Shaun Newman Podcast - #643 - Deven Needles

Episode Date: May 22, 2024

He is a mechanical engineer turned Jiu Jitsu instructor. During Covid while living in Ontario he found his way into instructing mennonites Jiu Jitsu behind closed doors, since then his family moved to Alberta where he has opened up a new gym Ground Control Academy. Let me know what you think. Text me 587-217-8500 Substack:https://open.substack.com/pub/shaunnewmanpodcast E-transfer here: [e-mail] Website: https://silvergoldbull.ca/ Email: [e-mail] Text: [phone] – and be sure to let them know you’re an SNP listener.

This is Brad 14. This is Doug Casey. This is Tom Romago. This is Alex Craneer. This is Viva Fry. You're listening to the Sean Newman podcast. Hump Day. How's everybody doing today?

Today. Just a quick reminder that the mashup is now on Friday mornings, 10 a.m. I know we became a fixture of Tuesday nights, and we've changed it. Tews, me, Fridays, 10 a.m. The mashup, just a friendly reminder. Wednesdays. Ooh, gold and silver deficits? Nope, that's government deficits.

There's no deficits with golden silver? Come on, come on, come! You know, Trudeau's running out of control with everything he's doing. Well, now is the perfect time. Actually, probably three months ago was a perfect time. But today is always the perfect time to diversify some of your hard-earned money into physical money that can't be printed. Gold and silver.

Why not do it with an Alberta-based company? which, you know, if you're in the United States, you can still go to silvergoldbull.com. Just throwing that out there. Here in Canada, silvergoldbull.ca, where they can send you precious metals with a full suite of services to help you buy, store, sell.

And I was going to say they can ship it to you. I don't know where I'm going here. Metal discreetly. Look at them. It's Wednesday. All excited here. They ship metal discreetly, fully insured, and was strak it.

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I'd give Graham a laugh today. You can text him to find out more about silver and gold, or you can just text them to say, hey, thanks for supporting the SNP. Either way, if you want to find out more, text, email, them down on the show notes, go to silverwoodgoldbill.ca, silverbookgold.com. You can find it all out there. Caleb Taves, Renegade Acres, they do a community spotlight, so shout out to Caleb, an injection of truth, town hall June 17th in Calgary. They're hosting a world-class experts,

although if you read the mainstream media, they think they're all a bunch of quacks. I'll let you guys decide. And they're going to present the medical and scientific case for stopping COVID-MR-NA injections and children. Eric Payne, Dr. Chris Schumaker, Dr. Byron Bridal, Dr. Jessica Rose, Dr. William Macchus, Dr. David Wiseman, MLA Shane Getson. And you can get tickets at an Injectionfor Truth.ca. Head there to find out more. The deer and steer butchery. It's 4-H season. They are open for bookings and slaughters for 4-H beef along with people who are interested in buying and or selling half or quarters. They can help with that by contacting Amber. That is, they're butcheress.

And, well, give her a call. 780 870, 870. 780870, 8700. Why did I space on that? Welcome to Wednesday here, folks. Only moly. Life is going on fast. Oh, okay.

Erickson Agro Incorporated. Irma, Alberta. That's Kent and Tasha Erickson, family farm, raising four kids, growing food for our community and this great country. Do I got anything else today before I just, like, run out of steam here? I don't know what's going on. Let's get, before I do anything else, how about we just get on to the tail of the tape, shall we?

He's a mechanical engineer and founder and head instructor of Ground Control Academy. He also has his blue belt in Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu. I'm talking about Devin Needles. So buckle up, here we go. Welcome to Shawnee-Numu podcast. Today I'm joined by Devin Needles. So, sir, thanks for making the tour out this way. Not a problem.

It's a nice drive, honestly. You got to tell me a story. You know, I don't have, minus Drew Weatherhead. I'm trying to think, have I had another black belt jihitsu guy in the studio? Possibly, but I don't think so.

Let's just hear, you know, like, I want to hear the story. I want to, you know, I don't know where this conversation goes today, but anyone who's willing to make it the drive here when, you know, it's like, you know, a request comes in and you're like, yeah, yeah, sure.

Yeah, this sounds great. I'm just curious. I want to hear your story. I've been blabbering on a bit about myself, and certainly we can go back and forth, get to know one another, but tell us who Devin is. Well, I'll interject quickly and say,

I'm not a black belt. Oh, you're not a black belt? No, I've been training in Jiu-Jitsu for five years now. Okay. So Blue Belt and Jiu-Jitsu. Blue belt? Yeah. Once again, well, then I got my wires across.

What are the belt system then? Where's blue in the grand scheme of things? So second belt, So white, blue, purple, brown, black. So you are still a ways off of black. Still a beginner. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Honestly.

In the grand scheme of things, still a beginner. Yeah. Yeah. Teaching has kind of been a passion of mine for a long time. I taught music lessons for about a decade prior to doing this whole jiu-jitsu deal. Sure. So, you know, that was always attractive to me. But if we, if we jump back a little bit, a little background about myself, like as an engineer prior.

So I went to school for engineering. What type of engineering? Mechanical. Okay. So my first job was in process engineering. Automotive was pretty big back in Ontario. So just looking at taking individual processes and trying to make them as efficient as possible. Then I moved into engineering management for a little bit, which was not exactly my alley.

I like to be on the floor working directly on the machines with the people down there. And then I moved into engineering design prior to COVID. I lost a job there during COVID. That kind of scrambled things a little bit. Why did you lose your job during COVID? They said they lost a contract with GM due to COVID. They couldn't get employees to come in or they were laying off employees or what have you. So I was the engineering manager for a big project, a stamping project for GM, one of their cars that they were launching, one of the electric vehicles actually.

And unfortunately, you know, they, for whatever reasons, reasons that I don't completely understand. They canceled the contract. So if they didn't have that contract, they didn't need a manager to manage the project. So they unfortunately, they put me, they technically laid me off, but I knew where it was headed. So, so I, I jumped ship pretty quick. So, why aren't you a mechanical engineer then? Right. Like, are you doing, like, right, like, so you got all your schooling and mechanical engineer.

Correct. So you're, I don't know, smarter than this guy. No. In one area, maybe. So you get your degree in engineering. Correct. Why haven't you turned back to that career? Honestly, like, you know, when I was pursuing a career in engineering, I always liked

working on cars. I love drag racing while I was in college or in high school, loved everything about cars. And when I looked at engineering, I was like, oh, this is great. I'm going to get to design vehicles and solve problems. And, you know, at the time, I was really inspired by Elon Musk when I was in high school when he was just starting out. I was like, man, this is going to be so cool.

I'm going to be a big engineer. I'm going to do this, do that. And you get through the schooling and I come out into the quote-unquote real world and you realize, like, I'm going to sit behind a desk and I'm going to work in Excel sheets and I'm going to log hours for people and I'm going to make SOPs. And it just wasn't inspiring whatsoever for me. And I moved around like, you know, it's not recommended that you switch jobs every year. But I did because I was trying to find exactly what I was looking.

looking for in that dream of, oh, I'm going to do something amazing in the world, right? And it just never really transpired. And I began to see that, you know, in order for me to even get to the stages of being a front end designer where it's like, you know, I'm going to design the hood for a Dodge Challenger or something inspiring, it's going to take 20 years of a career to get to that point. You know, I've got to start at the absolute bottom. And not to say that I don't respect that process because it's there for a reason. But I was just impatient. I didn't want to be the guy sitting there entering in data into Excel sheets. And to a certain degree, I always looked at the guys working on the floor,

the ones down there manufacturing the parts and running the CNC mills and the lathes and the robots and stuff. And I'm like sitting up in my office thinking, like, these are the guys making the product and doing good for this company. Sure. What am I doing? Like, I'm sitting up here behind a computer pretending as if I'm doing something important. in this whole process, but I felt like I knew who the important people in the building were,

and I felt like I was part of the very top-heavy system of engineers and management that were actually sort of bogging things down. So that consistently caused me issues with my employers, because I'd always want to be down on the floor. I'd be elbows deep in a machine, trying to fix something to get things running. Meanwhile, my managers wanted me as part of health and safety meetings and I had no interest in that. I wanted to be. You wanted to be the blue collar guy. Yeah, exactly, right?

Now, in saying that, like, I think that there's this big divide between, like, you know, you could call it blue collar guys and the white collar guys, right? But to me, I'm like, the most effective engineers that I saw were the guys that integrated really well knew the machines in and out, you knew the processes in and out, were willing to get in there and get dirty and fix things because they totally understood the process and the most intelligent and and sort of valuable guys on the team were the ones that were on the floor doing the work and I leaned on them quite heavily to to to help her processes but I just never felt like um I was making an impact I suppose with with my with the jobs that I

held so it's always a lacking there so so you stumble into like were you always um I don't know wrestler or or you know jujitsu where you always a hand combat? Is that? Like, were you always... Martial arts? Like, did you grow up martial arts? Thank you. Did you grow up in that?

Or were you, like, not anywhere near that? Yeah, so I did Taekwondo when I was a kid for a couple of years there. But I really wasn't, like, I was a pretty nerdy kid. As a young kid, especially public school, starting into high school. I was a pretty nerdy kid. I like, you know, Pokemon, Dungeons and Dragons and video games and Star Wars. I wasn't a Pokemon guy, but there's nothing wrong with Star Wars. There's nothing wrong with Dungeons and Dragons.

and I mean, being the nerdy, I was the Hobbit and Lord of the Rings. Nice. I mean, like, there's something to be said about a great story. For sure. And some of those are, you know, I can't speak to Pokemon, but my kids seem to enjoy it. I can't understand any of it. For sure. So, no, I wasn't super athletic, super physical or anything like that.

When I got into high school, I sort of found my stride a little bit in that regard. I joined the wrestling team and I played rugby in high school. And I sort of discovered this awesome, you know, I was always a. smaller kid, but my coaches were super, super inspiring, just kind of like brought me up, showed me that if you put in a serious amount of hard work, you know, you can be a number seven in rugby, even though as a smaller guy. You just have to work a little bit harder than everyone else. So that was really inspiring. So I kind of took wrestling throughout high school and rugby throughout high school, which were both, I consider rugby almost a martial art, you know, at the

end of the day. But then I followed that into college for the first couple years of my schooling. And then, yeah, I essentially dropped right off martial arts during my engineering times. I never really revisited it. I got really into rock climbing. And then it was a friend of mine who just, he was listening to Joe Rogan. He's like, hey, this guy's always talking so much good stuff about jiu-jitsu. I think we should try out one of these classes. So I was like, oh, yeah, I'll go with you, but I'm a rock climber, you know. And I went to that jiu-suituitous class and it was like, like, like I thought, you know, from my experience in wrestling. I'm going to go with you, but I just want to put it to show with that I'm a rock climbing.

Yeah, exactly, exactly. No, I was very, very like, I'm not going to stick with this, man. You know, and I'll go for you basically to help you. But, and funny enough, he's not even doing it anymore. He went to a few classes and. Said it wasn't for me. It wasn't his thing. But, man, I went in there, like with a, like I said, I'm not a huge guy.

