Muscle for Life with Mike Matthews - Adam Schafer on Hard Life and Business Lessons Learned

Episode Date: February 14, 2018

In this episode, I interview my buddy Adam from the Mind Pump team to talk about, well, things. Life things. Business things. Personal things. All kinds of things that I hope you, dear listener, find interesting. This interview is a departure from my normal routine of drilling deep down into one topic, because Adam and I go all over the place and share some of the hard lessons we’ve learned growing both as individuals and businesspeople. For example, we discuss the difficulties we’ve had managing people in our businesses (and Adam shares a couple great tips that helped him improve), how to spot and eliminate “toxic” people from your life, how to have the “hard” conversations necessary for moving your life and relationships ahead, and more. 5:01 - How long did it take for you to build your team? 12:58 - When did you realize you didn’t like managing people in a business? 21:55 - How do you make your podcast stand out in the health and fitness field? 52:59 - What were the childhood traumas that you had to overcome? 71:51 - How do you end poisonous friendships? 98:59 - What’s MindPump’s ambition? Want to get my best advice on how to gain muscle and strength and lose fat faster? Sign up for my free newsletter! Click here: https://www.muscleforlife.com/signup/

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place your order and see for yourself why my supplements have thousands of rave reviews all over the internet. And if for whatever reason, they're just not for you, contact us and we will give you a full refund on the spot. Alrighty, that is enough shameless plugging for now at least. Let's get to the spot. All righty. That is enough shameless plugging for now, at least let's get to the show. Adam, thanks for coming on the show. You are mind pump man. Number two, come on the show. Sal was first. And we were talking about how now your goal is to just beat him in terms of numbers to record an episode that's more popular than his. Always, always see what he doesn't know. And we'll just keep this between you and I is that I talk to our marketing team on a daily basis. And so whenever I get on an interview somewhere, I have them send out a mass email to all our listeners to go run over there and boost

the numbers after he does. He doesn't know this is the game that I've been playing since we got started because I continue to outperform all of his interviews when we get on the same podcast. That's perfect. And I can help. I can email to my list too, just to make him look even worse. You know what? That's one of the things I love about these guys over here is there's this healthy bit of competition when it comes to either improving your own craft or just the business in general, man. I'm really blessed to be around a group of guys that really put their egos aside and it's really all about getting better. And I'm joking about beating Sal because deep down we're always rooting for each other no matter what we do, but there is a little bit of that healthy competition amongst all of us.

Yeah, it's great. It's a similar thing with my team. I have a really good group of guys that are not only willing to work hard, but work as a team and put the team and the group's interests ahead of their own. And as you were saying, strive to improve as well and not ever think that you are good enough or know enough and that you don't need to keep growing. How long did it take you to build your team like that? Did you have to go through, I'm really curious, did you have to go through a lot of guys or were you lucky you were connected some really good friends that go way back? Like what's the history on them? Yeah.

So, um, it started with me recruiting Jeremy, who I've known, uh, since I was like 14 actually. And he's a bit younger. I want to say I'm 33 and I want to say that he's 27 or 28. And so I was good friends with his uncles. That's how I met him. And he's always been a smart dude and, you know, more mature for his age. So even though he was younger, quite a bit younger when, even when I was a teenager, I got to know him. And then, so I recruited him first and in, I guess you could say, just kind of got lucky. He's a very smart guy and he's, he's done a lot of really good things for everything since the beginning.

And from there, we really just been tapping into friends, people that we've known growing up with, which, again, is kind of lucky that we've found a few really good people to fill key positions. You know, but we've had a few people that didn't work out for one reason or another. But we've had a few people that didn't work out for one reason or another. But when I hear some of the HR horror stories that are out there, fortunately, I haven't really experienced anything that I can complain about. You know what I mean? So was it mainly you and him when you guys first started? How long until you started building the rest of the team? Because I know you have a team of nine or ten people already.

Well, I mean, there's about 20 of us, actually. Oh, shit. Wow. Yeah, I might add to the final number, maybe a few more, and then we're adding three or four more within the next month or two. But yeah, so I'd say, let's see, in the beginning it was just me and Jeremy and then, and then I, who was next? I think it was Nico who was next. So, um, by the end of the first year there was maybe four or five of us. And then over the next year there was another three or four added. Yeah, probably another three or four each year, actually, because this is year five. It's so weird. We just got back from Austin and we were at the Onnit Academy.

And it just baffles me when I go through a facility like that and there's 200 employees. And then I know someone like you who has damn near as successful of a supplement business. Now, mind you, they're a little bit bigger than you are right now, but they've also got massive funnels that are feeding into their business. But 200 something employees and you're operating with 20. I mean, it's just... And honestly, that's 20 between a few different things. That's 20 between Legion, which is the supplement company and Muscle for Life, which is about to, we're overhauling it. It's about to relaunch with the store and digital courses and new things and bells and whistles and so forth. And my publishing company, which is just my books. And that's a, uh, you know, a whole world unto itself. So, yeah, I know when you, when you told me that with on it, I was like, what, how, how,

how does a company, you know, that I'm guessing, you know, I can't say for sure, but based on what I've seen, I'm guessing they're probably about $30 million a year in revenue. How does a business... You know what I think it is, and this is my take, and we're completely speculating right now, but I think when you get a company that has this overnight success, and I tell the guys, I remember when we first went over there, I'm like, I really believe this is happening for a reason because I can see how something like that can kind of get out of control. And then you find that you're just putting warm bodies and positions because you feel like you need it. It's like, well, better to put somebody there because there's an opportunity for this company to make a million dollars there.

So let's just staff it and get it going. I remember about a year ago when we were watching this thing grow. And one of the things that we were trying to sharpen up is just the organizational skills. That's definitely all of, I think, the four of us owners. I think that's probably our weakest link is our organization. I mean, we all are great visionaries and have leadership backgrounds. But man, when it comes to organization, I think that's where we can. I remember thinking one day like, man, if someone came in and they said, hey, Adam, here's $100 million. We love what you're doing at MindPump. We think it's going to be amazing and we want to be a part of it. I remember honestly

saying, I don't know what we would do with that. And I really feel that when you see a company like that, that's what happens. I think they just got this flux of revenue when they announced AlphaBrain on Joe Rogan's podcast. Then I think they were off and running. I think that when you look at them now, an outsider looking in who doesn't really understand business or know much about the numbers and what they're doing probably goes, wow, this is such a successful business. But then another business owner like myself, I see it and go, inefficiency. I'm like, oh shit, dude, that could be us. That could easily be us if we don't get the right systems in place and the right people in place to make sure that doesn't, which is, I mean, at the end of the day over to the employee's desk and be like, Hey man, what's your name? My name's Adam. What do you guys do here? And you know, every time I would do that, I would get these kind of like deer in the headlight look like,

well, I kind of do this and they kind of do that. And I'm like, man, why, why does everybody seem so uncertain about what they do? Wow. Yes. I mean, I guess that's what you have to expect, though, again, with that many employees. I mean, I would expect if it were for my, and even if you make good products in the end, the majority of your resources go into the marketing, of course. So I could see that team becoming a big supplement company. I could see 20 to 30 people on a marketing team alone. If you have a lot of your stuff in-house, you have your copywriting in-house, you have your paid advertising in-house.

You're not really outsourcing anything to outside agencies. But beyond that, you have an infrastructure that kind of just supports the marketing efforts and supports. So that's acquiring your customers and then retaining your customers. It would be the other big thing, customer experience, customer support. I could see that getting up there, especially if it's an e-commerce business doing tens of thousands of orders a week type of deal. But yeah, no, that was, that's interesting. That's again, it's like, I understand it's probably honestly, I don't know anything about Aubrey, but my guess is he's probably more of a creative type dude. He probably is in the same place as you guys. He probably doesn't really know

much about running a business and doesn't really like running a business or managing people and is just trying to do his best. You'll hear the interview that I did with him. It takes about 30 minutes and I really start going in on him on stuff like that because that's exactly what I see. I see this philosophical, visionary type of dude that's super creative and artistic. I've had the opportunity to meet a lot of CEOs in my lifetime and he just doesn't fit the mold. And I tried to get him to really share what that's like and then some of the struggles that he deals with operating a business that big with that many employees. And you hear him dance around and then hearing me apply the pressure on a little bit. It'll be interesting to hear what you think after you listen to the episode, because that's exactly

what I dug into. Yeah, I'm going to listen to it. It sounds interesting. I'm curious. And I can relate to that, honestly. I think I'm decent at running a business. I could be better at it if I wanted to apply myself more to it. But it's not something I particularly enjoy because I don't particularly enjoy managing people. And you're not ever going to be a good COO. That's where the person in the trench is running the business every day. CEOs can be kind of, if they've built a good organization under them, they can be kind of out in the clouds and thinking big thoughts and strategic planning and strategic relationships. I mean, a good CEO,

that's a lot of what they do, actually. But, you know, so I can relate. It's not running a business. If I just had it my way, I'd rather be doing stuff like this and writing books and recording videos than putting out fires in an organization. When did you think you put that together? Like, at what point did you realize that, you know what, I don't really enjoy this. I actually do like that. I really enjoy the relationship building and kind of, I'm definitely the guy on our team who is talking to everybody on our team almost on a daily basis and kind of picking people up when they're down and kind of motivating and directing and also staying in touch with a lot of our relationships

and affiliations. So when did you realize that you didn't enjoy that? I'd say within the last six months or so. Um, if I really, just recently. Yeah, it really is kind of crystallized for me. I mean, I kind of knew that about my personality, I'd say, you know, going into it, but yeah, I was reserving judgment. I was going to experience it like going into it. I was thinking I'm not, I probably won't like the running the business aspect of this. Fortunately, I just like working and I like doing things well. So that kind of applies to whatever work I'm doing. But once we go one echelon above that into actual just personal preferences and who knows why they are what they are, that's just the way I am. Yeah. So I'd say within the last six months

or so it not only, cause for me not particularly enjoying something, it's not a good enough reason to not do it if it's what needs to be done. And of course that's, I mean, you guys know, half of being successful is doing the shit that other people don't want to do. Whether, and it's not so much that you enjoy doing it or I enjoy doing it. There's plenty of stuff. I'm sure I can, I know there's plenty of stuff about my job that if I just sat and thought about it in abstraction and I'd be like in my jobs plural and be like, yeah, I could do without that. I don't feel compelled to go do that every going to work through it because and I'm going to do a good job because it contributes to this thing that I do care about. Running the day-to-day operations is not so much my thing. And that's why also I have somebody for Legion and I need somebody actually now for Muscle for Life because it's really going to become its own.

It is its own business right now and actually makes a fair amount of money through coaching and a few other things. I mean it's almost a seven-figure business. I guess at this point it is just on its own. It's about to really come into its own and I'm going to need somebody to run, essentially be the COO of that business. And I have that person for Legion, which is something last year, again, when I, when I made that shift, when I was like, okay, I don't want to be the COO, particularly I can if I'm needed to be, but I can't be the COO of this supplement business, which is growing rapidly and which just means more moving parts and more things that need attention and need work and be Mike Matthews, you know what I mean? And do the writing and do, so let's say do all the content and get out there and do more publicity.

So I did like my first national TV thing just recently and I'm going to be doing a lot more. Yeah, that was so awesome. Yeah, I know. I was, it's very random to how that happened. I basically should not have been there. It was just complete serendipity. So I can't do all of that. And I mean, the only way I could possibly do it is never see my family again. And I don't think that's the right decision.

So what I did is I, somebody that's actually been with me since the beginning and has really moved up and taken on more and more responsibility and he's smart, competent, hardworking. Just grooming him. I've been grooming him for the last six months or so to run Legion, to be the COO of Legion. So now I am not going to be bogged down in the day-to-day logistics of running a business.

