Mind Pump: Raw Fitness Truth - 715: Mind Pump Goes Deep with Ben Pakulski

Starting point is 00:00:00 If you want to pump your body and expand your mind, there's only one place to go. Mite, op, mite, op with your hosts. Salda Stefano, Adam Schaefer, and Justin Andrews. It's always a good time when we sit down and have a conversation with the Pac-Man. Ooh, Pac-Man. Ben Pac. I like that nickname. Isn't that the nickname I'm with?

Starting point is 00:00:24 I didn't think that's manny? I think that's a packy. All right. Little time given it to a little bit of a different episode though with someone someone like Ben. So we we went pretty deep. We got into a lot of deep conversations that had nothing to do with building muscle I think. No, we

Starting point is 00:00:40 talked about business. We talked about personal growth. I mean, he's a very intelligent human being. It's a lot of fun talking to them. And you want to talk about somebody who completely shatters the stereotype of a bodybuilder. It's him, you know, and you sit down with him. He's one of the smartest people you'll have a conversation with. Great conversation.

Starting point is 00:00:59 We got really deep. In fact, we did, we recorded something like two and a half hours, maybe almost podcasts. And we, you know, the first half or so is the one you're going to hear right here with us. And it's us asking him a lot of questions. And the second half is he digs in pretty deep with us. I think he probably dug in deeper than a lot of people who've interviewed us. And that'll be on his podcast. Right. Right. But yeah, great interview,. I had a great time with with Ben Pekolsky always shows us great hospitality when we come down to visit him in Tampa. We got a chance to work out in his gym. 100% when you think about all the people that we interview, I mean, Ben's probably one of the guys that I probably stay in the most

Starting point is 00:01:37 contact with for sure, just because he's just a good dude, you know, all around. He's not just a smart fitness guy, great place to go for knowledge like that. I mean, that's how I found him when I was competing because I was searching for somebody at the pro level that was putting out really solid information. So he's been putting out solid information for quite some time. And then to now see him transition out of bodybuilding into what he is now. And you know, you kind of hear him really trying to figure that out right now, you know, he's not sure if he wants to do some obstacle course race or some marathon or something. It's great to see, you know, bodybuilders like him come, you know,

Starting point is 00:02:13 through and kind of break the mold and the stereotype that kind of comes with the, you know, the way you normally expect a big bodybuilder like that to talk about. So this was totally different. Oh, he's part responsible for the movement that we have predicted a long time ago and said that, there's gonna come a day real soon here when bodybuilders are doing all the meditation, the float tanks, and that's gonna become like a norm. I mean, when you talk about those of the most elite athletes when it comes to competing for your physique, right?

Starting point is 00:02:42 You're gonna see these guys start biohacking more and using these tools, I think, to calm stress down. Oh, I had, when we were talking about the autonomic nervous system and how he believes it plays a major role, or at least managing it, plays a major role in your ability to build muscle, burn body fat and assimilate food, which I hadn't even thought of,

Starting point is 00:03:05 when you eat food, how being able to put yourself in a sympathetic state is quite important for assimilation, and he talked about how body builders are at least successful ones, in part are successful because they're able to get big on less food because they assimilate more of it, or they're able to absorb more of it and this may be part of it. So this is some really good interesting conversation.

Starting point is 00:03:29 Yeah, this is a nugget bombs in there for sure. I'll tell you what, there's a part two towards, I think it's around the middle, middle the end when we start digging in on some pretty personal stuff and you hear me kind of call them out because I can tell we're asking some really tough questions for him to process right now And you guys got deep. Yeah, and I was I was sitting back and kind of really listening to the conversation It was just kind of funny because he kind of pulled me back in you know to the conversation But I was really into where we were going. I think that was him trying to bail himself out Yeah, I think I think he was like these motherfuckers are going in on my personal shit.

Starting point is 00:04:06 And I didn't know how much you wanted to divulge that and onto our audience. So, you know, we'll see, I know our form always loves to pick up on all those little subtleties about the interview. You'll hear that later on. Yeah. So we, again, we had a great time with him. So you're going to hear us talking to Ben Pekolsky

Starting point is 00:04:23 in this episode. And also, I'd like to say something about some of our programs. Now, if you're new to MindPump, you may not be familiar that we've created several fitness programs under the acronym Maps, which stands for Muscular Adaptation Programming System. They're extremely effective at whatever goal they're designed for. So if your goal is maximum strength and muscle, well, then Maps at a ball, because your program, So if your goal is maximum strength and muscle, well then Maths at a ball, like as your program, if you're more into the aesthetic

Starting point is 00:04:49 and you wanna sculpt and shape your body, maybe you're a physique competitor or a bikini competitor or you just wanna look like one, we have Maths aesthetic. Or if you're a functional based trainer, or an athlete, we have Math Performance. And then for those of you that are really serious, we have bundles where we put them together,

Starting point is 00:05:05 several of these programs together because there are more. In a way where you have, for example, our map Superb bundle gives you one year of exercise programming. In other words, you enroll and you have Weekend, Weekout, New Workouts, Sets, Reps, Tempos, and Goals. Set up for you with demo videos for an entire year. So if you want more information on that, just go to mindpumpmedia.com. And without any further ado, here's Mind Pump Talking to the Good Awesome Smart,

Starting point is 00:05:33 Ben Pekolsky. I wanna get into something that we are talking with Ben outside that I think is a really cool topic. And that's just like when you're, when you made that decision that you're gonna go build your own business, just because I know Sal Justin and I, we have a lot of experience with training trainers and developing

Starting point is 00:05:51 other fitness leaders. And then it was inevitable. They, most of the time they're gonna be with you for three to five years at most. And then they go off to do their own thing. And some of them do great things. Many of them though, most of them don't. Right, most of them fail. And they don't, yeah, no, when you're being a hundred percent,

Starting point is 00:06:08 and we talked very real about this on our show, we just had a question somebody was asking about starting their own gym. And it just seems like every trainer aspires to do that at one time once they learn their craft, but have no, yeah, they don't, they don't succeed. So what, what, what have you experienced with yourself personally? Because you built your name up through bodybuilding. You had a huge name and you did it and you talk about some of the challenges you had. So my gym was built a very, with a very different model in mind. I'd never built it to, to be a financial model. I built it to have a playground for myself and to have some people come in for

Starting point is 00:06:38 camps. So I was basically just leveraging my platform and the intention was I'm going to bring, bring in a couple of trainers to assist me and grow it from there. And I'm a strange human being, or at least I say, I feel that way now, that I do everything from an altruistic perspective. Now I do everything and I think everybody's like me, right? I think everybody's trying to help everyone else. And then as you get into the world, you realize that people don't give a shit about anyone

Starting point is 00:07:00 except for themselves, not everybody, but obviously this seems to be a very common theme. So, yeah, man, you're just, I'm running into this in business and as you grow it, it's very hard to keep great people. You know, because not everyone's like you, and I think this is the greatest learning experience for me, not placing higher expectations on employees than simply being an employee. What are you learning about yourself in that process? Because that's it. I'm sure it's a girl. Yeah, you made a, you said you said you do things from an altruistic perspective. Like, what is that doing for you or what, you know, where did that come from?

Starting point is 00:07:36 Good question, man. I love you digging in their cell. So man, I talk about this often. So when I interviewed, you know, last I've interviewed a few times lately, and it's digging into my childhood, right? As I felt very unloved as a child, man, I felt like I didn't have anyone around me. So I literally stuck two middle fingers up to the world and I said I can do it myself. And I internalized everything.

Starting point is 00:07:56 So, you know, my mom, I was off to her thing, my dad was off to this thing. I lived at home with my grandparents who were much older and non-related. So I just became a very independent person. Because I didn't feel loved, I feel like I have to turn around and love everybody 10x. Then, yeah, because I know what it's like to be alone. I know what it's like to be unloved. So my give back to the world now is like, hey man, I just, I want to give everybody, I

Starting point is 00:08:21 want to help everybody overcome their fear. I want to help everybody overcome their fear. I want to help everybody overcome their internal demons because much other than shit, I struggled. Man, I had some demons deep. So now that I've been able to at least start to unravel the layers of the onion, I feel like there's lessons there that can be transcended to many people.

Starting point is 00:08:42 And I don't claim to be able to help everybody. But if, and I don't ever try even to frame it from a perspective of help, I frame from a perspective of, here's a perspective, here's a question that may help you ponder the path, pondering overcoming these demons that you're living. So this reminds me of something that I dealt

Starting point is 00:09:00 with myself growing up. I had a great family, lots of love, but I also felt very inadequate. I was a very skinny, painfully skinny kid, so I lifted weights and I created this persona of being this muscular person because I thought if I had that, that I would be more valuable to other people. So in other words, I was doing something,

Starting point is 00:09:17 feeling like it would make me more valuable for their love. Do you find yourself in a similar situation where if you give out as much as possible, maybe I'll be worthy of this love that I didn't get as a kid? That maybe it, man. And speaking to you, to your childhood, like very similar path to me, right? So I didn't feel loved. I felt I was a very fearful kid.

Starting point is 00:09:39 So I built up this big armor. You know, like I literally, that's looking back on it. Literally figuratively. I built up this 310 pound armor that could be on Olympia stage, because I thought it was gonna make me more confident. I thought it was gonna give me better self esteem. I thought it was gonna make me maybe more lovable,

Starting point is 00:09:54 maybe from the opposite sex or whatever it is. But you get there and you're standing on top of the mountain and it's a very lonely place, right? And you go, oh, it didn't do any of that stuff for me. So, you know, the lesson to be learned is the true beauty of the process is in the process. It's in the climbing of the mountain, not standing at the top because the top, when you get there, or what you believe to have been the pinnacle, when you set out to set that goal, you get there and you're like, oh, there's nothing here.

Starting point is 00:10:19 Oh, man. I'm out of my self. One of the worst things sometimes for people to accomplish, believe it or not, is their goal? Is it not? Yeah, it's absolutely true. Sometimes you get your goal and you get there and you're like, oh shit, I'm just as sad as that was before. But now I don't have something to chase on top of it. How many of your peers do you think are still struggling with that when you think about the Olympia stage? Like how many of those guys are running from something else?

