Mind Pump: Raw Fitness Truth - 2600: Mike O’Hearn
Episode Date: May 19, 2025Mike O’Hearn Why he was bred for bodybuilding. (2:06) Growing up in a big family. (3:44) The guy who likes the journey will do better than the man who wants the destination. (5:28) Why he de...cided to go natural. (8:15) Tips for continuing to perform long-term. (14:33) How much has having a child changed his life? (17:53) Why he appreciates being an older father. (22:14) The drastic changes in gym culture. (24:42) Favorite workout partners. (28:37) His unique friendship with Stan Efferding. (32:31) Nutrition advice for longevity. (35:07) His transition from stage to screen. (39:24) His experience on American Gladiators. (41:02) “It’s not the shows that win it, it’s what you do with yourself, your personality/image.” His mindset behind building his wealth outside of fitness. (46:21) The impact of his partner. (51:13) Does working out get better as you get older? (54:10) Put yourself around high-performing people. (59:29) Being the ‘meme’ guy. (1:05:47) “The finance shouldn’t outride the energy.” (1:07:19) Related Links/Products Mentioned Visit Legion Athletics for the exclusive offer for Mind Pump listeners! ** Code MINDPUMP for 20% off your first order (new customers) and double rewards points for existing customers. ** May Special: MAPS 15 Performance or RGB Bundle 50% off! ** Code MAY50 at checkout ** Tom Platz - Wikipedia Magazine Dreams (2023) - IMDb The American Gladiators Documentary Battle Dome - Wikipedia Watch Con Man | Prime Video - amazon.com Divinity - Rotten Tomatoes Mind Pump Podcast – YouTube Mind Pump Free Resources Featured Guest/People Mentioned Mike O’Hearn (@mikeohearn) Instagram Website YouTube Stan “Rhino” Efferding (@stanefferding) Instagram Jocko Willink (@jockowillink) Instagram Josh Barnett (@joshlbarnett) Instagram
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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 episode is special one.
We finally have Michael Hearn on the show.
This guy is a juggernaut in the fitness and bodybuilding and strength industry.
He's been doing this for a long time. He's a great guy, smart guy, one of the strongest people I've ever talked to,
especially at his age. It's pretty insane. So this is a great episode. By the way, you can find him on Instagram at
Mike O'Hern. This episode is brought to you by a sponsor,
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Here comes the show.
Mike O'Hern, welcome to the podcast.
Finally.
Hey.
It's been a long time coming.
Man, guys, thanks for doing this.
Yeah, dude.
I feel bad that it's not in person.
This needs to be in person.
I'm glad you feel bad,
because I was going to make you feel bad if you did it.
I can't believe.
Adam was going to roast you for this.
I can't believe.
I actually got, I saw you on the calendar and I was like, oh man, I'm so excited to
see Mike.
And then I got in this morning and I'm like, okay, what time is Mike here?
Oh no, it's Zoom.
I'm like, what?
So we couldn't get that fucker up here?
Yeah.
I know.
It's, I saw that you had Stan Effort in up there, Dr. Ray McClean and stuff.
So I thought, man, you do need a guy that's actually muscular
and strong up there.
So, it would help.
Yeah.
I'll make it happen.
I was down at your place, how long ago was it
when I was on your podcast?
A couple years ago, yeah.
Was it a couple years?
Yeah.
You got to meet him and Mona, his wife's amazing.
Your wife's great, love her, by the way.
Very good people, it was a good time, it was a great time.
But Mike, I wanna ask you, I wanna know about you,
how this all started, I told you this when I was
on your show, when I was working out in the 90s,
early 2000s, you were one of the guys I looked up to,
you were in a lot of the bodybuilding magazines,
and you were, I looked up to your workouts and kind a lot of the bodybuilding magazines, and you were, you know, I looked up to your workouts
and kind of what you did, and here we are talking now.
You've been doing this for a long time, man.
When did this all start for you?
Geez, 83 I stepped on stage.
1983 I stepped on stage, but I always,
I was kind of like bred for this
because my dad was a football player in bodybuilding.
Mom was a martial artist.
So there's 10 kids and five and five.
So I was following my older brothers and sisters from the start.
And so I was lucky enough to, I was lucky enough to be in that family,
but also understand that when I opened the magazine
and I saw Arnold and Frank Zane and Robbie,
I go, whatever this is, I wanna do it.
And I knew at that age, nine years old, 10 years old,
and I just committed.
And then 83 on stage by 87 in the fitness magazines.
83 on stage by 87 in the fitness magazines.
So, I mean, man, we're closing in on... Yeah, how old are you at that point?
So you hit stage at 83 at 11?
How old were you at that point?
I was 17, 18.
In 87.
Already.
Yeah, and that's the picture we have up there,
right there of him as a kid.
So, okay, so there's 10 of you.
You have nine siblings.
Your parents are-
What was that like?
Nine.
What was that like?
What was it like growing up with such a big family?
It was awesome.
It was absolutely awesome.
It was awesome for the aspect of what I do.
I'm a gladiator, and so I love to tussle,
I love to wrestle, I love the whole concept.
I know you guys guys probably too young, but
There was a TV show. I was the pink panther and he had that
the guy that was always his his butler kind of slash Kato and
you walk into the house and you got to check over your shoulder because your brother's gonna attack you and so I
love that aspect of having four older brothers that didn't nurture me.
They pushed me to be better.
So if they're going out to play football, I'm quarterback.
If they're tussling, I'm putting the gloves on
and going against my older brother.
So it was absolutely a blessing.
And then that's just my brother's.
My sister one missed Seattle.
My other sister won the Washington State powerlifting.
So it was like a whole family.
It was it was incredible. It was incredible.
I just like I liked growing up in a big family where where I was the youngest.
And I got to watch, see the mistakes, be told
what, what should do and what you shouldn't do from a young age.
Where did you grow up?
Kirkland, Washington.
Okay.
Costco, Bill Gates, Michael Hearn, not in that order.
So, so, so genetically gifted, your whole family, obviously he's got those kind of
those athletic genes. You just talked to your sister your brother or is it powerlifting stranger now you you
People know you as the guy that you know in the magazines you're in some movies and TV kind of bodybuilder, but you competed
In judo and in powerlifting. Tell me about that
Yeah
It was is one of those requirements at the house
That we competed in martial arts.
Fully understand looking back now because you know you got two parents at work and they had to have some kind of discipline in the house so martial arts was kind of a forefront for us.
And yeah I started out with Taekwondo and. And then I hated the point system and I was a wrestler. Um,
and I got lucky enough to meet Mike Swain as, as a young kid. Uh,
Mike was one of our best Olympics judo players and I know my,
I know, I know Mike, I, I did judo at San Jose Buddhist and he would come by
and teach us when I was a kid, the incredible judoka. So you, so did he teach you?
Yeah, no way.
Yeah, that's, that's how it really, he goes, wow, you're 280 pound guy.
You can move your athletic.
Um, I was on gladiators at the time.
Um, you know, a 20 year old kid and he's like, let's, let's go.
So that's, that's the love of it.
Wow.
