Hard Work and Dedication: The Secrets to Zion Clark's Success | Digital Social Hour #16

Welcome to the digital social hour, guys.

I'm here with my co-host, Charlie, as well as our guests today, Zion and Craig.

How are we doing today?

Good, man.

Good to be in Vegas.

This is my third time here, so.

Okay.

Yeah.

How do you like it so far?

Every time I feel like my mind's blown.

So something new, new people.

Hell yeah.

New experiences.

You ready for the game?

Oh, yeah.

It's going to be a fun time.

I'm excited.

I want to see someone get dunked on.

So I need to, honestly, watching Floyd dunk on somebody if he could dunk would be awesome.

I don't know about that.

Yeah, I know.

There's a lot of ifs.

A lot of ifs if he could dunk.

There's a lot of NFL players, so I'm sure some of them will be dunked on.

Oh, no.

I expect it to be a semi-rough game.

Yeah.

Because

I've seen football players play basketball players.

Oh, yeah.

Last year I got roughed up by some of those football guys.

Yeah.

I got tackled.

It was interesting.

So I see you dominating all these sports.

Have you played basketball before?

I'll shoot the ball around a little bit, but I will not play a game.

Okay.

You know, that's not my sport.

I don't have the hand-to-eye coordination for that.

Okay.

So you're doing fighting, you've done wrestling, you've done track and field.

Where's your focus at right now?

Right now, my focus is on fighting.

On fighting?

Just, you know, I'm still focused on track and field.

I'm about to start out my training and everything here soon for the spring.

But aside from that, like right now, fighting is the main focus.

I just finished my first pro fight.

I saw.

So yeah, I'm 1-0 for right now.

So I'm going to see what the next options are.

Working on getting healthy right now.

So just making sure that when it's time to go, I'm ready to go.

Hell yeah.

I'm a former track and field runner myself.

Oh, nice.

I saw you set the world record in the 20 meters.

What was it like training for that?

Man, it's just kind of like going to the gym every day.

I'm naturally fast.

Okay.

You know, so just like hitting the treadmill.

I was just, I was working with Craig and our boy Mata on the treadmill with more like hand speed turnover.

Right.

Because it wasn't that I couldn't get my hands moving fast enough, but the flip is like that's on look at the flicker.

It's literally like I'm flicking my wrist on the ground so I can pick up that speed so it's more fluid.

Right.

So I had to work on that a lot, man.

You said how many times I got busted on the treadmill?

Oh, man.

Like I put it up to like, like, how fast were we going?

Like nine miles an hour or something like that?

You know, it's like nine miles an hour.

Because you got to sprint on it.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

I've fallen off once.

I think that wasn't fun.

I have some bad treadmill experiences.

None we're going to talk about here, but definitely.

It's in the air.

You got to.

Yeah.

Well, so sometimes you get on your phone because you're trying to multitask.

You forget you're doing something.

How do you forget you're walking?

I don't know.

It just happens.

You were probably running.

I was running.

And you get sidetracked, work gets important, and then all of a sudden it just happens before you know it.

You went down.

Were you in a public place or were you?

Oh, yeah.

Okay, so people saw it.

Oh, good laughs all around.

Okay.

Did you leave or did you?

You know what?

I picked myself up and I kept going and I fought the embarrassment and I got through it.

Okay.

So I kept going.

Wow.

I know some people, when that happens, they just got

to leave

the entire area.

I probably would have left.

I would have played it off and then called someone and walked out of there.

But see, that's like, you know, we all get knocked down.

We all have to, you know.

keep going.

You're motivation for a lot of people.

You inspire a lot of people.

Who motivates you?

Who inspires you?

Man, you know, I just have my family to really push me.

I didn't have really any idols or anything like that growing up.

So So, like, I just have my people around me, like, point me in the right direction.

So, a support system, where yeah, that's like, that's my motivation.

Knowing that they set me up for this opportunities I have to really tap into who I'm supposed to be.

Man, it's like my motivation is the fact that I get to wake up every day and

do cool shit.

So, very cool.

