Noah and I confront the elephant in the room: our collective attachment to the digital world. Are smartphones enhancing our lives or eroding the fabric of our relationships? We share intimate stories of work-life balance struggles, including the courage it takes to step away from the 24/7 demands of a connected existence. Reflecting on the distractions and addictions of modern society, we offer insights into reclaiming time for what truly matters—our loved ones and personal growth.
Wrapping up, we get real about the grind of entrepreneurship, especially in the fitness industry, where the pressures of maintaining a business can be as intense as the workouts themselves. If you've ever contemplated the hustle of gym ownership or how societal norms shape our health routines, this episode pulls back the curtain on the unglamorous, yet rewarding, reality. Tune in for an unfiltered conversation that might just inspire you to embrace simplicity, cut out toxicity, and believe in your path to transformation.
https://www.siegeathleticsny.com/
Noah and I confront the elephant in the room: our collective attachment to the digital world. Are smartphones enhancing our lives or eroding the fabric of our relationships? We share intimate stories of work-life balance struggles, including the courage it takes to step away from the 24/7 demands of a connected existence. Reflecting on the distractions and addictions of modern society, we offer insights into reclaiming time for what truly matters—our loved ones and personal growth.
Wrapping up, we get real about the grind of entrepreneurship, especially in the fitness industry, where the pressures of maintaining a business can be as intense as the workouts themselves. If you've ever contemplated the hustle of gym ownership or how societal norms shape our health routines, this episode pulls back the curtain on the unglamorous, yet rewarding, reality. Tune in for an unfiltered conversation that might just inspire you to embrace simplicity, cut out toxicity, and believe in your path to transformation.
https://www.siegeathleticsny.com/
I just like to let them know I'm the fucking boss. That's what he wants them to know. It's kind of crazy. You know you talk about dog language and I've said it a bunch of times in the podcast. You talk about dog language and you talk about just seeing body language and understanding what. You start to understand more and more about what your dog does like and doesn't like. He hates it. He's cool with saying hi to a couple of people on the street, but then if we start getting a crowd, he's out. He hates it. He starts growling, barking too much, backing away from everybody coming over to me. And just because his tail is going doesn't always mean that he's excited to see somebody. It's actually just energy and just being in the moment.
Speaker 1:So when I was telling you my buddy, matt's lab bow, they used to be best friends. I mean they would play nonstop hours. I used to. He's up in Lloyd Harbor, beautiful property, I mean dude, big ass backyard. They would run for like four hours every Sunday. I used to bring him over there and then one day he matured. Bow isn't fixed either. He's not fixed. He matured.
Speaker 1:I guess Bow was excited, humping him, whatever, and he just had enough. That was it. He kept grabbing him by the neck, throwing him and then, you know, I grab him. I first time I ever saw it I was like what the fuck's going on? And I look at Kenji and his tail is going. You watch on the security camera His tail is going. He's amped Like he just wants to get to this dog and I'd never experienced anything like that before. Like I had another dog that hated other dogs, but I never thought I'd see some shit like that. Now he wasn't attacking him, cause if he attacked him he would've just went right forward, but it broke, scared him he wouldn't, went right in.
Speaker 1:So my buddy's fiance at the time and now wife, she's like do you want to just let them scrap it out and just see? Like maybe they just got to work out whatever. Like maybe it was like a little dog misunderstanding and they're going to be fine. I said yeah, we could try one more time. I let him go like a missile.
Speaker 1:He went right for this dog's neck and tackled him and I went hey, I screamed and he stopped. You see him just stop. Mid growl, mid on top of the dog. He stopped and I grabbed him. I was like, okay, that's it. We're not doing that again. So it's just, it's crazy. When you own a dog and you start seeing these little ticks, these little cues, you see another dog down the street, you go okay, we're good on that, and you start bringing him somewhere else and walking around. It's just not even worth the headache. Yeah, it's crazy, man. It's crazy owning a, you know, it's crazy owning an alpha type breed like that Roddies, pit bulls, connie Corsos, all these Akitas, all these different types of dogs. Man, you have to have an understanding of what this animal is and unfortunately, they get purchased or adopted because they're cute and fuzzy.
Speaker 2:Yeah, when they're little yeah. When they're little, hey, yeah.
Speaker 1:and they're not, you know. And then people are just like oh my God, look how sweet and this and that. And it grows up and it's dominating the household, it's dominating you on walks, and these people get very nervous and they go. I don't know what to do anymore. Or they they're clueless and they still bring it to the dog park, or they bring it all these different places and the dog just mauls these dogs at the dog park. And it's not the dog's fault, it's in its fucking code of what it is and what it was bred for, Doing what it's supposed to do Exactly. And then you have these people that are just like well, you're good with dogs sometimes. Then it comes in and just goes crazy. So you just have to it's like people too, though you have to have an awareness, and I feel like that's a missing factor in a lot of human beings nowadays they're not training these dogs.
Speaker 2:You know where the dog trained? In the person, not the, not the person training the dog. So it's like that dog's telling you what to do and that's not the way it's supposed to be. No, that dog wants to be told what to do. You're like those guys, like you know him, or especially the chronic horosos, those freaking things, like they want to be told what to do because they're they're jobs to protect you and they want to do that. But if you leave them and then they're on their own, they lose their shit.
Speaker 1:Well, they just. You know and that's one of the things that I've had to deal with with him is he'll growl at people if he doesn't want to say hi or if they're pushing their boundaries. And even though he's correct in telling people, enough is enough, because a lot of people don't listen and they don't understand that sometimes the dog doesn't want to say hi. He's a living creature. You know, he's not a golden retriever. Every golden retriever that runs up to you they're just like oh my God, love me, that's not this dog. I know he looked cute and fuzzy, but you have to have an understanding that the dog may not want to say hi. So, even though he'll growl at somebody, I still have to correct him, because I'm the one that tells you who we're not cool with and cool with.
Speaker 1:I can't let him make those decisions for himself. That's the unfortunate side of it, because you don't want to correct the dog, but you have to, because if he starts now thinking, oh, he didn't correct me, like I can just make these decisions on my own, that what's to say, someone comes in for a podcast and he just goes fucking nuts, yes, you have to know like, enough, stop it. And then he just goes, okay, cool, and he'll do that. He'll go walk over away and just lay down. Yeah, I've had some friends that come over and he bullies them. He knows, he knows it's crazy, you know. Yeah, he knows, he knows what's up man, he knows, like the friends that are afraid of him, the friends that are assholes, the ones that he really. Yeah, you just look at them and you're just like yo man, just don't mess with the dog. He knows and he's gonna lean into that.
Speaker 2:That's just your energy.
Speaker 1:He's fucking bad. Yeah, man, I have a buddy who he's like the. He's actually matured very, very nicely over the last, I'd say, three years, four years, so I can't even call him the asshole of the group, but he's. If he listens to this, he's gonna laugh and he's gonna probably text me and call me an asshole. But he was the dude that could be a little rough to be around sometimes because he doesn't watch his mouth and he flares off at people in different situations and whatnot. Oh, he doesn't like it and I'll tell you what man the dog fucking hates him.
Speaker 1:And one day he was over my house we were watching football and Kenji just very calmly, just got up on the couch where he was and stood next to him like this, staring at him, not growling, not doing anything. He just looked at him, just like this, just staring right at him, just like that, just staring at him. And then my buddy looked over at him and he looked at me and I went yo, kenji, enough, get down. And Kenji just went like this and just got off the couch and just walked away. I was like that was my buddy, was that was him? Just saying I could fuck you up, right?
Speaker 2:now, if.
Speaker 1:I wanted to. I don't like you, and you're gonna know it I was like oh my God, relax, it's not that serious, go inside please. But you picked up on his cues, you did. We just need that type of radar. I mean, I think we're a pretty good judge of character, yeah pretty good.
Speaker 2:Listen, I get fooled a lot. I get fooled a lot, but not for long, yeah, like in the beginning. And then it's like you start to learn somebody and then you're like, oh, it's motherfuckers, a piece of shit.
Speaker 1:It's tough when that happens.
Speaker 2:It really is. I'm sure you do the same thing. Like I try to see the best in people, so I give everybody the benefit of doubt in the beginning and then, like within a very short time period, people show their true colors. It's like, all of a sudden, this guy who was therefore. Now, all of a sudden, he's shown who he really is and he's just wrong person.
Speaker 1:Yeah, wrong person.
Speaker 2:That's life.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it's a maturity thing, it's understanding Well, some people don't ever understand it or get it, but it is a maturity thing in taking the experiences that you've had and putting them into the experiences that you're getting later in life. The unfortunate side of things, though, is that we do want to go into every interaction, mostly every interaction with positive thought process and oh, it's not going to happen again. Or oh, I heard some things about this person. It's not. I have to make my own assessment and my own judgment on the actual situation and the human being that I'm dealing with, but unfortunately, like you said, those true colors I mean if somebody is a certain way generally, they're going to continue being that way Always always.
Speaker 2:You know the old adage that Leopard doesn't change his stripes or whatever it is spots, whatever the hell Leopard has. You know that's the way it is. It's like this guy's an asshole. He's going to be an asshole forever.
Speaker 1:Yeah, forever. And unfortunately, the fitness industry seems to breed them in mass.
Speaker 2:Full of them Like it's like a magnet towards all you guys.
Speaker 1:It's all the ex-partiers and druggies and all this shit like that that just they go. Oh, girls too. I mean it's just everything. It's oh yeah, I'm just I'm going to re-cleanse my life and just do this, and it's like wow, you're just bringing your narcissism into this industry now.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so that's the word right there, it's narcissism.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:That's what the industry is full of, but they're narcissists, sociopaths, so they don't even know. They're crazy.
Speaker 1:Well, yeah, that's the problem.
Speaker 2:You don't know. Yeah, they genuinely think they're, you know whatever the best in the world at whatever they're doing. And then they turn and they put all their like, their bad things about themselves and they put them on you.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:So, whatever their bad habits are, they're going to tell them you're the one doing those things, or you know that. And the next thing you know you're like I don't know, this guy's crazy. Yeah, he's fucking crazy.
Speaker 1:Well, you start feeling like you lost your own mind. Yeah, you know that's what they did to you. Yeah, you feel like you're all. You're crazy. I had exes that are great at projection, oh yeah, and just putting it right on you and you sit there and you go wait. Am I the fucking problem?
Speaker 2:No, no, no, it's not me. I'm not doing anything. You're actually telling me exactly what you're doing. Yeah, just pretending it's me that's doing it and it's not. It's not that at all, yeah.
Speaker 1:Yeah, the landscape of personalities in life, in fitness and just everything. I actually just so. I'm investing in a lot of books as of late, I was never a big reader. This is actually the one that I'm ripping through right now Jim Quick Limitless Super interesting. It's about the abbreviated version that I can give is. It's a this guy, jim Quick. He's part of, like the Tony Robbins group and this and that Unbelievable human being. He actually helps a lot of celebrities and actors learn their lines by speed reading and actually retaining all of the information. And I wanted to not only learn how to, I wanna read. Yeah, I don't wanna just look at the page, see the letters and not take in any of that knowledge. I wanna understand how can I have a deeper understanding of the actual subject that I'm reading and wanting to take in and become, not an expert necessarily, but somebody of some knowledge base on it.
Speaker 2:Pick up a little bit here, a little bit there, a little bit from this one, that one, and then you have a little base where you can combine all that information Exactly, put something out there.
Speaker 1:Exactly so. He teaches you a lot of that in this book. I'm pretty early, as you can see the chapter marker. I'm pretty early in it, but I mean I took some notes to talk about just the brain and social distractions and all kinds of different things to talk about. But the cool thing about, I think, books and learning is you start to have a better understanding of the world around you, more so than if you just read all of these social sites and all of these different articles.
Speaker 2:That's what it is now.
Speaker 1:You would hope that it would be the opposite. You hope that, with the inception of technology and the information spreading so far and the ability to have the information at the snap of a finger, you would hope that that would progress society in a positive way. But we're actually seeing that it's progressing society in a negative way.
Speaker 2:So, de-gressing, yeah it's de-gressing society and what that's done is everybody wants it immediate. So the task of reading that book. It's too great when I can just go on Google right, get an excerpt of that book and be like, okay, I know exactly what that's about. And nobody wants to sit there and read for a week, two weeks, you know, of 300 pages, 400 pages. They want a paragraph and then they want to be an expert on that subject and that's not the case, but they think they are. So now they're going to go across like all social media, and they're going to preach. You know they're going to preach about I know everything about so-and-so subject.
Speaker 2:Meanwhile, you're a moron, don't know anything, you know, you know nothing, but you claim to know everything you know, you think you do, but and this is a big problem yeah, whereas everybody's an expert right, Everybody's an expert on everything. It's like you're not an expert on anything. You know nothing. You just read excerpts of articles and you think you know everything about it. You know, taking no time to study anything, but you're the expert. And everybody thinks that they're an expert. You're not. You're not an expert at all.
Speaker 2:You just saw a video or you read a little clip and now you think you know everything. It's like take the time slow down, like actually spend time, like it takes years to learn these things years, and everybody wants to learn in 30 seconds. I want to be, you know, expert in this, so I'll take a weekend certification, a weekend course or a three hour course, whatever it is, and all of a sudden you know I can do this, I can do that. It's like you know in the matrix when you download, you know that's famous. Now I know judo or whatever you said yeah.
Speaker 2:You know it's like do you think that's what's going to happen? It's like that's not what happens at all. You got to take time, time, a lot of time, you know. I think it's 10,000 hours. There'll be a master of something. You know, if you break that down, that's a long time. You know, if you do two hours a week, it's a lot of weeks, a lot of weeks, you know. So everybody thinks they're an expert, meanwhile they're a moron.
Speaker 1:You know they're a moron period, that's so. That's couldn't be more true, man. It really couldn't be more true, it's sad though it is sad.
Speaker 1:It's sad because we're losing the battle in our attention, our ability to have our own viewpoints and opinions on different things. And it's just, it's so widespread, it's just everything. It's not just in the fitness industry, it's not just on politics, it's not just on the world or how you should raise your family. It's like we're losing the battle to these 15 second reels, these 10 second reels, these now five second reels, because it tricks you into watching it twice so you get two views, everything. I loop it around and it's like I got more views.
Speaker 1:I'm done with it. I've been having this conversation with a lot of people. It started by listening to the audio book by Cam Newport of Digital Minimalism. It opened my eyes to. I need to be more present in life and I don't. Yeah, we all need to be, and it's an active chore and task of doing that and not getting caught up in past and future type things and also not allowing life to just whisk by us because we're staring at a glass screen where, if it was off I've said this a couple of times if the screen was off, we would look really fucking stupid. Just staring at a blank slate, holding it like this all day. I don't wanna be a slave. Andre Ferguson has said it so many times on the pod too. I don't wanna be a slave to the phone. I do not wanna be a slave to my phone. We all are to a certain degree.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:To a certain degree, because it makes you a slave. So now you have this thing in your pocket where everybody can reach you at any time, and I'm old enough to remember when that didn't exist. I'm old enough to remember when I went home from work, nobody could reach me anymore. You know, and I don't realize how great that is, until now, at 10 o'clock at night, my phone goes off and can I schedule a appointment with you? No, it's 10 o'clock at night, like this is my family time and really I'm going to sleep at 10 o'clock as we're waking up early. But you know why you're calling me on my cell phone at night. I don't understand. Like you shouldn't be, you shouldn't. You have no right to be calling me at that time. I don't care who you are, you know, that's it, it's cut off. You know, okay.
