The Ultimate Human with Gary Brecka - 99. Flex Lewis: 7x Mr. Olympia’s Blueprint to Staying on Top

Episode Date: September 24, 2024

In this inspiring episode of the Ultimate Human podcast, host Gary Brecka sits down with 7x Mr. Olympia champion Flex Lewis to discuss his incredible journey from a small-town Welsh kid to a bodybuilding legend and successful entrepreneur. Flex shares the mindset and principles that propelled him to the top of the bodybuilding world and guided his transition into business. Don't miss this opportunity to learn what truly separates champions from the rest, and see how you can apply these lessons to your own life! Connect with Flex Lewis: Listen to "Straight Outta the Lair Podcast" with Flex Lewis on all your favorite platforms: https://bit.ly/47xh0Fa For more information on Flex Lewis’s “The Dragon’s Lair Gym” visit: https://bit.ly/4eval0x Follow Flex Lewis on Instagram: https://bit.ly/4e8dUK9 Follow Flex Lewis on YouTube: https://bit.ly/4gz5Pjm Follow Flex Lewis on TikTok: https://bit.ly/3TwnGOb Follow Flex Lewis on X.com: https://bit.ly/4gpDbBr Follow Flex Lewis on Facebook: https://bit.ly/4eu9Un9 00:00 ​Intro of Show and Guest 10:53 ​First Show of Flex 12:15 ​Journey to the British Nationals 17:53 ​Flex’s Mentality and Motivation 26:31 ​Signing a Contract with Weider Publications 30:09 ​Same Mentality Applied for His Business 42:05 ​Grand Opening of The Dragon’s Lair Gym in the Midst of Covid 51:39 ​Cultivating a Culture at His The Dragon’s Lair Gym 58:38 ​Seeing Potential from His Clients 1:02:36 ​Winning in Competitions 1:04:28 ​What’s Next for Flex Lewis? 1:06:07 ​​Final Question: What does it mean to you to be an “Ultimate Human?” Get weekly tips from Gary Brecka on how to optimize your health and lifestyle routines: https://bit.ly/4eLDbdU PLUNGE - Use code “Ultimate” for $150 off your order of the best cold plunge & sauna in the US: https://bit.ly/3yYE3vl EIGHT SLEEP - Use code “GARY” to get $350 off Pod 4 Ultra: https://bit.ly/3WkLd6E ECHO GO PLUS HYDROGEN WATER BOTTLE: https://bit.ly/3xG0Pb8 BODY HEALTH - Use code “ULTIMATE20” for 20% OFF YOUR ORDER: http://bit.ly/4e5IjsV KETTLE AND FIRE PREMIUM & 100% GRASS-FED BONE BROTH - Use code "ULTIMATEHUMAN" for 20% OFF YOUR ORDER: https://bit.ly/3BaTzW5 Discover top-rated products and exclusive deals. Shop now and elevate your everyday essentials with just a click!: https://theultimatehuman.com/amazon-recs Watch “The Ultimate Human Podcast with Gary Brecka” every Tuesday and Thursday at 9AM ET on YouTube: https://bit.ly/3RPQYX8 Follow The Ultimate Human on Instagram: https://bit.ly/3VP9JuR Follow The Ultimate Human on TikTok: https://bit.ly/3XIusTX Follow The Ultimate Human on Facebook: https://bit.ly/3Y5pPDJ Follow Gary Brecka on Instagram: https://bit.ly/3RPpnFs Follow Gary Brecka on TikTok: https://bit.ly/4coJ8fo Follow Gary Brecka on Facebook: https://bit.ly/464VA1H SUBSCRIBE TO: https://www.youtube.com/@ultimatehumanpodcast https://www.youtube.com/@garybrecka Download “The Ultimate Human with Gary Brecka” podcast on all your favorite platforms: https://bit.ly/3RQftU0 The Ultimate Human with Gary Brecka Podcast is for general informational purposes only and does not constitute the practice of medicine, nursing or other professional health care services, including the giving of medical advice, and no doctor/patient relationship is formed. The use of information on this podcast or materials linked from this podcast is at the user’s own risk. The Content of this podcast is not intended to be a substitute for professional medical advice, diagnosis, or treatment. Users should not disregard or delay in obtaining medical advice for any medical condition they may have and should seek the assistance of their health care professionals for any such conditions. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

From a very young age, I was always intrigued by muscle. At that point in time, Gary, nobody at that age was putting in that level of conditioning. I suffered. And I suffered hard. Blood in the water. When you're a bodybuilder, it's just you against yourself. How did you do it for so long, so many times? Self-belief. And nobody believing in me.

And it was just me, myself, and I. I am going to do this, and I'm going to find every way in which I am going to become the number one bodybuilder. The show day came, I ended up winning that show, and I was going to be done. But more reasons to go into much more on how you can improve, because I truly believe you can't call yourself a champion unless you defend it. I don't think a lot of people saw the struggle.

The work is done in the unseen. Suffer, suffer hard. And that has been the blueprint. It was not going to be a plan B. I just left it. I just came to the United States and I slept on the sofa for a year and a half. And I said, you know what? This is it.

I'm all in. What are you doing now to bring these young bodybuilders up that have a dream? When you're not in the gym, your focus is feeding the machine and recovering the body. With these younger guys, they should be having the bar up so high. They don't even have goals. Because if you want to achieve X, you've got to... Ultimate Human.

I had so much fun today with our next guest, Flex Lewis, on the podcast. Not is he only a seven time Mr. Olympian. Now just think about that. Seven Mr. Olympian titles in the 212 weight division, as well as a number of IFBB championships and all kinds of other accolades as a bodybuilder. But it's actually the man that he is, that entrepreneur behind the scenes, that grit, that tenacity, that conquer at all costs attitude that he had when he was alone and we didn't have anybody else in his corner, no mentors. How did he set that mindset

to get to the next level? There's again, so much to unpack on this podcast, guys. You're going to fall in love with Flex Lewis like I did. He's not just an accomplished bodybuilder. He's an accomplished family man. He's an accomplished entrepreneur. He's an accomplished mentor and a coach. And what he's doing right now for the younger community to bring exercise back into this community as a way to solve some of the problems that you're facing in life. You're going to really enjoy this podcast. Hey guys, welcome back to The Ultimate Human. I'm your host, human biologist, Gary Brekka, where we go down the road of everything anti-aging, biohacking, longevity, and everything in between. And today's guest has a special niche in my heart. We were actually talking before the podcast,

and I was like, you are exactly the kind of human being that I want to give a voice to. Not that he needs a voice. He's very well known um welcome to the podcast seven time mr olympian flex lewis brother i am so pumped to run this with you man um you know i i've actually followed your journey and um not not in real time but you know i i heard about you so many people that we know in common speak so highly of you and And so I started to, you know, going down the rabbit hole of flex, the flex rabbit hole and like, who is this guy? What, you know, what makes him tick? Because, you know, in my world of longevity, anti-aging, biohacking, I found a common theme between the people that are making the greatest impact in the world and a characteristic

that they all seem to share. And that is that they solve some kind of problem in their life. And when they solve it, it could have been drug and alcohol addiction, could have been a bad relationship. It could have been, they were always the underdog. It could have been, you know, trauma or it just could have been their desire to be the best, but they solved this problem. And that's what drove them and kept them at the top of their game because I'm impressed by anyone that can win a Mr. Olympian. I'm all struck by somebody who can do it seven times. So, so tell me a little bit about that. Like what, what was their problem in your life that you saw? What was, your motivation how do you you know go from being this scottish kid um yeah close enough to whatever this is my podcast um i'll decide what nationality you are you wouldn't be able to understand my

accent interpreting thank you good start yeah good start but you know it took to a seven time i mean the biggest stage in the world yeah um it's it was it's definitely been a journey no question i would say from a very young age i was always intrigued by muscle and there was nobody around me that trained my dad wasn't training obviously my mom wasn't uh no uncles, no cousins, anything like that. But I was always drawn in to somebody who had a little bit more muscle on that frame. We mentioned, you know, just before going on air, we were talking about the WWF days. Yeah, yeah, yeah. The Hulk Hogan. The Hulk Hogan, Ultimate Warrior, Macho Man. All them guys definitely had a impact in my life.

