The Chris Voss Show - The Chris Voss Show Podcast – Attorney Edwin Schwartz, on How To Reinvent Yourself and Your Career at Any Age

Episode Date: October 20, 2023

Attorney Edwin Schwartz, on How To Reinvent Yourself and Your Career at Any Age checkitlikeaman.org clarkbartram.com Here are 5 key points summarizing the podcast conversation between Chris Voss and Edwin Schwartz: Edwin reinvented his career and life at age 40 by quitting his high-pressure car sales job to attend law school, motivated by wanting to spend more time with his young twin daughters. Edwin got sober from alcohol addiction in his early twenties after getting suspended from college, recognizing alcohol was causing problems in his life. During the Covid pandemic, Edwin got inspired to transform his fitness after seeing his daughters' athleticism and wanting to set a good example. He lost fat and built muscle with help from a social media fitness coach. Edwin serves on the board of a nonprofit promoting prostate cancer awareness, after his fit friend and coach was diagnosed with prostate cancer despite no symptoms. He stresses the importance of men getting prostate checks. Edwin emphasizes that it's never too late to reinvent your life and make big changes - he quit a lucrative car sales career in his forties to become a lawyer and improve his health and fitness as a dad. Biography After 15 years in a high-pressure sales environment, I quit my six-figure job at age 40 to attend law school and I never looked back. I talk about making big shifts in both career and fitness as well as being a parent, how you are the example your kids follow (good or bad). You only have one life...live it! Every. Second. Counts.

You wanted the best. You've got the best podcast, the hottest podcast in the world. The Chris Voss Show, the preeminent podcast with guests so smart you may experience serious brain bleed. The CEOs, authors, thought leaders, visionaries, and motivators. Get ready, get ready, strap yourself in. Keep your hands, arms, and legs inside the vehicle at all times, because you're about to go on a monster education rollercoaster with your brain. Now, here's your host, Chris Voss. Hi, folks. It's Voss here from thechrisvossshow.com. He sits right there as soon as the opera lady says it. That makes it official, boys and girls.

Welcome to the big show, my family and friends. For 15 years, we've been bringing you the smartest people in the world. Not me, just everyone else. That's why we have guests on the show, people. The CEOs, the billionaires, the Pulitzer Prize winners, the White House advisors, you name it. Everybody has been on the show that's smart, except for me, of course. I'm just an idiot with a mic that they put in here and propped me up for this seat. So anyway, guys, we have an amazing guest coming up.

We're going to be talking about reinventing yourself, rebirth, how to change your life in so many different ways, as we do on the show. And this gentleman has done it not only from a career basis, but also from his own body and good looks basis in fact it was kind of funny we're joking before the show that he doesn't look like his linkedin profile and i had to i was like wait this is the same guy so he needs to update his linkedin profile as always people use that linkedin because that leads me into the plugs and shaming. On LinkedIn, we have an amazing newsletter that grows like a weed. I don't know if that's a marketing term, but it just became one. So go subscribe to LinkedIn.com at LinkedIn.com forward slash Chris Voss.

Go to Goodreads.com forward slash Chris Voss. YouTube.com forward slash Chris Voss. And Chris Voss 1 over there on the tickety-tockety. You can check out that as well. Today, we are joined by a gentleman who has reinvented himself in multiple ways with an inspiring story that if you don't leave inspired after this, you might want to listen to the podcast again because you definitely tuned out and weren't paying attention. Edwin Schwartz joins us on the show today. He is a gentleman who talks about reinventing himself

and his career, midlife at 40. Holy crap. He said, I'm throwing it all out and I'm starting it over. So we're going to be discussing his stuff. After 15 years in a high pressure sales environment, he literally quit his six figure job at age 40. Now he's been married for 20 plus years and he has two twin daughters. And this is what this guy did. And, uh, he quit his six figure job at age 40 to attend law school and never looked back. He talks about making big shifts in both career and fitness as well as being a parent and, uh, being a good example. Your kids can follow, good or bad. And you only have one life, how to live it, and every second counts. I think we're going to be transformed, informed, and delighted and excited by Edwin being on the show today. Did I just start rapping there?

I don't know. Welcome to the show, Edwin. How are you? I'm great, Chris. Thanks for having me on. I really appreciate it. It's good to be here. It's good to have you as well. I just turned into a delighted. Did I just make a new theme for the show? So give us a.com so we can find you on the interwebs, please.

The best place to find me is probably going to be on LinkedIn at Edwin Schwartz, that's E-D-W-I-N-S-C-H-W-A-R-T-Z, or the gram, or insta, as kids call it, edschwartz87, edschwartz87. The gram, as the kids call it. Wow, this dude's hot, and he's hot. He knows the lingo of the kids. Of course, you have two twin daughters, correct? Yes, I do. Yes, I do. So you got to know what the gram is,

because there's some wild stuff going on over there. Make sure those girls are minding themselves. I know that there's a lot of girls putting themselves out on the gram. And I've got some friends that have daughters that they constantly have to talk to about the gram and go, okay, honey, some of this stuff that's, you know, not real life over here. Like they have people paying to, you know, I think it's in LA too, they have people paying money where you can go sit in a fake set where you look like you're in a jet tube and then you have photos taken of you and you can put them on the gram and it makes everyone

think that you're living the high life, the Kardashian life. So there you go. So Edwin, give us a 30,000 overview of who you are and what you do currently. Sure. I'm an attorney based out of Costa Mesa, California. I used to be in the car business for quite a long time before making the switch to do that. As an attorney, I defend landlords and do civil litigation trial work. what i do is probably going to put your audience to sleep but the fact that i do it uh has been a great thing i love what i do and what i was doing beforehand i was making good money at it but uh it was never really my thing and i just knew i needed to get out as soon as my kids were born and so i made the switch and i'm glad that i

did there you go now you've done a few things in life you've overcome uh issues with alcohol we're going to get into that uh so kind of a bit of a redemption story uh and uh did you did you make this switch at 40 when your daughters came along was that was that the that was that the proponent primarily yeah i you know like said, I'd been in the car business for a long time. I was a sales manager at the time at a BMW store, um, and then switched over to a, to Lexus. Those were the two brands that I sold for. I could look at my colleagues with all due respect to them who many of whom I care about very much, but I just saw lots of divorce and I saw lots of nights and weekends and I never seen their kids grow up.

And my wife and I went through a lot to be able to have our children. Uh, we did surrogacy, uh, maybe that's topic for another day, but like, I, I wanted to be a dad very badly. And I just knew I was going to miss them growing up if I stayed in the job that I had. Uh, so I needed to make a switch. So tell us about your upbringing, because you've done a little bit of reinvention time as you've gone. What was your upbringing like and some of the journey? Let's talk about getting sober, et cetera, et cetera. Sure.

So I grew up in Palm Springs, California. My parents, my dad was a lawyer. It's probably one of the reasons why I stayed away from it for so long. My brother, my brother-in-law, my ex-brother, I got a lot of lawyers in the family, which is- You avoided the family thing there for a while. Well, you know what? With all due respect to them, nobody ever seemed that happy. And so I just assumed that being a lawyer meant not being happy. And it wasn't until I got older and some

of my friends that I grew up with who loved being lawyers, shout out to Carl Schlecht, you know, inspired me that maybe, maybe it was just, maybe it was just them and not the profession that was making them unhappy. But yeah, I grew up in Palm Springs. It was a, it was a very nice back growing up. You know, I was adopted. I don't remember the age that i was when i was brought home so my adopted parents have always been my parents but i grew up you know kind of privileged in a country club and things came easy for me in school my parents owned a liquor store which supplied a lot of my addiction oh wow yeah you know then i went off to um went off to college and quickly screwed that up very, very quickly. Sounds like you grew up in maybe a little bit of privilege going on there

and kind of maybe some rebellion against the parental society and a bit rebellious, maybe. I think as much as I could be, yeah. And, you know, it was one of those things where I got my work done. I got great grades. I was able to participate in sports. I had a lot of friends. But I could party, and I loved partying.

