Mind Pump: Raw Fitness Truth - 2505: The Story of Mind Pump (10 Year Anniversary Special)

Starting point is 00:00:00 If you want to pump your body and expand your mind, there's only one place to go. Mind pump with your hosts, Sal DeStefano, Adam Schaefer, and Justin Andrews. You just found the most downloaded fitness, health, and entertainment podcast. This is Mind Pump. Today's a special episode. This is our 10 year anniversary episode. We've been doing this podcast for 10 years. It's been an incredible ride. We're incredibly humbled by the

Starting point is 00:00:30 listeners, what this is all been about. It's been a lot of fun, a lot of luck. I can't believe we are where we are talking on microphones. We had no media experience. We did this because we wanted to help people. We've reached a lot of people. Today's episode is for those of you that have been listening for a long time. We reminisce, we go back to the beginning, tell the story and talk about what this journey has been like trying to change the fitness industry,

Starting point is 00:00:58 trying to build a business, trying to work with each other, all the hard times and good times. It was a fun episode and I'm excited for the next 10 years. So for me it's been a very touching one. Now this episode is brought to you by one of our sponsors From Our Place. This is the best cookware you'll find anywhere, hands down. No forever chemicals, lasts a long time, very sturdy,

Starting point is 00:01:23 looks nice. I've switched all my stuff out with everything from From Our Place. Go check them out. Go to FromOurPlace.com. Use the code MINDPUPPETCHECKOUT. Get 10% off site-wide. Also this month, it's a new year, so we put together four workout program bundles. Each one of them discounted $300 or more off. Check this out. We have a new to weightlifting bundle, a body transformation bundle, a New Year extreme intensity bundle, and a body transformation bundle 2.0. Every single

Starting point is 00:01:54 one of those is multiple workout programs, $300 or more off the normal price. You can find them all at mapsjanuary.com. All right, here comes the show. All right guys, this is our 10 year, 10 year anniversary episode. To the day. We made it. Is it to the day? To the day. Oh wow.

Starting point is 00:02:16 So you set it up so that it was exactly to the day. Yes, January 5th, 2015, to the day. Cause today is January 5th, 2025. Wow. 10 years. Wow. Did you believe it was going to make 10 years? That's the first question I had is,

Starting point is 00:02:33 did you actually think we'd get here? Is that the question you had? So you actually prepared for it? I did. I prepared some questions. You prepared questions, clips. We wanted to do like a, like to go back, talk about it, the podcast, talk about experiences, mistakes, wins, the whole deal.

Starting point is 00:02:51 And so that was one of the first questions we have. It is, because when we started, four guys with no experience about podcasting come into a room, think you can talk real good, you know? And did you actually think we'd uh, you know make it a year let alone ten I do I think that was a part of the delusion that we all had that we all shared. I think looking back Well, it wasn't delusion. It worked. I mean it did Lucky there's a little bit of luck involved in there. I do

Starting point is 00:03:24 We were oddly because when you listen back to some of that, it's... I know, I was thinking too. Cringe, really. Yeah. We just let it out. Well, so, you know, I, so here's the thing. When you're an entrepreneur, and I think you can ask

Starting point is 00:03:40 any entrepreneur this, when they start a business, I could ask you about a business that didn't work. When you started, did you think it would work? The answer is always going to be yes. I think you have that attitude when you're an entrepreneur, when you do something. Otherwise, how could you possibly- Yeah, you believe in it. Yeah. How could you move forward if you don't believe it, right? However, I will say this, and I remember talking about it this way. I distinctly felt nervous about mind pump

Starting point is 00:04:06 because something inside me said, this is definitely gonna grow. And it made me nervous. Made me nervous because I've never done media. Yeah. And I said, oh my God, a lot of people are gonna listen to this. It feels like that.

Starting point is 00:04:16 It was a weird feeling. And I remember talking specifically to several people I'm close to and saying exactly that. So I remembered something that we all shared, aside from the delusion, cause I think we equally shared that. Another thing that gave me confidence and I've had, I've had the opportunity to work with a lot of people, uh, in my 20 plus careers, uh, 20 plus years of in fitness.

Starting point is 00:04:43 Um, probably can count on one hand, how many people that I've met that I felt shared a similar type of work ethic as myself. And one of the things that even though we were delusional about how good we were, we weren't delusional about the work that was ahead of us in order for this thing to grow. And that was like something that I think everybody,

Starting point is 00:05:05 like nobody was like, oh, we're so good. We're going to blow up because how good we were. It was like, we're going to figure this out. I don't care if we've got to do a million episodes to get good. We will. And everybody was bought in with that thought process of owning that.

Starting point is 00:05:21 We have no idea what we're doing, but there's a massive opportunity here and that we'll put in what we're doing, but there's a massive opportunity here and that we'll put in the reps to figure it out. And I felt like that was from day one. I remember that about each guy and I was like, okay, like we will figure this out. So I think- So it was our entire mantra.

Starting point is 00:05:37 It was just reps. Well, this like reminds me of my child. I don't know about how far this harkens back for you guys, but I was never the stud athlete. I played sports and I was okay, it was good, but I wasn't because I was gifted. It was because I was willing to do the things that the other kids weren't.

Starting point is 00:05:57 I was willing to get up at five o'clock in the morning and run before school. I was willing to go on weekends and sacrifice, playing with my buddies and practicing, dribbling with both hands. I would do whatever it took and in practice I was that guy that everybody hated because I ran 110. That's why I'm here. I'm terrible at this. Right. And so I proved that in athletics. I knew it would apply here. And that's that. So that's what I felt that that confidence about myself and I felt that from you guys with our approach here.

Starting point is 00:06:26 Agreed, agreed. Yeah, so, all right, let's go back to kind of how this started and maybe first impressions. I know we've told this story in other podcasts, but we were all doing our own thing. I owned a personal training studio, wellness studio. Doug was a client of mine. He actually came and hired me,

Starting point is 00:06:46 was referred to me by a chiropractor. We became friends. He approached me several months in and I remember exactly what you said. You said, you remind me of Tony Robbins. If you ever want to sell something, I have some internet marketing experience and I had nothing to sell.

Starting point is 00:07:02 It was maybe a month later where I came up with the idea of Maps Antibolic. Doug and I created marketing material for it. It was the first time I was on camera. It felt natural for me, even though I was great at it, but it did feel natural. And now while this is happening, you and I, Adam, are in communication on Facebook.

Starting point is 00:07:20 Yeah. And it had nothing, it was not fitness related whatsoever. It was marijuana talk. So at the time I had someone close to me who was battling cancer and I was looking at the, looking at research on anything, they were terminals. So it was like, what alternative treatment could we do or whatever?

Starting point is 00:07:37 And I saw these studies on cannabinoids and cancer and I had known of you through mutual acquaintances and friends. Now this is where it gets weird. At least five different times over the last previous, I would say five years, people would approach me and say, do you know Adam Schaefer? And I'd say no. And they'd say, oh God, you guys should work together.

Starting point is 00:08:01 Now when that happens once, not a big deal. Second time, okay. By the fifth time, it was very weird. Why do people keep telling me I need to work with Adam Schaefer? What is it about? Why specifically us need to work together? It was really weird, but I'd remembered that, found you on Facebook, saw that you were in the cannabis industry because you had the dispensaries.

Starting point is 00:08:20 So I reached out to you to ask you questions about strains of marijuana that I could give to, at the time it was my mother-in-law, she was the one battling cancer. So that's me and you were talking about that, nothing fitness related. Which is also when you think about the time, see right now that doesn't seem so crazy. But you're talking, this is before, this is 12 years ago that you're talking about. It was still legal. It was very taboo to be openly discussing that, especially if you were in health and fitness.

Starting point is 00:08:51 It hadn't made its way for sure into that. It was barely getting mainstreamed to the average person of like, oh, like this cannabis stuff isn't all bad. There's some positive benefits to it. And so to talk to another person with a fitness background that was as knowledgeable as Sal was about marijuana and fitness was just, I mean, we connected right away. Yeah. Now you said the same thing. You had said that people had kept coming

Starting point is 00:09:18 up to you telling you need to work with me. Yeah. Very weird. Larry, Jason, Todd, I mean I had multiple people that had worked with you or were friends with you that knew you and knew me and would tell me that all the time. And no one could ever tell me why. That's right. They would never, I'd be like. By the fourth time I'm like why?

Starting point is 00:09:38 Yeah. Oh I don't know. No you just need a meet. You just need a meet, you guys would. Which is kind of funny when you think about how it all came together because we got together with no intention of what was going to happen just to meet. No, so now what's happening now,

Starting point is 00:09:52 I'm in communication with you. Doug and I make this maps, you know, Anabolic was the program and it was this marketing material and then I'm talking to Adam, I'm like, you know what? I would love, in fact, I told Doug, I'm gonna ask this guy's opinion on my marketing material, on our marketing material and Doug's like, you know what? I would love, in fact, I told Doug, I'm gonna ask this guy's opinion on my marketing material, on our marketing material, and Doug's like, does he have experience?

Starting point is 00:10:10 I said, well yeah, he worked the fitness industry a long time, supposedly, you know, from people I know, he knows, he's good. So I messaged him on Facebook, hey, can I send you some stuff I put together, I'd love your opinion on it, and Adam's like, sure. So I send it over. You, you messaged me shortly after get on the phone

Starting point is 00:10:29 and you're like, come over my house. We should meet. And that's when I met with you and with Justin. And at the time was Craig, Doug wasn't there, but it was us four. And that first conversation was, and I've said this on other podcasts, you can remember this when it happens

Starting point is 00:10:49 because it's not often, it's rare, but there's those times when you sit down with someone, maybe it's your spouse when you first met them, maybe it's that best friend, whatever, we sat down the first time ever and we went off for four hours. It was like this incredible conversation, we talked about the fitness industry, the state of it.

Starting point is 00:11:06 We were joking and laughing. We're talking about, I remember specifically saying wellness and the fitness space need to meld together, which now is not that big of a deal. But back then it was, they were super separate. And then I said, you know, Doug, my partner has recording equipment. We should get together and do a podcast. And we chose podcast because it was long form. There was no barrier to enter. He had the equipment, everybody agreed, and that was it. That's how it started. What I think is so interesting about that is that what made me do

Starting point is 00:11:39 that was, or why I wanted to get together was- Yeah, let me ask you that. What made you say, hey, let's meet? So Justin and I had been already been working on something together and Justin was really running all the technical side. He was managing the engineers, the software developers and we were building an app. We're trying to gamify fitness and we'd already been doing this for well over a year.

Starting point is 00:12:04 And I had already started My Instagram and YouTube page because Justin was really managing the project I was financing it and I knew it was gonna be my responsibility to like who you're gonna sell this out to So yeah, so I was already trying to figure out the social media game. I knew that was popping off I'd seen that I didn't know anything about it. I didn't know what I was doing, but I knew that, okay, I'm not well known enough to get enough people using our app. I need to build an audience. And so I was already interested in the online space. And so when you did that, I was just like, okay, digital marketing online. Okay. I'm interested in that. Let's just all get

Starting point is 00:12:45 together with no intentions of like, what would manifest from that. Just that, listen, sounds like we're at similar crossroads in our career and that we're interested in a similar space. And then when you mentioned the podcast, I was familiar with the podcasting space and kind of where it was going, even though I didn't have any clue on what it would take to start up. And it was you and Doug that really made me realize, oh my God, this is much easier. And it was like, oh, this makes sense. Like if we can build an audience on a podcast, then Justin and I have a place to sell our app. Yeah, I think that's really like you nailed the meaning behind it is we're all like seniors in

Starting point is 00:13:21 our career. Like we were just like, where do I go from here? Because I'm like, it's, it's on autopilot. Like I've done every direction you can go, um, have tapped out on the high end training market, you know, had a pretty, you know, good business in terms of flexibility. And I'm just looking for something that's going to give me drive and purpose. And you know, reconnected with Adam and he was in he was in his phase where he was going through the medical marijuana industry and trying to figure that out. And we were just like, we're still really passionate about fitness and it's like, what can,

Starting point is 00:13:53 what else can we do? And then it was like, you're doing something adjacent right at that same time. And so I think that really mattered was the timing with now first impressions. So, uh, yeah. So Adam right out the gates, uh, was easy for me to connect with cause we're similar in our personalities and whatever. But I remember meeting him and I was like, damn this dude's Jack is so good looking. What a, what a, this guy looks like, like Clark Kent, like what is happening?

Starting point is 00:14:20 And then I got all the, yeah, I got all the, uh, oh, you're in the perma bulk. You were quiet. Constantly bro. No when we met you were quiet and I could feel you silently judging me. I could feel we were having that meeting, not in a bad way, but I could tell that okay you know you're just not all in. You're kind of, and to find out you did. You're like, yeah yeah yeah I read everybody for a while takes a minute you know but I mean I liked what I saw and I liked your you know what you had to say it wasn't about that it was really just your character like I have just like I take a while to like you know move in that direction especially if I'm like well we're going to be working with this person potentially and all this

Starting point is 00:15:02 and I'm like oh a little nervous to have two Adams. You know, I was a little bit nervous about that. What was wild was that we were willing to kind of go into this business idea together with no business plan or no even agreement on. There was no legal agreement. Yeah, no. And originally, the thought really was.

Starting point is 00:15:22 Don't ever do that, everybody. No, I mean, the original thought was Justin and't ever do that everybody. It's terrible. The original thought was Justin and I had our own business. You guys had your own business. We would collectively use the podcast, but we would both make money in different directions. So there is no like, we're going to merge and Maps is going to become ours and the app is going to become yours. It was like, Justin and I have this app.

Starting point is 00:15:42 We need an audience. You guys have Maps and a ball. You've already tried to go out online with Doug and you guys are finding you're getting a little bit of traffic, but not much. You guys need a bigger audience. And so it was like, okay, this is great. We both equally need each other to grow an audience to sell whatever product or thing that we had in mind, but no conversation around like, Oh, how are you gonna do a split and who's going to run what?

Starting point is 00:16:03 Like none of that was just like, okay, let's go. Let's go test this out, which is what I loved about all of our personalities, and this is part of why it worked, was because nobody was like, oh, well, what about this? It was just like, yeah, we all agreed on the idea. Early on, there was some of that, but it wasn't us. Remember, we started the show, let people know this,

Starting point is 00:16:22 but we started the podcast with a fourth host, Craig Capurso, who's friends with Adam and he had a large social media following, or the largest I should say, out of all of us, definitely larger than mine, I don't have one. And we started, there it is, right there, that's the first episode. Look at Adam, what a meathead right there. I look like my kid. I look like that's my son up there right now.

Starting point is 00:16:47 But we recorded this, we did, there was still great chemistry, but I remember Craig afterwards was like, okay, you talked most of the time, so next time you talk a little more. He was trying to manage the show, and all of us were like, nah, let's just go. That doesn't make any sense. That doesn't make any sense.

Starting point is 00:17:08 No, not at all. But we recorded, how many episodes did we record with Craig? I don't recall. 15, 10? Close to 15. 10, 10, maybe 10 to 15. 10 to 15, at least we did that. Remember too that at that time, Craig had a brand.

Starting point is 00:17:21 Craig had a name. Craig had been on covers of magazines. He was the most popular in all of us on social media, and he was so concerned about himself and who he was. I mean, that's part of why he didn't join us, was because he got- He had something to lose, he felt like. That's right, he got a phone call from,

Starting point is 00:17:38 it was either Cell Your Core or Bodybuilding.com, so one of the higher-ups had heard some of the episodes, because he sent them over to listen to him, to hear what they had to say. And he was being sponsored by them at the time. That was his main source of income. And they were like, like it, but I don't think it's going to work for our brand. And so he was concerned that he would get dropped as a sponsor and lose that income. And he wasn't willing to risk that.

