The Bossticks - Life After Going To War With Remi Ishizuka & Nathan Pontious

Episode Date: January 6, 2022

#424: On today's episode we are joined by Remi Ishizuka & Nathan Pontious. Remi was formerly an LA based Health and Wellness blogger with a passion for healthy living. She happens to have just moved to Austin, Texas with her partner Nathan Pontious, a former marine and veteran. On today's show we discuss life after war and how to deal with transitions in life.  To connect with Lauryn Evarts click HERE To connect with Michael Bosstick click HERE Read More on The Skinny Confidential HERE For Detailed Show Notes visit TSCPODCAST.COM To Call the Him & Her Hotline call: 1-833-SKINNYS (754-6697) This episode is brought to you by Sakara This year, turn your resolutions into reality. Whether you're looking to try plant-based eating, build an empowered body, boost skin's glow, or simply feel your very best, Sakara makes it easy to create rituals that last. Sakara is a wellness company rooted in the transformative power of plant-based food. Their menu of creative, chef-crafted breakfasts, lunches, and dinners changes weekly, so you'll never get bored. And it's delivered fresh, anywhere in the U.S. And right now, Sakara is offering our listeners 20% off their first order when they go to www.sakara.com/skinny and enter code SKINNY at checkout. Produced by Dear Media 

The following podcast is a dear media production. After talking to a lot of my guy friends and girlfriends and talking to you guys, I have heard that dating is a real bitch. I'm like happy I'm married because it seems so complex now. And so when this company Match approached us, I was like, this is so on brand. Because right now there's so much swiping and mindless consumption when it comes to dating. But Match is for emotionally mature adults. How about that, guys, emotionally mature adults? adults. Thank God that there's an app like this. I mean, if I was dating, this is the app that I would

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And he's a serial entrepreneur. A very smart cookie. And now Lauren Everts and Michael Bostic are bringing you along for the ride. Get ready for some major realness. Welcome to the science. Skinny Confidential, him and her. It's certain, like, I can certainly feel that I have a harder time relating with a lot of people just due to the way that I've shaped my life and the way that my life has rolled out.

I think exactly like you said, the road to, you know, enlightenment is not going to happen at, you know, a perfect 75-degree house with postmates at your fingertips and porn at the click of a finger and all these instant gratifications and convenience. and right, I think it's a direct reflection of kind of where our society is at right now. I was just tired of being like lowest on the totem pole, right? So like it was, it was just not a great feeling to show up every day and not be doing something that I truly enjoyed or that I was super passionate about. So for me, content creating. And so this was my chance to show up for myself, do something good and change my lifestyle. Welcome back, everybody, to the

Skinny Confidential, him and her show. I am not going to lie to you. Right now, I am sitting in a bathroom in Switzerland because I still have not been able to get back to the United States. I guess we have not been able to get back to the United States. I thought we'd be coming back a little bit earlier, but honestly, it's just, it's been a little bit of a shit show. I don't have to tell you guys that. It's a little bit of a shit show with travel these days. So I am currently in a bathroom alone, hence the echo, hopefully you don't hear it, on a small recorder, doing an intro because we weren't responsible enough to do the intro before we left on our trip and thought we'd be back by now to do it.

So here I am. Trying not to wake up the baby and my wife. What time is it here in Switzerland? 1144. Regardless, we have, and it's 1144 p.m. I guess it's not that late. Also, I've had a couple of gronies and shared a bottle of wine. And I may have had a shot.

But anyways, that's all. that's not the point of this. Let me introduce this show. Today we have a dynamic duo. Rami Isizuoka and Nathan Panias on this show. This is a, like I said, a dynamic duo. They have built an incredible brand most recently moving to Austin, Texas, where we interviewed them all about their business, homebodies. And I got to say, this episode is near and dear to our hearts. I found them to be incredible. I found them to be great guests. Nathan, I think this was his first time ever being interviewed. It may have been Ramey's too. But I know she, you know, she's really put herself out there for a while as an influencer.

So she's been in the public eye. But I think for Nathan, this might be the first time he's ever done an interview. And let me tell you, this is an incredible story. He is a former Marine. He has such a dynamic background. Every time we started to peel back one layer with this guy, something else popped up. And I'm not even going to ruin it for you guys. It's just, it's an incredible story.

I think that more of these stories with the people that have served our country need to be showcased. They're very important stories. The people that put themselves out there. to defend this country. Some of these stories just don't get showcased enough. So using this platform to showcase more and more of these stories is, you know, super important to me. It's near and dear to Lauren and I's heart. And it's just an incredible story. Also, Ramey and him, what they've done together with this brand is incredible. So I think there's inspiration out there for anyone that's

looking to work with their significant other. And these guys have just really built an incredible brand. Two very powerful people, great people, humble people down to earth. And we just could not be more proud to share this story. So with that, Ramey, Nate, welcome the Skin confidential him and her show and guys I'm sorry if I butcher this intro I'm not gonna lie I'm three sheets to the wind this is the skinny confidential him and her what's the the technique stick and poke yeah is that what they are no okay I love that though but he's drawn every single one of them really cool really cool wow yeah I got to find a new person out here because he's this is impossible to go see him now I should probably find him too let's we can go and let's let's do the buddy system

Maybe we just buy our own gun and start sticking each other. I trust you more to do me than I think I wouldn't trust me to do your task. You trust him to do you? Okay. Are we recording? I hope so. Yeah. We are.

I just want to first apologize because I figured I would just tell you guys this on air. I have an extension that's popping out of my head. But I feel like it's on brand for Austin because no one gives the fuck. The extension's hanging off. I told her yesterday I was like, that thing's trying to escape your head. I kind of sat in the corner of my eye. It's bad. It feels like a wrap.

But it almost gives you the volume at the top that you want. I have to fly someone out to L.A. to help me. You mean to Texas? To Texas. That's how I feel about my eyelash extensions. I got to go to L.A. to get them done. Yes, there's certain little things in L.A. that you have. But Austin overall is amazing.

But I'm just saying this podcast, you're going to have to stare at this extension hanging off my head. So I'm sorry. We got that out of the way. Yeah. I can't really deal with it. But, you know. Close your eyes. You're going blind.

You told me this morning. So that's perfect for me. You're near-sighted. I'd love for you to go blind. Okay. I want to give the audience some context, and you guys both have such different stories. Okay, so I want to start with Nate. Ramey's going to go after at her request.

Nate, tell us how you grew up. I feel like there's a lot to unpack. You were in the Marines. Give us a little context in history. Yeah, so I grew up in a small rural town in Illinois. parents were divorced. My old man kind of had me grow up real quick, living on a farm. Where in, we're in Illinois? The only reason I asked is my dad grew up in a small town in Illinois called Marshall, which is Marshall. Well, I'm in Central Illinois. I'm familiar with

Marshall. I used to run track there. So I was in Effingham, Illinois. Okay. Just cornfields, cows, farms, river bottoms, a whole lot of, a lot of nothing, really. Growing up going through school, I got really terrible, terrible grades. I was not very smart at all. And I only had two desires of professions that I wanted to do. Most kids want to be a doctor, astronaut. They have all these big aspirations. At first, I wanted to be a rodeo clown, a bullfighter. I don't know why.

But after 9-11 and seeing that, I was in like third grade, I just from that day on, I decided that I wanted to go to war. I didn't know what that entailed, but literally from the third grade all the way till I graduated, That's all I wanted to do. And the fastest track to that was the Marine Corps. So I enlisted the Marine Corps immediately out of high school and went straight off to boot camp. What is boot camp like? Boot camp is it's a spiritual experience.

It's a psychological like change of the makeup of who you are as a human being. Essentially, they need to take who. you are as a civilian as you are as a human being and they need to turn you into exactly what is going to behave in the manner in which a human needs to behave in in combat so your entire your entire life is kind of thrown in a jumble to kind of rewire your brain there's a there's a terminology jarhead they call marines jarheads there's a reason they like wipe you clean and start you in a fresh slate and build you up to like if you could go back and pinpoint some things that you did in boot camp to really give the audience context of what it looks like.

Are they making you stay up at night? Are they making you wake up at weird hours? Are you swimming through weird situations? Like, what does it actually look like from a micro level? It's mass chaos and it's behavioral. You're instilling all of the quick response behaviors, taking any thought processes, any thought processes that need to go into super intricate details. All the thought processes go out the door. So all you need to know how to do is behave, act really, really quickly. Everything is done with violence of action. And it's done.

Everything is micromanaged. Your entire life is completely micromanaged so that you can completely rebuild yourself. Like as a recruit, you have essentially lost your individuality. You are no longer I, me. You cannot refer to yourself as such. You are this recruit. This recruit requests permission to do whatever. You've lost your individuality.

