From the vibrant landscapes of South Africa to the competitive storefronts of America, Jeremy Smith of Total Nutrition Weston embodies a narrative that's as nourishing for the spirit as his store is for the body. On the Good Neighbor Podcast, Jeremy recounts the profound shift from being a formidable force in the ring to a champion of nutrition and wellness, offering an authentic take on embracing new cultures and the unforeseen challenges like the global pandemic.
Strap on your gloves and prepare to spar with the complexities of entrepreneurship through the eyes of a bare-knuckle boxer. Jeremy's not just throwing punches—he's serving wisdom on the rigorous discipline required for both athletic success and business savvy. Our conversation reveals how the art of boxing transcends the physical realm to become a therapeutic release, a fitness craze, and an unexpected mentor in the quest for work-life harmony. The South African community's support and the layered realities of owning a business add texture to his tale, proving that the fight for balance is waged both in and out of the ring.
Witness the transformation of a sportsman into a shrewd entrepreneur, navigating the stark contrasts between two worlds. With a steadfast approach reminiscent of his fighter days, Jeremy shares the importance of gratitude, the role our past plays in shaping our future, and the inevitable overlap of life's struggles and successes. His journey is a testament to the discipline and focus necessary not only for stepping into a ring but for stepping up to life's myriad challenges. Join us for an episode that packs a punch, not just in the physicality of boxing, but in the heart and hustle of life's endless bout.
Call us: (954) 349-2633
Visit: https://www.totalnutritionweston.net
Follow us: www.instagram.com/pitbull_smith
From the vibrant landscapes of South Africa to the competitive storefronts of America, Jeremy Smith of Total Nutrition Weston embodies a narrative that's as nourishing for the spirit as his store is for the body. On the Good Neighbor Podcast, Jeremy recounts the profound shift from being a formidable force in the ring to a champion of nutrition and wellness, offering an authentic take on embracing new cultures and the unforeseen challenges like the global pandemic.
Strap on your gloves and prepare to spar with the complexities of entrepreneurship through the eyes of a bare-knuckle boxer. Jeremy's not just throwing punches—he's serving wisdom on the rigorous discipline required for both athletic success and business savvy. Our conversation reveals how the art of boxing transcends the physical realm to become a therapeutic release, a fitness craze, and an unexpected mentor in the quest for work-life harmony. The South African community's support and the layered realities of owning a business add texture to his tale, proving that the fight for balance is waged both in and out of the ring.
Witness the transformation of a sportsman into a shrewd entrepreneur, navigating the stark contrasts between two worlds. With a steadfast approach reminiscent of his fighter days, Jeremy shares the importance of gratitude, the role our past plays in shaping our future, and the inevitable overlap of life's struggles and successes. His journey is a testament to the discipline and focus necessary not only for stepping into a ring but for stepping up to life's myriad challenges. Join us for an episode that packs a punch, not just in the physicality of boxing, but in the heart and hustle of life's endless bout.
Call us: (954) 349-2633
Visit: https://www.totalnutritionweston.net
Follow us: www.instagram.com/pitbull_smith
This is the Good Neighbor Podcast, the place where local businesses and neighbors come together. Here's your host, Jeremy Wolf.
Speaker 2:Hello, hello everyone, and welcome back to another episode of the Good Neighbor Podcast. I'm your host, jeremy Wolf, and today I am joined by Jeremy Smith. Jeremy joins us from Total Nutrition Weston. He was actually nominated to appear on the show by a previous guest. Robbie Auerbach said that Jeremy has quite the interesting backstory. He's actually, if I'm not mistaken, a bare knuckle boxer professional fighter, in addition to owning Total Nutrition in Weston. So we're happy to have Jeremy on the show. He also has a really, really cool name, I must say.
Speaker 3:Thanks for having me on the show. It's our pleasure, man. Thanks for joining us.
Speaker 1:Nice to meet you.
Speaker 2:Jeremy, yeah, man, likewise, likewise, and thanks to our listeners for tuning in to learn more about our great community and the businesses that serve us. So, with that said, jeremy, tell everybody a little bit about what you do, talk a little bit about Total Nutrition, weston, and then we'll get into the story behind it.