Starting point is 00:18:03 And it really ended up working out because stylistically, it would have never worked. It would have never worked with, you know, one of the other things that makes this work for 10 years is that nobody ever cared about being the man. And he cared so much about that, that eventually that would have rubbed one of us around with. For sure would have gotten into a fight with Sal or I. Oh, for sure. For sure, for sure with you, 100%. Yeah, you know, we did, one, there was, and we've brought this up before,

Starting point is 00:18:31 there was one moment for me when I felt so solidified in this, and that's when we did, I don't know, 10 or 15 episodes, edited, recorded. By the way, that took us a while to do because we all had jobs. This was not, we weren't making money, so we would meet once or twice a week and record for hours. Then Doug was the only person editing the whole thing. He'd have to listen to edit.

Starting point is 00:18:55 So you're talking about hours of work with these episodes that we're going to launch. We're ready to launch them. We're all psyched and excited. Craig sends us a text and says, guys, I can't do it. I got to pull out. And I remembered, and I've said this so many times because it was such a vivid memory, I saw the text and I immediately in my mind went, okay, I need to motivate these guys to keep going to start over. So I need to get on the phone and I'm gonna, I'm gonna hype these guys up. We're gonna keep going. And we got on a call and I couldn't even open my mouth.

Starting point is 00:19:27 Adam was the first one to say, we're gonna keep going. Justin's like, let's do it. I didn't have to say nothing. And I was like, oh my God, everybody's the same. And I felt so like, oh, even more excited. I got more excited. I imagine we all probably felt the same thing about Craig, that's why.

Starting point is 00:19:40 I think we all recognized that he had, he would have given us a, a quicker catapult because he already had an audience. And so that was the draw for sure. And so that was appealing to us, right? Like, Oh, wow. You know, here's a guy who's knowledgeable about fitness has the look. He's already got a name for himself.

Starting point is 00:19:58 This will help us get our first thousand listeners or whatever. Um, but I think all of us in our gut probably knew he didn't match well with all of us. And so when that happened, I think you just felt serendipitous. It was the first bit of serendipity into the business, right? We did 11 episodes we recorded with him, something like that. Yeah, so it was like a substantial change

Starting point is 00:20:20 to go from that. We were just about to launch, and then it's like, oh, wow, OK, I guess we're going to do this over. But yeah, I was like, again, weirdly confident that it was going to be even better. Yeah. And we got, and we was, we got back on the mics, those first 10 or 11 or whatever with him served as warmups. They served as exercises, like as a practice.

Starting point is 00:20:38 Then we're now, then we start recording it at, that's at your house, Doug. That's when we started recording your house. I remember that table. You put the blanket over it.wood floors by the way horrible acoustics I put moving blankets up everywhere trying to make it sound good but it didn't and the chemistry was really good listening to I remember the chemistry it was it was but I remember being so nervous I remember being so nervous podcasting it was uh and it's why I always tell people that make comments like oh you should have the wives on or oh I could come on

Starting point is 00:21:06 It's just like you just think that you're gonna get all these things I can't tell you how many people get in the studio man, and we flip these lights on and they freeze up and So yeah, and I know what that feels like cuz I remember the very first time that we did this You can't help but be like oh my god You know when only hundreds of people are listening, you're still thinking tens of thousands could potentially listen to this. You know how we have cameras and everything on top of that?

Starting point is 00:21:31 So what's interesting for me was, and it's still like this, for whatever reason, the camera makes me feel not anxious whatsoever, but I would have so much anxiety on the way home and in bed because I'd remember what we said. I remember the conversations we had. You're going, I'm like, oh my God, people are gonna hear that. Oh my God, people are gonna be, oh,

Starting point is 00:21:48 and I would work myself up into a frenzy. I'd go to sleep, wake up the next day, I think I'm okay. Whenever we turned the mics on the camera, I felt very comfortable right out the gates, but afterwards was always a nightmare for me. Well, you were also at the same time, I don't think I or we're aware of it yet, but you were also hearing it from your wife at the same time, right?

Starting point is 00:22:06 She's giving you that extra grief of like, you can't say there was a last, it was the last straw. It was the last straw. Right? So you got that pressure, that feeling, and then you're getting it also from home, like being told like, yeah, you can't be talking about this or being that way. And then pulled up, which to me, that was a big moment when I, when you started to go through that and which to me, that was a big moment when I, when you started to go through that and it was like, she basically gave you it's mind pump or fix us type of

Starting point is 00:22:31 deal and you chose I'm doing this mind pump thing. Well, I mean, there's so much more behind it. And I, you know, I don't like to go into detail because I don't, you know, I don't want to air out or her or any of that stuff or, you know, but it was the last straw and it wasn't so much a pick me or mind pump, although it was in some ways positioned that way, we were there. I mean, it was already like, this is not happening.

Starting point is 00:22:52 Yeah, you felt that way before. 100%. Yeah, it was the camel. But that was the last straw for sure. There was one picture in particular, we took a picture. And it was, I mean, we were obnoxious. Like we were really. We were wild in the beginning, for sure.

Starting point is 00:23:07 There was a whole barred. Yeah, we also thought that was a strategy. Yeah, it was a strategy. It was a shock and awe approach. I mean, we thought if we can just get the attention, however, by any means possible, then if we could just get people to listen, then they'll hear the authenticity behind our message and the information.

Starting point is 00:23:26 We did something and I remember I'm at home and I hear screaming and she comes out of the bedroom. I can't believe you said that. And it was like this huge blow up. I don't remember what it was because we said a lot of stuff in those early episodes, but it was a big deal. I think people should know some of the titles of our episodes. Those early ones. Squirrels and Sparkly Taints. That's a title of episodes. The Sticky Icky.

Starting point is 00:23:54 If We Were Gay. The Jazzled. Of course. And Crazy Chicks for Me. Oh my god, dude. So this is, hold on everybody, listen. We were a fitness podcast. Yeah, we were a fitness podcast. What were we doing, dude. Wow. So this is, this, hold on everybody, listen. We were a fitness podcast. Yeah, we were a fitness podcast.

Starting point is 00:24:06 What were we doing, dude? What were we? No idea. I know. Now, Doug, what's going through your head at this point? Yeah, I guess you gotta wonder, cause Doug, you're, that's not, like, you must've been, you're like the master, like, you're like Splinter.

Starting point is 00:24:19 How did you not, did you just think I'm gonna be patient? I bit my tongue a lot. So I figured it was just some young, uh, you know, excitement that you guys had because you're like 15 years younger than me. But you guys were, I could see that you were probably a little bit nervous. Okay. So you're using some alcohol and maybe some other substances to get through the episodes, a lot of profanity, a lot of bathroom humor,

Starting point is 00:24:47 but I also felt that there was this chemistry that I could work with and I just saw that if we could let it mature a bit, that it could turn into something great. So. I think what, I don't know, this is all hindsight, but I think the fitness stuff was so genuine and real, cause that's what we'd been doing for so long that that's what got,'t know, this is a hindsight, but I think the fitness stuff was so genuine and real,

Starting point is 00:25:05 because that's what we'd been doing for so long, that that's what got really great people. I remember, there's one memory I have distinctly of those early days. We had just launched the podcast. How many episodes have we launched, what, 10, five? I think maybe five, I'm sure three to five. So we just launched it.

Starting point is 00:25:22 I'm at the studio training a client, and I remember who I was training. It was when I'm blowing you up. Yes, and I remember distinctly, I'm training one of my female clients, we're working out, and my phone is buzzing. And I look at it, and it's Adam calling me. And so I skip to voicemail, put my phone away.

Starting point is 00:25:38 I look at it again, it's him again, skip to voicemail. Third time he calls me, I'm like, what is going on? So I said, hey, can you pardon me for a second? I gotta take this call, I go outside, and I answer him like, what's up, dude? And he goes, go to iTunes right now. I said, okay, and I go to iTunes. He goes, go to New and Notable, and we're there.

Starting point is 00:25:54 We're in New and Notable. This was within the first week of launching the podcast. And I was like, what does that mean? We're on a chart? Like, we're on the front page of iTunes? So was it when we were What's Hot, was that mean? We're on a chart? Like we're on the front page of ICs? When we were What's Hot, was that when we launched our CrossFit episode?

Starting point is 00:26:09 New and Notable was the chart, right? Yeah, New and Noteworthy. New and Noteworthy. You know, this was something that, thank God that Doug. I think it was. This is another part of why Doug was so important to the pieces of public, because he would do enough homework and research to know things like, Hey, we

Starting point is 00:26:26 want to have at least five episodes backloaded and we want to launch three of them on the same day. So people have multiple listen to this is the cadence in the first eight weeks. We're competing only against people that are in their first eight weeks. That gives us the opportunity to be on new and noteworthy. And so he knew that I remember he knew that about that. And so that was the strategy was like put out these episodes early on. In fact, probably the, I think it was the female fitness myth was probably one of the first ones that would really... Crossfit was the first one, right? Why we don't crossfit?

Starting point is 00:26:57 No, I think the female myth was... Female myth was one of the first ones for sure. There were a couple that took off. Yeah, those two were the ones I think that took off. Those were the two main ones I remember from the beginning. Yeah. And you know, I think it's important to be clear that took off was not like millions of downloads. It was like a thousand. No, we were still peanuts.

Starting point is 00:27:16 No, nobody knew what a podcast was. I used to tell people I have a podcast and people would say, what's a podcast? That's what it was like 10 years ago. Which by the way, I think- It was a terrible name for it too. I know. I never liked it. I think that-

Starting point is 00:27:28 It's like a radio show. I think that that's, I think looking back, at least I think this, I don't know if you guys agree or not, I don't know if we make it today. I think that, I think first of all, timing in business is the number one thing. You mean with what we sounded like when we first started?

Starting point is 00:27:45 Yes. I don't think we would ever have got off the ground enough to keep us going for long enough to become number one in this climate today. I think it was so new that most people didn't even know what a podcast was, that that gave us time to suck. And the fitness space had nothing. That's right. There was nothing.

Starting point is 00:28:04 There was no, we weren't competing really with anything. No. And so it gave us time to suck and get better that right when people started to realize what a podcast was and it became mainstream, everybody knew what a podcast was, we'd already established ourself as not sucking horrible anymore,

Starting point is 00:28:20 we just kind of sucked. And so that allowed us to get- Suck, slight suck. Yeah, I mean, I really think, don't you think so, Doug? Do you think, I don't think we make it right now. Yeah, it'd be rough, for sure. It's a very saturated market, and there's a lot of really good podcasts out there,

Starting point is 00:28:35 very slick production. I mean, we're, again, using moving blankets and hardwood floors, so it sounds like a bathroom. And we sounded way better than everybody in fitness. Fitness was a terrible category back then. Well, I remember Lane Norton. Yes. He had really good information, but it

Starting point is 00:28:49 sounded like he was recording in his bathroom. Or in a live gym. I remember listening to some podcasts, and it's like you hear all this cross talk. I'm like, what are they doing? Can't you just get an isolated room? That's why we were so lucky, right? We entered it into a space when it was so new that we were,

Starting point is 00:29:06 it was okay that we were rough around the edges. We didn't know what we were doing. It gave us time to get good. This is why too, I think in business, why it's so important to take action. And if you plan and back and forth on, oh, I should this and that, and you're waiting, waiting. And it's just like, man, time is so important,

Starting point is 00:29:26 timing is so important in business that getting started was the most important thing. And then being open to repping as much as we did to get all that out that so when people finally did find us, we had started to refine our skills. So that first year, then we, shortly after we got in, we rented a studio. And we would need their- What was the timeframe on that? This four months in? Four months in, we rented a studio. And we would meet there.

Starting point is 00:29:45 What was the timeframe on that? Four months in. Four months in. We rented a studio. So four months. Yeah, like 250 square foot. It was like Monday nights, right? It was Monday nights. Monday nights.

Starting point is 00:29:53 Now that's crazy, we did that before we were monetizing then. That's right. Yes. So we all put $1,000 in to a bank account. That's right. Formed a company called Mind Pump Media. That's the first time we signed anything. And signed a lease. That's it. time we signed anything. And signed a lease.

Starting point is 00:30:06 That's it. And so Monday nights, we would show up after work, and we would record till 11 o'clock or something like that. And we would do like three or four episodes. And our sound quality went up a little bit, because we took a staple gun and put foam all over the wall. I'd say it went up quite a bit. That was a big leap that first,

Starting point is 00:30:25 because I mean, as far as quality of sound, because we had those big cushion couches, and then we had the foam all over the place. But at that time, we're not even thinking visual at all. In fact, we think that that's silly, that anybody would want to watch people talk. And the episode ideas were literally, shock it off.

Starting point is 00:30:42 Add a thin air. Shock it off. What it's going to be, what we feel like. In fact, we had no structure. We used to just turn the mics on. It was story based. Do you guys remember that? Do you remember?

Starting point is 00:30:52 Doug would just turn the mics on. Do you remember you used to ask Doug, like time checks? Oh yeah. Doug, how much time we got? Or what we had time? In the middle of the episode. Oh my God, that's right. We used to open every episode

Starting point is 00:31:02 with some kind of like cheap joke. Oh no. Oh yeah, yeah. Yeah, all like. Sexual endo-endos in the title. I used to open every episode with some kind of like cheap joke Yeah, yeah, I like sexual into windows. Yeah. Yeah, we put the pee Just come up with something we put the dick in dictation And though and there were there was a lot there was a lot of episodes where we drank or smoked weed and we thought it made us better. It made us so much better. I mean, all it did was probably, it probably calmed a little bit of the nerves,

Starting point is 00:31:33 but it didn't make us better by any means. And I think I remember, I think we realized when we started having sober episodes and we realized that was a lot better, so we probably need to stick to being sober. Oh yeah. But it took a while to get past that. I was like singing before episodes, doing dumb shit.

Starting point is 00:31:47 Now, what, what made you guys decide? Cause we were just, we were going, what made you decide that you wanted maps and a ball to be our thing that we're going to put forward? We didn't, you offered it. He, we were, we had guides, Justin and I had already written guides. Yeah. We had the app Justin and I had already written guides. We had the app that we wanted to do and early on we actually divided that still.

Starting point is 00:32:10 That's right. So the very beginning, you guys had some online sales that you did. Yeah, we were just doing our own thing. Yeah, I think we offered that. It was just like, oh, well, yeah, cool. I think after the new and noteworthy and the getting the studio,

Starting point is 00:32:22 we realized that the podcast was gonna be bigger than anything else that we had done. And I think at that moment, we just agreed like, who cares that you went and built that? Who cares we built this? Let's just put it all in the pot together since no one's rich, you know? No one's making any money really off this stuff.

Starting point is 00:32:36 Let's just agree to do it all of it because this is gonna be the baby. And I think we all agreed that early and nobody, there was no sign to anything. There was just like trust in like, we agreed that this thing that we were creating, I mean that to me, the new and noteworthy thing when I called you that day was the, all I had to see was like, okay, we,

Starting point is 00:32:54 we proved that in eight weeks that were better than anybody else that started the last eight weeks or better than most everybody else that had started eight weeks. That's enough for belief that we can figure this out. Still do I not think that we're great or anything like that, but it's like, okay, we are figuring this out and now let's go invest in this, let's just put it all, Justin and I haven't sold an app yet, we haven't done anything, let's just put it all in one pot and let's go do this thing.

Starting point is 00:33:17 So we're finding it. Now that first year, did we have it, I mean, because a lot of people don't know this, maybe we don't have to go too much detail, but there tends to be, we tend to thrive off this, I don't know, maybe it's the, I don't know, we like to have an enemy. We like to have somebody that we target,

Starting point is 00:33:32 not to beat them up or anything, but to like, we're gonna go after them, we're gonna beat them, right? It just gets us psyched. I feel like this is a really old mentality. I was talking to someone about this the other day, because that's exactly what we did in practice in football. We would make some poor kid wear the Jersey of their best player and we would

Starting point is 00:33:49 destroy him all week long. It was just like a focus. Have you ever heard Tom Brady talk about this? No. Yeah. So Tom Brady talks about this, uh, before he goes into like before every game, he would create a scenario with the, uh, an opposing player on their team, even if he had to make believe, like make it up. Michael Jordan's famous for this also.