And it's not until you pass the crucible and you become a Marine that you are no longer this recruit. You have earned something. You've earned that title. And you take that on with you. You've developed into exactly what you're supposed to be. Let me ask you this. So you're a kid obviously and you want to, and you put being a Marine or going into the military on a pedestal

and you think it's going to bring certain things. When you get there, are any of those notions disavowed? Or are there anything that you thought was going to be something and then it obviously turned into something else? Or is it like, hey, this is exactly what I was looking for and this is exactly what I thought it would be? That's a really good question. You can really put that spotlight on going to combat

and doing what Marines. Marines do, but you miss the whole process of becoming the Marine, all of the, all of the challenges and obstacles that come with, like, the mentality that's developed. You really, really develop your body and mind, really. And that was a really big challenge for me. And I mean, I kind of have to give a little context into that, too, because like when I went to boot camp, I was terribly, terribly underweight. I was totally uncoordinated. I couldn't make any sports teams. So I wasn't exactly, I guess, what I am now. This is like 10 or 12 years in the making. I was like completely the opposite. I could, I could barely do five pull-ups when I first got in. And so it's like,

just that constant repetition and that body, mind connection that's being built through that. Yeah, your story's a little different because there's, and I've heard versions of this, but some people go into the, let's say the military or the Marine Corps, and they're like preparing for it, right? They're in track. They're doing pull-ups, push-ups. Like doing everything to get their body, but it sounds like you kind of just got thrown into it, even though you want to, maybe you weren't anticipating the physical toll it would take. I mean, I did, I did anticipate that, and I actually had quite lofty goals. Like, not only did I just want to go in to the Marines, I thought I wanted to be recon, which is the special forces. They're the baddest dudes. That's what I thought I wanted to do. So

I needed to be able to get a perfect score in the physical aspects and everything, which meant I had needed to do 20 pull-ups. So I needed to get from a point of only being able to do five pull-ups to a point of hitting 20 pull-ups in three months. And so it was a lot of repetition. Also, the fact that I was terribly underweight. I had to eat. I was what was referred to as a double rat whenever we went through the chow-hall. So I'd get double rations of food. So I was eating two times the amount of people because I needed to, you know, they did this put some weight on you. Right. I need to gain some weight, gain muscle, get stronger because just the, what is expected of you, you need to be able to carry a lot of weight. You need to be

physically and mentally tough. So I guess it wasn't really the fact that I wasn't prepared or I wasn't preparing. I was. I actually, I tried really hard in sports. I just sucked. I was terribly unathletic. I was not strong. All the other kids, you know, they were developing muscles and developing facial hair and they were faster and bigger and stronger. It didn't matter what I did. I would run and try really hard. I would try to lift weights. I sucked. I want to know as someone that doesn't know a lot about the boot camp, though, like what a day in a life was. Are you waking up at four? Are you getting yelled at as you wake up? Can you brush your teeth? Do they tell you what to wear? Are you going to breakfast first or do you go for a run? What's the whole day?

Okay. I can break it down. Totally. Wake up. is pure chaos. It's pure chaos. It's about five or six drill instructors running through the squad base, screaming, banging on trash cans, making as much noise, creating as much chaos as you can. They start everything, every single thing that you do is counted down backwards. They count really, really fast. And by the time they get to zero, you need to be done doing whatever you're doing, or you're going to get Slade. Essentially what Slade means is like you're going to hit the deck. You're going to be doing burpees, push-ups, mountain climbers, until they decide that you've had enough. So, you know, they create a bunch of chaos to wake you up. You need to get at the front of your, of your beds,

and you have a battle buddy that you share your bed with. You need to be standing in attention. So everybody's in their underwear, and we're all starting together. It creates this uniform, perfect line. And then these drill instructors, they will count you down and they'll tell you, okay, put on your right sock. You have 10 seconds. They start counting 10 seconds. Put on your right sock. Now take your right sock off. Put on your blouse. Put on your blouse. You got 10 seconds. Put on your blouse. Take your blouse off. Lay back down in bed. Get back up. Get online. And then so it's just all of this weird stuff trying to kind of create frustration. But also, like I said, it's totally rewiring you so that you're just, you're waiting on commands and you're

executing every single thing. So now they would kind of play those games and kind of try to get you a little flustered. So by the time you actually do get dressed, you go in a straight line. together. And about 60 guys will share about 15 sinks to, and you'd get maybe two minutes being counted down to shave your face and brush your teeth and pee whatever you need to do. You need to figure it out. What if someone has to take like a fat shit? There would be guys sitting on the toilet while somebody was peeing between their legs and stuff. No. This is actually kind of funny because this is created. It's a weird dynamic that we have at home. So if I'm like standing there brushing my teeth or I'm getting something out of the fridge and she

sneaks in. I'm like just like don't come in my space because I've kind of been in that environment where your shoulder checking dudes trying to like get your face shaved or brush your teeth or something like that. So I'm just kind of like. Hold on. Let me let me paint this visual. So someone's on the toilet taking a shit and someone's peeing through their legs. It sounds kind of efficient. Let's try that at home. No, we're not going to try that at home. You can try that with your friends. I'm all about saving time, Lauren. So then when you guys get ready, then what is it like? So then, you know, we'd go outside. We'd march.

Marching was a huge thing. And again, just drilling repetition. They would march us to the chow hall where we'd eat breakfast. Before you ever eat, you're always doing max sets of push-ups or pull-ups, which is kind of how I was able to develop some strength. Every single time that you eat, you do a max set of pull-ups and push-ups. And then again, after you get done, you revisit those same pull-up bars, just your entire day every single day for three months you have these like three to five drill instructors who are

reshaping who you are as a human being marching you around teaching you everything that you need to know to become an efficient marine so that you can execute the job that you're supposed to do. What time do you go to bed? Right now? No, when you were in boot camp. Like 830 or 9 and then Revely would be at like 430 or 3.30 or? or five. So you're not having like a nighttime routine and like a morning routine. If you think about it like this, like obviously they're taking all sorts of different people from different walks of life and they're trying to make them into this fighting machine that's a unit and tell me if I'm wrong. But if you're in a battle situation around a battlefield and there's a chain of command, it's that

that unit effectively or performing effectively is dependent on everybody being able to follow that chain of command and be on the same page. And if you have people that aren't there or aren't following that chain of commander those rules, like it could put everybody in jeopardy, right? So you kind of need to this is, it sounds like this is a proving ground to make sure that everybody could work as a unit effectively. If you have people doing their own thing, then the whole thing breaks down. Definitely. You have to be a cohesive group. And then they'll even do, you know, certain drills to isolate that one oddball. So the one odd ball, the weak guy, nobody wants to be the weak link. If you're the weak link, you get people killed. And so they'll, they'll put the spotlight on them.

And the, like, there's, there's no like a one person messed up. So he's, he's going to get the consequences. No. If one guy messes up, everybody messes up and everybody pays for it. So then it kind of creates this motivation, this drive for the fuck up to not screw things up because he doesn't want to make the whole platoon or the whole squad pay for his mistakes. I have a question that I've always wondered. When you get that many men together and there's no women, are people like jacking off in the bathroom? Or are they like, this is what you wonder? No, I actually do wonder this.

Or are they, like, are they missing women? Like, what are men doing without any women around? Like, how are they, like, releasing, for lack of a better word? I mean, honestly, I was so goddamn tired every time. I would just be falling asleep. I'm sure that it does happen. It does happen, like, in the fleet, like, after boot camp, whenever you get to your fleet units and everything.

It absolutely happens. But also, it kind of, women are, they're a distraction. They're also a perfect motivation. So what do you want from your young guys that you're going to be sending to combat? You're going to want them, you know, testosterone raging. You want them like a kind of like a caged up pit bull. You don't want them satisfied and you want them kind of pent up, ready to go get whatever you're going to lay out in front of them, whatever the mission is.

And if they're fat, if they're fat, satisfied, they're getting their rocks off, they got no eagerness to go out and be violent. So it's not like you guys are going out to the strip club or like, there's no women. There's no contact. Well, there's women. There's women in the, right? You're on base, right, during training. Is there women in the Marines?

Sure. Yeah, but women and men do not go to boot camp together. Got it. Okay. That was my question. And I mean, even in the fleet, I know from being in the infantry, like where I was stationed, there were no females where I was. So like other Marines that have other jobs, like admin or whatever, sure, they work with,

they work with women, which they also have a lot of problems because of women and men working together. Infantry platoons, there are no women. So let's give me some context here. So what year is this? Obviously it's post 9-11 because that was the catalyst, third grade. So how old were you then? Maybe you're like, what, eight or nine, 10? Yeah, I was like, yeah, like 10, maybe 11. Okay, so what year was this that you, that you're in boot camp? I went to boot camp right at 18 and I served from 2009 to 2014. Okay. So this is during the heat, Afghanistan. Yeah. Okay. Let's fast track a little bit. So you finish boot camp and where do you do you get deployed right away or? So I spent a good majority of my time deployed at. So whenever

I went through boot camp, I did have a high school sweetheart and I was kind of in a relationship. That ended during a one deployment. And then because that ended, I kind of went off a spiral and I spent all my time just chasing deployment. So I spent all my time either deploying to the Middle East or going to Africa, Australia, Japan. And do you have any say in where you get to play? Like, can you put yourself in for certain places or is it just dependent on where the core need to do? I wouldn't say that you have say. It's kind of where you're needed, but you can also, you can be a unmotivated shitbag, as we'll call it. If somebody wants to like go and get married and get really comfortable and live with their wife on base and, you know,

you know, pull duties where they're just like stand firewatch somewhere. They could absolutely do that. Or you can kind of be a hustler and a go-getter and push to do certain things. I wouldn't say But you go straight grunt deployed right on bootcum. Were you scared? Scared, no. I mean, it's kind of whenever you create that, that brotherhood, there's not really so much scared about it. You're literally just executing. I guess that's just kind of what boot camp is meant. for. So we took the, we took the emotions, the thinking out of it, and all it is is action and behaving. So there's not really, they try to take it where you're not thinking so much and you're not feeling. You're just doing. You're just behaving. Currently, I am in Switzerland and the altitude

is a bitch. But I don't get altitude sickness anymore. And that is because of my chlorophyll drops. I'm just saying I've been talking about chlorophyl drops since the blog launched. I feel like it's been like 12 years. You've got to try chlorophyll drops if you haven't tried them. I like to put them in my water in the morning. It's so easy. And what I do is I do tons of lemon ice chlorophyll drops. You can add mint. You can add ginger, sex it up, do whatever. And then in this situation that I buy from Sakara Life, I also get the beauty drops. So they have chlorophyll drops and beauty drops. And the beauty drops are these minerals. So you get both your drops in this little packet. I've talked about Sakara Life so much on this podcast. In fact, I love them so much that I interviewed the founders on here. You have to listen to that episode. It's really good. But basically what's Sakara's mission is it's to help you live a healthy, balanced lifestyle, but enjoy it. You can get food delivered straight to your door. I think that it is probably the healthiest delivery service I have ever seen. And the menu changes. And in each one of their meals, you get this nutrient-dense meal or snack or breakfast or whatever it is that actually

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They have rave reviews from everyone from Vogue to Goop to the New York Times, et cetera, et cetera. And right now, Sakara is offering our listeners 20% off their first order when they go to sacara.com slash skinny or intercode skinny at checkout. That's Sakara, S-K-A-R-A-com slash skinny to get 20% off your first order. Sikara.com slash skinny. For someone that doesn't know a lot about war, when you say you go to war, what does that look like? And this, I really don't know much about it. Do you go over?

