Mind Pump: Raw Fitness Truth - 2087: Steve Cook- The Rebranding of an Iconic Fitness Influencer

Episode Date: June 1, 2023

In this episode Sal, Adam & Justin speak with iconic fitness influencer Steve Cook. Being in the right place at the right time. Steve’s origin story and how he got into the fitness industry. (2:05) Being in a good space yourself to find that right person. (12:40) His start in male physique competitions and dealing with the politics involved. (14:16) The massive role genetics play. (27:36) Starting his vlog and when his business started taking off. (30:28) The apple sauce and peas & carrots of social media. (34:42) His experience working on the Biggest Loser. (38:02) Finding himself in a rebranding phase and examining his life during the pandemic. (52:19) Future fatherhood, being aligned with your partner and potentially leaving the country. (1:02:08) Why so much of health is community. (1:09:45) Have his views on health & fitness changed post-COVID? (1:13:18) The evolution of his training. (1:14:21) Why he has no problem NOT posting. (1:16:01) The journey behind creating the Fitness Culture App. (1:17:20) From LA to St. George. (1:23:00) The most misunderstood thing about him. (1:25:05) Did insecurities drive him to the gym? (1:26:08) What traits from his dad will he transfer to his kids? (1:27:18) His relationship with money and the challenge of people-pleasing. (1:29:33) Enjoy the process. (1:32:54) Related Links/Products Mentioned For a limited time only, Mind Pump listeners get a free LMNT Sample Pack with any purchase: Visit DrinkLMNT.com/MindPump May Promotion: MAPS Prime or MAPS Prime Pro or the Prime Bundle 50% off! **Code MAY50 at checkout** Fitness Culture Training App by Steve Cook SHAYTARDS - YouTube Tony Dungy Books Watch Killer Sally | Netflix Official Site Mind Pump Podcast – YouTube Mind Pump Free Resources Featured Guest/People Mentioned Steve Cook (@stevecook) Instagram Jeremy L. Buendia (@jeremy_buendia) Instagram Shay Butler (@shaycarl) Instagram Casey Neistat (@Casey) Twitter Ben Greenfield (@bengreenfieldfitness) Instagram Andrew Huberman, Ph.D. (@hubermanlab) Instagram Tony Dungy (@TonyDungy) Twitter Hafþór Júlíus Björnsson (@thorbjornsson) Instagram

If you want to pump your body and expand your mind, there's only one place to go. MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, with your hosts. Salda Stefano, Adam Schaefer, and Justin Andrews. You just found the top rated fitness health and entertainment podcast in the world. This is Mind Pump. Oh boy, today's episode, we interview Steve Cook. Now, this is the guy that pretty much was the first fitness influencer. He kind of created the space. He's one of the first people out there to build

an account and get followers because they were fit and because of the fitness information they gave more recently. He was one of the hosts on the biggest loser TV show. And this guy's actually a great guy. He actually knows what he's talking about. Unlike most fitness influencers, he knows what he's talking about. So in today's episode, we interview him, talk about a story, what it was like being one of the first fitness influencers out there, paving the way, what it was like being a host on the biggest loser, and what his goals are for the future. Now, this episode, oh, by the way, you can find Steve Cook on Instagram. Okay, he's got a huge following. So it's at Steve Cook, and that's on Instagram,

and you can also go to his website, fitnessculture.com. Now, this episode is brought to you by some sponsors, Elemente, Element. This is an electrolyte powder you put in your water that has the right amount of sodium to fuel your muscle contractions, your workouts, and your pumps. It's also naturally flavored and has zero calories, zero sugar.

Go check this company out. And right now, our listeners can get a free sample pack if you go to this link, drinklment.com forward slash mine pump. You'll get that sample pack with any purchase. Also, these are the final hours for the May Maps program special. So this is what it was. Maps prime, maps prime pro and the prime bundle. All 50% off.

If you're listening to this episode when it first drops, you still have chance to get that sale offer. So if you're interested, just go to mapsfitinistproducts.com, click on one of those and then use the code May50 for the 50% off discount. All right, here comes the show. Steve, I wanna go, you're like the original, I wanna, I would say you're like one of the first,

I guess real influencers in the space. You were kinda the dude. You like that term, huh? Before I hit you, I'm sorry. I didn't know that. No, no, it's cool bro, we hated his back. That's all good. I mean, you kinda wrote the blueprint, I would say,

like one of the first people to really do it that way. I wanna go way back dude I want to go. How this started, like, who you are, where you grow up? And let's, let's walk through the timeline. I'll preface it with probably was just being in the right place at the right time. But yeah, we could do that for sure. Yeah, let's go back. Let's start. Okay, where'd you grow up? Let's talk a little bit about that and how you got into fitness and then how this all turned into this media. Yeah. and how you got into fitness and then how this all turned into this media. Yeah, well I grew up in Boise, Idaho, so kind of smaller community, my dad, like big family.

So I have about six of my family that I grew up with and then some step brothers and sisters. Wait, six siblings, yeah. Oh, shit, wow. Yeah, no big family. Where do you fall in the group? I'm kind of right in the middle. So yeah, I've, I had a step brother who's younger,

I have a half brother who's younger, and a younger sister, and then I have, basically, actually, when you start including step in there, it's like eight kids. Wow. I'm losing track here. How many were actually in the house still growing up? In the house, there was about five.

Okay. My sister, she was older, so she was kind of, she was kind of out by the time I was, you know, teenager and she actually lived with my grandparents for a while. But yeah, five to six, depending at the time. And that kind of was, I had two younger than me, so. Okay. Wow. So okay, so Mormon, do you guys grow up Mormons?

No, well, let's see, my parents were divorced when I was super young. My mom's side and my mom, LDS, they were Mormon. And then my dad, he grew up Catholic, like New Jersey. And so we were raised, I lived with my dad, and we, my stepmom, we were just raised kind of non-denominational Christian, but always kind of had a good idea of what,

you know, Mormonism was about and things like that because my whole side of the family was, my older brothers and sisters were actually like baptized and then taken off the records and stuff. Like, never really talked about the religion stuff, but yeah, so we grew up pretty religious, but big family, dad was an athletic director, high school basketball coach, so it was like,

we were just always activities. Were you good, rebellious? What were you? I was the shit. I was, I'm good about it. Bad, no one else. I was a little shit. Not these shit, I was a little shit.

No, so I kind of was just one of those kids that always asked why, like, you know, like, don't do that why. So I kind of was just one of those kids that always asked why. Like, you know, like, don't do that why. Like, always jumping out, off of things. I can remember like, if something was high as a kid, I just wanted to jump off of it for whatever reason. Just probably my fear of heights. I felt like I needed to conquer it.

But like, I was just like, my dad, because I was my stepmom, I was kind of a troublemaker, you know, I just had a lot of energy. My dad kind of took them everywhere, like anywhere, anytime he had a basketball practice, or, you know, I just had a lot of energy. My dad kind of took him everywhere, like anywhere, anytime he had a basketball practice, or, you know, he was an athletic director, so it was always sports events.

I would go with him, this is as a kid, and that's kind of where I actually got introduced to the gym, because he was at a high school, good old Bora high school in Boise, Idaho, and they just had this like dark dungeon gym downstairs. And so like a 12, 13, 13, we would go to the track and then he'd also make me kind of workout. None of my older brothers and sisters

like extra sized really. We all did like track stuff, but none of them like lifting weights. But my dad was like, you wanna watch TV? 50 push-ups. Oh wow. Yeah, like commercial breaks, 50 push-ups constantly. But I kind of, I just kind of took to it too.

It was like one of those things that, as like a little kid, I like being that strong kid. So you responded pretty well to it. Yeah, it was just, I think in sixth grade, I had like, I think I benched like 220 in sixth grade. What? No, yeah, it was stupid. It was stupid. So I started doing push-ups as this little kid.

I think at one point in time it was a national record. I don't know if it is or it isn't anymore, but Wow, that's huge. 220, 225 at 6th grade when I was a ninth grade. I just had the 15th. 315 is a freshman. As a freshman. I think you weighed.

As a freshman I weighed 185. Okay. So and still all up at the wall at my high school and things like that. But so it paid off and 6th grade this girl asked if she could touch my pecs. And I was like the first time I was ever like. That's all about it. Yeah, I was like, oh my gosh, this is more than just like sports stuff.

Like this is kind of cool, but. It's a super power. It was interesting. That's awesome. Yeah, always took to it. So growing up at home with all those siblings was it, I have, there's four of us in my house. And it was just loud.

It was always loud. There's always something going on. Was it like that for you? Just chaotic and just. 100%. And my dad being from New Jersey, there's like kind of that East Coast brashness, whereas like we would get around the table,

we would talk politics. You know, usually my dad and, and I didn't care about politics when I was a kid, but it was like, you know, we would talk and we would kind of argue my oldest sister who, you know, wasn't athletically inclined at all. She was just academically, she was a great speech and debate. She, I think she won state and debate.

So like my family just kind of, that's what we did. We just, we would get along, but it didn't sound like it. Yeah. Were you a good student in high school? No, well, I was good in classes that I liked. So I was kind of always my ammo, like English hated it. You know, like, my dad, I think got called to my school couple times for I think I tried turning in a girl's notebook like this.

We had done all these assignments and I think I should have done it earlier because she was going on vacation. Hey, just give me some of those pages. So those types of like the things I didn't like but science, you know, I was decent at and things like that PE no, but it was it was kind of like the classes I liked so in college I got serious about about school But in high school didn't love it. Would you study in college? So as a biology psychology major in studies and that was like I was gonna go into caripractic

But that was where I was like I kind of enjoyed what saying. You pick what field you want to go into, so I was picking classes I enjoyed. Yeah, so I mean, you have a real background in fitness. So what I mean by that is there's a lot of people in our space that work out look good, but they don't have the background, like let's say a coach or a trainer. This is something you actually pursued, like understanding the human body, understanding exercise.

And so that's why you were maybe going in that chiropractic? I was gonna go to the ch body, understanding exercise. And so that's why you were maybe going like chiropractic? I was gonna go to the chiropractic route. And so in high school, I, you know, football, basketball, baseball, and then we ran track. And then what's your call? Football. Football.

So I played college football, played outside, played running back in high school. Cause in Idaho, you can be a running back if you're a white kid. We didn't have the athletes, you guys have a California, what you're trying to say. It didn't have the athletes, you guys have a California, what you're trying to say. It's the same out here.

It's one of those things that I got to college, like, yeah, you're not a running back man. Yeah, it's just like, but you know, you're athletic in Idaho, it's like, we're gonna give you the ball, but I played linebacker in college and, yeah, this is Division Two school, we sucked, but it was like,

That's Justin the spirit. That's like my same story. Where'd you play at? Trinity in Chicago. Okay, so we played like Humboldt. Okay, yeah. That was my first experience in Northern California, and that was a trip, but yeah,

we played, we were in kind of in that conference, and so we bust everywhere though. So it was rough. Did you get any fitness heroes back then? I mean, you're obviously following it. Yeah, you know, obviously, like everyone, cliche Arnold, like, is one of those things Van Dam, like we grew up and I felt like this golden age of like TNT Friday night was like this amazing time, especially the lone and super hero body guys. Yeah. And so that was,

those were all kind of all of all my heroes. I would say that of course, like Walter Payton was, he was, because I was running back in high school, Walter Payton for me was like a god. That's kind of who I looked at. I had all his VHSs about he used to run hills and like Mississippi. So that was kind of, those were my fitness idols. You have any business sense back then? Because obviously you built your business through,

obviously YouTube and social media kind of before, a lot of people were doing it. Did you have any, if you look back, would you say, yeah, I had a little bit of that. Not, not really. I mean, hard work in that like again, we would, we'd have to have a job going up like so my parents, I got a handy down minivan when I was in high school, that's what I drove. My friends actually called it the rate mobile. This is bad. This is bad because you could get, you could get in the sliding door, but you couldn't get out. Oh, that's why. So the only door you could get in was the driver door.

