Bodybuilding's Dark Side: Why Young Athletes Die | Rich Gaspari DSH #801

You're spending years before you even get recognized.

Like, it is a lot of discipline and hard work, right?

It takes years of building up, you know, a body, and then it's also the knowledge of nutrition.

You know, you have to sleep right, you have to eat right, you have to train right, and all that has to be continuous year after year after year as you make gains.

Ladies and gentlemen, Rich Gaspar here today.

Got a legend in the building from Jersey.

Yeah, right from...

I didn't realize.

You told me you were born in the same town as I was born.

Yep.

You're a Central Jersey guy.

I was born in New Brunswick, but I was raised in Edison.

Nice.

That's where Gary Vee was raised too, right?

Gary Vaynerchuk?

Was he?

I didn't even know.

Edison.

I'm glad you said Central Jersey, too, because people give me shit for saying that, but it exists, guys.

Come on now.

Central Jersey.

People say north or south.

I'm like, nah.

No, we're central.

Central.

Bridgewater, New Jersey.

Middlesex County.

Middlesex County.

And what age did you start getting into lifting?

I was pretty young.

Like, you know, I was sneaking into the Livingstein College gym, which was part of Rutgers.

I was like 13 years old.

Damn.

And they didn't question you?

Yeah, they did.

Well, what happened was they would leave the door open into this.

It was like a big, you know, warehouse, and the gym was in there.

So I would say the door is open.

I'd kind of open the door and just start training.

And I guess they thought I was a student, but I mean, I looked young.

So they just thought maybe I just looked young for a college student.

But then eventually one of the guys go like, do you belong in this school?

And I'm like, oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Where's your ID?

I'm like, oh, I didn't bring it with me.

Oh, that's funny, man.

But yeah, I started training in that gym because they had, you know, back then, there was not many gyms like it is today.

The gyms

are everywhere.

So it was basically, you know, a gym with a universal and free weights and stuff.

So I got into going in there and training.

I was on a mission to be a pro-bodybuilder.

At 13, you were.

Already, I knew my destiny.

The first time I saw a muscle magazine, I saw Arnold Schwarzenegger, the Hulk Lou Ferigno, and I saw a magazine.

I was playing ball with my friend and then I happened to go into his basement.

He had a stack of magazines, all these muscle builder magazines.

So I went and started looking at him and for me, I started looking at these bodybuilders.

I'm like, how did someone get like that?

They look like superheroes, like these big muscular guys.

So I started reading the magazines and then I started going to my friend's house just to get to read these magazines.

Yeah.

Not really play with them, but I wanted to read the magazines.

You know, I was like, oh, come on, let's play ball.

I want to read these magazines.

Yeah, they were popping back in the day.

I just saw Sports Illustrated go under recently, but I feel like magazines these days aren't really.

It's a shame.

You know, I've been on close to 100 covers

as a pro bodybuilder and now it doesn't mean anything.

Yeah, back in the day, though, they were hot.

It was everything.

And that's how I was globally known as a pro bodybuilder.

Once I turned pro winning Mr.

Universe,

and then I started competing in the professional shows, you know, which was the Mr.

Olympia Grand Prix shows, that was basically growing my awareness where Joe Weider was the guy who ran bodybuilding, but he had magazines all over.

You had the American magazine, but then other countries would put it into their language.

So then I would have covers all over the world.

Yeah.

The thing that fascinates me with bodybuilding in particular is you're spending years before you even get recognized.

Like, it is a lot of discipline and hard work, right?

A lot of work, discipline, diet.

Just like, you know, what I was talking about earlier, I was this 13-year-old kid working out in the gym, trying to do something to build some muscle.

I didn't really see, you know, results until I was about 15 or 16.

And then I started competing as a teenager back in the day.

But yeah, it takes years of building up a body.

And then it's also the knowledge of nutrition.

It's not something where

athletes just go and train.

It's 24-7 that you have to sleep right, you have to eat right, you have to train right, and all that has to be continuous year after year after year as you make gains.

Right.

And it sounds like for you, money wasn't the number one reason you were doing this.