Do they put you in a hotel room? Are you in a tent? I have these same questions. I don't, I think people are actually curious. You know, Michael's looking at me like I should know all this. I don't know a lot about it. I would like to know more. Well, I'm willing to look stupid for everyone.

That doesn't know. Okay. I mean, I know it's not the Bel Air Hotel. Like, I'm just saying, is it like, I want to know more about the process. They don't check you into the like the four seasons to go off. I understand that, but I just mean, do they go to a hotel and then go? The reason my neck almost snapped is like, what do you think there's like a hospitality group over there, ready to go? I want to know what the specifics are.

Okay. So, you know, there's obviously a workup process. You can't just take people and just, you know, flop them into it. So there's obviously a lot of schooling. and training that goes into it first. You go through a school of infantry where you become proficient in all weapons, tactics, patrolling, everything that goes with combat.

From there, then you go to your fleet unit, you train some more, and then you do what's called a workup. 29 Palms, California, the bane of existence. It's a total shithole, also where I was born because my old man was a Marine. I was going to ask if you had family. Yeah. So you go out there for a workup.

And essentially, you live in a simulated environment. So they basically construct these big buildings. Everything looks. It resembles like Afghanistan or Iraq, whatever. They hire role players. So they hire like Afghanis and people to come out. And like, so what you do is you conduct patrolling missions, like they're make believe missions, if you will.

You go out, you do training. You have these Afghani people as role players. They're kind of emulating what it's like in the environment. It's nothing but like Pashto. Arabic signs everywhere. And so you're out there living for, I think it's like 10 weeks. You do a full training cycle and then they let you come home just long enough so you can like kind of do your goodby, spend some time with your family and get your stuff ready because then you're about to deploy for about an entire year. And then so after you've completely familiarized yourself

with the environment that you're about to get into, then you hop your flight on over. And they have like one established base like a pretty big city it's called leatherneck it's been getting kind of built up for years and years and years because i mean hell we've been in this war for since i can ever freaking remember so this city's been being built up like crazy there's army air force there's military from all other countries there too as well so that big base is it's very accommodating if you will there's like running water there's like a gym hell, I think there's like a McDonald's and stuff. It's like, it's not what you would think actual war is. So that's just like where you first stop. Then from there, you'll take your trucks out and

you'll find like patrol bases, wherever your unit is getting stationed and whatever that particular mission is. So that's where the real action goes down. So you go out and you set up patrol bases. And like in our instances, we were doing combined missions with the Afghan National Army. because essentially, I guess our goal was to kind of get out of there at some point. So we needed to make sure the Afghan National Army would want to take over and fight for their country and do something. So we were training alongside with them and just living in dirt holes and living in these, they're called FABs forward operating bases. And it was a very tight-knit, like intricate group of guys. So it was like just my squad, like 10 of us and then like 10 Afghan National Army just kind of slum in it and patrolling every day.

And at what point did you come back and at what point did you decide that you wanted to transition to do something else? What did that look like? Well, I knew that I wanted to serve the country and after my, you know, four, five years of that was up. I only signed one enlistments. Whenever you enlist, you sign a contract where the government owns you for four or five years, whatever. So I'd done all my deployments and I'd done what I wanted to do. I thought I was ready to be a civilian. I actually didn't have much of a transition phase from the military

because I was kind of getting let on that I was going to go and be a combat instructor. Normally guys get about 30 days to start. They like put you in classes and stuff. They give you like a career planner or whatever. They're going to like help you outline steps that. Like we acclimate you back to civilian life. Right. And like psychiatrists, psychiatrists like talk to you and stuff.

But I was kind of getting. let on that I was going to continue being in. And then it kind of happened abruptly. They're like, oh, actually, by the way, we're not sending you anymore. You've got eight days. Turn in all your gear. Here's your paperwork. Congratulations. You're a civilian now. And I guess kind of like we established boot camp completely rewires. You fall into this routine and like being in the military like that. And especially so fresh off a combat deployment, kind of an abrupt change. It's like becoming a civilian, you think, you're like, oh, yeah, this is going to be awesome. But then you become a civilian, you're like, man, your entire life kind of like changes. Can you contextualize a little bit?

Yeah. There's probably, there's a lot of people that are listening myself included that can probably never contextualize what combat experience is like. And then going from that back to this life is probably such a difficult transition. It's not talked enough about. It's almost like when people get out of jail, too, the same kind of thing. Or even like, this is like, a different example. But when someone has a baby, everyone's focused on the baby. They're not focused on how the mother feels in the transition of becoming a mother. I would love to hear more about the transitional period. Yeah. So, I mean, you essentially, you go from, you go from having a lifestyle where somebody tells you exactly what time you're going to eat, exactly what you're going

to wear, where you're going, why you're going there, how long you're going to be there. And then you get out and you're like, I can make all these own decisions, like my own decisions. I can dress myself. myself however what I want I need to like figure out how I'm going to eat I have to figure out how I'm going to structure my day how I'm going to structure my life and I mean a lot of guys I feel struggle with that transition because they they don't know what to what to turn to I mean I guess kind of myself included I had quite a rocky what a rocky transition where I'm from that rural town in Illinois but I was stationed at Camp Pendleton in California I had a somewhere along the lines in the military kind of like a passion and a drive for for fitness

kind of like after experiencing the having the combat experience I experienced how crucial it was being you know fit being able to utilize my body in a manner that was going to keep me alive I guess and so I thought I wanted to do something in health and fitness I'd gotten a few certifications I did not want to go back to Illinois in a farm. So I knew there was a lot of fit people in Los Angeles. So I threw a sea bag in my car and I just drove up to Los Angeles. I had no plan, no idea, no clue. I had nowhere to live.

But I did know that Arnold Schwarzenegger and all those guys, they hung out at Venice Beach at that Gold's Gym mecca. There was a lot of fit people there. So I just kind of drove my car there. Quickly found out that having a car in L.A. is not excellent. So I was homeless, just sleeping on. Venice Beach, surrounded by fitness people. I was, I guess this is a roundabout weight, I guess, answering your question of the transition. Because the transition was so hard and because I had

no plan and to contextualize it a little bit, I turned to booze. And I was just stumbling around, drunk. I was using booze 24-7 to just like be numb. I was just kind of like stumbling around. I had no purpose. And I find that that's one of the biggest problems that a lot of best. have. You go from having one of the biggest purposes in the world to having, not to say no purpose, but, you know, when you have, when you're going to war, which is such an extreme purpose, right? And it's such an extreme environment, right? No, it is. It's like, you know, and first, thank you for your service if I didn't say it earlier. But I think it's not talked about enough. A lot of these guys and girls get, they go from that to this and there's not a huge support system and all of a

sudden you're kind of just like left out into the wind, right? Eight days to go from war to civilian life is, is not a very long transition. Well, they say, I'm sure you've heard this when astronauts go to the moon and they come back, they get severe depression. It's called astronaut syndrome. And they compare it now to like YouTubers that go viral. Like you go so viral and then like you have to come back down and like you're never going to hit that feeling of being viral. I can imagine that you had some sort of an astronaut syndrome. It's exactly what you just said is I've come to kind of understand or this is what I think.

I think that a lot of PTSD or what will refer to it as post-traumatic stress disorder is guys coming to terms with the fact that they are never going to feel the rush that they got in war ever again. Like that is the most meaningful, purposeful thing that you're ever going to do in your entire life. And nothing that you ever do, it doesn't matter if you go skydiving. There's not one single pursuit that you will ever do in your entire life that is going to, that is going to bring you the thrill. of being in a firefight, getting shot at, shooting at another human being. Nothing is ever going to touch that. And you are kind of left to process that. Do you think that the government does a good job of helping people after war? Because as an outsider, it doesn't really look like they do. No. I mean, the VA, so I'll tell you, and she knows this now too, I've finally found a really good

doctor that I've been working with for years. It took me about six. It took me about six different doctors. It felt like now at this time whenever I was meeting these doctors and trying to get admitted and have a psychiatrist work with me, I was training really intensely in CrossFit. I was very, very fit and I was very healthy or what I thought was. And, you know, I would have these doctors just sitting in front of me like checking these boxes. Okay, so here's the food pyramid. Have you been eating wheat and you should maybe, maybe you should eat some whole grains, maybe get into the sun a little bit more. These are all things that are good for your health.

And I'm like, are you looking at me? Like, clearly I'm a healthy, fit individual. Like, that's kind of their, it's just like very old school. It's very bureaucratic. They don't. They almost don't know what to say. It's a check in the box. Right.