Speaker 2:And then, let's say 15 years ago now, it didn't happen Like people had cell phones, but it was like really still minimal, you know. So you went home, let's say five, six o'clock, seven o'clock at night. You went home, you made dinner with your family and you sat down with your family and you talked and I don't know, maybe you watched on TV or anything, but there was no distraction. There's no somebody's calling or somebody's texting me like why do I have to answer somebody's text right away? Why, like, I don't have to, you know? But but we've gotten into this habit of I Got, I got to respond, I got a respond. No, you got to pay attention to your family, to your wife, to your kids, and, like, put the damn phone down and I'm just as much at fault as anybody else.
Speaker 2:We're all guilty, and but I can tell you this, and this is one of those feelings that You'll only know it when it happens to you. But I'll be sitting at dinner and I'll be. I'll pick up my phone and I'm, you know, looking at Instagram or you know, responding to text, and my son comes over and he wants to talk and I'm like wait one second, let me answer this. And I'm like, yeah, what am I doing? You know this kid, how long do I have before my son doesn't want to talk to me anymore? You know, because it's gonna happen eventually. Like right now, he loves me. You know, it's fantastic, like we'll rest on the couch and this and that, and then you're gonna be wrestling seriously when he doesn't want to talk to you.
Speaker 2:Well, soon he's gonna kick my ass, and I hope so. I really. Yeah but, but, but really it's stupid, like, what am I doing on the phone? What am I looking at?
Speaker 1:worthless stuff I'm what is so important that it's taking me out of my current right and environments out of His time like this.
Speaker 2:Is it like he's seven years old? This is perfect. You know me and him could interact and they have a great time together all the time. I have a great time. Why am I looking at my phone? It's a disease, man. It's terrible. Yeah, it's terrible, and when I catch myself I feel so guilty. I keep on doing it because it's just so ingrained and like who we are as a person. Now it's like, oh, I feel the phone vibrating in my pocket, I hear it going off and it's a response. I got it. I got a react.
Speaker 1:No, man feel the ghost vibrations man. Oh yeah, I get it on the phone and vibrate and it sometimes my leg vibrates. Yes.
Speaker 2:What is that about? Yeah, that's my leg, I think it's a psychological.
Speaker 1:It's a psychological thing where you almost want that dopamine hit. Yes, a message or something on the other line of that thing to Answer or to interact with. It's very scary. There's the more I'm diving into this topic and it's become. It's a very weird type of a thing for somebody that produces video content to want to do. Now it's like a side of spectrum. You know, where do we? Where do we balance it? Where do we balance it? And I think that I've said I don't think I actually know I've said on a lot of podcasts, I've said that I want to focus on being a producer and not a consumer of content, because there's a difference. Sure, you can produce content for your business, you can produce content for your podcast. You can do all of these different things, put it out there and interact with people and other accounts and whatnot, very select times that you're gonna allow yourself to. Yeah, you know, I turned notifications off on my Instagram. It was just to.
Speaker 1:I was getting over a hundred something notifications a day on my Instagram. Couple that with emails, couple that with calls, with brands, couple that with text messages and I don't stop. And then the constant access that you allow people to have to you at all hours of the day and night. Yeah, like you're saying, I'd get DMs all night, all night, because now people are off of work, they're out of their jobs and now that, now they remember whatever they wanted to do during the day. But that's in my opinion. That's beyond rude. Not only is it beyond, but it's not considered rude in our society. It's not. It is considered rude prior to these little anxiety boxes that we have in our pocket 24-7, that originally they were created to bridge. Let's just talk about not even a cell phone, let's just talk about the iPhone specifically. Yeah, because that's the most monumental one. It was created to bridge an iPod and a phone together, so you didn't have to carry two separate devices. And somewhere along that line the business models switch to. Why don't we get advertisers to Pay us for the apps, for the integration into the actual platform? Because we have everyone's attention. Now, that was the penny press, that was all those, all these different Newspapers. At the time, the penny press had everybody buying it because it was only a penny right and they said they're not our, they're not our customer. We'll give them mass media Spanning a lot of different topics. Our customers are the advertisers that we're gonna charge up the fucking ass To advertise because we have everyone's attention locked on and that's this. It's the battle for our attention.
Speaker 1:And as we allow these videos to get smaller and smaller, as a video creator, I've always hated it. I've always hated a 15-second reel it. It doesn't make it easier to edit, no, it actually makes it harder, because there is so much to condense, like when I do a rain Recap at an event, or Kai Green when I was doing the event, kai Green's full day. How do you get in 30 seconds? You're sitting there. You're like, oh my god, how the fuck do I fit all of this in? What am I gonna do? Yeah, and creatively, which is why you get into creating videos or Opening a business to help people lose weight or to bring fitness to everybody. But now you get stuck on the content side of things. How can I stay relevant? How can I do this? How can I do that? It becomes a chore. It does it, it takes a fun straight out of it, yeah, and the creativity goes. You see a bunch of other people oh, this guy's viral for doing this effect online. Oh, maybe I'll do that now, maybe I'll just I'll change my style up and do that.
Speaker 1:I can't, I can't tell you how we are so miserable as a society and I get you know, I know a lot of us feel it we are so miserable, beaten down, depressed, tired, just constantly fatigued of just having to keep up with all of these things that I just said. I had a, had a breaking point a couple weeks ago after listening to the audiobook and I just said I can't do this anymore. When I have a family, one day, I can't be that dad that puts the coca-mellon in front of their fucking kids face and just sits there and Doesn't interact with anybody. There's a. There's a device called a PlayStation portal. I like PlayStation, I play it every, every now, and then I do games, but my son has some truthfully, since I've been doing all this, I haven't played any video games.
Speaker 1:Yeah, because it's just another stimulus and it's just more of. I used to think of it as downtime. It's not downtime. Your brain still going, it says, and that's why you're tired as well. There's just more shit just blasting your face. But anyway, there is a device called a PlayStation portal. It basically Takes the actual PlayStation and, as long as you're on a wireless network so your home network or a hotspot outside you can connect to the PlayStation and you can play the games on this portable handheld screen. Whatever screen, it is just a yeah, it's a nice screen, it's an OLED screen, it's listen, they made it very nice. It's 199 dollars, so it's very appealing for a lot of people, but it can't play games. Besides, what's on your PlayStation already? The amount of dads that I've seen that go. This is the ultimate dad thing, and I see these. I see these guys with their kids sitting there playing, and they're just sitting there playing their PlayStation and then there's a random video for the kid on the screen. Oh, yeah, I'm like, wow, we're just all screened up.
Speaker 1:Yeah there's no spending time with your family, there's no actual interaction anymore, there's nothing. And then you guys wonder why you have no more sex in the households. You wonder why your, your wife or your or your family, if you're, you know if you're, if it's your husband, if it's your wife, you wonder why your husband resents you. You wonder why your wife resents you. You wonder why your kids are assholes at school because there's no Structure anymore, so you're just putting screens in front of everybody, no one's paying attention to anybody and we've lost all connection while being connected. It's very scary thought, yeah that's not.
Speaker 2:It's the opposite of what it should be. Yeah, the internet was supposed to bring us all together. Well, it's actually sold us all apart.
Speaker 1:Well it's all apart made us all enemies.
Speaker 2:We're all enemies now, yeah, everybody's. Whereas we all used to be somewhere in, you know we can find common ground, now we find no common ground. You're either X or your Y, that's it. There is nothing in between, and it's like, well, that's a scary thought because now, like everybody's, literally just Add each other's throat ready to get at you where, if you actually talk to the person, you'll find out you have a lot more in common than you think. You probably have one or two things that you disagree upon, and that's cool, that's great. That's what makes us us, you know, like I don't agree with everything that you agree with, thing. That's. That's fantastic, that's great thing. That we can't talk about, it is horrible. Yeah, that's ridiculous.
Speaker 2:Yeah and I don't know how that happened, it just happened.
Speaker 1:I think it happened a lot with just Mainstream news sources, mainstream articles, mainstream Media as a whole this is on, this is on multiple Avenues is not just political. I have to only say that people think it when you say mainstream media it's just political. No, I think I believe that there's, you know, apple versus Android, like there's all these fucking battles for no reason.
Speaker 2:That's an insane one, if you like. So I'm not an Apple guy. I've had Apple phones. I just don't like them, whatever. And then you know, I'll take out my cell phone, take something. Sound like you don't have an iPhone. No, I don't have an iPhone. Why? Just don't like it, I just whatever. I've had this thing for 10 years. It works well for me. I have one's great, okay that's okay.
Speaker 1:Enjoy it, bro. Cool Cool. That's serious, what do you?
Speaker 2:care what you care.
Speaker 1:So that's my, that's my work phone, that's my main phone, and I bought a second phone about a week ago, maybe two weeks ago, and I bought the Galaxy S24 plus the 24 Ultra Fantastic phone. It's amazing, truthfully. It's better than the iPhone.
Speaker 2:I don't know, I have some. I don't again, technology, that's okay. I got some galaxy something. That's okay. Yeah, 22 or 23.
Speaker 1:Truthfully, it is a phenomenal phone. Yeah, I mean it's awesome. It's got the S Pen. That comes out, this little stylus. I've seen that. I've already used it multiple times where an idea comes to my mind and I'm able to just write it down and I'm done. I don't have to worry about unlocking the phone, getting into my app, getting my flow and this Write down and then it can take that text and translate it into actual, my writing and translate it to text so what I did was that is my personal number.
Speaker 1:My mom, cousins and three of my closest friends are the only ones that have that number so far and that's pretty much I'm keeping it. I said I like that and there's no social media on it. There's no there. It is my personal phone now. Will you take your work phone?
Speaker 2:and put it away.
Speaker 1:Yes, every night See that's great.
Speaker 1:Every night I've been turning it off. That's great. Six, seven o'clock roughly yeah, that's off. When I go to jujitsu at 6 30 at night, most nights turn it off. That phone is off and I take the Samsung with me and then I'm on the Samsung for the night. If I'm not reading, I'm going through articles on it and I'm just reading and I'm able to. I'm able to focus without the barrage of notifications, because even when you put do not disturb on, the issue is you can see, you can see the notification there and if I get a work email or I get something, now I'm thinking about it and now I need to address it. So if I don't know that it's there and I have no idea that, I've controlled my time, yeah, and by deleting the social media apps or not even installing them on it, I've I've been able to make sure that my time is my time and I'm not doom-scrolling, I'm not doing anything like that. I do it all the time.
Speaker 2:It's tough man like Especially about my business. I'm so OCD that every time my phone rings or bling's I'm worried that it's something about my business and I'm like I gotta look. I gotta look where truth is not important.
Speaker 1:Whatever it is, it can be resolved tomorrow and have an out of how many years if you have the gym. We're going on 10, now 10 years. It's amazing. Feet number one.
Speaker 2:That's good, but the crazy part is, in all seriousness, I don't think in 10 years, with the exception of twice. Okay, twice. And then these are actually. They're a great time. One one time one of my my trainers walked out and he left the garage door open. Great, in the gym, right? So the garage door is a friend. 12 by 12 door. Okay, you get everything. All the lights are on. So I know the police in the area very well. They call myself when it was like 1 32 in the morning and I scream. I'm like what, what? No, it's the police. I'm like oh, okay, what? Like? Your garage door is open. We're inside right now. Everything looks good, but we don't know what's going on. Can you come down here? Okay, I'll be down there. Okay, that's the first time. Nothing was wrong. Yeah, you know, they're just inside. They want to make sure that.
Speaker 1:Okay, I go inside a closed garage like generally, anybody that knows you in the area is also not gonna fuck with you.
Speaker 2:I, you'd be surprised, you know. But and then one other time, same same, during COVID a this nuts, but one of these construction trucks, you know they pull the trailers behind them. Yeah, so the trailer detached from the it was like a dump truck or something he was pulling and it detached like a block away from the gym and of course it wind up going right through the front of my gym, sick, like, yeah, how does that happen during COVID to you know what was that?
Speaker 1:this coat store next to you?
Speaker 2:There was literally two BMWs parked on either side of the trailer. It missed both BMWs and went right through the front of my store. I'm like God, this is great small business, but the you know, yes, I'm already down. You know $100,000 kick me right in the fucking nuts. Right in the nuts, great. Thank you so much. That's awesome, but it was pretty remarkable. Well, that's two times in ten years when I really like okay, this is like really important, let's get on the phone. Besides that, who cares?
Speaker 1:Yeah, so I'm saying, that's what I'm saying, and and anything can be resolved later on yeah, it's all. Any any clients that want to use me for video that hit me up after hours? I would be so hell bent on. I need to answer them right this second. I don't. You don't have to answer them right this second, unless the campaign is tomorrow morning.
Speaker 1:Yeah don't have to answer them right this second, and you know what, if that's the case, like yeah, that's the case really. Yeah, I've had people hit me up last minute like that and and truthfully, every single time I've been hit up last minute for that. It's never worth it. Never worth it. It's never worth it. It's the budget's gonna be $40 and they're gonna offer me free hot dogs for you.
Speaker 2:I'm like, yeah, I don't eat that, so we're good, I don't eat that Good Actually, now, like that. That is the one good thing about Been doing this, you know, for a while now it's like yeah and I could say no. Yeah, you know, whereas when I first started I had to say yes to everything.
Speaker 1:Oh I said yes to everything. You have everything except for weddings. I just didn't shoot weddings. Oh, that's couldn't do it. Yeah, there's video, guys get sucked right in. I said no shot, am I getting sucked into this?
Speaker 2:thing. No, yeah, like you know how many people I train that I absolutely despise, Like not anymore. But in the beginning I remember I had this guy like super wealthy guy and he would come in, we'd start a workout and he wouldn't talk to me. He's like I got it here, I gotta be here and be serious, like all right, all right.
Speaker 1:All right, bro.
Speaker 2:You know he's like we got to push harder. Push harder Like this is not enjoyable for me at all. Like here, scumbag, you know cuz, cuz you have money doesn't mean like you could push me around and tell me what to do. At that time, though, you know, I'm like I need to fill these slots. It's like, oh, it's 125 bucks an hour, like this guy's paying me. I'm gonna suck it up, and then one day I'm just like dude, we're done.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I can't I can't be around here anymore. Yeah, that's what I said to him. He's like what do you mean? I'm like, I just don't like you, so you're firing me. I'm like, yeah, yeah, he's like but I pay you a lot of money. I don't care, it's cool, I'll find somebody else. Maybe they'll pay me a little less, but I'll be happy. Yeah, you know you're a douchebag.
Speaker 1:It's crazy how the universe balances shit like that out. Yeah, you lose a client, you gain two. You know you tell a client, no, that's, it's not enough. You know we used to work on this rate. Now we have to do this. They say no when you go, okay, it is what it is. Then you get another client that's willing to pay that, and and no headaches. It's so crazy how shit you just have to appreciate sometimes, not not necessarily the, not necessarily the Sense of humor that the, that the universe has, but the sense of humor the universe has definitely has a sense of humor.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it also guides you on the right path, you know, and it it's giving you lessons to learn as you go about it. Questions Can you listen? You know? Okay, because if you're not listening to what it's telling you, because it's constantly telling you like this is not good for you, don't do this, and it's not telling you that because this guy's an asshole and it being an asshole to you, are you listening to universe? You just get rid of him. We'll find something better. We'll move on. We'll do it.