Subconsciously, probably at that point in time. But rugby was my sport of choice and truly being in in the town that I came from oh that's out of the world huge yes that that is the main sport yeah so as a kid you I was playing rugby from six years old got my nickname flex from that and um it it transitioned into the thought of this is going to be my career at the tail end of it. So I found myself getting into the gym very early, 12 years old is when I first touched the weight. Yeah. And I can go into more context if you want. I found a book on Tom Platz when I was 12 years old and it blew my mind. Tom Platz was known for his legs obviously during the golden era with arnold schwarzenegger and my auntie was a nurse in london she was doing tropical diseases she came

back she attended sorry she attended a tom platt seminar tom was doing these tours of the uk all over the world but the american appeal of what he had and obviously wrapped in the arnold era as well he had a big crowd. My auntie attended, watched the seminar, listened to him. Very intriguing, very interesting. Got his book, brought it back to Wales, put it in my grandparents' house. 12 years old.

Well, put it in my grandparents' house, me being the nosy little 12-year-old kid that I was. Right, right. I found this book in this room that I was staying in and I pulled it out and it blew my world. I was like, how are legs possible how is that how is that possible and i seen a young photo of tom i think he had just won the the team usa and he's standing next to somebody else and i was like wow this guy is what at that point i'm

like eight years older than me blew my mind so i went into my uh my father's shed that was locked up. I waited for him to leave. There was an old weeder weight set there. I was going to bring up the weeder, like weeder nutrition and all that. I remember growing up with that stuff. Yeah. It was the old, can you remember the plastic coated weeder weight sets? Yes.

Sand inside them. Yeah. You could do sand and he even came out with some of that water at one point. Yeah. I think that was an epic fail, but yeah remember the sand it was plastic and if you set it down too hard it would crack and the sand would leak absolutely yeah thankfully that didn't happen in my little little bedroom of mine but i managed to get it through the house before my parents came back and i looked at this book i was like okay this is what i guess this bar is doing obviously

i didn't know the terminology there was a barbell fixed bar corroded weights couldn't put weights on couldn't put weights off and i put on my back off my bed literally put it off and i done one rep one rep turned to two reps three reps and um still at 12 years old you know i think the huffing and puffing uh that was occurring in my little bedroom at that point in time definitely know what your mom thought you were doing they provoked some interest my dad came through the door thinking something else and i think he came in with his eyes closed and was like oh it's okay but you can't do that so that was put away from a very young age but but again the mindset was planted the seed was planted and rugby as i mentioned was my main sport but the physicality of rugby you have to have a foundation and the position I played I was a speedster I played on the wing okay so um is probably the guy that either never gets the

ball or you've got to look for it I was the guy that went to look for the ball and it had to be physical in in that too so I started really incorporating more weights with the the rugby set of things and then I started being around more different athletes, powerlifters, bodybuilders, started competitively powerlifting. And then I was like, I love this, but I like the bodybuilding set of things. Yeah. And that was the chase then for just putting size on.

That lit the spark. And it lit the spark. And the gym owner said to me one day, he's like, if you want to compete, I'll give you a free gym membership. Really? if you want to, um, want to compete, I'll give you a free gym membership. If you're competing for a show. I mean, I was broke.

I mean, I was. Yeah, but nobody, nobody at that age knows, knows what to do. I mean, there's no path for you. I mean, there's gotta be a mentor that comes into play. No, this is just a grind. This, at that point in time, Gary, uh, 19 years old, I'm looking at the show poster thinking, this is going to save me a lot of money if I do this show. I've done so many different sports, rugby, track and field, high level stuff, boxing, gymnastics. So I was like, okay, this is another feather to the hat.

I'll do it. And I said, why not? I threw myself in the mix, went to the local library, picked up some books, nutritional books, went and bought the latest Flex magazine. And at that point in time and if you've been a reader of flex for a number of years that's been around for as long as we yes that's the og of bodybuilding so there was um a diet posted in there from a 300 pound bodybuilder gunter schurkamp his name was and they never posted but diets back then in these magazines it was such a rarity and i said okay this guy's eating eight meals a day i'll dissect this i'll take all the carbohydrates out

well you were famous for your 8 000 calorie a day diet i've read about that too i'm like shit i don't think i've eaten 8 000 calories since i got to vegas four days ago i haven't eaten it since but going back on onto that onto the show i I said to myself, I'm doing this. You know, hail, hell, water, whatever it is, I'm doing this show. It's a free gym membership. Little did I know it was going to cost me more money in food to prep for that first show than I would have just paid the gym membership. But the journey to that first show was absolute hell.

I was my own captain on my ship, but I was so stubborn that I was going to get this free gym membership. And everybody around me see me going from the jacked, the lad, the cock, you know, and the cocky, the confident little winger, redheaded kid who was the smallest but the biggest mouth to them being super quiet. And everybody was like, when is this ending? Wow. I was just so tired, all the time lethargic but steadfast show show came uh show day came i ended up winning that show and i was going to be

done i was going to go back into you won this on your own no mentor no guide no nutritionist no no coach nothing wow and obviously ever be in the gym is uh an expert right and this is the this is the conversations that went down in my little gym flex when's the last time you had a baked potato two days ago i have two tomorrow okay just random people really yeah it was just it was just me myself and i and ad lib from whoever really cared about my uh my sanity wow um i managed to do it. I won the, what would be the equivalent of the teens or under 21 class. Yeah. And the first timers, the novice.

That hook was set too, right? I mean, that feeling that you had, the sense of accomplishment. Absolutely. Now you're a competitor. I was done, but I was done. One and done. Just the feather on the hat. And had it not been for, do you want me to,

yeah, okay. I want to, this is the journey I want to talk about. Absolutely. So, and this is a big critical part of it, actually. The judges at that table awarded me first place in both under 21 and the

novice and their big shows. Bodybuilding is very popular in, especially in South Wales. And this was the Mr. Wales. And I won the show walking out with my trophies, my parents and they're like oh thank god this is done you will live in hell i know i'm sorry you know i'm eating

chocolate now it's like everyone's happy i'm not such an asshole no i know i got a few cards and i jump into the car and i get a little knock on the window i open open the window my parents are sitting in the front seat and it's the head judge and he says me flex you're doing the british nationals right i said respectfully sir i i know who you are and thank you very much for the compliments and he was the head judge i said no this is done for me i'm going to go back to rugby that's that's what's coming up and my parents were like yeah he's going back to rugby you know yeah you don't have to live with him. No, that's exactly it. The head judge at the time said, you should represent,

you should go to the British and represent Wales. Now, when you hear these, especially when you come from a small country, in part the British, you know, UK, Wales is the red-headed stepchild of the UK. So once you start mentioning, representing your country, and you give a little brave heart speech right next to my car,

minus the horse in the first place. Oh yeah, yeah, yeah. So I was like, I'm ready to go. Yeah, let's go.