It's just a check in the box. And I think, like you said, they don't know what to say. a lot of them. And I think that the, the relatability that I have with the doctor that I've found now is the fact that she is married to an army guy who's a combat vet. So it's like she has, she's very relatable in that sense. And I feel a little bit more comfortable talking and working with her. It's probably extremely stressful, maybe counterproductive at times. when you have people that have not been in combat experience or don't know people that have that are in these positions to help people through that right because like i can talk to you we can talk on this mic on and on but i don't have the context or the experience to actually know what you've been through right and i think probably the only people that do are people that have shared combat experiences that have been there before and so if you have these people that don't have that context i imagine it's extremely difficult to even connect with them at a human level oh yeah and i mean that it's like they you know they learn these practices and these methods and these methods and from their textbooks from college of things that they're supposed to do to help people get over

combat stress and whatever. And it's like, okay, so what we're going to do is I want you to visualize that I am the mother or the wife of so-and-so that, you know, you've just been in a firefight with and you found out that you killed this individual. And I want you to apologize and, you know, or talk me through what was happening. And it's, that's, some of these are like the practices of how you're supposed to get over it not from running not by running from it by but by confronting it when you turn to booze how did you get out of that did you check yourself did you feel like you needed to go to rehab how did you transition from because it seems like you really have your shit together today so what what did that look like what i've gotten to right

now has just been a massive trial and error and then fail and fail and fail just kind of failed my to a point that it wasn't necessarily success. It was just that I found a lack of failure and I kind of stuck with that. But I, for some reason, I decided that, so I think that turning to booze, it was due to the fact that I didn't really have a purpose. I knew I wanted to do something with fitness. Didn't really know what. I decided I was going to commit myself and this was my own personal fitness journey. I was going to try to compete in CrossFit at the professional level. And, you I guess going back, we've established that I was the most unathletic kid ever. I was still scrawny.

I was not really all that fit at all. And all of the top level CrossFit athletes, I mean, if you look at them, they look like freaking Greek gods. And I also don't come from this D1 background in collegiate sports, anything spectacular. So I needed every advantage that I could possibly get. And booze was definitely not in any of those guys' diet. So I wanted to commit myself 100% to see what I could do with my body. And I wanted to be able to compete at that level.

So I quit booze. And, you know, I was at kind of a rocky point. I don't want to say rock bottom at that point, but it was through building that routine of, you know, health and fitness, focusing on how I was fueling my body for performance and whatnot that kind of helped shape my mentality around me a little bit more. So I just completely committed 100% that I wanted to compete professionally. And where were you living at this point and how we're like after? So once you were in California, what were you doing to support yourself? So I first off started going to college.

I sold my car because I had gotten a DUI getting out of the Marine Corps, which wasn't excellent. I was riding a bicycle everywhere. I picked up odd jobs. I would go and I would stand in the parking lot at home. Depot with day laborers and I would stand out there and get picked up to help people move or build a deck, whatever I could do. I'd ride my bicycle at night and deliver food for this for LA Cafe in downtown LA. This is kind of before Uber Eats and all that came out. So I would do that to make a little bit of side cash and I was riding my bicycle to school. And then I was making

barely, barely enough money to get by. I'd finally like gotten an apartment to stay in. And then one day I got hit head on my bicycle by a taxi cab from Bell Cab Company. I went through the windshield. I was on my way to school. Went through the windshield. And I guess I kind of still had this mentality from the military. Like, God damn it. Like I was totally fine.

I kind of hurt a little bit obviously. So I just got up. My bike was trashed. And I didn't have any money. I'd spent basically the last bit of my money on this nice like $1,200 bicycle. So I jumped off the cab hood, grabbed my bicycle, picked it up on my shoulder and just started walking back to school. And some people stopped me and they're like, whoa, whoa, whoa, slow down. Like, where are you going?

You got to stay. Ambulances are coming. Cops are coming. I was like, I got to go to school. I can't be sitting around for this. Cops immediately show up. They stop me. They start collecting my information.

Are you sure you don't need to go to the hospital or anything? The wreck apparently looked pretty bad. Well, you went through a fucking windshield. Right. No, I just need to go to school. they take my information down and everything. I get to school. I'm not five minutes into my class. And I'm like, my phone's ringing off the hook. So I step out of course, it's Bell Cab Company. They're like, we just want to make sure you're okay. Is there anything we could do? Are you sure you're not going to the hospital?

And I'm like, yeah, like my bicycle was my only means of transportation. Like it was a $1,200 bicycle, which I bought used on Craigslist. I was like, I just, I don't have any way to get around anymore. And they're like, don't worry. Like, we're going to come. We'll meet you with the closest Starbucks right now. now just send us exactly what model it was. We'll come cut you a check so you can buy a new bike. I'm like, sweet. Like this is like a $2,500 bicycle brand new. I bought it used on Craigslist. So I meet these people at Starbucks. They cut me a check. I sign a bunch of stuff saying I'm not going to sue them, whatever. I think I'm, you know, living in heaven. Meanwhile, I probably could have sued them for millions. But that's just not where my mind was. My mind was kind of in this adapt and overcome,

survive state. So I take that money and I bought a motorcycle on Craigslist and that was kind of how I got around from from then on. Personally, it's frustrating for me to hear some of these stories because I think guy like you goes out and gives the ultimate sacrifice for this country and probably some of your buddy's even worse. And in some kind of ways, you kind of just get brought back and chewed up and spit out without any kind of resources or help. And I don't think, unfortunately, your story while unique to you is not so unique. Like this happens to a lot of other guys and girls. Do you ever think about that and reflect? And is there, I imagine there's some, obviously like a great appreciation, obviously a patriot, but there's also probably a little bit of

resentment. I wouldn't say resentment. I mean, I've, I've took a lot of time to think and process about all that. And there's a lot of really good things that I was able to take from that. And so that's what I focus on. I focus on the discipline that it was able to build for me, creating a a stronger mind that's helped me adapt and kind of overcome because I've I've hit rock bottom and I've been homeless more than once and I've always kind of figured out a way to continue getting on and getting after it and I think it was from that I think that that's where a lot of guys run into trouble is they don't tap into the good things they get a little sour and they kind of get this victim mentality and there's this book that I keep telling Michael to read it's called

you can heal your life by Louise Hay, she passed away, but it's sold 14 million copies. And the whole book is exactly what you just said. If you continue to focus on the victim and the resentment and what's wrong, you will breed that in your life. And if you do what you've done, you will flourish. So it's so interesting, and I still think you should read that book. Well, I think, like, it's so important for people to hear stories like this and understand what people like yourself have been through because people in this country, they

take their security, their safety, their life for granted, right? They, they complain about the dumbest things that are so inconsequential, right? Like, even during the pandemic, which I understand was tough. Like, people were at home with postmates with their phone, with their loved ones, in a warm house, in a warm bed, right? And they're sitting there constantly crying and complain, like, living the life that you've let, I imagine, like, you, like, it's probably harder to rattle your cage now with stuff like this because you've, you've seen the ugliest part of human life, right? And I think people, like, it's, I understand why you can't, like, people can't contextualize that myself included. But I think these stories are so important because just when you think you

have it bad, like people really don't understand how lucky they are to live in this country. Yeah. I mean, I think that you hit it on the head. It's certain, like I can certainly feel that I have a harder time relating with a lot of people just due to the way that I've shaped my life and the way that my life has rolled out. I think exactly like you said, the road to, you know, enlightenment is not going to happen at, you know, a perfect 75 degree house with postmates at your fingertips and porn at the click of a finger and all these instant gratifications and convenience left and right. I think it's a direct reflection of kind of where our society is at right now. Yeah, I think even if you're somebody that's listening to this show right now on your iPhone or on

your computer, like you are already so much better off than the majority of the world. I think like even just starting with something as simple as that. Right? And like we have this mentality, not just in this country, but in many places where it's like this woe is me. Oh my God. Life is so tough. And they really have no idea of how tough it can be. I think that you're absolutely right. I want to pull the story through. What point did you guys meet? And then you have to give us your background as well. Do you want to come over to my house and train my new dog? I'm having a real problem with her.

You train dogs? God, you do everything. I have a dog that I need trained. I used dog training as maybe a coping mechanism. That was like my, that was my fallback. So after I had, I spent years and years getting after it for CrossFit. I finally actually made it and competed professionally. I competed crossFit games. And it was the most unfulfilling thing that I've ever done in my life. Why? Oh my God. I spent four years chasing it and completely tearing my body up, thinking that this is, like, this was the peak pinnacle goal of fitness.

Like, I was competing against the top athletes in the world, really. And all that came out of it was I was completely broke. My body was completely broken down. I had had a motorcycle wreck just prior to competing. Did you ever start to think that maybe you weren't met for two wheels? Maybe. I still ride a motorcycle. With our helmet here in Texas. It doesn't surprise me.

So that motorcycle wreck actually it ruptured my testicle. It dislocated my hip, dislocated my pelvis, fractured my thumb, my wrist, gave me a concussion. Wait, there's four men in here. You can't say you ruptured your testicle without telling us what that feels like. So I've actually, I've actually ruptured my testicle twice. Once in Afghanistan, when I was blown up, I ruptured my testicle. and then I ruptured it again in that wreck. What does that feel like? Like the ball explodes?

My testicle was the size over bigger than a grapefruit for about three weeks. Shut up. It was a grapefruit. How is his testicle now? It looks normal. It looks normal. Does it just go back, shrink back to normal? A lot of guys in the room are having.

