How I Built 3 Eight-Figure Brands After Rock Bottom | Nick Koumalatsos DSH #913

We have a guy who

is on the couch, he's overweight, lethargic, and he just has no drive to go to the gym.

He has no drive to do things.

If he does go to the gym, he's like, dude, I've had one training session and I'm sore for three weeks.

I can't even go back to the gym.

Like, how are we ever going to get that guy moving?

But if I can get him, if I can do a blood test and get him moving, dude, he's not going to be able to sit on the couch.

He's going to be like, I have to go do something.

So, even though he's not doing it naturally up front, it's giving him the motion, the motivation.

It's giving him the drive to go take care of himself.

All right, guys, Nick Kumalazzos here today, entrepreneur, philanthropist, producer, creator, and father.

Thanks for coming on, man.

Thanks, Sean.

Thanks for having me.

You brought the Johnny Slicks, right?

Johnny Slicks, yeah.

Careful with that.

It's dangerous.

Yeah.

Organic shampoo.

Yeah, your wife will

like it.

Body wash, hair stuff.

Oh, it does everything.

We got it all.

Nice.

This is the black label.

Okay.

Yeah.

Why'd you decide to go the organic route?

I've never seen that in a.

So my business partner was,

John, my business partner, he was 22 and he was kind of in the barber community.

So like, you know, Pompadour, like really styled haircuts.

And he was using a bunch of product and his hair actually started falling out at like 22 years old.

Whoa.

And he was like, what the hell?

And he was still in the Marine Corps at the time.

And he realized, he goes, dude, what's going on?

So anyways, he realized that it was the product.

He looked at the ingredients of the product and it was like, you know, you've seen products where it's like a paragraph of ingredients that you can't read.

He started doing research.

He's like, oh, dude, this stuff is making people's hair fall out.

So he's like, okay.

Anyways, we went down the road and figured out an organic solution.

And it took a couple of years.

And then we launched the business, him and I partnered, and we launched the business in 2018.

Nice.

And

we're real big on American manufacturing and American jobs.

So not only are we like, really want to go down the organic road because the reality is there's corporations that are poisoning people and then profiting on the back end of that poison.

Wow.

Double dipping.

Yeah.

So it's interesting.

There's several videos that if you look at, for instance, you look at shampoo conditioners or hair gel or anything like that, those products are actually causing problems.

And then the same company is also selling.

you know, hems and Rogan and all this stuff to like fix it.

Evil Empire type of stuff.

So we're just a small company, you know, that's that's trying to help people out.

And like I said, the big thing for us is American-made, American manufactured.

It's like we're manufacturing our own products.

We're fulfilling our own products.

Our marketing team, we're completely vertically integrated.

And that, because everybody's pushed us to go outsource, outsource, outsource, outsource.

You'll make more money.

Yeah, we would.

But that means

we couldn't give people really good paying jobs.

Like we start employees

at above the national average.

Wow.

And we wouldn't be able to do that.

So if you look back into like all the way back to the 20s,

where the America had the boom is in manufacturing.

And over the years, we've been outsourcing it to China.

But where are all those damn jobs going?

Where are these neighborhoods going?

And if we constantly keep doing that, it's just going to, you know, degrade America, if you will.

Absolutely.

So companies like us, companies like Origin, you know, if you will hunt, that are, that are pushing back and really trying to manufacture things back in the United States because the quality is just superb.

And, you know, anybody that uses this knows that like this is like really good stuff.

The manufacturing is key.

So I just found out if you go to the grocery store and you go to the meat section and it says made in the USA, it doesn't mean it's from the USA.

Isn't that crazy?

Yeah, it's packaged.

Yeah.

Yeah.

So all they do is ship it here.

And if it's packaged in the U.S., they could say made in the U.S.

Yeah,

that's sleazy.

That's disgusting.

So who knows where we're eating the meat?

Yeah.

And what's great about our company is if you look up, well, who is Johnny Slicks?

Who's running Johnny Slicks?

Like

you see every employee.

You know, we do interviews with them.

It's kind of like, it's funny.

We do some videos that are almost like office space because we want the customer to know, like, hey, this stuff is being made by us.

And it's like, we care.

We care about your family.

We care about your health.

We, you know, and we want you to freaking look and smell good.

Right.

You know, that's it.

Yeah.

Yeah.

There's, there's very few brands that are doing this, to be honest.

When you go to like a Target or Walmart and you go to the shampoo section,

I have this app called Yuka.

Have you seen this?

No.

So you scan the barcode and gives you a health score out of 100.

No kidding.

So

we're going to have to play with that.

A hobby of mine is I'll just go to Target for fun.

Check it out.

While I'm shopping, I'll scan the whole beauty aisle.

Almost everything's a zero, dude.

It's like no kidding because they put these.

What about the natural stuff?

Those are better.

I've seen like 80s and 90s on those, but even some of those, like native, has a couple ingredients.