Speaker 3:All right. So I'm originally from South Africa. I came over just 2021. Obviously, I came over before to look for a business venture because I'm from a German descent, I have a German passport, so I'm allowed to invest in the country and buy a business and that's how I can come over on that sort of visa. So I came over, looked for a business. I found the business, I purchased well, started purchasing the business. It's a long procedure. Then COVID happened. The whole world shut down, every embassy closed, so we had a delay of whatever two years. So then I came over, literally made it over a couple of days before they shut down the airports in South Africa again. So made it over literally in like three days.
Speaker 2:Just in time for lockdown.
Speaker 3:Just in time for another lockdown. We were going on our second or third, I can't remember. So anyway, it came over, took over the business 2021. The business has been there for 20 years now so it's been going for quite a while. Nice pre-existing business. It was owned by Wayne and Mother Self Lube Great family people. He was a firefighter. He was part of the Western community forever so he like grew up in that area so everybody kind of knew him. So it was a good investment for the business. Came over, took over and then, yeah, just been taking it from there, taking it day by day, obviously a big change coming to america from south africa.
Speaker 2:but yeah, I bet what was what was one of the biggest adjustments that you had to make, or what was change coming to America from South Africa. But yeah, I bet what was what was one of the biggest adjustments that you had to make, or what was the biggest difference? No there's no one thing, it's everything.
Speaker 3:No, no, no, it's a lot of things. It's the system works for you. In this country it takes time to get things done. Everything takes procedure. So, africa, there's ways. It means you get things done quicker. It's just hard work. You have to work the system, otherwise it will take you five years to get anything done. So, yeah, it's just very different. It's good different and bad different.
Speaker 2:Just pros and cons on both sides of the table. So I want to get into a little bit more about the business Total Nutrition.
Speaker 3:So Total Nutrition is a supplement store, basically right Supplement and nutrition store, plus your vitamins as well. So we're not just based on the sports aspect of it or the gym type aspect. We're also based on the anti-aging, the wellness, the multivitamins, the general health, well-being sort of stuff. So it's it's much better than just being focused on one thing, because it goes hand in hand. You need to do both.
Speaker 3:you want to age slow and feel good, so that's all the way to do it, especially with the lack of nutrition in our food. That's a bit.
Speaker 2:That's a big one in this country, right with all the processed foods. It's difficult to carve out a wholesome diet with everything that's available. We're inundated with carbs and sugars and all sorts of stuff, everything's instant gratification.
Speaker 3:That was one of the hardest things when I came over getting used to the meat. It's not the same, it's really not. You can see the difference in the color, the taste, the texture, everything. It's like. Ours is real meat, yours is a bit gray.
Speaker 2:So what I wanted to ask because this is something that comes up in my mind, so I'm sure that other people out there have a similar thought process when it comes to a supplement store. Obviously, nowadays, everything is available online. You can go buy supplements, you could buy things online. Why would somebody want to come in and see you come to your store? What are some of the advantages to coming in to see you personally? And I guess I would imagine that would be you have your knowledge, your expertise, you're part of the community. You're trying to help people. It's not just trying to sell them something.
Speaker 3:It's not just clicking a button. I'm not trying to sell them something. Also, there's quality control, first of all. There's no quality control on Amazon. They're just a third-party delivery system. If I send you a tub of sawdust, you don't send it back, and it tastes good. It's exactly the same thing.
Speaker 3:You don't know what you're getting. You also don't know the short-dated items they don. You also don't know the short date and items. They don't look at the expiration dates. It might be a month away, it doesn't matter. But there's also there's no personal help. No one helps you. You don't know what you're getting. You honestly don't know what's in the product. Like I said, there's no quality control, so you don't know what you're going to get. You don't know what your body needs. Obviously, later on in life you might be able to all right, I just need a protein shake, but then you don't know which one to get. Are you sensitive to milk? Which one's going to be better absorbed for you? There's a lot more than just going around and clicking a button and getting whichever one there is. You're also just getting the one that's advertised the most. So whoever put the most money into marketing is the company that you're going to get which?