Yeah. And I'll, I'll, I'll leave the conversation of F this person, F that country, F that country. But again, it's,

it's a mindset thing. And I look at my parents, they're looking about me. And he said to me, how about if I help you with a diet, finding out that I never done anything. And I was like, look at my parents, they're looking about me. And he said to me, how about if I help you with a diet? Finding out that I never done anything. And I was like, look at my parents. How long?

Four weeks until the British. And they said, okay, as long as you help him with a diet. That was 21 years ago. That's still my coach to this day. Are you kidding me? Wow. I believe in loyalty. Now, I've heard you talk about this coach.

If it's this, it's got to be the same one. And how he would make this transition like a light switch from a friend to a coach. And the transition wasn't really fun, right? Because he, I mean, once he told you, hey, Monday, I'm, you know, we go into contest prep and I'm your, I'm your coach, all of a sudden the level of accountability just skyrocketed. Right. I mean, and you're not just your responsibility to your, to yourself and to your goal, but like the amount, the way that he held you accountable. I've really found that fascinating because I really do think that, you know, so there's the problem that you solved, but I really do think that, you know, so there's the problem that you solved.

But I really do think that people are shaped by these coaches, you know, these mentors that come into their life. I mean, I've had many of them, my father's being one of them, but I've had several mentors. And they've really shaped the direction of my life. So now he's, he takes you to this next competition four weeks later. How did that go? I won. There you go. Not only do I win. Oh do i do now you have two hooks in dude you're not going anywhere i'm done you're done so i i win this show and this was a british nationals of course there's there's actually athletes that are a year older than me there so when you're competing as a

under 21 i was 19 at the time but that year difference especially as a under 21, I was 19 at the time, but that year difference, especially as a teen is, it'd be gross, like a sponge. So there was guys that I was standing against a year older than me because I had another year left. Right. That had already done a couple of circuits prior to that. So they were like seasoned teen competitors, if you know what I mean. Right.

But then standing against these it was from the the seats and looking at the stage that mind that that the eyes eye of looking at these guys saying i don't know if i'm i'm at that level right but i was you were the only way that i was going to find out was throw myself into the mix and that's what we done we threw myself in yeah neil took over the complete diet within that four weeks i was six pounds heavier body fat was significantly down straight the glutes hamstrings everything crazy and nobody at that age was putting in that level of conditioning i suffered right and i suffered hard and that has been the blueprint from my very first diet under neil to my very last diet at the mr oia. If you look at the blueprint and the structured diet,

you can see things have changed and evolved over the years. Right. You know, with, especially with quality, ounce sizes, stuff like that. Mm-hmm. Protein. This is a science. Yes, yes, yes, yes.

And with looking at that blueprint, you could see that this is evolved from the very first show. Yeah. But you can identify it as my diet, if that makes sense. If it ain't broken, why try and fix it? Right. The work is done in the unseen. Suffer, suffer hard. Suffer, suffer hard. Ever wonder how elite athletes recover faster and stay energized? it's the science of cold water therapy.

Hi, I'm Gary Brekka, and I want to introduce you to Plunge. Plunge helps to soothe your sore muscles, boost your energy levels, and improve mental clarity. It's a powerful way to support your immune function and enhance your mood. Ready to transform your health? Take the Plunge. Change your life. Visit Plunge.com and shop now. Now let's get back to the ultimate human podcast.

You know, I, I had Michael Chandler on the podcast yesterday and, and, um, you know, I think there's a lot of similarities between bodybuilding and fighting in that they're very individual sports. You know, you don't have this sort of team camaraderie around you, your responsibility to like 11 other guys or 20 other guys in the locker room every day to kind of give you the motivation when you don't have it. you so i assume you just got to rely on discipline because it's it's got to be consistency over time yeah and and and nothing else consistently suffering and consistently being disciplined but there's a lot of times when nobody's looking at you you know nobody's watching you're you're you're you're i mean you could sneak and cheat you could

if if you wanted to and nobody would know i mean your coach would probably know because he would look at your body you're like he would know what we got going on yeah he would know but what i'm saying is like you know i i find these journeys to be really particularly inspiring because they're very they're very self-reliant journeys absolutely like and i think so many of us when nobody's looking you know we compromise on our own goals right and we're we you know when you're in you're in a team in a group sport you've got a lot of other reasons to be motivated but you know when you're when you're a fighter um or when you're a bodybuilder it's just you against yourself i mean and i'm sure that those those

demons in your head had to, had to be tough too. I mean, to wake up and be like, do I really want to punish myself again today? Cause it's going to suck. And it's, and so, I mean, talk a little bit about how you develop that, that mentality and that mindset, because what I want to get to is how did you do it for so long? So many times, right? I really feel like there's a country music song and it's like, I'm not as good as I once was, but I'm as good once as I ever was. Something like that.

But there's a country music song and it was like, and I just, I feel like anybody, it's like the one hit wonder, right? Anybody can get to that peak of that mountain and grab that prize like you were going to do in your very first competition and say, hey, I'm putting the metal on the wall and I'm, and I'm going back to rugby because I actually love rugby and this sucked, right? Winning was cool, but it did suck. This is freaking suck, but you didn't. And you did it repeatedly.

So like something inside you had to be you know that motivating factor maybe more than just impressing your coach maybe was I just want to be the best version of myself I want to prove it to myself um you know talk a bit a little bit about that how did you keep that motivation over such a long time great question very loaded because this has so many different elements to answer that question so I'll dive in first with my humble beginnings that that blue collar work ethic that i see my dad and my mom install into us kids truly is in my heart and my soul to this day how many siblings do you have i have two other brothers and i have a sister that uh is cousin but she's my sister okay so we brought into the family she's uh

she's also an exceptional rugby player. My brother was a rugby player. Really? Yeah. Okay. Welsh cap. My sister plays for Wales Women's. So we'll go into that.

Amazing. We can go into so many different directions. So you've got a little bit of overachievers in the family as it is. We definitely got that in the blood. And I think that with, just to answer that, with me being the oldest and kind of leading from the front, that mentality and the conversations I used to have with my, my brother and sister. Yeah. Um, whether it's subconsciously or consciously planted them seeds, it's kind of like leading from the front. Like you, you have to be that first to practice last to leave.

You have to be part of that culture. You have to be part of that community and you have to be an add value even though you're part of that team you know you can blend in to that rugby team we're talking about team sports yeah but even when i was on the team sports i made sure that um i was was leading from the front in terms of mentality riling up the guys you know giving the speeches even though i wasn't the captain i took it upon myself to put that in but my brother has uh played super high level rugby much higher than me and my sister obviously playing for wales too but but to have that in my family too is very prideful for me of course being in the u.s i can only support from afar but uh my brother just moved here now he's the coach for the chicago hounds rugby team so is he really yes yes shout out to your brother that's all flex is full of stories got it so i'll stick

i'll stick to the point yeah um but yeah no we both have adhd so we got to like stay stay under control here you keep me you keep me you keep me and i keep you we'll be down the road talking about go-kart racing here in a few minutes like this is completely off topic now it's to do with mindset flex for the record he was making up words before the podcast like we are he's like i'm gonna wait with it because of my accent like but it wasn't a word in your in your vocabulary not in mine so the mindset has definitely been um just homed in on over the years yeah you find your why and my why back then was after i had the opportunity to come to the united states there there was um there was an interest that for me being the rugby player being

the track and field guy when i i realized that i my gosh i have potential to do this you know being recognized by other people outside of my coach. This is obviously in the bodybuilding journey. Fulfilled something in me where I was like, wow, maybe I should pursue this. Maybe I should. So I got on the plane and I came to the United States at 19 years old. I did a photo shoot with Flex Magazine. And when I landed and I came to this incredible country,

the glass was half full. And I seen everything that I wanted. I was scared. I was motivated. And when you have them feelings, and it's a pendulum of feelings, it's like, why am I scared? You're scared because you know that you're going to take the chance to come here and you're just going to leave everything to chase this.