Starting point is 00:34:11 So Michael Jordan would create storylines about a player that he's playing against that weren't even true, but he would tell himself that to believe it so he had this extra edge against him. So was it Barbell Shrugged for us early days? Was that right? No, they weren't first, that didn't come against us. So was it Barbell Shrugged for us early days? No. No. They weren't first, that didn't come till later.

Starting point is 00:34:27 That was later. Yeah, it was like, it was Dr. Integrity and people like that. Shreds. Oh, there it is right there. I've made fun of them a lot. Yeah, Shreds was this company that sold supplements through social media, and they kind of represented

Starting point is 00:34:41 everything we hated about the fitness industry. And so we just, we went after them. them. I'd like to say it was part of them going out of business. Of course nobody was doing that back then. In fact a lot of people were jockeying the brand back then. Oh yeah. They were on a rocket ship as far as growth. I mean in there they were acquiring you know athletes every every week a new one was joining their team. They'd come in the gym entourage. They had the biggest booths at the Olympia.

Starting point is 00:35:09 I mean, they were on a rocket ship. Nobody was talking bad about them. And we were pointing out the way they were making money and how shitty their supplements were, and poking fun at it early on. And again, I think a lot of that goes back to what you said I think we just tend to do is I think we find, and back then it was okay because we're the

Starting point is 00:35:29 little guy punching up. Yeah. Where I remember when that had to change too, there became a time where I remember getting feedback from people in the audience. Like we're bullying. Yeah, like we're bullying, you know, like, oh wow, like we're no longer the little guy punching up

Starting point is 00:35:43 anymore when it was totally okay, right? It was okay when these four dudes that nobody knows about is talking trash about this big multi-million dollar company. Well, do you guys remember we had a phone call, and we talked about how we're going to name, we're gonna name what we're after and what we're against, and we're gonna call it the fitness industry, and we're gonna talk about what they do,

Starting point is 00:36:04 what they represent, and what we're against, and we're gonna call it the fitness industry, and we're gonna talk about what they do, what they represent, and why we wanna counter it. And we did that very strategically. To paint a picture really is what we were trying to do. Oh yeah, mind pump mafia. Mind pump mafia. That was, you know that is still to this day, one of the highest selling T-shirts that we ever did. So mind you, our audience is tiny at this time and they still bought it still bought more

Starting point is 00:36:30 but more shirts were purchased really from that that it just shows you how the the movement behind what we were doing at that time how much more powerful it was our sizes I mean we're a hundred X the size that we were back then and that still sold more t-shirts because it was I mean if there was anything I learned Doing the apparel for this long. It was like design matters very little The meaning of a movement behind yeah the movement and the meaning behind Whatever the thing is matters so much more and my brought back. We should bring it back retro Let's see what happens. I kind of like that image with you on there. That'd be great.

Starting point is 00:37:05 That is a great Photoshop job. It is, yeah. Whoever did that nailed it. Yeah, look at all that hair I had. What happened? I don't know. Do you remember the videos too of me getting ready to do a pre-workout and then pouring in the sink? Yeah. We did a whole like get rid of supplement campaign. Do you remember people were tag Tagging us and throwing away all their supplements and stuff like that. So funny. Oh, I know Oh, yeah, that's that's that's the one that's the campaign. There's all part of it. You just chopped what I'm doing this That's so great. Oh, that was brilliant. I don't remember you doing that right there. That's so good That was brilliant. I don't remember you doing that right there, that's so good. You had a mind pump out there.

Starting point is 00:37:45 Like a psychopath. You are a psychopath. I was in my real woods kind of phase. Now when did we create, the first program we created together was Performance. Together. Together. But we didn't even start selling maps in a bulk till way later in the story.

Starting point is 00:38:00 That's a year later, that's a year into Mind Pump, we had a following. My teeth got so much better. I know. We're still making some money. I'm wearing all the money right here, dude. Justin bought some teeth and Sal bought some muscles. No.

Starting point is 00:38:16 Yeah. No. Yeah. I'm gonna naps all over. Yeah. You guys changed. I sold mine. It was there. You rinsid. You shaved all your hair.

Starting point is 00:38:25 I remember, hey, you remember, I remember how much that used to bother me? It used to bother me so much that- That you were the bodybuilder? Yes, that I was the bodybuilder guy, because I never thought of that. Oh yeah, we- Did not like that. We would make you tell the single guy stories. You're like, I'm not even single.

Starting point is 00:38:40 Oh God, that used to drive Katrina crazy, bro. Oh, I can't imagine. She's a good woman for sticking with you. The amount of conversations I'd have to have when I come home. What an amazing woman to stick by my side. Oh, bro. She's a champion, for sure. Remember that story you told the garage opener story?

Starting point is 00:38:54 Well, I remember. I mean, you guys are years into marriage and kids and things like that. I'm the guy who's, you know. You're like, yeah, that's why we're like, we can't talk about this. Yeah, and I remember convincing Katrina that someone's gotta be the single bachelor guy.

Starting point is 00:39:12 They got totally down and ride or die. I'm saying like, yeah, okay, guy. Whatever. So she, yeah, she, God, she's, I'd come home and she like, did you really have to say it like that? Like, you sound like such a douche. And I'd be like, oh God. And we would egg you on. It was funny though.

Starting point is 00:39:30 We would egg you on the whole time. You would. I mean, that's why, that's how it went that way for so long was because you guys were constantly egging me on and I thought, and I thought that was the right thing to do. Are these episodes, the old ones, like these old, old ones, are they even available?

Starting point is 00:39:43 They are. Really? People are learning to dig, they can find them. Every once in a while you see somebody in the forum will pull one up and they'll be like, oh my God, I've listened to this. I would say we probably, we were like that, where it was just, I mean, I'm telling you right now,

Starting point is 00:39:56 if you're a new listener, and when I say new, I mean the last few years, and you go back and listen to some of those old episodes, you'll be shocked. I would say that didn't stop until about episode three or 400 at least. At least the first. No, that went on until a thousand, bro.

Starting point is 00:40:11 Really? Oh, where people would go back and listen to the whole thing? No, what I mean is where you listen to it and it's like, this is still the original episode. This is still, it's not as often that I hear this anymore, but I wanna say into the thousands, over a thousand, you would hear people that found from a referral, there was always a referral, oh, someone told me,

Starting point is 00:40:30 and they told, and everyone would, people would tell people, go start at the beginning. And so we would get people, they'd be like, oh, I'm only on episode 250 right now, and they were working their way back. No, but what I mean is that style that we had, that raw, it was crazy, off the wall, I mean, that didn't start to taper down

Starting point is 00:40:46 until probably what, three, 400? Would you say? Yeah, probably. Yeah, I'd have to go back and look. It started getting more professional. I think it was just starting to sell things. Little by little. Little by little, right?

Starting point is 00:40:56 That's really where it started to matter. It's like, oh, well, we gotta actually move some products. Yeah, no, it's not just that. It's just, I think we were more comfortable. Yeah, that too. You know, I think when you're nervous, you just It's just I think we were more comfortable. Yeah, that too. I think when you're nervous, you just go off. I think we were, I think we argued about it. It was a game of chicken.

Starting point is 00:41:09 We argued about this because I think we thought it was a good strategy. There's a lot of things that we did in this business that we thought was a good idea. Here's one, I'll go with this. You guys remember when we decided to start the YouTube channel and we had already had some success with the podcast and we thought it would be a smart idea to mirror.

Starting point is 00:41:30 To act like the podcast on YouTube, which had to be one of the dumbest ideas we ever had, but we did that for like a year. You know, it wasn't, it wasn't all three coached the same thing. No, no, it was. Yes, it is dumb, but to think, but we had only one thing to pull from. I know anybody, anybody who ever teaches about social media now would tell you like, each platform is, yeah, what are you doing?

Starting point is 00:41:50 Like that's not how you. It's a different medium completely. The way people use YouTube is they search to learn something. Every one of you in the last week has YouTube something, and it was to learn a recipe, look for a song, and you do not want to hear. It's utility, it's like get me to where I want to go. It's all utility. You're not just like want to hear. It's utility. It's like, get me to where I want to go. It's all utility. Yeah.

Starting point is 00:42:06 You're not just like wanting to hear three guys talk about it, especially when the title says like how to school crush or how to do like, yeah. And we're talking about personal stuff. Like that was such a terrible idea. We recorded those were, they were fun, but they were definitely, I'd say, remember we used to have Doug swoop in with the camera like each time we like, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, camera like each time was like no no no Running from there start up high and they come swoop in love the steady cam My bomber vest on Because you had all the equipment on you the ideas So so we we we launched maps and a ball like a year in that first month. Yeah launched great

Starting point is 00:42:43 Yeah, we had so much demand. Not that great. Well, and then, well, because then we had to come back and I did the transformation. Yeah. Well, considering we weren't making any money that first year. Yeah.

Starting point is 00:42:53 Anything was great. If you convert it to $0, we did great. But we didn't even make enough money that we would divide the money up. No, no, no, no. But it was like, it was like, cool, put it in the bank. We actually have, we could pay for rent now for the rest of the year. But by the time it was a second or third, because then Justin did his transformation, we sold, we did a decent amount. We did a pretty good

Starting point is 00:43:12 amount. I remember it was a while, okay? It was a good year past the first time we saw it before we could even say this. Well, when did- Every, for 30 days, I remember, there's a big milestone. And I remember coming into work being like, we did it. We did 30 days in a row of at least one program being sold. That was a big milestone. And it took a year after monetization. When did we all go full time? Was it a year and a half? Probably about a year and a half. Yeah, it was a year and a half. So we were paying our-

Starting point is 00:43:38 No, no, no. A year after monetization. Oh, really? So, oh, yes. Okay. So for two years we were working? We were already- Oh my God, we were already dividing up. I want to say about three to five grand a month each. Okay. We were paying ourselves three to five grand a month before you guys would even leave your job. I remember I wanted to go before that.

Starting point is 00:43:59 I wanted us to go when we didn't even have enough to live. Like I was like, we'll figure it out. The guy with no kids. Yeah. That was your idea. That's think it's through back of my face all time like okay yeah the guy with no kid mortgage or anything like that of course you would you know I'm saying your weed cat yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah you're like sure sure you will but I mean I knew this about us I knew that and trust me and I think you guys would agree my god

Starting point is 00:44:21 before and after picture. My wife hates that picture. She does. You got lean right there, bro. Look at that handsome guy right there. I mean, you guys pinching my nipples. I don't know why we did that. Why did we pinch his nipples? We just did weird stuff. Kind of makes sense, though.

Starting point is 00:44:35 Might as well. Part of the brand back then. Really shamed me. So I was training client. I had sold my studio, but I was still training clients. I was still training clients. And then I finally cut it off. So you're saying it was two years in.

Starting point is 00:44:48 Yeah, when I finally left Orange Stereos when we were gone, because I was waiting for you guys to go before I went all the way in. When did we launch Performance? Because that was our first big, like first real launch. I think we created it in January of 2016. So the following year? No, I think it was like a month or two after that.

Starting point is 00:45:07 A month or two after. Where did we create performance? That was in Reno. We went to the hotel. Hotel, yeah. Oh, wow. Yeah, that's right. I feel like that was the same one we did Prime today.

Starting point is 00:45:18 Exactly, same place. We used that a few times. That's a magical spot. We should have kept going there. That's when I was gambling a lot up at the land. Yeah. We stopped giving you the free car. Yeah when I was gambling a lot up at the Lens. So you had a hookup for that. I stopped giving you the free coffee. Yeah, I had the free suite up there from gambling.

Starting point is 00:45:29 So we created performance, launched that. Aesthetic was a big launch, I remember that. That for us was big because it was a lot of pent-up demand. Yeah, yeah, yeah. We were kinda leading up to it. It was also following my journey of bodybuilding too at that time. That's absolutely right. And then it was shortly after that we went full-time. Is that, that's

Starting point is 00:45:46 that's Prime. That's Prime, yes. I remember that. Prime was a rough, that was a hard thing to create. We had to draw and then try and stick it on the window. To this day, I'm still most proud about that program. It's one of my favorite memories. The trainers that listen to our show that don't have Prime, you know I get fired up every time because it's to me, like if I was a trainer, that would be the most awesome thing to have. Even if I don't care if I worked at 24 hour fitness,

Starting point is 00:46:14 if I'm private, to have an assessment tool like that, that we have created with not only like the compass test of like how you assess them, but then direction to give them with the X. I mean to me it was the one of the most brilliant things we did because of how detailed how good it was but also simplifying it to where it wasn't delivered. Yeah because the delivery was simple. How do you because there's great assessments out there like FMS and things like that. Yeah but you have to be a trainer. That was always my sticking point because I was very passionate about assessments,

Starting point is 00:46:47 but it was like, and not a lot of trainers would use it because it was like you do your assessment and then that was it, it's done. Yeah. And like, so how can you simplify all of this so we could just cover with a broad stroke and somebody can actually do it at their house. And you don't have to be a trainer,

Starting point is 00:47:02 that's the other part of it. You know, like how you have the average person assess themselves, like good luck. That was a tough one. And then giving them generic enough, yet specific enough movements to help them. That's right. I mean, that's why I think it was so special,

Starting point is 00:47:16 it was like, I don't know, we threaded the needle in a situation like that. It's like, it's not overcomplicated, but it's incredibly valuable for anyone. It's very useful. Now, what would you guys say were some of our first notable interviews? Because we did some early interviews in that little studio.

Starting point is 00:47:32 Like, uh. Well, let's talk about the first one that we thought was going to be notable. Oh, Ben Zorn. Yeah. I'll never forget. OK, here's a funny story. OK, so Sal is always the best, too.

Starting point is 00:47:44 Because when Sal gets riled up about something or he's on the head, like he's gonna sell everybody on his idea, right? Like that he's right or about it. And I remember when he thought, he thought that CBS was shutting us down because there was like an up- It's Ben Zorn, he saw he was a bachelor.

Starting point is 00:48:00 There were helicopters outside. No, not that one. He was on The Bachelor and he was gonna like let us in on all the behind the scenes. Yes. Like is it really, is it planned? Is it really reality? And we thought he was like, I mean at that time he had like 300,000 followers. Which was? Which is huge. Yeah. More than any of our friends. Yeah and so that was huge how many followers he had and we thought holy shit. This episode's gonna take us. Yeah, like we had 300,000 people. How did we get him on the show?

Starting point is 00:48:28 You knew him. Yeah, I know him. I met him in the gym a long time ago. We became friends. You guys were part of the Handsome Guy Club. Yeah, there's the Handsome Guy Club. I was like, hey, Handsome Guy over there. Hey, come here.

Starting point is 00:48:36 Hey, do you wanna have lunch? We should do something together. We should have our own handshake. Do something. We had him on the show, did nothing. Did nothing. Zero. Nothing at all. Nothing, not even like, not an did nothing. It did nothing zero nothing nothing not even like not an extra

Starting point is 00:48:48 Remember when I paid a Jojo, baby Well, you know what? You know maybe deterred it was the picture that we took as a group with Ben You remember that where I was like total job of the hut because I was in the foreground too much foreground too much. You remember that? Oh dude, it was bad. Well, you know, Justin, you know that face he makes when he gets him. It doesn't. Bro, you've been sucking a photo since day one. That was the ultimate.

Starting point is 00:49:14 We can go just to still find the way he's taking a shit every time we take a photo. All right, ready? Somebody needs to like just candidly camera out. He goes like this. Hey, next time I want to say, Hey, try and look terrible. See what you can see. What happens. I have a feeling you might work out. Some kind of reverse psychology. That's what I'm saying. I'm going to start telling you like, particularly you're taking a shit Justin. See how that photo comes up.

Starting point is 00:49:37 So when did you, okay. So you brought Jojo baby. So she was, how many followers she has now? She's like some Instagram butt model or something. She was so cool. Look her up, how many followers she has now. She's like some Instagram butt model or something. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And do her some house. She's like some hot Filipino chick.