I'm not trying to call them out that are kind of questionable.

Yeah, so what have what's crazy is you can say all natural.

Like, we have some competitors in our space that are heavily watching us.

Then they say all natural.

But, you know, formaldehyde's all-natural.

Asbestos is natural.

Wow.

You mean technically, you know, so you can, they can, and the USDA, the USDA

has a limit on chemicals.

So you can say, you can say USDA organic approved, and it's up to like 10% of an outside chemical that they still approve.

Just call it organic.

Yeah.

Oh, my God.

Yeah.

So organic doesn't even mean organic doesn't even mean organic.

What?

Yeah.

So it's hard, man.

This is a freaking hard business to be in.

Like the one, the American made, just the supply chain alone to be, you got to think,

this year we'll be an eight-figure company.

So we're having to manufacture that many products.

And you're talking about, you know, that amount of coconut oil, beeswax, you know, organ oil, all these different ingredients that we use to cook products.

And then, and then there's not even manufacturing equipment in the states to manufacture cosmetics.

We have to like build our own machines and we're talking huge vats.

Damn.

You know, so you can't even rent a machine.

You have to build.

You basically have to go customize and get uh for the way that we cook products and make these different products we have to customize and build our own things now there there are different companies that use them for different things and we have to fabricate them and change them so that we can make cosmetics wow yeah that sounds intense yeah because in china you could probably get it for a third of the price that and then they've already they're already mass producing you know shampoos conditioners and yeah different things but It's not really happening here.

But now they're seeing that these supplement companies are in bed with pharma.

Yeah.

They're finding heavy metals.

They're finding all these contaminants.

There's a huge class action lawsuit on several big-name brands that had lead in their products.

Yeah.

It's scary, man.

Like, you think you're taking these supplements to get healthier, and it's actually making you worse.

Making you worse.

Yeah.

Like, you really got to be careful these people.

You got to pay attention to what you're doing.

Absolutely.

And the thing is, is like, yeah, could we make more money at what cost?

Now, I mean, we have families that work for us.

We literally have multiple people that are husband and wife working for our company and even their kids.

We have one couple that they're teenage boys working for us.

Wow.

So that's what more we're about.

We're more about America.

We're more about community.

And so when you buy Johnny Slicks, one, your money stays here.

It's going to some family that's in the United States and you're taking care of your family.

Love it.

You know what I mean?

Are you in any retail yet?

So we're on Amazon and we are in talks with

a retail

company, a large retail company.

Does that really change the game once you get some of those retail locations up?

Yeah, it does.

But it's a big scary thing.

Like you can't mess up you can't mess up your first going to market with with you know yeah because jake paul just did it with his brand did you see the prime no that's logan paul oh okay so jake paul started a competitor to you really yeah i forget the name of it but yeah he just got in walmart oh yeah so like you cannot mess up that first launch so we're being very cautious of what that manufacturing is going to look like what the lead times are you know what the contract's going to look like but we are in talks with a pretty large manufact a large retail unit nice exciting yeah that's super exciting and this is your third eight-figure company now so how do you think you've been able to replicate success in different industries because the other industries you're in are totally different yeah i had a lot i think that i found 10 000 ways not to do something you know because i started my entrepreneur career in 2013 and dude i struggled i struggled for probably five six years wow yeah because you didn't have a mentor

you nailed it you nailed it that's what i struggled in my first five years that i didn't i didn't get any mentors i didn't get any coaching and that's when when i got coaching and mentors that's when everything turned around.

Right.

Actually, we were talking about B.

B was one of my first big coaches.

Nice.

I paid him, and that's when things started to kind of turn around.

100%.

Same thing with me.

Which B, get on the show.

Come over here.

Yeah, no.

Shout out to you for that.

Yeah.

But so you hired him, and that was the catalyst to.

That was one of the catalysts.

Obviously, I started small.

You know what the other thing was?

I started really working on myself and my own personal growth.

I was real focused on these businesses, but I wasn't focused on myself.

And my own.

And you got to remember,

I was in special operations.

I had a tremotious

transition out of the military into civilian life.

I served from 2000, 2012, very heavily involved in combat and deploying a lot.

And

so I underestimated the whole identity crisis of leaving special operations and turning into just me.

And

so once I navigated that, I was really just,

And while I was navigating that, I was really just focused on the business.

And I realized through the years that it was I was the asset I needed to get healthy I need to learn I need to grow and when I started focusing on me being the best version of myself both physically mentally spiritually that's when things started to turn around right and so anyways that's that's really where it came from and then I started seeking I started seeking growth and as I seeked growth I you know people people think like how do you find these type of people or how do they how do they find you etc I'm like well you're not going to find them doing nothing you got to go walk the yellow brick road You got to go on the journey.

And as you go on the journey,

you'll just come across people.

You'll just, oh, you meet a new person.

You're like, I like that dude.

I vibe with him.

