat uploaded by CrossFit May 11th of 2015.

And that's some bullshit. That's some propaganda, people. It's just a squat. And then people are like, well, what about a bodyweight squat? It's like, well, it's called the air squat. What about this squat? Well, that's a Bulgarian split squad or a front squad or a whatever. Back squad.

Wow. Interesting. That is very interesting. It's kind of funny. So that's, I mean, the way you feel right now is, I guess, the way most people would feel about, like, calling it soccer versus football. It's like, why would you ever? And it's like, well, so that's, I don't know.

I'm just putting it out there that that's maybe what some people feel. American football is, I mean, football is a dumb name for American football. Agreed. You kick it once, right? Yeah, pretty much. Pretty much. You punt it. You could kick a field goal.

You kick it off. The percentage of the game that's played with the feet and the feet and ball contact it's probably like less than three percent of each game yeah if that right no absolutely it's american football and then there's football the real thing the real thing where you can only use your hands when you're throwing it yeah or you're the one guy that can use his hands the The keeper. Right. Oh, yeah. That guy shouldn't be allowed to use his hands either. He should only use his feet. He should have his hands behind his back, use his face. It's already hard enough.

Could you imagine? It's like, hey, no more hands. Well, there'd be more scoring. You know, I haven't been watching much World Cup, but Japan beat Germany. Yeah. That's actually something that's pretty crazy. You know, because Germany is like. They're legit.

They're legit. They've been legit forever. Yeah. That's what something that's pretty crazy. Because Germany is like- They're legit. They're legit. They've been legit forever, too. That's what's fucking wild. Some of these countries are just good all the time. Yeah. Apparently, Saudi Arabia, I don't know, they won. Mohammed Prince Salman, I think is his name, is gifting the whole team Rolls Royces.

The whole team's getting a high-end Rolls Royce for beating specific team that's they got a lot of money yeah got that oil money that would be awesome yeah hopefully people are still listening because you know yeah this is where this is where retention just i still i love the sport i just i don't follow it anymore it's just you know but uh one thing i wanted to ask you mark so when i was starting to get pretty serious about photography, I can't remember who it was, but somebody that had made a lot of money. I don't think it was family, but they were just saying. Looks comfy. It's very comfy. I just had a touch and see his thing that he's wearing.

It looks comfy. Nice and fuzzy. It's very comfortable. But they told me, they said, what you should do is you should get a better job, make a lot more money so you have more time to go back and do photography whenever you want. And I heard that. I was like, man, I was like, what if I ditched everything and just went and did that instead? Like, did anybody tell you anything like that with like powerlifting? No, I don't think so.

I don't think anybody really mentioned that. No one had any faith in powerlifting. And you remember there was a lot of people that would actually say, and you kind of still hear it, like, well, I guess you don't hear it as much because you can make money in fitness, right? I mean, it's actually kind of pretty simple. Like, if you can figure out a way to become very, very strong, you don't have to necessarily even be the strongest. Or if you can figure out a way to get really shredded. I mean, if someone just gets down to a percentage of body fat, that is pretty uncommon. You start getting down to like 5%, 4% body fat, you'll probably have a huge following.

And you're starting to see that more. But at the time, with powerlifting, people were usually pretty negative. They're like, there's no money in that. I remember seeing family members and going to different functions and stuff, and people were always like, you're still doing that? They were confused why because there was no – but people don't really say that with golf. They don't really say it with fishing.

but people don't really say that with golf. They don't really say it with fishing. They don't really say it with, you know, uh, I don't know if you, if you played the guitar quite a bit, um, and it was like a side thing for you, you know, people wouldn't, wouldn't probably ask you it in, in, uh, what I perceived as like a negative in a negative way. Like, why, why are you still doing that? Um, but yeah, at the time, there wasn't really, it wasn't much of a blueprint for it, but there was Louie Simmons, there was Dave Tate, and there was people that were kind of coming through. There was Charles Poliquin,

and there was a bunch of other people that were like that. I never thought that I would ever even be anything like any of those people, but I thought maybe I can make my own way people but i thought maybe i can make my own my own way you know maybe i can make my own impact some other way you know the interesting thing about okay so you said danny brown on that podcast i haven't listened to it he said if you what what exactly did you say i don't want to misquote it but like what was that he said he basically said something the effect of

he basically said something to the effect of, if you want to try to not ever grow up, like if you want to try to be a kid your whole life, you have to be rich to be able to do that. You have to be rich to be able to do that. You have to be rich to kind of be able to fuck around. Kind of what Andrew's saying, like if you got the money, well then now you can go and, you know,

now you can go almost like, hey, you got to do your homework before you go out and play yeah you know what's funny about that though it's like for for example if whenever you hear like a parent or somebody say you need to fucking grow up or you need to grow up it's it's usually put it in the context of the way that they came up like the way that my mom had to come up was first off she came from nigeria to right? So there was that aspect. But she came here and the pathway was college to get a respectable job for her. Respectable job was an engineer. And then you work a nine to five.

And there's nothing, by the way, guys, there is nothing wrong with a nine to five. Like that is structure, right? You have the hours where you work the job and then you have the hours where you're out of your job and you have a whole weekend. Like there's nothing wrong at all with the nine to five, but with her, that was the structure for success. That was the idea of growing up, right? So when somebody says you got to grow up, they're usually within the context of getting a degree, getting a good job and going about life maybe getting a family and all that too but there's so many different ways now for us to do stuff um and especially like when as a millennial i think my generation was probably one of the first that was able to leverage

the internet to be able to do the different things creatively that we wanted to do that it's very different like we we got fucking hell owen right is making pretty a full-time wage editing videos at 20 years old he's probably doing way better than majority of 20 year olds at his age but that's only because of social media the internet and the kind of stuff that's opened up a definite career definite career where if he wanted to, he could do it for the next 10 years and keep working his way up and make great money. For himself. And he could do that for other people. He could leverage that out. He could literally build his own business based off of the skillset he has and leverage that to a bunch of people. And he's 20 something years old, right? So the interesting thing is like for us, we are pursuing the things that we're interested in. And now we have the tools, the internet, all these different things to be able to push that out to people that now people can truly have an expertise in something they really like.

And they just have to figure out how they can somehow leverage that online. And that's really cool but it allows people to kind of never grow up because growing up was like leaving the things that you find fun and working at something that you may not actually enjoy but pays the bills but now the thing that you really enjoy could pay the bills because there are people that are interested in learning about that. I would have a really hard time doing stuff that I don't like to make money. It would be really difficult. I'm not as structured, I think, as some.