Starting point is 00:10:39 Well, we're all running from something, right? At the end of the day, like anyone who wants to put on that degree of muscle is... There's something there, but I'm not going to speak for anyone else. Well, we're all running from something right at the end of the day like anyone who wants to put on that a great degree of muscle is There's something there, but I'm not gonna speak for anyone else. I mean everyone always has different insecurities and everyone you know associates with or Relates to like getting picked on or be a skinny kid or whatever was I was not really picked on man like That wasn't my thing, but I was Definitely didn't feel like I had any love from anywhere. You know, like I just was... Did that cause a lot of anger?

Starting point is 00:11:08 Fear. More fear. Yeah, I was the lone wolf man. From the time I was seven years old, I was the kid who was doing whatever I wanted, whenever I wanted no real restrictions. It wasn't a really particularly bad kid, but yeah, I just kind of did what I wanted when I wanted. It wasn't good in school, but only because I didn't do it. You know, like I just kind of did what I wanted when I wasn't good in school But only because I didn't do it, you know like I just never tried so How long did it take you to start identifying this and then being able to talk about it because if there's two levels that I found

Starting point is 00:11:32 It's like first you have to be able to identify it because you're so unconscious to it and then be able to talk about it Sure, that's a whole nother level. I'll tell you what going deep on it for me has happened since leaving bodybuilding because when you're in it It's still very hard to look at it objectively, I guess, and like, what am I doing? But the first realization started to come, you know, as far back as 2012 and 13, where I was standing, you know, 295 pounds, five days out from the Olympia, shredded, glutes in, and wouldn't take my shirt off from public. Like, most insecure I'd ever been in my life. I'm like, what the fuck is wrong with this? What is this?

Starting point is 00:12:08 Whereas most people would be like, oh man, you must have been on top of the word. You must have been the most secure. You must have this huge ego. There's none of that for me. It was absolute opposite. And I felt the most alone and the most insecure I ever was. And that's when I realized that, oh, okay, great.

Starting point is 00:12:20 I've accomplished what I set out to accomplish, but it didn't do what I hoped it would do for me. So now where do I go? And then you start looking, okay, great. I've accomplished what I said I'd accomplish, but it didn't do what I hoped it would do for me. So now where do I go? And then you start looking, okay, well, now you start realizing, well, what has developed in my life? What have I got better at? Well, I get better when I face my struggles, when I face my fears, when I go in perspective,

Starting point is 00:12:37 and I realize like, hey, man, if, you know, the thing I say to myself all the time, if you can't, therefore you must. And if there's something that I suck at, if there's something that I avoid, then we'll let it must. And since I've started approaching my life from that perspective and obviously transparently taking complete ownership for everything, changes perspective, man.

Starting point is 00:12:57 That's hard, man. That's really hard, especially when the old you, because when the new you emerges, it's not that different from a snake, you know, coming out of its skin, like you're literally killing your old self, which can be very, very painful. And that's a figurative thing to say, but in a literal sense, I think you were blessed in a way. Absolutely. If you can, you know, just kind of bear with me for a second.

Starting point is 00:13:22 Here you are, this massive dude, 300 plus pound body builder, and you're gonna do this figurative change in shedding your old skin, but you also have the opportunity, although some people might find it exponentially more difficult, there's also, I think, exponentially more potential growth or speed of growth, and the fact that you actually got to shed your old body.

Starting point is 00:13:42 You got to lose a shit ton of weight, along with this change. They happened at the same time. Am I, am I, yeah, I was still in the process, man. And so I think one of the biggest things that happened during training, or during competing, that really allowed me or forced me to look introspectively is

Starting point is 00:13:58 why I hated training. Why I put all the ownership outside of myself for so long, like blamed things outside of myself, you're blaming other people, you're blaming, you know, as a professional bodybuilder, you attach to day to day has to be a world-class workout, right? Today has to be the best workout of my life or a fail. So imagine how much that standard is just ripping you down, because it's impossible to sustain. So be able to look at that and go, God, how do I get here where I started to hate training? Was a really important thing for me to start looking introspectively and realize, oh, it's just your perspective.

Starting point is 00:14:35 You know, perspective is everything. And then, you know, having left bodybuilding, looking back. And now I love training. So it's a balance between... You love it the same or differently Well differently for sure, so obviously when I was climbing the ladder It was a

Starting point is 00:14:55 single-minded selfish Focus or now I just I It's definitely different. I like to challenge myself. I like to seek, I like to, so the way I teach this to people, man, is I like to use training as a daily battleground for life. So where am I trying to cheat? Where am I trying to skirt out? Where am I trying to be lazy?

Starting point is 00:15:14 And look at it. And it's just right there in front of you every day in the gym. And if you're not wanting to go, if you're not following your, you work out of your meal plan or whatever it is, well, there's your opportunity for progress, right? It's sitting right there in front of you and it's not, I don't have to become a whole new person overnight, I just have to take that one step closer to the person I want to become. Well, yeah, so I want to go back to you talking about being alone wolf because you've,

Starting point is 00:15:37 I'm sure you've had a ton of success that way where you have, I mean, independently training, building your empire. It's my greatest blessing in my biggest curse. So you being alone, woof, I want to dig into a little bit about how well do you work with others and has that been a thousand. That's the same thing. Yeah, fuck you both. I don't know.

Starting point is 00:15:58 So you love us both. The team dynamic versus you know, you over coming. Sure. So I chose bodybuilding because it was me and I had no one else to blame. And I chose sports growing up that well, I played team sports and I was great at team sports, but I always literally was the captain of the team, not because I was a great leader, but because I was the best player. And I would say guys, sit down, I got this. And that was terrible. And I think, you know, how am I

Starting point is 00:16:23 dealing with others now? Much better during my career, terrible. Not that I was ever mean to anybody. Not those other ones. I wanna hear, I wanna hear. I know you're such a growth minded person that I know you've got times in the back of your head that you're like, fuck.

Starting point is 00:16:40 I was that guy, I did that, or I said that, or I launched this guy. Tell me some things that you did. You know, I'll throw my way at the bus when I first met her the very first day that we met. I mean, about the first day, but the first time we dated, I said, listen, here's my life. I'm a professional bodybuilder. I'm going to continue to be a professional bodybuilder. I go to the gym twice a day, I eat, I sleep, and I train. And if you can make that better, you can stay. If not, there's the door. And I literally said that.

Starting point is 00:17:07 Looking back on that, while she stayed, I'm lucky. But looking back on that, that's a fucking asshole thing to say. And maybe it's good, because it laid out very clear expectations. Well, you least you're honest, too. That's the problem with a lot of guys, is they try to play their best game at first, and I was like, I'm not playing my best game, I'm giving you the truth. And I think that was appealing for a lot of women. It's like, oh, at least I know exactly what I'm getting. We didn't have a date for eight

Starting point is 00:17:30 months. I was training for shows. I was like, sorry, this is what I do. You want to come to Jim. You want to come home. That's it. That's all we got. So you're looking back at it. Maybe I would have dealt with that a little differently. And I just like day to day interactions of how much training partners that I blew how much, you know, training partners that I blew through who, you know, patiently kept coming back and I was never nice. I was like, you're getting in. I was, I don't know if it was angry, but I was very focused. If you get it in my way, I'm going to fucking crush you.

Starting point is 00:18:01 And that was my focus. And it's like, if you so much as fucked up a set, you knew about it and you weren't coming back to the gym. That sounds angry, dude. Yeah. I'm just saying, I'm just keeping it real. You don't say that sounds like, yes, they're walking on each other.

Starting point is 00:18:14 I'm sure it manifested as focus for you because you had a goal and it's probably why you were. But I mean, if they fuck with your focus, then you're angry, right? I'm like, yeah, so and I get how I would have been a very hard person to be around because everyone need to walk an actual. And what can I do? Like I can apologize for it, that does nothing.

Starting point is 00:18:33 But I can go back and look, could I have done it differently? And I just do our needs the same question because we have a very parallel existence with that. It's like, I don't know. That's all I knew at the time. Because as an athlete, you put so much pressure on yourself to perform. You put so much pressure on yourself to succeed that I could already screw up on my own. I'm putting so much pressure on myself.

Starting point is 00:18:54 I don't want somebody else screwing up for me because then what? Then I'm going to blame somebody else. That doesn't work. That's why I chose independent sports is I like taking it all on myself. I like taking the pressure of the world on myself and saying it all stands on my shoulders. I can do everything now, now, transiting into business life,

Starting point is 00:19:12 learning how to be a leader and inspire people and have people get behind a mission. We all have the same mission, whether looking back at Michael, we all have this mission to get the Mr. Olympia contest. Now we're a team doing it rather than a solo person doing it. So now the team mission, obviously, in the business is different, but we're all working to this very, very clear focused vision.

Starting point is 00:19:35 And now inspiring all members of the team, all parts of the team, all parts of the wheel to contribute equally and just as much focus is a very new thing for me. So my primary focus these days is learning leadership, learning how to, like, what does it look like? That's a, that's a serious transition when you're somebody who's had so much success by yourself. And I remember when I made that switch, because from like 20 to 25, I had found that I could run fast enough, I could work hard enough to hit this total revenue goal that our gym needed to hit.

Starting point is 00:20:10 I could handle that all by myself, and I was very successful that way. And I had the mentality that, okay, either run with me or get ran over. And it got me, and I was successful, I was the best. Sure. But then you stand by yourself. Right, you know, who's gonna tell me

Starting point is 00:20:23 that this isn't the way to do it? I've been successful, so that's a lot smaller. Right. Who's gonna tell me that this isn't the way to do it? I've been successful. So that's in a lot smaller. When that light bulb goes off and you realize that, right? That fuck, and what it is, it's not even a matter of, can you keep doing is it do you really want to keep doing it this way? Right?