He's got something I don't.

I want to learn from him.

And that's when, that's when, like,

you know, you 10x your life.

Yeah, 100%.

And that's why I go to events and conferences.

Yeah.

Because you'll meet at least one at every one.

Your network is your net worth.

Yeah.

Your network is your net worth.

Yeah, 100%.

How was your mental health when you were serving, Marines?

Decent.

I mean, I was okay when I was serving.

That was fine.

I was very, you got to think I'm in my 20s, right?

Yeah.

I'm in my 40s now.

So during the time, I was very hyper-focused on that job of what I did as a Force Recon Marine or Marine Raider.

Very focused on that.

I didn't really even, I guess you could say I really didn't even believe in mental health.

Oh, yeah?

Yeah.

Wow.

It pains me to say this, but I...

I straight up told people that had, like, if you have PTSD,

you're just weak-minded and not meant for this job.

Wow.

I said that

out of my mouth.

I'm Marine.

Yes.

Wow.

Yes.

I was a team leader

in Force Recon and I said that.

Damn.

And then come and then karma's a bitch

because I get out and the next thing you know, I'm dealing with a whole bunch of stuff that happened six years ago that I had no idea affected me.

And it did.

Oh, so an incident from six years ago resurfaced.

Yeah, when I got out, and you got to understand the reasons why.

So I wrote a book called Excommunicated Warrior, the Seven Stage of Transition.

You got to understand that

when you're in that job, you're moving 300 miles an hour.

So it's like the analogy I use is like you're on a train going 300 miles an hour.

As you go through your life, and this is with anybody, it's not just the military.

As you go through your life, you are collecting train cars of baggage.

Right.

Right.

Well, when you get out, you go from 300 miles an hour to 10 miles an hour.

Guess what?

All that baggage, still going 300 miles an hour.

Bam, right in the back of the head.

And that's what I was doing.

I was out running because it was always the next deployment, the next thing, the next workup, the next training thing.

So if somebody got hurt, died, whatever, something bad happened, I got hurt, it was, you just kept it moving.

You just kept moving.

You got to keep moving.

It's the next mission.

You have no time to reflect.

No, you have no time to deal with it.

No time to reflect.

You say your bias, and then it's the next mission.

And then it's not until you stop and you're like,

what the hell?

Right.

And then it comes all hitting you.

you it was weird i had i i remember uh about a about six months after i got out i called a friend because we had there's somebody lost a lost a brother and you know he passed away in combat and i started seeing him in like groups of people whoa

and it was my subconscious like bringing this up right

so I would see him, like I would be driving down the road or walking through a mall or something.

I'd see a group of people and I would see him on the side of the road or see him in the group of people.

And it was like one of those double takes, you you know, you're just like, but you're not looking for him.

So it's your subconscious is like bringing this person back up.

And, you know, I just started to have a lot of guilt about that.

And

so I called a friend who had gotten out after that appointment.

I said, hey, man, you know, it's going to sound really weird, but

I'm seeing these people.

You know, I'm like reminiscing on Gary and Dustin.

And

he's like, dude.

He's like, welcome to the club.

Like everybody had dealt with that when they got out.

Whoa.

You know,

you just put it on pause for a while.

Right.

And so there's some things I had to work through.

It took some psychological toll.

Yeah, it definitely did.

What do you think helped get you out of that?

Kind of like the same thing.

So it culminated on a, in the book, I tell the story, but it culminated at a point to where I'm on the beach in North Carolina with a gun and ready to call it.

Whoa.

Yeah.

Ready to end my life.

And

thank God that I didn't go through with it, that I found some strength right there to figure it out.

Now, granted, I didn't have any tools, so I went back to my house, walked in the door, and then just went right to the bottle and started drinking again.

And because I knew that something had to change, I just didn't know how to change it.

But that's when I really leaned into like, okay, something's not right.

I need to address it.

And that's where the work began.

It didn't get solved overnight, but it was just like, I'm going to do the deep personal work.

So you're talking about, you know, EMDR therapy,

you know, brain clinics.

I had a TV, I had multiple TBIs.

So I went to a two-week inpatient brain clinic.

I started working with different people.

And I just became real vulnerable and open and said, screw it.

I'm just going to use myself as a test on me and go through all this stuff to figure out how I can fix it.

And time collapsed this healing.

And as I did that more and more, things just got like drastically better.

One of the biggest things, and it's in there, is my work with core medical group.

And the reason why for that is, is I had a friend that said, Hey, Nick,

you know, I'm not trying to overstep.

He was a civilian, but he goes, A lot of these things you're having, man, do you ever had a blood test and check your hormones?

And I was like, No.

And he's like, I think you might have some low testosterone issues.

Come to find out, I think I'm 30 or 31 years old with a testosterone level of 91.

Holy crap, that's the lowest I've ever heard.

And

I mean, no wonder I was like wanting to kill myself.