And I did it, and quite frankly, until it stopped working. Once I got to college, it stopped working very quickly. So here we are. There you go. Let me ask you this, were you addicted to drinking and had to totally quit and go to AA for all your life, or were you just abusing it? Great question. So I mean, when you're 19 years old, it's kind of hard to really know. I was able to look at some different points in my life, my brief seven-year drinking period. Like I started drinking when I was 12. Well, I started, my first story my parents tell me is before I can even

remember, they had parties in the seventies with martinis and I would go around the tables where people would leave their glass down for a second and I would just drink the martinis. Wow. Now, how old are you at this age i think i was probably four or five i don't remember it but my mom tells the story all the time now what kind of parents are these no i'm just teasing you know grew up uh yeah what can i tell you was it the 70s i guess 70s that age it was and then we got into the 80s and if you remember like we're about we're about the same age i just went to cocaine in the 80s pretty much yes there you go and that was and really the cocaine is what brought me down quickly i mean very very quickly so wow you know yeah and

did you have a chip on your shoulder did you have a true rebellion against you know your parents being attorneys you're like i'm not doing what my those people did my parents did uh and let me ask you this if you don't mind um when when children are adopted you know sometimes they have this feeling that they were rejected or they have this kind of thing that haunts over them or they or they have a they have a thing like why didn't my parents love me why didn't they why weren't they into me why did they reject me where are they and like to maybe reconcile with them was that any of that going on in your head was that any of the sort of things that were maybe contributing your issues or did that bother you at all

i mean when i was younger i think subconsciously that was there for sure. Issues of abandonment. Why did they give me up? I found out five or six years ago what the real story was. I was adopted through the L.A. And so they wanted you to go to a nice family. And so I did, I went to a very nice family. I'm super grateful for everything my parents did. I wasn't outwardly rebellious toward my parents. I didn't like hate them. I love them tremendously. My dad has passed away. My mom is 95. She lives 10 minutes from us. You know, I see her twice a week. So all of that was good. But I always had this deep-seated belief that I wasn't good enough. And I had issues of abandonment and rejection for sure. I think even still to this day, sometimes that comes creeping back up.

And I knew that drinking filled a hole somewhere in my soul for that. And frankly, I was able to do it for a while and not suffer any negative adverse consequences. So I was like a happy drunk and had a good time doing it. But you asked earlier, how did you know? And I remember one summer, so we grew up in Palm Springs, it's hot AF out there, right? And so in the summertime, we'd go out to Oceanside, California, right on the beach. And I was at a bonfire one night. I was, I think, 12 and got hammered, drank a lot, smoked a lot of weed. I'd come home and go straight to my room, fall asleep. The next morning, I had a horrible hangover. But my parents sat me down and they're like, hey, we know you look a little older.

I think we lost you there edwin a little bit we'll get edwin back here there he is got you back the best part now you're gonna have to you left us in limbo there uh suspense sorry that's the best way to do a story, right? Yeah, yeah. But they sat me down and they said, hey, look, if you want to have a beer or two when you are hanging out with these older kids, that's fine. And I remember looking them straight in the eye and said, I'm not drinking to fit in. I love getting drunk. Now, at the time, that didn't register. Hey, maybe that's a sign of a problem drinker uh but when i looked

back right i i went to usc as i mentioned earlier i got suspended for a year i got in trouble um for engaging in a business opportunity i was selling us you know i sold drugs out of my dorm room is essentially what happened business opportunity i stopped but uh my associate kept doing it and we both got busted together that's really the quick story although i had stopped you know whatever i ended up paying a price for i got suspended for a year but in in they said hey you got to go to rehab i was like rehab i don't have a problem what i don't have to go to rehab but i did for outpatient for a whole year. And after about eight or nine months of not drinking and not smoking and not doing blow, et cetera, I had some clarity and the clarity is

critical. I was like, things have gotten so much better. Why would I give this up? I was in Los Angeles at the time when I got sober, my first several years, you mentioned AA. I went to a lot of AA meetings. I loved cocaine. So I also went to cocaine anonymous meetings for the, probably the first 10 years or so I went to a lot of meetings and then, you know, you, I don't want to say you get better because that's, I never, I don't believe in that. I believe once you're an addict, you're kind of always an addict and alcoholic, but life goes on. You learn how to cope. I could be around people that are drinking and partying and and you know i go to i was at a concert two weeks ago i had kind of a

metalhead show revenge sevenfold although they did cancel that show because the guy got sick but whatever um and i i can be around it and it's not a problem right um but it took a while to get there it took a while to get there and then once you establish some time you don't want to f that up yeah like what what if i could handle a drink okay let's suppose for a moment i could handle the drink right now well what do i gain i mean i guess i gained the ability to find out but if i'm wrong yeah i just blew 35 35 years i not fucking that up. I had a girlfriend who I drank heavily for 20 years, but for me it was a fuel. I was running three multiple companies. We started over 27 companies over time, over my lifetime.

Well, I think it's more than that. That was up until 2008. And for me it was a fuel. I needed to stay up later to work and try and do stuff and i was living this crazy life of three different companies in three different states and and traveling all over the place multiple houses multiple cars i had a bmw parked at a given airport at any given time and my bmw short-term uh parking for one of my BMWs was usually most people's mortgage. And it was an insane life.

And, of course, one of my main places, I would work in Utah and live in Vegas, especially during the weekends. And the partying I did was quite extensive. And I don't gamble. So I lived this crazy, insane life. And alcohol and alcohol was the fuel now i never had a problem i didn't get the shakes if i didn't if i ran out of vodka or anything i just feel like i'll get some tomorrow or the next day i just i'm a lazy drunk but for me as a fuel it's like sugar and uh so i you know my friends would they were addicts to, you know, some sort of thing. You know, they get the Joneses and the shakes and all that stuff.

And I'm like, I'm fine then. You know, I knew I was abusing myself with it, but I was abusing myself. So it was abuse. And God, it feels so much better not drinking. I gave it up, what, 2020, 2020, 2021. I kind of had to. My body was just like, fuck you. We're not doing this with you anymore

we're just not doing it you want to drink for a few hours uh hey we're gonna make you dehydrated for three uh days and bloated and uh just we're just gonna fuck you up and uh finally you know the math just came home where you're just like you know this isn't worth the hangovers you know and you got you get to a point at 50 where you're like you know you know, this isn't worth the hangovers, you know, and you got, you get to a point at 50 where you're like, you know, you have two beers and you got a hangover and you're like, what the fuck? And I'd started listening to my body courses. Uh, I lost weight and, uh, started eating well and, you know, started really hearing what my body was telling me, but I'm glad you went through this transition. Oh, what I preface that with in my segue, I got too many segues going on there, was there was a time in my life where I dated a wonderful young lady who had had alcoholism problem.

