Determined Society with Shawn French | Adversity & Mindset - Not Dead Yet with Matthew Vincent

Episode Date: July 17, 2023

In today's episode, we have a very special guest who embodies the spirit of determination and has achieved remarkable success against all odds. Matthew Vincent joins us to share their incredible journey and the lessons they've learned along the way. Key Conversation Points: Shawn introduces the guest, highlighting Matt's background and achievements. They discuss the guest's early life and any challenges they faced. Shawn and Matt open up about their connection in college Matthew shares his initial aspirations and what motivated them to pursue their goals. Overcoming Challenges Matthew discusses the significant challenges he encountered on his path to success. They share personal stories of setbacks, obstacles, and how they managed to overcome them. Shawn and guest delve into the mindset and strategies the guest employed to stay determined during difficult times. Turning Points The guest reveals pivotal moments or experiences that shaped their journey. They discuss any transformative events that altered their perspective and propelled them forward. They explore the lessons learned from these turning points and how they impacted the guest's determination. Lessons and Advice Matthew imparts valuable insights and lessons they have gained from their experiences. They share practical advice for listeners who may be facing similar challenges. Shawn engages in a discussion, further exploring the guest's advice and how it can be applied to various situations. Connect with Matthew Vincent- Instagram- https://www.instagram.com/matthewpvincent/ Connect with Shawn- Instagram- https://www.instagram.com/theshawnfrench/ Work with Shawn- https://calendly.com/shawnmf32/strategy-call?month=2023-07 Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

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And they wave their white flag. And it's done. And they just said, you know what? I'm a passenger on the ship. And this is just what it's going to be. What would you say to those people? Like, man, if you're happy being a passenger, I ain't here to fucking argue with you. The truth is, I don't fucking care if you don't care about your dreams.

But if you do, I'm into it. And I think the biggest fucking rule of all is you're not allowed to let someone else care about your dreams. more than you. It doesn't work that way. And I'm sure don't care about someone else is more than mine. You should. Right. And that's not like I don't get to be an asshole because of that. That doesn't mean I get to get in the way. It means I'm free to pursue my fucking dreams at whatever passion I want as long as I don't

ever pretend it's more valuable than someone else chasing theirs. Right. I can't ever get in the way. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. We're back with another episode of the Determined Society podcast. And today, folks, I have a guest here that we discovered we actually knew each other from way back in the day when we were youngsters roaming around you know baton rouge ls u

campus as two athletes he was a track star i was a baseball star and we really found out how much we actually have in fucking comment and it was hysterical buddy right i i have with me my boy matt vinson uh we'll get into his background but damn dude what a doozy what a doozy man um was really funny catching up and then as soon as you called me back right and we got introduced And then you called me back and you're like, you know, we know each other. And I'm like, oh, shit, do tell. Yeah, I know. You're like, man, I've traveled a tonne over the last decade.

Like, it's a fucking good chance, right? And you tell me, and like the first thing you say, especially after we had chatted about, you know, both being at LSU at the same time doing athletics. And you fucking, you're like, hey, who are you dating in college? And I'm like, oh, no. Did you know at that moment that I was that motherfucker? I fucking knew exactly who you were at that moment. Oh my God. So come to find out.

I in college spent a few years dating a girl who, she's very fallacious, I would say. Yes, yes, yes, very, very accurate description of her. Thank you. It wasn't a great relationship. I didn't, you know, I should have bailed a little earlier than I did. Oh, man. But, you know, she would cheat on me.

me. She would get blackout drunk and cheat on me. And then I would like have to locate her. And for some reason as a boy, oh, dude, more than once. More than once. This is, um, our circumstance was unique, but she, she was a, uh, was a learning experience, let's say. I know a lot of things I won't tolerate again. Yeah, no, I feel you on that one. It was just so crazy because like, as I'm getting off the phone with you the first time, I'm like, oh shit, what if he knows? I'm like, I can't wait to talk to this guy again. If I call him back to right now, it's like, it's like, you know, it's going to be a little

weird. So I'll wait until I'm like talking to him. And again, but it was crazy. I started like recounting everything. There was a moment. I'm going to tell you, dude. I've never told you this. You know, I don't think I told you that night when you showed up at my door.

So I'm ready to fuck me up, guys. It was the scariest moment of my life. Just to work clear. I wasn't going to fight. anyone like that's not my mo i thought you i get that but like what i needed yeah was i needed to know what the fuck happened and then i don't then i can go ahead let her lie to me and i'd be like yeah we're done with this and i'm pretty sure that's what was the final like we're fucking done here yeah no congratulations sean you were the straw that broke the camel's back fantastic but it was

nuts dude because there was there was like weeks where i would hear weird shit outside of my window in in bro i was scared as fuck i didn't know what it was i was called my friends i was like bro what do y'all fucking doing like i can't even sleep in my room like one night i slept the light on well um finally did i figure out where you live i we're gonna get to that because i want to know that

because you know the exact motherfucking apartment i'm like i heard this bang and like shan french here i'm like fuck what did i do now but here's the thing so i keep hearing this shit out in front of my window because mine face the pond right yeah and finally one night i hear another rock hit it and i go and i hear sean Sean and i was like that's a girl's voice i should probably open up my window and i'm like okay like has it been you creeping around my window like what the fuck is going on i'm like and young sean's like come on in right i mean you're not going to not open up the window

is in the middle of the night we're in college you're like whatever man what again Dude, yeah. Yeah, well, thank you. So I'm sitting in this. So then like the, you know, anyway. So I just thought it was really strange. I was scared for weeks on end, but it was like, it was her outside my window. Dude.

Scary shit I've ever. So how did you find out where I lived? Yeah, man, that's like as soon as we spoke, it's like I opened up this filing cabinet in my head that like I haven't thought about in so fucking long, right? So it's a little sketchy other than I think I had found some text. Gotcha. That's got to be how I got there. I found some text and then maybe you had shared an address with her. Who knows?

Yeah. Yeah. Like that's the man. Yeah. I don't know. But hey. I don't remember. And I may have I may have called a friend.

We had like I had a girl on the track team with this Mallory McDonald and she lived in a call. Oh, yeah. So Mallory. me and all those girls I knew really well too. And so I may have called and said, like, hey, do you know where this guy lives? That's so funny, dude. And so, yeah, I just fucking cruised.

I don't know why I rode my bike over there. That seems so weird now. I mean, dude, it was crazy. That's like one thing I noticed. I think it was white. Yeah, it makes sense. I just don't know why I would have rode my bicycle. Like literally, I just remember you and then like a like a little part of a bicycle frame.

I'm like, this motherfucker murdered bike over here. It's like, holy shit. I remember my point, like I, I would have been living on Highland like at a Plas de Planchet. That's pretty far. Yeah. Yeah. That's pretty far. That was 2004, I believe.

Late, no, 2003. It was 2003. Because I rolled out of there right after that. Yeah, I rolled out of there. I think that that winter was my last semester. Was it due to the stress of the situation? It was due to the stress of you showing up on a 10 speed. Um, fucking who's Sean French?

I'm like, not me tonight, motherfucker. That ain't the guy. But, um, it is crazy, dude. And I think you came in for a little bit. We talked about it. And then that was it. And then, you know, here you are 20 years later. My buddy, Brad Johnson, got to give him a shout out for setting up this cosmic event.

And, um, you know, I mean, God, it's been, it's been so freaking long 20 years. And here we are on this, you know, recording and having this amazing conversation. and no blood being drawn. So it's always good. And no blood being drawn then, right? Like, I can't. No. Even at that age, even at, you know, 22 or whatever I was,

I'm glad to have enough sense about me that, like, you know, I'm going to be mad at this person who has no idea of the situation. Like, this isn't a personal attack against me. This guy didn't see this girl and say, I'm going to fuck that dude's girl or whatever it is, right? Like, no. She was on the prowl. Dude, it was nuts, man.

It was nuts. But you've been doing some amazing things, you know, since then the Highland Games, world champion two time, clothing brand, amazing podcast, much more handsome. I would say now, I'm like, fuck, I didn't even, like, no way it's at that. That's not, it can't be that motherfucker, dude. And then I just went and looked at, you know, photos and went back. I'm like, that is the dude. You look good, man.