That was the only door. You can't only didn't have windows. It was a Chevy Luminon, and it was like two-tone maroon and silver. So it's pretty chanby on the side? Yeah, it was sketchy, but no, it was character builder. But I think that I drove that because I didn't actually work your own because of sports and stuff like that. Like that was the only car I could afford

as they hand me down, but we always had to like parents and stuff, like going off to college is always like, hey, you pay 50%, we'll pay 50%. I got a scholarship for football, so that was kind of fortunate for that. But like, yeah, my parents never, never, like I remember being like overdraft and in college and my dad

being like, tough teddy, your credits dinged and things like that. So yeah. Now as a kid, were you annoyed? Like, come on dad, like, told me out. And looking back, you feel like that was a good. Yeah, I hate emitting it, but definitely looking back. You know, my friends had just kind of felt like they had

everything handed to them or parents bailing them out. At the time, sounded amazing, but looking back, I'm like, yeah, I'll never parent like that either. I'll never just give people things. What has the relationship been like for you and your parents, like the trajectory of it? Like you grew up in a blended house.

Sound like you were a little shit a little bit. So, did you have animosity towards them growing up? Has that shit been? Okay, I got kicked out of my house actually, like my senior year half, like it was funny because during football season, my dad and I got along great. I was in the newspaper, I was all state,

like we got along great for some reason. And then, not during football season, I think it, things would, we always would butt heads a little bit more. Like I remember coming home, I had a girlfriend that was a couple of years older than me, always trouble. But I like to push the boundaries

and I think I came home a couple of minutes after curfew and like my dad just had thrown out all of my clothes and I was like, F this, I'm out of here. And like so I went and lived with my friend for about two months until I was parents were like, hey, you need to go back home. I'm sure they like, at first it was great, but then you have some other teenage kid in the house.

And so we ended up, you know, I ended up going back home, but yeah, it was, there was a lot of probably butting heads, probably because my dad and I are pretty similar. But he was very like, again, six, seven kids at home, your teacher, like, I feel like he probably had a lot of stress. And I kind of saw him, he was a good college athlete, but he kind of internalized that and he, he was actually pretty heavy. Like even though he was involved in college athlete, but he kind of internalized that and he, he was actually pretty heavy.

Like, even though he was involved in sports growing up and stuff, when he got to, to be a teacher in a coach, he well over 300 pounds. So. Was there a point in your, probably 20s or even 30s where you got, that kind of came back around, you guys got a better relationship? Yeah, for sure. I think it, actually, so not to jump ahead too far, but I got, I got married early on to a girl who was LDS at the

time, who was Mormon at the time, got baptized, like did the whole Mormon thing for like a year or two, and then we were both like, yeah, we were not really Mormon. And then we ended up getting divorced a couple years later. She was working as a nurse. I was done playing football. We moved back to Idaho from St. George, Utah, where I was going to school. I was working at Texas Roadhouse. I had like 16 credits to finish. Didn't really know what I was doing. Didn't my first bodybuilding show at that time. And it was kind of just like this guy

who always identified as a football player, always thought like NFL. And then when that didn't happen, it's kind of like, okay, what am I doing now? So she ended up cheating on me with a doctor that she worked with and that was kind of that, moved back in with my parents, and that's kind of where my dad and I,

I think probably bonded. Probably about 23. Yeah, so yeah, really young. Yeah, that Utah Idaho. Sure. So we got married at 20, I was 21, got divorced right before I turned 24. Was that hard?

Yeah, it was. I think I probably would never have quit on like a relationship. I probably like, if you're miserable, like he just work it out and eventually things get better. But I think it was probably in hindsight the best thing that ever happened just cause being married that young, like you don't know who you are.

Like I was just thinking about the today's, my wife and I, when you're anniversary and I was like, it's more about not necessarily finding that right person, but being in a good space yourself to then kind of, and I feel like I was never, it took me a long time to get to that spot where I was ready to get married, I think. So.

How did this, you know, business side of you start? How did it all, how did it switch from? You're like, I don't know what I'm gonna do. I'm not doing football too. Okay, I think I'm gonna do this fitness thing and turn this into something. Well, after kind of the divorce, there's kind of a long hard look in the mirror.

And there were some things I was like, yeah, you know, there was some truth into some of the things that we probably fought about. And then it was like, okay, you know, what are you doing? Bodybuilding.com was in Boise, Idaho at the time. I would volunteer like my time. I did some bodybuilding shows,

but then I was like, I gotta go back to school, moved back down to St. George, Utah, finished my degree, it was only semester. At the same time, prepped for the Muscle and Fitness Mail Model Search. Oh, the good old like, in Vegas at the Olympia, this is before Men's Physique. Uh huh.

So I was 16 credits, working at Texas Roadhouse down in St. George at the time, and then prepping for this show and it was like 6 a.m. To 11 p.m. at night like I would leave leave the house my grandparents house They let me stay there and I'd be gone like all day Workout labs for my classes then Texas Roadhouse and then like do cardio at night and that was the first time I really felt like I Realized like okay, how how hard you have to work like Like, didn't have a ton of balance, didn't date, didn't, you know,

didn't do anything fun, really. But it was like, nose to the ground, finished what you started. And then that kind of is how everything came about. Because after the muscle and fitness model search, it was often nutrition, sign with them, bodybuilding.com. I won their spokes model search and then kind of just evolved from there. Just time during Facebook Instagram was even around yet. So it was a-

Was there a moment when that was happening? We're like, huh, this could be a business or was it more like, let's just see what this turns into? It was kind of like, let's see what it turns into. I remember shooting, there was a, wanna, I think you shot Iron Man magazine when it was around still. Oh, I remember that.

Bill Comstock, I think was his name. And we were shooting, he's like, you know, there's no money in bodybuilding, right? And I was like, well, I'm just kind of doing this for fun. Like, I'm going to be a chiropractor type of a thing. But then I was fortunate enough when I did sign with Optimum. It was just getting right place, right time,

bodybuilding.com, they were kind of at their peak. And that having both, you know, volunteering my time when I was back in Boise, they knew who I was. When I won the competition, it was like bodybuilding.com and optimum nutrition. They were doing things together on their on bodybuilding.com, like the big man on campus. That was a bodybuilding.com optimum nutrition collaboration. And then from there on, it was like, hey, optimum bodybuilding.com sent me to as many expos as you want. I continued to work at Texas Roadhouse because they were super flexible with my schedule.

But I was like, send me around the globe. I want to see the world type of a thing. And that was actually, again, I really didn't know it, but that was how I built my following was meeting people in Singapore, Malaysia, China, Australia. I just would do 15 expos a year. meeting people in Singapore, Malaysia, China, Australia. I just would do 15 expos a year and just sit there in line, talk to people,

talk to them about their fitness goals, they'd get a picture, they put it as their profile picture, then their friend would like follow along. So it was like an organic as it could get. Now at that time, are you already signed with optonatrition? Or is, okay, so you did sign up?

Are you making good money at the time? Or is it more like you're just traveling? Yeah, so the nice thing was, I remember, I was super happy, Optimum, bodybuilding.com was $500 a month in supplements. I was just happy. It's just like, yeah, same thing. And then Optimum was a little bit more,

it was like a thousand a month post supplements, but then, so I was like actually slinging supplements like my local supplement dealers Like the local the local supplement stores. I was like I was getting like $500 for me. I was going in like Hey, how much do you want for this? And so like I was I was making I was making money doing that and then of course Texas Roadhouse But it wasn't a lot But the nice thing was is I just remember I'd never left the country before And they're paying for you to do that.

Paying in its business class, because their policy as a company for often nutrition was over a certain distance. You get business class and when I'm there, they paid me a little bit extra and then food and everything else. What are you about? 25 ish, right there.

Yeah, 25, 26 in there. And then it was like, that was like my life for seven years I felt like. Competing in there, you know, Minsvizik came my life for seven years. I felt like competing in there You know mince physique came around and I was the third mince physique pro because kind of that muscle and fitness contest Was kind of like the spin off to see if this physique category. We got so much shit mince physique guys at the stars I always bikini. Yeah, mince bikini mince bikini. Yeah, and it was just it was funny, but it was You know is the massive category people wanted it was, you know, it was the massive category,

people wanted it. Oh yeah, no, it changed a lot. But now it looks like fucking bodybuilding. It's just a short time that I was out of it. I was like, holy crap, this went like. It's insane. Yeah, it's just like, I look at the guys now and I'm like, whoa, who is writing this criteria

for this sport? Because like when I came out, it was, you know, they wanted the surfer look. They wanted like, okay. Something attainable. Yeah. And that was why I, so I went from natural body building. That was the, when I lived out, they wanted the surfer look. They wanted like, okay. Something attainable. Yeah. And that was why I went from natural body building.

That was when I lived in Boise, I did like three natural body building shows. One that they said was natural, but definitely wasn't. Nobody was natural that one. And then Vince Fizikim, I'm like, well, I can be natural and do this. I just remember getting on stage at that first and then being like, yeah, okay.

The game plan has changed. Real clear. Have you stayed natural this whole time? No, so, well, and for me, it's always, I always was, like when I would say natural, it's always like I would, there would always be a little bit of, when it was like the McGuire stuff

back in the, the Thorn Monks. Oh, understand it, I'm pro-Homones. So it started off kind of with that, and again, it wasn't like, oh, I'm not, it's not an illegal compound. In Utah, there are all these mom and pop pharmacies that would produce these pro-hormones, even well after, you know, it was kind of done.

Now some of these were like, because that's what I did in the early 2000s, I buy them because they're over the counter, but they actually design their steroids, like super-drawl and- Oh, we didn't know that. I was just like, oh, this is fine, I'm getting it over over the counter, but they actually design their steroids, like SuperDrawl and... Oh, we didn't know that. I was just like, oh, this is fine. I'm getting it over with the counter.

I got Gaina like crazy. Yeah, I'm just dumb. And then I think that the second Mr. Olympia, I was like, okay, you know, like if I'm gonna compete, if I wanna do this, ultimately I was like, I kinda stepped away from the sport because it's like, I don't wanna be doing three, four different compounds in.

Right now I'm not, you know, like I've done TRT in the past, but I want to eventually have kids right now. So we're looking at doing some peptide stuff with like in clomaphine and those types of things just to get my natural testosterone up. But yeah, I think that that second year, there was, I was on testosterone and I was just like losing my mind. Like, well, I was like, oh my gosh. We actually got pregnant when I was on TRT. Yeah.

From the HDG. Yeah, they just kept me on HCG at the same time. And that's what, that's like, I wanted to see how I get my natural testosterone and then if it's still in the crapshoot. Cause like last, I got tested two weeks ago and it's like 340. So that's what I did.

So I went, so after competing for four years or whatever, and I was taking high doses of testosterone, I'd go, okay, and then we were together, we're gonna have a kid. I said, I wanna go natural and see if I can just build this myself, just sleep, diet, do all the right, turn all the right knobs, and it was probably what, a year and a half, almost two years.

And I made a little bit of headway from, like, taking me from like 200 something, but I only got to about, I think it was like, 3.5400, still been filled with them out right now. Yeah. But I only got to about, I think it was like 3.5400. Yeah, I think it's about what I'm at right now. And so, and that's where eventually, and then I remember talking to the doctor and he's like, no, we can put you back on hormone therapy.