Speaker 2:is generally not the best quality yeah, it might not be the best for you, but it's.
Speaker 3:Yeah, they spend more money on marketing and less money on the product. Rather spend more money on the product and whatever on the marketing. Let the product market itself.
Speaker 2:Yeah yeah, I'd imagine there's a big difference between ordering something online from a nameless, faceless company that's trying to boost their profits than going in and developing a relationship with you, jeremy, and you getting to know the person and asking them questions about you know their background, their history and what kind of things they're trying to do and trying to accomplish.
Speaker 2:Yeah, like are they playing sports, are they trying to get help? Whatever their mission is, by taking supplements you're able to tailor what supplements to offer them, so that makes a lot of sense and also like a lot of the time.
Speaker 3:If you buy a multivitamin online, if that multivitamin is sourced from a synthetic, synthetic place, synthetic lab, it doesn't absorb. You literally absorb zero of it. So there's no point in buying some of that multivitamin because you just got to excrete it. So you need to buy one that's sourced from natural minerals, natural vitamin sources, natural food source. Otherwise you don't absorb it and most people don't know this stuff, so they just buy the thing. Oh, it looks well, it will work, well, it's cheap. It doesn't work, so there's no point.
Speaker 2:It would actually just put damage on your kidneys or something. Yeah, that makes sense for sure. So I want to ask you came over here from South Africa and you decided to buy total nutrition, this specific business. Why this business? Right? What was it about nutrition and supplements that resonated with you? Why did you end up landing on this?
Speaker 3:Well, I've been in sports pretty much my whole life. I've been a competitive athlete in more thai boxing than mma. I was the champion of africa for mma. Then I came over here. I was fought around the whole world. I knew nutrition. It always helps with how you perform in the ring and out the ring and cage or whatever. So I knew it. I dealt with doctors back home, with endocrinologists, helping the wellness. I learned a lot from them. So I was like you know what? It's something I know, it's something I'd like to do and it's something that I can get better with and help people with. It's also going to help a lot of people. It's not just like oh, I call him to open up a gym and train people and then, whatever it was, let me get something that I can run in our store, Something that I can look at after my career as well, Settling down Like when I'm done fighting. Have a full-time, have a nice business investment.
Speaker 2:So I want to get into this whole MMA fighting space. So you're still actively involved with fighting.
Speaker 3:You're still fighting. Yeah, I'm ranked number two in the world. Are you really For cruiserweight bare knuckle boxing?
Speaker 2:yeah, oh far out man. How did you get into bare knuckle boxing, into fighting, into M&A? Talk about your journey and what got you here.
Speaker 3:All right, so I started around about 17, 18 years old Started with Muay Thai Thai boxing.
Speaker 2:When you started was it out of like you hear of fighters right. A lot of times they start early. They have a lot of rage internalized.
Speaker 3:I started late. Most people started 12, 14.
Speaker 2:But did it come out of having a lot of internal rage maybe having conflict when you were younger.
Speaker 1:I always liked fighting.
Speaker 2:Was it more sport for you?
Speaker 3:How did it pique your?
Speaker 2:interest I always liked fighting.
Speaker 3:I always liked fighting. I always liked the challenge of it.
Speaker 1:I'm not good at it.
Speaker 3:I focused it. Instead of doing it badly, I focused on doing it properly. I became amateur champion for Muay Thai and kickboxing. Then I swapped over to pro Thai boxing K1 you guys call it. I had a good record of that. It was 10 wins, 9 knockouts, 2 losses. Then I swapped over and did MMA. I became the champion of Africa, middleweight champion of Africa, champion of Africa, middleweight champion of Africa. I fought for the Prince of Bahrain. I've traveled around the world fighting. I got to see different countries, went to Serbia, brazil, jordan there's a whole list of nice places. I came to America for fighting. That's how I got to enjoy the country and see the country and fall in love with the country. That's why I liked it.
Speaker 1:That's why I?
Speaker 3:chose Florida as well because I'd come here a lot for fights or training camps. So I kind of knew Florida better than I knew most places even back home. So I was like I like the place. And then when I came over, obviously the MMA, we didn't do much during COVID because we couldn't do grappling or anything back home.