At the beginning, it wasn't about money.

It was more about I wanted to be the best bodybuilder in the world.

And I was always told that I couldn't do it.

It was another thing I was known to, I was very, very skinny when I started.

And, you know, they told me I didn't have the genetics to be a bodybuilder, but I said, no, I can do it.

I looked, you know, I read about other mag, you know, other bodybuilders in the magazine that they had, you know, they didn't have great genetics, but they were able to build their body.

So I studied it a lot.

When I was going to Rutgers University, I was a pre-med student.

Wow.

So I was very much into, you know, I was on the dean's list and I was studying, you know,

everything from nutrition to, you know, biochemistry.

But I took everything, even in bodybuilding, I took it as a science.

So everything I did when it came to nutrition.

or training with biomechanics, I took it as a science to be the best that I can be.

Yeah.

I think that's that's probably what separated you from other bodybuilders was the studying aspect.

That was the thing because, you know, everyone sees someone with muscles and they think they're just a dumb muscle head.

And, you know, you look at someone like Arnold Schwarzenegger, who's very intelligent, you know, but although for me, I took advantage of being this known as a dumb musclehead, but then behind, I was a lot smarter.

But, you know, I changed a lot of things in bodybuilding because when I started competing, the bodybuilders had very little knowledge on nutrition.

So I studied more nutrition.

One of the nutritionists I studied was Barry Sears, who believed in a 40-40-20 diet.

40% protein, 40% complex carbs, 20% fat.

And from that, I used that as in my bodybuilding career.

Instead of some of these guys, just eat a lot of protein, don't eat carbs.

That's how you get ripped.

When you want to eat, just eat whatever you can eat to bulk up.

And I found like there's a science to how do you build muscle more effectively and efficiently.

And it all comes down to nutrition.

I believe 75% of getting in shape and building a body is all with nutrition.

I love that.

That's actually a big percent.

Yes.

Because a lot of people focus just on the fitness part.

You could do all the training in the world, and if you're not eating properly, you're not going to make gains.

Wow.

Whether you want to lose body fat or whether you want to gain muscle.

And believe it or not, because I was a really skinny guy, the hardest part for me was gaining muscle.

And that was slowly increasing my caloric intake to try to eat.

And it's not eating McDonald's and pizza.

It was eating healthy foods and bringing up my calories slowly so that my body acclimated to the calories so that those calories are used to build muscle and not build fat, you know, you know, build fatter.

Yeah.

So

I started on diets where eventually for me to get myself to be at about off-season around 245, 250,

I had to eat about 8,000, 7,500 to 8,000 calories a day.

And that's healthy calories.

And that's healthy calories.

So let's see you eat like a pound of beef, you know, a whole chicken.

I would eat like a, you know, two dozen eggs and egg whites because I was limiting my fats, but eating high proteins.

And then eating only complex carbs, not simple carbs, not white sugar, not refined carbohydrates.

I was eating brown rice, sweet potatoes, oatmeal,

some fruits.

But when you try to eat healthy like that, eating 7,500 calories, it's really, really hard.

I bet, dude.

I don't think I can do that every day.

You did that for years, right?

I did that for years.

And then you would have to cut that weight in a certain amount of time.

And then you would cut the weight and go, say, from 7,500.

And then because I sped up my metabolism to be able to get acclimated to eating that much, I can diet on 3,000 calories, which still is a drop almost over half of what you're normally eating.

Where a lot of people today, if you look at what they're eating, average person doesn't eat enough.

They eat probably around 17, 18, maybe 2,000 calories.

Guys that are fat are usually eating a lot of the junk food.

Right.

They're drinking a lot of soda and juices, and that's why they get fat.

Yeah, that makes sense.

It seems like every year there's a bodybuilder that passes away at a super young age, 20s, 30s.

Why do you think that is?

Well, from when I competed in bodybuilding and

today,

I mean, there is an abuse in steroids that are used.

And, you know, listen, I'm not going to deny that I didn't take steroids when I competed as a professional bodybuilder, but the doses that we used were much, much less.

I'm still healthy.

you know, at, you know, turning 60.