We'll run HCG with it. You'll still be able to get pregnant. And that was kind of the deciding factor for me to get back on HRT. And that, and that you probably can speak to this as well. That was always kind of like, it was this constant tug of war for me. It was like, do I, do I just go after it and say,

hey, chalk it up to the sport and just do what these, I had coaches say, hey Steve, if you want to compete, need to do this, this and this. And I'd be like, I'll try that, other stuff. And it was never, it was never quite the same. Like, again, being a kid that benched, I was always a big, strong kid, but it's a different level. I can compete in natural body building. I just

remember seeing Boone D.O. on stage that first Olympian being like, okay, that, that, that's the physique that this class is going to be. I think Mark flux Anthony won that one though. Yeah. That was, that was, he was the last of the kind of like, not so great looking bodies. If you go back and look, if you pull up, pull up Mark Anthony, uh, men's physique champion and compare him to what you, what is winning today? And yeah. Well, and the funny thing was that.

You wouldn't even get last, you would get laughed off the stage on the shows now. It's crazy. And that was my life at the time. I was devastated. That was the first show I really had ever lost. Was that missing?

Oh, so you probably got a little taste of the politics right off the gas. Oh my gosh. I was told I had to get people, I had to announce things to my followers to tell them that I thought it was fair and it was it was so interesting how. Oh shit, they said maybe because at that time, I don't know if you remember even, you know, I'll probably never compete again, but if I did, I'm like, I'm rooting my chances here. It was one of those things that it was FMG was a management company. You remember FMG?

Yeah. They had their guys in this. Optumonitrition was like, hey, we won't work with that management group. So if you want to be with them, you're not going to be with us. I'm like, well, I don't care about competing that much. I still think I can win it without being part of that. Well, definitely wasn't the case.

Like the top three out of the top five guys were with them. It was pretty clear how things were going. But like the bodybuilding.com forums at the time, I remember like kind of breeding on them. And there was just like people were throwing a fit. So much so we're like the IFBB, couple of the judges. One of them now is no longer a judge. About five to six years ago, he stopped judging and he came back and kind of, you know, talked to me about the politics

after he was out of it, but they were like, hey, man, can you make a statement saying you thought the judging was fair? Wow. And so I was like, well, you know, I didn't know if it wasn't fair or not. I just was like, it didn't feel right to me. Like a lot of the guys that we thought

were gonna be in the top one, two, three were nowhere. Well, I explained to people when they ask about it, like the reason why, because I mean, you sound like a poor sport when you go. You do. Or if you say like, oh, the politics, so I was like really like hesitant to ever say, but when you explain like how it works,

you say, listen, with these shows, okay? First of all, they don't make a lot of money, so they need money. The people that donate to get their names on the banners and everything like that. Also happen to have teams of athletes that are in it who are also helping pay the wages to the judges that are there to judge these events.

1000%. So, you know, you got a guy like maybe me or you who's not represented by anybody who comes on the scene and stuff like that and we're competing up against whoever it is at that time that is donating the most money and there are three athletes are there. And what I thought was crazy, I don't know if you had the same attitude.

I was so confident about myself and my abilities I was like, I'll fucking still win. I was too. I had that attitude. My first show, I came out, just blew the competition away and I didn't even make first call outs and the crowd went, and this was in the early showings, the crowd was freaking out and booing so much.

It was that dramatic. And then the evening, they hot me all the way up to four. Which you rarely see that. They said, oh wow. You weren't even on the first call out. Wasn't even the first call out. Everybody freaked out because I was like so, so more shredded than everybody and look,

it was not even close. And they, all the booing and stuff went on. And then when I get, I come out the, in the evening show, they jump me all the way from like six or seventh all the way up to four places. That's wild, yeah, but it doesn't happen very often. Put me at fourth, which keeps me out of qualifying for National. So I still have to do another show,

which was like, that was my first taste of it. Yeah, and it oh, okay. It's so true. And I actually had some politics behind me. I had big bodybuilding.com and often nutrition, but again, it was specifically like this management group that since then they did away with it pretty soon after that,

because people started kind of looking into it. And again, like, I'm not gonna sit there and say, oh, I was the best on the stage, but it definitely wasn't the people who were, there were some people that got, you know, six, seventh day. I think the guy who got seventh was just an amazing shape. And I thought he should have won it. But it was interesting. And I quickly realized after that, I was like, okay, competing is not going to be my end all be all like, I'm not going to just be an IFB be pro competitor. Like, you're not going to see it in my bio,

like type of a thing where I'm not gonna just ride my coattails on that. And so, like, I still would compete, you know, every now and then, but I quickly found like, and just, I don't like the idea. I just, again, of, it's gotta be a hard transition for an athlete because if you play a sport, like you win,

I mean, most sports, right? You win or you lose, right? There's some, you know, judging with the, with the rafts, but usually you win or you lose. Yeah. It's so subjective. Yeah. It's like, you look better than you do.

It's really not even a sport. I don't, I don't, I don't really count it as a sport. It's like, it's like an art show. Yeah. It's like, oh, blue ribbon to you. So we like to do it. So most, the most sport about it is the, I think, the training. Yeah.

The training and the dieting part, the nutrition. The actual event is, there's nothing sport about it is the training. The training and the dieting part. The nutrition. The actual event is, there's nothing sport about the event, right? But you're so weird while guys backstage would get weird. Like they'd like, just like, there was like this weird like, like, like, like, and some of the competitors would talk. Yeah, well, they would talk like not even not even when I was doing it, but even afterwards, like at these press conferences where they talk shit and at the I.F.E.B.

I think loved it because, but it's like, these press conferences where they talk shit and at the IFBB, I think loved it, because, but it's like, you guys aren't actually doing anything against each other. You're just gonna stand up there and flex. Like there is zero competitiveness that needs to be going on here, so it's always interesting. That's the last one. I like that you talked about how you strong your words

a kid because I think a lot of people attribute people's success with their physique to the drugs or the steroids, but the genetics play a much lower. Like right now, you got low testosterone, not everything, and you look more fit than most people who work out for years and years. And I wanna say that because people listen, they're like, oh, that doesn't play the role

of people think. Yeah, I definitely, I mean, I always say this to people when I meet them at X-Bose, like when they're like, oh, I wanna be Mr. Olympia, I wanna do this or that. And I'm, I mean, I always say this to people when I meet them at expose, like when they're like, oh, I want to be Mr. Olympia, I want to do this or that. And I'm like, hey, don't necessarily hang your hat on a title, because I'll be honest. Some of the most lonely times I ever had was after I'd want to show. And then I was like, okay, I don't have any goals what now. And so I was like, you know, like have goals, but don't, this winning, you're losing type thing.

Because ultimately, there's going to be a fill heath. It's just a genetic freak. Like, you might train your ass off. You might train harder than him, but you saying, Bolt, he could not train for a year and he's still going to be to saw 100 meter dash. So, like, there is a huge genetic component that comes into anything. When you get to that level, that top level of anything, usually genetics and hard work end up pulling through.

Did you see that too in football, where you hit that sort of genetic freak level? Yeah, yeah. Like, dude, there's a whole nother level here. Yeah. And I was like, yeah, I was captain on the team. I was 6'1, 2'30, like I had a really good bench press, but you're at a different category when you start talking an NFL outside linebacker. You had to be 6'4.

You're one of the first time you got hit by someone in college and you're like, oh, what the hell? Yeah. Now, I just remember the speed of the game. Speed. We had two, I put it a junior college for one year. We had two guys that were kind of D1 dropouts that had to come back to junior college. One of them ended up going on to USC and blocking for Reggie Bush and Matt Liner

and then playing for the Cardinals. And those are the biggest human being in my life. Like I'd ever seen in my life. He was doust Latouille, he was his name. And you could see like his face touched his face mask. Yeah. He had that order. That's a bell in order.

Special helmet for him, but he ended up getting like fine. He played for the carnal's in the Seattle, but he like couldn't keep under like 400 pounds. He was massive, but he could move too. And he, there was a, we were doing ones on one scrimmage and he just, there was a polling and I didn't see him And I just got earhold and I swear I was in the air for like three seconds It felt like eternity and I just got up and I was like what's there?

Yeah, that's a big Oh do some Doose made like a size eight hat just look tiny like Like a month later like it was just was like you made it you made it like those little hats of those I mean I think a perfect example is if you ever watched the series, I love the series on Netflix, the last chance you

and get all the like D1 guys that were dropouts, didn't do their little classes. What happens when you put them all together and it just destroy everything. Yeah, it's wild. It is, yeah, we had another defensive end that I've gone to Oklahoma. So you just, you got those freaks.

And I quickly realized I was like, hey, I'm good I'm not great and you had to be great to go to that level So when did you when did your business really start taking off because you're doing this you're going to expose? Yeah, were you vlogging at that same time? So I started vlogging when I when I started doing the expose What made you start doing that? So there was a girl so I now been divorced

There was a girl I was dating at the time whose brother was like youtuber royalty Oh really? His name was Shay Carl and he started the Shay Tards and like so he was, he's LDS guy, I think that he like, literally just vlogged his life every day for like seven years.

Oh wow. You vlogged. But this is like before the Casey Neistat. This is like, And Casey actually collabed with him and talks about how, how Shay was like, one of Casey's people that he looked at too.

So like, he was an OG and he, maker studio, if you guys ever heard of maker studio. I was at him right there. That's Shay, yeah. He looks familiar though. He's super, you know, great, great personality. He's been through some things, I think, in the last couple of years, but, yeah,

I just, I just remember seeing how, what he was doing and maker studio, he was one of the founders of, they ended up selling to Disney for like 400 mil. Oh wow. So I quickly, like, they didn't sell at the time, but he was making great money living in LA. He was from Idaho, so I was like,

oh, no one's really doing this in the fitness space. There was a couple Mike Chang six pack abs. Oh yeah. Yeah. And then there was one other guy, what was his name? Scott, Scott Herman. Oh, Scott goes that far back?

He goes back. Scott, like maybe not Mike Chang days, but Scott Herman was one of the first. I knew he went back, I didn't know he went that far back. Yeah, no, Scott Herman was, and then you had like Rob Rich's kind of in that, in that time period, but that's when I kind of started vlogging. So you're like, oh, this is an opportunity here.

Yeah, I was just like, you know what? I'm kind of seeing cool places. I'm putting it on social media already. There's some vlogs that kind of worked its way into like the how to videos on. Did it feel natural for you? Or did it feel like there was a hard learning curve for you? Would you feel like?

It honestly felt pretty natural, probably only because I had done enough camera stuff with optimumbodybuilding.com and then cell phones at the day like selfies were huge and like that. So, it never felt awkward. People have talked about that, like I can't vlog because I just can't get in. I never know.

You're a bit of an anomaly in my opinion. I feel, so we've had an opportunity now in the last eight years to talk to a lot of different people that have, you know, are popular on YouTube or social media. And more often than not, the people that are like you, I think, have social skills and like, and not the people that are like you I think have social skills and like and have personality some of that actually don't do very well on YouTube the people that are more introverted and I'll become a

character yes they are the ones that are the and that's what we experience is like I trip out it will not anymore it's happened so many times but we'll get this you know two million YouTube followers, they can't meet them and they can't make eye contact. They're quiet, they're awkward, and you're like, whoa, this is like a different kid. Yeah. So true.