Speaker 2:And sometimes you have to go the hard way, you know, because that is the only way it's go the hard way. Learn like suffer, suffer, you know suffering's good. It's. Nobody's ever accomplished anything great because life was wonderful. Like life has to suck, really has to suck sometimes, and that's when you can create. You know, until life sucks, you can't create. And really that's that's how I got started the gym, you know, was my life sucked and it really didn't suck, but it sucked for me. You know, I was at this point in my life where I was like I Hate what I do every day.
Speaker 1:What were you doing prior?
Speaker 2:So I was doing construction development. I worked for a real estate development company. We're doing high rises and Williamsburg and in Hell's Kitchen and stuff like that. So I did that for like seven years and it was good for a while and Then it got bad 2008, when the market started going real bad. All of a sudden my company fired Everybody that was above me, moved me up into their position and, of course, kept my salary the same of course.
Speaker 1:Why would they upgrade your salary?
Speaker 2:So you just fired everybody that wasn't you know I was responding to. Now I got to take their job, do their job and do my job and then tell everybody below me what to do. Corporate 101, corporate 101, exactly. And and that's when. So was. I was Christmas that year and that's probably still around like Thanksgiving time and I made up my mind like I'm not going to New Year at this job. And so Christmas party for the for the company came on in, show up and my boss calls me off and he's like Are you wearing out the Christmas party? I'm like I know. He's like so what's going on? I quit. Like what do you mean? You quit? I'm like I don't, I just don't like it here. And he's like I'll give you 25,000 more.
Speaker 1:That's interesting how they throw that, just like that. Just like that, it's like they just throw it right at you, ready to go ready to go and I go.
Speaker 2:You don't get it, I don't like it here, there's not enough money in the world to keep me here. He's like no, that that's silly, that can't be. You're in a great position, you're doing well, you know, you got a great salary, great future here. I quit, you don't get it. I don't, that's right. You don't get it. I'm out. Like here's my two weeks, I'm out. Christmas is coming. Yeah, it is, I'm out. Yeah, I'm gonna be here for Christmas. Yeah, and that was it.
Speaker 2:I walked out, you know, and that led me to Starting the gym and doing these things, because for so long, this is what I wanted to do. You know, since I'm 18, 19, I need to own a gym. This is what I love to do. I want to own a gym, but it was impossible and it wasn't possible until CrossFit came around, because CrossFit Changed everybody's view of what a gym is. Now I don't like CrossFit, not at all. Okay, to be honest, I don't think it's it. It's terrible, whatever that's that's, you know. But what did it do? It introduced barbells to normal people, right, and it created a small community of people where this is acceptable to go to the gym Smaller gym and be a community. That I could do. I couldn't be an LA fitness or I couldn't be a you know Lifetime or equinox, where, where you need you know millions of millions of dollars to open this, but I can find a warehouse and I can gather up enough money to start this community. Now it's not gonna be CrossFit, because it's just not what I like to do.
Speaker 2:I was bodybuilding at the time and I'm like, okay, this is what I like to do, but this idea of a smaller gym is now feasible. You know, really, at the time, what I was looking at was Joe DeFranco's model of how he was running. He literally started in in a closet, you know, and he's running these athletes In studio no bigger than this, you know, and they're like they're becoming some of the best athletes in the world. I said this guy can do this, I can do this, and that's like alright, but how did I Mentally get there? I got there because my life sucked, you know, and if my life didn't suck, I never would have got there.
Speaker 2:I would have kept on staying at that job because I got plenty of friends that are making good money Miserable, they're not miserable enough, though. They're just miserable enough that that you know 300k years. Good enough that I'll sit in this cubicle to the end of time and my life is gonna be terrible, but it pays for my house, my wife, my kids, stuff and everything. And you know what? Now I've got 15 years and I got 20 years. And what am I going to do now? Because now I'm stuck. That's horrible.
Speaker 1:Isn't that sad. It's disgusting, it's like that is like an imaginary shackle.
Speaker 2:That keeps you at that desk. You are a slave.
Speaker 1:You are absolutely a slave and you know I said that with the guys yesterday. So I want you to continue on giving me the insight onto the opening of the gym, because it's awesome. But I do have to interject because I did say this yesterday. Yesterday I was an extra on an indie set, a movie at Governors in Levittown. They were filming, like a little indie my mom's friend and while we were waiting to film the guy came out that works at Governors and he's like, hey, if anybody wants to do a podcast, he's like I'm going live at 11 AM to do my hour and a half podcast sitting there and I'm intentionally being OK with being bored again. So I left this phone here, I took my Samsung with me and I intentionally made sure I didn't take it out at all. While I was sitting there waiting, I was looking around, just chilling, listening to conversations and just being present and I said, sure, I'll come through.
Speaker 1:So we wound up doing an hour and a half podcast, impromptu podcast, just hanging out, chopping it up. I was talking a lot about what I started talking about with the digital minimalism and stuff like that. It's tough because I know it's a comedy podcast. So I know a lot of the listeners were probably checking out. They were like what the fuck is this kid Talk? 32-year-old kid talking about all this stuff. All right, bro, we'll make you laugh. All right, here's a fart joke. So, but one of the things that we had spoken about was when I was selling home theater systems in the Hamptons. I would be in these 30, 40, $50 million homes unbelievable feats of architecture, unbelievable that people could afford these homes. You're just you're flabbergasted by how enormous and the amount of amenities that these homes have.
Speaker 2:I can't dream that big. It's my wildest dreams no.
Speaker 1:I'm telling you, man, we're putting iMacs theaters in people's homes, a fucking iMacs theater in their basement, where you have to have set dimensions for how wide and large the screens actually is able to accommodate Unreal. They're like bunkers underneath the house of movie theaters. So I would look around and I'd see the wife, the kids, the maid, the chef, the long guy, and I'd go to my boss at the time I'd say Where's that?
Speaker 1:Where's the husband? Oh, he, generally he's not out here. Why, he stays in the city and he works on all the finances and he's a hedge fund guy, this and that. Blah, blah, blah. And I said really, and we talked about that yesterday I said on your deathbed, are you gonna care more about making another billion dollars, or that you missed your kid's entire childhood, that although you gave them every single financial freedom and opportunity in the world, you weren't there their entire childhood and because of that, your wife left, or she cheated, or she definitely cheated. Yeah, that's what I'm saying. Like you lost the house and all because you told that boss that told you I'll get you a Learjet If you just stay and you're on call 24 seven whenever I need you to do this and that, and basically that is a form of selling your soul.
Speaker 1:Oh no, you sold your soul yeah that's really what it is, and it's scary when you think about it like that.
Speaker 2:I can't understand it. So my father was a factory worker, Never graduated high school, just your average Joe. Family came to this country and they're trying to make enough money to survive Now. He worked 14, 15 hours a day. Not because he wanted a Learjet, though, because he needed to put food on the table and that's the only way he had a way of doing it. It's okay. Unfortunately, I'm leaving the house at 4 30 in the morning and I'll be home at 7 38 o'clock at night.
Speaker 2:Now, as kids, we never saw him very rarely Like. My memories of seeing my father when I was a kid are few and far between, of no fault of his own, except he's trying to provide for his family. But what happened, you know. What happened was probably what happens to everybody else. My parents broke up, you know, family went to shit, Everybody went all over this place, and then everything what he did was for not really. Yeah, like okay, we survived. But could we survive if you were home two, three hours earlier? Yeah, we would have been just fine, you know we would have made it.
Speaker 2:But when does it become worth it and not worth it anymore? And that's a fine balancing act. But that structured me as a human being, where I said, okay, I'm gonna work my balls off and I'm gonna do everything, right, I'm gonna go as hard as I can, but when my son has a jujitsu tournament or he has a game, I'm gonna be there, you know, and I will. You know, and I am, and sometimes I'm not, of course, because I have to work, but as he gets a little older and I get a little older, I will be very mindful of how I am in his life and I will be there, you know. And if I make a few dollars, who cares?
Speaker 2:Who cares, because when my dad died, there was no money, there was no nothing. It was just. I wish I had my dad back, you know, because I would give anything to have him here seeing my son playing with my son. Instead he's gone. He worked his life away for nothing, you know, for literally nothing. I wish he was at my soccer games, my football games and at wherever you know, but where was he? He was at work, turning a wrench, you know, trying to make enough money and I get it. You know he had to do it and I'm grateful that he did, but I would have taken a little less of anything.
Speaker 1:A little less to get a little more yeah.
Speaker 2:Real, real, yeah, real time, because the only time I got to spend with my father was after he retired, you know, and there was a couple years between when he retired and when he died. And then it's like, okay, so I got him for a couple and the truth is I finally met him.
Speaker 1:You know, I never knew the man, you know. You knew him now. Oh, I had no idea who he was. You were just getting to know him.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I had no clue who my father was. I had seen him. I know he's the guy that goes to work and he works hard and when he comes home he's angry and he's like why are you kids doing this and that? And it's like now I understand the anger, I get it. When I was a kid I didn't understand that anger. It was like why is dad always angry? Why does he come home and he's throwing shit and you know like things are crazy when it comes home.
Speaker 1:It's frustrating, you know it's frustrating, but his life is groundhog day. Yeah, every day it's the same shit, every single day.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it wakes up in the middle of the night, goes to work, comes back and it's already dark out and can't do anything. And you know, one day like he would. He works Saturdays and Sundays and he's mechanic in the factory doing whatever. His day off would be like a Thursday, or we're all in school, it's like we don't even see him, so maybe he would pick us up after school or something like that. But it's like, dude, take a Sunday off, it would be worth it. Spend time with your family, you know, and it's like. So I try to like.
Speaker 2:I try to take that in my own life and be like and that's something that I do now is and I didn't do this five years ago, but I do now is like every Sunday with my son, all day long, you know, and it's it's my one day where I get a chance to to actually know him. And that is one debt that I actually do owe to COVID and the insanity that they did to us during COVID was it made me stay home, introduce me to my son for the first time, because he was born four years earlier and I had, I was working my balls off, yeah, and all of a sudden I'm home for eight months straight, you know, and, and, and I get to meet my boy, and then I'm like I'm never, never like I'm going to work hard and that crazy.
Speaker 1:It's addicting, yeah, when you're actually in it and you're actually present. It's addicting. And that's why I've been talking to my cousin, my cousin's husband, matt, who's basically my cousin too, married into the family, and we talk often and he's been big on slowing down, as I have to, even with my business, not slowing down, taking less projects, but selectively choosing what I want to do. Now I don't want to be selected. I don't want, I don't really want to do the expose anymore. I'll do it for rain, here and there if they want me to, but I can't follow the athletes around anymore. I can't be the slave of just like running around and and and.
Speaker 1:When I go on those trips, man, it takes me like a week to just when I get back, to actually get back to a baseline, because it's just, it's just high energy following the fans, the edits, the shoots. Did you, is it recording? Is everything in focus? Did you do this, did you do that? And you know, I see that the space of videography, photography, it's a low barrier to entry. A lot of guys can just grab a camera and they call themselves a pro.
Speaker 2:There's no barrier to entry. That's okay, wherever you are.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's okay, dude. You know I started that way too I. That's why, when people talk about, oh, this kid, they just picked the camera up and he thinks he's going to. You know, I'd have friends when I was shooting at the gyms, mostly at bevs and stuff. Oh, this kid picked a camera up and he thinks he's going to come after you and this and that I go. I don't care, cause I started that way too.
Speaker 1:So it's, you know, he is, he is going to do what he's going to do and he's going to. He's going to try to get as many clients as he can and charge a low premium for his services and then he'll eventually charge what he's somewhat worth, maybe if he gets smart enough, quick enough, and if he doesn't, then he's just going to continually getting pissed on by client to client because people that don't want to pay you and it just. It is what it is Like. He'll learn, but I've learned that I want to work with brands, I want to work with companies I want to work with, honestly I've been doing a lot of construction companies lately. It's easy money, truthfully, it's easy money.
Speaker 1:I get to go to a site, I shoot, I charge what I charge and I dip and I and I edit it and they love it and we're done Like if there's no. It's great that I get to see Germany, it's great that I get to see Dubai, it's great that I get to see all of these different places, but it is fucking slave work. If you take the amount of work that it takes on a Thursday to Sunday or a Monday to Monday type of a trip versus going to one job site and generally making not far off of what you'd make of a whole weekend with a big corporation, because they understand the value in the content, you're just like why am I overworking myself to just work with that, versus when I can just work with this and just have?
Speaker 2:Oh, that's where you start to balance life out. So in the beginning you kind of have to take those jobs.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:You know, just like I got to train, who I got to train in the beginning, and then you get to a point where your value is so much higher, so much greater. Other people begin to see it, and you know these guys, whoever you know, whatever company, and there's a million of them that are going to try to take advantage of you. You say no, yeah, and then, all of a sudden, the no's turn into a hundred other people chasing after you. And unless you say no, though, you're never going to have those other people chasing after you, because you won't value you.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I got rid of a lot of clients the last year. I got rid of a lot of clients, a lot of people that I was working with. I just couldn't do it anymore. People that were disrespecting me, people that were just, you know, late payments. And then saying that, saying that I was ruining the relationship because the payment was a year late. I'm like, dude, I have to add late fees. Man, oh, you want to ruin this relationship Me, dude, the dog needs medicine every month I got to pay for shit. Like this is life. You know, when you work with brands, you make sure you get paid right, so why am I any different?
Speaker 2:So I value that Exactly and life will stay.
Speaker 1:He'll stay Exactly, and life has taught me a lot of lessons, obviously with the digital stuff, with the technology, with slowing down, with being present, with enjoying my time with the dog, switching my modalities and the things that I enjoy, not really going into bodybuilding anymore and going into more hybrid fitness not CrossFit, but hybrid type fitness.
Speaker 2:Yeah, crossfit thing is whatever. You know.
Speaker 1:no, I know, I know, I know Again like Not CrossFit and it's, but but being in that type of a community environment. And then Jiu-Jitsu, which has been a lifesaver in a lot of different ways. It has challenged me more than a lot of other things, not only coming back from injuries from it and just dealing with a lot of different techniques and you think you know a lot and you have no fucking clue.
Speaker 2:That is the one thing about Jiu-Jitsu that is so humbling and so great, and you know I remember. So I started at Royal Jiu-Jitsu when I first started training and I was hanging out with a bunch of guys and there was one guy, jonathan Masa, who was I think it was like a three time, four time all American and Hasha went. It was going to Olympic trials and stuff. So he's like come down, you know, come down. And you know wrestling with me. Wrestlers are wild, he's wicked. So you know I roll like one or two classes and I'm beat up. You know, I'm bleeding from my toes. I'm bleeding. You know how it is. It's like you go in there and you're like Isn't that the craziest sensation?
Speaker 1:I can't explain that unless somebody actually goes through it. My toes were so sore and I was, like why are my toes so sore? Like what is that about Squatting 350, no problem, but my toes are killing me right now.
Speaker 2:So you know, like you know, these guys are like most of guys are. Most of them are smaller than me, you know, definitely not as strong, but they're, you know they're technically crazy and they're, you know I'm rolling in a class of advanced guys because it's the only time I could go and it's like all right, this is fun, but I'm getting my ass kicked. So Jonathan pulls me over and he's like all right, you know, go with me. Within 10 seconds this guy has me in a fireman's carry over his head, spins me around, dumps me on my back and when I tell you I have no clue where I am and no clue, and I'm just laying there like wow, what just happened?
Speaker 1:Like what dimension did you just send me to.
Speaker 2:This guy I'm 220 pounds and this 160 pound guy just picked me up over his head, spun me in the air like a helicopter and dropped me and he's like, okay, get up Now I'll teach you how to do some stuff. And I'm like, oh man, like this is so humbling. You know, it's a great humbling, like it really is.