I'm still healthy and in great shape, training every day, where guys are dying in their 20s and 30s because they're taking very, very high doses.

It's funny now because

you go on social media and you see all these young kids talking about trend, trembolone.

Yeah, I've seen that.

And Trembolone is like a really harsh steroid.

And I've never taken even Trembolone when I competed.

And when you read all the side effects that there is and these kids are taking it that haven't even, they're not even competing and they're just using

trembolone for fun, you know, to use it.

And it changes your attitude mentally, is very toxic to the body.

so yeah there's bodybuilders that are dying right now because they're abusing you know the whole you know the whole steroids that are crazy and people are injecting testosterone rather than focusing on what's causing the low testosterone and that's the thing i mean there see this is the thing testosterone should not be demonized when used properly a guy my age my testosterone levels are a lot lower than your test than your testosterone but what's found that when your testosterone goes lower and lower you decrease muscle mass there's a lot of other side effects, depression.

So I go to a doctor who looks at what my free testosterone, my total testosterone is, and all I want to do is get it back to normal.

So smaller doses that are prescribed by a doctor for health purposes, then it's not dangerous.

But when a bodybuilder or a kid takes testosterone and takes three, four, five, six times the doses what they should take, then you're going to have at first effects.

You know, you're going to increase hemoglobin or red blood cell count.

It's going to cause you to have a stroke.

Wow.

You're going to have liver damage and a lot of these other things that happen from taking high doses.

That's scary.

Did you have any major injuries or health problems?

Well, nothing from steroids, but I've had some major injuries.

What retired me is I basically I was lifting very heavy weights.

My best lifts like on squats were 785,

especially 525.

I'm still pretty strong.

But what happened is I ruptured a disc

in my 30s when I was competing.

And with that, it ruptured a disc.

It caused total paralysis in my right arm.

And it basically put me into retirement.

But while I was in bed,

saying, okay, I was making money off my body as a bodybuilder.

What am I going to do?

So I'm like, okay, I love the science of bodybuilding.

I love the nutrition part of bodybuilding.

And back then,

supplementation was coming out more and more.

So what did I do?

I started a supplement company.

Smart.

And that's what I did.

And sometimes I tell people, you know, getting injured and having this ruptured disc so that I was in bed for like three months was a blessing in disguise because I said, I can't use my body to make money.

Now I got to use my brain.

Right.

And that's how I started my supplement company.

And you ended up making more off that than your whole bodybuilding.

I made more.

I made, you know, my company at one point was valued at over 100 million.

Holy crap.

I was in over 70 countries.

We still are a global company in a lot of countries.

Nice.

You know, I was talking earlier that what happened to the supplement industry is because guys like me were in the forefront and making money.

Now everybody wants to get so saturated.

So it's such a saturated market.

What's happening is we used to make really high margins in selling supplements.

But what happened now is because there's so much competition, the margins have eroded.

So you have to be a lot smarter.

What's great about Gaspari Nutrition is it is a legacy brand.

So because there's awareness of the brand, I still have sales to grow that brand.

But I tell anyone who wants to get into the supplement business today, I say, don't get into it because it's a very difficult market

to make to make money.

Like I made millions from it.

And a lot of people just think they're going to, you know, set up a brand and make millions.

And it doesn't happen like that.

There's some big people that have tried launching their own supplement brands and it hasn't worked out.

They failed.

I've seen so many people fail in it.

And you have to.

Listen, you have to have relate.

I'm a very relationship driven person.

And I've traveled the whole world to meet customers, to build up my sales.

And that was part of how I grew the brand.

And people are like, how the hell did you get in, you know, Russia?

How did you get in China?

How did you get in?

I went there.

I would go there, meet with distributors face to face.

And I felt that was the best way when you have a relationship with someone to get them to buy from you.

And they started selling your brand for you.

And that's, that's what I did.

And I just, for years, I just traveled around the world to build up my brand or travel, you know, in the United States at different places to build up the brand.

Yeah, there's certain old school techniques that I try to do, like going to conferences, flying in person to meet face-to-face.

I feel like it's a lost art these days with social media.