You're not like that. Yeah, I've met so many, the same thing. Shay wasn't like that either. Shay was like gregarious, outgoing, very person. And I just kind of watch him. Like, so I kind of picked up YouTube stuff from him. In person when I'd meet people, I kind of always modeled that off through Jamie Isson, Bodybuilding.com.

Right. She was kind of like, I would see her at expose and she was always like, hi, my name is Jamie when people would wait in line for her. Like they know who you are, but she would introduce herself. And I always thought that like, resonated with people. It was always like, hey, you know, she was a real person. She introduced herself just like you would meeting someone for the first time. I was like, if anyone ever waits in line for me,

I want to be like Jamie's. So that's kind of where I picked up at. But Shay online, like, are on YouTube. He'd have his weird little camera and he just, he would turn into like, Shay to 10 out of 10 volume. Like that was what it was like. It was like he would just turn up his personality.

And so I kind of just picked that up off of him. Yeah. I think I'd seen just picked that up off of him. I think I'd seen enough people do it or been around it and been in other people's videos at the time that it was kind of like, okay, just talk about where you're at, talk to people, show people, ask people questions on camera, things like that. Did you have a staff or team?

No, I didn't think it's for you, is all you? No, I quickly got a videographer because I saw, like, Shay had a videographer because editing definitely wasn't my forte, but that was when Instagram and just kind of started YouTube was still just kind of a weird thing that people would watch, but it wasn't like today where kids want to be YouTubers. Yeah, so weird. Now, you look back, and especially today, right? We have this because you started

before like this super popular cancel culture. Do you look back and are there things that you like you regretted or that you've gotten shit for? You're like, God, I wish it probably wouldn't put that out there. Like I'm probably I was probably more conservative than or in terms of what I would say. Yeah, then I am now. Oh, interesting. I feel like I'm now more awkward on camera now too. It's like weird. I've gone through this change where I'm like, I now, maybe I'm just out of practice, but I now don't like vlogging as much. I don't like even posting on social media as much.

It's just one of those things I feel like, in COVID and stuff, I just kind of got away from doing it. And I feel like now I'm having a harder time getting people. Do you feel like maybe too, it's partly, I mean, I think kind of your age when you're at your life. I mean, you and I talked on the phone a while back and I remember you kind of sharing that with me. You like, I think you just get to a place in your life

where it's like, okay, do I really want to have to do this? Yeah, I don't want to try to do like a viral TikTok dance necessarily. If we're having fun and you know, where something comes about organically, but I know I knew social media had changed when, or maybe how important it seemed like it was to people when you would see these bodybuilders

at X-Bose, like they were, you could tell they were just waiting for their next meal, signing things. Now they're doing TikTok dance. Like you have full on big bodybuilders or world strongest men. And it just shows you like, in order to get paid, you gotta play that game of social media.

And again, it's a double-edged sword. Yeah. Do you remember that the trajectory of that too, as far as as it was coming up, it was so much fun, you loved it. And then what was... Well, and I was kind of to your point, I never felt like it was work.

I was just like, I'm out here just creating content, showing people what I'm doing. I'm having fun. I'm in all of these different places. And then I feel like it's become work, I would say in the last couple of years, because I feel like it's kind of just redundant. I see the same thing.

I don't, it's new, it's exciting because you haven't done it before. But doing a how to train biceps for the seventh time on YouTube is, it gets old. So it's kind of like, okay, how do we, and that you either get deeper into the science of things, which there is an audience for, I think, and that's kind of like, as I get older,

I kind of, do I want to go more of that route, but I think it's hard because, again, like there's, I always called the, I've said this before on another podcast, the Apple Sauce and like the shit you get in the Apple Sauce, the kids food, like when you're a kid, you gotta get them Apple Sauce, but then you have to get them peas and carrots cut up inside like the baby food.

And I always feel like that's on social media. There's shirt off sexiness, like selling that, that's the Apple Sauce. But then hopefully you have some peas and carrots behind it or else people are just gonna end up, you know, moving on to the next. Yeah, good example of what he says, our friend Ben Greenfield, he started in, you know, kind of health and fitness

and then his podcast started getting more, in this he talks about this, he had to get more and more granular and more science based. And then for himself, you're done at some point you hit like all the topics and then you gotta get deeper and weirder and deeper and weirder. So that kind of ends the whole like, take your shirt off, flex type of deal.

That's got a shelf life in my opinion. Oh yeah. We were lucky because we just worked with everyday average people. That's what we always did. And so that's endless. It's endless to find different ways of communicating fitness and health in ways

that can resonate with non-fitness fanatics, just the average person. So that's what we've been able to do. Have you thought like where do you want to kind of move? Okay. Yeah, so like after the biggest loser. So I was the coach on the biggest loser of the last season.

And it was a good experience in like, I was super hesitant to go on the show because of kind of the past that they had had and how like what, going to detail, what do you mean? Well, you know, we'll talk about cancel culture. I think one of the good things kind of like this, this, what they were doing early on in the biggest loser was pretty, I think brutal.

Yeah. The, the crash shot, it was all about losing weight. And I kind of went into this idea, like I even told them, like hey, if you guys, the big thing was we're rebranding the show, we wanna do it healthy, we had a doctor on staff,

and they just assured me, like hey, we're gonna do this, the healthiest that we can do. All of these people are kind of this last ditch effort, they've tried other things, they're in desperate spots. They could stay home and try to get a trainer, try to get other people to help them lose weight. They've tried that before.

They're their idea of coming on this show, being immersed 24 hours into this, they had their phones taken away. And there were some good parts of the show, there were some parts that I really struggled with, basically the TV aspect, the things I couldn't see in my contestants. I didn't think we had enough support with off-air cameras because they wanted to capture all of our interactions. If we had an interaction, they wanted to be on camera. Well, that's fine if you want to run 24 hours a day,

but if you will, we only have bandwidth for three hours a day. Who's gonna be there looking after him training, doing other things for the rest of the time if I can't be there? So you wouldn't even allow to talk to them on the camera? No. Like it was a lot of times we weren't. Sometimes we were a lot of times we weren't. They want like if we were talking nutrition, we were talking emotional stuff, like they wanted that camera right, right, right there. I did see, though, again,

blood work wise markers, people that were pre-diabetic at the show, they were no longer pre-diabetic, things like that. So I do feel like, again, 50% of anyone, of any population, when you look at, when they lose a lot of weight, 50% are gonna gain it right back. Biggest loser was no different than that. 50% are gonna gain it right back. But I kind of looked at it as an opportunity

to get back to training people. Like, it'd been years since I had actually trained people, you know, I've trained people at X-Pose, you know, a seminar, but to work with somebody again, and the rewarding aspect of that, way cooler than anything. That's the worst.

How do you ever work with anybody like that? Because I'm assuming there's a bit of a self-selection bias when you're working with people at X-Bose, and for the third. You know, they're somewhat fitness people. They've worked out before, hey, I want to get shredded. I want to lose 15 pounds But on the biggest loser you're getting like people who have serious

Yeah, and challenges like challenge. Yeah, really really hard relationships with food in their bodies Had you ever worked with anybody like that before? Not to the extent that we did were you surprised by anything was it was it like did you expect something and then get something else or I I think I was surprised only in that like, everyone has a unique story. Like there's the stories that you hear of real trauma in people's life, people blaming themselves for deaths of loved ones or,

but then at the same time, when you get them the help that they need, like you can, we had a psychologist, we had a dietician, a lot of it wasn't in my wheelhouse, like I can't deal with someone's trauma, but working through that, as you start peeling back excuses, I don't, you know, not the trauma part,

but other excuses, you realize it's, there's a little bit of us that you can see where it's like, hey, these are just things you're gonna have to, we're gonna have to get passed together, we're here, we're able to help you out, but it's no different than what the person who's 30 pounds overweight is dealing with. These people just had some other circumstances that led to even more weight gain, could be hormone issues, thyroid issues, but most of the time it was trauma.

Yeah. So did you, you said it was very meaningful for you? It was crazy how it, it took so much like it was a lot of work being you know, they're immersed in it But I think that it was probably Working and some of the most memorable interactions were in like people were leaving like and they you saw how devastated was because they're like I don't know how I'm going to deal with life going back. Yeah without someone they were they were so scared And I remember one of the first episodes big rob He was a guy that played coach football, probably 400 pounds, six, eight. So you knew how to work, but like he just had

these knees that were, you know, he had bad, bad knees for how big he was. And I think I felt like I had let him down because we didn't get him to move on to the next, you know, he was off the show after that week. And I felt like I'm like, man, if we could have just lost a little bit, but he ended up going on losing like 90 pounds over the course of the next year and a half. Did you ever have the exact, I remember going through this and I think this is common with a lot of trainers where there's just like realization at some point where because at first you think, well, they just got to do this.

They just got to do that and it just, you just got to do it. But then there's this realization that's like, they're not, they're not like me. Like I love this. This is what, it's obviously, I do this for a living. This is a regular person. This is not their favorite thing in the world to do. This is gonna take a lot more effort and work on my part.

Did you ever have that realization? We're like, okay, this is mind blowing. Okay. I remember there was a workout where we're, one of the first workouts. And she felt like she was having a heart attack. I'm like, that's just your heart beating fast. That's just what happens when we do cardio. Like you're on the treadmill

right now. She was legit freaking out thinking like there was something massively wrong with her. And well, she had just never felt she had never done a sport. Yeah. You know, the most exercise she probably got was walking up stairs. And she was literally afraid for her life doing cardio. And it was just like, that's crazy. While I remember the first time that having someone like that like do like bicep curls with dumbbells and then the burning. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

You dropped them right? Yeah. Oh, my muscles are burning like, whoa, like that's freaky. Wow. And then the soreness the next day they're like, yeah, you hurt me. You hurt me yesterday. The crazy part about it is that they're the relationship

that they have with that kind of pain, they don't have that really. Whereas you and athlete, you know, it feels like dirt and it feels like there's a good hurt and there's a bad hurt. They just don't, they don't know that. So it's a huge hurdle for a lot of people. And I think a lot of coaches and trainers don't understand that.

Until you work with like someone like that, you know, I remember I get questions like, where am I supposed to feel this? Like what? Like you're doing a tricep press down, what are you supposed to feel this? It always kind of you're doing a tricep press down. What are you supposed to feel this? It always kind of blew me away. Was there a struggle?

Because it's obviously, I know you're saying that you went into it and you're trying to do with the healthiest way possible. And I 100% believe you, but it's still a show. It's still a show, it's still entertainment. It can't be like you would do it in real life. 1000. Because if you do it the way the right way to do it,

yeah, the right way to do it in real life would be super boring. There'd be no way you'd make that into a show. Yeah, it was still a game show at the end. Like there was a winner at the end of it. Yeah, did you have any struggles with that? All the time. Okay. The first week I about walked off.

Really? I was so done, they ended up bringing in actually a new producer because the producer that was there was freaking out because people weren't losing weight fast enough. And he was there on previous shows and I just lost it. I was ready to go home. I was like, I'm not doing this.