That's beautiful.

Um, so I know you started in wrestling, right?

And I read online you didn't win for three years straight?

Uh, more like all the way up until I was a junior in high school.

Wow.

So what was that like on your mental not being able to win those?

You know, I was able to block it out after a while.

Okay.

You know, at first, it kind of sucked, you know, but

you know, I don't know.

I was like, I made friends.

I made friends

in the wrestling community.

A lot of those guys, we'd known each other since we were little kids.

So like, those outside wrestling, like, those were my friends.

Got it.

So whether I won or not, I got to be with the boys.

That's cool.

All the time.

And I saw by your senior year, you were one of the best in the state of Ohio, which is one of the best states in wrestling.

So was that all just attributed to work ethic?

Yeah, you know, you just had, I just, my, the summer after my junior year,

I just kind of hunkered down.

Like, I didn't hang out with my friends not one time that summer.

Wow.

And I just wrestled like twice a day, every day, for three months straight, Monday through Sunday.

I would find somebody.

that open time.

Me and my boy that lived across the street.

He was a wrestler for one of my rival schools.

Got it.

And we would wrestle with each other like all day because he's like me.

Right now he's in college and he's ranked like sixth in the country right now.

Wow.

At 141 pounds.

Like he's doing really well now.

So

he has that same type of mentality that I had to just like hunker down and really get good at our craft.

So with that being said, I went out my first match and I won 15 to 0 by

tech.

And then I was pretty much undefeated until about halfway through my season.

You know, like it was just the turnover of just being really committed.

You know, was, I would come home and sleep on the steps.

I wouldn't even make it to the shower.

Wow.

You know, I wake up the next morning, then take a shower and wake up on the steps.

My mom's like, what you got going on today?

And by the way, my mom's thing was you couldn't, I could not be at the house doing nothing.

Either I got a job or I had to go train.

So with that being said, I didn't want a job.

So

went and trained.

And so with that, like with all that work I put in, like I even wrestled tournaments over the summer, including all that.

And I lost still.

I didn't win until that first match of my senior year.

I didn't even know if I was going to win.

But like I had worked, like I had work, put a lot of work in.

And I had like seen like different like levels of progress.

But every time it was a live match, I always lost.

So that with that first match out the way, I felt pretty good about myself.

Right.

Yeah.

Yeah, it's hard to replicate the actual match.

Yeah.

When you're training.

Yeah.

Yeah.

But yeah, since then, like high school, like that, that's what did it for me you know right it's just like i don't like again i didn't have a motivator i just got tired of getting my ass kicked i feel that i was gonna ask what made you flip that switch um you know i was getting towards the end of high school my boys were getting offers to go wrestling college and i wasn't

and um

i was i was kind of butthurt about that honestly You know, like, I'm going to be stuck in our hometown.

You guys are off wrestling college trying to make it to nationals and stuff.

And

I was just going to be sitting there, not doing nothing.

You know, and that's what kind of pushed me a bit.

You know, I cut off a lot of people, I like cut off a lot, I cut out a lot of things I was doing, and just like focused directly on the sport and nothing else.

One more question about wrestling, and then I want to dive into the business side of things and how you two met.

Yeah.

What was it like training with Jordan Burroughs?

Because that's the goat right there.

Dude, he's strong.

He's strong as fuck.

Well, let me put that simply.

But he's one of the best, you know, and being able to get counsel from him, being able to speak to him, I would say semi-regularly, you know, just be in contact and knowing like I have his support and, you know, just being in contact with the man.

He's the greatest wrestler on the planet.

Yeah.

You know what I mean?

Like you can't you can't compare or you can't really compare anybody else's skill as comparable to his except for maybe one or two people.

Yeah.

What would you recommend to people looking to get a mentor or guidance from someone that good in their field?

How did you how were you able to get that uh i was in college and i got team usa invited me to the watch party for uh the national championships

my

no it was it was not the national champion it was uh

it was for a big tournament maybe the midlands open i think

but

It was just a watch party, Team USA.

I met every single Team USA member there.