And it was part of it came from her father, sadly. But she had a real problem. When she would drink, her physiology would change. And it ended up killing her in the end but i tried doing the right thing as a as a man and going to aa with her and i went twice and the stories i heard at a or what changed my mind and maybe had to decide that this isn't what going to be my life and it has to be her life um but it's not my journey. And, uh, during that I would see these guys and I go in and listen to AA cause I was trying to support her and her AA. And these guys would talk about how

they were living under a Vidoc. They lost everything. They're down on Skid Row in LA. And then they quit drinking. They get their shit together. They get a job. They get a wife. They get kids. They're doing the right thing as a man, being a provider and protector. And then just one day, they pick up a drink and two weeks, a month disappear. And they're back under the Viadoc after 20 years of building themselves. So, and sometimes that was like multiple stories. Like they went around two or three times.

And, you know, now they were back on the thing. And I just sat there in AA going, Mother of God, you know, God bless these people and God bless that they're doing this. But this is some hard shit. And the fact that you can just maybe go in one day, pick up a drink and you're like, ah, a drink. And then, you know, I mean, I had friends that, uh, they would, if they went back to the booze, if they picked up a drink, they'd have two to three weeks disappear and they wake

up half naked in some bar in fucking Mexico. And they're like, how the hell did I get here from Utah? I should probably write some stories about that in my book. So yeah, God bless you. But you know what? You're so much more healthier for it because of it. It's such a toxin, actually, for your body. Yeah, it's, like I said, after a certain amount of clarity, like you experienced, right?

You stopped doing it. You started taking care of yourself once you start doing that um whether you you know have an addictive personality or not you just you want to take care of yourself and then when you do occasionally mess up and ingest some bad stuff whatever that is your body does not reward you not at our age anymore. Why did I do that? Everybody's like, Taco Bell? Enjoy some sewer pain there. You're going to have fun. So at what point does your, you've been married for how many years now? 23. 23 years. And at what, did your, marry your wife come in as a proponent for shaping your life up a little bit?

I mean, when I met her, I had been sober for a while. And on our very first date, we go to a restaurant in Del Mar, California. And I'm thinking, you know, I got to get her a glass of wine or something, right? It's a social lubricant. I want to make out with her after this dinner's over. So I'm like, hey, here's the wine list. What would you like? And she said, what are you going to have? I what are you gonna have i'm not gonna have anything you know drink and she's like really that's so

interesting i get sick when i drink i won't have a drink tonight either and i was like yeah and so really since i mean since our unless she's been sneaking it and that's, I don't think she, that's not who she is, but our first date in October, actually October of 1996, I don't remember the specific date, but I think I should get some credit for the month in the year. A lot of guys wouldn't remember that, but that was a person ever since then she has not had a drink. And so it's been an interesting contrast, right? Because you're somebody who we would call an a and normie a normal person just decides yeah i don't want that stuff it makes me sick i don't need it the guy i support uh he he doesn't do it and you know here we are 20 what gosh 28 years later since i first met her congratulations bro know, that's the thing that's weird about me where I, I date still at

35 or 35 years I've been dating. Um, and, uh, at 55, you know, I meet people and they, and they do that. We do that conversation over dinner. Uh, do you drink? No. Oh, you, you have a problem. No, I don't have a problem. I just, I just don't. It't it just feels you know if i want a great hangover tomorrow i'll drink sure and then i'll be sitting there and my waking up with you know my eyes all bloody and my brain beaten and my body's like fuck you um you know and then i'll get on the scale and there's three pounds of water and you know the bloating just I really started feeling the bloating. Like, I will, if I drink, I will put on water. My body overcompensates. And I'll put on like three or four pounds of water.

And you'll feel it too. You're like, oh my God, what did I, did it put it all into my cells? You know? And then you just drag. Like, I started feeling the drag from being dehydrated. and your body's trying to clean out of your system and stuff. And I just would feel it in my body. When you eat stuff, it takes time to process through your body. And so when you drink, it takes time for your body to handle that shit.

And so I just started feeling it. it and i'm like you know what i i i really like waking up every day and doing my podcast and being on the money and having energy and i just like how i feel and uh you know i mean you're 20 you can rebound through it and stuff but uh you know i even though at I got to tell you, I can feel all the drinks I took and all the Las Vegas partying I did some days. So take care of yourself, people. That's the message. So at some point, you have your two daughters, your twins. And I think those are the kids that you have, right?

Two daughters, they're twins. Because that's enough right there with twins. Correct. And quite frankly, we felt, first of all, like I said at the start of the podcast it took a while to to get them right through surrogacy um and then we also didn't want to be outnumbered you know we got two one two parents two kids it's plenty like we're we're not increasing the population and that net wise right we're not decreasing it but we can manage that and they're expensive i mean i live in southern california for god's sakes and my kids go to starbucks and they wear lululemon and they're you know holy cow yeah now what what age were

you when you had the two daughters uh 37 i think damn dude that's something else i had a friend about 35 33 he had his first kids uh because you know we used to party and uh he finally got around to having his first kids and he had twin boys and i visited him for a week one time when i traveled and i would see the diaper thing that he would hold up from from a day that virginia yeah and he was like he's like chris i know why people have quick kids when they're in their 20s man he goes to 30 man trying to do this and then with twins and i'm like yeah dude whatever so twins are hard they're they're that's a challenge you know most parents you know they just get one at a time and then they kind of get through that first gauntlet and uh but he's like he's like yeah the one we get the one asleep and the other one wakes up and starts crying and wakes the other one up and it's like a

tag team like all day long so that's quite the journey you went on so at what point of having your daughters do we hit the mark at 40 where you go, hey, I'm going to just totally throw my career out that I built, and I'm going to go to college? And what's it like? What does the wife say at that point? Is she, like, on board, or is she like, what is this guy doing? Maybe a little bit of both.

I mean, she also comes from a long line of lawyers, right? Her dad, her brother, her uncle, her cousins. I mean, we're Jewish. There's just a bunch of lawyers in the family. She's like, this guy screws it up. I know some divorce lawyers that can go. So when I was pushing into 30, right, 10 years earlier, the car business was a good business for me. I'll say that.

But nobody really goes, nobody graduates high school or graduates college thinking, I'm going to be in a car business unless their dad owns a car dealership, which, oddly enough, is not my case. Although, Chris, I found out when I was saying it, I found out my real birth story. Apparently, the birth father, whose name, I guess, for the protection of his family, will go unnamed at the moment, but owned a dealership up in Santa Barbara. Oh, that's interesting. Shit you not. Did you know that when you were young? What's that?

Did you know that when you were young? No, through the magic of ancestry.com, we were able to piece that shit together, right? I mean, DNA, you put it into the system,

they can find serial killers and they found my birth father. Well, I mean, at least they didn't find I was a serial killer because that's no fun usually. Exactly. Exactly. But anyway,

so I, I, I thought about going back to law school when I was coming up on 30, but then I thought, my God, that's a lot of school, and then I'll be in my early 30s as a new lawyer. Everybody I know is 10 years younger. They're like, who's going to hire me? And that's so old. And then, dude, 10 years.

Yeah. I like that. So how long did you have to, had you have to, had you gone to college? Because I know, like, one of the things that holds me back from going to get a law degree right now, because I'd go get one. In fact, I always tell people if I could go back to being 20, even though I started my first company at 18, I would go get a law degree. Because it's such a great thing, and I really love the aspect of the law. But also, it's so versatile. I mean, you can use it for so many different things.