Starting point is 00:20:36 Yeah, it's very lonely, man. And it's the lesson to be learned for life for everybody is it's not about the indestination, right? Like we're so focused on, I want to make a million bucks. We're so focused on, I want to, you know, put 30 pounds of muscle on. So lonely when you do it by yourself, you have to learn to do it and enjoy the steps along the way and bring people with you and create great people that come with you and lead them so we can all get to the end and have this

Starting point is 00:21:01 amazing celebration together rather than standing on top of the mountain. Well, there's a statistic of lottery winners. You know, they won the lottery and have this amazing celebration together rather than standing on top of the mountain bike. There's a statistic of lottery winners. They won the lottery in two years later. They're just as miserable as they were before because they weren't able to follow the journey. You're talking about how you were so, just laser focused before, how you were so different before, and how different you are now, how much you've grown. I've experienced this as well as as I grow, the people that were loyal with me

Starting point is 00:21:25 and were there with me in the beginning, maybe don't grow at the same pace or everybody grows at a different pace. So I'm not saying I'm better or whatever, but it's different, right? I might change and they may not, but I still feel, I would feel as responsibility for those people who were there for me

Starting point is 00:21:41 when I was a different person, but they were supporting me. And now, what the fuck do I do? Like, what do you do with that? Are there people that you've had to kind of let go because they were with you when you were fucking super focused, Ben Pekolsky, you know, Pro Bodybuilder, and now you're different focus and you're working on teams

Starting point is 00:21:57 and they were great for the old you, but not for the new you. Are you, what do you do with that? It's an extremely challenging situation, man. And I have this thing in my life, and I've been doing this for a long time, is when it sucks most smile. So that's a good quote. At the deepest depths of the hardest parts of my life, I smile.

Starting point is 00:22:22 And that's where I am now, with a lot of people, And I'm saying, there's an opportunity here for me to learn. And a lot of people are not coming along this journey with me, right? Staff, family, friends. And because I've always had the badge of honor of, I'm the lone wolf, it's hard not to revert back to that. With the two fingers up, tied to that, and I'm confident that I'm aware of it enough that I'm not going to let it become me, because I literally look around,

Starting point is 00:22:48 and I see every opportunity as a learning opportunity, or every challenge as a learning opportunity. So everyone who's in front of me, who may not be doing the same thing I am, I don't tell them to come with me. Like you said, I'm like, hey, if you want to follow, I'm going to lead, or we can do this together. But there's definitely a lot of people who are just, yeah, they're living their own path, they're fighting their own demons, right? If you want to follow, I'm going to lead or we can do this together.

Starting point is 00:23:05 But there's definitely a lot of people who are just, yeah, they live in their own path. They're fighting their own demons, right? We're all fighting our own demons. And I think because I have this great opportunity to have a challenging childhood, because I have this great opportunity to have an extremely challenging journey as a professional bodybuilder, I now know what it's like to seek challenge. I know what it's like to feel pain and feel fear and do it anyways. And that's become my gift to be able to accelerate past the suck faster. Because ultimately that's

Starting point is 00:23:32 all it is, right? It's like you see it in front of you. Most people go, I don't want to do it. Like, you know, we all just are so good at muting out our minds. We're also good at numbing out our life. I'm still a bit better at paying attention. I recently read a quote that helped me with that because I had a friend who I was really close with in junior high and high school. And he's a great guy. Like wonderful dude came over my house all the time,

Starting point is 00:23:54 family loved him. And we just drifted apart, mainly my fault, but I say my fault as if it was a bad thing. And mainly because I felt like it was a bad thing. But I just grew and changed and he didn't, he did it his own pace and I just couldn't Connect with them and I felt like it was Detriment to me to try to force this relationship that I've always had But I always felt kind of guilty of it

Starting point is 00:24:17 In fact, he contacted me recently and I haven't called him back yet and it's because of that and it's exactly I met with him we hung out, but then I haven't like done anything since and it's because of that. It's a good pre. And it's exactly. And I met with them, we hung out, but then I haven't done anything since and I read a quote recently and for all intents and purposes, this applies, although the quote was for being a parent and it said, never do for your kids what they can do for themselves. And it was a brilliant quote and it makes total fucking sense

Starting point is 00:24:44 because when you do that you're doing you and your child a disservice and then I applied it to well these people that I would hang around with and the way I was I was always a leader people always followed me and a lot of the times the way I led was very similar I'd fucking run and many times I do for you what you could do for yourself like a train right like grab on tight or you're not gonna hold on right but the problem then becomes when I reach a point where grab on tight or you're not gonna hold on. Right, but the problem then becomes, when I reach a point where it's like,

Starting point is 00:25:07 okay, I'm not gonna do this for you. Like we all gotta do our own thing, that's how we all grow. Then all of a sudden they're like, two things would happen. Either one, they become resentful towards me because now I'm not doing what I used to for them, or B, they had the false belief that, oh well, fuck, I go do this on my own now,

Starting point is 00:25:27 and I'm gonna make this happen, not realizing how much of their success was due to other people providing them with these opportunities. Very, very difficult. Are there any, is there any particular relationships you have that were the most difficult for you to kinda let love? Speaking to the childhood analogy though with my kids,

Starting point is 00:25:47 as a dad who lived a very fearful life as a child, I very much attached, I'm sure a lot of parents give a light to this is protecting their children. So I want to protect the kids. I believe my kids are my greatest teachers. I don't think I'm teaching them anything. I think they're teaching me everything. To be honest, but you know,

Starting point is 00:26:04 well they're like, what is your job as a parent to all my job is to learn? Well, I used to say my job is to protect them. And then what do you protect them from? And even telling them that, hey, my job is to protect you. Well, now they feel like they can't do it themselves. And you're taking so much away from them. And there's so much deep psychology there that, you know, as well beyond the scope of what I can speak to, but so much to be learned from kids. And man, relationships in my life, there's a lot of hard ones, man, like, you know, the hardest one that comes to my mind is my dad.

Starting point is 00:26:39 Yeah, deep layers there, man, like my dad and I have, had zero effective relationship, father, son, for 20 years between the time I was seven and 27, almost to the day. And he never called me by my first name. He never called me by my name. He always called me something derogatory. And then one day I was, you know, starting to become a better person. And I was like, my life was becoming more successful.

Starting point is 00:27:03 And I wanted to start shedding the skin of this childhood anger, and I wanted to start shedding the people in my life that were holding me back, you know, to use my term at the time. So I said, you know, fuck it, I'm gonna knock every talk to this guy again. I went to my friend who's, you know,

Starting point is 00:27:18 also doubles as a life coach. And I said, you know, I'll then, I'm gonna, you guys know, I'll have a new series too. So I said, I'll, I'm gonna talk to, I'm gonna never talk to. I said, I'll be, I'm gonna talk to, I'm gonna, I'm gonna never talk to my dad again. I'm gonna tell him, I'm gonna go up to him and tell him, like, man, I'm gonna say, dad, I ain't gonna ever want you in my life again.

Starting point is 00:27:31 He says, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. Let's talk about this. It goes, why? Well, because he did this. Well, do I do that? So we went back and did some NLP, like regression stuff where I got to like look at the situation in my life. Long story short, I went to my dad and I said,

Starting point is 00:27:44 um, yeah, dad and I said, Dad, this is what's happening in my life and I don't want you to do that anymore. And since then, our relationship has become exceptional. There's so many opportunities in life that I'm seeking, you're speaking to try and answer your question here. I'm just looking at that relationships everyone in my life has an opportunity to improve my ability to communicate and not place, not have any attachment to

Starting point is 00:28:12 the outcome in either way. I'm just going to try to not if it's rectified the term. But I'm going to try to make things as smooth and seamless as possible with us with everyone who is now potentially exiting my life, no attachment and really just taking a perspective of a student. Here's a second part to that quote, and it was, you don't want to make your kids safe, you want to make your kids strong. And this is because life is what it is. It's difficult and it's challenging for everybody. And now in terms of making people strong, they need to meet challenges. The challenges need to be challenging enough to where the person who runs.

Starting point is 00:28:52 Is that what you believe? You need to make your challenge strong. I do now. I use to deal. I was very sheltered as a kid. I'm old school Sicilian family. Mom did everything for me. It's one of the reasons why one of the reasons there was many reasons, but one of the reasons

Starting point is 00:29:03 why my 15 year marriage ended in divorce is because I didn't do things for myself that I could. I was a typical, you know, mama's boy, so I didn't do shit around the house, I didn't do any of that stuff. A lot of resentment built there, and I had my own reasons, and there was a little, you know, two-sided, so I was always expecting us to clean up after two when he's here. So, but, you know, I firmly believe that now. And when someone gets strong, the way they get strong is there's challenges that challenge them, but they're able to meet them

Starting point is 00:29:29 and succeed out of those challenges. If you're challenged too strongly and you fail too often, then you have a terrible result. Now, you seem to be the kind of individual who's exceptional in the sense that, probably more than the average person, you'll meet a challenge and it won't break you

Starting point is 00:29:46 as much as it will the average person. And so your challenge is, however much more difficult they may be, I've formed you into this obviously very successful growth-minded and oriented individual. How big of a role did your father play in how strong of an individual you are now? at the time, I thought he was a terrible human. And same with my mom. I resent both of them massively as a kid.

Starting point is 00:30:14 Now looking back at it, they're my greatest gift. The challenges I faced and the obstacles that I had to overcome, man, I was a very sad kid. I was so introspective. I wasn't outwardly sad, but I took all that weight in myself. And I faced a lot of shit, man. Like I still face a lot of stuff. I still take on way more burden than maybe I should.

Starting point is 00:30:37 But that's what, I mean, I just became good at it. So to answer a question, it was so important. It was massive. It allowed me to become the man that I am and saying, you know what, just for this adadamist, being a lone wolf was both a blessing and a curse. It's very hard for me to not be that guy. It's very hard.

Starting point is 00:30:56 That allowed me to be that guy. It allowed me to be the most successful body builder I could be. It allowed me to be successful businessman, but at the same time, you know, the analogy I sometimes use is if the, you know, I was so focused that if the gym was on the left and on the right, there was, you know, the world was ending or there was a, I'd still be like, okay, I gotta like work out to do. I gotta finish that first. Then I can

Starting point is 00:31:17 go over here and do this. And looking back at it, man, like, that's a terrible, terrible place to be, but it allowed me to be focused because I was so independent, right? Like nothing else mattered. I was gonna take care of me first and then I can worry about everybody. So where are you evolving as a leader now then? So I mean, I think that's such a great discussion

Starting point is 00:31:38 and topic to have with a guy like you who's had a lot of success and thinks that he's growing right now in his leadership skills. I love to read, that's one of my favorite reads is leadership and thinks that he's growing right now in his leadership skills. I love to read. That's one of my favorite reads is leadership and I think it's something and I can totally identify with having a lot of success on my own and then the transition of working through others.