And like, had tequila, like, drink tequila, like, networked like you know what I mean like just hung out it was really just kind of a hangout right just putting yourself in the right place at the right time got it I'm like in college so it was cool yeah you know that like that's how I came in contact with a lot of people that's awesome and also one of my close friends Lauren Louise she uh grew up in Maselin just like me She is currently on the women's U.S.

wrestling team.

So she's always been like a savage.

That's also another like way I had it into like the knowing the U.S.

team.

Like I knew a lot of women's team and like people from the teams.

One, I've wrestled some of of these guys in college.

Two,

it's, I don't know, it's just a small world.

Like the MMA world in general is a lot, like, it's, there's a lot of big people, but the community is a lot smaller than you think.

Right.

Awesome.

So let's dive into the business side.

How did you two meet?

We, you want to,

we uh, we first met through my best friend backstage with the Ellen DeGenere show.

Um, at the time owned a supplement company, and uh, we come across Zion about a week before on social media.

My best friend was like making excuses to not work out.

And next minute he sees Zion doing box jumps on his hands.

And like his mentality shifted right away.

He went straight away from being, you know, like, I'm not working out today to like having the best workout of his life from coming across the impact Zion had on him during that.

And

like, man, we need to get this guy involved in our brand and community.

Our tagline for the brand was Be Real Be U.

So it's promoting authenticity in a fake world of supplements and fitness where there's a lot of, you know, there's no transparency.

You know, I'm sure you, you know, how like just the world sells a lot of fake things which aren't real.

Yeah.

So like, how do we bring authenticity to this?

And then a week later, my best friends, at the time, I was managing Jason Mamoa.

He was his trainer and also helped co-manage him.

He calls me freaking out.

He's like, Zion's backstage.

Zion's backstage.

Like, you know, super excited.

He was like, it was crazy because a week before we see him on social, a week later, he's there, you know, hanging with him.

And Zion's freaking out because Aquaman's there.

And then, you know.

I was a kid.

I was kind of geek.

I just watched the movies.

That was like five years ago.

Yeah, it was cool.

I was like fresh in college.

Like, I was like,

yeah, I was like 19, 20.

Yeah, so super young.

You know, my best friend

ends up coming over for dinner that night to have dinner with us with his mom as well and his best friend.

And that's what all headed off and got him involved as a huge part of the brand, of the

authenticity of what we're trying to do in community building.

And then it was my first startup I ran.

So as I saw an exit out of it and was like, okay, supplements are very saturated.

You need a decent amount of money to really make an impact in the space.

We didn't raise enough money.

We had an incredible brand vision.

We had celebrities endorsing it for free because it was such a powerful community.

But I was like, okay, what's the next step?

And through all the understanding of brand building, I learned from supplements, I was like, okay, there's an exit out of this.

I'm going to apply these concepts to the Zion brand because it's the same conceptually, brand building is the same thing.

It's like approaching Zion as his own entity, right?

So it was like, and then it was just problem solving from there.

Like, how do I figure things out?

But always allow him to be himself where it's like, we'll never endorse something he doesn't care about.

We'll never do something he doesn't care about because.

he stays authentic to himself and so do I and that's important to us in the world of business and opportunity it's not just taking anything you can get.

It's like, how do you stay true to yourself while building something great and building a legacy?

And it takes longer to do it the right way.

But I think there's a lot more power in doing it your way and doing it the right way.

It's like, you know, paving a way of saying like, it's very easy to like look at dollar signs or look at a quick rich scheme or like, you know, anyone, everyone, and the bigger you get, I'm sure you know it realize it too, but like the more people want to be a part of what you're doing and not for the right reasons, right?

It's like for money, yeah.

It's like following money or seeing what they think your version of success is, and it's like staying true to yourself in a world that you know tries to like mold you or tell what you can and can't do.

It's powerful, and there's a lot of power in that.

So essentially, I was like, How do we build this together?

It's like camaraderie, friendship.

We live together in LA.

It's a lot deeper than just saying we do business together.

It's like this is a cohesive dynamic of friendship, you know, mentorship.