Speaker 3:So I came over, I started the business and then I got offered to do the bare knuckle boxing. I was like, well, I'm always being good with my hands and good at fighting like stand-up fighting, just that boxing aspect of it so I thought, well, let me give it a go. So yeah, I'm now three and one in BKFC and I'm ranked number two cruiserweights. Hopefully should be fighting again 21st of june at the hard rock june at the hard rock really yeah, how, how often.
Speaker 2:How often do you fight, is it, I'd imagine?
Speaker 3:last year I fought may but then I had an injury so I was out for a bit, but before that I fought like four times in 12 months. Depends on how active you are and if you get injuries or not so your your next fight coming up in June.
Speaker 2:What's the training protocol look like for that? Are you hitting it? I imagine, a couple months out, you're hitting it every day and really getting into it.
Speaker 3:Yeah, about two a day. Two a day, two a day yeah. Two a day every day, except Sunday, sunday's off.
Speaker 2:I want to come check this out. Man and Junior, you have to send me details about the fight. I've never been to a fight like that before. I've been to a boxing match many, many, many years ago, but I've never been to an actual M&A style. So is it bare knuckle? It's similar to the it's boxing with no gloves. And it's great, so not grappling though.
Speaker 3:No, no, no, it's just boxing with no gloves. It's the fastest growing combat sport in the world at the moment.
Speaker 2:Very cool. Definitely have to check it out. After you're done with your training. You're getting ready for a fight and you step into the ring. What are you feeling? Do you feel nervous?
Speaker 3:Nerves are good.
Speaker 2:Nerves are good. Right, it might have been Mike Tyson that said if he's not nervous, he doesn't want to fight. Yeah.
Speaker 3:Even Custom Otto's coach said if you don't have nerve, you're either a liar or a psychopath. That's a fact. You need those nerves. Nerves are good. They keep you alive.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I imagine once the bell rings and you start fighting, the nerves dissipate Once you're in the ring it's completely different.
Speaker 3:And you start fighting, the nerves dissipate. Once you're in the ring, it's completely different. Once you get in there, it's fine. It's walking to the ring. That's nerve-wracking. Once you're inside, it's whatever. It's like, the fight's going to happen. You're there already. You can't walk out. It's just there. Now you fight. You don't hear the crowd, you don't see the crowd, you just focus on that.
Speaker 2:Is there a particular fight that comes to mind that was more challenging than another, or something crazy happened, some story you'd like to?
Speaker 3:share my last fight. I tore my shoulder in the first round so I fought with one arm. I literally picked my hand up, put it on my head and just walked forward with the other hand. So yeah, I guess that could be one of the. It was a bit challenging. I went all rounds and that guy's a knockout artist. Everybody says I should have won the fight, but I lost on point.
Speaker 2:How did you tear your shoulder and then continue fighting and not get like seriously injured by the other? Because I'd imagine, obviously if your shoulder's torn, I just put my hand on my head.
Speaker 3:I just held my head and went for head. I could swing it if I threw my body with it. Throw my whole body and it would do like this. Actually there was no proper power, but it's healed now. It's perfect. That's why we also took a bit of time off to recover from the last one.
Speaker 2:Is there video of that fight anywhere online?
Speaker 3:I want to pull that up and see that. Yeah, of course it's on. That should be on YouTube. I was. It's on the app. I'll send you the link.
Speaker 2:I'll try to pull it out now. Hold on, jeremy Smith. Bkfc, bkfc. Yeah, when was the fight? May is the fight May, may, 2023. Let's see, yeah, I can't walk and chew gum at the same time. Right, I can't speak to something. There we go. Bk. Jeremy Smith, albuquerque.
Speaker 3:No, that was not the. It was for Houston Alexander.
Speaker 2:May 20th. This must be it. Hold on a second, I'll pull this back.
Speaker 3:I got to see what we're working with here, brother, I don't know if it'll watch, because it might be linked just to the streaming app. I'm not too sure if it's going to pop up.