Thank you, man. I appreciate it. You know, yeah, my biggest, you know, doing strong man and chasing strength sports after college, which was super fun. I think my biggest, I got up to like 318. Jesus. Plenty strong. Yeah.

So, man, I had to go get a physical yesterday. I hope as an athlete this fucking resonates for you. I had to go get a physical yesterday. Simple stuff. And, like, ran over to urgent care to get it done. That way, like, I can keep getting my HRT now that you have to get a physical everyone's all, right? Yeah.

And so she's doing, like, heightened weight. Oh, you're a B. Oh, no, no, no. No, no, no, no. They're stoked, right? So I'm doing height and like, man, any recruiting shit in my entire life is like 5-11 scratching six foot. Right. And she's like, height, six foot one. And I'm just now. Yeah, and so she says that, like, she gave it fucking half a glance. I'm like, now you're doing. There's not any official measurement for like a combine, right? Yeah. There's a girl working in urgent care who couldn't give any less of a fuck about dealing with me.

God. She says six foot one and doesn't know what a gift she just handed me of like the rest of my life. I will fucking say official measurement. I'm almost six to basically. Yeah. Basically, basically you're more than average height. Like my wife, here's a funny thing. So my wife looked at her old baseball program and you know or the website or whatever was.

Yeah, yeah. She looks at me to go six feet. You're not fucking six foot. They were awful. I'm like, I hate you. It was with cleats on, damn it. Yeah. I'm wearing boots to fucking recruiting meeting, man.

Yeah, I'm wearing high heels. Fucking not six foot. Come on. Give me that at least. God dang. So, yeah, man. So, like,

in my biggest, you know, I'm up over 320. I'm sitting about 215-ish now. And so competed, you know, got in a strong man, had a good time with it,

powerlifting, did some weightlifting, and finally got into a highling games. And it clicks. Like, it's just one of those things, especially 2000. nine-ish that you're talking about like it's a little it's not quite as prolific on the internet to

figure out where to get into these type of things right so found one found some people traveled to start competing in Dallas from Baton Rouge on a pretty regular basis and then kind of the next year went to competing around the country as an amateur I would uh I would schedule sales calls for the job I had in areas there would be games and so that I could travel for the week over there to do sales and then uh and then uh and then back in on competing. Oh, I lost you. There you are.

Yeah, there you are. Technical difficulties. It's go. Yeah, so, like, I would just do whatever I could to get out and compete. And so by the end of 2010, I'd won an amateur world championship. And 2011, I won amateur world championship again, which got me an automatic invite to the professional worlds. I took second, my first year at it.

And then won the following year, took second, won the following year. and then took a couple seconds, I think, on my way out. By 2016, my right knee was kind of worn out. I tore ACL while I was in college at LSU, got it fixed and competed and was fine on it. And then during post-college while running a bicycle shop, I started in Baton Rouge. I tore an ACL at a skate park and just didn't get it fixed. I'm fucking 22 without insurance trying to run my own business. I think I'm clear.

I'm like 400 bucks a month. Fucking killing it. Very proud to call myself an entrepreneur at that point. You bet you're a fat. Did you sell the bike you rode over to my house? I probably. You know, man, I was way happier to wear that hat than actually do the work. I hear you, man.

I hear you. So got out of that finally, you know, struggling and then got a real job for 10 years and then got into the games. It's 2016. while I'm kind of toward the end of things, things overlap, right? Like so my apparel brand started in 2014. Right. And then 2016 was kind of my last time to compete. I went into doing ACL at the end of a season, just to take a year off, rehab, document it all.

I've been doing YouTube content and everything by this point for quite a while. And, you know, it just never took. So I ended up having like nine surgeries over the next three years, like five. ACLs like would go in get an ACL surgery rehab for three months they'd check it out and be like it's gone. So I just dope back in to eventually the knees just trashed. There's just nothing left in there. So after 2017, I'm just full entrepreneur, got let go on my company and like, man, I can, I'm traveling with a cane.

Like I can't find a walk more than about 200 yards. about 200 yards a day. Damn. And so go through that for a couple of years of pretty nasty chronic pain, got pretty ugly, dark, and a lot of loss of identity and kind of figuring out life on the back end of athletics. Total new replacement finally in 2019 saved my fucking life, man. Wow, man.

That's powerful. You know, you're talking about all this, you know, like reclaiming yourself identity after athletics is the hardest thing. When I was done, I had no clue who the fuck. I was without baseball. I was no longer Sean the baseball player. I was Sean, the problem was I didn't know who Sean was.

You know, so, you know, down the road, I started doing a lot of stupid shit, burning friendships, burning bridges, doing a lot of things intentional, you know, like intentionally hurting people, right?

To where I couldn't say, like, hey, man, I didn't know. It was like literally, I turned into that dude. And it was all because I was just so hurt. And I had this whole inside of me,

this just gaping. hole in my soul, dude. I was just heartbroken over how my career ended and the injury that just ended it all and the shitty-ass mindset that that was stuck in it that couldn't allow me to get out of my own, you know, pull of urine, so to speak. You know what I'm saying? What injury had, how did things go for you? I had, well, it started with the blood clot in Juko, right? I had the blood clot. I almost died. Yeah, I got through that in 2000 and shoot, what was it, man? It was 97. set so 90 so 99 so it was the spring of 99 to where I I literally had to I mean I had a scholarship

to Louisville um on the line and all of a sudden like I couldn't lift my my catching arm and I and it was just like like a like a bad pull right here underneath and just and dude it just it just started I don't know what it was man then it just started I started getting a fever like a really bad fever it was like a hundred it like at the peak of it was 103 but it was consistently at 102 and a half. It was bad, dude, for weeks upon weeks, and I was still fucking playing. I'm like, I have to play. I have to do this.

And finally, my girlfriend at the time said, hey, you know what? You're to a point that you, it was close to Thanksgiving. And I know that because I spent Thanksgiving in the fucking hospital. It's my favorite holiday. It's like, you know, like in the fucking people are bringing pumpkin pie. My teammates are bringing me porno magazines. It's like, guys, this is like, fucking one of my. going to do with this pie after i'm done with this magazine what the fuck's going on so order of

operation yeah guys come on you guys got this all fuck pie first yeah exactly save that for next visit so i i get through that and they they said to me i was later i remember vividly i was sitting there in that hospital then and in walnut creek california they said hey you know i said what can i can you get me out of here i got a blood clock can you just cut it out yeah but we can't because if it goes too far it goes to your heart you're you're you're going to die i'm like wait a second We mean die. We mean like I'm fucking 19 years old. I'm fine.

Can you just drain this thing to do whatever you have to do? Whatever, you know, blood thin or heparin or cumm it in, you got to eject me with break this motherfucker up. And I got it like the seasons in a month. Will I be ready? They looked at me and laughed. They go, you know, we have to determine if this is a injury due to a trauma or a blood disorder. I was like, well, either one I don't give a fuck. Like, when can I play?

Well, that's going to be, depending on what the answer to those questions are. If it's a trauma, we have to put you on blood thinners. I go, cool. How long? Like seven months. I'm like, okay, cool. Like, so I'll just take the blood thinners. I'm good.

I play. And they're like, no, no, no. You're not playing baseball this year. You're not. I'm like, because if a football hits you, you could bleed and, you know, won't stop. I'm like, all right, then don't get it just break it up now. And then don't give me the blood thinner. I'll just go out there and play.

like that's not the way it works I'm like okay fine fuck what's the second option well we find out that's a blood disorder and you can never play baseball again I'm like turn out to be a trauma I guess it was causing a collision

me in the third basement trying to get a foul ball and it didn't hurt I don't know if I fell on it wrong or what but there's that shit happens shit happens man at LSU specifically it was you know rotator cuff I was just

you know I had the surgery and then it was the year. I was Skip Burtman's final year. And I remember going up to him and said, hey, man, I just can't coach. I just can't throw anymore. Like, I can't even ship gears in my piece of shit on the prelude. Right. And it was bad.