Starting point is 00:49:49 And you paid her to do a post showing it. I think we paid her $1,000. Yeah. I think $1,000. Or $500. $800 or $1,000, something like that. To put mind pump in the back. So I came up with this idea that she would be.

Starting point is 00:50:01 She was like a fitness chick. No. No. She was just like an ass model, right? So all these photos, right? So I was like, I had her, I had her on the, laying on the bed on the iPad, right? From the, from behind. So you see her ass and she's like listening to the podcast and that was going to be like the ad and see it did nothing.

Starting point is 00:50:19 Nothing at all. Not one person ever said, Hey, I found your show because of that. I followed that up with my corn ad. Oh, I'm trying to find her. She doesn't exist anymore. Not sure what her, I just told you Jojo baby. Yeah. Jojo.

Starting point is 00:50:33 Jojo. Yeah. No, she can't. I don't, there's a bunch of them out there. Does she not exist anymore? She's there. The sugar foot. Yeah. All right.

Starting point is 00:50:42 Hey, she has 10.1 million followers. Still won't do nothing for us. Still wouldn't do anything for us. Tim, I'll send it to you Doug. Jeez. Oh no. All right, she has 10.1 million followers. Still won't do nothing for us. Still wouldn't do anything for us. 10, I'll send it to you, Doug. Jeez. Oh my God. All right, so go back, Justin, you said something we cannot skip.

Starting point is 00:50:51 Yeah, so. This was, okay, this was quite possibly. Can I just, I just gotta say this real quick. Okay. Okay, okay, I know I do a lot of selling on the podcast, but the reality is when each one of us has an idea, yeah, we can sometimes close each other on it, even if it's a terrible idea. And Justin, I closed the eyes on a terrible idea on this idea.

Starting point is 00:51:13 So I heard this on a podcast and it was like, they were talking about creative ways to advertise and we were at the time, we're like trying everything. We're throwing spaghetti at all different walls and all different directions. And so this company had success and it was like, uh, I think it was like some kind of fast food company, but they were advertising through porn. I'm like, Oh wow, that's bold. You know, like, but they were starting to do the math and they're like, it's, you know, X amount of dollars and you get this many views and this much clicks.

Starting point is 00:51:46 But it's on a porn site, not making porn. Yeah, on a porn site you're advertising within that. It's the highest view per click rate for per dollar. Per dollar. And then anywhere else on the internet. That's what closed you. Yes, you brought the math to me. I went, porn closed me.

Starting point is 00:52:01 That's what closed you. Just like, we're paying just don't get this. Okay. And then at that time we were more wild with you. You saw the titles we were kind of promoting and everything. And we were kind of like just letting loose. And I'm like, well, I feel like we had some pretty wild fan base in the very beginning. I'm like, I don't know, there might be some crossover. So anyway, we all just immediately started coming up with aiously horrible all day. Yeah, we actually

Starting point is 00:52:29 Wrote article This was a meeting you had a long meeting over there. Okay, it's it's cheap per click Yes, millions of views the most viewed websites on the internet. How are we gonna get people's attention? from watching a porn to Looking at our ad and then to wanting to click on our ad? That was the struggle. The struggle is who's gonna wanna leave what they're doing to click on your ad or pay attention?

Starting point is 00:52:52 Apparently everybody. Nobody. So we thought of crazy, crazy headlines and pictures to go with the headlines and we gave them to Doug. Doug had to go find pictures for it had to go to picture to find the visuals Yeah, we all wrote the ads names say don't get to get his that's in the past mind pump We're here to fill all three of your holes

Starting point is 00:53:18 And then we give it a Doug a Doug go find pictures for all the Doug had 23 viruses on his computer And did we run any of them? I think we did try it and we got zero response. We actually ran. We ran. Mind pump was on a porn site. How great would it be if there's a listener today that's like I remember seeing. Please if you found us on porn, don? Tell me. This was our experimental phase. I remember us talking about it too, being like, well maybe when they're done, they feel kind of guilty. Like, I gotta get used to it. Yeah, oh man, I feel bad about myself. I mean, I think we thought the same thing

Starting point is 00:53:54 with the what's her face is just like, oh, that many views. Like, there's gotta be a, even if it's a half a percent. We thought that mattered. We thought views were a thing. Great lessons to learn in what we do. No, that's not how it works. That's probably one of my favorite ideas for sure.

Starting point is 00:54:10 And then again, I want to go back to interviews because we did Ben Zorn. Oh, okay, yeah. Which one was like, I want to say the first kind of impactful one was it Cech? Would you say it would be Paul Cech? Or were there other ones? Ben Greenfield? Was he before? Oh, yeah. Maybe be Paul Chek? Or were there other ones? Ben Greenfield?

Starting point is 00:54:25 Was he before? Oh yeah. Maybe. Yeah, Greenfield was first. He was the best. Shout out to Ben Greenfield, which is why, for the audience, Ben's been on our show probably more than any other guest.

Starting point is 00:54:36 And a lot of that's just our loyalty. Our loyalty to him because he actually had us on his show when we weren't already. Of course, once we got big, everybody wanted to do collabs and stuff with us, but Ben gave us a shot to come on his show before we were that big. So since then-

Starting point is 00:54:55 And we flew up to his house to be on his podcast, and Ben is an interesting character. We didn't know him. We knock on his door. He's in Spokane. He's in the snow. We knock on his door. He's in Spokane. He's in the snow. We knock on the door. Nobody's answering like, what's going on?

Starting point is 00:55:09 And out around the corner comes Ben. Barefoot. Barefoot in the snow holding a bale of hay. Yeah. And he hands it to us. Yeah, he's just here. And he hands it here, take this real quick, follow me. And we're helping him carry.

Starting point is 00:55:22 We hadn't even met him before. Never met him. We're already carrying stuff. And we're helping him stack hay bales. Now all of us, we knew helping him carry. We hadn't even met him before. Never met him. He was already carrying stuff. And we're helping him stack hay bales. Now all of us, we knew what was happening. This guy's trying to, I don't know, what's the right word, flex on us? We're trying to mentally mess with us or whatever.

Starting point is 00:55:35 That's obviously what he's doing. Yeah, yeah. So he's doing that, then we go in, then we're walking to his house. Well, it became really obvious when we started the podcast. He came right after. Right at you, because you were the big guy, right? So he goes right after Adam.

Starting point is 00:55:44 He's like, so Adam, what do you think of, what do you think of SARMS, or what do you think of Peptide? He's really into SARMS back then. And I answered right away. Right then and there, I think right there, then Ben knew, okay, these guys might know, we had a good episode, ate at his house, he stood on his chair, didn't sit on it,

Starting point is 00:55:59 he stood on it like a vulture with his big old hands and feet hanging over it eating. And we kind of hit it off. It was weird, you know, but we kind of hit it off. Yeah, no, we all liked him. He's weird, but cool. Yeah, we all liked him as a pretty... What we all felt about him and why I think is he's authentic. Yeah. Many people judge him because they don't know who he is and never met him, never been to his house, but he is 100%. He lives the brand that he is. He is what you think he is.

Starting point is 00:56:26 And there's a lot of grifters out there. There's a lot of people that sell the biohacking bullshit and they're all that. Then there's people that are truly like, you think like I brought up the other day, the Brian Johnson guy that are really trying to live, like they really are trying to live forever and they're doing everything they can to do that. And it's not like he's going and smoking a pack of cigarettes behind closed doors. Like this guy's living that brand. Ben is that guy. Ben is, you can, his hands, I remember the first time, his hands are so gnarly. He looks like he plays with rocks and logs all day long. Yes.

Starting point is 00:56:56 Yeah, just eats with his feet. But that gave us our, you know, that was our first, probably our biggest boost ever. That was. Yeah. Ben gave us our first big boost where we went. And that really set us off this like, oh, wow, we have to do these podcasts. And so there became a time when, and this is when we really started making money because I remember the dollar amount. So I remember at this point, so after Ben, the business is starting to turn good revenue.

Starting point is 00:57:20 And I knew that we had to do between five and 10 collabs in a month to produce about $30,000 a month in revenue. If we did that many collabs with other podcasts similar in size. We were flying everywhere. We were flying, people in, this is when Airbnb became a real thing. Yes. And we were like, taking advantage of that.

Starting point is 00:57:41 That's a regret to me that we didn't photograph every house that we didn't photograph every house that we stayed in. Yeah. Because looking back now it's I mean... I remember the one in Florida. There's a lot of cool places we stayed. We stayed in a ton of houses. And some shady ones too. Oh yeah. Remember that one? San Bernardino. Yeah the porn house. Yeah the porn one had leftover stuff there. That's what at least it looked like. I'm sure that happened there. There was weed on the counter. Yeah. That was weird. We all got creeped out and had to leave that one. It looked like it just finished. I'm sure that happened there. There was weed on the counter. Yeah.

Starting point is 00:58:05 That was weird. We all got creeped out and had to leave that one. Yeah, we did leave that one. The next bigger interview, now was that Chuck? Is that when we saw Paul Chuck? Because it was early on. Paul was pretty early on. Yeah.

Starting point is 00:58:17 Remember, we were very reluctant to actually go down there. So we had, I remembered. I wanted to cancel our interview. So I had somebody that worked in my studio. I've talked about her before. She was a physical therapist, but then she was also a Czech practitioner level three or four.

Starting point is 00:58:33 Stephanie, right? No, her name was Lori. Stephanie was also, but she didn't work for me, it was Lori, Lori Matroka is her name. She's excellent physical therapist, excellent. She understood functional medicine, and she would always talk very highly of this guy named Paul Cech. Paul Cech is this, Paul Cech does that. He combines wellness

Starting point is 00:58:50 with fitness with health and you would love him, Sal. He's a judo black belt. He works out, whatever. So I knew of him and so I said, you know what? Let's get him on the podcast. Let's interview him. You guys weren't familiar with him. Yeah. And the day was coming up. We had to fly down to his house to interview him. You guys weren't familiar with him. Yeah. And the day was coming up. We had to fly down to his house to interview him because he wanted us in person. And I remember it was the day before,

Starting point is 00:59:13 or two days before, that everybody was like, ah, I remember we had been traveling or something, we were tired. And I think we were like, let's not, let's not go. I don't think we should go. And all of us were like, we already made this appointment, we gotta maintain our integrity, that was what kept us. And it was so good, I'm so happy that we did.

Starting point is 00:59:31 Because that episode also took things to another level. Paul was an interesting guy. We show up to his house. He has some real evangelists. One of the first things that Paul does is he takes us in his backyard and pees outside, right in front of us. And starts talking to us.

Starting point is 00:59:45 He just takes a piss outside. Anyways, you know. Like this guy is free range. What is happening? We all love Paul too now. And we loved him. Yeah, he was absolutely loved him. He was awesome.

Starting point is 00:59:55 And that took off. Yeah, I think that was another great lesson too. I think we realized you don't necessarily need to be this huge famous person online because he didn't have much of an online presence. Remember Paul wasn't like this super, I mean, he had some YouTube videos that like, like, but he had a very solid following. Yes. Like he had thousands of thousands of people that would do anything.

Starting point is 01:00:18 He said, and like have followed him for decades. And so what we realized was like, Oh wow, he has so much influence that someone like that giving us a co-sign was massive. So we had a huge part of his audience that came over and started listening. So that was a big, Ben Greenfield and Paul Chek, probably two of the biggest catapults,

Starting point is 01:00:37 which again, why they remain good friends of ours. They met up with us and did podcasts with us before we had really taken off. Now I gotta say this too, it was year one, I went, and we mentioned this earlier, I went through a divorce in the beginning of the start of this new business, and I had been married 15 years with two kids,

Starting point is 01:01:00 till this day it's the most challenging thing I'd ever gone through, and it was you guys, and it was the podcast that literally kept me going. It really was for real. I remember showing up, being able to shut everything off, do this, enjoy myself with you guys and then go deal with that nightmare. Well, you've always been able to do that. The audience doesn't know this, but I've seen you in some of your darkest days.

Starting point is 01:01:22 You can shield that pretty well, dude. You could be emotional, could have been crying or arguing or fighting, and then two minutes later, as soon as the mics go on, you can completely shut that all off. It's probably your greatest strength and greatest weakness. It's superpower on some level.

Starting point is 01:01:35 Say that about yourself, I'm sure. That's it. Yeah, yeah. It's served itself well in this business, for sure. Do you guys remember, was there a time, business-wise, where you got really excited about the potential of it? Or has it been that way? I remember early on, we used to talk about, it's going to be this big. And I remember when Doug, too, would say things and be like, well,

Starting point is 01:01:57 we could easily do that every day. And I thought, that seems so unrealistic, like when we were selling just a program a day. And he's like, yeah, we could be doing $1,000 a day. Imagine that. Come on, dude, it's not going to be a thousand dollars a day. It's a lot. Like I remember thinking like that and hearing him say the numbers. The first time for me where I was like, whoa, there were two of them, the launch of Aesthetic, because that was kind of big. And I remember going, oh my God, this is like, you know, I don't remember what the total was for the launch, but at the time for us, it was a big number.

Starting point is 01:02:27 And then it was the first Black Friday. Yeah, I was gonna say Black Friday. And then we had our alarms like set on our phone to stripe or something, and it would ding you. I remember just like, I was talking with my family and it was like ding, ding, ding, ding, ding. I'm like, ah! I actually left my family.

Starting point is 01:02:46 And then we had to call you guys. We all were talking about it. We're like, oh, so hyped. Oh, I remember when I used to leave the ding on. Oh, me too. Yeah, I left that on for a long time. That was a lot of fun to hear that throughout the day and do the math.

Starting point is 01:03:00 That's one program every 15 minutes. That's crazy. That was an interesting one. You guys remember, Elaine Norton was another's crazy. That was an interesting one. You guys remember, oh, Lane Norton was another big one. That was another big interview. We did that, was the first one here? That was the, actually, Lane's was the first true viral one. That did over 150,000 downloads in like the first week

Starting point is 01:03:17 that it had gone out, but you remember why, right? That was a lot of pent up, a lot of people thought we were gonna hate each other and ended up you know going doing like a three-hour episode or whatever like that also hit it off and had a great time yeah and it was good but I remember too some we had a private forum and someone in there oh you remember when I fucking oh yeah I launched that's when you went off I did I was trying to drive to work here to get you come off oh god I was so fired up what say, you know, I mean, of course I overreacted right like but at that time I'm so protective of our business and just one thing when it comes to that stuff like what I mean now

Starting point is 01:03:54 I have a son now, so don't fuck with my family. Don't fuck with my business And I remember the kid on our forum was trying to start shit about us Talking shit about Lane and Lane was supposed to be flying over and I didn't want him to cancel and not come because he thought he was coming into like a trap to me. So I flipped out on a kid I just was just like what are you doing like don't don't fuck with my business like that when you have no idea what's going on behind the scenes and so yeah I remember I just I just railed him up yeah and

Starting point is 01:04:24 launched him out of the floor. That episode went great you know we were awesome yeah it went great we became you know I mean I don't do you remember if that was the the the final it wasn't the final lesson but it definitely was had to be the turning point when we started to realize don't judge we're almost always wrong yeah I mean how many times we've been wrong how many times of it too yes both sides yes how many times have we been wrong? How many times? On both sides of it too. Yes, both sides. Yes. How many times have we been excited to meet somebody and completely let down? You love this guy and he like, oh, he sucks.

Starting point is 01:04:48 Or I don't want to do this interview going like, bro, that was great. Or I really like that person. This kid is smart. Well, now I would say more often than not, we're wrong. More often than not. For sure. It's rare that we're right.

Starting point is 01:05:02 I've now trained myself that if one of us is all naked out, I'm like, I'm excited now. The fact that you don't want to see him, you're all naked out means it's probably going to be a good episode. I really do. I've taught myself that if we're like that, we're probably wrong because we're more often than not.