So I know where I stand in the pecking order. But I went in there with a decent confidence. I'm like, I'm pretty athletic. I did rock climbing quite heavily. I feel like, you know, I got strong grip strength. It was all, you know, fairy tales essentially. It's useless when you get in the jiu-jitsu. Oh, exactly.

It was unbelievable. On the mats. Just blew my mind, right? Like, I went in there, this guy, Sen, and hopefully I'd get this roughly accurate. But I think he's probably 140 pounds, a brown belt at the time. And I just couldn't believe it. I was like, I cannot believe how helpless I am against this guy. It baffled me.

And I think with my engineering mind, with the process engineering mind, like I love to work on perfection, like bringing things, like taking something and like learning as much as I possibly can and perfecting it, refining it. And I looked at that. I'm like, I got to do something about this because, you know, I can't have this 140 pound man handling me. Like I know nothing. And like I've never done anything in my life. And of course, I still had a wrestling background. So I felt like, oh, I can take this guy down. couldn't take him down, you know, couldn't get on top of him.

Couldn't, if I did get on top of him because he let me, I couldn't stay on top of him. He'd get out from underneath me, be around behind me, choke me out four or five times in a roll, and I'm like, this is unbelievable. So I practically did a pivot immediately and bought a ghee, bought a membership, quit rock climbing, straight into Jitsu and got totally obsessed. I've rolled a few times. Cool. Honestly, if you go back and listen to the first podcast, you were talking about the podcast.

Yeah, yeah. Yeah. If you go back and listen to it, we just had started, you know? Nice. And now five years later, Ken still does it regularly. I think Dustin still does it regularly. And as the book club, we all did it for a few months. Awesome.

And then a few of us, just like your story, you have your friend. A few of us faded away from it. Sure. Have other things that maybe are more important, prioritized. You can put it wherever you want. but you do you do learn a lot about yourself in a short amount of time because there's nothing that humbles a person like getting absolutely their butt handed to them and going how the heck did they do that yeah so i do uh i do understand the no i don't know the obsession that can come

with uh being on the mats and doing uh jiu jitsu i mean it's turned into a giant industry it's huge yeah and i can't believe like i think that that's lent um itself to our to our success so far and with our gym and our dross in there. Like it's, uh, I think there's just so much popularity with it. It's, it's, you know, in my opinion, if done well, and if you have a good instructor and a good gym culture, it can be one of the most safe martial arts that you can train. Like I, we've had zero injuries in two years of doing jiu-jitsu at my gym. Nobody's been injured.

You know, and to me, it's a, it's a combat sport. Like we roll hard every class, but we also understand how to take care of each other. We understand everybody's got to go to work the next day. we're always looking out for our training partners. If an arm gets caught somewhere, we stop. There's no extreme desire to win, I suppose. And I think that, you know, a lot of gyms are taking on that mentality. And that's very attractive to the public because it's a fantastic way to get fit and work out.

Learn self-defense also in a safe way that you're not going to injure yourself. And if anything, I mean, I could go on forever about it. But I think it really makes your entire life better. terms of just your strength, your cardio fitness, your flexibility, your lifestyle habits, you're eating, your everything changes because of jiu-jitsu. Well, before we get into everything changing because of jutsu, I'm going to hand this off. One of the things about people coming in here is they get given a one-ounce silver coin from silver gold bowl.

So it's a little, I don't know, tip of the cap. Oh, that's amazing. Of coming all this way and sitting in the studio. I'm not sure if you're a collector or not, or if that's the first time. There's something special about holding it in hand, that's for sure. Yeah, absolutely. My grandmother, I believe it was my grandmother,

and I think they're with my mom now, but she had a lot of gold and silver coins. It's not something that I've personally chased after at this time, but no, I was at your cornerstone forum. I was very interested in some of the conversations surrounding it. So that's very cool. Thank you very much. Yeah, well, absolutely.

You're welcome. So is that your first silver coin? This would be. Hey, that's another one, folks. One of the cool things about sitting here is I didn't, you know, like I talk gold and silver quite a bit now. And certainly that lended into them wanting to be a part of it, I assume. Either way, I'm always fascinated when I get to give somebody their first like silver coin

and they get to, oh, this is cool. Like, so that's cool. What did you, how did you find out about the, I was curious about this. Corstone Forum here, you know, a couple of weeks now. It's what is it. It's almost a month. Yeah. Time flies.

The time does fly. How did you find out about it? So a good friend of mine, John. He, uh, he was training at the gym himself in the adult program. His kids have trained with me essentially from day one. You know, we started in this John. John Renkemma. Oh, man.

If I'm pronouncing his last year. Yeah, John Rekima. Or I don't know. John. Am I pronouncing right? I was just talking to John yesterday. Awesome. Yeah.

John's a, um, well, John's a, um, well, John's a, I'm pumping your tax there. But when I come to Emmington, normally now I stay at his place. Sorry to everybody else, but he's got a wonderful family. And he's been one of those guys that have come through the podcast that has really, well, I've really enjoyed our friendship. It's been, I think the world of John, I guess is what I'm trying to spit out. Yeah, I think that, you know, and not just to, like you say, pump his tires, but honestly, John's been fantastic for our gym.

He's just been a complete advocate and support. since day one. He's essentially said to me, listen, like if, you know, you need anything, you just come calling and he's, he's there to help. And I know that. And I obviously don't want to abuse that, but I know it's there. And for me, and for any business owner, I'm sure, like, just having somebody in your corner while you're kind of grinding through the early days is, is so beneficial. And all three of his boys were, we're in a program when we started in a little tiny church, like we had 400 square feet of mats in this kind of old haunted church building, You know, and I was like, there's no way anybody's going to show up to this.

But, man, he's been a fantastic supporter. And so, you know, from time to time, you'll shoot me something and say, hey, I think you'd like this. And that one came in. And I was like, well, I'm not doing anything that weekend. And, you know, sometimes, you know, you just get a feeling in your gut. You're like, I feel like this is something I got to do. And I said to my wife, I'm like, you know, I would have a sleep in on the weekend and get my training in. But I'm like, I feel like I got to go to this.

So, yeah, it was just the right time. I'm right feeling and luckily John's, you know, kind of always advocating that for me and shooting things might imagine. And what did you think of it? Oh, it's fantastic. No, I loved it. Lots of good information. I can't say, you know, that I've got the money to go flee south right now, but, uh, no, I, I loved it.

I think that there's a lot of stuff that really resonated with me that I've been thinking internally. It's nice to see other people in a room who are thinking the same things, thinking along the same lines is yourself, you know, that's, uh, especially when it comes to just, um, just some self-reliance, you know, in terms of your property, talking, you know, producing your own food, etc. Um, that's always, it's been a big priority for me, especially since COVID. Uh, so it's really nice to be in a room with like-minded people who are thinking along the same lines. You know, you think the, the world is so like, you know, big, large spread out, whatever it is.

but the circles just seem to be so inter-connected. It's almost funny, except it's not. Like, it's super cool because, you know, you run into Ken. And then, you know, you get brought there by John. I should have put two and two together, you know, I didn't even think about it. I don't even know if John knows you were coming on. That's funny. Yeah, I text him.

I texted him last night or this morning and I was like, hey, I'm going on SMB. He's like, have fun. No, it's fantastic. Talk to me about, you know, you're an Ontario boy. Whereabouts again? forgive my brain. No, that's okay. Southwestern.

So, so just, we started, uh, just outside of, uh, London, Ontario. Just outside London, Ontario. Yeah. Yeah. And what brings you to Alberta then? Like, what, how does, how does that, uh, like, or maybe it was just an easy choice? I don't know. Yeah, a lot of reasons.

Like, I think, uh, you know, throughout COVID, um, I was getting pretty concerned where things were heading, uh, within Ontario, especially like, I mean, at one point, we had curfews. You know, we weren't allowed to go. outside after 8 p.m. or what have you. It was getting kind of crazy. And I was just looking like, you know, I hold Canada really close. I think it's a fantastic country. I love living in Canada. I'm so happy that I was born in Canada. My wife's born in Canada. Like, I love this country. So at no point was it a thought, let's move somewhere else. I wanted to stay in Canada. But I was also looking around me thinking like, man, I seem to be very alone in my thoughts here. And then I

had friends and we knew people who lived in Alberta and I knew from seeing on the news and just through telegram chats and stuff like that. I could see that things were not amazing, but slightly different in Alberta. There's a little bit more pushback. There's a little bit more what I would have thought to be common sense happening in Alberta. So that was one reason, one contributing factor. Then the housing market. Like Ontario, my wife is pregnant during COVID. there was no hope that we were going to buy a house anywhere closer to town. We lived in a one-bedroom old farmhouse sort of rickety building with, you know, 24-inch center studs in the walls and no insulation in half the house.

And it was rough, not a place to, well, I shouldn't say not a place to raise a child, but not the place we wanted to raise our child. So we were looking around and trying to say, like, okay, we want to be like 20 minutes from town. It just wasn't a possibility. There was no way that we were going to take on a million. mortgage for a house that close to town. The place we bought was, you know, 200,000 when we purchased it. It was an hour and probably 15 minutes from the closest town.

You know, so if we needed to get to a hospital or anything like that, it was out of the question. So we're looking to move closer. It just wasn't an option for us financially. And then just stars align, timing lines up. I said to Rachel, I'm like, hey, you know, maybe we should be looking to move to Alberta or somewhere else that's, you know, a little bit better economy right now. take advantage of the fact that Ontario had gone crazy and also the fact that

Trontonians and guys who were living in the big cities wanted to move to acreages because they're all working from home. So they wanted to get out of the cities. They wanted a little retreat house and their properties had boomed so they had access to credit to down payments on little fund properties per se. So our you know the value of our place tripled essentially more than tripled. So we just looked at it and coincidentally one of the clinics that my wife did her, her internship at was hiring. They were looking for a veterinarian.

So stars were aligning. She gets in touch with them, does an interview. Yeah, we'd take you. List our house in Ontario. Sells for more than three times what we purchased it for. We were able to buy, you know, fantastic acreage out here in Alberta. And so it just solved a lot of problems for us.

It solved the fact that, you know, my wife was working 100 hour weeks, 120 hour weeks sometimes as ridiculous as a, Large animal vet back in Ontario, just because you drive so far in Ontario. There's not, you know, horse farms were pretty few and far between. So you'd be driving two hours to a call at 1 o'clock in the morning, do the call for three hours, two hours back home. And I'm like, our son's trying to breastfeed.

It was just a mess. So it solved a lot of problems for us out here. She was able to get, well, was originally promised a three-day work week. We had some kind of turbulence with that when we finally got here and got sorted out. But solved the work week. solve the housing issue, put us around people that were a little more like-minded. So those are the primary reasons. What a, what a, what a, you take a, you know, the start of that you go, you take a house

that you're like, yeah, I just don't want to raise my kid in it and turned it into because of the, the climate and everything else of, and I mean political climate more so than anything. Of course. Not actual that the world's burning up. Yeah, yeah, yeah. You take what you, you know, you take that and you turn it into moving out to Alberta. And I can imagine, you know, like tripling it. You're like, geez, that buys you a pretty nice little spot here.

Exactly. And all, and immediately life is just better like I'm. Yeah, 100%. It's honestly been an immediate switch. Like Rachel and I were both working full time. You know, I was an engineer. She's a veterinarian. We had good jobs, good salaries, working full time, both of us.