The bumper was falling off and shit. Come a long way, man. Come a long way. So I go into some, I say, hey, you know, I'm going to have to I got to get surgery to coach. I'm going to have to take the year off. And he's like, ooh, that's tough. You were going to split time with, you know, Matt Heath this year. You're going to get a lot of playing time. I debated.

I'm like, well, do I just say, fuck it and just deal with the pain and play? But I just realized that there's, you know, 12,000 people at the stadium on Wednesday nights. And if I'm shit, everybody in Baton Rouge is going to hate me, right? So I was like, no, I should probably get surgery. Right after my surgery, they were coming up to me, not Skip, but like Smoke LaValle and Turtle Thomas were saying, hey, you need to leave. Because we got this guy coming in next year. I was like, I just got out of surgery. Like, can I heal?

can I have an opportunity to get to show you what I can do I'm here for a reason right well this guy was Gatorade player of the year I'm like I understand he's a stud but let me lose by just him beating me out and so right then it was just when that mindset just shifted it was just like not good enough all all the people telling me all the bad shit that I was when I was a kid I'd never make it out baseball that volume got really fucking high right dude and it broke me and dude like I was just a miserable person to be around. And my, my senior year, I ended up working my way up from the sixth of the depth chart to the backup and got 18 at bats. And it just ended poorly, right? I didn't even get a rep in the College World Series. Yeah. And, you know, so when I say that,

you know, the, the, me finding out who I was afterwards was just so exhausting and tough, right? I feel like now that I'm 44, three beautiful children, a beautiful wife, find out who the fuck I am what I'm supposed to do. Now I just got to make it all happen so I could do it full time, right? But there was a bad moment. I think it's a bummer that we've convinced people, right, that by 25 they're supposed to have figured it out. How in the fuck does that possible, Matt?

Well, so one of the sayings I like a lot is this idea that, like, we'll be soldiers so our sons can be farmers and we'll be farmers so our sons can be teachers and we'll be teachers so our sons can be artist. Well, we got there is what we're doing. We're in a society now, and we have enough abundance that a lot of us can pursue the thing that we're interested in and make a living at it. Our parents' generation did sell us on this idea that you can do whatever you want as long as you work really hard.

That's true again. When we graduated, it wasn't. It was very much this. You can do whatever you want. until like, okay, time to quit being a fucking kid and move on with your life. And that comes from like, think about our parents' generation and how they were raised, right? Like that boomer is raised by this post-World War II generation. Like these are people of the World War II generations actually coming out of scarcity where the greatest thing you could do with your life is fucking comfort.

You can you imagine not having to worry about food? That'd be the greatest fucking gift ever. Can you imagine air condition or any of this? And so our parents bit hard on that line and built the American dream, the white picket fence, the two. fence the two and a half kids and not have to worry about food the 401k and a job you go to every day and don't ever have to worry about it yep yep steady income salary salary job you're good and it's not supposed to stay that way nothing stays anyway like everything's transitional and so in the same way society is there like we've got to adapt too there's a reason we don't

still have nine kids per family like we did it you know turn to the turn to the 20th century It adapts with what things are And so there's going to be us on the front end of the adaptation That realize they don't have to play the regular game And be miserable part of the machine that makes money Like you can hustle and do your own thing But it's hard work Yeah

You know, it's hard work figuring out the puzzle To make your own life of whatever you want it to be And be honest with yourself Or you can sell all your fucking time to a job You don't give a shit about Both are hard choose your hard right and that's the thing it's there's so in one thing i want to point out too because i'm caught in the middle of both of them right it's like you know they're both very hard right

but this is the hard that i would want to do full time like i want to do this but then i think i can't act as if i would if it was just me and my wife i have three children to think about i got to do it smart i got to be you know i got to be that's got to be strategic right and i just got And then the industry will tell you, hey, just keep doing what you're doing. Someone will find you. And it'll all change. I'm like, no. That's not how any of this shit works, man.

That's not how any of the shit works. You know, you get, you pay for that. Somebody wandering out there dying to help you fulfill your dreams. Get the fucking out of here. Come on. The right person to hear my show. The right people have heard my show. That's just how the world works.

That's not how it works, man. You think that there's this moment of like, I get him on it. It's going to change. It doesn't. No, it doesn't. It doesn't do anything, dude. I tell you, man. and you probably notice this too by looking your own analytics.

The shows you think are going to be massive in, you know, in your, in your, you know, whatever, your stats, your fucking rankings or whatever the fuck, your analytics. Those aren't the ones that hit. It's the ones that no one knows who they are. Like, well, I mean, it's a variation, right? It also depends on then how you market it and where you share it and does it get enough eyes and what your audience is into. Because, I mean, my podcast has been really consistent. Like, we're a little over, I don't know, 330, 340 episodes or something like that since 2017. And the episodes that me and my wife, Bonnie, do together, perform just as well as me flying a guest in.

So if I'm listening to the analytics, right, like, hell, I'll just have her on. Yeah. Yeah. But that's not strictly how I want to make a show. Like, I want to talk to people I'm interested in. Yeah, of at some point, like, there's the push and shove of, I'm going my way and I'll continue to figure it out. Because I'm aware that there are shows that people talk to the people that are interested in, like Chris Williams or Rogan or any of these others that are that style with a variety of guests.

And they do really well. And then there's people that just chase data and grow their show that way. But to me, I didn't get into this to have someone else tell me what to fucking make. And so if I follow that strictly and it's not in line with what I want to do, then I got a job again. Yeah, you know, it's really, it's a really great point you just brought out, brother, because I've had people tell me like, hey, on your show, you don't have a set list of questions which you're asking your guests.

Like, you need to have, you need to prepare better and ask all these questions. I was like, why? So my fucking guests can feel like they're being interrogated? No, no, no. Anybody for the big show gave you that advice? Fucking, I'm like, it wasn't a big show. And I said, be very, be very, it'd be very clear. I understand.

It wasn't anybody who had a podcast. They were just somebody from the peanut gallery. And I'm like, I'm not doing that. That's not how I want to do things. I want to have an unscripted conversation with really cool people that are successful after overcoming massive amounts of adversity in their life, whatever it is.

Like, with you, your clothing brand doing over seven figures, you know, an amazing podcast, you know, a wife doing really cool things. Like,

don't tell me. how to run it because there's no the only way that I know how to do shit is my way you know and it's yeah I agree with it right and like you know I hope for you the same way you know what I got out of stuff

you know when my when my career ended and I wasn't able to throw anymore due to the injury man it was one thing the identity of like oh fuck I can't throw it like I'm smart enough to know that shit comes to an end right like I remember track and field and college coming to an end and all that. Right.

I even remember competing and being at my best and being at the top and telling people like, look, this is a thing I do. This isn't going to make my tombstone. I love this shit, but it isn't who I am. And where I fucked up on that and where the universe decided to challenge me was, what if you're not able to move around anymore? Mm-hmm. And I wasn't prepared to not be an athlete.

Right. That part I wasn't prepared for, man. And so what dove into that identity really was all of my self-confidence, all of this stuff I had built of being me really came from this machine. Like for me being lucky enough that I got dropped into a machine that responded to anything I'd basically ever asked it to do as an athlete. You know, he got stronger. It was big enough. It could run fast and play sports and do all this and learn and get better. and it was athletic.

And when that was gone, ooh, now who the fuck I am I. Yeah. Yeah. And so like, how do you deal with that? Where does your mind,

where does your mind go? Yeah, it's bad because, you know, the first part is just this dark anger and bitterness around the fucking, how dare the,

how dare the universe? Yeah, there's so many people out there with good fucking working legs who don't do shit with them. Yeah. You know, and mine's gonna fucking fail, right? Like, I chained my ass off.

I do the rehab correctly. Like, I know my shit. It didn't work out. Yeah. And, uh, it's amazing. So it got really dark. I got really bitter. I fucking got annoyed when friends wanted to do stuff that we had to walk to

because I can't fucking go. Yeah. You know, and so I got real shut in and got real shitty. and then constantly being in pain, my knee kind of stayed to where a really good day was like a three. And then a really bad day, which could be from I walked 200 yards.