You know what I'm saying?

You know what I mean?

Yeah.

So now my work, so now I work, I'm a managing partner of Core Medical Group that services, so you service everybody, national clinic, and heavily in the veteran population as well.

And man, I can't even tell you how many, how many people don't even know how bad they feel until they feel good.

So we get them on and do this really in-depth 28-panel blood test and then get them with the doc and build out a specific customized protocol based off of their symptoms and their needs.

And then

bam.

And then, I mean, dude, you're getting, you're getting messages from them, their wife, like, thank you for giving my husband back.

Thank you for giving my, and the dude's just like on fire again.

And that was what would happen to me.

As soon as I, I, I figured that out and I went and uh and got on TRT and brought my levels back to normal, dude.

It was like my brain.

My brain was on fire.

It was like, I knew I had clear direction, no more brain fog.

I was sleeping better.

I lost all the weight.

I mean, I literally, Sean, when I, when I got out, I'm like 240, 10% body fat.

Yeah.

Huge.

Like, I'm 210 now at 10%.

I was 240 at 10.

Yeah, I was at 240 at 10%.

And then I went, there's pictures of me that I put, I love posting them.

There's pictures of me in like, I think, 2016,

and I'm 240 and like 28% body fat.

Holy crap.

There's never chubby.

Yeah, man.

And that's not me.

Yeah.

That's when you were 91 testosterone.

Yeah.

And I was, and I'm looking at, I'm looking at me picture, a picture of me on the beach in Greece with my kids, and I'm just like,

who is this dude?

And that's when things started to turn around.

Wow, 91, dude.

That's solo.

But again, like, I'm, you know, brain fog, can't sleep, can't recover.

I mean, I'm just a wreck.

And as soon as I fixed that, I was like, I knew exactly what I needed to do with my business.

I knew exactly the direction.

I had the time, energy.

I was sleeping good, recovering in the gym.

I mean, it was just life turned around.

Yeah.

And I wish there's so much bad stigma about TRT.

A lot.

A lot.

And it's all bullshit.

It's all bullshit.

My stance on it is, because I took a blood test and I was at 520, which is kind of like when I was like, how old are you though?

I was 26.

26?

So it's a little low.

Lifestyle issues, maybe?

Could have been.

Yeah.

I wasn't exercising, working out.

Yeah.

So, but no, as soon as I raised it, which here's my take on the TRT.

I think you should try to raise it naturally at first if possible.

I got something on that, but go ahead.

Yeah.

And then I'm not opposed to taking it if you can't do it naturally.

Yeah.

Yeah.

But yeah, I raised it like 150 points and I felt way better.

You look way better.

What'd you do?

Tongue caught out Lee, vitamin D, magnesium, all the natural supplements.

And you're in your 20s.

Yeah.

Yeah.

And a lot of that stuff can be fixed by like weight loss, sun exposure,

sleep, sauna, things like that.

Real good diet.

Like a lot of the things that we're consuming have xenoestrogens in them.

So they're actually caused.

I don't know if you guys know this, but

the perineum, what you call it the taint, is actually shrinking in men and young people.

Oh, really?

Yeah.

So

the space between the anus and your ball sac is actually shrinking because of the xenoestrogens and the things that parents or mothers are consuming and they're passing that to their children.

So what does that mean?

It means that boys are growing up with more estrogenic properties, less testosterone.

And you can see that in their bone structure.

You can see that in their physical capabilities.

And we really do have a low testosterone epidemic because of our quality of life, our foods, the poisonous foods that we're consuming, the red dyes that they're feeding kids, sugar, et cetera.

So it's good that you did that.

But post-30 with no trauma, post-30 with no trauma,

you are,

your testosterone is going down.

Part of the aging process.

There's nothing you can do about it.

Even naturally?

There's nothing.

It's going down.

Wow.

Now, yeah, if you're fat and you eat like shit, Yeah, can you improve it a little bit?

Sure.

Like you lose weight and you start eating good, start sleeping better it will improve but only to a point because at 30 is the aging process of when that's on a decline right one percent a year right something like that yeah so

now you add in brain trauma you you add it you add in trauma to your gonads adrenals lifestyle whatever food and it's even getting worse okay so it's not coming back up after 30.

Like other than doing a couple little things, you're still not going to get a nine, you're not going to get an optimal score, you know, at whatever whatever that is.

Now,

so I'm glad you say you should, you should do it naturally before you're going on TRT, because I have one caveat to that.

And it's the whole what comes first, the chicken or the egg.

So if we have a guy who

is on the couch, he's overweight, lethargic, and he just has no drive to go to the gym.

He has no drive to do things.

He's like me, 91.

He's got a testosterone score, 91, and he just can't do it.

If he does go to the gym, he's sore for three weeks.

And he's like, dude, I went one training session and I'm like sore for three weeks.

I can't even go back to the gym.

Like, how are we ever going to get that guy moving?