I'm 10 years older than him, so whatever experience, life experience I have, I can pass on to him.

I don't know it all by any means.

I'm a problem solver.

I moved here from New Zealand at 19 with two grand to my name and an opportunity to play basketball.

So I've had a problem solved through life myself.

All I'd want to do is share those gifts with the world and other people and through my experiences.

And now it's cool to just see the momentum we can have of doing things our way and then continue to grow and scale and build and the impact it has on humanity because that's where the legacy piece comes in.

To, you know, I help run some of his socials, so to see the message of people dealing with anxiety, depression, suicidal, just lost their legs, and reach out and be like, man, you've changed my life just coming across your story or just the words you share.

That's the purpose and why and meaning.

And that is bigger than the quote-unquote, like, cool things we get to do.

It's the impact you have and that footprint you leave on the world.

So, but, you know, it's a cool combination of both.

Like, we get to do some fun stuff together.

We travel.

We get to see the world, experience life, meet people such as yourselves.

Like, that's what life's about to me is the experiences we get to create, you know?

Yeah.

What impact do y'all want to have on the world?

Because, I mean, you've both touched on this a few times, and I'm interested, you know, more than money and wins and career and whatever, what lasting effect do you want to leave with people when you walk out of the room?

Oh, well, when I...

I just leave people with just a thought.

You know, I'm never going to tell you how to think, and I'm never going to tell you you how things should be.

I can give you my idea of what I think it could be.

I would love that.

You know what I mean?

Like, the way of how people could just be more cohesive and be more just aware of their surroundings and

be more

just, like, you know, be more attentive to the things that they want to do and the things that they want to accomplish.

So.

Why would, like, I don't, when I leave a room, whether I say a lot of words, whether I don't say much of anything, I try to have the effect of, okay, well, this guy obviously, like, just feels feels free and feels like he's not held down by anything, and he's working hard towards what he wants.

Why, why, what's the difference between me doing it and you doing it?

Nothing.

Yeah, I mean, that's the question.

If I can do this, what's the difference between me doing it and you doing it?

There's not.

It's just a mindset.

It's a mindset switch.

I like that.

Craig?

To me, it's just, yeah, it's the positive impact we can have through action.

So, a lot of people say what they can do, but it's what will you do?

And I'm a very action-oriented person.

I like to lead through action and what I do.

I'll never preach something that I don't practice.

And for me, it's using my lifestyle.

And, you know, the old I get, I stay disciplined in what I love to do.

And I want to use that.

There's a fine line between impressing and inspiring.

And my goal is to always inspire people through my actions and show people you can do what you set your mind to, like through discipline and sacrifice and hard work.

You can achieve what you want in life.

But most importantly, is find your own version of success and happiness.

Don't chase what someone else thinks is their version of success, right?

Because it means so many different things to different people.

Like, what I want in life is very different, could be very different to what you want.

So, find what truly makes you happy and chase, you know, achieve to

reach that.

Don't look at what is glamorized on TV or what other people think is

successful, quote-unquote, financial success, whatever it is.

Find what you truly want and then go after that and

use your imagination, you know, keep the kid inside of you to like aspire to

continue.

Like, yeah, just find what you want.

And I think that's the way I try to lead my life through action is to just...

is to hopefully like inspire people along the way of the journey of what we're doing.

Don't look at an end goal goal because it's experiences.

It's the journey that makes the fun of it.

You know, sitting here in a room right now, this is the experience we get to create doing this.

And I think life is collecting experiences.

It's, you know,

that's where wisdom comes from, for me, is those experiences that

you can gather.

Absolutely.

Both of you guys seem so driven and have great work ethic.

Where do you think that came from?

Because I'm from the East Coast, so it's a more fast-paced environment.

And I noticed when I moved out here, people are way more just laid back, I guess.

I mean, wrestling did that for me in Ohio.

You know, Ohio is one of the like the number one state to produce wrestlers over the last like 10 years, Ohio and Pennsylvania, right?

So, like, just like growing up in that, just yeah, you had to work hard or they didn't want you in the room.