Speaker 2:We're going to make this happen. Let's go, we're going to try. We're going to try my man, we're going to try.
Speaker 3:Otherwise, the Albuquerque one should be there. There's another one in Pembroke Pines. There's another one in the Hard Rock as well. All right, there we go. Let's see what we got here.
Speaker 2:All right, there we go. Let's see what we got here. We're not going to watch all 12 minutes, but we'll see what's going on here. Remind me not to piss you off, brother, jesus. Well that's how?
Speaker 3:I know. Well, that's how I learned about nutrition. You need fuel to fight.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it makes sense for sure. So this is the one where you tore the shoulder.
Speaker 3:Yeah, the left shoulder. I can see how you can tear the shoulder with some hooks like that. Well, that's why I'm only throwing the right hand, because the left is not properly working.
Speaker 2:Was it already torn First round?
Speaker 3:I don't know if it started yet. This is the very beginning.
Speaker 2:It started round three. It's already torn at this point.
Speaker 3:Yeah, it's torn the first round.
Speaker 2:Look at you, man. You're a badass. I didn't even phase you.
Speaker 3:It was shit because it didn't move properly, but that's why I was throwing just my right hand.
Speaker 2:So it's five rounds. So you went the full five rounds and you won by decision.
Speaker 3:Full five rounds and you won by decision. You won by decision, but everybody says we should have won.
Speaker 2:All right, any rematch coming when you have both arms working properly.
Speaker 3:Oh we coming when you have both arms working properly. Oh, we spoke about it. We actually speak. We're friends, so we became friends afterwards. It's normally like that when you fight each other afterwards you become good friends, so we spoke about it. I think he's got another fight coming up in May. I'm not too sure he's gonna fight somebody else then. Maybe we'll get a rematch later. We did speak about it, though. Very cool, very cool, would it be nice to have two arms for that one.
Speaker 2:I can imagine that would help, for sure.
Speaker 3:Yeah, it helps a bit.
Speaker 2:So are you in this sport you mentioned? You became friends after. Is it a lot of camaraderie? Are you friendly with a lot of the people you fight, or is there a lot of animosity with certain opponents? The culture is generally that of support and friendship.
Speaker 3:Most of the stuff you see being hyped is all just hype.
Speaker 2:It's all just hype. That's what it is. It's hype, it's all just yeah. If you look at, like Mayweather fought McGregor.
Speaker 3:They got off the same plane, went to the conference, swore at each other, threw stuff at each other. They went back on the same plane together. It's just about selling and hyping a fight. It's nothing more than that. It's just about getting numbers of people to watch. Very cool man.
Speaker 2:Who are you? Fighting in June. Is that somebody you know, a friend of yours? Not yet.
Speaker 3:I might not know him but like you know, because a lot of people to fight, but after you become friends. But um yeah, whoever they give me I'll fight. I really mind what?
Speaker 2:what's the most rewarding thing about doing, about boxing, about doing the bare bare knuckle?
Speaker 3:obviously, obviously, when you win, it's rewarding, it's nice.
Speaker 2:Wait, you don't like getting pummeled and losing. Come on man.
Speaker 3:No, it sucks. Obviously, knocking people out is fun. You get a good knockout. It's always fun. I don't know.
Speaker 2:I could imagine that it's got to be incredible for your mind to put yourself in that situation right To train as hard as you do, and then, like you said, you're nervous going in and then you, you, you confront that and you get in there and you have the fight and even win, lose or draw right Even when you. When you lose, you take things out of that. You get better from from all of it, right?
Speaker 3:You have to. You have to have a strong mind just to walk in. Anybody who walks into that, whether they get into that ring or cage, whatever you want to call it. They got a strong mind. Hats off to them. It doesn't. It's not an easy thing to do. Even if they suck at it. They've won a fight before just to do that. Walk down there and, as you've experienced it, you don't know how bad it, how hard it is. So it's hats off to anybody who actually has the balls to get down there and do it yeah, for sure I can imagine.
Speaker 2:I mean, I know myself I've always been one to avoid confrontation and avoid fights, because when that fight or flight response kicks in, it's intense man well, the problem is now we've developed a third one called freeze.