Cringing. Stomits are hurting. It's not very fast. No, it's, it's, there's not a whole lot. You'd think that you could just like make an incision and like pull it out or like suck it out or something, but you just can't. It's the inflammation and swelling. And plus, I guess it's the way that's in smell of Michael Cheats. The way that the sprodom, I guess, that holds the balls, it's very stretchy. And so it has a lot of room to expand. And so it like, it expanded to full expansion. And so I'd have to wear three pairs of

compression to kind of like situate it. And that was only part of the problem. I had a dislocated hip and pelvis while I was at it. Was that the thing that hurt the most out of all the things you just mentioned? Out of everything you've been through was the ruptured testicle, the worst. When you say you were blown up, we got to also kind of, we can't glaze over that either because that seems like an important part of the story. We're going to have to bounce around here. There's a lot of things going on. Yeah. Well, I mean, so yeah, in Afghanistan, one of the primary means of the fights that we would get into is bombs, IEDs. That's like the Afghani's way of fighting. They'd plant bombs in the in the ground and then they would kind of shoot at you and lure you in. And sometimes

it's kind of mind-blowing how it would just go out every single day on these patrols. It didn't really seem like we had much of a plan. It was like we just kind of go out, get shot at, run towards the people shooting at us, step on a bomb and then go back. How do you make peace with that? Because I think like that is the, that has to be probably one of the, I mean, one of the scariest things about what you went through in combat. It's just not, you know, like you could do everything right and just step in the wrong direction or go in the wrong direction and all a sudden it's like you're getting blown up. How do you make peace with that? You know, really think about it. And it sounds really crazy. But life in combat is extremely simple. It's very simple.

It's very primitive life. It's, you're just, you're surviving. There's no distractions. There's no, you know, we've got no drama. We've got none of this like outside bull crap going on. There's not there's you have one focus, one mission, one drive. And it's it's very, very simple, simple life. You almost don't even think of it like that. So you stepped on something wrong. That's how you got blown up? So I didn't step on something and IED went off. I was actually on top of a building at the time and I took so I actually have I've shrapnel wounds in my my left leg and then my arm and then it hit here and and ruptured a little bit and it was it was honestly it wasn't until like honestly like later that night that i even realized anything was wrong

because it's like there's so much adrenaline pumping all the time that you don't even realize anything until i started like taking off my clothes to go to bed and i think i took off my pants i took off my trousers and like i felt it was kind of swollen down there so i started looking around and feeling around i was like huh that's weird And so you just kind of went on with it. Wow. I mean, you've been through it, man. And I mean, I guess going back forward, the second ruptured testicle, not only did I,

so I had to continue working. And by this time, when I'd wrecked my motorcycle, I'd lost everything. I'd rupture my testicle. I'm not showing up for the interview. I'm out. I'm done. Not showing up. I had no money.

I had no money. I had dogs. And so I needed to keep being able to take care of them. And I had actually, I had picked up stripping in L.A. Whoa. This is like a two-part interview. You picked up stripping. Hold on.

I have a hundred questions about this. You can't just throw that one in. Well, he's got the CrossFit, Bob. Hold on. How did you pick up stripping? So little context, first of all. Ramey has wanted me to like, this is something, He's never shared before.

Right. Ramey is... Ramey, perfect time to share it. Ramey is like, listen, if we get on the skinny confidentially, you gotta tell this. It's amazing. I want to know the details. He hasn't even told me. You haven't asked him the details? Not really.

Oh, I'm going to get the details. I'm going to get the juice. Okay. We're going to get all the juice now. How do you get into dripping? I am one of those people that loves a burger and pasta with a nice soda. But the problem is the soda is full of so much shit. But then I was introduced to Oli Pop.

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when I was little, I always would drink orange soda. It's kind of nostalgic to sit down and have an olypop orange squeeze. Option to add tequila, too. And another fun fact about olipop is not only is it nostalgic, it also has the benefits of prebiotics, plant fiber, and botanicals. So you're supporting your microbiome and your digestive health while you're drinking quote unquote soda. The best part about it and why I wanted to partner with them is because it only has two to five grams of sugar from natural sources. So there's no added sugar. Now, let me just give you a little comparison. Coca-Cola has 39 grams of sugar. Their orange squeeze, guys, the one that I like, has five grams of sugar compared to orange fauna, which has 44 grams of sugar. Their products are

non-GMO vegan, paleo and keto-friendly. You're going to love it. Receive 20% off plus free shipping on your order. I recommend trying their variety pack. I feel like this is a fabulous, sexy way to try all their delicious flavors. You are going to go to drink olypop.com or use code skinny at checkout to claim this deal. That's D-R-I-N-K-O-L-I-P-O-P-P-O-P-com slash skinny. Ollipop can also be found in over 8,000 stores across the country, including Kroger, Target, Whole Foods, Sprouts, and Wegmans. Cheers. It was by pure chance. I was, I used to, so you have a book that says, get the fuck out of the sun. Okay. I used to live my life in the sun.

Okay. I would go out to the beach and just sit in the sunlight and just soak it up. It felt really good. And so I'd just been sitting out in the sunlight reading on the beach and I was walking up the sidewalk in Santa Monica. This really like attractive Latin guy, he chases me down and he gives me a business card. I didn't even look at it at the time. I just tossed in my pocket. Later on, I look at it as hunkomania, hunkomania, L.A.

I was like, huh, interesting. So I texted him and he put me into. he put me into a WhatsApp chat with a bunch of really like handsome shirtless dudes named like Giovanni and Showtime, stuff like that. But just a position from this to the Marines is like there's parallels, but like it's just, this is like amazing. Keep going. Right. And so stripping was actually the catalyst to me quitting school aside from teachers yelling at me saying I couldn't eat food in their lecture halls. So I got a text when I was sitting in algebra class one day.

from the guys saying, hey, we need another guy. We're about to do rehearsals. If you can learn the magic mic routine, then we're going to give you... This is no bullshit. It's the magic mic routine. So little fact,

Magic Mike, the movie, like Channing Tatum and those guys, that magic mic routine, it originated with this company, Hunkomania. This is their choreography, everything. Please show us. You guys should do a TikTok.

This will go viral. Go ahead. Yeah. So I get that text when I'm sitting in algebra. I hate Algebra. I couldn't do it. And so they're like, hey, listen, if you can come to this rehearsal and you can get it down, we need you to dance the main for the Saturday night show, the main guy, as in like the middle guy.

So like Channing Tatum from the show. So I was going to dance the middle guy. So I went. Everyone is searching you on Instagram right now what you look like. Go ahead. Yeah. So I slam my book closed, got on my bike. I went straight to rehearsals, learned the.

act showed up Saturday night and I'm kind of I'm kind of shy very very introverted so it was it was definitely awkward at first but I kind of in the clientele that you're doing this for is these are like you're going to private houses it's for women well I'm just pointing at Lauren because it's like it's it's it's it's Lawrence it's like a lot of Lawrence it's bitches with extension falling on their head they're booking for parties they're booking for bachelor's stuff they're not it's that yeah it's it's birthdays bachelor's mostly bachelor's and there would be multiple Like an average would be like four to five bachelor parties at once. That was a big like home run because that would be like 200 some odd girls.

And so they'd rent out these venue spaces in Hollywood, West Hollywood. We'd show up, you know, we'd have like thousands of dollars in singles whenever the girls got there. And so I kind of have a analytical brain and I would always be there seeing like what girls were getting like $50 in singles. Where were they going to be sitting so that I could strategically. kind of seek them out after the act because you get to go out and like mingle and do private dances and whatnot. So anyway, I got a little sidetrack. So the Saturday comes around and I do, I do the act, the umbrella routine, Magic Mike. I did it really good. And I just continued showing up. The money was really good. And I wasn't doing anything else on, you know, Friday or Saturday nights anyways.

the money. It was cash. And I had dogs at the time. So I would be making these fat, fat stacks of dollar bills. And I remember there was girls at the dog food store that would laugh because I would come in and buy a $100 bag of origin dog food with all singles. I needed to use them for something. It was hysterical. So and they knew what you were doing? Or are they just like put... I mean, I don't think people are stupid. They see somebody show up with a fat stack of single dollar bills. I would be like, can I have your card for a bachelorette party? Wait, so I've been to bachelor at parties where girls, I'm not talking about me, get a little freaky with the strippers. What? Absolutely. Like, they get down. Like, they're about to suck dick, basically. Is that, like,

when you're in these situations, are these women, like, drunk throwing themselves at you, like, trying to, like, get bent over? Like, what's the circumstances that we're dealing with here? Oh, yeah. And I mean, I saw it on a weekly basis for like two years. I think women actually cheat more than men. Maybe. I mean, and... Yes, I agree. Throw it out there.

Lauren said it. Yeah, some of the shows, they would get really, really out of control. And, you know, yeah, there are a lot of girls that they want to go home with these guys. Like, I was approached a lot. I'm not going to lie. Careful, careful. Girls getting daggers over there. The first question I asked him was, have you ever slay?

with any of the girls he danced for. I mean, how can you not? I know. I feel like you have to. It's a big trap, buddy. So here's, so. This is a trap. You've been around traps.

This is a real trap. One guy to the other. You're in a big, you're in a dicey situation. So here's where we're at. So here's where we're at. I like to think of myself as a pretty self-aware guy. And so the type of girl who's going to approach me and want to go home with me and sleep with me, that's not the type of girl that I would want to sleep with.

All she knows about. me is that I'm a stripper and I've got some muscles and she wants to jump in bed with me. That means that the quality of guys that she's probably sleeping with, just the quality of a person she is altogether probably is not what I'm interested in. She doesn't know that I'm there stripping so that I can feed my dogs. She doesn't know anything about me. So it wasn't even a question. When you're stripping, are you showing full penis?

No, no. Oh, it's not full penis. Well, so, no. You strip down to like trunks or like, did you want to like, if I'm a guy and I'm stripping, I want to make sure like there's a little something, something there. Like are you like warming it up before you go out or is it just like?