I now get like a stabbing pain in my knee that's like an eight or a nine when I exhale. Right now? No, no, no, when it was fun. And so I get the stabbing pain when I exhale. And like, you know, you can't avoid that. And so now the more I know too, right? So now I'm spending probably the better part of two years, chest breathing and constantly staying in fight or flight.

So now I'm fucking packing cortisol levels. I'm fucking not sleeping at night. Everything's fucked other than I keep having surgery. Yeah. And really honest with myself at that point, like I'm doing YouTube already, right? And so I'm going into this first surgery with, I'm going to document this. I'm going to show the rehab. This gets people back on the field.

I'm going to come back and win a world championship. Right. Six surgeries later, I'm very aware at this point, like, get back to competing. What the fuck are you talking about? Yeah. We can't walk. And so, scared, right? Yeah.

Just super fucking scared. And then, you know, trying to even just accept it. And the acceptance being like, so all of those adventures and things and hikes and crazy shit you know not crazy shit but adventure i want to take see the world like so that's done now like i closed all that door and that was that was a really tough one to swallow and have acceptance of if we're going to move forward we've got to kind of deal with it right that this is what we can control and um yeah i knew i knew that if i didn't figure i had to get out of chronic pain like you know i don't fucking die of old age i'm going to end up killing myself yeah

of course right and so right if i if i'm honest with myself enough to know that I don't know when I lose this fight, you know, if it's a year from now or five years or 15 years from now, but at some point I do, I lose the mental fight with this. And if that's the result, then what's any risk of trying to get better? fucking try everything, throw everything at it. And so that launched me into ketogenic diet because it reduces inflammation, right? Like I'm not allowed to be okay with that other very extreme decision, right, that ending my life or whatever it is, unless I can say I did everything. But don't bullshit yourself. So change your diet, lose weight, and see if inflammation changes it. You know, if there's something that you could be doing that's removing pain and you're not doing,

it you're an asshole. So take accountability for it. I quit drinking because that was causing more inflammation. I know that I can't stay on pain meds. We both, we all know how that fucking long-term story goes. Yeah, of course. So I know that that's a problem. I've been on them for two and a half years. Luckily for me, whatever the addiction side of stuff is, I really don't have. I ended up starting to use cannabis as help with pain and found a gigantic savior there. I was able to sleep again. I was in a better mood and it just,

I wouldn't say made pain better. I just didn't give a shit about it. Yeah. Which was fine. Yeah, that's cool. You know, it's not like it was better to where I could go train,

but I could survive on a normal basis and be nice to fucking people I was around. Right. Yeah. And so kind of with that one, man, like I didn't smoke or do any of that up until that point. with college or anything else. I'm too fucking scared to get popped on a drug test.

Like, Jesus Christ. I can't think of anything more impairing, you know, anything more embarrassing than, yeah, losing my scholarship for a fucking drug test. For a fucking one night blunt.

My parents would have fucking burned me at the stake. And so when I started using cannabis to manage it, like I'm in my 30s and like my life's together. And there's a big part of me that, that really believes all this shit we grew up with. that like I don't know how much, but there's an amount of this that will ruin my life, that I'll become a fucking loser. Mm-hmm.

And none of that's true. Right. You know, I didn't find any case of that. Yeah. It's amazing because I'm listening to this. And this is where the listeners are just going to love this story because you're having these moments of, I don't know when I'm going to lose this battle. It could be a month from now, a year from now, 15 years from now.

But if I don't get out of this chronic pain and not throwing everything that, right. It's just like, to me, like, when someone says to you, like, well, how did you know to move at that point? Like, no, that's the fucking move. Like, it's the, hey, I could, this could end up taking my life in 15 years. And if I don't do anything about this, I'm a fucking asshole. But do you follow, you follow Alex Hermosey stuff? Oh, of course, man.

Right. So like what he talks about with people making a decision, like in the sale. It's the same deal, right? Like my pain of staying the same far outweighed the pain of changing. Right. So I changed. But it wasn't until I reached that point with myself and admitted it that I was able to really go full bore into the other. I think that's true with everything, right?

Like whether it's, you know, how you do your sales call, if you're a sales professional, you know, realizing you're doing the sales call wrong. And you either, you know, hate the pain so much that you're in right now because you're losing and you're not making money. You have to hate that much more than the process of the change. same thing with weight right same thing with not eating like an asshole at night i'll admit that is when i eat like an asshole yeah same i bro i once i touch fucking chocolate it's like a sex addict it is dude i struggled during uh during lockdown i figured out here in i figured i'm here in st louis that like we've got delivered like cookie delivery places oh dude yeah come on man like i wasn't much mature enough to fucking no not hit that button at night oh absolutely man

so i mean it's just so like that's my point though like everything in our lives we can pinpoint the fact that are we in enough current pain whether it's emotional or physically right now to be like all right let me move let me make a decision right because you just have to get so damn tired of that current state that you're willing to make that. So I think that that's what your average person needs to like start making a change. Yep. I think once that you can kind of start mastering more of yourself, right? Like I'm able to kind of look at things, right?

Then like if I know something's not in alignment anymore, but it's just a little bit out of alignment. Like I'm not doing something right, whatever it is. I've got a feeling. Yeah. But it's not worth changing yet, right? Because the pain's not so bad. But if I can spend some reflection.

time and say, hey, what is five years of not addressing this look like? Are we then in a problem that we should probably have, that we should address because we're really struggling? So why don't we just fucking do that now? Yeah. Yeah. Too many people, I think it falls into, um, instant versus delayed gratification, right? Dude, but that's the best part we got from the athletic thing.

Mm-hmm. Yeah. Yeah. What a gift. What other people don't get it. Other people aren't given that, but the athletic thing teaches you all the recipes of success in anything. Mm-hmm.

Because what it teaches you is progress. That's all. That's all you should be shooting. It's not linear. You're aware of that too from the athletic side, right? There's going to be plateaus. And whenever you plateau, you need a different stimulus to get a different result. Yeah. Why would any other part of my life not be the same? If I want my muscles to grow right, like I've got to push them to a certain level of discomfort so that they grow back and adapt stronger. Why would I emotionally be any different? Why would by risk tolerance be any different? Why would any of this stuff with my own confidence be any different?

Yeah. It's interesting because not a lot of people look at it like that. Like you said, we were blessed with that. You know, in times that I can look at it like my show and building my brand. And I don't know how it was for you. But it's not fucking linear. Like you said, dude, it has been a roller coaster. I mean, there was a point where, dude, it was getting so toxic for me.

I took four months off. I was like, I'm not dropping another show. I'm not doing anything. So what part about it got toxic? I think for me was just having to monetize, monetize, monetize, make money, make money, make money. That's not who I am. Like, I will get results, but like for me, I want to grow a brand to where, you know,

I'm impacting billions of people, having conversations with people. And my words and my determination, motivation, actually helping them to move forward. And I focused on the wrong thing early on. I was like, okay, I need to do this as quickly as possible, so I don't have to go to work more. Yeah. The money part, the money part is a side effect, right? Like, I look at the money part as a side effect of building a building something that's valuable. Same way with, I think happiness works the same way. Like, I don't think you can directly become happy. I think you can create happiness in your life. So kind of that same deal, man, that monetization part's tough because,

you know, back again, like, are you following? someone else's desire to grow this. And that's one of the reasons for me with my podcast. What I promoted on it was my own stuff. I've got my own brand. I've got my own things that I'm able to sell. Smart. I just looked at it like if I'm building anything at this point, like I've got to take all roads.

Yeah. And so I'm on YouTube content wise, man, I'm really proud of the content we've put together on YouTube. man i know we've probably got i've probably got 1400 videos on that channel that's badass man for a number of years i learned how to video edit and shoot um and more recently like we've got to do some rad projects last year we uh i got to work with indian motorcycles oh wow that's cool and so we filmed uh like a travel show for them damn because you know i i love what we do but i like production like I like the filming and directing and trying to shoot and create a project. Really?