Starting point is 01:05:17 Rarely ever are we down about somebody, and they come in, and we're like, see? I knew it. Unless somebody's hung out with them before and has some insight. But other than that, if we're just making a judgment based on what we've seen, see, I knew it. Unless somebody's hung out with them before and has some insight, you know, but other than that, if we're just making a judgment based on what we've seen, it's always wrong. Now, do you guys...

Starting point is 01:05:30 Okay, so now I'm going to go back. You guys remember Barbell Shrugged during the third or fourth year, they were one of the top fitness podcasts. We got an opportunity to podcast with them. And at that time we were watching them and being like, we got to beat these guys. And there was a point there where there was a point there where we were beating them or up close and it was kind of simple, but they had been around longer than us. They had a cross fit. They had the power of the distinctive brand behind them. Yeah. So yeah,

Starting point is 01:05:57 it's already like a built in culture. And they agreed to podcast with us and it was all the hosts on one podcast. Yeah. And everybody thought it was going to be great and it was a great episode. We had a great time. Yeah. It was like three hours long. We were having, it was, everything was awesome. But there was, it was tension though with their entourage and everybody there.

Starting point is 01:06:16 Like it was kind of weird. It was weird. And then they lost, they lost the episode. Lost it. Remember that? They never aired it on their end. And they said they lost it. And we were like, lie, lie. You guys totally didn't lose that.

Starting point is 01:06:31 I remember we all felt that energy from the jump. It felt, I mean we get a chance to meet a lot of people and again I think that it's, real quickly, once we get them in this room, real quick can we establish if you're our people or not, and if you're genuine? And I think we just felt how inauthentic they were, and that the motives behind even meeting with us and so with that were not like, hey, we wanna be friends.

Starting point is 01:06:57 It was more competitive. And matter of fact, I remember even telling them some things that we had plans to do in the future. And they went and did it with their business and fell flat on their face. And I remember being like, man, these guys had no intention of befriending us. It was always a competitive side.

Starting point is 01:07:11 And so silently, that was like a huge competition for us early on was to surpass. That's the first time we had like little signs and signals within podcasts. Justin and I would make animal noises when we were annoyed with the guests. Yes, yes. So that became the new thing. little signs and signals within podcast So that became the new thing if somebody was gonna come over some bullshit we just Which where was it Doug where we were and we had it might been Lane, it might have been one of his first episodes,

Starting point is 01:07:46 where you lost, we thought you left. No, it's not his first episode. It wasn't his first, that was his second or third. Yeah, it was with Florida. We were already been friends with him. But we knew it was gonna be a big episode, because we were, again, it was one of our, it was the second or third time we did it with him,

Starting point is 01:07:59 and he was already one of our big episodes, and we were flying back from Tampa, and Doug had left his backpack and computer inside the Uber. All the files. Yeah, in the Uber. And runs back to Climb Find It. Oh, and they'd already sent the car back to have it washed. So they had to retrieve the car.

Starting point is 01:08:16 But luckily, I got my backpack back. They did. It always works out. That was the first taste of Doug cortisol Doug. Cortisol Doug. Cortisol Doug was going crazy that day. Like, oh my God, what's happening? Oh, thank God that's me.

Starting point is 01:08:28 He had to catch trains and everything to get there. I was like, holy shit. Yeah, dude. So many times. So many times that Doug's done that. My burden. It pulls it out. Pulls it out.

Starting point is 01:08:38 Doug, have you had, going back to early days, have there been moments that you were more excited than other times about the business? Like, do you remember turning points or like you started to get really jazzed? I know since the very beginning, I know I can always count on you to be awake at one o'clock in the morning with me

Starting point is 01:08:54 and talking about the business, but was there a period of time where you really started to get really, really excited about it? I got excited after we launched Maps Antibolic to our group. We didn't sell a ton of them, but for us, it was a lot. Yeah.

Starting point is 01:09:10 And from that point forward, as we launched more and more programs and again, had the Stripe, you know, notifications turned on on my phone. Yeah, that's always, that was always fun for me. Yeah. And for me, I always enjoyed the creative aspects of the business, watching it mature, us become more professional, you guys becoming more professional.

Starting point is 01:09:31 So all these were exciting times for me. Oh, yeah. It's the professional part. The professional part. Yeah. Yeah. I don't know if I remember when I felt that way, that like, okay, like now it's, we're comfortable, we're professional, it feels like legit,

Starting point is 01:09:48 because for a very long time there, I remember having a hard time listening to the podcast. Really? Yeah, I still, to this day, I do this, even though it's been a while since I've done this, I'm probably due for this. I will intentionally not listen to any of our stuff for a really long time, and then I'll dip in,

Starting point is 01:10:04 and I'll dip in and listen to one episode. And I just wanna hear how the conversation is flowing, and do I think it's good, or what, you know. And I remember, we used to say this, about every two to 300 episodes, we would level up. Yeah, you would hear this kind of, just a little bit sharper, a little bit better content, a little bit better flow.

Starting point is 01:10:25 I haven't checked in in a long time, to be honest with you, so I should probably do that. But I would do that a lot, where I was like, okay. And then it got to a point where I felt like, you know, I don't know, I just, I don't know if I felt another level of the podcast, but for a long time there, we were constantly doing these little tweaks to the show.

Starting point is 01:10:41 I remember the format of the show changed. It did. The format changed. A bunch of times. Although what is interesting is there was always a natural, we've always had a natural division in the podcast with intro and then fitness, intro and fitness. And we never really designed it that way necessarily.

Starting point is 01:10:59 We would just open the show with whatever. Yeah. And then we would always go into fitness at the time. It was like 20, 30 minutes in. That format started out naturally. That was never planned. It was just like, I think that came from training clients. I really do.

Starting point is 01:11:14 That's how I would talk to clients. It was like fun, great, fitness. Fun, great, fitness. Yeah. You know, always talking about the entertainment business or something that's going on that's relatable. And then you would get into like, okay, now let's get to work. And so it definitely had that kind of vibe to it in the beginning. That's where I think it really came from.

Starting point is 01:11:30 Well, we flipped that though. We did flip that on its head. We sandwiched it now. Yeah. Well, I mean, I think we realized that, you know, at all times there's thousands of people that are hearing this episode for the very first time. And then, of course, your clients who you've been training for months or years. They know you already. They love that part of you. But if it's the first day they met you, you're not doing that stuff. The first day, you're getting to know them, you're assessing, you're showing them how smart you are, your knowledge. That's what you're doing. You know what I'll tell you that's interesting is that early days, controversial fitness advice that we gave today is now common knowledge.

Starting point is 01:12:10 Yeah. So 10 years ago. That was our hook though. Well, it still is. Yeah. Because there's still a lot of crap. Okay. But our, our, our big goal was to shift the conversation.

Starting point is 01:12:20 That's what we said, right? Shift the direction of the fitness industry or, or make it a force for good or whatever. And you know, I'll give an example, like, right? Shift the direction of the fitness industry or make it a force for good or whatever. And I'll give an example, like eating small meals throughout the day doesn't speed up the metabolism. That was a big deal to say back then. It was a big deal to talk about protein the way that we do,

Starting point is 01:12:37 to talk about how strength training, being the best way to burn body fat. That was a big deal. We got a lot of flack for talking about strength training in that way. And not highlighting cardio is the best way to burn fat. That was a big deal. We got a lot of flak for talking about strength training in that way. And not highlighting cardio is the best way to burn fat. I feel like that one barely is just... It was huge. We're still dealing with that.

Starting point is 01:12:53 Yep. Yep. There's creatine and how it affects the body. We were saying that, nobody else was, and it was controversial to talk about full body workouts for strength training. Oh, yeah. Nobody did full body workouts. Yeah, nobody was doing that. else was and it was controversial to talk about full body workouts for strength training. Oh yeah. Nobody did full body workouts. Yeah, nobody was doing that. It was all body part splits and a lot of that was, and now people talk about it like it's, you know, like it's common knowledge. So a lot of things have definitely changed. I do think there's

Starting point is 01:13:15 been some- I mean, mobility too. I mean, there's a lot of those kinds of things I knew were like just staples within training when I was training clients, but like nobody's talking about it, or if they did, it was all these like crazy lizard moves and like unnecessary shit. Of all the guests that we've had in the show, who's impacted you the most? Is there any guest you've had where you're like, oh, I'm different? Impacted?

Starting point is 01:13:38 Yeah, where you're like, I'm different after we, we interviewed that person. I don't know if I have that. I definitely think that, I think there was the most impactful interview we did was Tony Robbins. And it was simply because of the story. That is the most vivid. That day is like I can tell that story like minute by minute, play by play how that day went. Has the whole visual to go with it in terms of our experience. It was such a cool. It was such a cool moment in the podcast too,

Starting point is 01:14:05 to be invited to his house. Yeah, it was very unique. I mean, to- That's it right there. This is it right here? That's it right there. That's us at his house. Oh, well, I didn't even know we had this footage. Yeah, look at that.

Starting point is 01:14:14 And so remember, we get invited, which is already a big honor, to his house. We find out that his camera crew is fans of our show, which was so cool. Then we meet him. He's every bit as cool as you would think he is, right? Makes you feel like you're the only person in the room we're talking to.

Starting point is 01:14:33 He takes us to an underground bunker. Yeah, then we go in his house. Is that footage of that down there? Yeah, that's it. I didn't know we had that. Yeah, we weren't allowed to air it, right? But it was cool. Where did you, where did you?

Starting point is 01:14:44 No, I got that from Eli. Yeah. Yeah, look at that, dude. I didn't know you had this. I've never seen this. Yeah. And he's, it was a big deal to meet him and to. Oh, it was, so that to me, like, I don't know. I think every, every episode I've had some sort of a,

Starting point is 01:15:00 a great, I mean, I think we're, we're, that's what, who we are now, right? It's like this blend of all these great guests that we've had, that we've got a chance to learn from. I know, it's hard to pinpoint one of them. All of them influenced us in some regard. Yeah, I know you would say Bishop Barron because that was such a huge... That was a big deal. That was a big deal. Yeah, pivotal point for you. I mean, that was probably the first time you ever had somebody

Starting point is 01:15:23 intellectually break down the Bible to you. I mean, up until probably the first time you ever had somebody intellectually break down the Bible to you. I mean, up to that point, you probably- And it was interesting because at the time, you're talking six or seven years ago, there is no PR agency six or seven years ago that would have told us. Now, at this point, we're already the top fitness podcast. So we're maybe three or four years deep. We'd already reached the top of our category. There's no PR agency in the world that would have said, yeah, it's a good idea to interview a Catholic bishop, guys. You're the top fitness podcast.

Starting point is 01:15:54 You should interview a Catholic. I remember we were scared. Nobody would have said that. I remember we were scared too. Yeah. And what it was was, one thing we all do, we all trust each other. If one of us feels strongly about something, we all tend to go, okay, let's do it. Even, we all trust each other. If one of us feels strongly about something, we all tend to go, okay, let's do it. Even if we're not necessarily sure.

Starting point is 01:16:09 At the time I was watching Jordan Peterson videos, Bishop Barron did a breakdown of a Jordan Peterson video and I liked him and I said, ah, something about that. I want to interview this guy and I brought it up to you guys. Such a good communicator, yeah. And all of us were a little bit weary, like how is our audience gonna react to us giving a Catholic bishop on a fitness pocket?

Starting point is 01:16:28 He actually brought us a tremendous amount of listeners. He has such a huge following. That Bishop Baron brought us a tremendous amount of listeners. So Arthur Brooks had made a pretty big impact. Arthur Brooks, yeah. He's dropped some knowledge. So has John Deloney. I was just sharing it with some family.

Starting point is 01:16:43 John Deloney gave this, this is one of the recent ones he did with me. And Katrina and I, we just did this, I mean, this holiday season's always challenging for me with family and all that stuff like that. And Katrina and I have made this a very regular practice and this comes from John Deloney,

Starting point is 01:16:58 the episode we did with him. And that is literally before the day, right? And obviously this works for the day, right? And obviously this works for every day, but really important on days that you know, would be challenging for me that is family holiday events stuff with her family and like out of my comfort zone or whatever. And so she's gotten really good at before that day starts, coming over to me

Starting point is 01:17:21 in the morning, just getting out of the shower and be like, how do you see this day going today? How do you see it unfolding? And just letting me communicate and go, well, I think we're gonna go do this. Probably spend a couple hours at your mom's, probably do dinner this, then we'll probably be home by this time.

Starting point is 01:17:36 And then she, and then I asked her, how do you see it going? Well, I thought I was, we're gonna do this and this. That is like crazy hack. And he communicated that in the podcast. You know your expectations. Because he goes, many, most fights that happen are just because you have built up this expectation in your head that doesn't align with reality.

Starting point is 01:17:57 And if you would have simply just communicated both your expectations, you would have realized that you weren't aligned to start the day. And I was like, God, that's so true. Like how many times do I think it's going to play out a certain way? She does it. And it really, the fight is all because it doesn't align. It's not even that big of a deal.

Starting point is 01:18:11 And if we just had that conversation in the morning, what ends up happening, a lot of times she goes, Oh, you thought we were going to lead by six. I thought we were going to stay till like nine. Okay. Well, let's agree to this. Can you hang until seven? Like, okay, cool. And then, then that conversation solves everything.

Starting point is 01:18:25 It's crazy how impactful that is. Yeah, I think for me, like Dr. Warren Farrell, this is kind of the first time we kind of tapped into like child psychology. And yeah, and he really, because I have two boys and I, you know, it was just one of those things he was highlighting a lot of things that me and Courtney were passionate about and you know, it's different. It's not what is prescribed to, you know, it was just one of those things that was highlighting a lot of things that me and Courtney were passionate about. And, you know, it's different.

Starting point is 01:18:46 It's not what is prescribed to, you know, through the school system and like rough and tumble. And we sought out a preschool that did that. And like, I don't know, he just reinforced a lot of the value in that. And then also, too, it just helped me to kind of really understand, like, that path. Like, I want to stick with that formula and really help, you know, develop the kids further with that. He was very impactful on just the myths around raising boys and children and all

Starting point is 01:19:14 that. Super good. Well, because too, dude, like remember back in, I mean, how many years back that was, but it was like the elimination of anything masculine. Oh yeah. It was just like, you are not going to talk about this unless it's about femin elimination of anything masculine. It was just like, you are not gonna talk about this unless it's about feminizing boys. That was the message everywhere. And that was like such a clear distinctive light. It was like, oh, this is, finally somebody's saying stuff

Starting point is 01:19:38 that I can abide by. Do you guys remember we went to On It? Yeah. And we thought that was gonna be like a big thing. Yeah. We went and visited them and they were big, they were massive back then. I mean, they're still pretty big, right? I don't think so, dude.

Starting point is 01:19:51 I don't think so. But at the time they were like really. I mean, for us they were a big deal. At that time they were a big deal for us at that time. And I remember, I mean, talk about a time of being kind of let down. I remember, I'll tell you the most, the thing that stood out the most to me that was so weird

Starting point is 01:20:08 was the facility was like sick. I was just like, this is so awesome. And the 25 year old me was like, this is exactly what I would build. This is how I would hire my staff. This is like everything that I would do. And I remember seeing all these like cubicles and desks and all these employees and I remember,

Starting point is 01:20:25 I mean of course I'm fascinated by the business behind like what's going on on it. And so I'm like, and I'm the type of person who'll just ask random people, what do you do? And so I just start asking all these people. And I must have got through four or five different people. They didn't know what they did. And they couldn't tell me what they did.

Starting point is 01:20:40 And I thought, this is so weird. They were hot though. I mean, they were hot. They were hot chicks. I mean, they were hot. Oh yeah. Just gorgeous. Like social media branding. Yeah. And they, yeah, they all, they were all, they were all social media, something, whatever. And nobody had like a real title could define what their job was. And I was like, Oh my God, this literally looks like somebody gave this guy a bunch of money.