Speaker 2:It's another world man and it's I think as like and this is like that. Like you got that stupid Bradley Martin, I'm 260. Bro, I'm 260. Like bro who cares? Yeah, you're 260. This 150 pound guy is gonna whoop you.
Speaker 2:That will fucking fold you up like a chair and toss you to the side, like that in the beginning, where it was like I deadlift 700 man, what do you know? How's this little guy going to beat me? Oh, he's going to beat you. Yeah, he's going to beat you. Bad, you know. But you got to go through that experience of getting getting flipped and turned and knocked on your head and then all of a sudden you realize like, wow, okay, this is real, yeah, so I went into.
Speaker 1:I went into it very open-minded and neutral. I knew that I was going to get my ass kicked. I was just like you know what. I know that these dudes are just different. Yeah, you know, and you think about when we're in the fitness industry especially, you think about bodybuilder strength and you think about bodybuilder you. We think bodybuilders are tough oh, they're not.
Speaker 1:Oh man hitting the leg press and doing this and that Dude, these dudes will snap a finger and pop it back in and go all right, let's go again. You're like what? Your fingers hanging off by a thread. Oh, it's okay, it's done that before. They'll tape it up and they'll just go right back in.
Speaker 1:So I went into it with just a very neutral, open-minded experience of I want to learn how to not only defend myself but do something very challenging. Exactly what you said before Do challenging shit. And I've said to multiple times Cameron Haynes, all these different guys life is a lot easier when you do a lot of hard things. A lot of hard things, yeah, and it just the hard parts of life don't seem as hard at that point because you've done the ice baths, you've done jiu-jitsu and gotten your fucking dick kicked in by a little 140 pound dude. You've run outside, you've did. You do all those things. You know even my bodybuilding. That was a crazy trial of dropping 90 pounds in one year, going from 240 to 150 on stage. That was another hard thing that set me up. Toughness to that.
Speaker 2:Like. It may not be the same toughness as snapping your finger back in the place, but you learn a lot. You learn a lot about mental fortitude.
Speaker 1:You learn a lot about these different things. I push myself yeah.
Speaker 2:And how bad do I want it? How far am I willing to go? Because that's really the question and that's what separate is, I think, mostly anybody in any sport. Like you got super talented people, but how far are you willing to go? It's like you know, when you used to see Kobe Bryant train and play and like this guy was willing to go to the end of the world, the end of the world and that's it. And there's probably guys more talented than him, or even Michael Jordan himself. I think those guys are more talented than Michael Jordan. Nobody out there, Nobody, you know. And that's that's crazy.
Speaker 2:Sweat equity. Sweat equity, yeah, and and that's that's where I live, my life is sweat equity. Like there are tons of people more talented, smarter, faster, bigger, stronger, whatever you want to call. You're not going to outwork me, that once in a while you will. You know, we'll all get tired and like humans oh yeah, we're human and like, trust me, there's times when 430 rolls around, that alarm goes off and I don't want to get out of bed, you know, but 99 out of 100 times, not going to outwork me, you know, and that's it. That's it.
Speaker 2:Most people are lazy. Most people, Most people. I think that if the general population is just not lazy, he would be so much more successful, so much more successful. But they take that easy route. You know the easy money, the easy, whatever it is. You know, back to the cubicle. I'm going to sit in that cubicle because it's easy. I'm still getting paid. You know, it's not what I want to make, but I'm lazy Because that's what they're saying. I'm lazy, I'm not, I don't have the energy to do it on my own. That's fine, that's well and good Me. I'm going to go out and I'm going to do it on my own, and it's going to suck more than prepare for that to suck. You know, and that's it. Stop being lazy, Stop not showing up. I know so many people that just don't show up. How do you not show up Like you committed?
Speaker 2:yourself to something and now you're just, you're tired, you're just like you don't feel good today. What do you mean? You don't feel good today? Are you sick? Are you dying? Are you in the hospital? No, no, I just don't feel good. Show up, but I don't feel good. Nobody cares, I certainly don't care, it doesn't matter to me. You know and I tell this to my kids all the time like you don't feel good, nobody fucking cares, nobody cares. You don't feel good, show up. No, no, I don't feel I don't care. Like it's really that simple. You have a job to do. Show up, get it done, go home and don't feel good after that, but get it done. You're not willing to do that. They were, years ago, generations of our fathers.
Speaker 1:Well, life has made life too easy. It's way too easy, and that's the problem. You know, everybody sees these influencers on Instagram. Everybody sees this easy quote, unquote easy money to be made, but they don't realize that it's far and few between and you really do sell yourself out to get there in a lot of cases and the amount of people that I see yeah, the amount of people that I see, especially females this isn't a dig at females, it really isn't. No, I got a lot of respect for females that actually respect themselves. That's that's really what I have to say as a caveat.
Speaker 1:There are very few, very few, and I you know I was raised by a single mother since I was two. Yeah, I have an enormous respect for females and women and hard workers and real feminism, not bullshit. Feminism like real empowerment of women. Real, not when you're just jamming it down someone's throat because it's a talking point for a pain.
Speaker 2:Well, that's how it's become now.
Speaker 1:Yeah, well, that's what it's become. But the majority of women that I see degrading themselves online the amount of you know, not so much men, because they don't get the clicks. So the women, they tend to stick with it further. But I just saw this recently and it's this, isn't. It isn't a female. I hate that. You even have to say it because they'll take it as a female bashing thing.
Speaker 1:It's a girl that is in the Bev's circle, whatever. And the other day she I don't follow her a long time ago but somebody sent me her post of a dude holding a stack of cash in front of her. She's sitting in a car in Miami and I guess it's her only fans link in the thing. Really, really, okay, I mean, oh, if that's what you enjoy doing, I mean, if that's how you feel like you can get a buck, that's the only way that you can't use your mind and be successful in creating something that's important, of relevance. You have to use your vagina and your breasts Like, if that's what you believe, then Godspeed, do that. But you're, you're looked at as an object now. You're not looked at as a human being and there's serious consequences for that Serious.
Speaker 2:Down the line too. Down the line I'm not talking immediate Like great, you're going to get a fancy car and maybe a nice house and maybe a whole bunch of other stuff, maybe, maybe, right, I can tell you what you're not going to get. You're not going to get a guy that wants to marry you and respect you and raise his family with you, because I don't want that from my wife. Like I would if I found out that my wife was an ex porn star or something like that. I go take a walk, or the town slut, yeah, or whatever it is, you know, but the fact that you're willing to do that to yourself and degrade yourself says a lot.
Speaker 1:Well, I've my terminology for stuff like that, because I do see a lot of girls that have boyfriends and they do a lot of only fans. Yes, and they do all this stuff. My terminology for that is that is not your girlfriend. This is to the guy that is our girlfriend, that's our girlfriend. And no, I'm not paying to see her, no, for only fans, because I don't care, I truly don't give a fuck. I'm not that guy that's desperate to see that shit. I don't care. But that is our girlfriend, that's not your girlfriend, that's our girlfriend. What's?
Speaker 2:truly baffling and sad. On the other side of the spectrum is the amount of guys that are willing to pay for that. Oh, it's crazy. I used to yell, I used to yell at Tyler.
Speaker 1:Sorry, tyler. I used to yell at Tyler all the time, my boy, because he would pay for only fans. And I'm just like yo, doug first off. Pornhub is free.
Speaker 2:Please just go there.
Speaker 1:If you have to watch anything, just please go there. Just, it's not a plug for Pornhub. I don't. I don't condone that either. But man, just go to the website. It's free, you don't have to spend 499. These guys get obsessed with these girls. Yes, because I don't know if it's because it's a local thing and it's because they're, they're not unknown stars yeah they're just like the girls that they've seen in yoga pants.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:I gotta get, I gotta get on that.
Speaker 2:If I keep on, you know, paying her for long enough, maybe she'll come around.
Speaker 1:Maybe she'll recognize my MX number when I, when I flay it, when I drop it in front of her at a class, it's like no bro, I don't know, that couldn't be the lowest, that couldn't be the lowest. Least amount of testosterone move in the world of just. I'm going to pay this girl.
Speaker 2:I honestly think I might have less respect for the guys that are paying the girls than the girls that are taking the money.
Speaker 1:You know, because without the guys, the girls don't make it, they don't exist right.
Speaker 2:So so like, ok, like you don't exist after that. But there's so many guys are willing to pay and I don't know what it is for, only fans of it.
Speaker 1:Oh, it depends. They said they set the rate.
Speaker 2:Whatever, let's say it's 699 a month. You know it's like OK, it's very little money, but I guarantee that guy's going in there and he's like tipping the girl on his get.
Speaker 1:Oh yeah messaging and then eventually, and she's sitting there, she's sitting there messaging back. Oh hey, baby. Yeah, the same message. Actually, it's probably another dude that's managing it for her yeah, 100 percent.
Speaker 2:It's some guy sitting behind the screen, you know it's. Kenji. So yeah, it might be some big fat ball guy. Yeah they're like hey, baby. Yeah, crazy man that's so creepy and like yeah, think about that for a second. Yeah, like that's some dude. She pays manager account. She's not even there.
Speaker 1:No, she's not there. She's not there, she's. She's counting the stack of money that you just sent her and it just it cleared this morning with the wire transfer. I don't know, man I there's a lot of girls that I see that get notifications for why I want to be you, be my sugar daddy, sugar baby, and they're just like yo. I want to pay you four thousand a month for four bands. Oh yeah, four bands. You're going to pay a girl four bands to just exist and talk to you. I.
Speaker 2:I've seen it many times.
Speaker 1:You can't be that lonely. Please go read a book. Go hit a, go hit a fucking bench press. Go do something, because there's something that's not clicking in the neurons.
Speaker 2:There's a lot of guys that are that depressed in their life and that upset about you know, whatever it is, but they are willing to pay that. I've seen guys pay much more than that.
Speaker 2:I've seen guys set up girls with apartments no, seriously, I know you're while they I mean, and you know they got, they got a wife and kids at home and they're like all right, I got a girl, you know she, I'm paying her bills for her apartment, all her spending fees for the month, and the deal is I get to come over and get a blow job or fuck or whatever it is. You know and like is that really what you want out of life?
Speaker 1:How does that make you? What a waste of money. Why don't you put that money in your kids college account or something? Do something, just.
Speaker 2:I don't get it Like I get that you're miserable.
Speaker 1:You know I get that it's a much different brain that we have, though? No, no, I'm not. You know, my mom has always said you can't think that everybody thinks like you, and that's the mistake that I made for a long time. Everybody makes that until I got that advice from her, and I was like oh wow, you're 100 percent correct.
Speaker 2:You know most people think very differently Most people. But you know you got to hang around with people that think the same as you.
Speaker 1:Well, that's why I mean I've cut a lot of friends out, I've cut a lot of people out of my life, and it's not because I don't love these people and I don't think that they're awesome. I think you're awesome in your own way, but I just can't be around you anymore. You fester in your own shit. You cause your own problems, you do you, and then you, you sit there and you point at the sky and like why, me God, you're doing it to yourself, bro.
Speaker 2:It's a victimhood mentality. Yeah, dude, you're doing it to yourself. Do something about it. You know, do something.
Speaker 1:I've spoken about it. I've spoken about it before and I've never mentioned the person's name and I never will, but it's very, very close friend of mine. For a long time we haven't spoken in a year. We haven't spoken in a year and he was in a relationship with a woman. I came to call her a woman, a girl. She's not even a woman.
Speaker 1:So he was in a relationship with a girl who just did nothing but put him down, abuse him, suck in of his time and his livelihood. She got pregnant twice with him and she had other kids with other people before him and he just he created his own shitty environment. That's really what happened and I truthfully I felt bad for him because he never was able to pull himself out of it. And then, after the first child was born well, I can't leave now because I was like no, you can you have only one kid, dude, please. And then the second one. I'm like you're pushing it, you could still dip. And then it was just a constant cycle of victim, victim, mentality, police being called of just I. I just said you know what, dude, I just I can't be around it anymore because I'll give you all the advice in the world.
Speaker 2:No, he's not listening.
Speaker 1:Listen, my advice is an ironclad. It's not the. It's not bulletproof advice, but seeing things from the outside, witnessing a lot of different perspectives on life and situations and seeing similar situations pan out with other people I know and my mom's friends and this, I have a good understanding of what you should and shouldn't do Continually getting back with somebody like this is just going to continually create the same monster you're trying to defeat and he just couldn't get it. So we naturally and she hated me because I would give her, I would give her, give him the advice that he needed and he wouldn't take so, truthfully, we just drifted apart. We haven't spoken. And does it pain me to think that way? Without question, that was one of my closest friends for a long time, but at the same time, that negativity then leeches into my brain and my. Every time he calls, I'm irritated because he's irritated, I'm just like I can't be around it anymore. Dude, I'm trying to improve myself.
Speaker 2:No, that's going to destroy you. You know that is something you don't want to be around.
Speaker 1:It's like a bad client that you had, that you're coaching, that you have to listen. You know, because even on the personal training side of things, it is a therapy session in a lot of ways for a lot of people.
Speaker 2:I would say at least 50%. At least 50% of my clients. Hey, no, not hang out.
Speaker 2:Of course they want to work out, but they want to talk you want to talk, you know, and the reason that I've had clients for 10 years, 12 years, you know, is because they enjoy talking, not just working out, and it's it's a huge therapy session. So it's like, yeah, if you can't relate to this person, or if this person is bringing you down, you need to cut the cord and move on, get out. And it's a tough lesson to learn. I think we've all been there. We've all had friends where we know this guy's just no good for us. And then we hang around. We hang around until we finally figure out, like, leave this loser.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:You know, and yeah, it hurts. It hurts is I've got a friend from high school that I just I don't talk to him. You know, same thing.
Speaker 1:I mean, that was a friend from high school for me too.
Speaker 2:A little longer than you've been. But you know, and no harsh feelings towards, I still love the guy. But, oh man, you bring me down. Yeah, like you are on this negative trail and I'm trying to go on the positive side and everything you do is just terrible. It's terrible and you're not willing to do anything to get out of the situation. So I'm cutting you off, that's it. Not answering the phone, I'm not reaching out, I'm not doing anything and then eventually you just lose contact.
Speaker 1:It's funny how you. It's funny how, when you stop reaching out.
Speaker 2:So that's an interesting thing.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and that's what a lot of people. It's not just with friends like that, it's just you stop reaching out and the radio silence is deafening.
Speaker 2:So I think that's a huge indicator of who you really are, who your relationship is. You know, like you know, okay, so if I stop calling, you're saying you're never going to talk to me again. Interesting, because if that's the case, I'm going to stop calling. Yeah, I don't want to talk to you. You know, and I do that with a lot of people, and some people call and then you know we'll go back and forth and we call and somebody doesn't call me. And I'm doing it intentionally, like if I don't call you for like three weeks, I'm doing that intentionally to see is this guy going to pick up and call me.
Speaker 1:It's a feeler. I'm setting out a feeler, yeah.
Speaker 2:And when they don't, that's it, man. You're cut off, you're done, you know, and better off. Yeah, I have a friend.
Speaker 1:I have a friend who he listens to the show every now and then so he may hear this and it's nothing against him personally. Yeah, but he got involved with his girl. They moved in together this and that and then, once they moved in together, just all communication just kind of stopped. Yeah, and I I'm very big on inviting people to everything. I like to include everybody, even if I know they don't like it. I play Magic the Gathering, which, truthfully, has been a godsend when I do play, because that has taken me out of the phone. Yeah. So you sit there with actual people, even though some of them are like young Sheldon's. You're like, holy shit, I couldn't believe someone.