And couldn't afford a place because you're just doing the math and doing this makes zero sense. And cost of living. Like, we're paycheck to paycheck every week. Think about that. It's just paycheck to paycheck and struggling. struggling, struggling. And now out here, like, I mean, I'm running a martial arts gym, which is amazing. She's working three days a week and, you know, not that work. So were you running a martial arts gym in Ontario? Or that's when you first got to Alberta, you're like, okay, I'm going to do

this. Well, so during COVID, I sort of landed on my feet. I lost that job with the stamping facility as an engineering manager. I was looking around trying to find something. And my wife actually found the job for me, but it was a design role with a company in a place called Almer, Ontario. And I was like, ah, it's like quite a pay cut. But, you know, it was all that was available at the time, especially during COVID. There's a lot of uncertainty. So people weren't, uh, weren't opening up the doors to hire at that time. So, so I went in and interviewed for this place. I took the job. And it's funny, like my, my first day or my first week, I was in Cambridge at their main facility. And then they said, well, we've got this other location out in

Almer. We're purchasing it. We're in the process of purchasing it. We want you to work there. So I do the orientation and everything for the first couple weeks in Cambridge. All goes well. I show up in Elmer. It's like an empty warehouse. I open the door, empty warehouse. There's just this like kind of shipping container. And that's my office. And I'm the only one there. There's no heat. There's no bathrooms. I'm like, what's going on here? Like, this is ridiculous. So get in there and slowly over time it improved. But I landed on my feet because what it happened to be is is a company that was almost entirely staffed with Mennonites. So during COVID, it's almost like I had this little bubble where there were no masks.

There was no talks about vaccinations, no talks about passports. Everybody's working together. Everybody's doing their thing. And I'm just like in this little shipping container looking around like, how did I end up here? This is crazy. You know, this is fantastic. So, you know, it made me feel a lot. better about the salary drop because I'm like, wow, at least I have some sanity.

Like I'm talking to my friends who, you know, are just having an absolute horrid time at their workplaces. And here I am sort of in this little tiny paradise that I didn't really want to tell anybody about. So during that time, all this is going on, you know, my coach at the time, he did his absolute best to keep the gym open that I was training at. You know, I don't want to, I don't want to throw him under the bus or something and get him in trouble. but he tried his best to keep things going for us. You know, I think what the hardest part for me was, you know, Jiu-Jitsu, you know, changed me a lot from a mental health perspective.

Just gave me something to focus on, gave me something to look forward to. Like I said, I wasn't, I had gone through all this time with school. I had these high hopes and aspirations of this big career and doing big things for the change the world kind of idea. And then to land in that situation where you're like, right, you know, this is what I have to look for. I'm looking around my offices and it's like divorced guy, divorced guy, you know, guy who cheats on his wife and we know about it.

This guy is half drunk every shift and I'm looking around like, this is not my scene, you know, and I don't know how I'm going to survive a 30, 40 year career in this environment. You know, it just wasn't. Yeah, the statistics of what you just said would say they were stacked against you. Exactly, right? And I could see why. You know, you're showing up at 5 o'clock. in the morning, you know, you're not leaving until six, seven at night for what I viewed as

no reason. You know, it was almost like a kind of, I don't know, I don't know what the right word would be, but just trying to show each other up. Who can show up the earliest? Who can stay the latest? Who can pretend to work the longest so that they, I don't know, achieve some sort of status within the, it never, never worked for me. I'm like, the work is happening down there on the factory floor. Like our little bickrings and meetings and stuff like that, you know. So anyway, landing in that and then I forget where I was going with that. Um, uh, I lost my train of thought.

But, but anyway, I'll come back around. So I'm working for the Mennonites. Yeah, so I'm working with the Mennonites is the Jiu-Jitsu kind of gets pulled from you. Yes, yes, yes, yes, yes. That's where I was at. So, so finding Jiu-Jitsu gave me this solace of like, okay, I'll grind through 10 hours so that I can go to Jiu-Jitsu after work. I'm so excited.

And I'll sit there at work and I'll, you know, turn my screen a little bit so I can watch some jiu-jitsu matches while I'm doing my Excel spreadsheets that are sucking the life out of me, you know. So that gave me some solace. It just gave me a purpose, you know. And then when I'm working with these Mennonites, COVID starts to happen, they close down the jiu-jitsu gyms, you know. I lost a couple friends during COVID, you know, due to mental health issues. And, you know, I was appalled by the fact that. When you say you lost them like suicide, you mean? Correct.

Yeah. Yeah, yeah, a couple of good, good friends of mine. And it's like, you know, Jiu-Jitsu was their grounding method, right? It's what kept them saying, you know, so that they could keep going to work every day. And not that I was in the same situation, but, man, like, I got pretty low. I remember having a car, so I play noon hour hockey. Sure, right? Yeah.

Grew up playing hockey, you know, all my life. It was my career for something. And when I came back from playing hockey overseas, you know, and you're going to, well, I guess I'm done. And I'm like, and now I still play hockey. but it's kind of a mind shift to get around. It's like, well, I don't want to be done, though. Yeah.

I still think I can play, but I understand I got to move on with life at some point. Yeah, yeah. Anyways, noon hour hockey, you know, we've been, me and my three older brothers have been playing in the same group. You know, I've probably been less than them, probably a little over a decade. But lots of them have been, you know, over a decade of playing the same group. And, you know, it becomes a way of life. Of course. It's something that happens regularly during the week that allows you to blow.

off some steam or have that compete and sweat and on and on and on. And in the middle of COVID, you know, they, they didn't say you had to be vaccinated play, but they also made some things adamantly clear. And so anyways, I wrote an email because I was so, I guess I was just angry. Sure. And one of the guys had told me, you know, he said, like, I really appreciate what you're doing. I just can't do it. Like, if I lose hockey, I don't know how I'm going to live.

And I remember thinking, man, like, that's, I. That's a tough statement right there. So he went and got vaccinated and, you know, and I'd never look down on any of those people because I understood. Oh, 100%. I looked down on the government and, you know, what it pushed good people to go and do. Yeah, exactly.

Oh, 100%. I totally agree with you. Strip everything away from us. Exactly. Exactly. Yeah. And honestly, like it was, it was such a critical part of my life. Like, you know, I had a bit of a, I'm not going to say that I had a bad childhood

because I had a good childhood. Like we had a nice house. You know, my mom and dad were both fantastic to me, but things got really rocky during my teenage years, you know, with divorces, with finding out I was adopted, with all this kind of stuff got thrown into the mix. I was diagnosed with rheumatoid arthritis. So I kind of came out of my teenage years a lot of like anger and angst and, you know, I'd...

So just so I'm... Your parents got divorced when you're in your middle? Correct, yeah, yeah. Yeah, not the... same time, you know, I found out that I, that I had a different dad that I, that I hadn't been talked, told about for my whole life. So that was a rough, rough thing for me to stomach at that time, you know, so, so things got pretty, pretty dicey during that time. I just came out with so much, I don't know, you know, uh, well, you think you know what's going on in

the world and then some of your stable points in life. 100% they start falling down. They, they split apart. And then, oh, by the way, the guy that you've been calling dad for and look as a pillar. He can still be a pillar, but you actually have a real dad and he's over there somewhere. Exactly. Exactly. So that, you know, I, so Jiu-Jitsu was really helping me work through a lot of that stuff and figure out, you know, my ego and figure out some of like controlling some of my emotions and keeping calm and frustrating situations and not just blowing off the handle every time a small thing happened, right? And then this, this happens with COVID.

And at that time when COVID was first starting, like I say, I'm not, I'm not, I'm still. still in the grand scheme, a beginner in Jiu-Jitsu. I haven't been training that long. So when COVID was starting, I was still a considerable beginner at Jiu-Jitsu. I think I've been training like a year, year and a half maybe at that time. So when all this was going down, I'm like, I'm losing it and I can't lose it. Like I made so much progress. And Rachel, my wife had seen it.

She saw the progress from Jiu-Jitsu. Everybody around me was seeing this progress, like just leveling out, you know, calming down, taking things easy and better emotional regulation. And, you know, and most of that comes from the fact that, you know, when you got a guy on your back choking you out, you can't get angry at him. You know what I mean? It's not his fault. It's your fault. You got to do something about it.

Fix yourself. You know what I mean? Like you got to train more. You got to work harder. You got to work on your, you know, your defensive tactics. Like it's nobody's fault but your own, right? You're in that situation. They're on your back.

They're choking you out. And it's because of you. It's because of you. You know, and that helped me reflect that. Isn't that a good way to be to look at life? You know, 100%. You can see. the quote on, I've been, I've been talking about this quote, it seems a lot lately, folks, and so

I apologize for bringing it up over and over again. But, you know, the quote on the wall says, whatever time you have attacked, like you're trying to save the world from a Joe Rogan episode with Annie Jacobson, if anyone wants to go find it, it's like 900 and something. And, um, uh, he was, they were talking about being at the time, you know, this is, this is literally, uh, about five years ago that I listened to it. I've been podcasting just over five years. And, um, So five years ago, I listened to it. And basically she was saying, you know, like, you know, the, you're saying, you know, the best time to go out and try things is when you're not married,

you don't have a mortgage, you don't have kids, you don't have responsibility, you're 20, you can sleep into your car, you can do things that most people aren't willing to do. Yeah. Because it's just you. For sure. And she's like, you know, basically like, well, you're saying that if you're in your 30s, you can't get out of it. And he, and I'm like, this is a nothing burger episode.

I want to point. I didn't enjoy any of it, but I'm driving along to work, you know, five-hour drive, five-hour hours of driving during the day. And my ears couldn't, like, I almost pulled over on the road to listen to what he was about to say because it changed the course of my life because I listened to how she proposed it and what they were talking about. And I'm like, I'm screwed. And then Rogan's like, that's not what I'm saying.

I'm saying, you know, as you get older, you've done this. So you got to realize, you screwed up. No, exactly. And you're the only one that can get yourself out. And this is how you can probably do it. And he goes through. And he goes through, like, everything I did to get to where I'm sitting across from you today, it comes from him saying like a three-minute thing because it hit me perfectly in life.

And the reason I bring it up is when you're talking about jujitsu, it's a metaphor for life. You're in a spot you don't like. You can get mad at the world, but it's you. Exactly. You got to figure out how to get out of it. Nobody else is, like, nobody else is going to help you. No.