That's great. So you competed there that's the love of it. Wow. That's great.
So you competed there and then when did you do powerlifting?
Powerlifting started in 83 as well.
I was a young kid.
Um, and that and bodybuilding and martial arts at that young 13 year old age.
I did.
Um, I did my first powerlifting meet at, at 13, 14.
I won it.
Um, did my first bodybuilding show, Teenage Washington,
and I beat 19, 19 year olds.
And I'm just a pup.
And so I was like, I'm in, I'm still in, I love it.
And it was just, it was love.
I loved it.
I love the, you know what it was?
And you said this best, and I wish I could get this quote
but you guys do this better for me it's uh the guy that likes the journey will do better than the man
that wants the destination right and it was one of your sounds I think that's yours yeah it's
right south t-shirt out of yeah he's one that was one of Sal's famous quotes. The man that loves walking will walk further.
Yeah.
Then the man that loves the destination.
And it, the shows were great.
The, the, the magazine, the covers, the, the competitions, the wins were great,
but I loved, I loved the grind.
I loved the daily preparation.
I loved the schedule.
I absolutely love it.
And that's one of the reasons I think it's the main reason I'm still
here today being absolutely not bright enough to figure out how to stop.
So I love it.
How, how old are you now, Mike?
I'm 56.
Holy Toledo.
Hey, now I use, so you are widely regarded whenever somebody talks about
natural, and then there's lots
of controversy, your name always pops up.
Talk about that for a little bit.
Why did you not decide to use performance enhancing substances?
And talk about the role of genetics.
I think people don't quite understand the wide degree of what genetics can do.
I mean, I use the example degree of what genetics can do.
I mean, I use the example of Ronnie Coleman. He was a top 10 Mr. Olympia before he ever took steroids.
Bigger than 99.9% of anybody taking steroids
could possibly get.
Talk about that a little bit.
Why did you decide to never use
or to not use performance enhancing drugs?
And how do you feel about that controversy now?
Because it's still today, your name's brought up,
like oh that guy, he's definitely on something.
He's not telling the truth.
I don't care now on the aspect.
If you want to say I'm a guest out of my mind,
say I'm a guest of my mind.
You want to say I'm gay, say I'm gay.
I don't care.
I'm just at that age, you know what I mean?
It's like it doesn't matter what you guys say.
It's like cool deal, man.
Whatever you want to say.
I would say to the youngsters though,
be intelligent enough to understand this.
If you destroy yourself and if you're doing it incorrectly
for a bodybuilding trophy, and that's the main thing,
it's like, if you're gonna do it when you're in a teens
or in your twenties, you won't be there in your fifties
doing what I do. And that's the understanding of it. And you can, you can say whichever
way you want to go with this, but it's, you got so much potential at that age to not rush
it. And I was blessed enough to be a freaking monster at 15 years old, you know, 280 pounds, um, winning
powerlifting meets, winning bodybuilding shows at that size
at that age to where I was like, what let me and the goal wasn't
not to do it, you know, um, that goal, that, that discussion or,
or the choice to do it changed when I had my talk with Joe Weider.
And that came on later on. I'll tell you the story because it was one of those things that was at
those aha moments. You know, I was 15. I'm like, I'm the size of these guys. I'm as
stronger than these guys. So let me just keep doing what I'm doing right now. And then when that stops,
maybe I'll venture that next step.
Um, but the cool thing was it never stopped.
And it kept getting stronger and stronger and still doing 250
pound tricep extensions today where most people can't do a skull crusher.
Right.
You know, by the time the 35 and 40, so it's, it's one of those aspects of, of do the best you can when you're a youngster and save anything that free ticket for when you're older.
Is my recommendation.
Tell me about the conversation with Weider. What was that like? So I am there at a photo shoot and he pulls me aside and says, hey, we're going to shoot.
There was five of us guys there and four of those guys just got off the Olympia stage.
And he says, we're going to shoot you last because I did something special for you.
I said, okay, that's fine.
I got no issue.
I'm with the Olympia and I got so much respect for anybody that does this.
But at that level, it's just true respect.
And I'm the kid, you know, I'm a 20 year old kid there.
So I'm like, yeah, I'll sit back, wait until my turn to shoot.
So the other guys shoot and they and they leave and Joe comes up to me and brings in
these bales of hay and does this whole big cover of a romance book for me.
That's it up and all this.
And he says, just, just so you know, what you are right now, 99% of the world wants to be that you're going to be on this cover, you're going to be this.
Those guys are incredible for what they do, but only 10% of society wants to look like that.
And I go, so what he says,
keep doing what you're doing.
You don't need to change.
You don't need to be like this or that, just be you.
And you got a career.
And I was like, holy sheesh.
So I can continue to do gladiators and do martial arts
and compete in power lifting and bodybuilding
and all this stuff, which I wanted to do gladiators and do martial arts and compete in powerlifting and bodybuilding and all this stuff, which I wanted to do
and not go any further with any kind of help
to take me to another level.
I said, great, this is great.
And I don't know why this is,
but it's like people think that it's,
health and fitness is all about, or life is all about that muscle.
It's about the legaments.
And so if I, I understood enough that this stuff hurts the legaments and
tendons where if you can just continue to get stronger over a slow period of time,
you can strengthen it.
Um, and you don't get the imbalance of muscle getting extremely strong
fast and your legaments not because it doesn't work that way.
Your legaments are slow moving.
So it was like one of those conversations that he hit me over the head and I said, I'm
good.
I'll just continue this slow path.
Oh, that had to be one of the most pivotal conversations you ever had then. You get the Mr. Olympia trophy or you win something, you win the UFC, you win anything like that.
For everybody else that might have been it. For me to be told by Joe Weider,
what you're doing is perfect. Keep doing that. That was my win.
Wow.
That was better than any trophy I could've ever gotten in my entire life.
And it is a testament to, I mean, at your age,
to be able to lift the weight that you do without,
like, have you had any major injuries?
That's wild.
I mean, I could pull up a video now working out,
you know, inclining, every time you do an incline press,
it's with four plates.
You know what I mean?
Or you're squatting with five.
And you have never hurt yourself.
It's a testament to the strength of your
tendons and ligaments.
And so, what's your training philosophy around that?
Is it challenge yourself, go slow, progress slowly?
Like, what tips do you have for people
that want to be able to continue to perform
as they get older?
Yeah, long term like this. Yeah.
Yeah. That there's side effects of lifting and, and if you choose the path of what side effects you want most,
you're going to set yourself up. Um, and you guys know this,
you guys have been around enough people and athletes and stuff.
I mean your teens and twenties,
you train like an athlete and you push it to that limit.
And then if you retire,
you should probably switch that training slightly
to where you're now not doing so much mileage
as you're doing preventative
and trying to do the best you can,
because it's not guaranteed,
bulletproofing the body the best you can for the long run.
And you run into these people that it's, I want muscle.
I want to be ripped to the bone and then strength or something.
It's, it's the delayed gratification where if you train in my opinion, think
less mileage, more poundage, more volume within it.
I'd rather do my seven sets of five than my hypertrophy training three sets of 15 or 12
or something.