And so that makes it even harder. I don't know. I just was never – I don't think I was ever cut out to really do some of that i i could like work with other people and kind of for other people but not for very long i don't think yeah it is very nice to you know clock in at eight clock out at five and be like i don't have to deal with this for the next whatever how many hours that is i can go do whatever the hell I want. Um, but for me personally, every day that I would go clock in or whatever, I just always felt that like I was meant for way more. And I'm curious if people, if everybody feels that way. Uh, I just, I felt that way when I was in school.

Like I just was like, this just, just, just doesn't fit. This doesn't work for me. I couldn't put my finger on it. I just thought I just didn't like school just doesn't fit. This doesn't work for me. I couldn't put my finger on it. I just thought I just didn't like school. When I started working, I would just daydream all day long about not doing that thing. It would be literally anything else. I would just want to be somewhere else. So what I'm curious is like, I wonder if everybody feels that way. If they're at a job they don't like, they probably are more likely to think about where

they would rather be. But even out of jobs that I appreciated, I'll say, because they were super easy. They were very mundane. They were just like kind of the same tasks over and over. But they paid very well. And then people love talking about benefits, but the benefits were fantastic. were fantastic. But during that whole time, I always felt that I was not doing what I was put on this planet for. And I always felt like there was something way more that I should have been doing. But again, I wonder if more, if everybody feels that, do they just suppress it or ignore it or they just assume that it's never going to happen? Because like you said, Insima, they have to grow up. They have to get, they have to pay the bills. They got to be the provider and that sort of thing. I think for some people it is what they want to do. You know, there are a lot of people, especially when you look at people that come from other countries, a lot of times they're really, really, it's not just people that come from other

countries, but a lot of times in this country, that's what we see they're very grateful and they're so fucking happy to have the job they have and um i think they're just able to look at it maybe differently um and then also maybe their background maybe where they came from uh they're uh excited to have some of the other things that maybe the united states offers where maybe some of the rest of us don't think of it that much in that way. And we're not as, we're not as pumped. I do know when you go to other countries too, you'll see this a lot. Like if you were to go to like a resort in Mexico, the people that help you there, they are helping you the whole entire time you're there. And they're so fucking happy to help you and to just to get your luggage and the same thing happens when you go to France the same thing

happens when you go to England when you go that go to these places and I'm not even necessarily talking about like fancier hotels and stuff just the guy that works there that would normally greet you at these different places and and most of these places even have someone normally greet you at these different places. And most of these places even have someone to greet you. It's a little different than here in the United States. Someone will come out to your car and they'll see if you need help. Those people are so excited. Like they don't want you to take your own bags.

They really want to like hustle for it. And on top of that, you're not even supposed to tip them when you're in europe they don't it's it's a lot less common you still can obviously but it's a lot less common so i think it just depends on uh the person's perspective and and where they're at absolutely dude because again it's like all my aunts that are here like my my aunt in New York, I have an aunt that is a pharmacist here in Sacramento, another aunt that works in the medical industry. She's in the Bay area, but all of them,

they came from Nigeria. They came here. And first off, when I went there, like seeing kind of how they came up and then seeing the opportunity that they had here to work, it's like, uh,

it, there's no way one can't be grateful especially when like they you see like how they how they did live in nigeria right so there's a huge perspective shift when like you're you're given all this opportunity for education and work it's like how could you not be grateful and how could you turn that down and how could you not enjoy this when for example my my grandmother worked like she was kind of like a farmer, right? And she did a lot of stuff with like – she was a seamstress too. So she did that kind of work over there, right?

So how could you not be grateful for all the opportunities that you have here? And the meant for more thing – I mean, I guess I get what you're saying. I think one of the reasons why I can understand what you're saying is because I think it's kind of the same for me and you. I'm a millennial. And are you a millennial too? Yeah, I'm right at the very end. You made it. Yeah, I get to be lazy, right? No. Dude, real talk though, but I think what social media and like social media and the internet has done is like it's allowed you just to see how everyone's living and what everyone's doing. So before that, I would assume, again, I wouldn't be able to remember what it was like, but I would assume as an adult before social media, yeah, maybe you'd compare yourself to some of the people around you and the people in your circle,

but you didn't necessarily have the capacity to really compare yourself to a bunch of other people other than celebrities on TV. There you go. I was going to say not, not like realistic people, right? They're not real people. Yeah,

it would like for, for me personally, it was like, I, you know, huge sports fan. So was like, you know, huge sports fan. So I would, you know, hear reports about how much money these players get and just thinking like, oh, man, they just they they just play basketball all day long.

Like that would be amazing. You know, and so that was the only really like inputs that I could think of right now that were that I was getting to where I was like, oh, wait, you don't have to like work forever. Like, you know, I mean, you don't have to work forever? You know what I mean? You can make money in other ways. But if there was an at Nseema Inyang,

I would have been like, oh, fuck. Or anybody, because most people are posting stories of what they're doing, and then they're posting posts of them smiling by the Eiffel Tower. But what I'm saying is it's like, oh, this is somebody younger than me in Sacramento, and they don't have a real job. That would have been weird. I probably would have got super envious.

In a great way, I'm happy that I didn't have that very young. There's a scene in the movie The Tooth Fairy. Is that the one with the rock? Yeah, with the rock. I haven't seen it. I don't know if you'll be able to find it at all, but he basically just tells this little kid like how it is, like how it really is. I think the kid, you know, it's like, I want to be professional just like you or, or whatever. And then he just gives it to the kid straight and tells him flat out, like,

you have to not only be the best person on your team, but then you have to be the best person in your area. And then not only the best person in your area, but you have to be the best person in your state and not only the best person in your state. but you have to be the best person in your state and not only the best person in your state. And you're just kind of making the kid aware of like what else is out there. And I think before social media, you didn't really know what else was out there. You know, when I played football

and me and a couple of my buddies on the team, we had like most high schools, if they're not like really submerged in their sport, they only have a couple of guys on each team, whether it's basketball, football, soccer, whatever it is that are like, you know, real, really into it. You know, me and a couple of my buddies, we did stuff extra other than play football to be better at football. And so, yeah, we were pretty good, but we thought we were, we thought we were awesome. And that was kind of nice to have that, to be blind that way. And it gave us a lot of

confidence. Obviously we knew like once we started playing tougher teams or we played like in the playoffs and stuff, we kind of recognized. And we also knew like we heard about Texas. We heard about the players in Texas and the players in Florida and the bigger schools. We didn't even have the same like system because our school in comparison to the schools in Texas is so small. I think they would be like five super A or whatever, however they listed, I forgot what they call them, but that meant that you, your graduating class might've had like 5,000 people in it. Well, if you're graduating classes, 5,000 people in it. Well, if your graduating class is 5,000 people in it, then the talent pool is going to be a lot bigger.