Speaker 3:There's fight flight or freeze, see they freeze up, yeah yeah, that's the biggest problem is because nowadays, like, let's say, your boss shouts at you or whatever, people would freeze because you can't run away and you can't fight it because then you get fired. So people would freeze and that's a new thing that people have developed. That's actually. It's very bad because your body still has a reaction or fight or flight, so it has a nerve dump. So you need to get rid of those nerves by either running away or fighting the person.
Speaker 3:But when you freeze, that nerves builds up inside you and that's why you get people who snap and stuff like that. So you need to actually get rid of it. So a lot of we like I remember back home in south africa we used to have like a corporate class for those years ago for businessmen so they could come and they could just hit stuff and get it out of them and then they would feel so much better. They wouldn't have them sparring or anything because they've got meetings. But hit the bag, hit the pads, do the stuff, and they loved it because it got that out of them, because when you're sitting in a meeting you can't actually run away or start punching the person opposite the table.
Speaker 3:So they would take that frustration and put it in their boxing. And then again, this was before it became a mainstream boxer-sized type thing. Nowadays every gym has got a little boxing section for people to train in. We're talking 15 years ago, when it was still whatever, you go to a boxing gym and you're going to get your teeth knocked out, type thing. Now it's, it's normal, everybody does. Everyone's got a gym and a boxing trainer and does fitness and it's good yeah yeah, man, so you mentioned it from south africa.
Speaker 2:Do you know leor manelis by chance?
Speaker 2:I'm not sure so he lives in the community here in cooper city and he is also from south africa, moved over here, I want to say a few years ago with his family, so I wasn't sure if you guys had connected I could could definitely link you guys up. He does website and SEO Okay. He lives here in the community. Actually, I publish a local magazine here in the community called Cooper City Living and we featured his family on the cover his wife and his two beautiful twin daughters. It's really nice. He's a good guy. Maybe I'll connect you guys.
Speaker 3:Maybe if I see him I might know him, but the name doesn't sound familiar. But again, I forget names. You and me, both brother, I've got a million people coming into my shop.
Speaker 2:I don't know man, I forget my own name half the time. At this point, man.
Speaker 3:Well, I see it on my screen now. I've got yours or mine, it's the same thing.
Speaker 2:So when you're not at the store, when you're not training for a fight, what do you like to do in your downtime? Tell us a little bit about your family. You got a wife and kids.
Speaker 3:No, I don't have a wife and kids yet.
Speaker 2:I do have a fiance, though. Congratulations, thank you. When's the wedding Going to be? In July, july. I'll expect my invitation promptly.
Speaker 3:Yeah, of course.
Speaker 2:I've been to New York. Why New York? Is she from New York? Yeah, she's from there. What part of New York, brooklyn? I'm from Rockland County. You're probably not familiar. It's not in the city, a little bit north of the city.
Speaker 3:Yeah, we actually took a nice travel. I did not realize how nice New York is outside of New York, New York. I did not realize how nice.
Speaker 2:New York is outside of New York. New York it's big.
Speaker 3:It's a beautiful place. It's a beautiful country, it's nice. I didn't realize because, obviously, being from another country, we think New York is that's it, new York is New York City, that's it. There's not much else. But then you take a 45-minute drive and you're literally in the woods.
Speaker 2:New York State is beautiful.
Speaker 3:It's very nice because we took a drive up to upstate New York. We had to go to a wedding there. An hour and a half drive is beautiful up there, nice.
Speaker 2:All I know is I went back to I don't go back very often but I went to New Jersey. My brother lives in Jersey and I went up there for Christmas and we had a good time. But man, it's dark, congested, gloomy. And we got back to Florida and I took a breath of fresh air when we got out of the airport and we drove out of Fort Lauderdale airport. It was just sunny and spacious and warm and beautiful. I said I love living in South Florida.
Speaker 3:Well, that's why everybody from New York is moving down because, they had the same thought as you. Florida's beautiful.
Speaker 2:So what do you guys like to do for fun?