It's like, well, one is going to cause me stress to the whole body, which I prefer and
it will set us up to be stronger in future compared to just the mileage,
the mileage, the mileage with the lighter weights. So for me,
that's it. It seems to work for not just me, but for people I
work with around the world, the bone density, these guys come to
me at 40 and 50. And then within five years, their bone density
is so much better.
And you're like, well, here we go. And then again, it's the mileage, you know, at the end of the day, I know
that I've been training since a pup, but I'll guarantee my rep range.
It's as half as a guy that's been lifted for 20 years.
Do you, do you moderate your intensity with that or are you going like max out?
I, I lift at a 70% range.
Okay.
So you're practicing. I'm writing that 70.
Yeah.
Okay.
I don't do a hundred because you know, a hundred is every once in a while.
Um, you know, we all have the hiccups where sometimes those workouts are at 50%, but
I try to keep it around 70%.
And, and like you said, it's like somebody said the other day,
yeah, you incline 405, that's all you've been doing.
It's like, well, yeah, it's all been doing for 35 years.
It's like, yeah, I'm all right with that.
And I guess that's the true understanding is
I'm glad I didn't do it once in my life. I'm glad I got it. So it's like, I'm glad I didn't do it once in my life.
I'm glad I got it. So it's like, I'm glad I didn't, I've done 500.
The 500 is cool and stuff, but I like the idea that it's four or five for 35 years. It's like, okay, that's me. And my lifestyle is better,
mostly because I have, I'm a late father.
And so I got a little five year old-old that's gonna be throwing me around in 10 years
and I kind of want to tussle with him in 10 years and so that means more to me.
That's actually what I was excited most to talk to you because I know that about you
Mike.
I'm not quite as late of a father as you but I didn't have my son until I was almost 40
and he's five right now getting ready to turn six and
You know, I thought at one point
I don't know if you thought too that maybe you would never have kids
I wasn't sure if I was going to and just has radically shifted my life. I mean just completely
How has that been for you?
I mean a guy that has built his life around what you've done and all the accomplishments how much has
Having a child changed that for you?
You know this as well as I do, man. It changes you tremendously, or it has for me.
It just, I'm a different person.
Absolutely even more motivated to stay a savage.
Started scrapping again a lot because of the fact that I know that I would like to still
be in charge of the house in 10 years.
Not sure I'm in charge now with Mona, but you know, it's one of those things.
And you're right, I didn't want, because I come from a family of 10 there's an incredible selfishness to me where I didn't get that nurturing as a kid and so I kind of go
I'm good. I don't need a kid and then
Mona is is a
Freak
Many gangsters she's uh when we met and we got to talking and stuff, I kind of looked at it and I
go, wait a minute, she could have a child with me and she could raise this kid,
um, by herself without me.
And the reason why I say that's important is because of the fact that life isn't
fair and some things happen and it's like well if
I have a child with this are they both okay and it's like you don't need to ask that with Mona
she'll be fine no matter what and so I said okay I'm gonna have a kid and and she didn't want kids
either so it was just kind of two people that met at the right time that, let's have a kid. And then my son changed my life to, I have more motivation,
I don't miss workouts.
So it's an amazing thing.
And I think for everybody out there,
and I'm a dog guy, and I was like, I don't need kids.
And then you have one and you're like, oh.
It's different.
I get it now, I get it now. is your son showing signs that he's gonna be into the same stuff as you
He's he's five, you know, so it's it's you know, it's just fun right now, but because
He's estimated to be a six nine kid
Yeah to be a 6'9 kid. Is that what they said? Yeah.
And Mona's got seven footers in her family.
Oh wow.
Wow.
We did coordination wise
want to
get him moving and grooving and understand
his body length.
So we did get him into martial arts
jiu jitsu at two years old
and wrestling by four
So it's fun to watch him, but he's he's the kid that goes out there He wrestles with somebody wins or loses and he's still smiling he walks off
So it's it's a fun process right now. That's great. Have you caught yourself as a dad in kind of like a dad moment?
Realizing how much you're enjoying something that you
didn't know that like, I didn't think I'd really love this as much as I love it. Have
you caught yourself that doing something like that?
Every day? Yeah.
How wild. I set myself up pretty good for the life I wanted to live. And so the one
really cool thing is that I get to enjoy a lot of time with him and his events.
And yeah, so it's just like, it's the silliest things. It's just like him catching for the first
time baseball or playing football and just, yeah, all those moments. I kind of, I'm trying to
really live in it because I, you guys are all understand this,
it goes fast.
Yeah, very quick.
And we were just talking about having a kid
and now he's five.
So it's like, wow, this is, it moves.
Talk about the comparison too of,
because I talked to a lot of young men
who were thinking about settling down
or thinking about having a kid.
And I'm really happy
being an older dad because I think about like you, I was selfish growing up and I was aware I was
selfish. I knew I was selfish, grew up in a big family also. We came from hardly anything.
And so a lot of my early 20s and 30s was about myself. And I can only imagine if I brought him in at 25,
how less of a father I would have been as an older father. So when you think about the younger
version of you, can you already compare and contrast things that you would have done
differently? Like, oh shit, if I was 25 and this scenario was going on right now, I probably would
have handled it like this versus the way you handle it now.
I would have been a terrible father.
Me at 25, 30, 35, 40, no go.
I'm so glad being an old father.
And I know that a lot of people, youngsters that haven't lived yet go, well, you blew
it.
You waited too long.
Well, again, life doesn't work that way.
We know 25 year olds that have their kid
and then two weeks later it's a car accident.
None of this is guaranteed.
But I'll say this, being an older father,
I'm so living in it and I'm such a different person.
My 20 year old self would have tanked,
would have tanked this.
And so it's lucky time.
I look back and think of my parents, two parents, both worked, raised 10 kids,
fed us, kept a roof over our house.
I'm like, gosh, you guys are savages.
Mostly in that time and era.
And, uh, I can appreciate so much of what I have now because of what they
set me up to do, but I'm trying to do the very best I can as a father
to set him up for things that will benefit him in a future.
It's just all, it's overlaid.
It's like, you know, we live in America
and I'm like so appreciative to have traveled the world
and realized how lucky we are just living here first off.
And then having a baby mama that's from a communist country that comes
here and goes, you Americans are weak.
It's like, yeah, she's going to raise a strong kid that's going to do well.
And it's going to be a fun time.
And yeah, old fathers, it's an amazing thing.
Yeah.
Looking back, I mean, you've been working out in gyms for a long time, for decades,
so you've got to see gym culture change and shift through the decades.
Explain some of the differences. I mean, I was working out in the 90s as a kid,
you've been in it even longer, and the gym culture has definitely shifted. There's definitely been
some shifts. What are some of the big things you've noticed just in even longer. Yeah. And the gym culture has definitely shifted. There's definitely been some shifts.
What are some of the big things you've noticed, um, just in the culture of the
gym and, and, and the weight room in particular?
The obviously, uh, cell phones change so much and, and social media.