So that's what I done. At a very young age, actually at a very young age, I started my first business, which is a moving company. And we can talk about that later. But I built this up from nobody believing in me, scaled it. One young businessman in the US award, nobody believed, as I said, in me starting it. But then at the end, they were like, you guys, you're foolish

to give this up to come to the United States and chase this bodybuilding dream. So this was successful over there. Yeah. Yeah. And it was from the same, all this, everything I'll talk about through this podcast is all going to be a transcendent story of self-belief. Yeah. And nobody believing in me.

And it was just me, myself and I. Yeah. And when I came to the United States, that's what it was. You know, nobody believed, like I said, in the business. was able to scale it and and I didn't even sell it I just left it it was not going to be a plan b I just came to the United States and said I am going to do this and I'm going to find every way in which I am going to become the number one bodybuilder better mind the delusion Gary Ronnie Coleman was the champion oh boy boy. That was a, yeah. Self-belief.

Formidable adversary. There was, yeah. There was no other classes at the time. There wasn't, you know, there was no 212 class. There was just the open. And I said, you know what? This is it. I'm all in.

I put it all in and I came here with very little money. I slept on the sofa for a year and a half. I kept on turning up, turning up, turning up to a point. It's consistency in turning up. Yeah. And there was photo shoots going on every single day at this gym that I was training at. And I purposely moved from Venice, Gold, believe it or not, but every course to myself included to change my life and nothing was happening. But I found out there was a photo shoot gym for Flex Magazine in Fullerton, California, industrial area.

I jumped in the car and i said well this is where i'm going and me turning up every single day staying in shape i managed to have through the mishap of professional athletes under the weed of contract for not being in shape they said uh welsh boy yeah couldn't remember my name welsh boy cameras already set up jump in yeah and that little article was enough for me to keep on going. It was probably like four postcard sizes in the corner of a Flex magazine. And every time I would speak to my mother, she would say to me, okay, when you're coming home, when you're coming home,

proper worry. Yeah. Worry your mom. Yeah. And I would give her what she needed to hear. Know what? I really could tell her. Yeah.

Which was nothing's happening, mom. I'm on my last dimes here. Not what I really could tell her. Yeah. Which was nothing's happening, mom. I'm on my last dimes here. That's what I could have said. Yeah. But what I said was, mom, this is incredible. You won't believe I met this person. I had a photo shoot. It's coming out.

I also lay myself into the fact that this is going to be a long-term endeavor. It's a marathon, not a sprint. Yeah. Just get me in the room all i need to do is be in front of somebody just strike strike that conversation and make sure that person remembers me right and that's being also the same thing throughout my life is making that impact it's like when you and i met right yeah you you made an impact to me and i hope i done the same with the same thing for you. It's just that quick, little fast conversation.

It's like whatever you can do in that moment, as long as Gary goes away saying, man, that was a good guy. I'd like to see him again. And I said the same thing for you and here we are, but that's, that's been my, my goal since I came here at 19 years old. And, um, but again, Gary, I had every opportunity to go home. More reasons to go home and pick up my moving company than to stay. But through perseverance and turning up and having that why, I was able to then get my first contract at 20 years old

when I was honestly, that paycheck, I was at Ralph's supermarket. I had one of these pay-as-you-go phones. And there's 310 number calls. And not many people have my number. I look at it and I go, I better answer this. And I open it up and it's a guy called Peter McGough. And Peter McGough was under Joe Weider. And Peter McGough said, Flax, us at Weider Publications would be honored

if you'd love to, be honored for you to sign with Weider Publications. So I was the first and last, I was the second amateur, maybe third amateur actually, but the last athlete to be signed with Joe Weider before the magazines disbanded. Really? And I was there for six years with them under contract and it changed my life it was not

much money it was $2,500 but that can be all the money in the world depending on where you are and I had probably in my pocket a hundred and something dollars left so that was in this pocket yeah and I'm buying groceries yeah and that was it and then i get the call in this hand and it was just like my goodness and i'm in bodybuilding the highest honor in sponsorships was to be signed by joe eater yeah and i was able to live that chapter of my life before social media took over so i was one foot in magazine and i lived that life and then i remember that magazine i remember all the products and the whey proteins and i mean it was and i lived that life and then i remember that magazine i remember all the products and the whey proteins and i mean it was massive massive at that time i mean

joe was such a it was the only brand really yeah um i mean they own that space so so now you you know when you get to the stage and have your first real win here in the u. um, now that hooks, you know, reset you're, you're, you're on this journey. Um, what, what is astounding to me again is, is that, um, you know, you, you get that first win and instead of leveraging it and going out and immediately becoming an entrepreneur or leveraging it and going straight into the gym space, which eventually you did. And I want to talk about that. Um, you know, you went back to the grind to take another title. And then you did that six more times. Yeah.

So, and this coach that followed you from Europe to here, did he physically come to the States? Right now, he lives five minutes away from my house. You are loyal, man. When I eat, I make sure that everybody else eats so when i had these contracts at a very young age i made sure that these were not that he was asking for anything i just want to preface that yeah he done everything for free but when i would go with the to have these conversations with certain supplement companies or potential sponsors i

would negotiate my contract. And I said, oh, I know we've agreed on this, but the add-on is my coach. So I would structure the contract and then I'd be like, well, this is the caveat. So they would sign me and they would sign my coach. So every supplement company I got sponsored by, my coach was also sponsored by that same company.

Wow, good for you for that loyalty, man. Absolutely. But it's an easy pitch. You'll say, okay, you want to have the most knowledgeable coach uh talking about why these supplements work or what training you know why we're doing this type of training today then unfortunately you won't be able to be on the videos if he's not part of the part of the circle yeah yeah so i was like it makes sense guys that's so awesome man i love that mentality that the tide raises all the boats you know the same way that I run my platform. I mean, I deeply appreciate that. And then what I also

love about you is that when the competitions ended, you know, and this incredible storied career in bodybuilding ended, it seems like the entrepreneur in you sort of took over right and and that fearless sort of hard driven mentality that you had you then decided you had this dream of having this gym which has become a reality now um but unfortunately for you that dream's starting to come true during the pandemic right and which i think is is the most uncertain time in our nation's history. Cause you know, when you, it's, it's fine to look back now, but when you're in it and we all lived through it, we didn't know how long it was going to last.

We didn't know when it was going to end. We didn't know how much more oppressive the regulations were going to become. I mean, gyms were hit. I mean, hair salons, they were hit the hardest. They were like, absolutely not essential, which for somebody like me, I'm like, they were hit the hardest. They were like absolutely not essential. Yeah. Which for somebody like me, I'm like, people need to be moving and exercising, like building their immune system. That's one of the cleanest places too, right? Let's be honest. Yeah.

Well, if you've got a good gym anyway. Yeah, if you've got a good gym. It's absolutely essential. And I've listened to your story. And what I appreciated was you initially tried to do it on the DL. I heard you tell a story about how you flew out here and there were four fans on the plane to recognize you trying to sneak in under the wire. They started to post it. Um, so everybody knows that flex is in town. Um, so talk a little bit about the journey to, you know,

to building and getting this gym open. Um, and you know, I, I, I loved your story about how you guys did it under the cloak of night. You know, you covered all the windows how you guys did it under the cloak of night. You know, you covered all the windows and like people carpooled to the gym. You've done some research. Yes. I've done some research. Like I said, man, I'm taking a deep dive on you.