And the only person with the ability to help you is you. You know, you have to go home, driving the car, nice and quiet, and think to yourself like, man, that sucked. You know, I had a 16-year-old girl choke me out three times in a row. And what am I going to do about that? Like, I can just never go to Jiu-Jitsu again and avoid the problem, but that won't fix the problem. That problem is always going to be there. You know, or I can go back in the next day and I can go to that 16-year-old girl and say, like, hey, you know, you got to drop your ego. to do this. Like you got to go in there and say like, hey, 16 year old girl. And I'm not saying

anything about 16 year old girls. They're killers. But you got to go to her and say like, hey, you got a good choke. Like, I need some help. I got to figure out how to defend this. Like, how are you setting that up? How did you trap my arm like that so I couldn't defend the choke? What was that all about? You know, and then the beautiful thing about jujitsu people is that you know, when you come to them and express a desire to better yourself, jujitsu people are going to do anything possible to help you on that journey. Right. And that, that's what I find so beautiful about it. It's like, you go to someone, you're like,

oh, man, you know, I'm having this issue with my jiu-jitsu. Like, that person is going to not go home to eat dinner and sit with you for an hour to help you through this problem that you're having. You know, like my students after class, we'll hang out until 11 o'clock, you know, after a class that started at 7 p.m. sometimes. Because it's just like, like last night, me and my one student, Luke are just sitting there in half-guard position,

you know, working through this passing thing. And he's helping me. I'm the instructor, but he's helping me. And he's got a good half guard. So I mean, you got a good half guard, Luke. I got to drop my ego. Just because I'm the instructor doesn't mean anything, right? I'm still beginner.

I'm still learning. I got to go to him and I'm like, what am I doing wrong here, man? Why can't I get past your half guard? You know, and we work it out and he's like, oh, this and that. And then I post my forehead on his shoulder and you're like, oh, if I get you flat and you work it out together. And I think that that's, it just helps everywhere in life because then you're more humble in all situations, right?

You could go to anybody and you can say like, hey, I'm, I'm, I'm, totally oblivious in this subject, can you help me, right? Rather than my prior self was so bad for this, just like assuming I'm the expert at everything. Well, I got an engineering degree. You know, so what could this guy

possibly know? You know, it's a terrible attitude to have, right? It's a... Well, you miss so many gems of the world. 100%. And I'm saying that and knowing I got, I got areas of my life. Oh, 100%. Like, no, yeah, that's, yeah. So I don't know if you answer my

question. No, I didn't. I'm going to circle back. Yeah. Did you have a gym, like, because you got a gym now in Alberta? Correct. Yeah. Yeah. In Ontario, you're working, you and your wife are working your life away. You got a brand new child. Congrats, by the way, even though it's a few years later. I, he's the best. Yeah. And so you're a new parent. You're both working your lives away. You're living in the middle of nowhere. And it's COVID. You're living in a C-can working your life away. But it's okay because it's Mennonites and they're not enforcing all the COVID hysteria. You lose your BJJ gym, which is heartbreaking. What happens next?

Well, I'm sitting in the sea can. I can't describe it any other way. Like, it's literally what it is. I'm literally in a sea can, folks. Yeah, I'm in a secan. And I look out the window, and there's a rustling mat that has appeared. So essentially the sea can's in this gigantic warehouse that's empty. I don't know.

I think they've built it. So your sea can is inside of a building? Yeah, it's even better. Yeah. It's even better. It was great. You sure you didn't work for the CIA or something? Hard to say.

Hard to say. But I look out the window and there's like a wrestling match that's a wrestling mat that's appeared in the factory, like in this warehouse sitting on the floor. And I'm like, okay. And then, you know, lunchtime rolls around and I see a bunch of men of guys coming out in their like button up shirts and their dress pants. They all got all their welding gear. They're throwing their welding gear off and they're going out on the wrestling mats

and they're like trying to wrestle with each other. And I'm like looking at the window. like what the heck is going on here. And anyway, I'd muster up the confidence to just kind of open the door and peek out and then walk over and I'm like, hey, uh, what are you guys doing? Oh, we're wrestling. I'm like, oh, that's sweet. Can I wrestle with you?

Like, it's the strangest situation. And anyway, that- Do you mind if I wrestle with you too? Can I please? Like, I had to hold back the enthusiasm. Like, could I please wrestle with you? Because I haven't wrestled with anyone in three weeks or whatever, you know. but no that blossomed into this amazing friendship with uh with juan and matt and a few other guys

Juan and Matt have stuck with it like I just rolled with them in Ontario they've been training the whole time now even while I was been gone and yeah they're fantastic they've come a long way put in a lot of work but before you you skip past this part yeah why did they put the mat in there one of them just be like well we just wanted to do something physical I think so so I don't know if you in Alberta I've talked to a lot of people about this but it doesn't seem like the news got this far but it might have for you if you were kind of in the thick of it. But during COVID, the Church of God in Elmer caused a lot of ruckus because they were essentially

like, we're still doing church. I'm sorry about your luck. And they just did church. They never, never masked, never closed their doors. They just did church like a normal Sunday and they lived their lives completely normal. And, and, you know, they had some concerns during COVID and we're thinking of themselves like, you know, our boys need to defend themselves. like our, you know, gentlemen in the community got to defend themselves.

They're going to know how to fight. So I think that that was the original motivation. And Juan, to my knowledge, was sort of the pilot on this whole project. But yeah, they wanted to be more physical. They wanted to know how to fight. So they just were like, well, let's just set up. But none of them were like whatever in June. No, no, no.

No, they were just going out there and just scrapping. Isn't that the strangest thing? Like, I mean, honestly, when you think about it, that's that's that's pretty strange it is very strange or maybe not strange maybe unique or unusual yeah i think i think so yeah right but i think like you know this is something that comes up in jiu jitsu a lot too it's like when you're a kid like i mean we used to spend hours in my basement when i was a kid just beating the crap out of each other and it was so fun but for for a group of men to buy a mat to bring it into a uh i'm i'm just imagining kind of like a quonset style building a hundred

Be like, hey, taking their stuff off. Let's do this. Let's go. Let's just scrap. That's 100% what it was. It was amazing, in my opinion. It was amazing. So I get in with them and I said to them, I'm like, hey, you know, like Juan and I were

building this friendship together and I wrestled with them a few times and, you know, catch them into some chokes and stuff like that. And they're like, oh, man, this is awesome. And at the time, like, I'd only been training jiu-jitsu for a year, but jiu-jitsu is a miracle drug. Like, you roll with somebody who's not been training jiu-jitsu at all and you're a year into jujitsu, like you're going to do pretty well. You know, unless the guy.

like, you know, massively overpowers you or something like that. But that becomes less of an issue with more experience as well. But at a year experience, a year and a half, wherever I was, I was like running through everybody there. It was super fun. And it was nice for me too because I'm used to getting smashed by everybody. So it was almost a little relief for me to have some people that didn't know what they were doing to work with.

And but they were so good about it. They were 100% like, oh, this is great. Good to have Devin on the team. So anyway, I suggested to Juan. I'm like, you know, if you guys want, I've been teaching these music. lessons for a decade. You know, I have a decent understanding of how to convey, oops, sorry, more complex information about a hard thing to do to young people and to adults. I've been doing this for long enough. And I was like, if you want me to put together a couple

lesson plans and we'll just take it from there and see what happens. And they were super gung-ho. They were very excited about it. Oh, low-barity. You want plugging your charger? No, good. Okay. Good. Good. Yeah, they were gung-ho. They were like, yeah, let's do it. If you want to put something together, that'd be awesome. So Juan organized and rounds up like 30 guys. And we've got like, it might have been 400 square feet of mats. It was packed like 30 guys.

And we moved the mats up three flights of stairs into the back far corner of this warehouse and nobody could find us. It was like it literally felt like I go back there every time I go back to Ontario because it feels so special. It was literally like an underground or above ground fight club. It was in this dingy old warehouse going up these metal. stairs. It felt like you were in a ship into this back corner to roll on these homemade mats to get away from the government. It was the craziest thing. But yeah, I just started teaching for them. So I was like, all right, I'll put together like the basics of what I know. Those are some friendships you'll never forget. Oh, man. Man, it's, it's unbelievable. You know, all the terrible

things COVID did, you know, because you, you know, in one breath, folks, I'm listening to your story and you lost friends to suicide because of what they did. On the flip side, you gained some friendships for life off of what they did because you guys somehow created a wrestling spot in the back bowels of a you know like we're fighting the government yeah yeah exactly one one choke at a time basically you know um no and you're right and you know and not to get too far and digress too far but uh um you know like my logo right now for the gym is this it's two wolves in the shape of a yin yang basically and and that represents everything that's happened in my entire life to me you know that's why i chose that logo because i'm like you'd never really know what's good and what's bad right you know

you could something you could get into a car accident and think like oh this is absolutely terrible the worst thing that's ever happening me in my brand new car chinese farmer what's that oh yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah 100% 100% yeah absolutely absolutely yeah you never really know that's a perfect example. I forgot about that all together. Yeah, well, perfect example. My dad and two brothers run a trucking company in town had their shop burned down. I was in COVID.

I'm trying to, I'm spacing on the exact month, but I remember they were devastated. And, you know, like that's their entire business. They've been, they've been at it for over 20 years now, I believe. Yeah. And, you know, in one fatal swoop, they lost. And so, you know, you know, you. in the moment, you're like, this is the worst thing ever. Of course.

And now I would say they would all say the same thing. It was the best thing ever because it was right around where COVID, you know, everything shut. Like I just can't remember the full story. And I apologize for not knowing at all. I'm butchering. No, that's fine. But, you know, it actually saved their company is what it did. Yeah.

And you go, well, you know, the Chinese farmer is, you know, his horses ran away. Oh, all the townspeople come and isn't that terrible? And maybe. Yeah, exactly. day they bring all these wild ones back. Oh, it's such a blessing. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Maybe, right? And on and on the story goes. And I agree with you. It's hard to know, uh, you know, that's, that's why you got to look at things at the glass half full, because you never know what door is going to open up. Exactly. Uh, when, when things start to, to come through. And COVID, you know, I think we focus on so many of the bad things. And rightfully so, because there's a lot.

Yeah, they should. Yeah. But there's, there's, you know, I'd look at this podcast. This podcast in general was on a trajectory for something over there. And I've completely done a 180 or whatever you want, you know. I always quote to Jurassic Park. There's a quote in Jurassic Park, the book, Michael Creighton. And it talks about life isn't straight linearity. Like beads on a necklace. Yeah.

It's like one event can take you to the way over there to way over here. And certainly COVID has done that for a lot of us in the best possible way with a lot of crap in there too, I might add. Of course. No, exactly. And I totally agree, right? Like you have to highlight the bad because it has to be addressed. Like there was a lot of bad, right?

But at the same time, like, I wouldn't even be here right now. Well, I know. For COVID. I think it's Brett Weinstein who says it, you know, like they screwed up because they put all of us people who got things kind of figured out or, you know, starting to figure it out and nowhere they want to go and you're straight. And that isn't, no, we don't do that. And that makes zero sense. Yeah. And it pushed us all into the same corner.

It's like, you do what now? Yeah. Yeah. know exactly all right I can handle that right and you know and and and the cornerstone event is kind of a small cataclysm of that because you know like I was just talking to we do blue color roundtable and I got talking to uh uh Paul yeah he's from Hannah country so showed up to Paul I'm talking to him like you should just you should just come on the blue color roundtable and he goes you might want to do some

background like I understand if in a couple weeks you call me and yeah I did some background check. And I'm like, you showed up to Lloyd Minster for the Cornerstone Forum in the middle of April. It's almost as enough background check as I need on you. Unless you're CIA. Yeah. I'm like, to me, your story, the more I listen to it, I'm like, you should just come on and talk. I'd be fascinated to hear you interact with other blue collar guys because that's what we do on. Yeah. That's literally what happens. Yeah. And then the Cornerstone Forum for folks who didn't come or who have experienced, never experienced any of those events, this is exactly what happens. You're sitting. I've heard it over and over again where you should.

show up you don't know anyone you're sitting at a table where you don't know anyone and all you do is just start talking to people and you're like holy man these people got stories yeah everybody does man everybody does and it's wild yeah but that's what that's what covid did is it forced us all into a corner we're all standing what do you do oh man you're one i'm glad you're on our side right i i forget how many times i've i've said that you know oh i'm glad that person's on our side like they're they're a beast well and i had that unique experience where you know you know, I'm looking at the news, which is completely vilifying the Church of God, Elmer, and for everything they're doing.