Speaker 2:I used to play when I was in high school, so I oh, did you, yeah, so I got to get your bag.
Speaker 1:So it's like you sit across from a young Sheldon type of dude but you realize that this person is just trying to not fit in, but they're just trying to enjoy what they enjoy and be present. So it's a it's a cool environment to be able to sit there, no distractions, and just play cards and read cardboard, and it's almost worth the hefty investment sometimes on these paper pieces of nothing. I mean I, I mean I, oh, it's so expensive. One collector pack with comes with a lot of mythics or rares could be 30 bucks, 40 bucks, just for one pack 15 cards.
Speaker 2:I, I, my son loves Pokemon. Okay, I'll buy him packs of Pokemon. Yeah, like the first time I ever went, I went into 7-Eleven, right, and I just like I see the pack of Pokemon cards, it's a snag, it, and I'm like I'm like, all right, I. I like you know, boss, how much does it cost? It's like $7.99. Yeah, I said what? Yep, $7.99.
Speaker 1:The number was two bucks, I thought it was three dollars.
Speaker 2:Yeah, you know, like that shows how old I am. But like I remember walking in, you know, buying baseball cards. Yeah, it was like you know, 50 cents for this pack, a dollar for this. It was like the crazy cards you get for like three dollars a pack, you know. Yeah, Now this guy wants 6.99, 7.99 a pack of normal Pokemon cards. It's crazy.
Speaker 1:And you're not even guaranteeing any good cards. That's the thing, nothing.
Speaker 2:And yeah, my son opens a pack. He's like this one sucks, this one sucks, this one sucks.
Speaker 1:And you just go, okay, agrees. God, I got to go call that guy that I hate for those lessons for the, for the, for the training Fuck, stop. It's terrible I burned through the money.
Speaker 2:Yeah, but oh, yeah, but yeah.
Speaker 1:So I, you know, I invite him to a lot of different things, and even even Jiu-Jitsu. I invite everybody to Jiu-Jitsu even though I know they're probably not going to like it, you know, because they just are setting their ways and this and that. But so I've invited this person to multiple things. Every single time there's an excuse of why not. But you see, when you look at their profile, he's telling you something different. Oh yeah, you see, when you, when you look at their profile, you see they're out doing things.
Speaker 2:Right. So he's telling you in a nice way is it like I want to do it?
Speaker 1:Yeah, which is cool, that's fine, but it's it's not you know what, it's things that he would enjoy Probably. Well, no, that he bought cards, concerts, that they want to go to this and that, so you start sitting there and you just go. Okay, well, I'm not going to keep inviting you to things. So the other day he, he, literally I texted him and I said yo, I'm going to this concert that I know you want to go to. I already got tickets with a couple of buddies of mine. Oh well, I'm sick right now and I just I can't make that decision right this. Second. I'm like, dude, it's in May. Like it's not tomorrow, it's in May. So I just said, I didn't even answer him.
Speaker 1:He drove past my house the other day, honked at me yo, what up, sexy this. And that I, I turn, I literally turn around with the most dead serious face and I just went. So this is how I have to see you, just you driving by this. And that I said that out loud and he just realized that I was actually super pissed, I think, and just like, very, what are we doing? And he just drove, he drove by and never texted me. Yo, I'm sorry, blah, blah, blah, blah, isn't that Nothing, it's okay, that's cool, bro, I won't hit you up again.
Speaker 1:It's interesting. It's and it's I'm not offended, but it's like I'm not going to keep reaching out. You don't have to. I'm not going to keep doing this and and keeping my. It's like I'm reeling a line that's never coming in. So it's cool, bro, I'll cut the line, it's more about it.
Speaker 2:There's something interesting that happens when a guy gets in a serious relationship with a woman Right and and I don't know how serious it is with him, but you know it's it changes the dynamic of your boys relationship. You know how you interact with your boys, because sometimes that girl doesn't like your boys or something.
Speaker 1:Oh, I know she doesn't like me, Right? So yeah, I know she doesn't like me.
Speaker 2:So now he's got to play that game of like most of the girlfriends that manipulate their significant others.
Speaker 1:They don't like me, sure, because I call them out on it. Yeah, I call them out on it, and I have no filter. So I'm just like. I'm just like, yeah, I don't like what you're doing with so and so, and it is what it is. You don't have to like me, I'm not having sex with you, I don't care. I'm just going to tell you straight. I'm not going to be rude about it, but I'm going to tell you exactly how it is. Like, that's just how I am and that's how I am. I keep that energy with everybody. So it doesn't matter that you're my boys girl, that this, and that I don't care what title you have. The title to me is you're a person, that I'm letting you know, that I see what you're doing and it's not cool.
Speaker 2:Yeah. So the difficult part there is like he made his choice also. Yeah, that's cool, you know. Yeah, no, it's fine. Yeah, it's just like we know.
Speaker 1:Yeah, you know, we know. Oh, we know, yeah, we know.
Speaker 2:That's cool.
Speaker 1:I guess this was. This was just like showing people that are probably in a similar situation with friends of theirs that you know. If that's kind of the situations that are occurring, you can, you can. You can understand what's going on if you don't already. And that's also if he listens to this, I get it.
Speaker 2:I get it. Yeah, I listen to it. I get it. That's your choice. Yeah, hey, it got speed.
Speaker 1:I've worked in your life like hey, hey, it got speed brother. I don't have to deal with it. That's it right. I deal with the dog, and that's it, and that is all I got to do with. Yeah, I want to jump back to you opening the gym. Yeah, I know we got derailed. That usually always happens, but I want you to jump back to you opening the gym. What was it like? You know pitfalls? What was it just easy for you, or was it a lot, yeah?
Speaker 2:No, I don't think there's there's anything worth doing. That actually is easy. I never thought for a second it was going to be easy, but I made a decision that this is what I'm going to do, and I will tell you exactly how it went down. We spoke a little bit about this before, but I, you know, I quit my corporate job and and I stumbled for a while. You know I was so.
Speaker 2:I was working for bodybuildingcom, I was working for Alpine Nutrition, so I had those small things going for me and I was doing. I was always doing personal training on the side. But you know, I started doing a little more personal training on the side and I mean, I remember the conversation with my wife. She wasn't my wife at the time and she was my girlfriend. We were sitting down at the dinner and I'm like, fuck it, I'm going to do this Like I don't care, like I can't die knowing that I didn't try. And she's like what do you mean? I can't live the rest of my life thinking about what, if, what, if, and I'm going to take all the money we have and I'm going to invest everything I've got and I'm going to put I'm going to put 25,000 on the side right and that's going to pay our rent and hopefully our food for the next year Hopefully, at least. Now she's a teacher. She makes pretty decent money.
Speaker 1:I'm Ergebically, as you know, cutting the segment and and she wants 있지.
Speaker 2:so she's like, okay, your firm, you know, is actually going to pay for the school支 to log a business right and in couple years now, and been doing that. You know you're seeing what's going on and how this really works. But if you can't remember the third, look at that immigration statement, you'll know what you're seeing. That's a similar thing. One day I took every credit card I had and I cashed every single one of them. So you're allowed to cash in like whatever was 90% of the balance of the credit card. So if I got a $10,000 line, I could take 9,000 out in cash and I think I cashed in about 15 to 20 credit cards in one day and I put everyone in my bank account and my credit went from, like you know, 750 to zero, zero, zero.
Speaker 1:Do not lend this guy any money. Don't do this.
Speaker 2:Holy shit. I said, like you know, put it all on red, okay, yeah, so I put it. I literally did that, you know, and I had had about 200, 250,000 in cash at that point to open up this gym and I figured so I had about two and a half years to pay all those credit cards back, right? So, stress, yeah, I get this place. I already had the place in mind. I find the place, I lease the place. Okay, I put the down payment on the place, I go in, I start building, the town comes in right away and they shut me down.
Speaker 2:Oh man, like where's your permit? Permit for what For a gym? I'm like what the fuck do you mean? I need a permit for a gym. Like what is this? Like? I didn't know, you know, I was just like, I thought this was just going to be. Like you come in, you open up a business who tells you you need well, you need a special use permit, you need a fire permit, you need, you need whatever it was.
Speaker 1:I don't know those things are such jerky off fucking. They are unbelievable and it's just a money grab by the town. That's what it was. It's so irritating when I hear about this because the amount of businesses that I've heard about that stop businesses. They stop you, but you still have to pay rent you still have to, so you're gonna have to pay rent.
Speaker 2:Okay, so here I am now. I'm literally in the middle of building out a gym and building. An inspector comes in, shuts down my job, shuts everything down, and now it takes me about two and a half months to get a meeting with the village that I then have to go and meet with all the members of the town who want to come down and object to my opening in gym.
Speaker 1:Isn't that crazy. You got that much time where you could say I don't want this gym here.
Speaker 2:Of course this all happens and, like you said, it's just a money grab, right, because the town just wants their money and so they're not really listening to anybody that's sitting down in that meeting.
Speaker 1:Modern day mafia.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that's what it is. So they held me up for I don't know $20, $25,000 worth of permits and fees and all this crap. So there's the budget right.
Speaker 1:There goes the food.
Speaker 2:That was the end of that.
Speaker 1:We're eating tuna cans. We're going bodybuilding 101.
Speaker 2:And this is where it comes in. So I'm literally in tears. I got nothing left, man. I'm just not a penny to my name, that. So the first year I worked 5.30 in the morning until 8.30, 9 o'clock at night, every single day, seven days a week, and I didn't take a single day off. I took Christmas day off and that was it. And this went on for about three years and I worked every single day. I couldn't afford to hire anybody, couldn't do anything. I had $200 and something thousand dollars was a debt I had to pay off and business was just starting.
Speaker 1:Is that still credit card debt?
Speaker 2:That was all credit card debt, yeah, so the interest?
Speaker 2:is rolling over too, so, yeah. So what happened is, after the first year of the interest, like start to really pick up. Yeah, so they make their money. Yeah, so they lock you in, and so that was yeah, that was about three years before I was able to pay that off, and I didn't take a penny, not a penny. The first couple of years, like every dollar I made went back into paying those loans back, and then so it was a freaking nightmare, a nightmare, and it was the best thing I ever did.
Speaker 1:You know it's like I'm gonna say what did you learn from that experience?
Speaker 2:Everything Like so, like so many things, beyond anything I could have ever learned. You know, sitting in a desk and just taking a check and like I learned real life, you know, in real responsibility and freedom, because I could have walked away. You know I could have at any point like, hey, just file bankruptcy and walk away.
Speaker 1:I call it a day.
Speaker 2:But here's the thing, like and this is what I tell everybody that's like oh, you know, I wanna start. I wanna start something company or a gym or a dance, or that. I said how much pain are you willing to take to do this? Because if the answer is, you know, I just wanna do it, it's not good enough. You have to be willing to damn near die. Do it because there's somebody else out there that's going to. You know whether it's me or whether it's somebody else. I mean, there are plenty of people out there that they're gonna work day and night. They're gonna be completely obsessed. They're gonna, you know, have no family life, have no time, they're gonna beat you. You know, if you think, oh, I got a few bucks in my pocket, I could open up a business, a hire manager, I'll do this, and that you're dead, you're gonna fail. Done, you're done before you've been started.
Speaker 1:Yeah, especially if you don't have an actual part and handing it right from the get go.
Speaker 2:No, no, you have to be so deep in it that you're swimming in shit.
Speaker 1:So I don't have anybody that works with me yet I don't have any editors, I don't have anything like that, and guess what, my clients don't want it. That's the crazy part too.
Speaker 2:So that's the other thing that ends up happening is like everybody wants you after a while.
Speaker 1:Yeah. So that's so what happens when I get so big that I have to send people out to shoot for me or send people out to do the edits for me and they go. Did you edit this, or did you have one of your guys from your team Not to say that they'd be bad? I would never allow anybody on my team to be bad.
Speaker 2:Listen, I do the same thing with you. Know, like the trainers that are at my gym, it's like, well, I don't want him training me. Well, he's been with me seven years now, like I've taught him everything I know, like you know, we speak every, yeah, but he's not you.
Speaker 1:It's the rapport. Yeah, it's the rapport. It's the authenticity factor.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so that's a tough not to swallow.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:But you do have to eventually get there. Oh yeah, eventually you'll find the right person.
Speaker 1:Yeah, truthfully, I need editors. That's what I need down the line. I need an editor to help me out get some of the backlog done, because I just I can't. Sometimes when it's crazy I can't get everything done. When you have five, six clients on retainer and everybody needs edits like the same week, it's weird. I hit them all up the month before towards the end and I say, hey, let's get things planned out. That's just where I know when I'm shooting, who and when I'm doing this. When I'm doing that, okay, we're gonna let you know. And all of a sudden, without fail, like they're all texting each other, like, absolutely like, should we text Nick now? They all text me at the same time. Hey, can you shoot on the 10th? Can you shoot at all the same day I go? There are 30 days in this fucking month and all of you guys pick the same days. Can we just do something different?
Speaker 2:It's incredible. Again, that goes back to like how the universe works, like how does that happen?
Speaker 1:I have no idea. I'm still shocked every time I get a message like everybody wanting to do the same thing on the same day every month, and I go. Now I have to choose.
Speaker 2:I don't want to choose Like you could be cold for like three, three weeks, four weeks, and then all of a sudden it's like the it literally they're talking to each other. You gonna call them. You gonna call them, let's all call them. Let's all call them, let's fuck with them.
Speaker 1:How bad can we mess with them right now.
Speaker 1:It's incredible. It's been like that since I started business and it was it's always been a scary thing where there are some slow weeks, slow month, and you just you go, man, is this what it's gonna be like? And then all of a sudden, everybody just hits you up and they're like, hey, I need this, I need that, I need this, I need that. And then you're almost wishing for slow time and you don't give yourself the opportunity to enjoy the slow time and chill out a little bit. And when I say chill out, it's like oh, do a little prospecting, hit a couple of businesses up, do some more extra episodes and hang out, and maybe a little bit more research on topics. And there's plenty of things you could do, plenty of things to do, instead of just sit there and veg out, because then all of a sudden, a week goes by, you haven't done anything and everyone hits you up now and you go oh wait, I should have gotten rid of the backlog of edits that I had from two weeks ago.
Speaker 2:There is something we said about downtime too, though. You have to allow yourself to relax, because if you don't, you're gonna fry yourself.
Speaker 1:And that's actually the position that I'm in now is that I'm very much in the. I need to have my me time, my real me time, Not my me time of me sitting there watching TV, not my me time of me playing video games or not my me time of me doing this, my me time of me actually being able to sit and just be still and be bored and be okay with it.
Speaker 2:Can you do that? Because that's a mental game more than anything.
Speaker 1:Yeah, you know what. So I was getting headaches and I thought it was mostly from the Jiu Jitsu, but it actually wound up not being Dirlan, did Dirlan Castro? Yeah, Dirlan, I figured Dirlan adjusted me and I did feel great after the adjustment. So I do wanna attribute some of that to him. But since I've been taking this more seriously and separating my life a little bit more and not being a single entity of call me anytime this and that on this one phone all the time, and video games when I'm not doing this, and the constant noise in the background and constant stimuli and this and that, First off, I don't have a TV in my bedroom.
Speaker 2:This is the my- yeah, so I'm big on that too, it is beautiful not having a TV in the bedroom.
Speaker 1:man, you go in there, you sleep, you have sex, you do whatever you're gonna do and you get out. That's what you're supposed to do before.