You know, you can go be a politician if you want. You can, you know, advise big corporations. You can, I probably would have been a divorce attorney because, man, I just, what a great business that's become, especially when they legalize gay marriage. When our gay marriage was being legalized, I like damn it i should have been a divorce attorney because they just doubled their business right there right um and uh uh so yeah it's i and and the aspect of law is so cool to me uh you know you learn that when you when you make money and you hit a certain level of of uh i don't want to call it rich but when you and you hit a certain level of, I don't want to call it rich,

but when you make a certain level of money, you learn that rich people do war like they used to do in medieval times, but they do it through the courts. And so shakedown lawsuits, you know, all sorts of crap. Everyone sues you because you're rich. Why did you sue me? Because you have money. Okay. Thanks.

Great. Your employees pull shit with you. I had a sales organization too, so salespeople love to fight over money and commissions and play. You always have some guy who's the problem drinker who drinks the Crown Royal. It's always that guy if you ever meet him. And I had these sales guys that were great. I mean, you were in the car business for all these years.

You know those guys, the sales guys who are doing blow and cocaine off hookers and calling you from the road or you have to go bail them out of jail uh or you have to go pick them up at the bar you know and these guys you're making 20 to 40 grand off of them you gotta you gotta go cover their ass but they're the greatest salesman in the world but uh um so you know i i i i feel you and what goes on there. And, yeah, I mean, even at this age, I would go back and do it. But I preface this before I segue that there's a lot of segue going on the show. Did you have to go to full college or had you done some college and you just had to go back and get the law part done? Great question.

So when I graduated high school, I went straight to college. And so even though I got suspended for a year, I still did my time, so to speak, at community college, Santa Monica City College, which was, believe it or not, was an outstanding school. I'm having an opportunity to compare it to USC, which USC at the time was a lot easier to get in, by the way. But so I'd already had an undergraduate degree. And so I just had to go to law school um but you know it's not just going to law school it's a lot of work man i was um yeah it is i did a part-time program through a school down here in san diego called california western um it was probably three or four units shy of a full-time so even though it was part-time

it was a lot man and so for you're raising two you know yeah uh there were two well they weren't teenage at the time but two twins right i mean the first year and a half of law school i would say i was seven days a week i was either in school at work or in school and then at work i I mean, for a year and a half straight. And then finally I realized, you know, I think I'm going to like this lawyer thing. I'm going to take some time off from work. I enjoy just being a student before I got to pop out and start grinding again after I get out of school. But so I had the degree and then went, had the undergraduate degree and then went and got the law school degree.

But it was really driven primarily by my desire. People laugh when they say this because lawyers work a lot of hours. But like I wanted to spend more time with my kids. My dad always took, you can't see it off camera, but like I got law books over here. I got case files over there. There's my law degree in the background somewhere over there. You can do it at home. You're in the car business man you you can't i can't sell a car from my house and get the full deal like you have to be at the dealership i can't be a manager or a finance guy

or an internet guy from my house in the car business you have to be there and so the law gave me an opportunity to do that from home and not necessarily work my own hours but more have control over when i'm able to work those hours and quite frankly you know i was selling bmws and i was selling lexus and who buys that shit guys like you right like you just said you had a bunch of cars at every airport or whatever bmws yeah and so i was able to see everybody's finances even though somebody comes in and wants to buy a car, say, for cash. We don't just give it to them and hope that they're being truthful. Like we run a credit report and we look at their bank statements and we find out what they do.

And so I could see who was making the most money on a consistent basis. And I got to tell you, lawyers do fairly well. And so I thought, all right, they're going to make good money. And the other thing I noticed in sales, maybe you experienced this with the people that used to work for you. I don't know. They prize youth and energy in most businesses, but in law, they still want some energy, but the youth part is not prized. I mean, it's the opposite. The longer you're an attorney, the more valuable, the more experience that you have. So I knew two things.

One, I'm not smart enough, unfortunately, to be able to figure out how to get rich fast and retire and never work again. I'm going to be grinding it out until I'm probably in my 80s. That's just the way it's going to be. So what job can I do that will allow me to continue to do that and be valuable as I do that? Being a lawyer. I mean, that was it. And your wife probably stuck with you because she's like, I know how much money lawyers make because I'm from a family of lawyers.

And I'll stick it out with this guy. He's probably got some potential. It's funny because she's like, you're going to go to law school and you're going to meet some hot young lawyer lady and then leave. Uh-oh. And then I thought, you know, I mean, you're going to get tired of me always being at the library. I'm at the library, but is he really at the library? I mean, he says he's studying, I don't know. But we were able to get through that, you know,

and our kids were young, like we, you know, she was working full time. And so we were able to make that work. One of the messages and what I wanted to talk about in addition to making the big changes, you got to have a support system. It's ideal if you have some sort of support system. You don't have to, but it worked for me. I have a wife, a spouse who was very supportive and allowed me to go do what I had to do. I did not get those calls like, hey, it's 1130 and you're still at the library. Where are you?

It was just like, all right,'s 1130 and you're still at the library. Where are you? Um, you know, it was just like, all right, come home when you come, come home. And you know, there was a lot of trust there and it would have been a lot more difficult to do that if that wasn't there. So I'm very grateful. I'm very lucky that way, but you got to have a good support system and you got to make the decision. Like, look, I knew that I wanted to get to this goal, which was my arms off your camera. It's that far away, right? This far out there goal. I didn't know if I was going to get in.

I didn't want to take the law school test. It's like a three or four hour test. The law LSA, LSAS, law school admission test. I didn't know if I'd get in. I didn't know if I'd survive my first semester. Right. I mean, I could do all of this and tell everybody I'm going to didn't know if I'd survive my first semester right I mean I could do all of this and tell everybody I'm going to law school and then get cut after the first semester

I mean I didn't know and then even if you get your degree like you talked about getting the degree that doesn't mean shit really for most people if you don't have a license to practice law so you got to pass the bar it's California man that test is fucking hard yeah I mean it took Kim Kardashian what like seven times or something i don't know i know i know a few people that has taken more than more than once and i didn't want to be that guy my dad passed the first time my brother passed the first time brother-in-law passed the first time i was not gonna be the guy that didn't pass the first time but my point is you take the best next step what is the next i? I got to take that fucking LSAT test. And if I don't get good

enough score on that, then it doesn't matter because I'm not going to get in school. And then I passed or, you know, I got a particular score. It wasn't great, but it was good enough to get in. Then you got to show up and then you got to get through, you know, that first semester. And it's not like you got midterms like my school anyway, everything rides on your final exam. So you write this giant tuition check, which was really a student loan that I'm going to be paying for forever. And then, you know, they're gigantic, gigantic. But, you know, that's what I needed to do to do it. I mean, that's, you know, that's on me, man.

Well, I mean, you're 40. I mean, you're probably 40 when you go back to school. But, yeah, I mean, you're paying for kids 40 when you go back to school um but yeah you've you've i mean you you're paying for kids and you know uh house and mortgage and all that sort of stuff being married and uh i mean that's expensive and but i mean you're still i mean the challenge of you taking well taking on the challenge of reinventing your whole life mid stream if you you would, uh, for most men, uh, then, you know, props to you, man. I mean, you're, you're, you're, I'm sure you're on the better side where you're living a better life overall. And, and yeah, I mean, you're, you're paying a price for it, but, uh, you know,

attorneys make good money. So, uh, there you go. Just sue the hell out of more people. We actually do a lot of defense. If it wasn't for the gas problem, a lot more people, you know, we wouldn't have the opportunity to defend. It was interesting. So we got my wife a new car a few weeks ago. Right.

And so I'm back at this dealership that I used to work at. I'm seeing some people that I used to work with who, you know, are dear to me and I care about them. Yeah. I had this feeling of, ah, fucking I escaped.