Is this pre or post grapefruit testicle? So that actually happened during. Perfect though. I imagine that might have been a benefit. I would use the testicle to strategically make it look. Actually. Might be an asset in this case. Well, actually one of, there's a picture.

There's an old picture of my backside on stage dancing. And it's right after I had my. my wreck. And so my whole entire backside is all bruised and scraped up. So I had to go and dance straight after my wreck with dislocated everything. I was like, part of my routine was like, like handstand walking and then like and then straddling over a girl. So I was trying to do that with a pelvis and hip dislocation, fractured fingers and stuff. So has he not done this in the bedroom for you? No, he hasn't. He needs to do this every birthday. You have to do this in the You gotta get that old routine.

Come on, you should do it on TikTok. But the thing is... If I could straddle hand, if I could stand on my hands and flip down, I'd be... If you came into the bedroom tonight butt naked, straddling doing cartwheels? If I had that type of athletic ability, that would be my... I would come in like a fucking scorpion every day and just rip, rip down. Fuck. Oh, that's way too much for me.

I'd come flipping off the ceiling fan. I mean, I can... I know the choreography still. Like, I know it. You have to do what this is a huge missed opportunity. Here's what we'll do. We'll go get tattoos and then after you show me the routine. Oh, you want to see the routine.

I might need to learn the routine. Michael and I can show up with umbrellas and we'll do the umbrella spinning and snap crack. I know what to get you for your birthday. You do have a great ass, Michael. Well, I got to just learn how to flip on my, okay, anyway. So, okay, so you're stripping. And then how do you get out of stripping and how do you guys meet? Okay, so that's actually perfect.

It's a nice little set. It took us a while to get back here. There's a lot we had to unpack there. Right. So as we'd kind of mentioned, I was rescuing dogs. I mean, I had like eight or nine big, aggressive dogs in my tiny little loft in L.A. at one time, I had a partner. At the time that I was rescuing dogs with, my partner was working with Ramey and her dog, Simba. And she was going to New York for something. And he couldn't take her dog in. So he was like, hey, man, I got this client. She's going to bring her dog over. Can you look after him? I'm like, yeah, whatever. Sounds good. So Rame. shows up. She shows up to drop Simba off and I had I had taken on boxing and fighting. And so my face was completely battered in, fucked up. I had black eyes. My face was totally, you know, messed up. And this, this, this as a recreational thing or this was like you were pursuing this

for a career path? For extra cash. Okay. Well, both. Yeah. I mean, I was, I was boxing in the amateur circuit, but also I had found my way into some shady goon work that's kind of associated with nightlife and all that other stuff. Anyway. Got it. So that was us meeting one another. That was the state that I was in. Did you, when he opened the door, did you immediately like his energy?

I did. Yeah. Yeah. It was just like grounding, just strong energy. He didn't say a work. to me. He's shy a little bit at first, but I think once you get him talking. Exactly. And like I could just tell, even though he looked like he had, I mean, he had black eyes. His full face was swollen. And I thought maybe he was a drug addict. I don't know. I was dropping my dog off. Here's my dog,

take him. I don't care for you a drug addict. But I had a sense of like, whoa, like I turned around. I was like his energy. I really, really like it. It's very grounding. And he just grabbed the dog food, tucked it over his shoulder, grabbed Simba and just walked away. Didn't say a word to me. goodbye Simba. Did you guys text about the dog? Yeah, so I was in New York and he was really sweet. Like he sent pictures of his black German shepherd with my German shepherd, white German Shepherd just together and add a little filter on it and sent it over.

So he was making some effort. Well, you seem like you have a very sensitive side to you, obviously, if you're rehabilitating and taking care of dogs, right? Like on the surface, you hear these combat vet, fighter, goon work. Stripper. Stripper. Like you would assume, but then also, but, you know, like talking to you here, like there's obviously a very sensitive side. Anyone we're talking off here. You're taking care of animals. So like, it's a very balanced,

like masculine, feminine way of being. I mean, that is a compliment. I love. There's nothing hotter than a masculine man that's in touch with his feminine energy. And you will get to you taking care of goats. But I can tell he has that. I think I always tell Michael, my dad is, is masculine, but he has feminine energies fine to connect with that. I feel like it shows both sides. Your dad's such a pussy. Okay. I'm just kidding. I'm just kidding. I'm just kidding.

My dad's probably listening. I know. I just like to throw that out there. I love your dad. That's creepy. Okay. So let's get context of your story and then we can intertwine you guys today. Because today I want to talk about too. So let's go back to your childhood.

I had a good childhood. I grew up in Los Angeles. My mom came from Japan. My dad came from Taiwan. On till this day, they don't speak each other's language. So we all communicate in broken English. That's just how it is. So we have, you know, I grew up that way and they did everything in their power to give me the life they didn't have.

So private schools, tutoring, math, jazz, piano, art, sports, everything they wanted me to dive into and try to hope that something will stick. Growing up, I went to a private school where I was the only one that was Asian. And so, like, I was very kind of ashamed of my culture and I always wanted to hide it. I would bring seaweed to school and, like, hide my lunch. Even though my mom spent, you know, hours making it. I didn't want them to see it. I would hide it. I would throw it away.

And then I would get corn dogs and hamburgers to, like, be like everybody else. And my mom heard that. She was so sad about it. But it wasn't until like later on that now, you know, I embrace my culture, my food. And wow, I've been eating superfoods my entire life without even realizing it. And I have so much appreciation for that. So when you're younger and you said you were the only Asian in your entire high school, what does that feel like looking back?

I just knew I looked different. And when boys would make fun of me, then it just confirmed it. So they would say some really mean stuff to me. And that would just make me want to be nothing but what I was. But I imagine this was when you're younger, as you start to get older, the boys, probably start singing a different tune, yes? Yes. Yeah, I'm sure.

I think the boys are singing a different tune now. I have said. Yeah, the boys are singing a different tune. So I want to get into content creation and how you got into that. But maybe walk us through what you were interested. in high school and then college and then how you got into what you're doing now. Yeah. So in high school, I was never good at sports. Like I'd be the bench warmer, never coordinated, couldn't do dance. So I resorted to art. I was very creative and I felt that I was in my

element when I was just creating. At the same time, my parents were super, super strict. So my mom was a tiger mom. I couldn't go to prom. She wouldn't let me have a boyfriend. Lord needs to know what a tiger mom is. And I don't know if you know this, but my grandma's full Japanese. Did you know that? And my mom's half. And so I can relate on a little bit because my mom told me all these stories about how they used to struggle because they grew up in a predominantly white area.

And obviously their mother was an immigrant, met my grandfather after the war. And so she came over and same thing. Like they, you know, I think a lot of Asian parents push a lot of their ambitions onto their children, not just Asian parents. A lot of parents do that. But particularly, and I could say this, Asian parents push their ambitions onto their children and have a very high standard. And I tell Lauren all the time, sometimes my mom's direction might listen to this.

And it's never like, even if you do something good, it's never like, great. It's like, hey, oh, you got an A? Ooh, you could have got an A plus. Not good enough. Yeah, but I think it's, it also has to do with the way they're raised. It's like this, it's this repetitive cycle. And so like when I hear critical feedback now, it doesn't bother me as much as it may bother other people because I'm used to hearing. Made you tough.

Yeah, it makes you tough because you're like, oh, like, I never look for outside validation with words now because my validation growing up was, oh, you could always be a little better. It could always be a little better. Does that make sense? Okay, we spoke about travel earlier with the chlorophyll. And now I'm going to tell you about the probiotic that I brought on vacation. It shouldn't surprise you. It's just thrive.

I have had the founder on twice because I find her so interesting. I also decided to have a microbiologist on to explain why certain probiotics are better than others. You've got to do your research when it comes to a probiotic. This is what I've found. I used to think all probiotics were the same. And after talking to this microbiologist and the founder, I learned that probiotics come down to one thing. And that one thing is survivability. So you want to be able to make sure that whatever probiotic that you're taking has the ability to survive the trip from your mouth to your gut. Most probiotics, and this blew my mind, actually, fail to do this. They fail to survive. So you're taking a probiotic and it's like fucking pointless,

okay? I also think that it's important to look at what's in your probiotics. So the one that I take by Just Thrive is vegan. It's not GMO. It's gluten free. It's dairy free and free from anything artificial. It's so safe. It's even safe for kids. I give it to Zaza. How I like to give it to her is I'll do a smoothie. So if I'm home, I'll just sprinkle a little bit. Like I'll open the capsule and sprinkle a little bit into her smoothie and then I'll have some and she has some and we get our probiotics in. Probiotics, if you're unaware, are everything. The gut is so important when it comes to the immune system, beautiful skin, better sleep. And they also help with easier weight control. If I had to take one supplement or recommend one supplement, it would be a probiotic. I just think that it's so important

to have your best immune system, digestive health, and also emotional health. And a probiotic, does that for you. So my advice is if you're taking a probiotic, look into it's, survivability. If you want to try the one I take and save 15% off, you're going to go to Justthrivehealth.com slash skinny and use promo code skinny. That's justthrivehealth.com slash skinny promo code skinny. What's a tiger mom? A tiger mom is, it looked like this. I had a cell phone that I wasn't able to look at at night. It would be somewhere hidden in my parents closet. It was my computer wrapped up in a trash bag with rope around it a certain way so I couldn't use the computer at night in my room. It was me not being able to use the house phone to call

my friends or my boyfriend at the time so they would hide it and I would go and get my friend's phones and hide it in the closet, but they would find it and still take it away. It was just very controlling in the sense where all they wanted me to do was study and get good grades. Was there like a specific career path they wanted you to follow? Probably doctor, something like that. Not a rodeo clown. Not a rodeo clown. Not a content creator.