I agree, I do, you know, so it was kind of drilled into my drilled into my body and my whole being.

Just once things start to get really hard, that's when I start to thrive, you know.

So as with that being said all the stuff that me and Craig do together We might run into bumps or something we figure it out and We figure it out We process it and then we push through it and we just keep it going, you know that but like that's like being set doing it It's a lot harder than saying it, but I feel comfortable enough to say that hard work excites me because if I know I don't want to just walk into something easy.

You know, I even told him like for my fight, I was like, I don't want an easy opponent.

You know, but you at the end of the day, you get what you get.

But

with just

having that work ethic, for me,

definitely wrestling.

Yeah, I definitely agree where sports can really shape your mindset.

Yeah, and

wrestling is the oldest sport on the planet.

Dating back thousands of years.

I didn't know that.

It's like mentioned twice in the Bible.

Wow, really?

The sport's old.

Interesting.

There's statues in ancient Greece of them hitting moves that you still see Olympians hit today.

You know, like it goes deep like that.

Wrestling is the oldest sport and it's the hardest thing to do.

And people,

it doesn't look like it is, but it is.

Have you ever tried to throw a grown man that's trying to throw you?

No.

Yeah, it's hard.

You can't say I have.

You know, so

like, you know, like to be able to overcome adversity in those moments like that, where, you know, sometimes potential injury could mean you broke your neck and you never walk again.

You know,

that's a thing we risk going into elite wrestling, going into elite fighting.

So have that type of work ethic to if you can if you can overcome adversity and that and not get beat up and stand victorious over your opponent, the rest of life should be fucking easy.

Wow, that's powerful.

I would say for me, it's

You talk about sports, the discipline of work ethic, dealing with life of wins and losses.

You have to deal with all of that.

and sports a huge part of that the other part for me is like anything I have in life I've had to earn I've never been given anything other than two loving parents which were incredible that's the most incredible support system you can have but beyond that any

you know I moved here at 19 to pursue basketball because I was like I want to you know I watched he got game and loving basketball and all these movies and TV.

I was like, I want to experience this college life of pursuing my sport and what I was most passionate about at the time.

So I was like, if I was to make that a reality, I have to do it myself.

So that discipline of work ethic to say, all right, I'll figure it out, I'll problem solve, but stay disciplined because, you know, you, and I always say you appreciate things that you earn, right?

Like you always have a different sense of value behind something that you've earned as opposed to being given.

So

For me personally, yeah, sports, but also just the mentality of always going after and striving for things that I I can truly appreciate through earning them through the struggle and being told I'm not good enough and this and that, but sticking with it, staying this boon.

I love that.

Most people that obviously are fighting professionally, it was a very drastic lifestyle change from whatever they had previously.

I mean you were already wrestling, so it probably wasn't as drastic for you.

Oh, it was more of a, like, I was kind of able to ease into it.

Okay.

So what's been like the biggest difference since you're now a professional fighter?

I mean, you get punched in the face.

Well, that part.

But as far as like out of the, you know, out of the the ring or octagon what is it like you know your dietary habits training like what's the biggest thing the training is definitely leveled up now my coach takes me way more serious

you know which you know I'm not gonna lie to you the last five years of me training I don't think he always did really and I don't think he thought I was ready which I can see why you know and

you know this last year Like he told me like six months ago, he said, do you want to fight?

I looked at him like he was lying to me.

me, you know, like because he kept telling me no, and I stopped asking, but I kept training.

You know, so he finally asked me if I wanted to fight.

I got hype.

Dude, I punched the floor as hard as I could.

Like, I was hype.

Hopefully, your hand was okay.

Oh, I didn't care.

You know what I mean?

Like,

like, that, like, that's that for me is just,

I don't know.

I don't know how to explain it.

It was finally taken seriously.