Of course, I'm still involved from a coordination standpoint. We're all working in the same office, blah, blah, blah. But it allows me now to focus on the things that I think are the highest and best use of my time, given what we want to achieve over the next three to five years. And so that's what I even recommend to you guys is, you know, you guys are growing quickly, you're making money, I would I would look at if you're reaching that point of incompetence in terms of running a business, which is also important to know, you know, yourself, like, how good am I at this really? And consider if you had somebody that was really good, which doesn't necessarily mean they have to cost you a ton of money, especially if they're willing to learn and

grow with the business. If you had someone who really good to kind of be your essentially your COO, or minimally more of an office manager type where there's just a lot of, again, as you know, a lot of moving parts, a lot of cogs in the machine to, to run that shit and help grow the business while you guys focus on what is your highest and best use of time, which is obviously a hundred percent creating content, going on the road, like what you did going into other podcasts, um, networking with more and more people in the industry. It's something to consider. Oh, I think it's spot on. And right now we have Brianna at about 50% or less of her time that I would love to see 100% because she kind of represents that for this business right now. And it does. It allows us to do what we love to do and what we're good at. I think a lot of people, when you get into business, not that many people think that far ahead. Everybody works so hard,

like, I want the American dream, and I want to to be an entrepreneur and I want to build my business. And then what do you do when it actually gets pretty big and you're making good money and your job just starts to change? I mean, you're doing something different than when you were building, when you're building and growing, it's a lot different than when you're operating and you're running it and you're keeping it moving. I think that it's tough to see that far ahead. And I know from my experience, like, I don't know how many businesses that I've started up and failed and whatever, but I'm sure there's at least 10 or more. And I got really good at building this like a six figure income amount. I could make enough money.

And I think every business I ever did made somewhere between 50 and 150 grand a year. And to this day, I feel I have this confidence that if Mind Pump exploded, I had nothing else to do. What would I do? That wouldn't be a scary thing for me. I've been in a situation like that enough times that I feel confident that I could create something that would generate enough revenue that I could survive and eat and provide for my family. But scaling to the next level was always a challenge for me. I couldn't figure out how to break through that next level. And I think this is something that a lot of entrepreneurs, when you look at the percentages, I mean, it's like what 80, 80, 90% of them fail as is in the first year. Then the few that actually make it and survive,

the actual percent of those that make it into the millions, and then the tens of millions. I mean, you're talking about- Tiny. Yeah, it's tiny. And you don't realize it. I don't think anybody who's chasing a dream or thinks like, oh, I'm going to build this business. I'm going to be rich, or I'm going to build it to be huge. And it's tough once you get to a point where you're making enough income that you're making decent money, but you still want to grow it more. It's like most people have a really hard time with that next step and reinvesting back into the company and reinvesting into people. Because if you would have asked me five years ago, hey, you're building this

mind pump dream of yours and the company's making $ you know, $1.5 million a year. How much money are you making? I mean, I would have for sure thought I was making a lot more money than I'm making. I would have for sure told you like, oh man, once the company's making that much money, I'll be doing so good. And that's just based off of previous experiences of building other businesses. Once I got it to a certain amount where it's just me and maybe an assistant or whatever with that, you can still pay yourself decent. But once you decide you're going to start to scale this thing to a seven or eight figure business, it becomes a whole new monster. And it's been quite the experience. And what I think we've always really connected with you, we all have very

similar mindsets. I think as much as we love everything that we're doing, balance in our life and family, friends, and things like that are just as important. And I'm probably the most monetary driven out of all of us. And even I still feel the same way that it's not the number one goal for me. Isn't some dollar amount. I mean, we truly love what we're doing. And if I can find a way to build this business to where it operates. It can feed the mouths of 10 to 50 employees while I can also make a good income and then also have the freedom and the flexibility to travel and take days off and not have to stress about the day-to-day, but it takes time to build a monster like that. And I really, really enjoy watching what you're doing because I was super fascinated and impressed because you're kind of this where you started off as this kind of one man band and you did it like the reverse of what we did it.

Like, I feel like what you've mastered really well is what we're hiring another team and company to come in and help us do right now. And it just shows that, you know, there's there's multiple ways to the finish line, but I love watching what you're doing. And I think that we all have very similar mindset as how we feel about business, you know? Yeah, absolutely. And also, I mean, for me, it's cool to, to see where you guys are going with your podcast now quickly. You're, and I'm impressed with your network in particular, like you guys are doing a really good job getting in with other people. And it's something I've talked about now. I actually wanted to ask how exactly you're going about it.

To be fair, I haven't tried very much. But clearly you guys have something special worked out there. It obviously feeds off of what you're doing with your podcast and how well you guys work together and engaging with your network or engaging with your listeners in particular. I don't know the podcast space as well as you guys do, but it seems like you guys are doing that better than most other people, at least in the health and fitness space that I've seen in the podcasting. Well, we kind of saw that opportunity when we first got into the space. I remember all of us were interested in podcasting and the direction it was going. So we'd all listened to podcasts before,

and we'd kind of seen the rise of it. And when we were looking at our current space, we really didn't feel like there was a lot of competition, at least not what we saw was needed in the space. So I thought there weren't a lot of voices. Same thing when I started writing books. Right. So I thought there, there weren't a lot of voices. Same thing when I started writing books, that's why I was like, yeah, sure. There are books, but I can do it better. And before I did it, that just sounds like, okay, yeah, cool story, bro. Go do it then. And then you go, you go and do it. And then it's like, oh, well I guess you, yeah, you did do it better. I mean, and this is going to sound a bit narcissistic, but we all, when we first started, we didn't really have any doubt

that we were going to eventually dominate the fitness space and podcasting. And that's, like I said, it sounds really cocky and narcissistic, but it was just because we saw the opportunity. We know we've been in, each one of us have been in the industry from 15 to 20 years. So we have a ton of experience in this field. And we just saw there was a huge need for somebody putting out the raw truth. And the reason why it's not sexy is there's not a lot of money in it at first. I mean, you know the... There's no money in it at first. Right.

There's none. And the formula for success in the fitness business for the last 20 years plus has been either one, you've already made a name for yourself either through a book or through TV or famous somehow, and then you pivot over and you sell probably supplements to your audience. That's been the formula for a really, really long time. And so for us to go the opposite direction, say, okay, we're not going to attach ourselves to any supplement companies right now. We're just going to put out good information and content that's non-biased. And part of the reason why we didn't attach ourselves to anybody is not because none of us use supplements. All of us use supplements. It was more that there was more of a

message that needed to be given out to people than just, hey, take this or take that. And once we could help enough people, then we could look out sponsors. I mean, we're just now, we're on year three, right? Three and a half, Doug? Are we around there? Three and. I mean, we're just now, we're on year three, right? Three and a half, Doug? Are we around there? Three and a half is where we're at? About three and a half years right now. And it was six months ago where the advertising money was actually legitimate advertised money. Now it is a major piece of the business. But for the first two and a half years of this business, it was not, we weren't making any money that way. And I think a lot of people get into the podcasting space thinking like, oh, I'm going to

get in. I'm going to get a bunch of listeners. And then I'll get advertising money. And I'll just sell this. And I'll make a ton of money. And it couldn't be further from the truth. It doesn't work that way. But I will say something that I take a lot of pride on as far as something that I think I contribute to the business that we don't really talk about. I haven't shared a lot on other podcasts or interviews I've done, but you kind of grazed over it. That's the network and the relationship building piece. This is something that I remember when I read this book back when I was in my early 20s. read this book back when I was in my early 20s. And it was just talking about how much affirmation that your employees need. And what they did was they did this study on 500 of some

of the top CEOs in the United States. And they did that. And then they asked them a series of questions. And some of the questions were like, how often do you tell your employees they're doing a good job and give them positive affirmation? And they said on a scale of one to five, and all the CEOs were like four and a half to five was the average, something high like that. Then they went and asked those same employees, and it was like two and a half. So the takeaway that I had was you can never give enough positive affirmation to people no matter what, even the most successful guys out there that claim to do it the best. You got to do more.

You got to do more. Then I read this book just right after that, short, easy read. It's called One Minute Manager. Book I recommend anybody trying to build a business read. Good, simple principles, quick to read, and easy to apply. It was a – talk about paradigm shattering moments for us. Like at that time, I'm five years into my career. I'm at the top of my game in my space. I'm known as one of the best in the area and in the company, making good money. And so I'm just a young, full of piss and vinegar kid thinking

that he's doing everything perfect. And I read this book and I'm like, fuck man, I just, that's not how I lead. It's not how I manage. I've never thought about that. And I read this book and I'm like, fuck, man, that's not how I lead. It's not how I manage. I've never thought about that. And I feel like most people that have dealt with managers or other leaders don't lead this way either. Let me try and apply this and see what happens. And basically the idea of the book is that instead of looking at what people are doing, so when you get in the management role, one of the most common things you see happen, someone gets promoted. Now they're the boss. They've got 10, 20, 30 employees underneath them. And now they have that little M next to their name. Now they feel like they go around and just tell everybody what they need to be doing better. Oh, hey, you didn't do this, Susie. You

need to do this and do that. And it turns into this bossing people around because they feel empowered. The moral of the book was like, listen, this is, you need to find all the things that they're doing right. And you don't want to focus on the things that they're not doing, that they're doing wrong. And so what I did at that time, I had about 20 employees and I'm not an organized guy. I told you that earlier when we first started. And so I was like, okay, I need to put a system in place so I can actually apply this and then measure it. Right. So what I did was I took all my employees and I put them in my calendar for the month and I had little alarms that went off. And so I would be in the middle of a normal busy day working and then all of a sudden alarm goes off and it would say Ronnie.

So it'd be a name of one of my trainers. And I promised myself no matter what I was doing at that time, I would stop what I'm doing and then I'd go find that trainer and then I would compliment something that I'd seen them do recently, obviously trying to do something that day, right? So I'd walk over to Ronnie and walk over, put my hand on his shoulder and say, Hey Ronnie, I just saw the way you were with your last client, man. I really appreciate what you're doing. You're doing such a great job. I got to talk to her afterwards and she just rant and raves about you and thinks you're the best thing ever. And I just want to tell you great job. And then I'd walk away and that's all I would do. And that's kind of what the book is

about because it's this great leader that everyone talks about that they rarely see. They only see him come around every once in a while and they only, he's only there for about a minute or two. And so I began doing this and it was about a month or two later when I realized what an impact it was starting to make. And I had actually, my alarm had gone off and it just happened to be one of those days I kind of fell off of doing what I was doing. And it was only about, I don't know, an hour or two. And in comes one of my trainers in the office. And it happens to be one of them that I hadn't made it around to, to tell him what a good job he's doing. He's one of my really good trainers. And he comes walking the office and he's, and you can tell he's kind of like in this little bit of a panic and he's like, Adam, Hey, I just want to let you know that I know I normally get here 15 minutes

before clients. So with that, this happened and this happened and this going on. And I know my files, I haven't got them up to date and I need to do this and I'm going to, I'll make sure I knock that out. And he starts like vomiting all the stuff that he's not doing really well. And I thought, and I thought, well, that was really funny because I was like, man, I didn't say anything to this kid, but he felt so compelled to tell me what he could be doing better at with his job. And I started to notice this pattern starting to happen with my staff that I no longer had to come over and find the things they were doing bad or point out, point them out when they're doing it and correct them. They were telling me how they can improve and they can get better. And they felt bad. And I thought, whoa, what a cool thing.