Yeah. I didn't think I would, but I fucking love that. Like part of everything I'm doing is a scam to get a chance to do that. I love it. I love the forward thinking. Like, I love it. So, I mean, even 2000, you know, just to give you determined, right? Like what we're talking about with the show.

So I'm growing my YouTube channel kind of vlogging here and there. And I decide like, man, I'd love to do a travel show. I want to do a travel show at that time, like highly inspired by Bourdain, anybody else, right? But I'll do this travel show and interview people and strengthen conditioning and then kind of document I get to travel and compete around the world. Fuck yeah. That's cool. And so we had a project that came up with called The Drift of Lifting. Like, I didn't bother trying to get anyone on board to monetize it. I fucking paid for it.

Me and a buddy went out fucking California and filmed it for a week, edited and aired it. And we did it for five years. No way. Yeah, we filmed all those on our own and shot it. We filmed in Iceland one year. We came out to Georgia and shot with like Reese Huffa and these other Olympic shot putters. We went out to California and shot with Kelly Storrett, Mark Bell, and some other great guys, Jesse Burdick. We went to Iceland one year and shot for 10 days with some friends.

It's been a ride, but like I paid for all that. Like there wasn't someone fucking fronting that. That was my dream that I paid to fucking put out in the hope that the return on the investment would be good. and it has been. That's awesome, man. That gets us to the point where, you know, I, after the knee replacement, decided, like, I got to train for something.

Yeah. You go into the gym for the sake of health, real struggle. I barely give a shit. I barely give a shit. This is what, here's, you just hit an important point, so I have to interrupt. I'm sorry.

All these fitness trainers out there that are telling people, you know what you need to do, stop eating like an asshole and go to the gym. You know how fucking. hard that is for somebody. Like, I don't, it's not as easy as just making the decision. I am a former division one athlete. And for me, we're in a different, we're in a different ballback, right?

Like, we already have the physical language, language and culture in us because we've trained and got to see response and we've been healthy and know how to build muscle and we understand what foods are good. But most people don't even have that metric to start with. Yeah, but then they get into their 30s and don't know how to fucking train at all. And it's too, it's too much to want to go to the fucking. gym and not know what you're doing at this age and, you know, possibly be around a bunch of people who used to make fun of you.

Yeah, exactly. And you think that maybe are now. And that's my point, though. It's like, you know, for you, I'm the same way. Like, I just can't go to go. Like, I have to, I have to say I need to train for something. Like, this is something that I need to train for. And I think I have that now.

You know, you and I say it on air yet. Okay. Right. Because it was a partnership that you know about that I haven't announced. Yeah, right, right. So to me, that right there, you know, for me is more training for that because that has the potential to really blow up and be a big thing for me. And I need to be the part, right?

I love that. And look, whenever you do it, let's have you back on my show. We'll talk about it. I would love it, man. Especially if you're going to be in and out of St. Louis sometimes. Oh, dude, absolutely. So people. Yeah.

That's right. Because you're going to be Lewis now. Yeah, St. Louis, man. That's where my headquarters and everything is. Yeah, I think I'll be there very, very soon. Cool. I fucking know. Yeah, man. So,

kind of like getting back into training, like, I'd kind of finally healed up to the point where like, all right, I need something. And so I was trying to, you know, contemplate it, right? Because it's, it's fucking, it's a little daunting. Because, like, strength shit, like, that's really my bread and butter. And that's what I want to do.

But, like, physically I can't. Like, I'm never going to lift a PR again. And, yeah, great. I'm fucking 40. That's probably, I'm glad I found out how absolutely strong I could be when I was in pursuit of that. Yeah. And so all those things felt weird. I can't get back into throwing. Like I can't do it.

So I was like, fuck it. What about running? I've never run. I'm a big guy. And also, what a great lower the bar. I'm not going to be a world champion runner. There's zero fucking chance. There's no chance that 40-year-old 200 and fucking 50-pound me on a fake name.

knee is becoming a great runner. So the only metric I give a shit about right for training for this was how much better at running can I get in 16 weeks if I give a shit about it. And then at the end of it, I signed up to do a like ultra trail run. So like 20 mile trail run in Bryce Canyon, Utah. And I'm looking at it. And the completion time for like, you know, drop dead time is like seven hours. I got to move at like 2.6 miles an hour to finish this thing. That's walking.

So like I can finish. I'm not trying to go run the whole thing. I don't have a time I'm trying to win by. I don't care about any of those metrics other than I'd like to be in good enough shape to go to Bryce Canyon and do the event, enjoy it. And I would have put in enough effort that day that when I cross the finish line, I'm empty. That's it. And so I trained for it.

out and did it and filmed it and um the project's on my youtube channel called fragile and man it was great it was really good it uh was a big shift in me to go from being injured as long as i was to now like oh man i can take damage again like it's okay to push i'd been so scared for so long that any time it hurts fuck we're back we're back in this thing yeah now i'm aware that like all i can push again and deal with hurt because it does go away. Yeah. I think, I think it's a big thing,

dude, for former athletes and people that have accomplished a lot of things at a higher level is finding that one thing, right? It's finding that one thing and just training and make it about that. Put it on the calendar, you know, create a plan and burn the fucking boat,

right? Just literally go for it. Are you familiar with Michael Easter? Michael Easter. He's got to book a comfort. crisis. Okay. And so one of the things he talks about in the book, and I really love that book, he talks about this idea of a Masogi. And so like once a year, having some big challenge, like some big physical challenge for yourself. And like the rules of it are don't die. And when you

pick this challenge, it needs to be scary enough that you think as of right now, you got less than a 50% chance that you could finish it. That's awesome. And so I did the Bryce Canyon thing, trained for that, and that was fun. It took me a little over six hours to complete. And look, as an explosive thrower athlete, I've never done anything for six fucking hours. Yeah, exactly. And then the following year, last year, I decided to do a cycling thing.

And so there's a trail across Missouri called the KD Trail. It's 243 miles. and I set out to train for it, and I rode it in a day. So I rode for 21 hours, 22 minutes straight. And it was fun. That's freaking awesome. And the curiosity behind that was, like, if I can learn to hydrate and I can learn to fuel myself, what gives up first? Will my body actually give up first if I'm fueling it?

Or will this? That. Yeah. Yeah, you got to trick that. I want to know. Yeah. I mean. Like, I want to know.

When does it start saying, oh, shit. Because look, we'll stop when I can't move the bike any further. That's like, if we get to that point, great. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Not asking for any more than that.

Yeah. I think that's a good outlook on it, right? I mean, for me, when, when you're talking about, you know, don't die. And then also, there's a 50% chance you won't complete it if it were today. To me, it would be a marathon. on. Yeah. Or and a Spartan race. Sure. You know, something like that. And it's like, what I like to do is like a toy around that I'll look. I'll Google it. And I'm like, oh, that one's in Georgia. Ah, fuck, it's in Georgia. I'm not going to go do that. Got three kids.

I'm not going to fucking go to Georgia to do this. So, dude, like, I'm set. I'll do trail runs, but like they're an excuse to now go to a national park. It's beautiful. Right. Like, if I'm going to go do it, man, I'm here for the enjoyment. Exactly. So I'm going to dig into that because that's really cool man for me i've been telling myself for so long marathon marathon marathon it scares me the most yeah and so i just feel like you know conquering something like that it really shows the determination of the brand right it shows who you are as a person and for me i got to dig back into that so this has been an inspiring conversation for me thanks man yeah absolutely man i kind of figure it would be i knew we'd have some humor at the beginning to warm people up and if they

stuck around this long. There's a lot of really good things going on in this conversation. I heard one thing that you said that I really enjoyed and I picked up on. It was after your pop's passed away. And you just started talking about not dead yet. In the average life expectancy of the men in your family. And you started deducing like, okay, how much time do I have left? And then to me, that's where, fuck. That's beautiful. That's beautiful. 16. 12, 6, and 12 weeks left, right? At 31. At 31.