Right.

But if I can get him, if I can do a blood test and get him moving, dude, he's not going to be able to sit on the couch.

He's going to be like, I have to go do something.

I have to go execute.

I got to go better my life because your brain's firing better.

Everything in your body is functioning better.

So even though he's not doing it naturally up front, it's giving him the motion, the motivation.

It's giving him drive to go take care of himself.

Interesting.

You know what I mean?

So it spikes it that quickly.

Yeah.

Where it will give them.

Like, dude, your brain will be on fire.

Like, I can't sit here.

I got to go do something.

I got to go start a business.

I got to go start working.

I got to change my life.

That's a good take.

I've never heard that take.

You see what I'm saying, though?

So it really is.

It's a case-by-case basis.

But if a guy is so bad in a bad situation that he can't even execute on his own, well, why not give him a leg up?

And, you know, he's 35 years old, 50 pounds overweight.

Like, get him moving.

Right.

And then watch what everything, and then it only improves from there.

You know, but if you're young and you're playing video games too much and you're eating shit and drinking circle all the time, yeah, you need to, you need to, you know, look at your

re-evaluate your life and your priorities.

Yeah, so what did you raise yours to from 91?

Uh, so I, so I'm, I'm right in around the range of 900.

Holy crap, yeah, 900.

Yeah, so we

over the years, um, and I've been a managing partner of CORE for

six, six years now, I think.

Um, so we have found that men operate the best at around nine nine hundred to eleven hundred so i got to raise mine even more then i think i think you you guys yeah i'm at 650 right yeah i like that line like those are rookie numbers we need to

we need to we need to boost those numbers up i don't think i've ever been that high though so i don't know how i'd feel yo you've definitely been you think i oh yeah over the year i mean well it depends on your lifestyle and say you were like 18 years old so you're not the best i was a pc gaming nerd oh really so then probably not but if you were if you were into weightlifting maybe playing some sports soccer, whatever, I mean, you're tall, basketball, you know what I mean?

Then you probably were running around.

You know, there's some kids out there in the teen, like late teens, early 20s, like pushing like 1500.

Damn.

Yeah.

Do you think it gives you a big edge in sports to hop high testosterone?

Absolutely.

I mean, that's the reason why people like, you know, abuse them.

Yeah.

Your recovery, your ability to just work out, your muscle mass, your density, all of it.

Wow.

And you got to look at it as.

The reason why we die is part of that.

It's our hormones.

Because as you start, as your testosterone starts, as your hormone starts to decline, your bone density, your muscle density, it all becomes smaller.

It all becomes weaker.

And then eventually your organs start to shut down and fail.

And that's just part of the aging process.

We've got guys with core who are 85 years old, still having sex.

What?

Yes.

Like, good sex, good sex.

85, still having sex, ice climbing.

Like, I don't even ice climb.

That shit's crazy.

That's intense.

Yeah.

85 years old, ice climbing, surfing, living life, rock climbing, doing all kinds of stuff.

85.

That's exciting.

Like, if I'm 85, that's the kind of life that I want to be.

I don't want to be a decrepit old man, you know, and that's the reality is what they're doing is they're just optimizing their health to a point to where they have a really high quality of life.

I'll say this just for everybody listening.

It's not all about your testosterone score.

There's a lot of other things that go into your blood work that because you could have, say you have a 600 testosterone score.

You're like, okay, that's, that's okay.

It's good.

It's better than 91, right?

But you still feel like shit.

You sleep like shit, whatever.

Well, that's not all.

That number doesn't mean everything because your sex-binding hormone goblin, which nobody ever talks about or checks, could be through the roof.

And

what happens then when your SHPG is through the roof, what happens is it's like, say you're a Ferrari.

So you've got a high testosterone score, you're young, you got a high testosterone score, you're a freaking Ferrari, but you have four flat tires.

So

you have a great car, great score, but guess what?

You can't use it because you got four flats.

That's what that is.

Got it.

So I've got to fix that so you have access to your free testosterone and you can kind of go from there.

Makes sense.

Yeah.

That's why like these lot of these online, you know,

TRT mills that you never ever talk to a human being, like

it's a cookie cutter program.

And that's what they, they, they do it like a finger prick test.

And then they're like, oh, your testosterone is this.

And it's like, you test four things.

And you could just get on TRT from that test?

Yeah, but the problem.

But the problem is it's not customized to you.

It's just like a stamp.

Here you go.

Right.

And so with us, the CEO, Sidney Gordon, has really always been,

it's just been a requirement that we scale human beings.

So as the company grows,

we bring on more people to be patient coordinators so that you have a human being connection.

I like that.

Because you got to think, man, like when somebody's dealing with this stuff, you're dealing with...