Rodeo clown was not on the menu from the Asian parents. Every person who's Asian that we've had on the podcast has a similar story about how their parents wanted them to be something. What is that culture? Why is everyone so obsessed with studying? That's a good question. I think, well, for my mom growing up, no one. told her to study. They were just like, work on the farm. Go, go work on the farm and just do labor. And at that

time, my mom, she always tells me, I'm so beautiful at this age. I don't want to be hiding in a factory working. Like, I want to go out in the city and experience and pursue what I want to do. But to them, it was just be a worker and help the family out. And remind me, were your parents both immigrants? they're both immigrants. Yeah, I think, learned, this is also like the immigrant mentality of so many immigrants know how hard it is to get to a place like the United States. And they, you know, there's a deep appreciation for how hard it is to get here. And so when they have children here, they want their children to take every advantage of what a country like this has to offer. Which makes total sense. I mean, that makes sense. I don't think it's just eight. I think it's children of any immigrants. I'm not blanket, like not for everybody. But I think a lot of immigrants fall into that. category, which like they know how much of a struggle it was to get here and they want the best for their children. So it sometimes manifests in a way that's not the healthiest, but I don't think it originates from a bad place. Exactly. It was all out of love. And I know that to my core, but it was very, all I wanted to do was get freedom and just break away from my family at that time.

So what did the freedom look like when you finally broke away? Oh, well, I went to college, a UC Irvine. And that was the first time. My mom also just completely went see, to 100, just let go with me. Didn't even care if I didn't come home on the weekend. She just completely turned a different person. So I was curious about everything. My parents rose me up. My parents always had me eating healthy food and I wanted nothing but junk food, gushers, kangaroos, things like that. Gushers are really good. They are really good. Fruit roll-ups. And I ate all of that in college and cup of noodles and Cheetos and I gained the freshman 20, 2025 and I was just happy because I was able to just eat and do whatever I wanted. I felt like shit,

but I was just happy I was able to do them. So what are you studying in college at this point? So I studied international studies and I went abroad to Japan to study abroad. And I think it was at that point where I was like, you know what? I'm a goof and I'm a weirdo and I'm going to embrace it. I also love my culture. The food is amazing. And when I came back from that study abroad, I was like a changed person. I mean, listen, I love America, but we could embrace some Japanese culture when it comes to our diets, right? We don't, I don't think that we're not the pinnacle. No, there's a lot of things. We're not the pinnacle of health when it comes to this country. Yeah. And I think that's what's cool now with my, like, creating content is I can bring the culture

that I grew up with, like the superfoods I was eating back then. Um, boshi fermented soybeans, not dough. Like, if I let you guys try that, you would hate it. It's disgusting. Excuse me. I'm going to blow your mind. What have I been eating for the last three months every day? Say the first one again.

Ume boshi? Every day. It's plum paste. Yes. I have eaten plum paste every single day for the last three months. That's so good. With my rice cooker. It is my favorite thing on the planet.

I cannot believe you just said that. Do you have to get the honey one? Okay, I'm going to text you the one that I have and you can tell me which one. I just, I wanted one that was really like non-GMO, nothing added, blah, blah, blah. I'm going to send you the one I have, but if there's better one, I am obsessed with that page. She's good about that stuff, though, like eating healthy. Wait, what is, I didn't know it has tons of benefits. Yeah, I mean, it's, it's an alkalizing food.

So it's, you know, it balances off all the, all the, all the, you know, you know what I mean. Like, is it for the gut? Yes, it's great for the gut. And also fermented soybeans, not dough. Have you ever tried that? No, you have to text. I love all this. Okay, what's that?

I just don't know if you're going to like that one. We're inviting ourselves over for dinner. You'd be surprised. You'd be surprised. I have like weird taste. It's mucusy and it's beans. I think I might. And it's sour and it tastes like feet.

Honestly, I might like it. That's not a rave review. No, you said you like it. But it's so good for your digestion and your gut health. I would eat shit if someone told me it was. good for me. I really would. So like if I don't care how it tastes, I want to try it. That is so funny that you just said that paste. I actually got recommended to eat it by an herbalist. She said that you have to try this paste. It's so good for you. And I started eating it every day and now I'm addicted.

It's so good. I've only, sorry, this is a tangent, you guys. I've only had it on rice. Is there other stuff to put it on? You could put it into miso soups or even just soups in general. Okay. it just adds a little bit of sour tartness. Okay. I love your content creation and I realize that's one of the reasons that I love it is because it pulls through different things that maybe I didn't know about. How did you start creating content? I met you initially at a Propel event many years ago.

You were a star the second I met you. I mean, you just had the glow about you. How did you get into it and at what point in the journey were you on when I met you? to backtrack, I think I was, I was just tired of being like lowest on the totem pole, right? So like when I was working in my corporate jobs, I was always the, the intern or like the office manager. And it was, it was just not a great feeling to show up every day and not be doing something that I truly enjoyed or that I was super passionate about. So for me, content creating or at that time, it was just I was discovering how to eat healthy for myself because just out of college I was eating

hot Cheetos and cup of noodles. And so this was my chance to show up for myself, do something good and change my lifestyle. So I started exploring superfoods and posting about it, sharing about it. And what I did was I showed up every single day for two years straight, sharing a different recipe every single day. And this was to my personal Instagram. Like it wasn't anything. I didn't know it could be anything more. And through that, I was like, wow, I can actually be myself, be excited to jump out of bed in the morning and do something I really loved. One thing that I really respect about both of you is that a lot of people looked at quarantine in a way where what they couldn't do. And the reason I wanted to have you guys on

is because you both obviously have interesting stories, but I noticed that you both looked at quarantine as what you could do. Can you talk to us about the business that you've developed together? I mean, it's really cool what you guys have done with, you literally took quarantine and like turned it around. I mean, I think it's a perfect element of that, that dichotomy of control. Like you said, a lot of people just, they had this, their blinders on, this, this narrow focus on all of these things I cannot do. And I mean, I know from my experience, I've had a quite bumpy ride. I've hit rock bottom, but it was always kind of like health and fitness that I felt really helped develop my mentality to keep going.

And so something that is very, very much in our control, it doesn't matter if people are locked down, if people are, you know, scared of getting sick or whatever. Whatever's going on in the outside world, focusing on all of that is not going to benefit you in any way, shape, or form. but just bringing that focus internal and making the best of the situation and developing your your physical fitness, it's only going to do good for you overall. And you can do that every single day. She had established this incredible following. And, you know, our lives were kind of rattled just as much as everyone else's. So we wanted to, you know, jump on and show people that you can exercise and feel great every single day. And how far into your journey, creating content were you when you guys met?

So I think we've, we skipped over that a bit. Yeah. I mean, you had like 270,000, like, you had like 250,000 followers or something crazy. I was like three years in or four years in when I met Nate. And did you, like, how did you guys your courting process go? I'd love to hear about it. You want to go? Yes.

Well, so. You have her dog hostage. You're holding the dog hostage. You're using, you're putting cute filters on it. He's sending me videos of himself roller skating with Simba down to. downtown L.A. with the cars. And he's shirtless. So all I see are like eight-packed chocolate abs.

And I'm like, what? It's more abs than dog. And I'm like, wait a minute. I'm like, hmm. And since then, you know, I picked Simba up and he's the one told me. My girl, Juno, got along really well with Simba. If you guys, if we want to plan a dog date, I'm happy to go on a hike. another time. And so he was very like not aggressive though. And I needed to be the one that like

pursued him. She I mean she pursued me. That's for sure. Because I just from the outset, you know, I'm a very private person. I didn't have an Instagram following or anything like that. And I saw her with this huge following. I'm like there's no possible way that she would be into me. Especially like I've got all these red flag, you know, tattoos like on me, stay away for me. Girls love a red flag. I mean, I've come to... We love a red flag. The more red flags, the fucking better. Right. Yeah, if I could give any advice to guys that just become a giant red flag. Red flag. Just get heartthrob tattooed across your neck and it works. Anyway, yeah, so she pursued me. She, uh, she went and got a pair of rollerblades and she took a video of her skating Simba around and sent it to me as kind of like a

poke like, hey, what's going on? You inspired me. Right. And she actually initiated and followed up like, hey, by the way, I wanted to take you up on that offer. Maybe we take the dogs out for a hike and all I had was a motorcycle. So she had to pick me up in her car and everything. But we took the dogs out for a hike.

That's the thing that I also love about you. Like you're so sweet and adorable and cute and pretty. but what you've built, and it sounds like in your relationship too, you're aggressive and you're assertive and you know what you want. I feel like you're deceptively, deceptively assertive. Is that an accurate? I think that's very true. Okay. Yes. What do you think if you could give advice to our audience some things that have helped you be like that? Like what are some little tips? I guess I just don't let negativity really affect me. Like I just let it kind of. I just let it kind of, of, I just let it go. I'm very good at that. And I'm a very positive person. I think that's

from my mom's upbringing. She would always, no matter how low we were, she always saw the blue sky and appreciated it. Or she saw the flower and she would be so happy. And so these little moments where I saw her, even if my, you know, were going bankrupt, like it's, she always didn't let that affect her. And I think seeing that, and she'd never stopped the way she wanted to live, hold herself up high. Like she was always, she never let herself soak in. And I think seeing that, that kind of helped me to just, whenever anything bad happens, it's all like a pinpoint in where I'm supposed to go. And it's, I trust the process. I totally agree with that mentality. I think that's incredible. How do you guys work together? I'd love some tips.