I got out of there, man. It's just such, it was such a good thing. And then feeling of, ah, fucking, I escaped. I got out of there, man. It was such a good feeling. And then last night, I've been a lawyer now for over 10 years, right? I've been doing law school. I started in 2010. And I never really had dreams or nightmares, really, about being a lawyer. But I've always had this dream, this nightmare that haunts me where it's like the middle of the month. I got two and a half cars out.

I got like 700 bucks made. I got to get to 10 grand for the month to be able to pay my bills. Oh, my God. I'm going to get fired. What's happening? I had it again last night. And I haven't sold cars in a very long time, man. But there's this perpetual fear of having to hit your monthly targets.

It's such an interesting thing. Yeah, you got to make your sales goals. Otherwise, they cut you. And hey, everything is sales, right? And wouldn't you agree? Even though I'm a lawyer, you say, well, okay, you don't have to sell anymore. That's not true. I got monthly billable hours.

We got to generate clients. The client's got to pay like sales is everything between having a law degree because law covers everything. Having a sales background is, it's a great combination. I highly recommend it for people, even if they don't become salespeople or lawyers. That's the one challenge lawyers have is they don't teach them the business part of it. They didn't used to teach them the business part of some of the lawyers we've had and said they're working on it now in law school, but they don't teach in the business part of it and i remember when i was when i was dealing with my attorneys back in the day uh and uh you know that was back in the yellow pages day

and if you didn't know that back yellow pages thing man the back cover of the yellow pages and i talked to him like when when new marketing was starting to come in like social media they're like yeah we're not really allowed to ambulance chase. Like, marketing for us is like ambulance chasing. And I'm like, well, how the hell do you guys, you know, you've got to go get the business. How do you guys do it? And I think a lot of things have changed now with the rules and regulations for attorneys to be able to market and advertise and, and ambulance chase fuel. Uh, but, uh, uh, it's, it's a challenge and you're always selling.

That's what people don't get in life. You don't meet people and they're like, I don't like sales. And I'm like, you, you convince your girlfriend or wife to stay with you every day and, and maybe convince them to, you know, feed you and nurture you. Uh, you know, that's selling. We sell ourselves to people on dates. We sell ourselves to the world, the cars we drive, the whole Fight Club line, the cars we drive,

the things we buy, the clothes we wear. We're constantly selling who we are. And people don't realize it. It's like you're selling. If you're a young girl who wants attention and validation, you're putting yourself on a dating app or posting on Instagram, you're selling you know you know if you're a young girl who wants attention and validation you're putting yourself on a dating app or posting on instagram you're selling everyone's selling and so it's funny people don't get that hey sales is life technically really when it comes down to it

absolutely so uh so you go through this you become a successful attorney. What sort of area do you cover now? You said you defend people in law. Yeah, I mean, I do civil litigation or trial work, although really not a lot of cases go to trial these days. A lot of things tend to settle. But I defend landlords from their tenants when their tenants sue them. We do commercial and residential. We do business litigation.

Defend employers when their employees sue them. You know, that's what we do. Yeah, I've seen... Sexy stuff, man. The sexy stuff. I've seen those. Like, the favorite thing of our salespeople in our mortgage business back in the day was they would write a bunch of business,

but usually the average was 50% of it would actually close. The rest of it would fall apart because you're in the mortgage business. Maybe there's a title problem from a divorce decree, or maybe their credit turns out to be crap, or something comes up, some lien on the property, et cetera, et cetera. So there's a million ways to kill a mortgage deal. But they notoriously, if we had some sort of blowout where they would quit or get fired, sometimes someone would offer them more money

and they'd leave, they would notoriously sue us for 100% of their book that they'd written and whatever was open and shake us down. It would shake down lawsuits. And I would be like, are you serious like you know that 50 of this business it won't close you know that you know i mean jesus if they if they'd written an application just fill out the name and phone number and they hadn't acquired all the documents they would still put that in the bag i mean you shake down stuff i mean i just i just learned when you get money in life, people shake you the fuck down. Um, and I actually had somebody say that to me. I go,

why didn't you pull this off of me? Cause you're rich. I'm like, are you fucking serious? Are you serious as hell? So fortunately I met some evil attorneys over the years and, uh, that changed the game for me. But, uh, and now I can do that stuff without having a law degree. So do you have any thoughts on that Airbnb chick that's stuck in that house? I think it's in LA. Have you heard that story? I have not. But if it's in Los Angeles, I feel bad for whoever owns the property.

Because that place, that's where all my cases are venue. And Los Angeles is a tenant's dream and a landlord's absolute nightmare. There you go. You'll have to Google it after the show or else I'll have to send you a link. But there's a chicken. This is her second time, but evidently she finally found it. She finally found the right victim. But she's been squatting in airbeat tube air BBs.

And the first one they finally got her out the second one i think she's in la and the la rules are working for her and uh she's been in there for over a year and she's actually demanding the guy pays her a hundred grand shakedown fee to get the hell out of her to get the hell out and he won't pay it but then there's some bs code where they've cited him for failing as a landlord and she gets free rent because i don't know he didn't get the bathroom freaking you know papered right or whatever the hell it is you're laughing you know the rules and all right yeah i'll have to say you have to read it it's extraordinary um but yeah it's been all over the news and and uh she's like a she's like a total squatter living in this mansion.

You know, it's like expensive as hell. So you help people do that. At what point do you reinvent your health? Because you look kind of doughy a little bit. I'll be honest in your LinkedIn thing. You look a little bit healthy, a little doughy. But at what point do you start working on your health and your body? And,

and for those of you who don't understand what I'm saying, I've got a picture of him on pod match where he's look all svelte and he's got the cut six pack and the arms and the chest. I mean, the ladies, you know, you press walk down the street and ladies throw their throw stuff at you. I,

I, I do get hit on um with all due respect to my wife who i love very much um it's much better to be fit than it is not be fit i can just tell you that i mean anytime soon i i was in the throes of covid right so it's the end of 2020 we're all at home the gyms are all closed. Before that, let me just say, genetically, I'm lucky. I've always been thin. I'm 6'2". I've never weighed more than 197 pounds, which is the absolute heaviest I've ever been.

I'm at 190 right now. I had probably 19% body fat at the time, as you said, kind of doughy. I was skinny fat. I would go to the gym for a few weeks and then I'd either get, you know, get a cold or, you know, something gets sore and I'm like, ah, okay, I'm going to stop going. And so I paid for years to LA fitness for a membership that I just did not use, but I didn't want to cancel it because that meant quitting. And I'm not a quitter and I want to go one of these days.

But so now we're in, um, towards the end of 2020, it's COVID. And I was on Tik TOK and I'm scrolling through and I see this guy named Clark Bartram, who's now my good friend of mine. He's my fitness coach. He lives 20 minutes away from me. And, uh, he's got this thing called three moves, three minutes, like, Hey, you know, just do one move for one minute. You do three moves in three minutes. For most married guys, this is their sex life. Had to get that joke in there.

Had to get that joke in there. One move, 45 seconds, I think. Oh! Oh, yeah. Married life. This is why I'm still single. I have 55, folks. Anyway, married jokes aside.

There were two things that happened, specifically. One was, and this is what sort of led me to find Clark on TikTok. I was going to put my underwear on one day, not to be graphic, but you've got to lean forward and lift your leg up to slide your leg into the hole there. And I threw my back out. Like, oh, my God, this is embarrassing. And then the second thing was one of my daughters we talked about that earlier on my twin daughters they are athletes

one's a volleyballer one plays softball I was always pushing them to do more be more lift more etc she um she was probably 10 at the time she went to put her hand around my bicep and not like hey let's see how big dad's bicep but it was like oh my god i can almost get my hand around your entire bicep dad guilt and shaming will do it to you oh man i've had some pseudo i had a pseudo stepdaughter one time when i was engaged and she came in at three one time while i was dressing for uh to work. And I had a really nice suit on. You know, I had all my suits custom made. And she comes in one day.