And I love it. It's very inspiring. Thank you. Because even for somebody watching this podcast, it's like, well, I don't really have what it takes or nor the desire to become, you know, a Mr. Olympian, but I do want to chase my dream of having X, Y, and Z business. And I think there's, they're exactly parallel. set that I developed in bodybuilding where as I mentioned earlier come hell or high water I am doing that show that date is set and that that mentality within the bodybuilding community transitions and should be able to transition so well into business or into other things and really think about it yeah so think about like okay I'm going to open up a business yeah it's going to it's going to be tough you're going to have sleepless nights you're going to be stressed same thing as a show.

You know, all the controllable variables that you have going into prep, you can structure your diet, cardio at this time, go to bed at this time. But then the other elements of life that get thrown into the mix, well, it's part of it. But you will end up doing that show. So that mentality and transitioned into businesses never moved for you as a date you're either ready on that day exactly exactly and that mentality i transitioned into everything i've done in life business especially so uh you have a plan or make

a plan or plan a fail so in terms of the gym uh the the gym started off as a private facility in boca raton i was uh i know obviously you're a florida resident i was trying to get you over there before i moved to to uh to las vegas but this gym truly became something of a of a hot spot yet it was not open to the public so during my olympia run just to give you more context yeah i was trained at public gyms really there's there's nothing wrong with trying to train at public gyms there's a lot of successful athletes have been able to do so but with my mentality and the thought process because it is a process of me going into a top set i would get into what i call pandora's box get everything moving and grooving get my my mentality right and i would attack that piece of equipment whatever it would be leg day whatever else now when you've got fans that come up to you it's hard then to get out of that mentality be flex shake hands take pictures and

then try to dig deep to get that mentality again right so i found that me training these public gyms not only that was happening but they were doing these meet and greets for me unbeknownst to me oh six weeks out driving their own membership sales because you just happened to be at their gym well that's exactly what happened so I turn up on one occasion

and this all transitions into the Dragon's Lair and there was about 50 the first time was about 50 fans can I meet Flex Lewis tomorrow there was

without talking to you I had no clue no clue and I look at all these people they start slow clapping and I'm hey you know i've got my pre-worker inside me that i just drunk which wasn't him taking the touching the sides gary going into this and everybody's deaf they're all their few flags and i was like what happened

they set up a meet and greet so of course mentality changes hey guys you don't take it out your fans these people have given up their day they're there to see you no matter what this is going on behind the scenes the fans are unaware of it you treat them as you would want to treat yourself so that pre-worker went into my fans and this happened again no i said this is enough so myself and my wife ended up saying turned to each other and said, babe, we know so many people in the used gym equipment space. And we have just at that time in the infancy stage

started Arsenal Strength Up. So we had a couple of key products. So I found a gym in Boca Raton warehouse, 9,000 square feet, wasn't cheap, but the best investment is in yourself. Wow. So I set this gym up and it was a hodgepodge of all different equipment and of course all my friends find out about this i said sorry guys this is closed yeah

this is for me this is for me to to win and defend and chase my goal and then the only excuse was on me there was no guy sitting at the piece of equipment that you wanted nobody was coming to talk to you ask you how are the diets going just as the question was asked yesterday too right it's the same I'm dying right none of that and then what I done Gary was because I'm I'm very uh involved with the MMA community as you as you know a lot of my friends and the majority of my friends are fighters but I love that mentality they would bring guys in for camp to strengthen their their abilities that they lacked in bring somebody in for jiu-jitsu bring somebody in for wrestling bring somebody in for striking whatever it is that you need to bring i would bring guys say i'd see a guy that had an incredible pair of legs young up and comer i was

like i'm gonna bring you over to the gym we're going camp and of course for them it was an incredible opportunity to be around me and it was uh i was getting just as much from these young hungry lion cubs on the chase than than i probably was given to them in knowledge so it was a great transactional but some of these guys also didn't speak english good synergy really yeah i brought guys in from the uae from brazil from different parts of the united states but there was camp with me and this will happen then their fan base would see them in the gym and we'd have people knocking on the doors. We had people sleeping in cars outside the gym waiting for the press.

Are you serious? On my kid's life. Waiting for like some of these UFC guys to show up or you to show up. Whatever. And then what happened was the celebrity element came from it. No names mentioned, but say somebody was shooting a movie in Miami.

They would come down to the gym to train because there's no windows, no doors. Paparazzi would sit outside not knowing who's in there. Right. And this is what happened. We realized after being in Boca Raton after six years, we had created a brand and rebranded it. We had like over 100,000 followers on Instagram

just on a shell of a warehouse. Wow. With no ability to really go in. So you started monetizing it. Absolutely. Absolutely. Yeah. And I never went into this, believe it or not, to be a gym owner. There was never an interest for me to be a gym owner in the early years.

Right. Trust me. I just thought of all everything that was going to be going on and it would take away from my competitive chase. But the private facility just ended up planting that seed in my head and then it growing into what it is. And then when the pandemic happened, everybody wanted myself to open up a gym in Florida. Right.

My wife's born and raised there. She was like, I don't know. And I, and I agreed with her. Yeah. So we jumped on a plane. We knew that a lot of gyms had gone out of business here in Las Vegas. We came out and it was like, I am legend. Yeah.

We drove from the top of the script to the bottom. Not a soul. Half the lights were on, half the lights were off. I remember that. And me and my wife turned to each other and said, we need to be here. Really? When there's blood in the water. Wow. Want to get an extra hour of quality good sleep every single night? Let me tell you how I do it. My wife

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When the stocks are down, put the cash in. When there's blood and water, that's when you go all in. And, you know, that was a scary time because, you know, it wasn't just gyms. It was a lot of other businesses were failing. And, you know, restaurants, nightclubs, I mean, hotels, I mean, you name it, anything that was in the hospitality, you know, business, we suffered through that in our clinic. I remember the days walking into our clinic with my wife. And if you've ever been a business owner, and you got your employees around, and there's that moment where the phone's not ringing nobody's

walking through the door and everybody's there's this silent kind of like and nobody's talking about it i know but it's it's the 900 pound gorilla in the room is like what are we gonna do like the phone's not ringing people are are not walking through the door. I remember that moment with my wife when we were building our, our clinic. And thankfully she, she asked me, she was like, what are we going to do?

And I said, we're going to pivot. She goes, what do you mean? I said, we're going to start doing COVID testing. She goes, we're going to do COVID testing.

I'm like, we have a medical clinic. We're not designated as essential right now. I'm going to file with the state to get us to be a official testing center. She was like, where are we going to be a official testing center she was like where are we going to get the tests and i was like i don't know because what we're doing right now is not working and like and the employees are you know you're the head of the ship just like you're the captain of your ship you know they're looking at you

like what's next yeah what are we going to do and and that's those are the hardest moments when when there's nobody above you you're the tippy point of the spear and you got to make a decision and everybody's looking at you and you got to you also got to show that strength like like oh yeah this is going to work out and there's a little piss running down your leg you know yeah that was that yeah and um so i you know i think maybe you know you know in your can just to finish my story, we, you know, we, we pivoted, we started selling COVID testing. The day we got designated as COVID testing center, I'll never forget it. Our, our clinic had been empty for weeks.

Um, we pulled into work in the morning and there was a line, two people wide, as far down the sidewalk as we could see all the way past the, it was an LA fitness. There was a, uh, uh, uh, real estate office and an LA Fitness all the way down. And we were, it's like, holy shit. Yeah. I call all my staff. I'm like, you guys all need to get in. I called my kids and told them to go to Walmart and buy scrubs and come in and scrubs.