And I think social media has some great aspects to it and, and, uh, some
downside of it, um, but I think it's incredible that we get to communicate
with all these individuals out there now,
compared to I was blessed enough to be around
the greatest power lifters in the world
when I was growing up, not knowing.
I wish people would search out the information
just a little bit.
Cause remember back in our day, or at least my day was,
there's no dumb questions.
Well, that's changed.
It's like, wow.
The level of, sorry to say the ignorance of this,
when you got so much capability right at your hand
to find out
that it's the basic stuff that works and it's the basic stuff that works for a long time.
So that's one thing I miss about the old school mentality that it was basics and basics really
set you up to win with more information. We didn't get smarter. We got a little bit dumber
more information, we didn't get smarter, we got a little bit dumber.
And I noticed that in the gyms when I talked to people
or watched people work out.
It's a painful thing,
because I did come from a time where people
moved with purpose in the gym.
And now it seems like a large percentage just move to move.
They don't move with any kind of purpose.
If I go
through this motion, it will work. And we all know that, well, you can go through a motion and do
nothing except mileage. So I missed that and I missed that intensity in the gym. I don't need
90s golds gym, you know everybody button heads which
was awesome but but I would like some kind of intensity back mostly because
I'm still at Gold's Gym Venice you know I miss I miss that era. Oh you still
going to the same you still go to Gold's in Venice? I still go to Gold's in
Venice. Are they do they let people because I go to I go to a local gym
here and I'm always surprised you know I go in there at 7 a.m. 630 and I'm surprised two or three people will
bring a tripod in there with their phone and film their workouts you know film
exercise and make content and and they're not making money off of it they
don't have like this huge it's not their business so I'm always surprised to see
so many people filming themselves.
Is it like that at Gold's now too?
Do you see a lot of people posting up phones and?
Yeah, it's a nonstop movie set.
Oh, yeah.
Everybody's filming and doing something.
And again, I think it's a beautiful thing.
I think social media in that aspect,
if you wanna share, I think that's great.
It's up to the people out there to watch and go,
okay, this guy's got genetic arms,
so that workout technically won't work for me.
But to understand the breakdown of it.
But yeah, it's a nonstop film production.
And I just, most of the time, I think,
that the kids are, or kids or anybody, and not
kids, everybody's a kid to me, but they're pretty decent about it.
You know, they try to stay out of each other's ways and they do their thing.
And I think it's all right.
Any favorite workout partners from the past?
You've worked out with a lot of people.
Have you worked out with, you probably worked out with most Mr. Olympias since the
90s, I would imagine.
Yeah.
Trained with Dorian, Lee, Frank Zane, Arnold.
All different.
All very different.
I trained, my first training partner was Tom Plaz when I got to LA.
You're kidding me.
Yeah.
So his, now his workouts from what I've read were,
I mean, legendary, right? This guy's, this guy would do, I mean, most training partners would die
working out with the guy. What was that like? It was perfect because again, I came from,
first and foremost, I was a power lifting mindset and coming from a power lifting championships up in Washington down
to California and winning the Californias as well.
I loved that and I loved the intensity and also being a martial artist, it's like I liked
tussling.
And so it was always a tussle.
It was always you do 315 for 50, I'll do it for 51.
You know, you do 500 for 20, I'll do it for 51. You do 500 for 20, I'll do it for 20.
It was that mentality.
And that for me, I freaking loved.
And I loved pushing the body,
especially at that age to that level.
And so, and again, you got this knowledge.
Lifting isn't lifting when you get to a certain level.
Lifting is a mindset and it's a battle.
It's the inner voice.
You know, it's the third round of wrestling.
How much do you have left when the other guy's
beating you and you're freaking tired?
That's the stuff that I love.
And so being introduced to Tom from the get go
in LA was beautiful.
By the way, those numbers are real numbers you threw out. introduced to Tom from the get go in LA was beautiful.
By the way, those numbers are real numbers you threw out. 315 for 50, Platts would do, 500 for 20, Platts would do.
Those are all real numbers.
Did he teach you anything?
He taught me that,
he taught me there was a different level.
I was lucky enough, like my, my teen years, I was training with
Jeff McGruder, Doyle Kennedy, Doug Furness, and Ed Cohen would
fly in and I'm just a young 15, 16 year old kid.
And, and so the level of who I was training with and training
under was such a pinnacle.
And then coming down here and training,
next to Chris and Flex Wheeler
and training with Tom and these people,
it just showed me again, you're on the right track kid.
What you're doing right now is enough.
Just keep putting in the work work and I think I just keep
going back to that just just get up today put in the work move on you're not as great as you thought
you were last year last year's last year whatever titles you won it's over what are you right now
and that was my goal my goal was basically I I didn't want to have to put on a suit and tie for
anybody unless I wanted to put it on you, and I wanted to be able to work for
myself and lift.
So they just kept teaching me that I was on the right track to be around those kinds of
individuals from Arnold Schwarzenegger, you know, to Robbie Robinson is my training partner
now and it's like, wait a minute, I know that I'm an old cat to most society
but Robbie's got 20, 25 years on me,
so I can still do this?
Is he in his 70s?
That's my mindset.
Robbie's in his 70s still lifting, huh?
Late 70s now.
Wow, that's incredible.
So he's still in pretty phenomenal shape.
315 squat on Smith, 315 deadlift?
Yeah. Listen, you don't got 20 year olds doing that. Yeah. That's bad ass. That's remarkable. Hey Mike, how
did you and Stan link up and become friends? Tell me the story about that. Tell me how
you guys met, became buddies. I love Stan. Who's Stan? Stan Efferding. I'm sorry. I'm not putting the name in the face.
So believe it or not, Stan is a Washington boy and I loved his,
he did a nice little F. Michael Hearn video, which I thought was awesome.
Because there was a lot of correlations because our ages, you know, right next to each other and stuff. And we
linked up not knowing this. He came into the gym and I knew who he was and he was doing
a photo shoot and he's over there by himself with the photographer and stuff. And I go
over there and introduce myself, not knowing he hated me.
And and I started cheering on him on for the lifting and stuff like that. And before we knew it, we had him close up to 800 on the deadlift.
And I'm just pumping him up and getting the whole gym to support him and stuff.
And gosh, that was decades ago.
But the point was that we were in competition and I didn't know it because I'd win the
Washington State and then he would compete and then he tried out for gladiators and I
got gladiators.
And so there was a lot of back and forth that I didn't know about.
And so when he showed up, I guess that changed it because I was a fan And and supporting them like that and we've been friends ever since close friends
That's how it kind of it. That's how the whole relationship and I so he
Didn't like you initially. So initially he didn't like you before you guys met
Yeah, what I understand because I didn't know how much of that was played up for social media and you guys just fucking with each
Other and having a good time.
Cause I know you're buddies now, but it sounds like he was competitive with you before he
before he ever even met you.
He was, he was in a sense.
And I was a fan.
And so yeah, so when we did meet and I was supporting him on that, he kind of went and
messaged me later and he goes,
man, my bad, you're a great guy.
So it's been a cool, fun relationship.
And I like the aspect that the majority of people
don't realize it's a friendship.