If this is what you want, if you're gonna get sit here and talk to us about how you're not seeing big enough numbers, I'm done. Because I'm like, I thought you wanted to do something different. We're not gonna see crazy numbers. And so there was a real struggle. And again, I didn't wanted to do something different. We're not gonna see crazy numbers. And so there was a real struggle. And again, I didn't wanna be,

I'd never done TV before. It was like 150 people on set. It was kind of slow moving. Again, like hurry up and wait all the time. And I've often thought like, hey, give me three people and YouTube camera. And like we can make some real changes. But, and this is kind of what we've done lately

with fitness culture, the app company that we have, we just took a client on like six months ago. Successful guy, 33 years old, built a super successful business, kind of was a single dad and some of the things he'd been dealing with in life and it just was 60 pounds overweight. Like still a decent athlete,

but working with him, able to do it slow, I was like, hey, this is, this is a lot better. I could see how, you know, he, he actually gained some muscle while he lost body fat, while he lost weight even. And it was like, okay, if I, if I could do this with YouTube, like the biggest loser ass type thing, again, but people, people on TV wanted to see that 100 pounds. Of course. Well, we talked about that. We talked about doing that. Remember when we first started our YouTube channel about making a biggest solution, right? But the reason why we never did is because we know it wouldn't be entertaining enough. Yeah. It'd be like a year long

time. It'd be two weeks of no weight loss, no nothing, just staying the same. I mean, it's taken six, seven months for this gentleman to lose 57 pounds. I mean, when you do the math on that. And that's actually relatively fast. Yeah, it's seven months. And but again, he was a guy who, no injuries, crazy mobility for a guy that was, I would always say, you're not fat, you're just deconditioned because the minute he got back into shape,

like he didn't have these injuries, he didn't have mobility issues, he was able to do a lunge, a deep squat. And so we were able to lose it fairly quickly. And for him, it was a lot of diet stuff too, but it was like on the show, it's, yeah, you don't have the luxury of being like, hey, you lost four pounds this week, that's great. You're like, you lost four pounds this week, you gotta go home. It's crazy. So, you So, you had some popularity on YouTube, and I would say, especially then,

even now, more flexibility to say what you want, be yourself, then you go on, I guess, network TV, which has much more produced, much more controlled. Did you feel like there was a big difference? And did you notice afterwards a huge spike in recognition from it or were you already so well known before that? Well, you double, didn't you double in size?

I think you were. From the biggest loser? Yeah. At that time, biggest loser didn't do anything for growth. Oh, shit. It didn't do any, like if you look back. Cause you are already so, yeah, if you look back, I know you were already well over a million people.

Yeah, no, biggest loser, I actually, I think, I, and I was kind of expecting that from an outsider thinking, oh, like this will be a whole new demographic, completely different demographic. Like you have your, the people that watch the biggest loser, mostly female and a little bit older. Right. My demographic is younger males.

So I don't know if it necessarily, it actually kind of, I think, alienated me a little bit from the bodybuilding community. Like Steve, we don't want to see you posting about overweight people. It was interesting because- Oh, that's interesting. Yeah, it was interesting because those guys,

I think, that followed you for the shirt off, like inspiration stuff. Not interested in that. They weren't interested in that. So it actually, I don't know if it was, gained some followers and lost some followers, but kind of the long run, it was a wash. If anything, there was probably some brands out there.

They're like, oh, you have some credibility in doing a actual television show that liked it, but nothing that was life changing. And I didn't really think it was going to be because it wasn't on an NBC or it was on USA, which again, still a popular network, but not the same as probably. I did not think that at all.

I assume that you probably got double. It's an interesting time, right? Because what were the, you know, how many viewers would watch a typical episode? Yeah, they never really, they talked about like, what it was before like when we were in there, like, hey, this is the legacy you guys have to live up to type of a thing, but they never really talked about it.

It kind of, I think because it wasn't as dramatic, it wasn't as drastic, there wasn't, you know, Jillian Michaels yelling and screaming at people again, like you were saying, it's a little bit more boring to the people that had seen the biggest loser before. Plus, I feel like we're in this time now, because you're relatively close for our age, where for us, like, I mean, even now, like if I'm on a newspaper, not, they don't exist anymore, but if let's say I was on a newspaper, that would feel like more of a big deal because when I was a kid, that wasn't even, although now, it's nothing at all. Magazine's are the same.

Yeah, so exactly where, you know, network TV feels like it's this big deal, but I bet you probably get more eyes on you on like an Instagram live or real or something than you would on something like that, you know, so that's probably why it was more of a wash. I think that's probably why they were. I did not. I just assumed that you would get regardless. I still would have thought you would have got way more eyeballs in traction.

So did they even pay very well? Because I would think they tried to leverage the... It didn't pay bad. I remember thinking, oh, that was like, I think it was 200,000. Okay. So it wasn't great. And for me it was like, oh, that was like, you know, I think it was 200,000. Okay. So it wasn't great. Yeah. And for me, it was like, okay, if I stayed home and really worked on, you know, the app

and things like that, like it wasn't life changing or anything, but at the same time, it was like, there was some opportunity cost, though, because I had to be on set for, you know, 10 weeks. They couldn't do other stuff. Yeah, there was zero. I think I had one day on set for 10 weeks. They couldn't do other stuff. Yeah, there was zero. I think I had one day off in that eight weeks. And that was the thing that a lot of people, we did have weekends with them

where we would go do hikes and things like that. And that was the only time the cameras weren't there. But yeah, it was, again, it was an experience. I wouldn't try to for the world. I go back and do it again. I always say to those people that again, like, oh, this is so unhealthy, I say again. If this is your, are there better ways of doing it?

Absolutely. But when you're, if you gave those contestants, looking back, if you said, hey, you could not go on the show or you can do it again, what they do it again, I think they would, just because of what they learn from it. Like again, we would sit down and my big thing was, I want to tell them how to lose weight. I want to, let's talk about macronutrients.

Like they're sitting here and I remember one contestant. They actually had in-house people that lived with them to make sure that they were eating enough. So it was like, you have to drink when you weigh in, you can't be dehydrated. We got rid of them for a really big day. Yeah, that one became a strategy with it. There was all these gaming.

They were like game assist. Whole water, drop water. Or yeah, like even diuretics. That was the early days. That one became a strategy with it. Yes, there was all these gaming. They were like game, the system, the water, or even diuretics. I think it was one of the things, I can't say for sure that one of the earlier trainers had done was, if you take this,

you'll, and so there was none of that that went on this time. And again, I felt like at the end of the day, it was something that they did get healthier on. Is there an incentive for you guys to win? No, no. So it's just straight up.

And my guy didn't win. The guy that won was on the other team, but I think after a while, there's no teams on our season. So there is no, you got paid the same regardless of the winner losing the guy. No, not sensitive. Obviously the winner, the person who won, they got, I don't know, it wasn't money. I think it was, you know, treadmills from planet fitness and things like that.

And I just, yeah, I just remember thinking, yeah, that there would probably be more of a prize for winning. Are you at a point now where you're, because you were, you know, you have all this popularity, lots of young men following you for the bodybuilding type stuff, then you view biggest loser, different demographics, more maybe middle-aged women.

We'll call them more of the Facebook crowd. There you go. There you go. Now, are you looking at, are you at a place where you feel like, okay, where am I going to go with this, am I going to rebrand, am I going to talk more about these other things that seem more interesting to me? Or take this into the... Are you finding yourself in that space?

Definitely. And at the same time, I kind of found myself in that space. It was also right around the same time. COVID hit my wife who's not my wife at the time. She was in Australia, kind of didn't see each other for 10 months, then we ended up just being like, hey, Australia was going to let her out. She had to have a reason to leave the country.

We both were with Jim Shark, so she was able to finally get out of the country. We met and we buy and they like, she could come into the US. I couldn't get into Australia. So we just we traveled for eight months. And that was so that you can meet up. Yeah. So we were we did Dubai, Maldives, Spain and we took a videographer so we could still create content.

Good and bad. Like once in a lifetime opportunity, not great for business. It was, I had my business partner on the app that I was still doing content for, but you weren't doing any meetups obviously with COVID. That was a big part of, I felt like the things I enjoyed, that interaction, that human connection. You didn't have that. And then also, I think it was just one of those things that kind of, you felt the world kind of, you know, very polarized. Oh, yeah, more than ever. My entire life, I feel we're more divided today

than ever have. And that was hard for me. Again, it was like, it was kind of like, you know, at the kitchen table, I can get on Twitter and I can debate. Like Jordan, LeBron, you get me on, started on that and I'll go back and forth. I think it's hard though,

because I can know emotional connection to it. At the dinner table growing up, we're all just arguing the other side for the sake of argument. On Twitter, people get so offended. It's their identity. Yeah. It's their identity, the religion, which is kind of weird. So that was kind of, I think that was a moment for a lot of people like that.

We're like, let me examine my life. We're like, what am I going with this, what I want to do? What did you come out out of that with? I think that was a moment for a lot of people like that. We're like, let me examine my life. Where am I going with this, what I want to do? Did you come out out of that with? I think so two things. There was with fitness culture coming back to working with people like the guy we just worked with, getting back to doing some hands-on stuff. Because I think if you don't use it,

you lose it type of thing. So getting back to the nuts and bolts of training, rather than just traveling the world, getting very surface level stuff, I think actually getting hands dirty again, going back, educating. So I've thought about going back to school. We want to have a family we just settle down in St. George, Utah. And I think really getting very upfront and kind of a the nitty gritty on as I get older, what does TRT look like? What does actual health look like?

What am I going through that? And then just be open and talk to people about whether it's training, whether it's mental health and things like that. So we had the app supplements. We actually I launched a supplement brand during COVID. And it was bad. Yeah, bad time to launch, because again, there was zero meetups

and also I was traveling for eight months didn't try getting supplements in the moldy. It's not gonna happen. So kind of an interesting time with what I wanna do with that. If I'm passionate enough to go just really, really deep into the supplement world because I do feel like a lot of supplements out there right now

are, it's not like we used to have four big supplement or five big supplement brands. There's enough out there that is like, how different or how great of products are you able to do if basically everyone's using the same sourcing. Well, especially since I know you, I've heard you talk about before, you're kind of like how we are with supplements,

which is there's like a core four things that are like, you know, all the other stuff is bullshit. So if you're not, and that's, and unfortunately, where the money is at, is it all the bullshit? Right, the margins are... You get to you with pre-workout and things like that, but at the end of the day, people want some caffeine, some kind of focused ingredient.

Yeah, and it's like a good price. For good price. Right, yeah, so. And it tastes good, right? Have you thought about doing long form media because talking to you, and when I do hear you get a little deeper, you're smart, you're smart, dude. And a lot of, I don't wanna, you know,

it's gonna sound like an asshole. A lot of, I don't know, the fitness, you know, a little light. Not so much, they look good, but kind of light in the intelligence department, communication department. Have you thought about long form? I feel like I have a little bit of an imposter syndrome. I'm always like, I don't know enough. I'm always kind of light in the intelligence department, communication department, have you thought about long form? I feel like I have a little bit of an imposter syndrome.

I'm always like, I don't know enough. I'm always kind of like, I don't want to just get out there and talk about things because I see guys, whether it's Superman or whoever, that are experts on these fields. And I think I've always kind of been that a little bit too much of a perfectionist. Like I didn't want to turn something in that wasn't great.

But at the same time, it's like you just have to kind of jump in and start swimming and figure out where that takes you. So I've thought about it. I think that whether it's sports or health stuff, I feel like there's always, there's always going to be a reason not to, but I would love, I think, eventually to do a podcast. Where I live in St. George, it's not the easiest place to get it out of, but Vegas is only two hours away. So I was like, oh, podcasting Vegas or, and I would even like to do some, I just, I love the idea of

being bad at something and then getting, getting good at it. Well, let me ask you this, Steve. Do you have strong opinions? Very. Yeah. This is where you do it. This is where you do it. I feel like this is your space. That's probably where it has definitely not. Yeah, I know Mike. Let's be honest. And that probably leads to like, you know, brands that you work with and stuff. It's aligning yourself with the people that aren't going to be, you know, I think one of the things that, you know, during COVID, I did some deep dive into, I just remember everyone was posting black squares. And I'm like, oh, I want to be a part of this. Like racism's bad. We need to get on top of that. But then I was, I started researching a little bit more into Black Lives Matter, the organization, the Marxist organization.