And man, when I made that shift, it completely changed the way I led people. So this was a big thing that I learned in my mid-20s. And then I learned to apply that in relationship building with people like yourself, somebody who I value their relationship. They're in a similar space as we are, and you're a great relationship to have aside from the fact that I like you as an individual, as a person. And so what I do here is I actually have this huge list of all these contacts. We actually have about a 100 and I think we're up to 170 contacts of relationships within the health and fitness space. And these are all micro influencers or huge influencers, depending on the size of their network. And, you know, I have maintained a

personal relationship with a majority. And now there's some of them like, and I think of like you and Sal connect even more. You guys love to go on your political stuff back and forth. And so you and Sal actually talk the most out of all of us. But I actually keep that relationship with a majority of our people. That tends to be my part of the job and part of what I do. Unless there's somebody like you who was obvious right away when all of us got together. I mean, I swear when I first met you, I was like, you're like another set. Like you and Sal are so the same person in so many ways. And, uh, yeah. And I got that quickly when I was there and I was like, all right, this is, this is good. This is going to be

fun. I like these guys. I mean, you just get it. There's, you know, there's a point where you have instincts and just given the people's vibes or energy, however you want to say it. That's something I, I think I've always been fairly good at, you know, you're never, you're never always right, but just getting a good quick read on people and just getting a sense of who they are and what they're doing. So, you know, that's, that was immediately obvious to me. So what I, what I do now that's similar from, that I took from way back when I first learned from that, those books was I now have applied that same concept with my relationship building and my network with these people now. And everybody is annoyed. I don't know if people know this. So

this little hack for you, like there's nothing more annoying than somebody who's hitting you up and it's obvious that they want something from you. It's just the only time they ever reach out to talk to you is because they need a favor or they want you to plug them or could you do this? You know, it's, and that to me, like, I don't like when people do that to me. So. Yeah. I mean, it's just bad manners. It is. It's bad manners. It's bad business. And I don't like the way it feels when people do it to me. So it's, I'm very careful of that with the people that I, within our network. And so what I do is I keep, just like I did with my trainers, I keep this list of all of our people that we're connected to.

And I just make a conscious effort to send them a Christmas gift or send them a card or write them, sometimes it's just a simple text message. Hey man, I was just thinking about you today. Once somebody we're connected to, I just saw let go of a major employee of his, and I just make the effort to text him and say, Hey man, I saw what's going on with, you know, just know that I'm here. If you want to talk or bullshit, man, I'm whatever, like hope your day is going good. And so I just make a conscious effort to, to do that with these people because it does, it tends to make this really strong relationship. And then when there is something where, you know, maybe we're getting ready to launch something or a book is getting ready to release or a program,

I feel comfortable calling up one of these guys and be like, Hey, could you do me a favor, dude? We're getting ready to launch this. Could you push this out to your network too right now? It's not awkward for me to ask it. And there's no hesitation to do it because I've already established this relationship with them. That's me giving. And a lot of times too, I'll just do stuff for people, obviously without asking or expecting anything. And a lot of times I won't even ask them to do something for them. But most of the time they feel compelled to do that because they feel like I'm always giving or doing things for them. And I really feel like it's kind of a lost art in business and not a lot of people do it. So many people are so much into the

selfish or stepping on others to get ahead. And I really attribute a lot of our mind pump success to this philosophy. And this is something that the outsiders looking at the business don't really see. But yet I think that it's one of the main reasons why we're successful because to elevate in this space, there's a lot of people all over the world that are doing a very similar thing that MindPump is, maybe in a different style or whatever, but it's very competitive. We have a very competitive space. My theory is your true net worth is your network, man. And if you're not building that, it's going to be a long, lonely road trying to do it all on your own.

And it's tough. It's a lot tougher doing that than with the help of friends and people within your network. Very true. It's a very powerful lesson. I mean, anybody listening, not only do it in your business,

which is actually, that book is something that Karim, who I was talking about, who's coming up into that COO role, that was one of the first how to be a good manager type of books that I had him read. And he loved it too. And he does something very similar. And it's something actually I had to impose on myself because it doesn't come naturally to me. It doesn't even come naturally. Like at least I don't have a

double standard for myself. I have very high expectations for myself. So I think that I'm, you know, a capable person and I can do things. It's not that I'm completely self-effacing. I'm fairly humble and I catch myself sometimes maybe what I think is getting a little bit too big for my britches and I try to rein that in, but hold myself to very high standards. And I expect a lot from myself and do my best to try to live up to those standards. And so that naturally just kind of extends to people around me. And that's fine. But where it got in the way of being a good leader is then inevitably, and this is again with me, I don't care as much about the things that I do well in any sphere of my life as the things I don't do well.

Because I know that's how I improve. the things I don't do well, because I know that's how I improve is like, face what I'm not good at face where I'm failing, and try to fix that, as well as reinforcing the things that I'm good at. But reinforcing the things that you're good at comes naturally and easily because you're good at them. And the more reps you get in on doing something you're good at, the better you get at it. And you know, especially if you combine that just with some education, you continue to learn things, it becomes a, you know, a self-reinforcing kind of positive feedback loop. But facing the things you're bad at, though, is not, it's uncomfortable. And then trying to do something about it is even more uncomfortable because doing things you're bad at, you know, makes you question yourself

and your abilities. And it just is what it is, right? So though that would then extend to other people where, you know, I might instinctively be like just trying to go in on that point. Like, you know, this is what you're not doing well. Let's just fix these things. But in the book, it was like the if you're going to correct something, the what they call it, the one minute redirect. Right. Right. So it's not just going in and being like, yo, dude, you're fucking this up. Can you do better? being like, yo, dude, you're fucking this up. Can you do better? Whereas that's my, maybe how I'd think about it myself. Like if I, my self-talk wouldn't be necessarily along those lines of, uh, making sure that, okay, here's the goal. This is why this matters. And let's make sure that, you know, we're going to talk about its behavior here. It's not, it's not something about, you

know, me as a person for myself, I'd be like, uh, can you do better, Mike? Like, yeah, thanks. You know what I mean? So I had to learn that myself and saw, you know, much better results in dealing with people applying it. And then to your point of applying it in other areas of your life, there's, you know, it reminded me of a story. I think it was in, I want to say the 48 laws of power and, uh, Bill Clinton, he kept, uh, essentially it was an old school Rolodex. It was a, a bunch of index cards of this. Exactly. He would do. I mean, I have the same thing. I just, I had to Google sheet called, uh, my Rolodex has, has people like you and other, and other people that, you know, I've met along the way that I want to stay in touch with. And I have not been good like you have, though,

in terms of just staying in touch. And I guess to my credit, I don't just use it to try to get things. I don't really ask for favors much at all. But what you're doing is very smart, and it's something I actually should be better with. And it's something that Bill Clinton did. It was like every day, if I remember correctly, every night he would take out a certain number of index cards and you'd have one index card per person. And he probably, you know,

some people would, it would grow into multiple and he'd probably staple them together or something, but he would take notes as well. So he would contact every day, a certain number of people in his, uh, his Rolodex, so to speak. And he would just call him just to see how it's going and seeing if he can help. And as he progressed in his career and in terms of influence and so forth, he was able to offer more. And that was something he started early on before he was governor or anything really. And now you know that there's probably 10,000 plus people. He still does it apparently up till today. He's probably 10,000 plus of the most powerful and influential people in the world, right? First name basis and are willing to do him favors and so forth. So it's very smart what you're doing. And it's something, honestly, I've thought several times,

like I really should be better with that. And so you've inspired me to be better, uh, with it. And you know, one other thing I'll just say that, um, it's something that I have now tried to just in terms of acknowledging the good to try to do more of in my personal life as well with my friends, with my wife, with my kids. Because again, I guess I myself also, I don't really care whether I get praised or not for things that I do or for, and I've always been like that. That's just my personality, I guess. Even growing up playing sports, like I always wanted to know, I'd ask the coach, what am I doing wrong? Like, I don't care.

Yeah, that's good. I have a good, you know, wrist shot. I have this, I played a lot of hockey, but like, what is bad? What's holding me back from becoming better? Because I myself, again, could kind of care less whether people say good things about me or not. I would tend to not say good things to other people, even though I might think them, even though I might see, you know, that my wife did a really good job, uh, in, in one way or another, like finding a great school for our son, for example. But I realized that like, I never told her that actually, you know what I mean? Right. She definitely did. And Lennox loves the school. I never actually said it. So I don't know if,

you know, that's been a thing for you also in actually said it. So I don't know if that's been a thing for you also in your personal life, but I've tried to apply that outside of business as well. If I'm being completely transparent on this, I'll tell you what, it's something that I've trained myself to do. It was not natural for me. That's why I even had to take the step of actually putting it in my phone and having a reminder. Now, it is something that I've created as a habit now in business, and it does seem natural. I mean, before you and I got on air, I've already spoken to five different people all over the country that are- Yeah, smart. Yeah. And just simple, saw an Instagram post they did, commented, talked to them a little bit,

sent a text message to a couple other people. So it's just something that I've trained myself to do now, and it does feel very natural, but it took time to do that. Now, being completely transparent, it's unfortunate that if I fall short anywhere, it's at home. And I know that that's a bad- I understand. It's in the same way for me. I totally understand. Right. And God bless. I have such an amazing woman at home that much of my success is because of her. She's absolutely my rock. We've been together for seven years. She's been with me through multiple businesses that I've built. And I wouldn't have done it without her. But I really have a hard time doing that for her, which is so crazy because she

probably makes the greatest impact on my life and on my business. But yet I probably don't do that enough for her. Luckily for me, she's also an incredible communicator. And we talk about these things and she totally understands, you know, she gets it. She gets that I'm giving myself 24 seven all day long. And then when I come home, I'm definitely the quiet guy that just likes to lay my head in her lap and relax and read a book. Right. So I do love that. And I'm sure your wife is the same way too. They probably get us and they understand it. So she's patient, but it is something that I've tried to get better at. I'll tell you like something that I started doing with her. So I have a little floral place and every now and then you'll see me post every now and then, but I'm pretty consistent with the surprise flowers and a card. And part of why I do

the card is because it's something literally she asked for years ago because I don't, I'm terrible at expressing my feelings and emotions there. I just, I'm not that guy. And a lot of that goes all the way back to my childhood, deep rooted shit. And so I don't express my feelings at all, but I can sit down and I can write them. Like if I make the effort to sit down and tell, write something out, I will get it out on paper. I'm not as good as communicating it to her. So to make sure that I'm giving that to her, that's kind of my thing that I do where I try once a month or once every other month to come home, surprise her with a bouquet of flowers and a card. And in the card is just me expressing my feelings. And that's done tons for our relationship because I know how... And for me, I give two shits about that.

Like if you've read the book, Five Love Languages, I don't need constant positive affirmation. I don't need the people loving on me all the time. I have this, I like things. So gifts are cooler. You know, those are what mine are and she's the opposite that I am. So she wants that feel, that touch and being told how much I love her and stuff. And because that's unnatural for me and she is my partner and I love her, it takes that extra step on my part to almost organize that, okay, reminder to do that.