And then I'm right in the thick of it with the kindest, most compassionate, hardworking people that I've literally ever met in my life. And I'm like, you know, I'd go to friends' houses and they're like, could you hear what they're doing? I'm like, yeah, I don't listen to that. You know, like, I know what they're doing. And what would they say to you? Oh, you know, that they're going against the regulation.

they're going to cause a massive outbreak. They're going to do this. They're going to do that. They need to be shut down. We need to chain their doors up. I really feel for people that didn't get over their fears and go experience some of the beauty that happened in COVID. Because once you've been around it, like, I understand exactly what you mean.

But for the person, he's like, oh, no, not going there because, you know, the government or this news, you're missing out. You're absolutely missing out on what life has to offer. Yeah, exactly. So no, I taught those guys for literally a year. I think it was about a year that I taught them. And listen, like anybody who's listening who's in Jiu-Jitsu is going to be sitting here thinking, like, wait a minute, you were like a white belt teaching Jiu-Jitsu that's very odd. But circumstances, right?

Like, it was a crazy time. We didn't have anywhere to go. I had to train. Like, it was almost a necessity. Like, I couldn't not train. So I just, the mentality that I've taken then and have continued through to this day is that I'm never going to do anything that I don't feel like I'm qualified to do. So if I'm going to teach a mount escape, I'm going to spend 10 hours watching an instructional by the best guys on the planet, taking notes, then I'm going to go to my gym, and I'm going to purposely just sit down to my butt and let them step on top and take mount position and I'm going to work the escape a thousand times. to make sure that when I'm showing my guys, I know that this Mount Escape works.

And that might have not been 100% possible while I was teaching in Elmer there with those guys. But certainly I spent a lot of time researching and taking notes and like, you know, 10, hundreds of hours cumulatively just to develop this curriculum that I put together for the guys. And it's like, I think that in obviously a humble opinion and I'm not an expert by any means, but it's like, I think that there's two types of people. There's competitors who are working to be the best on the planet. And then there's professors or teachers or, you know, people who are working to dive into the subject and see it as a whole and pick out all the minute details and are just obsessed.

And I think that there's a, there's a, what would you say, a range, right? You could be a little more competitor, but still be a little teacher or more teacher. I think I'm 100% on the teaching side. I'm obsessed with Jiu-Jitsu. Like my background in engineering, I'm like to finish a perfect chimora, you know, get all the, like I literally put it on my whiteboard

and did a full engineering analysis of how you could grab the person's arm or where should I place my wrist versus like how should I have my arm and like obsessed with the idea of getting it perfect. And I think that if you put in that amount of time into one small area and say like, okay, I feel comfortable

as a blue belt now to teach Mount Escaves. Right? I'm not teaching some crazy reverse X entry into inside Sankaku, he hook, you know, nothing crazy like that. But I stay within the means and the areas that I'm like, no, I feel that I'm not doing someone a disservice and that I'm genuinely educated enough to pass this on to someone. Well, I can't speak to BJJ.

It's not my realm of expertise. But I can speak to, I think, media now because I, you know, I've been in the sphere for five years. It doesn't make me an expert by any means, so I completely get what you mean. The thing I would say is, well, who's the largest listen-to person in the media sphere on the planet right now?

Yeah, Joe. Joe. Yeah. And what was Joe's formal training in being a journalist or interviewing people? It's just passion, man. That's the thing, and that's the way I... So to me, when you talk about, you know, they might be judging it.

It's like, well, I don't know. They might be admiring you too. Because many people who get to, you know, we were just, I was literally just talking about this. Coaching you nine baseball. Now, am I the greatest coach? No, terrified of it. Someday my son will hopefully listen to this and he'll realize how terrified I am of

getting out on the field with nine to 11 boys and trying to distill down some skills that they, and you know, and on and on. Yeah. I just, because when I hear you. you talk, I'm like, I feel like I'm more of like the competitor, like, teach me the way so I can be the best. Because I, you know, trying to distill the knowledge is really tough. And they talk about that with like those type of people. Like you know how to do everything. It's almost instinct. But how do you teach instinct? It's like, that's a good question. I actually don't know. That's why you need

the other person. So while your brain might say they might judge you for only being a blue belt and teaching people, they almost might admire the crap out of you. I appreciate that. Because they might go, man, I've been waiting to get my black belt because, you know, the next step after you get you your black belt is to do this and this. And then when you finally have your black belt, you might want to go, like, I just don't want to teach. No, it's fair. It's, it's a unique skill to be able to distill to people how to do things.

Like, I mean, and it's desperately needed, honestly, in a lot of different areas of, I don't know, study or areas of expertise. Disciplines, thank you. Yeah. Yeah, I think, like, you know, the one thing that's really helping me is the engineering background. I think that the blessing of going through all that schooling and grinding through that is the fact that like I have a good mind for physics and and jiu-jitsu is essentially just science, it's physics of the human body. You know, you're just learning how to apply forces on the human body in a way that negates as much need for strength as possible, you know, and uses as best efficiency as possible so that you can get to the finish as fast and as efficient as possible and uses little strength along the way as possible. And, you know, the engineering has definitely helped me with that side of things for sure.

But one thing you mentioned that that I've always really resonated with is I'm like, the one thing that I think is special about being a blue belt and teaching jiu-jitsu is that I'm still in the thick of the amazement. Like, I'm not an expert. So every day, like I'll literally teach class all, like I'll wake up in the morning, I'll go to class. And then I'll drive back and I'll teach a 10 a.m. class. And then I'll drive back into Edmonton, do a noon class. and then I drive back to my academy and I'll teach from four until 10, 11 p.m. And then I'll get home and I'll watch jujitsu videos because I just can't get enough of it.

You know, like as soon as I get home, I'm like, oh man, what was with that ankle lock? Like, and I instantly on to videos, you know. So I'm still in the thick of like obsession with jujitsu where, and I'm not saying this is the case in all cases because it certainly isn't. but I can imagine that after 20 years, 30 years of doing jujitsu, you might lose that obsession and that fire. And the other part of it is that because I'm so much closer in terms of time to being the guy who always got smashed by everybody, I have a certain level of empathy for that stage.

And I understand I'm closer to the stage of being a beginner where you didn't know anything. And I understand how that feels. and I sympathize with the idea of like, oh, man, he just can't get nothing to work. And I also know, and I'm closer to the things that really clicked that suddenly jumped my skill level and then jumped my skill level, you know. You know, when you say like maybe in 20, 30 years, you'll lose the hunger, the obsession. I'm not so sure. And the reason I say that is, because like to me, I've found what I'm obsessed about.

I love being in this room. And I go, you know, in 20 years, am I not going to want to do it? It's like, I have a hard time with that. It's very fair. I feel the same way, right? I can't ever see myself not being obsessed. Now, it doesn't mean it doesn't change. You know, like in the podcast history, you know, when I first started, it was community

pillars and I started to dabble into hockey, but I was really nervous. I really wanted to get my feet under me before I started interviewing these, in my mind, these figures that were larger than life, you know, that had played in the NHL and it done other things. and and yet that was just a stage and then the next stage changed and it went into politics and then and then it changed again and it's gone into faith

and then you know and it continues evolved and I'm like I don't know where this sucker's going I don't even try anymore you know like and if you know if you really want to get an excitement you know like from where I said just bringing something that really

lights you up or that you think you know and then try and learn something new about it and the thing about a constantly evolving program, I guess, that I put on, or I would even argue on the mat. He's like, every competitor is going to be different. You know, you want a challenge, put a giant 280-pound monster of a man on you. That, like, you can make it evolve to what you needed to be, I would say, right? No, I would agree with you.

Yeah, I think I agree with you. Like, when I do frame it myself and think, like, am I going to get bored of this? But I also think that you're correct in saying, like, it changes. You know, I can imagine that. one day I'll be tired of teaching a knee-albo escape from Mount. Maybe. I want to do something different, but maybe not. Like maybe I'll just love the fundamentals.

Maybe and the beginners. And you'll, the beginners. And, you know, I was going to say that, you know, I used to have this thought. I haven't thought about it a while. But, you know, at, uh, it was at like 18, I thought I had the world by the nuts. And I mean, you do in a sense. Yeah. But you're not that smart.

you're actually so far from not that smart it's not even funny but you know that's the way I walked around and at 25 I went man I didn't know what I was doing and at 30 I thought that about 25 and at 35 I certainly thought that about then and it was only like you know right around 35 that I went I'm just gonna stop thinking like that because all I'm gonna do is I'm gonna look at the rest of my life and realize

I'm never gonna be as smart as I think I'm am the world is gonna constantly present new situations that are going to help me grow yes and that is you know when you look at it every day you walk out the door and you can have this adventure of a lifetime. Yeah. Just walking out the front door. I mean, that's literally out of the Hobbit.

Yeah. That's Frodo Baggins. Yes. You know? Yeah. And it makes so much sense to me. And now, you know, like, I walk into this place. You know, would I care for a window?

Yeah. Yeah, I could probably take a window. And could I take a cut out, you know, I've been complaining about my cameras and for the listener, you know, we're getting there. We're getting, you know, like we're a lot closer to a final stage than when they first started crapping out. It really frustrates me. But it's just.

another, I understand that it's only going to last for so long and then it's going to be the next and the next, the next, the next, and the next. And no matter where I get to, there's always going to be the next. Because to me, that's, that's the beauty of life. Yeah. And I think once you found it, you know, you talk about your obsession with BJJ is, like, lots of people don't find that. Or lots of people find it, but then never like lean into it to, to like, you know, basically build it to what it can be become. For sure. And this is, where, you know, I look at Jiu-Jitsu as that original goal of mine to, like, have some kind of impact on the world through engineering, I look at Jiu-Jitsu as like, that's my vessel to do that,

to accomplish that goal, because I see so many people in just the short time that we've been running the gym here in our dross, and I've seen them changing their lives, you know, whether it's losing a bunch of weight, whether it's caring more about their diet, whether it's like, you know, quitting smoking, quitting drinking, quitting this, quitting that, or, you know, or adding this or adding that or weight training and just like completely revolutionizing their lives around this sport and to your point like you know there's there's times where I feel pretty good about my jiu jitsu and like you say it's just a thing cameras whatever like you go in and I roll with a purple belt or a brown belt who's a competitor and it's just like yeah I still got lost to

learn you know like I got nothing man you know I rolled with my coach you know that I had one role right before I felt really good about it. And he's like, hey, Devon, you want to roll? Just, you know, I don't think I've turtled that many times in my life to try to escape from attacks, right? Like, so you're just constantly being humbled.