So talk to the audience about that, like kind of the perspective, walk them through that whole story because they may not have seen it or heard it. Sure. You know, my, in 2014, or, you know, 2013 in May, my dad gets diagnosed with pancreatic cancer. So we go through that awful process and my grandmother, we really, yeah, it's, you know, as soon as my mom got the news, right? And like, this is before we're even saying the term cancer. There's, there's just something.

There's a spot on a image or whatever it was, right? So I Google pancreatic cancer and I'm like, oh, I killed Steve Jobs. I was like, hmm, we're probably not going to get out of this one. Yeah. Yeah. And so, you know, watched over the next 11 months, man, like I just watched him fucking shrivel up and fade away. And to go from, you know, who my dad was. right like this outdoors guy and a strong guy and a capable man to not being able to get around the

house and go outside i remember the last time i put my hands on him man it just wasn't there he just was just wasn't there right and the fear of that was like i know the body goes at some point to to look at it from this perspective of like oh he's not sick in his head he's trapped But his brain still knows how to do all the things he loves and they're all just outside the door. He just physically can't fuck go anymore. And so having some real empathy for him, you know, through that process and kind of what clicked for me is, you know, there's a chance that that's how it goes. There's a chance to no matter what I do, what choices I make or anything that it ends fucking horribly with me shriveling up and fighting some awful fucking disease.

and losing all sense of who I am and everything. So the ride's got to be worth it. If there's a chance that that's how I go, the ride between here and there has to be worth it. And thinking about it at that point, right? So he's 62 when he passed, past the day before my birthday. And kind of reflecting more of that

was that just hit with bricks of you're halfway, you're halfway through your fucking life. And what does that really mean? What are we doing with our time? And what that means is I got 1612 weeks left to fucking do everything I've ever dreamed about. That's it. Get on the fucking clock, man, because just for perspective, 1612 weeks is gone. And how quick did it feel like we got here?

And so at that point, like really looking at each week. And so I have this jar of marbles that I keep that started with 1612 and now has 1100. 33 in it as of today, Sunday, be 1133, 3, 312 tomorrow. And I pull my marble out and I do some reflection and I journal. And the questions I asked myself was, how was it spent? Did I spend it doing a bunch of shit I feel obligated to do in my life that I'm supposed to do that I'm trying to live for other people and do all this? Or did I spend it being present around people I fucking love doing things to set my soul on fire and choosing to make progress all the time toward my goals? and my dreams.

Because either way, I put it in a fucking trash. It's not more valuable one way or the other. It's fucking gone. So if you're not getting any extra reward or you're not a martyr for one way and you're not a fucking special, you know, person for doing it the other, there's no risk. And so at that point, I just decided to live differently. Dude, it's one. And here's the thing, man. Like, I love that.

And it's a visual. It's a reflection. It's, you know, you're looking out. at that jar and you're like, okay, one more marble, one more week gone, then I live it according to me being present around the people who give a fuck about me and who I give a fuck about. You know, again, the large part of the population, right, is going to, in that face you're making, you know where I'm going with it, man. It's sad because they have that, they have that moment like you had.

And yet they can't get through week fucking two. And they wave their white flag and it's done. And they just said, you know what? I'm a passenger on the ship. And this is just what it's going to be. What would you say to those people? Look, man, if you're happy being a passenger, I ain't here to fucking argue with you. The truth is, I don't fucking care if you don't care about your dreams.

But if you do, I'm into it. And I think the biggest fucking rule of all is you're not allowed to let someone else care about your dreams more than you. It doesn't work that way. And I didn't sure don't care about someone else is more than mine. You should. And that's not like I don't get to be an asshole because of that. That doesn't mean I get to get in the way. It means I'm free to pursue my fucking dreams at whatever passion I want as long as I don't ever pretend it's more valuable than someone else in chasing theirs.

Right. I can't ever get in the way. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. You know, for those people that don't give a shit, right on, man. Right on. Because look, I'm fucking haunted by it. Yeah.

No, I hear you. I hear you. And it's funny because I'm, I'm getting to the point where I'm like thinking. And I don't know if you're a parent. But I start. Yeah, I didn't think so.

But I, I'm sitting there and I'm like looking at my kids. I'm thinking, fuck, did I do everything I could have today to stay healthy? And it's, you know, did I,

did I ingest anything that could come back and boomerang on my ass? Like, what's going on? Because those three children deserve to have me healthy in here as long as possible. And not just that, right? Like, look at the advantages, you know, so not having kids and being able to kind of reflect on things in life, too. Look, I really believe there's so much that comes from childhood that creates, like, our base self, you know, this idea that I have about, you know, we are this accumulation of the experiences and things that, that we're surrounded by the people

we're around the community we're in, right? Like, where did you grow up? I grew up in Concord, California, San Francisco. Okay. So I grew up in Louisiana. And so exposure to religion, all these type of things growing up, right? Like my mom being Methodist, my dad, you know, kind of being involved in the church thing, but we went every Sunday. And so one of those questions like I have from my mom is like, did you choose Methodist because it's the best philosophy that fits with what you agree with? Or are you Methodist because of where you were born? I've never thought of it that way. I was like, so if you were born on the other side of the world, be Muslim? Is it just that simply is what landed you here? Or did you choose Methodist because it best

fits what you align with? Did you look at the other options? Do you know what they are? And so like at that point, I kind of look at everything of creating the best self that I want to be from my base self. You know, my base self is what's generated by all those experiences. The who's and what's I was born around, the kids I went to high school with, what their parents were like, X, Y, and Z. And whether I was more into it or less into it. You know, whether my dad pushed me really hard and it made me go this way because I was turned off by it or I responded well, whatever it means. But nonetheless, I didn't pick any of those things.

But if I can honestly say that I am some accumulation of those situations, then to create the best to me, what are the situations he needs to be around that creates that? So that's picking the people that I want to be around. That's picking the material I want to consume and be, you know, that I want to integrate into my life. That's choosing things that are difficult. That's leading and taking action because it's those actions that make us who we are. Not what we say. What we say means jack shit.

Yeah. Yeah. It's the actions we take every day and like would your situation of having kids, man, I think about, you know, my parents were great. We're fucking, we're great. However, now that I'm, you know, 40 and trying to get other shit done, neither of my parents were entrepreneurs. I'm aware of what setback that is now. Oh, shit. Yeah.

I'm like, Jesus Christ, if I would have grown up in an environment that thought this way or looked at finances in some other way than what the typical boomer generation does of like money comes in and then we hold on to it forever. Yeah. Yeah, you can't do that. You know, it's like different ideologies, man. I feel that. Right. You know, if my parents would have said like, oh, when the money comes up. in look we bought this rental property because we still have access to the money and the way that

you can finance it and you can leverage equity to be able to Jesus Christ, why couldn't we have learned any of this? Yeah. Instead, I got fucking 10 weeks on diagramming sentences. Like you don't think maybe something a little bit more information, you know, could have helped. Yeah. Yeah. I failed diagraming sentences and have written three books.

So fuck use was that. Yeah. Seriously, I've written one that thing. Just one. But like mostly training manuals. They're nothing fancy. But there's, but there's, but there's three books. They're fucking books.

I said, I'm going to write a book and I wrote a book. You know who you need permission from to write a book? No one. You. You write a fucking book. You can publish it yourself. Everyone thinks there's some fucking gatekeeper in life that you're asking permission from. Dude, I think it's, I think it's where they're out of alignment with their confidence.

We talk about confidence. Confidence isn't something that is just there. It is earned on a day to day basis by the fact, like, are you keeping your fucking word? Like, are you keeping your word to yourself? And from that, you can either be very, very, very, very confident, or you can fall off and you can start to lose confidence. And when those people start to fall off and lose confidence, they have to- If they ever had it.

If they had it, exactly, right? They could go through their whole fucking life having to look for that external. Now, as athletes, we always kind of lived and died on what other people thought of us and what the accolades were. Did we perform well? But on a personal level, that has bled over into me as a young adult that I've really had to fix. It's like, dude, I got to tap into me a little bit more.

fuck what they think. I know what I'm capable of. I like the Sean French at six years old thought he could fly like fucking Superman. Right. Now probably probably not the best you know activity to try. But like dude we thought we could conquer the fucking world.