And she actually started doing it. It became a thing. But she comes in one day and she looks at me and she goes, you going to wear that tie with that suit? Like, you got to love women. And I looked at her and I'm like, what do you know? You're freaking three get out of here and she's like okay all right yeah she'd do that whenever i didn't match up

she's gonna you sure you're gonna wear that with that and i'm like man these they start young man three years old they're they're guilt and shame and and uh negotiating uh their stuff there it doesn't stop and they get better each year. Oh, they have a way of hoodwinking you. I mean, your daughters are what, 11 now, you said? No, now they're 16. They're 16 in a couple of weeks. They're in 11th grade.

They're in 11th grade, yeah. You're completely screwed. Oh, 11th grade. There you go. Yeah, you're screwed. You're so screwed. Right. But hang in there, buddy.

It gets better, evidently. But I think you have to, I think the teens, the dating whole thing is – I don't know how I'd ever handle that as a man. It's something I try not to think about. So that's – you know, you stick your head in the sand. That's one way to do it. I think about what I was like at that age. And I was talking to my wife about this a couple weeks ago.

I'm like, look, they're straight A students. They're athletes. They're great kids. Yeah. They're on their phones a lot. Every kid is these days. Yeah. The room's not as clean as we would like it to be, but you know what? They're good kids. And I got to tell you, they haven't done any of the shit that I did by the time I was their age. So I figure, and I did that stuff with girls, right? And so I figured it's a win, man. I'm ahead of the game. I've survived middle school, the first couple of years of high school

and all the trauma and drama that that can bring my kids. I give them a lot of rope, so to speak, to see if they're going to hang themselves with it. And they're great kids. So I'm very lucky that way. but back to what we were talking about like my daughter with her hand around my bicep and i decided all right i'm going to do these three moves three minutes i'm going to start working out in my gym in my garage i had some weights you know if you remember right when covid happened the gyms got shut down yeah everybody sold out of weights like rogue

didn't have any weight you couldn't get get it at what Sports Authority, I think, was still in business. Dix didn't have any weights. So I had a weight set. And I started doing stuff. And within about four weeks of doing some moderate exercise and some walking, nothing even really crazy, man. I started to see some definition. And my fitness coach had this six-week challenge that he was doing.

And I'm like, I'm going to enter the challenge uh see how i do i didn't win the challenge but my body got a lot better and i just stayed with it and i've seen guys like you lose a hundred pounds right through this process i've seen myself my body composition totally changed but the biggest thing is like i'm sitting in a chair right now you're sitting in a chair right now. You're sitting in a chair right now. We do this for most of the day. Like if you don't get up and move, man, that's going to be problematic at our age. So I just, I needed to move for the energy. I wanted to work out. Looking good is definitely a side benefit. There's no question. I got a great set of abs. I'm in great shape, but man, I i got good energy i feel the confidence level that you get when you start working out and and you just feel better about how you feel and look it's it's

hard to uh describe until you've actually gone through it and it's kind of hard to put a price tag on it frankly there you go well the only reason i don't get up in the podcast is because when i do the podcast i'm naked from the waist nice get that joke in there i'm not really naked people stop it don't write me don't i was gonna have shorts on earlier i'm like no i stand up on this podcast i better i better put some that's actually a rule on this podcast everyone has to show up naked from the waist down you ever seen those like newscasters now and they have like the suit on and they're sitting in their little newscaster spot booth and they're in like shorts and flip-flops and they're sitting in their little newscaster spot booth and they're in like shorts and flip-flops and you're just like that's i never thought al roker

was doing that um but uh uh let me ask you this because did you go through was part of this some of the catharsis that many people went through during covid where they started to really reanalyze their life, their life choices. That's what I did. I was kind of, I went through a cathartic thing. We're going, Hey, this can all disappear tomorrow. Um, maybe I should make some better choices. Maybe we should love the people around me. Maybe I should love myself a little bit better. Cause that was one thing that went through my head. I was like, if i get covid i'm really overweight i'm not i have been the gym um this stuff could get me you know you you kind of didn't know how cove was

gonna hit you if you got it did you go through any of that um not to sound shallow but no here's what i did go through though um so covid created a tremendous amount of work for me as a landlord defending attorney as you can imagine so i was buried in work so i didn't really have time to think long term but i knew back to my kids right they're an inspiration for so much of what what i've done and the changes that i made i knew that i wanted to be the example that I was trying to set for them. I couldn't tell them to go work out and go for a run if I wasn't working out and going for a run. I couldn't, I just didn't feel that I had the place to do that. I go to, you know, go to a lot of sporting events and you see a lot of parents that are not in the best shape. And, you know, love to all my friends out there

that I see at the softball fields and the volleyball tournaments. But man, if you're asking your kids to, to work out three or four times a week and to eat and put, you know, eat protein, take creatine, et cetera, and you're not doing it. I mean, what are you doing? You know, set the example. My, my daughter the other day, sit right over here. She's doing her homework. She's got AP classes, you know, advanced placement classes. And so she's school all day. Then she goes to practice for two or three hours. Then she comes home and does homework. And it's like 10 o'clock at night and she's doing homework. And I thought, I, you know, sometimes I'm sitting on the couch watching television, like our parents did, but then I think, you know, maybe I should

sit down next to her and do some of my work. Like, oh, we're in this together. Set the example of what you're trying to get them to do. You know, and that more than anything is what prompted that change for me. You know, and then I didn't lose anybody that I knew because of COVID. I have some friends that had some friends that people just, they just fucking died quick, man. And that's, it's kind of crazy. You alluded to something there i want to touch on you you talked about setting example as a father and working hard and and doing the right thing with your daughters and and a lot of people don't realize that i think sometimes till later and maybe either parent or some don't get it all that it's the example you set it's what you, not what you say that children get off of you.

That's what they image, they mirror as you, as example, as a father's important role with daughters, but also parenting and everything else. They mirror all that stuff. And a lot of parents, they go, hey, don't tell lies. And then they get caught telling lies, you know. Don't swear, and then you swear. You know, your kids figure out if you're full of shit or not

and whether you're not a hypocrite. And then they mirror their lives based upon that. So I think it's great that you recognize that and you're like, hey, you know, be a good example to my daughters. Thank you. Yeah, absolutely. I mean, look, I'm in my room in my little office in my house and you can see a poster that says grit execution mindset over there somewhere. I can't

really get the mirror thing. So they see the example all the time. And so far it seems to be working. Yeah. They're great kids. So, and, and, and to put a plug in here, I I've lived for 35 years and I've dated women of all ages and all types. And I'm at a point now where I'm starting to see the end game of women's lives. And I got to tell you, women that grow up with a father in the home who sets an example as a good father, teaches them so much and completes them so much. And you can really see the fallout from not having a good father who set a good example. You can see the fallout from not having a father in the home. Uh, you can see the whole life's arc of it. Um, decisions they make, the men that they seek. Um, you know, I mean, I, I'm one of those people where, you know, if it wasn't for the fact of bad parenting and bad fathers, I probably wouldn't get dates.

So, you know, that's just the thing. It is true. I can be on a date and be like, you didn't have a father when you grew up, did you? No, didn't. Yeah. Okay. And you can see the whole choices they made in their life. It's the same thing with sons.