Speaker 2:Yeah, you get out. You sit around and watch TV for three hours a night, like that's a terrible thing.
Speaker 1:So it's truly been really nice. But now it's weird how much I'm enjoying, even driving, with no music on. No podcast, no audio book, no music, just your own thoughts, just my own thoughts, and I've always been cool with that. I've been an only child my whole life, so it's-.
Speaker 2:Like can you be with your own thoughts? I can, yeah, so that's great. Yeah, I can. A lot of people can.
Speaker 1:It's tough because it makes you start thinking about your existence. It makes you start thinking about business. Where do you go from here? The simpler life that you're yearning for, and not so much the constant chaos that we've all been accustomed to, that we call New York. You know what I'm saying? Oh, it's just fast paced. No, it's not. It's chaos. That's what it is Controlled chaos, it's chaos, and it's not the way that we're supposed to live. We're supposed to live a more meaningful, slow, interpersonal type of a lifestyle. And is that to say that you can't get that here? No, but it's much more challenging to accept that fate here, when everyone runs around with their hair on fire, right and it's and then you're just a product of your environment at that point and you're just like okay, well, I just you want to keep up with those other people. You know, at one point I did, at one point I wanted the $40 million house in the Hamptons. I mean Is it? Would it be nice, without a question? Am?
Speaker 2:I Is it necessary Chase?
Speaker 1:it? Not really. No, it comes, it comes.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, I'm good with what I have. Of course I want more, but I don't want more to the point where I'm gonna have to sacrifice myself, my inner being, my health, like literally my mental health, in order to get that. Because at the end of the day and it's like anything else you know, I tell my nephew this all the time. He's 19 and he's just like coming into the real world. Now I'm like, right now, you want that Lamborghini and you want that Rolex. I'm like it's an. After a week of getting that Lamborghini, I'm not gonna want it anymore.
Speaker 1:The same shit. Yeah, it's bullsh it's the same shit. You look around and you just go, wow, it's just now. I have to Now I have 36 months of $5,000 a month of payments. Yeah, yeah, yeah, that's great Because generally no one's buying that Lamborghini flat out, unless you're a multi-multi-millionaire.
Speaker 2:And then you don't appreciate it anywhere.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, what do you chase? It's just the next car.
Speaker 2:It's the same thing. Like you, you know the old thing, I forget what that something about Mary, right? Whereas like all right, you know you're gonna go out with this girl, so jerk off before you go out with it, right, and then you'll see if you truly like her or not. Because if you haven't jerked off that, you don't know if you just wanna fuck the girl or if you actually like the girl Post-not-clarity, Post-not-clarity right.
Speaker 2:So it's like the same thing, man, before you do anything in life, it's like you gotta have some post-not-clarity you gotta beat off man. Yeah, like, all right, if you like you really want that Corvette, like you know, whatever, drive the Corvette for a week and see if you really want that Corvette, you know. Or is it just like you want a nut and you haven't nut it yet, and it's like you know so?
Speaker 2:Yeah, I haven't driven a sports car ever in my life, right. So it's like, do I really want that, or is it just the idea of having it? Yeah, you know, because the idea of having a house in the Hamptons and that it sounds great, right, but do I really need it?
Speaker 1:Do the maintenance of it, the upkeep, the it's gonna drive me crazy. Yeah, just everything. And then how much you're over here for business? Now I pay for this house. I gotta make time to go out there. And then when you're out there, you're stressing about work from here.
Speaker 2:So it's crazy, but it's those. Things aren't even on my radar anymore, like I don't care.
Speaker 1:Simplicity.
Speaker 2:Yeah, there's a lot to be said about simplicity.
Speaker 1:It's beauty in it. Truthfully, I was having this conversation with my cousin just before the podcast. He was talking about how, once he's done with being an NYPD officer, he wants to take my cousin and just go in the middle of nowhere, small town vibes, and just live. I get it. Have the chickens, have the little farm, the homestead, and there's a big homestead. Push by a lot of younger people too, because we're just tired of the constant marketing that's done to us.
Speaker 2:We're tired of the constant oh, we're just consumers at this point.
Speaker 1:That's what I'm saying. We're tired of this. The constant just need to continue buying, buying, buying. And I'm guilty of it too, man, there's so much shit in this room that I bought that I definitely did not need to buy. I did not need to buy it, but I bought it because I got excited about a package showing up on my front door. How crazy is that Such a good feeling?
Speaker 2:Oh, my God, I love it. That feeling is like so that's like the social media feeling too. It's like you know, you pick up your phone for that dopamine hit. Well, now I get home to that Amazon package. I'm like ooh, package yeah oh my God.
Speaker 1:Sometimes you forget what you fucking ordered. You go, what did I order?
Speaker 2:Yeah, how the hell is this shit? How crazy is. Why are we doing this Exactly? But yeah, we all do it. We all do it.
Speaker 1:Truthfully, I tried to stop supporting Amazon and I wanted to support Barnes Noble because I was buying a bunch of books. Now, first and foremost, I have far too many books that I have not read and I keep buying books because of the excitement of reading another book. So I have to pause myself on that, because I bought this and eight other books this past weekend and I already have like 30 I haven't read and these two that I really need to get dive into Nick's tapped in, nick's tapped out, I mean.
Speaker 2:That's out, you're out.
Speaker 1:Yeah, the kid's got to chill out. So now I'm gonna be in my. That's why I wanna get five done by May 1st. But I tried to go to Barnes Noble over the weekend after brunch for my aunt's birthday to support obviously they're a big corporation, but support local in some way and keep things in the big box stores, dude. First and foremost, this book was $16 on Amazon. Barnes Noble had it for 30.
Speaker 1:Yeah see Every book and they refused to price match. Almost every book was at a minimum 30% marked over what Amazon was pricing it at. So I only bought one book and then I ordered the rest on Amazon to be delivered to me. I can't justify spending $200 something on books where I could just spend $140 on books.
Speaker 2:Yeah, they're support.
Speaker 1:and then there's yeah, there's just the greed of, and you guys are gonna go out and they're already closing stores, so you think that they would change their ways a little bit. But I'll tell you what was beautiful about going to the store it was packed. It was really Packed. Families right, just people excited. I've never seen a bookstore so busy in my life. I was like what is going on?
Speaker 2:You know, I used to go to Barnes Noble just to, especially when I was doing the bodybuilding and I was in all these magazines. So I would go to Barnes Noble to look in the magazines. You know, because you go up to the rack and you could sit behind an hour in Barnes Noble and there's so many magazines I don't think that half of them exist anymore.
Speaker 1:But yeah, probably not MD's done. Now, how crazy is that? Yeah, it's crazy. It's crazy to just think that that physical publication is gone, gone, not even gonna be digital gone.
Speaker 2:It's insanity.
Speaker 1:It's sad, truthfully.
Speaker 2:It is, it is, but I get it. I mean, things just move on.
Speaker 1:Yeah, you know, so I don't know how Barnes Noble even stays in business. I don't either. Well, I mean, they just closed the one over here in Comac, they have the one in Massa Piqua. I think they still have the one in Carplace. Yeah, this one. Right by you guys, right by you guys.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and then there's one in Manhasset on Northern Boulevard the Miracle of Iowa.
Speaker 1:I think that one's closing it is closing.
Speaker 2:I could be wrong. I haven't been there in 10 years, you know, so I don't know. But yeah, that was a great one too, I mean especially.
Speaker 1:It's just nice. It's peaceful, it's just nice. There was a really great bookstore in town called the Book Review Beautiful big bookstore. They went under during COVID but then they opened up. The next chapter is what they call it down the street up New York they have a little bit more towards prime and very nice shop. I mean, truthfully, that's where I should have went to go and support. That would be real support.
Speaker 2:That's real support the Barnes and Noble. They're still.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so now, thinking back on that actively right now, that's where I'm gonna have to purchase it, but I think they only sell pre-owned books, which is good, though, because it could be cheaper, honestly and I marked the shit out of my books though- so what.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I'm a highlighting fiend, Highlighting fiend, highlighting fiend, and then I take notes on what I'm reading as I'm doing it, because it just helps me to have that physical pen to paper type connection. That's how you learn. I tried doing it with the iPad. I tried even doing show notes with the iPad. Couldn't do it.
Speaker 2:No, no, you're not gonna do it like that. It has to be a physical touch. I know that's so weird.
Speaker 1:It's so crazy. Even though you're writing it on the digital, it's just not the same.
Speaker 2:It's not the same. That's how I used to study in college was I would just take all my notes from class.
Speaker 1:Retranscribe.
Speaker 2:Every single note and by the time I was done transcribing everything I knew, most of everything I needed to know. So I would just go back and study a little bit and that's it. I'm done. Some reason, my brain just works.
Speaker 1:I feel like that's most of our brains. We just don't give it the opportunity to.
Speaker 2:And that's where it goes to, too, with things, where it's like if you find yourself doing something physical while you're actually learning, you're gonna learn it a lot better than if you're just sitting at a desk Reviewing a textbook notes. Don't physically do something while you're doing that, Maybe something that interacts with the actual subject matter. But sometimes it's not Like if I was in lab in science class, like in anatomy and physiology, and we're doing a cadaver dissection while I'm actually learning. While we're doing that cadaver dissection, I get to pull apart this nerve or this muscle or whatever it may be, the bone, and then you actually physically see it and you've touched it and you've been there and now it's like, oh, this is real.
Speaker 1:So it's like fixing a car.
Speaker 2:Oh sure.
Speaker 1:You're not gonna, until you get that tangible feedback, you're not gonna understand what it actually means to fix, change your oil, do the actual maintenance.
Speaker 2:Yeah, wash it all day. Yeah, I could do that, I can. Yeah yeah, try it yeah.
Speaker 1:So I'm staying away from the Apple Vision Pro. I'm not gonna be that dude wearing that fucking VR headset around town and shit. I just I can't do it. I think that's the ultimate poison. It's over for us. It's over for us. I mean, stay over here. You know, we were talking about Leave Noah alone, kenji, come here, come here, kenji. Leave Noah alone, come here. Kenji, get your fat head over here. Come here, come here. I know you wanna say hi to him. I know right after your nap you wanna say hi.
Speaker 1:I wanna get to a couple more topics and then I wanna let you go because I know you're a busy man and I appreciate you spending the time with me. The time goes so quick. Oh, I know it's unbelievable. All right. So being an entrepreneur opening the gym, what's it been like?
Speaker 2:Yeah, so.
Speaker 1:Because obviously we I talked to you about this before we started I got into video creation, yes, because I loved creating video and telling stories. I didn't get into it to do the taxes, to do all the bullshit that I can't stand doing, truthfully, and we. Unfortunately, school doesn't teach us any of this. No, even if you wanted to take entrepreneur, there isn't an entrepreneur class, at least to my knowledge when I was in. There's nothing that actually prepares you.
Speaker 2:So it's basically learning on the fly. And this is you gotta jump out. You gotta jump out the airplane and figure out how to open the parachute before you hit the ground. Crazy, oh, yeah, it's nuts. Yeah, it's nuts, but you'll open the parachute, you'll figure it out. You know, I'm sure there are people that don't want to be in the air.
Speaker 1:Oh shit, splats on, oh man.
Speaker 2:Entrepreneurship is the hardest thing that you can possibly do, and it's not just hard on you, it's hard on everybody around you, and my wife is a saint for this, because there are so many times when I come home and I'm an asshole Straight up. I'm an asshole because somebody pissed me off at work, where there's a bill that came in that I didn't expect, or you know, this is a big thing in the gym and somebody breaks something. It happens all the time, you know.
Speaker 1:Because it's not their shit, so they don't care. It's not their shit.
Speaker 2:They don't care. They spill stuff. They don't care. You know everything's a mess, they don't care. You know I pay membership here. Somebody else will clean it up. You know the machine broke, sorry. You know somebody broke my front door a couple months ago when there was big storm. They don't care, they just open the door. The wind hits the door, the door goes flying off, the hinges, glass shatters. $3,000 later, you know, I got a new door. But it's like so these are contingencies you don't plan on, right? So HVAC went out last year, right?
Speaker 1:Oh, hvac is crazy $25,000 for new HVAC right.
Speaker 2:And you got the big ass fan, I got the big ass fan. The big ass fan does not work without the HVAC, though. It works, but it's not good enough, you know. So these are things you don't plan for and you have to learn to just kind of run with it, because if you don't, it's gonna eat you up and like there are always gonna be problems and you don't know where it's gonna come from. But there's gonna be another $25,000 bill and there's gonna be another. You know, the stair master will break, the treadmill will break, and it happens all the time. Now, over the years, I've learned to fix every one of them because, especially in the beginning, I was like I'm not calling a guy up every time something breaks. So I learned how to change it, I'm gonna be the guy.
Speaker 2:I am, I'm the guy I'm changing the alternators and the stair masters and I'm changing the tread on the treadmill and I could do everything. Now I don't want to, but I still do. You know, it's like I don't know.
Speaker 1:It saves you $1000 here, $1000 there. That's huge man.
Speaker 2:Even more than that. You'd be surprised how quick it adds up. Every day it's something, it's something and that's why I'm grateful for my past experiences in life where I was taught how to use my hands and how to work hard and not be afraid to try things and stuff like that, where it's like yeah, so that little construction experience came, like my father working his whole life and working around the house and they had the wood shop and everything, and all of a sudden all these things pay off. The sink breaks in the bathroom. I go in there and fix it. I don't call a plumber, go in there and fix it. So those are certain challenges, but you better learn how to do it if you want to be an entrepreneur, If you want to really like grind through it. Otherwise, yeah, eventually it's just gonna come into problems that you can't solve with a dollar bill because you run out of dollar bills anymore. Be hands on, fix it yourself, do whatever it takes.
Speaker 1:And there's something that's to be achieved when you actually work with your hands.
Speaker 2:There's a great sense of it.
Speaker 1:Yeah, when you build things, even doing things around the house. Truthfully, these sound panels are supposed to be on the wall. They have been sitting against my wall for two months. I've had them for two months. They're custom made. I'm just too nervous. I'm gonna look. I've even tried to measure it out. I'm too nervous, I'm gonna fuck it up. Certain things you wanna outsource.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, yeah. I'm just too nervous I'm gonna fuck it up, so I haven't done it. But in that book, digital Minimalism, he talks about the ability to do things yourself, create projects, hang things up Like there is a lot of satisfaction which comes with doing that type of work. You should.
Speaker 2:As a man and I'm gonna say this you should be able to do certain minimal at least tasks. You know where you don't have to know how to build a house, but if you don't know how to patch a hole in the wall or like unclog a clog same.
Speaker 1:He's about to say hang up, hang anything on the wall.
Speaker 2:He's about to say it. Go ahead and say it. God damn, you know, just as like dude, fuck up go ahead.
Speaker 1:I don't want to. It's gonna fuck the wall up. Good, I gotta repaint it yeah good.
Speaker 2:So you learn, and so you learn.
Speaker 1:Well, truthfully, I gotta repaint that wall, I gotta paint that wall. When they painted in here they said my mom said, oh, do contrast, do white, and then that, and then, unfortunately, when I have the camera too far this way on my guest, you may see some of the white over there. So now I'm like, all right, well, now I want to paint that anyway.
Speaker 2:So and this is a thing like this higher future generation can't do. No, it's hilarious.
Speaker 1:Well, there's a South Park episode about it.
Speaker 2:I actually saw it, saw it yeah.
Speaker 1:The handyman kept getting more and more loaded.