People's emotions, you're dealing with their lives, and they have symptoms where maybe they're having sexual dysfunction they're you're they're depressed i mean this is a very personable human being problem yeah last thing i want to do is just like put that in some form yeah i want to talk to a person that that cares about me and they do they like genuinely care about your well-being agreed you know and that's the reason why i think we've won over the years i love that we continue to yeah so is trt a steroid so um

TRT, so this is a great thing.

The difference between TRT, and I actually made a video about this on my channel.

The TRT, the the difference between TRT and steroids.

So steroids is, I mean, hypothetical, yes, in layman's terms it is, but it's a biodiversity, it's a hormone that's already being produced by your body.

Now, when you get into abusing steroids, like and you're talking about TRIN and D-ball and,

you know, equipoise and all these, those are steroids.

Those are not things that are naturally created in your body, right?

You know, primo, mastron, all this kind of stuff.

Those are things that are not produced naturally.

Got it.

What we're focusing on is your testosterone and your estrogen

and then your overall quality of life.

We might be having to give you vitamin D.

We might need to give you some peptides, B12, et cetera.

But these are all things that are already in your body that we test on a blood test and we can see where your levels are and then we can optimize around that.

Makes sense.

Yeah.

I didn't know that.

That's good to know, though.

Yeah.

I guess my thing is, is it considered natural then?

It's what

your body's already

making it naturally, but you are giving it a synthetic version of it.

Got it.

But here's the deal.

Like I said before, after 30, buddy, it ain't coming back.

Like you can do all the things in the world.

It's not coming back.

Yeah.

Like it's part of being, it's part of getting older.

So you just have to, you have to decide, you have to decide what quality, what kind of quality of life that I want.

Does that make sense?

Yeah.

I could see why you said woman like it because I had 90 tests.

You're not having sex.

No, you're not.

So like with me personally, like I can speak from personal experience, my everything, my, my equipment worked, but my interest in it was not there.

Right.

Like she had to pursue you.

Yeah.

And even then I was like, meh.

Yeah, because 90 is super low.

Yeah, it's super low for a man.

You know, like we, we see women that are operating best somewhere between 120 and 150, or maybe 175.

So women were higher than you.

Yeah.

Wow.

Yeah.

That's crazy.

That's crazy, right?

Are you seeing issues with women with estrogen levels?

Yeah, so women are complicated.

I mean, women are complicated in general, but when it comes to hormones, women are very complicated.

And thank God that we have the professionals to do that.

But yeah, they have a lot more

balancing of progesterone and estrogen, plus, they have a cycle that they have to deal with.

That also, as that month goes on, that cycle is also changing the progesterone, testosterone, estrogen.

So we have some really, really smart

on the medical staff that takes care of women as well.

My wife's on it.

So they manage my wife as well.

She's 39.

Nice.

What

My mother-in-law is on it.

What's amazing is,

you know, obviously menopause for women is what makes them turn into basically old women, right?

Well, as you're getting into like pre-menopause, if you go on hormone replacement therapy, you can actually stop menopause.

No way.

Yeah.

So my mother-in-law is in her 60.

She probably hates me saying this.

Hopefully she doesn't see this.

But she still has a period.

What?

Yeah.

I thought that stops at like 40.

If they go through menopause.

Damn.

So that doctor was like, hey, listen, technically, you guys got to be careful because technically you could get pregnant.

You know what I mean?

But that shows like the vitality of their health, right?

If you're still having a period in your early 60s, it just shows.

But you can kind of stave off menopause by going on HRT.

That's interesting.

I didn't know they started aging heavily once that ended.

That's really when, and that's the same thing with men.

When that testosterone starts to dip, that's when our aging process starts to really, really kick in.

You see guys look really old and frail.

Same thing with women their hair starts to thin

their bone density starts to weaken they're just you know less physically fit you know that's interesting yeah I'm sure if they did a study on old men that are active their testosterone would be pretty high it's higher yeah absolutely it's high it's gonna be higher and what they've actually done they've done studies on the on the muscle density and the size of muscle um which is why like you know as you age it's important that you lift weights to strengthen your bone density and muscle mass yeah because it's gonna keep you it's gonna keep you young damn so i gotta lift lift on.

You got to lift, man.

I'm going to lift.

You got to lift.

Is it that important?

It's that important.

And I'm not saying you got to be a bodybuilder, but if you lift weights, if you do squat bench deadlift with some accessory stuff three times a week, if you go lift for 45 minutes, three times a week, you will add,

you know, years in quality of life to your life.

Whoa, years?

Years.

Holy shit.

Yeah.

And you put it like that.

Just like three, three days.

And I'm not, like I said,

I'm not saying you got to be some fitness influencer and looked a certain way, but just three days a week, 45 minutes of lifting will drastically change your life over a very long period of time.

So we're talking consistency, long period of time.

Yeah.

How often do you have to take the TRT once you're on it?

So again,

you know, once you're on TRT, you're on it.

Now you can get off of it, but you're just going to go back to what you were.

It's not a fix because your body is what it is.

Your aging process, it's going down.