It is so lost.

And

believe me, now I can learn from you.

There's a lot more

ways of making money now through social media and all the social networking.

And I've learned that as well because I said, you know what?

I'm an old dog, but I have to learn new tricks to build up and make more money.

Do you still have the same hunger to make money?

I really much enjoy what i do i you know i've been listen i've been around a long time so i've been through my ups and downs and had some you know issues like personally with divorce and losing millions of dollars and then trying to you know gain back millions of dollars so a lot of things have happened but i still have a hunger because i enjoy what i do yeah you know i believe that being fit helps a lot because there's guys at my age that are totally just a mess most guys

yeah they're just a mess they're not you know they're not training um you know they're like lazy you know i'm up at 5.30 in the morning every day, going to the gym in the morning, starting my day at 8 o'clock to, you know, work.

And

I'm a very scheduled person and dedicated person to, you know, being structured.

And I believe that structure is a big part of my success.

And that's probably because of bodybuilding.

You have to be very structured to be a great bodybuilder.

So if you can take those attributes and put it into business, you can be successful.

But constantly learning and evolving is very important because, as you know, the market constantly changes and how you can make money today.

Yeah, so it doesn't sound like retirement in the books anytime soon.

No, you know, I listen.

I went to Italy and there's a, there's a guy,

he's a famous producer of equipment called Rudy Panata.

The equipment's Panada.

He's a, he's, he's making hundreds of millions making a brand.

I went to go see him.

He's 72 years old, still training every day and still building a business and how he's going to get that business bigger.

And I look at that and I said, wow, this guy's 72 and he's still doing it.

But I do it because I enjoy doing it.

Just like I see him doing it so i said as long as i can enjoy working i'll continue to work right and i saw you're mentoring some people flex lewis is one of your clients right he was one of my he was one of my athletes that i mentored uh hina yamagishi another athlete that i mentored i mentored many many athletes and wow and i enjoy doing that and you know it's great to see these people that were under my wing that are now successful yeah financially that's cool because you could have just not helped out anyone you could have just kept that information for yourself but you chose to spread it i'd rather spread the knowledge and i still believe in doing that to helping people because it comes back to you tenfold.

Right.

I do believe in that.

I mean, you know, it's, it's for me, even though I'm older, I don't feel I'm old, but you know, people get to meet me and say, wow, you're the legend, you're Rich Gasparry.

But for me, I'm just Rich Kaspari.

I love that, man.

Yeah, because you probably had some battles with ego as you were winning competition.

You got to understand, I turned pro when I was 20 years old.

So I was a very young pro, and then I got to travel the world.

But, you know, when you're that young, a lot of times you make mistakes, you know, because your ego goes too high.

And that's kind of what happened in my life, you know, where I went in the wrong direction some of the time.

And that's why today I'm much wiser in learning from those mistakes than I did when I was younger.

And I try to mentor even the guys that are very successful, saying, listen, here's the things that I did that you shouldn't do.

That's what happened to me.

Yeah, well, now it's amplified because of social media.

So your ego is just 10 times bigger.

It becomes so big.

Because if you get followers or you get views, you think you're the shit.

Yes, exactly.

You got to stay grounded, though, man.

What age were you when you won your first competition?

I was

17 years old.

I won a teenage competition.

It was funny because I won the teenage competition at 17 years old.

Then a year later, I went into another teenage competition.

And what happened was I went, because I was still a teenager.

I said, let me compete in this show.

I ended up winning the show.

And the heavyweight.

happened to be a teenager that I beat.

He went into the men's division and won the men's overall.

Wow.

So

I stayed in the teenage division, which I could have also won the men's division at 18.

So I go, well, I'm 18.

And this guy that I beat, you know, beat the men.

So that means I must be pretty good.

And, you know, when I was in New Jersey competing, a lot of guys would say, you know, you're just a big fish in a little pond.

Yeah.

So I was like, what do you mean I'm a big fish in a little pond?

You can't beat all of these guys, you know, Lou Frigno, all these different names, but I'm Platts.

So I'm like, where do these guys live?

They live in California.