And then it ended up being one of the biggest years in our operating history. But you're here during the pandemic. Um, you, you know, look, you've been a successful bodybuilder, but you never started a gym. Yeah. So, I mean, this is, look, this is a ground up thing for you. This is, this is the second time you're starting ground zero. Um, you got this confidence in yourself. Um, and I love this story.

I mean, talk a little bit about the story about getting the gym open out here because it's iconic now. And I think, you know, when somebody walks in and they see such an iconic gym and it's full of people and they're like, Oh, that must've been easy. It's, you know, it's flexy. Of course it's Flex Lewis. He's, he's, uh, you know, seven times through Olympian. It's easy for him to do that. But I mean, I don't think a lot of people saw the, you know, saw the struggle and. It was stress stress yeah you know but what we try to do is just focus on our goal was to get out to las vegas and create this incredible gym that the fitness industry are really craving now yes nobody's signing leases at this time either no like i mean

no they're like what you really want to leave yeah yeah and that's that's the conversation i have yeah it was it was double-edged sword to that too because we got looked at looked at so many different properties but the property that we're in right now at that point in time was privately owned so the family were very accommodating they were like oh yes and i wanted more buildings at the time that that was available, but they were very, very accommodating. I would say to just get us in there. And to the point of when we started moving and grooving, it looked like one of these movie drug deals,

whether the warehouse doors would come out, we'd load the vans in and the warehouse door would come. Like look, see around and go go go go go yeah and that's what we done the drywall nothing to see here nothing to see yeah but we plastered the walls and we went to town every single day and we worked through this this period of time you know and again you have to have you have to have blind faith in some stuff and i've done that many times where my confidence is i don't know where it comes from I'm

sure you know I can patch things together yeah but that confidence has definitely led me into so many opportunities and that blind faith too it's like jumping on that plane came the United States blind faith but the difference is with any of these other endeavors that I've done there's something in my heart that I know this is not going to fail and I've had it several times throughout my life yeah bodybuilding was one of them do the work turn up you know that that was all I needed and the same thing your mentality turn up make it work and we turned up came to Las Vegas everybody thought we were crazy because we left South Florida which was wide open the scientists done an incredible job of keeping that state keep moving and grooving and we came to las vegas and we realized like wow

this is what it this is what it looks like in other parts of the country yeah and we realized that we had to pivot on some things it wasn't as hard as what we thought to get contractors because everybody was itching to to work at that point in time yeah we just had to do the whole loopholes of how we built this right but we done it wow we built it at the tail end and as the world started opening up our grand opening was unbelievable talk about yourself and the covid lines that's how it was for us really and uh we thought we were going to get shut down i seen the police activity that was there the day one of the grand opening the cops come in i actually one of my staff called me and said hey the police is here and i knew it was going to happen yeah come into the front i

walk in there the cops see me and they said flex i'm so happy you've opened up no really dude yes and they were like don't worry nothing's going to be seen and said and and moving and grooving i've been very supported in this town yeah we work very well with metro and uh you know shout out to our mutual friend dana white yeah amen dude he is what a loyal friend he is did he help you too well i was watching uh the ufc in corvid too he found out i moved here and he was like i know him and hunter campbell yeah the hunter campbell solid cat too yeah they were as soon as i moved here and they found I was bringing this gym to Las Vegas, they were like, you want to come to the UFC fights?

I go, yeah, when it opens up. No, we got to fight this, uh, this weekend. We're all black. Don't yell. Don't cough. Don't yell. Don't cough. Yeah.

You will be heard. And it was one of the most incredible experiences. You went last night to the, to to the sphere and it was a visual overlord and the covid times was a time where i don't know if it'd either be replicated in that magnitude because there was no fans it was a minimum production staff and all the commentators were there obviously dana hunter and all sean shelby and everybody And it was flex Lewis. I remember watching those fights and it was so weird because it was dead silent. Like a weird kind of silent.

Eerie. There wasn't like, you know, Bruce Buffer, and now they're fighting out of the right corner. You know, it was like two dudes walking into, you know, a bedroom and getting in a fist fight. I mean, it was really wild. You could hear every step on the ring. You could hear that you're going to hear their backs hit the cage. I mean, of course now with the sound and the lights and Bruce Buffer and, um, you know, it's just,

it's an entire spectacle. I remember watching those and they were in those small ballrooms. It was at Apex. Yeah. It was unbelievable. And, and, um, you know, I i mean shout out to dana white i don't think anybody's been as impactful on my career as he has and and mainly because he just told the truth and and he was like um you know let's how do we how do we how do we silence the naysayers and i was like well we could show them your labs but i don't know if you want to put your labs in the public domain he's like put my freaking labs up there yeah show them all my blood work I don't know if you want to put your labs in the public domain. He's like, put my fricking labs up there. Yeah. Show them all my blood work, show my blood work before, show my blood work after they're still naysayers. I mean, Dana White's words, not mine. And he's like, he's like, you know, people think that I'm paying, you know, that you're paying me.

And I'm, you know, he's like, I'm just going to tell the story. I'm paying you. He's like, here's where I started. Here's where I ended. You guys do what you want, but people need to know about this. And he's been so loyal to me incredibly loyal to me even when my um you know when my back was turned and no nobody was in the room i've heard you know just how incredibly loyal he is so he's so loyal yeah just on the back end of that when you when you go to the ufc and they were the only two sports that were trying to keep the ranks moving you know WWE was one and they've done the same style with the screens and then all the other ones are just focused on shutting it down shutting it down yeah and they were running into red tape Dana was like

I don't care let's keep this and my fight doesn't need a fight I want to keep on putting money in their pockets and when you're around just the enthusiasm and the mindset of of the ufc guys and dana white yeah and i just moved to town hunter too he don't think he gets enough oh hunter camber but you know he's like the guy behind the guy that really is the glue making this happen hunter does so much that nobody really knows or gets recognized or has his flowers for but he truly has such a massive dynamic that he's just camera showing so Hunter Campbell I'm sure you are my friend I love you my friend but just to see the UFC just just keeping on going and then I'm building this little gym in Las Vegas through

all the restrictions and trying to find loopholes and then you've got this big entity that's also being fought against you know and they're trying to find any way for them not to put it on. I was like, wow, this is incredible. Yeah. Just to be in this town at that point in time to see what he's doing. And then what I'm doing, I just took that motivation. That's amazing. So coming out of the pandemic, you get this dream gym, sorry, dream gym open.

Congratulations on the brand opening. You had a big, big flood. But now, you know, I'm starting to hear the stories about how you're giving back to the guys, the young guys that are coming up through the bodybuilding ranks that want to achieve the same kind of stardom and success that you had. And I hear you applying that same level of discipline to these guys. You show up the gym at this time, you know, 12 o'clock, we have a half hour meeting at 1230, you know, we're getting busy. You show up at 1231, you're a minute late.

That's it. Come back tomorrow. Yeah. And I like that because, you know, what you're doing is instilling in them. I find that this generation is, plays the victim mentality a lot. And, you know, you're the asshole for holding people accountable when the accountability is really in their own best interest to help them be successful. And so talk a little bit about now that this gym has opened up and you're, you know, you've got this wildly successful place and it's, I mean, it's literally

known all over the world. And um and what are you doing now to bring these young bodybuilders up that have a dream and and and what things do you spot in them when you go this guy can be a world champion well living in las vegas it's distraction and a lot of these young guys who are training in the gym are around it. And you should have that, that distraction should be a motivational tool. It's like, yes, I could be tempted by this, but the fact that the fact that everything is around and you're so steadfast and focused on what your craft is, that's a tool. That's, that is a, um, yes, yes.