Speaker 3:Well, she's up in New York, so when we do see each other, we obviously go out, eat different restaurants, try different places. A lot of the I don't get a lot of free time because of working, because of training. There's not. I don't get much, sit around and do nothing time Like I didn't America, you just come and work. That's what people do here. They don't realize this. You work, so also being a business owner, it's I got to put the hours in to get rewards. Everyone's like. Everyone says that, saying like everyone wants to be a business owner and they can take holidays when they want. They don't realize when you're a business owner, you don't get holidays.
Speaker 3:There's like, okay, I can take four days off because I've pre-arranged this for like a month before, made sure I had all the inventory, the staff were ready, this and that. Okay, now I can go away for a week. And it's not like we can do it over Christmas. Because they want to, the staff need to go away over those sort of times, so it's like I can do a smack bang in the middle of this month and then I'll be back to look after everybody for Christmas, in case something happens. Yeah.
Speaker 2:Being your own boss. Was this your first foray into the wonderful world of entrepreneurship?
Speaker 3:Of America.
Speaker 2:yes, Did you own a business though, back in South Africa, or did you work?
Speaker 3:for someone else. Well, I was a business, I was a professional fighter.
Speaker 2:Oh, you did that full time, there was no other business.
Speaker 3:So that was, I guess, you were managing your own brand.
Speaker 2:I had shares in a few businesses.
Speaker 3:I invested my money into a few things, so I did have shares in a few things, yeah.
Speaker 2:What was one of the biggest challenges? Starting a business here in the US and transitioning, I guess, from being a full-time fighter into being a local entrepreneur positioning, I guess, from being a full-time fighter into being a local entrepreneur.
Speaker 3:Well, it's hard to say what the challenge was because the whole thing was different. Just remember, everything is different when I came here. There's electricity all the time. It doesn't cut off. I don't have to buy a generator. It doesn't cut off for four to eight hours a day just because they feel like cutting it off. It's like there's that sort of stuff. When the water goes out or something goes out, let's say the water, the power does cut down. It's put on back in a couple hours. And it was because something happened, not just because they flicked the switch and said you don't have power for the next four hours because there's too much on the grid. So it's also a thing which is obviously a nice bonus having electricity all the. You guys don't understand how spoiled we are.
Speaker 2:We're spoiled over here, right.
Speaker 3:Yeah, they don't understand how lucky Americans are. People don't realize how lucky they are to have a chair. When you start looking at third world countries, you get people complaining about stuff. Here it's like your poor people are our middle class people. That is literally. You get stuff from the government. We don't get anything Like if you're really poor in South Africa. You live in a shack. You don't get a government subsidy, house or this or whatever, food stamps or anything. There's nothing. There's no running water. You go walk 20, like 10 kilometers or seven miles to go fetch water. There's no heating. There's no stove. There's no heating. There's no stove. There's no nothing.
Speaker 2:People don't understand what they have here. Yeah, we take a lot of it for granted, don't we A lot for granted? Yeah, we don't understand how great we do have it.
Speaker 3:And when there's a pothole that gets fixed, it doesn't get another pothole or a bigger one. So yeah, it's. Everything was obviously, it's a whole new system I had to learn. So the whole thing was a challenge. I had to learn how the American system works, how to do this, how to do that, how to do the payroll, how to do the taxes, how to do everything. So it was completely different, challenging, but it's done. I've done more challenging stuff before, so yeah, sounds like it, man.
Speaker 2:So, yeah, one of the things talking about what you know, what we have over here in the country, one of the things that I've really come into my my own on the north side of 40 is it's just gratitude, being thankful, being grateful for for everything, not not just not just the good that we have, but also the bad experiences, the challenges. I've really embraced all of it and I'm starting to get to a point now where I'm looking back on my life and I'm thinking to myself you know what? I don't know that I would change anything that's happened because it's led me to where I'm at right now. And I'm really happy with where I'm at right now and I kind of wouldn't change it for the world. I used to look back when I was younger and be like, oh, if this happened differently, or this happened differently, or blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. But right now I'm just like, I'm just awash with gratitude and I'm just really thankful to.
Speaker 3:I read something the other day that said if you changed all the mistakes you made, you wouldn't be you. You wouldn't exist. It's true.