And it's not because I don't think of it. It's just that it's not the way I operate. And I think we're all kind of like this in different ways. That's maybe mine and your thing. And I think becoming aware of that is the first step, you know, and that to me, self-awareness is, is everything. It's just knowing that about yourself and then being able to communicate that to a partner. And this translates into both business and personal relationships, man, for sure. Absolutely. And just on a point of self-awareness is knowing, yeah yeah where you're good

and just first accepting that we're all kind of fucked up in different ways right and you know what i mean and just knowing what's our and there there are degrees and there there there are qualitative and quantitative aspects of course that some people are are far worse than others um i don't believe in the uh moral relativism that's kind of popular these days. I think absolutely some people are just objectively shittier than others and cause way more harm and chaos in other people's lives and society in general, but we're all kind of fucked up in different ways. And we're all minimally, we can say we're all not perfect and we all do things wrong. And even though we're trying our best, sometimes our best is just not

very good. And, you know, so I can relate to what you're saying. Cause if I were to say, what has my experience been with Sarah? Exactly the same way where I went into, I mean, we started dating when I was 17 with the fuck that I know about, um, having a real relationship and romance and what that means and why it matters and so forth. And it's something that, um, I still need to get better with honestly, but I've done similar to. Like, for example, I've already pre-ordered flowers for Valentine's Day and wrote a card. Like, that's done. So now it's not going to be forgotten. And I have a reminder in my phone that goes off several weeks to do something nice for Sarah. It just reminds me. I just keep it, even though now it's kind of a routine. And I have a list of like, what are the nice type of things that she

likes? Yes. Flowers for sure. Gifts. So sometimes I'll just get her a gift. I know what kind of stuff she likes in terms of fashion. She always, there's a never ending list of things that she wants. I don't think I'll ever make enough money to fully satisfy her dream of her true dream closet. Maybe, maybe I'll be able to. So out of the two of you, is she the more fancy one? Is she the one that likes more, uh, more tangible things? Is that, is that more out of you two? Absolutely. Yeah. But, but it doesn't, it doesn't bother me because she's not, um, like she's not annoying about it. She's not a flashy person. Like she's not doing it to try to make other people.

No, she just likes nice things. Exactly. And that's the way that she's been, you know, since she's, since she was young and since for as long as I've known her, um, she just likes nice things. And I can relate to that. Uh, I like, I don't care so much about clothes and fashion because I don't really care about getting attention like that. It doesn't mean that much to me to have people be looking at me like, Oh, look at that guy. Look how he's dressed. But I can relate. You know what I mean? Um, I, I like driving a nice car. Is it necessary? No. Um, is it kind of a waste of money? Sure. Depending on how I want to look at it, but it's, it, it provides some pleasure. So I understand. Well, I can totally relate because I definitely, out of our relationship, I'm the one who likes the shiny things, right? So she calls me bougie.

That's what she says. So I'm the one who's like that. And I'm fully aware where mine comes from. Mine comes from a childhood of not having anything really, seeing others that had things and how happy their lives were. And I had kind of this this broken sad story as a kid growing up and so I had this drive at an early age to want things to want these things and then I recognized in my mid-20s that much of that was driven by insecurities and this desire to have because I didn't have anything and then that kind of evolved and I went through this phase where I didn't give a shit about any of those things and I wore a white t-shirt every single day for like fucking two years. And then I've kind of come full circle now that, you know, there's certain things that I will spend some money on. And the way I look at it is the value to it is how I use it drive, if it's a bed I sleep in, if it's a TV that I watch, you know, these are four of the things that I probably use the most in my entire life, right? Or vacation, we travel, I like to go nice places. That to me, I see lots of value in those things because I sleep in my bed every single day. So why would I not spend, you know, if I can afford it, why would

I not spend top dollar to have one of the most comfortable, nicest beds that I can have? You know, if I watch TV on a pretty regular basis, why wouldn't I want a really nice TV that I do that? And if I drive to work every fucking day, you got to sit in that car. So why not fucking love it? You know what I'm saying? Why not drive the one that you've always wanted to drive? Now that's me personally. I know that some people don't give a shit about any of those things, but I like those things. And I, and I see value in paying for things that are like that when I get lots of usage out of it. I think the younger version of me probably spent a lot of bullshit money on toys. And I mean, I've got a, got a fucking $10,000 ATV that's been sitting in my living room for three years, bro. It's like, and I get made, you know, that's a waste of money to

me. You know, it was then that was driven through an insecurity. Also as a child, you know, we lived on a ranch, we had horses and chickens and things like that. And I wanted an ATV and like my siblings and my mom, everyone got a horse. I didn't have any desire to ride a horse. I wanted a quad and I never got it. So of course, when I got older and I was making enough money that I could go out and spend 10 grand on a fucking ATV, I did. And I drove the shit out of it for one year and then it sat for after that. So that is something I think driven by my insecurity, a poor investment on something that I don't use a lot. But a lot of that I think I've grown through now as a 36 year old man. Now, before I make any sort of major purchase like that, I really evaluate like, is this something that I'm going

to get a lot of usage? Will it bring a lot of joy to my life? If it is, then why not? If you can afford to do it, you work hard for those reasons. And if it's not something that brings joy to you, if it's not something you're going to get a lot of usage, then I have to ask myself, is this driven through my insecurities that makes me want to go get this because I'm trying to fill some sort of a void that this will probably never fill. Yeah. Or, or maybe build up some sort of image that you want to kind of project to everyone. Oh, that's it. I mean, I just, God, I just talked about this in an interview. Somebody interviewed me and they were asking me, you know, Adam, you talk a lot about self-awareness and, and insecurities. Like, where did that come from, from you? And what are, are

there ones that you still deal with? And I'm like, oh, absolutely. I mean, I was just, I have this bad habit when I'm around other really powerful men and women. So when I'm around powerful people that are very successful and I know they've made a lot of money, I have this bad habit of wanting to give my resume or tell you my bankroll, you know, not with directly telling you how much I'm worth. But I've done that too. And afterwards, I'm like, why did I do that? Oh, don't you? I mean, it's such a pointing out that insecurity that I have that I feel that I need to let them know that, hey, I'm smart. I'm successful. Look at me. And it sounds

so cheesy when you really pull yourself away from the conversation and think like, how does that sound? I'm like, if someone did that to me, I would feel like they're trying to prove a point or they're insecure about something or they're lying. Right. So there's nothing that good comes from that. So it's a, it's a bad habit that I've had for many years as a, as the kid or the underdog that was trying to prove himself. And so, yeah, man, I think when we have, have these they're gifts. They're gifts to us to point out these insecurities and opportunities for growth. And I think learning to look at that, have the awareness, that's the first step. But by fuck, man, I don't think they ever completely go away, especially ones that are deeply rooted. It's just you get better at managing them.

That's what I tell people. Absolutely. genium. That's what I tell people. Absolutely. Hey, quickly, before we carry on, if you are liking my podcast, would you please help spread the word about it? Because no amount of marketing or advertising gimmicks can match the power of word of mouth. So if you are enjoying this episode and you think of someone else who might enjoy it as well, please do tell them about it. It really helps me. And if you are going to post about it on social media, definitely tag me so I can say thank you. You can find me on Instagram at Muscle for Life Fitness, Twitter at Muscle for Life, and Facebook at Muscle for Life Fitness. I think we're both on the same page in terms of just the importance of building character. I mean,

and that is who you are is much more important than what you have or even what you've done, in my opinion. Oh, I agree. I mean, I always like to, I love diving into people's childhood and what they were like growing up. Cause those are such formative years of our life, man. And it's crazy how much of what happened to us between five and 15 years old really forms and shapes us into the men and women that we are later in life. And not a lot of us look back that far and think about that, you know, and I tried to, another question I was asked to like, you know, what, how did I like develop this self-awareness skill? Like, did you always have it or was it

something you developed? And I, you know, it's a little bit of both. Like I think being through therapy and counseling and shit my entire life because of our, my home that I grew up in, I think that's- Yeah, what happened there? I know we were talking about like, it's one of the things we could get into that would be interesting. And because where you're at now, you're, it sounds like your childhood did not help you in it directly help you get to where you are now. It was, uh, you have gotten to where you are now in spite of it. But just in terms of what you were telling me, it was like, you had some shit you had to overcome that you could have probably done without. Yeah, no, I definitely agree with that. You know, I don't talk a lot about it on our show just because it's not the, the Adam show, you know, it's mind pumping. It's about health and fitness

and there's some personal growth in there. So I share some stories, but we really don't get too much into it because I don't, I don't have a victim type of personality. Like I don't, it's not feel sorry for me and I don't want to use our platform to, you know, Oh my God, Adam was through so much, but yeah, no, man, I at seven years old. So at seven, I'm the oldest of five. First of all, when I was seven, it was just me and my sister and my real father killed himself. And I, you know, I got picked up from school. I had no idea what's going on. My mom broke the news and the story to us. And at that time and that age, you know, it was, you know, seven years old, such a young age to kind of go through something like that. And my dad didn't leave a note. My mom had a really tough time even explaining it to us. Like

if she even told us, I remember the first conversation, she said that, you know, he was cleaning his gun and it accidentally went off. And so, you know, at seven years old, trying to process that and figure out what that meant. I remember how hard it was for me to like explain to other kids that, you know, what my dad had done and when I didn't even know why he did it or understand all that. So I grew up with that starting off at seven. And then within a year, my mom was already remarried and she remarried into an abusive relationship, both verbally and physically. And being the oldest, I was kind of the one that was always in the middle of things. So my other siblings were younger and kind of scared and they would lock themselves in the room and cry. And, you know, I was the older child.

So it was like, I got to stop this, you know, or mom and dad are going to kill themselves. And I was always the one breaking up the physical fights and explaining to the cops when the cops showed up to the house, you know, oh, well, my mom did this and then my dad did that. And so that was a very regular routine in our house. It was pretty much guaranteed. We were six months. My stepdad would be kicked out of the house and we hate him and he's this bad, evil, bad person. Then he was back in the house six months later. And it was just this vicious cycle for 13 years of my life. That was a monster to try and get through still to this day when it comes to my relationships. I mean, you wonder, people wonder why, you know, I'm 36. I have this woman that I've

been with for seven years and I talk about how amazing she is, but yet I have not married and have no kids. Once you hear my backstory, I think people start to piece it together a little bit like, oh, okay. I kind of understand why this guy may not be in a hurry to get married and have children. Right. Do you see that changing out of curiosity? Absolutely. In fact, Katrina and I are talking about kids currently right now for us. So I had bought my first house when I was 21 years old, and then sold it about five years ago, moved in with her. And we've been kind of saving up to buy our house together. And this is hopefully the house that we reside in for the next 10 plus years.

And so for me, it's been really important. I think less for her. This is definitely more, again, me and my insecurities and growing from a home that didn't have... We were also poor growing up, right? So I moved in nine different homes. Most of the times that we were moving to different homes, it was because we were evicted from the previous house or we had to go somewhere because my stepdad found a new job. So Katrina and I, we've talked about this. And for me, it's, I want to have our house and stable income savings, really not in a very comfortable position. And I, and everybody that like has kids always tell me, oh, it'll never be perfect. I don't want to be perfect. I'm like, listen, I'm not look waiting for it to be fucking perfect. I just, there's a, there is a point for me where I want to feel very

comfortable financially and in the home where I want to raise the child before I have the child. comfortable financially and in the home where I want to raise the child before I have the child. And a lot of that comes from what I saw growing up and believing that my parents were very irresponsible about their decision-making when it came to things like that. And so I'm the complete opposite. And arguably, the extreme version of that, somebody else outside or looking in would be like, come on, dude. You make enough money, you're in a position, you're fine, you could totally raise a kid. And yeah, absolutely, I could. But that's not the position I want to be in when I have a kid. I want to have a kid, and I don't want to be worried financially at all.