So it is what it is.

And then,

but is it like a weekly thing or is it a yeah it's weekly yeah so so it depends so like when i first started i did one shot a week as i got like three years into it and i got i got to know more about it um i started splitting my dose because there's a half-life cycle so i just want to be more balanced yeah so now it's like every three days i'll take another shot so as as as testosterone syponate is starting to decline i'm picking another shot to keep it more level some people even do three shots a week subcutaneous they use insulin needles that's a little that's a little much for me but so i just do two i was never a fan of the needle part of it you get you really used to it yeah yeah you get really used to it you do it like in your ass right ass you can do it your ass you can do it in your in your uh thighs uh the easiest way for you're gonna self-administer for this is my opinion um easiest way is you just sit down sit down sit down and you just go you just go at an angle at the top part of your thigh and you just go right there okay thighs relax you're sitting down everything's cool boom done you don't feel it at all no doesn't take doesn't take much shot you've had a shot before yeah i i regret getting most vaccines these days though that's a whole nother podcast that's a that's a different we'll we'll leave that to another one yeah no but now you're super active i saw you just climb the mountain mount rainier oh that was a few years ago yeah how tall is that um i'll say man listen i was in special operations i've done some things in my life that was a kick in the pants really yes and i and i'm i'm 100 transparent on it uh that was a really really kick in the pants for me man i had to go to a dark place right there holy shit yeah it was that tough it was tough how many days it was tough uh we were on the mountain for four days.

Holy crap.

Well, because you have to go to base camp and then

you got to climatize and then it's a weather call from there.

But yeah,

there's a YouTube video called Journey to the Top.

It's on my YouTube channel that documents the whole process.

I got to check that out.

So you're not climbing Everest anytime soon.

No,

I think my mountain climbing days are over.

Maybe some small fun stuff.

It sounds fun when you say it.

So I was actually very interested after that to go climb Everest.

And I was younger and I was in the process of doing that.

And that's when the ice fall had an avalanche, and all those people died.

Ice fall.

Yeah, so

is that at Everest or a different part of it?

It was at Everest.

In the ice, in the ice.

They call it the ice fall, but yeah, there is a actually, there's a documentary on it.

They were there filming a show about Sherpas or documentary about Sherpas, and it happened while they were there.

So they pivoted and they filmed a documentary about the avalanche.

Holy crap.

A lot of people died.

It was a really sad situation.

That's a terrible way to do it.

This actually is from a Sherpa from Nepal that was there

when that happened.

And this was given to a friend of mine

and he gave it to me because inadvertently I saved his life through my book.

So he gave this to me and that's why I wear it because it's a reminder of you might be, me doing what I do, I could be saving somebody's life and I'll never know about it.

So through all the bullshit and all the negativity and all the stuff that I do, I wear this to remind myself to stay on the path.

Wow.

That's good.

Because you never know who you might be affecting.

I love that.

By doing what you're doing.

Yeah, I'm sure your book has saved lives.

You'll never even meet those people.

Yeah.

And I say that book saved his life.

He was a former FBI

undercover agent overseas, got out and didn't know.

Testosterone was low.

He didn't know.

Body, body, bag.

Went to a hotel in Bethesda.

We're in a hotel.

was going to put the body bag in the bath, did put the body bag in the bathtub and was going to basically kill himself, like zip it up, and then kill himself.

So So it was like easy cleanup.

Yeah.

And went to go get a coffee, randomly found my book at a coffee shop, read it cover to cover, and didn't do it.

No way.

Yeah.

Got with Cormed, got his testosterone checked.

It was super low.

Got it fixed, saved his life.

Now he's, now he's,

his name's Amphibious Spartan on

Instagram, and he swims to raise money for charities now.

Incredible.

Yeah.

And that was impacted by you.

And he had, and I didn't find out for like three years later.

And then

I I found it through, found out through Cormed.

He's like, hey, do you know this guy?

I'm like, no, I have no idea.

And he told me the story.

I was like, dude, why would he ever reach out to me?

So I had him on my podcast and he told the whole story about him being undercover and everything that he did, which was a wild story.

And then he gave me this.

And I was like, that's a reminder.

I need to

remind.

That's incredible.

So having been through everything you've gone through, and if your kid approached you wanting to join the military, what would you say?

Ooh, that's a hard one, dude.

I don't know.

I'd have to really talk about why.

I'd have have to really, really talk about why.

Because I kind of know what's going on, and it would really be based off of why he wants to join the military, what he wants to do.

And at the end of the day, here, if he's 18, he's got to make his own decisions.

You know what I mean?

I can say, listen, I don't want you to do this, or I do want you to do it.

It really is up to him.

It's my role at that point to guide him, not dictate his future.

But as far as my own desires, that would be hard, Sean.

That would be hard because,

and it really depends on the administration, right?

Right.

I don't think I'd really want him serving under this administration.