It's like be that kid. Be that child like I have big hopes and aspirations for this fucking thing and I'm not laying off. I am not laying off. I'm going to. No point of me as a kid said I'm going to hang out for 50 weeks a year under

fluorescent lights doing a job I don't like. Exactly. None. I know enough about me and the way that I've traveled and got to spend time and do things, and I've slept really fucking great in hammocks, and I've slept really fucking poorly in expensive beds.

Yeah. And so if that ain't the thing that does it for me, I'm damn sure not selling you my happiness for the idea of an expensive bed. I love it, man. I love it. I'll happily live in a fucking van and be a nomad. That'd be good. It's great fun. We leave tomorrow for a road trip. We got three weeks. Where are you all going? We're going to go up to the Upper Peninsula of Michigan. I've never done anything up there.

Okay. It should be kind of cool. A bunch of lakes on both Lake Superior, Lake Michigan. I've got a big stupid truck that's kind of overlanding rig. Okay. So roof tent and okay. Chick will disappear off the grid for as much as we can for the next three weeks. Look, the beauty of building the business I have is that I purposely built it to be remote. Like, I know I need to fuck off. Otherwise, I'll, I'll burn it all down. Like, I know I'll hit the fucking detonate button on my own shit.

I know this. Exactly, yes. Like, I'm done lying to me that I'll do that. Yeah. Yeah. Look, asshole. You know that you'll do this. You're going to fuck up.

You're going to hit it. Don't. Yeah, don't build yourself into that trap. Build a machine that you can leave. Mm-hmm. And that's a thing. Does that cost me probably revenue if I would have focused as much energy on my business? Sure.

But being super fucking rich isn't my goal. Yeah, exactly. Exactly. I spend my fucking weeks doing what I want to. Yeah. Yeah. I think that's the biggest misconception when people that don't know what I'm really trying to pull off understand. I'm not looking to be the fucking richest man on the planet. I'm looking to have more of the F word with my family as fucking freedom. Period. In the story. I want to be able to fucking disappear from tomorrow to a week from now. And everybody I love is with me. I don't need anybody's fucking permission. To me, that is a, life. That is what we should all be chasing, not permission from our boss, not, you know, permission to take PTO if we've performed well. That's not what we're here meant to do. Now, again, I'm not slamming W2 employees because I'm a W2 employee as well. But what I'm saying is, you have to think differently as it comes to terms of how you want to live your life,

because one is empowering and the other one is not. Yep. Yeah, both are both of the same action. It's the mindset. Yeah, man. And the mindset. Like one thing I've got to be able to admit, right? That my mindset on a situation does control my reality of it. You know, if I think I'm being attacked, most likely, I handle it that way and I respond poorly. And if I can act out of abundance and not take things personal and manage my side of the situation, I handle things differently and the progress goes another way. Yeah.

But the reality is my perception of it. Yeah. And so the better I'm in control of my own headspace, my mindset and my perception, I get to control my reality. and I can either look at challenges as opportunities to sharpen my fucking axe and prove that I'm capable of handling the next thing the universe wants to throw my way or I can cower. And failure is such a fucking lie. Yeah.

The fear of like, I mean, how many people I know that want to take a move and go all in on their own and they're scared because of financial or any of this. And so, you know, my questions are it's like, give it, give it, give it, hell with all the extra hours you've got, right? And don't quit your day job. Like, build this in your spare time. But if you can't, don't pretend you really want it. That's cool, too.

Yeah. I mean, for the audience, for the audience's reference, it's fucking Sunday. And here we are. Right. It's fucking Sunday. I'm recording a show of a badass fucking person. It's like, we do a week is anymore. I just, it's a fucking day, man.

It's a day. It's a day. But there's no day to just shut down, man. Like if you have a dream and it's something that you want to do to your point, do it in the hours that you can. Dude, I had an outside sales job, you know, similar to you, right? Like, I've got an outside sales job making somewhere 150 plus a year with a truck and all this other type of shit. But there's still some part of me that built a business in my spare time. Yeah.

Yeah. I think that lunatic. Yeah. I think that guy, whatever age was like, yeah, we'll give this a go. instead of putting my feet up and trying to go to fucking Gulf Shores again for another week. Yeah. Yeah. I've been.

I know how that fucking story plays. I don't want to be on autopilot anymore in my life. I want some part of my day dedicated to my future. Yeah. Yeah. I think it's important, man. I just think that, you know, there's got to be enough individuals out there willing to fucking be self-aware enough to know that. And it's just don't lie to yourselves, though.

If you don't take the time to do it, don't say you want it. because now you're just talking shit. Like that's bullshit. Like fucking be real. Even other little honesty shit that I catch myself with now, right? Of like, yeah, I'm a terrible carpenter and woodworker. You made that axe throwing thing. That was cool.

Sure. I fucking screwed some stuff together in a square. But there's part of me that's like, oh, I don't want to do that because I'm a bad carpenter of woodworker, right? Yeah. Yeah. And then if I look at it and say, but like I'll feel like, well, I'm not a runner. I'm not a woodworker, right? Like, it's some type of genetic trait that I should have had figured out by now.

Yeah. When, in fact, why the fuck would you be? You've never picked up a hammer. Mm-hmm. Like, maybe use a hammer for six months to see what you learn and decide if you're a woodworker. Mm-hmm. You can't do something once and just suck at it and say, like, well, I'm just not that guy. Dude, the rest of my life, I just want to be bad at shit and steal as many, like, white belt lessons.

I want all the beginner gains. Yeah. From as many different things as I possibly came. Bail once it gets hard. Let's go, man. That's fucking, that fucking, you know how that fucking line goes. That's it, right? They just feel all the beginner gains in as many things.

Like, imagine if you spent eight months doing jujitsu and move on to the next thing. Yeah. You've separated yourself from the bail curve of fucking people. Yeah, because you're constantly doing different shit. You're willing to suck at something. You know, and I think that is something that society is so scared to do. They're willing to fuck it to do. Man, you're only allowed to suck at stuff for so long.

Embrace it. Yeah. Yeah. just fucking go for it might as well i mean this show fucking sucked i mean it's sucked and i'm gonna look back and you know i'm fast forward 10 years i'm gonna look back i'm like man it sucked on that day because you have it's progress right like you're allowed to get better show everybody everything so everybody can see the journey that's inspiring right that's when people say like fuck i remember listening to not dead yet when it was the first episode now we're 300 episodes deep

but look at this motherfucker. Yep. You know? Yeah. We have a studio. We get to bring people in. Yeah. It's continued to grow, but it hasn't continued to grow because the show needs it.

It's because I want it. Because I want to put out the best quality product I can. That's what I'm excited about. Right. Like, I want to build a space that I'm inspired to work in. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. I built my own fucking spaceship that I'm inspired to hang out in and work with.

And so now it's been really fun here in St. Louis. We built dope. my studio. So that's a division of performance enhancement. That's cool. I'm here for anybody who wants to get fucking better, man. That's really cool.

When I'm out there, when I'm out there, I'm going to come see you, though, for sure. Please. I'm going to have to fly in a day earlier, stay a day more.

You're welcome to you. I got space here too. Be fucking dope, man. Yeah, I got space where you can crash with us. Sick, no. Sick.

Yeah, like I built out the space. It's all decked out with Sorinac stuff. I've worked with them a long time and built my podcast studio. in there and then now my like my my office is there so that's where I've just spent all day and I treat the gym now with it you know just being available all day and private in my own that like it's a it's like a full body fidget spinner that's fucking and so like through the day

like if I run into like a problem and I get frustrated like go fucking do a thing go do some come back that's it that's it right this one's great for me oh he's stressed again he's doing fucking arm curls and then we we randomly just decided my wife and I decided like, fuck it, let's open the door. And so we threw a Halloween party and just put it up on Instagram free for anyone who wants to come to, you know, my audience and her audience, hers is over 200 and mine's, you know, 100 plus. And let's see what happens. And what we realized is like real weirdos and people that talk shit don't show up in person. No, you don't.