It's a superpower to have that level of focus when everybody's asking you hey let's go to this club on on a thursday or my friends playing on this or there's a a concert it's how much you want this how much do you want this and what are you prepared to do to pour into the sport that you are now choosing to do so with the gym what i've done is i open up the doors and i nurtured nurt nurture the gym just not just body builders there's a lot of high level athletes there we have a lot of fighters there we have a lot of um various different sports to various different sports we have guys from pbr we have guys from uh the olympics that have been in different different genres of sports but it's

the champions mentality if you're trained and you look up and you have somebody that's training for the UFC title next to somebody that's just joined the gym at 85 years old and just, you know, is finding her feet for the first time next to somebody who is anorexic, that's trying to put weight on, next to somebody who is obese, that's trying to get back down. That's a culture that you've cultivated for sure.

I think that's your superpower. Thank you. I mean, as I was digging into your background, I mean, that's, that's what I came away with too. This guy is about creating culture. Culture is,

it's actually one of my, my clothing companies. Oh, it is? Culture, loyalty, trust, respect is my,

is my brand. So CLTR. CLTR. That's awesome. Yeah. So, so the, with the athletes that are in the gym and the mentality

element of things I try to be like that big brother that puts their arm around them saying like hey listen the only reason I'm telling you this is because you're you're not doing what you should be doing I see you there's too much time in between sets talking on your phone it's too much time uh there's too much gaps in in your day where that should be fulfilled with recovery red light whatever they should be doing when you're not in the gym your focus is feeding the machine and recovering the body and there's just too much lax days the elements of things so bodybuilders can or seemingly feel like they can get away with it uh you know by just putting in what they feel is a good training session and everything else outside of the gym then goes to lax.

That's the complete opposite mentality. It's the 23 hours you're out to the gym is the focus, you know. You should be putting in that emphasis into much more on how you can improve. Now, without going into what I was doing, but with these younger guys, they should be having the bar up so high. They don't even have goals. They're like, well, maybe I'll compete this year maybe i don't this or well that's not a mentality that you should be around anybody with you should have a structure you should have a goal and you

should have a dream and that bar should be even higher for the dream so what is that put it on paper start putting it down and map it backwards because if you want to achieve x you've got to put the lines and the breadcrumbs to get to there some of the guys were turning up without a tentative plan in in anything so they might have somewhat of their nutrition down but lackadaisy with their training times no militant right if you want to be the best and people may be watching the show saying well it's just bodybuilding it's like well it may be bodybuilding to other people but this is what i done in my life and that's why i had the private facility it was controlling all the

narratives and if something happened you know yeah it is what it is but i could control everything from the time that i got to the gym you mentioned i used to tell all the guys let him 30 be there we'll talk about anything how's your mom or your dog died i'm sorry as soon as 11.59, and everyone who knows me knows that mentality. It's a different guy. You walk from a lobby, which was contained, you couldn't see the gym. It was a, you know, just a structured lobby with sofas. And we just chat, as I said, 11.59,

flick goes and everybody knew. You don't, there's no tomfoolery where you're here to kick my ass and're you're to kick my ass and i'm there to kick your ass yeah and it was a chemistry because i brought certain people in and with i was mentioning also earlier the the young hungry lion cubs yeah and i just want to finish on that sentence what i realized is just because somebody has a title just because somebody may have achieved something great doesn't mean they're going to be a good training partner yeah what i found was the younger guys who i see myself in who wanted to be there at 11 20 not lamb 30 lamb 20 the guys who were there for the for the extra

sets the guys who were there to be a sponge and ask the right questions them the people i surrounded myself with doing in that period of time because you want to be you want to be a sponge and ask the right questions. Them are the people I surrounded myself with during that period of time. Because you want to be motivated knowing that you're also being a motivator. Yeah. And my motivation was being sucked out of these young guys just by being them. Yeah.

Want direct access to me so I can personally answer your most pressing health questions? Then I'm excited to offer you free access to my premium membership, the Rule Brekkas. As a Rule Brekka, you'll be able to join me for monthly Q&A sessions, VIP access to all the challenges I host, and advanced access to my most exclusive content. To get your free 30-day trial of Rule Brekkas, head over to joinrulebrekkas.com. That's joinrulebrekkas.com right now and it's tough love in a lot of ways i've heard you talk about like my job is to get reps out of

you and your job is to get reps out of me that's it that's our that's the reason why we're here because i'm i i need to see more in you than you see in yourself. So if you want to put that weight down, I'm here to get three more reps out of you. And I, I love that mentality because, um, you know, on a much, much lesser scale, years ago, I used to own a CrossFit gym and I, and I just remember that if, if, if you were doing a CrossFit workout and at some point during that workout, you didn't just absolutely want to quit, then you just weren't doing it right. You know what I mean? Exactly.

At the end of that workout, if you were like, wow, that was great. That felt awful. I mean, that felt awesome. You know, okay, well, then you didn't, you actually didn't do the workout right. Yeah. You should be like, that sucked. Yeah. Yeah.

The dry form should be painful. I don't know what I have to do again. Yeah. The dry form should be painful. I don't know what I have to do again. And this is what I find so fascinating about your sport and your success and your line of work and what you do because you really have to embrace the suffer. Yeah. Right? I mean, there's a lot of different kinds of stress in our lives. But I think when you voluntarily put yourself through that struggle, I have a saying that aging is the aggressive pursuit of comfort. Because I believe that we are aging faster. And there's a lot of evidence to support this because we are pursuing comfort, right? I mean, we just

naturally gravitate towards being comfortable right we regulate our body you know we regulate our air temperature we regulate our you know the amount of light that's in you know it comes into our homes we go from a covered car to a covered garage to a covered office back to a covered garage you know we i've got to i tell people all the time you got to tell stop telling grandma not to go outside it's too hot not to go outside it's too cold just to lay down to relax to eat at the first pang of hunger and in in in your industry your goal is to suffer every day every day right and so um you're building a culture where these young guys are are suffering and and and i want to go back to what is it that you recognize in them

have you had anyone in your gym where you go this kid can be world champion and i've and i've seen it happen yeah we now have a gentleman in the gym called keon pearson he has uh become the 212 mr olympia which is the class that obviously i represented for seven years so i've just seen this young kid that came into my gym many moons ago yeah that got his ass kicked and didn't come back. It was a weak mentality. And that's what I told him. It's like,

bro, if you want to be a champion, you've got to work on that. That mentality is, is not what's going to be, make you into anything better than what you are right now. Talk about a pro win. It's not going to happen.

He really found his, his center of motivation. That foundation has been found now with his relationship with his girlfriend, which I believe is incredible. Oh, yeah. Your choice of spouses, I think, more than any other choice you make in your life. And she is the biggest support network to him. And this, well, he's not a young kid anymore.