Starting point is 01:21:03 And he just went out and hired all the hottest chicks that he could find and then just gave him random stuff to do. He was, you know, we interviewed him and he was just weird. Like, he was kind of elusive and then afterwards kind of like, hey, do you guys wanna, and then he kind of took off and he went to shake Justin's second or third time.

Starting point is 01:21:20 Oh, god. There was three. There was so awkward to watch. Attempts. To shake him. Three. and all of them were horrible dude I'm like this can't just be me like this is like which we had that on footage I don't know what the problem it was like you take two magnets that are like like negative negative. It's like Yeah, yeah, I couldn't like connect. It was just weird the whole thing with that. He was just it wasn't it wasn't good

Starting point is 01:21:44 It was weird and then we went and stayed at, they have a house there. We stayed there. That's when you got sick. I was weird. That was a weird thing. You thought like you were like, like demons were coming after me. That's his exact words.

Starting point is 01:21:56 That's never happened to me where all of a sudden, just randomly. I didn't know where I was just projectile bombing. You said you were gonna call your mom. I did. I was like, so was that. But you weren't sick. I know, that was why it was so weird.

Starting point is 01:22:08 It was so weird. Yeah, that whole experience was interesting. It was an interesting weekend for us and a different time. I mean, another cool like full circle moment too. I mean, we were so enamored by that company. I remember Justin was so infatuated with their branding. Oh, I loved it.

Starting point is 01:22:24 They were such a big deal. And then I remember us podcasting with them. Like that was such a big deal. And then we realized like, man, so much of this is like a house of cards. We weren't that impressed anymore. Our podcast ended up skyrocketing beyond where they were at. And it was just like that. And then I remember them coming to us. You guys know, we turned down advertising with them and they wanted us to advertise and was like, nah, no, we've already moved on from that. I remember thinking what a big deal that brand was early on. What was our first big purchase, was it the house in Truckee?

Starting point is 01:22:54 Was that the first investment we did? Well, the first investment was here. Well, besides, oh, this was here. Because we dumped 100 grand into this. Yeah, we did. We built this house. The first 100 grand that the company made, we put away. We didn't even pay ourselves yet. We reinvested for a long time. And so we took that first 100 grand that the company made, we put away. We didn't even pay ourselves yet.

Starting point is 01:23:05 We reinvested for a long time. And so we took that first 100 grand and built this place out. And that was what we did with that. This is where, I mean, really, I know we all bring value, but I really appreciate the value you bring to the team, Adam, as a just understanding business. Because at the time, spending $100,000 on a media studio,

Starting point is 01:23:26 it felt like, why, why are we doing so much? What if we just, whatever, but you had a vision, and of course we went with it, and it was the right one. And it definitely turned out to be good. It was a big investment. No, it was. I mean, it was basically pushing all our chips in at that time.

Starting point is 01:23:38 That was in October of 2016, so we're only a little over a year and a half into this. So it's, so, so, I mean. Yeah, that was all of our, so. That's a into this. So it's so, so I mean. Yeah, that was all of our, so. That's a big deal. So, okay, so I remember this. That was all the money we made. Now we weren't paying ourselves then.

Starting point is 01:23:50 No. We were collecting money, but we weren't taking a salary yet. So we didn't, so cause we took that first hundred grand and it went right back into this. This, we built this whole place out. And then that, then after that, that's probably when it, I'm trying to think like,

Starting point is 01:24:04 when did I? What did I feel like we were cranking there had to come a time where I was like, okay, we're moving now Like I don't remember what that was Probably when we probably when we started your three. Yeah I'm trying to think we can you look back and see when we start clipping six figures a month Do you know? Yeah, that would have been probably your three or four or four years three or four Uh-huh at that point then then I felt like okay

Starting point is 01:24:27 It's on now like that that point It was like once you had built something like that big enough that then it was the opportunity was and then when did we get? Our place up in truck you when was that? 2019 that's three years after and that was the first time we'd had we got like a house together you know, which is well one of the one of the coolest things that, that has happened with all of us is that even when we, when stuff started really clipping and we started making really good money, we still, Nobody was like, I pay me.

Starting point is 01:24:52 I want to pay. Yeah, we were, we were just stacking it in the accounts and we started to get, we had really good money put away and we agreed that we would reinvest it into real estate and it was so cool that everybody just agreed. Like, I mean, how crazy is that that nobody was in a place where they like financially needed that money? And it's one fourth of it's yours. I mean, anytime a guy could have said, Hey, no, I don't want to, I don't want, I need that money. I'm building a house or I'm doing this thing or my wife and I

Starting point is 01:25:19 need it for whatever. And everybody was like, no, let's let's I'm down. Let's reinvest it. Just the smart way to do it. And we all recognize that. That's crazy though. That's unusual. Very unusual. That not only-

Starting point is 01:25:30 We're mature, I think. That's what set us apart a bit. Yeah, if we're 25, we don't do that. Yeah. Although if you listen to those early episodes, we don't sound very mature. But I mean, looking back now, how cool was that? Now, I mean, over the course of, I don't know,

Starting point is 01:25:45 so what year, you said 2016? 19. 19 is when we bought Truckee. Yes. So we're going into 2025. That's five years ago. Yeah. And then after that we went, we're like,

Starting point is 01:25:54 okay, let's invest, let's make some investments on the side and try and build another side. Almost every other month we were buying a house from that point on. Yep. Right, we bought that house. Yeah, for a while there. And then we had a little break.

Starting point is 01:26:04 Yeah. We had a little break and then we went. Yeah. And then COVID happened and COVID. First scare. That was the first scare. We all panicked a little bit. I think everybody did because you're like, what's going to happen? What's going to happen to the business? We had created maps anywhere way before COVID. It was our worst selling program. Not because it's a bad program, it's a great program, but because it's not a gym program, it's when you walk out of home. And at the time our audience was a lot of gym people. And we had Maps Anywhere just sitting there

Starting point is 01:26:34 and it turned out to be, another thing that's serendipitous if you want to call it that, Maps Anywhere exploded. Exploded because people couldn't go to the gym. We sold more in those two weeks than we did the previous two years the program existed. In two weeks time, more than the last two years. That's how much better. You know, that was also another really cool... And our podcast grew. Everything grew during that. So this was another cool, at least moment for me, as far as our partnership.

Starting point is 01:27:03 Do you remember that commercial right there? In the Jacuzzi? We're ahead of our time, I think. We were ahead of our time. I feel like people would think it was hilarious now, where then it was probably not so much, they're like, what the hell are these guys doing? No, that was a really important time for me,

Starting point is 01:27:18 and our partnership, knowing what kind of partners I had. Because no matter what, I don't care what kind of business you have, at some point you're gonna to hit adversity. At some point, shit gets hard. At some point, whatever. And that was a scary time on what's going to happen. We had really pushed a lot in, we really invested a lot. We were really counting on this thing continuing to grow. And here comes COVID and people aren't going to be using the gyms. And we all kind of freaked out and to see everybody kind of respond and that desperation of we got to figure this out. And then it ended up, I think we had our biggest month ever right after that.

Starting point is 01:27:52 Right. So it ended up being the biggest month we had ever had in company history. Uh, after what we thought would be the scariest things that helped. One was we had maps anywhere too, was a lot of people turned to the podcast because it was a tough time and we knew this. We actually met on this and said, all right guys, people are going to need health more than ever. And there's, they're going to need a lot of help

Starting point is 01:28:16 with mental health, with of course their physical health. And so we all felt this perp, this sense of purpose behind the podcast, like let's get out there and let's help people. So a lot of the episodes were geared around how you can help yourself mentally, improve your health. Actionable things to do.

Starting point is 01:28:32 Yes. No, we agreed to stay very positive. Very positive. Remember we didn't want to attack anybody at that time. It's like, it's not the time to do that. Everything's negative. Everything's scary. Yeah.

Starting point is 01:28:40 Yeah. Let's stay positive. People having a tough time. But I mean, we also went back and took all of our main programs. Justin went back and rewrote all those and shot those to be at home version. So we did a lot of things to make sure we were positioned to be okay.

Starting point is 01:28:55 And it did, it ended up being, which again, why that was so important is like, when it was probably one of the scariest months or times in the business ends up being one of the most successful was such a testament to like, oh, the type of partners that everybody is. Everybody is the type that's like, hey, if this thing is gonna go down,

Starting point is 01:29:14 I'm gonna do everything I can to make sure it doesn't. Speaking of partners, our first partner that ever sponsored us was, what's the company? Chimera Coffee. Chimera Coffee. Did they reach out to us? Yeah, they were fans of the show. They reached out to us and they paid us like 300 bucks a month or something.

Starting point is 01:29:27 Yeah, 300 bucks a month. They were really good about finding talent early. They found Jujie Mufu before anybody knew who he was. And so they had him and us. So Jujie, I love this commercial. This is one of my favorite commercials we ever did. Where are we here anyway? This is the other studio.

Starting point is 01:29:44 Oh, that's our other studio. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I don't know how many people actually saw this. Oh my god. It's all over my face. That's one of my favorite that we ever did. For people who aren't watching this on YouTube, so it's literally, I'm walking into our old studio.

Starting point is 01:30:00 It was a commercial. Camaro was a coffee company, OK? And I'm walking in, I walk in and it looks like Justin and Adam have cut up lines of coffee. Coffee and our snorting. We thought this was a good idea to make it a commercial for our partners who had a healthy coffee. I think they loved it, I think they loved it.

Starting point is 01:30:20 They did. That was our first. Because they got it. They were our first partner. And then for about a year. We had no partners for a long time. Yeah, for a long time. And I remember exactly when it was like, we're going to go after partners.

Starting point is 01:30:34 It was at Paleo FX. Paleo FX, yep. Paleo FX, it was, you know, it's like a wellness, well, Paleo, right? Paleo convention was a bunch of wellness fitness people. You're feeling four-sigmatic there? Yes, and I remember getting hyped and going, I'm gonna walk around these booths and I'm gonna make some connections.

Starting point is 01:30:51 Got into closer mode. And we did. We went and we met people and we got our first sponsors from that, that was a good time. I was really proud of that side of the business. That was something that, and still to this day, we operate that different than almost anybody else. Now, I don't know how many people have copied what we did and then tried to mirror what we've done on

Starting point is 01:31:11 that side, but we were so different than anybody else. And I just saw the opportunity for it. When I remember working these deals out with these partners, I thought it was so interesting that there was this generic CPM that everybody abided by. It was like, oh, if you have a, for every thousand people that listen to your podcast, we pay $35. And so if you're getting tens of thousands and that's three, it makes no sense.

Starting point is 01:31:36 You could have one podcast that's great at converting and one that's- Right. And so I thought that was so weird. I'm like, that's that, and everybody was playing by this rule. And I'm like, this is bullshit. Made up ass rule. Yeah. And at that time that. And everybody was playing by this rule. And I'm like, this is bullshit.

Starting point is 01:31:45 Yeah. And, and, and at that time too, I was really confident in our skills, right? I was like, I know, uh, our ability to sell things and sell a product. And if we're going to only partner with products that we believe in, that we're excited about, then I know we're going to convert better than some Joe Smo who just partners with them because they have the exact same downloads that don't. There's just doesn't make any sense. And so I was out to prove that. And then also, like, I saw that anybody and everybody that started to make money in the partnership side or advertising would sell everything. You sell a newsletter, they would

Starting point is 01:32:18 sell a post on Instagram, they would sell a YouTube clip, they would sell an ad reel, a reel reel, any way they could to make as much as they could to advertise. Every partner would expect that. They would meet with me and they'd be like, okay, well, how much for the ad on the podcast and for how about if we do four posts of Instagram? It's like, no, no, no, no, it's not how we're going to do this. They're part of a network. So they're cutting, you have all these middlemen in between the whole thing.

Starting point is 01:32:42 Yeah, you just took that on and made it our own. Yeah, because then I saw that you had all these other grifters that were being middlemen between them, making 20% to 30% of the revenue. So not only do you have these generic CPMs you're going by, then you got middlemen that are making 20% to 30% off of it. And everybody's like, this is crazy. This makes no sense. And so the way we shook it up was, OK, we're

Starting point is 01:33:06 going to agree on a price that I agree on, that I believe that my partners and I can deliver on. And if we don't, I'm going to commit to you that we'll make good by using all of our other platforms. And the goal was never to use the other platforms. It always was, can I price it right that they're happy and satisfied with the commercial?

Starting point is 01:33:22 Because we didn't want to oversaturate all of our mediums with advertising, especially considering that we have our own product, our own thing that we sell. So it was like, okay, let's see if we can, if I can price it right to where they're happy with the podcast. But if for some reason they're not, we'll use those other mediums. And partners were like, what? And my favorite, like my favorite aspect of these early sponsors was how they would listen to us talk about their product.

Starting point is 01:33:48 First off, we only work with, and we still do this, we only work with a company that we like their products, we believe in them. Otherwise, we're not going to work with you. It doesn't matter how much you can offer us. We're not going to work with you. So that's number one. But number two, when we talk about the product, I don't want you to tell me how you want me to talk about it. And I don't want you to tell me how you want me to talk about it.

Starting point is 01:34:05 And I'm gonna be very honest, and this is how I communicate anytime I sell something, because it's honest. And so we would have sponsors get mad at us until they saw the conversions. Like I remember Adam saying, one of the products worked really well,

Starting point is 01:34:19 but it tastes like shit. And the company, of course they get mad. Why would you say a company or product tastes like shit? And Adam's like, because it tastes like shit. It doesn't taste good. And then they came back to us a few weeks later like, oh you guys are selling a lot of this product, so let's just leave it at that.

Starting point is 01:34:32 It's like you don't think our audience knows that if they try it, they're gonna taste it. But it works. So, and it- No, it's been great. We've had full control of that since day one and have always agreed. Well, you know, again, we position the business in it where we didn't need that.

Starting point is 01:34:47 In fact, early on we said we might not ever do any advertising because early on any of the companies that were coming around were like these random startup supplement companies and none of, and none of us were excited about that. None of us, none of it was product we use, but once we had, we're garnering enough attention that we could actually attract some bigger brands, then we went after brands. Then it was like reaching out to companies and trying to- Some of these, how much of this magic's fruit?

Starting point is 01:35:13 Well, those were so good. Why is that so good? It's so good, people didn't even see this. It was too early, guys. We should sell it back to magic's fruit. You know, take it off and sell it to them. That's a good one. That's a good one.

Starting point is 01:35:24 I love that one. I actually want you to share all these, Doug, with me, because I want to repost some of them, because I think they were so good. They're so good. I mean, I remember when I was encouraging Justin to do these. That one was a little too elaborate. I mean, I went way too sci-fi with this. This one we gave Justin carte blanche.

Starting point is 01:35:40 Yeah, I went too far with this one, for sure. Well, what I was hoping would happen, this was like when we were talking about are we going to be a media company and are we going to do things outside of this podcast. And I believe that the relationship that we were building with our partners and Justin's creativity that we could become the people that these brands come to, to create commercials. And so the idea was if Justin could hit it out the park with some of these commercials that we would start making commercials for all of our partners partners that they would run on TV and stuff like that And yeah, this was our attempt people were just so I thought it was fire

Starting point is 01:36:11 Well, you know, I didn't work was because people are very protective of their brand They have a very distinctive way they want to present it Yeah, and it's not you know, whenever it's an idea that's coming from an outside way less Adoption, you know, this is a lesson I had I still I bet you you could sell those. I bet I agree I bet you could go back to Jove and you bet and go sell it. I think you've made sure I think you would do good. So why for sure the magic won't spoon was money. You should sell it Which one was that? Oh, that's what he were a mass programs. I was pretending to be a beach body

Starting point is 01:36:47 Version which was like the devil's version of money to be everybody died Oh, this is not much cuz cuz Eli was bought in on the fact that we were he was trying to expand his skills Yeah, and so we were like really stretching this out to see what we could produce And he I mean he did a great job. Yeah. These are so fire. Would have been expensive for sure. They're so, they're so good.