Exactly, exactly. Yeah, 100%. And that, you know, I think that that lends itself to what I'm talking about, people really changing their lives. And that's why I hope that if there are people that are considering, because it's the hardest thing

is to just get people on the mats for the first time. It's the hardest part. of me owning this gym. It's the hardest part of doing jujitsu, I think. And in my experience, is I'm like, I know that this will be good for you. Whether or not you do it forever, like, don't do it forever. Like, earn a blue belt. You know, that's fine. Earn a blue belt and jujitsu, spend a couple of years dedicated to it. It'll change your entire life. You know, your outlook on what you can accomplish, your self-confidence, your fitness, and because I think that like

mental health is so tightly tied to your physical physical. fitness and your diet and your interactions, your social network, you know, all of those are going to improve rapidly with jujitsu. And then your mental health will improve. Then you're going to be more confident. You're going to take risks that you normally wouldn't. You know, I think that it's, it's the best thing that people could possibly do for themselves. But getting them out there and taking that first step is always the biggest challenge for me. You know, I know lots of people right now that want to do jiu-jitsu. And it's like there's no amount of messages I can send them. I can't, even this conversation couldn't convince people.

You know, they got to somehow muster that up themselves. But really, like, I think it's, uh, it's one of the best things that you could do in terms of starting to find that passion. Because a lot of people, like you say, they never find that passion. They never get on that track where, like, and I don't know if you agree with this, but I feel like I'm on a train. Like, I'm not driving this thing. It's just going where it goes.

And I'm along for the ride and I do what it tells me. You know, it says drive to Lloyd Minster and have a podcast with Sean. I'm like, okay, we'll wake up and do that. You know, that's what needs to happen for whatever reason. Who knows what will come out of this, right? But getting on that train is difficult when you have poor mental health. You're not physically fit. You're not eating well.

You don't have a good social network. It's how are you possibly going to muster the confidence to take those risks and say, like, no, I can do this. I know I can do this because I've been through tough times on the mats. And I'm just using jiu-jitsu as an example. Like there's many other hobbies. Obviously, I'm heavily biased, you know, but, but I think it's just such a good catalyst for, for breaking through and, and finding those, those four pillars that I'm talking about to give yourself the confidence in other areas in life. So, yeah, it's, it's something that I'm hopeful that, you know, that's why I feel like stuff like this is important. If I can get out and talk to people and, and hopefully, you know, maybe we get one of your listeners to go out and try a jiu-jitsu class, that's fantastic.

I'm super happy about that, you know. So I, when you bring up the, the bullet train, when I first started the podcast, I used to, uh, um, listen to ACDC, uh, it's funny. It's just the song is escaping me right now. So use your imagination. I can't remember now. Yeah. I know a lot. My, my son's favorite song right now is, is thunderstruck. Yeah, wasn't that? I can't get enough of that. Well, I mean, it's a great, great song. I was, I was thinking for those about to rock, but I'm not sure if that's, anyways, it just used, I used to like to get myself pumped up. Yeah.

And I was telling you before we started, you know, along the way, what a wonderful thing that's happened in my life. I just found faith. I was like, like, boom, didn't see that one coming. And I've given up a long time ago trying to figure where this thing is you going to run. Because every time Sean tries to force it somewhere, like that's where I'm going.

Yeah. It's not that it blows up in my face. It just doesn't, it doesn't want to go there. I'm like, why the heck? No, you mean resistance. Yes, resistance. Yeah, right? Yeah.

And so I pray roughly the same little prayer before I walk in this studio every time, you know, and since then I've just come to realize it doesn't mean I don't play a part now. Obviously, I'm hosting this. For sure. But at times, I'm like, I'm amazed at where this thing is going. I'm like, I would have never thought to. Oh, me too. Yeah. And so, you know, like people ask me all the time, you know, how do you find all your guests?

And I don't know if they're shocked with my answer, but my answer, you know, comes back to the phone. It's hooked up to all the podcasts. Or, I mean, by hooked up, I mean, folks, it's in your show notes. So you love this conversation, you can text me. You can literally scroll down and see my phone number. Yeah, yeah.

I got no problem saying it. 587-217-8-0-8-000. People think that's insane. I don't really care. I like interacting with the world. Even the insanity of it is interesting. Regardless, because of that, I get to, you know, like, I don't know, is a thousand people going to listen this?

It's 5,000 people going to listen this. It's 20,000. I can't decide. You have to decide if you're going to share it and if you like it and you're like, man, you really got to listen this. That's up to the listener. But the one thing that I get from the listener is they remind me of me when I first found podcast. I just loved that. I couldn't get enough of us.

Holy diana, this is something. And when they find something that you, like you got this. right here. Yeah. And then I would say I build up rapport with different listeners where, you know, if they give me a bad guess. Yeah. And I would argue that it hasn't really happened.

I'm trying to think of like, you know, then maybe I'm, maybe not the next one. Yeah. But like one of my brothers is, I think, three for four. I think we're at three for four his guest suggestions. And two of them for the listener were at Cornerstone. Because of him suggesting Tom Luongo. Yeah. I got Alex Traynor.

Now they come on every month. Awesome. People, I enjoy talking to them. And without that ability to use the people that have, you know, and I go like, this is a train that I can't stop. And I would never be able to factor in all these different guests. I don't know how people have the time, except I know because I used to drive five hours a day. And all I used to do for five hours a day was listen to podcasts or audiobooks. I probably had a thousand suggestions at the very start.

And so the bullet train analysis. Yeah, at times I'm like, I can't, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm everything I can do to hold on this thing. Uh, exactly it. And it's, it's, it's, it's a bullet train. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And I feel like, you know, this is like, like I feel like I have a duty almost to this gym to

jujitsu to keep training to keep going. Cause it's like, it's, it's not about, it is about me, but it's not about me anymore. I've got 70 kids in my program that it's about. I've got, well, I think I got 90 kids now, 90 kids in the program. and 40 adults that rely on me. I've got the community who, you know, the parents involved, the grandparents, the everybody. I'm running an in-house tournament soon that I'm going to have a bunch of guests come to.

People are going to volunteer. And like it's become this organism on its own that I'm sort of piloting. That's a good analogy. Yes. But it's like I need to, you know, I feel like a calling to this. Like this is what I got to do. And I don't know why. And it's like, like you said earlier, it's like, doesn't pay well.

I work like 10 hours a day, 12 hours a day, every day, seven days a week. Even when I'm on vacation, I'm like still working. You know, it's frustrating sometimes. It's hard on my body. I feel like I'm on a roller coaster of like get enough sleep, eat enough protein, get enough nutrition, take creatine, take electrolytes, take protein. And then you get to the top and you're like go train for eight hours on the day. And you just feel like, holy crap.

And now you've got to do yoga and get a massage and do this and do that and then all the way back down. And in saying that, my training schedule is excessive. that's not for the normal person. Normally, you know, when I was training two, three days a week, I felt great. But, you know, it's not. I like to hope I'm maybe further down the line than you just maybe a little bit. Because I remember when I first started podcasting, it was once a week. Yeah.

Okay. And at the beginning, that feels like I'm doing seven a week. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's kind of like having your first kid. Yeah. You have your first kid and you feel like you have 10. And then after a little bit, you kind of get used to, you know, this ain't so bad. I got this.

I have another one. I could have another one. Well, now we got three, you know, and I feel like we could probably have 10. And I mean, don't get me wrong, that would be chaotic. Yeah, yeah. But, like, it's almost like you develop new muscles. Sure. Yeah, yeah.

So at the height of my absolute busiest, like where I almost couldn't breathe. Yeah. But it was still having fun. Yeah. I was working a full-time job. Yeah. And I was doing for sure two, if not three podcasts a week that I was releasing. I think it was two.

releasing two, but then I was doing two on the weekends as well. And so I was working a full-time job and then having to record either at 5 a.m. or late at night, seven and seven after the kids went to bed because that's the only time I got to see them. Yeah, yeah. And on the weekends on Sundays, one through five, I was doing back-to-back in the studio project for the city of Lloyd Minster. And when I think back to that, I was, I was as boat as stretched as I could be. So when I first started full-time podcasting, you know, I do five days a week now. And people are like, you're crazy busy.

It's like, yes, but it is my job now. Yeah, exactly. And it does pay well enough where I don't have to work a full-time job in order to do it. Does it pay as well as, I don't know, a brain surgeon? No? No, for sure. But, I mean, I'm getting paid to do what I like. Yeah, and it's fulfilling.

And it's, and there's something to be said about that. Oh, absolutely. And the thing that I guess I hope for you is I'm further down the line in that I really set my schedule so that it could be what it needed to be for the podcast and myself, because I love it. But I love it so much I would do it all the time. And I'd have no problem. Yes, yeah.

The problem as a father and a husband is then it started to take away from my relationship with my wife and my kids because I couldn't turn it off. Yeah. And I really needed to turn it off. And I saw that over the course of probably the first year of full-time podcasting. Yeah. Now I can do whatever, I can literally jump in the vehicle and drive over here and then I can drive over there and now you're not around and on and on. And I've gotten, I never want to be stagnant.

For sure. But one of the things that I've gotten to is I've really placed a huge importance on my family life and my relationship with my wife and my kids. And yet have the passion to come in here and jam with whoever comes in. Yep. And hopefully, you know, for the listener, giving me. them a product and information and everything I've done before in a way that is conducive to me being a healthy human being and not losing my mind. For sure.

Because you know, it drove a lot of us to Ottawa, including myself, I could see no other way. And that was unhealthy. For sure. And that came from me and when I look back at it is I literally said, I'm never talking about anything but COVID until we're out of this. And I didn't realize it was partially driving me insane. Yes. Because there's more to life, even in the middle of lockdowns.

As insane as that was, there was more to life. Yes. And you, you, I think your story of like sitting in the, the sea can and looking out and seeing the guys wrestle and going, oh man, I want that. Like, I just want to have part of that. And, you know, COVID took that all away from us. For sure. 10%. I'm not mad that I talked about COVID for a full straight year with nothing but, but it almost drove me.

loopy no absolutely i totally agree and and that's where you know that those guys you know i owe them like a life debt because i think that they personally saved me from going crazy you know they were a you know we'd go there for church and we'd go to the lunches after church and we had like a hundred people in this room that we could just socialize with and nobody was talking about covid there's no mass there's no signs there's no hand sanitized bottles nobody's talking about we're just living life and it was amazing. And the thing that you touched on a little bit there is like, everybody could have had that. Literally everybody could have had that. We could have just been like, yeah, no, I'm going to go to Grandma's house. You know, and don't get me wrong. Like, were people

at risk, were there precautions that should be taken 100%? Right. I don't know which ones were right, which ones were wrong. It's really hard to discern what was correct, what was wrong. You know, that's a whole other topic. Right. But everybody could have had that. Anybody could have come to the church of God. They would have taken anybody. right but nobody came and i think i think i'm firmly in the the camp now of uh not that people got sick as BS but everything they did was BS oh 100% and so i i'm actually in the camp now of i think all the precautions they did we did the exact opposite of what the precautions were supposed to do and uh once you got into the the fear cycle i don't know how to

I sometimes wonder how the heck I stayed out of. Oh, yeah. You know, I know what you mean. I know where you go. So when you talk about everybody could have had it, while I agree, um,

that's one of the things I'm trying to do with the Cornerstone Forum because I know it's not, you know, if you look at the history of, of Canada, I know the world, things run cyclically, right? Yeah. And I don't know where we are on the cycle.