Starting point is 00:31:56 What are you learning right now? Is there any practices that you've put in place or massive? Yeah, massive. So obviously as a bodybuilder, I had a very specific mission. I had a very specific desire to I had a very specific desired outcome and it was relatively small. It was relatively like, hey, I want significance. I want to build this tribe of people who think I'm special and that's pretty shallow. You get there and you're like, oh, this sucks, kind of like bodybuilding.

Starting point is 00:32:20 And then, not the bodybuilding sucks. I'm saying, like, it just didn't fulfill me. And now, I've got this new objective And as far as leading a team and I think it's just clarity of purpose right you have to have that end result That allows everybody work to work very very clear like you know the mission. What's the mission? the mission is This is the end result we need to achieve and then breaking it down into incremental steps for them to achieve That's hoping that they care about that goal as much as you do

Starting point is 00:32:44 It's well, no, that's the thing that's impossible. So what I've been doing is, you know, I've been applying a book that I think I shared with you is the four disciplines of execution, which is Sean Covey and another guy who's named I forget. He did the seven habits too, right? Yeah, for sure. But the four disciplines of execute, Steven Covey did this seven habits of successful people, Sean's son. It's a business framework, and I think it's beautiful. It's basically, I've got my wildly important goal, which is our team's mission. And in the end of it, I want to accomplish X, which I want to change the fitness industry. And then for teams, I'm just going to give you the teams a lead measure or a lag measure.

Starting point is 00:33:27 So something that allows them to have a very specific outcome that they can achieve every month and go ahead and do it. So empowering them with like, you get to be creative on this process. So I don't need to be in the weeds over the process. It's just like giving them that KPI, giving them that the end of the month, hey, this is what you got to achieve.

Starting point is 00:33:46 Go. And then every week we can meet on obstacles. So every Monday we'll meet with the team on, you know, what are your bottlenecks right now? And how can I help you move the needle in that? But my only, the only thing I do now is I say, here's your, your weekly, your monthly goal. Go. And I think that's a great, I've found it to be a great empowering tool for people because it allows them to control

Starting point is 00:34:09 complete creativity of the process, right? And I think that's huge is when you start micromanaging people and you take away their ability to be creative, you disempower them. Well, what do we do when they don't hit goal? Is we know that's gonna happen eventually? Well, you know, Pedro is a, Pedro's cool, and is a guy who I go to for mentoring for business.

Starting point is 00:34:28 And he says many of your hiring, um, fire jets are your high and crop dusters. And if you're going to hire fire jets, um, hopefully they achieve goals. And you give them two months. If they don't, you're gone. And everybody comes on as a, um, trainers are difficult though. Don't you trainers are all different. Because trainers are a different breed because you tend to get, right, right, exactly. Most of us, I just want to train.

Starting point is 00:34:50 I don't want to sell. I don't want to, or that, right? Like we don't care about sales, or I'm just passionate about helping the people. I'm not even talking about trainers, but yes, speaking of that, like the fitness industry is one of the different most difficult because everyone's got a massive ego, right?

Starting point is 00:35:03 That's why I just changed. That's why I love talking about leadership within it because I think it takes, I mean, like the fitness industry is one of the different most difficult because everyone's got a massive ego. Right. That's why I love talking about leadership within it because I think it takes, I mean, fuck, it's taking a lot of growth for me. I'm not saying I'm a master by any means, especially when you know you can take over and do it so well, and to be able to now translate that to the world. So I'm not even referring to the trainers, right? I'm referring to my online business, but in a specific of the trainers, it's difficult

Starting point is 00:35:24 man because as we spoke about prayer to the podcast, when? I'm referring to my online business, but specifically the trainers, it's difficult, man, because as we spoke about prayer to the podcast, when you empower people with a skill set, with a skill set comes an ego, and that's very, very challenging too, right? So, yeah, man, I haven't learned how to help people to transcend the ego yet. Well, I'll tell you what I do.

Starting point is 00:35:37 I'll tell you the book. I'll tell you one of the, I'll give you a gift in that, that I got from probably one of the easiest reads that I ever read was one minute manager. I've got it on my desk. The reason why it was so powerful for me was because it was timing, I believe, where I was at and it was making that transition from, you know, it being about me hitting

Starting point is 00:35:57 gold versus getting this team. And one of the things that I kind of took from that that I started to apply, and I've shared my audience has heard this before, but I think it changed the game for me, was recognizing that we can never give enough affirmation to any of these people that are working for us, and that not even when you think you do, they'll always expect and want more. And so- I want to speak to that, actually, but good. Okay, so something that I started to do, and to lead from a point of pointing out the things

Starting point is 00:36:28 that you see them doing well versus leading from a point of pointing out the things that they can get better at or that they're doing wrong. And I can totally agree. And- But I'll tell you what you finished. No, no, go ahead, go ahead, go ahead. But what the limitation becomes, is when you empower your employees,

Starting point is 00:36:44 they start to think they're able to do it better than you. And then their ego has become even bigger. And this is something I've dealt with now. It's like you empower them with the skill set, you empower with the ability to make decisions, you empower them with the ability to act on their decisions. I spent 10 years in my career leading trainers that all believe they were smarter than me. Yeah. Yeah. That's okay. It's a lot of humility that comes with that, you know.

Starting point is 00:37:07 Sure. Right. If I know the desired outcome and where the goal is and where we're heading, if by you feeling you're the smart one or you're the more successful one or what are you doing? What do you do when they start to question your vision? Well, the first mistake would be me trying to get them to see my vision because that's I think that's the hard part is getting them to see what you see is probably will never happen.

Starting point is 00:37:34 Right. So it's more about they're on your team, they need to bind your mission otherwise they're going, you know, it's like an enemy behind the game. So what or the approach that I look at it is I look at it like as this team, just like I would look at like a football team. And when I put these players in place, I put them in place for a specific thing that I need within my facility. And so I want them, I almost want them, my opically focused on that because I'm taking control of the big ship and the vision. And so I'm putting pieces in place. And we, I'm not doing a lot of discussing what I'm doing or what I need.

Starting point is 00:38:06 What I need from this person is to do their job and do it effectively and hopefully I've done a good job of hiring them and putting them in that place. And then finding out what their goals, their ultimate visions are and then playing some sort of a role in guiding and helping them. And then getting back to one of the things that I started to put in place, because I remember after I read, one minute of manager, I read this book, that did all these studies on the Fortune 500 companies, and they averaged out the employees that said,

Starting point is 00:38:36 how much my boss recognizes what I do for this company, and they all scored extremely low in comparison of what they scored themselves. And so the real message to me was, no matter how fucking much I do it, because I thought I was already that guy. I come over and I'm very positive all the time. I'm not a negative dude, but yet my employees would probably do the same things they don't do it enough.

Starting point is 00:38:59 What I did was I had set an alarm in my phone that, you know, every day I had a name in there. So I was always leading 25 to 30, something employees at a time. And so I had an alarm would go off and, like, say, today I'd go off at 10 a.m. I would say, Ben, and then I would find you wherever the fuck you were at, it'd stop what I'm doing, I'd walk over, I'd put my hand on your shoulder, and I would point out something that I'd recognize since the last time we had talked that I thought you were doing really well. What time does that, at what point does that become weight noise since the last time we had talked that I thought you were doing really well. What time does that, at what point does that become weight noise to the employees?

Starting point is 00:39:28 Kind of like your kids, right? When you're on your kids and you're either saying good stuff or bad stuff, are you programming they're unconscious maybe? But it would only be, at what point does it start, do they start, you know, analyzing the fact that you're just giving them lip service? Well, it's not lip service because I would come over and point out something. You have to find something. I would have to be very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, my job would have to be to find something that I do just giving them lip service. Well, it's not lip service because I would come over and point out something. You have to find something. I would have to be doing my job.

Starting point is 00:39:46 My job would have to be to find something that I do believe they're doing well. And if I don't think they're ever doing anything well, then they probably don't need to be on my team. So what it did do, and it blew me away. And this is why it was such a powerful tool for me, was maybe about, and it took about 30 to 60 days to train them to get used to me leading like this, where I was pointing out all the things I saw well and I remember I started to get lazy about it, you know I'm not sure like cuz I you know why cuz I felt like it was white noise to me, right?

Starting point is 00:40:12 I don't see huge numbers all centering out But what I did happen and what made me totally changed my attitude about it was one of one of my guys And he was like middle-to-row guy was in a super top performer Was it like my right hand or is that but a but a good trainer, but always trying to do better. And he comes walking into my office and you could just see the look on his face. And it was because I had, he was one of the last people that I had forgot to make my rounds too and tell.

Starting point is 00:40:34 And he just started telling me all the things that he wasn't doing well enough that he's working on. And he was so motivated to tell me that, listen, I'm, you know, I hadn't done this, I haven't done that, I'm gonna work on this and I thought, holy shit, I didn't even have to point it out. He pointed it all out to me before I even had to go digging. And so that, and that opened up the doors for me

Starting point is 00:40:53 now to teach and lead. There's so many lessons there, man. Fuck. There's billions there, because even in relationships, right, you take shit for granted, you're like, oh, I forgot to say that. And I can't.

Starting point is 00:41:04 Yeah, she knows I appreciate, no, she doesn't know you appreciate it. And there's so much to be learned there, man. I'm very, you know, I'm so I'm sure you get this too, like very conscious of doing that with kids. But in relationships, sometimes you truthfully forget, right? And you end up picking on the stuff that people don't want to hear. It's very easy to get caught in the trap of saying the thing, hey, why isn't this done? Or can you go do this rather than? Right. And the white noise was me, to me, not to them,

Starting point is 00:41:33 because it felt fucking amazing to them. It felt amazing to be reminded that I appreciate all these little things, and I see it, and then it gave me this opportunity. Absolutely, man, that's absolutely. And then when they come to you about these things, then the things that are on my mind, my vision, where we're going, what we're doing,

Starting point is 00:41:49 now I have this opportunity to direct. And when it's coming from that place, whoo, way more power. They're the three of them. I had two growth periods of that. The first one was when I would have people who were working for me, who started to believe, they started to get big,

Starting point is 00:42:04 the way that I would check them, if you will, for lack of a better term. So I wasn't really checking them, but in a sense I was, is that go out there and show them how much better I was than they were? So in this my early day, so I got a sales guy who's like,

Starting point is 00:42:18 I'm the man, I'm the best sales guy, I'm selling all whatever and I say cool, today it's gonna be you versus me. Let's go out and see who can bring in the most business. And then I blow out of the water. And then after that, they were like, okay, you're God. I'm going to follow you again. And that was early on.