Sons and mothers. It's the same thing. i've seen what mother abandonment is like for a son the choices that he makes the the women that he'll seek um you can see all of it i'm like a fucking psychologist i have 35 years of dating proud to that's just gonna get a degree so i want to put that out as an advertisement it's the father out there hug your daughters spend time with your daughters you know i had a lot of friends in the strip club business don't ask me how i got into that in las vegas uh but i i walked into place i thought it was a store anyway i've had friends that own strip clubs and they said you know what chris if it wasn't for bad parenting we'd be out of business so i always tell tell my father friends, hug your daughters, spend time with them,

give them as much time as they need, be the dad, set a good example, because the father you are is the one that they go looking for. And if you're an awful father, you're bad, you're absentee, you don't hug enough, you don't spend enough time with them, guess what sort of guy they're going to go looking for. And then I get to see what their life's like at 55. Uh, so just an advertisement there. Um, so let's get on more with your journey that you talked about in weight loss and getting Shvelt as it were. Yeah, sure. So, uh, like I said, you know, I got a fitness coach.

I was lucky. I found him on Tik TOK. He lives 20 minutes away from me. He's been on a hundred magazine covers and it's been in the business for the long time. I think he's a fitness coach, hall of fame. If there's such a thing, he's a name again, is Clark Bartram.

He's godfather. You know, Michael Hearn, weightlifter, Mike, Michael Hearn, like the Titan, his godfather to his kid.

I mean, Clark Bartram. Yeah. Yeah. Google him. Okay, I'm doing that right now. And so he, B-A-R-T-R-A-M,

Bartram. There we go, okay. Oh, here we go, yeah. Whoa, holy shit. He's got like, is that a 10-pack or an 8-pack? That's probably a 10-pack. And he just turned 60.

He just turned 60? I hate this guy already. Actually, I probably should talk to him. Yeah, this guy's killing it over there. Yeah, dude, he's got an 8-pack. Maybe 8.5, 9. Holy crap. Yeah, he's pretty inspirational.

And he works with guys over, I mean, his niche is working with guys over 50. And just the results that I've seen over the last three years, developing the lifestyle of, you know, I was up at 4 o'clock this morning, and I had a choice to make. And that choice was, all right, I can go back and try to get another hour's worth of sleep, which is going to totally fuck my day up and make me feel shitty. If I don't get this going, or I can just start walking downstairs towards the coffee

machine and then I can go hit the gym and get my day going. And that's what I did. So, you know, it's, it becomes, it's so funny. Like after I used to hate going to the gym, I don't know how you feel about that. Um, but at some point it's kind of like being sober, right? A switch flips. And then all of a sudden like i love going if i don't go for two or three days for whatever work or you know lower back i miss it i feel like shit and i can i get myself back over there so really it's just been a consistent effort you know you go to the gym today you're not going to see the results really today but if you stack them day after day just like if you eat the

twinkie today or you have that bag of chips or a half a pint ice cream you're not going to really see it today but you will in the next few days i mean it's it's you just become something that is important and as you start to get a beneficial result and the good feelings that go with it you just tend to keep doing it. And that's, what's worked for me for gosh, three years now. I was at the gym at 4am this morning.

In fact, I like to go in the middle of the night, early morning because I'm one of the few people there. And like the gym is mine. And there's a narcissistic thing that I like where I'm just like, yeah, I own all this stuff I can do whatever I want you don't have you don't have too many chicks there running around that your head's

turning around and you don't have any other guys that are like you know outlifting you or anything and you can get all your you can get all your machines you don't have to wait for anybody that's the other thing I hate waiting for people I get off my machines or you know the weights are all I got a nice gym. So, but yeah, sometimes, you know, I don't feel like going to the gym. And so what I do is I go, I make a bargain with myself. I go, okay, you don't want to go work out. You kind of feel a little mucky and whatever, maybe you're sore. So we're going to go to the gym, sit in the hot tub, or we're going to sit in the sauna and meditate a little bit, or we're going to sit in the sauna and meditate a little bit or we're going to sit in the massage chairs. And sometimes I just need to sit in the massage chair.

Like last night, my back was all mucking up because I hadn't been for a day or two. And so I went and sat in the massage chair, and I felt like going. And so then I went and did all my little things, and then I sat in the massage chair after and felt better. Sometimes that recovery recovery you just need some recovery work is what you need and then it's weird i'll go there and i'll feel i'm like

i'm not gonna lift anything i'm just gonna sit on a bench and sit in the sauna and just i don't feel pity for my broken ass body um and as soon as i get there it's like the smell kicks in and your your body just like it's like riding a bike. Your body just kicks in and goes, ah, I got to lift some weights. I, I, I got this. Yeah. All right. It's just like, there's kind of a, there's like a whole thing.

You just kick in. And so I've kind of learned to do this Faustian bargain where I go, I go, Hey, we'll just go to the gym and sit there. And then as soon as I show up, I know that the gears are going to kick in. And so it's just the habit showing up is half the battle. go to the gym and sit there and as soon as i show up i know that the gears are going to kick in and so it's just the habit showing up is half the battle i think arnold schwarzenegger said that about the gym yeah for sure there's um somebody was saying that the heaviest weight you're going to lift is the door to the front door to the gym i love that dude i'm gonna put that on my fucking wall and get a shirt man uh the heaviest weight you're gonna lift is the gym door yeah it's and it's

so interesting how my brain just kicks in like i'll feel it i'll i'll check in i'll be like oh man like crawling you know the first 10 feet in and then all of a sudden like you know the hallway that goes locker room it's like brain kicks into gear so You've worked out. You've got the doughiness gone. You need to update your LinkedIn, I've got to tell you, because you've got the George Clooney sort of gray hair look going on. The girls love that silver fox

thing going on. You need to do that. You might want to keep your shirt on for that one, though. Yeah. I don't think my employer would appreciate it, although you never know. Maybe we'll get a different kind of business we were going to get the gym business going on so uh which is uh interesting because so uh one thing we do want to get a plug in here for that you support is you support prostrate prostate cancer awareness you're on a non-profit board even though you've never had it tell us about how you got involved in that why it's important to you

sure so if you recall 10 minutes ago or so, you were looking at my fitness trainer, Clark Bartram. Yeah. Looking at him, I mean, most people, he just turned 60. Most people would think if you were going to pick a dude with prostate cancer, it's not going to be him. He was diagnosed with prostate cancer. Oh, wow. Yeah. And so so um we decided to you know really he decided and asked me to be on this board hey i'm going to put together this um non-profit to raise awareness the way that he found out he went in for his normal exam that you know you get the get the finger um and it was fine but then he was checking his blood because in our fitness group, right, we do, you know, check your blood like every quarter or at least every six months.

His PSA, prostate specific antigen number was high. And his doctor's like, hey, man, you should probably go get this checked out. That number shouldn't be where it's at. And long story short, sure enough, he got diagnosed. I think he's stage two. And so what we're trying to do is raise awareness and get guys to go get checked. In fact, the 501c3 Corporation is called Check It Like a Man. It was, I think, originally going to be Bend Over and Check It Like a Man.