And I most certainly don't want to be in the house that I don't plan to raise him or her in. So that's first for us. I think hopefully this year, once this tax return comes back in, we're getting all that sent over to our guy and then we'll start shopping for a house. Hopefully within this year, that'll happen. And during that time, if Katrina and I get pregnant, then we'll have a kid. So I'm totally 100% open to having a kid. A lot of people think that I'm anti-having a kid. I'm not at all. I think it was just I wanted to be at a certain place in my life that I didn't have a ton of

extra stress. Having a kid and having a family, and you know damn well, it's a major responsibility. It's a lot. And I'm still at a selfish part of my life of trying to get to a place that I want to be. And I know that I'll be a good father. I know that'll be an important thing for me. And that will probably become more of a priority when that child comes. And I just want to make sure that I'm in a place that I can do that. So, but that was a lot of the childhood growing up, man, was I seen a lot of that. And I think for the early years, teenage to early twenties, I had a lot of animosity towards my parents over it. Where now I'm actually grateful for it, I guess, as crazy as that may sound, because I know that it, you know, going back to what you said, it really formed and shaped my

character. And I don't really have a lot of empathy for people that complain and whine about little shit, because even though I know there's for me, it's complain or whine about little shit. Because even though I know there's for me, it's complain or whine about anything. Right. But no, really, exactly. I agree. I just don't. That's the thing. Personally, I try to not complain about really anything to anyone. Now, I'm not perfect. And sometimes I'll catch myself complaining. Now, criticizing is one thing, especially with constructive criticism. You're running a business. It's not always, but like just kind of whinging. Yeah, pretty much never. And, uh, that's just one of my little things that is on my daily list of things to keep in mind. You know what I mean? Dude, I'm right with you. It's such a victim mentality,

right? It's such a victim mentality to have this, you know, poor me, this has happened. And I, and the way I look at there's, there is, there will always be, this is for everybody listening around. There is always going to be somebody else out there that has it way harder than you, way harder than you like didn't. And no matter what you're going through, as crazy as it may sound. And there's always someone who's had it way harder that made their lives into, into something great. I mean, if you just read enough history, read enough biographies, read enough little anecdotes of people, it's humbling because you know, you have your little, you live in your own little bubble and you have all your little, you know, first world

problems and complaints and shit. And then you start reading about the kind of stuff that people went through, um, just a hundred years ago, read Titan by Chernow, read what John Rockefeller went through and what he became. And it just, you get some perspective. Oh, and I would, I would argue, especially now being grown ass man, been doing business for a long time. Most of the very, very successful, talented men and women that I've met in my life, most of them had some sort of adversity that they overcame. I mean, major, whether it be health or family or death or whatever, like it's always something. And it rarely ever is like, oh yeah, just this happened and it all unfolded for me. Like, no, it's never like that. So, I mean, one of the most common concerns, and I've known, uh, quite a few successful people through my dad who started

with nothing. I mean, and then made a good run of it, building up businesses as an entrepreneur and so forth. One of the most common concerns is that, um, with these guys in particular is that their kids are not going to experience the hardships that they felt, you know, made them strong enough to succeed. And they're, they're concerned about it. Like they don't know exactly what to do because you have these kids growing up in the, in the lap of luxury, they don't want for anything and they get used to also just, just the, what the kind of lifestyle that comes with money, even if you don't lavish gifts or, or gifts or money on your kids. I mean, there's a certain level of wealth where now you just live in a very isolated type of

your lifestyle is, let's just say it's rarefied. Yeah. I'm watching this happen right now with my uncle. My uncle is probably the closest thing to me as far as like when I look into my family, like who am I most like? My uncle and I have a lot of similarities and I kind of see his life as, I mean, as a kid growing up, I saw his life and thought like, I want this. He's got the wife and the three kids. He's got two boys and a girl. He lives in a really nice house out in Pleasanton. He's been an entrepreneur. He makes really good money. And I'm watching my cousins now that I watched them grow all the way up. And they're about 10 years younger than I am. I'll never forget being a poor kid, young and coming over to my uncle's. And I remember I was heavy in the early, mid, late 80s. I was heavy into BMX biking and stuff. That was my thing when I was a kid. And, uh, you know, we were too poor to have like, for me to have like a really nice bike, like a Mongoose or a Haro or a GT, one of those nicer

bikes. I got into that a bit when I was younger. So I know what you're talking about. Okay. So all those names I'm dropping right now, this is all you can totally relate. Nostalgia coming. Right. Right. So, so what's a rad dude. That was my favorite movie as a kid growing up. So I remember going to his house, uh, really young age. Remember both my cousins were like, I mean, they were like three and five, they were super young and they both had these mongoose bikes in the garage that were on training wheels. And I thought those were like fucking $500 bikes. And that back then was a lot, which is like a thousand dollar bike today that these kids got to have. And I thought, man, so fucking lucky. And they had a TV in their bedroom. I thought that was so crazy. And looking back now, they really, my uncle didn't spoil them

at all. I mean, they had, sure they had an expensive bike. My uncle has expensive taste. Sure. They had a TV in their room, not nothing too crazy in video games. But for me, it seems so, yeah, super big, big deal. Yeah. Mind blown. Yeah. Right. Like, oh my God, if I just had these things, life would be so much easier. So as Like, Oh my God, if I just had these things, life would be so much easier. So as a kid, I'm feeling sorry for myself and seeing things like that. And then, you know, they were, and then in high school, they were in private schools and they both went off to good four-year schools. But now I see them and I see the struggle he's going through, um, as the father, like, man, I provided all this stuff and I just can't seem to light this fire

under my kids. Like they just don't have the drive. And he, him and I were just talking about this literally just a couple of days ago. And he, you know, he says, you know, Adam, don't make the same mistake that I made, man. I really, I wanted so much for my kids because I had nothing like me. So I could totally relate to that. He had a very rough childhood himself. My grandma and grandpa were divorced. My grandfather was actually a con artist in and out of jail. My grandmother raised them by himself. So he had a rough childhood growing up. And he said, because of that, he was determined to provide for his kids so much. And then he sees what they turned out and he's just like, kind of shakes his head. He's like,

fuck man. He says, I wish I would have known that I would have thought for sure that, you know, I would have paved this way for them to be more successful to have his head. He's like, fuck, man. He says, I wish I would have known that. I would have thought for sure that I would have paved this way for them to be more successful. And he's like, they just lack this drive and motivation and ability to overcome adversity. And he's like, I just didn't give a shit. And that's far more valuable than anything you could have bought them ever. Right. And so now, my perspective on my childhood now, and that's why I don't tell the story that often is because I don't look at it like, poor me, Adam went through all this stuff. I'm like, lucky me. You know, I went through a fucking shit storm for the first 13 years of my life, but I got the whole rest of my life ahead of me. And I learned a lot from that. Because, and sure, it was the opposite, right? So a lot of how I am with my relationships with the opposite sex is completely opposite of what my family does. The way I am with my finances, completely opposite of the way with my family.

You know, the way I am with responsibility, the way I am with religion, completely opposite. I'm so opposite of my family because of all the things that I saw, because I knew that we didn't do things a lot the right way. And I put that together at a young age. And I really think that matured me faster than a lot of my peers, which only ended up helping me later in life. And I naturally fell into this kind of leadership role because of it. And so I look back now and think, man, I'm actually really blessed. I have a great relationship with my mom. I love her for all those things. And in my early 20s, I had animosity and I was bitter over it. And I still

had that kind of victim mentality where now I have a different outlook on it, especially when you start to see people like my cousins and go like, fuck, no, I wouldn't want that at all, man. I would, in fact, if I'm so blessed and so lucky that I went through what I did because it absolutely formed me into the man that I am today and truly built my character. Yeah, I mean, some of the most pathetic, decadent, degenerate people I know and have known growing up. decadent degenerate people i know and have known growing up um i would say once i kind of entered my teenage years is when we started to have money and it kind of just you know grew from there so along the way i whatever just was running in certain circles idle rich kids are some of the most miserable neurotic pathetic people you could ever want to meet, um, regardless of, of how they might try to project the image they project and how they want you to perceive them. I mean, yeah, they're going to, they're going to pretend like they're loving life. They are truly, truly they're,

they're, they're pitiful people on, on the whole. And that's, that's speaking from personal experience, but, uh, I'd say a rather extensive personal experience. Not, not so much with direct friends. I've unfortunately had a few friends that went in that direction, but by extension, you know what I mean? Like people I've met through kind of thing. And, and I've come to that conclusion. Like that's so not my crowd and that's so not going to be my kids crowd period. Well, I mean, circling back to what you said, I mean, we, we recognize, I mean, I recognize that with you right away that you're the type of person that if we lived in the same city, we would be hanging out all the time because I think it's important that when you see that in others that you admire or they have good character

like that because we really are. We really are the sum of the five people that we spend the most time with. And if you've got these friends, that was a major lesson for me that took me a long time to learn. I was very popular in high school, not because I had things because I was poor, I had crooked teeth, I wasn't the most athletic, but I was friendly and I hung out with a lot of people and I liked people. So I had a lot of friends and I kept a lot of my friends through junior college and then getting into my 20. And it wasn't until again, my mid twenties or so, where I started to realize that there was a core group of them that weren't continued to grow, weren't continued to, to move. And a lot of them didn't have those great

characteristics that were built through, you know, adversity growing up. I could feel the competitiveness that they have now. That was great when we were kids and playing sports. But when you get into, once you get into manhood and, and you're working your ass off to be successful and do things, and you realize that you have friends that are competitive with you, uh, with stuff like that. And they, they don't necessarily, they want to see you do good, but not better than them. You, you start to have to evaluate, like, are these the type of people that I want to be spending most of my time with? And it was a very hard thing for me to kind of break away from these people that I had 10,

15 years of friendship with that I would consider best friends of mine because we shared other things and other memories and experience together. But now I'm making this transition of just being the young boy who played sports and had friends and played video games all the time to this grown man who builds businesses and is about personal growth and stuff like that, and them not being that way. I think there was a good three to five years of my life that it really held me back because I was so about keeping those friendships because I felt like that I owed that to them because how far back we went. But what I didn't realize, I was really hurting myself by trying to hang on to these relationships that were really unhealthy. And I think a lot of people, I think everybody has one or two people in their life that they probably have that is like this, that they have a hard time of moving on from that.