Starting point is 01:37:10 They are so good. This is so good, Justin. You're brilliant. You know, it's so upset right now. I am upset. I don't know what to say. Cause like, I really wanted it to happen. It just did it.

Starting point is 01:37:20 I wanted it to happen too. I thought it was, I thought it was great. You know, it's just one of those things you try a bunch of things and you see what lands and like, I'm just going to keep trying. So we got to sell some of those back. I bet you some of the sponsors would buy some of those back. I mean, I would be happy that you used it. I think they should have used it. I was mad. I remember that was okay. So I remember too, like I was really annoyed that these brands, like we went and produced all that stuff and put all that effort, money and time into creating that and that they weren't even sharing it on their platforms. I

Starting point is 01:37:49 was like so, I was so mad about that because it was like, I remember I wanted Justin to go first, prove the model, like go get these people excited. And I thought that was good enough to get them excited and share it. Then I'll be able to charge for it in the future. But the fact that they didn't even use it, I was so mad. Okay. So paleo Valley did use one of them and they used it and they put it on ESPN. And yeah, they took me out later. I'm like, dude, I didn't even know that. I knew that they did. They used the one where you're in the suspenders. It's not that one. Yes. When I'm talking to the pig. Yeah. Yeah. It was so great. Cause I was, I shot that up at Eli's Family's ranch and like he had he had this huge pig and like I had a horse And so we like did all these shots with like animals and it was really weird

Starting point is 01:38:32 But it totally was it was great any brands that you guys wish we had or that you missed that we had before That I miss yeah, I mean you're a big force of mad guy. We're not with Dr. Squash I like the first day. I got a big head my heart. Yeah, right? They broke my heart. Or should we go right to Super Bowl? Oh, okay. One that was a good thing, even though they're crushed and they're a great company. Liquid death.

Starting point is 01:38:51 Liquid death. Yeah. They're too satanic. They're too satanic. Okay, can we talk about this? Cause literally they had a video and you could look this up, a satanic priest, like cursing their entire warehouse of water.

Starting point is 01:39:03 Yes. Like for real or for- And you're supposed to sell that to people? And it does. And they sell. I know. It's just mind blowing to me. Why do we stop working with them?

Starting point is 01:39:11 It just- And you got people to sell their soul on their website. Yeah. For a case of water. Yeah. Well, I mean, I'm glad we're not working with them for that. That's crazy.

Starting point is 01:39:21 I don't want to work with that now that, especially now that I understand this stuff. Yeah, they did like a- It's wild. I almost want to make a counter to that, dude. Like some holy water. Some holy water. Yeah, it's just like- It might do well with the changing of the tide.

Starting point is 01:39:32 Angelic water that- It's not a bad idea. Yeah, it's not a bad idea. Tides are turning, dude. Yeah, it's real holy water. Yeah, I was bummed about Dr. Squash. I really liked that brand. I was really, and also their humor, their commercials.

Starting point is 01:39:44 I thought, oh, this is going to be another great synergy. We crushed for them too. So I thought when I got the numbers back, I was like, oh hell yeah, that's going to be a great partnership. Their eyes were just elsewhere. But some of these companies, they're just like- Which one is this, Doug? Dr. Squatch. Oh yeah, look at that. Oh, you did a Dr. Squatch one too?

Starting point is 01:40:01 Yes. I got naked a lot. Bro, I don't remember this one. I don't remember this one either. I vaguely do. I think I... Is somebody in the shower with you? It's one of his little bit, let's just say, racy concepts. Yeah.

Starting point is 01:40:16 Is there somebody in the shower with you? No, he's by himself, but he's washing his backside, if you will, and his farts are now whistles Well, here all these files was I think he got so clean bro, dude, I forgot I Missed but like I seriously think that you can make I mean, not a premise, but like, why? I seriously think that you can make a 10 minute compilation of all the stuff that we're talking about. Totally. And I would want to watch it,

Starting point is 01:40:48 because I forgot about half of this stuff. That is so fire. What a great commercial. Yeah. It's simple. It's missed opportunity. But, yeah. Oh well.

Starting point is 01:40:56 Missed opportunity. I would like to see one of those companies pick one of those up and use it. Even, I don't even want to get paid for it. I think it will do good. I really do think it will do good. When was it that Hachette reached out to us for a book? Cause that was also, that was a big deal.

Starting point is 01:41:11 That was all you. Yeah, it was, but it was a big deal. Three or four years ago, right? It was a huge deal. Yeah, yeah. That was cool. They reached out, wanted a book. I think the coolest part about that was that was also another sign of like our partnership was that you decided that would just all go in the pot. It was never a question. I know but none of us would have questioned either if you would have

Starting point is 01:41:28 taken all of it. No, never a question. The goal, the idea with the book, first off, I don't know if this is a, when you're on a team and you're winning and you're on a team, it's your team. Your team, it's never just you. That's not the way it works. And none of that would have been possible without all of this. But nonetheless, the goal with that was to give me an opportunity to get onto the podcast. That's the whole idea was I'm gonna write this book,

Starting point is 01:41:57 regardless of how well it does, it's gonna get me on another show so I can do what I do best, which is talk and then bring people over. Great, a whole nother level of authority with it too. It's hilarious, which is talk, and then bring people over. Great. A whole nother level of authority with it, too. It's hilarious. A lot of people still just base that off of books.

Starting point is 01:42:09 Such an honor, but what a scam, though, too. Oh. What a hustle, how they find people like you who've got enough pool you're gonna sell a bunch of books about. Oh yeah, they do nothing. Yeah. They promote you. I remember how excited we were,

Starting point is 01:42:21 like they were gonna promote you, and like, oh, he's going to be on Good Morning America. We're going to get all of this like traffic and like the two podcasts they suggested were smaller than any of our friends podcast. Yeah. It was like, come on dude. Like we can make a phone call and get on 10 podcasts twice as big as these. So crazy.

Starting point is 01:42:39 Yeah. But it did do it's, uh, it did accomplish the goal though. There was a whole year there I was just on so many podcasts because of that book and it It was a great opportunity to be able to meet other people Bring them over. It was a good time Remember, you know another thing we did that I thought was so cool that we I wish we bring back remember the what's in my bag Oh, yeah, it would Ben Greenfield

Starting point is 01:43:08 What's in My Bag? Oh yeah. It was Ben Greenfield, Jordan Shallow, Mike Matthews, Mike Matthews. Those are great. Those are really funny. That was a big collab for us. Mike Matthews has been a great friend. I think there's some of the people that have become really good friends. Max Lugavere, Jordan Shallow, Matthews, Arthur Brooks. Even DeFranco Smitty for me has been great. You know what? That was a big deal. It was a big deal when DeFranco, who for me is great. You know what, that was a big deal. I was gonna mention that too. It was a big deal when DeFranco, who we all looked up to, before we started the podcast, he's an excellent trainer, he's one of the best in the world, and we all knew who he was,

Starting point is 01:43:36 we invited him to come on the show, and he said he liked our show. He was like a fan of ours, and he flew all the way over just to be on the show. And I was like, oh my God, dude, this is wild. This is wild. That was a big, that was a big. A lot of those have become good friends.

Starting point is 01:43:50 Yeah, Lane, of course, Dan, yeah. That was a good, those are, it's been an interesting. Oh, I'll give you another person who made a big impact on me that I learned a lot, Attachment Adam. Yeah, oh yeah, yeah, yeah. Attachment Adam was the first episode I ever sat down and watched with Katrina like from front to back I've never done that with my wife I don't know if you guys have done that with your wives or not. I've once one time

Starting point is 01:44:12 Yeah, one time only one time I sat and watched an entire episode with Katrina and it was attachment out because I thought that was such an impactful episode So he's somebody who's made an impact like that Yeah, I guess I had to go through, I had to think about like, because I think a lot of people have made impacts like that, that were like, oh, that was a big deal. It's the fastest 10 years I've ever experienced, I think, even though when I think and look back, so much has happened. It's a fire hose of knowledge, dude. Look at that list Doug's going through right now. Even his stress is surface.

Starting point is 01:44:39 Look at how many doctors that we've had. Remember that Dr. Kirk Parsley? Oh my God, his story. Yeah, dude. So, you know, selfishly, one of my favorite things about this is you have an opportunity. Oh, Don Saladino, another good friend. To meet people that you never would have

Starting point is 01:44:55 an opportunity to meet. For me, you know, one of the biggest deals was interviewing Jordan Peterson. Yep. Sitting in the room and interviewing. Yeah, that was a good deal. That was a good deal. I'm disappointed in myself on that one.

Starting point is 01:45:06 Yeah. Because, I mean, of all the interviews, probably the most prepared for his because of how much content I've consumed of his, right? And books read. So, and I really wanted to bring something out different in that, but I don't feel like we did. Yeah.

Starting point is 01:45:23 No. I think we were a little starstruck or two I felt like it was a short episode but not because it was made short like was like he cut us off and said we have to go that's right I just I just I feel like we could have got something better out of him yeah we need more more episodes with him it was it was flat for how amazing he is and how much we all like him. I thought that we could have got something better out of it.

Starting point is 01:45:47 I don't know. We could definitely do a better job if we do it again. When was our first live event? When did we do that? Are you gonna include the Tahoe one? Is that the first? Oh, you mean the podcast heart event? Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Starting point is 01:45:57 That was cool. That was cool. That was cool. We blew a lot of money on that. A lot of money. Yeah, it was 40 grand. Was it 40? Yeah, 40 grand. Yeah. It was $40,000. Was it $40,000? Yeah, $40,000.

Starting point is 01:46:06 Yeah. That was a big expense. That was a big chunk. $40,000, getting a bunch of podcasters in one roof, and then just doing a bunch of podcast swaps. Yeah, it did. Podcasting. Oh, here it is right here.

Starting point is 01:46:19 Yeah. I mean, it solidified a lot of relationships. It did. Jordan Shallow was there. Mike Matthews was there. Jordan Shallow was there, Mike Matthews was there, Ruscio was there, Josh Trent was there. Who was the paleo-MG? Was she the one afterwards was talking about,

Starting point is 01:46:35 oh, it was a bunch of bros or whatever the fuck that is. Yeah, she was the one to talk shit. And I'm like, man, we went out of our way to make it a comfortable, great environment. I was annoyed by her. That was, yeah. Yeah, that was rude. Never be on my show. She's rude, dude. We went out of our way to make it a comfortable environment. I was annoyed by her Yeah, where's she now? No, she might still do her thing. I think she I think I looked her up not that long ago I think we brought her up not that long ago. I was like, I wonder where she oh Ben Pekulski also good friend

Starting point is 01:47:01 Yeah, so I mean this and this was I think we, Ben Greenfield was there too. So I think we solidified a lot of our relationships on that trip. I think everybody had a good time. I think we threw a good party. It was a good event. Mike Matthews was interesting meeting him the first time. That was one of the ones where you were like,

Starting point is 01:47:17 oh, I love this guy. Oh, Matt Vincent was there too. Oh yeah, Vincent. We haven't talked to him in a long time. Christina was there too. Remember Christina? Remember what an impression she made on us? Oh yeah.

Starting point is 01:47:26 Christina made such a good impression. That's what's up. Little fireball. Well, that's when Adam and I went to LA to do a bunch of podcasts. And we had someone cancel. And so Katrina's like, do you want me to just fill it with somebody who wants to interview?

Starting point is 01:47:37 And we're like, we're down there anyway. Let's do it. And it was this 20-something-year-old girl who wanted us to go. In her little, tiniest studio. And she was so confident. And she was poking fun at us and whatever and we're like we love this girl Like you're great. Yeah, so we just became great friends. I still talked to her She became like our little mini me for a while there. Yeah

Starting point is 01:47:55 We're I remember we were plugging her for a long time help trying to help doctor you do. Yeah, I do I still talked to her. Oh, no way. Yeah. Well every once while we'll check in and whatever Yeah, we all became friends Jessica and her and I all became friends So I loved her. She's she's great. Yeah, she was great energy. So what do you guys think about the next ten years? Trainers. Yeah. Yeah, I think that's the big the big And it'll be like I mean keep doing what we're doing but also with a main big focus on developing Trainers and coaches to go out there and do the work, to really do the work that,

Starting point is 01:48:28 you know, we try to do with the podcast, train people effectively and do a great job. I mean, I think we had to first establish ourselves as an authority in the space to then get the respect from all the coaches and trainers to go out and teach them, right? Like, so first help general pop like we have for a very long time.

Starting point is 01:48:47 Along the way, we've also helped a lot of coaches and trainers too, I think. Uh, but I think now we can move into that space of like really helping and influencing that space. Well, I think with, with, uh, with some authority and I think the cert is going to be huge. I think this year, we, you know, hopefully the next 30 to 60 days, we'll find out about NASM. So I think that getting it established as CEUs for that, and then making a big push.

Starting point is 01:49:14 That, the CRM, I think what we're doing with the software side is incredible. So the next 10 years is that. And I expect it to be hard. This year is going to be really, this in my opinion is going to be hard. The first year, this year is gonna be really, this in my opinion is gonna be the hardest year we've ever had to replicate. We've ran for nine years, year over year, growth every single year, and somehow pulled out this year.

Starting point is 01:49:35 I thought this year was gonna be the hardest year ever, and we pulled it out. But we also started two new big businesses that helped that. So to replicate that and to surpass that this year is gonna be unbelievably hard So I think a lot of it's gonna be centered around the trainers You know, it's crazy is when we started this ten years ago. My oldest was nine My my second oldest was five and my two little ones were not here. You didn't have it son

Starting point is 01:50:03 No, your kids were how old was your oldest, was five? Yeah, so we've been doing this 10 years. Yeah, I mean, my youngest, let's see, so math, cause yeah, 14, like Ethan's 14 right now. Yeah, four. Wow, and then Everett was? Yeah, he wasn't even there. Really? Yeah, he was born... Wait a second. That's not right. He was a newborn. He was a little

Starting point is 01:50:31 guy. Wow. God, he was that little? Yeah, he was little. Nine years ago. Newborn phase. Yeah, yeah, nine years ago. Everett. Yeah. How old's Everett? 10. Yeah, so he's one. He was one. He was a little guy. Yeah. Wow. No, I know, I'm just tripping out thinking about like, And we started this.

Starting point is 01:50:50 How he was tiny then, that doesn't make sense to me. It like doesn't compute. Yeah, and that's when we started this. Yeah. Yeah, Ethan was Max's age. Yeah. That's right. That's crazy.

Starting point is 01:50:59 If you remember. I mean, we were going through it too, so you had hard times, like we were, I was in the, you know, cause of having the little kid Yeah having a lot of both working you both working in separate I was like also that I didn't mention and I was like trying to develop a product, you know An invention and then it was pulling it was pulling me in like three different directions and I was just it was all self-inflicted

Starting point is 01:51:22 And I had to just cut it all out and realize You know where to put my eggs and then reestablish like my relationship and repair everything It was a it was a long road, dude You know that was a rough patch. Now it feels like a long time when you're looking back. Yeah now that I think about it That was a huge transition for you guys you went from Courtney being you know working crazy hours as a nurse to be in a stay at home, what year was that? She was my whole health insurance, dude. Yeah, so yeah, she stopped actually the year before COVID. So.

Starting point is 01:51:52 2019. 2019. Wow. So it's been a while now. So Doug, your daughter was nine, right? Or eight. Eight. Eight years old. Eight. Eight years old.

Starting point is 01:51:59 You remember when we first started this, I was talking at that time not having kids. You didn't want to? Well, you said, I'm fine without them. Yeah. And I would keep trying to convince you to have a kid. Yeah, that was a big transition. Yeah. Once you had your son.

Starting point is 01:52:10 Yeah. I remember when you had Max, and it was like, he had just come back. It was like a month in or something like that. You're like, oh, it's easy, man. You just don't know. No, it wasn't. It was two weeks in when I said that.