That's probably a different story for Bend bend over and check it like a man give a good so if you go to check it like a man.org you know you'll see we're raising some funds that other company you can set up in west hollywood and i'm sure west hollywood california i know what you're saying But one of the things that he came up with was a test. There's a, well, he didn't come up with, we partnered with a company that does a blood test. This is going to sound kind of like Theranos. If you remember the lady from Theranos, one drop of blood, they take six or seven drops of blood in two different little cards. You send it in and we check your PSA and then obviously your cholesterol, high density, low density, lipoproteins, your triglycerides, total testosterone, free testosterone, your cortisol, your A1C. There's a bunch of things that they check, but specifically the most important thing to me is they check your prostate. So a kid comes home, you stab your finger, you drip a couple drops of blood,

again, six to 12, just so we're clear. And then you send it out to this lab here in San Diego, and they process it, and they give you a read back. If you don't do that, do something. Go tell your doctor if you're over 50 for sure. You got to get a colonoscopy. If you pass it, you don't have to go back for 10 years, right? But you certainly don't want to ignore it. And you got to get your PSAs checked. If you don't, bad things can happen. Next month, November, I think is like the testicular cancer, prostate cancer, or it's men's health awareness month. You can grow a mustache, Movember, they call it. We're just trying to raise awareness. Check it like a man.org or Or go to clarkbartramsystems.com, and you'll see the test,

or clarkbartram.com, and you'll see the in-home test. Get yourself checked, please. Please. You owe it to your family. If you got kids, you owe it to your kids for sure. It's something you just got to do. Check it like a man.com? Org.

Oh,.org. Check it like a man.com org org oh.org check it like yeah a man.org let me pull that up and for some reason you can't put in the www that sends you right to an error page i don't know but um do that or go to like i said clark bartram.com and you'll see you see a bunch of stuff about clark but you'll also see the at-home testing kit. Okay. All right there. So pretty cool, man. This is important for guys our age. I think I'm getting checked for my testosterone levels here. You had heard we just had a young lady on the show we were talking about this before this, Dr. Christine Boev,

and I think her and a couple other people we had on this last week or so have made me convinced that I'm going to go finally check it and see if maybe that can push me through some of the different issues I'm having with, you know, I have to fast a long time and I'm getting a lot of insulin resistance. And I was reading something or we had somebody on the show that actually, if you're experiencing insulin resistance, it's really bad. It's a killer. No, we didn't have it on the show. There was a guy on Sam Harris's podcast that I've tuned into now and I'm listening to his podcast and he wrote a great book. We're trying to get him on the show and he talked about insulin resistance and stuff. So I don't have a plug, but if you want to know what the plug is,

write me afterwards and I'll go look it up. So this is your whole journey. You've reinvented yourself multiple times. You've changed your life. You're constantly improving. You're setting examples of, Father, God bless you, and your daughters will never date me. They'll see me coming.

They'll be like, no, that guy's got issues. All the way in the right. Yeah, he's got some issues. But don't we all, though, kids. So there you go. Final thoughts as we go out. Do you want to pitch people to sign up more for the prostate stuff? Do you want people to reach out to you if they need help with landlord work

and things in that issue on your lawyer side? I mean, I would say that being in sales, right? I'm not a big fan of pitching, but I would certainly say, look, if you need some help, thank you. If you need some help making career changes, hit me up on the Insta, edschwartz87. I'm happy to do that, talk you through what I went through. But really, get your prostate specific antigen test done.

Check that. Spend time with your kids if you haven't. And as far as career goes, ask yourself the question I asked myself, and that was, can I do this? Can I really do this job, whatever it is, whatever your career is, for the next 20, 30, 40 years? If the answer is no, get out. Get out now while you still can. You're never too old to make the changes. I guarantee you, if you asked Chris and myself 30 years ago what 55 was going to be like, we feel much younger than we actually are. And we're looking

at another 30 years, at least a life ahead of us. So you got to make the most of it, get out there, make some big changes. And thanks for tuning in. Yeah. And, and from your example, don't be afraid to make the big changes in life and do the big things, you know, I mean, throughout my life, I've looked at this. Do I really want to be doing this when I get old? I mean, when I was, when we started our first multimillionaire company at 22, uh, I looked at this do i really want to be doing this when i get old i mean when i was when we started our first multi-millionaire company at 22 uh i looked at my business partner and i said look we have two choices we can either climb the corporate ladder and hope that we do well and get one of those golden parachutes and at 45 50 we're starting trying to figure out how to start a company or we can do this now and and and blood, sweat, and tears, uh,

make it work and hopefully it'll work. But, you know, we can afford to take the loss if we, you know, we're 22, but, uh, I don't know. I looked at my business partner and I go, I don't know that I can do this at, at, uh, you know, having a wife and kids at 50, 55 and, and, and, uh, you know, I'm looking at my old man and seeing what, you know, he's feeling it. And, uh, fortunately I'm doing much better than my old man was at 55, knock on wood. Um, he, uh, we, I guess we lived different lives somehow, which is weird cause I drank for 20 years and he didn't drink a dime, uh, anything.

Um, but, uh, I maybe had a little more fun than he did. Uh, but, uh, you know know we'll see i mean that's the big that's the big gig in the sky i guess we'll see where he's at but i know i'm much better off than he was but you know this is this is a great journey of life the reinvention of yourself and you know a lot of your stories people are scared to make these changes and they're scared to um say hey i want to make changes in fact i know some guys that you know if they start going to the gym their their wives start freaking out they're like you're gonna leave me and so uh it's sometimes hard you know people try and in relationships

people try and keep you in the box because it's safe you know and once you start operating in the box they're like oh oh uh it's because you know this is gonna end this is on the way out you know whatever so it's good and then your advice for health man uh i i tell i tell everybody don't do what i did don't eat all the shit don't gain all the pounds trying to fight back at 55 is so fucking hard it is so hard and yeah i can i can do everything right every day and stuff but it's still it's still hard to drag back like i can't go ever back to eating three meals a day i just can't body's just like fuck you okay there's 10 pounds have fun with that buddy and that's not eating bad that's just eating three meals a day and not not intermittent fasting my my body just

just was like maybe someday, maybe if I get on testosterone, maybe I can get back to where I can maybe have breakfast in the morning but not anymore. So please, don't be like me, folks. Posted child right here. I know a bunch of ladies who have my picture on their

wall and then it's written over don't be like this guy. Don't date this guy. You set the example by having them not be the example the beautiful thing is I as I teach people what bad guys are like so the good guys like you they go oh crap we should we should marry this guy because this guy is straight and he's not a fuck-up like Chris Voss there's

got to be you know somebody's got to be the dark triad, narcissistic bad horse to make people appreciate what good men are like. Anyway, so thanks for coming to the show. We really appreciate it, Edwin. Final.com as we go out once again. I know we got our plug in there earlier, but let's just bookmark it properly in the show at the end. Yeah, sure.

Go to clarkbartram.com, and you'll see the link for the PSA test kits. And then if you need to get ahold of me, you can DM me on Instagram at edschwartz. That's E-D-S-C-H-W-A-R-T-Z-87. And LinkedIn is edwin schwartz. And you only got one life, Chris. Every second counts. Got to make the most of it. It does. Be present, too. I think that's a big thing. So there you go. Thanks for coming on the show, Edwin.

Thanks to our audience for tuning in. Boy, you guys got a lot of great stories and data out of this. Go to goodreads.com, fortuneschrisfoss, linkedin.com, fortuneschrisfoss, youtube.com, fortuneschrisfoss,

and chrisfoss1 on the tickety-tockety. I've actually thought about having the opera singer that we hired last week do these plugs because I'm tired of doing them. But I don't think anyone's going to understand what the hell she's singing because it's kind of operatic. So we might figure out some way to do that. If someone comes up with an idea, write me. Thanks for tuning in, everyone. Be good to each other. Stay safe, and we'll see you guys next time.