So the mech of bodybuilding, now it's not, now bodybuilding spread everywhere.

Actually,

Las Vegas is now the mech of bodybuilding

or not yet.

More gyms here for bodybuilding.

The Olympia's been here many, many years.

But anyways, it was Venice, California.

So I moved to Venice, California because I said, you know what?

I'm going to beat all the top guys.

I don't want to be a big fish in a little pond.

I want to be a big fish in a big pond.

So I moved to California to then start, you know, training and competing into the bigger shows.

Interesting.

The scoring, I'm interested in how they judge it.

Because for me, I don't know much about the sport, but it seems hard to judge that kind of stuff.

Is it subjective?

It's very subjective, but

they basically judge on symmetry,

balance, shape, aesthetics, definition.

So all these things come into factor, you know, what's pleasing to the eye.

There's two different types of physiques.

You know, you have a Nepalan physique, which is more like a classic, you know, small waist.

And then you have, you know, a Herculean physique, which is like a bigger type of body.

And

on a day, whether those judges like more the aesthetic physique or more that really big physique depends.

You know, you can have a set of judges that'll vote for this guy one time and then the next day vote for the other guy because it's all a matter, as you said.

It's not something like when you

get a touchdown in football.

It's all subjective.

That's what I mean.

Yeah, as a judge, what if you're friends with the guy competing?

You know what I mean?

Well, that doesn't happen as much.

You know, judges try to stay clear.

I actually, I became a judge

after I retired.

And what happened was

I had my athletes like Hidiyamagishi and Flex Lewis were my athletes.

So I started judging, and I did it more because I had a passion for the sport.

So I got to judge Flex, and because they were my athletes.

You would give them tens?

No, no, that was the difference.

I ended up scoring them lower because I was so critical critical on them that my scores were actually lower than what the other scores because I thought people were going to say, like, oh, you're going to favor those guys because you're athletes.

But I ended up getting a lot of, you know, flack from people saying you shouldn't be judging.

So I stopped judging.

But I did it more because I enjoyed the passion of the sport to help.

And, you know, I have a good eye for it.

But I just said, you know, I'm not going to do this.

I know you got runner up a few times.

Any losses?

Three times for Mr.

Olympia, right?

So any of those losses still

eat at you?

I mean, listen,

the person that beat me was an eight-time Mr.

Olympia.

There's only two bodybuilders to get eight-time Mr.

Olympia, and that's Lee Haney.

That's the guy I competed with, and Ronnie Coleman.

When I competed against Lee Haney, I told you I moved to California.

Lee Haney was already five or six years older than me.

He saw me in the gym.

He was already pro.

I wasn't a pro yet.

I was an amateur.

He saw how hard I trained and basically came up to me and said, hey, kid, I'd love you to train with me and be my training partner.

For me, it was like, I'm going to learn from this top pro to be better.

Now, little did he know that a year later, I'd be competing against him.

But he was my ment.

I have to say he was my mentor.

And so the guy I lost against ended up becoming.

or beating Arnold Schwarzenegger's record and being one of the greatest bodybuilders of all time, still to this day.

So I don't feel as bad getting second place to one of the greatest bodybuilders of all time.

So it just meant that I was the second best bodybuilder of all time.

But

I've won a lot of shows that I'm really proud of.

I'm the first Arnold Classic winner.

That's one of the biggest shows.

I won Mr.

World, Mr.

Universe.

Nice.

And all these titles, you know, it was something

that I also proved that even though they told me I didn't have the genetics or they said I couldn't be the best, I ended up beating so many of the best genetically gifted bodybuilders in the world.

You know why?

It's all mentality.

And in the sport, if you have a good mentality, you know, in competing, and that's what I had, I was able to beat much, much better guys.

I was able to prepare more.

I put all science into what I did when I competed with when it came to the diet and my complex carbohydrates, writing down everything I did, how I trained, doing, you know, how I slept.

leaving no stones unturned when it came to like presentation and posing and my hair color everything wow so when you put all those together you ended up making a better package yeah you know to win yeah work ethic and your drive man because there's certain genetics like they had more muscle or something their bone density density was lighter stuff like that you can't control right no and and that's the thing like you know lee haney had the combination of everything he had the genetics and the drive right so then it was very hard to beat a guy like that but there was a lot of guys that had great genetics could just lift the weight and build muscle those are the guys they didn't have the right drive and mentality.