Starting point is 00:42:31 And I used to do that all the time in the early days. So I'll put just penis in the table. Yeah. Exactly what it was, literally, right? But that can only get you that only gets you so far, right? And it's exhausting and it's not really leadership. It's more of a like let let's see who's ego's bigger in this room.

Starting point is 00:42:47 Then there was a second half to my career where I became so much more effective. And that's when I realized I had this debate with someone where we were going back and forth about what gets people motivated and what gets people out of bed in the morning for work. And she tells me she'll sell. People wake up and they go to work for their paycheck. And it didn't feel right to me when I heard that. I was like, that's not right. Like, and

Starting point is 00:43:08 then a dawn on me. I'm like, holy shit, like the hardest working people have ever met my life ever were volunteers. I've never met people who will work harder than somebody who volunteers for a higher purpose. They will grind themselves to the bone for free. And so then a then a dawn on me. It's not about, yeah, we're all here. We're working in this gym. We're all trying to hit goal and become successful. But there's a higher purpose that I need to build here. And if I can sell that higher purpose to everybody from a true place, by the way, this isn't some bullshit like, I'm not manipulating anybody. There was a real higher purpose. If I can convey that and sell that to everybody and everybody buys into that, because it's real,

Starting point is 00:43:47 we're gonna fucking crush and we did and we destroyed it and people would show up to work on their days off. People would stay after and not wanna clock in. Notice I wanna be here because they saw this higher thing and you had mentioned something earlier. You had said something about changing the fitness industry.

Starting point is 00:44:03 What is that higher purpose and how are you selling that to your team now? That's exactly it, man. It's so many people have excuses around why they can't, right? My genetics, my time, my lack of knowledge, my nutrition. And when you realize, it's not any of that. It's just them placing the ownership outside of themselves, right? So what we're trying to do as a business is empower people with a skill set

Starting point is 00:44:29 and with the knowledge to empower them to really understand how to change their body. And it's not hard. No, it's not complicated. It's not complicated. It's hard, but it's hard. Yeah, it's, well, it's simple. No, no, no, I should even say like, it's hard. It, it's, well, it's simple. No, no, no, I should even say like,

Starting point is 00:44:45 it's hard for, it's complicated for most people, but when you finally get it, you can boil it down to such a small number of factors. Yeah. Well, climbing Mount Anversa is simple, you just take one step after another. Yeah, but it's way fucking hard, right? Well, the hard part for most people is forgetting

Starting point is 00:45:02 what you think you know about fitness, or forgetting what you think you know about exercise, or forgetting what you think you know about exercise, or forgetting what you think you know about nutrition, and just fucking thinking, which nobody wants to do. Like if we can teach you how to work for you, it's so simple. So we teach this very simple set of principles that you can now take, and all of a sudden, God, my body looks completely different such a small amount of time. And that's what we're really trying to do is chain. We're trying to empower, like my vision is, as I want to, I want to write a book, I think I told you

Starting point is 00:45:26 I was this for 14-Aid, just man, as I want to empower the next generation. Imagine that 14 years old, somebody hands you the handbook and goes, here's how to work, how to, to build muscle for your body. Here's how to eat for your body. And that's easier, that's easier to do than it sounds. Like you can teach people very simple concepts that allows them to apply it to them so they can learn to make decisions for themselves rather than following mindlessly with these these protocols. So you're not trying to tell them what to think. You're trying to teach them how to think. Yeah, it's teaching them how to fish right? Well, rather than teaching them to fish. And so, so what you're trying to do by changing

Starting point is 00:45:59 the fit because the fitness industry is driven by the opposite right? The fitness industry is all about what to think, you know, follow these macros, do this, do that. But that takes away, right? So if I just go, oh, so the solution apparently for all fat laws is to go keto. And I go keto and I get fat. What the fuck that you're on? Well, I must just have bad genetics.

Starting point is 00:46:17 I can't do it, puts the only ownership outside of myself. So we'll stop that, because eventually everyone's going to transcend all of these bullshit, nutritional protocol, all these these bullshit nutritional protocols. Bullshit. All the bullshit programs are out there. You know, these made up names aren't real. Right. Right. So then they're going to go, oh, well, maybe I just don't have genetics. And all people out there, everyone out there who said, well, I don't have the genetics to build this,

Starting point is 00:46:37 if I have a weak body part, don't have a weak body part. It doesn't exist. It's just you haven't figured out how to put tension through that body part yet. So that's, but we got to stop there because that's actually so fucking true because I have yet to meet somebody who has a non responding body part. You can really fucking connect to it to possible. You know what I'm saying? If you can build one muscle, you can build them all. And that's a hugely empowering feeling for most people. You know, and even the idea of genetic inability to build muscle, I think it's bullshit because I start relating it back to getting deeper into the biochemistry of it.

Starting point is 00:47:10 Of course, there's some SNPs that can single nucleotide polymorphisms that can slow down progress, but I really just believe it comes down to your ability to deal with stress internally and mentally. But some people who have just great genetic bodies, very lean, very musk all the time, are just better with dealing with the shit that is put into life, right? They're better with getting better, getting rid of cortisol, better getting information. All these things that were just so subjected to, maybe they have a better ability to recycle catacoleumines. So we get stressed out mentally and some people stay stressed and they stay in this place

Starting point is 00:47:47 of sympathetic dominance of the nervous system and they can't come down and recover. So maybe the genetic advantage of building muscle is just the ability to deal with the stress of day to day life. So if someone's sitting at home and going, I don't build muscle really well. Well, if you learn to change your stress response or maybe you learn to supplement to support your stress response, now the sudden your body composition starts to change, and you don't have to do anything differently. So you're empowering yourself with the belief and this minor skill set of,

Starting point is 00:48:15 hey, if I could just manipulate my breathing and stimulate my parasympathetic nervous system a little bit, right? Maybe I can do five minutes of mindful incidental day and calm down my sympathetic nervous system and stimulate the parasympathetic a little bit so I'm Maybe I can do five minutes of mindful and synodic and calm down my sympathetic nervous system and stimulate the parasympathetic a little bit so I'm in a more relaxed state. I said, damn, I didn't need to eat less. I didn't need to exercise more. I just needed to first change my response to stress because what most people are doing, they don't think

Starting point is 00:48:36 about, exercise is a stress. So they're adding, you know, one stress on top of the next. They've already got 10 different stresses in their life and they're adding this stress of exercise on top, which for most people, the next. They've already got 10 different stresses in their life. And they're having this stress of exercise on top, which for most people, the only response is, I need to work harder. When harder means more stress. So we're trying to create the smallest amount of incremental stress when you're exercising

Starting point is 00:48:53 to get the greatest amount of response, right? So that is a whole different conversation. But, you know, I think that's the first step for people to realize is stop making excuses around genetics and nutrition in time. It doesn't take that much. It's much simpler than you think when you understand a few basic concepts.

Starting point is 00:49:07 Do you ever get tired of talking about that stuff? No, man, because I'm always finding new pieces to the puzzle, right? So I mastered, you know, I sound like an arrogant prick, but I mastered the muscle building component. Like I can pretty much take, you can say that. I can pretty much take a monkey.

Starting point is 00:49:23 I can pretty much take a monkey and put muscle on any part of the stomach. They have good genetics. From the fuck they're all right. Yeah, but yeah, no, I can pretty much take a monkey and put muscle on them. And then I realized, you know, so here's how this all came to be was, you know, if I take on a thousand clients, I get 5% that gets world-class results. That's 95% of people who get either no results or okay results. I'm like, what the fuck's happened to my brain? What's happened to 95% of these people? Like, why are they failing? Or, you know, in my eyes, failing.

Starting point is 00:49:55 So, you know, 20% of them are getting amazing results and 80% are getting substantial results, but they're not getting the type of results I'm expecting. So what's missing? We're given the best workup programs and the best nutrition program plan that could possibly exist for their body. What's missing? So you start adding other pieces to it, right? So you start adding the unconscious beliefs.

Starting point is 00:50:13 You start adding the manipulation of the autonomic nervous system. You start adding, fixing the gut. You start adding the nerve. Start fighting out all these things are bigger than all of what you did. Way bigger than us. Way bigger because you like I said, you can give someone the best workup plan in the world. And if they're psychologically not in the right place or are

Starting point is 00:50:32 internally not in the right place. This is this is the path. We this is the path we all went on as trainers for as long as we were. And this is why we have so much controversy sometimes because at some point in our career, we started sounding or at least connecting with the frickin wellness people Yeah, that I thought had nothing in common like you just They're meditating is yeah, yeah, smoke me you have nothing to do and now all of a sudden it's like oh wait I want to interrupt you for sure. Yeah, how are you doing Justin?

Starting point is 00:50:58 I'm just listening to this conversation I was your day going What's going on about you? Yeah, good. What'd you train today? Tell me what's going on. What's going on about you? I was like, great work out there. I was like, it's been a year. Yeah, good. What did you train today? I trained, actually, I did a bodybuilder style training. I did some of that.

Starting point is 00:51:10 I did some of that. I had to, man, it's the environment you have there. It's awesome. You're not trying to like a bodybuilder? No, I don't, I don't typically. I just do, I do more of like functional strength than like today you decided to bring back your man card. I do.