And us old school guys like to bust each other's balls
and stuff like that.
So people don't get the whole F Michael Hearn thing.
That's awesome.
So, I mean, it's, it's funny because, you know, you've been doing this for a while, Mike, and
now you're, you're kind of a picture of
longevity, whereas in the past it was strength
and muscle aesthetics.
And now it's like Michael Hearn, longevity, no
major injuries, still training hard.
Talk about diet with us.
What does that look like for you?
Were you ever into the huge amount of calories,
gotta eat 500 grams of protein,
was that ever a thing for you?
What does it look like for you now?
Has it changed now that you've gotten older
and been doing this for a while?
No.
The first thing I do with weightlifting and nutrition and with any of this is I don't believe I can speak on it unless I do it. And the one thing is that I, I'm lucky enough
to be such a big guy that I have no issue if I want to lose 10 pounds of muscle, I can
get that back on. You guys know memory muscle and all that. So I have tried every type of nutrition.
I've tried fasting.
I've tried keto.
I've tried, which, you know, all these aspects.
And I try to learn from it and understand what it does for me,
which is great because then I can speak about it.
But yeah, in my young days, and this is what we will do and we have been doing with Titan
is that when you're a youngster, put that size on.
When you're in your teens, when you're twenties, I don't want you fasting.
I don't want you on the low carbohydrates.
I would like you to have some fats and some carbs.
Get that size that you can retain that muscle throughout your life.
So that's one of the biggest things. And then for me at this stage, I'll still go in the off season
and take in that 320 grams of protein
and try to get my carbohydrates up there.
And I always say that it is me trying to fix my metabolism.
Because you guys know this is people
think when you're doing a bodybuilding show,
oh my god, you look amazing. Your body's functioning perfect. Yeah, right. is people think when you're doing a bodybuilding show,
oh my God, you look amazing.
Your body's functioning perfect.
Yeah, right.
Well, it's not.
You're doing two hours of cardio, you're in a deficit,
you're starving yourself, you're training like a madman.
And so you're overworking your body
and not feeding it enough.
So you can get sliced and look like a million dollars.
But afterwards, you gotta fix that.
Again, you've gotta try to teach it to go,
well, some amount of carbohydrates is necessary.
I'd like to think and I'd like to be able to move
and have energy.
So there's those moments that I still go back to that.
So we did this movie that comes out next week.
And when I got the call and booked the movie and got the audition
and everything, I had very limited time to be ready for this movie. And it wasn't just
the character I was playing, but it was the physique. It was everything because I played
the champion in this movie. So it's a it's a 55 year old guy playing a 35 year old guy.
And so I had to force and change my nutrition dramatically.
And like you guys know, can you get in shape in six weeks?
Well, sure you can if you're motivated enough.
And so I did go into the fasting one day,
high protein the next day, fasting again,
just so I could be completely sliced in six weeks.
So that's how I play with nutrition.
I play with it going, there's times I need to be ready
and look a certain way, and then there's times
I need to fix my body, and I still believe
in fixing my body at this stage.
So they wanted you to really get lean for that
and kind of bring your size down for the movie.
Was this one of the biggest roles, Mike, you've Yeah this one's this one's gonna get some not for
me but it's gonna get some Oscar buzz for the movie itself and for the main
actor Jonathan Majors. Comes out next Friday called magazine dreams and it's
gonna be it's gonna be incredible. I'm excited. I'm excited about this and this one was probably one of my biggest
to date
So we're still doing it though and we start another movie April 1st
Where I play a champion boxer
So we're having fun. I'll say that when When did you think that? When did you first get into get on screen?
Because you did magazines first.
When did it move into TV and movie?
What was that like for you?
Probably gladiators.
So let's go back to let's go back to your quote.
It's the guy that likes walking, right?
So powerlifting athletics athletics, bodybuilding
was fun for me and easy for me.
I was already, you know, teenage nationals in 87,
Mr. Universe by 20.
What hasn't been easy, and I stayed in it,
is 1990 I booked with Bruce Willis,
Goldie Hahn, Meryl Streep, Death Becomes Her.
And then weeks later I also did, you know,
started American Gladiators.
I've never not acted.
Hold on, you were in Death Becomes Her?
I don't know, I'm trying to remember what part you're in.
I've seen that, I remember you from Workaholics.
I'm one of the buff guys.
There's six of us.
Oh wow, okay.
Yeah.
So, and I think this, hopefully this helps
the people out there.
No matter the time it took,
I never not went out for auditions.
I never stopped classes.
I never stopped trying to act.
It just didn't happen for me quickly,
except for like, you know, gladiators and battle dumb.
And that's just cause I had to kick everybody asses.
So, you know, that was fun, but the projects are slow and slow.
And, and only in the last couple of years with divinity, with Steven Soderberg,
um, with this and these other projects, it's taken a long, long time,
but I never gave up.
Talk, talk about gladiator.
What was that like getting on that show?
It had to be so cool.
How real is it?
Is there any scripting?
Because you know, sometimes reality TV,
it's scripted or whatever.
So what was that process like?
The original Gladiators was awesome.
The original.
I was on the original.
And first of all, just watching those guys in front of me learning
and then yeah, it was full on you're going ballistic because it's a game show.
You can't pull back on one guy and go harder on another guy.
That's kind of the contracts they have with game shows.
There's no cheating.
And so that was incredible.
And again, it was one of those learning moments as well because you sit there and you beat
these people and there's only five of us guys and you have to understand if you're injured,
you're off the show.
They don't need to baby you. They don't need to cuddle you and go,
hey, well, maybe take the weekend and come back on Monday.
We have a show to run here.
If you get injured, you're off the show, goodbye.
We'll get the next guy.
And again, I appreciate that kind of growing up
and mentality and I can accept it.
And that's the one thing I saw with the two TV shows
they did.
I did a documentary, 30 for 30 on gladiators.
And there was another one done as well.
And I liked the aspect that you got to put in the work,
you got to stay as healthy as you possibly can.
And it's you and the responsibility of yourself,
but you're replaceable.
You know, and I know that's a harsh reality,
but we're all replaceable.
That's the one thing they say,
you pass and the world continues without you.
So that was the one great thing I learned as a young kid.
And again, I kept that mentality through this whole thing.
How many champion bodybuilders do we know that win shows
and they're irrelevant after that because they didn't continue to do the basic work?
Well, I want to show I should be famous. I should be on the cover of the magazine.
Well, there's a lot of guys who want to be on the covers of the magazines. Does that make sense to
you guys? Yeah. So when you get on Gladiator and you and, and you're, you're again, there's no act, there's no script on that, right? You're actually trying to win.
They're trying to beat you. Yeah. Uh, what was that?
What was that competition like?
The original one was great. It was absolute.
They got some great fricking athletes against us.
And then I went on to another show after that with Terry Cruz.
And it was his first acting gig,
a TV show called Battle Dome, which took Gladiators
and we stepped it up even another notch.
And so that one was even more violent
and it was perfect too, because I was, you know,
at this stage, I'm a 30 year old kid, you know,
and it was just like, the only thing bad about Gladiators
or battle dome or any of these shows is you got to wear spandex.