Those are just guys that I could beat.

You see that in every sport too.

Oh, definitely.

You see guys that have that mental drive and tenacity to be great,

and because they work so hard, end up being much better athletes than the guys who have more genetics.

Absolutely.

How tough was the transition for you after that injury getting into business world?

It was really, really hard.

The transition for a lot of athletes to go from athlete to going into another world where you're not an athlete anymore.

And it's very hard.

Like when I was competing in bodybuilding, I had the red carpet out, you know, going to any place that I went to, like gyms, they just opened the door for me.

So when I started my supplement line, I started saying, well, everybody was giving, you know, putting out the red carpet for me.

So if I go to all these gyms, they're going to definitely buy it.

When I found out that wasn't true, so I went to these places and I went door to door to door to door.

And let me tell you something.

It was a setback because when I got the injury, I had I had weeder weeder contracts.

I was making money.

I was living very well in my 20s where I was driving around a Porsche, beautiful house on the water.

And then I lost it all because of the injury.

So I had to move back to my parents' house in my mid-20s, start over again.

And it was really hard.

And I took the car, you know, the Porsche I had.

I bought a minivan so that I can use it.

to make deliveries with this brand that I took all my money and then started this business out of my parents basement wow and grew it from there damn that sounds like a really humbling experience and that's the hard part about people you know taking those steps to go three steps back to go four steps forward right a lot of people make it very very difficult because they're so used to being treated a certain way as an athlete so then where i was wind and dine as an entrepreneur i have to wind and dine now my customers to get them to buy from me and that's a much different experience than doing that than trying to have somebody just doing anything for you yeah you know and that's what i was and that's what it was happening when i was an athlete and then as an entrepreneur it all changed absolutely i know you're a fan of the ufc you've done some stuff with them did you ever have to put your body to work and fight someone no

i never had anything to do with fighting anybody i've never got into uh

you know ufc i enjoy watching it but i'm you know that's one thing i'm not i'm not i'm a wimp when it comes to fighting yeah some people have so much muscle but they can't fight yeah and i i don't claim to be a fighter yeah people get heated in the gym.

I've seen gym fights on like Instagram.

Yeah, really?

All the steroid guys or whatever.

But no one ever challenged you.

That's interesting.

Yeah.

I'm not a provocative guy that starts fights.

And if a guy's getting antsy with me, I usually can tone down the fighting.

And, you know, I let people not, you know, win, but win mentally.

Yeah.

So I don't get into fights because what the hell fights do for you?

Yeah, make them think they won, but really

step away from it.

Who are your favorite fighters to watch in the UFC?

that's a good question I mean

you know I had an athlete that was I actually sponsor was Frankie Edgar and what I liked about Frankie Edgar he was like the Rocky Balboa of the UFC because he was get he would get beaten and then come back and then beat his opponents so that's kind of why I liked him and plus he was a Gispari athlete nice

that I had you know for Gaspari so that was a good one I had Rhonda Rousey as an athlete as well killed it it.

I signed her up with Gaspari Nutrition before she turned pro.

Wow.

So you found her early.

I found her early.

And then she got, not pro, but win the championships.

Yeah, yeah.

And then when she got championships, you know, she was doing this, you know, endorsement of my brand, which I was paying her not nowhere near the amount of money that she was getting thrown at her.

So they ended up leaving me.

But those are athletes that I had that, you know, I respected because they were, you know, for the brand.

Yeah, her story is nuts, man.

Yeah.

I mean, she lived out of her car.

What?

She, she basically, before she became a champion, she was living out of her car, you know, to become this, you know, fighter.

And then when she became a fighter, then she started winning all the fights.

And remember, she had that arm bar.

Yeah.

That was her technique to put everybody down.

And, well, you can see the rest is history now that she's doing really well.