Totally a different thing. And people, I think early on when I, like I remember my sister who were not probably aligned on the political spectrum, I was like, you know, go check out their website. It's like, it's an action, it's not an organization, Steve, it's just a movement. No, you're wrong. Like So many people didn't realize that. And so I think that again, we get caught up in headlines and clickbait getting back to YouTube. That's all the news is these days. What's the most important?

You know, we got heat for not posting black squares initially, but I think, you know, if you believe and you stick to your guns and you have integrity, eventually that stuff all comes around, you know. So, yeah. Now it seems obvious when you see the reports of the, you know, the leaders of the, you know, coming out with just, they spent money on crazy stuff and they, it was basically just a big, by the organization, the organization. And that's taking advantage of people who want to do everything.

Totally taking advantage. So much of that. And that's where I, like Tony Dungee, I'm a huge fan of Tony Dungee, read his books. And like, so when I, there's people in that community in the black community I would definitely try to like I want to listen to and hear I don't you know, I'm not African-American I don't know what it's like but hearing them hearing people that I follow and I have my beliefs In terms I would say like even religion and and how conservative I am, you know, I wouldn't say I'm right wing.

I'm more in the middle, I feel like, but to a lot of people probably would see, like, oh, you're, you're, you're such a Republican. I'm like, I feel like I'm more of a libertarian, but, but it was, again, I would look at people in that space that I looked up to that I had my kind of, my morals that aligned with them. And I would listen to what they were saying on those types of things. I didn't want to just jump into something because everyone else was doing it.

Do you think it's funny because during that whole time during COVID, the insanity, and it really was crazy, some of the loudest voices came from the health and fitness space, partially because I think we're, we take control of our own health. Yeah. You tend to, here's my belief, I love your opinion on this. When you work out and you train,

you feel more autonomous, it's harder to manipulate you because you feel more in control, you feel like you have more, you're more empowered. Do you feel like fitness tends to make people have those beliefs that tend to be more libertarian, which is like, hey, look, respect others, but also respect me. Yeah. Let me do my thing.

I'll let you do your thing. Just don't hurt anybody. Don't steal from anybody. I definitely, even in the fitness community, saw kind of a, it was polarized, even in the fitness community, the majority of people, I think, kind of were more of the stance that you have. Like, hey, I'm going to do my own research. You have to convince me because I am the person that I like to know what I'm taking

in my supplement ingredients or the food I'm putting in my body. I know exactly like, hey, when you say hydrogenated oil on that label or when you say modified cornstarch, that's not good for me. You're trying to sneak it in there. I'm not believing you. Same thing kind of goes with vaccines and things like, hey, show me where this is healthy. But then you also, I I think you had some people that I really looked up to in the space that were scientific, that were totally just jumping into it. Like, oh, no, it would medically, it's fine.

And things like that. I'm like, how do you know that? And you're citing sources that were funded by people that had no business funding things. And so again, I think if anything, I just kind of had to take a step back and be like, okay, I'm not gonna agree with everyone on everything. And these are things that I can if anything, I just kind of had to take a step back and be like, okay, I'm not going to agree with everyone on everything.

And these are things that I can debate things, but when I'm really passionate about my wife not being able to get into the country or me, not being able to get there, all of a sudden, it actually, there is, and when you do that for, you know, a year and a half, there's some frustration, I think, that ultimately, I probably boiled over at some point where I think that I wasn't as level-headed as I could have been, because you're never gonna change anyone's opinion by yelling at them with something. But I definitely thought, I kind of sat back and thought,

hmm, it's interesting that that person who's talked about scientific data all the time has this stance on weird. Yeah. Very very strange. How did you meet your wife by the way? At a gym shark event. Oh yeah. We were in Sydney at a gym shark event.

Wow. So now you've been married for a year? Been married for a year, yes, your day. So congratulations. And you want a big family? We don't like two kids. Okay. So yeah, she's younger.

I'm 38. She's 26, which I give you. Oh, you can have way more than two then. Yeah, I know. I'm going to be that six year old dad at football practice soccer practice. Hey, so yeah, she's younger. I'm 38. She's 26, which I get away more than two than. Yeah, I know. I want me to be that six-year-old dad at football practice soccer practice. Hey, man, I just have a beautiful heart. That's right. You kept that 41-month-y young, so it's like good. I actually, I think it's way way better to be a way better to be a and that's not to knock on any young dads out there, stuff like that. Imagine when you were 25 as dad. Yeah. How like, you know, we don't really mature very quickly as man, let's out there stuff like that. Imagine when you were 25 as dad. Yeah. You know, we don't really mature very quickly as a man was honest.

Yeah. Your level of maturity, your level of financial security, your calmness, like, I mean, just, there's a whole host of things in the community. That patience factor, I feel like is something that, yeah, my trigger is a lot longer than it was when I was 25 in terms of just the frustration, like, that, yeah, definitely a longer fuse.

Are you guys aligned on how you'd want to raise your kids? Like with the most part? Like the crazy thing about Australia is, you know, when we look at it, 26 million people, it's the size of the US roughly in terms of land. But Australia, it's always, you know, I'm might get crap for saying this. Australia thinks they're super diverse and stuff and they're not there. Like they don't have the problems the US has

because I feel like most of Australia is pretty much a single demographic but I think the big thing that they have there is everyone feels like they're Australian. It's like, hey, do this for the betterment of your other, your fellow Australian. During COVID that happened, there was never, they don't talk about politics over there.

I think their quality of life is pretty good. They get up earliest out of any country in the world or one of and they go to bed, earliest out of any country. And that might be where they're situated in the world. That's an interesting start. I didn't know that. It is. And I think Morgan, she goes to bed like nine.

Her parents are 830. It's just wild that the average person goes to bed. Now let me speculate, let's see, do you have any speculations on that? I have none. So I do, I have a speculate. My theory on that would be there's a much more of an outdoorsy lifestyle there

and then natural circadian rhythm of getting out in the sun. And then it coming down. That's a good call. I have, there's two. I, that's one half of it is that the Sun's up at 4.30 there Even in the summertime the latest this Sun sets about seven so like it's there they're they're a little bit different You know with with their circadian rhythms the other thing is I think that because business wise The US is midday by the time they wake up for business. Oh, I see they're up earlier to

Get I guess their workday going. But everything closes there at about 5 p.m. Really? Wow. And you don't have the level of, you have like McDonald's, KFC, hungry jacks, which is, you know, Burger King, and then you have like a Goosamon and Gomez, which is kind of a Chipotle style thing. Other than that, there's not endless fast food. Like most people go home and cook dinner there. And I feel like if you're going to bed earlier,

you're getting outside, you're getting into the ocean, and you're cooking your own food. Those are kind of like the three things. And if you can do that, you're gonna be pretty healthy. You're a big rock. Where do they rank as far as health, do you know where that is? I don't know. I would imagine top 10.

I think out of the Western nations are probably one of the better ones. Yeah. You guys have the happiest place in the world and I'm like, I gotta go to Finland because I can't imagine being cold and practicing. I think also the highest percentage of people

are antidepressants. Maybe Doug can look that up, which is kind of weird. Is Australia? No, Finland. Yeah, as well. Happiest, but also highest on, I think. That is like a Scandinavian country thing. Norway has the same thing.

Maybe that's what, maybe it's what the other countries. Which is super interesting, but it's also, they're just not getting any vitamin D, they're not getting any sunlight. Totally. But Australia is definitely like for the most part, they still have obesity, you know, like they still have their own issues, but there's this, there's a lot of resources in terms of, it's like California in the 1950s is kind of what I imagine it to be like is where there's beaches, you know, it's pretty lush, you know, for the most part.

It's, it's, it's good climate. People are outside doing things, but you don't have traffic, crime, and, you know, some other. He's a large fitness culture there. Massive. Yeah. And bodybuilding culture. Large bodybuilding, large fitness. And you look at it, summer games wise, Australia has more

medalists than any other country per capita. Yeah. So they do well in their sports that, again, they just don't have a ton of people. That's right. Why not live there? We will eventually. Oh, really?

We will eventually. There's some things that I struggle with it. It's not why we're not there now. Is it the big spiders that we talked about earlier? Unfortunately Morgan. I'm so naked. Like, we're not there now. Is it the big spiders that we talked about? No. Unfortunately Morgan makes and cracks. Morgan didn't have air conditioning or heat in her house until the last house she rented. It was just wild to me.

It was just like, I know. It's just like, I went there the first time I visited and stayed at her house. It's like 80, we were sleeping in like 85 degrees. And she was fine in it. I'm like, what the hell? Like I'm not sleeping in 85 and it's humid. It's like 80, we were sleeping in like 85 degrees. And she was fine in it. I'm like, what the hell? I'm not sleeping in 85 and it's humid. It's like, you know, no thanks.

But I think, you know, I like the fact that, kind of weird, and I would say this to her, because it was a penal colony, I feel like there's always been a group of people in Australia that have kind of controlled everyone else. But like, that sounds super off. I'm gonna get some serious hate for that. But I feel like there's a lot of this, like, hey, do this, do this, do this, and everyone else's joy that sounds super off. I'm gonna get some serious hate for that. But I feel like there's a lot of this.

Hey, do this, do this, do this. And everyone in Australia is like, yeah, sounds good to me, okay, let's do that. But it is interesting. I did, I read some books on how Australia was started. And it is kind of also like survival of the fittest. Like you had the fastest, there's some evolutionary stuff to why I think people are, they are who they are as a people in

Australia just from tough tough sledding. One of our one of our largest audiences outside the US is Australia. Yeah. Yeah. I'd say either they're the UK very close. Yeah. Yeah. I'll show you guys there been.

No. Yeah. But always yeah. I was wanting to go. Now that I mean they don't. It was weird. COVID there just like gone. Like in terms of, they're at all these rules and regulations. And then, they had some of the hardest, strictest harsh.

And I think that they had a big switch because people had it not, because they were just locked down for a while in some places. Melbourne was the most locked down city in the world. I was told, Sydney was, and your wife was there during that time? So what happened with her?

Yes, she was. So she was in Brisbane, which wasn't as bad, but they had sections like it'd be like organ in California, organ like everything's open, California's not, or Nevada and California. In her state, people from New South Wales couldn't come in, like they kind of were like

blocked off state by state, and each state had different rules and wasn't letting in people from the't come in. Like they kind of were like blocked off state by state and each state had different rules and wasn't letting in people from the other state in. And so kind of weird, but Brisbane didn't have it. Like the people there were never locked down in like their homes. I know like my friends in Sydney, like they couldn't go more than five kilometers

from their house. Like really weird. Really weird when we start like again, from a fitness aspect, what are things are going to be- Just the health aspect. Get out in the sun, move, stay inside- Soul contradiction. Yeah, weird.

Yeah, I'm seeing now studies that are coming out now that are showing that there was more harm than good when you count excess deaths, mental illness, and then displacement of people who are disenfranchised. So when you count all that, so you might have reduced infection, although the data is showing that probably not, but you might have, but excess deaths were higher anyway, because of all this other stuff that happened.

And the harsher the policies, the worse, the outcome. And to that point, I feel like so much of health is community, so much of like, you know, when you look at centurions, like people that live over a hundred years old, these blue zones in Italy, I think there's one in... There's Okinawa, Sardinia, the seventh, the other end of the year. Yeah, a little into it.