But besides that, you get to get up and go fight six guys in a day and get paid
crazy money for it.
And you got to do these games that, you know, nobody gets to do.
So it was tremendous.
It was, it was crazy.
And then it was also just great that when we came back again
on the new American Gladiators, you know, that was NBC and that took my, again, my name and out there
and put me up another notch, mostly being coming back and being the team captain for American
Gladiators. So it was, yeah, it's just fun. Just all that stuff is fun. Like you guys were saying earlier,
it's like TV shows like Workaholics
or Sunny in Philadelphia.
Being on these shows with Danny DeVito,
somebody I grew up with,
and just these guys are,
again, you realize why these people are still working today.
At one point they were good,
at another point to continue that career,
it's character, just good people.
Yeah.
I got asked, what was your favorite event
in the Gladiators?
Because there was a lot of really cool games you guys did.
Yeah, Jouse was always nice because it was just me.
Yeah.
There on the pedestal.
I knew you were gonna say that.
With somebody else.
I remember, yeah, I remember that.
That was awesome.
But, uh, and you're blasting each other.
I mean, those, you're, you're knocking the shit out of each other with those.
I'm psyching them out before the fight starts.
I'm setting up left and South paw and they're like, wait a minute.
What?
Wait, hold.
What's up?
And then, you know, the, the ref is starting to count it down.
I go, you ready?
You ready?
You lose, man.
It's, he just play with their eyes and stuff.
So it was a blast.
And yeah, the joust was just tremendous.
But powerball, you're just taking guys' heads off.
Is that what the tennis ball you're shooting them with?
No, no, no.
That's the one where they put the balls in the little.
I didn't get to do that one.
I did the athletic ones.
Powerball was the little ball in the holes.
Yeah, and they basically had it like football.
You gotta tackle it.
You gotta tackle them from doing it,
and they gotta put it in the little holes.
That's right, that was a cool one.
That one probably requires the most athleticism,
I would think, just because it's like.
You gotta tackle them.
And highest rate of injury on that one, I would say.
Yeah, a lot of blown knees on that.
Mike, talk a little bit about the business side for you.
You've done so many things that's generated revenue for you.
What has been the most consistent thing for you business-wise, cash flow-wise, over all
these years?
Wow.
Yeah, it's the stuff I did with outside the health and fitness world.
Oh, interesting.
Yeah, I come from a family that respects money and I put my money away,
but got involved in real estate and commercial real estate young.
And so I started buying up apartment complexes as a young,
young pup and continued to do that throughout the decades.
How old were you when you bought your first complex?
28.
Wow, good for you.
Wow.
Yeah.
So it's one of those things that it's the outside.
Take this finance and put it somewhere to where I can build a foundation to where I
didn't need to worry about it, um, about the health and fitness.
Cause that was one of the things is like, you can't make a living from health and fitness.
Well, you can if you're smart, you know, um, it's not the shows that win it. It's, it's the,
what you do with yourself and your personality and your, and, and your image.
I love that. Did you have, is with somebody in your family already into commercial real estate or how did you educate your, nobody?
You taught yourself self-taught or what?
Not self-taught. Being around people when I got to LA, and one thing I did know, I knew early on that that was one of Arnold's biggest things he did in the 70s and Arnold was already beyond set before 75 and 80 Mr. Olympias and it was
because of that and you know when I when I got to California I could see that the people
that were winning were doing that and so it's just again I when I first got to LA even though
I got American Gladiators, I still personal
trained. I still put myself around these businessmen and then I listened, listened, listened,
asked questions and then put the stuff away. What's the best cash flowing property that you have?
Is it the very first one you did or did you find other ones that end up doing better? Do you know
the best one off the top of your head? Yeah, I got a couple of places in Sherman Oaks
that have stayed consistent and taken care of themselves.
Are they single family or are those multi-unit?
Yeah.
Multi-unit?
We're actually up to levels of where
some of Mona's places are 250 to 500 units.
Wow. Wow.
This is such an important conversation I feel like because there,
there is this thought a lot of times that these guys that get famous on covers
of magazines and this like the money just pours in from there and that's,
they make so much. And you know, being around that myself, it's like, boy,
it's,
you don't get a lot of money for a lot of these gigs
that you do, and so being smart with your money
and investing it to where you can.
I mean, it sounds like you get to take,
it doesn't matter if you get paid a lot of money enough for it,
you get to do it because you love it,
because you've been smart by investing
for a really long time.
Yeah, I think that's a great point,
but I think when we do this, we're health and fitness, what has allowed me to stay
on the slow path, I guess I call it,
is the understanding that,
and I think you guys have probably said this a hundred times,
if you're doing it for money,
and I never did health and fitness for money,
and I didn't do it for fame, I did it because I loved it.
And so I figured out a way how to make finance from it and then put that
finance somewhere else to where I can continue to get up and train and for us to sit down and chat
like this and you know, as we're sleeping, we're making money kind of aspect of this.
And you're right, health and fitness, if you sit back and how many guys have we seen sit back and go, I won this.
I deserve this.
I win this.
I deserve this.
And it's like, well, it doesn't work that way.
And it's not up to you to make it work that way.
It may work that way for some people, but it's not by choice.
It's by, you know, the people outside of you.
And again, for everybody that's on social media,
it's like, I'm gonna be famous on social media.
Again, no, you're not.
It's not up to you.
All you can do is go out there, film your workouts,
do whatever it is, start a podcast, whatever that is.
But it's about society going, we like these guys.
We're gonna tune into these guys. We're going to tune into these guys.
We're going to make these guys huge.
That's not you guys doing it.
You guys are just doing something you love.
It's society that makes you guys famous.
It's true.
Mm-hmm.
Tell us.
So true.
How did you meet your wife, Mike?
She stalked me.
Right.
So she ran Muscle and Fitness Hers backstory.
She comes from Romania during the Civil War, gets out of there, gets herself to New York,
makes herself a successful businesswoman, owns a high-end steakhouse out there for 17
years, becomes the editor-in-chief of Muscle and Fitness, hers.
And then she was running the magazine and stuff and she knew of me and somehow we
were around each other a couple times and it just it clicked and that's how we, the short version of how we met. But if you want a true success story, she's unreal.
What she had to go through as a young kid,
growing up by herself, raising her brother and sister
at such a young age of 14, 13, 14, 15,
and then getting herself to America
and then doing what everybody should
do in America is make yourself a success because it's an incredible place.
You know, why we're on the subject of building wealth, partnership and stuff.
You know, I've noticed this pattern as I've gotten older.
A lot of the men that I've met that are extremely wealthy many times became that way after they met their
partner. And I know personally, I was successful before I met Katrina, but I'm exponentially more
successful since I've met her. And I definitely attribute a lot of that to our relationship.
I couldn't do it. I couldn't be who I am without her. How much did she impact you that way?
We've been together now 10 years and obviously my career was already set and finance and everything.
She's made life tenfold better. Better because of teaching me because I come from a family of 10
and you're a little
argumentative or something
if things don't go your way and stuff.