Oh, I heard terrible things about this one from the Marines.

Yeah, the whole Abbey Gate thing and the withdrawal of Afghanistan makes me sick.

And the 13 that died is a completely unnecessary death.

There's young guys and women.

It's just a tragedy

that would not have happened under a different administration.

So that's hard to stomach for me, especially with much time as I spend in Afghanistan and fighting that fight.

Did you join because of 9-11?

No, I joined before 9-11.

Oh, before?

Wow.

Yeah, I joined before 9-11.

Obviously, 9-11 was a pivotal point that changed my life forever.

But

yeah, that would be hard.

That would be hard.

But again, it'd have to be his decision, and it'd be my decision to guide him based off of what he was doing.

Yeah.

Yeah, it'd be tough.

I don't even have kids yet, but I think of these things.

Like public school and like how I'm going to address them and everything.

Yeah, he'll need.

So I got a 22-year-old, an 18-year-old, and then I hit the reset button.

I got a four-year-old little boy.

Yeah.

I'm trying for one more.

I'm trying to squeeze out one more kid

with my wife, obviously.

Nice.

But yeah,

he'll never see the inside of a public classroom.

Hell no.

No.

It's changed too much.

No.

It's not the same.

I mean, it was bad when I was a kid based off the structure, but it's even worse now.

It's so bad now.

Like, you could be a cat.

Yeah.

I'll give a shout out to Matt Bardew and the Apogee Academy.

Those guys are really doing something with school.

They're flipping school upside down.

Nice.

That's a different thing.

What are they doing?

It's more, it's true education.

So it's more, and

you have to look it up because I'm not as educated as Matt is on the subject, but it really more is about giving, like, for instance, kids, I think it's Norway, somewhere over there, Sweet, not Sweden, Finland, maybe.

Kids don't start school until seven or eight.

What?

That's late, right?

That's late.

Because we started at five.

Even preschool at four.

Right.

So they don't start as kids until seven or eight because kids are not even in a mode to learn by then.

They're still playing.

So kids just need to play.

There's some smart Norwegians, man.

The best chess player in the world is from Norway.

Right.

So

we have all this schooling in America.

How smart are our kids?

Not that smart.

No.

They're being taught to memorize facts.

Yeah.

Memorize facts that the public school system wants them to know.

You know,

you take a kid out of high school, does he know anything about credit?

Nope.

Mortgage processes, investing, a PL, anything that's actually going to benefit his life.

He can't even remember the stuff that he was supposed to memorize for a test.

It's in and out, done.

Yeah.

They have nothing.

That's a tragedy.

It's really bad.

But if you take a kid from one of those different classes or a different country at 18, they know some shit.

They're smart.

They're educated.

Truly educated.

Not schooled, educated.

And I think that's the difference.

So, what they're doing is they're really giving

these youth the space to learn.

What are you interested in?

Because when you're interested in something, you will freaking dive in deep.

100%.

And you're like, I want to know this because I'm excited about learning this stuff.

Yeah, learning should be fun.

Learning should be fun.

But for us, it wasn't.

Why were you?

Yeah.

Why are you forcing this kid to learn about something that he's never going to use and he's not interested in?

All the other stuff comps.

Yeah.

We overcomplicate the process.

It's funny on the podcast I have with Matt Bardue talking about this subject.

We're all so programmed in the public school system that it was hard for me to ask questions.

Really?

Yeah, because I was like, I didn't even know what questions to ask.

I was like, trying to think.

And I was getting snuffed and he was laughing.

He's like, it's hard, right?

And he goes, yeah, because you're so programmed.

He's like, well, what about writing in arithmetic?

You know what I mean?

Or what about math?

And he's just laughing.

He's like, it's all.

It's history class.

Yeah, you know.

And so what they do is very much more project-based and and giving the kids room to learn and teach.

So like, so say a second grader might be teaching or helping, mentoring a first grader.

Wow, that's cool.

You know, or if you're in ninth grade, you're teaching the eighth grade.

That's more relatable, though, because you're not going to listen to a six-year-old.

And what's anybody who knows anything about education is if you can teach it, you actually know it.

Right.

If you really want to learn something, teach it to someone.

Go get educated on it and then have to create a lesson plan.

So, what?

Or educate someone else on it?

You know, when you can teach a subject, that's when you really know it.

Absolutely.

We'll link it below.

Are they everywhere in the country or just certain states right now?

So, they first started with one with Tim Kennedy in Texas, and then they've slowly started to open up branches all over the United States.

Nice.

Yeah, so it's growing.

It's growing.

Dude, it's been a blast.

Where can people get the product and learn more about you, man?

JohnnySlicks.com.

Go ahead and you can use my code Nick, get yourself a discount.

And then for me, it's social media, Nick Cumlatzas on anything.

The link below.

Thanks for coming on, Nick.

Yeah, thanks, Sean.

Yep.

Thanks for watching, guys.

See you next time.