And then it's like, that just went away during COVID. You had grandma who was probably used to seeing her whole family. Now she's locked down in a nursing care facility. What was her life expectancy? Steve, that was my grandparents. We're very close families. We're family of immigrants and we're Italian. And my grandparents, we were always there.

Their kids were there, their grandkids were there, and then when this all happened, everybody was scared. And so we isolated ourselves from them for, I wanna say four or five months before we were like, this is not working anymore. But in that four or five month period, I saw my grandparents age like seven, it looked like seven years.

Like I remember when I went to go see them. I was like, oh, they don't look good. Like they, their health declined so quickly in that short period of time. And it was 100% because, I mean, we were bringing them food and dropping it off the door and we were FaceTiming them, but it's not. It's not-

What's the study that you shared last year? It was the, the compared it to smoking cigarettes. You're a relationship. Yeah, poor relationships. Like smoking 15 cigarettes a day. And I, and And I my grandma passed way during COVID. Again, she, she wasn't great. Morgan's grandma did as well. Again, people that they had other issues, she didn't pass away from COVID, but it was that idea like

we, she didn't see people. She didn't see her friends. Like how much does that play? And you really, you can't calculate that like, well, they have no they can. The data is very clear on it. They'll show you on the data that loneliness is a How do they know my grandma your grandma? Oh people like yeah, they have no way of calculating those deaths because they're gonna Chalk him up to you know like my grandma. I need your stroke or whatever But again a lot of that's Compounded by the fact that totally you're alone. I felt like I aged five years during COVID just the amount of stress and worry We in through trying to get Morgan into the country.

She was detained in the US actually. Why? Sent back. So when she got out of Australia, the first time in November of 2020, one of the stipulations on her getting out was that she wasn't going to come back for X-4 months or something. She had to be gone for at least three months. When she got to the US and she didn't have a return flight, they're like, why are you here? My boyfriend's here. So they're like, oh, you're under the wrong beast. You need a fiancee visa.

Like you're here as an Estah. You can't do that. You're a high risk of staying here and not going back to your country. So she was detained, never allowed in for 14 hours, like phone taken from her, put back on a flight, then she had a quarantine so each time she went back to Australia She came the first time and we spent like three three months in the US she went back Quarantine for 14 days and this is in a hotel room 14 14 days. Yeah. No, no outside air like it was just just a room like this a hotel room

So she had to do that three different times in Australia. And I'm just like, I'm like, I think about that. And that's probably why I think our relationship really, I never was a guy that cried or got emotional about my partner when I would talk about him, but going through those kind of traumatic things, like when we eventually got married, like I was a mess just because I think,

you know, doing that kind of stuff, when someone gets detained and you don't know where they're at, like I was trying to, us calling, trying to figure out where they're at, and she's just in, you know, immigrant prison, essentially, it's weird. Interesting. That have been scary as shit, dude.

Do you find yourself now your views of health and fitness being more complete, more evolved than they would they used to. You're mentioning now loneliness and relationships like, I didn't know that was important in my 20s. Yeah, definitely more empathetic, I think, for people that have mental health stuff, mental health, whether it's depression or things like that. And then also probably just more more overall kind of like, Hey, you're not going to be, and when you're young and when you're fit and you think this is how it's going to be forever, you don't ever have any of these, you know, I think that was kind of a wake up call for all of us in COVID. Like life has it as kind of how you had it or you thought it would be, I can change like that. And so it's like that appreciation. And I think, you know, when someone dies, you get that feeling for, you know, a couple of weeks,

I think I try to hold on to that with COVID, just thinking about the feelings and everything that you went through when you didn't have, you know, just the weird day to day stuff that you would typically have with people. Does your training change a lot? I'm not training, yeah, definitely. So I have a lower back issue that's always been an issue're gonna do. I'm gonna go back to the last one. I'm gonna go back to the last one. I'm gonna go back to the last one. I'm gonna go back to the last one. I'm gonna go back to the last one. I'm gonna go back to the last one. I'm gonna go back to the last one. I'm gonna go back to the last one.

I'm gonna go back to the last one. I'm gonna go back to the last one. I'm gonna go back to the last one. I'm gonna go back to the last one. I'm gonna go back to the last one. I'm gonna go back to the last one. I'm gonna go back to the last one. I'm gonna go back to the last one.

I'm gonna go back to the last one. I'm gonna go back to the last one. I'm gonna go back to the last one. I'm gonna go back to the last one. I'm gonna go back to the last one. I'm gonna go back to the last one. I'm gonna go back to the last one. I'm gonna go back to the last one. I'm gonna go back to the last one. I'm gonna go back to the last one. I'm gonna go back to the last pump me up and like smack me on the back twice and like I just thought every,

every cell on my body was like, what the fuck? It was just, it was in next level, but I couldn't move the neck. I couldn't stand up, like we went to lunch afterwards and I was like, okay, that's, that's not happening. Yeah, it's just a little bulging disc, essentially, that always happens now, I could kind of throw it out and get a little bit of like,

nerve damage onto this right side. So I flex this leg and I can see it. Other people can't, it's not quite the same. So it's always battling with that. I've had a couple of shots in it. So now I think I've focused a lot more mobility, stability and mobility, and being strong in certain areas. Like again, my back shouldn't move if my hips and ankle lutes can do the work.

My lower back should be, and it used to be opposite. I'd move my back too much, but I think that my training is definitely less like balls to the wall, like on a leg day, just push through pain type of a thing. And now it's, I would say like, hey, getting into the gym and even less, less total number of sets, but quality of things, I always look at a clock when I train, I don't like just sitting in there and bull-crapping in between sessions. And then I probably train four days, maybe five,

I have a day that I can kinda go in and accessory body parts if I want, but more so the mobility. Have you ever felt like rebelling and kinda shutting it all down for a while, like going off social, not working out for a while, but more so than mobility. Have you ever felt like rebelling and kind of shutting it all down for a while, like going off social, not working out for a while? I kind of feel like I did that a little bit

in the last, you know, a couple, like I really didn't post if I didn't feel like posting. Yeah. And like again, if it wasn't fun, I wasn't gonna post it. And I think again, this is, I just became kind of, didn't give a shit for lack of better words.

It was just one of those things that was like, I don't care if I'm gonna get some heat from sponsors or whatnot, I'm like, I need this kind of a reset type thing. And also, I used to probably get a euphoric feeling when, oh my gosh, that just became my most liked post five, six years ago, quickly realized how toxic that is to put kind of your self worth, if your self worth is based upon how many followers

you have and things like that. So I kind of just luckily having a big family, they keep you in check. Nobody else in my family cares about social media, they're all teachers or nurses and real deal jobs. And I remember early on people people like, you do what? And you're able to make a living off of it. I go as always just kind of this weird like, what's what Steve do? Yeah. So I kind of, I get back to like, at the end of the day, I have no,

I have no problem not posting. Yeah, yeah. And just being like, what is the most profitable revenue stream for you? Is it the app? Yeah. Yeah, fitness app is like. Tell me a bit, so a little bit of that. Justin and I before Mind Pump ever started, we were building an app together and ended up scratching that when Mind Pump took off bigger and we burned a ton of money trying to build it.

Tell me about your journey on that. I wanna know one, how you chose or decided to get a partnership with somebody, because you're such the face of the brand. And so if you've got some sort of a split with somebody that nobody really knows, I want to know about that. And then just the whole startup of it, how much it cost to build something like that, how long it took to be profitable.

And that's, that's, so I, I had my own website, like Steve Cook hell, if you remember, GregPlatte.com. Yeah. That was kind of like the gold standard for me. I'm like, oh, I want to have my own website. And then all of a sudden, that became more app focused, I think. you could go to the website and you could go to the website and you could go to the website and you could go to the website and you could go to the website and you could go to the

website and you could go to the website and you could go to the website and you could go to the website and you could go to the website and you could go to the website and you could go to the website and you could go to the website and there was a, never, I never did any like, hey, eat this, this, and this, and this.

It was more in just like a open forum questions. And then we would do, we would talk about training questions and things like that. I didn't even tell people what, because I had programs on bodybuilding.com. So we didn't even actually, it was a breach of contract if I would have had my own stuff at that time. It wasn't until the app where then my business partner Jacob Hutton, he, he was a guy that he was doing CrossFit stuff. So he, I think he was, I don't know if he ever did his thesis, but starting to get his masters was an assistant strength coach at a college in Utah. We played high school football together. He played college football. college in Utah. We played high school football together. He played college football. Absolutely. He was a CrossFit guy, but also had a bodybuilding slash athletic background.

So new new his stuff. Yeah, had all sorts of different shirts. Again, was a kinesiology sports science guy. And so we started doing some programming. He would kind of write the meat and potatoes of a strength phase. I would add, okay, I wanted the split to look like this, or I want to add this exercise, kind of put my spin on it, making sure it was, I don't want to say bodybuilding focus, but more something that was true to my training.

Yeah. And so our thing was always kind of like, you don't want to be an ornament. You don't want to just look good. You don't want to look good, And so our thing was always kind of like, you know, you wanna, you wanna, you don't wanna be an ornament, you don't wanna just look good, you wanna look good, but you also wanna be able to perform. Being an athlete growing up, I think that that was always,

I stayed it longer than our football fitness class because I wanted to train some beach muscles, but that was always after the fact of making sure you do your power cleans, you know, you're, we never did Hank snatch, but your front squats or back squats, following that true, like we did in Nebraska strength training at our high school, the low like five sets of five

and things like that. And so I think that it was always like, hey, we can't just be getting, you know, and Jake was the same way we aligned on our goals. It was, look good, but always be getting stronger or always be following your goal, whether it's a power phase, whether it's a strength phase, and then also getting lean. We do, we have a program that is more, I would say,

supersets, but also more diet focused on leaning out as well. So when you guys first got together, how does that conversation go? You already have got a lot of attraction and fame and stuff. You bring someone in who really isn't bringing that table. Of course, he's got the knowledge. Did you write out the gates, say, hey, whatever we're going to build together, there's going to be 50-50, like how did you decide?

Yeah, and I think I probably always, again, getting back to, I always probably underestimate myself and overestimate other people, what they're bringing to things. And I think that that's probably, whether it's companies I've worked with or potential partnerships. I think again, I want people to succeed because I want them to feel excited about things. I was like, hey, you're doing some programming for a CrossFit gym right now. Like, you know, let's create this together type of a thing. You know, I really valued, I still do value him for what he knows with the strength and conditioning side of things, but ultimately I think that it kind of got me doing less

of what I was good at as well, where it's like, again, when you get back into training people, when you get back into the things that you got to start doing originally, it keeps you sharp. If you're not doing those things, you kind of just lose it. Did you guys split the investment to build it to? Yeah, well, there really wasn't a ton of investment. We kind of we we kind of actually started off With some challenge stuff and then as it grew Things kind of got a little bit weird business-wise. He had another company that he was doing some Jim software stuff for So we're kind of still in the middle of Working through all of that kind of stuff and I will say on the business side of things

I think you know again We get along because we're kind of like like you guys mutual respect goes a long way I know you know what you're talking about let me do what I'm good at I'll respect you and and trust you to let you do what you're at. And then let's come in and talk about where we align on core values and things like that. So the app's not profitable in doing. Yeah, the app is definitely, we have a gym that for the first five years,

we're like, if we can just break even on this, we're gonna be happy because it's a place where we can film all of our stuff. Now we're profitable in the gym. Oh, where's the gym app? It's in St. George. Yeah, it's the same spot. So again, we have like 400 members, but it's 11,000 square feet.