Yeah, like, it was just, I was, I was, every word that I said was taken seriously.

seriously even my teammates like my boy aj he started laying into me then and he's been laying into me ever since like if my boy aj is one of the world's top uh featherweights uh like on the planet in bellator and he just beat the number one guy in japan like knocked him out that's cool you know just a couple weeks ago so like

it's um like having people like that

Like putting pressure on now that like they're they know you're taking it serious because I like I'm a I'm a martial artist i can tell if you're not putting your back into some shit you know what i mean i could i can feel it i can tell so i could tell like they were being more serious everything was getting more vicious everything was like now if i mess up now i might get hurt at practice but coach believes i have the ability to handle myself so now things are ramping up and that's where i've really started progressing towards this fight so now when this fight happened i had a pretty decent performance that's incredible so you trained for five years you said before you yeah yeah.

So, because like I wanted to fight right away, he told me no.

So, five years ago,

I told him I'd stick around and I stuck around.

I'm a team body shot member.

Yeah.

Wow.

His coach is one of the pioneers of the sport of MMA.

Yeah.

Antonio McKee, who trained like Chuck Lidal, Rampage Jackson, Cyborg.

He goes way back to the origin of the sport.

So, he's a legend.

Yeah.

Yeah, you're in good hands there.

Yeah.

So, I was annoyed when he told me no, but I kept listening to him.

So

out of respect,

you can't disrespect somebody.

And I think it shows someone's commitment to a whole nother level when they're told no, no, no, and they still keep showing up every day.

Oh, I'm ignorant.

If you tell me no, I'm going to keep coming back.

Like, real.

Especially if it's something that I really want.

You keep telling me no, I will keep coming back until I achieve my goal.

Let's get Sean in the,

we're going to get Sean in the gym.

We're going to start the training.

Yeah, dude, you can spar with me.

Let's go.

I'll try it.

I've never done boxing, never done fighting, but I'm open to it.

I feel like I would have been able to do that.

It's a good thing to practice just for like self-defense.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Even like the confidence, too, just gives you...

Like,

you know, I started boxing about four years ago.

I'm the same humble person that I am, but knowing you have the ability to fuck somebody up

if you needed to.

That's a good feel.

That's a different, like, I'll never change who I am as a person.

I'll never say, look at me or walk into a room and I need to be seen.

But deep down, you know, 99% of people don't know how to fight because it's a sport.

Being able to throw a punch successfully, there's an art to it, just like anything.

It's like playing, you're playing boss ball against somebody that's never played in their life.

You're going to school them, you're going to cross them up, make them look silly.

So it's the same way of fighting.

What's the correct way to throw a punch?

Just keep your hands loose.

At least for MMA, boxing is different because you got big gloves.

But for MMA, everything is...

You never want to fight with your hands completely closed.

Everything.

Oh, really?

So they're...

It's always just a twist.

Oh, I thought you closed your fists.

Say I throw a punch.

It just...

At the end of it, you need to.

Yeah, right at the very end, you want to close it.

Got it.

Because that creates fluidity, and then as you turn, you

so you can actually access more speed with your hand open.

Wow.

And then close it right at the moment of impact.

Wow.

Did you know that, Charlie?

Yeah, I mean, it's, I mean, not for MMA, it's different.

For boxing, obviously, you already have heavy gloves on, so you're keeping a little bit more tight, but definitely loose, but you can't really, you're limited in what you can do.

And plus, when I'm reaching, when I'm throwing a punch, I could just change my mind halfway through.

Grab your leg.

You know what I mean?

I love that.

So

that's why.

That's just fluidity.

Fluidity.

Yeah, I've been doing it wrong my whole life.

Interesting.

You got to just throw some more punches at people, I guess.

All right.

Well, that was great.

Any closing thoughts and where people can find you guys on social media?

You can find me and you can find Craig on my page because he's my manager.

Find me at BigZ97 on all platforms.

And check out my book, Zion Match, coming out April 11th.

Work with all you got.

Work with all you got.

And I've messed that up.

I have two books out, and I said the other book.

Check out my book, Work With What You Got, by me and Candle Wick, James Hearst, April 11th.

All retailers.

All right, there you have it, guys.

Thank you for tuning in to the Digital Social Hour.

I'll see you next week.