Speaker 2:Like, everything you've been through has been a learning curve, or put you where you are, and it's just a matter of how you frame it right.
Speaker 3:If you look at everything like that, uh, it's, it's very powerful, whereas so obviously there's one or two things that you could get rid of, but yeah, hindsight is 2020, they say yeah, but but you don't even know.
Speaker 2:Right like you.
Speaker 3:You change one thing, you go back and change that, and then you don't know know right Like you change one thing, you go back and change that, and then you don't know what the outcome is you may have done something that ended up worse, it's a butterfly effect, or whatever they call it. Yeah, yeah so it was challenging to change, to come here and to learn everything and just learn the whole thing. So I just looked at it as like when I first got chopped. Basically what I did was I don't train much and stuff. I said, all right, cool.
Speaker 3:What I'm going to do? I'm going to put myself in a three-month training camp, same as when I go away and I'm full of training camp for boxing or MMA or whatever. I'm literally going to focus on the business, learn everything I Like, focus everything, my undivided attention onto this, like a training camp. Literally every morning, wake up, get stuff done, do this, and that's what I did. So the easiest way to do it is just conquer it head on, like, put yourself and focus on it and don't need any distractions. So I didn't focus, worry about when I was getting a fight or when I was doing this or that. All I did was do that. Obviously, I went to the gym and stuff, but I just focused on the business. I ended up doing a proper six months just learning how to change everything, how to run this, how to run that, how to learn the taxes, because every tax in the world is different. Every country has its own taxes. America has lots of different taxes. Every state is like a different country.
Speaker 2:I'm allergic to tax-related matters. My brain doesn't process information and the checks and debits. I'm good at spending money not accounting for it.
Speaker 3:Obviously there's other stuff like payroll and federal and this and that I don't understand half of it. I've got a really good accountant. That's what I did.
Speaker 2:Yeah, Very important to have a good accountant, for sure. So anyone out there that's listening, two things One, the fight coming up. I want people to know about the fight. I want people to come. So this is on. What's the date of the fight? It's June. It should be June 21st.
Speaker 3:I'm still waiting for my contract and stuff, but stay following social media.
Speaker 2:Tentatively June 21st at the Hard Rock in Hollywood. How can folks out there connect with you? Total Nutrition Weston maybe share your address, your website, your contact information, total.
Speaker 3:Nutrition Weston. We're on the corner of 84 and Weston. It's 15948 West State Road, 84. It's you know where? What's it called? Bravo, the supermarket Key Food? Yep, yeah, it's in the same strip mall as that. So obviously we have the Instagram. Total Nutrition Western.
Speaker 2:Wait, that's the same plaza that has Tag Gymnastics, right.
Speaker 3:Yes, same one as Tag Uncle Al's. We're just by the dry cleaner site okay, cool yeah, so it's right there. Like I said, it's been there 20 years, so I'll be surprised when people actually say they've lived there. They've never known it was there. I was like I don't know.
Speaker 2:I don't know how they come and how can people follow you on social media for the for my personal will be Pitbull, underscore Smith.
Speaker 3:Pitbull, yeah, it's my nickname. It's my nickname. Yeah, I was given that nickname. I never chose it. The commentators gave me that nickname a long time ago, when I was 20 years old, they gave that to me, so I earned it. I didn't take it.
Speaker 2:Yeah, you look like you got a little pitbull in you there, Jeremy A little bit something. So we're going to link in the description to all your contact information. We'll put the information about the fight down there as well, so people that are listening, that want to check it out, can learn more. Cool man, jeremy. It was a pleasure getting the opportunity to meet you, brother. Thanks for coming on the show.
Speaker 3:Thanks for having me.
Speaker 2:I appreciate it, Of course man, this is what we do and thanks, as always, to our listeners for tuning in. We will catch everyone next time. Take care and have a blessed day. Bye.
Speaker 1:Thanks for listening to the Good Neighbor Podcast Cooper City. To nominate your favorite local business to be featured on the show, go to GNPCooperCitycom. That's GNPCooperCitycom, or call 954-231-3170.