And if you're known for football or known for a particular sport, then a lot of people are going to, a lot of people that are already good at sports are going to go there or move to the area when they're super young, get the best coaches and so on. And so we kind of heard about stuff like that, but it was easy to ignore because you didn't really know much about it. or move to the area when they're super young, get the best coaches, and so on. And so we kind of heard about stuff like that, but it was easy to ignore because we didn't really know much about it. Yeah, the exposure was definitely different. I remember my brother, he was always really, really good at all sports,

but he would make all-star teams, and so it was like the best of, you know, whatever the town's teams, right? They would get the one player from each team, and then they'd go on the road, and they'd play the next, you know, town town's teams right they would get the one player from each team and then they'd go on the road and they'd play the next you know town or even state over and i think that was the first time where it was like i'm looking at my brother i'm like oh he's the best like no one's gonna even come close or then we had like a or he on his team there was like a big home run hitter and it's like oh this guy's gonna just crush everybody and then they'd go play against like a real team you know like a legit team whether it

be bay area or even socal and it's like oh shit like if those guys are making these guys look bad like who else is out there like this is man it's wild but that was the exposure we had it wasn't oh let me check out instagram we had to wait till the end of the season when like the all-star teams were formed what's up power project family it's time to stop dressing like you're a fucking preschooler and step your game up by checking out viore clothing now i'm not one to talk i wear a fucking pink hat that has a dog on it but at the end of the day at least my shirt and shorts are popping so head to viore because they have great stuff for your top and your bottom andrew how can they get it yes you guys got to head over to viore.com slash power project. That's V-U-O-R-I dot com slash power project.

And you guys will automatically receive 20% off your order. Links to them down in the description as well as the podcast show notes. Let's get back to the podcast. Freaking wild. I was on a run a couple days ago with my nephew and he told me,

he was like, he goes, you know, I made a decision. And I was like, okay. I'm like, this is going to be great. I can't wait to hear what this decision is. He's nine years old. He's like, I'm not going to be a professional baseball player. I was like, oh, cool. I'm thinking, I didn't know that was on the table. He's like, I don't really care that much about being like a pro athlete. He's like, I think it's too much, you know. He's like, I like baseball and it's fun, but I don't want to like just play baseball all the time or any other sport. He's like, I like sports. They're great, but I don't want to like devote.

I'm thinking like this is so smart for him to like kind of be thinking this way, but also a little sad because like, you know. Reality setting. Yeah, reality setting in. But then I asked him, you know, what else he wants to do and he talked about like writing and then when he as he's talking about writing i was just encouraging him like well if that's what you'd like to do the more that you practice it the better you're gonna be at it you know and so uh and then he started telling me about this this story that he wrote and the story was fucking amazing i'm like this isn't like i thought he was

gonna like just give me like a couple sentences on some fairy tale thing that he halfway wrote or something he pitched you a whole script holy shit he pitched me a whole script and so he said he's like working on it but yeah it's just i don't know it's interesting uh how that kind of plays out within yourself as you're getting older to kind of like see where you're gonna where are you gonna land but for me you know that was pushed way way off until i was like i don't know i'm still figuring it out wait wait what what was pushed off um just like uh maybe not um maybe settling into like a real uniform position because like, I still don't really want to settle into anything. I still want to just continue to,

I guess like be a kid in a way and, and really, um, explore. Yeah. You know? Yeah. So just keep doing different shit,

I guess. You know, what's pretty interesting too. Um, did you guys, both of you guys, like the, the people around you,

friends, family, um, did you guys get a lot of encouragement for the things you were heading down? Like some of the things you're doing now, like were people encouraging you or were there people like you need to hurry up and get a real job? I mean, especially because like you had kids before the slingshot took off, right? You had Quinn and Jake before the slingshot. I had Jake. You took off, right? You had Quinn and Jake before the slingshot. I had Jake. You had Jake, right? But did you have people that were kind of saying you need to quit this and head towards something else or were people encouraging you?

Because that's a pretty big deal. There was a little bit, a little mix of both, I guess. But for the most part, for people that knew me less, there was a lot less support. And for people that, I think most people just never had any clue what I was going to do, whether it be my brother or whether it be my wife. My wife was even like, you know, I think. Damn, that's trust. Well, she was like i she was like i think you need to get a job you know like you need to get like a like more of

like a steady income um because i had jobs but they weren't great and they didn't pay much and so yeah she was uh and i and i got fortunate with that as well because my wife was the breadwinner for the family for many years. So there's situations in my life that afforded me to go to the gym and spend the time that I spent there without making a lot of money. So I didn't need to make a lot. I just needed to make something. to make a lot. I just need to like make something. Um, but yeah, I think, I think this, I think from a support perspective, uh, there was enough support initially from like my parents, uh, from the time I was really young to have enough confidence in myself to just kind of ignore how supportive people were or weren't. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. I think that's a pretty big deal

because there's a side of things where you do need people around you. Like you do need friends that will call you on shit. So if you do have a dream and there's nothing wrong with having a dream of something, and let's say you are taking action, but let's just say the dream, let's just say it's like it's not panning out

right it's really not panning out and maybe it's like it is to the level of like literally being like oh if you're lucky like if you're super fucking lucky like there's no chance like you're doing it over and over and you're not progressing you do need people that are going to call you and be like okay you need a course correct or maybe you need to shift a little bit. Maybe a lateral move rather than a big giant step forward. Because you probably know people that come to mind that it's like you see they've been banging their head on something

for years. And even in your mind, you're like, you need to switch up, buddy. You need to switch up. So you do need people like that. But I would say I was very lucky because my mom coming from where she came from like dropping out of college as an african kid is not good like you don't like like when i did drop out and my some of my family found out about

it later everyone was like messaging her and calling her like what's your son doing well what is your son doing probably What is your son doing? Probably like, I always knew he was going to be a fuck up. Actually, the exact opposite. Like you put, you stress yourself out so much and you know, your son drops out of college. They were, they were, they were really banging it down, trying to like, trying to have her like, he needs to get back in school. He can't come to this country and fail. But she, it was wild because she was like, he's got a good head on his shoulders.