And then I learned way later,
not until her,
the points of she doesn't argue.
Such a weird thing.
And it's like, wait a minute,
I'm a Catholic kid from 10.
You not only argue,
you get a little fist fight with your bro and stuff.
She's like, nah, you don't, no, life's too good, man.
Life's too good.
You don't do that.
Yeah, you figure out the issue, what the problem is,
and then you solve it.
No point to do this next step.
And I was like, wow.
So she taught me a lot and I enjoy life
much better at this stage. That's awesome. Let me ask you this, Mike. Does working out get better
as you get older or does it get worse? We have a lot of people that listen to us who ask us about
fitness as they age and the worry about it.
Can I do this at my age or whatever?
What's it like now at your age versus when you were younger?
Is it different?
Is it better?
Yeah, it's more of my meditation.
It's such a different level of understanding of weightlifting. And I'm like, well, darn it.
I wish I knew all this when I was 20.
You know, it's like, holy sheesh, what I could have became.
And, but it's one of those things where I would say,
you're more of a bad ass at this stage.
And so the weightlifting is a necessity that you have to have. And life teaches
you to be tougher and stronger and understand that some things you have to do this is my point of view
of weightlifting for every guy out there and women and even more so the women because of the bone
density. But you have to do it. You got to stay moving. You got to stay mobile.
You got to have that range of motion.
The amount of weight is not as important
as how you're doing something
and the range of motion you're doing something
and have the purpose of it.
And you just got to stay consistent on it.
You don't, I don't need, I don't need the guy
that goes to the gym at a hundred percent.
And that was me as a 20 year old. If I can go back, I don't need, I don't need the guy that goes to the gym at a hundred percent. And that was me as a 20 year old.
If I can go back, I'd say chill, just go to 70, go to 70.
You're good right there.
There's a, there's a level of, um, controlled rage that gets you to a level that most can't
where you guys know that guy that's at a hundred, he's not gonna be there forever.
He's there for a couple of years and then he's done.
But the guy that's just a little bit more.
So those are the things I think.
And I think for anybody that's watching this,
no matter what age you're at, start.
I don't care if you're 50 and you start,
but start, start getting that movement going,
start getting the best range of motion you can.
Have some purpose in the movement.
And then, and then from there, stress the body with the amount of weight that you use.
Let me comment on the range of motion thing.
I noticed that with your training, you always use a very full range of motion,
a very controlled full range of motion.
We're often, you see big strong guys kind of using the shorter range of motion.
They'll cut, yeah.
Is that always been a focus of yours?
And how have you been able to maintain it
just through practice?
You maintain it by doing it.
That's the first thing.
The things that confuse me now are what a lot of
those experts say out there.
They're like, nah, just come down to portions, just come
down to this. And it's like, well, you're not doing a portion when you're putting the
peanut butter up on the top shelf. You're not doing the, it's, it's, it's such a, a
big thing to me, but a minor amount to everybody else. Keep the tension on the muscle. Well,
it's not the muscle I need to worry about. It's the
scar tissue, the bone spurs, the
arthritis that at some stage most likely all of us will have and it's like I need that full range to
force the blood into those movements and yeah, I
got more extreme on the range of motion as I got up because when I'm 20,'s like, okay, I want a power lift. I want to get this dead lift.
I want to get the most possible.
So let me just shorten the range of motion.
And at this day, just like, now I'll put myself up on blocks.
I'll try to get those hips down so low
and I'll try to really utilize the glute hip.
So it's those kinds of things that has kept me healthy.
And it's like, I'm not just doing, you know, 250 pound tricep extensions.
I'm trying to do a full range of tricep extensions with that range.
Now I know that's ridiculous numbers and you, nobody needs to do that.
Um, and if you can tell me how to stop, I'll stop, but it's,
I love the full range of motion and setting these things up in those ways
to where the incline presses even harder because I put a block behind there.
Because then my shoulders are rotated around the block more.
That means I can move it more.
And I noticed this stuff too tremendously when I go roll or I'm wrestling or I'm rolling
and I can just feel, okay, this range, you know, he's got me here.
And that arm isn't strong enough to pull back in a situation to where I don't get
locked up or anything like that.
And I just absolutely love that.
And so again, the reason I think I talk about health and fitness so much now,
still, when this isn't necessarily what I have to do is because I wish more people
would be able to live like this, like the Robbie Robinsons and be able to enjoy 80 years
of being able to walk into the gym like a stallion like he is and others.
And it's like continue to live that life and have these kids, you know, we got a couple of five year olds
and be able to tussle with them in 10 years.
Yeah.
That's awesome.
Mike, when was the last time,
can you recall somebody dropped wisdom on you
or gave you something of great value
in regards to training, overall health,
your fitness journey that unlocks something for you?
Can you recall the last time?
Frank Zane doing pullovers.
Yeah, just a little while ago.
Frank's a friend.
And again, being friends with these people is just unreal.
Cause I'm still that 14 year old kid
walking into the powerlifting gym
and I can still smell the baby powder and stuff.
It's like, wow.
So I'm with Frank and I'm listening
and seeing somebody at his age
still be that freaking alpha.
Cause you think of Frank and you think,
well, he's the professor, you know, very kind and stuff.
Well, yeah, there's some kindness to him,
but he'll still go.
He'll talk some smack.
He'll talk about out squatting Arnold.
He'll talk about this stuff.
And he was talking about pullovers.
I believe in pullovers.
I believe in behind the neck press for me.
I believe in that range of motion.
I believe in if you don't want to do behind the neck press, but can you move?
Can you put a stick behind your shoulders or neck or anything like that?
Or did you just completely stop and you stay in the safe zone?
And that's it.
That's all you're gonna do.
This is as far as I'm gonna move.
And Frank, he was doing pullovers
and then he was teaching me how to do pullovers.
And I go, well, a lot of people are gonna say
this is gonna hurt you.
And he's, it was just improv.
It was, they may get hurt, I won't.
And I loved that because again
You're you're around so you can't talk about something you can't say that you're smart about something if you haven't been a success in it
So you got these health and fitness people out there going? Hey, this is how you should do it, dude
You're 150 pounds overweight shut up
Right, but you got Frank Zane. That's not only healthy now, he's done this journey.
And so I love listening to that.
And so that was one of those moments again,
where you're around these kind of people,
if you just listen and you don't even have to ask,
you just listen to them talk and you're just like,
there's a nugget, that's a good one.
You know, and being around Arnold and how he is,
it's like, I keep going back to
die as young as late as possible.
That's what this is, but we're still kids at heart,
you know, I can imagine as a father,
you see your five-year-old do something,
you're like, oh, I want to, you know, get down there with him and do something. And so,
I think the knowledge is there with all these kind of people. Put yourself around,
put yourself around those kind of people. That's, I think that's one thing I didn't realize I was
doing from the start of this journey, is that I was putting myself around these guys that
were the greatest in the world at all different levels from real estate to power lifting to
bodybuilding to all this aspect.
I was just with Jaco, the Navy this weekend, and we're talking about being parents and how he had his kids do
BJJ and how I'm doing it and stuff and it's like
This is pretty cool man to be able to have these kind of discussions with those kind of people
How long you been doing jujitsu?