Your people do. Yeah. So we had 80 people show up, man. And it's fucking awesome. I had some fucking dickhead today. Like all my boys like post. I'm like Derek Fay. He's here locally.

He's doing a lot of great things. He's blowing up. I support him. You know, I know what he's built here in our community. And I'm always just spewing positivity. And this is some asshole from New York with like a page of like 1600 people. It comes to me and goes,

stop with the bullshit. I'm like, I'm not. That's it. That's his whole response. With with stop. He goes at Sean, at the Sean French, stop with the bullshit. Crying face, crying face.

I was like, stop supporting my friends. Got it. Like, you know what? We're so conditioned, right, to like see that comment and give it a response. Fuck those people. I shouldn't have. I don't give them. So like any of that, right?

Like even the two minutes or 30 seconds it takes a response. Yeah. That's my energy that I could have put all my things. Yeah. Fuck those people. Yeah, good point. Good point. I have no interest in anyone who isn't into it.

Yeah. I'm talking to people with their fucking hands up. Yep. Yep. That's it. I only talk to positive comments. Yeah. I can fuck about these other people.

I'll happily block you. Fuck off. It's fucking crazy, man. It's just need you to support me. I don't get a shit. It wasn't even my post. I'm like, dude, I'm like, dude,

I'm like, dude, right. Right. Right. Support my dude here. Like, what the fuck, man. But,

I just don't have time for it. I'm just not interested, right? That, like, I surround, I'm in control of the energy I surround myself with, and I'm going to surround my, and I'll be fucking hard on that boundary. But that's me to hold. Yes, you come around with complaints and bullshit, we ain't hanging out. Yeah, I like it. I like it.

You got to go. It's fucking toxic, dude. It's toxic, right? Control what you can. Imagine, like, it's just like that oil and water, right? You just throw it together and it freaks out. Like, when you're in a certain energy and you're vibrating on a certain level and someone comes in, talks about how.

bad life is. You're like, the fuck you're alive. What are you going to do about it? Like, what are you going to do about it though? You're fucking alive. Like, I'm, I'm not, you know, I spent, you know, an hour and a half at my buddy's son service yesterday. I mean, that was fucked up. 18 years old, man. Like, yeah. Like, listen. And into your, into your point, not dead yet. Like, I'm still here. Like, and I don't know when that time's going to expire. So, like, I just, I just feel like more people need access to energy and more people need access to people like you because like brother like i absolutely love everything you're about and you're kind you're a nice guy you you're you're you're you're shooting to build something i'm even glad the nice guy thing kind of goes back historically right like i didn't

show up you kind of does like oh i just like you showed up at your doorstep to say hi yeah right not quite while i was there but oh my god oh man i i i tell you what you what i tell you what dude, I've, I've told that story so many times in my whole, since then, since then. Like, I- So when you, when you, I said, this is something I'm fascinated, right? Because your perception of that incident is so much different in my. I want to hear your perspective. Yeah, all right. So, so my story is, like, I figure out my chick's cheating on me.

I tracked down a phone number. I think I probably tried to call you. And like, I think you did. And then, like, of course, no one wants to fucking deal with me. I may have got your fucking number, your address from you. Seriously, I may have. And I'm like, dude, I'm not trying to fucking pick a fight with you. I just want to talk about this.

Yeah, I didn't know you were coming. Yeah. And so I did. And then it went over there. I'm sure I was nervous as fuck. Because like, you weren't on the other side of it. But I'm also showing up alone on a fucking bike. Yeah.

I know that this is the problem is, dude. There's four dudes at least hanging out in this apartment. And most likely they're about five to seven. Yeah. Right, exactly. Like, I'm going in there to fucking bring the ruckus and get the shit beat out of me. I'm aware of all those things, too, going into it. I'm sure when I knock on the door, I bet my heart was fucking pounding like shit.

You seem nervous, man. I'm sure. Yeah, and I was like, probably the same amount of nervous, dude. You know what I'm saying? Yeah. It's funny to me that, like, so you've retold that story. What is your telling of that story? So, like, my perception of that.

that story is knock knock right um my buddy i think i think it was a friend that answered the door and he's like i heard Sean French here and he's like yeah he's right here so i come up and you're like hey do you know you know Candace i'm like yeah you go that's my girlfriend and i'm like i'm sorry i didn't know i didn't know you want to like you want to come in because we were drinking yeah yeah yeah have some beers like you want to it's bad It was after dark. Yeah, it was fucking night. I mean, it's not like this motherfucker showed up in the daytime, okay?

At night. That's when shit goes down. So I'm like, okay, come in. Let's talk about this. You know, because I was nervous. And I, and at the point, I was like, a little scared. I'm like, this dude's huge, man. Like, I'm like, and I didn't know.

Like, if it, if I had any indication, it wouldn't have freaked me out so bad. I'd be like, tell that motherfucker I'm not here. Like, what the fuck? You know, but I didn't know. I'm like, who the fuck is this guy looking for me? I don't know this guy. You know, I saw you around, right? Like if we're running and puking on the track and like you're there working.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. You, but like, yeah, man. Like, so that's my perception of the events. Like, you came in and it was cool. We talked about it. I was overly apologetic, right? Yeah, I don't remember there being like any friction to our conversation whatsoever. We had a good time.

likely why it's a relatively, I mean, it would be a bigger memory if we ended up fucking having a brawl in your living room with like me and seven dudes. Exactly. Exactly. But it was memorable to me because like I remember stupid shit that I've done. Right. And yeah. And like, and I remember and I called my boy yesterday.

I was like, hey dude, do you remember that night? And he's like, yeah, why? I was like, well, I, me and this motherfucker are connected now. And we're going to hop on a show tomorrow. He goes, what? Really? I'm like, yeah, bro. I'm like, and he's just like, well, you know, to be, he's like, to be fair.

He's like, that night wasn't a big deal. Like he came in, we had some drinks. We kicked it. And that was it. And I'm like, fuck, man. But yeah, dude, that was the audience is like, we're going to hear this shit again. Like, fuck out.

Good. It's my show. Yeah, imagine anyone having that situation, repop up and connect to do like a professional thing later in life. I didn't say, hey, come stay at my house when you come to St. Louis. I promise on this podcast and talk to this guy, my ex-girlfriend, Blue. It's great times. My listeners are like, oh, my God, Sean, you did.

Yeah, come, come stay with me in St. Louis so I can kill you with one of my hatchets. It's like, you know, but I do. Jesus, man. Unreal. But listen, we've got to land the plane here. Yeah. Absolutely super psyched. We're adults now.

we're connected. We got a friendship now and we're going to be seeing a lot of each other. I'm sure I'm going to be on your show. And just because I'm going to share this as well, where can my audience find all your stuff? Yeah. So they can find the Determined Society on Apple, Spotify, you know, what's the other ones?

Iheart radio, Google cast, all the fucking major platforms. And then my, my Instagram handle, you have that, you know, all that good shit. So,

you know, they can come on over and, you know, they can have fun conversations with me there. And I'm jacked up, dude. This is going to be, it's going to be great. I'm looking forward to many more interactions and much more laughter. And, dude, you just enjoy your fucking three-week vacation. I'll try not to bother you.

I try to have as many once-in-a-lifetime trips a year as possible. That's fucking awesome, man. We just got back from 10 days on a motorcycle. Because I did that thing with Indian last year. We did three big, like, 1,000-mile road trips that we filmed. I wish it off. So much more than we could chew on production. Fuck.

Filming four people on bikes, like with a gimbal behind a van and like two cameramen. And like, we're doing all of it. We didn't fucking hire anyone. It's me and my 26 year old cameraman and a buddy of mine from Baton Rouge. We got it done, though. You're going to teach me how to fucking produce my shit because I fucking fuck at it. Like I did the video, the cutting it up. I just like, dude, need to learn it.

Right on. So all right man, look dude, I'll be in touch and thank you so much for giving the audience so much to think about and learn about and you know showing who you are to them. I really appreciate it. Yeah, thank you man. I appreciate the time. Of course, my brother. Talk soon.