If you think about it, your mom, the whole reason for the family moving here and everything that she worked for was to give you that amount of breathing room to figure your own shit out, give you the freedom. Yeah. But there was a massive level of trust on her end because i did have i mean i know i know a lot of like a lot of african families and if there's a lot of pressure if there's any yeah if there's any kid who leaves school or tries to go for something else like me like the family is like what the fuck are you doing like it doesn't make sense in the culture right but she was actually like as long as you have a plan right you i trust that you'll be okay and she was actually like, as long as you have a plan, right? You, I trust that you'll be okay. And she was super supportive. And that was a really big deal to me because she's the only

parent I had. Right. So if that, if that, the only parent I had that raised me my whole life was like, you can't fucking do this. Go like, uh, I don't know if I would have continued heading down that road if I didn't have a level of her support because she raised me. Right. So I think that is huge. If you're a parent and you do have a kid that's trying to trying to do things that's outside of the general box of what you see, you do have. I mean, some kids just like they won't pay any attention to what their parents say, but some kids really will pay attention. they won't pay any attention to what their parents say,

but some kids really will pay attention. And if you're, if you're a parent and you like, you massively discourage your kid from going something, the route of something creative, even though it's probably from a side of, I care for what you're doing and I'm trying to not have you fail. You could either help them like not go towards their dreams and go a normal route,

or you could help them achieve some really cool shit towards their dreams. You know, I think you do want to have a plan. I think that's a critical thing is at least having, uh, do you have a plan or are you currently working on stuff? So for me, I could always say like,

well, I was at the very least always working on like my body. I was working on my strength. I was working on, you know, learning more about nutrition. I mean, I've read, you know, all these different books and all this different crap and went to seminars and really submerged myself in this stuff to where I thought about it day and night, day and night for many, many years. day and night, day and night for many, many years. And then being in powerlifting is not the way that I was in powerlifting is not too much different than the way that you see people like an MMA now, like they're in the gym the whole day. That's what I was. I was in my gym the entire day. If it wasn't in my gym, I was in Jesse Burdick's gym. We talked about the squat.

We talked about the deadlift. We talked about the bench. I wonder if you had this grip. I wonder about this stance. I wonder what if we wore these shoes? What if we tried this method? What if we, I mean, we did everything that you could think of, everything that we could think of at the time. You know, we used bands and chains and all this different stuff. We even had somebody that hooked bands up to the bar and the bands were able to like pull off in between each set because this guy made like this hydraulic fucking thing.

It was too dangerous and it didn't work. But like we literally tried to think of everything. That's where our minds were. That's where the fascination was. And for some people that were around at those times, like Chris Duffin comes to mind. Chris Duffin had a more nine to five job. And he did that simultaneously while building himself up and building up his knowledge in strength training, building up his knowledge as a power lifter. And he's always someone that was tinkering with stuff.

He was always like an inventor. And so I think you kind of need like some sort of plan. You definitely need action. You need to have action. And then there might be like a lot of like lateral moves that you might need to make. For me, like things weren't working out great, but Andy and I decided to start Power Magazine. I didn't really know exactly what that would do, but that hit upon the thing that I loved in the first place, which was being able to share information with people and being able to get people excited about powerlifting, the sport that I loved. I was already shooting the YouTube videos. I didn't know what those were for or what those were doing. But again, those made me feel good because it was the same thing.

I was able to deliver a message to people. And I was able to become like a material expert within a certain space. And I think I just always thought that it would just work out to be able to leverage this at some point for something, to be able to monetize in some way because my mentor louis simmons did something similar and so i just kind of kept kept my spirits up the best i could not every day was easy there was a lot of days where my shitty car would break down and i would i would be smashed across the head with reality and there would be days where I would just also, you know, set a PR in the gym where I was like, I'm onto something like this. This is something like, this is cool. I think people on the outside were like, well, I don't understand. Like what,

what's it matter if you got a PR and you're too bored bench press? Like, you don't understand. I've been working on this for so long. This is like a thing. Like I got like a recipe going here. And so it wasn't always easy to kind of to stick with it but that's what i wanted to do you know it's interesting though it's like from what what you just mentioned like yeah that's what you wanted to do and a lot of the messaging that people get as far as like i guess entrepreneurship and start your business and all this shit is like it it all comes down to you your decisions and your grind right i think a cool thing is that we can all acknowledge that a lot of where It all comes down to you, your decisions, and your grind, right? I was just going to grind.

But I think a cool thing is that we can all acknowledge that a lot of where we are and what we're doing is a lot because of the support of the people around us. You know what I mean? It's like there is a lot of like you were keeping your nose to the grindstone in terms of what you wanted to do. Like you were staying focused, but there was people that were also like, hey, supporting that goal that you had. And like for me, me and my mom were talking about this the other day. And it's like one of the big reasons why I wasn't,

and I didn't get my head on a lot of bullshit, like partying, drugs and drinking, because there are a lot of people that are close to me who did is partially because first off, she put me in sports when i was younger and then when i wasn't playing sports i was in the gym right and for me stress relief and anxiety relief came from using my body i learned that habit when i was young so that when i became an adult with any stress that happened to me with anything that i was doing, it was just like go fucking run it out, go work it out, and then come back to what you're doing. Rather than let me just drink a bunch or let me go fucking find some people to go party and fuck, right?

I just didn't waste my time with a lot of bullshit because of the childhood habits that were cemented of being physical. And that allowed me to go down the road long enough to be able to come across some cool people to continue to build shit with. Right. Because if, if I didn't have had those bad habits, I wouldn't have ever come across as Jim. A lot of things wouldn't have happened because I would have had bad habits

because of the habits my mom sent, like set in from childhood. That's a big deal. And that is a privilege in a sense, even though she was a single mother it was a privilege that she cemented those tools that were huge in adulthood was that ever hard like was it ever did you ever feel like left out because you maybe didn't go to parties or didn't do you would hear stuff from friends about what they did and you weren't part of that so maybe you weren't i went to a few parties in college and it wasn't fun for me though but i did i like awkward kind of i've been drunk a few times uh one of the one

of the times i got drunk i woke up in the hospital the next day like my few times getting drunk and having a hangover i didn't like the feeling of having a hangover partially because i knew what it felt like to feel really good right like i i knew what it was like to feel good from working out and using my body, where like now you have a hangover and you feel like shit all day. You go to the gym and you fucking feel weak. Because of those experiences, the feeling of alcohol was not fun for me. The parties and staying up super late was not fun for me because habits from childhood of using your body at a high level,