And it's totally different crowd. And when I was training at Gold Gym Venice, like living in LA, I just, I can't get more worlds apart than Saint George in LA. And I kind of like that pace a lot. I was just going to say, like, how's the guy like you growing up, you know, Utah, big family, all that, and then you go live in LA? What was it like living in LA? Every day I was like, why am I here?

Every day I was like, is this worth it? Is this worth it? And it's funny, I think it was just like, again, I stuck it out way longer because people are like, oh no, after a year you'll like it. I never liked LA, and I think again, now I'm like, if you like LA and you're not from California, I think you're weird. There's people that do LA and you're not from California, I think you're weird

People to do always tough for me Orange County like San Diego like you know like there's parts of California I love but LA for whatever reason I just it feels like everybody's waiting to get Discovered or something. I don't know. Yeah, it feels like you're walking around something for Instagram land Yeah, it feels very, very strange. And Gold's Gym was kind of the heart of that. There were so many like, crush dreams. I thought I was gonna be the next Arnold, but I'm living in my van outside.

And I was just like, ooh. I remember like, before only fans was the thing, you had like the gay for pay. Yeah. And that was massive in that Gold's Gym. And you just had a lot of worship. Yeah, so I remember being approached by, like my first week there in the parking lot.

So I was like, hey, do you need another sponsor? They rolled up in their car. Like, do you need another sponsor? Yeah. And I'm like, what do you mean? I have, I have bodybuilding.com. They're like, well, you know, super discreet, but I was just like, no, I'm good. I'm good.

But I was like, I've often been like, if you're, you know, so and so from Missouri, you moved out there, you have no money. It's like, you can see why like, if you're so and so from Missouri, moved out there, you have no money. It's like, you can see why, again, people are taking manage of it. Yeah, there's that dark cloud of really, where it feels like, yeah. I didn't even know that was a thing

until I got into competing. That was, no, I didn't either. I thought it was like a joke that someone was really doing, but like someone was fucking with me. I was like, oh, this is like a thing. Like people actually, who? And it's crazy actually how long it's been going on. And then what was a killer Sally?

Did you get this one? Great talking. I had a hard time watching it. It was so it hit home to Gold's Jim Venice. I was like, I know these people. I mean, not those people, but people like that. And it was just like, it's such a sad industry when you get into that hard core competing world.

We're spending so much money to compete and not getting anything out of it. What would you say, Steve, is the most misunderstood thing about you? Oh, that's a good question. Misunderstood. I don't know. I think probably, if you guys think, what is it? Blue color, what is it with that castle?

What is that blue mountain state? That TV show you guys ever seen that? No, no, no. What is that, that jock football player guy that's on there, it's just a D bag. And I feel like people sometimes, when they actually meet me, they're like, you're way different

than I thought she'd be. I thought you'd be a douchebag. Yeah, oh my God. I think it's probably because I have a bunch of brothers and sisters that if I wasn't being a douchebag and there was plenty of times I was being a douchebag. Yeah. Oh my god. I think it's probably because I have a bunch of brothers and sisters that if I wasn't being a douchebag and there was plenty of times that was being a douchebag, they would tell me. It's curious.

Oh, there he is. That's what I got. Yeah. It's that. If you watch it, I love his character in it because he's just that quintessential jolt. It's just the meathead who's an A-hole. But that's like, you know, I played live-acquard.

He's a linebacker, and like, so I always imagine people see me as that castle. Okay, another deep question. So we always talk about most of us that are in the fitness space that become very passionate about it. Most of us were driven to the gym by some sort of insecurities. Do you think that that has a lot to do?

I know you have the athletic background, but do you think you have wrestled with a lot of insecurities that drove you into the gym? It's interesting, because I think off the top, my head I would say no. It was my dad, it was a way to bond with my dad, because we didn't, he was that hard, hard-ass dad, that military type dad that, when I would get a good job,

it was probably because of something I did physically. So I would say that it's an insecurity. Sure. But it's not a body one, more like an approval. Yeah, probably more of an approval. Like that was me making my dad happy to do. Like, oh, I remember when I was a kid, he'd be like, oh, you know, before I'd run my 100 meter,

he'd be like, bow jacks in a year age, I'd probably do this in a minute. I mean, in 34, I know. I'm super realistic, yeah. And so, and so like, I just remember that was how I would like try to get his approval, I think.

Okay, so what are some things? Since we're talking about dads, we're all fathers in here. What are some things that you would take from your dad that when you're a father, you're like, I definitely want to make sure I emulate that. And what are things you're like, I'm gonna do that different.

I think so doing things different, I would say just unconditional love. I think that that's a very important thing for a kid to know and understand. It's like no matter what you do, I think this gets back to almost religious views. No matter what you do, I'm gonna love you. No matter what you do, I think this gets back to almost religious views. No matter what you do, I'm gonna love you. No matter what you do, like you're always gonna be my son

or my daughter, there's nothing you can do, but there's things that you do that disappoint me because I think it's not being your best self. Like approaching it from that love first, like, hey, I don't wanna break my dad's trust, not because I'm scared I'm gonna get an ass whooping, but because I don't wanna see the hurt that that causes him. I didn't have to break my dad's trust not because I'm scared I'm going to get an ass whooping, but because I don't want to see the hurt that that causes him. I didn't have that as a kid.

It was like, I'm scared I'm going to get the ass. And I think that that does go, you have to have consequences because in life, if you don't teach your kids that there's consequences for actions, it's going to be a rude awakening. And then I think the other thing that I think that I you know I love that my dad he was open for we had a lot of hard discussions but and it was almost kind of like doom and gloom sometimes I think he got that from his parents but how to work hard save money doing the things like hey as a dad I need to make sure that you know you you you know, A, yeah, how to work hard, how to how to make sure that you don't quit on things, same as sports,

like kind of those same sports lessons. And then I think ultimately, you know, family, like it was like God family and then, yeah. And that kind of order. So I think that he, he also probably, I never saw my dad go out and party, like he never was a boy's boy. He was never like a man's man hanging out with buddies

after work, like he was always coming home with my mom, treating my stepmom really well. And I think that they had a good relationship that I think that I could build off of. Yeah, that's funny how that seems like that's different. I think that's what our culture has been the last. We talk about the Peter Pan syndrome and that we celebrate the dads that are the bros that are going out and doing it. But it's like,

that's what makes a good dad. The dad that comes home that's around, that's becomes a family man when he's like that. What about your relationship with money? You come from kind of a blue collar background and then you have your rise to fame and money. How's that journey been? Did you get a windfall at one time and then did you blow a lot? Like, have you been conservative with your money? I have one item that I regret buying, and it was a Louis Vuitton double bag. Wow. And I bought it in Spain.

It was kind of like, you know, you're, I think my buddy Sean Stafford was buying something for his wife, and I was single at the time, and like, I bought this bag, and every time I see it now, I've never, like, I've never used it. Really? Yeah, it's just one of those things.

I'm so cheap, I'm so frugal. Morgan, she's not a spender either, but she's the spender out of us. And I think it's bad because it's also one of those things where it's like, I don't like paying full price for anything. I'm just like, it's weird. It's like, it's almost a bad thing. It's like, hey man, enjoy yourself, do that. But at the same time, I think, like, yeah, I know what it's like to work at Texas Roadhouse.

I never, I always want to make sure that I, you know, like I'll even do stupid brand deals where it's like, just pay for that rather than like if it's a brand that I like, I remember I did a protein cereal brand deal. I like the protein cereal, but I was like, I wanted to try it. So I was just like, hey, do you guys want to do a brand deal? And they're like, yeah, we'd love to. And they paid me money for it,

but it was just because I wanted to try it. I was like, I'm not gonna buy this. I'm not gonna buy this. I'm gonna reach out and see if they want to do a brand deal. So it was actually pretty good. Do you find now as an adult, because of your relationship with your dad, that you feel like you have to earn somebody's love constantly? Do you find yourself in that place where you're like, I have to be

levelable by doing these things and bringing value? Is that a challenge? I think that is a massive challenge. The people pleasing, just kind of, even saying yes to things, this is probably five, six years ago, saying yes to things that you know you can't do. And I think that that stems from that like you just want to make people happy. You want to keep someone so you know, you don't want to get in trouble. You want to keep dad happy. And I think that that's ultimately one of the biggest things I I try to catch myself if I start doing by hey hey, don't do the people using thing. Yeah. So there's been somewhat of a movement that's been kind of anti-fupal for kids, talking about a danger and the concussion and all that stuff. But Justin is such an advocate of the life skills you learn from football. I've heard you now mention sports. What it taught you, how do you feel about

that? Do you think that there's more positive than negative? I think if taught right, like as growing up, I'm sure you're in the same boat. I was told like, put your nose in someone's numbers. It's not the correct way to tackle it. Like who's who's teaching that? We get a lot of head tackling that. Yeah, exactly. And that's where I think that I don't think football needs to necessarily be this inherent,

like no, no, I think that if you get behind teaching correct form tackling and things like that, you look at rugby players, they don't have, they have shoulder and knee issues, mainly shoulder from again, they lead with their shoulder, um, but we all of a sudden throw in a helmet and think we're invincible. So I'm not going to say I'm not going to let my, I'll let my kids play football, but I won't be devastated if they don't. And I definitely think sports in general teaches lessons that you really don't learn.

Tremendous lessons. Yeah. Have you started thinking more about fatherhood now that you're contemplating having a child soon? I mean, I think that's always kind of, you know, as a kid, you always say, I'll do this different, I think that's always kind of, you know, as a kid yours, I'll do this different, I'll do that. But I almost look at it as, you know, when I was on the biggest loser, I tried, you know, John Wooden is probably

all-time greatest basketball coach from UCLA, you know, one more college championships than anyone else. I read one of his books when I was actually doing the biggest loser, trying to be a better coach and trying to, you know, not focus so much on the winning and losing. And I think, geez, I could, in Utah, I don't know if it's like this everywhere,

but parents focus so much at these kids' games on the wins and losses, yelling at the refs and things like that, rather than teaching life lessons to their kids, rather than focusing on effort, rather than, you know, all they care about, oh yeah, my kid, you know, one, scored this, may touch down, but like, you know, so that to me is like, as a parent, I want to be somebody who doesn't focus on external, like wins and losses,

it's more about, hey, at the end of the day, doors closed, you're in your bed at night, like, can you say you played your hardest or you were a good teammate or, you know, just whatever that is? I think that's way more important. And on that biggest loser, I tried telling that process, whether it's fitness journey, whether it's parenthood, it's like this idea of like you got to enjoy this process. If you just enjoy the outcome, you're going to be let down constantly. When or lose, like I said earlier,

some of my most low points was walking around LA eating 12 donuts after a show because there was nowhere. Yeah, there was nowhere for me to get my brush from. It was like that happened. I have no goals right now. It became such a toxic thing. Totally. Well Steve, you're a very interesting person.

I'm glad we had you on the show, man. That'll be here. I do think that you should do long form. I think that would be your, how long did we run right now? That was over an hour and a half. Hey, that's pretty good. That was really good.

It was almost two hours. Yeah, and that was awesome. No, I appreciate you coming on the show, man. Yeah, it's a lot of fun. Thank you. Thank you, guys. Appreciate it. Thank you for listening to Mind Pump.

If your goal is to build and shape your body, dramatically improve your health and energy, Thank you guys, appreciate it. and maps the static. Nine months of phased, expert exercise programming designed by Sal Adam and Justin to systematically transform the way your body looks, feels, and performs. With detailed workout blueprints in over 200 videos, the RGB Superbundle is like having Sal Adam and Justin as your own personal trainer's butt at a fraction of the price.

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