Speaker 2:Oh, I need a special washer for this dishwasher and I'll give you $50 extra.
Speaker 1:He's like no, I don't know, blogg, the guy down the block just gave me 500. And he keeps upgrading it. It's so true. And then he's in fucking space.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I got a guy and he's a doctor, but he can't change a light bulb. Yeah, that's wild. No, it's wild, that's wild. So he tells me that he's a surgeon. No, he's not a surgeon. Oh, thank God, he's not a surgeon, but he's a doctor. Okay, yeah, still, he'll wait till enough light bulbs go out in his house so he could call the handyman to come in and change the light bulbs. No, he's incapable of doing it.
Speaker 2:No, that's nuts, it's insane. No, it's nuts, we gotta. It's insane. I tell him like this is disgusting, man, you know you gotta.
Speaker 1:Be able to do this Like this is sad I mean, I tell you truthfully, you see those power tools next to the rain over there Never been used sir. Dude, I bought them because I said I don't even own any tools. I'm not a man Serious. So I bought a drill and it sounds like I got a buy. Truthfully, I've used them. I hung my camera up, I've used them and I'm trying to hang these up, so I will use them.
Speaker 2:And again there's a certain amount of satisfaction, yeah, doing something. And then it's even like now I play with Legos with my son, you know, and he likes building and it's like so you finish that? And at the time it's kind of annoying, but like he's learning as he puts those Legos together and he's learning how to problem solve and how to do stuff. And then, yeah, he builds us whatever Star Wars thing and he's like dad, how cool is this? I'm like, yeah, it's really cool. Man Like it looks great, you did a great job. He's like, yeah, this is nice, you know and yeah, sense of accomplishment, yeah, sense of accomplishment.
Speaker 2:You know they need that.
Speaker 1:You don't get that in a digital space. No, you do, but you don't. It's a very weird thing.
Speaker 2:Yeah, he does.
Speaker 1:He's like yeah, he's like. Yeah, he's like okay, I'm gonna go up and yeah, you gotta level up in a video game. I don't know what that is, but yo the servers go down done yeah, yeah. Unless that Lego smashes on the floor, that's gonna be there.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's true, like during Christmas I hadn't come to the gym with me and he had on the 12 foot ladder and hanging the Christmas lights, that's cool. And yeah, like he's like a little monkey up there on the top and he's like I'm not afraid of that. I'm not afraid, I'm like good.
Speaker 1:Good, because I'd be like this, cause I am A little bit. That's why I said you're ass up there.
Speaker 2:I'm okay, dad, I'm okay.
Speaker 2:I got it. I got it. All those like little things. The other day we had to fix the washing machine. So the washing machine is in the closet, you know, and it's like so I could pull the thing out like halfway, but I'm too big to get behind it. So I call him over and I'm like yo, get behind there, like grab that hose and pull it out. Yeah, I'm like, yeah, yeah, yeah, you could fit in there. Fit in there. And he's like squeezing his little body in between like the closet and the washing machine, and it gets back there and it gets the hose.
Speaker 1:Like Mr Fantastic and the thing yes, I told him where you were.
Speaker 2:Handsome thing. No, no, mad Max right. So there's the guy at Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome. It's a master blaster.
Speaker 1:Yes.
Speaker 2:It's the little old man who sits on the top, and then his son, who's like mentally handicapped yeah, he's blaster, and he's blah, blah blah. I said all right, you know I'm master and you're blaster, we go in there.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's awesome.
Speaker 2:He thinks it's the greatest thing in the world.
Speaker 1:That's awesome, but yeah, it's, little things you know, I was going to say you know, you're like rolling your sleeves up, but no one doesn't own any shirts with sleeves.
Speaker 2:Shirts with sleeves.
Speaker 1:Nah, you got arms like that. You got to custom made. Now he's got to be a tailor to. He's got to custom make his shirts.
Speaker 2:I'll go out to dinner with my friends Like me and my wife and my friends is, like you know, 20 degrees out today and, like you're wearing a t-shirt, I'm like yeah, you sweat, you get hot.
Speaker 1:I'm sweating right now. I am too. I'm sweating too. Yeah, it's OK.
Speaker 2:I'm like, yeah, I got muscle too, like I work hard for this.
Speaker 1:Yeah, fuck, yeah, let's show a show a little bit of bicep. Yeah, actually, all of it, all of it, a good amount of it, a lot of it. All right, so we got being entrepreneur. I wanted to just get you remembering a time when the gym wasn't dominated by tech selfies and human seeking validation from people that don't even exist in the real life space.
Speaker 2:So this is like an interesting phenomenon and it kind of goes along with with a lot of people who go to the gym in the first place because they're they're seeking attention, right. So now, now you've got this attention seeking on a worldwide platform, on social media, right, so now it's like here's the greatest thing in the world, right, like, I want to look better. Now, this is not everybody that goes to the gym, but there's a lot of people that go to the gym for reasons of glamor. Only, you know where they're not really there to you know, feel better or work out, you know, to accomplish a goal. They're there to like I want to look good in a bikini or whatever. So now you've got these people there that are seeking validation by going to the gym and now they can spread it out to the rest of the world, right? So it's like okay, I'm going to videotape. Every girl in the world is doing biceps and videotaping their ass while they're doing it Crazy, the angles are nuts.
Speaker 2:I did. What part of that is your bicep? Yeah, it didn't matter. No.
Speaker 1:Because that's what got all the likes.
Speaker 2:Yes, and now you've got these pants that go up the girl's asshole, you know, and it's like I'm doing biceps today. Look at my ass, come on and the thing is the tripods and everything's around. It takes you 20 minutes to do three sets because you got to set the video camera up the right way and get the right angle and do all these things. I don't know what happened, it just working out Like and this is why you see these people not getting the results right. So whereas back in my day I didn't bring the phone into the gym, like when I was training seriously, it never made it onto the gym floor. First of all, for the most of that time because I am old as fuck now we didn't have, you know, we didn't have the video cameras on the phone. If we were lucky, we had, you know, maybe you could take a picture or like once in a while, but it wasn't a thing at all. So an hour workout took an hour. Now it takes three hours.
Speaker 2:Now these kids are like I get kids that come into the gym like 3.30. It's 5.30, six o'clock and they're still there doing like nothing, nothing. They get nothing accomplished and, let me tell you, their bodies never change. It's like the same garbage. Like how do you work out this much and you look the same A year later, two years later? It's because you're not really working out. You're paying more attention to getting that nice shot on the phone or doing the exercise and that's the other thing, right? So they're copying the stupid exercises that you see on Instagram that don't work, but they get likes. So instead of doing the simple stuff that works, they're doing you know whatever cable kickbacks for their glutes, and I'm like why don't you do a squat? I don't know, do five sets of three on squats and see how that makes your ass look, cause it's gonna make it a lot better.
Speaker 1:Yeah, stupid cable, and you're gonna have a lot more development on all the other muscle groups that you need.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's like what happened?
Speaker 1:Compound movements are a king of all exercises.
Speaker 2:Listen, not everybody can squat, not everybody can bench press, but you can do some variations, you can do modified versions. Absolutely. I don't squat anymore. I won't put a ball on my back because my lower back just hurts too much. It's just. It's not that I can't squat, it's that I'm in pain, so I won't do it anymore. Now I'll squat on the hack squat. I'll do leg press. I'll do you know any any squat machine. But the days of loading 500 pounds on my back and squatting are over.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:Just my lower back is in serious pain my shoulders.
Speaker 1:my shoulders are shot. I can't even, yeah, I can't get back to hold the bar. Truthfully, I used to. Back in my heyday I was doing 140s on shoulder presses for military press and I was banging out four or five reps and I was totally fine. Now this morning, when I was working out 45s, 50s and I'm getting pain in my left shoulder, I'm just like I'm not pushing it anymore, I'm not doing it. Yeah, yeah, it's not worth it to me. No, no, I'd rather stay functional, doing my things.
Speaker 2:You're young. Yeah, you're young. I'm more than 10 years older than you. Think about where you're gonna feel at that point. Yep, it's. I'm telling you. It doesn't get better, it gets worse, it gets worse. Well, hopefully stem cells get cheaper yeah well, that's my next project is I'm gonna go get stem cells, yeah. Yeah, so they're legal New Jersey now, really yeah, so one of my doctors Can we document it?
Speaker 1:Yeah, we can Would you be interested in that?
Speaker 2:Yeah, absolutely, let's document it. He's opening up a clinic right now, so once he's open we're gonna go.
Speaker 1:That'd be awesome If we could document it and do like a little mini doc about you going in your experiences with it and post-op and this and that like post procedure. It'd be cool. So that's actually what I was telling my cousin. And then I wanna get to the next question for you and I wanna get you out of here, so this way you can go be a business owner again.
Speaker 2:Go back to work.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's actually what I'm focusing on. I'm focusing on growing my YouTube channel, growing the right way, though, just not just putting shit out for no reason. I wanna actually shoot some actual series shit. I wanna shoot the guys getting ready for Jujitsu tournaments. I wanna shoot high rocks competitions. I wanna shoot the real nit and grit emotionality of humans that are getting ready for hard shit or doing hard shit, and the science-based side of things, where you are exploring and experimenting with different things that can either help with longevity or help with just daily life and Daily life quality of life, exactly and all of these things. So, along with the podcast, I wanna start actually producing videos for me, because that's why I started doing the videos and, unfortunately, at some point when I started getting paid for the videos not that you lost your happiness for it, but it became a job- yeah, so that's a very dangerous thing.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:And that's something that I never want to have happen with what I do. And I'm very grateful in the fact that, to be honest with you, with a lot of my clients, my athletes especially, sometimes I forget to get paid for what I'm doing, and that's a terrible thing, and they always follow up and do it. But that reminds me that I actually love what I'm doing.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:And I like when I could train a guy for an hour and a half, two hours, and at the end I'm just like oh, great job, I'll see you next week or I'll see. And he's like oh, I gotta pay you. I'm like, oh, yeah.
Speaker 1:Oh, that's right, bro, I forgot.
Speaker 2:And I really did. I'm not like making it up Like I enjoyed it so much, especially when I get to super talented and I got a couple of really, really talented kids. Man, when I tell you I wish I could do it all for free, I'm not lying Like I really wish I could.
Speaker 1:That's how I started. That's how I started. Yeah, so like I was shooting friends, I was shooting pros at the gym for free and this and that, and then at some point it's your brain switched for me at least and it just was like it's time to actually make money because otherwise.
Speaker 2:So you have to make money, but you have to love it. So, even though there are certain projects we all take that we're there to make money, you need to take projects that you take cause you love.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's what I want to get back to. I want to get back to the creativity side of it. I want to get back to the not worried about, like side of things, which I haven't been for a while but I really got to dive in about. I'm not doing a 15 second reel, this is a mini doc. This is a 15 minute video. Like either you're gonna watch it or you're not. Like it's cool if you don't want to watch it.
Speaker 1:But we have this is important shit with a lot of great information, with somebody that's working their ass off, somebody that's doing cool things in the community, this and that. And then on top of it, I have my podcast, so, like you can tune in for full episodes and hang out with us and listen to it and gain knowledge and laugh with us, or bug and turn us off, I don't know. Like, whatever you want to do, you have these options. I'm like change the sound, yeah. So I think this has been the transitionary periods of, like starting to shoot video bodybuilding, leaving bodybuilding, not shooting. You know, my mom said that you used to be the meathead guy with all the people that you had on for the podcast, but now it's turned into more life and it's turned into more things that matter more so, on a wide scale of thing, grand scale of things, and so I'm cool with that, it's true.
Speaker 2:I'm happy that it comes with that, yeah, you're younger and we were in that meathead zone. It was like the only thing that's important, yeah, bodybuilding and getting bigger. So I could talk about it with anybody, even my family.
Speaker 1:I'd be at events and they would just be talking about it. I'd be like oh yeah, you shouldn't eat that because of this brother. Yeah, I look back at it and I go man, you were so into it that you just you couldn't see any other way.
Speaker 2:And that's okay for them.
Speaker 1:For them as long as you mature.
Speaker 2:Yeah, as long as you mature as long as I don't. Oh, I know, I know, I mean, there's that guy still living in his van, you know, like pumping up every morning, you're like, you're in a van, like maybe at some point you should have moved on. Yeah, and it worked, the dream didn't happen.
Speaker 1:Wait, you're still competing, yeah, oh, okay, great Suck. Yeah, good luck, not getting top five again or top three, yeah, so those are the guys I like.
Speaker 1:I feel bad for them, truthfully. Even the guys that and I said this on the last podcast the guys that are in their mid to late 30s, that are still hammering the gear, hammering, just going to shows, and I'm just like, bro, at what point do you hang this up and just go? Not that you aren't, not that you have to stop a dream, but at some point you have to realize that it's just not going to happen. That way. You can still stay in shape, you can still do fitness, you can still have fun doing that, but the competition side, bro, you're going to kill yourself.
Speaker 2:You're done, stop. Yeah, like I'm begging you to stop.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:Like for your own good. Please stop and it's sad, really, it's. You know, anybody passed that like 35 mark. That really just hasn't made it, and especially if you've been pumping gear, you know, since you're 18 and you're 35 and you haven't made it. Please stop, Please, like for your own health.
Speaker 2:just stop it. Stop it. It's not good, you know, and you're not going to make it anywhere. So focus on something else. Again, you can go to the gym and you can do your thing, Stay in shape, you could look great for the rest of your life. But to put your actual health and life on the line for something that's never going to happen, Plastic Trophy.
Speaker 1:You're spending money to do this, right.
Speaker 2:Thousands, not a little bit of money Thousands. And that's one of the reasons I don't train bodybuilders anymore.
Speaker 1:Oh God.
Speaker 2:They're the worst, the worst. They're all crazy. I don't film high bodybuilders anymore. Yeah, I don't blame you. Oh, my God, I mean, I learned that lesson quickly, like number one. These guys don't have any money. Okay, they're ludicrous, out of their minds, like I don't know, like what you're smoking, but wow.
Speaker 1:Yeah, wow, yeah, bro. Whatever you want to do, whatever you believe makes you happy, that's what makes you happy, and I had.
Speaker 1:I don't think they're happy. They're not happy. They're not happy because they're the guy that turns 50. They're still at the gym and they're there every day and you can see it in their eyes, the amount of regret from missing out on life. That's the millionaire that let his family grow up without being there. Same thing for this, you missed every family party. You missed every this. You missed that. You missed all the events because I had to have my meal in my Tupperware. All right, bro, like we get it, dude, you could still bring it with you, you could still associate with people.
Speaker 2:I still have my meals packed every day. It's just part of my life, different though Absolutely.
Speaker 1:Very different yeah, very different than that guy that just can't let go. And I'm sure you're flexible with your meals, I'm sure you have a good, I'm sure you.
Speaker 2:At the bar on a Friday night when I'm there with my wife, I'm pounding beers.
Speaker 1:I'm sure you have, as I was about to say, a good relationship with food to be able to be.
Speaker 2:Absolutely Both sides. The truth is, I'm very lucky in the fact that I've never been fat in my life. I don't know if I can get fat. I'm sure I can if I ate enough McDonald's and Wendy's and burgers and stuff. But it's not part of who.
Speaker 1:I am. There are people that want to kill you right now.
Speaker 2:But it's just like I'll go out drinking and I'm fine, it's not going to ruin my physique, Like yeah, if I drink every day, it's nothing. But I want to enjoy life. So when I go out to dinner with my wife, we're having a bottle of wine, and it's Friday night and my son's in jujitsu, and we're going to go to the bar next door and we're going to have a couple beers and enjoy life in Chichad and hang out with the other parents. I'm not like yo listen, I'm on no carbs tonight. I'll do it Like.