it just doesn't feel right. So even though I did some of that stuff, I didn't find it rewarding at all. And again, if I didn't have those habits, though, I feel like that would have been super fun for me. I would have found that super rewarding and I would have been into that. But luckily, because of the habits, I wasn't. I guess if you think about it, you know, a big thing that separates kids out from adults is movement. Kids move a lot. You know, I've talked about this many times on the show, five-year-old kid, pop out of the car and you got to really pay

attention because they might run right across the street. I mean, hopefully you've taught them enough about that and they don't do that, but they want to run and jump and turn everything into a game. And even the smallest thing, like just them getting up from sitting in front of the television. First of all, they're on the ground. They're all bendy and weird and their feet are all in weird spots and their bodies are all contorted and stuff. And then the next second, they'll just like pop right up and they'll run over to hug their grandma or whatever. And then they'll go and sprint and dive back onto the couch. Almost like a dog.

Like when you have someone new over the house, your dog goes crazy and like keeps running around in circles and going all fired up like a little kid. He's got that golden retriever interview. Yeah, yeah, a little kid, man. They'll be cruising around like that all the time. But as we get to be older, a lot of times we don't have that in us anymore i think it's i think a lot of it has to do with what you mentioned about how you mitigate your stress that's that's a huge part of it but i also think that the way that you feel physically the accumulation of first of all having distance between you and like the last time you played soccer or football like that's that's going to make you not feel as good as you did when

you were a kid because you're always in movement you're in constant motion as a kid then you turn 10 and between 10 and like 15 unless you're playing a sport you might not move around that much or when you're done with sports which is is usually like 18, 19, and now you're 35, you stop moving for a long period of time. Even if you lift, you stop some of the athletic movements. And so even something like picking something up off the ground, you might not be as enthusiastic about it because you're not moving as much because your body's stiff.

And so these things over a period of time, they really accumulate. But if you look at one of the big difference between what we're talking about, like growing up, like I don't want to ever grow up. I want to always try to keep moving every single day. I want to be a little bit like a little kid and keep, when I was running yesterday, I got to mile five and I was like,

holy fuck, this feels amazing. I'm like, this is, and I was also thinking, I'm like, okay fuck, this feels amazing. I'm like, this is, and I was also thinking, I'm like, okay, well, a lot of times when you get to around here, when you get towards the end, you kind of are like, you lost it.

You lost the, it's like losing your pump when you lift. You get the pump and you're like, this is fucking great. I got to ride this pump out and then sometimes the pump disappears. You're like, I don't know what the heck. Yeah the pump and you're like, this is fucking great. I got to ride this pump out. And then sometimes the pump disappears and you're like, I don't know what the heck. Yeah, you're like, I don't know what happened.

And you keep trying to make it come back, but it's gone. It's gone. It's over. That section of the workout is over. I've had that happen with running a bunch of times where you hit this runner's high, you feel really good, and then all of a sudden it kind of dissipates and now you're just left

with the last two miles or so well this just kept on this is kind of kept on going i felt better and better as i was going and i felt like a little kid and the whole time i kept running with different styles and different ways and running across the street and jumping up on top of stuff and fucking cruising around it felt it felt amazing and i was just thinking like how cool is this to be able to feel like this at 45 it's because i'm on peds by the way yep 100 but to feel this way it's not guys you can do it without peds easy for you not do it without peds there's some motherfuckers who's really gonna be like god damn it kids you can be just like me dog what he said i don't want to grow up immediately in my head i was like i'm a toys

and russ kid yeah yeah you remember that jingle oh absolutely yeah good absolutely but yeah it uh it feels fucking great to move and if movement is your stress mitigator then you are most likely to be less, you're less likely to be sucked into just a lot of time wasting, like drinking and partying and that kind of stuff. It can be great. I understand for relaxation purposes and entertainment purposes, there's a place for all these things. But sometimes, especially when you're younger, you can get sucked into those things and start to do way too much of it. And we've talked a bunch of times on the show how we don't feel like we have great

control with certain things. And so if we went down that path, that might be another thing where we're not able to show like good enough discretion to be able to come back out of it easily enough to be able to do the other things that we love to do. My son is crazy. So he's, you know, he'll be two in January, but in regards to like kids moving. So it's like, we're trying to go to bed. He's, he's, he's falling out. He's starting to go to sleep and he's like, nope. And he gets up and he starts jumping on the bed, like full on full energy. And I'm like, meanwhile, I'm having a hard time staying awake.

And I'm like, how the, like, how does he do this? You know, he's, he's, he's checking out for the day. You know, he's literally, his like eyes are falling. And then all of a sudden he's just like, oh wait, no, I want to jump on the bed right now. And he starts going, jumping hard, like, you know, and then he, he's learned how to jump up and tuck his knees in or legs in. So he lands on his knees and he thinks it's hilarious. I'm like, dude dude how do you have all this energy all of a sudden out of nowhere i'm like damn i could never do that you know just well just thinking like i'm already falling asleep i can't get up and go do jumping jacks right now that's me so hard but he does it like nothing i'm like damn that's that's special you know it's freaking cool yeah it's an amazing uh amazing thing to help put

a kid to sleep like that. It's impossible. It's hard to describe to somebody that's not a parent and doesn't have a kid. But it is, yeah, they get hyped up. It's not just like saying crate and they go in their crate and go to sleep. You know, a lot of parents have different strategies. There's like a cry it out strategy where you just stick your kid in a crib and you walk away yeah you close the door and walk away i was never really able to do that nope that was too hard but i remember putting quinn to sleep when she was a kid and she would always be excited at bedtime so she would like tell me a story or uh she always i think i told

you andrew she'd say tell me what to dream about. And then whatever I, yeah, I know, it was so cute. Whatever I had for her to dream about was never good. She was like, I mean, it wasn't bad, but it wasn't good in her mind. So she'd be like, nah, I don't want to dream about that. I'm like, I was like, I don't know. How about you dream about it's Christmas and like, I don't know, you wake up and there's like a super cool surprise underneath the tree or something. I don't know. I have no idea what the fuck she wants. Yeah, just throwing stuff out there.