It's a tough thing to do, but it's also one of the best things that I learned to do is to let go of relationships like that. And then to start to look at relationships differently, like, you know what, they served a purpose in my life and I served a purpose in their life for a certain amount of time. Those were some of my best friends during school and we did this together and I'll always love them and have a feeling of friendship or kinship with them, but they can no longer be the people that I'm taking advice from or I'm talking to on a very regular basis because those people, I believe, really mold us into who we are now and really paying attention to your inner five or so people that you spend the most time with, I really believe impacts your personal growth, both personally and in business,

whatever you're trying to do. Because you get surrounded by these people that have the victim mentality and you get together and you all just bitch about your life or you bitch about your spouse or you bitch. And when you start to pay attention, if you detach yourself a little bit, think about it like, how productive are those hangouts? Sure, it might make me feel good because I'm venting to my boys or I'm venting to a girlfriend of mine, but really how healthy is it and really how much is it making me a better person? And if you can do that and have that perspective, it starts to kind of change the type of people that you want to surround yourself with. And so now, when I meet someone

like you or a person that I connect with as far as their character and the way they look at themselves, personal development wise, business wise, I'm attracted to people like that because I want more of that in my life. I want the type of person who, if I tell you, call you up and say, hey, Mike, guess what, man? We just did this. It was the first time big business deal went through that you're not going to be like, oh, yeah, great job. And then talk about your life. You'll be genuine about like genuinely excited for me also. That makes a big fucking difference, man. When you start to put that together. Yeah, I totally agree. What did you do specifically? You just kind of like start going your own way or cause you know, I've had, uh,

this discussion with quite a few people. And for me, uh, I mean, it's the same kind of story. My best friends growing up, not in me. There's a few I'd say that I met while I was a teenager who have also really gone on to do well in life and grow the fuck up and take on responsibility and engage with the world and not just be a selfish ball of complaints. And why is the world not giving me what I want? But there have been a number of people that, yeah, I'm not, I'm really not in touch with at all anymore. And I guess for me, I feel like my advice personally, isn't that great because I just stopped talking to them one day and that that was it basically. So like, I didn't have a conversation. I didn't explain anything. I just stopped talking to them. And then, uh, eventually it was just kind of like, yeah, uh, I'm just, you know, I'm doing other things now and that's not the best way to handle it. I know that. So I'm curious because you're a more empathetic person, I think,

than I am inherently. So how did you go about it? Well, like you, I probably handled the first few like that and I'll be the, all right, so I'm not alone. Yeah. So I didn't know, I was like, you know, I'm just, I'm just done. So that's pretty much that. It's tough. It's, I mean, it's like a breakup, right? And, and it, and I think it's very, that's how I treated it. And I was like, okay, so how do you break up? Right. End it. And you never talk again. You don't text, you don't, you know what I mean? Cause you don't leave that door open. You just disappear. Right, right. So this started, I'm trying to remember, I want to give you a book for this cause I know I read it somewhere. So I don't like to pawn it off. Like this is my teachings or whatever like that. This is something

I read or learned a long time ago. Um, as far as, uh as being radically honest with people. Oh, you know what it was? I think it was Jack Welch. I think there's a book, Radical Honesty. I think there is too. That's not the one I read. I think what started me in this direction was Jack Welch's winning. He uses the term candid, being candid all the time in his book.

But this radical honesty is something that I would say from 27, 28-ish on to now that I really have tried to embrace. And I tell you what, it's paid itself tenfold for sure because people really do appreciate honesty. And if you can give it in a way that's not, and it's hard to do because, let's take exact example. Like you're breaking up with a friendship for 10 years and you, you heard this podcast, Mike and Adam are talking and it hit home for you. You're like, fuck, I definitely have like three people in my life that shouldn't be in my life. They're not helping me grow.

They're holding me back. How the fuck. And you know, also something just to interject is that you're also not doing them any favors by sticking around when you're, you guys are not in sync anymore because unfortunately you're probably the guy that they're also, you know, throwing jabs at behind the scenes because of what you want to do because they're, I mean, you make them feel bad about themselves. Right. And I think that is a hundred percent correct. And the first time will probably be choppy when you do it, but you'll get better at these types of conversations. And I believe there's another great book called crucialcial Conversations along these lines.

I haven't read it, but yeah, I've heard of it. Yes, another great book. And this translates into business. I'm definitely this guy for us, right? So if a hard conversation, we've got to fire somebody, we've got to talk numbers with somebody, we have to cut off a sponsor, we We got to do something that is rough. I'm definitely, I'll be the first one to volunteer to do that just because I've kind of learned to develop this skill. And really what it is, is learning to be radically honest and not being afraid of that. Like, you know, we, we just, and I'll give you guys, give people an example of how it's translated into business. You know, we had this negotiation for one of our recent sponsors, you know, they're, they're about to pay you money. So you, you don't want to lose that,

right? Like everyone has this kind of fear of, you know, what if I say this and like, let's just, you know, let's hear what they have to say. And as long as it makes sense mathematically, like, you know, accepted, I'm like, well, no, not necessarily. Like, what if, what if we want more or we want other things? Like, I'm just going to express that and I'm going to say it. And I'm going to say it in a way that where I'm explaining, say, Hey, you know, uh, I think that's incredibly nice of you guys. I think it's a great offer. I think that's something that we could totally work around, but being completely honest, this is kind of what I was thinking. This is what I would like to do. What do you think? You know? And so with the relationships,

you know, I would tell people that, and it was an evolution of this. So just keep that in mind that it took me doing things like you did. I mean, I remember having a couple of drinks before I'd have to have a conversation like this because I was so nervous on like, how do I, how do I say this? Or how do I do this? I'm gonna hurt their feelings. But then once I, once I learned to express how I truly felt, which is, Hey man, I love you, dude. We've been, we've been friends for 10 years of our lives and we've got so many great times, but I really feel like the competitiveness that we have that drove us when we were kids and made us successful in sports and probably pushed both of us to where we are now is also the same thing that's kind of hurting our friendship. I feel like that we have this inner competitiveness that we

throw jabs at each other and we don't really lift each other up. And I'm personally, I don't know where you're at in your life. I'm just at a different place in my life right now where I want somebody to be positive. And I need the person that I spend a lot of time with to be that person for me that I can lean on and I can trust that's going to pick me up. And I really feel like we've kind of lost that. And I'll always have love for you, always consider you a friend of mine. But I just want to let you know that I'm probably not going to be participating in this anymore, or I'm probably not going to be coming around that often anymore. And that's my reasons why. And it's not because I don't love you. I got a lot of love for you. And like I said, we've got a ton of memories, but that's how I feel. And that sounds so crazy for people to say, but it's amazing when the more

honest you are with people, the better they are at receiving it. And I really feel like even because it's inevitable, some people are going to react, right? You're there because they're not as calm and collective as you are. And they're probably more of an emotional wreck. And so some people at first will be like, what the fuck? Fuck you. Or I can't believe that. Or you hurt my... And they're going to react because they're reacting off of emotions. But all of those people that I've learned to be very honest and upfront with have all came back full circle and have always respected me and in fact I've actually seen it fucking turn some of those people that that toward it lit a fire under them like fuck I need to

really be careful of how I talk to people I didn't realize that I could affect even my best friend or what I, who I consider my best friend that way. And I've seen them turn their lives around over it. So, and then I really feel like, man, if I wouldn't have had that conversation, they may have never got their shit together. And now they are look at them. I think that's awesome. So I think learning to have the tough love, baby. Yeah. Tough love being radically honest. Now, where are you going to be careful is, you know, I know that I've, I've taught this to people and then they've told me, Adam, it blew up in my face, you know, because I did this. I said, well, you got to take your own emotions out of it too, though, because when some people go to do a breakup, just like they would in a relationship,

most of the time it's triggered because of something that happened just the day before or a week earlier. And so that's really what's driving the conversation is, you know, you can't come in guns blazing, right. Everything that's wrong with the person. And this is why you're moving on that. That's not, that's not a conversation. It's not going to go well. No, exactly. And so you got to really be able to do that. You got to really take your emotion out of it. This isn't like a breakup, like you did this to me and this, this, and this is what, no, I can't that. Yeah. That will be sour. And you will have a hard time doing that. You know, take the responsibility. So I take the responsibility. Hey, I'm in this,

this is just as a, my fault, much of my fault as it is your fault because I've allowed it to happen. I never spoke up about it before. I never probably let you know that it bothered me. And so I've even had some, some friends or some relationships where I've learned to communicate this early on when I see it right away. And then if they make change about it and I, and I see it and they can, they care about the relationship that much, they make the change, then maybe we maintain the relationship. And if they don't, that's my way of them telling me that it doesn't fucking matter to them. You're like, that's, you know, they're still, they're dealing with so much of their own insecurities. They care about themselves so much selfishly that they don't care about maybe thinking about what I expressed to them two weeks or a month before. And so to me, that's the sign that, okay, well, you're basically telling me that we shouldn't for sure continue hanging out all the time. So that's a hard thing to do, though, when you're a young teenage boy or girl, you know, growing up.

young teenage boy or girl, you know, growing up and trying to fit in, trying to find your way and find yourself. And I, you know, I've had those types of conversations, uh, in particularly in, in my, in my work, you know, I've had a couple of conversations like that with people that, you know, they still work with me and that's great, but you know, I had to really kind of just be honest and say, you know, look, I love you. I really appreciate, uh, everything that you've done and that you're doing, but we need to address this because it's getting in the way. It's causing too much, it's causing too many problems. It's causing too much noise. And, you know, that has to stop or you're going to have to go. And it has gone well and it has produced the desired result of, you know, better behavior.

Yeah, better behavior, better business. I mean, I just had this conversation with an employee of ours that's really important to me. The small staff that we do have, everybody that's been brought on has been brought on with, okay, you're doing something currently for the business, but I see a much broader picture for you. Because I really feel, and you know that, right? When you're, especially early on, these are the foundation. I need that. You're not, that's not lip service. You're like, I'm actually a little bit like counting on you. I need you to, I really, really hope that you kick ass at this and you say, what else do you have? Like, give me more because that's what I need. Right. So I had the, I had an employee, this was just happening to me the other day.

And you know, I can tell when, you know, they're frustrated with something like that. And he's a little bit younger than we are. He's in his late 20s, early or mid 20s to late 20s. And, you know, I could just see that he's frustrated. I can just kind of see his posture. And, you know, he's just kind of going through the motions at work. And I've really brought him on because he has a creative side to him that is better than any of us on the staff. He's super artistic. He's got a great eye for things. He's very in tune with the millennials and the entrepreneurship now and the Gary V generation, I would say. He's very in touch with that group of people. And that's not how I do business.

That's not how I think. It's not my strengths. He's been very successful on his own as an entrepreneur and he's built his business this way. And he's been successful at it, right, at his level and his size. And I noticed that he just kind of had just kind of a bad attitude the last month or so. And we had this meeting and I talk and do them. And I didn't have the meeting, by the way. It wasn't like a, let's have this meeting, you have a bad attitude. He didn't know that I had seen this for a long time. I just was starting to put it together. And so, I haven't spent some time, quality time with him. So we had breakfast one morning and we spent a couple hours together and I just really wanted to hear where he's at. And I know what's bothering

him right now. What's bothering him right now is he does have a lot to contribute. He has a lot of value to the business, but he doesn't see us going in the direction that he wants to go. And this was a very hard conversation to tell somebody what I told him. And what I said to him was, why I have you here. I don't want you ever to doubt what I see. You wouldn't be here that these early on stages, if I didn't see this big picture and where I, where I would like to see you within this company. And because you have something that I want and I, and I see that in you and I, and I value it a lot, but that doesn't necessarily mean that I'm always going to agree with your input. And I don't want to. I have you

here for your perspective and to give that input and to disagree about it sometimes and then sometimes to follow it. And what I need from you is to do the same thing back to me. I know you're your own little entrepreneur and you have your ideas and we don't see it. I like that. I like that we do things differently and that's why you're on the team. I don't want a team of all the same me. That's not what I want. I want guys that challenge the way I think. But you also got to be okay with me not following what you say, too. That's not me devaluing who you are or not thinking you're smart or not thinking that's a good idea. You just got to understand that there's a major difference when you're operating a business that makes 100 grand a year and when you're operating a business that makes seven, eight figures a year. It's a whole different monster. And so I don't just take into consideration your idea. I also got to think, okay, what does that cost a business?