This young man has morphed. That mentality has just changed everything here and that is the success stories I love talk about tough love I had to have that conversation he didn't like it yeah in fact I think it upset him but I was like bro you can't you can't train you because that mentality is you went all in and this leg day that we had he was on the floor he was done and I said okay i'll see you tomorrow he never showed up i was like okay i'm done one and done years later and i've obviously i've seen him change now he's moved to las vegas to be part of that community that that dragons like culture that we spoke about so he's one of a few stories in the gym we have i think

five five past and present mr olympias maybe six past and present Mr. and Miss Olympians that train at the gym. Really? Yeah. Wow. They're residents of Vegas? Residents of Vegas. We've, through the gym,

Guardian, and that's just opening up here. It's kind of that mentality, build it and they will come. We've had people move their families from all over the world just to come and be part of the Dragons. That's amazing, man. And that's, oh, thank you. That's a testament to you and be part of the dragons that's amazing man that's oh thank you that's a testament to you and the culture that you've built man i mean it really

is thank you thank you all i'm doing is opening a gym up that i would love to be involved with if i was in my prime yeah and now as i'm retired the things you wish you had when you were on your journey yeah i think i've done okay with a private gym and the public but but the the private just goes to talk on that the the private gym for me was truly to to be in that military mindset and to squeeze the lemon out of every single workout and also that mentality i also spoke about earlier about pandora's box i could could remain in a state of, of not, when I say this, I don't want this to be taken the wrong way. Aggression is controlled aggression. Yeah. Now in a public gym, I could train the same style,

but I wouldn't be able to get that, you know, squeezed lemon as much because there'll be in and out. You're not screaming. You're not like. I never scream. I'm not a screamer. You don't? No, I'm not a screamer. You just bite your teeth and deal with it? I guess so. I mean, there might be some footage, you're not like i never scream i'm not a screamer you don't no i'm not a screamer even when you're dealing with it i guess so i mean there might be some footage but i would go into another

stratosphere and all i would see uh would be the machine in front of me and same way doing legs i would i would be in the zone it was it was the the only thing i could equivalent to is like a runner's high yeah and everything's just matrix and I hear noise my training partners shout in screaming me for an extra couple of reps but I didn't know what they were saying it was just Chinese to me I knew what I was pushing myself for and I would push myself to get them extra reps yeah and when I got out to the machine they would sit with talking legs my training partners would just let me be because it was a cool down process it was I had to bring myself back down, slow my heart rate down, get back out to that zone and then be there for my training partners.

So you couldn't do that in a private gym, a public gym. So the private gym came in so clutch. And also there's something I wanted to... That zone. Yeah, the zone. I wanted to mention too, every competition I had to recreate my why. And that why was the first was winning, the second was defending,

because I truly believe you can't call yourself a champion unless you defended. The third, it was the 50th anniversary. The fourth, we found out my wife was pregnant. The fifth was bringing my daughter up on stage for that iconic photo, like Sergio Olivia, done with Sergio Jr. Yeah.

And six was going to be my my one and done and then before the show my uh one of my my training partners and friends passed away three weeks before so I had to I had to go into that into that mentality of all the players what would he want from me yeah it was and I did that I donated the show I put him as the inspiring force as to why I was doing that year i was doing it for dallas and i came back the seventh year and i said this is it i publicly announced this is going to be my last olympia on flex you have to be in the moment you have to be present you have to feel touch and smell everything because i didn't know it was going to be the last show yeah but i'm so

glad i did i could feel the heat in my feet. I could see the audience members. And that was the end of the run. And I was intending to go up into the open class to do the open class, to be the first ever champ champ. Conor McGregor being an inspiration to me. And there was no champ champ at the time in bodybuilding.

And I wanted to be the first ever. So I went from truly suffering having that well i had to burn muscle off and that's horrendous just to make the class and we can talk about that if you want but wow going into the open class the cap was off and i had to just force feed myself every single day and it was horrendous oh nothing i want to do ever again. 8,000 calories a day. That's brutal. Yeah.

So bringing this all to a close, you know, what's next for Flexilis? Well, what is next? I guess for me, I never was the stereotype. I hate the perception of what bodybuilders were in the past and i never wanted to to become part of that conversation so even when i was on the climb as a champion you never see me in a tank top you never see me kind of creating more attention to myself right because my goal was if i struck up a conversation i would find water at its own levels if you're traveling all over the world you sit there next to somebody in business class and they want to talk about why you're meeting every

two hours yeah but i want to talk about what they do in business and then the bodybuilding secondary yeah so i've i've been able to network and get into so many different rooms by not being the champ is your bodybuilding champ right that was secondary i love networking meeting people if they find out i've actually done something um then so be it but the reason why i mentioned that is it's opened so many doors for me and now with the businesses and the new endeavors that i'm that i'm getting into yeah i've been able to fill a lot of these rooms up by people that have never been to a bodybuilding show, but know me for me. Yeah. So the evolution of what...

I mean, I know so many people, not to interrupt you, but I know so many people that I think very, very highly of that speak so highly of you. I mean, that's one of the reasons why I wanted you to be on the podcast. But you've done a very good job of creating incredible reputation for yourself. I mean, hats off to you for that thank you um you know i i i end every podcast by asking my guests the same question there's no right or wrong answer to this question but um what does it mean to you to be an ultimate human what it means to me to be an ultimate human um i just guess with all the different feathers of

the hat i've worn at one point i was an athlete one time a rugby player track and field bodybuilder dad is just leading from the front and and showing showing that uh yes i was this person that one chapter in my life but i'm not that person right now and evolution is part of life i was the bodybuilder that was all consumed about becoming the champion and everything it took to get there and right now i'm the complete opposite where i'm working on that reversing some of the bad things that i've done i'm healthy just you know blood work's incredible but making sure that i'm going to be here on this earth for as long as god keeps me here,

being able to move, chase my kids, throw them around in the pool, do all kinds of stuff, but also have conscious thought to, to be on podcasts and talk with, with clarity. And when I was a bodybuilder, there was a lot of times that I was just so, I would say like blunt in my head. I just was foggy because of the amount of food I was eating. I don't like that. Yeah. I don't like the fact that I couldn't construct a conversation as articulate as I can do right now. It's still early in the day for me.

You were making up words before the podcast. There we go. I am Welsh. But for me, it's leading from the front and showing that you know where i'm at is is documented yeah i'm on a on a youtube vlog series right now where i've just shown this comeback from the injury yes and and this injury with no prolonging it is is an injury that um truly sideswiped me but had it not happened i wouldn't be doing a lot of the things that I've got into right now. Patience is a new word that I'm trying to learn.

And these new endeavors are moving and grooving, thankfully, because of this injury. So it's a blessing in disguise. So the ultimate human sort of things is just making sure that I'm mentioned, leading from the front and making these new decisions in my life that are keeping me on this earth. And a lot of the things that I've done now recently is down to you.

We've talking about a lot of things that you've put out there, incredible content that I want to really talk to you about, obviously off the podcast, that I need to start putting into my life. But all the other things, red light therapy, cold plunges, saunas, I've been doing them a minute.

And now I've retired the benefits and health benefits from all these attention to detail where you could be watching TV and Netflix and now put into the health and wealth of the next day, that sleep, whatever it is, all compounds and plays this role is where I'm at right now. So it's leading from the front and showing that just because I was one guy

before, I'm not that guy right now. That's amazing, man. Well, you're a true inspiration. You know, you're definitely somebody that I want to give a voice to, man. I'm inspired by all of your accomplishments. I'm going to have you back. Cause I, I have a, I have a feeling that you are going to reinvent yourself again and again and again. If you were a stock, I'd be buying you right now. Thank you.

I think it'd be a good investment. But thank you, my brother, for chopping it up. Yeah, man, I appreciate it. And with me, Gary, I'm a storyteller. I probably have answered three questions that you've asked me in totality. As I know, I've started a wraparound in something. But welcome to a podcast with Flex Lewis.

But absolute pleasure and I'm truly grateful for you and your team for putting this together and I'm honored. I'm looking forward to having you out online. Let's do it, man.

I'm definitely going to have you back again. Thanks, Flex. And as always, guys, that's just science.