Like I've done, I've read a bunch on it and, you know, and this and that. But like the next thing is coming. And the next thing could be, you know, the one that I think is you can see part of the writing on the wall. It's just how is it going to play out? I don't know.

Something to do with the climate lockdown or something along that lines. But that doesn't mean that it plays out the same way as COVID. Of course. Right? Like, it doesn't mean that at all. It's going to play out in its own unique way. And if you understand it that it's coming, so when it starts to play itself out, that you can just mitigate the risks or help your family.

you know, on and on and on. Yeah, yeah. I'm like, that's the healthiest thing I think I can do as a human being is just try and figure out how to make aware the people who want to be made aware. Yes. That are open to finding out information. Yes. So that then you can have the 100 people meeting in the middle of COVID and be perfectly fine with it

and the risks that come with that. And was the risk with COVID? Sure. Of course. Right. But there was also risk with the vaccine that they didn't want to talk about. And still don't want to talk about. The crazy thing is there's just with everything in life.

Like, I mean, you literally get in your car. And you got risk. Like, me driving here to Lloyd Minster, like, that's risky. You know, I'm driving down the road at a hundred. It's a little less, a little less risky than driving to Calgary. Yeah, fair enough. Yeah. It's pretty boring drive.

I enjoy it. But it is nice. I liked it. But no, exactly. Everything life has a risk like that. And yeah, no, I agree with you. Like, and I think that, you know, Curtis Stone at the, at the forum there was saying, you know, how important the ability to do work and keep your body healthy and keep your body healthy and

keep your mental health healthy. And I think it was Chuck was talking about gaining skills and acquiring knowledge. And that's where I feel like I fit into this puzzle. Like you're bringing people together and making it more aware and, you know, creating these communities. And I feel like I'm checking the box of like mental health, physical fitness skills, you know, and that's my little contribution to this overarching thing. And then, and there's more needs out there too, right?

Like we need like I have been struggling to figure out farming. You know, where are the farming experts? Where's the Jiu-Jitsu Academy for farming? You know, I'm amazed that somebody who has farming knowledge on a smaller scale that could help people like myself with a little acreage, I want to grow some food from my family, you know, where the workshops, where the, and maybe I just don't know. Maybe I just can't find them.

Maybe it's not out there or whatever. But I'm, you know, when I look at what I'm doing with Jiu-Jitsu, I'm like, this isn't some unique, special thing. Like, everybody out there who has a skill, I mean, like I said, I'm a blue belt, so I'm not even that skilled in Jiu-Jitsu, and I've managed to cultivate this community and build this beautiful thing. Like, if you have some basic skills out there and something that people could use, there's a demand for it right now.

That's a good, you know, right here, this is what I'm going to throw it to the audience. If there's somebody that you follow that provides knowledge on a skill that would be beneficial to people, you should fire me a text right now. Yeah. This might be a dangerous thing, and then I'm hoping a can of worms on. But I'm like, you know, as you're talking, I chuckle because Curtis Stone was the urban farmer, right? So he literally showed how to do things in your backyard. And I've been sent a lady's name.

And now I'm going to have to ask, oh, man, I'm going to have to go back through my text because for some reason I get sent texts. That actually sounds really interesting. And she's from, I want to say Vagerville. Maybe somebody listening can point me on the direction I'm thinking of. And for some reason, I just haven't reached out to her yet. But she provides exactly what you're talking about. That's awesome. And so, like, you know, there's people out there, and I keep being amazed that I think I know all these people.

And then I stumble into one more. Yeah. And one more. And it's not only from a COVID standpoint, like people who stood up and were like, I'm not, no, I'm not doing this. That's one thing I'm amazed. I thought I would know them all by now, not even remotely close. And I find every time you go to a new province, you find a whole new cast of characters that you have no idea existed. Totally.

when it comes to skills and different things like that, I probably haven't even begun to scratch the surface in Alberta, let alone Western Canada, of people that can do and train us in things that you're talking about. Well, and I think that's like, that's why, you know,

that's part of the reason why I'm here now. Like, I think what you're doing with this podcast, with the form and everything, it's so important. Like, just to, because I think that that was,

that was the unique thing that I had during COVID. Like, I knew lots of people who weren't happy with what was going on. But I had an entire, community that I had access to on a daily basis to say like, isn't this crazy? And they'd be like, yeah, it's totally crazy. And then it's just this relief. You're like, oh, I'm not alone in this, right?

And you're bringing everybody together, like I say. And if you can facilitate bringing those skills and maybe I can facilitate getting a few people into jiu-jitsu to improve their health and fitness and wellness, you know, and then you can have somebody on to talk about something else and then that's going to help people get into a little farming. Well, the original idea with Cornerstone was to do exactly, was to a big, you know, be roughly a three-day forum, like a full-day, Friday, full-day, Saturday, and, you know, to bring in an energy expert, a farming expert, and on and on and on.

That's cool. But it's funny, the way things work, and I don't think there's any coincidence in life anymore. So I just, I just don't. I agree. And I was supposed to have it the weekend before. I don't know if I've shared this story before. I was supposed to have it the weekend before.

And I had a list of 14 speakers lined up to come to him. And then I realized I had booked it on the weekend when I was supposed to go to Lake Louise with my wife for a couple's retreat to work on, you know, like marriage. Yep. Couples. And I deliberated that for like a month. I mean, like I almost went silent on everything. And I, you know, I knew what I had to do, but I was so annoyed at myself for not seeing the overlap. Yeah.

And yet what happened on April 28th, you know, because of that, I had to trim it to one day. I had to get rid of a bunch of different things, you know, like Alex Craneer, instead of coming in like three days in advance, flew in like at 10 o'clock at night, the Friday. You know, on and on it went. And yet, for the first one, the resounding feedback I've gotten, and I don't use this word lightly, is phenomenal. and I don't know if my original idea was a phenomenal idea. It was more of a traditional, this is what it has to be. And the way things worked, I had to compress and twist and make it what it was. Yeah.

Honestly, that wasn't the original idea. It was similar, but it wasn't that. Well, it goes back to what we're talking about, right? Like, you never know whether it's good or bad until it plays out. And then afterwards you find out like, oh, maybe that was great, you know, the exact same thing. So yeah, and I thought it was fantastic. Like, I loved it. You know, I think that's, it's such a great thing that you're doing.

And it was phenomenal, honestly. It was really well put together. You mentioned you started your gym. I'm going to hop subject. Yeah, yeah, that's fair. You came, so you come to Ardrossin, that area. Yeah. You sell your place.

You come here. You got your wife. You got your kid. Yeah. And, you know, you open a BJJ class in the bottom of a church. Did I hear that correct? Yeah. Yeah.

Well, I'll rewind just a little bit because when we first arrived, I was disappointed to find out that they still required vaccine passports at most of the gyms here in in Alberta. So I got here and I'm like, no way. Like I can't even train. And I was like, holy moly. I just left these wonderful guys back in Ontario. They were so sad to see me go and I was sad to leave them. Like I was with Juan there.

We were just Ontario last week. Last week, yes. We got some rolls in together and hung out and like it's so good to see those guys. I was so sad about that. And then I arrive here and it's like, I can't train. Still can't train. It's like the talent, I thought we were out of this. You know, I still can't train.

I'm emailing places like, hey, you know. And you're trying to like tiptoe around the subject and say like, hey, you know, what's your kind of angle here? And luckily, Kingdom MMA, the gym at the south side there, they took me in. They're very happy to have me. So I trained there for a year. But when I got here, I just, you know, I was driving a long way. It wasn't exactly what I wanted because in MMA gym, it's a little bit different jujitsu, right? They're like, take down, get on top.

up, choke them out. Very, like, linear jujitsu where I like the puzzle of it. I like the, you know, I'm going to do this move, you're going to do that move. We're going to go back and forth. And saying nothing against Kingdom of M.A. Because they're a fantastic gym. Like if you, their jiu-jitsu guys are very legit. And they've trained some really good guys for, for MMA. But it wasn't exactly what I was looking for. They didn't have a ghee program really established. And I wanted to train in ghee and no-gis. And for those who don't know, the ghee is just the traditional kimono that you train in where you can, manipulate clothing.

You can choke people with the ghee jacket itself. It's pretty fun. And since we live in Canada, six months of the year, people are wearing jackets. It's kind of good to know how to fight and throw people in a jacket. So I like training in the ghee. But they were just no ghee, you know, pointing in the direction of MMA. You're not wearing a ghee. Yeah, the most popular way is, is, you know, pushing people towards a career in the UFC.

Exactly, exactly. So they were primarily, so I was like, ah, it's not, it's not the perfect for my own development. It's still a great gym. And I learned a lot there. But anyway, yeah, I got here and I'm like, man, this sucks. So I was like, well, it worked in Elmer. I'm going to throw some mats in my garage. And I'm just going to put up an ad on Kijiji and say like, hey, if anybody wants to come and just train some jujitsu, get some rolls in.

I put it up an ad on Marketplace on Facebook. Like, I was just like, it's free. I'll teach a class just for fun because I'd love doing that so much in Ontario. And I was like missing it. So I'm like, I'll teach free jiu-jitsu, you know? So we had two guys. show up. One of them is still a student with me to this day. And yeah, they showed up and we started, but basically just started again what I did in Ontario and started with two guys there. And

there was six guys and there was eight guys and there was like 12 guys. And they're like, oh, could you teach a kids class in your garage? And I'm like, oh, my goodness, guys. Like, I can't, you know, now I'm like spending my whole evening. My wife's like, could I park in my garage? We bought this house so we could have a garage. And, and I should interject and say that Rachel's like, the reason that this whole thing works. You know, there's, I don't, I don't know anybody, and maybe I'm, well, I am biased. I don't know anybody who has a wife that's as supportive as, as my wife. Like, she's just like, what do you want to do?