She's like, no. And then she's like, give me another, you know. And I'm like, well, why don't you pick, you know. And then, of course, she would pick something that she would think was good. And then we'd go back and forth. But we would always be laughing. And Andy would always come by. And she's like, what are you doing doing you're getting her like all hyped up and uh so then quinn and i's thing

was like let's like let's laugh enough to make mom mad like see if we can get her to like come out come out of her room and uh so so quinn always loved that and then sure enough like 10 minutes later she'd like fall asleep but i had to be like touching her leg or like super close to her. She had to like know I was there. I mean, I could have, we could have just been more disciplined and let her fucking figure her sleep out on her own. But I'm too much of a bitch. So I would just stay right there by her side.

And then I tried to sneak out and I got this ankle that makes this crazy pop. And so I'm trying to tiptoe out of there. And I'm like, you know, I'm 300 pounds too at the time. So I'm like tippy toeing out of there. Snap. And the ankle just goes whoosh. And I'm like, oh. And then I hear her go, ah.

She starts crying. I'm like, oh, shit. That was when she was a baby, baby. Oh, man. Yeah. My son's the same way. He'll roll over and I just need to be there. Like what? Touch his hand, touch his head, whatever, touch his back. He's just, but same thing. I'll wake up in the morning, try to sneak out and like,

fuck, like crack, crack, like, ah, damn it. That's tough. My kids are great. You know, I just don't sit. I put them in their little boxes and they go to sleep. I wake up and I just put them outside and they go run around and play. And I feed them real quick in the morning. I'm sure that would, that would definitely work. I have three of them too. So I don't know what you guys are stressing about.

Struggling. Yeah. Struggle city. Yeah. Yeah. Back to, well, his name was Danny Brown.

He had said something about like, you can't play unless you do grow up first and then you can kind of go back to playing. And so my thing was, who do you think I, about like you can't play unless you do grow up first and then you can kind of go back to playing and so my thing was who do you think i it's kind of obvious the answer but like who do you think is actually happier the starving artist that just says i'm not gonna ever get a real job don't really care how much money i make i'm gonna do what i love to do or the other guy that wants to be the artist but then it's like, I got to go make money, and then I'll come back to it.

And they both end up doing the same thing. They both end up creating whatever art that they want on their terms. One happens to have done it from the get-go and never had the stress of clocking in and out. The other had to deal with the stress, but now maybe they have a little bit more comfort with having some money in the bank, and they still get to do what they do. Which path do you think might end up

being happier? That's a tough call. Yeah, it's a tough call. I think, you know, and that's what I think, you know, we have to be careful. It's very easy to be judgmental and to judge other people's lifestyle and say, man, I don't, that doesn't look like a good way to live, but maybe it is a good way to live for somebody. Maybe they really love, uh, being organized and they love having their nine to five because it allows them to, uh, I guess fill in the blanks. There's so many parts, there's so many, uh, there's so many aspects of life that go beyond, you know, just career and uh how you're how you're making money and how you're spending your time um that like you know your relationships and stuff like that are huge so there would those would all be big factors i think it's a romantic story to

say like the starving artist is going to have like the better life because he's you know passionate about it but there's a lot of people that are in those situations where that can be really maddening for some people. I've seen it on both sides where I've seen depression from people on both sides where they are organized and meticulous and they get the college degree and they get the job and they maybe do go back and do the thing that they loved. But I've kind of seen it on both sides where it seems like both sides can be happy and both sides could be stressed out.

You just got to make sure you're going to get good. Like, you know, you do need time to get good at something where it makes sense if you've been doing it for a while. If you were lucky enough to start whatever that art form is when you were younger, right? It gives you a heads up. But if you're starting something in your 20s, something new that you want to get really good at, right? It's going to be hard to get noticed something if you're not good, if you're not skilled, if you're not close to where some of the better people are.

And if you need that time to get good, then you, I mean, you'll feel great if you're good. You'll feel great if you're good. Right. Um, so it, it, that shit takes time and people need money. So, uh, I mean, I'm always in the ballpark of like, have some way to make some money so that you can give yourself some of, uh, I don't know, some freedom to make some money so that you can give yourself some of a, I don't know, some freedom to head towards that goal. You need to make money somehow. Yeah.

If you're learning stuff and you're getting good at stuff, you should be able to leverage that. Yeah. It should be a way to leverage it. You know, if you want to be an actor and it's just not working out, as we said, you might have to take a sidestep and maybe your sidestep is to teach.

Maybe you start teaching acting classes or maybe you do some online classes or you figure out something that's maybe within that realm. I mean, we've seen people do all kinds of stuff where maybe the person that's acting just gets tired of not getting roles and they just start to blog or film their own stuff. And maybe through that process, they start to learn about editing. maybe they get a gig as an editor and maybe they get on the set of a show and then they're and they say well i'm actually started out as an actor right and you you hear these stories a lot and you're like holy fuck that's fascinating how that guy got that job kanye i know people are giving that man heat right now and rightfully so. But the man did start off as a beat maker and producer, but he was always like, I'm a rapper.

Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. But I'm a rapper. I'm a producer rapper. But just wait until you hear me rap. And that was a lot of his shit for a while. And then when he was finally able to rap, people were like, oh, shit. Man, these color bins are push miracle whips. Okay, two documentaries.

Watch the Yeh documentary on Netflix. Have you guys started watching the Shaq documentary on HBO? No, I haven'tacle Whips. Okay, two documentaries. Watch the Yeh documentary on Netflix. Have you guys started watching the Shaq documentary on HBO? No, I haven't seen it yet. I love Shaq, though. It's so good. Can't wait. Oh, man, the first episode's out. That shit was really good.

It got me hyped. It's really good. Yeah, Shaq also had Oshkod Slaughter. Hey, I can be Shaq. All the great ones have Oshkod Slaughter. Yes, we did. Eventually. Shaq is... I don't know, Shaq just seems like the coolest professional athlete that ever lived.

Dude, yeah, and I think he is. He is. At least they're making it seem that way. Yeah. Yeah. He's breakdancing and shit. Yeah. Big ass dude breakdancing, yeah.