About a year I picked it back up
I picked back up when I realized I'm going to get my ass kicked in
another five, 10 years. So I better get back into the whole tussling and stuff. Because I took a
break from martial arts after this last Gladiators. And when you take a break, a week turns into a
year that turns into a couple of years and you're like, Holy Snikes, man, I haven't tussled in a bit.
And so we got back into it.
Did you, uh, when you went back in, of course, you're a big guy, well known.
Did you, did you get humbled?
Was anybody like, all right, let me show you some stuff.
Or what was that experience like for you?
Cause jujitsu is a tough sport.
You know what?
Again, um, all my friends are like Josh Barnett and Rampage and all these kind of guys.
Oh, you're kidding me.
And I'm intelligent enough to understand it. I walk in there and it's like, oh, you're dessert.
I want a piece of that. And I got to a good school and Alessio Silva is my master.
Silva is my master.
And so I got some great monsters around me,
great monsters around me that are understand.
Like you guys said, it's like you walk into a couple of places like
I work with the Machado's and those guys. It's like I'm around pretty level headed guys.
And that that trust me, I give props to knowing that they can wrap me up and lock me out.
But I haven't, I, I know in time, when I start doing tournaments again, I'll run into those,
Oh, I get a PCU.
Have you rolled?
I can see.
Have you rolled with Barnett?
Cause he's a big dude and he's, he's a man.
He puts the pain on, on people.
Yeah, we've been, he's a Washington state kid too. So we kind of grew up together and stuff and, um,
dear friend and yeah, he's a, it's great. He's a monster, but yeah, I, I get to, which is fun for me
is that I get to go over and team up with these kinds of individuals. I get to go over and, and
Paulo Costa is a good friend and roll with him and spar with him. I got to go roll and team up with these kind of individuals. I get to go over and, and, and Paulo Costa is a good friend and roll with him and spar
with him.
I got to go roll with Josh Barnett.
And also on top of it, I get to have my kid do that.
And I'm sitting there thinking back to when I started at nine, 10 years old, it's like,
well, this is great, but wow, what can, how can I set him up if he decides to do anything?
athletically
With these kind of people and have him with the smart
Intelligent people and it goes back to that whole you know your guys's point of view on social media as well as mine is like
There's some great information out there. There's some good people out there in all aspects of life
But you got to be intelligent enough to choose the right ones.
Yeah.
That's awesome.
You know what I like seeing a lot, Mike,
because you've been around for so long
and you're so recognizable,
that you're used a lot in memes now,
and where there's like this one,
you know what I'm talking about,
where there's a one where you're kind of looking
at the camera, and people will say all the time.
I have no idea what you're talking about.
Yeah, you do.
It's, I see it, it cracks me up every single time.
Do you, when you see yourself used like that on social media,
just for all of, like, how do you feel about that?
It's again, it's society.
I think it's hilarious.
And, and, you know, this started, and like my team said,
my team's young.
The team I have around me is very young and they're in hip
and into that stuff.
And this thing started a couple of years ago and they go, well,
these viral things are around for about a week and then you're done.
And this thing's still two years later, still going.
If you guys see it over there, the ones where he's looking at the camera.
I'm like, yeah, that's hilarious.
It kills me.
But they, they have fun with it.
And this thing went in, and this is a great thing.
They have fun with it and this thing went in and this is a great thing this thing went so
ballistic that a
great writer in the UK
Got funded and everything and we're gonna be going over to film in June a
a movie And to where I'm the meme guy and this whole thing plays out
No, I was like, wait a minute, hold on, wait a minute, what?
So yeah, it's a pretty cool concept,
but yeah, the memes are great, they're fun.
Again, this wasn't up to me,
but I'm fine with them using me as the giga.
Any business projects that you've done, Mike,
and you did it one time and you go,
I'll never fucking do that again, I'm over that. Like, you've got to have done some things that you went into maybe
excited about or thought you'd like and then you did it and you're like, fuck that. I'm never doing
that again. Oh, that's a great one. I think that's, I've worked with people. And again,
this is another one of those things where Mona teaches me that the finance, the
finance shouldn't out ride the energy.
I know that sounds lame and stuff or whatever, but it's like if you don't get along with
somebody or there's just something up, even though the money's good, probably step away
from it.
And so I've dealt with things where I
thought they were great. I did a thing called the frog where it was a machine.
Oh, I remember that.
Push out. So if you ever do it, not look at it, but if you ever do it, you are going to
get destroyed. It's unreal. And it's just the core strength and your body strength and everything
about it is just, wow, that's a second level.
But again, unless you do it, you look at it and you go, that's a cheap thing.
That's bullshit.
That's not, and it's like, well, the owner was out of his mind and the machine
was too much for the average person to look at.
And so, you know, there's the hiccup again.
It's like the machine was great if it was kind of promoted
in a different way or something, but yeah, it's the person.
It really is.
And I think, you know, the older I get, it's like,
I just want to be around those people that are fun.
And somehow you'll figure out the money
and you'll figure out everything else.
But if you're having fun with this stuff, yeah, it's.
You're golden.
You get in the supplement, uh, business you ever, you create and sell supplements.
So how do you feel about that?
Um, we did this.
Um, I did it with a buddy of mine, Whitney Reed, um, and what was great
because we did it during, and I've done it throughout my my my life a few times
But it's it's one of those things, you know the attorney and somebody pocketed all the money and so I did something with Whitney
Reid which within a year during lockdown we were in Walmart and everything we killed it we killed it
But I know the company itself had a hardship.
The main company had a hardship and so they had to cease.
And that's always a good thing.
I think here's the one thing about food and supplements for me.
I think basic stuff done day in and day out is better than the,
oh, this is the greatest thing in the world
and you can't financially pay for it or buy it,
but if you do this, you're golden.
I don't think there's a trick.
I think protein drinks are great.
I think they're really great if you're flying somewhere
or you're going somewhere and you're in a rush.
And I don't think they need to be so crazy high-end to
where it's like well this protein drink is tenfold better than the next one
because of this this and this it's like well you give me some protein I'm golden
we're good awesome Mike it's good time talking to Mike we got to get you in the
studio I'm coming up is the coming up, bringing baby mama is a little
one is the movie in theaters or streaming. Where's it going to be fat? Where's it be
at? So magazine dreams comes out next Friday and it will be in theaters worldwide. Okay,
cool. Awesome. Awesome writing. You guys, you'll hear about this. You can watch Con Man is on Amazon. I played Mr. Green, a hit man.
Divinity where me and Stephen Dwarf figured out the code for longevity. Odd, right? And
what else we got? We got a couple documentaries that are out right now 30 for 30 gladiators
Yeah, so we got some stuff that's moving and grooving. Yeah busy man. Thank you Mike. Yeah. Yeah great time, man
I really enjoyed visiting you guys down there and I'm glad you finally came on the show. Can't wait to see you up here, man
Yep
Thanks for doing this guys. I appreciate you guys a time. You got a brother. God bless man
Say hi to your wife for me
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