Well, so Nate is a guy who wants to be in solitude. And I'm someone that needs to bounce ideas off and like poke at him and ask him and bother him. Wait, it sounds like you're, Michael's the same way he loves solitude, but Michael's also like you too. So it's like he's in solitude but wants to bounce ideas. It's like, but I'm sometimes, no, I just sometimes I want to be in solitude and sometimes I want to bounce ideas. So how do you guys balance that? So when we lived in L.A., we had one office, and if I was working in there with my assistant, he couldn't stand that because it was too loud and he couldn't concentrate.

He moved his desk to the gym, to the outside garage. And that's where he worked. And it worked out really well that way. What's another tip to work together and live together? It's because it's a lot. you can't you can't take it's almost like you have to be able to flip a switch and i'm sure both of you can relate between business michael and lauren and relationship michael and lauren so it's kind of the same with business nate and ramey and it actually even gets even

more complicated when when nate is photographer nate for instagram ramy and then and then homebodies nate and homebodies rami are working together on our fitness stuff. And then Nate, relationship Nate and Ramey come together at the end of the day. And so I think we've established kind of a method where we have to carve out that. You know, our mornings are exactly the same every morning. That's relationship Nate and relationship Ramey, spending our time together, laying out our plan of how we're going to attack the day. And then we go into our homebodies fitness, Nate and Ramey. And we tackle that. And then we look into all of the tasks that need to get done. I'll take my fitness Nate hat off and I'll put on

photography Nate hat on and get really frustrated trying to take her pictures. It's a balancing act and it's not easy. It's been a challenge. We've had a lot of challenges. If you guys decide to have kids, wait until it's kid Nate because that's a whole different addition to add to the puzzle. Oh yeah, I'm sure. Ramey, I have to ask you this because I think that you are very much like me in this way. I know you have a specific morning routine. He just mentioned it. I've seen it on Instagram. What is that? My morning routine recently and it's it actually changed. I used to pride myself in getting all my to-do list done. Like busy work, busy, busy, busy work. And I read the book Power of Less recently and that's completely changed my outlook now. The top four things on my list every

single day now is read right when I wake up. It's coffee and then read, meditate, exercise. And you just use that flow right into your day and you don't get overwhelmed anymore. Exactly. And I don't feel productive unless I get my first four priorities out of the way. That's really interesting. You say that this is a lot of internal conversation with Michael and I. He's having trouble sometimes to articulate to everyone that it's. important to work on the business, not in it. Everyone's so obsessed with their to-do list. And Michael is a very, you've always been like this. You're very, I don't even know the word for it. We just did this whole like leadership office with my team. And I, you know, I had to like kind of,

I think a to do list is, like you said, it's busy work. It's a good thing for people to feel like they're checking something. It's a good way to feel like you're accomplishing something throughout the day, right? Like, and a to-do list can be a bunch of things. But what I've been trying to talk to people more about is what a priority list looks like, right? Like what's actually important? Because everybody, and this is for a lot of people who are listening, everybody, whether they're working in an organization or they're working for somebody or they're working for themselves, they want people to be impressed and appreciate them because they've gone through their to-do list. What I keep telling people is like, your to-do list, my to-do list, his to-do list. It doesn't

mean shit to me, right? Like, it's, like, and I think a lot of people get really disenfranchised and they get disgruntled working organizations. Because like, I've been working so hard. I knocked out my to-do list. I'm like, it doesn't matter if you've checked off a bunch of meaningless tasks. It matters if you've actually had impact and move the business or the venture or the family or whatever forward. And I think so many people, they get caught up in these long-ass to-do list. But to your point, if you made more of like a priority and goal list, like the to-do list, the to-do stuff is just stuff you do to actually hit the goal of the priority, right? Like that you shouldn't be rewarded for. You should be rewarded for actually getting, you know,

whatever task is important done. Since you're such a wellness queen. Let me do a little quick fire answer. What are you reading when you wake up? Right now I'm reading Finding Flow. Okay. What are you meditating to? Sleep and relax well. It's a great up.

Sleep and relax well. I love it. It's hypnosis. Okay. And it just really gets me in this trance and I use it to fall asleep at night so I don't have racing thoughts. And how long are you meditating for in the morning? In the morning I'll do it after I worked out.

so maybe five minutes. So quick. Quick. Okay. And you're doing Homebodies workout, right? And I do Homebodies workout. And do you do that seven days a week? Yes.

Do you guys do it together? Well, so the first year when we started it, we were recording one new workout every single day. And when we launched, we only had seven workouts in there. But it was a 365-day program. So we used the feedback of the audience as we were building out the program. So we just finished recording all 365. I think we have like 460 workouts in there now. And so now I do home bodies alone and he kind of just does movement meditation.

That's cool though because it's like a community driven, like the audience has been invested in building the platform. Exactly. And then what are your go-to like drinks, supplements, tinctures? What are you doing in the morning? I feel like you have some real great ones that I don't know about. I mean, I just like I mentioned, I love Umeboshi. I love kimchi. I love soybeans, fermented soybeans.

I eat those every single day without fail. And I think that is the key to long life. I mean, if you look at Japanese people, they live a very long life. And those are the three things that they eat. I love calm, the magnesium. That's really nice at night. And those are good ones, though. I want you to text me those three exact ones that you said.

Okay. And what the brands are. And we will try to put them in the show notes and maybe have you on the blog for that. Okay. Anything you're winding down with at night that we need to know about? Your podcast. Really? Yeah, I clean while listening to your podcast.

Wow. And then after I go upstairs, I do my skincare routine. And then I meditate with relax and sleep well. And I want to know, and this is a question for both of you, why you guys decided to move to Austin. I mean, there was a lot of reasons, but leading up to it, we were just so tired of the porch bandits that we, get on our street and on our front door.

Not even just porch bandits. I caught a guy masturbating on the front lawn looking through the window at Ramey. What? She said beating his meat. That's what we call it. Oh, beating is meat. There's a lot of places you could do that. I wouldn't want to do that in front of your house.

Everything I've heard, that's the wrong house to do that in front of. Well, yeah, and I caught him. What did you do? Or should we not say it on air? I'll tell you what. It was probably some of that goon work. I mean, Ramey, I remember looking up and Ramey, like, like turned the corner and I caught him on on Venice Boulevard right where you and I work or where

we're all walking whenever you visited. I was just just like pile driving him into the concrete. Oh God. See, wrong house to do that in front of. Yeah. Listen, guys, don't beat your meat in front of someone's house. Listen, it's very if you're caught. There's so many places to beat your meat. If you're caught beaten meat in front of some woman's house, you probably deserve to get piled. If you're going to beat your meat, check to see if they were a former Marine. Like, you know, like you don't want to be beating your meat in front of a four Marines house. That's not the move. You know what I mean? We had chickens stolen out of our front lawn as well living there. I don't know what they're going to do over there. To round this out, tell us about what your life is like in Austin because it seems

romantic. Yeah, I mean, we have six goats. Four of them are pregnant. No, we have eight. Oh, we have eight. We got two more last weekend. And we have six. And we have six. six cows and a mule and a mule two bunnies and two bunnies and a dog and we're living ranch life what's it like give us details well you open the sliding glass door and it's dead quiet wow isn't that nice breath of fresh air it's so different from l.A i wake up every morning i'm like what's that i hear oh nothing well actually it's my daughter screaming but besides that it's nothing you know, it's just quiet. Like, it's, it's so weird how you almost didn't notice how loud it was until you're out of it. Oh, we noticed. And I mean, with, with her, I mean, one of the big, big things,

too, with her, she gets a lot of packages, so many packages delivered to the door. So in L.A., I was constantly on high alert with like, who's coming up to the door? Why are they in the lawn? What's going on? Like, people were constantly coming up to the door. And then, and now, we have about a mile long driveway all the way to our house. So nobody's coming on our property. Nobody is, it's just very peaceful. Taking out the trash, picking up packages. We take a pickup truck to drive all the way down to the front gate.

The sunsets are beautiful. You guys really need to come out. We want to come out with Zaza. I personally recommend that everyone who's listening follow you both on Instagram. Nate, your story is wild. Ramey, you have beautiful comments. content. Like, I love your content. Your reels, everything. I feel like you guys need to come back since there's so much more to talk about. We only got to sort of nick the surface.

You come back after Nate does the routine for you. No, I want to see the routine. Me and you are doing the routine. Yeah, you teach me the routine. I'll do it for Lauren. You do it for her. I want you to do a cartwheel naked tonight. Oh, listen, I need a little practice first. Right now it's not going to go how you imagine. Couple things. Do you want to do a giveaway for a homebodies. Yeah, let's do it. Okay, how many do you want to give away to put you guys right on the spot? 10 memberships. Wow, that's more than enough. Okay, so what you guys have to do is follow each of them on Instagram. Say your handles. At RR-A Y Y-Y Emmy. Nates underscore beard. Okay, and then let us know your favorite part of this episode on my latest Instagram at Lauren Bostic. You guys know their handles.

Where can they find the homebody app to work out with you? Pimp yourselves out. could find Homebodies at Club Homebodies and Team Homebodies.com. And they have this merch that is so cute. Michael's wearing it. It's really well branded. It's plush. It's buttery. It's amazing. And next time Nate's on, he's going to wear the merch and strip for us. That was an amazing podcast. Thank you guys both so much for coming on. Thank you both for coming to Taylor. Thank you so much. Do you want to win a bookmark? It is the cutest bookmark. It says, get the fuck out of the sun. for your copy of the book.

All you have to do is tell us your favorite part, the most impactful part of this episode on my latest post at Lauren Bostick, and we will slide into your inbox and send a bunch of you bookmarks. So fun. With that, we'll see you next time.