What does it take to implement that? What's the return look like on that? What other projects do we have currently right now that are outstanding? What's the current direction that we're trying to take the company? Where's our focus at? Where are our resources going? I have a million other things that I have to take into consideration. Now, I want you to challenge me and to tell me, hey, I think we should do this or go in this direction because I respect your advice that way. But you need to get comfortable with me not agreeing and not following your advice. That's just how this is going to work. That's not like a, I don't think you're a smart guy. Like, that's why you're here,

dude. You're here to challenge my way of thinking. And then the same thing goes the other way. Like, I know he's building a business on his own right now. I said, man, you have an opportunity. You work with me. Why? And you know, we're different. And you know that we've both been successful building a business completely with different strategies. So why would you not want to hear my perspective on what you're currently doing? Not because you're going to listen to me, just because I think it's healthy for you to hear that opposing view. And so that's who you are in this business. You're a very brilliant mind that can accomplish the jobs that I have you doing within the business. But I'm also going to come to you for specific advice. But I'm also going to not listen to that probably half the time, maybe more. But that doesn't mean I don't

respect it. I wouldn't have came there and asked for it if I didn't respect it. It was an incredibly productive conversation because after we kind of got all that on the table and I was radically honest with how I felt and told him that, he totally understood and got it from my perspective now. But that conversation needed to happen or else he would have continued to go on feeling like what he's contributing isn't valued. And what I have him doing is a waste of his time, and I'm never going to see it his way. I could see that that was what was going through his head and what was brewing. And if I didn't address it right away, that it could have festered into this big problem and potentially him leaving or getting angry or

not doing very well at his job. And you could see a difference in what he handles for the business instantly. Instantly, I saw the motivation. And it wasn't me rah-rah motivating. It was just the simple fact of recognizing something within one of my employees, having that crucial conversation, learning to be radically honest, and then moving on from there. And that is, God, it's so important in all relationships, just business, personal, friendship, love, all that stuff. I think that we can never be honest enough. And I think too many people are afraid of those hard conversations and it ends up really hurting them later down the road. Absolutely. Have you read Principles by Dahlia, Ray Dahlia?

No, no, I have not. I'd recommend it. You'll like it. I mean, he built the biggest hedge fund ever, $170 billion under management. And his story is crazy. I mean, he came from nothing eight years into his career when he had really started to establish himself both financially and in terms of his reputation. He blew himself up making a bad prediction on what was going to happen. I believe it was in the 80s. He thought that the markets were all going to tank and everything. And he bet everything on that basically. And it didn't happen. So eight years into his journey, he has no money. He's borrowing money from a friend

so he can feed his family while he sells his car. Wow. Um, and he went from, he didn't, he didn't say how, you know, where he was at financially at that point, but I wouldn't be surprised if his net worth was in the millions at that point. And then he bets it all on, you know, he got, he got cocky, overconfident, thought he could predict the markets, um, thought he knew better, you know, that's at year eight and, and decided to figure out what went wrong. He wasn't going to quit. He was going to figure out and he was going to double and triple down and really grind it.

He went from there. He analyzed market information going back as far as, if I remember correctly, the 1800s. As far back as he could get information on markets anywhere. hundreds, as far back as he could get information on, on markets anywhere. And he just went into hardcore grinder mode to find out what went wrong. And from that, actually that experience and from how he handled it in terms of, again, really diving into the models, diving into the data, doing the hard shitty work that nobody wants to do. Nobody wants that type of analysis is like brain breaking work. You know what I mean? That's how he developed what became his first real innovative, you could even maybe say revolutionary investing style or investing model, I guess would be the term or strategy

that allowed him to become now, you know, who he is today. But I think you'd really like it. And he's really big on radical honesty and complete transparency. And that's how he runs his business. And that's how he runs his life. Yeah, you and the person that you're speaking about might enjoy that book together, actually. I just read recently, a couple months ago,

I went through Mark Cuban's, I think it's called Business and Sports or Sports and Business or whatever. Did you like it? Yeah, I did. it's called Sports, Business and Sports or Sports and Business or whatever. Did you like it? Yeah, I did. It's a short, it's another short, easy read. It's probably something, I mean, I wrote a little short review on it. It wasn't like life-changing for me. It was a, it's a good book. I would recommend it for a young entrepreneur coming up for sure. And what I took from it that I really like or that I relate to is he encourages this atmosphere within his work where raising your voice and arguing points is completely encouraged.

And the way he looks at it is like, I want passionate people. I want people that feel passionate about their views, passionate about the way they think. And I'm looking for those types of leaders within my facility. And if you see something that you disagree with, I want you to challenge me. And if I challenge you back and you feel the need that you got to talk back over me, I'm okay with that. I'd rather that than you be quiet and be passive aggressive over a situation. And so I really feel-

Or even worse, just not care. Right. Or whatever. Not my problem. Right. So I encourage that within our facility. And that's exactly part of the conversation going back to what I was saying with this, this guy that works for us is I was like,

man, speak the fuck up. Don't let it bother you for a month to where it kind of nags you out and you don't really care and you're not motivated to come to work. Like if I didn't take your advice over something and you didn't like it and it bothered you fucking tell, tell me, dude, say something. Yeah. I run the same thing at my place where I want to know. I've told everybody multiple times. Anybody, I don't care if you have anything that is bothering you and it can be about me, I want to know. I don't take that stuff personally. I'm here because I want us all to succeed and I want us to all reach this big goal. And if I'm fucking something up, that doesn't help us get there. I'm not here

to stroke. I'm not here to be the big boss and feel important. Not at all. It's so funny. It's so, it's so hard for some employees to put this together. But when you're in the position you are that I'm in, like you're really the coach of this superstar team, you know, you're a coach of all these great athletes and you know, they all can score and they all can, but in order to be successful, the whole team has to work together, right? We all have to be athletes and you know they all can score and they all can but in order to be successful the whole team has to work together right we all have to be and you got to be able to pass the puck you got to be able to sometimes not score and play more defense than offense and you know sometimes when you get employees they get frustrated because they feel like they deserve the puck more or that they should be in a different position or it's like

a lot of times they just don't understand it from your perspective. And that radical honesty, I think, helps people see that perspective. That, listen, this is much greater than you or I. This is a team. And we're trying to move in this. We all want to win. If I win, you win. We all win.

So this isn't about who's right or who's wrong. And that's our relationship amongst the four of us owners, too, which is something I absolutely love and adore about all three of those men that we'll get into fucking going back and forth at each other, loud, yelling over each other and making points and, no, I disagree and back and forth and back and forth. It's never personal. We never leave the facility going angry at each other because it's never about being right. It's about finding the best answer for the business or finding what's going to help us all as a team. And if you are speaking passionately about it, that makes me go like, okay, if Sal's yelling and he's disagreeing with me so much, then he must feel really passionate. That allows me to want to dig deeper into his perspective and where he's coming from

and vice versa. If they're saying something and I'm being, I'm standing up going like stomping my foot. No, no, we won't do that. No, I disagree. We can't do that. This is why. I mean, every time we've done that, nothing but good comes out of that. As long as you can have that attitude going into it, that it is, it's not about me. It's about the better of this team. It's better that we have those conversations or those discussions than it is to just, like you said, ignore those and then let it bum you out. Fester. Yeah, exactly. And that's what it does. It starts to fester inside of you and then your brain plays tricks on you and starts making the, oh, he doesn't value me. He doesn't like me. He's this,

he's all from. And then before you know it, it's turned into this fucking monster that is eating away at you. And it's, it's killing your performance and it's killing the team when it's like, man. And for me as a leader, I take that responsibility for those conversations. It's like, it's my job as a leader to feel that energy within my facility and see why, why it feels that way. And instead of bitching about it or going like, oh, I wonder why he's acting up this way. It's like, no, I'm going to go fucking straight to the source and I'm going to find out. I'm going to get to the bottom of it and then we're together.

We're going to work through it. And during those conversations, you learn a lot about their character and are they the type of person who no matter what you say to them, they're still going to be – and that to me is my sign that, okay, it's time to move on from this person and find somebody else to replace them. So very, very important lesson in business for sure that I think is something that stems from all relationships and communication, radical honesty, crucial conversations. Yeah. And again, in personal life too, just as much, I mean, take what you said with, you know, you've had discussions with your friends in terms of like,

this is what's working, this is what's not working. And you see that if they care enough, are they willing to, to, to change, uh, whatever they need to change. And if not, that's fine. But that just means that they don't fit, you know, in any relationship you have your non-negotiables, you have your deal breakers. And, um, hopefully that list isn't too long and too unreasonable, but you got to have a list. If you don't have anything, then you're asking for a lot of trouble. And if they're stepping on one of those points over and over and they're not willing to change it, then that just means that that relationship is not going to work. Right. Or it's played its role, right? It's already, you know, you guys both have, this is something too, that Katrina has helped me because I'll be honest, every time I lose a relationship, whether it be a business

relationship or a friendship with somebody, or I move on from that, you know, I like people in general, you know, so I love people and I like having friends and I like people to like me. I know that's something that is even an insecurity of mine that sometimes I overcompensate with that. And she's quick to remind me and say, listen, don't beat yourself up over it. You did what you could do as a friend and you guys both played a very important role in your lives. And it's okay to say that that role is done. You guys grew from it. You both learned from each other. You had some great times. You've got some great memories. You're at a different point in your life. You have a different direction. You have different goals right now. And there's nothing wrong with that. And he or she has the same thing also. They have a different goal,

a different life. They have different experiences. And enjoy the fact that you guys had that and be okay with moving on to new ones. And so I am lucky that I have a partner that helps kind of walk me off the ledge every now and then. Because if there is anybody that I vent to or say all these things, it's when I get home and I'll tell her what's going on with me. And, you know, it does help having a partner that can do that, that can kind of keep me level-headed in the way I look at things. And it gives me a different perspective that, yeah, you're right. You know what? They did play an important role in my life. And I'm glad they were there.

And, you know, it's unfortunate that we still aren't. They did play an important role in my life and I'm glad they were there. And, you know, it's unfortunate that we still aren't. But at the same time, too, you know, it's actually fortunate that we are moving on from each other because that's now going to allow us to move on and to grow further. So I completely agree. You know, as much of a people person you are and say something about kids is why I think you're actually going to really enjoy having kids is you'll never have a relationship that is closer and more loving than the relationship you'll have with your kids. As much as you love your friends and Katrina and everybody else, I just think that that's going to be true for you, where you're going to learn to care for someone in a way that is just not, I don't know if you can get further, you can go deeper than kids.

That's what everybody says, man. I think I'd be honest. That's part of what's kept me this waiting this long. I'll be the first to admit how selfish I've been for most of my life. You know, most of my life was spent trying to do things for myself. And I know that that will be a major shift and one that I'll be completely fine with because I know that I am a very loving person and everybody tells me that as much as you've ever loved anything in your life, it compares nothing to when you have your child. It'll be something totally different for you. So look forward to that. And what's cool is it only, I mean, in my experiences, so I have a five-year-old son and now a five-month-old daughter. And so I've seen obviously more with my son because he's

been with me for five years. It just, it grows more and more, you know, every day, the more you interact with him, the more you see him, my son, you know, just grow up and really become his own little person and see his personality develop. And it's gotta be so, you know, yeah, it's, it's cool. All right. So let's, let's wrap up with one last question for you that I'm just curious. So you'd mentioned earlier back in our discussion, kind of the big thinking to what to some people might seem as blue sky thinking of, you know, becoming, I think you were saying in the beginning of like, you know, when you guys had started, you were certain that you could become the biggest player in the health and fitness podcast space. And to some at that point, it might have seemed a bit, you know, egotistical to even think that. But, you know, I think that type of thinking is is hugely important because you never know what you're capable of. We all don't know what we're capable of individually and collectively. So why not think big? Right. Right. And, you know, I think of, again, that that biography on John Rockefeller early on in his career when he was he was struggling, he was he was grinding.

He a bank refused him a loan that he needed to do something. It pissed him off. And he told the guy one day I'm going to be the richest man in the world. And the banker was like, yeah, whatever, dude, get the fuck out of here. Um, and, uh, lo and behold, he became the richest man in the world. So it just reminds me of that story. So I'm curious, what's your wild ambition? What were you individually? Are you, you guys as a group, what are the wild ambitions? Yeah. Okay. I definitely am this person. First of all, I live by the mantra that motivation is bullshit. Self-belief is everything. I really believe that if you don't believe no one else will. So that's very true. Yes. Right.