Speaker 1:I'm going to have the french fries and I'm going to have a slice of pizza.
Speaker 2:And you know, next time I get back I'm like I don't know, it'll be fine. Yeah, it'll be fine.
Speaker 1:The world will balance itself out it will. And so will my physique. Okay, well, listen, unless you're me and it goes right to your love hand, it takes a week and a half to work it off again of getting your ass kicked on the mat.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that'll happen too. But you know, if you want to go back to being in shape, you tone everything down a little bit. Moderation, Like it's just.
Speaker 1:They're nice when I want ice cream, because I live right in town. There's nice when I want ice cream. I just walked right to the ice cream store and I go, let me get two scoops, please. Thank you.
Speaker 2:Oh, get it. Yep, you know, as they say, the solution to pollution is dilution. So as long as you're kind of diluting that and you're putting your workouts and you're getting, you know, enough movement in between, you're not sitting in the chair all day and you're doing all the other things Like you're super active, yeah, so that's fine and I'm definitely under eating.
Speaker 1:I'm sure you are. Yeah, I'm definitely under eating.
Speaker 2:Especially with the amount of jujitsu.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I mean I'm rolling for mostly five, six days a week on top of the weights every morning six, 15.
Speaker 2:I mean, you're seriously burning calories.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah. And then every now and then I just run five and a half miles for no fucking reason. I just run up to the harbor and I run back. Yeah, running is not happening. I love it. I hated it for a long time. I love it now. I used to run when I was younger, but now, oh, I mean, you know, I just I just I got a lot of muscle in that frame, man, yeah, I can't have that. I can't have all that. Just impact on your body and your frame.
Speaker 2:Yeah, my knees everything.
Speaker 1:All right. Last two questions for my man, noah. I appreciate you hanging out with me chopping it up with Kenji, even though he's been napping Horrible co host. So what would you change about gym culture if you could right now?
Speaker 2:I mean it's the whole social media influence. So I feel like social media, and especially the younger kids and who they're following, is kind of this revenge of the nerds type of thing and like if you look at these, I would say the influencers that have a big influence now they're all kind of like they were nerdy when they're younger, you know, and now it's like I hit the gym and now I look good. And I'm not even talking about people that like are you know, super big? They're just like average looking guys that are, yeah, they're in kind of decent shape, and these, these kids follow them like they're gods and it's because they're following this guy and I'll say like, like this Alex Hubank's guy, right, like he was a whole nerd, I've heard that name.
Speaker 1:I don't even know who the fuck.
Speaker 2:He is Some like like I don't know, like he's a long kid, like looked really goofy, nerdy when he was younger and then, like now he's in decent shape. You know he's in good shape. He's nothing that I would ever aspire to, but these kids I don't know if they still do, but they were following him like a God and his life looks like a train wreck. To be honest with you, it looks like a disaster. But like they all talk about them. And now they're onto this next guy, sam Sulek. Yeah, this fucking. You know Roy did a monster. Oh, I see this, I see this dude, but like that's what this kid looks like.
Speaker 1:This is not what I thought he was.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I don't know he's, you know to me like it's whatever you know, but you know I don't like that the influence it has on these like 14 to 15 year old kids, and now especially like and nothing wrong with Sam Sulek, it's not not his thing. Like we know, he's doing tons of gear.
Speaker 1:He blasted it. I mean it's, it's.
Speaker 2:Blasting it Like acne and just weird things that are going on with his body are absolutely terrifying to myself At that age too. At that age yeah, it's not that you know what he's doing is so crazy, it's at the age he's at.
Speaker 1:He's in big trouble, yeah, big trouble, you know so, but that's his choice and he, you know, I mean listen, you know what you're doing, where you don't, and you'll find out.
Speaker 2:unfortunately, Me, so I don't. He might be old enough to remember it. Do you remember the, the comedian carrot top?
Speaker 1:Yeah of course Okay. So yeah, I've seen him blast. Yeah, blasted it now.
Speaker 2:But Sam Sulek looks exactly like carrot top. So to me I'm like, why are you kids falling carrot top, carrot top on steroids? Like well, carrot top is actually on steroids. Yeah, it is, yeah, it's on tons of steroids. Yoked, yoked up, he's got. He does that like the painless pump shit in his shoulders Like he's all jacked up, he's so creepy looking. Yeah, but he looks like a like a spin off. Does yeah, he does look like a spin off. Sam Sulek is carrot top it's carrot top.
Speaker 1:Now I'm not going to be able to unsee it.
Speaker 2:Yeah, you can't unsee it.
Speaker 1:Damn. Look at carrot top Yoked.
Speaker 2:Carrot top is yoked.
Speaker 1:Carrot top is yoked. It's no joke. Oh my God.
Speaker 2:Yeah, but that's Sam Sulek to me. Like every time I see this kid I'm like damn carrot top jacked. Yeah. So, but that influence is is toxic.
Speaker 1:Well, it's tough because and you know, one of my biggest issues and you can attest to this back when the magazines were prevalent, yeah, One of my biggest issues was I used to see these magazine ads and I used to go, wow, if I take that supplement or I take that, I'll look like that. And it's not the case and it's just one continual, just revolving lie. Yeah, it's, it's all a lie, okay, and they'll never say oh, he's on XYZ, Like these are the Even if they said, even if that's the truth, right.
Speaker 2:So we all know from from bodybuilding now we know Long enough that you look like that for a couple of days, maybe a month, if you're really like grinding, you know, and the rest of the year you don't look like that. Yeah, it's like it's unattainable. You know, can you get there? Sure, for a very short period of time. You know you can get there. You can maintain a good physique year round, but you're not gonna be shredded all year round and these kids think you are.
Speaker 1:Oh yeah, and I believe that that's the way that you're gonna always be.
Speaker 2:Or, even worse, with the girls. It's like they think they're gonna look like that filtered picture on Instagram and then the Photoshop and all this stuff Like that's not real, it's never been real, it never will be real. I remember when it first started happening, when the you know the the Photoshopping of Instagram got popular and there was like this huge movement against it. I'm sure you remember shreds and like their whole culture of just Photoshop.
Speaker 1:And everything. They had everything in their, in their facility, and they would just shoot everybody and they'd pump it out same day.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, yeah Crazy. They were marketing machine but they were lying to everybody you know, and that that kind of like that bothers me.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it bothers me too.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's like why.
Speaker 1:I've never Photoshopped my photos, ever. I'm very happy to say that. You know, I've never Photoshopped a photo.
Speaker 2:I've done like the, the shadows and the stuff like that yeah but I was I'm talking like way back.
Speaker 1:Yeah, but I would say that's more unless you're-.
Speaker 2:That's not actual Photoshop. Yeah, no, I'm not taking in my waist like these girls are now where it's like the wall is bending. You know, can you see the wall behind you? That's completely bent. You know, it's like her waist isn't really that small.
Speaker 1:Goob. That was that dude Goob. Yeah, that dude trapped me up. He called everybody out.
Speaker 2:Yeah, he's good for it, you know. But it's like this is the truth and like these people don't look like this. Yeah, they don't. There's guys in great shape, there's girls in great shape, there's all that, but majority of people are not, and that's okay. Yeah, but to push that culture on these kids is so and they're so impressionable at that age, so impressionable and this is like whenever you go after kids in any regard, and this goes way beyond fitness and because this culture is just so fucked up with the way it's treated in these kids. Now it's like you push anything on kids that's inappropriate. I hate you. Yeah, that's straight up facts.
Speaker 2:Yeah, come here Leave no, alone, but that's what's going on now, you know. So all these kids have access to Instagram, or I don't watch TikTok. I've seen it a couple of times.
Speaker 1:I have. My largest following is on TikTok. I have 52,000 on there. I don't and I just and truthfully come here, Leave no alone. He's gonna get a lot of it to you, Don't worry a lot.
Speaker 2:Kenji, kenji, go sit down, come here Come here.
Speaker 1:So I've been posting to TikTok but through a third party app and I'm just letting the videos out. I haven't opened the app in like a week?
Speaker 2:Yeah, I don't. So I went on it a couple of times and it just it was so toxic.
Speaker 1:Yeah, oh, yeah, yeah. So unfortunately, when you put yourself out there like this on a podcast, you know you get a lot of comments like, oh, I just don't have to do with a mic and you just get something. Oh, you don't know what you're talking about. Blah, blah, blah. You just get the people that are just trying to troll and just be assholes. Yeah, there's, and unfortunately, unfortunately you just have to delete the comment or delete it from your notifications so you don't see it anymore. Or use social media like I use it you post and you dip and then you answer a couple of comments here and there every now and then, and that's it.
Speaker 2:Yeah, but that's the best way to do it. You know, now I get that. I totally see that, and that's what you should do Post something, move on, that's what I do Post and dip.
Speaker 1:So that's my new saying I post, I dip.
Speaker 2:But the issue is like oh, if you respond, you get more.
Speaker 1:Fuck them. They're not giving me, they're not making me famous anyway, so I don't even care.
Speaker 2:Maybe you know Well for my business. I will. I'll post something about the business. I'll respond to people I'll like post Personally. I don't post anything anymore on Instagram, on TikTok. I don't do any personal posts, I you know I'll have my personal account is closed. You cannot get on it Like it doesn't my wife, my son, unless I know you personally. You're just starting all over. Oh my God, that'll do it. Oh you guys.
Speaker 1:Oh sorry, I don't think they're gonna be able to hear because there is noise canceling. But like the can't you just rip, he ripped.
Speaker 2:You know, but that's where it is. It's like personally shut it down.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:I don't want people, especially with my son, like I don't want, don't say shit.
Speaker 1:Oh, people are weird, man. I could only imagine I have a Kenji. But I can only imagine if I had a kid how much more defensive I'd be, because I'm already defensive.
Speaker 2:It's weird out there, dude, I'm very defensive and I'll snap.
Speaker 1:Oh yeah.
Speaker 2:You know cause I call it calm like a bomb, like I'm a very calm person, but if you light my fuse I'm gonna explode.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:You know, and it happens and sometimes it's bad Sometimes and I regret it sometimes. But certain like I don't know man, certain buttons you press and I'm just like okay, and if it's my family and you press that button, I'm gonna explode it.
Speaker 1:Damn, how dare you be a man, yeah right, how dare you be a real father and a real role model for your family and protect them? I know, Just belly up. That's what you need to do.
Speaker 2:I should do right, fuck these people.
Speaker 1:Give in and belly up On the last question and then I will let you go. What if? Is there something that you would? What is one piece of advice that you would give yourself if you could go back in time?
Speaker 2:Really easy for me Believe in yourself and the story like that's it. The worst part of my life is when I stop believing in myself. You know, and that was due to a lot of factors that had gone on in my life where I felt I wasn't worthy anymore. You know, I was an athlete in college. I was, I went to a very good school, I was successful, and I came out and things just didn't go my way Again. We talked about my parents being divorced and not having any money and all these things where I had that victimhood mentality for a while.
Speaker 2:And if I could go back and tell myself anything, I would literally slap myself and be like look in the fucking mirror and believe in yourself Because you can do it. It's 100%. I know I can do it, but there was, I would say honestly, a 10 year period of my life where I did not believe I could do it. I didn't believe I was worthy of my dreams, of accomplishing my dreams, and that's one of the saddest things that I think has ever happened in my life was that I let myself get so down on myself that I truly didn't believe in myself and I thought I was, you know, that guy.
Speaker 2:That's just you know you're gonna go to work and you get stomped on at work and it's okay, cause you know, cause you come from a poor family and you come from you know, not so great background, and people are gonna just take advantage of you and that's the way life goes. No, it doesn't. You choose that and you can choose that, or you can choose to get above that, and I'm so. I'm not pissed at myself, but I'm pissed that I allowed that to happen to myself, to allow people to take advantage of me, because I had such a lack of confidence in myself that I just go to work and get beat up and that's fine. It's not fine believe in yourself, and that's it. And that goes for everybody. You know, it's just you too, buddy Benji get away from Noah, leave him alone.
Speaker 2:So it's just Come here, he's good. Okay, now if I could tell my you know 22 year old self would be believe in what you can do, cause you are more than capable. You know I try to impart that on everybody and cause I truly believe everybody Especially your son.
Speaker 2:Especially my son, especially my son. But and he's going to grow up with all the confidence in the world because I'm beating it into the skull, you know, because there's nothing I truly believe that he can do anything he wants to do. Hey, of course, listen, he may not be the smartest, he may not be the best athlete, but I believe that he will be able to accomplish anything that he wants to do and I will never let him stop believing.
Speaker 1:Goes back to sweat equity, confidence and sweat equity.
Speaker 2:But equity and it also goes back to and I will say this 100% what you said is as a father being around. Okay, cause my father wasn't around and he didn't build that confidence into me and I wish he had. But when times got tough, I quit, I gave up. I gave up on myself, not a, and I should have had that beaten into me by my father to be my man. You're great, you're good, you can do this. I never heard those words, you know. So that allowed me to get into this bad place in my head and live there for a decade, and really for a decade. I was there of like, just like. Life just sucks, deal with it. You're not worth, you know, that $4 million house. You're not worth that BMW. You're not. You're just, you're not in that class. You know you don't deserve those things. Fuck that.
Speaker 1:I deserve it and I can get it.
Speaker 2:I want it Now. I don't care, but I know I'm worth it. So that's it believe in yourself, cause you are worth it Beautiful for real Noah Pleasure.
Speaker 1:That has been an awesome episode, man. You are amazing. You're an amazing human being. I appreciate you taking the time, cause you're a very busy man. I appreciate you taking the time to sit down with me and chop it up, hang out, give a little bit more insight about you as a person. Obviously, chop up different topics with me. We talk about a lot. Yeah, we talk about a lot, man. That's how the podcast always go. You never know which direction it's gonna go in. But generally, you know, the people that I have on the caliber of human beings that come through that door like yourself, are just excellent. So it's just, it's always a good time and it's always good conversation in good company. How can people get in touch with you if they wanna get training or they wanna come down to the gym?
Speaker 2:Yeah, definitely Websites CD Athletics NY. Of course Instagram is the same. You could always come down to the place we're in Minniolla, 228 Jericho Turnpike. Definitely come down, check out the gym. It is something worth checking out, you know. I've had the last 10 years of my life building this place and I've built it the way I love to train you know Top of the line facility and you have the baseball on the other side.
Speaker 2:Yeah, we got like we train. That's one of our main focus. We train athletes now more than anything, cause that's what gives me the most pleasure, to be honest with you, and that's one of those things I always needed, as a young kid was. And again back to that like figure to look up to somebody, to guide these kids, and that's what I enjoy the most. So, yeah, we train tons of athletes, of course, regular gym membership and all that stuff and center located in Minniolla, boom, 10 years in now.
Speaker 1:I love that and another 10 to 20 more, absolutely. Thank you again, noah, and I appreciate everybody for listening, hanging out with us, chopping it up. I hope you all learned something. I hope we made you laugh, made you cry in a good way, not in a bad way In a good way, and I hope that we maybe inspired you and made you think a little differently on specific things or how to maybe change your life and decide to adopt certain practices that we spoke about during the episode, as usual, like share, subscribe, comment, all the stuff that generally most people don't do. But if you can do it, it helps the algorithm, even if you just wanna leave a like comment. Hey, I watched the video, I appreciate it and it does help out. I appreciate all you all for fucking with us, but, on that note, peace.