Starting point is 00:51:22 I did. I actually enjoyed it though. That's the part. I do enjoy it. I did. I actually enjoyed it though. That's the part. I do enjoy it. There's something about why I'm in my gym for a lot of guys where their balls just have to come out of their position. I think we would all agree. I think we're well, you know, I think each one of us like different gyms, but your gym is up for sure for me, probably my favorite gym. I would have built a gym that was going to be my playground and nobody, you know, like this was exactly what it was. Yeah, and you can see that. I've at least I feel that when I walk out of like, yeah, this is how I would have built a gym that was going to be my playground and nobody, you know, like this was that was exactly what it was. Yeah. And you can see that. I've,

Starting point is 00:51:47 at least I feel that when I walk up like, yeah, this is how I would have built this for sure. Yeah, that's kind of a joke, right? As you build a place and you know, we'll get a lot of my friends in this place. Yeah. But no, it's, it's a good gym. It's, it's, it's right up there with culture, the, uh, zoo culture. I said, those are two probably closest gyms, I'd say for, for, yeah, my kind of workouts, but I think I might, I don't know, they're both really good. He's got a great gym too. I like your vibe. The vibe in your gym is a little bit more, uh, I don't know, serious almost, you know, it gets kind of got that feel to it. Oh, yeah. I think that Bradley attracts the 17 to 25 year old young, young boy who's

Starting point is 00:52:22 sure. Yeah. Like the half naked girls in the lift in the crazy way and doing silly things where you definitely have a way more serious five. Me and Sauer actually talking after done we were to live there if we were like, you know, back 20. Yeah, 20 years old or so and just coming in every day for sure. It's totally motivating. But you you built it the same way that like how we built ours, which was never with the intention to try and monetize it It was like and we tell people all the time this like oh, don't just because we have a gym You shouldn't aspire to bust your ass so hard to who might say who's dream?

Starting point is 00:52:55 So if it is yours, and that's true. I do so be it But I think there's a major misconception with how much money the average trainer makes who opens up a gym like that And when when they find out, so I mean, the most successful gym owners, typically if you're just a private gym, are making 75 to 158 year off of a gym, which is okay money for somebody, depending on where you live.

Starting point is 00:53:16 That's also the most, that's like the upper right. Right, most of them don't make shit. Right, right. And then the scale, the scalability of it is, you know, I just had someone in my gym last week, he goes, man, you know, I just bought a gym,

Starting point is 00:53:25 and I want to hire two more trainers, who can do it like me. And I was like, oh, you're in for a hard road, man. I've got this huge pool of people to pull on. And I was able to replicate guys who did it better than me. And then what happens, right? Then everyone's ego grows bigger than their skills. He said, now, anyway, not everybody.

Starting point is 00:53:44 Some people, you get some people who are great. But yeah, man, I think for anyone out there who wants to scale a training business, it's a tough thing to do, man, because it's so people-centric. You know, the only way to scale, I believe, is system-centric, right? Yeah.

Starting point is 00:53:55 Like, it's gotta be system-insized. That's why anytime fitness is crushing it, man. That's why, you know, curves, crushes, because it's not about the same shit over and over again. Yeah, it's just like here, here's the 10 exercises you gotta do. Go, right? I guess, you know, that's at the simplest of it. You're such a self, you're such an introspective individual,

Starting point is 00:54:10 you know, you examine yourself quite a bit and I appreciate that. And you know, you talk about now having people that you're maybe not able to work with anymore because they have this belief, this false belief that came to it on their own. Do you ever look at yourself and think, what did I do to promote this?

Starting point is 00:54:24 Oh, hell yeah, hell yeah. So I don't even know that I can't work with them. And I think they're I think they're on amazing people like they're great. But just the idea of entitlement and expectation man, I just don't like that around me. You know like I want to love coming to work. I want to love what I do. I want to love the people around. And if there's anybody who isn't feeling that way, then it just like it's kind of like my toy, I want it back. You know? But, absolutely, it's completely a reflection of the person that I was, right?

Starting point is 00:54:50 Like, speaking earlier about my body balloon days, the person I was was like, leaving alone. Like, I literally closed my gym between 10 and noon every day for me to train. So, I got to fucking let anybody in the door. It's like, go away. I, you know, turn the lights off, 10 minutes ago. It's so cool.

Starting point is 00:55:03 Right. But that is a reflection of the people that I've brought into my life for people who kind of stood there and did as they were told, didn't ask questions. And then now that I've removed myself from that, I want these people to be good people. Like, oh, you know, like, so completely I brought that on myself. But that being said, now I'm evolving, if I should, sounds kind of ridiculous, but I'm trying to evolve it to become a different person, to become a greater version of myself.

Starting point is 00:55:33 And I inspire or ask each of them, or offer to like, hey man, come along with me, I can do anything, anything I can do to help, if I can introduce to somebody, if I can do anything to allow you to kind of transcend this aspect of your life and when they're ready, they'll do it right. But some of them.

Starting point is 00:55:51 You know, I really enjoy talking to you too about the business side because your muscle mind is great, but your business mind is just as great, I think. And I like to, without, I don't want you to share, I wouldn't expect you to share personal numbers and stuff like that, but I would be interested in, you know, you have multiple things going underneath the umbrella of you as far as businesses, everything from the gym to affiliations that you have, to projects you're working on, to online coaching, and what are your biggest rocks?

Starting point is 00:56:20 So which ones produce the most revenue for you business-wise that are most profitable? What are your biggest headaches, and which ones do you produce the most revenue for you business-wise that are most profitable? What are your biggest headaches and which ones do you enjoy the most? The gyms the biggest headache. Because it's managing people. All the other aspects of the business are much more system-centric. So that's, you know, if I... And not being said, that's what I need to learn the most.

Starting point is 00:56:41 So I brought it into my life for a reason. And I'm not walking away from it. I'm grateful for it. And I'm trying to make it better. And I'm working on my ability to communicate and my ability to lead and my ability to, like the thing that I don't want to do is manage. And what we need right now is a manager.

Starting point is 00:56:58 So anybody out there listening, let's move to Tampa. Like, yeah, so that's it. Man is like, we've got systems. We've got great people, but there's no management. So without management of the menial, trivial, day-to-day tasks, things get left undone, and then the business suffers.

Starting point is 00:57:15 So you're short of me stopping everything else I'm doing and coming into the gym right now to manage. It's a big stress. So that's my definitely my biggest stress. Big is passion for me right now, man. Is getting this stuff in the hands of more people. So scaling up my member's site, you know, with the objective of 2018 to hit 10,000 members and because everyone comes into my member's site, we're given a four month, you know, what I call a foundational program, which is like, Hey, if you learn this, you will forever be empowered to build every muscle in your body.

Starting point is 00:57:50 So four months, you know, body parts specific. So the first two months is chest, and then we do, I think, legs and then arms and then shoulders and calves or something. And then just going through like some very basic basic principles and how to do it for your body, not everybody else. And I think that in itself, if we can build the tribe of very loyal members, 10,000 members, that's a very good potential to be a catalyst to change the fitness insurance. It's very small, obviously, it's a small thing. Small, loud minorities are what always do shit, get shit down. Yeah, but that's the thing with my followers, man, is they're so loyal

Starting point is 00:58:26 because I don't, I'm not a preacher, man, like you hear me, I'm not a, like I, well, you know, I'm not going to get you, I'm not a cheerleader. I'm not going to get behind you and give you the Rarara speech to get you off the couch, right? I always say motivation is a joke, like, you know, motivation is bullshit. Self-belief is everything. Yeah, you want to get motivated to go watch real Lewis on YouTube, right? That's not me. Like, I'm going to empower you with knowledge and skill set. And that's why people, when they come,

Starting point is 00:58:47 like, I'm just teaching logic, man, I'm not reinventing the wheel. I'm just teaching you physics, and I'm just doing it in a way that me heads can understand. So that's kind of my thing, man, is empowering these people because that feels good to me to take this knowledge of all the stupid stuff that I've done all the years, all the mistakes that I've made throughout the years, and empower these people. And from there, my supplement company grows obviously exponentially, and that's doing, it's in the process, and it's working, it's growing. And I do that because I try to do it from a place of, like I say, altruism, from a perspective

Starting point is 00:59:21 of like, what can we do, even though it's not the cheapest, that actually helps people. And giving a practitioner quality product that literally we find the best quality ingredients and we have every different accreditation that exists. Like, that's what I wanted to do. So that, you know, when you put a supplement in your mouth, that's exactly what you're getting.

Starting point is 00:59:41 And then obviously we're investing a lot of money into research and bringing on great people who can help us with formulations. And we have a clear vision just to really be the lighthouse right and be like, you know, amongst all the bullshit, amongst all the people trying to make a dollar. And dude, I know that's a hard path. And dude, that's a monster.

Starting point is 01:00:02 The supplementary was for a long time, the race to the bottom, where you can buy 10 pound bag of protein for $30. But it still is at some level, man. The highest quality protein, even now, if you walk into a sub-punch door right now, you're not buying the most expensive one, in most cases for most people, right?

Starting point is 01:00:18 They're gonna buy some more that's kind of little line. But we need to do is find that way to differentiate ourselves and make people... I was just gonna say, how do you do that? Just quality quality. Where does it work? Yeah, where does man and when people use it like, oh, this feels different. Like I don't get the jet stress. There's no, there's no artificial flavors in your artificial sweeteners.

Starting point is 01:00:36 There's like no additives, no bite, all that stuff, you know. So we just try to simplify it. So people actually get what they're, what they're paying for. And that being said, it's more expensive. And here's the thing people don't realize. When you buy BCAs, BCAs is not BCAs. Like there's a definitive difference between this quality and that quality. And like when you're manufacturing, you know that, like, oh, this monkey's using 60% or 40% BCAs

Starting point is 01:00:59 in their product and we're using 90. And like how the hell do we compete with them in a market, right? So if people don't know that. So they're looking at, they're like, oh, there's like seven pounds of fillers, there's like a bunch of sweeteners and all these things. Then all of a sudden the formulation is 40% BCAs and the charging half the price. So you go, oh, well, as a manufacturer, I see that as a consumer, I don't get that. So that's what we're trying to be the lighthouse in the storm, man. It's a lot of people

Starting point is 01:01:20 realize like, hey, if you guys actually want a good ingredient, this is where you get it. Well, the canary in the frickin' in the mine is dead already, because you talked about gut issues. I, of all the populations I've worked with, the worst gut issues in the most consistent gut issues come from the muscle-building crowd who, I think it's from all the fucking shit that we've taken. Well, it's just overconsumption, man, and I live that life forever, right? And then people ask me, what are the guts for me, buddy?

Starting point is 01:01:46 And I lived it. It's maybe at some level, it's drug abuse, but it's just meticulous overconsumption. It's ridiculous. Like supplement on top of supplement, on top of food, it's just never, especially imagine try to be 310 pounds with shredded.

Starting point is 01:02:01 That's a lot of food, man. And I completely agree. So, and then your digest is jacked up and then, you know, Man, there's so many levels to it. How did yours hold up? I feel I almost feel like we talk about bodybuilders, pro bodybuilders and their genetic ability to build muscle and their genetic ability may time to handle drugs without side effects and all of that. But I think the biggest factor is the genetic ability to handle the shit tons of food and not have factor is the genetic ability to handle the shit tons of food and not have horrible, you know, gastro ashes. You want to know what the genetic ability is?