If you, if even, even if you believe, uh, wholeheartedly, most people aren't going to believe. So who gives a shit? You just got to do your thing. Absolutely. It starts with you. So, I mean, I see us and we saw it when we first started, us being a personality. In fact, we did not want to pigeonhole ourselves just into fitness. We really want to branch out into the big C, which is the majority,

everybody else, just any sort of a podcast listener, anybody who's looking for personal growth. And you see that in the type of interviews that we're doing too, where we're starting to branch away from just health and fitness type of leaders. And I think that's, I don't have any big goals of like, I don't want to be on TV like you. I want the business to be incredibly successful, but I'd be more happy with being a hundred millionaire that nobody knows than the super famous guy who makes $10 million a year or some shit. For me, you can divorce it from the financial aspect. I really just have no personal desire for celebrity whatsoever. Right. And that's how we feel. And that's why we also love podcasting. Like my least favorite part of the business is doing the YouTube and being on camera and doing that. I just, I don't know. I'm not a fan of that, but we definitely, I definitely see us

breaking out into a much larger audience where we are, you know, mainly here to kind of entertain people, but we've find this creative way to educate you through, through the podcast. And I feel like that's the natural progression. And I hope one day that we're one of the biggest podcast and media companies that are out there. And I really foresee us kind of being a maven. So having tons of other brilliant minds like yourself that we introduce people to, it's not all about us and like mind pump is this. It's like, sure, we're the attraction and we would get people to first tune in. But really, we also are here to help navigate people and find other brilliant minds in different arenas. And so that's where I kind of see us going, man. And I hope one day that it's looks something like 50 to 100 employees.

But again, those are just arbitrary numbers because being in a position where we're successful, we're able to do the things we want to do, spend time with family, travel, that stuff is equally important to me as the success of us or the business. So it's more about that for me is being able to do something that you love to do forever and to continue to grow. I don't think I'll ever be the guy who retires. I have no desire to not be working on something. Yeah, same. And, uh, for what it's worth, I believe in it. I believe in your vision and I think you guys can do it right on, man. Right on. Awesome. Well, I love it. Uh, one, one last thing I'll leave with it. Just, I saw on, on Facebook was, do you see this Tom

versus time thing they did? No, I didn't. I liked the beginning and then it kind of just, uh, lost steam for me from there. It was maybe 10 or 15 minutes or something. But one of the things that, that Brady, he said really resonated with me. So he was just saying basically that, you know, yeah, cool. You know, people want things, you want success, but what are you willing to sacrifice? What are you willing to give up? And I believe bigly in that. And that is a word as for anybody that wants questions in dictionary, it's an adverb. It ends with L Y. Um, no, I, I very much believe in that, that what are you willing to give up? How much are you willing to suffer for, for whatever it is that you want? And he was saying himself, he's like, for me, you know, I've given everything to football 18 years. That has been my

entire life. And you know, if you want to compete with me, then you better be willing to give up your life because that's what I've done. I've given up everything. Fuck yeah, bro. Fuck yeah. What a fucking... I love Top Ray, bro. Absolutely.

A lot of people hate on him, bro. I'm not a fan. They hope to see him lose. But I 100% subscribe to that thought process. And in fact, I use that exact same analogy to people when they used to come to me and hire me as a personal trainer, when they would have these goals of looking like a cover of a magazine. And I'm like, but you've got all these habits of inconsistency and drinking

wine all the time and going out to Sunday brunch with your girlfriend. It's like, which is not, you can do that. Nothing wrong with that. Nothing wrong with that. You can't have it both ways. These things are mutually exclusive. Right, right. Yeah. So I 100% subscribe do that. Nothing wrong with that. Nothing wrong with that. You can't have it both ways. These things are mutually exclusive. Right, right. Yeah, so I 100% subscribe to that. I'm a big Tom Brady, Bill Belichick fan, and I'm not a Patriots fan at all.

I'm a Dallas Cowboys fan, been one since I was a kid, but I really, really like a lot of the things that they... You can't help but admire and respect them and what they've done it's crazy to me when people hate on their because of course they hang on all the stuff that comes in the media like oh deflate gate or all this information comes out did tom brady cheat or

they scam it's like that's all smoke and mirrors to me for a team like that to what are they like eight or nine of the last 12 super bowls or something they've been they've been a part of i mean are you fucking kidding me it's also i think on the championship games too it's like they've gone to them 70 or 80 percent of the of the seasons they've played or something it doesn't even make sense it's yeah it's so much that instead of hating how do you not want to look into that and you know you know what it is apparently my dad's a football fanatic always been his entire life sports fanatic in general i was actually funny enough talking to him about this last night because because he always jokes jokes that he hates Brady and he hates the

Patriots. Right. And he's like, the reason why is because he grew up in Buffalo, New York, his team is Buffalo and they're in the same. So he said that out of the, and my dad also is, it's a sports statistics savant. It actually is bizarre. The amount of granularity, uh, in his sports knowledge where in a business he had that he sold. He had a running game with his employees that it was like once a week they could challenge him. It was a sports trivia challenge. Oh, shit. He's like on that level. Yeah, there were parameters, of course.

And if anybody could stump him, they would win money or something. And it was very rare that he lost. So anyways, he was like, out of the 29 times that the Patriots have played the Bills, they beat him 27 times in the last extra number of years or something. He's like, that's why I hate Brady. They always shit on my team. That's why. And that I can respect, right? But you cannot help but just, to me, admire the systems that they have put in place there.

And it's a reflection of the leadership all the way down. And this is another thing that Mark Cuban talks about because he's a sports fanatic. I'm a sports fanatic. I think there's all kinds of parallels in sports with business, especially when you get to the professional level. And just life, right? Yeah. This is a competitive endeavor. professional level and just and just life right yeah this is a competitive endeavor even if you want to look at it biologically right survival of the fittest i mean you can you can boil it

all the way down and look at it from the standpoint of mother nature uh you you want your you're strong and tough to procreate and carry the species forward and you want your your weak and ineffectual to die off and not procreate and not cause problems for the rest i mean that's just the way it is and that's never going to change that's evolution that's biology but you got to think too that this you know like you just read the tom brady thing right now like when you hear that it makes so much sense why this team is so on point and so disciplined when when the guy who's leading you right has that he's probably the first one in and the last one out every fucking day and it's every day of his life

right you you you know he's like and he doesn't have to be doing this he's 40 years old he's already i guess generally considered the greatest of all time he's worth unlimited money his wife is worth unlimited money you know what i mean He could be doing so many other things right now, but what does he do? He wakes up at 5 AM to go out and run his drills. And again, he remains probably one of the hardest workers on the team. And I had opportunities during my formative years of working in the fitness business as far as gyms and shit like that, and had opportunities to actually work with all kinds of different leaders. And I did have a guy that I worked with who later on became a very good friend of mine who I saw this type of work ethic. And I was in my, I think it was 23 or so

when this happened. And it really formed and shaped me during those years because when you're around somebody like this, that puts that kind of work. And I prided myself on being kind of a workaholic and you know, not very many people could outwork me. And I prided myself on being kind of a workaholic and not very many people could outwork me. And this was like the first dude that I ever met that literally could just work me under the table. And those attributes carried over to me now. And what you notice when you're around someone like that, you can't help but feel like a shit butt for not putting your best forward. When you see your leader day in, day out, getting in before and after you, even after, like you said, 13 plus years success, all the money in the world, hottest wife, all these, all these things that everybody desires,

he already has, but yet he still gets in and puts in more work than everybody else. You just, if you're a part of that team, it naturally without any words, guilts you into being a better person and being a better version of yourself. And I remember – Or if you want to even spin it positively, it instills humility. Yeah, right, right. When you're – You're right.

That's a better way to put it. Wherever you're at on the team, you look at that and you're like, well, shit, he's doing it, so who am I to think that I don't need to do it? Yep, yep. Speed of the leader, man. Yeah. So I just, I just have liked that. And I see that with you guys in terms of like, well, I think a lot of people, they don't, they don't realize how much sacrifice it takes to, to put something there that, that means something to people. You know what I mean? And that's what you're talking about in terms of your business, in terms of my business.

And, but the thing is, I mean, you probably feel the same way, but we do it. Uh, that's just what we do. I mean, I find it enjoyable. I'm, I'm, I'm happy to have made all the sacrifices that I've made. And if I didn't make them doing this, I would have made them for something else because I think that's just part and parcel of, of living well, taking on responsibility, making the hard choices, making the hard sacrifices, hard choices, easy life, right? Well, it's the difference between creating purpose for yourself and waiting for purpose for yourself. And I find that in this generation coming up right now that there's this like, oh, I'm searching for my purpose. It's like,

bro, you're 21 fucking just work right now or create a purpose or create your purpose for yourself. Because I feel the same way. Like all the stuff that all the sacrificing that I love it. Because I feel the same way, like all the stuff that all the sacrificing that I love it. I don't it's not like this. Oh, man, I got to do this. I love it. But I also know that we created this purpose for ourselves. And that I think is the mission for people is to find it through creating it versus trying to find my purpose thinking that's going to land in my lap. And I think that's a mistake that some people, at least I have, I've ran into this managing the younger generation that's coming up is they're all like in search of their purpose where it's like, man, you got to go out there and run in some walls and fall down and get back up and find different things that you like and you don't like. And during that process, if you put your best foot forward that way, eventually you will find your purpose and more than likely you'll end up creating it for yourself. But I do think that that's a misconception that we have is trying to find your purpose versus creating it for yourself. Yeah, I totally agree. That's the experience I went through to find my way to writing was doing various types of work in

businesses of my dad's and other people that he knew. That's what I was doing. I was just trying different things, trying to find what's something I could see myself really dedicating the rest of my life to because I don't want just a job I don't want something I just do for a paycheck I don't want to just you know sell gym cracks for profit I want to do something that that means something to me and so that meant yeah I did a number of jobs that it just I got to a point where I was like and no this is not it you know what I mean and so I need I'm going to try something else. And for me, finding writing is really that for me. And I think that I could, I could find other things, but that's where I'm at right now. Um, that's what I've obviously latched onto more than anything else. And that started as just like

a, it seemed interesting to me. It's not like, oh, I just realized that's what I've been put on this earth to do is, is write books or write articles. Like, not at all. Right. I was just thinking like, okay, I've always been a good student. I've always enjoyed studying and I enjoy reading. I wonder if I'd enjoy writing. It sounds like it might be fun.

And that's how it started. And I think that's also a thing that people are, you know, they're trying to find the foghorn of opportunity. Something that just speaks to their souls as opposed to a whisper. Something like, yeah, maybe that's it. That sounds kind of cool. I think that might fit my personality. And then doing the hard work to get good at it because I think that's – I've had this discussion with many people. No one likes doing shit that they're bad at.

Even if it's something that seems like it might be fun, in the beginning, you're bad. And that's no fun. And so that's part of the process. I mean, I don't think you're a favor and want to help me make this the most popular health and fitness podcast on the internet, then please leave a quick review of it on iTunes or wherever you're listening from. This not only convinces people that they should check the show out, it also increases its search visibility and thus helps more people find their way to me and learn how to build their best bodies ever too. And of course, if you want to be notified

when the next episode goes live, then just subscribe to the podcast and you won't miss out on any of the new goodies. Lastly, if you didn't like something about the show, then definitely shoot me an email at mike at muscleforlife.com and share your thoughts on how you think it could be better. I read everything myself and I'm always looking for constructive feedback, so please do reach out. All right, that's it. Thanks again for listening to this episode, and I hope to hear from you soon.

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