She blew up.

And you just had a kid a few years ago?

I have a four-year-old son, so a guy, old guy like me, having a four-year-old son is not common.

But, you know, I love my son.

He's an unbelievable,

everyone said he's a clone of me because he looks like me and he just acts like me.

And I see that this kid's going to be something really special when he grows up.

And, you know, having kids older, you respect them even more.

Sometimes when you're younger,

you're so busy with your own life young when you see when you're older, you kind of look back and you look at these these this person that you're developing into who they're going to be yeah you see that personality change which is amazing because you can have you know siblings and they're all totally different on how their personalities they are and it's not something that's put by their parents you know their nature new nurture you know the whole thing with kids so absolutely i love having my son and enjoying him and this is why another reason why i keep working is you know I want to retire.

Not that I want to retire.

I'll always work, but enjoy doing it where it's not about the money.

It's more about building.

Yeah.

What age are you going to start him lifting up?

It's all if he wants to lift.

I will not force my son to get into training.

You know, it's funny.

My dad was totally against me getting into bodybuilding.

Really?

Well, I was, okay, I'll tell you why.

I was, you know, I was a Rutgers student, a pre-med student.

I went from being a pre-med student to saying, hey, dad, I'm going to move to California to be a bodybuilder.

That makes sense.

That makes sense.

So they were so upset with me.

I said, if I don't turn pro in one year, then I'll go back to to college and give up bodybuilding well in that one year i turned pro and then the rest is history well you know became this pro bodybuilder and they supported you when you turned pro they supported me they didn't understand it at first yeah yeah but when they see me traveling around the world making money doing seminars and exhibitions and you know seeing that you know in one month i was making uh more money than my dad made in a year so then they kind of like so like that's what happened to me too that's literally what happened to me but it's it is crazy like yo i'm dropping out and you paid the tuition but i'm gonna try this on my own.

You want to do something?

This is what I want to do.

And so when you mentioned about my son, I want him to do what he wants to do.

And I hope he finds a direction in what he wants to do, and he finds what he wants to do.

Nice.

You know, of course, you want to always guide kids to do the right decisions and not just sit there and, you know, smoke pot and do nothing.

That's what I did.

Everyone did that in Jersey.

Really?

Not you probably, but everyone else did.

Yeah.

Pot was big in Jersey in high school, man.

There's nothing to do up there.

Yeah, he does.

Jersey's a good state for families, but like, there's not not much to do.

Well, down the shore is not bad when you live.

You were down the shore, right?

Well, I live now down the Jersey shore.

It seems like there's more activity going on, but you're right.

In the winter, it's friggin' dead.

Yeah, it's not like, not like here in Vegas that there's so much to do.

Yeah, there was too much to do.

Too much out here, man.

And you know, what you made a point is when I lived in Jersey, all I was doing was lifting weights.

Yeah.

Because I isolated myself.

I moved to California and I saw, wow, you know, beautiful sunshine, the beach, beautiful women.

You you know i was in los angeles it was it was a bit of a distraction for sure i said i came out here for a reason i'm not going to get distracted by all the stuff that's going on over here but that's what's hard most people get distracted oh yeah especially in la and vegas yeah too many distractions out there um did you run into the jersey shore guys when you were down the shore um they wanted to get sponsored by me some of the guys uh you know because I grew my brand and then I looked at some of these guys to say, that wasn't the kind of message I was trying to put out, you know, with my products.

Yeah.

So, yeah, I've known all, I know all those guys, but I didn't really, you know, sponsor them.

I feel that.

That was probably a good move.

Rich, it's been fun, man.

Anything you want to promote or close off with?

Just,

you know, my brand has been around for 26 years, Hispari Nutrition.

We want to get, you know, products, sports nutrition products, health products.

We've...

grown the brand to do much, much more.

Haspari nutrition.

I also have Hispari Ageless, which as I got older, I wanted a brand more for anti-aging.

That's why I came up with the Spari Ageless.

Awesome.

We'll link it all in the video.

Thanks for coming on, man.

Thank you.

Thanks for watching, guys.

As always, see you tomorrow.