Starting point is 01:02:28 You're on the right track. It's not the ability to handle tons of food. It's the ability to eat less. That is what sets body bones. Eat less than still. And still be big. Holy shit. So we get we get probiotic.

Starting point is 01:02:40 Mine. Right. No, so you get body bones, man, who literally in the off season don't even train. They ate two meals a day and they don't lose a pound. That is what I say is the difference. Yeah, I wish. Right, it's a joke, right? So I like to say, fuck you to those guys.

Starting point is 01:02:53 Yeah, that's absolutely, and there's guys with their laugh here and then go, ah, that's me. Yeah, like you're trying to be small right now, still being three times as big as I ever would be in my absolute biggest. Well, but man, this is 20 years of work. That's true. So it's not just like it went, like I was 135 pounds when I would be in my absolute biggest. Well, but man, this is 20 years of work. That's true.

Starting point is 01:03:05 So it's not just like it went, like I was 135 pounds when I started, man, I doubled my body weight to the peak of my career. So now it's, and there's so much work. People are like, how the hell your legs still look like that? I'm like, do you don't even see what went into these legs? Like, people who try with me now, like it was just relentless and ruthless and,

Starting point is 01:03:23 and it's more than like five normal working out guys won't do in a lifetime in a span of 10 to 20 years. That tissue is just there, man. To lose it, I'm going to have to do some substantial fasting. I do it a lot, but then I realized, funny, we could talk about fasting too, but I noticed with fasting for me because of the percentage of muscle fiber I have, I get fat, it's interesting. My stress levels are high because I'm constantly moving, constantly doing something. Anyways, we're talking about the big gut issues, the ability to read it. Yeah, that's it, man. You deal with that a lot with your clients because you get

Starting point is 01:03:56 a lot of people trying to build muscle. I try to get people off. I try to get their body using more food and eating less food. That's always the objective. It's like, how can I get you on four meals a day, tops, and getting your body using 100% of this. And then maybe we augment it with a little bit of supplementation, with a little bit of BCAs, a little bit of essential meanness. Because- How do you do that? Do you utilize fasting with them to get their bodies more-

Starting point is 01:04:17 To be able to- So wait to pay. So, obviously speaking to a bodybuilding demographic fasting is like the antichrist, right? Of course. I don't do that. You can lose muscle. So although I do do days without protein with some of my... We talked about that before.

Starting point is 01:04:30 Yep. But no, I'll do four meals a day for most people and then maybe like one post-workout shake. So I'm more of an advocate now of doing a lot of liquid nutrition post-workout. Because you just see the necessity of it to give your digestive check a break. And then for substantial meals, maybe five, many cases, and giving your body a time to

Starting point is 01:04:49 not eat. You're talking about the natural circadian rhythm of your brain. Your organs also have a natural circadian rhythm that they need to be able to detox. They need to be able to go through their natural cleansing processes. And if they're all just burdened with food and toxic crap from your life, you can't do that. So, particularly your digestive tract. So, everybody build it out there.

Starting point is 01:05:09 There needs to be a period of, yes, I'm hungry. Yes, it's okay. No, I'm not. Let's just feel it. We had a gut health expert, Dr. Michael Ruscio, who's, do you know him? Yeah, so a brilliant guy, right? Yeah.

Starting point is 01:05:20 So, we were having this conversation about post-workout nutrition and so, exercises stress on the body causes systemic inflammation localized but also systemic so you can actually measure obviously you know inflammatory markers go up it's supposed to happen that's one of the things that triggers adaptation but post workout in the context of maybe already having gut issues so now you're already inflamed you've already probably got gut issues he said one of the worst things you could do is eat right after or even take a seat there or even take a shake. And he said, when you have anything, if you're inflamed already, you've already got those tight junctions in your wall, which are already a little spaced out. And then you're inflamed on top of it because you just worked out hard. Now you take a shake, protein molecules pass through,

Starting point is 01:06:01 and now your body starts identifying those as, so he's as, you know, foreign invaders and develops, you know, immune responses to it. And so he's like, yeah, if you're in the context of potential gut issues, you're probably better off waiting a couple hours before you do anything. And also you're in such a state of high sympathetic arousal, right? Your body is not even thinking about digesting food at that time. There's no risk in digesting. It's all fight or for. Right. So you need to allow time to adapt, which is why for most people, it's like, you know, and even the order that I do is different than most people.

Starting point is 01:06:28 So I usually suggest carbohydrate first, and most people go, you need protein, you don't need protein, you need carbohydrate faster, you need to replenish your glycogen source. So if you can have a carbohydrate, that's the right osmolarity. So it's similar to water,

Starting point is 01:06:41 it's the same osmolarity to water, then higher absorption, right? Just adding in the glucose in there, and that should calm down your sympathetic nervous system, So it's similar to water, it's the same osmilarity to water than higher absorption, right? Just adding in the glucose in there and that should calm down your sympathetic nervous system and then allow you to start digest. Well, insulin is inverse with cortisol many times. Exactly. Yeah, so that'll start bringing down your sympathetic, allow you have some particular sympathetic

Starting point is 01:06:58 arousal. One of the easiest things people can do when I do this with all my coaching clients is like part of your program, take five minutes after the workout, sit on your ass, don't pick up your phone for each part of your program, sit down, stimulate the person in the breathing system so that you can start calming down. Now to a meathead that sounds silly, I'm not gonna lie, like if I was a dude that wants to build muscle and I'm hearing, well you hear it all like a window, that's what everybody hears.

Starting point is 01:07:24 And I hear someone say sit down for five minutes and relax, I'm like muscle and I'm hearing you hear it all like a window, that's what everybody is. Yeah, and I hear someone say sit down for five minutes and relax, I'm like listen, I'm not trying to, you know, be looking at the mechanics of it, you get it. How important is it? That's what I was about to ask you. How important is managing your autonomic, you know, nervous system for building muscle? It's everything.

Starting point is 01:07:39 It's amazing. It's amazing. How crazy is that, not even knowing that before? Have you always practiced that? You know, has that been part of your process, even when you were thinking? I think eating. I think only by accident.

Starting point is 01:07:48 And I say that because oftentimes, I ended up laying on the floor for a... Because you were forced. Yeah, yeah. Gravity. But yeah, no, it wasn't always something that I did. And, you know, it sounds ridiculous. But early in my career, I struggled to put on muscle man,

Starting point is 01:08:02 like struggled. I know it sounds stupid when I say that now people go your full shit, but dude, I had the hardest time with a blue muscle and people like, dude, you're crazy. And I'm like, no man, like it was hard for me. And that's why I'm so grateful that it made me the person am because I had to struggle that much. But had I looking back on it, you know, because I attached

Starting point is 01:08:21 to why I don't build muscle that easily. Yes, I do, but muscle actually very easily. But what I didn't do was manage my stress, manage my sympathetic nervous system. And that's everything for every athlete out there. If you want to recover faster, you must get out of sympathetic drive as fast as possible. And that's done. You can do some supplemental assistance to that to come down your brain, but you can do five minutes of sitting on your butt and breathing.

Starting point is 01:08:45 And it's not being reactive. It's not checking emails, not calling on social media and seeing how many likes you got, you gotta just connect somehow. So what you're trying to say is meditation will help you build muscle? 1000%. That's why my, you know, my famous hashtag is become the mindful meathead because it needs to be like, you know, if you sell it like that, if you sell that meditation builds more muscle, I swear to God, we're gonna have a whole generation of bodybuilders starting to meditate. That would mean, think about what Arnold did. People don't think about this, what are Arnold did?

Starting point is 01:09:14 Lay out in the sun after we're in the day of the joint. Exactly. Oh, you know, he just built so much muscle. I'm like, well, yeah, they can do it of how they want them, Jim. If they're immediately going to the beach after, that's why living in California California is such a great benefit, man, you walk out under the beach after

Starting point is 01:09:28 and you fucking lay in the sand. You're reconnecting, you're grounding, and you're basically meditating, you know? And guarantee they're all smoking weed. Yeah. I'm like, dude, that is like, if you want to be a great bodybuilder, become a hippie.

Starting point is 01:09:39 Yeah. And you know, here's the irony of that, as I remember when I learned how to meditate, everything that I ever tackled in my life was head on, I'm gonna fucking do this, nothing can stop me. And then when I tried to learn how to meditate, or really, really get better at it, so my girlfriend's the one that,

Starting point is 01:09:54 because I used to try and do this, it's not for me. And so she was walking me through this, and I'm like, this is so hard for me, and she's like, why? And I'm like, well, I'm trying really fucking hard, and she starts laughing at me, and she goes, that's the opposite for me. And she's like, why? And I'm like, well, I'm trying really fucking hard. And she starts laughing. She goes, that's the opposite of meditating.

Starting point is 01:10:07 You can't meditate hard. It doesn't work that way. You've got to kind of, you know, so. And this is the perfect time to insert my quote if you can't, therefore you must. You're right. That's for me. Like everyone, I can't meditate.

Starting point is 01:10:18 You need it more than it. Oh, Adam talks about that all the time. I say on the show, always 99.9% of the time, what you need most is what you're probably not doing. It's gonna be a lot of fun. Yeah, or what you can't, I can't do that. Ooh, that says a lot. Like if you that ever comes out of your mouth

Starting point is 01:10:35 and I sit on my way full of time, whoa, okay, stop right now and go do that. If I can't, I must. Right, yeah. That's why I've, you know, I'm starting to lose all this muscle and I'm like, well, it's because it's hard. Okay, I'm not, I must. That's why I'm starting to lose all this muscle. I'm like, well, it's hard. Okay, now I gotta do it. Yeah, I recently heard this story

Starting point is 01:10:51 that just resonated so strongly with me. And it was about comparing yourself to others and how you basically don't know, you don't know anybody like you know yourself. In fact, you don't know anybody, even a fraction as well as you know yourself. And so it's not fair to compare yourself with other people. The only person you should compare yourself is yourself yesterday. And then I heard this part of it, which was every

Starting point is 01:11:11 single day tried to be a incremental fraction just as small as degree better than yesterday. And I thought about that for a second. And I thought of this picture because many times when I think of things, I think of things in pictures. And I thought of two parallel lines. And how if I move one just a quarter of a degree to the right, it's going to, they're going to look almost parallel. But if I spread, if I stretch those out for 15 miles, they're super, super far apart. And it dawned on me like great change doesn't happen from massive changes as much as it does from the small tiny ones that stick every single day. And you've been talking about changing so much.