He was a decent rapper too. Man, Shaq? Oh, yeah. Yo, yo, you guys need to go watch that documentary i remember seeing one time he was like he's like check this out i'm gonna break dance and like he he went to like get down like spin on the ground or something but like the ground and like what he was wearing like didn't didn't go together very well so he didn't spin very much and the guy that was like filming it or whatever he's like that wasn't really much of breakdance and shaq's like get out of here and he's just like he's just like laughing he just seemed like he's having such a good time all the time yeah shaq rizza and method man have one of the dopest tracks ever rizza made the most ridiculous beat

and then method man of course rapping on it and then of course you know shaq did his thing but it's one of the dopest songs ever it's called no hooks highly recommend it it's so sick yeah shaq's in pretty good shape right now too didn't he get like kind of jacked from the last picture those vitamins right or whatever he was selling i don't know what it was called but yeah he he looked pretty yoked for a seven footer though man like he he's kept in good shape post-mba because you see like barkley and all these other cats like he kind of gained some weight but shack is i think he's gotten in better shape since he was actually on the heat like he's not as uh yeah yeah god dang man as a seven footer gotta be complicated being in shack i would imagine like some of the stuff that uh

like him and Kobe went through years ago it probably it probably sits with him quite a bit cause I think Kobe always wanted him to be

just like just in a little bit better shape you know he probably just always wanted him to be in just a little bit better shape

Shaq's like we're winning championships I'm looking forward yeah I'm looking forward to that next episode man because in the first episode, he talks. In the first episode, he talked about how like when he was on the Magic, and even when he went to the Lakers, like everyone was like, this is the guy.

And you've always heard them, him and Kobe talk about how like, well, Kobe wants to be the guy. Shaq wants to be the guy. And like you have two of the guys, right? So I think that episode two is going to be dope. It's going to be really cool because he's a hell of a personality. Andrew, how did you go back and start to do the thing that you loved? How did it happen? Oh, man.

Okay, so long story short, every time I picked up a camera, I thought it was the coolest fucking thing ever. And I always just loved it. And you got a particular brand and style you know this that fuji film cameras are the absolute best for photography i know sony does a lot of cool shit with video but we're talking about the other ones they're all bullshit right if you like pressing a lot of buttons to get to where you have to go then they're great i like how frustrated he gets i know i get all fired up no um but anyway so like i did the thing where i you know i gotta go to college and i hated it i gotta get a job i very much dislike it too but um again i always liked messing with the camera so i picked up a video camera because i wanted to make uh

drifting videos okay so like i was into drifting and then my car broke down and a whole bunch of other shit happened but I still wanted to be a part of the sport the motor sport so I was like oh well there's nobody making videos right now maybe I can shoot over there and I don't know just put some cool shit out on Vimeo because YouTube would block your

music and I wanted to use music I wanted to use. So I uploaded shit to Vimeo and people were really really digging everything i was doing and it was just really cool to see like a whole community uh like your shit and then they're like oh you're the guy like yes this is really cool and then eventually i started actually like in sema if you were coming to an event uh you would reach out to me and i would specifically cut a like a highlight reel for you so that way you could send to potential sponsors to help try to cut cost and

make shit possible and at the time you have a regular job yes yeah i've had a regular well so my first job was like at 16 years old like part-time and then from there i just kind of always had shitty job to shitty job but then early 20 20s, I started to get more stable jobs. But during this whole time, I had my regular job that was 40 hours a week, no overtime. Well, sometimes, but I could clock out and be done. It's a state job, right? Like working medical records or something like that. Eventually, yeah.

So at that time, I might have even like I've worked at a gas station for a little while. And then I worked for a company that would manage body shop inventory so like if this company or this body shop needed a certain paint I would go deliver it or I would make sure they never ran out of it it was very annoying because you're dealing with a lot of moving money and everyone's cheaper than the next guy and so when you tell them oh it's going to cost this much they would be like oh can we do a little side deal or something? And I'm like, dude, I can't like, I'll get fired or whatever. So anyway, I was always around cars. And of course, growing up, I was always around cars and naturally I started fucking around with cars. Uh, so I was working

full time. And then, like I said, started to kind of charging people a little bit for side gigs during, uh, drifting events and stuff. And then eventually I met somebody that had a, like a smaller rap crew. And I was like, Oh dude, it'd be fun to like film a rap video of you guys. And then, so that kind of the exact same thing happened where somebody was like, Oh shit, like who made this video? And it's like, Oh, it was this guy. And then it's like, can he do ours? Can he he do ours unsigned artists are broke so i never made any money with that at all and so that that didn't sit well with my ex-wife at the time because she's just like you're wasting all your time here you need to actually go get paid

doing something and then so that was always like a hard back and forth clash because i just i loved doing it and i'm like well i'm working and i'm making money like let me just go do this so I didn't really have the support but eventually that relationship ended and I switched my camera over to stills you know I ended up getting a better camera that can do both audio video and photography then I met my wife who's super supportive and so she pushed me to actually start like taking on clients to do photos all while still working full time jobs. Every second I was not working at the day job, I was working on photography. So I went to YouTube University, Creative Live, a lot of that stuff to where I would still be just totally entrenched in photography while still having my regular job where that's where I was saying earlier, I felt like I was just meant for

something way more. And I felt like this could potentially be it because I remember I delivered images to somebody and they started crying because they were like, holy shit, like I have this forever now, you know? And it's like, I have, I've been contacted by a lot of people saying like, holy shit, like I have this forever now, you know? And it's like, I have, I've been contacted by a lot of people saying like, thank you for these portraits. Uh, so-and-so had, has died. And this is actually what we used for like their funeral image. And it's just like, oh shit, like that's, that's very powerful. Right. Um, so I always wanted to make an impact and I felt through my photos, I was able to do that. Um, and then, you you know, of course, just trying multiple ways of trying to make like side money for that just to be like, dude, I think I might actually be able to do this

full time. There was a Joe Rogan episode where he was basically laying out my whole life where he's like somebody in a cubicle right now is listening and they hate their job and they want to be doing so much more. And I was like, dude, that's totally me. Like I need to get serious about this. Even longer story short, met Mark at a seminar, offered my photography skills. He gave me a shot. Stephanie told you to go to. Yes, I know, dude.

So that's that support right there. I'm trying to shorten it up, but basically, okay. Stephanie was following Ashley Horner. Ashley Horner is going to be at Super Training. My wife, Stephanie, wanted to go for Ashley. And I was like, oh shit, Super Training. I want to go there too. We went cornered Mark. I was just like, Hey dude, like, uh, do power lifters need photos taken? He's like, no, but I need a photographer. I was like, oh shit. So then started working at super training. Um, just kind of like getting, getting

the experience. Didn't ask about money or anything, but just trying to prove my value to Mark and everything. And then slowly but surely Mark offered me a full-time job. That was fantastic. And then the rest is history. But that's how it happened is I was working full-time and then every second outside of the job, every second I had, I was working towards my photography career, trying to build something there. And literally you know, literally everything from the website to business cards to obviously learning how to be a photographer. Yeah, you had your own website. Yeah, I did, yeah.