You want to go wrestle with dudes in the garage and take up our parking spot? Yeah, okay, do it, do what you got to do. And you want to start a gym and give up a career that pays good money in engineering to earn no money doing, okay, whatever. I'll, I'll hold the bills while you go and do that. And she's been absolutely fantastic. for that. But there was a little point of contention on having 20 people, cars parked all over our lawn, you know, trying to do jiu-jitsu in the garage. So I'm like, hey, guys, can we pool together like

50 bucks a month each and we go rent something somewhere? You know, and I was looking at Beaumont, and I was looking at Sherwood Park and Ardrossin. And then I'm looking at Ardrossin thinking, like, it's the most similar to Almer and to Tilsonburg in these little towns that I had lived in all throughout my my kind of childhood and uh and through college and once we graduated so i was like i like the small town feel you know i've never really been a fan of the city uh so i was like well let's do errosin because it's like a little bit out of the city a lot of acreages around we'll go there and we found yeah this uh the adrosin church there they had this old church building that they used as just a historical display but they said like you know nobody's been through this historical display in like

five years, you know, so I was like, well, if you want to put the space to use, I mean, it might sound crazy, but we want to wrestle in it. So we bought these cheap little puzzle mats and we'd pack them up every class because they still wanted to do their Thursday morning coffee in there, which I attended for the longest time with them. Yeah, so we got into that space and it was kind of insane. I'm really surprised that nobody got seriously hurt because there was a full stage right on the edge with a sharp edge and there's glass pane windows all over the place and the floor was like bowed from collapsing

slightly into the basement but we're like it'll do you know so yeah we started there and yeah like I said a couple of the guys just had kids and they're like well would you teach a kids class sure I'll teach a kid's class and before you know it there's like 10 kids and we get 10 adults and then it just honestly just grew and grew and word of mouth and I think you know I think the

one thing that I've tried to bring to it the entire time on two different fronts. For the adults, I wanted to bring this mentality of like everybody's got to work tomorrow. You know, we like number one priority above getting a tap, above getting a throw, anything is safety. Like you take care of your training partners. Like these are, we're all like brothers, sisters in here training together. Right. It's not like, oh, I'm going to do this so that the coach thinks that I'm the best guy in the gym. Not at all. Right. I want you to get submitted. I want you to give up bad position. I want you to experiment and let the new person get a good position on you and then you show them how you can work out of it. Like to me that's impressive. So I've really pushed that culture with the adult program and I think that that lent itself towards good success with the adults because our draw since demographic is a little bit older. Like I say older, but you know, mid 40s.

Okay. I got to grow up some more of that gray beard. You know, I once said on here 58 was old. Oh. And then that's that's that's a some people off. Now, now I don't think any age is old. Okay, fine. There. No, no, honestly. Well, I say that to divert slightly. Like, we got a guy on the team, Chris, he's 58. He's the strongest dude I've ever rolled with, like legitimately. I can't believe how strong this guy is, 58 years old. And I'm like, wow, man, it's so impressive. But anyway, and then with the kids, my mentality has always been like, you know, and I think maybe, I don't know what your thoughts are on this. I think your wife's a teacher, correct? Correct. Yeah. So, you know, my, my looking ahead to when Hendrick my son is going to school I'm like I want him to go and get an

education I think that school is important but I also think that the education is the important part learning you know practical skills is important right there's a lot that seems to have flooded into schools recently that I'm like okay this has no bearing this has yeah this is not there's no place for this in schools especially for little kids and then I think what what has also happened is just sort of uh and i and i don't want to sound cliche because i know a lot of guys will say like oh the kids are soft nowadays like i have some really strong really capable kids on our kids team like not all kids are soft but they're softer than they've been in the past i think right like when i think of what my living conditions alone dictates that you go 100

years ago and i've read the stories of the uh the people who immigrated here or you know the bar calling us and on and on and on from our area. They're living in a tent in the middle of winter because they didn't get their house built fast enough. Yeah. You can't teach that toughness to kids today because we live in a world of Netflix. Yes, exactly.

And phones and everybody can have a phone because it's affordable. Yeah. Right? It's just living conditions. Totally. And nobody wants to go back to that. I don't want to live in a tent and minus 30.

I don't want to eat tadpoles and think it's a great meal. I do it once a year, just to, you know, just to dabble. Just see what it's like. Yeah. So are the kids softer? Yeah, but the adults are softer and on and on and on. Like this is, you know, you want to be hard.

Okay, go back and live in the cave, I guess. You know, like how hard do you want to be? For sure. For sure. And so, so what I'm trying to do is, is get the kids a little bit uncomfortable, right? Put them in those tough situations just to build some less, less about physical resilience. Like I'm not saying like these kids got to be, you know, carrying each other over their shoulders for five miles or anything like that, but it's mental resilience because I think that, you know, like you say, the chances of

something like COVID happening in our kids' lifetime is, is fairly high, I think. You know, there's something that's bound to happen. I would say the likelihood of something happening like COVID in our lifetime is awfully high. So, yeah, the probability goes even higher for our children. And I think of my mental resilience during COVID, it could have been a lot better. You know, like I didn't, I, I could have been a lot better. Had I discovered jujitsu five years before COVID, I think I would have, I would have gotten through it a lot better, you know. Um, so for the kids programs, I've always really pushed like mental resilience and, and starting at whatever they, whatever point they come in. Like I have some kids come in that are just killers. They're just,

they come in, they're bloodthirsty little killers. And it's amazing, you know. And they just come in. They're like, I'm like, okay, you're going to go into this class because I'm going to pool all you guys over here. But then there's others that come in. Then it's just like, Like they haven't done anything physical. And I mean, like I said at the very beginning, like I was not a physical kid. I understand these guys and I don't think anything less of the kids that come in with zero physicality, zero mental resilience. They quit at the first opportunity. I was that kid too when I was that age.

But I try to take them from whatever rung on the ladder they're at and step them up as much as possible before they inevitably move on to something else. Right. So I think those two things with the adults building this culture of caring for your training, partners and everybody collectively trying to move up their own ladders. And then with the kids, it's like mental resilience and how far can we get them to go in terms of mental resilience? Like I was so proud of the one girl. She did a belt test recently. Like I knew she would be able to do it. But when she first started, I was worried. I was like, man, I don't know, because my belt test is fairly difficult, especially for the kids. I put them through this

shark tank where they have to have a new. So basically they're on their back. They start in a disadvantaged position. And every minute through the whole class, a new kid comes in. Right. And they're just the kid on top, your objective is to get on mount position and drop your chest right down on that kid's face and try to smother them. Like make it as uncomfortable as possible for the kid on the bottom position.

And I know it sounds crazy, but these are kids that have been training for like a year before they're getting into these shark tanks. So they're well conditioned by that point. I'm not throwing kids on day one into that. But I run them through this shark tank where it's like the purpose is to make them as mentally uncomfortable as possible. And I want to see, I don't care if they get submitted 100 times. I don't care if they get their back taken and they're in a, you know, inferior position the entire time. What I care about is that they can just get through it, right?

And they can just sit under mount position repetitively. Every minute it's a new kid who's totally fresh, they're not tired and they're coming in there with a vengeance. They want to squash you, you know, and the kids love it. it, they have a good time with it. But the kid on the bottom, I want to see, like, can you, in those situations, can you still function? Can you still think to yourself like, hey, it's all good? You know, there's a lot of pressure happening.

There's a lot of discomfort. I'm not happy about this situation, but can I just start my mount escape? Can I at least, like, keep my hands in a good position so that I can start to mount escape? Can I do one bridge? Like, I just want to see one bridge. Like, show me that you have the mental ability to get through this and just think to yourself, no, I'm going to continue to try, even though I'm totally defeated.

right now, you know. And so anyway, that's, that's really been my objective. And I think that that's resonated well with the community. And, and yeah, it's been growing like crazy. And I mean, so you're not in the church basement anymore. No, so we've switched to, uh, the community hall in our Drossin, which has been a big upgrade. We were upstairs, uh, for the first year. And, and we had to pack up, I had also purchased some better mats. We had to pack up our mats like practically every week after classes. And it was just killing me. Like, you know, they're 60 pound mats. And we had, 52 of them and it's like every week I'm there at 11 o'clock at night after we've had a full you know little circle with everybody and chatted about this and that and you know it's uh but

it's things like that you know because you could I don't know maybe I'm wrong on this I feel like I can see your trajectory it's like those are the those are the stories that make you who you are though totally 100% my first podcast studio had most crap on when we were ripping it apart yeah right like I look back at the pictures I'm like I can't believe that's where it started I can't believe, you know, like so many of the things you had to jump through. And listen, I love this studio. I've put blood, sweat, and tears into this place. That's beautiful.

I can't wait for the next one. I just can't wait because I have an idea. I want the idea to be fulfilled. Yeah, we're on the same wavelength. Like, I look at where we're at right now. I mean, it's awesome. It's fantastic. You know, it's a great place in the community.

But I'm looking at thinking like, man, it'd be nice to have showers. We need a couple more windows. I want to do this wall differently. You know, like there's always something, right? And the nice thing about that is when you're in a space that's not the one, you really learn what works and what doesn't work. So that when you do get to the next one, you're like, no, no, that's why I want that there. No, don't do that.

This is what we're going to do here. And then you get to see your idea completely. Yes. You know, what do they say? When you move into a house before you renovate it, live in it is the idea so that you can be like, oh, actually, I was going to put something there and I don't like that. Yeah, yeah. To me, the studio has been a work in progress at all times because there's just

things I do, I don't like, I don't like that. Why did I do that? Yeah, yeah. You know, and it's funny. You just constantly changing. And so in saying all that, that's what builds the character. So when you're somewhere else, you know, you look at all the successful people in life. Yeah.

Sure, they talk about where they are at the time, but they love talking about the early days when they were nothing. Yeah. And they were hauling the mats in and out every night. They were in a church with a sharp edge and a stage and it made zero sense. And they had coffee on Thursday. Like, why? I got to move it. Yeah.

You're like, you know what? Screw it. I'm going to have coffee. coffee with you and we're going to make the best of me yeah those are the stories that make people for sure man and and i totally agree and i've learned to appreciate it in that regard like just recently you know i get the contract from the people that we rent from in the community hall right now and it it's like you know you can't use the kitchen anymore kind of arbitrary and i'm like you know a previous me would come back to them and be like hey well i want to use the kitchen because we need

to get water from there and blah blah blah and you know that's where i kind of kept my laptop so that i could track my lesson plans while i'm doing classes and and more often that Now it's just like, all right, we'll figure it out. I'll buy something to, I'll buy a water cooler and I'll get a little stand and we'll put the laptop on it there and boom, problem's off. Let's just move on. And, you know, but you're right. Like those hurdles and humps are part of the process. And once you start to appreciate it, which I feel like I'm at now where I get quote unquote bad news like, oh man, we can't use the kitchen.

What are we going to do? You know, when you think of this jocco kid? Yeah, 100%, right? 100%, right? And no, absolutely. You can't use the kitchen. Good. Good.

All right. Why do you keep saying that? Yeah. Well, what's funny, though, is like I went to GISC and I bought this beautiful little bamboo, like, stand to put my laptop on. I put our hats on it and everything. It looks great. I'm like, this is awesome.

But I never would have done that if they didn't boot me out of the kitchen. So I'm like, this is great. You know, let's keep going. What else do you want to take away from me? Because I'm running out of good ideas, you know, like, but yeah, so. Well, I appreciate you making the drive and doing this. No, it's good. It's been awesome.

Really look forward to seeing where, you know, where you go, you know, because like to me, maybe I'm wrong. You know, I've been wrong on judge of characters and everything else, but, you know, I don't feel that way with you. Well, thank you. I feel like you got a really interesting, unique story. The fact you're not a black belt, your blue belt makes it even better. I'm like, it makes it even better.

Oh, thanks, man. Because, you know, it's unique. And I look forward to seeing where you go. and I appreciate men like Ken and John running into you and doing what they've done because it's just making worlds collide all over again and appreciate you coming and sitting and doing this. It's awesome. No, I appreciate the opportunity.

It's good. Ken and I have plans. I want to help him get some jiu-jitsu started around here too for everyone in the Lloydminster area too. So that's the next plan. Cool. Awesome. Thank you so much, Sean. Yeah.

Nice to finally meet you. Yeah, you as well. I feel like we got to shake hands or something. Thank you very much.