Starting point is 01:11:49 What are the things that you've been doing with you? What are these incremental changes that you're working on every single day? I love that question, but I also want to point out the exact opposite is true. So if there's 1% divergence in the other direction that you just not paying attention to, if you let something slip, including in your business,

Starting point is 01:12:04 and this is from again, one of my business mentors, Badre says, you must not allow for one percent to ever just in your business, because if it starts and people start to notice, all of a sudden, everybody starts to. Very, very true thing in human psyche. I think who is it? The governor of New York City, New York City used to just be riddled with crime, and they adopted this policy where they're not going to allow a single window to be broken. They're not going to allow a piece of garbage.

Starting point is 01:12:29 People think what does it have to do with anything? And it's like, you know, yeah, and it changed in the same thing with alcohol prohibition. When alcohol was illegal, because most people didn't follow that law, they all started breaking other laws as well. So lawlessness went through the fucking roof with alcohol prohibition, even though, you know, not just from the alcohol prohibition, because everybody started breaking other all of the law. So, but yeah, so tell me, what are these small changes that you made that you make every day now that have been turning into big changes? Just paying attention, man, like, fine, it changes

Starting point is 01:13:01 every day. You know, I call it the layers of the onion, right? It's peeling away the layers and every day it's different, but I think it starts with any recent ones that you've seen? Sure, many. Specific things that I'm doing to change. What, yeah, maybe that's it? Don't avoid that big one that just came in your head. I'm fucking avoid the big one.

Starting point is 01:13:22 I just came in your head right there. Oh, look at it, no, no, no. Look at it? I just came in your head right there. What are you doing? What are you doing? What are you doing? I fucking saw that. Did you see that? You fucking dropped that question to it like this. Like, boof, oh fuck.

Starting point is 01:13:32 I can't. I stopped watching weird talk about that right. I can't talk about that right. But I don't want to tell anybody about that. Oh shit. Man, there's a lot you can imagine. Man, my life is this massive transcendence of things. I lived 20 years of trying to be the biggest human being in the planet, and I did everything

Starting point is 01:13:51 I could to be the biggest human being on the planet. There's so much to unwind from that. Psychologically, things around food are changing. My attachment to training and that, I question why am I in my attachment training? Why do I need to train? Why do I need to eat? I mean, I question everything now. Things that I'm doing, man, everything is different.

Starting point is 01:14:14 My life is different. The way I treat my family is different. The way I answer the phone is different. I think the biggest thing that maybe has changed my life and I think this would help a lot of people is the daily struggles are inevitable. Don't try to get away from the struggles. Don't try to create happiness because you believe it's going to not have the struggles. The struggles are where the growth is. But what's perhaps changed me the most in the last couple of years is in the last couple of years is to find the joy and the struggle and find this, you know, when it sucks.

Starting point is 01:14:49 Smile, right? And that to me is like, because nothing really matters that much, man. We're not getting out of here life and or none of us getting out of here life. And it doesn't really matter that much. And if you learn to have a better perspective, you start bringing better things into your life, because people realize you're not a reactive person, you're a responsive person. And for me, man, like literally every aspect of my life is different. But I think that in itself is when something sucks, smile, and see it as an

Starting point is 01:15:17 opportunity. You sound, you sound like a spiritual person. Has that evolved for you? A thousand percent, man. I'm very blessed to have very great people in my life now, and I'm sure you guys on this, as you start to evolve, new people start to appear, and they start to, like, I've got such amazing human beings in my life now that are influencing me in such a positive way. And a very small number of people that I let into my life,

Starting point is 01:15:44 but incredible human beings. And yes, my spiritual life is massively evolving. You know, there's spiritual practice or there's certainly a meditation practice. You know, there's a walking meditation practice that I do most days. I do a lucky enough to live on an island where I can walk in and actually meditate and sometimes put my feet in the water, which allows me to kind of connect with nature. And, you know, I've become very connected with the fact that we are all, we're all one, you know, we're all the part of the same system. We all come, you know, ultimately the realization is we're all born from the same stuff as the

Starting point is 01:16:20 stars, we're all from, you know, the Carl Sagan. Yeah, yeah, the star stuff. Yeah, I mean, that's the reality, right? Like we're so insignificant yet we make ourselves so insignificant. So trying to lose attachment to everything, attachment to attachment, right? Like, have you started examining the duality of,

Starting point is 01:16:41 like how strange the duality of things are? Like one thing for me that was fucking mind blowing was the first realization that we are, for lack of a better term, insignificant. We're such a tiny speck of a massive piece of this huge thing. And then the duality of that, which is at the same time, I'm also the complete center of my own universe because all my perception comes from this one point. And so everything around me is literally always around me. I'm always in the middle of my own universe because all my perception comes from this one point. And so everything around me is literally always around me. I'm always in the middle of my own universe.

Starting point is 01:17:09 And those two things exist at the same time. And then I started examining the duality of everything. The good cannot exist without the bad. And the right doesn't exist without the left and the up doesn't exist without the down and fucking crazy to think of things that way and then realize that within yourself. However, awesome I am. I also have a tremendous potential to be completely a horrible person and it's all within all of us and that is a very, that was a difficult understanding but it was also a powerful one because it led me to understand

Starting point is 01:17:39 that I have a choice. Ah, that's great. Yeah, that's something I have never explored, man. I truly believe that at the core of me is love. And I don't always allow that to exude or like this pure inner joy and bliss. And I don't always allow that to come through because of fear of judgments and fear of all these things. I'm trying to overcome that. Right? I'm trying to overcome my fear of, you know, people judging me for being happier, people judging me for being joyful or, you joyful or sharing love or giving you guys a hug. That's the kind of weird shit that, and people are gonna think I'm weird, but,

Starting point is 01:18:11 cares, right? But yeah, everything definitely has a duality and that's the beauty of it, right? And that's why people are trying to find, in their life, they're trying to get rid of the stress, they're trying to get rid of the struggle. And I'm like, oh, no, I see you. I literally say that on time, like I see you. There's an opportunity for me to learn. And like, let's figure out what the flip rid of the struggle. And I'm like, oh, no, I see you. I literally say that on something like, I see you.

Starting point is 01:18:26 There's an opportunity for me to learn. And like, let's figure out what the flip side of that is. Yeah, you, you, when, every time I see you, give me a big hug. And I wonder, were you always that kind of a person, a hugger or touchy-feeley person? Or is that changed more recently? I don't think I hugged anyone when I was a professional body,

Starting point is 01:18:41 but I'm like, ah, yeah, yeah, no, not. So, it's strange dichotomy for me, man, when I was a kid, like, you wouldn't ever have seen me without a smile on my face. Yeah, that was probably the most sad kid underneath. Tears of a clown. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, maybe I was, I was a funny way of putting it. Well, no, I mean, that's where it comes from, like, like,

Starting point is 01:19:01 a song, putting on a face, but how you feel inside. Yeah, I don't know that I was. I get the analogy. I Like, it's like, it's on. It's putting on a face, but how you feel inside. It's like, I don't know that I was like, I get the analogy. I just think it's a funny one. Yeah. I think it was because I was always trying to, like, trying to avoid having somebody get angry with me

Starting point is 01:19:13 because my family was very angry, man. My dad had a temper that, like, was, you know, not even to be mentioned kind of thing. And so my response that maybe I learned was like, oh, if I just smile, maybe everything will be better. So as a kid, I, you know, that's what I did. And I don't know that I was a very affectionate kid. But, you know, in the last couple of years, I've certainly become

Starting point is 01:19:34 much more comfortable like everyone I, who I comes into my life, I tried to, you know, express that affection, right? Have you found anything with your parents that you can look to that was positive and good that you've taken and now implemented in your life? Like is there, I love to ask a question, I just asked you for the days, is there a thing that, you know, you've taken from your father now

Starting point is 01:19:56 that is a positive thing? Sure. And then also a thing that you've promised not to be as a man yourself. He taught me everything I know because he was the exact person I did never want to be. And that's there's beauty in that, right? Like I knew that I don't ever want to be that parent. And that's why I must be a great parent every single day. And he chooses me. I choose to be present because he wasn't. There's definitely great things both my parents taught me. And one thing,

Starting point is 01:20:23 you know, when it comes to mind with my mom, as much as she wasn't there, she's still a caring person. And she just, you know, the things that comes to mind is you could do anything. Like she said that hundreds of times, you know, the kid, if you can do anything, if you want to do it, you could do it. And telling that to a child is very powerful, right? Rather than taking it away from them. It's a little little, man, they put no governors on me as a kid, like be home in the sun when the streets lights are on and other than that, like go do what you want, eat what you want, you want to score, go, you know, don't score, don't. And that's amazing. So you can do anything that, you know, I can see her saying that in my head,

Starting point is 01:20:58 thousands of times when I was a kid, and my dad taught me when you start you finish. And I think those are two that I still take to my kids And I think those are great like if if you start you chose to start you fuck finish Mm-hmm, and you can suffer you can hate it you can decide never to do it again, but you finish and I think those are things that I teach my kids and That goes a long way man, and obviously like I said the opposite side. There's a lot there But fuck yeah, man. Oh, I have a great time every time I talk with me. And obviously, like I said, opposite side, there's a lot there. But, fuck yeah, man. Oh, I have a great time every time I talk with you. Thanks, man.

Starting point is 01:21:29 Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. I think you're all right. Yeah, I appreciate that. 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, check out our discounted RGB Superbumble

Starting point is 01:21:44 at Mind Pump Media.com. The RGB Superbumble at MindPumpMedia.com. The RGB Superbumble includes maps on the ballad, 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 in over 200 videos, the RGB Superbundle is like having sound and an adjustment as your own personal trainer's butt at a fraction of the price. The RGB Superbundle has a 430-day money back guarantee and you can get it now plus other valuable free resources at MindPumpMedia.com.

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Mind Pump: Raw Fitness Truth - 715: Mind Pump Goes Deep with Ben Pakulski

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