Starting point is 01:52:20 And you were giving me shit. I was like, oh, it's fine, bro. It's no problem. Because all he did was sleep in the very beginning. His eyes were barely open. He came out a month early, so all he did was sleep. And I was like, oh, it's fine, bro. It's no problem. Because all he did was sleep in the very beginning. His eyes were barely open. He came out a month early, so all he did was sleep. And I was like, this is so easy. And he goes, you're like, oh.

Starting point is 01:52:30 This is a swing, bro. Everybody gave me shit about that. And then I also remember, too, I was like, he's not going to see a TV until he's like 10. I mean, I went from divorce and then meeting Jessica, not anticipating that, falling so hard for her, and then fighting the entire time of, I don't want to get married, not anticipating that, falling so hard for her, and then fighting the entire time of I don't want to get married, not gonna get married,

Starting point is 01:52:49 not getting married, and then finally just like, yes, we're gonna do this and we're gonna have more kids. Hit the reset button. The reset button is having two little ones. Oh my God. Yeah. Yeah. So now it seems like a long time

Starting point is 01:53:01 when I talk about it like that. That's crazy. Yeah, I actually hadn't thought about Ethan and Everett. I didn't realize that Everett was that little. Yeah, actually, now it all makes sense, because remember when we did our first, we went for the live at the Orange Theory. And I remember getting ready for that,

Starting point is 01:53:21 and I was coming back over the hill. And I had told you guys that like, Everett had like swallowed a marble and we took him to the emergency room. I was like freaked out, like, you know, cause I had literally, that was then. And then I just had to shake it off and then we went and performed and did our thing.

Starting point is 01:53:40 I thought we were here, wouldn't that happen? No, that was Will Glenn. Wow. Yeah. So that all. He was a little guy. He was a little, little, yeah, little dude. Wow. And then it's, and I do remember now, too,

Starting point is 01:53:52 like I remember like incorporating some sponsorship stuff on my Instagram with them, and they'd jump out of the butcher box box. Little guys. Yeah. And I was trying to kind of tie them into some of the sponsorship stuff And now they're huge

Starting point is 01:54:08 Yeah, that's that makes me go like oh my god, dude before I know it Max is gonna be this Stud dude, just big and yeah, watch out man It feels I mean at least for me right now It feels like I've got to really enjoy him being a little guy like I feel like he's been a little guy for a long Time you ever when you look at pictures of him, when he's like one, do you go, Oh my gosh, look at that. I mean, I do, but I also, every phase has gotten better. Of course.

Starting point is 01:54:34 So I'm in love with the phase that he's in right now. So there's not this like, oh, I wish you go. Cause I know sometimes you hear parents are like, oh, I wish you, they, I missed the twos or I missed the sage. Like I don't miss any age because the current age is so cool. Like I love the, where he's at right now. And maybe that's too, because we've always had this incredible bond since, since he was born to five years.

Starting point is 01:54:56 And I guess maybe if, and when he goes through a phase when we don't have that, I'll probably look back and go like, Oh, I miss the days when he liked to hang out with me all the time. Cause he's still at that. so I still get to enjoy what a timeline for our kids if they ever want to do this It's a lot but for them to listen to oh, yeah all those episodes. It's all mapped out What okay here? That's a cool thing to talk about because you guys have the older ones What age and what kid does that first? Oh? Because at one point they will but it might not be till they're like 30, but I don't I think it'd probably be my daughter

Starting point is 01:55:25 My 15 year old probably when she's in her 30s. I would say she'll probably be the one to listen for Yeah, I think it's probably gonna be Everett just because he's into the space He has a knack for yeah He wants to be a podcaster and he wants to entertain and he he's like really He would be really good at he's be way better at the me. He's like really, he would be really good at it. He's way better at the me. He's like super articulate. Like I can't believe like how he puts sentences together and how he thinks about things.

Starting point is 01:55:52 It trips me out actually. You know what's crazy about that in an audience that's been listening for a long time. Remember you were worried about that stuff with him. You were always so like Ethan was gonna be like the super smart kid. He was reading at a young age. Like he was a super leader.

Starting point is 01:56:04 You were worried about Everett being that way and he's rocket ship caught up. Yeah. He's, he's, he's on another level. Yeah. It's, it's wild. Again, this is always like, this is kind of like, was the chip on my shoulder with my dad is like, he never, he didn't think I was going to go that far academically. And so that was like my, you know, that was my juice. I was like, I'm going to graduate college. I'm going to do all these things because it was just like, you know that was my juice I was like I'm gonna graduate college I'm gonna do all these things because it was just like you know I was overlooked and saw like I'm not gonna do that to my kids you know I'm already doing it yeah damn

Starting point is 01:56:33 it do you think so what age do you think he'll you think he'll do it recently do you think he'll are soon you think he'll listen to it sooner you think it'll still wait till he's it I don't know I think probably more high school because that's when the elective so at this school he's, I don't know. I think probably more high school. Cause that's when the elective, so at this school he's at, they actually have an elective for podcasting. And so I was like, he, he already wants to like be in it. And then I'm like, yeah, how cool is that? And the guy, it's a legit space now. You know, my dad's a podcast. I know. Right. I can only imagine. Cause it's funny. Cause the teacher actually has his own podcast and I was like, oh, really? What does he cover? Guess what he covers? But Star Wars. Oh, I'm not even joking, dude. I was like, what in the actual? Yeah. So it,

Starting point is 01:57:18 yeah, who knows? It'll be interesting. You guys remember the first like, so this was always really, because I remember my family was the last to buy in, right? I mean, and it wasn't until they started having friends of theirs or acquaintances of theirs talk to them about the show, did they really go like, oh my God, you guys are kind of doing stuff over there. My friend from work,

Starting point is 01:57:43 do you remember the first person in your family like that that happened to? Cause I had, well my cousin, my cousin's wife was a supporter right out the gates, but I had a cousin who I don't really ever talk to and I ran into and they're like, oh my God, I love your podcast. I was like, what?

Starting point is 01:58:00 You listen to my show and this was probably five years in, I think it was when the first time I heard that, probably five years in. I think it was the first time I heard that, about five years in. Yeah. My mom listened early on, cause she's my mom and I remember her going, it's not my style but, and I don't like some of the stuff you say,

Starting point is 01:58:15 but I like listening to her talk or whatever. Typical mom. My mom was like, not having. Yeah. My mom listened to a few episodes and she's like, never again. She's like, I'm not listening to anything like that. She does not like it at all.

Starting point is 01:58:26 Yeah. Her husband listens to it, and so he listens to it. But even my close friends, it wasn't until they had like co-workers that brought it up. And it had to be like situations like this where someone's just like referring to them like, hey, you got to listen to this podcast, Mind Pump. And they're like, Mind Pump, are you serious?

Starting point is 01:58:43 And like, yeah, they're so good. And they would rave about the show. They're like, that's my boy, or that's my buddy And they're like, mind pump, are you serious? And like, yeah, they're so good. And they would rave about the show. They're like, that's my boy, or that's my buddy. You're like that. And they'd be like, what? You know? And then they get all fanned out. You know what I'm saying?

Starting point is 01:58:52 They'd tell him. Fine, I'll listen. Yeah, yeah. These my sister-in-law down in San Diego, she was at a gym and was talking to somebody and had mentioned my name and was kind to somebody and had mentioned my name and was kind of explaining, and she's like, Justin, from Mindpump? And like freaked out, and like was all,

Starting point is 01:59:13 so she texts me after that, she's like, this person was like freaking out about that I know you and that you're related to me on some level and all this. And it was funny, because like, I think it's more Courtney's family kind of took off with it And then like my family just now is catching up. Yeah. Yeah, it's interesting Yeah, I feel like my family and friends were late to the party Katrina's family and friends had enough stuff happen to them Those are the last people the people know you yeah, because they know you yeah, you know, I mean, yeah

Starting point is 01:59:39 So there's nothing special. Yeah about anything you're doing Until other people. I've heard all your stories. I always get that. And it's like, oh, have you? Like, I don't know. Like, you probably learned something. I think the hardest thing for me still to this day to handle

Starting point is 01:59:53 is the people that are connected to you somehow that are asking for advice or help. And you've definitely talked all about it on the show. Or you have. You have. So frustrating. You have content that this is like. Yeah, you really.

Starting point is 02:00:06 Send them an episode. Yeah. Or go to askbinepump.com. I mean, we literally have AI now. I gotta start using that. I gotta just tell people, just go here. Askbinepump.com. I don't know, you guys, I don't know how often, Doug,

Starting point is 02:00:17 you check in on it or not, but the AI is getting better. It was good from the beginning, it's really good now. So I know our team uses it all the time. I know you better than you know yourself. You're gonna take our jobs, dude! No! Ah! It's only matters.

Starting point is 02:00:33 In my voice, in my style. Yeah, but better. But better? Yeah. I've taken all your best episodes and compiled them. Yeah. I took out all your ums and likes. Yeah.

Starting point is 02:00:42 All your douchey comments are gone. I wonder if we're heading that way, dude. I wonder if it's gonna be like that. No, this is 100% organic. This is real. Human made. Didn't we put that on the cover art? Human made. We didn't start a trend with that, by the way.

Starting point is 02:00:57 It will. It will. It's the long game. It's the long game. Everything we do is way before. It's way before everybody's even thinking about it. Yeah, in 10 years that'll be everybody. That is like my Achilles heel, dude. Yeah.

Starting point is 02:01:09 Too ahead of your time. Yeah. Well, I'm excited for the next 10. I can't see myself not doing this in some capacity. That's how much I enjoy doing this. It's the best. It's a great time. And we're actually helping people which is feels good

Starting point is 02:01:26 Mm-hmm, and you meet people that you impact and it's it's been it's been a long but very fast and exciting time I've grown more in the last time fun challenging rewarding I grew more in the last ten years than I grew in the previous 30 30. I agree easily. Yeah easily easily easily I mean when you like I said, you can only see it in our hair. Doug's got a list of all the people that we've had on the show. And as he was scrolling through it, I'm just looking at it, I was like, dude, like, first of all, 90% of them have books, right? And half of them are doctors. And it's like, we've had the opportunity to pick their brains and talk to them. And, or do research on them. Super educational for us.

Starting point is 02:02:10 I don't know if there's, I don't think you could have, I don't think I could have grown any faster if I, if I tried. No. If this was all done for free, you guys, it would have still been extremely valuable. Yeah. Seriously. Yeah. Doug, you put some questions together

Starting point is 02:02:25 in your list. Were there things that you wanted? Well, I think one of the questions I wanted to know, I think I know the answer, but is why we haven't killed each other in 10 years, because we have four people, it's like a marriage. Yeah. We all have different personalities and the

Starting point is 02:02:41 truth is you either grow together or you grow apart and we happen to make it for 10 years and potentially 10 more. personalities and the truth is you either grow together or you grow apart. Yeah. And we happen to make it for 10 years and potentially 10 more. I, that's, you know why that's funny? That's one of the most common questions I got asked about the podcast, one of my other shows. How do you guys get along?

Starting point is 02:02:57 You guys are equal partners. How does that work? For me, I think it's respect. I think we all have a, we all have a common goal, that's true, but we all have mutual respect for each other. So we can- It has to be, that has to be the foundation. It is.

Starting point is 02:03:13 That has to be the foundation, because I don't think you can even build on it unless you have that. So I think that is, I do think that at least in the social media, podcast, YouTube space, whatever you want to call this, it's rare that you could put four people that are in it, that are doing it, that none of them really want the attention. I think that is a huge part of it. That four of us, and we all want to win more like so bad right?

Starting point is 02:03:46 All of us are unbelievably competitive in our own ways but not with each other but to win collectively and nobody needs to be the guy who gets the credit. I'll take it even a step further. I think all of us kind of don't want to be the guy a little bit. Yeah. I think that's, we're all kind of like, eh, I'd rather not, it's okay.

Starting point is 02:04:04 If I have to be, I will type of deal. Yes. But there's that respect. And why that's so important is that there's many times in a year where there's parts of the business where somebody, one of us has to kind of step forward and be like, I got it or I'll do it. And because we're all so reluctant and nobody's thirsty for

Starting point is 02:04:24 it, the right guy just steps forward. The right guy goes like, yeah, I'm probably the better one for that, I'll do it and because we're all so reluctant and nobody's thirsty for it the right guy just steps forward the right guy goes like I'm probably I'll do it and the respect and trust is there not that we're going to always make the right decisions Although we believe we are right, but we know also we're gonna make mistakes Yeah, but the respect and the trust is there to where well, all right if we make a mistake we make a mistake I've lost no respect. Yeah in my partner. Well, I'm tuning in whatever mistake that is we all own it as a team, which is Definitely like I've experienced the opposite of that in other pointing. Yeah, it's just like it

Starting point is 02:05:00 That's where it all just implodes right right away So that's a huge factor is is the fact that we can all have like really compelling ideas and really go full blast. But if it doesn't work out, we're not gonna just lash out. Yeah. I do think that the next 10 years though is less on our shoulders and more on the people that we've hired.

Starting point is 02:05:23 Of course. I think we've done- Has to course. I think we've done- Has to be. I think we've done a lot of what we can, the four of us. I'd probably include Katrina in that because she's been a part of that since day one. That woman doesn't get enough credit for what she's done behind the scenes. I remember- Oh my God, you'd be a mess with her.

Starting point is 02:05:40 Over a year, she was doing work for the company while also working a full-time job Somewhere else machine and as always silently been doing stuff behind the scenes for a very long time and so I Should include her when I say us the four of us because she's really been apart since the beginning but I do believe now the next ten is Is our staff is the people that we've brought on. It has to be. That's the only way this goes to another level is-

Starting point is 02:06:09 Absolutely, we're going to grow. And this is, I'm not bullshitting, this is the best team that we've ever had. Oh yeah. From top to bottom. Oh yeah, I'd go to battle with this team all day long. Yeah. From top to bottom, this staff has got what it takes to take another. Now whether they do it and they stick

Starting point is 02:06:26 with it and they grind, they get the same tenacity that we had and want to win at all costs, can put their ego aside, have that same attitude, that's to be determined. But I do think that they're the ones that are most capable of that. And if we do win next year and the year going forward like it'll be because of them so I Hope that I get to celebrate with them like I feel like I've celebrated with you guys I feel like we've got to celebrate a lot of what we've done and what we've accomplished and what we've loved to have this conversation In ten years and talk about how so-and-so started with a turn ten years ago and now look and Great my my personal drive now on the financial side has more to do with all of them than it does personally.

Starting point is 02:07:10 It's like I now want to go make a bunch of very, very successful young men and women that are working for us. Totally. And that will be more rewarding than putting another zero in a bank account for me. Totally. That's what I wanna do. And so I look forward to that.

Starting point is 02:07:25 100%. And I want just broad scale, I want to really influence a generation of coaches and trainers to just that level, that next level of quality to where you do things the right way and you're effective and you're good and you're successful, and there's a formula, and there's a way to do it,

Starting point is 02:07:47 and there's a way not to do it, there's an ethos. I hope we could spread that, I really do, I hope we could spread that out. I think we can. Thank you for listening to Mind Pump. If your goal is to build and shape your body, dramatically improve your health and energy, and maximize your overall performance,

Starting point is 02:08:02 check out our discounted RGB Super Bundle at mindpumpmedia.com. The RGB Super Bundle includes maps anabolic, maps performance, and maps aesthetic. 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 and over 200 videos, the RGB Super Bundle is like having Sal, Adam, and Justin as your own personal trainers, but at a fraction of the price. The RGB Super Bundle has a full 30-day money-back guarantee,

Starting point is 02:08:39 and you can get it now plus other valuable free resources at mindpumpmedia.com. If you enjoy this show, please share the love by leaving us a five-star rating and review on iTunes and by introducing Mind Pump to your friends and family. We thank you for your support. And until next time, this is Mind Pump.

Mind Pump: Raw Fitness Truth - 2505: The Story of Mind Pump (10 Year Anniversary Special)

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