Which made it easy for me to view the pictures when you were like, oh, they're uploaded here, you know. And I was like, oh, that's cool. Like all those little things, like they seem like little things, but they're big things in the end because, you know, if you send me some fucking computer file that takes forever for me to download or whatever yeah i mean like this the stuff that you probably don't people don't really look at as a big deal can end up being a huge deal yeah and it was funny because i'd be on this website builder trying to make it look nice like up to like four in the morning and it's like yeah

i gotta wake up in two hours but i'm, somebody is going to come across this and they're going to hire me as their wedding photographer or whatever. It's like, no one ever did. But all that work was meant for that one time that you went to the website and, you know, be like, oh, he actually knows what he's doing. And on that note, I remember my daughter asking me like, how did you figure out how to build a website? I was like, I just, I figured it out on my own. And she was like, no one taught you? I was like, no, like no one, no one's going to do the hardship for you. You have to figure it out on your own. And I just remember her eyes got all big and she's just like, whoa, like, like you don't know how to make websites though. I'm like, no, I don't.

I had to figure it out in that moment. So as a entrepreneur or especially as a full-time photographer, you have to wear many, many hats. And I'm grateful for that because when I came to super training, I was doing a lot of different things. It wasn't, right, we joke around like, oh, you thought you were just going to be a photographer. And then I was doing videos. And then thankfully we got actual graphic designers because I was making flyers and shit. They were always terrible. But you come in and you're just like, you're comfortable with having to do a lot of shit outside of your thing. But to kind of get back to the whole topic is, you know, I was just working

as much as I could on my skill set. So that way when the opportunity did come, I was prepared to say, yes, Mark, I can do this full time. It's fucking awesome. Yeah. Yeah. And there's, I mean, there's tons of stuff that like are missing out, but it's, I'm trying to like rush through it as quick as possible. Um, you know, and it's funny cause like I remember one of my, my buddies that was a rapper was like, yeah, like, cause I loved their music and he was just like, yeah, we're pretty good, but if anyone's going to make it, it's going to be you. And when I heard that, rapper was like yeah like because i i loved their music and he was just like yeah we're pretty good but if anyone's gonna make it it's gonna be you and when i heard that i was like the fuck makes you say that he's like you're just way better than anything or anybody and any of us will ever be able to do i was like oh shit like that's crazy like that was like the first like

big compliment i ever received i was like damn that's why why shoving all the responsibility on me i know right like you know i gotta make it for everybody uh so that's funny and then um the biggest guy i worked with we actually had him on the podcast with stick man from dead prez so that was that was a pretty cool video to shoot in oakland but uh yeah rappers didn't pay much but i think a cool thing again a cool thing there's like you remember that compliment from that dude yeah right you like those little things are things that like make people continue to head down the road that they're heading right oh yeah um so like it's if you're someone and you're doing something it's great if you have support it always helps if you have support but if you can support somebody else by sending them a text or i don't know giving them a quick call or leaving them a fucking comment

like you see that they're working at it to be supportive um that's a pretty big deal because i see quite a few people who are like um who who who kind mentioned like, let's say they're new to doing something. And, uh, I, I see a lot of people say like, oh, I'm doing this, but the people closest to me don't support me or they don't send me anything. And you don't always need somebody to pat you on the back, but it is nice when it happens. It's nice when someone's like, dude, I see what you're doing. Just keep heading. Like it's, it gives motivation. So if you when someone's like, dude, I see what you're doing. Just keep heading. It gives motivation.

So if you can be that to somebody, that is a big deal. Even if you don't have somebody to be that for you. So think about that. Yeah, during that whole time, I was in my early to eventually late 20s during this whole journey. So I was already living on my own. Again, already working full-time making full-time money so my parents weren't it's not that they didn't support me but they were like well you're i don't know you're your own man you're gonna do whatever the fuck you do um and my ex was not too i mean again she wasn't like really down on me or anything she was just more

like you can't like you can't do this forever like you know kind of like you can't play video games you know as a career yeah you can't be making videos as a career and so like again it wasn't like super negative but it was like huh like damn do i have a shot at this but i just i loved it so much i didn't care thankfully the one time where i like believed that I could actually do something with it, I trusted myself. There's been many times where I'm like, oh, no, I'm the piece of shit that my high school teacher told me I was going to be. So I'm not going to pursue whatever it is. But for some reason, creating content was like, oh, my God. I just remember when I would make an edit and it would land on the perfect beat or the perfect lyric or whatever it was.

And I would just be like, oh, like I'd get so fired up because it'd be super late and I can't like make a lot of noise. But I would just be like, oh, fuck, I can't wait for people to watch this. It was like the coolest thing. And then watching like the views come in or whatever. Even when I started doing stuff for super training, like saying, oh, my God, like this has, you know, whatever, 5,000 views. And then it's like, you know, weeks would pass. I'm like, oh, my God, it has 50,000 views. Like it's just it's special.

And like that stuff is it still gets me super fired up. I love that stuff. Thanks for sharing that with us. Take us out of here, Andrew. Yeah, sure thing. Thank you, everybody, for checking out today's episode. For everything podcast related, just head head over powerproject.live links to them down in the description and the YouTube

or YouTube description and iTunes show notes all that good stuff but make sure you guys are following the podcast at mbpowerproject on Instagram TikTok and Twitter my Instagram TikTok and Twitter is at I am Andrew Z and Seema where you at double pussy mug

and Seema Eni on Instagram and YouTube and Seema Eni on TikTok and Twitter Double pussy mug. And Seema Inion is here on YouTube. And Seema Inion on TikTok and Twitter. And this is at PowerProject.Live. Mark, what's your smelly tip, dude? Oh, yeah. Smelly tips. Set your timer on your phone or on something that you can see while you're doing a set. And see if you can do a set for a minute or two.

This has been something I've been playing with a little bit more recently. Some of the twisty weird things that I've been doing, I sometimes will just set the clock for that and try to do it for two minutes. Kelly Sturette has mentioned doing stuff for two minutes for a long-ass time in terms of like myofascial release and stuff like that. But I found it to be kind of fun, uh, while I'm doing, you know, a set of incline bench or, um, some of these weird twisty moves that I've been doing. So give that a shot. Strength is never weakness. Weakness never strength. Catch you guys later. Bye.